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#like basically what caused their villain origin stories
eggmeralda · 2 months
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okay but I am genuinely so unwell about numbers and dates and ages and time and years etc. so I'm blaming all my bad luck on the number 23
#got so paranoid about it that i didn't talk to anyone for the last few weeks and i haven't applied for a job and i'm honestly not doing#anything until i'm safely 24#idk what 24's gonna be like but it's got a 4 in it so that's a good sign#but then again 14 had a 4 in it and that was a terrible age#but tbf it was a 4 + a 10 which is like. my fav number and my least fav number. so the year just malfunctioned#first 6 months good second 6 months bad#so 24 can fit two 10s but they're not as obvious. but it's a multiple of 4 so i trust it a bit more#4 x 6. idk my feelings on 6 but it's never really done anything too bad to me so yeah. 24 is the safe zone#i blame everything on the number 23 and also my friend's awful ex girlfriend#OKAY SO LIKE i was reading coronation street youtube comments the other day#and people were talking about how characters like terry duckworth and mike baldwin were kind of prats before but then they#had some significantly bad experience and after that they became Absolute prats#like basically what caused their villain origin stories#and i was like oh my god am i gonna turn out like them?? is my friend's ex girlfriend responsible for my villain arc??#and i have felt myself becoming more negative and unhappy and cynical and bitter over the past few months#and i was like fuckkkkkk no i can't enter my mike baldwin terry duckworth era#bc before whenever a remotely bad thing happened i would just disappear and go back to telling myself there is nothing good with the world#so like for every job i never got and for every time i put something in the group chat and no one replied and every time i made something#and no one cared about it i would just sink deeper into some hole of hatred at the world#i mean. the rsd. like I'd still react to stuff in that way when i was younger and happier but at least back then I'd also#wave at cool clouds and smile at people in public and be like ''fuck i woke up too early and now i Have to take a photo of the sunrise''#but now i don't do any of that I'm just some bitter cynical bitch who hates everything#so yeah. my 2024 resolution was to reclaim the whimsy i lost at the end of 2022. and so far it's not really going well but at least I'm not#23 anymore#ramble
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gatorbites-imagines · 5 months
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Apparently I have a twin now, so I'll call myself 'Crow Doctor'.
But can I request a Nightwing x Male Rogue Reader?
Basically, while Nightwing is fighting some other Rouges, he's hit with fear toxic or something and gets knocked out.
Reader being a bootleg medic of sorts, takes Nightwing to his hideout and patches him up. Taking care of him until he wakes up.
When he does, he figures out that Reader is a doctor who patches up and gives aid to the citizens of gotham that can't afford medical bills or insurance. and maybe after a bit, they start catching feelings for the other.
- Crow Doctor
Dick Grayson x Rogue Male Reader
Headcanons
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Sorry this took a million years to write Crow, but I hope you enjoy it anyways :3c
Kinda took the rogue aspect and ran wild. Thought since you went by Crow Doctor, a plague doctor would be fun.
You were one of the newer Gotham Rogues, a next gen, as some would say. They called you Cadaver King, because of your start in the city, scattering corpses all over a specific area of the city, like you were marking your territory.
You wore something mildly inspired by plague doctors, only furthering your image as some kinda wacky insane doctor. No ones ever actually seen you carve people open for fun, but the rumors run rampant and keep normal criminals and gangs out of your territory.
Sure, bodies would still pile up at the borders of your territory as you slowly grow your area, and you have been thrown into Arkham more than once, but you always get out one way or another.
Unlike the other rogues, you are always able to stay out much longer, because you never just attack the public for no reason. You are most known for the cadavers found around the place stitched closed and looking like science experiments.
The bats quickly figure out that all the cadavers they find are criminals, people who do crime and hurt others just because they can, and never someone who steals or does crime because they have no other choice.
You get some respect from Red Hood for this reason, especially when he sees you targeting those that hurt children, using them in sick experiments and furthering your medical knowledge.
The Bats never figure out that under the surface, you are the backer to most smaller medical clinics around the city. The ones not run by Wayne at least. You are a monster, yes, but like all villains you have an origin story, and yours involves those you cared for not getting the medical help they needed, because they couldn’t afford it.
In your past, you would help anybody you could for free, finishing medical school top of your class. But your less than stellar past caused prejudice in many, and you found yourself used and abused by those above you in the food chain.
It didn’t help that you would steal to support those who couldn’t afford medical help themselves. What finally caused you to snap was getting caught stealing medicine, and instead of just getting you arrested, one of the top doctors in the hospital poured dangerous liquids all over you, scarring you for life and putting you in a constant state of torture.
Seeing so many innocent people die because of greed, and seeing your superior laughing as you writhe and wail in pain, is what breaks you. He ends up the first of your many cadavers, his body splayed out in his own operating theater.
Its only a very long time later that people discover just who’s doing all this killing, since so much death and murder happens around Gotham. It’s the fact that they have all been cut and stitched up professionally that clues the Gotham Police in on it being the same guy.
Then you start making a name for yourself, you start fighting the Bats, you target public figures, leaving their bodies hanging from their mansions or workplaces. All whilst wearing your plague doctor mask.
You have even done procedures on multiple of the bats over the years, never anything that could kill them, and it always ends up being stuff that helps them in the long run. They don’t know that though, they just think you are a psycho that likes to cut into people.
All the backstory aside, its this that leads to you hanging around in the shadows and observing as the Bats are fighting the latest Arkham escapees. Scarecrow has pulled himself into your territory, and whilst you like Jonathan, and have worked together many times, it still annoys you.
Seeing Nightwing go down because of fear toxin also makes your blood boil. Mainly because, unlike Jonathan who only seemed to care about fear, you were still a doctor at heart, and you knew how much fear toxin could harm the body, having treated many patients in the past.
That’s why you end up chasing Jonathan out of your territory, wielding different surgical tools and other blades on your person.
Returning to the rooftop with the passed out hero, you don’t even have to think about throwing him over your shoulder and bringing him to one of your many, many, medical studios around the city.
The only people who has more hideouts than you is probably the bats, and yours are definingly more medically equipped than theirs. You never know when youll find a patient, or how quickly they need treatment, so of course you and your lackeys have as many treatment areas as possible.
Theres not much you can do about fear toxin outside of giving Nightwing an antidote and giving him some oxygen to clear it out of his system faster. You stay nearby to observe him though as you work on patient reports.
Normally your lackeys stand for it, all lackeys having above average medical knowledge in general, but you like to check stuff over yourself, just in case. It’s a great way to spend time as you wait, and being productive during.
You have a lot of reports to answer from your lackeys during the night, as the other rogues being out means a lot of patients you need to help. Unlike other lackeys, yours don’t really wear uniforms, meaning they can sneak around without the bats knowing they’re yours.
The only thing that puts them out as yours, is the fact that they all always have medical equipment and first aid kits on their person. You honestly find it kinda funny how the Bats can never seem to figure out your ways, at least not fast enough, as you change up how you do things constantly.
As the night passes, with you waiting for Nightwing to wake up, you end up removing your outer layers. Shrugging off your heavy coat and gloves, even taking off your plague doctor mask. Underneath you wear a compression therapy mask most days, as the liquids the doctor threw on you left lifelong damage.
In the beginning you had been horrified and disgusted by your appearance, but over the years you had come to accept it as a part of yourself. You found out it had a tendency to make patients trust you more, as they knew you had been through something just as horrible as themselves, so you never tried to fix it with plastic surgery.
When Nightwing finally wakes up, you check on him, go through the basics, make sure he’s all there, before you shove him out of your studio. He doesn’t even have time to ask who you are, or what you are doing, or why you helped him.
Going back to the cave, he talks to the other Bats, and they are able to find the injection point where you injected the antidote to the fear toxin, and they can find clues to the treatment you gave him.
You owning an antidote means you are either connected to the Gotham Police, or, you are able to find it yourself, meaning you are a criminal. It puts you on their radar, both as Cadaver king, and as yourself.
The only one who would probably recognize you is Batman himself, since he’s always the one putting you in Arkham, but none of the others have ever seen your face.
Dick finds himself drawn to you in some way, and he ends up hanging out in the area you treated him, hoping to find you again.
Its only coincidence that he ends up in your territory again next time he’s really banged up from patrol and you find him. You are maskless again, compression mask on, as you scoff at his sorry state and drag him to the same studio you used last time.
It becomes a common occurrence, Dick running off to you to get treated. He even starts entering your studio when you are not there, and its only thanks to the sensors you have around the place that you know he’s there, since you don’t give him a way to contact you.
As time passes, he finds himself in your studio for the smallest cut or bruise, just because he wants to spend time with you, and you can’t find it in yourself to send him away since the acrobat has quadruple flipped his way into your heart.
The first time he sees your full face, covered in scars like it is, you can’t help but be gripped by fear that he will be disgusted by you. But instead, he just smiles and looks at you like you are the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
Its only after you guys have been a thing for a while, that he discovers your rogue status. And it’s because he’s spending time in your studio again, when you come barreling in, in full rogue getup, carrying one of your lackeys who had a bad run-in with killer croc.
Dick just stands in the shadows and watches with wide eyes as you rip your mask off and get ready for surgery. He watches as you bark as your other lackeys to get them ready, and he watches as you save the lackeys life.
Somewhere inside Dick probably already knew who you were, how else would you have access to the kinda equipment Gotham’s biggest hospital struggled to get their hands on. He knows all you do for people, as you guys have talked about it before, and he can’t find it in himself to hate you for the fact that you target the worst scum of the earth and use them to further your knowledge.
Its only after you finish up with your lackeys that you look at him, a sad look in your eyes as you know you guys will need to talk.
Its ends with you two on the rooftop of the building, spending a long time just sitting and talking. Talking morals, personal codes, your past, your future, so on and so forth.
But instead of breaking up with you, Dick ends up pulling off his domino mask and telling you who he is before kissing you. You are both people with missions, and Bruce is the one with the no killing rule. The fact that your experiments have slowed down a lot over the years only helps.
You are great at keeping secrets, and you can never find it in yourself to expose Dicks identity no matter what.
You end up worming your way into Anti-hero status as Cadaver King, since it starts to become public knowledge that you have so many legal medical facilities all over town, and that all your lackeys know medical knowledge to help people.
Doesn’t stop you from hunting down corrupt doctors or those that use and manipulate the weak and desperate, but that’s just how it.
Imagine the Batfams reaction when Dick brings you to dinner at the manor for the first time. They know Dick is in a relationship, and has been for a while. Bruce almost chokes on his drink when Dick shows up with you on his arm though.
Most of the family will accept you though, especially with your anti-hero status. You probably end up getting along most with Jason though, since you guys already got along as Red Hood and Cadaver king.
Expect to become the entire batfams doctor though, taking some weight off of Alfreds shoulders. Even Alfred can get overwhelmed with how many of them there are. Ends up letting you get along well with Alfred though, so that’s a plus.
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wasted-women · 4 months
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ROUND 1A, MATCH 1 OUT OF 8!
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Causes of Death & Propaganda Under the Cut:
Jiang Yanli
Cause of Death: Stabbed; Self-sacrifice to save her brother.
Propaganda:
she's your pfp that's got to count for something
I love JYL don't get me wrong! But also. She is solely written as a part of the male characters and does not get much in her own right. She is Wei Wuxian's older sect sister, or Jiang Cheng's sister, or Jin Zixuan's fiance/wife, or Jin Ling's mother he never got to know. Even what characterization people give her (like liking soup/cooking or standing up for her family despite being gentle) are things that have to do with her brothers. I wish we got more of her in her own right.
AND ALSO. ALSO??? HER DEATH MAKES. NO SENSE. Okay first of all - she was in Lanling grieving for her very recently dead husband & taking care of her newborn baby. Who would let that woman out of Lanling????? WHY???? How did she get out of there SO FAST????? She doesn't have a sword/isn't a cultivator (at least in MDZS) so she couldn't have flown. And then after she got there WHO LET HER JUST OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLEFIELD???? WHY DID SHE GO THERE???? Even if there was a short part of her saying "I need to talk to Wei Wuxian about how he killed my husband and I'm going to get there no matter what" would've clarified things a little bc it's like okay she needs to go there even if we don't know how. Where are my answers MXTX, where are my answers????
Qin Su
Cause of Death: Suicide; Stabbed herself with a knife. (NOTE: In some versions of the story, she was being controlled and thus forced to kill herself.
Propaganda:
I'm fairly certain this character was only created as set dressing for the main villain's tragedy. We get zero insight into her inner life, zero hints that any such inner life might even exist, and after she dies basically no other named character other than the aforementioned villain is shown to be majorly affected by her death, even those who logically should have meaningful relationships with her.
Compared to the other two main female characters in this series (who are also fridged) Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing, Qin Su is probably the least aggravating because she's barely in the show and has very little character that we see. But I still think it's worth noting. I really wish that she could've survived and been there in Guanyin Temple IT COULD'VE BEEN COOL OKAY.
Wen Qing
Cause of Death: Executed; Burned to ashes.
Propaganda:
The fact that Wen Qing is the character that originally said the thing about "I'm sorry" and "Thank you", which is repeated multiple times in the post-resurrection parts of the series, but is so rarely mentioned by name is so aggravating! She's such an important part of the plot that did SO MANY THINGS but just basically disappears after her death!!! The only time I really remember her being mentioned is when her brother, Wen Ning, mentions her integral role in the golden core reveal. Jiang Yanli's ghost haunts the series after her death, but Wen Qing's really doesn't, and that's so fucked up to me. She even dies during the same time that Wen Ning does, but then it's revealed he survived (well, "survived", he is a zombie, but he was that beforehand too) SO WHY COULDN'T SHE HAVE SURVIVED TOO????
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genericpuff · 6 months
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The Mishandling of LO’s S3 Mi(n)season Hiatus - Part 3 2/2
ALRIGHT. THIS IS THE LAST PART. I MEAN IT THIS TIME.
I had completely forgotten how long the mi(n)season finale for S3 was, but I suppose it makes sense considering it was operating as the true cliffhanger before the 4 month break.
If you haven't read the first 3 parts of this episodic breakdown, please go check these ones out first:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 1/2
Alright, let's get this show on the road!
CAUTION: THIS IS PART 2 OF THE THIRD PART OF A 3 + 1 PART SERIES IN WHICH I WILL BE SPOILING MUCH OF EPISODES 251-253. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS TOPICS SURROUNDING SEXUAL ASSAULT. THIS WILL BE A LONG POST. BRACE YOURSELF.
We've gotten delusional Leuce. We've gotten erasure of the SA. We've gotten a complete bastardization of the original myths that this story got its claim to fame on. The dread has set in, and all I want to do is get off Mr Bones' Wild Ride. But we have one more stretch of mind-numbing track to go, because the reveal of Persephone starting winter was not the end, oh no. The true cliffhanger of this episode - upon which the fans and critics alike have sat on for 4 months - proves that when we think Rachel has gotten crazy enough in this circus she calls a "retelling", she manages to prove that yes, she can make things even crazier, and no, you will not have a good time.
Ironically, despite that opening, I actually have a lot less to say about this last part of Episode 253 than I did about the first part. Obviously there's no feasible way to top "Persephone causes winter", but this episode does come rather close in its absurdity. Ultimately, if these essays have proven anything, it's just how much Rachel retcons things, to such an extent now that she seems to be retconning or outright forgetting information that she established just a handful of episodes prior. You'll see what I mean here as we go along in this.
As soon as it's hinted at that Persephone has started winter, we cut away to Apollo. Because, as per LO tradition, we can't spend longer than 10-15 panels on a single scene.
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Already this seems like... really odd framing.
This is Apollo. A character who has been a villain since basically the beginning of the comic, when he sexually assaulted Persephone. This is not something that's up for debate. This is not something that can be refuted, as much as the comic may try to erase it or twist it into something else.
And yet, the vibe I get from this is, "Misled but good-deep-down character being taken advantage of by a sinister being." This isn't the type of framing we should be seeing around a character like Apollo.
I mentioned it ages ago in my post about the SA erasure that it really feels like Rachel is slyly trying to make Apollo empathetic, from giving us an entire episode in his perspective to adding extra panels into the books to making Persephone weirdly reminiscent of feelings for Apollo that she never had.
One thing I also touch on in that post is how Apollo is framed against Zeus. Zeus is also a villain character for much of the series, and even after he's "redeemed", the fanbase still considers him largely to be an antagonistic force. So to have Apollo be trying to take down Zeus comes across as very "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and I really don't like seeing that framing when it's regarding a rapist.
And this scene largely feels the same. It feels like Rachel's trying to sway the audience into believing Apollo is like Draco Malfoy - a misled boy who "didn't know any better" and was being manipulated by a greater evil. If you haven't guessed by now, that "greater evil" is Ouranos.
Why is it Ouranos? In my opinion (so take this with grains of salt) this is because they need to somehow "one up" Kronos and give Persephone and Hades a tangible force to fight against, to draw a clean line in the sand between "good" and "evil" so that we, the audience, will be forced to categorize Persephone and Hades as "good" and someone else as "evil".
But really, why Ouranos? We're told that he manipulated Gaia to use her powers in an attempt to create "hierarchy" (whatever the FUCK that means, I don't think Rachel really understands how societal hierarchies are created) but there's NOTHING to imply that he was tyrannical or "evil" in the same way that Kronos has been depicted. Rachel's basically submitting this whole plotline to "well it's in the prophecy" but there was NOTHING dictating that she had to try and write a "prophecy" storyline to begin with. So as a result, it feels very tacked on and it's hard to tell what the point is, it really just seems like Rachel watched too much Marvel one week and decided that Lore Olympus - a fantasy romance - needed a big bad.
And by extension it feels like Apollo is being used as a pawn in this dynamic. By making him subservient to an "evil" force, it means he can labelled as definitively "evil", and thus it gives Rachel a vehicle to have Apollo taken down - or even perhaps empathized with much like in the Draco Malfoy sense - without having to touch the SA plot that she set up and never resolved.
He was evil before, but he wasn't the kind of evil that Rachel could write around. Because she doesn't know how to write SA or give her female characters any sense of retribution or agency. We've seen that already with her robbing Demeter of winter and Persephone of her feelings regarding the SA. There was never going to be a chance in hell she was going to be able to write herself out of a plotline she's been procrastinating for 4+ years.
That said, this is just a vibe I get, so I'm not gonna speak on it much more. This is one of those "we're really not gonna know until the comic returns" situations.
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Once again, Rachel's trying to make Apollo seem like a "master manipulator", but she's also trying to make him seem like he's the one being manipulated, but she's ALSO trying to write him as a big dumb idiot who literally can't grasp consent. Apollo has to be one of the most inconsistently written characters in the entire comic, and yes, that includes Persephone. Again, it just goes to show she hasn't been able to fully commit to the SA plotline because Apollo's motivations and intelligence levels change with each passing episode. Sometimes he's being nefarious and plotting to overthrow the King, other times he's literally asking a nymph if she'd be willing to cut her hair to look like Persephone. The comic can't choose and so we, the audience, can't tell why Apollo is even still here.
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Again, this is SUCH bizarre framing. If we're to believe that Persephone has been "cursed" by no longer being able to create Spring, only Winter, then does that make Ouranos and Apollo the heroes here? Because Ouranos is right, if Persephone is causing winter, that's going to kill the mortals, which is the complete OPPOSITE of what she's trying to do. So what are we left with? A plotline where Apollo and Ouranos might actually have a point about how she rushed into a marriage with the King of the Underworld and sacrificed everything that gave her agency and power - both metaphorically and literally - in the process?
Again, this is why Rachel fundamentally misunderstands the original purpose of The Hymn to Demeter and how she's, by and large, made her retelling worse in an attempt to be "subversive". It puts the plot and character motivations in a place where it's hard to tell what the story is trying to say, I can understand if maybe Rachel's trying to write a conflict where Apollo uses this information to manipulate her, but it doesn't help that knowing EVERYTHING we know about the H x P relationship within the context of this comic, Ouranos has a point that Persephone's union with the King of the Dead is problematic. It might not be the same "problematic" that we're all thinking of, but it really just reinforces the criticisms of this relationship. Is the comic really asking us to say "fuck the human race, they're in love" ??? Because that's NOT what the point of the original myth was in the slightest and it's just a really weird place to put your audience in.
It's 4:45 AM right now as I'm typing this so my thoughts are a little scattered, but all this really feels like is an attempt on Rachel's part to create a new "big bad" for her to use as a distraction from the SA plot and to give Persephone a "flaw", but that "flaw" really only takes away the strength of another character.
Oh, and by the way? This whole "you need the fertility goddess" thing? THE COMIC HAS ALREADY TOLD US THIS WON'T WORK BECAUSE SHE HAS TO BE IN LOVE WITH APOLLO FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO USE HER POWERS. SO RACHEL'S ALREADY WRITTEN HERSELF INTO A CORNER THAT SHE'LL EITHER HAVE TO SOLVE OR RETCON ENTIRELY. DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS SO ABSURD???
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This line is kind of jarring because we had the Kassandra prophecy at the beginning that talked about the herb, but the prophecy Ouranos is talking about is the one about the sons of kings overthrowing their fathers. I definitely forgot about that one for a hot second reading this, I didn't get how this sequence related to the poisonous plant thing because they're framed as completely separate prophecies. It's not like Kassandra said in her initial prophecy that this plant would be used to overthrow a King again, she just said that the plant still existed and Psyche figured it out on her own that Apollo was gonna use it on Zeus. IDK that's just something that bugged me (also again, why are they believing her prophecies when we literally just had it established an episode ago that no one believes her prophecies LMAO)
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Because if it wasn't enough for LO to have one Evil Robot Jeff Bridges villain, it had to throw in another one for good measure. It's just a line of dads and grandpas going back centuries waiting for their turn in the ring with Persephone.
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lmao I love this 'hint' at Apollo being the one to write the note from Hebe and leave the cupcake for Zeus. Like... duh? We already put that together as SOON as Psyche said gasp "Zeus!" and then it showed Zeus eating the cupcake while Psyche called him on the phone telling him Apollo was gonna try and harm him. This sequence of 'revealing what really happened' doesn't work here because we've already been told what happened.
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Except we know he won't. There's no tension to this whatsoever.
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That's Hebe by the way.
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It's odd that Apollo is embracing this prophecy when he has a kid himself. He literally has a fully grown son in this comic. I guess Apollo forgot about that, just like Rachel.
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And that's it. That's the midseason finale. Ouranos is the new twist villain and Apollo is... whatever the fuck Rachel plans on doing with him.
Now, this leads me to my original motivation to create this series of reviews. It spawned from a conversation we were having in the Discord, discussing what it must be like to be a free reader who hasn't paid for the FP episodes that are still behind a paywall. This is not standard for LO, it hasn't kept FP episodes behind paywalls in the past during long hiatuses like this. I can even prove this with screenshots from the Wayback Machine, during the last midseason hiatus:
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(whoof, that rating has dropped. I know it doesn't seem like much but for a series with millions of readers, by law of averages it takes a LOT of poor ratings to pull that number down compared to a series that only has a few readers)
Point is, this is the first time Rachel/WT have done this. Now, I will make this perfectly clear, I don't think this was a decision that was purely on Rachel. WT controls much of the backend like paywall costs, release dates, etc. so I'm not gonna go pinning this on her.
However, I do think this is a completely bungled attempt at trying to get people to pay up. LO has been dropping in views steadily but surely since the midseason break for S2. It's not pulling in the peak numbers that it used to, while it does still pull in a lot more views and money than other series on the platform, it's nowhere near the juggernaut that it once was in terms of record-breaking numbers, and I think WT knows that. So this really comes across as a stunt to get readers to FP, assuming that people will HAVE to pay if they're left waiting for 4 months.
But here's the flaw in that logic - people are still going to have to wait 4 months anyways. Reading those 3 locked episodes, especially all at once, will still leave you in the same place as you were beforehand.
And it shows in the numbers that people aren't falling for the bait.
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Again, 17k likes still isn't anything to sneeze at for a FP episode, but it's still just barely above the new average that LO has gained over the past two years. I remember a time when those like counts would be 30k+. And now, despite being on break 4 months with these episodes still locked behind a wall, it's barely able to scrap by its new average of roughly 14-15k, and that average is when episodes are actually updating.
Obviously like counts = / = viewcounts but when they fluctuate, we know that the views have to be as well by extension, at least to some extent, and that's still engagement that's dropped of in and of itself. And we can also see a rough look at how the views have dropped off through the comic's landing page. Now, it's hard to compare data because there was a time when WT actually didn't give follower/view counts on the landing page (this was also when the like count capped at 99k) but we can still see a downslide in growth very visibly in the view count, sub count, and most of all, the rating, which has been steadily dropping for years now.
August 2020:
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May 2021:
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November 2021:
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March 2022 (don't get confused by the 995 million, this is where view count comes in):
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September 2022:
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March 2023:
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Today (October 24th, 2023):
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Again, there's no way to get a true clear picture of LO's stats beyond this surface level data, but it does show that LO is just not getting the rapid growth it used to. People are moving on from it. And while its view and sub count are steadily increasing (albeit slowly for a webtoon that gets as much marketing as it does) the average rating is going down. It's clear that the majority of LO's growth happened between 2018 and 2020, which would make sense as the series was still relatively new compared to how it's become old news today, and Webtoons experienced a boom in 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdowns - a boom that they think still applies in the year 2023, judging by their attempts to import as many series onto the platform as possible and capitalize on an audience that just isn't there anymore.
All of this leads me to wonder - what's in it for free readers after all this? Because if you recall from where we started, the cliffhanger they started on was Hades - possessed by Kronos - attempting to strangle Persephone, a cliffhanger that was resolved within seconds for FastPass readers. If they don't FastPass after that, they'll be met with numerous reveals that don't even make sense for the plot as a whole (such as Leuce making up the text messages).
Again, I don't want to claim that this was a decision on Rachel's part, but it really seems like either she didn't plan this hiatus, or her inability to write naturally without the need for addictive-style formatting as a crutch made it so that the free readers would be given the worst midseason premiere ever.
And what are we, the FastPass readers, going to return to? There are still so many plot threads that have been left unresolved, multiple villains being setup, and as far as Webtoons and Rachel have revealed during NYCC, LO is supposed to end by the spring. That's 20-30 weeks TOPS, which isn't exactly a whole lot of wiggle room for a writer like Rachel who's chronically bad at pacing and getting to the point of the plots she's established.
I know there are so many readers right now anticipating the return of this comic, some of whom genuinely believe this comic is "better than ever" and others who are critical of it but hope that the comic will come back in a better state after the hiatus. But right now there's so much evidence to support the contrary - that LO is about to come back in as bad, if not worse, condition than it was in when it left.
And through all this, for a comic that's finally ending after 5 years, I have to ask - where is the hype? Why are Webtoons and Rachel keeping the finale of this comic behind closed doors? Where's the promotional art, the hinting at what's to come, the attempts to generate any semblance of excitement for the readers who are still left after clinging onto this ride for 5 years? Why were the fans themselves barred out of their own communities during the majority of the hiatus?
And that just leads me to an even more discouraging thought. This is not meant to accuse Rachel or make assumptions. It's simply a thought that I had while thinking about what the series could possibly pull upon its return, so please, take this with MOUNTAINS of salt. It's one thing I hadn't considered with the knowledge that LO will be returning with 3 episodes still behind a paywall, a 'buffer' in and of itself for Rachel to work off of.
Rachel only technically needs one episode ready for the release. Not three as she normally would if the episodes had been unlocked like in previous hiatuses. That's not including whatever buffer episodes she would need beyond the upload schedule, but she's proven to be chronically bad at maintaining a buffer as well since day one.
We haven't seen any promotional art. No hinting. No hyping beyond what's been seen for her "Rachel Smythe Presents" series.
With all that in mind, I have one question to leave this on:
Has Rachel even started working on Episode 254 yet?
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ystrike1 · 8 months
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Surviving as an Obsessive Servant - By 무유 (muyu) (7/10)
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"I reincarnated into a BL Game!!!" is an awkward genre. 99% of the time the story would be better without that element, and in this case that's true. This is a tense cross dressing story about survival, but the protagonist already knows the basic "plot" and lots of secrets. Which, sadly, makes everything predictable.
Lobel isn't a boy, but she needs to survive. She lies about her gender because there's no other choice. She must serve the Duke's heir, Edric.
Edric is a spoiled brat who spits on his angelic stepmother...according to the rumors.
What lies beneath this silly story?
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Lobelia is destined to die of a degenerative disease that has no real cure. It can be cured if you're EXTREMELY wealthy. One vial of preventative medicine can help a little, but one vial is worth one mansion.
Lobelia does her research. She read this book in her previous life, so she finds some ancient tablets. The only real way to survive her disease is.....being near the protagonist. Edric.
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Lobel puts up with all kinds of abuse in the beginning, but she really doesn't hate the young master. She already knows all of the plot twists. Edric isn't a spiteful little shit. His adoptive mother, the Duchess, killed his mother. A woman who slept with the Duke while he was married. Her death was caused by poison, so poor Edric refuses to eat. He also can't sleep. So he's crazy angry all the time.
Lobel poison tests his food, and he starts to calm down.
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Edric is a super unfortunate guy. He is the most beautiful man in the country. In the original novel he gets the same disease Lobelia has, but he recovers because he can afford the medicine...and the Crown Prince watches over his recovery.
It's implied that their relationship wasn't healthy.
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Edric gets really attached to Lobel.
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The Duchess actually is a good villain, so that's a plus. She plays her part well. She's a "forgiving mother that took in the son of a mistress for the sake of the Dukedom". She can't have children of her own, so she plans to use Edric like a puppet. She has successfully turned the mansion against him too.
It wasn't hard.
Edric isn't normal.
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He has nymph blood. That means he can do certain things humans can't. The servants are afraid of him. The Duchess spreads lots of rumors about Edric's rudeness, his wild behavior, and the fact that he doesn't need to bathe like a human to be clean. Rumors about Edric's mother being an evil witch start to grow. Clearly, the evil witch seduced the Duke. Why would their beloved dead Duke ever cheat on the perfect Duchess? Clearly the cause was dark magic.
Edric should be grateful that the Duchess is willing to put up with him...and so on and so forth...
Lobel only cares about staying near Edric, because his Nymph presence purifies the disease inside her.
Edric is able to tough out the bullying, because Lobel is always nearby and chatty.
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He is a tragic character and he would be alot more interesting if this wasn't a reincarnation story.
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He grows up handsome and healthy.
Lobelia survives and she tries to leave.
He stops her. He wants Lobel to stay his devoted and obsessive servant. After all, their feelings are mutual.
He's just as obsessed.
(It's kinda sad. Edric is totally in love with a lie. Lobelia is 100% using him for his nymph/main character healing powers in the beginning.)
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hazelsmirrorball · 8 months
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Vampire
Pairings: Dick Grayson x Villain!Fem Reader 
Summary: Dick Grayson manipulated the upcoming strongest villain in gotham to fall for his plans. 
warnings: angst. English is not my main language
a/n: inspired by Olivia Rodrigos's Vampire. Hope you enjoy!
[MASTERLIST]
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Six months. 
In and out. 
It was supposed to be that simple or at least that’s what Dick Grayson thought. All he had to do was create a fake persona and gain one of the most powerful villains in Gotham trust. He didn’t doubt his capability of pulling her in with his charm. They didn’t call him a womanizer for nothing. He was confident that the six months with (V/N) was going to be a piece of cake. But as the months passed by he didn’t know when the fake feelings towards her started to become real. It hurt him, it hurt him badly. He knew how things were going to end, yet when the sixth month came around he took her in.  Now there she was, behind the cells of Arkham Asylum wishing Nightwing was dead. 
Y/n L/n was a smart and hardworking girl. She thought of every possibility that could happen before she made a plan. That’s what got her on top of Gothams City Crime list. Every vigilante had their eyes on her and she lived for attention. But when Dick Grayson came around looking for a henchman position she agreed. Too quickly for her liking. Dealing with destroying Gotham all by herself was hard. Maybe having Dick on her side would make things easier. 
So she began giving him stupid tasks like making him clean her room or taking out the trash. But as the first months  started to pass by, Dick had more responsibility in her life. He started giving his opinion on little plans or even going on the field to beat batman with her. Dick was quick and Y/n liked that. When she noticed how Dick had taken Batman down, she knew he was someone she could trust. 
But now being locked up for seven months made her think about what happened. How she let her guard down and how Dick took advantage of her trust. Y/n used to think she was smart  but Dick made her look so naive. She was looking at everything through rose colored glasses. Sadly if you see everything through rose colored glasses you can't see the red flags. 
She let her guard down, she had to admit that at the end of the six months she was head over heels over the man. But she knew everything was an act. Her feelings towards Dick started when he defended her against the “mighty” batman. But what made her stomach turn was when she found out he was actually Nightwing, Batman's ex prodigy. The guy she had fallen for was a traitor. Six months. The way Dick had sold her  for parts. Six months of torture where Dick sold her for a forbidden paradise.
Everyone knew. 
Every Vigilante 
Every Superhero 
Every Psychopathic villain 
As Dick Grayson's reputation ascended to the world, Y/n reputation was already in a grave. Everyone had warned her. All her friends had told  her if she always worked alone without a problem why adding someone now to the mix? When you are successful. Y/n brushed it off but deep down she knew It was weird that Dick didn’t have a criminal record on him. Out of nowhere he wanted to be a criminal? A villain? That wasn’t something that would come out of nowhere. She should’ve known he was too perfect to be true. But when she tried calling Dick out he just shrugged it out. 
“Come on, V/n! We’ve been partners for a while now. I haven’t done anything to rat you out. I just want to help. Not every villain has to have an insane origin story. Your so-called friends are just waiting for your downfall. They are just crazy.” Dick replied as he cleaned a brush from Y/n’s arm. She nodded as She looked at his eyes, smiling softly. 
“Yeah, they are just crazy” 
Dick wasn’t wrong. They were praying for her downfall. But what she didn’t know was that her downfall was caused by the one that was telling her not to worry. 
Everyone laughed at her. The supposed strongest uprising villain fell for the basics. The respect she had fought so hard to get was slipping through her hands. She was about to enter The legion of doom status but now she wasn’t even in rookie status. She wouldn’t be taken seriously anymore. V/n became a joke and all thanks to Dick Grayson. Because  she knew she made some really big mistakes. But Dick made the worst one look fine. 
 Y/n should've known it was strange, he would only come out at night and when Y/n searched for him to do normal things he was nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t fathom how he was so convincing. How could he lie without flinching? It was like deep down he did have it in him. A mesmerizing, paralyzing, fucked up little thrill. A true heart of a villain. 
She didn’t have any hope. In Arkham, all she did was exist doing her normal routine. Getting deeply insulted by everyone that came her way. So when her usual routine was broken by someone escorting her to a private room to talk. She had hoped that someone decided to break her out. But as she entered the small smirk on her lips fell as she glared at the boy in front of her. 
Disdain. 
“It’s nice seeing you again” Nightwing said as he sent a small smile her way as he tapped his hands against the metal table. 
Y/n sat on the chair as she felt Dick’s gaze on her. She looked up at him and leaned in, stopping when her face was a few inches away. 
“You are pretty brave of showing up here after locking me up, asshole” Y/n replied through gritted teeth as Dick sent her a cocky little grin. 
“Well, I missed you too. It's really nice to see you're okay” He replied as he got a little closer towards her. 
“Okay? You’ve made my life a living hell these past months and then you have the decency to show up and laugh in my face.” Y/n replied as she slammed her cuffed hands against the table making an echo throughout the empty room. 
“It’s not my fault you decided to take this route. This is what happens when you break the law. You get your liberty taken away from you” Dick replied nonchalantly as he moved away resting back on the chair and resting his hands behind his head. 
“You know, if your plan was to make a mockery of me. I already have to deal with that on a daily basis so please do me a favor and fuck off” 
“Come on! I came all the way here to see how my favorite girl is doing. I had an offer for you” Dick replied as she raised an eyebrow off. 
‘What are you even talking about?” She replied, clearly annoyed, waiting for this visit to be over. She was preferring a million times to see the Riddler making a stupid joke about her.  
“I need your help. You clearly miss your freedom. So in exchange for that I’ll give you  a chance. You help me out on a mission and you’ll be free” He replied like it was the simplest thing in the world. 
“Since when do those a stupid little birds have so much power?” She replied, laughing sarcastically at him. Dick rolled his eyes as he placed papers in front of her. 
“I don’t. But Batman does and we need your intel on everything. So if you help out you’ll get your cut. I would take it if I were you.  He doesn’t usually work with criminals, "he replied, tapping the paper in front of her. 
“Well he works with you on a daily basis so I can’t tell the difference.” Y/n replied dryly as she pushed the paper away. 
“Is this or rooting away in Gotham” Dick replied, taking the papers slowly. 
“I prefer rooting in hell than working for the devil himself” 
“Y/n. Hear me out, I care for you and I don’t want someone I love to root in this place. So please take it. I’m not going to ask again” 
Love? Dick said love, but wouldn't that be hard? He can't love anyone, Because that would mean he had a heart. As much as Y/n wanted to say no deep down she knew she couldn’t get revenge on Nightwing if she was locked in Gotham so this was her only chance at the moment. The perfect way to get Dick back. Playing his own little game, getting his trust and then stabbing him on the back. 
“Fine. But it’s because I can’t deal with the Joker anymore” 
“Well, it’s nice that you finally picked the right side. This time we will be good partners.” 
Oh Nightwing, you’re fucked.
[MASTERLIST]
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I see mixed reactions on chapter 417. Some good meta about the connection between Tomura and Deku, opposite opinions about Nana Shimura, the usual speculation about what will happen or why certain things have happened so far.
I need to take a shower, but after that I'm back in full force here to explain what I think of it all.
Meanwhile, take these kinds of summarized items about what I think of the leaks:
At Tomura's core, what happened with the Shimuras is not a memory. It is constantly happening in real time, like a ghost loop. What happens there has real consequences.
At this point the story can't be even more obvious about the fact that Tomura hates Deku because Deku is everything Tomura could have been. They are each other's twisted reflections, two sides of the same coin. At the same time, they unconsciously admire and want to save each other, 'cause they see themselves in there.
Deku has taken Tomura's place and he's facing (in short) all the rejection and the attacks Tomura faced. The villains in Tomura's mind don't only want to break Deku's resolve, but also question his true motive. It's an echo of what they did to Tomura before.
The focus on Nana Shimura this chapter shows that heroes are only human. Even the strongest of them failed against AFO. They were fighting mostly alone! The only reason Deku is winning is because he has an army behind him. We're seeing how the cycle of abuse is not a thing of heroes and villains, but a thing of human failures that accumulate 'til they fester into the biggest problem.
Tomura and Deku have a private connection. This is not a thing of entertainment for the public. This is their story as the successors of AFO and OFA. No one knows their burden or the extension of their fight.
Actually a bit insane over how Horikoshi portrayed Nana and Kotaro's relationship in this chapter. Nana was the wound Kotaro couldn't get rid of.
Nana takes responsibility for what she did, but more important than anything, she was allowed to do something about it even if she was too late. She went back to her home, to her family. After 15 years, she's finally there to stop Kotaro from hitting Tenko. The loop is shattered. It is happening.
Tomura is not the only one going back to her origin. Deku is regressing along with him. By the end of the chapter, Deku is in his middle school uniform. They are becoming children together!!! They are going back to their most basic forms!!! That's how we're going to reach the panel of kid Deku extending his hand to kid Tenko (maybe?)
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lily-s-world · 2 months
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Details I would like to see in the Netflix Live Action that the original ATLA didn’t have and/or explored
1) More of Iroh’s dealing with his actions as a general. One of my favorite scenes in the live action was Iroh being confronted about his actions in Ba Sing Se, and I think that was a great way of showing that beloved characters can also be villains in someone else’s stories. It is obvious that that battle caused a major change in the way Iroh lived, and for the better, but it also caused a lot of pain and tragedy for the people on the other side of the wall. You don’t get that wise without having dealt with the consequences of your actions, so I want to see that.
2) Azula’s redemption. I’m not talking about Zuko redemption arc style, but I do want more for her than just ending as a lost and broken person. Like Zuko, Azula had been manipulated non-stop since she was a child, but unlike Zuko, she chose to stay there instead of looking for a way out. So, I want her to understand what happened to her life, what was the real reason behind her suffering, and I want her to have hope of getting better. The whole “my own mother thought I was a monster” plus the way Ozai played with her this first season, has potential to become a way for her to face and understand her actions. After all, she is just a kid.
3) Focus on platonic relationships. No matter what version of Avatar you see, the trope of found family will always be present, the Gaang is basically the definition of this trope. In NATLA when they changed the storyline of the lover’s cave, and replaced Aang with Sokka, I was left wondering why the change? But when you think about it, Katara and Sokka’s main source of love their entire lives has been their family and their community. They value family above everything else, and that is what saves them. Even in the season finally when Aang is lost with the Ocean Spirit, Katara yells him that he needs to comeback because he is her family. And no, this is not a “he loves him as a brother” type of thing, this is Katara realizing that Aang is his community now, that he has become family and he doesn’t want to lose him, like he lost her parents.
I wouldn’t mind having the focus change to more platonic relationships instead of romantic ones; I’m not saying the romantic ones are bad, it is just that with the age of the characters and the way the story develops, family and friends bonds can be as important as romantic ones. A great example will be that if they include the Guru scene, Aang thinks about his entire family (the Gaang) when he doesn’t want to leave behind his connections – which will match what all the other Avatars repeated to him this season: “you need to leave your friends behind”.
.
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I’ll probably add more later, but this is my top three for now.
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A Timeline of Events in the Artemis Fowl Series
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If anyone's interested, I did do an actual analysis for where I pulled some of these dates from. But because I cannot type succinctly to save my life, it's 5,000 words long, so that's below the cut. I also put the timeline there again, but in three separate images, so hopefully they load well enough to be fully legible if the above isn't.
A thousand thanks to @sadbitchapologist and @zahnie for their help and advice with this, despite neither of them having any more than the barest interest in the series and therefore having no clue what I was on about. Thanks also to @orangerosebush for fielding completely out-of-the-blue questions about the French school system, so I didn't have to attempt to navigate web search results to figure out what mandatory gym classes were like for the sole purpose of plotting Luc's birthday on here.
An Analysis of the Timelines in the Artemis Fowl Series
A Brief Introduction
The Artemis Fowl series is made up of eight books covering a range of years and events. I wanted to see how accurate the timelines present in the books were, as well as try and plot out some other details implied in the novels but not explicitly stated, to have a better understanding of the overall world-building. To that end, I went through the series and made the above timeline. I colour-coded it based on the relevance of the specific items to certain categories, namely Humans, Fairies, Villains, and the Series itself. This does mean that some things could have fit into multiple categories. For instance, you will see some items involving Opal categorized as Fairy-Specific (such as her college years, as those are fairly neutral to the main plot or her villainy), Villain-Specific (such as her setting up her emergency fund, as that is mostly related to her schemes as opposed to relevant to her existence as a fairy, or part of the main plot of the series), and Plot-Specific (such as her opening the Berserker Gate, the primary plot point for the final book).
Before we really delve into things though, we should establish the baseline assumptions I was working with. Firstly, I am only using the original series. I have not used anything written in The Fowl Twins trilogy, given that those books seem to ret-con a considerable amount of the original information, and that is far too many headaches to give myself. Any supplemental series information, such as the short stories found in The Artemis Fowl Files, or anything from interviews is also not included. The premise here is: using just the original books, what is the event timeline of the world? The second thing we need to establish is that I am using the North American releases of the novels. I did make notes on where each bit of information comes from, but there isn’t really a citation style for this kind of thing, so I’m not sure how relevant that is. The third assumption is that the first book takes place the year it was originally published. According to my copy, the original publication was 2001, with the first American paperback edition coming out in 2002, and the first mass market paperback being released in 2003. This means our starting point is in 2001.
For sake of clarity, this analysis will start with setting the dates of the books and continue on from there.
The Basics of The Books
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the first book, Artemis Fowl (AF). It is actually not until the very end of the book that we get a solid answer for when it takes place. It’s only in the last few pages of the novel that Angeline Fowl leaves her attic room after all the plot points are tied up and announces that it is Christmas Day. This might be cause for concern – Angeline had not previously been established as a particularly reliable narrator – but given that we are asked to believe that Holly’s ‘feel better’ mood booster worked, and that neither Butler nor Artemis balk at or question the pronouncement that is Christmas Day, we’ll accept that it’s true and move on. This means that, with Butler’s earlier announcement that he was stuck doing four months of stakeout, we can say with a fair amount of certainty that Artemis obtained and translated the Fairy Book in September 2001, and managed to capture a fairy in December of the same year.
Moving on to Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (TAI), we are given a decent chunk of information, albeit spread out a bit. The first is the announcement that the ransom drop for Artemis Fowl I is to be held on the fourteenth. The fourteenth of what, you might ask? Well, we are told that Artemis is currently thirteen years old. Clearly, things are past September 1, 2002 (we know Artemis’s birthday is September 1 based on information in both the fifth and seventh books). We are also told that Luc Carrere has been trading with the goblins for six months, starting in July. That puts us in either December or January, but we can narrow it down further since Artemis gives us another helpful clue. He mentions they are not expecting to see the dawn while attempting to rescue his father in the Arctic. There are only a few latitudes on Earth where polar night (of any type) occurs, and at Murmansk, polar twilight occurs between December 10 – January 2. Combining all of this, we learn that TAI takes place December 14, 2002, give or take a few days to either side.
This can be corroborated by information in Book 3, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (TEC). After Holly heals Artemis Senior, we are told that it takes over two months for him to wake up. Since we are specifically told two months, as opposed to two and a half or three, we can conclude that the events of TEC take place in March 2003. Mulch gives us some information that confirms this. He was living in LA “less than four months ago,” and since he was conscripted to help with the events of TAI in December, a March plotline fits the bill. We are given further confirmation as well: Spiro mentions that Artemis will be fourteen in six months. A specific date for Artemis & Co.’s attack on Spiro’s Needle can be pulled from the throw-away line that Pex and Chips are “burying” Mulch on the full moon. A quick web search tells us that the full moon in March of 2003 takes place on March 14, and the rest of the events in the novel take place roughly two days to either side of that.
In Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (TOD), the fourth book in the series, we are given several very clear indications of when the events take place. Firstly, Artemis is contemplating that at fourteen years and three months old, he is the youngest person to successfully obtain The Fairy Thief. Based on previously noted details that his birthday is in September, the events of TOD must take place in December of 2003. Additionally, we are told that things are the middle of winter and Opal has been in a coma for eleven months and counting as of the end of TAI, another December plot.
Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (TLC) requires the most math and interpretation so far to figure out when it takes place. We know Artemis is still fourteen, so the main events clearly happen sometime between January 2004 and September 2004. Beyond that, we are using a fair amount of context clues. Artemis and Butler have evidently been traveling for four months looking for demons, so we are dealing with events in at least May. But that still leaves us several summertime months to work with, so to establish a timeline here, we will need to look forward a bit. In the sixth book, Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (TTP), it’s noted that Artemis is not yet fifteen, and has, on multiple occasions, spent the full moon in the study. Ergo, he’s spent at least a few months back from Hybras. If he has been back for two months and not yet turned fifteen, he would have had to have returned by July at the latest, and since he returns almost three years later than he leaves, we are looking at him returning in either May or June. This would have him disappearing to Hybras – and by extension, dealing with the earlier events in the book – in June, July, or August. After his conversation with Minerva, he notes to Butler that they “are planning a June wedding,” which wouldn’t make sense to say if they were currently in the month of June. From all of this, we can extrapolate that the first three-quarters of TLC take place in late July or early August 2004, with the triumphant return of our intrepid heroes occurring in June 2007.
As previously stated, TTP mentions that Artemis is still not fifteen, but is nearly there. He has also been home again for at least two months. This would put the events of the sixth book in August 2007. At least, the events set in the current time period. TTP does bring back time travel, and with it some problems. We are told that Artemis and Holly jump back nearly eight years to Artemis being ten and trying to fund searches for his missing father. This would put the events of the past in early 2000. However, other details presented regarding Artemis Senior’s disappearance, which we will discuss later, make that impossible. Artemis also admits, in TEC, that he was eleven when his father disappeared, not ten. If we take a bit of creative license with our interpretations and base the time-jump to the past on other presented information as opposed to the dates given in TTP, we can say that Holly and Artemis instead return to early 2001. This lines up with further details, such as the sinking of the Fowl Star (as calculated a few paragraphs down in this analysis) occurring in December of 2000, and the textual confirmation in TTP that it’s barely two months past that sinking when Artemis brokers the deal(s) regarding the silky sifaka lemur. Since, at the end of the day, the time jump impacts very little in the grand scheme of things, and the year 2001 actually fits in better with other textual evidence and events, that’s what I’m going with for this timeline.
The seventh book, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex (TAC) gives us a very helpful base point! It takes place on Artemis’s fifteenth birthday, September 1. From our previous results on setting dates for book events, that would be September 1, 2007. The sections in which Butler and Juliet are fighting mesmerized wrestling fans and meeting up with Mulch are noted in the novel as happening “the day before,” which would fall on August 31, 2007.
Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (TLG), the eighth and final book in the series, creates some problems. If we assume that Artemis starts receiving treatment for his Atlantis Complex immediately after diagnosis in TAC¸ that would put him receiving treatment in September 2007. We are told he is certified as cured after six months. Yet we are also told that the rest of the events of the book take place in the week or so leading up to the Christmas holidays. Everything so far has said that the Artemis Fowl series follows the current calendar, in which case there is no way that six months can fit between September 1, 2007 and December 25, 2007. However, the only reference to Christmas is in two lines noting that the Fowl parents were planning on holidaying with their children on a foreign beach. If we simply say that six months have passed, and they are instead planning on spending the Irish school system’s spring holidays in the French Riviera, everything else lines up much better. So that’s what I’ve done. This would also put the resurrection of Artemis, after the events of the book and a further six months have passed, at roughly September of 2008. There is a pleasing symmetry to Artemis being born and then re-born in September, though if you want to get really technical and say the events of TLG take place during the 2008 March full moon as Opal claims (as noted in another web search as March 28), a six-month wait time for the clone to grow would put the resurrection in October. Still, there is something to be said for having a boy’s ghost haunting a clone of himself close to All Hallows. Since it’s the last plot point of the series, you can choose which you’d like; it doesn’t have to lead to anything else after it.
Let’s Talk Timelines: The Beginning of the Line to The End of The 19th Century
Now that we have our baseline book time periods established, we can get into the math used to determine some of the events in the timeline above. Several events are easy; we are given specific dates for them. Turnball Root meets Leonor in 1938, Juliet wins the Miss Sugar Beet Fair beauty contest in 1999. Other things are based on some basic math, such as Artemis claiming his parents got married fourteen years prior to AF¸ putting that event in 1987.
The majority of the items on the above timeline, however, do take some mathematics, extrapolation, and interpretation to plot out. To try and keep everything organized, we’ll start at the far left of the timeline, and work our way forwards, looking at events oldest-to-newest to explain why they are where they are on the graph. I won’t be getting too in-depth on everything in the graph, since I’m not sure how relevant the notes on the very minor side characters such as Carla Frazetti are, but I’ll at least try to touch on some of the more relevant points.
To start with, the Battle of Taillte was noted in the 2000’s as being ten thousand years ago, putting that at 8000 BCE. Similarly, the last dome breach at Atlantis was apparently eight thousand years ago in the 2000’s, so that would be 6000 BCE. Troll sideshows were legal in the early middle ages, which implies they were not legal after that. A quick web search says the early middle ages ended around 1000. The first crusades were in 1096-1099, and as those crusades are the start point of the Butler-Fowl working relationship, a point for noting that comes next on the graph.
From there, we get into more modern – relatively speaking – events. Briar Cudgeon and Julius Root are noted as attending the LEP Academy together and being raised in the same tunnel, as well as having about 600 years of history together. If one assumes “being raised in the same tunnel” is similar to the human equivalent of “growing up in the same neighbourhood,” we can assume the two were born roughly 600 years ago, in the 1400’s. Vinyaya is portrayed as being of a similar age to Root, so her birth can also be put in the same general era. We are also told that Fowl Manor was originally a castle built in the fifteenth century, that in the early 2000’s the theories of timeline corruption were first introduced over five centuries ago, and that cloning has been banned for over five hundred years, so those three events are also tossed into the 1400’s.
Julius Root is noted as doing his LEP basic training 500 years ago in Ireland, so that would have to be in the 1500’s. He would have attended the Academy before then, putting that in the mid-to-late 1400’s. As previously stated, he was in the Academy with Cudgeon. Opal also met Cudgeon in college, and competed with Foaly for science prizes there, so they were all in school at the same time.
Mulch now enters the picture. We aren’t ever given a specific age range for him, but we are told about his career. He has, apparently, spent three centuries in and out of prison after a couple centuries of success as a thief. This would make him at least five hundred years old. There is a brief mention that he tried the athletic route at college before becoming a thief, so he would have to be an adult at that point, putting his age at roughly 550 years during the events of the series.
We then enter a period filled in from one-off lines throughout the series, presumably added to give some depth to the world. Things about the wine cellar at Fowl Manor being a seventeenth century addition, Captain Eusebius Fowl and his crew dying in the eighteenth century, and Mulch first faking his own death over two hundred years ago.
Time Marches On: The 20th Century
There is nothing of much relevance to linger on between the 1550’s and the 20th century, so we’ll jump ahead to the 1900’s, when we have Holly Short’s birthday. She is in her eighties during TLC, and her father died “over twenty years ago” when she was “barely sixty” as of TAI. Based on that, she would have been in her early eighties in 2002, putting her birthday sometime in the 1920’s. What a doll.
A few more birthdays now appear, and we’ll ignore, for the most part, some of the irrelevant ones. I don’t think we are at all concerned with Gaspard Paradizo’s birthday, or Mikhael Vassikin. We are, however, rather more interested in Jon Spiro, Domovoi Butler, and Artemis Fowl I.
Jon Spiro enters the series in TEC, as a middle-aged American. A quick search on the Internet says that middle age is generally noted as being between the ages of 40 to 60. We are told that Spiro has worked in three main industries over the past two and a half decades. Additionally, we are told that law enforcement has been “trying to put [him] away for thirty years.” If we assume he entered the working world at twenty, spent five years developing his professional self, and then started going down a path of questionable legality to get the police after him, that would put him at fifty-five in 2003, and born in the late 1940’s.
It was a bit easier to determine Domovoi Butler’s age, and we can get more specific with his actual birthday. We are told that he is forty at the start of TEC, and he is still forty during TOD. From that, we can assume his birthday is not between March – December, which means it has to be between January – March. Now, we can just leave things there, but contextually, Butler says in late March 2003 that “a lot of people know [him] as a forty-year old man.” Since I doubt he’s the kind of person who introduces himself by announcing that his birthday was last week, we can assume that his birthday is not in March. Since about half the books in the series take place in December, and there is never any mention of Butler’s birthday coming up soon, we can likely assume it isn’t in January. We can therefore conclude Butler was born in February, 40 years before 2003, which puts his birth year in 1963.
We then have Artemis Fowl I. This one took the most extrapolation to determine. We know he has run an ethical empire for a few years as of 2007, which coincides with his return to his family after being kidnapped by the Mafia. He apparently ran a successful criminal empire for two decades before that, though, so in 2007 he has been working for at least 25 years. Based on the interactions he had with his own son, I’ve assumed he was also taught to take over the family business from a young age. If he started working at his age of majority at 18 (as possible in the 1980’s in Ireland, based on a web search), we can assume he was born in roughly the mid 60’s.
Billy Kong, born Jonah Lee, is one to touch on. He plays a large role in TLC, during which we are given possibly the most backstory of any villain in the series. He was evidently born in the early 1970’s, and was eight years old in the early 1980’s. Mathematically, that can only lend itself to so many birth years, so it’s easy enough to put his birthdate somewhere in 1973, and his brother’s death date in 1981.
While we’re here, let’s talk about the 1980’s. A lot of things happen in the 80’s, so we’ll be here for a few paragraphs. Butler would have graduated Madam Ko’s Academy in the early ‘80s, Artemis I would have started working in his family’s business and stolen some warrior mummies (of note, the theft is only noted as being in Artemis Sr.’s “gangster days,” but if you are a young, rich criminal, you’d likely commit a wild theft in your early years as opposed to your thirties, which is why this is put in here). Additionally, in the mid 1980’s, Holly graduates the LEP Academy and her mother dies, as noted in TTP when she is contemplating missing three years of her friends lives.
Butler would have started his five-year stint in Russia with an espionage unit in the mid-to-late 80’s, and become a big brother in 1985. Juliet is noted at being four years older than Artemis in AF in 2001, and he is twelve then, making her sixteen at the time. We can extrapolate the month from TEC, wherein she is apparently eighteen when she is called regarding her brother’s apparent death. At the time, we are told what gifts she received for her birthday, implying it was fairly recent. Additionally, Artemis was only thirteen at that time, which would make Juliet five years older than Artemis. If, however, we trust that acolytes at Madam Ko’s start their training on their tenth birthday and get one chance to graduate per year, it would make sense for that one chance to be on their birthday, or within a day or two to allow for as much training time as possible. Since Juliet was in the midst of this one graduation evaluation when she gets the phone call and joins the crew for the March heist at Spiro’s Needle, she’d have to be born in March. (We can also corroborate this with some details from AF: if AF  takes place in mid-September, that would be just after Artemis’s birthday, which puts the 4-year age difference back into play.)
Spelltropy begins for the People in 1987, if it appeared 20 years ago from 2007. Artemis I and Angeline Fowl would get married in 1987. They would have their first child, Artemis Fowl II, in 1989, as calculated by Artemis being twelve during the initial siege of the Manor in December 2001. Artemis II’s grandfather was noted as having been dead for over ten years at that point, and it was mentioned in TEC that Angeline married her husband before he really took over the family business, so those events would likely happen when Artemis was but a baby in 1990.
The ‘90s are a period where a lot of things are happening, but few are particularly important. Spelltropy has a cure found, Minerva Paradizo is born, Juliet begins her bodyguard training and her brother refuses to let her shave her hair. These, and other events in the 90’s, are mostly calculated by math along the lines of “Event A happened X number of years ago,” but since the 90’s was mostly a time of worldbuilding events rather than plot events, we’ll just skim over the specific details.
‘You Are Here’: The 21st Century, and Where The Storytelling Begins
Welcome to the 2000’s! The kick-off point of not only the 2000’s, but also the entire series, is the sinking of the Fowl Star. We aren’t given a specific date for this, but we are given enough information to extrapolate the date. Specifically, in September 2001, in AF, we are told Fowl Sr. has been missing for almost a year. In TAI, in December, we are told he has been missing for almost two years. That does have the potential to have the ship go down in either December or January, so we need to use a bit more details from TAI to make a final determination. Mikhael Vassikin and Kamar were told to dump Fowl’s body in the Kola if he didn’t wake up in “another year,” so they’ve been looking after him for one at that point. Fowl Sr. wakes up two weeks before the deadline, and as noted earlier, the ransom drop for him takes place December 14, after he has been awake for perhaps a week. From that, we can tell that the deadline for “another year” was mid to late December, putting the initial sinking of the Fowl Star in late 2000.
The analysis gets a bit confusing at this point, because 2001 is when future Artemis and Holly join the party via time travel, as well as having their regular selves in the timestream. Essentially, we’ve established the timeline for the events of TTP above, so we know the whole lemur fiasco takes place in March 2001. Artemis wakes up at the end of that book thinking about fairies, which ties in rather neatly to him then dragging Butler across three continents for six false alarms (with an assumed approximate 3 weeks between each jaunt) before striking metaphorical gold in Ho Chi Minh City in September. During their time-traveling, Holly also gets a chance to talk to Root, who wonders why she isn’t in Hamburg, which was noted in AF as Holly’s first major failure as a Recon officer and was nearly preceding the events of AF. The time-traveling would also mean that Opal would have had to harvest her DNA for future diabolical plans before March 2001, when her younger self travels to the future. Since it takes up to two years to grow a clone to adulthood, and her clone has to be ready in September 2003, we are a few months off in the time requirements, but really, for a practice that’s been outlawed for 500 years, I can offer a bit of leeway.
We are now well and truly in the thick of the main events of the series. Most of this will be tied into the initial assessments we made way at the beginning of this essay, where we established when each book occurs. Because of this, we aren’t going to spend time on anything plot-related. However, a brief note on Turnball Root and Artemis’s Atlantis Complex is likely in order. Artemis was, as previously stated, dealing with his return from Hybras and the after-effects of stealing magic during July and August of 2007. His Atlantis Complex, and Turnball Root’s plan to escape the Deeps prison, are in full swing in September of that year. We have a brief note in TAC during the evacuation of Atlantis, that Turnball had, a month before, spied on Artemis and noted his Atlantis Complex developing. Therefore, Artemis’s Complex likely came into play in late July or early August 2007. This is close enough to Artemis’s magic theft to make sense for the deterioration of his mental health, and enough time for Butler to have started to notice something was wrong, as he did. We can therefore assume that Atlantis Complex, at least in the case of magic-stealing humans who have a propensity for time travel and getting involved in supremely complicated and improbable plots, develops relatively quickly.
This leaves just one major discussion point from the last few books: the age of Artemis’s twin brothers, Beckett and Myles. The twins are first introduced at the very end of TLC. They are written as being two during the events of TTP, three during the events of TAC, and four during the events of TLG. Regardless of the time-traveling shenanigans of their elder brother, it is impossible for the twins to age two years in the eight months between Artemis’s return from Hybras in June 2007 and the finale of the series in March of 2008, so we need to look at what makes sense.
Myles has already potty-trained himself, and done so at fourteen months, so they must be at least that old. Their other behaviours would make sense for them to be two in TTP. Diapers are still a part of their lives, and their language and vocabulary fit what a two-year-old would have, at least in Beckett’s case. Since Artemis was surprised by their existence, it doesn’t seem likely that  Angeline would have known she was pregnant, or at least not have told Artemis yet, when he went to Limbo. Ergo, they can’t be any older than two, since (one would hope) Artemis would have noticed his mother’s pregnancy if the twins were any older.
Additionally, in TLG, we know Artemis gave his brother a birthday present, so he had to have been around during the twin’s birthday at least once. With this fact, the twins cannot be born between March – June, which just leaves the question of when are the twins born?
 The most logical answer is February 2005. If Angeline was early on in her pregnancy, say six weeks (which is when most women start noticing symptoms), when Artemis disappeared in July 2004, she wouldn’t necessarily have told him yet. Then, if we assume that since most twin births occur around the 35-week mark, that would math out to having the twins be born in February of 2005. Fast forward, and they would turn one in February 2006, and two in February 2007, which puts them at the correct age for the events of TTP. [One could argue, of course, that a twin pregnancy in an older woman (unfortunately, there is nothing in the series to indicate Angeline’s age) and in a woman already dealing with significant stress could result in a very premature birth, thereby voiding any of this math and leaving the whole question of the twin’s birthday unanswered. However, since I’d rather not subject the Fowl parents to the strife and misery of having one son missing and presumed dead, and their younger children in the NICU with a low survival rate, I’m working with the assumption that the pregnancy was a healthy and normal one.]
The brief comment from Juliet in TAC about the twins being three can be passed off by them being a little over two-and-a-half and Juliet not being around as she is touring in Mexico. By the time TLG takes place, in March of 2008, the twins would have had their third birthday, allowing for Artemis to give Myles his chair as a birthday present, Beckett to be old enough to no longer need diapers, and the behaviours to act more like children than infants. While this doesn’t quite allow for the repeated textual confirmations in TLG that the twins are four, we’ll go with what mathematically makes sense.
That brings us to the end of the timeline! Not everything is touched on in the timeline, and not everything in the books is plotted (we are never given enough context to know Foaly’s or Opal’s birthdates, for instance). But the main events of the Artemis Fowl series are all analyzed, mathematically or logically or textually corroborated, and plotted out, for use or ignoring as personal preference dictates.
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wolfgabe · 7 months
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I think people are getting it wrong with King Magnifico.
Now with all the Wish discourse going round I have been surprised at just how many people are going out of their way to angelize King Magnifico and act like he is clearly in the right while ignoring the obvious flaws in his character and motivations.
Now first off people say its a good thing that not everyone gets their wish but that it misses the point of why King Magnifico is considered a villain in the first place. His entire schtick is essentially taking people's wishes which from what I gather essentially amounts to literally taking a part of their entire being and essentially locking them away and basically treating the act of getting one's wish like the freaking lottery all but ensuring it will likely never come true. On top of the fact, it causes said person to effectively forget all about the wish they made. As writer Allison Moore puts it "Magnifico seems to think wishes are just ideas. But they are a part of your heart—the very best part of your heart! Yet he's holding them inside these wish bubbles—hundreds of them—and most will remain there forever because that's how he controls the kingdom—by giving false hope".
You can see this in the trailer with his line "I decide what everyone deserves!" While you might say it's smart that not everyone gets their wish, you can clearly make out the underlying selfishness in this statement and how his rationale for controlling people's wishes isn't so much rooted in good intentions as it is really about maintaining power and control. This is essentially the crux of Magnifico's conflict with Asha as the trailer shows him understandably feeling threatened by this cosmic force in the form of Star and we can clearly see him going to increasingly desperate lengths to maintain his power hence why we see him putting a massive target on Asha and by extension Star's head.
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What we are essentially seeing as the film makers described in one interview is essentially a villain origin story in that we don't necessarily see him as a fully formed villain when we first meet him but rather, we are witnessing Magnifico's gradual descent into madness which we can see bits and hints of in the trailer itself with him clearly tapping into what is likely this ancient form of forbidden magic
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The point is King Magnifico might had good intentions in the past but it's clear he has likely allowed his power to go to his head which warped his judgement in the process which will inevitably lead to a lot of unnecessary grief and suffering for a lot of people in his efforts to destroy anyone or anything he considers a threat to him and that is what makes him a villain in the end.
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fennelrabbit · 6 months
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Now that people have had time to watch and think about the miniseries, can we agree that Fionna and Cake was really bad, or at least disappointing?
I'm very happy to hear some different opinions if anyone wants to try and change my mind, but now I've had some time to digest what I watched, I can still say my bad feelings on the episodes are exactly the same.
I haven't been able to mention Fionna and Cake's characterisation much, so I'll try and make a bulleted list (read more)
° Cake didn't grow or have to change at all during the miniseries. She was selfish and never had to face any consequences for her choices. Her relationship with Fionna is not wholesome and friendly like Jake is to Finn, but more parasitic. Fionna does things for Cake, and in return Cake doesn't abandon her. Cake still helps Fionna in fights and doesn't want her to get hurt, however Cake doesn't really appreciate Fionna and all that she does for her.
It's particularly bad that Cake isn't very bothered by the fact that the trade-in for a magical world is Simon's sanity, which is another moment of selfishness. This scene is never addressed later, which unintentionally implies that if someone isn't benefitting Cake, she doesn't want to care about them anymore.
° Fionna was also poorly handled. Although the show tries to say that it won't treat Fionna in a sexist way by swapping her skirt for shorts, a large part of Fionna's story still revolves around romance and her relationships with men (platonic or romantic). In fact, there's a pretty substantial lack of female characters (barring Fionna) that have any stage presence or do anything meaningful in the story. The episode with apocalypse PB and Marcy was a refreshing addition, with an interesting conflict between the two women, but it's a shame that they couldn't be included in the larger conflict, as characters can jump across the universe and the story would've really benefitted from their inclusion.
Fionna's character started pretty strongly, introducing her boredom and apathy towards her life (that being a capitalist nightmare of endless job hunting just to pay for rent), but didn't do enough to develop this plotline. It's true that having Fionna stay in Ooo wouldn't push her to grow as a person - Fionna needs to find a way to find happiness in the life that she's given.
However, much like Simon was sent back to his shitty life and basically ordered by the narrative to 'get over it' and 'stop being sad', nothing changes in Fionna's original world. Fionna is sent back to the same old world, with the same old problems, and nothing is really resolved. No solutions are presented to Fionna inside of FionnaWorld, even though her situation is very difficult and not something that can just be fixed with 'life's not so bad'. Fionna should've found a way to experience the thrill of adventure in her world, in a way that wouldn't endanger everyone around her.
° Bringing the farmworld characters to FionnaWorld in the end was a total cop-out, and should've resulted in damaging the multiverse. They did not need to be there.
° Fionna and Cake causing things to glitch around them (damaging the multiverse???) was never resolved or followed up on after Act 1. It's like the story forgot that plot point, which really lowered the stakes.
° Scarab was a weak villain. Though his first episode had a strong introduction, he was very undeveloped, and came across as more of a comedic pest than an actual threat. The final fight between Fionna and Scarab were laughably boring, and I never felt like the characters were in danger at all. One of the weakest finales the show's ever done.
° Rip to Betty, folks. You'd think we'd finally get some backstory on her character beyond being "Simon's gf/love interest", but no. We know she has a mum, I guess? And that she's impulsive. Betty has officially been fridged by the narrative THREE TIMES, and will now forever remain as Simon's dead/absent girlfriend. This is very sad, and not to mention, very anti feminist. We will never know who Betty is outside of Simon.
(She doesn't even get to have a real conversation with Simon as Golbetty. She has a couple of sentences, and then gets on the stupid bus. Betty literally has no voice in the story).
°The dialogue was very weak. I don't have much to say here really, the dialogue was just very basic and badly paced. Subtext doesn't exist in this story. At some point, one of Finn's children literally blurts out that their dead mum made their soup. Very subtle exposition, guys.
° I don't like how Fionna and Cake treated Simon at all. The entire time they were both self centered and very annoying, and their relationship with Simon wasn't developed that much. When Simon described Fionna and Cake as his "friends", it wasn't believable in the slightest. They have no chemistry or real connection as a group.
Well, that's all I could remember for now.
Anyway, feel happy to share your thoughts Adventure Time fans, I'd be happy to hear it!
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theresattrpgforthat · 15 days
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I’m probably gonna sound very disjointed. But I have an idea for a superhero campaign where all the P.Cs are kids cause all adults have disappeared.
I thought MASKS would be a good system for this but my friend informed me that in order for MASKS to work you kinda need mentor characters.
So in your opinion, what would be a good, easy to learn superhero based system to run this game.
THEME: Superheros, Kids - Only
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Henshin, by Cave of Monsters Games.
Henshin A Sentai RPG is a storytelling tabletop game about young heroes with transformative powers who battle both monsters and personal problems. It borrows from a Japanese superhero culture of color-coded masked teams, giant robots, and over-the-top special effects. Anyone can tell fun, collaborative stories in Henshin!, regardless of familiarity with the tropes, and the game showcases a diversity of settings and characters for every player.
This book includes instructions and actual play examples for everything needed to start playing Henshin! right away. Also included are the eleven Color playbooks, seven ready-to-play settings, original exclusive art, and references to digital downloads. Resources and information can be found at henshingame.com. Let’s Henshin!
Henshin is inspired by the Tokusatsu genre of superhero media, and reminds me intensely of Power Rangers. Your characters will wrestle with personal obstacles such as dealing with their temper, their failures, and the way they are seen by their peers. The system is inspired by No Dice, No Masters but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily GM-less, just that it doesn’t use dice. Henshin’s settings are also very flexible, so you should be able to write your own custom setting in which the kids have taken on super-powered relics in order to survive in a world without adults.
Masks: Retconned, by Sam Roberts.
You’re like most teenagers, with one small difference: You’re a superhero. Fight villains, be part of a team, save the day, and maybe, slowly figure out who you are.
Masks: Retconned is a game of teen superhero adventures, designed for 3+ players. Most of the players will take on the role of individual Heroes on a Team. Imagine these as the protagonists of your new comic book series. One player takes on the role of GM, embodying the superheroic setting, supporting characters, and villains.
If you like the basic premise of Masks but you don’t want to deal with the adult entanglements, you might want to take a look at Masks: Retconned. The game is very bare-bones, and only has the basic mechanics - your stats, your emotions, and the graded success scale and what it means for moves. The rest is meant to be designed as you need it. So if you don’t mind doing a little bit of game design before you sit down to play, you might want to check this out!
Powered by Cereal, by bismuth.
Become the Teen With Attitude you always wanted to be Inspired by tokusatsu hero teams and magical girl squads, PbC is a game about building a brightly-coloured Hero team and playing their adventures across a Series, fighting to save the world from evil!
PbC brings all players together to collaborate on crafting a Series, with its own aesthetics for heroes and villains, its own setting, and unique qualities for each hero. Play comprises the Episodes of the Series: both the Heroes' lives, and fights against Boss characters. It uses a relatively straightforward d6 system and encourages the Hero players to think about how their individual actions work towards a team strategy, bolstering allies and keeping momentum!
Characters in PbC are embodiments of different virtues, and these virtues will define your personal strengths, as represented in the Verbs and Adjectives assigned to your character. Relationships are also important in this game, and this is represented by connections that each player will have with side characters, whether that be positive or negative. Overall the game is still very lighthearted, as it’s inspired by Saturday morning cartoons.
When you try to do something in PbC, you roll a number of d6’s, and check to see how many results were unique. The more unique results you have, the more successes! This means that there’s a cap on how successful your character ca be, but I think the fact that any roll is going to have at least one success really communicates the tone of this game. This another game where the setting is build-your-own, and I don’t see any mechanics that require adults to be part of the setting.
Teens With Powers, by Unknown Dungeon.
Teens with Powers is a one-page roleplaying game about extraordinary young people, inspired by TV shows like Teen Titans and Avatar the Last Airbender, and shonen manga.  As a group, the players and GM come up with the setting, themes, and age-range of the characters. Then each player creates a character with a singular power that they can use to help solve problems and fight evil, while also traversing the trials of being young adults.
Teens with Powers uses a dice-pool system to resolve risky actions, and a back-and-forth combat system to allow of maximum expression and excitement. Also included is a back-page with GM advice and rules.
Teens with Power is a stripped-down Forged in the Dark game. There isn’t much of a setting involved in the first place, so you should be able to build your own setting to fit your preferences. The downside is that there isn’t much guidance or inspiration for powers, so it might be worth it to check out something like Supertables to help you come up with your powers.
This ruleset has a mechanic called Limit, which tracks how close your character is coming to breaking down - push too far, and you lose control of your powers, likely causing damage and hurting something or someone you care about. This might be also good for a high-tension game where the disappearance of adults is the cause of a lot of stress and fear for your characters.
Super City, by David Garrett.
One in every one hundred children in Super City is born with super powers. You are one of those children. Together with your classmates at Super City Elementary, you save helpless citizens, rescue lost pets, and eat delicious ice cream.
Utilizing the ultralight VRBS system, Super City is easy enough for a six year-old to master, but also provides the structure for anyone to generate a superhero story of their own.
Super City was designed to be able to run for small kids, so the rule-set is definitely very light. Your powers will be represented as verbs, and you’ll gain better control over your powers as you progress. The game is organized over a series of scenes, which will present you with a number of problems that you’ll have to solve. You also have a collective pool of Energy, which is meant to track how close your characters are to running out of steam. The goal is to get through the mission without running out of Energy, which depletes when you fail a roll.
This is a game without a setting or history, which means you can backfill whatever lore makes sense for your characters.
Cosmic Ray Kids, by Hedgemaze Press.
Cosmic Ray Kids is a single-page (front and back) atomic-age adventure roleplaying game for all ages. Play as superpowered youngsters who fight the forces of evil with heroics and heart!
Cosmic Ray Kids uses a push-your-luck style of gameplay, that looks very much like the PUSH system by Cezar Capacle. Rolling a 6 is the best possible result. If you roll a 4 or lower, you can choose to roll again - but roll higher than a 7 and you’ve gone too far!
This game also has a Boost resource that is communal, and can be spent to improve a roll up to a certain point. This gives the players an option in case there is something that they can’t risk a re-roll for but still need a success, and also encourages the group to work together to figure out how to solve problems. If you want a game that has a retro-cartoon feel that encourages the characters to work together, Cosmic Ray Kids might be worth checking out!
A Special Extra:
It’s not a superhero game, but Children of the Fall is a GM-less game that takes place in an apocalypse that has turned adults into bloodthirsty monsters. It’s very gritty and dark, but an interesting premise.
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sinbinfamiliar · 6 months
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So… hear me out.
I’m horrible at timelines so bear with me on this, I know as much as I know, and I couldn’t find anything that was super solidly concrete for timeline placement of events per say, so I’m making a bit of wiggle room for myself here.
But when Enver dies by the hands of Tav and you use speak to dead on him, you see that basically his soul has been yoinked by Bane, and is going to internally be tortured for failing.
And while I know that Enver is considered a chosen, much like Orin and Ketheric were, both of them had transformations. Both of them had another form to take on thanks to their deities/gods they were chosen by. Enver never truly does, he stays as himself.
And while I know that it’s outdated information, but since Bane was known in the past to grab someone as a vessel, a avatar, and puppet then around while the original resident of the body couldn’t only watch, what if this is either fully or partially the case?
What amazing context that could add to the events of the story for Enver, and added angst and sadness as well. What if not all the actions of his were his own by choice? Perhaps selling Karlach off wasn’t 100% his choice at the time if he was chosen by then, and being push to do what Bane wanted, maybe even controlled in a sense. How painful would that be to know he was there, watching when he did things that even he wouldn’t do?
Imagine the utter anguish it would cause, and the tragedy it makes. The moments he does have control of himself he is still trying to maintain a semblance of control over his life as always, in the same situation he was in the past. Wanting power sure, but at these costs? Even he may not have stooped so low. What if Karlach was right? That she didn’t know what happened and he just up and sold her, and it was actually out of character for him. Because it wasn’t him. What if most of what we see in the game isn’t fully him? Or him at all? How utterly intriguing would it be then to bring him back somehow, to see how much of a different person he could be when not controlled, and able to try again to make better choices.
To have the option your companions did.
How utterly fascinating would it be to relearn a character again that you thought you knew, but didn’t perhaps know as well as you thought? To know not all of those horrible i choices weren’t all his.
I dunno, maybe I’m woobifying a villain again, but the idea that maybe not every action and choice was all Enver’s seems so much more in depth to delve into then someone as easy as “evil cause evil” in a basic sense. Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course. But I’m a sad sap who likes tragedy in heaping layers of pain lol
The redemption arc that could come from somehow saving Enver’s soul, using true resurrection, and giving the actual true second chance he needed, just hits different ya know? Living with all the memories of the things he didn’t have control over perhaps as he was second passenger in his body, and now needing to live with them and face those consequences and perhaps get better(much like your companions, who aren’t perfect either even during happy ending style routes)
Bah! Just food for thought though!
Perhaps my own personal theory/headcanon I may work with though. Cause I just truly love the tragedy of it all. BUT I’m just rambling at this point!
Also here ya go! @houseofhopeofficial ^w^ tagged ya like you wanted!
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Hey, thanks so much again for being an invaluable resource!!
So I’m rewriting my fic from scratch again (OTL) and the plot is going to be rather complex. After some major on-foot travel (with appropriate timeskips), three different types of climax will happen around the same time, all caused by two well-meaning villains and their ‘gangs’ as it were. The 3 main OCs will have 2 canon side characters be a lot of help, each group hopefully with about 50/50 importance.
With this, what are certain factors in general writing I can be more lax about versus those I should tackle more carefully?
(Hopefully I asked this well haha, hopefully not too specific.)
Fan-Fiction: Things to Keep in Mind While Rewriting
1 - What Type of Story You're Writing - Just as with original fiction, there are all different types of fan-fiction stories. As with original fiction, fan-fiction can be character-driven (centered around internal conflict), plot-driven (centered around external conflict), or a combination of both. The story you're describing is likely a combination of character-driven and plot-driven, so you may want to keep Basic Story Structure in mind while re-writing.
2 - Canon Format - While you certainly don't have to follow canon format when structuring your story, it may be worth considering. If the canon source is a TV show, you may want to structure your story like an episode, season arc, or mini-arc within a season. If the canon source is a movie, you may want to structure your story like a movie. And, if the canon source is a book, you may want to structure your story like a novel.
3 - Avoid Over Complication - You have a lot going on in your story... three main characters, two villains with their own gangs, and three separate climaxes. It's not that this can't work, it's just that it's going to take some effort (and maybe a little trial and error) to make it work well. Most stories have only one climax, though sometimes the "dark night of the soul" plot point is thought of as a pre-climax or false climax. But three different climaxes happening at the same time is a lot. The one way this might work is if they're all related/stemming from the same event. Otherwise, you're dividing the reader's attention so much that none of the climaxes can have much impact. You may want to consider combining two of the climaxes into the main climax and use the other one as the pre-climax/dark night of the soul beforehand.
4 - Consider Reader Expectation - If you're going to post this story and care about people reading it, you may want to think about what readers will expect from this story based on things like canon, popular fan-fiction, and stories you've written in the past. While you definitely want to surprise and wow the reader, it's also a good idea to do so while not straying too far from their expectations.
5 - Just Do Your Best - When you ask what factors in general writing you can be more lax about versus those I should tackle more carefully, my best answer is if you want this story to be good, you should tackle all aspects of writing carefully. Things like story structure, plot, character development, description, pacing, balance of dialogue/action/exposition, world building, etc. aren't things you pick and choose. They're all critical pieces of a well-told story. However, it's also important not to overthink any of it, because when you let yourself get too bogged down in worrying about plot, story structure, world building, etc., all it does is hinder your ability to write, which isn't helpful either. So, all can do is be aware of all these things and how they work, then do your best to deliver on them based on your current ability as a writer, the needs of the story, and the expectations of the reader. :)
Have fun with your story!
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felassan · 2 months
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An interview video with Mark Darrah called "An Interview With Mark Darrah - Creativity, BioWare, and the Industry!": [source and watch link]
Video description: "I was fortunate enough to speak with Mark Darrah, former BioWare vetran, about his time at BioWare, his success, his challenges, and the role of video games in the art world. Thank you again for this chance, Mark!"
Some notes from it under the cut:
There was a question around the topic of games today taking a longer time to come out, getting restarted/rebooted along the way, ideas being scrapped, constant iteration etc. It was asked whether this is unique to BioWare or is it a common issue in the industry more generally. Mark: “So, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf had some particular things involved, some of which are externalities coming from EA, but yeah, video game development, the complexity has been going up exponentially. Games these days, and not just BioWare – five years is probably a good average for games coming out now. That was not the case even five, six years ago. Things have gotten incredibly expensive and much slower.
DA:O was originally conceived as being a spiritual successor to BG. It was a lot of different parts being developed unfortunately independently of each other, and then basically being glued together into something. For example, the darkspawn in DA:O as a faction don’t have very good or sensical visual coherency (they don’t really make sense as a group of things caused by the same thing). Since then there has been a lot more care taken towards the DA IP and making sure it at least has rules that it doesn’t violate, or ones it violates on purpose as opposed to accidentally. The IP has some strong core ideas about characters first (though it wasn’t always saying this out loud), people, power comes at a cost, everyone thinks they are the hero of their own story, etc. Those sorts of things inform most of its development more than anything. You should in most cases be able to look at the villain of the game and go, oh yeah, I get what they’re going for. (In DA:O this is Loghain). “Like, ‘yeah, I get it, I might even agree with you, but I’m not going to let you destroy the world because of what you believe."
EA, like most public companies, is reluctant to spend money to various degrees because the more they spend, the worse it makes their profitability look. One of the reasons why BioWare ended up being bought in the first place was because they had basically run out of money. They ran out of money in the pursuit of quality ahead of everything. But the problem with this strategy is that, if quality is ahead of everything then you’re probably going out of business. On the flipside, in a big public company you often have the opposite problem arising, where it’s profitability ahead of everything. This results in constraints and more constraints on people, and also in more pressure to do more profitable features that might not be quality features. Microtransactions and other monetization models that have arisen in games more recently are sometimes attempted to be rationalized as ‘for the player’, but they’re really money-making features. If you’re putting quality first you’re probably not putting those kinds of features in. If you’re putting money first, then you probably are.
Horses exist in DA:I because at the time it was being made in, a fantasy RPG needed to have horses in it (a ‘table stakes feature’; a feature that needs to be in the game just for it even to have a seat at the table, otherwise people aren’t going to take it seriously). Open world in DA:I was similar. Unfortunately, with open world it needs to be an A or B feature in terms of quality, not a C feature, in order to be good enough for the player. With horses, you do them (at that time) because you have to. With open world, it takes over your entire game unfortunately and modifies the structure of the game as a whole.
Collaboration at BioWare got better over time as the culture matured but also as the structure and systems matured. BG1 had a team of around 65 people, a size which is pretty easy to collaborate at. On DAI the team was well above 400 people when outsourcers are included in the figure. That team size is much bigger, to the point that it wasn't possible to interact with everyone on the team. In the early days of BioWare, disciplines like design and art were considered to be very separate things that didn’t need to interact with each other very much. By the time Mark was leading at BioWare, this had really changed - teams like design and art were working together much more collaboratively, in order to build a better experience. You see this in the games, the more recent ones now have levels that make more sense for the gameplay (now not designed by one discipline in isolation from the other).
By the time BioWare was bought by EA, EA wasn’t buying ‘not-franchises’. DA:O was envisioned as a standalone game. This is why it has lots of weird bits of lore in it still that are kind of timebombs. They largely moved beyond and patched over these, but there are still lots of weird things in it that aren’t fully taken into account. DA:O should never have been a standalone game, it should have always been envisioned as a franchise of some sort as opposed to being retroactively envisioned as one. “So that was a mistake from the beginning.”
On Frostbite as the engine for DA:I: at the time, the political climate [in EA/BioWare] was such that the options were to keep trying to make the game with Eclipse, which was not practical, or Frostbite. There just wasn’t an appetite for anything other than that. DA:I, out of DA:I, ME:A and Anthem, is actually the game that approached Frostbite correctly. It was then followed by the other two games which didn’t do that. “Frostbite is scapegoated and blamed for a lot of BioWare’s woes. On ME:A and Anthem there’s some truth to that, but a DA:I built on Unreal isn’t a radically different or better game.”
ME1 made the engine mistake of trying to force Unreal to be an Eclipse. This essentially meant that the engine was constantly fighting back against the devs.
If Mark had a time machine, he would make some changes to the Hinterlands in DA:I and shave some of the worst edges off of DAII, like moving that one spot in the repeating caves, having Varric lampshade the repeating caves in dialogue, and making it so that you don’t have to fight Orsino. “Anthem’s launch would require more than a time machine.”
ME:A is at least partially a victim of circumstance. It came out with a few particular bugs in it that it didn’t need to. These bugs had been fixed, they just didn’t make it into the release build. The game then landed on top of Zelda and Horizon Zero Dawn, in a climate that was really paying attention and was very critical.
There was a decision during ME:A development to change its tone to a lighter, younger tone than the tone of the MET. The PC of the MET is a Generation X PC, like someone from action movies in the 80s. The PC of ME:A is more like a PC from action movies in the 2000s. This change in tone was controversial. A lot of the pushback ME:A received was more about this tone change. Mark said that he was against it at the time but that he thinks that ME:A probably made the right decision.
“I’m not convinced that BioWare should have been making Anthem. It was conceived by Casey Hudson as something very different than what launched, some sort’ve multiplayer, storytelling. I don’t believe that those problems were actually truly solved. He left in 2014. Whatever he was imagining wasn’t communicated to the team clearly enough for them to execute on his vision. Anthem was basically Destiny, but it was envisioned before Destiny existed. After 2014 they weren’t really acknowledging that they were making Destiny.”
[source and watch link]
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octavianstar · 1 year
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MC Concepts?
ok, so even before the Au I had in mind, I had a couple of ideas upon what would MC would be like or based upon the character and even had some weird plot idea a few years back.
So let's begin upon the first idea concept, the first idea upon how I would imagine Mc in the AU (or even in the main thing) would be of a familiar someone that would kinda makes sense in context, a Disney character rather so underrated that he's rarely seen in Disney.
That is being, this guy...
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Basically from what I know at least I haven't seen anyone making a MC or a Oc version of him since there were rather easy clues in Twisted Wonderland that had some deja vu in Epic Mickey (blots, Mickey from the other side of the mirror, rarely has much interractions, and some more evidence that I'll add later) and I would want to have Oswald to have some light and popularity again, even if it's just a minor thing since I had found out he was cancelled out of the content for a kingdom hearts game.
And I would also think it would particularly work since of this rather particularly scenes in Epic Mickey comparison to Twisted Wonderland.
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Notice how in Twisted Wonderland, Mickey looks like from the old cartoon of his and not his iconic one.
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The image you seen in Twisted Wonderland is not only a reference to a Mickey Short "Thru the Mirror", but also the beginning scene to the Epic Mickey game. And with some evidence I had mentioned, it would mainly make sense there would be referencing to the actual game, but few things particularly had me questioned. What about Oswald? What ever happened to him?
So upon theory that MC can secretly Is a Twst Oswald (even if it's not canon sadly, at least in a headcannon) who needed to fix something that Mickey could not (or is trying to do but failing). Of Why Crowley would particularly needed MC to begin with despite with the possible pretending he's making of him trying to send them home and meeting them for the first time, believing it was another student. Or Rather in Chapter Seven..
Before we continue, I suggest that you may want to move past down or don't read this part cause it has some contain spoilers of part 2. Just know, SPOILERS AHEAD!
. . .
Are we good..? ..good!
Anyways, or like in Chapter Seven of where Malleus had said "You will all become the protagonist of this fairytale" after he overblotted and cast everyone, even Yuu/MC to sleep/kidnap them in thorns? Likely how Maleficint comes to Philip's prison cell to taunt him of how he's the valiant hero of a fairytale come true. And I would think upon the theory MC's dreams would be either similar to Oswald's or what would had it been like if Oswald was still with Disney/Mickey never exist, of what shorts and movies that Mickey made would become Oswald's instead.
And perhaps then, maybe, Mickey might have been the one to take Oswald's place. Of where everyone knows and loves Oswald and Mickey became a forgotten toon just like many others.
To have the dream that Oswald never had achieved because of what happened between Universal and Disney years ago that he cannot easily control. That he was once happy before he was then ripped away from Disney's arms. Just like in this video.
youtube
(Thinking about it, it's almost a similar backstory to Lotso's from Toy Story 3 but didn't turn evil)
Actually speaking of which, from what I also remember Oswald was supposed to be in the antagonist in the original Epic Mickey game thanks to some concept art of it. Which they had a plan but decided to scrap most of the main idea of him being the villain but would still act a bit mean and jealous over Mickey since he was replaced by him and both Mickey and Oswald technically didn't know each other at the beginning until both warmed up for each other. Despite his flaws, he's still a good person that is helping around the forgotten toons to have a place they feel belonged and is rather devastated after loosing Ortensia to The Blot after sending it away.
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Which there is a potential chance that this would be a Overblot version of MC/Yuu if pushed comes to shove.
But thinking throughout upon Twisted Wonderland, Yuu/MC becomes cleared and clever throughout the other chapters of how to attempt to stop the "villian" and save the day though luck and planning. Not to mention in part 1 of chapter seven, Yuu/MC immediately recognized who Maleficint was and headed to the plaza where her statue was where Yuu/MC would be both conflicted upon their dream but also finding clues how to try and prevent another overblot. of course Yuu/MC would have some antagonistics upon them of where they had been stressed and almost died mutiple times (or more likely wanting to kill their/her/his friends after many stupid shenanigans they dragged them in or Crowley gaslights them so he wouldn't be the one in trouble. This is why we prefer Mr. Crewel as a father figure, Crowley.)
Ok..hopefully with Concept idea #1 out of the way, here's Concept idea #2.
So for the other concept of mine is Mc/Yuu being another Disney Character but this time in a obviously well known movie you all probably would know or already watched Encanto. That MC/Yuu being a Twst Mirabel.
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Hopefully this will be a lot shorter but I'll try my best to clear some things out. To not be confused, the concept idea is Yuu/MC being twst Mirabel, not Yuu/MC being a part of the Madrigals or Mirabel in Twisted Wonderland thought I like the concept upon those ideas since they were creative.
So upon context that I would believe that Mirabel wanted to belong in the Family Madrigal despite her having no gift and how some of her family members (Mainly Alma and Isabela) sees her as a sort of outcast of the family like her uncle, Bruno, who's painted as the villain but is actually a nice guy. When she suddenly sees the cracks from the house, she's trying to find answers of what is happening and how to save the Miracle. Going onto a adventure and talking to the other family members in hope of any information, luckily thanks to Luisa, she finds out that there was a vision that Bruno left behind that of her having two possible outcomes, either her destroying or saving Casita. That the reason why Bruno left because he wanted to protect her from making Mirabel having more of a worse outcome than it already is with her. Soon Mirabel and Bruno found a way to help the candle by hugging her sister, Isabela which at first doesn't want to and thinks it's pointless to try but needed to given a chance. Also promising that she will help Bruno come back home. Of course Isabela and Mirabel talk it out, shared a moment, hugged and shown how Isabela was forced to become perfect in the daily based until she realized she didn't needed to be perfect, she needed to be herself.
Every seemed fine until Alma came and blames on Mirabel for Bruno leaving, Isabela out of control, the cracks from the house, Luisa losing magic, having no gift when she was litterally five years old person and basically saying that Mirabel is the one who is hurting this family, concidering that she wasn't apart of this family to begin with. Mirabel rightfully lashes out of how neither of the family wouldn't be good enough to Alma's standards and how Alma is the reason why the magic was dying to begin with because of her fear and standards pushed to far upon the family that without their gifts, they are nothing because she expected perfection of everyone and leaving Mirabel out of it as if she's never considered as family. Soon the Cracks got worse, house got destroyed and Mirabel runs off where the others are looking for her. And Alma confronts Mirabel who's apologizing but Alma sits by her, admitting her faults and her actual story, knowing now that it is her fault and Mirabel becomes to understand and forgives her, they hug out and returned home with Bruno to fix the house and having the family repairing, the magic returns with everyone in the family included. (Minor Critique that I would think Mirabel wouldn't completely forgive Alma, but would need a bit of time to forgive her but still does understand like in the deleted scene without the mom dying but I would think in time she and Bruno would eventually forgive Alma. But i think the reason they forgive her immediately or didn't question about it because it's Disney and wanted everyone to have a happy ending and it was almost over.)
While Yuu/MC is isekaied into another world filled with magic, who is magicless and must solve and stop the incidents and overblots that are happening to NRC. Having to involve/dragged themself/herself/himself into this scenarios of life and death from the overblots, some bullying that had been into or had gotten into with either the dormleaders or dorm students, Crowley gaslighting, neglect and blackmail, and which would eventually lead them into PTSD after the shit they had been through and eventually needed a therapist of their own, but does and can relate through the people that Yuu/MC are close to and to learn upon their mistakes to make up what they have done while trying to find a way back home.
of course some of it's similarities between Yuu/MC and Mirabel that both are magicless, needing some therapy and is helping people getting through their problems and their mistakes to become a better person. And I would especially think we would need to get Yuu/MC's Backstory since the Manga's MCs/Yuus are different each time (most likely) and I would think Yuu/MC having a very similar scenerio with Mirabel would probably be a compelling way of a backstory since both with Mirabel and Oswald are overlooked and wanted to be belonged, showing them that they got what it takes to be a somebody to them.
Though of course both of them are vastly different but I would think either of them might work for at least my version (Either Aus or headcannon) of Yuu/MC, regardless of what gender or race they are.
And now, hopefully for the most rather weird plot/backstory idea of what I would think could be interesting but not exactly sure due to how unsure how it's going to work since it would work for another Au where Twisted Wonderland is in a more Fantasy Era.
So to Kinda keep it short as possible, Yuu/MC is cursed by a unfamiliar source that endangers both their/her/his home and Twisted Wonderland where they are "the outcast" upon their family and noticed something was going on due to a black marking on their hand, like a cut that's dripping down a drop of black ink mixed with blood, having the cracks seen as a sign of danger. They talked to their/her/his family to see what's going on, realizing some of them knew about something that they won't tell Yuu/MC.
Eventually some disaster insurance after finding a mysterious spell book, glowing green-glass shards and paintbrush and eventually Yuu/MC in a angered state decided if their/her/his family won't tell them/her/him about the mysterious curse, they'll have to find out themself.
As they were just about to leave their home, they spotted something from the distance that calls to them to follow. They do, leading upto where they see the very thing falling into a rabbit hole that looks like a very deep well. They fell into the well's water before a few spects of magic began surrounding them as they became a shooting star before suddenly falling down to Twisted Wonderland, or at least the gateway towards it.
They are tested to pass through the gate and succeeded, Confronting either some of the RSA or NRC students in the Fantasy AU where they believe Yuu/ MC is the powerful magician that was gifted upon one of the most powerful artifacts that along with it's guardian was lost centuries ago along with the one whom had possessed the very two rare artifacts.
The mysterious spellbook is not only a book full of almost every spell but actually a storybook of all Disney Characters posing a sort of prophecies coming to life into an alternate retelling that can change fate, ending, and how they became to be, that being called The Book of Legacies, and with the Paintbrush of Imaginations, it can create living beings, pathways to worlds, even items that seemed to be lost.
The second being a candle that granted a miracle that can provide or in case help the adventurer upon what they would need to set things right and save the day. And to prove whom is worthy and whom is not, or more likely who can be redeemed and who cannot.
There will be more Lore with the Book and the Candle upon the Pomfiore Arc, which it would possibility merged with the Glorious Mascarade event.
However when the students and Yuu/MC opens the Book to Ambrose the Wizard, (Since he's possibly Merlin from the Sword and the Stone). Where they shown of a story of how their/his/her ancestor who was a student of the eldest sorceror (Yen-Sid) who lives upon the farthest star, the second star to the right, whom locks away a powerful god that was cursed away, never dared to be freed for he's the eternal ruler of evil that brings death and destruction to all, (That being Chernobog from Fantasia)
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However Yuu/MC told them that they're/She's/He's not their ancestor and ended up there by accident because they follow something glowing from the distance and showed the marking that they had on their hand. Of course most of them were surprised, afraid and shocked of the very marking.
For it was a marking of a dark prophecy, a curse that would come to Twisted Wonderland and release Chernobog with the Seven Crystals of Darkness alongside "the Great Seven" returning back from the dead and would receive their "gracious gift" to whomever is the one who's with/brings the Cursed Chosen to it's destination and release him from his eternal cage upon the highest mountain. And in order for them find out how to break the cursed is to find their family member that too was in Twisted Wonderland years ago but had been captured into a far kingdom where no one could have or dare to find them because they were the only one who knows how to break it.
And it is up to Yuu/MC to find clues of where their/his/her family member is and rescue them and hopefully save everyone.
As for the Non-Disney School Au, I would think Yuu is particularly a mix of being Non/Disney that is stuck in a world of magic. They would be tricked into staying their for a while because they thought the headmistress would understand and be the one to promise their way back home. Or at least that's the jift of things.
But like I said these are just some concepts of my version of MC/Yuu and probably can eventually figure out the full version of it. But I did not expected to be this long than I wanted to be. So I'm very sorry if it's already too confusing as much but hopefully, hopefully we might have a more clear viewing upon the Au. Of course I'm still looking up a few Non Disney movies to intell and I know I'll add DreamWorks in it, but if you want to tell me any other non disney villians that I can see added in (besides DreamWorks since it's more likely going to be added in). Let me know, but remember it has to be a animated film that isn't Disney so sadly no live-action ones. Until then, hope you guys have a very lucky day! (And hopefully some images/videos pop up normally and not randomly missing, but if somethings up in this post, let me know.)
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