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teratocrat · 9 months

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A single yellow dwarf, unremarkable, of about 1.0218 solar masses. And in its corona, dancing aurora-dragons, ribbons and feathers of nine-colored light, singing and reciting poetry to each other and hitching freezing rides on the asteroids and comets that swing close enough to the star to leap out onto.

One small, dense planet, frosted over with incandescent stormclouds that snow lead flakes onto the slopes of volcanoes whose calderas are choked with galena coral reefs, the bones of colonies of radiation-tolerant extremophilic microorganisms, and where sulfur-swamps coat the lazy tideless beaches of the planet's only ocean, stirred and tilled by people like lanky bundles of black ironstraw, who heap their storehouses high with xanthous dried fusegrass.

One larger, much cooler planet, the calcite gleam of its moon hidden from the surface much of the time by cloudcover. warm, shallow, mildly acidic seas of lavender mucous, tentative marshes of weeping fuschia ferns, translucent lapine blobs with probing antennae that could be eyes or ears or questing tongues, and in the middle of the deepest ocean, a massive gelatinous thing, a superorganism like a rose with its stem plunging down into the volcanic baths of an oceanic rift, a mind from whom all other minds on this planet came and to which they occasionally return, eager to share their stories.

One rocky planet, bitterly cold and with the merest wisps of atmosphere clinging to it. Lifeless, all its water burned off it by baleful solar glare, the vast horizon-spanning saltpan seafloors bone-bare under the violet sky, and its moon hanging above like a clenched fist of black basalt.

An asteroid belt, scattered diamond motes of ice and stone and clay and metals, with three dwarf planets in its embrace, and the largest of them bearing a banner of silver and midnight, a unicorn guarding some alien tree.

A planet one might almost mistake for Earth, for all its snake-necked tortoise-camels and gold-feathered tigermen, for all its gleaming pentagonal ziggurats of diamond and steel, its three space elevators anchored in the emerald forests that girdle the equator, the capital of an interplanetary empire founded at the mouth of an immense river lazily piling hundreds of tons of silt a year into delta marshes, its vast ports berthing wide, flat-bottomed barges hauling iron and salt and sand and cinnabar, barrels of fish and wine and oil and perfumes, tigerman janissaries and scholars and poets and wizards, all tallied and accounted for in the lightning thoughts of supercomputers domesticated by bureaucracy. spaceplanes like silver songbirds or leaping fish ferrying the nobility (who disdain regular shuttle flights from the tips of the space elevators as base transportation for commoners) from the surface of the planet to its moon above, or to any number of gleaming stations in high orbit.

A gas giant, pale as pearl streaked with delicate pink and green pastels, skirted by dozens of captured child-moons, many of them bearing the same unicorn banner, some of them mined for this or that rare earth element, cities buried under the shielding crust of a scant handful, and two of them habitiformed enough to support imperial hunting grounds - managed grasslands or forests full of imported game - and hunting lodges of squat domes and towering spires, mirrored labyrinthine greenhouse-gardens and treasure-vaults of platinum jewelry set with nebula-gems snatched from their condensation-nests in the gas giant's depths.

Another gas giant, the blues and purples of a ripe plum blushing from clouds of midnight-black marbled with gold, icy rings slicing through swirling lunar orbits, merchants and mercenaries and privateers gliding from port to port in their sapphire-hulled ships, out where the empire scrabbles to find purchase. hollowed-out asteroids house cylindrical farms or monasteries of fatalistic leonine faiths or the huddled bodies of wound-down murine clockwork eunuchs, commissioned to advise and amuse some tiger-empress whose phoenix standard had long since faded into obscurity by the time the founder of the unicorn-banner dynasty first rallied soldiers to his cause.

An Earth-sized ball of grey-green ice, glassy smooth surfaces broken up by cryovolcanoes pumping volatiles up from a sooty core to rain down again in miserable pattering drizzles of methane through ammonia blizzards.

An ice giant, the immense azure sphere its inward neighbor might have been were it not for the vagaries of fate as involved in early star system formation, accompanied by seventeen bitterly cold moons whose tides have woven something enormous and ponderous of thought out of the inner sea of supercritical fluids.

a dozen or more dwarf planets of packed stone and ice, swinging through the outer black clouds on vastly elliptical orbits, witnesses to tumbling nickel-iron visitors and alien probes relaying streams of blurry photography and other observations back to some unknown homeworld as they fall endlessly through interstellar space.

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whencyclopedia · 2 years

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Ziggurat

A ziggurat is a form of monumental architecture originating in ancient Mesopotamia which usually had a rectangular base and was built in a series of steps up to a flat platform upon which a temple was raised. The ziggurat was an artificial mountain raised for the worship of the gods to elevate the priests toward heaven.

The people of the Ubaid Period (c. 5000-4100 BCE) are thought to have come down from the mountains to the plains of Mesopotamia and influenced the Sumerians (or were Sumerians), the first to build ziggurats as religious sites mirroring sacred high places. This is speculative, of course, but suggested by Sumerian names of some ziggurats which reference mountains. The structure was known as unir in Sumerian and as ziggurratum (or ziggurartu) in Akkadian, both meaning "peak," "pinnacle," or "high place," and served as a platform on which priests would perform rituals in view of the people far below.

#Ziggurat #Uruk #Ur

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mrcompass · 2 months

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Doji vs Ziggurat: Beyblade Characters Comparison

"I see now. You're the same as that piece of trash, Doji." "Oh no, don't put me together with that Doji [...]"

Ryuga and Dr. Ziggurat in "The Plot Thickens."

Hello, MFB fandom. I wanted to talk about the most terrible adults in the Beyblade Metal Saga ever produced: Doji (Daidoji in the Japanese dub) and Ziggurat. The quotes I just cited are characteristic of how, in the show, characters like Ryuga and Ginga tend to see them as the same (people in real life tend to do that as well). However, despite some common points, they are much more different than they seem.

Same Way, Different Goals

The reason why they're often said to be the same is because of one major thing: the way they achieve their goals. To do that, they abuse the power of Beyblade and also children. Doji gives the Dark Nebula (DN) Bladers as a sacrifice to L-Drago despite their loyalty, as pointed out by Ryutarou. Ziggurat uses the students of HD Academy as test subjects, not only the members of team StarBreaker (SB). Of course, the amount of trauma and abuse they inflict is more complex than that, but it can give you an idea that they don't seem to care about the innocence and vulnerability of children. Ziggurat, in particular, seems to despise children for the former.

One thing that can be said is that they have very different end goals and visions. Doji wants to dominate the Beyblade world and the world in general through Ryuga. This fits particularly well with his character since he always used someone with more power than him to get what he wants: he is like a wolf that can survive without its pack. Doji's idea is not really original; with Ryuga's first appearance in episode 13 and his following fight with Ginga, we directly understood what he wants to do: use the dark and evil artifact to steal everyone's power and use this to rule the world. Ziggurat's worldview is more subtle; he says he wants to use Beyblade in order to take control of pre-existing institutions like governments. He is a CEO after all, who just wants to further increase his wealth and control over society. The spiral force he created (assuming everything went according to plan) could have changed the world forever, a world he could have controlled. Of course, those plans weren't safe at all. Doji had no way of containing Ryuga, and we all know what happened in the end. Faust was obedient as long as he was ordered to make Tempo spin. But imagine if they needed him to stop making the energy for maintenance (because buildings and nuclear reactors need that sometimes)...

The Scales and the Compass

To highlight better their capacity, we can see a little interaction they have. For Ziggurat, he has the most interaction with Zeo, who will defeat him in the end. For Doji, it would be Ryuga, but he was way too formal with him; in a way, he was closer to Yu Tendo. What is more interesting is that Yu and Zeo have parallels between them or rather they mirror each other. Yu is a prodigy, Zeo is not. Yu joined DN for fun and to be with his new friend Ryuga, Zeo joined HD Academy out of desperation for his oldest friend Toby. Yu seemingly had a nice relationship with Doji and in Masters, grew closer to Masamune. Zeo has a terrible working relationship with Ziggurat, and his friendship with Masamune was torpedoed during the SB arc. Kid Zeo looks similar to Yu, and Flame Libra and Byxis both represent objects. You could argue I'm off-topic, but Yu and Zeo are the best characters to understand the psychology of Doji and Ziggurat.

Doji gave various things to Yu, and he rarely gives something to people except false promises and punishment. Yu got an enviable position in DN, along with a room full of toys, the right to recruit and command other DN Bladers, and spend time with Doji. They even share an evil laugh together. And it appears Doji's behavior was beginning to influence Yu. Kenta even thought that they were friends. In reality, they were not. Doji is just a wolf in sheep's clothing. With every character, he acts nice and polite (it's especially true in the Japanese dub) but it is just a facade he made in order to deceive people. At the moment Yu stepped out of line, he changed his attitude. Look at his face right after Ginga and Yu's shake hands.

He threw the poor kid right into Reiji's fang, even though Yu opened his heart to him by telling him how he felt about Beyblade. He understood that his corruption of Yu was eventually going to wear off. He did not even "offer Yu" to Ryuga; no, he was just being petty.. For him, it was as if Ginga had stolen one of his best toys, and so Yu had to be disposed of in the cruelest way possible. To me, their relationship was the most sinister in the whole show because it reflects something real: people pretending to be what they aren't to trap teens/children.

Ziggurat took advantage of Zeo. The way he appeared on a rainy day close to a road is for me reminiscent of the Devil. In fact, he could be inspired by the biblical devil. His Bey represents Capricorn, a goat who was commonly associated with the devil. He leads Hades Inc., has a child named Damian at his service (like the antichrist of The Omen movie), and most importantly of all, he makes contracts and deals. He made a deal with Zeo: "Do my experiment and I will cure your friends." In a way, he did; he cured Toby. Zeo even got stronger, participated in the World Championship, and got a new shiny Bey. But like a contract with the devil, it's all fake: Toby became someone else, Zeo didn't really bond with Flame Byxis, he became crazy because of a painful process that worked half the time for him... Unlike Doji, Ziggurat seemingly gives a lot to those who work with him, but he takes more in return. Ziggurat doesn't hide this; he was even proud of what he did to Toby. He also doesn't shy away from putting down Zeo and even taunted Ryuga about his loss of control to the dark power. And that's because, unlike Doji, he has something for himself. Doji needs other people to get what he wants, Ziggurat has money and his intellect; he can choose who he is working with. That is why Doji recruits Tetsuya; even if he loses, he can still use him to make L-Drago stronger. The doctor recruited only powerful Bladers he could control (blackmail for Julian and money for the Garcias) and threat them and Zeo as pawn.

In the end, these men work very differently with very different objectives. Doji is a power-hungry man who lives only for power and himself. He uses others to gain as much as possible, and if they are not enough, he squeezes the (orange) juice out of them. Ziggurat is an evil scientist and billionaire seeking to enrich himself and gain more influence. Both were corrupted by the power of Bey, and no wonder they were part of the Hades cult.

#ziggurat #Daidouji #doji beyblade #zeo abyss #yu tendo #team Starbreaker #metal fight beyblade #Hades inc.#dark nebula #damian hart

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dungeonmastertyrant · 4 months

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Cleric (Trickery domain)

Cleric Spells

Cleric level 1: Charm Person and Disguise Self

Cleric level 3: Mirror Image and Pass Without Trace

Cleric level 5: Blink and Dispel Magic

Cleric level 7: Dimension Door and Polymorph

Cleric level 9: Dominate Person and Modify Memory

Blessing of the Trickster: Starting when you choose this domain at 1st level you can use your action to touch a creature other than yourself to give it advantage on Stealth checks. This blessing lasts for 1 hour or until you use this feature again.

Channel Divinity: Invoke Duplicity: Starting at 2nd level you can use your Channel Divinity to create an illusory duplicate of yourself. As an action you create a perfect illusion of yourself that lasts for 1 minute or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell). The illusion appears in an unoccupied space that you can see within 30 feet of you. As a bonus action on your turn you can move the illusion up to 30 feet to a space you can see but it must remain within 120 feet of you. For the duration you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion's space but you must use your own senses. Additionally when both you and your illusion are within 5 feet of a creature that can see your illusion, you have advantage on attack rolls against that creature given how distracting the illusion is to the target.

Channel Divinity: Cloak of Shadows: Starting at 6th level you can use your Channel Divinity to vanish. As an action you become invisible until the end of your next turn. You can become visible if you attack or cast a spell.

Divine strike: At 8th level you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with poison (a gift from your deity). Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 poison damage to the target. When you reach 14th level the extra damage increases to 2d8.

Improved Duplicity: At 17th level you can create up to 4 duplicates of yourself instead of 1 when you use Invoke Duplicity. As a bonus action on your turn you can move any number of them up to 30 feet to a maximum range of 120 feet.

Gods in this domain their alignment and their symbol:

Beshaba CE Black antlers, Cyric CE White jawless skull on black or purple sunburst, Leira CN Point-down triangle containing a swirl of mist, Mask CN Black mask, Shar NE Black disk encircled with a border, Tymora CG face up coin, Waukeen N Upright coin with Waukeen's profile facing left, Fharlanghn NG Circle crossed by a curved horizon line, Olidammara CN Laughing mask, Ralishaz CN 3 bone fate-casting sticks, Tharizdun CE Dark spiral or inverted ziggurat, Shinare N Griffon's wing, Hiddukel CE Broken merchant's scales, Olladra NG Domino, The Traveler CN 4 crossed rune-inscribed bones, Cults of the dragon below NE varies, Garl Glittergold LG gold nugget, Lolth (Lolth is also the villain of the dnd adventure out of the abyss sorry not sorry) CE Spider, Tiamat LE Dragon head with 5 claw marks, The Daghdha CG Bubbling cauldron or shield, Hecate CE Setting moon, Hera CN Fan of peacock feathers, Hermes CG Caduces (winged staff and serpents), Tyche N Red pentagram, Apep NE Flaming snake, Bes CN Image of the misshapen deity, Set CE Coiled cobra, Hermod CN Winged scroll, Loki CE Flame.

Source: Players Handbook

#dnd class #cleric

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lady-lazagna · 7 months

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hey laz. go to sleep 🔨

ANYWAYS. after you take a NAP here’s something for the oc ask. realistically i don’t think any of ur ocs would ever meet theodore in person but let’s just pretend they know of him somehow. for the funnies

Jokes on you I’m answering this a full day after and am once again staying up past my bedtime >:D

Now, Theodore… for those uninitiated, this sick, twisted man invented the Homophobic Rodent AND… is gay for Doctor Ziggurat. Just imagine.

Any friend of Dr. Ziggurat is an enemy of the Dungeon Gym, and any enemy of the Dungeon Gym is an enemy of Trucker Dave. Once this homophobic homosexual is pointed out to him, all bets are off.

Never cross the road if he’s in the area, or you’ll get smacked into the next state by ten tons of pure southern force. Moving out of the area? Don’t hire anyone in the Queer Truckers of America, they’re all friends of Dave. Don’t even BLINK if you’re out driving, or the last thing you’ll see is his face in the rear-view mirror, cold and unwavering.

There is no rest, no respite, for the enemies of Trucker Dave.

And the others would think he’s hilarious but in a Doji way like haha what is wrong with you😂🤣 we need to kill you now.

#made up the queer truckers of america btw #can’t remember if I’ve posted about his backstory on here #maybe I should #mfb oc #mfb original character #oc trucker dave #lazagna ocs #oc ask game

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onwesterlywinds · 8 months

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PROMPT #3: [EXTRA CREDIT]

The sun beat down on the Peaks with relentless fervor. For all he had grown up here, had spent his entire childhood roaming from one end of the mountains to the other, he found himself stopping to rest with far more frequency. The Garleans had removed many of the trees, or so he had been told, which made shade and shelter much harder to come by; he was also carrying gear for both himself and Helisent, and although he hadn't the faintest idea why the girl who could fly was not the pack mule for their party of two, he couldn't bring himself to ask.

Still, when she found him surveying the view of the ziggurat below and dipping into the last of his canteen, she let out a little laugh and flopped herself down next to him.

"No signs of them," Hel said. There was an apologetic note in her voice he did not often hear from her.

He shrugged. "If they aren't there, they aren't there." That was what he would tell himself, and her, at least: that they were not too late to save another village from the wandering blasphemies, and that the danger simply had not come through this way.

"Right." She stood up and took a drink from her own store of water.

"Careful," he said. "Until we reach Ala Ghiri, that's all we've got between the two of us."

"Relax, Great-Granddad. I saw a stream over to the southeast-"

"That one was used as a dumping ground for Castrum Abania for five years."

"Oh." She looked back into her canteen, as if to summon its contents back to her. "Well, what's the worst it could do to me?"

The question was asked in jest, but he rose to meet it nonetheless - just as Orella would have, if she weren't at home getting her much-deserved rest. "Could kill you just as surely as one of those horrors we're tracking. Just much less cleanly. If it's a toss-up between a few extra mouths now and weeping, cancerous sores later, I'd be inclined more to the former."

He hadn't meant to be so morbid about it, or at least, he had meant to be only so morbid that Hel would laugh or roll her eyes and call him an idiot. Instead, she fell silent, and mirrored his view out across the mountains. Her gaze lingered for a little over Ala Gannha. "How are you doing with all this?" she asked him. "And if you say 'it's fine, I'm fine,' then-"

"What if that's the truth of it?"

She looked back at him, her mouth open. It was an expression he had never quite seen before, but he recognized it all too well: he imagined it was how he looked to his Kingsguard fellows whenever he wondered if his earnestness was about to be met with some sort of a trap.

"Hel," he said. "This-" He made a sweeping, awkward gesture directed mostly at his own chest. "This is all I have. Looking after my family. If that wasn't enough for me, I never would have made it this far. Because it's always been that way, ever since…"

"Since the Garleans?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Since the beginning." Since the day he'd first realized why Wilhelm and he had been put on the earth together, not so very far from where they sat. "What of you? How are you faring?"

She had the gall to look embarrassed at having her own question turned back onto her. "About the same, I guess. Keeping busy helps, you know?"

"That I do."

"But it's nice that we get to do this. No matter the reason why."

He smiled, then gave her a little nudge at the shoulder. "Look."

A herd of antelope came bounding up from the west. For a moment, he was almost convinced that the scene was not a harbinger for something far worse - then, a piercing screech tore through the mountains, echoing from every direction in a seemingly endless cacophony.

Hel jumped to attention and readied her cloud for a fast departure. "Ready?"

"Right behind you. Go on."

She sped off into the open air, leaving him to stow his canteen and hers into his pack. With one last drink of the sunny blue sky, he hurried off in her wake.

#Ingvald Bloodhound #Helisent Wynter #FFXIVWrite #FFXIVWrite 2023

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beybladefanboy · 2 years

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I’m too negative toward Masters

So here’s a list of things Masters does right (from someone who hasn’t quite finished rewatching it yet so I apologize if I get some details wrong) that I can’t say about any of the other seasons:

-The Dark Tsubasa Arc

This is just an interesting exploration and development of an already great character. Also the way it’s resolved is the best message in the show and genuinely helpful for me personally.

-Hikaru’s arc

Yes, it sucks that one of the only prominent female bladers doesn’t battle anymore. I totally understand that. But I honestly like that Hikaru steps down from Beyblade. I like that they show that it’s okay to take a break or even just step away from something that was hurting you. Sometimes persevering isn’t always the best option and that’s a really mature theme, and a very different one for this show. And the moments where they show how traumatized she still is over what happened to her just hurt my heart every time I see them.

-Team Wild Fang

Yes, I’m biased to Kyoya. Him joining the world tournament from another team’s country just to crush Gingka in front of the entire world is completely in character and just a clever way to include him in this season. Nile and Demure are also both great characters. I like the camaraderie Kyoya and Nile have and just how sassy Nile is general. Demure isn’t traditionally tough but he’s strong in other ways, his keen sight and knowledge of beys, and I like how Kyoya recognized that and made him part of the team. Honestly their episodes in general are just really top tier. It’s the closest Gan Gan Galaxy ever comes to losing the World Championship in my eyes, with it being the only one to last for four battles rather than three and many of the team being injured in the struggle.

-The overlapping arcs of Da Xiang and Julian

Both of these characters were the leader of a renowned group expected to never fail. In the end, an important battle was left up to them and they lost. Their reputation cracked and the legacy of many before them was seemingly tainted because of them. The difference? Da Xiang was instantly surrounded by supportive friends and respectful rivals so he was able to learn to rise from the defeat and come back stronger. Julian was given another chance after his defeat but lost again and was humiliated in front of everyone, losing more and more until he felt he had nothing left to lose and joined Ziggurat. Then these two characters, who I never thought to connect before this, meet and Da Xiang shows just how much he’s grown over the course of the season, eventually making Julian grow in the same way as he inspires him to stand back up and continue for his team. I love the way their stories mirror each other and how Da Xiang was able to help Julian learn what he learned.

-The Tsubasa/Madoka moments

This is just the shipper in me but I gotta sprinkle some lighter stuff in to keep this list from being too depressing. Besides, this is almost exclusively a dynamic in Masters and definitely the start of it. I think these two really click and they have a lot of small cute moments in this season. They both have the maturity of people twice their age (most of the time in the case of Tsubasa) while the rest of their team is playing a game of pass the brain cell so it’s just entertaining to watch these two deal with that.

-Team Dungeon

I may not be a Masamune fan but he is absolutely important to Masters’ story, even before the second half. He’s a foil for Gingka and is slowly becoming more humbled and more of a team player through his experiences in the world tournament. Yet he still never lets go of his goal to be the “number 1 blader,” something that seems like just some selfish desire becomes a lot more potent with the introduction of Toby and Zeo, and the reveal that Masamune, Toby, and Zeo all promised they would become number 1 together. It doesn’t excuse Masamune’s more... abrasive moments throughout the season but it does give a reason that’s much deeper than simple arrogance. And this backstory makes the battle between Masamune and Zeo in the world championships downright tragic, with Zeo knowing Toby will die if he loses and thinking Masamune betrayed them while Masamune (who doesn’t even fully realize how bad Toby’s condition is at this point if I remember correctly) doesn’t understand why Zeo is mad at him and is just desperately trying to get through to his friend.

-The two Blader DJs

I have no analysis on this, I just think it’s funny. Their battle is funny and I like that they announce the America vs Japan battles together, each of them clearly having a bias toward their home team.

They’re also just really gay. We stan our gay nerd announcer bois.

-The shady stuff Team Starbreaker does

(Side note: Oh my gosh look at the way Jack is flipping his hair, that’s so cute)

This is probably the most... down to earth(?) of the villain plans in Beyblade because it’s all rooted in science, so it’s easier to believe something like it could happen in real life. A system that unnaturally brings out the hidden abilities of a person? I could see that technology existing one day and it freaks me out to think about how humans could and would abuse it, just as they do here. The way Jack and especially Damian were brainwashed also feels very real. It’s not fantasy brainwashing with some kind of magic or machine, it’s children, Damian especially, being groomed into believing their way is the best way so they never step out of line and do exactly what Ziggurat needs them to do. It’s horrifying. I also like the twist that Ziggurat was using the world tournament, everyone he brainwashed/manipulated, and the horrific technology he was already using just to complete an even more terrifying weapon. It’s a much more unique way to end the season than a simple Gingka vs Damian would’ve been. Speaking of which:

-Gingka isn’t the only one who saves the day

This is probably the biggest thing Masters has over both Fusion and Fury to me. You can argue that in both of those seasons, Gingka’s final battle was the only one that mattered. (I don’t necessarily agree with that notion but my point is that Gingka is the one given all of or at least most of the glory.) In Masters, there really isn’t one single person who saves the day. Nearly everyone had a final battle in Spiral City that helped them win the day: Da Xiang battling Julian, Tsubasa battling Jack, Kyoya battling Damian, Masamune and Gingka battling Faust, Ryuga taking down Spiral City itself and helping those two, Zeo murdering Ziggurat- wait, that’s what happened right? Yes, the final stopping the meltdown thing was just Gingka... at first, which would’ve been boring. But then low and behold:

*LOUD RYUGA FANBOY SCREAMING*

Ryuga and Gingka, two former enemies, work together to save the world and it’s one of my favourite moments in all three seasons. I love how weirdly helpful Ryuga is in this season. I love how the first season ends with two enemies battling with the world at stake and the second season ends with those same people, now no longer enemies working together to save the world. It’s like poetry. It rhymes, sorta. Then the third season ends with my heart being shattered to pieces but that’s for another time.

Conclusion: Masters is good, I’ve been giving it way too hard of a time over this past year. That’s due in part because of the way it and Fury are perceived and my own past with both these seasons. Yes, that’s petty of me, but hear me out.

(Slight Fury tangent, but it’s relevant)

When I first rewatched Fury, I was shocked it was good. Genuinely shocked, I remembered hating it, I remembered hating it and not caring that Ryuga, who is now a very personal character for me, died horribly. I feel I unfairly hated Fury when I was younger and didn’t give it a fair chance, a feeling I may have unintentionally projected onto other fans, without even realizing. I’ll start by saying that’s in no way my call to make. You honestly don’t even have to watch all of Fury to decide you’re not a fan of it. You gave it the chance you decided was fair, as did I.

Now that I do love Fury, I want to show it as much love as I can and that has lead to me making some... unfair comparisons between Masters and Fury. I still think they both have issues with underusing characters and yes, Masters does bother me more in that regard than Fury does but that’s my own bias toward the characters. Everyone has their own. I personally like Kenta more than Yu, Benkei, and Tsubasa, so Kenta’s almost complete absence in Masters stings way more to me than Yu, Benkei, and Tsubasa’s sidelining in Fury. And yes, I still take Fury’s new cast over Masters’s new cast. That’s just my preference, and I hope I haven’t given off an impression that you aren’t allowed to have your own preference. No one opinion means more than another and none of us can ever be fully “objective.” I’ve tried to be objective on these seasons, and it’s still full of bias because we are biased creatures. That’s not possible to avoid.

So I apologize if I ever came off as aggressive or gate-keeping towards opinions on Masters and Fury. It’s something I plan to fix going forward with this blog. There are completely valid reasons to love Masters and completely valid reasons to hate Fury. Honestly you can hate Fury solely because it’s weird and that’s a valid opinion. If anything, I’ve been looking back on my 15 year old opinion (that’s how old I was when I first saw it) with way too much scrutiny. My opinion back then was as valid as it is now, it’s just that my old opinion is one that I now really really disagree with and because it was me, there is a filter of shame over it, especially with the Ryuga thing.

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dawn-of-worlds · 10 months

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Various Absences

In which the Lunar Bridge is made permanent and a strange bureaucratic process forms in the courts of the Moon.

False-Fires infiltrate the Págar Star-Counters, creating the mysterious Society of the Flickering Stars.

The cities of the Occident grow supernaturally tall and proud.

And a refugee founds Gingat, the only honest city in the world.

Corobel starts turn 16 (I know, I know) with 14 points: 8 (roll) + 3 (nonhoarding) + 3 (left over)

Event (-9): The sages of Ecliptic have long (by the standards of that young society) sought to reopen a permanent connection between the two worlds. Azimuth, too, desires reunion with its lost children.

It is the Págar Moon-Watchers who first suggest a system for sending signals between the two worlds; on one fortuitous eclipse, they float through the red wound with a code, a map, and some of their finest telescopes. The project will require the connivance of both ends of the equation; knowledge is shared, efforts coordinated. Eventually, a solution is found, though none now remember it. It involves an expedition to the lake-bottom, conducted by Night-Singers, and another to the core of the Moon. They do not learn the secret, but they get quite close, close enough that the self-sealing

For one awful moment, the world is clear glass; they see the Tree for what it really is; they see the present from the outside, and cannot find it. Their minds blank and revolt, and their eyes are struck the pure black of the moon in eclipse.

The bridge-pieces are forced into a permanent alignment, eclipses being no longer required; the contents of the lakes no longer switch places; but all who immerse themselves in a certain part of the lake find themselves transported.

Relics of the experiment (lenses, scalpels, mirrors, lamps) resist being understood or remembered, and may (or may not) have certain other supernatural properties, which are (necessarily) rather nebulous.

Command Avatar (-1): Meanwhile, as the gracile bureaucracy of the Court of the Two skies swells with the tithes of the algal fields, the Coryphaeus makes it known that the Moon needs something. A system is established; applicants are received, vetted, reviewed, processed. The pale-vaulted chambers throng. Something is taken from them, though nobody can say quite what. No change can be discerned, but payment is received, in the eerie jewels of the Moon’s heart.

Command Avatar to Create Order (-1): Some Págar Star-Counters are taken in by False-Fires, creating the Society of the Flickering Stars.

Command Avatar to Command Civilization(-1): The cities of the Occident begin a campaign of monumental architecture, enhanced by magical techniques. Towers and ziggurats, sponsored by the great clans and religious associations, reach impossible heights.

Command Avatar to Found City (-1): There was a city in the Occident which was governed unsurpassedly well, whose streets were clean and friendly, whose councillors, in clean pressed linen robes, ruled a peaceful and a quiet people. Its constitution was engraved in white travertine for all to read, and the laws it gave were respected universally. Travellers came to see them from the very vertices of the earth. In that fine republic, all knew their place, and all knew their place was just.

I will not name that city. I will not elaborate the laws that structured the perfection of its life. They are no longer important. You know why. What else could happen to such a place?

There was one survivor. As he shuffled away from the ashes, tasting salt, the old city fell from his sandals and his mind, and a secret coagulated in the locket around his neck—or did he carry it from the ruins? No matter.

He would make a new city, and he would do it right. It would be the only honest city in the world.

Whosoever could kill him in open combat would become the king, and pluck the terrible secret from the phylactery of his neck, and open it, and not reveal it, and be killed in turn.

Across the sea, in the lands where the seasons change, he founded Gingat, the Honest City.

1 point remains.

#world 02547 diegesis #going hack mode

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essayofthoughts · 2 years

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Ripley is an NPC, so she's got a lot less screentimeto get into her head compared to one of the PCs - how did you nail down your take on her personality given the limited material?

This is... pretty simple all in all but I went:

Ripley is realistic evil. Matt specifically cited Nazi scientists as part of his inspiration for her characterisation. Ergo, her reasons should make sense within her awful internal logic.

We see that she's an opportunist (her escape from VM when they're distracted by Cass and Anders), creative (reverse engineering guns; the trap on Glintshore), entirely amoral (the creation and perpetuation of guns, willingness to commit illegal human experimentation, torture), and deeply self-serving (working with VM to preserve her life, planning to escape the Briarwoods, escaping the Dwendalian empire and her possible execution, trying to figure out what to say to make VM spare her at Glintshore).

Percy describes his awful thoughts as coming from the Ripley of his brain. Ergo, Ripley is Percy's dark mirror and should be written as Percy sans morals.

We see Ripley's effect on Percy: she terrifies him and yet he wants to have an impact on her - most likely because she had an impact on him and he wants to do the same to her. He wants her to fear him as he does her. He at least tries to act callous and uncaring when facing her which suggests that was how she faced him when she tortured him - cold and unaffected by his screams and begging.

Taliesin and Matt have said she is an evil librarian, specifically citing Rachael Weisz as Evie Carnahan in The Mummy as a mental image.

Ripley, for all she's a terrible person, refuses to swear of all fucking things.

And... that's about it. In Ripley's Assistant it's a bit different because her tactics there... I mean she might use that kind of manipulation and gaslighting - perhaps on Kynan - but we don't see that explicitly. We know she manipulates the truth but we don't know much else for sure. The tactics I have her use in RA and Delia AU are very much based on the kind of relationship abuse I've had cause to observe just tweaked to fit how she speaks in canon and the circumstances.

But... for the most part, she is realistic evil. She isn't pointlessly sadistic or ruled by her desires - she has her goals and she aims to achieve them. She doesn't care what gets in her way - she'll do what she deems necessary. She, like Percy, can be ruthless - and unlike Percy, she has no morals to maybe keep her from doing certain things.

She believes magic is unreliable but still a tool one could and should use - she's an opportunist and she takes what opportunities she has. Remember, with a party of random mercenary allies and Kynan, and a few hours head start, she made a trap that led to her almost completely killing Vox Machina, a group which regularly tangles with dragons and wins. She's incredibly clever, entirely amoral, and does whatever she deems necessary.

It also seems that she likes to be at the top of a pecking order - she worked for the Briarwoods but planned to leave when she thought it would be best for her to do so, her job under the Briarwoods was initially torture and interrogation before any research or the ziggurat refinement, and she collects her own group and at least in Kynan's case manipulates his loyalty to her. She likes power.

And... that's basically it.

I'm - I'm gonna just cite my conversations with @chamerionwrites again, because honestly this is from them too, but they reminded me of... well, the banality of evil. Evil is often simple and selfish and human - anyone's capable of it. And I think it's very important to remember that with Ripley.

Ripley likes power. Ripley doesn't care about anything but her goals. Ripley is an evil librarian who refuses to swear. Ripley is awful in a horribly realistic way.

And ... that's how I handle her characterisation.

#anna ripley #percy de rolo #percival de rolo #vox machina #critrole meta #blorbologist #living up to my username #ask

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curedeity · 2 years

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Beyblade au where Toby actually dies and haunts Zeo (zeo can see him) only its a romcom:

-toby forces zeo to take breaks and watch bad horror films for Toby to laugh at.

-zeo and toby work together to ruin ziggurats life

-toby snitches on zeo to coach steel

-masamune cant see toby but he sure as hell is still trying to glare at toby and lecture him while toby gives him bunny ears

-toby can write messages on sticky notes but only mirrors for king bc he knows king will appreciate the dramatics

-toby can be an air conditioner.

-the other people of dungeon gym pretend to pray to him and summon him and perform exorcisms

-toby makes them burn food for him

#beyblade #beyblade metal fight #mfb #i believe in the comedic potential of toby released from the bounds of the mortal plane

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aspiringsophrosyne · 1 year

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Episode 10: The Depths of Deceit

The final episode before the two-part grand finale.

Before things pop off.

Let's get that projector going and get into it.

The Good

Right off the bat, excellent use of flashback. We knew bad things happened to Percy in the stream, but he was never incredibly specific. All he said when he was telling Vox Machina about it was:

Stream!Percy: "It was a long time ago, and I was not equipped for torture. I don't remember much."

So seeing Ripley go at a teenaged Percy with a meat hook was....ugh. And I mean that in the best possible way. I still look away when that scene comes up; and I honestly have to fight not to cover my ears, too.

Plus it was a quick and economical way of establishing how much of a bitch this woman is.

Kelly Hu is incredible as Ripley. There are future scenes that I am so excited to see because I know she's going to nail them. Her Ripley has this menacing yet hateable quality that makes you want to see something awful happen to her.

What Pike sees when she makes an insight check is striking and terrible. We knew something bad was going on there, but hitting us with some kind of wicked jack o' lantern bonfire of the soul shit out of nowhere was positively jarring.

The scale of this show never ceases to bring me joy. The sheer size of the tunnels under Whitestone. The refinement chamber. And the Ziggurat itself is horrifying. It's like finding a wing of the Paris catacombs in your basement.

It's interesting to note how the reveal of the new name on the Pepperbox is different in the show. In the stream, Cassandra's betrayal came first. Then her name appeared on the gun. Both versions denote shrewd manipulation on the part of Orthax, but in two different ways. The stream version plays on Percy's hurt and confusion in the wake of Cass's actions. Offering a course of action in the wake of betrayal. The show primes Percy's rage before he's even aware of what's happened. Points him in a direction before he starts running. Different. But both are, as I said, interesting. I might be unpacking that later.

Should also mention that Esmé Creed-Miles killed it dead. She's great throughout, but I wanted to wait to point it out until she had a moment where she got to really sink her teeth in. You can feel the genuine angry pain and despair in her voice when she berates Percy through the barrier.

The glint in her eyes is also a nice touch. It blurs the line between magic and plain old Stockholm syndrome.

I like the parallel drawn between Percy and Vex in both of them losing a sibling (if temporarily) to the Briarwoods.

The acid sequence was pretty cool. (Seeing that rat crawl by with its back half gone....*shudder*) Neal Acree, the composer for the show, described a pitch from Sam in which Scanlan's lute would play a heavy metal solo. So I was immediately like "Oh, that's where that's from."

This will not be the last time.

And of course. Of course Grog dived into the acid naked. Of course he did.

The Bad (or at least, not so great)

Time to talk about the plot and Anna Ripley.

I mentioned this previously, but: in the stream, the boys (sans Grog) found a note. Unfortunately it was too damaged for them to identify the author. However, in hindsight it was clearly Anna. And also in hindsight, it became clear that she'd been spying on Percy before he returned to Whitestone. And on his work. This lead to her trying to copy it, and eventually she managed a rudimentary pistol.

Not before losing her hand to her experiments, though.

In this episode, Ripley is revealed to have made a weapon that vaguely mirrors the Pepperbox. However, there is no evidence that she was ever spying on Percy prior to this episode.

If this Exandria is like the stream's, Percy's guns are the first in the world. At least since, possibly, pre-Calamity. So if Ripley wasn't spying on Percy, how in the hells did she make her weapon?

Percy makes it clear in episode 7 that he didn't start building guns until after he escaped. So she couldn't have rifled through his old room and found blueprints. It's possible a little smokey bird whispered in her ear too, but there's been no evidence of that so far.

On top of that, Ripley tries to get Percy to join up with her. Tries to flatter him, says she thought he was the intelligent one. Says they're both engineers and tries to peak his curiosity. She could maybe have made that leap of logic upon seeing the gun....like, seconds before, but it would've been a hell of a leap. (For all she knew, it was commissioned or bought.)

Anna talks like she knows Percy, but in this continuity there's no shown reason that she should. We'll have to see if there's something coming down the road that'll make that make sense....but right now it doesn't.

Nitpick: Percy cocks his gun way too much in the first couple minutes of the episode.

Nitpick: I'm sad we didn't get this line from the stream.

Stream!Percy: Anna, I am going to assume, against all evidence, that you are a smart woman.

Nitpick: Wouldn't it have been better to tie her arms at the elbows? She's missing a hand, she can slip right out.

Overall, pretty solid episode and setup for what's to come.

On to the two part finale!

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