#officially in my villain era I’m over it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tatertotcosmonaut · 4 months

Note

I hope I didn't mistake you for someone else, but I think you're the other mutual I have who's into JJK, right? I only have two mutuals who reads JJK ahahahha. So it should be you...

Have ya read the (albeit terribly-translated) leaks for C248 yet? Thoughts?

Yes I am the other JJK mutual lol, you weren’t mistaken! I have read the leaks, but I usually wait till TCB scanlations and then official translations (although I hate official translations, John Werry really needs to be replaced) so I can compare them and come to a conclusion about my thoughts.

I’m a bit more ready to negatively criticize JJK than most, but I do so because I know Gege is capable of really good writing. Shibuya is one of the best written arcs I’ve seen, and the philosophy and themes aren’t new but they are written in ways that are intriguing to me.

Sukuna is one of my favorite characters, but the mass Sukuna v. Everyone fight has steadily become more and more boring to me. There’s only so many times I can be “off the edge of my seat” with constant deaths and death scares and “Sukuna defeat” close calls before I just become blasé to it. I was expecting there to be many deaths (it is a war after all), I was expecting Sukuna to be difficult (He is known as the most powerful sorcerer for a reason), but it feels less like a battle of tension and cunning and more close to levels of “last season of Game of Thrones” writing (although not nearly as egregious, Gege is still a competent writer and he clearly is trying to tie this up as best as he can).

The Kenjaku v Takaba fight is, no joke, one of my favorite fights in the series. I think it’s a wonderful display of how cunning Sorcerers need to be whilst showing the creativity of the power system Gege has made. And I think that’s what I feel is missing from the Sukuna fight, or is steadily disappearing. Sukuna is meant to be cunning, he’s meant to be smart, but it feels less like he’s winning because he’s cunning and more because he’s winning because well…Gege needs him to for tension reasons.

The court room fight is a good example of this. Lord I would’ve loved to see Sukuna utilize his intelligence to overcome Higuruma’s domain, it would’ve been much more satisfying than Sukuna getting that one weapon confiscated and the whole fight just ending in like 4 panels and that’s that.

I also will be majorly rankled if Kenjaku is actually dead and gone. There is no reason they should be as Kenjaku, the person that prepared for this whole debacle for over 800 years, is much more cunning than to just be killed by a decapitation. I think it’s fair to say that Kenjaku is the main overarching villain, none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for them, nor would Sukuna be here either. To kill then off as if they were some dumb goon obstacle boss would be an insult to their character. Kenjaku’s connections to the Heian era, to Tengen, to Yuuji and Choso, is too valuable for them to just be gone.

Anyways, I’m intrigued to see where this will go and what Sukuna will do know that he has the ability to go forward with the Merger. Although I’m confused on why he would even bother doing that or what interest he would have in that.

I’m also interested to see where Gege is trying to go when it comes to themes of love, power, and loneliness when it comes to Sukuna. The theme of “it is lonely to be at the top” is budding into something intriguing, which is why I think Sukuna is fascinating to me. I don’t care to much about his fights, and more of him as a philosophical figure, because he his quite philosophical in and outside of fights. His ending conversation with Kashimo was quite cool. He also can’t stop being very homoerotic towards the enemies he fights and defeats. It’s funny to see hm having fun and being satisfied by an opponent and then being sent into a philosophical crisis over human emotion.

Also I am always fascinated by Gojo fans absolute hope in Gojo coming back. I think this chapter sent them into more of a fervor, I am rooting for them it would be funny to see honestly.

#jjk 248 #jjk leaks #jjk spoilers

12 notes · View notes

13ghostlytitties · 11 months

Text

The Heart of a Hero is returning once more!

Today marks the 5-year anniversary of the premiere of HoaH, and is fairly close to the 3.5 year anniversary of its last official upload. Well, the wait is over. It’s time for me to resurrect this series and eventually bring it to its end (not that it left off anywhere close to ending 😉).

Since it’s been a while, I’ve put together a recap of the story so far that I’ll post at some point here. It’s not complete, I had to cut out some of the newer chapters since it just became a play-by-play synopsis that doubled the total word count, but hey, having to reread 5-10 chapters is better than rereading 150.

The tentative return date will be this time next month as I work on creating a backlog of chapters. If I need to push it back, I’ll let you know. As for other questions I’m sure some of you have, check below the cut. For those who don’t care, see you in a month, hopefully.

So, some questions I’m sure some of you are asking:

1: where have you been? And why did you stop?

I’m not gonna go into details since I’m not that kinda person, but overall, just been living life, dude. I originally began my unexpected hiatus when college was kicking my ass and expected to get right back to things, but some stuff happened, and by the time I had dealt with it, it was Spring of 2020. You can guess what stopped me up then lol. But yeah, things just got away from me and eventually, I didn’t have the time or energy to dedicate to diving headfirst back into this outside of unconnected one-off stuff like those Bang fics. There’s other facets too, of course, the biggest one being a general disinterest in the source material. I stopped reading MHA around the villains arc (though I’ve kept up a bit in terms of big stuff like the traitor reveal), so I lacked that interest to pull me back into this world. Where I left off in the story, in the middle of a complicated arc full of OCs and big fights and stuff, was also a hurdle to getting back into things. But I’m here now, I’m working on my backlog, and I’m gonna commit. If you guys are excited about my return, spread the word and lemme hear it so I can keep this motivation 🤟

2: Is A New Era coming back too?

And now for the other shoe to drop. It is not. Im very sorry, especially to those whose OCs I included, but it’s just not feasible. Every time I considered it or tried it, the whole return to the main story was stopped up with it. Anyone who’s interested in continuing it themselves in some way shape or form, you have my permission in terms of the general idea, the OC kids I came up with, the places that canon characters are in it, etc. As for other people’s OCs, I’d check with their creators. One again, very sorry, but it’s just not doable.

3: What will this return look like? How often are chapters gonna drop?

Still working out the specifics, but my idea for now is to drop 2 chapters a week. If I need to go on hiatus, I’ll announce as much and plan the placement of it much better so that I don’t stop in the middle of an arc. That way, the hiatus will only be a month instead of years lol. The schedule may change over time, but I’ll keep everyone informed as I move ahead with it

4: a lot has happened in the manga and anime and movies since you stopped. Will these things be worked into the series?

Nope. I stopped reading and probably won’t start again until it’s over and done with. More than that, I’ve been sitting on these plans for a couple years now and don’t feel like changing them much. Besides, this story has had a long, rich history of shitting in the soup of the canon story, so I’ll just continue doing my own thing

5: are you still as epic and cool and funny as in the past?

Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to. I never was 😎

32 notes · View notes

twistedtummies2 · 4 months

Text

Year of the Bat - Number 15

Welcome to Year of the Bat! In honor of Kevin Conroy, Arleen Sorkin, and Richard Moll, I’m counting down my Top 31 Favorite Episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series” throughout this January. We’ve officially entered the Top 15! TODAY’S EPISODE QUOTE: “Kids these days. No respect.” Number 15 is…Legends of the Dark Knight.

One of the great things about many famous comic book characters is their adaptability. Some of these characters were created nearly a century ago; Batman, for example, first appeared in the late 1930s. (He actually turns 85 Years Old this very year!) Some characters that old who were popular then have, for one reason or another, not stood the test of time. Batman has, and part of this is because his creators found him easy to adapt and reconfigure as times changed. Bruce Wayne and his universe have been portrayed more seriously or more goofily over the decades, and have been made to appeal to adults and children alike time and time again. “Batman: The Animated Series” is widely considered the most definitive take on the Caped Crusader and his world specifically because the writers who worked on this show understood this, and had a deep love for ALL sides of Batman’s world. The show, therefore, hits a near-perfect balance, overall, between silly superhero shenanigans, and dark, complex, sometimes downright brutal storytelling.

“Legends of the Dark Knight” is an episode that exemplifies not only the skillful balance of tone the Animated Series managed for the majority of its run, but acts as a tribute to the long and storied history of Batman, and the adaptability of the character. The plot focuses on a group of random children, living in Gotham, all of whom are gossiping about the mysterious Dark Knight. Through their banter, they start to share stories and theories about what Batman is really like, all of which pay homage to different past incarnations of Batman. Some of these references are relatively brief; for example, a passing friend of theirs named “Joel,” and his bizarre, strangely effeminate fixations on Batman, are meant to be a joking reference to Joel Schumacher’s much maligned film versions of the character. Another case is one young man who makes insinuations of Batman being some monstrous vampire, a reference to the Elseworlds “Batman & Dracula Trilogy” written by Doug Moench.

The most notable of these homages, however, are two long sequences of the show, acting essentially as stories within a story. The first is a tribute the late Golden Age and the Silver Age of comics, as well as to the Adam West 1960s TV series. It features an original adventure, with Batman and Robin battling the Joker, when the Clown Prince of Crime tries to steal the original score of the opera “Pagliacci.” The second sequence is taken directly from the pages of Frank Miller’s somewhat controversial (but highly influential) masterwork, “The Dark Knight Returns.” This one adapts and combines two scenes from the graphic novel, where Batman faces the despicable Mutant Leader. I love both these sequences; it’s neat to see the way the animation style changes for each to match the decade and story style (I especially love how the first sequence so accurately captures the look of Dick Sprang’s famous aesthetics). Interestingly, they also bring in new voice actors to play the characters in each one; instead of Mark Hamill, for example, Michael McKean plays the 60s-era Joker. Meanwhile, Michael Ironside – who would later play the devilish Darkseid for the DCAU – voices Frank Miller’s Batman. Both are perfect casting.

The episode ends with the kids bearing witness to the real Batman – Conroy’s vocals and all – duking it out with the villainous Firefly. I used to love this episode a lot more, but upon revisiting it, I felt I had lost some love for it, and I think part of it is this final sequence. While I love the idea of the kids encountering the real Batman after all that, and I suppose such a thing was inevitable with a plot like this…something about it feels underwhelming after the spectacular sequences we saw earlier in the episode. It’s hard for me to say what the issue is, but I don’t think that was the intention, based on the way things are set up and described in-story. Still, it’s not necessarily a bad ending, for various and probably obvious reasons. It’s a great episode that showcases a different perspective (several different perspectives, in fact) on Batman and the City as a whole, and if you’re as much of a fan of the history of this character – and the duality of the Animated Series itself – as I am, you owe it to yourself to give this one a quick peek. That is, of course, presuming you haven’t already.

Tomorrow we move on to Number 14! Hint: “This used to be a beautiful street. Good people lived here once.”

7 notes · View notes

farfarahleeya · 6 months

Text

“there is happiness after you, but there was happiness because of you” – Taylor Swift

This week, I’d like to explore how fandoms allow us to escape from our troubles, thus becoming a coping mechanism. But before I begin, I’d like to bring you back to the first half of that lyric that hints at a deeper truth – that even after we return to the sometimes harsh embrace of reality, there is an enduring happiness. A great reminder that a current source of happiness is not your only source of happiness. Also, for this post, I shall be drawing on my own experiences. Let’s start!

Trigger Warning --- eating disorder, depression

Introduction

Much like hobbies, fandoms are something we hold close to our hearts. They keep us entertained, they spark our interests, they light up our days. Now here is the question I’ll explore in this post: Can fandom be a form of escapism or a way to cope with real-life challenges? Let’s explore this relationship between fandom and real-life.

Escapism through fandom

Fandoms have become gateways for people to escape to fictional worlds, even if the fictional world isn’t inherently better, they find comfort in the fact that it’s of a different reality. Like the Marvel universe that’s constantly faced with extraterrestrial threats, I enjoy watching their movies and television series because I like to imagine myself as one of those superheroes skilfully battling 7 villains at once. When I first started watching the movies, it was my form of escape from the reality of my eating disorder that rendered me underweight and weak.

Coping with real-life challenges

Fandoms are also ways to cope with real-life struggles. For instance, 3 years ago in the depths of my despair, I became dependent on watching the television series, F.R.I.E.N.D.S. It was a comfort to watch the characters navigate through their life with their close friends. Then, I would watch the series over and over again to feel the same comfort. I escaped the loneliness of my reality through the lenses of their friendships and repeated episodes to cope with my anxiety of the unknown. Though the show did not solve my problems, it was a significant part of my life because it gave me hope that someday, I would have my group of friends to go through life with me.

Sense of belonging

After I watch a show or a movie or read a book, I would go to TikTok to see what everyone else’s take on it is. Thus entering me into the fan community of the media. I don’t only watch these videos to see who has a similar opinion as I do, but I also like to see if someone notices a detail I missed, or if they have interesting theories or alternate endings. These things validate my experiences which in turn instils a sense of belonging for me in the fandom. And when I decide to interact with these videos by commenting, I would often end up sparking friendships with those in the fandom as well.

Creative outlets

I’m sure you’ve seen art and merchandise made by fans. It’s a thing because sometimes the official merchandise just isn’t cool enough or just isn’t our style. And so becomes the overlap of hobbies and fandoms. Taylor Swift’s current world tour, The Eras Tour, has taken this for a colourful twirl. Fans attending the concert have started a tradition of designing friendship bracelets to trade with each other as a fan experience. They also share their various creative designs with each other, turning it into a fun activity before the concert itself. Some of these friendship bracelets have even reached the donning of Taylor’s mother, Andrea Swift. Fan projects like these hold a fulfilling allure as they not only provide a chance for fans to connect deeply with each other but also offer the tangible joy of creating memory keepsakes transforming shared fandom into enduring, physical symbols of camaraderie.

Escapism vs avoidance

My last point in this discussion is the fine line between escapism and avoidance. While finding solace in fandoms can be a comforting escape, it is important that we recognise the risks of excessive immersion. Too much reliance on fictional worlds or temporary sources of happiness may lead to neglecting real-life challenges. It is imperative that we recognise and acknowledge when escapism has turned into avoidance. And when this happens, we should always seek necessary and professional help to ensure a healthy relationship with the things that make us happy. Thus fostering resilience in facing life’s realities.

Conclusion

In conclusion, fandoms undeniably serve as both escapism and coping mechanisms, offering solace and connection. However, we must find a balance that enhances well-being. We should embrace the positive and supportive facets of fandom, avoid judgement and have an open mind when approaching fandom communities where diverse sources of happiness are celebrated. In short, be kind, everyone’s fighting battles you don’t know about.

#MDA20009 #week 9 #fandom

7 notes · View notes

roppiepop · 2 years

Note

reverse robins au? your choice if it’s jaytim

Aaaaaa thank u for coming in and asking abt it!!!! Reverse robin aus are one of my fave fandom specific concepts!!

Okay, so basic ground here, but my main reference points for divergence are the 4 male robins, just for linerization sake, and just because I’m most familiar with Tim he’ll prolly be the one that gets the most expansion, but i hope i can do this the way i prefer it to, which is w the most consideration i can towards canon changes affected while also letting each of them mostly keep their original arcs!!!!

- To start off i think it could be interesting to have Bruce work/train duke at the start, and the possibilities of how that would affect Bruce’s attitude towards metas in Gotham, and maybe give a little flavor to how it feels being a mentor to a kid that’s still mostly independent from him with his own family. How well this will actually be handled i still dont know.

- having Damian be the first kid he actually has to try and kind of parent right in the early bat years also come with a few considerations, i think. On one hand Bruce is definitely softer, maybe a bit more tempered having mentored before, and damian may be fresh off the league but since there’s no previous robins for him to need to fight his ‘birthright’ for, maybe there isn’t a need for any drastic measures. (I mean he’s definitely gonna fight duke on principle but i want them to gain the friendship they do in canon and since duke isn’t like, Bruce’s direct partner i think that can track.)

But then again they’re still them, and damian still has a lot of hangups on worth and legacies and is in the worst stages of blustered arrogance while bruce still doesn’t know how to communicate his feelings in effective ways and happens to have an eldest child that is equally as emotionally repressed so????? Maybe its still a really rocky road.

(I’d like for Damian to keep some of his friends here, mainly Colin and Maya to start with, maybe. I honestly dont know how likely it is for him to set up a teen hero group, but i think that’ll end up happening once he sheds his robin-equivalent mantle.

We’ll let him have his nomadic self-discovery journey i guess :/// something ala williamson’s robin maybe, but like, with his actual friends xjsbdhssbdbd we can even keep Bruce and Talia’s playing tug of war w him towards their respective ideals as a catalyst, and maybe its a bit cleaner without all the baggage of morrison’s interpretation of her.

Let’s put him at idk, 17/18 at this point.)

- One thing that i think definitely changes with having Damian in the first iteration of the dynamic duo is how the mythos is perceived. The kid is capable and ruthless and for awhile at the start, mostly cared more for animals than whoever they were saving. Definitely made rogues think twice to leverage him over batman, but probably mostly didn’t endear him much towards the ppl they encounter, though I’d like to believe that changed as he did. Though the extent of that change i need to think on lmao.

For Steph I think I’ll have her start a little before Tim’s robin-equivalent, staying as spoiler, right after Damian leaves so it goes a bit before anyone notices.

Tim’s start here might be a bit tricky to speak on logistics, he starts as a nightwing character and i mostly want to keep in spirit with that, so Damian’s got to be the fixation here. There’s not really a signature flip that could reliably be imprinted in Tim’s memory but maybe it can be simpler. Like idk a kind act at a gala during Damian’s early years that made tim take notice of him, of a verbal/physical tell that one day robin-equivalent gets caught doing, idk- but now we’re officially in Tim’s stalker era.

A recap on where the rest of the vigilantes are, i think duke is rlly nice w the outsiders i kinda want him there lol Damian’s just abt to start his shounen battle arc and steph is slowlinh appearing on Bruce’s radar but as like, a minor villain.

Something something Tim tries to find Damian, can’t seem to manage to, ends up going to the manor to ask, gets halted by alfred, somehow ends up spilling everything he knows to bruce, ????? Profit -> he gets the mantle.

(A bit clunky, a but out of nowhere, sure, but considering I’m p sure that bruce called jason ‘robin’ the moment he decided to bring him home u can gleam that the man misses having a sidekick :////)

Steph’s story is intertwined with Tim’s for better or worse, and while i like her better when she’s striking out on her own i think tim trying to prove himself before official training by like, capturing her would be a serviceable segue into Bruce training them both. Or try to at least. Steph resorts to her own resources, Tim’s parents get poisoned in Haiti.

And now with Tim and Bruce- a rocky start on the vigilante side bcs well, he may have played the mentor role before but Duke’s a meta, Damian was a ready-made assassin, and Steph, although neither, was still noticeably more athletic than Tim is, its not a big deal, but his initial benchmark was already kind of screwed (would love for tim to still end up getting unplanned training from shiva, somehow.)

But bcs of circumstances that are oh so v different than the one in canon bruce has the patience to teach him firm but kindly 👍 and since Jack is still in a coma (or maybe just kill him off fr ://) they can form a proper healthy-ish bond.

Tim’s tenure in canon is prolific but also threads through the groundwork that Dick’s run paved, and i honestly dont know how well that would’ve faired without him vouching for Tim, but it could be interesting to explore how the dynamic duo’s perception changes with a robin-equivalent that places heavy emphasis on cooperation and is definitely more approachable than the last one. I would v much like to keep that aspect of tim that knows everyone lmao

Also young justice running around without the teen titans as a precedent sounds like a hilarious concept.

We’ll say Damian finds out when Jon brings up that his little bro Kon is in a team w the new-bat partner?? I didn’t know u had a new one?? So ofc Damian storms Gotham demanding an explanation.

And see, while i definitely believe that Dami would’ve grown as a character the lack of a Dick Grayson influence makes me think that maybe he still wouldn’t be above attacking a kid in righteous anger :///// and like, he’s pissed at Bruce of course, that name wasn’t his to give, but maybe it’s all the more worse just bcs of how,,, Tim Tim is. Took his name and changed it’s association, came into his house and became his father’s partner lowkey son in aspects that never came easy to him, and has the audacity to greet him with a smile????

Oh yeah Damian definitely hates Tim. Needlessly cruel abt the one definite edge he has over the kid. And like, poor tim :/// never meet ur heroes in any timeline i g.

But anyway!! Dami might move to Bludhaven, might be somewhere else or other, definitely not anywhere near Tim if he can help it. He should be there for all those big events though, although I’m not sure which ones to keep in. Maybe Tim and Steph can coordinate for No Man’s Land. Then enter Cass, who’s also gonna be in contact mostly w those two.

This is getting soooooo long but like, then Tim dies, because he has to. We’ll pull it to be a Joker Jr. situation and give everyone that good good character development. And then there’s Jason.

- The logistics for Jason becoming robin-equivalent is also real tricky, there’s definitely the factor of making bruce laugh via attempted robbery, but i think the actual nudging can be helped along by Steph, as like, a fellow crime alley kid, idk.

But well, Jason’s time in the mantle- unfortunately he yet again can’t escape the giant shoes of his predecessor, but al least now he has a full support system in the others. And so does Bruce, this time around. It’d be nice to keep that happy status quo for long.

Enter- ‘Tim wasn’t actually dead but take a guess on who wanted it to look like that so he can take him away.’ Anyways, you know the drill. Ra’s would definitely leverage his remolding of Tim against Bruce, but he wouldn’t send him back, probably. Tim’s at a low enough point to likely agree.

Maybe Tim also didn’t come out the pit right though, maybe his brains still fractured. He doesn’t come out the way ra’s wanted and although he kept trying, one day he could’ve decided to just throw tim back to gotham like a defective toy.

Should we give Tim a villain arc? It could be done, but it’ll always be rooted in duty and the belief of serving the greater good. If he does take it up it wouldn’t involve getting in trouble with the bats, or telling them hes back- unless of course, that serves a goal, but even if tim is jealous and resentful of jason getting things like damians approval and official adoption status his self-worth issues are more,,, the internalizing kind. The ‘batman needs a robin’ ethos stays true and nothing would be gained from hurting him.

A vague idea for Tim’s comeback schtick could be operating in plain sight as Drake Industry heir. Since there’s a vacuum of any oracle position he could also dabble around in that. Maybe as loose as his morals would be its still in the service of keeping batman and robin the symbols they are idk!!!!!

- All said and done we can have Dick as proper robin, coming into the house heartbroken and angry and looking for justice and like, early resonance with Damian and idk sometime after we do Batman RIP.

(But before that we get Jason’s sheila arc maybe, he’ll survive. We could potentially pull a Tim and have his friends die on him back to back to back but idk!!!! This might be getting too bloated!!!!)

On the romance side ty for letting me choose my ideal reverse robin au is probably a damitim LOL its the genuine hatred turned remorse,,,, the obsessive affection turned cold indifference,,,, the care of it all,,,,,

V easy to turn it into a jaytim too though, the lack of murder attempts probably also make it smoother snsnsnsbdbdbd good luck trying to convince baby jay that he’s in that league though lol (the annoying little brother to lovers that could be employed here is rlly cute tho,,,, regardless of anything id def want there to be crushing)

OOF OKAY THIS WAS REALLY LONG!!!!! IM SORRY!!!! I’ve always wanted to tackle this eventually but I haven’t finished my reading lists enough to confidently make timeline decisions djsnsnsns i hope this still read clearly, tysm again for coming in!!!

#roppie gets a question?#jaytim #damitim #reverse robins #long post #im in my car and cant find the read more toggle on mobile im sorry to subject everyone to this shabsbssbdb #embarrassing how much i think abt this!!!!#excuse my cherry picking in the name of linearization thx

98 notes · View notes

akatsukiky · 1 year

Text

Hello I’m tasting a lack of Endless Coda-verse fics.

I’m unironically so invested in this April Fools universe, I almost (ALMOST) want an anime of it over Element. I want to consume any media of it and watch Eichi’s direct body count skyrocket in a world where he’s allowed to kill people at his own leisure. I want real, physical consequences to everyone’s words and actions and for the station to look like Danganronpa.

That said, I’m back on my shit, I come bearing a fic idea that I’ll never write. As ever, feel free to take it and use it as you please.

Warnings: Endless Coda story spoilers, leans into immoral villain Eichi, death death death death, manipulation and the like, the dove isn’t dead but it might need a bandaid.

I’m thinking more War Era w the Eccentrics since Shu mentioned 5 Eccentrics, leaning into the first anime’s version of Eichi’s obsession.

Setting likely another older space station, the Yumenosaki if you would. Doubles as an idol academy and a mecha pilot academy.

It follows the War closely at first what w the abysmal condition of the school and student body. Rei is in charge-ish and the clubs still exist, the DreFes fighting hasn’t become popular yet.

Officially the only mecha are one per established group for their leaders (Ryuuseitai’s Madara and Valkyrie’s Shu), the council leader (Rei), and personal ones for individual’s with the money to spend on it (Hokuto, Subaru, Ritsu, Kanata, Eichi, etc).

Once the Eccentrics are established by Eichi, Wataru and Natsume both receive their own mecha. Then, once units are being formed (ex-fine, Knights, AKATSUKI) they supply/are supplied mecha per member.

Eichi’s body count just skyrockets from the get-go. The mecha fight DreFes let him get away with outright murder + the s//c/d/ rates caused by the stress he puts on the students. Look at him, the little go-getter- murdering his way to martyrdom /ref.

And obv there’s the cloning thing. And the implanted memories into the clones. Technically that overrules Eichi being ill but he would have had to be dying at least a little bit when it was discovered.

The plot gets funny once the Eccentrics are formed, pov probably always one of them w smaller chapters for people affected by the war (Nagisa, Hiyori, Tsumugi Aoba, Hokuto, Mika, etc).

The bullying and social isolation all still happen but it’s decidedly worse in Coda-verse since killing and maiming is okay apparently. What happens is that, just like with THAT Valkyrie performance, some if fine’s fans go the extra mile to try and decommission the Eccentrics entirely through attacking them. Eichi never lets it get far and always arranges for something to interrupt so that the targeted Eccentric is always just hurt enough that they can push through it and appear as amazing as ever.

The Valkyrie loss goes more or less the same. It wasn’t a DreFes so there wasn’t any fighting, the audio gets cut, and Shu has his mental breakdown.

Rei’s incidents also are the same, he gets sent to other space station academies to fix issues that people ask him to help with.

Eventually one of these attempts get a little too far w Kanata, happening a little while after Shu’s public humiliation. Someone tries drowning him (the endless puka puka) and nothing stops them this time, thankfully someone else finds Kanata in time to resuscitate him. It can be Mama, Kaoru, or Souma, they’re all valid options for this.

The next time the older Eccentrics meet after that incident, they decide that now is the time to squirrel Natsume away for his own sake. Unfortunately, that means that the number of targets lowered from five to three (occasionally two) and the bullying just gets that much worse.

Eventually comes time for Wataru and Hokuto versus fine (and this is where things get really canon divergent-y). Because that one is a DreFes, they will be fighting in mecha for a 2 v 4. Obviously the odds are against them.

Beforehand, Wataru does say goodbye to the Eccentrics because, just like normal, he knows he can’t win- both because he literally cannot as it’s a losing fight and because that’s what the script calls for, a dramatic climax for the ages. First is Kanata, then Rei and Natsume (the scene in which Natsume tries to give Wataru a different script to save himself). He doesn’t, however, get to say goodbye to Shu who was locked inside of his room.

What’s happening with Shu is one of Eichi’s schemes. I haven’t thought of the reasoning, maybe Shu had recovered himself just enough to still slander Eichi and he decided that just won’t do. So, capitalizing off the fact that Shu has been taking to hiding in his room and locking the door, Eichi has someone (a fan, maybe Tsumugi Aoba, or Eichi himself) lock it from the outside w admin codes so he can’t get out. After all, what could be more crushing than watching your friend get executed right in front of you with no escape?

This is going by a HC I have for DreFes in general both in and out of Coda-verse in which (at Yumenosaki) you can’t change a screen connected to the school’s internet off from the current on-going DreFes. More specific to Coda-verse but I imagine there are cameras in the cockpits of the mecha, just like the obligatory shots of the pilots screaming when something pokes the mecha (I’ve never understood this, the robot’s leg got cut off not yours).

So, with Shu locked in his room and incapable of finding any comfort and with Natsume + Rei watching the fight firsthand (god knows where Kanata is), the DreFes begins. It’s a losing fight for Wataru from the get-go, even moreso because he’s going out of his way to protect Hokuto as needed. Eventually, Eichi or Tsumugi Aoba manage to damage Wataru’s mecha enough that it can’t move, making them the victors of the DreFes. Most of the feeds take an intermission break at this point except for Shu’s.

See, while Eichi’s plot to break Shu more was working to plan, his idea to make to make sure that the feed showed him every moment of the execution did backfire somewhat. Whether or not Shu knows it, he’s the only one to witness Wataru being removed from his mecha unconscious (or dead) after losing before it can be returned to the docking bay for him to be taken to medical if needed.

If he did die inside the mecha, I assume that the usual camera feed automatically cuts off if there’s damage to the cockpit that would harm the pilot since it would ruin the image of Yumenosaki.

So, since Wataru isn’t in the cockpit anymore when the people in docking bay try to get him to come out, they assume as first he’s a sore loser (because blah blah blah slander the Eccentrics), then (while fine’s live is going on) they finally think to check on him in the case he’s unconscious, and obviously when they open the cockpit he’s not there anymore. They assume he ran away.

From there, fine has their final performance and disbands. The Eccentrics are going through it.

Eichi only announces that Wataru passed away the following day due to a gas leak in his Mecca’s cockpit caused by a fuel line rupturing during the DreFes. Natsume is inconsolable and that’s important because of his eventual reconciliation with Tsumugi Aoba.

When Tsumugi attempts to apologize to Natsume and all that (the burning stuff behind the school scene I think), he mentions he can’t forgive someone who helped kill Wataru. Tsumugi drops the bomb that Wataru isn’t dead and is generally confused as to why Natsume thought that he would be. According to Tsumugi, he’s seen Wataru in the council room a few times since the DreFes.

Natsume gets the other Eccentrics (including Shu), much to their dismay that he has left hiding when the tensions have yet to settle. They’re a lot more understanding once he tells them about what Tsumugi has said. They decide to go straight to the council room to confront Eichi and ‘rescue’ Wataru.

They’re both there when the Eccentrics reach them. Wataru is happy to see them but not happy in the sense one would be to see a rescuer and more in the way of seeing a friend. He’s acting like nothing had happened out of the DreFes and a lot more familiar with Eichi than he was before (more like main !-era interactions). The Eccentrics get the sense that something is wrong but Eichi assures them that this is exactly what Wataru had wanted (which he affirms). When asked about telling everyone that Wataru had died, he explains that Wataru was hurt badly and had requested he be disappeared from the stage for a little while to recuperate. (He doesn’t look injured though)

I can’t be bothered to write more but eventually after the Eccentrics leave that little meeting, they splinter more. At some point one of them decides that they can’t just hide by Wataru acting so unusually even for him, they end up finding proof that Wataru was taken out of his mecha, they eventually find more clues to connect the dots, find out that Wataru had died during the DreFes but was replaced by a successful clone of him who lacks the precise memories of the DreFes itself and the animosity it should feel for Eichi, and all the Eccentrics die when they go to confront Eichi. Epilogue is one of them waking up from ‘hibernation,’ implying that they’ve been cloned themselves.

#Enstars #ensemble stars #wataru hibiki #rei sakuma #shu itsuki #kanata shinkai #natsume sakasaki #eichi tenshouin #tsumugi aoba #five eccentrics #past fine #endless coda

10 notes · View notes

vryyn · 1 year

Text

The Emancipation of Performative Apathy

A personal essay about growing up

When I was younger, I always thought I was way too cool to ever express myself, especially to my peers. At the risk of sounding insane, I didn’t really like anyone- most things that I did feel were things that I could only describe as reactionary. I didn’t enjoy the people that I called friends, and, in that time, I lost a lot of interest for the sake of trying to be cool in front of them. Which means that after a certain age, I was that annoying, goofy ass, punk that just didn’t let myself or anyone else enjoy things. And through it all, through the eons that have passed, the thing that got me out of that funk was Kingdom Hearts. (That's right, this is a love letter to kingdom hearts, eat my ass. I’m pushing 30, let me have this.)

(Kingdom Hearts box art via CNET)

For the allistics reading this, Kingdom Hearts is a video game franchise that, as of writing, has 3 main numbered entries and 10 side games. All of these games are integral to the overall story that has spanned over the course of twenty-one years. It’s a game that tries the ludicrous idea of attempting a giant crossover between two IP’s- Final Fantasy and Disney. In all of these games, you play as spikey-haired anime protagonist OC known as Sora who goes on adventures with Disney’s Donald and Goofy. They explore Disney’s catalog of animated films and engage in anime fights with the villains of said movie. If I had to sum up the experience of what it’s like playing it would be something like Goofy and Squall from Final Fantasy 8, meeting up and having a melodramatic conversation about light and darkness. Nothing about this game should have worked, but my 4-year-old ass sat on the floor and loved every second of it. I was hooked from the first game despite that game being very hard and even harder to understand at that age.

Thanks for reading dandelion ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

My brother and I would play that game together and by play, I mean I just watched while he played. The problem was that we were both young children, so we barely knew how to play the game. We got stuck a lot. The first game in this franchise is very hard- the hardest one, if you ask me. Replaying it now is still a struggle in some parts. Things don’t work the way they’re intended to, and characters move like they’re knee deep in mud. Keep in mind this was the early 2000’s, like prehistoric, ancient Mesopotamia era- there was no internet especially in the border town we lived in. The only consistent resource we had were our parents and, of course, a book.

This, however, wasn’t just any old book, this was the holy grail of all knowledge, a heavenly divine scripture written by the gods who wished to bless us mere mortals with a tome filled with their wisdom. Our journey to acquire such knowledge was not going to be easy and we were prepared to face those challenges. We begged, cried, and, most importantly, asked our parents to take us to our conveniently located Barnes and Noble. And after searching for what felt like eons, there it was- The Official Kingdom Hearts Strategy Guide.

(from ‘Kingdom Hearts: The Official Strategy Guide’ (pages 62, 63) via piggyback)

The guide contained everything we ever needed from maps and battle strategies, stickers, art, important item locations, secrets, stickers and, most importantly, enemy stats. We never bought it. But God I wanted those stickers. Anyway, Barnes and Noble had a copy opened so we may have skimmed it. The most important piece of information the guide ever gave us was to use defensive magic. Like that was it. And that has been the most game changing advice I have ever gotten for a game. And with that, we beat the first game, under leveled and slightly better gamers. After the first game, I was sort of left to play these games by myself.

Up until 2013, I had played every entry that came out, including the one where the real- time combat is done with one time use cards that have to be reloaded upon use. The series had a game come out on every piece of hardware you can imagine, so even if I wasn't home to play one of the titles, there was always something in my pocket to give me access to this world. I didn’t understand a damn thing that was being said in the game, but I loved it anyway. It was just nice to see Goofy do the most broken, most insane juggle in the game to go on and get a wombo combo by Donald casting a string of spells that barely work while you were fighting a different enemy using a spinning twits kick. It was nothing short of brilliance.

After 2013, once I was in middle school, I stopped caring. The first trailer for the 3rd installment in the game was shown off way back then and it looked interesting but by all means I just didn’t want to care about a silly game. Instead, I decided to focus my efforts into becoming the worst possible person that a teenager could be- a centralist. I thought I was hot shit, I thought I was being super cool by adapting the language and attitudes of contemporary think tanks. At the time, that meant the rhetoric of atheists on the internet which in itself evolved into the anti-woke, anti-sjw and, eventually, gamer gate spaces. The people I had surrounded myself with just made it easier for me to become so embedded into the idea that I didn’t need to be an active member in my communities or my life. I didn’t let myself be bogged down by anything that could possibly make me feel bad. And because of all that, between the ages of 10-16, my memory is pretty blurry.

When I came to, I found myself over encumbered by the burdening realization- a passionate 3-word sentence, searing onto the tip of my tongue: I hate this. I didn’t dig my heels into the lamest world of politics- which by then shape shifted into the likes of Ben Shapario, Rubin Report, and Project Veritas. They were all things that I used to watch or was aware of who they were. I was too cool to ever be lame enough to fall into that conservative pipeline. I was just becoming an extremely apathetic man. Instead of radicalizing myself to that kind of thing, I just sat there with that nothing for a long time. I didn’t know what to talk about now. I just started listening to other people around me. I saw people who loved things and each other, who were hurt by things outside of their control. And I didn’t know what was going on. In 2016, I miraculously graduated high school even though I kind of just sort of did nothing and still came out at like 18th in my class. In that haze I somehow then performed an any% speed run through college in what was supposed to be a 2018 graduation turned into a 2019 graduation. In that time, I eventually started leaning more towards where I stand now with my political affiliations, and that meant where I was as a kid. I was super based as a kid way more than I was in my adolescence, it’s comedy really.

My brother reminded me sometime in late 2018, early 2019, that after 6+ years Kingdom Hearts 3 was finally releasing. That month I made an unprecedented amount of money in tips, and it was coming out around my birthday, so I bought it. I hadn’t played the previous games in so long and when I went back to see all these games and the plot threads that were going to be wrapped up in this 3rd main- line entry, I was surprised to see how much I remember it and, what was the most shocking to me, was how much I cared about it. Remembering all those characters, people that I hadn’t seen in at least 6+ years was a sobering reminder of my own frail creation of a personality I created and what little it had made me.

I couldn’t help but think about Sora and the quest that he’d been through in these games. Sora is nothing like me. He unabashedly and unconditionally loves, he is quick to extend a hand of friendship, he constantly wears his heart on his sleeve and, most importantly, learns what growing up means in a world that wants to grow cold. He started off as a happy kid who goes on this long adventure because he didn’t want to lose his friends. Throughout the course of the series, in what I’m guessing was the writers trying to write themselves out of a corner, decided to inject fear and doubt into him. He loses his memory and never gets it back after a yearlong sleep. When he comes to, he finds that he’s not the same person anymore and that the friend that he spent so long looking for, doesn't even look like himself. In both writing and performance, it feels like he’s in this sort of catatonic state, a stupor that t. In that time, Sora finds that he’s literally been split in two- a side portrayed by a totally different character, one that was mean, sad, and edgy, one that represented his hurt. It takes Sora a long time to sound and act like his old self, in both writing and performance. The plot device that cements this, funnily enough, is the one that introduces time travel and has Sora look like his old self from the first game. He literally goes back into his old self and the writing is better and it’s filled with so much glee that it genuinely made me laugh. It was the corniest and lamest joke ever and it made me laugh. And I will always remember that.

(Kingdom Hearts 3 title screen from ‘Kingdom Hearts 3 Title Screen Opening & Menu Selection (1080p 60fps)’via YouTube)

When Kingdom Hearts 3 came to my door, I put the disc into my system, sat on the floor, and began what turned out to be one of the most heart wrenching experiences of my life. From a fucking game that featured Donald Duck casting a spell known as Zettaflare which is a spell so powerful that only two other mages in Final Fantasy can use. From the game that features an AMV that feels like it was ripped from an early 2000’s YouTube video. The main menu alone had me in tears. That’s how it went from that point forward, just little parts in its stilted weirdly written dialogue that would just remind me of me. It all just collectively came forward at the very end. Sora rescues everyone. The evil bad man (who is the only person in the franchise to have any melanin in his skin and I think I should be a little offended by that) stops being evil and realizes that maybe leading the world into fascism isn’t the move. The worlds that had fallen into darkness have been saved. That even the other half of Sora found happiness in his friend’s and stopped being so angsty. All is okay in the universe. The final image of the game, of this main line series so far, is that of Sora staring into the eyes of his love interest, both of their silhouettes outlined by the setting sun beside them. I’m shouting for my boy Sora, that son of a bitch did it. Right after they both lean in, there's a kiss coming, the music starts swelling, and as a beautiful bloom radiating from the sun, the colors turn vibrant as their outlines become consumed, he fades away into that light. He’s gone. Then it cuts to credits. That’s it. That's the ending. It made me cry so fucking hard.

I have never let myself be part of a world that experienced anything. I purposely closed myself off to maintain a level of vague coolness because I was ashamed to ever be seen as liking something let alone ever approaching a personality that is authentically me. I think I was just scared as being seen as childish or lesser for liking silly things like a game or show. All I got from the people around me, including adults, were positive responses for being an emotionally constipated teenager. I held myself back and I lost a lot of myself because of my shame.

Shame as I now understand it, isn’t something that comes from within, it’s a feeling that comes because of one’s relation to others. It’s a feeling that comes when there’s an innate desire of needing the validation of others to accept you and all that you encompass. And when you start thinking about it like that, then there IS a lot of pressure to be someone that others will like. That ideological framework is what hurts the most. It's the thing that makes cliques and ends up becoming a sort of internalized stigmatization. In the article Shame in Self and Society, Thomas J. Sheff would argue that in all of our understanding of lived- in experiences of expressions, shame, compared to feelings like love that have had such a much broader and wider understanding, has been so uniquely defined in our society. It’s in that we can see why there is such a shocking lack of empathy in our world. And I think I can agree with it, to a certain extent.

The word that we use now, well from what I see, is cringe. Cringe in every way shape and form is about shaming people for having any sort of noticeable attachment to something. I would argue that cringe takes it a step further by directly comparing it to standards of neurotypicality of expression which can be further expressed into conservative white thought. Like all things, cringe and shame are political and hurting someone for not being what you wanted them to be is pretty lame if you ask me. I was that person and I bullied myself for it. I hid in corners of my own life watching someone that I didn’t recognize. In my head, that’s what growing up looked like.

Three months after the release of KH3, and to the surprise of everyone, I came out as trans. I know it’s pretty stereotypical of me to be a fan of Kingdom Hearts and be trans but I think it’s funny. It’s like right there with being trans and a Sonic fan. It was a (Donkey Kong Barrel) blast coming out. And I’m happy that I did. I have found happiness in allowing myself to change, to let other people see me change. I have learned to just love things and others and myself. And that’s a weird sentence to say. It seems like just a basic human understanding, like something that would just be fundamental to just being, I don’t know, decent. And I had spent so much of my time never knowing. That pretentious kid thought they knew everything, what a punk.

Being well into my 20’s now, all I know is that I don’t want to be that person again. I don’t want to be known as someone who is there for my friends because of the simple fact that I enjoy being their friend. To let myself be completely infatuated with the small things that exist in this world. I want to be able to see others as themselves and not as what I want them to be, to see the parts of them that don’t shine anymore and still enjoy their company. I know that’s not a revolutionary take, in fact I think it makes people wince their eyes out of concern especially since the thing that made me realize it was a spikey haired anime protagonist and his closest friends Donald and Goofy. But I don’t know how else to tell you how happy that has made me. That learning from a goofball like Sora was kind of sort of freeing. And I think that I can best explain this with a simple meme, don't kill the part of you that is cringe, kill the part that cringes. I guess it was ok to just want to be a little my bestie like Sora.

(Image of Kingdom Hearts gang and their first appearance outfits from ‘Kingdom Hearts: Visual Art Collection: CG & Illustration Works’ via Internet Archive)

#kingdom hearts #writing #short essay #funny #creative writing #games #video games #what a time to be alive #what is a tag #but #a #speck #of #pain

11 notes · View notes

northwestofinsanity · 1 year

Text

I’ve had a theory about how symbolic the structure of “In For the Kill” by Winger is, and haven’t been quite sure how to bring it up without it seeming right out of the blue. But, @nocturnal-light was interested in it, so I guess opportunity knocks to describe why this song is so great.

First of, for context -at the surface, and in simplest terms, it’s an anti-war song. Not an uncommon topic among bands that emerged in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. This one is already hinting at a different view, where even when there might not be an active war, it’s continuing under the surface/at home in every day life with twisted things society does. “Day after day, it’s always the same…” And that sadly still holds up today in a lot of ways.

However, there’s a structural trick starting in the middle of the song, building up to the guitar solo. The key drops from G sharp minor (or, what would be like playing in A minor if you had a guitar tuned in D flat, as many 80s metal era bands did) to G minor, which has a notoriously dark tone. There’s a lot of movie soundtracks that actually use G minor in the background when the antagonist or villain appears -Star Wars being perhaps one of the best known examples. And, “In For the Kill” takes on the structure of a militaristic march at this point in the background. While Kip Winger has the lead vocal, which has the fluid structure of most lead vocal lines, the background vocals are very stiff, falling directly on and punctuating the beat so that you could count the four-by-four rhythm on the words -”Don’t fill my eyes, fill my head, til I’m overloaded; you talk, and you talk, and you talk, but I don’t hear anything” (emphasized beats in italic, first word usually hangs over both beats one and two, but with all four emphasized on the end of each line with reverb). These are shown as the official lyrics, however, the lead vocal that Kip sings is “you talk, and you don’t hear the clock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick”. And, if you’re listening in on Kip’s lead vocal, you almost don’t hear what the backing vocals are saying (something I was especially tuned to last year when I broke my headphones and the left side played quieter than the right, which exacerbated that effect, though it still stands with balanced sound). The same can go in reverse, in that his lead can disappear into the lower, background line when focusing in on that. What does that possibly mean beneath a song about a society being brainwashed by war ideology and propaganda? (aka, “Yankee Doodle leading lambs to slaughter”… in a war-like march, repeating as anyone else would say, indeed). The very structure of lead and backing vocals has physically mimicked what the very lyrics are portraying.

That same section reprises toward the end, in the main key of G sharp minor -sometimes described to give off a feeling of an angry struggle, though I find it the perfect combination of the menace of G minor and the angst and drama of A minor -and both work here. It has a much more desperate feeling than the middle of the song, almost of losing in the battle described. “…You know I don’t hear it anymore, and you keep on moving…”. The reverb on the march-time background vocals is full force to reunite it all on “overloaded”, almost creating an overloading sound. “My word’s no good, it’s not enough” is the last vocal other than that march-time repetitive backing vocal in the fade-out, right as there’s a descending guitar lick that in context, feels like a mental spiral into brainwashed, mind-controlled madness -yet another mind lost and led ‘in for the kill.’ Not as impactful in symbolism as the first time around, but in context with it, it’s the progression of the events portrayed in the message.

#Winger #winger pull #Kip Winger #song analysis

7 notes · View notes

the-ethereal-lorestar · 2 years

Text

Writeblr Intro

I already have a writing Tumblr account, but it’s mixed together with art and other stuff, but it’s not centered on a Writeblr account. My brain refuses to acknowledge things that aren’t cut and dry, so I made a whole new Tumblr account focused around the Writeblr community. I wasn’t really active in it with my writing, and art Tumblr account. So, I’m still new to the Writeblr community.

Please feel free to Tag me, send me asks, message me about your characters, WIPS, book recs, etc. I’m happy to receive, and talk about them!

My name is Jessica. I can be referred to as Jess, or as my common persona on the internet, Soul (from SoulGalaxyWolf). I’m 25 with she/they pronouns and I pursued a creative writing degree with a minor in studio art for most of my college years until I had to transfer to a local university—transfer into an English degree, due to financial reasons. The same reasons that force me to not complete my last semester I need to take to finish.

I have bad social anxiety, and it’s challenging for me to interact with an online community. I’m going to try, though. I have a strong desire to interact with more writers. I have problems with motivation and discipline, too. I’m not diagnosed with any mental disorders (officially?), but I have been told I have depression by therapists, so that might be a challenge for me as well to interact with this community.

My main goal is to interact with the community and talk to other people about writing over my own work, but I would like to do progress stuff of my current main WIP. Since the first time I made this post I haven’t been all that successful. I’m going to work on that.

A common question I would hear is what started it all? I don’t recall specifically when I decided to do it professionally, but I do remember a core memory for what might’ve started it. TL;DR: I went passed a minimum word count for a writing assignment in third grade. The prompt was finding an egg underneath the bed. I remember enjoying how my classmates reacted to how much I wrote. I had a lot of fun writing from that prompt. It would be the only prompt that I could write from, lol. I have issues with them now.

What I mostly like to read and write is YA fantasy. I am interested in other subgenres of fantasy, but It’s hard to find interesting fantasy novel series without a recommendation. Also, all the fantasy books I could think of right now are YA fantasy’s, so I can’t think of other books I’ve read that weren’t YA fantasy.

Other genres I enjoy are paranormal, sci-fi, and historical fiction, and mystery/thriller/horror. It’s mostly a specific area of these genres: supernatural abilities (not much for vampires, but prefer interesting werewolf stories), books like “The Martian” for sci-fi, and victorian-esque(?) era, or steampunk for historical fiction. I’m interested in reading mythology and folklore stories, but haven’t looked or seen any.

If you have an obsession with genres within or outside my interests and would be super excited to talk about it, chat with me. I wanna be convinced, I wanna be pushed, and I want to be attacked by your interests in different and similar genres :)

My favorite tropes are found family, idiot1 and Idiot2, soulmates, villain redemption arcs, villain x hero, and more.

I only like romances as subplots. Only exceptions are probably two stories that’s on Wattpad. One is mxm, but it’s mostly because I kin hard on one character (Dear Uncle Vic from “I Kissed a Boy” series by rotXinXpieces).

My W.I.P:

The Siren with a Silent Voice: Another small town magical realism story. It also has a dark secret that is attached to the town that involves the families of the main characters. Probably incredibly similar to Into the Witch’s Town, but it goes to a different direction that’s more “adventure” fantasy then cozy fantasy. Currently have four chapters written on Wattpad, but haven’t worked on it for a while because I desperately need to plan it out. Plus, the first chapter is boring too me. :(

Into The Witch’s Town: A cottage core magical realism novella/novel. My protag, Zelmarie, or Faye/Zel, inherits her grandmother’s home in a small town filled with inhabitants that have as much of a strong personality as her grandmother did. I haven’t gotten far into the planning phase.

Connecting Souls: This story used to be my main, but I decided to stop working on it until I don’t get so overwhelmed with world building-- I want to make my own world to set most of my stories in. "Connecting Souls” is about a girl that has trust issues who is thrown into a different world then her own. Her family was taken from her, so she has to navigate the world while struggling to trust her traveling companions. Themes include trust, found family, and trauma. I decided to work on something that I could realistically accomplish for now, so this is in the back burner.

[Working Title]: I also have a story I’m writing with a friend. I don’t really have a title to include, but it’s about experiments on magical races by humans. One is a race I made, and my friends character is a race that he made. We haven’t worked on it in a while, but I’m trying to work on some stuff towards it.

That’s it. Interact with this post if ya interested. Have a great day, you guys :3c

16 notes · View notes

being-of-rain · 2 years

Text

Thoughts from my Classic Who watch, season 7 edition. Is this overall my favourite season so far? I think so! This was a bit of a long one because I found a lot to gush about liking in these stories.

I have kinda mixed feelings about the third Doctor and his era, so I was interested to see how they’d develop during my Classic Who watch. But I knew I really liked a lot of his first season, and watching all of it over two days confirmed that for me! The four stories just feel like such a coherent unit and dedicated to their aesthetic of modern earthbound sci-fi adventures with an official agency dedicated to the paranormal. Each of the four is a classic telling of a different type of tale you could do with that setting. I’ve seen lots of people compare the show to the British sci-fi serial Quartermass, but never having seen that, I couldn’t help but draw parallels instead with The X-Files.

The seven-part format of the other stories don’t bother me too much, but I’m really glad that Spearhead From Space is only four-parts. Unlike the others, I don’t think it really has anything political to say, and is all aesthetic- but that’s not a downside when your aesthetic is this good. The asteroids, the silent and efficient attempt to kidnap the Doctor from hospital, the eldritch abomination growing out of plastic in a scientific coffin. Channing- the actor who played Channing deserves all the praise, he barely ever changes expression but he’s never not creepy and very obviously the bad guy. And the autons! Living mannequin dummies is such a classic and easy horror trope, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them done as efficiently as they are in Spearhead (sorry Nikola Orsinov). Coming alive in the background of the shot at the end of episode 2, surprising the hunter’s wife inside her home in episode 3, and gunning people down on the street in episode 4 are as scary as the Autons have ever been. As for the regulars, the Brigadier is incredibly fun, and I love it when he’s obviously enjoying himself like he is in his first scene. The new Doctor is funny and it’s interesting to see how he reacts to being stuck on Earth, trying to run off mid-story and acting rude to a lot of people (Two was incredibly polite to the Brigadier compared to how Three treats him). But the standout for me was Liz Shaw, I love her so much. Her first scene with the Brigadier is fantastic at establishing her character and how much she won’t compromise on who she is and what she believes (Science!). It’s hilarious to watch her and the Doctor immediately become best friends by bonding over annoying the Brig. Like I said in my last watchthrough post, I love a strong female character in classic who, and Liz just feels so incredibly human too (yawning and daydreaming about sleep while working all night, what a mood). She even gets to be the once to ultimately save the day by fixing the Nestene-zapping machine she made with the Doctor! Oh, and having a hospital cleaner call the press who mob the Brigadier as soon as he arrives there is hilarious and was the perfect way to immediately ground the series in modern-day Earth, fantastic.

I do love that, despite it being a mistake and no matter how unnecessary it is, every Dr Who fan I know always calls this story by its full on-screen title, Doctor Who and the Silurians. It’s just... such an aesthetic. The Dr Who In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks of TV Who. I also love that of the four season 7 stories, only the first has a completely malevolent alien force. For a show that preaches accepting people despite their differences, Doctor Who sometimes gets complacent in showing Humans Good Aliens Bad just because of its format, and it’s been nice seeing the Third Doctor era actively reject that complacency so often. Certainly I don’t think the Silurians (the creatures or the story) would be as remembered or loved by Dr Who lore if they had been portrayed as purely out-and-out villains, and the Doctor and Liz silently driving away from the exploding caves makes for a really sombre ending. There’s some good horror in this story too, like the build-up of the disturbed man drawing figures on the wall of his room, and Liz being attacked alone in the barn. And of course, oh god, this really is a too-real story after the worldwide pandemic. Seeing government officials ignore quarantine rules simply because they didn’t feel like obey them was so accurate to real life. And my brother and I groaned and yelled at the TV when Dr Lawrence said “Why should I waste my time having useless injections against an imaginary epidemic?” Jeezy Creezy.

The government conspiracy in The Ambassadors of Death gave me such X-Files vibes, and my brother pointed thought that UNIT had so many security lapses in it that they should find another job. I really liked that once again the aliens were reasonable, and this time a peaceful solution could be met with them, and meanwhile it was the xenophobic officials and army general who were the real villains. Of course, the horror in this story also endeared itself to me. I’ve been getting more into horror recently, and I’m clearly find a lot of examples of it that I like in Doctor Who. The ambassadors approaching people slowly and impassively in their spacesuits, the cliffhanger where one is reaching out right behind the Doctor, and the moment where Liz sees one without its helmet are all fantastic. There was some funny unintentional comedy in this story too, like when there was an extended sequence of global satellite dishes working together to co-ordinate where in the world a signal was coming from, and in the end the world map shows that it was coming from England, shocker. Or the end of the serial which wraps up so abruptly, with the Doctor shaking peoples hands and saying his goodbye the moment the general gets arrested and saying he has other places to be with no further explanation. He really does hate doing the busywork of tidying up afterward.

Literally what could be more iconic than making an evil version of a character with an eyepatch. Nothing. It’s kind of a surprise that Doctor Who hasn’t done more with parallel universes, but if it had to just do one then Inferno was a good outing for the concept. The way it used the drilling and seeing a world just slightly ahead of our own but already facing total destruction was very clever. And the visual of the lava approaching at the end of episode 6 is one that’ll always stick with me. I’m glad that it was that horror which got brought up the next season as something that really stuck with the Doctor, and utterly terrified him. I’m not sure what else to say about this one that I haven’t said is great about the other stories- the aesthetic of a down-to-earth agency (or forced-down-to-earth in the Doctor’s case) facing something huge, unknown, and deadly. The largest obstacle and initiation of most problems being humans’ greed, pride, and bureaucracy. And of course the regulars, who are always fun. Benton gets his largest role since The Invasion here, even ignoring his evil duplicate, and it’s easy to see why he’s brought in for some light comic relief in future seasons. Evil Brigadier is both enjoyable and hateable like only the best characters can be. And Liz! It’s such a shame that she only had one season, because she’s just so lovable and smart, she’s probably one of my favourite companions so far. Even when the story sidelines her, she’s always putting up a fight, for what she believes in and against those who’d keep her down (unfortunate that she didn’t win that fight against the producers. I wonder what an AU of season 8 where Liz stayed would look like?)

#my thoughts #this again gets rambly #I shouldn't wait so long after watching the episodes to write these because I start to forget jsdlkfj #Three #Liz #The Brig #unit #autons

11 notes · View notes

cyarskaren52 · 5 months

Text

The 10 Best Sexy Christmas Songs, Ranked

Kayla Kibbe

Friends, it’s that time of year again, by which I of course mean time for me and my former-Catholic-school irreverence to ruin the holiest of holy days by making it a sex thing. As we here at Cosmo have so generously demonstrated over the years, there are plenty of ways one can go about doing this, like giving the internet a veryintimately detailed description of how much you want to fuck the Grinch, or ranking his fellow Christmas movie villains on their comparative bangability.

But, as Taylor Swift might say, don’t blame me. In case you haven’t noticed, Christmas was weirdly horny well before I got here. There’s Santa’s obvious sugar daddy thing, literally so, somuch more yuletide pornography than anyone could possibly want, plus whatever’s going on with The Rockettes, which, as far as I can tell, is a supposedly family-friendly spectacle that seems to center on sexy dancing ladies with legs for days, just saying. (Christmas is a horny and confusing time, isn’t it? Don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon.) And then, of course, there’s the sexy Christmas songs.

Horny holiday music tends to represent a particularly unhinged subgenre of this seasonal catalog, anchored by kind-of-cringe classics like “Santa Baby” and the one where the kid catches his parents making out—which, literally why? I hate absolutely every aspect of that song and have never met a single person who feels differently. If you are that person, please let me know what I’m missing. JK, please never attempt to contact me—we are not the same and I want nothing TF to do with you and your rancid taste in Christmas music.

More From Cosmopolitan

Anywayyy, I’m happy to report that in more recent years, unnecessarily sexy Christmas songs have gone through a pretty substantial glow up. I’m not saying many of them are really any more hinged, per se, than their predecessors. But they’re definitely better. And so, I, your resident chief of sexually-charged Christmas content, present to you my official ranking of the best, not-cringe sexy Christmas songs. May this soundtrack bring you peace as we all navigate this horny and confusing time together.

10. Santa Tell Me (Naughty Version) — Ariana Grande

Look, I’m just gonna say it: Ariana fully phoned it the fuck in on this one. When I first heard she was releasing a sexed-up version of this 2014 instant classic nine years after its OG release, I was like, “Wow, maybe a horny ‘Santa Tell Me’ is what my life has been missing for the past near-decade. Save me, horny ‘Santa Tell Me.’” And then she gave us two lines. TWO. LINES. That’s it. The entire rest of the song is exactly the same. She didn’t even throw in a fun and flirty outro. Nothing. Listen, ordinarily I respect Ariana’s quiet-quitting-coded choice to blissfully ignore her fans’ increasingly thirsty pleas for new music while she’s busy banging SpongeBob and being blonde. But this time, frankly, I expected more. The only reason this half-assed cash-grab even made this list is because I still respect Ariana’s reign as the rightful Queen of Christmas Pop (sorry, Mariah), but honestly, I fear her throne may be in danger after this travesty. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

9. Santa Baby — Ariana Grande, Liz Gillies

Okay I know I just called ”Santa Baby” cringe, which it is. But as far as renditions of this immortal ode to wanting to fuck Santa go, the Ariana and Liz Gillies version is superior. (Obviously Eartha Kitt’s reigns supreme, but I’m talking modern-day covers.) On a semi-unrelated note, I would also like to take a moment here to shout out baby Taylor Swift’s version, which is rendered remarkably sexless thanks to Debut Era Tay’s faux twang. Trust me, nothing sucks the sex out of things quite like a fake-ass country accent, which ends up making this song more cute than horny and thus...actually kind of better?

8. Glittery — Kacey Musgraves

This 2019 banger isn’t suuuper horny, sure, but it is at least a little bit sexually suggestive. I mean, getting shaken up and turned upside down by a lover doesn’t not sound kinky.

7. Cozy Little Christmas — Katy Perry

“A little whisky, we’re getting frisky,” and by “we,” Katy Perry apparently means she and Santa, with whom she enjoys a nude couple’s massage in the predictably over-the-top music video for this playfully flirty little number. TBH, I’m kind of surprised Katy Perry, queen of campy horn, hasn’t blessed us with anything more explicit in the holiday music department, but this will have suffice until she sees fit to drop a festive version of ”Peacock.” (“I wanna see your...yule log?” Just a suggestion!)

6. ’Tis the Damn Season — Taylor Swift

Okay, so this isn’t really a Christmas song in the traditional sense, nor is it really horny in the typical tongue-in-cheek kinda way that defines this subgenre. What it is, however, is a song about banging your high school ex when you go home for the holidays and also yearning, which I think definitely qualifies it for this list. If you feel differently, kindly submit a formal complaint to Kayla @ JK, don’t contact me dot com.

5. Buy Me Presents — Sabrina Carpenter

In which this rising Queen of Horny Christmas (Ariana, watch your back), implores her lover to drink her like a glass of warm milk and keep her “stocking” filled, because if he doesn’t deliver she’ll just fuck Santa instead. Ladies, it never hurts to remind your man that you have Other! Options!

4. December — Ariana Grande

Ah, yes, Christmas & Chill, the EP of exclusively horny Christmas bangers that cemented Ariana’s (ahem, now wavering!) status as the true Queen of Christmas Pop. Merry Christmas, here I am boy, indeed.

3. Wit It This Christmas — Ariana Grande

In which Ariana dares to ask the question on all of our horny, confused minds this time of year: “Are you down for some of these milk and cookies?”

2. Christmas Tree — Lady Gaga ft. Space Cowboy

My elder Gen Z is showing with this one, but listen—if you, like me, were in sixth grade when this song came out, it was a whole damn thing. Like, your crush Tyler probably played it for you on his iPod Shuffle at recess and you smiled knowingly at the lyrics even though you weren’t really quite sure how to decipher all this horny holiday innuendo because you were 11 and hadn’t 100 percent figured out how sex works yet, but also because it turns out sexual innuendo in Christmas music is pretty much borderline nonsensical as a rule. Which brings us to….

1. A Nonsense Christmas — Sabrina Carpenter

Ariana, take notes. This is how you sex up a re-release of an existing song, okay? Sabrina committed to the damn bit on this one and she nailed it. She did not have to go this hard, but she did. And, that, friends, is the true spirit of horny Christmas.

Kayla Kibbe (she/her) is the Associate Sex and Relationships Editor at Cosmopolitan US, where she covers all things sex, love, dating and relationships. She lives in Astoria, Queens and probably won’t stop talking about how great it is if you bring it up. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Sent from my iPhone

0 notes

ericleo108 · 1 year

Audio

11/18/2022 Click here for Spotify or Apple Music. This is my 24th official release. “The Villian” is a rap track I wrote from the villain's perspective taking about socioeconomic conditions in America. The goal was to bring light to the socioeconomic conditions that the people face versus the wealthy. I tell the story as if I’m the villain, describing what that looks like throughout the entire song. I use the movie “The Wolf of Wallstreet” as inspiration. Usually my music is more clean-cut but rarely does the world present itself so properly. I wanted to know what it was like to join the debauchery, even if it was role-playing.

The cover art came from Gigzlogo from Fiverr. The beat is from KeyAnobeat.com. The track was professionally recorded, mixed, and mastered by Sam Peters at LA Luna Recording Studio in Kalamazoo Michigan. You can stream or download the track wherever music is sold. Thank you for your support. Be sure to follow because new music is released every first and third Friday of every month.

Lyrics:

Sure I’ll play the villian

Bitch who you fuckin with Era era era, era fresh Bitch who you fuckin with Era era era, era fresh

I play the game like the Wolf of Wall Street Now these hoes are workin to call me Smart men hope that their business lasts Bitch I’m busy snortin coke off this hookers ass Don’t pay’um to fuck I pay’um to leave And tell um no kissing after suck’n the D She love her career, lucky to be me I employe another fair, nothing to me

Bitch who you fuckin with Era era era, era fresh Bitch who you fuckin with Era era era, era fresh Bitch who you fuckin with I’m hotter than the summer is You’re a customers is what it is I like when they’re dumg as shit I’m rich, white, and oppressive Passive aggressive Rob you with a contract And stay its an investment Bitch who you fuckin with Bitch who you fuckin with

I pollute the environment Reign like a tyrant Blame it on blacks Say it’s because their defiance Look at them callin I stay ballin So i gotta keep attention To stay apaulin This like my Jake and Logan Paul shit Make money depicting the definition of audacious I bitch about taxes And complain about the back end Looking good is what the tactic is Exploiting what the workers did Force women to have babies And deal with the enslavement Servitude for family over payment No paid maternal leave In land of free It’s business over people in the American economy Want your cake and eat it too? That’s reserved for what I do I convince you not to vote your interests Sucks to be you Your not a product of environment, it’s your fault you failed You didn’t try hard or long enough, the opportunity’s there I make money work for me, while you can’t make ends meet I get cashflow from assets while I’m playin or asleep Propogandize populations to think like my sex Claim its hard work when it’s leverage and a mind set

Bitch who you fuckin with Era era era, era fresh Bitch who you fuckin with era fresh Bitch who you fuckin with I’m hotter than the summer is You’re a customers is what it is I like when they’re dumg as shit I’m rich, white, and oppressive Passive aggressive Rob you with a contract And stay its an investment Bitch who you fuckin with

#hip hop #rap #rapper #wolf of wallstreet #socioeconomic #eric leo 108

0 notes

twistedtummies2 · 8 months

Text

Fifteen Days of Disney Magic - Opening & Rules

Anybody who knows me well knows that I’m a HUGE Disney fanboy. Say what you will about the company itself, and all the skullduggery that goes on and has gone on with such a mammoth-sized corporation over the decades; the fact of the matter is, Disney is nevertheless a huge part of my life, and it’s been a huge part for many people’s lives throughout time. In fact, as of this month, it will have been at least a full century. Yes, the Walt Disney Company is officially turning 100 years old this month, with the big day being on October 16th. Almost a year ago, I decided I needed to do something special to commemorate the occasion, because Disney is something so important to me – and so important to a lot of people – that it deserves something special. My initial plan was to do a month-long countdown of My Top 31 Disney Animated Films; much like my Top 31 Disney Villains Countdown from a while back, I’d only be counting the animated features under the Walt Disney Animation Studios banner (with one exception, and you all likely know what it is), which currently includes more than sixty movies. In the words of the Bard, however, “there’s the rub.” You see, after several MONTHS of trying to figure out my Top 31 Films JUST FROM THAT SELECTION ALONE – not counting TV productions, Pixar, live-action pieces, Marvel or Lucasfilm, and so on and so forth – I realized that I was effectively attempting a truly impossible task. Ranking the Disney Villains was one thing; that was really a case of just looking at one element from the numerous movies on the roster, and judging them totally on their own and with my own biases in place. But judging the films as a whole, and trying to figure out which ones were the single most special to me? That was something I found I simply could not do; I love SO MANY of these movies, and after a certain number I found I liked a lot of them about the same. Ranking my favorites up to Number 31 was a challenge I just could not manage properly: every time I thought I had things figured out, suddenly I’d remember a movie, or reconsider an option, or recall something important, etc. THANKFULLY, I did realize something else: remember how I said I had this issue “after a certain number”? Well, as it turns out, that number was the random digit of fifteen. Yep. After fifteen, everything sort of went to Bald Mountain, but I felt and still feel that the Top 15 in question are, at least for the time being, pretty solid. So, I decided to still do the countdown, but make it a Two Week (and a Day) Special Event rather than something lasting the full month (I’ll be doing at least one other Disney-related list on founding day, and possibly one or two others later in the month, though I cannot promise that). That Special Event is going to start tomorrow. Now, the main thing to know about this countdown is that everything in it is a matter of personal biases and opinions. I’m not ranking the BEST or MOST POPULAR Disney Films. I’m ranking my FAVORITES, and that’s a bit of a different issue. What makes them my favorites varies from movie to movie: for a lot of them it’s personal nostalgia, while for others it’s just that the content and themes are things that appeal to me above all else. (With most of them, it’s a bit of both.) So the chances are EXTREMELY high that My Top 15 will not be the Top 15 for anybody else who reads. On that note, here’s a shocker for you all: ONLY ONE OF THESE MOVIES will be a Modern Era Disney Film (classified as any film made after 2009). Yes, you read that correctly, and no, I’m not telling you all which one it is. You’ll have to find out yourselves. Bua ha ha. Also, on a final note, I’m still following my initial plan’s rules, meaning that – with one exception – I’m only counting the films under the Walt Disney Animation Studios lineup. With all that said…if I haven’t scared you away or greatly disappointed you too badly, I hope you’ll join me for a special countdown I’m going to call…15 Days of Disney Magic!

Our countdown begins tomorrow, with my 15th Favorite Disney Classic! HINT: It’s a Package Full of Fun. (P.S.: None of the films featured in the banner will be in my Top 15. Consider those just a few of the possible Honorable Mentions I could name.)

#disney 100 #disney 100 special #list #countdown #fifteen days of disney magic #top 15 disney animated movies #opening & rules

5 notes · View notes

felassan · 4 years

Text

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

3K notes · View notes

blufox234isadumbname · 3 years

Note

Why does no one ever talk about the abuse C!Tommy did to Dream? Tommy ruined everything C!Dream worked for when he first entered the world. He found it funny to break the rules and to drive C!Dream down a dark path. And then he hated it when c!Dream finally did something back. C!Tommy also murdered Dream twice. With every intention to kill him the third and final time… c!Dream isn’t perfect but c!Tommy practically caused his downfall but it doesn’t get talked about.

ok imma just- roll up my c!tommy apologist sleeves *ahem*

here's my response to this:

(All mention of members of the Dream SMP are characters, not the actual content creators behind them unless stated otherwise with the cc! tag, this is all within Minecraft roleplay and not reflective of the actual people

This also mentions the Exile Arc, which has themes of suicide and abusive relationships. If the subject is of discomfort, please scroll away)

I'm assuming that the first part is in reference to the early stages of the Dream SMP era, like in the same-ish month-long period when cc!Tommy joined (and officially when Tommy emerged to be a part of the slowly forming story at that point). This era of the Dream SMP is a little hard to gauge in terms of morals since the distinction of what's canon and non-canon just don't exist. At this point, it was before fully fleshed out characters were introduced, just the CCs as themselves messing around in a Minecraft server. Hence, a lot of the aspects, such as violence and psychological effects, of current DSMP lore aren't seen in the same serious regard during this era. It is still a part of lore but it's not to be really seen as "serious" - not unimportant but not exactly the most grounded in logic. Though, the word "abuse" is incredibly harsh to describe the early stages of the Dream SMP. It just implies Tommy deliberately causing trouble out of pure malice. The things that Tommy was at fault for don't refelct that kind of intention, most were the result of the first Disc War - which was instigated by Dream stealing the discs first. Other things were harmless pranks, not really meant to break someone's psyche. There was the conflict that occurred reflect the burning of Ponk's lemon tree but again no actual mind-breaking stuff happened on either Dream's end, just annoyance

Later on in the L'manburg era, again no sort of malice is shown. Dream was the one insistent on starting a war over L'Manburg's independence, Tommy has just pulled along and stood with Wilbur during the confrontations. The most consistent thing in the early eras of Dream SMP lore and early L'manburg is that Dream is seen to be the bad guy, though not as the malevolent force in more recent Dream SMP lore. He was more like a bully if anything, starting conflict to get what he needs and keep things under his control. Post-War and such had Dream be less of a threat and more of that one begrudging chaperone that hates a certain group of kids, also known as the L'manburgians. Dream was more cartoon villain than the careless monster he is presented during the more recent storylines.

So to say Tommy to be the reason for Dream's turn into a genuine and serious threat is false. If anything, Dream's own downfall through the storyline was mostly his own doing rather than someone else's. Again, the Disc War was started by Dream himself stealing the discs and holding them as leverage and the war for L'manburg's independence was caused by Dream's own insistence otherwise. No other force beckoned him to do so, just his own want to control the happenings on the SMP. Around Manburg's and Pogtopia's formation, Dream was acting out of interest of the SMP that he has power over, which included siding for the act of chaos and subsequent power that comes from it. Again, all out of his own volition, not a single person convinced him to not chase the promise of control. He could've just declined the Revival Book from Schlatt yet he accepted the bribe anyway. Same with letting Wilbur having the TNT and dethroning Eret.

It's already established during Tommy's Exile arc that Dream was already becoming a vile person, pushing away any close alliance aside from hiring Punz - even then, it was only a business relationship rather than one forged in close bond. All the things that led to Dream's descent into a more immoral person were his own choice. That included deliberately secluding and messing with Tommy during his exile. The entire arc was about the growing abusive relationship with Dream as the manipulator and Tommy as the victim. From destroying any armour and items Tommy had in order to prevent any way for retaliation, feigning friendliness to gain Tommy's trust and cutting off Tommy from any other source of support, Dream made the entirety of Exile a traumatic experience filled with conflicting feelings and depression. Even near the beginning, with the scene of Tommy looking down at lava in the Nether, Tommy already showed signs of decline in mental health. That was only further proven by the scene where Tommy attempted to jump off the dirt pillar.

Tommy had gone through hell yet managed to pull through, realised what he had experienced was abuse and headed off towards Technoblade's home in search of a better place of shelter. His leave from exile was healthy but doesn't diminish the sense of anger he had towards Dream. Even when his stance on Dream at the time was conflicting, still regressing back to the same belief Dream was his friend, he still held a hatred for Dream. That was further strengthened when he was able to overcome fears that stemmed from Exile, such as heights and Logstedshire itself. The finale to the Disc War began and Tommy was back to being played around by Dream, being threatened and forced to give up his items all over again. All the build-up then leads to almost everyone on the server entering through the Nether portal and Tommy finally getting revenge.

The scene where Dream was being killed until his last and final life wasn't just Tommy getting revenge, everyone else was backing him up. Most people on the server were fed up with Dream's doings, they all wanted Dream gone. It was only because Dream held something of importance, the Revival Book, that they wanted to spare him. Tommy's want to kill his abuser and enemy wasn't out of his own desire, it was fueled by everyone else's anger towards Dream too - which was further reinforced by the wall of important attachments that Dream intended to use against everyone else.

Moral ethics of whether death is justified in a Minecraft roleplay aside, Dream's death was simply akin to the downfall of any other villain. He was made within the story of that season to be unempathetic, with the lack of a perspective to see his side of things. It was a quality that made Dream a good villain in the first place, a villain you couldn't understand. A villain whose inner machinations were a mystery and thus made him much less like a pitiful human. To say that it was Tommy's fault that he became a villain is undercutting the purpose of Dream as a villain during that storyline of the season. It undervalues why he is a villain and genuine fear amongst others in the SMP. Additionally, saying Tommy was wrong for wanting to kill Dream undermines what he went through in exile. Disregarding the most important arc of the character just leaves an incomplete hole in him.

Hence, the reason that no one talks about Tommy being the downfall to Dream in becoming a villain is that it is untrue and completely devaluing to either character of what made them what they are in the story.

160 notes · View notes