#so i wanted to try making something somewhat cohesive to collect them all

[rivertalesien]

Star Trek Picard

It's over.

Episode 10: The Last Generation

Spoilers.

Well, a quick one: they completely forgot about Laris.

Were there good things that happened during the three seasons of Picard's run? Absolutely. We got back with Seven of Nine and she's queer and awesome and a great character to go forward with for a new series. It's great to be able to say the captain of the new Enterprise-G is a queer former cyborg who really made this show immensely compelling whenever she was on-screen.

Re-introducing the Borg and Picard's troubled past with them as a major plot point was smart: it's probably the most interesting thing about the man and a massive shame they didn't explore his relationship to them, post-TNG. We got some convoluted business about synths and Starfleet's ban, we tied into the Romulans and a really promising idea involving a confiscated Borg cube: but it never went very far. Too-tied into Data (and his "children"), the first season floundered trying to find its way, when it was right in front of them: former Borg working together to redeem themselves in Starfleet/The Federation's eyes, only to find their world has already been quietly and slowly assimilated into its own drone-like collective of bureaucratic stagnation. So many terrible things being allowed to happen because no one is trying to change a broken system? The disconnection of what used to be a large, functional family? It says something of our world and was a missed opportunity, I think.

But involved storytelling seems to be a thing of the past.

Season two may have had some of the strangest storytelling decisions of all and the start of the nostalgia porn that Picard became: it blatantly ripped off TOS' films so much, Nicholas Meyer and Leonard Nimoy deserve writing credits.

Even though the title of the show is Picard, delving into his childhood history seemed way off base: it might have made a nice novelization back in the 90s, but it didn't really illuminate anything about Jean-Luc Picard (except the curious amount of Victoriana he grew up with) that hadn't already been dealt with before on TNG and it didn't really blend with the time travel story about his ancestor and ANOTHER Noonian Soong offshoot or even the Q stuff with an alternate universe to do...what? I still don't know how to make sense of those decisions because none of it really worked as a cohesive whole. The only through-line was Jurati's story and how she wound up becoming a new Borg queen, but even that ended with a thud: a new generation of Borg joining the Federation to be...helpful? They could have left some shades of grey in that resolution. Especially given what they came up with for season 3.

I really wanted to love it. I was so looking forward to it: my tv best friends from childhood, back together, doing their thing, saving the galaxy, learning what they've been up to: it could have been epic.

But they just had to give Beverly another kid and they relied far, far, far, far too much on nostalgia. Some of us were hoping for a new story with this family, not dozens and dozens of cribbed notes taken from just about every single Star Trek series or film ever made.

Involved storytelling is a thing of the past.

Could have saved some money if they'd just filmed it with the toys.

My favorite of the Star Trek films is The Undiscovered Country. It was the very last story with the complete TOS crew, on a new mission, one that involved an old enemy, but a troubling situation: they Klingons are dying out. The fall of the USSR was still recent and the impacts were felt around the world. In The Undiscovered Country, we got Star Trek at it's best: the personal conflicts of the crew up against the challenge of What Happens Now (especially when some want to go down fighting?). Kirk and Spock are given some of their best material here: we get to see the bitter and somewhat hateful side of Kirk and for Spock, the crisis of a personal betrayal.

The film works so well because instead of being a nostalgia-fest that they could have flown off into the sunset with, they are faced with a truly existential threat from within as well as without. As Kirk would have said, how we face death -- or the future -- is at least as important as how we face life -- or the past. The crew of the Enterprise did get to fly off into the sunset with a sort of quiet dignity that befits these older heroes close to retirement (but not quite ready yet): they saved the galaxy again and it's time for another adventure.

This is almost, tonally, to how TNG crew bowed out in their series' finale, All Good Things...: the universe is saved and Picard sits down with his officers to finally join them in a game of poker. It's a first for him and the beginning of something new: if only it had actually ended there.

Because the best stories kind of end in the middle. They don't always tell you what the next thing would be, we get to guess for ourselves. We get to build up the story in our own imaginations. Tell too much and you risk leaving the joy of connecting and dreaming up our own scenarios out of it. If fandom is about anything, it's about connecting and dreaming up all of that new stuff. The TNG films, though, allowed for nothing: they closed off the possibilities of learning more about Geordi and Beverly and even Troi, so everything would be focused mainly on Picard and Data: even in First Contact, they almost completely write Beverly out the story in favor of a new character who is to Picard what Beverly should have been: the close voice of reason (Alfre Woodard was wonderful, though). A chance to develop their relationship was completely thrown away.

And TNG never really came back after that: Insurrection was completely forgettable and Nemesis was bogged down with bad decisions (including what happened to Troi). Paramount was so into their cash cow, they overextended themselves a tragic amount and pretty much ruined TNG (and Star Trek in general) as a viable franchise for well over a decade.

Not that JJ Abrams did the series any favors: he and his writers were also hung up on the nostalgia aspect and while Star Trek (2009) had its fun moments, it also didn't make a lot of sense and was followed up by, objectively, the worst entry into the franchise (yes, I said what I said), that blatantly tried to re-work Wrath of Khan...without having a single clue as to what made WoK so special. If you remember what happened in Beyond, good for you.

Thanks to the success of Star Trek: Discovery, though, TNG was given an unlikely second chance. Only it kinda wasn't?

Other than the nostalgia factor, I'm not really sure why Paramount thought Picard was a good idea: there were plenty of potential series in these characters' further adventures (and not just from TNG), and maybe Picard was simply considered the best-known and loved and Patrick Stewart jumped ahead. Fine?

The immediate appeal was that we were told this wasn't going to be TNG: the Sequel. And then the first episode gave us Data and we even got to visit Riker and Troi for a bit. It was good to see them and only made it seem more likely that they should be around in the future as well. Was Paramount being sneaky?

Season 2: Q is back, Guinan is back, the one with the whales is back, even Wesley Crusher shows up for a cute little cameo. And then the announcement of the third and final season being a love letter to TNG, with EVERYONE coming back. Well alright.

But they came back to a story that wasn't really theirs (being pulled from all corners of the galaxy and beyond), felt stitched together around a central "mystery" that went nowhere (except to his own special chair and his own special title on the latest iteration of the Enterprise) and a final "battle" that was pure cringe and not at all dignified for this legendary crew (even now, reading all the compliments to the finale? Nostalgia definitely won).

We started with a compelling introduction: Beverly Crusher has been missing for years and is now calling out for help. One look at her quarters on her ship and we're basically given the entire season: it's going to be Borg again, and it's going to feature at least one character with a familiar name that nobody asked for.

And I say this even as I consider that if they'd given Beverly and Picard a daughter (and if she were played by, say, Karen Gillan?), this might have actually corrected a few things, especially if they'd written mother and daughter as mother and daughter sharing dangerous adventures (and scenes!) and could have even worked young Crusher as the new Borg Queen? Jack was written as the worst sort of stand-in: he's not there to be Crusher's son, he's there to be Picard's heir.

See the difference?

The old sexism that brought us all those terrible TNG episodes that tried to make Picard a rakish romantic lead with, potentially, an unknown child in every port, or paired up with much younger women? The same old sexism that had Wesley closer to Picard than his own mom, even in episodes where she should absolutely have been the main character dealing with him? Terry Matalas thought this was a good idea.

And the whole season suffered for it. Because there was no point to Vadic. There was no point to Beverly being missing for ages *except* to have five minutes of drama with Picard when he found out about their kid (making her the "bad guy" until Picard tells her, in the finale, how she never did anything wrong, because he's all noble like that), there was no point to Worf and Raffi running around in a city on a planet that surely knew who they were and weren't fooling anyone, there was no point to, as Gillian would have said in The Voyage Home:

Because none of it mattered.

What mattered was the references. Did you get all of them? Did you get all the Easter eggs? The Bunny was busy on this one.

Did you think it was all going to end with Picard sacrificing himself? Sure looked like it, but there was no point to building up to that, either.

Did you think they'd pull a Return of the Jedi stunt, flying into the Borg cube? Or make the Borg Queen something closer to the xenomorph in Alien? Did the visual of the cube in Jupiter's eye make you think of the Narada coming out of the singularity? Did you get all the musical cues and oh boy, was that really Walter Koening repeating almost verbatim the President's lines from TVH? (it was)

Did they really waste Seven and Raffi pretending to be in the weakest space battle (against...Space Dock?) that was never going to involve the destruction of Starfleet for a second time because hey, all those kids! Yes. Yes they did.

Oh, and in a limited space (like spacedock or a Borg cube, for example), a Starfleet vessel has to operate on thrusters, only, not whiz through it like the Millennium Falcon. That moment alone was an embarrassment.

Seriously, the resolution to this Terrible Threat made the whole thing look so painfully inept I'm surprised they didn't have an O'Brien cameo just to reset the pattern buffers on the transporters and tell everyone off for being so stupid.

I mean, they could have at least upped the ante and given us all those grown-up Star Trek kids now stationed on various ships (we don't get to see anyone on any of them except the Titan): Miles and Keiko had a son and daughter, Worf had a son (does he even remember him?), even Sisko had an unborn child by the time DS9 finished. I guess that would have been a cringe-fest too far.

Goodness knows they could have had a couple of decent cameos at the end, like Janeway or O'Brien, the current Dax and its host? Nope. We just get Picard embracing His Son for the first time, saving him from what might have been the only interesting thing to ever happen to him.

Because watching him at the end in a Starfleet (command) uniform on his way to his new post with his parents (nepo baby confirmed), cocky as ever, but, for some reason, already Beloved By All, given a chair next to the captain and a title no one would have expected (counselor to the captain, really?), while Sidney LaForge crashed her way through the Academy to get her seat? Little James Kirk (for surely you couldn't compare him to either of his real parents) gets Special Treatment and even a visit from Q (who wasn't dying after all! Season 2 didn't matter either!), just so we all know who the new series is going to be about: another white guy.

Oh, and they totally forgot about Laris.

All of them sitting around getting drunk, playing poker and not one damn word about Laris (or Elnor, Agnes, Soji, Cristobal)?

For a show about family, it really picked its favorites.

And that didn't feel like The Next Generation at all.

#star trek picard #picard spoilers #picard #star trek #the last generation #the title is nonsense #as is too much of the writing #this is star trek as the mcu would have done it #no not even the mcu #maybe the cw #star trek the next generation

[moviemunchies]

Wait, so it’s a family movie about the power of family bonds, without overbearing romantic subplot, and it’s about the Machine Uprising, making pointed satirical jabs at the modern tech industry?

Heck yeah, I’m into it.

The story goes something like this: the Mitchell family is not always cohesive as they’d like. Katie Mitchell is an aspiring filmmaker who doesn’t really get along with her outdoorsman, fix-it-yourself father, Rick. She’s about to start college at film school in California, but after an argument with her dad, Rick realizes that they’re drifting apart. His plan to fix this? A family road trip to take her from their home in Michigan to her film school.

Katie is not, as you might guess, thrilled.

But all is not well on this trip, because tech giant Mark Bowman is unveiling a new personal robot that will replace the AI everyone has on their phone, PAL. Except PAL is not thrilled about the idea of being made obsolete, and has been planning her own agenda. She takes over the robots and sends them to collect all of humanity. The only ones who manage to evade capture are the Mitchells, and so they’ve got to go and save the world by uploading the kill command to eliminate the army into the mainframe.

Family bonding and saving the world all in one! Hooray!

The key element here is the relationship between Katie and her father Rick, so if that relationship doesn’t work for you, the movie doesn’t work. I think it works overall, but I do get that for a lot of people, it might not, because part of what sets off this road trip is him accidentally breaking Katie’s computer, and it isn’t until the very end that he really has any sort of appreciation for what she does in filmmaking. But I think it’s important to note that A) he really does not understand anything about computers or how they work and B) part of this is, as displayed in the film, from his own experiences and his own dreams not working out. He wants Katie to succeed in her dreams, but he doesn’t understand it at all and his own dream to live in a cabin in the woods (which he does understand) didn’t work out, so he has trouble grasping how film school might.

A lot of the humor in this movie is based off of memes and amusing edits of shots and scenes. And that easily could be grating–there’s very little as annoying as people jumping on meme bandwagons long after they’re obsolete. But I think overall it works, because the film is using it to display Katie’s personality. She’s into computers and Internet culture in a way her father can’t understand at all. The movie also has plenty of its own original humor that doesn’t require understanding of popular Internet memes to understand.

Like Monchi. Oh, Monchi, you stupid dog, you.

I am happy to see that the main villain of the piece is not a twist villain. Not that I expected that from the trailers, but it’s very common, especially with Disney, to try to do a villain that’s some sort of twist. It’s almost standard for them at this point. And it’s annoying as all getout. The absolute worst was Frozen II, in which the twist villain was the sisters’ long dead grandfather in the backstory. No one cares!

PAL is not a twist villain. She’s just a villain. While she does get a somewhat sympathetic motivation for setting her plan in motion (her maker is planning on replacing her, and throws her away in front of an audience), it’s not as if she’s particularly sympathetic as she tries to wipe the human race from the world. She’s just kind of a massive dick all around.

Honestly, you could call the tech industry to be the real villain here. The movie doesn’t demonize technology–it’s what Katie uses to make her dreams come true after all–but how the tech industry really does not think about anything it does other than to push technology past the limits to make things more convenient, without considering that maybe, building an army of robots and ticking off the AI you designed was a bad plan.

The animation is gorgeous, of course. It doesn’t play around with style in the way another Sony Animation feature, Into the Spider-Verse does, but it still uses a very distinctive and colorful style that sets it apart from Disney and Dreamworks.

Characters are all fun–aside from Katie and Rick, Aaron’s a standout, as a kid who just really loves dinosaurs but doesn’t quite know how to talk to people otherwise. And I get it, kid–dinosaurs are awesome, and yeah it’s a shame that more people don’t know they have feathers. I’d talk to him about dinosaurs (assuming I picked up the phone–I don’t usually for numbers I don’t know).

There are some fun action sequences–the mall one stands out. This being an animated comedy of course the action scenes are silly, but they’re still very memorable and fun to watch.

Also! I realize that no one really cares, but: I’m a little disappointed that the song that Rick and Katie bond over is not, in fact, “Dragostea di Tei”, but actually “Live Your Life.” We all know the “Numa Numa” song was more meme-able, don’t we?

[And I don’t know where to put this! But! Apparently this movie was originally titled “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” but the title was changed to the generic and dumb-sounding “Connected”. It was then changed back to the original title, and I’m very glad because it’s much more memorable.]

I liked this movie, and I thought it was loads of fun. I don’t think it’s quite as good as something like Into the Spider-Verse, but that doesn’t change that it’s a solid animated comedy with a good story, lovable characters, and I think it’s a worthy animated feature. Watch if you have the time. You’ll enjoy it.

#Mitchells vs the Machines #Movie Munchies #reviews #Sony Animation

[cardboardclownery]

[ SWAGGER COLLAGE TUTORIAL OR SMTH ]

Woaaaaaaah we got a special one today folks-

My dear buddy chum pal broski bestie asked me to teach it how i do my collage-y lookin art, and i figured i might as well make it available to anyone else who wants to know B]

Quick disclaimer: im not the best at explaining stuff, and also am not a professional or anything!! Listen to me or dont, these are all merely what i do when i make this kind of stuff-

Oh, and ill post the full spread im making here separately for anyone whos interested in that rather than this guide thingy :P

Since i usually like making more cohesive spreads with a certain theme or subject, i like doodling potential drawings i could use in the spread before starting!! This is very much optional, but helps a bit in case youre worried about having no ideas when you go straight into drawing. You can even plan out where youre gonna put different drawings on the page if ya want!! :]

After that, i rummage through my Trash Box for trash that matches my vision for the spread,, if ya catch my drift B]

For this one, since im making matching spreads for disposable girl and irreverent girl (weevildoing swag yknow yknow), i picked out some hot topic tags and stuff, a few tags from clothes that looked fitting, and a pretty bit of a pokemon tcg deck box i saved!! I mostly just went off of vibes and colors this time, but you can go off of whatever feels right when youre picking collage stuff -v-

Oh, and if you plan on trying out a lot of collage stuff, COLLECT SO MUCH TRASH. Find a bag, a box, anything to hold some fun looking wrappers and junk you could use. Be sure to clean anything used to hold food though, ants dont make good collage bits,, usually,,,

Now, the natural next step: gluing that junk on!! Generally its good to have some sort of pattern for how you glue your base collage bits down, like sticking to certain parts of the paper, or making a shape, using a color sequence,, though just slapping stuff on until it works for you also goes pretty well in the end if youre into spontaneity! Just trust the process and go with the flow and all that-

Oh yeah, and collage includes more than junk yknow!! You can use different kinds of paper, stationary like sticky notes and stuff, anything to add some variety in texture BP

Now for the fun bit!! Well, i find all the steps pretty fun, but the drawing part is probably the most fun for you lovely readers ;]

Not much to say here, just do whatever youd do with a typical drawing/page! I recommend trying to fill most/all of the spaces you left blank (if any) when gluing stuff down. Working around all the collage may serve as a challenge, but its not tooooo annoying once youve gotten a feel for it. You can also add some more collage here if you want -v-

Finally, the second best part (in my humble opinion): the stickers!! I usually do this last, but the order probably doesnt matter? Just kinda,, put stickers on wherever!! Try layering them, or covering doodles with them, or making new pictures with them, go CRAZY WITH STICKERS!! You can also use some paint pens or gel pens to add a little pizazz,,

Once youve bedazzled to your heart’s content, you can add any other details and finishing touches you deem necessary, and v o i l a, youve got a collage!!

Dont worry too much about things looking “right”! Ive found that art is a ton more fun when im not stressing out over how clean my work looks, its all about having fun and expressing yourself!! If something looks a bit wonky, or you think you glued something in a weird spot but cant change it, keep rollin with it! With collage in this style, mistakes are kinda part of the experience, so dont worry yourself too much if things dont go as planned

Hope this was atleast somewhat handy!! Lemme know if you want another tutorial like this or something idk-

#bobosart #bright colours cw #sketchbook #art tutorial #art advice

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

I’m (kind of) embarrassed about this which is why I’m putting it under a ‘keep reading’. LOL But also this turned into a rant I’ve been making for years and years so I’ve just repeated myself here yet again. *sigh* My work will never be finished.

So I’ve only ever watched a few reaction videos to some of my favorite artists (okay if you must know they were for Janis Joplin), but I randomly got inspired to try watching some TPATH reaction videos and

for numerous reasons

I cannot.

And to be honest, most of the reasons start with “Tom” and end with “Petty” because, you know, TO BE PETTY, ANY NON-PROBLEMS I WOULD HAVE WITH THESE VIDEOS WOULD ACTUALLY END IN “HEARTBREAKERS.”

The erasure.

It’s the erasure that bothers me enough that I CANNOT watch them.

I watched two (2) whole reaction videos and only one was somewhat satisfying because they kind of discussed the song in a way that was really interesting which I of course appreciated, but then I heard them say “I mean, Tom Petty’s obviously really talented” and I had to close the tab. 😂 Call me petty, sure. But at least I’m not a heartbreaker like all of these people breaking my heart by bestowing ALL of the credit onto TP rather than the band who are doing 3/4 of the work (not to mention that at least one of the other band members usually contributed 3/5 of the work compared to TP’s 2/5 with the lyrics and maybe the melody...and maybe my math seems wonky but hey, I never claimed to be good at math).

Talent doesn’t just appear out of thin air unless you’re Mike Campbell. And fuck that guy for that 😂 - it has to be cultivated, and things have to WORK TOGETHER COHESIVELY TO MAKE SOMETHING SATISFACTORY OR BETTER. WELL GUESS WHAT. WITHOUT THE HEARTBREAKERS, TP HAS IN TOTAL MAYBE ONE ENTIRE ALBUM IN HIS SOLO DISCOGRAPHY (which also utilized most of The Heartbreakers, I will add, but NOT to their detriment) THAT IS SATISFACTORY, AND THAT’S NOT EVEN ONE ENTIRE ALBUM FROM START TO FINISH, IT’S LIKE MOST OF FULL MOON FEVER AND A THIRD OF WILDFLOWERS (yes hi I’m snubbing Highway Companion big time here on purpose, which featured ONE (1) SINGULAR HEARTBREAKER BUT WAS MOSTLY THE WORK OF TP...WHICH FURTHER SHOWS TP WAS “JACK” SHIT WITHOUT THE ENTIRETY OF THE HEARTBREAKERS’ EFFORT).

When people listen to Tom Petty’s solo work, I want them to understand that not all of The Heartbreakers were involved (namely Stan Lynch, but even post-Stan’s departure, Steve Ferrone didn’t even have a big role in Wildflowers), and THAT. IS. APPARENT. IN. THE QUALITY. OF. HIS. WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But when you listen to the work credited to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, YOU HEAR THE QUALITY AS EARLY AS “AMERICAN GIRL” AND AS LATE AS “LEARNING TO FLY” (if you lean toward Stan’s contributions to TPATH’s sound, as I do. If you lean toward Steve’s...the best suggestion I have is “One More Day, One More Night”, which, to me, is the most recent, interesting contribution that Steve made to their sound. I did like the Hypnotic Eye album when it came out, but when I listen to it again - recently, in other words - I’m like ‘wait. lol this sounds like shit they put out 40 years ago, and Steve isn’t adding anything interesting to this, either.’ 😩 And yeah sorry but I don’t like anything at all on The Last DJ or Mojo so I really can’t comment on whether Steve contributed anything interesting on those albums)!!! And that...that is the difference. That is why it is a gross mistake to regale Tom Petty singularly with the work that rightfully, accurately, and assertively belonged to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers collectively. Without The Heartbreakers, there is no Tom Petty.

#is it still good to be king? #my tag makes me miss Drew randomly...I think they would approve of my tag. I think they'd love it in fact 😅

[sealer-of-wenkamui]

Ciaran Character Analysis

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ciaran over the last few months, so I wanted to try and collect my thoughts and do a proper character analysis of sorts. Of course, things are highly open to interpretation in Dark Souls, so this is just how I read her character and the reasons why.

               First of all, I actually don’t think she was together with Artorias for a number of reasons. She almost certainly had feelings for him, but I think she tried to hide them, and perhaps didn’t fully understand them. For one, she simply speaks of him as a “dear friend”, and while this could also be taken as her keeping their relationship secret, there is no description or unused dialogue from Artorias’ side hinting at it either.  I also wonder if her unused dialogue where she calls him a “dear companion” was changed because it sounds too openly affectionate.  In Gough’s unused dialogue he states that she had “strong feelings” for him, which is worded like they were one sided instead of in a relationship. And while he might have realized it, Gough is also the most perceptive of the Knights, even realizing that the fire will one day fade, while Artorias strikes me as being much more oblivious. Finally, her dying words come across like the confession of a dying woman, one who was never able to say her feelings in life, so she at least will say them now that she has nothing to lose. Interestingly enough, they’re also unsubtitled- words meant not for you, but for Artorias and for herself.

               One of the biggest reasons why I think she would hide her feelings is her position. She is one of four Knights of Gwyn, entrusted with a special soul, and despite her appearance, she is considered something more than human, and seems to have disdain for humans (as seen by her dialogue when you attack her, or even just the way she says “human” in her unused dialogue).

I don’t think it’s the case that she’s human while the others are not just because she’s small, since size seems to be easily variable based on the state of the soul, for example Ornstein grows in size upon absorbing the soul of Smough, or Gael, much larger than your average person after consuming the dark souls of the pygmies. Perhaps even Artorias was a normal size to begin with.

Ultimately the gods and these demigod-like existences with their special souls aren’t all that different from humans, but the important thing is that they are considered as such, so she would be too. Humanity is constantly linked with the dark throughout the series.  And even someone as kindhearted as Artorias, who believes in the goodness of humanity, thinks of the dark as something evil, something to be feared (In fact he words it as believing them to be more than just dark in his unused dialogue). One of the four Knights of the man who sacrificed himself to stave off the Age of Dark would want nothing to do with the dark. Yet feelings, and especially feelings of love, are a very human thing (just look at the pursuers/affinity description for example). That alone seems like the strongest reason to hide any feelings she might have for Artorias, to refuse to acknowledge that human side of her, to repress them and pretend they don’t exist.

Even more so than the other knights she comes across as having something to prove, as someone that has worked so hard to reach the distinguished status she has and doesn’t want anything to take that from her. The lightning arrow description mentions that female knights were rare to begin with, and she was able to work her way up to being one of Gwyn’s most trusted. The porcelain mask description mentions how determined she was to earn it as a decoration of honor (I imagine she first became an especially distinguished Lord’s Blade before becoming one of the four), and the English description actually leaves out another interesting fact- that it’s decorated with her own hair. The wording makes it sound like she cut her own hair to decorate that mask. This makes it seem like she wanted to stand out and make a name for herself- giving herself a distinct look that would come to be feared by all enemies of Lord Gwyn.

On the level of character design, her mask is what she’s most known for, the hornet ring description in DS3 even drawing attention to it. This comes across as a very deliberate choice reflecting her character- as she is a woman whose mask is more than just physical, someone who is perpetually hiding her “human” side. Her mask gives her an otherworldly look, like something beyond humans and reflects her “divine” self. Her purpose in life is to strike down any and all enemies of her Lord, and she has worked so hard towards that alone, almost as if she’s trying to become the mask she wears.  Even though I think she might be able to relax a little around the other knights and especially Artorias, she comes across as a very serious woman that doesn’t truly know much about herself outside of her job. Interestingly, her face under the mask is just the default female face in-game, as if she truly isn’t meant to be seen without it!

No matter how much she tries to repress her feelings though, a mask is still just a mask, and they don’t disappear just because she wants them to. She has strong feelings for Artorias, a darkness she desperately wants to hide. Despite being a Knight of Gwyn, I tend to associate her with the darkness as a result, and even her name may be a reflection of that as well. Ciaran is common Irish boy’s name (Ciara is a girl’s name but she specifically has the masculine form of the name, a decision I also think was intentional and may tie into her being the only woman of the four and how rare female knights were) and looking around, she doesn’t seem to be named after any famous Ciaran as far as I know. So, what is the meaning of the name? Little dark one. A name associated with darkness seems especially significant in this series, and her struggle with her own humanity is central to her character, something that even her name itself betrays.

Since female knights are apparently rare, and she has an especially high-ranking position, I think she would also want to hide her feelings out of fear of being seen as just a girl in love. I also think its interesting how the hornet ring description also draws attention to the fact that she’s the only woman of the four, and how her name is almost exclusively used for boys, and I wonder if she went by the title of “sir” as well. At the same time, her appearance is the distinctly feminine look shared by all the Lord’s Blades, even using her own hair as well, so it’s not something she’s hiding either.  

In addition to being the lone woman of the four, I also got the impression that she’s the youngest and last to join the Knights, which may further add to the feeling of needing to prove herself.

The main reason why actually comes from her speech pattern, when you compare it to the rest of the characters seen in that time period, it stands out. While Elizabeth, Dusk, Gough, and even Artorias all speak in an old-fashioned manner, she noticeably does not, except for “May the Lord guide thee” which sounds like a set phrase anyone serving Gwyn might say. If it was tied to status, then she would speak that way as well, she’s hardly trying to hide it (and besides we see other characters opposed to the gods that speak in the same way, like the hollow outside the Ringed City or Yuria). Maybe she did come from a more humble upbringing and that could be why, but with how varied the characters that do speak like that are I don’t think that’s it (and even some clearly noble characters don’t, like Lothric or Oceiros). So I wonder if its simply because she was born later once speech styles had changed.

Her position also makes sense if so as well, she’s an assassin, so even if she wasn’t around until after the Age of Fire had begun and Gwyn had gained status, that’s exactly when you would need a skilled assassin to eliminate your enemies. In other words, she’s not a dragonslayer, so it still makes sense if she is younger.

Going back to her feelings, the way I see it is that Artorias being consumed by the Abyss and killed is what finally forced her to face them- she’s not able to recognize just how strong they are until the man himself is gone. Perhaps she planned to kill him herself as she was in the area, but realized she couldn’t, or rather that she would almost surely hesitate and get herself killed. In a way, its almost a relief the chosen undead came along and killed him instead, she understood it was something that needed to be done, and though she doesn’t seem to like humans very much, she doesn’t hold anything against you.  You find her immediately after killing Artorias, so she almost certainly would have been the one to find his corpse and make that small memorial, as if she wanted to make sure it would be her and no one else to find him. Despite being the kind of person who would always be watching her back, you find her kneeling in prayer, not so much as turning to look at you when you approach, and you can even easily attack her from behind in such a state. As if simply being there in prayer was the most important thing in that moment- and she surely has a lot of thoughts going through her head and a lot of feelings hitting her all at once. At this point, she can’t lie to herself, and even if she couldn’t confess while he was alive, if you take her life, she’ll at least do it before she dies.

When you speak to her, she seems to have no interest in you outside of obtaining Artorias’ soul, with only his will stopping her from taking it from you. She claims she wants to pay proper respect to him with it, but at the moment, his actual grave hasn’t been made yet, so I imagine she might take it into herself for a while until that point.

As to her eventual fate, I do think its likely she’s the corpse found behind his grave that has the hornet ring. At first I wondered why someone of her status wouldn’t have a proper burial, but in time, not many people are going to that grave, and those that do don’t return, so it may simply be she died after it was forgotten, and her corpse was never found.

The fact that she will give you her tracers if you give her his soul implies she gives up being a Knight of Gwyn (they’ve half fallen apart at that point anyway), but she doesn’t strike me as the type to kill herself right then and there, I think it would be a slow wasting away and curling up to die behind the grave of the man she loved. She (nor Gough) drop the special souls that they should have as part of the four… and while it may simply be to not further encourage people to kill them, if that soul is what gives them a long life (Ornstein is somehow still around after all) she may have purposely given it up so that she may eventually die… or maybe its after she receives his soul and she keeps both hers and his at his grave.

Finally, her ring ends up in the untended graves in DS3, and while there are a number of reasons you can come up with for how it ended up there, I feel like the most important part is the symbolic meaning behind it- for it is found by a grave with a Farron greatsword, one of the types modeled after that of Artorias’. It feels as if even in death, her feelings linked the two of them together.

While not nearly as direct, even DS2 has a parallel to Ciaran in the form of Alsanna. Much like Ciaran, you find her kneeling in prayer mourning her lost love, who also happens to be a left-handed swordsman who sacrificed himself and got corrupted and even has (several) animal companions. (DS2 also is where its mentioned that Artorias was left-handed, and its consistently used to mark characters paralleling him, even in Bloodborne with Ludwig.) Her soul even gives you a pair of curved swords. Parallels can also be drawn between the other three knights and people closely associated with the fragments of Manus, but only Ciaran parallels the child of dark herself, further deepening her association with the dark.

More directly, DS3 has the Dancer and Vordt, two knights who seem to honor Ciaran and Artorias’ legacy, and were always seen together- in fact you can see phantoms of what seems to be them before they were transformed into beasts walking the streets of Irithyll together (Vordt too, is left-handed). Despite how she tried to hide her feelings, I think it may have been her ring that betrayed them, so they ended up being remembered together. The Pontiff Knights in general also have a great deal of similarity to the Lord’s Blades, somewhat in armor design but mostly in their job, being described as Sulyvahn’s “punitive blades”. The Dancer herself most notably has two curved blades that look remarkably similar to Ciaran’s tracers in shape, as well as being gold and silver, even wielding the gold one in her left hand like she did.

There are probably more little details I could add, but this is already long, and I’ve covered the major points that I’ve thought a lot about. I tried to explain my reasoning as best as possible too, but there’s plenty of stuff that’s unknown and that’s half the fun. Feel free to comment, I love Ciaran and I love to think about her and discuss her!

#Dark Souls #Ciaran #Lord's Blade Ciaran #I've been dwelling on her ever since i met her in DS1.... #i love her..... #i don't really write much but i've been posting a looot of thoughts about her on twitter and stuff #so i wanted to try making something somewhat cohesive to collect them all #didn't even get into little details like how cute it is how her voice softens when she talks about Artorias #or my delusions about how she might have initially reacted to his death #but i got the important points! #enjoy? #I hope i can make everyone appreciate her just a little bit more~

[winterlovesong1]

{the light}

a post 6x14 drabble

On A03 too

-/-

The sun was peering through the window, specks of dust catching in the amber stream of light as he woke. The morning was hardly ever noticeable in the dank apartment space he shared with someone he was finding more a roommate than his girlfriend, discussions over agendas and routines mounting more and more as the norm, rather than talk of anything deeper, anything beyond the surface level parameters of life, as if the shadows that placated the space diminished any need to rise substance to the surface - to the light.

But as he waited for his coffee to fill from under the brewer, it seemed morning had arrived - and through a window pane no less.

He takes his full cup of caffeine and shakes off the sight, proceeding to twist the blinds shut, despite half of them being cracked or missing, to lessen the light as he makes his residence at the breakfast table to then flip open his laptop and start typing.

It seemed while his roommate was gone, his thoughts came more freely - less cluttered in recent days - able to think for himself without having to first untwist the gnarled words from his thoughts.

The word free comes to mind but he doesn’t want to be that cruel. So he just calls it peaceful and leaves it at that. For once.

He starts where he left off, a rough sketch for his next novel - currently just a myriad of disjointed phrases, he was hoping if he filled in the gaps - if he provided the string - they would eventually form into somewhat of a story. It had yet to happen but then Tabitha left and he felt at peace and as he started to write - it seemed everything was turning more cohesive - less cluttered - free to come together as it was meant to.

And as he hits the groove this particular morning he sees it.

A window. Not his window. Hers. But there is light. The same light? No - this was even brighter - airier - and…

Her in the light. Basking in it. Free.

It’s the taste of strawberry lip gloss. It’s her fingers through his hair. It’s the musky smell of his trailer. Its her saying I love you. It’s her crying and him placing his palm at her cheek saying she’s a good person.

And then more flashes - more light - not just of her - but of them - together- free.

His eyes adjust back to his laptop screen and he turns over his shoulder at the window, the one he had twisted the blinds upon taking his place at the table and yet the light was still sweeping in - unapologetically filling the corners and edges of the apartment with glints of its rays.

He had helped her - Betty - the last couple of days - to try and see through her own clutter - and it had worked - somewhat - he hadn’t quite mastered the skill he now possessed - the mind reading of it all not something one rolls off the tongue in casual conversation or in everyday behavior - but was his life ever? Was his life ever just not one chaotically unfathomable event after the other? And so it’s possible he was feeling a side effect of this skill - it’s not something for the faint of heart after all - entering into minds - and so it could be just that - a side effect.

But as he stares at the light pouring through the window, he catches sight of it again - not just the specks of dust collecting in the fragments of its rays - but her - them - together- free.

He turns back to his open laptop screen and rereads the last sentence he had typed -

He was lost, ambling around his own life unaware of the next path and even as he chose the next step, physically feeling unsure - his legs wavering as he looked for some sign of truth, of assurance.

Taking a beat to catch his breath he tries to reorient himself in the room.

( there is so much light he’s nearly blind.)

But he finds the keyboard (his solace) and places his fingers there.

And all he can think of his the light. The light the nearly forget -

The boy looks out the window and sees the sun rising for the day. Feeling an odd heaviness grow in his chest, he looks to his left to the door, the entrance to his home.

Or was it?

He clicks the door behind him with one swift turn of the lock.

He doesn’t come back that day. Or any day. Instead he switches paths - taking his steps in strides.

#bughead #bughead drabble #bughead light angst #writing: winter's #I’m so glad they are providing something for inspiration

[paenling]

no ones saying you cant enjoy daniil? people like him as a character but mostly Because he’s an asshole and he’s interesting. the racism and themes of colonization in patho are so blatant

nobody said “by order of Law you are forbidden from enjoying daniil dankovsky in any capacity”, but they did say “if you like daniil dankovsky you are abnormal, problematic, and you should be ashamed of yourself”, so i’d call that an implicit discouragement at the least. not very kind.

regardless, he is a very interesting asshole and we love to make fun of him! but i do not plan to stop seeing his character in an empathetic light when appropriate to do so. we’re all terribly human.

regarding “the racism and themes of colonization in patho”, we’ve gotta have a sit-down for this one because it’s long and difficult. tl;dr here.

i’ve written myself all back and forth and in every direction trying to properly pin down the way i feel about this in a way that is both logically coherent and emotionally honest, but it’s not really working. i debated even responding at all, but i do feel like there are some things worth saying so i’m just going to write a bunch of words, pick a god, and pray it makes some modicum of sense.

the short version: pathologic 2 is a flawed masterwork which i love deeply, but its attempts to be esoteric and challenging have in some ways backfired when it comes to topical discussions such as those surrounding race, which the first game didn’t give its due diligence, and the second game attempted with incomplete success despite its best efforts.

the issue is that when you have a game that is so niche and has these “elevated themes” and draws from all this kind of academic highbrow source material -- the fandom is small, but the fandom consists of people who want to analyze, pathologize, and dissect things as much as possible. so let’s do that.

first: what exactly is racist or colonialist in pathologic? i’m legitimately asking. people at home: by what mechanism does pathologic-the-game inflict racist harm on real people? the fact that the Kin are aesthetically and linguistically inspired by the real-world Buryat people (& adjacent groups) is a potential red flag, but as far as i can tell there’s never any value judgement made about either the fictionalized Kin or the real-world Buryat. the fictional culture is esoteric to the player -- intended to be that way, in fact -- but that’s not an inherently bad thing. it’s a closed practice and they’re minding their business.

does it run the risk of being insensitive with sufficiently aggressive readings? absolutely, but i don’t think that’s racist by itself. they’re just portrayed as a society of human beings (and some magical ones, if you like) that has flaws and incongruences just as the Town does. it’s not idealizing or infantilizing these people, but by no means does it go out of its way to villainize them either. there is no malice in this depiction of the Kin. 

is it the fact that characters within both pathologic 1 & 2 are racist? that the player can choose to say racist things when inhabiting those characters? no, because pathologic-the-game doesn’t endorse those things. they’re throwaway characterization lines for assholes. acknowledging that racism exists does not make a media racist. see more here.

however, i find it’s very important to take a moment and divorce the racial discussions in a game like pathologic 2 from the very specific experiences of irl western (particularly american) racism. it’s understandable for such a large chunk of the english-speaking audience to read it that way; it makes sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. although it acknowledges the relevant history to some extent, on account of being set in 1915, pathologic 2 is not intended to be a commentary about race, and especially not current events, and especially especially not current events in america. it’s therefore unfair, in my opinion, to attempt to diagnose it with any concrete ideology or apply its messages to an american racial paradigm.

it definitely still deals with race, but it always, to me, seemed to come back around the exploitation of race as an ultimately arbitrary division of human beings, and the story always strove to be about human beings far more than it was ever about race. does it approach this topic perfectly? no, but it’s clearly making an effort. should we be aware of where it fails to do right by the topic? yes, definitely, but we should also be charitable in our interpretations of what the writers were actually aiming for, rather than reactionarily deeming them unacceptable and leaving it at that. do we really think the writers for pathologic 2 sat down and said “we’re going to go out of our way to be horrible racists today”? i don’t.

IPL’s writing team is a talented lot, and dybowski as lead writer has the kinds of big ideas that elevate a game to a work of art, particularly because he’s not afraid to get personal. on that front, some discussion is inescapable as pathologic 2 deals in a lot of racial and cultural strife, because it’s clearly something near to the his heart, but as i understand it was never really meant to be a narrative “about” race, at least not exclusively so, and especially not in the same sense as the issue is understood by the average American gamer. society isn't a monolith and the contexts are gonna change massively between different cultures who have had, historically, much different relationships with these concepts.

these themes are “so blatant” in pathologic 2 because clearly, on some level, IPL wanted to start a discussion. I think it’s obvious that they wanted to make the audience uncomfortable with the choices they were faced with and the characters they had to inhabit -- invoke a little ostranenie, as it were, and force an emotional breaking point. in the end the game started a conversation and i think that’s something that was done in earnest, despite its moments of obvious clumsiness. 

regarding colonialism, this is another thing that the game is just Not About. we see the effects and consequences of colonialism demonstrated in the world of pathologic, and it’s something we’re certainly asked to think about from time to time, but the actual plot/narrative of the game is not about overcoming or confronting explicitly colonialist constructs, etc. i personally regard this as a bit of a missed opportunity, but it’s just not what IPL was going for.

instead they have a huge focus, as discussed somewhat in response to this ask, on the broader idea of powerful people trying to create a “utopia” at the mortal cost of those they disempower, which is almost always topical as far as i’m concerned, and also very Russian.

i think there was some interview where it was said that the second game was much more about “a mechanism that transforms human nature” than the costs of utopia, but it’s still a persistent enough theme to be worth talking about both as an abstraction of colonialism as well as in its more-likely intended context through the lens of wealth inequality, environmental destruction & government corruption as universal human issues faced by the marginalized classes. i think both are important and intelligent readings of the text, and both are worth discussion.

both endings of pathologic 2 involve sacrifice in the name of an “ideal world” where it’s impossible to ever be fully satisfied. in the Diurnal Ending, Artemy is tormented over the fate of the Kin and the euthanasia of his dying god and all her miracles, but he needs to have faith that the children he’s protected will grow up better than their parents and create a world where he and his culture will be immortalized in love. in the Nocturnal Ending, he’s horrified because in preserving the miracle-bound legacy of his people as a collective, he’s un-personed himself to the individuals he loves, but he needs to have faith that the uniqueness and magic of the resurrected Earth was precious enough to be worth that sacrifice. neither ending is fair. it’s not fair that he can’t have both, but that’s the idea. because that “utopia” everyone’s been chasing is an idol that distracts from the important work of being a human being and doing your best in a flawed world. 

because pathologic’s themes as a series are so very “Russian turn-of-the-century” and draw a ton of stylistic and topical inspiration from the theatre and literature of that era, i don’t doubt that it’s also inherited some of its inspirational literature’s missteps. however, because the game’s intertextuality is so incredibly dense it’s difficult to construct a super cohesive picture of its actual messaging. a lot of its references and themes will absolutely go over your head if you enter unprepared -- this was true for me, and it ended up taking several passes and a bunch of research to even begin appreciating the breadth of its influences.

(i’d argue this is ultimately a good thing; i would never have gone and picked up Camus or Strugatsky, or even known who Antonin Artaud was at all if i hadn’t gone in with pathologic! my understanding is still woefully incomplete and it’s probably going to take me a lot more effort to get properly fluent in the ideology of the story, but that’s the joy of it, i think. :) i’m very lucky to be able to pursue it in this way.)

anyway yes, pathologic 2 is definitely very flawed in a lot of places, particularly when it tries to tackle race, but i’m happy to see it for better and for worse. the game attempts to discuss several adjacent issues and stumbles as it does so, but insinuating it to be in some way “pro-racist” or “pro-colonialist” or whatever else feels kind of disingenuous to me. they’re clearly trying, however imperfectly, to do something intriguing and meaningful and empathetic with their story.

even all this will probably amount to a very disjointed and incomplete explanation of how pathologic & its messaging makes me feel, but what i want -- as a broader approach, not just for pathologic -- is for people to be willing to interpret things charitably. 

sometimes things are made just to be cruel, and those things should be condemned, but not everything is like that. it’s not only possible but necessary to be able to acknowledge flaws or mistakes and still be kind. persecuting something straight away removes any opportunity to examine it and learn from it, and pathologic happens to be ripe with learning experiences. 

it’s all about being okay with ugliness, working through difficult nuances with grace, and the strength of the human spirit, and it’s a story about love first and foremost, and i guess we sort of need that right now. it gave me some of its love, so i’m giving it some of my patience.

#meta #discourse #long post #ipl #writing #Anonymous #slight edit for colonialism #untitled plague game #pathologic

[danieyells]

Hey Danie! I was wondering if you had any thoughts on Nyarlathotep in TAS; I was playing through the segments where he's relevant in the story and I find it really difficult to understand a lot of what he's saying xD I'm sure that's the point, but I wondered if you had any ideas about breaking down how he talks, cause he seems almost normal when you meet him and then rapidly becomes more and more difficult to parse? And his description says that he does a lot of dipping into multiple guilds and implies that he has an insane amount of influence on things, so I'm curious as to what your opinions on him are, if you have any!

Hello hello 'u' I love Nyarl lol he's. He's silly--but also has his own things going on. I wanna see more of him, and I imagine we have to eventually--maybe when we get together with the Missionaries and take on some of the Rule Makers.

(Somehoe this got long lmao. . .i've been eriting it on and off for a few hours, erased like all of it ay one point. . .i ended up going through all of his main story dialogue lol but i feel like i've explained nothing ay all. Here's a readmore)

Nyarl is "Crawling Chaos" for a reason--a lot of what he says and does has little to no sense or has real 'reason' beyond advancing the story or making things exciting/active. It's not supposed to, he's largely contradictory and he serves only himself, so he's just trying to have a good time and make interesting things happen. As he said, he wants to make reality into "mind-bending fiction"--his motivation is 'make everything as fun and wild as possible' basically.

But there's 1000 Nyarlathoteps. So part of the reason he's somewhat all over the place in terms of speech patterns and actions is possibly that, at any given point in time, you're not dealing with the same Nyarl you saw last time. Thus why he says things like "We Nyarlathoteps" when referring to himself. He also says at some point that he's collectively lived many lifetimes--so Nyarl is all at once a hivemind and not. His Aoyama Guild aligned iteration said the other 999 Nyarls don't care about the Missionaries, but he calls them his friends and helps them(though, only after he makes a mess of things because he wanted to see an exception--he also, through provocation, helps Ryota to learn to use and strengthen hos artifact). So it's important to understand that he's supposed to be contradictory and he's supposed to be hard to understand. He's honest and dishonest all at once because there are multiple Nyarls and not everything is true for all of them--except, perhaps, their love/admiration for Azathoth and their misery at being abandoned by him. Even their heights and weights are inconsistent.

But they do have feelings and they do live a lonely existence because the father/world they love has no mind for them and no future. So when Maria basically says "I forgive you and I love you and I understand and don't hold any of this against you because to act on love is the way of the Missionaries no matter how that action may be" he seems to have had felt. . .seen? Heard? Loved for the first time. And while the other 999 Nyarls don't care for the Aoyama Guild, they all love Azathoth and know the emptiness of his lack of feelings towards them. So with their hivemind, they were willing to defend Maria and the Guild for being the ones who care about them when no one else did, even though he's also the one who instigated the attack in the first place. Ultimately it fell in line with his will anyway--it'd be less interesting to act because of his love than to change sides in the middle of the war.

(For the most part Tsathoggua and Dagon are the only like. Idk. Decently mentally together Old Ones. Nodens apparently used to be sane but he's changed.)

Uuuh as for parsing together what he says. . .idk i guess it depends on what he's saying that's throwing you off? Were there any lines in particular? He mostly speaks in slang, jargon, and references. If there's any part in particular you're confused about I can see if I understand it myself and try and explain! I assume you mean his exchange with Maria where he talks about his love for Azathoth?

Re: his introduction. Something that doesn't translate at all is that. Nyarl speaks English. A lot. Especially in his first scene, he speaks almost entirely in English, a language MC and the others are implied not to understand well. On top of that he still speaks in a lot of modern English slang(reminder: this Tokyo was cut off from the rest of the world starting from 1999.)--so even if they do understand English, they're probably even more confused because he's speaking in colloquialisms beyond their grasp.

But that's really hard to translate to English because English is taught in most Japanese schools afair--so Japanese speakers have a decent chance of understanding some English. And even without that comprehension, the English is in rubytext/furigana while the Japanese is on the main line--so they have a sort of translation key that we haven't been given. He could have spoke in another language but there's no language that most English speakers would probably know the way that most Japanese speakers know a certain amount of English. (And they could've given us rubytext but it wouldn't make much sense to most English speakers nor really work/come across the same way and it'd look out of place.) So Nyarl speaking normally in that scene is actually like.

You may or may not know another language very well (for all i know you're ESL)--so imagine you're lost and ask someone for directions. They speak to you in a language you barely know, although they seem to understand what you're saying even if you don't understand them super well. That's what that scene was.

Basically there was no way to get across that part of what makes him incomprehensible is literally a language barrier. Maria says "I don't understand him most of the time" because she doesn't understand English as he speaks it.

SO THAT'S WHY THAT SCENE IS SENSIBLE COMPARED TO THE REST.

He speaks in Japanese much more after introducing himself to Ryota(after the "Yeah, baby! The Nyarlathoteps are at your service, yeah?" line he speaks in more Japanese--so that's where his dialogue starts getting a bit more wild, since they're no longer just giving him most of the same lines as the Japanese version.)

There are a lot of things I don't get either tbh. For example "heroic band of Mr. Carters"--I assumed it was the character from a story of some sort. He says "Mister Carters" in Japanese in the furigana and the regular text says "物語の主人公気取りたち" something like "the ones we'll call/claiming to be the heroes of the story". It's possibly a reference to the Lil Wayne song "Mr. Carter" which would make sense since Nyarl's a DJ????

So a lot of what he does is make references(mythology ones, for example calling Azazel 'Mr. Scapegoat' because the 'scapegoat' tradition originated with Yom Kippur and throwing goats off a cliff 'for Azazel'--to send away their sins; and he also calls Azazel 'Shub-Niggurath', the name of an Old One who's i think described as "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young"--so because he has a friend who's a goat, he calls him the name of a goat he knows from home) speak in other languages(calling Hati 'Loup-garou', french for 'werewolf',) and says contradictory things or the opposite of what's 'normal.'

So just remember, as 1000 separate beings, you're supposed to see contradictions in most everything he does and says. So if you're struggling to understand then in a sense you're understanding perfectly lol

As for his influence on multiple guids, again, there are 1000 Nyarls. Each one may be part of another Guild, thus at their disposal should that Nyarl want to help--but usually they just wanna cause chaos, except now that Aoyama Nyarl's seemingly come to be attached to the Missionaries he seems protective of them(and the others will follow him when he calls for them). All of the Big Three Guilds as well as the Wisemen and Creators have a transient from Old Ones at their disposal.

So basically Nyarl can turn the tide but usually he doesn't care to help out that much because he has his own agenda. (He's also probably aware that the other guilds would sic their Old Ones on him if he attacked himself and it'd be a stalemate(and thus boring!) so he hangs out in other ways.

I feel like i definitely didn't say anything cohesive lol I REALLY LIKE NYARL he's just a very funny and interesting guy with no real barriers and he doesn't wanna admit he's jealous of Arc and he's just. Chaotic.

#danie yells answers #danie yells with anons #danie yells at tokyo afterschool summoners #long post #i canct decide if i wanna go to bed or not like #i'm sldepy but not tired i probably wouldn't get anywhere #i'll get something to eat and decide when i've had food lol

[ceescedasticity]

outline: jin guangyao’s hoarding problem, part 1

I am STILL NOT WRITING THIS.

Cast:

Jin Guangyao, schemer extraordinaire. He’s got a lot on his plate right now, scheming for the Jin Sect’s advancement, scheming for his personal advancement within the Jin Sect, trying to get Qin Cangye to let him marry his daughter, trying to juggle his sworn brothers, wrangling weird 13-year-old Mo Xuanyu who his father dropped on him as some sort of power play, wrangling Xue Yang insofar as it is possible to do so, promoting research into demonic cultivation, and on and on and on. Jin Guangyao, as no one will ever let him forget, was not born rich; he understands that you can’t just go throwing things out when you might want them again later; and in this universe he’s let that reluctance to discard outweigh his caution.

Wen Ning, conscious fierce corpse. Keeping Wen Ning was always the plan, even when plans to control him didn’t quite work out. Because he’s a really good conscious fierce corpse. Maybe they’ll work out controlling him someday. Maybe he’ll be good as an example. They went to a fair amount of trouble faking his destruction, so no sense wasting that. (Wen Ning, for his part, is… not happy. Even when they’re not trying to control him, he is not happy. But he is not making trouble if he can avoid it, because…)

Wen Qing, really outstanding doctor. Jin Guangyao cannot understand why his father was planning to execute her – she’s such a good doctor! Groundbreaking! Sure, she has some inconvenient morals, but she’s simple enough to leverage, just grab some family members – Wen Ruohan kept her in line for years. Why would Jin Guangshan not try to obtain such a valuable resource? It’s probably because when he looks at a woman he stops after the boobs. Anyway, now Jin Guangyao has the opportunity, and it’s easier to fake her death than Wen Ning’s (just have to kill a heavily bruised woman in Wen robes, rather than something that passes for a fierce corpse). She can be kept in line just by threatening Wen Ning’s non-life as the stick, and for a carrot, taking the nails out of his head when they’re not actively experimenting. (Wen Qing is sick to her stomach. Although not everything she’s been required to do is bad–)

(Off stage, but alive, is Jiang Yanli. Jin Guangyao likes her more than he likes most of the Jin Sect, he didn’t want her dead – and whisking her away to a mystery doctor who saved her life means Jiang Wanyin owes him. Big. —He doesn't want her angling for any kind of power/regency after Jin Guangshan dies, so he's been making sure there are plenty of rumors that she's physically and mentally fragile, and his leverage over Yunmeng Jiang is better with her in Jinlintai so he's angling to maintain that, too, but unlike that other idea he's not blackmailing her. This is probably a mistake.)

Wei Wuxian, Yiling Laozu. Smuggled back to Jinlintai at least half dead, and really wanted to get all the way there. Didn’t really change his mind on that until after he got conscious enough to process that (a) Wen Qing and Wen Ning were alive(ish), and might be punished if Wen Qing couldn’t save him; (b) Jiang Yanli is alive, but in Jinlintai, which means not safe. Even after he’s trying, though, he’s in for a long convalescence – especially without a core. (Which Jin Guangyao has figured out and, worse, figured out the reason for.) Wei Wuxian is claiming he couldn’t possibly recreate the Stygian Tiger Seal outside the Burial Grounds and/or without all the pieces and/or while he’s still so weak. The last one is true, the others are… not completely false? He certainly couldn't make it like it was before.

Mo Xuanyu, weird 13-year-old. Inexplicably if usefully devoted to Jin Guangyao. Jin Guangyao doesn’t trust him to do more than some very basic reading on demonic cultivation, but when the secret prison acquired the gravely wounded Wei Wuxian it became important to have someone other than Xue Yang checking on things, refreshing supplies, and getting Jin Guangyao immediately if necessary. Mo Xuanyu also likes Wei Wuxian, and Wen Qing, and Wen Ning, and (for some reason) Xue Yang. Not enough to impact his devotion to Jin Guangyao, though.

Xue Yang, spite elemental. (This Xue Yang has never worked for Wen Ruohan – I may keep the Yin Iron in this universe mashup, it just had no particular connection to Xue Yang.) Half feral (at least). Demonic cultivation natural talent. Delighted to have the opportunity to independently recreate the Stygian Tiger Seal, not that it stops him badgering Wei Wuxian for tips. Big fan of “better to ask forgiveness than permission”. No, that’s not it. Big fan of “better to say ‘yeah, I did it, what are you gonna do about it?’ than ask permission.”

WQ, WN, and WWX are full-time imprisoned in some sort of secret dungeon/basement/hidden complex in Carp Tower. MXY and XY are in and out a lot. JGY less so because he has a busy schedule.

So, moving forward:

Wen Qing is trying to keep WWX alive. WWX is cooperating halfheartedly.

Xue Yang is trying to recreate the Stygian Tiger Seal. WWX is cooperating hundredthheartedly.

JGY picks up that WWX is not being entirely sincere in his cooperation. He decides to show that his threats have teeth, in a very mild way. He plays some 'healing music' for JYL.

JYL has a bad week.

WWX becomes somewhat more cooperative.

(JYL is aware enough of her own body and mind and has enough of an ear for music to say — extremely politely, and not implying (or suspecting!) any malice — that she thinks JGY may need a little more practice.)

(JGY decides he needs to be a little more conservative with his use of the Collection of Turmoil, and maybe, say, not teach any bits of it to people who are not definitely on his side, no matter how innocent and gullible he thinks they are.)

(Nie Sect's trip to the Sword Hall can't be said to go well by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not an almost-TPK either. No one unwittingly kills or spiritually poisons anyone they love. It doesn't make much difference in the timetable of NMJ's decline, really. It doesn't make as much of a difference as you might expect in the timetable of NHS Figuring Shit Out, later on. It does make a difference in the experience level and cohesiveness of Nie Sect's inner-ring disciples. It does make a difference in NHS's emotional health and support structure. It may in fact make a difference in whether JGY is going to get out of all this alive. But that's later.)

When the reconstructed Seal is mostly complete, Xue Yang takes off to Yueyang to "test" it. He may or may not have informed JGY first. Let's go with 'not' (not out of any concern that he'd disapprove, Xue Yang just doesn't want to bother).

So here's the thing. The Seal is not a loyal tool. Insofar as it has a consciousness and feelings it's kind of pissed off at WWX anyway. But he is still its original creator, and this time he's alive, and this time he was extorted into helping reconstruct it, and this time — unlike when he was forging it the first time — revenge doesn't even really make the motivation list, so it's not quite the same reconstructed Seal. It's not a benevolent tool. It doesn't like people. It doesn't want to help people. It doesn't have principles. If Xue Yang just stood outside and ordered fierce corpses to slaughter everyone in the Chang compound, the Seal would have cooperated eagerly.

But obviously Xue Yang isn't about to just stand outside, he goes in and gets his hands dirty, and when he tries to use the Seal to directly, personally attack a child, something goes… sideways. There's an explosion which blows a large hole in the side of the house. Some of the corpses attack Xue Yang. The Seal levitates six meters up into the air and won't come down until grabbed. It's very annoying. Xue Yang makes sure there's no one with a golden core left and sets the building on fire and leaves in a very bad mood.

There are only like a dozen survivors total, no adult cultivators, and the one surviving kid who saw him is too young to give any kind of useful witness statement, but still.

He goes back to the basement and blames WWX for the unsatisfactory performance of the Seal. WWX's response of "Good" didn't deescalate things any, but he probably would have gotten the shit kicked out of him regardless.

Someone interrupts before he can actually beat WWX to death (which had better not have been WWX's plan, says WQ). Right. No core, already seriously injured. Xue Yang gets Wen Qing, who has to do surgery for flail chest. Xue Yang makes a surprisingly good surgical assistant.

JGY gets back from wherever he was (Qinghe playing fake!Clarity? Laoling trying to get a date?) and is like. I was gone for two days.

Xue Yang does not deny almost accidentally killing the only available Yiling Laozu, but blames it on WWX being too fragile due to being coreless and injured.

Maybe if we gave him someone else's core he would be sturdier?

Jin Guangyao doesn't immediately shoot it down. Wen Qing tries to — WWX would never survive the procedure in his current condition, and the donor has to be willing, does JGY really want to sacrifice someone loyal for this questionable gamble?

No, he doesn't. At least not right now.

Xue Yang says he's taking time off. JGY tells him not to get caught.

He gets caught.

Trial, commutation, official imprisonment, and now Xue Yang is stuck in the basement with the others basically full-time. He's seriously trying to convince Wen Qing to teach him surgery. She's appalled, but on the other hand would surgical skills make him any more dangerous than he already is? And it keeps him from sticking nails in Wen Ning's head.

While she's distracted Wei Wuxian is trying and failing to convince Wen Ning and/or Mo Xuanyu that he is recovered enough from the flail chest to walk around. He is failing.

Jin Guangyao is spending a lot of time in Qinghe…

#other fic #things i'm not writing #more random mdzs thoughts

[warsmith-38]

How I would do RWBY pt. 2

Season Two

Emerald and Mercury go to book store.

Try intimidating ex-White Fang owner.

He’s tense, but not impressed.

Adam walks in.

He shits himself.

Tries fighting.

Dies. Painfully might I add.

Emerald and Mercury banter. Adam just seems bored.

Cinder (teenaged, not adult) scolds them for 86ing the guy in such a public and possibly trackable way.

Adam assures them that they weren’t seen. He has practice in that sort of thing.

Torchwick is annoyed at working with these people but at least he’s getting paid a mint.

Cinder says that, with all of the stolen dust, phase two of plan can to be started soon.

Neo give her a look of ‘get over yourself, you chuunibyou.’

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.

More guests arrive.

Ironwood talks with Ozpin about world affairs.

Grimm populations and attacks are getting worse, but are still manageable.

Says that he has brought plenty of extra security in the form of Penny and a big amount of security robots and mechs.

More bonding scenes because reasons.

RWBY + JNPR have food fight because funny.

Velvet and Blake are closer than earlier and give little ‘anti-racism’ classes for Weiss.

Blake is friendlier with everyone now that she knows they wouldn’t kill her since she’s a faunus.

Ruby has taken on the role of mechanic for everyone’s weapons.

Jaune dominates wargaming night.

Ren and Fox try to help Ruby with her hand-to-hand skills (Yang is not a great teacher of such things)

Scene of properly meeting team SSSN.

Nice guys, but a little too uncoordinated in style.

Ruby ends up having a frustrated breakdown.

Gives WBY speech of how they have to get involved and screw the people telling them to sit down and let them handle the problem instead.

Blake is the first to go along with what she’s saying.

Yang and Weiss argue that this is not a good idea, saying that this sounds like Ruby just wants to go play vigilante again.

Blake says that Ruby has a point, nothing will get accomplished if they sit around doing nothing.

Weiss is the one that cracks next. Agrees that the authorities aren’t exactly inspiring confidence since the run in with Torchwick.

Yang finally gives in, if only to make sure Ruby doesn’t get herself murdered.

Ruby, in her excitement to actually be doing something, rushes out the door to get snacks and runs into someone.

That someone is Cinder.

Cinder, Emerald, Mercury, and disguised Neo (Team CEMN (Cinnamon (work with me here))) keep up the façade of Haven guests from canon.

Ruby almost immediately starts gushing over their cool weapons before being reined in by WBY.

Emerald pickpocket’s Weiss’ wallet and snags rich girl’s cash before putting it back.

Mercury and Yang have a very clear stare-down of ‘punching vs kicking, who will win?’

Neo and Blake…stare at each other (Adam is Blake’s Rival/Foil. Blake v. Neo is just pair the spares).

RWBY has made new friends. (The poor dears)

RWBY start their investigation.

Team SSSN turns up to help at the last minute.

Okay, sure, free help.

Blake and Sun try to find local White Fang schmucks.

Scarlet and Sage go off to do random shit.

Yang drags Neptune to Junior’s club to check the pulse of the criminal element of the city.

Ruby and Weiss dig up information at library place-thing.

They encounter Penny on the way.

Penny acts weird(er) and tries to bolt off.

Weiss agrees that Penny is suspicious as hell and, with all the happenings, that means that she could be a potential lead.

She lets Ruby go after her while she about her investigating alone.

Penny reveals to Ruby that she’s a mechanical maiden (Persona 3 is best Persona).

Ruby is VERY interested now.

Ruby already liked her as a person and now she knows that Penny is a person who is also a weapon.

Zero downsides.

Penny, happy to be accepted, let’s slip that she knows some crazy stuff is happening in the world.

Says that that’s why she was allowed to come to the tournament, as extra back up just in case.

Says that the communications tower is the most obvious target but might not be the actual target.

Can’t elaborate further because of Ciel and her bodyguards showing up.

Ciel gives Ruby the third degree on encouraging Penny’s truant behavior.

Ruby gives her the finger.

Ciel takes Penny away and Ruby gets back to work.

Weiss gets whatever information about the White Fang and Torchwick that isn’t classified, and a little that is, transferred to her.

Her older sister is a high ranker in the military and her father bankrolled a good chunk of said military.

Ain’t nepotism a bitch?

Yang and Neptune come up empty handed, but Yang got to pick another fight at the club before the cops showed up so she’s all good.

Neptune thinks that that’s all Yang went there to do in the first place.

Scarlet and Sage get captured by the White Fang. (They said they had fresh cookies, what were S + S going to do, say no?)

Blake leads Sun along a trail of breadcrumbs to a White Fang hideout.

Sees a recruitment rally going on.

Blake has a heart attack seeing who’s giving a speech.

It’s Adam.

Speech is an emotional call to arms against the cruelty of humanity.

Crowd is skeptical but still listening.

Reveals his brand.

Crowd is now enthusiastic to sign up for the White Fang.

Adam reveals newly stolen war-mech.

Says that they’ll test its power by executing Scarlet and Sage.

Blake spoils his moment by covertly revealing that Roman is the pilot of said mech (Neo is co-pilot).

Crowd turns against Adam for his hypocrisy.

Adam cheeses it.

Roman takes it on himself to attack Blake and Sun.

Scarlet and Sage are freed and take on the rowdy crowd.

While running, Blake and Sun encounter RWY and Neptune.

Sun and Neptune get good hits in but are btfo’d.

Scarlet and Sage find them and all is good for team SSSN.

RWBY has quasi-rematch against Roman + Neo.

Fight goes well.

Team CFVY shows up and stomps the mech.

Looks like Team Rocket’s blasting off again!

RWBY celebrates a fight well won.

CFVY are pissed that RWBY would do something so dangerous and make them promise not to do things like this again.

RWBY lies through their collective teeth about not doing it again.

Get put on probation anyway.

Pyrrha and Jaune are having a moment together before Jaune ruins it.

Jaune admits that he lied and cheated his way into school due to impatience and lack of immediate combat skills.

He confesses all of this out of guilt and plans to turn himself in.

Pyrrha is actually rather angry at him.

1. for cheating to get what everyone else fought tooth and nail to earn the right to and 2. Putting the rest of his team at risk due to his inability to keep up with them in a fight and for associating them with a cheater/liar.

Not to mention lying to her face.

Says good riddance.

Cardin overhears and blackmails him into doing what he says or else he’ll narc on him and say that NPR knew and thus were complicit in the crime.

Jaune goes along with it while creating plan to oust Cardin and get him kicked from school.

Has conversation with Ren and Nora, both of whom are pissed at him.

Of course Pyrrha told them.

Jaune tells them that he knows he’s a piece of shit but also has Cardin to deal with.

Ren and Nora begrudgingly agree to help him get rid of Cardin.

Tells them his plan.

Plan proceeds to fail and Jaune ends up fighting all of CRDL alone.

Loses.

Grimm outside of their power-level shows up.

Jaune’s quick thinking and tactics get it killed.

Cardin is grateful and promises to keep quiet about blackmail. Even means it too.

CRDL is never a real issue again due to them actually realizing that it’s a very cuntish thing to bully the guy and/or the friends of the guy who actively saved their lives.

Jaune plans to give one last apology to his team before he turns himself in.

NPR say that they deliberated amongst themselves.

They have decided that Jaune doesn’t get to take the easy way out.

His penance is to train his ass off, night and day, to catch up to them on the physical level.

Jaune’s role is to be the strategist and that it’s his job to make plans that keep them all alive.

If he fucks up, they work his ass harder until he doesn’t fuck up.

They haven’t fully forgiven him, but they’re giving him a chance because they genuinely like him.

Jaune is touched by their compassion and promises make up for his mistakes.

Sparring day in class.

Jaune has match against disguised Neo.

Neo wins but Jaune starts to have suspicions.

Pyrrha and Mercury spar.

Pyrrha wins but Mercury now has valuable data on her overall fighting style and semblance usage.

Cinder and Ruby are last match of the class.

Cinder has fire powers as a semblance.

Has second semblance giving her bullet time.

Bullet time doesn’t work all that well against Ruby because of her super-speed.

Ruby gets some pretty good hits in. Kinda kicking Cinder’s ass.

Cinder then decides she’s done playing nice and goes on full offensive. Even starts to scare the crowd.

Times up!

Due to technicality, Ruby won the fight.

Aura cohesion (health bars) Cinder:48% Ruby:51%

Emerald and Mercury are blue in the face with fear of what Cinder might do, having officially lost a fight.

Cinder helps Ruby up, apologizes for going overboard, and offers to buy Ruby lunch the next day.

Ruby happily agrees to hang out with her newest friend.

Cinder later explodes at her hideout and incinerates a White Fang member that got a little too close.

Adam pretends to care. Doesn’t actually.

Ruby and Cinder become shockingly good friends (as far as Ruby is concerned).

Cinder explains the concept of a second semblance, confirming to Ruby that she’s a ten-percenter.

It’s somewhat rare, but it’s common enough that people know how it works and why it unlocks.

Great emotional duress.

She was raised in an orphanage that REALLY sucked.

She awakened both semblances pretty quickly and was snatched up by the authorities as soon as possible to be a huntress.

She’s mostly lying about the details but there is still the base truth.

Ruby tells her that she lost one of her parents too.

Summer just didn’t come home one day, being told she was killed in the line of duty by a lucky grimm.

She’s always thought that there’s more to this story, but doesn’t have the means to follow up just yet.

It’s part of why Ruby wants to be a huntress, to do her best to make sure that some other kid never experiences that kind of loss because of the grimm.

Cinder tells her that that’s not the worst motivation. (she means it more than she thinks)

Since Blake saw Adam at the rally she has become obsessed with analyzing all the data gotten during investigation.

RWY is worried.

Yang talks to her about it, giving the speech about her mother and the problems with obsession.

Blake talks about how dangerous she knows Adam to be. Is vastly terrified of him.

Yang reassures her that the team can handle that punkass.

4 on 1, let him try it. They’ll put the boots to him. Medium style.

Blake reluctantly snaps out of her funk.

Dance comes.

Everyone’s having a good time.

Pyrrha decides to properly forgive Jaune.

They kiss and, after a wacky JNPR argument because funny, so do Ren and Nora.

Insert the cool JNPR dance scene here.

Ruby is happy for her friends but notices some bullshit going on near the comm. tower.

Cinder is infiltrating it wearing something that actually makes it difficult to tell who it is.

Makes a big show of knocking the guards unconscious.

Places real obvious hacking device onto console.

Ruby comes in and shoots at her.

Cinder pops smoke and disappears.

Authorities arrive and (as far as they can tell) disable the hacking device.

Ruby is given a commendation for her actions and her team is taken off probation from earlier.

Upper echelon is pleased that enemy plot was foiled.

Exactly as the bad guys wanted.

Ozpin presses the doubt button.

Teams gets chaperone assignments.

JNPR requested a special Grimm bounty mission.

RWBY gets put on simple observation mission.

JNPR spends time tracking and eventually fighting nuckelavee grimm with Prof. Port.

Ren comes to terms with fighting the grimm that killed his parents.

Y’know, sub-plot stuff to relieve some main plot tension.

RWBY is sent with Dr. Oobleck into ruins to observe and document the growth rate of the non-hostile presence of the local *loud snoring*.

Actually sent near suspected White Fang supply depot with hope that they uncover it and fix problems.

Find it fairly easily after a little bonding moment or two with everyone.

Torchwick and Adam are in charge of train depot. (Torchwick gets the train, Adam gets the depot)

Ruby goes in on her own because she was told not to do things like that.

Ruby gets double-teamed by Roman and Adam. Neo watches like a little shithead.

Ruby fights like a demon but still gets bested.

Adam says that he is now bored and leaves Roman to finish up.

Oobleck and WBY show up.

Roman starts the train, tries to cheese it.

RWBY + Oobleck board the train.

Yang fights Neo.

Weiss fights masked White Fang member (later revealed to be Ilia).

Ruby and Blake fight Torchwick.

Oobleck fights the stormtroopers.

Neo, the crafty, dodgy, dexterity style, sly-bitch, kicks Yang, the brutish and blunt boxer, in the ass.

Raven pops up through a portal.

Neo am-scrays after almost getting her shit pushed in.

Raven says a scant few things to Yang and leaves her a trinket and a map, telling her to follow it when she can before leaving.

Weiss wins her fight.

Blake and Ruby kick Roman’s ass.

Discover train is full of dust explosives to blow up a chunk of Vale and let the grimm through in droves.

Was originally intended to be deployed before explosion but Roman decides ‘fuck it’ and tries to turn it into a kamikaze run at the last minute out of spite.

Oobleck disconnects the explosive cars.

Train still rams hole into central Vale.

Grimm incursion.

RWBY fights as best they can.

Almost get overrun when Teams CFVY, SSSN, and CEMN show up to help.

CEMN only involved because evil plan failed and they want to try and clean up any possible evidence.

Neo (in disguise) tries not to be obvious that she’s still tired from earlier.

Horde battle with large hydra (or something) grimm being final boss of season.

They kill it, of course.

After the battle RWBY thinks that the problem is more or less solved.

Adam is still loose but his plan is foiled and his co-conspirator, Roman, is in prison.

All they have to do is hunt him down.

If he’s going to try something, it’ll be at the tournament. RWBY will have an extra eye open during.

JNPR returns triumphant from their mission and wonders what the hell happened while they were gone.

Cinder is livid that plan-A failed and they lost their best chance to kill Ozpin.

Yeah, their plan is to fuck up Vale and get and chance to kill Ozpin.

Is reassured by the mysterious figure she’s talking to (Salem) that plans can change and still succeed.

Adam is looking through security footage taken from depot.

Sees Blake.

He smiles.

Season two done.

#RWBY #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Cinder Fall #Emerald Sustrai #Mercury Black #Adam Taurus #Neopolitan #RWDE I guess #I regret nothing #How I would do... #Team CFVY

[littleblackqrow]

🖤 + PAIRING (from Oob and from Tai)

1) my muse’s initial impression of yours

The initial impression that Qrow got of Bart was that this boy was really fucking weird, especially because he kept following Qrow around, and kept trying to talk to him. Sophomore Qrow was bound and determined he wasnt going to start this year off as rough as last year because he knew what to expect, and had his quiet corner of the library all picked out. No one bothered him other than this kid, and it never quite occurred to Qrow that was because Bart wanted to be friends. Summer had to tell him.

2) my muse’s favorite physical attribute of yours

Bart's hair. Its part feathers, after all, and Qrow has always lowkey been a bird guy. He really likes petting and pulling Bart's hair.

3) my muse’s favorite personality attribute of yours

How inquisitive Bart is. Qrow definitely gets the impulse to devour every scrap of knowledge that you come across, and that is something he admires in Bart

4) a moment that made my muse realize how much they care about yours

Qrow was (and somewhat still is) very ignorant about feelings and about how he connects with people. He often doesnt realize that he's caught even friendship feelings until something happens or someone points it out to him. Summer had to inform him he'd managed to make a friend with Bart because well. He'd never had a friend like that. Especially not one that he didnt make because he was supposed to work with someone on a team.

5) something my muse never found the words to say to yours

Qrow regrets not being capable of being softer or more open with his affections when he was younger. He really does regret that his upbringing had made him so ignorant of what you do in healthy relationships that he sometimes feels like Qrow never quite communicated to Bart how important he was, or got across his feelings. In a way, he really regrets the words never came to him because it could have taken their relationship from friends with benefits to something more romantic. Qrow feels like he blew that chance a long time ago (see below)

6) something my muse wishes they had never said to yours 

Everything he ever said during a drunken fight. Qrow's aware that Bart is one of the many people that reduced the time he spent around Qrow to the bare minimum because he couldnt deal with the drinking and the type of person Qrow was when he was deep in his cups for an extended bender. Though he only has vague memories of what he said, Qrow doesnt begrudge Bart for stepping back. He just wishes that he'd never given his best friend a reason to do that in the first place.

7) something your muse does that makes mine feel safe 

Bart was one of three or four people who knew the Twins' secret about where they came from. The fact that he never outed them gave Qrow the confidence that Bart was a safe person with whom he could confide in. There arent many people that make that kind of impression on Qrow.

8) something your muse does that makes mine smile

Bart's tapping.

9) something my muse wants to protect yours from 

When they were younger, it was bullying because Bart is faunus. The Anti-faunus prejudice used to be a lot worse in Vale, and Qrow (and Raven), having been raised in an egalitarian Tribe where race did not matter, was violently protective of their faunus classmates. Social cohesion is important when it comes to survival in the wilderness and racism towards the faunus has no place, especially when you're relying on that faunus to protect you.

10) ways my muse says ‘i love you’ without saying those words

Qrow brings Bart gifts. Little curiosities or rare books from his travels. Things he knows his friend would be interested in, or fits in his pretty eclectic collection. He also has a respond tap to Bart's because words are hard, but three little taps is much easier.

#headcanon #erudite rebel #oobqrow

[tiramisiyu]

【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: 【惊心一刻】 Xia Yan’s Shocking Moment Date Translation

--

Translation Masterlist | Xia Yan Masterlist

Video: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Hh411Z7qk

I love how Mihoyo takes every opportunity to remind us about Xia Yan’s three years. (I do not)

PART 1

Detective Office

MC: Today’s recommendation: “Extreme Rock Climbing” – a documentary that’ll make your palms sweat wildly…

I flipped through the magazines on Xia Yan’s desk and couldn’t resist making a sound in surprise.

MC: So amazing, how do people climb up this…

I had just finished speaking when a little black figure, accompanied with the sound of a few crisp chirps, flew towards me. It then stably landed on my shoulder.

MC: Peanut? Are you very interested in this? I feel like Xia Yan would also like this a lot.

Xia Yan: What is it that I’d like? What are you whispering to Peanut…

Xia Yan walked in front of me, holding a tiny little box.

Xia Yan: This is for you – Peanut’s baggage is all in here. Its birdcage and bird frame can be folded into a light, portable shape.

Xia Yan: These few days when I’m gone, I’ll have to trouble you to take care of it well.

MC: No problem. What about your luggage, then? Have you packed it all?

Xia Yan: Don’t worry, I’ve packed all of it. Though I’d just finished packing when I heard you two talking about something interesting – quick, tell me.

MC: There’s a film review in this magazine about a documentary on barehanded rock climbing.

MC: So I thought that you’d like this kind of sport!

Xia Yan: Is that so? Show me the magazine!

I handed the magazine I was holding to Xia Yan, specifically pointing out the illustration for this review. A man without any protective measures on was barehandedly scaling a cliff that barely had any footholds.

Xia Yan: Mm… it is very impressive, but it’s too dangerous. I won’t go try it.

MC: Even if you wanted to go, I would definitely hold you back anyways. 

MC: I’m guessing that what you would be interested in would be the more typical rock climbing activities with safety measures.

Xia Yan: Is it that… you want to go rock climbing?

I was completely befuddled until Xia Yan handed the magazine to me and pointed to the rock climbing club advertisement, published behind the film review…

Ads these days really are unpredictable…

MC: I hadn’t seen that side…

I was just about to explain that I didn’t mean it that way, until I saw Xia Yan’s slightly worried expression. Was it because rock climbing is troublesome? Something that could make him feel that it was difficult… I’m suddenly looking forward to it a lot! I’ve never seen him in an activity that he’s not good at!

MC: Although, it’s not like I mind trying it out! 

Just when I was looking forward to seeing Xia Yan admit defeat for the first time, he instead laughed and nodded.

Xia Yan: It’s just rock climbing. Since you want to try it out, then let’s go after I return!

MC: Eh?!!!

--

One week later.

Novice Rock Climbing Area

On the weekend, there were a lot of people at the location, but most of them were all at areas of different difficulty levels, so the novice area seemed somewhat calm.

As for me, when I saw the rock climbing walls that I’ve only seen in magazines and entertainment programs, I inhaled a deep breath.

MC: I never would’ve thought that we really would come.

Although, I’m lucky that Xia Yan found this outdoor rock-climbing site. I’d originally thought that we really would go out into the wild to climb a cliff.

MC: We’re here anyways. If I don’t experience it properly, I’ll be letting myself down.

MC: I’ll do some warm-up exercises first.

Right then, Xia Yan walked towards me, holding two bottles of mineral water.

Xia Yan: I’ve bought the water. How are your warm-ups?

MC: Almost done!

Xia Yan: Let me see. Mm… raise your arms a little more, your elbows should be leveled with your shoulders…

My posture didn’t seem to be up to standard, so Xia Yan directly walked behind me to help me adjust my movements.

Xia Yan: That’s right! Remember to flex your fingers after finishing those.

MC: Mhmm!

After warming up, a coach headed over with rock climbing gear to instruct me on novice rock climbing techniques. But after the coach finished with his instructions, he didn’t seem to intend on leaving – instead, he looked over Xia Yan and I back and forth.

Coach A: The two of you must have come here together. Are you interested in participating in today’s rock climbing speed competition?

MC: Competition?

 PART 2

Novice Rock Climbing Area

 Coach A: We often hold some interesting competitions. Today is the two-person speed competition, where the competition scores are based on the total duration rankings of the individual climbing of the two.

Coach A: Signups for the competition are done at one’s will. Whether you participate or not, either is fine. The prizes are four journals, specially designed and custom-ordered by this rock climbing place.

I’d originally been completely disinterested in the competition, but when my attention was perked as soon as I heard that the prize was journals!

MC: Are they rock-climbing themed?

Xia Yan: I remember that you used to like to collect pretty stationery before!

Coach A: Of course. A lot of people who come to compete, come for the prize – after all, they’re limited-edition.

MC: I’m a little interested. Xia Yan, are you joining?

Xia Yan: Since you want the journal so much, then I’ll definitely join!

Coach A: The competition is happening at 3:30. Don’t be stressed, you can get a prize as long as you rank.

Coach A: Though I have to let you both know that the rock wall used in the competition is a bit different from what’s usually used.

Coach A: It doesn’t have that many routes. With pure speed and force, people with a foundation in sports won’t find it difficult to start with some more practice.

MC: Thank you, coach! It’s 2-o’clock right now – one and a half hours of time to practice.

Xia Yan: Want to try climbing the novice cliff first? We have time to compete after adapting to it.

MC: Mm, then I’ll try it out first. Are you going to do it with me?

Xia Yan: Me?

He seemed to have thought about something. After revealing a surprised expression for an instant, he very quickly smiled at me helplessly.

Xia Yan: The novice area is pretty safe, so I’ll observe here. If your posture is off somewhere, I can also immediately correct it.

MC: …Have you remembered all that the coach taught us?

Distracted by the journal and competition matters, I had already forgotten a good portion of those movements.

Xia Yan: Wanna guess? Although, no matter how much theory you listen to, it can’t compare to experiencing it yourself. Only practice results in true knowledge.

I nodded and began to apply slip-resistant powder to my palms. When I was preparing to stand in front of the rock wall, Xia Yan inspected the safety equipment I had on.

Xia Yan: Shouldn’t have any problems… try and see.

MC: Mm.

I stood in front of the rock wall, then reached out to grab the chunk of rock in front of me, then visually searched for a suitable foothold. When both of my feet had stepped on the rock points, my whole body had pressed against the rock wall. I followed Xia Yan’s instructions, gradually shifting my body. Though each movement was very slow, they were quite stable.

Xia Yan: How do you feel now?

MC: No problems whatsoever!

I had just spoken when my foot, which had just stepped on another rock point, applied the slightest bit of force and then slid. Luckily, my other foot kept my body stable.

MC: Good thing I hadn’t stepped completely onto it. I really can’t afford to be careless at all…

Xia Yan: Are you alright?

I turned around with difficulty and looked down at Xia Yan. His eyes were full of worry.

MC: I’m fine! The occasional mistake is also a part of accumulating experience.

Xia Yan: Seriously, you’ve never changed in how you are when you encourage yourself. 

Xia Yan: Although, being able to do this much for your first time rock climbing is already really amazing. Do you want to come down and rest for a bit?

MC: Xia Yan, do you think if I try a little harder now, I’ll be able to get to the top?

Xia Yan: You want to get to the top?

MC: Mhmm! Giving up halfway isn’t my style.

Xia Yan: Though it’s a bit hard for a novice to reach the top… but if it’s you, there definitely won’t be a problem!

Hearing Xia Yan’s encouragement, I turned around and looked at the rock wall in front and spurred myself on mentally. I can definitely do this!

--

Though my progress in climbing the wall was somewhat bumpy, I was still able to successfully get on the top of the rock wall in the end. After getting down from the rock wall, I immediately ran to Xia Yan.

MC: I understand why so many people enjoy rock climbing.

MC: The sense of accomplishment after getting to the top feels just like I’ve conquered both sky and earth!

Standing beside me, Xia Yan smiled as he looked at me, but he didn’t say anything.

MC: What are you looking at? Is there magnesium powder stuck on my face?

Xia Yan: There is a little.

Xia Yan raised his hand, seeming to want to wipe it for me, but he had only stuck out his hand halfway before putting it back down.

Xia Yan: Here, there’s a little bit rubbed on beside your lips.

I rubbed at it with the back of my hand.

MC: Any more left?

Xia Yan: No… ahem, I’m gonna go buy two bottles of water again. Rest a bit before the competition starts to restore your stamina. 

After speaking, Xia Yan left rapidly. No matter how you looked at it, it looked like he was running for his life. What’s up with him?

MC: …

I didn’t have the time to ponder over why Xia Yan’s reaction was so strange before my attention was drawn to a person nearby. That person was in the middle of climbing the other side of the rock wall quickly. The cohesiveness of his actions was absolutely smooth and natural – it was clear that he was a veteran.

MC: Though I signed up in a moment of interest, it’s really hard to achieve that level of familiarity within this short time.

Xia Yan: No matter how hard it is, you won’t give up, right?

MC: Xia Yan! When did you get back?

Xia Yan: Just when you were sighing about how familiar others were with rock climbing. Here, this water’s for you.

After taking the mineral water from Xia Yan, I opened the bottle cap and took a drink. Within the period of time when Xia Yan and I were talking, that person had already climbed to the top.

MC: He must be a professional to have gotten to the top so fast.

Xia Yan: It’s not that fast. The rock wall that he was climbing only had one route, so it’s supposed to be used for speed practice anyways. 

Xia Yan: If he wants to get on the level of a professional, he’s got to improve his speed by at least 50 seconds.

MC: Saying this, do you think you can do it faster than him?

Xia Yan: That’s for sure!

MC: Then why did you look so unwilling when I brought up rock climbing at the beginning…

Xia Yan: That was because…

MC: Because what?

Xia Yan: Ahem, that was because I wanted to surprise you. I’ll prove it to you now!

 PART 3

High-speed Rock Climbing Area

The rock wall that the person had just climbed up was from the high-speed rock climbing area, which was also the area where the competition would be held. Xia Yan and I walked over, and Xia Yan had me get on the top platform to wait for him.

Xia Yan: The competition will be held soon. The built-in timer for the rock wall needs to be reset to zero – I’ll need to trouble you to time me on the top platform.

MC: No problem. The person just now used around one minute – can you…

Xia Yan: Then I’ll be a bit conservative – 40 seconds.

MC: 40 seconds is conservative?

Xia Yan: Because I’m not too familiar with the equipment here yet.

Xia Yan: Hurry up there – I’ll start right after warming up!

MC: Mm.

Only when standing at the top of the rock-climbing wall and looking down did I truly feel how high the rock wall was.

MC: 50 metres… Xia Yan bragged that he could do 40 seconds, but is that too much of a rush…

I looked towards Xia Yan in the middle of his preparations. Maybe he felt my gaze, since he tilted his head up and smiled at me. Though Xia Yan had a lot of confidence, I still suspected that he was putting on a brave front, especially in how he wanted to climb up a 50-metre rock wall in 40 seconds.

MC: Xia Yan! Don’t force yourself, I’m worried…

I yelled in his direction.

Xia Yan: No way. When have I never successfully done what I’ve promised you?

Well, that was true.

He walked to the fixed spot two metres away from the rock wall, adjusted the position of the starting mat, and waved at me.

Xia Yan: I’m ready! After counting down from 3 seconds, start the time!

3, 2, 1… the moment I pressed the timer, Xia Yan got on the rock wall at a speed that surpassed my imagination. His movements were agile and smooth – it was clear that he was no novice.

MC: Is there anything that he can’t do…?

Other people who were resting all gathered around, watching Xia Yan climb up the rock wall at a high speed.

Bystander A: Who’s this expert – how come I’ve never seen him before? That speed really is something else!

Bystander B: The expert’s agile skill simply can’t be criticized! I bet the club’s records are gonna be broken very soon.

Bystander C: Breaking the record? That record has stuck around for three years – how could it be broken so easily.

In the blink of an eye, Xia Yan had long passed the middle of the rock wall.

His expression was focused and firm, and magnesium powder floated around him, sparkling brilliantly in the sun. The closer he got to the top of the rock wall, the more I couldn’t shift my attention away from him. Even the noise on the ground was nearly inaudible.

The more Xia Yan passed over that protruding rock wall, the more the endpoint became within his reach.

MC: Do your best, Xia Yan!

Hearing my voice, Xia Yan smiled slightly, then grabbed a rock point and rose up suddenly…

My heart suddenly tightened. Under the surprised gasps of the crowd, Xia Yan stably grabbed onto the last rock before the top. He, who’d just finished this with skill and ease, winked at me, not even forgetting to casually say a few words…

Xia Yan: It’s almost over. Watch the second timer and prepare to stop it.

MC: You haven’t gotten on the top – there isn’t much time left.

Xia Yan: This is just a warm-up – of course I won’t unleash my full ability.

Xia Yan: But since you’re using provoking methods, then I have to…

As he spoke, my eyes suddenly seemed to blur. I didn’t see Xia Yan’s movements at all when he successfully got on the top, appearing by my side.

Xia Yan: How was that – how much time did I take?

Time? Ah! I forgot to stop the timer!

MC: 34:57 seconds…

Even though I pressed it late by a few seconds, Xia Yan was still able to do as promised within 40 seconds.

MC: Congratulations, Great Detective Xia, you were successful!

Xia Yan: Now you believe that I really am amazing at rock climbing, right. 

MC: Yes yes yes, super amazing, I’m in complete awe!

Xia Yan: Then did you think that I looked really cool?

MC: Yes yes yes, the Great Detective was especially cool!

Xia Yan: Then, do I have the honour of being the private rock-climbing instructor for the Great Lawyer?

MC: Haha, no problem, this lawyer will definitely hire you!

Laughing, I high-fived Xia Yan. As our fingertips brushed over each other, he transmitted his warmth to me. The moment that our palms pressed against each other, I could even feel his beating heart clearly.

 PART 4

High-speed Rock-Climbing Area

After laughing together, I carefully thought back on Xia Yan’s movements as he got on the top. My eyes told me that I could do it, but my body… clearly wouldn’t be able to learn it…

Xia Yan: What are you thinking about?

MC: I was thinking that your movements in getting to the top are unsurprisingly very hard.

Xia Yan: I was showing off my skill – a typical person wouldn’t do that when getting to the top. I’ve got to perform in an eye-catching way to have you forget about that person just now.

Xia Yan: Although, I only dared to do those kinds of movements because I was sure of my success, so don’t worry.

Seeing Xia Yan’s happy expression, I thought again of his distressed expression that day.

MC: Now can you tell me why your expression was so odd back when I brought up rock climbing?

MC: I’d even thought that you weren’t skilled at this…

Xia Yan: This… one reason was that I was afraid that your stamina wouldn’t be able to catch up. After all, rock climbing isn’t like other sports – it consumes a lot of energy.

MC: Being a lawyer means that I often have to work overtime over several days, and I have to run around to different places to get evidence. I feel like my stamina should pass the standard.

MC: You said “one reason” just now, so there are other reasons?

Xia Yan scratched at his hair, seeming somewhat embarrassed.

Xia Yan: It’s not good... for my...

MC: Ah?

His voice became as quiet as a mosquito, and I didn’t hear what he said clearly.

Xia Yan: To a novice, falling down in the middle of rock climbing is very typical.

Xia Yan: As long as I imagine this, even if there are safety measures, I still feel very anxious.

Xia Yan: So… it’s not good for my heart!

MC: You’re worrying too much. Since you had me trust in you more, you also have to trust in me a bit more.

MC: Plus, with such an amazing Teacher Xia instructing beside me, I won’t fall down, right?

Xia Yan: That’s for sure. The Great Lawyer is right!

Thinking of Xia Yan’s skill just now, my confidence in the competition increased by a few points.

In the high-speed rock-climbing area, Xia Yan taught me for a while longer. Only after confirming that my start and acceleration all had no problems did he bring me to the rock wall to be used in the competition.

--

it was probably because the competition time was nearing, but the competition area was bustling with activity. It was much noisier than the practice ground from earlier.

MC: So many people… it must be very hard to rank…

Xia Yan: The prize journal must be very special for it to attract so many people to participate in the competition.

Xia Yan: This also proves that we were correct in choosing to join the competition, right?

MC: That’s also true.

MC: Ah, there’s no point in overthinking anymore. It’s better to not pressure myself too much, and to instead focus on participating.

Xia Yan: Are you really nervous?

I felt somewhat discouraged, being exposed by Xia Yan all at once.

MC: Even if this isn’t a field that I’m skilled at, the me who’s tried hard still hopes to get a good result.

MC: I know that this kind of thought process is a little willful and unrealistic, but…

Xia Yan laughed, then looked towards the faraway rock wall and spoke.

Xia Yan: Having a strong will to win is a good thing, especially for a lawyer like you…

Xia Yan: But sometimes, letting go of your will to win and simply enjoying the pleasure of competition is also an excellent choice.

Did Xia Yan say that? I didn’t hear wrong, right? This sort of sincere, earnest tone that would usually come from some old veteran doesn’t suit him at all!

In my past memories, Xia Yan was the most persistent and stubborn person, and having him admit defeat was basically an impossible task. Sure enough, something must have happened in those past eight years…

But seeing Xia Yan’s smile, I realized that this wasn’t the time to ask.

MC: If you’re saying these things to make me less nervous, then I’m so sorry, but you’ve gotten the opposite results. 

MC: Pleasure and victory – I’ll have them all!

Xia Yan showed an expression with “I knew you would say that” written all over it. I released a breath for my correct response.

Xia Yan: Ah… I never thought that it would become a way to provoke you.

Xia Yan: Since you want it all, then it’s time for me to show off my true strength!

MC: Don’t forget that this isn’t a single-person competition. There’s also the absolute novice that I am.

Xia Yan: Are you talking about the absolute novice who got to the top on your first time here? 

Xia Yan: With a teammate like this, isn’t my win basically guaranteed?

Just when I had been teased by Xia Yan until I was grinning from ear to ear, I heard the coach shouting at us.

Coach B: Team Xia Yan! It’s your turn, are you both ready?

MC: We’re ready!

Coach B: Who’s climbing first?

Xia Yan and I looked at each other for a moment. Immediately after, Xia Yan clapped my shoulder and strode forward one step.

Xia Yan: I’ll go first! Let me set a good foundation, so you can also confidently and freely do your thing!

MC: Do your best!

  PART 5

High-speed Rock-Climbing Area

After the sound of the coach’s whistle, the timer started. Like an arrow fired from a bow, Xia Yan climbed upwards, faster than the speed that I had seen earlier. The surrounding crowd, including me, were completely focused on Xia Yan. We hadn’t even recovered from our shock before Xia Yan arrived at the top.

The display screen beside the rock-climbing wall declared Xia Yan’s score – 9 seconds.

The same rock wall, yet he performed even better than last time by nearly 30 seconds! Looks like he really was just warming up earlier…

Enthusiastic applause suddenly sounded in the grounds, only dissipating when Xia Yan got down from the rock-climbing wall.

Xia Yan: I beat second place by nearly half a minute – not bad, right?

MC: Xia Yan, you’re too… I don’t even know how to describe it! 

Xia Yan: You’ve got a new recognition for how amazing I am, right!

Xia Yan’s eyebrows curved, and his smile was quite proud. If he had a tail, it would definitely be sticking up towards the sky.

MC: Mm! It’s my turn! I definitely will not hold back! I’ll do my best for our journals!

Xia Yan: Do your best!

After high-fiving and making the switch with Xia Yan, I stood ready and waiting in front of the rock wall. I had just placed my hands on the rock points, waiting for the start signal, when I noticed that Xia Yan had already put on the safety lock and was standing by my side.

What’s going on?!

Xia Yan made an “OK” hand signal towards the coach with a “let’s go again” expression, and looked at my totally confused face.

MC: Did the competition change rules? Why did you come again?

Xia Yan: I just sought out the coach and said that my partner was coming for the first time, so I wasn’t too at ease.

Xia Yan: The coach made a special allowance for me. Under the fair competition circumstances of no interference, I can accompany and protect you on the side.

MC: You really are too worried…

Xia Yan: An excellent detective will always consider all possibilities and carry out his plans after.

MC: … 

Xia Yan: Do you think I’m a hindrance? 

MC: How could that be? I’m just a little surprised.

Xia Yan’s joining in made me feel safer, as well as more courageous, with the desire to give it my all.

Xia Yan: That’s good!

Hearing the coach’s start order, I didn’t have time to reply to Xia Yan before I put all of my body and heart into the competition. The race start, a burst of speed… the high wall in front of my no longer seemed to be a hard-to-surmount obstacle. Everything happened very smoothly, and my condition was even better than when Xia Yan took me to practice.

In the middle of the competition progress, my arm suddenly felt sore when I applied strength.

It was probably because I was somewhat tired from practicing earlier. I stopped all my movements and tried relaxing my hand exchange.

Xia Yan: What’s wrong?

MC: Nothing, I’m just taking a bit of a rest.

As I spoke, I continued climbing up, but the soreness in my arm got worse and worse…

MC: I should be able to hold on until the end…

I muttered quietly to myself, took a few deep breaths, wanting to get to the top with a spurt of energy.

Xia Yan: MC, slow down a bit, there’s still time!

Xia Yan’s warning had me calm down slightly. Only then did I realize that I had been too impatient.

However, I had just slowed down when my arm suddenly went numb. As if it was a slow-motion playback, the motion of my powerless fingers releasing the rock point played frame by frame in front of my eyes, and my heart gradually went cold…

MC: Ah—

After I let go, I could no longer maintain my balance, and fell in midair…

During the sudden matter, I unconsciously closed my eyes, waiting to come down on the safety mat.

But the image I predicted never occurred. Something tightened abruptly around my waist, and I fell into a warm embrace.

Xia Yan: MC! Are you alright?

When I heard the familiar voice, I opened my tightly-closed eyes. Xia Yan’s face full of worry fell into my sight. One of his hands held tightly on a rock, and the other held me, with both of his feet placed squarely on the rock wall. His arm then tightened around my waist a little more, probably because he saw me not reacting.

I unconsciously reached my hands towards his chest and carefully took a few breaths. Only then did I get back my feeling of safety.

Xia Yan: I already told you…

Xia Yan’s raised voice seemed to be a little angry, but he had just started speaking when he frowned again.

Xia Yan: Ss—

Seeing the moment when Xia Yan frowned, my heart jolted.

MC: Xia Yan, are you alright? Were you hurt anywhere?

Xia Yan: Don’t worry, I’m not hurt.

MC: How could that be? I saw you frown just now. Did you get hurt when you caught me?

MC: I’ve been dieting for weight loss recently, but regardless, an adult shouldn’t be able to pull their arm muscle into a state of injury from the force of falling… 

Xia Yan: I really am alright. Look, does my expression look like someone who’s been hurt?

I stared at Xia Yan’s face. After confirming that he really wasn’t showing any signs of pain, I calmed down.

Right then Xia Yan and I reacted, realizing that the distance between us was so close.

Xia Yan: We… we should head down first…

MC: Mhmm…

 PART 6

Because of my mistake, Xia Yan and my competition score did not bear results, so ranking was out of the question. Plus, after seeing Xia Yan’s pained expression as he held me, I looked for the coach after landing safely for the infirmary’s location.

 Infirmary Hallway

MC: …

I sat on the chair outside the rock-climbing infirmary door, pinching my sore arms, waiting for Xia Yan’s examination report.

Xia Yan: The doctor said I didn’t have a single wound, so you can completely relax.

Xia Yan, who had just walked out of the infirmary, looked relaxed, forming a sharp contrast with the worry all over my face.

MC: Good thing you’re alright. Losing the competition isn’t a big deal, but if I hurt you…

Xia Yan: Even if I got hurt, it would just be a little wound – it’s nowhere near as important as your safety.

Xia Yan: You’ve already confirmed that I’m fine, so now you should be willing to find a doctor for an examination, right?

MC: You’re talking like I’m avoiding this on purpose. 

Xia Yan: No no, I know you had me get examined first because you were worried. 

Xia Yan: I’m also worried about you… so…

Seeing Xia Yan’s face, I didn’t know why, but the scene when we came down from the rock wall emerged again in my head.

MC: I’ll go do the examination – take a good rest here.

Xia Yan: Mm, I’ll wait for you.

I nodded, then pushed open the infirmary door.

--

After hearing the infirmary door close, Xia Yan sighed quietly. He hadn’t done any examinations in the infirmary – he just discussed an excuse with the doctor to prevent him from saying the wrong thing when asked.

Xia Yan: I don’t have much time left…

He clutched tightly at the key in front of his chest, until the joints had whitened from the force he was applying.

Xia Yan: …

After turning around to look at the infirmary door, he smiled helplessly, then closed his eyes.

--

After coming out the infirmary, I saw Xia Yan leaning on the chair, closing his eyes in rest. Probably because he heard my footsteps, he suddenly opened his eyes just as I was planning to play a trick to scare him awake.

Xia Yan: Seeing your movements… did you want to launch a sneak attack on me?

MC: Yeah, though I didn’t have time to carry it out before you noticed. 

Xia Yan: How were the examination results? What did the doctor say?

MC: The doctor said that I just pulled my muscle a little, and it’ll be fine after a few days of rest. Don’t worry.

MC: Although… I feel a little sad when I think about how we didn’t rank because of my mistake.

Xia Yan: Learn from our lessons of failure, and next time we come, we’ll definitely win!

MC: You’re right!

Just when we were about to leave the infirmary, the coach who instructed us at the beginning blocked us.

Coach A: Please wait, are the two of you Team Xia Yan? There’s a gift that the club wants to give you two.

MC: Present?

I took the present in the coach’s hand. When I opened it, I saw – two journals?!

Coach A: The prize pack with four journals was prepared for the athletes who were the ranked winners of the competition. However, Mr. Xia Yan broke our single’s speed rock climbing record.

MC: He broke the record? Then how many seconds was the last record?

Coach A: 11:57 seconds. That’s basically the limit for typical people who haven’t undergone professional training. After all, the world record is 5:58 seconds.

I looked at Xia Yan. Though I knew a long time ago that he was very amazing, I never would’ve thought that he was this amazing…

Coach A: Mr. Xia Yan, would it be alright if you let me know what your occupation is? Me and my colleagues are all very curious about exactly where such skill comes from.

Xia Yan: That’s easy, I own an antiques shop. Here’s my name card – if you’re interested, you can come take a look.

He took out a name card and stuffed it into the coach’s hand.

Coach A: Antiques shop? Strange…

The coach muttered quietly as he left. Xia Yan shook his head, then sidled up beside me, carefully scrutinizing the notebook.

Xia Yan: The design of the layout isn’t bad – it looks pretty good!

I handed one to Xia Yan and flipped through one myself. The workmanship really was very good.

MC: In the end, we still had to rely on you to get the prizes… 

MC: But I won’t admit defeat. The next time we come, we definitely will take the other two books!

Xia Yan: I’ll accompany you anytime! Although, we have to wait until your arm has completely healed.

Thinking about how my arms might hurt so much that I wouldn’t be able to raise them after today, I silently postponed this promise.

MC: Then it’s a promise – we’ll challenge it again next time!

-END-

#tears of themis #weiding shijian bu #xia yan #夏彦 #未定事件簿 #mihoyo #gotta echo mc here #is there anything that xia yan can't do #also yes the regular dose of knives for xia yan fans #it hurts #tot translation

[fnlrndcllctv]

Tekken

In our Soundtrack Sunday series, we take a look at the music of fighting games, track by track!

For the fifth instalment, Shaun Eddleston takes a look at the music of 1994’s Tekken…

(For the purpose of this article, only the Arcade version of the game’s soundtrack is being covered).

In 1994, 3D fighting games were still in their infancy. SEGA’s first fighting game experiment in the form of Dark Edge and the boundary-pushing Virtua Fighter had barely been out for a year, and games such as Battle Arena Toshinden were still just around the corner for the next generation of home consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and SEGA Saturn.

Namco wanted in on the action, so enlisted the talents of Virtua Racing & Virtua Fighter game designer Seiichi Ishii to help develop 3D fighting game of their own, based on a hardware demo that was initially developed to show off some fancy new graphics off to investors. What started off as a game called “RAVE WAR” would eventually go on to become not only one of the most successful and longest-running fighting game franchises, but one of the biggest selling video game series of all time; Tekken.

As the technology was still somewhat limited at the time, Tekken’s stages were a simple affair. A seemingly infinite scrolling plane placed in front of some parallax backgrounds to give the impression of depth, each of these fighting arenas required a little bit more oomph to push forward and create a suitable, varied atmosphere in which players could beat each other up.

That’s where the music comes in. As Tekken was such an early entry in the realm of 3D fighters, the soundtrack played a considerably larger role in establishing how the game felt than in later entries.

So, how does the original soundtrack holdup today?

Let’s find out…

The game’s introduction is fairly non-eventful in its 20-second runtime, but it does make good use of the game’s stereo mix by panning left and right to create a more immersive effect, and reminds me a little bit of elements found in the PlayStation startup jingle.

Tekken’s character select music is a loop of what initially appears to be a fuzzy, overdriven funk bassline over a simple drumbeat, but to me personally, there was always something about this version that didn’t sit right with me. Upon listening closer, I think I’ve figured out what it is.

Behind the upbeat bass that is designed to get players pumped up before a fight, there’s two droning chords being played in the background that elicit a very serious, uneasy tone. Its a strange sensation that’s also present in the PlayStation version of the soundtrack (although it’s not as strong, thanks to better quality remixing!)

“Marine Stadium, Japan” is where the soundtrack has the most fun with the stereo mix, creating a dizzying effect by throwing samples at the listener from all directions in the left and right speaker. Once the track gets moving, there’s a call & response going on between many of the tracks separate elements, running a fine line between being a disjointed mess and a brilliantly cohesive piece.

Luckily the rhythm section and background pads do a great job of keeping things in check.

Definitely one of my favourites in the game.

“Chicago, USA” is probably the grittiest track of the OST, and is probably closer to what a lot of the game’s music sounds like in the modern era than the rest of the tracklist.

The fuzzy bass tone of the character select screen makes yet another appearance here, and immediately starts to make each of the “verse” sections feel incredibly busy and muddies the entire mix straight away.

The chorus, although very brief, saves the song in a big way. The soaring keys, accompanied by some fun percussive claps, make this one of the most enjoyable songs that still holds up really well today.

On a related note, the arrange version found in the PlayStation port is flawless.

The most immediate thing I noticed about this track is just how loud and distracting the bass is. It rumbles throughout the majority of the runtime, and almost ruins the whole experience for me, that is until the bass drops out and allows listeners to focus in a bit more on the tracks other elements.

Once you get past the overpowering synth bass, this is actually a really fun track. Utilising samples of traditional Chinese stringed instruments and gong hits, it’s a high energy track that perks up the players fighting in the mountainous stage.

Imagine a hard-hitting techno remix of Chun-Li from Street Fighter II’s music and you’ve got the right idea.

“Angkor Watt, Cambodia” is probably the closest that the game comes to an industrial sound, and I mean that in a literal sense. The drums and bass is accentuated with what sounds like stylised machinery interspersed with synth leads for the whole track. This robotic selection is an odd choice to use for a stage that’s based on the real life Angkor Watt (i.e. a complex of ancient temples in Cambodia, NOT a factory filled with heavy machinery).

The track also ends before it has the chance to build up into anything really interesting, and remains as a bit of a teaser for me.

“Fiji” is unlike anything else in the Tekken soundtrack, and is arguably one of the series’ most iconic pieces of music (it gets revisited a handful of times throughout the franchise’s long history). The track dials things up into party mode, with steel drums and a catchy salsa beat that really makes you feel like you are on holiday on a tropical island, with a bassline that you’d expect to hear in a bustling nightclub.

A true highlight of the soundtrack, and most definitely the biggest earworm of the whole tracklist.

With “Acropolis, Greece”, we steer into something with a much more dramatic mood.

While the drums and bass for most of the song leave a lot to be desired in terms of differentiating themselves from damn near every other song in the soundtrack, its the the chorus that saves the whole composition. Backed up by some choir keys that remind me of Angel Dust-era Faith No More (the best era, by the way!) and some military-style drumming that’s sprinkled throughout, it builds up to something pleasant, even though it doesn’t quite reach the majesty of the location’s namesake.

“Kyoto, Japan” follows in the footsteps of “Sichuan, China”, in that it utilises samples of traditional instruments from the location’s culture.

This is another track that makes great use of the stereo mix, with the instruments constantly in flux from the left to right speaker (and vice versa). The song does feel a little choppier than the rest of the soundtrack in places though, and the constant “un-tiss-un-tiss-un-tiss” drumbeat mixed together with the percussion samples of blocks being hit makes the song sound like something from the Samurai Shodown games if they were all on ecstasy.

“King George Island, Antarctica” is one of the more interesting items on this fighting game menu, as the song is driven forward by something outside of the simple drumbeat and funk bassline. Instead, it’s powered by an ongoing drone sound hidden in the background. While not quite in Sunn O))) territory, it’s something that makes the track feel unique to its peers, even though it largely contains a lot of the same elements as them.

This one took me by surprise.

Most of the runtime of “Venezia, Italy” sees the music simmering away comfortably, then once the chorus hits, it erupts into a slightly operatic, adventurous display of strings and choirs. Not only that, but for the latter half of the brief chorus, the drum beat instantly shifts into a jazzy offbeat section that definitely threw me off in terms of where I was expecting the music to go.

It’s a gamble that ultimately pays off, and it’s one that results in one of the more underrated tracks in the collection.

“Windermere, U.K.” is where the quality of the game’s music takes a hard hit.

Everything in the song sounds like you’re listening to it through a wall, with the individual instruments being drowned out by the overblown bass and frankly dull drum loops, and even then, the synthetic saxophone sections of the song don’t sound very interesting either. It’s a couple of minutes that holds the entire OST back.

At least the Arrange version in the following year’s PlayStation port was an improvement.

From the game’s weakest track, we head straight into one of the best moments in the entire OST.

“Monument Valley, USA” is one of the most ominous, evil-sounding stage themes that you’re likely to encounter in any fighting game. Just over a minute of harsh windy soundscapes, thunderous gongs, grandiose strings and monk chants that feel more like a summoning of an ancient demon than an actual song. It’s such a deviation from the rest of the music in Tekken, almost to the point where it could be from a totally different game altogether.

The PlayStation version of this song is rightfully in my top 10 favourite fighting game tracks of all time.

Tekken’s final credits music is an absolute pleasure to listen to. In just a couple of minutes, it effectively melds together all of the different vibes of each stage in the game without resorting to just clipping them together as a cheap montage.

Besides, it’s just a relief to have something relatively soothing after dealing with the horrid AI of Heihachi as a final boss.

Overall, the soundtrack to the very first Tekken game is pretty far away from people may be used to from the high intensity of the modern entries in the franchise.

Instead of punishing dubstep and songs you’d expect to hear from a harder-edged Dance Dance Revolution game soundtracks (is that even a thing?), the music selection here is much simpler and way more subdued.

Tasked with trying to represent the various locations from around the world, Namco Sounds did an admirable job getting the vibe right for each stage. From the absolute party of “Fiji” and the sports broadcast jingle of “Marine Stadium, Japan” to the gritty club beats of “Chicago, USA” and the windy soundscapes of “Monument Valley, USA”, the Tekken soundtrack is a varied, interesting mix that not only gives each landmark and setting more personality, but also attempts to set the bar for a series that has since become known for its great music.

Now, time to try and get “Fiji” out of my head until Tekken 2’s edition of Soundtrack Sunday…

The soundtrack is available on vinyl here.

Are you a fan of the original Tekken’s music? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

#Tekken #Namco #Soundtrack #1994

[tanstar]

Rambling about RE2R and RE3R’s cut content part 2

Read part 1 here.

Part 2: RE3R

So I’m gonna be honest, I really like RE3R. It’s narrative and characters are 10/10 for me, something I haven’t been able to say about RE in a long time (honestly my biggest gripes with re5 and 6 are the complete wasted potential of their narratives and characters). I’ll go more in depth about it later but yeah I’ve got no complaints about the story or characters. My problems with RE3R come down to it’s length, level design and the utilization of Nemesis. So let’s get started.

spoilers ahead 

Cut/altered/new content:

Live select options were cut in favour of a cohesive narrative and characterization (which have been expanded upon greatly), Jill’s apartment is now explorable, Nemesis ambushes Jill at her apartment and her escape is now playable, the graveyard is gone (though there is a nod to the graveyard at the start of the rpd section), the clock tower interior and its puzzles are gone (it’s exterior is used for the boss fight against Nemesis form 2 like the original), no water puzzle, the gravedigger has been merged with hunter gamma as a common enemy type, Uptown is now a linear setpiece that cannot be revisited, there are fewer Nemesis encounters, Nemesis item drops aren’t as worthwhile as the original,  there’s a new boss fight with Nemesis as he wields a flamethrower, tram has been changed to a subway train, fetchquest for the tram has been cut, Mikhail is now fully conscious for his entire appearance, new character Dr Bard included with new vaccine subplot, fetchquest for the gems has been made optional instead of mandatory, Mayor Warren’s statue is no longer fetchquest related and can be found before crossing the bridge to the clock tower, battery fetchquest for the construction site elevator has been changed to fuses for the underground storage facility elevator, Nemesis destroying the helicopter has been moved to the beginning of the game, Brad is still bitten at Bar Jack but heroically sacrifices himself rather than act like a huge coward, Brad is not killed by Nemesis, Brad infects Marvin (which ties in well with both og re2 and RE2R surprisingly), Racoon city in general has been redesigned to look like an american city instead of a japanese one, Stagla still explodes but cannot be entered, the zombie horde at Stagla has been moved to the hospital in a tower defence sequence, Drain Deimos and Brainsuckers have been merged, no leeches, no spiders or crows, new enemies the pale heads and parasite zombies, construction site and power station have been merged, once Jill has been infected Carlos takes her to the hospital instead of the chapel iside the clock tower, likewise Carlos doesn’t wait for 2 days before deciding to find a cure instead it takes him around 12 hours to find Jill and he immediately looks for the vaccine, hospital has been expanded, underground storage facility replaces the park, dead factory is merged with a new lab area, Tyrell is now an actual character and dies to Nemesis intead of an explosion, final boss is now reliant on Jill operating the rail gun herself rather than coercing Nemesis in front of it, iconic STARS line has been moved from the final boss fight to a chase sequence, the confrontation with Nicholai has been moved to the climax of the game, Nicholai is implied to be working with Wesker instead of Umbrella and of course the alternate ending with Barry was cut.

So RE3R does cut or alter the content of the original but in most cases it does try to replace whatever was cut. Also regardless of cuts, re3′s narrative has been expanded upon with character arcs and lore tying it to the rest of the series, that alone justifies this game’s existence for me. As much as I love the original, its bare bones plot and narrative structure (a result of being a sort of choose your adventure game) as well as the fact that it started as a spinoff game and the fact that its last three levels were added last minute (hence the vaccine plotline coming out of nowhere) really don’t do it any favours. I still enjoy the original story and characters but I think the remake did a better job at both these things. 

So I had some major problems with the writing for RE2R in both terms of the overall narrative (there is no cohesive overlapping narrative between our two leads) and the portrayal of certain characters (Leon and Ada), so what did I think of RE3R? It’s good. It’s really good actually, the acting is probably the best in the series tbh. Jill’s ptsd from the mansion incident and how it has made her distrustful but also self sacrificing is so interesting. This is perfectly displayed when she agrees to help the UBCS, she knows she shouldn’t help them, that Umbrella is out to get her but with civilian lives on the line she decides to fulfil her duty as a STARS officer and help out. But she isn’t just abrasive or snarky, she shows she is still a very caring person too, this can be seen in her interactions with Brad, Kendo and even Dario, she wants to genuinely save all three of them but things just don’t work out that way. Carlos is great, way better than his original incarnation and I say that as someone who likes that version too. He’s a great support character for Jill and also acts somewhat as a foil for her character and his arc about learning of Umbrella’s wrongdoings is handled well. I think everyone can aggree that Carlos and Jill’s dynamic is fantastic, the growth of their relationship feels very organic and genuine. I never expected to care about Brad so much, in the original he’s just a huge coward who exists to be killed by Nemesis but now he actually feels like a person and someone who Jill valued. Also holy shit that scene where he bites Marvin is so much more narratively fulfilling than his death by Nemesis. Mikhail’s expanded role as captain is great, as is his death. Tyrell actually gets to be a character this time around and I actually hoped he’d somehow survive. Dr Bard is a total scumbag and his inclusion finally explains the vaccine’s creation as well as adding to the overall corruption of RC via Umbrella. Nicholai’s a total ham and a dickhead, I mean this in a good way I would describe all my favourite RE villians this way (the Weskers, the Ashfords, Salazar, Carla Radames, Jack Baker). And form 1 Nemesis has some fun dramatic flair that I enjoyed. Also I will defend the choice to remove Barry from the ending, I really like Barry but it was the right decision not to involve him as it would really work against the game’s narrative and Jill’s character arc.

Now onto RE3R’s level design and structure and in my opinion it should have borrowed more from the og re3′s level design way more. What we have isn’t bad but it could’ve been much more. The streets being redesigned was inevitable to me, I really enjoy the aesthetic of the original but it looks very Japanese and RC is supposed to be a US city, so this change doesn’t bother me. The linearity does. The streets should have been more open and you should have been able to return to Uptown to explore (adding back in a fetchquest would justify this), this would give way more opportunities for Nemesis to stalk the player. What’s strange is there is a mod that opens up Downtown to be almost completely explorable and Nemesis’s AI can actually track you throughout it’s entirety, why bother programming him that way if the intention was to make the area more linear? When Nemesis does show up in the remake he’s great but he should have been present way more, he’s like the opposite of Mr X in RE2R. Mr X follows the player semi randomly around the RPD for a while but he is pretty toothless as a threat (seriously, you can out walk him), Nemesis on the other hand is a genuine threat but is only semi random for an incredibly short portion of the game. Expanding the streets would fix this issue. The park could’ve been an explorable area before the RPD, I personally don’t mind the park being cut but i know a lot of people do. They should have implemented more puzzles. I also think the clock tower should have been explorable and if I’m being honest I think it was supposed to be, it’s referenced in the subway and then we get the pamphlet before crossing the bridge, I think it was cut for time.  I think a lot was cut for time and I don’t think it’s M2′s fault, i think Capcom is the problem here and all you need to do is look at RE2R and all of its cut content for proof. 

Honestly if this game had just reintegrated some more of the original games levels and structure I think it would have been a 10/10, I still enjoy what we got I just want more! I hope we get DLC in the future and there’s certainly ample opportunity, we could have a ghost survivors scenario with Brad escaping Nemesis, we could play as Nicholai as he collects data on the outbreak before the main game, a dream sequence of Jill exploring the clock tower, Tyrell could cut through the park as he makes his way to the hospital and of course I hope we get Mercenaries mode. I guess time will tell.

#resident evil #resident evil 3 remake #resident evil 3 #re3 #rant

[lucalicatteart]

I am absurdly not so great at stuff like logo/symbol design since I have an unshakable sketchy disorganization inherent in everything I do (if it wasn’t evident from my handwriting, which I am trying SO hard to make it look neat ghghg), but... here’s some vaguely sloppy versions of possible symbols across the realm! I was thinking about how different organizations or groups may represent themselves and what all the different meanings behind the symbols would be and etc. Especially since flags and stuff are generally a part of worldbuilding I tend to accidentally overlook lol..  ( short explanation of above referenced groups under the read more )

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This isn’t going to be very long or detailed info about each group, since most of them I plan on having their own separate posts, but I just wanted to define them really quick since some of them I haven’t mentioned before!

The Collection Of Southern Jhevona: 

Though the Jhevona aren’t really represented by any one group in particular and tend to live in separate smaller scattered territories without many allies, The Collection is probably the closest thing to a unified alliance of Jhevona that exists. Jhevona are thought to have originated as a species from somewhere down in lower Nanyevimi, and a lot of the oldest, largest, and most powerful cities/countries/territories/etc. of them exist in that region. The Collection is basically just a group of these civilizations who formed a sort of loose alliance, usually for the sake of helping other Jhevona groups with trade or conflict. 

The relatively small size of the species, their historical conflicts with certain powerful groups of elves (thus it’s easy for a conflict with them to end up impacting your entire reputation across many different areas, etc.), and other issues specific to them (like species wide problems with premature death, disease, and infertility due to higher levels of magic expose),, means that many Jhevona groups can tend to exist in a somewhat vulnerable state. The Collection seeks to... help them with that, lol.. 

While The Collection was started by and is mostly made up of only like five primary countries/groups/etc. of Jhevona, you don’t have to be a part of the organization to still receive aid and cooperate with them and etc. They form casual alliances and help out pretty much any group of Jhevona, regardless of it they officially join the collection or not (of course excluding like, if some random jhevona group was trying to start a genocide or something that obviously most jhevona wouldn’t be okay supporting lol). Really they just exist to help promote the interests and safety of their species as a whole, whenever and wherever they can, despite how diverse and un-unified most  groups of Jhevona tend to be. 

(I also referenced some things about “multi-realm theory” and etc. in the description of their symbol in the image of above, which I won’t explain here, but for clarification on why those symbols are important to them, there’s more info on the Jhevona species and culture HERE (link))  

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The Elven Alliance:

I’ve talked about them before in a few other posts lol, but this is basically the main influential group of elves in the world. About 10,000 years ago or so, many of the most prominent elven societies at the time decided that it’d be helpful for them to all ally together and mutually aid each other (sharing resources, technology, giving money loans to smaller elven countries to help them build,  defense aid, etc.), so they formed The Alliance. Though, there were disagreements on a few big issues (notably the interpretation of the elven religion, but some other things as well), so while it was initially meant to be for ALL elves, it ended up becoming more exclusive. 

Now there’s kind of a pretty distinct cultural line between countries/groups/etc. of elves that are inside of the Elven Alliance, vs. outside of it. Any group of elves is still allowed to join the alliance at any time they want, but they have to meet certain cultural and religious standards, and must be approved by a vote of all current elven alliance nation representatives. There are about 38 countries/groups in the elven alliance at this date, though of course not all of them are the same size or have the same amount of political influence. 

Since elves are the majority population in the world, and also most of the groups within the Alliance are like.. very big very rich very powerful nations, the Elven Alliance is probably the most influential group in all of Nanyevimi, at least in terms of global politics and trade. Though of course, Nanyevimi is so scattered and isolated, it’s kind of impossible for any one group to control too much lol.. Like, they’re the most influential compared to everyone else, but everyone else usually barely has any influence at all. There are still plenty of groups down south (most elven countries are up north or near the middle of the globe) that are entirely out of reach of the elven alliance, or at least can ignore them without much consequence. However if you live in or near the primary elven territories of the world (or if you are elven, even if you live far in the south), it’s likely their activities and policies have a much bigger impact on your life. 

The Alliance is GENERALLY seen as neutral (depending on who you ask), though they do have a bad reputation in certain places due to various historical events (the fact that Fanyin is still allowed as a member of the Alliance just because they helped found it despite the government of the country being  known as like.. a conflict-hungry dictatorship that has an insane class system and 0 rights for like 70% of it’s citizens.. A group of Alliance allied scientists/mages almost killed the entire world by introducing a magic plague one time whilst trying to engineer biological warfare against a relatively small defenseless group of people over a religious conflict lmao... The primary technology that brought the Alliance to have most of it’s shared wealth and power (Iriminel crystals, which can be used to basically generate magical electricity) was later found to have been stolen from a group of Jhevona after they were murdered just because they wouldn’t agree to let a group of elves mine crystals from their lands.. you know, stuff like that..). 

There are plenty of groups within the alliance who disapprove of the past actions of other alliance members, who work to do good across the world, etc. But people usually still end up questioning their intentions. There are so many moving parts and complex dynamics within the Alliance, it’s hard for people to have a concrete opinion on it as a whole (since most of the groups within it are pretty different from each other), but needless to say, their reputation across the realm can be quite controversial.

(For more info on the elven religion, there’s a post HERE (link), which could clarify stuff like who Inaashi is and why it’s a part of the symbol of their flag )

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International Union Of Non-Allied Elves: 

Basically kind of like the Elven Alliance, except for ... made up of elves outside of the Alliance. They function very similarly to how the Collection Of Southern Jhevona operate, in the sense that they basically are just a loose collaboration of elves who ally with each other for resources and protection, and really seek to help all elves in general. Unlike the Alliance, there are no guidelines or regulations you have to meet to join, or for them to come to your aid, basically any group of elves is welcome. 

Since there are no cultural or religious guidelines to join, non-alliance elves tend to have MUCH more variety in their religious practices, general daily life, diet, technology, customs, etc. since it’s not regulated by a central power like in the case of Elven Alliance countries. Though this does mean they generally have less cohesion, less stable defense/resources, and less sense of collective unity, they still usually stick together pretty well if needed. 

Though you would think so, there actually isn’t much conflict between Alliance vs. Non-alliance elves. The only things would probably be religious disagreements (the alliance having adopted a new monotheistic version of the elven religion, while non-alliance groups still practice having many gods and are much more open to wide variations on rituals and interpretation), and also certain cultural disagreements (elven cultures in general tend to focus a lot on glorifying their own history, proud of the advancements of ancient elves and etc. etc. So BOTH groups want historical artifacts, ancient religious texts, etc.  But since the Alliance is the more powerful group of elves, they basically kind of get to hoard all of that stuff. Non-alliance elves end up weirdly distanced from their own culture and lacking any meaningful connection with their history (despite desiring it), since Alliance elves have kind of taken control as the One Single Authority On All Things Elven and basically own nearly all historical records and information on the elven species. Which of course non-alliance groups aren’t always happy about, especially since some of them are not keen to just trust whatever historical ‘facts’ the Alliance puts out there when they’d rather just have access to the records or other resources that would allow them to explore the information for themselves). 

But other than those two things, relations between The Alliance and non-alliance groups like the Union really aren’t too strained (of course this depends on the group). The Alliance generally also wants to support elves just because they’re elves, and at the end of the day they want to help the success of their own species, so they rarely mistreat non-alliance groups, and if anything usually are overly welcoming to them, since they aim for all groups of elves to eventually join the alliance as well, and don’t want to scare potential members off lol. They’re actually known for reaching out to non-alliance groups, giving them gifts, offering them aid (mostly with no strings attached), but of course this is met with mixed reception, and sometimes suspicion. 

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(also, random note: none of these names are like.. actually what they’re called in the species’ native language. I’m writing in english so I’m just giving them easy to remember English names but, they’d all have their own actual names for themselves. 

Like for example “The Elven Alliance” in the actual elven language would just be “The Alliance” referred to as “Ane Kiivastye” or just “Kiivastye”. ‘Ane’ meaning ‘Those/they/a group of people’, ‘kii’ being a prefix to mean ‘inside/within’, and ‘Vastye’ meaning something along the lines of ‘grace/good faith/favor’. So basically ‘Those who are in grace’, implying ‘Those who have good favor with the gods’ , since one of the main reasons for the split was religious disagreement. Likewise, anyone outside of the alliance would be natively called something like ‘Ane Nekiivastye’, or ‘those who are outside of grace/those who do not hold good favor with the gods’. 

So basically all the names would be different in the actual languages of the people I’m referring to, but I’m just using these since it’s much easier to remember and reference lol)

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Nanyevimi Global Representatives: 

Like mentioned before, the entire world in general is VERY scattered, mostly made up of small isolated groups that kind of just mind their business. Most people just stay within their own territories and generally there isn’t a lot of global cohesion, for a lot of different reasons. But, groups like the Nanyevimi Global Representatives are some of the few that actually seek to better unite the realm.

It’s kind of just an alliance of a few different governments from various places worldwide, who seek to do things like: maintain trading routes that span the entire world, construct global areas where many different people can come together and trade/communicate, provide ease of access for those who seek to travel (like keeping international roads safe, giving out language learning resources and compiling info on local cultures, etc.), promote conflict resolution/peace and easy communication between various disconnected groups in the realm, sharing of technology and resources worldwide,  etc.  This is also the group that sets standards for/manages both Global Learning Centers and Global cities/areas in general. 

Despite being able to accomplish a lot in the realm (even introducing one or two cohesive trade routes is a miracle, considering how isolated everything tends to be), The Representatives still really don’t have that much power. The governments that make up the group, while extremely varied (from all different species, areas of the world, etc.), really aren’t big political powers or anything. The group doesn’t have much wealth or influence, but simply gets by on being able to communicate goals and collaborate with others effectively. All of their projects are basically just people working together for their own benefit of their own will. 

Like instead of coming into an area with an army and being like “Hey, we’re making a trade route here, you idiots” and paying off/threatening a bunch of locals to let them do it.. It’d be more like, a handful of various diplomats show up and have a long talk with the locals about if they’d want a road through their territory, if so what it would look like, what area they’d be comfortable with it passing through, them explaining to the group what benefits they could see from it and how it could help them access more resources, etc. then all cooperatively working together to build it if enough people decide they’d like to, no use of force or monetary incentive required.  

So they have a good bit of connections all across the realm and are very skilled at reaching out to groups and communicating in a peaceful and understandable way, but they’re not necessarily the most influential group around. Though, they are the only organization that’s even been attempting stuff like this, and the fact that they’ve been able to make the progress that they have (introducing  multiple global areas and learning centers, maintaining a few patches of neutral and safe trade routes, etc.) is considered by some to be impressive. 

( Information on what a global learning center is HERE (link), and information on the state of the world as a whole/what global areas are HERE (link). ) 

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Council Of Navyete:

This is the primary government of Navyete, the homeland of the Avirre’thel/vampires and where most of the members of that species live. I obviously plan on making a separate post about this sometime soon, so I don’t need to explain much lol.. Also just... the council system is really complicated and it’s going to be extremely long whenever I do explain it ghgjhgj.... But it’s basically just the main group of people who exist to make certain final decisions on law and policy and help with the functioning of Navyete. 

There can be 600 - 800 council members at a time, who all specialize in particular areas, and also don’t have that much power. They exist more as a mediating group who can help other groups communicate with each other, represent their people when meeting with outside governments, resolve conflicts between groups who can’t resolve it on their own, aid in the ease of distributing resources, etc. They don’t necessarily rule anything, as much as they just help manage the whims of the country and try to keep things running smoothly.  

Ultimately the people hold a majority of the power (most actual decisions are made on a local level by smaller councils of the citizens who live in a particular area, or other affiliated groups (like if people do labor, they collectively own their workplace and make decisions and rules about it, generally having nothing to do with involvement from the higher council, etc.)) , The Council just kind of helps aid the citizens rule their own country, providing a bit of extra cohesion and organization so it’s easier for all these smaller governing groups to communicate between each other and do things collectively as a nation. 

Despite their somewhat minor role in terms of actually controlling Navyete, since they do represent the entire country (like at meetings with foreign governments and etc.) and also because of the circumstances and purpose under which they were originally founded, the Council still is kind of seen as a symbol of Navyete and of the Avirre’thel as a whole, and are often interpreted as very significant. A version of the flag of the council is also the flag of the country (which is also often used to represent their entire species), and the people of Navyete are culturally generally proud of the progress their species/ country has made since their rocky beginnings, so they also see the Council as a positive representation of themselves, and kind of allow it to take on the symbolic meaning that it has.  

(for more information on the Avirre’thel to understand some of the symbol meanings referenced in the flag thing , their info directory is HERE (link)) 

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And that’s pretty much everything lol.. Of course there are a lot more groups in the realm that would have their own info and flags and etc., but I just focused on a few that I already knew a bit about lol. Sorry my writing on the flag images is probably like.. barely legible.. hopefully the information is still clear enough ggh

#worldbuilding #sketches #avirre'thel #irithoas #jhevona #i guess that's all that i need to tag #me *constantly forgets how i organize my own blog* #i KNOW im supposed to be working on my game instead of typing a bunch of worldbuilding posts but.. rghhrjhjHH #sometimes... I must... #i have a region in my brain that will go funky if I don't produce at least 45 paragraphs of needless exposition a month #I'm still trying to not do a bunch of worldbuilding or art stuff until I finish my other projects but.. this is.. jouste a little treate #a small gift for my brain

[magicdepressive-blog]

Meet The Harveys

NWI native and Chicago resident Charlie Evans wants to introduce you to his one man band The Harveys, whose debut album, after over a year in the making, is nearing the completion stage. As Evans labors through the finishing touches of the LP and prepares it for public release, he sits down with me to talk about the project and tells us what we can expect from his esoteric alter-ego.

HW: You're getting ready to release your first LP; a collection of songs you're putting out under the name The Harveys. But essentially The Harveys is just you. What made you decide to release music as a fictional collective rather than under your own name?

CE: The Harveys isn't a real band right now, so the idea that it can be locked into only one thing doesn't appeal to me since I don't have to fight other people to have it be whatever it needs to be. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of existing as a solo act. I feel like the idea of the Harveys started as a crutch of being afraid to do this on my own. For whatever reason, the idea of having a fictional band made it seem like a more viable project in my head, and more approachable as something to present out to the world.

HW: But you're not literally the only player on the record. Who else appears on the album, and in what capacity?

CE:  One song is an old one that was written as a group by Patrick Biancardi, Sam Evans, and myself....

HW: Right...that's Werewolf Teacher, isn't it? That's a great song and I remember you telling me that it has its origins in your time as a member of (now defunct Region band) Greenstone.

CE: Greenstone was a great time as a band, and helped form a lot of the stuff that I wrote and created on this album. When I began working on recording I wanted to get an old song down that we had never had the chance to properly record. It was a great point to learn how to use recording software and to test the viability of the fictional band project. A lot of the music I wrote afterwards feels similar in some ways to what we were working on with that project, but definitely is a different animal. Not writing in collaboration with other people or having to compromise things is both a blessing and a curse.

HW: Who are some of the other people who pitched in to help make this LP?

CE: Alex Akers contributed trumpet to I Sit Differently at the Piano. I met Alex while I was working for New Oberpfalz brewery, and we struck up conversation pretty naturally. I had completed about half of the the track, adding in the vocal snippet and guitar, but I felt that guitar all the way through would be frankly boring. I basically asked Alex if he wanted to add trumpet to a weird track that I had made and sent it over. About a week later he sent me his layered tracks and it was amazing! My primary instrument is the electric guitar, so it's always really awesome to work with other instrumentalists that can bring a completely different feel to a track. That song wouldn't work without Alex's contribution. Jake Egli plays the keyboards on The Somnambulist and helped me mix and master the record along with production work.

I'm definitely open to the idea of adding a more collaborative element to The Harveys. I would love to be able to flesh it out into a full band setting. I think a lot of these songs would translate pretty well to a live setting, and there's lots of song ideas in reserve. There's always ego involved in adding other people to a band, but I enjoy the collaborative aspect of writing music a lot. Sometimes it's okay to come in with an idea and see how it gets morphed into something completely new, original, and different that way.

HW: Having grown up as an aspiring musician in NWI and now living in Chicago, can you compare the two locales where musical heritage is concerned?

CE: I would say that both have a lot in common with each other, with Chicago getting the edge of diversity simply through pure numbers. Not unlike most other suburbs of Chicago, NWI filters a lot of its musical identity from Chicago, which I think is great. The Chicagoland area has an abundance of amazing music that doesn't always get the attention it deserves on the national stage.

HW: You recorded this LP at home on your computer. Were there any technical limitations that you encountered while making the record that, had you been in a studio, you might not have had to deal with?

CE: I think the biggest hurdle for doing all recording on my own is that my ear wasn't as trained, especially in the beginning, at what was good and what was bad. I improved rapidly, but especially early on I think that having a 2nd set of ears to hear everything is very helpful.

HW: Why did you decide to release a physical LP and how do you plan to market it? What streaming formats will you be utilizing?

CE: I love the idea and the ritual of vinyl...placing the vinyl on the turntable, setting it to the right speed, and letting the needle hit the record. There’s an art to creating a track list and an album that flows correctly from side to side. I think the best records still work with that duality; breaking it down into two shorter playlists and making sure those statements stand on their own and complement each other. That being said, I think the songs stand on their own, so I don’t mind pushing it to streaming as well where the majority of people (myself included) discover their music. I’m planning on releasing The Harveys on all major streaming services. The LP version of the album will be funded through a Kickstarter.

What I like about the idea of a vinyl release and giving yourself those limitations is that it really forces you to look at how songs flow as a cohesive unit. Balancing the amount of time you can put on a side along with making sure that each track is keeping the listener along for the ride is so important. Additionally, the 2 side nature of vinyl makes you look at it as a mini suite for each side. My process was mostly trying to balance all of these things to make the strongest single unit of an album. Sifting through all the songs I had written to put together what I feel is a cohesive album was a bit difficult at first, there’s definitely enough material left off to have an extra EP in the future or work towards another album. For me, I think the unifying threads that make this album stand as a whole are some of the themes touched on like growing up and the somewhat lonely existence that adulthood can be. There’s plenty of humor on the record, though, as well, which I feel is always needed. I don’t trust people who are too serious about everything. There's a lot of genre exploration that I wasn't able to make work cohesively on this record that could definitely fit in better on a slightly different project. I would love to create a great medley style suite, ala Abbey Road. I'd love to do something soaring, epic, and heartfelt like that.

HW: There are very few recording artists who so confidently pull off such a varied palette as what you've proven capable of on this LP; some that come to mind as exceptions are Ween and Captain Beefheart and Zappa and Guided By Voices. Were any of those artists a lighthouse for you while you were crafting these songs?

CE: All those bands and artists are huge influences, Ween in particular. Reading and getting into Ween was a huge part of what made me finally get off my butt and start making music again. The independent spirit that drove each of these artists to create despite not necessarily having the big push of a label was a huge inspiration. Learning about Ween using a drum machine and writing silly songs and just generally not caring what other people thought of them was a liberating idea, and also made my excuses for why I wasn’t doing anything seem like just that: excuses.

HW: Speaking of tracks that DIDN'T make the record, Feed Me, Human is one of your standout songs and I feel like it exists in a world of its own stylistically; some kind of avant garde heavy metal oddity...definitely something I haven't heard before. Is metal a big part of your musical tastes, and if so what can you tell me about this track? It sort of skirts a strange territory that's both playful and sinister.

CE: I love metal! Metal as a genre is so tongue in cheek, and I love that about it. I never trust any metal band that takes themselves 100% seriously. I remember reading a story that Adam Jones from Tool told about how when he met Buzz Osbourne from the Melvins he told him that Boris was his favorite song and was a foundation for a lot of how he built his songwriting and sound, and Buzz responded something along the lines of, "Thanks, it's about my cat." Metal is so great because it can occupy both territories of sinister and silly.

HW: Let's focus on what did make the album. Metropolitan Malaise is unabashed power pop exuberance; Hydration is Key is a blissed out, psychedelic signal from another galaxy. You cover Big Star's 1972 acoustic masterpiece 13, and then there's the aforementioned I Sit Differently at the Piano; four minutes of Badalementi-esque guitar and trumpet noodling atop which sits a bizarre sampling of an interview with a mental patient from the early 60s. The Funkalator struts and swaggers with ballsy, bell bottomed moxie, and Werewolf Teacher is textbook singer-songwriter gold. And that's just HALF the album. But maybe the standout track here is The Somnambulist, a disarming number that begins with a tribal, measured acoustic bounce before exploding into a veritable roman candle of life-affirming guitar-fueled adrenaline.

CE: I'm particularly proud of The Somnambulist. It has the most overdubs of any track, and took me the longest to assemble out of any of them. I'm particularly proud of my vocal performance, which incubated in my head for a pretty long time, and took even longer to build up the ability to properly sing. It's the classic rock track I always wanted to write.

HW: What's your writing process like? What do you find is the most challenging part of the formula?

CE: Wake up, make some coffee pick up my guitar and start playing something...pulling up Garageband and a virtual drummer and see if I can get anything useful out of it. Record it, and see if there’s enough there to develop. Sometimes there's something good there for a full song, sometimes there isn't. I built a lot of songs on the fly, and would do multiple takes of things to see what worked or didn’t work. Having a good feedback network of people to send songs to certainly helped as well to guide the directions that were working and not working in the music. I think the most challenging thing for me with this project was not really working with other musicians to create. If I wanted to finish the song, it was on me!  

HW: I really appreciate you taking the time to offer a little insight into what we can expect from The Harveys. I really think you've assembled a great collection of songs and I'm really looking forward to the vinyl.

CE: I think the biggest thing I’m hoping to offer is a bit of a blast of nostalgia that isn’t hopefully too derivative. Power pop and dad rock have reached the level of being uncool, but I still love making it. I’m hoping that I can bring some uncool music to people and hopefully get them to dig into the same things I love too.  I was talking with Jake while we were mixing and mastering and we both said waiting for lightning to strike will involve you mostly waiting. It’ll happen, and does happen, but you have to work at it no matter what.

-End-

The debut LP from The Harveys will be available soon pending a Kickstarter. Please stay tuned to Charlie's Facebook page for more info and show your support for this gifted musician. You can stream the unmixed demo of Metropolitan Malaise on Bandcamp here:

https://theharveysarentreal.bandcamp.com/track/metropolitan-malaise

Album art by Grace Calderone, 2019. Bar photos by Harvey Woodlawn, 2018.