#Anyways this was pretty fun so I'm planning on doing another one with the Astral Express Masked Fools and Stellaron Hunters huehehu

[fruit-sy]

Genius Society 🤓🤓

Just the dudes by themselves below bc why not lol

[juststeveandtonythings]

Cap #3. Steve has some thoughts about time. But mostly I'm including these panels because it's always fun to see another take on being found in the ice + Rebirth. Also, the panel where he is old and has a silvery shield is actually foreshadowing for the second arc of this run, which is kind of cool, although it doesn't actually go anywhere haha.

Anyway, Misty Knight calls Steve in for some help investigating a grisly mystical murder, since A.I.M. was involved and they're his wheelhouse. She also pulls out a little Stephen Strange doll - sorry, I mean figurine - to help investigate the weird symbols on the walls. He can astral project into them when he's busy in his astral form. Apparently there are 47 of these, and Misty Knight has one. Anyway, he realizes there's a demon behind this who is trapping human spirits (the change agents) so that they can't go out and, you know, enact change. They also show Steve a shield symbol, implying that he's next - and indeed, when he finally takes his leave, Asmoday and his human vessel - called the Emissary - are there, waiting for him. (And look, since I noted possum counts with Duggan, I have to say: JMS uses "copy that" a fair few times. The Emissary says it to Asmoday when they pair up.)

Steve's pre-serum story also continues. He still hits up Nazi rallies to heckle them, though he gets junk thrown at him in retaliation. Still, this ends up catching Meyer Lansky's attention - Lansky apparently being a real-life Jewish gangster back in the day. Lansky asks Steve why he's doing this, and Steve gives the above speech. Lansky tells him, "For a young kid, you're pretty old," and also that he's gotta stop with the speeches, which is hilarious. Steve says he'll do what he can. Sure, Steve. Anyway, Lansky asks Steve to find out more about what the Nazis are planning, because he wants to disrupt them, and no one will be able to tell Lansky and Steve are working together.

- Captain America Vol 11 #3 (2023)

[fabdante]

Got this idea from thinking about what a reboot version of Temen-ni-gru could be like. I like the idea of it maybe being a combo between rescuing Sparda from where ever Mundus banished him and the plot of DMC3, where the purpose of Temen-ni-gru is basically to seal not only a gate to the Underworld, but also the Force Edge/Sparda. Gonna focus on the latter, just because that's easier to know what to do with than reboot Sparda. Maybe you need Sparda, alive or at least out of where ever Mundus banished him to, to get the Force Edge/Devil Sword Sparda out of him?

I don't think you'd need Arkham for the reboot's version of DMC3/Temen-ni-gru, just because I think reboot Vergil could fill the role well enough himself. Maybe with some demonic armor, since he's King of Hell now?

(Maybe Kat could be involved too, helping Dante solve puzzles and navigate the tower? Assuming her magical abilities have jumped from "astral projection and seeing into Limbo" to "being able to cast Fireball", I mean. Unless you want to give her a rocket launcher. I'm more partial to giving her a Kablooey, but whichever works best for her.)

Mainly I wanna focus on character stuff- in this case, for Dante. Doppleganger the Deathvoid didn't do much as a test of character for DMC3 Dante, since preboot Dante was already kinda far enough along in his character development that he didn't need another test, but I feel like with what we see of dopplegangers in Vergil's Downfall (or whatever Hollow Vergil really was), you could have some fun with it. Especially if Vergil is here, especially if he's trying to manipulate Dante into helping him undo the seal on Temen-ni-gru and get the Force Edge/the Sparda.

The twins' amulets in the preboot don't have any kind of "security measure" (I guess you could call it) where they only respond to a certain twin, but apparently the reboot twins' amulets DO, so maybe reboot Vergil needs Dante to go along with him for whatever he's planning? At least as far as getting Dante's amulet to do what Vergil wants it to do, anyway.

I feel like you could have some fun with the blood ritual, too, in terms of like, exploring how Vergil is using his brother and how that makes Dante feel (bad; angry and hurt and betrayed, and its all the worse because/if reboot Dante really HAD hoped his brother was trying to connect with him again and make amends), and how Vergil thinks he doesn't "need" his brother/family any more because he's got more power now, and that's all that he thinks matters.

Idk, just. Mostly trying to dig into reboot Dante's character more. I keep thinking of him with issues with self-worth, like he sees himself as a tool, as something to be used (cause I mean, *gestures to Limbo City* living in a capitalistic hellscape'll do that to ya) only really good at killing demons. That and a sense of foreshortened future, since he probably thought he'd be dead from the demons by now, and even with Mundus gone, they're still probably hunting him, so he probably has trouble trying to live a "normal" life with Kat. Or at least as "normal" a life as they can have, being demon hunters and all.

Idk. What do you think?

Ok so firstly I want to say this is all really fun! I do think the plot of DMC3 ties in pretty easily into the reboot honestly and I'm surprised more people don't do anything with the concept. And I like it more then uh...the 'leaked' sequel idea that floats around every few years.

That and I always like the idea of Vergil going and finding Sparda and how it would be for Sparda to come back all these years later and see what became of his sons, given he was the one who decided to memory wipe them and separate them and everything.

My thoughts for a DmC2/reboot version of 3 are admittedly very swayed by my love of Kat/Vergil. I have jokingly referred to it as a gothic romance set in the ruins of the Order a few months after the end of the game. I've never had a full plotline for the concept but me and my girlfriend have discussed the idea of it being pretty loosely based around 3. Like there's still the tower of course, but this time around it's more Vergil's decided to come back from hell with his new demon king powers and army and stake claim and he creates a tower out of the ruins of the Order as a sort of home base which Dante and Kat then have to go through to find him. Which then would lead to a lot of fun character dynamics and tensions (also a lot more Kat being active in the plot and ideally playable at times).

I'm also curious how the fall of Limbo would impact Kat's powers. Like I imagine she still has them and they might work for other layers of hell, but I wonder if losing Limbo would like...untether her a bit and make her abilities stronger, since there's no longer that veil there between her and Limbo. Plus she can probably make stronger spells if she can get the right stuff.

[grimoire-of-geekery]

Detect Magic: the Sixth World Tarot by Echo Chernik

(pictured here- the deluxe edition [left] and the Arcanist edition of the Sixth World Tarot by Echo Chernik)

Y'know, it's been a long time since I did one of these, but here goes. It's time for another Detect Magic review. I haven't put the Dork Magician hat on for a while, so let's give this a whirl!

Today we're taking a look at the Sixth World Tarot, by Echo and Lazarus Chernik. She has this available on her website (click the above link), which come signed by the artist and the author. I'm a bit bummed, I bought a copy of this deck juuuuust before she started signing them. Not her fault, but still. XD

For those of you unfamiliar with Shadowrun, it's a cyberpunk dystopian magic-and-mech RPG setting and fantasy novel universe which originated in the late 80's. The premise is that magic is growing stronger, the world experienced a big Awakening in the early 2000's, right around the same time that corporations managed to gain extraterritoriality. So, you have dragons running huge megacorps, which basically enslave people to be lifelong wageslaves from birth (or as soon as they can get their hands on a desired talent), immersive VR Matrix hackers, cyberware enhanced fighters and magic practitioners acting as "deniable assets" to said corps for all sorts of shady business.

Hence the name "Shadowrun."

This setting, one of my absolute favorite settings out there, has had the misfortune of developing a sort of eerie prophetic element akin to the Simpsons and its bizarre track record of prediction of ludicrous world events. Shadowrun was intended to be a cautionary tale, not an oracular one. That being said, that does make a tarot based on Shadowrun more than a little on-the-nose for predictive purposes. After all, they're telling the future without even trying. Wait until they actually put some effort into it...

All right, time to Detect Magic!

Accessory- Crit (4 out of 4) Stunning artwork, evocative imagery... this deck is gorgeous. It's so beautiful, and so intricate and well made, that people who don't even read tarot (or even particularly like tarot) buy several copies for their geeky collections, and even people who don't particularly care about Shadowrun have dropped their jaw when I showed the deck to them.

A bit busier than I'm used to working with (not the art, but the extras which I'll explain later), I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved the cards when I first got them. The box for both editions I own are a nice durable gloss with a magnetic foldover closure, there's a ribbon inside each to help pull the cards and book out of the box, and the decorative artwork is gorgeous and fitting with the setting. Definitely aesthetically pleasing enough to take places, and durable enough to resist scuffing or tearing for on-the-go divination and gaming use.

Tome- Crit (4 out of 4) So, the Tome section of this review is supposed to be about how well the cards help one in the pursuit of learning magic and practicing geekomancy. And... really, I don't think I've found a deck (or any artifact of fandom) quite as good as this.

Let me explain.

Tarot, in the sorcery practice I teach, are already basically a pictorial grimoire, describing life in a way that allows us to learn the hidden movements, mysteries, and forces at play in our world. Art is good for things like that in general. It helps you see the world through a special lens, one which allows you to see things you might have missed.

The thing is, the lens of this deck is the Shadowrun continuity, which as I said earlier, has proven to be more than a little prophetic, and alarmingly so.

The magic system of Shadowrun is pretty adjacent to our own. Life force lines, spiritual power sites, astral projection and spirits and magical "energy" forms, initiatory mysteries... it's all pretty much the same as our own reality, just juiced up a bit, with some extra game elements added (don't even ask me about insect spirits).

This makes the deck particularly helpful if one wishes to learn magic in any of the myriad ways described in Shadowrun (and they're particularly respectful and diverse and true-to-life in their tradition descriptions).

BUT, it also has an entire lore-book called the Book of the Lost associated with it, which explains all these little secret sigils and images and easter eggs stored throughout the deck, which can be used for gamebuilding and storytelling, but are designed to be arcane indicators and omens, among other things. And the kinds of symbols they use range from sentences or mottos in dead languages, all the way to waveform patterns and dot-matrix maps. I swear, if you're one of those people who like puzzles and cryptography, this deck is even more fun than the Hermetic Tarot.

In summary, while you'll have to get some Shadowrun sourcebooks to really get deep into the canon lore, there's so much of it that the cards really show you on their own that I don't consider this a setback at all. Feel free to deep-dive with this deck, you'll learn a TON about magic if you let it guide you.

Relic- Success (3 out of 4) If you read the Book of the Lost, or Unearthed Arcana, or any of the 5th edition Shadowrun magic sourcebooks, you'll see that "tarot magic" is an up and coming thing in their canon. Each text helps you see how practitioners use the cards in-game for spellcasting, ritual magic, initiation practices and spirit summoning. The Tarot are already really valuable as central objects of importance to certain kinds of magical practice. This particular deck is designed to be so handy a central object that there's an entire book dedicated to it.

Weapon- Success (3 out of 4) The only reason I'm rating this a success instead of a crit is because they don't provide enough spreads in the various associated books for one to immediately begin casting spells with them, which means you'll have to do some designing. They do have a couple solid unique spreads for basic divination though.

The deck's canon in-game suggests ritual practices like gathering and doing a ritual with sets of related cards, and one such ritual was easily adapted in my own practice, into the Lucky Kimono spread I designed (which people can read about on my Patreon at the higher tiers). So, even without outright including spell-spreads, they sort of gave us clues anyway.

Again, you're going to need the sourcebooks, but it's only a few of them, and they're well worth a read even if you're not planning on playing the game (and I don't play in the actual Shadowrun mechanical system, though I do like the sourcebooks for campaign setting ideas).

Overall Rating: Critical Success (14 out of 16)

Achievement Unlocked: Novahot Echo's artwork is already legendary in the dork realms of geekomancy. She's done work for Dungeons and Dragons, Mage: the Ascension, House of Night... she's even working on a Fate: the Winx Saga playing card deck right now. Her art-nouveau delicacy combined with the powerful non-pandering way she draws women means that her paintings pack a punch!

That being said, it's rare that we see professional artists create a tarot deck of this magnitude as a gaming accessory. Most tarot decks of this caliber are found in professional occult catalogues or as independent projects by artists just wanting to flex their skills for their own reasons. To have a deck like this, clearly a labor of love by all involved, as a major element of gameplay within a franchise is really very special. And something this diverse, deep, and absolutely saturated with layers of ciphers and riddles... it's a geekomancer's dream come true.

Level Up: 2 Levels I think the only way anyone's going to be able to top this deck is if they manage to design a tarot deck that's also a fully immersive VR video game AND an AR game and divination tool useable with one's iPhone or Android. Legit, Echo and Lazarus left everyone in the dust. I haven't been this excited about Shadowrun since Shadowrun Returns first came out, and I got a set of dogtags that had a USB drive with the game on it.

It's just... crazy cool.

Full disclosure, I've had the deluxe edition of these cards for a while now, so I've basically been low-key squeeing about this deck since I first heard about it in 2018, even before I got it. I've been utterly astonished that people weren't more excited about them, and I wasn't hearing about them everywhere.

Before this, I created my own Shadowrun tarot method using the Universal Transparent Tarot (cuz, y'know, plastic and see-through and weird little mosaic readings all in one place, seemed fitting to me), and when I got the Sixth World Tarot? I don't think I've opened the UTT since!

Anyway, this is my review of this deck! Go follow the link up at the top of this post, and buy yourself one! And hey, let me know if you figure out the cool little map trick. My jaw literally dropped when I was shown that!

[manabingu]

Metrocon 2019!

Hey yall sorry I haven't been as active, I was busy literally every single day of Metrocon and I finally got a breather. Anyway I wanna just summerize what I can remember because I don't wanna completely forget these wonderful memories. I wanna look back at em over and over again 💕

THURSDAY:

Thursday was the 5 year anniversary of my Gundam Wing cosplay group! I got to hang out with my Metrowing buds and we did a nice photoshoot with the pilots and we had so much fun! I miss them dearly cuz they live out of state but the time I had with them is one I always cherish.

I pretty much spent the whole day with them and I decided that Thurs/Fri would be autograph day for us. By golly the VAs were all so super sweet. All of them loved the candy and the pictures I made for them and as I predicted I got really emotional and kinda cried in front of Luci Christian cuz she is one reason I wanted to VA. Her range is insanely versatile! I legit would call her the Meryl Streep of anime & she was SO kind to me ;///;! When I started crying she said "Don't ever apologize for being real. You're a very sweet person, & I believe in you, there is always room for everyone in this industry ❤️"

And man I just felt so happy at that. She makes me feel confident and I wanna keep trying my best. Same with Josh, Alexis, David & Kara! They were all super encouraging and OmG like ok I think I astral projected when Josh did Armin's or Yuri's voice when he was signing stuff. I teared up QwQ I love his energy and dedication!

I think one of my fave moments during the autographs was when I made the "I'm gonna Bertell you what I Bertold him" joke and David and Josh absolutely lost it xD! They were like OMG WE NEED THAT AS A TSHIRT FOR DAVID XD! Like "You just got BERTOLD" and then they proceeded to make jokes about how he roasted Armin in many ways xD it was hilarious 😂! But oof.

I spent most of the Thursday browsing the Dealer Room and this is was one of the first times I was able to find new Takanori Nishikawa CDs so I bought some that I don't have TTwTT I was so happy! We ended the day by doing a run through of our performances for Anime Idol with Trowa. And it went really well🎶Also, at the cosplay booth, the staff liked my sis' Clear Card Sakura so much they asked her to enter the cosplay hallway contest and I'm so proud of her cuz this her first cosplay ever ^u^- she looks so cute! And many people wanted her pic all weekend :D

FRIDAY:

As usual this is Anime Idol day and I was super busy prepping. I was a bit more confident now that I finally had performed in front of a test audience. But as usual I am always still nervous no matter how much I prepe. Luckily for me in the morning I was getting last minute autographs and as I was getting Darker Than Black signed by Luci, I commented on Anime Idol and she said break a leg! I had given her an Ochaco mug as a gift which made her SUPER happy 😊! I felt much more confident after that and I went to the Main Events hall happily soon after.

Anime Idol was really fun this year! There was some nervousness from the contestants but we all just got together and made some fun friendships! I'm so proud not only of Mama Trowa but also of the other contestants I mentored or was able to help feel less nervous. The winners did deserve it! It was a very good act! And as for myself, I advertised a bit and got some new people from the toku community to come watch the show! I even saw a Kamen Rider Geiz cosplayer who came to the show it was AWESOME! My bffs who were only there for Friday also came & a few Golden*Star members too I was just so happy and thankful! They really made my day! My bffs were dressed in Ghibli heroines and OMG they were lovely & we did a small Tik Tol together ^_^ it was fun!

After the show my new Golden*Star member came up to me and I legit almost cried cuz they were SUPER adorable and kind and they had prepared a Cecil Ajima merch box for me saying thanks for allowing them to join and that they look up to me as a mentor and friend and I'm so happy I had waterproof eyeliner that day cuz oh boy that hit me in the feels 😭! I love! I got them back tho, for initiation I got down on one knee and gave em a flower bouquet,haichews & a golden star balloon as a way to welcome them to the Utapri cosplay group! So now we have a lovely new Tokiya 😊 yay!

SATURDAY:

Ok so despite loosing one prop, Saturday was really fun! I finally debuted Poppy Pipopapo and I basically used the entire day to find video game character cosplayers and we got to dance with them! I was shooting a music video for People Game for Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Abridged ^u^! Everyone whom I asked to dance with me was excited for it and it was a blast! I loved being able to spread so much fun and positivity as Poppy :) it was a dream cosplay come true! I can't wait to pit the vid together ^^🌸💕🎼🎵🎶! Later at night, I ran into my new friend who is gonna be Tokiya (they were dressed as Eiichi & their bud was Kira from HE★VENS!) we spent a good 2 hrs taling about all our future plans with Golden*Star and their other friend was so impressed with how friendly our Utapri group was that they wanted to join ;w; it was actually really sweet💕

SUNDAY:

Was THE BIG DAY AT LAST. The very first time my Utapri cosplay group Golden*Star Cosplay would finally have our first meeting/photoshoot together as ST☆RISH & QUARTET NIGHT! And it went flawless like a dream! Guys, omg I hit a milliom dollar jackpot. I love this group so much 😭! Everyone was on time, we all worked together so well, the photoshoot went perfectly! And we livestreamed it! After the photos, we sang Reiji a Happy Birthday 🎁 cuz it was his character bday the day before & I bought cupcakes and fried chicken for everyone xD! Cuz that's what Shining Live said happened fffff. In the most complimentary way, I feel like this cast is so on point, we are all pretty much our characters xD! I thought managing an 11 member group would be too hard at first but we have all grown so close over this year & we all have so much love and respect for one another, we all just felt so natural hanging out, as of we had done this for years ;U; ! It was lovely!

We tried stalling saying goodbye cuz we didn't wanna leave ;///; but we had to. We are still planning to watch Maji Love Kingdom as a group when SentaiFilmworks gives the green light for theatrical releases. But for now we will work hard to make HolMat even better! I love them all and can't wait to keep working together to make more wonderful memories! See yall next con!