#Matte Cast Iron

[ddcastarchive]

Finn Jones and Charlie Cox during the Defenders press (2017)

[roennq]

Too bad there was only one season of The Defenders. Would have loved to see more of the four heroes banding together to save their little corner of the world, and perhaps with a little help from one Frank Castle (Matt trying to keep Frank in line as they work together to save the day would have been really fun to watch).

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[nommedtail]

to think the vertical mouse that doesn’t make my hand immediately want to die is from aldi of all things

[utilitycaster]

Something I think actual play is uniquely good at showing is, for lack of a better way to put it, narrative choice. You see the story that people decide to play out; you see the threads that people wanted to follow. You also can, if the GM shares their concepts, get an idea of some of the other possible paths not taken and stories not told, but ultimately they are untold. And finally, ironically enough for a medium with a random element, it makes creator intent unavoidably clear.

We see it all the time in Critical Role. There probably was a really fascinating story to be told with Vox Machina working with The Clasp following the fall of Emon. The party chose not to do it; we don't know what would have happened. I like many am intrigued by the Augen Trust path Matt had planned for the Mighty Nein; they didn't take it. We can't judge the story on what might have been, even if we find it interesting; we can only judge it on what was. And we don't follow the Clasp nor the Augen Trust as a result, because it's not where the PCs are; at most we might see the effects their actions taken without the aid of the PCs had on the world when their paths cross again. The camera, in D&D, always follows the PCs. You see what they see.

Essek was redeemed because the Mighty Nein wanted him to be redeemed. In actual play especially there's a weird tendency to switch to the passive voice to describe things one dislikes, but this choice was anything but passive. The party learned Essek had been lying to them and made their choice to remain his friends, and the story continues from that presumption, and while I am the first to reject the "but the cast liked it" argument, the fact is, one can't reject this redemption without rejecting the party's choice, and the party is controlled by the cast.

It's great to discuss paths not taken, and it's even true that you might believe those paths to be a better story. But you cannot rely on the camera - or the audience's interest and sympathy - to abandon the PCs desires and decisions just to suit yours. You can't do this as a GM, as another player, or as a viewer. Nor can you expect people to judge based on potential once it is no longer potential; a strong concept that is never followed doesn't count as the story; at best it counts as the GM or player's creative intent.

Actual Play forces people to take a story for what it is. I think the fandom can be so fraught because many people do not understand quite how it's limited in scope nor what is under GM control and what is not and so they act like choices are inevitable and inevitabilities are choices.

[sun-snatcher]

Catholic Guilt Murdock Catholic Guilt Murdock Catholic Guilt Murdock

✟ — Rib of Adam ; matt murdock blurb

a/n. " But when I stand before God I'll have one thing to say to weigh against the rest: Lord, you gave me a rare woman; And God! I loved her well. " — Jamie Fraser, 'Outlander'

MATT MURDOCK feels warm. 

He can’t tell if it’s from the blood, or—

“No, no, no, no, Matty, stay with me.”

—or the fact that you’re cradling him to your heart.

( He thinks of Father Lantom raising the Chalice of Salvation during Eucharistic Prayer. He thinks of the blood of the covenant; of forgiveness of sins.

He wonders if he’ll be forgiven. )

Matt tries to speak. 

The blood curdles thick in his throat, sputtering, and the pain ripples through his battered body again. It’s enough to make his senses tunnel into everything and nothing all at once; enough to send you into another desperate spiel of words too quick to follow. 

“Shh, shh, shh.” He hears you choke. “You’re, You're gonna be okay. Stay with me, Matthew, okay?”

Yes, he wants to answer. Always.

Matt wants—

( “And Jesus cried, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?'” Father Lantom sermons, “That is to say, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'” 

The verse is from Matthew-27:46. 

How ironic, Matt thinks, the first time he’d heard it. )

—to say everything. To tell you everything. To thank you, to apologise, to admit that if every single damn one of his universes ended with him being held in your hands— that it’d be a kindness. 

That if he is to be given a single chance, by some divine intervention, to rewrite history: He’d do it all over again the exact same way— without a shadow of a doubt; without any hesitation.

He would move mountains and dry the oceans and split the skies and scorch the earth. 

He would do everything. Anything.

( Penance. Absolution. Damnation. )

The ringing in his ears render your words softer and softer. Somehow, still, he thinks you sound beautiful even when panicked.

If you— his darling, dearest, beloved— are the last thing that the Daredevil hears before being condemned to whatever dark dominion the Lord will cast him to, then let it be known that it is Matt Murdock who will die a happy man.

— send in a blurb request ! — scroll the tag !

[gffa]

Hiiii :D I was just wondering, do you have any good Marvel fic reccomendations? Your massive list of star wars fics is like the no.1 thing I go to when im in a star wars mood, and all of them have been amazing, so thanks so much for that!! I'm just curious if you have any good Marvel fic recs?? If not that's fine lol, thank you for your service 🙏

Hi! Lol, I had to sit with this post for a few days because "Marvel fic" is such a wide range of possibilities, like are we talking the comics or the live action shows? The Avengers movies? The X-Men movies? Which section of those fandoms? Avengers as a team? Captain America? Thor? Iron Man? Daredevil? X-Men: First Class? Just... anything? I don't actually have a lot of comics fic recommendations (mostly because it's too hard to wade through all the movie stuff because so many people cross-tag into the comics tags despite it not being comic fic that those tags are now useless), but my go-to for Marvel comics are always: ✦ Betrayal + Paradox Law + The Game of Empires by Valerie J It's hard to describe this series, other than that about ~15 years ago, it was an ambitious attempt at taking various elements of the X-Men comics and weaving them into a coherent whole, focusing on giving Remy an epic backstory to explain his origins and his powers. It probably wouldn't really fit with more recent comics, but if you're a fan of late '90s/early '00s X-Men comics, this was a hell of a ride with cool powers, surprising family twists, time travel, fun relationships, and incredible ramp ups to tense situations that explode in the best way. ✦ The Gestalt Arc by Lori McDonald Another old school fic centered around the Remy/Rogue relationship and taking them on an epic journey, in an alternate version of what happened after their kiss in X-Men #41. The ups and downs of how they work out their issues, the lives they try to lead with each other, finding their path forward together, it's still one of my favorites for the era. ✦ Anything by Traincat for the Young Avengers My favorite is grab a blanket, brother, but they're an author that I'd write a blanket rec for, if any of the summaries sound relevant to your interests! They also write Peter Parker/Johnny Storm, which isn't my area of comics, but I'd trust them with it! But primarily I'd route you to them for their super fun Young Avengers stories, the Teddy/Billy and Eli/Kate ones especially. ✦ Anything by silverspidertm2, X-parrot, takadainmate, or Mythtaken Identity for Journey into Mystery and Loki: Agent of Asgard-era fic. This is when I was in my prime era of reading Thor comic-centric fic, around Journey into Mystery and Loki: Agent of Asgard, when he was Kid Loki and then Teen Loki. There was a lot really fun worldbuilding or road trips or just feelings explosions fic from this era. Beyond that, my bookmarks are a bit of a mess, but you can scroll through them to see what you're looking for. My primary fandoms were: ✦ Daredevil TV, where I went in hard on Matt/Foggy (and some Matt/Foggy/Karen and Frank/Karen and a little Matt/Elektra), where I read voraciously for about a year before MCU burnout hit. Some faves are Double Blind by smilebackwards and Something Dumb to Do by poisonivory and jump, check parachute augustbird.

✦ Thor (MCU), which is actually the heart of who I was as an MCU fan, I spent a long time there reading a lot of fic and this will take you to my bookmarks with the pairings filtered out. I was a big fan of Thor & Loki's relationship so that's most of what's in there, and I always suggest starting with these three fics: ✦ Bargaining by proantagonist, thor & loki & odin & frigga & cast, time travel, 108.9k Faced with an eternity without his brother, Loki strikes a bargain to change the past. Post TDW. ✦ No Such Liberty by Xparrot, thor & loki & cast, 147.3k The first thing Loki said, after he had swiped his tongue over his lips to wet them, was, "You shouldn't trust me." ~ Following the attack on New York, Thor takes Loki back to Asgard in chains; but this does not mean that the god of mischief's schemes are ended, or that Thor has or ever will give up on his brother. But when Thanos threatens the realm to claim his lost prizes, on which side will Loki fall? [post-Avengers fix it] ✦ The Lullaby Singer by TheOtherOdinson, thor & loki & odin & frigga, 85k wip Odin hasn't left Asgard in over a thousand years. When he finds out Loki is still alive and preparing to launch an attack on Midgard, he could send Thor to stop him. Or Odin could go himself. As a bonus, I have a few more Thor genfic recs here.

✦ Captain America (MCU), where sure I liked some gen fic but lbr I was there for the Stucky. I mostly read during the height of the post-TWS fervor and then tapered off a lot after that (given how hard they swerved away from their relationship) and I haven't read almost anything in the fandom since Endgame, but if you want some fun TWS-era fic, I put together this list recently. (To be fair, I also liked a lot of Steve &/ Natasha, Bucky &/ Natasha and Sam/Natasha, so you can find that in there, too.)

✦ Iron Man (MCU), where I liked a mix of some fun gen pieces and some Tony/Pepper which put me in the minority, but I don't care because there were some banger authors for both. If you're interested in them, I always liked pretty much anything I read by roboticonography. icarus_chained wrote a wider variety of stuff, but I've always liked anything I've read from them as well.

✦ Avengers (MCU), where I read a lot of fic, but it's kind of all mixed in together, even some sprinkled in Black Panther fic, some Spideypool that was super fun for a hot minute, some Guardians of the Galaxy characters showing up, etc. Step carefully if you're not interested in pairings (I read a fair amount of Tony/Loki and Steve/Loki in amongst the other stuff), but honestly by the end I was probably reading more gen than anything.

✦ X-Men: First Class-verse, which is my exception to not reading much for the live action versions of the X-Men, because I am a long time Pietro Maximoff fan and while Peter wasn't my Pietro, I did love him and there was some absolute banger fic for the Dadneto trope, which was where my heart was at. Come Together by blarfkey is absolutely the first place to start!

Hopefully this is what you were looking for, but if you have further refinements on what you're interested in, let me know and I'll try to give some pointers! I've been out of reading Marvel for awhile, but I have a huge backlog from when I was in it, at least. 😂

[fab-bladesmith]

A Carolingian Sword and Scabbard, 9th century.

The blade has a 3-layer core of mild steel over high carbon steel, and high carbon steel edges.

Hot-welded in the fullers are the famous "+ULFBERH+T" mark on one side, and "III XX III" on the other, in pattern-welded 1075 and 15N20 steel - this latter thing being, in my educated opinion, no less important than the other side. Many things have been said about such marks, but the most important thing about them is that they exist (otherwise, to paraphrase Sir Terry Pratchett, it wouldn't be a real sword, just a very dangerous bit of sharp metal) and that they are but one aspect of the continuous function of the sword to carry a message/prayer/ritual thing, a thing appearing as early as the Bronze Age and which would continue up to the Renaissance if not after - working in conjunction with the scabbard to utter/read these spells when the sword is drawn or put back in the scabbard.

The hilt is inspired by sword FG2187 of the Germanisches National museum, found near Mannheim, and is mild steel overlaid in brass and silver (thanks to Matt Bunker for the close-ups), with silver details.

For the grip I drew inspiration from a sword found in river Shannon in 2012 for the placement of the linen threads under the leather cover, which provide both a decorative function and a nice feeling in hand. The overall shape of the grip was determined by stylistic elements of various swords of other types.

The scabbard is leather over linen over steam-formed wood, and lined with 100% wool cloth, stitched at the throat with pure silk thread. I chose not to give it a chape, the end being reinforced by a thick wrap of folded linen bands, as according to Dr Geibig's works. Decoration was made using thread glued under the leather cover.

Cheese glue was used for all this.

The suspension system of leather and brass is loosely made after the finds from the Isle of Man (Cronk Moar and Balleteare). The main issue I had was the bottom D-ring/strap thing, and here I propose a simple arrangement of a leather strap riveted to the buckle plate, and made to fit tightly the scabbard when wet. Upon drying, the strap would shrink and securely fit between the two risers.

The strap ends are in the Trewhiddle style, and were made using the historical process of drawing out a billet and chiselling in the decoration, accordingly to the PhD by Gabor Thomas. No casting involved there.

The making of this project owes a lot to the labours of Dr Mikko Molainen, to whom I address all my thanks.

This whole thing needed an awful amount of trial and error, and I am well aware that not everything is perfect there. Apart from the issues mentioned above, the main difficulties were the hot-inlaying/welding of the marks, but I do thing that most of them came from using modern steel - old/bloomery iron, especially with the proper content in phosphorous (wink at @gaelfabre) would have made the welding easier I think. I'll have to give it a try some day.

[farfromstrange]

Carpe Noctem [Chapter One]

ONE: “All these spindly roots”

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Nun!Reader

Chapter Warnings: Religious imagery & symbolism, mentions of rehab, crisis of faith, mentions of blood, the typical "animal attacks" aka vampire attacks, mentions of childhood trauma, stalker vibes at the end, Dead Dove Do Not Eat (the entire series)

Chapter Summary: You return to Clinton Church for the first time since Father Lantom saved your life, but what you first believed as an opportunity to start over reveals itself as a mountain of secrecy you have yet to uncover. Needless to say, your first week as a sister at Saint Agnes leaves you with more questions than answers, and an impending sense of darkness coming to get you.

Word Count: 6.8k

A/n: I finally got this done! I started with 3k words and it doubled in size. But I suppose it is enough to set the scene a little. We will certainly be diving deeper in a short while...

Read Me On AO3!

Sunlight streams through the colorful mosaic of stained glass. Red fades into magenta and violet, and blue fades into yellow. Innocence is a fleeting concept in this modern-day garden of Eden, and salvation remains merely a whispered promise. 

Centuries rest on the shoulders of those hallowed walls; the knees of countless worshippers have left indentations on the wooden benches, too many to count, even, but a tragic beauty remains in the art of architecture that stands tall amidst worn-down brownstones in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. 

Catholics believe in the Devil. He preys on the innocent and makes them eat their souls like Eve bit the apple. He corrupts them, slowly, passionately, and intimately until they have nothing left. Then, and only then, does he take them by the hand, and he drags their lifeless bodies down to the fiery pits of hell. 

You once danced with him. You met him, and you were charmed by him. You shared a bed with him. You loved him. But then the snake whispered about the forbidden fruit, and you had to taste it. You were already broken when he found you. You were shattered glass on white marble floors, bleeding wine into the cracks. The serpent didn’t have to try—you fell hard and fast for his blatant corruption. A silver tongue whispering the sweet promise of salvation to a broken soul, but you never saw the end of it.

Three years you spent surrounded by brick walls and sycamore trees. It was ironic, really. You, the least catholic person to have ever breathed, confined to the walls of a nunnery. For three years, you prayed your knees bloody, yet three years later, it still feels like you learned nothing at all. 

You professed your first vows shortly after you returned to New York. It is a vivid memory. You thought you would never see the city again, not after everything the cold and dark streets put you through, but it was the only place willing to give you something to live for. To survive for.

The cold of the marble stairs before the altar will forever remain etched into your skin. Candlelight reflected in your eyes. When you lifted your gaze, you remember, you met the hollow eyes of Mary as she looked down on you. Like her inanimate features were suddenly overcome by a wave of shame for you. Her hands were clasped in prayer, as most of her statues are. A figure from thousands of retellings forever cast in stone. She was given no choice, but neither were you.

The church was alight with the wonders of early spring the day you took your first vows. Yet, when you met the dead eyes of the Virgin Mary, a shadow cast over her pale features like a widow’s dark veil. The sun disappeared behind a set of clouds with the promise of rain, and the kaleidoscope of colors from the stained glass faded into gray. The walls around you resembled more of an asylum, the priest before you reciting a Bible verse you still fail to remember even to this day. You weren’t listening. A voice was calling for you, and the darkness threatened to possess you with its magic.

The longer you stared at the statue, the more the stories set into the church’s window started to come to life. A window to the soul of Christianity: Mary and Jesus, and the apostles, and Judas betraying Jesus; God’s son dying on the cross for all of our sins before rising and ascending to heaven. Judas was greedy, or so they say. He gave up his friend for money, and in return, they both suffered. 

The serpent that tempted Eve crawled out of the glass and toward you, the original sinner. Every story played like a bad movie before your eyes, coming at you inhumanly fast. The voice in the back of your mind kept getting louder, and louder and louder as it called your name. 

Your sins hung above your head like a guillotine, the very fruits of your labor you had to bear far too young. A daughter, not a son. An inconvenience to those who bore you. You were forsaken from the start, you were told, and the day you took your first vows to become a child of God after being no one’s daughter for most of your life, the walls of the church seemed to know that even after hours of confessing all of your sins to the priest, no Hail Mary could ever take them away. They would always be there until the day you die. You could have done penance until your knees were bloody—you would always be a sinner in the eyes of the church. 

You had the Devil inside you, they said. Because you let him inside. And he did not hesitate to steal your virtue from the source, forever tainting the well of your innocence. 

“In the presence of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints, I humbly offer myself to His service,” you recited on those marble steps, but the shadow only continued to grow around you, wrapping its black wings around you. The fallen angel. Was it you or the Devil? 

The people around you disappeared. You weren’t taking your vows that day; you were standing trial in front of God and all his disciples who came before you. You were taking a stand, and only the jury could decide if you were worthy of your title. 

“I vow to embrace the holy virtues of chastity, poverty, and obedience, following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Holy Scriptures,” you said. “I promise to submit myself to the will of God and commit to live out these vows faithfully all the days of my life. Always.”

Amen.

You lay your broken soul bare, cuffing yourself to the congregation with unbreakable steel and throwing away the key. And there remained the voice, calling for you from the threshold to the darkness.

You thought you could ignore it. Until you returned to Hell’s Kitchen. 

Until him.

Your heels drag over the stone floors of the seemingly endless hallway stretching through Clinton Church. The walls look different when you’re not running. When you can breathe without yearning for means of self-destruction that set fire to your lungs. 

When you asked Father Lantom if you could come back to Clinton Church, he didn’t hesitate. You were unsure what it would be like. The last time you were here, the circumstances that led you into the arms of the empathetic priest were anything but conventional. The memories you have since tied to this place are a conflict between reaching your breaking point and begging for someone, anyone, to help you, and the overwhelming guilt that came with committing the worst of crimes, and a cardinal sin.

You were not a woman of God. You doubt you were a human being at all. If anything, you were a puppet. 

Father Lantom said three years ago, “When you feel ready to take your first vows, come back. I will always have a room waiting for you.” And come back, you did—for he was the one who held your hand when you were falling into an abyss headed for certain death. When you were covered in blood and feared you would burn in hell, the past came back to haunt you with pitchforks and execute you at the stake for the entire town to see. He was there, and in that moment you knew you could not disappoint him. It was then you first started believing in the idea of God.

You gaze down at your habit. The tunic, the cincture, and the veil. You have never been more dressed up, yet you have never felt more naked in the eyes of another man. The fear of judgment for choosing a path you once thought you would only pick over your dead body is rooted so deeply within you that it nails you to an invisible cross. 

“Three years,” the priest breaks the silence. You look over at him, walking beside you as he leads you around the hidden corners you’re not yet familiar with. 

You nod. “Three years,” you repeat. “Doesn’t feel like that long ago.”

Sensing your conflict and the underlying insecurity that renders you speechless a lot of the time, Father Lantom clears his throat. “You look…better,” he says.

“Thank you, Father. My time at St. Anne’s was very… self-reflective. I learned a lot.”

“Good. I’m proud of you.”

Your wide eyes snap back up at him. Oh. 

Pride is not the word you would have used. Proud of you, he said. He sent you away to cleanse your soul, and most days you are not sure if it even worked, but he is proud of you. The man who only knows the worst version of you looked at you and saw good instead of evil. It is a concept that had once been so foreign to you. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. 

“For what?” he asks.

“This. Everything.” You shrug. “I wasn’t sure if you still wanted me here, so hearing you say that…it means a lot to me.”

“I promised you would always have a room here if you chose to come back.”

There is so much sincerity in his voice. In his eyes. You swallow thickly, feeling the tears burn behind your eyes. You don’t want to cry in front of him, but the words die miserably on your tongue. Instead, you nod. You just hope your eyes manage to convey what you want to say.

The priest leads you to a door that connects the church with the grounds of the orphanage next door. “You will be living with the other sisters at Saint Agnes,” he tells you. The change of subject is welcome. “After we had to close our convent because Tony Stark could not be bothered to fund our restoration, all postulants who have since wanted to join our order were sent to study at St. Anne’s. Like you. But most of them stayed there,” his tone changes slightly into hurting. “They offer a lot more than we can. Donations can only get us so far, and we barely get those anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” you cut in. 

He sighs, waving your concern off with the flick of his wrist. “We make due, and now that you’re here… well, the sisters are going to appreciate the extra help.” Father Lantom puts on another smile like you would put on your veil. “We don’t have any separate living quarters, unfortunately,” he states, “so your room is a floor above the children’s dormitories. Sister Grace offered to show you around.”

“Sister Grace?”

“She’s the one in charge.”

Your eyes flick back to the walls you’re passing. Intricate details are carved into the stone even here, far away from the chapel. These hand-made masterpieces breathe a certain eeriness into the church. Not just life but a certain wave of mystique because even the stories from the bible are left open for interpretation, especially when they are turned into art. 

A sense of doom falls over you like a dark cloud. “Does she know?” you ask. 

Father Lantom raises his eyebrows. He studies your features. Your chin tipped toward the ceiling, observing. He notices the gentle shift in your breathing pattern as your heartbeat speeds up, and when you meet his eyes again after an agonizing bout of silence, he smiles at you once again. 

“Sister Grace?” he inquires. You nod. “Well,” he says, “She does know. She’s the abbess. I had to let her in when I told her you were coming here, but I assure you, she swore to the utmost discretion.”

You breathe out. The weight rests heavily on your chest. “And everyone else?” You turn back to him. 

The Father shakes his head. His eyes are so gentle. “It’s not my story to tell,” he says. “If there’s one thing I learned after years of talking to people—taking their confessions, listening to their fears, their anger, and their pain—it’s that we all suffer. We all have things we’d rather not talk about.”

The words penetrate your heart like a sharp dagger. 

“And as humans, we tend to often see our burdens as sins, even if those apparent sins hurt us, or we had to commit them to protect ourselves from getting hurt. And sometimes, hurt people do stupid things. Objectively stupid, that is. It doesn’t mean we are going to hell for doing what it takes to survive. People suffer, and most of the time, that suffering doesn’t stop. That’s the truth,” he says. “Now, a lot of these people come to confession because they think it will give them a clear conscience, which it does, momentarily. They believe that God will make the pain go away with the snap of his omniscient fingers. A few Hail Marys, a few extra hours at Sunday mass, and your burdens will be dealt with. That is not the truth. Confession is not therapy because penance does not heal decades of trauma. If that were how it works, we would collapse from overcrowding.”

Father Lantom breaks off with a chuckle, but you can’t find amusement in his wisest insight. It’s real, too real. You can’t even muster a pity smile. 

“Why do we do it then?” you ask. 

“Do you want the Catholic answer or my personal opinion?”

“If those don’t intersect, I’ll choose the latter. Please.”

He takes a moment. “Well, confession works as a tool,” he explains then. “God knows the difference between an actual sin and human nature. Sometimes, these two are the same, but a lot of the time, there is a big difference, and He knows that. Confession helps regain balance where you’re standing with your faith. That’s why we do it. Because faith… faith can be a strong motivator. That’s why a lot of us—sisters, priests, and… and monks—are here now. Because we found a passion and a purpose in devoting ourselves to God. It’s not for everyone, of course, but it is a clean slate if you want it to be. Whether you tell the other sisters about why you chose this path, is up to you. Not me. Because that trauma is yours, and yours alone.”

The silence stretches between you, long, longer, as the church holds its breath. You absorb every word and every breath of his like a sponge. You swallow them. A bitter pill, that’s what it is. It goes down like hard liquor. 

You walk a few more steps in that silence with his eyes on you and the world on fire within. “Father,” you whisper. The sound is not more than that. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says. And this time, you smile at him.

Behind the door that leads to the orphanage, another hallway awaits. The walls smell faintly of moss—nature but a bit rotten. A woman in a similar habit makes her way toward the two of you from the end of the hall. She carries herself with a quiet air of authority. You can’t look through her. 

Father Lantom may have vouched for Sister Grace and her discretion, but her judgment is not his to determine. She is her own woman, with thoughts only she can determine. You’re not sure if you are ready for that, either. 

He greets her with a smile. “Sister Grace,” he says.

“Father. Good morning,” at him, she smiles. 

He nudges you forward. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

Her gaze shifts to you then. “The uniform is unmistakable.” She nods. “Welcome, Sister.”

It’s a start, a small step towards finding your place within these hallowed walls. 

“Thank you, Sister,” you reply. “It’s nice meeting you.”

“Likewise. Though it’s been a while since we had someone new here. So young, too.”

“I know. Father Lantom mentioned. I’ll try my hardest not to disappoint you.”

She nods. “Let’s get you settled into your room first before we worry about that. I believe Father Lantom has mass to prepare.”

Father Lantom gives you a reassuring nod. “I’ll leave you in Sister Grace’s capable hands. And remember, you are not alone. If you need help with anything, don’t hesitate to come and find me.” With that, he turns and makes his way back through the door you came from, leaving you with your fellow sister and a lump in your throat.

She leads you down the corridor. “This way,” she says. “Your room is above the children’s dormitories. Second floor. You’ll find it quiet enough for reflection but close enough to be of help when needed.”

Her tone suggests that you will be plenty busy, no matter where your room is in the building. More work means less time to think, and less time with your thoughts sounds like a blessing.

As you follow her, the faint sounds of children playing filter through the walls. It’s a comforting contrast to the silence you’ve grown accustomed to. 

Sister Grace opens a door to a narrow staircase, and you both begin to climb. “The other sisters will be eager to meet you,” she says over her shoulder.

You nod, even though she can’t see you. “I am, too,” you answer.

At the top of the stairs, she leads you down another hallway, then finally stops at a simple wooden door. “This one...will be your room.” She pushes it open to reveal the small space behind, connected to a window with a clear view of the adjacent cemetery. “I admit, it is a little scarce,” Sister Grace says, “but you are more than welcome to add a few personal touches; pictures, curtains, maybe even a plant or two. Don’t worry, Father Lantom encourages it.”

The wooden floorboards creak beneath your weight as you step inside. You look around. A single bed, neatly made with crisp white linens and a worse-for-wear mattress occupies one corner of the room, a crucifix nailed above the headrest, and casting a faint shadow on the aged plaster walls. On the other side, a desk and a wardrobe offer some storage space that leads to a second door—the bathroom. It is scarce, but you came here with nothing but a cardboard box filled with your hopes and dreams and books and diaries; people have built homes from less. 

“Our shared kitchen is downstairs. Feel free to store your food in the fridge, but don’t forget to label the containers if you don’t wish to share.” Sister Grace pauses, chuckling softly as her hazel eyes meet yours. “You wouldn’t believe it, but even nuns can be picky eaters, and very territorial about snacks.”

You smile, but your attempt at kindness falls into artificiality. “Thank you.”

“Nonsense. We look after each other around here.”

There has to be more to it, surely. Innocent may be a construct, but most of the sisters in the community were born into their faith. They started studying from a young age, always destined to dedicate themselves to the cause. You were far from religious before destiny found you dying in the flames of your old life. Whether destiny or a curse befell you that night remains open for interpretation. You have seen it both ways. An opportunity arose. You received a second chance from a very nice man, but the price to pay was your soul sacrificed to a God you once thought you would never believe in. 

Do you have faith or do you not? It is a loaded question. You think you do. You want to know you do too, but you are never fully certain. In the eyes of God, you are a loyal soldier who studied the scriptures and did her due diligence praying for penance, but when you look in the mirror, all you see is Judas. 

A heavy breath ripples through you. “You didn’t have to let me in,” you whisper. “Father Lantom didn’t have to offer me refuge, but he did. And you’re not judging me even though you have all right to… I just don’t understand.”

Her answer is a shrug. “When you were desperate,” says the sister, “God led you to us, and you found refuge at the church like so many before you. I don’t believe that was a coincidence.”

You were covered in blood when you came—your hands stained with the essence of another man’s life, clothes torn beyond recognition. You can still feel his hands on you, wandering, lurking… The crimson had seeped into the fine lines of your palms. It took you days to get rid of it, and weeks more to scrub the last remains from under your fingernails down the drain. 

You grapple with their decision. “I, uh… I wasn’t sure. At St. Anne’s, they treated me like an outsider. Because I didn’t grow up Catholic, and—”

“And you found your faith in rehab?” Sister Grace smiles knowingly. “Trust me, it happens so often that it no longer comes as a surprise.”

“But there is still judgment. There will always be judgment,” you insist.

She takes your words into account, nodding. They digest for a brief moment until she breaks into a soft chuckle—a mere breath from her full-moon lips. 

“A small piece of advice, if I may?” she asks. You hum. “If you spend all your time here questioning whether God has forgiven you for your sins, your lack of faith in the Lord, as tiny as it may be, will always stand between you and taking your final vow. And if you keep worrying about the judgment of anyone other than God, you won’t find happiness.”

You vowed to dedicate your life to religious service, and if you don’t close the last period of your study after taking temporary three vows with a solemn declaration to give up even the last of your possessions then the gap between you and God will be too big for you to ever be anything but a simple sister of the congregation. 

But is that what you want? To close that gap and give yourself fully to a higher power? It would be a live sacrifice, you knew that from the start.

You believe in God and the Devil, and you believe in eternal damnation. And you believe that you are damned, too. Doomed, forsaken, and cursed. A scratched record. God’s wrath is not a match for the fear you instill in yourself; your mere existence is maddening. 

You are drowning in a darkness you were born with, and possessed by demons you never learned how to exorcize. Not even studying a newfound faith in God to get on the right path could get rid of the monsters that are not lurking under your bed or in the shadows but in the dark corners of your mind.

The beast inside of you has gone to sleep, but God knows that he is a ticking time bomb, even in a comatose state. The Devil has planted his seed—all these spindly roots growing from your soul to the pit of your stomach, digging their claws into your fragile heart and tearing you to shreds. The protective poison ivy you grew over the years can only last so long without water before it starts to wither. 

You look over your shoulder when the door shuts gently behind Sister Grace as she leaves you be. 

The cardboard box on your desk holds an abundance of scriptures, books, and leather-bound diaries. Your diaries. They told you that writing your feelings on paper would help you heal. If you crave something you know you should and cannot have, you should write it down; you have been for years now, but with every pen wasted and every diary hidden in compartments around your room so no one can find them, the words you write turn into firewood, and your tears are the gasoline. 

Outside, the wind brushes through the trees. It beckons you, its tendrils creeping into your consciousness like creatures of the night reaching for the last flickers of light.

With a heavy heart, you flip open the worn-down leather. Seconds turn into minutes turn into hours turn into days. Knees turn bloody from praying, and the joy of one child’s happiness dies at the hands of another’s trauma. 

Dear Diary, 

Yesterday, the groundskeeper dug another hole in the cemetery. Father Lantom will officiate the funeral on Sunday. Another addition to the bones and rotting corpses hiding under a shield of dirt, but does anyone know what happens after? 

I tried to ask the Father, but he didn’t give me a satisfying answer. He told me what he thought I wanted to hear, but I did not. I can’t help but wonder if he is protecting me or keeping secrets. The latter would be highly unethical, I suppose. 

Other than maintaining a religious belief in heaven or hell or rebirth while we are alive, what does happen to us after we die? Is it definite? Is it infinite or is there something else, something... more? 

Is it the Devil? Is it God? Or is it heaven and hell? 

And why do they keep digging holes in the cemetery? The children keep asking me every day, but I do not know how to answer them. 

Dear Diary, where do we go when it is all over?

The clinking of porcelain and cutlery emerges from the kitchen like a mushroom cloud. As you approach the dining room through a long hallway, the soft soles of your vinyl shoes barely make a sound. The voices inside overlap, but a few rise from the masses, demanding your attention. Like a moth to a flame, you fly toward it. 

“…and they found another one this morning. Washed up on the river banks after the storm last night,” one of the sisters whispers to another. 

“It’s been fifteen this month alone,” another one says.  

“What kind of animal does that?” a third cuts in.

“The kind that isn’t an animal,” says the nun you now recognize as Sister Marjorie, the oldest of the bunch. “It happens every two months for twenty years that bodies wash up on the shore, supposedly mauled by a bear or a baboon in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen, and then the city grows quiet again. I’ve been here for forty-five years, and it still happens like clockwork.”

The one next to her sighs. “Well, maybe it’s the changing climate. Lord knows it has humans and animals going crazy alike.”

“Can’t you see?” Marjorie raises her voice. “These aren’t the actions of an animal. It’s the Devil!” 

It seems as though the mere thought puts the fear of God in them—your fellow sisters, usually so strong and collected, reduced to whispers of the rumor mill as the color fades from their skin. 

Sister Grace clicks her tongue, interrupting them all at once. “That’s enough,” she says, trying to remain calm but there is still a sense of urgency in her voice. It’s not an exclamation but a well-concealed warning. Behind that façade hides a leader you would not want to cross twice. 

Only one of Sister Marjorie’s eyes finds you standing there, eavesdropping like a misbehaving child. The other remains unmoving, caged in by a white scar across her cheek and an iris made of glass. 

You swallow the lump in your throat. “Animal attacks?” you dare to ask. 

Heads snap toward you. The table falls speechless, compelled into a sudden silence by your presence. The world stops turning. 

“Oh, dear, don’t you worry about that,” Sister Grace, the first to find her voice again, reassures you. She ushers you from the doorway to the table, but the eyes of your fellow sisters suddenly feel like tiny needles all over your skin. “It’s just idle gossip,” she says, shooting the others a glare, “nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

But the silence starts to wrap around your neck like a noose regardless. Curiosity is only appreciated when they can answer it, you have learned. In the eyes of God, lying is a sin, and you spend each day teaching the children to believe the same, but is omitting not essentially the same as lying? 

They’re scared. They don’t want to admit it; no one does. Fear does not fit under the veil of ignorance, so they try concealing it as idle gossip. The rumor mill is always spinning, and it is an outstanding excuse, but you will never forget the look in Marjorie’s eyes when you dared to ask—dared to question. 

A thud from outside causes you to sit upright in your bed later that evening. The springs that are digging into your lower back creak when you move so suddenly. 

Through the window, you can see the cemetery hulled into a fog where cold and warm air meet for the night. You put the children to bed, got them dressed in their pajamas, brushed their teeth, and told the little ones a bedtime story. They like it when you do it. Something about the way you tell them fascinates their little minds, so it has become a ritual in the week you have been here. 

The more it strikes you as odd that there is noise outside. After bedtime, no one is supposed to be out and about, and if a sister has something to do out of schedule, they have to share it with the group. For safeguarding reasons, they told you. 

Against your better judgment, you roll out of bed and into your slippers, wrapping a cardigan around your body. Your nightgown is not the warmest thing to wear on these cold walls unless it is under a thick wool blanket. 

The door creaks when you open it. Father Lantom gave you a flashlight a few nights ago because he asked you to take care of something on the church grounds for him after the sun had set, so you kept it. You weren’t sure if you would still need it. Thankfully, you did.

You follow the noise to the back door one floor below. It leads out into the backyard, and a few more feet east, a fence and a gate separate the many acres of the cemetery from the rest of the church’s grounds. 

The flashlight illuminates the path before you. “If it’s another stupid raccoon, I swear…” you mutter to yourself. It wouldn’t be the first time one of those critters found their way into the trashcans and caused mayhem in the middle of the night. 

Somehow though, it always seems to be you who catches them. The night-owl. The one who is always on guard, always on edge, even when she knows she is safe.

You wander through the backyard, closer to the fence. You tilt your head. There is a small gap in the gate to the cemetery. The fog makes it harder to see. 

“Hello?” you call out into the darkness. Nothing. 

Through the rustling of leaves and the howling of an owl in the woods far beyond Saint Agnes, a small whimper breaks the silence like a hot knife. It is faint, but unmistakable nonetheless. 

You strain your ears. “Oh no,” once again, you curse to yourself. “No, no, no…” 

You follow the sound through the gate and into the cemetery. June Montgomery and her husband share a grave. They died over twenty years ago, but it is still well-maintained by their children and grandchildren. A few steps further though, the infestation of poison ivy begins. 

The graves under the gigantic cherry tree are the most hidden, and the best hiding spots. You had to tell the children many times that the cemetery is not a hiding place, especially not for games, and never alone, even when the gates are open. The general public has access to it during the day, and if they wander too far, they will land on a populated street. It’s dangerous. 

You were so careful. You did everything by the book, and someone still managed to sneak out. 

Your heart pounds in your chest, the wet grass soaking your thin slippers until you come upon a small figure huddled behind one of the bewildered gravestones. Sara Mayfield; she died in 1945. Your sigh resembles a cry of relief. 

“Timmy!” you exclaim. “Thank God!”

He’s curled up into a ball behind the headstone. Tears stream down his cheeks in bottomless rivers. Your flashlight blinds him, and his whimpers escalate to sobs. Your heart shatters at the sight. 

“Hey there, it's okay,” you try to soothe him, crouching beside his tiny figure. “It's just me. Hi. What are you doing out here all alone?” You shed your cardigan, wrapping it around his shoulders. “It’s the middle of the night, sweetheart.”

From what you’ve learned about Timmy, his parents died in a freakish car accident about a year ago. He was in the car when his father fell asleep at the wheel and drove the car into a tree. His mother died instantaneously, but his father bled out right in front of him. He has been receiving therapy ever since he came to Saint Agnes, but he is a troubled child. 

Timmy sniffles, accepting the makeshift blanket. He recognizes you, which is a good sign. “I had a nightmare,” he confesses. “I-I wanted to see the stars, but then I heard a crash, and I got scared.”

You wrap your arms around him. “It’s okay to be scared,” you say. “But you shouldn’t wander off by yourself, especially at night. You should have come to me, or Sister Grace.”

“I’m sorry, Sister.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m just glad nothing happened to you.”

His skin is clammy and cold. You don’t know how long he has been out here, but he is also in no state to be questioned. 

“Come on,” you say and lift him into your arms. “Let’s get you back inside.”

Together, you make your way back towards the orphanage. But as you approach the gate, there it is again, that voice. Whispers of nothing in the chilly breeze. The air crackles with a certain, sinister something. A chill runs down your spine, and the back of your skull starts to burn as though someone is watching you. Listening. Lurking. And it is not a raccoon this time.

You set Timmy down on his feet. He whimpers again. “Go to your room. I’ll be right there,” you tell him. 

He looks up at you with his innocent blue eyes. “Promise?” he asks. 

“Yes. Promise.”

The boy lets go of your hand, quickly sneaking back inside. He knows better than to make any more noise. Any other sister would have threatened consequences. But he’s just a traumatized little boy, and the night is dangerous. It’s creepy. Of course, it would only add to childish fear and trauma that has had time to manifest for an entire year.

You turn around when he is safely inside, pointing your flashlight in the direction where you came from. 

You scan the blanket of fog for any sign of movement. And that’s when you see it—a shadowy, obscured figure standing amidst the graves by the woods, behind the cherry tree.

Your breath catches in your throat, the whispers echoing in your mind once more. It could not be your name. It’s something else. Latin, perhaps. What terrifies you most though is that you're not scared; you feel strangely drawn to the figure. 

You hold your breath. The figure tilts its head, and you do the same. Your heartbeat remains eerily steady throughout. You should scream. You should alert everyone that there is something—someone—out there, but they would call you crazy, surely. And maybe you are. No sane person hears voices and sees the darkness as a comforting presence. Not a nun. Not someone who is not supposed to let the Devil win. And what other explanation is there but for the figure to be a phantom of the Devil's making? 

In the blink of an eye, the figure is gone. The hold on your lungs eases, and you gasp for air like a desperate woman.

Instinctively, you turn to the door and usher inside. Timmy is still standing there. “What’s wrong?” he asks. 

You shake your head, trying to clear your mind. “Nothing,” you say, but when you lock the door to make sure no one can get in or out, your hands shake. A single drop of sweat runs down your temple. “Come on.”

Inside, you’re freezing. Like a cold hand touched you and set you on fire, but it had claws that let the ice age into your heart, and now you’re poisoned. 

Taking Timmy back to his room, you can’t shake the feeling of unease that gnaws at your insides like a hungry beast. You tuck him in; you check under his bed for monsters, and you lock the windows. It takes a while for him to settle back into sleep, but when he finally does, you leave his room on your tiptoes and close it. 

The other children are all peacefully asleep, and your fellow sisters seem to not have noticed the commotion you caused on your way in. Every door is locked—you check twice. Still, when you get to your room, your hands tremble once again when you use the key for the fragile lock for the first time. 

Fear is not what compels you. Uneasiness, maybe, but not fear. The venom in your veins stems from something else entirely. You can’t explain it. The feeling is familiar somehow, but so foreign at the same time.

You clutch the rosary from the nightstand over your diary, facing the fog you yearn for so desperately. “Foolish, foolish idiot,” you mutter. 

Dear Diary, 

Did I force myself upon God out of… of guilt? Or was it a sign that He led me to Clinton Church that night? I thought penance would wash away my sins, that by dedicating myself to Him, I could erase the past. You know, like magic. But I was so wrong. Father Lantom… He told me that’s not how it works, and Sister Grace… She’s so sure that will stand in my way, and now I can’t help but wonder… Did I study scripture and Catholic rules for the past three years like a mad woman out of faith or because I was trying to make good for something I did by neutralizing myself?

I’m lost. I don’t know the path to righteousness, and I don’t know how to silence this… this darkness inside me. I can hear it calling my name. Every night… I’m scared that I’m not scared enough. I’m a flawed creature; I’m desperate and tired, but I don’t want to disappoint Him. But how can I? 

How do I serve a God I have been lying to from the start, and how the fuck do I fix this?

You squeeze your eyes shut, the pen cracking under the pressure, and the ink bleeds onto the page, over the letters and your broken heart. Your blue fingers wrap around the rosary again as what you have written disappears under the chemical ocean. 

In the heat of the moment, you tear the page out of its confines, but it has tainted all the ones to come. You ruined it like you ruined yourself. The page had been you once, being bled all over by an ink meant to stain for the rest of your miserable life, but you tried to glue it back in place. You tried not to fall apart like your diary just did at your very hands—as everything you touch rots or turns to ashes eventually.

You ball a fist around the paper, tossing it across the room. It hits the window. You catch your runny reflection in the glass. To think you were just looking to be loved, to be seen and forgiven ever since you were a little girl dreaming of being a princess, but instead, you are falling apart. 

But no, you will not let the Devil win. You pull the curtains closed, and you hide the cemetery where it belongs—with the dead, both in heaven and hell and everything in between. The Devil can’t have you because God already does. 

You have to seize the night before it seizes you. Anything else would be, for the lack of a better word, certain suicide. 

Tag List: @luvebugs @mxxny-lupin @1988-fiend @bluestuesday @ghostheartbeat @cheshirecat484 @faesspace (if you want to be tagged or I forgot to tag you, let me know!)

[burr-ell]

With respect to the previous reblog—I sped up almost all of the Otohan combat to 1.5 and only put it back to normal when Sam started FCG's last turn. And it's not that I can't be invested in climactic combat or even really difficult climactic combat! I watched the fights with Ripley, Thordak, Raishan, Vecna, the Iron Shepherds, Uk'otoa, and Vespin Chloras, some of them multiple times, and I was invested the entire way through.

But here's the thing: I do not currently play DnD, and prior to watching CR I knew very little about the mechanics. I learned with the cast as I was watching C1, and as the show went on I paid more and more attention because I could see how the mechanics of combat interacted with the story. When there's a moment where the crunch of combat powerfully reflects a character's arc? That hits, even as someone with little personal knowledge of the PHB. I am not, however, invested in just watching three hours of combat for its own sake...and Otohan's build feels like combat for its own sake.

Obviously the cast is really invested in the story; it's their characters and they're the ones making the choices and rolling the dice. They've been doing this together for over a decade, and they're really impressed by the raw power of Otohan's build. But as a viewer? This simply is not fun to watch. I mean, there are some great moments for the Hells—all of Orym's nat 20s, Fearne using the power of Rau'shan and deliberately casting Blight through touch, Chetney's last words—but I don't know anything about Otohan. I don't know why she's here. I don't know what her motives are. I don't know why exactly she's so OP—"Legend of the Peaks" is just set dressing to me because none of the characters care about the Apex War and Matt has never forced the issue.

Like, sure, they're an exaltant Ruidusborn, but...okay? Why do they get legendary actions and resistances? Where'd their goofyass lil Lands End backpack even come from? Why are they here? No one can do a swagless villain monologue like Ludinus; no one can evade child support like Liliana. But who cares about Otohan, as a character and not just the scary hero-killer? That role in the story could be occupied by any well-built level 20 melee combatant and the narrative wouldn't miss anything.

Without all of the necessary development to get me invested, this just seems like she's OP just to make her "hardcore" or whatever—and Matt's never made a villain like that, so I know this could have been portrayed better and simply wasn't. As it stands, she's had more presence in the stupid Moon Moms fanon (which seems to have been found dead on Ruidus anyway) than she has in the actual canon of the show. I'm always happy when a villain dies, but in this case, it's just good riddance.

[tobiasdrake]

Digimon Adventure 01 - Adrift? The Island of Adventure! / And So It Begins....

Right off the bat, we can feel the tonal difference between how the two shows want to present themselves. The Japanese version opens with narration provided to us by a grim and stone-faced narrator, while in the English version, Tai delivers the exposition himself in a light-hearted and goofy tone.

The Japanese narrator explains to us in a bit more detail precisely what is happening throughout the world. Drought has struck the paddy fields of southeast Asia, heavy rains are flooding the Middle East, and the U.S. is suffering from freezing temperatures.

Tai has similar dreary info to drop on us. He tries to keep it light because that's the tone the dub is going for, but his version's... a little different. In fact, hilariously, Tai's version is much worse.

The way he tells it, the whole rainforest has dried up and oceans have risen to flood "other areas like chocolate sauce". The freezing also is no longer in the U.S.; It's "cities which are normally blazing hot", not contained to any specific region. Holy shit.

So, yeah. Either way, the world's being fucked sideways right now by climate catastrophe, but it's ironically being fucked harder in the lighter and goofier English dub.

With that out of the way, we met our cast of kids - With the English Tai getting in a funny joke, claiming to be "working on my multiplication tables" while we clearly see him snoozing in a tree.

Each character comes with their own special introduction slide to give us some basic information on them. For the Japanese version, the narrator coldly lists them off by name, while their information blurb tells us what grade they're in.

This gives us a general understanding of how old each kid is, relative to one another, which is kind of important for understanding their group dynamic down the road.

6th Grade: Jou 5th Grade: Taichi, Sora, and Yamato 4th Grade: Koushiro and Mimi 2nd Grade: Takeru

The dub omits that particular information and instead gives us some basic information on what Tai thinks of each character.

Sora: "She's okay, for a girl!" Matt: "Too cool; Just look at that haircut!" Izzy: "He should have gone to computer camp." Mimi: "I'll bet you can guess her favorite color on the first try." T.K.: "Matt's dopey little brother." Joe: "Don't ever scare him; He'd probably wet his pants."

For most of the character names, it's pretty obvious which name connects to which. Izzy's the odd man out, as it's an abbreviation for Koushiro's family name Izumi.

The omission of the characters' ages from the dub is something that I think hurts it; It's not super clear, watching the show in English, that Joe's supposed to be the oldest kid by a year or two, or that Mimi's one of the youngest in the cast. However, this is important context for driving some of the plot points that the show has in store for them.

As the kids are struck by a freak blizzard, neither version really stops to explain this but the kids who will be our protagonists get separated from the rest of the campers. In both versions, we just see a group of counselors ushering kids into tents, and then Taichi opens this door once it stops.

I think the Japanese version was trusting its audience to understand from context where they are. Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Jou, Koushiro, Mimi, and Takeru have all taken shelter from the blizzard inside a nearby Shinto shrine.

This is why, when the aurora suddenly arrives and transports them across worlds, no other campers are taken with them. They're in an isolated location away from the rest of the group.

Jou even has a line expressing that he wants to return to the others, to clarify that these seven children are presently alone.

The English version offers no less information than the Japanese. Well, it offers a little less; That one context-clarifying line from Jou is replaced by Joe saying "I was worried I'd catch a summer cold but this is even worse!"

However, more importantly, we don't have Shinto shrines here. So the context isn't quite as evident to a kid watching on TV in the 90's. I always thought they were just in some kind of cabin at camp.

As the kids stare in awe at the sudden arrival of an aurora that's about to ruin the next several months of their lives, Jou again urges everyone to return to adult supervision pronto. This time Yamato agrees with him, pointing out that they could get sick if they stay out here.

Joe and Matt, on the other hand, have different concerns. In the dub, it's Joe that worries they're all going to get sick if they stay out here. This time, Matt disagrees, insisting that they can't miss a sight like this. That they are all alone in the wilderness with no adult supervision is not a concern for Joe at all, apparently.

Koushiro also points out that auroras aren't supposed to happen in Japan, so this is weird. The dub is trying to localize for an American audience, so Izzy's a bit more descriptive here. He calls this out as the Aurora Borealis specifically but says that's supposed to happen in Alaska. "We're way too far south."

Then the Aurora strikes, delivering their Digivices and whisking the kids away on a magical adventure of violence, terror, and coming to terms with the reality of death. YAAAAAAAAAY

So it begins! Taichi is the first we see meet his Digimon partner. This is Koromon. English Koromon explains that his name means "Brave Little Warrior". This is a bald-faced lie.

Like many Baby and Child stage Digimon, his name is based on an onomatopoeia; Specifically, Koromon is named for the sound of a round object rolling around. "Korokorokorokoro". I think the dub version of the character was embarrassed to admit that. :P

Koushiro's partner Mochimon is next. The subtitle here says Motimon but you can clearly hear Mochimon. His name is based on the sound of a spongey goop extending and retracting. Mochimochimochi.

Once these two are introduced, the dub goes in on trying to deliver information to the audience. This place is called the Digi-World, and Izzy speculates that the Digimon are the Digivices themselves, transformed into physical lifeforms.

None of this is in the original; This is a quiet moment as Taichi takes in the magnitude of their isolating predicament. The only information offered is that this is a place called File Island; the word "File" is said in English.

That they've Isekai'd into another world entirely is not something they know as of yet. At this point in time, the possibility exists that maybe we got washed out to sea somehow but we're still somewhere near Japan.

When Taichi tries to scout out what's around them, our central antagonist for this episode arrives: Kuwagamon, an Adult-stage Digimon named for a particular species of stag beetle: Nokogiri-kuwagata.

The first altercation with Kuwagamon goes terribly, forcing Taichi and Koushiro to take cover inside a special program. As Mochimon explains, they're inside a hologram of a tree which will conceal them from Kuwagamon.

The English Motimon offers the less helpful explanation, "It's a Hiding Tree, silly!" That'll do it. All I need to know, thanks.

Once Kuwagamon's gone, we meet up with Sora and our next Partner Digimon.

Pyocomon, named for the sound of bouncing. Pyocopyocopyoco! The dub cuts off the P and calls her Yokomon.

Immediately followed by Takeru's partner Tokomon, named for the sound of trotting around. Tokotokotokotoko.

And Yamato's partner Tsunomon. This one isn't an onomatopoeia; Rather, "tsuno" is the Japanese word for "horn". He's Hornmon. You can probably guess why.

Following that, we have Pukamon, named for the sound of floating or hovering. "Pukapukapuka", though the dub calls him Bukamon with a hard B sound.

We cut to commercial break and then come back to a completely redundant second introduction. Each Digimon takes turns going around and saying their names, and then Tai introduces each of the human characters and tells us which grade they're in; The same information from those slides earlier.

I think the localizers realized how unnecessary this is because they use this time to waffle instead. Rather than intros, the Digimon just say things like "We're super cute!" "And loyal!" Tai, however, once again misses an opportunity to establish the relative ages of the characters and just reintroduces all of the humans by name.

Wait, but aren't we missing someone? As if on cue, Mimi comes screaming out of the woods with her Partner Digimon at her side.

Tanemon, which translates in English to "Seedmon". However, like Tsunomon, her name remains Tanemon in the dub. Mimi isn't screaming because of Tanemon, however; She's being hunted by Kuwagamon.

I should note that the dub characters are extremely rude about Mimi's absence. Sora calls her "the girl with the funny hat" to which Tai replies, in the most eye-rolling and disdainful voice possible, "Now now, her name is Mimi." You can hear him sneering.

Then Izzy chimes in and, in a weirdly bitter tone, suggest she's "picking flowers" or "going on a nature hike". The fuck crawled up y'all's butts and died? This girl has done nothing.

The dub, however, does get in a fantastic line when Kuwagamon attacks again.

As the kids cower in a clearing from Kuwagamon's renewed assault, Joe cries out, "My mom is going to want a complete and total refund!" XD I love that. It manages to land a joke without killing the tension in the process.

Cornered on the edge of a cliff, the partners are forced to fight Kuwagamon.

It does not go well. Real quick, who do you think wins in a fight: An experienced lumberjack vs. several toddlers?

What a lovely start to an adventure. We have no idea where we are or why, and the strange magical creatures who showed up to protect us have all been beaten within an inch of their life by what, for all intents and purposes at this time, just appears to be Random Encounter wildlife.

We're gonna die out here.

With their backs against the wall, Kuwagamon renews the assault once more and the Baby Digimon are forced to break free from their worried kids and fight once more.

The dub tries really hard to downplay the peril these kids are in right now. For instance, when Taichi asks Koromon why he attacked Kuwagamon so recklessly, Koromon uses what little strength he has to state that he needs to protect Taichi. Dub Koromon just says he wanted to show off and look cool.

Similarly, as Kuwagamon comes tromping out of the woods, Taichi expresses hopeless fear, and Koromon then insists that that Digimon must fight. Dub Tai instead says, "Get ready to run!" only for Koromon to argue that he wants to fight instead. Like. They're standing on the edge of a cliff. There is nowhere to run to. The dub's manufacturing retreat options to make fighting a personal choice rather than a survival necessity.

But now the bonds they've formed with their kids are strong enough for the first in what's going to become a major metaphysic for this series: Evolution.

The dub calls it Digivolution, possibly to distinguish it from evolution in Pokemon which was airing alongside this show, but in Japanese it's just "shinka" meaning evolution. As each Digimon evolves, there's a stock quote format that they express in both versions.

In English, it's "Koromon, digivolve to: Agumon!"

In Japanese, it's "Koromon SHINKAAAAAAAA!!! Agumon!"

I admit, ever since the first time I watched this in subs, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the bloodcurdling battle roar of "SHINKAAAAAAA!!!" every time they evolve in Japanese.

While Kuwagamon gets dogpiled by Child-stage Digimon as the Digimon theme song blazes in the background, let's take a moment to go over each of their new names.

Agumon: "Aguaguagu". The sound of biting. Gabumon: A type of puppet used in Kabuki theater. Piyomon: "Piyopiyopiyopiyo". The sound of tweeting. Tentomon: Tentoumushi, a type of ladybug. Gomamon: Gomafu azarashi, a type of seal. Palmon: A play on "palm", a kind of tree. Patamon: "Patapatapatapata", the sound of flapping wings.

The English version replaces the roaring Digimon theme song with some generic fight music.

With Kuwagamon successfully fended off, the vibe of this scene is pure tension-relieving jubilation. The dub slides in Izzy saying, "They made vaporware out of him," and goddammit, that got me. XD The important thing is that Kuwagamon is gone and everyone is safe forev--

Oh, never mind. Everyone fucks off a cliff and probably dies and that's where we leave off episode 1. This sequence features possibly the funniest "Easing Up on the Peril" edit in this entire episode. As Kuwagamon slams his pincers into the edge of the cliff side to send them hurtling to their doom, the English version splices in random still frames of the kids looking tough to show this is no big deal and they can handle themselves in this mess!

Izzy standing there like "GRRR I'm a big strong American boy and they build us TOUGH over here! Me and mah gun can TAKE gravity!"

Before ending on the exact same shot of everyone falling to their doom anyway.

Either way, this is where the episode leaves off. The kids have been transported to this mysterious location. They have no idea where they are, how they got here, or why. They were terrorized around the forest, and now they're all falling to their doom.

This sets the stage for what this adventure is going to be like. This is not a magical journey of whimsey and effortless victories. These children are in extreme peril and nobody is coming to save them.

Man, File Island sucks. I'm with English Joe. If I was one of these kids' parents, I'd be demanding a refund too. Worst camping trip ever.

[happyunbday2u]

So finally remembering that I watched IF I decided to take another look at the cast and oh my god have I forgotten the amount of people I recognize so here’s a random shitpost about the people I forgot/didn’t realize were in the movie

First of all John Krasinski not only played Bea’s dad but the burning marshmallow

Steve Carell voiced Blue and it wasn’t hard to distinguish his voice

Phoebe Waller-Bridge voiced Blossom

Emily Blunt voiced Unicorn

Matt Damon voiced Sunny, can’t believe they got Jason Bourne to play a sunflower therapist

Sam Rockwell as Guardian Dog which is kinda ironic cause he voices Mr. Wolf in The Bad Guys

Christopher Meloni voiced Cosmo which is fitting since he played Elliot Stabler in Law and Order so I’m 100% certain that while creating Cosmo they were like “Hey we should get that one dude from Law and Order to voice him” also the mental imagine of him in a sound booth yelling “CLOAK AND DAGGER” is funny to me

Awkwafina voiced Pop and like Steve it was easy to tell it was her

Blake Lively voiced Octopuss

George Clooney as Spaceman, the space joke was funny to me

Bradley Cooper as Ice, went from voicing a raccoon to a glass of ice

Amy Schumer voiced Gummy Bear, loved her in Trolls (she voiced Velvet)

Keegan-Micheal Key as Slime who reminds me of the Bounty Paper commercials

Bill Hader as the Banana

And lastly Brad Pitt as Keith, nice to see the original Ocean’s 11 trio in a movie again.

[utilitycaster]

You mentioned it briefly a few months ago (but it lives rent free in my head sorry!) that the most popular ship from this campaign has almost only AU fanfics and it's really telling me something about the characters from c3, that there is just really nothing to explore about them.

So here's the thing. I do not think the characters aren't worth exploring! There's been good character work (a lot of which gets ignored, actually, because it's not what many of the people who insist that C3 is their favorite as they slowly turn into a corncob want*; see basically anyone on Twitter about Orym), it's just not central to the plot.

I stand by what I originally said and which was validated at a recent Q&A panel: the cast wasn't told that this was going to be the Moon Plot Campaign (they were just told pulpier and deadlier) and Laura wasn't told that Imogen would be as central a character as she was. So I think we have characters who could have, for the most part, had a character-driven campaign around them, but it became clear relatively early on that this was the Moon Plot campaign and that wouldn't be the focus; and because to get all of his ducks in a row for the Moon Plot Matt had to take a heavier hand with the rails and as a result the party didn't have a ton of bonding time early on because they were always taking NPC missions/being ferried around in an airship with no need for watch conversations, and it's hard to go back and fill in those interactions later, which is why they've sort of fallen out of the habit.

With respect to the ship...the thing is, I genuinely believe it could have been good. The reason I'm not a fan of imo/dna isn't because I think the characters aren't good (well, my feelings on Laudna are documented but I do think Imogen is a great character). It's because, ironically enough, every barrier between them did get removed all too quickly in the service of Cottage Endgame and as a result I think many of the people who wanted that are like "wait...that's it?" Like, the gnarlrock fight fizzled out only for the same conflict to come up briefly with Ishta (swordgate) 70 episodes later and be resolved a day later in-game. When they reunited I was like you know what would have made this good? If Laudna had remained angry in episode 65 and turned Imogen down which Laura 100% expected to happen, because they hadn't talked about this and they were awkwardly trying to deal with unresolved feelings for 30+ episodes and perhaps Laudna actually leaned into Delilah wholeheartedly during that time and realized she had feelings for Imogen after all, while Imogen was simultaneously struggling with that rejection and realizing Laudna was going into a dark place but didn't feel like she could get involved, and they both leaned more (platonically) on other characters and Swordgate was the point where Laudna said "oh no, I'm becoming too much of a problem and I do want Imogen to like me" and the soul anchor felt like a culmination of a deeply felt struggle instead of a quick fix for something that had only inconvenienced her a few times and led to a 20 hour long minor spat at best? If we actually got a fucking slowburn? It would have been great! Turns out if you always go for the instant gratification, it makes for a story without any tension! And now we're watching people who were always clamoring for skipping to the good part realizing that in doing so we skipped all the buildup that makes it the good part. There could have been something to explore. It was not explored.

*I think that there are people who for whatever reason do legitimately prefer Campaign 3 for whatever reasons and are in earnest and this isn't about them. While I don't share their tastes I support them and their feelings; we all have our preferences. This is about the people who are already visibly setting up the groundwork for a dramatic rage quit that will make copious, wildly incorrect use of the term "neoliberal" if the campaign ends with the gods still in place while still insisting this is definitely the best campaign and making absolutely brainless statements about prior campaigns not being as political even though this is the least politically inclined or aware group by a country mile. I think the lesson from the above and from here is that you really cannot have your cake and eat it too.

[fractualized]

Who do I speak to for a live action Batman scene in which Wayne Manor is infiltrated while Alfred is cooking dinner, and he fights the intruders off using only kitchen equipment? And not so much with knives– that's no fun– but he captures an attacker's knife with a pair of tongs. He uses a frying pan as a bullet shield. He smashes a saucepan of roux in an intruder's face and clangs the back of another's skull with cast iron. He pins a guy against the fridge with a rolling pin to the throat. He breaks someone's hand with a meat tenderizer. People are dodging ramekins left and right. By the end, the last attacker is cowering before Alfred, who raises a ladle over his head and demands to know who these bastards work for.

Matt Reeves, anyone, are you out there?!

[cannonball5]

I had a crazy casting idea and it morphed into a whole thing and I decided to share. So with the success of Deadpool & Wolverine it’s only a matter of time before Marvel properly introduces the X-Men into the MCU. Now one of the big selling points of comic books and by extension their movies, is the exploration of characters and also all the drama they get into (some of the greatest comics of all time have little to do with fighting but our characters going through something tragic, like Death in the Family for Batman or Demon in the Bottle for Iron Man). Comics have even been described (accurately) as Soap Operas with capes. Anyway one of the biggest roles for the X-Men is Cyclops which is a tough character to pull off because he has to at times be your stereotypical Boy Scout while also having to be just The Worst. Cyclops is a complex character and the movies have never quite gotten him right, But I have hope for the MCU. Anyway I thought about who should play him and I think steering away from big names would be the best choice, so a younger actor who I think could pull off Cyclops, Matt Cornett.

Matt doesn’t quite have the biggest name recognition but I think that’s for the best. Plus he looks like Cyclops a little bit. Anyway one of his more well known roles is on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series where he played EJ Caswell who kind of goes through all of Cyclops’s greatest personality traits but toned down, so I think he can pull off the deeper aspects of Scott Summers very well.

Anyway, as I was thinking about him being Cyclops it hit me that the MCU could do something really interesting with the Classic Cyclops-Jean Grey-Wolverine love triangle. This is of course under the assumption Dafne Keen continues playing Laura Kinney/X-23 and takes up the mantle of Wolverine which she does in the comics.

So in the comics there are some hints that Laura is bisexual or at least bi-curious (she seems to have some interest in Jubilee) so we have an interesting dynamic with the classic X-Men love triangle, but much more interesting is the fact that it could be an actual love triangle. Instead of just Wolverine and Cyclops fighting for Jean Grey there could also be some romantic tension between them as well.

I think it’d be an interesting idea if they went for it but idk maybe I’m crazy. Maybe it’s just a crazy late night shower thought