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tacitcantos · 5 years ago

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Why 2019′s Twilight Zone is Boring

Though 70 years old at this point, the original 1950 Rod Sterling Twilight Zone is still one of the creepiest and smartest works of speculative and weird fiction ever committed to TV. It’s a series that poses strange questions and offers even stranger answers, a series that’s moody and atmospheric and thought provoking, a dark parable that’s gone on to inspire other works of weird fiction.

It’s no wonder then that there have been so many attempts throughout the years to revive it: a movie in 1983, a series in 1985, and another series in 2002. Each has been greeted with varying levels of critical success, but none have been as culturally impactful as the original.

The 2019 remake... won’t be breaking that tradition.

Don’t get me wrong, the new Twilight Zone has a distressing amount of quality and talent involved. The cast is solid throughout, and the only reason certain episodes work at all is the powerful performances of the actors involved. There’s also a nice push for racial diversity in the cast, and sometimes in the themes of a few of the episodes like Replay and The Traveler.

The visuals of each of the ten episodes are gorgeous and moody, and the music wonderful and atmospheric and reminiscent of the discordant jangles and strings of the late and great 2013 Hannibal tv show. It’s a lot of quality to be draped on a fundamentally flawed structure.

To understand the fundamental flaw in the new series, we have to go back to the original Rod Sterling Twilight Zone. And the thing that has to be understood about the original series is that it’s not science fiction despite looking like it on the surface.

Science Fiction

Though there are dozens of definitions of science fiction, at its core one of the key aspects of science fiction is that it introduces a technology or technologies we don’t have in the modern day, and it explores and maps out the impact and implications they’d have on individuals and society.

For example, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov is interested in the implications of what sentient artificial intelligence means for our understanding of personhood, how an AI would define and think about itself, and how society would go about trying to control it, leading to the three laws of robotics for which the book is most famous.

This definition of science fiction is also why something like Star Wars, at its heart, is not science fiction despite having a lot of the trappings of it. It has a lot of technologies that don’t exist in the modern day, but it’s not interested in the impact of them. It has lightsabers because they’re cool, not because it wants to speculate about how they would change warfare.

Even the implications of the force, the speculative aspect of its universe that’s most critical to the story, isn’t really explored. How does the force change the universe? You get mystical samurai cops, and that’s about it. Nothing about the force is actually key to the functioning of the star wars universe. You could take it out and the movies would be a lot less fun, but the universe wouldn’t really be changed. This isn’t to disparage Star Wars: I love Star Wars, but despite its trappings it’s fantasy, and to say it’s science fiction just isn't accurate.

Parable

Much like Star Wars, despite its trappings The Twilight Zone isn’t science fiction. But it’s not fantasy either. The Twilight Zone is a much older and simpler form of story. It’s a parable. Each episode is a self contained story of right and wrong, with the strange or impossible element there to hammer home a message, not be explored.

All three of these genres we’ve talked about, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and parable, have strengths and weaknesses unique to them. One of the strengths of a parable is its clarity. There’s right and wrong, and not a lot else to be said. Almost by necessity, parables have to be streamlined and simple in structure. In a parable there’s a message or lesson and the story is really just a vehicle to illustrate it.

The parable of the boy who cried wolf doesn’t go into the emotional underpinnings of why a boy would consistently sound a false alarm over and over again, because it’s not important. Did he have an abusive childhood? Was it a metaphor for trying to escape abuse and the unwillingness of society to listen? Is the wolf symbolically his abuser? The parable doesn’t care and it isn’t important to the point it’s trying to make; don’t sound false alarms or no one will pay attention to you when the threat is real.

Simplicity of Structure

The original 1950’s Twilight Zone understood that simplicity of structure was key to a successful parable: each episode was a half hour in length; just long enough for setup, twist, and falling action. You can tell this simple structure was key to the Twilight Zone’s success because most of what people remember about any given Twilight Zone episode is the ending.

And while having such a simple structure might seem restrictive, I’d argue that not only is it the most effective way of telling a parable, but that there’s a lot of freedom in structure, that the simplicity of the structure allowed Rod Sterling and the other writers to grapple with issues other shows on TV couldn’t at the time, and allowed the episodes to breath in the grace notes.

And exhibit A in my argument is the new Twilight Zone.

Where the original Twilight Zone was a half hour, the 2019 incarnation is twice that length at an hour. And while I’m sure the writers and producers thought that was a great chance to expand and tell a more complete and complicated story than the original show, what it actually does is put the episodes in an uncomfortable limbo. They’re too long to be able to embrace the simplicity of the original show, that structure of setup twist and falling action, and too short to really be able to explore the core concept and theme of each episode. There’s a reason most movies aren’t an hour long, and that’s because it’s simply not a conducive length for telling a good story. With each episode of the New Twilight Zone I found myself bored around the thirty minute mark, impatient for the twist out of curiosity but not really invested in the characters or plot.

Not All Men

Episode 7, Not All Men, is a good example of the problems the extended run time of the new Twilight Zone can cause. The core concept is that there’s a meteor that falls and causes all men in the area to become violent. This is sort of a dumb concept to begin with, but not completely doomed. The main character even goes through some growth. She starts the episode unassertive and meek in the face of the patriarchal hierarchy of the company she works at and ends it standing up for herself against male harassment:

This isn’t an inherently bad arc, but it’s execution is pitiful, without enough weight for we the audience to become invested in. We never get any real indication of why the character starts the way she does, what her life experience has been to shape her into who she is, and there’s no sacrifice or growth involved in her change.

If the episode was longer it could’ve delved into that material, made the main character a fully realized and three dimensional person that we could’ve become invested in and root for, but as the episode stands she and her growth are more perfunctory than anything else. She’s meek, she runs from agro dudes for a bit, then stands up for herself.

The twist of the episode also isn’t worth waiting a whole hour for. At the climax of the episode it’s revealed that while the meteor makes men more violent, it’s not an overriding urge: the episode implies that the affected men didn’t resist simply because they wanted an excuse to inflict violence. But, because the twist comes so late, its not really given enough time to breathe and be explored in a meaningful way.

Simple Messages

This ties into another fundamental problem with the 2019 series, which is that it isn’t anywhere near as smart as it thinks it is. Often the idea or message at the heart of an episode is borderline offensive in how simple it is. By trying to avoid destiny you create it? Paranoia is bad? You should care about the suffering of others? Mind boggling. Truly.

They’re not bad messages, but they’re simple. And the television audience of 2019 isn’t the audience of 1959: the modern audience is more schooled and experienced with scifi and weird fiction. We’re not shocked or provoked into thought anymore just by the introduction of a weird element like your car coming to life and stalking you. It’s not enough.

This isn’t to say audiences of 1959 were dumb, but the discourse around scifi and weird fiction for even the casual tv watcher of today is a lot more complex than it was back then. We’re not in the 101 level anymore, more like the 103 level: we’ve seen the initial introduction of most ideas, seen them explored and challenged and subverted, and are now bored by those first two levels of discussion.

This is why the core message of an episode like Point of Origin, in which refugees from another world are rounded up and placed in concentration camps, falls flat. The episode follows a woman who’s privileged life is stripped from her when a government agency identifies her as an unwitting refugee from another dimension, and imprisons her in a concentration camp.

The episode’s message isn’t subtle: you should care about the suffering as others, you should treat immigrants as people: and that even before her fall from grace the woman should’ve cared more about the fate of her immigrant housekeeper and illegal immigrants broadly.

It’s not a bad message, and it’s one that a mind boggling amount of people nowadays somehow still don’t understand, but from a fictive perspective it’s too simple and trite to spark interest and engagement or make the audience think.

Preach Fatigue

And it’s also a message we’ve heard several thousand times. The way we consume information nowadays is different from when the original Twilight Zone first aired; the discourse around topics like immigration or gender nowadays is in many ways saturated and as an audience we suffer from a type of preach fatigue where we’ve been told so many times the given side of a given topic is bad or good that we’ve sort of stopped listening.

This wasn’t as much of an issue in 1960, and it especially wasn’t an issue with the Twilight Zone. Back then scifi and weird fiction wasn’t considered a mode of serious social commentary in the tv arena, which meant The Twilight Zone could lure audiences in for a fun and spooky time, their cognitive defenses lowered, and then sucker punch them with something deeper than what they expected.

That advantage of bypassing and audiences preach defenses is completely lost in 2019’s Twilight Zone. We all know that science fiction can effectively tackle big issues, and we know the deal with The Twilight Zone specifically: that it’s going to have a twist in the last act that makes us question our complicity in some social issue. Our preach fatigue hackles are already raised.

In 1960 the Twilight Zone was adding a new element to the discussion, but now, the social topics it was concerned with are are so heavily examined that to do truly do a comparable job, it needed to be way, way more clever than Point of Origin’s premise of "imagine its aliens instead of Mexicans". To be as effective as the original, 2019’s Twilight Zone really needed to tackle issues that are less clear cut than men having a choice in their violent behavior or whether illegal immigrants deserve basic human rights, issues that are less overtly preachy because they’re less discussed.

For example, Point of Origin actually has the kernel of a complex and interesting idea in it, it just doesn’t do anything in it. In the episode as it is now the main character’s fall from grace serves largely as a kind of gotcha moment of the irony in how the tables have turned, but in a better version of the episode her arc could be used to explore the idea that social lines are largely arbitrary and fickle, and that whether you’re part of a group or not can change on a whim.

It’s an idea that’s worth examining the facets of, the causes and effects of how and why and where social lines are erected, and one that’s more complex than Point of Origin’s trite message about how you should treat immigrants like people. There’s more material there for an audience to chew on and engage with, and one that’s less preachy and more thought provoking.

Metaphor and Censorship

Another element that made the Twilight Zone successful and relevant in 1959 but doesn’t really apply today, is the issue of censorship. In 1959 what could be portrayed on screen, and which topics could be explored was far less permissive than it is today.

There’s an interview with Rod Sterling right before The Twilight Zone first aired where he talks about being tired of clashing with sponsors and executives over what content and social issues his screenplays could include. One example he brings up comes from a teleplay on the Nuremberg trials in which the company American Gas insisted on an edit:

“In it as you recall, mention was made of gas chambers. And the line was deleted, cut off the soundtrack. And it mattered little to these guys that the gas involved in concentration camps was cynanide which bore no resemblance physical or otherwise to the gas used in stoves. They cut the line.”

“Because the sponsor was-”

“They did not want that awful association made between what was the horror and misery of Nazi Germany with the nice chrome, wonderfully antiseciptically clean beautiful kitchen appliance that they were selling.”

But just as with the point about the lack of complexity in it’s themes, the new Twilight Zone exists in a different era than the original. We’re at a point in television and fiction where creators don’t have to bow as much to advertisers or censors and can actually just say what they mean. Point of Origin doesn’t need to veil it’s message about immigrants and their demonization in scifi terms; it could just tell a story about real world immigrants and refugees. This doesn’t mean it has to be bereft of weird elements, those still have a valid role to play, but it does mean it can address the issues it’s about head on and directly, and I’d argue there’s value in that kind of clarity.

Some people will make an argument that veiling issues in scifi metaphors lowers an audience member’s kneejerk defenses and lets them look at an issue stripped of their preconceptions and prejudices. And there’s certainly a tradition of creators using weird fiction to try and accomplish that.

Rod Sterling himself spoke about it in several interviews throughout his career, though he seems to have been somewhat split on the utility of using scifi metaphors. At one point he said about audiences:

“You may have to tell them a story of prejudice in parable form in which they may step aside as third persons and cluck how awful we treat our minority groups but at least they know that it’s an evil, and they will recognize it as such. And by osmosis or some incredible process will somewhere along the line, be faced with a situation in which they too may have to exorcise a prejudice and be conscious of it as an evil.”

“Now on Twilight Zone for example, we made a comment on prejudice, on conformity, on intolerance, on censorship, but it’s easy to do it when you’re talking about Buck Rogers isn’t allowed to write his memoirs in the way he wants to write them so he puts on his backpack, his rocket pack, and he zooms over to the publisher. And they applaud and laugh and think how interesting. Now it may well be that the inner message never gets through, but I think peripherally it does get through.”

But in that same interview Sterling also emphasizes the need for clarity, immediacy, and hitting the audience where they live when discussing social issues:

“I think the- the purpose, the point of a dramatic show that’s used as a vehicle of social criticism is to involve an audience, to show them wherein their guilt lies, or at least indeed their association.

This latter point is the one I think is more valid. I’d argue that veiling real world social issues through weird fiction metaphors to make audiences think is a nice sentiment, it’s not a particularly effective technique, and often the metaphor simply goes over people’s heads.

How many red-hatted build-a-wall-enthusiasts watched Point of Origin and thought to themselves after; “yeah, you know what, immigrants aren’t so bad and we shouldn’t round them up into concentration camps.” I’d argue none. It’s far, far too easy for an audience member to simply think that sure, in this case what happened was unfair, but this real world case is different for x y and z reasons, no matter how insignificant those x y z differences are to the core situation.

Fundamentally, people are simply very, very good at ignoring and minimizing information that destabilizes their world view, and it’s relatively simple to do it with fiction. And none of the new Twilight Zone episodes are pointed enough to break through that cognitive barrier.

Get Out (Or In...?)

What’s ironic, is that for all that Jordan Peele shows up in the new Twilight Zone, his own movie Get Out is a far more effective blueprint of what the Twilight Zone should be, and a good contrast to it. To begin with, the scifi concept at the heart of it, that there’s an enclave of rich white people stealing black people’s bodies for themselves, is a manifestation of a complex and nuanced form of racism that often isn’t acknowledged or discussed.

Racism is generally thought of as a simple dislike or belief in the inferiority of another race, and while that’s accurate as far as it goes, racism can also fetishize or simply allow for superior traits in the othered racial group while still denying the people themselves their agency and basic humanity. It’s a form of racism that was one of the bedrocks of slavery, that as an institution it perfectly paired black bodily strength with white intellect, and you can see a modern expression of it in how until recenly most quarterbacks are white while the offensive line black, the black members serving as the muscle to the quarterbacks mind.

The racism at the center of Get Out is a far more complex and nuanced than Point of Origin’s message about treating immigrants like people. It complicates most people’s understanding of racism as the simple belief that races that aren’t their own are inferior, and makes us question our complicity and assumptions: as much as we don’t think other races our worse than our own, are we as careful about how we assume parts of them may be better while still not valuing their core humanity?

At 144 minutes, Get Out also not only has enough time to explore this idea, but also to breathe and build to its twist and flesh out its main character. Unlike Not All Men’s main character, Get Out’s main character is a real and multifaceted person with weight and history, and goes through a coherent character arc. We never get a concrete reason for why Not All Men’s main character starts the episode meek, which makes her blurry and poorly defined: by contrast, we’re shown Get Out’s main character was traumatized by what he feels was his complicity in his mother’s death, which gives his eventual overcoming of it real emotional heft.

The alternate ending of Get Out even threads his emotional growth through the themes of racism: despite having his body imprisoned, the main character is mentally free, an inverse of the fate he would’ve suffered at the hands of the Armitage family. Here’s director Jordan Peele explaining the scene:

“He beat the dragon, but more importantly for Chris when he says ‘I beat it’ he’s talking about his inner demon. And that was the moment he went back for Georgina after hitting her in the car, he defeated his personal demon of when he didn’t go and get his mother. So in a way he made the only decision that would free his soul. And even though he’s in prison like many black men are unjustly in, his soul is free.”

Get Out also has the advantage of being in a genre that, just like the original Twilight Zone, isn’t oversaturated with serious political commentary. While there are smart and socially intelligent horror movies out there, many people still think of them as dumb fun, and thus Get Out can effectively draw you in with the promise of cheap thrill before sucker punching you with depth and message.

Get Out has clear cut right and wrong, it’s not like we don’t know who to root for and who is evil, but these three elements together, a complex theme, a real character, and low expectations, save Get Out from the preach fatigue I talked about before and from which the 2019 Twilight Zone suffers so heavily.

Ultimately, 2019’s Twilight Zone feels like an outdated show, stiff and limited and slow. Worse, it’s boring, which is really the greatest sin. It’s stuck in an uncomfortable limbo both in terms of era and length; it’s mired in the past trying to emulate a tv show that’s sixty years old at this point while also upending its structure and replacing it with one that’s incompatible with what it’s trying to imitate.

#twilight zone #2019 twilight zone #new twilight zone #get out #jordan peele

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parkaiur · 6 years ago

Text

The Dark Hour - Seunghun

❀ Fantasy, fluff, & action

❀ Word Count: 9.2 K

❀ Every day at midnight, Earth opens up a portal to an unknown underground lair that leaks monsters: demons, goblins, hellhounds and more. The catch? It only happens for one extra hour after midnight, called the Dark Hour and it’s only open to a handful of people, the same people. One night, you find yourself snuggling up to your Winnie the pooh blanket, only to be greeted by a rabid, three-headed dog shooting through your window.

❀ A/N: .. I didnt mean to write this much but omg i hope you guys enjoy this cuz it took a while !! :D tell me what you think of it ! :)

-------

11:35 pm

“Did you take out the trash? It’s almost the Dark Hour.” My mom hummed. I rolled my eyes and spat out the toothpaste in my mouth.

“Mom, don’t be so dramatic, the Dark Hour is only open to a small group of people who are like freaky mixed martial artists or some weird whatever.” I said while tying up my hair into a high pony.

I walked out of my room and saw my mom sitting at the dinner table knitting a scarf. She slapped my butt as I walked past her. “I’m not dramatic! It’s still scary knowing that for one hour, we disappear as other people can see the entire world.”

I just sighed and grabbed a jacket. I pulled out all the trash and slipped on my shoes. “Ok mom, think whatever you want, I’ll be back in like 5 seconds and no monsters will be in my way.” I shut the door and walked into the cold winter air. I whistled on my way, feeling calm.

As soon as I could think, I knew the world I was living in. Every day at midnight, Earth opens up a portal to an unknown underground lair that leaks monsters: demons, goblins, hellhounds and more, The catch? It only happens for one extra hour after midnight, called the Dark Hour and it’s only open to a handful of people, but only the same people.

My mom was one of the many people who were afraid of portal opening up to normal humans as well.. Somehow, those who were chosen to hunt these monsters were trained. Most of them who went through the Dark Hour came back alive. They had hid the Dark Hour for a long time until more and more people were being called to fight.

But normal people never get sucked in. All the Hunters know they would be called, so they prepared for it. No one knows why this happens, but I wasn’t about to argue about why normal humans weren’t called.

I tossed the trash away and looked around. I sighed as I saw nothing spooky, just the normal neighbors who had not yet taken down their Christmas lights. Mom is scared for nothing.

I walked back in and dusted my hands off. “Yeah mom, totally fought off a seven foot demon, such hard work.” I faked yawned and stretched out my limbs to add to my act. She tsked and threw piece of string at me. “Whatever miss sass, just go to bed, you have a long day at work tomorrow.” I sighed, but knew she was right.

“Ok, ok, night mom. I will see you in the morning. Sleep, soon, alright, so that the monsters don’t get yo-” She picked up her stuff and walked into her room, sick of my sarcasm. I chuckled but knew she was just being dramatic. There were absolute zero cases of normal people attending the Dark Hour, so what was she so scared of?

I shrugged out of my jacket and straightened out my bed. I pulled my winnie the pooh blanket closer and shut my eyes.

I listened to the soft sound of the wind blowing outside. It was a peaceful night: no rain, no snow, no anything. I was grateful because I had a long day tomorrow.

I lulled off to bed, feeling myself falling into a dream.

*BOOM*

My eyes shot open.

What was tha-

Before I could finish my thought, a loud crash erupted throughout my room, waking me up fully.

“What the fuck!?” I screamed. I grabbed the pepper spray and turned.

Bad idea. As I turned to face my window, I saw blood and lots of unknown liquid surrounding it. And on the ground I saw a rabid, three-headed dog glaring me down. I screamed and fell back into my bed, dropping my pepper spray.

“GET DOWN!” I didn’t know where the voice came from, but I was acting purely on instinct now. I jumped off my bed and into the corner of my room. I heard loud gunshot noises, but as I looked up, I saw lasers shooting through the air.

I shut my eyes and huddled against the wall. What is going on? What is happening-

“HEY! What are you doing?!” I heard the same voice yell at me. I heard footsteps nearing me, making me gasp in surprise. I grabbed my pepper spray and raised it, turning my face away from the intruder like I was taught in self-defense class. “What the...” The person, who I recognized as a male, grabbed my spray, and tossed it.

“Don’t hurt-”

As I turned my face towards the intruder, I was shocked. I was staring at a tall, brown-haired boy with warm and serious eyes. He was wearing all black and had a some sort of vest over him, similar to a bulletproof one. If this was another situation, I would be very happy about a hot guy standing in my room, but I couldn’t because I was almost killed.

“What were you planning to do with that pepper spray? Kill me? What a lousy weapon!” The boy exclaimed annoyedly. I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Well excuse me, it’s not like I carry guns in my room or something!” I spat back, suddenly irritated with his behavior. He shot me a look, saying I was dumb.

“You definitely should start doing that, what do you plan on fighting with? Did you just forget to get in uniform before midnight? And were you just sleeping? How irresponsible of you.” He spat while cleaning off his knives as he paced around my room.

I squinted my eyes at him. All black uniform. Guns and other weapons on his person. Intense gaze. Killed a three-headed dog.

“Fuck... it’s the Dark Hour.” I whispered. He scoffed and shook his head.

“Well, duh, it is midnight. Wait...” He stopped speaking and stared at me intensely. “This can’t be...” He started walking over to me and grabbed my wrist, pulling me close to him. “Is this your first time in the Dark Hour?”

I nodded, scared of what was going on. “Yup. Very first.” His eyes widened in surprise, dropping my wrist.

“How old are you?”

“I’m eighteen.”

He then kicked a desk and yelled, “Shit!” I flinched at his kick, but I still was numb. How could I be here? I’m not a Hunter-

“So you’re not a Hunter?” I shook my head slowly. His gaze turned distraught and he groaned in distress loudly.

Then, he turned to look at me very seriously.

“If you’re not a Hunter, you’re going to die out there.” He pointed outside to where I saw numerous monsters walking around. Blood was oozing all over the streets and I saw other quick, agile, strong, Hunters fighting them off. That was not me.

I really was going to die.

“Well, fuck, I can’t go out there then!” I protested.

He shook his head. “You have no choice! They will come here and find you, only more will come. They are addicted to the smell of blood, we only have a short amount of time until the Hunters down there lose track of one and it comes back up here.” I could tell he was frustrated as he paced around my room, wondering what to do with me.

Then, he stopped and looked at me seriously once more. “Ok, my first priority is surviving. My second is dealing with whoever you are, but if you were called to the Dark Hour, then you must have some fight in you.”

I shrugged and caught the gun he threw in my hand. “Or so we hope.” He scoffed.

“Yeah, or so we hope.”

❀ ❀ ❀

It’s like the whole world was cracked open. None of the streetlights were on, yet I could see perfectly fine.

“No electricity works in the Dark Hour.” He informed like he was talking to a child. Suddenly, I saw a glimpse of some skin as his long sleeve caught in the wind.

“You have lots of tattoos.” I noted. He glared at me.

“You have the same ones. Everyone in the Dark Hour has them. It acts as protection from the monsters.” At his words, I rolled up my hoodie and saw the same black swirls he had all over his arm. I gasped and yanked it back down. “It’ll fade when the hour is over. Now, if you see a monster, shoot it. If it doesn’t die, shout my name.”

“And what would that be?” He smiled and shook his head.

“It’s Seunghun.” I nodded. “I’m y/n.” Before I could say anything else, a dark and shadowy figure appeared out of nowhere. I raised my gun and shot it, five times in the head. I felt shaky as it fell to the ground.

“Oh my god, I just killed someo-”

“Don’t finish that sentence.” He snapped. I nodded and shut my mouth. I wouldn’t anger a Hunter. “You just killed a demon. Something that would have killed you if you hadn’t killed it first.” He gripped my shoulder, pulling me together. I nodded and hid my fear. He then gave me hard pats on the back. I tried not to cough as he started to run towards something.

I held my gun to the ground in fear I would accidentally shoot him.

“Seunghun, who’s your new friend?” Someone shouted over to him. I looked over and saw another boy who looked a bit younger than Seunghun. I noted his smiling face and goofy nature. I wondered how he was a Hunter.

“Her name is y/n, and she’s not a Hunter. I’ll explain later but first we need to protect her.” The other boy’s jaw dropped.

“Woah woah woah wait, you’re normal?!” He basically screamed. I nodded while his face turned to an ash color. “Oh shit, is this is what the government are resorting to? Great.”

Wait..

“Did you just say government?” The two boys looked at each other and laughed.

“We’ll explain later, but the way, I’m Jihoon.” I reached out to shake his hand, but realized it was covered in monster juice. I cringed and pulled my hand back. “It’s fine, I forgot you were new here.”

As Jihoon was talking, he turned and took out his sword simultaneously, slicing the monster in half. I gulped as monster guts splashed everywhere. The childish boy turned and smiled. “A giant cyclops, hah.”

Seunghun rolled his eyes and took on another monster making a mad dash at him. Soon, chaos erupts. Multiple monsters came out of nowhere, running at us and other Hunters.

“Oh shit, Jihoon-”

“Got her.” The boy pulled me close to him while shooting other demons and monsters I couldn’t even recognize. I saw a monster run at me and I raised my gun to shoot it down.

It kept getting closer and closer to me. I kept shooting, but it seemed like it had no damage on the monster.

Suddenly, I saw Seunghun run front of me and rip out the heart of the monster. My eyes widened in surprise. “The only way you can kill that thing is ripping out it’s heart, it has no name but we call it the Ripping.”

“Why the Ripping?” I asked as I raised my gun to shoot a normal demon.

“‘Cause it’ll try and rip off your head if you don’t rip out it’s heart first.”

Seunghun then threw a dagger right by my head, hitting a monster I assume.

I let out a sigh of relief as he chuckled. “Don’t worry, you’re not strong enough for me to kill.” I glared at him, but he was right. I had no skill whatsoever. I just needed this hour to be over.

Soon, my wish came true as the monsters started to disappear.

“Finally, I just wanna sleep.” Jihoon said while stretching his arms in the air. Another Hunter smacked him on the head. “Shut up, Jihoon. You gotta enjoy the fight.”

Jihoon glared at the other boy and stuck his tongue out. “Byounggon, not all of us were born fighters.”

“Actually, we all were, that’s why we’re here.” Another Hunter pointed out. This one was quite short and had bright blonde hair.

“Actually, Hyunsuk, the girl isn’t. It’s her first Dark Hour and she’s never even picked up a gun before.” Jihoon laughed while the two Hunters started at me in surprise.

“Wow... how did you even survive.” I tried to shrug, but I could barely move my muscles.

“Probably only because I met Seunghun first and he gave me a gun. And saved me from a three-headed dog who tried to kill me.” The boys let out a bark of laughter as if I told a really funny story.

“Ah, Seunghun, our local prince, always helping girls in distress.” Byounggon teased while poking him on the side. Seunghun shook his head, tired of their teasing.

“Anyways, y/n, the hour is up in about one minute. You are going to wake up in your bed, which I presume your last location was before you were pulled in. No one else will remember this except us and the other Hunters.”

The others nodded as if it was weird to explain this once again. “You are not allowed to speak of the events to any normal people, ever. Of course, the normies know of us, but they really have no clue what Hunters do or what we fight.”

I nodded, trying to soak up all of this information.

“Will I still be here tomorrow night?” My question silenced him as he had no response.

“You may be, you may not, to be honest, this is as new to us as it is for you.” Hyunsuk noted carefully.

“Will I see you guys again? Do you guys see each other in real life?”

The boys shrugged. “I’ve never seen one of these guys in the normal world. We are sometimes transported to different locations if it’s busier, so it’s always changing, and-”

Before Seunghun could finish, I felt myself being pulled by an invisible hand. I held in my gasp as I felt the covers underneath my body. I shot up from my bed and turned on my lamp. I grabbed my phone from my shelf and checked the time.

12:00.

❀ ❀ ❀

I couldn’t sleep all night. How was one to sleep after they had just fought in the Dark Hour? And had no experience whatsoever.

My mom was right to be worried. If I was pulled in, I wondered if anyone else was in danger. Or if those normal people had survived. I wouldn’t have if I had never met up with Seunghun.

But I couldn’t dwell in it. I was back in reality and had a job to go to at 9am. Too early for anyone to get up.

“You look like shit.” Was the first greeting I heard from my co-worker, Mashiho. I glared at the pretty boy and flipped him off.

“You are shit.” I snapped back. I pulled on my apron and tied up my hair. He made claw movements and meowed like a cat. “Wow, someone is catty this morning.”

I resisted the urge to backhand the boy against the wall. “Not in the mood, Mashiho.”

Every day, Mashiho and I would bicker about something. Mostly because he an annoying prick and I was sarcastic and snappy.

Mashiho laughed and started fill the cases with food items. “Why? Late night with a lucky fellow?” He wiggled his eyebrows as I flicked him on the forehead. “OW!”

I sighed and started to fill the case on the other side of the cash register. “No, just I couldn’t sleep, ok? Just one of those nights I guess.” My words came out more sluggish than usual as I had gotten virtually only one hour of sleep.

“Well, be careful not to fall asleep today. It’s holiday season and people will want cakes and pastries for whatever reason.” I rolled my eyes and nodded.

“I’ll be fine.” Confused at his kindly spoken words. I probably looked worse than I thought if Mashiho wasn’t annoying me.

Soon, the clock hit 9 and I flipped the closed sign to open.

I sighed at the long shift ‘til 5 was about to begin. I knew I shouldn’t have worked during the holidays.

❀ ❀ ❀

The day was going smoothly, despite the business. Even though I constantly had the urge to punch Mashiho in the face, we worked well together.

The shop started to slow down as it neared 5pm. “I need a coffee.” Mashiho whined while walking into the break room. I rolled my eyes and kept at the cash register.

As no one new was coming in the shop, my thoughts drifted back to the Dark Hour. Seunghun danced into my mind as I pictured him in his attractive Hunter uniform.

Stop, you cannot think about a boy who you met in the Dark Hour. If life goes right, you’ll never see him ever again.

Suddenly, I heard the bell on the door ring, making my head shoot up.

“Hi, welcome to...” My voice trailed off as I saw the person in front of me.

His eyes widened in surprise as well. “Seunghun.” I stated. He gave me a kind and surprised smile. “Y/N.”

“Hey, David is asking where the mop is? Where did you leave it?” Mashiho asked me quietly since a customer was in front of me.

“Uhhh it should be in the closet.” Mashiho nodded and then looked to Seunghun who happened to be still staring at me. Mashiho looked at me, then to Seunghun, then back to me.

He smirked and patted me on the back. “He’s a good one.” He winked, hinting to our conversation earlier. I turned bright red and pushed him away.

Seunghun furrowed his brows, confused at our interaction. Before he could ask questions, I spoke first. “So, first things first, what would you like?” He smiled and took a look at all our choices.

“Oh, I came to pick up a vanilla cake with buttercream frosting for my grandma’s birthday.” I nodded and went to pick up the cake that was waiting for him.

“Is the name under Ahyoung?” He nodded. I handed him the cake. “Since you paid online, that should be it. Thanks for ordering from us.” He took the cake, but he didn’t walk away from me.

I kept my stare locked on him as he didn’t turn away. Suddenly, I heard a loud snap in my ear.

“Hello~ No eye sex in the bakery please. That’s a home activity, y/n.” Mashiho said while raising his brows at me. I blushed and pushed him away.

“That’s not-” I sighed knowing no one would care what I would have to say. “Mashiho, can you just... like leave for a quick second?” Mashiho’s jaw dropped.

“Wow, ok, I’ll be gone 5 minutes, you better not be having sex on the table when I come back-”

“Just go.” I snapped. The boy stuck his tongue out at me and walked away. I turned to face Seunghun who was already smiling at me.

“Does he think we’re having sex?” I was mortified at this conversation. “Well, uh, sorta, I mean, he wouldn’t believe my story of being unable to sleep last night so.” I shrugged. Seunghun nodded and understood what I meant.

“Anyways, on the more important issues besides my sexual adventures, we need to like... meet up. What are you doing right now?” He pointed to the cake. I sighed and rubbed my face tiredly.

“Ok, but the party will be done at 11. Then, I’ll come to you. What’s your address?” Usually, I would wait longer before giving a boy my address, but this was a different circumstance. “Great. See you then.” He winked at me which I couldn’t lie, I found it attractive. But I couldn’t let him know that. I rolled my eyes and waved him goodbye.

“Wow, he’s hot.”

“Shut up, Mashiho!”

❀ ❀ ❀

Eleven never came so slowly. Thankfully, my parents were already asleep so I didn’t have to explain why there was a very attractive boy in our home.

I heard a soft knock on the door and I jumped up to answer it. Seunghun was already in his Hunter uniform. My eyes widened and I rushed him inside.

“Why are you already wearing your uniform? That’s so weird! Did you come here in that?” The boy rolled his eyes.

“Calm down, I changed in the car, I am very professional at this. I have been doing it since I was 16.” I raised a brow.

“How old are you now?” Seunghun chuckled boyishly and gave me a flirty smile.

“Are you flirting with me?” I turned a bright red and led him into my room. “Your mouth is going to get you in trouble one day.”

Seunghun smiled as I shut the door quietly. “Says the girl who just locked my in her bedroom.”

I turned to him in anger, but I knew I couldn’t hit him since it would do no damage. “I-you. Ugh.” I stuttered out while he barked out laughter.

Then, he pulled out something from his bag I didn’t notice him holding. “Here is a Hunter uniform, I’m assuming you didn’t have one since you didn’t even know you were going to be in the Dark Hour.” I took the outfit and stared at it.

“Do you think I’ll be pulled in again?” He scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know. Better to be safe than sorry.”

I went to the bathroom to change and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked like the definition of a Hunter. But I didn’t have the confidence or power as one of them.

“Everything ok in there?” He called out. “Y-yeah.” I spoke out as I exited the bathroom. I noticed Seunghun scanning me, examining how I looked in the uniform.

“What?” I snapped. He raised one brow and gave me one of his flirty smiles that sent shivers down my spine.

He leaned back in my bed that he had gotten comfy in. “Nothing, it’s just that you look really good in that outfit.” I saw him lick his lips nonchalantly, making me wish we were alone in my room for a different reason than talking about the Dark Hour.

I slapped him on the shoulder to hide my attraction. “Shut up, anyways, tell me everything you know about the Dark Hour. I need to prepare myself.”

His joking expression faded as I mentioned the Dark Hour. “First of all, let’s talk about how I’ve never seen you before this. I thought you said you’ve never seen any of the other Hunters in real life?” I bombarded him with questions.

Seunghun sighed and shook his head. “I’ve never met any of my friends who were Hunters in real life, but really, I wouldn’t know if I met a Hunter in real life. There’s nothing that sets us apart from the rest of society.”

I bit my lip and tapped my finger on my lip. “Ok, then why have I never seen you before if you went to the bakery I work at.”

“Oh, that’s because I’m in town from college, visiting my grandma. It’s her 80th birthday so it’s a big thing.” I nodded, working the pieces together in my mind.

“And what does the government have to do about the Dark Hour?” At my question, Seunghun tensed. I glanced over to him; he adjusted his vest and stared into space.

“So, no normal person knows this since the government hides it pretty well. But, there is a reason for the Dark Hour. Monsters keep rising from the Underworld, since it is becoming too popularted. The government has been in contact with Hades, the God of the underworld--”

“Woah, woah, woah, wait, Hades? You mean-”

“Yes, that one. Anyways, it’s almost midnight and I need to tell you this.” I nodded and listened carefully. “So the government is in contact with Hades who says he can’t control, even though he can, the monsters that are rising out. The human government was furious, saying he couldn’t just let out monsters.”

“So they compromised.” Seunghun nodded.

“They compromised. Groups of trained humans work together to defeat all the monsters that Hades lets out at midnight for one hour. Since he’s a God, he has the ability to monitor it and make sure no normal human gets hurt. And the tattoos? The government bargained for it so that they had to explain less murders.” Seunghun gave me a crooked smile, but I wondered if he lost any friends along the way.

He glanced over at my clock. “We have five minutes.” I took a deep breath as my heart race picked up.

Suddenly, he piled a bunch of weapons on my bed. “Here, keep these. They’re easy to use.” He gave me some fancy looking guns and other weapons. “This one, you press this button, and it shoots out mini bombs. Highly effective.”

“Thank you. Like truly, I would be so dead without you right now.” I whispered softly. Seunghun lifted my face gently to stare at him.

“I believe in you. Most normal people wouldn’t have come outside with me. You were brave. I’m sure you were chosen for a reason.”

He tried to look casual, but he kept glancing at the clock. “One minute.” He whispered. For a moment, I thought, he was going to kiss me.

But he scooted away and stood, watching the window.

“Stay on guard.” He demanded. He was much more serious during the Dark Hour than in the normal time. “Remember, we might be separated as I don’t know where I will be transported.”

I stood and held my gun close, listening for any movement. All I heard was Seunghun’s steady breathing.

The night was pitch black but I couldn’t see outside the window. “y/n, the streetlamps are off now.”

I sucked in a breath, understanding the true meaning of his words.

It was officially the Dark Hours.

❀ ❀ ❀

“I guess I should say welcome to the squad then, right?” I rolled my eyes but I couldn’t help but be sort of happy that I got to spend more time with Seunghun and his funny friends.

But that happiness didn’t last long as I heard a rustle outside the room. I jumped back and got father away from my door, my run still pointing at it. Seunghun watched his back as the window was behind him, he pointed at the door.

“Wait.” He mouthed. I nodded. I heard something that sounded like footsteps, but I knew some monsters had a similar foot structure to us. I aimed my gun high and waited for a noise.

Nothing.

“Don’t let down-”

As soon as he said that, the door burst opened and I aimed to shoot.

“WAIT! IT’S JUST US!” At the sound of a human I dropped my gun and saw Jihoon with his hands up. I raised a brow as I saw Hyunsuk, Byounggon, and a few other Hunters there as well.

“What the fuck is going on?” One of the unknown one said.

“I have no idea, Yedam. But whatever is going on, it seems suspicious.” Seunghun looked frazzled and ran his fingers through his hair.

“What are you guys talking about?” Seunghun barked. Byounggon came forward and looked right at me and then the window.

He walked towards my bedroom window and flung it open, revealing a dark, empty street. Seunghun’s eyes widened.

“No monsters.” Seunghun muttered. They all nodded.

“No monsters? What? Has that ever happened?” I exclaimed. They all shook their heads.

“Never. Sometimes there are less, but never zero. Until you showed up.” Hyunsuk said it casually, but I could feel the tension in his words.

Seunghun was about to jump in, but I could fight verbal battles myself. “Hey, don’t act like I made this happen. I’m just as confused as you are right now, and probably more since I have no idea why the fuck I’m here.” I barked, stepping closer to him. The boy came to meet me in the middle, but Jihoon stopped him.

“She’s right, we can’t blame each other. But besides all the monsters not being there, why were we all transported to this house?”

I froze at his words. “W-what?”

Byounggon nodded. “Yeah, I was sitting in my room, waiting for the Dark Hour and then I ended up here. Then I saw Hyunsuk, Jihoon, Junkyu, Yedam and Doyoung appear.” Seunghun brought his hand to his mouth to hide his gasp.

“That’s never happened before. The most we have in one spot is 3 and even then it’s in the streets, not a house.” A boy I didn’t know explained. I noticed he was around the same height as Seunghun and had black hair.

I looked around my home, but saw nothing different than the people in it. “Well if we’re all here, there’s gotta be a reason for it.” I set down my gun as I felt there was no threat and walked out of my room and into my living room, where the rest of the boys were called. I felt Seunghun appear by my side; he was still tense despite there being no threat.

“What are you doing? He asked quickly. I scanned the entire room like a mad man and examined everything closely. “Y/N-”

“This is my house. That means I know what it’s supposed to look like.” I hinted at him while walking deeper into the kitchen.

Seunghun looked at me with a confused look until someone else spoke up. “She’s looking for a clue why we’re all here; if something is misplaced in her home, it might mean something.” A young boy with black hair spoke up. I nodded towards him and he gave me a small nod back.

“Oh wow, good job, Doyoung.” Byounggon said patting his back. The younger boy nodded and looked serious once again.

There was nothing different about the living room. I walked into my mom’s room, but I was rarely in her room, I didn’t know where what went. I searched and searched, but I didn’t know what I was looking for.

I turned to leave the room. “Nothing?” Seunghun said sadly. I shook my head, but as I turned my head slightly, I saw something weird. My eyes widened in surprise and Seunghun caught notice of my expression. He gripped his gun and stepped to my side. “On guard.” The rest of the boys pulled out their respective weapons.

“She’s looking at a god damn strawberry recipes magazine, what’s wrong with that?” Hyunsuk spat. I glared at him and kept a hold on my gun.

“My mom is allergic to strawberries.” I stated loudly. The boys looked as uneasy as I felt. Why would she have a strawberry recipe magazine if she’s deathly allergic to strawberries?

I reached before the magazine, but before I could, the magazine started to move on it’s own. Seunghun stood in front of me, but I felt the urge to look at the magazine so I side stepped him.

“Careful.” He whispered for only me to hear. I nodded slightly but I wasn’t paying attention to him. The magazine soon stopped on a page, making me anxious to read what it said.

“Watch their backs.” A boy with dark black hair said. The boys nodded and followed his orders. Seunghun stepped closely to me and turned to me.

“Together.” I caught the hint of his words. He took my hand and squeezed it, making me feel safe. Together, we walked slowly towards the magazine, unsure if it would make a sudden movement.

Once we got close enough to read it, my heart dropped as I saw a page with no strawberries on it, but a small line written on it. I leaned down to read it.

The end is tomorrow. There are more of you. There are more of them. Use the girl, the normal one.

Good luck, and don’t let the darkness take you.

Shivers ran through up and down my spine. The girl, the normal one. I was the only normal girl in our group, meaning I was screwed.

“What are you doing?” Seunghun asked softly. I looked up at him and raised my brows. “I’m reading the message.” I answered back slowly.

“Y/n, there’s nothing on that page.” Seunghun said quietly, almost like he didn’t believe his words. T

he boy who gave ordere earlier walked over and peered down at the magazine.

“Yedam, be careful.” Doyoung told him. Yedam glared at the boy, but looked at me curiously. “Seunghun is right, there’s nothing there.”

I looked down at the page and saw the black writing very clearly. The rest of the boys were now huddled around the message.

“There’s nothing.” A boy whose name I think was Junkyu, if I had remembered clearly.

“Y/n, do you see something?” Seunghun asked me firmly, peering into my eyes. I felt all eyes on me and I grew nervous. I mustered up my courage and nodded.

“Shit, this is so creepy.” Hyunsuk said while pacing around the room.

Seunghun didn’t move from his spot and continued, “What does it say?”

I looked down at the pages and read them once more. “The end if tomorrow. There are more of you. Use the girl, the normal one. Good luck, and don’t let the darkness take you.”

As soon as I said those words, the rest of the boys erupted into sighs and shivers. “Oh god, what is going on?” Junkyu wondered out loud while sitting on my mom’s bed.

“Use the girl? What does y/n have to offer, no offense.” Jihoon said.

“It doesn’t say what for. That’s all the message says.” I glanced over at the clock which wasn’t working.

“We have one more minute before the Dark Hour is over." Doyoung announced.

No one had an answer for the confusing events, yet none of us could formulate a question.

“Rest well today, it seems like we have a lot ahead of us tomorrow.” Seunghun announced while finally relaxing.

Before anyone else could answer, I felt myself being pulled out of the Dark Hour and back into reality. I fell against my room wall and saw Seunghun standing firmly. I could see he was used to it and I wasn’t.

Use the girl, the normal one. I see the message flash once more in my eyes, but I truly had no idea what it meant. I was a normal person, what did I have to offer? I was a nobody.

“Are you ok?” Seunghun asked, concern laced in his voice. His hands went to cup my face and I nodded, dazed by the previous events and the intensity of his eyes. He pulled away, but I felt the urge to pull him back.

So I did. He grew surprised at my bold actions but let me pull him, even though I knew he was much stronger than I. “Are you going to be safe when you’re alone?” At my innocent words, he laughed loudly.

“Y/n, I should be asking you that, I’ve been training since I was 10 years old for this.”

“And how long ago was that?” I had never gotten his age, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious. Seunghun gave me a small smile.

“It was 9 years ago.” I smiled widely. “So you’re 19.” Seunghun shook with laughter.

“Wow, good math skills you have there.” He gently tapped my forehead with his knuckles.

Our conversation came to a stop and my only focus was on his face that was so close to mine. My eyes flickered to his lips, wondering how good he was with them. His eyes were taunting, like he didn’t believe I would do anything.

He was wrong.

Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled him close to me, closing the gap between our lips. He responded quickly, his arms wrapping around me in a matter of seconds. He kissed me softly at first, but then I felt him bite my bottom lip softly, making me melt against his body. My hand wandered under his shirt, feeling his toned upper body. He sighed at my touch.

Somehow, I had pushed him onto my bed and I was now on top of him. At our scandalous position, he grabbed my waist and pulled me aside so that I was sitting on my bed.

I felt cold without his masculine warmth, and I was also stunned at his actions.

Oh shit, what did I just do? How did I get so lost in my feelings that I thought I could get down with a Hunter?

I guess my face of surprise and shock was obvious because Seunghun started to talk before I could. “Y/n, I’m sorry, it’s just we only met each other yesterday and I know you’re in a confused state right now.” He talked as if he was talking to a piece of glass, which I wasn’t. But I already was embarrassed enough.

He has probably met so many female Hunters who so much stronger and prettier than me. I want to smack myself silly.

“I know, yeah, you’re right, um, I’m like, frazzled whatever. My emotions are running high. Um...” I felt myself stutter out. I felt tears brimming at his rejection, but I knew I couldn’t force him to do anything.

“Y/n, it’s fine, I just, I don’t want to... right now at least.” The was every nice guy’s way of rejection. And I couldn’t even be mad at him.

“I’m sorry, it was my fault. Um, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then. Bye.” He didn’t make a move to leave.

“Y/n, I didn’t mean to hurt you-”

“Seunghun, I’m sorry, but can you just leave?” I asked quietly, unable to look him in the eyes. Seunghun nodded, and stood, sparing me one last glance before he left, leaving me to slap my face and think about what I had just done.

Even though I was hurt in the moment, Seunghun was right. I wasn’t in the right state of mind to be anything intimate with anyone. Of course I was attracted to him, I mean who wasn’t, but I was in for about the biggest fight of my life tomorrow.

And so was he.

“Y/n, you’re the biggest idiot I know.”

❀ ❀ ❀

“Looking better today, y/n, did you finally get some sleep?”

I was immediately greeted by Mashiho’s taunting tone. But I was too upset and stressed to fight back.

“Yup, slept like a baby.” I lied. I had listening to self-deprecating music before I went to bed and then cried myself to sleep from Seunghun’s rejection and the fate of other Hunters in the palm of my hand.

I tied my apron on peacefully and said nothing else to him. Mashiho peered at my face and squinted his eyes. “What are you doing, Mashiho?” He scooted away from me.

“You seem different today. What happened with that boy?” I rolled my eyes even though he was a partial reason to my mood.

“Nothing happened, we were never a thing nor did anything happen between us.” I stated clearly. Mashiho tsked like he didn’t believe me.

He then stopped and leaned against the corner of the shop. “Look, y/n, I know you have no friends. So if you ever wanna tell me what happened, I’ll listen.” I started to roll my eyes, but it was kinda true, I really had no close friends. I had acquaintances and whatever, but never a friend that I would talk to into the late hours of the night.

I felt myself tear up at his words as no one had told me that they would listen to my concerns. “Oh my god, are you crying?” At Mashiho’s blunt statement, I started to cry harder. Surprisingly, he pulled me into a brotherly hug and patted the top of my head like a child.

“Tell me what happened.” He whispered. I wiped my eyes and tried to speak calmly.

“I tried to sleep with him, but he pushed me away saying that we both weren’t ready and we both just met each other.” I conveniently left out the Hunter thing, but I guess it wasn’t too important. Mashiho pulled away from the hug to give me a judgy look.

“Well, I didn’t think you would be the first to make a move, but damn girl.” I laughed at his goody statement but pulled away from him to wipe my tears. “Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked softly. He gave me a soft smile and shrugged.

“I’m not that big of a dick to make fun of a girl crying.” He shrugged, but I could tell something else was bothering him. Soon, the clock hit 9, and it was time to work. “Go wash your face, I’ll be fine up here alone.” I nodded. As I turned away, I gave him one more hug which surprised him.

“Thank you.”

He crinkled his nose as I pulled away. “Don’t get too soft on me now.”

❀ ❀ ❀

Mashiho and I had closed early today as it was new years eve.

“Happy new years, y/n, try not to jump any more guys while I’m gone.” I slapped him on the back of his head, but I laughed.

“I promise. That was my first time and last time.” He waved me goodbye and we went out separate ways. I got in my car, but I realized I didn’t want to sit at home all day and wait for midnight. I felt myself being compelled to go to the library for some reason. And not the library near my house, but the one that was out of the town I was in. I drove 30 minutes to the vaguely familiar library I had only visited once or twice. I preferred the one near my house, but this library was giant and beautiful as well.

As I walked in, a strange man approached me. “Are you y/n?” Out of instinct, I had nodded, but then I realized I shouldn’t have told him the truth. But too late.

He smiled and nodded towards one of those private rooms. “Great, your spot is being saved in there.” I thanked him, even though I felt suspicious to walk in.

I gathered my courage and opened the door. I was shocked at who I saw.

“Oh wow, look who came late to the party.”

�� ❀ ❀

“H-hyunsuk?” The blonde boy nodded and twirled a knife in his hand. I gasped and shut the door quickly. “Why are you holding that?”

As he moved out of the way, I saw all the Hunters that I saw last night here tonight. “Why are you all here? I thought you guys said you never saw each other in real life!” I exclaimed, tossing down my bag I brought to work each day.

“We didn’t. Until now.” Doyoung informed.

“We all heard a voice in the back of our minds telling us to come here, that we needed to come here. So we did of course.” Yedam

“And now you’re here, so it makes sense.” Junkyu said cheerfully.

I looked around the room, staring at all the weapons. “Why did you guys bring those though?” I asked, worried that we would be arrested for bringing those in there.

“That’s what were going to ask you.” Seunghun informed, leaning forward in his chair. As he spoke, he made eyecontact with me that I awkwardly avoided.

“Well, I have no...” I didn’t finish that sentence as I saw a message appear on the wall.

The Dark Hour is early tonight. It will begin at 5pm. Good luck.

“Y/n?” Doyoung asked, startled at my behavior. I then realized I was leaning forward on the chair and the rest of the boys had stood in confusion. I stood up and nodded.

“Just peachy. There’s a message on the wall and it reads ‘The Dark Hour is early tonight. It will begin at 5pm. Good luck’“ I restated.

The boys froze and checked the time. It was six minutes til 5.

“What the fuck is going on? All of this is so confusing!” Hyunsuk muttered loudly.

“No idea, but that means we have to prepare ourselves. Put on your uniforms.” All of a sudden, they started to strip and I caught a glimpse of Hyunsuk’s abs as he threw it off carelessly. Hyunsuk was sort of an asshole, but I couldn’t help but stare.

Suddenly, a large body covered my line of vision. I peered up and saw Seunghun who was raised a brow at my red face. “What.” I whispered harshly.

He then leaned in closer and shrugged. “Mine is better.” He randomly said, but I knew what he was talking about.

“Well, I could’ve....” seen them last night. I didn’t finish my sentence. Girls always got shit from boys when they didn’t want to have sex, the least I could do was wait for Seunghun to be ready. Or be fine if he never wanted me like that. I had to respect that. “Nevermind I’m sorry.” I muttered quickly, stepping away from him.

Before I could leave, he pulled on my wrist gently, making me face him once more. “One day, y/n, when all of this is over.” He promised. Before my face could light on fire, I felt someone else approach me.

Byounggon plopped an outfit in my hands. “I know you didn’t bring one, so I thought of to bring an extra. I hope it fits.” I nodded in shock.

“Thank you.” I whispered gently. He gave me a fatherly smile and patted my head. “Don’t thank me, thank whoever gave me the urge to give me an extra.”

“Two more minutes!” Doyoung called out. I realized that they all had changed and were now waiting on me. I glared at them and did spinning movements.

“Can you guys like.. turn around?” The nodded respectfully and did as I told. I stripped quickly and slipped on the fitting uniform. It was a perfect fit. “Done!” I called out. They turned back and gathered at the small table.

“Do you think there will be other Hunters there? They said there will be more of ‘us’, whatever that refers to.” Jihoon asked curiously. No one answered.

“No clue. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” Yedam responded. All of a sudden, I felt the familiar pull, meaning this time I was transferring somewhere else.

I landed on my ass, confused of my surroundings. “Get up!” Someone called out to me. I felt someone pull me up. It was Seunghun.

I felt relief flood my body as I saw a familiar faces all around me.

“Y/n!?” I heard a familiar voice say. I jumped back from Seunghun’s hold and turned around.

“MASHIHO!?” I exclaimed. His doe eyes narrowed at me.

“What are you doing here? Are you Hunter?” It was weird to see him in a tight fitting long sleeve and such edgy clothes when he had always worn preppy clothes.

“Um, not really. It’s complicated.” I responded lamely.

Another boy stepped forward. “She must be the the girl the message spoke about. The normal one.”

Suddenly, they started to converse in an unfamiliar language I recognized as Japanese.

“MASHI!” Suddenly, Junkyu appeared out of nowhere and tackled Mashiho in a hug. They hug was childish and passionate.

I looked to Seunghun. “Did you know he was a Hunter?” I asked accusingly. He shook his head. “I swear I’ve never met him. I’m usually transferred to the same spots so I probably never ran into him. But I know all his friends.”

“That’s Yoshinori, Kotaro, Asahi, and Mahiro.” I waved to them awkwardly as they gave me awkward smiles.

Suddenly, I heard a loud explosion outside.

“Guards up!” Seunghun yelled as I reached for the gun in my holster. “Let’s jump down!” He then broke the window and started to jump out.

My eyes widened as he just flew down to the ground from my second story. The rest of the boys followed him.

I felt someone grab hold of me and carry me. “Hug my chest so we can fit through the window.” Mashiho said sternly. It seemed like everyone got a bit more serious in the dark hour. I did as he told and suddenly we were falling out of my window. I held onto him harder and Mashiho landed smoothly. “I’m never going to let you live this down.”

“Shut up.” I jumped off of him and took out my gun.

There was nothing at first.

Then it came.

“A-are those humans?” I whispered to no one in particular.

Hundreds and hundreds of humans started piling towards us with blank eyes and dirty faces. Some had clothes, some did not; skin was falling off of them, dragging in the streets.

I felt someone grab my face and pull me close to them. “S-seunghun-”

“Look at me. Those are not humans, those are zombies who will try and hurt you. They will use psychological warfare on you, they will tell you things that aren’t true. Do not fall for that, ok? Kill them as fast as you would kill a fly. Do you understand me?” I nodded hurriedly. He stared at me a little longer before pulling away. “Good.”

“Well, stop trying to make us jealous.” Hyunsuk teased by slapping Seunghun’s shoulder.

“Look.” Doyoung said calmly. The zombies started to run faster and soon the battle had begun. The boys, who I had known to be funny and boyish, became fearless killers as their enemies came closer.

“Watch her please.” Seunghun pushed me back to Mashiho.

“Damn I’m stuck with the burden?” As zombies came running at the both of us, I held up my gun and shot five of them in the head. He stared at me with wide eyes.

“Such a burden.” I snapped.

The zombies kept going down, coming steadily at us until one latched onto me. I grew afraid as its droopy eyes and skinny body held onto my arm with a tight grip.

“Help me!” It called out. “Help, I hate it down there, it’s terrible and scary! I’m just a girl, please!” She called out to me. Her features still looked slightly human, making my heart hurt. “I swear I just want to live more!”

“I-I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Suddenly, her eyes turned black as she lunged for me. I took out my gun and shot her in the head.

“Fuck.” I spat.

Suddenly, all the zombies stopped coming, leaving the large group to stand there in silence. “Is that it?” Hyunsuk called out, sitting on the ground to rest.

Seunghun was still tense and held his knife in his holster. “Stay ready.”

All of a sudden, a streetlamp turned on, revealing a man standing underneath the solely lit lamp. I gasped and instinctively stepped back. “What? What do you see?” Seunghun whispered in my ear.

I looked up at him with concern in my eyes. “Do you not see it?” I whispered.

“See what?” Jihoon asked, looking into the distance. I gulped and stepped out of Seunghun’s hold.

“There’s a man over there. Underneath the streetlight. And the light is on too.”

“Is he moving? Are any other lights on?” I shook my head at Byounggon’s rapid questions.

I started to walk towards the man until I felt a hand pull me back. “No, what if he’s dangerous.” I shook my head. “I need to do this. I feel it.”

Thankfully, Seunghun let go of my hand. “Fine, but I’ll be behind you.” I nodded and we both started to walk towards him. I felt the tenseness of the dark air, but I felt like whoever the man is was important.

“y/n.” He called out. “y/n, don’t be scared.” I expected Seunghun to pull me closer, but I remembered he couldn’t hear him.

“What do you want?” I asked boldly. Seunghun then tensed and pulled out his gun. The man laughed.

“Interesting.” He commented. “He’s gotten soft for you.”

I glared at the man. He was tall, not taller than Seunghun, but tall. He had dark brown hair and had an average looking face. No sense of crime or anger in his eyes.

“What do you want?” I demanded once more.

He went silent for a moment, but looked me in the eyes. “It’s over. Congratulations. The Dark Hour is no more.” He confessed. My eyes widened in surprise.

“What, why?”

He shrugged. “You humans have done well, Hell is now not as crowded as it used to be, there is no reason for me to keep letting creatures out.”

My head spun with all this information. “Why am I here then? Why call me when the fight as almost over?” I snapped. The man shook with laughter.

“Why do anything?”

My jaw dropped at his sarcastic remark. “Well, good that it’s over then. I’m not cut out for this.”

The man looked at me sadly. “You were way better than you ever thought you would be. That is why only you can see me and none of them can.”

“Why can I see you and no one else can?”

Before he could finish his sentence, his body to fade. “I can’t give you all the answers, honey. That would be no fun.”

He then tipped his head down as his body faded away. “Goodbye, y/n.”

As he faded, I felt myself being pulled back into the real world.

❀ ❀ ❀

I woke up the next morning to my alarm. I sighed and shut it off, feeling a headache from the last night.

The Dark Hour was no more, but I didn’t even get to tell all the guys before being pulled away. I wonder if they felt it too, I wonder if they knew.

I shimmied into my clothes and got ready for another day at work.

The bakery was empty, with only Mashiho swiping up the floor. “Hey, Mashi.” I teased as I walked into the shop. He raised a brow and chuckled awkwardly.

“How did you know that was my nickname? Only my mom calls me that.” Now I was the confused one.

“What are you talking about, Junkyu called you that last night.” I reminded him as the large boy had run and basically flung Mashiho around.

“Who’s Junkyu? And you and I weren’t together last night...” He walked towards me and placed his hand over my forehead. “Are you sick?”

My jaw dropped as he truly didn’t remember.

What happened that night? Why does Mashiho not remember what happened? Did that mean no one remembered...

Does that mean Seunghun no longer knows who I am?

My heart dropped at the realization.

“Are you ok, y/n?” Mashiho asked with concern in his eyes. I nodded and turned the bakery sign to say open.

“I guess I have to be.”

As soon as the bakery sign was open, we heard someone enter.

“Hi, welcome to Treasure Bakery, can I...” My voice faltered as I looked up from the register. He was wearing dark black pants with a white button up. His hair was messily combed through, like he had just woken up.

He smiled widely at me, making my heart pound faster at his kind greeting.

“Hey.”

#yg treasure box #ygtblbr #yg treasure box scenarios #kim seunghun #ygtb scenarios #yg treasure box imagines #seunghun scenarios #seunghun imagines #kim seunghun scenarios #kim seunghun imagines

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tactyl-ymon · 5 years ago

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DnD session recap - Towers and Tribulations

Guess who’s bad at doing things? It’s me! Hence why I’m currently 3 sessions behind on these writeups and this one’s taken me too damn long to finish this one.

We start the session with everyone wandering back towards the main city and splitting up for now, Drackuss goes to spend the night at his favourite temple where he has a free room, Eridol and Merla are camping in the forest outside of town because of the whole “Merla’s wanted for murder” thing and the rogues trudge back to the barracks to crash for the night. Partway through the night, Emmi gets woken up by Eridol and Merla’s dogs, Pickle and Flufferbuns, scratching at one of the bedroom doors upstairs. She decides to let them in because it’s not her room if they destroy anything. Pickle goes and sits on Eridols bed like the good boy he is, but Flufferbuns gets a whiff of something that reminds her of Merla and starts digging at the floor, this of course gets Emmi’s attention so she dramatically rips the rug off the floor and sees the slightly warped floorboard that Flufferbuns has started pawing at. Cracking it open she finds a very bloodsoaked blanket hastily hidden in the floor. So the obvious thoughts come to mind “This must be Merla’s … but Merla’s too proud and not smart enough to hide something like this. Eridol’s hiding something” So with this knowledge she replaces the floorboard and takes the blanket to the only other lawful person on the squad, Drackuss to figure out what to do about it.

After climbing the frankly ludicrous amount of stairs to the temple, she finds Draccus deep in prayer and offers up the mystery she’s found. A blood soaked blanket, hidden by one of the tiny folk in the group. Either it’s got something to do with Merla or Eridol’s been taking his frustrustrations out on something and trying to hide it. Drackuss looks at all the available information and decides they’ll get their answers in the morning, satisfied with that plan, Emmi heads back to the barracks to sleep and we get to spend some time with the tiny ones in the forest. Eridol and Merla have a quick heart to heart about how Merla’s doing with the whole murder thing and it’s starting to sink in that there’s no getting her way out of this, Eridol sadly brings up that actions have consequences and we need to be held accountable for what we do, even if he understands why she did it. With this final nail in the coffin, Merla breaks into a sprint to escape her friend turned reluctant prison guard. By the time Eridol realises, she’s out of the way of most of his abilities. In a panic he releases a guiding bolt, which hits too true and causes Merla to trip over a root ... sending her neck first onto her axe. After a string of gnomish cursing he runs over and stabilises her before getting in touch with Core to fill him in on the attempted escape and very near murder. Receeving instructions to tie her up and bring her to the gates, Eridol strips Merla of the majority of her weapons and begins carrying her towards town. Feeling deeply conflicted between following the teaching of his god which require justice above all else and having had attacked someone he cares deeply about, Eridol doesn’t notice Merla slipping her bonds and taking off into the woods until it’s too late and she’s too far away to catch up. He sends a bolt of divine energy after her knowing full well it’ll dissipate before reaching her. With a solitary fuck and his fondness for a friend winning over his sense of duty to Tyr he sits down in the road and for the second time since waking up in a prison cell with no memories, Eridol fully opened himself up to Tyr to meditate on whether he did the right thing trying to stop Merla. Drifting off, he finds himself surrounded by an expansive white void, he blinks and before him is a monumental set of scales unmoving as a statue. Perfectly balanced and behind it a single, all encompassing blue eye staring down on the frightened gnome. It takes 30 minutes to come out of the trance, ample time for Merla to have made an escape. Eridol gets up and wanders back to Principium. He meets Core at the town gates and mumbles that Merla got away before straight up lying to the government official about not knowing which way she went. Eridol shrugs off Merla’s pack and her axe, gives them to Core and wordlessly heads back to the barracks and oozes into his bunk to sleep off that “I nearly murdered someone I care about then had to face down my divine sugar daddy to see if I made the right choice” migraine. He awakens to the telltale sound of Drackuss stomping towards his door wearing full armor, fighting the instinct to grab his weapon Eridol stands and really hopes his trust in Drackuss can outweigh his fear at being cut down by that flaming sword again. The door slams open and the ever imposing figure of Drackuss fills the frame, Eridol stamps down his fear before noticing the slightly less imposing figure of Emmi behind Drackuss. They know about the bloody blanket under the floor and that Merla didn’t put it there, they need answers. WIth no reason to hide it anymore, Eridol tells them the truth. He found Merla had used the blanket to wipe off her axe after killing that peasant, he was going to look into it when he had a chance but they had to all leave in a hurry for their last assignment so he hid it so Merla couldn’t get rid of it in the mean time ... but that’s not really of use anymore and he retells how Merla failed to run before succeeding to run away. Everyone receives a message from Core to meet him later in the day and we all get dressed up to head over. With a quick stop over at a local tavern, eager to get drunk enough to deal with whatever fresh hell Core points us towards and never talk about it ever again. We enter to find Veiraen already there making a scene trying to swindle some drunk out of their money before he comes over and with the deftest of fingers manages to steal a control to what equates to a fantasy shock collar he’s currently wearing before legging it out the door with a cheeky grin and a brief “Fill me in later” before setting off for solo shenanigans. Knowing nobody can catch the man when he’s like this, we settle in to have a few drinks to generally grumble about life which leads to drunkenly exclaiming that Core is secretly a devil and an argument over what kind of devil he would be. This gets the attention of a particular dwarf sitting at the bar, a wizard named Tornur specialising in transmutation who up until this morning had been working for the large fight pits in the city helping to maintain their incredibly complicated magical fields but had been sequestered by our wonderful sorcerer patron for an unspecified amount of time

We drunkenly accept the newcomer for a few rounds before heading off to Core’s place for our next group assignment. Which is very similar to the last assignment, head back to the mistress’ underground temple and finish the last ritual to unlock the towers of perdition and hopefully find a way out of the country before population control becomes a necessity. But first some good news! For everything we’ve done so far, Core has gotten the ruling council to agree to give us a plot of land and have a keep built, he just needs everyone to sign some paperwork first to say we agree and being the drunkards most of us are, Emmi, Eridol and Drackuss eagerly sign and cojole Tornur into signing as well. With all the members of Tacty’l Ymon who were present signed and accounted for we head off back to an accursed underground temple that was used by a weird hag and several cultists which is a sobering enough thought to ward off the booze haze everyone except Drackuss was in on the way there. We make our way towards the underground temple in relative silence to finish what we started. A ritual to possibly find a way out of the country, the ritual goes off perfectly and everyone feels a earth shattering kaboom as somewhere in the country, a gleaming tower appears in an instant. Everyone treks back to the city and Core once again tries to get Eridol to open up about the frankly worrying amount of emotional stress he’s putting on himself and receives a quiet “There’s more important things to worry about” before Eridol moves further away from everyone.

As we exit one of the large forests between the towns, we see it. A single break in the horizon, impossibly tall even at this distance. A tower of perdition. With nothing else to go on, we trudge towards the tower and the small crowd of people who had come to see the new addition to the landscape, a flash of Core’s credentials and the gawkers disperse as we enter the tower to a frankly underwhelming experience. The tower is a singular room containing the usual stuff you expect in an interdimensional hell tower, some books, a skeleton, a stone well, a weirdly animated brick that paralyses whatever it touches. You know. Stuff. As we all look around, Tornur finds a hidden compartment with a singular vial of pearlescent liquid inside and calls it out to everyone. Core demands that Tornur gives it to him immediately, going so far as trying to snatch it out of the dwarfs hands. Without hesitation, Tornur refuses and asks what it could be to get Core so possessive. Core says he doesn’t have time for this and points Drackuss towards our new companion with a dismissive “Get the vial and don’t kill him”. Before anyone else can react, Drackuss has his flaming sword out and strikes Tornur across the side of the head. The distinctive flair of divine magic empowering his strike and making the damage so much worse. Drackuss peels the red hot steel out off Tornur’s fractured skull, taking several sheets of flesh off the mortally wounded dwarf as it goes.

In the few seconds it takes Eridol to make his way over, he is already chanting words as he transfers part of his essence into Tornur. He gives more than he means to in a panic. But still bone fuse, muscle repairs and breath returns until all that is left of the wound is a large red band of scarring running mostly into the dwarfs hairline. Drackuss hands the vial over to Core and apologises to Tornur, he didn’t mean for that to be so much. Core explains that this is a vial of allmagic. Highly unstable, transformative, concentrated magic that shouldn’t be able to exist and is too dangerous to be left in unprepared hands. While the fantasy Mexican standoff eases up between the men, Emmi is searching the room and finds something in the well that gets everyones attention. A figure made of a silvery liquid appears and exits the well. Calling themselves a slyph and asking who wishes to partake, we have a maddeningly circular conversation with the being who gets the majority of the group to let her test if they are able to travel except Eridol who thinks someone should not let the weird water person mess with their head that they met 5 minutes ago in the weird otherworldly tower. The slyph mentions that this continent was quarantined from the material plane centuries ago for reasons beyond their knowledge, but for a price she can allow travel. With this, everyone decides to break for the night. Tornur and Core return to the city to finish some business and research their respective needs while Drackuss, Emmi and Eridol stay in the tower for the night as security. While Drackuss and Eridol take turns whipping coins and books down the well to pass the time, Emmi dreams of her life.

A silhouetted figure she knows is her mother

A broken ship sinking into the ocean

Things slipping away under a veil of magic

#dnd recap #dnd #Tactyl Ymon

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pixelgrotto · 6 years ago

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D&D With My Bro: The Case of the Grandmotherly Ghost

Last weekend my brother and I concluded our second homebrew Dungeons & Dragons campaign starring Lester LeFoe and Claudia Copperhoof, two private detectives from Tartec, a setting that my bro created for his fantasy series The Thirteenth Hour. I called it The Case of the Grandmotherly Ghost, and it was quite different in scope from its predecessor, The Case of the Almost Assassination. That first adventure was based entirely within a city and focused on our heroes preventing a political assassination, and it was much more of a Holmesian urban investigation inspired by the Professor Layton and Ace Attorney games. In contrast, the theme of this second campaign was “the great outdoors,” and I wanted to create something that gave me an excuse to use a more traditional D&D framework - that of adventurers going to a quiet village and solving problems for townsfolk. You can watch the whole adventure on YouTube here (along with our first), and I’ll highlight a few of my influences in this post, since I think it might be an interesting thought process for anyone working on their own campaign.

The hook getting Lester and Claudia to leave the capital city was the titular “grandmotherly ghost” haunting Aquaria, a small farming community. It turned out that the ghost was actually the former headmistress of the town orphanage, and she was simply trying to warn residents that the new orphanage master was a shady fellow with magic at his disposal who had secretly been brainwashing children and selling them to the barbarians of the Wild Lands, an uncharted grasslands region full of deadly beasts. And despite their seeming acceptance of slavery, the barbarians weren’t exactly bad guys either - they were more like a disenfranchised minority trying to maintain a tenuous peace with the Tartec king while fighting against a vicious sea serpent named Ungar who had recently invaded their turf. The only reason they needed the kids was to power an old steampunk robot known as the Clockwork Dragon which was the only thing capable of killing Ungar, and this gizmo had been created by a quirky wizard who loved children and made constructs that could only be used by orphans.

So in other words, there were a whole lot of twists in the plot, which started as a ghost hunt in a village but quickly ballooned into a full-out exploration of the Wild Lands and the uncovering of a conspiracy. I’ve always felt that small, so-called “idyllic” towns actually hide a lot of creepy secrets behind an illusion of peace, and my character, Claudia, even comments on this at one point, talking about how cities are places where people are more likely to stab you in the open, but little villages are places where people are more likely to stab you in your sleep. Stephen King, one of my favorite authors, also subscribes to this notion, which is why he sets most of his works in weird Maine suburbs rather than cities. In interviews for Salem’s Lot, his book about vampires infesting a town, he actually mentions that if Dracula came back in this day and age and tried to take over New York City, he’d probably get run over by a car before making it very far. But a sleepy village in the middle of nowhere? He’d conquer that sort of place slowly but surely, and that’s the reasoning I kept remembering while designing both the town of Aquaria and Albertus Alright, the new orphanage master and probably the only real “villain” in our campaign, aside from Ungar the sea serpent herself.

Speaking of villains, I mentioned earlier that the barbarians who play such a large role in this story weren’t exactly bad guys. This was an important thing that I wanted to develop, because real life rarely has the mustache-twirling baddies of fiction - just people who are often radically intent on accomplishing their goals. Around the time when I was brainstorming this adventure, I was reading Scalped, which is a great comic series by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra about life on a South Dakota Native American reservation. It highlights the crime, corruption, poverty and preservation of cultural identity that many of these reservations grapple with, and I found this to be inspiring stuff when designing the barbarians and their Wild Land home. I basically tried to portray them as natives who’d been abused and quarantined off in a tiny area by a larger, more powerful government, which is frankly what’s happened to most aboriginal peoples across the globe, not just in the United States. Within the fantasy setting of the campaign, the big government power was the Tartec empire of King Darian IV, and there was a small segment of the barbarians - the Clawrunner tribe - who resented this oppression and ended up getting their hands on the Clockwork Dragon, a weapon that could’ve given them the upper hand against the Tartec forces if they’d wanted to use it in such a way. Luckily, they were more focused on killing the sea serpent razing their homeland, and Lester and Claudia essentially served as neutral go-betweens, encouraging them to not engage in terrorism or cause a war that would’ve quickly gotten out of hand. If only real life could have such quick ‘n easy resolutions!

On the topic of sea serpents and mecha dragons, one of the other main tropes of traditional D&D that I wanted to inject into this quest was that of the monster. Aside from a crocodile and some snakes in the sewers, the last campaign I’d played through with my brother had mostly featured human enemies, simply because there aren’t many deadly creatures to be found within a city. (Though you could probably argue that humans are the worst monsters of all!) Venturing into the wilderness gave me the excuse to go through the Monster Manual and pull out some of the beasties that make tabletop RPGs fun, though since my brother’s world isn’t the sort of place that has humanoids like orcs, goblinkin or mind flayers, I decided to focus on the more animal-esque D&D creatures that are naturally found in forests and grasslands - stuff like the owlbear (one of my faves), the griffon, the bulette and a few mutated, more powerful versions of mammals found in our world, like rhinos and wolves. When I was designing the Wild Lands section of the adventure I also became aware of the Baby Bestiary - a wonderful series of third party D&D supplements by Metal Weave Games that provides details on younger versions of classic creatures - and I was so enamored of the concept that I wrote a turning point where Lester and Claudia can choose to adopt either an infant griffon or an infant owlbear. My brother went with the griffon, naming it Sparky, and it’ll hopefully grown to be a strong companion (Pokemon style) in future adventures.

I had one more thing I wanted to pull off with monsters in this campaign - a throwdown in the finale between the Clockwork Dragon, which could be powered by Lester, Claudia and the orphans like a medieval Voltron, and the sea serpent Ungar. This was inspired by a phase I went through about two years ago where I watched nearly all of the Godzilla movies in a row. When I finished, I kept trying to figure out how to implement kaiju battles into a tabletop RPG, because surprisingly nobody’s really done this successfully yet, though board games like King of Tokyo have come close. I finally decided that the best way to do it would be to give relatively low level playable characters temporary control of a giant beast with high level stats. So Lester and Claudia, two seventh level characters, got to choose from abilities meant for a Challenge Rating 14 dragon, giving them access to stuff like Legendary Actions and rechargeable fire breath. Their opponent was also a high level dragon with similar capabilities, and the resulting combat went better than I expected and communicated (as best as you can in a tabletop RPG, anyway) the scale and power that comes with the best big monster fights. I’ll probably end up recycling the idea again for another D&D group - in this one DM + one player game, it was just my brother controlling all of the Clockwork Dragon’s actions, but I think it would be fun with a larger group to have one player control the movement, one control the attacks, one the Legendary Actions, etc.

All in all, The Case of the Grandmotherly Ghost took about 11 sessions and 24 hours to complete, which is roughly on par with The Case of the Almost Assassination. 20-30 hours seems to be the amount of content that I subconsciously end up creating when I design a campaign, which is interesting, because about four years ago on this blog I wrote (in a poorly written fashion, I now find) a post about how 30-ish hours is probably my ideal length for a gaming experience. The next adventure my bro and I will be embarking upon with Lester and Claudia - The Case of the Troubled Territory - might end up hitting that mark as well, though I do plan to experiment and hopefully make it more open-ended than this past one, which checked off most of my bullet points but was slightly too linear at moments.

At any rate, now that we’ve conquered the great outdoors, the theme for the next quest will be “Arabian Nights!” Who knows what future rolls lie in store for our heroes? Expect another campaign deconstruction in…five or six months time, hopefully!

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taocastleprincess · 6 years ago

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inktober for writers // day 6 // ‘tentacles’ & ‘I’m grateful for you’

A/N: this short story features my babies!! Nurina Naderi and Prince Xander. (if you follow me you’ve probably seen me tag hella quotes and pictures with either of their names, lol) i created them my sophomore year of college in my creating writing class taught by Daniel José Older!! it’s been like three years since then and Nurina and Xander still aren’t totally fleshed out but they’re realer and their story is so much grander than what I first envisioned back then! i love fantasy, urban especially, and the integration of lesser known African myths into stories. Both of my characters are Black, bisexual/pan, and unapologetic. can’t wait to be finished fleshing out and writing the entirety of their story so we can get my babies published and OUT THERE! i love them! and i hope this v short story that i wrote for day 6 makes you love them a little bit too.

also!! the Man-Eating Tree featured in this short is adapted from the Man-Eating Tree myth from several tribes/ethnic groups in Madagascar. According to myth, the tree ate people by capturing them with their tentacle-like leaves, crushing them to near-death and then throwing the victim into the base of the tree to, finally, eat them whole. Spooky, right?!

For once, the mayhem and chaos that they’ve found themselves in doesn’t leave a grin on Xander’s face. And, even though that on a pain scale of 1 - 10 she’s clearing a 14.5, Nurina can’t help but feel an absurd amount of impish glee. Maybe the fae are rubbing off on her. “What’s wrong, Princey? Finally bit off more than you can ch— Oh my God. My arm feels like it’s going to fall off. That tree is a goddamn monster.” Her right arm is swollen and bleeding with circular bruises marking the places where she has ripped away tentacles. Yes, tentacles. The things that belong on squids and octopi. Not trees. Especially not man-eating trees. Xander looks pale, a rare occurrence for a faerie from the Summer Court. His brown eyes blankly look Nurina up and down stopping on her arm for a long period each time. Nuri’s excitement at his current state quickly dissipates. His sleek brown body isn’t made for sagging, his ethereal eyes aren’t crafted for emotionless stares. Even the sunlit glow that usually accompanies his glamourless body is nearly missing, only barely outlining the edges of his shape. He looks like a different creature. Exhausted, reluctant. Defeated. “Xander, you big idiot, I know what you’re thinking.” She pushes herself off the ground with her good arm, careful not to jostle her other arm any more than she has to. She walks to the faerie’s side trying to mask her labored breathing. “This isn’t anyone’s fault. I messed up. We messed up. We do this all the time. Remember the talent show? That was way worse than this so I don’t know why you’re being such a big ba—“ “Because we know that the stakes are higher now, Nurina!” His deep voice reverberates through the night air sending a shock throughout the woods that shakes the branches of the trees surrounding them. Nurina recoils, unused to the fae using such harsh tones with her. He doesn’t talk to her like that. Not ever. Nurina immediately feels a wave of calm trying to force its way in. A cloud of foreign emotion trying to mask her unease. Anger flares within her at the realization of what’s happening and the surge of fresh, genuine emotion rips through the incoming haze, piercing the glamour. “Do not do that, Xander. Do not mess with my emotions, do not try to shut me up! What the hell is wrong with you lately?” Against her will her voice cracks and shakes and she can feel her eyes start to water. Weren’t they past this? The crossing of boundaries, the complete disregard of each other’s feelings? Weren’t they friends now? Why is everything such a mess? She thought that freeing him from The Realm had solidified their partnership, their growth, their respect for one another. But the only thing it has done is bring her an almost impossible mission and an almost unrecognizable companion, a shadow of the mischievous prince she used to know. “I was not trying to shut you up or deceive you. You were about to shut down. Like you always do.” His words are direct and cool but his warm brown eyes shine with worry. “I can’t have you shutting down on me tonight. Or any time. Not anymore.” His handsome features are marred by distress making him look older and more severe. His face is more suited for smiles, sly winks, flirty gazes, Nurina thinks subconsciously. “Well then talk to me! I don’t ‘shut down,’ I just leave because no one thinks I’m important enough to talk to! Not yell at. Not condescend to. Just talk.” Xander opens his mouth to speak and Nuri lifts her good arm to push an open palm into his face. “No. Just shut up first. You’d think that after I singlehandedly broke you out of Fancy-Faerie-Prison and cleared your name of murder, you’d stop saying stupid, sexist shit like ‘you’re too emotional! You’ll shut down! You won’t be able to handle it!’ And start actually treating me like an equal! But I guess that’s too much to ask for, huh, asshole?” “I’m not sexist,” Xander says after a long pause causing Nuri to raise her eyebrows disbelievingly. “I think humans, in general, are overemotional.” “Shut the hell up. It’s done. Just let me know what’s up. This ‘tortured and aloof magical prince’ act is old.” Xander sighs. His eyes wander to Nurina’s mangled arm again. He takes it, gently, and examines it thoroughly before carefully placing it back by her side. Even with the arm being numb with excruciating pain, his touch still brings pleasant tingles. She wonders if he can sense what she feels right now. Her cheeks flush thinking of such an embarrassing scenario. “Are you really okay?” He asks softly, almost whispering. Nuri suddenly becomes distinctly aware of how quiet it is. Everything is still. Nothing dares to move. Even the wind is steady. “Not your arm but you. Are you okay?” “What?” “This isn’t normal, Nurina. What we’re getting into. It’s not... It isn’t like before.” “It’s never been normal, genius. You’re a faerie. A Faerie prince. Half a year ago I didn’t even believe in you and I thought that the only nation who still thought monarchies were cool was the UK.” Xander squints at her and Nuri swallows a laugh. Faeries. They’re so sensitive about their outdated systems of governance. “And anyway,” she continues, “this is exactly like before! We run into some weird thing from your Realm, we get beat up, the tables turn and then the baddie gets beat up, somebody heals us, and then we go home! This is normal. This is our normal. What is your deal? You didn’t have anything to say about it before.” “Right. That was before I got accused of murder, we both were nearly killed, found out the deaths of both our mothers are linked, and learned we have, maybe, less than a year to save The Realm and your city.” He talks slowly and enunciates each word as if talking to a young child. Exasperation ages his features and makes him look much older than his 17 years. “Excuse me for not thinking that ‘this is our normal.’ This kind of disaster isn’t even typical for the darkest part of The Realm. We are dealing with things much more sensitive than you’d like to admit, Nurina, like it or not. “Maybe it was always going to end up like this. Especially since we’re carrying the responsibility for choices that were made long before we were even able to walk. But...” Nurina watches pain and regret flash across Xander’s face and her stomach twists in agony. “Maybe... if that day by the Basin...” “Xander, you know that’s not true. We always had to find each other. And I’m not talking about fate or any of that dumb stuff. I’m talking common sense. You had to find me, regardless. I’m the only one who can hone whatever-the-hell is inside the gems. Me. My mom left that task to me. So the day we first met at the Tidal Basin? That day has nothing to do with where we are now.” She reaches out to grab his hand. It’s warm. Unnaturally so. Most faeries’ internal temperatures run extremely high. Xander, being a Summer Fae, is no different. “Look at my arm, Xander. Look at it,” Nuri raises her arm as far as she can, wincing at the sudden movement. “It’s messed up. Effed up! All because of this!” She lifts her neck to put the dull but entrancing necklace draping her chest on display. “This,” she juts her neck even higher, “is why my life is crap. This is why my mom is dead. This is why I have to add ‘save the entirety of effing D.C. and all of Faerie World’ on my Senior Checklist. Not you.” Nuri squeezes Xander’s hand and she’s filled with warmth when he squeezes back and gives her a faint smile. “‘Faerie World?’ You make it sound like a cartoon,” Xander says, voice slightly lilting in that playful way of his. “Funny because I did get that from a cartoon. You ever seen The Fairly-Odd Parents?” “No, but I’m sure it’s quite offensive and full of baseless stereotypes.” “You’re not wrong,” Nuri winks. Xander laughs lightly and squeezes her hand again. “Come on. We need to hurry up and burn this thing before it starts to germinate the area. And then we need to head to Ryhaewa’s before your arm sits for too long. You know his balms work better the fresher the injury is.” “You didn’t kill it already? Didn’t you burn it?” “I did burn it,” Xander starts while pulling Nuri along with him back towards the husk that’s left of the carnivorous tree, but to actually kill it you have to burn it from the inside out. Otherwise it’ll respawn and come back stronger and more intelligent than before. You have to burn the heart.” “It has a heart?” “Most things do.” Xander lets Nurina’s hand go and walks even closer to the tree. She uses the opportunity to raise her hand over her nose and mouth to try and block out some of the stench. What is left of the tree smells of dying, festering flesh. Most of it is burnt and black but some of its tentacle branches still live, whipping themselves into dizzying patterns, soundlessly threatening him. Nurina gets sick thinking about the damage those huge tentacles could impart on him. He’s strong, supernaturally so, but he’s not invincible by any means. He’s not immortal. “Xand—“ “See? You humans. So overwrought. I’ll be fine, little light.” Nurina’s cheeks heat up at the endearment. “I was actually going to tell you to hurry the hell up. Some of us need immediate medical attention, you ass.” Xander laughs again and this time it’s his usual one. Loud and lovely. Joyous. It feels like the perfect summer day has taken residence inside of her. When he reaches the base of the tree, Xander’s hands start glowing intensely. Summerish light pours out of his hands and even though Nurina is several feet away she can start to feel the heat emanating from his palms. She starts to sweat as she watches the tentacle branches squirm in discomfort and fury and latch themselves onto Xander’s body. Nurina can see their bodies constricting, trying to weaken the faerie. Trying to squeeze the life out of him. Her own mangled arm throbs with sharper pain just watching. “Xander!” He has started a small flame at the base of the tree but the tentacles still squeeze, still trying to suck at his energy. One of the tentacles hanging onto his arm catches her attention. It seems to be the strongest one and it rewraps itself around his forearm. She can hear its suction cups digging into Xander’s skin and this time she can tell it hurts him because the fae’s body jerks and the light shooting from his hands dims. Almost indiscernibly. “It’s eating you!” “Yes. It is. It is a flesh-eating tree.” She tries to laugh but Nuri can hear the strain in his voice. She wants to go to him, to run in and save the day but she doesn’t. She can’t. She’s fragile, human. She couldn’t even withstand five seconds of one of those tentacles wrapped around her arm. So if she were in Xander’s position... The fire grows and the tentacles start to weaken but he’s still not out of danger. Nurina caresses her bad arm and tries to relax. She’s out of commission but she’s with the strongest, smartest fae she knows. And doesn’t he always get everything under control eventually? Trust. She has to let go and trust in him. It’s hard to take the back seat when all you’ve ever been trained to do is take charge. To save everyone else. To make sure that all the collateral damage only falls on you. She watches Xander continue to battle the weakening tentacles. Some things can’t be helped. She can’t be the hero all the time. Sometimes it’s not her job. The tentacles start to sag as the fire grows bigger and burns brighter. The area is hit with another stench-wave of burning flesh. Xander looks over his shoulder, his smile stretches across his entire face as he winks. Sometimes someone else has to step in. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be saved. “I’m so grateful for you,” Nurina whispers. If he were a human, he wouldn’t have heard her, but he wasn’t and he did. His face slacks in genuine surprise at the vulnerability of her words. “To you. You think you ruined my life. But you didn’t. Trust me. We’re a team. We have to cover each other’s asses every once in a while. And that’s cool. I don’t mind battling entire fancy, magical monarchies for you.” She giggles a bit. She would mind, a tiny bit, if she had to do that again. “Especially since you’re my best friend and you’ve saved my broken ass everyday since that afternoon downtown.” There is a long pause. The tree is dead now and its tentacles shrivel. Xander kicks them into the fire, making sure to destroy every part of the monsterish tree. After he circles the entire fire and concedes that there’s nothing left to be burned he walks slowly over to Nurina. When he reaches her he only gazes into her eyes. Summery brown pools of honey meet incredible depths of dark, almost black, brown. “You’re not broken. That’s first. Second, you’ve saved me from execution and a traitorous plot on my life. I owe you my life twice over.” “You don’t owe me anything.” “No, little light,” Xander says and taps the apple of her cheek twice with his pointer finger, “I owe you quite a lot. You’re too generous. I don’t do much saving. It’s against my nature,” he winks mischievously. Nurina smiles. “I think your nature is changing.” Xander laughs. “No, I just have exceptions.” He sobers then and stares intently at her, completely shifting the tone from one of light jest to something heavier. “Nurina.” He doesn’t just say her name, he commands it. Brings it to attention. The hair on her neck stands on end. “Yes?” “You’re right,” he says. “We are a team. Equals. We have to be.” Nuri nods her head silently while Xander absentmindedly continues to tap her cheek. “But you need to tell me when you feel that everything is too much. You’re not being honest with me.” “Wha—“ “Listen. You’re brilliant. Strong. Capable. You’ve proven me wrong, the Courts, the entire Realm. But you don’t have to prove anything else. You’ve barely given yourself time to rest. You’re dead set on placing yourself into an early grave, Nurina. And I will stop you before that happens.” Xander’s finger stops its tapping and instead gently winds down her cheek and curves to rest lightly under her chin. “We’re equals, Nurina. But I won’t ever hesitate to snatch you back from the edge. We’re a team; you don’t get to jump into suicide missions.” Nurina laughs and swipes his hand away from her face. She’s warm all over, buzzing with giddiness, but the last thing she needs is to give her local cocky faerie prince another reason to think he’s hot shit. “That sounds a whole lot like saving to me.” Xander smiles. “Only for you, little light.”

#inktober for writers #writober #original story #writers on tumblr #original work #my writing #nurina naderi #xander #african mythology #african folklore

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simaethae · 7 years ago

Note

That alien au is fantastic! it's so great and I want to know more of the plot

ldgblgb you’re assuming there is a plot and not, like, a series of bad excuses but thank you

anyway here’s the chatlog where we came up with it, warning for some nsfw and @yavieriel and i being nerds at length ^_^

simaethae: so what’s YOUR worst modern AU

[20:07] simaethae: i think i’ve read coffeeshop AUs in otherfandoms which talked about baking, which was their one redeeming feature

[20:10] Yavieriel: Coffeeshop AUs do have that redeemingfuture

[20:10] Yavieriel: (well, sometimes)

[20:10] simaethae: occasionally!

[20:10] Yavieriel: man there’s so many awful modern AUs tochoose from

[20:10] simaethae: oooh, sports AU. i know nothing aboutsports but i’m sure they have to exist

[20:12] Yavieriel: I’m not sure if it still counts as amodern AU, but for most what-the-fuck fandom trends, “the characters aremerpeople who are kept in captivity and forced to breed to produce mer-caviar,which is considered a culinary delicacy” has to win some kind of prize

[20:12] simaethae: oh my god

[20:12] Yavieriel: I’m trying to think how that would evenwork with Sauron and Tyelpe

[20:12] Yavieriel: suddenly Sauron is a lot moresympathetic?

[20:13] simaethae: i mean i would not exactly be AGAINSTsome xeno dubcon but the problem with AUs for the Silm is that without thecontext it’s really hard to get the characterisation remotely similar?

[20:13] Yavieriel: right, I was trying to think of some kindof.. parallels and

[20:13] Yavieriel: it very quickly turns into a completelydifferent dynamic

[20:14] simaethae: ….Sauron as the unethical scientistexperimenting on mer-Tyelpe. sexy bad experimentation. but that makesTyelpe…. kind of boringly passive?

[20:14] Yavieriel: Sauron as a traitor mer who’s beenselling other mers into captivity, maybe?

[20:14] simaethae: lmao

[20:15] simaethae: i still feel like that would be kind of adifferent dynamic tho

[20:15] Yavieriel: man one of the things that was reallystriking in the Strife of Truth with Art was how similar Sauron and Celebrimborstart sounding once you summarize too much and lose the context/details

[20:15] simaethae: bc External Threat?

[20:16] simaethae: yeah!!

[20:16] simaethae: i commented on how all the “whobetrayed whom” and “who stole knowledge/rings from whom” stuffwas getting super confused

[20:17] simaethae: which makes sense! especially when it’sbeen filtered through humans who’ve also been getting Sauron’s side of thestory

[20:17] Yavieriel: otoh in less-weird modern AUs, I feellike some kind of holiday-retail employment setting would be the meanest/mostinsulting to the characters

[20:17] simaethae: ahaha omg

[20:17] simaethae: but Sauron as the world’s worst managerwould be great. especially because he thinks he’s the best and has theflowcharts to prove it

[20:17] Yavieriel: at least in high school there’s the weirdsocial stuff where Sauron and/or Celebrimbor can have extravagant degrees ofinfluence over others

[20:18] Yavieriel: oh lord, yeah Sauron would be

[20:19] Yavieriel: although then I feel like Tyelpe has tobe, like, the other manager? Or hisboss? Everyone is baffled why theirgenuinely good boss decided to hire this asshole and thinks he’s so great

[20:19] simaethae: Tyelpe does a work placement with AngbandLLP, accidentally invents a way to improve [productivity metric] by 80%inbetween Sauron trying to do the good corporate mentor thing which, uh, doesnot exactly /not/ look like sexual harassment but Tyelpe isn’t sure he. minds?

[20:19] Yavieriel: [snorts]

[20:20] simaethae: it’s still not exactly getting theEregion dynamic tho is it

[20:20] Yavieriel: “is it sexual harassment if you’reinto it?” "yes, but for thepeople around you instead"

[20:20] simaethae: lol yep

[20:20] Yavieriel: no, they’d need to be like…Tony-Stark-type genius inventor CEOs and Annatar is in disguise doing corporateespionage

[20:21] simaethae: oooh, yep

[20:22] simaethae: Tyelpe’s the Stark-type CEO and Annataris his terrifying PA, popular rumour has it that they’re sleeping together,Annatar started the rumour out of sexual frustration

[20:22] Yavieriel: the degree of influence and independenceand power they both have is just too high to really translate into being anysort of average person

[20:22] Yavieriel: [chokes]

[20:22] Yavieriel: does Tyelpe even notice that everyonethinks they’re sleeping together?

[20:23] Yavieriel: Annatar as secretly-evil!Pepper Potts,flame powers and all

[20:23] simaethae: yeah also realistically Annatar - doesn’twork for me very well as a human? because the bullshit he pulls is interestingif he’s a powerful alien who doesn’t get it, but would just be ordinarilyboring and shitty from a human :/

[20:23] simaethae: YEAH

[20:23] Yavieriel: right, if he’s human it’s just regularassholish-ness

[20:23] Yavieriel: shapeshifting alien Annatar?

[20:23] simaethae: …how would “secretly evil”even look in Marvel, all their governments are dying to be dictatorships anyway

[20:23] simaethae: yeah!!

[20:24] simaethae: i think you fixed it

[20:24] Yavieriel: if you go with an actual comic-book-typesetting that’s totally within bounds of plausible/normal

[20:24] simaethae: i think i’ve actually read fic along/vaguely/ similar lines involving Tony Stark and Loki, tho i might just befree-associating

[20:25] Yavieriel: keep the industrial espionage angleexcept Annatar was formerly like, Dr. Doom’s chief henchman? Only he decided Tyelpe makes a much betterboss so Doom can go fuck himslef

[20:25] simaethae: shapeshifting evil alien Annatar decidesto work his way into a position of trust with Tyelpe, powerful CEO doing cleanenergy stuff, to get access to world leaders and work out how to work thesystem in advance of his bid for power

[20:25] Yavieriel: no I think I have too

[20:26] Yavieriel: or possibly we’re both free-associatingLise’s Steve/Loki series + all the Tony/Loki fic out there

[20:27] simaethae: Annatar is unavoidably distracted fromworld conquest because a) he kind of likes running a multinational company,it’s genuinely well-suited to his talents, and b) significant amounts of timewondering why Tyelperinquar won’t take the hint and importune his assistantalready

[20:27] simaethae: i think i actually still have thatbookmarked to read? but yeah

[20:28] Yavieriel: right, can’t Tyelpe at least be immoralenough to take some of the really blatant cues Annatar has been giving him

[…]

[20:44] simaethae: yeah, i was going to say Annatar would bereally great at running a big company, albeit partly by terrorising otherpeople into doing a good job and relentless delight in bureaucracy, so he’saccidentally damaged his prospects by making Tyelpe terrified he’ll quit

[20:44] Yavieriel: right, that time Annatar was running hishands of Tyelpe’s latest prototype and super into Tyelpe’s explanation of[obscure technical aspect of it] was honestly the closest he got to actuallypersuading Tyelpe to make a move

[20:44] simaethae: Tyelpe really likes being able to trustsomeone else to do the paperwork! what if he hits on Annatar and Annatarresigns and then he has to go back to filling in Form 33.C in triplicatehimself again!

[20:45] simaethae: :D Tyelpe is uncomfortably aware that hisfantasies about Annatar touching his engineering work are getting kind ofinappropriate

[20:45] Yavieriel: spend all that time actually managing hiscompany instead of inventing stuff and letting Annatar handle thelogistics? The horror

[20:46] Yavieriel: (the potential for incredibly high-techbdsm sex toys in this scenario :smile: :smile: :D)

[20:46] simaethae: everyone else assumes they’re definitelyfucking and Tyelpe’s protests about how he would Never Do That are just areputation thing

[20:46] simaethae: (ohh, yes, excellent point!!)

[20:48] Yavieriel: people would be more concerned about thisin the general “unethical behavior from my employer” way except thatTyelpe has never even hinted at interest in anyone else, so everyone sort ofshrugs at it

[20:49] simaethae: also people who have actually met Annatartend to form a pretty accurate opinion of who would REALLY be more likely tosexually exploit who >_>

[20:49] Yavieriel: RIGHT

[20:49] Yavieriel: the handful of people who have consideredbringing this up with Annatar very quickly end up disabused of the notion thatAnnatar is being coerced in any way

[20:50] Yavieriel: if anyone’s getting coerced it’s them,they will be very happy to never be in the same room with Annatar again, thankyou

[20:51] Yavieriel: (obviously none of them had actually metAnnatar before, beyond possibly a polite handshake)

[20:51] simaethae: ….probably slightly more worried aboutTyelpe tho! Galadriel is one of the few people to be mostly sure they’re reallynot fucking, but it took some really embarrassingly conversations with Tyelpeto get there

[20:51] simaethae: yeah, or not in more than smileycorporate assistant persona :>

[20:53] Yavieriel: Galadriel is actually sure they’re notfucking and not entirely sure how she should feel about this, because on theone hand Annatar seems like a terrible choice, but on the other hand… Tyelpedoes need someone to take care of him, actually seems rather attached toAnnatar, and Annatar bizarrely enough seems to have some genuine feeling forTyelpe?

[20:53] simaethae: presumably it actually works out onceEvil Shapeshifting Alien invasion happens and Annatar changes sides orsomething because this was Not The Plan, he’s increasingly unsure what the planwas but it was Not This, but with some dramatic interludes in which no oneincluding Annatar is completely sure which side he’s on

[20:53] Yavieriel: why couldn’t her favorite cousin havebetter taste, she asks

[20:53] simaethae: yeah, Galadriel can’t stand Annatar butTyelpe seems…. happier?

[20:54] Yavieriel: right, like he’s definitely not on TeamSave The World, but he is on Team How Dare You Make My Boyfriend Unhappy andThreaten My Corporate Empire

[20:55] simaethae: or at least, happier when he’s aroundAnnatar, he gets this wistful look somtimes and she grits her teeth and tellsherself that bastard had better look after her cousin

[20:55] simaethae: yeah!

[20:55] simaethae: team How Dare You Touch What’s Mine :)

[20:56] simaethae: Annatar eventually gets fired, mayberehired, but also finally laid in the space of about an hour

[20:56] Yavieriel: tbh I think I read something like thatwith Superman and Lex Luthor, where Luthor ends up using his powers for goodbecause no one else is allowed to kill Superman and destroy Earth, how darethey

[20:56] simaethae: didn’t astolat maybe write some stuffalong those lines?

[20:56] Yavieriel: very probably

[20:57] Yavieriel: that would explain why I was reading it,usually I’m strictly team Superman/Batman

[20:57] simaethae: (so if Annatar’s actually a shapeshiftingalien I assume Tyelpe is. curious about the biology involved. he doesn’t wantto make Annatar feel as if Tyelpe’s not into his real form - if he has a realform, obviously this is purely in a spirit of scientific enquiry - )

[20:58] Yavieriel: yesssss

[20:59] Yavieriel: possibly there are tentacles involved:heart:

[21:03] Yavieriel: but definitely Weird Alien Biology,Tyelpe is very into this, Annatar finds it all fascinating and they mutuallyfind it really sexy when Annatar shows off his assorted alien features toTyelpe

[21:03] simaethae: yeah!

[21:04] simaethae: also Annatar being kind of - genuinelymoved by how into him Tyelpe is

[21:05] simaethae: turns out Tyelpe actually likes Annatarfor himself even when he forgets to constantly fake a more amenable persona??

[21:05] Yavieriel: right, and being surprised how much itmatters to him that Tyelpe does care about his not-human aspects

[21:05] simaethae: yesssss

[21:05] simaethae: Annatar wouldn’t have expected himself tocare!

[21:06] Yavieriel: right! He’s a shapeshifter by nature, it shouldn’t matter which form[s] hislover is attracted to they’re all his technically

[21:06] Yavieriel: but. Tyelpe is just into him, as a person, regardless

[21:06] simaethae: probably they go through kind of a weirdphase where Annatar’s like “so what would you like me to look liketonight” before they both work out that’s…. not really doing it foreither of them

[21:07] simaethae: (well, for Annatar maybe a /little/, but)

[21:07] Yavieriel: maybe Annatar’s native species is somekind of hyper-evolved octopus

[21:07] simaethae: ….i mean on the one hand excuse fortentacles, but on the other hand cephalopods ARE really good at camouflage??

[21:08] Yavieriel: it does a little for Annatar but he sortof realizes that it’s more “letting Tyelpe decide what he looks like/setrules” than the shapeshifting per se

[21:08] Yavieriel: right, like I was trying to think of whatwould be a good shapeshifty-species and also a native form that’s still atleast sorta appealing by human standards?

[21:10] Yavieriel: Annatar as something sort of like thishttps://i.pinimg.com/736x/83/61/49/836149daf9187173d766a3076eb762f9–octopus-mermaid-a-mermaid.jpg

[21:10] Yavieriel: but with golden hair-tentacles

[21:10] simaethae: YEAH

[21:10] simaethae: sharp teeth :)

[21:11] Yavieriel: and like, extrasensory stuff going on viaidk, telepathic tentacles or something?

[21:11] Yavieriel: RIGHT

[21:11] simaethae: some sort of electromagnetic ESP stuff?

[21:12] simaethae: because i’m p sure some fish can actuallydo that, idk about cephalopods but it wouldn’t surprise me

[21:12] Yavieriel:https://i.pinimg.com/736x/dd/6a/9b/dd6a9b56efa1308938dd8f9eee4cc4a4–elf-warrior-fantasy-warrior.jpgooooh, there we go, the hair-tentacles like I was thinking

[21:13] Yavieriel: yeah, and also now Tyelpe knows whyAnnatar always had perfect hair

[21:13] simaethae: NICE

[21:14] simaethae: also Annatar getting turned on by Tyelpebeing an alien to /him/?

[21:15] Yavieriel: Annatar’s native form isn’t actually verywell adapted for surviving on land, but they have a great deal of fun figuringout a sort of hybrid state that’s a bit more humanoid and handles being on land(or at least, in bed) better

[21:15] simaethae: (“your spinal vertebrae are in thesame place /all the time/?” “yes, uh, please don’t try to rearrangethem - ”)

[21:16] Yavieriel: the oxygen-deprivation can be fun, butthey’d rather not have to work around it every time they feel like getting thetentacles out

[21:17] simaethae: yeah, and also presumably Annatarwouldn’t actually be super comfortable in unsalted chlorinated water withoutany adaptations, so the bath wouldn’t be a great solution

[21:18] Yavieriel: right, like, sure Tyelpe can afford tohave a large saltwater tank installed but that has it’s own disadvantages, andAnnatar really enjoys the more decadent lifestyle possible when everythingisn’t underwater

[21:18] simaethae: …Tyelpe kind of pausing and blushingwhen Annatar gets comfortable enough to start, like, picking things up with hishair :)

[21:18] Yavieriel: yesss

[21:19] simaethae: yeah, or at least when the localtechnology isn’t well-adapted for underwater and your boyfriend can’t breathewithout air

[21:19] Yavieriel: also really fascinated by the variousneurotoxins and whatnot that Annatar is capable of producing

[21:19] Yavieriel: that too

[21:20] Yavieriel: hypothermia tends to be an issue as well

[21:20] simaethae: oooh, accidents with chemicals

[21:21] Yavieriel: Annatar’s completely resistant to allsorts of chemicals that are poisonous to humans, but turns out [totally commonhuman food] is a potent aphrodisiac for his species

[21:21] simaethae: Annatar’s species totally produce a wholerange of neurochemicals for reproduction/bonding with a mate and they’re not…totally incompatible with human physiology, although it’s a slightlydistressing interval before Tyelpe reassures him this is the GOOD kind of pupildilation

[21:21] Yavieriel: oooh, yes

[21:22] simaethae: or gets him drunk! :)

[21:22] simaethae: that one time Annatar walked out of ameeting where they had [snacks with ingredient in] now suddenly makes a lotmore sense

[21:23] Yavieriel: right! And another common food is extremely poisonous and there’s a ratherworrying incident where Tyelpe has to desperately hope that his understandingof alien biology is sufficient for him to appropriately treat it

[21:24] Yavieriel: also, Annatar now has an entirely newrange of options for terrorizing his subordinates

[21:24] simaethae: mm, and/or Annatar being like “don’tworry, I’m used to dealing with toxic chemicals, let me just do some quickinternal surgery” while Tyelpe’s like “what”

[21:25] simaethae: (i kind of think Annatar would be veryneedy and demand to have his brow mopped in response to minor injuries butdisturbingly blase about more major ones)

[21:26] Yavieriel: true, Annatar basically reaching in andrearranging his own internal organs in a very disturbing fashion

[21:27] Yavieriel: well, I was going for “actually foronce genuinely incapacitated”

[21:28] simaethae: aw, yeah. Annatar being like “youidiot I’ll be fine I just need to - ” [drops unconscious] :/

[21:28] Yavieriel: of course possibly Annatar doescavalierly rearrange his own organs and then passes out, all “I’ll be fineI just need to sleep this off now” but Tyelpe is understandably (andcorrectly) Very Concerned about this

[21:29] simaethae: right, also someone going bonelesslyunconscious when they literally do not have any actual bones is a surprisinglytricky logistical challenge

[21:30] Yavieriel: akldfj;sdk yeah, Tyelpe trying to figureout how the hell to move an unconscious octopus that’s basically twice the sizeof an adult human once you factor in all the tentacles

[21:32] simaethae: right, and kind of hoping he doesn’ttouch anything that triggers a reflexive sting while Annatar’s unconscious>_>

[21:33] simaethae: aslfn wait let me make it worse. Annatartotally does sting on reflex while unconscious, but his body recognises Tyelpeas his mate and decides now is definitely the time to shoot him up witheuphorics

[21:33] Yavieriel: ooooh

[21:33] Yavieriel: yeah that would be extremely not helpful

[21:34] Yavieriel: mmm, and leading in tonot-really-conscious Annatar trying to mate with Tyelpe like he’s another ofthe same species

[21:34] Yavieriel: which

[21:34] simaethae: which doesn’t make Tyelpe exactlynot-worried, because getting high isn’t the same as not having emotionsanymore, but does make him kind of poorly coordinated and probably prone toending up with both of them half-in the bathtub with Annatar on an improvisedIV line, while Tyelpe gives in and snuggles

[21:34] simaethae: omg

[21:35] Yavieriel: Does Not Work, but in ways that are…decidedly interesting

[21:37] Yavieriel: Tyelpe snuggling Annatar in the bathtuband waking up to tentacles doing something that is… not exactly pleasant butstill rather sexy

[21:38] simaethae: Annatar being groggily affectionatebecause mate! here! everything is correct and good! while Tyelpe is kind ofworried he’s taking advantage of Annatar in an altered state of consciousnessbut also a) that feels really good if extremely weird and b) it’s a good jobTyelpe’s into this because Annatar’s pretty determined to snuggle >_>

[21:38] Yavieriel: yessss

[21:39] simaethae: right, he’s kind of worried this is goingto end with eggs being laid in /someone/ but not enough to actually stop :)

[21:40] Yavieriel: warm salt-water because Tyelpe did havethe foresight to put together an emergency kit of sorts to make the bathwatermore appropriate for Annatar’s natural state, but that’s also encouraging, ah,mating behavior

[21:40] simaethae: yep!!

[21:40] Yavieriel: la;dkfjs;lkafj YES >.>

[21:41] simaethae: Annatar’s biology being like, “ah,clearly this is a warm tidal rock-pool, the perfect place to spawn”>_>

[21:41] Yavieriel: he’s pretty sure the thought ofegg-laying shouldn’t be turning him on either but he did decide to bang anoctopus-alien, soooo

[21:41] simaethae: alfgblgn

[21:43] Yavieriel:https://thattoychick.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/weird-sex-toys-o-the-week-the-what-dildo-edition/it is a thing

[21:43] simaethae: Annatar’s been great about exploringhuman sex, Tyelpe doesn’t want to make him feel as if his natural behaviour isunwelcome! Tyelpe can totally try out whatever Annatar’s into for once! no,really. he’s ready to explore this any time now

[21:44] Yavieriel: hilariously I once ran across someoneusing one of those to do jello shots, because you make the “eggs” outof gelatin

[21:44] simaethae: oh my god

[21:44] simaethae: what do you know you really can findeverything on the internet

[21:45] Yavieriel: you can! It’s amazing

[21:48] Yavieriel: [sighs]

[21:48] Yavieriel: alright, it’s quarter to five, and if Iwant to finish sweeping the driveway before it gets dark, I need to go do that

[21:49] simaethae: yeah i’m getting sleepy again

[21:49] Yavieriel: go sleep, that’s important if you’regoing to feel better

[21:49] simaethae: good luck with the driveway in that case!i’m glad we managed to get from “really bad modern AUs” tooviposition kink in a single conversation :>

#in case anyone thought i was a classy person: no #no i am not #silvergifting #xeno #long conversations across different timezones <3 #i should note this was before either of us had seen the shape of water!#so really there's no excuse >_>#replies

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duhragonball · 7 years ago

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Midi-chlorians

I'm planning to write up a more thorough analysis of Super Saiyans, including this "S-Cell" concept Toriyama brought up in a recent interview, but that'll take a while. In the meantime, I thought it might be worth going over the midi-chlorian concept fro Star Wars, since S-Cells seem to bear some resemblence to that idea. So this post is about Star Wars.

Personally, I loved "The Phantom Meance", and the stuff about midi-chlorians never bothered me at all. It bothered *a lot* of Star Wars fans, though, and I always wondered if they might have accepted it more readily if they had enjoyed the overall movie as much as I did.

If you're not familiar with "The Phantom Menace", the movie flashes back to Darth Vader's childhood as Anakin Skywalker. The Jedi discover him and realize he has Force powers, and they test him to see just how much potential he has. This involves screening his blood for "midi-chlorians", and the results are off the charts. Obi-Wan Kenobi remarks that "not even Yoda" has a reading so high, and later we see that Yoda is one of the top leaders on the Jedi Council. The implication is that if Anakin were trained to use his abilities, he could become the strongest Jedi ever.

The blood test is also used to explain why the Jedi Order refuses to recruit Anakin, in spite of his potential. Since Force potential can be detected with a simple blood test, the Jedi screen everyone in the Republic at birth, and any babies who test positive are automatically for training. Anakin missed out on this because he was born outside of Republic space, so he's considered to old to join the Jedi, despite being only nine. By the end of the movie, he's allowed to join anyway, but the issue constantly lingers throughout the next two movies. Were the Jedi right to make an exception for Anakin, or is he doomed to fail them because he doesn't fit into their system?

Other than the story of Darth Plagueis in Episode III, I don't think midi-chlorians were ever mentioned again in the movies. One might suggest that this was a direct response to fan criticism, the same way Jar-Jar Binks' role was scaled back for Episodes II ans III. This may be true, but I also suspect that there was no longer any need for the concept. Once Anakin was old enough to show off his abilities, there was no need to refer to a test score. Everyone could just say he's powerful and leave it there.

The way I understood it, people didn't like the midi-chlrorian concept because it shoehorned a science fiction explanation for the Force. In the original movies, most of what we know about the Force is explained very vaguely by Kenobi and Yoda as they train Luke Skywalker. It's treated like magic, and while Luke has the ability to use it, he needs to open his mind so he can learn to *understand it*. "Phantom Menace" sort of undermined that mystical quality by making the Jedi Order look like an outer space police force instead of a dwindling handful of Tolkeinesque wizards. It took a harder sci-fi angle on the Jedi, at the expense of the fantasy atmosphere of the previous movies.

But I think that was inevitable. "The Phantom Menace" was about the collapse of the Republic and its transformation into the Empire of the Original Trilogy. The prequels told the story of a galaxy-spanning democracy that collapsed, and that's more of a hard sf story than a fantasy tale. The Original Trilogy had the luxury of being set after all that social upheaval had happened, and a lot of details didn't need to be explained. Luke's Force potential was self-evident because he inherited it from his dad. The logistics of the Jedi Order were academic because the Order was gone. The complexities of galactic politics were irrelevant because the Empire was an autocracy ruling through brute force. It's a lot easier to make Obi-Wan Kenobi look like a weird sorcerer when he's all alone. When he's part of a huge organization, now you have to explain who he works for and who pays for his expenses and what rules he has to follow. Science fiction is better equipped to tackle that sort of world-building.

Concerning midi-chlorians specifically, they were used as a plot device to reveal Anakin's potential without having him actually demonstrate any feats of power. He won the podrace and helped defeat the Trade Federation invasion, but those deeds were pretty subtle compared to what the adult Jedi and Sith were up to. Anakin had the *potential *to surpass all of them, but that would have to wait until the next movie. So the only way to communicate that to the audience was to invent some test and give him a really high score. I suppose Qui-Gon could have done something more magical-looking, like place his hands on Anakin and enter a trance, but it would have amounted to the same thing. There had to be a routine test for Force powers, one that could be administered easily and accurately.

Also, I think "The Phantom Menace" was more self-aware than it's given credit for. Fans didn't like the midi-chlorian test, and that might have been the point. The Jedi were supposed to be enlightened mystics, removed from the temporal world, but in the prequels they were obsessed with the protocol and infrastructure of their Order. Qui-Gon only tested Anakin to confirm what he had already sensed through his own connection to the Force. Instead of trusting his instincts, he sought reassurance from technology, representing a subtle corruption of the Jedi philosophy, one that got progressively worse throughout the prequels. By Episode III, the Jedi were trusting clone armies and secular governments almost completely, and so they never saw betrayal until it was too late to avoid it. Anakin was

Anyway, that's sort of my defense of midi-chlorians. They never bugged me much, because I never saw them as anything more than an exposition tool, like when a character holds up a newspaper so you can see the headline. The idea that you can manipulate midi-chlorians to artifically empower someone with the Force has gotten some play in Star Wars Expanded Universe materials, but as far as I've seen it always seems to end in failure. As in "Revenge of the Sith", Anakin was tempted by the idea of manipulating midi-chlorians to save his wife from death, but the midi-chlorians always seem to resist manipulation in these stories. You can detect them with instruments, but they can't be directly controlled or investigated. So there's still a fantasy aspect in play here. Aladdin's lamp in and of itself was a very mundane object, but the power it contained was still wonderous and inexplicable.

#/#//#///#////#/////#star wars #midi chlorians #phantom menace was awesome i don't care what anybody says #basically they couldn't have anakin headbutt darth maul like baby gohan did to raditz #if they had gone in that direction then there would have been no need for a blood test #anakin's power would have been obvious

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naominorbez · 7 years ago

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TOME RPG Demo: An Affectionate Review

Hey friends! So, a TOME RPG is on Kickstarter, and I wanted to give my 2 cents on it, because I really love the demo (and TOME in general). Things here are way too long for a comment on the itch.io page, so it’s a lengthy blog post (hooray!).

If you haven’t, go play the demo and check out the Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1660664362/terrain-of-magical-expertise-rpg-a-game-about-a-ga

https://chrisniosi.itch.io/tomedemo

This is not a review to convince you whether or not to back the TOME RPG on Kickstarter--I’m already super biased and say YES YOU SHOULD! I also understand that this is an early demo, and doesn’t represent the final product AT ALL, and that this is a game by a small team, not a big publisher.

This is me gushing my thoughts on this new game for a thing I love, while also bringing up criticisms and problems I had with it.

(Side note: I’m aiming to release a TOME fangame sometime next month. It’ll be on my itch.io page here: https://norbez.itch.io )

And here we go!

(All screenshots are taken from the game’s itch.io page.)

I’ve been a fan of TOME since the first episode (”You Gotta Virus”) hit the front page of Newgrounds and I clicked on it, curious. TOME is about five friends who bond through an MMORPG called TOME (the Terrain Of Magical Expertise), but are threatened when a strange force emerges: The Forbidden Power, a dangerous item that can hurt players in real life.

TOME is a great series with fantastic characters, beautiful animation & music, and a solid, suspenseful story. I do have some grips with it, but I still highly recommend it. Check out all the episodes on Youtube--recommended for a teenage audience.

The game continues the legacy of quality with engaging gameplay, beautiful art design, and lovely color choice. We have yet to see what the story is, but I have no doubt it will be well done, considering what preceded it.

I keep an eye on TOME news & Kirbopher (the creator’s) content, so I knew a game was in the works for a while. When the Kickstarter was finally announced (with rewards that continue the TOME tradition of having fans as characters in the game), I got excited. So I downloaded the demo and gave it a play. For the record, I played version 03-5 of the demo.

In this game, you play as a “White Hat Hacker”, who teams up with the 5 main characters of TOME (Alpha, Flamegirl, Nylocke, and Gamecrazed [now Gamesoft]) to try and stop malicious hackers. You run around an overworld and fight enemies in a turn-based battle system. It’s a separate continuity from the original TOME series, but there are clear parallels; someone who has watched the series can guess where the game will meet the original.

It’s an interesting choice to have the player helping the TOME crew instead of playing as the TOME crew. On one hand, it creates a story where a TOME fan is hanging out the characters they’ve come to love over the years, and makes the player able to control all 4 characters with the turn-based battle system (instead of playing as one of the characters and having AI control the others--having 4 players to control adds to the strategy and variety to the battles, and means the player is responsible for every move, not a computer). On the other hand, it makes a story that the player is mostly told to and cannot directly influence (at least, that’s how it looks); in the demo, the player character has basically no personality, and it’s like playing as a camera with legs (and battle abilities).

As a TOME fan who loves the characters, being a camera with legs isn’t a wholly bad thing--but I also know that approach can alienate those new to TOME. I'm very interested in seeing whether the player character has any influence on the story (or any real personality) in the final game.

Speaking of the TOME characters, let’s talk about them for a moment. I’ll first say this: every time @kirbopher redesigns the characters, their designs get even better. They were redesigned for TOME Season 2, and again for this game; the characters look absolutely wonderful. In the original cartoon, their personalities are great--each one adds something unique to the friend group, and no two characters are alike.

This is expanded in the game with their different abilities in battle--a good amount are from the TOME show, and it’s awesome to see them in action. The animation, poses, etc all really emphasize each character’s fighting style and personality (and the animation is absolutely beautiful!). The demo unfortunately ends when the player approaches Nylocke and Gamesoft, whose abilities I was looking forward to seeing. Especially Gamesoft--I was really hoping to see their* abilities, but I guess that’ll have to wait until the final game. ;)

(*I know that Gamesoft has “she” on the Kickstarter page, but Gamesoft/Gamecrazed has canonically been considered male and female, so I used “they” here. Hope that’s ok & makes sense. Also, does anyone else headcanon Gamecrazed/Gamesoft as nonbinary? PLEASE TELL ME I’M NOT ALONE HERE!)

I really like the different ways to fight in this game. This is a turn-based RPG, a la Final Fantasy. You select different ways to fight from four options around you, some of which open a menu for further selection, and the way you select things and fight is very unique from most games. It kind of reminds me of choosing dialogue options in a Telltale game with the 4 main buttons on a controller, except this is for combat, and choosing different dialogue choices open a menu. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you understand the controls, you’ll be breezing through these segments. For the record, I played with a keyboard & arrow keys, not a controller.

Your “fight” ability is a simple selection--pick “Strike” and you’re punching an enemy in the face. But your Magic Attacks are different. All of them are based on button presses: some need you to press a button at the right time, some are rapid-fire, some need you to fill up a meter at just the right spot. It’s all pretty creative, adding a bit of complexity to what otherwise would be simple RPG battles--instead of selecting a super strong ability and watching it pummel your enemies, you have to earn that strength with the button presses.

I do recognize that there is a danger to this approach to combat, as much as I personally like it. The simple menu selection turn-based RPGs offer is a very assessable gameplay feature; nearly everyone can grasp it and start kicking butt quickly. Adding timed button presses to it reduces the assessability significantly, both for disabled gamers who may not be able to complete them, and generally for those who are hindered by the segments or have trouble with them. It would be nice if the final game includes an option to turn off these timed button presses.

The oddest thing in the demo--at least from my experience--was how much more damage my player character (an Infernal Morphological Brawler) did compare to my teammates. The demo is surprisingly complex because of its controls and its additions to turn-based menu combat. Because of this, nearly half of my time with the demo was spent trying to get a grasp of the controls, and it took a while for me to figure out how to do magical attacks without canceling the menu over and over.

What I’m trying to say is that I punched a lot. A LOT. “Strike” was my main thing in every battle for a while. The weird thing was that I would do 10-12 damage per hit (because I’m brawler class, maybe?), and everyone else (Alpha, Flamegirl, and Kirbopher) would do 1-4 damage. Part of me thinks that giving them low, ineffective damage was to encourage the player to use magical attacks instead, but since I didn’t grasp the controls yet, I couldn’t do the magical attacks, and kept punching. It’s also possible that the difference in damage is a bug.

I’m sure this issue will be rendered moot in the full game. But it goes to show that a new control scheme can be difficult to grasp and use effectively, so it needs to be properly explained. I can’t wait to see that in the final game, because the controls really are unique and interesting, and they need a proper explanation for a player to take full advantage of the battle system.

(It would also be interesting to see the game’s nature as an “MMORPG” effect the battle system--do players have all abilities right away when they start TOME, or do they only have a few, and get new ones as they level up? Can players with more abilities challenge players who just started TOME and only have 1-2? This could be interesting to see, but it could also get super complicated and detrimental to the game’s quality.)

This game has bugs. Which . . . yeah, that’s to be expected; it’s a pre-release demo. One of the odder ones was that poor Alpha was stuck running outside the overworld map after a battle, trying to get back on the edge but failing. He returned to my side after another fight, though, so it wasn’t permanent. That was the only bug I encountered in my game; I didn’t have any glitches either, that I remember.

Other random notes that I couldn’t fit:

--Edwyn Tiong is the “narrator” of this demo--which is a tad odd to me, because Michele Knotz (as Kindarspirit, TOME’s head of sound design) “narrates” the TOME game in the original series. Tiong voices various characters in TOME, and a government agent in the--wait a minute. Is the player character really Agent Giga, going undercover in TOME to seek out The Forbidden Power?! CONSPIRACY?!

--Neo-C Productions. Love it. :)

--Things took a pretty long time to load in this demo--no doubt an issue that will be fixed in the final release.

--Kirb's "Well it's about time!" made me give a little fan squee. I also love how Kirbopher is now a scrappy little cyborg knight in this continiuity.

--At the start, when Flamegirl, Alpha, and Kirbopher ran toward me after I joined their party, I thought they were going to go in me a la Golden Sun, but they stoped just short. X)

--There’s not a lot of music in this demo, but it’s all pretty nice. The sound design is good too.

--I did replay the demo a bit to check some of the things I mentioned--as a “weaponry” class, I did 6 attack damage, still more than the rest of my party.

--Hearing that main TOME battle theme during the fight with the Game Theorists and in later fights was AWESOME. And it’s pretty cool that Mat Pat “stomps” to the beat.

I really enjoyed the demo, and I truly believe that the issues I’ve raised will likely be moot when the full game is released. Here’s links to the demo and the Kickstarter in case you haven’t looked at it already:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1660664362/terrain-of-magical-expertise-rpg-a-game-about-a-ga

https://chrisniosi.itch.io/tomedemo

Thanks for reading! :) Let me know if there’s something I should comment on, or what your thoughts on the demo are!

#TOME #terrain of magical expertise #kickstarter #rpg #video games #norbez originals #my work #my writing

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looney-mooney · 6 years ago

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Honestly I've been getting tired of the porn myself. I want plot goddamnit, or at least character interactions that don't amount to a meaningless race towards orgasm. I mean, I tend to gravitate towards the E rated stuff because I know that means the author won't limit themselves and it can be nice to know that literally anything can happen, but at the same time...? Not everything's about sex??? It gets boring after a while.

And if you're looking for stuff that ISN'T all about sex, here's a recs list of my faves:

"Pupper" by CC_Writes : kinda like a reverse-werewolf fic, about a millenial who finds a big dog wrapped in barbed wire in the ally by his apartment's dumpster and takes this poor creature in. Except it might not ACTUALLY be a dog, because he's a HUGE nerd who does stuff like changing the channel to Star Trek and using the shower and arguing with the human over his eating habits, and the human keeps having these weird dreams about a weirdly familiar wild man in the woods who will argue with him about literally anything, and there's probably a cult hunting the dog... but you forget about all that so when THE PLOT SNEAKS UP ON YOU you are left SHOOK, but only for the briefest moments before being plopped right back into the domestic life of a tired man and his nerd dog. It's still updating, so go check it out!

"Put That Kid Down" by KittySmith : camp counselor protects his campers with his LIFE... Even if it means taking the lives of the brainwashed adults that keep trying to sacrifice the children. Except he's the only one who really knows that there's brainwashed adults running around the woods trying to kill kids, so he kinda becomes a superspy serial killer...? Until one of his kids decides he's gotta get in on this because his real parents are shit and this crazy camp man who kills people on a regular basis is the closest thing he's ever had to a loving guardian and he is NOT letting his new dad get himself arrested, ok??? It's kinda twisted but. You guys. It's so good. Holy fuck. Protect these children and get this poor man some professional therapy. Also unfinished, but last I saw the end of the newest chapter could still serve as a pretty damn satisfying conclusion.

"Code:Safeword" by Setepenre_set : started as a PWP oneshot but developed and spiralled into this incredible character study about love and heroism and villainy and mental health and politics; can weirdly act as some WONDERFUL escapism from America's corrupted government, providing the fantasy of a hero against the system, breaking the law to create a better society from the underground up. There's still a LOT of porn in it, but it's, like... more about how much the main characters love eachother? And they love eachother so, so much... it can make your heart ache, but it feels so much like a slow burn even though they've been having sex since chapter one because they GROW and CHANGE and have misunderstandings and compromises and learn to love themselves through eachother a little bit at a time, so like...it's so amazing. And throughout it all there's a B-plot about a female reporter KICKING ASS by gradually revealing to the public that her secret lover isn't as evil as everyone thinks he is. It's still good but I realized including this fic in the recs list kinda defeats the purpose.

"Loophole" by SaccharineSylph (and to a slightly lesser extent, it's companion fic "Unwanted Free Ugly Troll") is about how society would treat the presence of an inhuman, but unquestionably intelligent species: as pets. The fics focus on humans who adopt these creatures and come to see them as their own children, and the intense legal battles and moral questions that follow. Why are these creatures kept as pets? Especially when they can learn to write and read, play and grow, and by all means act like normal children... and that's not even getting into the conspiracy surrounding the adults. It's heartbreaking. It's heartwarming. It does all the things to your heart. Go read it if you're not afraid to feel ALL the emotions

"Heart of the Cards" by DarkwingSnark is a CLASSIC. In a destiny-riddled quest for power and love, a brave band of heroes (and villains?) unite to search for the powerful relic Morningstar, a septer that can grant any wish but can only be used by the pure of heart. This adventure rom-com feels like a DnD campaign where the bard keeps crit-failing his seduction attempts on the teenage litch that's leading the party for some reason, and it is FUN. It's also the fic that got me into tarot cards.

I kinda purposefully made this list so that you don't know what fandom it's for until you read it yourself, because to me? These fics would work as standalone narratives, outside of fandom. And if you wanna get into some published series that feel like fanfic, I'd recommend the Epic Failure series by Joe Zieja (star trek meets looney tunes featuring a sassy robot, an incredibly attractive buff woman named "The Viking," her lesbian best friend, a society of deadly mathematicians, and the main character, a straight white man who knows to trust that his diverse and quirky companions probably know what they're doing far more than he does. He's basically just making shit up as he goes along) and the Nemesis series by April Daniels (a closeted teenage transgirl inherits both the incredible superpowers and the incredible responsibility of being the new face of the All-Might-Esque Superhero Dreadnaught: Featuring Antihero Cowgirl, Robot mom, the Fabric of Reality, and beating the crap out of magical TERFs.) I'll probably think of more later, but for now you guys can add onto this

I'm trying to prove a point to my brain: Reblog if you think fanfiction does not need sex to be good.

There is a trend I’ve noticed that smut fics tend to be much more popular than anything else and honestly I just want to have something to look at to remind myself and that writing doesn’t have to have sex to be worth putting out into the community.

#looney mooney rants #off meds rambles #fanfiction

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youngerdaniel · 7 years ago

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Where the Fuck Have You Been, Youngo?

Well hey, hello, how are ya? It’s been a while. It’s been a long while. Like really, there’s been so much that’s happened since my last entry around here that my head gets a little spinny trying to find a place to start, or where I’d like to go from there. I guess I’ll just spitball.

School is, consistently, the coolest place on Earth. There are absolutely no things I can with good conscience complain about here, but shit... My conscience wears a leather jacket and drives a motorcycle, so I’ll start by saying.

BLOW THE FREEZE-DRIED POPE ON GOOD FRIDAY, I AM ALL MANNER OF FUCKING EXHAUSTED.

There, cool. It’s out there. I can let it go. The past two months have amounted to the mid-point of my year here at VFS, and it’s been fun. It’s been tough. It’s been full of work. It’s had highs, lows, and corkscrews. There have been fun nights of Vancouver exploration. Beaches were sat on. Forests hiked with the company of pot brownies and friends. There have also been all the trappings of jamming 20 people with creative minds who trade in emotions in one space. Which is to say, a sandwich of dick jokes, wordplay, and obtuse water cooler gossip... Which is weird, because we don’t actually have a water cooler.

The shorter way of putting that is life has happened. It’s the same here as it is anywhere, although things do take on a sort of heightened quality because... I don’t know? Following the dreams? Something... Definitely a thing.

In addition to a wondrous kaleidoscope of personal happenings, I’ve written a metric fuck-ton as well. Some things including:

Partners In Crime - a feature script centering on the romantic and professional rivalry between two thieves. A first draft and some great workshop notes have me bending the springboard toward a second, tighter script.

Fuggles and Greyson/AKA the Magic Response Team - a pilot for an animated adventure comedy. Think C.S.I. meets Lord of the Rings. A wizard and a dragon solve magical crimes in a fantasy world that’s home to many familiar creatures.

RICK AND MORTY MOTHERFUCKERS! That’s right. One of my classes was to write a spec script for an existing TV show, which is more or less one of a writer’s calling cards when trying to break into the industry. I turned Morty into the Hulk and made Jerry into a giant robot, and yes, I made fun of the Avengers.

Control - Part of a ‘leet elective course that only a few of us writers are selected for each term. We work in pairs and team up with VFS’s Film Production program to create two episodes of a web series. This one is actually going to get made. You’ll find out more as the weeks go by, but the general plot follows a social outcast/college freshman who gets embroiled in a government conspiracy when a stranger gives her a device that allows her to control the actions and speech of others. Lots of long nights, lots of banging heads against walls, but I’ve got an awesome writing partner and we’ve come up with something that feels like an interesting start.

Elsewhere on campus, we’ve continued to develop our pitch skills; read enough scripts to break a Xerox machine (but let’s get real, it was probably already broken); continuing work in script analysis, structure, and development. We’re learning how to propose rewrites as story editors, and a lot of us are finally coming into our own as writers.

ENOUGH ABOUT WORK, DARLING.

As for me? I dunno. I can say with some degree of certainty that the year has changed me. My style as a writer is expanding to terrain I never thought I’d wander. I had a moment at the keys the other day while collaborating where I realized I was actually writing passively... Not in terms of the language I used, of course. But the actual act of immersing myself into a story has become so close to second-nature that I’ve lost the need to focus as intensely as I used to. It’s a weird thing to mark as progress, but that’s how it feels.

On the personal side? Yeah, yeah. I know. You’ve been rolling up your sleeves and waiting to hear about this, so I’ll just barf it out, now. Another death in the family back home (grandma) has tipped the balance of the home-base in less savory directions. I’m at turns happy to be away from it, and guilty as shit for not being around to give support. It’s weird. It’s tough. And most of all, as one of my lovely cousins on this side of the continent advised, “It’s life. Hashing out your own can sometimes mean you’re not around for the tough stuff.” ...I’m paraphrasing, and I don’t know exactly how I want to articulate this, but for the first time in my life, I’m going out of my way to do something for me. Sometimes that sucks, and sometimes it’s awesome. The little shriveled lump of coal in my chest feels a lot of pressure. Pressure to come home; pressure to support; in other areas of life, pressure to keep people happy or avoid hurting feelings; guilt for inevitably hurting feelings anyway, and frustration for sometimes feeling trapped by the wants and needs of others.

A shorter way of putting this is... (You know, you know...) Life.

Life has happened.

And hopefully, it will continue to happen.

It’s impossible to accurately track your growth when you’re still in the midst of experiencing it. That’s why when we’re kids we mark our heights on doorjambs. Personal growth doesn’t have doorjambs. It’s a trajectory, and you’re flung down it whether you like it or not. The best you can do is try to tilt your course in a direction you’d like to go, and while the past few months have been infinitely chaotic; and although there are moments where I feel like I’m an identity in complete flux with nothing to hold onto that’s familiar; despite the fact that I often wake up at three in the morning wondering if any of these efforts and investments will amount to anything... One thing remains steadfastly salient. The mannerisms, foibles, and strengths are fluid, but the spectrum they move within is a constant—and that part’s, y’know, me.

So I guess what I’m rambling around as a way to close here is this:

Days could be at least 12 hours longer, but... I think I’m pretty happy.

You’ll get more writing on here next term. In the meantime, I have to burn through a few scripts and do a couple of writeups before I can rest. Finally.

Yes, I, workaholic Youngo, said that.

#journal

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ankyouweek · 7 years ago

Text

Second Time Around

Time travel fic, 22k, character deaths. 1 - A Good Future

The future was supposed to be good, they said. No monsters, no dodgy science, no political scandals.

Karma never expected the government to come clean with what had happened, but he had hoped they’d learn their god damn lesson and stop any weird shit they’d been doing behind the scenes. It wasn’t often that he was wrong, but when he was, it generally ended up badly for everyone.

They’d been promised a good life due to their hardships. Maybe the others hadn’t realised it, but they’d given more than just cash when Koro Sensei’s life had ended. Kayano probably didn’t notice, thinking the absence of the media prying into her life was down to good management. The thought probably hadn’t crossed anyone else’s mind. But Karma had wondered why they weren’t being hounded by the press when they were part of an international scandal, mere teens fighting a monster, when they were chased like prey when the scandal broke.

He wouldn’t say anything, but he knew for a fact his record had been wiped clean of petty misdemeanours. His student file had been altered, saying he was a charming personality, an asset to all around him. It sounded like the smary bullshit that was on Asano’s profile. The difference between them was Asano twisted people so they saw him that way, despite being just as much of a demon as Karma was. Karma was insulted his character had been changed, but he did see the benefits in it.

Seeing those two changes had been enough. He wouldn’t mind betting that other occurrences in their lives had been planned, or helped along by the government. An unproportionate amount of them got scholarships, they all got their dream school or next in line, medical treatment had miraculously become available to those with sick family members under the guise of medicine trialling - the list went on. After all, there was no reason why 3-E couldn’t sue the government, all the world’s governments, for everything they’ve been through. Obviously it wouldn’t be easy, but a few sob stories would give them public appeal, and the redhead wouldn’t mind betting Asano Senior would like a bit of revenge for being forced to relinquish his school, his pride and joy.

Sure, they’d agreed to a verbal contract, though they’d been underage and therefore unable to give consent at the time. Who could possibly expect them to fully understand the consequences of their actions? Even adults wouldn’t have grasped every possibility that could have happened! Takaoka or Nidaime were unpredictables to say the least, and that’s without Yanagisawa and the many minor incidents that took place over the year.

After everything that had happened, Karma expected, at the very least believed they deserved a good life. A good future.

Maybe it was just bad luck. Maybe it was fate, destiny.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

The government didn’t stop with experimentations, human or otherwise. He didn’t watch the tv anymore, or read newspapers. When he was a kid, guns blew people to bits and bombs exploded towns and cities into pieces. Now weapons were monsters, once human more than likely (he’ll never forget Nidaime’s monstrous shrieks) or animals at the very least. Someone’s pets? A loved one? A criminal on death row or someone on their death bed?

He didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.

Poisons had been adapted to the new world, gas attacks becoming more frequent. Missiles were shot frequently, leaving families on coast lines fleeing or living in fear. Hospitals were at a breaking point, governments draining resources from everything and anything to follow their twisted goals and ideals.

He honestly wasn’t sure what they were fighting over any more. Back in the day, they fought against terrorists and for oil and because nations had grudges from decades back and it was the principal of the thing.

After Sensei had died, things were quiet. But one reporter got nosey, too curious for their own good, and straight up vanished. Another followed. People assumed they’d been checking out drug dealers or the headquarters of other criminals and got caught, leading to a snuffed out existence. Three more met the same fate before word could get out.

Yanagisawa was out of the picture but his research wasn’t.

Karma was fine with the theoretical study of all of Yangisawa’s ideas. What did theories matter if they weren’t used? Shouldn’t people be expected to think outside the box? That’s what Sensei had always said anyway.

Maybe Sensei was wrong.

Because thinking was one thing, but results could only be gained by doing. So Yanagisawa’s ideas were revised, changed, and reimplemented. A new breed of monster emerged. They were written off as cyborgs, androids at first.

“We’re helping humans with no hope.”

Of course, that generally meant criminals, psychopaths, sociopaths, with no care for others, using this as a way to extend their own lives, to commit more crimes without having to face punishment. The government could use them without worry - few would raise a fuss if it was criminals killing other criminals and criminals dying to save people.

The other times it meant lying to someone on their last legs, saying they were joining a special trial for new medicine, that there was a chance of recovery if they let themselves be injected. Of course, the families were always told the medicine had an adverse reaction and their loved one had died.

Japan was relatively safe, having been the creator of these monsters, the ones who had advanced the knowledge, the ones with the most experience of fighting them. And of course, 3-E had helped them out, detailing their experiences, what they had tried, what they hadn’t, what worked and what didn’t. Okajima and Terasaka, talkative and proud, took that the hardest. They thought they were helping out (hadn’t they all?) and spilled everything.

Karma had decided to ignore everything. He was a government worker and he was busy and he was tired. He only stopped one monster due to it being more human the beast, having an entire class behind him. He couldn’t save the world. He wasn’t that type of person.

Karasuma begged to differ.

Karasuma was looking worse for wear, exhausted, lanky in a sickly way. But he still worked every day, longer than harder than everyone else. Karma thought it was admirable.

Though it turned out Karasuma wasn’t working at all.

“You’re trying to tell me the government has a secret time travel device that they think works but nobody is sure because they’re too chicken to try it out?”

“Yes.”

“And you want me to try it out and somehow save the world like I’m some sort of superhero?”

“Exactly.”

“That’s insane.”

“The world is, yes.”

“You’re insane!”

“Possibly.”

Karma groaned. It was like talking to a robot! Karasuma was vague on the details. Apparently the machine was already being built before Karasuma joined, and was improved for years. The final step was Yanagisawa’s notes. Apparently the man had lost his mind and was a little deranged these days and would happily chat your ear off about his ideas (that was the official story, though Karma had heard about a supposed truth serum, and while that sounded like fantasy novel nonsense, so did giant yellow monsters and people with tentacles).

“And nobody has used this machine before now, why? Surely someone was stupid enough to get in it!”

“It’s been untested on humans. Tests on rats, pre-Yanagisawa’s notes… didn’t turn out too well.” Karma grimaced. “So history hasn’t been changed before.” A pause. “Or so we believe.”

He quietly added, “The last lot of rats didn’t die, however.”

Shaking his head, Karma really wanted this conversation to end. “You really aren’t doing a good job of convincing me, y’know? I know this world. My friends are here. It’s far from perfect, but it’s mine. You want me to risk my life going to the past, maybe encountering myself and what then?” He gave Karasuma no chance to answer. “Go through school again, and try and figure out the best way of righting the world even though we have no idea how?!”

He was straight out yelling at this point, and he was glad he was at home. Karasuma had refused to speak to him at work and he now knew why. At least he knew this place wasn’t bugged.

“What was the turning point for this hell? What am I supposed to change? Do I kill someone? Should Sensei live? What do you want me to do?”

Karasuma was silent.

“Do you know anything that would be useful?”

A short pause. Karasuma didn’t want to give things away but he needed to win Karma over. “We don’t know. We have ideas, theories. Obviously the catalyst was when he died. Or, more obviously, the fuss around killing him by the government. People got curious about the monster. Scientists had amazing new research material. Governments are unorthodox and corrupt.”

“So Sensei should live?”

Karasuma shrugged. “What then? Where does he go? The government wouldn’t just stop hunting him.”

“Then what?”

Karasuma finally met his eyes. “That’s up to you.”

Karma was furious. Much more calmly than he thought he was capable of, he went to the kitchen to find a drink. Something strong, honestly didn’t matter what as long as it was booze. This wasn’t something he wanted to think about now or ever.

Downing the bottle, he asked Karasuma another question. Or five. Counting was hard when you were pissed in both ways of the word.

“Why just one person? Can’t you send numerous people back in time? Will the machine hold more than one? Why not send one and another and another, a whole team, a qualified team, let them meet up with each other and go from there?”

He glared at the bottle, as though it was its fault for being empty. “Why me?”

Ignoring his other questions, Karasuma got straight to the point. “Because you’re strong. Physically and mentally. You can lead under pressure, can form plans quickly. You know when to give up and when to keep pushing, you know everyone’s skill sets better than they do themselves. You’re still in a position where you can do this without being too emotional. You’re our best hope.”

“And if I die on the way there?”

Karasuma looked away. “I personally think there’s a high chance of success, now that we’ve made improvements.”

“What if I go back and fail?”

“We’ve lost enough that the risk is worth it.”

“Won’t you lose your job?”

“We’ll stage something, make it look like you ran off or went on holiday or something. If you do things right, nobody will ever know this world was a reality. They’ll never know time was tampered with. They’ll never know the world they inhabit is a redesigned version.” The man shrugged, not having much to care about nowadays. “At least I’ll have my wife.”

Eventually, Karasuma left. Karma had argued semantics, ideals, concerns until it was three in the morning.

Neither of them slept that night.

—

Three weeks later and Okuda’s and Takabayashi’s broken bodies were removed from their lab on the outskirts of Tokyo. The lab had been bombed, materials and notes stolen. Nobody had laid a claim to the attacks, and there was no evidence to trace.

The funeral was simple, family and friends, the media watching like starving dogs from outside the temple. Karma was stony throughout the whole thing. He wasn’t one for tears and didn’t appreciate Okuda’s mother tugging on his sleeve, saying how much “Manami-chan talked about you” or watching Terasaka give his condolences to Takabayashi’s grief stricken father.

Before he snuck away, he found Karasuma.

“I’ll do it.”

“You’ll go tonight.”

A nod and he left. He had a lot to do, after all.

#Fic #Main #submission #Akabane Karma #Ansatsu Kyoushitsu

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