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archillean · 2 years

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WHOS UR FAV BORDERLANDS CHARACTERS……

also here’s this to make you smile (also borderlands related)

https://youtu.be/LMXI64gWmMk

i'm trying extremely hard not to choke on laughter, that video is Gold sdfgh-

AS FOR FAVORITE CHARACTERS... oUoughgh, there's barely any character in this series that Isn't a blorbo, so I segmented these into different categories (and predictably went on some some tangents in a few columns, so enjoy and/or suffer through my infodump thoughts <3) which resulted in this being Hella long, so have a readmore-

• Favorites in general (for so many reasons) are Timothy, Maya, the entire Tales cast (pre-BL3. We especially don't talk about BL3 Vaughn; they did my man SO dirty), Lilith (oOOOOO I could go the fuck off about her character for Hours on how she was (inadvertently or nor) being so perfectly set up as the series' next Big Antagonist, which I Might Just Do in another post)), Hammerlock, Scooter, Ellie, Moxxi, and gA H, I'm just gonna end up listing the entire cast. And Mister Torgue.

• Favorites from a pure design standpoint, Fl4k, Amara, Lilith's BL3 design, and BL2/Tales Zer0. (BL3 Zer0 just feels.... idk, a little too "rounded-off sleek" to me. BL2's more grungy look is more my style lul) Also Mordecai & Brick, specifically because of how well their designs contrast and compliment each other, but also. Mordy cool. Bloodwing & Talon are such sickass creature designs. And Brick buff. Have man tiddy, and I am gay. Also Lorelei my beloved.... i love them so much from a design standpoint, and I'm Frustrated that their character is so one-two-note in the actual story. I also wanted to like The Twins' designs for a Long Ass Time, but they're so... try-hard, even with all context removed. Troy is the cooler of the two bc Beeg Focking Robot Arm, and I'm always a sucker for Beeg Focking Robot Arm(s), but idk. It wasn't even like... used in any way, iirc? I'd have to go back and look to see if it actually IS used for anything, or if it's Just for aesthetics. Like, Gaige's prosthetic arm for example; serves an in-universe purpose (storing DeathTrap's digistruct information & general prosthetic that Just So Happens to be able to smash through concrete) and has a backstory (in-universe ECHONet logs explain how she got it), but it's also a visual cue for what her gameplay & character role is - that being the techy mechanic. Troy just Has A Robot Arm. Why? I'unno. I have read it's to sort of infer that he & Tyreen were born conjoined at that shoulder (which Is a cool concept, all things considered), but like.... if that's the case, why doesn't SHE have any signs of that as well? Why isn't it USED in any way?? Like, goes without saying that some designs elements are just "because it looks Badass As Fuck." I like shit like that! But at the same time, I like when design elements have an in-universe purpose. We can have both, just LOOK at Fl4k. I could say the exact same thing for Rhys' arm, but then again, he Actually Uses It, alongside his ECH0Eye. It serves more than one gameplay function, and Looks Sick. I don't think we ever get an explanation on where it comes from/how he got it & the eye, but not all the boxes (gameplay use, in-universe use (be it for mobility, combat function, or a mix of both), Looks Sick As Hell, and origin)) need to be ticked. Hammerlock ticks two or three (in-universe use & origin, as well as Looks Cool depending on your taste in prosthetics), after all!

• Favorite playable VHs, Gaige my beloved for nostalgia, Zane for gameplay. Companion and movement speed go brrrrr- I also liked Amara's gameplay (and still kinda do?) for a while, but Wonderlands' melee system just puts her to shame sgdjdah- Also a fan of Moze, simply because Mechs Are Cool and her mechanics are Neat, next question.

• Favorite antagonists, Jack obvs, but also Nisha. Both from a design & personality standpoint, but specifically her BL2 look. She's just... a really fun character imo, and I ADORE her dynamic with Jack. Well, more like the implied dynamic between them, bc we never get to Actually See Them Together, but I'll NEVER be over Jack's reaction to her death. It's about the implications. Also a Butcher Rose enjoyer (Bounty of Blood). Idk, she just scratches some kind of itch for me. (That entire DLC was so good & is Absolutely one of my favorites. Highly recommend if you want wicked cool art direction and a fun western story!) Maybe it's because she wasn't trying to "be better" than past antags, but whooo reaallyyy knoowwsss 8/ can you tell i am Still bitter about the twins- Honestly, btoh her and Pretty Boy were really fun villains in their respective DLCs. Eleanor (Guns, Love, & Tentacles) was pretty good, she just isn't a favorite- Also Also Piston (Campaign of Carnage), mostly bc he's just a fun villain, and because his "How many Pecs you got? Two?? I HAVE THIRTEEN" quote never fails to make me laugh- ALSO ALSO ALSO CAPTAIN SCARLET....... ma'am, i am...... looking......

• Favorite characters due to their story... Tina, hands down. Specifically pre-BL3, and Especially in Wonderlands. No spoilers, but the expansion on her and Roland's relationship is so good. (If you know, you know.) Also Krieg, Janey, and Athena !! Athena more due to personality stuff, because I kind of find her original/first intro cringy as hell (It's Such a Bad Character Backstory Introduction asDFSDFGH) but oddly... endearing?? Like, BECAUSE it's so blunt and awkward. Literally just "Hi, I'm an assassin because this conglomerate military corp tricked me into killing my sister. Name's Athena, by the way." jUST aSDFG- ALSO Burton Briggs !! His questline is really good, and his amnesia curse was written pretty well from what I remember. Wasn't strictly "Hur Dur, I forget" jokes-

• Honorable mentions include Juno (Bounty of Blood), Roland, Maya, Felicity, Gortys, Loaderbot, and Marcus !! I say "honorable mention" because I can't really put into words why I love 'em. I just rotate them in my mind.

#stray thoughts.txt #asks #borderlands #moral of the story is BL3 did so many characters dirty #except hammerlock. they gave my man a husband <3 #and a damn good one at that

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terminally-karkalicious · 3 years

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allow me to rant about the only thing that has been in my brain for the past two months and that is doll customizing babeyyyyy

i know there’s a 90% chance that you wont give a Shit about any of this but here we go anyways

SO first you gotta choose a doll. preferably one with a high range of motion to avoid creating new joints or having annoying limitations like not having elbow joints for some fucking reason. what the fuck mattel. give monster high dolls back their ball jointed shoulders and elbow joints. smh

the most common dolls ive seen used as bases are monster high and ever after high. most customs ive seen are highly stylized so the stylized face molds work well for those types of dolls but dolls like barbies are good for when you want a more realistic face-ups.

once you’ve got your base picked out you gotta wipe that bitch’s face off with like. acetone or nail polish remover or something strong like that. you can also use acetone to shrink doll heads which is cool as hell imo. n e way once the face is wiped you gotta chop off the hair and remove the hair plugs from the inside. ive seen this done several ways but the easiest and most common way ive seen is to dunk the head into boiling water for ~30 seconds until it gets squishy and malleable. once you’ve got the head back, you can use pliers (i think tweezers would work in a pinch) to pull out the hair plugs which are kinda icky because theyre covered in glue and other gross shit. ew

now you must decapitate the doll. dunk em back in the boiling water to soften them back up then just tug the head off. the neck pegs look funky and are usually a different color than the body so thats cool ig

once the head’s off, you can start the face-up which is basically just giving the doll a new face using stuff like watercolor pencils, acrylic paint, gouache, and a whole lot of other stuff. hell ive seen people use person makeup on these dolls.

next,,,,, hair. there’s about twenty million ways to do hair from gluing yarn wefts to sewing to rerooting with purchased nylon doll hair or yarn wefts but i’m gonna talk about the most common one ive seen which is rerooting and gluing.

before you can reroot, you need doll hair. which, as i mentioned, can be bought at stores like the doll planet or made at home with yarn in literally any color. have fun with it! make rainbow hair or something idk

to make homemade wefts, you take some acrylic yarn, cut it twice as long as you want the hair to be (keep in mind you can cut and style the hair once it’s been rerooted), fold them in half, and tie it to something sturdy like a wire coat hanger for the next step.

once you’ve got your yarn tied to your hanger, use a pet brush and brush the yarn until it’s wispy and looks like hair. then take a straightening iron and iron the weft flat. then remove from the hanger and boom. hair wefts. ta-da

to reroot the wefts onto the head, use a rerooting tool (which can be as simple as a needle with the eye cut at angle) (just google it please i’m shit at descriptions)) to poke small sections of the hair into the head. you can use the pre-existing rooting holes for your own reroot as they’re usually pretty reliable. to reroot, take a small length of you doll hair (about 10-15 strands), loop it in half, and put the middle of the loop into the reroot tool. poke the end of the tool with the hair on it into the pre-existing hole and remove the tool. the hair *should* stay in and fill up that plug!! also remember to plug thickly at the hairline and part of the hair where it's most noticeable. it doesnt matter as much in the center of the head as that’s not usually visible on the doll. once you’ve rerooted, squeeze in strong glue through the neck hole and squish around the head to make sure it covers all the plugs and secures them in place. then pour hot water onto the head to make the hair lay flat for styling later.

also, you can reroot yarn directly into the head to make thicker, more textured hairstyles. and since the yarn is thicker, you dont need to glue the inside of the head for the hair to stay in place!!

if youre not doing body modifications (which are also cool as hell) then it’s time for clothes but clothes are boring and i like body mods more so i’m gonna rant about them instead

the material ive seen most doll artists use is apoxie sculpt, which is like play doh on steroids. it comes in two parts which you gotta mix together for some reason. why dont they sell it pre-mixed. what was the reason. also once it’s dry it’s super super strong and you can sand it, drill into it, paint it, and all kinds of stuff. very nice and i want some for myself.

you can use hand saws and drills and shit to whack off doll limbs to make stuff like digitigrade legs or new joints. also dont be afraid to use other mismatching doll parts when customizing like heads and bodies and forearms and hands and shit. it literally does not matter if youre gonna recolor the doll anyways so have fun with it. make frankenstein’s doll if youre feeling spicy

accessories my beloved. stuff like tiny beads and clay baubles and shit will literally transform the entire doll plus they’re adorable and multi-purpose

i suppose i must talk about clothes now. ah well. you can find great clothing patterns if youre new to customizing on other customizer’s etsy shops and probably google although those will probably be lower quality than paid pattern pieces. and keep in mind that if it exists as clothing irl, you can likely make it doll-sized. there are literally no limits to your clothing options as long as you can execute your idea.

the once all your components have been made, you can assemble the doll again!! and finally see what all the parts look like together!! very cool 10/10 stars.

ight that wraps up my doll rant. i could really go into more detail on certain parts but thats a whole other rant for a whole other day smh. sorry for fucking flooding your inbox ender ahaha……………. you asked for this

little did you know that dolls have been one of my favorite things since like ever. if i can read a 25 chapter long fanfic i can read this B)

mattel definitely fucked up by completely ruining MH doll designs and just stopping EAH, alot of their profits most likely came from people who collect and customize dolls and by changing MH doll designs/Stopping EAH dolls they 1. most likely lost a small (or big if we're not jus talking people who customize dolls) part of their profit and 2. made it harder for doll customizers to make dolls/get commissions out rather quickly because they probably have to waste more time making joints or learning how to make joints.

EAH/MH dolls (specifically MH dolls) had AMAZING MODELS because there was so much variety with height, face shapes, etc (my favorite molds had to be the short/tall dolls and the cat molds because of the tails) and doll customizers really went all out with enhancing a molds unique features. The only "downside" abt MH dolls is that they (or atleast most)(from what i remember)) had slimmer faces but wider eyes while EAH dolls have wider faces with slimmer smaller which left a canvas for the face and not the eyes (and vice versa for MH dolls)

I've never seen any videos where a barbie is customized (maybe because i absolutely despised barbies at the time) so I'll definitely have to check those out but they seem to be good for realistic makeovers. I've seen like like semi realistic makeovers for EAH/MH dolls that were pretty good too tho (pretty sure mostly EAH dolls since yk MH dolls were used for creature makeovers while most EAH dolls weren't)

yeah i was always amazed by the head shrinking with acetone. honestly i still am?? idunno i have no idea how that chemical bullshit works. Ive seen a few of uh makeovers that just pain over the face (in multiple layers ofcourse) but that's usually when they're painting the entire body a different colour (again usually when they're turning a doll into a funky little baby man). I've also seen a few that just chop the hair off and take out the hair plugs yk without uuh like softening the head or just go straight for the hair plugs after taking off the head (i used to do that it was funny to me??). i always really liked when they used watercolour pencils or just colour pencils in general to draw/sketch on the face cause like wow ur drawing on ur doll without ruining it?? kinda epic maybe even poggers and pogchamp?? oh god my brain is failing wjshsmsj.

Watching them putting the hair back on the doll was, other than the face stuff, was the BEST part for me. Favorite type of hair was iuuuuuh was either thick yarn or brushed out yarn. Literally worship the people that would reroot the hair, theyre the most patience people on this earth!! it's literally insane but i guess that's what happens when you've been doing that for years? you guess kinda get used to it. when they put glue into the head does it just become stiff?? like it's just a clump of dried glue or does it like..hollow out again??

dude you literally cannot convince me most of the supplies used for doll makeovers. APOXIE CLAY LOOKS SO FECKING GOOD. its edible and i will die on that hill. The body mods are literally so amazing!!!!! it's so impressive how theyre able to imagine certain features THEN LIKE ACTUALLY MAKE IT LOOK ACCURATE TO WHAT THEY WANTED TO LOOK LIKE AFTER LIKE ON TRY (or many yk trial and error is very necessary for..everything). Absolutely loved when doll customizers would saw off a dolls legs and use different ones or just completely get rid of the torso to use a different one. it's like uuh that one big guy that's mismatched and sewn together. very cool. The accessories are so fun!! just small little details you seen really need but can add because it's your feckin doll!! I used to be absolutely obsessed over the doll clothes i would find on etsy, so much so that i started sewing shitty shirts and dresses for my uh "customized" dolls (they were absolute HORRORS idk WHY my mom let me feck up my dolls like that).

Thank you for this!! i haven't been able to talk about any of my interests for a while and this just really made me happy!!

Question fer u my fellow MH/EAH enthusiast: what was your favorite MH/EAH movie/episode and doll series. Mine was The fusion dolls (MH obvi) and that MH movie "Haunted" cause we got to know more about Spectra :D

#YOOOO LONG POST?!#long post #:) hehehe #this was very fun to read cant wait for ur next fanfic length ask #asks :D #theoreticallyjasper

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heedra · 4 years

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In regards to your d&d is a bad system post, what would you recommend as an alternative? I always thought the huge amount of homebrew rules and lore was d&d's best quality, but i'm interested to see what you value in a ttrpg system

my experience with tabletop games is of course not comprehensive and based on my own experience, so dont take it as a full guide to every game out there, but here are a few games i have played and really enjoyed, or have heard repeatedly good things about: Exalted: This is my personal favorite ttrpg. It’s a very lore-heavy game and setting revolving around playing demigods in a specific, highly detailed mythic fantasy setting. It would be a huge joke to say it’s any easier to get into than DnD, or that the mechanics are any less bloated, and it’s definitely had its fair share of big problems in the past, but I really love where the newest edition (third edition) has gone so far and is continuing to go. Worth checking out if you like over-the-top fantasy, digging into heavy lore, rolling a lot of dice, and using a whole bunch of intricate bits and pieces to build a character (all things ppl love about DnD). New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness: These games are the newest iteration of the famous World of Darkness gameline originally put out by White Wolf Games. They’re a collection of different urban fantasy games (all of which use the same mechanics and can be mixed and matched) that focus on different supernatural creatures: vampires, werewolves, ghosts, changelings; even mummies and frankensteins! I especially love Changeling: The Lost, and enjoy playing CofD in general for the atmosphere it often evokes. If you’re looking to play a modern fantasy game, I’d give it a look. I’ll be frank though: White Wolf also has a SHIT record when it comes to handling race in its games, and the classic World of Darkness line, especially Vampire and Werewolf, are some of the worst offenders. Chronicles of Darkness has come a long way since then in a lot of cases, especially with the second editions of a lot of its games coming out, but it’s still good to go into this one critically.

MASKS: A New Generation: This, and the next few games on this list, run on the Powered By The Apocalypse game engine- a set of game mechanics designed to be simple and flexible for making games with, that use little more than a pair of d6′s at times, mechanically. The games that use PbtA tend to be tailored for a specific concept and premise- and can be as bad or good as the creators can realize that premise. MASKS is a game about playing young, up-and-coming superheroes, and it rules for that purpose, in my experience. It manages to avoid being crunchy wrt superpowers and supports character roleplaying in a pretty cool way. There are other games for playing supers out there that are perhaps less specific in premise, but I love this one a lot.

Monster of the Week: If you have listened to TAZ, you might know of this one- it’s another PbtA game, and the gameplay the boys have of it in Amnesty is a great introduction to how many PbtA games operate. For those of you not familiar, Monster of the Week is a game themed around playing paranormal investigators, gumshoes, kids-on-bikes, or Scooby Gang style folks solving paranormal mysteries. My personal mileage with it varies, but it’s a GREAT intro game to both PbtA and tabletop roleplaying, especially given that it works well for shorter campaigns.

Blades In The Dark: The last PbtA game on this rec list, I haven’t played this one personally, but I’ve heard only good things about it. Blades is a game about playing a band of brigands, ne’er-do-wells, organized criminals, or assassins in a dark, Victorian-Gothic fantasy setting with a unique set of lore. I’ve heard it’s EXTREMELY FUN and effective at providing a great playspace for roguish, daredevil actions, and it’s unique in having a very cool mechanic where not only do the players have customizable sheets and stats, but their entire gang as a whole does as well.

LANCER: Lancer is a good fucking game, whose mechanics are PERFECT for what it does; and what it does is allow you to play a mech pilot. If you aren’t playing a mech pilot, there’s no reason to play lancer- but if you are, god will you have a good time. This isn’t a flaw- it’s by design, and I urge people to check it out especially because of that and how it demonstrates that, sometimes, narrowing down on a specific concept of play actually improves the ability of a game to enhance that experience. Its rules for playing your PC outside of the mech are barebones but effective, and the rules for mech combat, and for building and customizing your mech, are extremely fun and accommodating to homebrew. The setting also has some pretty cool lore! FATE: Fate is less a tabletop game wholesale and more of a very simple, barebones system for running tabletop adventures. A lot of folks swear by it as as simple, easy jump-in point for the hobby, and a great tool for building game ideas that doesn’t constrain them by too many assumptions about setting and build. Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: I have not personally played Chuubos, but I would be loathe to leave it out of this list, because I know a lot of people who adore it and because it is a shining example of just how far away from DnD tabletop games can get in design and play concept. Chuubos divorces itself almost entirely from DnD’s assumptions of dice and chance mechanics- it’s an entirely diceless RPG where much of the theme and progression focuses on roleplaying through story arcs and character goals decided upon by the players. It works fantastically for slice of life and more whimsical, Ghibli-style adventure, but is capable of handling multiple genres and flavors of character arc! Jenna Moran’s other games, Nobilis and Glitch, are also very well-regarded and worth a look.

Other than that, I highly recommend looking around some in the indie ttrpg community! There are tons of diverse folks making tons of games that range from big, robust adventure rpgs to specific, conceptual microgames!

#Anonymous

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creaturecarnival · 4 years

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Gogomaggedon Part 1

If you were a child between the ages of 4-12 in the late 2000s/early 2010s, chances are you’ve at least heard of Gogo’s Crazy Bones. Rebooted from a series from the 80s and 90s, (which we won’t be talking about because I didn’t grow up with them and to be quite honest don’t like them all that much) these funky plastic fellas were sold as collectible figures for kids, and their hyper-stylized chibi charm was certainly hard for myself and many others to resist! They were also intended to be used as pieces for various games, but I think I speak for most of my fellow Crazy Boners when I say that the main draw was the collectibility. For this review, I thought it might also be fun to give them all a rating out of 5 based on how I personally feel about them! I dunno! We’re trying new things! Mixing stuff up! It’s what we do here at Creature Carnival! So let’s get started with this Gogomaggedon because holy shit are there a lot of these little bastards!

Name: Mosh

Description: Super kind. All the Gogos want to be friends with Mosh.

Ability: Magic Smile

First, we have the main mascot of Gogo’s, Mosh! Every Gogo has a short little description and “ability” which serves to give us a little peek at their personality. Additionally, each Gogo comes cast in at least 5 different colored plastics as well, but I’ll be taking the one they use in the sticker pictures (courtesy of the Gogo’s Crazy Bones Wiki) as the “official” color. In regards to Mosh, the cynic in me really wants to be all, “Boring!! His main personality trait is that he’s nice? Lame!!!” But it’s a kids toy god darnit, and he’s just so gosh-damned cute! I love his little white tummy and his funny head-nubbins and his asymmetrical eyes and big bracket-shaped smile :] He’s just such a lovable whatsit! I would absolutely be friends with Mosh, and he makes for a great face for the franchise. Also, his name seems to imply that he likes to mosh, which is kind of hilarious to me.

4/5

What? Mosh is evolving!

Name: Moshi

Description: Avoids confrontation. Always brings goodness and peace.

Ability: Peacekeeper

That’s right! Series 2 of the modern Gogo’s franchise is called Evolution, and while I’m not exactly sure of the finer details, basically they just reused all the molds and put different prints on them. Also, the gimmick for Evolution is the fact that half of the 80 Gogos in the series are molded in translucent plastic with embedded glitter. Pretty striking! What’s the Series 1 gimmick, you ask? We’ll get to it, don’t worry! Maybe not in this review, but we’ll get to it! OKAY, with that out of the way, I’m so happy for Moshi’s transition! It’s almost a complete transformation, what with the anime-style face and everything! I honestly find the unevolved form more charming, but I still think Moshi is pretty undeniably cute.

3.5/5

Name: Nasako

Description: Always cool because he has a special scoring technique.

Ability: Double Fast Hook

Nasako is a funny little boxer guy. That’s really all I can say. Not even his description is giving me anything to work with here, I mean, come on. What does that even mean.

3/5

Name: Nasoki

Description: Tries to make everyone laugh. Sometimes his looks scare the others a little bit!

Ability: Joker

Now a funny little boxer clown guy, you say? That’s more like it! And with x-eyes and an old-timey one-piece bathing suit no less! Looks like Nasako finally decided to finish Clown College and get his degree! Good for him. Good for him.

4/5

Name: Sato

Description: Ready for the fight. Where’s the ring?

Ability: K.O. Punch

Sato is, in my opinion, a much better-executed funny little boxer guy. The absence of any facial features other than a big ‘ol sneer is very charming, as well as the single white star. It’s not clear whether that’s an eye or a marking or what, but I always read it as an eye, and I think that’d be pretty cute.

4/5

Name: Satori

Description: Always watchful in case action is needed.

Ability: Watchful Eye

Speaking of eyes, it seems one has come to dominate Satori’s entire head! The description tells us that they apparently act as some kind of sentry in case action is needed, but doesn’t say if they ever actually take action. Personally, I like to think they have some kind of eye beam that they can fire like “Beam of 10,000 Fists” or something like that.

4/5

Name: Okori

Description: Nobody knows what he eats, but whatever it is, it isn’t doing him any good.

Ability: Eating

Okori’s main deal seems to be eating but I can’t really say for sure. Wish they’d made it clearer. He kind of reminds me of a bug-eyed Domo. Remember Domo? I remember Domo.

3/5

Name: Oky

Description: Maybe some indigestion gave him a mushroom face.

Ability: Fungus Fury

I love how non-committal that description is. Like whoever wrote it was just like, “I don’t fuckin’ know, maybe some indigestion did it. Who gives a shit.” I for one am a big fan of this grumpy ‘gus. Maybe the reason the description reads like that is that Oky doesn’t give a shit either. Do you think his ability is some kind of spore blast or berserk mode or do you think it’s just him being generally aggravated? Even though I love cool special attacks, I find the latter more endearing.

4/5

Name: Tori

Description: Clever and fun. He likes to be the boss.

Ability: Jumps Walls

I always read that tan shape as a big smiling mouth, but on closer inspection, it’s presumably just a hole in a mask which reveals a very uneasy expression. As far as my opinions on this guy go, he’s cute, but also relatively bland.

3/5

Name: Racetor

Description: He loves sports and can calculate how to win any race.

Ability: Numeric Memory

This is a marked improvement in my opinion, as Tori has apparently turned into some kind of robot with what I assumed to be a speedometer for a face. However, as the description indicates, he’s some kind of sports statistics whiz, so maybe it serves some other function? Either way, I get the feeling this guy is probably banned from most sport betting circles, but maybe he doesn’t even care. Maybe he’s just satisfied knowing how it’ll all fold out, and he doesn’t need anything else. Pretty sweet design overall, even for how simple it is.

4.5/5

Aaaaand that’s all for part 1! See, there’s 80 of these buggers per series, so I’m gonna have to try and divide this into digestible chunks. It’ll take awhile this way, but let me know what you guys think! Is this a good number to do in a single review, or could I go for more? Or maybe it’s even too many! I can’t really know unless there’s feedback, so I’d really appreciate if you could take this straw poll. It’d really help!

#gogo's crazy bones #mod frankie

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

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So i've been working on a book about a boy who goes to a magic school in space and there are all these other planets and aliens. the i found your fic. The Prince of Pluto which is basically it except the whole alien heritage and civil war. If i ever get published can you please not sue me? (Can you even sue someone for this?) Side note do you have any advice for a young amateur high school wannabe writer?

*snorts amused* I mean, if you don’t even have the alien heritage in it, that wouldn’t hold for a lawsuit. So no worries xDDD

Well, that’s a very broad question for advise there, to be honest. The best piece of advise I can give a young wannabe writer is: Write whatever the fuck you want. Seriously, be as self-indulgent as you want, write what you like to see. Because that’s how you develop a unique style, you have to find it self, find yourself first in your own writing.

I feel like many who try to take writing seriously from the get-go corner themselves into trying to follow certain guidelines and style advise and whatnot from experienced, published authors. And that can be a good crutch, sure, but I think that to really find your writing, you gotta follow your own heart and write out what you like best, even if you may look back at it in ten years and think it was cringey, or stupid overused tropes or whatnot. Those things can lay the foundation from which you grow and build up your writing.

What I’d also definitely give you on the way, especially if you have plans to become a properly published author one day: Notes. Whether you prefer them digital or old-fashioned in a notebook (though I would recommend a physical notebook especially when you first start out because you have a different kind of perspective on the things if you have them in front of your desk and can flip through them. Also if you decide to cross shit out, you can still make it out later on. If you delete something in a file, it’s gone forever and that can and will bite you in the ass when you decide you should have gone with the first idea after all). Seriously, especially for world-building having separate notes is so important because you can not trust your brain to memorize every detail and honestly you shouldn’t have to.

I’m very overly organized and I got separate files for every bigger group of things in my world-building. And I really do think these things are important, because personally it drives me nuts when published authors just can’t keep their canons straight and make mix-ups of things I think shouldn’t be mixed up because you should have them noted in a file. Like, say, the heritage/parentage of your main characters. Don’t go change their mother’s name after five years because you forgot you already gave her a different name. Things like these are really easy to keep track of if you keep notes about the backgrounds of your characters and world-building.

Also, and I don’t know how much this one applies to you, but me as a visual person, I like to draw it out too. Family trees, maps, creature designs, character designs, heck important magic/mystic objects and the like. If you actually capture what you imagine it to look like in a visualization, it can help you in seeing how things fit or come together. Also if you look back at it ten years later, it’s fun to see, quite frankly.

Well, I hope that was somewhat helpful. Good luck with your book! ;)

#Writing Advise #Phoe Giving Advise #Anonymous

8 notes · View notes

iseultdeservedbetter · 4 years

Text

Everytime A Bell Rings An Angel Gets His Wings:

Eadith+Angel+Candles/Light+Alluring

(A/N): Hello there, lovelies!

This is my enter for the ‘TLK-October’ by @tsukkinami!

(I am very excited for also the November challenge and I am already browsing my ideas for the new fic I’ll have to come up with!).

Thank you for creating this and I hope you’ll enjoy this, although it is a very ‘different’ fic, set up in a modern AU, with what I am sure is a very OOC! Eadith, but I do hope you’ll like it!

Also a few thoughts.

Atropos and Moira, goddesses of Destiny or better said as the ones that hold and take care of the thread of life (and Atropos is the one that cuts the thread).

Matelda, character of Dante’s “Inferno” who has the precise purpose of helping purifying and cleaning souls that will later get into Paradise.

Lethe, infernal river that will make you forget everything that you have lived.

SUMMARY: Waking up with no knowledge of whatever happened to you never means anything good, even more if you end up waking with a new and important duty to fulfill.

And no memory.

WORDS: 4,9 K

WARNINGS: Mention of Death, Mention of Poop, Imprecise Talk of Afterlife Mixing Various Set Ups, Other Various Incorrect Things, Modern AU

When she woke up the light in her eyes, her last memory, was lightly dimmed by the solemn atmosphere she found herself in and as her eyes lightly came to adapt to the whole world surrounding her, she understood that she wasn’t in the complete darkness, anymore.

She was in a church.

And as she searched through her mind, she found the definition of a church.

But strangely she couldn’t remember her name, no matter how deep she dug in her head trying to discover something more than the awful atmosphere around her.

Her throat was still choked and spasmed agonizingly as she pushed herself to try to utter the name out of her lips.

But there was no use and eventually all she could do was walk in the path right in front of her, thinking that if she couldn’t remember what she was doing there, she might have as well tried to find some information about herself from the place she had woken up into.

Or where she had been pushed in, by the fact that she was standing on her own two feet, almost as if she had been just created on the front door of the spectral place,

Which was spooky.

But not knowing anything about herself because of what looked like a temporary black out in her mind, this could as well have been her house.

Although it looked like it came out from a horror movie.

Perfect: she knew two things since she had opened her eyes.

Churches and horror movies.

And she wondered for a moment what that strange match meant.

Had she been in a cult before?

The idea definitely rendered all her surroundings a bit more justifiable, since if she had just woken up in some kind of cult crisis induced horror story, she would have probably woken up same utter confusion of that moment.

But the place looked strangely… empty.

And she knew that if there was one thing that horror movies had taught her was that cults wouldn’t leave you alone.

Even if you put a few good countries between yourself and them.

But then something caught onto her attention and she realized that the place wasn’t empty anymore, but instead on the first row of the thick and blackish bench she saw an old veiled lady shrunk in herself, in a way that made her seem like some kind of harmless ghost.

But she might have been also a vengeful spirit.

And she wondered for a moment if she hadn’t just lost her mind completely.

Or if she was on the set of a horror movie, too deep in her role of the poor and desperate victim of the horrific ghost…

… and yet her feet moved forward towards the old lady, but as she walked further up, she found out that there were two others in the row behind the initial figure, with their heads put down on the back of the bench in front of them, completely cloaked in what looked like a thick veil of pure night.

And hadn’t she been so sure that this was either a manic dream or a well-written movie, she would have thought that she had seen the threads in their cloaks scrunch up and move on its own.

As if they wanted to escape the fabric.

The ladies didn’t meet her gaze as she shamelessly looked at them, but they obviously felt her presence, suddenly starting a devilish lullaby that must have been some kind of awful prayer, tight-lipped and in some dark language.

And yet it only enhanced the atmosphere around her.

And the rhythm of it grew alongside her steps, till she was in front of the veiled woman on the front row, unlike her ‘friends’ with her back held up high to allow herself to stare deeply and longingly onto the stand of the eucharist.

But there wasn’t any admiration in her eyes, just a tight-lipped glare.

But it wasn’t the open blasphemy in them that made her jump back of a scared surprise.

It was the pure absence of eyes that shook her to the very core.

Well the FX must have been very very proud of themselves, because she almost shitted in her pants at that sight…

But it seemed too real to be a simple make-up.

Some green screen shit probably…

“… you took your sweet time, little one” muttered the woman and the breath was stuck in her lungs since she didn’t know how the hell the woman had seen or perceived her presence.

She just knew that she was scared and suddenly cold, glad that the sightless gaze wasn’t set up on her, but yet somehow annoyed by the haughty tone of the woman.

She lightly stuck her tongue out to the woman, almost childlike but all the main characters in horror movies did such idiotic things at the climax of the movie.

And if some kind of monster just wanted to take her out why should she wait patiently her turn?

Being on his nerves would have saved her the anxiety that was starting to burn up her stomach and that confusion that was building in her mind.

“… don’t stick your tongue out to me, sweetheart”.

She stopped her gesture midway, risking of biting down on her tongue.

Painfully.

And the woman smirked at her clumsiness and quickly patted down the spot of the harsh rock where she sat, in an offer that she wasn’t sure that she could refuse, but she willed her body to slow down as the rhythm of the women’s mantra became more relaxed and lower in its tone, becoming a whisper.

Swallowed by the night.

“You are a newbie” muttered the woman, as she tore he eyes away from the woman, just as she slipped in next to her, careful to even come near to that woman, something hissing in her clothes and the same nightmarish moving thread working its magic through the elegant features of an eternal outfit.

Hadn’t she been…

… eyeless…

… the old woman would have been quite the elegant lady.

And with a quick gaze shot to her, as the lady shifted her whole body to take in the young woman in front of her, she knew that the nightmarish creature knew exactly what she was feeling.

How she was feeling.

“… oh… I mean… I don’t have much… experience as an actress” she didn’t know why she uttered that, but she was glad to defeat the sound that was thrumming in her ears, a mixture of the complete nightly silence and the enchanted lullaby that the two women behind her emitted “… not that I can… remember much of what I was before …”.

“Oh, that’s a side effect of the Lethe” muttered the woman as she threw her arms to the air, again that annoyed look like a secretary that had just been handled a pile of paperwork a few minutes after she had clocked out “… I always tell Matelda that she shouldn’t hold the souls down for so long… but Gosh… ‘she doesn’t tell me how to do my work so I don’t have any saying in what she does…’ and you’d think it’d be demons the bitches of the Passing…”.

“… Matelda?” she uttered out, the name sounding as strange on her tongue as the mention of the ‘Passing’, but she knew one thing for sure.

Lethe was an infernal river.

And if she wasn’t wrong (confirmed by the words of the woman in front of her) it was meant to delete the memories of the souls, before they went over to Paradise, after their staying in Purgatory.

And had she… been called a soul?

“Oh yes, my dear! An awful woman truly… no manner… just a quick service and not even a smile” and to reinforce that she was utterly different from that she smiled.

Showing her a teethless smirk.

Well, hadn’t she shitted her pants at the sight of her eyes, she had now.

Was it even possible for a soul to shit her pants?

“… and who are you?” the voice choked on her throat.

And again, the woman did notice it.

And the smile that she was gifted with wasn’t in any way comforting.

“Oh what a rude woman I must have seemed to you, little rose” muttered softly the woman, as she promptly put one leg over the other and she swore that she had seen the thread starting to push itself to move onto her leg as she did this gesture “… I am Atropos, inflexible ruler of the thread of life, alongside my sisters”.

And as if it was natural, she turned around to look around to shoot a quick look at the women, who didn’t raise their head from their prayers, but the sensation of two other pairs of eyes made her feel at even more unease.

And as she made to raise up from her sat position, she found herself stuck there.

“… aren’t you familiar with me?” her voice was now an hushed growl and for a moment underneath the pretense of a gentle old grandma with a style that brought a designer best nightmares, she could see a decaying figure.

Genderless and utterly primordial.

And she remembered who she was.

Apparently, her ample vocabulary also knew the Moira, the goddesses that spun the thread of life, eventually cutting it when one’s life ended.

And if she had met one of them, the last one, she must have been pretty much dead.

That explained much.

She would have still preferred the horror movie solution.

But hey… you couldn’t have everything.

“… I’ll take that as a yes” hissed the woman “… I always make a certain impression on the ones that come here for the first time, but don’t worry, sweetie, I don’t eat humans, unlike many of my Mother’s other children…”.

That was comforting.

And if she was dead there wasn’t much that could have physically pained.

Except trying to remember what was going on.

That gave her quite the headache.

“… but we have to speed this up, because I have an appointment in a few centuries, although for you it is something like… five minutes…” the blabber created more confusion in her mind that the childish sound that the woman’s sisters produced intensified in a way that made this all seem like a bad joke.

Except it was the truth.

“… you have been chosen to become a guardian angel, congratulations”.

A guardian angel?

She hadn’t even known that she was dead till a few minutes ago!

“… like the ones… with wings?”.

“Oh, not immediately! You gotta earn them, first!” commented the woman cheerily, almost happy that she was slowly getting the entire story without her having to speak about anything.

And honestly, she would have actually felt better if the frightening creature had kept her mouth closed.

Would she have become also like that?

No, no angels were pretty!

“… what does… what does this mean?” Gosh, if she wasn’t dead, she would have been because whatever had prompted this psychological trip must have been quite… heavy on her whole body and was already fucking up her mind.

“That you are assigned to a human! You keep them safe and if you manage to do that… you get your wings and eventually a few discounts for Paradise…”.

“… I thought… that was what Purgatory was for…” she mumbled underneath her breath more for herself than anyone else, but the woman still caught onto what she had said and with a conspiratorial glint in her absent eyes.

And she leaned painfully closer to her.

She swore that she smelt like something between a bad perfume gone rotten and the warmness of burnt fire.

“… well you see… the big boss… God, Allah and whatever you like calling them… just thought that the whole process with the Purgatory was slow… annoyingly slow. You pray a bit… you talk with other spirits and you hope those that the people you left behind will pray for you and then what?! You get automatically admitted in the Paradise club!”.

That seemed like a bad thing from the woman’s mouth.

“… so the big boss came up with this, his own Charlie’s angels… less latex suits and more chastity till marriage and all that bullshit” with a soft look the woman shot a small smirk of penance to the upper floor and she couldn’t help but hold herself almost protectively about what would have come next “… you complete tasks, you get stars and in the end… puff… club Paradise is waiting for you”.

“That seems very…” ‘downright out of a reality TV series’ “… tiring”.

“And you haven’t heard the best part” the twisted smirk on the woman’s rotten mouth definitely didn’t talk about anything ‘good’ “… you can’t refuse, so smile and let me get a small photo for our badge”.

And before she could even protest or say anything a flash of light completely swamped her and no matter the fact that she protectively covered her eyes with an arm, she was still blinded by the powerful shot, similar to the one that had brought you there.

Should she have expected any kind of tunnel after the light?

But after the light came screams, which made her think that whatever that conversation had been, she was back to planet Earth.

A place that smelt bad and was half as noisy as the stank that surrounded her sensible body.

Fresh shit.

Perfect.

She just hoped it wasn’t hers.

But as she was able to finally see again, she was relieved to discover that she hadn’t actually shitted her pants, although she had to cut herself a bit of slack since she had basically discovered that she was dead and she had met what looked like an ancient monster.

It didn’t take her long to realize where she was.

She was in a child’s nursery, so she wasn’t too surprised to discover that there was a crib in the center of it, where a pinkish babe was wiggling around softly and comfortably in what looked like a diaper full of shit.

Was… was her purpose as an angel to change diapers?

She approached the crib carefully, almost as if she was expecting the Earth beneath her to open and swallow her wholly in an image that would have pleased her more than the prospect of changing diapers.

If she knew one thing about herself, after that sudden memory loss was that she didn’t exactly like changing diapers or caring for children.

But the child was strangely cute.

Button nose and light eyes, and a smile that would have opened the doors of the most desperate of hearts.

Although the smell was quite… an obstacle to her wanting to put her arms around the child and hug it tight to her chest.

The other sudden intrusion was the fact that suddenly a voice was heard, matched by the cries of the babe that had suddenly lost any interest for her and now was calling out desperately for its mother, answering with a series of ‘cuttie patootie’ names that made her puke a bit in her mouth.

She hadn’t definitely been a mother before the whole death and ‘angel thing’.

She wondered whether she should have hidden herself.

She was sure that whether the whole ‘you are an angel’ was true or it wasn’t, it definitely would have been quite curious to find a fully-grown woman in your child’s room.

Even more when she had no idea to why she was there.

The child seemed able to perceive her, as its clear gaze shifted onto her and like the cutest sack of potatoes she had ever witnessed it started to roll up closer to her, just for her to back off and flee underneath a curtain as the door’s handle lowered itself, announcing the mother’s presence.

“… I am coming, my dearie!”.

She held her tongue, putting an hand over her mouth as a good measure to stop herself from saying anything that would have revealed her presence, although she was pretty sure that the thin light blue-colored curtains didn’t help her much.

And as she was halfway through shifting under the desk of what looked like an half-built vanity, she found that she hadn’t managed to run out the horrible monster who had shifted onto a more human appearance, complete of one eye that was burying itself deep in her soul.

But she was sure that with or without it the woman could see her perfectly.

She wanted to scream, but with a quick look to the domestic scene of the doting mother changing the crying babe, she again bit down her tongue, making the woman let out a powerful laugh, the kind that was probably buried under a lot of layers of self-control.

And probably that hadn’t been uttered since 1967.

‘They can’t hear us…’ and she moved closer to the woman, gently passing a hand through her stomach, with no kind of reaction from the human that just kept her work ‘… and they can’t touch us’.

Was that some kind of superpower you gained through birthing a child?

Because she wasn’t wholly convinced about the fact that she was an angel.

“… this little one, instead…” and the child hid immediately her face away from the woman, scared and intensifying her cries, that sounded like a delightful song to the monstrous woman “… can… and she’ll always be able to see you, as she grows up, to let you do your own duties as a guardian angel”.

“I am not sure…”.

“You have been chosen because during your life you acted as a protector to somebody close to you, till the last minutes of your death”.

Wasn’t that consoling.

“Now you’ll cover the position of the guardian angel to the same creature that breathed her first breath once you breathed out your last” now the monster tone had left out any ironic comment “… if you manage to make her have an happy life you’ll get your wings, understood?”.

Not that it was a true question, but she found herself nodding her head.

“… now that everything is clear, I’ll leave you two to get to know each other” and turning another time to the child that had just calmed herself down, making her scream right in the ear of her mother, she vanished in thin air with a small ‘… works every time’.

And then the newly-angelled angel realized that she was in big trouble.

She hadn’t a name

And Any basic knowledge about her life.

But she had a duty.

And that was a good starting point.

In her internship period as a ‘guardian angel’ she discovered that babies didn’t do much, except being cute little shits that pooped too much and cried, when you were least expecting.

And the child she was supposed to babysit, who she had horridly named ‘Experiment 1’, wasn’t an exception to any of those activities, and instead she had had to add to the list of ‘things baby did’ the ‘sleeping for entire hours and waking up angry’, which prompted her many times to run around the house worried.

She had discovered that she wasn’t visible and neither able to come in contact with any human that wasn’t ‘Experiment 1’, but she could move a few things a bit around, not the in atrociously painfully way Patrick Swayze did in ‘Ghost’, but she had still limited movements.

Her body denying her as soon as she forced herself to do anything more than make something fall like an annoyed cat to shift the mother’s attention on ‘Experiment 1’ ‘s labored breathing, when she had caught a small minor sickness.

Prompting her to reach out to a doctor.

She had then discovered that she could travel in cars, and although it was like being completely invisible, once she had been hit in the face by an heavy travel bag, which had gone through her as if she had never been there, it had also hurt the place on her face that it had first come in contact with.

At the doctor’s office it had been revealed to her and the mother that, hadn’t it been for her bringing it to the mother’s attention, the baby would have probably developed a lung sickness further along, where it might have been dangerous.

Well… she had managed to get the child through the first month just fine.

She considered that an utter success.

And they actually celebrated the first month of the baby’s life.

People, related to the child, came to visit the mother.

They crowded the room and although the angel knew that she should have felt just a tiny bit surrounded by a crowd, she felt like she was just more alone.

The fact that she was dead, although an angel, hadn’t settled till then.

And another thing settled in her.

Where was the child’s father?

At the birthday party, as she managed to stole away a small piece of cake (she did seem to still enjoy the sweetest pleasures of life, although she didn’t need them to survive) she had found a very interesting piece of conversation to follow like a telenovela, hidden under the thick table of the kitchen.

“Do you think… he feels better?” a tempting voice of the old lady she had framed as the Experiment 1’s grandma spoke to another younger lady and with the confidence they were touching each other to comfort each other, they were evidently related.

Mother and daughter.

Did her own mother mourn her?

Had she had any siblings?

“… he feels better…” the words seemed painful to get out and then the woman pushed everything out as if she had just managed to break the lock that kept her thought in the jail of her mind “… physically, but…”.

“He has a child, he should worry about that!” the older woman retorted and also in her something had been utterly broken to make such an anger be released on the younger woman who shifted away in an evident show to hid herself from such a rage.

And for a moment she was happy to be completely invisible to others.

“… mom, it isn’t easy” the voice that came from the door of the kitchen spoke of tired nights and a pain that just flourished with each step and it belonged to Experiment 1’s mother.

The elegant dress she had chosen hung heavily onto her full frame, making her same like a scarecrow.

“… he lost… so much in the incident, you need to give him time”.

And she had just sneaked away slowly as the three women looked at each other in an intense fight to who would have lowered firstly their gaze, speaking of pain, rage and protectiveness.

And the question just remained in her mind.

But the tried to focus her mind on easier tasks.

By day she would be found by the child’s side and during the night she would sometimes go through the door of that small house, like a ghost, to explore the small apartment complex, hoping to find something about herself, but she just discovered that the girl of the fourth apartment had a scandalous affair with her boyfriend’s sister.

And that the old man who lived on the first floor hadn’t been able to see his grandchildren for a year now and would sometimes call out their name whenever she would stumble into a small object, making the smallest of noises.

And the Karen on the sixth floor had a collection of MAGA hat that had found its way in the trash bin, ‘accidentally’.

Then two months into her newest ‘work’ the child’s father came back home.

And she had almost flung herself to take a curious look at him him, spying him from the threshold of the kitchen that was the first room he’d appear in after passing the entrance and where Experiment 1’s mother was waiting gently trying to usher the crying babe, startled awake by the sound of the doorbell.

She, herself, had been trying to make silly faces to calm her.

But the child just hid her face in her mother’s neck and cried louder, probably breaking her mother’s eardrum.

It was quite a picture to come back for the father.

Who looked like he had been through a tornado, that had left just his clothes intact.

But his aspect wasn’t the first thing she focused onto.

But on the fact that for a moment, for a split moment, he seemed to almost see her.

And he saw her as if he recognized her.

And then he went back to staring at the mother of his child, offering gently the child in her arms, but he kept his own to his side as if to say that he wasn’t interested, making her huff in pure annoyance as the angel just burned a hole through him.

For the first time she felt like she was recognizing him.

And that feeling of being stared upon intensified.

As did the mother’s annoyance at the father’s refusal of holding the newborn child, suddenly more and more terrorized by the new figure and crying in a way that didn’t go away even when her angel cooed softly at her.

“… we can’t continue this way” the mother muttered tightly, as she pushed the child away from him and, although he had been colder than ice some kind of pain for the refusal filled his eyes, highlighting some kind of pained reaction to that denial “… it isn’t healthy for both of us and for… her…”.

“You haven’t even named her yet” the man’s eyes shifted on the ground and the angel in the side stayed silently behind, but her ears were pricked with interest “… it’s been what… a month… already…”.

The words meant something else, but he denied anything else as he left the words unsaid.

And the angel wanted to desperately know what he had meant with them.

“… I couldn’t…” confessed the mother “… and it wouldn’t have been fair”.

‘And you are changing the subject’ wanted to mutter the invisible angel, feeling like the man was shifting far and farther away from the truth.

And she needed to desperately know it.

“… you can choose whatever you want” the man muttered tired and the woman had a sudden spirit of rebellion, her eyes shining of pure lighting as she answered him, meanwhile the child had finally quieted herself.

“Then what about her name?”.

She knew they didn’t mean the grandmother’s name or anybody else.

And from the hurt look on the man’s face, he just had remembered something painful.

As the piercing pain that pinched the angel between her lungs.

“… no” it was a refusal that was so deep that it almost sounded like a growl.

“Eardwulf” it was the first time she heard the name and again that silver lining of remembrance rang true in her ears.

Intense as an annoying ringing of bells.

At 5 a.m. in the morning.

“… no we can’t” now the voice was choked and she could see the tears he wanted to desperately shed and the ones the woman had already started at seeing the love of her life completely destroyed “… she is gone and she isn’t…”.

“It isn’t meant to go this way!” protested thrillingly the woman as she moved to gently push an hand comfortingly onto his shoulder, obtaining no other response than a slight push that made her almost stumble backwards, exactly as she almost lost her grip onto the child.

And before the angel could properly think it through, she grabbed the child through the mother’s arm, strangely entering her body for a single moment.

But she didn’t exactly think through the whole dynamic she was just happy to have the child in her arm.

And the father looked at his gesture shook.

And he again, looked at her again.

Through the mother’s mouth she heard her saying:

“She doesn’t have to be gone for ever” the man now looked slightly a bit more convinced, something in him being so tired of fighting against an invisible enemy and he just shrugged his whole body in a relaxed pose.

“It is just… I lost her… it is all my fault”.

And for a moment a flash of light invested the guardian angel completely.

The scream of a hysterical man next to her and the feeling of something underneath her rolling through the floor as a constant beeping heightened its strength right when her lids became too heavy for her...

… and she fell.

She fell asleep.

Was this all linked.

“It isn’t your fault” muttered the woman tiredly, but with a gentleness that just petrified him on the spot and gently she tried again to lay the child in his arms and although rigidly he accepted the small creature, just as the guardian angel backed off, standing between the mother and father..

The father was just a natural at holding the baby, quickly learning to hold her hand and when he met her eyes, he fell in love.

And for a moment the guardian angel felt like she was in her rightful place.

And again, in that moment when the man turned his head suddenly to her she knew that he could see her.

And she knew.

“… you are right… she is gone, but not… forgotten” he muttered softly and then he gave her name back “… yeah… Eadith seems like a good name”.

#Eadith #Eadith Fic #Eadith Imagine #TLK-October #TLKoctober #TLK October #The Last Kingdom #The Last Kingdom Fic #TLK #TLK Fic

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ranger-report · 4 years

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Thoughts On: HEXEN: BEYOND HERETIC

In 1995, less than a year after the release of Heretic (which I talked about here), Raven Software unleashed a masterpiece upon the first person shooter landscape. Titled Hexen: Beyond Heretic, the game featured radical new features for the id tech 1 engine, including scripted events (such as monster falling through the ceiling to ambush the player), hub level design, CD music, and moving walls. But what it really brought to the table was an unrelenting difficulty and obtuse puzzle system revolving around the discovery of multiple switches throughout a central hub to open the path to the next world. Combined with a pseudo-RPG character class feature, beautiful sprite work, and a rich atmosphere to explore, Hexen introduced concepts and mechanics that influence FPS games to this day, overshadowed only by the release of Quake the following year.

YouTuber GmanLives produced a video on Hexen calling it, “The Dark Souls of FPS Games,” and that's really not far off the mark. Hexen is oppressive. It's brutal. It's actively trying to prevent the player from achieving their goal of beating the game. While the previous entry in the series, Heretic, offered a fast-paced shoot-em-up blitzkrieg, this game operated with a more measured approach. Methodical pacing, resource management, and the utilization of each class's weapons are key to moving forward. Hidden doors and paths and switches, sometimes activated with the use key and sometimes by firing a weapon at them, permeate the levels to the point where half the game can be spent clicking or shooting at random walls just to see what's going to open up when – or if at all. Most games would tuck away secrets by this method, but Hexen, oh no. Hexen offers little rewards aside from survival, and it's glorious. It's harder than shit, but it's glorious.

Opening up the game, players are given three options to choose from: Baratus the fighter, Parias the cleric, or Daedolon the mage. Each class has their ups and downs; for example, the fighter is a beefy fucker who has high hit points and damage, but weak magic, leading to a mostly melee combat style if you run out of mana. The mage is the opposite, low hit points but high magic damage, with some gorgeously rendered spells that beautifully highlight the detail that id tech 1 was capable of. And the cleric is a mixed bag, balanced between the two, with a woefully weak melee weapon and decent ranged magic weapons, but he also carries the single best weapon in the entire game: the Wraithverge, a crucifix that shoots out Arc of the Covenant ghosts that scream and eviscerate anything on the screen in a glorious display of carnage. Clear out a room in seconds with two well placed shot. Arguable, the Wraithverge should be right up next to the BFG 9000 as one of the most ridiculously overpowered weapons in any game – maybe even higher. But the Wraithverge is an Ultimate Weapon, and each class has an Ultimate Weapon, which needs to be assembled over the course of the game by finding the pieces of it tucked away in hidden corners of the levels. Depending on your vigilance, you might find the pieces sooner vs later, and the rewards for this are plentiful. However, unlike the prior game, this game doesn't use unique ammo type for each weapon; that would be too easy. This time around, weapons require mana to use, coming in two different flavors, blue and green. Each class works as such: weak melee weapon that needs no mana, a slightly stronger weapon that uses blue mana, a much stronger weapon that uses green mana, and the Ultimate Weapon which uses both. With the fighter, all of his weapons can be used as melee if he runs out of mana, but if he has the stock, they take on ranged properties. The mage has a starting weapon that requires no mana, but it still ranged. Meanwhile, the cleric maintains the balance with his solo melee weapon, and the rest are ranged. What's notable about the differences in the classes is that it's not just limited to weapon usage, but also inventory usage. Different classes will garner different amounts of armor points depending on their “familiarity” with how to use armor. There's an item called a fletchette that varies in use depending on the class; for example, the fighter throws the fletchette like a bomb, where the cleric drops it in place and it explodes into a cloud of poison. New players will have the opportunity to briefly look over the classes at the beginning as the opening screen displays stats such as speed, armor, magic, and strength, all of which seem a little arbitrary since they don't explicitly state what they do or how they affect the game up front. At the same time, each class is going to lean towards a bit more difficulty, seeing as how the tanky fighter is going to make bruting through the game a lot easier than the tissue paper mage. First time players would do wise to pick the fighter or the cleric as their first timer, saving the mage for a later playthrough, unless you're a masochist when it comes to the games that you play.

One of the great distinctions about Hexen as compared to Heretic is that the former feels more like a fully realized game world vs the cool fanfic/DOOM clone of the latter. Director and designer Brian Raffel no doubt had a hardon for dark fantasy substance, having worked on Raven's previous two fantasy games, and with the release of DOOM thought, “You know, we can do something with that.” Didn't hurt that id Software was just a block down the street from their offices around that time (true story!) and John Romero, AKA Rock God of Gaming, worked directly with Raven during development so they could make the most of id tech 1. Taking what they knew after Heretic, hungry to dive in further, Hexen feels like a natural expansion of the concepts introduced in the first game: weary travelers journeying through worlds and dimensions to combat an ancient evil using magic and steel. It's great stuff, leaning even harder on the 80's horror fantasy art aesthetic. The game is oozing with deeply detailed monsters and environments, even more refined than the very good work done on Heretic. Translucent objects, fog, breakable terrain, each hub and level are intimately crafted to feel like it's a living, breathing world, not just something you've decided to boot up on your 486 PC. Ranging from traditionally gothic architecture with stained glass and parapets, to jungley swamps, arid canyons, and moldy sewers. And as mentioned before, it's brutally oppressive, absolutely unwelcoming in design. Even the environment doesn't want your presence here. Sometimes it doesn't even want the other monsters around; if you're lucky, you can get creatures to turn on each other by creeping into a new area, and if you can go unnoticed before their attack animations kick in, monster castes will infight with one another, saving you precious mana in the process. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's a fun little sight to behold your meddling.

The sound effects are truly phenomenal, a game worth wearing headphones for. Composer Kevin Schilder returns for the soundtrack, and while his work on Heretic was suitable, here he knocks it completely out of the park. Ominous, brooding, energetic but not too up tempo, it's perfect dungeon crawling music that creeps up your spine at the same time. Meanwhile the distinct creature sounds echo and crawl around corners, letting you know what is where, and also what to be afraid of. I can still hear the sounds of the Dark Bishop in the back of my head, letting me know that I need to turn tail and put some distance between me and them. Enemy design is even better this time around: the aforementioned Dark Bishops take the role of the previous game's Disciples of D'Sparil, teleporting and blasting you with dark magic from their hooded, faceless bodies. Ettins are double-headed warrior beasts that carry a spiked mace, and are the most prevalent monster class in the game – and while they might be everywhere, they pack a helluva wallop, meaning you don't underestimate them no matter how many times you've killed one. Meanwhile, the Centaurs and Slaughtaurs are horrible little shits. Just like the tag says, they're centaurs with full-face helmets, swords, and spiked shields. They can raise their shield to deflect any incoming attacks and reflect them back at you, which is infuriating, especially since the Slaughtaur can fire deadly green magic at you while holding up their shields. And since they look the same, you have to approach any of them with intense caution, otherwise you're staring down the face of death while waiting to make your next strike.

Puzzles operate primarily on a “find the key/switch” platform, but rather than tracking down everything necessary to proceed in a single level, Hexen challenges the player to locate and operate everything they need to move forward throughout a spread of areas around the hub. For example, the Swamp Key won't be directly located in the swamp itself, but maybe over in the Forest. Multiple switches necessary to unlocking the Final Door in the central hub are located in the various hub worlds, informing the player with a quick “You have solved 1/3 of the puzzle” text across the screen when you've found one. Find another switch, the number increases from 1/3 to 2/3, etc. But each hub has more switches, all the way up to nine switches necessary to journey on, which to some is going to be a slog. While frustrating at times, I never felt like I was wading through a switch hunt just to proceed. Each switch seemed to naturally pop up on its own, and once I realized that certain areas couldn't be accessed within the levels themselves, I'd hop around the various worlds in the hub until I found a new switch or key, and then went back. Imagine if Super Mario 64's paintings were all connected to each other, and you had to hop back and forth between them in order to get to the next floor of the castle. It's innovative, and certainly makes sense; if an evil overlord tyrant person were going to hide the keys to access their lair, they probably would spread them out to make it harder to find. It's gratifying to open up section after section of these levels, defying the odds and slaying your way through the puzzles. Adding to the depth of torment is that, unlike Heretic, clearing a room of monsters doesn't mean it will stay that way. Scripted sequences again have monsters teleport in when you least expect it, repopulating areas you thought were safe for the time being. Damning though that may be, it adds to the feeling like the player is being watched at every moment, and that the game is doing its level best to fight back against your progress.

Hexen is hard. I resorted to a walkthrough once, just like in Heretic, and absolutely utilized the minimap in order to suss out where switches were located. There is nothing here to suggest a walk in the park: it is labyrinthine, it is torrid, it is nightmarish. But the mechanics all come together in the end, particularly in the moments where the game gratifyingly presents a room full of mana and health and a lot of monsters to let loose on. These apeshit moments are some of the best in the game. After spending hours managing resources and trying to hoard as much mana and health as possible, to be allowed a moment of pure rip and tear is wonderful.

If you're going to play Hexen, I highly recommend getting the expansion, Deathkings of the Dark Citadel. Not only is the title metal as fuck, but the three new hubs it offers are even more vicious, demeaning, and frustrating. They shove all the elements of the previous five hubs down into three, and it shows. You'll be assaulted on all fronts right from the start, continuing where the final battle left off in Hexen. You still get to pick your class, but sadly, you're also starting over. Curiously depowered and without any inventory items to work with, you'll feel extra squishy for the first level or three. Honestly, Deathkings was where I felt I had the most pure Hexen experience: solidly brutal and unforgiving as fuck. Interestingly, Deathkings was released in 1996 around the same time that Heretic got a retail release with two additional episodes under the name Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders. Factor this in with the upcoming release of Hexen II in 1997 (which saw a hefty difficulty spike as well), it seems that Raven got in one last hurrah with id tech 1 before moving on to id tech 2 -- the Quake engine. But more on that game in another post.

As with Heretic, I recommend playing this one through GZDOOM in order to get the best experience. And you'll need the best experience to stay one step ahead of everything that's trying to kill you. In a nutshell, Hexen is a true masterclass of determination to see the day through. For fans of retro FPS games, it's a must play, but be warned that coming into this after Heretic there is a distinct shift in how the game plays, looks, feels. Gone is the run and gun, which exists now only in pockets. But what's here, crafted lovingly and passionately, is a true nightmare of agony and difficulty unlike anything made before it. As Gmanlives summed it up, perhaps Dark Souls should be called the Hexen of third person adventure games.

Next time, we'll take a look at Hexen II, a popular but vastly different title in the series, and how the changes it made not only distinguished it from the previous two games, but may have also set it slightly backwards as well.

#hexen #raven software #id software #doom #heretic #first person shooter #dark souls #roses and ruins #ck burch #thoughts on #ranger report

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pi-cat000 · 5 years

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MSA: Shapeshifter/Werewolf AU

NOTE: So there is a ton of really good werewolf-Arthur stuff floating around and I love it. Here is one more. Also, I read this and got inspired.

Summary: Werewolf-Arthur but Vivi and Lewis are shapeshifters. They all go out on the full moon Harry Potter style. Set pre-canon.

The sky is bright blue today. If the weather report is to be believed, it will remain clear for the next five nights. Perfect for camping. Everything is falling into place, and Arthur is feeling increasingly energised. There is an extra spring to his step uncommon for this time of the mouth. Even his Uncle Lance, who hovers, face creased into an almost permanent frown, can’t dampen his spirits.

Arthur shoves clothes into his bag, throwing a comment over his shoulder, “I’ll be fine. Mystery is supervising.”

“Mystery. Mystery ya friend’s dog. That Mystery?” His Uncle, leaning against the doorframe, scowls some more, sounding disgruntled. After so many years living with the man, Arthur knows that the irritation is just a poor disguise for worry. He pays it no mind, continuing to pack.

“I think he is some form a Kitsune. You know, a Japanese fox spirit. He’s like Vivi, except, instead of pretending to be a human, he pretends to be a dog. Also, Mystery’s a few hundred years old, a whole lot more powerful, and he is super experienced when it comes to these things.”

“I don’t like it.”

Arthur sighs, lifting his stuffed duffle bag. His Uncle’s distrust of the Yukino family has been an ongoing source of tension this last week. Vivi’s dad had it out for him, some old prejudice about curses and bad luck, but Mystery has never seemed bothered by it.

“It’s either this or a night in the basement,” He reasons, twitching in discomfort at the thought of being stuck in the basement for another full moon. The idea is equally unattractive to his Uncle, who grimaces. Neither of them enjoys locking Arthur up for full moons. Especially now, when Arthur is older and more unpredictable, and there is a large iron cage involved. He hates that cage. Necessary for his Uncle’s safety, but unpleasant on all counts.

His Uncle relents, “I want ya to call every night when possible.”

Arthur hoists a tent up in his free hand with an ease born of supernatural strength. With the full moon tomorrow, the bleed between human and wolf is becoming increasingly pronounced, resulting in heightened senses and ability.

“If anything happens, even if it's bad, you come back, ya hear. I don’t give a shit about what ya do when you’re the wolf, you come back, and we’ll deal with it together like we always do.”

Arthur slips around his Uncle, heading for the front door and his waiting van. “Yes. I know. I will.”

“If I don’t hear from ya, I’m hiking out there to track ya down myself.”

The air is crisp — a beautiful day. Arthur strides out across the parking lot, relishing the feel of open space. The sprawling desert on either side of him beckons to him. ‘Run. Be free,’ his instincts tell him. The door to the front reception rattles in its frame, and his Uncle follows him outside.

“I’ll be fine. We’ve been planning this for ages. I’m even looking forward to it.” He turns, smiling despite ongoing misgivings. To look forward to a full moon is monumental. It is something entirely new for Arthur. Honesty, he’s still not sure how to deal with it and is almost waiting for it all to come crashing down around him. Surely, someone is about to jump out and inform him that this all a joke.

His Uncle hesitates on approach, torn for maybe a second before deflating. He steps up to put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. The action takes a bit of stretching, due to Lance’s shorter statue.

“I’m just worried about ya.”

“I know. I swear I won’t take any chances. This is going to work. Trust me.” It had to work because, as amazing as his Uncle is, he is still just a human-A human with a werewolf nephew who put themselves in danger every month. Arthur’s biggest fear is waking up one of these mornings to discover his Uncle dead by his hand.

Thankfully, his Uncle nods in acceptance, reaching forward and pulling him down for a ruff hug. Arthur breaths in, scenting the familiar oil and grease mixed with tobacco underling the salami sandwich Lance ate for lunch yesterday. It’s a comforting scent. They separate, and Arthur steps away, swinging himself into the van, throwing his belongings into the back.

Lance walks to stand near the window, folding his arms once again.

“Don’t forget. Call. Every night.”

“I will,” Arthur answers, wavering before flipping the ignition and accelerating out of the lot. Vivi, living smack in the centre of town, is a half-hour drive from Kingsman Mechanics.

When he pulls up, the whole Yukino family is out on their porch. Vivi is having some disagreement with her father, her mum looks to be playing mediator, and the Yukino elder is idly tracking his approach. They make eye contact. Arthur sinks low in his seat, so he is mostly hidden from view. Just perfect. He’d been hoping to avoid drawing attention to himself.

While he waits, he deliberately ignores how the wards around Vivi’s house make his skin itchy and hair stand on end. Wards designed to deter creatures like him. The few times he had been invited in -on the rare occasion Vivi’s family are away- had left him with ringing ears and a clogged nose. The layers of illusion, plastered over the house’s plain exterior, coupled with the wards, play havoc with his senses. A common reaction when supernatural creatures encounter ‘fox magic,’ Vivi had tried to reassure.

Ten more minutes of arguing and Vivi throws her hands up in frustration, grabbing her bag and stomping up the garden path, visibly irritated. Over her head, Arthur catches the eye of her father, who is glaring daggers at the van. His eyes narrow, flashing blue. Arthur doesn’t need heightened instincts to recognise a warning sign. Internally, he groans, sinking further, putting his head below the window, resigning himself to another ‘stay away from my daughter or else’ lecture. So far, the ‘or else’ was impending, but Arthur can’t help but worry every time he accidentally reminds the patriarch that he exists. It throws a damper on his anticipation like a bucket of ice.

The passenger door opens. Mystery leaps up into the van, giving him a perplexed lopsided expression. Vivi clambers in after him, throwing her bag over the seat divider in the same movement. A puzzled glance is given when she notices him almost on the floor.

“Your dad hates me.” He offers.

“Oh, ignore him. He’s got his head stuck back in feudal japan,” Vivi gripes, twisting to pull down her seatbelt, “Right Mystery?”

Mystery, who has seated himself between them, nods, projecting his voice, /Though concern for one’s progeny is natural, the fact that I am acting as your guardian makes his worry unfounded. /

“See. Mystery agrees with me.”

“Is that what that was…” Arthur mutters, starting the van up so he can drive away as quickly as possible. He can still feel piercing blue eyes ten minutes later when the Pepper’s diner, in all its bright pink glory, appears on the horizon. Anxiety and fear are quickly killing the rest of his excited anticipation. Now, he is wondering whether Vivi’s dad has a point.

“He’s right you know,” Arthur blurts, unable to help it, “Your dad I mean. About me being dangerous. I don’t even remember most full moons. I’ve ripped up all the basement floorboards and destroyed whole walls before.” He had even hurt people, back when he and his Uncle had lived in the city, but he can’t bring himself to mention that failing. “The full moon is nothing like when we’ve all gone running together or shifted to mess around. What if I hurt you.”

“Arthur,” Vivi sighs, turning to stare at his profile, “We’ve talked about this. There is no way we are letting you spend any more full moons locked up in that thing you keep in the basement. Not when we have a better option. My dad can go suck on a lemon, because, curse or not, I’m doing this.”

“What if something goes wrong and you regret it...”

“The only thing I regret is that we didn’t know you were a bitten-wolf sooner.”

Arthur hyper focuses on turning off the motorway, face heating up. Honesty, Arthur hadn’t known there was a difference between him and Lewis’s wolf nature until an offhand comment about werewolves had Lewis commenting that the full moon gave him a crazy appetite. Vivi’s dad had been by to threaten him enough times that he had assumed Vivi knew he was a werewolf and not a regular shifter, but she had simply nodded along with Lewis, asking if Arthur had a similar quirk. Then Arthur had been too embarrassed to correct them. The full moon was such an unpleasant experience for him that he had avoided talking about it for years, making excuse after excuse.

/To go on a hunt with one’s pack is a common strategy when dealing with lunar-madness — one of the reasons you wolves tend to congregate in one location. / Mystery adds, voice calmer.

“Exactly. You’ll have Lewis. You get along great when you shift. Also, I wouldn’t be much of a fox if I couldn’t keep up with you two bumbling lumps.”

“Lewis is a regular wolf, and you’re just so tiny. I could easily hurt one of you,” He objects.

/Fear not, Arthur. In the unlikely event that you do not recognise your companions as part of your pack, I will intervein and keep you and them safe for the night’s duration. / Arthur eyes Mystery and exhales to release tension. Mystery was so good at masking his presence that sometimes Arthur forgot he was a crazy strong spirit. According to Vivi, her family had once been his vassals, actual foxes, before marrying into human lines. It was where she got her shifting ability and instinct for magic. Arthur’s not sure how Mystery ended up disguised as a dog, playing family guardian to a bloodline who were once his servants, but he’s not about to question it. If the supernatural world was anything, it was convoluted.

“Arthur.”

“What.”

They’d pulled into one of the vacant spots outside the Pepper's diner. Arthur realises he’s been sitting, staring at his lap, in silence. Vivi’s leaning over, waving to catch his attention. She smells like paper, grass, flowers and that electric undertone he associates with magic.

“Don’t let my dad get you down. This’ll be fun. I know I’m looking forward to camping, and the full moon is only one night.”

“Right. Yeah.” His dour mood falls away. Vivi’s eyes are sparking blue, signalling her enthusiasm. “You’re right.”

A knock on the van’s glass window has both him and Vivi twisting in their seats. Lewis waves from the other side and Vivi quickly winds the window down so she can call a greeting.

“Don’t suppose I could trouble you for a lift,” Lewis jokes, holding his thumb like he’s attempting to hitchhike.

“I don’t know. Where are you heading, stranger,” Vivi returns, leaning out to grin. Arthur feels a smile return, and he clicks off the locks so Vivi overbalances when Lewis tries the handle. It is the breakfast rush, so none of the other Peppers have joined Lewis outside- too busy serving customers- but Lewis has a giant portable cooler at his feet, which is probably packed with their cooking.

“Hey, Arthur. How are you holding up?” Lewis meets, attention moving off Vivi. His eyes flash gold, catching the light, and Arthur gets that additional rush of excitement reuniting with Lewis always inspires. Vivi called it a ‘pack response,’ but Arthur’s not so sure, seeing as he feels the same way when he sees her. Vivi's not a wolf after all.

“I’m fine,” This isn’t his first full moon, so the concern is a little unnecessary. He still finds himself pleased to receive it though.

“There’s space in the back for that. Hold on. I’ll get the back doors.”

“Thanks. I brought an extra tent as well,” Lewis continues, tracking him as he circles around the vehicle to open the back.

Vivi sticks her head over the seat divider to watch them, commenting, “Because two tents aren’t enough.”

“You can never be too prepared.”

“We have space. Why not?” Arthur reasons, reordering his and Vivi’s stuff to give Lewis room to load up his cooler box and mound of additional camping supplies. Of the three of them, Lewis has definitely packed the lions share.

Then Lewis hands them all sandwiches, correctly guessing that no one has eaten breakfast, and they hit the road. While he and Viv eat, Lewis drives humming along to the radio. Thoughts of Vivi’s dad fade into the background, Arthur simply enjoying being in the presence of both his friends. Even Mystery, who tended to be more reserved, is joining in their conversation, seemingly looking forward to spending time hiking about in nature.

#MSA #mystery skulls animated #fanfiction #fanfic #werewolf arthur #fox shifter vivi #wolf shifter lewis #Lewis pepper #Vivi Yukino #arthur kingsmen

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geek-gem · 5 years

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Some what controversial Sonic opinion

I honestly like the Black Arms strangely. Yet I feel they don’t seem to belong in a Sonic game.

But yeah I do like them. Or the fact I don’t mind them. It’s just I feel like and while I know the whole direction Shadow’s game was doing, despite it’s a game me and other folks are critical about. I don’t mind the Black Arms. It’s mainly because of my liking towards monsters and other creatures like that, even aliens like them. Besides I do think they have some nice designs.

Also learning more of the fact they are a hive mind and really, it’s been a long while since I read stuff about Shadow’s game. Yet the problem I have with them is not just the fact it complicates Shadow’s story more. But the fact they basically don’t fit.

Along with the fact I actually call Black Doom, “The alien version of the devil”. That is what I call him. Because in some weird ways he basically is. While from what I can tell that’s the direction they wanted to go with.

Seriously these guys should of been in a different game. I’m fine with them existing, I’ll be honest they some of my favorite parts of Shadow’s game.

Really I feel like unless....I’m worried of sounding like a hypocrite. But I feel if they were in a different game let’s say what I’ve said before, Sega’s own kind of take on Doom. Which sounds weird but a more mature game than a Sonic spinoff. They would probably fit more.

Yet this is my opinion, other folks have different thoughts on them. I just think they aren’t suited for a Sonic game. But more for something like a first person shooter something similar to Doom. Because the Black Arms in a weird way are basically the alien version of hell itself. Which may sound stupid but in some ways I see that. Especially because of how Black Doom is portrayed.

Considering I’m done with the tags now, even though I don’t really favor the game. I kind of just want Shadow’s game on my GameCube. As a little bonus to finish my Sonic collection on GameCube. But also to play the game cause it’s a game I don’t mind. Even if it’s not a favorite of mine in the series. Unless my mind changes whenever I replay it again. I had the game ordered once but it never came.

I also wanna say I love hoe they look demonic but also cartoony at the same time. It makes them stand out. But looking at them now, I don’t know. Okay yeah while there are some realistic like shit going on with them. They do still have this weird mix of alien demonic like things with a kind of cartoony style.

#sonic the hedgehog #black arms #black doom

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shoezuki · 5 years

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Hey!! Some I’m practicing character design, snd a have some concepts for characters in mind HOWEVER. i wanna make a nonbinary character but I’m cis and I don’t wanna like. Make them accidentally fall under a certain trope?? I don’t know what ideas would be harmful when it comes to nb ocs and which aren’t??? Any tips?

aaaaa yeah np! im sure i can think up some things. ofc, im not like. the Paragon of Nonbinary Knowledge n all that but yeah i know theres some

somethin thats notable of like. any of the Few nonbinary characters in media are always like. nonhuman creatures as well. at face value thats cool like yeah whatev robots n aliens are sick but Also. its kind of like, an association between nonbinary genders and unnatural, fantasy, strange things. Like nb robots Can exist ofc but its somethin to keep in mind, that its an overused and cheap coppout for ‘representation’ while also saying 'theres something nonhuman about enbies’

when referring to a nb characters’ past, Never say something like 'when they were a girl’ or whatever. its better to refer to such as 'before they came out’. (not always applicable to real enbies ofc but cis ppl should never do this w characters or especially ppl)

the Visage that usually is representative of enbies is almost always an androgynously presenting, thin, fair white person that looks more masculine than feminine. thats lame. theres no one way enbies look

to expand on that: theres no One way a nonbinary person looks or presents! some ppl are comfy wearing entirely 'feminine’ clothes or 'masculine’ clothes, some in between or mixing between styles theyre comfy with. theres really no nonbinary 'look’.

dont bring up gender assigned at birth. dont be like 'this person is an afab person!’ especially if its not ever relevant. which like, it never really is? a lot of the time with cis ppl, wanting to point out or know an enbies 'assigned gender at birth’ is basically just asking 'but what is your actual gender’ and thats nobody’s business

all enbies experience their own genders differently. like, how they consider their own gender? but its best to leave in depth exploration of a nb characters’ gender to nb ppl.

in terms of pronouns, they/them is the most common and recognizable for a nonspecific pronoun so thats probably your best bet. although nb ppl Do go by all and any pronouns, sometimes different pronouns according to different situations. (for me, only my family and good friends can call me she/her or he/him because that feels weird otherwise)

nonbinary isnt a 'third’ gender. thats not how shit works. nonbinary is more of an umbrella term for genders that are not completely associated with 'binary’ genders.

dont act like ur character is all 'cool’ and 'hip’ and 'openminded’ for simply being nb. being nonbinary shouldnt be treated like something Radical and Progressive.

dont focus on your nb characters struggles, dysphoria or maybe lack thereof, etc. cis ppl cant really Know first hand what nonbinary struggles are like specifically so you shouldnt write only about them.

theres no way to 'look’ cis or 'look’ nb. like, 'cis passing’ has been thrown at me a lot and its bullcrap. if a person, or a character, is nonbinary, regardless of how they look, then there nonbinary.

and MORESO. the Biggest thing i can think of (besides like. makin nb characters lizard people or something like being inhuman is the Reason theyre able to be nb lmao that sucks) is that theres diversity in how nb people present and are comfortable? some ppl have beards, wear jeans, baggy sweaters, get top surgery, and that doesnt make them 'more like a man’. Some enbies like wearing dressing and makeup and high heels and that doesnt make them 'more like a woman’. Takin or referring to nb characters who might present more masculinely as 'practically a man’ or some sort is really. bad.

if ur nb character is in a relationship, their partner doesnt NEED to be pansexual to date an nb person. thats dumb. Especially if its phrased like pansexuallity is more 'progressive’ because it includes nb ppl.

uuhhhhh yeah thats all that i can think of rn??? again! im not the Paragon of Enby Knowledge and im p isolated in my community from other enbies so like! its always good to do research, look into biographies of nb ppl (academic phrasing in terms of nonbinary stuff is really Impersonal). but as long as you respect nb identities, understand what aspects of nonbinary genders u cant personally know or express, then u should be fine.

#sorry this got. reeeeeeally long #as u can see i like talking about nb stuff lakfhakfhksfh #oh also didnt mention but #'enby' is a term for nonbinary ppl thats kinda equal to saying 'boy' or 'girl'#idk how common it is but i use it a lot #so saying 'theyre an enby' is like saying 'shes a girl' in terms of grammar #....yeah.#asks

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thetygre · 6 years

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30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #23: Favorite Bad Movie Monster

Alright, so most of these movies aren’t really all that bad; they’re just kind of ‘meh’. But they would have been a lot worse without these cool and/or goofy monsters.

1. Jabberwocky (Alice in Wonderland 2010)

I am prepared to disclose that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was not horrible, but 60% of that opinion stems from the Jabberwocky. (The remaining 40%is 30% the other monster designs and 10% lesbian subtext.) The Jabberwocky has always been my favorite part of the Alice mythos (surprise surprise), and not to sound petty, but I have dropped Alice movies just for not including the brilling beast. Burton’s Jabberwocky might not be my favorite, but it has a lot going for it. The way they treat it is basically as Wonderland’s Tarrasque; a living WMD, a legendary kaiju, the ur-monster in a world teeming with dangerous and crazy creatures. The way it wakes up is even a direct nod to Chernabog from Fantasia; they are literally equating this thing to the Devil.

Second off; Christopher Lee.

Finally, when the Jabberwocky meets Alice to fight, he says this thing about meeting his ‘old foe’, ‘the vorpal one’, in battle again. It is made explicitly clear that he is talking about the vorpal blade, not Alice. And that just… I don’t want to say that that changes the entire movie, but yeah, it kind of does. The implications here are that the vorpal blade and the Jabberwocky have fought each other countless time before in the past. The history of Wonderland is just the history of a dragon and a magic sword fighting. Is the vorpal blade sentient? How many times have these two fought? This kind of transforms everything about the setting the movie has established for the last hour and a half. It’s just so filled with so much potential to me.

2. Torgo (Manos: The Hands of Fate)

Y’know, when you’re in a dark place, you have to find your own light. A source of motivation, something you can cling to to pull you through to the other side. Maybe that’s a dream, a goal at the end of the tunnel, or maybe it’s a hero, someone you can look up to. I’m not saying that Torgo is a hero, but he inspires me. There are weeks at work where I just don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I come home at night to an empty room and fall asleep alone. It gets hard, is what I’m saying. But you know who never stopped trying, even though he hated his job and was lonely too?

Torgo. That’s who.

Everyday Torgo gets up, throws on his blazer and hat, and he goes out there and busses a haunted motel for a boss he hates. But he does it, every day. And if Torgo can do it, you can too. So you’ve got to get out there and be the best damn lackey you can. You’ve got put in the work to make it to tomorrow. And when the good times roll in and come shining down on you, you take a minute to remember the man who helped you get here. Take a minute to remember Torgo, looking down on you from Cloud No. 9, shedding a tear.

3. Radu (Seventh Son)

The Last Apprentice series is actually a pretty cool (and grim) series of dark fantasy/horror young adult novels, kind of like junior’s first Solomon Kane. The Seventh Son movie based on the series has piss-all to do with it, and its only redeeming features are some cool monster designs and Jeff Bridges. Of those cool monster designs, the stand-out for me is Radua aka Muslim Dragon Kratos. He’s one of our villain witches chief thugs, and is unnecessarily cool for a side-character. He’s got this whole Nosferatu Zodd code of honor thing, and wields these two chain blades and probably could have been the villain in his own movie.

Now that alone would have been a neat detail, but then he can turn into what I honestly consider one of the more interesting dragons in recent cinema. I talked before about how one archetype of dragons was of being these unholy, scavenger type wilderness monsters, and that’s kind of the vibe I get from Radu’s dragon form. It’s all lanky and feral looking. It has too many limbs, and it walks around like it doesn’t know how. It’s another unnecessarily cool design for such a generic movie, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

4. Krakensaurus (Jack the Giant Slayer)

I don’t want to be mean and discount Jack the Giant Slayer as ‘discount Ray Harryhausen’, but thems is the breaks, as the saying goes. The movie is kind of charming in how earnestly it plays to being a 1960s fantasy movie, with princesses in pink dresses and warlocks with goatees and a rhyming leprechaun. The movies stop-motion monsters don’t really live up to industry standards, though. But I can’t sit here and lie and say that I don’t have a special fondness for the sea monster at the end. The movie’s penultimate scene sees our heroes trying to escape the warlock’s castle, so the villain summons a two-headed giant (or ettin, if you know your monsters) which looks suspiciously like one of Ray Harryhausen’s cyclopes. Trapped in a sea cave, the rhyming leprechaun trapped in a bottle (roll with it) summons a sea monster to deal with the problem.

Sometimes it’s the little things in life, like watching two weird looking monsters fight to the death. Our sea monster is a blue-green mixture of kraken and allosaurus, and I’m pretty sure its toy had more detailing than the actual moving model. When this guy showed up on the screen, six year old me was hype enough to punch through a wall. I spent the next week drawing pictures of him so I wouldn’t forget him. This movie has 100% more sea monsters and singing leprechauns than The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and that almost makes up for its deficit skeleton warriors.

5. Queen of the Lair (She Creature 2001)

Stan Winston was on the helm for this little lady’s monster design, and it shows. A mermaid queen, it’s hard to tell if her monster form is her real shape or just something she can morph into. Even her basic mermaid form is pretty interesting; the split tails remind me of sirens or tritons. Her monster shape, though, is pure Stan Winston gold. There’s more than a little bit of the xenomorph queen in there, between the crest and the fangs. Someone threw it into a blender with a sea serpent and a viper fish and what comes out is the most badass mermaid to ever slink across cinema. She rips people’s heads off, her tail is covered with bone spikes, and she can sing a siren song to summon up her mermaid swarm. Oh, and psychic impregnation powers. That part’s kind of important.

6. She Creature (She Creature 1956)

Aforementioned sea monster queen was part of a series of horror films based on old b-movies, so this is the original She Creature. Even today, this is one of my favorite designs from the 1950s. Paul Blaisdell might just be the king of B-movie monster suits, and belongs up there with Ray Harryhausen in the great monster hall of fame. The she creature looks like the sum product of an orc, a lobster, and a scorpionfish. It’s a shame you only see her in monochrome, because her color scheme is a startling mix of green and pink. What I find most fascinating is the concept that this is supposed to represent some parallel evolutionary stage of humanity. This is supposed to be a different version of Homo sapiens that never left the sea. Stan Winston’s mermaid queen is great, but I would still love to see an updated and more articulate version of this design.

7. Vampire Spawn (Van Helsing)

This raises so many questions. So the crux of Van Helsing is that Dracula needs Frankenstein’s monster to power a force-field that will allow his swarms of vampire spawn to survive past infancy. I bet you thought vampires reproduced by biting people, right? Well, apparently they also have egg-sacs. Just, massive, Aliens style egg-sacs full of bat/human fetus monsters hungry for blood. It’s so stupid that I love it. These things are horrible and adorable; they remind me of chupacabras. I want one as a familiar, or at least statted up for a tabletop roleplaying game. Just really try to avoid thinking about the whole egg-sacs thing and all the implications that brings to vampire mythology.

8. Emperor Tyrannus (Attack of the Super Monsters)

I don’t… I don’t think I have the strength to really get into Attack of the Super Monsters. When I watched it, liquor was involved. Describing it reads like a parody of Japanese media that involves anime, men in monster suits, and giant robots meant to sell collectible toys. But it’s real, and the realest shit ever is Emperor Tyrannus. Emperor Tyrannus is literally a giant tyrannosaurus rex who is the evil mastermind of an underground civilization of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs talk, because shut up, and Emperor Tyrannus in particular talks with a villain voice that I just can’t really convey through text. I think the closest I can get is saying that he sounds like someone doing an imitation of Brian Blessed while having a stroke. Emperor Tyrannus shoots laser beams from his eyes that mind control the other dinosaurs into being evil, and watches them fight a hermaphroditic cyborg superhero in a drill/airplane. Look, you need to see this for yourself. I’m not doing this justice. Get your friends, find the DVD, and strap in for a wild ride.

9. Witch Tree (The Last Witch Hunter)

The Last Witch Hunter is another guilty pleasure move where Vin Diesel brings what I’m pretty sure is one of his D&D characters to a movie and somehow ropes Michael Cain and Elijah Wood into it with him. Our villains are, in a surprising twist, witches that cook up some fairly grotesque magic. One of the creatures meant to act as the witches’ guardians is a magical sentinel, and it just goes so hard and so dark for what amounts to a stick golem. It’s the fine details that make this construct stand out. The extra limbs let it move faster and have extra attacks, the jawbones around the front form a crude mouth, and the branch rib-cage makes it look like something that used to be alive instead of something that was just magically summoned. There’s so much work poured into this one monster, and it’s definitely a treat to see it at the end of the movie. Rethink your golems, kids; treat yourself better.

10. Giant Leeches (Attack of the Giant Leeches)

I used to be pretty intensely leech-phobic when I was younger (and by younger, I mean a couple of years ago), but even then I knew the giant leeches were lame. Incredibly lame. Like, honestly kind of pathetic. I kind of like them out of a bizarre sense of pity. Giant leeches should scare me, but these guys are just goofy. A leech isn’t a hard design; it’s a tube with a sucker on each end. But I am almost convinced that the person who designed these monsters had never actually seen a leech, or possibly even a worm. But the movie still treats them with all the dignity and awe of the Creature of the Black Lagoon. There are prolonged sequences of these guys swimming underwater, floating around like hungry garbage bags. These things are not, nor were they ever, leeches; they are some kind of aquatic octopus or confused anemone. That’s why they need our love, our protection; because they’re too stupid to survive by themselves.

#30 Day Monster Challenge 2 #30 Day Monster Challenge #monsters #movies #fantasy #mst3k #stan winston #paul blaisdell #long post

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 6 years

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had a bizarre dream last night, it isn’t entirely linear now i recall it late at night

basically, a group of random people my age down to late teens perhaps (or maybe i was younger, definitely more attractive) were banded together

we went into a giant red, metallic building tht was clearly some sort of artist design concept, almost shaped like a lightning bolt with an elevator (internal), and green gardens with generic sandstone paths

my team, was team blue. this could be due to the fact its a fave colour.

we were a random collection of people, my group was sent to the Blue Group room. there were lockers, our colour. we had outfits in them, they didn’t seem practical, and yet we put them on. everyone had this wrist bracelet, pastel coloured, blue/pink/white was our team’s colour scheme

really odd, didn’t seem to have the weapons at this point. someone had a baby that kept shifting between real and a doll, not sure what the fuck was up with that? but that’s important to now for later. Everyone carried the child around at some point, bc that’s how the group worked.

well, after getting ready we went into what felt like the inside of a massive victorian house, very colour-coded colour schemes and polished wood banisters/chairs. The bit i recall most was a massive room that seemed to, for some reason, feel like the internal portion of overwatch’s Eichenwalde map, the big castle section?

but victorian era styled furniture, etc. but, also, modern items. like the bracelets to monitor us, and there were people on phones and using music devices.

i was sitting in a row near the entrance (a red corridor and doors for some reason, sort of muted, almost bordering on orange with the sunlight hitting it, it clashed with the decor). some of my team were there, others of different colour-coded teams were talking to me, sitting with us. mostly friendly.

there were some people down the line being rude, or at least, trash-talking me specifically. I was casually ambivalent to them, and occasionally roasted them back. it probs wasn’t even great, but i know it shut the dude up for a minute.

then there was a signal or something.

i can’t recall the next section but the segment of dream directly after that was being in the big room, by ourselves or maybe a few random members of other teams; and there were creatures, monsters, huge and hard to describe. Some were flying, some crawled over the walls, some were just large. we were fighting with various things trying to take them out, because they weren’t supposed to be there?

i think i intercepted the the baby like a football at one point, and carried (her?) around the battle for a bit, there were people everywhere. then someone else in less danger presented to take her, so baby was away and we could once again kick some serious ass.

We won, eventually, I believe. That part of the dream isn’t overtly clear, now.

The next bit i recall it was like the monster bit hadn’t really happened, and everyone was sent to their locker areas (all colours on different floors, unclear the distance between that and the big green room thingo we fought in)

Everyone seemed fine, unscathed or at least able to move around really. Forgot about the infant until someone was like “Hey, here’s (she?) is!” and I think the mum had her. Someone had a sling thing to make carrying easier; which was important, because at this point we all got weapons.

Some were like paintballs, some were paint knives or some shit, someone had a paintball fucking machine gun, and there were other bizarre weapons as well.

So we’re battling, sneaking around like you would in a real paintball or lasertag style battle. there’s a surprising amount of buildings outside the place, somehow, lots of green gardens to hide in. the kind of minigardens with wooden frames stacked around them, if that makes sense.

The bit i recall was in fragments: im pretty sure i got the smug ass from team orange who was being a wanker earlier. Pretty sure the weapon i was given was some sort of general paintball gun, blue pellets and all. But I think was was out or it jammed or something, and i was holding the infant, who was a doll again at this point for bizarre reasons...

And one of the taunting buggers from team pink comes around the corner of a building and right into the attached garden, wherein my team and i (the members we could find, tactical, covert and cohesive we were not, outside of monster-fighting) were hiding. and by ‘hiding’ i mean a bunch of grown ass people in black and notably blue outfits, crouching amongst like three (3) leafy green plants like a shitty where’s waldo ripoff

he comes around the corner, the rest of the team is picked off by several other colours, yellow, orange, maybe a green or red not sure (couldn’t give you an adequate number of team members really. not sure why, pretty sure there was at least five/six of us, mixed genders). but there’s the pink guy, average white dude, holding what looked like a kids’ shovel, the plastic kind you’d make sandcastles with...

at this point, i know im doomed. so i was like, “fuck it” and waited to be Pink’d. but he kind of gestured, then splatted the doll baby thing and coated it in pink paint; then smacked me with the fucking thing. and i was like, “???????? get back here smartass” and somehow managed to shoot him in the arse with my blue pellets. beautiful revenge.

weird thing: rather than using the elevator, we were like, catapulted to our floors post-battle? it was so weird. “which floor?” ‘Orange’. “Righty-ho” *pulls the lever, launches them unto oblivion*

then we’re inside, showering maybe, but the next bit we’re clean and in the locker area. i know there was talking, teams intermingling.

can’t recall the next bit, think i woke up or something.

>it was fascinating, really.

#dreams #what the fuck

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heedra · 4 years

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can i ask what ttrpg systems you prefer to dnd?

yeah! this is a question i’ve answered before so i’m gonna duplicate my answer here! This is in no way a comprehensive guide to every good game out there, but here are a few I enjoy that I have personal experience with or have heard a lot of good things about.

Exalted: This is my personal favorite ttrpg. It’s a very lore-heavy game and setting revolving around playing demigods in a specific, highly detailed mythic fantasy setting. It would be a huge joke to say it’s any easier to get into than DnD, or that the mechanics are any less bloated, and it’s definitely had its fair share of big problems in the past, but I really love where the newest edition (third edition) has gone so far and is continuing to go. Worth checking out if you like over-the-top fantasy, digging into heavy lore, rolling a lot of dice, and using a whole bunch of intricate bits and pieces to build a character (all things ppl love about DnD). New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness: These games are the newest iteration of the famous World of Darkness gameline originally put out by White Wolf Games. They’re a collection of different urban fantasy games (all of which use the same mechanics and can be mixed and matched) that focus on different supernatural creatures: vampires, werewolves, ghosts, changelings; even mummies and frankensteins! I especially love Changeling: The Lost, and enjoy playing CofD in general for the atmosphere it often evokes. If you’re looking to play a modern fantasy game, I’d give it a look. I’ll be frank though: White Wolf also has a SHIT record when it comes to handling race in its games, and the classic World of Darkness line, especially Vampire and Werewolf, are some of the worst offenders. Chronicles of Darkness has come a long way since then in a lot of cases, especially with the second editions of a lot of its games coming out, but it’s still good to go into this one critically. MASKS: A New Generation: This, and the next game on this list, run on the Powered By The Apocalypse game engine- a set of game mechanics designed to be simple and flexible for making games with, that use little more than a pair of d6′s at times, mechanically. The games that use PbtA tend to be tailored for a specific concept and premise- and can be as bad or good as the creators can realize that premise. MASKS is a game about playing young, up-and-coming superheroes, and it rules for that purpose, in my experience. It manages to avoid being crunchy wrt superpowers and supports character roleplaying in a pretty cool way. There are other games for playing supers out there that are perhaps less specific in premise, but I love this one a lot. Monster of the Week: If you have listened to TAZ, you might know of this one- it’s another PbtA game, and the gameplay the boys have of it in Amnesty is a great introduction to how many PbtA games operate. For those of you not familiar, Monster of the Week is a game themed around playing paranormal investigators, gumshoes, kids-on-bikes, x-files agents, or Scooby Gang style folks solving paranormal mysteries. My personal mileage with it varies, but it’s a GREAT intro game to both PbtA and tabletop roleplaying, especially given that it works well for shorter campaigns. Blades In The Dark: I haven’t played this one personally, but I’ve heard only good things about it. Blades is a game about playing a band of brigands, ne’er-do-wells, organized criminals, or assassins in a dark, Victorian-Gothic fantasy setting with a unique set of lore. I’ve heard it’s EXTREMELY FUN and effective at providing a great playspace for roguish, daredevil actions, and it’s unique in having a very cool mechanic where not only do the players have customizable sheets and stats, but their entire gang as a whole does as well. LANCER: Lancer is a good fucking game, whose mechanics are PERFECT for what it does; and what it does is allow you to play a mech pilot. If you aren’t playing a mech pilot, there’s no reason to play lancer- but if you are, god will you have a good time. This isn’t a flaw- it’s by design, and I urge people to check it out especially because of that and how it demonstrates that, sometimes, narrowing down on a specific concept of play actually improves the ability of a game to enhance that experience. Its rules for playing your PC outside of the mech are barebones but effective, and the rules for mech combat, and for building and customizing your mech, are extremely fun and accommodating to homebrew. The setting also has some pretty cool lore! FATE: Fate is less a tabletop game wholesale and more of a very simple, barebones system for running tabletop adventures. A lot of folks swear by it as as simple, easy jump-in point for the hobby, and a great tool for building game ideas that doesn’t constrain them by too many assumptions about setting and build. Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: I have not personally played Chuubos, but I would be loathe to leave it out of this list, because I know a lot of people who adore it and because it is a shining example of just how far away from DnD tabletop games can get in design and play concept. Chuubos divorces itself almost entirely from DnD’s assumptions of dice and chance mechanics- it’s an entirely diceless RPG where much of the theme and progression focuses on roleplaying through story arcs and character goals decided upon by the players. It works fantastically for slice of life and more whimsical, Ghibli-style adventure, but is capable of handling multiple genres and flavors of character arc! Jenna Moran’s other games, Nobilis and Glitch, are also very well-regarded and worth a look. Other than that, I highly recommend looking around some in the indie ttrpg community! There are tons of diverse folks making tons of games that range from big, robust adventure rpgs to specific, conceptual microgames!

#tabletoppin #backwaterblues

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kihocrystal · 6 years

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Winter 2018 Final Impressions

I’m a month late, as usual (whoops!), but here’s my final thoughts on the animes I watched this past season!

The “reviews” will be in alphabetical order!

3-gatsu no Lion S2 - 9.0 / 10 (A)

This second season of 3-gatsu was great! It’s just… a really great drama show about fighting depression (& a bunch of other character storylines)!

First off... THE BULLYING ARC WAS REALLY GOOD

extremely complicated, emotionally complex… this arc brings all sorts of emotions & angles into the forefront

multiple perspectives too: Hina’s, Rei’s, the bullied girl’s, the bully’s, the teachers’, and Akari too!

The art style can pull off both thick-outlined / bright colored style and watercolor-esque style incredibly well

it really is beautiful how it can visually portray both light-hearted and emotionally intense scenes

This season continues to show how good it is at character development for characters both main & supporting!

We get to see Rei moving through the ranks as a shogi player

and also moving through the ranks of conquering his depression! He’s improved more than ever before!

We get to learn about the white-haired master player (Souya); I liked how he has his own quicks and challenges he has in his daily life

Along with the other head shogi guy (Yanagihara)! (& how he shoulders his legacy for his friends)

Even the last episode offered some perspective from the foster mom about Rei & her kids

this show is just… really good at making normally-hated characters sympathetic, hot damn

Aside from bullying arc, this season also showed Hina preparing for the transition to high school

The finale episode was nice and sweet, with Hina saying goodbye to Takahashi and even getting a haircut!

This continues to be one of the best drama anime in recent years! Not to mention SHAFT’s best show since Madoka Magica :3

Cardfight!! Vanguard G: Z - 7.5 - 8.0 / 10 (C+)

And so ends the G series of Cardfight Vanguard… this final season I’ll say though is kind of a mixed bag

The plot had interesting ideas and moments at times, but the execution and pacing left a bit to be desired

though I will say it was definitely better than last season (CFV G NEXT)

This season didn’t waste any time getting to the main plot, as Chrono has to face off against a Diffrider right away

the diffrider stuff is continued from last season, but for the most part, it’s a new plot kicking off!

The rollout of all the new Diffrider Apostles (& them showing their strength) definitely made them look like powerful foes

not to mention the Zeroth Dragons, which were also shown to be powerful and very risky to use

Also knowing that anyone in the main cast could end up being The Vessel added some intrigue as well

the reveal that Kazuma would be the vessel definitely was a well executed twist imo~

However the pacing in places felt a bit too fast for me… the Relics subplot felt like it wrapped up too quickly, for example

the final fight against Gyze also kinda felt rushed… Gyze didn’t even have any dying words after his defeat :/

As a final season specifically, I feel like it kinda pales in comparison to Stride Gate, unfortunately

The cast was also kinda hit and miss in terms of how well they were utilized in the plot

some of the apostles definitely had more screen time than others (gredora only got like… two episodes)

plus gastille (the supposed apostle leader) got beaten sooner than like 3 other ones???

some villains carry over from last season too, such as Noa (Chaos Breaker) and the red-head punk kid

I liked all the new villains this season, personality-wise! (Also Yukari Tamura in there is a plus)

also no Am and Luna this season, really…

the previously established OG cast were integrated fine, for the most part

including Aichi and Kai getting the kill against Chaos Breaker Dragon

but the final episodes kinda just shoe-horn in a bunch of cameos that just didn’t feel natural :/

it just felt like “OH SHIT, this is the last season actually! Quick, throw in a bunch of cameos!”

this also applies to G characters, which makes less utilized characters (like Am & Luna, as mentioned before) look out of place :(

Sure, I’m saying a bunch of negative stuff right now, but I REALLY LOVE THIS CAST… I JUST WANT THE BEST FOR THEM

It’s the main reason I love CFV G, after all~

This season was definitely an improvement over NEXT for sure! The plot was interesting, I just wish the conclusion was better

The final episode basically just felt like an OVA, really… aside from the last scene, it didn’t really feel like an epilogue at all

I guess it just bums me out bc the original series got a good epilogue episode, so I know they could do it here, too…

In any case, I’M GONNA MISS THIS CAST, BIG TIME ;A;

In any case, this was a decent season to end the G series with! Not the strongest, but not the weakest either.

I’m gonna look back on my time with CFV G fondly for sure, if for nothing else than the great ensemble cast :’)

It’s gonna be weird going back to the OG cast for sure… I arguably liked the G cast better than the OG one :’D

Osomatsu-san S2 - 8.0 / 10 (B)

The consensus among fans seems to be that this season wasn’t as good as the first season

As for me, I… probably agree with that (though I still enjoyed this season!)

As with most comedy anime, whether the jokes land is pretty subjective. I feel like I didn’t laugh as hard this season? IDK

There were more “seasonal/holiday”-based episodes this time around (i.e. summer, new year’s, etc.)

What stays the same though is that this show is at its best when featuring the main brothers themselves

Skits involving the side characters (like Iyami, Dayon, etc.) didn’t make me laugh much…

I will say though that I enjoyed the second half of the season more than the first half~

Enough about the negatives, let’s talk about this season’s memorable skits / episodes!

The premiere was really good, as it poked fun at the huge popularity the show unexpectedly got xD

plus a bunch of references that *aren’t* gonna get them removed from streaming sites this time!

Jyushimatsu getting an “apprentice” with a little kid was also pretty funny~

The Karamatsu taxi skit, the spooky inn, & all the characters being stuck on an island were also good skits!

Ep. 18 (Iyami, Alone in the Wind) was also a crowd favorite, since it brought the feels for a change :’)

The finale 2-parter pulled a bait-and-switch yet again!

Part 1 was actually pretty serious, but the actual finale just has them trying to break out of hell xD

OH YEAH, I still really like the live-action stuff they do during the ending sequences

the first half’s ED was my favorite (the stop-motion of the brothers riding in the car)

I don’t have much to say about comedies generally, but Osomatsu-san is still my favorite in recent years ^^

Even though this season didn’t hit as hard as S1, it still provided some fun laughs~

Pop Team Epic - 7.5 / 10 (C+)

What can I really say about this show? It kind of defies description ^^;

Ok, yeah, it’s a sketch comedy, but it’s a really… crazy and random sketch comedy

The jokes are hit and miss (and in my experience was a bit more… miss than hit)

I never really laughed out loud at this show either

but then again, the humor here is more “being confused at what’s going on, but going along with it anyway”

There’s also a lot of modern anime references, so you might not get those jokes if you don’t follow most recent anime

Each episode has a long skit in it, plus a bunch of bite-size skits

I personally preferred the short skits over the long ones

There were a couple song parodies which I enjoyed (including the Earth Wind & Fire parody)

Also, this series definitely benefits from having an English simuldub! Some skits I found funnier in English!

OH YEAH, the voice actors (in both languages) change every episode, with female and male VAs in each episode

that enhanced the enjoyability of the sketches too, since I liked hearing favorite VAs do silly dialogue and performances!

I wouldn’t say this ranks among my favorite anime comedies, but it’s definitely unlike any other I’ve seen! ^^;

Your mileage will *definitely* vary with this one, so give it a try and see if it’s for you!

The Ancient Magus’ Bride (Mahoutsukai no Yome) - 8.5 - 9 / 10 (A-)

This was a very enjoyable fantasy drama show! Some people feel this show was overhyped, but I still thought it was really good!

I really liked the cast overall, especially Chise

She has really good character development throughout the show! She really becomes more strong and confident!

Seeing the fantastical world through her eyes was interesting as well!

Especially since those mystical elements were also responsible for her terrible childhood…

Elias was also an interesting guy… he and Chise have an interesting relationship together

Their relationship definitely has aspects that are unhealthy, but they do grow closer to each other by the end

If people can’t get past the whole premise of “him buying Chise to be his bride” though, I totally understand ^^;

They help each other learn too, which I liked to see

The supporting cast was also enjoyable! Not much to say about them individually though

The dragon keeper was nice and we got to learn about Elias’ origins through him

The dragons in general were great! Especially the old one that turned into a tree :’)

He gives Chise some good sage advice, even after death :’)

Angelica, Silky, and Stella (among others, like the other anti-hero duo) were good support characters too~

I liked Stella’s role of “normal girl who learns of the supernatural’s existence”

Cartaphilus was an… okay villain, I guess (though his methods were quite creepy indeed, which added some intrigue)

Some character designs are a bit questionable though… like who approved the vampire’s design? ^^;

Another large appeal of this was the world building of the fantastical elements!

I liked seeing all the different types of locales & supernatural creatures, both good and bad

As a low-fantasy show, this show does a Dang Good Job with the fantasy!

Chise learning more about herself and gaining confidence through these experiences were a highlight as well

I enjoyed each story arc as well, even though most of them were more explorative and introspective

This show can be dang beautiful sometimes, through both its art/animation and its stories (Thanks, Studio WIT!)

Some were better than others, but they all deliver either a heartwarming (or a dark) story

Some favorites of mine were the dragon-based ones, and the vampire loving the old man

The finale was good too! It’s unknown whether this conclusion is anime-original or not, but it was definitely a good S1 ending~

If you love low-fantasy shows, this is definitely one to check out!

Violet Evergarden - 8.5 - 9.0 / 10 (A-)

Best *new* anime (that I watched) of this past season, hands down~

Though to be fair, I still need to watch A Place Farther than the Universe… and Yuru Camp… and After the Rain…

Going into this season, this show was hyped and back and somehow… a lot of people were *disappointed* with this show?

I think it had to do with expecting a different show than what we got; as for me, I knew it’d be an episodic drama the whole time :P

But yes, this show has a (mostly) episodic plot with an overarching character arc. If that’s too slow for you, then you probably won’t like this show.

In any case, back to the positives! The first one being how good this show looks visually… as expected from KyoAni~

there’s so much detail in the backgrounds and the character elements (especially the lighting on objects like Violet’s metal hands)

this aspect is one thing *everyone* agrees on regardless, so… yeah, this show’s really pretty!

The main star (and focus) of this show was Violet herself… you can really see how she changes for the better from beginning to end

You get to see how “robot-like” she was at the start of the show, but she slowly learns about dealing with emotions of others… and herself

This character arc is definitely the “main” plot of the show, along with her coming to terms with Gilbert’s death and her war killings

The episodic plots were good in their own right, too!

Ranging from Violet’s start as a Memoir Doll to the different clients she works with, they all teach her something along the way

These sometimes focus on the side characters working at the Doll Agency too, so we get to learn more about them as well

The one that comes to mind first is Iris’ episode, where she (messily) reconnects with a former lover

Not all of them get a full episode in the spotlight, but they do get some focus scenes from time to time

Violet’s clientele episodes were the most memorable out of this lot IMO

ESPECIALLY EPISODE 10… that was the BIGGEST feels trip

I knew exactly how the episode was going to end, but I still teared up at that ending!

The finale was action packed, but also was a beautiful way to show how far Violet has come

I know some people’s issue with this show is that “it doesn’t know what show it wants to be” re: the action stuff, but I was fine with it personally

in any case, it was a pretty good book-end for Violet’s development, since she finally understands (a least a little) what “I love you” means :’)

I understand certain people’s gripes with this show, but this really is a great little drama show that *will* deliver the feels~

P.S. I also watched Fate/Extra: Last Encore this season. It hasn’t technically ended yet, so I can’t give final impressions on it right now. However, my current score for it is a 7.5/10 (C+).

#3 gatsu no lion #march comes in like a lion #cardfight!! vanguard #cardfight vanguard g #cardfight vanguard gz #osomatsu san #pop team epic #mahoutsukai no yome #the ancient magus bride #violet evergarden #Final Impressions

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