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arcxnumvitae · 2 years ago

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Who/What inspired my muses

I can’t believe I’m doing this oh it’s going to suck so much

Part 1 because it got long because I’m wordy

Veritas: In high school I was friends with two “the art kids”. I, meanwhile, was the bookworm/writer. We all thought it’d be fun to make a comic, them drawing and me writing the dialogue, so we all said we’d come up with characters from it. Mine ended up being an elf who wore long swishy skirts and fought with dual blades and one of them drew out the design for me. The comic, haha, never got far but when I got interested in doing Tumblr rp I looked at that initial oc idea and reworked it into Veritas. The only real remnants of that origin is, well, elf. And her two swords. But I mean, my interest in fleshing out my brand of elves led to what is what I actually consider a big part of my blog-- my elves. So a lot stemmed from that initial, silly and fun idea between three kids. I’m actually still best friends with one of those girls to this day!

Vendere: My second attempt at making a less morally pure muse after my real second-but-now-removed muse Tamashi ended up nice despite my wishes. I can’t say much of the thought process behind Ven other than his name being a continuation of a Latin theme I had started with Veritas and decided to keep going, which you will continue to see later on too. The only thing I can remember is choosing his name because it was the Latin verb for “to sell”, because info broker, and because I went, “Haha and I can call him V.en like in K.ingdom H.earts.” A lot of big brain ideas going on back when I was sixteen, of which I can’t even make jokes because I’ve done it again with muses fairly recently. In retrospect it makes no sense why his Italian parents would name him that but thus is my 16-year-old-idea oc burden to bear.

Jianhuren: My first muse who I added with the intent to have a bit of a storyline going! I also! Can’t remember why I got the idea for a form shifting person who was an amnesiac. I’m fairly certain it was an idea that came straight out of my head. At the time, I hadn’t even intended to make a species of dragons, the Red Eyes from them. So it’s kind of why they may seem a bit different in feel or canon or themes or whatever from the other Red Eyes. We were winging it, baby!!

Somnio: Oh my gosh I can’t say I’ll do this and keep saying I don’t remember for these muses! I’m sorrrryyyy these were like a good six or so years ago! I think inspiration. I think maybe the feeling of days and friends gone/soon to be gone from Summertime Record inspired him regarding his feelings towards his dead friend? At the very least, I was listening to that song a lot when I added him and I was definitely thinking of him when I did it. The “Sayonara” part always really stuck out to me.

Amara: Me: What if I did a phoenix. Me: Oh, I see phoenixes in this sense have been pointed at from coming from either or both Greek and Egyptian myth let’s make both of those his background as a fun little easter egg. Me: what if I made a muse so tragic--

Qingshan: Here we see Red Eye lore starting to take more shape! Originally I had just said that Jianhuren was attacked by a monster or something, but I then had a thought of what if it were a betrayal and the monster story is just what was told? A lot of Qingshan’s vibes and the idea to do an evil or “bad” muse came from listening to Sacrifice from Rwby! Since I had just recently gotten into it. And I mean, the music rocks. Wait.....the lyrics never quite fit Qingshan at the time but now I’m realizing they fit Zhaohui well.... hm.

Ren: More desire to expand upon my elf lore that I had started with Veritas. And a desire to touch more on the trafficking issue that elves face. Then I just thought it’d be cool to give a muse the powerset of basically the Avatar-- with setbacks.

Kareena: You know me, I’m always going to look at a predominantly white-assumed category and go, “how can I make this more Brown(tm)? Elves are always so stereotypically white in the media I saw, and I’ve always had a desire to see myself represented in fantasy genres I love so much. Veritas was actually supposed to be brown, but she was my first oc and I couldn’t find a fc that fit what I imagined for her and had brown skin, I just changed it to match her fc. Now, I clearly don’t care, haha. Anyways, Kareena was me wanting to make a brown elf, and also a differently abled one too, and I settled on her being blind. I thought it’d be an interesting study since elves have heightened and stronger senses, and here was someone who was born without one. I will say, she wasn’t perfect representation at the time, since I unknowingly fell into a bad trap of “blind person uses super senses to get around anyways with no issue”, which is something I learned later that a lot of blind people don’t like to see in media about visually impaired people! The importance of doing research beforehand, kids. Especially if you’re writing of a culture, lifestyle, or experience you haven’t lived.

William/Thanatos: .......................ok.........I don’t...........remember, sorry. To explain a little, “Thanatos” actually existed on my blog as a man named William O’Connor! A man who had died but still lived on by some raw accidental deal made by his mom to some sort of death-like entity. I only remember that I was thinking on him back when I was in another state visiting by undergrad for like the first time? And Gen Con was going on and I had like just stuck my toe into C.ritical R.ole, but I don’t know if any of that actually influenced William. Anyways, I had no intention to actually ever state or clarify what “Death” was as I intended for It to just be some sort of amalgamation of different interpretations of Death. But later on I thought it’d open up for some more interesting opportunities if I put a name to the thing and had it able to interact and do a little more. Maybe a bit before Dawn came around, for reasons?

Lucia: I had mentioned in Ren’s backstory that he ran with a group of elves when he was a kid on the streets and I’d already established another, Aeon (who’s now a side muse) so I thought it’d be fun to pick out who their de facto leader was. And I thought it’d be funny if she seemed like the least intimidating-looking person ever, but absolutely was the leader of them all for good reason. I then picked up my “angsty backstory” hammer, and I then gave her a prompt solid whack with it.

Alexa: “Okay, so I touched on the elf trafficking, but what if I did what happened when one was successfully trafficked?” Et voila.

Val: ‘Kristen, you just added Alexa, and sure you established she has a partner but you don’t need to full on add him as a muse-- oh no how did he get on my muse page.’ Alexa and Val are also meant to be foils in the way they deal with their servitude, with Alexa having given in and Val still being rebellious. Plus, I just love non-romantic soulmates. Mwah.

Imani: “I want a Black muse. An unambiguously Black muse. Make her an elf too while I’m at it.” I love sibling dynamics and I’m a sucker and wimp for older sibling dynamic stories too so that also came into play with her and her younger brother.

My gosh this is long, I’m doing a part 2 or something

#{Dash Games #{Veritas Headcanon #{Vendere Headcanon #{Jianhuren Headcanon #{Somnio Headcanon #{Amara Headcanon #{Qingshan Headcanon #{Kareena Headcanon #{Thanatos Headcanon #{Lucia Headcanon #{Alexa Headcanon #{Val Headcanon #{Imani Headcanon #my tags actually broke like two weeks back so I had the pleasure of typing out almost all of those tags by hand

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autumnslance · 1 year ago

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21. Are there any raid storylines (Ivalice, Coil of Bahamut, Werlyt, etc.) you consider to be canon for your WoL(s)? Which ones don't you consider canon (or do you divvy it up)?

Most of the side stories are canon in some way or another for Aeryn; sometimes with minor alterations, or changes in timing once all the patches are complete. Usually it's the whole team in raids and many trials, but splitting up the Combat and DoH/DoL quests between my characters in some way. I have lists and ideas and timelines to keep track of who does what and when.

Crystal Tower was one C'oretta and Dark helped on, and C'oretta had a bit of a no-strings fling with a certain catboy--so his return to the storyline years later has made her go "oh no that's weird and awkward now." Return to Ivalice is when and where Iyna joined the team, as meeting the Eorzeans at General Fran's side made them realize "oh hey, Iyna has the Echo and these people can teach her about that and she can act as a liaison to Eorzea..." So they usually help Aeryn out, except in the First, when only Aeryn could travel there while the other three held down the fort, so to speak, while the WoL and senior Scions were gone.

With Werlyt and Bozja, some of that was handled by the friend crew with Aeryn coming in at specific points, due to how back and forth she was between the Source and the First. I tend to say events in the Source in ShB happened on a shorter timeframe, based on a few vague comments, compared to events in the First. So some things started during 5.0 MSQ instead of later in the patches. It just makes sense time-wise in my story for Aeryn to entrust some of those adventures and duties to her capable friends, especially since the main story's own themes and events run that way, with the Eorzean and Eastern Alliances taking on more of their own responsibilities, rather than relying on the Scions so heavily.

But that also means Aeryn did the Role and Crystalline Mean quests, Eden, and other First-specific side stories on her own. Same with anything in Elpis or Ultima Thule.

I'm still determining how to handle Pandaemonium; I absolutely want it to be canon for Aeryn, want to rewrite parts in the third tier to involve Thancred a little bit cuz of Lahabrea, but I also tend to see Ultima Thule and Elpis as 1 time, 1 way visits, so may have to reconsider that and rework some things as the nature of MMO gameplay means those zones can't just be 1 time use only, so other quests and stories keep going back there. So Panda happens but there's some rewriting to go along with it--once I figure it out!

I also need to NG+ the Myths of the Realm, just shotgun it in one go over a weekend, to really get down how Aeryn feels, as that raid ended up rather important to her for reasons pertaining to her lost faith, all she experienced with the Ancients, and the nature of divinity.

The only story that is absolutely not canon for my OCs is the YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse raids. More on that under the cut.

After hearing such good things about the NieR games and how they approach stories and characters and themes, I was looking forward to them. They seemed of to a decent-ish start, but I was severely disappointed as time went on, and the finales of both the raid and the weekly follow-up quests made me extremely salty. A FFXIV Writing prompt a year or two ago ended up with Aeryn waking up post-festival, to find the twins sleep-dusted her while she was drinking dwarven ale and eating festival food, and the whole thing had been a weird dream, while the twins scampered off to have adventures out in the world. No androids or machines, though. Intact mountain. Town never bombarded.

I like the fights, the music, and the glamours for those raids. I love the idea of the between-patches quests and wish they'd do that for other 24 and 8 man stories that alternate patches.

But even Sorrow of Werlyt is canon for Aeryn and crew, and my salt over that storyline is also no secret. There's at least salvageable plot elements and characters that are actually part of the FFXIV world in that machina chain, though.

The NieR raid was by an auteur who apparently didn't want to play in someone else's sandbox, seems to have had to thanks to corporate, likely doubly screwed by pandemic shenanigans, and so it became an empty Abrams Mystery Box reference-fest only barely understandable in any part by existing players of that series, utterly incomprehensible to non-fans, and de-centered the WoL so badly that players were left to feel like NPCs, not a main character as things happened offscreen and major elements resolved on their own with no player presence/input (which is also a major problem Werlyt has, to be honest). It made my kneejerk reaction "I never want to play this series now", and I know other non-players and even fans who were left feeling the same confusion and frustration, which is, bluntly, a failure for a property crossover.

Ivalice's story was reworked to fit into FFXIV and continues to influence elements in the Near East/South Ilsabard. Garo is pretty much just items, for Monster Hunter the setup was also reworked to fit in and is mostly items and a neat fight. Other raids have story connections and characters that have impacts and ties to MSQ and other side tales and can get optionally worked in, like the entire bonus scene at the end of 6.5 prt 1 if one completed Eden, how you can find Alpha & Omega wandering the world and how their story ties into Endwalker plots, Werlyt does have ongoing relevance, how Crystal Tower became integral to the greater plot, Alexander has influence in the Shadowbringers storyline, and so on.

But YoRHa never happened. As it has absolutely 0 impact on or connection to literally anything else in FFXIV by apparent design, I doubt it will ever be an issue for my OCs' stories and connecting to future FFXIV plots.

#final fantasy xiv #warrior of light #raids #side stories #trials #Aeryn Prompts #Dark Prompts #Punchy Prompts #Iyna Prompts

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thatglassofwater · 2 years ago

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Tagged by: @neighborlyarson

Last Song I listened Too: “Frozen Pines” by Lord Huron. It’s so so good, especially if you follow it up with the Yawning Grave which is also by him. I’ve been wanting to make an animatic or drawing of Hallerbos with the vibes of both of those songs. Same for “Run” by Hozier.

Last Show I watched: Not sure actually, most likely The Owl House? Since Season 3 episode 2 just came out. I started Peaky Blinders recently but I doubt I’ll keep watching it. I started it while I was drawing and I’m completely lost plot wise.

Last Movie I watched: Everything Everywhere All at Once. I watched it Sunday morning! 10/10 I highly recommend it. I love more surrealist moments in movies and there were a lot of those. It was also very thought provoking.

Currently Reading: I just finished rereading Song or Achilles, but I’m starting Coyote America by Dan Flores for a history course I’m taking. It looks good, basically some studies on coyotes.

Current obsession: It’s always Ocs I swear. Dnd too, been trying to finally plot a campaign for some friends. As for Ocs though, been working on a medieval server and it’s been great! Also been drawing a ton. I’ll probably post that art in a bit. I’ve developed a new storyline and I’ve been reworking all my stuff to make better sense. Grim my beloved, along with all my deity lore <33. Im both trying to escape a creative block and have been running rampant with oc thoughts lately, it’s weird.

Tagging: @levitatingfrog and @maksglitchyart

#first time doing one of these #it was fun #also the linking option for the song kept deleting the text?#no links for y’all sorry

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extravalgant · 3 years ago

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concept: the wizards' cards have textures based on their effects and how often the card is used, like literal playing cards that get worn over time. i know i shared this in the discord but i wanna see how u interpet it with art bc i cant art

AW THANK U FOR COMING TO ME LEAH im flattered u want to see my artistic interpretations omg

I REALLY LIKED THAT IDEA YOU PUT IN THE DISCORD... i never thought that the cards would get worn down over time through heavy use . ITS SUCH A GOOD IDEAAA most of your ideas are so good<33

that being sad i thought about it more in school while i was waiting for a friend to finish up in class and heres what i got

— i feel as if novice decks + cards have a sort of "block" on them - that means there is a spell that prevents newer wizards from putting too much magic into their spells and tiring themselves out quicker. the magic is more stilted, which is why some may fizzle more over others. but they are made specifically for new trainees in mind, so more experienced wizards dont use them.

(i hope the explanation makes sense....)

ANYWAYS . ill do it by groupings so elemental school is up

— i feel as if pyromancers are more prone to burning their cards and decks to a crisp - hence the charred edges around their cards. falmea has to teach novice pyromancers about fire safety and how to safely put out a fire caused by magic (rather than fire caused naturally, imo i think they're two different things)

— as they steadily grow more confident in keeping their flame up and consistent, these types of accidents will stop, and they would stop burning their cards too. however, i think that the charred edges remain simply because it's fire and you're going to expect it to get burned either way. but now there's a more smokey quality to the way that it smells and looks.

also. i think the words and appearance would also get smudged and disappear over time, so they would probably have to rely on their memory or the way that the card feels (or even cast it) to see which one it is.

— ALSO i think all spell cards all look the same, but the corners are marked with the schools colors<3 i think it looks cool

— for thaumaturges i feel as if they would always freeze their cards so that they would be unusable in battle - the magic cant really flow into a spell card when the card itself is just basically a chunk of ice omg

for this, i feel like greyrose would cross some classes with falmea - she teaches the pyromancers how to relax the grip on their flame, and falmea would teach the thaumaturges how to allow themselves to relax, flow out of their rigid state.

— as they learn to control the rate at which their ice magic manifests, their spell cards are instead dusted with a light shade of frost, that which can be easily cleaned off. the words can become a little bit more harder to read and a bit foggier, though, so sometimes they have a chance to cast the wrong spell.

— diviners are 100% wrecking their cards like crazy. some students would have to constantly get new sets of decks or spell cards because storm is such a strong school off the bat - lightning tears through the protective block sometimes, often times making them practically unusable.

some people drop out or switch schools because of this issue - it's too much work to have to constantly replace torn cards or learn how to rework your magic into a better way.

— i think with enough time, diviners can learn how to redirect magic into a more consistent way (because storm magic in general is very inconsistent) -- they are still more likely to tear their cards in a fight, but it starts more at the edges, rather than novices almost tearing huge chunks and bottom/top halves off.

— for conjurers i feel like theyre the types to start bending their cards - perhaps out of nervousness or habit. when you have an uptight teacher like cyrus, i think that kind of manifests itself into other behaviors.

— for some reason, i feel like their cards are more likely to shimmer and shine more. since their school mainly deals with the mind and creativity, the cards and decks reflect that. that being said, it may shimmer too much. to the point where novices can't even make out the creature of the card, and end up summoning the wrong one.

self-explanatory, but sometimes their mind may be clouded by other things, and i like to think that the mind and magic is connected, hence why it will affect the spell cards.

— for necromancers, i feel like when their magic takes the necessary sacrifice, it also ends up taking chunks out of the card too. you can have the right rituals down to perform a spell, but it doesn't mean the sacrificial aspect isn't the part that messes up most novices.

i think after diviners, necromancers come in at a close second at wrecking their cards. sometimes the whole card disappears and you're like "what the heck".

— sacrifice is a core part of the death school, so malorn and dworgyn teach the novices how to make the sacrifices smaller, more localized to the edges of the cards. it's why older, experienced wizards may have cards that look like they've been eaten around the edges.

— for theurgists, i feel like they're the school that doesn't wreck their cards most of the time. there's has to do more with growth than anything else, hence why i think their cards are the ones that are the least replaced.

rather, i think things begin to grow on and around the cards. tiny vines that tear through the spell cards, wrapping around the edges. they can be ignored most of the time, but if a life wizard has their emotions and magic tied particularly close, these vines can and will get out of hand.

— experienced and older theurgists will have these sorts of vines around the corners and edges of their cards, however it may differ on plant type. because magic is different for every person, the flowers that grow there might differ from each person. the spells are worn, but because of life's rejuvinating energy, they look considerably newer compared to other schools.

— AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST... SORCERERS . this one stumped me a lil bit im ngl. i think novices have problems with concentrating on flipping between each of the schools as their attacks and supports demand it.

cards that feel wet and soggy, dried in some places as they use an a elemental school card; cards that look transparent in some places, bits and pieces gone from spiritual schools; spotty and fuzzy writing that comes from using sorcery in their own school.

— ITS... A LOT TO HANDLE. which is also why some people may end up transferring out of balance. i feel like sorcerers may have a class with each of the teachers of the seven schools, to level each of the magics that come with handling all seven of them.

— older sorcerers may get special decks and spell cards to help prevent the spell cards from straight up getting destroyed or unusable. i like to think it has a time factor -- turning back time on the cards appearance so that it lasts longer, just to give a throwback to the sands of time storyline instance in mirage.

#val.answers #wizard101 #w101 #i hope this is what u were looking for omg #this post is... so long.... im sorry to everyone in the tag #BUT YEAHHHH i was thinking on it more at school and i managed to come up with this . i hope u like it<33 #im not sure these explanations make sense but i hope they do omg #long post

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miraculous-ninjabird · 3 years ago

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Yet another incomplete list of things that could be added to my imaginary awakening remake to make the game even better

-add 3 specific cutscenes: Chrom’s Awakening ceremony, and the Grima endgame (Robin lands the blow and Chrom lands the blow) also it would be nice to see Robin’s face in a few of the scenes and I would gladly sacrifice personalized avatars to get that

-More Chrom supports. And I don’t mean romance (except mlm chrobin hell yeah add that). I mean it would be nice if he could just have more c-a supports. Since HE is the one who can recruit all the new characters and it’s often referenced how much he cares about his bonds, I think it would make sense if he could support ALL the shepherds. Also because there are plenty of references to him being good friends with those he has no supports with. At the very least is would be nice to see: Henry, Ricken, Nowi, Stahl and Emmeryn.

-More non-romantic supports in general

-Rework the Valm arc so that the types of maps are more varied and perhaps tweak the storyline a bit to make it feel more interesting. I know this part of the story is a slog for some people and something like that could easily be fixed by switching up victory goals (more than just route the enemy or take out the commander) and including new defeat conditions (beyond Chrom/Robin has to survive)

-I think I already said this once but I’ll say it a million times: no gender locked classes I just wanna put my boy Henry on a Pegasus without extensive hacking efforts, is that too much to ask?

-Chrom and Gaius should be allowed to wear those dorky commemorative swimsuits on the battlefield in the summer scramble (just like the mages)

Anyways I love Awakening with all my heart which is why I spend so much time thinking about what could be improved upon within it

#fire emblem awakening #fire emblem #fire emblem ramblings

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kitkatt0430 · 3 years ago

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Armageddon Revised - Episode One

Well, it's finally here, just in time for Christmas. After being disappointed by the Flash: Armageddon event, I felt compelled to at least try to outline a version of the episodes that would fix the worst of the problems we saw in the show. The most egregious of the plot holes, the painfully amatonormative shilling of Allegra/Chester that came out of nowhere, Eobard's three contradictory plans happening simultaneously, the fact that nothing about Despero made any sense...

I tried to keep and rework as much from the original episodes as I could, surprising myself by having Xotar and Top both show up after all, though the episodes where they appear and the storylines involving them have changed pretty radically. And while not everything 'made the cut', part of what I wanted to do with this exercise was demonstrate that with a little more time and thought in the writer's room what we had on screen could have become a much more coherent narrative than what we received.

Admittedly, this being what's ultimately just a fix-it fanfic, I can play fast and loose with guest stars in a way the actual writers couldn't. And I might have slipped in a little fix-it-ness for few problems I had with season seven. Nothing that retcons season seven, but perhaps smooths the edges of certain plot decisions a bit. And unlike the Flash show writers, I'm not afraid to make main members of Team Flash queer. Also, for fun, I'm using reworked plot points from the actual episodes in order to seed the introduction of a villain from the comics.

If this sounds interesting to you, then check out the rest beneath the cut. My format for this post - and the four to follow it - will be an examination of what didn't work in the original episode, where I discuss plot holes that weakened the overall story of the real episodes and plot decisions that I just didn't like. It'll be followed up by my outline for a new version of the episode - which will diverge pretty quickly from the original plotline in a lot of notable ways. And then finally I'll end the post with a short wrap up discussing some of the changes I made and why, or what my favorite parts of the altered plot are.

I'll be tagging all these posts with #ArmageddonRevised along with any scenes I end up expanding into one-shot fanfics over on Ao3.

What Went Wrong - Episode One

The episode starts decently with Despero's cheesy little intro in 2031 as he watches Central City destroyed... but then the episode immediately slows down. Which is kind of hilarious given one of the points of the arc is that Barry's faster than ever. This episode in particular goes out of its way to remind us how fast he is. Caitlin's got very stilted dialog teasing him about it, Barry has time to save two trains worth of people (notable because he struggled to save just one train of people in season one vs Snart), he basically toys with the Royal Flush gang (whose queen is revealed to be an over the top braggart and a whiny loser), and he even picks up pizza from Milan for dinner with Iris. While it's good to see Barry's faster than ever, the episode spends way too much time establishing that fact. And the repeated arc words of 'leveling up' get really annoying after the first few times. We get it, he's fast. It shouldn't take half the episode to re-establish that in the viewer's minds, though, when just one scene would have done fine.

The side plots were equally bogged down. Allegra is promoted beyond her abilities and experience. Even when she finally pushes the three journalists she's put in charge of to actually listen to her, she does not articulate herself well. Which, to be fair, I'm about ten years older than her and I struggle to articulate myself well verbally compared to my writing, but with Allegra it's clearly intended to show she's struggling with her self confidence. The problem is, she never really seems to actually take steps towards earning her self confidence. She acts more like a high school student than a twenty-two year old young professional, constantly whining to Iris that she's not ready, and it's really uncomfortable to see her still being written this way after two years.

Chester's side plot is arguably worse. He's constantly making assumptions about what Ray wants and who Ray should be. And making professional promises on Ray's behalf without his knowledge or permission? That's a big no-no. Chester's thirty years old and he should know better than this. But not unlike Allegra, he's being treated like a child by the narrative.

Then there's Ray and his ten minute retirement. He's committed to not being the Atom anymore... but yet he brought the suit with him? And some of what he has to say about potentially creating a new start up is at odds with his previous experiences running Palmer Tech.

Nora should have been there instead of being a mere mention - she winds up being important to the plot later, making her non-appearance here somewhat baffling.

Then there's Joe's death. It's not revealed yet, but hinted at briefly when Chester comments that he's 'dead to him [Ray]' and then immediately apologizes to Cecile for the thoughtless comment. Which... that's it. That's all the foreshadowing we get. The fact that Barry doesn't realize Joe is missing throughout the episode is a little insulting to his relationship with Joe as well; it's another pacing problem but this time dragged out specifically in order to incorporate Joe's death into Eobard's scheme to gaslight Barry into weakening his connection to the speed force (I'll touch more on this bizarre plot choice later, however).

The team is too quick to believe Despero's story as well, with Barry handing over his real identity on a silver platter. I know Barry's secret identity is basically paper thin and half the city knows it at this point, but seriously? This was a terrible decision that's absolutely going to bite Team Flash on the butt later.

The last notable problem is that if Barry is the Reverse Flash in the future and the one causing Armageddon, then why does Despero think the Flash is responsible for the world being ripped apart?

Armageddon: Revised - Episode One

So we still open with the same 2031 monologue that Despero makes. It's still cheesy and ridiculous, which is honestly why I like it. In the background of the city's destruction, however, we have several members of Team Flash on a tv in the background - Central City Citizen's network logo visible - warning the people of Central City that the Flash isn't who he seems to be. Despero clearly takes this to mean that the Flash is responsible for these events as he travels back in time.

Then we arrive in late 2018. A private investigator is taking pictures of Carver having a clandestine meeting with someone. As the camera pans around, we see that person appears to be Barry, who shakes Carver's hand and tells him it's been a pleasure doing business with him.

Finally we reach the present: 2021. Barry is fighting the Royal Flush Gang, establishing his speed as still being at the fastest he's ever been. Afterwards, as Barry, he arrives at the train station to stand next to Caitlin, who teases him about being on time for a change. It turns out they're meeting Cisco and Kamilla, who are in town for the tech conference that starts the next day.

Ray and Nora are on the same train, seated near a young child and the kid's family. The child spent the whole train ride telling Nora all about hamsters and the proper care and feeding of said rodents, as the kid really wants to have one for a pet... but their parents won't let the kid have one. Nora uses her fairy godmother powers, telling the that he doesn't need a hamster... he's already got one. That's when the kid's parents tell them to hurry up, as they need to swing by their friends house to pick up their pet before going home. The kid is elated and Ray teases Nora about the ethics of altering the timeline like that are. She points out that it's just a small thing that hurts no one, but makes the kid happy. Just a minor change to the present that barely causes any ripples to the past as it changes to match the present.

They meet up with Barry, Caitlin, Cisco, and Kamilla - the former two being surprised and delighted to see Ray and Nora - and they all head for STAR Labs together.

At the Central City Citizen, we get the tail end of Iris' interview with Kramer - like on the show - and she joins with Allegra to head over to STAR Labs to join the rest of Team Flash and reunite with Kamilla. She congratulates Allegra on her latest story and noting that covering the new meta outreach centers has done wonders for reminding the people of Central City that metas are still humans and combating anti-meta sentiments. Allegra admits she feels proud of her writing, but at the same time she's been struggling to feel confident in herself. She feels like an impostor playing at being a journalist. Which is silly when her writing speaks for itself.

Iris tells Allegra about how she got her start at the CCPN. How she'd been hired not for her own merits but because the was the Flash blogger. She'd struggled with her confidence as a journalist too, even after she'd proven her merits as an investigative reporter. "You aren't alone feeling that way, Allegra. It's even got a name: imposter syndrome." Iris assures her that it gets easier as her self confidence grows; she'll feel more and more like she belongs until her internal feelings catch up to the reality around her.

"So when it comes to my self confidence, I just have to keep faking it until I make it."

Everyone meets up in time for drinks at STAR Labs bar and Barry notes it's strange that Joe isn't there yet. This upsets Cecile and reveals Joe's been dead for the last six months. Cecile leaves, but the rest of them are concerned by Barry's insistence that he spoke to Joe just yesterday. Ray points out that Speedsters are known for having stronger defenses against temporal alterations while Caitlin speculates that the Royal Flush gang's Queen and her telepathic abilities may have had an unexpected effect on Barry's memories.

While Barry submits to a checkup from Caitlin, Iris takes them to see Gideon in the Time Vault. Initially they attempt to get in contact with the Legends, but Gideon is unable to reach them. She is able to do a limited scan of the timeline herself, though, and reports that the timeline is indeed in flux. Some unknown future event is sending ripples back through time, but Gideon cannot pin point when or where the event will occur.

Barry's relieved to get a clean bill of health, but now they have a new problem to deal with. Reversing whatever future event is sending these ripples through the timeline so that they can prevent Joe's death.

Cisco joins Chester in his lab to help start improving Gideon's calculations, in order to pinpoint when the future event they need to avert is going to happen. Cisco notes that Chester's changed up the lab setup since he left. Chester explains that it works better for him this way, but hurries to offer to switch things back while Cisco's there. Cisco, however, points out that it isn't his lab anymore. It's Chester's and it should change to fit Chester's needs. Cisco knew he was leaving his team - his friends - in good hands when he left. It was part of what made his decision to leave easier than he'd thought it would be and Chester's actions since Cisco left have more than validated that decision.

Ray joins them and they discuss their options once the future event is pinpointed. Without the Legends available, their only real option is to send a speedster to the future to prevent the timeline changes. And while rebooting the Speed Force helped Jay regain some of his physical mobility, he's still much slower than Barry. They've sent Wally a message, but it's not clear how long it'll take to reach him. It may wind up being that Barry will have to go into the future alone.

Iris considers skipping her work at the Tech conference the next day in favor of reinvestigating her father's death. She remembers looking into and deeming it a terrible accident six months ago... but clearly that's not true. Kamilla and Allegra, however, convince Iris to keep her commitments while they look into Joe's death for her.

Cisco takes a break from his work with Ray and Chester to talk to Caitlin. He can tell something's wrong with his best friend - she can try to mask it all she wants, but he knows her too well to miss her tells. Caitlin admits that she's been feeling adrift in her own life lately. She'd thought with Frost around that she'd never be lonely again, but since they'd split into two separate people she's felt like she's losing Frost. Even now, Frost isn't even in the city because she's gone to try and chase down a sighting of Chillblaine, whom Frost feels a personal responsibility to capture.

Caitlin hadn't realized how much she'd depended on Cisco for her emotional support. Barry and Iris have been helping in that regard, making more time for her outside of work. But it's never going to be the same. It doesn't help that she's begun to believe that she's been using Ronnie's death and what happened afterwards with Hunter as an excuse to explain why she doesn't date anymore when the truth is that she just isn't interested in having a romantic relationship anymore. Much as she loved Ronnie, her most satisfying relationships have all been platonic, but she doesn't really know what that means for her. She's afraid that she's destined to be alone. Cisco promises her, no matter the distance, he's always going to be there for her. He doesn't have any answers to soothe her fears, but he can promise that she'll never truly be alone.

As it gets later in the evening, Nora convinces Ray to go to the hotel with her to sleep. Their conversation is interrupted, however, when Chester walks in and asks if Ray's done with his coffee break yet. Ray agrees he's ready to get back to work and then glances over to where Nora was standing in confusion. That part of the room is empty and there's no sign that anyone was in the room with Ray before Chester's arrival. He shakes his head and follows Chester out of the room.

In the morning, Iris is at the tech conference, but she's distracted by her preoccupation with Joe's death. Barry runs into Ray, who came to give his talk since they've set up Gideon with the new algorithms to improve her temporal calculations. Barry asks if Nora came with him, but Ray asks in confusion "who's Nora?"

Meanwhile, Kamilla and Allegra arrive at the tracks where Joe was killed. Kamilla notes she was only there briefly for the funeral afterwards and never really knew what Joe was doing at this place. Allegra explains that after Kramer helped Joe regain his Captaincy at the CCPD, Joe had been revisiting a crime scene from during his brief retirement. Officially he'd tripped and fallen onto the tracks at just the wrong moment. Allegra bluffs their way into the security office for the train depot, impressing Kamilla, and then they check the CCTV recordings from the day of Joe's death. It looks at first exactly like what Allegra described: Joe trips and falls onto the tracks. Allegra, however, notices an odd spark of light outside the normal human visual ranger right before Joe falls and Kamilla manipulates the recording to slow it down, revealing a man in a yellow suit shoving Joe.

Back at the tech conference, Ray is approached by Ryan Choi who wants to discuss something with Ray. But before he can get to the point, Despero attacks and Ray goes to change into his Atom suit in order to help Barry fight. They're joined by Cisco as Mecha-Vibe while Iris works crowd control and lets the three fighters know when Despero fakes them out. During the fight, however, Cisco experiences a vibe and collapses, his Mecha-Vibe suit having changed to his former Vibe suit when the vibe ends. Despero shows Barry a vision of the future, insisting the destruction is the Flash's fault. This distracts Despero enough that Ray is able to force Despero to leave, like in the original episode, and they have to hustle to get an unconscious Cisco back to STAR Labs.

At STAR Labs, Cisco wakes up to Kamilla holding his hand and he reassures her he's alright. But his disjointed vibe showed him Eobard Thawne building something in a lab, which looked a lot like what they'd used to create the ASF the year before. Given what Kamilla and Allegra found regarding Joe's death, it's now clear that the Reverse Flash is behind the future event that's slowly rewriting the timeline. Additionally, as a side effect of now having his powers once more, Cisco is able to identify changes in the timeline too and he's concerned the changes are happening faster now.

But that doesn't explain the vision Despero showed Barry. While Caitlin says that Barry appears fine to her scans, they can't be sure what Despero showed him was real. Cecile might be able to tell, but she didn't respond to Iris' calls the night before and isn't aware the timeline is being manipulated yet. If what Despero showed Barry is true, then the event Despero came back in time to stop might very well be the event that's rewriting the timeline.

In the stinger, Despero approaches Jefferson Pierce. Despero reveals he's aware of the Injustice protocols and attempts to convince Jefferson that the Flash must be stripped of his powers. Jefferson refuses, but Despero isn't taking no for an answer as he reaches into Jefferson's mind.

Wrapping Up the Episode

So, in review, the revised episode has significantly different pacing. With the reveal of Joe's death being moved up by an episode (practically two given the timing of the reveal), the main plot kicks off earlier. Eobard's method of altering the timeline gets actual foreshadowing now, which will continue into the next revised episode. Chester and Allegra get side plots that treat them as adults and Caitlin is no longer treated as an afterthought. In fact, I'm giving her a side plot near and dear to my heart - she's begun to question herself as an arospec person, something that would continue on through the full season.

There's also Cisco and Kamilla's return, acting as a fix-it for their abrupt and unsatisfying departure of the show last season. While the intention isn't to return them to Team Flash in the course of this story, it is intended to give a better sense of closure to their leaving. That intention starts here with Cisco's conversation with Chester, as Cisco acknowledges Chester's skills as an engineer and Team Flash's current tech lead and passing on the baton in away we didn't really get to have last season thanks to the abruptness of Cisco and Kamilla's departure.

Nora may not be here long, but at least now she no longer only serves the purpose of being a plot device to compel Damien Darhk to help Barry. We get to see her living her own life and being happy and the way she uses her powers here drop the first hints of how Eobard's altered the timeline this time around.

Ryan Choi's arrival in the present foreshadows a plot that I'd hoped we'd see in event that didn't come to pass: Ray passing on the legacy of the Atom to Ryan. While Ryan won't become the Atom yet in the present, the possibility of it happening in the future is something I wanted to at least seed during the events of the revised episodes

With Team Flash now aware that the Reverse Flash is somehow tied up in what's happening - and likely responsible for the changes to the timeline - it pokes some serious holes in the 'gaslighting Barry into ditching his own speed' plan from the show. And it's no longer compatible with the new plot direction for the revised episodes. So the majority of that plot line has been dropped. As for the parts that remain, well...

Stay tuned for the next installment of the Armageddon: Revised - Episode 2

#ArmageddonRevised #the flash #the flash meta #fanfiction #episode rewrite #outline-ish format #revised episode one

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hopskipaway · 3 years ago

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for the ask think you just reblogged - i have to ask murven

01. when i started shipping it if i did.

i can’t remember when i went from thinking “oh… this is a cute ship” to really shipping them. i have always liked them but in between seasons six and seven i started to love them (which is funny since they didn’t exactly have a lot going on in canon in season six). i think it was just a combination of all the amazing fan content for them, and disinterest in other ships on the show that i had enjoyed too. i honestly pretty much singularly ship them at this point (but, i do enjoy fan content for other ships).

02. my thoughts.

my “otp” or whatever lmao. i just think they made so much sense and would be sooo good together. it’s enemies to friends to lovers done RIGHT. they are such similar people, at their core but are also different enough to challenge each other when it comes down to it. i feel like they push each other to be better and different people, they had such a respect for one another and it was clear there was love there. i think they are the best for each other.

03. what makes me happy about them.

literally just them existing (or not existing as is the case with fictional characters). watching clips of them interacting in canon, reading fanfiction or seeing fanart just makes me happy — and is that not all you want out of a ship? i just am happy to live in my own bubble and pretend they’re canon. i don’t even know what else to say… it’s just them.

04. what makes me sad about them.

in canon? uh just that they were often shoved into different storylines and they didn’t get to interact a ton. also that we didn’t get to see any of the ring flashbacks and see them develop further (even if i am happy with their development). then, i am also sad about them in fandom. i’m not sure why, but for some reason the remaining fandom (or at least on twitter) has decided that it’s a bad relationship and will often be rude about it just because they seem more “platonic”. don’t even get me started on the people who try to say how “toxic” it is, as if all the other ships on this show are sooo healthy.

05. things done in fanfic that annoys me.

i can’t say that anything in murven specific fanfic annoys me enough to point it out, however there is a more general tagging issue that irritates me. this is something that doesn’t just affect murven, but since i read them the most it’s become a little pet peeve for me regarding them. two ways it can go wrong: 1) you tag them as a main pairing when it should be indicated they are a background ship. 2) you don’t tag them at all— so i would either not even read the fic and miss out (OR) i could read a fic that seems interesting and boom… my notp(s).

06. things i look for in fanfic.

anythinggg… for it to exist. for people to continue writing for them (this is a self call out also). really just fanfic. there is not enough fanfic of them to afford me to be picky about it; espcially not main pairing murven fanfic. ALL murven fic is good fic.

07. who i would be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other.

this is a hard one because, like i said, i don’t really multi-ship as much anymore… although i always thought that luna would have been so good with raven. shaw was also decent, even if i didn’t really find them to be very interesting in canon… (it was too fast for me) he was still a decent match. when it comes to murphy it’s even tougher. i often feel like he was the writer’s punching bag so it’s hard to think of who he could end up with who i think treated him well (consistently). maybe bellamy, if we reworked things a bit? i guess we’d have to for raven anyways… since… they’re dead… poor raven she needed a s.o. who wouldn’t ever die… cough… a cockroach person maybe…

08. my happily ever after for them.

i am already pretty happy that the show ended in a way that i can think of a happily ever after— but basically just them getting together post canon. [redacted] breaks up, probably in a similar way to when they were on the ring because that wasn’t resolved at all. raven and murphy would become a couple naturally and comfortably— like they just fit together. they’d spend their days making each other happy, cuddling with picasso, and exploring the universe with the anomaly stones. luckily, as i said, it’s so open ended that this is just canon in my brain. you cannot tell me otherwise, sorry. <3

09. who is the big spoon/little spoon.

i think they’d alternate— but murphy would most often be the big spoon and raven the little spoon. raven i feel likes to act strong all the time, so her being the little spoon is her time to just be taken care of and vulnerable, and murphy always makes sure that it’s comfortable with her leg. if murphy is having a bad day then raven will let him be the little spoon and whisper sweet nothings in his ear.

10. what is their favorite non-sexual activity.

is it cheesy to say playing soccer? that is one that can be canon or modern au. otherwise, in canon i can see them liking to swim in the lakes and rivers and wherever else they can find. in a modern au, i think they’d really be into playing games. board or video… i can see them being into cooking as well.

#ask game #thank you!#as always sorry this is long!#i have no filter for them!#lmao #murven

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silver-inked · 3 years ago

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Hi Ink! It’s me ‘cough cough biggest fan of A Pair of Stars.’ What director’s commentary would you give on the scene where Nina and Gaston find out the truth, the secret their friends had been keeping the whole time? Also if there was a scene you would rewrite or add more material, which one would it be and why? Feel free to also add anymore director’s commentary since I would love to read more of it!

P.S: A Pair of Stars will forever be one of my favorite fanfics ever. A true masterpiece

First of all akdshfladsl, thankyou and ahhh! your constant support for A Pair of Stars is something I will never get over. Ther iconic cover you made for it amazes me to this day. ITS SO PRETTY.

1. This fic stems from my need to give Luna and Ambar some proper development between each other. There was so much potential, and although I love what they did with Simon and Monica, not including Luna into the mix didn’t make sense to me. Ambar bullied Luna for three years straight and I’m supposed to think Luna would just get over it so quickly, without any conflict? Nope.

So, I put Luna and Ambar in the one cannon situation in s2, that isolated Ambar the most so that they would be forced to deal with each other (Ambar burning a building, something I think is wild, ironic, heart breaking and funny storyline wise. But also, i still can’t believe it happened in canon but I slso do). And I added Matteo into the mix because it would make the dynamic much more complicated, and ultimately help fix the issues between the main three ships in s2 if Matteo already got along with Gastina and Ambar. Also, its a fix it fic, and I will take any chances to fix the mess which was Lutteo s2.

Simon, Nina, and Gaston didn’t know for angst reasons I must admit, but also because Luna, Matteo and Ambar would be terrified to tell them. The three are cinnamon rolls, and the most good people on earth. Nina would convince Luna to tell the truth, and both Matteo and Luna don’t know how they would face their friends. Plus the angst is fun to write.

When Gastina finds out the truth they are horrified, but mostly hurt, because everything finally makes sense. They are the most hurt (Simon too but ignore him for now), because they love Lutteo, and they had been begging Lutteo to tell them what’s wrong. But in the end Gastina would do anything for Lutteo. And they decide to blindly trust Lutteo again, because they love them. It takes the four of them time to heal that friendship, and throughout the next chapters after that everything feels a bit broken between them, because it very much is broken.

But Nina is the most devastated, and that’s why it takes her much longer to get over it. I think by the end of the fic, she understands why Luna did it, but it still stings, and it takes her a while after the fic move on from it.

Luna taught Nina to open up, and then Luna lied to Nina for months. It really hurt their friendship. They eventually got through it, but it was hard.

I reworked that chapter several times because there was just so much going on in it. It was supposed to highlight the biggest conflict between Simbar in s2, but alongside it had to basically expose the main trio's lies to everyone within a single chapter. Also, in one version someone dies. It was a weird Sharon plotline.

If you have any other specific questions let me know. This is what automatically poped into my head.

2. If I were to add a scene, I would have added a couple short scenes showing Ambar and Luna getting used to being free of Sharon and living in the mansion together. It would be lighthearted and focus on how much the girls grew a couple months after the whole thing ended.

#sapphire374 #thankyou for the ask!#ink.ask #also there was going to be a scene where ambar met her bio mom

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gascon-en-exil · 3 years ago

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If we try and remove Byleth from Three Houses, who would likely be their replacement/s in the storyline? In AM, it will obviously be Dedue. But, what about in the other routes?

There's no easy answer that works for all the routes, because while removing Byleth completely undoubtedly would have made the overall writing of Three Houses stronger it would have also required a different focus and some extensive rewriting, especially where Sothis and Rhea are concerned. It'd also need the house leaders to become full PoV characters and also likely controllable in exploration, although that would have benefitted all three of them. Even if Byleth loses their self-insert status (and probably gender variability, in that case) and becomes a recruitable teacher like Hanneman and Manuela who only becomes central to the plot in Silver Snow, that would still require quite a bit of reworking...and would have lost the fans of Avatar dating sims, which has apparently been the most lucrative demographic of FE players for the last decade.

Azure Moon does indeed fare the best without Byleth, helped greatly by it being the most traditional FE story and the one that trims a lot of the fat in Three Houses's undercooked story elements, ex. the Agarthans and the mystery surrounding who and what Byleth is. It's already got the best pacing, the clearest arc for its protagonist, the best relationship between its hero and villain, and the best sense of dramatic payoff in ending where it does. The Byleth-free version would be all about power couple Dimidue, with added focus on Dimilix as a second relationship that begins roughly but develops into one of equal significance. Dedue and Felix would grow into a dynamic comparable to August and Dorias toward Leif in FE5, or Soren and Titania toward Ike in FE9: a pair of advisors with vastly different views of the world and who care for their leader in very different ways and so are forced to come to an understanding. They'd be fully integrated into the plot, allowing them to participate in story moments like Rodrigue's death and the resolution of the Duscur mystery much more organically than they do in canon, not to mention be the ones along with Gilbert and Rodrigue to help Dimitri through his darkest moments. The golden ending is an orgy.

Would IS ever write that? Absolutely not. It'd be too overtly gay, even if the relationships were still only kept to subtext, and there's no plot-relevant waifu bait to be had. Fandom would decry that AM as even more misogynistic than Echoes, and not progressive enough because with no Avatar S ranks Dimitri's queer relationships wouldn't be "canon." They'd be no homo'ed just like Ike/Soren is...which they are now, only it'd be more prominent with no Dimileth taking up such a large portion of Dimitri's fanbase.

I have no idea how this reworked Three Houses would handle the Eagles route split, so it'd probably be better off without one. Silver Snow would follow Byleth as they (she? he? The former allows for a second female lead, the latter delves into magical genderqueer territory with Byleth as the incarnation of a goddess) teach the Eagles and gradually uncover Edelgard's nefarious plans only too late to stop them. Apart from Byleth now having a definite gender, voice, and personality - quite a lot, I know - not much of the actual substance of SS would necessarily need to change. It would certainly benefit from a second pass in the writers' room, Byleth or not, like handling the Gronder rematch in a less awkward way, actually working to develop the antagonism between Byleth and Edelgard outside of two cutscenes, and making the final chapter make any kind of sense and not just "Rhea succumbs to dragon degeneration because you need to fight a final boss, Seteth handwaves the whole thing with a line referencing something that got referenced once back in like Chapter 2." Just...some kind of effort there would be nice.

At any rate SS with Byleth as an actual character would be more strongly-written for it, allowing them to function as a genuine protagonist. (Alternatively, make Ferdinand the protagonist...but that would resolve in him and Hubert putting on an elaborately-staged musical where they work through their feelings in the middle of fighting on opposite sides of a war. You know what? Give me that version of SS instead. Way more interesting.)

For Crimson Flower, drop the pretense right from the start. Edelgard's your PoV character, she knows she's the Flame Emperor and what she's doing throughout the school year, and Part 1 is about her trying to maintain the façade of a normal student while she's planning a war on the DL. If they insist on keeping some of the mystery, that wouldn't be impossible as it's obvious Hubert is the brains of their operation and he keeps most of what he does hidden from Edelgard anyway. I'm not really sure how to work the waifu hot for teacher angle into a PoV version of Edelgard; as much as I enjoy it from the comedic standpoint of Hubert never getting any because his lady never looks at him twice I think CF would be stronger if Byleth stayed with Rhea and the route didn't bother with working out their relationship to the Nabateans. Just genocide 'em all as Edelgard conquers the continent and convinces herself it's all for the best. She can shed a tear over Byleth's corpse while Hubert brandishes a cleaver with even more relish than usual to extract that valuable Crest stone. The ending is basically the same minus the Edeleth, with it being even more obvious that the shadow war against the Agarthans is going to resolve in Hubert taking his place as the real Manfroy of this story.

And as for Verdant Wind, the whole route would need a rewrite, to give it a more distinct identity from SS and to make it work with a protagonist whose personality and arc revolve around revealing very little about himself to anyone else. Players would undoubtedly find out much more about Claude that way than they do in canon VW, and it'd probably work better if it kept Edelgard's war to the background and refocused hard on the worldbuilding discoveries and how they play into Claude's growing understanding of Fódlan. With or without Byleth, a better-written VW would be vastly different from the canon version.

So aside from the house leaders taking over Byleth's role as PoV characters and exploration avatars I don't see anyone else assuming their exact role in supporting said leaders. Dimitri has an abundance of male love and camaraderie, Edelgard gets all worked up over Byleth but is still completely willing to step over them to achieve her goals (also Hubert is there), Claude would likely see his background and beliefs teased out of him gradually by all the Deer in their own ways, and Byleth as an actual character could make SS all about their Nabatean family and the bonds, magically incestuous or otherwise, they can form with the surviving dragons.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses

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thecat-inthehat · 3 years ago

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I picked up Scholar on Aiden! I was originally intending him to pick up Astrologian, due to it starting at 30, but I blinked and road to 70 got me the levels I needed. (I started as arcanist first in limsa, so I could pick up rogue immediately) I’m not sure just how canon it’ll be for him, but I’m leaning towards more canon than not, primarily due to the drabble I wrote, and sch’s emphasis on strategy and tactics.

Anyways-- I know we all know, but the ARR and HW job duties need serious reworks. This isn’t even getting into how the SCH quests talk about the differences between Selene and Eos (though the lack of them now is seriously confusing), but more the general mechanics.

The level 40 duty has you assist Alka against a Tonberry. At that level, I have four healing spells -- Physick, Adloquium, Succor, and Whispering Dawn. Due to the way coding works for ARR and HW duties, Succor and WD will not target Alka no matter what I do. Worse, Eos’ spell Embrace, her one heal that’s closer to an automatic regen, won’t target Alka either. Embrace used to be on the pet hotbar, and I could forcibly target someone and make her heal them. I can’t do that now. So out of the four (technically five) healing spells, I can’t use half of my goddamn kit at this point.

It gets worse! During the fight, the tonberry gives status ailments, and summons slimes which also give you status ailments. Now, the old version of Selene had a cleansing ability, which was level 40, before you got Leeches at 45. This duty was supposed to teach you how to use it -- because at that point, you’d likely only be using Eos because of her superior healing ability. The duty was supposed to teach you how to swap between the fairy forms as needed, but it doesn’t do that now.

Now, I am a damn good healer. I can do a lot of things with very limited resources. I mained healer for a longass time! Y’all, I had to pop an ether. Of my two healing spells, Adlo costs 1k mp, and I don’t have aetherflow yet. Physick might heal a bit more, but it doesn’t give the shield I needed to frantically esuna myself and Alka over and over again, so I was running out of mp so damn quickly.

Thankfully the dev team realized how horrible this was, and as of Stormblood, all aoe skills affect the NPC trust members inside duties. The relief and shock I felt over popping Medica 2 inside Raubahn EX and watching it hit everyone was palpable. But goddamn, the ARR and HW duties are legitimately hard to get through, even for veteran players! They’ve either gutted the job’s kit from when the duties were first made so much that it’s so hard to get through, or the mechanics themselves make it legitimately frustrating.

I know that the storyline of ARR got a rework as of 5.3, but I’m seriously hoping that they’ll take a look at old duties and job storylines and hope they try and make them make sense again. Arcanist in particular is one I’m worried about -- a lot of the quests talk about the Bio and Miasma spells, which as far as we know, is going to be gone in Endwalker. Hells, Conjurer won’t have Fluid Aura anymore, when an entire quest is centered around the need for balance among your elemental spells.

Sighs. I can only hope.

#msq rerun #sch things

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grigori77 · 4 years ago

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Movies of 2021 - My Pre-Summer Favourites (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10. ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE – one of the undisputable highlights of the Winter-Spring period has to be the long-awaited, much vaunted redressing of a balance that’s been a particular thorn in the side of DC cinematic fans for over three years now – the completion and restoration of the true, unadulterated original director’s cut of the painfully abortive DCEU team-up movie that was absolutely butchered when Joss Whedon took over from original director Zack Snyder and then heavily rewrote and largely reshot the whole thing. It was a somewhat painful experience to view in cinemas back in 2017 – sure, there were bits that worked, but most of it didn’t and it wasn’t like the underrated Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, which improves immensely on subsequent viewings (especially in the three hour-long director’s cut). No, Whedon’s film was a MESS. Needless to say fans were up in arms, and once word got out that the finished film was not at all what Snyder originally intended, a vocal, forceful online campaign began to restore what quickly became known as the Snyder Cut. Thank the gods that Warner Bros listened to them, ultimately taking advantage of the intriguing alternative possibilities provided by their streaming service HBO Max to allow Snyder to present his fully reinstated creation in its entirety. The only remaining question, of course, is simply … is it actually any good? Well it’s certainly much more like BVS:DOG than Whedon’s film ever was, and there’s no denying that, much like the rest of Snyder’s oeuvre, this is a proper marmite movie – there are gonna people who hate it no matter what, but the faithful, the fans, or simply those who are willing to open their minds are going to find much to enjoy here. The damage has been thoroughly patched, most of the elements that didn’t work in the theatrical release having been swapped out or reworked so that now they pay off BEAUTIFULLY. This time the quest of Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) to bring the first iteration of the Justice League together – half-Atlantean superhuman Arthur Curry/the Aquaman (Jason Momoa), lightning-powered speedster Barry Allan/the Flash (Fantastic Beasts’ Ezra Miller) and cybernetically-rebuilt genius Victor Stone/Cyborg (relative newcomer Ray Fisher) – not only feels organic, but NECESSARY, as does their desperate scheme to use one of the three alien Mother Boxes (no longer just shiny McGuffins but now genuinely well-realised technological forces that threaten cataclysm as much as they provide opportunity for miracles) to bring Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill) back from the dead, especially given the far more compelling threat of this version’s collection of villains. Ciaran Hinds’ mocapped monstrosity Steppenwolf is a far more palpable and interesting big bad this time round, given a more intricate backstory that also ties in a far greater ultimate mega-villain that would have become the DCEU’s Thanos had Snyder had his way to begin with – Darkseid (Ray Porter), tyrannical ruler of Apokolips and one of the most powerful and hated beings in the Universe, who could have ushered the DCEU’s now aborted New Gods storyline to the big screen. The newer members of the League receive far more screen-time and vastly improved backstory too, Miller’s Flash getting a far more pro-active role in the storyline AND the action which also thankfully cuts away a lot of the clumsiness the character had in the Whedon version without sacrificing any of the nerdy sass that nonetheless made him such a joy, while the connective tissue that ties Momoa’s Aquaman into his own subsequent standalone movie feels much stronger here, and his connection with his fellow League members feels less perfunctory too, but it’s Fisher’s Cyborg who TRULY reaps the benefits here, regaining a whole new key subplot and storyline that ties into a genuinely powerful tragic origin story, as well as a far more complicated and ultimately rewarding relationship with his scientist father, Silas Stone (the great Joe Morton). It’s also really nice to see Superman handled with the kind of skill we’d expect from the same director who did such a great job (fight me if you disagree) of bringing the character to life in two previous big screen instalments, as well as erasing the memory of that godawful digital moustache removal … similarly, it’s nice to see the new and returning supporting cast get more to do this time, from Morton and the ever-excellent J.K. Simmonds as fan favourite Gotham PD Commissioner Jim Gordon to Connie Nielsen as Diana’s mother, Queen Hippolyta of Themyscira and another unapologetic scene-stealing turn from Jeremy Irons as Batman’s faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth. Sure, it’s not a perfect movie – the unusual visual ratio takes some getting used to, while there’s A LOT of story to unpack here, and at a gargantuan FOUR HOURS there are times when the pacing somewhat lags, not to mention an overabundance of drawn-out endings (including a flash-forward to a potential apocalyptic future that, while evocative, smacks somewhat of overeager fan-service) that would put Lord of the Rings’ The Return of the King to shame, but original writer Chris Terrio’s reconstituted script is rich enough that there’s plenty to reward the more committed viewer, and the storytelling and character development is a powerful thing, while the action sequences are robust and thrilling (even if Snyder does keep falling back on his over-reliance on slow motion that seems to alienate some viewers), and the new score from Tom Holkenborg (who co-composed on BVS:DOJ) feels a far more natural successor than Danny Elfman’s theatrical compositions. The end result is no more likely to win fresh converts than Man of Steel or Batman Vs Superman, but it certainly stands up far better to a critical eye this time round, and feels like a far more natural progression for the saga too. Ultimately it’s more of an interesting tangential adventure given that Warner Bros seem to be stubbornly sticking to their original plans for the ongoing DCEU, but I can’t help hoping that they might have a change of heart in the future given just how much better the final product is than any of us had any right to expect …

9. SYNCHRONIC – writer-director duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are something of a creative phenomenon in the science-fiction and fantasy indie cinema scene, crafting films that ensnare the senses and engage the brain like few others. Subtly insidious conspiracy horror debut Resolution is a sneaky little chiller, while deeply original body horror Spring (the film that first got me into them) is weird, unsettling and surprisingly touching, but it was breakthrough sleeper hit The Endless, a nightmarish time-looping cosmic horror that thoroughly screws with your head, that really put them on the map. Needless to say it’s led them to greater opportunities heading into the future, and this is their first film to really reap the benefits, particularly by snaring a couple of genuine stars for its lead roles. Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan) are paramedics working the night shift in New Orleans, which puts them on the frontlines when a new drug hits the streets, a dangerous concoction known as Synchronic that causes its users to experience weird localised fractures in time that frequently lead to some pretty outlandish deaths in adults, while teenage users often disappear entirely. As the situation worsens, the pair’s professional and personal relationships become increasingly strained, compounded by the fact that Steve is concealing his recent diagnosis of terminal cancer, before things come to a head when Dennis’ teenage daughter Brianna (Into the Badlands’ Ally Ioannides) vanishes under suspicious circumstances, and it becomes clear to Steve that she’s become unstuck in time … this is as mind-bendingly off-the-wall and spectacularly inventive as we’ve come to expect from Benson and Moorhead, another fantastically original slice of weirdness that benefits enormously from their exquisitely obsessive attention to detail and characteristically unsettling atmosphere of building dread, while their character development is second to none, benefitting their top-notch cast no end. Mackie is typically excellent, bringing compelling vulnerability to the role that makes it easy to root for him as he gets further out of his depth in this twisted temporal labyrinth, while Dornan invests Dennis with a painfully human fallibility, and Ioannides does a lot with very little real screen time in her key role as ill-fated Brianna. The time-bending sequences are suitably disorienting and disturbing, utilising pleasingly subtle use of visual effects to further mess with your head, and the overall mechanics of the drug and its effects are fiendishly crafted, while the directors tighten the screw of slowburn tension throughout, building to a suitably offbeat ending that’s as devastating as anything we’ve seen from them so far. Altogether this is another winning slice of genre-busting weirdness from a filmmaking duo who deserve continued success in the future, and I for one will be watching eagerly.

8. WITHOUT REMORSE – I’m a big fan of Tom Clancy, to me he was one of the ultimate escapist thriller writers, and whenever a new adaptation of one of his novels comes along I’m always front of the line to check it out. The Hunt For Red October is one of my favourite screen thrillers OF ALL TIME, while my very favourite Clancy adaptation EVER, the Jack Ryan TV series, is, in my opinion, one of the very best Original shows that Amazon have ever done. But up until now my VERY FAVOURITE Clancy creation, John Clark, has always remained in the background or simply absent entirely, putting in an appearance as a supporting character in only two of the movies, tantalising me with his presence but never more than a teaser. Well that’s all over now – after languishing in development hell since the mid-90s, the long-awaited adaptation of my favourite Clancy novel, the origin story of the top CIA black ops operative, has finally arrived, as well as a direct spin-off from distributor Amazon’s own Jack Ryan series. Michael B. Jordan plays John Kelly (basically Clark before he gained his more famous cover identity), a lethally efficient, highly decorated Navy SEAL whose life is turned upside down when a highly classified operation experiences deadly blowback as half of his team is assassinated in retaliation, while Kelly barely survives an attack in which his heavily pregnant wife is killed. With the higher-ups unwilling the muddy the waters while scrambling to control the damage, Kelly, driven by rage and grief, takes matters into his own hands, embarking on a violent personal crusade against the Russian operatives responsible, but as he digs deeper with the help of his former commanding officer, Lt. Commander Karen Greer (Queen & Slim’s Jodie Turner-Smith), and mid-level CIA hotshot Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell), it becomes clear that there’s a far more insidious conspiracy at work here … in the past the Clancy adaptations we’ve seen tend to be pretty tightly reined-in affairs, going for a PG-13 polish that maintains the intellectual fireworks but still tries to keep the violence clean and relatively family-friendly, but this was never going to be the case here – Clark has always been Jack Ryan’s dark shadow, Clancy’s righteous man without the moral restraint, and a PG-13 take never would have worked, so going for an unfettered R-rating is the right choice. Jordan’s Kelly/Clark is a blood-soaked force of nature, a feral dog let off the leash, bringing a brutal ferocity to the action that does the literary source proud, tempered by a wounded vulnerability that helps us to sympathise with the broken but still very human man behind the killer; Turner-Smith, meanwhile, regularly matches him in the physical stakes, jumping into the action with enthusiasm and looking damn fine doing it, but she also brings tight control and an air of pragmatic military professionalism that makes it easy to believe in her not only as an accomplished leader of fighting men but also as the daughter of Admiral Jim Greer, while Bell is arrogant and abrasive but ultimately still a good man as Ritter; Guy Pearce, meanwhile, brings his usual gravitas and quietly measured charisma to proceedings as US Secretary of Defence Thomas Clay, and Lauren London makes a suitably strong impression during her brief screen time to make her absence keenly felt as Kelly’s wife Pam. The action is intense, explosive and spectacularly executed, culminating in a particularly impressive drawn-out battle through a Russian apartment complex, while the labyrinthine plot is intricately crafted and unfolds with taut precision, but then the screenplay was co-written by Taylor Sheridan, who here reteams with Sicario 2 director Stefano Sollida, who’s also already proven to be a seasoned hand at this kind of thing, and the result is a tense, knuckle-whitening suspense thriller that pays magnificent tribute to the most compelling creation of one of the best authors in the genre. Amazon have signed up for more with already greenlit sequel Rainbow Six, and with this directly tied in with the Jack Ryan TV series too I can’t help holding out hope we just might get to see Jordan’s Clark backing John Krasinski’s Ryan up in the future …

7. RAYA & THE LAST DRAGON – with UK cinemas still closed I’ve had to live with seeing ALL the big stuff on my frustratingly small screen at home, but at least there’s been plenty of choice with so many of the big studios electing to either sell some of their languishing big projects to online vendors or simply release on their own streaming services. Thank the gods, then, for the House of Mouse following Warner Bros’ example and releasing their big stuff on Disney+ at the same time in those theatres that have reopened – this was one movie I was PARTICULARLY looking forward to, and if I’d had to wait and hope for the scheduled UK reopening to occur in mid-May I might have gone a little crazy watching everyone else lose it over something I still hadn’t seen. That said, it WOULD HAVE been worth the wait – coming across sort-of a bit like Disney’s long overdue response to Dreamworks’ AWESOME Kung Fu Panda franchise, this is a spellbinding adventure in a beautifully thought-out fantasy world heavily inspired by Southeast Asia and its rich, diverse cultures, bursting with red hot martial arts action and exotic Eastern mysticism and brought to life by a uniformly strong voice cast dominated by actors of Asian descent. It’s got a cracking premise, too – 500 years ago, the land of Kumandra was torn apart when a terrible supernatural force known as the Druun very nearly wiped out all life, only stopped by the sacrifice of the last dragons, who poured all their power and lifeforce into a mystical gem. But when the gem is broken and the pieces divided between the warring nations of Fang, Heart, Spine, Tail and Talon, the Druun return, prompting Raya (Star Wars’ Kelly Marie Tran), the fugitive princess of Heart, to embark on a quest to reunite the gem pieces and revive the legendary dragon Sisu in a desperate bid to vanquish the Druun once and for all. Moana director Don Hall teams up with Blindspotting helmer Carlos Lopez Estrada (making his debut in the big chair for Disney after helping develop Frozen), bringing to life a thoroughly inspired screenplay co-written by Crazy Rich Asians’ Adele Kim which is full to bursting with magnificent world-building, beautifully crafted characters and thrilling action, as well as the Disney prerequisites of playful humour and tons of heart and soul. Tran makes Raya an feisty and engaging heroine, tough, stubborn and a seriously kickass fighter, but with true warmth and compassion too, while Gemma Chan is icy cool but deep down ultimately kind of sweet as her bitter rival, Fang princess Namaari, and there’s strong support from Benedict Wong and Good Boys’ Izaac Wang as hard-but-soft Spine warrior Tong and youthful but charismatic Tail shrimp-boat captain Boun, two of the warm-hearted found family that Raya gathers on her travels. The true scene-stealer, however, is the always entertaining Awkwafina, bringing Sisu to life in wholly unexpected but thoroughly charming and utterly adorable fashion, a goofy, sassy and sweet-natured bundle of fun who grabs all the best laughs but also unswervingly champions the film’s core messages of peace, unity and acceptance in all things, something which Raya needs a lot of convincing to take to heart. Visually stunning, endlessly inventive, consistently thrilling and frequently laugh-out-loud funny, this is another solid gold winner once again proving that Disney can do this kind of stuff in their sleep, but it’s always most interesting when they really make the effort to create something truly special, and that’s just what they’ve done here. As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the studio’s finest animated features in a good long while, and thoroughly deserving of your praise and attention …

6. THE MITCHELLS VS THE MACHINES – so what piece of animation, you might be asking, could POSSIBLY have won over Raya as my animated feature of the year so far? After all, it would have to be something TRULY special … but then, remember Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse? Back in 2018, that blew me away SO MUCH that it very nearly became my top animated feature of THE PAST DECADE (only JUST losing out, ultimately, to Dreamworks’ unstoppable How to Train Your Dragon trilogy). When I heard its creators, the irrepressible double act of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs), were going to be following that up with this anarchic screwball comedy adventure, I was VERY EXCITED INDEED, a fervour which was barely blunted when its release was, inevitably, indefinitely delayed thanks to the global pandemic, so when it finally released at the tail end of the Winter-Spring season I POUNCED. Thankfully my faith was thoroughly rewarded – this is an absolute riot from start to finish, a genuine cinematic gem I look forward to going back to for repeated viewings in the near future, just to soak up the awesomeness – it’s hilarious to a precision-crafted degree, brilliantly thought-out and SPECTACULARLY well-written by acclaimed Gravity Falls writer-director Mike Rianda (who also helms here), injecting the whole film with a gleefully unpredictable, irrepressibly irreverent streak of pure chaotic genius that makes it a affectionately endearing and utterly irresistible joyride from bonkers start to adorable finish. The central premise is pretty much as simple as the title suggests, the utterly dysfunctional family in question – father Rick (Danny McBride), born outdoorsman and utter technophobe, mother Linda (Maya Rudolph), much put-upon but unflappable even in the face of Armageddon, daughter Katie (Broad City co-creator Abbi Jacobson), tech-obsessed and growing increasingly estranged from her dad, and son Aaron (Rianda himself), a thoroughly ODD dinosaur nerd – become the world’s only hope after naïve tech mogul Mark Bowman (Eric Andre), founder of PAL Labs, inadvertently sets off a robot uprising. Cue a wild ride comedy of errors of EPIC proportions … this is just about the most fun I’ve had with a movie so far this year, an absolute riot throughout, but there’s far more to it than just a pile of big belly laughs, with the Mitchells all proving to be a lovable bunch of misfits who inspire just as much deep, heartfelt affection as they learn from their mistakes and finally overcome their differences, becoming a better, more loving family in the process, McBride and Jacobson particularly shining as they make our hearts swell and put a big lump in our throat even while they make us titter and guffaw, while the film has a fantastic larger than (virtual) life villain in PAL (Olivia Colman), the virtual assistant turned megalomaniacal machine intelligence spearheading this technological revolution. Much like its Spider-Man-shaped predecessor, this is also an absolutely STUNNING film, visually arresting and spectacularly inventive and bursting with neat ideas and some truly beautiful stylistic flair, frequently becoming a genuine work of cinematic art that’s as much a feast for the eyes as it is the intellect and, of course, the soul. Altogether then, this is definitely the year’s most downright GORGEOUS film so far, as well as UNDENIABLY its most FUN. Lord and Miller really have done it again.

5. P.G. PSYCHO GOREMAN – the year’s current undeniable top guilty pleasure has to be this fantastic weird, thoroughly over-the-top and completely OUT THERE black comedy cosmic horror that doesn’t so much riff on the works of HP Lovecraft as throw them in a blender, douse them with maple syrup and cayenne pepper and then hurl the sloppy results to the four winds. On paper it sounds like a family-friendly cutesy comedy take on Call of Cthulu et al, but trust me, this sure ain’t one for the kids – the latest indie horror offering from Steven Kostanski, co-creator of the likes of Manborg, Father’s Day and The Void, this is one of the weirdest movies I’ve seen in years, but it’s also one of the most gleefully funny, playing itself entirely for yucks (frequently LITERALLY). Mimi (Nita Josee-Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) are a two small-town Canadian kids who dig a big hole of their backyard, accidentally releasing the Arch-Duke of Nightmares (Matthew Ninaber and the voice of Steven Vlahos), an ancient, god-tier alien killing machine who’s been imprisoned for aeons in order to protect the universe from his brutal crusade of death and destruction. To their parents’ dismay, Mimi decides to keep him, renaming him Psycho Goreman (or “P.G.” for short) and attempting to curb his superpowered murderous impulses so she can have a new playmate. But the monster’s original captors, the Templars of the Planetary Alliance, have learned of his escape, sending their most powerful warrior, Pandora (Kristen McCulloch), to destroy him once and for all. Yup, this movie is just as loony tunes as it sounds – Kostanski injects the film with copious amounts of his own outlandish, OTT splatterpunk extremity, bringing us a riotous cavalcade of bizarrely twisted creatures and mutations (brought to life through some deliciously disgusting prosthetic effects work) and a series of wonderfully off-kilter (not to mention frequently off-COLOUR) darkly comic skits and escapades, while the sense of humour is pretty bonkers but also generously littered with nuggets of genuine sharply observed genius. The cast, although made up almost entirely of unknowns, is thoroughly game, and the kids particularly impress, especially Josee-Hanna, who plays Mimi like a flamboyant, mercurial miniature psychopath whose zinger-delivery is clipped, precise and downright hilarious throughout. There are messages of love conquering all and the power of family, both born and made, buried somewhere in there too, but ultimately this is just 90 minutes of wonderful weirdness that’s sure to melt your brain but still leave you with a big dumb green when it’s all over. Which is all we really want from a movie like this, right?

4. SPACE SWEEPERS – all throughout the pandemic and the interminable lockdowns, Netflix have been a consistent blessing to those of us who’ve been craving the kind of big budget blockbusters we have (largely) been unable to get at the cinema. Some of my top movies of 2020 were Netflix Originals, and they’ve continued the trend into 2021, having dropped some choice cuts on us over the past four months, with some REALLY impressive offerings still to come as we head into the summer season (roll on, Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead!). In the meantime, my current Netflix favourite of the year so far is this phenomenal milestone of Korean cinema, lauded as the country’s first space blockbuster, which certainly went big instead of going home. Writer-director Jo Sung-hee (A Werewolf Boy, Phantom Detective) delivers big budget thrills and spills with a bombastic science-fiction adventure cast in the classic Star Wars mould, where action, emotion and fun characters count for more than an admittedly simplistic but still admirably archetypical and evocative plot – it’s 2092, and the Earth has become a toxic wasteland ruined by overpopulation and pollution, leading the wealthy to move into palatial orbital habitats in preparation for the impending colonisation of Mars, while the poor and downtrodden are packed into rotting ghetto satellites facing an uncertain future left behind to fend for themselves, and the UTS Corporation jealously guard the borders between rich and poor, presided over by seemingly benevolent but ultimately cruel sociopathic genius CEO James Sullivan (Richard Armitage). Eking out a living in-between are the space sweepers, freelance spaceship crews who risk life and limb by cleaning up dangerous space debris to prevent it from damaging satellites and orbital structures. The film focuses on the crew of sweeper vessel Victory, a ragtag quartet clearly inspired by the “heroes” of Cowboy Bebop – Captain Jang (The Handmaiden’s Kim Tae-ri), a hard-drinking ex-pirate with a mean streak and a dark past, ace pilot Kim Tae-ho (The Battleship Island’s Song Joong-ki), a former child-soldier with a particularly tragic backstory, mechanic Tiger Park (The Outlaws’ Jin Seon-Kyu), a gangster from Earth living in exile in orbit, and Bubs (a genuinely flawless mocapped performance from A Taxi Driver’s Yoo Hae-jin), a surplus military robot slumming it as a harpooner so she can earn enough for gender confirmation. They’re a fascinating bunch, a mercenary band who never think past their next paycheque, but there’s enough good in them that when redemption comes knocking – in the form of Kang Kot-nim (newcomer Park Ye-rin), a revolutionary prototype android in the form of a little girl who may hold the key to bio-technological ecological salvation – they find themselves answering the call in spite of their misgivings. The four leads are exceptional (as is their young charge), while Armitage makes for a cracking villain, delivering subtle, restrained menace by the bucketload every time he’s onscreen, and there’s excellent support from a fascinating multinational cast who perform in a refreshingly broad variety of languages. Jo delivers spectacularly on the action front, wrangling a blistering series of adrenaline-fuelled and explosive set-pieces that rival anything George Lucas or JJ Abrams have sprung on us this century, while the visual effects are nothing short of astounding, bringing this colourful, eclectic and dangerous universe to vibrant, terrifying life; indeed, the world-building here is exceptional, creating an environment you’ll feel sorely tempted to live in despite the pitfalls. Best of all, though, there’s tons of heart and soul, the fantastic found family dynamic at the story’s heart winning us over at every turn. Ultimately, while you might come for the thrills and spectacle, you’ll stay for these wonderful, adorable characters and their compelling tale. An undeniable triumph.

3. JUDAS & THE BLACK MESSIAH – I’m a little fascinated by the Black Panther Party, I find them to be one of the most intriguing elements of Black History in America, but outside of documentaries I’ve never really seen a feature film that’s truly done the movement justice, at least until now. It’s become a major talking point of the Awards Season, and it’s easy to see why – director Shaka King is a protégé of Spike Lee, and together with up-and-coming co-screenwriter Wil Berson he’s captured the fire and fervour of the Party and their firebrand struggle for racial liberation through force of arms, as well as a compelling portrait of one of their most important figures, Fred Hampton, the Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the BPP and a powerful political activist who could have become the next Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya is magnificent in the role, effortlessly holding your attention in every scene with his laconic ease and deceptively friendly manner, barely hinting at the zealous fire blazing beneath the surface, but the film’s true focus is the man who brought him down, William O’Neal, a fellow Panther and FBI informant placed in the Chapter to infiltrate the movement and find a way for the US Government to bring down what they believed to be one of the country’s greatest internal threats. Lakeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You, Knives Out) delivers a suitably complex performance as O’Neal, perfectly embodying a very clever but also very desperate man walking a constant tightrope to maintain his cover in some decidedly wary company, but there’s never any real sense that he’s playing the villain, Stanfield largely garnering sympathy from the viewer as we’re shamelessly made to root for him, especially once he starts falling for the very ideals he’s trying to subvert – it’s a true star-making performance, and he even holds his own playing opposite Kaluuya himself. The rest of the cast are equally impressive, Dominique Fishback (Project Power, The Deuce) particularly holding our attention as Hampton’s fiancée and fellow Panther Akua Njeri, as does Jesse Plemmons as O’Neal’s idealistic but sympathetic FBI handler Roy Mitchell, while Martin Sheen is the film’s nominal villain in a chillingly potent turn as J. Edgar Hoover. This is an intense and thrilling film, powered by a tense atmosphere of pregnant urgency and righteous fury, but while there are a few grittily realistic set pieces, the majority of the fireworks on display are performance based, the cast giving their all and King wrestling a potent and emotionally resonant, inescapably timely history lesson that informs without ever slipping into preachy exposition, leaving an unshakable impression long after the credits have rolled. This doesn’t just earn all the award-winning kudos it gained, it deserved A LOT MORE recognition that it got, and if this were a purely critical rundown list I’d have to put it in the top spot. As it is I’m monumentally enamoured of this film, and I can’t sing its praises enough …

2. RUN, HIDE, FIGHT – the biggest surprise hit for me so far this year was this wicked little indie suspense thriller from writer-director Kyle Rankin (Night of the Living Deb), which snuck in under the radar but is garnering an impressive reputation as a future cult sleeper hit. Critics have been less kind, but the subject matter is a pretty thorny issue, and if handled the wrong way it could have been in very poor taste indeed. Thankfully Rankin has crafted a corker here, initially taking time to set the scene and welcome the players before throwing us headfirst into an unbelievably tense but also unsettlingly believable situation – a small town American high school becomes the setting for a fraught siege when a quartet of disturbed students take several of their classmates hostage at gunpoint, creating a social media storm in the process as they encourage the capture of the crisis on phone cameras. While the local police gather outside, the shooters discover another threat from within the school throwing spanners in the works – Zoe Hull (Alexa & Katie’s Isabel May), a seemingly nondescript girl who happens to be the daughter of former marine scout sniper Todd (Thomas Jane). She’s wound pretty tight after the harrowing death of her mother to cancer, fuelled by grief and conditioned by her father’s training, so she’s determined to get her friends and classmates out of this nightmare, no matter what. Okay, so the premise reads like Die Hard in a school, but this is a very different beast, played for gritty realism and shot with unshowy cinema-verité simplicity, Rankin cranking up the tension beautifully but refusing to play to his audience any more than strictly necessary, drip-feeding the thrills to maximum effect but delivering some harrowing action nonetheless. The cast are top-notch too, Jane delivering a typically subtle, nuanced turn while Treat Williams is likeably stoic as world-weary but dependable local Sherriff Tarsey, Rhada Mitchell intrigues as the matter-of-fact phantom of Zoe’s mum, Jennifer, that she’s concocted to help her through her mourning, Olly Sholotan is sweetly geeky as her best friend Lewis, and Eli Brown raises genuine goosebumps as an all-too-real teen psychopath in the role of terrorist ringleader Tristan Voy. The real beating heart and driving force of the film, though, is May, intense, barely restrained and all but vibrating with wounded fury, perfectly believable as the diminutive high school John McClane who defies expectations to become a genuine force to be reckoned with, as far as I’m concerned one of this year’s TOP female protagonists. Altogether this is a cracking little thriller, a precision-crafted little action gem that nonetheless raises some troubling questions and treats its subject matter with utmost care and respect, a film that’s destined for major cult classic status, and I can’t recommend it enough.

1. NOBODY – do you love the John Wick movies but you just wish they took themselves a bit less seriously? Well fear not, because Derek Kolstad has delivered fantastically on that score, the JW screenwriter mashing his original idea up with the basic premise of the Taken movies (former government spook/assassin turned unassuming family man is forced out of retirement and shit gets seriously trashed as a result) and injecting a big dollop of gallows humour. This time he’s teamed up with Ilya Naishuller, the stone-cold lunatic who directed the deliriously insane but also thoroughly brilliant Hardcore Henry, and the results are absolutely unbeatable, a pitch perfect jet black action comedy bursting with neat ideas, wonderfully offbeat characters and ingenious plot twists. Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk is perfect casting as Hutch Mansell, the aforementioned ex-“Auditor”, a CIA hitman who grew weary of the lifestyle and quit to find some semblance of normality with his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen), with whom he’s had two kids. Ultimately, he seems to have “overcompensated”, and his life has stagnated, Hutch following a autopiloted day-to-day routine that’s left him increasingly unfulfilled … then fate intervenes and a series of impulsive choices see him falling back on his old ways while defending a young woman from drunken thugs on a late night bus ride. Problem is, said lowlifes work for the Russian Mob, specifically Yulian Kuznetsov (Leviathan’s Aleksei Serebryakov), a Bratva boss charged with guarding the Obshak, who must exact brutal vengeance in order to save face. Cue much bloody violence and entertaining chaos … Kolstad can do this sort of thing in his sleep, but his writing married with Naishuller’s singularly BONKERS vision means that the anarchy is dialled right up to eleven, while the gleefully dark sense of humour shot through makes the occasional surreality and bitingly satirical observation on offer all the more exquisite. Odenkirk is a low-key joy throughout, initially emasculated and pathetic but becoming more comfortable in his skin as he reconnects with his old self, while Serebryakov hams things up spectacularly, chewing the scenery with aplomb; Nielsen, meanwhile, brings her characteristic restrained classiness to proceedings, Christopher Lloyd and the RZA are clearly having the time of their lives as, respectively, Hutch’s retired FBI agent father David and fellow ex-spook half-brother Harry, and there’s a wonderfully game cameo from the incomparable Colin Salmon as Hutch’s former handler, the Barber. Altogether then, this is the perfect marriage of two fantastic worlds – an action-packed thrill ride as explosively impressive as John Wick, but also a wickedly subversive laugh riot every bit as blissfully inventive as Hardcore Henry, and undeniably THE BEST MOVIE I’ve seen so far this year. Sure, there’s some pretty heavyweight stuff set to (FINALLY) come out later this year, but this really will take some beating …

#movies 2021 #zack snyder's justice league #synchronic #synchronic movie #without remorse #raya and the last dragon #the mitchells vs the machines #pg psycho goreman #psycho goreman #space sweepers #judas and the black messiah #run hide fight #nobody #nobody movie

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shadowsong26fic · 3 years ago

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Coming Attractions!

A day late, but ah well...

As usual, we’ll go ahead and do an Open Question Night. Which basically means that, while my ask box is always open, tonight I’ll be keeping an eye on it and answering things as they come in. Any fandom or work I’ve talked about here (or posted on AO3) is fair game, as are general questions about writing, etc. I do accept prompts, but I am. Not very good at filling them in a timely manner unless they Immediately spark something, lol.

So, yeah, what’s on your mind?

Also, since I don’t think I have for a couple months, plug for my Discord server! It’s pretty quiet, mostly intended to be a slightly more interactive extension of this space, but you’re welcome to check it out!

Anyway, the usual Coming Attractions details are behind the cut!

PodTogether 2021:

I participated in this challenge for the first time this year, and it was a whole lot of fun! Of Other Suns is a SW/AtLA crossover, and I think it turned out pretty well! My reader/podficcer and I worked pretty closely together during the initial brainstorming process, working out what we wanted to do, and also bounced off one another during the whole editing/finalizing process. There’s a lot that I didn’t end up putting into the fic (because time and length; I am a. Uh. Very wordy writer; the aim was for 6-12k words, we ended up with nearly 15k as it is...), so I might poke more at this specific AU, or crossovers linking up at a different time (either a different point in the SW canon, or in the AtLA canon, or both). I...definitely have extensive headcanons for SW characters as benders of various elements (or nonbenders), and there are at least two Force-sensitive AtLA characters who were outside the scope of the crossover.

Anyway, if you want to check it out...click this link XD (and definitely listen to the podfic too!!! It’s really great)

Precipice:

So, between the final push on PodTogether and some origfic stuff I got done, I...did not get anything finished and posted for this, alas. But! I am saying it here in the hopes that doing so publicly will for once get me to actually stick to a deadline, which is that I will get either the first Protectors chapter or the next Preludes one-shot (or both!) up by this Sunday, September 12. The Protectors chapter will be mostly scene-setting, establishing where various characters are when we open, six years after we last saw our heroes. The Preludes segment will involved Hondo contacting Obi-Wan (and Anakin, who’s with him when he gets the call) about something Relevant To Their Interests.

I will for sure get that Prelude out this month, and hopefully at least two Protectors chapters, but we’ll see how things go at work and how much brain that takes, which is always a factor...anyway, with any luck, I’ll start establishing a Rhythm. I don’t think I’ll be doing weekly updates, the way I did for the first few arcs of Precipice (in part because there are some other longform projects I intend to start putting out and if I am going to do Weekly Fic Posts, I’ll probably alternate), but we’ll see how things go.

AtLA Fic:

Again, I didn’t finish what I wanted to (other than the aforementioned crossover for PodTogether), but I have been working on stuff in the background and, while I’m not going to commit to a Specific Deadline like I am for Precipice, I do plan to post at least the opening chapter of the still-untitled Avatar Zuko AU I’ve been working on this month, so watch this space!

Other Fic Projects:

I’m poking around at what to do for next years SWBB (if only because my wordcounts have been Steadily Increasing and I’d like to get a head start in anticipation of that happening again this year, lol). Still considering exactly what to do, whether I pour all my focus into OFLAM, like I consider every year, or see if I can work up Bail Unfucks the Timeline or another half-plotted AU I have in the back of my head, or go with a different prompt/storyline that occurs to me at some point between now and then, but I’m starting to Actively Ponder things.

I do have that BSG1 crossover outline in the works, I swear XD I’ve got...uh...maybe half to two thirds of the first third of the overall storyline written up? XD It’s a. Uh. Long one. I might go ahead and release it in three parts, just for length/convenience, and because it does more or less have three distinct sections (the initial contact/New Caprica fallout and establishment of the Haven settlement which makes sense in context; the second contact/algae planet; and then an adventure on a resurrection ship to retrieve a Specific Boxed Five and possibly walk away with Ellen because that would just ruin Cavil’s day and I do so love to ruin Cavil’s day, lol). ...I’m going to go ahead and post a preview snippet at the bottom of this post, as Motivation XD

I think that’s all the fanfic stuff I have specific updates for. There’s generally always stuff noodling around in my brain (lately, for Star Wars, AtLA, BSG, or some combination of the three), it’s just how much of it materializes, lol.

At some point, I plan to revisit some BSG epics I had going on (Serenissima; rewriting For Sorrow Sung or doing a slightly different storlyine with the same concept; The Other Battlestar; a few others), but no concrete plans as of yet.

I also kind of want to explore a far-past AtLA setting I designed for a challenge community way back? But I’m not sure if that would work better as an original work with the serial numbers filed off, if I could figure out how I wanted to do that (I have done it before, as I’ll talk about below, but this concept, while not directly involving any characters from Avatar canon as it’s set 2000 years prior to Sozin’s reign, does to an extent lean on the Avatar specifically as a concept, in a way that the other fic I did this with did not).

Original Fic:

Due to a challenge on rainbowfic, I actually got. Quite a bit written? Most of it was not super plot-relevant, but I dropped some Hints about a character in Lux and I got to play in some heads I don’t very often. I might go back to the Regency AU at some point, and there’s a specific reveal I want to write up for a secondary character in The Farglass Cycle, but I haven’t quite figured out how to structure that one, so we’ll see how it goes.

Had an interesting discussion the other day about the way original fiction sometimes starts as fanfic with the serial numbers filed off and...well, a lot of my original stuff starts that way? Or has some roots there, anyway.

Lux doesn’t quite as much, but I definitely ported in at least two characters who started as fanfic characters (leaving aside that this is, y’know, The Apocalypse IN SPACE so, like. Various fandoms that deal with that probably influenced things, plus several key players are Public Domain Characters sooooo), plus some of the way the world is constructed draws on the Native Tongue trilogy and I flat-out stole a concept from Queen of the Damned, though the way it works in this world is different (also, to be fair, I think I’ve seen it in other places, too; but I personally got the idea from there).

The Farglass Cycle and Untitled Intrigues Story, however, straight-up started as fanfic concepts. And I don’t think it’s obvious unless I point out what the source materials were? Farglass, in particular (it’s the AtLA fic I mentioned earlier), because it started as an alternate future and then the map and magic system got reworked, plus the Avatar themself wasn’t even super involved in the original fic context, and while certain characters are very loosely based on AtLA characters, by now they’ve been so altered by the setting that it’s...I used the same archetypes, if that makes sense?

And then Untitled Intrigues Story started as a fusion between two wildly different fandoms, and while one character is a pretty clear expy if you know where he comes from, and another character kept the same actress in my head, I don’t think it’s very clear other than that.

...anyway, not sure where I’m going with that, other than it’s been in my head lately, lol.

...I think that about covers it! What about you guys? What are you all working on? Slash any questions, etc.?

Teaser for BSG1 AU outline, as promised:

So, anyway, SG-1 is prepared for rain and mud and a survivable-but-kinda-unpleasant environment. They’re also prepared for the usual shenanigans--Goa’uld, cranky local politics, weird alien tech that Daniel really should know better than to touch but sends him into another dimension anyway...

Just. Y’know. A normal mission.

They’re...not quite prepared for what they actually find when they step through.

Which is a very tense and now slightly Confused crowd of people, and a firing squad made up of very large killer robots, with a teenage girl as their target.

(One of the large killer robots is. Uh. Well. Half a large killer robot now; that particular Centurion was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got kawooshed in the face. As one does.)

(Said Centurion absolutely wins the ‘Weirdest Death’ pool for the week in Download City, because that is clearly a thing that exists because it entertains me)

There’s a beat where everyone just stares at everyone else, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The wormhole disengages.

Daniel takes half a step forward, opens his mouth to start the ‘we are peaceful explorers from Earth and y’all seem to be having a Moment here, sorry for interrupting, but, uh...’

And then the moment end and absolute chaos erupts.

#coming attractions #open question night #shadowsong writes star wars #shadowsong writes atla #shadowsong writes crossovers #shadowsong writes original fic #feedback greatly appreciated

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