#and I'm far from using any of the meta builds and I just don't give a fuck about doing that tbh

[veiledfox]

} really should catch up on Genshin after I finish with Prime Remastered

Just been really iffy about returning to it because of how horribly grindy it is to even just try and get my characters doing good/proper damage in the builds I use

Which, tbh, is another reason I already think I prefer Tower of Fantasy's systems

Genshin has the better polish, but Tower has the better systems

[confessedlyfannish]

DP x DC Prompt #4

When they all convene at the cave, Alfred is silently wrapping Dick's knuckles. Damian hovers beside him. Tim and Barbara are hunched over the batcomputer, not even sparing Bruce a glance as he strides over.

"Report," Batman grunts. No one reacts.

"Report!"

"Hood pushed his panic button at 2:34 AM," Barbara says shortly, straightening.

The button had been a joke, mostly because Jason would never use it and everyone knew it.

"I patched into his comm at 2:35. This is what I heard initially." At her nod, Tim presses play. What occurs next is a garble. There is the sound of high winds, as if Hood is rushing through the air, even though the comms are designed to filter out any ambiance otherwise the Bats would never hear each other. Interspersed is a mixture of static punctuated by high, inhuman screeches of metal and something else unknown.

"This goes on," Barbara says after thirty long seconds, switching it off. "Red Hood failed to respond to any attempts at contact. I dispatched Nightwing to Hood's location at 2:36 AM. He was approximately two miles away." She pulls up a GPS map of their respective locations, their beacons blinking.

"At 2:41 AM, Red Hood's comm goes off, as does his GPS," Barbara says, swallowing softly as the red beacon indicating Jason disappears. "Nightwing arrives at 2:42 AM."

Dick doesn't say anything, head hanging low as he grips the metal table he sits on. Damian glances between the two of them, expression flat but fists clenched.

"Nightwing, report."

"..."

"Scene was empty, B," Tim speaks up. "No trace of Hood, no sign of a struggle. No cameras in the alley. We've been checking the ones nearby but so far there's no sign of anyone but Hood heading in that direction...and no one, Hood included, caught in the cams heading out, not within that time frame."

"So he's still in the area," Batman concludes. "The local buildings?"

"All the entrances have cameras, which showed no evidence of Hood nor any evidence of being tampered with," Barbara says. "Nightwing, Red Robin and Robin canvased within a half mile radius to check for any signs of disturbances in any of the windows or rooftops but found no evidence to support Hood being taken. A scan confirmed several serial offenders, but when interviewed and searched there was no sign of Hood. Several in the area reported an unusual quiet for Crime Alley."

Batman forces the next question out. "Did you check the dumpsters?"

"Yes," Nightwing grits out. "Empty."

Barbara clears her throat. "I have attempted to reconnect to Jason's GPS and comm as well as restart both remotely but there's no signal at all. The thing is, when there's a disruption like that it usually leaves some sort of sign" she pulls up the audio waves, pointing at the end where the spikes conform into a straight line that makes everyone deeply uncomfortable. Upon playing, the noise from before plays before going abruptly silent. "But there is no large spike, this is clean. It just ends. His GPS is much the same. It's not off, it's just gone."

"I know you don't like to hypothesize this early on, B, but we think this involves a meta," Tim says, rewinding the audio. "We've been running the audio from Jason's comm through different filters, playing with the levels and isolating what we can and, well, take a listen--"

The screeching drops to a sort of muffle and in the background, distantly, they can hear bits of Jason's voice.

"No, I'm not---"

"--don't need--"

"get AWAY from--"

a particularly desperate yell that makes Tim flinch, "I am NOT--!"

and almost a whimper that makes Batman's blood run cold, "please..."

And then, unfairly clear even through the faint garble, Jason says "I don't have a choice, do I."

And a minute later, quietly: "Ok."

The audio cuts off.

The defeat in Jason's last words is palpable, and fundamentally wrong. Jason has never sounded defeated a day in his life, and no one knows how to process Red Hood all but giving his hands over for the cuffs. Nightwing pushes himself off the table.

"I'm going back out there," he growls. No one tries to stop him as he stalks out the cave, not even Alfred.

"I will accompany Nightwing, make sure he does not punch any more walls." Damian says, nodding tightly.

"B?" Barbara asks.

"Keep working on it. See if you can identify what could be making those noises if Hood was standing still in an alley," Batman says, walking towards the zeta tube. "I'm going to make a few calls."

[kassandrasdisciple]

~spoilers for ATLA, LOK and ALL COMICS~

A critique of

(Significant Spoilers / final panel spoilers)

Tl:dr at the end

Disclosure

Hi, this is going to be a critique specifically about how June and irohs interaction in bato of the watertribe (BotWT) was delt with in the bounty hunter and the tea maker (BHatTB).

I recognize this is only 1 page in a 78 page long comic but I think it's worthy critiquing how this was handled. I've watched both shows, read all the ATLA comics, along with the one shot ALTA comics, I'm not meatriding for Iroh in this as you'll see, neither will I do the like for the writers of the show or the comics, I also won't demonize either, I'll just be stating what i disagree with and what direction I think would serve the world/characters better.

1. The Comic in Question

This comic is an okay comic, like the other one shots it's self-contained, if you don't read these, it's fine as they won't come up in any other works from avatar studios (apart from maybe Azula: and the spirit temple). Due to this microcosm, they have all focused on characters or world building that either the audience or the writers think is worthy of expansion (the metelbending academy, sukis imprisonment, ect). You'll also notice a meta theme in that all these comics are woman-focused, expanding the role and background of our female cast, this is a mystery mouse KaTool that'll help us later. This is interrupted by our deuteragoists of BHatTB.

The plot, in summary, is that June is hired to capture Iroh by an old soldier who served under iroh and wants revenge for Iroh leaving him in Ba Sing Sei. In the background is tea cartels and the dying career as a bounty hunter in a peaceful world.

The title would lead you to believe that both protagonists have equal impact but make no mistake this is an Iroh comic. I love Iroh as a character, bit this comic was written with the explicit effect of maintaining his pedestal. After hes captured by June he gives the "perfect" apology by hitting all the action points, initiating the apology and leaving June to accept it on her own time. Later we get an acceptance of the apology and she starts working for Iroh, making it explicit that he's been forgiven by June for how he acted in BotWT.

Secondly, in the beginning and end of the comic he explicitly rebukes his warmongering ways, apologizing to a earth kingdom protester (side note: this scene is a whole thing, I personally found it distasteful but I'll leave it to another day) and later apologizing to his ex-soldier while reinforcing his repentance for being a general. This is a more general apology to all the people who make "Iroh is a war criminal" memes.

2. Why was this nessesary

Because BotWT aged like milk. There's a conspiracy theory that the third writer, Ian Wilcox, was blacklisted from writing for the show after this, but I can't find any evidence other than the fact this was the only episode he wrote, compared to others writing multiple episodes, however he was a busy writer so he might've just not had time. Also both Bryan and Micheal are credited so their just as complicit.

It makes the most likeable fire nation character so far seem incredibly creepy. Unfortunately it aired in 2005 and this was an incredibly common gag, especially in anime(and still is), which avatar took a lot of inspiration from (think of master Roshi from DB or Jiraiya from Naruto). Iroh is filling the pervy old man trope and in the early 2000s that was perfectly fine.

Tragically time isn't stationary and as writers rooms for cartoons have gotten more diverse we've all come to the conclusion it's weird as fuck. I think it's weird as fuck. However why did 1 scene from 1 episode nearly 20 years ago (I just gave myself psychic damage FUCK I'm old) need a comic tie in?

Because media literacy is dead and CinemaSins.

Okay no, so the TL;DR is that Iroh has become a mascot for avatar studios, but also people make perv and war criminal memes about him, and you don't want to sell merch with the war criminal on. So they did the beauty and the beast remake move and made a follow-up to address all the CinemaSin-esque takes.

Unfortunately the interesting part of Iroh is that he was a war criminal (this is a joke, IK they dont have Geneva, chill). He was an interesting shade of grey but when you put someone on a pedestal they either stay in the sky or fall, and avatar studios decided to build some scaffolding. This entire comic was a way to scrub the morally bad parts of Iroh away, and personally? I think that's pretty boring, so what else could we do?

3. The ReWrite

So first thing what's the comics theme? I don't want to change too much so let's keep that the same, luckily I think June's mum sums it up.

Freedom, and along with that, responsibility to grant freedom. June wants to be free and gives freedom to Iroh, Iroh wants to be free of his guilt but to do so he must take responsibility, Fan and the others wanted freedom and took responsibility for their lives, making a homestead, and lastly Keung wanted Freedom from his past and was going to make Iroh take responsibility.

Metatextually this is also a comic about freedom for Iroh and June's characters by taking responsibility for what happened in BotWT, so we'll keep that theme.

Secondly, I lied about not making big changes, we're kicking out Iroh and the tea cartel plot. Our new title is The Bounty Hunter And The Fire Lord. Our new plot is going to be set after azula and the spirit temple, and follow an unsuccessful attempt my Zuko to find Azula with June's help. We're keep June struggling to find work, and even meeting Fan and the ex-hunters. We're also going to keep the fallout of BotWT.

5. Why Zuko

For this story I envision a fire nation that is returning to pre-war mentalities, and I think in this nation sexism would be returning hard. Just like the UK after WW2 women had been moving towards egalitarianism but were shoved back to the household once peace was established. In this climate Zuko doesn't know what to do, remember, the 2 non-genociding states are both patriarchal with misogyny baked in, the Water tribes are Overt, but outside of Kyoshi island we don't see women in power in the Earth Kingdom. Zuko doesn't have a societal reference for equality other than his homeland, and he's previously been erasing alot of fire nation culture (dragon hunting, colonies, royal deification), he's now dealing with advisors trying to tell him how women should act and he's frozen, should they be like the water tribes?

Secondly, Zuko has no female advisors, he has Katara and Toph as friends, he has Suki and Mai in the palace but none of them know the court machinations, not like Azula would. His mother has been out of the court longer than she was in it, and is still pretty traumatized. So, spurred on by his need to do the right thing and as another excuse to bring Azula back into the family, he hires June to help him find his sister.

I know it might seem out of left field but personally, it would be great worldbuilding for how we went from the treatment of Zeisan and Ursa to fire lord Izumi. Secondly Zuko is always itching to reconnect with Azula in the comics and he loves making bad decisions, he's also got more backstory with June than Iroh.

Onto the meat of it, on their road trip June opens up more to Zuko, same as she did with Iroh, and zuko uses June as a sounding board for all these questions he wants to ask Azula. June has traveled the world's underbelly, she knows what women are capable of and the calculating demeanor means she gives similar answers Azula would.

Eventually Zuko says he could've asked Iroh for his help on the topic, but June snorts at him, she tells the story of what happened to her from her POV. We don't have Iroh to give us a perfect apology, we have Zuko having to choose if he defends his uncles honour or not, who does he believe? This is what his story is about, does he believe his advisors or the women of his country.

Let June use her knowledge of what the dark side of the world is like, let her say what a noble fire nation man probably grew up hearing about women, especially when in the beginning of the war we see no female soldiers, so the gender roles where probably still enforced.

If you want to address Iroh's actions then have them serve the greater narrative, how have women been treated by the fire nation, and also don't have the interaction be kept to just June and Iroh, have it between a woman extending trust and a Fire lord who all to often puts Iroh on the same pedestal as the audience.

If you want, you can have a final scene with Iroh, where he sides with June and apologizes, but I think what we where given serves only the male cast and relegates June's story to a checklist, instead of treating it like a narrative she should get to control.

TL:DR

BHatTB whimped out on adressing Irohs actions, and it's easy to see that they did so just to get people to stop bringing it up. I'd instead propose this conversation happens with Zuko; with Zuko being treated as the audience, glamourisng Iroh, and June reinstating that he's still a human man, and that he isn't free of societal influence.

Have it be about freedom, both individually and societally, and responsibilities; to those you hurt and to those you've sworn to protect.

Again, this critique was focused on this one interaction, if I was to do a full rewrite I would change other aspects and flesh out how I think a June/Zuko road trip would go, still it would be vastly more interesting than what we got.

[avelera]

Things I TOTALLY CALLED in my meta for OFMD S2 in no particular order (and without citations because I too don't want to dig through my whole damn tag so just TRUST ME ON THIS):

Ed NOT being mad at the sight of Stede again. Still needs confirmation but the way he MELTED during the underwater "reunion" gives me hope I'll be fully right on this one.

That if Izzy gets a redemption arc it'll be because he sees the full horror of the Blackbeard he brought back into the world and regrets his actions. CALLED IT. FUCKING CALLED IT, TAKE THAT HATERS. To be clear, I said he might NOT get a redemption arc and remain a 2D villain but that IF HE DID the turning point would be getting what he wants from Blackbeard's heel-turn and seeing it for the awful mistake it was.

Stede being the ultimate Ed apologist, literally not bothered by the atrocities. The dude is equally unhinged and at least mildly sociopathic, which makes him a perfect match for Ed. He's not blind to the atrocities. He just does not care because he loves Ed more.

A return to classic "pirate life" was imminent and we'd see Ed's dark side. I didn't know how long it would last, it's actually a bit briefer than I expected but I prefer it. Still. Totally called it that at least some of the S2 arc would be Ed coming into his own and overcoming his traumatic past the same way Stede did in S1.

Hornigold made an appearance as a way to help us confront Ed's past and the darkness inside him that he hates!

We got female characters and female antagonists, it remains to be seen if we get Anne Bonny like I predicted.

To be clear, I got a lot of things wrong (as far as I can tell so far) too, like I thought Hornigold might be a full S2 villain, not a hallucination. And alas, no Vincent D'Onofrio as Hornigold. I thought there'd be more focus on the pirate hunters who took down the historical Stede and Ed but I'm not totally writing that off yet and "Ricky" might well be the hook to more pursuit by the British.

A lot remains to be seen but I am very vindicated by a lot of the Stede/Ed and Izzy-centric predictions I made back when. Mostly I credit good writing for that, rather than any actual prescience on my part. They set up their themes well! Transparency and clear build up is good! I can't wait for more!

[vidavalor]

Hi! I'm the anon who asked about the logistics of together-the-whole-time twist back again. Firstly, thanks so much for your response! Secondly, sorry, should have worded that better! It's not the sleeping together part that would be the twist for me - I actually was confident we'd get the romance canonised, either with a kiss andor with an outright declaration and some hand-holding-forehead-kisses-type tenderness, though not necessarily until the 3rd season, I'm definitely on board with 1941 part 3 and now that they've kissed I have a pretty good feeling about some shape or form of implied, innuendoed or faded-to-black sex scene, or even something like Newt and Anathema, if it fits, in the next season - it's more about the fact that a first kiss an insanely long time ago and a secret, coded, largely unspoken romance since then that's been happening mostly past the audience's nose would put a pretty dramatic spin on everything else we've seen so far. A change our entire perspective and everything we thought we knew spin. Because that would mean that the story we thought they're telling is not in fact the story they're telling after all, that we've gotten the first 2 seasons in a completely wrong context, and that's where the feeling that this might be too much of a rug pull comes in. You don't need to respond again if you don't want to, after all you've already laid out your thoughts excellently as always, just thought I'd give you a follow up. Anyways, hope I'm wrong and you're right!

Hi. I appreciate your follow up. Please help yourself to cookies... Apologies for the delayed response. I save Asks as drafts in my folder to reply to if I'm going to and I somehow overlooked this one for awhile so I apologize. Let me add a few things here about why I really, really, really disagree with the idea that an ancient times vavoom would be "a rug pull" as you put it and "not the story they're telling." (I'm also not sure how you're okay with one happening in 1941 but not millennia ago when, really, both would mean that you'd have been "fooled" by the story? What's the difference, really?) This is actually exactly the story they're telling and there are plenty of suggestions of that.

I recently wrote a meta that I'll link at the bottom listing all of the things that Good Omens has shown you and then provided context for you later and I didn't get through a third of them... that I've even noticed so far. I'm sure there are more. What this does is recontextualize what you've been watching. It deepens it. You call that a "rug pull" with a tone that hints you might think it deceptive in a negative way. I see it as literally brilliant sleight-of-hand storytelling that's innocent in its intent. It's trickery in a magic show sense. Part of my argument to you is that a show where one of half of the couple we're talking about is a magician has a theme of narrative sleight-of-hand lol. It is very much intentionally not giving you all the information you need to have a complete picture of any one scene from only that one scene by design. It's been doing this all along and it is a way of building layers into the story and your understanding it. There is no reason not to think that this would not be the case for scenes related to the central relationship of the show that is between its main characters because every single one of them to date has already been about them.

I don't think the audience would find this complicated so I don't see it as too much of a deception. I think people would kinda go nuts for it, actually lol. You're already watching a show that keeps telling you things later that have you recontextualizing what you've already seen so don't sell yourself or the audience short. All it does is then allow the audience to see what a bunch of us expect is already there anyway. It'd make rewatching the show even more fun. If you ever want to already get a taste of that, theorize for a bit that I'm right and that this has been going on for ages and then go rewatch the show a bit and see what you spot in places. You'll be surprised by how much it all just sorta slides into place. That's because they've built it that way. You're reading a novel that's written out of chronological order and you're only two-thirds of the way through it... are you not expecting a few surprises and some deepening of your understanding of what's going on before the end of it? This show is no different.

I guess I'm saying that ain't no way that the show that keeps making scenes that change your understanding of scenes you've already watched and, as a result, your understanding of Crowley & Aziraphale's relationship, isn't planning the mother of all those scenes that will completely recontextualize the whole damn thing. They are absolutely going to have kissed before 2.06 but the way they recontextualize the whole series at once is if they make the first one near the start of the timeline.

S3 audience during The Ancient Times Vavoom lol:

[rozaceous]

so you wanna know more abt mariko's family

behold, some background and meta abt mariko's family. doesn't really fit into the fic proper (much to my chagrin) but should give some helpful context both to mariko, and the events of ch 18. it's also just a bunch of behind-the-scenes world building, bc i find that fun.

copying from some of my chats w verm:

mariko's family moved to konoha AFTER the kyuubi thing bc they were hoping to avail themselves of the hospital (her mom's health stuff), which is why kaya gets pushed into becoming a medic/ninja. mariko is also encouraged but she would've done it anyway, so she genuinely felt no pressure abt that one lol

but this means there's a lot happening in terms of her family not knowing abt naruto and the kyuubi

so they're like 'rough around the edges but sweet kid who needs food' and they get backlash

that NO ONE can explain

lots of passive-aggressive pushback from the village, but it's literally illegal to tell them anything

and as far as they know uzumaki clan is respectable? like, tragic or whatever, but a big name, so this looks extra baffling to them

her parents actually contemplate leaving konoha a couple times (they're from the capital), but decide to stick it out long enough for the kids to finish academy/become established medics

mariko's family is ordinary, no secret bloodlines or political ties or anything, they just go to konoha bc konoha's hospital is supposed to be the best, can work literal miracles. so this is maybe a year post-kyuubi? i feel like konoha would be eager for some new blood at that pt still; they no doubt took a huge blow to their population, even besides the infrastructure and losing the yondaime, so mariko's family probably isn't the only one to do something similar.

kaya is at the perfect age to start academy, and they absolutely steer both their kids into becoming medics. there might even be weird politics abt providing chakra healing to non-ninja in situations that aren't life-threatening.

i think kanako and kenta would see them pushing their kids into medicine as smart. gathering from the context of canon and elaborating: w civilians, you're pretty limited to whatever the family business/trade is, and i think that ninja villages/being a ninja is actually a lot more egalitarian/meritocratic and free with this. let's maybe also include that they have daughters, and wouldn't be able to totally rely on passing down any business/trade unless they had someone marrying in. so giving their daughters a means of supporting themselves/earning personal prestige is smart.

but so kaya and mariko would be ninja--and thus valuable to the village--but not of a designation that puts them in any particular danger. i also think that being a medic from konoha is the sort of ninja profile that would carry a lot of social currency even with civilians. (this is why mariko's mom makes that comment abt her working in the palace. this also fits in w all the pts abt medicine and politics that we see in haku's chs.)

and yeah, i view the situation w mariko's family as a huge culture clash between--not just civilians and shinobi--but non-konoha civilians and the civilians that were raised in the village. even after over a decade of living there, they're outsiders, and made to feel like it because they had what they saw as basic decency towards their daughter's classmate and then had the audacity to be stubborn about it.

so yes, kenta and kanako were going to leave and move back to the capital once both of their daughters were graduated and working in the hospital. other fics have used as a device abt becoming a shinobi and receiving your hitai-ate as a marker of being a legal adult, and i'm running w that. as far as they're concerned, their daughters would then be adults with stable and respectable work and capable of sustaining themselves, and they could visit each other. i don't think this is irresponsible parenting.

ofc mariko getting assigned to team7 is a wrench in the works. like, a FIELD MEDIC?? （⊙_⊙）

but ok, ok, maybe it's not the worst? she's got a pretty capable sensei (forget that he's popularly nicknamed 'friend-killer kakashi') and naruto is a good boy. not...too sure abt that uchiha kid (they were around for the massacre and were this close to leaving for good bc of it) but it seems like it'll work out?

kaya would have a MUCH more realistic view of the situation than her parents, esp since she's dating a branch member of the hyuuga. but kaya's view is something along the lines of "let's just get mom and dad out of here asap" and then she and mariko can deal with their own problems. (i...really need to give kaya her own outtake...)

but yeah, everything is a disaster and it's delicious

[hellisanhonourstudent]

Luke being a bad person/doing bad things makes him more tragic as a character,not less

This is(mostly) a copy-paste from a meta I wrote on Reddit. Besides,I'm only talking about the books,the tv show is 100% ignored in this analysis.

Disclaimer:this isn't to excuse Luke's actions or to diminish their severity,it's just that his terrible deeds are a fundamental part of his character as a sympathetic villiain when it comes to both words,not just the latter one.

Luke's life was extremely turbulent. First,he was raised by a mother who not only couldn't properly raise her kid,but she also yelled about his terrible fate while her eyes had a supernatural glow. To top it all,Hermes didn't give any sign,no matter how much Luke prayed. An unpleasant way to get introduced to the divine,I'd say;

Because of May's "crises",Luke ran away from home. There,he had to deal with all of the crazy stuff homeless kids/teens have to,besides the monsters wanting him as breakfast. Perhaps it was during this time he learned about how dangerous the demigod life was,plus desensitization to violence - at least,the beginning of it. Another amount of time Luke prayed for help,but none came until he was 14. To top it all,Hermes said growing up in the streets "builds character";

Camp Half-Blood itself. It surely beats living in the streets(being protected from monsters,training,regular meals),but it's far from flawless. The place has a blasé attitude towards violence and death. Besides many demigods(especially unclaimed ones) going on suicidal missions just to get claimed and/or a smidge of the godly parent's affection,people get slaps on the wrists as punishments for maiming and killing other demigod campers during Capture The Flag(no desserts). If Luke wasn't indifferent towards murder before CHB,he surely became. Now that I think of it,Sally is the only one who deserves credit for Percy's moral code when it comes to authority figures;

After all that happened,Kronos appeared and decided to manipulate Luke. TBH,I think the failed quest was just the last drop. Luke had way too many reasons to get angry at the system,two decades of trauma(he was 19 in TLT,but I'll round it up). Kronos was a bad influence to Luke,using his ressentment to make Luke undego several kinds of decay - including moral;

Using seduction as a weapon on young teens isn't such a dealbreaker for me,as a Luke fan,and even that is part of the tragedy of Luke Castellan. Not only he had to grow up early and his ideas of youth are warped,but there's also the infamously small demigod lifespam. Besides,Luke's exposure to the good parts of the mortal USA moral code might very well be limited(not to mention he himself was unprotected by society). On a tangent,him falling for Annabeth is stupid - whether it's canon or not (I don't want to debate it). Rick wrote them as having a sibling relationship,makes a big deal about a "family promise",then decides to make a love triangle? Way to trash an emotional arc. Now,back to the main topic. Luke being a manipulator and victim of manipulation at the same time is a great way to show how "hurt people hurt people";

Negative emotions. Rick Riordan said Luke's fatal flaw was wrath,and it surely fits. However,another thing that repeatedly doomed Luke was some sort of emotional fragility. First,Luke said Kronos paid him compliments and gave him important stuff to do as a sign of appreciation. Then,the Titan Lord himself said Luke hated and envied Percy. Envy is very hurtful and often stems from a feeling of lack. Luke also was shown as someone who needed validation. From TLT(namely the praises),to TLO(Luke,hosting Kronos,mentioned something about how Chiron "said the gods cared about me"). Even to save Olympus,Annabeth had to offer Luke support.

[becca4leafclover]

Happy Holidays in my Creative World!

I turned my world into a winter wonderland and I COULD NOT BE MORE ELATED AT THIS DISCOVERY!!

We decided instead of celebrating a real-world holiday, this world celebrates its own unique one! Decennial Night is celebrated once every decade (because a world of gods doesn't need to celebrate every year or the holiday would get old fast,) and celebrates the arrival of the new decade!

(So yes its basically New Years but SHHH LET ME BE EXCITED)

The entrance to the holiday area is decorated in a light display! I always loved the Christmas lights cities around Europe would do that my family would visit so this is a little omage to that. Still trying to decide if they'll stay up year round!

The Decennial Torch is lit at sunset of Decennial Night, and burns orange until midnight. Then, at the moment of the new year being upon us, the flames turn blue! It's said that if you make a wish the moment the flames turn blue, there's a better chance the Universe will hear you and help make it come true :) (wish idea from my friend Cake, given on stream!)

Before midnight, people reminisce about their past 10 years- accomplishments and challenges, people who they've parted ways with. After midnight though, people dream about their next 10 years and all that will happen in them!

The stage is here year-round, and many artists will take the opportunity throughout the night to perform! There's also allotted times for people to come up and sing if they're brave enough (aka I sang on stream and discovered my mic is still broken LMAO)

The Holiday Market! A miniature version of the Weihnachtsmarkets from when I lived in Germany :P

Gift giving isn't a part of Decennial Night, but has become adjacent with the traditions of smaller holidays from people's homeworlds where it was a thing.

This project ended up being a LOT bigger than expected! It required me terraforming a hill I hadn't previously had any ideas for, and turning it into this large cliff to host the holiday area! Here's what it looks like without the snow

The compass rose actually has really helped me figure out what direction is where when using certain WorldEdit commands (//flip my BELOATHED) so it's less aesthetic and more functionality, but I'm glad it works to be here permanently LOL

Terraforming that hill then in turn gave me a reason to finally figure out what to do with an empty space by the statue I never knew what to do with... and it connects the end of the Shopping Caves to the statue rather well! I'd been struggling to get these outskirts tied together for a while so I'm glad it worked out :D

The gated area is more of a "meta" area, for me to store statues and builds that I can swap out in the holiday area year round! So far it's just Betsy and Decennial Night stuff, but I hope that in time I can have a really cool display area of different events and mementos from playing in the world!

In case I don't get to stream again before 2024, happy New Year!

[qqueenofhades]

For me w socmed its like. Everyone acts like its this hugely necessary public utility where your presence and "engagement" is MANDATORY, like your face your name your historical takes for the communal lederboard, and its like. Ok yes facebook insta twitter and tik tok HAVE starved real reporting institutions etc at this point, but its also like. All the people for all those years screeching abt tweets and acting like twitter was this hugely relevant public square were largely working IN media!!! So its like ofc it was hugely important to them, but for me?? I didnt need to see endless puff-piece articles ginning up clap backs on twitter from 2015 onward. I dont have an account!! It didnt enter my life!! Until all these people manifested twitter as this essentially public utility. AND NONE OF IT!!!!! is necessary!!!!!! Or required!!!!! To live life!!! But increasingly they're making it harder and harder for that to be true. And its like. You Could Just Log Off. For the love of god!!!!!!!!!

I think that for this, as usual, we can blame Facebook, who made it MANDATORY to have your real name/picture and interact on the internet as your "real life" self (whatever that means). And yes, there is some limited amount of value in that since the 90s were consumed with the "Scary Internet Where Scary Unknown People Are Scary," but the idea that it will make people more responsible has turned out to be total BS. Instead, people WILL post the most heinous and reprehensible shit under their own names on Facebook/Twitter, and it has empowered them to do more of that/build monetized followings out of being totally vile turdburglars, rather than less. Because it turns out that when you build a machine that rewards the rats for being awful, it incentivizes them to be MORE awful, so yeah. That whole "using your real name promotes accountability!!!" turns out to be a total lie, and, uh. Meta/Facebook just got fined €1.2 BILLION (approximately $1.3 billion) in Ireland for breaching EU data privacy rules, so it's not like they did anything good with it.

And like... no. None of it IS necessary. Sure, it can be lots of fun, it plays to the inherent self-absorption of most people (often too much so, truly), it's a good way to keep in contact with casual acquaintainces/extended family/people you don't see often, and etc etc. But we don't NEED any of it. There are other communication tools that humans have used successfully for millennia, and especially since the owners of social media have consistently pushed a platform that prioritizes any kind of engagement at any cost, where facts, truth, and/or the basic framework of democracy and civic society doesn't matter against the almighty pursuit of profit, I'm really not sure at this point that there's any way to argue that it hasn't been corrosively destructive. Even if you do use it and take some value out of it, you still have to acknowledge that it exists in this horribly distorted paradigm in so many ways.

Social media is not going away, obviously, and attempts to regulate it often tend to veer too far into "destroy the internet" territory, especially as conservatives want to gut Section 230 and liberals haven't figured out how to meaningfully moderate it without signing onto bills that give a lot of room to deliberate bad actors. (SCOTUS did recently decline to dismantle Section 230, so things are staying the way they are, for now.) So... yeah. We still have to figure out how to live with it and to find some way to make it overall a useful tool again, rather than just a boundlessly destructive one.

[erstwhilesparrow]

haven't made a list of thoughts in a while. thought exorcism time:

i feel like i've told this story a billion times but when i started university i told myself, "okay, that was a fun little summer jaunt writing fic and all, but you gotta chill now and focus on school stuff," and then i just could not do it at all. i'd have a google doc open on my laptop to add a couple sentences to it in the ten minute break between classes. i'd walk around campus thinking about editing this or that sentence. my friend turned to me while we were hanging out yesterday and told me something to the effect of, "i like writing, but i don't think i need to write in the way that you need to write." sometimes i think about what i would do if i had to stop writing for any reason and then i have to sit down for a few minutes. saying this in text i feel like-- a joke character? like how the fuck am i a real person that exists in the world and is like this. it is nevertheless true that i am like this!

so if i were to attempt narrativizing mcsos, there's two directions we could go here. one is to look at what's been produced so far and make a story about that, the other is to consider "if i were asked what sort of plot beats might be fun and interesting to do on this server starting from our current point in time, what would i say?" and the looking back direction i think is just. it's a game. lean into the themes, you know? everything you do is a love letter to the world, and in some ways, the game is the practice run for the love letter you are writing with your life beyond the game. and i also am thinking about that post that's like "minecraft's natural generation feels like an invitation to build on top of it," to smooth out the rough edges and make it look ~more like the thing you are expecting? i like the idea of the universe taking these players and going, "okay, here, for this brief span, inhabit these breakable little bodies and help me build a world with a history. help me make a place that people have been." and it works with the Not Doing Lore because none of the players are strictly Playing Characters, but they have ideas about the sorts of people who would be In This Place. owen's skeletons in the jungle are, yes, literally a place he is living for now, but they are also making someone else's story and putting it into the world, even if we never meet or know about that someone else. pix's massive excavation is a story about people who could pull chunks of the world up into the sky, and this is what pix's story is, but it's also not about him -- he is building a history that didn't happen, or at least didn't happen to him-as-excavator. i think there are ways to tell this story that make it ring true to what the videos give us and still Make It A Story.

another bullet point for the other direction: when the first mcsos videos were posted and people kept making "no lore! ;)" jokes and all the SOS promo material seemed like it was about people in modern day clothes stranded out in a weird magical wilderness, i mentioned to a friend that it would be really fun if what happened was a story about building a world so well it eats you. "we're not doing lore," they say. "it's just a game and we're just going to play it as a game." and it is a game, for a while, and they really aren't trying to tell any story, and then things beyond their control start happening and they become increasingly trapped in this world and they're not telling a story here but a story is demanding to be told anyway. this can also be about the horrors of being a creator, probably.

i do think that in conversation with an empty room and a microphone isn't even nearly as good as some of the stuff that was inspired by it, but i also don't care at all because i'm so fucking pleased that that fic did almost exactly the thing i wanted it to. i get why people are not always on the "all fic is meta" train but this is the train i am on and there is not much more satisfying than knowing that i played in a role in a really really interesting and ongoing Conversation Via Fic. it doesn't matter that i maybe didn't say everything i could have with that fic; other people can and have and will fill in those gaps!! it rules!! it's so cool!! i like this fact a lot. forgive me being sentimental.

[all of the other thoughts that would go here have to be redacted because i'm STILL not done outsiders and i am saving those thoughts for after i'm done to avoid people spoiling things]

[natedogx15]

Kamen Rider Deku Mission 15: The Next Phase

Previous Chapter / AO3 / Master List

In one of the office buildings of Deika City's central tower, the Meta Liberation Army executives are meeting about the Kamen Riders. The room is dark, with the only light playing being a projector showing various data they've collected on the Kamen Riders over time.

They're reviewing Deku's performance against Overdrive Nomu and how fast he and the Plus Striker are

"It's impressive that they can have such speed and control to keep up with that Nomu. They're quicker than any of our warriors, I would say." Trumpet says with an intrigued smile as they watch the chase happen.

"Yes. That motorcycle is faster than any support item my company has created. Not only that, it uses the same system as its rider." Re-Destro nods in agreement as the tall man, who recorded him and Giran, pulls up footage of Plus Striker using the Barrier Power Coin.

"It's amazing. I wonder what the capabilities of the system are. It's too bad we can't just take the one wielded by the one Slidin' Go and Shinonome without drawing suspicion. I'd love to see what the inside of such a revolutionary device looks like." Curious says with her usual smile as she watches the different videos.

"I wouldn't mind having our scientists look into them as well. Amazing job as always in collecting data, Skeptic." Re-Destro says while he smiles at the tall man.

"It was a simple task with the resources of Feel Good Industries, Grand Commander." Skeptic nods.

"So, what will our next move be?" Trumpet asks calmly, much to Skeptic's annoyance.

"Obviously, we'll try to find a weakness from the data gathered." He tells Trumpet in a somewhat condescending manner.

Trumpet rolls his eyes at his fellow executive's antics as Re-Destro speaks up.

"That's one of the reasons for this meeting. Another is that I'm having Geten look for a warrior who can wield the proto-type duplicate of the Driver the Kamen Riders use. I was wondering if any of you had any suggestions as well." Re-Destro tells them.

"Unfortunately, I don't know any warriors around me that can wield it." Trumpet tells Re-Destro.

"It's the same for me. I can't think of anyone." Skeptic nods.

The only one not denying it is Curious, who has a finger to her chin as she thinks about those around her.

"I might have someone in mind to test the device and make sure it's safe. He's a rather brave man who works as a security guard at my company. I'm sure he'd be more than willing to test the Driver for our cause. Do you plan to give it to Geten when you know it's safe?" She asks her leader with a smile, causing him to nod.

"Yes. Geten's Meta Ability has already gone through its awakening. Should we give him another way to enhance it, he may even be capable of fighting All Might, and our revolution can happen sooner than initially intended." Re-Destro says with a confident smirk that excites the others.

"Having the next All Might be on the side of our cause would greatly increase our influence. People would believe this was meant to happen and that your ancestor was right from the beginning, Grand Commander." Trumpet says with a pleased smile.

"Imagine how many hearts I could claim for the army by doing a story on Geten's life and his constant training for the Meta Liberation Army's belief. Everyone loves the story of a hard-working underdog whose efforts let them rise to greatness." Curious says happily while imagining publishing the article after Geten's debut and getting the M.L.A. more recruits.

Skeptic doesn't say anything but smiles at the prospect of their revolution taking off quicker with far more firepower than expected.

"Yes, yes. That's all perfect. However, we mustn't get carried away. We don't know how strong that device is or if it will help Geten's Meta Ability." Re-Destro chastizes the revolution leaders.

The leaders calm themselves from their excitement, and Re-Destro continues.

"Now, we have a good amount of information on each of the powers the Kamen Riders have used. Deku seems to be the most well-rounded of the group, with abilities that work to enhance his already incredible abilities along with long-range attacks, such as this Petrification Power Finish." Re-Destro states while the scene of Deku using the Solidification Power Coin against Overdrive Nomu is shown.

"On the other hand, Chamber is a mainly long-range Kamen Rider but does seem to have a mid-range form that relies on invisibility or camouflage," Re-Destro states while images of both Chamber's forms appear for the executives to see.

"Finally, the Kamen Rider we're trying to get on our side. King Explosion Murder." Re-Destro says as Katsuki's image appears onscreen along with his Kamen Rider form.

"From what Slidin' Go has told me, trying to get him on our side has been difficult. He has his mind set on only becoming the number one hero and isn't interested in anything else. All he cares about is the chance to be seen as the strongest." Skeptic states.

"Yes. He's a wild card but is also one of our more promising candidates for new warriors if his history at Aldera is anything to go by. He's apparently smart and has a lot of natural talent. With his Meta Ability, he'd make him the perfect warrior and possibly give him a chance to usurp Geten's position as the strongest warrior to our cause. Especially if we can get him to join us while he's wielding the Driver." Re-Destro states while holding up a file of Katsuki given to him by the Aldera Middle and Aldera High School principals.

"The problem is how we can get him to side with us. And how to do it without drawing suspicion to us." Trumpet nods.

"Exactly. Slidin' Go has told me his teachings haven't been going well. Luckily, from what I've been told, he likely won't hesitate to attack the other Kamen Riders when given the chance again." Re-Destro tells them with a smile.

"That's comforting to know. Even if he's not a part of our cause yet, he's still willing to help us by weakening the other two." Trumpet says with a content smile of his own.

"Yes. That's why I believe the key to our victory is to separate the Kamen Riders so two will be in one place. We'll give our wildcard the chance to take his anger out on the other Kamen Riders while forcing another to fight alone." Re-Destro explains.

"So, we're going to have our wildcard battle one of the Kamen Riders and soften them up for us?" The only female executive asks with a cheerful smile, much to Skeptic's annoyance.

"Obviously. The real question is, who do we make fight the Nomu, and who will fight our Kamen Rider?" He tells her.

This question causes the executives to fall silent as they think about the best course of action.

"Wouldn't it be best to have Deku face off against K.E.M. since his history with Deku made Shinonome choose him?" Trumpet asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Plus, since Chamber is a long-range specialist, it may be easier to handle him with a Nomu than Deku. We can just find someone with a speed Quirk who will easily close the distance against him." Curious states in agreement.

However, Skeptic has other plans.

"I say the one we should make fight King Explosion Murder is Chamber. Lately, they've been at each other's throats more than King Explosion Murder and Deku. Also, Chamber has displayed more experience and tactical thinking, constantly putting himself in a position where his range gives him the advantage. Let's not forget about his new form." Skeptic states calmly.

Re-Destro doesn't say anything as his executives discuss what to do. He can see their points and isn't sure what to do. Finally, after a few minutes of debate, he makes his decision.

-------------------

In Hisashi and David's lab, the two put the final touches on the fourth Hero Driver to ensure it's running right.

"Looks like everything's running right. Get some of the test Power Coins ready so we can test the power output of the nanotech." David tells Hisashi as he sets the Hero Driver on a table with multiple scanners.

Hisashi nods and goes toward a cabinet. He opens it to reveal different sets of Power Coins. He quickly takes a few and heads toward the Hero Driver. He quickly inserts one, and David checks the real-time data it's displaying from the scanners.

"Everything looks good for emitters," David tells him.

Hisashi nods and inserts another.

"Transformation looks good too." David nods.

Moving onto the last one, Hisashi inserts it, and David frowns when he sees that data.

"Something seems off with the mutant-type Quirks. The output is a little sporadic." David warns Hisashi, who frowns in response.

"Let me see," Hisashi says while walking toward David to see the problem.

Just as David says, the power output being shown is moving at a sporadic rate.

"Huh. Well, it's not like we didn't expect this. Mutant Quirks are the most difficult to copy since they have a more permanent effect over the other two types." Hisashi mutters as he tries to figure out where the problem may lie.

"True. We may have to re-check the analyzer again. It may just be a small glitch like last time." David nods as he types a few things on the computer.

Hisashi groans in annoyance when he hears that.

"I can't believe people will want to mass-produce these eventually. It takes so much time to finish one of them. Plus, it takes laser surgeon-like precision to guarantee that it works." Hisashi grunts as he prepares to open the Hero Driver. 

"Well, you know people. They always want more." David laughs as he walks over to help Hisashi.

"Don't I know it? Plenty of the heroes I've made equipment for always wanted me to improve the design of something I made for them so they have a better chance to get up in the rankings." Hisashi says, annoyance clear in his tone.

"We can probably develop a mass-production model by cutting back on some things," David tells him.

"Probably. We'll work on the design later after we finish working on the Hero Drivers." Hisashi tells him.

-------------------

While plots are being formed, Izuku and Shiki are with Toshinori for their usual beach training. Compared to the beginning, Izuku is showing clear improvements in physical ability by continuing to lift various medium-sized pieces of trash like Shiki. Shiki isn't far behind in growth, either.

"So, how have things been with you?" Shiki asks as he carries a refrigerator door off the beach next to Izuku, who's holding a beaten-up trashcan.

"They've been going good. I'm starting to get used to everything, I think." He tells Shiki.

"That's good. I'm glad you're getting used to everything. It'll make things easier when we try out for U.A." Shiki nods before setting the door in Toshinori's truck.

Izuku's eyes widen at the reminder of U.A.

"That's right. I've been so busy that I forgot the entrance exam will be in a few months. It's a good thing I already sent in my application." Izuku thinks in relief as he follows Shiki's lead and sets the trashcan in the truck.

After doing this, he looks toward the horizon.

"It feels weird. After everything I've been through these last couple of months, the idea of the entrance exams doesn't feel as scary. In fact, I'm looking forward to it." Izuku thinks with a smile.

"You realize we can't use our Kamen Rider forms for it, right?" Shiki randomly asks Izuku, causing his brain to pause.

"What?" Izuku asks in confusion.

Shiki continues, thinking Izuku wasn't listening to him.

"We can't use our Kamen Rider forms. We don't want people spreading rumors that the Kamen Riders weren't even in a hero school when they started saving people. We can use other things like our weapons, but not the armor." Shiki states to Izuku.

Suddenly, Izuku's bravado disappears as he realizes it'll be up to his physical abilities without being transformed. He crouches and begins to mumble to himself about the possibilities. Shiki sweatdrops at this reaction.

"Did I say something wrong? I thought he already knew. Did he really think we could use the form for an exam where people can see us and tell everyone?" Shiki questions in his mind as he stares at Izuku.

"Are you okay?" Shiki awkwardly asks as he stares at the panicking Izuku.

"What am I going to do? Will I be able to handle the exam without my body being enhanced? I'll be the only one between us to fail, and All Might will hate me because I took up the precious time he could have used to save people." Izuku continues to mutter as he thinks about multiple bad scenarios.

Shiki's sweatdrop grows when he sees his partner's reaction to his question.

"I kind of feel bad now." Shiki thinks before trying to shake Izuku out of his stupor.

"Hey. Calm down. You still have a good chance of getting in without the armor." Shiki tells his friend as he finally wakes Izuku up.

"R-really?" Izuku asks hopefully as he looks at Shiki as if he's on the verge of crying.

"Yes. We can still use weapons like the Power Blade, and we have another advantage most people don't." Shiki tells him to try and cheer the teen up.

"What?" Izuku asks curiously, and Shiki motions toward Toshinori. Who is currently going over something on his phone and not paying attention to them.

"We're being trained by All Might himself. That's something most people, especially our age, can say. Not only that, we're also getting real experience. That's something only vigilantes have over other applicants." Shiki tells him.

Izuku thinks about Shiki's words before realizing he's right. Most applicants for a hero school have little to no experience unless they break the law by becoming vigilantes or have a hero in their family since those family members can often help them train. He and Shiki would have a clear advantage in the U.A. exam due to their experience as Kamen Riders.

"You're right. But we don't have Quirks either. That could be a problem still." Izuku tells him.

"We're not going up against Nomu during the exam. Our weapons and training should be more than enough." Shiki tells him with a calm shrug.

Izuku still looks unsure, and Shiki sighs.

"We'll be fine, Midoriya," Shiki reassures him.

"Quite right. You two can handle anything that comes your way with proper training and by sticking together." Toshinori tells them as he walks toward them, having heard only the end of their conversation.

The two turn toward their teacher as he smiles at them.

"I want you two to remember. Heroes often work together to accomplish a common goal, even if they have to compete for attention. Teamwork is important for heroes so the people will feel safe with them around." Toshinori tells the two.

Izuku and Shiki nod at his words, causing Toshinori's smile to widen.

"Good. Now, back to your training. Time waits for no one." Toshinori orders while pointing toward the beach.

With a sigh, the two quickly get back to work. As they do, they're both thinking about their futures.

"I can't believe the entrance exam is only a few months away. Am I really ready for it?" Despite Shiki's best efforts, Izuku is still nervous about his chances, given the acceptance percentage of U.A.

On the other hand, Shiki has a determined glare and seems to be pushing himself a little more than before.

"I'm going to get into U.A. I have to. The best way to become a strong hero is to go there." Shiki thinks while lifting another large piece of garbage and power-walking toward Toshinori's truck.

Toshinori watches the two work and can't help but smile at their progress.

"Both of them are showing real signs of change. One of them might be worthy to inherit my title." Toshinori thinks as he keeps a close eye on the two.

He then looks at his palm before clenching it into a fist.

"I'm running out of time. I can barely keep my strength up for a few hours now. I may need to choose a successor soon." Toshinori thinks with an angry scowl.

"Hopefully, I can finish him off before I run out of time. I'm sure he's still alive. The Nomu prove that." Thinking along those lines causes the scar on his torso to start acting up with phantom pains, and he winches.

"I shouldn't have let him get to me. The suffering and Nomu are my fault. I can't leave it to the next generation." Toshinori thinks with a tone of finality before returning to observing his students.

He watches as Shiki determinedly puts more pieces of trash in his truck while Izuku seems to be moving somewhat sluggishly like he's thinking about something.

"They don't deserve to suffer for my mistake." Toshinori thinks.

-------------------

Days after that, Slidin' Go is on his phone with Skeptic.

"That is our current plan for the Kamen Riders," Skeptic informs him about the executive's plans.

"Alright. I'll try to make sure Bakugou works with one of the other Kamen Riders." Slidin' Go nods, knowing his boss doesn't like it when he asks questions.

"Good," Skeptic says before hanging up.

Slidin' Go sighs as he looks at his phone while rubbing the back of his head.

"How am I supposed to do that when neither wants to be near him and are usually together? It's more likely that they'll already be near each other." Slidin' Go mutters as he tries to figure out how to separate Deku and Chamber.

"This is going to be tough." Slidin' Go complains before sighing and getting to work.

-------------------

Somewhere else, Izuku and Shiki are heading to school on Izuku's Plus Striker.

"So, are you feeling better about the entrance exams?" Shiki asks while holding onto Izuku.

"I-I think so. I think you're right. We do have a good chance of getting into U.A.," Izuku tells him with a nod.

"It's not like we can aim for anything lower. Most schools with a hero course have a ban on people without Quirks even trying out. Besides, we'll likely get into the General Studies Course. So, we'll have the chance to get into the Hero Course later on." Shiki explains to him.

"Wow, you know a lot about this." Izuku can't help but praise his friend.

Sure, he's a hero nerd. But his hobby usually involved studying different heroes and their Quirks. Of course, he's kept up with other hero subjects, such as schools. But U.A. was more secretive and protective with their curriculum since it's the best school in Japan for heroics.

"It comes with being the grandson of the Hero Public Safety Commission chairman. I learned a lot that others don't about heroics. And I do mean a lot." Shiki states calmly while checking to make sure his helmet is secure.

"Really?" Izuku asks excitedly.

"Yeah. I might know more than you. Hard to say, though. I've heard you are a heavy hero nerd." Shiki tells him with a shrug.

Hearing this makes Izuku more excited about talking to Shiki. However, something comes to his mind when he keeps hearing Shiki discuss his grandfather instead of his parents.

"Hey, Hikage. What are your parents like? I've only seen you're grandfather, and they weren't at your apartment when I visited." Izuku asks curiously.

Unknown to Izuku, Shiki winches when he hears that but answers anyway.

"They're not around that much. They're both heroes that travel often." Shiki tells Izuku calmly.

"That's cool. What are their names? Maybe I've heard of them." Izuku says excitedly.

"I'll tell you later. We're almost to school now. So, we don't have time if you want to fanboy over them." Shiki quickly states as he sees the school in the distance.

"Alright." Izuku nods.

-------------------

Unknown to the two, the Meta Liberation Army is about to begin their latest plan.

"I'm in position." A male warrior with a shaved head, slightly tanned skin, and brown eyes says into an earpiece.

The man is wearing a black shirt with a skull, blue jeans, and black boots that go a bit above the ankles.

"Good. You sure you're Meta Ability will be able to separate the Kamen Riders when you see them?" A feminine voice asks into his earpiece.

"Yeah. It should work without a problem. I've practiced with it before we got here and have a pretty good idea of how it works." The man states.

"Good. I'll be ready to pounce on them as soon as we see them." The female voice nods.

The man doesn't say anything and looks toward a roof where a woman with long black hair, pale skin, green reptile-like eyes, and skin-colored scales around her cheeks. She's dressed in a long-sleeve black shirt with diagonal dark green stripes, turquoise green jeans, and beige flats.

Seeing she's up there. The man takes a deep breath and starts morphing into his Nomu form.

The man's Nomu form gives him pitch-black skin with a grey belly and legs. His face elongates into a reptile-like one as his skull separates to reveal his brain, and his eyes turn golden. Purple pants replace his clothes as his body bulks until he can dwarf Death Arms, and he seems to grow a tail. Finally, purple scales that wouldn't look out of place on a stegosaurus grow from his back to the end of his tail.

With his transformation done, the man growls like a predator in the wild before charging out of his hiding place and slamming into an oncoming car. The driver screams in a panic and quickly gets out as Stego Nomu picks the vehicle up and throws it at another one.

"Bring me the Kamen Riders!" Stego Nomu screams at the top of his lungs before getting on all fours, and the scales on his back and tail fire in different directions. The scales pierce through anything in their path like a spear through paper, and Stego Nomu regrows his scales instantly to perform a rapid fire of this.

When the two un-transformed Kamen Riders see this, Izuku immediately skids them to a halt while Shiki has to duck to avoid getting his head cut off.

"Get us somewhere to hide! Now!" Shiki shouts in alarm as he sees Stego Nomu's scales regrow, and he's about to fire another volley.

Izuku quickly turns on the gas and drives them toward a corner they passed before to get out of Stego Nomu's line of sight. After turning that corner, Izuku lets up, and the two park. It takes a little bit for them to get their bearings from the sudden Nomu, though.

"Okay. Do these guys have nothing better to do? That was way too close for comfort." Shiki says as he puts a hand to his heart to try and calm it down.

Izuku isn't in better shape. He's shaking a bit from the shock as he tries to relax. After a few moments, the two calm their nerves. When they do, they see most people are busy doing their own thing or heading toward where the screaming is to see the heroes fight.

"Looks like we have room to transform," Shiki tells Izuku before the two duck behind a truck and pull out their Hero Drivers.

They insert their respective Power Coins simultaneously and cause their Hero Drivers to sync with the other as they announce.

"Rabbit + Quirkless, blank match/Rifle + Quirkless, blank match."

Following the synchronization of their Hero Drivers, the two turn the keys simultaneously without realizing it. Causing smoke to envelop them both.

"JUMP, JUMP, REACH FOR THE MOON, JUMPING RABBIT/READY, AIM; I'VE GOT YOU IN MY SIGHTS, SNIPER RIFLE!"

When the smoke clears, both Kamen Riders are ready.

"Kamen Rider Deku/Chamber!"

That announcement draws a few eyes in their direction.

"It's the Kamen Riders!" Someone says excitedly.

"Go take that villain down!" Another person says.

"Go, heroes!" A young boy says happily as the Kamen Riders run past them.

As soon as Stego Nomu sees the two, he grins.

"Perfect. They're here." He says into his earpiece.

"I see that. Make sure to separate them." The woman orders.

"You're finally here, Kamen Riders. You're about to be destroyed by the dino might of Stegogai." The newly named Stegogai announces before charging toward the Kamen Riders, slamming any vehicle in his path to the side as he does so.

The Kamen Riders see him coming, and Chamber fires upon Stegogai with his wrist-mounted guns while Deku equips the Mighty Knuckle. However, the bullets don't seem to slow Stegogai down. He continues to charge toward them while raising his fists above his head. Seeing that the attacks aren't working, Deku runs toward Stegogai with the Mighty Knuckle ready to deliver a punch.

"I need to dive in close to hit him." Deku thinks as he and Stegogai are about to meet.

But before he can meet Stegogai, the dinosaur-themed Nomu slams his fists into the ground and causes the earth around him to move like waves in the ocean. This attack sends Deku flying and pushes him and Chamber to opposite sides of the street as Stegogai stands before them.

Chamber shakes his head and moves to stand up. Before he can, though, he feels talons latch onto his shoulders before picking him up and quickly bringing him into the air. After taking a second to get over the shock of his current situation, Chamber looks behind him to see a feminine Nomu who looks like a pterodactyl is the one carrying him off the ground.

"Sorry. But we can't have you two work together. But don't worry. I'll let you have a partner for our playtime. You can call me Terra Swoop, by the way. As you might have guessed, we're here to take you down." The Nomu says in a mischievous and slightly sadistic tone as she increases their speed to get him further away from Deku before either Kamen Rider can try anything to stop her.

Deku sees Chamber being taken away as he recovers and screams.

"Chamber!"

He gets up and is about to equip his Power Blade to fire upon Terra Swoop before getting slammed into a building by Stegogai.

"No, you don't. You and I will be fighting mano a mano while my friend deals with him." Stegogai says confidently before grabbing Deku's leg and throwing him into a car across the street.

Stegogai follows this up by getting on all fours and charging toward Deku. As he does, he fires the top spines on his back at the prone Kamen Rider. Deku barely looks up in time to see them and pull himself out of the way. He then has to jump back to avoid Stegogai's charge but gets hit with a tail swing before he can do anything else.

Deku groans as he crashes to the ground again.

"Wow. This guy is fast for his size. He's strong, too. He's using his Quirks amazingly. I can't even tell which is his real Quirk." Deku thinks before finding his leg getting grabbed again.

Not wanting history to repeat itself, Deku quickly uses the Mighty Knuckle to punch the arm holding his leg before Stegogai can lift him too far off the ground. The force from the punch causes Stegogai to let him go and take a couple of steps back while rubbing his hand.

"Man. You do pack a punch. No wonder the other guys couldn't get the job done if only one of you packed that much power." Stegogai says in slight irritation as the pain starts to subside.

Deku quickly takes advantage of Stegogai's shock to distance himself from Stegogai and regain his bearings.

"Good. I managed to get away from him, and the Mighty Knuckle can hurt him on its own. If it's like this, I can probably beat him if I keep moving. Should I run toward the Plus Striker, just in case?" He wonders in his mind as he raises his fists in a fighting stance.

"I was hoping this job wouldn't be too easy. It wouldn't do us any good if the Kamen Riders were weak. Besides, it's more fun to beat the crap out of someone to get what you want." Stegogai says as he cracks his knuckles before charging toward Deku.

-------------------

With Chamber and Terra Swoop. The Kamen Rider is struggling to get away from the pterodactyl-like Nomu. However, every time he tries something like shooting her or reaching for his Power Coins, she maneuvers herself to stop him by suddenly diving, corkscrewing, looping, or letting her hold go to grab another part of his body.

After some time, she releases him and throws him into the window of a school building. When Chamber collects himself, he sees that he's in a classroom. More specifically, Katsuki's classroom.

"Woah!"

"What's happening?"

"It's a Kamen Rider!" Someone shouts excitedly.

"Awesome!"

"Wait. He was thrown through a window. Is a Nomu here?"

As his classmates start panicking, Katsuki growls at how Chamber is thrown into his classroom before running out of the room. Luckily, Slidin' Go gave him some lee-way today and let him keep the Hero Driver on him. But while having the chance to turn into a Kamen Rider is nice, it annoys him that he has to hide to transform and can't show that he's the best to the extras around him.

Back with Chamber, he's standing up but doesn't have a chance to do anything else as Terra Swoop flies through the hole she made with him and slams beak first into him, causing the windows and wall behind him to break as they leave the classroom and he lands in the school's track field.

"What's the matter, Kamen Rider? Can't get your feet off the ground? I thought you could fly. I guess I was wrong. I'll bet I was wrong about your aim too." Terra Swoop mocks him as she flies in place by flapping her wings.

Chamber glares when he hears this and equips the Ultra Magnum. He tries to hit her, but Terra Swoop quickly soars out of the bullets' paths, and Chamber has trouble keeping up with her speed. He soon hits the ground again when Terra Swoop divebombs him again and crashes into his chest.

"Looks like I was right about your aim being terrible." She mocks again before needing to dodge an explosion courtesy of the school's resident secret hero.

"Die!" He shouts as he uses his explosions to propel after the Nomu.

Despite his best efforts, he can't keep up with Terra Swoop. That doesn't stop him, though. All it does is anger him more, which he uses to fuel himself and continue chasing her while trying to figure out how to catch her.

As K.E.M. tries to catch Terra Swoop, Chamber gets up and looks through his Power Coins for something to help him shoot her down. After a second, he chooses his new go-to Power Coin, the Dragonfly Power Coin, and inserts it into the Ultra Magnum.

"Dragonfly Power Finish!" The Hero Driver announces as Chamber fires bullets with sporadic flight patterns at K.E.M. and Terra Swoop.

Terra Swoop sees these incoming bullets and secretly smirks.

"Time to put the plan into action. Let's see how you like this." Terra Swoop thinks as she concentrates on the bullets while K.E.M. is charging behind her.

As the bullets are about to surround and pierce Terra Swoop, they suddenly change flight paths and fly toward K.E.M.

K.E.M. is shocked at the sudden shift and is hit by the bullets in full force, causing him to crash to the ground while Terra Swoop charges toward a shocked Chamber. She slams into him and drags him across the ground before she picks him up and soars straight up. She then dives back down and sends Chamber flying into K.E.M.

"Get off me, you useless shit!" K.E.M. shouts as he kicks Chamber off him.

Chamber grunts as he gets up while glaring at K.E.M. and trying to figure out what happened. However, he doesn't have long, as K.E.M. grabs and lifts him off the ground.

"What was that, you worthless fuck? You shot me instead of the Nomu!" He shouts into Chamber's face with a tone full of venom.

"I don't know. It must be one of her Quirks. I was aiming to take her out." Chamber tells him as he pushes K.E.M. off him.

Their fight amuses Terra Swoop before choosing to end it by diving toward them again. The two Kamen Riders don't notice her until she's close to them and don't have time to avoid the hit.

From the ground, Chamber growls and fires at Terra Swoop with her wrist-mounted guns. Luckily, one of the bullets managed to hit her, causing her to falter slightly.

"Why, you little." She grunts in slight pain and surprise as Chamber continues to fire at her.

-------------------

Back with Deku, he's currently ducking under a punch from Stegogai before delivering an uppercut to Stegogai's chin. However, the Nomu sees this coming and quickly intercepts the punch by grabbing Deku's arm before throwing him to the side.

Not wanting to stay on the ground long, Deku quickly springs back to his feet by running forward to keep out of Stegogai's grip. He turns around just in time to see Stegogai, with his back turned to him, about to fire his spines at the Kamen Rider.

Seeing this, Deku instinctively reaches for his Power Coins and manages to pull out the Barrier Power Coin and insert it into the Mighty Knuckle.

"Barrier Slam Finish!" The Hero Driver shouts as Deku slams the Mighty Knuckle into the ground to create a green barrier around him that blocks the incoming spines while they crack the barrier upon impact.

Stegogai turns around in time to see the barrier dissipate and glares at the Kamen Rider.

"Alright. You're as annoyingly tough as they said you were. But you won't be able to beat my combination of Meta Abilities." The stegosaurus Nomu tells him as he prepares to charge again, not knowing that his words cause Deku's eyes to widen in surprise.

"He's referring to his Quirks as Meta Abilities, too, like with the Paper Nomu." Deku thinks as he jumps over Stegogai, causing the Nomu to crash into the wall behind him.

He then follows this up by charging at him and delivering a strike to Stegogai's butt, with the Mighty Knuckle, pushing him deeper into the wall.

"Why, you little," Stegogai growls as he gets up and turns toward the Kamen Rider.

Only to be met with a boot to the face courtesy of a dropkick from Deku before the Kamen Rider uses his face to jump back again. The full-body kick causes Stegogai to stagger back while holding his face in pain.

"Good. It looks like I'm doing some damage to him without the Power Coins." Seeing this makes Deku happy, knowing he's not as weak as he first thought due to the damage done already, even if it's only minor.

However, his happiness is short-lived when Stegogai throws a table near him at Deku and sends him crashing into the concrete. Stegogai then follows it up by charging at Deku and jumping to try and land on him with the entirety of his weight. Deku sees this and panics before rolling to the side. The force behind Stegogai's landing leaves cracks in the concrete.

Deku quickly gets off the ground while equipping the Power Blade in his other hand. He then turns the blade and grip around so the gun muzzle is pointing behind the blade.

He charges at Stegogai and slashes at Stegogai. The blade doesn't cut into Stegogai's tough skin, but Deku doesn't give up. He quickly pulls the trigger on the Power Blade and uses the extra force from the gunshot to force the Power Blade into Stegogai's skin.

Stegogai grunts and quickly slams the arm Deku is cutting into him, sending the Kamen Rider skidding a few feet back. He tries to follow this up with a straight, using his other arm, but Deku ducks under this attack and launches his own punch with the Mighty Knuckle. The force from the weapon sends Stegogai skidding back before he falls forward and gets on all fours. He then launches the top spines at Deku to stop him from getting too close.

Deku instinctively jumps in the air to avoid the shots, but that opens him up for the other spines on Stegogai's back and tail. Deku tries to use his arms to block the attacks, but it doesn't help much, and he falls on his side in pain.

Stegogai takes this chance to charge at him. Luckily, Deku is one step ahead of him this time. While in the air, he reached into his Power Coin holder and pulled out a Power Coin before hitting the ground.

He inserts that Power Coin into the Power Blade, causing the Hero Driver to shout.

"Swamp Power Finish!"

Deku quickly slams the blade of his sword into the ground and the ground before it starts turning into sludgy water, heading toward Stegogai in a wide arc. The Nomu doesn't have time to dodge it and finds his feet stuck.

"Really, A makeshift tar pit since I'm a dinosaur? Too bad for you. This dinosaur has a way to fight against it." Stegogai says as he slams his hands into the muddy water.

This causes ripples within it before it explodes and goes everywhere, freeing him. Deku stares in shock as that move has hardly failed him besides when Overdrive Nomu jumped over it.

"Surprised? We've studied your moves and worked out good ways to counter them. All for the glory of our revolution. You won't be able to beat me with your usual tactics. I can easily break out of any trap you set. Even if it's that weird ability where you petrify someone." Stegogai says while pointing toward Deku with a confident tone.

Hearing this causes Deku to tense up.

"Wait. If they've studied my moves, does that mean they studied Hikage's too?" He thinks, suddenly even more worried about his friend after he was taken away.

"You don't have time to be thinking about other things. Especially since I'm done playing around." Stegogai says before slamming his hand on the ground again and sending a wave of earth at Deku.

Seeing this causes Deku to jump to the side, but Stegogai already predicted that. He got on all fours and fired the top spikes on his back at the hero, hitting him in the arm and causing him to drop the Power Blade in pain. Stegogai follows this up by charging while still on all fours and slamming into Deku, sending him flying into another lamp post.

Deku groans as he gets up and reaches for another Power Coin to try something else. In desperation, he pulls out the Draco-Breath Power Coin and inserts it without realizing what it is.

"Dragonic Breath Power Finish!" The Hero Driver announces as the Mighty Knuckle is covered in flames while glowing orange as Deku charges at Stegogai.

He throws his fist forward, and Stegogai is sent staggering back from the impact while there are slight burns in a knuckle outline where he was punched. However, it doesn't look like he took any substantial damage.

"Now that had some sting to it. But it's not enough to get through my skin." Stegogai grunts before charging and trying to punch Deku.

Deku moves to the side, but Stegogai follows it up by spinning and slamming into Deku with his tail.

Deku manages to stay on his feet and reach into his holder for another Power Coin.

"Division Power Finish!" The Hero Driver shouts as Deku inserts the Division Power Coin.

"I haven't used this one yet." Deku thinks as he charges forward and throws another punch.

As the Mighty Knuckle soars toward Stegogai, energy fists suddenly appear around Deku's arm to launch multiple punches simultaneously, each with equal force to the last. The strength of these punches sends Stegogai flying into the ground and causes his scales to get stuck in the concrete.

"Damn it," Stegogai grunts as he tries to get up.

But he's positioned in a way that he can't reach the ground with his arms and legs that well. He can't put enough power into his attempts. Deku sees this and decides to try and finish things.

He pulls out the Rabbit Power Coin and inserts it into the Hero Driver instead of his weapon.

"RABBIT POWER FINISH!" The Hero Driver shouts as energy builds around Deku, and he charges forward.

He jumps into the air and tries to deliver a flying kick to the trapped Nomu. However, Stegogai suddenly rolls backward while his scales remain stuck in the ground. When Deku crashes into the ground, a small explosion and the earth around him is destroyed.

Unfortunately, it doesn't do much to Stegogai, and he takes advantage of Deku's opening to send another wave of earth at him and send him flying.

"I can't believe you fell for that. I told you, we studied all your moves." Stegogai laughs as he looks at the downed Kamen Rider.

Deku groans as Stegogai charges and tries to jump on him.

-------------------

With K.E.M. and Chamber, the two are having trouble dealing with Terra Swoop and each other. Chamber is being targeted after one of his bullets managed to hit her and her orders.

Currently, Chamber is trying to hit Terra Swoop with his wrist-mounted guns, but she is nimbly avoiding them with the ease of a hummingbird changing directions. Luckily, Chamber has started to adapt to her speed and is avoiding more of her strikes than before.

On the other hand, K.E.M. is trying to chase after her in the air but is getting hit by a few of Chamber's stray bullets for some reason. Needless to say, the two are starting to clash from their situation.

"Will you fucking quit shooting with the pea shooters! You're doing nothing helpful and getting in my way!" K.E.M. shouts at Chamber.

"Maybe if you would stop getting close to her, my bullets wouldn't be at risk of hitting you. I'm trying to figure out what she's doing!" Chamber shouts back with a bit of sharpness in his tone.

"It's obvious this bitch is manipulating your bullets! Quit making my job harder, Pompadour!" K.E.M. screams back as he tries to swipe at Terra Swoop, only for her to move out of the way.

Chamber grits his teeth but realizes that K.E.M. is right and decides to switch things around. He quickly grabs the Chameleon Power Coin and inserts it into his Hero Driver.

"You can't see me? Where am I? I'm on the wall! I've got you in my sights!" The Hero Driver shouts as smoke covers Chamber while he transforms.

"Kamen Rider Chamber!" It says with a tone of finality as Chamber switches forms.

Terra Swoop dives toward Chamber, but he vanishes before she hits him. As she's trying to gain altitude again, a whip suddenly wraps around her wing, and she's pulled toward the ground, causing her to skid across it from her previous momentum.

"You bastard!" Terra Swoop shouts as she gets up and instinctively looks around for the Kamen Rider that sent her crashing to the ground, only not to see him.

While she's doing that, the other Kamen Rider comes diving in and slams into her with a double palm-generated explosion that shakes the ground slightly. Seeing this causes Chamber to drop the camouflage a fair distance from the two as he waits for the smoke to clear.

However, Terra Swoop flies back into the air as if nothing happened, shocking the Kamen Riders.

Before she can see him from above, Chamber quickly camouflages himself again while K.E.M. chases after her. However, Chamber's action wasn't enough for him to completely escape her view. Having the features of a flying predator, her eyesight is enhanced exponentially. So she can distinguish the shifts in coloring and movement from Chamber's camouflage.

She charges at the area where she notices the shifting, and Chamber barely has time to jump over her attack. However, that doesn't stop him from getting hit by K.E.M., who chased after her. The impact causes Chamber to lose his camouflage while the two crash.

"Get off me," Chamber tells him as he kicks K.E.M. off him before needing to duck under another attack from Terra Swoop.

"Quit getting in the way!" K.E.M. shouts at Chamber, getting sick of the other Kamen Rider constantly messing him up.

"That was your fault. You're the one that keeps charging after someone you obviously can't catch!" Chamber shouts back at him.

"Like your fucking bullets are helping Pompadour. You've been hitting me more than you've been hitting Prehistoric Bitch!" K.E.M. screeches.

Terra Swoop sees their argument and secretly grins when she realizes the plan is working.

"Now for a quick disappearing act." Terra Swoop says before flying off at top speed before the Kamen Riders realize she's gone.

It takes longer than you should have for them to realize this. And when they do, K.E.M. pushes Chamber away while growling.

"This is your fucking fault, Pompadour! I could have handled that bastard without you! You and your worthless aim!" K.E.M. screams.

"My aim was fine. Whatever Quirks that Nomu had was the problem. And what about you? You uselessly chased after her when you couldn't catch her." Chamber tells him.

K.E.M. growls, but Chamber isn't done.

"Then again, that's all you can do, seeing as you don't bother collecting Power Coins like you're supposed to. Instead of keeping them on you just in case, you go out of your way to destroy them. So, you're nothing but a one-trick pony." Chamber tells him with an edge in his tone.

Hearing this causes K.E.M. to growl.

"At least I can make better fucking use of this stupid thing than you. You're nothing but a Quirkless reject who got lucky! If your grandfather weren't in such a high fucking position, no one would give a shit about you like Deku!" K.E.M. snaps at Chamber, causing the Kamen Rider to tighten his fist.

"I'm using the Hero Driver better than you. If I remember right, I almost beat you at the docks." Chamber snaps back, causing K.E.M. to growl.

"I didn't fucking lose to you!" K.E.M. snarls back before going for an explosive palm and sending Chamber flying to the ground.

Chamber has enough of K.E.M.'s attitude and launches his whip at the other Kamen Rider, sending him skidding back.

-------------------

Back with Deku. He's running from Stegogai and trying to reach the Plus Striker for extra help since Chamber hasn't returned and K.E.M. is nowhere to be seen.

"I need help to beat him." Deku thinks as he pulls the Unicorn Power Coin off the Plus Striker's Power Coin holder and inserts it.

The Plus Striker quickly turns into its mechanical animal form and throws Deku atop it before running from the charging Stegogai.

"Get back here!" Stegogai snaps at the Kamen Rider and steed before firing his scales at them.

However, the Plus Striker turns around and fires lightning bolts at the attacks, stopping them and causing them to fall harmlessly. It then takes it a step further by charging at Stegogai. As it does, Deku pulls out another Power Coin and inserts it into the Plus Striker.

"Overdrive Power Charge!" The Hero Driver announces as light blue energy surrounds the Plus Striker and its power and speed increase.

With the increased momentum, the Plus Striker tries to slam into Stegogai. However, the Nomu quickly uses his other ability to make a wave of earth rise between them to reduce the damage. The Plus Striker runs through it and slams into the Nomu, sending him flying but not turning him back to normal.

"Alright." Deku thinks happily, but before he can do anything else, he suddenly feels something slam into him and knock him off the Plus Striker.

He looks up to see what hit him and sees Terra Swoop staring down at him while holding a struggling Plus Striker.

"It's your turn to see what it's like to be hunted." Terra Swoop says excitedly as Stegogai stands up.

Deku looks between the two Nomu and backs away nervously while they close in on him. As he's getting cornered, he worries about what happened to Chamber while wondering what he'll do.

Power Coins Deku Rabbit, Draco-Breath, Charge, Marsh, Solidification, Unicorn, Overdrive, Wheels, Division, Bull, Barrier, Creation, Razor Edge, Mantis

Chamber Rifle, Fierce Wings, Shadow Stalk, Gatling, Chameleon, Dragonfly, Sonar, Burrowing Drill, Sprouting

King Explosion Murder Explosion

Next Chapter

[manasurge]

GW2 30 Day Challenge

6. Favourite Elite spec?

(I couldn't find any fancy pics of my own to use, so instead have a couple angles of mirage cloak glitching out and turning the Mirage into an eternal swirling and glowing vortex. These are old screenshots before the Aurene mounts were released as well since I use those for my main) It's... Mirage!! (surprising to absolutely no one who knows me). I just LOVE being invulnerable and hard to hit, plus all the mobility that comes with the spec and the SUPER fast gameplay (I love very fast inputs and reactions, which makes playing slower classes difficult for me bc I'm impatient and spam click abilities lkdjflsf). Being able to jaunt/blink everywhere, shadowstep, clone+phantasm distractions, and evasion hax dodging (mirage cloak my beloved) made dodging part of my rotation, making me really dumb with a lot of other classes bc I instinctively want to dodge all the time due to muscle memory. Also fun fact: Mirage/Mesmer was the first spec that I used a 80-boost on, and I was able to learn it just fine! (and even became my favourite!) so boosting a class to learn it is totally okay in my opinion!! Just do cozy open world map comp to ease your way into it and it'll be cherry!

Granted I also don't exactly play the class as intended. While I have 3 builds for her (guess I should say my main, Vespaura), I tend to just use her power build (since Mirage is moreso meant for Condi and boons or w/e, which I have builds for and also never use lol). I think this build I like to use was originally made for the Labyrinth (tagging everything with GS), but I tweaked it a bit with other preferences since it has pretty good survivability and is an absolute monster when I attack huge groups of mobs (Greatsword lasers are the best invention and it NEVER gets old. Also the amount of laser ricochet gets me pretty high damage and looks absolutely bonkers on my side (what a lightshow!), plus my lasers are HOMING lasers, which means they will automatically hit any enemies in the vicinity around me and helps out if I don't notice them from a different angle, allowing me to re-orient myself. I also don't have to worry too too much about aim bc of this too! (oh yeah, and especially with relics being a thing now. Mabon relic has been pretty neat so far cuz I can take advantage of that boost being used to hit all those targets!). Though power GS does fall a bit against single targets, but that's fine! (I sort of have the daggers for that at least!). I also play with a trackpad, which is a funny thing to tell ppl, especially when playing a class like Mirage, lol. I just hate using a mouse and only have it for certain games that force me to use it. I just don't want carpel tunnel and my wrist is more relaxed this way (never had problems! so far at least). I just love playing at ranged with non-ranged weapons (Greatswords, daggers. Mine actually has all 3 types of blades (very lesbian of her) bc she has a sword as well. I literally gave her both of Caithe's weapons askjflfj. I'm so glad that I can give my Mirage daggers now!! much more fun than another sword/axe!). It's just so much fun, and I CAN'T WAIT to see what rifle is gonna be like!! I just love ranged classes bc stacking ALWAYS gets me killed constantly... so yeah I'm the annoying person who doesn't like stacking bc I'd rather not be dead!!!!! (I'm sorry I just HATE stacking. I can't see SHIT and it's just so much visual noise for me!! let me breathe!!) and plus I revive everyone in fights thanks to invulnerabilities allowing me to rez through attacks. You're welcome!!! (I rez so many people during metas and other fights) I also just love Mesmer in a class in general bc it's unique in comparison to a lot of other fantasy classes, and I just adore the concept and the aesthetics (flamboyant fancy dramatic magic user? HELL YEAH. Literally the gayest magic user ever and I'm eating it up). I also love the ability to make clones and all the pretty butterflies, and phantasms and all that! I know a lot of ppl don't like clones/phantasms, but they save my ass every time and I appreciate them very much.

[inktheory3]

TF2 succeeds in supporting a vast variety of different ways to play the same character through sidegrading. For example, let's consider the Scout. The default Scattergun produces a shower of pellets at close range, letting you run up, blast someone (not killing them usually, but softening them up), and then get the hell out of dodge. The Force-A-Nature has far fewer shots that deal much more damage, and a massive recoil that lets you jump. The Shortstop has fewer pellets but far tighter bullet spread, letting you keep distance from enemies so they can't annihilate you. You may wonder why I'm talking about TF2 when this is a Splatoon blog. Well. The game has been in development for a long time, long enough that there is a casual and professional scene, but none of the classes are really stuck in a specific meta. Every class has at least a few ways to play it that is fun. Is there any way to configure Splatoon's gear to have this possible as well?

This is a really interesting question!

Apologies about not responding sooner, I was busy with the Splatfest (#teamdarkchocolate4ever!!!). But now that I'm free (in my uni class) I can provide a response.

Full disclosure, I have very limited knowledge on TF2. From an outside perspective, though, it seems very difficult to translate this idea to Splatoon.

In TF2 there are only 9 characters. Disregarding their abilities and weapons, they all have different stats; health, speed, hitboxes etc. I think this is the key difference between TF2 and Splatoon. Inklings/Octolings all have the exact same stats no matter what weapon you use, the only exception being speed. Instead of having 9 base classes that you can customise to your liking, you instead have 1 base that you customise with gear abilities and ~60 main weapons and ~40 sub and special weapons, all of which function the same no matter what combination you choose.

Now, that isn't to say Splatoon's system is perfect.

I do think that the gear and weapon systems in Splatoon have good concepts behind them, but just fail to hit the mark. I already talked about how I would update the weapon system, (and I will talk about how I would update individual main weapons, as I already spoke about updating subs and specials) so why not dedicate this ask to talking about gear abilities.

Abilities, Explained:

In Splatoon you have 12 gear ability slots. Each piece of gear has 1 main slot and 3 sub slots, and you can wear 1 piece of headgear, clothing and shoes each, adding up to 12.

There are currently 12 main abilities and 14 regular abilities.

Regular abilities are basic. They effect your characters stats, making you run faster, swim faster, more ink efficient, respawn faster, charge your special faster, and so on.

They have an ability power score, a regular ability on a sub slot has 3 AP, and a regular ability on a main slot has 10 AP. Meaning an individual piece of gear has 19 AP worth of slots, and a whole build has 57.

My problem with regular abilities is simple. They don't really do a lot.

In most competitive builds, you want a spread of a lot of useful abilities, but this leaves you with less individual AP of each ability. Having 10 Swim Speed AP is an increase, but it really isn't noticeable. An enemy can still track you in the ink just fine. It helps but it doesn't give you a sense of power. Maxing out your AP of a certain ability doesn't do that much either. 57 AP of special charge up reduces the time taken for a full charge by around a second.

It's a similar problem to most modern RPGs. Yes sure, equipping this armour will give you 5% poison resistance and 20 more defence, but what do those numbers even mean? Yes technically it is better than your previous gear, but you'll be able to clear the game just fine without it and the vast majority of players wouldn't even notice if they accidentally unequipped it.

I see the same issue with Splatoon's regular abilities. Yes, you know what every ability does in a broad sense, and you can have a sense of which builds outperform others. But you don't feel the difference. You don't see your enemies build and understand innately that your inkling has different capabilities than them and that their gear enables a wildly different playstyle. Abilities give minor advantages, and there's no power fantasy in using a coveted gear set. Using the Hydra Splatling makes you feel like a powerful juggernaut. Using the Carbon Roller Deco makes you feel like an assassin, a looming threat. But you don't feel anything using different gear sets.

Lets put that thought aside for a second and talk about Main Abilities. Main abilities are exclusive, (ninja squid and respawn punisher are only found on clothing, meaning you can only equip one and not the other on a build) and they generally aren't raw stat buffs like Regular abilities.

They can be split into 3 categories:

Passive abilities (adds a new layer to your character, adding effects to your actions): Ninja Squid, Respawn Punisher, Tenacity, Haunt, Thermal Ink, Object Shredder, Stealth Jump

Active Abilities (adds new actions for your character to utilise): Drop Roller

Conditional Abilities (gives you flat AP of regular abilities when meeting certain conditions): Comeback, Last-Ditch Effort, Opening Gambit

Ability Doubler doesn't fit into a category because it is completely useless. doubling 3 sub slots gives you 18 AP, when having any other regular ability in the main slot would give you 19 AP.

In my opinion, Conditional Abilities should be removed from the game. Main abilities should not buff stats that regular abilities buff, they should change your playstyle! Regular abilities already don't change your playstyle, they only slightly buff the default playstyle for a weapon, and Conditional Abilities just do the same.

Second, Passive Abilities can be great, but they can also be bad when they encourage negative play. Ninja Squid allows you to play stealthily, Stealth Jump allows you to get into the action and play agressively, and Object Shredder allows you proactively deny enemy subs and specials. The other 3 are all based around respawn timers and getting splatted. They all encourage players sitting around staring at their death screen, and don't actually encourage a new playstyle.

Finally, Active abilities can also be great, if the Devs expand on them. Drop Roller requires you to tilt your stick to dodge roll when coming out of a super jump. It's a novel concept and fun when you execute it correctly, but it's completely outclassed by its cousin Stealth Jump (primarily because the developers haven't realised that active abilities need to be more powerful than passives because they require you to be constantly aware of when and how to use them effectively. Or they're just too scared to buff Drop Roller).

I envision Splatoon having 12 main abilities, 6 active and 6 passive. But I won't be going into detail about them in this post.

Playstyle Changing Abilities:

Ninja Squid and Drop Roller are cool and all, but they weren't exactly what you were talking about.

The Force-A-Nature doesn't make scout invisible while swimming (though it would be funny). It changes how his weapon functions!

I really do think this is a cool mechanic in games, but it doesn't translate 1:1 in Splatoon. For example, slightly increasing The Splash-O-Matics range and shot spread doesn't make it a different variant of the Splash, it makes it an N-ZAP. Changing how the weapon looks doesn't apply either, because that's already in the game to allow different weapon kits (and still applies under the Starfish Class System I talked about in my last post).

But we absolutely still can give weapons different attributes, we just have to be very careful about how we do it. So I'm going to overhaul an important part of Splatoon based on an inspiration from 1 ask.

You should recall the Starfish Class System, sorting sub and special weapons into 1 of 5 categories, POWER, ENGAGE, SCOUT, CONTROL and SUPPORT. Initially, I didn't think I could apply this to main weapons. There are far too many to sort evenly, and they don't really fit neatly into 1 category. Most main weapons have attributes that fit into all 5 classes!

Every weapon can somewhat fit into all 5 classes, but what if they could spec into a specific class. Lets imagine that aside from Main and Sub abilities, every gear set had 1 Key ability that gives a new attribute to the main weapon. Of course, there would be 5 Key abilities for every weapon, one for each Class in the SCS.

I couldn't possibly explain (hell I haven't even come up with any yet) every attribute for every main weapon in one post. But I'll leave you with an unfinished example.

Splattershot Jr.: POWER: The Splattershot Jr does 4 extra damage on every hit (28 => 32) [note: This is still a 4 shot kill, as dramatic damage increases can be problematic]

ENGAGE: The Splattershot Jr. has its shot spread decreased massively while the aiming crosshair is directly on an enemy.

SCOUT: Enemies damaged by the Splattershot Jr. can be spotted through walls.

CONTROL: Enemies damaged by the Splattershot Jr., while still nearby, take damage over time.

SUPPORT: Allies recover health and lose status effects faster while standing or swimming in ink painted by the Splattershot Jr.

So, what did you think?

[cagedchoices]

I was planning on putting this in my big relationship meta series later on but I don't wanna wait however long it's gonna take me to get back to that so I'm just gonna talk a little about 4.04 - Generation Loss on its own because in a lot of ways I think it was THE Episode of Season 4.

In trying to escape from the park, Caleb tries to fight off Hale's mind control after being commanded to kill Maeve, but he gets stabbed by another infected guest before he can commit to any course of action. Maeve hurries to get him to safety afterwards, and as she watches him she remembers back to their mission 7 years earlier where he got shot and nearly died.

CALEB: You gonna disappear on me this time too? MAEVE: Typical. Using the gravity of this situation to dredge up the past. CALEB: Seriously, Maeve. MAEVE: I didn't. I sat at your bedside for weeks, fearing the worst. I confronted something I had never confronted before; Mortality. The finality of death in your kind.

The first thing Maeve does is try to skirt around Caleb's question in a way that's kind of like "you're sitting over there bleeding out right now and you're STILL asking about what happened 7 years ago?" but when that doesn't work and Caleb gently insists his point, she finally gives in and offers him the truth. No hiding, no deflection, no distraction. It's all she can do to give him some small peace of mind. He's dying, after all, and seeing how he barely survived the first time she saw it, his chances this time don't look great either. She lets him know that it wasn't his fault she left, she chose to leave because she thought she was giving him a chance, as she later tells Frankie.

What Caleb thinks before this is that Maeve must've left not long after they got him to the hospital, and he's never had a reason to assume anything else. He had no idea that in reality, Maeve stayed by his side for weeks while he was unconscious in the hopes that he would pull through.

The way it's presented, it seems like Maeve had every intention of going in to see Caleb when he finally woke up, but she changed her mind when she saw how he was with Uwade.

MAEVE: You asked me once what a regular life would look like for you. I saw a vision of how it could be for you to be free. It was... extraordinary... Our kinds are locked in a perpetual struggle. I wanted you to do more than just fight to survive. I wanted you to have something to fight for.

She sees a glimmer of something Caleb could have that he's never had before. He and Uwade could fall in love, maybe get married, have a baby, grow old together. He could experience the joy of being a father and a husband and living a normal, fulfilling, happy life. Something Maeve can't give him/thinks she can't give him, although I would argue that it was Maeve's memory of her loop as a homesteader living with her daughter that she shared with him through his limbic implant that motivated Caleb to want to build a life for himself that resembled this in the first place. So in a way, she kind of did.

You can read the disappointment in both of their expressions. This isn't how either of them wanted things to end, but it is necessary and deep down they both know it. Life goes on.

MAEVE: I had already known the love of a daughter. And I planned on spending eternity holding it dear. CALEB: You've been alone...for all these years... MAEVE: I knew that if I stayed put, no harm would come to you. You deserve to have something real to hold onto. That's why I left. And It would've been fine, except one day, I got curious. So I reached out through the grid to find you, and...

Maeve spent 7 years living alone and reliving her memories on a loop. Of the people she remembers most fondly, her daughter is alive and safe in the Sublime, but she is far beyond Maeve's reach. Hector is dead-dead. She has no idea what became of Clementine. Caleb seems to be the only person she would have any reason to check on and that's why she does, not knowing that Hale was out there waiting for something like that to happen.

[armchairaleck]

This is something I’ve struggled with because yeah I’m acutely aware that anything I create is gonna fail any tests of female inclusivity.. but also I know if I’m going to invest the time writing something it will probably be to fit my very niche interests, which is pretty exclusively m/m relationships..

Lissa is definitely interesting to me for two main reasons and one of them is she’s Viren’s ex.. combined with the Soren angle that's a juicy angsty relationship, I suppose this angle is bad? I really don't know, I might want to think about real world inequalities and how it correlates to fandom, but mostly it's an escape yk..

(The other angle of Lissa I love is definitely that she’s a mother who left her family. This is something I find compelling because it is not often portrayed either in fiction or something that happens often in life.. I think there’s a lot to unpick there, but I try to hold back, mostly because I’m still waiting for the reveal that Viren did something shady to her.. jeez I hope not haha)

I skim read the article and I want to read it properly when time allows, it looks really interesting, and idk I guess makes me think how hard it is to generalise about these things, looking in from an ace/non-binary perspective is different again and it’s difficult to judge. I think people are in fandom from such a huge variety of perspectives and interests, some love the world building, some love to try and figure out what will happen next, some love meta and analysis.. I'm not very good at any of those things, they're all interesting angles into characters and relationships tho.. and some of them I love to read and others not so much.

I'm really just here for the slash, I'm so shallow lmao.. BUT I don't feel personally this is due to a lack of compelling female characters, or at least not in tdp. I could def see that it would be the case in some media.

IF I was interested in writing about the younger characters, then Claudia and probably Rayla are far and away the most intriguing to me.. sadly I just prefer my characters with about 40+ years worth of bad choices, pain and regret to reflect on.. Lissa and Sarai are both pretty absent, from a creative pov that gives a lot of freedom AND a lot of gaps to fill.

I feel like I used to at least read way more widely when I was younger but as spare time gets less I stick more to my interests, and when writing this is doubly so because of the huge time sink.. I DO feel bad for the poor forgotten women tho..

"Fandom ignores female characters while inventing elaborate backstories for male characters with no speaking lines."

is a common fandom copypasta but also

these people clearly haven't heard of Lissa The Dragon Prince and the 5 people on Tumblr who have formed a dedicated fandom around her.

[deliciouswastelandgoddess]

Kinnporsche and Safe-Keeping Fans' Expectations - The Genius of Kinnporsche's Plot Twists

Also read:

The Genius of Kinnporsche's Intimacy

The Genius of Kinnporsche's Wardrobe

The Genius of Kinnporsche's Humour

I'll be the first to point out plot holes in this show but I absolutely love the way they have been doing plot twists so far - well we are already at episode 14 so there isn't much else left to draw my conclusions now.

Calling them plot twists feels almost like an exaggeration because of how organic they are, I have never seen them done like this before. Despite the camp and some ridiculously unrealistic world building, these twists feel exactly like real life. Like they're confusing but also sort of make sense? Like they are so wild nobody could've predicted them but it's also so inline with the character that it's not jarring - a soft plot twist, if you will.

A real life example of this would be (and desis do back me up here) Priyanka Chopra getting married to Nick Jonas like- NOBODY could have predicted that but it's organic, it's real life, that's how the world works. Like, I am hoping this is making sense because I'm at loss of words now.

Now the plot twist that made me think of this entire meta is Episode 13, when Porsche decided to tag team with Vegas while Vegas decided to help Porsche because he's fed up of the adults and because he wants a way to reach out to Pete.

Not the brotp I asked for but definitely the brotp I needed.

Anyway, this had me thinking - this is what they have been doing it with us the entire time. Some of the plotlines are cliched AF but most of them really blindside you. Like I see so many people trying to predict what's gonna happen in the next episode and they are all wrong 99/100 times lol. They have made clowns of the audience but WITHOUT punishing us for our expectations (unlike some other western showrunners like Game of Thrones I am sorry for always making this comparison). KP's showrunners have subverted our expectations by giving us things that were even better than what we could have imagined.

Take the bathroom scene for example, it came out of nowhere, that was not at all how I imagined that scene would go, it was absolutely beyond my tiny tiny western media fed brain. It was a plot twist!! It was shocking!! I had to pick up my jaw from the floor when it aired!! I couldn't think of anything else for a month!! We all lost our minds over it!! It was intentional!! I want to have this scene framed and displayed in my house!! My life is divided between before I saw this scene and after!! This scene fundamentally changed my perception of humanity and sexuality!! I don't know what else to say here - it was earth shattering!!

You know what else was a plot twist?! THEIR FIRST KISS BY THE PIER!! I did not see it coming. I was only expecting flirting and a general romantic set-up, I was expecting Kinn to tsundere his way into figuring Porsche out but my man straight up went for a kiss right then and there!! And now it seems like such a perfect, organic thing, like we can't even imagine it any other way but when it happened you bet your little ass I was pleasantly blindsided.

Go to episode 4, their first time having sex with each other was also a plot twist! I was only expecting Porsche to ask Kinn about his feelings, tease him, kiss him maybe, etc but again!! They just- went for it?? Like?? I remember everyone losing their collective minds over it in the best way possible??

And then we transition right into episode 5 where again!! Plot twist!! Porsche is not happy the morning after and this was hard to watch ngl but they couldn't have been more careful and gentle in their handling of the situation.

The resolution of this episode was also, one of my favorites in the entire show with Kinn coming to Porsche's house and apologizing and asking him to come back home. This wasn't the plot twist though. The real plot twist of episode 5 was that Kinn isn't a badass Crime lord, Kinn is a clown.

Clown!Kinn appeared in episode 5, installed himself into our hearts in episode 6 and never left.

Which takes me to the most plot twisty episode of the season: the jungle escape - just littered with minor plot twists throughout. WHAT DO YOU MEAN KINN KNEW HOW TO OPEN THE HANDCUFFS? WHAT DO MEAN HE WILL TELL EVERYONE PORSCHE DIED IN THE FOREST?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE LIKES TO SEE PORSCHE HAPPY?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN PORSCHE FORGAVE HIM A LONG TIME AGO?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN KINN IS INTO OLD SONGS?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN???????

I could write a dissertation just about the beats of their cave conversation and how well they managed to convey Porsche's journey into falling in love with Kinn (who was already in love with Porsche by this time)

Another plot twist they had was Kinn straight up announcing that he loves Porsche in front of everyone - again, something I don't think anyone saw coming but that's how things work out in real life, don't they?? There isn't a dramatic reveal to these things they are just revealed. NOBODY could have seen that coming and if you did I congratulate you on having a large brain.

The hedgehog (RIP) being the plot driver to push the Vegaspete agenda was not on my bingo card that's for sure. The plot twist?? That Vegas is a cry baby and a hedgehog dad and Pete can't leave a pathetic man alone. Everyone thought they'd be the sexy couple but nah nah nah it's psych time you hoes, they are the pathetic couple.

Psych again! Because they are BOTH pathetic and sexy! Vegaspete plot twist number 2: Pete handing the rope to Vegas.

WHO???? THE FUCK???? came up with that??!! I want to know their names so I can erect a shrine in the honor of their brains. I don't even remember what I was expecting but I'm sure this wasn't it. PLOT. TWIST.

Psych again!! Pete is actually traumatized by the whole experience and it's so painful to watch you will want to die but also it's feeding us emotionally in way we never could have imagined!! (More deep dive into this in my post about Dehumanizing Pete here)

It's the stuff of the best fan-fiction but making it 100 times better without following any of the usual tropes. It's insane how big brained they have been and how much they really want to make the audiences happy. And that's it. That's the Genius of Kinnporsche's Plot Twists - they want to make the audiences happy. It's so simple.