#and he's definitely blessed with some of the divine main character powers

[clarissaweasley-10]

NO KEEFE'S MIND CAN'T BREAK,MY BOY HAS ALREADY BEEN THROUGH TOO MUCH.HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT(although it's very possible considering what he went through and knowing shannon.)And what abt sokeefe?my boy is coming back cuz he wants to marry Sophie,RIGHT?And Sophie can definitely fix him right?RIGHT?I mean she's THE Moonlark(note:THE,uppercase)she can do anything she fixed Alden hell she fixed Prentice who spent abt 12-13 years in EXILE.So she can definitely fix her(cute)boyfriend..And maybe she would even go all "Foster rage"on that beach Gisela and the rest of the Neverseen.I can sense a lot of Sokeefe angst but NO PLS DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN.As much as l would love to see Sophie mercilessly inflict on Gisela(that is something we need)but not on Keefe's cost.

[beehiveofblorbos]

been brainrotting Venti recently and all of his lore so just gonna put it somewhere that’s not my head

Some basics on Venti: he is the Anemo Archon of Mondstadt, with connections to wine and song, but with the official dominion of Wind, and his ideal is Freedom. He currently disguises himself as a carefree bard. His character story and Neuvi’s voice lines also declare him to be a god of hope.

when we first meet him he teleports away in a flash of Anemo (he can teleport!!) and we learn when we enter mond that the god Barbatos (an original member of the Seven) has been MIA for a long time. He’s not the one running the place, the Ordo Favonius are, but he does have a church and Mondstadters habitually give each other blessings from the wind. He himself has a habit of sleeping for long periods of time.

okay, cool. Venti himself helps us save Dvalin, casually revealing he’s the Anemo Archon just to get hold of the Holy Lyre. He breaks it when we’re on the quest, but returns it to Barbara magically fixed (and implies that she’ll find it broken again soon). His Gnosis is stolen (guys he can Teleport!!!) from him, but he returns to Windrise to recover.

He also gives us the basics on Teyvat’s elemental powers, and tells us a god’s power is based in how much control they exert over their nation (this is later contradicted by Nahida + Focalors,,,, so chances are that he was lying!)

then we also have Carmen Dei, the only archon story quest to not have a part 2. In “Should You Be Trapped In A Windless Land” (and we’ll explore what wind means in Teyvat), Venti uses his godly powers to help Stanley, a boastful adventurer who has taken on the face and identity of his friend in order to carry on his memory. The friend died in Mare Jivari, the ‘windless land’ likely referenced by the quest title.

Venti then sings the story of how he, “a single thread of the thousand winds” (Venti character story), became an archon. He reveals he too has taken on the face of his friend who died among the revolt against Decarabian in Old Mond that ended with Venti being seated as the god.

(Guys he has associations with death!! It doesn’t stop here, Weinlesefest and Mond legends about your spirit being guided back home by the wind, even the connections in events to Hu Tao like !!!)

He hasn’t appeared much in main story, honestly. But there are so many crumbs that lead back to Barbatos and his homeland of Mond that one HAS to wonder: what is going on with him?

His drip marketing? oh he’s the “prodigal son”. son of who???

(“she was the moment. she was every moment… every second of joy, every moment of rage, every instant of longing, every flash of delirium”)

furthermore we’ve got more from his demo: “full of mystery, born from the branches of time / a history of glory and sorrow, and witness to the divine”.

so he’s the “prodigal son”, “born from the branches of time”, who is “full of mystery”, has “a history of glory and sorrow”, and serves as a “witness to the divine”.

what do his character stories have to say? a LOT. they call him “a single thread of the thousand winds”, “without a shred of divine dignity” (pre archon war). And they claim he became a god once the rebellion succeeded (it kinda makes sense, he was the spirit most associated with them after all, and as we know - gods of Teyvat draw power from their believers)

The 5th story remarks that Venti both should and should not be given credit for Mond’s prosperity, since it’s the doing of the Four Winds (which he established lol) but also he’s the one ensuring that the tales of their deeds are passed on.

ok let’s break this down. he’s the prodigal son? the question of his parentage seems to have found it’s definitive answer. Mondstadtian sayings commonly associate the wind with the passage of time, and there are temples to time and a god of time in Mond, which have now come to ruins. They were worshipped alongside Venti for a long time, but their significance diminished and eroded.

Now, in Enka we discovered records of Istaroth, who was also known by the Enkanomiyans as their Goddess of Time, and is the premier candidate (by lore enthusiast consensus) for the god that would’ve been worshipped alongside Venti.

She is also (I’m convinced) Venti’s mom. Remember, he was said to be “born of the branches of time” and “a single thread of the thousand winds”. What was Istaroth’s epithet? She’s the Thousand Winds. We are literally told he was a part of her.

We also have evidence to support Venti having time-based powers. Remember the Weinlesefest memories brought by the wind? He also “knows all songs, past and future”. And furthermore, he might have just rewound the Holy Lyre instead of actually fixing it permanently.

The real question up for debate is whether or not Venti is part of her or a completely unique entity. Both are possible, honestly. I mean, they coexisted. It’s just that the phrasing “a branch” bothers me because it was the exact same phrase used to reference what Nahida is to Rukkha but that much could just be coincidence.

I think we’ve established by now that he’s seen a history full of glory and sorrow, and that he’s full of mystery. So what’s left?

He “knows all songs, past and future” and he is a “witness of the divine”. And his character story supports that, highlighting the importance of his role as a witness to the history of Mond and the feats of the Four Winds. In light of the Sumeru and Fontaine AQs, where we learned that info can be erased from Irminsul and can only be preserved either through the memory of a Witness from outside the world or the creation of an allegorical tale that seems just fictional enough to bypass the Irminsul censors. Also, the importance of what we see being the truth.

(Oh yeah: forgot to mention that he also tends to play this role in history, where he doesn’t interfere much himself but he picks a hero to address a task and then supports them however they need to get the job done. This traces back all the way to his time with Decarabian; he didn’t fight in the war itself, but he watched the Nameless Bard and his countrymen do it, and recorded it in song. Same for Vennessa and the Revolution against the aristocracy).

(guys he is a god of hope and of freedom)

Carmen Dei the story quest does not have a part two. I fear for the day it does, frankly, because we will learn a LOT about this silly little man.

[starghost-fics]

fanfic master post

this is new era only; anything not listed here is likely on my AO3 as a historical curiosity from the olden days.

sometimes i use the actual summary from AO3, sometimes that's too long or I don't want to use it here. no rules, only fic

under the cut: OCTOPATH TRAVELER OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH TED LASSO DEEP SPACE NINE

OCTOPATH TRAVELER

As a preface, I would personally like to invite you to play this video game because I found it delightful, but also because I'm inordinately proud of some of this fic, and it's a little fandom.

in the near-dark

AO3

length: 3 chapters, 9100 words

summary: The group travels through Orsterra, and Therion is bad at sleeping, except when he isn't.

my favorite tag: oh no tenderness

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a little sleight of hand

AO3

length: 1 chapter, 1500 words

summary: Therion has a strange habit of squirreling away food when he thinks no one is looking. Tressa worries about it.

my favorite tag: even my fluff has class issues

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the stars above

AO3

length: 4 chapters, 9100 words

summary: After their journeys are complete, Therion moves to Atlasdam, and discovers Cyrus's new (and dangerous) avenue of study.

my favorite tag: someone is pining

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untitled octopath fanfic

AO3

length: 1 chapter, 900 words

summary: It is a wretched day in Bolderfall, and Therion is a horrible goose. (of course it's a crossover with untitled goose game!)

my favorite tag: no beta we honk like geese

tumblr post - to come?

series: divine intervention (god shit)

series summary: in which I spend nearly 100k words exploring Cyrus and Therion's relationship, among other things.

if the gods should touch you

AO3

length: 13 chapters, 60,000 words

summary: Spanning roughly from various chapter 2s to chapter 4s, the group travels, changes partners, faces fears, gets blessed, and oh also the scholar and the thief kiss.

my favorite tag: get in loser we're healing from past trauma and changing our negative coping mechanisms

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as shadows gather and gods move

AO3

length: 7 chapters, 32,000 words

summary: time loop? time loop. time loop!!! only Cyrus is aware and the solution is not what he thinks it is.

my favorite tag: the powers of a god are inexplicable but also annoying

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OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH

not a fic: a two-part essay/analysis on character weakness and desire

part one: stede bonnet and self-doubt

part two: edward teach and self-loathing and also applying this to writing

not made of glass but flesh and bone, which is worse

AO3

length: 6 chapters, 10,000 words

summary: Post s01e05, in which we diverge from canon so that Ed and Stede can go spend a night on a deserted island.

my favorite tag: a little light blasphemy

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what's a stab wound good for, anyway

AO3

length: 1 chapter, 1500 words

summary: After the (s1) duel, Ed has several thoughts, then ignores most of them.

my favorite tag: love a stabbing

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TED LASSO

And the Songbirds Keep Singing

AO3

length: 1 chapter, 4700 words

summary: Trent has a bad day and then Ted makes him dinner and they listen to records.

my favorite tag: Princess Grim Reaper (the cat)

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The Closest You Can Get to Flying

AO3

length: 1 chapter, 3600 words

summary: Trent learns to ride a bike, then he scrapes his knee and definitely needs someone to play doctor.

my favorite tag: biking is so great

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someday soon we all will be together

AO3

length: 2500 words

summary: Everyone is at Rebecca's Christmas party, and I do mean everyone. Also: heavily influenced by that one scene in The West Wing when Danny comes back.

my favorite tag: fancy pens as flirting

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real long distance

AO3

length: tk words (6 chapters total)

summary: Ted gets a land line, calls Trent more than anyone else. All-dialog, all the time.

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SERIES: a work excuse

in which i overwrote the main fic and felt like posting the other bits.

Lafayette Comes to America

AO3

length: 24 chapters, 53,000 words

summary: Trent goes to America with a tenuous work excuse and has a lot of Tension with Ted Lasso. Then he goes home and has a lot of moping, before everyone comes to their senses.

my favorite tag: warning: i love a loooooong paragraph

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beverages and conversation

AO3

length: 3 chapters, 3900 words

summary: Ted has one or two conversations that he is not entirely prepared for over a beverage. (Ted's side of things during a few of the later chapters.)

my favorite tag: give me the slightest provocation and i WILL sketch out a midwestern life for you

the intolerable evocation of emotion via art

AO3

length: 1 chapter, 363 words

summary: Texts between Trent and his ex-wife about a playlist she made him. (Makes no sense divorced from Chapter 18 of Lafayette Comes to America, probably.)

DEEP SPACE NINE

keep a bower quiet for us

AO3

length: 11 chapters, 20,000 words

summary: Julian Bashir goes on vacation, and ends up stuck on Earth, in the past, with Elim Garak. Things could be worse, probably.

my favorite tag: we run on vibes not plot

tumblr commentary: to come!?!

[shinigami-queen]

OC Name Meaning

Hello again! So after being nagged mercilessly by @dotr-rose-love I decided to make another post about my OCs (you win xD).

This time I'm playing the name meaning game, which means I'm going to list the names of my main cast and their meanings. Finally, I'll add some comments on whether the meaning of the name actually fits the character and tell you if I had intended this or was actually caught by surprise.

-> Skye Ryuuko (she has 2 names because her father is Japanese)

Skye simply means sky xD It's apparently taken from an old Norse word meaning cloud. This is completely irrelevant to her, since she is a "firebender" (called Emberblade in my book) but she is the love interest of Noah weeeeeell you get it. Ryuuko, written as 竜子 , probably has many meanings but I chose it to mean "dragon child". It has to do with her extra powers, since she is also the Sun-blessed, the fire deity's chosen one.

-> Shishio (獅子王)

Skye's father, I picked the name to mean "lion king", a strong-sounding name for the Dragon General and one of the greatest Emberblades in history.

-> Noah

A Hebrew name, it means "rest" or "repose". I guess the meaning has a loose connection to him as a character but I didn't pick it for this, I just like how it sounds.

-> Aleksei (Alek for shorts)

This is a quite famous name, meaning "man's defender" or "warrior". Alek is the Moon-blessed, a "waterbender" (still working on their name in my world xD) and again, I just picked this name cause I like it.

-> Mateo

The Spanish version of Matthew, it means "gift of God". His name was originally Rey, but I changed it cause I wanted it to be more similar to his twin sister's name, Maya (so obviously the meaning has nothing to do with him). He is a Materialist and, together with Maya, a Naturalist, they are the Life-blessed.

-> Maya

Maya can mean a lot of things apparently. It can mean "illusion" or "dream" in Sanskrit, but it's also an alternate name for the Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty and prosperity. In the Maori language, it means "courage" or "bravery". The name is also related to the Greek word for "mother". In Roman mythology, Maia was sometimes considered the mother of the earth. She became associated with growth and expansion, lending her name to the month of May, which was appropriate since Maia was also the goddess of spring. Generally speaking, Maya is a name strongly tied to the divine.

Now this definition I found was a very pleasant surprise to me, who picked this name because I liked it only to find it fits perfectly with my Naturalist girl (especially the Roman interpretation). Her powers are strongly related to anything nature, from plants to animals, so she is indeed a mother of the earth and goddess of spring. The "courage" meaning also fits nicely, since Maya begins as a timid and shy girl, and slowly develops into a brave warrior and a strong leader towards the end of the story. Even the "mother" meaning fits figuratively, since she is the mother friend of the group. xD

-> Vincent

A Latin name, meaning "prevailing". Now this is my villain, so I believe the interpretation fits him well.

[kenrik]

I don’t know what to say anymore... Was just really curious so I took another run at it... But what the helk --  😂😂

Waving at @stephanythedramaqueen​​. Haha! Not sure if this would interest you, but I read more of Gege’s pasts works. 

So, have some panels from Gege’s, Kamishiro Sosa (2014).  😁😁

Another scene --

Gege really likes this trope/dynamic, no? 😂 😂

👀 👀

😂😂😂😂

Another common thing too is - 

drum roll - 

a Gojo Satoru character type as the main character. 

Funny. OP. Chill. Haha!

Just look at this - AHAHAHA!

Sneak peak into the background of Gojo’s character? -- ??

To me, basically translates to Gojo Satoru not hating anyone. Not laughing at people for being weak. He just doesn’t understand them. But he wants to. :) 

Also, Gege really loves writing about Japanese folklore. Being a shrine maiden, I’m certain Utahime is an important character. 

Utahime’s CT is said to be singing. But it could include any of these. 

They’re generally practiced in combating malevolent force, and are adept at exorcisms, purification, blessing, barriers, seals, multiple spiritual/holy/divine practices and powers, and channeling the powers and presences of gods.

User could likely possesses abilities relating to the deity of the shrine they are the shrine maiden of, and more powerful users can learn to channel the power of any deity.

Finally, I’m adding this - because we will never get this in canon because it’s far from what JJK is hahaha! 

But I’m certain this would be how a situation like this would play out with GoUta. 

AHAHAHA

And, holy shit. This oneshot was a fun read. I recommend you read it too. It’s funny and dark, Gege’s true trademark. Good read, caught me off-guard. :) 

Gege has other works. And he worked on Kiss x Death lmao. Ahaha! People say it’s good, but I’m not into ecchi... xD 

And you have No. 9. I couldn’t find a translated version anywhere. From the panels, I can only confirm that Gege really loves Gojo’s character type. Ahaha!! And this character’s dynamic with their women counterparts are always the same - annoyance and vitriol, but at the end of the day, it ends in understanding and friendship. :) 

People saying GoUta is whack obviously have a bad grasp of Gojo’s character haha!

Kamishiro Sosa is a really funny read. It’s interesting seeing how Gege’s storytelling has evolved through the years. I’m sure even after JJK, Gege’ll continue to make great dark, funny works! 

.

.

To end, while none of these panels show GoUta will become canon; while none definitively show that they are/will be in love. Gege’s pasts works show a trend in his writing. And that trend is ---

OP guy x annoyed girl ahaha! 

Utahime’s character type doesn’t hate Gojo. She hates his annoying antics. His disrespectful personality. 

Gojo’s character type doesn’t demean Utahime when he taunts her. It’s a fact to him. That’s why it’s a recurring joke. Because he doesn’t understand why she gets so angry all the time. And I believe he keeps doing it because it gets to her. All. The. Time. Ergo, he loves pushing her buttons. And I think that’s super cute. For an obnoxious fool who can barely form meaningful relationships, for a man who can barely understand those beneath him, he makes an effort to act whacky and playful around Utahime and those around him; because he really does enjoy their company/friendship. 

Like in the panel above, Gojo is a species different from everyone else. He doesn’t understand people/the weak. But, in fighting for them, he crosses the bridge; he shows people that he wants to. This is a great contrast to Geto. Because everyone likes Geto. Before he defected, he is everything a Japanese man emulates, that the reserved Japanese culture values. Level-headed, cool and quiet, righteous and strong. But in the end - it is Gojo who saves everyone. In the end, it’s Gojo who sticks to the duty of serving and protecting the weak. 

In the least, GoUta will be a beautiful friendship of understanding someone so different to you. I have a getting to know you questionnaire running before, asking fellow GoUta fans random GoUta questions AHAHA. Just really to learn more about my fellow simps. Even back then, and until now, I ship GoUta because their relationship is misunderstood and frowned upon by “everyone”, just the more vocal shippers really ahaha. 

I ship GoUta because I know that there’s something deeper there, something great that I want everyone to see too. 

In my questionnaire, I said what I want for GoUta in canon - 

11. Any GoUta wishlist of scenes/interactions you’d want to see in canon? Alive and well by the end? Ahahaah. I’d be happy. Over the moon happy. If at least Gojo acknowledges that he has a crush/is in love with Utahime/that he’s always liked her. It doesn’t even have to be mutual. That’ll just really give all their scenes together so. much. more. depth. that’s it. that’s all i want. they don’t even have to appear together in a panel anymore. i just want that confession/realization.

It would be great if they’re in love with each other in canon. But a shounen declaring love? At most, I can only hope for a Kokichi x Miwa type validation. That they do understand and value each other. That Utahime doesn’t actually “hate” Gojo. That Gojo actually respects Utahime and holds her in a high regard.

This is honestly why I ship in shounen. You don’t have the in your face, nauseating romance of shoujos/joseis - as if that’s all that women want......... It’s annoying. Always wanting a man. Always needing to be saved. I honestly want to see a partnership. A mutual understanding between a man and a woman. That’s it. Woman doesn’t have to be perfect and OP. I want my woman to have flaws and rise above it, as I believe Utahime has. That’s why I love her character. I believe there’s so much depth there to unearth. 

Shipping only gets annoying because a certain breed of fans gatekeep. It’s annoying. But it’s reality that you’ll have to share everything with everyone, even this seemingly limitless internet void. How is it antis still keep butting heads with GoUta fans? I don’t get it. The internet is literally endless. There’s plenty of space for all types of simps. 

Either way, I don’t know what else to say. It’s definitive to me - that GoUta is going to play out how I want it. Aside from GoUta’s parallel to past works, you always get Utahime shown with Gojo in canon, I won’t even mention the merch. Seriously though, in that recent bonus chapter with Utahime, how is it that someone she ‘hates’ -- how did Gojo still make it into her panels? Gege’s a homophobe now too? A misogynist now too for always lumping Gojo in Utahime’s panels?

I return to Jaime x Brienne. It’s still the most beautiful relationship to me. They started out hating each other with a sordid passion. But it evolved into something so beautiful. There’s such a thing as character depth and development little children. :) And the chance that GoUta could take the same route as Jaime x Brienne is gutting me. I love them. And I simp them. Finito.  

[pact-ideas]

Ways your characters can transition between genders within the mechanics of dnd

this is not at all what this blog is usually about but I recently watched Identity: a trans coming out story by philosophy tube and like a true nerd I saw a moving and breath-taking piece of art and immediately attempted to apply it to Dungeons and dragons.

1. The Witches brew

The viscous green liquid within the cauldron bubbled as a wizened hand stirred with a gnarled wooden spoon “Sip once a day, every day for a year” croaked the witch “but never during the full moon”

A potion or blessing provided by the local wise woman/witches coven/hag that will slowly but surely transform the subject. This idea is maybe less steeped in the mechanics of dnd but this idea seems so classically witchy i had to include it plus this would likely be the only method of transition available for the common folks in your average dnd setting, for DM’s a fun level 1 adventure for your hero's could maybe include a character wishes to brew a potion of transitioning but is missing a vital ingredient and the party must set off on a quest to find it or it could be more of a long term thing, maybe one of the PCs is using such a potion and must occasionally either return to the witches hut to stock up or gather the ingredients themselves, lots of possibilities.

I thought that a slower transformation was appropriate since witches are fairly low level in the grand scheme of things however hags are known for making deals so maybe your character has bargained for a faster transition but then the question is what did they offer in exchange?

2. By Divine Favour

You kneel and whisper a prayer as you had done a thousand times before but this time something was different, from the sky, a beam of golden light falls down upon you and you feel power deep within your bones.

The gods are the most powerful creatures in the lore of dnd but with that comes a degree of separation, the gods are not likely to grant your wishes just because you asked so your best bet is to go to a cleric or become one yourself, spell wise however there is little they can do for you unless the dm has a very generous interpretation of the term ‘restoration’ luckily clerics have the divine intervention feat where they roll a d100 and if the number they roll is below their cleric level they can call on their deity for aid with a specific task, this task can be anything from drying out the laundry with some sun beams or alleviating dysphoria with a godly transfiguration. clerics get this ability at level 10 which means that there's a one in ten chance of success from the beginning and they can perform it once per long rest so just hang out with them for a fortnight and wait for luck to turn your way.

3. A Pact From Beyond

You hang in space as if swimming in an ocean and flying through the clouds all at once. You feel a mind older that time and vast enough to swallow a city whole asks you “what is it you desire?”

Here we are at my bread and butter. Eldritch pacts have been made for much less than a definitive change of identity so you could also throw in that your friends and family will only remember you as your new identity or you could just have anyone who ever deadnames you sucked into the nine hells.

There are other option if you don’t want to base your entire pact on transitioning. At second level you gain access to eldritch invocations one of which could be mask of many faces which allows you to cast disguise self at will without using a spell slot, what this means is that you can decide how your character looks 100% of the time. disguise self only lasts an hour but you can just cast it again and again. obviously this is a low level ability so it does have limits, the main draw back is that the spell is only an illusion. you can make your character look a certain way but you can’t change their body, at least until 7th level when you can get the sculptor of flesh invocation that allows you to cast polymorph but sadly you do have to use a spell lot for this invocation so even though you will have a proper transformation it will at most last an hour.

but hey the situation isn't hopeless I’ve heard that unfathomable eldritch beings are very reasonable creatures as long as you are willing to negotiate.

4. Find a wizard

“The ritual lasts an hour and requires you to be completely submerged” Said the kindly old man as he excitedly hopped around his arcane laboratory showing off his research which is complete gibberish to you “the magic of the clay will sustain you but if you are uncomfortable with the sensation of not breathing I have some improvised wooden reeds which you could use to breath through however a foreign body within the ritual may require me to take a little extra time to...” 

You silence him with a wave of your hand “Don't worry about it.” You lie back on the table “Lets begin,” 

Wizards have access to a larger amount of spells that other classes but only a few of those spells are fit for our purposes, Wizards have access to disguise self which we discussed in the previous section as well as alter self which would be perfect for our needs if it wasn't for the hour long time limit, if you can find a way to keep the alter self spell up indefinitely through either a magic item or a round the clock team of spell casters who take turns casting every hour, you would have a better time but even then it is an ongoing magical effect so it can be cancelled either by a dispel magic spell or an antimagic field but fear not dear reader! for wizards have the ultimate trans spell... Widowgast’s Transmogrification.

Now technically this spell isn’t part of official dnd material however the world the spell exists in is an official dnd world so I consider it cannon by proxy. Widowgast’s transmogrification is a spell that permanently transforms a willing humanoids body into another type of humanoid body this means you can change the race and/or gender of the subject. So you essentially get to look exactly how you want to with no magical baggage. There are some drawbacks of course this is a 6th level spell so you need to be at least an 11th level wizard to be able to cast it or you need to find a trustworthy wizard which is a challenge in of itself plus the spell components are costly but in my opinion the pros of the unique spell outweigh the cons.

[emptymanuscript]

POV Character =/= Main Character =/= Protagonist =/= Hero

We, me included, have a nasty habit of conflating these and using them interchangeably. Because they often do overlap. There are many many stories where the Venn diagram of these is a perfect circle. But that’s just a possible arrangement, not a necessary arrangement. They all do mean different things.

POV Character =

Think of movies. To make a movie you have a camera and you move it around to construct the scene. Written stories don’t have cameras, we have Point of View. The Point of View can be behind the POV Character’s eyes, seeing what they see. 1st person. It can be on the POV Character, watching them directly. 2nd person. It can be near them, recording the scene but favoring them near the center of frame. 3rd person close. It can hover with a macro view seeing everything like a god but aiming so that all eyes slide back toward the POV Character eventually. 3rd person omniscient limited. It can even have the divine power to see all secrets, including thoughts. 3rd person omniscient. Basically unless it’s behind the eyes or aiming right at YOU, it’s some kind of 3rd person. But it’s always doing the equivalent of the camera, it’s saying where we, the audience, “see” the story from. It’s the individual who acts as the center for narrating, they anchor the frame of the story. The more it diverges from a character in scene, the more it becomes a narrator who functions as their own type of character.

Main Character =

Pretty close to a POV character but rather than being the determiner of where the camera is, the Main Character is the center of attention for the story as a whole. The POV can shift fairly easily, the Main Character generally does not because they are who the story is about. So, the famous example is the Sherlock Holmes stories. Watson is the POV Character, he determines the camera and the framing. His perceptions are at the center. But the narrative focus, the character who the story is about, is Sherlock Holmes. Same arrangement with The Great Gatsby. The POV Character controls perception. The Main Character IS the focus. The narrative revolves around the Main Character.

Protagonist =

The person who suffers. The Protagonist is the character who bears the brunt of misfortune that the story deals out. If the POV Character is the center of perception and the MC is the center of narrative, then the Protagonist is the center of emotion. They’re the ones faced with character arcs because they’re the ones who have to change in order for the story to result in a success.

Hero =

Hero is a tough one because its definition changes the most over time. But at its base you have to remember that HERO is a bit like ROBOT. The Hero is a servant or a slave. They are the person that the narrative tasks with solving its core problem. Their job isn’t so much to change themselves as it is to change the world around them. And it’s less for their own benefit than it is for the benefit of the society of others in a narrative. The Hero saves the day for the people.

There is the special case of the ANTIhero. The Antihero is, or can be, like the Hero in all respects but one. The Antihero saves the day for the Antihero. Society of any kind is besides the point. They are Anti because they remove the definition of servant or slave from themselves and simply focus on the solving of the narrative problem. This can be done honorably and gently OR be done in such a way to make them indistinguishable from a villain. It doesn’t matter. The fundamental difference is that a Hero acts primarily for the benefit of others while an Antihero acts primarily for their own benefit.

Hero is primarily a term for the character changing the outside world while Protagonist is primarily a term for someone who changes internally but they’re not mutually exclusive. A protagonist usually does act on the external and a hero usually does undergo internal change. Because of term drift, they are particularly conflated. But you want to think of it as All Heroes Are Protagonists because they are suffering the narrative but not all Protagonists are Heroes because a Hero requires that external, societally based focus which a general Protagonist does not. Heroes are a specific subset. And even Antiheroes focus on societal transgressions, they tend to focus on violently maintaining the social order, or exercising ABSOLUTEL MORAL AUTHORITY, at the expense of law that has already failed by the time they go to work. They are capital R Right and so allowed to do anything to meet their goals because their enemies are capital W Wrong. The world conforms to a Hero’s and Antihero’s moral compass. A hero will most often these days need a compass realignment to do their heroics, while an Antihero will need to smack the world’s compass a little to make it aim Right.

Bonus:

Antagonist =/= Villain

Antagonist=

An antagonist is merely the person whose goals are incompatible with the success definition of the narrative. So the Protagonist and Antagonist cannot possibly both get what they want the way they both want it. That’s it. An Antagonist can be the love of the Protagonist’s life and love them equally in return. So long as they have a mutually exclusive goal for most of the story. Or the two can hate each other and be willing to kill each other over a petty argument. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the antagonistic force cannot simply be gotten along with as is. Something in the dynamic must change in order for the Protagonist to succeed. And the Antagonistic Force wants to succeed with equal or greater need. They cannot come to an accord without something changing. That’s the antagonist’s purpose: to force a change by their incompatible goal.

Villain =

The opposite of the Hero, all Villains are Antagonists but not all Antagonists are Villains. Villains are a subset. Villains are the polar opposites of Heroes. They tend to be externally, physically focused. They are defined by their relationship to society. A Villain acts against the better interests of society for their own benefit. Though interestingly, Villain comes from the same root as Village, it originally meant Villager, probably more accurately Serf. So they too are servants of a kind. But they’re s baser servant, a servant of themselves, and their own needs. It’s one of those things where you have to remember that “good” and “bad” have switched. A lowborn villager would have been seen as bad by default because of their lack of blessings. While a prince, son of a slaughtered royal family, raised as a brother to that villager would be good because of the blessings of his blood and because he was now OF the people by the blessings of their care instead of being literally a villager himself. Yeah, we’re a little nuts. But it is why the Villain and Hero look so much alike. Their differences are where it is hard to see. So a Villain often needs a kind of unmasking to show their baseness.

Is there an Antivillain? I would argue yes but it’s undefined because no one feels like they need it. An Antihero rejects society as is for the self - absolute moral authority. So an Antivillain, based in selfishness against society would be a selfless villain, a true believer who thinks honesty and utterly that they are acting for something beyond both the self and society as is. So it’s a zealot practicing absolute moral authority because they have seen the better world to come. They’re not going to be unmasked as a faker because they aren’t faking. They truly believe. They’re doing their best. And their best is utterly destructive to the current world. Which they’ll never question because they also weild absolute moral authority. Which means, except for a couple of obligatory scenes, most readers will never spot the difference.

[sageblogsthings]

(This is @magicalwriting main) Happy very late wbw! I wanted to ask how the magic system in Anora worked. Obviously you don’t need to lay down everything, but the powers/abilities that each protagonist has would be great! Thanks!

thanks for the ask, and no worries about it being late i will ramble about worldbuilding any day of the week! this ask really helped me develop my ideas as well so thank you! it got a bit long tho so no worries if you don’t read the whole thing i just wanted to get everything out of my head and in writing haha

when i first started building Arnora’s magic system, i asked myself what the magic system would be based on. i feel like a very common base in fantasy is the elements (earth, air, fire, water, etc) and while i love that system (and will likely use something similar for my Onyx & Opal wip) i wanted to try something different. so the foundation of the magic system in Arnora is time!

the way time works in Arnora is a bit different than the linear concept we have in our world. There are three Pillars of Existence: The Past, The Present, and The Future (these are rough human translations cuz i’m still coming up with Arnoran words for them lol). but these Pillars all support our understanding of Time at any given moment, so what we would just perceive as the present an Arnoran would perceive as a culmination of the past, present, and future in one instant. it’s kinda abstract and i’m definitely still trying to figure out how to explain it well haha

in terms of magic, this means that all forms of magic ultimately stem from time magic. for example, necromancy is a form of magic that manifests The Past, and brings that manifestation into the Pillar of The Present. so whenever someone uses magic they are drawing on one of the pillars of existence, and this pillar could kind of be seen as their patron deity in a sense.

also, not everyone in Arnora practices magic but everyone has a connection to it since the magic system is based on time and the very fabric of reality. there are those who reject this system and try to perform magic outside of time itself, and these people are called nihilimancers. there are not a lot of professions that are frowned upon in Arnora but nihilimancy is regarded as the closest thing to evil magic there is. necromancy and blood magic are not considered bad in Arnora because their conceptualization of the soul and death is very different from ours.

i’m still working out all of the characters’ powers and abilities and these might change but here’s what i have so far. in parenthesis i put which pillar is associated with each skill line! i’m gonna put a ‘keep reading’ here too so people on mobile don’t hate me lol

Vanna: green and white magic (Future)

this includes healing/cleansing spells and nature-based spells. these are under the Pillar of the Future because performing these spells requires the caster to be able to envision what could be, and bring purity to an area darkened by the Past.

Xalia: conjuration and destruction magic (Past)

if you’ve read Xalia’s chapter you might remember the part where she turns her daggers into wings: this is a form of conjuration magic. she can also cast destruction spells manifest in a lot of ways but her favorite is purple flames! this falls under the Pillar of the Past because it requires envisioning something you’ve seen or experienced before and bringing that thing to pass.  

Silaesan: he’s weird since he’s a Time Magister so he is literally the embodiment of all three pillars

the main job of Time Magisters is to envision all of the Pillars and make sure that they do not collapse and disrupt the Timeline. this involves a lot of skills from each Pillar. divination would be a skill under the Future but reading the stars would be under the Past, and interpreting the current state of the timeline would fall under the Present.

Tilaraen: destruction magic (Past) they have some other really cool magic stuff goin on buuut it would be a massive spoiler if i told u so just wait n see lol

i can’t really say much about Tilaraen without giving major plot spoilers but just know that i’m super excited to write about their backstory more! their chapters will be a really good way to understand the structure of the magic system and how it could go wrong . . . and that’s all imma say bout that

Dorian: illusions and enchantments (Present)

Dorian is nothing if not a pickpocket and a thief, and his magic reflects this. he often uses illusions to pull off heists, and uses enchantments to give him a somewhat unfair advantage in combat. he is also very skilled with poison making! this is a manifestation of the Present because illusion requires manipulating what the viewer currently perceives, and enchantments involve imbuing temporary power into an object during a moment of need.

Mikah: evocation and abjuration (Past)

Mikah is my sweet cinnamon roll baby and i just want to protect him so ofc he gets these skill lines lol. evocation is more about doing damage in combat, whereas abjuration focuses on blocking and banishing. this falls under the Past because it involves learning from your mistakes in life and in combat to become stronger in the future.

Ari: artificer/transmutation (Future)

if you’ve read Ari’s chapter you will also see his magic skills in action! he is an artificer, which falls under the school of transmutation. this is similar to illusion in that it changes the appearance of things but with transmutation you are changing the appearance and actual nature of something. this falls under the Future because you must envision what you want that thing to become to successfully perform a transmutation spell.

Verena: necromancy and blood magic (Past)

like i said before, these forms of magic are not frowned upon in Arnora. because they fall under the pillar of the Past, they are more viewed as a form of learning from history. if someone has an issue with necromancy it is not so much with the practice itself but usually the implementation of it. i can’t say too much more on Verena’s magic without giving spoilers but security, safety, and power are incredibly important to her, and she felt that necromancy and blood magic were best able to give her that.

whew that was long! bless you if you read all of that haha. this is the first time i’ve actually written all that down, it was kinda just floating in my head before, so thank you for the ask and giving me the chance to get all of that onto the page! :)

also fun tidbit but now that i’ve explained the pillars a little hopefully the name of Tov’s tavern (The Crooked Pillar) makes a bit more sense!

[praphit]

“Black Is King” - nuff said, but I’ll ramble anyway.

"Black is King" is of course Beyonce's new joint, based somewhat on "The Lion King", with an array of African cultures and symbolism at its core. 

Now, I am no different than the rest of you. I am obligated to love all things Beyonce. I have an extra obligation as a black man; not that I don't love everything that she does. I don't want "The Hive" or the Illuminati after me. I'm just saying that even if I didn't care for something that she did or had a slight bit of criticism, I'd be obligated to love it anyway. But, like I said... I love everything that she does anyway, so... we'll just go ahead and give this musical film a Grade: A+ Ok? cool.

Beyonce did everything in this film. Normally, when someone tells me that they wrote, starred in, directed, produced, idk filmed... catered, was the whole I.T. team, etc, I think to myself "This is either going to be awesome or a huge pile of apeshit." But, we all know that The Queen overflows with awesome sauce. I mean look at all of the adulation from the critics.

But, this is an artsy project, so some of you might not understand what's going on. You don't want to be disrespectful, and shine light on your ignorance, so allow me to help you understand some of it, by taking you through it, so you can pay your proper respects.

The film starts off with a baby in the river. I don't know if it's some type of Moses thing going on (who once was a baby floating down a river), but Beyonce ends up with the baby. I don't know if it's Beyonce's child or not. I suppose that Beyonce could have stolen this child. But, you know... it’s Bey. If Beyonce ever kidnaps your child, consider yourself blessed.

And so, The Queen starts singing to the kid as she walks around some gorgeous island.

I'm thinking that this is just a typical morning for Beyonce. While we're all at work on a Monday morning hoping that the next sip of coffee will get our minds ready for another week, Beyonce will be walking on some dream island, singing and dancing, as her servants prep her royal breakfast.

Oh, and there's some blue guy who keeps appearing as well. I'm still not really sure what's going on with him.

THEN, all of a sudden, we're in space. 

Beyonce is there too (kinda in spirit form and glowing), and some old black man talks to us about destiny.

THEN, we're back on earth with some sort of star (possibly) falling quickly from the sky. Superman maybe? Satan (you bible nerds will get that)? Beyonce? Some sort of “Beyonce is God's gift from Heaven” imagery there? Idk. All of a sudden, I didn't care, because... hips.

Lots of hips start shaking in front of us.

I’d show you a pic or gif, but I’m afraid that some of you don’t know not to stare into Beyonce and her dancers hips - it’s like the ark of the covenant, if you don’t take breaks.

But, let me tell you... MY GOD.

A true goddess! As I think more about it, her godly powers throughout this visual album/film were spot-on dance choreography and unlimited stimulating outfits.

And of course... eternal hips.

Like all stories, we at some point must get to the villain. I guess you could follow along and say that Beyonce's possibly stolen child grew up a bit, left home, and found his way to some dude who looked like young Bobby Brown. 

Imagine Bobby Brown wearing an awkward amount of gold chains and holding a yellow snake.

Some of you probably don't remember the "king of R&B". Well, it's debatable whether he was or not; he certainly believed that he was, but I wonder who would call themselves the king or queen of R&B today? 

There's this guy, who is self-proclaimed... 

I affectionately refer to him as “J-Squeezy”. 

I think that I was half asleep when I first tried to pronounce his name, and that's what came out. He'll always be "J-Squeezy" to me.

Maybe Jhene Aiko (one of my wives). 

Though some might say Justin Bieber. Can you imagine all of the R&B legends look up from bended knee, and are forced to give high praise to their “king” 

- The Biebs? 

That's just plain sad.

So, Bobby Brown, some sexy woman in a red dress, a yellow snake, and a monkey scratching its butt all tempted Beyonce's probably stolen child. Now, the kid... idk what happened to him... he's a drug dealer or something now. ... idk.

BOOM! And like that, Jessie Reyez (whom I love!) is on the scene.

Her and a dancing motorcycle gang are in the woods doing God knows what, until some dude, who thinks he's a lion ends the scene (Scar from "The Lion King"? Idk).

We are then transported to a funeral. Everything is white. Beyonce is there, and in all white. But, things take an artsy, dark turn, and now it looks like Beyonce is dead. BUT, Jay-Z finally shows up to the rescue. I don't know where he has been; probably hanging out with his new buddy.

All of a sudden, we're back to their house/mansion on the island and Jay-Z is picking Beyonce up to go to some club. Then, they enter the club in slow motion. Which again, I feel like they probably do that sort of thing all of the time. Jay and Bey just walking in slo-mo to make an entrance.

It's a wild party with synchronized swimmers (yep), human chess pieces (yep), and Jay and Bey eating soul food. 

Just another night.

Jay-Z must have went to bed early or something, because immediately Beyonce is transported to some other club in the inner city. There are a lot of sexy dudes around. Idk if maybe Jay and Bey have got some sort of Will and Jada sitch going on.

Oh, and these designs at this No-Jay-Z’s-Allowed-Club were dope... weird, but dope! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find pics of them online, but they kinda gave me a “Silent Hill” vibe - 

Pretty much the same :) (Illuminati)

But, the scenes of this "flick" never stay dark, they always go back to vibrant colors with the African cultures vibe. All of a sudden, the colors are back and the kids (lots of kids out of nowhere... possibly ALL stolen) are with Beyonce, and they're all playing patty cake.

Wait, was "patty cake" appropriated from Africa? Dammit, white people.

Then, things got a lil confusing (THEN:) with what appeared to be random stories of random peoples lives. It was as if cameras were set-up at random events such as weddings, parties, etc. Is Beyonce "big brother"? When I "people watch", I'm just at a park or looking out of my window. Apparently, when Beyonce "people watches", she spies on us all.

Someone quoted something about "Remember who you are." Something else about how “We're all kings (except for Beyonce's servants)”, and you need to go get what is yours... or something. And someone else said "Child of dust return to the river" I think we all know what that means.

Annnnd more blue guy. 

I’m starting think that the blue guy was just in Bey’s head the whole time. 

At one point, there was a bunch of blue guys, and they were all dancing.

I could go on, but that's enough; it's just more of that.

I will say this - I loved the fashion, the locations, the dances, and the music... WOW! I love everything culturally about "Black Is King", as well as the overall statement (artistically) that its making..

However... now, I'm not saying that I’M saying this, but some might say that throughout this 1hr and 25min long medley of music videos that they found themselves saying often "What the hell am I watching?" I repeat, I AM NOT SAYING THAT. Perhaps some just might not get it. Perhaps, not unlike this year (2020), there's no real meaning. Now, it could be divine retribution. Maybe all of the worlds doctors and scientists are conspiring against us (and themselves). Or maybe the world wasn't well prepared for this pandemic. Maybe the arrogance in SOME parts of the world

 are making their sitch worse, and MAYBE there's no meaning to give it. Maybe we simply need to start finally listening to one another and quit being assholes. Maybe 2020 is a year merely to be suffered through, and hopefully you'll make it to the end. Not that "Black is King" is something to be suffered through. I gave it an A+ remember? And I certainly, definitely, unequivocally finished it. I'm just... rambling like I do.

Do you remember any of the imagery from the movie "The Ring" - allow me to refresh you memory:

(Adele? How did you get in there?)

You know, just a lot of confusing shit (though I love that movie btw).

I'm reminded of this, because the images in this movie had no dialogue to them; we all had to join the main character in figuring it all out.

Now, picture that, but instead of the creepy girl, we're blessed with Beyonce, and it's in color... and smear Africa on it. BOOM! That's art! Who wouldn't want 1hr and 25mins of that??!

All hail The Queen.

[masquedefoot5]

Balinese Mask - Spiritual Force Behind

Presentation

Bali is an island, which all through the ages has been impacted by numerous different societies. While Bali's strict root originates from animism and genealogical love, Hindu folklore and Buddhism have been significant impacts. Notwithstanding, paying little mind to what they were rehearsing, one factor has consistently stayed steady: "Life in Bali is represented by religion" . Hence, it does not shock anyone that the specialty of cover making determined as a strict demonstration, instead of a mission to make tasteful excellence. Veils accordingly offer structure to genuine and chthonic powers and are utilized in dramatic exhibitions to show transformations of Indian Sanskrit Texts . Likewise, dramatic cover moves are utilized for, "planting and reap festivities and now and again of change in the lives of people and networks". Veil moves, for example, Topeng, additionally examine governmental issues of the over a wide span of time, and ethics. I will additionally talk about the veiled moves in another part of this article.

Theater in Bali, Indonesia is in excess of a recognized order; it is an exhibition laced with consistently life. Theater, similar to all craftsmanship, is a piece of the religion and culture in Bali; subsequently all Balinese partake in workmanship here and there. Besides, music, dance, outfits, and show are not isolated substances, but instead bits of Balinese Theater that depend on one another to accomplish their definitive reason: Creating solidarity and amicability between the three universes. In this article, I will talk about Balinese covers and the strict socio-social job they play in Balinese Theater. Get it here Masque Rugby All Black Nouvelle Zelande

Balinese Beliefs and Mythology

The Bali Hindu religion, the establishment of the arranged Balinese society, overruns each part of life. Bali Hinduism, which has root in Indian Hinduism and in Buddhism, embraced the animistic customs of the indigenes, who repressed the island around the main thousand years BC. This impact reinforced the conviction that the divine beings and goddesses are available no matter what. Each component of nature, thusly, has its own capacity, which mirrors the intensity of the divine beings. A stone, tree, blade, or woven fabric is an expected home for spirits whose energy can be coordinated for acceptable or evil. Notwithstanding, even workmanship shop veils, those wood covers made in an unconsecrated sequential construction system way to be offered to vacationer, have been known to get had. A previous overseer of Bali's Art Center has a compact clarification: "In the event that you make an alluring home, somebody will need to live in it." An attractive recommendation

As per Bali Hinduism, for each certain standard or helpful power there is a similarly incredible dangerous powers. These are once in a while alluded to as powers of the right (high) and powers of the left (low). The two components preferably exist together in balance with the goal that neither accepts an excessive amount of intensity. Keeping up this shaky balance is a consistent distraction for the Balinese, who get ready every day contributions to satisfy the spirits and monitor them just as argue for favors.

Contributions, or banten, fluctuate as indicated by the idea of the function and whether they are proposed for a high or low soul. They may comprise of blend of incense, blossoms, old Chinese coins, texture, betel nuts, arak (alcohol), blessed water, palm-leaf adornment, and food. The food isn't really intended to be eaten by the divine beings yet works as means by which individuals offer back what legitimately has a place with the spirits. The main second in the life of offering is its devotion. From that point onward, what befalls it is significant. Therefore, contributions to low soul, which are left on the ground, are generally rummaged by chickens or canines. The bigger contributions to cheerful dispositions are reclaimed to the family home in the wake of dwelling for some time at the sanctuary, and the eatable parts are then devoured by relatives.

Balinese sanctuaries, adorned with a beautiful showcase of stones carvings, comprise of blustery, outdoors patios, encircled by a divider and entered through a huge split door. Once inside the passageway is a detached divider (aling-aling). Past the divider is an enormous, open territory with numerous little sanctums of different sizes, each committed to an alternate god or goddess. At sanctuary celebrations, the typically serious holy places are profoundly finished, and admirers come to ask and devote their contributions, at that point resign to converse with companions. A celebration is a profoundly social event, coming full circle in a live presentation of cover dance or manikins introduced for all to appreciate nearby townspeople and visitors just as the spirits of visiting gods and predecessors, and even an infrequent sightseers.

The dance and covers dramatizations that are performed at the sanctuaries as a component of the odalan are viewed as significant contributions to the god and goddess. The gods would be reluctant to go to any birthday festivity where there is no amusement. A cover artist makes a contribution of his aptitudes each time he performs, now and again serving in a limit comparative o a cleric. Wali moves, those allowed to happen in the internal sanctum of the sanctuary complex, are coordinated toward the idolized predecessors, who are respected visitors, and will in general be associated with spirits instead of plot, character, or story.

Balinese Mask Performance

Veils exhibitions have been significant ceremonies on the Indonesian island of Bali for over 1,000 years. Albeit numerous people of old social orders utilized wooden covers to commend their religions, Bali is one of only a handful few spots where the custom craftsmanship has never vanished and is, truth be told, flourishing. Wood carvers are delivering more lovely and more detailed wood veil than any other time, and a huge number of individuals overall gather these convincing items. The expansion of Balinese craftsmen and execution bunches demonstrates that the little island is going through a social renaissance, the highlight of which is the tapel-the delightful Balinese covers.

Covers may speak to divine beings, creatures, devils, or people and can be entire veils or half covers relying upon the dance they are utilized for. Covers can likewise be sacrosanct or non-consecrated relying upon their motivation and readiness. Since the otherworldly auditorium in Bali has caught the consideration of endless outsiders to the land, non-sacrosanct veils are made richly available to be purchased. Be that as it may, the best of the veil carvers have not deserted their calling to make the hallowed, sanctified covers when they have a "feeling" to do as such.

[scoutception]

Final Fantasy Type-0 review: Depression central

If there’s one Final Fantasy subseries whose fate gets me feeling down, it’s the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, a novel and ambitious concept based around various games and stories of different settings and casts of characters, but sharing common themes and mythos, putting them in different contexts in each. While a fascinating idea, it ran into nothing but trouble with each of its entries, with Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels being very divisive, to say the least, Final Fantasy Versus XIII running into an infamously extended development hell, only to finally emerge as Final Fantasy XV, now almost completely separate from its original concept, and the final big entry, Final Fantasy Type-0, vanishing until 5 years after its announcement in 2006, as a PSP exclusive that only came out in Japan, a rarity for the series when it comes to its higher profile spinoffs. Thankfully, in 2015, Type-0 got a remaster on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC, finally allowing other audiences to enjoy it. Was it worth the almost 10 year wait? Well, that’s something we’re about to find out now.

Story:

Final Fantasy Type-0 takes place on the world of Orience, divided into 4 great nations blessed with Crystals: the Dominion of Rubrum, a place for the study and teaching of magic granted by the Vermilion Bird crystal, the Kingdom of Concordia, a female led monarchy able to communicate and control monsters and, more importantly, dragons, and home to the Azure Dragon crystal, the Militesi Empire, a technologically advanced state able to produce great machines of war known as Magitek Armors, or MAs, through the power of their White Tiger crystal, and the Lorican Alliance, whose citizens are much larger and powerful than any other in Orience thanks to their more direct connection to their Black Tortoise crystal. Orience is, unfortunately, not a place of peace, with each of the 4 crystal states wishing to unite Orience under them, and making plenty of attempts to in the past. The motive behind this is the legend of the Agito, a messiah said to appear during Tempus Finis, an apocalyptic event prophesied in the somewhat dubious, yet widely believed, Nameless Tome, with every crystal state seeing it as their divine duty to create Agito, to the point of Rubrum training so called Agito cadets from its brightest and most magically adept citizens.

The story opens with yet another war being started in the year 842 by Milites, whose emperor has been deposed by the brilliant and ambitious Imperial Marshall Cid Aulstyne (Final Fantasy games have a tradition of having a character named Cid somewhere, and finally, he made it as main antagonist), who immediately sets out to attack Rubrum. What would otherwise be a “normal” invasion quickly turns disastrous for Rubrum when Milites unleashed a new device called a crystal jammer, which cuts Rubrum’s legionnaires from their connection to the crystal, rendering them helpless before the Militesi invaders. Even worse, Milites also deploys a l’cie, a human chosen by their nation’s crystal to become its direct servant, in exchange for immense power and near immortality, the use of which in warfare was mutually banned by each of the 4 nations. Just when Rubrum seems doomed, the mysterious Class Zero arrives, 12 cadets who are unaffected by the crystal jammer, raised by Rubrum’s even more mysterious archsorceress, Arecia Al-Rashia, who proceed to liberate the capital, Akademia. Now, with the addition of two promising but otherwise normal cadets, Machina Kunagiri and Rem Tokimiya, Class Zero becomes a vital part in Rubrum’s efforts to reclaim their lost land and defeat Milites, once and for all.

To just come out and say it, the story’s biggest weakness is the cast, or, more specifically, its use of the cast. While the playable cast alone is certainly large, at 14 characters, and the supporting cast only grows from there, almost nobody gets proper focus. The main 12 members of Class Zero, named after playing cards, consists of Ace, Deuce, Trey, Cater, Cinque, Sice, Seven, Eight, Nine, Jack, Queen, and King, and despite being the “proper” members of Class Zero, they all only have a few character traits each. Trey is a knowledgeable type that tends to ramble, Sice is an arrogant loner, Nine is a violent muscle head, Cinque is nice, but downright weird, and so on. While after a while they all grew on me, it’s still pretty unsatisfying, especially when Ace, the face of the game, gets neglected just as badly. The supporting cast gets it even worse, as outside of Arecia and Class Zero’s commanding officer, Kurasame, most of everyone else that’s notable either has minimal at best story presence, or doesn’t show up in the story, period, being relegated to sidequests. Ultimately, the most focused on characters are the two “normal” people in Class Zero, Machina and Rem, which kinda makes sense, giving a more grounded air compared to off how putting the others can be to begin with, but even they don’t work out quite well. While Rem is fine, she doesn’t do very much interesting with the time she gets, while Machina, on the other hand, is very, very unlikeable to the point of hurting the story, whether it be his own cold attitude or broodiness to put the usual RPG protagonist stereotype to shame, he ends up way more unsympathetic than near anyone else in the story, even most of the antagonists. While the cast overall is definitely flawed, though, they’re definitely entertaining at a lot of points, whether they come from the main cast, mostly Trey or Cinque, or from some of the side characters, mainly the extremely greedy Carla and, most memorably to me, the paranoid, bombing throwing Mutsuki.

Since the story doesn’t focus on the characters very much, the main focus is instead the war itself. While it definitely has a few twists and turns, especially starting in chapter 4, overall, the battles and events of the war aren’t the most interesting subject by itself. More interesting is the elements around the war. This is by far one of, if not the darkest game in the franchise, and it doesn’t shy away from showing just how messed up Orience is. Rubrum’s main strength comes in the form of its Agito cadets, meaning, teenagers, as young as 14, at that, and the tactics the military uses means they tend to die in droves. Even when it’s technically pragmatic, between magic proficiency peaking at teen years and decreasing with age, plus not having many other means to resistance, it’s still very uncomfortable, and keep in mind, this is what the good guys, or the relative ones, get up to. Milites, meanwhile, is all too happy to deploy superweapons, such as literal nukes, and its soldiers are disturbingly fanatic, being more than happy to massacre towns, and even refer to Class Zero as demons. Class Zero themselves were raised to be soliders, and feel almost nothing in battle, and Rubrum’s leadership are paranoid and petty, to the point of the military commander actively trying to get Class Zero killed out of pure spite. Eidolons, extremely powerful monsters able to be summoned by mages, demand the lives of their summoners, and there are outright suicide squads of cadets who are only meant to summon more powerful Eidolons. Additionally, a very important plot point is that the crystals automatically erase the memories of anyone who dies from everyone’s minds, to the point Rubrum’s citizens need to wear dog tags just so it can be confirmed they even existed after they die. While they try to justify it as a blessing from the crystals that allows people to move on and not be held back by the dead, all it’s done is completely desensitize Orience to death, and having characters casually talk about being informed of their friends or family dying, and not feeling a single thing, is pretty disturbing, especially when it’s named character involved. It does a very good job of showing how constant warring and lack of reverence for the dead has corrupted this world, even when many of the characters affected still remain sympathetic.

Unfortunately, the biggest flaw of the story to me is that there simply isn’t a lot of it to be found, at least in regards to the main story. While the game is comprised of 8 chapters, that’s more than a little inaccurate, as half of those consist of a short introduction and a singular mission, rather than the 2 or 3 missions in the rest of the chapters. The story only really gets moving in chapter 4, and even then, many important points aren’t addressed until chapter 8, which is a downright bizarre and sudden change of subject and tone compared to the rest of the game, to the point a second playthrough is required because of how many holes are left otherwise, and even then, it can be a bit difficult to figure out just what is going on. The biggest achievement of the writing, on the other hand, is the lore of the setting. Orience is a fascinating world, with a detailed history of each nation, plenty of info to find on the various characters, and examinations of the various enemies of the game, all stored in a book in the hub called the Rubicus. It’s also quite interesting seeing the perspective flip compared to Final Fantasy XIII; instead of l’cie “merely” being granted the use of magic, and quickly going through their usefulness, at least by their masters’ consideration, along with the main cast being comprised of them, l’cie in Type-0 are near demigods who often live hundreds of years, and are just as fearsome to the party as to everyone else, for instance. Overall, though, while there are certainly many problems with the writing, I can’t help but say it works quite well regardless. Even with the limited time for both the story itself and the characters, it still builds a cast worth rooting for throughout the horrible situations, and an effective atmosphere that’s quite good at leaving you feeling somber. Moments like the entirety of the opening chapter, showing the utter devastation inflicted on Akademia in a mere three hours, and the various costly, large battles are very effective moments, and the ending is easily one of the saddest endings I’ve seen in a video game, for all the right reasons. Even the final chapter, odd as it is, has a lot of cool revelations and setpieces to me, at least now that I comprehend it.

Gameplay:

Type-0 is an action RPG that has you control the 14 members of Class Zero on various missions, each one possessing a different weapon. Ace uses cards, Deuce uses a flute (I swear they aren’t all this weird), Trey uses a bow, Cater uses a magic infused pistol, Cinque uses a mace, Sice uses a scythe, Seven uses a whipblade, Eight fights with his bare hands, Nine uses a lance, Jack uses a katana, Queen uses a longsword, King uses dual revolvers, Machina uses dual rapiers, and Rem uses dual daggers. Each one possesses a vastly different moveset and playstyle, such as Cinque being slow, but strong and tanky, Sice encouraging an aggressive hit and run style of play, even getting stronger for the more enemies she defeats while taking minimal hits, Trey excelling at range to a much degree than anyone else, while being near helpless up close, and Deuce being more of a supporter, having great support abilities, while her attacks are fairly weird to get used to, though effective on their own once you understand them. Despite the huge amount of characters, they’re actually fairly well balanced, all of them having important strengths and weaknesses, and while some can definitely be better than others, with Trey in particular coming to mind, possessing absurd range and the ability to charge his shots, it’s never quite game breaking. You can have up to three characters in your party, though their AI isn’t exactly great. They can certainly distract enemies well, and will make sure to heal you if your HP gets low, they don’t tend to be aggressive, and are terrible at avoiding the attacks of most enemies more complex than your average imperial trooper, and are near guaranteed to die to bosses. Speaking of which, the main wrinkle is that, while it varies, overall, your characters are not very durable, and in fact take hits about as well as wet toilet paper when faced with most enemies. This is balanced by the sheer amount of people you have. One person dies on a mission, don’t sweat it, you’ve got 13 backups. Of course, this also encourages training them all up and learning to play them as well, which is complicated by only characters in the active party gaining experience. Leveling up, in addition to granting the usual stat boosts, also grants ability points, which you can use to purchase or upgrade command or passive abilities and moves.

While just attacking enemies normally is decently effective, it can put you in unnecessary danger, and while you do have items like potions you can use to restore your health quickly, the most efficient way to fight is to use breaksights and killsights. Every enemy has at least one attack that leaves them vulnerable for a short time either before or after using said attacking. Hitting them during this period will trigger a break, or, if their health is low enough, killsight. Breaksights take a good chunk of their health away and stuns them, giving you a chance to attack them freely, while killsights just kill them outright. This one mechanic adds a lot to the gameplay, encouraging you to learn enemy patterns and attacks to see when they are vulnerable, and getting the timing down can make otherwise fearsome enemies easy to take care of. Of course, some enemies won’t take this very well, and may counterattack or even go into berserk states after recovering from breaksights, so you still have to be careful. Every character has 4 commands: regular attacks with their weapons, 2 slots that can either hold abilities or offensive magic spells, and a defensive command, whether it be the cure spell to restore health, putting up a magic wall to nullify some attacks, or just flat out blocking, which, while still causing you to suffer damage, prevents being knocked down, letting you score breaksights easier than if you were to simply dodge. Magic can be upgraded by harvesting phantoma from dead enemies, coming in various types like red for fire magic, green for defensive magic, and purple for unique spells. While powerful, magic usually takes a large chunk out of your magic points, meaning it’s better to save it for more dire situations, though harvesting phantoma restores small amounts of MP. As for equipment, aside from weapons, you have access to accessories that do things such as increasing HP by a certain percentage, giving immunity to status effects, or raising defense, though everyone can only have 2 accessories at a time. You also have three different squad commands: triad maneuver, which simply causes the party to do 3 powerful, rapid attacks, Eidolon, which summons an Eidolon you can control for a short time, in exchange for KOing the character that summoned it, and Vermilion Bird, a powerful spell that, to actually become powerful, has to be upgraded using crystal shards, which, while fairly easy to get most of the time, aren’t very numerous.

Type-0 uses a mission system, throwing you into various locations to complete objectives, though it usually equates to to reach the end of the area and kill an enemy commander. Most locations are pretty linear, though they all have a few side areas you can go to, usually for more items. You get graded based on how fast you completed the mission, how much phantoma you harvested, and how many party members got KOed during the mission, with getting the best rank on all three categories getting you an S rank, which gives a bonus item. Beating each mission on a difficulty above easy also unlocks other bonuses, whether they be additional items up for purchase or unlocking new spells or Eidolons, or just flat giving you a rare item. Completing missions also gives you money, with more the higher the difficulty and the higher your rank. Speaking of difficulties, there are 4 of them: cadet, which is just easy mode, officer, normal mode, Agito mode, which is a hard mode that makes every enemy 30 levels higher than on cadet and officer, and Finis, which is only available after completing the game once, and is, just plain absurd. All enemies have their levels increased by 50, they’re in permanent rage mode, causing them to move twice as fast and hurt twice as much, and you’re restricted to only being able to use one person per mission. It’s not much worth the effort. Aside from completing missions, your main source of items, magic, and Eidolons is from completing special orders, optional objectives that can pop up in various areas. While there’s various generic, white orders that only give items at the end of the mission for doing stuff like not getting hit for 30 seconds or not using magic for a few minutes, there are also specific, red ones with more specific objectives like taking out certain enemies, that give out better rewards. The main problem with accepting them is that, if you fail to complete them, you risk instant being killed over it, though you can avoid it you’re fast enough, as it’s delivered through portals on the ground.

In between missions, you’re allowed to explore Akademia, chatting with NPCs or party members, or engaging in “free time events” which are either conversations with random people, or cutscenes that tend to have much more interesting information. You only have a limited amount of hours until the next story mission starts, with each event taking two hours away, though time doesn’t pass just running around and talking to people without events. While a neat concept that could easily be like Persona, in practice, it doesn’t add much. While you can get some interesting information at times, and doing events also gives you items, it’s not very in depth otherwise. Even the sidequests with the more prominent side characters just consist doing their events whenever they’re available and doing a sidequest for them, eventually getting admittedly very good bonuses at the end of their little storylines. The other thing you can do with your free time is go out into the world map, where you can visit extremely small towns, get into random encounters, visit dungeons, and... not much else. While the world map isn’t tiny, there’s just not much to find. While there’s many towns, they are, again, tiny, only consisting of a single small area with a shop or two, a sidequest, and a little unofficial side quest to get a l’cie stone, which can be traded into a certain NPC to unlock lore entries in the Rubicus. There’s just not much of interest, and you’re very heavily restricted in where you’re allowed to even go on the world map, only being able to go to areas officially reclaimed by Rubrum, or that are the destination of the current story mission. Only in chapter 7 do you finally get some kind of freedom, to the point of being able to gain an airship to allow easy traversal of the world. Plus, most dungeons aren’t even meant to be explored on a first playthrough, with only about one or two being reasonable at that point, not that there’s even much to find besides l’cie stones and a chance at a rare item, emphasis on chance, since they’re always in a specific chest at the end that can only be opened once without reloading your save, and the chance of getting the most valuable item from them is rather low.

As for other activities, you can train in the arena, for downright piddly gains, or take on sidequests, most of which just contain of going out and defeating a certain amount of specific enemies, giving over items, and so forth. Most rewards aren’t great, but a few, namely from the more notable characters like the leaders of Rubrum, Kurasame, and Arecia, give very notable rewards. Sidequests don’t take time to do, but often require you to leave Akademia, meaning you need to weigh the time lost going out to do the quests against the time you could use doing events, which is difficult when you don’t know just what rewards either give out. When it comes mission time, though, you gotta venture out on the world map to your next destination. Speaking of the world map, along with the regular missions, there are also RTS style missions, where you, controlling a party member on the world map, help the dominion army reclaim forts and towns by taking out enemies and having units generated by controlled areas weaken said areas until you can invade them in a regular mission style. Instead of being graded on phantoma harvested, you’re instead graded on objectives completed, as occasionally you’ll get orders to do stuff like defend a fort for a specific amount of time or taking out a large enemy. While technically optional, you get bonuses for completing them beyond mission grade, such as access to “hero units” and direct control of certain areas. There’s a decent amount of these missions in the game, and they do make for an interest change of pace, but they aren’t much notable. You’re even allowed to skip participating in them, though obviously you miss out on rewards.

The highlights of the game are, rather sensibly, the end of chapter missions. Not only are they much longer than typical missions, they have much more unique settings, and, of course, bosses. This game has some very enjoyable, if difficult, bosses, ranging from the giant mech Brionac that is more than capable of wiping you out in a single attack, to the highly mobile mech of Qator Bashtar, Cid’s second in command, to several fights with the near invincible Gilgamesh (another recurring character in the series). My personal favorite is the boss of chapter 5, the dragon Shinryu, which is also all too happy to instantly kill you with most of its attacks, even more so than Brionac, and spend most of the fight enveloped in the darkness surrounding the arena you’re in, only being visible by the lights of its glowing red eyes. It makes for an amazing setpiece, and losing to it is almost more enjoyable than winning simply due to the failsafe implemented since the devs expected most players to lost, the details of which I simply cannot spoil. Finally, on a second playthrough, two new types of missions are available for you: expert trials, and Code Crimson missions. Expert trials are optional missions you can do during your free time, which you’ll likely have a lot of since events you see on a previous playthrough can be viewed again at no time cost on repeat playthroughs. While technically available in the first playthrough as well, they are way too difficult for the average player, i.e who isn’t insane like me. Code Crimson missions, on the other hand, are replacements for the end of chapter missions, consisting of you going off to do other stuff. While an interesting concept, in practice, they aren’t anything special, especially when they’re replacing the most interesting parts of the game, and they barely give any more story context either. The chapter 7 mission is the one exception, being very short, but an interesting concept and adding a bit more to the story. Plus, completing them all on one playthrough unlocks an interesting alternate ending, so that alone makes them worth a go.

As for the hardest challenges to be found, they’re a bit lacking. Aside from the regular optional dungeons, there’s one notable bonus dungeon and two notable superbosses. The bonus dungeon is the Tower of Agito, which can only be reached by airship, which consists of 5 floors where you need to fight 100 specific enemies, such as tonberries and behemoths, with plenty of chests to open in between, ending off on an extremely disappointing end boss that is just a Malboro that happens to be massive. While it certain sounds difficult, and pretty much everything is capable of one shotting you, once you get into a good pattern, it’s really just boring. Most of the time, they just spawn so slowly, and while after a while more of them come out at a time, it takes about an hour and a half at best to get through even if you’re otherwise efficient. As for the superbosses, there’s Nox Suzaku, only available in a second playthrough and onward, who has a chance of appearing whenever you harvest phantoma, stealing everything you try to harvest until it decides to go away. Aside from making it go away on its own, you can beat it up, which is quite a doozy. Instead of fighting you directly, it summons phantoms of various enemies to fight you, and while you could just defeat them all, this doesn’t do anything to Nox itself. Instead, you have to let the enemies defeat you, causing Nox to appear for a short time, allowing you to attack it until it retreats. Rinse and repeat, it’s not that difficult, and the rewards aren’t that great, so the main reason to beat it up is just to make it go away, because it stealing your phantoma is extremely annoying, especially when it can show up during missions, since you can’t just leave to fight it, and it’s entirely possible for it to flat make it impossible to get an S rank on that mission it decides it doesn’t want to leave. Not exactly a fun mechanic. The other superboss is, per tradition, Gilgamesh, in a stronger form than in the story. He only shows up on a third playthrough, at a few different locations on the world map, in the form of a portal. Entering said portals causes him to randomly select one of your characters to challenge. If you win, you get that character’s ultimate weapon, but if he wins, he steals your character’s current weapon. The ultimate weapons are kinda underwhelming, especially considering you may well have everything else done after a second playthrough, and it’s annoying getting specific people picked, but it’s actually a fun and fair fight, if easy to figure out.

Overall, Type-0 has some of the tightest gameplay among all the Final Fantasy spinoffs, and is the main thing that holds it together. It has a fast, hectic pace to it, interesting enemies to tackle, and a wide variety of people to try out. Really, the main criticism I have is the actual missions you have with which to try them out. The other main story missions aren’t much to look at, and same goes for the expert trials and Code Crimson missions. I’m sure this is at least partially due to originating on the PSP, and having to deal with its limitations, something that’s about become a theme in this review. Overall, though, it’s still more than satisfactory.

Graphics:

The visuals of Type-0 are a very mixed big, unfortunately leaning more towards negative. More than anything else, they make it very apparent that Type-0 was originally a PSP game. While the members of Class Zero themselves have decent looking models, if rather unemotive, everyone else, except a few important characters like Arecia, are much lower quality, especially the faces. Here’s a comparison between Ace and Carla.

The textures don’t fare much better, looking very blatantly stretched and blurry, especially on the world map, where bridges are just one long, hideous texture. Most locations outside of, again, the end of chapter missions don’t look anything special, and so many areas are just reused over and over. You go into a town, it’ll look like every other town, at least of that region. You invade a fort, it’ll look like every other fort. Repeat for almost every mission in the game. Thankfully, the big story missions look quite impressive and creative, my favorites being chapter 5′s, taking place on frozen clouds that end up near breathtaking, and especially the setting of the very final mission, which is, to avoid anything too specific, downright insane, in a good way. Another positive are the enemy designs, more specifically, the actual monsters, with enemies such as bombs and flans resembling their earlier FF designs much more than most modern entries. Unfortunately, there’s just one problem: the actual variety of enemy designs is rather lacking, with the majority of enemies being slight alterations or palette swaps. It’s a more minor point than most, but still something. The original enemy designs are quite inventive though, and overall, this is a game that excels more in general design than actual fidelity, like the spiraling Concordian capital surrounded by a sea of clouds.

Sound:

The music of Type-0 is plain great, as is usual for the series. The boss themes especially are fantastic, along with the main theme, The Beginning of the End. It also sounds quite distinctive compared to most of the rest of the series, having a greater focus on metal, fitting the more modern aesthetic. The English voice acting, on the other hand, isn’t quite great. It’s pretty obvious the dub was a rush job, considering Type-0 lacked the simultaneous localization process of the main series games, resulting in it being very lackluster overall. There are some notable voice acting names in it, like Cristina Vee as Cinque, Bryce Papenbrook as Machina, Danielle Judovits as Carla, Cassandra Lee as Mutsuki, and even Matthew Mercer as Trey, and they all do good jobs, but the rest of the cast varies, especially Class Zero itself. Ironically enough, the side characters tend to have much more solid performances, with special props going to Steve Blum as Cid, giving a very menacing perfomance, as well as other characters like Aria, Class Zero’s orderly, and Kazusa, the resident mad scientist. Corri English as Sice and Heather Hogan Watson as Queen also fair quite well. Beyond that though, the performances can be rather forced, like Nine and Cater, or just weak overall, like Rem and Deuce. This is not helped by the normal, in game cutscenes themselves, with their structure causing many long, awkward pauses nearly every sentence. It does, however, improve as the game goes on, to the point of the final cutscenes not being hurt by it near at all.

Conclusion:

Overall, this is a solid recommended by me. Even with the weakness of elements like the graphics and the short, underdeveloped story, the core gameplay just holds up that well, and there’s quite a bit to enjoy in the weaker elements even beyond that. Overall, this is one of my favorite Final Fantasy spinoffs, and the fact that it will most likely never get a sequel due to the departure of its director, Hajime Tabata, makes me very sad. With that unneeded note, this shall be the last of the Final Fantasy spinoffs I play in some time. The next time the name Final Fantasy pops up as the subject of one of my reviews, it shall be about the main series. Till next time.

-Scout

[send-doods]

Sekiro Character Analysis

Character: Doujun/Dousaku

Game: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Company: FromSoftware

Timeline/Outline

Disclaimer: The timeline created below is a matter of combining both videogame lore and historical facts in relation to the Sengoku era; as well as facts in relation to the possible mental conditions. This is only a character theory timeline and is not meant to impede or force any opinions. The purpose is to help fellow writers and artists.  

Doujun/Dousaku belong to Fromsoftware. 

Timeline coverage: Due to the games manner of concealing time, dates, and ages— this frame will go by Comic/Manga & Game. This covers roughly a 15-20 year timeframe based on the comics description. 

Name(s): Doujun (道順)   

               Meaning: Path, teachings(Buddhism) - obedient; docile; submissive

                Dousaku ( 道咲 )   

                Meaning: Path, teachings(Buddhism) - to bloom; to come out

Age: Unknown however based on events through the game and character’s within, a reasonable estimate is between 29-35 in game. 

Occupation: Former Seeker Bomb Monk(sect of the warrior monks), Ex-disciple of Master Dogen, Presently hired healer/experimentalist in the Ashina dungeons. 

Quest: Located in the Ashina Dungeon Entrance. 

Pre-Comic/Isshin wins the war and is Lord of Ashina

Origin-  Unknown, however, based on historical facts in relation to Japanese Buddhism (specifically the Zen and Hossō Sects due to Senpou’s design inspiration). Monasteries have their own rules including how they run and ages within ranks (similar to samurai and foot soldiers). Based on average monkhood ordination, Doujun would have entered the monastery around 10 years old and would become a novice monk. He would have also partook in nanshoku with a nenja(elder monk) to learn religious teachings as well as the rank or specialty that was expected. 

Theory: One can Assume Doujun’s mentor’s name was Saku. Otherwise this mentor has been remained nameless. 

Based on attire, Doujun was taught and trained to be a warrior monk as the art of a Seeker/Bombthrower. 

Study: Buddist Monasteries, despite religious discrepancies would have a small group of monks who practiced in “Buddhist Healing” with Kampo influences. Not only did they heal fellow monks, but were also hired by courts and locals to heal and perform medicinal research. 

Assumption: Based on Doujun’s Kimono colouring, he was one of the few in that group.

During the Comic:

Important Lore Note for this section: Appearance note outside of what the timeline goes over: Unlike the other monks at Senpou Temple, Doujun’s pupils are still apparent with a steel silver hue and not “glassed over” or has a “Clouded Silver appearance.” Meaning he did not become host to the larvae despite the monks forced consumption of them(unknown if it was physically eaten, injected ect ect)

Reasoning: Due to the Monks consumption of centipede larvae.

Based on: 

* In the infested text, it's clear that having "worms" is a blessing to the monks and being "chosen by the worms"  (which can be assumed is a larvae being able to parasite the host and grow). The parasitic insects attack/feed off properties that make up melanin(organism pigmentation) causing the loss of eye/skin pigmentation ....Then when they are "blessed" as the Centipede grows it obviously will need other nutrients and take advantage of the host completely.

Regarding Ape and Hainbei: Matured centipedes can skip the development stages of the Larvae like the Guardian ape, therefore feeding into the host itself. 

* Not only are the monks glassy eyed but so is the Great Carp. If you visit the great carp corpse when you kill it, the larvae resides where its stomach was. Either the Carp had been fed the insects or the were in Fountainhead from the start.

Baby centipedes are described as being worm-like.

Due to the comic status is ongoing (7/15/2019) not much can be written regarding this section except Doujun’s trauma and eventual mental split.

Lore: The Senpou monks had been stealing away children for decades to use in the trials of recreating the Dragon’s heritage and in turn making a Divine Child of Rejuvenation for immortality purposes. 

Theory/Thought: Doujun, trained as a seeker would be more or less out in the field “spiriting away children” being oblivious to what was going on in experimental sanctums as well as main hall. Based on his innocence later on upon Dousaku deceiving him, it can be believed that the children really were being taken to the temple grounds to perform "virtuous deeds."

Isshin’s Discovery: Upon the lords discovery of the monks encouragement in the teachings of immortality— corrupting the Buddhist beliefs to worshiping the centipedes, Isshin barricaded and refused the monastery, referring to them as degenerates.

At this point the secrets have spilled and to Doujun’s horror not only discovers the truth in regard to the children but also discovers the Temple has turned their backs on Buddha in their search for immortality and use of the Rejuvenating Waters— specifically witnessing the corruption of the centipede.

Doujun & Dousaku

Fact: In order to fully understand the trauma the character went through, you need to step into what we know. This character has a severe case of Dissociative identity disorder. 

Definition: Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a diagnosis characterized by having two or more distinct people, each with his or her own identity and personality, that alternately take control over a person. This disorder may be caused by intense trauma, such as ongoing physical abuse, sexual assault, and/or emotional/psychological abuse/event that occurred at a younger age. It’s believed to be the brains coping mechanism for the victim to escape of leave the traumatic memory/situation. 

Note: The development of the personality does not happen immediately at the time of the event but can occur some time afterwards depending on the victim.

It is clear Dousaku becomes the personality that takes on the role of Doujun’s former life with the Senpou monks beliefs and as they slowly warped it into an obsession for immortality. His strategies and teachings align with the corrupted beliefs of the monks. 

Doujun’s self is left as a naive but clever personality, doing whatever he can as a student to eagerly please his masters. to become an enlightened disciple of medicine. 

It can be determined Dousaku left the Temple in fear of what the temple had become.

Mentions in-game that can be assumed to be prior to the game's timeframe

Lore: Doujun was a Disciple along with Emma to the great Master Dogen. Dogen’s teachings are speculated to be leaning more towards scientific healing and discovery.

During the time in which Doujun was under Master Dogen’s studies is when Dousaku’s personality fully developed and “emerged” and convinced Doujun that the other physician was mad and expressed extreme jealousy against Dogen. (this can be a reference to how medieval Physicians and Buddhist heals often would rival one another) 

Since Dousaku has claimed himself as the superior personality, it can be assumed he was the one to be hired or set to task by Ashina nobles to work within the dungeon, experimenting on creatures in the hopes of discovering ways to better assist Ashina in winning the war over her lands. 

Based on the reaction of betrayal Doujun expresses to Dousaku during their quest, it can be conceived that he was easily manipulated into thinking he was searching for a “treatment” with the rejuvenating waters sediments. 

In-Game

This is a part in which I do not feel needs to be heavily touched on but will make small mentions.

It is made evident by the time Okami reaches Doujun, he is beyond helpless, fully consumed into Dousaku’s manipulations. Over the time of the quest it can be seen Doujun starts to come to a realization that he has not only been fooled, but is in a position in which he can not escape. 

Reasoning: The consistent need to confide to Okami over his doubts & lack of enthusiasm towards Dousaku and upsetting disbelief to the first experiment he performed in the questline.

The consumption/Injection of Red Carp eyes and the effects: 

Reasoning: The descriptions of the Red lump, Red-eyed Carp, Doujun's conversations of his experiments and questline as well as the description of creature/individuals who have red eyes. Also the fact the Demon of Hatred ends up with red eyes and Isshin’s explanation of Shura.

"Those with Red Eyes are dangerous and filled with rage that is difficult to control through the power of man alone. They do, however, fear the flame above all else."'

"Red Eyed Carp are considered incomplete creatures, Carp with only eyes that are red cannot become “masters”."

Theory: Red eyes are not only an after effect of those whom have consumed some form of stagnated rejuvenating water but ALSO who are consumed by a sense of failure/incompletion/defeat that turns into an endless rage causing their eyes to glow. Thanks to The experimentations of Doujun/Dousaku it's noticed that despite being experimented on, the person you send to him will not have red eyes until after you receive the bloodstained letter.

Note: Based on how much of a victims madness of their misfit circumstances has consumed them will determine the glow intensity until they are too far gone to come back from madness.

This concludes that in the despite Doujun’s fears, he felt that he not only failed himself but his master as well. This is why in the end he desperately in a frenzy attacks you, for the sake of failing his master. 

Feel free to DM me if you are interested in the sources I used, any questions or feedback :)

[thesffcorner]

Wicked Saints

Wicked Saints is the first book in a YA fantasy trilogy, written by Emily A Duncan. It follows 2 characters; Nadezhda Lapteva, the only remaining cleric in the kingdom of Kayazin, who can communicate with all of the Gods; and Serefin Melenov the High Prince of Tranavia, who is sworn to bring Kalyazin to its knees, and kill Nadya. However, things are not what they seem, and both characters might have to work together if they want either of their lands to survive.

This book is a whole ass mess. At points it was entertaining, even approaching good, but for the vast majority it was jumbled, rushed, and wildly inconsistent. It’s not the worst book I’ve read but it’s not good either, and I have a lot to say. So strap in: it’s going to be a long one.

Writing:

This book is a debut, and much like another debut I read earlier this summer, it shows. It’s not that the writing is necessarily bad; I daresay that Duncan has a good grasp on style and especially dialogue. A lot of the banter between the characters was entertaining, and for the most part I got a good sense of who these characters are, and what their motivations were…. Some of the time. The book has a good atmosphere, I liked the descriptions of the monastery and the different cities the gang visits, and I’ll even go as far as to say that the scenes between Nadya and Malachiaz were good in isolation. The devil’s in the details. 

First off, this book is the definition of telling instead of showing. So many things in this book are explained to us rather than Duncan showing them, from character motivations and relationships to entire scenes that we never get to see. The biggest example of this was the fight at the end. It’s so confusingly written, we jump between character PoVs and none of them make any sense in terms of who is standing where, who is fighting who, and even who is dead by the end. I wasn’t even sure if anyone died or how; I had to reread and then use context to figure out what happened. It reminded me of the ending fight in Bright, but in book form, and it was not a good note to end on. 

Pacing:

It’s difficult to talk about the problems about this book because they feed into each-other. But the overarching one, the one that makes everything else that much worse, is this book’s piss poor pacing. 

At 300 pages, it is simply too short for what it’s trying to accomplish. Everything feels rushed; character relationships come out of nowhere, motivations change with no hints, and most importantly, the world-building comes of as shallow, because there’s just not enough time to properly develop it. 

Let’s take for example the geography. There is no sense of where any of these characters are, where they are going or even how large the land they are traveling is. Tranavia and Kalyazin border each other, but they also border a third country, Akola. According to the map and the way it’s described in the book, Akola is a desert, while Tarnovia and Kalyazin are both water rich, snow-covered tundras and marshlands. How on Earth does this work? 

Then we have scenes where characters just outright teleport. After they escape the monastery, Nadya and her gang hide-out in a church that’s not too far away. They see Serafin pass by them on his way back to the capital Grazyk. In the next scene, Serefin is already past the Tarnavian border and in the next, he’s in the palace. In between we cut back to Nadya and her gang, figuring out how to get to Grazyk, as Serefin is in the palace, but it takes them 3 WEEKS to get there. Not only that, but in that day that Serefin took to travel, the Vultures came to the church from the palace and back, so… did Seferin become the Flash? Or did Nadya and the others take a Fellowship style detour to get to Tarnavia? It’s not like time is of the essence or anything. 

Then, during this 3 week journey not only does Nadya become extremely close with Malachiaz, Parijahan and Rashid, but she learns perfect Travarian, enough to fool the High Prince himself, learned enough court ethics and rituals to pass as a noble, and yet  somehow didn’t learn that the duels fought during this tournament would be to the death? Also we never SEE any of this bonding; we get a scene where the gang decides to go and then the next scene they are at the border. This would have been perfect time to have us see her interactions with Malachiasz, have him show his true colors some more, explain why they are so drawn to each other. But no, we just teleport into the palace and now I’m supposed to believe that this girl who has been indoctrinated to kill all heretics is in love with one. 

Religion:

This book relies HEAVILY on religion. Duncan has attempted to craft a world where there are two utterly incompatible schools of thought, that will ultimately happen to coincide. It’s an admirable goal, and I think the attempt was good, but there are major, major flaws. 

The first and biggest flaw were the actual Gods. I was severely disappointed by little presence they had in the book. They are supposed to be constantly in Nadya’s head speaking to her, guiding her, bickering about her, but we get so little of that. They are also supposed to have different personalities and react differently to Nadya praying to them. 

We establish for example that some Gods don’t want to help her. I assumed this would lead to scenes where they would not give her magic or give her the wrong kind of magic which would have consequences, but that never happens. The closest we get is an admittedly pretty entertaining scene where one of the Goddesses just plunges everything into darkness for 15 mins (the moon, the stars, everything). But outside of that, even the uncooperative Gods cooperate. 

Marzenya, Nadya’s patron Goddess is the Goddess of Death and Destruction and she hates the Tarnavians. With that kind of pedigree, you’d think she’d be more instrumental in the plot, like maybe take over Nadya, or interfere or punish, or even just speak to her when Nadya would be in an intimate moment with Malachiaz. What we get instead is that sometimes she would chastise Nadya for not having killed him yet.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Darkling was a much more effective cockblock in <i>Siege and Storm</i> and most of the time he wasn’t even speaking! 

The Gods aren’t even present for the second half of the book; once the group gets to Travania Nadya can’t even hear them anymore. 

Then there’s the actual philosophy, and Nadya’s beliefs. She is at once indoctrinated and unwavering in her beliefs that ALL Tarnavians are heretics, and that they deserve to have genocide enacted upon them. She is hypocritical enough to think that Tarnavians torturing prisoners of war is worse than her very own clerics hunting down and systematically killing any woman who can do magic not blessed by the Gods. And yet, she is somehow willing and able to have a discussion about the Gods being fake? 

First off, the Gods should be enraged that she is even entertaining the idea that they might not be divine. Second, Nadya’s faith isn’t a nebulous, intangible thing; she can speak to the Gods, and when she prays they GRANT her magic. For her, whether the Gods exist or not, should be like arguing whether the sun will rise or not; it’s just an unavoidable fact of existence. She is a fanatic: she has been raised in a monastery, taught to hate and want to kill all Tarnavians, and has just witnessed the destruction of everything she knew and loved by those same Tarnavians. She should be constantly trying to kill Malachiasz, not have philosophical discussions with him. Not to mention her flirting and sympathizing with Serefin, who need I remind you KILLED half of the monastery and as far as she knows killed her best friend!

The Tarnavians don’t fare any better. The book makes it seem like they destroyed the Gods in Tarnovia so they could seize power of their own, but why would they want to invade and destroy Kalyazin? There is a line at the beginning about how the war has something to do with geography, not just a religion but we never see it. If anything, it would make more sense that Kalyazin would wage holy war on Tarnovia, not the other way around. 

Plot:

I’m not going to lie; the first half of the book, I really liked the plot. I thought the mystery of who was ruling the Vultures, what was wrong with the King, what was happening at the Salt Mines and what had happened to Malachiasz was all interesting. But as the book went on and as we got some answers, I realized more and more that I was just reading the Grisha Trilogy on shuffle. 

First the political plot. This whole section had so much potential to be really interesting, but it was wasted time. I can imagine a whole book, perhaps even book 2 in this very series that would focus on Serefin, Ostya and Kacper trying to navigate a tight political atmosphere, and uncover what is happening with the King and the Vultures and the Salt Mines. Something like, oh I don’t know <i>A Gathering of Shadows</i>. Instead the three weeks  that Serefin spends in the completely glossed over, he never figures anything out by himself, and even traveling to the Salt Mines is done off page, by a completely irrelevant character! Not to mention how predictable the answers to what is happening with the King, and where the missing contestants are from the moment he steps in the castle. 

The mystery involving Malachiasz was a slightly better; I definitely picked up on the two hints we get about who he is to Serefin, but I really did not see the main twist. However, the ending was so obvious and so painfully predictable, that it was like reading a Darkling origin story mixed with a bit of Nikolaj. 

This book is trying so hard to be the Grisha series, but it fails to realize how tightly realized that world was, and that the characters were properly set up, which is why their characterizations and motivations worked, and even it stumbled with it’s villain. Here, it’s like Duncan started to tell a different story and then jammed it into the Grisha mold, like forcing a square peg into the circle slot. 

Characterization:

This was by far the most frustrating part of the book. First off, there are WAY too many characters who are given equal relevance in a book this short. Characters like Father Alexei, Kostya and Anya are completely useless: they are never useful or relevant and their plot only boggs down the already bloated cast. 

Then we have characters like Ostya, Kacper, Parijahan and Rashid who seem like they will be relevant and are absolutely not. Ostya was just Ojka from <i>A Gathering of Shadows</i>; her only character trait is that she’s gay. Kacper doesn’t even get that; I thought he might either turn out to be a love interest or possibly a turncoat but he’s neither, and we don’t even know what happens to him by the time the book ends. Rashid is in the book to get injured twice and then disappear; he and Kacper were interchangeable in their roles. Parijahan at least gets a backstory, but even still she is mostly pointless and we never learn why she wants to kill the King or trusts Malachiasz. 

King Izac was a mix between the King in the Grisha series and Osaron. There could have been some emotional impact about him changing into this bloodthirsty monster if he wasn’t a cartoon villain or we had any knowledge of what he was like before he changed, but we never see it.

Then we have our main trio. Let’s start with Nikolaj, I mean Serefin. I will give two props: he is NOT involved in a love triangle, and he can do magic, so he’s not a complete damsel. However, he is also every other sexualy ambigous, spoiled, bratty alcoholic who hides a deeper backstory involving daddy issues and an inferiority complex.  

The thing that absolutely pissed me off about Serefin is that he seems to have a split personality. Early on, there is a scene where he tortures someone for information, and we are lead to believe that that character will be important. He then kills someone who was a prisoner of war, and very nonchalantly orders his men to take the rest of the prisoners who may I remind you are monks, to the Salt Mines which are essentially a concentration camp. He makes several notes how he doesn’t care about Kalyazin and is generally uninterest in human life or ruling. 

So you think, oh he’s going to be a jaded villain, or at the very least an antihero. But he’s not, he’s a full on protagonist! And I don’t mean he's a flawed character you root for; once we get to the palace, Serefin does a complete 180 and he’s suddenly good, and compassionate, and he wants to end the war, and cares about lives. Where did we see that? 

Moreover, Nadya who was there when the monastery was destroyed, who saw him kill people and as far as she knows saw him kill Kostya, allies with him in the span of a page, and the proceeds to flirt and banter and feel sorry for him! 

Look, I’m not Nikolaj’s biggest fan, but at the very least he was written to care about Ravka, to be patriotic, to feel guilt over killing or torturing people and you know what else he didn’t do? Execute prisoners of war! 

I already covered Nadya’s inconsistent faith, and how easily manipulated and de-doctrinated she is, but she is just fucking stupid. She spends the whole book thinking about how much she doesn’t trust Malachiasz, about how he’s lying or at the very least hiding something. And then, she falls for him, and ends up initiating a relationship after he kills someone before her! Mind you, it’s his fault she was even fighting in hat duel, because he conveniently forgets to mention all duels are to the death (not to mention her being enough of an idiot to rise to such a provocation, when she should very well know not to do that or care because a) her hair is glamoured, b) she was raised in a freaking monastery).

There is also a really stupid subplot about Malachiasz trying to convince her that she shouldn’t live by the Gods’ predetermined destiny for her, but the Gods never make her do anything. They never force her or punish her from what we see, and even the monastery isn’t ever specified to be of celibate nature; they are a coed monastery ffs. Nadya is also very conveniently forgetful about the whole killing Tarnavians for someone who has dedicated their whole life to destroying their kingdom. 

And finally, Malachiasz. I mean… he’s just the Darkling. A bargain brand copy of the Darkling, with none of the appeal, and that’s coming from someone who didn't like the Darkling. I found him incompetent at best and an idiot at worst. But at least I understood his appeal: he is an incredibly powerful, near immortal, God of a man. He is attractive, he is untouchable and manipulative and he selects Alina who is hungry for power and attention, and wants to be extraordinary. 

Nadya is not that. She has been extraordinary; she is literary the chosen one. She’s not unsure of herself or her path; she has been on it since the day she was admitted at the monastery. She already knows how to fight, she has immense powers and can speak to a full pantheon of Gods. So not only would Malachiasz not pose any appeal to her, she is actively taught to hate and fear people like him. 

When the twist happens and we realize that Malachiasz has really been the Black Vulture and evil all this time, it didn’t feel shocking or earned; it felt predictable, because it wasn’t earned. There are no moments in the book where we are lead to believe he has hidden intentions. He doesn’t have telling lines of dialogue about power and wanting and weakness like the Darkling did in <i>Siege and Storm</i>. Outside of being a little trigger happy, he shows no signs of not being 100% behind the idea of killing the King, so when Nadya has her big oh shit he was evil all along moment, it feels cheap. 

The transformation at the end genuinely felt like this should be the Darkling’s origin story. The part that really irked me was the whole bit with the name; that is just outright a plot point stolen from the Grisha trilogy and it was so blatant, and so unnecessary. It was exactly the ending I expected from this book: unoriginal, messy and confusing. 

Overall I don’t recommend this book. It’s only appeal to me was seeing if the ending could redeem it, but unfortunately, it was just a mess. The characters aren’t developed, the plot is rushed, and the religion was poorly thought out. Just reread the Grisha series instead; I guarantee you will enjoy it more.

letterboxd

[mrauthor3ds]

This is my SSBU tier list of the fighters’ canon power!

Just a quick note: just because some characters are in a lower tier doesn’t mean they can’t compete with the tier above. Well...except for the Normal Human and Penny-Sized tiers. But Peak-Human and up, they can still find a way to battle with the tier just above themselves.

-= GODLY =- - Dark Samus: The single most dangerous entity in the Metroidverse. Teleportation, intangibility, possession, power absorption, Phazon corruption, illusions, fast regeneration, and everything that the Power Suit can do...It took the death of the planet Phaaze to put her down, and even that required some strange circumstances! - Kirby: Already confirmed to hold infinite power. And regularly dukes it out with cosmic horrors, anyway. - Ganondorf: Holds the godly might of the Triforce of Power, and nigh limitless magic with it. Unless you have a divine weapon/power, you stand no chance of slaying him. - Mewtwo: Can conjure a global mega-storm, and that’s BEFORE Mega Evolution (which it can potentially do on its own). - Rosalina & Luma: Rosie can pilot the whole Comet Observatory swiftly throughout the cosmos, and the Lumas are capable of undoing a powerful black hole. - Palutena: Even if she’s not the strongest god in the Kid Icarus world, she’s still VERY powerful. She’s also the source of many of the Powers that Pit used, including the finishing shot to Hades. - Shulk: Even if his Monado III alone isn’t the True Monado, but rather a third of it (alongside Zanza’s and Meyneth’s Monados, which it combined with to remake the world), it still allows Shulk to be a godslayer. - Bayonetta: Again, a godslayer. And one that can bend time and space.

-= HIGH SUPERHUMAN =- - Mario: As one of the seven Star Children, it makes sense. He’s also incredibly strong, tough, quick, and can adapt to just about anything. - Donkey Kong: Another Star Child, and one that can punch his world’s moon down to the surface! - Link: Not just for his Master Sword, but his high adaptability to different powers in each incarnation. The Champion here even harnesses the powerful magic of his four comrades! - Samus: Even if she alone isn’t planet-busting, her Power Suit still makes her a one-woman army against all sorts of biological and mechanical horrors that overshadow the whole Federation. - Yoshi: Another Star Child. While all Yoshis pretty much have the same capabilities, they’re still generally strong, fast, and tough enough to handle all sorts of things - even getting kicked to the moon and hurling gigantic Eggdozers! - Luigi: Another Star Child. Being similar enough to Mario means his strength is practically on-par with him - moreso, if you consider his great potential. - Ness: By the end of EarthBound, Ness harnesses the power of the Earth itself, allowing him and his friends to withstand even Giygas’s powers. - Peach: Another Star Child. She may not look it, but she’s quite powerful when she must be - likely due to her great magic, which can even overpower and shatter the reality-bending Dream Stone! - Bowser: Another Star Child. And a darn stubborn one at that. Besides his super-strength, his greatest claim to fame is a grand combination of tenacity and durability. Still mortal, but it takes a lot (or just circumstances) to end him. - Zelda: While she doesn’t have Link’s physical prowess, she still wields great divine magic. Only thing keeping her in this tier is that she’s as mortal as Link. - Meta Knight: Clearly not on the same ground as Kirby, but he’s able to keep up by repeatedly defeating the planetary threat, Galacta Knight. - Wario: Another Star Child. His strength, defense, and speed are practically on-par with the other Star Children. - Charizard: Being a high-stage Pokemon, this is a fitting place to put Charizard. Mega Evolution aside, it’s quite fast and can melt stone with its fire breath (which is better than how it performs in the main games’ battle system, but official lore counts in canon power). - Lucas: He holds a PSI that resonates with the Dark Dragon that practically holds the remaining world together - something that even the powerful Magypsies can’t harness. - Sonic: There are limitations to the Super/Hyper Transformations (mainly Ring Energy), but it’s enough to let him duke it out with immense threats time and time again. That or the power of teamwork after Unleashed. Eh, still a high tier. - King Dedede: Again, not on the same level as Kirby, but close enough. The Dedede Clones’ flavor text did say they were cloned from “one of the strongest life-forms on the planet“. And he’s still capable of standing up to cosmic threats. - Lucario: High-stage Pokemon. Also has a versatile skillset, Aura senses, and Mega Evolution. - Greninja: High-stage Pokemon. Besides ninjutsu and high power, it can potentially Battle Bond and turn into Ash-Greninja, which is even faster and stronger than before. - Robin: He’s a step above the divine sword wielders because he holds the power of Grima. And in gameplay, he’s one of the strongest units in terms of max stats and Skill variety, AND confirmed that he can size up other units at a glance. - Ryu: It’s not just the power of Ansatsuken that puts him here, but also the Power of Nothingness (Mu no Ken), which gives him much, MUCH more influence over his ki and his surroundings. It’s also practically confirmed to be stronger than the Satsui no Hado alone. - Corrin: Like Robin, Corrin has greater power than most humans in his world, being half-dragon, holding power over Dragon Veins, and access to a wide variety of Skills. And that’s before accounting Omega Yato, a sword with enough power to destroy the world! - Ridley: Not as dangerous as Dark Samus, but still a massive threat (no pun intended). Swift, strong, and able to heal himself quickly through metabolism alone...not to mention his smarts and HUGE sadism (again, no pun intended)! - Incineroar: High-stage Pokemon. Besides its high durability and strength, it can resonate with its own unique Z-Power.

-= SUPERHUMAN =- - Pikachu: Put here as a mid-stage Pokemon. General Pikachu are fast and have lightning-grade electric power, but are otherwise physically vulnerable. - Daisy: Nothing hints that Daisy has magical power on par with Peach, but she’s still capable enough to keep up with the others in all the (really dangerous) sports they play. - Sheik: This is pretty much Zelda, but keep in mind that she used this persona to hide from Ganondorf’s notice. That means her magical power is purposefully handicapped in this form. - Marth: Having a dragon-slaying sword isn’t enough to make Marth demi-godly, but it is just enough for him to stand up to such foes. Being able to heal is definitely a nice touch. - Lucina: Same as Marth. Wields the same dragon-slaying sword, but she went through comparatively more dangerous situations than Marth did (essentially being close to an apocalypse). - Young Link: Not quite as powerful as an adult Link, but still much stronger than most adult warriors in his world. Not sure just how high the Fierce Deity Mask would take him...but then again, it can only be used when fighting bosses. - Roy: Same deal as Marth and Lucina. Though the Binding Blade is the source of most of his incredible might, his keen mind is nothing to sneeze at. - Chrom: While he didn’t go through Lucina’s harrowing experiences, he still managed to complete his Falchion’s Awakening. - Pit: Yes, Pit can battle with gods, but let’s be honest - most of his strength was lent by Palutena and Viridi, especially in the final battle against Hades. - Dark Pit: Same as Pit. - Ike: I will admit that Ike was capable of standing up to a more literal goddess (since other gods were just really strong dragons)...but he DID have the direct blessing of that goddess’s counterpart, so... - Ivysaur: Mid-stage Pokemon. Being able to cut through trees and induce sleep, paralysis, and poison alone is pretty scary. It’s like a Poison Ivy in the making... - Diddy Kong: Not quite as powerful as DK, but able to keep up with his gadgets. Which he made himself. From LOGS and BARRELS. How does he do it?? - R.O.B.: ...Really not sure where to put this. Really, I’m gauging R.O.B. by his World of Trophies incarnation (the Ancient Minister). Yeah, he has rocket thrusters and eye lasers, but not much indicating him to directly match the High Superhumans. - Toon Link: Same deal as Young Link, though this one has wielded both the Master Sword (which Young Link himself couldn’t) and the Phantom Sword (which holds the power of the Phantom Hourglass). - Mega Man: I probably should put Mega Man in High Superhuman, but I did consider that the Reploids made 100 years later were all made to be stronger than this one (somehow)...Still! With the right weapons, he can handle just about anything! - Mii Fighters: Again, not sure where to put these, since Miis’ power varies based on the game they’re in. Their strongest instance I can think of is Miitopia, but that’s still general RPG adventurers. - PAC-MAN: Might be higher, might be lower...He’s so underused, it’s hard to tell. - Bowser Jr.: Only here because he’s not yet on Bowser’s level, but still capable of giving Mario and friends a hard time. Same with the Koopalings, also being bosses. - Ken: Only thing keeping Ken a tier below Ryu is that he hasn’t harnessed the Power of Nothingness. But being an Ansatsuken practitioner, he’s still far above the average fighter. - Cloud: ...Could be higher, but it REALLY feels like Aerith played the biggest part in the team’s victory against Sephiroth (especially when you consider the mind-boggling Super Nova). Still, he’s far stronger and tougher than even actual SOLDIERs. - Inkling: Certainly not city-busting types, but their bizarre ink powers make them really hard to take out. And the fact that Inklings are brave fighters by nature makes it hard to make them surrender. - Simon: He’s capable of using weapons that are strong against demons and vampires and the like. Doesn’t make HIM godly, but it’s still something. - Richter: Same deal as Simon. (Though he did get brainwashed at one point...) - King K. Rool: I’m not sure how K. Rool compares to Donkey Kong, since he’s been absent before DK was shown in his prime. Still, his crazy gear and trickery does at least let him keep up with the ape.

-= PEAK-HUMAN =- - Fox: He may be a threat in Smash, but in the Star Fox games, he’s mostly just a pilot. Still, it did take a lot of training to be capable of flying fast interstellar spaceships. Not enough to directly compete with supernatural powers himself, but it makes him quite strong. - Captain Falcon: Similar deal with F-Zero racers like Captain Falcon. And before you try to bring up the anime scene, it wasn’t his Falcon Punch that blew up Black Shadow’s base. That was thanks to the Dark Reactor malfunctioning (thanks to the full Boost on Rick Wheeler’s vehicle). Falcon was just keeping Black Shadow from getting away from the Reactor before it exploded. - Jigglypuff: Lower-stage Pokemon. Well, its natural skillset wouldn’t quite compare to Pikachu’s in realistic power, but it’s still much stronger than most normal people. Quite a lot of low-stage Pokemon are. - Ice Climbers: They may be small and cute, but they’re still trained to scale tall icy mountains and battle with hot pants-clad polar bears. - Pichu: Low-stage Pokemon. While it’s a GOD in Smash, it’s very weak in the Pokemon world. It IS one of the “baby Pokemon”, after all. - Falco: Just like with Fox. - Zero Suit Samus: Without her Power Suit, she doesn’t have much besides a Paralyzer. Still, she is more fit than other humans, thanks to her Chozo training (and splicing). - Snake: Being a super-clone makes him very strong by human standards. How much higher he goes from there depends on what weapons he salvages, since he begins all his missions with the bare essentials. - Pokemon Trainer: Yeah, I know. These Trainers are all children, ages 11-15. But they’re still capable of trekking across regions, going through dangerous climates and areas, and can fall quite far without a scratch. Heck, being able to hang onto a fast-flying Pokemon doesn’t sound like something an ordinary kid can do! - Squirtle: Low-stage Pokemon. While its water attacks ARE high-pressure and capable of sending foes flying, they still pale in comparison to its higher stages. - Wolf: Just like with Fox. - Little Mac: Just a boxer, sure. But a very resilient boxer able to easily take down opponents far higher than his own weight class - even when they use their stranger skills (like Great Tiger and Soda Popinski). - Piranha Plant: Yes, these man-eating plants are a threat to most people, but to the lead characters like Mario, these are just common enemies.

-= NORMAL HUMAN =- - Dr. Mario: This Mario comes from a reality where he only battles diseases with vitamin pills. Not much to prove himself on par with the usual Mario, but I could be wrong here. - Mr. Game & Watch: Let’s face it - the usual lead roles of the Game & Watch games are ordinary people. - Villager: Probably one of the most pacifistic characters to ever join Smash. The worst he ever had to deal with in Animal Crossing were tiny scorpions and spiders. - Wii Fit Trainer: Certainly a fit individual, but not one that engages in combat frequently in Wii Fit. Pretty sure she can’t even conjure solar power there... - Duck Hunt: They’re just a normal hunting dog and a normal duck. Yup. - Isabelle: Same deal as Villager, really.

-= PENNY-SIZED =- - Olimar: I made this tier. SPECIFICALLY. For Olimar and the Pikmin. Also applies to Alph, because same size.

[sleepymarmot]

ESO: MW - Main quest + Ald’ruhn

*starts the Ald'ruhn part of the main quest* *hurriedly tries to remember anything about Chodala except I had his axe and it gave me some stat bonus. unless it's a different Chodala, which isn't likely*

Sorry, how did you pronounce "Nerevarine"? "Nere-VE-ryn"?? Where's the "e" coming from? Excuse me while I ignore this and continue to say "Nere-va-REEN" in my head

please don't say "Make Morrowind great again"

Uhh so what I can put together at this point is that Chodala was the Ashlander thief and this staff belongs to the Clavicus Vile worshippers. Funny how this Prince's area is similar to the actual Moon-and-Star ring, which gives bonuses to persuasion. Before I remembered the previous section's plot, I thought he got the ring!

Oh right, I have Chodala's letter to the Red Exiles in my inventory as a quest item. The thief wasn't Chodala himself but a random Red Exile he gave this task. Strange, he employs Red Exiles to retrieve the staff and then tries to impress other Red Exiles with it?

I can't believe an Ashlander guard just charged me the bounty from trespassing on Redoran territory to fetch an item this same group of Ashlanders asked for!

"The Urshilaku salute you, n'wah" the use of this word sure has changed huh

"Vehk, Sotha Sil and the Mad Wife" excuse me what kind of sexism is this????

The introductions to the tribes were appreciated, but I still can't decide which one Issurani is from. I didn't want to go with Urshilaku, but the book said most Ashlander mages are from there, and she's definitely interested in lore etc - but from what the tribe representative said, they mostly care about the Nerevarine prophecies specifically, and this character isn't about that. Zainab are completely out. Erabenimsun might be the best fit...

Oh, I didn't realize that the "Investigate Ald'ruhn" quest was already over, and was confused why there were no main quest markers in the camp lol

Uhhh so let me get this fucking straight, the Ashlanders believed that it was their combined effort that defeated Skar, except it was the achievement of some proto-House Dunmer, who was then killed by the ~dishonorable~ Ashlanders and forgotten, and so it is good and just that the Vestige now has to prompt House Redoran to "re"claim Ald'ruhn??? Excuse me, how much Hating Natives And Justifying Imperialism juice have the writers been drinking??

I just realized what felt wrong... Where are these Ashlanders' slaves? There wasn't a single one in sight. Is ZOS pretending that Ashlanders do not practice slavery and just blame it on Telvanni and Dres?

--

"[Sotha Sil] desperately sought to understand the power he and his companions attained" Uh, isn't this supposed to be top secret? Why does Barilzar a) know this is an arcane matter and not divine and transcendent, b) casually mention it to someone he just met?

"[Sotha Sil] had a tool that he used to drain away minute bits of his divine energy to store and study. He could extract it and return it as he saw fit." And how does this differ from the Blessing Stones that seemed to be pretty common?

Oh let me guess, was this tool stolen from the Clockwork City by an agent of Nocturnal?

I thought the Shrine of Azura near Barilzar's tower was the humble beginning of the Holamayan Monastery, but I missed that it already exists further north along the coast. Can never tell with ESO's tendency to downsize things... Apparently the shrine existed in Morrowind too and was the base for the Azura’s Star quests, which I never knew because I hate exploration and daedric quests lol

I totally misinterpreted what the staff was and didn't even realize it until the archcanon put it together for me, haha

Lol did he put the couch here just in case someone magically drains his divine power and he has to sit down?

It's a good thing I've unlocked the Walley of the Wind wayshrine already. From there it was just retracing my steps... I remember how in Morrowind I wandered forever and came upon the Cavern when I was about to give up. Shouldn't only the Nerevarine be able to enter, though?

Ok, but nothing that the other Incarnates told me actually helped... All that proves is that he's more likely to become another Failed Incarnate instead of a successful one. And here we return to the problem I had with TESIII: this Shrodinger's Nerevarine thing makes no sense, either you are someone's reincarnation or not, case closed!

Honestly, this self-plagiarism becomes more and more grating. What, you couldn't come up with an original story set on Vvardenfell?

Well, at least I can buy Morrowind furniture from Rolis now...

Oh, I didn't realize that characters from various Morrowind location quests would appear at the end of the main quest. I guess I missed out on some dialogue, but it's not a big loss.

me @ Barilzar at the beginning of the questline: “Aw sweetie :(” by the end: “Yeah, I get how his hirelings felt”

About the main quest: "I expected nothing and I'm still disappointed". Well, a bit. It’s lacking in scope, depth and originality. 

Geographically, the structure of the quest is weak: instead of taking you across the zone, it keeps sending you to the same few places. 

ESO's tendency to make everything mundane reaches its peak: divinity is just glowing juice you can put in a jar! 

Vivec is a completely flat character with no character arc or glimpse of interiority, and even the surface personality is not here not there: pompous enough to make him look like a fraud and a buffoon who doesn't deserve the worship, but not enough to be comical in either endearing or satirical way. When I met Vivec in Morrowind, I thought "Did he actually write that esoteric stuff himself, or was it just attributed to him?" When I met him in ESO, it was more like "Yeah, he wrote it himself but he just bullshitted it all for the likes".

I’ve already complained about this, but why did they feel the need to make this quest about the Nerevarine and Vivec’s loss of powers... It wasn’t going to be more deep or interesting than the story of TESIII, it didn’t give any particular insight on these topics - it’s just some very weird kind of fanservice. 

[popculturespiritwow]

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #25: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG

God I love this cover. One of my favorite of the whole run.

THE WHAT DOES HAPPEN

I never really realized it until reading Kieron’s notes for the issue, but the problem with the typical “How Will They Escape the Laser Sharks” cliffhanger with which issue 24 ends is that you know they will escape, and without any serious injury, because Batman is number one on the call sheet and Robin is number two. So the stakes are super low and the whole thing reads false, because it’s fundamentally so absolutely more adverbs-ily contrived. 

Here’s how Kieron lays it out:

“This is a “half way through action” cliffhanger.  As such, it’s about ‘How does this action complete?’

Structurally speaking, I tend to think that these tend to risk creating false drama. If you don’t go through with an action in any meaningful way, that’s what it is – a raising of expectations and a quashing of them, which – to use the technical writing term – is total bullshit. If you do go through with it… well, why didn’t you do it to end the previous issue? Then you have a ‘completion of surprising action’ cliffhanger, which is much more honest.

So the main way to resolve them, for me, is that what DOES happen has to be at least as interesting as what didn’t happen.”

And man do Kieron and Jamie pay that off, with Woden Goes to Hell. On the surface, it’s very much like what Laura herself experiences in the Underworld at the hands of  the Baphomet/Morrigan. Except their “blessing” (I know, I’m always talking blessings, I’m a priest, what can I say) actually has a positive component. It’s like Leigh Alexander wrote in the magazine issue, alongside the inevitability there is a sense of being okay, of relief.

What Persephone grants instead is what she is experiencing: “I’m in Hell. Join me.” As visually similar as it seems, it’s a radically different experience, and it’s no wonder in the aftermath Woden is telling us she gives him nightmares.

(“You’re the Wild Card Dark Arts Professor who scares the shit out of Slytherin kids like me” is definitely in the running for my favorite line of the series.)

It’s also worth noting, that moment marks the (momentary) (*sigh*) return of the Laura direct address caption boxes. Except now she’s not speaking to us, she’s speaking to Woden, whispering nightmares in his ear. So it’s one and the same a taste of the intimacy we new at the beginning, and yet one that provides instead a further indication of how far removed she is now from us.

BUT THE DESTROYER THO?, PT II

But even as Laura takes WicDiv’s Mr. Toad on her own wild ride, we also get more hints that Destroyer she may not be, so much. Just as when she first showed up as Persephone in issue 18, she switched up her plan to save the people in the bar from Woden’s bomb, so here the thing that talks her down from just plain stone cold killing Woden is the fact it will end up hurting the others.

And she makes that decision just a breath after the ‘I call bullshit’ nihilism that will be sort of her standard operating feature in the arc:

There’s that devastating textversation with Cassandra, too.

Guys, My soul is hurting. 

Point is, if she’s the Destroyer, she certainly seems a conflicted one.

START YOUR ENGINE

After resolving the Woden of It for the moment, in two pages rapid fire we get most of the big questions of the rest of the series laid out: Are they going to die? Is there any escape? Was Ananke always bad? Is there a Great Darkness? And what is the deal with Laura, anyway? Who is she, how does she do what she does, and what the heck was with that damn(ed) cigarette?

(Theory: Rather than indicating something special about Laura, the lit cigarette was the clue that none of us including Laura understood that Luci was not in fact dead.)

WicDiv is not a mystery box series, so in the end we’re going to see these questions undermined in a sense by the shattering journeys of our characters. (It’s like we’re kids playing in the backyard and Kieron’s been making up this crazy story and when we insist on getting some questions answered he says, “Sure, fine, no problem, but look who’s got to pay,” as he twists off our favorite action figure’s head.)

But at this moment, just having all those questions gathered together and asked generates a lot of forward momentum. Not only do the Norns (and Woden) have a purpose, but that cerebrum puzzle solving part of we the readers does to. It scratches the itch, it quenches the thirst, the chewing gum we love is back in style. (Except who was that last Dale Cooper, guys?)

(David Lynch’s version of Kieron in the sandbox is when we demand answers he smiles, then twists off our heads.)

NOTES ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

I think it was long ago reading an interview with Joss Whedon about Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I first learned that great insight that what makes evil characters work is not the lies but the truth. The Mayor (I think it was the Mayor he was talking about, God I need to watch Buffy again and right now) is so powerful precisely because he speaks the truth to people. That’s how he gets them.

That’s the insight about Ananke’s evil that Baal, Mini and Laura share over toast and tea: “That’s what messes with you. You doubt some of it, but some is gospel.”  So very yes.

(The most disturbing moment of the issue for me:

What kind of a monster offers toast as a nighttime snack?  Seriously, it’s no wonder the Great Darkness showed up when it did, because that is just not right.)