#and that was just one (at the time of its original release) one-off event | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blueskittlesart · 9 months ago

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i kinda really wanna see a big ol vent/rant from you about genshin now lol. I would read an essay

I'm not sure you understand the insanity you just unlocked in me but ok

genshin impact is probably the clearest modern example i can think of of capitalism absolutely eviscerating a creative project. For context, I started playing genshin in 2021, just after the 1.4 update. it was venti's first rerun/the first windblume festival if that means something to you. and I really genuinely thought that it might have had something special. It was a gacha that didn't FEEL like a gacha, which was a huge feat to me.

it began with a very simple story pitch--you, the protagonist, are one of a set of twin siblings traveling through space. you come upon a seemingly unassuming world and your attempts to continue your journey are suddenly stopped by a mysterious, all-powerful figure. you are separated from your sibling and wake up alone on the shores of this planet you were attempting to leave together. throughout that opening cutscene and scattered through the world and your character's dialog there are implications that all is not as it seems, that your character is something unique to this world and that they possess powers and abilities that you've yet to unlock. You are told that you must travel the seven nations of this world in order to find your sibling, which is great--a simple, zelda-like objective which drives the player to explore the secondary narratives of the world. none of this is bad on the surface. in fact i'd argue it's pretty good. there's a ton that can be done with these story bones. even at launch the map and combat system were full of potential as well.

Note: for ease of reading, i'm going to label the different storylines of the game now. A-plot refers to the central objective of the entire game; the find-your-sibling plot and everything that encompasses, including the abyss order/dain, the heavenly principles, the fake sky, etc. B-plot refers to the secondary objective present in each new nation, usually meeting the archon and/or solving a problem for the archon. (A and B-plots will occasionally intersect.) C-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which remains in permanent gameplay but which isn't directly related to the A or B-plots, such as dragonspine, the chasm, enkanomiya, etc. D-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which is confined to limited-time events and does NOT remain in permanent gameplay, regardless of its connection or lack thereof to the A and B-plots, such as the golden apple archipelago, the infamous albedo/dragonspine event, the infamous kaeya/diluc event, etc. Lore as i will refer to it in this post refers to any information which is present in permanent gameplay but which is not directly told to the player within the A or B-plot story quests and objectives, including books, weapon, artifact, and item descriptions, world quest dialog and puzzles, etc.

So now we're in mid-2021, there are two nations' worth of B-plot story quests released in full, and we've run into our first problem, which is that the game isn't finished yet. I don't have any actual information about how the game was/is written, but based on what i've observed over the past few years, my best guess is that the A-plot has been fully written since the beginning, at least in some form. there were very early-game events and information pertaining to the A-plot that would take years to see any actual payoff in the main story quests (kaeya's origin story, the 1.3 scaramouche fake-sky drop, the flowers in lumine's hair, etc.) but those kinds of A-plot story easter eggs very quickly dropped off when the game absolutely EXPLODED during the pandemic.

this sudden burst in popularity was the true beginning of the end for genshin, i think, because suddenly they had a HUGE fanbase that desperately wanted more content faster than they could pump out new A-plot or even B-plot story quests. one of the most pervasive complaints about the game when I began playing in 2021 was that there was nothing to do between story quests. update 1.4 (which was the update I started playing at) was important in that it was the first time since genshin's release over a year before that players recieved any new A-plot, in the form of the archon quest We Will Be Reunited, also known as the quest with the most fucking misleading name of all time. you'll never guess what doesn't fucking happen during this quest. anyways. we were a year into gameplay, two nations out of seven released and a third on the not-so-distant horizon, and it seemed obvious that players were owed some sort of A-plot payoff. and that's very much what WWBR was advertised as, from the quest's name to the banners full of art of the twins staring wistfully at each other. The thing is, what i'm describing as A-plot payoff was actually. not really A-plot payoff at all. WWBR was the reveal that the protagonist's sibling was working with the abyss order, and that the abyss order was connected somehow to Khaenri'ah, which at this point casual players would only have known about from THAT QUEST and MAYBE kaeya's character descriptions if they were diligent enough to get him to friendship level 10 (which, btw there is no indication that you should do to get important context about the story of the game, because kaeya is a 4-star starter character and the only character in the entire game that actually has genuinely important story hidden in his character descriptions.) So what I'm calling A-plot payoff felt at the time a lot less like A-plot payoff than it did like an abyss sibling cameo in an attempt to satiate everyone who was begging for more story. We actually gained almost net 0 information. this is very quickly going to become a pattern.

As I've already alluded to, the motives behind this writing decision are transparently obvious. Genshin is a free gacha game which relies on a consistently active and engaged userbase to make its money. With fans getting restless about the lack of engaging story at the time and a new, very ambitious B-plot quest gearing up for release that would require major support from that fan base in order to remain profitable, the writers were backed into a corner. they HAD to throw the fans some sort of bone in order to keep them engaged with the A-plot, since it was originally pitched as the driving force for the story as a whole, but they were also clearly not at a stage of the writing process where it was prudent to give the player any REAL information about the A-plot. This is how we ended up with a 10-second abyss sibling cameo and an offhanded mention of Khaenri'ah, a nation whose plot-relevance was at that point still basically unknown.

The real problem is, WWBR worked. at least, it worked as intended at the time. It satiated story-focused fans in the interlude between B-plot nations, as hyv was gearing up to release inazuma, which required a lot of time in preparation. WWBR was followed almost immediately by the C-plot golden apple archipelago in 1.6, widely regarded as one of the better events of version 1. GAA was memorable especially because it was the first event that involved an entirely new, limited-time-only map, meaning the event had much more longevity than the standard events players were used to. This is, imo, most likely the update combination that led to the standard formula which hyv uses for its quests and events nowadays. the back-to-back release of WWBR and GAA satisfied both fans who wanted A-plot story AND silenced criticisms about the game lacking endgame playability, which at the time must have seemed like a goldmine to writers desperate for a solution to their content-to-fanbase ratio problem.

From here, genshin started following a standard method of release for their next three nations--inazuma, sumeru, and fontaine. the formula generally went as follows: one major version update (usually version x.0) containing a major map update which included all B-plot relevant locations in the new nation, and the first chapter of the B-plot story quest relevant to that nation. this would then be followed by 2-3 version updates which would each contain the next chapter in the nation's B-plot story quest, sequentially. After the nation's B-plot quest ended, during the downtime in which the next nation's story and map would be finalized, subsequent updates would be largely C-plot, and would contain minor expansions of the map to increase endgame playability via exploration and world quests. This is how we ended up with updates like the chasm, the several extra islands in inazuma, and the quite frankly ridiculously large sumeru map, as well as the offloaded maps like enkanomiya and the sea of bygone eras. with the possible exception of the chasm, none of these areas are A OR B-plot relevant. hyv has realized that artificially inflating the map makes their game technically more engaging during the downtime between nations. However, this comes at a price. While the scenery and set design of the game remains consistently beautiful, the actual, mechanical gameplay that populates that scenery very quickly became mind-numbingly boring if not borderline unplayable. While the 1.0 questlines were not perfect, there was at least an emphasis on the player actually DOING things. 1.0 B-plot quests would have you going to mini-dungeon temples and completing challenges which would acclimate you to the combat system while also serving narrative purpose. There were quests that required you to navigate open-world dungeons. Because your characters were lower-level, combat challenges that arose during these quests were CHALLENGES, rather than two-second buttonmashing segments. By the time we get to sumeru, though, both B-plot AND C-plot quests have become little more than moving your character from location to location and tapping through (usually unvoiced) dialog. there's no GAMEPLAY in the quests anymore, because gameplay isn't what makes money. What DOES make money is giving players 300 hidden chests to find in an open-world map segment, each of which gives them 1/80th of a gacha pull. And so the story suffers and the map gets bigger.

Along with the map expansions, downtime between nations usually also nets us one A-plot quest, usually involving the character dainslief, who was the driver of the initial WWBR quest. This is the second half of hyv's magical formula for keeping fans happy between major releases. the A-plot quests will, as a general rule, give players either very little new information or no new information at all, but will dress up the delivery in such a way that it ALMOST feels as though the protagonist has moved forward somehow. the most recent example of this writing style, the 4.7 quest bedtime story, amounts to about an hour and a half of gameplay and, while it DOES contain a segment in which the protagonist finally actually has a conversation with their sibling, that conversation literally begins with the line "I have so many questions, but for some reason I don't want to ask them right now," ensuring that the sibling will not actually be required to give away any plot-relevant information whatsoever, and the quest ends with the protagonist FORGETTING THAT THE CONVERSATION EVER HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

As I think I mentioned before, the cardinal problem of genshin impact's writing is that fans want answers faster than the writers are prepared to give them. I don't doubt that there's a game bible or relevant equivalent somewhere within hyv which contains the explanations we are currently lacking in regards to the A-plot. the game is consistent enough in its storytelling for me to believe that this isn't all just being made up as we go along. But I'm also certain that a lot of the late-game A and B-plot that is planned (especially if the Khaenri'ah is truly planned to be the 8th nation of the game) hinges on the player knowing very little about the A-plot. this would be fine if genshin was a standard single-release video game that players could work through at their own pace, but it isn't. it's unfinished, and each nation in the game releases months to years after the last, leaving the writers to scramble to fill in the gameplay gaps and players struggling to remember plot-relevant information when it's brought up literal years after they last heard it mentioned. Not only does the time between updates leave players frustrated about the lack of A-plot, it makes the A-plot harder to understand when it is brought up, because the writers are required to throw in so much dense C and D-plot just to keep engagement high enough to make the game profitable in its downtime. we joke about the insane convolution of genshin's lore, but that is first and foremost a byproduct of its financial model. the game requires engaement to be profitable, and adding lore for players to look into drives up engagement. The fact that having so much story with so little plot relevance muddies the waters and makes the A and B-plot stories considerably harder to understand doesn't matter as long as money is being made.

I want to take a quick detour here to talk about the release of sumeru specifically, because this is when I really began to clock the fact that genshin was declining. on paper, racial sensitivity issues aside (Not that they're not important, but i'm doing this deep dive from a storytelling and game design point of view, nothing else. that's a whole can of worms i don't have time to get into here) sumeru was a really promising addition to the game. The new B-plot quest which was set to drop in 3.0 was highly anticipated for several reasons. Two fan-favorite characters (kaeya and scaramouche) were expected to play major roles, because of earlier C and B-plot quests, and much of the nation's scenery that was teased in trailers and promotional content appeared to tie into the A-plot. the most exciting draw about sumeru and version 3.0, though, was the major update to the combat system.

Arguably genshin impact's most interesting feature upon release was its combat system. The map was basically a botw clone at that point, and the story quests, while decently engaging, were rough around the edges to say the least. What genshin DID have going for it was a unique real-time combat system that rewarded strategy and quick thinking.

Genshin's combat system is elemental, and on release there were 6 elemental affiliations: anemo (wind), cryo (ice), pyro (fire), hydro (water), geo (rock), and electro (electricity.) in a sort of pokemon-like system, certain elements were weak to other ones, but more importantly, certain combinations of elements could drastically boost combat stats. Players got to construct four-slot teams of characters, each with an elemental affiliation and certain "skills" which would match their element, and you were encouraged to use the interactions of these elements to build teams. very quickly, a huge community formed dedicated to optimizing teams and tiering characters. People would even make a game out of building teams specifically to do high-level damage with "bad" characters or characters who weren't designed to be damage drivers (my 100k jean burst was an incredible moment fr.) this was, of course, also a picture-perfect driver for the gacha aspect of the game, which was how players obtained new characters.

Pre-3.0, combat was... well i won't say it was balanced, but there was no elemental reaction that had any MAJOR advantage over the others. when you actually ran the numbers, i believe vaporize was the best reaction in terms of damage output, with the best team being raiden national with kazuha for EM buffs. but a well-built freeze or melt team could do similar numbers, or even better numbers depending on your artifact rolls. (ayaka permafreeze you will always be my #1.) Despite a steady stream of new characters with each update, characters from the earliest version of the game like xingqiu and xiangling were still topping the charts in terms of usefulness and versatility in teambuilding. However, as early as 1.0, players had been teased that a major update to the combat system was planned. There was a seventh element, dendro (plants) which pre-3.0 only existed as an elemental affiliation for menial enemies. there were no playable dendro characters, and the only elemental reaction that existed relating to it was very low-level and not particularly useful in combat.

Originally, dendro was projected to be added to the combat system somewhere in version 2, but its release was delayed substantially, meaning it came out along with its affiliated nation, sumeru. And as soon as it came out, it basically broke the combat system. I assume that the scaling they ended up going with may have been out of fear that players would be hesitant to integrate a new element into their pre-established team builds, and thus they may have been worried about sales on their dendro character banners, and i assume that the fact that 3 elements are required to get the highest-level reaction was an attempt to make the meta more balanced in the face of that scaling, but, well... it didn't work. At this point, the genshin impact combat meta is basically "if you're not using hyperbloom what the fuck are you doing." there's basically no reaction in the game that comes close to it in terms of both damage and ease of use. you are not going to beat a hyperbloom team with anything other than a better-built hyperbloom team. combat is now very heavily skewed in the direction of dendro, meaning that if you DON'T want to use a dendro team, you're going to be doing significantly lower numbers. And since enemies are added with each update, post-3.0 combat becomes difficult and annoying if you don't have a hyperbloom team on-hand.

The major gripe i have with dendro isn't even the scaling, though. I mentioned offhand earlier that the 1.0 B-plot questline had a section which taught you the basics of the combat system via mini-dungeons. These mini-dungeons, of course, taught you the version of the system that existed pre-3.0, so there's no tutorial for dendro reactions. Rather than integrating the tutorial into the story and world like they did in their early quests, upon playing 3.0 for the first time players were given a popup that explained, very wordily, how dendro reactions worked. there was no opportunity to test these reactions in an environment without consequences--if you wanted to try them you'd have to remember the relevant information, build yourself a team, find an enemy to try them on, and just hope you got it right. This lack of integration is something i began to notice more and more with genshin as it progressed, especially in sumeru. where in mondstadt and liyue open-world puzzles would be explained to you by an npc or via environmental context clues, in sumeru you'd be stopped while exploring every two seconds by a popup explaining some puzzle or another which, of course, you wouldn't read, because you didn't want to do the puzzle right that minute anyway, and then by the time you DID want to do that puzzle you'd have no in-game way of figuring out how to do it. The puzzle popups may seem like a small thing, but it's one of the clearest examples in the game to me of the fact that the player experience is so clearly not being prioritized here. the game doesn't even TRY to be immersive anymore. they have no qualms about pulling you out of the story to read a paragraph about how the puzzle works. they don't care how your character, in-universe, is supposed to have acquired that information. they don't care why your character, in-universe, is doing the puzzle in the first place. because they know the reason YOU are doing the puzzle, which is to unlock a hidden chest that gives you 1/80th of a gacha pull.

That was not "a quick detour" was it lmfao. ok anyways. back to the story. Now i want to talk about D-plot, meaning limited event stories, and lore as i defined it earlier, meaning contextual details not present in quests or playable story. This is where i think genshin's story becomes completely inaccessible.

Already, we've covered the fact that in order to consume the very basic story, players have to be willing to wait years between A and B-plot quest releases, punctuated by irrelevant map expansions and interlude quests. I mentioned before that genshin's incompleteness is one of the major problems of its story. the fact that players have to wait years, remembering plot-relevant information that they have no way of knowing will even BE plot-relevant, for the payoff of these narratives is frustrating at best and actively malicious at worst. But in theory, there should be an obvious way to circumvent this. One could just wait until the game IS completely finished to play the whole thing. Sort of like buying a game in early access but waiting until it's actually finished to play it all the way through. that's theoretically possible. but, as i have been hammering home this whole time, genshin is a free game, and therefore genshin relies entirely on a consistently engaging fanbase in order to remain profitable. if genshin does not have a base of players who are willing to log in every day, or at the very least once every update, the game's financial model collapses on itself. therefore, genshin puts on limited-time events. this is a standard in gacha games, as a way to keep the fans consistently engaging. What is not standard, however, is the way that genshin uses these events as vessels for its story. about 19 out of 20 limited events in genshin impact will be useless menial bullshit with no effect on the story or really even the player aside from maybe making you fucking angry. 1 out of those 20, though, will be innocuously named, with nothing in the banner or event description to indicate that it's special in any way, but it will contain serious A or B-plot relevant information that exists nowhere else in the game. My personal favorite example is the infamous 1.3 scaramouche appearance, in which he showed up, told the protagonist that the sky was fake, and then immediately fucked off again. Scaramouche did not show up again until at least 2.0, and the fake sky wasn't so much as MENTIONED again until 3.2, almost TWO YEARS LATER. but there are others, such as the (almost equally infamous) albedo doppelganger event in which a major character's loyalties are called into question, or the event where major biographical information is revealed about kaeya, the only playable character with major known connections to the A-plot and Khaenri'ah. With all of these events, once the event period ends, the information contained within them vanishes from the game completely. there's no way to replay old events that you've missed, even sans rewards, so if you miss a plot-relevant event the ONLY way to catch up on that story is through word of mouth. again, this is a transparent way to keep genshin's userbase engaged during downtime between B-plot quests; if you don't log in and play every event, how will you know if you've missed something important? You might not be able to fully understand the future story if you miss out on the D-plot now!

The D-plot problem is something that I think could, in theory, be circumvented by dedicated record-keeping. if the wiki had anything resembling an easily accessible event database that marked story-relevant events and contained summaries or gameplay videos, at the very least you wouldn't have to fear being completely lost on the off chance that a random throwaway line in an event from fucking 1.3 becomes plot-relevant. but hyv obviously doesn't want that, because it undermines their financial model, and the sheer number of events and the amount of rerunning of irrelevant events they do makes the task of recording and categorizing them all daunting if not impossible.

Then, of course, there's lore. this is arguably what genshin is infamous for in certain circles of the internet. You know that unraveled video where bdg reads every book in skyrim? if you tried to do that with genshin the video would probably be about 10 hours long. and it's not just books; genshin hides (potentially) plot-relevant information in weapon and artifact descriptions, in random hidden world quests, in character bios... the list goes on. and 9 times out of 10, the information is essentially written in code. Plot-relevant characters will have multiple names, or the relevant information will refer to them as vaguely as possible, presumably to further the "mystery" and encourage theorizing among fans. but the sheer amount of information like this that exists within the game makes it all but impossible to determine what is plot-relevant and what isn't. For a topical example, the most recent A-plot quest bedtime story mentions the name Rhinedottir in connection with events in Khaenri'ah, suddenly making that name A-plot relevant. Rhinedottir is an alternate name for the character Gold, whose existence you would only have known of before this point if you'd unlocked and read the character Albedo's character bios. (Albedo is a limited-run character who hasn't been available since november 2022, btw.) the only other information about Rhinedottir permanently available in the game comes from the description of the weapon Festering Desire, which was only obtainable from a limited event back in 2020, anyway. So basically, if you wanted ANY context for that remark, you'd have to have been playing the game since AT LEAST 2022, AND you'd have to have taken the time to go over your weapon and character descriptions with a fine-toothed comb. keep in mind that as of right now (june 2024) there are 85 playable characters in this game, each with 10 unique unlockable character bio sections, and over 150 weapons, each with their own unique descriptions, not to mention over 50 artifact sets, each with 5 unique artifacts, which all have their own unique descriptions as well. there are also 51 different collections of books which contain written lore as well. the idea that any player could keep up with all this, or that anyone could even sift through it all to pick out the important things that they NEED to keep up with, is insane, especially when the game makes a point of withholding crucial plot information from its players within the A and B-plot quests. this amount of written lore only exists, again, to drive up engagement in the hopes of subsequently driving up profit. Even if the average player isn't reading and absorbing all this information, the fact that it's there coupled with the fact that the writers consistently refuse to reveal anything beyond surface-level A-plot information means that there's basically ENDLESS theory fodder. and THAT means that people will be posting their theories and talking with each other and getting into arguments. it means "genshin impact" trends on twitter. it means engagement, and engagement means money.

basically what it comes back to is that everything is so transparently money over player experience with this game. I think what we're witnessing with genshin is what i would call an end-stage gacha game--a gacha game that's gone on a little too long and gotten a little too popular, and so the veil has started to slip a little more than usual. Gachas work primarily because they operate by toeing the line between what is fun to play and what is a predatory mechanic. As long as the actual gameplay remains engaging and rewarding, players can ignore the unsavory business practices underneath. At this point, genshin has swerved too hard into the money-hungriness and is still hoping that they can use their old tried-and-true engagement farming methods to remain popular regardless. currently, it seems like those methods are still working, unfortunately. Like I said in the post that prompted this, i really can't wait for the hyv writer NDAs to expire 10 or so years down the line, because I can only imagine what an insane shitshow writing for this game must be. I want to see the tell-all articles. I want carnage.

That being said, I played genshin impact religiously from 2020 to 2023. I loved the game. Despite myself, I am still really, REALLY interested in the A-plot. I want to know what's going on with the protagonist and their sibling; where they came from, what happened to them, what the heavenly principles are, what role celestia plays in all of this. I want to know Kaeya's full backstory, what role Khaenri'ah plays in the overarching story, and what happened to it in the past. but I don't really have any faith that I ever will, because I know that as long as keeping their fans in the dark and stringing them along remains profitable, that's what hyv will continue to do.

Do I think genshin impact is unsalvagable? in its current state, yes. If I was given the ability to turn back time and convince a bunch of executives of the profitability of this venture, I would change almost nothing about the story of genshin and completely rework the mechanics of its release. I would make it a series of single-release self-contained games rather than a constantly-updating gacha. Each game would be one B-plot quest, or one nation, eight games in all, preferably released once every year. Removing the gacha mechanic, players would be given access to a certain pool of characters to build teams at the start of each game, and then periodically unlock new characters as the story progressed. for example, if you were playing the inazuma game, you'd start out with only your protag, and after progressing to a certain point in the story you'd get a pool of inazuma 4-stars to teambuild with freely. Then, as the story progressed and you met plot-relevant inazuman 5-stars you'd add them to your pool. I'd change basically nothing about the combat system except for a properly integrated introduction of dendro when it makes its appearance in sumeru. Once you completed the story in that nation, you could move onto the next game in the series if it was out, or if it wasn't, you could continue to explore the open world while waiting for the next release. Would this be as profitable as the gacha model? probably not, but what it WOULD do is allow for much more consistent pacing and writing, with the added bonus of not making your userbase feel like you'd shoot them in the head for their pocket change.

#jesus christ. hi everyone #asks

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boxturret · 5 months ago

Text

Voya-Nui: An Overview

Hello,

This will be somewhat similar to my 1/10th scale Mata Nui posts, discussing the floating island of Voya-Nui based upon recently revealed information, mainly dealing with its size and role in the initial story.

Warning, this post is embarrassingly long.

Any who have the misfortune of knowing me know I have a rather selective view of what constitutes Bionicle. Essentially I consider Bionicle to have run from 1998 to mid 2002. As a kid I was a die hard fan until 06, where a combination of the marketing and the sets just not being very good caused me to gradually lose interest until I just got one set in 07 and never again bought a Bionicle.

All this preamble is to say that for the longest time I never really knew all that much about Voya-Nui, apart from it being the namesake of a terrible game. Later on, as I got back in to the hobby I heard rumors, dark, twisted rumors. They spoke of a stick making the island fly underwater through a hole, that the island itself was ejected from the body of the robot and left a Voya-Nui sized hole in a continent. Just the ravings of a mad man, so I threw it in the bin along with everything in Bionicle after the Toa go in to the Bohrok hives in 02 and moved on with my life.

Fast forward to now, and Christian Faber starts releasing some development materials through a humanoid water fowl, and this very interesting image is among what's released

This image made everything click for me and I fell in love with Voya-Nui as a concept.

But I think before revealing the original intent, its important to explain the "canon" sequence of events surrounding the so called "Island of Doom"

ISLAND OF DOOM, A PRIMER

Okay so there's a big robot sleeping in an ocean, one day its heart pops and a chunk of land that was on top of the heart breaks out of its chest and starts floating in the ocean. The island, I must add, survived this event, as the hole it left is the same shape and size as the final island.

Now the island floats around for a bit, the volcanic crater on it eventually builds up a large land mass in the middle of the bay, the people on it (yes there were people on the island when it got ejected, and they survived the event) decide that this is the best place to build a city.

It turns out that wasn't the best place to build a city as the new land mass breaks off and somehow anchors it to the sea floor.

Eventually some guys show up and break the anchor cord and the island, inexplicably, sinks down under the water, and manages to go right back in to the hole it made and everything returns to normal.

In some blog post it was explained that there was a magic wand that fixed everything that was used at the same moment.

This is the canonical sequence of events.

More like island of dumb¹.

THE ORIGINAL CONCEPTS

Okay now that all that unpleasantness is out of the way, we can start with the actually interesting things.

There are so many details to cover here, I think the best way to organise them would be to present everything roughly chronologically.

The scenario is the same, a massive robot crash lands in a large ocean, its completely under the water outside of its face, upon which the larger island of Mata Nui forms.

From the beginning its very different, there's no large landmass over the heart (in fact the very idea of the robot itself being full of various domes with islands in them is very suspect but this post is already long enough). The heart is a reactor, and consists of a massive spherical cavity in the chest. Something occurs and the heart pops open, a small panel or valve on the perimeter of the reactor core's wall bursts out of the chest of the robot. Through this hole sea water begins to flood in-this is important!

The ejected panel floats, and some sort of system within it cools it down, causing the sea water to freeze, essentially turning it in to a massive iceberg. There's also mentions of it being magnetic, the final island is described as looking somewhat like a magnet run over a factory floor. It probably also attracted debris from the sea bed as it floated through the seas. As you can see in that diagram the core is filled with massive long cables and the island eventually gets anchored by a long cable, so that's possibly where that came from!

Over years the island grows and grows as it floats around the oceans, being buffeted around by the currents. Eventually part of it becomes unstable and breaks off, sinking to the ocean floor, and since a large cable was attached to both pieces, it anchors the island in place.

Now we get to the crucial part. In the canon depiction of events the most baffling thing is why does breaking the anchor rope make it sink? Now we come back to this image:

When the panel popped out it left a hole. Water is pouring back in to the hole, forming a giant whirlpool. The robot is so massive that even after all these years of constant flooding the cavity on the inside is still not even half full. Voya-Nui was caught in the whirlpool's strong currents when the island broke up. This impromptu anchor stopped it just as it was about be pulled in! Then the super strong currents from the whirlpool gave it the distinctive curved shape.

So now we know why destroying the cable holding it in place causes the floating island to sink: once untethered its free to be pulled in to the whirlpool! The island that formed around the panel would break off and the panel would basically be a giant plug and stop the flow of water flooding in to the reactor.

Figuring this all out was such a revelation, taking one of the most nonsensical sequences of events in the series and transforming it in to this completely logical scenario which, from the point of view of the characters involved, is still quite mysterious and oblique, but when looked at from the perspective of repairing this giant robot it makes perfect sense.

And we were robbed. Imagine the Mata Nui rising sequence of animations starting off with a whole island being pulled in to a whirlpool.

THE CORE

This is getting a bit beyond the main focus of the island, but I just want to talk about the core itself because there were a few interesting tidbits there as well. Its a very evocative setting which I feel suffered greatly and few of the interesting parts were conveyed well in the story.

The water streaming through the hole is described as having some sort of light emitting reaction to the part of the reactor its hitting, lighting the whole chamber. Steam from the reaction swirls upwards and vaporised materials from the heat of the reaction collect on the roof, forming massive stalactites that eventually fall, creating this jagged forest of stone needles within the massive pool of water, water which's temperature varies depending on how close it is to the reaction.

Really seems a shame that in the final story it was simplified down to "sky" and "swamp". Just imagine, this forest of stone, shrouded in fog, lit by this flickering unearthly light emanating from the centre. You have the added aspect of once Voya-Nui has returned to its rightful place the water fall would cease, leading to the light dwindling until the whole area is pitch black.

MISCELLANEOUS OTHER NOTES

One major feature of the island that was missing from the earlier ice and rock version is the massive lava crater, supposedly from the mask of life². I had been toying with the idea that the volcano formed the rest of the island around the panel, but with how much larger the island was it just didn't make sense, so the ice and magnetism really helped out there!

Its said that the ice formed as some sort of self defence mechanism, like an organ freezing itself to preserve itself in an emergency. Personally though I have this little idea that the panel was actually something like the cooling system for the reactor, and without it the reactor was going to over heat, but luckily it was kept just cool enough by the falling water. The cooling system, being linked somehow to the main robot, detects that the reactor was over heating and starts working over time to cool it, leading to it freezing the surrounding ocean and making itself in to a massive iceberg, but as it wasn't connected to the robot's core and nothing it did had any effect, it ends up overheating itself, causing the pool of lava on the top. But that's just a little fan idea.

Another one I have is that the island, when it was floating freely, may have passed next to Mata Nui, close enough to be sailed too, at some point far in the past. Explaining how there would be inhabitants on it despite it getting shot out of the robot like a bullet.

Also it would be remiss of me to not mention that even though the canon depiction of events makes no sense, the whirlpool is briefly seen in the 100% ending of the torture device Bionicle Heroes.

But this is much smaller, and seems to only have just opened up in the bay. Rather than being something to do with the hole it made it seems this is more about how the mask they were seeking went underwater.

SCALE!

Time to talk sizes!³

This drawing is especially useful here, as it shows all 3 major objects in question all relative to each other. Yes Voya-Nui is there, its the tiny little dot on the bottom right. So I simply took the height maps for Voya-Nui, used them to make a quick little model in the same fashion as my Mata Nui, and brought in my old GSR model. I scaled them all to the Mata Nui from my last posts, and guess what! It all lines up perfectly.

The Voya-Nui Model is the exact right size it should be, according to this map:

And what was more impressive, was that the GSR turned out to be pretty much bang on with this even older concept art:

Scaling the GSR was a more bit awkward, as the final design is more gangly compared to this drawing, but lining up the torsos worked really well!

And now let us visit the 1/10th scale Mata Nui and meet Geroge. A new island has floated up off Ta-Wahi beach and he want's to explore a bit!

Excuse the monochrome island, the height maps I'm using are actually quite different from the final island.

There is a height map more accurate to the final island, but that one didn't have an underside. The little islets in the bay were also neat.

The large lava lake in the centre is roughly 250 metres across. Its nothing compared to Mata Nui's caldera, but its still very huge when you get down to the ground level.

The panel that forms the centre of the island is massive as well.

Approximately 550m wide, and 900m tall. Just think of the massive reactor core this thing popped out of!

Seeing it separate from the island really puts it in perspective.

Imagine this thing shooting out of the robot's chest like a bullet.

I'll just quickly mention, earlier on I posted that map of all the internal islands. If you use the size of metru nui on there you can scale Voya-Nui appropriately, and you end up with this.

Its less a small panel popping out of the heart and more the scene from Alien at this point.

CONCLUSION

This has been quite a rambly post, but there was just so much information to cover. I left out a lot of details. This whole thing just makes me very excited, sorry.

I just think its such a beautifully elegant scenario that really adds a lot to the setting and story, rather than just having yet another new island, but this time the island is mean. I find it quite interesting how everything would have sorted itself out, if not for the island breaking in half. There's no Machiavellian plots, no scheming, no betrayal, just an unfortunate occurrence that makes a bad situation worse, and everyone has to work to fix it. It was utterly butchered in the final story. It makes me quite sad for what could have been. Just picture it, this floating island getting pulled towards a massive whirlpool, the outer island breaking off as it spirals deep down underwater until this long, tarnished metal plug is revealed to have been at the centre. With a huge impact it closes up the hole, fitting back perfectly where it came from, managing to avert the disaster of the flood waters growing ever higher inside the core of this robot.

But in any case, really the important take away is, Voya-Nui is just a rip off of Noah's Island when you get down to it.

I'll leave you with a photograph of George waving hello to his large friend.

Have a nice day/night[delete whichever is inappropriate]!

¹-You know its true. ²-Not to be confused with the Mask o' Flight, the film staring a swarm of Tahnok. ³-Please note, I am using 1 kio = .1 km as per my previous posts, if this offends you simply multiply every number in this post by 43.75966487787¾⁴ ⁴-Yes even this one.

While I was working on this I made some more revelations about the core which will probably need its own post. ;_; This thing already took 3 days to make....

#Bionicle #hypothesis #writeup #Mata Nui #Voya Nui #Great Spirit Robot #I managed to do this whole thing with only mentioning the characters of the story twice :)#quack

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marybatson · 8 months ago

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Billy Batson Week 2024 Use #billybatsonweek and #bb84week to participate!

This year marks the 84th anniversary of Billy Batson as Captain Marvel debuting in Whiz Comics #2, the first official cover-dated issue released February 1940. We're three years into this fan-run event - hopefully we'll have many more to come!

Day 1 ✦ August 11, 2024 Bearing the Bolt + Favorite Costume

Over the years, Captain Marvel has gone through many design changes depending on the era and artist. Let us know which of them you favor the most - or even come up with your own! Bearing the bolt can also mean many things aside from the aesthetic. Is the bolt a heavy thing to bear?

Day 2 ✦ August 12, 2024 On the Battlefield + Favorite Fight

From the Captain Marvel battle that made us hold our breath to the one that you think about constantly - which is your most memorable battlefield moment? Or when has Cap struggled and still persevered?

Day 3 ✦ August 13, 2024 The Rock of Eternity + At Home Base

The Rock of Eternity is a place of reverence as well as the place of Captain Marvel's origin. It's had its moments since the first appearance of it in comics, but most notably it is our hero's home base, and a place he can find refuge.

Day 4 ✦ August 14, 2024 The Perfect Pair + Favorite Duo

Captain Marvel (as well as Billy himself) have had many iconic team-ups over the years. His occasional one-on-one collaborations are among some of the most noteworthy of his career. Who is your favorite Captain Marvel partner, either from canon or from your most wanted dream team?

Day 5 ✦ August 15, 2024 Into the Elseworlds + Favorite AU

Captain Marvel's Elseworlds appearances always have impact, no matter the weight of his role. Pick one to explore, or perhaps an alternate universe of your own making.

Day 6 ✦ August 16, 2024 Domestic Bliss + Off-Duty Hours

We love every moment our hero is a hero, but even more so when Cap turns in for the day and Billy has his own time to shine. Whether it's an unassuming picnic day or a day-in-the-life of Billy Batson, the off-duty hours can be just as fulfilling.

Day 7 ✦ August 17, 2024 Holiest of Molies + Favorite Moment

Holy Moly! Can you pinpoint the very moment that Billy Batson compelled you the very first time? He's been on this planet for way over three-quarters of a century, so let's talk about his impact! This day can also be used as a free-for-all.

Although the prompts have been laid out, you are more than welcome to refer to previous years’ (2022, 2023) to choose ideas from! All prompts may also be interpreted in any way you like, however abstract. Any form of content is encouraged, from drawing, multi-media work, photos, graphics, writing, and anything else under the sun. There's no pre-requisites or rules to join except for keeping everything SFW. Posting late is more than acceptable, especially if you find these dates to be incompatible with your own schedule.

Feel free to post your writing in our collection. There is no closing date, so works may be posted beyond the event.

Remember to use the tags #billybatsonweek and #bb84week so everyone will be able to view your masterpieces! View all previous years' works here.

#billy batson #shazam #captain marvel #billybatsonweek #bb84week #shazamedit #dc comics #justice league #dcedit #comicedit #comiceditblog #dcmultiverse

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lairofsentinel · 4 months ago

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Since this user's posts seem to have been deleted in previous opportunities I copy-paste their words here because they express exactly what I feel about this game. Dragon Age has died, unfortunately.

I'm a big time Dragon Age lover and have enjoyed every game in the series. Personally, I think Inquisition is the best in the series. And I was excited for Veilguard right up until I actually began playing it. Now, I want to clear things up at the start as to what I look for and believe makes a good Dragon Age game. To start, I DON'T CARE ABOUT COMBAT. I. Do. Not. Care.

You can make it Origins tactical. DA2 fast tactical. DAI hybrid. God of War action, I don't care. Dragon Age has always had combat that was...fine. A nice distraction and breakup in between the bits I actually care about: narrative ROLEPLAYING, story, characters, and exploration. I don't give a crap how great the combat is if the narrative roleplaying and writing are poor, I'm not playing BioWare titles for amazing gameplay. I am here for the story, the characters, and the roleplaying. Truth is, for a time I considered DATV's combat to be the best in the series.

And this is why I feel the game is a terrible Dragon Age, because it lacks or fails to respect those elements concerned with narrative roleplaying, story, characters, and exploration. Now, in many reviews and online videos you'll hear some reference often to the drop in writing quality. And a lot of time people will incorrectly say that the writing with the characters is to "modern" or "Marvel quippy" or not "dark" enough. I think these people are wrong, they recognize there is a drop in writing quality from previous games but aren't able to articulate why that is.

Dragon Age has never adopted any sort of faux medieval speech and vocabulary (though we'll get into this more later). This is a series that used "epic fail" as a thing someone uttered in the very first game. It's always had anachronistic dialogue and banter. So why is it such a drop then? Why is it considered poor? Simple. This is a game that does not believe in the world it has setup for over a decade. It does not believe in or engage properly with its own world and lore. I mean, look no further than the title "The Veilguard" a phrase that is never uttered by anyone in our group, and further proof it was a last minute marketing change. Compare to Inquisition where the title is apparent from the start in the game and has actual meaning.

You see, characters in DATV do not feel or react to events the way they should based on the lore. Why is no one constantly asking what the hell the Inquisitor is doing? The Inquisitor is kind of a BIG DEAL when it comes to Solas and Elven Gods, my Inquisitor drank from the WELL OF SORROWS! So why are we sitting around thinking at the start, "hmm lemme think who I can contact who might know more." The Herald of Andraste! They know more Rook, the guy that is technically your boss. The Inquisitor! Who else have you been working for this entire time? Who do you think told Varric to recruit you?!

But even removing the Inquisitor, the Elven Gods being real and also near synonymous with the old Tevinter Gods is kind of a BIG DEAL. It was only a theory fans crafted long ago that slowly revealed itself to be true. And it completely upends known religious dogma on all sides. Yet, why aren't people we meet going through a massive existential crisis? For instance, the Veil Jumpers we initially meet were presumably told off-screen about Fen'Harel, and are seemingly cool with this massive knowledge alone. But then we talk about those two other Gods being released and they're like, "well, shit those two aren't good." As if they have any clue if the fables about those Gods are real when we previously just upended everything they thought about the Dreadwolf! Why are you acting like this is another Tuesday?! Your entire religion is wrong. In that same conversation, Strife notes "Solas might be a bastard, but compared to the Evunaris? Let's just say they weren't know for being kind rulers."

My brother in Anduril, what are you talking about! Elven religion teaches that Elgar'nan was so beloved by the Earth that it "the land brought forth great birds and beasts of sky and forest, and all manner of wonderful green things." And that he fought the jealous Sun that tried to burn the land and all beasts away. Custom says that he and Mythal, "created the world as we know it" after defeating the Sun. He is literally described as one of the "good" Gods. WHY ARE YOU ASSUMING HE IS EVIL! It's like finding out Satan is real, but not as evil as have come to believe and then being told Jesus Christ is back and a devout Christian going, "well shit, that can't be good." WHAT?!

The same goes for Andraste and the Chant of Light, it took me 30 hours of playing before ONE character mentioned Andraste and the implications with the Chant and it was never brought up again. Our entire party is seemingly made up of unphased atheists. Now compare to something like Inquisition which explored this aspect HARD and was amazing for it. You'd get into great debates with religious figures and party members about the implications of Corypheus actually being a Tevinter Magister of old. And you'd talk about what it means towards the religious dogma preached and how much is true. And these intense political and religious discussions are present in every previous game, and not confined to a single conversation with one party member where it is seemingly resolved.

These conversations do not happen in DATV because there is no depth to the writing or engagement with the world. The Elven Gods are evil and need to be stopped. That's it. We don't need to think about the implications this has on Dalish customs and religion. Fuck it, all the Dalish are going to still wear their Vallaslin slave brand tattoos. Let's forget about Trespasser implying Solas was removing them from followers coming to join him. Let's even forget they were likely all told at this point that they are slave brands, nope still going to wear them yet speak blasphemy with every sentence against our Gods. No one cares about Andraste or The Maker or the Chant. Big deal if these Elven Gods contradict the overwhelming majority religion in Thedas. Not a single party member has religious or cultural objections to killing the Elven Gods; not a problem. Not one single elf wants to join Solas in tearing down The Veil and getting immortality again?

Again, let's forget about Trespasser setting up Solas gathering MANY Elven followers from Dalish clans who would be super inclined to join him after experiencing CENTURIES of discrimination and slavery by humans. The better question is what Elves wouldn't join Solas at the start? And what Elves wouldn't look at the other two Gods and go, "meh, maybe we should give them a try. They can't be worse than humans, right?" In DA2 you had elves joining The Qun to escape the discrimination of humans, but not ONE ELF wants to join Solas or Elgar'nan? Those Ancient Elves in the Temple of Mythal? I guess they all died, right?

This extends to EVERY single element of Dragon Age that previously had depth to it, it now has been completely removed. Those murdering Antivan Crows? Oh, they're just good Italian Mob Family that protect their city. Tevinter? Yes, it has poor people, but we're trying to do better. Oh, slavery? No, no we don't show that here. The Qun? The what now? No, they are all Antaam now, and so that means they are all generic evil warlords. No, they don't even attempt to follow their own hardcore view of The Qun like when Templars split from the Chantry, they're just warlords now that like plunder. Dwarves and their rigid Caste society? We don't do that here. Elves and racism across Thedas? Elves used to experience racism? News to me, what's a Shemlen? Never heard of that term, we like all humans. Pirates? That is insensitive, we are Lords of Fortune and we are sure to return any cultural artifacts found to their rightful owners; it belongs in a museum after all. The fucking Fade and spirits? Wait, you mean its different than generic fantasy spirit world? I'm sorry, that's too complicated here.

This either intentional disregard of the lore or plain ignorance also extends to environmental design. The asset reuse from Inquisition is particularly hilarious and must speak to the developers not having time after the switch from MP. Why are the same statues found in Val Royeaux in DAI also in Tevinter and Antiva? Why are those stupid Fen'Harel Wolf statues EVERYWHERE? Even in the catacombs of other Elven Gods! There are no statues of Elgar'nan or Ghilan'nain. Nothing for June or Anduril. Dirthamen. Falon'Din. Nothing. No, the only Gods that seem to get statues are coincidentally the ones who already had assets created for DAI or past titles that could be reused. Hmmm.

This continues into character designs too, why do the Veiljumpers and Shadow Dragons all dress richly? They are supposed to be poor as fuck. There's a codex entry about Veiljumpers finding a lost cache of old ancient elven armor and weapons and so boom they all get to dress like High Elven Lords and not the dirty, poor, wandering Dalish clans they are supposed to come from. Why do this? There isn't even an attempt to explaining why the Shadow Dragons, an organization supposed to be secretive, has branded clothing in bright rich colors and fabrics for all members. Naturally, it must be incredibly difficult for Tevinter authorities to not identify them.

This lack of depth and verisimilitude, naturally, affects all the characters. Because in this game you cannot roleplay and you cannot ask questions. In Dragon Age Inquisition, once you started the game, you could immediately interrogate Varric about what happened to every DA2 character despite the Inquisitor never meeting them, you know because it respects its players. You could speak to shop keepers, blacksmiths, your horse master. You could interrogate every single person to learn more about them and the world. The same goes for your player character in DA2 and Origins. You show in Denermin and find yourself knee deep in a quest to help Wade the Blacksmith craft the perfect armor. Here you can't actually speak to a single shopkeeper to ask questions and get some lore bits. You can't ask party members questions about their background, religious beliefs, upbringing, their factions, etc. You can't ask any returning characters any questions either about what they've been doing. Enter a brand new area? Great, you're not asking anyone questions about this never before seen place.

How does a lost Dwarven thaig survive every single blight? How are their immortal lichs in Neverra? How long has that been a thing? Why haven't they told anyone about the Elven gods or any other knowledge they've accumulated in an immortal lifespan? If immortality is so "easy" why can't Solas just do that to restore the Elves? Why are the Venatori, Tevinter Supremacists, following Elven Gods? Wouldn't that be a major identity crisis? Why would Antaam, who still preach the Qun, follow an Elven God that speaks blasphemy with ever breadth? Sshhhh, no questions. You get what is directly told to you and that's it, no follow-up questions.

Party members do not conflict with each other or interrogate each other's beliefs which is why their banter feels inconsequential and meaningless. Lucanis is a assassin, he kills people for money. The same organization that marked Zevran for death for failing a contract. The same one that took him as a kid and trained him to murder, often brutally, for coin. And yet no one really seems to care. He's just a nice Italian assassin from a nice assassin organization. Who cares. Let's instead talk about cooking, at length. Harding, a devout follower of Andraste, has no qualms with Elven Gods wreaking havoc on known religion. We get one conversation you can tell her to believe what she wants, and that's the end of that debate. Bellara also gets about two whole conversations about the conflict concerning her Gods wreaking havoc, both easily resolved. We don't need to think about any larger implications or doubt her loyalty when the Elven pantheon are seeking to restore her people that have been discriminated against since forever. Emmerich, a necromancer of Neverra, apparently has no religious belief. A codex entry even states that those of the Mourn Watch don't know where the soul goes after death. They don't like to think about it. Buddy, Mortalitasi belief is literally that our souls return to the Void alongside The Maker, but to keep balance a exchange must be wrought with The Fade to allow a spirit to house the now empty vessel. How do you not know the religion and customs of your own faction and land? This man has a whole quest line about funerary rights, yet not ONCE mentions religion and what he believes happens after death?! Sshhhh, no questions. No thinking.

Hey, remember The Fade? Remember how mages go to dream there every night. Remember how The Black City is always visible there? No? Well, we don't either. You won't see The Black City in The Fade. You might see it in The Crossroads in a closed off section, even though it is NOT The Fade. Oh, we're going to have you physically enter The Fade in multiple quest lines and no one will think it's a big deal. No, you still can't see The Black City. Now, The Fade is reduced to nothing more than your generic fantasy spirit world. It has none of the previous rules and lore that bound it before. Demons can bind to non-mages and we won't attempt to explain it. Solas fucks with The Veil and not a single mage notices a change in their dreams when they sleep at night. No biggie.

Lastly, let's return at last to the actual minutiae of writing. I stated at the start the writing isn't bad because of Marvel quippiness, which the series has always had. I was partly lying. Yes, the series has always had anachronistic dialogue. It has had meme language in its own previous titles. But, it was just that, a small joke here and there. For the most part the series actually tried to use it's own sort of "older" speech patterns. I think a perfect example has to do with Taash, she eventually finds her own identity and declares she is proudly "non-binary." Literally stating, "so, I'm non-binary." I have no issue with this sort of inclusivity in Dragon Age, it's what the series is known for. Yet, why does that sound wrong? Simple, it's far too anachronistic. It doesn't belong in Dragon Age. In Inquisition, Dorian let's us know he's gay. But he doesn't say, "I'm gay!" or "I'm a homosexual" those terms would not exist in his world. Instead he says, "I prefer the company of men."

And it's these little subtle changes in writing that makes it feel all the more different. We went from "I once ventured in to The Fade to serve the Old Gods of Tevinter in person. I found there only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. Now I shall return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world gone wrong. Pray that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the Gods. And it was empty."

To: "Well, shit. That can't be good."

So, what do we have when all is said and done? Well, we have a decent generic fantasy action game. An intentional attempt by the developers to remove every edge from the world of Dragon Age in place of a very simple, easy to understand world with not much depth beyond what you see. You don't need to think, just play and have fun. This is beyond turning a MP game into a SP game, which so blatantly obvious in this game. DA2 was developed in 16 months, but is carried strong by its writing. You see, nothing prevented them from just acknowledging their own world they created. It costs very little to write around what already exists. Even if you can't make no assets or redesign the world. Writing is cheap and having characters voice these elements is not as costly as a redesign. No, they chose to remove the edge in every element because this was design intentionally for the masses with easy to understand world and zero depth.

But I wanted to play Dragon Age. I wanted to get into intense religious debates with party members as known lore is completely upended. I wanted to debate Elvish clans deciding to join Solas or the other Gods due to their treatment by human society. I wanted to debate the ethics of necromancy with the Mortalitasi of Neverra's Crypts. I wanted to engage in intense debating with Solas on the ethics of his goal. I wanted to see Tevinter react to a real push for anti-slavery and actually see the slavery in the slave capital of the world. I wanted to butt heads with the Antivan Crows and call them out for the murderers they are. I wanted to see the Black Divine and debate the Chant of Light with them. I wanted to speak to the Archon of Tevinter and see how he felt about the Venatori's past efforts in Inquisition. Hey, what happened to Meredith Reborn in Kirkwall and her idol and Red Templar worshipers? Forget about it.

We got none of this. I got a game that is pretty much disrespectful of its own world. I waited 10 years for this? Why even bother if this is the result? They may as well have just killed every previous character we ever knew, including Solas, offscreen and started anew with this game. Because as a Dragon Age game and sequel, it's terrible and no returning character is how they should be.

And when we get to the ending, that's pretty much what they did. Everything you did in all the past games? Well, that was pointless. Everyone is probably dead. King Alistair. Gaspard. Celene. King Bhelen. The Arl of Redcliffe. The Divine. The Circle of Magi. The Templars. The Seekers. Everything, everyone, and every organization that existed in the South is likely dead and destroyed. And now Dragon Age can become what they wanted, a generic fantasy IP.

But I just wanted to play Dragon Age.

#dragon age #dragon age critical #dragon age spoilers #I finished this game... and now just mourn the end of a fantasy world that was so much and now is nothing

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lexicorp · 2 months ago

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Transformers Earthspark: Another Place, Another Prison

Got another chapter where it switches from Megs to Star, although they don't actually interact again yet this time lol. This one ended up being pretty long, and I split a section that was originally in this chapter off into its own. Cuz i hadn't planned Meg's section in my first outline, but it felt p necessary to add.

Megs is a bit salty, Prowl kinda wants to do a moida, Optimus is an optimistic bean, and Starscream is fucking tired of all this shit-

I swear dude it is getting increasingly hard to decide on screenshots for these chapters-

Previous Chapter: A Broken Boogeyman

First Chapter: The Need For Read

Next Chapter: Settling Into Circumstance

Chapter 8: The Illusion of Freedom

Once they had finally managed to tranquilize Starscream through his absurd amount of flailing, Megatron had carried his mangled frame to the medbay. Arcee was seen to by Wheeljack first, of course. Megatron had found himself on auto pilot as he watched and waited until he could finally release the seeker from his periodically tense hold.

Soon enough, Elita-1 took Arcee to a separate room to lie down, and Megatron carefully approached to place Starscream on the medberth. Leaked Energon dripped from Megatron’s servos and spotted the ground. He stared down at it. Then back at Starscream.

“Are you alright, Megatron?” Optimus’ servo was suddenly upon his shoulder and he flinched.

“Ah– Yes. Yes of course…” He responded with a gentle brushing away of the attempt at comfort from the sentimental mech. Megatron’s gaze flickered only momentarily to address the question before falling back upon the air commander. The sparking, practically entirely severed, crushed limb. The scorched, leaking chasm in the wing. Every dent, crack, and burn.

“Would you like to be given a quick check at least? You took quite the blow yourself–”

“No.” Megatron snapped a bit too forcefully with a hand raised to silence him, then in-vented in a practiced means at cooling his nerves. “Starscream requires such attention more than I, at the moment.”

Wheeljack shrugged as he turned back towards the medberth with newly acquired materials. “Alrighty then. Might I ask y’all what ol’ Screamer did ta get this banged up?”

“How about you focus on your work instead of bothering yourself with such details, medic.” Megatron forcefully kept his tone as monotone as he could. He often tired of how needlessly talkative the Autobots could be. There was no reason to talk about such things after it had already been done. How would describing just how Starscream had severed his own ped from his frame, in some insane act of desperation, possibly aid in repairing it?

Prowl looked as if he was ready to berate him for the comment for some reason or another. He was only stopped by Optimus inserting himself between them with his more softly toned criticism, “I know you are concerned Megatron, but do refrain from lashing out at your team. Perhaps you should take a seat, and we all may discuss the past hour’s events.”

Megatron’s optical ridge furrowed as the frown deepened on his face. He had hardly lashed out. These mechs could be so sensitive. Even so, he knew Optimus was right. Perhaps it would be good to discuss it, to some regard. There were a good deal of things to consider, in a matter of building upon what the future would hold as a result. That must have been what Wheeljack had meant all along. Megatron’s anger had always been quite a volatile thing to balance.

“Fine.” He inevitably relented to join Optimus and Prowl at a cluster of crates used in place of chairs.

“Yeesh, I’d bet we could cut this tension y’all got goin’ on with the dullest knife in the bottom of my tool box.” Wheeljack commented ridiculously, but at least he was finally beginning the patch job as he should. Then, as the mech actually gave more precise focus to his work, he hummed and tapped at a few select places on Starscream’s chassis. The most noticeable being the odd red cracks extending down from the optics. “This ain’t any of your doin’ I reckon.” As he tested it with a scalpel, Starscream tensed and a reactive crimson light shone dimly from somewhere within his broken cockpit.

Megatron’s eyes widened, “Leave that be.” He ordered, but then remembered again that it might be better to give more explanation. “...He seems to still be connected to the effects of the more chaotic side of the Emberstone. It would be wise not to test it, as we do not know what exactly triggers the episodes.”

“Did you know about this?” Prowl questioned in a rather accusatory tone.

“Only recently.”

“That is soon enough to inform your team of the obvious threat! How could you just let such a thing linger, and wait until it explodes on us?” Prowler’s stance was practically revving to jump from his seat, as he leaned forward just enough to gesture a servo in Megatron’s direction around Optimus.

Optimus of course, raised his hands placatingly to diffuse the growing situation. “Megatron informed me about what he had seen as soon as he could, Prowl. We simply underestimated what it could entail.”

Prowler immediately reeled himself in to assume a more professional posture, “I see… Well. I must admit, Optimus sir, that I also find it a bit strange that we brought such a clearly volatile Decepticon here to be repaired. Would it not just be a waste, when as soon as he’d come back online he’d no doubt cause us continued trouble? If we cannot keep him contained in the brig, and we cannot nullify whatever power he has harnessed, then it would be the most effective solution to simply terminate him.”

Megatron clenched his fists and glowered his optics. “Effective…?” He breathed in a near whisper at the absolute gall of the proposition. As an infamous Decepticon trapper, was that how this mech had orchestrated his operations during the war? Execution merely based on fear? Or an overt disregard for the lives of their enemy if they outlived their supposed usefulness, or tipped some untold scale of risk? Optimus would never allow such a thing!

Then again, the Decepticons had carried out such orders towards Autobots during the war as well. The realization made his shoulders slump as a more somber air replaced his anger. There…could be some logic in Prowl’s query, he supposed. He was certainly no mech to judge the thought, after all.

Regardless, Megatron would not allow what he’d just witnessed to be left to become yet another regret to haunt his processor. Starscream was not beyond redemption. He was sick. There had to be something they could do. Megatron couldn’t simply toss Starscream to the Pit this time. He wouldn’t.

“We do not terminate our prisoners.” Optimus started with an assured lilt in his tone as he kept Megatron in the edge of his vision. “Instead, we must determine an alternative approach.”

The plainly obvious statement left both Megatron and Prowl staring at the Prime silently. To Prowler’s credit, he seemed to be having a thousand thoughts running through his head in some effort to piece together the answer. Megatron only found his own thoughts rather blank. He wasn’t sure what they could do. What would be the best way to handle Starscream’s erratic nature? Not to mention the strange affliction the seeker had given himself. Who would Starscream possibly be swayed by?

…The Terrans?

Finally, Prowler spoke up as he realized that it seemed they were all waiting for someone else to make the next move. Although only in an effort to gain some clarification from his leader. “Which would be…what, sir?” Perhaps he had become more hesitant to voice his own choice of action.

Optimus pulled a servo to his chin in a contemplative gesture, “Hm, I admit I am a bit unsure in that regard.”

“Well, if ya ask me, the only other place we really have in the matter of alternative accommodations would be with those Malto’s.” Wheeljack contributed whilst still amidst his tinkering. An admittedly impressive feat. “Now I know it may seem a bit risky to let our con commander here ‘round the kids, but I’m sure we all know how capable they can be.”

“Oh, yes, perhaps some access to the outdoors could aid Starscream after being cooped up for so long. Like what I was telling you earlier, Megatron!” Optimus motioned to him with a flick of his antennae and a grin as if he alone had come to that revelation. Megatron couldn’t help but give a small, fond smile at the mech.

Prowler took in a long breath, oddly similar to Megatron’s own methods at stabilizing himself, and realigned his previously lost optics to be flat, and rather resigned. “I will trust your judgment.” Then he stood with a new pace of determination on his faceplate. “However, if we will indeed be proceeding with such a course of action, I will insist on precautionary measures.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” Optimus watched his tactician rummage through their supplies, with a newfound gleam of hope in his eyes. Then, he turned his attention to Megatron, “What do you think? Do you believe this approach could work?”

He hesitated a moment as he pondered over his words, “Well… the thought did come to my own mind, in passing. Starscream had shown some strange fondness towards the Terrans… at least Hashtag, to my knowledge. Despite what he had done. She had been able to bring out something within him once. I do not doubt it possible again.”

Optimus nodded and followed Megatron’s wandering gaze towards the seeker. Wheeljack had just about finished smoothing out the patch on the wing, and was now arranging to replace the cracked cockpit. Did repairs always take this long?

“I will contact Bumblebee to get him up to speed on the new arrangement.” Optimus announced as he took to his peds and made his way towards the door.

“Hm, yes.” Megatron ceased his anxious tapping and stood to join him. “I will call Dorothy. She will no doubt have some grievances to be quelled about the idea.”

The medbay door closed behind them, and they each took to their own spot in the hall to make their calls. Megatron placed a digit to his helm and sent the signal to Dorothy’s cell. His comm played a little rhythmic tune of sorts as he waited for a response. It was just as mundanely aggravating as the concept of elevator music. He should really disconnect that silly feature.

Finally, Dorothy’s voice came through with her signature greeting, “What’s up Megs?”

“Hello, Dorothy. There is something we must discuss as a result of a recent development. Regarding Starscream.” Megatron was relieved to hear his friend's voice, yet also knew just how precarious this conversion was bound to become.

“That right?” She of course quickly caught on to the anxious air.

“Yes, he had tried to escape, and…it was quite the spectacle. He was just about ready to die before allowing himself to return to his cell. I admit, it was rather startling. So, we have come to the decision that perhaps time elsewhere could serve him better.” Megatron tapped his finger against the railing as he attempted to filter his thoughts, and prepare for her response to them. “Under the supervision of you and your family.”

“Really now? Are you honestly telling me that the best idea you’ve got, is to send that maniac here, around my kids? Megs…”

“I know…But I do believe your children to be the exact influence he needs. As it has been, his mental state has only seemed to worsen which only aids to increase the danger he poses. We can’t simply send him back to the brig where he just may as well do something foolish.”

“You’re worried about him.” They both remained quiet for a moment. He wasn’t sure if he could admit it, but she understood as she so often did. Dorothy sighed, obviously still unsure, but willing to relent nevertheless. “Okay. If you’re sure. I’ll discuss it with the rest of them. But you’ll have to promise me–that bot won’t ever be allowed to hurt any of my babies again. Got that? You have a plan, don’t you?”

“Yes. I promise.”

***

Everything ached. That wasn’t exactly new. Although the lingering pain in a peculiar corner in his spark was certainly…something.

Starscream groaned as his systems struggled to come back online with at the very least, adequately functional sensors. Sound was garbled like a horribly received connection that he needed to internally adjust until it could make any form of sense. When he tried to begin onlining his optics, it was revoltingly bright, and he had to once again filter through his settings to find something tolerable.

Where was he?

What had happened?

…Why couldn’t he move?

A gripping fear suddenly strangled his spark as he realized that he couldn’t bring his servo to his faceplate, and his wings felt far too cramped as they were pressed against some constricting surface.

Starscream pulled at the clamps holding him firmly in place. Not again. He was not going to be those humans’ robotics projects. He desperately cycled his optics to try and make sense of his surroundings. He could hear the steps and chaotic chatter of those vermin all around him. There was equipment beside him. What were they going to do this time? Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to lay there and take it.

An oddly large shadow loomed over him with extending servos. Mandroid’s voice echoed in his audials, “Struggle all you like. But it will not change your fate.”

Starscream yanked painfully against the brace on his wrist until a burst of energy allowed him to break it and throw a punch at the offending silhouette. He wanted to shout some deserved obscenities at the pest, but his voice box wouldn’t work. When his fist connected with metal, he assumed he’d simply been blocked, which infuriated him. That fissure in his spark stabbed through his frame, and he began to shake ridiculously. What was that? Wait. His free servo was stuck again. And his digits were being individually bent in some odd pattern, for some reason.

Then, he started to hear a voice he hadn’t heard in quite some time, calling his designation. “--Scream, Starscream! Hey, c’mon, what’s goin’ on in that crazy processor of yours? Calm down will ya?” Wheeljack? Why was he here?

Starscream blinked. Something wasn’t right. He tried his best to steady his vents as he focused on the ridiculous sensation the mech insisted on inflicting on his servo. Eventually, he could finally make out the white, red, and green overseeing him. As well as a second pair of Autobots across the room. Prowl, and the Prime.

Right. This was the Autobot base. Not G.H.O.S.T.'s.

Well that was embarrassing.

Starscream’s wings twitched, as much as they could given his position. Wheeljack looked some type of determined. A reflexive response no doubt. Prowl looked a mix of surprised and appalled, it was actually quite hilarious– except that Prime’s stupid face ruined it. He didn’t need nor want that self-righteous mech’s pity.

“Ya with us there Screamer?” Wheeljack asked more directly as he finally began to release Starscream’s servo.

He stared at him, confused and a bit annoyed. Had he not already given them a response? What sort of question was that?

Ah, apparently it would seem as though his vocalizer was still on the fritz. Starscream raised a servo as indication that he needed a moment as he recalibrated his voice box. This was pathetic.

When he only managed to sputter beeps and clicks, red sparks flared off him angrily a moment as he punched his chassis until the words could be forced out. Wheeljack chastised him for it, but frag him. “WHAT–” Starscream adjusted his volume– “What, is going on here?” Had they really brought him to their technician after he’d almost escaped? That seemed absurd. Perhaps they’d implanted a remote explosive somewhere in his frame.

“Well, I fixed ya up, added Prowl’s little boot, and those two got a deal for ya. Sorry ‘bout the restraints.” Wheeljack began to release him from the medberth. None of this was answering his question. “We weren’t sure if ya’d go immediately ballistic or somethin’ when ya woke up.”

Prowl crossed his arms. “I’d say we were certainly right to do so.”

As Starscream stood, he just about stumbled with a wave of disorientation, but skillfully used it to transition into a snarky servo to a tilted hip. “Of course.” He glared at them until he noticed how one of his peds felt heavier than it should, and lifted it to complain. “But what on Cybertron is this, for?” Then he remembered Wheeljack’s previous statement and straightened himself with an air of guarded curiosity. “And what is this about a deal?”

“That,” Prowl gestured to the ugly, boxy device attached to Starscream’s ped, “Is insurance. All you need to know, is that if you try anything with that power of yours, that device will render you imobile.”

“It tracks your sparkbeat, power surges, fun stuff like that.” Wheeljack listed on a pair of digits, which Prowl didn’t seem too happy about. “I promise it won’t blow up or nothin’!” Coming from this mech, such a promise hardly meant anything.

“Yes, you have my utmost confidence, Wheeljack.” Starscream rolled his optics tiredly, then kicked his ped in a display of his distaste for the accessory. “It is entirely impractical. How do you expect me to transform with this blasted thing?!”

“Exactly.” Prowler crossed his arms with an expression void of any sympathy. Primus did his faceplate look punchable.

Starscream whined with a slight slump to his wings, before the Prime interjected himself to continue the dreadful conversation. “In regards to the deal, we have decided that you will no longer be staying in the brig.” Starscream perked at this, although couldn’t help but be skeptical. “Instead, you will stay with the Malto family.”

That was not exactly what he was expecting.

Starscream stared blankly at them a moment before remembering to speak, “...What will such an arrangement entail, exactly?” Surely it was some new scheme of theirs to pacify him. He didn’t trust it.

The Prime seemed oddly surprised by his response, then took a step forward, an action of which Starscream forced himself to not reactively back away from. “Well, given your obvious distress, we thought you’d benefit from the opportunity to have access to the outdoors. You could perhaps learn to appreciate what Earth has to offer. Observe how well a family made of transformers and humans can function. My hope, is that it could be your own path towards redemption alongside Megatron!”

Starscream’s faceplate scrunched in disgust at the mention of his former leader. “Redemption. Right.” Although the prospect of appreciating Earth would be laughable.

Prowler sent him a discrete glare with narrowed optics. The Prime only looked like a kicked cyberdog. Perhaps they were hoping he’d get on his knees to praise their ever expansive mercy. That he should thank them for such an offer. As if it even were one. This wasn’t a deal. It was an order.

He in-vented steadily before preparing them a smile, and arranging a loose, confident posture as he strode towards them. “That sounds just wonderful.” He crooned in a disguised taunt as he slid by Prowl, then practically danced around the Prime. “I promise to be on my best behavior! I am truly honored that you all have decided to permit my grand exit from your lovely accommodations. Such a gracious act, that I will make certain not to let go to waste, I assure you!” Starscream led the way out of the medbay with the two bots trailing behind him.

“You’d better not.” Prowl commented in a cute little threat as he split away from them.

“What he means is,” The Prime began as he caught up by Starscream’s side, “This could be a very important step in us truly being able to trust you, Starscream. Which would in turn lead to the possibility of your true freedom, and permanent alliance with the Autobots, if you so choose.”

Starscream scrutinized the mech from the corner of his optic, and held his servos behind him professionally. If they actually wanted his alliship as the Prime proclaims, they would have accepted his offer back at the Titan. They’d only pulled this out of their afts now out of newly realized necessity, after the rather explosive display he’d given them. They didn’t care. They just wanted to control him. All it was is a new, creative way of containing him. They couldn’t con a con.

“Yes, I’m sure that is what he meant.” It was clear sarcasm, and yet he aligned his vocalizer to imitate pure sincerity. Well, as much as he could.

The Prime actually looked a touch annoyed with partially lowered optical lids. How amusing. “I do urge you to take this seriously. You realize the risk involved in this.”

Starscream scoffed in half feigned offense with a servo to his chassis. “Of course I do. Do you take me for a fool?”

The Prime hesitated as if an affirmation of the rhetorical question floated just behind his intake. Rude. Regardless, they eventually came upon their first destination that consisted of a trailer, and those two Autobot femmes. That was foreboding.

“Ready when you are Optimus.” The one he recognized to be identified as Elita-1, reported stoically.

With the uncomfortably upbeat Arcee adding, “So we’re really doing this? Y’know– you and I really should have a rematch sometime Screamer! You can’t pull a cheap shot on me twice!” She apparently saw it appropriate to approach him and throw her arm around his neck to pull his helm down close to hers. She prodded his chassis to emphasize her challenge, but the energy she exuded was beyond confusing. “I. Will. Destroy you.” There was a painful pause as her touch lingered. “But that's fun for another day!” Then she finally broke away from him to flip into her alt mode beside the trailer.

Starscream hadn’t realized just how tense he had become until his wings flicked back into place and he chuckled anxiously. His blasted vocalizer cracked again. “Oh yes, fun! I– look forward to it…” He examined the situation before him and regarded the open trailer with contempt. Especially when the Prime began leading him towards it. “Is this–” He gestured to the metal box– “Really necessary? Surely we could simply walk-”

“Nope.” Elita-1 slapped a servo to his arm and yanked him down to be shoved inside. What was with these femmes in tossing him around! And who designed this blasted trailer! It was like being stuck in a fragging compactor.

“Apologies, Starscream, but without access to your alt form, this is the most efficient means of transportation.” The Prime said stupidly as the trailer was tilted to be adjusted onto his frame.

Starscream was sealed inside this absurdly small containment for obviously no more reason than their own amusement. His wings were pulled in tightly with mere centihics between him and the walls. There was absolutely no, fragging, way, to get comfortable in the slagging thing. The walls were too close. The most he could do was have one knee lifted halfway with one servo placed upon it while he leaned at an awkward slant so he didn’t ram his helm on the top. He felt stupid. It was too slagging cramped in this mistake of manufacturing.

Primus Starscream wished Skywarp and Novastorm had destroyed it when they’d had the chance. He was certainly going to make it his first act of justified pettiness on these Auto-glitches, to blow it into melting slag the nano-klick he got his missiles back.

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kaythefloppa · 11 months ago

Text

The Current Timeline of Wild Kratts:

Remember 3 years ago during the hiatus when I made that detailed post explaining the chronological lore of Wild Kratts and analyzed its timeline of a decade's worth of episode with a dash of my own HC involved in it and posted it onto the Wild Kratts fandom subreddit?

Yeah, I promised updates to it when the new episodes arrived, and here I am years later where the season has already premiered. Not to mention there were people who messaged me about legitimate errors I made that I accepted humbly, but didn't actually fix. Not to mention the crossovers that I completely ignored.

Well, much like in 2021, I had wayy too much free time on my hands and decided to go back and finally update that timeline. Unfortunately, Reddit's character limit prevented me from getting the edited version posted so I grit my teeth and decided to bring this fucker to Tumblr via copy and paste. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. So if you've ALSO got enough free time on your hands or are someone who read the original post who was desperately searching for an update, you've got it.

Full post underneath the cut: Warning, shit gets crazy down there.

The PBS Kids original animated show “Wild Kratts” has turned a decade old in the 2020's. Within that time, an autobiography, a 200 episode milestone, and a theatrical film based on the series is confirmed to be in development.

With new episodes of the show coming out, I figured that I’d analyze the show by making an analysis for its timeline. Like many shows, it does have continuity, but Wild Kratts is one of those shows which apparently has an extremely open universe where events happen within that universe, but they don’t seem to have a coherent timeline or any serialization. Many episodes are aired out of order and it’s hard to find a passage of time in a show which doesn’t rely on over-serialization in order to tell its own story.

I partly blame this on production errors as well as strict scheduling as well as the network focusing on releasing episodes in order of when they were produced as opposed to the intended date.

I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt that it doesn’t just rehash its timeline over and over again (unlike some other shows I know cough cough Arthur & Family Guy cough cough). Continuity does exist. It’s just figuring out how it falls in line that is the hard part.

I’ll update this post every time a new episode comes out. My plan is to analyze every single episode until the series finale so that we can determine how much time passes in the show. The way I'll order the timeline is by chronological order first. If there exists an episode or a group of episodes that do not contradict the order, but is not stated to go within this order, I will place them by original air-date and not production order.

I had found a website that lists every Wild Kratts episode (minus the hour-long specials) in order by air-date, unlike the Wild Kratts wiki & Wikipedia. Now, I did find some errors, as it claims that the first 2 episode aired on December 31st and not January 3rd, however I can forgive that as that has been a misconception for years and it got only the date wrong and not the order of episodes. So I was able to use that as a reliable source, more so than the fandom wiki. I am also running off of vivid memory based on my viewing experience as a kid, since I grew up with the show and have come to realize how much info I've retained from the universe of my hyperfixation and how I can use that to this post's advantage. Let's get into it.

Activate Analysis Powers!

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

SEASON 1:

Let’s start with the very first 2 episodes to be released: Mom of a Croc and Whale of a Squid.

In that episode, we see that the Kratt Brothers are already familiar with what’s around them. They’re familiar with the Minaturizer, their Creature Power Suits and Disks, and adventuring with the coolest creatures from oceans to trees (sorry, had to squeeze that reference in).

We see that some animals and inventions are introduced into this episode like the Hippo Sub, Crocodilla, and her daughters. However, let’s focus on things which aren’t introduced in this episode.

Most notably, the Gharial Power Disks and the Miniaturizer. Let’s focus on the disks first.

Near the climax of the episode, the Kratt Brothers use the Gharial Power Disks to substitute for Crocodile Powers since they did not have a disk. Gharials and Nile Crocodiles are both in the order Crocodillia, but were not in the same species nor family. That, along with different designs, makes gharials and crocodiles in general very different animals, which is why the activation didn’t hold up (I hope to god they actually make an episode around gharials in the next season).

Many people assume that this episode only takes place after Kerhonk since Chris uses Gharial Crocodile Power, but this is actually false. Listen closely to what Chris is saying.

“Ha! Crocodile. And a gharial is a type of crocodile!”

Now we’ve already established that a gharial is NOT a crocodile despite being a crocodillian, but let’s get to the important part. Chris is saying that as he pulls out his Crocodile Disk for the Creature Power Suit. Now here is the thing. He doesn’t pull out a Gharial Disk. He uses the Croc Disk to activate Gharial Power, but he doesn’t use a gharial disk to activate the corresponding power suit.

So if Aviva did invent Gharial Power by the events of Kerhonk, Chris would’ve used that instead of using the Crocodile Disk as a substitute. And assuming that episode predates Mom of a Croc, the Kratt Brothers would’ve obviously used the Crocodile Disk since they have used it before.

So that means there was some off-screen adventure where Aviva made Gharial Powers which took place before Kerhonk.

...But that would mean Chris would already have a Gharial Power Disk by the events of Kerhonk and Mom of a Croc. One of 2 things is likely the case. Either Chris didn’t have access to the disk and used Crocodile Power as a last resort (as we see, the disk holder doesn’t exist until Season 2, so he probably stuffs them in his pockets), or that episode exists in an alternate timeline, which we know isn’t the case since that episode’s continuity is brought up later (we will see soon).

So we’ve established that Kerhonk takes place after Mom of a Croc, which takes place after an unseen series of events that predate the series itself as we know it.

Now onto the Miniaturizer. We see it in this episode, but 4 episodes later in Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy, the miniaturizer is invented. That leads me to believe that the episode takes place before Mom of a Croc. However, if you look in the background, you can see that the Walrus Power Suit is in the background with a harness and strap over it. This debunks my original theory of this episode predating the invention of the Creature Power Disks.

With the Walrus Power Suit in mind, it has a harness and strap over it, which brings up the question of why?

My answer would be that the harness and strap was meant for the Walrus Suit after it was damaged in Polar Bears Don’t Dance.

So now we’re at the original pilot episode, the first piece of Wild Kratts media produced by PBS Kids (excluding the Flash games that came out a month prior and were removed 9 years later, *sobs*). Here, the operation of the suits is different. Here, Aviva modified the suits for arctic survival and all it takes is for them to touch the animals with the gloves and then press the button. In many episodes, the modification occurs with the existence of a Creature Power Disc, or the disk is seen off-screen.

But the more I see into it, the more it makes sense. Ever wonder why we don’t see some creature power disks of creature powers in the earlier episodes? Maybe it could be the same reason why we don’t see the Polar Bear and Walrus Disk for the Creature Power Suit.

Aviva pre-programs the Creature Power Suits into the animal that the user can activate into not because she prefers this over making discs, or because the discs are already inserted into the suit, but because this was before she began making Creature Power Discs. This explains why in many Season 1 episodes, we don’t see the disc itself because the power is preprogrammed into the suit.

So at what point does this end and Aviva starts making discs? Any could be. All we know is that this would soon become the norm over preprogramming the power into the suits.

Polar Bears Don’t Dance could possibly chronologically take place around the earliest in the Wild Kratts timeline.

In Mystery of the Weird Looking Walrus, Aviva talks about upgrading features into the Walrus Power Suit. Maybe she isn’t talking about inventing the suits, but modifying the suits, which is fitting considering the walrus suit somehow malfunctioned and got jammed (which was presumably due to the cold arctic ice).

In the same episode, Zach and Donita’s interactions appear to be as if they had met recently, with Donita referring to Zach as the one who “vomitted from clams under the table.” So already we’re forming a coherent timeline with these episodes and we’re not even half-way through Season 1.

There would be one inconsistency. In this episode, Aviva says Jimmy’s controller is waterproof (along with food-proof) but in Seasquatch, 16 episodes later, Jimmy’s controller is protected by a shrink-wrap, indicating that it isn’t safe from the environment. Well, here’s the thing.

That episode shows a second appearance of the Squid Power Suit and Bumper the Sperm Whale from the episode Whale of a Squid which aired alongside Mom of a Croc on the premiere date of the series.

There’s no reason not to believe that the whale episode takes place after Mom of a Croc, which we have already established, takes place long after Polar Bears Don’t Dance. With that, my only explanation is that Jimmy’s controller wasn’t 100% waterproof since salty water can actually be very damaging to technology.

In Octopus WildKratticus Koki lists down many Creature Powers shown. This includes Honey Badgers, Polar Bears, and Octopi. This indeed indicates that these episodes where these powers debut are placed before this episode (some say it’s a retcon, but I disagree since Martin could’ve activated Honey Badger Power after the events of Honey Seekers).

Now let’s address the continuity in the series.

In Season 1, the Kratt Brothers have 2 adventures in the Australian Outback: Ones with kangaroos and koalas. In the koala episode, Chris mentions Aviva inventing Thorny Devil Disks for the Creature Power Suits the last time they were there. Considering that the kangaroo episode was 2 episodes prior to this one, I’m making it count.

Mimic is a sequel to Cheetah Racer, which takes place after Falcon City. In Mimic, the Cheetah Power Disk is invented, which is later used in Caracal Minton.

A Huge Orange Problem takes place after Kerhonk since Schnozzle (I think that is his name appears and Chris and Martin refer to him by that name.) This means that Kerhonk is in the official timeline of WK, meaning the only explanation as to why the Kratt Brothers had little access to either the Gharial and Crocodile Power Disc is that they physically had no access to it due to misorganization.

The Food Chain Game introduces new Creature Powers treated as familiar powers, which indicates that they were already invented off-screen. No episodes introduce these Creature Powers so that means the episode can't be out of order.

In Masked Bandits, Chris and Martin originally intend to use Wolf Power as costumes for their Halloween party, but instead Raccoon Powers are activated and Wolf Power is instead invented in Little Howler.

Ok so let’s go over the established time-line so far. When listing down the time-line, I’ll first do the episodes that chronologically fit together, then I’ll list episodes through air-date if there’s no connection or contradiction between them, then I will go back to chronology if I need to.

And that’s the end of the S1 timeline

Season 2:

Now already, we can see that Season 2 is a continuation of Season 1. The Tortuga HQ has an upgraded design, most likely from Aviva, which foreshadows the events of “Tortuga Tune Up.”

For the sake of things, I will put Speaking Dolphinese and Blowfish Blowout at the start of the S2 timeline because we don’t see the Tortuga so there’s a high possibility of it retaining its original design from S1 (I’m not including Lost at Sea because that was a terrible special that did nothing but combine 2 unrelated episodes into a movie).

The Seahorse Rodeo takes place afterwards since in Tortuga Tune Up, we see Blimpy (who is now an adult) and Ocean Pony.

Next we have Tortuga Tune Up, which shows Aviva modifying the Tortuga for swimming mode. Obviously I like to think the Tortuga’s redesign was an attempt to fix it, until Aviva had realized something was amiss.

Rocket Jaw: Rescuer of the Reef is a part of the Coral Reef saga of episodes so I count it at the beginning of S2.

Then we have Bad Hair Day, Race for the Hippo Disc, Creature Power Challenge, and Termites Versus Tongues, all of which are the first 4 ep. of S2 and take place in Africa. I consider those 3 chronologically connected. Plus, Zach recalls stealing the Creature Power Disc in one episode.

Happy Turkey Day is a Thanksgiving-related episode but I can easily consider it to be in the timeline.

Bugs or Monkeys serves as the first installment of the Central American Rainforest/Coral Reef saga. Followed by Shadow: The Black Jaguar, Rainforest Stew, Secrets of the Spider's Web, and To Touch a Hummingbird.

Then we get a bunch of episodes taking place in the Sonoran Desert. First we have Rattlesnake Crystal, which introduces the Sonoran Desert. I include this directly after the hummingbird episode because here, Aviva modifies Eyelash Viper Power for Rattlesnake Powers.

In the episode “Roadrunner” Chris and Martin say they have only JUST arrived at the Sonoran Desert. That episode’s plot is focused around the Tortuga getting a resupply, which is fitting considering they just recently crashed.

I would put “Skunked” after Roadrunner since it appears that they have enough resources by now. Then we’d get “Gila Monster Under My House,” then “Desert Elves”

Aqua Frog would come next I assume, I see no reason not to.

Groundhog Wakeup Call and Journey to the Subnivian zone have little ties to other episodes so I can place them in order of air-date. Since Attack of the Tree Eating Aliens takes place in the spring, we can have them come after those episodes.

So the Season 2 timeline goes like this:

Speaking Dolphinese → Blowfish Blowout → Rocket Jaw: Rescuer of the Reef → Seahorse Rodeo → Tortuga Tune Up → Bad Hair Day → Race for the Hippo Disc → Creature Power Challenge → Termites V. Tongues → Neck and Neck → Happy Turkey Day → Bugs or Monkeys → Shadow: The Black Jaguar → Rainforest Stew → Secret of the Spider's Web → To Touch a Hummingbird → Rattlesnake Crystal → Roadrunner → Skunked → Gila Monster Under My House → Desert Elves → Unnamed Burrowing Owl Disc Creation Episode → Aqua Frog → Journey to the Subnivian Zone → Snow Runners! → Groundhog Wakeup Call → Attack of the Tree Eating Aliens

Season 3:

Now, a lot of misconceptions have been made around Season 3 in terms of both continuity and air-date. My stance? Don’t believe a goddamn word that Google, Wikipedia, or the Wild Kratts wiki says. They have been getting the episode air-dates wrong since the very beginning, which is the reason I have to organize them.

As a longtime fan of the show who has been there since the beginning, I pretty much know the air-dates of the episodes by heart and the order.

The first episode is Hermit Crab Shell Exchange, second is Where the Bison Roam, third is Bandito: The Black Footed Ferret, fourth is When Fish Fly, fifth is Osprey. All 7 of these episodes premiered from April 7th to April 11th, 2014 as a part of PBS Kids' Wild Kratts Week, celebrating the show returning for its 3rd season.

The episode to air after that is the double-length episode, Back in Creature Time, which despite popular belief is NOT the Season 3 finale. The last episodes of Season 3 were centered around Madagascar. But before that, we see some adventures in the cypress swamp and the prairie.

Now that we’ve cleared up the misconceptions that people have had about Season 3’s episode order for the past 7 years (yeah a BIG fuck you to Wikipedia for that shit) let’s address the order continuity wise.

The first 7 episodes aired from April 7-11th as part of PBS Kids’ Wild Kratts Week! Celebrating the show’s renewal of S3. All but one would likely remain at their place. All except for Where the Bison Roam and Bandito since it introduces the prairie arc.

Back in Creature Time was after a LONG hiatus. Just to give you a good idea as to how long it was, the first 7 episodes of S3 aired in April when I was still in school, then the Back in Creature Time special aired months later long after I had moved into a different house during summer vacation.

The first episode to air after Back in Creature Time was Mosquito Dragon and Crocogator Contest (they were aired together as part of a special called “Swamp Things” but that special sucked for the same reasons why Lost at Sea did).

Now, this is something I noticed. Mosquito Bots were already invented by the time of Back in Creature Time, meaning that episode takes place after Mosquito Dragon.

And if we’re to include the cypress swamp saga, that means that Back in Creature Time comes in around the middle of the S3 timeline chronologically. That’s not even including the prairie episodes.

There were also Madagascar episodes. I consider Lemur Legs is chronologically the first of the order since the Kratts enter Madagascar here, and the finale of this arc is Golden Bamboo Lemur, where they leave.

This will be hard to crack, but I might be able to do it.

A thing that I noticed was that the Dragonfly Power Suits got redesigns frequently in S3. In Osprey and Mosquito Dragon, it has basket legs, resembling its S1 counterpart, but in Florida Panther and Back in Creature Time, they look completely different. In-universe, this can be credited to Aviva redesigning the suit, so I tried to arrange the episodes in a way that would make the suit's metamorphosis (pun not intended) feel less jarring than if you were watching the episodes in production order or viewing order.

So the S3 timeline is

Hermit Crab Shell Exchange → When Fish Fly → Osprey → Crocogator Contest → Mosquito Dragon → The Search for the Florida Panther → Opossum in My Pocket → Slider: The Otter → Back in Creature Time → Where the Bison Roam → Bandito: The Black Footed Ferret → The Amazing Creature Race → Prairie Who → Mystery on the Prarie → Under Frozen Pond → Capture the Fishmobiles → Praying Mantis → Lemur Legs → Chameleons on Target → Aye-Aye → Lemur Stink Fight → Tenrec Treasure Hunt → Fossa Palooza → Mini Madagascar → Golden Bamboo Lemur

Season 4:

Once again, this season was distributed out of order and the years that have passed since its release, however, as someone who, once again, watched every episode the day they aired, I can correct the misconceptions.

Firstly, the first episode of S4 was The Last Largest Lobster, and the last episode was Musk Ox Mania. The 3rd episode was A Creature Christmas, followed by 5 additional episodes, one of which introduced Paisley Paver and Rex into the show.

Now the confusion is that A Creatire Christmas aired as the 3rd episode of S4, yet animals and Creature Powers in that episode wouldn’t be introduced until later. So I’ll list down all of the episodes that come before the Christmas special.

The Last Largest Lobster comes before Stars of the Tide (they literally aired back-to-back).

Panda Power Up comes first in the China-located episodes. Next up comes Golden Snub Nosed Monkey Man. Red Panda Rescue features both Giant Panda and Snub Nosed Monkey Power, so I imagine it comes next. At the end of that episode, Aviva alludes to Red Panda Power, which is present in “The Colors of China”

Pangolin Rescue follows that (remember, all of these take place before A Creature Christmas). Along with the Two-Tusked Narwhal Adventure, the Snowy Owl Invasion, the Puffin adventure, the Other Martins, and This Orca Likes Sharks.

At this point, we’ve covered all of the pre-Christmas episodes. Now let’s do the ones we have left.

Liturgusa Krattorum, Eel-lectric!, Sea Otter Swim, Box Turtled In!, Animals Who Live to be 100 years old, Archerfish School, and many others.

Something to note is that Aviva narrates how the villains have never before teamed-up. Ignoring the fact that it is not true, that episode would have to come before Krattorum.

Here’s the timeline of S4:

The Last Largest Lobster → Stars of the Tides → Box Turtled In → The Other Martins → Sea Otter Swim → Animals who Live to be 100 Years Old → Spirit Bear → Panda Power Up → Snowy Owl Invasion → Golden Snub Nosed Monkey Man → Red Panda Rescue → The Colors of China → Pangolin Rescue → Archerfish School → Baby Tooth & Kid Musky → Musk Ox Mania → Puffin Rescue→ Mystery of the Two Horned Narwhal → This Orca Likes Sharks → A Creature Christmas → Cheetah Adopted → Eel-lectric → Liturgusa Krattorum → Creatures of the Deep Sea

Season 5:

I’m gonna throw in my personal opinion… This is my least favorite season of the show. The premiere episode, Alaska: Hero’s Journey was pretty cool and in my opinion, jumped the shark for Wild Kratts as we know it. Not only did it establish continuity with previous adventures and use it as a key-factor for the episode’s story, but it introduced a Creature Power Suit for Koki and had a very mature theme and an awesome message.

And then it went downhill from there. A lot of episodes, whilst enjoyable, felt pretty weak. Some were forgettable, and it felt like it talked down to its audience more, and there were just a lot of things that I felt didn’t work. This is where I think the show began a heavy seasonal rot and I know I'm not alone in this.

Ok, opinions aside, the time-line of this season is a lot easier to decipher than the earlier ones because there were less episodes.

Even though Alaska: Hero’s Journey was the first episode of S5 to be aired, the Bald Eagle Power Suit was shown, yet it wouldn’t be invented until The Fourth Bald Eagle.

Many listings show Mystery of the North Pole Penguins as the S5 premiere. And given that there are no continuity errors in that episode, I can see it being the start of Season 5’s storyline.

In the next episode, Temple of the Tigers, Martin and Chris head to India to adventure with tigers. A majority of S5 takes place in India, including the episode where Paisley Paver and Rex return, so I view the tiger episode as the start of the “India” arc.

There are also several episodes centered in Europe, as part of what I like to call, the “Europe” arc.

Creepy Creatures would go near the end of this timeline, as we see many S5 Creature Powers and animals by then.

So here’s the timeline for S5

Mystery of the North Pole Penguins? → Temple of the Tigers → The Dhole Duplicator → The Cobra King → Sloth Bear Suction → Elephant Brains → Cheeks the Hamster → Fire Salamander → Komodo Dragon → Wild Ponies ---> City Hoppers! → Blue Heron → Choose your Swordfish → The Erminator → Hercules: The Giant Beetle → Creepy Creatures! → The Fourth Bald Eagle → Alaska: Hero’s Journey

Season 6:

This season in my opinion, was a slight step up from the 5th season, since we get to see more interesting animals, and the writing feels a lot more breathable. The color palette, I specifically would go without, because it just looks weird. What I do like is how they recasted Koki, a character of color, to be voiced by a woman of color, and I'm glad this change is permanent.

Instantly, we get an instance of a continuity error: Martin is shown to have a Jackrabbit Power Disc in the 2nd episode of S6, yet he doesn’t get it until the Easter special, In Search of the Easter Bunny. There’s actually a reason behind this. The original title for the episode focusing on bunnies was titled “Spring Bunnies” and was listed as the Season 6 premiere, however this was cut and the bunny episode was released almost a year later. My working theory is that because of tight schedules, “Spots in the Desert” was released before the introduction of the Jackrabbit Power Disc.

We return to the Amazon once again with the double-length episode, Amazin’ Amazon Adventure and we get some newer amazon episodes after that.

In a promotional video for Hero’s Journey, the Kratt Brothers said that Season 5 would have at least 23 episodes. My guess is that they had to cut down the last 5 episodes because of COVID or something.

There are two things that stand out the most to me in this season's timeline. For starters, in the Hammerheads episodes, we see that the brothers have an Antelope Disc for the Creature Power Suit despite there being no episode centered around those creatures or introducing a Power Disc. Much like the Burrowing Owl and Gharial Discs, we're to assume that there was an adventure focusing around that animal/an invention of that Creature Power Disc that was not televised, and thus is part of this season's lineup.

The second was how in one of the first episodes of Season 7, Chris expresses a desire to adventure with wolverines, despite that happening in the previous season. So in a rare case, this has to go in a different season's timeline to remain consistent.

Anyways, let’s go onto the timeline of the most recent season. I’ll be going off of habitat here just to be consistent.

In Search of the Easter Bunny → Mystery of the Flamingo’s Pink → Spots in the Desert → Wolf Hawks → Deer Buckaroo → Unnamed Antelope Adventure Episode → Hammerheads → The Vanishing Stingray → The Real Ant Farm → Mystery of the Mini Monkey Models → Amazin’ Amazon Adventure → The Great Froggyback Ride → Parrot Power → The Race to Goat Mountain → Iron Wolverine → Adapto the Coyote → Tartigrade Xtreme → Uh Oh-Ostrich! → The Great Creature Tail Fail → Cats and Dogs →

Season 7:

The long-awaited Season 7 has arrived as of 2023, marking the return of the show to PBS Kids after two years of a hiatus. With eight episodes having been released, 13 more confirmed on the way, and the 200th episode milestone airing in S7, fans have a lot to hope for. And thankfully it means new fodder for my timeline list.

As I've said before, The Race to Goat Mountain cannot be a part of Season 7's timeline since it has to take place before their actual wolverine adventure.

This in of itself is purely subjective but I like to imagine that Clever the Raven would be the first episode of S7. For a few reasons. One, it was the first episode of the season to be confirmed (in an interview with Jane Goodall). Secondly, compared to Outfoxed, it felt more like a season premiere. With the fanservice-callbacks, the villains returning, the simple-structure of the plot with no rising or falling action and the episode's overall writing, it basically marks off a check-list of everything in the show that you were missing out on for 2 years and everything that you're coming back to after such a long break. Plus it's my favorite out of all of the S7 premiere episodes. Call me biased, but this one's going first.

Our Blue and Green World was the first of the episode batch in 2024. Personally, I am putting it as the most recent spot in the S7 timeline, after the other 3 episodes. The reason being is because with Paisley Paver's redemption, this episode feels like a huge game-changer, one that the writers hint will affect the rest of the series. I think this special should've been the last to air in the batch just to get viewers hyped for what's next. It's basically like a mid-season finale of some sorts:

Three new episodes will air in November of 2024: Salamander Streaming, Bumblezzz, and Chimpanzee and Me. Until the episodes come out, I will list them in the timeline in their release date order.

Timeline of Season 7:

Clever the Raven → Outfoxed → Owl Odyssey → No Name Dream → Backpack the Camel → Fish Out of Water → Our Blue and Green World → Salamander Streaming → Bumblezzz → Chimpanzee and Me

CROSSOVERS:

There are three shows that Wild Kratts has crossed over with. One of which came out after I made this post, two of which before, but I decided to add them here just for the fun of it and to commit to the lore-dump of the timeline. Whether or not I'll extrapolate that into forming a huge novel about the expanded universe of PBS Kids, only time will tell.

Night Shift: (Odd Squad)

This was the first crossover the brothers had done with another show, Odd Squad, a live action math-based cartoon that is set to air its fourth season in 2024. The Kratt Brothers have their traditional live-action opening that is interrupted by Otis and Olympia solving their 'odd problem' a running gag with various different characters throughout the series as a 'cold opener.' The reason there is such a massive overlap between the two fandoms is because of that scene in the episode.

How to fit it into the canon? Well, since this is shot similarly to a Wild Kratts live action opener segment, then we can equate it with the "what if!?" element of the show. It should be noted that the Kratts are following a white-tail-deer, an animal they would later adventure with in Season 6. So you could have this episode take place directly before the "what-if?!" section of that episode that transitions into the animated story.

Wild Batts: (Nature Cat)

In 2015, PBS Kids launched a new nature based show known as "Nature Cat" featuring the titular cat and his gang of animals exploring nature. This special aired directly after Wild Kratts: A Creature Christmas, so PBS Kids often marketed both the WK Christmas special and the Nature Cat premiere, so much so that at the end of the Christmas episode, the Kratt Brothers themselves promoted the new Nature Cat special. It only made sense that these nature brothers from another mother teamed up! And thus we had Wild Batts! In this episode, Chris and Martin "Batt" have to find a new home, after their old one is destroyed, challening Nature Cat and Ronald's fear of bats in the process and learning more all about them. Several references to the Kratt's show are made, such as the classic "Living free and in the wild!"

How to fit it into the canon? In the episode's context they are literally bats, but in the context of the show itself, they would probably be in Creature Power Suits. And one thing interesting is that Chris and Martin are said to be Indiana bats, an endangered species of North American bats. We know that there is no singular Creature Power Suit for a generalized species as we've seen with the crocodillian, owl, and snake-based Power Suits. So it's possible that Aviva modified the Little Brown Bat/Vampire Bat programing with Indiana Bat Power. So this would probably take place post-Season 1. I have it take place in Season 6 since Wild Batts aired around the same time that Season 6 just started airing, ironic ain't it?

Oh, and the episode also makes bat references to other PBS Kids characters, such as Peg + Bat (Peg + Cat), George the Curious Bat (Curious George) Daniel Bat (Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood) and the Bat/Cat in the Hat. Now, the logical man within me says that these are easy puns to laugh at and not look into. However, the sick twisted fuck that is me says, connect that shit together. Since we've already established Odd Squad, we can probably say that there was an 'odd problem' turning these random PBS Kids characters into bats (probably including the Kratt Brothers if you don't buy the idea that they're in very convincing Creature Power Suits) and that the Odd Squad is able to save them with a reverse-bat-inator and they all go their separate ways, never to meet each other again until their grand return in PBS: Endgame (ok maybe I'm going too far into it but just a funny thought, also yes that is the one MCU reference I decided to cash in).

Cry Wolf: Molly of Denali

The 3rd of the Wild Kratts crossovers, airing in summer of 2022. This was a massive thing in the WK fandom, mainly because around that time, news had come out that the show would not air any new episodes until 2023, which was a massive low blow. This crossover between Wild Kratts and Molly of Denali, while not enough... at least damaged this blow and is an okay entry point to Molly of Denali, another pretty damn good PBS Kids show.

The Kratt Brothers help Molly and her dad track a missing pack of endangered wolves, learning more about them on the way. In the episode it's established that Molly is a huge fan of Wild Kratts, referencing their show a lot, implying that the Kratts we see here are 2D representations of their IRL selves rather than their 2D-in-universe selves. Still, I came here to overanalyze, and overanalyze I shall! Since the Kratts did their whole "what-if!?" skit in Odd Squad, then I could see the same happening here, just not being necessary for the episode's plot. I'll suspend my disbelief again because what the hell.

How to fit it into the canon? I'd have it come between Season 6 and 7. It aired around that time, and again, it was almost certainly done so as compensation for making fans wait 2 years for the new season to drop. Plus it lines up with my headcanon of Clever the Raven being the first in S7's timeline, since the brothers would still be in the mood to adventure with wolves.

So to conclude, all of these crossovers I see as very recent in the show, you could cut them out and lose nothing, but add them in and get more of something, which is what I'm doing. In terms of timeline to the crossovers specifically, here it goes.

Wild Batts → Night-Shift → Cry Wolf

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CONCLUSION: THE CURRENT TIMELINE OF WILD KRATTS

Polar Bears Don’t Dance → The Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy → The Mystery of the Weird Looking Walrus→ Unnamed Gharial Crocodile Adventure Episode → Mom of a Croc → Whale of a Squid → Aardvark Town → Flight of the Draco → Platypus Cafe → Bass Class → Build it Beaver → Voyage of the Butterflier XT → Honey Seekers → Fireflies → Tazzy Chris → Octopus Wildkratticus → Walk on the Wetside → Elephant in the Room → Let the Rhinos Roll → Kickin’ it with the Roos → Koala Balloon → The Blue and the Grey → Falcon City → Cheetah Racer → Mimic → Kerhonk → A Huge Orange Problem → Caracal Minton → Zig-Zagged → Seasquatch → The Food Chain Game → Masked Bandits → Little Howler → The Gecko Effect → Flight of the Pollinators → Birds of a Feather → Googly Eye: The Night Guru → Stuck on Sharks → A Bat in the Brownies → Raptor Roundup → Quillbur's Birthday Present → Speaking Dolphinese → Blowfish Blowout → Rocket Jaw: Rescuer of the Reef → Seahorse Rodeo → Tortuga Tune Up → Bad Hair Day → Race for the Hippo Disc → Creature Power Challenge → Termites V. Tongues → Neck and Neck → Happy Turkey Day → Bugs or Monkeys → Shadow: The Black Jaguar → Rainforest Stew → Secret of the Spider's Web → To Touch a Hummingbird → Rattlesnake Crystal → Roadrunner → Skunked → Gila Monster Under My House → Desert Elves → Unnamed Burrowing Owl Disc Creation Episode → Aqua Frog → Journey to the Subnivian Zone → Snow Runners! → Groundhog Wakeup Call → Attack of the Tree Eating Aliens → Hermit Crab Shell Exchange → When Fish Fly → Osprey → Crocogator Contest → Mosquito Dragon → The Search for the Florida Panther → Opossum in My Pocket → Slider: The Otter → Back in Creature Time → Where the Bison Roam → Bandito: The Black Footed Ferret → The Amazing Creature Race → Prairie Who → Mystery on the Prarie → Under Frozen Pond → Capture the Fishmobiles → Praying Mantis → Lemur Legs → Chameleons on Target → Aye-Aye → Lemur Stink Fight → Tenrec Treasure Hunt → Fossa Palooza → Mini Madagascar → Golden Bamboo Lemur → The Last Largest Lobster → Stars of the Tides → Box Turtled In → The Other Martins → Sea Otter Swim → Animals who Live to be 100 Years Old → Spirit Bear → Panda Power Up → Snowy Owl Invasion → Golden Snub Nosed Monkey Man → Red Panda Rescue → The Colors of China → Pangolin Rescue → Archerfish School → Baby Tooth & Kid Musky → Musk Ox Mania → Puffin Rescue→ Mystery of the Two Horned Narwhal → This Orca Likes Sharks → A Creature Christmas → Cheetah Adopted → Eel-lectric → Liturgusa Krattorum → Creatures of the Deep Sea → Mystery of the North Pole Penguins? → Temple of the Tigers → The Dhole Duplicator → The Cobra King → Sloth Bear Suction → Elephant Brains → Cheeks the Hamster → Fire Salamadner → Komodo Dragon → Wild Ponies -> City Hoppers! → Blue Heron → Choose your Swordfish → The Erminator → Hercules: The Giant Beetle → Creepy Creatures! → The Fourth Bald Eagle → Alaska: Hero’s Journey → In Search of the Easter Bunny → Mystery of the Flamingo’s Pink → Wild Batts → Spots in the Desert → Wolf Hawks → Night-Shift → Deer Buckaroo → Unnamed Antelope Adventure Episode → Hammerheads → The Vanishing Stingray → The Real Ant Farm → Mystery of the Mini Monkey Models → Amazin’ Amazon Adventure → The Great Froggyback Ride → Parrot Power → The Race to Goat Mountain → Iron Wolverine → Adapto the Coyote → Tartigrade Xtreme → Uh Oh-Ostrich! → The Great Creature Tail Fail → Cats and Dogs → Cry Wolf → Clever the Raven → Outfoxed → Owl Odyssey → No Name Dream → Backpack the Camel → Fish Out of Water → Our Blue and Green World → Salamander Streaming → Bumblezz → Chimpanzee and Me

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And there you have it so far folks. Thirteen years, seven seasons, 160 televised episodes, plus four crossover episodes amounting to 164 canon episodes in the current Wild Kratts timeline. More are on their way and more of this grand Creature Adventure is beyond the horizon. Keep on Creature Adventuring, see ya on the Creature Trail!

Am I a genius, or am I a genius?

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mostlymilkwood · 5 months ago

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Their Story and The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All

Recently I've been thinking about the success of The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All and how it feels like seeing where Tamen de Gushi could have ended up, had its publishing issues not lead too various hiatuses during its peak.

To give a quick summary of events; Tamen de Gushi (aka Their Story/SQ Begin W/Your Name!) is a manhua created and posted online by Tan Jiu. It was incredibly popular around 2015 to 2018, during which time it had big ad campaigns, cute merch, animated promos and a print volume of the manhua itself. Just the one though. Sadly a the start of 2018 Tan Jiu announced that volume 2 would be indefinitely postponed as their publisher had requested several scenes be removed, which they refused to do. People speculated the scenes were the romantic ones between the leads, particularly the Big Kiss that would have been in that volume, but it was never specified. Regardless, this had a pretty disastrous effect on the manhua, as without the revenue from volume 2 Tan Jiu understandably began working on other projects and updates basically stopped altogether outside of occasional illustrations and short comics detached from the main storyline.

Meanwhile The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All (lets go with the insane shorthand tgswiiwagaa from here on) is a manga created and posted online by Sumiko Arai. First starting in 2021 it has become incredibly popular, which has lead to big ad campaigns, popup shops and cafes, a drama CD and print volumes of the manga itself.

So there is some surface levels similarities between the two: both are released via the author's social media account, both feature a high school slice of life stories, both gained a huge followings outside of their original language due to scanlation efforts, and both were/are the the face of digitally published yuri.

I don't think we'd get tgswiiwagaa without Tamen de Gushi, or at least I don't think it would be as big as it is without the groundwork Tamen de Gushi lay within online spaces. I can't speak too much on Tamen de Gushi's domestic fandom, or even its Japanese one, (though it was clearly popular in both) but at least in English-speaking yuri circles it was the breakout hit that brought in a lot of new readers to the genre. (Which is crazy to think about since it was before Mangadex became the dominant host of scanlated works, so it was primarily released on Tumblr! with only some chapters showing up on Dynasty Reader later.)

And I don't wanna say it was the only game in town back then, as around 2015 was a real golden age of manhwa and manhua popping off with the likes of Her Tale of Shim Chong, What Does the Fox Say? and PULSE. They're all still popular recommendations when people ask for top yuri picks, deservedly so. But as I said, there's something about tgswiiwagaa that reminds me of Tamen de Gushi in particular.

That popularity which lead to fanart, edits and fancams in the English side of the fandom feels kind of important to tgswiiwagaa's future international success. Like it widen the net so when tgswiiwagaa came along with a story that had even more western pop culture touchstones than a manga reader might normally get it was able to scoop up way more fans than ever before.

I think when it comes down to it, It's just nice to see tgswiiwagaa go even further than Tamen de Gushi did. There's been plenty of talk about if tgswiiwagaa will get an anime and/or a live action adaptation, and honestly I hope it gets everything and more! Because just like Tamen de Gushi before it, I know tgswiiwagaa is laying the groundwork's from some other wildly popular yuri that will come to surpass it in the future. And I can't wait to read whatever new stories come out next!

#tamen de gushi #their story #The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All #tgswiiwagaa #manga musing #yuri

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alwaysmoncheri · 8 months ago

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𝐝𝐨𝐧‘𝐭 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧

summary: in which best friends, y/n henderson and steve harrington get caught up in their feelings while paranormal activities occur in the small town of hawkins, indiana

cw: fem!reader, I wrote this a long time ago(I apologize for everything cringe), shit writing, first person pov, mentions of blood, mentions of trauma, 1.7k

I take a step back, unable to tear my eyes away from the horrific scene in front of me. The creature, the man with no face, hunched over the deer's remains. It rips into the deer's soft flesh, devouring the insides as blood sprays everywhere. The brutality of the attack causes me to draw in a shocked gasp, my stomach churning in revulsion at the sight.

As I back away, gradually decreasing the distance between me and the creature, I accidentally step on a fallen tree branch, causing a loud snap to ring through the woods. My body freezes, terrified, as I wait for the thing to turn its attention towards me.

Immediately, the creature whips it's head around facing directly at me, at least I think. My eyes widen in shock and panic begins to wash over me, my heart pounding in my chest.

I don't waste another second, before I'm running as fast as my legs can take me.

"Nancy?!" I yell frantically into the thick, dark forest, hoping desperately that someone would answer my call. But, I'm met with only silence.

"Jonathan?" I cry out again, spinning all around, in hopes of spotting them, but the dense haze and floating particles makes everything so hard to see.

"This cannot be happening..." I whisper, feeling desperation and fear surge through me.

Suddenly I hear them, "(Y/n)?!"

Nancy.

"(Y/n), we're right here!"

Jonathan.

"Guys!!?" I cry again, "I'm here, I'm right here!"

"Just follow my voice!"

Just as I'm turning around, I see the creature once more, it's face covered in drool and poised to attack. Before I can react, it opens its mouth, releasing a loud screech in my direction. The sound causes my stomach to twist and my blood to run cold.

I let out a blood-curdling scream before running behind a thick tree in attempt to save myself. I listen as the creature stalks past the tree, my heavy breathing and racing heart sending me in a panic as I become convinced that the creature can hear my every move. I feel my muscles ache with tension as I remain silent and still, waiting for the moment that thing is far enough away for me to safely make my next move.

"(Y/n)! Follow my voice!!" Nancy's voice faintly yells.

I make a desperate run for safety, heading furiously toward the muffled cries of Nancy and Jonathan, who I know are nearby. I reach the tree where I originally crawled through and without hesitation I throw my crowbar through. Then I throw myself down to my hands and knees, immediately beginning to frantically crawl through the narrow opening, all in attempt to escape the terrifying creature.

I blindly reach out, and someone takes my hand. Then I reach out my other arm and someone else grabs that one too. I feel myself being pulled through the slimy opening, dropping to the ground with a thud. Nancy and Jonathan rush over and both pull my into a desperate hug. I cling onto them as tears flow down my cheeks, my body wracked with sobs as the two of them hold me closely.

"It's okay."

"We're right here."

|☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆|

Nancy had handed me a towel and now, wrapped in its warmth, we all sit silently on her bed. Our gazes flicker to the ground, unable to meet one another's eyes for fear of what we've just seen. And so, we sit there, not saying a word, processing the traumatic events, the only sound being the soft rustling of the towel around my shoulders.

"Why don't you shower off, (Y/n)?" Nancy says softly, breaking the silence, "It might make you feel better." She adds with a shaky smile and I nod. So, she stands up to grab me some clean clothes.

With Nancy off getting me some dry clothes and Jonathan making up our sleeping arrangements, I look out the window, my eyes scanning the ground cautiously. In the midst of my search, my eyes land on a blob of familiar brown hair, causing me to blink a couple times. Once I regain my composure, I notice the blob is no longer there, and I wonder whether I was hallucinating or if there really was something outside.

After Nancy gives me clean clothes, I head to the bathroom down the hallway and hesitantly lock the door behind me. Once inside, I begin to slowly peel off the slime-covered clothes that are clinging to my body. When the sticky mess is removed, I hop into the hot shower. I wash away the grime, but not the images of the creature, which flash through my mind, causes my breath the become ragged and my heart to pound. I quickly turn off the tap, and get out of the shower, getting dressed before heading back to Nancy's room.

As I walk into the room, they both look up, greeting me with sympathetic eyes.

"Better?" Jonathan asks, laying a sleeping bag on the ground.

"Yeah..." I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself, "Yeah, I think so."

"Do you want to go home or stay here—"

"I just..." I cut Nancy off, "I just don't want to be alone." I say sitting down on Nancy bed, my hair dripping onto the back of my shirt, "Do you?"

"No, uh..." Nancy starts, "No."

"I don't." Jonathan whispers, still crouched on the ground.

I nod slightly in response, then climb into bed with Nancy, who's sitting there patiently. Glancing over at Jonathan, who is tucking himself into the sleeping bag, gun in hand, I close my eyes and lean back against the pillow. However, despite my attempts to ease my mind and body, I open my eyes and let them restlessly wander around the ceiling. And the images of the creature flood into my consciousness. My body grows tense and I struggle to get comfortable in bed, unable to chase the horrific memories away.

"Can you just come up here?" Nancy hesitantly asks Jonathan after the moment of silence.

I hear rustling of the sleeping bag before a quiet, "Yeah." Escapes Jonathan's lips.

He climbs in the bed next to Nancy, her being in the middle, and places the gun in between them. Another moment of silence comes between us as we all lie there in bed together.

"Do you want the lights off, or—" Jonathan starts.

"On." Nancy and I whisper at the same time.

"Yeah." Jonathan whispers, "You know, it... it can't get us in here." He adds facing the two of us.

"We don't know that." Nancy says softly, with a worried expression.

"Yeah... we don't."

|☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆|

The next morning, Nancy and I quietly sit criss-cross opposite of each other as we flip through different books, searching for answers on that thing we found in the woods. I'm about to flip the page when I hear Jonathan grunt, sitting up, still clearly exhausted.

"Oh..." He whispers, scooting over to sit next to Nancy, "Hey." He says leaning over her shoulder to look at her book.

"Hey." Nancy and I respond softly, not looking up from our books.

"Sorry, Jonathan" I apologize for waking him, "We couldn't sleep."

"I figured." He responds glancing at me.

"Every time I close my eyes, I just..." Nancy starts, "Keep seeing that thing."

"Wherever I was, that place... I think that it lives there." I say, remembering last night, "It was feeding there. Feeding on that deer."

"That means that if..." Nancy inhales deeply, "Will and Barbra..." She trails off, her eyes slightly watering.

Jonathan notices her watery eyes and scoots even closer, "Hey. My mom said she talked to Will." He says in attempt to reassure the girl, "If he's alive, there's a chance Barbra is, too."

"That means that she's trapped..." Nancy replies frantically, turning towards Jonathan with a distressed look on her face, "In that place."

"We have to find it again." Nancy concludes.

"You guys wanna go back out there?" Jonathan asks me and Nancy.

"Maybe we don't have to." I say, catching the attention of both teens, "When I saw it, it was feeding on that deer. Meaning it's a predator, right?" I ask for confirmation.

"Right." Nancy and Jonathan reply.

"And it seems to hunt at night, like a... a lion or coyote." I say showing the two, the book I had been previously looking at, "But it doesn't hunt in packs like them. It's always alone like..."

"Like a bear." Nancy finishes with a nod, "And remember at Steve's, when Barb cut herself?" Nancy adds onto my conclusion, "And then, last night, the deer..."

"It was bleeding too." I say, putting the pieces together.

"One sec." Nancy flips through the book she was previously looking at, stopping on the page about sharks, "Sharks can detect blood in one part per million. That's one drop of blood in a million, and they can smell it from a quarter mile away." Nancy finishes, glancing at Jonathan and I.

"So you're saying it can detect blood?" Jonathan asks.

"It's just a theory." Nancy confirms softly.

"We could test it..." I suggest and Nancy nods slightly.

"But if it works..." Jonathan starts, worried.

"At least we'll know it's coming." I whisper, and we all stare at each other with nervous eyes.

A second later the doorknob to Nancy's room violently rattles causing all three of us to jump. My heart jumps to my throat and I immediately grab my heart. Glancing over, I notice that Nancy and Jonathan have their hands desperately clasped together.

"Honey, are you up?" I hear Mrs. Wheeler on the other side.

We all let out a relieved sigh.

"Yeah, I'm... I'm getting dressed." Nancy replies quickly.

"I uh, made some blueberry pancakes" Mrs. Wheeler says through the door.

"I'll be down in a second." Nancy responds again with a sigh.

Nancy and Jonathan glance down to notice their that their hands are clasped together tightly, quickly realizing their mistake. Feeling slightly awkward after being caught in the tense and uncomfortable situation, they quickly let go of each other and avert their gaze.

"Your mom doesn't knock?" Jonathan asks finally.

We laugh for the first time this morning.

next chapter . masterlist . steve harrington masterlist . taglist

thank you for reading, my darling! remember to like! reblog! and comment! i’ll give you a smooch if you do, ily! send requests to my inbox!

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rei-ismyname · 3 months ago

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Giant-Size Wolverine retcons

Marvel, famously, loves having Wolverine as a cash cow, to the point it has its own entry on TVTropes. This manifests as a LOT of Wolverine #1s being released as well as the clawed-one showing up on deceitful covers and guest starring anywhere they think they can justify it. Less common (but still frequent enough) is Forrest Gumping him into historical events or rewriting events he was there for as a character study cynical profiteering.

Sunfire is still great - 'banal prattle.' You tell em

This is the latter, foregrounding Logan in Giant-Size X-Men to the detriment of almost everyone else. In the original Giant-Size X-Men, Logan sits at the back and says very little. Here he takes charge and uncharacteristically identifies that the new squad lacks synergy and a sense of teamwork. He opens with 'it's your first day as new X-Men, people. I'm going to show you how this works.' Uh, isn't it yours too? Did I miss a meeting?

Poor Kurt. Eddie Munster is just mean

So he starts a fight, telling everyone there's one too many people. Colossus objects for sexist reasons (not objection to killing lol) and Storm puts him in his place. Sunfire and Thunderbird both have little patience for white people or bullshit and Logan catches a fireball...

... and an elbow to the spine. Ororo goes off with electricity and Kurt just doesn't want to die, so he BAMFs behind her and starts choking Storm from behind. Logan turns the tables on Proudstar and drops a one liner about metal conducting electricity. I'm no wizard, but I don't think it interacts well with human flesh, either, especially if they have a metal skeleton. Obviously he takes everyone down and has the biggest dick in the world.

Yeah... about Thunderbird.

Banshee bursts in and reveals Logan is acting against Chuck's wishes. I'm generally in favour of that but I'm not fond of its narrative function at all . He has an open shirt, a toothpick in his mouth, and looks oh so pleased with himself. I'm not some reactionary purist who worships the sacred texts and pushes back against retcons. Quite the opposite, in fact. Additive retcons are fantastic when done well - Magneto being a Holocaust survivor stands as one of the best in fiction.

I don't think that's what this is, or at least it's not successful. In Giant-Size X-Men #1 there's no time for this pissing contest because all the other X-Men need rescuing ASAP. Chuck rounds them up and handles the basics then defers to Cyclops, the field leader of many years. They leave immediately and nobody is getting along. Sunfire leaves then comes back. Scott is all business because he's worried about the folks on Krakoa and there just isn't time. If they respect the chain of command in the field that's good enough. Team building can come later.

What's achieved here besides sidelining everyone to centre edge lord Logan? Not a lot, in fact I'd say it minimises Logan's character arc most of all. He was a grumpy loner who eventually learnt to trust people, came to see the X-Men as family, and committed to the team. Logan knowing half this stuff already and having this degree of social confidence just undermines that, as well as Cyclops' leadership of this ragged band. Not sure what Whedon was thinking tbh.

That wasn't the end of it, though. Interestingly, this is Chris Claremont writing here. Again, I'm not a purist and I'm under no illusion about CC's later X-Men work. He'd worked with these characters for a long time but Giant-Size was Wein & Cockrum, so he's choosing to expand the origin story. Thunderbird is still alive so they're still pretty new here. Anyway, Cyke is running a danger room training session - Storm vs Thunderbird.

After some kinda bizarre ethnic posturing Ororo is pinned.

Unsurprisingly, she starts to wig out due to her claustrophobia. Logan picks it up with his advanced senses and jumps in. Scott owns the mistake and ends the training session.

I find it hard to buy Scott would feel like his authority was undermined here. Logan is being as paternalistic as ever, but Scott blames himself for failures. He doesn't externalise it and he understands he's not leading children anymore. It's Chuck who has difficulty adapting to this specific dynamic. Also, Logan had zero interest in leadership. None. It was Ororo who was a friendly rival to him and ended up succeeding him as leader. He also didn't especially trust or show respect to anyone. Everyone else has problems but the focus and Charles' confidant is Wolverine. That's silly as hell.

Okay, private insecurity and self-doubt, totally Scott's thing. I'm just going to ignore literally everything else that's happening, especially 'damaged goods.' Ugh.

The second story came out in 2005 in Giant-Size X-Men #4. Aside from the Wolverine oversaturation and other weird shit I've pointed out, I feel like there was a concerted effort to bring certain characters closer to their FOX movies counterparts. Chuck started looking like Captain Picard, Scott was Flanderised a bit but moreso deemphasized, and Logan started to look and act more like Hugh Jackman. He joined more teams, regressed in social growth yet became way more important to the X-Men. More important to the very fabric of the Marvel universe.

I get why it happened (capitalism) but I think it was executed poorly in many instances. These are particularly egregious, but Wolverine was and is fucking everywhere - under many different writers. There's always going to be a sense of asynchronicity under those circumstances. I've actually come to really dislike Logan lately. Obviously it's an issue for most long running characters, but his particular regression to the mean every new book bores the shit out of me. He's not growing at all, even when everything around him changes. On Krakoa he was mostly just gruff and stabby, monologuing about hell, beer, time, nature, poison, and being the best he is at what he does. 🙄

He'll usually find someone worse than him to point at and call out with transparency he never applies to himself. Magneto, Scott, Beast, Scott, Chuck, teenage Scott, Sabertooth, Omega Red, Beast, Chuck, and Scott again. Someone please deconstruct this guy! Send him to therapy, break him down to his base components and examine them. Fuck his moping or running naked with wolves or fighting the W-digo - give him a messy boyfriend and force him to get the fuck over Jean Grey.

He can still fight ninjas and mentor troubled teens and sulk about whatever his latest thing is - just have him grow! His books will still sell, people will still cheer when he says bub, and snikt isn't going away. Hire Al Ewing to do it like he did with Loki, Hulk, Magneto, Sunspot, etc. Some of those changes actually stuck and the characters are more popular than ever! Is that too much to hope for? Almost certainly, but one can hope.

Boy I got carried away on that outro, lol.

#x comics #wolverine #giant size x men #ororo munroe #cyclops #marvel #x men #comics #magneto #charles xavier #professor x #krakoa #thunderbird #retcon #chris claremont #nightcrawler #jean grey #sunfire #colossus

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alpaca-clouds · 1 year ago

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The DnD Lore Problem - Accessibility and Characters (and how BG3 might not help)

You know what? I am gonna talk about DnD Lore and the accessibility of that lore. I talked about this exessively before. But to summarize that long blog very shortly:

Wizards of the Coasts currently makes the mistake of putting basically most DnD Lore behind a paywall, rather than offering official ressources. This leads to a lot of tables actually playing with their original worlds, rather than Toril/Faerûn, which in turn also means, that they are not spending money on official products. While my anti-capitalist ass things that the lore should be accessible just so that people can enjoy it, I also think that this inaccessibility actually costs WotC A LOT OF MONEY.

Today I want to talk about another aspect of this inaccessibility, that is kinda linked to some of the stuff I talked about before, but also is linked to the things WotC is currently not doing in terms of both Honor Among Thieves and Baldur's Gate 3. A thing, that also might not quite work with BG3, though.

See, the core problem of this inaccessibility is, that a) there is no official place where you can just get base information about the world and the timeline, b) this world has grown organically for about half a century, which lead to clutter, but also to the fact that things are at times showing their age.

I might actually make a post on the gods and religion in the world at some other point - but for now let me talk about something else: Extended universes and access points.

The Problem with Extended Universes

Okay, let's talk about how a lot of the big franchises for the longest time have told their meta stories - including DnD - and how it kinda struggles to find its audience. The extended universe.

I am frankly not entirely sure what franchise has started this. I am assuming it was Star Trek? But that is just a guess. But at some point in the 60s oder 70s someone had the idea that: "Hey, we could totally give the fans more to chew on by making official tie-in comics and novels!"

And that was how it worked for very long. Like a lot of the big franchises had at times around 10 novels and comics (if not more) releasing per year that would just explore other parts of the universe and allow the very engaged fans to... well, learn more about the world. Now, I am not going to talk about all the drama connected to the Star Wars stuff, but if you know, you know.

DnD did this too. (As did a lot of the big TTRPG systems, like Shadowrun and WoD as well.) Having a lot of tie in stuff - in the case of DnD mostly novels - that told more stories on the world and also established like some big player characters within the world. Elminster Aumar is probably one of the best examples here.

Those established some characters that play a big role within the world and also told just more stories of those big world changing events. In the recent DnD history that would be stuff like the Time of Troubles, the Spellplague and the Second Sundering.

Now, here we have one big issue. And one issue where I am not entirely certain where it arose from. But the fact is: In recent years, people invest way less into those kind of books. This is just a fact.

It is the reason why those big universes went from publishing like ten novels a year to often not more than three. We saw that in the failure of the extended Universe Disney tried to pull off for Pirates of the Caribbean (though I will still maintain that another big problem was that they barely marketed that at all - hi, everyone, who did not know there were extended universe novels for PotC). We also saw that with League of Legends, who really, really tried to tell a lot more stories with short stories and then also some novels set in Runeterra, before finally giving up, because most people didn't care.

In terms of Dungeons & Dragons I can totally see that a lot of people will also say: "I do not care what some other people's characters do within the world." Buuuuuut...

Stories actually can help you understand the world. Which brings me to...

The Elminster Problem

Okay, I do not know how to put this, but... If you look at the novels coming out for DnD literally half of them focus on either Elminster Aumar or Drizzt Do'Urden. Characters that have pretty much been around since the very beginning and. Look, I don't know how to put it but... It shows.

I am currently reading some of the newer novels and the fact is, that they do not really feel like fantasy books from the 2010s and 2020s. Because Elminster and Drizzt are very clearly characters originating in a very different time when stories were told very differently.

I mean, just look at Elminster. He is a wanna-be Gandalf character. He is from the early, early days of fantasy and... Look, I personally just really am unable to identify with a character like this.

And while Drizzt is a bit better as a character, but even he... How to put this delicately? They are both very much characters written by white cishet men for white cishet men. There, I said it.

I am noticing this a lot with reading Salvatore's books currently. Like, female characters are not overly sexualized, which is a plus. But they also very much exist most of the time in service to a man or at least in relation to a man. There is not a lot of female characters running around that have their own agency.

Which kinda leads to another thing. I actually saw this one brought up by one of those very cliché nerdy Youtube channels talking on DnD, who recognized the problem as well: There are basically two large groups of DnD players who barely intersect. One is the cliché nerds, the other is a largely queer and largely diverse group. And the youtube guy, who was very in the white cishet nerd group, suspected that actually the later group makes up more of the player base by now.

Buuuut... that is also the group who really do not get catered to by the canon lore so far. That was until 2023 with DnD:HAT and BG3 - both catering actually a lot to those groups.

Honor Among Thieves and the undermarketed books

Okay, here is the thing: Honor Among Thieves had two novelizations (one for young readers, one for older readers) and two tie-in novels. One featuring Edgin, Holga, Forge and Simon before the stuff with Sofina went down. And the other featuring Simon and Doric taking place at the time while Ed and Holga are in prison.

I am honest: I really, really liked the Ed and Holga novel. It was super cute and charming and really gives a better understanding of the characters.

But of course once again there is the thing: The books - just like the Pirates of the Caribbean books - were super undermarketed. Like, most people I know off do not even know that there were books released. Heck, even within the actual active fandom there are again and again people who will be surprised that those books exist.

And... I actually also think that the books waste one big ass opportunity, by not at all tying into the broader lore. They are super self-contained.

And that is actually just a waste. Because the place were Edgin lived in? Yeah, that place was super affected by the Second Sundering. Heck, that might have had to do something with his troubles.

Why is that an issue? Well, because... there was not a lot going on there that was inviting you to further interact with the world and learn more abotu what is happening. For once, again, because I think it is a super fun and interesting world. But also, because... WotC wants to make money and is so bad at it, that it really boggles my mind.

See, here is the thing: They could've used those characters - that really are fun and sympathetic characters - to create an accesspoint into that world.

Alright, so what about Baldur's Gate 3?

Which brings me to Baldur's Gate 3 and the thing that a lot of people have noticed: The other Baldur's Gate games - as well as some of the other games releasing around 2000 - had their own tie-in novels going into the characters, their background, but also what they were doing in the future.

Something that so far BG3 has not done, which some fans have already critized. Because a lot of people have actually gotten really invested into those characters. A lot of the kind of people especially who so far are underserved by a lot of the tie-in stuff: Queer and generally diverse audiences.

Like, I think there would be a lot of people, who totally would read a novel, about...

Astarion getting drawn into some sort of political intrigue in Baldur's Gate while serving Cazador

Karlach's time in Avernus

Some Adventure Wyll got dragged into while being the Blade of the Frontier.

Shadowheart going onto a mission for Shar (maybe together with Nocturne)

Whatever Gale was doing during the Second Sundering

Lae'zel's youth among the Githyanki

The Dark Urge and Gortash starting up the entire conspiracy

... whatever Halsin had been up to in his long live

Heck, people would eat that stuff up. And you could not only use it to worldbuild but also once more create some access into the world and what happened there. And they are kinda wasting a lot of potential by not bringing out those novels.

Of course, there is one big problem: BG3 makes it kinda hard to write about anything happening after the ending. Because as it is right now, someone is gonna be pissed if a novel set after the game does not go with the decision for a character they go for. Like, Ascended Astarion fans are gonna be pissed, if they go with Spawn Astarion - and the other way around. Same goes with every other character where you have those big decisions happening.

This is something they will have to tackle eventually if they plan on doing something with the characters in the future (no matter if we are talking Larian or WotC), but it is definitely an issue that just arises from the structure of the game.

Bonus of course is, that you just cannot define a canonical Tav. But without a Tav, you also gotta act as if the story of the game happened without a Tav, which still is not ideal. I am honestly not sure with how they are gonna deal with this on the long run.

Access via Characters

Alright, but what is the actual issue here?

Well, basically there are two hurdles to overcome for the accessibility of the lore. The first is the physical accessibility - aka, what I talked about in the last long blog post. The second meanwhile is more related to making the lore engaging. And that happens through characters.

It is for me what happened last year. I actually tried to engage with the lore as the movie came out - but only when BG3, that tied a lot more into the actual lore was released I actually found proper access to the lore. Because I had concrete things I could now look for because the game hinted at so much both through characters and major story events happening.

Here is the thing: If you just have the lore on its own, it is about as engaging as reading a history book. Sure, as your local history nerd I find reading history books fun, but most people really do not want to read a history book to engage with a hobby.

People will however engage with stories and characters that interest them. Which is where we get back to the thing I talked about at the beginning: Right now most canonical novels and stories still cater to an audience that is male, cishet, white and also, let's be frank, definitely over 30 years old. Leaving behind a lot of potential fans that theoretically make up a big part of the player-base, but actually do not engage a lot with the lore for this exact reason.

Look. DnD right now is fairly close to being an actual mainstream hobby, due to the recent proliferation of formerly nerdy stuff. And yet WotC is bleeding money, especially in regards of DnD.

If you ask me, sure... DnD should go into public domain. But it doesn't. And given that there are so many creative, skilled people working on this - no matter how dumb Hasbro is and how shitty of an employer they are - I actually do want them to succeed. I have really become engaged with this world now. And I think it is a pity that they clearly do not know how to market this stuff.

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