#artifacts on my screencaps? it's more likely than you think

[thankstothe]

Stakes are rising

[littlesparklight]

Okay, actually, let me do a quick, basic primer for Mycenaean fashion, if anyone would want to try this aesthetic for their Greek myth art since Mycenaean era Greece (1400-1200 is when the majority of the myths happen, and especially the Trojan war). Not claiming to be an expert at all, here, as I've mostly googled shit and screencapped images to use as ref and then read some articles, but, I figure, it might be somewhere to start!

Here's one of the panels from the Hagia triada sarcophagus, from Crete during Mycenaean control/hegemony of the island. The women are painted white, the men dark; artistic aesthetic you see in other cultures for their visual arts of the time, like Ancient Egypt.

I think the fur(?) skirts might be religious wear, but aside from that, you have one woman and one man (specifically, the lyre player, which is probably indicative of some cultural attitudes; the lyre player in the fresco from Pylos is definitely wearing a fringed skirt of some sort, similar to what women wear) wearing a long robe/tunic, and the women are wearing some short jackets on top of that. The jackets might be Cretan or merely "early" style, because here's a fresco fragment from the Greek mainland where the woman appears to wear something similar:

It's probable (but basically impossible to know) that the thing underneath is a long robe/tunic like the women above are wearing, short or sleeve-less.

Another Mycenaean/mainland Greek fresco. In this one you'd have to decide if the top halves of the women's dress is a short (but not cut-away) jacket, plus wrap-around, tiered/fringed skirt, or a long robe/tunic with really deep neckline and, again, a wrap-around tiered/fringed skirt.

Now, you don't need to make things harder for yourself than you have to! Women can wear a simpler style of dress (like what the man in the first fresco panel is wearing), basically the same as the men's, probably just longer:

It's possible these two women are wearing wrap around skirts below the edge of the chariot, but I doubt it. As you can see, their style of dress is the same as the man's above, with a plain, straight collar.

The various lines you see plunging down the sides of both the longer robes/tunics and the shorter ones are down the sides (under the arms and down) and might also/either be down the front, at least on the long dresses with elaborate bottom rim; the woman in saffron above clearly has a decorated line going down her front.

I'll put the rest of this under the cut!

Some nice art with Mycenaean-era dress and armour for some of our Trojan war characters. (Aeneas and Hektor notably wearing Mycenaean wear even if they probably wouldn't be.)

I like this site http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/index.htm for both art and a lot of pictures of artifacts when it comes to armour and weapons from the Mycenaean era.

The men don't just wear those tunics, though; you can get some (short) kilts or skirts;

(In my opinion, I'd say it's basically a given the one/two dudes painted in basically black are meant to be from further south compared to the Greek dude here. Probably not sub-Saharan Africa, however. North Africa/Egyptian might be more reasonable, despite the impossibly dark skin.)

Some examples of the clothes recreated!

This article https://www.jstor.org/stable/20627591 talks about a fresco and its possible reconstructions, and, more importantly, includes photos of some women's clothes, especially the fringed/tiered wrap-around skirts recreated, and some drawing diagrams of said skirts that might be helpful!

Hair-wise, the majority of the men have hair anywhere from around the ears down to the shoulders in mainland Greece. (The exception being, again, the Pylian lyre player.) Minoans, even mycenaean-era Minoans, might have longer hair; one of the panels on the Hagia triada fresco has a flute-player with hair down to his waist in braids (or something like that), for example.

All the women, no matter Cretan/Minoan or Mycenaean/Greek have very long hair, gathered in variously more or less elaborate hairstyles; make your best guess from looking at the frescos is my suggestion!

[bearpillowmonster]

11 Years Later: Tomb Raider

Featuring Leaping Lara

I forgot how fun it is to just jump up and get down as Lara because you can't run in this game so you find convenient ways to bounce around. I've heard all its accolades but I've never really cared to play it. Other than Legend and some of Shadow, I haven't cared much of what I played of this franchise and by the time I was interested enough to play this, its sequels were already out so I figured why bother but now I got it for free, so what're you gonna lose?

I even saw the movie based on it and wasn't a fan but luckily actually being in the moment and experiencing it is better than some of the sequences of the movie. And hey, the story's actually a little bit different here. It's a shame nobody modded in Alicia's face for it though.

It's a product of its time for sure. It wasn't as grey and dull as I had first witnessed through screencaps and videos, it's just a bit darker. Shaky cam shots, Lara using an old camcorder, that kind of stuff sets the time period.

Another complaint I have about this franchise is its need to make it about the end of the world but then I started thinking of its source material. Indiana Jones, in a way, kind of shows that, maybe not the whole world, but it never really seems that way to me when I'm watching it because that's never really his mission, it's just to get the artifact and put it in a museum. Maybe that's where this series goes awry sometimes is that it ties it in too much with Lara herself. "My mom was after this" "My dad was after this" "This villain is trying to get it." Maybe she's a hero, maybe she's not but I'd rather see it be a circumstantial decision that she makes when faced with it rather than chasing 'people' down to keep it out of their hands. The movie was about her dad, this one isn't, it starts off being about reviving an old tv show by discovering Himiko's tomb but quickly steeps when the ship crashes.

It's personal for Sam, who is related to Himiko in some way and gets kidnapped at every corner yet you barely even see her. I couldn't tell you much about her other than her first name. I could see if she was built up to be the childhood friend that she's made out to be even in the comics but it's just not there. They have notes and lore and stuff to collect and I read a few but it just wasn't interesting.

I knew this was considered Lara's beginnings with her first journey but I didn't realize that it's something for her character too. I'm not sure how to feel about it because it tries to make it seem as though she's never seen action and is more or less just playing with what she's read in books. A girl frightened and running around trying to find her friends to help her and get her out of this mess. Part of me would say that's logical but the other part would say that Lara wouldn't back down that easy, it's not an escape route for her, it's a journey and adventure. And the other part makes me argue what kind of training her father gave her to show whether she was ready for this or not, she even talks of it. It's done in a nicely cinematic tone though so I can't complain too much.

Wait…it's not her first journey according to the logs you pick up but it is on the wiki but it contradicts itself anyway because yeah, Lara is essentially everyone's hero as she's the survivor and all but it goes from "ooh, I'm a pity, I can't do this." to "I wish I was more like you." Yeah, she grew from it but I just wasn't feeling it.

Dialogue could use a punch but all in all, I wasn't impressed with its story either. Granted I'm not a fan of cult stuff as it's usually "It was a cult all along" type of thing when there's so many other things you could do with that but it actually starts out promising with a Bermuda Triangle ripoff with Himiko, the Queen, bringing ruin to those who dare enter but Lara remarks that myths are usually sourced from truth to some capacity and it's just a bunch of storms that gather around that area. They could've used that element to try and "prove" what's fact and what's fiction but it easily deviates back into the "Oh no, it was real after all, we should've never come here" thing. That only changes her character because if she's having such a horrible time here and only wants out, then why does she keep going on these expeditions afterwards?

In fact, they make that the ending, she's referring to her dad saying that stories are more than myth and says how she's finally come to believe him and after her horrific journey, she's not going home, she's jumping straight into another adventure to keep that adrenaline pumping. To a degree, I understand and like this pov with the way Shadow had her so engulfed in this game and infatuated with the things despite everyone telling her that they aren't real but she doesn't let go contrary to her initial opinion in this game. The way they framed that just could've been a little nicer. Like where did she look like she was having fun?

As far as gameplay they built on that dirt mechanic from Underworld, which I think got really good by the time Shadow came out and you were able to disguise yourself in mud. I was actually impressed with how much from Shadow was actually already in here. But the gameplay doesn't really stack up the same, nor should it really. It's had two games to build on that system and it did, it doesn't make it seem bare bones or anything but why settle?

The tombs are fun because they're a nice change of pace but they leave more to be desired, they seem more like things to introduce game physics but are totally optional and most don't have any baring on the core gameplay anyway, they're just puzzles when I feel like the puzzles should've been apart of that core to begin with. The set-pieces feel samey after a while because you do cross a plane but then it's another plane, then its a helicopter, which most of those make sense in the context of the story but then there's the water slides, and the buildings falling apart around you. It starts to seem like it's ripping itself off which surprises me how this was so well regarded when Uncharted was already out thrice with a better story.

It didn't age poorly but it definitely has some time related scars.

[incorrectlumityquotes]

FULL REVIEWS: “Something Ventured, Someone Framed”

I’m not gonna lie. Gus isn’t exactly in my fave five Owl House characters. So imagine my interest when we get our first Gus-centric episode. I was curious. I wasn’t sure what to expect.

But I did hear that we were headed back to Hexside. The writer in me couldn’t help but ask why ban Luz from Hexside if you’re just going to have her enroll anyway?

Why? Here’s why:

The cold open isn’t really funny, but it does set up the main plot of the episode. Gus is doing his thing at the Human Appreciation Society when a new kid, Mattholomule (thank you The Owl House wiki), tries to stir up some drama. He wants Gus out of the HAS and himself in as president. And this is why kids need video games. No video games equals bored kids. Bored kids think that taking over a school club is a worthwhile endeavor. It is not.

But I think this does say a lot about Gus as a character. He’s a kid trying to fit in a world of young teens. He’s trying to find ways to connect with them and not all of them work.

Matt (I’m not spelling Mattholomule every time) brings his own “human artifacts” and Gus tries to call him out by bringing an actual human to verify the validity of the artifacts. And we already know the one human in The Boiling Isles.

Unfortunately not only is Luz banned from Hexside, but Eda still hates the place. I get it. I still hate my old junior high and high school too. Fuck those guys. 

Luz is frustrated though because we’ve still only see Luz learn the one spell in a show about a girl learning to be a witch. I guess to be fair the show is called “The Owl House” and we are spending a lot of time in The Owl House. I mean if the show was called Little Witch Academia and we didn’t learn shit then that would be a rip off.

Wait.

“I don’t want to hear another word about Hexside unless it’s, ‘Hexside’s on fire and let’s get front row seats.’”

I’d love to see my old schools burn down in flames too.

Then Gus pull the most common and laziest plot device ever: lying. Gus says he used his power and authority to get the ban lifted so Luz can visit. The fact that people still think the presidents of after school activities have any power whatsoever still makes my head shake. That’s just lame contrived plot points that only happens in cartoons and has no bearing on reality.

Wait.

Willow of course knows that this is a horrible plan that would never work because it relies on the laziest of plot devices and we get a couple of funny ass jokes that made me laugh out loud but I don’t have the screenshots for because god damn you The Owl House wikia I needed you for one god damn thing and you let me down so hard and it’s like why even bother man what the hell man what the actual hell Avatar Spirit dot net has every single second screenshotted why can’t you why can’t you be more like Avatar Spirit dot net huh HUH?

Sorry. I lost my head for a second there.

But Willow asking if Luz always has confetti in her pockets did make me laugh. I just wanted to share it with all of you. You can’t tell because this is a text review but I’m sighing. Sigh for me. Okay. Moving on.

So apparently ever since Luz busted into Hexside, Principal Bump has employed these Dementor looking mf-ers to literally sniff out troublemakers and dear god they’re ugly. Before I started doing these reviews I legit forgot that this was supposed to be a horror-comedy and now like every other episode is reminding me. 

So to keep Luz from being busted, Gus decides to give her a kinda tour and we see a bit more of the school.

Still safer than Hogwarts.

Gus and Luz finally head to the HAS meeting and Luz does a sweet moonwalk THAT I CAN’T FIND THE GIF OF and we had another joke that made me laugh out loud and I STILL DON’T HAVE THE SCREENCAP FOR, and Matt gives a really fake cringy speech that don’t want to watch ever again.

But of course Mattholomule busts Luz to the Dementors and they’re all sent to detention. No big deal.

HOLY HELL! That’s detention?!? I take back everything I’ve ever said about Hogwarts.

...

...I take back some things I’ve said about Hogwarts.

Meanwhile in the B-plot, Eda decides that if she doesn’t want Luz to end up like Hooty (hoot hoot), maybe she should enroll Luz into Hexside.

Principal Bump agrees but only on the condition that she cleans up the mess she made. And by “she” he doesn’t mean Luz; he means Eda.

This is just some kind of sick revenge for Bump, isn’t it?

Eda does what she can to get herself on Bump’s good side so Luz can get into Hexside. Unintended rhyming aside, Luz and Gus get themselves and Mattholomule out of detention.

Eda tells Luz that the only reason she’s doing this is because she knows Luz is too smart to fall for the coven system’s conformist ways. Gus takes the heat for Luz and Bump names Mattholomule president of the Human Appreciation Society. Go nuts, kid.

Is that a fucking Ghostbusters reference?

FINAL SCORE: 3 - Meh

We get some big gamechangers in this episode. Luz is now enrolled into Hexside. So why ban Luz from Hexside when we were just going to enroll her in anyway? To show Eda’s character development. To me, that’s where the real big heart of the episode is. Eda hates Hexside and everything it represents but she’s willing to put that aside for Luz and her development. Compare that to the second episode where she mocked and laughed at Luz for wanting to be a chosen one.

There were two or three really funny jokes that made me laugh out loud. So why a three? I don’t wanna seem mean but I don’t know if Gus can really carry an episode yet. The jokes that made me laugh came from Luz, Willow and Eda. Not Gus. It’s not bad. It’s just not very memorable. I had to go back on my phone want watch some of it while I was writing this review. Which should not happen since this episode sets up a new status quo. 

So the show had a bit of a dip, but the thing about dips is that they go right back up.

[mittensmorgul]

300, and other random observations

Last night Mel and I were scouring the episode looking for the expected obvious “300″ to jump out from some random door or building number, or appear SOMEWHERE in the episode the way 100 did in 5.18:

or 200 did in 10.05:

In case it isn’t obvious from this image, this is the 200 Motel:

So I was looking for the 300 in 14.13, and weirdly didn’t find anything quite this obvious. I rambled a bit about my search here on @drsilverfish;s post:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/182669346730/14x13-lebanon-some-silent-storytelling-notes-on

But I saw some interesting things in the pawn shop and around Lebanon that I can appreciate, as well as some very well hidden “300″ references. Basically this is just my Jerry Wanek appreciation post, because what a guy!

All screencaps are from hotn.

The one thing I’d overlooked as a HUGE “300″ is the most prominently featured guitar in the shop:

That one right in the middle, raised up above the others, looks a bit downtrodden. It’s missing its strings, first off. While another guitar is labeled “PLAY ME!” this one isn’t playable at all. And yet it might be the rarest instrument in the shop, and with a bit of tlc could easily be worth thousands. It’s a ww2 era Gibson ES300. Between 1942 and 1946, Gibson only produced a few acoustic guitars, since metals for the electric pickups were needed for the war effort. I think this could be one of those guitars. So talk about a big, blaring 300. Unstrung, a product of war, seemingly unplayable, but with care and attention, possibly the most valuable and precious instrument in the shop. Easy to see why it’s given pride of place.

But again, this isn’t an obvious 300. You kinda have to know something about something to even recognize it among all the other second-hand guitars.

(also lol at the giant tv in the background that makes us think of 13.16)

(and lol at the tuba that makes me think of the house of horns or whatever from 6.06. This show has such a bizarre history with pawn shops...)

Under a cut because this got way longer and more rambly and tangential than I intended >.>

There’s a lot going on just at the register:

Roadhouse Monkey, “You break it, you buy it,” and the sign that says “Your baby daddy sitting in jail? Sell your gold and get bail!” with the weirdest assortment of random jewelry pictured on it... and oddly a mala draped around the register itself. Clearly this dude hasn’t been using his mala for meditation practice.

In the post I linked above, I already described their entrance into the secret back room, where everything was “one of a kind” and we immediately saw two identical goblets. Go read that post for more on that. :D

Behind the goblets, it almost looks like a heart frozen in a block of something. But what the shop owner points to is a Hand of Glory, which was the central magical item from 3.06, the plot of which had to do with people who committed acts of violence against family (and the spell they found to banish the ghost killing people forever contained the first use of the word “Castiel” on the show).

He goes on to point out “gris gris bags” and “anointed dove’s blood.” Gris gris bags are protective talismans, which my brain immediately associates with Gordon Walker. He traded his to Bela for the Winchesters’ location in 3.07, and after giving it up, he was turned into a vampire and then killed by Sam. I can’t remember any use for the dove’s blood in canon...

It’s hard to see, but one shelf over is a Jason Voorhees style hockey mask (which is interesting to me because of 14.04 and the horror movie callbacks that were referenced later in 14.13 again at the movie theater in Lebanon playing All Saint’s Day and Hell Hazers). Not to mention as we talked about during 14.04, the original “monster” they were supposed to fight with in 3.10 in their nightmares was Jason, but Kripke didn’t realize they couldn’t obtain the rights to it, so that scene had to be cut. So in a roundabout way we get another reference to that iconic scene between Dean and his demon self, rejecting John’s influence over him. Beside the mask is the first of three Centurion Helmets we see in the episode (actually the second instance is probably this helmet again, but in a different context, in the box the teens steal from the Impala and take into their party house, along with the teddy bear Sam plays with here in a minute).

There’s the spray bottle of Dragon’s Breath, that looks like an innocent bottle of perfume with the squeezy bulb, but shoots out a gout of fire. 

Inside his safe, along with the skull of Sarah Goode, executed during the Salem Witch Trials, is an odd assortment of things, double-locked inside this already secret room:

It looks like a clock of some sort, a brass globe, and a genie’s oil lamp. But it’s the fact he had the skull at all, stolen from a murdered hunter that they knew, meant that he’d been involved with that horrific crime, like the previous references to Bela who traded in these artifacts (and had sold the hand of glory when she’d needed to destroy it to save her own life... I mean this was pretty heavy Bela parallels here), the owner turns the Dragon’s breath on them and pulls out a saber:

It’s called “Chrysaor.” Whether the one from Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene” that belonged to Sir Artegal, the Knight of Justice, and had supposedly been used by Zeus to battle the Titans, or to the offspring of Poseidon and Medusa and the brother of Pegasus, or whether it was a nod to Assassin’s Creed (I honestly think it’s the former and the latter is a bonus here...)

This reminded me SO MUCH of Gog and Magog and their Special Swords forged by a god, with the reference back to Zeus and the Titans here, AND to the actual circumstances around how Dean managed to kill them. Because Gog and Magog... just would not shut up. Dean even lampshades the fact this guy stood there with the sword over his head, raised above Sam sprawled on the ground the same way Cas was in 13.14:

But he talked long enough about Cas’s “beautiful death” that Dean was able to stab him from behind, just as he was able to shoot the store owner now, because he wouldn’t stop talking. Forged by a god, touched by God...

Then we see the store’s secret ledger:

I honestly don’t want to know what’s in the “genitalia jar.” But these entries are dated from 1956. How long has this shop been into this sort of shady business? At least as far back as the original MoL was operating in the US (they were annihilated in 1958 by Abaddon). And there’s even a reference to a “Men of Letters membership discussion” in the ledger:

Of interest on the next page is a lock of hair from a victim of HH Holmes (taking us back to 2.06), as well as trinkets associated with Vlad the Impaler and Napoleon, a “bag of sorrows,” and a “razor of the damned.” Among other items of interest.

But here’s the page with the magical pearl:

And nowhere in this book does it say the pearl “gives you what your heart desires.” It says, “a pearl that grants wishes.” So... where did Sam get that additional information? I find it fascinating how things that are written in books are interpreted in a much broader fashion by the reader-- first Dean with the book Billie gave him in 14.10, and now Sam with this entry in this ledger.

Because this has been happening a lot.

For example in the scene immediately prior to this, the kids outside are talking about the Winchesters when they actually drive up. Their conversation is really interesting:

Eliot: People say they’re brothers. All I know is I was standing right here when-- when I heard this BAM! from the trunk of their car. And then, this like, shallow breathing. Max: No way. Flower Shirt Girl: Eliot, you’re creeping Max out.

I have to assume this was when they still had Garth in the trunk of the car, and just :’). Eliot is making some assumptions, but he’s much more terrifyingly accurate than he probably could guess. And Max’s flippant comment in her next scene proves it:

Eliot: I mean think about it. Where do they even come from? Them or their weird sidekick with the trenchcoat. Or what about the kid with the dumb Bambi look on his face all the time? Max: So what, it doesn’t mean they kidnapped Bigfoot or whatever.

And they all laugh, and Eliot calls them dicks. :P

And all of this makes me think of how the show spent the early part of the season teaching us how to read between the lines, to fill in narrative gaps, and to parse the subtext to understand exactly what it was they were actively not showing us.

Like in the scene at the party house where the John Wayne Gacy clown appears, we don’t see Dean thrown by the clown (just as we didn’t see the other boy who was attacked escape from the clown), nor do we see Sam light the fire that burned the cigar box tethering the ghost. But it’s clear that Dean was thrown because we saw him land, and Sam obviously eventually got his lighter to work because there’s the evidence of the flames.

Also, did they bring that old pickup truck from the bunker? Because they should DEFINITELY drive that thing more often. :’)

And Eliot follows his instincts, wanting to know what’s up and witnesses the ghost going up in flames. And he knows what he saw, and doesn’t even question it. When Sam confirms it, he feels so validated. Just like us when we read the subtext and fill in the blanks.

I have no idea how I got here from rambling about finding the 300′s in the episode but here we are.

OH. Right! The Centurion Helmets!

The first we see was in the shop pictured above. We see it again at the Party House in the Establishing Shot inside, nestled in a box with Sarah Goode’s skull, which was the original Macguffin that led Sam and Dean to that pawn shop in the first place, which enabled them to find the pearl to even be able to make this wish at all:

And the second and third Centurions are on the wall of B&E Pizza:

(and the one on the other side of the menu board hasn’t been screencapped yet, but is much more clearly visible than this one because Cas lights it up:

Three Centurions. Each of whom commands a century, or a group of 100 soldiers. So I’m going to use the fact that the show is actively telling us to notice and read between the lines, and assume we’re seeing yet another 300.

Especially after Misha’s tweet joking about it: https://twitter.com/mishacollins/status/1093606706532282371

[contemplatingoutlander]

Another foolish “proof” of a nonexistent marriage by a SamCait CT

@mrsd79 appears to be a SamCait conspiracy theorist (CT). She just did this whole post where she found a video of Sam and claims that he is wearing a wedding band:

She has several photos on her post. I’m only using two here. Go look at her POST for the rest.

She goes on to say:

@mrsd79 you made fun of me once for blowing up photos with run-of-the-mill photoshop software and trying to make assertions from that. It appears you have done the same thing. If there were a ring there, where on earth is the rest of it? Nowhere. Do you see metal anywhere else on that finger? I sure don’t. Please let me know what video you used so I can examine it for myself. Maybe there’s a way of getting that missing ring into focus.

Sam’s holding a phone camera. I still think that the lines you drew for where the camera ends were way off but assuming we were not getting a glimpse of the building behind, there can be another source for the spot of light. Most likely there is a case on that phone made of tempered metal that caught the sunlight at that exact point. The light appearing to curve around Sam’s finger could be an artifact of both the light and the motion of his hand (and from what I can tell, there is enough of a crack between his fingers that he would not be “blocking” the light if it hit the camera case). Anyway, there certainly looks like there is a case on the phone. Actually, there doesn’t even have to be an extra case. The iPhone’s case is made of aluminum (and from what I know, Sam owns an iPhone). It could have caught the light easily enough.

In case that isn’t an iPhone though, have an LG Android phone. It also has a bright shiny case of its own. (It is brand new and I haven’t gotten a protective case for it yet, so it just has the case it came in). I just moved the phone in the light and sunlight reflected all over that case. So even if Sam used an Android phone, apparently that will catch the light too.

But even if there is some sort of invisible ring there, it doesn’t have to be a wedding band. It could be another kind of ring.

ADDENDUM: I found a high quality photo of Sam at the same event. Here’s the photo: 

Using that high quality photo I was able to enlarge the hand and sharpen it. Consequently, we see a clearer, less distorted image than the screencap that mrsd79 used:

There’s no ring on Sam’s finger. Nada. You were fooled mrsd79 by an optical illusion. Whether it was the building behind Sam or the metal surface of the phone (or even a drop of sweat) that the light was bouncing off, there was no ring there.

Furthermore, here are two photos of Sam at that same event (the 21st SCAD Savannah Film Festival on October 28, 2018). No ring on either hand. 

Sorry for lecturing in my previous post @mrsd79​ but this sort of thing after all these years gets under my skin because it is so misleading. My guess is your post as already become “canon” and forever more that distorted photo will be used by SamCait CTs to show that Sam had a wedding band on at the Savannah Film Festival--even though the “ring” turned out to be an optical illusion. 

[edited]

[ms-camucia]

"That lightsaber. It belongs to me." Why Maz Kanata Knows Some Shit Regarding Ben Solo

It’s why her eyes are so big. They’re full of secrets.

So, I haven't written any meta since... Well, roughly 2004, and it wasn't called 'meta' back then on 'ol Leaky Cauldron, it was just fan theories. So I apologize if I'm rusty, and if someone has postulated on this previously.

Basically, I have two theories I want to lay out here:

-Ben Solo was the one to find the Skywalker lightsaber -Rather than keep it, he entrusted it, along with some other possessions, with Maz Kanata

Oh Maz, you hoarder.

Timeline wise, this is a little sketchy, especially since we don't have too much canon to work from. We know that, in 28 ABY (Bloodline), it had been a little while since Leia had heard from Luke or Ben, but she didn't seem too concerned, so presumably it hasn’t been overly-long. By the time we see Kylo Ren in TFA, he's obviously been in the First Order for a bit, but for fewer than 6 years, since TFA is in 34 ABY.

My thought is that Ben found the lightsaber at some undefinable point - it may not even be important when - just that he found it, and kept it safe. He could have found it back in the Jedi school days, keeping it hidden, or he could have found it post-Luke's Jedi School Fiasco, but pre-Snoke.

Either way, Ben didn’t immediately go to Snoke after the Luke Incident. 

“When I get out of here, I’m going straight to the creepy man who’s been in my head since I was an infant!” said no one ever.

Just logistically, unless Snoke was there in the goddamn First Order minivan, ready to pick up Ben after Jedi School was left in a burning ruin, there's some time between the massacre and Ben Solo becoming Kylo Ren. In a period I'm roughly defining as "The Jedi Killer," since this follows early concept art of a Kylo-like figure who hunted down any artifacts having to do with the Jedi, Ben Solo has some time that's completely unaccounted for. 

“There’s some slight boxing around the edges, but it’ll sell as new.”

That's where Maz, and the "Good Story For Another Time" comes in.

So, let's try to establish that unaccounted for time.

Ben Solo, in his eyes, just had his uncle try to murder him. Something goes down, such that six students die, and six go with him. These kids - yes, he’s 23 and presumably just murdered some people, but if Luke called him a “frightened boy,” he’s a kid - are scared, confused, and looking for answers. But let's say they don't just hightail it to the First Order and find Snoke, because that would be ridiculous, no matter how much Snoke has been in Ben's head - the First Order is something that only exists in whispers by 28 ABY, and Snoke wasn’t there from the beginning. 

These kids want answers about the Force that they couldn't find with Luke - so they start looking. I'm already imagining some dark, Scooby-Doo/Indiana Jones mashup of the pre-Knights of Ren tracking down ancient Jedi and Sith temples and artifacts. They're successful - they find plenty of stuff, but very few answers.

Enter Maz Kanata.

This is the face of a woman who is already so done with this shit.

Maz has been established as someone with ties to Han, Chewie, and even Leia - in Forces of Destiny, it’s revealed that she's the one who gave Leia the Ubese disguise she uses in ROTJ. I think it's safe to say Maz Kanata is an Organa-Solo family friend, and most definitely someone a young Ben Solo would have met. As said by the woman herself, she knows the Force, and has clearly been around for a while. She's probably one of the first people Ben thinks to go to for help (especially if he's trying to delay the inevitable Snoke In The Head).

So Ben, and possibly the other students, go there, and she probably wheedles the entire Luke story out of a still-shellshocked Ben. Who knows - maybe he even confesses to her something about Snoke, knowing that she’s old enough to have a clue what’s going on with that guy (maybe she even sends him to Snoke, if he’s simply known as some “wise” Force-user. That’s a grim thought). Either way, Ben Solo is a man possessed at this point (possibly literally), and is just generally freaked out and on the run. Maz is old. She’s seen these eyes before.

And she’ll see them again.

(sidenote here - one can lift Finn’s dialogue with Rey at the end of this scene, and it would play out beautifully in IX with Ben/Rey if/when he leaves the First Order, and presumably tries to bail like his dad did in ANH. Maybe he even saves them in the Falcon. Poetry, rhyming, etc.)

This would be some Grade A ceramics right here.

ANYWAY, I get ahead of myself. So, we have:

Freaked out Ben Solo

Hoarding Jedi/Sith artifacts

Goes to Maz Kanata for answers

Spills his guts about absolutely everything

Maz agrees to keep his secrets - and his shit - before he runs

Like I theorized above, I think Maz is the last stop before Snoke. Maybe she tries to stop him, tells him to go home, but sees that this is the path he has to follow for right now. Ben would want to leave behind anything that could be seen as Jedi-ish before he goes to Snoke, and that would obviously include the Skywalker lightsaber, and anything else he had at this point. So he drops his Jedi stuff off with Maz.

Screenshot courtesy of me and Photoshop’s Highlights/Shadows.

I think what we’re seeing here is what was ditched. The lightsaber, maybe some Padawan clothes, what looks like a book or journal (see my fanfiction for my thoughts on Ben and writing things down), and some trinkets and bundles. Who knows if Ben told her where he was going, or if she already knew - either way, he’s on his way to become Kylo Ren. Someone will need to bring him back. Like the Lady of the Lake parallel that she is (someone else has made this connection, right?) Maz knew that, eventually, the right time and person would come for the saber, and maybe bring back Ben Solo - and thus enters Rey. 

“Ben.”

Maz basically has this girl’s number from the get-go - she immediately realizes her importance, tries to get her to leave her past behind by telling her what Rey herself wouldn’t believe until it came from Kylo/Ben, and attmepts to set her off on her hero’s journey. Of course, whether knowingly or not, what Maz actually does here is literally send her into Kylo/Ben’s arms.

Kylo shot first in the Great Thigh Grab war.

My final point I have to make here concerns the Starkiller lightsaber fight. Kylo has no reason to be able to immediately recognize the Skywalker lightsaber - it was last seen in canon attached to Luke’s severed hand, tumbling through Bespin’s ventilation system. Unless Luke spent his years as a teacher doing loving, technical drawings of the lightsaber (I mean, that’s what I do as an art teacher), there’s no reason for Ben to know it on sight unless he’s seen it before - and he knows that thing in a goddamn heartbeat.

But we all know what happens after this. Kylo goes from a completely unhinged madman possessed to making this face at the lightsaber in Rey’s hands.

Good lord, just compare this face to either of the ones above it. Boy is besotted.

And thus ends Kylo Ren’s focus on the lightsaber. To him, after this moment, the saber is Rey’s. 

He even puts it back in her damn hand.

Kylo/Ben doesn’t fight her for it again until TLJ, and even then, it’s less about the lightsaber and more about the million other things going on between the two of them in that moment. But that’s a good story for another time.

...And I’ve let what was originally a series of drunken screencaps I made at some point turn into an entirely-too-long meta. The last point I want to make is even a bit more meta - with the death of Carrie Fisher, we have lost our maternal figure in this trilogy. If JJ Abrams is a smart man, he is probably thanking his lucky stars that he set up Maz the way he did here, since someone will need to take up the position of the wise, older woman that helps bring everything back together.

If you’ve read this whole thing, congratulations. Sorry I went off on a bit of a rant, but this has been in the back of my mind for a while. Let me know if I’m completely off-base here.

[leam1983]

On Conservatism

I just reblogged a screencap of a series of Kelly Turnbull's Tweets (she's an amazing artist, BTW; look up @Coelasquid on various portals for more) and I thought her final thesis was important:

Progressives actually want to face the world. We want to address the world's inequalities, and we're aware of our own backslide towards irrelevance in the face of encroaching technology and the shifting of jargons and cultural artifacts. You can't be a Progressive without being aware that you'll eventually be that one old fart who still uses "on fleek" as a compliment or who unironically calls fictitious characters they've focused on their "blorbos".

Nobody can be relevant forever. Nobody can keep their finger on the proverbial pulse forever. At some point, you have to take your exit with a modicum of grace and shift to the role of mentor or guide for the next generation's own battles.

The problem with Conservatives is they've never accepted that. They've seen times change, but instead of grasping that change and looking to understand it, they reify some past decade as having been "better" and delude themselves into thinking there's a way we could go back. They forget how many aspirations they used to have, they miss all the Progressive cues their old favourites on TV contain, and effectively act like History should've ended in, well, pick a decade. For my generation, the end of History might as well have been reached in 1996.

Things were great back then, they'd say. We were young, we had no threats to face, things were simple... All this, while forgetting that this simplicity is the result of innocence.

Conservatism is the mind recoiling to its youth's innocence and shutting the door behind itself, then spending the remainder of its days painting the world outside as dark and filled with terrors diverse.

Pay attention, however, and you realize our demons don't change. Things were always politicized, global warming has been an issue for almost two generations, now, and we keep to the same old racial enmities because of that same exact Conservatism. What's changed is the willingness of some of us to want to tackle these bugbears as they are - not as something to mythologize, codify and then push under the rug.

If you think the world would be better off if we stopped catering to people of alternative sexualities or gender identities, for instance, you're conveniently forgetting how both groups have always been here. If you're a climate denialist, you're opposing centuries of recorded data. If you're an antivaxxer, you're discrediting people with entire combined lifetimes more medical history than you'll ever have.

As I've said before, if you're just a Conservative in the fiscal sense; I've got no beef with you. You're off-track and I think you should re-evaluate the value of social policies, but you're miles above colleagues of yours who might wave ideology or faith as reasons for their supporting Conservative platforms.

Everyone else, though? One-eyed suzerains leading blind serfs off a cliff.

[elegant-etienne]

2017 On The Cutting Room Floor (Pt 1 - Goodbye to Heavensward, Hello to Stormblood)

While I was looking for a cap I hadn’t uploaded from this year to put atop a weepy year-in-perspective post + news of my 100+ follower giveaway (both of which are on their way), I realized there were a hell of a lot of screencaps I’d saved but not bothered to upload. In case you don’t know, I play FFXIV on PS4, so any screencaps I must save to a USB and edit on my laptop. I’m an amateur at best for such things, while I do attempt to educate myself and improve, I don’t have access to extensions that could improve the look of things, I use GIMP and never read the manual on how to use it. And I tend to edit without my glasses on with my face a few ilms away from the screen, because that’s probably fine to do and won’t have repercussions.

Anyroad, I found a great deal of screenies that, given the perspective of time, I didn’t totally hate! I may not have uploaded because

The picture was redundant to one I’d already posted. Like, more redundant than usual.

 The shoot was scrapped, the cap didn’t fit the tone of what I wanted, it was OOC in another wise IC shoot, it was a standalone pic I didn’t get around to post, etc.

The results were imperfect due to clipping, artifacting, not knowing how to upload in a format on tumblr that didn’t look like a dog’s dinner, etc.

For whatever reason I was just crying a lot that day

But now, you, my beautiful friends and future friends, get to see it! I gave these dumb captions. Later I’ll probably also reblog my favorites of the sets I did upload, taking a page from @heretiques-xiv ‘s book to show off my work and how far I’ve come this year!

HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR AND A HAPPY HEAVENSTURN!

[mylife-foryours]

gratuitous screencaps & questions for an’dante

1. What is their gender? ... woman-ish?

2. What is their sexuality? Ace-ish, bi-ish. Complicated by a combination of trauma & who she is as a person.

3. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger?  Which sibling are they the closest with? No siblings; when she was 3-4 she was... fostered? by her grandparents, and there were a few cousins who lived in the same apartment complex, but she was a very solitary child.

4. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives? Her memories of her parents are vague and patchy - her father’s callused hands, her mother’s deep voice singing a Zabraki lullaby. On the other hand, she remembers her grandparents very well. She understands them well enough to know why they left her on the streets of Sobrik, and on good days she can even sort of sympathize - starvation is a hideous way to die. So she isn’t going to, like, hunt them down and murder them, but she has no interest in ever seeing them again, either.

6. What would they give their life for? Orro.

7. Are they in a romantic relationship? With who? How did they meet? She’s in something with Orro. When they first met, Orro had been cornered by a group of offworld thugs, and An’Dante went after them like a feral alley cat. She won more through the element of surprise and nascent Force abilities than anything else, but it was still enough to begin a fast friendship with Orro.

8. What do they believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them? Either she’ll stop existing entirely, or she’ll become a Force ghost. As appealing as it might be to continue to influence the galaxy even after she’s dead, the fact that ghosts can be bound & their entire self made into a battery for someone to tap makes that prospect singularly terrifying. Even when she was a slave, it was only ever her body that could be broken and fucked and drained of blood. Death wasn’t an ideal escape, but it was always there. No such luxury if her ghost is bound. Nonexistence isn’t ideal, but it’s preferable to that.

9. What is their favorite color? Favorite animal? Her favorite color is sunset red, and her favorite animal is a tooka cat, but the one that I associate with her is a snake, both for the obvious reasons and because of the death/rebirth symbolism.

10. What are some of their talents/skills? Rhetoric, blackmail, politics in general. On a more benign note, unearthing/handling delicate artifacts and translating ancient texts in a way that’s both faithful and aesthetically pleasant.

11. If they could make a mark on history, what would they like it to be? Empress of the Sith Empire, Conqueror of the Republic, the Great Liberator of Korriban. (Practically, she understands that she’d be better off as a combination shadow hand & eminence grise, but she’s not above the appeal of shiny titles).

12. How old are they? When is their birthday? She’s nineteen during the Sith Inquisitor prologue, but not exactly sure when her birthday is.

13. What do they do for fun? Watch drama-heavy serial shows (ideally w/ Fene or, later on, Talik’ime) and snark at them.

14. What is their favorite food? How often do they get to eat it? She’ll eat pretty much anything and enjoy it, but she really loves seafood and rare meat.

15. What was something their parents taught them? Not to get too ANGST-HEAVY, but by omission, probably “you’re an unwanted burden, and will be left behind as soon as it’s physically possible”.

16. Are they religious? Sort of - she’s Sith, and takes the code seriously, but her own interpretation of it is pretty heretical.

17. Where were they born? Small farming village on the outskirts of Sobrik.

18. What languages can they speak? Where did they learn these languages? She’s a native speaker of Basic & Zabraki, picked up Huttese and snippets of Mando’a in her early-mid adolescence, and learned Old Sith during her apprenticeship to Lord Volcari. Later on she tries to pick up Chenuch as part of her bid to insinuate her power base into Imperial Intelligence, and expands her knowledge of Mando’a with Fene’s help.

19. What is their occupation? Dark Council member.

20. Do they have any titles? How did they earn them? She blackmailed Darth Vox into promoting her to Dark Lord of the Sith before murdering her and abandoning what was left of her corpse in a decaying orbit around Korriban’s sun. Approximately two years later, she escaped Jedi custody with a fair number of stolen relics and detailed knowledge of Tython’s defenses, earning the name Darth Moriah. She became the leader of the Assassin’s Pyramid after defeating Darth Rictus in a Kaggath, and operated as Empress Acina’s unofficial Hand between the destruction of Ziost and the end of KOTET.

Personality:

21. What is their favorite thing about their personality? Her wit.

22. What is their least favorite thing about their personality? Her sensitivity.

23. Do they get lonely easily? Yes, but she’s relatively good at dealing with it.

24. Do you know their MBTI type? INTJ

25. What is their biggest flaw? God, so many. But probably the worst, ethically and in terms of her relationships, is that she’s cruel.

26. Are they aware of their flaws? Sort of. She knows that she’s cruel, but she thinks that her greatest flaw is that she’s weak-willed and dithers over Doing What Needs To Be Done.

27. What is their biggest strength? Her adaptability.

28. Are they aware of their strengths? Yes - some of her arrogance is bravado, but not all of it.

29. How would they describe their own personality? That would depend entirely on who was asking.

30. When frightened, will they resort to “fight” or “flight”? http://pete-walker.com/codependencyFawnResponse.htm

31. Does this character ever put somebody else’s needs before their own? Who do they do this for? How often do they do this? She’d do just about anything for Orro, including framing & executing her own apprentice for treason, but she’d put a lot on the line for Fene, too. She tries to be sparing with displays like that, though - it’s an expenditure of resources, emotional and otherwise. Cryptarch’s qualm and all that.

32. What is their self esteem like? Not great.

33. What is their biggest fear? How would they react to having to face it? Being enslaved again - no surprises there. She’d go nuclear if faced with that - no concern for collateral damage or her own survival, just fighting her way out with claws and lightning and teeth, or, failing that, putting her own lightsaber to her heart.

34. How easily do they trust others with their secrets? With their life? An’Dante’s secrets stay under lock and fucking key.

35. What is the easiest way to annoy them? In terms of annoyance (rather than blind rage), probably telling her that she’s overreacting to something. 

36. What is their sense of humor like? Give an example of a joke they would find humorous. Dark & ironic, with a particular fondness for wordplay and last-minute twists. Pretty much any of these would have her howling.

37. How easy is it for them to say “I love you”? Do they say it without meaning it? Very difficult. She’s said it to.... maybe two people in her life, probably?

38. What do others admire most about their personality? Either her intelligence or her tenacity.

39. What does their happily ever after look like? After winning Orro over to her cause, crushing the Republic hypocrites and their Jedi lackeys, uniting a reformed empire under her rule (with someone else as a figurehead, naturally), freeing the slaves and hanging the masters by their own intestines, I imagine that she’d like to spend her time researching poetry fragments and teaching freed slave children to read.

40. Who do they trust most? Is that trust mutual? She trusts Orro & Orro doesn’t trust her, but Orro is quite trustworthy (& predictable) while she’s decidedly neither.

Physical Profile:

41. What does their laugh sound like? Do they snort when they laugh? How often do they laugh? Quiet and spiteful; if she laughs, it tends to be at people, not with them.

42. What is their favorite thing about their physical appearance? Thanks to her Zabrak mother, she has very sharp, prominent canine teeth, which make her sneer look much more intimidating.

43. What is their least favorite thing about their physical appearance? Probably the brands on her face. But for the same reasons that she doesn’t have any tattoos, she’s not going to get any kind of surgery to remove/cover them up. They’re a reminder.

44. Do they have any scars? If so, what are the stories behind those scars? Per her in-game appearance, she has brands/burn scars on the left side of her face. She also has heavy whip scars on her upper back, a fractal lightning scar that wraps around her torso (result of the one (1) time she mouthed off to Overseer Harkun), and some minor chemical burns from her experiments with poisons and forbidden artifacts.

45. How would they describe their own appearance? She probably wouldn’t, honestly.

46. How easily can they express emotions? How easily can they hide emotions? Hiding her feelings is pretty much second nature. She can express Sith-standard emotions quite well, and quite genuinely - she’s got a lot of anger and fury bottled up, even if it isn’t really directed at heretics - but sadness, fear, and the rest are more difficult.

47.  What’s their pain tolerance like? High.

48. Do they have any tattoos? What are the stories behind those tattoos? No tattoos, and no plans to get any - she’s  played with the idea of getting Sith tattoos to deflect from criticisms of, ahem, heterodoxy, but that would require allowing someone very very close to her face with very very sharp objects, and that’s a hard nope.

49. Do they have any piercings? Nope.

50. How would you describe their style of clothing? How would they describe their style of clothing? Semi-ceremonial light armor with flowy bits & a pronounced inclination towards the dramatic vs. “Robes befitting my station”.

51. What is their height? Weight? 5′3, 210 pounds.

52. What is their body type? Are they muscular, chubby, skinny, etc? Fat, with some core muscle strength.

53. What is their hair color? Eye color? Skin tone? She has warm brown skin and black hair. Her eyes are naturally brown, but intense dark side use shifted them to a molten gold color by the end of Act I. Faded back to brown while she was on Tython (Light Side-suffused environment + force-nullifying cuffs), then went orange/gold again after she escaped. At this point she’s had enough corruption/redemption whiplash that they’re kind of eerie pale grey with red limbal rings.

54. What is their current hairstyle? What have been some of their past hairstyles? Which was their favorite hairstyle? For the first sixteen years of her life, she kept her hair short, both for practicality - she couldn’t wash often, and didn’t want it getting caught in anything - but also so that no one could grab it. Upon being taken as Lord Volcari’s apprentice, she began growing it out. Mostly she left it down, but Fene would sometimes put it up in braids, which was her favorite. After being held captive on Tython, she chopped her hair off to about chin-length, and kept it there until she made Darth. It started coming in white after Ziost, but that was largely a moot point, since by then she had signed on as Acina’s left hand & was wearing a mask and hood. After her final break with the empire, she cut off the few inches that were still dark brown/black, so her endgame haircut is a blunt, chin-length bob.

55. What is their alcohol tolerance like? What kind of drunk are they? How bad are their hangovers? It’s not so much

56. What do they smell like? Why do they smell like this? (Is it the things they’re around or a perfume they wear?) If she smells like anything, it’s mostly old books and tomb-dust. Doesn’t actually smell like blood as often as you would think - she usually kills people via some sort of proxy, and even if she's in a straight-up duel, lightsaber wounds tend to cauterize quickly.

57. How do they feel about sex? Are they a virgin? Doesn’t like sex, not a virgin, the specifics are predictably related.

58. What is their most noticeable physical attribute? Probably her nose; it’s not very noticeable on her in-game model, but I always draw her with a big beaky nose.

59. What does their resting face look like? Do they have RBF? Carefully blank.

60. Describe the way they sleep. Deeply and overlong, now that she doesn’t have to wake at dawn or earlier. It’s one of the few luxuries she can partake of without any guilt.

Environment:

61. Which season is their favorite season? Obligatory “seasons work differently on other planets” stipulation aside, probably autumn.

62. Have they ever been betrayed? How did it affect their ability to trust others? She was baited into an “escape attempt” by one of the overseer’s quislings when she was about thirteen, and never made that mistake again.

63. What is always guaranteed to make them smile? Ironic reversals of fortune.

64. Do they get cold easily? Do they get overheated easily? Gets overheated more easily than she gets cold.

65. What’s their immune system like? Do they get sick often? How do they react to getting sick? Since she’s half-Zabrak, her immune system is hella weak. She hates the vulnerability that comes with being sick, and tends to shut herself up in her compound with enough reading material for several weeks and enough painkillers to wipe out a small army.

66. Where do they live? Do they like it there? She has a compound on Korriban with one of the larger collections of Old Sith epic poetry in Imperial space.

67. Is their bedroom messy? What about their bathroom? Kitchen? Living room? Probably her quarters as a whole have a comfortable level of clutter - there’s some automated cleaning, but she refuses to use cleaning droids, and doesn’t have much time to clean on her own.

68. How did their environment growing up affect their personality? Significantly, but not indelibly.

69. How did the people in their environment growing up affect their personality? The fact that her grandparents wanted nothing to do with her and regarded her as a burden, and

70. How do they feel about animals? Do they have any pets? She likes them well enough, but feels uncomfortable with the idea of owning a living creature - she has some friends among the desert cats around her compound, though.

71. How are they with children? Do they have any? Do they want any? She’s okay with children, if a bit overprotective, but she’s never had any, and even if she physically could (like most half-Zabraks, she’s infertile) pregnancy is a terrifying idea for her. She’d even feel guilty about adopting a kid, since being associated with her would be Absurdly Dangerous - almost none of her rivals would hesitate to go after a child.

72.  Would they rather have stability or comfort? Comfort, largely because she doesn’t really believe that stability exists.

73. Do they prefer the indoors or outdoors? Indoors.

74. What weather is their favorite? Do they like storms? Her favorite weather is dry and slightly chilly, with a bit of a breeze. Enjoys thunderstorms as long as they’re not on Dromund Kaas.

75. If given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen? She’d practice her Old Sith calligraphy.

76. How organized are they? She’s a wee bit paranoid about committing things to paper, so her things are as organized as she can keep them in her head. When she’s doing well, it works fine. When she’s not...

77. What is their most prized possession? Either her saberstaff or the holocron that houses her ghost friend. Probably the saberstaff, since thinking about what’s essentially someone’s phylactery as her possession would probably make her queasy.

78. Who do they consider to be their best friend? Fene.

79. What is their economic situation? Probably pretty good - I imagine that Dark Council members get a hefty salary.

80. Are they a morning person or a night owl? Night owl.

Miscellaneous:

81. Are they bothered by the sight of blood? Sort of, but she’s had lots of time to get used to it.

82. What is their handwriting like? Neat & cursive-adjacent, but she writes with a very heavy hand, since she was almost twenty when she learned how.

83. Can they swim? How well? Do they like to swim? She can Sort Of stay afloat, and enjoys swimming so long as she can keep doing that. Deeper water makes her nervous, though, mostly because she’s spent so much time on Dromund Kaas: deep water is where the fish made entirely of teeth and pincers live.

84. Which deadly sin do they represent best? Fucking hell. Gonna say it’s a three-way tie between Pride, Envy, and Wrath.

85. Do they believe in ghosts? She literally keeps one in her pocket, so yeah.

86. How do they celebrate holidays? How do they celebrate birthdays? Hmmm... as a member of the Dark Council, there are probably certain state holidays that she’s expected to publicly celebrate, but on her own time I imagine that she keeps things low-key.

87. What is something they regret? Stabbing Orro in the back, physically and metaphorically. It’s worth nothing that this is at least partially because she didn’t actually get anything out of it - Jorgan recaptured her in fairly short order. (Part of her hadn’t really... adjusted to the fact that there were other people in Orro’s life by that point)

88. Do they have an accent? Xanthe Elbrick’s performance has grown on me a lot in my billion-odd playthroughs of a female Sith Inquisitor, but in my heart of hearts, An’Dante has a Slavic accent.

89. What is their D&D alignment? Neutral Evil.

90. Are they right or left handed? Left, but she’s trained herself to be ambidextrous.

91. If they were a tweet, what tweet would they be?

92. Describe them as a John Mulaney gif.

[hellsbovnd-archive]

I did a lot of screencaps today so I tossed them into queue! And by ‘a lot’ I mean like... 10... They’ll post throughout the day tomorrow. I only managed to get through Percival, Wren, and one Leon screencap before I got pulled to do other things, but I wanna get some of Jan and Rose too at some point! (Rose needs non-armor glamz tho and I know I do want to do a shoot of Jan in ‘uniform’ at some point)

And some 3am thoughts below the cut because why not. (Also I’m hungry again.)

I have been thinking a lot about Leon lately.

I’ve played the same character, more or less, for what will be three years this July, though Leon’s been a concept I bounced around in my head for about a year before that when my main was still on Malboro. (Malboro friends may vaguely remember a beta!Leon who was actually an arcanist with the guild, who was meek and shy and who was easily intimidated into giving information; this arcanist concept would eventually be merged into a journalist-with-the-echo character concept I also had at the time, and would then go on to pick up crime shit later when I started Ebonguard to spite everyone who said it couldn’t be done.)

And in those three years, he hasn’t changed a whole lot? He got nabbed into a relationship early which has provided me endless hours and innumerable sessions of entertainment (you want angst? We got angst. You want fluff? They do that too. Sit down for six hours and Just Go; what happens next may blow your fucking mind) and he wound up in positions of leadership as a result of my OOC circumstances. But that’s kind of it. 

I tried running a character arc for him once upon a time, but it didn’t do super well and I ended up cancelling it (it’s now existing in a weird space both within and outside of canon events; I can’t decide what I want to do with it since it was never completed and I don’t RP with/Don’t Fucking Like any of the participants save like 2?? anymore).

In the time between then and now I’ve done a lot of DMing but that kinda forced me to sideline Leon or make him into more of a “taskmaster” character, who while IC present for the events that unfold around the party, never really acts to affect them, because as a DM I personally feel like it’s bad form to make a scene all about my character, or to take away player agency in any way and make it so that only I have the power to actually push the plot forward. I know that on the exceedingly rare occasion that I get to be a player, that kind of stuff makes me tune out.....really fucking quickly.

So as a result I haven’t really spent most of that time actually playing my character, and as it just so happens the overwhelming majority of the people I have DMed for have pretty much just used me for my DMing skills.... Cuz they didn’t wanna do it, but they also didn’t actually give a goddamn about me as a person, lmao. Which, yeah, I can tell a story--it’s pretty much my only marketable skill on this hell of an earth, and I like telling stories, but going through all that effort, creating a narrative, making NPCs, writing “lore” on magical artifacts, scheduling and running events, logging them, tying them together and keeping track of the party’s progress neglecting the character I actually play in order to tell these stories for other people, only to have them spit in my face the instant they feel I’ve outlived my usefulness, y’know, fucking sucks.

And there’s still more to do. There’s never nothing to do. I need to organize two plots for Ebonguard, one of which requires outside collaborators--I need to slide coords/officers some incentive to help me solicit for Modus I think, but there’s also another pretty big plot that we have in the oven that I’m kicking off... Oh shit, today. I have no plans. The plan will reveal itself as I do it, I guess. I wanna organize some RP for INK too, we’re all kind of in pre-expac lull mode and we all have like seventy billion alts now including a small gaggle of disaster Garleans. I have been kind of neglecting INK lately. I pitched the idea of running Leon’s character arc as an INK plot to positive responses but then I got ahead of myself and kicked off Jan’s character arc like an idiot. I love playing Jan and I’m very excited for his story, but he’s hot out of the oven and Leon needs it more. But I hate FC leads who make shit about their character on principle, so I don’t wanna do more than one character arc at a time.

I have basically no motivation or reason to actually play Leon. I love his concept and I will always love his concept, and he’s going to stay my main because uh, I’m poor and I’m also not levelling everything again if I don’t have to. It’s not a problem with his core concept so much as, I guess, the fact that nothing has happened to really challenge him since I started playing him. Modus Operandi will change that obviously but I’m probably going to end up the primary DM there anyway if I don’t get lucky with collaborators, but without characters around him that give a damn that doesn’t really even mean anything anyway? He has basically zero meaningful RP connections, he’s overshadowed by pretty much the entirety of my cast of myriad alts at this point, and when I play him I don’t really get to play him anyway. And when I DM there’s like a 50/50 shot that people will just spit in my face 6mo down the line and tell me they’re doing me a favor. His first best friend rerolled and his second one turned out to be a massive PoS OOC so yeet.

idk. I love DMing and story-telling, I love INK, I love Ebonguard which has treated me incredibly well for the past 2 3/4 years, I love Ed and the scant few RP partners I do have on Leon, and I’m really excited for Big Plans, but running all of them once, and all of them for the most part entirely solo until very very recently when Ebonguard got coordinators and INK got officers (kiiind of?), and even now like 50% solo, and at times running them in parallel with each other, has really put a damper on my ability to enjoy writing Leon. I love Leon, but I look back at 3ish years of RP and see I have absolutely nothing to show for it. None of the plot threads I wanted to explore were ever explored, and there were times I had RP partners who actively tried to get rid of the threads by solving them with some handwave that Leon never earned. His character, apart from some bits and bobs that he picked up along the way, is exactly the same as it was on July 3rd, 2016.

I’m semi-considering a soft reset; major beats of his story staying the same (relationship with Edda, role as Crow, leader of Alizarine) while erasing everything else which, granted, because roughly half of all the RP partners I have ever had have turned out to be absolute shitstains (terfs, etc) is not actually a whole lot to erase, because a lot was already retconned anyway. But I dunno if that would actually fix anything.

tl;dr 

[magus-of-the-color-pizza]

An edh game with a frand

As some of you may already know, today I played a game of edh with @commandtower-solring-go. It was my first time playing Max, and, unsure which deck to use, I opted for Khemba. She’s not multiplayer-focused, unlike many of my decks (Lazav, Anya, Karametra, Riku... you get the picture), but she’s also less brutal than my Sigarda deck, which is, by my impression, faster and harder to debilitate. Khemba gets crazy if you let her, but she’s not as difficult to counter, in my opinion. The moment I saw Max bust out Kynaios and Tiro, I knew this was going to be an interesting game. Max’s strategy was, of course, a mix of group hug and pillowfort, which is something I’ve almost never gone up against before.

Unfortunately, I was off to a bad start. I had to mulligan once and even then I only had a single land, albeit I had several 2 and 3 drops in my hand, so I kept. Now, this was a very long game and it is difficult for me to remember everything that happened and I do no wish to bore you, so I will not get into specifics too much. I will, however, attempt to divide the game into archs. 

The first arch, which I would like to call The Struggle, is me, surprise surprise, struggling to build a board state while Max mana-ramped like crazy and had us both drawing tons of cards. Unfortunately, many of mine ended up in the grave because I didn’t have enough to play them. I was lucky enough to get some of my all-stars, though, such as Brass Squire and Stoneforge Mystic, which I used to tutor up Darksteel Plate for when I finally managed to get Khemba out.

The second arch, which I would like to call Bant Shenanigans, was defined by Max dropping a Horizon chimera, followed by a Progenitor Mimic copying it, in addition to Elspeth, which was perpetually on 6 counters as I scrambled to keep her off ult. Oh and also the dude was drawing like 4 cards a turn. Needless to say, Max did reach 100 life points this game.

The following arch is where the tides turned. Seeing as I was starting to get a good amount of equipment and cats out, Max played Subterranean Tremors for 4, killing most of my dudes and my equipment. This also hit a lot of his artifacts, though, such as Norn’s Annex and Orbs of Warding, which made it more feasible for me to attack him again. I don’t remember if this was prior or after I played Harsh Mercy, but essentially we both suffered some losses.

I’ve lost count of the arcs, whatever. Max successfully ulted Elspeth, and I fortunately followed with Eldrazi Monument. From then on until the end of the game, we had a stalled board where I would attack with Khemba, deal some damage, and he’d recover. To my advantage, I pulled out Kusari-Gama, which is one of the dopest and more obscure equipments ever:

You read that right, folks. Khemba was an unstoppable force. She kept getting stronger, but at a certain point it became almost irrelevant because Max dropped the end-all be-all Platinum Angel. So yeah he was at -98 life, but he had a Platinum Angel equipped with Lightning Greaves, and also (which I didn’t realize at first) a Sylvan Safekeeper. I attacked and destroyed the Greaves using Argentum Armor, but then he plopped down this dude.

With the stalemate now complete, it was mostly a matter of who got decked first. Spot removal was completely out of the question against him, but the same could be said for me, since all my creatures were indestructible and my Leonin Abunas gave all my artifacts Hexproof. So we took a few turns drawing cards (I spent most of my turn on my upkeep, adding counters like crazy because I had Cathars’ Crusade out), and then, finally, a literal god came to my aid:

Choosing the last two modes because I really felt like trashing all those stupid tokens and counters I had out, all the creatures on the field (except Khemba because Darksteel Plate) were destroyed. From Max’s point of view, this happened:

Max: well, at least he doesn’t have his army anymore

Me: “Max, I daresay you’re at negative 98 life.”

Max: “Oh shi-”

And thus, with a thunderous roar Max exploded into a dazzling array of lights and confetti, never to be seen again.

For those of you who are interested in witnessing the madness firsthand, i have screencapped the final boardstate, just as Austere Command hit:

Yeah, I know. Trust me, we had no idea what was going on either. 

Well, that concludes the event. If this seemed long to you, don’t worry, it was. I think it lasted about 3 hours, is that right? I honestly have no idea. Regardless, I believe we both had a lot of fun. I certainly did, Max is a delightful opponent, so much so that we cannot wait for our next match, which will most likely be Sigarda 1.0 vs K&T, or, as I titled it, Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object. My Sigarda deck may be overall stronger than Khemba, but we’ll see how it fares against this very specific type of deck. Having a 30/30 doublsetrikehexprooftrampleindestructibleflying creature isn’t of much use when you can’t attack. I very much look forward to that match.

Thank you all for stopping by and reading, and a giant thanks to @commandtower-solring-go for the great game! 

[operationrainfall]

Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. It’s a rare occurrence, but I could tell when I saw the first news about Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia that I would love this game. And that’s without me having any experience with the PS One game it was based on! Now that Happinet has kindly released an eShop demo, I finally dug in to see what the world of Runersia is like. Spoiler alert, I really enjoyed it, but to see why, please keep reading!

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The Brigandine demo is split into two parts. One is an optional tutorial, and the other is trial mode, with you using the tools at your disposal to secure victory. While it probably wasn’t necessary, I rolled through the extensive tutorial first. It’s separated into multiple segments based around different aspects of the game, including organizing and mobilizing troops, combat, leveling up and much more. Essentially the game forces you to progress through checklists to show your understanding. These are often relatively long, upwards of 10 plus steps, but they’re not that hard to grasp. So long as you pay attention and read the prompts, the tutorial is a breeze.

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I will say, it’s quickly apparent from the Brigandine tutorial that this is gonna be a massive full game experience. Though I mostly understood and internalized the tutorial, it’s clear there’s a lot of complexity at play. From mobilizing troops of knights and monsters to going on quests to acquire equipment or recruit monsters to using hexagonal attack patterns to lock enemy forces, it’s pretty intensive. Thankfully I live for that sort of complexity, so the tutorial did a good job of whetting my appetite. It was nice to finish the last tutorial mission and move onto the real thing, the trial mode.

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Part of the reason I was so quickly drawn to Brigandine was the splashy static art. As a video game fan and a comic book nerd, I love lush, detailed artwork. The art here is like a vibrant watercolor painting, mixed with tons of anime trappings. For example, there’s some very buxom ladies and some very effeminate men, and all the gamut in between. But the key thing to remember is this – it’s all beautiful. I especially appreciate how the cutscenes spring to life like living comic books, expanding and growing in detail as the text scrolls. The only negative to this approach is it made it a challenge for me to take all the screencaps I love, but that’s a minor quibble.

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In the trial itself, you’re locked into Easy mode and forced to pick Rubino as your ruler. Though the game does note that’s only for the purposes of the demo, and that the full version will allow you to pick from many factions. I’m actually glad the game took this approach, since it let me just play around and learn by doing. Since we went with Rubino’s story, we got to see how his initially idyllic kingdom is thrown into chaos by the sudden and shocking murder of his father, the king. One thing that was nice was picking up on the undercurrents of subterfuge and paranoia written into the story. It made me wonder what’s really going on. All of this is against the backdrop of a world where mana has empowered Rune Knights to either go on tales of conquest or unification. Often these Rune Knights are driven to madness by this magical power, and the most concentrated artifacts of mana are the titular Brigandine, several gems of massive importance. It all made me really eager to jump into the full game, and see if my suppositions regarding the intrigue are proven correct.

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But you’re not here to read my narrative speculation, you’re here for the demo. And I’m happy to concur that the gameplay in Brigandine is looking great, even this early. Other than my brief confusion about not being able to move and attack in the same phase, things clicked into place pretty quickly. I learned that it was good to muster my forces at forts to concentrate my strength, and I spent a few turns going on small quests to gather tools and grow in power. I even recruited one new unit just for the hell of it. The demo locks you into 10 seasons, which is essentially 10 turns of both organizing and moving your units. Your ultimate goal is to liberate Warren, and I managed to do so without too much issue. That’s mostly due to the fact this demo was forced to Easy mode, which meant my foes weren’t constantly trying to invade my own kingdom. That said, once I was in combat, things weren’t a pushover.

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Sure I wasn’t overwhelmed by enemy forces in my liberation of Warren, but I also didn’t manage it without casualties. Though I’m not sure whether or not Brigandine features permadeath, I did lose a few of my monster soldiers. Thankfully, I didn’t lose any of my commanders, so I did reasonably well. I really liked how you could organize your units in a defensive hexagon to block enemy movement, or circle around foes to deal more damage. And though the graphics aren’t as impressive as the static art in the game, it’s far from unattractive. There’s good diversity on display, from goblins to dragons to centaurs to hulking golems. Better yet, all the monsters and human soldiers have different skills at their disposal, allowing for really tactical strategy.

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Ultimately, I’m even more excited for Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia now than I was just a month or two ago. I honestly think this has the potential to be one of the best tactical RPGs of the year, with echoes of games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem and even Pokémon Conquest. While there were some minor issues like some grammatical flubs and typos, it’s nothing that took me out of the experience for long. Stay tuned to oprainfall for more news about Brigandine as it hits!

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IMPRESSIONS: Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia Demo Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. It's a rare occurrence, but I could tell when I saw the first news about…

[steroidusr]

golden sun (chaos mode hack) part 4: Isaac cannot resist.

so now that sand dollar lady is in place, we can push the statue on the tile (and strike a pose) but safely this time

yes, that certainly is what just took place

how exactly are you going to--

aaaaand he's gone

AM I SUPPOSED TO "WAIT OVER THERE" OR "HANDLE THE REST”

(man look at those tiles in the middle, that is some really nice pixel art)

this is the slowest lp in the world

wooo

things i thought was weird about this game when i was 11: kraden saying "Sol" and "Luna" instead of "the sun" and "the moon" i mean obviously i knew that that's what "sol" and "luna" mean, but he's saying them like people's names ("a picture of Luna")?? there doesnt... really seem to be a reason for this? i dont remember the sun and moon being referred to like that anywhere else in the game

by the way, what exactly is supposed to be happening with that laser? it's coming up from the floor, but... hitting the wall

????? 2d video game overworld perspective is really weird tbh

LET ME LEVEL GRIND, KRADEN

so if you touch the wall (or talk to it, depending on what you think the A button does) a portal appears

...which lifts you up and voips you away. but stays open. GOOD THING THERE ARENT ANY THIEVES FOLLOWING US OR ANYTHING

...and we end up here. (the portal also appears to have shrunk isaac's sprite a bit. wh...oops...?)

(fyi: for some reason this game's world is flat. so he does actually literally mean "the end of the world".) (...and "endless water", since it all falls off the edge but doesnt run out. dont ask me how that works. maybe it's like a fountain?)

....humans are made of fire?????????

kraden: "as i have told you many times--" (tells us again anyway)

jfc he's starting to sound like my dad also you absolutely couldve fit that last part into one text box, come ON

i really, really wish i could capture these emoji word balloons because

kraden: ❤️ jenna: 😟

YES. "MANY TIMES", IN FACT.

GARET WHY

so after telling us how powerful and dangerous these stones are... and how with just one you could conquer the entire world... and how it would be REALLY BAD if they were to fall into the wrong hands... 

...kraden wants us to bring them over here for him to examine. ok

all of them. all four of them. im pretty sure this is exactly why no one is allowed in here.

OKAY THANK YOU KRADEN

[each time you take a star, there’s a short earthquake, and more pillars rise up out of the water. this allows you access to the next star.]

UH, TAKING THAT CAUSED A SMALL EARTHQUAKE, THIS IS PROBABLY A BAD IDEA

CANT YOU JUST EXAMINE ONE, ISNT THAT GOOD ENOUGH

YOURE NOT HELPING

three hours and we're still stuck in the fucking prologue. fortunately we're almost done, probably

incidentally, did you know you can change the color of the text boxes in this game?

.... i cant make it the same color as steroidusr :(

anyway back to collecting these extremely dangerous world-destroying artifacts for funsies

UH-OH! NOBODY SAW THIS TWIST COMING

(i figured out how to cap all those adorable little emoji balloons, thanks to the miracle of save states. youre welcome.)

im pretty sure we'd have to hop through here to get to the last one, but....

unlike us, who only meant to simply borrow all of them at once, which surely would have no repercussions

how dare you overhear the plans we were loudly discussing nearby your house! ...and to you, at your house. wait what

hey it's the third dude who was with them who we only know about through optional and easily-missable conversations

...i just realized saturos has a blue undercut. too bad they dont have blogs in weyard.....

what if we just... gently put all the stars back. golden sun solved

so, uh.... if youre gonna have a dramatic "i thought you were dead" reveal you probably shouldnt have it this early in the game

like this is clearly meant to be an emotional scene, but we never got any time to actually, like... get attached to felix? which couldve still worked if we'd gotten time for Green Mask Guy to develop instead, and establish him as our enemy, or something then, plot twist, he was jenna's brother all along! ... which would work even better if we kept jenna around and she didnt get kidnapped like, have them kidnap garet or something, idk, jenna's a fire adept too so she could easily fill that party role anyway this way the Big Reveal would have way much more impact, and--

oh ok

yes, we definitely shouldve let garet get kidnapped instead

oh right, there's a fourth one too. alex does almost nothing of value through the entire game, yet somehow by the end he's the most important character ever, despite still having done almost nothing of value. he's also in the third game. he's still useless.

what do you mean "oh great", you were just about to hand them over anyway

are you guys, like, allergic to these things??? like you cant hold them yourselves if theyre not in bags????

YOU CAN FLY. YOU ARE FLYING RIGHT NOW. NO, I DONT UNDERSTAND!!!!

also, yes, the only way to the mars star is through here. so until we got it, they were planning to "hide", out in the open, in a place we would soon be walking through, right in front of the path we'd be coming to that place through

you guys couldnt have, like, waited back in the sanctum to ambush us or something? no? no. of course not.

WELL, YES,

also, shockingly, that star is never actually getting to that merry band of thieves. sorry for spoiling such an amazing twist.

--where it will stay, taking up an inventory slot, useless, for the entire game.

fun fact: golden sun, like the first generation of pokemon games, has no key item slot. we all remember how that went in engreen... also, each character has a separate inventory, which other characters cant access. so if, for example,  you have four herbs, you can either stack them all in one character's inventory, or spread them out among everyone. if you want to save inventory space, the first option seems the most reasonable... until the guy holding all the herbs dies in battle.

................i miss etrian odyssey

oh also the cave is collapsing now and we're all going to die

(does a thing) uh-oh! that fucked everything up! how could this happen! (does exact same thing three years later) uh-oh! that fucked everyth

WHO'S THAT POKEMON?

:(

anyway this guy's important, and he saves us later, but also tries to get us killed by a dragon for some reason?

he also blinks more than any documented living creature in the universe, as evidenced by these screencaps

how the fuck are you planning to get the mars star then

YEAH NO KIDDING

WELL WE DEFINITELY WILL BE IF WE KEEP STANDING AROUND TALKING ABOUT IT

THAT'S WHAT IM TRYING TO TELL HIM

hey, you know what a good place for this text box would be? right up there, completely obscuring the fucking speaker "uh, there's plenty of space there in the bottom corner--" "RIGHT. UP. THERE."

oh man ok alright here it comes

i fucking love golden sun

If the Elemental Stars ignite the flames of the four lighthouses, that power will be released. As long as the four lighthouses remain unlit...

im not sure why he's leaving out the part about the world eroding and inevitably being destroyed if alchemy doesnt get released? (minor details, i guess)

"seriously, there arent any characters over there at all, we could easily--" "COVER THAT FUCKER UP"

so he teleports us back to the sanctum. what a nice floating roc--

garet youre kind of a dick

i guess all the monsters evacuated, because no battles are happening. goodbye, experience points....

(there's an eruption. the mountain is erupting. youll have to take our word for it.)

"multiple times, actually. those googly-eye mushrooms are vicious"

WHY ARE THEY JUST CASUALLY STROLLING OUT OF AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS ERUPTING VOLCANO

I CHOSE "YES” AS A JOKE BUT THEY ACTUALLY START TO CASUALLY STROLL RIGHT BACK UP

mom will you please stop being such a negative nancy

im not sure garet "what's an ocean" lastname even realizes other towns exist

The elemental lighthouses will loose that power upon the world. Once the power of the gems has been released, the whole world will...

i see the wise one is omitting that one li'l detail about alchemy actually being a good thing again

"the entire world could be completely destroyed" "darn :///"

"we cant wait around for someone to save us. isaac, go save us"

well, it's been quite a ride, but that's it for golden sun! if you enjoyed this livetweet, make sure to like, comment and fol--

-----siiiiigh.

we're fucked.

"SWEET JESUS GARET THAT'S NOT AN ORANGE, YOURE EATING THE MARS STAR"

anyway isaac's mom is disowning her son until he saves the world or whatever, but not before having this delivered to him

JUST LEAVE, GET OUT OF HERE

[harmonization]

akidono replied to your post: akidono replied to your post: (Comments are in...

It’s great that you offer your perspective and your desire for representative on characters and actors. It’s true what you said regarding the fandom or at least the one on Tumblr. I’m not Indonesian but I’m the curious types who like to read tidbits on the historical backgrounds fans wrire regarding to the period Magnus would have grown up in, or at least lived through if he was older than 400+

That’s great that you have that curiosity in you! Although I do think you’re right about the likelihood of them only offering like five minutes’ worth of flashback in the end (at least in season 2B), I do hope that they’ll offer more bits and pieces throughout the series as a whole. I’m also keen to share my and my parents’ knowledge/perspective if the show decides to show anything that’s Indonesian in particular, e.g. any more artifacts like the keris (my mom doesn’t watch the show but when I showed her a screencap of Magnus with the keris and explained his origins briefly, she had a lot to say about it!), or anything that Magnus happens to say, or any cultural element that’s alluded to, etc. etc.

The great thing about having a character who’s centuries old is that there’s so much history and backstory to explore. I think it’d honestly be a waste if the show didn’t get to touch on a lot of it :( so fingers crossed that they’ll deliver!

[nofomoartworld]

Gerard Way’s ‘Doom Patrol’ Comic Continues to Amaze

Panel selection from Doom Patrol #4. Illustrated by Nick Derington, colors by Tamra Bonvillain. Screencap via the author

Each week, The Creators Project seeks out the best and brightest from the comics industry.

Kelly Thompson is the writer of an astonishing four comics currently on shelves: Jem and the Holograms, The Misfits, Mega Princess, and Hawkeye for Marvel. This week, she speaks to The Creators Project about some of her favorite new comics and what she thinks of the industry as a whole. “I buy far more books every week than I can possibly stay on top of,” Thompson explains, “so I am always falling behind. As much as reading comics inspires me and is important to creating great comics, there's also some truth that if I'm busy reading comics I'm not busy enough writing them. It's a tough balance!” She’s particularly excited for “the re-publishing of the book Loose Ends #1 by Jason Latour, Chris Brunner, and Rico Renzi... I also bought and read Saga #42, which is remains one of the most amazing books around. The consistency in the storytelling, the emotional investment it’s managed, not to mention the insanely creative world building is second to none. Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan are the ultimate dream team. Wonder Woman #15. I haven't actually read it yet this week, but it's top of my pile when I get back to my ‘stack.’”

When asked about the state of current comics, Kelly Thompson says she’s conflicted. “On the one hand I think there are more great, interesting, smart, and innovative books out there than ever before,” says Thompson. “We've got an absolute embarrassment of riches, especially on the creator-owned front. On the other hand, apparently you maybe can have too much of a good thing? I think market saturation is making it harder than ever for some of those great books—creator owned and licensed —to be sustainable. The comic market remains a pretty niche industry and X number of people only have X number of dollars to spend and when there's so much out there, something’s got to give. Which makes it more important than ever to work toward expanding the industry and diversifying. Change is painful but it's vital in order to have growth.”

Reviewed this week: the impeccable Doom Patrol, a fast and fun G. I. Joe comic, beautiful manga artwork, and snow-covered Hellboy.

Doom Patrol #4

Cover for Doom Patrol #4. Illustrated by Nick Derington. Photo courtesy DC Comics/Young Animal.

The wonderfully strange comic reboot about misfit heroes on the periphery of the DC Universe returns with issue #4, written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Nick Derington. This issue focuses on an interstellar jailbreak, the surprise loss of a limb, and a convention of negative spirits. Way continues to tell a pleasantly complex story, and Nick Derington’s artwork has reached its apex in this issue. His linework, panel layout and composition, and effortless style (matched with Tamra Bonvillain’s colors) are some of the best in the business right now, and couldn't have found a better fit than Doom Patrol. As a bonus, this issue features a few extra pages of illustrations by pop culture artist Brandon Bird (of the Jerry Orbach Memorial Art Car fame) entitled “Bane’s Coloring Corner.” The pages feature coloring book-style illustrations of Bane giving life affirming lessons to the reader/colorer. It’s a perfect ending to one of the best comics of the month, and an absolute must-read.

G.I. Joe #2

Cover for G.I. Joe #2. Illustrated by Aaron Conley. Photo courtesy IDW Comics.

Written by Aubrey Sitterson (who spoke with us about his favorite new comics a few weeks back) and illustrated by Giannis Milonogiannis, the new G.I. Joe series for IDW is pure nostalgia and playfulness. Sitterson writes his Joes with big, bold personalities, and Milonogiannis draws them in a way so action-oriented they may as well have 16 points of articulation. This issue sees the team splitting up between an evil biker gang in Mongolia and a group of anarchists using dangerous symbology in Athens, Greece. There isn’t much angst, and this isn’t a “darker take” on G.I. Joe. Instead, it’s all action, all intrigue, and will absolutely scratch that Saturday morning cartoon itch.

Manga of the Week: Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth Side: P4 #23

Cover for Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth Side: P4 #23. Illustrated by Mizunomoto. Image courtesy Kodansha Comics

Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth Side: P4 #23 is the latest chapter in a manga based on the Persona series of role-playing video games. The story of Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth, essentially, follows groups of characters from various Persona games as they’re trapped in a maze full of monsters. This issue sees them battling against a giant clock-monster, and even though the plot could be plenty confusing for the uninitiated, the artwork is perfect for the genre. It’s fast-paced, frenetic, and completely captures a nice video game aesthetic. If the story sounds interesting, readers should go and read back volumes. But if there are readers out there who want to soak in some incredible action illustration, this issue #23 is highly recommended.

Hellboy Winter Special 2017

Cover for Hellboy Winter Special 2017. Illustrated by Sebastian Fiumara and Dave Stewart. Photo courtesy Dark Horse Comics

This year’s Hellboy Winter Special features three short tales all set at varying times in the Hellboy universe. The first takes place in 1891 and concerns a freak snowstorm and the odd artifact that may have caused it; the second takes place in the 1960s and features a possessed Santa Claus; and the third is set in 1979 and features a chilling witch story. All three, though short, are perfect little tales, tightly-wound and clicking along like clockwork. The artists for each perfectly match the story and writing style, and the end result is a comic that offers up tons of fan service to die-hards, and is still a blast to read for newcomers.

Panel selection from Hellboy Winter Special 2017. Illustrated by Sebastian Fiumara. Screencap via the author

What were your favorite pulls of the week? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter: @CreatorsProject

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