#because it was clear that all the actual lore was delivered there

[giriduck]

The article is a good read about various types of game design. Super interesting!

ive been gathering sources on loz development for a while now and i want to finish writing an essay at some point on. basically Why I Think Loz Is The Way It Is, but in the mean time i wanna drop one of my favorite articles here related to zelda development & writing, which is this WIRED interview with a staff member named Yoshiaki Koizumi, who i wish more people knew about. and it’s not like a huge revelation or anything and Koizumi isnt the only person on the team who has ever cared about the games, but i think his work & commentary on the series helps add some context a lot of people are looking for, and at some point i might compile a larger list of interesting articles to check out. but this is a good one lol

[neiptune]

it’s valentine’s day, you clown

cw: 1.2k wc, blank blogs don't interact, something something your volleyball superstar boyfriend tooru flies home to surprise you only to pass out on your bed, this is my first ever hq fic and it's a complete coincidence that it's about him please be nice and don't make any assumptions

thank you @moondust-lore for reading this 🤍

His breathing stays regular and quiet as you crawl onto the mattress. Your bed is still somehow comically small and far from ideal to accomodate that unique ensemble of long limbs, sturdy muscles and swooping brown hair. Yet his sleep is serene, features relaxed that fill your chest with warmth that almost prompts your fingers to run through smooth locks. How have they not been rendered thicker or dry by the sea salt yet?

You’re careful as you snuggle closer to his broad back, not really wanting to wake him up. A small smile creeps onto your lips at the thought of how tired he must’ve been, couldn’t even bother to properly slip underneath the covers, knocked out in seconds. Flying all the way to Japan, travelling for almost 24 full hours to surprise someone must do that to a person.

The shock has worn out, the sensation of your heart being one second from bursting and exploding into a million golden confetti has dimmed. Now your head feels clear enough for your mind to be focusing on the important stuff, the mundane thoughts you didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on for months are a messy but colorful vortex. Would he like the usual for dinner? Does the uniform or any shirts need some ironing? Yes, yes, Tooru favors dry cleaners because they’re practical and he’s rich but you desperately want to contribute. You want proof that he’s home, actually home. With his big designer suitcases and wrinkled shirts and ridiculously expensive glasses and a smile that still shifts your world’s axis.

You allow yourself to scoot closer, until your nose brushes against his shoulder. He radiates a comforting  warmth and smells nice as always. Of sunscreen, beaches, the cologne you have bought for his birthday. As you shut your eyes, memories from the previous night start slowly blurring the edges of your consciousness and lull you to sleep.

“Shit! Fuck!” you jolt awake at the unexpected profanities, the last thing you remember dreaming about including tanned skin and a much more peaceful scenery made of rolling waves and golden, powdery sand.

“What… what’s wrong?!”

Oikawa Tooru is looking at your with what could be only defined as a glare. Eyes squinted, accusatory worry lines and all.

“You let me sleep? Why were you sleeping too instead of waking me up? It’s late!” his pitch gets higher with each word and by the end of the fully formed sentence you’re grimacing. The awfully old digital alarm clock on your nighstand flashes a red 11:05 PM.

“I’m sorry!” you panic “I didn’t mean to fall asleep! I know it’s late but I can probably put something together for dinner anyway? Are you that hungry? Wait, actually, let me get something delivered and…”

Now he’s staring with an openly outraged look on his pretty face, which makes you think finishing the thought probably isn’t the smartest idea.

“You… don’t want me to order in? I mean, fine, you can pick any local restaurant or takeaway, I don’t really ca-”

“Are you stupid?”

Ok, well. That feels unfair.

“I already apologized for falling asleep, no need to be a jerk” now you’re squinting your eyes at him. One eye. The other is being relentlessly rubbed.

“You’re right” he sighs and his massive shoulders slump, head hanging low like a wounded animal “it’s not your fault. I’m the dumb one. Couldn’t even set an alarm”

“I think you’re blowing this out of proportion, we can still eat something. If you’re worrying about your sleep schedule, I’m sure I can find some sleeping pills or…”

Oikawa looks at you, exasperated.

“That’s definitely not what I’m worried about”

“What the hell are you worried about, then?”

“It’s valentine’s day, you clown”

You blink back your surprise, his fond eye roll not easing the heat that takes over your face as realization finally dawns on you. “That’s… that’s why you flew here?”

Tooru leans forward to lightly flick your forehead. A car passes down the street, the light bleeding through your shades brightens the room for a moment and you catch the sincere amusement in his eyes.

“Yes, darling dearest. That’s exactly why I flew here. I was also supposed to make plans, take you out on a proper date, rob a flower shop from the inside out instead of passing out and drooling on your favorite duvet”

You stare back at his comical frown for a few seconds more before falling back into your pillows with a chuckle.

“Glad you think this is funny and not irredeemably gross. Stop giggling, let me think. I’m gonna go buy the most expensive champagne bottle and pick dandelions along the fucking sidewalk if I have to, and then-”

“Tooru”

“What?” he’s already swinging one leg over the edge of the bed “I’ll be quick”

“You’re here”

Oikawa snorts.

“Yes, I’m still here. Now, if you could kindly let go of my shirt…”

“I don’t want any of those things. You know I don’t want them”

He huffs and air comes out of his nose. “Yeah, I know. But I wanted it to be special” his tone is petulant but you recognize the real thing vibrating underneath, the genuine disappointment.

“It’s already special because you’re here. The only thing that could make it extra special is you filling this cold, empty spot next to me” you pat the covers with a lenient smile and Oikawa allows himself three seconds, three entire seconds to sulk and flash you those big, wet, sopping eyes with a pout that makes him less of a volleyball superstar and more of a kicked labrador puppy.

You welcome his painfully heavy body on top of yours, sharp angles and hard muscles that somehow melt perfectly in your embrace. He’s holding you so tight, head buried in the crook of your neck, soft hair tickling your cheek.

“I’m sorry” Tooru murmurs the apology quietly and seals it into your skin. You know he truly is, devastated as he always gets when something doesn’t go according to the plan. Always one for grandiose gestures and loud displays of affection, chasing whatever it takes to validate how he feels just in case the other person needs proof, always additional proof heaven forbid they feel neglected or get bored. His confidence wavering, his mind always running 100 miles an hour. Am I doing enough? Am I still enough?

“I love you” you reply for good measure and his arms tighten around your body.

But do I deserve it?

“Thank you for flying across the planet to get to me” you smile into his hair before kissing the side of his head “I missed you”

“I’d fly across the solar system to get to you” he’s smiling too, it’s in his voice.

“Corny” with a grin, you pinch his cheek until he looks up with an exaggerated, pained groan. But before he has the chance to protest, you take his disgustingly pretty face in your hands. 

“Wherever you fly from, I’ll be there to welcome you home”

Tooru smiles into the kiss, chases your lips when you relax back into the pillows.

And I’ll spend my life trying to deserve it.

Good thing he has at least five different Havanna Alfajores variety boxes somewhere in one of those suitcases. And two tickets to fly back to Argentina.

[ravensvirginity]

Titans #15 Review

Oh my god. Where do I even begin.

To start with my one and only positive: the art is gorgeous. Lucas Meyer is the best artist the Titans have had in ages, and his new Raven design really delivered. I'm so sad that it appears that the artist who'll be taking over for him in #16 is undoing his design changes, I think it's a massive shame. I did appreciate the detail of Raven's white cloak design having rings on her index fingers, but it feels a little pointless without the lore of Azar's rings to back it up.

Now, the negatives: literally everything else about this comic. This comic fails to deliver on an eight issue arc in any kind of satisfying way, has a bizarre and out of character tone, and severely misunderstands the lore of its main villain. They literally defeated Trigon with the power of friendship. Maybe that could work in Teen Titans Go, but in a main timeline DC comic? What?

First, the demon Raven stuff. Gar saying that demon Raven and regular Raven aren't two different people--yeah, obviously. The severe degree of separation between demon Raven and regular Raven has been one of the big issues of this arc, and this conclusion is as unsatisfying as the rest of it. Raven and her demon side being able to talk face to face isn't new, but them being two separate people with separate physical bodies who can operate completely independently of each other--while there is some precident for this, to me it's a very strange writing choice and misses the point of a demon Raven arc.

The original idea of Raven and her demon side was that her demon side is her. It's all the worst instincts she inherited from Trigon locked up and carefully controlled. When Trigon takes control of her and turns her into her demon form, everything she's repressed, both good and bad, is released. Raven still having a soft spot for the Titans in her demon form makes sense; she's still Raven, just corrupted by Trigon into something she isn't. Raven deciding to stop being evil (not that she even really was) and going back to normal from one brief conversation with her teammate does not, and is really anticlimactic.

It's just such a waste of the story's potential. If you don't want to commit to Raven being the villain of the story, don't do a demon Raven arc! It's possible to do a Trigon story without Raven being evil, I don't get why they didn't just do that. None of the drama with Raven being evil was particularly well executed, and all it seemed to do was drag the comic on longer and longer with nothing actually happening, because they were unwilling to make Raven actually do anything villanous.

All that pales in comparison to how they defeated Trigon. I don't think I've ever seen such blatant disregard for previous canon. As Raven, powered up by the other Titans, fights Trigon, Gar narrates as follows:

"I doubt Trigon has ever been in a fight. An actual fight. With someone his own size and power level. Never had to face someone like Nightwing one-on-one. Never tried to stand while being pinned by the power of Donna Troy's will. Never been blasted... with a giant-sized Apokoliptian blast from Cyborg. And never, ever... felt the full force of a Tamaranean hit powered by the stars."

WHAT?

This comic canonically takes place in the same timeline as the New Teen Titans. There are many homages to the New Teen Titans. It has been made very clear that the team started as the New Teen Titans, and then after many, many years of crazy comic book history the team reformed as the Titans of this run.

The first ever Trigon arc that introduces him and Raven as characters takes place in the first six issues of the New Teen Titans, and culminates in Trigon being defeated by the Titans and thrown into an interdimensional prison. I can't stress this enough: literally every single one of the things Gar said have never happened to Trigon happen in that fight. Donna uses her lasso to dampen Trigon's will, in combination with Raven and Arella's empathic abilities. Wally rips a hole through the fabric of reality to throw Trigon into, and Kory and Vic connect their powers to amplify their blasts to throw Trigon into the interdimensional rift. The whole thing is coordinated and managed by Dick Grayson (who was still Robin at the time).

Gar was there when all this happened. There is no reason for him to not know that this happened. The only explanation is Tom Taylor doesn't know, or he doesn't care. This would be disappointing for any comic book run, but it leaves an especially sour taste in my mouth for this to happen in a run that's so built on NTT homages. It's clear that the writing could not care less about the comic it was inspired by.

And then Garth causes Trigon to have a heart attack. Okay, that was just stupid. Admittedly, I did think the page of Raven stabbing Trigon was cool (again, the art is really the only saving grace here), but her saying "Fuck you, Dad"? Seriously? An ongoing problem in this run has been the dialog feeling janky and too much like lines from a generic superhero movie, and this line embodies that very well. I'm not opposed to swearing in comic books, but to me, this is not the right time for it. It doesn't fit the moment, and I think it's quite out of character for Raven, even if the sentiment behind it isn't.

And then Trigon isn't even dead? What does "Demons don't die. They just fade away." even mean?? Is he dead or not? Will he come back tomorrow or in a thousand years? It's such a strange, confusing letdown of an ending.

I didn't have high hopes for this issue, but it was somehow worse than I could ever have imagined. I'm so glad that this run is getting a new writer. Here's hoping that the coming issues will actually feel like a team book, and that the decades of lore and characterization of these beloved characters will actually be considered during writing.

[dice-sociation]

AP Review: Reckless Attack - Main Campaign

Listen Here: https://www.recklessattack.com/episodes/

Quick info:

Audio Quality: High Quality and Edited, Effects, Music. Vibes: Lord of the Rings, Ghibli, Never Ending Story, Avatar the Last Airbender, Frogs Extras: Discord and Patreon rewards. System: 5e DnD Average Episode time: 1 hour Uploads 1 Episode per week. Campaign/ Show Length: Long Term Campaign Platforms: Podcast, Audio Only. Accessibility: Content Warnings Language available: English Diversity: AAPI/BIPOC Number of Episodes Review is based on: 100 (This is my first review so I decided to start with a Podcast I’m already caught up on) ** If you want the TLDR, scroll to the bottom of the post **

Why Reckless Attack?

I honestly believe that part of the draw of listening to people play a TTRPG is not just the story telling but an assurance that adults can somehow actually and consistently come together, in person, to pull off a full long term game. Reckless Attack is one such podcast. They are a small indie podcast with excellent audio quality and editing. 

But, why should you listen to another high fantasy podcast? Well, have you ever wanted to see what a post-apocalyptic High Fantasy world would look like? The deeper you delve into Reckless Attack, the deeper the lore gets, and we have barely scratched the surface a hundred episodes in. You’ll join the players as they explore a world recovering from an apocalyptic event, ripe with magic and unstable artifacts, an undead army, and frogs.

Starting The Pod

Right out the gate, the listeners are greeted by a Lord of the Rings style opening monologue, giving relevant history and context to the kind of place the characters live in. I personally get the feeling a lot of the world was established in a previous game or between the DM and players prior to the start of this campaign. If, as a listener, it feels like you're missing something, don't worry; you'll get a lot more context down the road, especially once the players make it to the city of Agmar (Episode 15). The first 15 episodes are a nice slow build up. 

Conveniently, the first recap episode covers Episode 1-14! (Though I really enjoyed the first 14 episodes, I know not everyone has the amount of listening time I have). If you are so inclined to start from the first episode, you'll get nicely eased into the characters and their relationships with one another before a lot of the bigger world building really starts to soar.

(My one caveat is that I listen to this podcast at 1.3-1.4 speed since the players and Nathan speak with a good amount of pauses, and that can be a little too slow for me.)

About the Team

Nathan, the DM for the main campaign, paints some amazing pictures of his homebrew world. He has a real talent for creating larger than life NPCs and Big Baddies for his players to interact with. They all have clear motivations, flaws, and personalities that truly rounds out the overall story. When it comes to plot, Nathan kept me on my toes with plot twists that would literally snap me out of whatever multitasking I was doing. And I must recognize how often Nathan opens the floor for the players to build parts of the story and describe longer stretches of downtime. Those moments are like the equivalent of cinematic montages to represent the passing of time.

The players, Sophie, Steve, David, and Jonathan, deliver wonderful descriptions and leave plenty of space for each other to speak, balanced with just the right amount of crosstalk. Each character has a very unique voice which is helpful for listeners (especially because David and Jonathan are twins and have similar voices).

Sophie plays Valeska Carter, the Human * Cleric. "Valeska is a young woman in search of answers. Like, compulsively."* I quickly fell in love with Val, an exhausted nerd who can never have enough notes and organization. If you're the kind of person who is always rescuing animals, you will love her too. 

Steve plays Selv Asterlin, the Dragonborn Monk. "Selv’s years at his town’s icy mountain monastery has trained not just his body, but also his mind and emotions. The large dragonborn seeks to be a peacemaker in conflicts, exuding strength, calm and serenity while straying away from violence and lethal force when possible."* But don't be fooled, Selv is often one for the occasional good prank, and I always appreciate Steve's references even when the rest of the group don't understand them. (I got you Steve) 

David plays Kascorin "Kass" Brightmane, the Dwarven Warlock. "Tomorrow (Kass leaves) this city for the Golden Tree adventuring guild, and in leaving this city, (He leaves his) friends, (his) family, and (his) comfortable life behind."* Kass is very grounded, serious, and focused, until he runs into tasty dried meats. Kass has all the charm of a warlock and the grit of a soldier. 

Jonathan plays Checkers, the Gung Druid, with his trusty pals Mango and Junior. "Joining the Golden Tree adventuring guild on a dare, Checkers and his frog pal Mango are here to prove that it’s better to find your own path than to follow someone else’s. After all, where’s the fun in looking before you leap?"* Checkers is a lot like the characters I personally play. Someone who doesn't stand around for too much planning and prefers to "leap" into action. In my very humble opinion, every group needs an instigator. 

I have also come to really admire the level of trust and respect the group has for one another. They handle both wonderful whimsical beats as well as solemn moments with great care (Episode 108 was magnificent.)

*Quoted from the official Reckless Attack website. You can find this and more at their website www.recklessattack.com. (Be aware, reading the available character sheets may contain spoilers)

About the World

Ryxia is built on a world where long ago, the Gods walked among mortals, but one day they left. As if in consequence, magic in this world seems to ebb and flow, and monsters roam the wilds. Until, the "second of Ryxia’s twin suns disappeared from the sky, the Ultragiants appeared, and the Pentarchy’s great capital city of Narhasur was turned into a smoldering crater." *

You can think of the Ultra Giants as the Titans of this world, being elemental and colossal. These Ultra Giants terrorized mortals until one day, the mortals managed to kill one " wielding their city’s Object of Focus… The object was destroyed, as was much of the army. But strangely, within days, the Ultragiants no longer stalked Ryxia."*

As the mortals re-emerged, they started to rebuild despite the incredible amount of monsters who now roam the lands. 

*Quoted from the official Reckless Attack website. You can find this and more at their website www.recklessattack.com. (Be aware, reading the available character sheets may contain spoilers)

Extras

Aside from the main campaign Nathan has his own series called Reckless A-Talk. This series Nathan or others on the team interview incredible people from all over the TTRPG space. Nathan's style of interviewing is mostly allowing his guest to speak more than he does, followed by the wonderful lightning round questions. I highly recommend listening to these (as a little treat) if you are interested in learning other perspectives and other aspects of the industry. 

Bonus one shots are another part of Reckless Attack, allowing the players to take the reigns.  They serve as fun filler for when you just can't wait for the next episode to drop. 

And if that's still not enough content for you, you can always subscribe to their Patreon for even more content, including the very relaxed Reckless A-Snack.

TLDR

High Fantasy world rebuilding the world after mortals were nearly wiped out.

Listeners will get a good feel of the world within the first 14 episodes. (IMO, the pacing starts to pick up after Episode 14)

Here are "Tale Til Now," recap episodes for those who want to catch up faster. (Episodes 1-14, 14-42, 42-66, 67-84)

Non Player Characters are larger than life, with clear motives and personalities.

The Dungeon Master and Players share a lot of world building and you can feel the love and trust they have for each other.

Recommended listening at 1.3x-1.5x speed if you are one of those people (you know who you are).

Find more details about the world and characters at www.recklessattack.com.

Lots of extra content for those who just need more, including; interviews, one-shots run by the players, and patreon bonus content. https://www.patreon.com/recklessattack/home

Do you have ideas or suggestions? Please feel free to comment!

Special thanks to Artax of Who's Taking Watch for helping with editing!

No Context Spoilers:

[shihalyfie]

I've alluded to tri. having some very troubled production behind the scenes, and among everything that apparently went on back there, there seem to have been at least two major bottlenecks: 1) the fact that the director (who, based on his own statements about deliberately not consulting source material, most likely didn't even watch Adventure to begin with) kept asking everyone to make things more "mature" without being clear on what that actually meant, and 2) the fact they ran out of budget and had to rewrite the entire plot halfway into it. Even the most brilliant of creators probably wouldn't be able to work at their best under such conditions.

But conversely, this also means that there were some excellent people involved in production whose efforts probably haven't been as appreciated as they should be! So I want to take a moment to spotlight some people I want to give props to:

Ayana Yuniko and Nakanishi Yasuhiro: These two scriptwriters were childhood Digimon fans who were thrilled to be on the project, and their enthusiasm clearly shows in every interview they were in. Ayana even made keen observations like noticing that the Adventure kids aren't as super-tight as people tend to make them out to be (something I've pointed out myself, and something that generally only tends to crop up among fans who have studied the series closely), and Nakanishi stated that she would slip him detailed notes about the characters and their relationships.

Both of them stated they were trying to portray the Adventure characters in a character-accurate way but kept getting their scripts rejected for not being "mature" enough, leaving them unsure about what they were supposed to do. Their roles on the series were also limited; Ayana was on parts 1, 2, and 4 while Nakanishi was on part 4 only, and they were sharing the scriptwriter role with multiple others (even within a single movie). But if I were asked to pick who on the staff list I would want to see come back for another Digimon work, it would absolutely be these two.

Kakikara Yuuko: The one in charge of overall writing for the series. tri. had a total of five scriptwriters and could have up to four(!) on a given movie, so because of that, her statements on the series and its story direction have been a bit difficult to tell whether it was her idea personally or whether she was delivering the writing room's discussion result. But one of her final statements on the series basically amounted to "I'm grateful if you even came to watch it to the end at all," and she was quite humble about saying she felt things could have been done differently; considering it sounds like she had a hard time keeping everyone and everything in order, I can only imagine she went through a lot trying to make sure everything ended safely. Incidentally, her writing portfolio is also quite respectable (and even includes kids' shows).

Suzuki Takaaki: The person with the job of "setting researcher", i.e. the one with the job of looking into the lore. Sadly, it seems like most of his ideas didn't make it into the final series (possibly because of the budget loss-induced rewrite), but his one solo interview indicates that he put quite a bit of conscientious thought into how Digital World lore works, including the idea of an EMP weapon that would affect Digimon easily but not humans (an idea that doesn't pop up among fans as often as you'd think, and took up until last year to make it into actual Adventure material via Takeru's 02TB in-universe fanfic).

Sakabe Gou: The person in charge of the series BGM. We haven't heard a lot from him, but the little we have indicates that although he also had difficulty understanding what the director was asking for when he wanted "mature" music of some kind, he himself put some very thorough thought put into the composition. In particular, he went into detail regarding the music used at the beginning of part 4, which seems to be a fan-favorite track from what I've seen (it's also my favorite too!). Sakabe also has an extensive and respectable portfolio outside Digimon; in particular, he's very highly regarded in Kamen Rider circles, so if you have a friend who's a fan, it might be a good idea to ask them about it!

[thefirstknife]

So, is there a "prevailing" idea/theory/lore fact on why Osiris and Saint have different memories of things? That he really isn't "our" Saint, or that he and Osiris just remember things differently because even IRL people who were there for the same thing can remember it happening in different ways since memory isn't infallible? Something else? (I don't personally think it changes that Saint is Saint--unless he was pulled from a timeline where he had radically different experiences that would shape him into a wildly different person, he's still himself at his core across all those timelines that would lead to him being the same person.)

From what I've seen, most people just assume that the Conductor is correct and Osiris fucked up or something and we saved the wrong Saint.

Personally, I think it's more complicated than that, especially with today's reveal about the Saint that died. Originally, it was never cleared up if us saving Saint completely overwrote his death. Like, we didn't know if his grave would simply be gone after we saved him. It appears not (or at least that's what Ikora believes; Ikora is convinced we'll find his body there)! Which is really interesting because there's several really complex things involved, most notably the time paradox.

This is really difficult to get across but basically, we can pretend that the original Saint that died is Saint 1 and the one we saved is Saint 2. Saint 1 must've met us because we found the remains of the Perfect Paradox on his body. We took that and crafted the gun and then delivered it to Saint 2 in another timeline who is then saved. But that creates a problem of how does Saint 1 have it; we have to give it to him too. And if we gave it to him, that means the Sundial was created and we're there. This is further complicated by the nature of the Infinite Forest as a simulation engine. The Perfect Paradox is a really big point, as is the whole actual time paradox. I think it significantly complicates the situation to go beyond the simple "oh it's just a Saint from some other timeline and we rescued a wrong one." Obviously, it depends on how detailed they want to go with this story right now.

Even if these are two different Saints, they both must've met us which sets the course for Saint's life and shouldn't really change much about it. The divergence possibly happens in regards to whether or not Osiris creates the Sundial in that timeline (but if he doesn't, then the Saint that dies can't have the Perfect Paradox on him). If Osiris' "real" Saint died and we saved another one, there should not actually be any significant difference with their memories. Their memories should NOT differ. And they didn't, until the yoke.

That means that the yoke is what caused this and if it's caused by the yoke, then we can't really fully believe anything that the Conductor put in Saint's head. So far we've seen them having diverging memories on one thing, but just before that, we saw them in complete agreement on their memories. And Saint never experienced this before with anyone else either. My conclusion is that the Conductor scoured the timelines for other Saints and fed him other memories that may exist, which naturally caused an existential crisis.

This week Saint also seems to be doing better. He exhibited other memories that we know are correct, like where and when he met us and how that all went. He also specifically doubts the Conductor's manipulation by saying that he remembers the smells and sounds of the City normally, so how can he possibly be a fake?

I wonder how they'll go about this. How in-depth they'll dig and if there's an easier explanation that I'm not seeing. I do think that a significant part of the solution will just be convincing Saint that no matter what, he is Saint who lives with Osiris right now and that's it. It doesn't matter which version he is. Saint already had some thoughts like this today in the radio!

If anyone else wants to take a crack at the time shenanigans, feel free to add!

[ennn]

How are you feeling about the aaa finale? idk I’m loving this show so much and I’m so afraid of being disappointed by the ending. I was still hoping for everyone to come back but now I’m accepting that they are gone, gone and the way it’s going Agatha’s coven will only be her and Billy and I like him but not nearly as much as I love everyone else

And then there is Rio, hopeful I’m just being too pessimistic but I fear the show will just end with her still being the antagonist, they will fight, there will be a truce and she won’t kill Agatha and Billy and they will part ways. The only way we will get that kiss is in the flashback which will be worth it but I still wanted more. idk the interviews usually makes me excited for what’s next but this time it made me conflicted

but Jac saying the show will be all about Agatha to the very end was nice to read. I can’t stand all this talk about where is wanda??? who knows but not in this show hopefully!!!

Hello Anon! Well, I would say my emotional state towards the finale has been about the same for the past few weeks, which is a mix of absolute excitement and nerves.

Probably not the best for my emotional and mental health so maybe I should be glad this is a limited series! My body certainly will be.

I was entertaining the thought of dead coven members possibly coming back but Lilia's death was so beautiful and her choice despite it being also her destiny, and her arc was about accepting the life she had and making the best of it and embracing her power.

As for Alice, it's possible she comes back, but it's also possible her character gets closure and moves on, given that we do know there's a scene with her post-death coming up. And Jac Schaeffer seems big on delivering emotional satisfaction at the end of her stories (not to say she's guaranteed to deliver, but it's her goal at least).

Putting the rest under a cut because omg this got long

I have some meta thoughts brewing about this episode's take on destiny and fate and time and death (alongside other death personifications in media) and as hinted at in the latest Schaeffer interviews, there's definitely stuff the show wants to say about it.

On another note, I've mostly processed my feelings about the tragedy of these two as star-crossed lovers in this post if you haven't read it it may help. For me it's still hard to get a read on Rio as they're building new lore with this version of Death. This is definitely not the same Lady Death from Marvel comics.

But I do think that it's actually a good thing that Agatha and Rio are getting into open conflict, the same way Agatha and Billy are having it out in the open, because the characters need to deal with their shit.

And I feel like... especially from the last episode, the show isn't setting up Death to be evil, or necessarily bad. Death is Agatha's antagonist because – as Schaeffer puts it – she refuses it, she refutes it. Lilia ran from her visions because she wanted to avoid seeing death but ultimately embraced it. Agatha's a rule-breaker, a trickster but witchcraft is inherently rooted in nature.

There isn't a simple or clear answer here on what's right or wrong, which is why I'm really interested to see how the finale unfolds. Schaeffer genuinely seems to love ambiguity and the discussions around her shows.

Like yes, Agatha and Rio are going to fight. That's not really new for them? Okay maybe the scale of this will be. But as we've seen with all these reveals, what really matters is how and why and all the details in its crafted execution.

And again, Schaeffer has said that she's aiming for an emotionally satisfying conclusion. Even if the stories for these characters continue beyond, this series is designed to stand on its own. And the Agatha-Rio relationship has been important to the show, from the very first episode.

I'll also be making a predictions post for the finale for funsies, if you want to see what my guesses and expectations are.

[munchkinmarauder]

Let's talk Magneto's letter!

I'm not marking this as spoilers because we've probably all seen the panels from Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver floating around the internet at this point (but I do apologise if I do accidentally spoil it for someone - take this as your warning to scroll past and not read this post).

So after many months of speculation as to what the letter could be and if it has big reveals the contents of the letter is not a lore changing or retcon inducing reveal but .... Drum roll please.... that Magneto thinks the twins should stay apart, that they are dangerous together (particularly that Pietro is dangerous to Wanda and Wanda coddles Pietro) and that Pietro should have stayed dead after Magneto murdered him.

Wow isn't Maggie father of the year? What a girldad!

Jokes aside and let's get this out of the way because I know a lot of the Magneto is right crowd have been calling for Orlando's head over this character assassination or trying to argue Magneto is in fact right about the twins (despite the story and the twins themselves saying otherwise) - Magneto being an abusive douchbag to his kids is the norm, we only have 60 years of their relationship in the 616 verse alone to prove this. Yes there is nuance to this that makes it all very interesting, one of the most interesting dynamics in Marvel, and I personally never expected to hear Magneto saying the silent part out loud because I do think cannon shows that he loves all his kids Pietro included (but is incapable of loving them the way a parent should), but this is simply an over exaggeration and not out of character. Its no surprise he says this to his son. It's also of note that Magneto never actually intended for the twins to see the letter or Storm would have given it to Wanda when she visited in SW#2 to deliver the news of Magneto's passing, it might have been Magneto trying to work out some feelings and opinions rather than protect them as he claims (cause again he didn't actually intend for anyone to see the letter, he sealed it shut in a box). He is justified in feeling frustrated that his last words were weaponised against his children (lol Mags being like how dare my own hurtful words were used to hurt my kids - no one hurts them but me)

Magneto is one of those genderbended boymoms that is jealous of their daughter and views then as competition. Only in this case it is with his son and the competition is for Wanda's affections. The fact is, Magneto is always going to loose that fight and he knows it.

The more I think about it the more I like that this letter wasn't a big reveal (though I'm sure the recton everyone is hoping for will come some day -I'm glad it wasn't today) but something that played into the themes of this series. Their father, the Wizard and the Giver are all saying the twins should stay apart and the story and the twins say no and prove them wrong. A lot of the twins greatest feats are reactive and evolving, tying back to the red queen hypothesis mentioned in issue 4.

On a side note if the Giver really wanted to deal with the twins she should have gone to dear old daddy Mags and he would have nipped that problem in the bud in a jiffy seeing as he and the giver are of a like mind when it comes to the twins. Technically you just need to get rid of one of them seeing as the Givers worry is about the twins together but let's see what the new Scarlet Witch solo has to say about that (I hope Pietro's role in this isn't forgotten but you can never tell with Marvel)

What the letter is is a classic case of a narcissist parent setting up a golden child and scape goat dynamic. Seeking to isolate the twins from each other. It's very clear he's self projecting onto his son (and Lorenzo Tammetta deliberately emphasises the similaries the two have in appearance to drive this fact home) and blaming Pietro for moments that happened that can apply to himself and are in fact caused by his actions for example his willingness to abandon his daughter to die and murder of his son in HoM. Both the major trigger points for the creation of the HOM verse and no more mutants. I'm not saying Magneto is souly to blame here but he does have a big contribution to what happens that he never has taken accountability for (along with the X-Men who play as victims and the avengers who did own up to what they did but otherwise keep silent about the blame the twins get from the X-Men).

A lot has been said about the impact of the letter on Pietro and I don't think I can add much more other than to emphasise how crushing that has be to hear from a parent and abuser even if you hate them. The twins helped each other survive for a very long time and we're each others everything parent, twins, best friend, protector, etc. You've spent time and energy and dedicated a portion of your life to protecting someone to the degree of making it your reason for living for a long time (please note I am not saying this is a healthy mindset for Pietro- hes taken it too far sometimes) and in a hypocritical tyraid are told it's all for nothing. Pietro handles it really well and comes out this with his head held high. Reacting calmly, expressing his love for his sister and throwing Magneto's words back at him. I think as a Quicksilver fan we can be reasonably happy with this outcome (but I do understand some fans frustration to hear Quicksilver be degraded that way and told he's bad for Wanda while she gets forced to interact with men that did treat her like shit like Vision and Magneto - however the point is that Magneto is WRONG and Wanda herself reiterates this point).

Now the one person who's screwed over by the writing and out of character in that scene is WANDA. Sure she tells Magneto he is wrong but that gentle response (even if she does react with a degree of unhappiness to see Magneto back) and effort to be neutral is so odd for her given that she sent the Wizard to a hell dimension for hurting her brother a few pages prior and has been even more vocal than Pietro in calling her father out in the past. She's as protective of her brother as he is her and I can't believe she would be written as a daddies girl and standby while a man who abused them both continues to abuse her brother.

The contents of the letter is also not great for Wanda. And I would argue is a subtler abuse tactic. Like a lot of the focus is rightly on how shitty it was for Magneto to say what he did in his letter to Pietro but we're also not considering the the negative implications it has for Wanda as well. Wanda has been working to establish herself as independent and not defined by the men in her life for so long and here is her "father", infantalising her and saying he knows better than her about her own life and what keeps her safe, that is seeking to take away from her the one pillar of support she's always had and one of if not the important relationship to her, a lot of Wanda's lowest moments did happen when Pietro wasn't even around, when everyone including Magneto abandoned her, her brother was there. The twins do have a codependency and that codependency does have it's toxic elements, Magneto touches on it but doesn't go into detail. Wanda is codasended to and told she is "coddling" her brother and everything else is Pietro's fault. The letter is worse for Pietro but it's shitty for Wanda too, she is a grown woman& a mother here is a man that abused her talking down to her, saying he knows best for her and her opinions are wrong, seeking to isolate her and undermining her authority.

The twins are right for saying Magneto is wrong but wish Wanda would get more angry at this undermining. Maybe like Pietro she is just very jaded and tired of the whole thing with Magneto. These words would be upsetting if they didn't in their own way love their father too as fucked up as it all is.

Now to be fair - does Magneto's letter have any merit? That isn't to easy to answer but in the interests of equal analysis let's try!

So I think one think that Magneto touches on but doesn't go into or outright say is the twins codependancy. He is a few years late to the party but he's been dead and their not dad for a while so well give him a small amount of leeway in his old age. I don't think the twins codependency is necessary a wholly bad thing but it does have it's nagative elements and in some cases has held the twins back. If we are to adopt a charitable approach her Magneto in his own twisted and emotionally constipated way may be trying to encourage the twins to be independent, to discourage his son from defining his self worth around his ability to protect his sister. Ofc I am reaching a bit here as Magneto could have just said this (though we'll never see the full contents of the letter - both Wanda and Mags may be summerising the worst parts of it) and done so in a way that wasnt cruel.

I also do believe that Magneto in writing those words to a degree did believe or convinced himself that he was not writing those words out of Malice and that it was an attempt to protect the twins (though I will reiterate how much it was actually intended to protect them when Magneto didn't actually intend for the twins to see the letter but at least he owns up to the fact he did write those words). In his mind he was being cruel to be kind but the narrative makes it clear that even if he had "good" intentions - he is nevertheless still fundamentally misunderstanding his children and self projecting onto his son. I'm not mad about this -its in character and I feel this letter is set up for a longer plot thread and I hope it's explored but let's see!

It certainly makes me feel that Pietro's lack of mention in RoM was extremely deliberate as was his lack of appearance in last week's FoX issue despite his cameo in the previous one to save the Magneto and Pietro reunion for this comic (the Xoffice are collaborative)

Is the writing for this scene perfect? no! Is Magneto potentially a tad one note? Yes but being a dick to his kids is in character and it's unsubtle but sometimes it needs to be.

[thekingofwinterblog]

Man the one thing Bionicle will allways have my respect for is the whole giant robot reveal amd planning, that shit was cool.

Like I never read any books or comics (just watched the movies as a kid lol) and of what I read of the lore I feel iffy, but just that idea alone is legendary

Funny thing is, the movies are actually the single WORST part of the bionicle franchise XD

Not only are the 3 good one, only decent movies at best, but they were made explicitly FOR fans, and fans alone, and has no shame about not telling you stuff because they fully expect the viewer to know all the lore through the books, the comic books, or games.

They are also absolutely terrible in terms of action, as the Toa in pretty much every other medium are stupidly powerfull, with elemental powers easily on level with an avatar state avatar if not beyond, physically capable of lifting over one ton, and as the toa mata estimated during their fights with the Bohrok swarms, while they might ultimately win if they just went all out, they would certainly destroy the island of Mata Nui(about the size of mainland denmark) in the process.

To say the movie toa arent quite on that level is... kinda an understatement XD Not to mention that the comics actually fills in scenes in between cuts in the movies, or just makes actual movie scenes better. It's kinda a mess to follow.

overall, I've always described the Bionicle franchise as the actual Star Wars extended universe. It's a whole mess of in-canon with each other stories, that has a very clear cronological flow, but would have been way better if they just made a tv series that covered the main story(which was basically the only thing bionicle DINDT have).

That said, i can tell you exactly why you think the lore is iffy. It is related one one, single sentence.

"Doing in the wizard".

Doing in the wizard, is a story telling trope, where something that was presented as magical or mystical, is later revealed(wheter it was planned or retconned in later) to actually have a mundane, scientific explanation.

And man, is Bionicle the single WORST example of this trope ever made.

So to explain this, and how it all relates to the series big twist reveal, I need to explain how Bionicle started out, and what it became over time.

Because when it began, Bionicle started out as a myth in the making.

On paper the story of the story of the six toa coming to deliver the land from a great evil is as stock as you get it.

But what made it special from day one, was that it managed to capture the feeling of a deeply spiritual tale, of faith, destiny, and myth.

The story of the six toa coming to deliver Mata Nui and his chosen people is treated, both by the narrative, and the people in it, as a great religious story, with the coming of the six Toa Mata essentially being this universe's coming of christ.

There is a moment in the mata nui online game that really encapsulates this, as when Tahu first meets the Ta-Matorans he is supposed to deliver, they attempt to trap him, and he easily breaks free, but then the fighting is halted as Vakama, the turaga(basically priest king) of the ta-matoran shows up, orders his men to stand down, after which he walks up to Tahu seemingly to talk, only to kneel down before him.

because for him this is basically the equivelant of the coming of christ. the divine prophecy that came from God himself is finally coming true.

Now Bionicle has a lot of things to love, as other than the movies, it has great action, it's characters are generally actual people with flaws and developments, and it has lots of awesome moments, amazing and deep world building that is stupidly thourough, and sweet character moments, and of course one of the biggest twists in fiction... but it is this very religious and spiritual tone that sets Bionicle apart from pretty much... everything else western childrens media has ever made.

It is this deep, unfliching and honest portrayal of a world that feels like a myth come to life that drew so many people to this story when it first came out, what ellevated it over yet another story about good and evil clashing.

The people in this story feel real, not only because they generally have actual character(some way more than others), but because they Believe in their world. as in, they believe in Mata Nui, his tennants, his story, and the six saviors he promised would come to deliver them and wake up their god.

this is how you create a real, genuine setting. it is why Bionicle has a feel to it that you never see in western childrens media(nor that often in adult either), other than some very, very few exceptions, due to our deep aversion to showintg religion to children.

and then of course there are the gods in question.

Mata Nui and Makuta. the two brothers who set this story into motion. The first who came here to this world, and created the matoran, and the second who followed him from paradise, and cast a spell that put mata nui into his current deep, deep sleep.

Now these two could have been just another set of "evil brother who who was jealous of, and hates his good brother and attempts to usurp him".

but that's not quite what we get.

When the toa Mata finally do confront Makuta, they get his perspective on it all. Now they ultimately write this off as just an evil villain trying to justify his actions... but if you actually break down what makuta is saying, he is a way more interesting villain than the very simplistic reading the devil figure the matoran believe he is.

"Destroy me? You cannot destroy me. No more than you can destroy the sea, or the wind. Or - the void."

"You are like the sea? The sea bears life! The sea bore us!"

"I bore you, for I am Nothing. And out of Nothing, you came. And it is into Nothing that you will go. I stand with Mata Nui, side by side. I am his brother. The people of the world are builders. But look into their hearts ... and you will find that they also have the power to destroy. I am that power. I am destruction. And I WILL destroy you."

ultimately, the story of the gods Mata Nui and Makuta is not the story of heaven and hell, but instead a story of yin and yang.

Mata Nui is the god of light, and that is the element that everyone associates him with... but thats not his main trait. his main trait, his defining virtue, is creation. That is what he is most famous for after all, creating the matoran and this island home for them.

Similarily, Makuta is tha god of darkness, as that is his element... but his main virtue is destrution.

as the creators themselves noted, using a lego methaphor, mata nui is the drive to create new things, to make something bigger and more interesting out of the parts you have... but Makuta is the drive to destory that creation, to take the lego set apart either before creating something new, or to put it away into the box so that you can use it later. before you create something new, you must destroy.

And this ties into the actual story as well, as one of the big main plots from the start is that to reawaken their god, one of the things that would happen, is that the toa and the matoran would have to give up on Mata Nui the island, their home, their promised land, as only by it's destruction could their god reawaken and lead them to the paradise he originally came from.

its really, really good stuff, and one of the things that ellevated Bionicle over so many other children stories.

now, you might have noticed i said, and continue to say, early bionicle.

There is a reason for that.

and it ties into two very, specific turning points in the development of the story.

the big twist that Mata Nui was actually a giant robot was always going to be the center of everything, the explanation for all the wierd mysteries of the series. Even if his final form didnt end up being quite as big as this above concept piece made him out to be, the overall point stands.

The god of the Matorans was a gigantic robot, and his childrens proper place was inside of him, both to live their lives, and to serve as part of the great ecosystem that was the universe inside of mata nui.

Mata Nui the island, which he created for the Matoran to live on, was always a temporary thing, and their true destiny was him brining them back to "Paradise", aka the great planet of the solar system this story takes place in.

Spherus Magna. a planet that was broken into 3 before he left, and left a hellscape.

his original home that he left long ago.

Now, you might have noticed that i said not a word about what Mata Nui's backstory on said planet actually was.

The only thing that is important as it was originally portrayed, was that Mata nui left the planet for whatever reason, ended up on the water filled moon he currently rests on, and his brother followed him there from paradise.

now, you could create a scenario where there was some scientific, "Mundane" reason for all of this, but if you read this summary so far, the first thought in your mind is probably that what broke this planet into 3 pieces was probably related to something Mata Nui and Makuta, the two known gods of this universe, did. Maybe it is the reason why Makuta no longer has a body, and ended up on this moon in a much weakened form as basically a spirit who can only inhabit souless machine parts.

and im going to take a wild guess that this is probably what was originally planned... but you see, there was a shift at some point. actually on two points.

The first shift was at the very start of Bionicle as we know it, for the series was actually meant to only last 1 year. The toa would defeat makuta, then awaken Mata Nui, and that was that. The end.

However, Lego, who was at the verge of bankruptcy at the time, saw potential in the setting, and given it was a hail mary to save their company said "Screw it, lets expand on this universe!

and so the original one year story became 3 years.

now this artifical extension could have been disasterous, but unlike so many other similar tales, it was the exact opposite.

Mata nui the island got more fleshed out, the big mystery got more build up, the characters got to go through more development, both in the form of a kickass new upgrade, but also character arcs as a result of their power increase going to their head.

new villains, new places to go, new developments.

all leading up to the point where it was now decided that they would end the story. The arrival of the seventh toa of light, which would be where makuta was finally defeated, and at the end of the planned movie that would be the finale, mata nui would finally awaken.

Except this part didnt happen.

at the last moment, Lego essentially pulled the plug and decided to extend the series, and the point where they would reveal the big twist for a second time.

that said, the following storyline of the big flashback to explain metru nui was always going to happen, its just that as originally envisioned, this would be a flashback as the Toa, Turaga and Matoren traveled to Metru nui, as Mata Nui was flying through space back to spherus magna.

So essentially the story was over, but lego got to get one more line of bionicle toys out of it, while the bionicle team got to have fun one more time.

But thats not what happened, as not only did mata nui not awaken(it would take 3 more storylines past this point before that happened), but the big flashback was where everything went wrong so to say.

this is where bionicle shifted hard from a story trying to be a myth with very clear religious and spiritual overtones, into full on sci-fi.

and you can tell that shift occured very clearly as they abandoned all their original plans for how metru nui was supposed to look like in the poster above, showing the very alien like enviornment that was mata nui's insides, into the far more boring and safe(as well as full on science fiction) setting in the poster below.

now im not going to say that everything that came after this point was bad, far from it, there was a lot of really awesome stuff that happened afterwards, but it was the critical turning point where Bionicle steered away from the essence that made it more than just another toyline, an attempt at creating a myth that while it had sci-fi aspects, was ultimately a story of faith, destiny, and trying to find ones place in the universe, into just another sci-fi story.

Basically you can sum it up as the point where mata nui went from a god who was also a giant robot, into just a giant robot.

and man, does it make the lore, and tone a mess.

while the new universe does make logical sense, it lacks the soul(pun very much intended) of what made bionicle, bionicle.

and you know what the really sad thing is?

The final part of the story, where Mata Nui is FINALLY awakened, only to lose his own body, and find himself trapped in his mask as its launched into space before crashing back on the shattered planet that he came from, could so easily have fit into this mythical storytelling.

what actually happens is that mata nui learns he was actually just a giant robot created by some scientis in a lab 100 000 years ago to travel the cosmos, learn about the universe, then come back and fix the broken planet. then he repairs his own, unstable, proto type body that wasnt really working out, makuta senses him and follows him, they duke it out, mata nui kills him, then uses the last of his energy to fix the planet, before dying. oh, also rather than being his actual brother, makuta was actually just a computer program mata nui created. and Makuta isnt even his real name. his actual name is Teridax. im not kidding. oh and the actual thing that destroyed the world? it was a fight amongst some tribesmen using the resident dues ex machina substance that began oozing from the planet's core. again, im not kidding.

here is how you could easily fix it, while keeping in the same tone with what was suggested in the first three years about makuta and mata nui's origins.

The exiled and humbled divine being, cast from heaven, and forced to wander the world he himself played a role in wrecking so long ago, as he travels across the world, and befriends the people he essentially left behind to create the matoran in a better place, rather than fix the mess he, ironically enough given his defining attribute, created.

basically a bionicle take on the atonement/labors of hercules.

and then, having wracked his brain on how to solve the problem of his brother having taken control over his own body, he stumbles upon the solution.

his brother's own, broken, non-active body, which after their ancienct, and catacylsmic clash his brother left behind to follow him to the ocean moon.

and so his journey becomes to essentially take a page out of his brothers book, and do what he did to him in reverse. Repair the mighty body of a god, and then take contrel over it.

after the great journey of hardship and pain, now comes the ressurection before ragnarok, the final battle.

see how easy it is to rewrite this story about what is essentially two computer programs fighting over different continent sized bodies into a story about gods fighting a thematic and climactic showdown on the ruins of a planet they themselves wrecked to pieces to begin with?

but of course the story has to end, and it ends on a note tying into the original message. you cannot create, withouth destruction coming first, and so to win this conflict, mata nui has to destroy something. himself.

His own body.

Like any good jesus analogue, he gives his own life in a sense, as he chooses to give up on the possibility of regaining his own body and with it, regaining his true power and goodhood for the sake of the future of his people and this planet, driving his own skull into the oncoming moon that served as his home for all these years.

and with his final bit of power as his brother's dying body begins to give up on life, he spends the last moments of godhood to do what he, the god of creation should have done from the start. fix the mess he and makuta left behind.

putting the massive planet back together into one whole, while also terraforming it into the green wonder it used to be.

then, we end the story as we began. with a prophecy, where Mata Nui predicts before his toa, as his spirit returns to slumber once again that he will return, but for now, they must make their way forward withouth him, in this new world, that they now must make their own destiny here on the Paradise he promised them so long ago.

I dont know about you, but i think that would have been a lot more interesting that desperately trying to rewrite the entire setting to be full sci-fi because you didnt want to continue with the spiritual and religious themes that you never managed to shake off anyway.

mind you, it's not impossible to have this kind of twist and make a good story about it, but when you commit to telling what is essentially a religious tale that is basically the coming of christ, Ragnarok, the exodus, and the eternal kingdom on earth into one, you are not going to be able to swerve into making it full on sci-fi withouth it feeling, really, really jarring.

And guess what? it makes Bionicle Lore feel really, really jarring. Or iffy as you put it.

[pruneunfair]

Oc's for my Au.

Malori Hemsley, Age:20

one of the many maids working at the palace of the Fahlgren empire (I renamed the eastern empire). Former slave of Nian and her husband, her job doubles as security since she knows how to use a sword but isn't allowed to join the military due to her past. Photo on the left is when she's at work and photo on the right is when she crossdresses to crash balls/banquets

Evalie Claude, Age:16

Duke Ergis wife and Maloris lost younger sister. The duchess who pushed a trend of regency styled dresses for women

Disclaimer: just gotta clear a few things up first. For anyone concerned for the age difference between Evalie and Ergi, he does not do anything to her, Ergi is a monster but he has standards and I will explain below why they got married to begin with. Also she has nothing to do with the Evalie from the original story, I just really like the name and I thought it would still fit since several historical figures shared a name at the same time period, still to avoid confusion I will call her Eva.

LORE DUMP: Malori and Eva's father, Sandro was a fallen Baron who was stripped of his title after going bankrupt from the consequences of schemes, scams and general white collar crime,though many think he just got sloppy it was actually because his partner at the time (Ergi) had screwed him over in trial by delivering the evidence. He and his wife changed their surnames in order not to be recognized and had 3 daughters, M+E being the older sisters to the baby Claire. The Hemsleys had little money to spare considering most of it went to the girls so Malori already had work experience as the oldest by wandering the streets to look for jobs such as chimney sweep or apprenticeships. As the years went on, Sandro grew to see all his daughters as burdens since it was harder for Malori and Eva to work as girls and Claire was too young and sickly and while he would rather not get rid of the daughter that did the most work, Malori would be more desired since she already has a track record of being able to perform most simple jobs. On Christmas eve, Sandro gave Malori extra food and let her stay home instead of working as a sort of compensation for what he was about to do. He doesn't tell Malori about what he's and her mother are going to do and shortly after, he sells Malori to a slave trader when she's 13 for enough money to last 3 years if spent wisely.

She winds up in the Tuania estate and becomes a slave. As a result, Malori starts to despise the noble class the older she gets but she also knows survival comes first and even after she escapes by burning the place down she still appealed to the higher class in order to manipulate some of them for her own gain such as becoming a rich man's mistress so she can take advantage of his eagarness by convincing him to let her get swordsmanship lessons. Once she abandons him Malori goes on a 2 month long journey of going out under a different name drinking at taverns, engaging in duels and even writting a few poems. After those months of utter depravity, she is inevitably caught and sent to be judged by Sovieshu himself after she attacks a nobleman, but instead of imprisoning Malori, Sovieshu was impressed that someone like her could defeat some of the imperial knights and even another noble, he decides to give her an ultimatum: live here as extra security while also doing maid work or be sent to prison for 30 years. Naturally she chooses the former.

As for Eva, she and her remaining family lived off the money Sandro got for selling her older sister for the time being, she and Clarie was told that Malori had died during the blizzard in a carriage accident and as the new oldest, Eva had to pick up the slack and go out for work. This time however Sandro had a new scheme to rise back in the ranks by looking to marry Eva off to a wealthy/powerful man starting as soon as possible. By now Clarie was dying of tuberculosis and the desperation for Eva to get married was not just for status reasons but also so Sandro wouldn't have to raise anymore children. What was not expected however was Duke Ergi to show himself after all this time much to Sandros fury. He offers to marry Eva with the promise letting the parents live in their own little home with fertile land to live off of. There wasn't much choice left and they might as well let Claire have a little happiness before she dies so Eva gets married off when she's 14.

On their wedding night, Ergi makes it clear to Eva that he is not a good man and does not plan to be loyal to her and that she shouldn't see him as some sort of savior who rescued her from poverty. While he doesn't sexually abuse Eva that doesn't mean he's nice to her either. The real reason he married at all was because it was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the situation and have a perfect tool to sacrifice in the future. I wouldn't say he's full on toxic to her either.. it's a weird relationship where they mostly ignore each other but on occasion can have a decent conversation. She's not totally alone either since she has other friends thanks to her popularity in the fashion area.

Eva also suffers from endometriosis, due to the time period set, no one really knows what's happening to her and some even accuse her of faking it for attention, to ease this pain, Eva is given potions made up of opium and the nerves of certain monsters as a painkiller everyday during her times of the month, the side affects cause her to become disoriented and exhausted which keep her docile and obedient. Effectively killing 2 birds with one stone not just for Ergi but also the house of Lazlo in the future.

[rockybloo]

There's a lot of fun in writing Freebird is how he and Bitterbat have cat-and-mouse dynamic where no matter what stunt Freebird pulls, Bitterbat always outsmarts him.

It'd be hell on my brain cells to write Freebird and not have justice being served after every gross thing he says to or about Sweetheart under the belief she is just playing hard to get.

Bitterbat obviously wants that man dead. He hates him with all his heart and wishes the worse for him.

Freebird wishes the same. In all his years of knowing Sweetheart, he never had a single worry about her ending up with someone else. She was far above of the leagues of all the other heroes.

He was def concerned about Gabe but after learning about him being Delight's boyfriend, he eased up some. He def isn't a fan of Sweetheart having male friends...because of course he isn't, but he can live with it.

So the Freeheart ship survived for a good while as the top ship on the Sweetheart list...until Bitterbat showed up.

And that man flipped Freebird's entire world upside down along with his expectations for Sweetheart.

She was the most professional hero he knew, so imagine the surprise over witnessing her get all flustered and a mess because of this new guy on the block. A new guy who really isn't as new as Freebird thinks because he doesn't know about the whole history between the Beloveds and Flavor Four.

If he did, he would have been worried about Bitterbat since day one of meeting Sweetheart. But being a hero stationed primarily in mainland America means he typically isn't interested in hero lore outside of the first 50 states.

Truly an American hero, some may say.

So the second he sees that Bittersweet has over throned Freeheart on the Sweetheart shipping list, Freebird realizes he has a problem. He can't escape Bitterbat's name either because it follows very close behind Sweetheart. That bird lived in a blissful ignorance where he could enjoy only Sweetheart's name making headlines but now he's hard pressed to find a single thing that doesn't mention her new archenemy right along with her.

He makes his dislike of Bitterbat very clear and verbal. He disses him any chance he is brought up, especially during talk shows and interviews.

He questions his appearance, especially his taste in clothing. Freebird has very traditional western ideals of what he thinks a man should look like and hipless pants that let half your ass hang out along with earrings, nail polish, lipstick, mascara, and what Freebird falsely believes to be fake eyelashes does not fit those ideals. It's needless to say that Freebird thought Bitterbat was girl at first until he heard him speak.

And even then, that man struggled with figuring out if Bitterbat actually had boobs or pecs upon first glance during a live news recording of him battling Sweetheart.

I'd say hearing Bitterbat speak pissed him off even further because of the sass dripping off every sentence he delivers. It just finalized that Bitterbat was the antithesis of all Freebird's ideals of a guy.

So that man was at a complete loss when he saw Bitterbat flirt with Sweetheart and even manage to kiss her along with declaring his love and vow to steal her heart and make her his queen.

Bitterbat basically speedran becoming Freebird's #1 enemy and that bird was a squawking mess of fury after the battle. He tried everything he could to request that bat to be out on his official list of villains he could deal with because he was under the belief that Bitterbat was a weakling.

An idea that was soon stomped out after witnessing some of the leftovers Bitterbat liked to leave behind from previous confrontations with other cocky heroes and villains.

The first chance Freebird got, he flew to Decking City and did his best to talk some sense into Sweetheart, claiming that Bitterbat was too much for her to handle. She obviously rejected the notion stating she was more than capable of dealing with Bitterbat and she was the only one who could.

And when Freebird dared to bring up Bitterbat's more physical romantic advances on her, Sweetheart cut him off before he could tarnish Bitterbat's name by stating how bold it was for him to assume that Bitterbat's actions were unwelcome. She had even gone so far as to say they were far more desirable than his own.

There are no words suffice enough to describe how much Freebird's world and future shattered in just one week. And his world just continues to get shaken up again and again every time Bitterbat rears his bat-winged head.

The most merciful thing Bitterbat does to Freebird is keep his true relationship with Sweetheart a secret, playing into the act it's all one sided and he is merely a villain with the hots for his hero.

[monsterblogging]

So with Legendary's new Pacific Rim projects, I think one thing that will affect their overall quality is whether they're trying to milk some kind of nostalgia. We've seen Disney try to do this with Star Wars, and it's just not working. (Hell, I personally don't even like the prequel trilogy, because the shallow nostalgia-milking was blazingly obvious to me even as far back as The Force Awakens.)

Meanwhile, there is a network trying to do their own big franchise type thing right now, and so far - so far, at least - they're killing it. That network is AMC, and the franchise is the Immortal Universe, based on the works of Anne Rice.

What's very notable right now is that AMC is not trying to milk people's nostalgia. Their version of Interview With The Vampire is wildly different from either the book or the 1993 movie, and that's the whole point. The creators of this show clearly have a very deep understanding of Anne Rice's work, and they use this understanding to create a new experience that captures the original spirit while also keeping old fans on their toes. Instead of trying to appeal to your nostalgia, AMC's Interview With The Vampire appeals to your curiosity and wonder. And it delivers with incredible storytelling and acting.

New Pacific Rim installments could be good, if Legendary was willing to put this kind of effort in. But the question is, are they?

I strongly doubt it.

They seem to be following in Disney's footsteps by trying to milk people's nostalgia. They've decided that Raleigh is out wherever, and somebody has to go and bring him back into the Jaeger program. This is literally how the first movie starts. Even if you like the character of Raleigh, you have to recognize that bringing him back this way is a big red flag that we're in for some low-quality storytelling. It's not that bringing him back is inherently a bad thing (its not); it's the clear lack of imagination and vision.

Now, while I think that Final Breach is pretty much guaranteed to be a Dumpster fire, I do actually hope that I'm wrong about the prequel cartoon, and they won't try to do this nostalgia-milking bullshit while ignoring the real spirit of the original Pacific Rim. If they actually put in the same kind of effort that went into Interview With The Vampire, it could actually be good. However, AMC shows are very much the exception, rather than the rule.

The one thing that gives me a very, very small amount of hope, is the fact that they're releasing a lorebook that we can already see includes lore developed during the PR1 development days. By doing that, they are a certain degree limiting themselves in terms of how much they can get away with mangling the lore without someone calling BS. They won't be able to pull a lot of the bullshit that went on in The Black, for example.

However, acknowledging the facts of the lore is a very, very different matter from acknowledging the spirit in which they were written. And with any possibility of a second Trump term ahead, do we really think there's a high chance that Legendary (who already gave us the bootlicking bullshit that was Uprising) is to put money into something that's going to take some kind of serious progressive stance?

So yeah, new Pacific Rim installments could be good if they tried to follow AMC's lead rather than Disney's, and work to capture the spirit of the original Pacific Rim rather than trying to appeal to nostalgia, but so far, all signs suggest that they're going to follow Disney on this.

[laurelnose]

a disorganized pile of ninefox ttrpg thoughts

it is HERE! also it was late in shipping by like, a day? or two? so android press sent me the PDF version also, which was very very nice of them. For this I will forgive them the weird jank in the PDF version’s character encoding. (Maybe like 5% of characters consistently copy-paste as different characters. I think they fucked up the font subsetting somehow. It’s fine, it’s just weird. Makes quoting it a little bit of a hassle. Might be less fine if you use a screenreader.)

So pleased with several little random details which are not at all relevant to like, gameplay or the worldbuilding at large but which I just kind of wanted to know. The calendar months! The full set of Kel rank symbols! Signifiers for Kujen and Tseya! <3 Also, an additional set of symbolism for the factions per the calendar months? If I’m reading this correctly it's Rahal/Wood (!?), Andan/Bells, and Vidona/Knives. [We basically knew the other three, which are Shuos/Eyes, Kel/Pyres, and Nirai/Stars.] As a visual artist I am contractually obliged to be hype about all my little guys getting Symbols, they make my life easy and fun.

This is a slim little volume, so it’s light on lore details that you couldn’t find either a) in the actual series or b) on Lee's dreamwidth. That said, one new bit was that it was not previously clear to me that the nominal arrangement of power in the heptarchate was explicitly unequal between the Liozh and the others — I thought the extant six turned on the Liozh as one of their fellows, not that they deposed the ruling faction. Interesting.

Disappointing: there are no mechanics for the calendar besides the ability to tag the current festival/remembrance. :( I wanted to roll dice about calendrical rituals!! Funnily enough there's a whole little caveat section where he’s like, inevitably someone will want to have space battles, which can be accommodated by keeping them character-focused bc this system is not designed for battle sim crunch. No similar apology for those who might want magic system crunch, if anyone wanted any further evidence that Lee and Jedao are the same guy, lmao.

Other than that I’m not actually that much of a crunchy rules guy myself so I like the system itself fine. I enjoy the concept of every check involving not necessarily skills but character traits. And also the commitment to sixes. You need A LOT of d6s for this game.

If you’re really committed I think it would be fun to play with a set of these (normal d6s except instead of numbers or pips they have clock faces showing hours 1-6):

Jedao’s character sheet is so funny. “Complications: I have abysmal taste in lovers.” BE NICE TO HIM LMAO

It’s not entirely clear to me under which circumstances you wind up the Hexarchate Clock. Is it actually only if Kujen is in play? Does that mean he’s literally required if you want to run a long take-down-the-whole-hxx campaign?

The prewritten scenarios are neat! I don’t have a lot to say about them. They look like they would be fun. I like “The Field of Diplomacy” and the concept of the adjacent polity a lot. Oh also the note at the end of “A Heretical Sacrifice” that is just like “if the ‘human sacrifice’ bit is too vague for you and you want to add more torture, here are some ideas!” is 1) funny and 2) appreciably graphic and wince-inducing. HXX-typical gore: delivered on!

This is a petty note, but excluding servitor PCs on the grounds that this is a game about moral complicity and thus only human faction members can be PCs sure is a Statement. I know servitors are slaves and thus the moral calculus is certainly different, but like, the complicity is the entire point of Hemiola’s arc??? And faction servitors quite obviously often consider themselves to be legitimately part of that faction? The one Shuos servitor we meet is as interested in games as any fox, the assault on Shattered Needles is made possible because the Unspoken Law’s servitors consider themselves Kel, the Aerie interlude with sin 𝑥² is about a servitor who considers itself so deeply Kel it wants to go down with the hivemind. I understand they complicate things mechanically but excluding servitors for thematic reasons is silly.

That said, I feel like a servitor hack wouldn’t be too much more mechanically complex. None of the prewritten scenarios work with an all-servitor group, but I think they could all be run with one or maaybe two servitor PCs. You’d have to do some pregaming to figure out how you’d open communication between human/servitor PCs. Lore-wise, the faction traits are clearly not meant to represent the faction exotics or the Shuos wouldn’t have one; they read more like “specialized skills developed as a consequence of picking this faction” than calendrical stuff, so faction servitors could have standard faction abilities, with the caveat that a lot of interpersonal Edges may be hard for Andan servitors to hit on account of social interaction between servitors & humans being, well, you know. Alternatively, no faction abilities for servitors, but all servitors +2d6 to anything involving grid-diving and/or mechanics. Servitors can have ranks just like human PCs, though these ranks are only relevant to other servitors (and possibly moths). Servitors can probably tag calendar traits like humans, they just can’t participate in formations or affect calendrical gradients (neither of which have explicit mechanics in this system anyways). Heresies are the same for servitors as humans.

This really made me want to dig out that calendrical cryptocurrency heist concept I had to see if I can put together a scenario. And maybe also make some cardboard game spinners for a tactile clock experience...

[leviackermanscleaningbuddy]

Heyy Jess for the prompt game can you do list #72 numbers 6&7 with established relationship bf!changbin x gf!reader??🫶🏼🍓

SKZ PROMPT GAME

Prompts: "The only thing that never disappoints, is your ability to disappoint."

"You're incredible." "Aw thanks!" "Not a compliment babe."

Member: Seo Changbin

Relationship: Established GF!FemReader x BF!Changbin

Genre: Fluff

"How sure are we that this is actually where we're supposed to be?" You question skeptically, stopping for a breather, adjusting the heavy backpack higher on your shoulders.

Your boyfriend looks up from the map, squinting at your surroundings for a minute, before he glances back at you from further up the trail, a long suffering expression on his face.

"C'mon, baby. Have I ever willingly led you astray before?"

You take a gulp from your water bottle and stare him down blankly.

"Are you sure you want me to answer that question?"

Changbin chuckles, and comes back to you, map still held loosely in one fist. He presses a quick kiss to the tip of your nose, and readjusts your sunhat on your head with a fond look.

"We're almost there. I promise."

You heave a sigh and hoist the backpack higher on your aching shoulders once more, nodding at him to continue.

"Fine. Lead the way."

********************************************************************************

"Oh my god." You groan, several hours of hiking later, dropping the heavy backpack onto the pebbled shore of the lake with a thump and instantly collapsing down on the nearest stump. "You're a slave driver."

Changbin stands, peering over the lake, looking less than winded, and when he turns to you with a smile and cocked brow, you kind of want to punch him in the face.

"We made it before sunset though, yeah? Now all that's left is to set up camp, put up the tent, make a fire, cook some dinner-"

"Oh my god." You repeat again, lying back on the log and throwing a hand over your eyes. "I like camping and hiking as much as the next person, but all of that currently sounds entirely exhausting."

Changbin chuckles, and you hear his hiking boots crunch across the rocks toward you. His warm hand comes up to uncover your eyes, and you shoot him a halfhearted glare.

"Baby." He crouches down beside you, leaning forward to brush some stringy hair back from your forehead, his head cocked adorably. "I promise you, this is gonna be the best, most relaxing weekend ever. Just me and you."

You stare at him for a moment, his words settling over you, seeping into your bones, and finally, you let out a resigned sigh and say weakly, "You think they deliver pizza up here?"

Changbin laughs, patting your thigh, before he pushes himself to his feet again. "Not a chance."

You groan, and force yourself to stand and begin unpacking your backpack.

********************************************************************************

A rumble of distant thunder rolls across the sky, and Changbin looks up from stoking the tiny fire with slight concern in his eyes, brow furrowed.

You follow his gaze, noting the rapidly gathering dark clouds across the lake.

"Yikes." You remark, pulling on your socks and shoes again now that your feet have been sufficiently warmed. "Someone isn't thrilled we're here."

Changbin slides his gaze to you, his expression confused. "What?"

You motion toward the incoming storm, the wind picking up, rustling your hair and threatening to put out Changbin's pathetic flame.

"The gods of the mountains or whatever. They're obviously pissed we decided to encroach on their sacred land." You lean forward and poke at the dwindling fire with a stick, watching the way the sparks jump.

"They're gonna demand a sacrifice now, because you know what they say, babe-" You hold up a finger and quote seriously, like you're repeating ancient lore. "-'Never go camping in the Gods' mountains without a prepared offering, an open heart, and a cleared schedule.'"

"That doesn't even rhyme." Changbin replies helplessly.

"It doesn't have to rhyme. It's Greek." You sniff back.

Changbin stares at you with a blank expression, a flash of lightning sweeping across his features, before he looks away, shaking his head in disbelief.

"You're incredible."

"Aw, thanks!" You hide a grin, tugging your jacket closer around you as the first few raindrops begin to fall.

Changbin sighs. "Not a compliment, babe."

A crash of thunder sounds right over your heads and has you scrambling for cover behind Changbin, your fingers gripping his coat as you duck your head into the safety of his back.

"Okay." You peer up cautiously, the rain starting to pelt your face. "We've done more than pissed them off."

"Fuck." Your boyfriend swears, abandoning the fire, quickly sizzling out in the oncoming rain, and glances out toward your campground, and the tent still wrapped up on the ground. "I knew we should've set up the tent first."

You yelp as a crack of lightning snaps across the lake. "Little late for that, babe. Let's just get it up now and get the hell inside."

Changbin stands, grabbing your hand and tucking it into the pocket of his jacket, before he leads you across the small clearing toward the waiting tent.

The rain is a downpour now, the sky thick with thunderous gray clouds, and taking a step into and against the howling wind feels like a herculean effort.

You all but close your eyes and let Changbin lead you where you need to go.

Reaching the tent, he crouches down and glances up at you, shoving a tent pole into your waiting hands.

"Start putting these together! I'll try and get the stakes in the ground!" He yells over the sound of the wind and thunder, and you nod, squinting your eyes as the rain blinds you, crouching down beside him to start putting tent poles together with numb fingers.

Another flash of lightning and Changbin has successfully unfolded the tent, but it's flapping wildly in the wind , like a captured animal trying to wriggle out of his grasp.

"Fuck." He swears, fighting with the billowing fabric, and you abandon your task to help him pin it to the ground.

"How do we set it up?" You call out over the sound of the storm, and Changbin stares down at the tent pinned beneath your bodies, curls dark and dripping, face wet with rain.

You try again. "Bin? What do we do?"

He glances up at you, eyes slightly wild. "I don't know! I haven't used this since last summer. I don't remember!"

You stare at him, mouth agape, and another boom of thunder has you frantically trying to shove a halfway finished tent pole into whatever slot of the tent you can find.

"It can't be that hard!" You reply back, more to yourself than anyone else, as you wrestle with the fabric and the pole, and succeed in only pinching one of your tingling fingers.

You swear, and drop the tent pole onto the downed tent, shooting a glare at the offending object.

The fabric is quickly growing heavy with pooled rain water.

"Fuck." Changbin swears again, and suddenly tugs the tent fabric out from beneath your bodies. He jerks his head toward the nearby towering pine trees and yells out, "C'mon! Help me get it over there!"

You duck your head against the wind, and both of you head toward the safety of the trees, the tent between you desperately trying to fly away in the wind.

You're panting and absolutely soaked by the time you reach the pines, and Changbin's hair is slicked flat against his head, the unruly curls heavy with water, his jacket dripping.

His chest heaves as you set the tent down and pin it with your feet, and you bemoan silently the puddles of water you can feel already gathering in your sopping sneakers.

"Well?" You ask, in a slightly more normal tone, the wind less noisy beneath the sheltering cover of the trees.

Changbin peers up into the threatening sky, slanting his gaze against the incoming rain.

When he looks back to you, his expression is resigned.

"We left all the rest of the tent shit over there." He motions with his head to the original scene of the struggle, and you instantly shake your head.

"No way. I'm not leaving these trees."

Changbin looks grim, staring down at the tattered tent fabric beneath your shoes.

"Right." He looks determined, glancing up at the dripping branches above your head. "We're gonna make a makeshift shelter with the fabric till the storm clears."

You stare at him.

He picks up his side of the heavy, wet tent, and with a sigh, you slowly do the same.

Following his lead, you string up the cumbersome fabric between three trees until it's sort of secure and makes a triangular, but shoddy, cover from the onslaught of the storm.

Changbin takes off his jacket and lays it on the wet, pine needle covered ground, before sliding back to position his back against a rough stump with a slight grimace.

You stand, staring at him, and he arches a brow, motioning for you to come to him.

"C'mere."

Reluctantly, you slide beneath the dripping, makeshift shelter, and settle in between his legs, leaning back against the warm strength of his chest.

His arms go around you, bare now that he's shed his jacket and is only wearing his damp t-shirt, and his skin is chilled from the rain, but you still feel warmer than before when he rests his chin on the top of your head.

"Well." He chuckles, and you feel the vibration through his chest against your back. "Definitely should've remembered the tent instructions."

You scoff, leaning your head back to glance up at him, smiling down at you.

You reach up and pat his cheek teasingly. "The only thing that never disappoints, is your ability to disappoint, babe."

"Yeah, yeah." He rolls his eyes and captures your hand, tugging it to his mouth as you squeal, lightly biting the tips of your fingers before he presses a kiss to your palm and releases you.

You glance out at the raging storm, and snuggle back against him.

"I dunno. It's kind of cozy."

Changbin snorts. "Yeah, because you have your jacket on still and you're not getting rammed up the ass by some imprudent tree limb."

You bite back a grin. "I always knew you liked it up the ass."

Changbin growls, leaning around to tickle your sides, and you screech, laughing, as you try to wriggle away from him.

Your little playful scuffle only succeeds in making the two of you more muddy and wet than before.

Both of you catching your breath, you glance up as another streak of lightning lights up the limbs of the trees over your head.

You scoot back into the safe embrace of Changbin's arms, and he wraps them around you, pressing a kiss to the wet crown of your head, before he rests his cheek against it.

You close your eyes and listen to the howling of the storm.

"Best, most relaxing weekend ever." You remark quietly, not opening your eyes, fingers tangling with his.

He presses another kiss to your head.

"Just me and you."

[gothicprep]

Does the “woke” critique ever really go beyond “this has gay people/poc/women in if they’re pushing their agenda” type stuff? Personally I don’t think I’ve heard “Mary sue” get used since Rey Starwars, everything I’ve seen lately is just foaming at the mouth when a story doesn’t exclusively center white men

there’s a version of the critique that’s just that, and there’s another version of it that’s something to the effect of “it seems like some writers use IP to tell a story *they* would like to tell, regardless of how it works in the IP”. the former one is just whiny. the second one, as far as I can tell, is probably a real critique, because i can think of examples of this being brought up where representation isn’t involved in ~the discourse~ around it at all.

this happened in like 2015 back when fallout 4 came out. if you don’t know anything about fallout, here’s the quick TL; DR. nuclear war happens. americans take shelter in vaults built by the vault-tec corporation. some of the vaults turn out to be weird social experiments set up to study human behavior. vault 95 was housed with only drug addicts and there were no drugs in the vault, except 5 years in, a massive stash of drugs would be revealed in a hidden location in the vault. the problem is that one of the logs the player can find is written by a delivery man where he says he’s delivering a shipment of jet, a fictional drug in the game that’s a weird cross between meth and jenkem, made from fumes of radiated cattle dung. but this was invented after the bombs dropped, so there was no way for a pre-war delivery man was bringing a shipment of it.

this is a problem that’s very easy to fix in a video game. just change the text in the next patch. instead, what happened was the guy who wrote that quest doubled down, and did it again when fans were pointing out the clear flaws in his logic. and the writer responded with “not interested in discussing how realistic things are in an alternate universe post-apoc game w/ talking mutants and ghouls.” and a lot of game and tech news sites backed him up on making fun of fans for daring to complain about lore inconsistencies.

and like, on some level, yeah. it’s just a story. maybe you shouldn’t take it too seriously. but part of the flip side of that is that if you stop taking it seriously, you stop consuming it. bethesda didn’t create fallout, they’re just it’s current owners. people working there might care about fallout to some extent, but when push comes to shove, they prioritize their own visions. and stuff like this is ultimately how they view it. if you’re a fan of fallout, it means something to you. that’s why you enjoy it. but to them it’s only a vehicle for their new story. if they can get away with not respecting old lore – not just to save face, but also because the old lore gets in the way of the story they want to tell – and they believe that you’ll continue consuming the product, what incentive do they have to respect the old lore.

and, how many times have you heard a story like this? how many tv shows? how many video games? how many movies has something equivalent has this happened to? people take these things seriously because they love them. when they see inconsistencies, they’re worried that the new stewards don’t actually care. and when those new stewards lash out like this, it just confirms to fans that these creatives only want to wear a skin suit of the thing that they love.

that’s the best steelman I have for that, anyway.

[askagamedev]

War Stories: Endless Eight

Not all war stories are fun or amusing. This is a story about one of my forays into development hell. My employer assigned me to a small team that was building a new game out of an existing, though decommissioned, game base. The game had many constraints - minimal budget for new art assets and almost no tribal knowledge from the original team remained. Our essential marching orders were to build a new game out of old parts. The combination of constraints - small team, minimal budget, reusing an old game - essentially dictated some kind of system-based randomization-centric core gameplay in order to create enough content for players to feel they were obtaining sufficient value from the game. 

It’s important to note that I think our creative director was actually quite good at his job - he was very knowledgeable about the original game and thought about everything from a systemic perspective. His ideas and vision for the game were good - I could always understand where he was coming from, what his goals were, and how his new ideas were in service to those goals. Through his leadership, I could see the team carving out gameplay that worked within the heavy constraints while still following the lore of the franchise. If I had the opportunity to work with him again under different circumstances, I would consider it. Despite these strengths, however, the game we delivered ended up being a mess and team morale had fallen off a cliff by the end of the project and much of this was because of our creative director.

The biggest issue wasn’t the quality of the ideas that the creative director had, but the pace at which we were handed our assignments and the obsoleting of old work on a regular basis and we were only a few months away from launch. We lacked a strong producer to push back on our creative director so his ideas were pushed on the rest of the team unchallenged. This tanked morale - it was tremendously difficult for me to feel engaged with my work when I knew that most of the work I was doing would likely be thrown out by the next week because another new design directive would be assigned and a huge amount of existing work would need to be redone. It was fine at first - the ideas made sense and were good and our director’s reasoning was sound, so we did them. But as time rolled on, we became trapped in a vicious cycle - throw out the old stuff, build the new stuff, have our weekly design review meeting and repeat the process. It felt like we were trapped in a time loop, except our ship date kept getting closer. The game finally launched and we were still regularly rebuilding large parts of core gameplay as part of post-launch content updates. 

Normally, I’m fine with this kind of iteration early in the development process - it’s totally normal to try a lot of things with prototypes when you’re in preproduction. That’s what preproduction is for. The problem here wasn’t that we were iterating so much, the problem was that we were still iterating like it was preproduction after the game had already launched. The rapid changes meant that new bugs were constantly being introduced because our systems and content didn’t really last long enough for bugs to be identified and fixed before they were changed again. We were essentially rebuilding the core gameplay each week while trying to build new post-launch content updates and it took a clear toll on the player base. The team really needed stronger leadership to figure out (and stick to) a better solution than “let’s rebuild it again”.

The numbers continuing to worsen and the higher ups eventually decided to pull the plug. The team was disbanded and the game itself was quietly placed into maintenance mode. By the end, most of the dev team had disengaged and were doing only the bare minimum of what was asked of them. I was assigned to another project - this one with a producer who enforced a strong development schedule. After joining that team and seeing the familiar processes in place to make sure that things were done on time and at a reasonable quality level, the phrase running through my head was “It’s nice working with proper villains again.” 

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