#because this verse is more a premise than an actual coherent story

[goddessofroyalty]

Now I have watched Season Two I can confirm that how Isha fits into Zaun Family will be one of two options (switching depending on what I think fits better in the thing I'm writing/rambling about at the time):

She is the final Vanco pregnancy and is born maybe a year or so after the Season One Act One incident. Jinx nominates herself the Best Big Sister Ever and Vander and Silco who are so busy decide that, actually, that's fine, if Jinx wants to look after her most of the time she can. Silco does tell Sevika to make sure his youngest two daughters don't accidentally get themselves killed.

Jinx finds Isha and brings her home one day and the rest of the family have to basically pry out of her that she didn't kidnap someone's child but this is an orphan who is now hers. But once that's established then sure Jinx now has a kid.

[nebulous-tundra]

Kind of confused re: your response to green-tea-in-a-flask's post: what other "troubling parallels drawn to real life" are present in the TBS-verse? Most of the allegories I've seen are very clearly intentional and well-handled so I'm a bit confused. (Also for the record, Lauren Shippen did not write the miniseries in question, Meghan Fitzmartin did)

WHaT?! Shippen didn't write the AM archives?? wasn't that the first series to come out post TBS ending? before TCT where Fitsmartin was a cowriter? and the wiki says they're cowriters on both series

anywho, this has actually been a gripe i've had w the writing of the series since S2. Shippen's good at writing characters who feel real and coming up with interesting concepts, but definitely struggles when it comes to coherent plots and characters arcs, and struggles a super bunch when it comes to themes.

first and foremost is the setting. Atypicals are clearly a real life parallel for neurodivergent folk, they're on the fringes of society, and harassed by super secret organizations who either want them gone or want to use them for their own gain- at of course the atypicals expense. that's all fine and dandy, Dragon Age even has a very similar premise with it's mages! but Shippen fails where Dragon Age succeeds at conveying that people are all morally grey, mages can be destructive, they could be absolutely devastating(see: Tevinter, the Evanuris), but ultimately it falls on both the individual and the greater society to not only cultivate a certain predisposition towards care and compassion for others, but also ensure an environment where those properties can flourish and inspire attachment and not resentment. Bioware does an excellent job at showing this(see: pretty much any and all characters from the DA series, but especially Anders lol) Shippen on the other hand has Good Characters and Bad Characters. Chloe? Good! Damien(*i'll get back to this guy)? Bad! Agent Green? Good! Director Wadsworth? Bad! i think she really tried with Dr. Bright and Samantha to make them more "grey" characters, but they end up just being Good People who did a Bad Thing, but don't worry! They had a Good Intent and felt Bad about it cause they're Good! even the so called repercussions they face are laughable, so-and-so will find out and admonish them, they'll apologize but maybe insist they felt like they had no alternative but will grow from this. so-and-so will says they won't forget about this and will be watching very closely for said growth, and then next episode is Caleb/Adam centric and suddenly the issue is just a minor character flaw.

that's not to say the characters are flat, i said before Shippen writes very nuanced and realistic characters......but as for how the Narrative treats them, well, there's a clear way you're meant to see these characters. Let's take one for example, oh idk let's say..... Damien! Damien can been seen so many ways, ranging from vitriolic hate to my own poor little meow meow. Can he control his ability? Can he form healthy attachments? Will he ever find redemption? Who knows! Shippen only allows him to be written in flashbacks now! Never mind TBS's theme, in entire premise hinging on therapy, is that people can grow and become better than what they were, Damien is Bad so he goes to writing purgatory. Narratively, this means that he just......went away? So, on one hand, we have this theme of growth, but then here, we suddenly have a character allegedly So Bad he can't become Good(interestingly like the rest of the pre-ordained Bad Characters), and is written conveniently out of the plot so we don't have to think about how 'the AM's treatment of atypicals is slightly justified' too much, so then, why have him at all if he doesn't fit the theme of the story you're trying to write? i'm guessing it's because having an undeniable villain is fun, and fits most storylines. just not here.

a more personal allegorical scene is the last scene between him and Mark. it's meant to be an allegorical representative of abusive relationships and cutting abusive people out of your life, this is a very important thing to do because irl abusive people will almost always continue to abuse. The issue herein lies that Damien DID CHANGE. And the reason Mark gave Damien for why he couldn't be around Mark anymore is because HE COULD NOT CHANGE. so now the abuse victim is.....canonically wrong? awesome, next allegory.

Chloe's a mind reader, she can peer into the depths of a person's thought and have a reasonably well understanding of what they're thinking, this is an allegory for violating people's boundaries(i.e. reading they're diary, going through they're phone, checking they're browsing history), something people do when they're searching for trust, which has been shown to be an issue for her when she can't read they're thoughts and make sure they're Good(tm). i personally think, and ymmv here, but(as someone who loves Chloe and she's my #2 TBS chara) i personally think Chloe should have permanently lost her ability when when Damien knocked it out of her. how satisfying would it be that someone who continuously violates people's boundaries(to various extents) would only stop doing that thing when she herself is the victim of how far it can go. this would've been perfect because Damien and Chloe's abilities are said in iirc S1 to be complementary, to the point they cancel each other out. instead we get a Chloe who can now actively shut her ability off.......but also still chooses to use it a lot of the time. cool display of growth bro, next allegory.

it's mentioned when they were little, Joan and Mark were quite close. as they grew, they slowly drifted apart, for the most part because of Joan's involvement with the AM. this is actually a good allegory for predatory organization's isolating people from their loved ones before introducing them into the more insidious elements of their organization. i'm sure with covid and whatnot, seeing our loved one fall for qan0n rhetoric makes this now an especially relevant storyline. i actually really like this allegory because it not only shows how even really smart people like Joan can be targeted by cults that end up hurting their loved ones. i also like the attention to the fallout of having to regain the trust of someone you didn't even mean to hurt, and how many "i'm sorry"s and "please forgive me"s they'll have to say and mean for the rest of the foreseeable future. my issue with this one is......how does this fit into the story of TBS? the allegory by itself is solid, plotwise it's been hinted at since S1, but thematically, where exactly is the growth? is it when they were growing apart? well, no, that happened in the years before TBS. the growing Joan did when she found out about Mark? well, maybe? iirc we never really know how deep Joan was in the organization, in fact to my best recollection, Mark was her premature introduction to the more graphic elements of the AM, and she immediately recoiled and cut ties so, the journey she had then was more in her personal knowledge of the situation than any change or growth to her character. thematically, this plot beat is more relevant to the idea of cults than anything close to growth. i couldn't put my finger on why this plot point bugged me when i was first listening, but now i think i understand a bit better. it feels like the story is trying to tell use Joan needs to grow and be a better person than when she was working for the AM(and certainly she has her issues), but then the reason they give is actually quite flimsy. Joan was almost indoctrinated into a weird anti super power cult and now she needs to grow and show she's sorry? for almost being indoctrinated into a cult she immediately cut herself off from when she found out about it's insidious elements?? okay....

maybe your mileage may vary, and certainly if you still enjoy TBS kudos to you, i don't want to take away from that, but allegories that are held together with string and gum, and that's gets really distracting for me.

anyway, i apologize of this is rambly and all over the place, it's been a while since i've relistened to TBS(an usually when i do it's just Damien's episodes), but yeah i have a lot of beef with TBS lmao

[gojira007]

Movie Meme

Took me a bit of time, but I was tagged by @bunnikkila to list my nine favorite movies, and since I can’t help but be ridiculously verbose about that very topic, you can see them all under the cut 8D

As for who I tag?  Well, as always with the caveat that you are free to ignore if you don’t wanna, I’ll go with: @elistodragonwings @kaikaku @donnys-boy @robotnik-mun @sally-mun @fini-mun @werewolf-t33th  @cviperfan and @wildwoodmage​

and don’t worry, if you DO go for it, you don’t have to get as Extra as I did about it XD

9.) 

Look, the meme is about Favorite Movies, not necessarily the BEST Movies, OK?  And for the most part this list consists of films where that division is less meaningful in terms of how I evaluate the other movies on here.  But in this specific case, “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie”, which is ultimately not all that different from the “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ TV show it spun off from and thus not particularly impressive as a work of Cinema Qua Cinema, makes the cut primarily because it’s a movie I know so well and have enjoyed so often that I can practically recite the whole thing to you by rote; I quote it all the time in my day-to-day life, I think about it often when I need a little smile, and it’s also become my favorite tool for introducing newcomers to MST3K as a whole since it was designed with a slightly broader audience in mind than the more willfully-eclectic series.  And given how much I love MST3K As A Whole, that’s an especially strong factor in its favor.

8.) 

Looky looky, @bunnikkila, we (unsurprisingly) have a pick in common!  I’m sure this is the one and only time THAT’S going to happen on this list. 8D

Y’know, nearly thirty years (and one fairly useless remake >_>) later, I think the thing that impresses me about “The Lion King” is just how much it is still able to grab me emotionally.  Some of that is unquestionably tied up with how strongly I associate this movie with my family, all of whom it became very special to as a Shared Experience.  But I also don’t know of a lot of people who haven’t had that same emotional experience with it, and that to me suggests there’s more going on here than just Nostalgia.  The mixture of Shakesperean plotting with Disney’s signature strength of Character, for one thing, granting the movie’s story an Epic Scope that never forgets the emotional inner lives of its cast.  The music for another, not only its instantly-iconic song-book but also its memorable score, armed with both Big Bombast and Gentle Sentiment.  And the unforgettably gorgeous animation, rendering every last element of its world with believable naturalism and strongly-defined personality.  All of it, together, makes for what I still personally consider the Crowning Achievement of the Disney Renaissance.

7.)

I think, if I had to name the thing I find most lacking in far too many modern Action Movies, it’s Clarity.  They all tend to lard their plots up with a bunch of unnecessary contrivances and complications in hopes of making themselves appear more clever than they actually are, and all it usually does is just dilute the impact of the whole thing.  “Mad Max: Fury Road”, by contrast, is all about Clarity.  I could sum up literally its entire plot in a paragraph if I wanted, because it is basically One Big Chase Scene from start to finish, never really deviating from that structure for more than a few minutes at a time.  And that, combined with its exceptionally well-crafted Action Sequences, means that the full weight of its visceral power hits you full force every time.  But don’t be fooled; that simplicity is not to be mistaken for shallowness.  Indeed, precisely by getting out of its own way, knowing exactly what it wants to do and why, “Fury Road” also delivers a story that is, in spite of what you might guess, genuinely subtle and smart.  Every character is immediately unforgettable and compelling because their role in the story is so well-considered and their personalities all so stark.  The world it crafts feels at once fascinatingly surreal and yet All Too Real at the same time because even its most Fantastic elements are ultimately just grotesque reflections of things the audience knows only too well.  And most of all, it tells a story with real, meaningful Themes that are deeply woven into each of its individual elements, such that the whole thing is deeply satisfying emotionally, but also piercingly Relevant in all the best, most affecting ways.

6.) 

Oh look, another pick I have in common with @bunnikkila!  This must be the last one, right?

But yeah, this is just a legitimately great movie, at every level, in every way.  Stylistically, it is one of the most radically inventive things to have ever been made in the world of Western Animated Movies, gleefully mixing together a vast array of Aesthetics and Techniques that are at once viscerally distinct and yet coherently connected, all rendered with a fantastic eye toward the world of Comic Book Visual Language that keeps finding new and extremely fun ways to play with that instantly-recognizable iconography.  For that alone, I would call it one of the greatest triumphs of 21st century animation.  But then, on top of that, the story it tells is one that is simultaneously Arch and self-aware, delivering some of the most fantastically hilarious punch-lines imaginable more than a few of which are at the expense of the very franchise it is working within...but also entirely earnest, sincere, and emotionally affecting.  It is, at once, a movie that manages to be about The Idea Of Spider-Man in its totality while also being about just one kid coming to grips with who he is, what he can do, and what his life can be.  I don’t know that I can remember the last time a movie so immediately and unmistakably marked itself as an Enduring Masterpiece, but “Into the Spider-Verse” absolutely pulled it off.

5.)

Ordinarily, I would cheat and give this slot to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in its totality.  But somehow, the fact that this is about “FAVORITE” movies instead of just what we think the BEST one is compels me to narrow it down to just one.  And if I had to pick just one, it would be the first of the three, “Fellowship of the Ring”.  It’s not necessarily anything that the other two movies get wrong, either.  All three of the LotR movies possess many of its keenest strengths, after all.  For a starter, there’s the keen understanding of how best to adapt the source material without being enslaved to it; capturing many of its most iconic moments while cleverly tweaking elements to make them more cinematic, knowing what scenes to focus on for the sake of more clearly focusing the emotional through-lines of the story, and knowing what scenes, no matter how good on the page, ultimately don’t fit to the shape the adaptation has taken.  There’s also its pitch-perfect casting, each and every actor doing a fantastic job of embodying the characters so well that even as your personal vision of them from the books may differ radically from what is on-screen, they nonetheless end up feeling Right for the part and a strong, compelling presence.  And there’s the deft visual hand of director Peter Jackson, who knows exactly how to craft a Middle Earth that feels at once lived-in and real but also Fantastic and magical.  “Fellowship”, for me at least, thus wins out mostly because it has the good luck of being adapted from the strongest of the three books, the point at which the narrative is at its most unified and thus has the strongest overall momentum.  But also because so few movies have so swept me away with the sense of stepping into a world I have always dreamed of in my mind’s eye, and that’s the sort of thing that can only happen at the beginning of a journey.

4.) 

Now here’s a movie that is literally sown in to my very being.  It’s the last movie my mother saw in theaters before becoming a Mom.  I grew up watching the “Real Ghostbusters” cartoon all the time and playing with the attendant toys; I had a “Ghostbusters” Birthday Party when I was, like, four years old.  It has been my annual Halloween Tradition to get myself a big Cheese Pizza and watch this movie for about as long as I’ve had disposable income to myself.  There is, quite literally, no point in my life where I don’t remember “Ghostbusters” being a fixture in it.  And as a nice bonus?  It is, legitimately, a Genuinely Great Movie.  I realize that isn’t quite as universally agreed upon these days as it was even a few years ago (thanks, Literally The Worst Kind Of Virulently Misogynist Assholes lD; ), but I still feel pretty confident in saying this one really is That Good.  I still find basically every one of its jokes hilarious; even now I could quote just about any one of them and get a laugh.  I still find its central premise, What If Exorcism Was A Blue-Collar Business, a brilliant, almost subversively clever one that takes The Supernatural out of the realm of The Unknowable and into a world where even you, an ordinary person off the street, can in fact fight back against it.  I still think it’s one of the all-time great examples of how to balance Tone in this sort of High Concept Genre Bender, by allowing The Story to be played relatively straight while allowing the comedy to flow naturally from the characters’ reactions to that story, allowing its Ghostly aspects to land as Genuinely Scary (or at least Worth Taking Seriously) without getting too Stern and Serious about it.  And I still listen to that unforgettable Title Song all the time!  So yeah, even if I could be more objective about it, “Ghostbusters” would almost certainly make this cut.      

3.) 

And so we come to the third and last pick I have in common with @bunnikkila, not coincidentally a movie that played a key role in solidifying our friendship, as bonding over our shared love of it was a big part of how we got to know each other on deviantART waaaay back in the day <3

By 2008, I really didn’t think it was possible for a movie or comic or TV show to really become “part” of me anymore, the way things like Sonic the Hedgehog or Marvel Super Heroes or Some Other Movie Character Who Might Be At The Top Of This List had.  And then “WALL-E” came along and proved that to be completely, utterly wrong.  I didn’t just love this movie, I was inspired by it, to a degree of strength and consistency that I’m still not entirely sure has yet been matched.  And to be sure, some of that is undoubtedly because the movie had already basically won the war before I’d even bought my ticket; Adorable Robots In Love is something like My Platonic Storytelling Ideal, after all.  But even setting that aside, “WALL-E” is a movie where even now I can’t help but be keenly aware, and gently awed, at the beauty of its craft; indeed, watching this movie in a theater did a lot to make me better understand why movies work on us the way they do, because I left that theater chewing so much on every last one of its elements.  Its gorgeous animation, the way it conveys Character through Actions more so than language, the dream-like quality of its musical score (even as i type this i get teary thinking about certain motifs), the clear and meaningful way it builds its theme and story together so harmoniously, and the particular perspective it takes on our relationships with each other, with our environments, and with our own technology...all of it speaks to me deeply and profoundly, and it’s no coincidence that I have seen this movie more times in theaters than any other on this list (twelve times, for the record, and I still remember each and every time XD).

2.) 

This one needs no personal qualifications, to my mind.  Yes, I have some degree of nostalgic attachment to it for having seen it relatively young with my brothers and being deeply moved by it then, but it’s not at all like the kind of Nostalgia I have for “The Lion King”.  “Princess Mononoke” is just flat-out, full-stop a complete Masterpiece, not just my personal pick for one of the single-best animated films ever made, but one of the best films period.  It’s almost difficult for me to put into words how great this movie is, certainly in a way that hasn’t been repeated to death by thousands of other smarter people, because no one of its elements quite answers the question of why it is so great, to my mind.  Yes, the animation is absolutely gorgeous with a design sensibility that brings Ancient Mythology to life so vividly that its influence can still be felt today (The Forest Spirit alone has been homaged all over the place).  And yes, the music is hauntingly beautiful, at once capturing the gentle rhythm of nature but also the elegiac tone of Life Moving On.  And yes, the story is an incredible mixture of the Broad Mythic Strokes of an Ancient Legend grounded in all too human Emotions and Ideas about the balance of nature, the full meaning and cost of Warfare, and perhaps most important of all, about how we determine Right and Wrong when everyone involved in a conflict is fighting simply for the right to survive.  But all of those things add up together to something even greater than a simple sum, because each one isn’t just good in its own right but because each element so perfectly reinforces the other.  And even having said all that?  I really could just carry on singing this movie’s praises.  Just...an absolute masterpiece, top to bottom.

1.) 

I don’t imagine any of you are terribly surprised at this, right?  I almost feel like it’d be redundant to explain my love for this movie, given how self-obvious I imagine it is to basically everyone who knows me Literally At All.  But heck, I’ve rambled on this long, why not go all the way?  Because the thing of it is, “Gojira” (to be clear, the original Japanese movie from 1954 rather than its American edit, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” from 1956) doesn’t just top the list by being a Great Movie.  Though to be clear, it really is.  Flawless?  No; there’s a reliance on puppetry that even for the time can be a bit chintzier than the movie can really afford, in particular.  But brilliant, even so, a heart-wrenching example of Science Fiction Storytelling As Allegory, one that, in a rarity not just for its own genre but indeed for many movies in general, very meaningfully lingers on its deepest, darkest implications.  Many a film critic has pointed it out, and it remains true: the stark black-and-white photography heightens the sense of Implacable Horror at the core of the story, and the way the central Melodrama, a tragic love triangle that carries with it many aspects of Class Conflict and Personal Desire VS. The Collective Good, ties back into the main story is truly beautiful in its elegance and emotional impact.  Still, for me personally, it tops the list, now and always, because it is a movie that affirmed something for me, that the character I had fallen in love with as a child convincing his family to watch a monster movie with him on television to prove his seven-year-old bravery, really was as genuinely as powerful and meaningful a figure as I had always imagined him to be. 

[setaripendragon]

So I’m just... sitting in a weird creative rut at the moment. Like, I’ve got all these half-baked ideas that aren’t going anywhere so I can’t write them, so I can’t get them out of my system so I can’t come up with any more solid ideas. I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a room and someone’s just dropped three crates of interesting knick-knacks on the floor. Like, this is all so colourful and shiny, but... there’s so much? and they’re all so tiny? what do you want me to do with these???

SO. This is me venting. (And also throwing fic recs out into the void because I need someone to scream with about Supernatural, none of my irl friends have watched more than a few episodes.)

I got back into the Supernatural fandom recently, and I’m... god, it feels like heresy to even say it, bored with Destiel. Like, I still love them, I’m still eagerly awaiting Cas’s debut in my rewatch, but I’m also, like, looking at these thousands on thousands of fics about them, and I feel like... ‘yes? I know? God, I know these two are fucking soulmates?’ It’s how I usually get about canon pairings (that I like, anyway), actually. I just... don’t get invested (so much) in the fanfiction because, well, obviously.

On the other hand, I could really, really do with some good Dean/Cas/Gabe fics that aren’t The Nature and Kynde of a Lyon, or Frate, non far: ché tu se' ombra, e ombra vedi. (If anyone has an recs, send them my way, please, god.) I love that OT3 like you wouldn’t believe. (I should rewrite their entry for my OT3 drabbles series, cause I didn’t do them justice at all)

I want to write my own story about them. I want to write a fic where Gabe helps Dean deal with the trauma of Hell, where Gabe and Cas circle each other so, so carefully because Gabriel’s afraid of caring too much and then losing and Cas has ages old abandonment issues to deal with, I want to write Gabe shoving Dean and Cas’s heads together and being all ‘now kiss’, and Cas telling Dean and Gabe repeatedly that they are ‘very much alike’ when they each observe how much he cares about the other, and Dean being all insecure and bitchy because Gabe and Cas can relate to each other on a level he could never, and both of them having to come together to reassure him that, no, really, it’s not right without him.

I also really really really want Crobby-centric fics. It’s so hard to find them on Ao3 because it’s usually a side pairing to Destiel. And... it’s not like I don’t ship Destiel. I still love it. So I can’t just ‘exclude Destiel’ because... because then I wind up with side-pairings I don’t like? I just... I wish Ao3 had a ‘main pairing’ tag category, and a ‘side pairing‘ tage category, because what I really want is main pairing Crobby with a side of Destiel. I only have one Crobby fic rec, and that’s A Handful of Dirt.

I want to write a fic where Bobby and Crowley end up being really domestic together, and like, six months in, Bobby’s just like ‘lightbulb’ and then ‘damn, I can’t believe we coulda been having sex this entire time’. And then I want to write a Dean PoV Crobby centric fic where Dean has to face his internalised homophobia because of the Crobby, and has his own queer crisis, and Bobby is a Good Dad and the big emotional climax is Dean and Bobby having a chat (stilted and gruff because that’s just how they are) about it all, and Dean just... can’t say it out loud because he’s got John fucking Winchester’s predictable reaction in his head, and Bobby just claps him on the shoulder, gives him a little shake and is like ‘it’s alright, y’idjit’

(And in the epilogue Crowley surreptitiously slaps a ‘Not gay as in happy, but Queer as in FUCK YOU!’ bumper sticker on the Impala and Dean throws an epic shit fit and figures out it was Crowley and yells at him ‘you don’t go fucking defacing someone else’s fucking car, you hellspawn!’ and Crowley holds up his hands all ‘alright, alright, I’ll take it right off’ and Dean glowers at him and snaps ‘don’t you fucking dare’, because, hey, he does like the sentiment. It feels like something that fits him and his life more than cutesy little flags and all those weird-ass labels Sammy likes to throw around like the nerd he is.)

I so, so badly want to write (or read) a modern AU fic where Dean, Benny, and Charlie are Queer BFFs together. (Benny is Ace, fight me.) Maybe even a Leverage AU? Charlie is obviously the hacker, Benny’s the hitter, Dean’s the thief. (Bela is Charlie’s girlfriend, who they call when they need a grifter.)

Which reminds me, I need to go look for some Charlie/Bela, because I ship that so hard, you have no idea. I love them to pieces individually, they’d be so amazing together.

I also really want to write a fic where Dean and Sam get punted somehow into an alternate universe where everything is just... WEIRD. Like, a verse where the Men of Letters were still a thing, maybe even where John was one? Where John and Mary didn’t die, but got divorced, and it was messy and traumatic, and Dean has to confront the fact that the idyllic apple-pie childhood he remembers was a four-year-old’s rose-tinted recollection, not the truth. (I want Dean, Benny, and Charlie to be BFFs in that world, too.)

And Sam is married to Princess Mia, because I know it’s a crackship, okay, I know it was a fucking stupid ass joke on this stupid ass hellsite, but god do I ship it so hard. They have so much in common. They’re both ‘normal’ kids who got saddled with a ‘special destiny’ at birth (or close enough), which comes with a hell of a lot of responsibility (and a few perks), who keep trying to hold onto their freedom, and are actually super soft decent people who just wanna be happy and loved. (I am so very torn on whether I prefer it if it’s a literal world-merge and Sam is marrying actual European royalty, or if it’s an AU where instead of ‘surprise you’re a princess’ Mia gets ‘surprise you’re from a family of epic hunters’ (Julie Andrews as a badass hunter matriarch? Yes please.))

And I really, really want next gen shenanigans. Ben, and Claire, and Krissy, and Jesse, and Patience, and Jacob, and hell, even Lucas. (Instead of that weird ass ‘we’re being inclusive look women’ spin-off they tried to pitch) I want Ben and Claire bonding as not!sibling because their not!dads are totally gay for each other and being stupid about it. I want Ben and Claire getting into petty fights about who Krissy likes more because they both took one look at her and got massive life-ruining crushes on her. I want Claire and Jesse being BFFs, and Ben and Patience.

I may make a seperate post about the series I want to write about these kids. (It will be an epic post-season-8 fix it. Maybe I should turn it into an original series...)

I want to write a psychic wolves AU. I want to write a Daemon AU. I (do not) want to try and figure out a Hogwarts AU. I’m remembering my old crossover with Charmed that I had planned (doesn’t Patience just give you Charmed vibes?). I want to write time-travel. I want to write time-travel OT3 with Mia/Sam/Jess. I want to write time-travel where the next gen end up zapping themselves into the past for some reason.

God, wouldn’t that be fun? The kids trying to deal with teenage Dean and Sam? (I give it three minutes in the man’s presence before Jacob tries to eat John’s brains.) Or even have them older, and land just before the start of the series?

As you can see, I’ve got all these ideas, but there’s no real substance to them? Nothing that goes ‘yes that’s a story I can tell’ just... premises and moments and nothing really coherent.

[its-whitetomorrow]

Yeah the idea was good and the overall premise of the game FINALLY elevated to proper 3D level with proper quest tracking system made it enjoyable. Though there could have been more, maybe not settlements, but like - actual long dungeons filled with corridors of mons, like that extremely BRIEF moment in Snowpoint Temple. From the story department though... Volo kind of ok but I would say this was still extremely disappointing and had Pokemon’s (and Game Freak’s) “we fail to do anything right with the lore and can’t deliver satisfying conclusion with nicely tied up storylines and mysteries” feel all over it. Which, in 3D environment that’s actually more immersive and gaming system that’s just so much more fun to play than usual so you can spend hours in it just exploring and collecting stuff like those verses, is gonna make it all hundreds times more disappointing than usual because in the end you realize there was no explanation to the mysteries, no coherent lore, no resolution to time travel premise, no logic behind the Sinnoh/Hisui history, nothing. Giant “story” blob with no pay off. Sure, you defeat the “true villain” (after Kamado’s weird “kind of villain but not really, he was just dumb and hasty”) and Volo’s reveal is neat but then, again, nothing. I’m not even sure whether he was supposed to be immortal or not. Volo was better than Rose but Giratina as the villain got Eternatus treatment here, all that scary buildup but in the end it cowers in fear and the matter is quickly resolved, you catch it in a pokeball in a random cave. Also, delegating it all to post game (Volo+Arceus) with all associated post game mechanics and grind feels just... shallow and meh, even though THIS should have been The Story content that the game was telling and part of main game.

So, Legends review time.

Overall, I would say this has been my favorite game of the 3D era of Pokemon. The exploration it offers is fantastic. I'd spend a day or two exploring each new area, rather than just gunning for the boss like I do with the other Pokemon games.

Alphas are a fun challenge, tho they generally cease to be by the time your own Pokemon level up enough.

It doesn't feel like it holds your hand past the initial tutorial (which feels justified this time given the shake-up in gameplay), and never feels like it crowds you or pushes you along in the story. You're free to explore wherever and to your heart's content, so long as you have the necessary ride Mon.

My only real issue is that Hisui can feel a little empty, I feel it could have benefited from a couple more human settlements or interactable locations.

I liked a task that wasn't just doing Gyms. I've been playing since Gen1, so the Gym plot is a bit stale to me by now. The Trials of Alola were a nice start but didn't feel like a suitable replacement for Gyms. The Noble battles have you learning their patterns and aren't too punishing for players who aren't too great at these kinds of fights, with the option to carry over your progress if you lose.

I liked the somewhat more mature tone of the story. They don't shy away from mentioning Pokemon have injured or even killed people. Also, your banishment really hurts when you've done so many requests for the villagers and earned their trust, and I love how your rival and Laventon are ready to go fight with Kamado for your sake. (Laventon is such a dad.) And Volo showing up at your darkest hour to offer you safekeeping when you have nowhere else to go, when the Diamond Clan and Pearl Clan have (regretfully, under the threat of Kamado starting a war) turned you away. And then Cyllene, Adaman, and Irida aiding you in secret? Absolutely heartwarming.

Speaking of Volo, best twist villain. Others have failed due to being too sketchy or obviously evil, but damn dude, this time stung. I already mentioned in another post but I genuinely didn't see it coming. Like, I suppose you could argue he knows more than he should about things and Hisui's myths, but he states he's always keeping tabs on what's up since it helps him as a merchant and he shares a lot of Cynthia's interests about mythology. (Not helping is that he looks so much like Cynthia, who's been a big ally to the player in Platinum and Masters. He looks like a friend. He is not.)

I think he's actually probably one of the nastiest villains we've had since Ghetsis. Like, Lysandre and Cyrus (who have comparable plans) took no joy in their actions, Volo comes off as gleeful when he's telling the player his plans to subjugate Arceus, on top of him siccing Giratina on the player in an attempt to kill them. (He's also a heck of a fight, like guy has what amount to eight Pokemon with the two-phase Giratina fight.)

Overall, I'd give it a good 9/10. I really like the direction they took with this one.

[callistochan87]

Feels like I’ve drawn a lot more traditional stuff lately than I usually have...I know why, because it comes together quickly, but it’s unusual. Or it would be if I weren’t out of town. Traditional art is a bit more portable than digital unless I have my tablet, which...I didn’t 😛

@erinhime83​ wrote We Could Be Heroes for Camp in July, and it sparked my muse into Heart of Steel territory...for a bit, anyway. It got me to re-read parts of Breakdown (which I will rename Heartbreak if/when I rewrite) and...honestly, it wasn’t bad. I have a tendency to ramble, so there’s a lot of fat that could be trimmed, and the big chase scene at the end didn’t exactly come off as coherent, but like...the premise was decent, and there were fewer red herrings/plot threads compared to Heart of Steel, which had too much going on.

It references the WfS-verse way more than @erinhime83​ references HoS though. I suppose that can’t be helped when one of the mains is canonically related to one of the side characters from WfS, but even just random mentions are there. More near the end, though. My guesstimate is that the revised WCBH takes place over a shorter span of time than all of Breakdown (which is about 8 months to a year), so by the time Breakdown is done, the events of WCBH have all been done and over with for a while, so when Lane offers to come check on Lisa, she actually is free. 😛

(Although it’s funny--I write Kinesis as not having as much press as her mother, The Lioness, and nothing in the way of a fan club or anything, and yet at the end I wrote that Lane basically watched Lisa die on TV but she got better, so clearly there’s TV coverage...of course the coverage was probably due to the mecha suits/exoskeletons the two villains were running around with, and also the ginormous explosion, and no so much because Kinesis. As compared to Ultro, who gets press because he’s Ultro.)

But anyway, the story. I liked Vitruvia. The execution...sort of fell flat (she was supposed to be more villainous, but instead she sort of...tried for a bit, had a severe depressive episode, and just gave up on that.) but the design is nice, and at the end she’s a shaky ally to Kinesis despite Kinesis going more or less insane during parts of the story. (I literally read it, read my own story, and went, “wait why is Lisa SO MAD all the time? Even she knows this is irrational, I don’t get it” and then I got to the chapter that explained it and went, “ohhhh THAT makes sense,” like I hadn’t written this myself or anything 😂)

In the story Vitruvia steals a bodysuit meant for Kinesis and alters it to get her uniform; as it was a prototype, it was just a plain white. Since it was designed for Kinesis, who rides a motorcycle, it’s got padding and reinforced sections where there’s likely to be a lot of friction and/or areas that would be more prone to injury from falling: basically the crotch and inner thighs, the shoulders and elbows and knees...I think I did the bits on the sides just to match the rest of the uniform, but it’s the same concept. She added the gloves and boots herself, and the scarf because I guess it was missing something around the hip area.

Anyway when I was away, I took the chance to go to an art store, but I didn’t want to spend all my money, so I opted for the DeSerres store brand Tango markers. They’re...not bad, a bit drier and streakier than the Copics, but some of my well-used Copics are drying out anyway. I didn’t have very many colours, but I had enough to do this, because the one marker that looked like it’d be a sky blue, going by the cap, instead wound up being a lot darker.

Except I think the fumes were giving me a headache, since I had a splitting headache that night and I don’t usually, so when I drew Specter there I told myself I’d wait until I was home, with proper markers. Also because I liked how it turned out and didn’t want to ruin it with a very limited palette. I’d limit my palette, sure, but better. (Side note, the DeSerres brand inking pens seemed to work well enough even if the selection was low. They smeared if I rubbed against them too soon, but once the ink was on, even Copic or Prisma ink, they didn’t smear. Don’t know if that’s the paper I used or what.)

If I were a smarter person, I would’ve arranged the rainbow so it was more evenly covering Specter, (the purple doesn’t even cover his hand!) but I am not. Still, it came together pretty well, even if the pose seemed weird at first. Looks like he’s about to do Tsuki ni Kawatte Oshioki yo, or maybe his famed attack Specter Prism Supreme i suck at attack names okay??

Weird he’s skewing to the left, especially since I’m pretty sure he’s right-handed, but I wound up starting with the head and it was too far to one side, so I had to improvise, so...this. The concept is good but not sure if the values of the greys vs the values of the coloured parts match up, but it looks cool anyway. Although my poor neutral greys, the darker ones are drying up and I should order myself some ink refills but I haven’t >.<