#but I think they ultimately fall out of scope of what the works and character arcs ended up being

[wardensantoineandevka]

this will only make sense if you've seen CritRole C2 but my feelings about the idea that Lucanis's arc within the bounds of the game should've ended in him making a decision about whether to accept the position of First Talon or to say no to it (and to Caterina) are similar to my feelings about the idea that Caleb's arc within the bounds of the campaign should've ended in him taking up a crusade against the Assembly and violently undoing it immediately

[exoticalmonde]

Part III. Hortus de Escapismo Dr. Evealia's Reaction

Transcribed: [The executor suddenly points.

Federico: Come out.

Lively Child: Ah... he found us.]

They are so cute but god do I need Executor with his gun pointed at the little kids and their reaction being... 0. Like, absolutely not impressed and simply disappointed he did find them so quickly.

---

READ MORE to find out what happens to the cute little blue-haired child with the adorable duck sock puppet by clicking this funky little button.

(But WARNING, the following post contains spoilers about the entire Hortus de Escapismo event, including the story, art and my commentary. I think this part is covering HE-4 to the first half of HE-6)

THEY ALMOST FREAKING EXPLODE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS HOLY MOLY STOP TRYING TO GIVE ME HEART ATTACKS ONE OF THOSE WILL BE REAL!!!

---

No... My heart, oh no, not the flowers...

Transcribed: [Gerald once said the Sakraz have no home, only war that follows them wherever they go. They swore to their lord in the hope of finding a home of their own.]

---

Oh Clément I am so sorry... Stupid wench was she the one who set the chapel on fire? Is she even capable of using that kind of arts? Or is this an illusion? I am actually really heartbroken, I like Clément and I was really happy that he existed as a fellow Felafia, but... Why is it just not working out for this guy?

I'll get you a greenhouse with all you need it in babo, stay strong.

---

Yeah, my heart is.

---

Transcribed: [Race is not proof of innocence. I would not hesitate to destroy the sacrarium if I thought it necessary.]

*Hands Federico the 'best not racist' award*

Or ultimately

*Hands Federico the 'most racist' award*

At this point I don't know, but you do what you're doing.

---

Hey, the baby ducks found a new mom.

---

Transcribed: [

Lemuen: Quiet. This is a resedential area. You'll bother the others.

Twisted Monster: (Growls)]

You know what, forget the whole 'amazing strong character' trope that Arknights has going on for everybody, can we just sit and enjoy the fact they always talk to themselves, or to something that is supposedly incapable of understanding them the same way every person speaks to their pets. They don't expect a reaction, and in moments where it FEELS like it was a reaction they have a kick out of it, but otherwise they're... so sweet to watch. In a horrendeous and terribly traumatic way.

---

Transcribed: [The Executor kneels down. No one pays attention to the dirt on the edge of his robe, and the adornments that represent his status.

Federico Giallo gazes straight into the children's eyes.

Federico: The disappearence of an inhabitant is within the scope of my mission.

Federico: Yes, I will find your mother.]

What a wonderful, wonderful, amazing scene. To watch Federico retain his personality but also grow as a character after being introduced to his tasks in the new role he carries is so refreshing. Reading the story feels so short, the levels are hell, but the way he is growing is GOOD and well-paced.

---

Honestly, bast scene. I don't care what terrors and sadness or how cool they will be, this is peak interaction.

---

[Quite the lady's man, aren't you?]

GERALD YOU TEASE!

---

Shots fired, yet no guns were raised.

---

What do I feel about Aulus apart from the fact he kind of reminds me of a taller Pantalone (Genshin Impact)? He fed the creature, he protects it and then just shows up here and there to talk to people and refuses to elaborate. What is your plan? What are you even doing with your life, Father Aulus?

Though guys, I think he found the coolest stick...

---

SHE STOOD! SHE STOOD UP!! LEMUEN???? STOOD UP??? FROM HER WHEELCHAIR????

---

[You may not set foot in Paradise.]

LOOK AT HER GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

---

[The thin door plank is pushed open from the outside.]

I want to die.

ANYTHING BUT THAT PLEASE

[The unsuspected visitors do not disturb their soft breathing.]

[It falls into the soft, meek little 'prison'.]

Wait a second...?

[Twisted Monster: Eren... Sara...]

Oh thank GOODNESS, my heart was about to leap out from my chest. What a rollercoaster. I am so glad they're safe, thank you.

[fostersffff]

Visions of Mana: An Underbaked Anniversary Cake

Going into 2024, Visions of Mana was far and away my most anticipated game of the year. Following the Trials of Mana remake from 2020, it appeared to be everything I was hoping for: a game not inherently bound by being a warts-and-all remake of a 1995 Super Famicom game, with the same visual style as that remake, and (seemingly) budgeted scale/scope-wise in accordance with how insanely well the remake sold. From the reveal, I also got the sense it was meant to be an anniversary game, which I thought made perfect sense: make a big game that pays homage to Adventures, Secret, Trials, Legend, and whatever other Mana games they'd care to reference, and determine a new direction for the franchise!

As we got closer to the release, I got a little apprehensive. I think at some point I learned that this was not actually being made by the developers of the remake, who instead have been working on the Romancing SaGa 2 remake. Instead, this was being handled by a NetEase subsidiary, Ouka Studio, who hadn't seem to have made anything before this; not necessarily a red flag, but definitely an odd choice. Then the demo came out, and while it didn't sour me on the game, I noticed that I had a lot of the same kinds problems with it that I had with Trials of Mana back when that demo came out. Of course, I ultimately loved Trials, and even if the worst came to worst, they make this, and then if it does well, the them gets to make a sequel and iterate!

Then Ouka Studio was literally shuttered the day Visions of Mana came out, so that won't be happening either. And sales have reportedly been underwhelming.

In addition to my standard inability to focus in on anything, I felt like I was kind of pushing off playing Visions because I was worried about being disappointed. Streamers I watch whose opinions I generally line up weren't hostile, but even at best the reception seemed lukewarm. And of course, that only applies to the streamers who actually played it, because they like the Mana series as much as or even more than me. In the course of less than a single year I literally went from WE'RE SO BACK to IT'S SO OVER with regard to the Mana series. But I've now rolled the credits, and drank in as much of it as I care to experience, which is mostly everything.

Visions of Mana is a good game with good ideas that was made by a studio that either didn't have the time, money, experience, or any combination of those three things to bring all of those good idea to fruition. They hit on a lot of what I (and I imagine other people) broadly love about the Mana series, but a lot of the experience is brought down by whatever it is they were missing. And, to be blunt, it feels like they were missing a lot.

But what Visions of Mana was not missing, was a bratty disabled dragon girl with a Southwestern U.S. accent who travels with a baby version of the franchise's iconic sparkledragon, and who also gets to be the party's pugilist.

So that's a feather in the game's cap!

(Spoilers for Visions of Mana, as well as Adventures of Mana (Final Fantasy Adventure), Trials of Mana... the Mana series in general, beneath the break)

The Good:

The game looks absolutely gorgeous. HACCAN's character designs combined with some really stunning and complementary environmental design make this game just incredibly pretty, top to bottom.

One of the things I was most concerned about whether or not they'd land was the story. It's not perfect- the only thing in this game that's perfect is Careena- but I felt that it falls in line with what I consider the be The Tone of the Mana series, which is a kind of gentle melancholy (that has admittedly gotten more diluted with each new entry).

The biggest strength of the story for me, and what I was worried about right up until the end, was that they didn't undermine Hinna's death. Basically everything surrounding that was handled exactly how I would've wanted it, from the party not really absolving Val of responsibility for Hinna's death but trying to be sympathetic, to the game actually making a point of Val having to talk to Hinna's parents about the fact that she died, and most importantly, not letting her (and Eoren and Lyza) come back at the end to do a quaint little Happily Ever After (even though there is a happy ending on a longer timescale).

I actually thought the party came together pretty nicely as a group! This is something I've noticed ever since I replayed Chrono Trigger a few years ago, where after your RPG party hits a certain size incidental dialogue among characters just falls out (because it would be a lot to write), but this game has a fucking ton of unique incidental dialogue for every area in the game. It's actually kind of staggering how often your party will just banter amongst themselves.

Careena is obviously my big favorite, but really the whole party is pretty charming. Special nod to Palamena's endearing but often awkward affinity for alliteration that no one ever points out.

I like all the things that make this feel like an anniversary game! Bringing back iconic bosses like the Mantis Ant and Fullmetal Hugger, having a little plot dedicated to Vuscav, the ships being named Primm and Dyluck, and even trying (not necessarily succeeding) at tying the franchise together by having Visions's world of Qi'Diel be a result of the fracturing of Fa'Diel.

The developers knew enough to allow you to snap the game over your knee if so inclined via powerleveling. I think once I unlocked the class that allowed Careena's Class Strike to ignore a percentage of defense, I made a beeline for the high level ruins and then managed to get myself to like Level 54 while the story was still at Level 30, which trivialized every encounter from then on. I'm Love Avatar Strength.

The Bad:

The music is just... nothing. "Generic" is such a shitty way to describe the work of the composer and so many talented musicians, but I don't think there's a single song in this OST that sticks with me except maybe the Nemesis (open world mini-boss) battle theme, because it's the only one that feels like it has any energy to it. The thing I honed in on the most was the difference between the Sanctuary of Mana theme: in this game, it sounds like music you would hear in "A Jungle Area", which is kinda what it is, but it is quite literally The Most Important Place Ever, so just having the music be "A Jungle Area" is odd. Compare it with the music for the same kind of area in Trials of Mana, where the song "Decision Bell" really immediately strikes you with the fact that this is The Most Important Place Ever, with the choir and heavy ringing bells.

Complimentary to the nothing music is the fact that this game is actively harmed by having the big "open world areas" that are not "open world" in any meaningful way and are instead just very large with very little in them. For as cute as the pikuls are, they didn't really make exploring those areas more fun, and I found myself often just not using them because the animation for summoning them and dismounting took too long. I'd actually argue this game would go up a whole point if those areas were cut down while maintaining the illusion of being huge with good environmental design.

For as much as I like the story's overall tone and how the characters interact, the biggest problem with the story is the entire concept of the Alms. It's revealed once you make it to the Sanctuary of Mana that the sacrifice of the Alms is necessary to give the Goddess and the Elementals enough energy to stave of Daelophos's curse. But there's not really any implication that there's anything special about the chosen Alms in terms of how much energy their corestone provides, it's largely just the elementals going "hey I vibe with this person, let's go with them". Considering how many character stories are precipitated on "well I'm honored to be chosen for this duty, but…", and how many NPCs are like "YO IT'S SO BASED TO BE THE ALM, I HOPE I GET TO BE THE ALM!!!", you'd think it would either be A.) voluntary or B.) they'd lean into the idea that by and large people aren't comfortable with the Alms, and maybe all the people talking about how cool it is to be an Alm are lying through their teeth (like Careena's beau Shiriu seemed to be (but wasn't actually)).

The only characters who really sincerely object to the idea of the Alms sacrifice are Eoren and Passar, and while there's significantly more nuance to Eoren's bad deeds than Passar's, he's dispatched immediately once Daelophos shows up. A lot of this could've been handwaved with a few extra lines here and there about how only the corestones of specific people can actually resonate enough with the Elementals to sustain them, which is kinda sorta implied, but as it's written it's just like "it has to be this character for Story Conflict"

Last note on the Alms: it's very strange to open the game with Eoren and Lyza, and end the game with Val abolishing the need for Alms, and have the emotional centerpiece of the game be Hinna's death being brought about by not wanting to be an Alm, only for the game to either not square the circle or play dumb about how horrible it is all the previous Alms had to sacrifice themselves. Like, the game has a lot of major "Alms bad" points but doesn't really make a push for how bad it was all those years.

The Rest:

The gameplay goes here, because it's not bad, but more than anything else I feel it's best described as "underbaked". See, they honed in on the fact that something that everyone liked about Trials was all the classes, and all the different costumes (originally just recolors) characters got as they got new classes, which is clearly what led to the Elemental Plot system. All five characters have eight unique classes that have a special power tied to them, and to spice things up further, three different weapons that are divided among the classes, per character. But this is where the time/money/experience issue really rears its head: there's maybe three or four attack strings per weapon, so even though Val's sword, greatsword, and lance movesets feel totally different, none have very much depth to them. And then, even if I didn't like how the lance felt, was I just going to not use the special ability that creates a time bubble?

Also, on that note: kinda get the sense Aesh was meant to be a party member, but they couldn't whip up eight more classes and three more weapon movesets, and meaningfully differentiate the classes' abilities from the other 40 classes in the game. So he's just around sometimes!

One last nit to pick with the story: the post-credits scene is a homage to Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana, where Fuji has to become the new Mana Tree/Goddess of Mana, and Sumo vows to be her guardian for all time. This is the dynamic between Visions's Goddess and Khoda, and so once Val dies of old age, he takes up Khoda's vigil and becomes Hinna's guardian, as she becomes the new Goddess of Mana. But... why? During the entire final boss fight I was waiting for Daelophos to destroy or otherwise critically injure the Mana Tree, like what happens Adventures and Trials, and they again could have hand waved it as "since Daelophos used Hinna's corestone, she was able to integrate herself into the Tree to help it stay alive", or something. Literally anything!

I was weirded out by the choice to have new Benevodons except for Zable Fahr. This is fine, since a lot of them as introduced in Trials were pretty whatever design-wise, (except, of course, for Zable Fahr), but my understanding was every Mana game after Trials that referenced them were consistent that those specific entities were THE Benevodons. Selaphia is a more interesting Benevodon of Light than Lightgazer the Giant Eyeball, but Tor Mane the Giant Frog seems like a weird replacement for Dolan, especially since the you once again fight the Benevodon of the Moon in an ancient castle that was populated by beastfolk.

Putting Kaiji Tang on notice for his performance as Morley, because I just could not get a sense for whether or not he was trying to do an Inigo Montoya thing. That's honestly probably more on the voice director because I know Mr. Ichiban Kasuga does good work, but Morley was the roughest voice in the game.

I feel like I wrote a lot to not say much, which is maybe appropriate for Visions (also because I didn't take notes/pictures so I'm flying by the seat of my pants). It's in the miserable "mid" range where I can't bring myself to come down on it too hard, because it doesn't do anything unforgivably wrong, but it rarely achieves any great heights. It's also difficult to recommend Visions of Mana to anyone who isn't a fan of the Mana series already, especially in a year that's been as packed with other good video games- especially with so many RPGs, and especially Action RPGs like Granblue Fantasy: Relink, which based on the bit I've played of that seems to do everything Visions of Mana wanted to do.

At least I'll always have Trials.

[variousqueerthings]

things about the episode + season

yeah 8 episodes is just too rushed -- which i think feels even more obvious in this episode, because it's... rushed. what can ya do, if you've got 8 episodes, i guess that's what you've got but... alas

ruby's story was pretty satisfying. it's smaller in scope than most companions, almost it's own mini-story amidst the wider dw sphere of things, which may be a smart choice, but does mean she'll probably fall under the scope of companions that i think were fun and fine, rather than like. chemistry altering. but then, i don't think she as a character was entirely for me, as much as giving a little intro to new (younger) watchers

(once upon a time that was me and rose, *wistful sigh*)

can you imagine just being some lady who had a bad time of it as a kid/teen, but has managed to build a pretty okay life and then to discover that the idea of your existence saved the universe from the god of death... idk, just a pretty strange day in the life of louise that must have been

i also. listen im a slut for "the doctor can offer someone all of time and space, but for some reason it's never enough (and if it is, it implies something will go terribly wrong)" themes. they're some of my favourite DW themes

back to the "rushed" side of things, the compulsory DNA testing, ive mentioned it so many times by now lol, but eek and the like. as a gimmick to get the episode to the next plotpoint, i was not a fan unless that's something to unpack at a later point. i think in some other point of canon i might have been more chill about it, even as something more thrown in there, but something about it here feels both lazy and a bit tone deaf. may have to unpack that more separately at some point

UNIT continues. to be. my fucking nemesis. why is everyone working for UNIT??? why are we just chill about this organisation in-canon???? when are they ever actually helpful??? (in nu!who) I just. they both add nothing for me and are a politically fucked up notion within the scope of this story in the way they're currently written

sutekh. i think also suffers a bit from "rushed" syndrome for me, in that in the end he just kinda sits on top of the tardis (with a sexy voice) and then gets killed by being dragged behind it, it's kind of the least interesting part of the story to me

as a setup for where this doctor's story is going, am very excited -- both about all the susan mentions, the continued wtf-ness implied by the doctor not being a native gallifreyan, the doctor's therapy self lasting all of... well a few episodes really, but certainly by this episode it's like. "pat pat."

i liked this season. it's given some larger stakes for the future (all those gods i think are still going to make a presence + mrs flood who im ngl i thought for a lot of this season was susan triad woops), but overall was relatively contained and didn't build a million mysteries on top of an enigma on top of a girl and what does it all mean? we'll find out... later.... maybe....

ultimately: good new season, enjoyed our companion, liked her arc, like what it's doing for the doctor's arc

[onceuponalegendbg-rwby]

Reaction to RWBY Crew Commentary V9

Alright, as is tradition at this point, got my copy of the Blu Ray so let's get started.

Okay, first of all, before I even hop into the commentary, I love that the title screen for the menu is Ruby falling through that mural in the OP. That is... That is so cool man! Whoever thought of that... I love you. You're a genius.

So we start off with Kerry, Eddy, Laurie (hope I spelled that right). And addressing how they had to work mostly from home on this volume and the challenges that caused.

Yeah, quick reunion was the right call. I mean, we did the Team RWBY split for two volumes (4 and 5) and then again in V8. Don't keep the girls apart again.

Little origins! Give me! Someone that starts how Ruby started...

I mean... yeah, I assumed Ruby knew about Penny from Weiss. Like... duh.

Same peeps for episode 2 but also with Paula? Again, I hope I heard that right.

Return of Blake the Book Nerd.

Yang and Blake kind of dig the Ever After, Weiss hates it, and Ruby is lost in her thoughts.

Luci improvised Little's little song.

Oh, Yang might still think this is a dream so nothing here matters... That's an idea. Everyone grieves differently...

Man I love Weiss in this episode.

"We can't have her be the butt of every joke." .... I want to see what they cut.

Episode 3! We've picked up Conner, Dustin, and Kiersi! Lost Laura and Paula.

The animation is so good man.

Putting away depression to help her friends.

Prince Trauma(TM)

Neo Scary.

Episode 4. Kerry, Eddy, Miles and Dustin.

Curious talk.

Self critic!

"She learned her lesson in the end, right?" "Oh, I'd certainly say so."

"If there's something Ruby can blame herself for, do it!"

"Cat wanted to scope out which one of the girls was weakest."

Shout out to the VAs!!

Chapter 5: Kerry, Eddy, Paula, Kiersi!

Cat is dismissive of WBY. Focuses only on Ruby.

The Blacksmith: The Ever After itself is now reaching out to Ruby.

Walking the line between the audience knowing that Ruby needs help and WBY not quite understanding how bad it is.

Making sure the emblem wasn't on Ruby's model after was a pain.

"Oh no, he's hot."

Episode 6: Kerry, Eddy, Yssa, Laura.

The difference between Jaune having already lived for many years with this guilt in the Ever After and RWBY who are still fresh.

How protective Kerry is of the Bee scene is amazing.

There was an idea that the vision Alyx saw was that she saw that someone in her party was going to keep her from returning home, and it ultimately is herself before the Cat kills her.

Ya'll have already seen other posts about Kerry and crew's thoughts on the Bee scene and what it means for the Yang and Blake so I won't go into all that because, yeah, can't say it better.

"They were actually in front of each other the whole time." Excuse me!

"Now she has to step up again." ....Ow.

Episode 7: Kerry, Eddy, Miles, Dustin? I think that's what I heard.

How the meeting went: "Well he can't have been doing nothing, that would be really disappointing." *Beat of silence* "Oh, that would be really disappointing." Evil geniuses.

Stuck in the pattern of trying to be the hero. Both incredibly busy and doing nothing.

"He's more lost than ever."

Fighting on a hill. I'd never considered the complications of that either.

Miles and Lindsey kill this scene man. It's so good.

Episode 8 (oh boy): Kerry, Eddy, Miles, Paula, Kiersi.

Had to cut an episode due to scheduling and budget. Scary to have to rework that.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

The flowers on the Tea Cups are Forget-Me-Nots.

Imposter Syndrome.

Neo landed on the Brother's Acre.

"Neither one of them won that fight." Neo and Ruby.

Episode 9: Kerry, Eddy, Yssa, Dustin, Kiersi.

Blacksmith is a therapist.

Weiss is the best, true.

What do the characters want?

Episode 10: Kerry, Eddy, Yssa, Kiersi, Dustin.

Aw, their kids contributed some of the background drawings for Yang and Ruby's room.

Furious Cat.

"She's the self that chose herself." "She emerges herself but different."

"I'm so happy." I love how much they love this show.

"How do we not redeem her but give her this sort of neutral path?"

Oh man, I'm tearing up before Somewhat even shows up.

Somewhat is no longer defined by having one purpose.

Dude, they keep talking about not wanting this to be filler so they had the backstory of the Brothers but I will always stand by that if the characters learn and grow as people then it will never be filler. So from the beginning this was never going to be filler.

"One small kindness, in one small moment, led to such a marvelous transformation." That line always destroys me.

Whelp, that's a wrap on the commentary for V9. Now... we wait.

[twistedtummies2]

Fifteen Days of Disney Magic - Number 2

Welcome to Fifteen Days of Disney Magic! In honor of the company’s 100th Anniversary, I have been counting down my Top 15 Favorite Movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios! Today, we cover the penultimate pick on the countdown! Today’s entry took a truly concerted effort to create. Number 2 is…Fantasia.

Even more than “Sleeping Beauty,” I would venture to say that “Fantasia” is a film that shows the power of animation as an art form. It was released in 1940, and the imagery that fills the screen, accompanied by some of the finest pieces of classical music humankind has to offer, remains just as powerful and as admirable today as it was back when it was released. Many consider this to be one of Disney’s true masterpieces, and it’s not a surprise why: it’s a simple sort of movie, yet also grand and fantastic in its scope and impact. “Fantasia” started out when Walt Disney had a chance encounter with the famous orchestra conductor and composer Leopold Stokowski. It turned out the two were fans of each other’s work, and they became quick friends. The pair decided to collaborate on the creation of a Mickey Mouse short, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice;” at the time, Mickey’s star was actually starting to fade a bit (amazing to imagine, I know), and Walt thought that the short could help catapult Mickey back to the heights of his stardom. However, the costs of making the short became so great, the team began to think…well, why stop there? It was actually LESS risky in costs, in the long run, to just make a feature film! So was born the genesis of “Fantasia.” The film was, for a long time, referred to as “The Concert Feature,” and in essence, that is what Fantasia is: it is less of a proper movie, and more of an animated concert, or, perhaps, more appropriately, an animated ballet show. The film is made of a series of several animated sequences, each set to a different piece of classical music, intercut with live-action segments that show the orchestra tuning up their instruments as the host of the show – famous music critic Deems Taylor – introduces each separate piece. The film is treated very seriously in its style; there is humor in several of the different animated sequences, to be sure…but for every bit of comic silliness involving Mickey Mouse or a dancing hippo, you have a sequence depicting a T. Rex hunting down a Stegosaurus, or Chernabog and his ghostly minions cavorting atop Bald Mountain on Walpurgis Night. Yet despite the varying tones and stories and characters, the film does manage to have a unified sense of wholeness to it, as the segments are expertly arranged to feel like a perfect package.

The film was highly innovative for its time: not only were the effects used to create some of the animated shots state of the art for the time (and even more remarkable to think about nowadays), but it was also one of the first movies to use a stereophonic sound system during its initial release, called “The Fantasound System.” However, at the time Fantasia was released, it was actually not a major hit. While most audiences who saw it seemed to like it, it was hit-or-miss with critics, and the box office returns themselves just could not make up for the film’s ultimate expense: it was just so costly to create, and its release method so unorthodox, there was almost no way to make a profit. Over time, however, the movie gained more respect. However, even there, it seems to be a film that’s got a slight sort of “niche” following: it seems to be a film for people of a specific crowd. Those who are looking for complex stories, a lot of humorous dialogue, exciting action scenes, and so on are not likely going to be pleased. But for those who enjoy just seeing what animation could and can still do in an artistic endeavor, with a level of craftsmanship and passion that would be hard to find in a lot of movies today, “Fantasia” is the film for you. For me, it’s one of the movies that made me fall in love with animation and its power, and it’s always going to have a special place in my heart. Well, people. Tomorrow’s the big day. Two days till Disney’s founding, and the final entry on this list. I’m going to be honest with you all…I’m cheating with the last one. I warned you all there’d be an exception to the rules, and that exception is my final choice. HINT: “Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange?”

[crusherthedoctor]

It's been a long time since I've last seen Secret Rings' story but if I remember correctly the issue I have with the whole deal between Shahra and Erazor is that while yes it was handled in a somewhat tactful manner for a game mainly directed at younger audiences, it also felt... sorta thrown in like that?

Of course the game couldn't have delved too deeply into such a relationship, otherwise it would have delved into uncomfortable territory for the franchise's standards, so from a Sonic-storytelling point of view it works...but from a more general storytelling point of view it feels cheap to only scarpe the surface of such a sensitive matter (for instance I don't believe we're ever told what it is that she sees in the guy, what kind of positive facade he must be using to manipulate her, hence kind of undermining the entire crux of a toxic relationship like that) and only treat it in broad scopes.

I'm not saying we should've had scenes of Erazor being explicitly abusive towards her, God no! Just that I feel like that whole subplot felt somewhat unneccessary? Like it's so minimal that you could scrap it from the game and very little would change

If we're going to criticise things that are seemingly inserted for its own sake in Sonic stories, we'd be here all day. And I don't just mean comic examples.

Yeah, the story as is could have probably worked decently without it. But considering how much focus is given to Sonic and Shahra's growing friendship, I think it provides a strong contrast to drive home the difference in how they both treat Shahra as a person and as a genie, on top of fleshing out Shahra and Erazor at the same time, as well as justifying Shahra's inner conflict in the endgame. I also don't think there was anything cheap or insensitive about it just because it wasn't shown overtly.

What Shahra had previously seen in Erazor is certainly a mystery, but since the game doesn't dwell on it much, I think it's deliberately left to the player's imagination, since all that truly matters in the present time of the story is that they once had a history together, things went south due to Erazor being a dipshit, and Erazor is now exploiting their past history for his benefit. Sonic himself doesn't dwell on it and respects that she must have had her reasons, so it seems that was the intention. By sharp contrast, '06 spends a lot of time trying to convince us so badly that Mephiles is the ultimate chessmaster, and Silver falling for his obvious bullshit is somehow understandable because Something Something Desperation.

IMO, adding something extra to a story/character, even if it's not 100% necessary, doesn't hurt as long as it still has a purpose for being there, and doesn't take away from anything else that's already been established.

[waateeystein]

Waateeystein's Ultimate Frankenstein Adaptation Review Masterpost

TL:DR

To appease my Frankenstein hyperfixation, I am attempting to watch as many adaptations of Mary Shelley’s novel as I possibly can. I created a grading criteria to rate each film/play/musical, and I am ranking my favorites in the name of science and obsession. All reviews will be posted to this blog and linked in the masterpost below for your viewing pleasure. 

[Last updated 7/30/2023]

Reviews [in chronological order]

[Scroll further for a detailed explanation of my review criteria and background on this project]

Frankenstein (1910) Score: 25/40

Frankenstein (1931) Score: 26/40

Background

In 2022 around Halloween-time, I started a twitter thread of mini reviews of a few Frankenstein movie/play adaptations. Because of school/work obligations (I’m a full time grad student and fall 2022 was my first of six semesters), I wasn’t able to get through as many adaptations as I had hoped to. This year I’ve decided to revisit my Frankenstein reviews, now on my new tumblr side-blog, with a better understanding of how much free time I have in grad school, and an ever-growing Frankenstein hyperfixation that simply won’t die (not that I want it to hehe.) This masterpost will compile my review criteria, and will have a complete list of what I’ve watched, what I plan to watch, and links to my reviews which will be on their own individual posts. This entire project is purely for my own personal enjoyment, and I absolutely do not expect anyone to agree with my opinions, but I also hope you all respect my opinions just as I would respect yours. I also hoped that I would do this during the month of October, but seeing my new scope, this will probably be an ongoing project that will start during the spooky season and go on indefinitely. To limit my scope, I will only be watching movies and plays or musicals that have been recorded and can be viewed/listened to. I’m sure there are a ton of great novels and short stories based upon the Frankenstein mythos, but for now I am sticking to visual media. I will gladly take suggestions of things to watch, I have a big list already but I will gladly add to it! The goal is NOT to create an objective list of which Frankenstein stories are the best and the worst, because it is simply impossible for me as one person to do so. The real goal of this project is to catalog my thoughts about Frankenstein adaptations in hopes of unpacking how different artists and groups approach the Frankenstein mythos, and for me to gain a better personal understanding of what I like best out of a Frankenstein story.

References

These are the wiki articles I am referencing for finding media to review:

Grading Criteria

Media will be graded on four categories:

Faithfulness to the Source Material

In the case of adapting a story from one medium to another, I think it is very silly to think that any adaptation should be 100% accurate to its source material. We are all familiar with the idea of "the movie is never as good as the book", and while I do mostly agree with that statement, I also believe it can be unfair to judge adaptations based entirely on if they are able to be a carbon copy recreation of the original (adaptations are meant to adapt after all). In the case of judging adaptations of Frankenstein, I judge this category in terms of how faithful an adaptation is to the themes, character motivations and general vibes of the original story, rather than if the adaptation can produce every single plot point and character of the original exactly as Shelley wrote. I also don't think an adaptation of Frankenstein is automatically bad if it is "unfaithful", but it is fun to see both how close or how far these adaptations get depending on what their intended artistic goal is. I can appreciate when an adaptation values accuracy to the source material, but also when it decides to go off the rails and tries something new or unexpected. Frankenstein adaptations give us both extremes and the goal of this category to appreciate the entire spectrum of book accuracy (or inaccuracy). Total Possible Category Score: 10 Points

Production Design

I include this category because I'm a scenographer by trade. I think design for film and theatre is incredibly important to a story, and I don’t see enough people talking about it in a genuinely informed way. That also being said, I'm a terrible judge of actors' performances beyond my own entertainment, which is why I am not including a performance category to mirror this design category (but I may still make comments here and there within other categories when I have something substantial to say.) Costume and scenic design are my bread and butter, but I also may occasionally include thoughts on other design areas too.  Total Possible Category Score: 10 Points

Entertainment Value

When all is said and done, entertainment value, in my opinion, may be the most important category in my review. A piece of Frankenstein media could be a 100% accurate visual recreation of the book, but if it's not entertaining or thought provoking, what was the point? How entertainment is judged will be different depending on many different factors, like genre, production time period, etc. And obviously this category is highly personal to my own tastes, my cup of tea may not be the same as yours. This may be the most important category, but it is also the most subjective. But as someone who makes a living in the entertainment industry, I’d like to think that I am generally a good judge of entertainment value. Total Possible Category Score: 10 Points

Bonus Points

These are a few low-scoring categories where an adaptation might get a few bonus points. Most of these have to do with accuracy to the source material, and what details might make an adaptation perfect in my eyes. There are a lot of adaptations that stray so greatly in genre from the original novel, that I might make a judgment call on whether or not to include this category on a case by case basis. In conclusion, these are some “just for funsies” points.  Character(s) included/mentioned (1 point each): - Robert Walton and/or Henry Clerval - The DeLacey Family - Justine Moritz - William and/or Ernest Frankenstein Victor(y) points (1 point each): - Is Victor aged 18-26 years old? - Is Victor a college dropout? - Does Victor have an accent that is not American or British? Miscellaneous (1 point each): - The setting is primarily in Switzerland. - There are homoerotic undertones. - The Creature has intelligence. Total Category Score: 10 Points

Total Possible Score: 40 Points

Congratulations if you made it this far! I hope you all stick around to hear my ramblings. Please feel free to share your thoughts on individual reviews or this project as a whole, I'm really looking forward to writing these reviews and sharing my love of Frankenstein with you all!

[sinkingtime]

Remaking the DCU 3 - Enter the Multiverse, kind of

Part 1, Part 1 and a half, Part 2, Part 2 and a half

This one is more vague, as I have vastly exceeded the original scope of the idea, but I still have a few stories I want to get to.

Also, the thing I was insecure about including, which nobody said anything either way so I will proceed under the assumption that it's perfectly ok. That's how that works, right?

We should ostensibly be in the "space arc" that I wanted to get Supergirl off-world to introduce. But before that, I have one more Earth character I'd like to have, right after Red Daughter of Tomorrow.

But before that, let me fill in one of the blanks I had before.

But before THAT, minor insignificant addendum.

...about Azrael

Jean-Paul Valley Jr, the Angel of Vengeance of the Holy Order of Saint Dumas, was the one to get Supergirl's hair. There isn't such an order, he's just a hitman who calls himself that.

His sword is actually on fire, so maybe that could establish her hair was a little super after all. I think preferably not, though, on the grounds that the Legion would deem hair useless and not bother modifying it.

Anyways, the point is that I've been skipping over Gotham-based characters, for the sake of the "Bruce but no Batman" agenda. But this guy doesn't need to be from there, it makes the most sense that they meet him in europe somewhere.

Identity Crisis

This isn't actually an adaptation of Identity Crisis, probably doesn't deserve the name, but maybe there could be a couple references that justify a "loosely inspired by" tag. Maybe.

What this is is the movie right after Lobo, dealing with magic and mass-mind control. I have decided Zatanna is the villain. There will also be Manchester Black, but he turns out to be a fake she set up to take the fall.

She's using her power to join the League, retroactively. There's flashbacks to when she first helped with something and they offered her membership, and mention that she and Jinx actually did some training together, Jonah was an old friend of Zatanna's dad, etc. All of that is a lie, but hopefully by this point we have introduced enough members without comment that the audience doesn't catch up early.

J'onn would easily mess up her plot, so she needs to deal with him early; and I consider his reveal important enough that she shouldn't give any indication that she's dealing with him. We don't know about him until Rebirth, but when we do the general thought should go "wait why didn't he know about OH right she did that thing".

So, before she sets foot on the Watchtower Station for the first time, the first time they learn about Black, she's shown to resist him. She later says she always has psychic defenses active, it's an elementary precaution any decent mage would take. Cue awkward fidgeting from Jinx. Then the two of them then cooperate to cast wards protecting the entire League.

Later, when those fail, Zatanna can blame the nature of Jinx's power for it. The movie could also imply this to be true, if it's happening early enough.

Zatanna's power source is a book that is written mirrored. Call it the Tome of Reflections or somesuch. It is the reason she speaks backwards; it's not that anything she so says will happen, but it's still a necessary component of all her spellcasting.

Her plot is ultimately to replace that with Diana's magic. The innate one, what she inherited from Zeus. She's not even using it, really, and Zatanna is professionally offended by that. (If she knew about the Lanterns she'd freak out.)

Extracting Diana's magic would kill her, but I'm saying that as omniscient narrator, I don't think she should know that for sure. Not that it would stop her if she did, but it's probably best if she tells herself she will be fine, that she'll later agree it was worth it, when both of them are heroes together.

Also, I keep imagining her cutting open her own chest to carve magic symbols in her ribs and heart and whatever other surfaces are available. Sadly, we can't use that, because it would be far too gruesome for this kind of movies, and also because she's not going to win. Spoilers, by the way!

Also also, I was considering making King Shark be a demigod after all, and therefore older than Wonder Woman because she really needs to be the last one. That would make him probably a better target for Zatanna, so that finally convinces me against it. He's just a weird mutant after all.

Anyways, I don't have much to add. Manchester Black was sometimes an anarchist, or at least pretending to be. His "evil plan" should include making public statements roughly in that vein. He could be someone who had previously complained about the League's existence and operations, though I don't think that's important enough to actually add him to previous movies.

He dies, by standard supervillain accidental suicide, except it's staged by Zatanna as a last-ditch effort to settle matters and distract everyone's attention.

The movie itself should be mostly mystery, maybe minor horror, on the grounds of the paranoia that Zatanna's actions are seeding.

After her defeat, Diana claims the Tome. She's also not going to use it, just keep it in storage with her friend's brooch. If we actually see that, there should be a third thing with them, doesn't matter what exactly but it should be somewhat recognizable.

Also this means the brooch was also more powerful than the book, or else that'd be what Jinx "borrowed" for Jonah to use during Rebirth.

Roxy Rocket

This was a minor villain from Batman: the Animated Series. She has since also appeared in comics, but never in an important fashion, as far as I can tell. She was a stunt actress who was addicted to danger, and so kept escalating her stunts until studios would no longer hire her. Then she turned to crime, primarily for the thrill but presumably also for the money. She rides a huge rocket with bike controls bolted on, and mostly antagonizes Batman and friends, but also Superman at least once.

Anyways, I want her to have Lobo's bike. I'd thought from the start I should want someone to use it to become a super; it's kind of a crappy spaceship but for a planet-bound character it's probably one of the best vehicles available. Then I dropped that when I thought that would be Supergirl's best idea to contact the Lantern Corps, but then then I remembered Roxy and have decided to go for it.

We open with her jumping out of a plane, wearing one of those flying squirrel-like flight suits. She's intending to get some air time and then land in another plane. This is not being recorded, she's doing it for fun, on her own money. The receiving plane gets out of position and leaves her to fall, presumably to her death.

Either someone from Hollywood wants revenge for some insult, real or imagined, or she was already involved in crime and is being double-crossed. Probably the later, but if I could come up with a plausible motivation for a (previously) non-criminal, I think it could be better to have the start of her life of crime be on-screen and not a flashback. Probably.

She realizes she's been betrayed and panics, but then gets a wide smile. She wouldn't have tried jumping from that height down to the ground, despite her reputation she's not quite that stupid, but now that it's happening she loves it. She does her best to control her fall, having the best time of her life, then crashes into the desert and slides and rolls a large distance, destroying her suit and getting large friction burns all over her body. She smiles and tries to raise her hand in triumph, whispering that she made it, then falls unconscious.

She's woken up by a voice she doesn't understand, probably with weird camera and audio effects to show us she's suffering from pain and hunger and sun exposure, but the voice is genuinely speaking a non-human language; it's someone that received Supergirl's transmission but also didn't understand it, and is trying to get a response back. This probably means it hasn't been very long since she left Earth, though the exact timing doesn't actually matter.

Roxy crawls towards the voice, with great difficulty, until she is convinced that it's below her, and begins digging in the sand, wondering if she's gone crazy. She finds the communicator and tries to answer, but it's quickly made clear to both that they can't understand each other. What's important is she also finds Lobo's bike.

First she raids the cargo boxes, finds his rations and begins eating and drinking. After that, a little more recovered, she takes a better look at the bike. It's obviously weird and she wonders if it's some prop, but by now humanity is aware that aliens and weird science exists, so she gets on it and tries to get it running.

It flies away at great speed, almost tossing her off, but she barely manages to hold on and climb properly. She's once again laughing, extremely happy. As she leaves, the camera goes back to the ground, we see she left behind the comm and Lobo's two books. Maybe some sand starts burying them again.

We should also get some small montage of her figuring out the bike. In particular, it can take her to space, but she very quickly figures out she shouldn't go that high, and it can take her around the planet trivially quickly. She also has some space guns, that she should have fun figuring out. And either we don't worry about power or there's some universal power converter and she also steals electricity from various places.

Beyond that, it's mostly a standard revenge movie. She figures out who betrayed her and why, starts attacking their interests, they start to retaliate but after some dramatic setbacks she wins. As keeps happening, I'm not sure if she should be a hero or a villain. She was already almost sympathetic in the episode, her main motivation is seeking adrenaline and that could easily be fulfilled by fighting supervillains. But I also need some recurring villains, arguably? So maybe she can stay as a "not so bad" criminal. Dunno.

She uses a version of her cartoon costume, which in-universe will be from an old movie she was in, called "The Ultimate Thrill", which was the name of the episode. Her last or her best work or something like that. We should see the poster but she's not in it, since she was a stunt actress, not a star. I think it would be funny to have her stunt double be the one posing for the poster, so as to say the roles are reversed in-universe. Unless the part were played by someone who does her own stunts, in which case nevermind.

After credits, back at the desert, the communicator speaks up again. The voice asks, in english but poorly, if this is the correct language and can anyone understand them now. Then the battery finally dies.

...next is a bunch of movies I can't actually think of

For that "space arc" that I wanted to have, but don't have any good ideas for.

I wanted to have a movie following Jonah Hex in the afterlife, after the events of Rebirth, but it was bad. Mostly the point was to establish that nothing else in the universe could destroy souls, besides the White War enemies; and furthermore that this was the reason why the Legion's meddling with time failed to make them unexist.

But there's nothing I'm comfortable letting get out of the afterlife, so there are no real stakes I could give the movie, so it was always going to be bad. Discarded.

I also had an idea for a New Gods one, mashing together Apokolips and New Genesis into a single planet, so as to make it be a real society. They'd be in the middle of a civil war, from which Orion would emerge as a Robin Hood-like figure.

That one has potential, I guess. I must have writen and deleted it like five times. For now all that remains is this "maybe".

The Violet Lantern Corps have a long-standing lawyer firm, that absolutely exists in the setting even if I've not had a legitimate excuse to introduce them in a movie. And from Lobo's attitude we can infer there is some form of galactic bounty hunters association. Either or both of them should get some sort of police procedural.

I've also decided Dick Grayson was a lawyer, as his day job back on Earth. That probably means when he first left Gotham it was to go to Harvard, and he only wound up in Blüdhaven after. Unless we just say Blüdhaven has a good law school. Either way, the point is that he'll end up joining the Star Sapphires proper, this may be his movie, or at least he shows up after credits.

Also, whoever was trying to answer Supergirl's call was probably either a Star Sapphire or Lobo's contact to them, since she was using his space phonebook. Whoever it was doesn't need to be particularly important, but should probably at least be mentioned.

Princess Koriand'r originally received visions of multiple "nice" worlds, specifically such that the Light thought it possible she would rather go to one of them than stay with her dying mother. Again, I consider this canon even if I don't think it should have been mentioned. Though I suppose she could have mentioned it in Red, actually; Dick could ask about her Test after learning that his was not standard-issue.

Anyways, someone should probably be in or from one of those worlds. The fact that they are desirable places to go to could mean whatever happens there is low-stakes and pleasant, which would make a good respite in between two tense movies, should there be such.

There should also be an appearance by the planet where the martians ended up. I don't have anything specific in mind for them, J'onn wouldn't have gotten to space and they have no particular reason to care about their former world, but nonetheless it feels like a waste to not have them come up.

Also kinda wanna establish that they can't phase through objects, J'onn only has that power as a result of the teleport accident, regular martians are merely shapeshifter telepaths.

A movie about a world that's been ravaged by a gang of space bandits, maybe slavers so they can ultimately rescue some people. A kid manages to escape and goes to seek a legendary warrior, famed for intervening in several wars through the galaxy. It's Supergirl. She helps him hunt them down, they philosophize about the nature of revenge and so on.

This is a story archetype that's been done many times, but I kinda wanna develop this one more. Can't help but feel it just needs one more gimmick.

I want the Challengers of the Unknown. Kind of. They would normally be a human group, but I'm making them aliens in part as payback for all the aliens who got turned into humans back on Earth. They'll actually appear later, so all we want during this section is a tease after credits. Members of the broader organization they will belong to, some space university or something, showing up to check up on whatever scientifically interesting debris one of the movies may have left behind.

I also keep thinking about the Black Mercy, but that's overplayed actually. Maybe mention that someone got black mercied, but don't show it.

And on the subject of officially running out of ideas, there's a minor character known as Space Cabbie. No real name I can find, though I admit I didn't look very hard. He's in the future, but that's easy enough to ignore, so I want him here, even if just as a minor character in some other movies. He transports people through space, and that's it.

His spaceship probably needs to look less like an obvious Earth taxi, but we have many different taxi designs and there's only so many colours, so I guess some overlap will be ultimately inevitable? But at least it shouldn't look like a New York taxi, since those are the ones we all see in movies.

Also there needs to be a sequel to at least one of these, hopefully more, to give this stretch of the franchise legitimacy. That I need to specify it like that betrays its lack of legitimacy, of course. So moving on.

Lanterns

Poster is one of each of the Lantern rings, threaded on a string that's held from off-screen. In rainbow order, backwards, just because.

We open with Koriand'r and Dick Grayson following rumours that her sister has become a Blue Lantern. He was probably the one that heard of it, on his new job with the Star Sapphires. Along the way they should find at least a bit of further weirdness; the answer is that people from other universes are being transferred here for reasons unknown, but they shouldn't quite figure that out yet.

They do meet Blue Komand'r, but she's an alternate version of Koriand'r instead; and in her universe that's the name of her older sister, who is "a bit difficult, sometimes". The two make good friends quickly. (the bet that resulted on each of their parents naming each of them had a different result, but I don't think they should actually learn that part.)

Together they figure out the "alternate universes" bit, and then Dick excuses himself from the rest of the movie, saying he should try and find Supergirl and inform her, in case she wants to try and contact her brother. The other two continue the main plot, eventually teaming up with one of each colour, plus the group that the Challengers are the elite of, to figure things out. Here in rainbow order:

Red is Atros, better known as Atrocitus, but we're using the slightly less on-the-nose "original" name.

In the comics, his galactic sector was mass-murdered by the Manhunters, robot cops who are the Oans' first attempt at galactic police, before the Green Lantern Corps. He survives, along with four others but he betrays them later so they don't matter, and his mastery of blood magic leads him to harness the power of rage and create the first Red Lantern.

For my version, given the changes to Lantern lore, neither he nor the Oans can be in charge of creating either magic. He's just one more Lantern, and they're entirely unrelated. But the rest works reasonably well.

I would limit the destruction to just the planets of Ryut and Oa, which are at war. The Manhunters could still be robots, but Oans in powered armor would probably be better. Atros survives the destruction of his city, hiding in the rubble, having lost his wife and children, and as he watches the army move on his ring appears before him.

He reaches for it once, and when it moves away he screams "Stop that! We have to go!", pointing with his other hand towards the retreating Oan soldiers, where we see one of them take a potshot at the ruins. The ring deems this worthy and flies towards that hand.

He rallies any survivors he can find to fight back, destroying all the Manhunters they can find. Once they run out of enemies he uses his magic to transport his army to Oa. Oa should also be a genuine civilization, not just a dozen old immortals.

Atros' armies run rampant through the world, until one day an Oan flies at him, also wielding a Red Lantern ring. They fight to the death, and as he watches the ring fly away he realizes he has become what he hated, giving him the shock he needs to become at least anti-heroic enough to function properly in the ensemble cast for this movie.

His canonical appearance is good, with the big shoulder pads. Just use his flashbacks to show that Ryut's armies used a version of that armour, so his is retroactively one of them, modified to be Red Lantern-themed.

Orange is John Henry Irons. As he was starting to research AmerTek's crimes, one of the power armor prototypes erupts in orange light, which isn't fading away for no apparent reason. Naturally the company quickly moves it into secure storage, for later research. He switches his efforts towards getting into the team that will work on that, thereby passing his Test; after he gets it he naturally uses it to destroy the company, and also becomes a superhero in his Earth.

He doesn't use a hammer and didn't get a ring, the armor itself being his magic's receptacle. It's still just unpainted steel, but later he crafted the symbol of the Orange Corps into the chest.

He can add other weapons and devices to the armor, to be run on Orange Light, but not immediately. He needs to do research for adapting each. The way that works is that he already comes with a variety of options, and if he collects anything interesting he says he'll work on it and we leave it as foreshadowing for a future appearance.

If he becomes a recurring character after this, it will be by having added dimensional travel capabilites to the armor.

Yellow is Jor-El. The first movie didn't specify one way or the other, but from his talk to the Council it seems possible that he'd warned them about the impending destruction of Krypton years earlier, and then grew increasingly frustrated as they did nothing, until it was too late. I'm running with that interpretation.

In another universe, when he was going to inform them for the first time, he saw a vision of their doing nothing and letting the world fall. So instead he spoke to the people at large, hijacking some sort of public address system they may have had. He was starting to seem like a crackpot, some soldiers approaching to remove him, but then his ring flared into existance. He put it on, raised that hand to call for action, and those soldiers fell to their knees, as well as many people watching through the world.

With the early warning and his magic, they were able to find a suitable new world and evacuate most of the population. They wanted to name it after him, or the Yellow Corps, but he convinced them to go with "Argon" instead.

(That probably also means those names are actually the name of the corresponding element in the kryptonian language, getting translated for our benefit, but we can ignore that.)

Also, because the first movie established kryptonians get their powers from the chemical composition of Earth's air, and I then established Lantern life support is based on your specific species' environment, he doesn't have those powers or know about them.

He still wears the same mostly black suit, but has replaced the symbol of the House of El with that of the Yellow Corps.

Green is Lobo. We do not get to learn how his Test went; instead he tells multiple contradictory stories about it.

He doesn't have his bike, but still carries multiple space weapons which he mostly doesn't need.

He also wears Lantern Rings of every colour except Violet. They don't do anything, of course. Since he can see Koriand'r doesn't use hers, he'll spend the movie pestering her to sell it to him so he can complete the set.

He has the symbol of the Green Corps tattooed on his chest, and loves finding excuses to show it off.

Blue is Komand'r. In her universe, as her mother lay sick, she kept insisting that she would get better, and then they'd travel the galaxy together. Everyone knew she wouldn't, but then one day she suddenly did. The princess grabbed both hers and her sister's hands and tried to drag them away, "to adventure".

The Queen was just starting to say it wouldn't be that easy when the Blue Ring appeared in front of them. She tied it to her hair, which works, and then she did indeed drag them both to another world.

Fun fact: I was considering making tamaranian royals be shaven and wearing wigs, like ancient egyptians allegedly did. I've decided against it for the sake of this.

Nowadays she wears her ring behind her neck, at the base of a braid that's almost as long as her body. She also has the same suit as Koriand'r from "our" universe, a.k.a. a more realistic version of the one from the cartoon and at least some comics, though again with the main colour changed to blue.

Every (tamaranian) year, on the aniversary of her mother's recovery, she brings her to a new, hopefully beautiful planet. Her sister rarely joins them. Last year she missed it on accout of the White War. This time she's just hoping the situation can be resolved in time for her to not miss the appointment again. This could also be a hint for how long tamaranian years are, but I hope that can still be kept vague.

Indigo is Sheko, from the Red Daughter of Krypton comic. She was a judge from a world where the justice system had been corrupted beyond any hope of repair; she's basically the last remaining believer in justice. She declared the crown prince guilty of multiple crimes and sentenced him to death, then the executioner shot her instead. She arose as a Red Lantern and immediately went on a murderous rampage.

She also had some sort of telepathy which she used to "judge" people, which is not standard-issue for Reds but she also didn't seem to have before; I'm also not clear on if those deemed guilty die as a result of it, or she just kills them after.

Anyways, for my Indigo version, her role in her society will be more focused on providing aid to victims, rather than punishment to the guilty. That may mean she should be more of an attorney than a judge, but I like the "judge" title, so let's just say their system is different.

Her Test was during the White War, so innocents were returned, starting with someone she tried and failed to help, then from her coworkers, and so on. She started trying to use her position to aid them, but had to admit it was beyond her resources and instead publicly ask for help, thereby passing the Test and receiving her ring.

However, by that time the corruption had spread enough that some people were White "zombies", further working to spread it and consume more souls. Again she tried to use her magic to save everyone, figured out she couldn't and left for space to seek assistance. Instead she got involved in the War. They didn't save her planet, she's the last of her people, but she cannot deny it was absolutely the right thing to do.

(In the aborted afterlife movie, I was going to show the main universe version of her didn't leave, her magic and soul were eventually consumed and she ended up joining the War on the other side.)

She also always had mild telepathy, which she mostly didn't use because it wouldn't be admissible evidence anyways. Her Lantern magic augments it, so she no longer speaks except telepathically. Maybe she can't, or at least pretends she can't. She also can "absorb" suffering from others, so it's easier to deal for them, though only temporarily.

She still wears her traditional judge robes, though with the colour and symbol swapped out for those of her Corps.

Violet is Koriand'r. We already know her.

Plus maybe alternate versions of one or more actual, named members of the Challengers of the Unknown. They would naturally realize what's going on and try and contact their local counterparts, thereby converging on their planet.

The Lanterns help this group with the research, transporting people and large machines all over the place, volunteering to be tested, powering devices, stuff like that. Together they figure out that space-time is "cracked" and sort of bending "inwards", so that people and things from other universes keep falling in.

Some of them also theorize this could destroy the universe, possibly retroactively; though not all agree on this interpretation. They start a plan to repair it, which will mostly involve them creating more machines and the Lanterns delivering them to key points in the galaxy. When they activate they should automatically push everyone back home; but even if not, they're confident they'll be able to build transporters for them.

The machines activate, nothing happens, and they power down. They check and discover signs of sabotage, so everybody scrambles to check out everything. Most of the devices have been tampered with. One of them also finds a portal machine, seeming similar to what the Science Team said they'd build later, though they insist they haven't yet.

They converge there, though Lobo is missing. After some debate, they decide to cross together, all six Lanterns and a few scientists.

The portal brings them to the outside of the same universe. Should be interesting-looking, but not fully psychedelic nightmare since they'll be spending a reasonably long time there. There are a bunch of highly advanced dimensional machinery, which the scientists are both excited and worried about.

There's also Lobo's decapitated corpse. His Green ring is already gone, having crossed back through the portal and gone off to the local Lantern Sector. We don't know that, because he needs to die offscreen to protect the traitor's identity, but we may see it in flashback later when he or she is ranting about motives.

If possible, have had some red herrings to imply Lobo was the traitor, earlier. He clearly died for getting too close to the truth, which means he was investigating, he suspected someone among them; this is presumably enough for careful scene design and camera work to make him seem suspicious, though I don't have any specific details in mind.

I haven't actually decided which Lantern is the traitor.

Anyways, the group keeps exploring, at least two of them arguing for going back (the traitor is either one of them or "undecided"), until the scientists start figuring out how to turn off or destroy the machinery, then the traitor kills most (but not all) of them before anyone can react. The other five Lanterns stand against him or her, we get a motive rant and a sufficiently impressive fight.

The general gist is that there is a multiversal conqueror, Prometheus, that is expanding in the general direction where all their universes lie. The traitor's world was already scouted by his advance forces, they barely destroyed them before they could report back.

The plan was to turn this universe into a sort of "trap", summoning powerful people from various adjacent ones. From among them he or she hopes to recruit an army that can hopefully stand up against Prometheus'. Also per the traitor's calculations (or whatever scientists support him or her), this particular universe is outside of the army's path, just far enough that they should avoid notice, but just close enough to ambush his forces when the time comes; that was why it was chosen as the staging grounds.

The traitor also needs an advantage to almost stand up to five alleged equals, so:

If Atros is the traitor, he has sorcerous skill far more advanced than Lanterns usually do. His magic may be blood-themed, as a comics reference. He may know how to disrupt other Lantern's magic, or at least mess with their biology in spite of their defenses.

He also has experience rallying an army against a coming conqueror, so it's reasonable this would be his plan.

If John is the traitor, he had a larger humanoid mech waiting, which interfaces with his armor and is powered by his Light. It's full of strange and powerful weaponry, some of it pilfered from Prometheus' scouts.

It's also in character for an Orange to focus on the "gathering" part of gathering allies. They must be prepared. He may be a little manic, in his rant.

If Jor-El is the traitor, he has figured out how to manipulate his magic's atmosphere to give himself superpowers. Either Superman's, or something even stranger and more powerful.

It's also highly in-character for him. He's warning them of oncoming danger, and they are fools not to listen.

If Kommand'r is the traitor, I don't have a particular idea for her advantage, but the betrayal would be extra poignant after the interdimensional sisters have become close. It's worth serious consideration just for that.

If Sheko is the traitor, her telepathy is more powerful than previously advertised, or maybe there are mechanisms that augment it.

She also will be focused on the fact that there's people who need help, she's absolutely willing to do her part, but she's not enough so she also needs them.

After the traitor is killed, the remaining scientist(s) figure out how to reverse the machinery's effect, which prevents more visitors from being dragged, but doesn't automatically send the people back.

They get out to see the rest of the Science Team has moved in and secured the area around the portal. Their instruments did detect the change in the structure of space-time, they are now reasonably certain reality won't cease existing, and will begin working on getting visitors to their homes.

A few months later, they've finished that. Koriand'r uses the Empire's reach to spread the news, direct people to get re-transported. They're also helping with security, and Komand'r (Queen, not Blue) hopes to leverage that into some manner of trade opportunities for them, thereby finally showing some interest in actually ruling her damn empire. At least for now.

The remaining Lanterns make their goodbyes, all promising to keep watch in case that conqueror does come, and carrying the data they'll need to rally their universe's Science Teams to build some sort of transdimensional comm system. If we have remaining alternate versions of Challengers, they also carry a full report. So, the traitor kinda won. Congrats!

Komand'r (Blue, not Queen) also promises to bring her mother here next year, and Koriand'r tells her she'll take them to her boyfriend's world. Unless she was the traitor, of course.

After the credits, in the Director's office in the Watchtower Station, Supergirl is holding back Power Girl. Bruce is cowering at his desk. She screams "HE KILLED THE SUPERMAN!" and her eyes light up, but a display of Red tentacles gets her to back off. He meekly asks what's going on, and the scene ends.

...some more movies here

I don't actually have ideas, just that the next one shouldn't be immediately next.

Challengers of the Unknown

They are basically the Fantastic Four. Actually it seems plausible they are the original idea that the Fantastic Four were derived from, though I don't know that for sure. Anyways.

Lanterns featured the larger group that they are a part of, which has no basis on the comics and I also didn't properly specify; they're probably just referred to as the name of their species and/or planet. But this movie is about an alternate universe version of the actual team, the four, sometimes five named members. I say we go with the five to further distance from Marvel's First Family.

None of them is from the alternates we saw previously. They are travelling on their own, for Science!, aboard a spaceship of their own design that can do that. They don't know about Prometheus, their higher-dimensional trajectory brings them from a different direction, kinda perpendicularly to his army.

The important thing is that they bring us the reveal that timelines created by "time travel" are particularly easy to detect and access. They should find Supergirl and talk to her in particular, explain that time travel actually doesn't exist, and how that really works. She already kinda knew her future had kept on existing, since Rebirth, but she could still get emotional about that and also decide to go home for this reason.

The important thing is the implication that the traitor Lantern was wrong, Prometheus may have been moving in a trajectory to miss this universe, but will presumably correct course as he comes closer, and probably was seeking the Legion's split-off timelines all along. The war will come here. No character has both sets of information yet, but we do, which is always cool when that happens.

The Challengers also sought her intentionally, as she's the single most interesting thing in this universe, from their perspective; they would have some device that can detect her. Again, the implication is that Prometheus' forces may or may not have a similar capability.

The Challengers don't believe there's a way to access her original universe, more or less for the same reason her new one is so easily entered. Action and reaction, something like that. They remain interested in the problem though, and promise to stay alert for any hint of a method, and to come back and inform her if such is found.

No such will be found, I will insist on "no actual time travel" for the sake of things still having stakes, but of course they don't know that. Also the movie presumably also had some sort of crisis or conflict that they dealt with, but honestly that matters less to me than the worldbuilding. Probably someone is attacking someone and they're here just in time to help, the movie ostensibly being a team-up between the Challengers and Supergirl.

With that we can finally have movies openly set in other universes, which means it's time for Power Girl. Actually again there may be a couple more indetermined stuff in between, but still:

So, about that Power Girl...

I'm not lying when I say I'd hoped for feedback on this. Still hoping I'm being over-sensitive.

In the original writeup (for Rebirth), I had Supergirl's brother tell her that the second time traveller, after the Legion deduced she had failed, was "your friend, whom you used to dress in your clothes". At the time I had no intention of bringing that character back.

My only thought had been that he needed some embarrassing anecdote about her, that I should tie that up with some bonus worldbuilding for their future, and that I should take the opportunity to establish the second time traveller was a man, because the Legion is equal-opportunity.

It was only later, after I accidentally invented Prometheus, that I started considering alternate timeline characters. Power Girl is an alternate version of Supergirl, but still distinct enough that either has continued existing at times when the other may have been retconned out. So, her being my second time traveler is too perfect for me to pass up.

I'm still bothered by the implications, and also the fact that Supergirl's brother would have to have known how his sister's friend ended up, but still chose to use that incident to make fun of her. To be honest I am tempted to retcon it away, claim the Legion's future doesn't have gendered clothes and he was instead making fun of her for the frivolity of it all.

But that would be untrue to the original reason for the annecdote, even if I ultimately voided it, kinda (the Legion is still equal-opportunity, because they didn't know until after), and also it would be a retcon, which I oppose on ideological grounds, mostly. So, I can only hope it's not too offensive? Here's her movie.

Justice Society

This is kind of a speedrun of the franchise so far, in the other timeline. Maybe it needs to be broken up; not a full twenty something movies, but perhaps more than one? But for now I will proceed assuming it can all be one.

The poster for Justice Society is a bunch of papers with sketches for various potential logos, and furthermore all sheets are arranged like the poster for Justice League, but mirrored horizontally. Obviously specific logos cannot match up, but they still should look cool side by side, I hope.

The movie starts with the Legion, on the day Supergirl was sent back. That's arguably overkill but we need it for the bookends. We open with her going into the time machine room, but from the other angle, so she's floating towards us. They do the small ceremony, the light show happens, but she disappears and we stay with the rest of the people.

I'd like it if this can be literally another angle of the same moment, filmed from another camera way back then. That may or may not be possible, depending on how exactly her floating is achieved, plus maybe any other technical issues I wouldn't know about.

Anyways, after she's gone everyone stands around stoically, waiting for the end of their universe, which doesn't come. The scientists start frantically checking their instruments. After a moment, the highest military officer present (the guy that Supergirl was talking to) turns to what seems the highest scientist to ask how long is it supposed to take. She looks at all her systems one more time and says "...not this long". Everybody deflates.

Then we would get some opening credits, probably set to some generic soft rock or somesuch, and the title card. Then come three sets of scenes: Power Girl's time in the Legion leading to her time travel, montage of her saving various people right after arriving in the past, and an interview she gives to Lois Lane about six months after arrival.

I'd also like for them all to be intermixed, using Lois preparing the article for publication as a framing device, but I'm not sure it works, since that implies everything is stuff she learned and there's at least two things in the Legion scenes that the people of the past shouldn't learn: that Power Girl is trans, and that she's the second attempt (and they believe the first failed and died). So here in order.

First, we need an actor to be pre-op Power Girl. Given they're rebuilding her "on a cellular level", it could just be anyone and we say any differences were per her request. But I actually prefer to not do that, and get two people as similar looking as possible, both for story clarity and to be able to say she didn't have any particular request, cosmetically. He gets at least two scenes.

First, getting measured for the making of the supersuit. It's again modelled after Superman's, boots and cape still red, but the rest of it is white, and there is no logo. They explain that the first attempt most likely failed on account of faulty historical information of some sort, so they're sending him further into the past, to have the opportunity to research and plan better. Superman is alive at that time, they wouldn't want to offend him. They considered using the Legion's logo, but ultimately decided it's not impossible that some version of it existed back then, better not to risk it.

Second, right after she explains and requests to be remade as a woman. I don't think we should actually hear the request, literally immediately after, with the actor looking slightly embarrased as the scientist responds. He says that yes, they can do that; it's basically trivial given all the other stuff they were already going to do. But re-tailoring the suit is much harder, he's not even sure if they can, "you should really have informed us of this before that was made".

That's also why the boob window; she couldn't fit in, afterwards, and they didn't have the resources to fix it properly so they just cut a vertical slice, at great expense, thus allowing the fabric to be pushed to the sides. I guess that makes it less circular than normal and kind of a diamond or cat's pupil shape, which we would have seen all the way back in Lanterns. Hope some people speculated about that.

I also enjoy having this justification for having the window at all. There's been many through the years, some stupider than others, but I'm reasonably sure it's never been something like this.

I also really enjoy the idea of her trying and failing to put it on, but there's no way to show that in a superhero movie, right? So instead let's say the cast jokes about that in interviews, "we tried so many camera angles and stuff, but couldn't get anything that would fly". And then it would inevitably become a sort of mad quest among certain fans, to get hold of that deleted footage, even if most believe it never existed and it was just a joke.

Anyways, this actor could have more scenes, studying and training for the mission, saying goodbyes to friends and family, stuff like that; or those could go to the final actress. Doesn't really matter, except that at least some training needs to go to her, since logically she'd need to do it after getting her powers.

Then she's transported back to the past, and the very first thing she does upon appearing on the empty Moon is to fly down and plant her feet firmly on the ground, before looking up to see the Earth's status. This one is always standing, and runs a lot; she only flies if required for tactical or logistical reasons. I don't have any deep psychological truths that may be revealed by this difference between her and Supergirl, but I still like to keep the contrast.

Also on the subject of parallels and contrasts, since Supergirl had her hair cut early in her adventure (and therefore presumably had long hair before), Power Girl will start with very short hair, but through the heroics montage we will see it growing progressively longer. Probably at an unreasonably fast rate, since that's supposed to last six months; but maybe it just extends further into the movie. Whatever the case, she ends up settling at butt-length hair.

She arrived in the past 6 years after Jason Todd's death, so the interview is three and a half years before Superman's, and 2 before General Zod came. That also makes it 3.5 years since Princess Koriand'r arrived and 3 since she's been dating Dick Grayson, though that's less important.

As for the montage itself, the only thing of interest is that she saves Victor Stone and his mom from their car crash. That means Cyborg won't exist in this timeline, and therefore also his dad gets to live. The cube itself remains in safe storage at S.T.A.R. Labs, no other scientist having been desperate enough to get stupid with it.

Unless maybe it's related to the end of the world, and both time travellers eventually destroyed theirs. I'm tempted to establish that connection simply for lack of anything better to do with either, but not sure. Let's say "maybe".

After the montage comes the interview, where Lois has various general questions for her. She admits to being from the future, from the Moon, here to save the world from an upcoming disaster she can't say more about for operational security, and various other stuff that it's surprising she'd be so open about.

I figure there may be some oblique-to-casual acknowledgment of her asexuality, as Lois asks about potential love interests (she's very popular, of course) and she denies having any interest. I also picture Lois apologizing, and claiming the more tabloidy questions were not her idea, others at the office insisted. Kinda wanna imply that was Perry, though she'd know better than to name him if that's the case.

At this point the world at large is already referring to her as "Power Girl", and Lois not-so-subtly suggests she use this opportunity to rebrand, as she doesn't find that name particularly dignified. Power Girl agrees she's probably right, but she doesn't care. Per the Legion's attitude towards names, it doesn't matter if it's technically stupid; nobody in the world is confused about it, that's all you can ask for from a name.

She still does share her serial, ac252ac247asc58tf123, and also draws the Legion's symbol for the article, having already determined there isn't any organization using it at this time. That would lead Lois to ask about the boob window, and if we're doing the interlocked scenes this is when we show the pre-op actor getting mildly berated for causing them to have to modify the suit; but either way all she says is "what, you don't like it?".

Also, about that name. That's the first appearances of Supergirl in general, the Legion of Superheroes, Power Girl specifically and Earth 2, respectively. It's also not a coincidence that the first half is the same as Supergirl; they were approximately the same age, and these are supposed to be serial numbers. That can't possibly hold up for any others, but we don't need serials for anyone or anything else.

This also confirms this timeline is a version of Earth 2, as may have been hinted by Power Girl's presence and also the Justice Society. I will be populating it with heroes who are, or could logically have been, from that continuity; not exclusively, but to some degree at least. I also suppose that makes the Legion timeline Earth 0. And then normally Earth 3 is the evil counterparts one, but I'm not doing that, my timelines are strictly "one change, butterfly effect".

Anyways, back to the interview. There's some sufficient generic interview-type questions, as modified by the reality of her being a superhero, then Lois closes by asking if there's anything she wants to tell the world. There's two things.

First, she may not be an alien, as maybe some people had been suspecting (unless the Moon counts), but there is a visitor from the stars currently living among humanity. She wants to have a meeting, in private if need be, for personal reasons.

Second, she needs to meet the Lex Luthor, as soon as possible, for future reasons. She stresses that it is important he receive this message, Lois reassures her the entire world has been waiting for this article and there's no way he'd be the one to miss it, and then they separate.

The very next day, Lex announces he's put all his other business for the month on hold, and is ready to receive her at her leisure, in his mansion in the caribbean. She arrives that same night, finding a fancy dinner waiting for both of them. We may take the opportunity to show she's a picky eater; it nicely contrasts Supergirl again, but it may be a little more unsympathetic than I want for the main protagonist.

Maybe a mild one: she grimaces a little, he asks if anything is wrong, and she says no, she's just still getting used to her enhanced senses, then keeps eating. Something like that may work.

Anyways, Lex is a big fan. He loves the idea that, in the future, humanity will seize godhood for themselves. We should see his "angels vs demons" painting, but he's graffitied it with a Legion symbol. She easily recruits him to save the future, and he admits since her arrival he's been looking into rumours of other people with strange abilities, which he wouldn't have credited before, but now he's been thinking about approaching them (and her) about forming some Society together. "Society for what?" "I don't know, Heroes? I'll have the guys at Marketing come up with something".

So they recruit some people to save the day. Still Wonder Woman, and Captain Cold. For Flash I established the older, dead one was Wally West, so I cannot in good conscience bring in Jay Garrick, sadly; he's either Barry again or missing.

I definitely want Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern from before there were space cops and so on. In this version he's not going to be related to the Corps at all, just a local mage, and won't be called that. From his list of titles from Wikipedia, I think Jade Knight works best. He'd have the power I denied Lanterns, to manifest objects made of hard light, but no active manipulation; he can create any tool but then has to wield it normally. Also his magic needs to be a different shade of green. May or may not have the weakness to wood, depending on if he gets enough screentime for it to be showcased.

Kinda want Shade, one of Jay Garrick's villains, who occasionally was a "noble adversary" kind of thing so it's not so much of a stretch to make him a hero. He basically controls shadows, so if Earth 1 had Ebon, this guy could be his counterpart. At the very least, Lex should be interested in recruiting him, even if he doesn't join.

Also Wildcat, though I don't have anything interesting to say about him. I know he taught Power Girl wrestling or boxing or something like that, but obviously that won't happen in this version. Nonetheless, he's in.

Add a couple more people, they succesfully change the future but she doesn't think she'll die, she solemnly thanks her people for their sacrifice and carries on. Honestly, Supergirl was also told how they expected it to work, she just didn't pay enough attention. Afterwards the gathered heroes become the first of the Society, with Lex as their Director.

For the record, he will be good. A little more underhanded than Bruce would be confortable being, which is why he succesfully recruited Cold, but this is definitely a "redeemed" Luthor.

They do heroics, maybe recruit a few more people, and a few months later Koriand'r meets Power Girl in the sky. Still wearing human clothes, but without her fake skin/eyes, and obviously wreathed in Violet Light. She thinks she's the alien that was being called out at the end of the interview; Power Girl is surprised enough that she realizes she's not and asks who, but agrees when she's told she won't betray the other's secrets.

She's here to tell her about the spaceship her systems detected incoming, and also the fact that she has such systems, though she probably knew that, from the future? She didn't, I know I originally said a better future historian would have recognized Koriand'r, but on second thought I realized they shouldn't; Earth 0 Star Grayson, née Anderson, lived and died in obscurity and comfort.

Power Girl theorizes it's probably the kryptonian survivors, though it's a few years too early for them to come. She guesses, but doesn't say, that probably the Kal-El triggered the distress signal early, as a result of the changes she's made to the timeline. Koriand'r is surprised to hear there are any survivors, Tamaran didn't know that. After a little more catching up between the two, they agree to go to meet them, so she takes her hand and flies them into space.

Minor retcon time! The way the kryptonian ship worked was very clearly visually a teleport, but it was never explicitly said, and the technobabble was very vague. Once again I assume that was on purpose, in case they wanted to build up on it later. That's convenient for me right now: we will say that it's actually continuous travel, though in a semi-immaterial state which is what allows them to break light-speed. I already had the martian experiment and the Cult of Mongul's spell also kinda work like that, so we may even go ahead and say every teleportation does.

The important thing is that a sufficiently advanced technology, such as tamaranian planetary surveillance, allows them to detect ships in transit and intercept them, which is what they will do. The ladies meet General Zod's ship around the asteroid belt, where it materializes to allow them to board. Probably Koriand'r had been transmitting a signal asking for parley, it's something the planetary surveillance systems could plausibly do.

The kryptonian atmosphere bothers Power Girl, but she's better able to resist, on account of her augmentations. Koriand'r probably doesn't drop her aura, after seeing her new friend coughing for a moment. Though she'd be fine if she did; this won't actually come up until later, but Tamaran's atmosphere is sort of "in between" the other two; both humans and kryptonians can breathe comfortably, and the later don't get any powers.

Koriand'r translates for the meeting. We may get a scene of her kissing General Zod, for linguistics purposes, on the grounds that these people aren't capable of love and therefore her magic doesn't give her their language. Faroa Hu-Ul told Superman as much, at least, and I've no idea when else I would be able to invoke that clause.

Plus it'd be kinda cool, her trying and failing to talk to them, until she realizes that won't work and just says "Tamaran", pointing at herself, hoping they understand. General Zod does, sighs and takes off his helmet so she can do it, then when she's done he puts it back on before asking her if it worked.

But on the other hand, clearly Jor-El and his wife and kid were love-capable. Presumably they wouldn't be alone, if we have that restriction it would be for the soldier caste specifically. So that begs the question of whether the requirement for Lantern translation is per person, or species-wide. I feel it should probably be the later, because magic, but it does deprive us of a fun visual right now. So, dunno.

General Zod confirms they're after the other last survivor of Krypton, Jor-El's son, whom he saved using illegal experimental technology. Power Girl denies it, it was she who found the ancient ship, and while trying to salvage it triggered what seemed to be an alarm of some sort, which is probably what they're tracking. He confirms that. She claims there are no kryptonians on her planet; she checked, after first finding the ship, in case she needed one to access the systems. Koriand'r realizes some or all of that is a lie, but doesn't mention it.

They keep talking, General Zod admits to his people's plans for Earth, which Power Girl knew from the future and neither of them will allow. He starts getting angry. Koriand'r insists they must claim a world without an existing biosphere, and offers her empire's resources making up for the added difficulty. This is the first time she'll explicitly admit to being tamaranian royalty, which should make Power Girl flinch briefly.

Koriand'r keeps trying to calm things down, but General Zod keeps getting angrier until he orders his people to attack, then immediately does so himself. The others hesitate very briefly before trying their best to capture or kill the two ladies.

Now, the first movie kinda established that the kryptonian power armors are almost on par with a powered kryptonian. More specifically, they defeated Superman the first time, when he was trying to figure out his powers, then he defeated them the second after he had some proficiency. I've never explicitly established this but it's most reasonable to assume Legion faux-kryptonians have equivalent power levels, and Power Girl is a trained soldier, so she'll have no trouble keeping up with them. The atmosphere probably bothers her more than the enemies.

As for Koriand'r, she's a Lantern. They simply have nothing that can threaten her.

So the two are getting swarmed by mostly ineffectual soldiers, while Koriand'r keeps trying to de-escalate and General Zod keeps ranting madly, until he says something to the effect that he'd rather see the mission fail than take her charity. Then he's immediately shot in the back, and before anyone can react Faroa kicks away his helmet and shoots his head off.

Then she drops the weapon, turns towards Koriand'r and kneels without further word. The other soldiers stop attacking, confused. Most of them drop their weapons, a few bow or kneel. Power Girl drops one she was grappling so he can join in.

Once everyone has acknowledged the end of the fight, Faroa apologizes for her superior. He lost his best friend during the planet's destruction, and apparently his mind as well. They will turn around and seek an empty planet to settle, difficult though it may be. They would be honoured to accept any help she still may feel gracious enough to offer, though of course they understand if the time for that has passed.

Koriand'r tells her to stand up, there's no need for that and of course the offer stands. She just needs to bring her friend home, and say some goodbyes. They agree on that and she grabs Power Girl and flies away. The moment they're gone, General Hu-Ul orders the ship start travelling towards Tamaran, on the grounds that a Lantern can easily catch up with them, or even wait for them there.

Koriand'r brings her directly to her appartment, where she applies the fake skin, so we finally see that. It'd really be up to the special effects people to work something out, but I'm imagining a small plastic box, like any makeup, which unfolds spider-like legs to crawl around her skin, applying a plastic-like substance. She dons it hastily this time, so we can see a little orange up her sleeve or down her neckline.

She also quickly writes some letters to unspecified people in her life, as she asks Power Girl if they can talk further after she comes back. She agrees of course, and promises to keep her human identity out of it, now that she has the address and also presumably could have read all those letters if she wanted, but she does need to report what happened to the Society. They both fly away.

Koriand'r delivers her letters but sees Dick in person, to tell him she'll be gone for a while on business, she can't say more for now but maybe she can explain after she returns, in a couple months. He doesn't see her fly or use any magic, but is maybe confused/worried about her having come all the way to Blüdhaven for that.

Meanwhile, Power Girl flew to the north pole, where she quickly found the ancient kryptonian ship and stood at attention outside. Clark emerges, already wearing his Superman suit and thinking she's here on account of future info. She tells him about the other kryptonians, their upcoming new world, and that the Princess promised to come visit soon-ish, she can take him to them if he wants.

He thinks about it for a moment, but refuses. He literally just found out he was an alien, he's lived on Earth all his life and has no interest in leaving. He'd really like to consider himself human, if possible. And also start helping people, like she does. So she brings him to see Lex about joining the Society.

He's having a meeting and dinner with Raven, who will end up becoming the Society's main mage. Power Girl is the one to introduce Clark as "the Superman", which surprises him briefly but he goes along with it. Lex is again excited to meet him, by now he's definitely an enthusiastic superhero supporter. He's also invited to the north pole, to see the kryptonian ship. He and Jor-El's hologram quickly establish a rapport, as fellow men of science.

They eventually move the Society's headquarters to the ship, and start building more structures for heroes that need or want housing there, plus support staff. Kryptonian science allows it to be both comfortable and ecologically sound. Jor-El ends up being in charge of comms for the Society, so all members get to know him at least a little. We also should meet some more new heroes.

I want both Jimmy Olsen and Lana Lang, in their superhero identities of Elastic Lad and Insect Queen, respectively.

She found an alien in distress and helped him, then he rewarded her with a ring that lets her partially transform into giant insect human hybrids at will. In my version he will not be an alien, I'm being much more conservative with those, so instead it's a human (or secretly atlantean) mage. And maybe she fails to save him so he leaves her the magic ring because he's dying; I denied that to Lantern Corps so there could be a Test system, but for an one-off it's not bad.

As for Olsen, he's actually already been introduced, as a CIA agent who dies as part of Lex's evil plan. There's no evil plan this time, so he'll be fine. Instead he gets involved in a secret project to give soldiers artificial superpowers, being the only success, maybe the only survivor. He's sent to infiltrate the Society, working under Amanda Waller. Lex knows about it, and offers him to coordinate on what he'll report back, which of course Waller knows about, and etc. He's a bit stressed about that but ultimately decides to just focus on heroing, leave the politics to the politicians.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if it's yet time to introduce him. Time is already getting vague, but we still need to be a while before BvS time. On the other other hand, the world is already highly changed, and presumably he'd been in that assignment for a while before it got him killed, so it's probably ok to just say he got different orders.

Other than that, one of the minor powered assassins from Steel, not the same one who was in Task Force X.

This is also probably the time for a super they try to approach but find mysteriously dead. I volunteer Black Canary, the original one from Flash comics; she may or may not leave behind a daughter who will be implied to eventually get the same powers and take over the role. (Batman killed her, but we won't be explicitly told that.)

Anyways, the next big thing is Lex and Jor-El cooperating to use kryptonian terraforming technology to try and help Earth's environmental problems. They construct two of the thing that was in the sea, since the one over Metropolis was their ship and they explicitly were only using it because they didn't have two of the other machine. They are placed on the poles.

Wonder Woman wants them to not do that, she's clearly worried, but doesn't want to say why, even when officially ordered. Lex and Jor-El double-check all the maths, in case she'd noticed something they missed, but decide she was probably wrong and proceed. First test goes well, data is promising, but they do have to cut it short due to an unforeseen event (Martian Manhunter, though we're not told that yet).

A little after, Atlantis attacks. King Orm used the test to rally all other kingdoms to his cause. Presumably, he would have tried it in Earths 0 and 1, but since there it was not humanity's project but rather an attack against them, it didn't work. Also this means Black Manta won't exist this time, since he doesn't need a man on the inside.

This is what Wonder Woman was worried about, but she didn't speak because she respects Atlantis' secrecy. She gets a minor reprimand for it, though ultimately Lex agrees she was caught between a rock and a hard place, there are no repercussions for her other than her conscience.

The opening attack destroys Coast City, Atlantis will use the ruins as their forward base. This means Jinx died, so Raven won't need to worry about that. The Society and various militaries rally to defend against them; if Jimmy's here already, this is when he officially goes from "multiple agent" to "liaison".

While the war is going on, Mera and, uh, Green Goblin? Ok his name is Vulko, thanks google. Those two split off to go betray the war effort. She tries to recruit Arthur, but instead finds a note where he tells her not to bother him again, he disavows both of his peoples. He won't be seen in this timeline.

That would also mean his mom will remain in exile forever. Sorry, ma'am.

Meanwhile, Vulko goes to talk to Luthor, much more succesfully. He goes to Coast City with a bunch of supers, including King Shark even if it's his first introduction, to assassinate Orm and install Mera as Queen, since she failed to find Arthur. Maybe he can suspect she didn't try all that hard, but we know that's not true so we shouldn't dwell on it.

Power Girl is the one to actually kill Orm. By neck snap from behind, because obviously.

Queen Mera immediately orders a ceasefire and announces she's giving the surface world "one last chance to surrender". Lex goes to her under white flag, along with Waller and some military leaders from some other nations, to negotiate terms. Which are secretly exactly as already agreed upon between Lex and Vulko. The atlantean peoples are impressed with their new Queen's leadership and proud of their victory, humanity actually gets a pretty sweet deal, and they begin having actual cultural and economic exchange, leading to greater prosperity to both.

Superman and Power Girl toss the terraforming engines into the sun. Maybe introduce a new hero to help with that. Let's say Rocket Red, I don't know if he would be capable of extra-planetary operation, but we can pretend Lex helped upgrade him.

Wonder Woman is sent back to her people, to also establish actual diplomatic relationships, before something like that happens again. She brings two ambassadors along. Lana Lang for humanity, and Lori Lemaris for atlantis.

That's a mermaid, powerful telepath, who was also one of Superman's ex-girlfriends, though not in this version. She uses a wheelchair, but does not hide her tail, it's simply a legitimate mobility need, on dry land. Also she may be a princess, Aquaman implied only atlantean nobles could breathe both water and air; that doesn't necessarily extend to merfolk but I'm ok with saying it does, so long as it's also clear Lori wasn't a realistic candidate for the throne nor does she have any other obligations she's neglecting by taking this commission.

Diana meets her sister, Donna, who should be a little younger, but I'm not sure how much. She's going to be 15 at the time of Dick's Test during the White War, but I never established exactly how much longer that is after BvS, which has been kinda my centerpoint for timekeeping. I guess she'd be between 8 and 12, but also we're still a little before Superman would have died.

Both ambassadors are very popular with the amazons, but unfortunately both of them are straight. Also, Queen Hyppolita lives, thanks to their presence either her accident doesn't happen or at least she's saved.

Some time passes, and we should see, probably in news clips or so, that some people are nervous about all the power Lex Luthor has been amassing. That's two, arguably three, alien civilizations that kinda have diplomatic relations with his Society, rather than any actual government. Mostly people agree he's benevolent, but not everyone is so satisfied.

Some general anti-superhuman sentiment can also start rising, though we wouldn't dwell on that because I specifically wouldn't want to tread on X-men territory.

A bit later, Ace Reporter Clark Kent is investigating the apparent suicide of Gotham City Police Commissioner James W. Gordon. He's walking a dark alley when a person jumps down from the rooftop, tells him not to move. Obviously he knew but he's here in disguise, so he pretends to be surprised and scared. He turns around slowly and sees Batman pointing a gun at him. That hand is shaking, slightly.

Clark tries to defuse, tells him he thought he was an urban legend, that he'll be glad to bring his message to the world, stuff like that; but Batman "didn't lead you here for an interview". So Clark raises his hands and walks forward, slowly, to press the barrel of the gun against his chest.

He looks around at the alley. We see the abandoned theatre on the side. "It was here, right? This is where the monster was born." "This is where the monster will die." And the next thing he tries to say is lost in the sound of the gunfire, and the pain, and the surprise.

Clark falls backwards and dies with the exact same choreography as Martha Wayne did. Same limb movements, same camera angles, same amounts of slow motion. I would seriously give him a pearl necklace if I could think of a halfway decent excuse.

Batman sees that and drops the gun, stumbling backward a bit. He's breathing hard, and turns to the side, hands on his knees, about to throw up. But he doesn't, he collects himself and walks back to the corpse. He hesitates one last time, then bends down to pick up his gun.

For the record, he never thought he could really get the drop on Superman. He was counting on him playing along, rather than revealing himself, for long enough to allow himself to be shot with what he would expect to be a regular bullet.

Also, this means I do need to remove all guns from BvS Batman. Back then I was ambivalent about that, but now it's important for thematic contrast, so officially: all his murders in that movie were done on melee or thrown batarangs, not a single bullet fired from him or his vehicles.

A few days later, the Society is giving an emergency announcement. There's a temporary platform in a park, with a line of reporters in front of it, not including Lois Lane, and a bunch of random onlookers behind them. On the platform, at the back, a bunch of heroes.

Nightwing is in his older, disco uniform. We probably don't get to hear this, but he first adopted it to distance himself from Batman as he started getting worse, since the better suit is definitely Batman-inspired. In Earth 1 he went back to it after Bruce's redemption, before we met him, but in Earth 2 that won't happen so disco will never die.

Chloe Sullivan, she also has a superhero suit, which shows her duties are as a healer, not any admin. Probably green hearts or plus signs, something like that.

The eldest of the Shazam Family, Mary. I guess arguably she shouldn't exist yet, but whatever. Timeline has changed, Billy was chosen even younger, which is probably fine.

Stephanie Brown, as Spoiler, she'll be 14 or 15 so we are under a year from Rebirth, though we don't necessarily know that since we are just meeting her for the first time.

Flash, if we have him.

James Olsen, the Elastic Lad.

Some strong-looking people. Let's say Hourman and two or three nameless generic heroes.

And at the podium at the front of the platform, Lex Luthor is flanked by his two closest friends, Power Girl and Superman. He thanks everyone for gathering on such short notice, says they must be wondering what this is about. Someone at the back asks if he's finally running for President, causing everybody to start screaming over each other. Not completely positive, but mostly.

Lex just stands in silence, smiling, holding out his hands until everyone calms down. The last thing before silence is someone at the back, not the same person, screaming "You have my vote!". Lex takes a deep breath, then turns around and exchanges places with Superman. Now everyone is really paying attention.

He says he will be going to New Krypton, to be with his people and learn about his culture. He thanks them all for welcoming him all these years, and turns around towards Lex to thank him for letting him be part of such an important project, and then he's shot down from above multiple times, bullets shining green. He falls to the ground, reverting back to his martian form.

Batman falls from the sky in a giant humanoid robot. If Orange Irons was the traitor in Lanterns, it is the same model, though with fewer add-ons, just the two wrist-mounted gatling guns. Also black and with bat ears, purely cosmetic.

The heroes mostly scramble to get Lex and all the civilians to safety. Chloe rushes to try and heal J'onn, Jimmy and maybe one other tagging along to protect her. We see from her expression that it's not working.

Power Girl rushes the robot and knees its chest, pushing it back a few metres but not doing any visible damage. Her eye beams also have no apparent effect. Batman focuses fire on her, which she dodges, but only barely, so as to keep his attention. That works, and while she distracts him Mary gets underfoot to invoke Shazam's name multiple times, getting it repeatedly struck by lightning.

We see from the inside of the cockpit, Batman wearing his power armor, as he desperately flicks switches and presses buttons, trying to keep the systems working as more and more of them fail. Eventually all his screens go black, and then he falls. The robot was toppled, but we're still looking at the inside, hopefully the motion is still clear.

Some light comes in as Mary and Power Girl finally pull open the front of the robot. Then the later grabs the chest of his armor, squeezes a little to hold it, and pulls him out. She starts demanding an explanation, he instead says something defiant. Probably something about killing gods, I don't have good wording. He simultaneously flicks open a butterfly knife, edge shining green, and stabs her directly in the eye.

It shatters, harmlessly. We see genuine surprise in his face; he'd never believed the "future woman from the Moon" thing. She smirks and pulls his face closer to hers. "Seems like someone will be going to New Krypton, after all". Then she flies away with him.

At the north pole base, Jor-El reports the criminal and asks for transportation. Shortly after a ship arrives and takes them both, leaving his armor behind for future study.

Kinda want this ship to be Space Cabbie, but actually New Krypton should have their own prisoner transport by now. But maybe they don't, and he has some comment about that? Not sure.

The audience chamber is clearly modelled after the Council's chamber in Old Krypton, but Governor Hu-Ul stands alone. After hearing the charges, she reminds Power Girl that she had originally testified that there was no kryptonian on Earth. She admits to that, but claims it was per his request, and that he wished to be considered a human, not a kryptonian.

Technically true, though he only said that afterwards.

Hearing her say that triggers Bruce to shout something hateful about him, which in turn makes Governor Hu-Ul shoot him through the chest. Then she says she'll accept that as a confession, from both of them, and sentences Power Girl to some amount of community service, on account of hiding Kal-El from their government, which inadvertently led to his death.

Given her power, she's tasked with helping the terramorphing efforts. Digging rivers, leveling mountains, stuff like that. A couple months later, Koriand'r arrives on a regular visit and learns about that. She helps her finish her tasks faster and then brings her to Earth, glad to finally have the excuse to visit.

She explains the deal with the Star Sapphires, which was easily fixed, but also that she's Queen now, which we should see in flashback. Her and the kryptonians stand before Komand'r in the audience chamber. She says they will not receive a single <alien small currency, probably> "for as long as I sit on this throne". She smiles meaningfully as she says that part. The kryptonians and her guards start getting tenser as the sisters stare down each other, but finally Koriand'r sighs in defeat and walks forward.

She gets up to let her sit down, takes off the Gown and tosses it over her head, and leaves, whistling to herself. That thing is their crown-equivalent, I hope that be clear by now. Also she's wearing regular clothes underneath. I don't want to just give her another colour swap of the Starfire suit, but then I never bothered to establish any further tamaranian fashion. Just, something casual-looking but still tight enough to plausibly have gone under the Gown.

Anyways, the kryptonians are left dumbfounded at what just happened, and the flashback ends.

While Power Girl was gone, Wonder Woman returned. She already sorted out her exile, this time she's an officially sanctioned diplomat. She brings along another to go to Atlantis, not her mother, either of their love interests, or her sister; any other named amazon from Wonder Woman. Though Donna may also be with them, on an allegedly temporary basis.

Also for the record, Vulko will be the atlantean ambassador to humans, and his counterpart is Giganta, a genius scientist who gave herself the ability to become giant, but growing makes her proportionally less smart. She's usually a villain, but it's far from the first time I just flip that around.

Koriand'r and Power Girl return directly to the Director's office in the north pole, where the first thing he does is ask them not to reveal that Bruce Wayne was Batman; the Society covered that up. That's probably all he needs to say, since Power Girl is a disciplined soldier and Koriand'r doesn't really care about either of them. But I do have more info, because I just can't help myself, so:

The Society planted evidence suggesting Wayne had been secretly cooperating with the late Commissioner Gordon, using a discreet amount of his wealth and influence, working to take down Batman. Actually it was Luthor who was trying to secretly support Gordon, which is also why the Society never took any interest in that situation.

Some more false evidence suggests that, shortly after Gordon's death, Wayne suddenly fled the country; but that was planted more ineptly, to make the police think Batman did it after killing him. This worked.

As for the man she brought to face neokryptonian justice, they released his identity as Patrick Malone, alias Matches, a minor criminal only notable for having worked under most or all crime bosses in Gotham. The police already suspected he had also done work for Batman, probably under duress; nobody really questioned the reveal of his identity. As for the real Malone, Luthor assumes Batman killed him long ago and took his name, though if he still exists he seems to have taken the opportunity to disappear, and he's glad to let him.

Fun fact: "Patrick" comes from Gotham, the tv series. As far as I can tell, no other version gives him a first name.

Also, Lex is wearing power armor. It's a modified kryptonian power suit, green and purple and modelled after his common cartoon one. He was traumatized by the attack and is never going to not wear it, for the rest of his life.

Finally, once Koriand'r leaves to visit her friends, but mostly her boyfriend, Lex also informs his friend of some new recruits. In particular he wants her opinion on one of them, who was apparently inspired by the attack. Wears power armor and a fancy warhammer of his own design, very impressive work; both painted solid white, and the Legion's symbol on his chest. Calls himself Legionnaire.

She mostly doesn't understand why it may bother her. She doesn't own the name or the logo and even if arguably she could lay prior claim to them, she would not have cared. Also the entire reason she's here is to prevent the Legion's very existence, so it's not like she can complain in their behalf. So it's all fine.

Some more time goes by, but not much, and then Dick's corrupted Test begins. Raven and whatever mage was Returned for her start doing the research, but as soon as they speculate about "love magic" Koriand'r suggests the Violet Corps will know about it, so she should go ask them. Dick immediately asks her to bring him along, thereby implicitly placing their relationship above literally everyone in the planet, thereby passing his Test. They leave together before anyone can notice the problem is over, as far as this planet is concerned at least.

And yes, he should get a violet version of his disco outfit.

The two of them get involved in the White War, and neither is ever seen again. We do not confirm their deaths, gotta keep open the possibility that they fell into a dimensional rift in case we ever want either or both to show up elsewhere. But as far as Earth 2 is concerned, they are missing, presumed dead.

Some appropriate time after, Komand'r reassumes the throne. Her first move is to mobilize an army to lay siege to New Krypton, demanding their ruler's hand in marriage. She gets it, and thereafter Queen Faroa mostly takes charge of all the Empire's paperwork. She ushers the way to greater prosperity and peace, and also a closer economic and cultural exchange with Earth, which finally becomes an actual member of galactic civilization.

As to whether the Queens had a personal relationship, either before or after, neither will ever confirm nor deny. That's why I specifically didn't want an answer to what orientation, if any, Komand'r has.

Eventually their heir will be a clone of Komand'r's mother, the late Queen Luand'r, created in the neokryptonian cloning vats. Queen Faroa will argue the use of them makes the child her legitimate daughter, in accordance with their law and custom, regardless of any peculiarity of her biology. All the nobles are satisfied by that, since all they actually care is that the eventual Ruler be of noble blood, even if they don't want to admit such out loud.

That also means the late Queen's corpse was stored in such a way that retains viable genetic material, though it must be almost a (human) decade since her death. Probably longer, no particular need for them to have had a kid immediately. So let's say Tamaran has ritual mummification, and a memorial planet full of royal corpses, too far from any sun to sustain any life.

The princess' name is Kand'r; I will admit that's the main reason I wanted these two together. Her mother will raise her to be an excellent clerk and keep up the administration of the Empire. In this timeline, they will far surpass the end of the (human) millenium.

Also, Stephanie Brown and Donna of Themyscira should become friends, because that's why I made them the same age, but I don't have any particular ideas for them. Maybe leave them for a sequel.

And that's about it. We've basically caught up with Earth 1, timewise, and leave off with Earth entering a new and exciting status quo. Could add something about Lex and Jor-El starting research into dimensional mechanics, but I don't think it's strictly necessary.

After credits, back at the Legion, we see the day the last atmosphere generator was destroyed. A team of repair technicians deploys, all dressed in a "realistic" version of Booster Gold's suit: the helmet covers their head fully, and all of it is fully sealed. A bit of bulk at the back, not nearly as much as an astronaut's backpack thing, but a little reminiscent of that. And some arm braces on both forearms, which are their computer terminals.

Their leader is Supergirl's brother, though obviously he can't be referred to as such. He's the Chief Engineer, or something like that. But we still may figure it out when his suit sounds an alarm, some info displaying on his arm, then before he can read it an explosion gets him.

His second in command tries to keep the rest of the team on task, but we follow the one that breaks and runs away. The others are screaming at him to come back, until he turns off his comms. He flies through the ruins of the facilities, until he drops to his hands and knees, breathing hard and crying.

The camera pulls back to show us this is the time machine room. The end.

If that was too much for a single movie, my first thought is to split most of the Power Girl stuff into her own movie, probably called just "Power" so it can pretend the original guy will stay, at least a little. That one keeps the Supergirl and Booster Gold scenes, of course. Poster would be the Legion's logo, against black or starry sky background.

...about Prometheus

First off, there is a Prometheus in DC. This is not that; I came up with the character first, then thought what his name should be for about five seconds, then checked to see what they may have used that name for. All I can say about that guy is he won't be showing up or be hinted at in any way, to minimize confusion.

So, this starts in the timeline where Ares' plan worked (from the tags), Steve Trevor and all the soldiers chasing him died at Themyscira's beach. Also I just checked that scene and they don't have planes, actually? I assumed he flew in, because he's a pilot, which would mean his enemies need to also fly in order to get him; but they're actually all arriving on ships.

Whatever, amazons don't fly until later. Still Diana gathers a crew to go out and bring peace to humanity, as inspired by Ares' visions.

Definitely include the one that would have been Donna's Other Parent. Her farewell to Queen Hippolyta is a little more heartfelt than any of the others; they're not a couple yet, but they're both already interested.

On the other hand, no to the one that was to be Diana's dead love interest later. She asks her to come, but only because she's asking everyone to come; they don't seem to have any particular feelings at this point.

The amazons are very successful, arguably extending the Great War by a few years, unless we count it as having ended immediately and then been succeded by their attack; historians will be divided on that.

If Doctor Poison was not removed from Wonder Woman, they recruit her to be the first of the science team. She also becomes a close friend of Diana, though not her lover because then we'd have to kill her off. That honour instead goes to some important guy, a prince or general from somewhere.

By the time World War II would have come, it doesn't, because all human nations already recognize Diana as Queen. Instead at that time she launches an attack to also conquer Atlantis. Aquaman's grandfather shatters her sword, but she kills him with the last bit left on the hilt.

This is before his daughter would have been born. Actually most people from the franchise won't be born, simply because of the huge changes in demographics. Princess Koriand'r is a Violet, but her visions did not include this world.

Anyways, a few decades later a farmer sees a ball of fire fall from the heavens into his farm, which contains a baby. He assumes it's God-Imperatrix Diana's son, and reports it as such.

It's actually not that unreasonable. Nobody knows where amazons came from; the official answer is "you are not worthy of knowing", but she also unofficially encourages the myth that they descended from the heavens, drawn by the last prayers of those dead in the Great War.

The kid's not hers, but she decides he should be, and adopts him. Also gives his ship to her science people to figure out, which is why she names him after the mythical figure, who brought fire from the heavens to help pull mortals out of the darkness.

About two decades later, Earth's joint peoples have made huge progress. They're already mining the asteroid belt, and begun terraforming both Venus and Mars. At that point they detect what seems like more of Prometheus' technology in the north pole, both he and his mother go to check it out.

She and Jor-El should get along well, I think. He approves of her parenting.

They do trigger the emergency beacon and draw in General Zod's forces. But because Mars has cities now, that's where they land and launch their threats and deploy the world engine, which also means Martian Manhunter will stay trapped, presumably forever.

Diana, Prometheus and their Honour Guard all go fight them. That's a bunch of supers, but we don't need anyone specific, just that every soldier there is special in some fashion. They're all wearing spacesuits modeled after roman armour. They easily kill the kryptonians and claim their ship.

Diana checks the ship's computers and learns about the history of the galaxy. The enormity of the conflicts going on breaks the last of the hope she didn't remember she still had, and that's when Ares shows up. After a brief talk she does go with him, both disappearing forever.

Prometheus picks up her sword, which has since been reforged using atlantean and/or kryptonian technology, and crowns himself God-Imperator. After a brief period of the scientists figuring out the arctic ship and the captured one, he leads Earth on a ridiculously succesful conquest of his galaxy.

In about a decade he has gained control of most territories not claimed by Tamaran or the Lanterns, and are starting to threaten war with the former when his scientists figure out interdimensional travel, starting the multiversal conqueror phase approximately at the time BvS would have been, because I vaguely picture all timelines running concurrently. Don't want people suddenly travelling to Victorian World or something.

Also, if Yellow Jor-El was the traitor in Lanterns, Prometheus would have found the same world that gives kryptonians even better superpowers, and his personal armor would be tuned to provide him that atmosphere, either permanently or as a temporary battle mode.

At some point someone needs to wrestle him from behind as he threatens to use his laser vision on something, but he succesfully fights it off and destroys his target and/or the interloper.

For his eventual defeat at the end of his part of the franchise, I was vaguely thinking there could actually be two Promethei, their interdimensional empires overlapping without anyone knowing it, so that the heroes may learn that and manipulate things to pin one against the other. That probably needs too much setup for movies to do it correctly, though.

Also thought Diana (any) could meet him and run some psychological warfare, but honestly probably not. He's likely met Dianas by now, perhaps even killed a few.

And there is always kryptonite, of course. But actually in the comics is usually been a rule that kryptonite doesn't work unless it's from the same universe, which to my knowledge no movie has brought up, undestandably. That may mean I'd be obligated to make use of that, no? Is that how that works? That's probably how it works.

...and then...

...there was a bunch of details that I keep elaborating upon, which were threatening to delay this even more. I have removed them and saved them elsewhere, there will be at least one more post in this series. And so on and so forth, probably.

[tessiete]

Counterpoint:

Satine being a mother and connected to Obi-Wan through a son isn't actually demeaning or minimising in any way.

Now, I'll agree that Satine's death was handled in a way that centred Obi-Wan's pain, but I think it's a stretch to say her story and character are in any way diminished by her connection to Obi-Wan in general.

As far as The Lawless goes, I'll forever maintain Satine had the ending she earned. Was it portrayed in a really poor way that put Obi-Wan at the forefront of an arc he'd already experienced (ie. being tempted to the dark by the death of a loved one)? Yeah. It was dumb to focus that story on Obi-Wan.

But Satine, herself, is integral to a plot almost totally separate from Obi-Wan. In fact, as a neutral system and hereditary enemies of the Jedi, their relationship is the intersection point to justify his presence. Not hers.

Because the fall of Mandalore, the Mandalorian resistance, and Satine's work in the Senate are all massively significant events within the context of the final days of the Republic beyond the scope of the Jedi. We know this because Satine is one of the early dissenters. Her political views are the ones to challenge Palpatine and his unlawful assimilation of Republic nations. Satine is the leader of the Neutral System. Not Padme. Satine is the one to challenge the concept of war. Satine is the one to make Mandalore relevant. Her politics, her pacifism, her ideology.

Satine's storyline is the plot which makes way for Ahsoka to have a plot outside the Order. Mandalore is what gives Ahsoka something to be a part of, it expands the lore of that entire culture, heck, it is the story that makes The Mandalorian ultimately possible.

Satine has never needed Obi-Wan.

BUT Obi-Wan and Satine connect the two stories in an emotional way that allows for the audience to be invested, and not simply interested in the politics. It gives that particular lineage a reason to be there. It gives us a reason to want them to.

Now, Star Wars isn't that great with mothers. They really focus on dads.

For my money, Satine as Korkie's mother gives us the....only??? example of a child growing up with a single mother. And he's doing great.

Obviously, she still dies -- but she dies for her own defining ideology (despite the episode burying that in Obi-Wan's pain).

But before that, she is raising a brave, smart, and ethical person.

Why then, you might ask, does it matter at all if he's Obi-Wan's son?

And that, for me, is personal taste. Because I love the paralleling of Korkie and Anakin. I love grappling with what it means to be a parent of blood vs. one of choice. I love thinking about parental presence vs. absence.

We, as a fandom, think nothing of giving credit to Shmi for the effect she had in shaping Anakin, not just in life, but also in death. Is it not interesting to consider the effect Obi-Wan has on a child of his, not just by blood, but also by example? When is absence really an absence? When is it presence? What do we inherit by choice? What do we inherit because we seek it out? What do we inherit whether we want it or not?

TL;DR I don't actually think Satine is at all diminished by Obi-Wan as her storyline is the second most important plot in TCW era. She justifies him.

But as always, YMMV and I'm very biased! <3

MOST COMPELLING

Link to the "Most Narratively Likely" poll

[lovewaterforthesoul]

Kripke has recently said in several interviews, “Believe it or not, The Boys is a moral universe, and when you make the right choices, you get rewarded, you make the wrong choices you get punished. Because Maeve made the right decisions, she gets the happy ending with Elena.”

Making the world of the boys a moral universe is definitely creating issues with telling the overall story. For one, Kripke is currently shaping the world of the Boys according to what he thinks is right and wrong. He turned tempV into a moral issue and gave it deadly consequences to anyone taking it. He essentially said, “If you try to use weapons/tools that are equal to your enemy/oppressor, you’re just as bad.” And that message is an oversimplified take on Hughie and Butcher’s decisions in S3. It also makes it jarring when the story dictates that Kimiko actions are selfless in order to protect her loved ones while Hughie’s actions are selfish and borne out of wanting to be macho to save his girlfriend who doesn’t need saving. Instead of viewing both character’s choices as trying to survive and win within their violent supe world, these characters are viewed in the lens’ of Kripke’s scope of morality as he also aims to make commentary on men’s expectations to always be the physically strong one.

How much more compelling would it be if tempV was just treated as a tool/weapon (no tumors/side effects) and it depends on the individual(s) taking it and what they do with their powers to meet their goals? There’s enough stakes presented with Hughie/Butcher methods without the need to make it deadly.

I also think the toxic masculinity storyline was centered to avoid exploring a much tougher storyline. It’s much harder to explore the question that was evoked between Hughie/Butcher’s methods and Annie/MM’s methods which is: what it will take to dismantle and destroy an oppressive capitalistic corporation and government that makes up the current power structure? By any means necessary? Or through a series of “right ways” which according to Kripke is using social media, mobilizing protests, speaking the “truth” and using the justice system all which heavily rely on liberal idealism. Does kripke think Vought as a corporation can be made good if Ashley has a complete change of heart and starts using her CEO powers for the greater good, as hinted in deleting the Maeve video? So perhaps Kripke believes the system itself doesn’t need to change, just the people leading it does.

Kripke ultimately believes in reform/gradualism and opposes revolution/radical changes tactics. I don’t mind that he does this because it’s a great debate to engage within the show but the show itself has firmly picked a side and tells the audience who is clearly right (Annie/MM) and who is obviously wrong (Hughie/Butcher) instead of highlighting the pros/cons/greys of both methods and having them at least try to come to a mutual understanding of each other’s methods and work together. But now that Kripke has picked a side, what’s the solution for the Boys to defeat Vought and kill homelander that falls in line with the moral standards that he has set for these characters?

[nekropsii]

How do you create such a cool fanadventure like yours, and how do you make character bibles?

Aw, thank you, that's very flattering!! I'll be sure to pass your compliments onto the rest of the team, too, lol!!

I don't know how much help my advice will be here, since we're still in the Active Development stages, but I'll give what I've learned anyways, both through the project and through other means. Here are some things that will be your best friend in the long run!! Feel free to ask for follow ups or clarification!!

Content Warning: Long, I Guess!

The first thing you need is an idea. I know, that's the most basic thing to start with, but when you have some kind of base concept you want to work with, everything else falls into place with it. Hopefully, anyways. As you develop the story, this foundational concept will also develop. You can have as many beautifully crafted characters as you want, but if you have no plot, or no unifying concept behind the story, they'll go completely to waste.

The second thing you need is something I don't see a lot of people spare themselves, and it ultimately leads to their downfall: TIME. Things like this take a lot of time, and that's not just referring to the active run of the comic. You'll want to give yourself plenty of time to develop the story and it's characters before you really make any publishing moves. Don't just make a basic concept and your main cast and post your first page on the spot- give yourself some time to develop things and get as much planned out as possible for the scope of your story. You'll save yourself a lot of stress.

Dedication!! So much dedication!! Commitment, commitment, commitment. Lots and lots of it. So, so, SO much dedication to the craft. You have to really be passionate what you're doing if you wish to carry through with it and have a good time whilst doing so.

The question here about Character Bibles is very interesting, and very important!! I don't see a lot of people talk about Character Bibles in their writing advice online, and I feel like that's a bit of a crime. To those uninitiated, a Character Bible is an outline document that tells you and whoever else is working on the project everything they need to know about a specific character. It harbors every character detail you could possibly think of- their basic introductory details, their personal history, personality, quirks, everything!! They're incredibly important when it comes to this kind of project- an absolutely necessary thing to have on hand for quick and easy reference!! The aim of the game with them is to not forget literally anything. It's all about consistency and cohesion.

Personally, for Sovereignstuck, we have several bibles per character using varying levels of detail on their specified subject matter. No clue if this is a common method or not, but it’s what works for us. There are some good outlines for what you could write in them online, but my personal advice is to start with charts of the most basic information you have on a character- name, age, orientation, gender, race, class, aspect, et cetera. After that, you can get into the more in-depth stuff. I recommend having a little “Stream of Consciousness” document where all you do is ramble about whatever comes to mind first with the character, write down any questions you have for yourself, figure out answers when you can, et cetera. Stream of Consciousness is a lot more approachable than just pumping out a well structured, well formatted chronological essay on the character off the bat, especially when you’re in early stages and aren’t too familiar with them yet.

If you’re working with large casts, which you most certainly will be if we’re talking traditional SBURB-type fanventures, then spreadsheets are your friend- they are fantastic methods of keeping track of a lot of basic information at once, all with ease of quick reference + comparison. I can maybe make a spreadsheet template for fanventure setups later, if anyone’s interested.

Also, you’ll probably need bibles to keep track of a lot of things in the story! A great example is your personal interpretation of Mythological Roles. It’s generally just a good idea to have some kind of reference page on what your magic system is. Doing all this writing seems overwhelming at first, but you really get the hang of it as you keep doing it.

Also, as general advice, be selfish. This is a project you’re working on for fun, so if you stop having fun, feel free to drop it- whether that’s temporarily or permanently. Put yourself first. Ideally, you will be having fun working on this, and that’s the most important aspect of it all. If you stop having fun, find out why and try to solve the issue! Feel free to hit the bricks literally whenever! Even Hussie did!

Hope this helps at all! Have a lovely day!

[wordsandrobots]

I can only really approach this from a story/narrative point of view because I honestly don’t know what the corporate position on IBO is, exactly (the existence of the G app and the Urdr Hunt story, together with the abridged version of the show, at least implies Bandai and Sunrise see the series as a going concern, even if they’ve largely ceased producing products for the original series).

But having spent almost two years seriously trying to answer the question of ‘how would you continue Iron-Blooded Oprhans’, as far as I can see, the most productive way forward is the one that least gels with an action mecha anime.

See, there is absolutely a logical way to take the story and it’s to explore the affect of the ending on the characters who went through it. You take Ride, Eugene, Kudelia, Galeio, Julieta, etc. and you look inside their heads at how they cope with the emotional fallout of what happened.

There’d be a lot of merit in something like that, I think, because the way child soldiers are reintegrated into society (or not) is a big issue and one often elided by fiction dealing with them. IBO goes so hard on depicting its characters as *actual* child soldiers rather than the ‘ordinary teen falls into giant robot’ trope that it lays very fertile ground for looking at its ending and going, ‘but how well do they sleep at night?’ ‘How does society treat them even if everybody’s moved on from their particular tragedy?’ ‘Is that promise to abolish human debris worth the paper it’s written on?’

The problem is, from a genre point of view, that approach encourages reflection, not expansion. It’s not a sequel hook, it doesn’t provide a path towards the next logical development, and above all, it does not lend itself to massive robots beating seven bells out of each other.

I wrote out a whole arc following Ride getting involved with a wider rebellion against the status quo, and it is entirely focused on his long, drawn-out mental breakdown as he finds himself put in Orga’s position with the foreknowledge of what happened last time. That’s an interesting thing to grapple with. However, it’s fundamentally introspective and makes the mecha fights incidental.

Which is to say, it’s very good for writing fanfic but a poor fit for a visual medium invested in climactic violence. To be clear, I’m not saying you couldn’t get it to work - I would love to see someone try - rather that it would hit the tolerances of its particular niche very quickly, in ways that are trivially predictable.

That’s the main issue I can see with continuing Tekkadan’s story, anyway. Shifting the focus away from them offers more fruitful ground but a dearth of clear paths to follow.

Urdr Hunt is an interquel but there’s no reason the same formula couldn’t work in a future setting. However, that game is in large respects retreading the same themes and I think shifting from Tekkadan really ought to necessitate a larger tonal change of some kind.

There’s the ‘Calamity War prequel’ idea, which I personally feel would end up as too much ‘generic Gundam’ fare to be worth it, but there are smarter writers out there! You could certainly get something interesting from exploring that era.

And there’s the basic move of making Akatsuki the main character in some fashion. Which . . . well that really would completely undo IBO’s ending and should probably be avoided at all costs.

[. . . I say this like I haven’t already been toying with an idea around just that, but in my defence that idea is ‘make him a non-violent, non-pilot dutagonist who turns all of Mika’s indestructible lack of self-preservation into purely defensive action, oh and set it in this universe’s equivalent of the G Gundam contests.’]

I think ultimately when it comes to a true sequel, it would require finding a setting within IBO’s world distinct from Tekkadan’s stomping grounds while still engaging with the themes of exploitation and post-conflict messiness. There’s plenty of geographic scope for changing things up - why not set it entirely around Jupiter, or one of the other space colony groups? But you’d also need to find a distinct societal level. It’s telling I think that both the existing spin-offs did this already, to pretty good effect.

Whether doing the same thing on the scale of a whole new anime series would be worth it when Sunrise have hit the ground running with Witch From Mercury? Eh. Doubtful, I’d say. But who knows.

I personally would just be happy with a MG Flauros kit at this point.

I dont feel we'll ever really get a 'rides rebellion' sequel to gundam ibo at the end of the day for two reasons, one big and one small. and the small one is that in my opinion ride and what hes doing in the epilogue is suppose to be more of an open question then something that gets a definitive answer. something to elicit thought and speculation, and force ya to ask personal questions but also something that was not created with an answer in mind [like mgs2, and like mgs2 forcing answers might end up more detrimental then constructive to the work in the end]

which leads to the big one, and its that [in my opinion] in the sense of a corporate scale of things, i feel like theres likely a perception in the sunrise and bandai boardrooms that actually giving some sort of followup on the events would result in tanking the profitability of ibo as a property within the gundam verse as it were. because as it stands the ending of ibo is ultimately something of a perfect balance of ambiguity in theme and plotting. everyone's won but also lost, the story is a closed loop but also dangling in loose ends of potential avenues, any given interpretation of ibo on a thematic and writing level can be considered both true and incorrect at the same time because everyone is accommodated for in some degree in the themes they prefer to interpret the story as.

I see ibo as a stock built tragedy where the protagonist of the story falls and fails because he lets his worst character aspects dominate his decisions and identity. namely orgas greed and his pride, which blend together in a toxic mix of performative machismo and ambition to hide the fact he has no idea what hes doing outside of reflexively reacting to everything that happens [real lelouch of ya orga gotta say]. some see it as a cautionary tale on colonial politics and its historical impacts with a tragic ending. others see it as a classic mafia yakuza story of learning 'crime does not pay' when the police come knocking at your door but with giant robots.

and as I mentioned, in my opinion ibos ending mangages to accommodate all these different viewpoints on the same story without hard committing to any one of them. In that sense its a perfect ending because it raises so many different ideas and themes but leaves it in the audiences hand to determine what those ideas and themes mean to them.

but by that same virtue, its a perfect ending. Theres nowhere to go from a perfect ending that doesnt mess with said ending in some manner. pick a direction to go and you inevitably disappoint the people invested in the directions you didnt go [which might be fine if your willing to disappoint those people, dgmr], maintain that balance and your prolonging everyones suffering. the best direction to go i would say is to explore new territory entirely, but sequels tend to be best sold as continuations not gear changes. and as a creative those are all interesting risks to explore in searching out the next story, but for a company? with stockholders and shit?

absolutely terrifying.

so yeah, i dont think we'll ever get a 'rides rebellion', but if it does happen and im wrong...

well, i can atleast imagine it would have a god chance of blowing the ibo fanbase into smithereens. but thats just a guess on subjective quality.

[fictionadventurer]

Musing over some Inklings Challenge thoughts. Want to run it by you guys rather than the main blog, because this is very nebulous.

When it comes to themes for the challenge, I’ve gotten several responses that people struggled with the themes--hard to know theme before you write the story, etc. I sympathize, but I don’t want to drop the themes. This is a Christian spec fic challenge and I want to challenge people to think about the Christianity aspect. I feel like a list of seven themes provides enough variety to allow scope for the imagination while also providing guidance.

One possibility that’s occurred to me: what about a list of seven Christian symbols? Work with the literary language of salvation history. Include some object that’s often use symbolically in the Bible and tie that to the theme. There are a lot of symbols that could provide a lot of scope for abstract theme.

Some example symbols and some connections/themes they suggest:

Light: God’s grace and guidance, living openly, casting off the darkness of sin, etc.

Tree: the Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Cross, which all tie to themes of man’s fall and redemption

Water: The waters of the flood, the Red Sea, the River Jordan, themes of repentance, cleansing from sin, rebirth

Wind: The Holy Spirit, the voice of God. God’s breath creating man

Bread: Manna from heaven, the Eucharist. God providing for his people. The bread of life.

Wine: The joys of heaven, God pouring out his goodness and joy to mankind; the wedding at Cana, the Eucharist, the wedding feast of the Lamb

Fire: The Holy Spirit, “Do not hide your candle under a basket”, the fires of hell, the purifying fire of God’s grace

Oil: Anointing, kingship, stewardship, “running the race”

That’s very haphazard, but the point is that there are multiple directions one could go with any symbol. It provides a lot of scope for theme while also providing a concrete image for story-writing purposes. It might be easier to work these symbols into fantasy than sci fi, but a lot of them are such basic things that it wouldn’t be horrifically difficult to work the object (or the lack of it) into any story. The hope would be that this would provide a place for the less abstract-minded people to start. Pick a symbol, tie it to your subgenre and run with it. Technology plus water? Boom! Submarines! Space travel plus wind? Spaceship air purifiers! And so on and so forth.

But, since the stories are ultimately supposed to tie to a Christian theme, does this actually make it more difficult? Adding in an extra step? Because not only do we have the abstract theme, we also need to make sure that the symbol shows up and represents what it’s supposed to? I like it because I go feral for symbolism and themes, but I also thought that last year’s themes were so broad no one would have trouble writing a story that fit one.

We could just focus on the concrete aspect of things, and just use the seven Christian ideas as prompts to guide the story. Just include the object and don’t worry about the theme unless you want to. Could also use a different type of concrete list for inspiration. Like:

Images of God

Father

King

Warrior

Shepherd

Bridegroom

Gardener

Servant

or Symbolic Events like Birth, Wedding, Feast, and other things that I can’t think of right now. And then people could just gear their story to such a character or event idea and leave it at that.

Or, of course, we could just stick with a list of abstract themes. Such as virtues or whatever. Which also has appeal as an option.

Not sure if this makes sense (I’ve rambled a lot). I’m probably overthinking things. Feedback needed.

[pebblysand]

[LET'S TALK WRITING!] - HOW TO OUTLINE A ONE SHOT/SHORT STORY/CHAPTER

Hello everyone! You might not remember but back in January, I wrote this post about the 15 things I learned writing fanfiction for fifteen years. In light of its (very relative) success, I vowed to do more. Then, time passed, I’m not sure where it went. But, sure look, here we are, I’m back, and going to try to do one every other week. We shall see. I have a list of topics planned for now but if you have any requests, let me know.

(Also, just a quick note, I know I asked you guys for ideas on what to write a few weeks back. I know this topic (how to outline a one shot/chapter) was requested by an anon I mistakenly deleted. I also know that someone else requested something else, but for the life of me, I can’t remember who and what it was. It was in a private message convo and not blow smoke up my own arse but I have quite a few of those, so I couldn’t find it. If you are this person, please give me a shout! I’m not ignoring you, I just lost your message 😫)

Disclaimer: this is the result of my own experience, and my own tips and tricks built over the years. What might work/be true for me might not work for you. There is no wrong/right way to outline. An outline is there to serve you, and help you, but it shouldn't be something that takes away from your enjoyment of the story. If planning bores you, then by all means, don't plan. As you can see, I'm a planner, but I never follow through on my plans 100%. That is what works for me. This is aimed at helping you find what works for you, not at forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do.

Also, as you know, I mostly write fanfic, so I will mostly be using that terminology here (i.e. “one shot” instead of “short story,” ect.). Ultimately, though, I think a lot of these are valid regardless of what you’re writing.

Lastly, please note that I don’t do all three of these all the time. While I always do step one, I sometimes skip step 2 or 3, depending on the needs of the story and what I want to outline.

STEP ONE: DEFINING YOUR "POINT"

For the purposes of this post, I am assuming that you already have an idea/know what to generally write about. I could do a separate post on where to get ideas/how to get inspired/brainstorm if you want me to, but this is out of scope here.

I think when building an outline for your fic, the very first thing you need to write down and define is: what am I writing about?

And, I don’t mean the idea. I don’t mean: the scene you’ve had in a flash and decided to write, or the character you want to explore, I mean: in just a few words, what is your thesis statement? Think about it like an essay: what are you trying to say with this story? Beyond the plot, beyond the characters, what is your point? I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve read a fic/book and finished it being like: ‘alright, but what was the point of this?’

I think a lot of people come up with book/fic ideas through characters or scenes, and write them one after the other, without wondering if there is a point to it all. And, look, I know we all live on a tiny rock in the middle of the universe and there is no point to it all, and sure, if that is your message, please go with it, but You Need A Message. Any message. Your point can be: “life in your 20s is hard,” or “there is no God,” or “no one is truly evil”, or even: “the best thing in life is an evening in front of the telly.” None of it has to be particularly deep or novel, but you need a driving force that will tie your story together. Or else, it will fall apart as a succession of scenes with nothing glueing them together. Remember that there is plot, there is character, and then there is point. Plot & character serve point, not the other way around.

And this is true for anything you write. Even if it’s a short snippet, a missing scene, a drabble - it has to say something about the world. You cannot imagine the number of scenes/stories that are in my writing ‘graveyard’ folder because I couldn’t find a ‘point’ to them. The point is what keeps your reader interested, what they relate to in your story.

This is also true (imo) for chapters within a long work. Personally, not only does the overall story have a point, but the chapters themselves also have an individual point as units. Part of my planning/outlining process is to sit down and write that point out to myself. For example: “the point of chapter 8 of castles is to depict the lengths to which humans are capable to go to for their own survival and the survival of those they love” or “the point in ce ne sont que des cailloux is that bravery is sometimes not innate but can be a conscious choice” etc. Spelling out The Point is an exercise I do for everything I write because I find it much easier to make The Point more specific/clearer in my head when I articulate it with words. It can be one word, it can be a quote, a sentence. But you’ve got to find your glue.

In the past, I used to work through the plot, even write entire stories, before finding the Point. That is possible. Your Point may also change as you write. So, if you initially can’t find the Point, don't let that slow you down. Just know that once you hit the moment when you’ve finally found the Point (be it the middle or the end of your story) you might have a lot of going back and re-writing to do. I’m putting this as step one because it’s just easier if you have it from the start.

These days, I find that with experience, “point” comes before “plot” in most of my stories. For chapters within a long story, this might be slightly different as I already have my general story arc so I tend to work through the plot, and then through what I’m trying to say within that particular unit, but for one-shots, it definitely is the case. To take the fault in faulty manufacturing as an example, I knew I wanted the R O A R series (which is my series about Gryffindors and how do we define the house) to have an instalment about the following paragraph from the sorting hat chats:

“it is a Gryffindor’s stark, direct honesty makes them them feel the most secure. Lies, or even misdirects, are slippery footing. For a Gryffindor Secondary, their blunt honesty is a facet of their personality and their morality—lying about who or why you are taints the victory. A Gryffindor Secondary can and will lie if the cause is important enough— but it will leave a bad taste in their mouth.”

And, I also knew I wanted to write a fic about Seamus, and so I decided to bring the two together. Those were the barebones and starting points of my outline. And, more importantly, the Point is also the guiding star and what I fall back on whenever I get stuck in the story. I ask myself: “okay, how do I get back to the Point?” It is additionally a great tool for editing, making sure that every scene, every word, is conducive of the Point.

STEP TWO: THE STORYBOARD

Note: for the two next steps, I’ll take the fault in faulty manufacturing as an example because it is the last one-shot I wrote, and it’s fresher in my head.

Once I’ve decided what to write about, I generally storyboard my stories. I tend to skip this step for anything shorter than 3k or if I have a really clear flow of scenes in my head but typically by the end of step one, I have a) the point, b) the general plot, and c) maybe a handful of key dialogue/scenes I want to include from a brainstorming early phase. Physically storyboarding (I do it on paper but I understand some writing softwares do this as well, it’s really your choice) helps me spot the missing pieces/inconsistencies. My storyboards typically look like this:

I usually try to have twelve “moments” in the fic/chapter. It’s not necessarily all the scenes (and some of them can end up being merged/deleted), but it’s generally the main ones. The number twelve is totally arbitrary (just comes down to how many post-it notes I can fit within an A4 sheet of paper, and also coincidentally ends up totalling to my preferred length these days, between 8-12k). But, the point is, physically “seeing” the story mapped out helps me see what characters interact, when, where, etc.

It’ll help me spot, for instance, if I have three scenes in a row about Character A and Character B, and perhaps not enough about Character C. You can colour-code your post-its if you have different themes, characters, etc. (I don’t, I just grab whatever, but 🤷🏻‍♀️) Also, it’ll help me plan around the time within the story. Say if the first line of post-it-s is Week One, then the second line Week Two, etc. And, when I’m writing, it’ll give me goals. For instance: “today, I’m writing this post-it,” or today, “I’m writing to the end of the row, etc.”

If you’ve read the fault in faulty manufacturing, you’ll notice that maybe 10-20% of these actually happened in the story. That, to me, is the level of leeway I give myself between what I plan, and what I write, at this stage. It may vary from story to story, but there are always diversions. Some scenes take much longer, some scenes are shorter than you expected, some scenes get added, some stuff doesn’t work, etc. But the storyboard always helps to determine a general arc and overview of the plot/chronology of the story.

PART THREE: THE LIST

Now, usually, this is not something I do straight after step two. I usually start writing on the basis of the storyboard as soon as I have it, and then somewhere along the line, I feel the need to build a more detailed outline, especially if the story is long and I can't write it all in one day. This will generally be when I have a better grasp of the story, of the precise scenes I’m working towards. I do this because a) I don’t want to forget a particular scene idea I’ve had whenever I’m writing on something else and b), it’s easier to know what I’m meant to write next when I have to pause writing and come back to it later.

Here is an example of “the list” for the end of the fault in faulty manufacturing:

As you can see, they a) tend to be bits and pieces of dialogue or general rundowns of the scenes and b) tend to get more and more vague the further you get into the story. That is because usually when I’m writing, the next scene I have to write might be very clear and I’ll write it out clearly in the list, but the tenth scene from now will be a lot blurrier. As I write chronologically, I tend to get more specific with the scenes I’m going to write next, and modify the list accordingly.

Also, some scenes are strangely so “clear” in my head that I don’t outline them. These are usually the scenes I've had in my head since the Very Beginning of brainstorming the story, and I know them so well/they are so essential I don't need to outline them. This is, for instance, the “Scene with Harry outside the ministry,” or “Scene with the crisp sandwich.”

I use my outlines to work through the areas where I’m less “certain” on the plot/scenes so when I am certain, I don’t usually go through the effort of outlining. Sometimes I’ll write a couple lines of dialogue at most. And, ultimately, that's the very point of outlining. It's supposed to help you (remember, work out plotholes, etc.) not hinder you. You don’t need to waster your time writing out the things you already know.

Lastly, if you’ve read the fault in faulty manufacturing, again, you’ll notice the changes I made on the spot between the outline, and the final product. That is the leeway I give myself. I know a lot of writers stick to their outlines to the dot, and some don’t even make outlines. As you can see, my personal jam is a bit of an in-between.

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Anyway, I hope this helped! If you have any questions, comments, tricks of your own to give, please feel free to message me or reblog this! I’d be so keen to see what everyone does!

My fics and rec list can also be found online. Lastly, if you want to support my writing, you can find my tippee page here.

[tratserenoyreve]

on the one hand, yeah a lot of push for cramming as much as possible into a single game has been on the part of publishers/manufacturers that want to convince people to invest in the newest hardware and have their time monopolized by just a single game.

for example, many recent games, by indie and large studio alike, have been advertising rtx and ray-tracing. they also have been forgoing optimizing and compacting file size so you get monstrous 300gb downloads where the hope is it'll both prevent you from installing other games and be so much of a hassle to reinstall that you will hesitate to take it off your system.

but then, as someone who also follows early-access games being made by small teams, i ALSO see a lot of people who either fall prey to feature creep or want so bad to influence every game they interact with to be their Ultimate Forever Game. The One Perfect Penultimate of its kind. the Game to End all Games.

for example, i see a game about running a dinosaur ranch, they have a feedback and suggestions channel. they're looking for stuff relating to potential co-op, how mechanics feel, accessibility stuff. people start requesting an in-depth hybrid breed!ng system complete with unique models for every combo and mutations and basically aren't considering the intended scope of the game or the limited budget the devs are working with.

and then on another project i see the devs themselves get stuck in a cycle of "oh we gotta redo the models" "we gotta upgrade to 4k hd" "we need to make a bigger map- oops we made it so huge it broke the engine" and just keep stacking and stacking until you have a jenga tower of bugs and messy foundation.

someone brought up that kingdom hearts is a 20 year old game, and yeah! it is! and i stand by it still being a more straightforward and well done rpg than whatever kh4 is trying to be! kh1 had a set visual identity, a set story, and did what it had to do to fit on a ps2. now they're trying to make kh4 into some hyper-realism showcase on the ps5 for the sake of being able to say they have ultra-detailed physics and lighting and don't pay attention to how the series' story is getting messy and losing its visual identity.

same with final fantasy, 15 released buggy and unfinished, the visual fidelity was the highest it'd ever been but nobody actually likes a majority of how 15's story is told and often complain about how its gameplay goes. it's flashy eye candy but people still go back to ff6 because of its story and characters.

i don't want games to be "worse", i just think the idea that Every new award winning major rpg should include some extremely mclarge huge open world environment that takes hundreds of hours to complete and graphics so detailed that i instantly get motion sickness seeing it in action (and cannot differentiate it from any other realism game) shouldn't be the norm. that a game being focused on doing just a few things Really Well is preferable over them trying to do Everything poorly. that developers shouldn't be made to regularly pump out games 5x larger than they used to be in the same or even less amount of time they used to have.