#but i think its so so cool to have the oldest version of the show. its cool for archival purposes too since this version is much less commo

[arielluva]

ohhh having the old utena dvds pre-remaster is so cool.... i got to see the old dub in wakaba flourishing where utena calls anthy by her first name with my own eyes!!!

[tyttetardis]

Macbeth Q&A 18th Jan 2024 Part 2

Continuing where the previous post left off...

The next question basically boiled down to "How will you go on in your career from having lived this experience" - David says something funny, but I can't decipher what/ or remember it. Cush then replied "I'm quitting. I'm not doing anything else!". She then goes on to talk about how part of the fun of doing what they do, is that they develop their skillsets and toolkits - and that they are lucky to be living in a time where technology is kinda smashing into theatre. She talks about how theatre is one of the oldest forms of storytelling - and telling a story is as old as gets. So with every job they do, ideally, they want to develop or take on something new that you can then infuse into other things work on afterwards otherwise you're essentially just banging your head against a wall, doing the same thing over and over again.

Cush then said that theatre will live or die will based people coming or not coming - "You know, as much as I love everbody in here, one day we will all be dead" - so the survival of the amazing and beautiful thing that theatre is depends on younger people wanting to come as well and therefore it's important not to be afraid of fusing worlds together - experimenting and trying new things.

She goes on to say that there's been people to see the play who has never seen Shakespeare, never seen Macbeth before - and who has then told them things like "It's really cool how you changed to words to modern [language] and that's just because they understood it" and it's important to have in mind than when standing there you're not just explaining the show to one person, but to everybody.

David then continued by saying that they are not suggesting that this is now the only way they will do their projects! Every project they come into has its own way of being, its own development process and its own concept. This is just one way of telling this story - that allows you inside of some characters, who might suffer from PTSD for various reasons, which was the starting point that led to "How can we tell that story? How can we be inside someone's head in a particularly nightmarish way?"

A not production of Macbeth might approach that differently - but one version of the play isn't more valid than the other, one doesn't wipe the other out - they just have tools at their disposal and sometimes they make use of them.

The last question was in regard to the whole production (and cast) being Scottish with the exception of Lady Macbeth - and what the thinking behind that might have been.

David answers that that too was one of Max's original ideas (even though he isn't Scottish). But right from the start he wanted a Scottish cast, Scottish conditions, Gaelic singing. The idea being that Lady Macbeth not being from Scotland is part of the story in itself - she's another, she brings a different energy which allows the Macbeths to have a slightly different perspective on the world they are in.

Annie Grace then mentioned that she wondered if that idea was influenced by a production of Winter's Tale that she and Alasdair both worked on together with Max. The play was done in Edinburgh with a full Scottish cast as well and used traditional Scottish music. Craig then told her that that was indeed the influence behind the idea!

And then he ended the Q&A :(

[tobiasdrake]

Digimon Adventure 01 - Adrift? The Island of Adventure! / And So It Begins....

Right off the bat, we can feel the tonal difference between how the two shows want to present themselves. The Japanese version opens with narration provided to us by a grim and stone-faced narrator, while in the English version, Tai delivers the exposition himself in a light-hearted and goofy tone.

The Japanese narrator explains to us in a bit more detail precisely what is happening throughout the world. Drought has struck the paddy fields of southeast Asia, heavy rains are flooding the Middle East, and the U.S. is suffering from freezing temperatures.

Tai has similar dreary info to drop on us. He tries to keep it light because that's the tone the dub is going for, but his version's... a little different. In fact, hilariously, Tai's version is much worse.

The way he tells it, the whole rainforest has dried up and oceans have risen to flood "other areas like chocolate sauce". The freezing also is no longer in the U.S.; It's "cities which are normally blazing hot", not contained to any specific region. Holy shit.

So, yeah. Either way, the world's being fucked sideways right now by climate catastrophe, but it's ironically being fucked harder in the lighter and goofier English dub.

With that out of the way, we met our cast of kids - With the English Tai getting in a funny joke, claiming to be "working on my multiplication tables" while we clearly see him snoozing in a tree.

Each character comes with their own special introduction slide to give us some basic information on them. For the Japanese version, the narrator coldly lists them off by name, while their information blurb tells us what grade they're in.

This gives us a general understanding of how old each kid is, relative to one another, which is kind of important for understanding their group dynamic down the road.

6th Grade: Jou 5th Grade: Taichi, Sora, and Yamato 4th Grade: Koushiro and Mimi 2nd Grade: Takeru

The dub omits that particular information and instead gives us some basic information on what Tai thinks of each character.

Sora: "She's okay, for a girl!" Matt: "Too cool; Just look at that haircut!" Izzy: "He should have gone to computer camp." Mimi: "I'll bet you can guess her favorite color on the first try." T.K.: "Matt's dopey little brother." Joe: "Don't ever scare him; He'd probably wet his pants."

For most of the character names, it's pretty obvious which name connects to which. Izzy's the odd man out, as it's an abbreviation for Koushiro's family name Izumi.

The omission of the characters' ages from the dub is something that I think hurts it; It's not super clear, watching the show in English, that Joe's supposed to be the oldest kid by a year or two, or that Mimi's one of the youngest in the cast. However, this is important context for driving some of the plot points that the show has in store for them.

As the kids are struck by a freak blizzard, neither version really stops to explain this but the kids who will be our protagonists get separated from the rest of the campers. In both versions, we just see a group of counselors ushering kids into tents, and then Taichi opens this door once it stops.

I think the Japanese version was trusting its audience to understand from context where they are. Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Jou, Koushiro, Mimi, and Takeru have all taken shelter from the blizzard inside a nearby Shinto shrine.

This is why, when the aurora suddenly arrives and transports them across worlds, no other campers are taken with them. They're in an isolated location away from the rest of the group.

Jou even has a line expressing that he wants to return to the others, to clarify that these seven children are presently alone.

The English version offers no less information than the Japanese. Well, it offers a little less; That one context-clarifying line from Jou is replaced by Joe saying "I was worried I'd catch a summer cold but this is even worse!"

However, more importantly, we don't have Shinto shrines here. So the context isn't quite as evident to a kid watching on TV in the 90's. I always thought they were just in some kind of cabin at camp.

As the kids stare in awe at the sudden arrival of an aurora that's about to ruin the next several months of their lives, Jou again urges everyone to return to adult supervision pronto. This time Yamato agrees with him, pointing out that they could get sick if they stay out here.

Joe and Matt, on the other hand, have different concerns. In the dub, it's Joe that worries they're all going to get sick if they stay out here. This time, Matt disagrees, insisting that they can't miss a sight like this. That they are all alone in the wilderness with no adult supervision is not a concern for Joe at all, apparently.

Koushiro also points out that auroras aren't supposed to happen in Japan, so this is weird. The dub is trying to localize for an American audience, so Izzy's a bit more descriptive here. He calls this out as the Aurora Borealis specifically but says that's supposed to happen in Alaska. "We're way too far south."

Then the Aurora strikes, delivering their Digivices and whisking the kids away on a magical adventure of violence, terror, and coming to terms with the reality of death. YAAAAAAAAAY

So it begins! Taichi is the first we see meet his Digimon partner. This is Koromon. English Koromon explains that his name means "Brave Little Warrior". This is a bald-faced lie.

Like many Baby and Child stage Digimon, his name is based on an onomatopoeia; Specifically, Koromon is named for the sound of a round object rolling around. "Korokorokorokoro". I think the dub version of the character was embarrassed to admit that. :P

Koushiro's partner Mochimon is next. The subtitle here says Motimon but you can clearly hear Mochimon. His name is based on the sound of a spongey goop extending and retracting. Mochimochimochi.

Once these two are introduced, the dub goes in on trying to deliver information to the audience. This place is called the Digi-World, and Izzy speculates that the Digimon are the Digivices themselves, transformed into physical lifeforms.

None of this is in the original; This is a quiet moment as Taichi takes in the magnitude of their isolating predicament. The only information offered is that this is a place called File Island; the word "File" is said in English.

That they've Isekai'd into another world entirely is not something they know as of yet. At this point in time, the possibility exists that maybe we got washed out to sea somehow but we're still somewhere near Japan.

When Taichi tries to scout out what's around them, our central antagonist for this episode arrives: Kuwagamon, an Adult-stage Digimon named for a particular species of stag beetle: Nokogiri-kuwagata.

The first altercation with Kuwagamon goes terribly, forcing Taichi and Koushiro to take cover inside a special program. As Mochimon explains, they're inside a hologram of a tree which will conceal them from Kuwagamon.

The English Motimon offers the less helpful explanation, "It's a Hiding Tree, silly!" That'll do it. All I need to know, thanks.

Once Kuwagamon's gone, we meet up with Sora and our next Partner Digimon.

Pyocomon, named for the sound of bouncing. Pyocopyocopyoco! The dub cuts off the P and calls her Yokomon.

Immediately followed by Takeru's partner Tokomon, named for the sound of trotting around. Tokotokotokotoko.

And Yamato's partner Tsunomon. This one isn't an onomatopoeia; Rather, "tsuno" is the Japanese word for "horn". He's Hornmon. You can probably guess why.

Following that, we have Pukamon, named for the sound of floating or hovering. "Pukapukapuka", though the dub calls him Bukamon with a hard B sound.

We cut to commercial break and then come back to a completely redundant second introduction. Each Digimon takes turns going around and saying their names, and then Tai introduces each of the human characters and tells us which grade they're in; The same information from those slides earlier.

I think the localizers realized how unnecessary this is because they use this time to waffle instead. Rather than intros, the Digimon just say things like "We're super cute!" "And loyal!" Tai, however, once again misses an opportunity to establish the relative ages of the characters and just reintroduces all of the humans by name.

Wait, but aren't we missing someone? As if on cue, Mimi comes screaming out of the woods with her Partner Digimon at her side.

Tanemon, which translates in English to "Seedmon". However, like Tsunomon, her name remains Tanemon in the dub. Mimi isn't screaming because of Tanemon, however; She's being hunted by Kuwagamon.

I should note that the dub characters are extremely rude about Mimi's absence. Sora calls her "the girl with the funny hat" to which Tai replies, in the most eye-rolling and disdainful voice possible, "Now now, her name is Mimi." You can hear him sneering.

Then Izzy chimes in and, in a weirdly bitter tone, suggest she's "picking flowers" or "going on a nature hike". The fuck crawled up y'all's butts and died? This girl has done nothing.

The dub, however, does get in a fantastic line when Kuwagamon attacks again.

As the kids cower in a clearing from Kuwagamon's renewed assault, Joe cries out, "My mom is going to want a complete and total refund!" XD I love that. It manages to land a joke without killing the tension in the process.

Cornered on the edge of a cliff, the partners are forced to fight Kuwagamon.

It does not go well. Real quick, who do you think wins in a fight: An experienced lumberjack vs. several toddlers?

What a lovely start to an adventure. We have no idea where we are or why, and the strange magical creatures who showed up to protect us have all been beaten within an inch of their life by what, for all intents and purposes at this time, just appears to be Random Encounter wildlife.

We're gonna die out here.

With their backs against the wall, Kuwagamon renews the assault once more and the Baby Digimon are forced to break free from their worried kids and fight once more.

The dub tries really hard to downplay the peril these kids are in right now. For instance, when Taichi asks Koromon why he attacked Kuwagamon so recklessly, Koromon uses what little strength he has to state that he needs to protect Taichi. Dub Koromon just says he wanted to show off and look cool.

Similarly, as Kuwagamon comes tromping out of the woods, Taichi expresses hopeless fear, and Koromon then insists that that Digimon must fight. Dub Tai instead says, "Get ready to run!" only for Koromon to argue that he wants to fight instead. Like. They're standing on the edge of a cliff. There is nowhere to run to. The dub's manufacturing retreat options to make fighting a personal choice rather than a survival necessity.

But now the bonds they've formed with their kids are strong enough for the first in what's going to become a major metaphysic for this series: Evolution.

The dub calls it Digivolution, possibly to distinguish it from evolution in Pokemon which was airing alongside this show, but in Japanese it's just "shinka" meaning evolution. As each Digimon evolves, there's a stock quote format that they express in both versions.

In English, it's "Koromon, digivolve to: Agumon!"

In Japanese, it's "Koromon SHINKAAAAAAAA!!! Agumon!"

I admit, ever since the first time I watched this in subs, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the bloodcurdling battle roar of "SHINKAAAAAAA!!!" every time they evolve in Japanese.

While Kuwagamon gets dogpiled by Child-stage Digimon as the Digimon theme song blazes in the background, let's take a moment to go over each of their new names.

Agumon: "Aguaguagu". The sound of biting. Gabumon: A type of puppet used in Kabuki theater. Piyomon: "Piyopiyopiyopiyo". The sound of tweeting. Tentomon: Tentoumushi, a type of ladybug. Gomamon: Gomafu azarashi, a type of seal. Palmon: A play on "palm", a kind of tree. Patamon: "Patapatapatapata", the sound of flapping wings.

The English version replaces the roaring Digimon theme song with some generic fight music.

With Kuwagamon successfully fended off, the vibe of this scene is pure tension-relieving jubilation. The dub slides in Izzy saying, "They made vaporware out of him," and goddammit, that got me. XD The important thing is that Kuwagamon is gone and everyone is safe forev--

Oh, never mind. Everyone fucks off a cliff and probably dies and that's where we leave off episode 1. This sequence features possibly the funniest "Easing Up on the Peril" edit in this entire episode. As Kuwagamon slams his pincers into the edge of the cliff side to send them hurtling to their doom, the English version splices in random still frames of the kids looking tough to show this is no big deal and they can handle themselves in this mess!

Izzy standing there like "GRRR I'm a big strong American boy and they build us TOUGH over here! Me and mah gun can TAKE gravity!"

Before ending on the exact same shot of everyone falling to their doom anyway.

Either way, this is where the episode leaves off. The kids have been transported to this mysterious location. They have no idea where they are, how they got here, or why. They were terrorized around the forest, and now they're all falling to their doom.

This sets the stage for what this adventure is going to be like. This is not a magical journey of whimsey and effortless victories. These children are in extreme peril and nobody is coming to save them.

Man, File Island sucks. I'm with English Joe. If I was one of these kids' parents, I'd be demanding a refund too. Worst camping trip ever.

[qinluofu]

₍^..^₎　⌅　Day in the life of younger sibling ＠sae&rin ‹𝟥

(# >o<) 　 ❛ 　💐 　 ♡⃘ 　 pure fluff ﹒ ❀ ﹒no warnings

₍ᵔ⑅..ᵔ₎　　⤷　　masterlists ➷ send in requests

waking up in the morning at 7:00am sharp, getting ready for the minature version of prison but with your 2 older brothers. sae, the oldest, sleeps at the bedroom right side of yours - along with rin, second oldest, who sleeps at the bedroom left side of yours.

they're already awake by the time you are. in fact they wake you up, because if they didn't we'd be here until noon. sae makes the pancakes and rin makes the orange juice, your in charge of eating it.

since its the morning there's not much conversations being made & it's dead quiet aside from the rustling sounds of plates and bags being taken out. the itoshi brothers don't mind you being reliant on them, as they think it's a responsibility. they'd be willing to make you breakfast and wake you up everyday until you die.

when you arrive to the gates of hell, sae has to go to the other building. he tells you to stay safe and walks away, leaving rin to take care of you. rin always walks with you till the lockers cuz what if some creep goes up to you?? you need a 6 ft tall brother to handle this ( emo dog priviledges )

hanging out with your friends is cool, but not when the captain of the junior soccer club rin itoshi is constantly staring at your guy friends while his team mate isagi yoichi tries to get his attention. everytime you tell him that your fine and it's alright he goes :|.

class goes by smoothly and now its lunch time, yippie :D. oh but you don't need to get in line to get school lunch food that's ew, you already have a handmade lunch box made by sae.

today's lunch box consisted of sticky white rice along with fried egg, baby carrots with sweet & sour chicken. all in separated containers, packed nicely in a heating bag - oh and a pot of seaweed soup. nice.

as usual, the baby carrots are left untouch with a few white rice left sticking on the container. that's gonna be sae's business later on in the afternoon. you don't miss the way sae passes by your classroom, claiming he wants to see the school's newest football player isagi yoichi but everytime isagi talks to him he looks at the container of untouched baby carrots instead with an annoyed glare

isagi is starting to think the family has some issues going on.

school life is tough but when its finally over, you practically sprint to the metal gates only for sae to grab your hand and tells you "it's not safe" and to "calm down" while rin crosses his hands and gives you an unimpressed look.

"too slow turtle, i was already here" "you were supposed to wait for them dumbass" "says who?"

since its a hot summer day, sae takes you and rin to an ice cream shop to cool down a little. sae never eats the ice cream though, just hands you and rin a cone each and pays for it.

when you get home, you leave your lunchboxes on the table and decided to get a cooling bath. you don't do your homework immediately despite the constant nagging from sae and instead play some games.

at 8:24pm you went downstairs to eat dinner. rin always drags you off the bed because no matter how loud sae calls you to come down and eat you never seem to find the energy to do so.

at 11:30pm, after a tired day of everything you finally fall back to bed and sleep. you always forget to shut the lights so rin has to personally go to your room to do that for you, he says its a bad habit that you should fix soon but somehow his eyes never show a hint of annoyance.

at 12:00am does sae finally sleep, not without checking up on you and rin's room to make sure your both snoozing away. only after doing that does he find the comfort to be able to fall asleep, dreaming about whats to come.

a/n - this was not proof read guys so ignore the spelling & grmmar mistakes ...

[canmom]

what's the book for? part 1

[here's an intro where I talk about the three hour video essay that inspired me to do this]

This is a part of a series about TTRPGs! I'm looking at the relationship between the book and the thing you do, the play.

That forum, the 'Forge', was founded on the premise that, in Edwards's pithy slogan, 'System Does Matter' - which is to say Edwards believed that the formal and, perhaps especially, informal procedures you follow when you play a roleplaying game have a large effect on what kind of experiences you can have there. Kind of tautological, but I'll let him have that. It is true that there are many different activities that fall under the heading of 'tabletop roleplaying'.

Edwards and his pals wanted to have a more explicit and intentional 'creative agenda' when playing a game. In general this is something that the players were supposed to get on the same page about when they sit down to play a game. To the Forge mindset, the ideal is for everyone to be pushing harmoniously to the same thing; the root of 'dysfunction' in TTRPGs was seen as arising from an unacknowledged clash of these agendas.

The solution found by the Forge was to design new game systems which put their preferred agenda, 'narrativism', front and centre.

Many more words could be written about the Forge, a lot of them quite mean, but let's bring this back to game design. What is it good for?

Why do we buy all these books anyway?

What is 'an RPG'? On the shelf to my right are... hold on let me count... some 27 different D&D books, mostly from 3.5e. Also a couple other TTRPG books (including Apocalypse World). On my hard drive are... some 94+ other games accumulated from various Humble Bundles and similar. I have played only a small fraction, and honestly, read only a slightly larger fraction.

What is a 'game' in this context? Generally speaking there's a book, and maybe some other tools like character sheets, which theoretically provide what you need to get together with some friends and do an activity that it defines. Sort of like a recipe. But the book itself is not the game; the book anchors the game, which is something rather nebulous, into a thing that can be bought and sold. The game is an activity, which 'exists' when it gets played. However, consulting the book is (usually) part of the game!

I rather vaguely say 'what you need', because it's more than just 'rules'. Lancer, for example, is full of colourful, vivid pictures of giant robots; these pictures do a lot to get players' imaginations thinking about what sort of giant robot they might pilot - how cool it would look and what sort of sicknasty shit it would do. I doubt Lancer would be even a fraction as popular if it didn't have these artworks to get you on board with its fantasy. The pictures are a very load-bearing part of creating the 'game' here.

We could say the aim of the TTRPG book is to convince you that the game "exists" in a concrete enough way that you can actually play it. Much like the Golden Witch, BEATRICE. Then you can gather your friends and say, 'hey, do you want to play Sagas of the Icelanders', and they will say 'yeah, what's that?', and you'll show them the book and sit down and attempt to follow whatever idea the book has imparted of 'how to play Sagas of the Icelanders'.

So, the relationship between TTRPG book and play is rather nebulous. This is something of a problem if you are an aspiring auteur designer who would like to impart something specific to players. Who knows what they're going to do with that book?

let's talk D&D - on the 'proper' way of playing the game

D&D is the oldest roleplaying game, and still by far the biggest. Many TTRPG players will only ever play D&D. Many others will play games derived from some version of D&D, like all the different games belonging to the 'OSR'. It's a point of endless frustration for indie game players, who have to deal with being a satellite to this juggernaut, which they see as poorly designed. If only these players would recognise how could they could have it!

But the interesting thing about D&D - and TTRPGs in general, really - to me is that it's folklore. It's not a product you buy.

How do you learn to play D&D? You could go and buy the 'core set': the famous Player's Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide, a tripartite division that has existed since the days of AD&D. However, for all their glossy art and flavour text, these books still do a pretty dire job of actually getting you up to speed on how the game is played, especially for the Dungeon Master.

No, what you actually do is: you join an existing D&D group. Or, in the modern day, maybe you listen to an 'actual play' podcast such as Critical Role. This furnishes you with a direct example of what D&D players say and how that results in a story, far more vividly and concretely than you'd ever get from looking at a book.

Once you're convinced that you wanna join this weird little subculture, then perhaps you go and grab some books, run a published module, create a character, whatever. Maybe you go on D&D forums and read endless arguments about the best way to play the game, which all the while serve to define what that game actually is in your head.

A lot of critics of D&D complain that the rules of D&D as written do a pretty terrible job of facilitating many of the purposes that D&D is put towards. They tend to argue that there are games better suited to it, often from the story-games milieu. If people say 'sure, but we change the games in x, y and z way', this is seen as a bit of a joke - "well you're not really playing D&D at that point, are you?"

If you view 'D&D' as defined by what's printed in the books printed by Hasbro, sure. However, D&D is not really that. D&D is the label we apply to a huge nebulous body of lore, from the Dread Gazebo and Tucker's Kobolds to weirdly endearing monsters derived from knockoff tokusatsu figurines. It is all the ideas you've received about what it looks like to play D&D from listening to a podcast. It's arguing about what Chaotic Neutral means. It is 50 years of material - of frequently dubious quality, mind you! - that exploded out from that time some nerds in the States decided to explore a dungeon in their wargame.

If whoever had the rights to use the Dungeons & Dragons trademark never printed another book, that would not kill D&D. In fact, there's even a condescending nickname, courtesy of Edwards, for people who cook up their own slightly-different spin on D&D and try to sell it - the 'fantasy heartbreaker'. The concept of D&D has considerable inertia.

It's pretty, but is it D&D?

In this perspective, defining what D&D 'is' with a strict demarcation is kinda impossible. Gygax himself was very inconsistent on this front, favouring strict adherence to rules at times (declaring of houseruled games that 'such games are not D&D or AD&D games - they are something else'), and encouraging changing them at others - rather depending on whether he had the rights at the time, and his conflict with Dave Arneson.

"Since the game is the sole property of TSR and its designer, what is official and what is not has meaning if one plays the game. Serious players will only accept official material, for they play the game rather than playing at it, as do those who enjoy "house rules" poker, or who push pawns around the chess board. No power on earth can dictate that gamers not add spurious rules and material to either the D&D or AD&D game systems, but likewise no claim to playing either game can then be made. Such games are not D&D or AD&D games- they are something else, classifiable only under the generic "FRPG" catch all"

In this he sounds rather a lot like Ron Edwards declaring that only his perfect design is the true and correct version of Sorcerer! And to both these fellows, we should say, who gives a shit.

So at this point, beyond the (so far) 11 'official' versions of the books published by TSR and later Hasbro, there are hundreds of offshoots that bear a heavy amount of D&D in their lineage and function almost identically even if they don't bear the trademark... and an uncountable number of small variants, whether explicitly houseruled or just different habits forming from 'who speaks when' or 'what rules we ignore' to the focus of the game.

So. Imagine a person who was inspired by the D&D milieu, gradually figured out their own taste of what they like to see in a TTRPG over many games of 'D&D', and is now having a good time playing a game of 'D&D' about tense feudal politicking, even though they almost never look at a D&D sourcebook and frequently defy the rules printed in there. Is this person 'playing D&D'?

How about someone playing an OSR game derived from early D&D, that can't legally use the D&D trademark, but still uses THAC0 and maybe the occasional Mind Flayer(R)?

Now let's try someone who read Apocalypse World sometime and got inspired to try DMing in its style - asking players leading questions, acting to separate them, applying a cost to a desired thing or rearranging things behind the scenes when a roll goes bad... but they still consider what they're doing to be D&D, and they're strictly speaking playing by the book? After all, D&D doesn't say a thing about whether you should do that stuff or not.

Bit of a tough question imo! Maybe we should call Wittgenstein.

the scope of the book

There are so many different kinds of TTRPG book.

Some are very specific - a game like Lady Blackbird, The King is Dead or Hot Guys Making Out overlaps heavily with something like an adventure, giving you just one very tightly defined scenario and mechanics that only make sense in that context. This isn't a new thing, either - a game like Paranoia (1984-) is designed with a specific game structure in mind, where the characters each have a variety of explicit and secret objectives that are all at odds with each other.

D&D was originally a game like this, though it didn't last long. The earliest editions of the rules instruct the referee to draw out 'at least half a dozen maps of his "underworld"' filled with monsters and treasure, representing a "huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses". As far as I understand the history of the hobby, though, people almost immediately started getting into character and using the game for other things than exploring a dungeon.

Other game-products leave larger gaps to be filled in by the player...

a game like Shadowrun or Eclipse Phase, or D&D settings like Dark Sun or Eberron, will give you huge amounts of information about its setting, but leave 'what you do it in' to the GM's discretion.

a game like D&D gives you various setting elements, and there are many adventures and modules you can elect to 'run', but it is the GM's task to pick and choose some subset of those pieces and build them into a custom setting for that game.

a game like Apocalypse World gives you quite explicit instructions for how to set up a first session, and works very hard to set a vibe with the many examples and general style of its rules, but it tells you next to nothing about a predefined setting.

a game like Fiasco or Microscope offers only a loose structure, that your job is to fill with content over the course of the game.

All of these games market themselves with the same type of promise: with our book, you will be able to have this kind of experience. Like all marketing, they will tend to overpromise! But the marketing is, vexingly, itself part of what makes 'the game' happen.

In the video, Vi Huntsman roughly argues that this marketing is the core of what Root: The RPG is actually doing, trying to sell you on Forge ideology rather than provide anything helpful for running a tabletop game; and that the way it attempts to provide this experience is through crude 'buttons' which are inherently limiting, belonging more to the mechanistic worlds of computer games or board games than TTRPGs.

I kind of agree, but the problem is that... to some extent every game does this exact kind of marketing. For example, here's the Bubblegum Crisis RPG (yes, there was a Bubblegum Crisis RPG, published by Mike Pondsmith's company R Talsorian Games in 1996) which announces:

Those words are lyrics from several songs from the Bubblegum Crisis soundtracks, and they encapsulate the kind of action and drama you'll find in the Bubblegum Crisis Boleplaying Game. With this book, you'll enter the world of MegaTokyo and the oppressive megacorporation Genom—a world where monstrous Boomers, desperate AD Police and the mysterious Knight Sabers battle for the future of civilization.

This copy serves as a promise of what the game will bring, but also a prompt that tells you what kind of game you should use its tools to make. It's attached to exactly the sort of licensed game that Vi Huntsman criticises, applying an existing framework to a licensed RP as if to imply you need this book in order to tell a Bubblegum Crisis-inspired story.

Why? Huntsman called it 'reproducibility'. If every game that ever runs is a uniquely circumstantial snowflake, there is nothing to sell. But if you can offer someone the tools that they surely need to do that thing they heard about...

The problem is that what makes an RPG memorable is something that arises when you get a group of friends (or strangers!) to sit down together and make up a story, and that kind of definitionally can't be reduced to instructions in a book - it's too personal, too specific to the people involved. But we live in the era of capitalism, so... RPG companies and independent designers alike need to have a product to sell to this 'RPG player' subculture-identity.

The drive to somehow make reproducible experiences dates back all the way to the very first time people heard about that crazy game that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were doing at their wargames club and Gygax and Arneson decided to print a book to help people do that at home.

And with many RPGs on the market, they need further to differentiate themselves: to tell you that they're offering something you can't get elsewhere.

So what is that something? In the next post I'll get into that!

[talenlee]

Flygon Isn't Gunna Happen, People

When I talk about big game media franchises I’m often left with the thought that they are less an experience like a TV series, where you start out at the start and then you get to the end and eventually everyone either quits or resolves, but instead that they are like maps, where the past is a place you can just walk to. The oldest versions and oldest ways of playing games like Dungeons & Dragons still exist, and you can just go and find those communities who are not only still playing that game but playing the old game in ways that have continued to change and spiral off in their own directions over the fifty years of their life. This is too, too true of Pokemon, a game that has an active player community who focus their efforts on competitive head-to-head play of the very first generation of the game, down to the point where their metagame is upended upon the discovery of bugs or glitches the emulation software hadn’t quite properly implemented.

Navigating this map, though, especially when you stop treating the pure play forms of the game as the only ways to experience it, there are trends and mysteries that have endured and form their own cultural space. Game Freak are a positively inscrutable mistrix especially from the Anglosphere and people will invoke them like they’re talking about some sort of extrabiblical deity figure who can be appeased and whose intentions and demands can be defined through some kind of mystical analysis of stat changes. Amongst those myths there is the strange story of Flygon, the Pokemon that has never been much but has always felt like it should be.

If you’re not familiar with it, Flygon is a Dragon/Ground Pokemon with the ability levitate. This means that Flygon is immune to Electric Attacks and Ground Attacks and also resists Fire, Poison and Rock, things that a new player might assume are good to use to attack it, and its weaknesses are limited to Dragon (not that common) Fairy (all too common these days) and Ice (always common because it’s one of the best attacking types in the game).

In the context of Pokemon, a ‘good’ stat spread is hard to describe simply, so some benchmarks are that Mewtwo, a very, very strong Pokemon and in contention for one of the best Pokemon of all time, has a stat total of 680, which is the number used for very, very important and powerful Pokemon, Mew, a mythical Pokemon has a stat total of 600, which is shared by all the mythicals, and starter Pokemon (that all evolve into something pretty strong) are 530. Other hallmarks that I find useful are that Gengar has a base stat total of 500, and Toxapex (a Pokemon that held a stall-prone metagame in its tentacly grip) has 495. These are the numbers attached to a lot of Pokemon that are ‘good.’ Pikachu, which isn’t fully evolved has 320, which is very low and part of why people generally think Pikachu sucks.

Because it sucks.

Flygon’s stats are 520, and almost all of them are 80, with two 100s. Speed and Attack are its exceptions, meaning it’s biased towards attacking, and quickly, but it could hypothetically do other stuff.

Flygon also looks extremely cool. This is not normally important in a conversation around competitive Pokemon, but it’s important here because we’re not just talking about what Flygon did in competitive Pokemon (the answer is almost nothing). We’re talking about Flygon as a Pokemon that people could get into, like to be fans of.

What of that competitive history?

Well, I went searching and I found two times a Flygon showed up to a VGC tournament that got saved in the Limitless Database, which is to say, one person brought their Flygon to two different tournaments and their best placement was 21st. It’s hard to talk about the competitive history of Flygon because by all honest accounts it doesn’t have one. It does have something of a presence in Smogon, the place which tries to adjust power level in environments through entirely exclusionary choices, ie, bannings, but it’s also worth noting that one of the things that makes it ‘good’ in the spaces it’s been good is ‘we have also banned a bunch of other stuff meaning Flygon is almost the only good Dragon type left.’

I have nothing else to say about Smogon’s opinion of Flygon because I have a note from Smogon’s mother that it’s very special and I shouldn’t be mean to it.

Flygon isn’t ‘bad’ per se, but it is an all-rounder in a game that rewards specialisation, and it is a creature weak to Fairy released before the Fairy Type redefined the world and threw a lot of Dragons into the toilet. But even when it was new and in its element, the novelty of what it offered was clearly not enough to bring it up to speed in the competitive environments… since there were no competitive environments supported by Nintendo when it was new. VGC, the official tournament format, wasn’t being supported by Nintendo until 2009, and that’s where one of Flygon’s greatest problems started.

One of the most important parts of this story about Flygon though, isn’t that ‘Flygon Is Bad Because’ of something it lacks. It’s that Garchomp exists.

Garchomp is a black hole of a card. It too is a Ground/Dragon Pokemon, but it’s also got 80 more stats than Flygon and they’re arranged more carefully – instead of even 80s and a pair of 100s, Garchomp is a tiny bit faster than Flygon and hits a lot harder. Garchomp isn’t immune to spikes or lightning but also it’s so fast and hits so hard who cares. Garchomp distorted the game around it and that meant that people were packing team structures to try and take out Garchomp as aggressively as possible. And know what that means?

It means that Flygon got hit with Garchomp Shrapnel. If you can take out a Garchomp efficiently, you can absolutely take out a Flygon more efficiently — it’s the same basic structure but weaker, slower, and less threatening when you leave it on the field.

Okay, so Flygon was doomed in competitive environments. So what.

There was a moment of bright light when we saw the Mega Evolutions made available in Pokemon X and Y. In this, Pokemon would get a cool new temporary, powerful form, and this was distributed to Pokemon at semi-random; popular Pokemon got a mega (or two if you’re Mewtwo or Charizard) sure, but some oddballs and weaker types with a cool idea got one (hi there Mawile).

And Flygon almost got one.

It almost got one, and then Ken Sugimori, the designer, got artists’ block and they just scrapped the idea.

But don’t worry, then there was another game with more Megas.

And it didn’t get it.

But then the next game introduced Z-moves, where Pokemon got sometimes unique and iconic super-powerful use-once-only moves.

And Flygon didn’t get one.

Then the next game introduced Gigantamax, where sometimes Pokemon could get a uniquely powerful shapeshift form that made ’em real real big and let them sometimes deploy special powers?

Yeah Flygon didn’t get one.

Fear not, though, then we got Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, where you uh, couldn’t get it. It became available through trade and DLC, but Flygon is well and truly a Pokemon of the Past, its Glory Day behind it. It doesn’t matter of course; Flygon is a cool monster and it’s fun to like it, there’s nothing wrong with that. But it is weird the way that Flygon has had so many opportunities to be improved or even just made meaningfully different to its later little brother of Garchomp and we’re just never going to see it.

By the way, Garchomp got a mega evolution. Don’t worry, nobody used it because it wasn’t necessary because Garchomp was good enough without it.

Also, and this is very important: The thing that crystallised this article and made me think about it enough to make it happen here, in this month, is my friend Corey mentioning it on Tumblr. This isn’t quite at the level of ‘a fourteen minute video that’s just mad at a tweet,’ but just so you know, credit where it’s due.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[ragsandrascals]

Hello! Thanks for following me! If you didn’t know, I was actually one of the first ones to actually search for the musical back in 2018, when I saw The Lost Media Wiki page about it! I was absolutely obsessed with it for 2 years, and I listened to the Broadway bootleg plus found out about the Russian performances on YouTube! I totally agree with your recent post about Ann not being a motherly character, In my opinion she’s like a crazy older sister type

Woah! That's so cool! I'm happy its not too controversial of an opinion, I only found it a year or so ago, but Its awesome to hear from people who were there from the begining. I intend to make a follow up post but if I have someones attention I might Yap a bit.

There's no doubt that Ann wants to be maternal, and in some instances, she can be. But it's far from the “I know what I'm doing things will be okay” kind and there are different kinds of maternal relationships (not even poppa is that kind of maternal because the characters in this show have so much depth and humanity) that I won't get into but yeah she feels much more like the oldest sibling who is sort of parentified and has no actual idea of what to do but pretends to anyway, she’s like a child playing mom.

I'm sure I'm running off the rails a bit but In her actual song the words “I don't know, who do I think I am” (at least the demo and ESPIA versions have that) it's in the text that she's just as clueless and has afraid as everyone else and she even doubts herself in the doll hospital. I feel like I came off as brash saying she's not maternal earlier, I don't view her as maternal, but she very much can be read that way, and it's a powerful reading to portray a motherly character as afraid and clinging by a thread

I just want people to remember she's a person too and she’s just as scared as Marcella, and Andy, and Baby.

[kingcunny]

🦄 for the dance era targaryens

🦄 - Characters' physical appearance

dance era targs (roughly) oldest to youngest

rhaenys. tanned/olive skintone. takes more after jocelyn than aemon, but got aemons pale lilac eye color. not buff, but toned, swimmers build almost. when i read f&b for a sec i misinterpreted rhaenys “hair streaked with white” line as not referencing her age, but as poliosis.

and i think thats a really cool look for her so im keeping it :) if i can get a little anime with it, its reversed in laena and laenor. silver hair with black streaks.

daemon . more silver than gold. pale skin. pale purple eyes. looks just alyssa, big ears, crooked gap-tooth smile. but didnt get her curly hair or freckles. strong but also not built, lithe. for Some Reason having facial hair makes daemon want to die 🤔 so hes obsessive about staying clean shaven no matter where he is. notible then, that while he was hanging around harrenhal waiting for aemond to show up he hadnt shaved in weeks.

rhaenyra . takes more after viserys than aemma, but cooler coloring than him. silver>gold. rich purple eyes. wavy/curly hair. she also got alyssas silly ears and smile through viserys, as well as his sense of fashion. dresses in dramatized valyrian style, not at all historically accurate but looks sick as fuck. canon traits: fat, big nose, long braid, lots of jewelry.

aegon ii and helaena both take more after viserys, aemond and daeron after alicent.

aegon ii . flushed, bloated, alcoholic face. yall know that bit in the beginning of disco elysium when harry stumbles into the bathroom and starts groping his face talking about how much it sucks and how badly it hurts? aegon2s daily morning routine. sallow skin. gold>silver. tries to grow a mustache to look like viserys but he managed to dodge both viserys and ottos facial hair genes, ends up with a little pencil stache. canon trait?: fat

helaena . shorter. rounder face and softer features. pale purple eyes. freckles. crooked gap-toothed smile. wavy/curly hair. canon trait?: fat

aemond . tallest out of anyone here. skinny and lanky. not an ounce of muscle or fat on him. silver>gold. cooler skin tone. freckles?

daeron . i know the book says daeron had the valyrian look but i like thinking that he DIDNT. and thats why he got sent away to military school oldtown. hes kinda fucking with the greens whole “rhaenyra is a SLUT just LOOK at her children its obvious :/“ ive been picturing him with brown hair (from alicent) and purple eyes, but i saw this one fanart where he had the silver hair but green eyes and that looked really cool too. tan skin, freckles. shorter, but strong. curly hair.

baela and rhaena are fraternal twins, not identical. (baela wishes they were identical) they take more after laena than daemon. im kinda thinking about having one of them inherit laenas reverse poliosis, but im not such which. i do think it should be only one of them though.

baela . black/mixed. stockier build. i like the idea of her having short box braids, with the beaded ends. or short twists, especially in this half up style. feels very baela. likes to wear pants+dress like a man. light green/mint jewelry for moondancer, but otherwise doesnt really like to dress up. crooked smile.

rhaena . black/mixed. long goddess/butterfly locs. hair usually done up. always a bunch of jewelry and accessories in her hair. soft flowing fabrics, pastel colors. pink for mo(u)rning, maybe she also wears green for moondancer. lots of jewelry.

jacaerys . out of all of rhaenyras children, including aegon3 and vis2, jace is the one that looks the most like her. little brown haired boy version of nyra. has the valyrian nose if not the colors. wavy hair, not as curly as luke+joffs. darker skin. tall but bad posture so he looks shorter than he is. purpleish brown eye color. able to gain the most muscle.

aegon iii . very skinny. pale, sallow skin, deep set eyes, dark eye bags. straight, lank, hair. cutting scars on his chest. silver>gold but barely even silver, more white. also got alyssas gap toothed smile, but he never smiles so you wouldnt know it. essentially looks like a living ghost. canon traits?: purple eyes so dark they look black.

viserys ii . gold>silver. tan skin. freckles? curly hair. chubby and shorter.

if anyones not mentioned here its either because they died as a child and i dont have any strong opinions about their appearance or i forgor

[goodflagintheshadows]

my thoughts and opinions on the wwdits season finale

i am glad guillermo is a human, and wants to be one. i think it makes entire sense that he is just not cut out for the vampire lifestyle, and i dont think its an unexpected arc in any way.

what i dont understand is how literally no one else thought of guillermos van helsing blood, making him drink human blood to finish the transformation, or killing derek in order to turn him back. i suppose it makes sense with nandor being the oldest of the vampires (aside from maybe colin robsinson), but its still surprising to see the himbo of the group figure everything out before the man who is a self-proclaimed vampire.

anyway, back to guillermo. when he finishes his transformation into a vampire, he immediately becomes a vampiric version of himself, the person he always thought he would become, and always aspired to be. i honestly could not watch him in this new persona, because it was not guillermo. he had been waiting for so long to become a vampire, so it makes complete sense for him to have had an idealized fantasy of vampiric life. he thought it would make him powerful, intimidating, sexy, and allow him to take control of his own life. what he failed to realize is that becoming a vampire would not change any of his personality, it would not make him into a better or worse person, all it would do is grant him eternal life and a few cool powers. and, with his real personality, theres no wonder he’s not cut out for the vampire life. after all, even before they became vampires, our three main vampires were not exactly the most sane humans. nadja, for one, burned down her school because they rejected her. nandor was a blood thirsty ruler whose entire persona is based on his killing and pillaging of all those that he comes in contact with. he was also known to not have been particularly caring to any of his tens of wives. laszlo, lastly, was known to have fathered and abandoned many children, not exactly the nicest thing to do. guillermo, however, has a modern morality. he sees the things that the vampires do to be, in the most part, wrong. probably he expected that once he got rid of his humanity, his morality would go with it. but, unable to feed on a human, he realizes that his moral code is fully in tact. we even see this when he finds that he cannot kill derek, and then goes to revive him.

im not sure if any of this made sense, but my point is that guillermo is human, and he is meant to be human. if they turn him back into a vampire, there better be some damn good story to back it up.

ps. to all of the people saying that them not confirming nandermo on screen is queerbaiting, please understand what queerbaiting is. like, please, a show in which the majority of characters is queer is not where we should be focusing on the topic of queerbaiting. are they baiting nandermo specifically? absolutely. are they queerbaiting? no fucking way. there are so many other things you can criticize about this show, please focus on those other criticisms instead.

[iworshipsappho]

HI YES I HAVE SOME CERES QUESTIONS OMG

1) what's her backstory?? 2) how is she with animals?/ any familiars? (i'm guessing there's some aquatic stuff involved?) 3) do they trust easily or are they cautious?? 4) are they comfortable with hugs and hair ruffles and physical touch in general? 5) are there any similarities between you and him???? 6) why did you chose the name ceres, which is very pretty and awesome btw? 😭🫶🏼🫶🏼

HI HELL YAEH :3!!!!

ok so here we goooo

hmm her backstory is what ive been working on for a while now, and yet i only have a few titbits here and there. one really cool thing i figured out a few weeks back is that he is ex-nobility, as in either she left nobility or was kicked out. this lil piece of information is evident in the way they absolutely loooove gold decor and jewellery. im still not sure why exactly they left, but i wanna get that sorted by this week >:)

they fucking loooove animals, to ceres, animals > human or like person interaction. her favourite animals are foxes :33 they've befriended a lot of foxes and she probably has names for each of them bc even tho he looks really stoic on the outside, he's a big softie on the inside but is just too scared to show it out. mmm also since they're an earth genasi, they live in the his world equivalent of a merge between a minecraft spruce biome and an oak biome, wait i think i have a picture lemme just check

^^^ they live on this island !!!!

3. mmm they used to be verrryyy trusting in their teens, but something happened that made her put up a hard exterior and protecc the guy inside :((

4. again, they used to be, but etc etc happened and he hasnt really had any intereaction with people in years almost, the closest he's come to that is with the gnome village nearby who view her as a deity (i just thought of this might not be canon in the future aka in 10 mins lmfao)

5. !!!!! MMM SO we used to be the exact same person but then ceres became more ceres than me, so while yes there are a lotta similarities, he's also become a character who isnt entirely me lmao. mmm. our similarities are probably that we both find comfort in our hobbies, writing for me and wood carving for her, and sometimes would prefer to not have any human interaction, yers in their case, also they used to be like reallllyyyy talkative in her teens but then Shit Happened

6. I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME SO HELL YEAH THANKS FOR ASKING ME HEHE SO i always wanted ceres to be associated with the earth, so immediately i thought of like greek gods who were related to earthy shit, and my first thought was demeter right, but i didnt want it to be demeter bc demeter didnt fit the vibes i was going for sooooo i went hmm whats the roman version, guess what. it was ceres!!!!! AND THE COOL PART IS ceres is also the name of a dwarf planet, its my favourite one now sorry make-make, but like its so cool bc the name ceres combines 2 of my oldest obsessions, greek mythology from when i was 10 and space shit, which i was obsessed with till i was like 7 and still retain some of the knowledge i got from like boring through 3 encyclopedias on space lmao

💜

[redecoratetrees]

A’ight, help a baby clikkie out.

what are like. The top 5 essential tøp live performances/things I should see. (can be more than five idc)

combing through YouTube myself is hard, assume I’ve seen nothing but Icy. Gimme homework vids 💛 ERS intro blew my mind yesterday.

ok so this has taken me a while bc im trying to put together something comprehensive but not excessive. there this playlist that someone made that collects a ton of vessel (and a little rab) bts stuff so like tour diaries, interviews, etc. RAB the webseries is on there and RAB the webseries is rly fun if u like cute behind the scenes stuff. It's also the source of the sampled vocal on the hype, where u can hear tyler say "we're gonna rely pretty heavily on technology and energy to cover up for the fact that we're only two people." which i find cool

theres also a few tour recaps from BF era but my personal favorite is sleepers. they also did some for bandito tour.

Admittedly i dont watch a ton of interviews but the halloween one is very popular and gets referenced a lot. i also just rly like old interviews (second one is pre-josh and also has a live performance that i find rly charming)

and of course my whole thing is "guy with the excessively curated live playlists" so heres just a rundown of my favorite shows of theirs on youtube, why i like, why u shd watch (it got long, i italicized the ones i think are the most "important"):

Twenty One Pilots - Friend, Please Live @ The Battle Of The Bands 10-11-09 - as far as i know the only time theyve played it, this is the oldest video of them on youtube. this guys channel is a treasure trove for old videos.

Twenty one pilots- ode to sleep - that time they played in an apple store. total classic, i just chose ode to sleep bc its my favorite

Twenty One Pilots - Ode To Sleep Live @ The Newport Music Hall 5-27-11 - earliest show i have ever found with josh in the band! from that weird period after the og drummer left but the bassist was still there.

DRUM BATTLE: Twenty One Pilots - Groove Street Fest 2011 - 9.24.2011 - honestly i just have a personal fondness for this video. the idea that wd become the drum island, the guy in orange going ham, tyler drumming, them doing their own gear, its all very small band charming.

UG Studios session "Addict With A Pen" by Twenty One Pilots - in a word: iconic. a ridiculously emotional performance

Skeleton Bones Remain (Gunshot Intro) - twenty | one | pilots - literally just a 20 second intro but it is absolutely legendary. the british voice is named nigel he used to show up more, rip nigel (actually found a video of the intro going into OTS)

twenty one pilots: Heathens & Stressed Out (Live AMA Awards Performance 2016) - when they came out in those full face masks? iconic. twitter was blowing up, it was awesome.

twenty one pilots - Firefly Music Festival 2017 (Full Show) 1080p HD - this particular set is nothing special but its a festival set so its an hq multicam recording of a full set from blurryface era. it's got drumline josh, its got the crowdstand, its got the hamster ball, im pretty sure it has josh vs josh drum battle, all ur rly missing is the iconic (and dearly missed) old song medley, with the coolest B-stage design theyve ever had (yes cooler than bandito fight meeee)

Twenty One Pilots: Live at Lollapalooza Chicago 2019 (Full Show) - festival set for the hits but its trench now! bandito tour b-stage is also an essential tho. first leg they had the skybridge after that they walked thru the crowd.

My favorite shows that dont exist in one video are: vessel release show at basement. they played the whole record, secret show, very cool. and all of tour de columbus, which was when after BF they did a takeover tour style thing but just in columbus. I saw 2 of those and its my biggest flex to this day.

besides shows I wd also check out the MUTEMATH sessions (which i was blessed enough to see some of live! so badass!), this session where he did alt versions of some trench tunes (fought for my life to win tix. i did not win), also the video for the hype berlin is rly cute.

this got kinda lengthy with all the shows, i just love so many of them. I'd also seek out their snl performances if u feel like it, iirc they did ride, stressed out, and heathens, tyler did just the |-/ instead of the full paint on his hands it was sweet.

and to anyone else seeing this PLEASE add if theres anything u think i missed, any random events u remember that were cool, etc. most of what i remember is annoying twitter drama bc i was a teenager for BF

[cookiemonstermatt]

capture my heart - solangelo one shot (1/?)

!ALL THESE ONESHOTS WERE 1ST POSTED ON MY WATTPAD ACCOUNT! my account is @-R3WR1T3TH3STARS-

this wasnt fully proof read so please let me know if I made any mistakes!

this one shot was requested by velvetkiisses- (on wattpad) and the prompt is capture the flag

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

WILLS POV

I was sitting at the Apollo table in the dining hall with the rest of my siblings and Nico to have dinner (Nico is basically apart of the Apollo cabin by now if you don't think about the fact that he can summon skeletons and ghosts) when Chiron made an announcement. 

"Demigods! Capture the flag will be on tomorrow at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. However, there will be a twist that has been requested by someone and that twist will be revealed tomorrow." 

The second Chiron's announcement had ended the dining hall exploded into chatter. After I ate I headed back to Apollo cabin after I wished goodnight to Nico, entertained the short walk there from hearing the theories my siblings had about what the surprise twist was. 

"Maybe the Hermes cabin will get stable duty for a month! Or even better, a year! That'll show Travis and Connor for pranking me on Tuesday by replacing my bow and arrows for rubber versions." 

"Kayla, I doubt Chiron would announce and make a whole surprise twist for it to be revenge on the Hermes cabin. He would've just told them as soon as they did it." Austin replied. "I think the twist is that Dionysus is gonna join capture the flag this week." 

"No way! I'm pretty sure Dionysus would rather dye his whole body pink." I chuckled a little at that. "And plus, if Dionysus joined in it would be unfair to the other team that doesn't have Dionysus on it since he's a God." 

"Unfair in the way that the other team wouldn't get an endless supply of grapes?" Kayla retorted, rolling her eyes. "I bet you my theory is right. If you didn't have an amazing cool younger sister like me you wouldn't always lose bets. Which is why I'm right like always and you're wrong!" Kayla poked her tongue out at Austin playfully. 

Austin ignored her and moved his head slightly to look at me. "Who do you think is right, Will? You're the oldest." 

Kayla was staring daggers at me so I replied with the safest answer. "Kayla." 

"What?!" Austin exclaimed. 

"Ha! Told you I'm always right." Kayla said. 

Thankfully we back to our cabin before a small argument broke out between my siblings. We all took turns to use the bathroom to get ready for bed before we climbed into our beds. I fell asleep fast, for the first time in what seemed like forever. 

I woke up the next day and checked my watch. 5:20am. It read. I groaned as I realised I have to get up now for my shift in the infirmary. I got dressed and walked to the infirmary to see what other injuries people got from doing stupid things. 

It felt like I had been in the infirmary for days but when I checked the clock it read 11:04am. Its not even the afternoon yet. I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard someone from behind me. 

"Hi," Nico. I didn't jump from the shadow travel since I was used to it by now, though he shouldn't be shadow traveling at all. 

"Nico, hi! How come you shadow travelled? You could've gotten hurt or...worse." 

"I'll be fine, Will. I promise." He replied. 

"Okay..but you owe three days in the infirmary." 

"Fine." He groaned. "But why's it always three?"

"Because one isn't enough time to see you."

"Why'd I ask such a sappy person to be my boyfriend?" Nico asked jokingly. 

I smiled. 

I continued to keep myself busy in the infirmary, occasionally asking Nico to pass things to me that were on the other side of the room. 

"I gotta go, capture the flag is starting soon." Nico said. 

I checked my own watch. 4:45pm. 

"Wait!" I called out as I quickly put my stuff down and followed him to the woods. Almost everyone was already there, now we just had to wait for Chiron to announce the twist. 

"Okay so since capture the flag is going to start in 10 minutes, the twist is that the teams will be pulled out of a hat." Everyone starting talking to their friends but I couldn't tell if they were happy or disappointed. "I'll be picking the names." Yup, its disappointment. Chiron put his hand into a hat that I'm pretty sure was Annabeth's Yankee cap and pulled out a few slips of paper from it. "The Apollo cabin will be in a team with...the Aphrodite, Hades, Poseidon and Ares cabin!" 

NICO'S POV

"Can we be the blue team? I refuse to wear that other hideous colour." Percy asked Chiron, pointing at the red team's flag. 

"Yes, Percy." Chiron sighed. 

It was concerning that of all things this is when I'd ever seen him the happiest. But then again, this is Percy Jackson we're talking about. 

"So that leaves the other team being the Zeus, Demeter, Athena and Hephaestus cabin." Chiron announced. 

Everyone got into their team group to quickly discuss their plans. Everyone had to keep reminding the Ares cabin that we're not allowed to kill people, so basically it was the regular team meeting. I was put on duty of distracting people so others could get the flag without getting caught, and Will was supposed to heal people when the Ares cabin probably stab someone from the other team. Or maybe break their arm(s). 

The game started a few minutes later, instantly breaking into chaos. I couldn't find anyone for some reason, but I kept looking around when I saw Will bandaging one of his younger siblings knees. 

"Hi Will, have you seen anyone around this area?" I asked him. 

"No, sorry." He replied as he finished bandaging the girls' knee and she ran off to keep playing. 

"Oh okay. Thanks anyways." I started to walk off to find someone to stop getting my teams flag but I heard Will's voice calling out to me. 

"Nico! Wait!" 

I turned around and he kissed me on the lips. "Don't get stabbed unless you want to spend another three days in the infirmary." He said after he pulled away. 

"More time with you? What a punishment." He retorted sarcastically. 

"Aw who knew Nico di Angelo the 'Ghost King' was such a sap?" I teased. 

"Mention that to anyone and I will slit your throat in your sleep. Well, I would if I didn't love you." 

I grinned. "Love you too, sunshine." 

"Now I gotta go beat Leo's teams ass otherwise I owe him twenty drachmas." Nico said, waving as he walked off. 

Gods I love him. 

————————————————————————————-

This was so cringe😭 also let me know if I made any mistakes! 

Word count: 1128

[trustafarian-has-liner-notes]

Here is a link to the pdf of a free novel i wrote, about being young and only kinda dumb, at the dawn of a new millennium

this version is formatted to be readable on my girlfriend's aged kobo, feel free to dm me about alternate formatting or with typos/corrections/questions

Cast art by the author:

I do need someone to tell me whose exact ages or birthdays have been mentioned

Dan is actually 23 in January of 2016 but is one of those people who counts his year of life up until age 1 so he considers himself 24......he's a libra (I think the birthday wouldve been mentioned if it was during the parts of year we know about) which means he's actually turning 24 in october of 2016 and was born in 1992....in victoria bc. I think his folks and sisters moved from halifax before he was born. Their last name is Edwards. What do the parents do again? Are they both engineers?

We know JP is a year older so he's 25 and born in 1991, which ims (in my synesthesia) is a good year for him, the ones are giving 2x thin and white, lol and being 25 is giving quarterlife crisis......born in montreal?...... born jan 1, so he just had had a birthday when dan shows up

I think mouse is 20 which means when he was 13, 7 years ago, was approx when Bruce moved in with Toi who had just taken on the Maison....so thats 2009 right when thank me later came out and unrelatedly, people were starting hella podcasts on random topics and having them take off because a huge rush of iphone people wanted to subscribe to anything that sounded cute.....anyway mouse's place of birth is unclear, i think he's an aries or scorpio, whichever he isnt for sun, thats his moon....maybe he turns 20 during aries season of 2016? Which makes him born 1996. Aries/pisces cusp.

If Bruce is 24 also, 7 years ago he was 17, which, works fine legally and with his family biography, for him to move to Toronto to live in an older partner's house. He's def gotta a christmas baby, sag/cap cusp all the way, plus that means Toi is back with new boobies just in time for his bday....so wait is he then 23 for the whole story? Thats fine. Either way i dont want to have to figure this out. Like its cool if he's turning 25 but does that mean he was born in 1991? I think yes, and that makes sense agewise so, he spends the whole story age 24 and was born in 1991

Toi would've been a newly minted legal adult with property rights at that time and therefore fit to sign a leasing contract from mommy dearest, so, 19 in 2009 and seven years later age 26, so, born in 1990. An aquarius date....closer to capricorn cusp.

Alice is the oldest, 29 or 30, right? Let's say she an '86, they have a softer, kinder energy than the 85s (im an 85, i can say that) but still soooooo xennial......i think libra/scorp cusp or scorp/sag....probably scorp/sag, so, she's 29 during the story? I didnt say her age did i?

I think Roscoe is 34 and from somewhere, like grew up in rural Italy and has family who emigrated and his mom wanted him to go to school in canada for unclear reasons and he did the business visa thing after by starting a business but ultimately still doesnt know why he's in exile (god spoke strongly to his mother that her gay son should be with the heathens her relatives hate) because he's never come out to his family and he's so butch and beloved. Anyway i guess that means he's an '82....a pisces, so he's 33 when we meet him.

Pete is in the liminal MA or PHD thesis zone of being on campus a lot for student teacher stuff, department stuff, grad student events that are secretly mandatory, etc....I suppose he's also 24 in 2016, born in 1992...keeps his birthday to himself so i bet he's a cancerian or maybe taurus and he visited family for a big homecooked meal instead of hanging around the maison (this is a big list of why we dont know their birthdays from the story lol, huge cast and no birthdays wtf)

Andre's age is pretty unfixed, I think she's younger than the others but not as young as Mouse, so, maybe 23, that's a fun age that really goes to her whole deal, its weird how different 23 and 24 often are for people ime. So, she's a 1993 and her birthday is feb 14, a valentines baby. Roscoe knows from andreah that she wanted to do something highkey sexy-romantic with andre to celebrate that day, and andre said no because of cigarette mom childhood birthday baggage, and they had a fight where no one was wrong and everyone reasserted their boundaries, but andreah was still upset about no sex on valentine's and decided to use the open relationship card when roscoe punted dan her way at the cafe. Of course she got in trouble for ignoring andres birthday the wrong way. Of course she did.

Andreah I think is older, maybe even a little older than Toi...she's def got 80s energies attached to her....let's say '89, which tracks with her being in middleschool when one of those x-men movies with halle berry is in theatres.......i think she's an aries, closer to the taurus cusp. Her mom is anishinabe, her dad is from mumbai, she was raised by a Philippino nanny living at her dads, until highschool when she moved in with her mom and then out into her own place as a subletter. She feels neglected and unwanted by both parents, which is true, she is.

[random-iz-stuff]

An aroace that doesn’t ship anything ranks every Invader Zim ship they are aware of:

No offence to anyone. Also don’t expect many “I ship it” moments because I really don’t ship anything.

ZaDr (Zim and Dib romance):

The one and only Invader Zim ship that needs no introduction. If you’re been in the modern fandom for any amount of time, you know about ZaDr. It’s the most common ship in the entire fandom and I see why. The enemies to lovers dynamic, the parallels between the two of them in canon, ✨ The Gay✨, etc. This ship is THE Invader Zim ship and it’s easy to see why.

I personally don’t ship it for a few different reasons. I like my Zim and Dib with a more frenemies dynamic when they aren’t at each other’s throats for one, plus I just don’t ship things like 99% of the time. That just how I work.

This right here can be said for any ship on this list involving Zim; but I also headcanon Zim as being aroace, which conflicts with literally every ship involving Zim. My version of Zim just doesn’t mix with any ships. For me, Zim and romance is like oil and water.

That being said, I’m not against ZaDr and I don’t dislike it. I don’t actively seek it out, but I also don’t mind looking at it if it pops up on my dash. I just like ZaDf a bit more.

Do I ship it: No

How I pronounce it: Za-Dur

Rating: 8/10 (it’s a classic and even though I don’t ship it, giving it anything less would be a disservice to it)

ZaGr (Zim and Gaz romance):

ZaGr is a really interesting ship to me. Not in a character or canon way, but in a meta way. Because from what I understand, ZaGr used to be the most popular IZ ship back when Invader Zim was a newer show, before ships like ZaDr became acceptable and more mainstream.

Now it’s way less common when compared to ZaDr, but you can see it everywhere in older works. I just find it cool that you can tell how old parts of the fandom are based on how popular or common ZaDr and ZaGr are. ZaGr is still popular nowadays, but it used to be the go-to IZ Ship before ZaDr became mainstream and overtook it in popularity.

Kinda but not really moving on from a meta perspective, I can see why it originally became popular, but also why it fell from grace and was overtaken by ZaDr. Both Zim and Gaz show a hated for humanity, share an interest in video games, have the same dislike of Dib and Gaz seems to be one of the few characters that Zim shows any respect towards whatsoever. There was also the rumoured (and later disproven to exist) episode “Invader Dib”, which was rumoured to be the series finale before the show was canceled and would have supposedly implied that Zim and Gaz got together post-canon.

Plus in my uneducated opinion, ZaGr probably also became so popular because of the environment it came into existence in. ZaGr is one of the oldest ships in the entire fandom (I think), being a thing all the way back in the early 2000s when Invader Zim had first come out and recently been canceled. Back then, gay ships like ZaDr and TaGr were a lot less normalized than they are today and were considered to be either crackships, rarepairs or morally wrong because the early 2000s wasn’t exactly known for being accepting of LGBTQ stuff. So ZaGr simply had a lot less competition.

Then, when ships like ZaDr and TaGr became more normalized and popular, people started jumping to them because ZaDr simply has a lot more chemistry than ZaGr. Zim and Gaz only have a few minimal interactions after all.

ZaGr still exists and it’s definitely still prominent, but it’s often overshadowed by its gay relatives that are ZaDr and TaGr.

On another note, I really like the idea of Zim and Gaz becoming friends (much to Dib’s dismay and frustration).

Do I ship it: No, but I adore the more meta details of it.

How I pronounce it: Za-Gir

Rating: 6/10 (the meta stuff elevates it quite a bit, but as an actual ship, things like ZaDr simply have way more chemistry)

ZaSr (Zim and Skoodge romance):

I don’t know why, but the ship name always gives me vibes of strength and durability. I really can’t explain it in any other way. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

Moving on from that, I can see why this exists. Skoodge was supposed to live in Zim’s base after all. Plus, with how underwritten Skoodge actually is, he’s a character that can be molded to fit the story or ship, basically making Skoodge a fanfic writer’s dream and basically any and all details regarding ZaSr to be sadly fanmade.

Now, I HAVE actually actively sought out ZaSr content before. It was mostly to find ZaSf stuff because the ZaSf tag is next to empty, but I have gone through the tag once or twice. Even though I don’t ship them romantically, I like the idea of Zim and Skoodge being friends and the ZaSr tag, despite being a shipping tag, is the best place to find content like that.

Do I ship it: Not romantically, but definitely platonically, in a best friends sort of way, and the ZaSr tag is my best (and only) source of content for that kind of thing

How I pronounce it: Za-Sir

Rating: 8/10 (I don’t ship the two romantically, but the tag is a very good way to find content of Zim and Skoodge being friends)

ZaTr (Zim and Tak romance):

This one is in a very similar vein as ZaSr. I have gone through the tag, but mostly just because I ran out of content in the ZaTf tag.

Ship-wise, I don’t really get this one, but at the same time I get the impression that it was popular at SOME point because I’m pretty sure that it was a semi-common thing in older works. I just don’t get WHY though. Maybe as an alternative to ZaGr back before ZaDr became an acceptable option? I really don’t know. I just don’t see it.

Do I ship it: No, but I have used the tag to search for ZaTf content before

How I pronounce it: Za-Tur

Rating: 4/10 (I really don’t understand the appeal of it. I’m a fan of ZaTf with Zim and Tak becoming friends or at the very least frenemies, but shipping the two of them romantically seems like overkill)

ZaTr alternate version (Zim and Tenn romance):

No. Just no. I headcanon that Zim and Tenn are twin siblings, so that should sum up my thoughts on ZaTr [alternate] pretty damn well.

And I’m confident to say that no one is going to fight me here and argue that “it’s just your personal headcanon that they’re siblings so it’s fine” because literally no one ships this.

This ship is stupidly rare and I’ve only ever seen two, maybe three things with ZaTr [alternate] in it. I’m including it simply because of those two or three things and because I said I’d review every ship I’m aware of, even if the ship barely exists and is accidentally made into twincest because of a headcanon I have.

Do I ship it: Fuck no

How I pronounce it: Alternate Za-Tur (or Za-Tur 2)

Rating: 0/10 (it’ll be a cold day in hell when I ship twincest and a goddamn blizzard in hell when I let go of my “Zim and Tenn being siblings” headcanon)

TaGr (Tak and Gaz romance):

I actually used to ship TaGr way before I made this blog. Then I stopped without really knowing why. I left the fandom for a while and when I came back TaGr had just sort of fell off for me and didn’t hit the same. I don’t know what changed. Nowadays I don’t actively seek it out, but also won’t complain if it pops up in my dash. I’m neutral towards it.

Tak and Gaz have basically no interactions in canon, and yet based purely on their personalities you KNOW that they’d work well if you placed them in the same room together. They even have similar aesthetics. And as an added bonus, you have ✨The Gay✨.

You can also pronounce the name by saying “tiger” in a super heavy southern accent and that makes it the best ship by default. You can do the same with the misspelling of the name (GaTr) by saying “gator” in a super heavy southern accent.

Do I ship it: Not anymore (but I used to)

How I pronounce it: Ta-Gir (like tiger with a super heavy southern accent)

Rating: 9/10 (the name and how you can pronounce it does some of the lifting there. It’s just fun for me to say. If you couldn’t pronounce it like tiger or gator in a super heavy southern accent it would be a 7/10)

DaTr (Dib and Tak romance):

This ship definitely exists and it is a ship.

To be honest though, DaTr gives off the vibes of a toxic byproduct of ZaDr and TaGr.

Despite that however, to my knowledge, DaTr is another one of the oldest ships in the fandom that’s as old as ZaGr, being a ship that was often seen alongside it. Zim gets with Gaz and Dib gets with Tak. Like ZaGr, it became a lot more rare with the rise of ZaDr and TaGr. It’s still around, but it’s a lot less common than it used to be.

However, I don’t think it really holds up nowadays. Dib and Tak simply don’t have much chemistry together besides an equal hated of Zim and ZaDr and TaGr seem like way better alternatives.

Plus, just by looking at them, I refuse to believe that Dib likes women and Tak likes men. ZaDr/TaGr shipper or not, there’s no way in hell that they’re both straight.

I do like the name though, I’ll give the ship that. DaTr. Reminds me of Data.

Do I ship it: no

How I pronounce it: Da-Tier or Da-Tur. I alternate between the two

Rating: 2/10

TaTr (Tak and Tenn romance):

I get why this ship exists. A part of it does have to do with Tenn having no canon personality and being able to be molded to fit the story or ship, just like Skoodge but even more malleable because Tenn has even less canon details, so you can really have any dynamic or story that you want with this ship. There’s also a few other details like Tenn being one of the only named, canon, female Irkens in the show besides Tak. ✨The Gay✨ is also a factor.

I’ve mentioned before that I find this ship a bit funny when you take into account how similar Zim and Tenn look, with Tak looking at Zim and thinking “worst enemy, kill on sight” and then looking at Zim with eyelashes and curled antenna and being head over heels, but I got to admit, TaTr has grown on me quite a bit.

It’s one of the only ships I’ve actively searched for (not counting the ships I’ve looked at when searching for platonic content like ZaSr and ZaTr) and I don’t even know why exactly. I just enjoy it.

Do I ship it: I don’t exactly know. I like the ship, but I’m not sure if I’d call myself a avid shipper of it. Probably? You know what? What the hell, my answer is Yes. TaTr is the only ship on this list that gets a yes from me

How I pronounce it: Tatter

Rating: 9/10 (I like this one)

RaPr (Red and Purple romance):

I can definitely see the chemistry between the two of them. They’re practically inseparable in canon, share the same interests and likes and also the line “he LIKES snacks Zim” exists. I’ve seen compilations of the Tallest just called “the Tallest being gay for each other compilation” and I completely understand where they’re coming from.

That being said, I have exactly one complaint. The name. If it was structured as “Purple and Red romance” instead of “Red and Purple romance”, it would spell “PaRr” which can easily be pronounced as “Parr”. RaPr had the opportunity to become one of, if not THE ONLY Invader Zim ship that’s actually pronounceable by a human tongue in one universally accepted way, but it actively refused to do so and now I can’t stop pronouncing it like “Wrapper”, which I think, in Tallest Purple’s own words, is a stupid name.

Do I ship it: no, but I have no reason not to. I honestly just refuse to ship it out of spite over the stupid sounding name. That’s the only thing stopping me from shipping it

How I pronounce it: Wrapper

Rating: 8/10 (would be 10/10 if it was spelled as Parr)

PRaZr (Purple, Red and Zim romance):

I don’t usually give this one much thought, but it’s kind of funny when you think about it alongside the actual events of the show. “Invader Zim gets kicked out of the polycule to work eternal food service after permanently ruining a major military operation”

Do I ship it: no. I got no real thoughts on it either

How I pronounce it: Praz-er

Rating: 4/10

PRaDr (Purple, Red and Dib romance):

Wait that’s a thing that actually exists? Really? Neat.

Do I ship it: I literally didn’t know it was a real thing until writing this (so no)

How I pronounce it: Prad-er

Rating: ???/10 (In my opinion, I simply don’t know enough about the ship to say anything. I’m just putting it on this list because I learned about it’s existence while making this post)

Anything with Keef in it (ZaKr, KaDr, etc):

Honestly, I keep forgetting that Keef exists, and the same can be said for any ship involving him.

For ZaKr (Zim and Keef), I can see it as an unrequited crush on Keef’s end, but just can’t see Zim returning any feelings.

For KaDr, I can’t see anything. Apart from the unmade episode The Return Of Keef where Dib teams up with Zim to get rid of Keef, I don’t think they have any real interactions. I could very easily be wrong because I just don’t have a very good memory when talking about Keef, but I can’t think of any times where the two of them interacted positively, or even interacted at all.

Plus, unlike ships like TaTr, where Tenn has no set canon personality and can be molded to fit the story or ship, Keef, despite his lack of appearances, does have a set personality, and both Zim and Dib are very annoyed by it. Keef is one of the only things that can get Zim and Dib to work together, and that’s only so they can get rid of him. KaDr simply has no foundation in my eyes.

However, I have nothing but compliments for the names. ZaKr and KaDr just sound nice to me. I think it’s the “K” adding something that isn’t seen in any other ships. It has an almost exotic sound to it.

ZaKr:

Do I ship it: No

How I pronounce it: Zak-er

Rating: 4/10 (Keef having an unrequited crush on Zim is an interesting idea that I might want to keep in mind and I like how the name sounds, but that’s doing all the heavy lifting. Without those two details, ZaKr would be even lower)

KaDr:

Do I ship it: No, but the name has a very nice ring to it. Even better than ZaKr.

How I pronounce it: Kad-er

Rating: 3/10 (purely because of the name)

Za2r/ZaZ2r (Zib and Zim Number 2 romance):

I don’t really get this one. I get the appeal of ZaDr, and I understand why Za2r exists (evil counterpart to ZaDr) but Za2r just doesn’t work in my eyes.

Ignoring my headcanons for Number 2, the whole point of Zib is that he’s a Dib that’s absolutely lost it and gone down the full xenophobic genocide route, becoming something worse than the very Irken Empire he seeks to exterminate. Putting him in a relationship with Number 2 sort of defeats that whole thing he’s got going on.

Bringing back my headcanons for Number 2, Number 2 is waiting to betray and overthrow Zib at the first possible opportunity, and never gets his chance because of Zib’s virus plan. No relationship between the two of them is going to work out for any amount of time in my eyes or perspective, especially when you factor in my Aroace Zim Headcanon.

This ship is also completely impossible to say out loud. Invader Zim ship names are already hard enough to pronounce on their own. YOU DIDN’T NEED TO ADD A NUMBER INTO IT. If you add a number into the middle of the ship name, my brain is going to bluescreen trying to pronounce it.

ZaZ2r looks like the password found on a wifi router and I’m going to remove a point just because of that.

Do I ship it: No. Not really a fan

How I pronounce it: I don’t because you can’t pronounce this abomination of a name IT HAS A NUMBER IN THE MIDDLE OF IT

Rating: 1/10 (I’d give it a 3/10 if the name wasn’t impossible to pronounce and difficult to read)

DaGr (Dib and Gaz romance):

Fuck no, fuck you, I’m not even going to give this one the time of day. THEY ARE CANON SIBLINGS. THEY ARE BROTHER AND SISTER. Thank GOD I’ve only ever heard of this ship and have never actually seen anything with DaGr in it. It’s so rare that it’s practically nonexistent.

One thing I hate about this ship (besides the obvious) is the name. It’s Dagger. DAGGER!! Why does this horrible ship get one of the best names?! WHY??!

Do I ship it: fuck no I would rather die

How I pronounce it: Dagger

Rating: -9/10 (at least ZaTr [alternate] was only twincest due to a headcanon I have and therefore isn’t universally twincest. It’s only twincest to me (and anyone else with the “Zim and Tenn are twins” headcanon). Dib and Gaz are fully canon siblings. That’s incest no matter how you look at it. Plus I’m super pissed off over the name. Why does the incest ship get the cool weapon name?)

[looseduke]

my predictions for future storytelling realms along the lines of the neverafter and the endless nights im 100% sure about:

realm based on the works of shakespeare (though i don’t think they’ll interact much with this one for purposes of anachronism)

a world based on irish/celtic folklore. smart moneys on this one showing up. with the fairy heavy plot and the fact that brennan is famously extremely irish, it’s coming. (i suspect all fairies originate from this realm in one way or another)

something to do with the epic of gilgamesh, the worlds oldest written story, and other surviving mesopotamian works. i see this world missing huge chunks and having very few versions left, but has survived by the skin of its teeth because against all odds people still remember it. alternatively, it was dead and gone after it was lost, and either archaeologists finding the story created a new version, or it was gone forever

realms i think are possibilities if the story goes the way it seems to be going so far:

ancient greek / roman mythology

i believe by introducing greek and roman mythology as a realm (foreshadowed imo by the appearance of aesop), these realms will be framed for us the audience as collections of human experience and belief systems, not just fictional stories, which will lead to:

jesus being name dropped yet again

allusions to realms based on various other cultures. specifically stories, not religions, the way that aesops fables teach morals and 1001 arabian nights is reflective of cultural values, but neither tell the stories of religious texts. (i don’t think the story will be extremely involved with these realms for both thematic and cultural sensitivity reasons, also simply bc there’s only so many episodes. it would be cool to see a guest dm run a world based off of non european folklore, rick riordan style). this includes but is not limited to:

different realms representing the traditional stories of ancient china, japan, india, and the pacific islands (all so old and so storied there’s truly endless possibilities for worlds based on them)

different realms representing the traditional stories of the americas (northern, middle, and southern traditions differ greatly from each other, as do all the different groups within the regions)

different realms representing the traditional stories of africa (the birthplace of humanity!! the first stories told around the hearth!!! plus, same as the americas: plenty of places to draw from)

brennan is smarter than me and would communicate this better then im about to, but the oral history tradition of many of these cultures has such huge potential in this story. i really hope to see differences in the storytelling of written histories/oral histories (for instance: hawai’ian hula tells the historical record of the islands of hawai’i! it would be amazing to see how that type of tradition translates to this world

i cant talk about this too much or ill explode, but i really hope they hired consultants and experts and writers to do this world and the history of human story telling justice<3

im doing research now on the possibilities of the mother goose/shahrazad/aesop type narrators (although i suspect that not every realm has a narrator) but i don’t have any examples yet, if you have any ideas please please share them!! im so excited to see where this season goes and to keep sinking my stupid little teeth into all the lore implications of bonafide brennan lee mulligan world building

[1863-project]

Do you think it’s accurate to think that Ingo is the twin who is more concerned with the subway itself & helping others while Emmet is more interested in Pokémon battling/strategy? That’s always the vibe I’ve gotten from them but I trust your opinion more

So the cool thing about fictional characters is that you get to interpret them however you like! Whatever feels right to you is how you get to see them. Obviously if you see an interpretation that's bigoted in some way or even accidentally insensitive, that's one thing, but if you're interpreting a character in a harmless way then you're good to go and nobody can tell you how to interpret them!

Now, my personal take on this...Ingo is an older sibling, if only by a few minutes, and as a fellow older sibling, it shows BIG-TIME. His dialogue in Masters frequently mentions supporting other people - he definitely feels that responsibility and sees it as an aspect of his job. I work in a public library, so it's part of my job as an archivist, too - it's my duty to make history accessible to everyone and help them find what they're looking for. I completely understand that feeling, because as a fellow older sibling (my brother's 4.5 years younger than me) I instantly felt responsible for looking after him and making sure no one was being a jerk to him. Obviously we're both adults now, but I still worry about him a lot. When you're twins it's probably different, and I can't speak for it, but socialization often pushes stuff on the oldest sibling anyway, even if said oldest sibling is only a few minutes older. Pokemon definitely portrays its "good" older siblings as being responsible and concerned for their younger siblings - Piers is a notable example - so even though they're the same age, you can still see that Ingo takes on responsibility because he thinks it's his job to.

That said, Emmet isn't irresponsible at all. You can't be when you work with trains - you have to be intensely aware of your surroundings all the time, because you're operating hundreds of tons of steel that can't stop on a dime like a car can. (I have now actually done it once myself and you really understand it once you're in control on the throttle.) There's no "irresponsible" sibling here, it's just that Ingo talks about it more than Emmet does.

Emmet does, however, talk more about battling, which he is definitely more intense about (to the point that the manga portrays him as being so excited about it that he accidentally scares people). Doubles requires more intricate strategy than Singles does - that's not to say that Singles doesn't require strategy, because it absolutely does (hint: speed is king), but Doubles is more complicated in terms of what you can do, so it's only natural that someone who's really passionate about it would want to infodump about it a lot. There's so much cool stuff to talk about, after all!

Anyway, that said, I do have more specific thoughts on actual train stuff regarding them (including their tastes in trains, etc.) but that's more personal and extremely self-indulgent on my part so I won't dump that on you all here. Like I said, you get to choose how you see the characters, and I can't choose for you, so feel free to interpret them however you see fit! We all get to have our own personal versions of them in our heads and I personally think that's verrrry nice and cool of us.