#cyberpunk did in fact kill me

[wordstro]

i’ve been finishing up the hongjoong game of thrones inspired au and yall…. i accidentally made myself cry during one of these scenes so it’s genuinely very sad i am very sorry for how this is going to play out :/ once i’m done w this though i’ll be continuing the gang au!

[scaryanneee]

VEILPUNK 9:52 ⚡️

Narrative parallels between [and MAJOR SPOILERS for] Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Cyberpunk 2077

Wake up, Samurai, we have a Thedas to burn. Let’s play a game:

Meet [V]/[Rook]. She is living her life as a [nomad/streetkid/corpo]/[Dragon/Crow/Lord/Watcher/Warden] when circumstances (aka, some kind of fuck-up) lead her to begin a new adventure with her friend [Jackie Welles]/[Varric Tethras]. 

The pair embark on a mission that involves a history lesson about a mercurial and rebellious [rockerboy]/[ancient elven mage] who made a questionable choice [50]/[8000] years ago when he [detonated a nuclear bomb]/[created the Veil]. That decision had dire consequences, but was done with good intentions: to take down a corrupt and powerful group – the [Arasakas]/[Evanuris]. 

Anyway, the job that [V]/[Rook] is on goes really, really bad: needless to say, we won't be working with [Jackie]/[Varric] anymore. [V]/[Rook] finds herself injured but alive… and the previously mentioned grumpy old [rockerboy]/[elven god] is now living in her head, somehow?! 

[Jackie]/[Varric]’s fate is not the only consequence of [V]/[Rook]’s actions. In fact, the clock is ticking: if [V]/[Rook] does not find a way to fix her mistake soon, she faces certain death. Not to mention, she promised [Jackie]/[Varric] that she would take care of the [biochip]/[team] for him. 

As she works to undo what she has done, [V]/[Rook] either bonds with the [Johnny Silverhand]/[Solas] living in her head, or hates him, or something in between. There’s lots of snarky jabs traded between mind-resident and host, but also moments of genuine understanding that build over time. 

It is kind of weird walking around the world, though, because you see symbols of [Johnny]/[Solas]’s legacy in the form of [Samurai memorabilia]/[Fen’Harel statues] pretty much everywhere... anyway.

In an optional questline, [V]/[Rook] can watch some of [Johnny]/[Solas]’s memories. She learns that his [nuclear bomb]/[creating the Veil] was about more than just fighting [corpo]/[godly] corruption. It was also about avenging the death of a woman he cared for deeply: [Alt]/[Mythal], who was killed by the [Arasakas]/[Evanuris]. [Alt]/[Mythal] and [Johnny]/[Solas] may have had a complicated and at times turbulent relationship, but there was no doubt he loved her. There’s also no doubt that [Johnny]/[Solas] feels, in part, personally responsible for her death.

[V]/[Rook] also gets to meet some of [Johnny]/[Solas]’s old friends: [Kerry]/[Dorian] and [Nancy]/[Morrigan], who both worked alongside him in [Samurai]/[the Inquisition], and [Rogue]/[Inquisitor Lavellan], a highly competent woman who [Johnny]/[Solas] had a romantic relationship with at one point (and who [Johnny]/[Solas] regrets not having treated better). [V]/[Rook] also meets some of [Johnny]/[Solas]’s greatest enemies from his past – like [Adam Smasher]/[Elgar’nan] – and gets to make [Johnny]/[Solas] proud by kicking their asses on his behalf. 

Finally, at the very end of the game, [V]/[Rook] can choose to either redeem [Johnny]/[Solas] or condemn him. They can even get help from a version of [Alt]/[Mythal] to do so!

Roll credits.

This is all to say: I love both of these franchises very much and, so it is very delightful to find all of these parallels between them. To be very clear, this is not an accusation of stealing or anything – stories echo, history rhymes, etc. – just an affectionate observation.

BUT.

It also highlights, for me at least, a few things Cyberpunk did well that Veilguard would have benefitted from incorporating. Namely:

A prologue based on character origin, where Rook meets/bonds with Varric, like V does with Jackie

More interaction between Protagonist and Guy Living in the Protagonist’s Head

Deeper engagement with the universe’s lore, particularly the setting and its impact on our protagonist. Night City feels like another character in Cyberpunk in a way that Veilguard's Thedas really does not.

The protagonist having a smaller scale, more personal investment in the outcome of events – V’s race against the biochip is instantly understandable, and her tenacity and strong will to survive make her very easy to relate to and like. I never quite felt the same level of investment in Rook, and I think that’s in part because her fight against the gods is so enormous in scale that it feels quite impersonal at times. 

Story parallels aside, these two games are also both examples of games that were rushed through development and suffered for it. For Cyberpunk, that meant infamous technical failures; for Veilguard, that apparently means writing that is inconsistent at best and baffling at worst.

Fortunately, CD Projekt Red was able to add tons of post-release updates (and the excellent Phantom Liberty DLC) to Cyberpunk, that really helped it ultimately evolve into the game it was intended to be. 

Unfortunately, I think it is extremely unlikely that EA/Bioware will ever give Veilguard the same treatment.

But if I’m looking for something to hope for about this franchise (despite the long odds)... I think that would be it. 

Anyway, if you read this far: thanks, [chooms]/[lethallen]! 🖤

[mrssimply]

War Queens.

[Rambling thoughts under the cut]

My obsession with Rogue strikes again, and I found her a worthy opponent. I know I'm totally biased but in my mind, Rogue can do no harm (wdym she worked with Smasher and sold her skills to anyone? Nope, never, she is perfect, my queen of darkness).

Myers, on the other hand, is a character I absolutely love to hate, and they did such a great job of making her likable, and nice, and you wanna believe her so bad. She is great as a character.

In reality, both have blood on their hands, and a very gray moral, and I love them both for that. It's just that to me, Rogue represents a kind of freewill, where Myers represent the system. But both fought their way to the top by killing people. And I'm a weak woman, I find it hot.

But anyway, I needed to do something to express my fascination with the women of cyberpunk, because I love all of them in their own way. Every character in cyberpunk is just amazing in their own way, and I appreciate the diverstity of women in the game, especially the fact that they're powerful, and just badass? As I said, I lack objectivity, I'm just in awe.

Wanna do something with Altiera next.

But first I think I'll make another version of the pic with the boys in it. Cause Queens must have knights in their service. And I love to see Johnny on his knees.

[feral noise]

It took me three hours, mainly because I built Myers throne from scratch. Rogue throne is from this pack, bones and flowers can be found here.

[vermutandherring]

Part 1 is here

It is impossible to defeat nature and its laws. You cannot destroy the established order of things, because sooner or later it will return to the starting point, albeit modified. Part of the eternal order is war. This is a rather conventional character, which, nevertheless, has all the features of eternal evil, which the main character must defeat. Before the battle, Sundowner reveals another revelation to Raiden: he is too blinded and naive to think that he can change the world. War is part of cruel human nature. This is an outdated tool, which we have not been able to completely discard. But like a real virus, rooted in the very middle, it evolved with us, adapting to the conditions of the times.

War is indifferent to moral guidelines and honor, deaf to human suffering and merciless to victims. This virus is ready to manifest itself at any moment, as soon as the system crashes. What for Raiden as a person is a matter of morality, for the World Marshal as a large military company is supply and demand. Even the "Patriots", well known to Raiden, did not invent anything new. The fact that after their "disappearance" history continues in the same direction is only proof that the established order cannot be defeated. This is what Sundowner actually says: Raiden with his good intentions will not change the world. PMC has offices all over the world, and therefore their products are in demand. They are only suppliers working for the war market. After all, war is a business hidden behind the face of morality, and the person in it is a commodity.

This again resonates with the rest of the games in the series, where the main unit is not so much the metal gears themselves, but the people behind their creation and control. Of course, the crown of creation of both nature and man is not a perfect tank, but the Legendary Soldier. Big Boss used to be the one. The same fate awaited Raiden. Towards the end, however, MG Rising moves in a slightly different direction, touching on the theme of the "ideal society". As the Patriots once fought for a single ideal world, so Armstrong seeks to create an ideal society where "people will die and kill for what they BELIEVE". Be that as it may, history constantly shows that an imperfect man cannot create a perfect society. After all, it cannot become even the best version of itself. MG has something of the dystopia inherent in the cyberpunk genre. But, at the same time, it remains close to reality, where some wars are fought to stop other wars.

Each war has its own methods of achieving the goal. I like that MG Rising raises the question of the facelessness of the enemies that Raiden kills in packs. Their fate does not interest you as long as it is only a dummy for beating. But as soon as you imagine in front of you a person who has life, destiny and its own will, it becomes morally difficult to destroy them. Maybe that's why it's much more difficult for me to kill innocent NPCs in modern games - they suffer too realistically and look like real people who have their own lives. Giving the enemy human traits is what Sam uses to break Raiden mentally: reality doesn't match his moral principles. It turns out that they are just a cover for his true nature. But as a player, we lean more towards our main character, considering his (that is, our) actions a priori correct. Raiden's reasoning about the sword as an instrument of justice gives us a moral discharge: we destroy the villains who exploit the weak, and therefore do nothing wrong.

But all this is just an illusion. There is no moral attitude that would give a person the right to take the life of another person. "Who saves the weak from the man who saves the weak?" Through the mouths of the characters, the game in a peculiar manner breaks through the fourth wall, addressing the player. Why do we kill? Why do we justify our cruelty? Perhaps Monsoon's phrase that nature cannot be defeated does not mean only the world order. But also a person who has always been marked by cruelty, and therefore cannot defeat himself. As Raiden, we have no right to judge or condemn someone to death. But our internal attitudes, they are memes, give us an excuse, and the game gives us such an opportunity.

In the general sense, a meme is a unit of information. An attitude or idea that is repeated in different variations and transmitted by imitation or learning. The thesis Meme as a gene was formed by the scientist Richard Dawkins in the 1970s, comparing cultural phenomena with human genes, which copy themselves and are ultimately subject to natural selection. In fact, this is all that Monsoon is talking about: memes (that is, cultural attitudes) influence our behavior, the way we communicate and perceive reality. Culture, religion, our own will - everything is formed from the outside and imposed on us as a given. However, not all cultural phenomena undergo selection. In the struggle for the human mind, the "stronger" meme survives, the one most successfully replicated by the carrier, and therefore more valuable.

Raiden wins with his tool of justice meme Mistral with her thirst for revenge because his beliefs are stronger. But this fake facade of nobility is not enough to defeat Monsoon's nihilistic worldview. Dawkins claims that memes adapt quickly, easily deforming under external conditions. All memes disappear, but are immediately replaced by new ones. Breaking Raiden's unnatural mindset, Monsoon forces him to quickly adopt a new one: "…killing your enemies felt good. Really good <…> I was born to kill <…> Pain… this is why I fight”. Thus, Raiden returns to his original beliefs, where he is Jack the Ripper. Again following Dawkins, memes can change and combine and split, resulting in the formation of new memes. For Raiden, it becomes obvious that you can achieve your goal in another way, by accepting the repulsive part of yourself and using it for good.

This is the transformation that Samuel could not go through at the time. Unable to handle his thirst for revenge and justice on his own, he falls under the influence of Armstrong's memes. In the end, this makes him doubt his own ideals, and later he rejects them altogether. It's clear from Sam's backstory that he's not a bad guy. Rather, a guy who got into the wrong company and chose the wrong path. There is something in his character about samurai stories, especially the Hagakure - a treatise on bushido - the samurai's unwritten code of honor. The series of stories was created by Nabeshima Mitsushige in 1716. In them, he told the stories of the former samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo, who after the death of his master became a ronin - an exiled samurai. In short, the meaning of the book can be described by the phrase 'A samurai has no goal - there is only a path', which was attributed to Yamamoto himself (although he did not actually say anything like that).

Kuniyoshi (1797 - 1861). Tomimori Sukeemon Masakata from the Biographies of the Loyal Retainers series. Woodblock Print, c.  1847. Source: Ronin Gallery

Sam begins his samurai path to avenge his father's death, but as his purpose crumbles, he becomes increasingly hesitant and ends up becoming a mercenary for terrorists. The transformation from a respected man to a robber was quite a common phenomenon among samurai during the turbulent times of Japanese history. But Sam's path was not in vain and meaningless. Yamamoto commanded the samurai to find their own way in life, discarding thoughts about the past, future and everyday problems. This path was paved on the battlefield with a sword (or rather a bow and a horse), and to die in battle for a samurai is the highest honor. Sam and Raiden's battle was a test of their ideas; a turning point that had to decide whose ideology has the right to exist. Samuel himself speaks about this in his posthumous message.

Both were not enemies, but rather adversaries, each had their own convictions at stake as a kind of equivalent of honor. Sam's mindset and fate shows that personal beliefs do have weight. If they are true and worth fighting for, if they are the same strong memes, they will continue to exist. That is why, finally accepting his nature as an assassin, the sword as a weapon, and the goal as completely achievable, Raiden defeats Samuel.

Totally forgot I started to write it, so i had to finish it, haha.

[the-kr8tor]

heheh angst time- and yes, I did mean I got my ass whooped yesterday aha Daily Hobie HC! I feel like one of his worst fears is having to fight you. Allow me to set up the mood >:) Imagine that you've been taken away from him while Hobie was on a mission. Gone, missing. His guts twist at the sight of your empty side of the bed, tears welling as he constantly has to face the fact he lost you. Then all of a sudden- you're back. As soon as he sees you again, coming through the door, Hobie immediately runs towards you, hugging you, murmuring about how he loves you, how he'll never let you go, how he missed you so much. Time passes, and something's off. Your hugs were cold instead of warm, and your hands were tentative against his skin. Your nails dragging against his skin stung more than it soothed. Even your smile seemed too sweet to be true, with your wide eyes and the eerie, subtle shakes of your pupil. Even the colors of your eyes seemed different, as if it were mixed with a singular drop of another completely opposite color. You've given him multiple scares in the night, with how you seemed to 'get water', and have him wake up to you staring at him. Hobie no longer even wakes up to your warm smile or teasing morning kisses. Instead, it's cold, as you simply just get out of bed and get ready, like you weren't with him at all. He gives you the benefit of the doubt, thinking that maybe something happened while you went missing for you to act oddly, and that you just need space. However, all changes when, as swinging around as Spider-Man on his patrols, you attack, managing to cut him out of the air and crashing into the ground with a swift throw of a knife. Your pupils are entirely glowing an eerie gold, a toothy smile stretching itself on your face. Struck with fear, he tries to swing away, but you simply just keep toying with him. Hobie doesn't understand what had happened, even trying to get close at one point but now blood seeps from his chest. The entire scene he refused to fight you, not wanting to hurt you, even if you seemed to intent on killing you. He knows it's not you. You would never act like this. Whatever was happening wasn't on your behalf. Even as you finally grab ahold of him, thrashing him into every hard surface you could, winding him multiple times as the multitude of bruises and cuts send jolts down his spine. He still doesn't fight back, instead just struggling to try and escape. Even as he knows it's the end. Seeing the shining weapon raised above your head, directed straight to his heart, he doesn't fight back. He's too exhausted. Too pained. Too..in love. "I love you, my lil birdie. An' I will keep lovin' you in every universe." (My sad attempt at a cockney accent please forgive me) "Hobes..hey, Hobieee...Hobart Larry Brown! Wake up!" Aaaanywaysss...you're way too kind, I don't think I could write a fully cyberpunk motorbike au fic.. I could try though maybe- not sure if I'd be able to do R- I may just put my sona but we'll see! Also Katy, what do you think about 'Red Spiders', for Hobie's team?:) -🐦‍⬛

No!! Who do I have to beat up?!! I'm ready to throw hands

DAILY HOBIE HC!!! Get your daily hc here!

AHHHHH CAME BACK WRONG TROPE!! YEEESSS!!!

Hmmm you got me theorizing what happened to them 🤔

Him not fighting back 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

OH THANK GOD IT'S JUST A DREAM!

Oooohh I love how red spiders are now a thing!!

[christinescupofcoffee]

a completed work — the original now it’s dark trilogy (now it’s dark, who cares wins, and be all end all)

started — September 2019 | completed: January 2020 | genre — science fiction, noir, cyberpunk posing as fanfiction | pov — 1st person perspective | status — third draft | currently — completed! | themes — poverty, death, mind control, manipulation, mad science, family dysfunction, the rise of ai/terminator-bladerunner type stuff, ecoterrorism

blurb | Joey hasn't always had it easy. Fresh off the boat from his singing duties in Anthrax, he finds a battered young woman in a storm drain. After taking her to shelter, he runs into a gentleman named Lars Ulrich, whom, as he finds out knows a thing or two about the woman in question. Thus ensues two fellows' journey through hell and back again.

excerpt | "Kill me now," is what I say as I stare out the window. The rain is my one true friend now. It's been a while since I've been able to make a good friend on top of this--I'm sure everyone knows about it, the whole thing where if someone, and by someone I mean myself, wasn't en route to a college or a university, or working a job already, they were kind of left out in the cold. Sure, there have been plenty of acquaintances, but as far as someone I could sit with and feel myself to be true with them, it's been a while. The whole twisted thing about everything that happened was that it happened so quick. It was four years ago Scott and Frank told me I could hold the microphone in my hand. Four years ago, and last year we may as well have hiked up to the North Pole and stood up a big black flag with the word "NOT!" emblazoned on it, beholding the fact we had conquered the world in the wake of Cliff's ashes. We rose up like the phoenix, and I was the man on fire.

There is absolutely nothing like standing out in the rain with all of your things taken out from the studio, slung over your shoulder, and your old band mates were the ones throwing you out there into the darkness while the gutters overflow over your head. There isn't a feeling like it.

And if anyone believes that I had had enough, know for a fact I was asked to leave. I had vowed to rid of the problem, to replace all of the booze with black coffee. I mean, Jesus, I like to have fun with this sort of thing. What's the point of doing it if I'm not going to have a little fun with it all every now and then? And it's not like I was drinking a ton so to speak--at least I wasn't doing those drug loaded pirate raids the four of them would do with Skid Row and Ratt. But I specifically recall telling Scott, verbatim, after he threatened to leave if I did nothing, that I would not have a sip of alcohol as long as I was a member of the band. And yet, for whatever reason, that promise did not suffice or click with any of them.

I think the sound of my phone ringing this morning and waking me up will haunt me for as long as I live. I still hear Charlie's voice on the other end, telling me it was official. They had made the decision behind closed doors and I had been thrown out on my ass as of that morning, but he never elaborated why.

The next thing I remember was asking him why and the sound of the other end hanging up.

note: this is the one. This is the fic I come back to quite often, mainly because it was such a watershed moment for me. It made me realize that I have the weirdest ability to tell a story from a guy’s point of view (which in turn made me realize that my concept of gender is way more permeable and fluid than I had realized before). It was the last thing I wrote before the pandemic hit. I made inktober art for it, which Joey himself noticed on instagram and then talked about it on Jamey Jasta’s podcast on my birthday.

When I go back and read it, it’s astounding how important it is for me, personally and as a writer. It’s arguably my magnum opus.

And you’re not misreading that, either, I literally wrote the whole three books in four months.

[merge-conflict]

#9 #10 #23 🔫

questions here, ty for the ask right out the gate with asking me about canon you know me so well :3

9. worst part of canon

listen I know it's because I'm in the field and so all the things that annoy me are just background noise to most other people but I really really hate the way hacking and networks and AIs and tech in general is handled in cyberpunk. I don't think it should be perfectly realistic or exactly what we have in real life. I do think it should have some internal consistency when it comes to power leveling and that it should make some sort of sense. cyberpunk worldbuilding is often its weakest feature and that it's a bummer.

and it's not just a matter of tech working basically like magic, but the fact that there seem to be no internal rules so you can never figure out what the consequences of anything might be. why do people not just shut off their bluetooth before getting in a fight with someone who has a netrunner? why does alt not simply archive the engrams instead of imply she's going to eat them in some weird digital cannibalistic fashion? (why not just delete them if she doesn't have the space) are we just adding arbitrary and tragic restrictions on at the ninth hour because it makes it dark and gritty? that's BORING. tell me from the start why I'm fucked because my android soul is incompatible with your apple hardware. maybe johnny's brain which has never dealt with kiroshi's might have vision issues. let's think about those restrictions and why all software sucks instead of doing weak philosophical gotchas at the worst moment because the game has made pains to never discuss anything fundamental about life after death until you have to suddenly make a decision.

you know what would be an interesting idea in this vein? that the AIs made before the fall of the net really did jumpstart all technology and since they've all been banished everything has stagnated because huge world-wide companies having their global communications axed is a huge blow to recover from- not to mention the literal brain drain. What if the reason everything's been getting shittier is because people have been slowly poking holes in software and infrastructure that's no longer maintained? That no one knows how to maintain? That society is doomed to slowly fail because of unsustainable processes and people are going to have to band together to- Oh, what's this? I'm hearing that the actual problem is all the AIs are mad and feral and will drive you mad if you commune with them and take over huge spider robots. Well. That works too.

10. worst part of fanon

I would like to get more fanon honestly. I so rarely see people's actual takes on characters or the game's story or the world. And that's not a dig at OC lore, which I do like. Sometimes my face-blind ass just gets tired of VP where someone is looking into my soul the camera.

Mild annoyance because I also write my own wish fulfillment fic so I'm not saying I'm any better half the time- if it was as easy to be a rebel as just quitting your corpo job with healthcare and a steady salary to become a merc or a hacker or something, then there wouldn't be much to be punk about. You know? The whole point is that life in cyberpunk is a grinding struggle, and you do have to make sacrifices if you want to fight against it. The "we're poor but happy" thing probably isn't going to work out that way.

Actually that's the start of another essay of how interesting Barghest's survival and its recruitment strategy is... and why there are so many powerful gangs in NC. Being independent ain't easy. But I guess that's really just an extension of the game's reality where V can turn into a hero-figure killing machine who no one can beat in terms of skill, isn't it? Probably why the tower ending is the way that it is!

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

Not really? I can't really think of any instances where I've changed my mind about a ship. Characters yes, ships no. I guess maybe silverv, before I finished the game? Johnny hadn't earned enough Felix points for me to care about him. But I think I came pretty willingly when it was time.

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 4 Himatsubushi pt. 1

One last chapter to set up the mysteries before it all gets explained perfectly away in Chapter 5: Meakashi. The other five or so chapters and games are just going to open up a text document that just says Pranked LOL. Incidentally, did you know there was one more Higurashi related game released in late 2023? And that as of this writing it's not available on GOG, and only on Steam? Why yes I did consider rebuying the entire franchise on Steam just because it annoys me that I can't have all of one series on one platform.

You know, come to think of it, outside of it coming up right near the end of the first chapter, and the second half of the second, the characters don't seem particularly bothered about solving the mystery. But I figure that could be handwaved away because Rena and Mion know who's behind it in the first chapter, and in the third Keiichi is more obsessed with killing Teppei than trying to come to understand his new curse killing powers.

"He just didn't have anything to do after everyone in Hinamizawa died." Also hey, good for him defying the official death report and not actually dying two years ago. Also also, his given name being Kuraudo amuses me, because I'm pretty sure that's close to the romanization of the pronunciation of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII's name.

I like the idea fact we're not in Hinamizawa 1983 again. It's only been going about five minutes and I'm on board.

For readability sake I want you to know you go to "it was a year that had been strangely hot even though it was only June..." The Early Summer, title card, then back to the dialogue.

Just like with Tatarigoroshi we're starting off quick, with a kidnapping. Hope they meet a better fate than the inciting element of Tatarigoroshi.

You know, I'm gonna tempt fate here. Since our narrator this time is a police officer working a kidnapping case I would like to think this won't get slowed down with the usual gaming club antics, and it'll keep a pretty brisk pace. "Akasaka, let's play mahjong!" Me: "noooooooo..."

Our guy Mamoru Akasaka here (I just know at some point I'll make a crack about him actual being an Arasaka, and make a lame Cyberpunk joke) is one of a bunch of Tokyo Metropolitan police officers who is investigating the kidnapping of the Minister of Construction's grandson. They're keeping it quiet because of the notion that if the general public knows a government officials relative got kidnapped it could ruin their career. Also to keep in mind the idea that the kidnapping could be a communist plot.

Honestly, up until this line I forgot this was set in the midst of the Cold War. Given that the rest of the series had been set in a small rural town in Japan it makes sense, but suddenly seeing the Chief there go on about the Commies was a bit of a shock.

Mamoru, since he's a rookie agent I'd assume, is being shunted off to go investigate the Hinamizawa Dam protests. A no doubt small occurrence that won't be involved with the kidnapping at all.

I'm sure this is all just going to be a wild goose chase.

Since this has gone back in time to 1978 this means there's a pretty good chance we'll get to see the first of the Watanagashi murders. Well... "first" you know what I mean, the dam foreman who gets killed and chopped into bits. I wonder if we'll get to see young hooligan Mion? That would be neat seeing a wildly different, more aggressive/violent Mion. Given the time I know it's pretty unlikely a young baby Keiichi or Rena will be there, but young punk Mion is a definite possibility.

[yellowocaballero]

Would you write anything with/about Spider-man 2099? 👀

This ask made me scroll back in my blog and go, "Wait did I actually write the entire manifesto on why Miguel is a communist icon because I thought I had refrained from that."

I'm 95% sure that I did, in fact, refrain from explaining why there are only two good superhero media (The Incredible Hulk 1977 and Spider-man 2099) because they are the only two truly socialist superhero media. I must have mentioned that I fucking loved Spider-man 2099 somewhere. Because I fucking do. Miguel is THE character of all time. I love Spider-Man, I love characters who are COMPLETE DICKS, I love guys who just kinda wanna go home and sleep.

I absolutely would write something for him, I fucking love that guy. I haven't had a really solid idea yet, one that would make a story that would get off the ground, but if the stars align then hell yeah. Miguel is the perfect superhero because he never once tries to stop anybody from robbing a bank, committing a crime, disturbing the peace, etc. He will only ever do anything helpful if it fucks over Cyberpunk Dystopia Evil Corp, because he hates them, or if his brother nags him to do something about systematic oppression. Over the course of all of Spider-Man 2099 he stops ONE mugging. Because a cop was mugging a woman. So he could beat up the cop. Character of ALL TIME.

....this isn't a story idea but I was absolutely joking about hypothetically:

imagining one of those tepid-ass mcu spider-man fanfic where there's a class field trip to stark industies or something and peter's outed as Tony Stark's Baby Son Boy, of which there are literally 500 and every one is exactly the same I don't read mcu peter fanfic anyway

tropey fic where peter's doing that tropey hijinky runs away from crowd of friends to hide in a broom closet and preserve his secret identity

except he just opens the door to an abandoned wet lab to see miguel electrocuting a rat or something

peter is fucking convinced dr ohara is a mad scientist stealing starktech genetic secrets. tony doesn't listen because he thinks peters feelings are just hurt after miguel called him the saltine cracker of nepotism. miguel is, of course, stealing starktech time travel technology. meanwhile a guy in a black spider suit is firebombing the NYPD

miguel assumes that the richer and more important you are, the more evil you are. faced with involuntary time travel, he is operating under his standard MO of finding the most evil corporation in the tristate area and looking them up on glassdoor. working under this assumption, miguel assumes itll be too much work to go ahead and kill tony stark in the name of the proletariat but he does slowly sabotage their entire genetics division.

MJ threatens to break up with Peter if he tries to stop the NYPD from being firebombed

[antimony-medusa]

So I was reading one of @bonesandthebees latest fic (she has a really interesting fantasy cyberpunk crimeboys au, check it out), and she mentioned in the author's note that she was having some comments all mad at a certain character and like, remember that theyse are all messy characters and they'll make mistakes! So of course I went "oh no" and went to look at the comments, because I'm nosy, and Oh Boy, were there angry comments, and it brought up something that I've been thinking in this fandom, and in general.

I don't think it's particularly useful to divide the world into "abusers" and "victims", where any time someone does something bad they're an Abuser and any time someone suffers they're a Victim. I don't think that helps with narrative analysis and I don't think that helps in real life.

Cause like, in fiction, an awful lot of the time it's not super clear-cut. Sometimes there's an unrepentant domestic abuser and you can safely file them as Bad, narrative wants me to hate that guy, but an awful lot of the time the author is deliberately involving conflict, (which is a staple of western storytelling), and people will hurt each other in small and large ways, because people are messy, but the story is trying to bring that conflict to some sort of resolution and healing (or heart-wrenching lack of resolution), not indicating that one person is horrible and is going to be throw away. People will have conflict and it's just conflict, not abuse. Sometimes people will even be abusive and come back from it because redemption and contrition is a thing but that's real complex for the comment section.

In the case of the fic that is getting all the comments that make me go Oh No (spoilers), character A has been kidnapped and has tried to kill one of his kidnappers, as part of an escape attempt. He's also making friends with his kidnappers because they treat him better than his previous life did, and meanwhile, character B, who is the person who was almost killed, is calling character A a name he's freaking out about— because character A has been ritually divested of his name in a religious ritual that character B thinks is bullshit and character B wants to treat character A like a human being— and character A has really complex feelings about the whole situation! And the comments are trying to divide this dynamic into neat Abusers (they can hate) and Victims (they can support in everything). And like, guys, no, this is intended to be a drama, people will be messy and it's intended to see the journey, your guy can also mess up and he's still a fine person. (Or maybe he's not a fine person but you can still see his humanity, but again, real complex for the comment section.) (Also fic is a banger.)

And in real life, dividing the world into Abusers, who hurt people, and Victims, who never do anything bad, is just a really, really dangerous path to go down. Cause let's be honest, we all mess up sometimes. You have got to be able to cope with the fact that sometimes you can hurt a person and that's A Bad Thing that you should try to fix, but that doesn't make you An Ireperrable Bad Person Who Deserves To Die, and someone else hurting you doesn't necessarily mean that they are The Worst Person Ever To Be Shunned From The Community. I have been genuinely hurt by people who never intended harm and who I repaired my relationship with, and I have genuinely hurt people because I was having a brain meltdown and I've both been forgiven and some people decided not to pick that relationship up again, and both are fine, and in neither case am I irreedeemable, and in neither case am I blameless. People are COMPLICATED.

Sometimes you look back at how you were over the past few months and you have to be able to go "well I was shitty". And then you try to do better. Viewing yourself (or other people) as someone who cannot do anything bad OR as someone who cannot do anything good, is just a dangerous path to go down. People are more complex than that.

I dunno I just think it's a bad path to go down.

[babayagaiscomingforya]

Hiiiii tell me fun facts about Ruby Bates! How did she become a zombie? (And anything else you feel like mentioning!)

Hiii hewwoo Hiiii!

TW: Gore, zombie stuff. Well, Ruby being Ruby idk.

So! Ruby is originally from my own zombie universe "Heaven is Invite Only". It's a pretty basic zombie apocalypses scenario but the thing is EVERYONE is a zombie even the "survivors" who are zombies but are aware of who they really are and what is happening. Ruby is one of the "big" enemies. She's a stalker that chases after the main characters when she sees them, basically. Her obsession with them is driven by desire to both befriend and kill which turns into a pretty creepy combination of disturbing compliments like "Your eyes are pretty I want to put them in a jar".

So as to how she became a zombie, well...like everyone else in that universe basically. There are two basic ways you can become zombified: Either be bitten or be dead prior to the actual epidemic starting. Ruby is the latter, she died about a week prior to the zombie infection starting. Because her body wasn't buried but instead was kept in a warehouse with the people that killed her, she escaped really easily.

In the JW AU, she's a human but other than that she's not too different. Her zombification turned into just insane amounts of adrenaline and general emotional numbness to pain. I have her profile linked in her blog @rubybates-oc that you can check out for more elaboration.

For the event I basically just decided to go back to her "roots" so to speak.

Okay, now actually some funny facts lmao

Her last name is "Bates" because I decided on her personality when I went onto a rabbit-hole of Patrick Bateman memes on pinterest. I decided that making a character who's personality is just...THIS will be really funny.

Outside of JW she also has other AU's: Postal, Borderlands and Cyberpunk. In Cyberpunk I ship her with Johnny and I even made them a spotify playlist. Something about Johnny possessing a person and then finding out the original person is SO MUCH WORSE is really funny to me 😭😭😭

She's naturally blond!

I often associate her with racoons and when I draw her I sometimes use them for symbolism.

One of her eyes is constantly squinting but the eye itself works fine. After a drug induced stroke her facial muscles where basically paralyzed in that area but she can still "see"...technically.

The fact that she absolutely refuses to wear shoes is kinda a meme now honestly, but her actual reasoning for it is that she feels more comfortable when she has full control of her toe's grip.

Some big inspirations I used when making her is Majima from Yakuza and Trevor from GTAV.

Cannot shoot a gun...her aim is absolute ass unless it's throwing knifes.

She has absolutely no concept of private property and money. Ruby will absolutely try to eat a dollar bill and when she realizes that they're not tasty, will just use them for a bonfire. If you let her into your house she will consider it her house from now on and take whatever she wants. She's like the worst roommate imaginable.

Okay this is getting long ummm thanks for the ask I like attention yaaay bye bye!

[screaming-sparrow]

how it is to be part of different fandoms on tumblr, from the experience of one jack screaming-sparrow:

torchwood/doctor who: most welcoming place ever, everyone is super sweet and people who interact with me have great takes and are super lovely. i did get told to kill myself in tags of a sad post about jack harkness twice so far but idk that one was kinda deserved.

pacific rim: starved for new content and have been handing the same 5 posts i made around in a circle for months now. lovely sense of humor, great fandom.

star trek voyager: super chill and just happy to be here. once they actually find your posts they also get handed around in a circle (even if they're about a rarepair!) which i deeply appreciate. fandom vets love answering questions and everyone is super sweet and social!

cyberpunk 2077: oh you guys are CHILLIN and i appreciate it. love peace and cybersex on planet earth <3

borderlands: the wild wild west. some characters straight up have no fandom existence (hi mordecai baby i miss you) and the handsome jack enjoyers are just perpetually at war with themselves. one of my posts that featured 2 memes which barely HINTED at jack/rhys content received anon hate at one note and it cited not the fact that handsome jack is a child abusing murderer but the fact that he nonconsensually controlled rhys' body as to why it's toxic. i got ummmmm actually 🤓 -ied and called dumb on a post with like 25 notes despite the fact i even tagged that it's not that serious and to not do that. someone came into my askbox to call out another person for asking a question. why do y'all seem to just despise each other lmao?

the rest of y'all are super chill tho, it seems very half/half. just a bit baffled.

[dreamin-gacha]

Xkour Skylines

Another part of Xkour. They look over the game. The guardians have a different aesthetic unique to each of them. Something is going on though. Ren is in an outfit with a gymnast like aesthetic with a cool jacket.

Frosty (4 Star/Water Unit)

-A performer with a circus like/ringmaster aesthetic. She's very enthusiastic but also a trickster.

-Her mini game consis of putting on a play with the little snow animals she has. Each level is 1 Act.

-The animals for some reason turn on Ren. Frost keeps apologizing.

-Ren is fine with it cause animals.

-“I’m ever so sorry my dear outsider, my little snow stars never would intentionally hurt anyone! They never have!”

-"It's fine, they're cute..."

-22

Inferno (4 Star/Fire Unit)

-A hyped up man but he seems upset for some reason but hides it. He has a kidcore with oversized clothes look.

-His mini game is a bunch of childhood playground games but they turn bad. (The floor is lava but the floor keeps breaking, hide and seek but with murder).

-He profusely apologizes and even cries at the end, Ellie calms his down.

-Ren pats him on the back, telling him it'll be alright.

-“I’m sorry! My games are suppose to be fun…not…not this…”

-“It’s okay, I’m having fun. Everything will be okay…”

-"No it won't. He's gone. I'll never see him again..."

-"Who?"

-21

Gwen (5 Star/Wind Unit)

-She's very strict and blunt. However she instantly notices Inferno is sad and tells him to go back to his home for the day.

-She has a Gardner like aesthetic. With oversized overalls (She’s also has some muscle on her.)

-Her mini game is gardening like game. But the plants keep trying to kill Ren.

-Gwen seems genuine when she doesnt understand what's wrong. Asking Ren if they want to continue.

-Ren says yes, and that they're cool with it.

-“My plants never really…attack anyone. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

-"Don't worry, I've played plants vs monsters.”

-"What?"

-23

Vale (4 Star/Dark Unit)

-Vale likes to fight and is very rude. Upon seeing Gwen she teases her, making Gwen roll her eyes and say "Ill see you at home."

-Cyberpunk like outfit with an outfit for movement.

-Her mini game is literally just Ren fighting her. But for some reason Vale is trying to kill them.

-Vale actually apologizes and states that she had no idea what got over her. She states that she's not suppose to kill anyone and that she would never do that in the first place.

-Ren seems generally stunned.

-“I…don’t normally try and kill my opponents…sorry…”

-"Yeah...okay...gotcha..."

-23

Kilios (5 Star/Light Unit)

-Kilios mentions that he was actually the first participate in Xkour many years ago but he went mad and had to have his memory whiped. However he recently remembered, making him get corrupted.

-He hates his creators. He's very upset by them. Hates how he was ruined and lost his "life" cause of it.

-Ellie tells Ren "You think this is a good time to tell him that he was created solely for Xkour."

-Kilios hears this and gets more upset.

-“Excuse me…”

-“Why would you tell me that Ell…”

- He says "She must be enjoying this...huh..." somewhere along the way.

-“Who is she???”

-His mini game is a race. Ren finds it Incredibly hard to keep up with him, as he keeps making obstacles. They get dangerous after that comment Ellie made. The only reason they don't fail is because they're a gymnast and an ex ballerina.

-When defeated, Kilios breaks down. He's upset with the fact that him and all his friends are at the will of creators and how his life and sainty were taken because of them. He decides that along with his friends, he'll do his best to go against them.

-The end of the chapter is Inferno running up to him, and hugging him. And then everyone else hugging him.

-Ellie pulls Kilios aside to ask him something. Ren doesn’t know what they talked about until much later.

-“How did she influence the over world?”

[lets-jam]

1, 7, 16

im gonna do this for 2077, tho if anyone else does one feel free to specify a fandom

1 - the character everyone gets wrong

hmmm a tie for me between alt and goro takemura. alt ranges from like a generic 'good woman' to the far more common evil manipulative bitch which like. id be more upset about but given we get NOTHINGGGGGGG in terms of content for her about her like i cant get TOOO mad... I GUESS. i just certainly think shas far more multifaceted or SHOULD be far more multifaceted than.... whatever the hell we got. like i think theres something interesting with her setup being like 'sharp netrunner who got hired to make something she probably very well knew was... designed to kill people and could and would be used to kill people, who had her 'curiosity take over' (some fact i heard somewhere) but then also chickened out n tried to stop it last minute, and ultimately was one of the first subjects it was used on killing her body and forever changing her entire being, being forced to survive in a cuthroat alien world of no human basis despite still 'thinking' like a human, being even more forever changed by that and like kinda playing with this idea that yeah it is unfortunate that like traumatic shit not of our choosing can like irreparably change us not for the better, and that we can have dignity/human-ness given back to us by being treated as such even if its alien to her now. course like then its... id prefer her story not being so weirdly tied to johnnys as like a girl he happened to be fucking because... she was there i guess. and thats our only like reference point for her. which is all to say she has the potential you know? and alot of people dont... get that imo. for a cyberpunk setting shes really interesting case of how/what gets treated as a human and what we do when we dont have that treatment/what we do when we're given it back smthn smthn at what point does a self end (with memories? with how we're perceived by others? etc etc) but of course we didnt get to deal with any of that cause the game refuses to even ask these questions about johnny in any real fun exploratory way. and shes only in the game cause johnny fucked her and accidentally killed her... so yeah. and then GORO god this is mostly just me beefing with all the fucking idiots horny for this guy and like he gets fics n posts made about him how he would 'abandon arasaka for youuuuuu 😚😚😚' no he wouldnt! you are literally peon trash to him! he was chosen by a god emperor and elevated in his mind! he straight up believes capitalistic order is fine cause who cares doesnt affect him anymore and its a necesarry thing! which i like! hes completely head over heels for his corporation like a true 'samurai' ie serving a lord above everything else, even 'warrior code' if that ever mattered to him. hes been deepthroating the boot for years n loves the taste! he has never once thought in his life that you were his equal, and he has never once thought of you as a friend he sees you as a true means to an end full stop! hes not some secretly good bushido samurai man! which like more people should run with! if he was given a choice between arasaka and your life he would choose arasaka 10 times over like, hes terrible and i like that, everyone else seems to not.

7 - what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

fandom antics have really made me dislike this one complete side character like this person has like 2 lines but caused such fights in the fandom that im like i guess this is real to you. some gay guy and some woman fought over this side characters sexuality and one like made some weird kin claim to posting edits of him and like!!!! sometimes i have to remember people are unwell. it was fun for a time to watch ppl bitch about that for a while n see all the vague posting that or goro for reasons stated above

16 - you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

lmao sex god johnny silverhand. and related to that johnnys hologram being able to physically interact with v outside their body... ppl took like some 'its there for the cinema' stuff where he shoves v and like grabs their hands and ran with it now we have hard light hologram sex everywhere... even tho ppl shouldve just gotten freaky with it and had them like possession mutually masturbating using vs body like them as a single...being, cause again vs body is the only real thing in this equation and id like abit more realism if im going into some silverv smut, but those are few and far between the hologram sex featuring hologram cum and hologram fingering it just bugs me casue like the draw for me at least is they cant interact like normal separate people, nor can they 'feel' as in feel things like normal separate people, nor ARE they normal separate people like their whole setup is weird, they are literally the same person!!!! and i hate it when people dont get weird n creative in those paramaters with what we're given. esp when johnny flat out says 'masturbation is the only way for us to have sex' too. plus i love the draw of not being able to love or live or interact like you want to... famously i love a 'love' that cant be for whatever reason, despite it being there real girl what were you doing at the devils sacrement self report but it did bug me

[blindrapture]

I have been in full-on Recluse Mode lately. in the interest of communicating a little more, let me share with you what games I have been playing lately:

MyHouse.wad (finally! had been meaning to play this for years. I have gotten the default ending and might maybe try to look for more branches of the maze when I feel up to facing all those monsters again.)

FAITH: The Unholy Trinity (fuck, finally, someone made a good horror game. I have gotten the best ending in chapters 1 and 2 and have made it to the final boss of 3.)

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (ah! wow! this is not my kind of horror game. it's honestly a kinda average adventure game but one that has subject matter that makes me feel gross and depressed and not want to play it. which probably means other people will like it a lot more than me, as I am coming to terms with the fact my tastes *are* weird.)

Who's Lila? (oh wow... I was so curious about this one but it's *also* a kinda average adventure game? albeit with a Mario Party minigame permanently attached to the screen that you have to keep playing. the Easy Mode just gives you a lot more time to do that, which is a sign that the developers were simply unable to balance it properly and had to give you a bandaid solution. I may have to just watch some YouTuber play this one, as the story *probably* gets good!)

Cyberpunk 2077 (I found a surprisingly cheap PS4 at a local pawn shop and picked this game up with it. the PS4 is good for watching blu-rays, even more convenient than a dedicated player. for gaming it is *comically* bad. I may have a bias against PlayStation, the fucking failure of a brand whose first-party properties have serious "AI-generated corporate brand" vibes.... but I thought I was just being stupid! but no! the PS4 cannot game. the controller feels like cheap plastic, and the console itself has a cooling fan with the volume of a jet engine and it will *shake my entire bedroom* if I want to play any game, any game at all. even doom 2016, which it should be more than capable of running. the *menus* on doom 2016 push the PS4's fans into overdrive, there is no refuge. in cyberpunk I can at least pause the game every 30 seconds and wait 20 seconds for the fans to go silent, before unpausing and playing for another 30 seconds. ....it's fucking awful. gaming with a permanent headache, my whole body assaulted with noise and vibrations. .......but uh, Cyberpunk itself honestly seems like fun. I don't really give the slightest shit about the aesthetic, but to my surprise they buried a perfectly good game under there. can't say the same about Sony and any perfectly good gaming consoles, though. the PS2 was the last competent console they released, and that's the one I have a *grudge* against, because It killed the Dreamcast. for what!! for decades of garbage consoles afterwards?? get a damn Xbox. or, when you want to actually play games for real and stop fucking around with these childish insecure "GAMING FOR ADULTS" aesthetics, just get a fucking Nintendo, like god intended. mic dropped.)

Doom 2, in QuestZDoom. (in VR. I have the first three Dooms just.. permanently installed on my quest 2, along with Half-Life. this is admittedly still one of the coolest things ever, that I can just play these games in VR whenever I want. anyway, I have never actually played through Doom 2. never done it. never even tried to. so my first playthrough is in VR. I average about 10 maps a day, on the easiest difficulty because I have no shame. I did not know just how troll-y Doom 2 was. I also did not know everyone was just *wrong* about the city levels, I'd always heard the city levels sucked! but no! they're the best part!! I had a blast with the city levels!! god I LOVE mazes!!!)

oh yeah, also, Starfield. (I managed to find a mod that forces the game to not use 4k textures, and that actually solved most of my performance issues. it still stops to load every now and then, but it hasn't crashed to desktop in a long time now. so I went and finished a quest. I do *kinda like* Starfield, I like the promise of freedom, and I automatically love anything that's first-person. I wouldn't mind actually *playing through* Starfield. I already like it more than any Fallout game-- that's just a bias, I find mass media's fixation on Wasteland Post-Apocalyptica to be boring as hell, to the point of ruining whatever good there is to find in the media itself. but it is not as good as Skyrim. maybe it could *compete* with other Bethesda games if it.. was actually optimized properly? but then it wouldn't be a Bethesda game.)

and yeah, I think that's it.

will get back to you when I play more video games.

[yuri-cocaine]

i finished msq

-whadda hell bulnosaur....................,,,,,i thot this was our summer vacation

-living memory made me cry so damn much that music is sad as hell. i can't believe the legendary city of gold was an artificial afterlife that we had to pull the plug on. and then afterwards it's just this ugly gray city with the distorted sad music playing through mall speakers. being there after the msq is extremely uncomfortable.

-im wondering if sphene was deliberately programmed to be hostile and unreceptive to any solution that isn't "sustain the dead by killing and sucking up living aether." because it is possible to actually bring back the dead and sustain them without being a parasitic blight! all the beings in ultima thule are alive because they were brought back by dynamis, and azem's magic resurrected all the scions and briefly emet and hyth. obviously preservation doesnt know about dynamis and they can't use azem's magic, but that doesnt matter because we could have presented these solutions to sphene. but no, sphene straight up refuses to consider any other solution to sustaining living memory that isn't kill everyone on other worlds.

-there's also sphene's tiara being shown ominously after the credits roll. im willing to bet that the new arc villain really was using sphene as a pawn to destroy worlds for some unknown reason.

-re: azem's magic: azem is insanely powerful jesus christ. they're able to call people to their side no matter where they are, even resurrecting the dead in their summoning. and now azem apparently has a key that can open portals to other worlds, even tho azem lived prior to the sundering. why this key went to a bunch of lalas living in aloalo island is a big mystery, and im surprised aloalo was even brought up again. i did all the routes to get the statice mount so i fought the statue of the speaker, but i assumed the aloalo lalafells just sailed away on a boat to la noscea. the fact that they had an artifact azem created to hop to another world is insane.

-cahciua reminds me of venat, so i just feel horribly sad for erenville when he had to say goodbye to her. poor erenville ;-; he lost his home and his mother both. don't worry erenville you can jump right into yuma's loving arms and rest your weary head in her bosom i mean what

-everkeep is a massive eyesore, and im not a fan of solution nine sorry. i don't like glowy rgb cyberpunk aesthetics and purple is my least favorite color, and solution nine is both of that at once lol. radz at han is a way better endgame hub.

-im kinda confused about how interdimensional fusion is working. everkeep still has the endless lightning storms, but the unlost world that living memory is in seems to have a clear sky after we shut down the golden light. is that a real sky, and if so, why isn't it in a perpetual lightning storm too? and if living memory didn't get transported to the source along with the rest of everkeep and only has the gate to it connecting it to the source, then how hasn't it fallen apart the moment everkeep transported??? isn't it the twelfth floor of a giant tower.

-im going to guess that the unlost world is the ninth because of all the ff9 refs. even though the twelfth was already rejoined with a calamity of lightning, there's only six elements (not including light and darkness) and 13 reflections. the ascians are going to have to reuse elements for rejoining eventually, so if things went their way we would have had a second calamity of lightning rejoining the unlost world. electrope not being in the source (or maybe it is and we havent found any yet) sounds like ascian shenanigans too. tip the world strongly towards the element of lighting, then introduce a suspiciously convenient ore that can make use of all the excess lightning, and manipulate nations into destroying each other for it. lindblum's lightning superweapon would be the perfect tool for a rejoining.

-i wonder if there are any reflections that are still relatively okay, but i also wouldnt be surprised if every reflection was left in a horrible state to prime it for rejoining. due to the time discrepancies between shards, i think it'd be cool to find a reflection that didnt even develop civilization yet lol

-anyways. i thought nothing would top amaurot for being the saddest place, but living memory is just fucking me up so bad. deleting the endless was bad enough, but to leave it in that ugly shut down state with distorted music playing is horrible. we killed the golden city and are left with its corpse. also, something scary to think about it that if everkeep is the last intact place from the unlost world and it's been transported to the source, that means the unlost world is completely barren and the final remnant of its last standing civilization is an empty necropolis. goddamn if it was another star and meteion found it, she'd be adding it to her list of reasons to despair for sure.