#deadlands hunted

[happytapirstudio]

Tapir Book Review: "Deadlands bk 1: Hunted" by Skye Melki-Wegner

Do you remember when I discovered this book and got super excited that it existed?  Well that's it that's the story.  Was it everything I hoped and dreamed?  I think so!

So this is what the website says: "Wings of Fire meets Jurassic Park in this action-adventure middle grade debut series by Skye Melki-Wegner about five outcasts—and former enemies—who are the only hope to save their warring kingdoms from impending doom."

First off, every piece of dinosaur media in existence feels the need to evoke Jurassic Park as a selling point.   I'll bitch about JP in a separate post, but needless to say, the only thing Deadlands and that movie have in common is dinosaurs.  And I guess being action/adventure stories.  As for Wings of Fire, I can't say...haven't read it!   Going in I figured it would be a lot like Warriors, what with the whole concept of warring factions of animals.  Surprisingly...it wasn't much like Warriors, either!

You know what it *is* like?  Land Before Time.  It's clearly for kids, but it's still a mature story.  It's told from the perspective of dinosaurs (no humans whatsoever! thank christ.)  And the directors/author clearly did some serious research for it.  The world-building in Deadlands is a bit more involved than LBT--it portrays dinosaurs with a distinct culture, a rich oral history, a political system, and a magic stone-based currency--but in the bigger picture, I'd say the level of anthropomorphism is about the same in each.  These are dinosaurs in their natural habitat, engaging primarily in natural behaviors, by which I mean, their main goal in life is to eat leaves.  Everything built around that--rules, rituals, armies--exists only to support that kind of lifestyle.

Another big LBT parallel is that our protagonists are a motley crew of young, abandoned, herbivorous dinosaurs who band together in the face of serious hardships in order to survive.  In Hunted, an Oryctodromeus named Eleri is cast out of his herd and sent to the Deadlands, a carnivore-infested desert wasteland where dinosaurs chuck all their criminals and traitors.  There, he meets several other dinosaurs (not saying what kind - spoilers!!), and found family ensues.

I am trying soooo hard to avoid spoilers here.  But don’t worry, another post is coming up, chock-full of spoilers and rife with myyyyyyyy opinions.  [link forthcoming]  Here's what I have to say in closing:

I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves dinosaurs, especially dinosaurs in their own right, not just as props in a human-centric story (cough, cough...........Jurassic Park.....................) I think the prose is quite lovely, and the premise, themes, and characters are all pretty sound.  That being said, this is, at the end of the day, a chapter book for younger kids.  If you can't hang with that, or the talking animal genre really doesn't appeal to you, then you should probably go back to the library and look for something else.

I had fun reading this--a good before-bed read!--so if you did, too, please hmu and we can chat about dinosaurs together!! <3

[that-glitter-chick]

I highly recommend this to anyone who likes the original Land Before Time movie. Or even anyone who was smart enough to never give up loving dinosaurs just because they grew up.

[slaughter-books]

Day 29: JOMPBPC: Freebie

I loved reading this book last month! 🧡

[mantisgodsdomain]

Sometimes we mention northern moths in our fics and we think "wait... have we actually talked about those yet?"

And then we don't talk about them because it's probably Fine and people will find out eventually anyways.

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

I gotta ask. What's the Miscarcand AU?

Let me preface this by saying that I have thought about this ask since I first got it, but school and life are as painful as a Dremora Valkynaz charging full force from the depths of the Deadlands.

"Shall We Kiss in Miscarcand?" is an Oblivion era AU that stems from my love of all things Indiana Jones and The Mummy with a dash of Supernatural-esque monster hunting and reluctant friends to lovers slow burn because I am a romantic first and a human being second.

The story follows Fighters Guild Journeyman Avarenya as she investigates a mysterious orb retrieved from an Ayleid ruin during a job. Made of an indeterminate white stone, the orb is marked in an unknown Daedric dialect. Seemingly meeting a dead-end with the Skingrad Mages Guild, Avarenya is unexpectedly directed to an ex-member who was known to study the Daedric scripts by Druja. This leads Avarenya to Kvatch, where she meets Brother Martin. Much to Avarenya's dismay, however, the Priest of Akatosh is vehemently against helping her as soon as any mention of Daedra or study of dark magic is brought up.

Out of ideas, Avarenya stays the night in Kvatch, only to wake in the middle of the orb being stolen by an unknown thief. Avarenya chases the thief through the streets of Kvatch, but loses them in the dark. Things continue to go poorly for Avarenya as her attempt to report the theft leads to her arrest as a suspected Daedra worshipper! Then, quite unexpectedly, Brother Martin comes and bails her out of jail under the pretense of Avarenya hunting down Daedra worshippers rather than being one herself. Martin agrees to help Avarenya hunt down the orb and decipher it once it's found.

What follows are a series of adventures as Avarenya and Martin travel throughout Cyrodiil, recovering ancient artifacts, battling vampires, necromancers, and Daedra, and chasing down a mystery that could lead to the resurrection of an ancient divine order and the unraveling of a plot to invade Tamriel from Oblivion itself.

The story starts in 3E428, not long after the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Although the Oblivion Crisis itself is still a few years off, the premature meeting and companionship of the Hero of Kvatch and Martin Septim means that some things may go in a wildly different direction than they do in the canon version of the Main Quest. At its core, "Shall We Kiss in Miscarcand?" is an action-adventure/romance that goes wildly off the rails from most other Oblivion AUs out there.

Fun Facts!

Martin and Avarenya's son Magnus originates from "Shall We Kiss in Miscarcand?" Before coming up with this AU, Martin and my HoK had twin daughters. What this means is that with the advent of Magnus, Martin and Avarenya are now Leara Rose-blade's great-grandparents, rather than her grandparents.

At least in this AU, Avy is heavily Rick O'Connell coded, while Martin is Evelyn Carnahan coded. Please understand how much I love The Mummy. I have an incomplete pitch for a Miraculous AU too.

The title was pseudo inspired by that time eight years ago when I watched Ouran Highschool Host Club. No, I cannot remember the song. Yes, I have only seen that show once. No, I'm not looking the theme back up. It's just meant to be a comical little thing, you know?

If I were to make a cover for this, it would resemble an Indiana Jones movie poster. Additional similarities to Indiana Jones would include travels to exotic (eg: Morrowind, Skyrim) locations, freaky time shenanigans, screwing with gods, Avarenya bringing a spell to a sword fight, and Martin being afraid of snakes or something. Oh, and probably rival treasure hunters who would use their discoveries for material gain rather than the advancement or preservation of knowledge.

Their love confession would totally happen in Miscarcand while recovering the Great Welkynd Stone. Obviously.

There you go!! ✨

[writersstareoutwindows]

Deadlands finale is still consuming my brain so I have to dissect the excellence of Edie's horseman scene. It is absolutely rife with thematic energy and emotion it was truly, truly stunning.

Victoria tells Edie that she has the skills to be Pestilence. Of course Edie is affronted, Edie met Pestilence and was so deeply appalled that she not only dismantled but reversed Ducrow's operation. But Victoria explains in the same breath that she doesn't intend a literal pestilence for Edie, no, what Victoria sees in her is the rotting effect of Edie's own pain. "Your past loss has infected you like a disease."

Edie is possibly the most straightforwardly moral character among the Wildcards. Silas is a close second but he has interesting complications of his own, visible in his flinching reaction to the introduction of M.T. Budreau, a villain who takes justice into his own hands; the judge's flaws hit a little too close to home. Delacy is in it to shoot things, Nate and Garnet are in it for money. Both admirable reasons, but I call Edie "moral" because she pursues her profession relatively altruistically, simply because she believes it will improve the world.

Except it's not that simple. What we witness in that final scene is the truth in Victoria's judgement, that the straightforward altruism of Edie's quest is complicated by the pain and guilt of her brother's death. When Edie sees her brother in Delacy at the World's Fair, she shoots dead the monster that is trying to kill him. This is well within her rights and I'm not criticizing her for it, it was the right move, he was an active danger and you have to protect your own—but, when Famine is dead, her curse recedes and her victims return to normal men. Except of course, the one Edie killed dead.

It's poor literary analysis to suggest evidence that doesn't exist, but this isn't a university essay and I can do what I want. If the series had been a bit longer, if there had been a little more room for character moments—can't you imagine Edie bristling when she learns that Nate is Harrowed? Nate isn't a threat himself, of course, he's an ally and friend and tired old man...but there's a demon and a danger living inside him. Can't you imagine Edie on a mission with Garnet, cutting Garnet out of the plans, putting her own self in harm's way instead of the woman who can burst a sasquatch, holding Garnet at one remove until it ends in them both getting hurt? All because Garnet's magic comes from a devil, and that makes it dangerous?

I can imagine these things because they are what Edie's final scene suggests. She shoots at the monster, because here at last is the opportunity to root out the heart of her pain. She shoots at the monster—and, "Garnet, what's your toughness?"

In striking at the monster, Edie only succeeds at hurting her friend. In attacking the source of her pain, Edie reveals the way in which it has infected her life and relationships. Her single-minded focus, her vehemence for the monstrous, have driven her into a lonely and wandering life, have led her to hold all relationships at one remove. Garnet and Nate have to be held in suspicion because they are devils. As for the likes of Delacy, who strike so close to home...consider the fact that Edie makes her money not from hunting, but from performing affection and flirtation. Even relationships she genuinely cares about have to be kept at a distance, behind a wall of performative kindness. That is not to say that Edie's kindness is insincere, everything you perform becomes in some way a part of you, but it is a way for her to mask deep pain and fury without hurting those around her or bringing them too close. How could she cope, again, with the kind of pain that comes from love and loss?

But when she attacks the monster that killed her brother, the thing she has pursued all her life, believing it to be the cause of her pain, she only hurts those around her. Her past loss has infected her like a disease, and she is spreading it to those who care for her. Pursuing monsters without remorse obliterates the nuance of individual situations and prioritizes vengeance over restoration (see again, the Famine-monster she killed who could have been made human again).

On the whole of it, of course, monster hunting is a noble profession in the dangers of the Deadlands. The Famine-monster was going to kill Delacy! But Edie's pain, held in fists so tight that they ache and no longer know how to let go, causes indelible hurt to herself and the relationships she could have. In killing the monster, she's only killing someone who cares about her.

Because Conquest isn't in the monster; she's in Eddie. The thing with the power to conquer and defeat Edie is the way in which she idealizes her brother. This isn't the boy himself: "It looks to you more like how you remember Eddie than how Eddie really was." Literally, this is because Victoria is using Edie's memories to craft the scene. But thematically...my god.

What exists in Edie's memory is not the living boy, but her idealized memory of him. As Ellen puts it, "a ghost of a memory, misremembered." That is the thing she has to defeat. She has to accept that her brother is gone, and no matter how tightly she holds her grief, he's not coming back. But that grief is what drives her, she operates out of the pain and anger it causes. Killing monsters is less about protecting people than about trying to erase her own guilt for failing to save him.

So, Edie doesn't need to erase of her grief; she needs to accept it. No amount of dead monsters will bring her brother back. Killing the Famine-monster saved Delacy but it can't save Eddie. The past is immutable and the guilt hurts no one but Edie—and the people around her, who could love her.

When Edie shoots the false memory, she's turning from the past toward the present. Her grief no longer walks behind her, a hidden infection, a disease to be cured through violence. It walks beside her. Eddie may be gone, but her love for him isn't. Her love lives into the present, and so do the friends she has now. And acting from this place of love for the brother she knew, rather than vengeance for the brother she lost, Edie shows Conquest what for. There's no easy solution to every bad thing in the world. That's fine. Edie has already dedicated her life to protecting the good that survives, and Victoria McClary sure ain't gonna change her mind.

[makapatag]

random screencaps of my current ffxii tza rerun

(i lost my old save file but only really finished the great crystal, now i'm hunting down espers and got Chaos!)

i'm already a huge huge fan of FFXII and Ivalice as a whole, from its non-european-centric fantasy style to its slipstream weird fantasy esque vibes and feelings. it's not so much fairytale as it is "utmost fantasy historia" in a way. its political story captures and it does the classic ivalice thing wherein its political story eventually gives way to earth shattering conspiracies but the best part about ffxii's conspiracy is that even the subject of the earth shattering conspiracy are also having their own conspiracy. it's wild and it's so fun to play through. i'd put its narrative somewhat on the poetry side (alongside things like elden ring or legend of zelda breath of the wild, focusing on the world, immersion, and the moment-to-moment) rather than the narrative prose side (in the vein of things like baldur's gate 3 or mass effect or whatnot, where the writing goes to the characters and is more overt and drags you along with it), though of course being a JRPG it has to conform a bit into prose gaming (forgive the terms i am a literature person first and foremost)

on the gameplay side as someone who loves character action games and simulation rpgs (tactics grid rpgs) i really started out not liking it. but then when i started treating it essentially like ogre battle or unicorn overlord, a somewhat slight autobattler with constant menu pausing to issue different commands, viewing it a bit more like a strategy game, everything really clicked. figuring out everyone's builds with self-imposed challenges (such as having every job in the game be used) is so so so fun as someone who is a sucker for buildcrafting (it's why Final Fantasy Tactics and Elden Ring are the few games I replay!). nothing is more satisfying than seeing a really good build and team comp soar through a grueling boss battle, where you still have to micromanage, casting Dispels and upkeeping Buffs and switching Gambits (and even weapons!) on the fly.

one of the things that FFXII really turned me around on is the whole "you have to both unlock this spell/technick/weapon/armor and acquire it out in the world to equip/use it!" at first i hated it: i already spent time grinding LP to unlock the license, why did I have to still find it in the world?

then i kind of just figured, whatever, i'll explore and just try to find everything if i can. and it worked. exploration in this system was fiercely rewarded: things like Bravery (ATK UP), Faith (MAG UP), and Protectga (AoE Protect) could only be found in chests in the nooks and crannies of the Necrohol of Nabudis. now i have a care for these places i'm traveling around. oh, the nabreus deadlands are called that because nethicite was used here and now it's fantasy fallout new vegas? shit dude that's all you had to say. sorry i wasn't paying attention at first. i wasn't aware of your game. now hand me Silencega and let me get Chaos as a summon

now i can't just rush through the story or whatnot (well, you can! but it's no fun if you do that but it's totally doable and not too difficult which is honestly very accessible). i have to go around the areas i travel around, and exploration is fun because with the gambits system i don't have to keep fiddling with these menus, i can just let my smartly built team do the work. its as if the game rewards you for taking the time to build up and setup your characters! this is a game that rewards team composition and party management, something i feel is sorely missing from modern ffs (ffxv and ffxvi)

to top it all of it's kinda diegetic and immersive. of course these spells and technicks you don't just get. the jobs in this world (also diegetically) only get you to unlock the License to use these things, which are proven by adventuring (and thus, gaining license points). they don't automatically get you that thing. now you have the license, you can use Scathe sure, the most powerful black magick spell in the game, but you have to get into subquest blocked areas of a deep mine to even find it in the first place, and its blocked behind Gilgamesh! so now you're looking for these things and you're interacting with Ivalice and Ivalice feels so alive and lived in because it compromises so little for the player

it's not all perfect of course. so many of the higher spells and technicks and weapons straight up need guides to get, while others are at the whim of RNG. fuck that, but i can't help but completely respect it. it's such an ivalice matsuno choice to do. so many things in this game need guides to do, to the point that while i'm doing it i'm hearkened back to my first elden ring playthrough or my first demon's souls playthrough were i'm partway dependent on those that have come before me to be satisfied with my game. and i don't think that's a bad thing, i think that's something video games are uniquely able to do as a medium.

also i can't help but wish the UI was just a tad bit better, but FFXII was of course made during the menu jrpg era and the PS2 was no doubt already struggling handling so many things that FFXII was bursting with the seams with (something it has in common with its distinguished grandfather vagrant story)

and finally, so many of the things i like about FFXII only really came about in the Zodiac Age (specifically the Switch Version): being able to respec Jobs, finding rare items in the world instead of just buying them from the baknamy merchant in the necrohol of nabudis lmao... but despite all this these are minor detractions to the overall peak experience

though to be fair to the OG it was on a whole a different, perhaps easier game. and i kind of liked the fact that everyone had the same license board. it had that non-self interpenetration buddhist vibe, but also meant that you can go with almost whatever gear and spell setup for whatever team you end up with

what a good game,,, characters are so great too. i love vaan and penelo because they really are both an audience stand-in as well as a masses representation in a cast of knights, princesses, sky pirates and forest shamans

[chrystallink]

My Complete & Current Projects

I feel like I haven't properly provided summaries of the stories I'm current working on as of yet, so here you go! ✧System Collapse✧ A story set in a dimension called the Hub, which contains a self sustaining cyberpunk lite city surrounded by a vast forest called the Deadlands. Intelligent races of all types live here more or less peacefully. But that doesn't mean there's no dark goings on under the surface. The story revolves Comet and his best friend Blip. They're trying to figure out how and why Blip's brother Oz disappeared, only to come back later with powerful tech controlling abilities, and calling himself DeathScreen. At the same time, Blip has a serious problem of his own, and is forced to leave the city, leaving it up to Comet to unravel what is really going on. ✧Catalyst: the Void Children✧ (formerly just called Teen's Story because I didn't know what else to call it at the time)

This one revolves around Tiger, Luna, and Ruby, 3 teens who are voidlings: beings who are bestowed powerful abilities against their will, and are feared by others for the lethal energy they contain. Rejected or alone for different reasons, they come together in order to survive their wanderings just outside of society, dodging people out to hunt them down, as well as a cult who sees Tiger in particular as the key to jumpstarting their own dark plans.

They long for a place where they'll be safe, but how do you find that in a world that sees you as villains and monsters?

Completed Projects

✧Champion's Plight✧

A short prequal comic to System Collapse. Alton, a counsel member of Hub City, invites Xiao, the newly crowned champion of the gaunto's annual combat tournament for a celebratory dinner. But strangely enough, Xiao doesn't seem all that happy with his own accomplishment. Curious, Alton inquires as to why. The resulting conversation may just give Xiao a new perspective on things. Read it here: https://championsplight.the-comic.org/

[penginlord]

You know, the bounties that the Oxventures are hunting in Deadlands seem to mirror/be like an evil future alternative some of their characters quite well, and I wonder if it means anything.

potential spoilers below? For all the episodes at least.

Benjamin Bellows very much reflects Delacy. A trigger-happy marksman, who's very prone to violence. Delacy could've definitely ended up like Bellows if he had different companions in his early journeys, I can definitely see that.

It's the others in Delacy's life that will prevent him from becoming like Bellows.

Justice Mortimer Todd Bu Dreau (I can't believe that's how it's actually spelt) very obviously is reflective of Silas Flint. Someone who has their own idea of what justice is and will zealously commit too dealing that justice out, while also having anger management issues. Again, I believe the major difference might be the company both keep, but in Silas's case, it also might very well be seeing the extreme end that his path could take, as ot id very likely he wouldn't notice his small changes too the extreme. Kinda like a ghost of Christmas future sorta thing.

Daisy Du Crow is a bit harder to place, and for some reason my gut instinct says Edith? Probably cause she was the only other player there and Andy seems to like having the plays witnessing their dark alternatives. I do wish I had more insight on this pairing, but I just don't know enough yet.

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

Febuwhump 2024, Day 2 - Solitary Confinement

Thanks to @cordycepsbian for selecting a bastard to sacrifice to this. Here's Hoaxe torment before we go to sleep.

He is aware.

Bark covers his limbs. Leaves sprout from the abyssal hollow that was once his mandibles, The roots that were once his legs twine deep into the earth, grasping for what few nutrients were left behind by this cell's last prisoner, and yet come up short, knocking against a wall of hardened clay.

He is alone. Horribly, painfully alone, immobile and unable to escape from the deadlands he thought he had escaped from. Rooted in a pot of soil already depleted by the roots of the plant that came before him, feeling hunger gnaw at a stomach of root and bark, with none to answer his voice but the roving cries of the deadlanders and the red-shell wasps hunting for any scrap of prey.

He is right back where he was before he was king. He is right back where he was before he was a janitor, before he was a foundling, before he was a wriggler trapped beneath a crystal many times his size. He is back to being a fearful, starving wriggler in a land that does not care for him, but now he cannot even move to save himself.

The cruelty of this prison is impersonal.  So as it held its last prisoner, so too does it hold him. There is no comfort in knowing this prison's nature, just as there is no comfort in knowing that those who harmed him did not do so out of ill will. Regardless of the intent, it still hurts, and trapped in a prison with no one but himself, there is no one who remains to get angry at but his own body.

He is alone. He is dying, inch by inch, with no one to blame but himself. He is a fool and a criminal, he is a mimic with no one to believe his disguise, he is a child playing pretend with roles and robes that do not fit him.

He is a tree.

And it is as a tree, alone and starving, that he will die.

(@febuwhump)

[chroniclingworlds]

Unguloids

Similar to the Molingua, the Unguloids lack front arms and have a pouch in their jaws to grind food. But this group is an even more advanced lineage, with multiple shapes of teeth within this pouch to better process various plants. They have two walking toes with hardened hooves on each.

Unipalas

Pictured: the two-stripe Unipala, a very common species in the forests of Axane.

Like the Gallopes of Faon, these are small, fast herbivores, who rear up on four legs to dash away from predators. These are likely the most primitive Unguloid, as they lack hooves on the first pair of legs. Species live across the plains and forests of Ejoa, Axane and Amki, and are hunted by many predators. Feeding on grasses and low-lying undergrowth, they are like little lawnmowers maintaining the land. Some species are highly social, living in herds numbering in the hundreds, and others prefer smaller groups of five to ten individuals.

Springlegs

Pictured: the Ejoan Highland Springleg, which lives in the far northern mountains of Ejoa.

Highly adapted to life in the rugged mountains of Ejoa and Axane, these animals can leap incredible distances and climb nearly vertical cliffs. Some species can also be found in rocky desert regions and highland forests. They are even found beyond the tree line in extreme alpine regions, and have a thick bristle coat to ward off the cold, as well as unique, sloped shells so snow will slide off them. They are not picky eaters and will feed on any plant material they can find in these barren ecosystems.

Domeheads

Pictured: the Deadland Domehead, native to the incredibly arid “Deadlands” of western Ejoa.

One of the only large herbivores in the high deserts of Ejoa, Domeheads store fat in a hump on the tops of their heads. This allows them to go long periods of time without food as they migrate from oasis to oasis, avoiding packs of dune vultures and Wyverns. These strange animals are considered semi-domesticated and were used as beasts of burden by desert communities, and continue to be kept by farmers in arid regions.

Fanshells

Pictured: the King Fanshell, the most iconic species, which is native to the Great Savanna of Ejoa.

A very specious group, Fanshells include domesticated animals such as the Noro as well as savanna and forest dwelling wild species across Ejoa, Axane and Amki. Although not all of them have the spectacular shells of the large open plains species, all of them do have well-armored bodies to protect themselves from predators. Fanshells are very social and most live in large herds.

Buckfangs

Pictured: the spitting buckfang, which is found in the rich temperate rainforest around the Ever Reaching River of Axane.

With saber-tooth projections on their beak, these are very ferocious-looking herbivores. The fangs are not used for food processing, and instead are used for conflict between their own kind. They live in complex harems with one large alpha protecting a group of smaller mates and their offspring. These alphas are very aggressive to any perceived threats. When one of the mates grows large enough, they will either compete for the title of the alpha or be driven out to start their own harem. Some (like the above species) also mark their territory with a strong-smelling liquid produced in a gland on the roof of their mouth. Living in the forests of Axane and southern Ejoa, they are generalist herbivores who will eat anything within their reach.

Tanks:

Pictured: the ten-ridged tank, found on the plains of southern Axane.

The Tanks are so named for their massive sizes and well-armored shells. Most predators would never attempt to kill an adult Tank. Living across the savannas of Ejoa and Axane, these huge herbivores eat grasses and shrubs. Unlike many Unguloids, adults are solitary creatures aside from mating and rearing offspring. They are very territorial and will sometimes fight to the death to protect their land.

[slaughter-books]

Day 31: JOMPBPC: Read In May

My May, 2023 reading wrap-up! 💞

[jesuschristt-thatsaprettyface]

🎶✨when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, and publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favourite follows (positivity is cool)🎶✨

since you're a band moot i'll post the heavier songs i've been listening to lately <3

Villain by Deadlands

Second Skin by Currents

Happy Hunting by Wage War

Erase the Pain by Palisades

Dark Horse by The Ghost Inside

[curious-sootball]

Assorted OxDeadlands headcanons because this campaign lives in my brain rent-free:

Nate has been doing the "bumbling old fool" act since he's been able to look old enough for that - say, since his late forties or early fifties: he thought it was a lazy way of achieving things when he initially learned it from his fellow workers, but ended up changing his mind pretty quickly.

Young Nate pretty firmly believed in the value of hard work and humility - to a fault; he had a few very rough patches when he just arrived in America and was taken advantage of by his bosses (who were all too glad to hire a guy willing to do twice the work for half the credit seemingly without realising). As he would say later to Delacy, "It was a formative experience for me!".

I really like the idea that Nate absorbed a small encyclopedia's worth of knowledge about supernatural creatures of the Weird West solely for the purpose of steering clear from them as efficiently as possible - he can hold his own in a regular fight, but supernatural fight is a whole different can of worms (mostly inspired by @/melsrainpod including Johnny telling everyone that vampire tumbleweeds are a thing as Nate's in-character freakout in a fic, I loved that detail so much. Also, did you know Tumblebleeds aren't the only creatures pretending to be mundane things in Deadlands lore? There's a creature called Bloodwire, it looks like a living barbed wire and hunts by pretending to be part of ranch fences. Weird West is fucking terrifying)

Speaking of the original Deadlands lore - I think that OxDeadlands have a more matter-of-fact attitude towards the fact that supernatural things exist and affect people: the original Deadlands have both Texas Rangers and Men In Black Dusters keeping up the idea that supernatural stuff is just superstition and folk tales in everyone's minds (spoilers - it doesn't work too well). Isn't much on its own, but helps with the supernatural legislation headcanons that I have. (Imo being able to call a supernatural creature what it is really helps with writing and issuing laws about them). Not all states have the same legislation around the supernatural creatures and enforce it the same way.

Garnet always gets an uneasy feeling around large quantities of ghost rock - not quite the full body pins and needles of being in The Hunting Grounds, but close. After the finale, so do Edie, Silas and Delacy (and Nate, but he got that way after coming back as a Harrowed - as opposed to others, who were properly touched by the arcane after entering The Hunting Grounds), but to a lesser degree.

Edie knows how to bind books(that's how she maintains/expands her copy of the monster encyclopedia... read Reading is more fun(when you can draw on the margins) its so good) and later taught Delacy how to do that.

He and Bison Billy actually compiled and made a custom version of a song collection book for Edie as a birthday present; Bison Billy called in a favour from his friend, who runs a printing workshop, to print that collection without censoring the raunchier songs. (Don't worry, the workshop didn't get in trouble with the local law - that wasn't the first or the most NSFW thing they printed, they have this figured out)

Silas and Edie were really touched when Victoria made them packed lunches; they still think about it bitterly from time to time. (In a very guarded, filled with internalised guilt "if I hadn't let my guard down around that person, maybe the fallout of them betraying all of us wouldn't have been this horrible" kind of way)

One evening, a few months after the finale events, Silas, Edie and Garnet had a talk about the whole situation, because they all felt understandably uneasy about ending up as potential new Horsemen recruits (that sounds like a thing that would make someone rethink at least some of their life choices). Silas was mostly upset at the Horse afterimage and the implication that he had enough in common with Ben Bellows to end up as the new War Horseman. Garnet mused about Victoria getting desperately lonely - not in a defending way, in a "that line of thinking was not a product of a sound mind" way. Edie was still mad at Victoria for weaponising her memories of her brother against her and Garnet, and didn't say much.

Speaking of Victoria... you know how the Rider of the white horse (Conquest and later Pestilence) is depicted with a bow and crown? Victoria gets a flaming sword and a crown in the finale, but the bow is never mentioned (probably because pulling out a bow inside a house while riding a big gravity-defying horse is a bit ridiculous mental image, and that would've kind of killed the vibe of fighting a Horsewoman of the Apocalypse). Does it even exist in this universe? Because if it does and unsealed Conquest doesn't have it on hands, that has very interesting implications: given that IRL Pestilence replaced Conquest in the Horsemen lineup - was that a hint for the players to thoroughly search Daisy's office?

Continuing on with the weaponry/items descriptions for the Horsemen - these five either had them swapped around from the start or there's a story reason for their respective items: Victoria wields a flaming sword in the finale - usually the rider depicted with the sword is War. Either the sword originally belonged to Victoria, or she took it for herself after breaking the seals (as a sort of retribution for delaying the Apocalypse) Also, Andy mentioned that Johnny cut the fight short when they shot Victoria with the Coup - that implies that she could've wielded another weapon(s) later in the fight.

Hildegard and M.T. Boudreau also seemingly swapped symbols: Judge's main weapon is a pair of guns with sickles mounted on them - a very clear reaper imagery - but there is also at least one pair of scales (on the Justice statue) and probably more in the rest of the courthouse. Famine is traditionally depicted with a pair of scales, but they're never mentioned around Hildegard. One could argue that hell that is coming with the rider in this case is corporate hell.

I headcanon that the Red Hand gang bit of Victoria's backstory was mostly true - that's the name The Horsemen picked for themselves to stand out a little less among the outlaws of the Weird West, and that's how they operated for a while (assuming they needed "normal" human corporeal forms to get onto the mortal plane).

Speaking of "normal" humans: it seems like the closer the chosen avatar was to a regular human, the better respective riders adjusted to the mortal plane. Victoria obviously takes the cake,but there is also a clear pattern with the others - Bellows is pretty convincing as a regular terrible person, DuCrow runs a crooked, Poxwalker-filled sanatorium and is both a Mad Scientist and a Poison Woman, Hildegard is a cutthroat CEO and gets visibly monstrous once she gets shot, and M.T. Boudreau is a Hangin' Judge, a very prominently undead creature, and is notably the most unhinged of the five.

The Horsemen kept in touch via mail after sealing Conquest's powers and going their separate ways.

Daisy DuCrow used to be the Red Hand gang's doctor back before The Incident (technically, she still is one) - she's both the most informed about the topic out of the five and genuinely curious about how well the avatars hold up.

Daisy and Hildegard used to team up pretty often before The Incident - they still do, but less actively: Daisy sometimes helps raze some of Hilda's competitors' crops to the ground with blights, Hilda sends people to Daisy's sanatorium(as clients, potential new hires and future fodder for the regeneration machine).

Bellows has a reputation for(among other things) just straight up refusing to die - which isn't entirely baseless: he has supernatural healing and a tendency to get carried away in a fight or in a challenge once he's angry enough. (I think it is specifically healing - powerful, but it can be overwhelmed. Harrowed don't pass out from pain, and only get immobilised if you behead them - which would imply that if Bellows was a Harrowed before the finale, he would have to have been playing dead from the moment Nate shot him onwards: through Garnet taking his ring and the townsfolk stripping his corpse. This guy canonically has an ego the size of a small town, I don't think he would've been able to convincingly play dead through all of that)

Speaking of poorly picked challenges: one of his bodyguards figured out that Bellows wasn't human after he won a drinking game against one of the contestants - a big, burly blacksmith who could bend a horseshoe with his bare hands - and shown barely a trace of that next morning, to blacksmith's utter bewilderment and bartender's disappointment.

Despite his temper, M.T. Boudreau is very good at keeping secrets: Victoria would've figured out that other four don't really want to go through with the original plan a lot sooner if it wasn't for him.

Also, M. T. is supernaturally hangry during both episodes of his arc (because Garnet set a sentenced man free), that's why he's so highstrung. He really hadn't taken being an undead as well as he thinks he had.

[valthu-um]

TES Aesthetic Playlists (pt. II)

As promised, I’m delivering on more content from my last post, admittedly later than I planned. The Elder Scrolls Mixtape Project continues with purpose as I introduce some new additions that have been made in the past year(s).

Games / DLC

Morrowind

Factions

I’ll admit that the Blades playlist has actually been up since my original post, but at the time, it wasn’t finished, so it is getting shuffled in with the 2nd Era inspired factions.

Aldmeri Dominion (Skyrim)

Psijic Order

The Blades (Oblivion)

Clockwork Apostles

Dragonguard

House Ravenwatch

Dark Brotherhood (ESO)

Characters (mostly Morrowind edition)

Could possibly be receiving more updates as we go along, since I’m running a little behind on ESO characters to include. 

Sotha Sil

Almalexia

Vivec

Mannimarco

Voryn Dagoth / Dagoth Ur

Darien Gautier

Naryu Virian

Fennorian

Places

And I may have gotten a little carried away with the Clockwork City playlist. Not for lack of trying to hold back buuut I have a soft spot for Sotha Sil, so it really couldn’t be helped. Sorry. I don’t make the rules. You might notice that Skyrim is notably absent from this list, because I’m not certain I need to rehash all those places over again, especially since I have a playlist for Greymoor already. 

Valenwood

Elsweyr

Black Marsh

Alik’r Desert

Rivenspire

Stormhaven

Glenumbra

Summerset Isles

Vvardenfell

Clockwork City

Wrothgar

Hew’s Bane

Craglorn

Blackwood

Daedric Princes / Planes of Oblivion

There is a playlist for the Daedric Princes under my original post in the Factions category, which was very general. But, I felt that it didn’t do justice to describe the planes of Oblivion themselves, and that I needed a more tailored experience if I planned on traipsing outside Mundus, no matter the game.

Deadlands (Mehrunes Dagon)

Myriad Realms of Revelry (Sanguine)

Fields of Regret (Clavicus Vile)

Shivering Isles (Sheogorath)

Hunting Ground (Hircine)

Evergloam (Nocturnal)

Spiral Skeim (Mephala)

Apocrypha (Hermaeus Mora)

Aesthetic/Ruins

Ancient Nordic Ruins

Falmer Ruins

Dwemer Ruins

Ayleid Ruins

Lorelines

Sometimes a zone playlist just doesn’t do the current circumstances justice. 

Daedric Triad (Morrowind - Clockwork City - Summerset)

The Dark Heart of Skyrim

To Coldharbour and Back Again (Main Quest)

Alliance War (Cyrodiil)

Classes

The only of these that is unfinished/still receiving additions and edits is the Dragonknight playlist, because it’s the last class I got around to playing as, so I’m still forming an impression.

Necromancer

Dragonknight

Templar

Nightblade

Warden

Sorcerer

Pt. I here. ESO Trials + Dungeons here. I also do other aesthetic/character-based playlists for other series, although not as extensive as TES. You can find a list on my main blog.