#game development history thoughts

[argentumcor]

Reasons I Think Gotham Knights Started Out as an Arkham Knight Sequel at Some Point

It clearly isn't an Arkhamverse game. For one, the tone is that of a contemporary Young Adult novel...or a CW show, like one maybe called Gotham Knights. The Arkhamverse is BTAS with a higher rating. But there's a lot of reason to think the concept started out as a sequel to Arkham Knight game somewhere.

I'm not watching any of the marketing stuff about this because games marketing is full of it and cannot be trusted. This is stuff about the game itself. Spoilers ahead.

I'll get to the list, but I'll start by pointing out that the Batfam is niche while Batman has much broader recognition and, yes, appeal (not the 'brainwash son with fear toxin for his own good' comics Batman, I mean the movie, cartoon, and game Batman). Triple-A titles are very expensive endeavors and there is no reason to pour that cash into a title about a niche set of side characters instead of the very popular main character...unless that title is a part of a very successful and popular game series. We know that Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League is only part of the Arkhamverse as a marketing tactic, the same reason all the characterizations line up more with the Suicide Squad movies than with the Arkham ones. Selling the Gotham Knights concept as a follow-on to the Arkham games was probably a viable way to get the project off the ground. What happened from there? I have guesses and I'll get to them.

After that, there is:

The cast. We've got Dick, Jason, Tim, and Barbara. That's the Batfam from the end of Arkham Knight, but not the Batfam that makes the most sense necessarily; Orphan instead of one of the boys (Jason, probably, grumble) would even out the sex ratio and she'd fit in with the story. But if this started as a sequel to AK, this would be your cast.

The way Jason feels like everyone treats him like he's a bomb about go off despite the fact they don't. It seems like Jason's recently back, but everyone seems to be trying hard to include him and there's no sign of what he complains about. A post-AK Jason, though, would be very much treated like that because of the whole...alliance with Scarecrow, fear toxin, invasion thing.

Freeze seems to have lost Nora and is on a nihilistic rampage. We know that Nora is dying after In From the Cold. While I prefer to assume Freeze left his suit and they died in each other's arms, because I'm a sap, her dying and him not could feasibly result in him doing what he does in GK. It's cynical as hell, but it's a not terrible way to bring him back as a villain. Normally, Nora is his main motivation and GK is the first time in a long time where she isn't, he just hates everything.

No Joker, no Two-Face, no Black Mask. Joker seems to be dead in GK as he is in Arkham. Tim fought Two-face in a DLC after he broke out of jail and committed quite a bit more crime, so he's probably still in, plus if they didn't want to revisit villains, he'd be written out. Jason killed Black Mask in his DLC and the name Sionis isn't even mentioned in GK.

Penguin is now an ex-con out and about. Penguin wasn't a direct fight in AK or a DLC, but Dick kept him from breaking out in another DLC, which meant he went to prison and could have served his time in total as he did in GK. He's also characterized as a crime lord instead of a kook like he was in the Arkham games.

Harley is around, starts out in jail, and is a villain. Harley was a monster in the Arkhamverse, a child-murderer and torturer. In GK, she's still terrible, if a temporary asset (not even ally) to the Batfam, and later tormenting and killing civilians for fun. It isn't very popular these days to have Harley just be evil even without the Joker, but GK did, just as the Arkhamverse did. At most she was to be pitied, but she was definitely a villain. You'd assume given GK's tone it would not go that way but it does without hesitation- one of the things I really like about it. She was very probably taken to jail after AK where she was originally captive in one of Batman's hideouts.

Batman is dead but not really/permanently. AS far as the Arkham Batfam knows at the end of AK, Bruce is dead. He isn't- if they ever found out, they would be so mad, because his plan is clearly not doing much for stopping crime in Gotham, as Tim and Barb have to leave their honeymoon to do that- but they think he is. If you were to do an Arkham GK, finding out Bruce isn't dead would be a rather major plot point...and in the GK we got, finding Bruce brought back to life is a rather major plot point.

Talia as major villain. AK hinted at Talia having been resurrected by the League and given the way the Pits are in that game- both in their mentally debilitating effects especially if impure and in the fact that Bruce destroys the last pure one in AK- her coming back crazy and evil would make total sense and be good setup for an Arkham GK main villain- especially if you wanted to have Damian as a plot point. Low and behold, Talia is the real big bad of GK, though it doesn't seem like she necessarily got resurrected.

I have no way of knowing if GK started out as an Arkham sequel and probably never will. I know Rocksteady did at least concept art of a Batman Beyond Arkham sequel that would use Damian in place of Terry, but obviously that didn't happen. I am assuming Rocksteady never touch GK at any point, but so many things line up that I feel like there was some outline or treatment for a Batfam Arkham game that got used to Gotham Knights.

It may have been that WB wanted this game to be used to market that ridiculous CW show of the same name, or vice versa, but that seems insane. The demographics for the two don't have that much crossover. The content is only alike in tone and that Batman dies at the start. But it is a boneheaded ivory tower executive sort of decision to make.

Honesty, looking at GK and at its marketing and at the way its budget seemed to be allocated- I think Jason's model rig is just Bruce's, kind of cheap to do for two major characters you see a lot of- it's almost like it got a pity greenlight. It's so odd to have two games, Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, both about Batman adjacent characters, with the same basic gameplay loop even, come out within a year or so of each other.

I don't like Gotham Knights, I don't like the art style, I don't like the way most everyone interacts and how...sanitized and therapy talk and 'relevant issues' much of the writing is... but it has all these little disconnects between that kind of writing and other parts that line up more with the Arkham games that it's bizarre, like someone took the superstructure of an Arkham Batfam game and stuck this brightly colored marshmallow thing around it to make the Gotham Knights we got. It's cool if you like it, it's not my kind of thing, no hard feelings, etc.- I come from the days of the old internet, when you could do say stuff like that and then admire that awesome Mora Jason Todd cover together. I do find the weird links between Gotham Knights and the Arkhamverse fascinatingly bizarre though.

[skaruresonic]

no fear

"Bloober remaking Silent Hill 3, which has far fewer defenders because the game gets classified either as 'cult crap' or 'women's horror,' ignoring its psychological elements"

one fear

[reasonsforhope]

Masterpost: Reasons I firmly believe we will beat climate change

Posts are in reverse chronological order (by post date, not article date), mostly taken from my "climate change" tag, which I went through all the way back to the literal beginning of my blog. Will update periodically.

Especially big deal articles/posts are in bold.

Big picture:

Mature trees offer hope in world of rising emissions (x)

Spying from space: How satellites can help identify and rein in a potent climate pollutant (x)

Good news: Tiny urban green spaces can cool cities and save lives (x)

Conservation and economic development go hand in hand, more often than expected (x)

The exponential growth of solar power will change the world (x)

Sun Machines: Solar, an energy that gets cheaper and cheaper, is going to be huge (x)

Wealthy nations finally deliver promised climate aid, as calls for more equitable funding for poor countries grow (x)

For Earth Day 2024, experts are spreading optimism – not doom. Here's why. (x)

Opinion: I’m a Climate Scientist. I’m Not Screaming Into the Void Anymore. (x)

The World’s Forests Are Doing Much Better Than We Think (x)

‘Staggering’ green growth gives hope for 1.5C, says global energy chief (x)

Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming Into View (x)

Young Forests Capture Carbon Quicker than Previously Thought (x)

Yes, climate change can be beaten by 2050. Here's how. (x)

Soil improvements could keep planet within 1.5C heating target, research shows (x)

The global treaty to save the ozone layer has also slowed Arctic ice melt (x)

The doomers are wrong about humanity’s future — and its past (x)

Scientists Find Methane is Actually Offsetting 30% of its Own Heating Effect on Planet (x)

Are debt-for-climate swaps finally taking off? (x)

High seas treaty: historic deal to protect international waters finally reached at UN (x)

How Could Positive ‘Tipping Points’ Accelerate Climate Action? (x)

Specific examples:

Environmental Campaigners Celebrate As Labour Ends Tory Ban On New Onshore Wind Projects (x)

Private firms are driving a revolution in solar power in Africa (x)

How the small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu drastically cut plastic pollution (x)

Rewilding sites have seen 400% increase in jobs since 2008, research finds [Scotland] (x)

The American Climate Corps take flight, with most jobs based in the West (x)

Waste Heat Generated from Electronics to Warm Finnish City in Winter Thanks to Groundbreaking Thermal Energy Project (x)

Climate protection is now a human right — and lawsuits will follow [European Union] (x)

A new EU ecocide law ‘marks the end of impunity for environmental criminals’ (x)

Solar hits a renewable energy milestone not seen since WWII [United States] (x)

These are the climate grannies. They’ll do whatever it takes to protect their grandchildren. [United States and Native American Nations] (x)

Century of Tree Planting Stalls the Warming Effects in the Eastern United States, Says Study (x)

Chart: Wind and solar are closing in on fossil fuels in the EU (x)

UK use of gas and coal for electricity at lowest since 1957, figures show (x)

Countries That Generate 100% Renewable Energy Electricity (x)

Indigenous advocacy leads to largest dam removal project in US history [United States and Native American Nations] (x)

India’s clean energy transition is rapidly underway, benefiting the entire world (x)

China is set to shatter its wind and solar target five years early, new report finds (x)

‘Game changing’: spate of US lawsuits calls big oil to account for climate crisis (x)

Largest-ever data set collection shows how coral reefs can survive climate change (x)

The Biggest Climate Bill of Your Life - But What Does It DO? [United States] (x)

Good Climate News: Headline Roundup April 1st through April 15th, 2023 (x)

How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon (x) [Brazil]

Loss of Climate-Crucial Mangrove Forests Has Slowed to Near-Negligable Amount Worldwide, Report Hails (x)

Agroecology schools help communities restore degraded land in Guatemala (x)

Climate adaptation:

Solar-powered generators pull clean drinking water 'from thin air,' aiding communities in need: 'It transforms lives' (x)

‘Sponge’ Cities Combat Urban Flooding by Letting Nature Do the Work [China] (x)

Indian Engineers Tackle Water Shortages with Star Wars Tech in Kerala (x)

A green roof or rooftop solar? You can combine them in a biosolar roof — boosting both biodiversity and power output (x)

Global death tolls from natural disasters have actually plummeted over the last century (x)

Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be (x)

This city turns sewage into drinking water in 24 hours. The concept is catching on [Namibia] (x)

Plants teach their offspring how to adapt to climate change, scientists find (x)

Resurrecting Climate-Resilient Rice in India (x)

Edit 1/12/25: Yes, I know a bunch of the links disappeared. I'll try to fix that when I get the chance. In the meantime, read all the other stuff!!

Other Masterposts:

Going carbon negative and how we're going to fix global heating (x)

[dalishious]

The Sanitized Lore of Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Tevinter is the heart of slavery in Thedas. This lore has been established in every game, novel, comic, and other extended material in the Dragon Age franchise to date that so much as mentions the nation. But in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, when we are finally able to actually visit this location for the first time… this rampant slavery we’ve heard so much about is nowhere to be found. It’s talked about here and there; Neve mentions The Viper has a history of freeing slaves, as does Rook themselves if they choose the Shadow Dragon faction as their origin, for example. But walking down the streets of Minrathous, you’d never know. Because Dragon Age: The Veilguard, for all its enjoyment otherwise, has one glaring issue: It’s too clean.

The world of Thedas is full of injustices. Humans persecute elves, fear qunari, and belittle dwarves. Mages of any race are treated like caged animals in most places. The nobility is corrupt. Although, Dragon Age has not always handled these injustices well, mind you. Many, many times I’ve found myself frustrated with moments that just feel like a Racism Simulator. But what makes it worth it, is when you can actually do something about it. These injustices are things that a good-aligned character strives to fight back against, maybe even for very personal reasons. Part of the power-fantasy for many minorities is that this fight feels tangible. I cannot arrange the assassination of a corrupt politician in real life, but I sure can get Celene Valmont stabbed to death in Dragon Age: Inquisition, for example. Additionally, these fictional injustices can be used to make statements on real life parallels, like any source of media. For example, no, the Chant of Light is not real, but acting as a stand-in for Catholicism, through a media analysis lens we can explore what the Chant of Light communicates on a figurative level.

When starting Dragon Age: The Veilguard and selecting to play as an elf – this should be unsurprising to anyone who is familiar with my bias towards them – I was fully prepared to enter the streets of Minrathous and immediately get called “knife-ear” or “rabbit”. But this did not happen. I thought perhaps it was just a prologue thing, but returning to Minrathous once again, there was not a single shred of disapproval from any NPC I encountered that wasn’t a generic enemy to fight. And even the generic enemies, the Tevinter Nationalist cult of the Venatori, didn’t seem to care at all that I was a lineage they deemed inferior before now. This is a stark difference from entering the Winter Palace in Dragon Age: Inquisition and immediately getting hit with court disapproval and insults. Are we now to believe that Tevinter has somehow solved its astronomical racism and classism problems in the ten years since the past game? Or perhaps are we to believe all the characters who have demonstrated Tevinter’s systemic discriminatory views were just lying or outliers? Because it makes absolutely no sense at all for this horribly corrupt nation to not have a shred of reactivity to an elven or qunari Rook prancing around. But here were are, and not a single NPC even recognizes my character’s lineage. And because this is so different from every single past game, it feels weird.

As an elf, you have the option to make a comment about how “too many humans look down on us” in one scene early in the game. You can also talk to Bellara and Davrin, the elven companions, about concerns that people won’t trust elves after finding out about the big bad Ancient Evanuris… but this is presented as if elves don’t already face persecution. It’s all so limited in scope that it could be all too easily missed if you are not paying very close attention, and coming into the game with pre-existing lore knowledge.

All this made it easy to first assume that the developers simply over-corrected an attempt to address the Racism Simulator moments. And if that was the case, than I would at least give credit to effort; they did not find the right balance, but they at least tried. However, the sudden lack of discrimination against different lineages in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is not the only sanitized example of lore present.

In Dragon Age: Origins, Zevran Arainai is a companion who is from the Antivan Crows; a group of assassins. He discusses in detail how the Crows buy children and raise them into murder machines through all kinds of torture. The World of Thedas books also describe how the Antivan Crows work, echoing what Zevran says and expanding that of the recruitment, only a select handful of those taken by the Crows even survive. When you start Dragon Age: The Veilguard as an Antivan Crow, you immediately unlock a re-used codex entry from the past, “The Crows and Queen Madrigal”, that says the following:

“His guild has a reputation to uphold. They are ruthless, efficient, and discreet. How would they maintain such notoriety if agents routinely revealed the names of employers with something as "banal" as torture.”

Ruthless, efficient, and discreet. Torture is banal. This is what the Crows were before Dragon Age: The Veilguard decided to take them in a very different direction. The Antivan Crows in this latest game are painted as freedom fighters against the Antaam occupation of Treviso. Teia calls the Crows “patriots”. And while I can certainly believe that the Crows would have enough motivation to fight back against the Antaam, given that it is in direct opposition to their own goals, I cannot understand why they are suddenly suggested to be morally good. They are assassins. They treat their people like tools and murder for money. Even as recent as the Tevinter Nights story Eight Little Talons, it is addressed that the Antivan Crows are in it for the coin and power, with characters like Teia being outliers for wanting to change that. It makes the use of the older codex all the more confusing, as it sets the Antivan Crows up as something they are no longer portrayed as.

I personally think it would have been really interesting to explore a morally corrupt faction in comparison to say, the Shadow Dragons. Perhaps even as a protagonist, address things like the enslavement of “recruits” to make the faction at least somewhat better. (They are still assassins, after all.) Instead, we’re just supposed to ignore everything unsavory about them, I suppose…

We could discuss even further examples. Like how the Lords of Fortune pillage ruins but it’s okay, because they never sell artifacts of cultural importance, supposedly. Or how the only problem with the Templar Order in Tevinter is just the “bad apples” that work with Venatori. I could go on, but I don’t think I have to.

It is because of all this sanitization, that I cannot believe this was simply over-correction on a developmental part. Especially when there is still racism in the game, in other forms. The impression I’m left with feels far deeper than that; it feels corporate. As if a computer ran through the game’s script and got rid of anything with “too much” political substance. The strongest statements are hidden in codex entries, and I almost suspect they had to be snuck in.

Between a Racism Simulator and just ignoring anything bad whatsoever, I believe a balance is achievable; that sweet spot that actually has something to say about what it is presenting. I know it is achievable, because there are a few bright spots of this that I’ve encountered in Dragon Age: The Veilguard too. For example, some of the codex entries like I mentioned, and almost all the content with the Grey Wardens thus far. It is a shame there is not more content on this level.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is overall still a fun game, in my opinion. But it’s hard to argue that it isn’t missing the grit of its predecessors. The sharp edges have been smoothed. The claws have been removed. The house has been baby-proofed. And for what purpose?

-----

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[ghostedgwen]

but I knew you | j.potter [part two]

note : I am so happy with the positive response to the first part, I had struggled drafting it up for months because I felt lacking. I hadn't written in so long that I was beginning to doubt if I could still do it like before and the answer is 'no', but this way, I can keep improving. Thank you all so much for the support as always <3

warnings : just pure angst, James is very ouchie on this one, some hints of Lily hate sorry, graphic mention of violence but just briefly, enemies to lovers maybe, james is an asshole, keep in mind he was 14 in the flashbacks pls, angst ouch ouchie

James gets into an accident during a Quidditch game and develop amnesia - he doesn't remember the past 2 and a half years, and he currently has the mentality of fourth-year James. This doesn't bode well for you that your boyfriend of 2 years now currently thinks he's still  in love with Lily.

└——————— - [ 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 : 𝚃𝚊𝚢𝚕𝚘��� 𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚏𝚝 - 𝙲𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚗 ]. +

An absolute bloody nightmare is a light way of putting it. You barley remember how you reacted and digested the whole situation, well enough to stumble back to your dormitory and act like everything is fine in front of your dorm mates.

You could guess you acted like a big, brave girl and smiled while nodding. “James here needs some more rest, so do I, I’ve been here since last night - I need to go get changed and everything.”

The boys tried to cut in but you didn’t let them. Getting up to pat down your uniform nonchalantly. “He’s all yours, take care of him for me.”

As you walked out, you pretended like your heart wasn’t breaking into pieces, leaving behind a shard with every step you took.

To make it worse, you heard your lovely boyfriend’s voice again. “Who the bloody hell was that? Are you lot pissing on me again?”

.

You couldn’t sleep a wink. You got up with bags under your eyes and Mary gasping at the sight of you.

“I guess your boyfriend falling 500 feet in the air would do that to you.” Marlene shrugged as she was putting on her tie.

“Perhaps you should skip class for now?” Lily suggested. Oh Merlin, it is not her fault but you can’t help feeling irritated at her voice.

Your boyfriend’s injury and sudden amnesia is not her fault but you can’t push back the bitter thoughts beginning to surface. It was bad enough how much you and James went through when you were starting out because of the history he had with Lily, but now there’s this.

You give her a small smile instead and willed your thoughts to fade. “I don’t think skipping classes and putting my grades at risk would contribute in any way to the situation.”

Lily gives you a sympathetic smile and a curt nod.

“Thank you, Lils. But I need the distraction anyway.”

.

You should have known it won’t be so easy. You always considered yourself to be strong, in mind and in heart.

But there are things you never prepare for because how could you have possibly foreseen them to ever happen anyway?

You walked into potions class all hopeful that your favorite subject could take your mind off the way James looked at you.

That was quick to die down when he stormed inside during the middle of class with his fellow Marauders running after him.

He burst through the doors looking fresh out of the infirmary. He was lucky Slurghorn left to go do something leaving you all to quietly work when he came in or this would be another 5 points off Gryffindor.

You half expected him to run to you, a smile instinctively forming on your lips until you saw the look of panic on the three boys’ faces.

James walked past you and right up to Lily. You slowly turn your head to watch him smile so brightly at her, in great contrast to how he treated you.

Bloody fuck, you shouldn’t watch. Sirius appeared beside you, an arm around you as he also watched James who they obviously failed to stop from coming here.

“My darling Lily-Flower, how - you cut your hair?” James frowned, eyeing the way Lily’s usually long red curls are now framing her face in a neat bob cut. “Since when?”

Lily was shocked at the nickname. Her eyes darting to you right away as she dodged the hand James was gonna use to touch her hair. The sight made you want to throw up.

“Potter, what is with you? This isn’t funny.” Lily stepped back and he closed the gap, she did it again and he closed the gap again.

“Oi Potter,is this why our ____ looked like shite this morning?” Marlene stepped in, pushing James away from Lily. “This joke isn’t funny for either Lily or____!”

James glared at her “Watch it, McKinnon. I don’t know why you lot think I’m joking. If anything, you bloody wankers keep insisting that that -“ he turns to point at you “person is my girlfriend.”

Oh bloody fuck. It’s a good thing Sirius was holding you or you would have collapsed to the floor with the way your knees gave out. You lean into him for support, and his hold on you tightens.

You look up to see that he is visibly upset at James, he's never looked at his best friend that way before.

"What is up with this tosser?" Marlene asked, beginning to raise her voice as she turned to Remus and Peter watching the scene unfold in horror. "Has your friend gone mental from the accident yesterday?"

"It's okay, Marlene." You tell her, but she would not budge.

"Why is he bothering Lily again and pretending like he doesn't know you? This is pissing me off."

Remus lets out a heavy sigh. "The accident caused him to forget about ____."

You wanted the ground to swallow you whole. All their eyes turned to you and you try your best to look brave. Even when you could also feel James' unfamiliar gaze on you.

"Is that true?" Lily asked, a look of shock painted on her face. "____, I don't even know what to say."

You almost laughed. Of course she doesn't, no one would. Would apologizing make you feel better? Of course not, what would she even apologize for? "Sorry your boyfriend got amnesia so now he's in love with me again."

"Prongs, let's not do this here." Remus grabbed James by the arm and nudged him to get out. "Please."

James is very confused why everyone is acting the way they are but they let him drag him out this time, only Sirius brought you as well. He eyes you curiously, you seem familiar but he has never seen you before until yesterday when you hugged him.

Something about the action was familiar and it felt oddly warm but he did not know you. You look at him and could tell he was examining you.

"Who are you, really?" He asked.

You give him a bitter smile. "Let's talk."

.

The boys left you alone in the common room and has decided to stand guard outside to ensure no one would be walking in to disrupt the conversation.

He sat on the couch across the one where you sat, he watched your every move intently, trying so hard to understand who you are and what role you played in his life.

They say you're his girlfriend but just yesterday he was professing his love to Lily in the Great Hall during breakfast when he woke up in the infirmary all of a sudden.

He can't even begin to explain the weird feeling swirling all over him, like his body isn't his and he's just a visitor stopping by.

You cleared your throat. "James," his gaze unwavered, remained on you. "My name is ____, I'm in my sixth-year at Hogwarts. I transferred here during our fourth-year."

James' brow slowly stitched into a frown, he doesn't know you at all. In his current memories, you have not transferred yet.

He didn't speak yet. "You pestered me endlessly during my first week, until I gave you a taste of your own medicine -" You can't help the grin from forming, recalling the memory.

"What?" He asked.

.

You had no clue why James bloody Potter thought it would be the funniest thing to make your first week in Hogwarts horrible. From the moment you transferred, he's had his eyes set on you.

It even made the other three boys wonder just what has got him so taken with you. Enough so that he's not once bothered Lily like usual, which was a great surprise to everyone - not great for you.

"Potter, I'd be willing to give you everything in my trust fund if you would just sod off for the rest of our lives." You were only joking, not that you'd pay him a dime to piss off.

He smirks at that. "You forget I'm rich, ____."

Your eye twitch irritably. Right. Rich pretty boy thinks he can mess with anyone because he's a pure blood wizard from a well-off family, what a big man he is.

You smile sarcastically. "Oh my bad, I forget how rich you are that you can probably buy me."

James' brow perked at that, "Can I?"

You almost swung your entire arm to give his right cheek everything you've got but you kept your cool, sighing while biting the insides of your cheek to will yourself to calm down.

"You are a dog - no, worse than a dog. You are a cockroach. You disgust me, James Potter. Every single second spent knowing you has been a hellish nightmare. I hope that should lightning strike me dead right this very moment, I never get to fucking meet you again in my next unfortunate life or Merlin help me I would take a rock and break my own skull with it just to escape you."

Yeah you weren’t keeping your cool at all.

James stood dumbfounded at your words, barely registering them when you actually finally decided to swing. Your whole body twisting to deliver a blow to his face, it echoed in the empty halls and left a big red imprint on his cheek.

To say he was shocked was an understatement. "Don't bother telling on me unless you want people to know a little girl smacked the shit out of you."

You turned around, not bothering to wait for an answer and began strutting away. Ignoring the way your palm tingled from the slap, it hurt a lot but you kept walking away confidently.

James Potter stood still, cheek hurting while his heart remained pounding. In a way it never has around Lily before. "Bloody hell," he muttered with a devilish grin. "Bloody fucking hell."

.

"You beat me?" James asked, you fight the urge to think how cute he looks all clueless - like a baby. "Why would I start courting you after that."

"No clue, you are a weirdo." You roll your eyes at him. "But you were my weirdo. Unfortunately."

James couldn't comprehend it. He's 16 now and yet in his mind, he is still 14. "It doesn't make sense."

You shake your head. "No, it doesn't. But can you try? Isn't there a tiniest bit of you that recognizes me? Not in the slightest?" You ask him, running a desperate hand through your hair. "They say the mind can forget but the heart doesn't."

James stared at you, he could tell how much it hurts you. From the way his friends acted, even the other classmates - it was obvious that this was reality.

He's a visitor in his own body, two years has passed and he doesn't remember a single moment from them.

"I'm sorry . . .for not knowing you." James hesitantly apologized. He could tell, you were important to him, with how his body craved to run up to you and hug you - but his mind sees you as a stranger.

You smile bitterly at that. "So right now, it's still her?"

James didn't answer, something in him instinctively telling him not to. You waited, but he didn't say anything. "When you started courting me, everyone had thought it was a grand prank. Like some big joke you were pulling, so did I."

James remained silent.

"How could we honestly expect a James Potter who has pestered Lily Evans for 4 years to just suddenly fall for the new girl? It was a whole commotion, I wanted everything to stop. I couldn't focus on my studies with how much everyone buzzed whenever I walked into a room."

James slowly nodded. "Why did you say 'yes', then? You said we have been together for two years."

You chuckle at the question, you ask yourself the same thing every day. "Because I got to know a James Potter that no one ever has before. A James Potter that I could have all to myself. . ." you heaved a heavy sigh, shaking as you let out your breath. Looking up to smile up at him sadly, so familiar yet so strange. "But you're not mine. You're not my James, are you?"

He couldn't answer as the lump in his throat got bigger and bigger and bigger. His body hurts, his stomach kept dropping and his hands twitched to reach out to you.

His legs are begging him to run to you, his skin is crawling to meet yours. Every part of his body wanted you, except in his head - you remain a stranger.

"I. . .don't know."

to be continued . . .

part three | masterlist

[randomthefox]

Let's talk about Dante and Vergil's swords, Rebellion and Yamato, and their "publication history" if you will.

In DMC1, Dante's default sword he starts with is Force Edge. It is described as being a "momento from his father."

However by the end of DMC1, Force Edge has its true power unlocked and becomes the devil sword Sparda.

It stays like that permanently afterwards, it never reverts back to being regular Force Edge. So when they were developing DMC2 they needed a new regular default sword for Dante because they couldn't just have him start out using Sparda, so they came up with Rebellion.

I doubt they put any thought into this whatsoever at the time. But when Itsuno was making DMC3, he decided to take the sword they came up with for Dante from the second game and rewrote it a little so that the Rebellion was the sword that Sparda left Dante after all!

Since he was also rewriting Force Edge to be the key that locked away the Underworld, and they had another non-Force Edge sword invented up, it opened things up so that they could take that sword they invented to replace Force Edge in DMC2 to have a lot more importance invoked into it!

And since they were also taking Vergil and completely changing his character for the sake of their plot for this prequel game, let's also give him a keepsake sword from Sparda! You might not realize this if you hadn't beaten DMC1 at least on hard mode, but the Yamato was NOT just some random cool samurai sword that they gave Vergil because he's so cool. You see back in DMC1 if you beat it on hard mode you unlocked the Legendary Dark Knight mode, which was a model swap for Dante where he was dressed up as Sparda. And along with Sparda's clothes and DT, you also got to use Sparda's sword the Yamato!

That's right, the Yamato as a sword actually predates Vergil the character as we know him. The detail that it has the power to DIVIDE things in two is even right there in the description from the original game as well! So Itsuno took this bonus weapon that is described as being wielded by Sparda, and decided it was the matching keepsake weapon given to Vergil in DMC3. Since Vergil is the older twin, he gets the sword Sparda actually used himself.

The way these swords of such esteem power and prominence have the origin of Itsuno taking disparate elements from the baton passing development of the first two games where the original was made by Kamiya and the second game was made under duress is really nifty to me. Playing DMC5 you'd almost think it was all planned out from the beginning, but nothing could be further from the truth. That's the mark of true creativity I think. Instead of just saying DMC2 was bad and ignoring everything about it, he took the default sword from that game and did something creative with it. Now in the majority of peoples minds, Rebellion is the signature sword for Dante. And by that same token, most fans don't have any idea that Yamato was an unlockable weapon all the way back from the first game because it's just so iconic as Vergil's signature blade.

Pretty cool, I think.

[fantastic-nonsense]

Charting out Shiva's "backstories" (or rather, vaguely implied backstories) throughout the years and how Tate Brombal's new History of Shiva in Batgirl 2024 impacts Shiva, Cass, and their relationship moving forward:

After Batgirl #8's publication today, I thought I'd take a look at what pieces of Shiva's history were previously depicted before now and how Tate Brombal has changed things (or kept them the same)...just to see what he did and didn't do in context of Shiva and Cassandra's history. I have a lot of thoughts on how he's approached this given what little we actually knew about Shiva going in and how messed up Cassandra's own history still is, so let's dive right in!

1975: Denny O'Neil writes Shiva in Richard Dragon as someone who has no backstory. She's here to kick ass, take names, and avenge her sister; her backstory, where and how long she trained for, etc. is irrelevant. Sandra's sister Carolyn is killed by the Swiss in a getaway chase between Richard Dragon and the Swiss, and Shiva comes after Richard because the guy who hired the Swiss convinced her Richard was responsible for it.

The two shreds of Woosan Sisters backstory we do get: 1) Carolyn has an uncle named 'Shiruto', a weapons developer who kills himself rather than reveal his secrets to the Swiss within two pages of his first appearance, and 2) Carolyn goes to school in New York City and is O-Sensei's goddaughter:

"I am Carolyn Woosan...the O-Sensei is my godfather!" -Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter (1975) #2

This is never elaborated on at any point after this comment and Shiva seemingly does not know who O-Sensei is when she and Richard track him down later in the series. Shiva has several adventures with Richard and Ben Turner within this book but is not mentioned again in the pre-Crisis universe after it ends. Within the actual source material, this is all we get of Shiva.

Then we start getting into the additional information and various changes that occurred post-Crisis:

1987: In the Who's Who in the DC Universe 1987 Update, after Denny O'Neil reintroduced Shiva in The Question, we get a Shiva write-up seemingly indicating that the entirety of Richard Dragon is still canon while also providing a few new shreds of Shiva backstory:

"After being convinced by criminal industrialist Guano Cravat that her sister Carolyn had been slain by Richard Dragon, Sandra Woosan swore to slay her sister's killer. She studied and prepared, taking the name Lady Shiva." ".....before transforming herself into Lady Shiva, Sandra had a basic knowledge of the martial arts. These skills were then honed to near perfection and she is now one of the deadliest fighters in the world." -Who's Who: Update '87

1991: the next Who's Who write-up of Shiva further implies that Richard Dragon is still canon and somewhat explicitly says that Shiva did not start studying martial arts until Carolyn was killed:

"Life presents many different paths and opportunities to a person. Sandra Woosan's life took a destructive path when Guano Cravat, a criminal industrialist, convinced her that martial artist/spy Richard Dragon killed her sister Carolyn. Motivated by revenge, Sandra dedicated her life to mastering the martial arts, hoping one day she could beat Dragon at his own game. Sandra became a master of many forms of combat and confronted Dragon." -Who's Who in the DC Universe (1990) #10

Both the 1987 and 1991 write-ups are extra-canonical material that are not, to my knowledge, mentioned anywhere in-text, and neither were written or directed to be written by Denny O'Neil. But like. They're there and ambiguously canon.

2004: Chuck Dixon writes Richard Dragon, a maxiseries that de-canonizes all previous information in favor of saying that Shiva met Richard at a fighting tournament in Japan while scouting for students. Richard, Ben, and Shiva's histories are all massively fucked up as a result of this maxi. While nothing is explicitly stated about Shiva's history, she mentions offhand near the beginning of the book that she has "unfinished business in Detroit," which leads us to...

2006: Andersen Gabrych writes Shiva in Batgirl as a girl who grew up with her sister Carolyn in Detroit. This is first mentioned in Batgirl #65 and then slightly elaborated on in Batgirl #73, in the process of retconning Shiva to be Cassandra's mother:

"We all knew each other. But there was one time...[Cain and Shiva walk away from a fight. He seems to be telling or asking her something. She shoves him and walks off]...never asked her about it. Me and Sandy weren't tight like that." "Wait. Sandy?" "Oh. Haha! Well, before she annointed herself Lady Shiva, she was just plain old Sandra Wu-San from Detroit." -Batgirl (2000) #65

Sandra and Carolyn are now both martial arts prodigies who trained constantly, fought together, and either a) trounced people on the competition circuit or b) put on fighting exhibitions that everyone came to see, depending on how you read and extrapolate from the two pages of story we get, which is how Cain found her:

"Long ago and far away...in the land of Detroit, lived two sisters. Though as different as night and day, they loved each other deeply. And more than that—they loved to dance. Every moment of the day was spent in lessons. They danced all through the night. They danced so much it became the secret language of sisters. The world had never seen anything like it. People would come from near and far to watch the sisters perform. People like the lonely hunter, Cain." -Batgirl (2000) #73

Cain kills Carolyn to "unleash Sandra's potential." Sandra goes after him in revenge and fails to kill him. Explicit sexual coercion happens (Cain gave her a 'give me a child or die' proposition with a gun to her head), Sandra trains with Cain until she has Cass, and then she goes off to "be reborn" as Shiva.

Batgirl is the first time we get any actual substantive Shiva background in-text post-Crisis. Her time working with Richard and Ben as part of the Kung-Fu Fighter Crew is now extra definitively non-canon, as even beyond Dixon's book there is no way to reconcile Cain killing Carolyn in Detroit with the events of KFF. O-Sensei is similarly not mentioned in any capacity. Carolyn has been slightly revamped from helpless damsel to someone who was theoretically capable but "got in the way." We still see none of it beyond a 7 page fairy tale-esque sequence that does a lot of victim-blaming of Sandra for taking Cain's deal to save her life. Moving on.

2007: Gail Simone writes Shiva in Birds of Prey as someone who may or may not have grown up in an unidentified, purposefully hidden "Southeast Asian village." Regardless of whether she grew up there, that's certainly where she "became Shiva," training under the brutal woman known only as "Mother." Carolyn is not mentioned. Simone implies that the Detroit backstory established in Batgirl is also somewhat true:

"This is the agreement we made. To trade life experiences." ... "Why here, Shiva? I'd heard you grew up in Detroit." "That is only part of the story." -Birds of Prey (1999) #93

However, Simone's new backstory (if taken as true, which is not necessarily the case, because nothing is definitively stated at any point) completely contradicts Gabrych's backstory, as Mother implies that Shiva was raised in the village on multiple occasions:

"Just so you are aware, Tag...at four years of age, she cried out less than you did just now." -Birds of Prey #92

There is also an implied "there must always be a Shiva" element to this backstory, as Sin Lance was being groomed to become Shiva's successor before Dinah dropped in.

Generally, I think a reasonable explanation, given the sequence of canon events, is that you can fit this village into Shiva's post-Crisis backstory if you assume it's where Sandra at least partially trained to become Shiva after leaving Cain and Baby!Cass. So Mother credits herself as Shiva's "mother" because it is where Sandra died and Shiva was born. But that's an assumption and not anything definitively backed up by canon.

Fast forward to...

2015-2018: Cassandra is reintroduced into post-Flashpoint continuity during the events of Batman and Robin Eternal. Shiva is not mentioned. When Shiva does finally appear in Tynion's Detective Comics Rebirth run, her backstory and relationship with Cain is not elaborated on beyond the fact that she "had no idea what David Cain did with her daughter" and wanted to see if Cass was "worth her time." We get one tiny tidbit from Ra's taunting Shiva that hints that the Batgirl-era Detroit backstory is possibly canon, but that's it:

"Sandra Wu-San. Searching so hard to find what she lost back in Detroit. But instead losing more and more of herself until there was nothing left. Nothing but Shiva." -Detective Comics (2016) #956

2019: Bryan Hill writes Shiva in Batman and the Outsiders as someone who now vaguely grew up in a village in China. Apparently this village used to be full of assassins but is now a village of farmers:

"As I recall, you were born in a small Chinese village. Once a place of assassins. Now a land of farmers." -Batman and the Outsiders (2019) #12

There is no elaboration on whether it was still an assassin training ground when Shiva lived there or if it was already a farming village by the time she was born. This is a brand new backstory that completely contradicts Gabrych's Detroit backstory (which had been previously hinted at in Tynion's Tec run) and largely contradicts Simone's possible village backstory...and only Detroit is even remotely reconcilable with Cassandra's New 52 backstory. Shiva also does a complete about-face from Tynion's portrayal of her; she now thinks of Bruce as someone who "took" Cassandra from her and seemingly desperately wants to be a mother to her. This portrayal continues into Batgirls and more recent books.

2022-2023: Che Grayson explicitly names this Chinese village as 'Duoyishu Village' in Batman: Urban Legends #3:

[Location stamp stating 'Duoyishu Village, China'] -Batman: Urban Legends (2021) #3

We have no idea how long the girls lived there with their parents, what their life in the village was like, and no clue what happened in between then and now other than the tidbit that Shiva has very few memories of her childhood and loved her mother's pork belly:

"Memories...you know, I don't remember much from when I was a child." -Urban Legends #3

Grayson also continues the throughline established by Hill in Outsiders and Cloonan/Conrad in Batgirls of Shiva seeing Bruce as someone who "took Cassandra from her" in both this story and the "Memory Lane" Birds of Prey story in Urban Legends #14-16.

Then Kelly Thompson reintroduced Sin Lance in Birds of Prey (2023), largely wholesale; this means that Dinah and Shiva's "life experience swap" arc from Simone's BOP run is canon again...and implicitly, Simone's potential Shiva backstory. We also have Alyssa Wong, who wrote Spirit World (2023) and effectively re-canonized the entirety of Batgirl (2000) in the process. So both Detroit and "Asia" are both actively on the Shiva multiple choice backstory menu; any pre-2004 conceptulization of Sandra as a "normal girl" who never really knew martial arts before Carolyn died? Seemingly off the table.

By this point, the events of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter have not been canon since (generously) at least 2004. Shiva now has four largely contradictory origin story hints, three of which are ambiguously canon and none of which have been expanded upon enough to actually say anything useful about Sandra, Carolyn, Cassandra, their relationships with each other, or their collective past. Cass's own backstory is also still a royal mess with all of the nonsense that happened with her between 2006 and 2023.

Cue Batgirl 2024 and Tate Brombal, who for the first time sat down and told Shiva's story in her own words. In this new interpretation, we get a solid mixture of old and new that's been put into a blender:

Ming-Yue and Mei-Xing's parents were a forbidden romance from rival sects, the Blood and the Unburied. They lived as nomads in China, including in Duoyishu Village, until they were killed by Wu Feng (leader of The Blood and the father's brother) in the Tibetan Himalayas. They were then raised and trained by Akhu and a group of monks, hidden away in "a small village in the Himalayas" until the Blood attacked.

After leaving the village post-Blood attack, Mei and Yue traveled the world for a few years, mastering various combat forms and martial arts, and finally landed in in Detroit, where they took the American names Carolyn and Sandra and started putting on exhibition fights. We then get the Batgirl-era backstory of them continuing to dance, fight, and perform for crowds as a travelling act and being seen by Cain.

Brombal then does some timeline shenanigans, making Sandra and Carolyn crimefighters once they meet Richard Dragon and Ben Turner, adding Carolyn to the Kung-Fu fighter team and fully re-canonizing everything from the 1975 Richard Dragon series post-Shiva's introduction (for the first time in 20 years+) so they can all work and chill together before everything goes to shit.

Cain, who has been stalking Sandra for some time, makes a creepy af proposition to her in a dark alley. She refuses. He states that he knew she would, which is why he's already removed Carolyn from the equation. She rushes home, and together with Richard and Ben finds Carolyn dead and left for her to find. And this is where we've left off, with the final part of the story (Shiva and Cain) seemingly left for the final part of this three-part arc.

So. Where does this leave us with Shiva? Well, let's start with a look at what Brombal seemingly took from Shiva's various other canon lore drops:

Shiva was born and at least partially raised in a Chinese village as a young girl before their parents' deaths (Batman and the Outsiders, Urban Legends),

Sandra and Carolyn were raised and taught by Akhu, implied to be the O-Sensei (the man who trained Richard and Ben in Kyoto, Japan), in an unidentified southeast Asian village located somewhere in the Himalayas (possibly calling back to Simone's potential backstory in Birds of Prey). They call him "practically a godfather," calling back to Carolyn's lore drop in RDKFF #2

Sandra and Carolyn lived in Detroit for some time (re: Batgirl #73),

Sandra and Carolyn danced and fought together for years, to the point of being able to work together seamlessly (Batgirl #73)

Cain finding Shiva through Sandra and Carolyn's exhibition matches in Detroit, seeing potential in Sandra and thinking Carolyn holds her back, and killing Carolyn and leaving her body for Sandra to find (Batgirl #73)

The entirety of the events of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter (1975) post-Shiva's introduction, excepting the specifics of Carolyn's death (which he takes largely wholesale from Batgirl #73 while changing the timeline so it occurs during the time Sandra was working with Richard and Ben rather than before),

Richard Dragon's name, look, and general pre-O-Sensei backstory from Dixon's Richard Dragon run, with the caveat that all of the nonsense about Ben training Richard got thrown out the window in favor of the OG Richard Dragon interpretation of both Richard and Ben being trained by O-Sensei

……also the Richard/Shiva implications from both the 1975 Richard Dragon run (where it was mostly a couple of jokes Ben makes at Richard's expense) and Dixon's 2004 Richard Dragon maxi (which makes Richard kind of obsessed with her)

And now a look at what's new: Sandra and Carolyn Wu-San not being the girls' birth names, the family history with the Unburied and the Blood, the defined adolesence in the Himalayas, the nomadic life post-China and pre-Detroit, Carolyn being part of the Kung-Fu Fighter crew (+her relationship with Ben), and the timeline shenanigans to re-canonize RDKFF while also keeping Shiva's Batgirl-era backstory intact. Also new: Carolyn having a personality, Sandra and Carolyn's rather complex familial relationship, and Sandra's hunger for vengeance pre-dating Carolyn's murder.

So. What are my thoughts on all of this?

First off, I really love the reinvention of the Kung Fu Fighter crew. It solves a lot of timeline issues, leaves the door open for someone to truly update those stories for the modern day, and fixes 3.5 characters in one go (giving Richard and Ben their proper histories and personalities back, giving Carolyn something to do outside of die in Richard's arms, and giving Shiva her crimefighting era back, inserting the moral ambiguity back into her history rather than making her a flat villain like she has been so often for the past 25 years), so I'm not mad about it at all.

I'm happy Brombal is giving Shiva a life, voice, and perspective outside of 'Shiva The Mother' and 'Shiva the Villain.' Shiva the daughter and Shiva the sister are not things that have ever been explored before! I also genuinely love the work being put in to make Carolyn an actual character, especially the page-time dedicated to showcasing Sandra and Carolyn as two women who have a complex relationship and long history outside of Carolyn's fridging and Sandra becoming Shiva in response. It gives us a real look into why Carolyn's murder was the catalyst for Sandra becoming Shiva, and I think it's a very effective one.

Mei has opinions that put her in conflict with Yue; she's more peace-loving and disciplined in general than Yue, but less willing to keep her head down and look the other way when injustice is happening. She doesn't like combat as much as Yue even though she's better at it. She clearly feels parentified by her mother's last charge to look after her younger sister. She likes boys more and wants to proactively help people and move on from her past in a way that Yue is simply incapable of thinking about. It's a really fascinating glimpse into Carolyn as a person and her relationship with Sandra.

I'm also a huge fan of Brombal seemingly doubling down on unpacking the implications of Cain's "proposition" to Sandra in Batgirl #73 when she tracks him down for revenge and fails to kill him:

"I want what you want. Perfection. To help you meet your target. The power and ability to put the world in its place...vengeance against the man who killed your parents. All I ask for is one thing. For years, I have been developing the perfect weapon, the perfect...killer. But failure after failure has only proven [he touches Sandra's stomach] the importance of good stock." -Batgirl (2024) #8)

He previously implied that Shiva hated Cain and the entire situation surrounding Cass's birth, but that one was a lot more ambiguous:

"I know what I am, and I know you hate it. But that old woman, Ba Bao, she said that there is soft and there is hard. Well, somewhere along the way, I lost my soft, and I now realize it was when I had you. You took all my soft, daughter. I held you in my arms, and I saw it. I saw my sister, too. And perhaps I hated you for it. Perhaps I wanted to hate you for it. To make it easier to leave you with that—that man." -Batgirl (2024) #4

Personally, this is a fantastic and very welcome change in my book. The only time we've ever gotten the story of Shiva and Cain was a victim-blamey 7 page sequence in the last issue of Batgirl (2000), where Shiva implies that she appreciated him "unlocking her potential" as a fighter and "setting her free" from Carolyn despite also explicitly stating that she still missed Carolyn every day. While I don't AGREE with the interpretation that Shiva actually genuinely loved Cain at all and think it's an incredible simplification of what Shiva actually told Cass, it's very easy to walk away with that vibe if you don't dig into it much, so I'm super happy to see a writer willing to actually unpack all that.

We've also never gotten any attempt to deal with the implications of Cass knowing that history, as Cass spent most of that issue fighting Shiva and leaving her for dead dangling over the Lazarus Pit and then the Evil Cass arc happened...so absolutely nothing in that last arc about Cass finding out Shiva was her mom and the origins of how she came to be got unpacked or dealt with. And then her backstory was fucked over during the New 52 (something that still hasn't actually been fixed and dealt with), so she didn't know about it all over again!

Overall I'm mixed on the various childhood stuff, specifically the inclusions of the Unburied and the Blood. It's always fun to see new cool secret warrior groups, especially ones unconnected to the League of Assassins (which modern DC loves to use as an umbrella assassin group instead of 'one among many'), and their inclusion in Shiva's backstory is very obviously a set-up for one of the things that Brombal wants to have Cass deal with moving forward. This is his way of expanding Cass's world beyond Gotham and beyond Nyssa's League of Assassins sect. I think I'm withholding full judgement until I see where he goes with it, and whether my theories that a) the groups will be used to explain Shiva's odd capacity for healing and b) Wu Lin (the Bloodmaster introduced in Batgirl #4) will be revealed to be Shiva's cousin—and Cass's second cousin—actually pan out.

What I'm not a fan of: Sandra having a hunger for vengeance prior to Carolyn's murder, having dream premonitions of Carolyn's death and becoming Shiva, and brazenly dictating all of this history to Cass via a post-mortem diary and saying she trusts her with her life and her vengeance. I do think it defeats the purpose of "Shiva" for it to be an inevitable conclusion for Sandra instead of an avoidable tragedy, and I dislike the concept of Shiva being anything other than in love with danger and in love with living life on the edge during the Kung-Fu Fighter era. While the rest of it certainly has its place in Shiva's life, the jaded perspective and Batgirl-era death wish should have come later, after Cain. I also think she trusts Cass far too much considering their history up to that point, but I'm willing to give some grace on that front since it's a plot device.

Generally speaking, I find that Brombal's Lady Shiva is a Sandra that generally follows from what we've seen of her since 2006, a Lady Shiva that's clearly couched in an attempt to deal with 50 years and three universes worth of history, and a Shiva-and-Cass relationship that encompasses basically the totality of everything that's been done with them since they first met in Batgirl (2000) #7, including the work done since the 2019 Outsiders run.

While that's not necessarily my preferred interpretation of Shiva or her relationship with Cass, it's also not one that Brombal is inventing out of thin air for the sake of a story. He's obviously very well-read on both Shiva and Cass and is trying to reconcile all of the various contradictory aspects of what's been handed to us in canon regarding Shiva's history and her behavior towards Cassandra. This is very difficult considering that 50 years and three continuities have happened since Richard Dragon #5 and Brombal clearly has his own story that he wants to tell with both Shiva and Cass.

I think just like all other previous attempts to tell both Shiva's story and Cass's story....some of it worked, some of it didn't. But overall I generally loved the issue and think it was pretty well done considering what Brombal had to work with. I'm super interested to see how he tackles Cass's reactions to all of this and what impact it has on her perspective of her mother moving forward. The whole 'Mother' arc, after all, was ultimately about Cass trying to reconcile who she thought Shiva was with who Shiva actually is in the context of her own life and history with her, and then setting up a new emotional status quo for both women. And we're finally past the set-up, so I'm really looking forward to the payoff.

[just-ornstein]

[JK]  My first job was as an Assistant Producer for a video game company called Interplay in Irvine, CA. I had recently graduated from Boston University's School of Fine Arts with an MFA in Directing (I started out as a theatre nerd), but also had some limited coding experience and a passion for computers. It didn't look like I'd be able to make a living directing plays, so I decided to combine entertainment and technology (before it was cool!) and pitched myself to Brian Fargo, Interplay's CEO. He gave me my first break. I packed up and moved out west, and I've been producing games ever since.

[JK] I loved my time at EA. I was there for almost a full decade, and learned a tremendous amount about game-making, and met the most talented and driven people, who I remain in touch with today. EA gave me many opportunities, and never stopped betting on me. I worked on The Sims for nearly 5 years, and then afterwards, I worked on console action games as part of the Visceral studio. I was the Creative Director for the 2007 game "The Simpsons", and was the Executive Producer and Creative Director for the 2009 game "Dante's Inferno".

[JK] I haven't played in a long while, but I do recall that after the game shipped, my wife and I played the retail version for some time -- we created ourselves, and experimented with having a baby ahead of the actual birth of our son (in 2007). Even though I'd been part of the development team, and understood deeply how the simulation worked, I was still continually surprised at how "real" our Sims felt, and how accurate their responses were to having a baby in the house. It really felt like "us"!

Now for some of the development and lore related questions:

[JK] So I ended up in the incredibly fortunate position of creating the shipping neighborhoods for The Sims 2, and recruiting a few teammates to help me as we went along. 

Around the same time, we started using the Buy/Build tools to make houses we could save, and also bring them into each new build of the game (correcting for any bugs and incompatibilities). With the import tool, we could load Sims into these houses. In time, this "vanguard QA" process turned into a creative endeavor to define the "saved state" of the neighborhoods we would actually end up shipping with the game.

On playtesting & the leftover sims data on various lots:

Basically, we were in the late stages of development, and the Save Game functionality wasn't quite working. In order to test the game properly, you really needed to have a lot of assets, and a lot of Sims with histories (as if you'd been playing them for weeks) to test out everything the game had to offer. So I started defining a set of characters in a spreadsheet, with all their tuning variables, and worked with engineering to create an importer, so that with each new build, I could essentially "load" a kind of massive saved game, and quickly start playing and testing. 

It was fairly organic, and as the game's functionality improved, so did our starter houses and families. 

The thought process behind the creation of the iconic three neighborhoods:

I would not say it was particularly planned out ahead of time. We knew we needed a few saved houses to ship with the game; Sims 1, after all, had the Goth house, and Bob Newbie's house. But there wasn't necessarily a clear direction for what the neighborhood would be for Sims 2. We needed the game to be far enough along, so that the neighborhood could be a proper showcase for all the features in the game. With each new feature that turned alpha, I had a new tool in my toolbox, and I could expand the houses and families I was working on. Once we had the multi-neighborhood functionality, I decided we would not just have 1 starter neighborhood, but 3. With the Aging feature, Memories, a few wacky objects, plus a huge catalog of architectural and decorative content, I felt we had enough material for 3 truly distinct neighborhoods. And we added a couple of people to what became the "Neighborhood Team" around that time.

Later, when we created Strangetown, and eventually Veronaville, I believe we went back and changed Pleasantville to Pleasantview... because I liked the alliteration of "Verona-Ville", and there was no sense in having two "villes". (To this day, by the way, I still don't know whether to capitalize the "V" -- this was hotly debated at the time!)

Pleasantview:

Anyway, to answer your question, we of course started with Pleasantview. As I recall, we were not quite committed to multiple neighborhoods at first, and I think it was called Pleasantville initially, which was kind of a nod to Simsville... but without calling it Simsville, which was a little too on the nose. (There had also been an ill-fated game in development at Maxis at the time, called SimsVille, which was cancelled.) It's been suggested that Pleasantville referred to the movie, but I don't think I ever saw that movie, and we just felt that Pleasantville kind of captured the feeling of the game, and the relaxing, simple, idyllic world of the Sims.

Pleasantview started as a place to capture the aging feature, which was all new to The Sims 2. We knew we had toddlers, teens, and elders to play with, so we started making families that reflected the various stages of family life: the single mom with 3 young kids, the parents with two teens, the old rich guy with two young gold-diggers, etc. We also had a much greater variety of ethnicity to play with than Sims 1, and we had all new variables like sexual orientation and memories. All these things made for rich fodder for a great diversity of families. Then, once we had family trees, and tombstones that carried the actual data for the dead Sims, the doors really blew open. We started asking ourselves, "What if Bella and Mortimer Goth could be characters in Sims 2, but aged 25 years? And what if Cassandra is grown up? And what if Bella is actually missing, and that could be a fun mystery hanging over the whole game?" And then finally the "Big Life Moments" went into the game -- like weddings and birthdays -- and we could sort of tee these up in the Save Game, so that they would happen within the first few minutes of playing the families. This served both as a tutorial for the features, but also a great story-telling device.

Anyway, it all just flowed from there, as we started creating connections between families, relationships, histories, family trees, and stories that we could weave into the game, using only the simulation features that were available to us. It was a really fun and creative time, and we wrote all of the lore of Sims 2 within a couple of months, and then just brought it to life in the game.

Strangetown:

Strangetown was kind of a no-brainer. We needed an alternate neighborhood for all the paranormal stuff the Sims was known for: alien abduction, male pregnancy, science experiments, ghosts, etc. We had the desert terrain, which created a nice contrast to the lush Pleasantville, and gave it an obvious Area 51 vibe.

The fact that Veronaville is the oldest file probably reflects the fact that it was finished first, not that it was started first. That's my guess anyway. It was the simplest neighborhood, in many ways, and didn't have as much complexity in terms of features like staged big life moments, getting the abduction timing right, the alien DNA thing (which I think was somewhat buggy up until the end), etc.  So it's possible that we simply had Veronaville "in the can", while we put the last polish on Pleasantville (which was the first and most important neighborhood, in terms of making a good impression) and Strangeville (which was tricky technically).

Veronaville:

But my personal favorite was Veronaville. We had this cool Tudor style collection in the Build mode catalog, and I wanted to ship some houses that showed off those assets. We also had the teen thing going on in the aging game, plus a lot of romance features, as well as enemies. I have always been a Shakespeare buff since graduate school, so putting all that together, I got the idea that our third neighborhood should be a modern-day telling of the Romeo and Juliet story. It was Montys and Capps (instead of Montagues and Capulets), and it just kind of wrote itself. We had fun creating the past family trees, where everyone had died young because they kept killing each other off in the ongoing vendetta.

[JK] You know, I have never seen The Lone Gunmen, and I don't remember making any kind of direct references with the Strangetown Sims, other than the general Area 51 theme, as you point out. Charles London helped out a lot with naming Sims, and I'm pretty sure we owe "Vidcund" and "Lazlo" to him ... though many team members pitched in creatively. He may have had something in mind, but for me, I largely went off of very generic and stereotypical ideas when crafting these neighborhoods. I kind of wanted them to be almost "groaners" ... they were meant to be tropes in every sense of the word. And then we snuck in some easter eggs. But largely, we were trying to create a completely original lore.

[JK] Well, I think we kind of pushed it with The Sims 2, to be honest, and I remember getting a little blow-back about Bunny Broke, for example. Bunny Broke was the original name for Brandi Broke. Not everyone found that funny, as I recall, and I can understand that. It must have been changed before we shipped.

We also almost shipped the first outwardly gay Sims in those neighborhoods, which was bold for EA back in 2004. My recollection was that we had set up the Dreamers to be gay (Dirk and Darren), but I'm looking back now and see that's not the case. So I'm either remembering incorrectly (probably) or something changed during development.

In general we just did things that we found funny and clever, and we just pulled from all the tropes of American life.

[JK] The alien abduction started in Sims 1, with a telescope object that was introduced in the "Livin' Large" expansion pack. That's when some of the wackier ideas got introduced into the Sims lore. That pack shipped just before I joined Maxis in 2001; when I got there, the team had shipped "House Party" and was underway on "Hot Date". So I couldn't tell you how the original idea came about, but The Sims had this 50's Americana vibe from the beginning, and UFOs kind of played right into that. So the alien abduction telescope was a no-brainer to bring back in Sims 2. The male pregnancy was a new twist on the Sims 1 telescope thing. It must have been that the new version (Sims 2) gave us the tech and flexibility to have male Sims become pregnant, so while this was turned "off" for the core game, we decided to take advantage of this and make a storyline out of it. I think this really grew out of the fact that we had aliens, and alien DNA, and so it was not complicated to pre-bake a baby that would come out as an alien when born. The idea of a bunch of guys living together, and then one gets abducted, impregnated, and then gives birth to an alien baby ... I mean, I think we just all thought that was hilarious, in a sit-com kind of way. Not sure there was much more to it than that. Everything usually came from the designers discovering ways to tweak and play with the tech, to get to funny outcomes.

[JK] Possibly we were just testing the functionality of the Wants/Fears and Memories systems throughout development, and some stuff got left over.

[JK] I can't remember, but that sounds like something we would have done! I'm pretty sure we laid the groundwork for more stories that we ended up delivering :) But The Sims 2 was a great foundation for a lot of continued lore that followed.

--

I once again want to thank Jonathan Knight for granting me this opportunity and taking the time from his busy schedule to answer my questions.

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

Pornography Addiction

Recently our post on the behavour of Capital-G Gamers, and the problems in the industry that feed into it, attracted a lot of comments advising not to use "porn addict". Some claiming the term was invented by right-wing Christian groups.

It is certainly true that there are various right-wing and/or Christian groups do claim pornography addiction as a reason to revoke basic human rights, further marginalize sex workers, and justify violence against sex workers... that doesn't mean they invented it.

Like most things the radical right relies upon, they co-opted it from a group they have contempt for. Nazis co-opted the Swastika from Buddhism, shitty men on Reddit co-opted involuntary celibacy terminology from a bisexual woman, right-wing pseudo-academics tried to co-opt diversity with their "diversity of thought" campaign... and hateful Christian groups are trying to co-opt expertise on behavioural addictions (sex, gambling, shopping, pornography, etc as opposed to substance addtions) from psychology.

It's worth examining how this is working with pornography and the ways it ties in with the various fashy parties determined to rule the world we all live in.

Actual Pornography Addiction

Actual pornography addiction has its roots in similar addictions such as gambling - it is a situation where the individual becomes obsessed with it as a source of positive feelings, to the detriment of themselves and those around them.

Symptoms of it include a full blown obsession, a loss of interest in other enjoyable activities, spending money needed for essentials on the focus of the addiction, engaging it under risk circumstances (such as while at a job that you really need to keep), suffering anxiety and frustration when unable to indulge, etc.

Importantly, with these kinds of addictions, they are often not really about what what they appear to be. People get addicted sometimes because it's a reliable source of dopamine hits, or because it provides an escape from harsh realities around them, etc. Taking the focus of the addiction away does not fix the underlying cause, and often leads to them finding a substitute addiction.

So, if you say... for the sake of argument, you have a group of people who actively identify as "gooners", remember a porn parody of Lola Bunny as the "real" design, obsess over a single game because it has some sexy skins, make 9/11 jokes and riot when a quality of life feature prevents them from looking up video game girl skirts, and all the points in the original post (including want to fap to a character who is defined by how she's been abused by men)... it's not unreasonable to point out they do seem to be advertising to the world that they are current or aspiring pornography addicts. Particularly since their outrage is rarely about what they actually claim it is about.

How much it applies to any given member of that community is impossible to say, as the whole group is irony poisoned and also obsessed with performative behaviour.

And as a side note, if someone dear to you has similar behavior, whether its in relation to porn, sex, gambling, video games, or anything else - then it is generally considered the compassionte thing to try to get them to realize it and work towards addressing both the addiction and any underlying causes in their life.

Right-wing "Pornography Addiction"

When people who have nothing but contempt for psychology and sex therapists say "porn addiction" or "sex addiction" they are villifying sex workers and objectified persons, blaming them for the violence done against them and completely unrelated ills in society.

They consider it "addiction" if you develop a crush on someone other than your spouse, have normal sexual fantasies, occasionally want to enjoy pornography, are curious about visiting a strip bar or even just masturbate... under any circumstances.

They are closer to anti-pornography than concerned for addiction, and has a long, long history. I would hope BABD followers would be aware we are definitely not anti-porn and we actively support sex workers.

Obviously, the real goal is to give them more control and more avenues to suppress people. This is clearly illustrated in the ways Project 2025 both wants to outlaw pornography and define "transgender ideology" as pornograpy. You can see between the lines, the goal isn't to make people better, the goal is to criminalize the existence of people they look down on.

Also, the solutions they propose clearly don't help anyone and they know that - South Korea has strict anti-porn laws, and the "gooner" community mistake it for a porny wonderland. Again, they don't want to help anyone, they just want to hurt people they do not like.

The harm of co-opting

At face value, it's easy to see why the proposed solution to this is just to say it's not real, it's right-wing nonsense, etc.

But that creates two problems. First it means there's people with a problem that is being denied, and secondly it kind of ignores the real overall goals by missing the forest for the trees.

People whose lives are harmed by behavioural addiction need a framework to be able to address it, and need other people to take it seriously and not just dismiss it as "made up". This applies to gambling, shopping, gaming and pornography.

Think about it, when was the last time you saw a swastika on display as a symbol of positivity? Think "incel" is ever coming back to the LGBTQ people who struggle to find people accepting of them?

Secondly, the reactionaries co-opting it are not "making up" a boogieman. They're not that imaginative and they're much, much more dishonest and malicious.

They're actively spreading misinformation in an attempt to gain for authoritarian power to use to harm people. They're actively trying to undermine the work people have done to help people, stripping the actual research away and placing themselves as the authority on a topic of public wellbeing that they see only as a cudgel.

Because they won't stop at just claiming to be the experts on pornography addiction, they'll claim to be the experts on gambling, drugs, alcohol, gaming, shopping, etc. All their advice will be what's convenient for them, and their friends.

Same way all kinds of psychological concepts get co-opted into torturing people under the claim of conversion therapy (which does not and has never worked, in any capacity), often in the name of profit as well as oppression.

So my recommendation is be less concerned about the term appearing, and more concerned about whether it is in the context of warning people their obsession is harmful - or just trying to trick people into agreeing to authoritarian control.

-wincenworks

[sierrale8ne]

AMERICAN WEDDING 001. THE WIN you’ll probably leave later anyways, that’s love made in the usa. pairing paige bueckers x black!oc ( kayden kennedy ) warnings 3.7k words, flashback, brief mentions of homophobia lena talks chapter one finally here! enjoy, more coming soon xx

present day april 2025

When Kayden Kennedy was nine, she sat on her fathers lap on a plane ride to Kolkata. She looked over the water, wondering to herself why there was so much ocean. A year later, it was Baghdad, then Istanbul. She couldn’t remember a solid second where she wasn’t moving— where she wasn’t running off and following her father on the journey of his career.

It’s where she grew her love for history.

The large statues, the Seven Wonders of The World, the history. Many would see these places and be star-struck, amazed by the beauty in front of them. But Kayden was different, she was delighted by the how. How did these people get here, how were they brought up, how did they believe that this— this pyramid or this ancient pot— was a symbol of their culture. As she grew older it developed into why they were colonized. And then as she really learned the meaning of the word war, why did these people fight back. Or even, why did they give up.

The rich history of the world interested her always. Like this morning. 

She had woken up at six. The gym waited for her at seven-thirty, where she very attentively listened to an NPR podcast about the tragedies in Gaza. When she got home—nine-thirty on the dot— she changed, showered, ate her breakfast of toast and avocado and sausage while reading The Women by Kristen Hannah. 

By 11 she was cleaning the kitchen and at one she was seated on her couch, laptop open as she began to grade the last of her student’s fourth quarter projects: The Mexican-American War.

Kayden would like to think it wasn’t on purpose, how her job seemingly found its way into every aspect of her life when she wasn’t even trying. But then again, she sought out the knowledge. She wanted to grow her brain, fill it with as much information as she could until she was like a human encyclopedia. Which in all honesty she was, thanks to her eidetic memory.

But something about knowing everything and yet still knowing nothing at all excited her, as nerdy as it seemed. It allowed her to imagine another universe where things changed, where lives could be different.

Like how maybe, in another life, she’s watching her ex girlfriend play in person, and not on the comfort of her couch.

In a strange turn of events, the once persistent and completely attentive Kayden was distracted by something greater. Something heavier that weighed on her moral scale. Something she couldn’t quite name, but could feel on her chest. Almost like a boulder.

Kayden pushed buttons, almost like a second nature. 

Guide. Channels. ABC. 2025 NCAA Women’s tournament championship game.

Kayden had watched here and there. The burn of the bold UCONN letters ate her alive from time to time. She should’ve been there. In the stands cheering or in the library helping Paige study. That was the plan. Their plan. 

There were times when she let her mind wonder. To how Paige was doing, or if she’d thought about her as much as Kayden tended to think about her. When Paige got injured sophomore year, Kayden had hurt a bit. And when she tore her ACL she wanted to wrap Paige in her arms like when they were young and just tell her that it would be okay. 

She’d never say it out loud, though.

Kayden watched the whole game. Not missing a second. She felt like a high school student again, forced between a sweaty guy who didn’t care and a sweatier one who cared way too much. 

She saved face. Never faltering with a smile or a loud cheer. More for herself than anyone else (as she was alone in her apartment).

A Google Slides presentation is open on the coffee table in front of her, red pen balanced on top, forgotten. Because this, this is way more important. Even if she promised for these grades to be finalized by the start of class tomorrow. Paige, who’s having just a bit of an off shooting game, is playing in a game that could define the rest of her career and that just just occupies a larger place in her brain than James Polk and Ulysses S. Grant. 

So Kayden curled up on the couch in an oversized hoodie, her glasses slipping a little down her nose. A bottle of water sweats on the side table. And the game should make her sweat too but she couldn’t. Not even close.

By the start of the fourth quarter– the one of the game she’s been pretending not to watch, but has been glued to for the last hour– the Huskies are leading by 22. Paige’s teammates are killing it. A Sarah Strong layup here, an Azzi Fudd three there (which she does cheer for because she remembers talking to the girl about this dream in hotel room in 2018).

And then she hears the broadcast loud and clear. “Bueckers back door… puts it in! Plus the foul! It’s raining blue in Tampa.” Kayden’s eyes snap to the screen. Her breath catches.

Not because of her name, or even the fact that she just contorted her body and got the bucket. 

But the weight of this, the impending win. The fact that the woman she’d once married, is about to have her dreams come true all these years later, just makes Kayden’s heart swell a bit more. Beat a bit faster. 

The screen flashes in slow motion: celebrating fans, screaming teammates, Paige on the floor with a grin that hasn’t changed in five years. Kayden doesn’t smile. She exhales like she’s been holding that breath since the day she walked out.

flashback july 2019

My hands fumble with my phone, simultaneously trying to slip my feet into the confines of my black Doc Martens. My socks stick out loosely, white, frills on the edges. Just enough innocence to really make the moment. 

pb 🪼 I’m down the street Hurry before your mom starts asking questions

At that, I scramble. Pen, check. Change of clothes, check. Proper lie shoved into my back pocket, double check. I brush over my skirt, tugging down the hem of my tight white shirt in an attempt to cover the tiny stick and poke tattoo that came from drunk dares and an adventurous summer evening with Paige and Jalen.

k 🔐 coming!

I shove open my bedroom door, shoes heavy against the hardwood floor. The summer sun spills in against the grain, soft breeze blowing through the curtains. It’s beautiful, which only makes me speed up to get outside to an impossibly more beautiful girl. The kitchen smells like burnt coffee and lemon-scented cleaner, which makes me all the more excited to get out into the real world outside of this house.

“Where you headed?” 

My mom Marianne’s voice cuts in through the hum of the kitchen. She sits on the couch, legs outstretched with reading glasses perched on her nose and a book resting in her lap. She doesn’t look up, her voice doesn’t even have its usual lilt to it. And I know I’m in the clear.

“The Lake. Then Lauren’s house.” I lie, only partially though, because going to Paige’s cousin’s house after was part of our well thought out plan.

She hums, eyes glued to the book. “You sure that’s a good idea? I heard it was supposed to rain.” That’s code for Marianne Kennedy doesn’t want her daughter to go out at all. She’d rather I stay home where she can monitor me.

My voice trembles in the way that it does when I know I’m about to lie to her. “It’s fine. Paige is picking me up. She thinks we can beat it.” I shrug like it’s no big deal.

“Boys gonna be there?” She asks.

Her voice is filled with something else, and I know exactly what she means. She’s really asking if I'm hanging out with the only girl my age that the entire neighborhood knows is gay, or can she feel comfortable knowing that I’ll talk to a boy here and there. But she’d never say that outright, no, because my mother has an image to uphold. So she’ll ask it like that, and then throw a diss in a few seconds. 

You know, the usual lowkey homophobia.

“Yeah. Jalen and Chet are going, and some other guys in my homeroom too.” I continue. It’s the half truth. There might be boys somewhere, though I’m hoping to get married and dip before they get there. I’m not that interested in sticking around long enough to find out. My eyes dart out the window, seeing the blonde’s beat up red Cadillac sit parked against the sidewalk. 

Mom hums again, thoughtfully this time. Like she herself is thinking about whether or not she believes me or not. “Not that I’m worried about boys, with Paige around.” There it is, that diss I could feel coming like a spidey-sense of mine. I was a superhero, fighting off homophobia one mom at a time. “That girl’s always been… a little wild, no?”

Her words make me flinch and I get defensive fast. Like mom is a girl at school throwing darts and looking to hurt the one person who seems to understand me better than I try to understand myself.

“She’s just not fake.” I say.

I watch my mom put the book face down in her lap, interlocking her fingers to look at me. She’s so blinded by hate that she can’t even notice my choice of attire is ill-fitting for the lake. “There’s a difference between being real and being lost, Kayden.” 

“Ma, I—”

“You’re not like her. I raised you better than that.” She raises an eyebrow. Using that damn code language of hers to say check yourself.

My stomach knots. I shift my bag higher onto my shoulder, needing to move, needing to get out of here before I let her words break me and I crack. Paige is outside with a wedding license in hand and I’m here listening to my mother call her all the underlying homophobic names in the book.

I get quiet. “We’re just friends. I have to go.”

“Good.” Mom nods, flipping the book back around. “You’re a good girl. Don’t let anyone confuse you about that.” She says and I dart for the door handle. I grab my house keys from the hook, bidding her a goodbye like she didn’t just stab me and twist the knife.

The car ride was silent—talking wise. Lil Baby blasts from the speaker and the wind rushes in and out of the car so fast I feel like I’m free flying through the air.

Paige sat next to me, her hand occasionally brushing against my knee as if she wanted to see if I was still there. If I was still in it. I was. Who was I kidding? It’s the girl of my dreams sitting next to me with the brightest light in her blue eyes and the biggest smile, probably bigger than the one she shot me after winning state this year. 

She’s calm, like this isn’t the craziest idea in the world. Which in turn makes me calm, makes me throw everything that happened with my mom an hour ago out the window.

But now, sunlight flashes across the tile and I stand awkwardly against the wall. A courtroom clerk in front of me. The room is smaller than I thought it would be. Which is crazy considering the biggest event of my young 17 year old life is taking place here. 

She notices, she always does. Her keys hang from the pocket of her shorts. The marriage license folded clean in half on the other hand. 

“You sure about this?” Paige asks, her back pressing against the wall, shoulder snug against mine. She’s warm with the kind of heat that feels like she could set me on fire. 

I huff. “We’ve already driven this far. Lied to our parents.” The series of events bats around in my head. Then I look over to her, as calm as could be. Honestly, I don’t remember the last time Paige let me see her be even just a bit nervous. She’s always walking around with that attitude and confidence that made it seem like the world was hers.

She stares straight ahead, branding the courtroom into her brain. “Baby, I don’t wanna… force you into anything. If you wanna go home, tell me. We can get ice cream on the way back or something.” Paige rations trying to help me make sense of it all. It makes me laugh when I think about the cliche; I help her make sense of the real textbook stuff and she helps me when it comes to all the other impulsive things.

“Then we’d have to tell people we just talked about it. This is way more dramatic.” I joke, peering up at the 6’0 athlete with wide eyes and a grin. “I want to do this. Especially with you.” I admit. The clerk digs his eyes at the both of us. I can assume he’s thinking of how much he’s not getting paid enough to entertain two 17 year old girls with a marriage license.

I grab her hand, dragging us to the clerk. Adrenaline runs through my veins like a fire. Paige slides the sheet over the counter, and he looks over it all disinterested but prepared to let us go through with it anyway. 

“Sign here.” He orders, flipping the sheet over like it means nothing. 

I look up at my girlfriend, suddenly realizing that after this I get to call Paige Bueckers my wife. I’ll slide a cheap thrifted ring on her finger and then go to college with her in a year from now. It’s all going to happen the way we planned it. 

So I reach into my bag for the black pen I had brought from my stationary. My hand trembles slightly, everyday handwriting coming in a bit rough as the weight of it settles in my chest like something permanent. Then I hand it to Paige, who’s full of no nerves and a simple confidence to her. 

She takes it before looking down at me. “You sure you’re not gonna chicken out?” Paige had asked, half-grinning, half-terrified— but she’d never let me know that.

I squeezed her hand, grinning back. “I want to be yours.” I didn’t say forever — we didn’t talk about the future much. It was too scary. Too far away. Too… uncertain. Especially with a meddling mom and a girl who might love basketball more than her gir—wife.

The clerk speaks again in his low monotone. “By the authority vested in me by the state of Minnesota, I pronounce you wife and wife.” He stamps the sheet lazily, handing it over to Paige again and right then it hits me like a blow. I was really married.

To her.

And then she kisses me, slow and breathless, like she’s never done it before. She didn’t care about the eyes, and the feeling of her hands on my cheeks stopped me from caring either. My nose brushes against hers as Paige pulls back first, forehead pressed to mine.

“I—I have um. This.” I hold the ring box in my hand, square and suede. It’s a bit dirty from years of it belonging to someone else. But, I don’t care. The box cracks open under my pressure, the dull silver still gleaming in the light. “I figured rings make this, y’know. Official.” I stutter, sliding the ring onto Paige’s finger without hesitation.

“You’re really doing this with me?” Paige asks, her voice so small it almost broke my heart if she wasn’t so perfect.

I nodded. “Always.” 

“Good. Because I got you one too. It’s in the car.”

Later, after she put a pandora ring that she’d spent all her summer savings on, on my finger. We drove like nothing happened. Like we didn’t just make a lifelong commitment. Like my mom wasn’t at home praying that the reality of sin didn’t brush onto me from her. 

We split cash on Ice cream, her dad sent her some money for gas. Everything was perfect. Even the cicadas that screamed in our ears as Paige drove down the straight road. 

Lauren’s house came into view over the hills. The neighborhood was empty enough for us to pull in unnoticed. So Paige parks at the field a block behind the house, climbing into the trunk of the car and pushing the seats back to watch the stars come out. 

It’s where we sit now.

She manipulates her long legs so she fits perfectly. I fit into the curve of her body, my skirt occasionally brushing up in the late night breeze. Paige’s fingers trace lazy shapes over my shoulder.

The stars are bright tonight, twinkling like precious diamonds in rubble. I look over my shoulder at Paige, at how you can see the occasional gleam across her irises.

“Paige?” 

She blinks languidly, the deep brown of her lashes brush over the apples of her cheeks. Dusting them like a thousand little paint brushes. 

“Yeah, baby?” She responds. Voice as deep as a teenage girl could really have. It’s sultry, but full of that kind of love and energy I’ve been subjected to since we were younger.

“You think we’re gonna regret it?” I ask, half-asleep, voice thick with warmth.

Paige had smiled into my skin. “Maybe. Probably. Who cares? At least I’m doin’ it with you, right?” She hums. 

And then, as if nothing else in the world exists, she kisses me again. Softer. Quicker. For the hundredth time today. I smile, against her lips, laughter spilling between us like a river flow. 

Young. Dumb. Untouchable. And for a while, it felt like the whole world really did belong to us and no one else.

present day april 2025

Kayden’s chest ached with the memory of the past and the imagination of a different one too.

Her laptop had been pushed off to the side alongside stacks of rubrics, messily marked and written on—she'd been prepared to be completely focused, but she wasn’t ready for how long it would really take.

Or how easily she would get distracted.

The channel had only been changed once from ABC to SportsCenter. She sat frozen on her couch, the championship celebration playing out in front of her. Without her.

Paige was in the middle of it all — standing on the black platform, hat on her head and shirt hugging her damp and sweaty arms. The confetti stuck to her hair and skin, glittering like stars against her blonde. She was beaming, electric, so full of life that Kayden felt her own chest hollow out just watching her.

Kayden should have looked away. Should have turned the TV off and finished grading papers like a normal person who didn’t still orbit around a girl she hadn’t touched in five years. Oh but no. She stayed.

She watched as Paige ducked into a hug with her coach as emotional as she’s ever seen her, doing the same with every assistant, every trainer, every teammate. Paige beelined straight for the sidelines, arms open for the family members swarming the court.

Kayden watched, and a stupid, heavy ache twisted low in her stomach.

She couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t explain why she still felt this way — tethered, glued to Paige’s happiness like it had anything to do with her anymore. Which it didn’t. Paige had outgrown the small-town dreams they’d once whispered to each other in the dark. She had built a life bigger and better than anything they ever dared to plan. By the looks of it, she also had someone else to celebrate it with. Azzi. By her side, and grinning the whole time as Paige celebrated a little too hard for national television.

Kayden should have been nothing more than a footnote. A “remember when” if she even crossed Paige’s mind at all.

But sitting there in the flickering blue light, watching Paige take the mic for the post-game interview, Kayden knew the truth she’d never managed to choke down: she really really missed her.

Not all the time, not like an open wound anymore — but here and there, in the quiet spaces. In the slow Sunday mornings and empty passenger seats and songs on the radio that pulled her back without warning. Kayden missed Paige a year ago when she was moving to Dallas, emptying her college apartment, and seeing the ring in the same box it was given to her five years ago. 

She missed her when she saw two girls holding hands without fear. When she heard laughter in the breeze that sounded like the kind they used to share.

But more than anything she missed Paige now. Worse than she had in a long time.

On screen, Paige was laughing through tears, her voice still a little hoarse from shouting and ungodly amounts of celebration, when the reporter asked what she’d tell her younger self. Kayden leaned in without thinking, like the answer mattered more than it should.

“I’d tell her to hold on,” Paige said, smiling. “And trust that even the stupid stuff or the little things might matter more than she thinks.” The words that were simple, obvious even, landed like a punch straight to Kayden’s ribs.

She shut the TV off mid-response, plunging the room into thick, echoing silence.

Kayden stayed there for a long time, staring into the blank screen, the ghost of Paige’s smile burned into her mind.

Still married, a small voice inside her said.

Still hers, if she wanted to be.

Kayden buried her face in her hands, realizing that no matter what; that wasn’t her life anymore. It couldn’t be. And it was no one’s fault but her own. Maybe if she wasn’t so listening, so scared, so uniquely Kayden Kennedy. 

And yet, somewhere deep inside he — in the parts she’d spent five years trying to bury— she wondered if Paige had ever missed her too.

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[shorthaltsjester]

endlessly thinking thoughts about cr characters, morality, and selfishness (likely place for me to be, given that my day job includes endlessly researching ethics and meaning of life) but in light of bell’s hells most recent illustration of their insularity and individualism, I’ve been really like. Trying to unpack why I find it particularly egregious in this party when obviously mighty nein were notoriously self-interested, especially at the beginning, and when vox machina had quite a few moments where their horses were far higher than they had any reason to be. And again, I really want to make it clear her that I don’t hold self-interest or selfishness to be some abhorrent and unforgivable thing, in fact I think its incredibly normal especially given the context of main characters in a story told through game mechanics that flourish on the interest of the individuals making the choices. I’ve written before about how one of the throughlines that I’ve seen in laura’s pcs (since I’m someone who particularly enjoys looking at the moral outlooks characters develop) is a common thread of morality that’s highly dependent on their own interests. And like, this is a positive throughline to me! Without getting into my own views on morality, it is particularly compelling to me for characters with isolated upbringing (which applies to vex, jester, and imogen, each in different ways) to develop a moral code informed by that isolation, and in vex we see her moral code is ‘anything goes if it protects those I hold dear’, in jester we see a moral code that doesn’t care about morality as much as it cares about the chance to care and be cared for, and in imogen we see a moral code developed in response to her very unique experience of hearing the darkest parts of people and judging them on those (which to be clear, i am not judging her for that fact, I think it makes extreme sense for someone who hears the thoughts the people have to be horrified by those things, but it does mean her moral system is almost completely backwards, where intention holds more weight than action, which perhaps makes sense of the popularity of defending all of her ideas and choices and the Right Ones by certain parts of the fandom that insist leftism is hidden in the dnd real play). And that’s all to say that, out of the cr parties we’ve seen, I don’t think any single member of bell’s hells is uniquely more or less selfish or more or less of an asshole than previous characters. And in fact, I tend to be quite fond of selfish characters, I have a well documented history of cherishing them well beyond the cr fandom. But the point is that my calling something or someone self-interested is not a value judgement in this context, it's a descriptive claim about the traits a character exhibited.

Imogen, who has insisted time and time again re: the values of the accord that she would not be swayed by the temptation of predathos because she recognizes the importance of this fight, only to turn around and pretty immediately open herself up to predathos to fulfil the most threatening part of ludinus’ plan is self-interested. I cannot conceive of any other way to describe her choices. And her being self-interested doesn’t mean she can’t also be altruistic at times, but I will be clear that I don’t think her risking killing herself as she attempts to bring down the god-eater that she released is particularly selfless. In my best faith interpretation I’d say she’s pretty middle of the road in that choice. But I bring all this up because a comparison I’ve been seeing is that bell’s hells aren’t as mean as the mighty nein or even vox machina in certain moments and that it doesn’t make sense for the fandom to view bell’s hells as likely to be villains when the same wasn’t true of the previous two campaigns, and I think I have to pretty emphatically disagree, and not because I don’t think there aren’t moments in both campaigns that feature extremely high levels of assholery and villainry from pcs – I mean, some of my favourite cr characters are percy and jester, both of whom i’d say are ‘good guys’ due to the pure luck of the found familys they fell in with and both of whom often suggested plans that were. Not okay. To say the least. But ignoring the difference between suggesting fucked up plans and walking your god-eater infused bestie back towards the troops sent to support you in keeping that entity contained, the other big difference I’ve noticed in my own introspection on how I react to bh vs mn and vm, as well as which things i cherish about previous campaigns that were really missing from c3 to what I think is the story and the character’s detriment (staying away from the shape of the narrative, just because others have made posts that put words together better about that than I can) is that while members of vm and mn remained self-interest to the end of their campaigns and have reasserted those habits in appearances since, the parties as entities working in exandria had both, to echo ashton’s apt suggestion to ludinus, grown up.

Like one moment I think of is beau and fjord’s convo in the nein hells episode, because beau is being her asshole self and fjord is being his ‘I care about My People and I’ll think about the rest later’ self (i say affectionately but certain parts of the fandom I recognize would view derogatorily) – clearly they’re not the kindest people as they discuss bell’s hells, but two notable things are (a) they still treat the hells with the respect and use their means to help them prepare for the battle coming, even when they hear the horrifying thought that the hells aren’t certain they’ll choose to save the gods, all the nein request is that they choose the kind option (b) they say none of their doubts to the hells themselves – likely because they have the empathy to realizes that its a high stress situation that won’t be made better by a reminding the hells how small and likely ineffectual in the universe they are – and their comments about cannon fodder are ones made in jest to each other. Even taking that in the worst faith interpretation, the jokes that beau and fjord make in a private conversation has absolutely zero influence on bh. This is quite different than bells hells, after like. as clearly betraying the accord they promised to assist (even if their intentions are ‘good’) as is possible, belittling the religious armies sent to support their endeavor to keep predathos sealed as they all feel the weight of an irrevocable change occurring in exandria, one bells hells has first account knowledge now that it IS incredibly willing to eat mortals, and laudna and ashton, the members of bells hells most often cited by certain fandom spaces as characters who have gone through so much and it only made them kind and strong, look into the faces of people facing literally existential threat and laugh and mock them. That is, mighty nein as individuals is comprised of some of the, perhaps, most asshole pcs, but The Mighty Nein as a party is committed to treating others the best they can, to leaving things better than they found them (a quote that I think is particularly exemplary of the dynamics of self-interest at play in the mighty nein, since it originated as a blatant illustration of molly’s notion of self-importance but developed to become a kind of commandment that the nein became committed to fulfilling). The opposite is true of bell’s hells, where orym and dorian at least both seem to have motivation beyond themselves, imogen’s changes but has shown she is capable of letting go of her ‘intention reigns’ requisitely individualistic perspective, and chetney plays up his selfishness but has shown himself to care quite a bit for people beyond their party but bell’s hells as an entity is uh, pretty self-interested.

To clarify some of my thoughts here in the spirit of the wicked renaissance happening rn, I’ve always felt that for good was an incredibly apt song for the mighty nein, because it really nails that feeling that perhaps they didn’t change each other as individuals to become better people on the grand scale, maybe they’ve just changed each other permanently, but they (and I would agree with this) view each other as having changed each other for the better (e.g., I don’t know if I could say whether jester is a morally better Individual at the end of the campaign, but I can say with certainty that she fulfils and makes moral choices in her work as a member of the mighty nein). And I don’t know if this can be said about bell’s hells – I think they have certainly influenced each other and changed how alone many of those characters felt, and that is not a slight on the story, it can be a great centre for a story to focus on how a relinquishment of the feeling that one is alone in the world can change them. But for the most part, that hasn’t been bh’s story, their story instead has been about validating their refusal to become anything beyond what they insist was out of their control. And not to get to annoying philosophy student about it but bell’s hells are maybe some of the most explicit examples of sartrian bad faith I’ve seen in fiction in a hot minute, because their insistence that they treat their wounds as incurable and entirely out of their hands has led to them limiting their own potential because many of them ignore their responsibility as people to make choices in their own lives. In contrast, at the end of the campaign, mighty nein are still assholes as we all like to refer to them as, but in the context of an apocalypse, I think I’d prefer the assholes like fjord – who is certainly being truthful when he says he doesn’t care about what harm comes to 200 people when jester is at risk but who also, as they traverse into aeor, is insistent that their group won’t be running away from whatever apocalyptic threat awaits them, even if that means dying in the fight – than I would an asshole like ashton – who promises to fight for the little guys but who then turns around and acts upon a philosophy that says the strongest will survive. When you look at the mighty nein, it is incredibly easy to see the fingerprints of change they’ve left upon one another, and even to see the boundaries they place on one another’s asocial behaviours through their presence in one another’s lives (more recently the group chastising jester’s fond words about ludinus is a good example, but others are yasha’s pressuring caleb and essek to move on from their wizard talks as they collect paper in aeor instead of venturing further toward the battle they have to fight, or fjord and jester’s frustrated conversation in the ukotoa reunion about how fjord made a stupid decision and he doesn’t regret but he feels dejected and jester checking him on the fact that they still need to figure out a solution). It takes some extrapolation to see how bells hells have changed each other in more than aesthetic ways, if they have at all. Because the catalyst for change is pressure to do so, and aside from moments where it was truly change or be left behind, bh doesn’t challenge each other unless forced to by morri’s trials or delilah’s interruption and on the very odd occasion an interesting game of rollies-spin-the-bottle. 

And it’s interesting because the asshole behaviour of the mighty nein, like bell’s hells, stems from being left on the outskirts of society and the mistreatment that comes with that, so seemingly the change from being alone to being with others is one that actually insists upon being challenged to grow and change. I mean, just looking at the starting points of the characters, there’s an intriguing amount of stark similarities between their pasts; jester and fearne were both people loved dearly by the family they grew up with but who were loved within the confines of a gilded cage, ashton and beau both have an glaring self awareness that their anger at the world has a very particular source (their parents) but use that as justification rather than a means of self reflection, yasha and orym are trying to navigate a world in the wake of an incomprehensible loss and a sense of duty, fjord and imogen are both seeking out knowledge of their own powers and unknowingly retreading the paths of their missing and presumed dead parental figures. The idea that bell’s hells are uniquely mistreated by society in the history of cr player characters is, politely, laughable. Absolutely they’re mistreated, and I think it could be fair to say these characters are more defined by their isolation than others but I think that has more to do with the lack of downtime rp than it has to do with the context of their suffering.

What I have loved about the mighty nein is that in their realization that the bonds they forge with each other are undermining the truths most of them had taken to be true – that they were alone and without a place in the world – they are also forced to realize that no longer being alone and isolated comes with the weight of social responsibility. And this was born out of a willingness the mighty nein had to call each other out and that the players had to allow their characters to be wrong and get called on it. Because that’s the friction of living with other people on the small party scale and the large world scale – in the mighty nein’s ability to survive as a people who cared for each other even when they didn’t agree or when they made decisions that they couldn’t understand, they were constantly developing their ability to care for the very same world that left them alone. Because in campaign two, the world as a whole had the role that the gods have in campaign 3 – why should a party of nobodies, treated like shit by the world and the people in it go through the effort of saving it?

And the mighty nein answered, in their own imperfection and assholery, that nothing is ever just one thing – one of the things I cherish most about campaign 2 is its commitment to ambiguity, allowing the complexity of the world to go unsolved because there is no solution to the fact that life is immense and sometimes incoherent. I don’t think its a coincidence that I’ve seen some of the people lamenting the idiocy of fandom members like me who think that it actually isnt a leftist win to destroy the world in the hopes of spontaneous justice arising in c3 are the same people who criticised c2’s conclusion with the cerberus assembly for not being leftist (a word which for them means . the aesthetic image of a rebellion sparked and not the unending commitment to doing what you practically can to make life more just for those around you – whether they’re particularly kind to you or not) enough. The conclusion of c2 emphasizes that the choice to make the world a better place isn’t something that can be achieved in one single sweeping action that will wipe the boards clean – there is no murder of all the members of the cerberus assembly that would’ve solved the problems that caused the assembly’s power. There is no forcing of the god’s out of exandria that will deal with the actual issue undergirding both bh and their blorbo-moralized fans' criticism of the gods, which is that mortals are cursed with the burden of free will, and being mistreated by other mortals means constantly having to try and make sense of the fact that someone chose to do something cruel to you (and, sometimes, that you made a choice that allowed that cruelty to occur) – a burden made much heavier when the person who hurt you is your cult-indoctrinated mother, or your cult leader father, or the person in the mirror. The mighty nein take up this fight, and the complexities of their individual identities begin to heal in the light of a commitment in their relationship as friends and as a team to improve the world, even on the small scale. Bell’s hells remain gridlocked and stagnant and unwilling to change in an unspoken turf war of self-interest because they’ve insisted (influenced in part by the context of the campaign 3 narrative but, as others have aptly pointed out, that narrative was much more influenced by bh’s lack of curiosity regarding anything except their own minds) upon finding a solution to a problem they’ve decided is earth-shatteringly (quite literally, to the people of ruidus) unjust based on, aside from encounters where fellow mortals were the primary oppressors, their own testimony of the god’s not listening to them and the obvious villain’s parallel testimony. Something I’ve really been chewing on lately is caduceus words to fjord about his role as a paladin of the wildmother – that maybe it just means that someday, someone will pray for a miracle, and there fjord’ll be and the weight that has given that fjord’s bond to ukotoa came from his desperation not to die and his willingness to accept whatever help would be offered, that fjord could now be the person that reaches out to someone in need, and that the hand he offers won’t come with a curse.  And I think that’s really the poignant difference between bh and mn for me, that for bh, their experiences of injustice, though did make them personally bitter, did not make them morally misanthropic.

Comparatively, Bell’s Hells chose to ensure that, because the gods never answered their prayers, they shouldn’t be permitted to answer anyone else’s. Is this an understandable position? Sure, for the walls of a preschool, not really for a group of characters that I will ever be in any way inclined to view as something close to heroes. While it’s true that there are parts of life that are beyond our control – somethings happen to us that we have no say in, and they cause injuries both physical and mental that we are left to heal without any rhyme or reason, it is still our responsibility to heal them. And if you choose not to, well, then you’ve chosen not to, and are responsible for the consequences and judgements that choice might amount to.

Anyway, sorry this is all over the place but TLDR: calling bell’s hells as a party self-interested is actually just descriptively correct – they can save members of the party made up of their close friends and still be self-interested – and while the individual members of bell’s hells actually aren’t all that uniquely self-interested in the history of cr pcs, the party is uniquely self-interested in how they’ve chosen to navigate the world an their responsibility to the people in it.

[judenostopwaitkeepgoing]

A Class Analysis of the Crown Villains

Analyzing all of the EN-released Villains from who would be the most to least wealthy in 1890s Victorian England.

A/N: This is just for fun! These characters/stories are not that deep, and I don’t want them to be! I just find it fun and silly to think through what this world would actually look like in history, and maybe you do too! 😊 Spoilers for pretty much every villain on the EN server, so read at your own risk! Also I am not a historian or economist, just a gal with a computer, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

Also, I’m assuming that Ikémen Villains takes place sometime in the 1890s in London, England—the tail end of Queen Victoria’s rule. This estimated time frame is based mostly on Harry’s love of Arthur Conan Doyle and passing mentions of when “he has a new novel coming out.” Doyle was a prolific writer and wrote for a long time, but I wanted to keep the time period specific enough to really think through what the economics would be like.

Wealthiest - Jude Jazza

Originally I was going to put the villains who belong to the gentry (Elbert and William and ... Victor??? Maybe?? haha) at the top of the list, but the more I thought it through, the more it became clear that in order for Jude to realistically carry out some of the actions in his route (which I haven’t finished!) or various story events/collection events, he would need to be so fucking rich. Like stupid wealthy. Like not quite at Jeff Bezos level of wealth, but pretty up there.

And baby started from the bottom now he’s here, okay! The fact that Jude grew up in abject poverty then became a successful CEO of a trading company originally struck me as one of the more unrealistic things in the game (which I do not care about, he’s still daddy), but the more I looked into it, the more I got on board with it. The writers were smart to add a rich benefactor to his backstory, because in 1890s London, that was probably the only way for a poor kid from the slums to receive an education. Wealth disparity was bad in the 1890s, and people were mad about it! Jude’s hatred of the rich and powerful is in keeping with working class (and even some middle class) attitudes at the time. And with the rapid development and expansion of the Port of London (from the completion of the Royal Victoria Dock in 1855 to the Port of Tilbury in 1886), trading was the business to be in at the time. So it’s not impossible that Jude could have just lucked out in a few key ways and worked extremely hard to get to where he is (although he would still probably be considered a unicorn in this time period).

As for Raven Co.’s annual profit: who knows. I’m guessing it’s in the billions in today’s money. I’m unsure what Jude’s salary would be, he is explicitly characterized in his route as a fair boss who pays his workers a living wage, but he’s also like randomly really generous with like Ellis or Kate (i.e. giving Ellis a blank check for Xmas, giving Kate more than enough money to get a dress, etc.) so he’s probably taking home plenty. And considering how smart Jude is, he’s probably pretty savvy about saving and investing his money. He also makes a lot of deals and has a lot of involvement overseas, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he has bank accounts in several countries. The man is committed to building his rocket, okay! I’d say his annual income is in the hundred millions of dollars (in today’s money). But his net worth is probably in the billions.

Lord Elbert Greetia

Okay, now on to our first landed-gentry boy: Lord Elbert. Lord Elbert is most likely the wealthiest member of Crown in terms of generational wealth, with William coming in a close second.

Elbert is a member of the landed gentry or “peerage” and uses the title of “Lord,” which he inherited from his father. Being in this class means that he not only has significant wealth (in literal pounds and assets), but it also means that he has a rock-solid social standing and owns land. Land ownership is a big deal here because it means that Lord Elbert has the power to control anyone who might be living/working on property that he owns. And I’m not just talking servants/staff at his estate, I’m talking residents of any townships or villages on the likely acres and acres of land that he's in control of. So he has a passive income via taxing residents and laborers on his land(s)... forever! Being in this class also makes his wealth a lot more stable and immutable than say, Jude, who is a great businessman but whose income and assets are at the mercy of the market/demand.

Elbert’s character in the game is very stoic (until Kate shows up!), and he has deep trauma from his childhood home, so he doesn’t seem to exercise a ton of the privileges that would be available to him in terms of controlling the people who live on his properties. But, if we’re talking the 1890s here, he would probably have entire villages or even small towns under his economic purview. I think of him as a Mr. Darcy type, probably bringing in about £10,000 a year, or a little over £1.5 million/$2 million in today’s money. This combined with the cost of all of his assets or “beautiful things” that he compulsively collects (artwork, fine furniture, jewels, real estate, etc.) means I’d estimate his net worth to be about $70-100 million in today’s money.

Lord William Rex

I’m only putting William after Elbert because I do think Elbert has more non-cash assets, simply from the nature of his curse which causes him to be greedy. But let’s be clear: Lord William is also loaded. He, like Elbert, is a member of the peerage of the time and owns lots of land/real estate. He probably receives a pretty substantial passive income from all of his properties like Elbert.

I do think there’s one key difference between them: I have a feeling that William would either redistribute some of the income that he gets from any taxed residents/workers on his properties or lower their taxes—he just seems like the type to be about that. So that’s another reason why I think Elbert might have a higher net worth. Still, we find out that William paid for the construction of a hospital in his route, and for a man to do that in the 1890s, he’d have to be pretty freaking rich. I’d say that his net worth is probably somewhere between $50-100 million in today’s money.

Victor???

Big question mark around Victor! I’m putting him here just because he is so connected to the Queen, and unless we learn something different from his route, I’m pretty sure that means he’s at least upper class, if not a (former) member of the gentry/peerage. Or perhaps comes from a wealthier family. He also receives a salary and lodging from the Queen (as do all the members of Crown I think) so he’s certainly getting all of his needs met. He’s also the oldest member of Crown, which just makes me assume he’s had more time to accrue savings. But couldn’t tell you what his net worth is even if you held a gun to my head, this is all just vibes haha.

Liam Evans

Liam grew up comfortably upper class, basically wealthy despite not being a member of the landed gentry. His father owns an estate, or at least did when Liam was a child, and had staff and servants. Because of his mental illness and disfigurement, Liam’s father probably relied entirely on family money after a certain point.

As an adult, and considering he is a successful and popular leading actor at a major theater in London at the time, Liam is doing well for himself! He is now much better off than his father! Good riddance! Actors at the major theaters at the time were typically paid anywhere between 2-25 pounds per week, and Liam was likely on the upper end of that spectrum. Let’s say he takes home 20 pounds a week, which in today’s money would be about 3,200 pounds, or about 4,000 dollars. That’s 208,000 dollars a year before tax! Not bad at all! But, it’s worth noting, that at the time actors were definitely not seen as contributing members to society (especially women/actresses—they were essentially thrown into the same category as sex workers), so Liam’s social standing in the grand scheme of things is definitely lower as an actor than it was probably growing up in an upper-middle class house.

Ellis Twilight + Alfons Sylvatica

I’m throwing these two in here together because they are probably doing well for themselves, but only because they are attached to a super-rich person haha. Who knows what their salaries/wages are or what kind of deal they have with their respective sugar daddies (hehe) but suffice to say they don’t have to worry about money. Alfons is probably more irresponsible with his money, only because of his lifestyle, but even so he’s nowhere near as big of a spender as Elbert so it probably all ends up a wash. And I’m assuming that Jude pays Ellis pretty well because he loves him lol.

Harrison Gray

Okay, this one took some digging! Harry’s dad was a police officer, which in today’s world would mean that his family was pretty well-off and Harry had a comfortable upbringing. Not a member of the upper classes/gentry, but probably solidly middle class. This is also implied in the game, or at least Harry isn’t one of the characters that we know grew up poor.

But, it turns out, police officers weren’t paid super well in mid/late 1800s London! Harry’s dad would probably be on the better-paid side of the spectrum because he was a chief/high-ranking, but the police were a relatively new-ish phenomenon and weren’t considered “high-value” professionals. Harry’s dad likely only took home about 10 guineas a week, which in today’s money is about £1,400 or $1,700, so he was making about $88,000 a year in today’s money (before taxes). Which would be relatively comfortable for a single person today, but for a family in the 1800s would be pretty much living paycheck to paycheck with maybe a couple splurge purchases a year (like for Christmas or birthdays). So Harry’s family wasn’t anywhere near as poor as Jude or Alfons were growing up, but they likely lived quite modestly!

As an adult, Harry probably makes a healthy salary as an editor/proofreader. Publishing was booming in the 1890s, and writers were most often serialized in weekly publications, which meant a steady income for both writers and publishers. I’d say Harry is probably taking home a couple hundred pounds at the least per week, so something in the thousands of dollars in today’s terms. It’s unclear to me what the rules of living in Crown castle are. Like do they pay rent? I don’t think so? Let’s say they don’t, which means Harry gets to save/keep all his wages and only spends on personal stuff. He doesn’t seem like the biggest spender, if anything he reads as very sensible with money to me, haha. So he’s likely got a cozy little net worth building up but nothing crazy. Since wealth stratification is so extreme in this time period (the rich were very rich and the poor were very poor), Harry would probably be making enough to still be looked down on by the upper classes and enough to still be the object of contempt for the lower classes.

Poorest ? - Roger Barel

Doctors today are very well paid, but this was not the case in the late 1800s! Growing up, Roger’s dad probably had an annual salary of about 300-500 pounds a year, or roughly $45k-$80k in today’s money. Not a lot to live on for a whole family now, but this probably went further in the 1870s/80s when Roger was growing up. It’s implied that his family lived relatively comfortably, so I’m guessing that his dad had a good reputation and was sought after for his surgical expertise. He may have even gotten paid to teach in surgery ‘theatres’ of the time. (I haven’t read or looked much into Roger’s route so this might be wrong!)

I’m only ranking him last because he seems to not be formally employed haha. Since Roger is not a publicly practicing surgeon, he is relying on his income (?) and lodging from Crown for his day-to-day expenses. This could be any amount it seems, haha, depending on what he asks Victor/the Queen for. He doesn’t seem like a crazy spender, so he’s probably not complaining. I have no idea what his salary would be, though. It doesn’t seem like Crown bothers with all that, haha.

[kalinazlatkova]

“The Art and Making of Arcane: League of Legends” 🎨🎨🎨🎨 Book Review Under the Cut 

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If you enjoy my work, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi 👛🫙✨🖤 Thank you! 🥰

Hi All! 😊 As I have amassed loads of Art Books throughout my degree and in my work as an illustrator, I thought I could do some reviews so those of you who are just now embarking on your art journeys and wondering whether something is worth spending money on, can make an informed decision about what part of your creative development you want to put your money towards.     I’m thinking of structuring the reviews in five key areas, with books earning a palette for each area they score against, with a total of five palettes being the max, and a brush being awarded in areas where a book can only score half a point. As someone from a working-class background who is also neurodivergent, I’m especially mindful how these things can impact the way in which we access information and new knowledge. Of course, if you have any suggestions on what else should be included, please let me know and I’ll be happy to consider this in future too. 😊  

Now! Off to the main bit... 

Is the book Useful? 🎨 

I think this would of interest not only to fans of the game and series alike, but also less experienced artists who want to learn about the motivation, inspirations, ideas, and thought processes behind the storytelling, characters and plotlines. Alex and Chris (the Creators) talk about the history and background of how it came to be, how the right group and studio of people were found to bring it together, and how the story and visuals were built from the smallest details to the major production hurdles. There are the back scenes of the storyboarding and character designs, with frameworks and the timeline between the layouts of the game vs the show. The book also goes down into details on the music, lyrics, color schemes, speeds of animation, backgrounds and the in-depth world building of Arcane. It pays attention to the visual and personal development of the central characters, their set bases and their props. Given all of this, I would say – Yes. It is a very useful source and guide on master adaptation, for those already interested in the game as well as those who have just come into its world now, brought in by the art of the show before they got caught in the story.  

Is the book Engaging? 🎨

The book design has been planned thoroughly, and the content is very well paced. There is good overlay between photographs, illustrations, game graphics and show scenes alongside the text and other visuals. The design of the book is beautifully done, with phenomenal coloring, and good spacing between the texts and images. As someone who struggles with big chunks of text, and a very temperamental attention span, the way that the chapters and sub-sections of the book are broken up, helped me quite a lot in managing to keep my focus and my mind engaged at one page at a time, without feeling the need to put it down indefinitely or jump ahead and move on to the next bit before I was done. Therefore, I would say – Yes. It is manageable, digestible, and entertaining, which makes it a joy to engage with, and even more so because it can be done so easily.  

Is the book Accessible? 🖌️ 

There might be some pages where people who are easily visually overstimulated might struggle to keep with the text, as the graphics fill the sheet and overlay each other quite strongly. However, if you are someone who prefers the strong visuals of a comic book or a graphic novel, then this might not be an issue for you at all. Overall, the blocks of text come in small chunks and are set in narrow columns with a max of 15 words to a line at its longest (on average up to 10), which makes the text easier to follow. Though the typesetting of the book is primarily in serif fonts, and on some pages the text blocks are slanted to fit the visuals’ layout better. I have an advantage that I have a digital copy and can easily zoom into the text, though if you had the physical copy of the book (judging by the format size of 23.5 x 3 x 32.4cm) there might be some pages where you struggle with the smaller lines. From what I have been able to find out, the standard hardcover edition weighs approx. 800gr, which isn’t very light to carry or hold up with one hand, especially considering a thick rectangle is less manageable than a single bag of sugar or bottle of water for example. In terms of language, it is written in plain English (in EN speaking countries) and even though I am not a native English speaker, there were no overcomplicated structures or words I was unfamiliar with at any time. So overall, I would say Yes and No. It is up to you to decide whether any of the above is a deal breaker regarding accessibility, but if it is in the physical aspects, I would advise in looking for a digital copy alike myself as well.  

Is the book Affordable? 🖌️ 

Well. When I was looking for a copy, unfortunately there were no paperbacks available, and the only hardbacks were second hand varying in price point from £40 - £80 GBP. Which is about $50 – 110 USD, or €45 - 95 EUR. I also could not find any free digital copies, so my only option was to buy the book on Kindle for £14, or approx. $18 / €16. Given that when I was a student, I used to live on £1 a day (my family is poor), I think that up to £80 for a single art book is a high price to pay, especially for a young person who isn’t in full time employment. But even though I am a working adult now, I still wouldn’t pay this for the book given that the actual cost was £40 before it went out of stock, and the price has been inflated solely because the book isn’t physically available anymore. Due to this, and because it is the right thing to do, before making a purchase, I would adamantly encourage you to check with the library(ies) near you first. If they have it, you can borrow it for free and make copies, scans or take pics of it if you’d like to make your own digital copy. If this is not an option, look for it online and check if there are any torrents on the sites you have access to where you live. Only if you exhaust all other options, or if you are dead set in buying a physical copy for a memento / getting it signed by the artist type of keepsake, should you consider purchasing it at the inflated price. So even though the book might be affordable to those who have the money, that simply isn’t applicable to most people, meaning that – No. It isn’t affordable as it would not fall into most people’s budgets easily or without being looked at as a luxury.    

Is the book Worth it? 🎨

Even though due to points 3 & 4 above, I cannot give the book a full 5 palettes, and must settle only on 4, I would say – Yes. It has been great to learn more about the backstory and history of Arcane and the people who made it possible. The work they’ve put in for years, each single step in their journey and the care and dedication that has been poured into the creation of this new world. It has been lovely to gain an insight into the visual development of the series, as well as the character building, and the considerations awarded to all the small things that make them the characters that they are and the characters that we love. I may have never played LoL but I absolutely loved the show. Though even if I hadn’t seen it, from the perspective of a graphic designer, I can certainly appreciate the beauty of Arcane and this book still. And if like me, you are new to this world, then I suspect the book will make you love it even more. It’s worth it.  

[evercelle]

I've always been impressed by your ability to analyse media. Your understanding of characters, dynamics, themes have always blew me away, and it's even more impressive how you always find ways to communicate it so elegantly in your artworks. And being able to pick up on these complexities seems to have made engaging with media extra fulfilling for you.

I love seeing this kind of literary depth in fandoms, but I have the media literacy of a brick and have always had to rely on other people's analyses or takes to even begin understanding on that level. I was wondering if you know how you do it, or how anyone can learn to do it really.

btw thank you for always making such lovely art, hope you have a nice and fun year.

close reading is a skill, and like any skill it's something you can develop with effort!! the more you engage and think about a piece of work (and libraries of works) the more you'll get out of it

analysis at its core is inquiry and evaluation... when you're engaging the text ("text" here meaning the work itself whether it's literal text, artwork, movies, games, etc.) try breaking down ur thoughts:

what does the text want to say? -> what does the work want to accomplish? does it instill a narrative, a message, a feeling? teach a lesson? does it ask you a question? does it set up and fulfill or subvert expectations?

how does the text say it? -> what literary/visual techniques did the creator use to convey #1? what were you told versus what were you shown? what was implied vs explicated? does the work favor certain types of techniques or recurring motifs? are they aligned with specific characters or moments or themes?

how did you receive it? -> did the text succeed in conveying #1 via #2 to you? did it hit the mark, and to what degree? if it didn't: why not? if there's disparity between what the text seems to want to say and what you got from it--why and how?

there's so much more to analysis (e.g., for example, applying this framework to a text in context to history, or current events, or the genre; accounting for bias, on the part of the author or the reader; etc. etc.), but as a basic framework this might help to think about the text in large scale (the work as a whole) and then narrow it down (breakdown an arc in the story--a specific character's story--an individual moment in the story--etc).

i also think it's important to sit with a text and formulate ur own initial thoughts on it first before looking for other people's opinions! then you can read others' analysis too to see where it aligns or diverts from yours, what you agree or disagree with, what takeaways might change or enhance your own reading of the text. and then you can get RIGHTEOUSLY indignant when they dont understand ur blorbo the way you do

sorry for textwall HAHA but the more you practice close reading, the easier it gets to identify tropes and literary & artistic devices, and as your mental catalog expands, i think it'll become more fun to identify, compare and contrast what works/stories really resonate for you...! it's wonderful as a creator too, because you can reverse engineer that framework when you're telling your own stories ✨

[pricegotmedickmatized]

may request some Nikolai?

imagine if Nikolai, methodical and calculating to a T, met someone who's forgetful, chaotic, and just fully disorganised at a coffee shop or something when they tripped on their own foot and spilled their overly sweet (thankfully cold) drink on his clothes and they're so flustered and embarrassed and he's jyst thinking "aww, poor thing needs me"

ANYWAY NO PRESSURE BYEE

UM YES ABSOLUTELY I LOVE (also sorry this took me literally forever to get to, i had to exorcise graves from my brain first haha)

lets break this down, shall we?

nikolai has one true vice. sure he smokes, and he fucks, and he drinks, but he doesn't treat any of those like vices, like things that if he were denied he'd tear apart entire countries for. no. his vice is control. and he controls everything around him. and he can't understand, doesn't even bother to pretend to understand, why other people don't get the same satisfaction out of it he does.

nikolai is careful. he's smart and he's careful and he uses both of those things like weapons, because in his business if you're not careful and smart you're dead. it's second nature to him now, the methodical sweeps of all rooms he enters (only after he's researched the building it's blueprints and history and ownership etc the night before), the triple checking of intricate locks (that he made with his own hands or under his supervision because there's no such thing as too careful), all of it.

nikolai has every moment of his life planned out, every year, every month, every day, every minute. and he likes it like that. he's got built in failsafes for when those plans get shot to smithereens, especially as situations develop and blow up in his or the 141's faces. but that's only to be expected, in his line of work. he prepares for multiple possible shit shows, he's got plans for a hundred different types of apocalypses, the man views life as a chess game, one that he is indisputably winning.

nikolai loves a routine, and especially he loves his new morning routines when he turns into his coffee shop and finds a new face tucked away in the corner of the shop at four forty each morning, studying on a lilac ipad with matching headphones and an external keyboard. she's fascinating, because it just took one morning for him to realize she was his exact opposite. the papers she pulls out from her bag are crunkled and crumpled and disorganized. her pretty hair is always slipping out of the haphazard knot she's stuck it in on top of her head. and she's clumsy. she got up to ask for a refill the first morning he noticed her. it wasn't a tiny shop, and there were just the two of them in there, if he hadn't known better to pay attention to her hands he would've thought she was just a pickpocketer when she tripped over nothing and landed hard against his chest.

nikolai might have a new vice. because it's plain to see, watching her shuffle anxiously through her papers and try to find hastily scrawled sticky notes she's left for herself (the one she's looking for at the moment is stuck to the bottom of her shoe), that she needs some order in her life. that she needs discipline. and nikolai is going to give it to her. going to fill her life with structure, not to suffocate her, sweet little chaotic whirlwind that she is, but to give her the proper environment to truly blossom. to ease that tearful panic in her face when she realizes she can't find the note, that vanishes into a blinding smile when he offers it to her between his fingers after a careful extraction.

nikolai definitely has a new vice. because she likes to fight his changes to her life. his being in it permanently, for one, was something she tried to fight, though it lasted an amusing six minutes before he had her cumming on his fingers. she's a stubborn, willful thing, but that just makes it so much sweeter, so much prettier when he can get her to bend to his will. and he always, always gets her to bend. at least when it's important. the other things, like whether or not she can keep her own apartment after they're married, he lets her have free rein over. it makes her happy, and it's not like she's going to be spending any time there anyways. not when he's got her addicted to the taste of his praise on her tongue as he forces her tight pussy to take his fat cock for the third time in a row.

[theoi-crow]

Thank you for all Zeus support posts ♥️ everywhere I go, all my mutuals too, they blast Zeus for being an abusive father. I know it’s because of the modern books and games that’s depicting Zeus this way. But the misinterpretation and mistreatment still get under my nerves.

When it comes to judging Zeus, I noticed ethnocentrism is the biggest problem.

A lot of people judge the ancient world based on their own modern culture and what they fail to realize is that ethnocentrism is the same logic white settlers used against Native Americans. It's the same logic they used when they were kidnapping people from Africa to bring as slaves. It's the same logic used to justify destroying cultures and appropriating them. “We are helping the savages because they don't know any better.” This is the problem when judging a culture based solely on one's own culture. You kill the culture. You force it to follow your rules instead of studying it based on its own terms to better understand why it developed the way it did.

Zeus is a keystone part of the religion and I will always do my best to explain his importance.

I will always do my best to discourage ethnocentric talking points when people try to put him down because they don't realize they are using the same logic colonizers used against my people and every POC culture in history. They don't realize they are essentially calling the ancient Greeks “savages” in the same way white settlers called the same POC people they were killing while stealing their land and resources.

Zeus is the main figure in the Ancient Hellenic religion.

Everyone else is a part of his court but as the king of the gods, his part in the religion is essential and a key component of it is Xenia, hospitality.

When you start to judge the ancient Greek culture based on its own rules you will see that Zeus is order, that's why the theogony starts with chaos, in order to show how Zeus turned chaos into order. When you start to judge the ancient culture based on its own rules you will see that people used Zeus to justify their ancestry so of course he will have human children because, as the king of the gods, the ancient Greeks believed Zeus appointed kings via birthright because monarchies are by birthright. (He can't have them solely with Hera or they will just be gods, he needs to have them with a human to create demigods).

The idea behind him raping women stems from the misunderstanding of what was defined as rape in the ancient world. No matter the age or how willing they were, women back then were not able to consent because they were not in charge of their own lives. The consent needed to come from their fathers/husbands/whatever man was in charge, that's why it's often translated as rape, because there was no consent given by the men in charge because oftentimes they didn't know the child was a demigod until they were older and started showing signs of being different than other humans.

Just like how we have people who compete in the Olympics today, or people that are very talented or gifted, there were a lot of people back then who were also extraordinary humans and instead of thinking “wow, humans can be incredible,” the ancient Greeks believed an extraordinary human was the secret love child of a human and a god, depending on their specialty and which god that fell under, like Alexander the Great who was thought to be the son of Zeus, or Pythagoras (inventor of the Pythagorean theorem) who was thought to be the son of Apollo.

It's okay to acknowledge ancient views were different from modern views and progress for women has changed over time because these are stories that are older than the literal Bible so of course progress will happen and the ancient and modern world will be very different. But it's never okay to judge an ancient culture using the same logic that was used to destroy cultures and enslave people.

I defend Zeus because I do my best to destroy ethnocentric views whenever they pop up.

This is why research is so important and why I try to provide it as often as I can because once you start judging the culture based on its own laws and actual rules, you'll find that:

Zeus is incredible.