#i dedicate my free time to working on a wiki for it and i think about the cubitos and npcs often . but jesus fucking christ the toll that

[ahalliance]

i think the qsmp is very impressive for speedrunning the same love-hate relationship i have with the dsmp in under a year as opposed to the three it took for the other one

[setsuntamew]

Hello and welcome to "Icon Making With Killian: An Intro to the 'Lost' Art of LiveJournal Icons"

aka, I'm still making them and I'd like to teach you how to do it, too!

This tutorial was written in Photoshop 2020, but you can probably recreate it in as far back as CS2-ish (since I still use the same sort of techniques I've been using since then, lmao). It also assumes basic understanding of the software, though I've tried to be as clear as possible throughout.

With that out of the way, let's get this tutorial on the road!!!!!!

I started with the bloomed art of Hiiro from the White Lilies scout box (image courtesy of the Ensemble Stars!! English Wiki).

I basically always start with a blank 100x100 canvas and paste the image into it. I try to go into icon making with a vague idea of what I want to do, and I knew from the beginning that my vision for this icon would have the top 1/4-1/3 of the image covered by a solid band of color. To make positioning the image of Hiiro easier, I made a rough version of the band with temporary colors (though they're pretty close to what I ended up using in the end).

With that in place, I could start working with the actual image for the icon. After pasting it in and adjusting the layers so it was under the band, I resized it and moved it around a bunch until I was happy with the position. Once I liked how it looked, I used an Unsharp Mask on the base.

Next up, I used a texture from lookslikerain. However, purple is all wrong for the color scheme I had in mind, so I went to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation... to change it up to better suit my needs. Never be afraid to mess around with textures!

Here's how I adjusted this specific texture, but each one is unique- both the texture and the icon you're creating, so it's best to play with it until you get good results.

I then pasted this into the icon, making sure it was under the layers making up the top bands of color (because I was only trying to affect the base for now), and set this layer to Darken.

Now it's time to mess with the colors of the top band. They sorta matched before I did anything to the base, but now...not quite. I used a layer style for each part of it, but using the paint bucket tool would work just as well. I went to Layer > Layer Styles > Color Overlay... for each, changing the colors as necessary. The thickest band is #85d0bf, the middle band is #086371, and the thinnest, lightest one is #fcfcd8.

Time to start putting stuff on top of everything!! I took this light texture from ianthinae, rotated it, and set it to Lighten. I decided I wanted it to be a little bit brighter, so I duplicated the layer, set it to Screen, and dropped the Opacity to 20%.

I then used a texture from Sarah-Dipity and set it to Lighten as well.

Okay, now that's what I'm talkin' about!!! It's time to throw some text on this~ I went for something simple to go with the theme of the story this card is from: Princely. The font is Georgia, 10pt, in #086371, set to all caps. I decided it didn't stand out enough, so I duplicated it, changed the color to #8b4235, dragged it under the first text layer, and moved it 1 pixel to the right.

I wanted a bit more embellishment around it, so I used this simple tiny text brush from colorfilter in #06444d. I also erased part of it to make it fit the space better.

Finally, I used a texture from shiruji, set to Darken to get a bit more color variation in it, and called it done! :D

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, and I'll answer as best I can- as long as it's not about making icons in other software D: I only know Photoshop (and Paint Shop Pro, but I don't think anyone uses that anymore). If there are any other icons of mine you're interested in seeing tutorials for - or even just specific techniques! - just lemme know. I love helping :D

Also, I'm happy to share where I get icon resources from. I have a whole post dedicated to that on my DW graphics journal, though tbh that's the best place to talk to me about making graphics in general. But I will absolutely answer asks/replies/etc about icons here on tumblr, don't worry!!!!

[wyrdle]

Ikutsuki Backstory ideas and other character thoughts

Jotting this down for my own reference for a hopeful future comic about this pun man as well as for anyone interested in the babygirl lmao. Also I can't believe so little exists to help flesh him out more

Persona 3 spoilers under the cut

Ok so I haven't finished the game, but I've sped run reading wikis and watching movies and clips, pardon me if I get any details wrong. I also don't know the other games, but am semi-aware of some of the links between Ikutsuki and them.

Anyway:

Ikutsuki rambling about The Fall and a Prince out of the blue is painfully one of the worst twists I've ever seen 😂 You don't lore drop your way into justifying your motives lmao. I'd have liked some hints about his past, and then a final explanation for it. Whilst I understand it's meant to be a sudden twist, it just turns out anti-climatic and even annoying narratively haha.

So, to fill out how Ikutsuki's backstory, I was thinking it'd be rad if we saw his actual research days with Kirijo's CEO / Mitsuru's gramps. I'd likely scrap that they were actively looking to invoke The Fall, and have them primarily focused on the time-bending abilities of Shadows, all being scientists dedicated to helping humanity genuinely.

I dislike the idea of such a large group of scientists being omnicidal maniacs/Nyx worshippers, so I think simplifying the Kirijo family's guilt to simply accidentally fucking up their experiments and causing such catastrophic change to the world to be a better go at it.

Enter Ikutsuki, who is a part of this research team like every other hopeful/morally decent scientist. The experiment goes awry, Shadows are released en masse, Professoer Shuji Ikutsuki is swathed, bathed, consumed by this writhing dark mass that tells him about The Fall and whispers about the Prince who will be grandly rewarded for it.

In his canon pre-suicide speech, Ikutsuki talks as if he believes the current world has lots of wrong in it, going to the extremes of wanting to cleanse and rebuild it. I think it'd be fitting for him to start off as this hopeful scientist, cheery and dorky, only for him to go through the trauma of direct exposure to Shadows + being the lone survivor amidst the wreckage and dead bodies of his colleagues.

It's a combo of real-life horror and supernatural Persona weirdness that motivates him into being the manipulator/cold scientist he is. Idk if my timeline of events is right, but post-Tartarus formation, ikutsuki kicks off figuring out plans for The Fall in earnest. Prompting his secret research on children for inducing Personas etc. (I think Strega and Ikutsuki weren't involved with each other, so for this I'd say yeah, he'd be the one responsible for that instead of Kirijo group in general.)

Other fun things for him is that surviving the sort of possession by Nyx's fragments during the formation of Tartarus gives him 'the Potential'. AKA he discovers he can exist in the darkest hour, and is eventually the one who researches himself to enable others to do so as well. It's just more reason for Kirijo group to not suspect him, and even owe him for his work.

I'm likely getting plenty of canon timeline of events off, but I think it'd be really cool for the Chairman himself to be similarly affected by the Kirijo group's experiment alongside the SEES members. Albeit, in a way that fucks him up into becoming the antagonist. Not to say he has no free will/is being actively coerced by Nyx, but that singular moment of interacting with the Shadows changed him and his outlook on life quite drastically.

Lastly, I'm pained that he doesn't really fit into the group. I think there's so much potential there for him to actually be a part of the SEES gang, holding some genuine affection that's a remnant of his pre-Shadow affected self, even going as far as having hesitation/second thoughts. Idk lol, canon Ikutsuki's death is waved off with little impact beyond how he killed Mitsuru's dad, when this guy the SEES team trusts/looks for direction kills himself in front of them. There's no emotional pay-off or pain, his death/twist reveal is just an event that happens lmao. I'd have liked to see Ikutsuki genuinely be an adult figure all the kids needed, and for them to feel the sting of his betrayal on a more personal level than what we got.

Anyway, TLDR, I feel like this helps make Ikutsuki a better villain lol. His fingers are in all the pies already!!! Use him!

So normal about this long haired, bespectacled, goofy middle aged man. He has such dad energy, and I love the angsty narrative of being corrupted lol

pls yell about him to me tq very much

[spacevixenmusic]

Unfairly Maligned Games, Vol. 1

Games I loved that got low scores, review bombed, or have some other weird negative stigma attached to them that I think is unfairly earned.

NOTE: I don't believe in giving games a number score or a letter grade. Maybe I'm just bad at criticism or very easy to please, whatever.

Battleborn [2016]

One of my personal favorite games of all time, Battleborn was advertised as a hero-based PVP shooter with MOBA mechanics that unfortunately came out right alongside one of the biggest games of the PVP shooter genre ever released (Overwatch). Thanks to this poor timing, Battleborn - along with several other similar but different games - was doomed to failure, choked to death by Blizzard's infinite marketing resources and predatory Free Play Weekends that just mysteriously happened to occur on the same weekends as its "competitors" major updates, DLC releases, promo events, etc. Battleborn is no longer available to play ANYWHERE as of January 2021; so few people played it after it was review bombed as "the game your mom bought you when you asked for Ovewatch for xmas" (yes Blizz fans used that fucking Simpsons meme TO DEATH, it's their one joke they have about Battleborn) that the game's servers had to be shuttered so the money could be funneled into Gearbox's much bigger cash cow release at the time, Borderlands 3.

Sour grapes aside, Battleborn was in many ways the game that many people actually wish Overwatch was now. In addition to the PVP game, Battleborn had a co-op campaign mode - complete with a story, cutscenes, and unique character dialogue depending on who you brought to each mission - which could be played for character XP (ability tree unlocks), random gear loot (for use in either campaign mode or PVP), and character cosmetics. The 30 playable characters were wildly varied in terms of design and gameplay, and yes I have to point it out every time, Battleborn had both "cute tiny animal in a mech suit" and playable black women BEFORE Overwatch did. The game also featured a very impressive and highly slept-on visual aesthetic that felt like every Saturday Morning Cartoon I ever grew up with from the 80s/90s, featuring a wild blend of 3D and 2D animation that all the other hero PVP games WISH they could have matched.

And damn, dude. If you like Lore in your video games, there was a TON of material written for this one. And I'm not just talking about supplemental media like a comic or a wiki or an interview about cut content or whatever. I mean there was a metric FUCK TON of additional world-building material right there in the game. Each character came with a set of challenges you could complete which would give you the usual XP and money, but also unlocked a fun little tidbit of Lore about the universe. These came in the form of short stories, recorded conversations, email logs, forum posts, shipping manifests, and even fully voiced segments explaining details about each character, who they were, why they were fighting this war, and some fun little ways of explaining how their weapons or abilities worked. For example, Reyna holds her laser pistol on its side, gangster-style, because she wanted to use a very specific gun model, had its internal parts stripped out so she could use an ammo clip of a much stronger caliber than that model was supposed to be capable of, but in order for the chamber to reload correctly, the gun had to sit a bit cockeyed. And that fun little nugget is just sitting there, right in the game, for you to discover! It's fucking cool as hell!

Now I know you're itching to make a joke about there only being like 15 people who even played the game. Yes, I've seen the Active Player Steam charts meme. It's true, Battleborn had a very small, but also very dedicated, community. Despite that, there were so few people playing that we all ended up making friends with each other pretty quickly. It was one of the friendliest PVP communities I'd ever been a part of. We knew there weren't many people online, so we created an environment that felt comfortable for players new and veteran alike. Many of us are still friends today, outside of the game. Because there were so few people online, we also got to play regularly with Gearbox devs and game writers, and even one of the voice actors responsible for at least three of the game's characters (plus a few NPCs!). We organized and hosted our own events, got official backing from the devs for Double XP weekends, held art jams and hashtag celebrations. Hell, I even used my love of this game to jumpstart my serious foray into music by making an entire album of songs for its characters (complete with a bunch of commissioned fan art from the community)!

(art by Leaddybum)

So yeah. Rest in peace, Battleborn. You were ahead of your time and the hate and harassment you got from The Gamers was completely undeserved. I will always keep hope alive that you'll come back to us some day. Maybe as a sequel, maybe in a new format. There was so much more left to explore in that universe.

May our battle never end.

[yamayuandadu]

Which authors do you consider reliable, and would you recommend for studying Egyptian mythology?

I'm sorry but for personal reasons I've decided I'm not going to answer vague questions like this anymore. I'm going to simply direct you to the bibliographies of quite literally hundreds of wikipedia articles I wrote. They are all compiled in one place here. I don't think having to look through them is all that time-consuming, and books and articles listed have bibliographies themselves so there's no shortage of sources. If you want to learn something well, you will need to figure out firsthand how to make use of that - there's no shortcut. I'm not all that interested in Egyptology but you will find a plenty of relevant sources in articles like Yam, Resheph and Horon. Have fun. This is probably a harsh response, but I'm not sure how to tackle recent problems in any other way. I've noticed things I put actual effort into and/or enjoy talking about usually do not spark any real discussion - they get notes but clout is not a value in itself to me. Because of that, I admit being asked to just provide people with bibliographies, often on topics I don't talk about much and have limited interest in starts to feel like I'm viewed as a search engine, not as a person. This is the primary factor behind the decision to stop answering vague bibliographical asks. Additionally, I know this can be difficult when you are new to something, but please at least try to consider if something can be answered without writing a multi-page essay, if it was asked before, and if the question isn’t directly answered in one of the books I recommend basically monthly and/or use in the monthly wiki contributions. Also note I run this blog entirely pro bono - I don't have a kofi or patreon or anything. On top of that, each month I have to put actual work into wikipedia to retain access to academic publications. I simply cannot dedicate too much of my free time to preparing bibliographies for others.

Finally, on a related note: while this is not aimed directly at the anonymous person who sent this ask, please do not dm me - whether here or on discord or anywhere else - just outright asking me to give you a specific book or article, especially if we do not really talk otherwise. I didn’t really do anything about such situations in the past and sometimes even sent the requested books but from now on I’m going to ignore any such requests or block over that.

Once again, I'm sorry if all of this sounds harsh. This is a necessary change.

[deusvervemakesgames]

Project RBH Devlog 0015

Another less than productive week, although this time it’s for a different reason.

It started well enough, I suppose. There was a small issue with the way that the Burning status effect wore off so that when it did, it wouldn’t deal one last hit to the burning enemy like it should, so I fixed that by copying the line of code that does the damage to the part of the code that makes it wear off, problem solved.

Then I set out to implement another change to the status effects.

As I’ve stated, Roguelites/Roguelikes have to have not only a solid primary gameplay loop, but good variation to make each run actually feel unique, or at least to present interesting complications to a player attempting to create their optimal build.

In order to facilitate that variance, I want different status effects to have secondary effects that change the enemy stats so that a dedicated Burning/fire build will feel different from, say, a Freeze build or an electric build or whatever.

For some reason, the code simply isn’t doing anything. No stat changes at all. It’s very strange. I have a few ideas on why that might be, but I haven’t yet gotten it to work. As such, I haven’t been able to do much else.

Which leaves me with this week to once again smack my head against the code until it does as I say.

I think the problem is that the Variable Initialization—the bit where I tell the code that the variable exists and does something—is for some reason not being recognized by the function. Or, possibly, that the change to that variable isn’t being tracked for some reason. Sadly, GameMaker Studio updated with a new tool for tracking problems in the code but it’s extremely annoying, so it may be harder to figure out what the issue is. Oh well. It’s not like I’m not used to throwing random shit at the code to experiment with why something isn’t doing the thing it should be.

I do however have some good news, or at least interesting news. It’s not related to my personal project, but if you’re following along with this DevLog you might be interested in some aspects of Game Design. You may also recall that I have a habit of extolling the virtues of the Game Design Document (GDD). Recently, two different free online Game Design resources have put up their own GDD templates for use. If you’re at all curious as to what the GDD is really like, you can browse them at your leisure.

One is from a website called the Game Design Wiki, and the other from the Indie Game Academy. I’m largely unfamiliar with both of these services, so I can’t honestly say if they’re good or not, but their GDD templates are free, so you can at least look to see if that’s worth anything to you, or satisfy your curiosity.

Game Design Wiki

Indie Game Academy

Until next Devlog!

-DeusVerve

Special thanks to my Tier 3 Patrons, Haelerin and Christos Kempf!

Support me on Patreon

[grandlinewiki]

Welcome to the Wiki Tumblr!

Hoi!

This it the tumblr for Grand Line Wiki, a One Piece wiki project I have been spending over a year on now. The goal of this tumblr is to garner some general support and notability but also just to update what gets added, why I do what I do, and to generally have fun as I make it. You can expect consistent One Piece content and a cool look into the manga/anime/video games/music of One Piece <3

Any support at all is extremely helpful as this is a one gal project and it takes time but I hope you enjoy the content regardless, so please expect plenty to come!

Website: grandlinewiki.net

Wiki Patreon: patreon.com/grandlinewiki

Wiki Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jadeparcels

FAQ:

(↓ Under here ↓)

→ Why are you making a wiki if there's already a fandom/wikia for One Piece?

A few reasons but without going super in depth, the current wikia has it's issues as some of the pages aren't consistent or accurate as well as the fact that fandom has made their website difficult to use due to the massive amount of advertising and popups. My overall goal is to be ad free on this wiki as well as being a comprehensive, thorough, and enjoyable database that is fun to go through.

→ The news on the home page hasn't updated!

Yes, the home page for right now is more of a landing page as filling in the wiki itself is of higher priority. I hope to actually be able to give daily updates later on but for now, it'll help you get where you need :3

→ The search bar doesn't work!

Yes, while i have played around with it, it hasn't been the first priority since there's nothing worth searching for if the pages don't exist/haven't been filled in. This will be towards the end as I still have manga, anime, and character pages to fill in and complete. For now you can use the buttons on the left side to get to the main sections and when the homepage is redone, it'll have a comprehensive sidebar that will span all aspects so you can check out what ever you like.

→ How long do you think it'll take?

I'll be honest, it's been a rough year and to not even have the manga section done is it's own bummer (╥ω╥) BUT patreon support would help so much as it would fund the wiki and help to somewhat keep me afloat as I dedicate more time to it. Overall, expect it to be another year at least, I will do my best to make it exciting to follow and with luck (and a lot of coffee) I can have something solid by this time next year.

→ Can I make suggestions, throw out ideas for what I'd like to see?

Yes!! I love hearing other peoples ideas and this wiki is a love letter! It only makes sense if other peoples love for One Piece is included! If I don't respond right away, I apologize but I will do my best to get to every idea and will let you know if it's worth doing, if it would take awhile, and how soon i could do it. ⸜( *ˊᵕˋ* )⸝

[rottingraisins]

I wanted to let you know that I loved seeing your art for Devil’s Advocate. I’d always thought that I’d have really made it as a creator when someone liked my stuff enough to make a fan work for it, so when I saw it while half heartedly scrolling through the SCP tag in the early morning it woke me right up. My motivation to write hasn’t been all there recently, but seeing someone who liked my work enough to make art for it really helped me get back into things. Once again, I really liked the art, and if you’ve got any questions about the series or are just curious about it, feel free to ask, I love talking about it.

Thank you!! I got a bit spooked truthfully seeing you in my notifs but I'm so honored you like my posting haha!

Also I think you should know I'm hardly the only one making fanwork, theres a whole gaggle of very dedicated devils advocate fans and weve been kind of passing fanart between us and yelling at each other abt it lately... From what I've seen your writing really strikes a chord with people & digs its fingers into that perpetually unresolved resurrection act 1 setup in a way a lot of us have been rlly wanting smth to do for a while! Really really stoked I imparted motivation devils advocate has caught me in a way that its been some time that anything from the wiki has and im almost certainly gonna draw more stuff for it... :]

[idyllic-affections]

i forgot i posted this but it still holds true. what kind of vision would they have? regardless of if you all want to see it, i am going to discuss what i think their vision could be! shoutout to this person on the genshin wiki, i used their comments as reference for patterns between all vision users of the same element.

spoilers for baizhu's story quest under the cut.

electro is my #1 spot for [name]'s vision, but i'm open to suggestions.

ei is the electro archon + the god of eternity, and junior herbalist!reader is doing what they can to help baizhu attain just that, because they don't want him to die and they also don't want changsheng to die. it's sort of like two mirrors with the reflective sides facing one another. baizhu uses his wisdom to teach his beloved junior herbalist, while [name] uses the wisdom he bestowed upon them to help him attain immortality. they help each other.

electro users have nature cameos rather often. [name] is a herbalist. self-explanatory. their potential connection to changsheng, if baizhu were to die, would also justify this.

i could also see it being anemo tbh.

anemo users have a terrible history of losing someone dear to them. in [name]'s case, i think we all know who that would be—baizhu.

anemo users also seem to be less free than other people, ironically. [name] is bound by their ideals, bound by their commitment as baizhu's junior herbalist. they could leave if they wanted to, but they wouldn't dare. they're much too far in by now. leaving is no longer an option in their mind.

dendro is also possible, and it could be a fun idea to explore, but imo is less likely than the first two options.

it would be a fun coincidence if their vision happened to be the same as their master's.

like baizhu, they would also try to end changsheng's contract if he failed to do so, but i like to think they'd try to do it through death rather than eternal life, so they'd spend time trying to undo what the adepti did to qiqi (because how could they leave her behind, alone? they couldn't do something so cruel like that). as such, like baizhu, they may use people around them to help attain what they need.

pyro would be a stretch, but i could see it happening.

pyro users are very dedicated to their craft. they persevere.

of course, i imagine that [name]'s responsibility as baizhu's apprentice would be a taxing thing, and a very unconventional thing in some cases (they've got to learn to destroy god remains... that was NOT in their job description when they first started working for him LMAO), so it would still make at least a little bit of sense if their vision were pyro.

i personally couldn't see it being cryo, hydro, or geo, but like i said, i am open to suggestions. send me asks about this, i would love to discuss vision bearer![name] ideas hehe <3

junior herbalist!reader (otherwise known as chronically ill!reader) deserves a vision tbh

[spyglassrealms]

Spy's Spec-Bio Essentials

I honestly didn't mean to write a full-on essay, but I couldn't help myself -I love specbio, and the recent revival of interest in it makes me very happy. If you wanna just get right to the meat: normal links are highlighted blue, YouTube links are highlighted red.

Speculative biology has its roots as far back as Pliny the Elder and his Natural History, though most consider H.G. Wells to be the true grandfather of the genre with works such as War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and Man of the Year Million. However, any speculative biologist worth their salt credits Dougal Dixon as the father of specbio as we know it today –especially since he is the man who coined the term! Dixon's books After Man, Man After Man, and The New Dinosaurs are considered the foundational works of modern specbio. So too is Wayne Barlowe's book Expedition.

While the original printings of these books are very expensive to acquire, After Man recently received a Kindle version, and Expedition has a very good documentary adaptation available in totality on YouTube. Another important work of early speculative biology was the Discovery Channel limited series The Future Is Wild, a documentary show exploring the possible futures of life on Earth in several million years' time.

With the rise of the internet, people interested in speculative biology –those few and far between– could share their thoughts and amateur works with each other. Online specbio hit its first height around the mid-aughts to early tens, featuring many notable works that were very influential to me personally when I joined the scene circa 2014. Unfortunately, right around when I joined there was a notable "mass extinction" –many of the more active and prominent figures of the specbio community left the web behind for various reasons, and thus the golden age ended.

In recent years, partially thanks to certain YouTube video essays on the classic projects, interest in speculative biology seems to have increased dramatically! I've taken to calling the current era the "specbio renaissance," and it makes me so happy to see new, younger people interested in this unique facet of creativity. In light of this I've created this master post of my personal recommendations of essential specbio works for new "speccers" to enjoy!

The specbio community has congregated on forums for decades. I personally joined the community via DeviantArt right around when the old ZetaBoards forum underwent a massive host shift and never participated on the forum all that much, but fortunately the old Speculative Evolution Forum is still up and still active!

For those who'd prefer a simpler way to keep up with current events in the specbio community, Astrovitae is a free e-magazine dedicated to contemporary spec. A product of the recent specbio renaissance, Astrovitae only has a handful of issues thus far but is already becoming a staple publication in the field.

I made this post to provide what I think is key information and important resources, but the SpecBio Wiki is a far more thorough companion to your journey into the world of speculative biology. As always, though: beware ye old Wiki Rabbit Hole!

Biblaridion's Alien Biospheres video series is an excellent entry point for anyone looking to learn the basics of specbio. It's a demo xenobiology project, with a heavy focus on the scientific concepts used in building up the world and its ecology.

Curious Archive's Alien Worlds video series is an excellent collection of bite-size examinations of various specbio projects, including several on this list!

Nemo Ramjet (C. M. Kösemen)'s Life on Snaiad is universally considered a classic work of speculative biology, started in the early days of the golden age of internet specbio. Snaiad is an alien planet, in its early days of human habitation, filled with strange lifeforms bearing two "heads."

Kösemen's other well-known classic work is Alltomorrows, a short ebook exploring hundreds of millions of years' worth of possible human evolution. Readers, be advised: this work contains extensive body horror and discussion of human extinction, both circumstantial and deliberate.

Sagan IV, originally created by Hydromancerx, is one of the oldest and most extensive specbio projects. Started as a simple artistic exercise on a forum in 2006, Sagan IV has evolved into a large, highly collaborative vision of an alien world inspired by the works of Carl Sagan. It is still ongoing today, and you can participate in their regular contests and activities!

Gert van Dijk's Furaha is another of the well-known classic specbio projects, and one of the few from the golden age that is still fully active. Furaha itself is an alien world orbiting Nu Phoenicis which harbors a fascinating native biosphere, built upon carefully-researched biomechanics. The site itself is laid out much like an encyclopedia, and the accompanying blog is a treasure trove of specbio know-how and community history!

Sunrise on Ilion, a xenobiology project by @supermalmoworld, is a personal favorite of mine. Ilion is a planet tidally locked to a red dwarf star, and its endemic lifeforms often challenge our expectations for Earth-like ecology. The website boasts extremely detailed information on the setting and its inhabitants, as well as in-universe articles and logs of the various human expeditions to this fascinating world. The project is still active on a very sporadic basis, at least as per blog entries.

Nereus is a xenobiology project created by Evan Black; another reasonably well-known golden age work but one that is unfortunately no longer active. The world of Nereus, orbiting the star Achird, teems with life unfamiliar to the humans which seek to adopt it as their home. Like many specbio projects it adopts a documentarian style, but there are plenty of nuggets of story tucked in the articles.

Serina is a contemporary speculative evolution project created by the legendary Sheather; it is what I would consider the holotype of the "seed-world" branch of specbio. Serina is a planet populated only by the descendants of the domestic canary (and a few other organisms like guppies, snails, ants, sunflowers, bamboo, algae, etc). The project digs deeply into the various unique niches of the world and the organisms that evolve to fill them, and in doing so mixes nature-documentarian style with some of the most compelling and emotionally engaging storytelling I have read in years.

These are just what I think are the essentials. There are numerous other fantastic projects, both contemporary and from years ago, that I would highly suggest investigating! Contemporary honorable mentions that personally inspire me include @alexriesart's birrin, @iguanodont's birgs, @jayrockin's Runaway to the Stars, Christian Cline's Teeming Universe, Keenan Taylor's Kaimere, and my friend Mičkin's Temere!

[a-queer-seminarian]

so ya wanna know about autism: masterpost

I give this google doc link out to individuals a lot, and realized it might be useful for a lot of people if i shared it more widely. It’s a masterpost of a whole bunch of Autistic Stuff -- here’s the link to the actual doc, but i’ll also post it all here on tumblr (under a readmore after the table of contents).

(edit: if the hyperlinks aren’t working for you, here’s the google doc url that you can copy and paste into an internet browser to access everything: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16BqhRv4IlZ6KcElGAEZOx8sFYwRs4W1jF-ddY_XKYnE/edit?usp=sharing )

Please spread it around (including sharing the google doc link outside of tumblr wherever you want). Feel free to comment with more resources, tumblr posts, articles, etc. that you find helpful! And if any links are broken, let me know.

It can be a major challenge for adult autistic folks to find content for us and by us, because so much “official” content is 1) ableist and harmful and 2) geared towards parents of autistic children. So I’ve compiled just about every resource I’ve got that discusses autism by and for #actuallyautistic folks.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- ORGANIZATIONS AND SELF ADVOCATES

- DEFINING AND DESCRIBING AUTISM

misc.

Metaphors and images for autism

Disability models

Issues with Functioning Labels, ideas of “Mild” - “Severe” autism

- AUTISM AND INTERSECTIONALITY

misc.

Autism among women

Autism and race

Autism and LGBTQ

- STUFF ON SELF DIAGNOSIS

misc.

Is it ADHD or Autism??

Tests / checklists

- STUFF ON PROFESSIONAL DIAGNOSIS

- AUTISTIC PRIDE / CULTURE AND HISTORY!

misc.

Autism / disability history and culture

The Neurodiversity Movement

Person first vs. identity first language

Cureism

- AUSTITIC TRAITS (BEYOND THE ONES COMMONLY DISCUSSED!)

Misc. - samefoods, lists, needing to know what to expect, etc.

Stimming

Communication stuff - misc. - Verbal/nonverbal - Infodumping - echolalia - Prosopagnosia - Aphasia - Eye contact

Special interests / hyperfixations

Auditory Processing Disorder

Sensory issues / Sensory Processing Disorder

Meltdowns and Shutdowns and Burnout

Executive function

Emotion stuff

- MASKING / PASSING / SCRIPTING

- WHY AUTISM SPEAKS AND ABA ARE SO BAD

- MISCELLANEOUS

Suicide

Allyship / for allistics - For parents of autistic persons

More non-speaking autistic self-advocates

misc.

_________________

SOME ORGANIZATIONS AND SELF ADVOCATES

ASAN!!

The Autistic Woman and Nonbinary Network

Amethyst Schaber’s “Ask and Autistic” YouTube full of videos on various autistic stuff

Lydia X.Z. Brown / Autistic Hoya 

Dr. Nick Walker

Mrs. Kerima Çevik

“Non-Speaking Autistic Speaking” - Amy Sequnzia’s blog

“The thinking person’s guide to autism”

The How-To Wiki for autism is actually really helpful! 

Ollibean blog .

DEFINING AND DESCRIBING AUTISM

Video: “What is autism?”

“About autism”

“What being autistic means to me”

Myths about autism .

Metaphors and images for autism - “Autism is a sundae bar” - “Autism is purple” - “Understanding the spectrum” comic - Another visual on the idea of a spectrum - And another visual on the spectrum - not an on-off switch .

Disability models - Understanding disability models - Video: models of disability discourse .

Functioning Labels, “Mild” or “Severe” autism - Article on functioning labels - “What’s wrong with functioning labels? A masterpost” - Another article on problems with functioning labels - “I don’t experience my autism mildly; you experience my autism mildly” - A non-speaking autistic who is labeled non-functioning discusses labels - “Most people would consider me low-functioning, but I hate that word” - Tweets from actual autistics on functioning labels - How the same person may be labeled low or high functioning at different times - “Mental Age Theory hurts people with disabilities” .

AUTISM AND INTERSECTIONALITY

Article on autism in communities of color + in the LGBTQ community

Autism, intersectionality, and STEM college outcomes

Articles on intersectionality on The Art of Autism .

Autism among women - A reminder about talking about differences in autism in “females” - “I thought I was lazy: the invisible struggle for autistic women” - “The women who don’t know they’re autistic” - “The gas-lighting of women and girls on the autism spectrum” .

Autism and race - “Being Autistic, Black, and Femme” - “Black and Autistic: Is there room at the advocacy table?” - “Autistic, Gifted, and Black” - “I, too, am Racialized” - Autistic Hoya on being Chinese & a transracial adoptee - Video: “Growing up BLACK in a neurotypical legal system” - The Autism Wars: Mrs. Kerima Çevik’s blog .

Autism and LGBTQ - “Autism and gender variance - is there a cause for the correlation?” - “The intersection of autism and gender” - Issues being transmasc and autistic - “Gendervague: At the intersection of Autistic and trans experiences” - “I’m an autistic lesbian and no, I don’t wish I were ‘normal’” .

STUFF ON SELF DIAGNOSIS:

A self-diagnosis masterpost!

Autistic self-dx is valid

“Reasons why self-dx is good from the pov of a professional” 

Some reasons why autism may go undiagnosed 

“Five reasons I am self identified as autistic”

“Beware of gatekeeping”

A masterpost of “resources for women who believe they might be autistic”

A therapist who’s never met an incorrect self-dx-er .

Is it ADHD or Autism?? - Links to information on the intersections between autism and ADHD - A list of things that are more ADHD, things that are more autism, and things that are both - Science: decoding the overlap between ADHD and autism - The concept of neurodivergent “cousins” .

Various tests / checklists: - ASD Checklist - List of inclusive autistic traits - Book: I Think I Might Be Autistic: A Guide to Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis and Self-Discovery for Adults .

STUFF ON PROFESSIONAL DIAGNOSIS:

Privilege in being able to get a diagnosis

Pros and cons of getting one

Someone answers the question “Was it worth it for you to get diagnosed as an adult?”

Professional diagnosis can get some people deported :/

This person’s journey from self-dx to pro-dx .

AUTISTIC PRIDE / CULTURE AND HISTORY!

The wiki how-to on accepting your autism

The wiki how-to on autistic strengths 

“7 Cool Aspects of Autistic Culture”

“I’m autistic and proud of it”

“You are not a burden” 

“What is self advocacy?” .

Autism / disability history and culture - Video: “Is autism a disability?” - A google drive “disability library” full of amazing content - A tumblr tag full of posts with autistic history - Book - Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking includes essays that explore the history of autism and of autistic self-advocacy - Book - Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity .

The Neurodiversity movement - The neurodiversity paradigm - Video: basic terms and definitions - Video: what is neurodiversity? - Liberating ourselves from the pathology paradigm .

Person first vs. identity first language (“person with autism” vs. “autistic person”) - ASAN on identity first language - Why it matters - Video: Autism ACTUALLY Speaking - Science: a study on what labels actual autistic persons prefer - An image showing the difference between person first and identity first language .

Cureism & seeking causes of autism - Video: “Autism and the disability community: the politics of neurodiversity, causation, and cure” - Video: Self advocacy in a culture of cure - An analogy against cureism - It’s okay that some autistics do want a cure - Quotes on Truth Is by Julia Bascom about not needing a cure - Cureism is eugenics - “If a cure is found, no one will force you to take it” .

AUTISTIC TRAITS (BEYOND THE ONES COMMONLY DISCUSSED!)

“Thinking about patterns of opposite extremes among autistic people” (e.g. how we tend to be sensory avoidant or sensory seeking, extremely gender conforming or extremely gender nonconforming, hyper-empathetic or hypo-empathetic)

An essay on inclusive autistic traits

This tumblr is dedicated to answering people asking about whether various things are autistic traits!

This person lists the reasons they think (know) they’re autistic; the list includes a lot of traits that often aren’t talked about 

“Some autism things” .

“What are samefoods?” - “Why do autistic people tend to samefood?”

It’s okay if you don’t like certain things / avoid certain things because of your autism

Wanting/needing to know how long something will last, what to expect .

Stimming! - Video: what is stimming? - Video on self-injurious stims - Video: autobiographical look at stimming and its role - More than a coping mechanism - A masterpost of examples of various types of stimming - Video on vocal / verbal stimming - Examples of vocal stimming as communication - A tumblr blog with a tag full of examples of body stims .

Communication stuff - Trouble with volume modulation; repetition; inconsistent talking habits - Autistic idiolects - Autistic dialect? - Autistics communicate differently amongst each other! . - Verbal/nonverbal - - Selective mutism - - Semiverbal communication - - Different amounts of access to speech - - A person on being non-verbal and using AAC - - People who are nonverbal still deserve to be listened to .

Infodumping - What is infodumping?

Echolalia - “Autism and Echolalia: what you need to know” - What is echolalia? - A tumblr blog’s tag featuring examples of echolalia

Aphasia and autism

Prosopagnosia (Face blindness) - Science: a study confirming that some 67% of autistic persons have some degree of facial recognition difficulties - Science: a study offering theories for why this is!

Video: Autistics and eye contact - Science: Researchers explore why autistic people avoid eye contact

Tendency to overexplain .

Special interests / hyperfixations - Some info on hyperfixations - Video on special interests - Emphasizing the intensity of these things - “What’s so special about a special interest?” - “Why we love what we love and why it should matter to you” - Not every autistic person knows everything there is to know about their special interest - “Interest hopping” - Dividing our life into “eras” of special interests .

Auditory Processing Disorder - Examples of APD - “You might struggle with auditory processing if…” .

Sensory Processing Disorder - Video: What is sensory processing disorder? - Video: a virtual experience of what it’s like to be at a party as someone with SPD - A post about some of the weird sensory stuff that many autistics experience (such as feeling nauseated when your real issue is a headache) - Many sensory issues aren’t just annoying, but physically painful - Difficulty in explaining autistic hypersensitivities - Auditory sensory musings - Trying to describe sensory overload - Not noticing when we’re hungry - Weird tolerance for big pain, intolerance for small pain - Science: “Unseen Agony: Dismantling Autism’s house of pain” - Tumblr blog with a tag of other posts about sensory issues .

Meltdowns and Shutdowns and burnout: - Meltdowns vs. shutdowns - Video: “What are autistic meltdowns?” - Video: “What are autistic shutdowns?” - A description of meltdowns - Signs of a shutdown in autistic people - How to support someone having a shutdown - Science: “Autistic shutdown alters brain function” - How to avoid meltdowns - “Dealing with meltdowns” - “The protective gift of meltdowns” - Video on autistic burnout - Article on burnout - Science: Autistic burnout described by a researcher - An article on autistic regression (burnout) - “Help! I seem to be getting more autistic” - talks about how things like burnout, aging, new environment, being around other autistics, and more can cause this .

Executive function - Video: “What is executive functioning?” - A chart describing the different aspects of executive function - “Executive functioning problems - a frustrating aspect of being autistic” - Autistic inertia .

Emotion stuff (including empathy) - Our emotional regulation is different - Article: (some) people with autism can read emotions, feel empathy - Video on misconceptions around autism and empathy - “Double standards: The irony of empathy and autism” - Science on the “double empathy problem” involving relationships between autistics and non-autistics - Not a bad person for not having empathy - More musings on autism and empathy - “Autistic grief is not like neurotypical grief” .

Alexithymia: - Science: Overlap between autism and alexithymia - Video: what is alexithymia? - “I don’t know how I feel”

MASKING / PASSING 

Video on passing

An infographic on autistic masking

Another video on masking / “hiding” in a neurotypical world

We are not obligated to mask or “act less autistic”

When you mask less and get told “you’ve been acting more autistic”

Getting called high-functioning because you mask/pass well

Scripting: - Video: what is scripting? 

WHY AUTISM SPEAKS AND ABA ARE SO BAD

A guide to identifying good autism organizations (and how they can improve!)

Autism Speaks:

Some facts and statistics 

An AS masterpost

Another AS masterpost

Video: What’s wrong with AS?

Video: a non-speaking autistic’s response to discussions between Autism Speaks and GRASP

“Enough with the puzzle pieces”

“I resign my roles at Autism Speaks”

“Responding to Autism Speaks” .

ABA:

Video: what’s ABA? 

“Studies find thin evidence for early autism therapies” 

Masterpost of why ABA is harmful

More on how ABA is abusive even if a kid “seems to like it”

An autistic describes ABA’s “quiet hands” method

And another post on how ABA is harmful

Trauma and autism

Alternatives to ABA

MISCELLANEOUS 

Suicide - Video: Speaking to suicidal autistics - Science linking autism and increased suicidality - Video: “diagnosis saved my life” .

Allyship / for allistics - Video: How to be an ally - Resources for supporting autistics during Autism Acceptance month and year-round! - Autistic accessibility needs - “How to be a friend to autistic people” - 15 things you never say to an autistic person - What to say / not to say to an autistic adult - Video: what shouldn’t I say to autistic people? - Video: Things not to say to an autistic person - Video: “Isn’t everyone a bit autistic?” - Don’t talk about “mental age” - “To those who tell autistic persons ‘everyone experiences that’” - Why it’s not helpful to say “well I don’t think of you as disabled / as autistic” - How to support a loved one who’s gone temporarily nonverbal - How to support someone having a shutdown - Help reduce meltdowns in a loved one - Don’t restrain an autistic person having a meltdown - Understanding why autistics seem “so picky” - Making communication easier for your autistic friend - Avoiding ableism against AAC users - How to protect your autistic employees from ‘no script found’ situations” .

For parents of autistic persons - “Don’t Mourn for Us” - “You don’t ‘lose a child to autism’” - Advice from autistic adults on treating your autistic children with respect - A masterpost of advice for “autism parents” - It’s okay if your kid doesn’t hug you or say “I love you” - “They keep publishing these violent articles” - “When you’re autistic, abuse is considered love” - You don’t have to tell everyone who comes across you and your kid in public that your kid is autistic / you don’t have to constantly apologize for your kid! - Your kid isn’t bad / uncooperative just because they have certain differences - Don’t tell autistic adults we are “nothing like your child” - A tag full of more tumblr posts about / for “autism parents”

More non-speaking autistic self-advocates - Video: “In My Language” by Mel Baggs - Mel Baggs: “Don’t ever assume autism researchers know what they’re doing” - Lysik’an: “You don’t speak for low-functioning autistics” - Film: Deej

Autistics and the idea of “getting out of your comfort zone”

Autistics accommodate allistics far more than the other way around 

It is icky when autistic persons are only valued when we’re “productive” 

Parents who are themselves autistic

Autism as genetic? - Science: “Autism Genetics, Explained”

Science: links to some studies on autism and gastro-intestinal issues, autism and caffeine, autism and sleep, autism and stimming, autism and queerness, autistic strengths, and more

[hournites]

Hi there! While I know you aren't exactly the author behind those very quite funny JSA chat fics that I've been reading at least since the first trailer came out in July where Beth, Yolanda and Rick shade the heck out of our poor Court in a series of very teenage relatable hilarious text messages her relationship with Cameron I kind of do know that they're usually written by someone else for you because I've read some of your fics too (they're awesome) and so I was wondering if, like, is it possible if that Hournite author could come up with another JSA chat fic based on the recent events? XD I think we all could use another laugh in the aftermath of such an epic fight scene by looking at how ridiculous-ish it was that the JSA just got their first defeat at the hands of two old people and the unassuming art "creep" despite the fact that Beth unlocked Combat Mode, Artemis entered the fray and Rick had unlimited strenght and yet well, OOPS XD Sorry if this was random but I just really would love to read another of those and they're dedicated for you so please, could you ask that author to do one? :) I also enjoyed the last fic where they went in Rick's car singing Taylor Swift and the ride home was DEAD SILENCE XD Like now I do wanna read the aftermath in chat versions post-the silent ride home hehe. XD OK I RAMBLED TOO MUCH, Thank you for reading this! ^_^

Hi! I hope you're having a great day! You are a little confused but I am here to clear things up so do not worry! I am, in fact, the author for most of the chat fics that you are referring to. I started writing JSA chat fics in 2020 but never quite finished them, so I then decided to put together a fic where the theme is JSA nonsense but it's just all in chat here. Then, I met my friend and fellow co-host for the @starsquadcast Cam @bluevalleybreakingnews! Together, we put together that post-trailer chat fic in July - The JSA Group Chat Presents: "Breaking the Ice" so I am one of the authors behind that one! Then, following canon Camney, Cam continued with The JSA Group Chat Presents: Wiki Leaks and gifted the work to me since I helped her out with a few of the lines and we had previously worked on the last group chat together. We also have another group chat fic which is a JSA/ISA AU - Zoo Valley. So, all that to say, she doesn't usually write these FOR me.

She is the one who wrote the Infinity Inc trio Taylor Swift fic, though, so that one, yes, was all her and you got that right. But you don't have to go through me to reach her! Very conveniently, she posted last night that she's open to fic ideas and I'm sure she'll find your request fun so maybe we can whip something up :) But also quick note we're also two grad students who are podcasting on the side so just because I'm blogging, giffing, podcasting, fic-writing, working and writing a thesis at the same time without falling apart (maybe) doesn't mean I expect her to be ridiculous like me, so coordinating fics can be time consuming and might not be able to happen super quickly, but, we'll see!

Thanks again for sending this ask! Don't worry about rambling :) And don't forget it is a lot easier to directly comment on fics that you like so the authors know that you appreciate their work! Fic writers work very hard for free and do not get the recognition on the work itself that they deserve!

[kazuwhora]

hello hello, i see your requests are open now and can i request izana, wakasa, chifuyu and kazutora with an akutagawa!s/o? hope you have a great day/noon/night! ✨🤗

hi anon! sure! I will try my best with izana and wakasa since there's not tons to work with personality wise so forgive me if theirs are a little shorter heh. im gonna include a little blurb from the bsd fandom wiki for anyone not familiar with his character! I like these kinds of headcanon requests so if anyone wants to see more please feel free to request!

"Akutagawa has a black and white "survival of the fittest" view of the world, claiming that weak people should die and give way to the stronger ones. He is not afraid of pain and defeat His ruthless, vicious nature makes him one of the Port Mafia's most dangerous members, feared by both ally and foe. As violent as he is, Akutagawa maintains a generally composed and detached approach. Towards subordinates and superiors alike, he acts aloof, distancing himself from social interactions however possible. Nonetheless, his composure is fragile. Akutagawa is quick to lash out, ridiculing him for risking the bounty by acting recklessly. This quick temper often gets in his way, fuelling his actions to the core of his very being."

SUMMARY: izana, wakasa, chifuyu, && kazutora with an akutagawa!so

CW: hints of toxicity and violence, mentions of sex but not really all that nsfw-ish so otherwise not much else!

IZANA

- this is an interesting one because from what we know about izana, he is very similar in personality to akutagawa in terms of ruthlessness that stems from childhood trauma and isolation.

- in the case of a s/o with this personality, I think it would be a troubling relationship. lots of bitter fights fuelled by nothing but an inability to express vulnerability, while leaving both of you torn up inside and begging for someone to nurture the trauma and allow space for emotions.

- that being said, with toxicity and trauma also comes intense passion and desire. this relationship brings a lot of fire both in the bedroom and outside of the bedroom, with simple arguments often spawning into intense desperate (and lengthy might I add) sex. like, intense. it's almost like sex is the only safe outlet of these pent up emotions, providing a sort of comfort and also distraction for both parties.

- however as I said in general, this is definitely a toxic relationship. one where neither can help the other when it comes to growth and improvement on a personal level. it's unhealthy and enabling, but for a short lived fling it is hot as fuck im not even gonna lie. lots of hate sex too.

WAKASA

- so wakasa is another interesting one alongside izana given the lack of information and content we have about his character so please excuse the slight kc fanon version I have in my head of wakasa lol

- wakasa has a "don't fuck with me because I do not fucking care" type of vibe to him. I definitely think he's the type to completely disengage from the type of behaviours an akutagawa-type s/o might display. this leads to sort of a sense of competitiveness in trying to get some kind of reaction from him, and it has the potential (much like izana) to become toxic in nature

- any attempts to get under his skin are failed attempts, and the way he looks at you with that half bored expression is something that only triggers more of a somewhat emotional response from you.

- with that being said, my fanon version of wakasa is someone who while cold and aloof, is also quite a rational person. he's been typed by the fandom as INTJ which is quite a quick thinker, and I think he probably (despite not showing it very well) has a soft spot for you. but your passion and intensity (as well as your easily triggered dynamic) keeps him from completely being able to express this care in any way other than not engaging with your antics

- as much as there are some similarities with the type of toxicity in this relationship with both wakasa and izana, the intense passion isn't quite the same as it is with izana. instead, feelings of passion are more to the point and driven by pure instinct and desire rather than toxic passion. wakasa seeming like a very literal person, is actually quite mysterious deep down and has a lot (I mean a lot) of hidden desires and kinks that begin to emerge with time. it's rarely a conversation, and more often just something that happens that surprises you. you just have to go with the flow here, and let him take the reigns for once. it might actually be a good opportunity to allow for vulnerability to take the spotlight for once, which is something wakasa is surprisingly in tune with and quite to the point about.

CHIFUYU

- this is something much healthier than the last two. chifuyu, being an enfp is someone that's able to handle this level of intensity in a person while still being able to understand what's really going on.

- call him the trauma counsellor king. he values each and every response to a trigger that you might have. he notices patterns, he makes mental notes of things, and he does this all without making it seem like he's analyzing.

- to be honest he actually loves the spunk you bring on a day to day level. even though most of the time it's driven by bitterness or hate (not always towards him just in general) he is still able to see beyond that and appreciate you for what you are.

- with that being said, chifuyu will not stand for any toxic behaviour towards him. no sir he will not. threats and pushes for fights wont be tolerated, and he will either disengage or try to expose your vulnerabilities in an attempt at forced submission. this can be hard to get used to, especially with having a personality characterized by the inability to accept being vulnerable. but with time chifuyu is one to create a safe space for you to allow yourself to feel emotions beyond anger and resentment, and he encourages this.

- because of this very feelings based approach, intimacy with chifuyu is just that: intimate. he's extremely loving and doting, hoping that his sweetness can rub off on you a little bit. however he's also very accepting of your need for power over him (especially during sex) and will absolutely submit to your needs in order to please you.

- he really likes to put you in a place of pleasure though, so however that may come to you chifuyu is the one to deliver it.

KAZUTORA

- oh boy. this one is a doozy. listen. if we're talking about timeskip kazutora (as is the case with all characters i write about but I feel it especially important to remind ppl of here given his history), we're talking about someone who is quite literally walking on eggshells in terms of his trauma and emotional vulnerability.

- he's pretty good at being emotionally aware of his needs and struggles as well as the needs and struggles of those around him, but that doesn't mean that he's entirely healed or capable of managing toxicity or his triggers. he still slips up from time to time especially when things get hard, and sometimes finds himself falling into his old patterns. after all, he's only human. but this is where things could get messy in a relationship.

- for the most part, like I said, he's pretty good. so let's focus on that part first since I want to give him credit where it's due. he is very desperate for love and dedicated to providing something to his partner. in this case, he will seek to tap into his emotional vulnerability to provide some sort of comfort for you. he wants to see you happy, and calm, because he sees so much of his old self in you that it gets to him sometimes. but at the same time, he struggles with your relentlessness and can become emotionally drained when things get tough. he'll beat himself up for not being good enough to help you, and this is when he'll isolate and fall into old patterns.

- however, akutagawa's personality type isn't all bad. with a s/o like akutagawa, comes an immense amount of protection and loyalty for their loved ones no matter how tough things might be. in this case it might be hard to communicate this, but there will be times when it's needed in order for kazutora to restrain from old habits and ways of dealing with hardships. but he wants to share his healing with you, he wants you to be happy, and more than anything he understands the struggle of wanting to be happy and healthy but being afraid of losing the one thing that makes you you: your attitude and relentlessness. nobody understands this better than kazutora, which is why things between you can get frustrating and very personal for him.

- much like chifuyu, sex is driven towards pleasing you and only you. chifuyu leans more into switch territory however, while kazutora is 100% submissive. in this case it works out well, however he has a lot of boundaries and limitations when it comes to the way in which you function. he doesn't like degradation. instead, he thrives from praise and any sign of love and care. this might be tough for you to execute 100% of the time, but when it comes down to it the way his eyes twinkle for you is enough to make the ice around your heart melt just a little more each time.

[ophiocordyceps]

time for a bunch of screenshots of my ultrakill ramblings because i officially have big time brainrot. will put under a readmore so there isnt a million screenshots with their exact content pasted in just in your face

[text: hey girl i’m putting so much thought into robot circulatory systems you wouldn’t even be able to imagine (reacted to with broken heart emoji)

i stand by the idea that machines in ultrakill often have artificial hearts

refueling (except for v1) is basically the same as getting a blood transfusion

they’ve got special ports for doing it but their major 'veins' (tubes in roughly the same regions as the human veins most often used for IV lines, at least in the humanoid ones) are all made of a self sealing material in case they have to be punctured in an emergency

usually the dedicated port would be on the chest or occasionally the crook of the arm but as long as you can assume it's an analog to a vein its fine. 'arteries' are no-go zones however because they’re just as pressurized as an actual human artery and will pump out blood readily

they’re more durably built than the 'veins' in order to keep them intact but they cant seal back up if damaged badly enough. the veins only re-seal for small punctures like needle sticks anyways

the IV ports can function as their own infusion pumps as well in case rapid transfusion is necessary and external equipment isn’t available

v1 is extremely weird i don’t know how it works except that it's circulatory system is partially modeled after some kind of open system. like how invertebrate circulatory systems work. i have no fucking clue whats up with it but i’m thinking about it now

it’s not totally open though because that would mean there’s a LOT of free fluid just. in there

this motherfucker runs on osmosis

its probably more correct to say diffusion than osmosis but um fuck you

anyways as you can tell i’m (frothing at the mouth emoji) /end text]

[text: tangent time i think there’s probably several 'almost-v1's that were like prototypes that just. kinda didn’t work

v1 itself is a prototype but its the one that actually accomplished what it was designed to do

its predecessors may or may not even still be around

they could have been scrapped. who knows /end text]

[text: every day i am very normal and oh so regular about v2 being a peacekeeper btw. i think about this a normal amount and will continue to think about this a normal, average amount

^i may have completely made up this in my brain but i’m sticking with it

anyways i don’t know how i never found this (’this’ being the second V2 terminal entry, text pasted below) on the wiki i’m rotating it so fast:

“After its defeat and escape, V2 dove deeper into Hell, killing other machines for their blood to help its recovery with the intent of taking revenge on V1 and recovering its original arm.After finding a temporary replacement from one of its victims, V2 used parts from other machines to transform the new placeholder arm into a mobility tool that would allow it to catch up to V1's fast descent into the deeper layers.In order to prepare for their second and final encounter, it researched the combat data from their previous battle to copy strategies and techniques from the older and more experienced V1 to give itself an upper hand.However, despite all its preparation, V2 lost again, and unable to escape this time, was brought to a swift and decisive end by its predecessor.”

yeah i think i totally made up that detail but there’s something about a war machine who's intended purpose became so completely irrelevant that it is instead reworked to function in times of peace in whatever possible role would be available that's so .

as opposed to kill kill bite maim explode v1 /end text]

[text: v2 IS a war machine and totally capable of fulfilling that role whenever but since there was no need for war machines by the time it was prototyped it’s not bound by any singular hard-coded mission. it’s like when the military makes something it absolutely intends on using for killing and then it’s just. no longer necessary, like at all. never gets used as intended. maybe gets recycled for something else entirely but i don’t know if the military does that because i don’t care about the military. but you understand what i’m saying here

i have so many thoughts about. funny robot

put v2 back in there. please. girl please survive

hakita i love your product but i’m gonna have to go and ignore this one (followed up by a screenshot of part of the ultrakill wiki stating “Due to the constant rumors that V2 actually survived the second fight in [ 4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL ], Hakita (fortunately or unfortunately) confirmed that V2 is 100% Dead.”) /end text]

[text: so yeah thinking about it again v2 wasn’t built with the actual intent of it being a peacekeeper but it chose to be one and stuck with that for (indeterminate amount of time because the timeline of events in ultrakill is barely anything)

and then things got fucky. and it was kinda like well. shit. and started getting more aimless. and then v1 showed up and put sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much spite into it

go girl give us nothing (apathy and spitefulness)

watch how hard i can make shit up /end text]

anyways im 100% sure these arent proper image ids but hopefully they work well enough if the images cant be read for one reason or another. also the icon im using in the server i sent these in was drawn by @/antibio go look at their art it fucks

[sineala]

Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you  would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good. 

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference. 

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!

[theggning]

In Defense of Piper Wright

DISCLAIMER: People have opinions. People have different tastes in characters, and things that they like and dislike about characters. You are allowed to like whatever characters you want and dislike whatever others for whatever reason you want. You can read everything I say here and go “yeah but I still don’t like her” and that’s fine. There are popular characters in all of my fandoms that I still don’t care for much, and that’s okay! I still like to understand how they are written and what makes them tick.

I like Piper. I think she’s funny and charming and it’s very refreshing to see a bossy, outspoken, pushy, but overall courageous and goodhearted woman in a prominent role. But I’ve been kickin’ around this fandom for a bit now and I have repeatedly seen some incredibly uncharitable takes on Piper, a lot of which strike me as either hugely generalizing or frankly, something I don’t think would be directed at a male character with Piper’s same role and traits.

A lot of people complain that Bethesda “puts no thought into their characters”  which I find often translates to “I have not spent any time with this character”  (or less often, “this character is not exactly the way I would like them to be, therefore Bethesda is bad writers.”) Most of the companions in FO4 are quite nuanced and multi-faceted, and you learn things about them by traveling with them and talking to them, hearing their comments on various events and locations. Piper is in the unique position of being featured briefly in the main quest, so meeting her is not optional, though having her as a companion is. Because of this, I feel like many people stick with the basic first impression they get of her, and dismiss her on that alone.

So today in my TED Talk, I would like to discuss some common takes I’ve seen on Piper and provide canon evidence why I think they’re off base or overblown. You are free to agree or disagree with my opinion and you can like or dislike Piper, but there is some stuff flying around that is just not supported by canon at all.

On a side-note, you can find scripts and dialogue for all characters in the game on the Fallout Wiki, and read the entirety of their lines and the context for them. It’s fun and interesting and really helps when you’re writing IC fic or character studies like this.

1. “Piper is pushy and reckless and doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions.”

That’s correct. You have clearly met Piper. This is called a character flaw.

“ Never thought a reporter could consider themselves a success until someone threatened their life. Me? I'm very successful.”

In one of Piper’s early affinity dialogues, she explains the origins of her dedication to the truth. She and her baby sister Nat lived in a town outside the Commonwealth with their single father, a local militiaman. One night on watch duty, Piper’s father was murdered. His captain, Mayburn, claimed that he must have been surprised by raiders, but the now-orphaned teenaged Piper didn’t believe him. She discovered that Mayburn was actually working for the raiders, and had accepted a payoff to sell out the town to an incoming ambush. When Piper’s father discovered this, Mayburn murdered him.

Unfortunately, nobody believed her. The mayor was unwilling to listen to Piper, so she made a bunch of posters publicizing Mayburn’s actions and hung them up all over town. The townspeople were horrified and came clamoring for the truth. Mayburn was thrown out and the citizens were prepared when the raiders came, routing the attack and protecting themselves. By reporting what she’d found to the public, Piper avenged her father’s murder and protected her entire hometown-- but she attributes this not to herself, but to the townspeople, empowered by the truth.

“No, those people saved themselves. Because they knew the truth.”

Player Dialogue Option: “Your father died for knowing the truth. It didn't protect him.”

“But how many more people would've died if he hadn't been willing to stand up?”

“Because people need to know the truth. Even when it's bad. Especially when it's bad.”

Piper believes in the power of the truth, the power of people to make their own decisions, and that the best way to put people at ease is to inform them.

You’ve heard it before, that all good characters need to have flaws. And Piper’s biggest character flaw is that she is overzealous in the pursuit of the truth that she values so deeply.

“Course, in my experience, if you want to do real good, playing nice only gets ya so far.”

Piper has a tendency to be reckless and even a little thoughtless when she’s got a “scoop” in front of her. She can be nosy, pushy, abrasive, and is constantly getting into trouble because of it. She has so frequently been arrested that the Diamond City security guards refer to the lock-up as the “Piper Suite.” She regales you of adventures where she very nearly died in the pursuit of a story (one where she was poisoned for exposing a caravan price-gouging, and one where she was nearly sacrificed by the Children of Atom while investigating irradiated drinking water.)  Piper is so dedicated to her ideals she frequently puts her own life at risk, getting so fired up by exposing lies and deception she gets tunnel-vision.

This bullheaded dedication may or may not be admirable to you personally, depending on your outlook, but it is objectively a character flaw.

But it’s not true that Piper simply doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions. They ABSOLUTELY get away from her and cause unintended problems sometimes, but she is well aware of this flaw of hers and is not oblivious to the trouble it’s caused. Publick Occurrences is popular and well-regarded within Diamond City, with a large readership base that write letters to the editor and otherwise engage with the paper (you can see many NPCs reading it throughout the city.) Piper herself, though, is not popular at all. The guards warn you to stay away from her because she’s trouble. Many NPCs are reluctant to speak to her. She says has lost many of her friends because they have assumed that she will publish their dirty laundry in the paper (something that there is literally no evidence she has done, or would ever do.) 

{A bit emotional. This isn't the sort of thing Piper admits easily. / Neutral} When that first edition hit the stands, I felt like I'd finally done something worth doing, but afterwards, things, things changed. People didn't want to talk the way they used to. Seemed that overnight, I'd gone from being Piper, friend and confidant, to Piper, the nosy snoop.  A lot of folks, they haven't treated me the same since. It started to feel like the only person I could count on was my little sis.

We can most easily see Piper’s struggles as this flaw relates to Nat. As willing as Piper is to push and pry and put her own life in danger, she is terrified of anything happening to her sister (whom she has exclusively raised since she was a toddler.) Piper is forced to walk a careful line between her beliefs and their consequences impacting her sister. If she pushes too hard on McDonough, they could get evicted and put Nat in danger out in the wasteland. If she challenges the Institute, they could snatch Piper or, as she truly dreads, Nat. But if she stops printing the paper, they will have no money and Nat will starve (because remember, Publick Occurrences is Piper’s livelihood and source of income, not just a hobby that she can stop at any time.)  In a later affinity conversation, Piper reveals that she is afraid Nat will emulate Piper’s reckless lifestyle and put herself in danger.

Yet facing all of this, Piper believes so strongly in the truth that she continues printing the paper. She refuses to find another source of income, to back down from being a thorn in McDonough’s side, or otherwise take an easier path. Because even if she’s pushy or obnoxious or nosy or anything else, the truth is the beacon that guides all of Piper’s actions and decisions. It is the central aspect of her characterization, and must be kept in mind while I dive into the rest of these points.

2. “Piper is responsible for the anti-synth sentiment in Diamond City.”

This one is very popular, and I think it’s because players must dig a little bit for the timeline of major events in the game.

The anti-synth sentiment in Diamond City began with two incidents: the “Broken Mask” and the CPG Massacre. Our good pal Nick Valentine explains both incidents to us.

Mechanical synths like Nick were already a known quantity in the Commonwealth, but “Broken Mask” was the incident where people discovered that the Institute had synths that looked human. A customer at Power Noodles suddenly went berserk and started shooting people. When security killed him, they discovered that the man was a synth (Nick states that the man was “full of gears and sprockets,” and we later learn that he was a very early prototype gen-3 model. Current gen-3s are entirely organic and do not contain machinery.)

After that, people were further terrified of human-like synths by the CPG Massacre. The Commonwealth Provisional Government was an attempt to unite the various groups in the Commonwealth into a real governing body. Representatives, including the Institute, met to discuss the formation of laws and governance. But when the negotiations got messy, the Institute decided it was a lost cause. Their representative, a gen-3 synth, proceeded to kill everyone at the negotiations. In one day, most of the influential people in the Commonwealth were violently and blatantly murdered by the Institute. There have been no further attempts by the Institute to communicate or negotiate with the Commonwealth on the surface.

Here’s the thing though. Broken Mask happened in 2229. The CPG Massacre took place sometime in the 2230s. Fallout 4 begins in October of 2287, over 50 years since the beginning of anti-synth sentiment in the Commonwealth and Diamond City.

There has been 50 years of Institute kidnappings, synth raids and other shenanigans building a slow and growing fear. Piper is, at most, in her mid-20s. She was born into a Commonwealth already suffering and exploited by the Institute, where people live in genuine terror of being kidnapped, experimented on, and murdered. She has literally never known a time without the shadow of the Institute hanging over the heads of everyone in the Commonwealth, and naturally, her passion for the truth empowers her to investigate as much as she can.

As the game begins, Piper is facing the consequences of her latest issue, an article in which she discusses the Broken Mask incident (available to read in game, though realtalk, it seems almost NOBODY takes the time to do so.) She talks about sitting down for some noodles across from Mayor McDonough, and how that was the same situation that victims of the Broken Mask incident were in 50 years ago. By drawing this parallel, she insinuates-- not accuses, not declares, but very carefully insinuates-- that McDonough could also be a synth. This article is explosive and controversial, and results in McDonough locking Piper out of the city and making a speech to defend himself.

Given what we know of Piper, it is almost guaranteed she anticipated this, knew that it would make a huge impact and make people start asking McDonough questions. It is Piper firing a salvo at McDonough in what has clearly been a long-simmering feud between them.

But given other context, this seems like it’s a sudden and extremely shocking move from Piper, not something she does all the time. (In “Dangerous Minds,” during the most recent section of Kellogg’s memories, we can hear Travis on the radio discussing the article and saying “oh, Piper’s really done it this time.” Later on the radio, we hear him making a big deal out of Piper’s article like it is big news, not just another wacky accusation from Piper.)

We have no access to back-issues of Publick Occurrences, so we cannot say for sure what kind of articles Piper has been writing all these years. But there is no evidence that Piper uses the paper as a witch-hunt, or tries to identify specific individuals and accuse them of being synths-- and given her actual feelings about synths, this seems a very uncharitable assumption about her. Piper’s main feud is with McDonough and the way he (doesn’t) deal with questions and concerns about the Institute and kidnappings. There is nothing to suggest she spends her time inflaming anti-synth sentiments on purpose, or that her article was the latest in a long line of hit-pieces designed to scare people or turn them against synths.

There is plenty of speculation to be had about how Piper’s newspaper might throw fuel on the fire of a tense situation. There’s lots of discussion to be had about Piper’s article on McDonough and whether or not she’s crossed a line in publishing it.  It is ABSOLUTELY provocative, flirting with baseless speculation, and very questionable journalism. But it’s not the cause of anti-synth sentiment in Diamond City, nor is there any indication Piper is intentionally trying to make that sentiment worse.

3. “Piper hates synths and wants them all dead.”

 Extrapolating from the above, I have seen a lot of people claim that Piper hates synths and tries to call them out, expose them, and reveal the truth of their identities at any cost, even if it gets them killed. This is not only a wild mischaracterization of her, but outright untrue.

One mistake many make in writing game meta and theories is forgetting to consider POV. The characters in the game do not have all the same knowledge that we, the players do. NPCs are usually not given the chance to learn, grow, or evolve at all, apart from those who are involved with specific quests. FO4′s companion characters are unique in that they accompany the player throughout the plot, and thus are given a chance to learn new information and offer us their perspectives on it. 

When we meet Piper, she is an average citizen of Diamond City. Her opinions and perspectives match those of many of her neighbors and fellow citizens. Neither she, nor the people of Diamond CIty fully grasp the nuance that there are different types of gen-3 synths. Some synths are purposely built and programmed to be infiltrators, to kill and replace real people and assume their identities. But others are simply created to work in the Institute as slaves. They are individuals with their own appearances, thoughts, and personalities. They are not here to replace or harm anybody, and simply seek a way to be free. Because the Railroad is so secretive and because there are no open gen-3 synths in Diamond City (like Nick is openly a gen-2 synth, albeit not by choice), Piper and the people of Diamond City have absolutely no perspective on this fact and do not understand it.

Hell, I’ve seen a shitload of players that apparently don’t understand this, who believe things like “all synths are based on a person who they murdered” and “the Railroad helps synths murder and replace people.” (Reddit and Youtube are very wild places.)

But the minute Piper understands that most escaped synths are simply trying to live their own lives, she is IMMEDIATELY one of the most pro-synth companions. She is vocally in favor of helping synths. She snaps at you if you express the idea that you think synths are machines:

{Concerned} Doesn't matter if someone was born or built. A person's a person. I figured you'd understand that.

She also strongly supports the Railroad, and for all she gets accused of putting people in danger with her journalism, she instantly reins herself in here:

{Excited. / Happy} I knew it. I knew the Railroad was real! {Concerned about revealing the Railroads secrets, then trailing off. / Concerned} But I can't write a story on this. Right? It'd compromise their whole... {Deep breath at the end of this. / Relieved} Okay. Deep breath.

Piper has absolutely no quarrel with synths who are not infiltrators. Nick Valentine is a dear and close friend of hers (and it is a mutual friendship, as Nick references adventures the pair of them have had in the past.) She is kind to Glory and deeply saddened by her death. A synth doesn’t even have to be her friend for Piper to stand up for them-- she vehemently defends Danse during Blind Betrayal and gets extremely upset if you don’t. She is passionate about rescuing Amelia Stockton and putting a stop to the Covenant operation.

There is just nothing at all to support the idea that Piper is some kind of anti-synth Spanish Inquisition, and ZERO evidence that she has ever tried to investigate, identify, or reveal anyone as a synth. Her insinuation about McDonough is not about his alleged synthhood-- it’s about the most powerful man in the city, whose governance (or lack thereof) is having a real impact on people’s lives. Her quarrel with McDonough isn’t whether or not he’s a synth-- it’s that he’s NOT DOING ANYTHING to address the concerns of his constituents re: the Institute. And sure enough, when it turns out that Piper was right and McDonough is a synth infiltrator, she doesn’t give a damn about his nature. She wants him to receive a fair trial and face justice like any other person. 

{Angry} You're not getting off the hook that easy, McDonough! You have to answer for what you've done.

{player let McDonough walk / Depressed} So the big, fat liar gets to walk free. Another depressing story to add to the pile.

Should this encounter end with McDonough’s death, Piper is not happy that a synth died. She is upset that a traitorous mayor did not face the justice he deserved from the people he sold out.

On a slightly related note, Piper shares almost ALL of her approvals/disapprovals with Nick. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single quest or situation where Piper doesn’t agree or disagree with the exact same things as Nick. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we should ascribe to her a “What Would Nick Valentine Do” philosophy, but the two of them are clearly very similar in their opinions and beliefs about mercy, justice, peaceful negotiation over violence or threats, and helping those in need because it’s the right thing to do. Nick and Piper are canonically close friends, but people frequently accuse her of things that we all know Nick would never, ever stand for.

4. “Piper is all talk, and she’s doing nothing to stop the Institute/McDonough.” First off, let’s keep in mind that 1. Piper’s newspaper is also the source of her income and livelihood and 2. Piper has a child sister for whom she is the sole provider and caretaker. As I discussed earlier, even with her reckless nature, Piper is forced to walk a delicate balance between accomplishing her goals and staying in the good graces of the city enough to not be thrown out or suffer any life-ruining consequences for her sister. As one single solitary person, she does not have the resources nor the ability to directly fight the Institute herself, and it is ludicrous to expect her to.

Now let’s talk about Edward R. Murrow.

Piper and McDonough’s rivalry is highly reminiscent of the “rivalry” between 1950s journalist Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy. You can look this up for the full story but in short, McCarthy was a politician in the 50s whose bread and butter was accusing people of Communism. During the “Red Scare,” an accusation of being a communist was enough to completely destroy someone’s life and career. Those accused would be blacklisted and shunned, and some were even prosecuted and jailed. McCarthy used to throw these accusations around with no regard for evidence, and grew to wield so much political power that people were absolutely terrified of raising his ire (sound familiar at all?) Edward R. Murrow and his crew at CBS News wanted to call out this blatant injustice, but knew that doing so would make them targets and could potentially ruin their lives. Using careful journalism and facts, they presented a news program on McCarthy and his irresponsible actions. As stated on the Wikipedia article, “The broadcast contributed to a nationwide backlash against McCarthy and is seen as a turning point in the history of television. It provoked tens of thousands of letters, telegrams, and phone calls to CBS headquarters, running 15 to 1 in favor.“ It is widely regarded as an example of the power of journalism and freedom of the press, and the events were dramatized in the movie Good Night and Good Luck (which is a very, very good movie, you should see it.)

I think it is very intentional that Piper reflects this real-life true story (particularly given that it took place in the Red Scare of the 50s, the time period that Fallout’s Pre-War America was meant to reflect.) Piper is very much seeking to use journalism and the freedom of the press to right a political wrong.

Mayor McDonough, along with being a classist snob and prejudiced against ghouls, does absolutely nothing about the Institute. Obviously, we find out this is because he’s an infiltrator synth working for them, but let’s consider things from the POV of Piper and your average Diamond City citizen.

No one person stands much of a chance fighting against the Institute, but McDonough is failing in his duties to do even what little he can. He denies their presence, denies that they are a problem, denies that they pose any danger to his city. He accuses anyone who talks about the Institute of trying to spread fear, and uses this “fear” as an excuse to shut down criticism and discussion. (Compare this to Hancock, who empowers the people of Goodneighbor to look out for themselves and each other, and who encourages a climate of courage and unity against the Institute.)

But it’s worse than just discouraging discussion. McDonough actively undermines Diamond City’s ability to defend itself against the Institute. Kidnappings and disappearances in Diamond City are explicitly not allowed to be investigated by security, again citing “spreading fear” as a reason. So if you are a citizen of Diamond City and one of your family members goes missing, then tough shit, you are not getting even the slightest amount of help from the people who are supposed to keep you safe. We wouldn’t want anybody thinking the Institute took them, because that would make people afraid. It is better to just not think about the Institute. Just don’t think about them or pay them any mind, keep your head down and pray that they leave you alone. And we especially shouldn’t be asking any questions about them. Never, ever ask questions.

Piper is willing to ask those questions. To her, McDonough is every bit as suspicious as Mayburn, the captain who murdered her father. He is every bit as derelict in his duties, and once again, Piper is determined to expose him. But McDonough retaliates by accusing her of starting trouble, and creates a climate where even speaking about the Institute is “fearmongering” (and indeed, even some friendly characters accuse Piper of spreading paranoia.) 

Pastor Clements: Hate it when [the newspaper] bring up the Institute. Ain't like folks aren't already scared of 'em.

DC Security: I ain't telling you how to pick your friends, but Piper's kind of a troublemaker.

DC Security: It's that newspaper's fault. Got people all riled up, thinking their own family might be replaced by machines.

Complaint Letter in Piper’s terminal: DATE - 10/01 "Your paper is just trying to drum up fears about synths to increase sales. You should be ashamed of yourself."

McDonough gives speeches and cheap reassurances to his constituents, claiming the Wall will protect them (without ever using the I-word) and blaming Piper for “betrayal” and “driving us apart,” as though her journalism is a threat to the city itself:

McDonough’s Speech: {Irritated} I would like to address the subject that is on everyone's mind, and that is the disgusting article Piper has written... Diamond City has stood united for over 150 years. And what keeps us united are two things. {Confident} First, is the great green guardian behind me. The Wall. Our protector and our savior from the filth of the outside. And second, is our faith and trust in each other. The faith and trust that has given us prosperity, security, and education for every citizen. {Irritated} And while the paper might point their fingers at synths and other ghost stories to drive us apart, we will not betray this sacred trust.

Meanwhile, he abuses his power as mayor to kick Piper out of a city in which she owns property. Also, directly brings Nat into things:

McDonough: You devious, rabble-rousing slanderer! The.. the level of dishonesty in that paper of yours! I'll have that printer scrapped for parts.

{threatening / Irritated} I've had enough of this, Piper. From now on, consider you and that little sister of yours on notice.

Piper gets threatened and punished for speaking truth to power, for using her influence and resources to ask the tough questions, and for demanding that an elected official be responsible for the people he leads. Then that elected official scapegoats her, paints her as a liar, and accuses her of taking advantage of people’s fear for profit.

But Piper’s the one who’s out of line here, right? She’s all talk and no action, right? She’s in the wrong for putting McDonough on the ropes, right?

Just as Nick is the only one willing to investigate missing people in Diamond City, Piper is the only one willing to use her platform to demand answers from McDonough. She only gets involved in the main quest at all because Nick knows she is brave enough to investigate the Institute. And Piper doesn’t have an entire faction backing her up, no power armor or subterfuge network or indeed, many allies at all. She’s just one person fighting the Good Fight the only way she can, because she believes it’s the right thing to do. 

5. “Piper’s dedication to her ideals puts people in danger and gets people killed.”

Some may have read all this I wrote so far and may think I have some points, but none of it matters because Piper’s pursuit of the truth is reckless. It’s dangerous. She is so passionate about her ideals that she has caused collateral damage in the process. Whether or not she intends to, Piper has inflamed tensions and is responsible for getting people killed.

(I would point out that this is mostly speculation. DC Security blames the newspaper for the event with Kyle, who flips out and accuses his brother Riley of being a synth-- but remember, McDonough is encouraging them to do that. There are no other examples of Piper’s newspaper causing any kind of anti-synth backlash or incidents, apart from vague propaganda spread by McDonough, those on his payroll, or those who have begun to believe it.)

Let’s talk about themes!

One of the major themes of Fallout, the entire series, is the fallibility of groups and ideals. Just as there is no such thing as a perfect person, there is no such thing as a perfect idea, a perfect philosophy, a perfect organization. All through the series, we see examples of groups that strive for things most people would say are very positive: freedom, liberty, justice, glory, prosperity. Pre-War America is the Ur-example of this. The world is littered with satirical propaganda from the time before the war, fake and idealized images of the American dream. Of course, not only did this all end in a goddamn nuclear war of all things, but the wasteland is literally full of evidence that it was always a lie. People, groups, corporations, even the government were fueled by greed, unchecked capitalism coming at the expense of literally billions of human lives.

Post-War factions are no better. In every game, but especially in New Vegas and 4, the player is presented with factions who all strive for different ideals, and are all flawed in some way. Even if they do good things, even if they have good intentions, factions that are too zealous about their ideals and goals are shown to have huge problems. The Institute is a mirror of the pre-War world, science and human advancement at the expense of morals, with absolutely no regard for the lives of those outside of it (or those that they literally create.) The Brotherhood of Steel has the noble goal of preserving technology and protecting humanity from its misuse, but this comes in the form of hoarding, isolationism, imperialism, and human-supremacist bigotry. The Railroad strives to free synths from slavery, but even its own members confess their discomfort with its lack of concern for humans, and their sometimes alarming apathy about human collateral damage. Even the Minutemen, widely regarded as the “best” or “most good” faction, have the weakness of relying on the inherent nobility of their members. As their status at the beginning of the game shows, this is never a guarantee.

Just like every other idealistic notion in Fallout, Piper’s pursuit of the truth is not perfect, and neither is she. She is a flawed person and she cannot possibly be a perfect beacon of the ideals she champions. Using her character, we can examine both the up and downsides of her opinions and beliefs. We can agree with her that the truth is important, that people deserve to know the facts and ask questions. We can also acknowledge that the truth can be cruel, it can whip people up into a frenzy, it can come with unintended consequences that no one can foresee or control. Because Piper does not have a personal quest of her own, we do not get the opportunity to watch her reckon with these facts or to examine her relationship with the truth. We don’t get to watch her grow more enlightened or to gain some wisdom or nuance about her beliefs.

But if we are going to grill Piper and hold her personally accountable for her reckless dedication to her ideals, then I think it’s only fair we do the same for every companion. Because they are ALL characters with flaws, and they all have ideals that they champion, and none of these ideals are going to be seen as universally perfect. So if Piper is directly at fault for the damage her beliefs have caused, then it’s only fair we also blame: (WARNING: SARCASM APPROACHING)

Danse, for his belief in the mission of the Brotherhood of Steel. After all, as one lone soldier in a massive organization, he should be personally responsible for the harm that the Brotherhood does. Over ten years of loyalty and constant immersion in their culture where he is not allowed to ask questions or disobey orders are not a factor, he is definitely a bad person and he gets what he deserves when it kicks him in the teeth later.

Deacon, because he believes in the mission of the Railroad and as I said before, the Railroad gets human beings killed. It doesn’t matter that Deacon wishes the Railroad could help human people too and supports you when you do so, he believes in their ideals so he is directly responsible for any bad that comes of them. Also, Deacon committed the double crime of trying to become a better person and atone for his past sins, so he’s like, not even sincere about his beliefs. What a prick!  

Preston, for his belief in the inherent goodness of people. After all, he was too naive to see the fall of the Minutemen coming. People in Quincy died because the Minutemen fell apart over egos and infighting. Even afterwards, Preston is too quick to believe that the Sole Survivor will be a good General for the Minutemen, trusting them entirely to do the right thing when, get this-- they might actually be the Overboss of Nuka-World?! What an idiot!

Hancock, for his belief in freedom to the point of anarchy. You want to talk about somebody whose ideals get people killed? Hancock’s so afraid of being a tyrant that he refuses to put the kibosh on criminal gangs running rampant in Goodneighbor who literally and explicitly murder innocent people, including families. (Silver Shroud quest, anyone?) He pays you under the table to take care of the people he really hates, rather than just making a stand and enforcing some rules in HIS CITY OF WHICH HE IS THE MAYOR.

(END OF SARCASM.)

You see? It’s so easy to extrapolate ungenerous bad faith takes on a character in the same way people do with Piper. All we have to do is look at everything in terms of black and white, with no nuance and no allowance given for context, circumstances, characters’ actual personalities or, indeed, the limitations of writing within a video game.

I think that Piper gets held up to very different standards than many of the other popular companions. She has many of the same flaws as other characters. But those characters are allowed sympathy and complexity and understanding, where Piper is often scorned or vilified-- and I somehow doubt this would be happening if Piper were a male character, or if she didn’t have traits not commonly written in heroic female characters: being pushy, opinionated, loud, argumentative, and “aggressive” (she’s actually just regular assertive, but you know... confident women are always “aggressive” to many people.)

In conclusion, people have a vast spectrum of beliefs and opinions, and a character that one person may like another may hate for any number of reasons. I’m not here to tell you that you are not allowed to hate Piper, that you must like or respect her for the reasons given. But at the same time, I see so many people completely missing the point on her character. They don’t speak to her at all, or they’re just painting her with the most uncharitable brush possible to make her fit their ideas of her.

If you’re going to hate Piper, nay, any character? Then form your opinion on things that they actually say and do in canon, not wild extrapolations and hyperbole that just plain aren’t true. When we’re working with game meta and interpretation and analysis, characters are as they are written in canon, not as we want them to be to fit who we think they should be.