#i did not check the wiki for appearance details so i could be wrong with a lot of this but its ok 👍

[camelspit]

dying like a man and drawing the cullens :)

(list of fun little details below the cut)

they all have matching friendship bracelets! (something something the stars on them represent how they sparkle and how abnormal and dangerous they are and thats what brought them together)

jasper and rosalie matching spiky bracelets!!

edwards sweater is loosely based on a painting I vaguely remember him mentioning in midnight sun

emmet and roaslie wedding rings <3

jasper and alice have matching necklaces and braids !!

emmets crocs and edwards sensible loafers.

jasper, alice, and rosalie have matching nailpolish

jasper's eyes are slightly darker than the rest, since he's been in the group the shortest amount of time

silly gold lines in their hair to match the eyes!!

emmett eggs...

little heart in edwards hair because hes a special little loverboy <3

[pray-montana]

Agent Katze. Part 1

[caution: a hopeless attempt at wiki description style]

" – How do you know that? – I have a sharp hearing~" — dialogue between Chamber and Katze in Fracture.

Codename: Spy Real name: Kaspar Fertich Origin: Germany Race: Radiant Gender: Male Affiliation: Valorant Protocol

Biography

"Have you seriously not heard of him?! This is the roofer who ran across the rooftops from cops in India!" — this is my headcanon when Neon finds out that Katze has joined their team, because I see her as a person who likes blogs on extreme sports topics 👉👈

A well-known parkourist from Germany, Katze, becomes a professional spy, able to hear every wrong move from anywhere. Remember to check not only the bottom, but also the top, because he did not lose, but only strengthened his parkour skills after becoming a radiant.

With this agent, you can give your team an accurate understanding of where the enemy is and what he is doing without attracting too much attention thanks to the silence of Katze's movement.

Personality

"Hi to your granny~" — when Katze kills emeny Sova.

The new life did not change Katze's playful nature at all. With his purring voice, he can melt any cold heart if he needs it. However, he wastes his potential on bitchy jokes that sometimes sound like flirting because of this voice.

Despite the fact that he likes to make pranks or embarrass his teammates, Katze takes his job very seriously. He may be lazy or talk about how he would rather take a break, but on the mission itself he realizes that it's like running on rooftops: one wrong move and you're dead.

Appearance

Katze is a young man of athletic build. He has ash-colored hair. His bright green eyes became green after exposure to radianite, and he considers this his new "cat" feature, and his trademark smirk is the perfect complement. His headphones, with which he can control his abitities, are also green.

Katze's clothing matches his lifestyle: wide, comfortable pants with extra protection, comfortable sneakers and gloves that provide better grip on the surface. His sports T-shirt with green details is "pumped" with additional protection of the chest and stomach, but not from falls, but from bullets. He also wears a white leather holster to carry weapons without using his hands.

Abilities

PASSIVE

Safe jump — When falling from height, Katze lands safely and this reduces damage

BASIC

Cat eye — Katze stops and detects traps in a small radius

Use: 2 times Price: 200 Duration: 1.5s

Noiseless steps — Katze walks at normal speed without making a sound for 5 seconds

Use: 1 time Price: 250 Duration: 5s

SIGNATURE

Bounce — Katze can climb the desired height twice by bouncing off wall or other object

Use: 2 times Price: free Cooldown: 2 kill recharge

ULTIMATE

Cat hearing — Katze puts on his ear pods, his visual field gets dark. However, Katze sees every source of noise (walking, weapon reloading, shooting, planting or defusing Spike etc.) and this action paints red. This is also seen by his teammates. Then the marks begin to gradually disappear.

Price: 7 points Duration: 5 seconds to find and mark, 3 seconds to erase marks.

Quotes (will be supplemented)

Pick agent

"There could be no other option~"

Safe jump

Here you will hear various sighs when jumping, it cannot be described in words

Cat eye

When Katze didn't find a trap

"It's clear!"

"Nothing interesting, let's go~"

"They are kinda boring..."

When Katze found a trap

"Well, at least they tried~"

"Found their trap!"

"They are so naive, so cute~"

Noiseless steps

Various types of "Quiet..."

"Shh~"

"Just don't turn around~"

"Stay still, dear..."

Bounce

Here you will hear various sighs again

Cat hearing

1. Ally Cast

"They can't hide from me~"

"Follow them!"

2. Enemy Cast

"You are filmed by a hidden camera!"

"Keep making noise you fools~"

3. Kill

"I warned you~"

Resurrected

"Is this really how it works? Wow~"

Kill

"Tschüss!" ("Bye!" in German)

"Süße Träume~" ("Sweet dreams~")

"Nice try~"

"Sorry not sorry!"

"Bang!"

"Ew, what a shame~"

"Gotcha!"

"Poor thing~"

"Bye!"

"No offense~"

Headshot

"Almost doesn't hurt, right?"

"Bad luck~"

"And what did you want?"

*Purring*

"Wow, disposable scratching post~"

"Cat precision, huh?"

Match/Round start

"We march to victory with quiet steps~"

"Act wisely, colleagues, not only I have to try~"

"I'm sure it will be easy~"

Agent-specific interactions

1. 1. Ally Brimstone

"Mr Brrrimstone, would you like to celebrate our victory with sausages and beer? I know a good place~" — match start.

1. 2. Enemy Brimstone

"It's time for you to go to the nursing home~" — kill.

2. 1. Ally Chamber

"It's amazing that you came here so boldly~" — round start at Fracture.

"Hey, don't look at me like that in front of everyone~" — round start after the 1st phrase.

"– How do you know that? – I have a sharp hearing~" — dialogue between Chamber and Katze in Fracture.

"Cool gun, but very noisy... Will you let me shoot?~" — commend after using Chamber's ult.

2. 2. Enemy Chamber

"This is what passion for weapons leads to!" — kill.

"I didn't understand which of the two Chambers can be trusted, and which not..." — last kill.

3. 1. Ally Cypher

"Leave it to me, Cypher~" — round start.

"Whoa, you got them! Nice trap~" — commend.

3. 2. Enemy Cypher

"Watch out for Cypher's stretch marks, otherwise it will hurt!" — round start.

"Your cameras can't compare to my hearing~" — break his camera.

"I don't feel sorry for you, I'm friends with another Cypher~" — last kill.

4. 1. Ally Jett

"Nice jump, Freundin!" — commend.

4. 2. Enemy Jett

"Falling hurts more than you think, Jett~" — last kill.

5. 1. Ally Killjoy

"How good it is when there is a German nearby, and even such a beauty~" — round start.

5. 2. Enemy Killjoy

"It's a pity to kill fellow countrymen, but such is life~" — kill.

6. 1. Ally Neon

"Just let's go without this competitive spirit, okay? You know that I always let you win~" — round start.

"Nicely done, but I'm faster~" — commend.

6. 2. Enemy Neon

"It seems their Neon is some kind of turtle..." —round start.

"You got angry again, and again I heard everything" — kill or last kill.

7. 1. Ally Phoenix

"Try not to throw flashes in my eyes again, Kumpel (dude)..." — round start.

7. 2. Enemy Phoenix

"Be careful fireboy, I know what you're capable of~" — round start.

"Attention, the fire alarm went off!" — last kill.

8. 1. Ally Raze

"Don't make too much noise, Raze~" — round start.

8. 2. Enemy Raze

"Make as much noise as possible, Raze~" — round start.

"Their Raze's jump toy is no match for my dexterity~" — round start.

9. Ally Reyna

"I never doubted you, Reyna~" — commend.

10. 1. Ally Sage

"Don't worry about me, Sage. I have 9 lives~" — round start.

"Sage, can you heal wounds in my heart? It was too heartbreaking~" — commend.

10. 2. Enemy Sage

"Now they have no one to rely on!" — kill.

11. Ally Skye

"Skye, is your wolf real? Keep it away from me anyway..." — round start.

12. 1. Ally Sova

"Sova, you like silence, don't you?" — round start.

"Do not burden yourself with surveillance, I will help you~" — round start.

12. 2. Enemy Sova

"Hi to your granny~" — kill.

13. Enemy Viper

"Choke on~" — kill.

"Your poison is too wea-ak~" — kill.

14. Enemy Katze

"Do not make unnecessary sounds, that Katze can hear you too~" — round start.

"I'm sorry, handsome!" — kill.

"Wow, no one taught you how to use your abilities there? Shame~" — last kill.

Killjoy, when Katze is an enemy: "Remember, I spoke about the German efficiency? So, this is not about their Katze..."

[Wow, did you read this far? Thank you for such an interest in Agent Katze! Don't forget to write your feedback, it's very important for me!]

[the-insomniac-emporium]

thoughts on Bela///Donna?

What a lovely can of worms you've placed in my inbox, dear nonnie. I cannot wait to open it and lose followers (regardless of what I actually say).

Since this is, uh, a subject of some debate among RE8 fans, I will be inputting my thoughts on the idea of the ship (and the possible controversy), as opposed to doing HCs or something for it (which I recognize might be what you were asking for, despite the excessive /s).

This is all based on my playthroughs of the game, as well as what I've managed to double check on the fandom/wiki for it. I know that a lot of people who read fanfic for the game haven't actually played it, likely having been lured in by Tall Vampire Milf, and so I hope that some people will be open to a reminder of, like, canon vs fanon? I've mentioned in a previous post that there's a lot of details for RE8 that are not made clear, and I feel the need to reiterate that in this post. Capcom left a lot of stuff up to people's imaginations, or kind of just hinted at in game or in concept art.

But more importantly, regardless of what game we're talking about, regardless of the conclusion I come to (and the one you come to) at the end of this post, I want to say that I absolutely understand the need/desire to have your own perspective/take on the characters from the game, as well as their dynamics. If a ship makes you uncomfortable because you see the characters as being family members, it's totally okay. Block the ship tag, or filter it out when you look through fandom stuff, don't follow people who post for it, etc, etc.

If you think of characters as being family-family (like, not just "we got married and are now a family" but, like, "we're siblings/parent and child") and still ship them? uh. sorry, bruv, maybe think of hitting that unfollow button. No, seriously, hit that unfollow button. This blog is anti-incest, thank you very much.

The last thing I'll say before putting it under a read-more (for both length and major RE8 spoilers) is that I recognize that I might have missed something, either in game or developers talking about things on social media, and so if you read through this and go "god, J, you're such a dumbass for forgetting *critical piece of media*" or even just "okay but have you seen *small but meaningful piece of media*?" please. Just. Please. Tell me. Link me to that shit. I WANT to know if I'm wrong. I've literally avoided talking about this for as long as I could in order to TRY and make sure I have all the context I need.

With that said, let's examine what context we are given for Alcina Dimitrescu, Bela Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, and their relations to each other. I will be leaving my personal thoughts on Bela///Donna at the very end of this, as somewhat of a conclusion, somewhat of just a "hey, this is what you technically asked me about".

Firstly, let me begin by explaining what I consider to be the 3 tiers of "canon"

In-Game/Direct: The highest, truest tier, the definitive canon. This is everything that takes place in game, excluding certain hallucination scenes (ex: Mia was not really in House Beneviento, but we can infer some things from what Donna made Ethan hallucinate about). Things either happen, or are directly stated by characters. There's some wiggle room for dialogue, as characters can lie, but overall we, as the audience, assume we are being told the truth. At the very least, games usually eventually make it clear when a character has been dishonest. Examples of Direct Canon include the following: Ethan is infected with the mold, Lady Dimitrescu drinks blood, Heisenberg wears sunglasses, Mother Miranda can shapeshift.

Concept Art/Developer's Notes/Indirect: Mid-tier and debatable, the "we think, but we're not sure" of canon. Resident Evil: Village contains lots of concept art that the players can browse through, all of which include notes from the developers about the game, characters, environments, and story. Sometimes the notes make something "direct", but oftentimes they do not specify whether the listed idea is still canon or if it was removed during development. This tier also includes information that is implied/can be inferred from tier 1 information, but is not directly stated. Examples of Indirect Canon include the following: Donna's mother died by suicide, Moreau was going to have his lover fused to his back, Duke was originally a fifth lord, Heisenberg was going to have a twin. As you can see, not all of the concept art ideas made it into the final version of the game, so it can be hard when some information seems like it might still be true (such as the matter of Donna's parents).

Fanon/"False": Sometimes collective ideas in a fandom become so widespread that people start interpreting them as actual canon. Sometimes it gets hard to remember what's just obscure lore and what's fanon. When we get a piece of fiction as overall vague as a lot of Resident Evil: Village is, there's bound to be some confusion over time. That's one of the main reasons I waited to talk about Bela////Donna until after I had recently replayed relevant sections of the game, as I wanted to remind myself of what we're actually told. Examples of False Canon are difficult to pinpoint, but might include things like: Hufflepuffs are good at finding things? The Avengers got along for awhile and all had their own rooms in the tower? There's a number scale for the danger level of ghosts in Danny Phantom?

For this post, I will be limiting the majority of my notes to the first two levels of canon, and will do my best to mark them as such. Now... let us... begin.

Alcina Dimitrescu:

Born no later than 1914, Alcina Dimitrescu was 44 years old when she was granted the Cadou by Mother Miranda. (1st Tier: Canon. Source: A note in the castle basement from a servant is dated 1958, and mentions both Alcina and her children. Secondly, Miranda's experiment notes state that Alcina was the 181st subject, and was given the Cadou at age 44. By doing math, we can then determine the earliest Alcina could have been born.)

Alcina refers to the other Lords as her family once without any disdain (when Ethan first arrives at the castle and is caught, Alcina says "you've escaped my little brother"). In a private journal (located near where she threw the infamous vanity) she insults the other Lords, and expresses anger that she is "treated like a sister to them". She argues with Heisenberg without any hesitation, and seems honest in her hatred of him (per Maggie Robertson's wunderbar performance). (1st Tier/2nd Tier: Canon with a sprinkle of interpretation for the last line)

Alcina openly refers to Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela as her daughters, and wrote in her experiment journal that she felt instantly connected to them (as mother and daughters). (1st Tier: Canon).

Bela Dimitrescu:

Likely born in the 1930's or 1940's, in order to be an adult by 1958 (the first dated appearance of the Dimitrescu daughters). (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Dialogue shows that all three of the daughters do love their mother, and reinforces the bond Alcina's journal mentions. (1st Tier: Canon)

We are not given any information about how Bela feels about the other Lords, or even what she knows about them. Once can assume that she shares the ideas of her mother, either because Alcina tells her things directly, or because Bela (who is eager to please her mother) picks up on them over time. (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Donna Beneviento:

No idea when she was born. If you've read one of my recent posts, then you know that it's almost entirely a matter of 2nd and 3rd tier canon.

Of the four lords, Donna seems to have the most story within the 2nd tier, and has very, very little in the 1st tier. Duke says she's somewhat isolated, and that her "playmates" never leave the house. Miranda's notes state that Donna is mentally ill, and the gardener's diary states/implies (bit of both) that Donna has severe social anxiety. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

Supposedly, her parents committed suicide while she was still a child. This is indicated in concept art/the attached developer's notes. However, the only part that's also directly stated in game is that her parents (specifically her father) died while she was young. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

While Donna only has one voice line in the game (and it's sad), Angie talks a fair bit. Angie seems to disapprove of the other Lords, or at the very least enjoys mocking them, as well as enjoys watching them fight with each other. As Angie is connected to Donna, and Donna has some level of control over her, one can assume that the two have similar (if not the same) opinions. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

Donna was adopted by Mother Miranda as an adult. It's unclear exactly how old Donna was, or what exactly Miranda did as her "mother", just that Donna was excited about it. (1st Tier: Canon)

Other Relevant Information:

Heisenberg refers to the other Lords as his siblings a minimum of 1 time. Similarly to Alcina, however, he openly insults them and seems to hate them. He just, you know, hates Mother Miranda the most. (1st Tier: Canon)

Mother Miranda does not actually give a shit about the four Lords, intended for them to die before the ceremony, and has been manipulating them for her own gain this entire time. Her notes and dialogue make it clear that she only cares about getting Eva back. Somehow mother of the year and worst mother ever. At the same time. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

It's unclear who treats Alcina "like a sister" to the other Lords. Were there cut lines of dialogue that cemented the idea of them being a "family"? Did Miranda call them a "family" as part of pretending she cared about them? I've done my best to dig around, but there's very little in game that treats them as a family of any sort.

As each Lord ruled their own section of the region, they don't have any mentions of interacting with each other outside of meetings with Mother Miranda. None of the notes for any Lord (and their relevant experiments) mention what the others are doing. In game, their environments are very separate, very well divided, though this is likely as much for gameplay as it is for story.

Conclusion:

I do not not believe there is enough in game evidence to suggest that Alcina and Donna consider themselves to be siblings. There's the possibility for a large age gap, Alcina was a fair bit older than Donna when she met Miranda, Donna is a social recluse whose closest bonds were with dead blood relatives and dolls, Alcina openly dislikes (if not hates) the other Lords, they seemingly lived very separate and distanced lives, and Mother Miranda does not enforce the idea of "family". Furthermore, the sheer contrast between how Alcina interacts with/speaks of the other Lords compared to how she interacts with/speaks of her daughters says a lot about her feelings. Even if Heisenberg takes the brunt of her anger, Alcina never once says anything remotely positive about anyone other than Miranda and her daughters.

As Alcina/Bela and Donna are not blood-relatives, the definition of what would count as "incest" does vary depending on who you ask. Personally, I do count non-blood relations as potentially incestuous. For example: Alcina "dating" one of her daughters would be incest, regardless of the fact that she's a mutated human and her daughters are weird swarms of flies.

Now, I do understand how popular the idea of the four Lords being a real, chaotic but still close family is. And as I mentioned above, it's totally valid to not like the Bela///Donna ship, whether it's because you think they're family or some other reason. I don't personally see them that way, even in my definitely-not-canon stories.

Do I personally ship Bela///Donna? Nope. Have I liked art for the ship? Admittedly yes, even if I thought some of it was, like, maiden x Bela because Donna didn't have her veil and I'm a DUMBASS who doesn't always remember to read tags. Would I ever write for it? Yeah, probably, assuming I didn't miss anything in game/that I don't eventually change my mind.

[the-silvertonguewitch]

Some thoughts, now that I’ve finished my re read of TSC

-When Lyra reach the Blue Hotel, she finds Nur Huda already there and waiting for her, but Pan, who’s been travelling with Nur Huda, isn’t. Nur Huda seems to know her way around the Blue Hotel. If Pan isn’t waiting outside with her, it could be because, while humans might come and go as they please in the Blue Hotel, once daemons get inside, they – technically – can’t leave. That would explain why so many people who go there don’t return (they’d rather stay there with their daemons than leave without them) and why people that do return from there appear “diminished” (TSC, 609). Wild guess: It’s possible that in order to leave with Pan, Lyra will have to hide him inside of her, make him invisible, like people’s daemons from Will’s world. That way she’ll trick the zarghuls there into believing that she’s leaving the Blue Hotel alone. The alchemist Agrippa also predicted that Lyra would find her daemon again, but not in the way she’d expect (i.e., that Pan would become an “internal” daemon, perhaps).

-On her way to Seleukeia, Lyra meets a man with two apparent purposes in the story: to give Lyra a set of stories telling cards called a “Myriorama”, and to warn her that Seleukeia isn’t safe. The story he tells the little boy and his mother sharing their cabin involves two soldiers, one wanting to shoot a giant bird that stole their horses, and the other convincing the first not to shoot, since killing the bird would also kill the horses. Wild guess: this is another warning intended for Lyra. She’s the bird. The first soldier is Olivier Bonneville. The second one is Abdel Ionides. The man with the Myriorama is akin to those fairies in disguise (undercover fairies, you know which ones) in children’s stories. These fairies test people, often travelers, asking them for some food and rewarding them if they accept to share, or punishing them if they don’t. Lyra, who shares her food with the little boy and his mother, is rewarded with an honest warning and a useful magical item.

-After being shot in the leg, Malcolm takes a train to Aleppo. The train makes an unexpected stop somewhere in order to board someone important, or several important people. This is a direct parallel to the events of chapter 18 (“Malcolm in Geneva”), where another train is highjacked by the newly appointed President of the High Council of the Magisterium and his suite. That president is assassinated soon after and replaced by Marcel Delamare. Not so wild guess: Malcolm just passed out on a train that’s getting filled with members of the High Council of the Magisterium. Delamare is among them and he knows about a burly, ginger “Matthew” Polstead working against the Magisterium, so Malcolm could find himself in a pickle when he wakes up.

-Abdel Ionides knowns an awful lot. Either he is an alethiometrist himself, or he has his own Myriorama pack, or he’s extremely observant and knows about the Lyra/Rukhsana thing – because he’s aware that she’s headed for the rose garden in Karamakan, even if Lyra never told him. He wants gold (or some sort of other treasure), like Chen, the camel herder who guided Dr. Hassall and Dr. Strauss into Karamakan, did, and he believes that only Lyra can get it for him. Wild guess: he thinks that Lyra, and no one but her, can get in and out of the red building. Maybe because she’s “Rukhsana” and special rules applies to Rukhsana, who knows.

-The poem Lyra quotes in “Little stick” is titled Le cor, by Alfred de Vigny. It alludes to the hero Roland, from La chanson de Roland (“The song of Roland”). Roland and another soldier are surrounded by enemies and the soldier urges Roland to surrender, to which Roland reply “only when the mountains roll down into the river below” (I’m roughly translating). Somehow that’s exactly what happens, and Roland and his friend are precipitated down the gulch and into the river, where they’re both crushed by falling stones. A knight named Turpin finds them some time later and declares that Roland’s soul blew the horn twice before going to Heaven. Funny detail: the soldier standing with Roland is a man from the desert and his name is “Olivier”.

(Going further into the chapter, it’s easy to see where and how Lyra is meant to parallel Roland.)

-In our world, Aleppo would be in Syria and Smyrna would be “Izmir”. I was curious so I googled it. Lyra’s journey would look a bit like this:

1 (Oxford) 2 (Amsterdam) 3 (Paris) 4 (Prague) 5 (Istanbul/Constantinople) 6 (Izmir/Smyrna) 7 (Seleucia/Seleukeia). And Aleppo is circled in red. Lyra traveled by ferry twice: once going from England to Amsterdam (the ferry with the loud, annoying guy and the welsh miners) and once from point 5 (Constantinople) to point 6 (Smyrna). That’s the one where the boat crash occurred. The Blue Hotel would be located somewhere between Iraq and Syria.

If the Blue Hotel wasn’t a place, but a person, it would be a person without a daemon. Maybe that’s why daemons are attracted to it.

EDIT:

The place called “Seleucia”/Seleukeia is a bit confusing. Wherever it is, or was, it refers to the ruins of a very old city. Actually, It looks like there’s two places called “Seleucia”, both ruins, now (in our world, that is): the ruins of Seleucia in Baghdad, also called Seleucia-on-Tigris, and the ruins of Seleucia in Antalya, Turkey. The second one is also called/pronounced “Seleukeia”, and is located on the coast of Pamphylia. I couldn’t find it on the map. 

Most pictures of Seleucia I can find on Google are of the second one. It looks like this:

When I google Seleucia-on-Tigris, I get black and white pictures and photos of old maps from the Seleucid Empire. I’m guessing there isn’t much left of it. If our friend Wiki is to be believed, 

“The city eventually faded into obscurity and was swallowed by the desert sands, probably abandoned after the Tigris shifted its course.”

You know what this reminds me of? The Blue Hotel. 

EDIT:

ACTUALLY, THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES CALLED (OR WHO USED TO BE CALLED) SELEUKEIA! 😱

*Deep breath*

Ok, let’s check further. Our world’s equivalent of the Karamakan desert is the Taklamakan desert and it’s located in North West China. In TSC’s last chapter, Ionides tells Bonneville that the “treasure”, which I’m guessing is in Karamakan/Taklamakan, is 3000 miles from their current location, i.e., the Blue Hotel. 

The distance between Baghdad (Seleucia-on-Tigris) and Taklamakan, in our world, is approx. 2127 miles.

The distance between Antalya (where the Seleukeia from the picture above is) and Taklamakan, in our world, is approx. 2768 miles.

The distance between Silifke (previously known as Seleucia on the Calycadnus - this is getting complicated isn’t it) and Taklamakan, in our world, is approx. 2612 miles.

The distance between Antakya (previously the Seleucid Capital, also known as Seleucia Pieria, phew) and Taklamakan, is approx. 2498 miles.

The Blue Hotel is about a day’s walk on camel back from Lyra’s Seleukeia, so it’s not very far. If we try to go by the 3000 miles indication, we can probably eliminate Seleucia-on-Tigris in Iraq (sorry, I was wrong!)

Lyra’s Seleukeia is a coastal town. The book tells us that much. (Ok, it definitely couldn’t have been Seleucia-on-Tigris.)

Antalya’s Seleukeia, also known as “Lyrbe” (sounds a bit like Lyra?), is located here:

While Silifke is located here:

And Antakya is here:

So they’re all coastal, kind of. For a very general view, you’ve got:

From left to right (in yellow): Seleukeia/Lyrbe, Seleucia on the Calycadnus/Silifke, Seleucia Pieria/Antakya, and Aleppo. The puzzle is to decide which of the first three is Lyra’s Seleukeia. They’re all under 3000 miles from Taklamakan but I wouldn’t discount any of them because of it (the distance is probably calculated from the starting point to the border of Taklamakan, and the “treasure” is in the “heart” of the desert, so way further). 

I’m guessing that the one Lyra went to was the third - Seleucia Pieria/Antakya. It would explain why it’s a dangerous location (it’s located on the Syrian borders). It would make more sense to use the expression “between Seleukeia and Aleppo” to indicate where the Blue Hotel might be (since that Seleukeia and Aleppo are geographically the closest to one another). 

So let’s say Antakya. What does the place look like in our world?

More ruins, unlike the Seleukeia of Lyra’s world, where people still live and do trade. It’s all very curious. I really do wonder if Pullman got the idea for the Blue Hotel from all these seleucid ruins, or if there’s another place in Syria that would match more.

[snarktheater]

Ready Player Two — Opening Cutscene & Chapter 0

Hello again.

It’s been a while. I haven’t been active on this blog since, fittingly enough, Ready Player One. I was going to do this sooner—even had an alarm set up and everything—but then, it turns out, I’m feeling so much negativity about the world in general that a book just pales in comparison.

Seriously, I had to scrap this post’s entire intro because it’s not even 2020 anymore as I write this. And you know, maybe that’s for the best. I’m not really in the mood for doom and gloom and bitching anymore. I uninstalled Twitter from my phone a while back, I’ve been doing good at my daily writing sprints, my biggest fanfic project concluded on a positive note from people I didn’t even realize had been following it for years.

So I don’t know what this is going to be like. My commentary, I mean; I’ve heard echoes of what the book is like, so I’m not expecting a surprise there.

The book opens right after the end of Ready Player One, in a “Cutscene” where Wade recounts to us what happened after he won Halliday’s contest. It also assumes you remember exactly who the main characters of the book are, which is a bold move for a sequel that came out almost a decade after the original.

Technically, I could just look up the details I’m fuzzy about. But also, I think it’s more authentic if I don’t. I trust my memory enough that if I’m wrong, it’ll be in subtle enough ways that it’ll almost be a private jokes between all of us. An “if you know, you know” sort of error system. And I don’t think there’s anything more true to the spirit of this book than that.

Shoto had flown back home to Japan to take over operations at GSS’s Hokkaido division.

So Wade starts his tenure with nepotism. Wasn’t Shoto really young? Why is he qualified to run anything?

Aech was enjoying an extended vacation in Senegal, a country she’d dreamed of visiting her whole life, because her ancestors had come from there.

You know what, I’m not touching “send the token black character back to Africa.” This isn’t my lane.

And Samantha had flown back to Vancouver to pack up her belongings and say goodbye to her grandmother, Evelyn.

Why is she saying goodbye? Why, she’s moving to Columbus to be with Wade, of course! It’s not like there was anything else in her life. Was there? And why isn’t she referred to as Art3mis? I’m pretty sure Wade found out all of their offline names in the last book, and the inconsistency mildly bothers me.

These three sentences are back to back, by the way. Someone—I forget who—once described Ready Player One as a book that’s fun to write a wiki about, because it’s got fun concepts to summarize about until you realize that all the emotional connective tissue you need to turn a list of things into a story is missing, and that’s roughly how this first page feels.

Hell, the first line of the book is Wade telling us he remained offline for nine whole days after winning the contest, but by the end of the second paragraph we’re already to him logging back into the OASIS to "distract himself from [his and Samantha’s] reunion.

I’ll give Ernest Cline one thing: it feels like he wrote this opening nine days after the first book and did about as much maturing as a teenage boy would do between the two books.

Way more time is spent describing Wade’s OASIS rig, or the in-game planet where the climax of the last book happened, than anything else in this introduction. He is immediately greeted by a crowd of adoring fans who have been waiting over a week for him to come back in the game, because they’re all grateful that our protagonist and his friends restored their avatars after they were annihilated by the Sixers.

You’d think the adoring fans would serve some kind of purpose, or that something would happen, but no. Wade immediately goes “ew, people” and teleports away, since he essentially has ultimate powers within the game. With a caveat: the powers are actually coming from the Robes of Anorak he’s wearing, and I’m mentioning that in the hopes that it will pay off sometime in the book’s future, assuming Cline at least learned to do that. But still, let’s not skip too fast the fact that we introduced that crowd of adoring fans for no other purpose than to tell us they’re out there, because it fits right in with the last book’s attempts at saying as little as humanly possible in as many words as possible.

Anyway, Wade went back into Anorak’s study, where he arbitrarily checks out the Easter Egg he got at the end of the last book, and finds an inscription on it. I was dreading another riddle, but no, it’s just straight-up instructions to a vault in the GSS archives, so Wade logs off and goes to check it out.

Of course Halliday had put [the archives] [on the 13th floor]. In one of his favorite TV shows, Max Headroom, Network 23’s hidden research-and-development lab was located on the thirteenth floor. And The Thirteenth Floor was also the title of an old sci-fi film about virtual reality, released in 1999, right on the heels of both The Matrix and eXistenZ.

I’m equally shocked that it took two whole pages (on my ereader) to get to the first slew of references, and that one of these references is from 1999. I didn’t know we were allowed to think of anything that isn’t the 80s. Speaking of which, I’ll spare you the whole paragraph, but the book does feel the need to explain why it’s vault 42.

Inside the vault, there’s another egg containing a super-fancy and advanced OASIS headset. The egg also has a video monitor that plays a video message from James Halliday shortly before his death.

But despite his condition, he hadn’t used his OASIS avatar to record this message like he had with Anorak’s Invitation. For some reason, he’d chosen to appear in the flesh this time, under the brutal, unforgiving light of reality.

That oh-so-important message? An infodump about the headset’s working. He called it an OASIS Neural Interface, ONI for short. It basically lets you experience the OASIS through all your senses with sensory input just like the real thing, you know, that thing Wade had to get a fancy suit and massive rig to do in the first book. And yes, Wade does spend a paragraph or two comparing it to other works of science fiction. Of course he does.

More importantly, it also records all the sensory input into a separate file, which can then be replayed over to re-experience said sensations, or live someone else’s experiences. Halliday tries to frame it as a tool to generate communication and empathy, seemingly all without acknowledging the potential creepiness of that. But hey. Who knows. Maybe that’s because this is the setup stage, and it’ll pay off eventually.

I also wondered about the name Halliday had chosen for his invention. I’d seen enough anime to know that oni was also a Japanese word for a giant horned demon from the pits of hell.

Add “reducing Japan to anime” to the list of things the book has failed to improve upon. By the way, the narration insisted on spelling out ONI letter by letter earlier, so it’s weird to make that link now. It’s also just kind of inelegant to just tell us “this is the symbolism behind the name”, but that’s just the sort of thing I’ve come to expect from this book.

Anyway, the reason Halliday kept this for his successor to find is he wants Wade to test out the technology and decide if humanity is ready for it. Why Halliday thinks the most glorified pop culture trivia / video game competition qualifies you for such a decision should be a problem, but sadly, a lot of billionaires have said and done a lot of dumb and eerily similar things in the past few years since I read Ready Player One, so actually, I can’t fault the book for that one. Tragically, our fates really are in the hands of people who should rightfully be cartoon villains.

To his credit, Wade does question Halliday’s motives in keeping this under wraps at all rather than releasing it himself. So hey, maybe it really is setting something up.

Wade goes back to his office with the ONI, and we’re treated with this lovely piece of narration:

I was grateful that Samantha wasn’t there. I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to talk me out of testing the ONI. Because I was worried she might try to, and if she did, she would’ve succeeded. (I’d recently discovered that when you’re madly in love with someone they can persuade you to do pretty much anything.)

There’s a lot to unpack about the implications this has for their relationship, but it’s way too early in the book for me to editorialize when one character hasn’t even been on the page yet. So I’ll just leave it here for the record. Hopefully you see the problem without me needing to point it out anyway. If not, feel free to hit my inbox.

So Wade, confident in the fact that Halliday would have warned him if there were any risks to using the ONI, decides to try it out. Even though he immediately follows up that statement with this:

According to the ONI documentation, forcibly removing the headset while it was in operation could severely damage the wearer’s brain and/or leave them in a permanent coma. So the titanium-reinforced safety bands made certain this couldn’t happen. I found this little detail comforting instead of unsettling. Riding in an automobile was risky, too, if you didn’t wear your seatbelt…

Wade. My dude. What the fuck is this simile. And why don’t you see that maybe a machine where you’re forcibly trapping yourself inside a virtual reality might be dangerous? Hell, when I said this was setting something up, I was expecting something vaguely interesting about the potential breach of privacy, or how you don’t need to literally walk in someone’s shoes to feel empathy for them, or anything substantial, but now I’m worried it’ll just end up as “man, sometimes science fiction machines will scramble your brain, isn’t that weird”?

Like, I don’t know, to me “it will put you in a coma” sounds like a good reason for Halliday not to release the ONI. Maybe we can still make it into a commentary on how corporations will sell stuff they know is directly harmful if it can make them a profit. Who knows.

The book waffles on about more risks, and the mechanics of how the ONI activates, and the warning disclaimer when it does turn on. Specifically, there’s a time limit of twelve consecutive hours, after which you’ll be automatically logged out, because yes, using the thing for too long can also cause brain damage.

Gregarious Simulation Systems will not be held responsible for any injuries caused by improper use of the OASIS Neural Interface.

See, now there’s the sort of thing that could be a source for commentary, but no, instead it’s thrown in there like it’s nothing and Wade glosses over the entire warning, and instead keep wondering why Halliday didn’t just release the ONI if even the safety disclaimers were in place.

By the way: this whole system has apparently gone through several independent human trials already, so I’m finding it hard to imagine that it’s actually a secret Halliday took to the grave as Wade says. Unless he also had everyone involved in those trials killed afterwards. Or maybe they all ended up with brain damage which rendered them incapable of talking about it.

And before you think I’m being unfair and maybe we’re supposed to understand that ourselves even if the protagonist doesn’t, I’ll remind you that the book didn’t trust its reader to know what the number 42 is a reference to, or what an oni is, even though I don’t think anyone in the target audience wouldn’t know about these two things.

There’s also the fact that, since this book came out, a video game did release with a scene intentionally designed to cause seizures, and it had countless fans flocking to defend it over that fact. So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not assuming this book’s stance on whether your video game console causes brain damage and possibly coma is actually a bad thing, or just an acceptable risk.

Wade certainly seems to think so, since he agrees to the terms of service.

As the timestamp faded away, it was replaced by a short message, just three words long—the last thing I would see before I left the real world and entered the virtual one. But they weren’t the three words I was used to seeing. I—like every other ONI user to come—was greeted by a new message Halliday had created, to welcome those visitors who had adopted his new technology: READY PLAYER TWO

Well now that’s just silly.

And that’s our opening cutscene. And while this post is already long enough, I feel like I have to go on to chapter 0, because it feels like barely anything has happened so far. We didn’t even introduce any new character motivation or conflict, or a mystery to set the plot into motion, unless I’m supposed to think “why didn’t Halliday release this?” counts.

So Wade is back into the OASIS, and tells us about how much more real it all feels thanks to the ONI. I especially have to question how he can smell or taste anything—both of which he tells us he can. Like, who coded that? Did Halliday implement every single smell and taste himself, without anyone noticing? I hope you don’t need me to tell you that’s not typically how features are added to a large-scale video game.

If it feels like I’m nitpicking at the logic of the book, even though I always say I’m not very interested in that and would rather talk themes, it’s because I am, because there isn’t much else to discuss so far. Wade is happy about tasting virtual fruit. That’s the scene.

He tests out if he can feel pain, but no, the ONI reduces pain (a gunshot is translated as “a hard pinch”). On one hand, good, it would be a nightmare otherwise. On the other hand, I sort of hope there’s a setting for that in there, because otherwise, you just lost an entire clientele of kinksters.

This was it—the final, inevitable step in the evolution of videogames and virtual reality. The simulation had now become indistinguishable from real life.

Ah, now we have some juicy themes. Because if you think this is the inevitable final step in the evolution of video games, I invite you to look at literally any other art form, and what happened to them once hyperrealism became easy. Hint: they didn’t stop evolving, because it turns out realism isn’t the only goal one can achieve with art.

The realism discussion is not a new one in video games, mind you. In case you’re out of the loop: most of the big-budget blockbuster games (“AAA” as they’re known) are aiming for hyperrealism nowadays, and it results in development teams being forced to work in horrible conditions (known with the equally horrible euphemism of “crunch”). And, because it turns out that 1) humans working themselves to the bones isn’t healthy and 2) racing for realism with little to no vision besides it makes for poor creativity, a lot of these games come out as disappointments. Oh, there are hordes of Gamers™ who will defend them to the bitter end, but inevitably, in the months following release, the defense cools off while the criticism keeps on going, because the defense was a knee-jerk reaction born of a mix of people hyping themselves up for a game they hadn’t seen that much of yet, then attaching a part of their identity to liking that thing.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that this throwaway line feels like it comes from someone who is so out of touch as to accidentally support a world view that has in fact resulted in the biggest part of the industry stagnating artistically while growing more toxic for the people working in it. All the while, more and more independent games come out every year, proving that that realism is nowhere near the most important thing to making a game good, and that you can achieve much better results with a small team.

What I’m trying to say is: watch Jim Sterling’s channel, they’ve been bleeding out subscribers since they came out as nonbinary and make much better commentary on this topic than I could, and play Hades.

Back to the book, which sadly hasn’t become any more interesting since I decided to go on a tangent. Wade tests the ONI functions some more, all the while musing on how he knows Samantha would disapprove but that he doesn’t care, because what loving relationship doesn’t consist of that?

Among the functions, he tries the ONI files, the aforementioned recordings of someone else’s experiences. Specifically, a woman, which Wade tells us by telling us he suddenly has breasts, I suppose because Ernest Cline saw that subreddit about men writing women and went “I want a piece of that”. Oh, and also, those sample files were recorded from real people, in the real world. And yes, this goes exactly where you think it does.

SEX-M-F.oni, SEX-F-F.oni, and SEX-Nonbinary.oni

Look, I actually started writing a complaint about the boobs thing, and I deleted it, but now Cline is doing it on purpose. So, here goes: I saw a quote from this book on Twitter that looked like Cline attempting to make up for Wade’s casual transphobia in the first book. It wasn’t good, but it at least sounded like he was trying. So to immediately get this is…a lot? Let’s go for a lot.

I can almost excuse the use of “M” and “F”. You gotta name your files and you could excuse a non-exhaustive list. But…nonbinary? On one hand, I want to know what Cline means. On the other hand, I don’t think he can come up with an answer I’ll find satisfactory.

We are thankfully spared from finding out because Wade has just lost his virginity to Samantha a few days ago and he’s 1) not ready for this and 2) pretty sure this counts as cheating. You could make a case that this is more like porn, but I can see that this is more of a personal distinction anyway, and I can respect that one. Plus, you know. I don’t want to find out.

Wade logs off, and he can’t tell the difference between the OASIS with the ONI, and decides this will change the world. And then it’s back to the “how did he do it and keep it a secret”, even though Wade now finds out in the documentation that this had been in development for twenty-five years, basically since the OASIS launched. So it’s not really that it’s a secret, so much as there are a lot of people under very strict NDAs out there. Or, again, they’re all dead and/or otherwise incapacitated.

The ONI is the product of the Accessibility Research Lab, and Wade tells us about other stuff that the lab has produced using similar technology, mostly for medical purposes.

GSS patented each of the Accessibility Research Lab’s inventions, but Halliday never made any effort to profit from them. Instead, he set up a program to give these neuroprosthetic implants away, to any OASIS users who could benefit from them. GSS even subsidized the cost of their implant surgery.

Look, it’s nice that you want Halliday to be the good guy through and through, but it’s kind of hard to take any social commentary seriously when you think this is how a billionaire is made. Hell, even when he shut down the lab and fired its entire staff, he gave them a big enough severance package to set them for life. You know. Capitalism!

Hey, remember when Samantha said she was going to end world hunger if she won the contest, a thing billionaires right now could be doing, but aren’t, and she is now the co-owner of GSS? Yeah, I kind of hope the book remembers that too.

Speaking of the co-owners, the book just completely skips over the debate that our four main characters have over whether or not to release the ONI to the world. All we know is that they voted, and the vote goes in favor of releasing it. I mean, why have characters who could have opinions and feelings that could create a discussion? That might make us care about them! And who wants to care about characters in a story?

We put them on sale at the lowest possible price, to make sure as many people as possible could experience the OASIS Neural Interface for themselves.

What exactly is “the lowest possible price” here? Your company literally owns money. Like, OASIS money is real money. There is literally nothing stopping you from giving them away, especially because what you’re giving away is access to the platform you’re already running for a profit.

It’s almost like, even trying to make “good billionaires” out of its protagonists, the book can’t stop and actually make them significantly good.

Oh, I should mention. If you thought my Ready Player One review was angry at capitalism, wait until you see what the past couple years have done to me.

Anyway, once they his 7,777,777 simultaneous ONI users, a new riddle shows up on Halliday’s website. Because yep: our plot is apparently not about the implications of releasing the ONI, or any of the potential ideological discussions associated with that, it’s another riddle. Oh boy, do I wish I’d known that.

Seek the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul On the seven worlds where the Siren once played a role For each fragment my heir must pay a toll To once again make the Siren whole

I cannot wait to have the book give me just not enough information to solve the riddle until it’s solved by the book itself. That was so much fun the other…what was it, five times? Six times? Something like that. Wade already tells us the Siren might be Kira Morrow, because her alias was named after one of the sirens of Greek myth, so I can’t wait for that plot point to stick around. It was so fun to hear all about this man pining for another man’s wife the first time!

So this is the “Shard Riddle”. People are apparently convinced it was made by Wade and his crew as a publicity stunt, but of course, they know that that isn’t the case, and they also don’t know what that riddle is supposed to lead to. So, that’s great. We have a puzzle, and we also don’t know what the stakes are. All we know is that Wade wants to solve the puzzle essentially because it’s a challenge.

We skip over a year, and Wade tells us about how IOI collapses and gets absorbed by GSS because of the ONI’s launch. Remember IOI? They were the bad guys, so I guess we have to cheer?

GSS absorbed IOI and all of its assets, transforming us into an unstoppable megacorporation with a global monopoly on the world’s most popular entertainment, education, and communications platform.To celebrate, we released all of IOI’s indentured servants and forgave their outstanding debts.

On one hand: good for the slave. On the other hand: not gonna cheer for a monopoly, you guys.

Another year’s skip, and now 99% of the OASIS users are using the ONI, and yes, that includes trading their experiences with one another too. And I guess we’re still hand-waving any possible problems associated with that technology, because the technology is made so that all recordings must be shared and played through the OASIS.

This allowed us to weed out unsavory or illegal recordings before they could be shared with other users.

How? Do you know any of the problems associated with content moderations on the current platforms? I don’t know if I want to point to Youtube’s extremely faulty algorithm, Twitter’s complete apathy towards its Nazis, or Facebook doing moderation by making underpaid staff watch all potentially problematic content, which resulted in serious psychological damage to said staff.

You can’t just say that as if it solved everything. The chapter later says this is handled by an AI called “CenSoft”, and as an AI engineer myself, let me tell you: this is not going to work. Again: Youtube is the way it is for a reason.

It also let us maintain our monopoly on what was rapidly becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the history of the world.

And again, monopolies are totally a good thing as long as it’s in the right hands!

When I’m implying that the book does not care for any of these potential problems, I mean it. These enormous ethical issues are sidestepped in cold narratin, and we just keep going on introducing new slang that I hate, but have to quote so help you keep up.

“Sims” were recordings made inside the OASIS, and “Recs” were ONI recordings made in reality. Except that most kids no longer referred to it as “reality.” They called it “the Earl.” (A term derived from the initialism IRL.) And “Ito” was slang for “in the OASIS.” So Recs were recorded in the Earl, and Sims were created Ito.

There. You have been infodumped.

In the midst of all this (still extremely dry) exposition about how this changed media, we also get this tidbit:

You could take any drug, eat any kind of food, and have any kind of sex, without worrying about addiction, calories, or consequences.

Now, I was going to rant about this, but then, a page later, this happens and spares me the trouble:

I’d struggled with OASIS addiction before the ONI was released. Now logging on to the simulation was like mainlining some sort of chemically engineered superheroin.

So, you are aware that addiction isn’t just possible, but extremely facilitated by this. But sure, no worries! It’s perfectly safe! Because our protagonists are good.

Also, remember how the last book ended on a weak attempt at having a moral that maybe the real world is good, actually? Yeah, Wade tells us the ONI helps poor people live enjoyable lives in the OASIS. So. Fuck that message, I guess. It only applies if you’re the literal wealthiest man on Earth.

And me? All my dreams had come true. I’d gotten stupidly rich and absurdly famous. I’d fallen in love with my dream girl and she had fallen in love with me. Surely I was happy, right? Not so much, as this account will show.

Aside from the aforementioned returning OASIS affiction, there’s the Shard riddle that Wade is now obsessed with, to the point of offering a billion-dollar reward to anyone with information about the riddle’s answer.

I announced this reward with a stylized short film that I modeled after Anorak’s Invitation. I hoped it would seem like a lighthearted play on Halliday’s contest instead of a desperate cry for help. It seemed to work.

On one hand: good, Wade finally has a character flaw that the book actually acknowledges as a character flaw. I can work with that. On the other hand: this is all told to me in such a dispassionate that I am dreading how the book will handle this character flaw. Which is to say, I’m not expecting it to be very good.

(For a brief time, some of the younger, more idealistic shard hunters referred to themselves as “shunters” to differentiate themselves from their elder counterparts. But when everyone began to call them “sharters” instead, they changed their minds and started to call themselves gunters too. The moniker still fit. The Seven Shards were Easter eggs hidden by Halliday, and we were all hunting for them.)

Especially when this is something the narration feels is more important to tell me about.

Anyway, skip another year, and a gunter finally leads Wade to the First Shard. Solved that riddle, I guess. And wait, wasn’t part of why IOI was ~evil~ in the first book that they were paying people to find the Easter Egg for them? How is this any different, Wade?

And when I picked it up, I set in motion a series of events that would drastically alter the fate of the human race. As one of the only eyewitnesses to these historic events, I feel obligated to give my own written account of what occurred. So that future generations—if there are any—will have all the facts at their disposal when they decide how to judge my actions.

And that is the end of our chapter 0. And can I just say: what a mess already. I don’t think my snark can properly convey how utterly devoid of emotion this book’s writing is, and that alone is honestly more of a turn-off than anything else in the book so far. Even, knowing that I railed about it in the first book, I still feel newly unprepared for it. And it’s not like this double-prologue is making me hopeful that the book will show an ounce more critical thinking—or decent fucking humanity towards marginalized groups—as its predecessor.

So, that’s a lot to look forward to! For the sake of my sanity and schedule, don’t expect me to do such big posts every time. I’ll probably do one chapter a week from now on, if that. We’re in for a long ride, but I hope it’s worth it, at least.

[natsunoomoi]

So sometimes I check wikis to like look things up about a show or series that I don’t have time to read or watch the whole thing fully cuz that’s a time investment I just don’t have but I have questions I just want a quick answer to.

The problem is, wikis are of course, made by like regular people with varying levels of biases and also sometimes selective memory of events. As can be seen in my more recent posts with SVSSS and MXTX’s works I’ve been on those wikis, but sometimes the explanations of plot points and a bunch of other stuff are really confusing and circular. SVSSS’s is being more cleaned up recently, but it still has some things that it says happened, that I couldn’t find at all when reading the book and I’m just like, where did they find that info to put on the wiki?

Like one of my earlier posts when I started reading SVSSS at the beginning, I mentioned how I read that original Luo Binghe got killed by his harem eventually and I thought that made sense cuz ultimately no one in that original plotline made choices that made them genuinely happy. But when I read the book, I didn’t see any mention of that anywhere...? I think last time I went to go look at BC Novels they had one chapter left to translate. Is it in there?

Then at other times, I wonder if there’s an inconsistency because there’s a limitation between the translation I read and like something in the original Chinese text like there’s a typo, which obviously there’s a mistake then. But then other times, I’m wondering if people read a different thing, but most of the people with a different interpretation don’t seem to be able to read Chinese and are reading the same translation as me, but I’m confused where they got certain details from?

Like for instance, there’s another part on the wiki where it says Airplane originally planned for PIDW to be a BL from the beginning, but I’ve literally been trying to find where that was stated because I don’t remember that and I don’t see that anywhere and the chapter citation that is listed on the wiki goes to a chapter that doesn’t talk about that at all. Airplane/Qinghua does say that he made changes to Qingqiu’s character that were originally more complex to make him a trash human and he did that to make a living, but I can’t find where it says he originally wanted it to be a BL theme to begin with. In the chapter they cite it says that Qinghua had designed Binghe to have an appearance in a way that appealed more to a female audience and be more of a pretty boy. That doesn’t mean that he meant his entire book to be a BL it just means you make your main character look a certain way partly for internal logic because that look is really popular with women so the in-story women would probably find him attractive and in a meta sense any females who happen to also read a stallion novel like some women read shounen manga would find him hot in real life. A successful story does things like that to reach people outside of its target audience and that’s kind of a lot of the reason why a lot of Shounen Jump manga are really popular with women too even though a lot of the stories have the male perspective in mind. The chapter it cites only talks about the actual physical appearance design choice he made for Binghe vs Mobei-Jun. He just says that Mobei-Jun was made for the kind of male character he prefers to think about, but Binghe was just designed with the idea of what would make him more popular and also could kind of be like a self-insert-ish for his desire to beat on people for funsies. It doesn’t talk at all about what the genre he planned for the book to be and interpreting the text to that much is really stretching the context to wishful thinking levels. I don’t even actually care either way what kind of novel PIDW was because it’s not actually that important to enjoying the story of SVSSS, but I don’t know if it’s the Ravenclaw in me or what, but it just bugs me when there’s something that seems *wrong* printed on a thing that is supposed to inform other people. I’m literally reading chapters at the same time as trying to write this post to find where I think maybe it was said, but it sure as hell wasn’t the chapter the wiki cites.

The other day I re-read the chapter when Qinghua taunts SY with Qingqiu’s real memories, and he doesn’t even say it then. ATM, I’m trying to look through the last chapter because there’s that one part when Qinghua shows up right at the end and talks with SY at the celebration, but even at the start at the chapter, SY talks about how Qingqiu was super straight to him. SY is an unreliable narrator, but given the context of Qingqiu’s life events that makes sense. His personal trauma because of Qiu Jianluo also pushed him away from any amount of closeness he could have with other men other than ones he already trusted to some degree. He had a lot of problems forming new relationships of any kind with other men because of deep-seated trust issues. Not that he didn’t have any, but meaningful ones were pretty absent. One only because of a very sad misunderstanding and lack of communication and explanation, but the others just tough.

But like also there’s like that SJ slept in the Warm Red Pavilion and he went there just for comfort rather than more lascivious reasons. Yeah, it’s true that he didn’t go there for those intentions, but like it’s still in the environment so it’s not like he’s unaware of what happens there. I mentioned it in the previous post about his search for means to grow his cultivation, but only to say he’s probably not that innocent and there may be some truth to him wanting to do something to Ning Yingying out of desperation to make up for his low cultivation foundation. Like he’s aware of those kinds of things and he probably came across something that said that was a way he could grow his cultivation. Desperation and this motivation I think is probably the only reason why he would be so tempted to cross that line with Yingying because he otherwise treats women rather well. She is his favorite too, so if a person who usually treats females well for some reason wants to do something that would be hurtful to their favorite person, there has to be a much deeper motivation behind that. The only thing that is a canonically greater obsession I think would have to be his cultivation level. He has a number of self-esteem issues and such a well, but his greatest pride and greatest concern is his cultivation. He is proud of his abilities, but also he laments and regrets the version of him he couldn’t become so much I can foresee that if there was a suggestion that he could overcome his late start in some way by using someone female, I think he’d at least think about it and also consider who he knows could be a viable candidate should he want to act on it and that is how that part of PIDW happened. Pain and desperation make people do things that are uncharacteristic, so it has to be something that really bothers him more than in a moment of weakness that idea is there.

Which is another point I have an issue with on the wiki because it says his low cultivation is “logically” because he started late and spent so much time with a fake master. It’s not logically. It’s factually. It’s mentioned several times especially in the extras chapters from Shen Jiu’s point of view where he talks about how he is specifically behind because of wasting time with Qiu Jianluo and Wu Yanzi and also that he was the last to form a golden core. If it was coming out of SY or someone else’s mouth as an explanation, maybe you can say “logically”, but if it’s coming from SJ’s point of view chapter it sure as hell is not. That *IS* his motivation. He states it himself.

Also, I think some people don’t understand what it means to have a low cultivation foundation. Cultivation from what I gather according to the rules of this world is like a lot of talents we have in our world where you need to start young to be good at it. There’s a few skills that you can learn that if you don’t start at a specific time you lose the optimal window to develop your talent for it because of the way the brain functions and basically purges off skillsets you’re not using in your environment. 

Learning a language is one such skill. When a baby is born, it has the capability to learn how to speak every language in the world, but as it gets older its brain purges out the sounds that it doesn’t hear from its environment and this keeps going into older childhood as well. The taxi driver I talked to the other day about this said you have to start before you’re 10, which sounds about right. The phoneme purging in your brain starts quite early though so that’s why my company has classes for Moms and their 1 or 2 year old so that they can speak to them in English to try to keep English sounds in their environment so that they can have perfect pronunciation when they grow up. If you try to learn a new language when you’re older that’s how you have accents. You don’t have the phonemes to speak the language perfectly so your brain is imitating the sounds with the ones you do have. Plus it’s a constant use skill. I used to be able to speak Cantonese with no accent up until my teens, but I haven’t spoken it in so long that slowly I started to have an accent and now I can’t say the words properly anymore. I don’t know that much Cantonese to begin with that aren’t baby words, but I used to be able to say them properly.

Music is another one and that one has an even more narrow window. Kids with parents hoping that they will be music prodigies usually start them on music VERY young like 3 or 4. It’s not that it’s impossible for someone to pick up an instrument later in life, but there’s a type of sense to music and hearing the scale and developing that skill that if you don’t start kids on it at that time, their musical ear will not be as good.

And it’s that “not as good” thing that Qingqiu is chasing. He is exceptionally powerful and talented which is why despite starting late he became favored. He is very capable and good at what he does, but he is not as good as what he could have been. Even though he is so good, he is only haunted by how much better he would have been if he had started on time and had proper instruction. A musician who maybe wants to be a concert violinist but took up the instrument late may struggle to get a good seat in an orchestra because despite any talent they have, their ear is not as developed as someone else. Such a musician would be vexed and lament that they hadn’t discovered their love for the instrument sooner just as Qingqiu is vexed and laments that he didn’t start proper cultivation development earlier.

And I’m griping about SVSSS more because I read that book so I have more points of reference to go on. But like the wikis for MDZS and TGCF aren’t much better. MDZS is maybe a little more coherent and easier to follow, but TGCF confused the hell out of me and it took me awhile to understand what was going on. I really needed it though cuz I was watching the donghua and like I think the way they present some of the scenes is like slightly out of order for like foreshadowing and other like film reasons, so I checked the wiki while watching to try to get more context cuz I don’t have much time right now to pick up another book at the moment. I was so confused though cuz like...it seems like the logic in the entries is so circular and I’m trying to keep track of all the characters and what’s happening. I hope it’s better now but at the time I was watching it I was so confused and struggling to make sense of what’s happening.

And like maybe you’re wondering why if I read the book, would I bother checking a wiki. Mostly out of laziness because I’m thinking of something and I don’t want to go find the exact chapter to help me flesh out my thought and reference point. I end up getting more frustrated sometimes depending on what I’m looking up because of the above things.

Plus again I’m like a bit mystified as to why Qingqiu’s look seems to appeal to me. It’s not just him though and like other characters with a similar style in some of the games I play. I think there’s some imprint from some very old childhood memory that I only vaguely remember. Like it’s a look that seems familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where it’s from and I can’t figure it out, so I keep just going to check images to see if it will make me remember. I think it’s a movie I saw with my Dad as a young child, but I can’t remember it at all. I remember there was one Jet Li movie I watched with my Dad once and I ended up watching all the time cuz I thought Jet Li was really cute in that movie (I was also 3 so I don’t know why I’m thinking that way, but whatever), but like Jet Li was bald in that movie because it was about a Shaolin Temple. I think at the time my Dad showed me that movie I already showed an interest in movies from my own heritage, so that’s why he showed me that. But like I can’t remember anything else. I suppose it could have been something my grandpa watched because sometimes he’d watch a Chinese movie when I was playing in the living room and I’d stop to watch too and then he’d fast-forward through the intimacy scenes, but because I’d just look over at something he was already watching I have no idea what any of those were.

[zaph1337]

Monster Hunter Rating 17: Gendrome, the Alpha Raptor

Hey, everyone! Sorry I’ve been absent for a couple of days. Without going into detail, the last two days have SUCKED for me. I wasn’t in the mood to write any of these, especially since I’m probably gonna end up disappointed with this monster. Though, to be honest, I should probably lower my expectations. But enough of that! Let’s talk about the Gendrome!

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 4)

Appearance: As expected, the Gendrome looks like a bigger Genprey, but unlike the Cephadrome, the Gendrome doesn’t look exactly like its smaller kin; its crests have grown and become pointier, and its fangs got the viperfish treatment and are now absurdly long. I can’t imagine those make eating easy, but considering that this thing has venom like Genprey do (not really spoiling anything by saying that), they might be worth it. As for how I feel about the Gendrome’s appearance, it’s not exactly that much more interesting than Genprey are, but it at least looks distinctive. 5/10.

Behavior: Like I said when talking about Genprey, a Gendrome’s job is to plan attacks on prey monsters like Apceros and Aptonoth. It accomplishes this by using high-pitched calls, much like Velociprey and Velocidromes do. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop Gendromes from being preyed upon by monsters such as Cephadromes, but if they’ve got their Genprey pack with them, they can even take on some Flying Wyverns. Keyword being “if”; Gendromes are known for not always having a pack, and lone specimens are likely constantly searching for a pack to take charge of. If they find a pack that already has a Gendrome, they’ll often challenge the leader to a battle for leadership rights. The wiki doesn’t say whether the loser is chased off or killed, but I could believe the latter being the case because it explains how a Gendrome could be without a pack (y’know, other than “Everyone else died”). The idea of a pack leader having to go find another pack sounds familiar to me, but I don’t know what real-life animal does that. I should also mention that the point of the larger crests is that they can attract mates. Nothing unusual there. Unfortunately, this still doesn’t sound any more interesting than standard pack leader behavior, with the possible exception of the “fighting strangers for their pack” thing. It’s not terribly boring, but it sure as heck doesn’t stand out. 5/10.

Abilities: They literally have the same abilities as Genprey, but it seems like their venom is more potent, as it can paralyze monsters ten times bigger than a Gendrome in mere seconds. The Genprey’s ecology page says the exact same thing, though, which may mean that someone just copied and pasted it without checking whether or not Gendromes have stronger venom, which tells you just how similar to Genprey they are. I’m giving this the same score as I did the Genprey, but if Gendromes weren’t meant to just be big Genprey, I guarantee you I’d dock them points. 7/10.

Equipment: Gendrome equipment has the same aesthetic as Genprey equipment, which means that the other raptor-dromes have equipment which is just recolored from the Gendrome’s...well, sort of. Someone told me that Velociprey were actually the first raptors you’d find in Monster Hunter despite the order they’re in on the wiki’s list, so really, Genprey and Ioprey equipment is based on them, which means that my original ratings for the raptor equipment are all wrong. The thing is, though, correcting all of those would take more time and energy than I’m willing to commit to that, but I will judge the raptor-drome equipment by the Velocidrome from here on (though you won’t get to see Velocidrome equipment until I get to that monster). With that in mind, let’s look at the Gendrome Greatsword called the Saffron Fangblade (not to be confused for the ones from Ninjago):

Honestly, I like the Great Sword from Monster Hunter Online more, but I’ve been using weapons from that game way too often. It’s not my fault that their renders are so high-quality compared to the renders from other games, but considering that several MH fans don’t consider Online a true MH game, I think I could stand to vary my images a little. As for this Great Sword, I prefer how the Velocidrome one looks more, since it’s, y’know, blue, but I’ll give this one credit for actually looking like it’s made from a real snake or other reptile, ‘cause as much as I prefer blue, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a sky-blue snake (if there is, though, link me a picture and give me a name to look up). I’ll be showing the other raptor Great Swords when we get to them, but I’ll also show off a weapon with a design unique to that monster (or at least I think they’re unique). Here’s the Gendrome one, a Gunlance from Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate called the Genenam Lance:

This looks fine. I like the scaled shield and the gold accents. Not much else I can say about it, though. As for the armor, I had to use the render from MHO because the rest of the armor on the equipment page was Genprey themed. Here’s something interesting, though: several Monster Hunter games have two types of armor sets, those being Blademaster and Gunner. I’ve only been showing Blademaster armor because it looks closest to what the MH armor I’m used to looks like and because most of the Gunner armor has some weird looking covering or extension on the left arm, and I think it looks bad. I’m showing the Gendrome Gunner armor here, though, because it actually looks okay and I wanted to mix things up a bit:

The only change I saw between this and the Velocidrome version is that the scales are different colors, and while I could appreciate the realistic-snake aesthetic on the Fangblade, here it doesn’t seem as special. Basically what I’m saying here is that it’s not blue so it’s inferior. The equipment as a whole gets a 4/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: Eh. I didn’t really expect the Gendrome to be all that interesting anyways. It’s the dullest raptor-drome appearance-wise, behavior-wise, and equipment-wise, so it lives up to its legacy perfectly. I’ve got gripes with its siblings, too, but we’ve got a couple monsters to go before we get to the next raptor-drome, so stay tuned. 5/10.

[dauntlcss]

( m, 26, est )  ─  the mirrors surrounding you did as they were meant to, reflecting back a spitting image of PETER GADIOT  -  but it’s clear something is wrong from the moment that a vision of JOINING THE WEST COAST AVENGERS WITH KATE BISHOP strikes you.  perhaps it was a passing daydream in the frenzy of the funhouse. you reassure yourself  -  you’re CLINT BARTON,  a THIRTY-FIVE YEAR OLD BARISTA AND PASTRY CHEF whose virtue lies in your + CHARMING & + CUNNING, although you’ve been told that you tend to be quite - RESENTFUL & - GLOOMY,  and you’re associated with THE SMELL OF FRESHLY BREWED COFFEE IN THE MORNING, EMPTY PIZZA BOXES ON THE KITCHEN TABLE, BAND-AIDS  ALWAYS COVERING YOUR FACE by those around you.  suddenly,  however,  you’ve found YOUR S.H.I.E.L.D. ID CARD on your person - was that always there? from the moment you leave the funhouse,  memories from your life in MARVEL COMICS have begun to return - leaving whoever you had been before in the mirror’s reflection behind you.  you can almost hear VOID by SEAHAVEN following in your wake.

graphic pictured above contains art from square enix.

LIFE IN ALUCARD —

NAME: Clinton Francis Barton-Barnes NICKNAME: Clint OCCUPATION: Barista & Pastry Chef at The Cat’s Meow ETHNICITY: Mexican-American NATIONALITY: American FACECLAIM: Peter Gadiot BIRTHDAY: June 18th AGE: 35 HEIGHT: 6’3” EYE COLOR: Blue HAIR COLOR: Blond SEXUALITY: Bisexual MARITAL STATUS: Married FAMILY: Harold Barton (father, deceased), Edith Barton (mother, deceased), Barney Barton (older brother), Bucky Barnes (husband), Lucky (family dog), Alpine (family cat) LANGUAGES KNOWN: English, ASL, Spanish NOTABLE FEATURES: Wears purple BTE hearing aids

Clint is the youngest son born to Harold and Edith Barton. They have one other son named Barney who is fifteen years older, which put a significant age gap between them. Their father was an angry man who never really wanted children. He preferred drinking to doing any parenting. He didn’t raise a hand to either of the boys but verbal abuse took place and the Barton household never felt like a home. Their mother tried her hardest to make it work.

Some events appear to be constant — the alcoholism leading to the death of Clint’s parents. Only the events that spiraled after that are different in this new life. He was only five years old, holding onto Barney’s hand at the funeral not understanding what was going on. “Where’s mama? Papa?” He would ask but not even the older Barton had the right answer. “It’s only going to be us from now on, kiddo.” He answered after kneeling down to be Clint’s level.

His brother was twenty, having held onto the same job for several years now and it paid well. He took on the responsibility of raising his little brother the best to his ability. They moved into a smaller apartment in Alucard and for a while they were happy. This was so the two of them wouldn’t be separated.

Few years later on his way home from school some older kids jumped him. Without getting into graphic details — the injuries from the beating was so extensive that it left him with head trauma. Barney was worried about his brother and how they were going to pay for his medical expenses. The doctor informs the oldest Barton that Clint lost 80% of his hearing which only made him worry that much more.

They don’t always see eye-to-eye but they’re the only family they both have left. Maybe that’s why the blonde puts up with the anger Barney feels toward him sometimes. You can usually find them signing angrily in the kitchen or living room. They do have their moments where it’s possible to get along but it usually doesn’t last.

Clint made a life for himself. He studied at a culinary institute to become a pastry chef. He knows that it wasn’t a requirement but wanted to take the extra step. It got him away from his brother since it was apparent they couldn’t live together anymore.

Three years ago, Clint got invited to attend an engagement party. One of his friends was getting married and seemed to invite everyone she has ever spoken to — renting out one of the bars in town. He didn’t know a lot of people there but wouldn’t miss out on such a joyous occasion. A few drinks into the night Clint saw the most handsome man he has ever laid eyes on standing across the room. He tried asking the person next to him if they knew the guy. “I’ve never met him but his name is Bucky, I think?” The blond repeated the name over and over in his head while handing the beer to his friend and pushing his way through the crowd. He went over there and introduced himself. He didn’t normally do this but something was telling him to try putting himself out there.

They dated for two years, moving in together in that timeframe. Clint even got a dog named Lucky from the local shelter. He’s missing his left eye and has been there for quite some time the volunteer told him. He didn’t need to know anything else and brought him home. Lucky is a smart dog and got along well with Bucky’s cat to the point they’re inseparable at times.

A little over a year ago, Clint and Bucky got married — the blond added on his husband’s last name to the end of his own. Barton-Barnes. They don’t show a lot of public displays of affection in public but you might see them holding hands. Anything more is usually kept for closed doors. They’re happy although Bucky hates Barney so when his brother stops into town that tends to create some tension if he wants to stay at their place. Bucky will even make Clint lunch to take into work! Which is always better than eating take out again.

Clint is working at The Cat’s Meow as a barista and pastry chef. He’ll work with Marinette on creating new recipe ideas for the menu sometimes. They have a little bit of a sibling dynamic going on, looking after her and always being there when she needs a shoulder to lean on. He couldn’t have picked a better place to work and will always appreciate Adrien for taking a chance on him.

Clint is deaf. If he doesn’t have his BTE hearing aids on he will need to rely on reading your lips or sign if your character happens to know ASL. It makes him really happy when people know sign language!

Not all of Spoken English can be lip-read, some words are incomprehensible. He can figure out what you’re saying by filling in the blanks with the words that were missed while lip-reading. He’ll use outside cues to figure out the context of which word is being used. Since a lot of sounds visually look similar such as. ‘th’ and ‘f’ sounds.

He doesn’t wear his hearing aids at night. You need to let them air out and keeping them in while you sleep could damage them if they fall out into your sheets or end up on the floor where you’ll step on them. They’re expensive and can cost up to six thousand dollars just for one. Clint has two so he wants to take care of them. They’re put on a charging station at night so the batteries can charge.

His hearing will NOT be perfect just because he’s wearing hearing aids. They’re AIDS not FIXES. He will miss parts of the conversation still and ask you to repeat yourself occasionally.

CANON LIFE —

ALIAS: Hawkeye, Agent Barton AFFILIATIONS: S.H.I.E.L.D., The Avengers OCCUPATION: S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent S.H.I.E.L.D. CLEARANCE LEVEL: Seven, Blue

Clinton Barton was the youngest son of Harold and Edith Barton. He grew up helping out around his fathers butcher shop with his older brother, Barney. Their mother was a sweet woman but she couldn’t protect them from what would happen when the whiskey was brought out. Harold was abusive and continually beat both of his boys. It got so bad that the injuries Clint suffered from damaged his hearing. He remembers sitting at the doctors office not being able to understand a word the doctor was saying or his parents.

Eventually his father’s alcoholism caused him to get into a car accident while Edith was in the car, costing both of them their lives. Clint and Barney were sent to numerous foster homes until running away from one of them to join a traveling circus instead. He would adapt his archery skills to become a star carnival attraction, a master archer called Hawkeye.  He spent some time as a member of Tiboldt’s Circus until leaving to try using his skillset for fighting crime.

Nick Fury would end up hand-picking Barton to join S.H.I.E.L.D. and he quickly became one of their very best agents. In addition to this Clint would also end up joining the Avengers and West Coast Avengers. He’s one of the best archers in the world and should not be underestimated for being Human.

The rest of his biography is pretty straight forward from here, if you want to know what kind of shenanigans his teams got up to then there are plenty of marvel fandom wiki pages to check out!

[kynmoonlight]

Spelling Matters [a Witcher fic]

Spelling Matters

A cautionary tale about spelling when spelling. Geralt and Jaskier go off to hunt an Ekhidna, but that’s not what they find. Well, not exactly.

--

Me: Writing an entirely different fanfic, like, hmm, I’ll throw in a Witcher-verse monster I’ve heard of... Let me look up details... wait, how can a little porcupine-thing be such a threat to Geralt? I had to Fic it.

Image credits; Google search and Witcher fandom wiki. https://g.co/kgs/DTmGmV https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Ekhidna

--

“What’ve you got?” Jaskier asked, crowding against Geralt’s shoulder to look at the paper the Witcher had pulled off the notice board.

“Ekhidna.”

“Ooh, that’s like a siren?”

“Hmm. Bigger. Stronger.”

“Um, isn’t the coast still like half a league away?”

“Mm,” Geralt agreed absently, head tilted as he took a deep breath of the westerly breeze. “Saltwater inlet not far outside town. I’m guessing that’s what ‘near Blue Marsh’ means.” He showed Jaskier the location on the notice and started walking.

“That’s not how Ekhidna is supposed to be spelled.” Jaskier pointed as he caught up.

Geralt shrugged “Not everyone is an Oxenfurt graduate.”

The “Blue Marsh” was kind of a grayish brown marsh when they scouted the area. Geralt cautioned Jaskier to stay well back from the water, so he waited on a sandy stretch that wasn’t too boggy this time of day while the Witcher checked out the surrounding area.

“Hm. Nothing,” Geralt reported on his return. “Some torn up areas where the marsh meets the water, but it looks like if there was something here, it’s moved off.”

“That’s nice,” Jaskier said, distracted. He paused and turned his focus back to Geralt. “I mean, lucky for the townspeople that there’s no more danger. Unlucky for us that means there’s no coin either. But, hey, look at this cute little thing.”

Geralt followed his indication to the spikey little hedgehog-like creature, placidly licking up ants, it’s little pink tongue poking out of a long narrow snout. Beak? He wasn’t sure about ‘cute’ but it was small and harmless looking.

“Oh, Geralt, the poor thing got stranded out here when the tide washed into the reeds and blocked the thoroughfare.”

“An arm’s width of sandbar is hardly a thoroughfare.”

“Well it is if you’re the size of a soup bowl! We have to rescue him! This spot will be completely underwater by sunset.”

Geralt sighed as if very put upon, but waited while Jaskier scooped the little animal up in his folded doublet and then helped him pick his way back through the shallowest part of marsh.

“You’re not keeping that stupid whatever-it-is as a pet,” Geralt warned when they set up camp for the night.

“Geralt! Don’t call Pinchy stupid! She’s very sensitive.” Jaskier offered the creature another bit of plant, trying to find out what it liked to eat. He sighed. “And we’ll find her a nice home in the morning far enough away from the marsh and the busy unsafe road, with plenty of other whatever she is to play with and whatever they like to eat to keep her content.”

They’d actually tried to go back to town, but the first person they met started ranting fearfully about ‘freaks of nature’ and ‘abominations’ - which wasn’t that unusual of an occurrence to witchers - but when the comments turned to ‘four dicks’ and ‘tummy pockets with naked babies’ they took themselves and the unwelcome pinchy critter back out of the settlement quickly.

Jaskier left “Pinchy’ (whose tummy pocket -- thankfully without any naked baby Pinchies -- apparently meant she was a she) rooting for insects and sat down to scribble some lyrics on the back of Geralt’s now-irrelevant monster notice, flipping it over again while he contemplated any possible rhymes for pinchy, and tried to recall enough of his boring natural sciences class to figure out what animal was like a hedgehog but not, with maybe a bit of anteater thrown in. And regretting that info from classes that were boring to an aspiring bard could have been useful to an actual bard.

He hummed a bit, and corrected the ‘k’ in Ekhidna on the paper, unable to stand looking at the misspelling anymore.

“Geralt!” he screamed as the ground shook, and tiny spikes and claws stretched up and up and up into scales, wings, a siren tail and… he tore his gaze away for a terrified peek at the notice and back at the growing monster. “Geralt!” he called again, a little more frantically to the Witcher who was running back from his dinner-hunting excursion in the nearby woods.

Panting, Jaskier hastily rubbed his corrective pencil line off the notice while backing away from the sudden Ekhidna.

Several things happened at once. Geralt stepped past him, sword in one hand, shoving him to a marginally safer place behind him with the other. Most of the pencil lead finally rubbed off the paper. And the Ekhidna shuddered and faded out around the edges, and shrunk back down to…

“An Echidna!” Jaskier said.

“It was! Where did… What the fuck?”

Jaskier sat hard, right on the ground in shock, waving the slightly crumpled notice at Geralt in insufficient explanation while he caught his breath.

The silver sword hung down in Geralt’s hand as he touched his medallion. “It was vibrating, then it just stopped when the Ekhidna turned into a …” He pointed in lieu of calling Pinchy a ‘whatever-it-is’ again.

“An Echidna.” Jaskier repeated. “With a ‘c’. I remembered that’s what they’re called. Not a ‘k’.”

“Not OK?”

“K.” Jaskier climbed back to his feet and traced a line over the ‘c’ in the misspelled monster name on the notice as he showed it to Geralt, careful that the lead didn’t mark back over the faint erased line changing it into a ‘k’. 

“Some kind of magic? Curse? Like a ... what? A spelling spell?”

Geralt snorted. “That’s absurd!”

“Do you really want me to change it again to see?”

“No! Once was more than enough.”

The Witcher, Bard and Echidna sat around the fire later that evening debating the issue. At least, the first two did. The third just blinked at them with shiny dark eyes.

“But why would a sorcerer curse a siren to turn into a hedgehog if townspeople spelled it’s name wrong? And how could he even know that would happen?” Geralt growled, angry enough at dealing with magic without having to deal with nonsensical bizarre random magic.

“I think,” Jaskier mused, “I think she must not really be an Ekhidna or an Echidna.” He hummed looking at the notice page with caution. “Do you think that a mage used a written spell to change something - or someone - into an Ekhidna for whatever unfathomable mage reason, and there was enough magic bound up in the spell that when whoever wrote up the notice spelled it with a ‘c’ like little Pinchy here, that’s what it changed her into?”

Geralt grumbled in very begrudging agreement. “Completely ridiculous! But evidence seems to hold that up.”

“The fuck is wrong with mages?”

“Who knows.”

Jaskier laughed grimly. “Well, do you think we should try to break the spell?”

That led to another discussion between the three of them. Although Jaskier was the only one soliciting Pinchy’s opinions, and she was, predictably, unable to share them if she had any.

Eventually. it ended up with Geralt leaning over Jaskier’s shoulder, reminding him of their carefully agreed-upon wording while the bard wrote it out over ‘Echidna’ on the postbill.

Jaskier, always the optimist, had draped a cloak over the back of the tiny creature, “Because after all she’s been through she shouldn’t have the added trauma of turning back naked with two strangers.”

Geralt, with classic witcher skepticism, held his sword in his hand behind Jaskier’s back just in case, ready to jump in front of the bard to defend him if things went poorly. 

“... true form,” they finished verbally and in print, together. 

Pinchy shuddered and grew once more under the fabric. To both their relief, stopping at approximately person scale proportions rather than overgrowing that to super-Siren-size. 

Moments later, she stood gathering the fabric around what appeared to be a normal human form, looking down at herself, at the Witcher, the bard, the paper and quill in the bard’s hand. 

As Jaskier babbled out a greeting, introductions and explanation all in one jumbled sentence, their transformed guest blinked, sighed, and finally nodded.

“The fuck is wrong with mages?” she demanded.

“Who knows.” Geralt and Jaskier agreed.

—

[thebeauregardbros]

Can you tell me about Yakuza 0? I've never played it before and would like to read your thoughts on it.

YOOOOOOOOOOO LES FUKIN GO (thank u!!)

This review is spoiler-free!

Despite what you might assume a game about a bunch of tough muscley fighting dudes, the amount of moral philosophy in this game could rival a 3-part episode of Star Trek: TNG in terms of surprisingly deep and emotional thought. The struggles the protagonists go through has a huge emphasis on honor, keeping your word, taking responsibility for your actions, standing up to things you think are wrong and persevering no matter how much pain, suffering and threat you personally go through all in the name of trying to be a good person, and emphasizing that the mental fortitude to stand for your convictions is the true strength, not just brawn. Character development is absolutely fantastic and I feel like it’s impossible not to fall for these main characters by the end of the game, no matter how weird or even pigheaded they might seem to you at first.

(Trust me, moral philosophy is probably my biggest autistic hyper-fixation. They did this shit GOOD.)

Another major reason I really love Yakuza 0 is that it takes an unusual setting to the normal person - the incredibly political, dark, yet surprisingly realistic setting of organized bullies, criminals, and the uneducated brawn and bad-attitude baddies of the world and try to show them as worthy of more as humans like you and me than just trash that should not be seen or touched. The amount of humanitarian outlook on these people and the humanitarianism of our protagonists is absolutely heartwrenching and beautiful. Despite appearances, anyone can be a good person - this seems to be a major message in this story which I just find absolutely beautiful.

The yakuza definitely have different rules to their world, and that is one that’s built on violence over paperwork, especially when it comes to showing eachother the extent of their passion about something. I feel like it’s an excellent way of portraying the difficulties any normal person goes through with their mental health while struggling to do the right thing in a very direct and relatably painful way that anyone can understand.

The story deals with not only the importance of preserving life and protecting it with surprisingly pacifist ideologies, but the aesthetics in align with the idea that no matter how dark the world or your life feels, happiness is always an option.

Why you might love Yakuza 0 even if the plot doesn’t sound that interesting to you:

Tons of minigames - I think about 28~30 total. That includes 4 actual vintage SEGA arcade games! There’s also tons of gambling games like black jack and shogi, fishing, rhythm games, bowling, fighting tournaments, pool, darts, stock car racing, doll dressup.. It’s very hard not to find at least one you’ll like!

Tourism. Yakuza 0 has such an incredible amount of visual detail to every nook and cranny of every corner and unseen alleyway in the town maps that it feels just absolutely insane to me. The devs didn’t need to put in all this detail but they did. I could legit spend hours in first person mode just looking at everything. On top of that, every restaurant in town has a detailed menu describing each item despite the fact that all food items are just generic healing items. I think there’s even a bar where the bartender will go on a spiel talking about certain drinks after you order them. The atmosphere really makes you feel like you’re truly taking a vacation in another place. Great for when you’re longing to see new scenery while being stuck at home all the time during COVID.

The amount of optional side quests is absolutely insane. According to a wiki there’s a total of 100 side quests in all. If you’re a fan of JRPGs or a fan of completionism, completing them all gives you a ton of extra content and side-stories that can sometimes be just as gutwrenchingly wholesome or tragic as the main plot, or otherwise be great comic relief.

Speaking of comic relief, this game is notorious for it. The main plot can be incredibly serious and stressful and the devs know that can really wear down on the mental state of the player after awhile, so seeing Kiryu dance at a disco in the most lame awkward embarassing dad way possible, or see him pick up a phone in the most ridiculously over-dramatic way for no reason, or see Goro sing lovey-dovey pop songs is just something that will absolutely kill you with laughter and joy and give you a refreshed break you need to help you be able to keep continuing on.

Big fan of seiyuu (Japanese voice actors)? The karaoke bar lets you hear your protagonists’ gorgeous singing voice. You can even invite some side characters and hear their voices too!

NOW THE FAIR CRITICISMS:

Despite the plot having a huge emphasis on how important the morality is of not killing, fighting animations are often totally lethal. Goro canonically fights with a knife and a bat by the end of the game. Both characters can use guns, swords, poisoned knives, baseball bats and other lethal items as a weapon. One of Goro’s main fighting animations is snapping a dude’s neck. Kiryu threw a dude out of a high window. Kiryu shoots at dudes with a gun in a high speed chase at some point and none of these instances are ever addressed in canon plot as having blood on the hands of these characters - no matter what, the people hurt by these things seem to be able to stand up fine later on like nothing happened. Even the main characters can get shot by an actual gun 20 times in a row and shrug it off by shoving convenience store food down their throat. It’s super dumb but absolutely hilarious in it’s unaddressed B-Movie esque hypocritical nature and became a huge in-joke with the fandom. Despite these Goofy Video Game Logic instances, the main plot (specifically the cutscenes) are all extremely realistic and well done. Actual members of real-world Yakuza say the story is pretty accurate to reality.

One of the minor characters is obviously a trans woman but is misgendered constantly by other characters, including the protagonist (though this may be a translation problem), and is the only female character in the game you can fight and have to fight in order to unlock Kiryu’s endgame fighting style (though he remarks he only fights her because she looks like she can handle herself in a fight). She does end up joining up with you as an ally afterwards without changing anything about herself so that’s a positive, I guess? SEGA is aware of fans’ dislike for transphobia and have removed a lot of transphobic content from their re-releases of future Yakuza games, as well as shown the protagonist, Kiryu, as a huge LGBTQ+ ally.

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

Things you might like or otherwise want to check out relating to the same story style of Yakuza 0 I personally highly recommend:

Kyou Kara Ore Wa!! (aka, "From Today, It's My Turn!!"): Absolutely hilarious gag comedy with surprisingly heartwrenching drama and incredibly lovable in-depth characters. It’s about highschool delinquents in the late 1980s (same era Yakuza 0 takes place!). The two main characters remind me a lot of the protagonists of Yakuza 0 in that one is very straight-laced and honorable while the other is more prone to dirty tricks but still does the right thing in the end. I personally recommend reading the manga above all because adaptations cut out a lot of details that I feel add a lot of depth to the characters, but the OVA anime is pretty good on it’s own and there’s a hilarious live action TV show adaptation if you like slapstick.

Rookies: A story about an impossibly determined formerly disgraced highschool teacher doing absolutely everything he can to be the best teacher he can be. Part of his journey is helping reform a group of delinquents who have self-sabotaged themselves into having their baseball team - the one thing they cared about - disbanded. The delinquents constantly fight the teacher off, believing him to just be another adult putting on airs instead of truly caring, while the teacher perseveres no matter what to prove them wrong. A manga and live action drama - both extremely good.

[hunterbahamut]

So, this is something a little bit different.

I’m a big fan of the SCP Foundation wiki, and the crazy stories and entries on there, and I encourage anyone to check them out for fun.

A couple of years ago, I actually came up with an idea for my own SCP idea, and finally I sat down to write it up like an actual entry on the wiki.  I’ve given it the nickname ‘True Fresh Air’. I consider this as a ‘fan SCP’; I think it would be fun if I did try to submit it, but I feel like it would be torn apart by the strict rules and guidelines, or it would be turned into an ‘Anomalous Item’ rather than a full fledged SCP.  I’m also kinda worried that, if I did want to try and submit it as an actual entry, not only would it take months to make it reach standards, but I feel like it would end up getting morphed into something I wouldn’t be happy with.

So, for now, I will post it here just as a fun little thing to try.

For those who are familiar with the wiki and the lore behind it, please note that this is just a fun idea, and some of the material in here shouldn’t be considered as canon or anything.

Thank you!

--

Item #: SCP-████

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures:  SCP-████ is to be kept in a self-contained storage case in the emergency response supply room of Site-███.  SCP-████ should remain there when not undergoing tests. Tests can be conducted by approval of personnel of clearance level 3 or higher and must be documented under the Experiment Log of SCP-████.

SCP-████ can be used in emergency and clean-up procedures during any emergency resulting in an unbreathable area due to smoke, fire, aerosol and gaseous dangers, or containment breech of SCP-████, ████, or ████.

Description: SCP-████ is a wall-mounted automatic air freshener dispenser that was manufactured by the Timemist company in 20██.  It measures at 28"x6"x4" and made of standard white plastic.  The area that would display the company logo is blank; study of the area shows minor abrasions where the logo has either worn off or has been purposefully removed. No other manufacturer or distributor information is present.

The interior of the SCP-████ has the same layout as a typical device of this type, however there are two unknown components installed: one in place of the battery compartment and one in place of the aerosol receptacle.  The item in place of the battery compartment is slightly larger than a standard D-cell battery, and is made of a gray metallic material with no markings on it. The item in place of the aerosol compartment is a cylinder measuring at 4″ tall with a diameter of 2" and is made of the same metallic material as the power source.  Both items are installed and adhered to the plastic by an unknown bonding agent that makes removal of the item difficult without damaging or destroying SCP-████ itself.  Study of either of the components have not been successful as penetrating either has been deemed dangerous without more information.

The power source of SCP-████ has continued to power it since containment, and presumably has been running that way for ██ years. Its anomalous properties are not made known until it is is a room that contains unpleasant odors or particulates or substances in the air that are harmful to most living creatures and humans.  When in said room, the device will begin to freshen the air within minutes, removing the odor despite it's strength or concentration and neutralizing any of the harmful materials.  It is not currently known how SCP-████ is able to do so, since it does not appear to release a perfume substance or any known neutralizing agent that would affect odors or air quality.

SCP-████ was discovered in a restaurant in ████, Pennsylvania in 20██ when a fire had broken out and severely damaged the structure.  When emergency responders arrived, all but four of the employees were accounted for and presumed lost in the fire, but were all found later in the Mens bathroom, having survived the incident.  When taken for treatment for smoke inhalation and oxygen deprivation typical of building fires, all reported they were fine and showed no symptoms of either. Field Agent Byron was not made aware of anything anomalous until he overheard several firemen commenting on how the Mens restroom did not have the typical odors typical of the fire.  Agent Byron later searched the area and discovered SCP-████.

SCP-████ was originally listed as Anomalous Item for a time, but was classified as an SCP after a chemical agent was released into the storage area of Site-██.  The personnel working in the area at the time were assumed dead, but when clean up teams arrived, they had found the personnel alive and well, and no residual evidence of the chemical agent was detected.  When interviewed, the personnel admitted to having no idea that they were in any danger. Testing confirmed the anomalous nature of SCP-████ and it was reclassified as an SCP.

Addendum ████-1: When testing the air quality and purity after SCP-████ was used, Researcher ████ commented that the air 'reminded him of his time in the Netherlands', noting that the air was fresh and had a smell that reminded him of the region.   Research teams were sent to ████████, Netherlands to perform tests there and discovered that the air quality and purity were nearly identical to SCP-████ tests.  It is theorized that this area could be the original source for the substance inside the unknown canister inside SCP-████.

Addendum ████-2: Interview with restaurant owner Mr. ████ Daniels, former owner of the restaurant.

An interview was conducted with Mr. ████ Daniels several weeks after the fire, in order to discover the place of origin for SCP-████.

Interviewer: Doctor P████ Interviewee: ████ Daniels Date: ██/██/20██

Note: Doctor P████ is under the guise of an investigator from Mr. Daniels' insurance company.

Doctor: Thank you for your time Mr. Daniels, this shouldn't take too long, we just wanted some additional information for your claim.

Daniels: Of course.

Doctor: There are a few minor details that we wanted to clear up for our adjustments; cleaning supplies and materials that were used in your establishment.

Daniels: Honestly there isn't much to say there. I didn't keep a record of that stuff until I needed to buy new stuff.

Doctor: That would include the air fresheners in your establishment as well?

Daniels: Yeah, I suppose so.

Doctor: When did you first purchase them and when were they replaced?

Daniels: *is quiet for a moment* To be honest, it was various times.  The only one I can say with any certainty was the one in the Womens restroom.  We had a troublemaker in the store a few months ago, around ████ or so, the thing was so damaged that I couldn't salvage it. *falls quiet again*

Doctor: Is something wrong Mr. Daniels?

Daniels: Nothing wrong, just a weird thought occur to me.  In all of my time working at the restaurant, I actually don't remember replacing the batteries or the fragrances in some of them.

Doctor: You never replaced them?

Daniels: Well...-I- haven't, but the other employees must have done so.  Just kind of a weird thought.

Doctor: When did you first buy your air fresheners and do you remember the company you bought them from?

Daniels: Well, the replacements I just picked up from ████ or ████ off the internet.  I don't know about anything that was in there before I bought the place.

Doctor: So you're not the original owner?

Daniels: Oh no, I bought the place from an older couple in town, the Robellos.  They had that place for years since then, ran it when I was a teen.  If they kept any records, I never got them.

Doctor: I see.  Well that should be everything, thank you for your time, Mr. Daniels.

Daniels: Of course. *laughs* Kinda strange to be asking about a couple of air fresheners, but I guess you guys don't skip the little details.

Doctor: No sir, that we don't.

When researching the Robello family, it was discovered that the oldest members, Mr. Trey Robello and Mrs. Carla Robello, had passed away in 20██.  Their next of kin had not worked or taken part in the business, so no interviews were deemed necessary.

Note: "The interview has revealed that there was at least one more of these in existence. However, it is also revealed that SCP-████ is not indestructible. If the other item was destroyed by a random vandal, then any experiments we conduct run the risk of damaging or destroying it. -Doctor P████

Addendum ████-3: Experiment Log of SCP-████

The following experiments were conducted with SCP-████ to determine the strength, range and duration of its effects.  The test was conducted by Doctor D████ with Researcher N████, who is described as having a 'sensitive nose' and for picking up on unpleasant odors.

Experiment ████-1 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: 1 cigarette Time Limit: None

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A and was asked to smoke one cigarette with no time limit.  D-class did so, finishing in 2 minutes and 35 seconds. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -Upon entering, Researcher commented on the linger smell cause by the cigarette. -Researcher was asked to stay inside and SCP-████ was placed in the room. -After two minutes, Researcher N████ commented that the smell seemed to be disappearing, but she could not tell if it was due to SCP-████. -After five minutes, Researcher commented that the smell was completely gone. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Notes: A simple test to start with, but still somewhat inconclusive, we will need to increase the amount for a noticeable effect.

Experiment ████-2 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: 5 cigarette Time Limit: None

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A and was asked to smoke the five cigarettes with no time limit.  D-class did so, finishing after 12 minutes. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -Upon entering, Researcher commented on the smell, noting it was stronger than the previous test. -Researcher was asked to stay inside and SCP-████ was placed in the room. -After two minutes, Researcher N████ commented that the smell seemed was disappearing rapidly. She also remarked that this was unlikely due to natural dissipation -After five minutes, Researcher commented that the smell was completely gone. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Notes: A stronger concentration, yet the effects seem to happen in the same time frame.

Experiment ████-3 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: A pack of cigarettes, containing 20 cigarettes Time Limit: None

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A and was asked to smoke the entire pack with no time limit.  D-class did so, finishing after 32 minutes. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -Upon entering, Researcher commented on the smell, noting that it was 'overpowering'. -Researcher was asked to stay inside and SCP-████ was placed in the room. -After two minutes, Researcher N████ commented that the smell seemed was disappearing rapidly. She also expressed disbelief. -After five minutes, Researcher commented that the smell was completely gone. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Note: Again, this test showed that SCP-████ has worked consistently in the same amount of time as the previous tests, regardless of the saturation.

Experiment ████-4 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: A pack of cigarettes, containing 20 cigarettes Time Limit: 10 minutes.

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A and was asked to smoke the entire pack within 10 minutes.  D-class did so, though expressing discomfort during. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -Upon entering, Researcher commented on the smell, similar to Experiment ████-3. -Researcher was asked to stay inside and SCP-████ was placed in the room. -After two minutes, Researcher N████ commented that the smell seemed was disappearing rapidly. -After five minutes, Researcher commented that the smell was completely gone. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Notes: We wanted to see how SCP-████ would function while the smoke was still lingering and relatively fresh. Same results as the previous tests, confirming a reliable timeframe for SCP-████'s anomalous effects to begin.

Experiment ████-5 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: A pack of cigarettes, containing 20 cigarettes Time Limit: None, 30 minutes.

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A and was asked to smoke the entire pack with no time limit.  D-class did so, finishing after 36 minutes. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber. The chamber then remained vacant for 30 minutes. -Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -Upon entering, Researcher commented on the smell, noting that it was not as strong as previous experiments, but had a 'staleness' to it. -Researcher was asked to stay inside and SCP-████ was placed in the room. -After two minutes, Researcher N████ commented that the smell seemed was disappearing rapidly. -After five minutes, Researcher commented that the smell was better, but lingered. -After eight minutes, Researcher commented that the smell was completely gone. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Notes: It seems that if an area is left to 'soak', then SCP-████'s effects do take a little longer to take place.  This is good to note for when we change to more dangerous substances.

Experiment ████-6 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin in a larger space. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-B, measuring 5m squared. Test: A pack of cigarettes, containing 20 cigarettes Time Limit: None, 30 minutes.

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-B and was asked to smoke the entire pack with no time limit.  D-class did so, finishing after 34 minutes. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -Upon entering, Researcher commented on the smell, noting that it was not as strong due to the larger size. -Researcher was asked to stay inside and SCP-████ was placed in the room. -After three minutes, Researcher N████ commented that the smell seemed was disappearing rapidly. -After six minutes, Researcher commented that the smell was better, but lingered. -After ten minutes, Researcher commented that the smell was completely gone. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Notes: As expected, it does take longer for SCP-████'s effects to take place in a larger space.  Since a normal air freshener is meant for certain sized rooms, this makes sense.

Experiment ████-7 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin while in an affected room. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-C, measuring 4 x 5 m Test: 1 cigarette. Time Limit: None

-Two D-class (Designated D-████-1 and D-████-2) were brought into Test Chamber ████-C and sat a single table. SCP-████ was placed in between them. - D-████-1 was asked to smoke the cigarette with no time limit.  D-class did so, finishing after 4 minutes. -D-████-2 was asked to comment on the smell.  D-████-2 commented that there was a smell, but it didn't stay long, disappearing after a few seconds. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -When asked about the odor, Researcher commented that she could not detect any smell at all. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Notes: SCP-████ seems to be constantly working, so whenever an unpleasant smell is put in, it almost immediately neutralizes it.

Experiment ████-8 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin while in an affected room. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-C, measuring 4 x 5 m Test: A pack of cigarettes, containing 20 cigarettes Time Limit: None

-Two D-class (Designated D-████-1 and D-████-2) were brought into Test Chamber ████-C and sat a table on opposite ends of the room. SCP-████ was placed in between them. - D-████-1 was asked to smoke the cigarettes with no time limit.  D-class did so, finishing after 40 minutes. -D-████-2 was asked to comment on the smell.  D-████-2 commented that they were only able to get a smell occasionally, otherwise it was relatively clean. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -When asked about the odor, Researcher commented that she could not detect any smell at all. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Notes: Same results as the last test, though it seems like there is a greater effect depending on distance of subjects. Nothing too unexpected.

Experiment ████-9 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin while in a room with a potentially dangerous substance. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: Natural wood smoke. Time Limit: None

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A and was asked take a seat and stand-by.   -A standard fire was built using natural wood and the smoke was pumped into the room via a built in fan vent. -SCP-████ was placed on the opposite end of the room. - Three minutes after the test began, D-class mentioned the smell of a fireplace or campfire, but it had gone away after five minutes. -Smoke continued to be pumped into the room for fifteen more  minutes. D-class showed no signs of being affected by the smoke. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and Researcher N████ was asked to enter. -When asked about the odor, Researcher commented that she could not detect any smell at all. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber and Researcher left.

Notes: The results of this test are similar to the descriptions of SCP-████'s initial and secondary discoveries, because it's constantly working, any harmful substance in the room is neutralized almost immediately. From this point on, we won't be asking N████ to enter the room after the tests.

Experiment ████-10 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin while in a room with a potentially dangerous substance. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: Carbon Monoxide Time Limit: None

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A and was asked take a seat and stand-by.   -A combustion engine was activated and the exhaust was pumped into the room via a built in fan vent. -SCP-████ was placed on the opposite end of the room. -Two minutes after the test began, D-class mentioned the smell of exhaust, but it had gone away after five minutes. -Engine exhaust continued to be pumped into the room for fifteen more  minutes. D-class showed no signs of being affected. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber.

Notes: Similar results as the last test.  I'm kinda glad, I really didn't want to see someone suffocating like that. D-class or not.

Experiment ████-11 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin while in a room with a potentially dangerous substance. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: Cyanide Gas Time Limit: None

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A and was asked take a seat and stand-by.   -A canister of cyanide installed and was pumped into the room via a built in fan vent. -SCP-████ was placed on the opposite end of the room. -Two minutes after the test began, D-class mentioned feeling strange, but it had gone away after five minutes. -Cyanide continued to be pumped into the room for fifteen more  minutes. D-class showed no signs of being affected. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber.

Notes: Now I'm really glad it works. I know they’re D-class, but...damn.

Experiment ████-12 Parameters: Testing the speed of which SCP-████ anomalous effects begin when placed in a room already filled with a potentially dangerous substance. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: Cyanide Gas Time Limit: None

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A while wearing a standard gas mask and was asked take a seat and stand-by.   -A canister of cyanide installed and was pumped into the room via a built in fan vent. -After five minutes, D-Class was told to remove the mask.  D-Class complied, but started to feel the effects of the gas.  They attempted to put the mask back on, but was stopped on threat of termination. -After two more minutes, D-Class starts to show signs of cyanide poisoning. -SCP-████ is placed in the room via a trap door. -D-class starts to show further effects and crawls towards the door and SCP-████. -After five minutes, D-class seems to calm down, coughing a lot. -Cyanide continued to be pumped into the room for fifteen more  minutes. D-class shows no other signs of being affected. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and taken to medical. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber.

Notes: Damn...that was rough.  But, yes, SCP-████ does actually neutralize poisonous gases as well as odors.

Experiment ████-13 Parameters: Testing the speed and effect of SCP-████ against other anomalous substances. Subject: SCP-████ Location: Test Chamber ████-A, measuring 4m squared. Test: [REDACTED] of gas from SCP-████ (Designated as SCP-████-1). Time Limit: None

-D-class was brought into Test Chamber ████-A was asked take a seat and stand-by.   -A canister containing SCP-████-1 was installed and was pumped into the room via a built in fan vent. -Gas was pumped in until D-class showed beginning symptoms of Stage One exposure. -SCP-████ is placed in the room via a trap door. -D-class continues to show signs of Stage One symptoms. -After five minutes, symptoms do not escalate. -After ten minutes, D-Class shows signs of symptoms fading to safe levels. -SCP-████-1 is pumped into the room again for five minutes.  Symptoms do not return. -D-class is left in the room for another five minutes before SCP-████-1 neutralizing agent is introduced. -D-class was escorted out of the chamber and taken to medical. -SCP-████ was removed from testing chamber.

Notes: It actually worked!  SCP-████ had neutralized another SCP anomaly!  I am both amazed and relieved by those results. As exciting this discovery is though, we have to keep in mind that we don't know if SCP-████ can neutralize other SCP effects.  We tested strictly gaseous materials, so we don't know if would affect any others, like those that are spore based.

While we will need to do further testing of SCP-████'s limits, I do want to formally recommend that we keep SCP-████ as a part of our emergency response materials.  With the potentials dangers we face, I think it would be nice to have something working in our favor. -Doctor D████

[indowolfgang]

About Jurassic Park’s lack of feathers: (y’all this is long)

most dinosaur related media doesn’t have feathered dinosaurs and a lot of people blame Jurassic Park. dinosaurs are my special interest and Jurassic Park is a big part of that so ima prove them wrong. first off i wanna say haters get owned: 2011: NASA scientists said it was the 7th best SciFi movie and 2012: Popular Mechanics said it was the 6th accurate and “was faithful to early '90s speculative genetics theories”

anyways... lets get into it

Games (that i have lol):

Ark: Survival Evolved: 10/29 dinosaurs

Compsognathus,  Deinonychus, Gallimimus, Megalosaurus, Microraptor, Oviraptor, Raptor, Therizinosaur, Troodon, Yutyrannus (this dino was actually found with direct evidence of feathers!)

at first i had no idea what type of ‘raptor’ they were referring to, but i checked and its a Utahraptor. the largest-known individual of Utahraptor was about 7 meters (23 feet) long so size is a-okay with me

i debated including the Pegomastax because the wiki says it has fur and quills, which could be argued as protofeathers, but since its from the early Jurassic its hard to say.. just to be safe i left it out

i only looked at dinosaurs cause there are a ton of made-up/mythical creatures, prehistoric birds/reptiles, and just a straight up vulture

The Isle: 3/30 dinosaurs 

Therizinosaurus, Orodromeus (AI), Austroraptor 

none of these are playable in survival mode btw

also i’m not sure if the game is going for accuracy or not, Dilophosaurus and Velociraptor are the right size but still... no feathers on known feathered dinos: Velo, Rex, or Utahraptor

technically feathers have never been found on Utahraptors but there is strong evidence that all dromaeosaurids had them since Microraptor and Dakotaraptor had them

Jurassic World Evolution: 0/69 (nice) dinosaurs

based on the movies Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom, and eventually they added a Jurassic Park DLC. despite the Jurassic World movies not counting the Jurassic Park sequels (Lost World and JP3) as part of its time line, the Jurassic Park DLC includes skins from those movies. not much to say here... i’ll get into the movies further down

i didn’t count the pteranodon, cause its not a dinosaur and, still, no feathers

Saurian: 4/8 dinosaurs

Dakotaraptor, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Acheroraptor, Ornithomimid

i’ve only included the dinos that are currently in-game, the wiki says they are planing to add another playable dino, Anzu (feathered), but so far it hasn’t even been added as an AI yet

they are actually going for scientific accuracy so all the dinos that should have feathers do and they are, as far as i can tell, realistically placed. Good Job!

games are hard to talk about... usually games that feature dinos will have an element of ‘fantasy’ (Ark especially) and JWE is based on the Jurassic World movies so its dinos can only look like the movies dinos. The Isle is most likely suffering from the status quo, most dinos in popular media look like big lizards so they didn’t want to take a risk. the game isn’t finished and its possible it’ll go from a dinosaur sim to a shooter, since there are human models in game and controls for weapons. i’ve also heard players rumor that you’re not actually playing as the dino but as a camera that follows it around (which would explain the nigh vision mode). chances are The Isle will end up like Ark: man vs dino

Movies:

i thought about discussing The Land Before Time movies (cause i was obsessed with them as a kid lol), but that was pre-Jurassic Park so i’ll give it an honorable mention. ANYWAYS... Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park: Lost World, Jurassic Park 3, Jurassic World, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. none of them have feathered dinos. lets look at why that might be 🤔

Jurassic Park:

no feathered dinosaurs. BUT, feathered dinosaurs were not very mainstream in the scientific community until about 3 years after the movie came out,

“Three years after the first Jurassic Park debuted, paleontologists announced that the small theropod Sinosauropteryx was covered in a fine coat of fuzzy protofeathers. This was just the initial drop in a flood of feathery dinosaur discoveries which confirmed that a wide variety of dinosaurs bore archaic forms of plumage, from simple filaments to asymmetrical feathers that would have allowed them to fly.”

[from this National Geographic article (x)]

looking more into the history of feathered dinos, i found well... a lot. its really difficult to find a concrete time for when paleontologists discovered (and agreed on) feathered dinos, some places say 1860, 1923, 1979, 1983, it goes on forever, one source even said 2001. Archaeopteryx, which an early Jurassic creature, had complex, bird-like feathers. so why no feathers on other dinosaur reconstructions? its possible these discoveries were ignored by the larger scientific community in favor of the well established depictions of big, slow lizards

[if u wanna do even more reading about feathers check out this All About Birds article (x) and the History of discovery section on the Archaeopteryx’s wiki (x)]

JP definitely upped the Velociraptor’s size and did my Dilophosaurus dirty, so i will fault them for that. the big ass raptor has stayed in pop culture for-fucking-ever. it feels like everyone is making naked Utahraptors and calling them Velociraptors. and g*d... my poor Dilophosaurus... why’d they make you spit? and why so small? you’re really 6-7 meters (20-23 feet) long! you are a large carnivore!! also it is possible that Dilophosaurus had feathers, though again, because its from the early Jurassic, it would have been more like a fur

Lost World:

no feathered dinosaurs. i cant really fault them for not changing the dinosaurs looks in a sequel, also trust me when i say it could have been worse the dino depictions in the book are insane... Chameleon Carnotaurus anyone?

the movie also didn’t explain why there were different dinos at Site B compared to the actual park. my best explanation is from the book: Site B was where the dinosaurs were actually hatched and raised, they were moved to the park just before they got to big to handle. so we are to assume that any non-Jurassic Park dinos we saw in Lost World were originally planned to be moved. sucks that they left this detail out of the movie adaptation, cause a lot of fans got confused (including me lol)

Jurassic Park 3:

no feathered dinosaurs. an incredibly mild attempt at ‘feathered’ raptors was made in JP3 by giving the males quills, but at that point the movies had an established ‘science’ and completely changing the look of the animals at the end of a trilogy might have confused a few people (even if it was more scientifically accurate)

Jurassic World:

no feathered dinosaurs. they literally stated in the movie that they left out accurate feathered dinosaurs because Dr. Wu was asked to create: “Dinosaurs that look like what the public expects dinosaurs to look like. Scary. Scaly. Wild.” Dr. Wu also states that the dinosaurs have never been actual dinosaurs. their DNA is a melting pot of DNA.

(i swear i read something about Dr. Wu attempting to make feathered dinos, but because of all the non-dino DNA he couldn’t get the genes to stick, i can’t find a source or any proof of this so i guess that can be our lil headcanon lol)

though for a more real life reason,

“The reasoning behind this being continued through the subsequent movies, though, is more about how imposing the featherless versions look.” ... “It seems more likely that the filmmakers went with how most people would perceive dinosaurs in the hopes that dino experts would take notice.”

[from this Screen Rant article (x)]

so basically JW cared more about scary, recognizable dinos than accurate ones

Fallen Kingdom:

no feathered dinosaurs. again a sequel is a bit too late to change up your designs. unfortunately the change had to happen in JW or not at all

In Closing:

basically Jurassic Park came out just before paleontologists announced Sinosauropteryx, which popularized feathered dinos. even then Jurassic Park was restricted by the technology of the time. the early ninety’s was not the best time for CGI and i can’t imaging making feathered animatronic dinosaurs that could stand up to the rain they filmed in. new media is definitely stuck in the past, look at the movies that come out and compare how many are sequels or prequels or remakes or whatever. Jurassic Park was a great movie and obviously the vultures that make movies are gonna try and ride its brand into the sunset. blaming the movie for stopping new scientific discoveries from entering the mainstream isn’t fair. the movie did a lot to bring current science into the lime light, it popularized warmblooded, avian dinos and showed them as intelligent, fast moving animals instead of slow movie monsters

but JW had no excuse!  they should get majority of the blame for making the public afraid of feathers cause they themselves were afraid of feathers! they had the technology, the budget, and the opportunity to follow in its parent movie’s footsteps. they could have at least TRIED to be accurate but they just stuck to what people knew cause that was more profitable. science is only as interesting as the toys you can make of it i guess...

a final note, just for my sanity: JP dinos aren’t real dinosaurs. not even in fiction. they’re DNA is so full of garbage that their inaccurate appearances could be explained away with that alone. the books get into this more, talking about all the failed embryos and how many diseases these creatures had. even delving into their lack of social skills and how the raptors didn’t act like a pack, but a group of aggressive individuals. unfortunately the average viewer isn’t gonna know about all this set dressing. hell, i didn’t even read the 2 books until recently (end of 2019/ start of 2020) so i was as ready to believe whatever the movies showed me. honestly the books and movies are all good in different ways, not accurate, but good. read the books if you want more gore and technical explanations and the movies if you want, well... more story, they add a lot of stuff that wasn’t in the books

one day i’ll get into the differences in the books and movies.. one day

[ this was originally a response to someone but tumblr hid it, cause links. so i’ve edited it to be a standalone post and also WAY longer. feel free to add on or correct any mistakes i’ve made (be respectful tho) ]

[geek-patient-zero]

Part 1, Chapter 2

Or: McCann Reads His Mail

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Dead Trilogy Volume 1

Dire McCann returns to his office, in “the heart of the tenderloin district.”

Big, bold, black letters on the door proclaimed, D. McCann, Investigations. Beneath his name, in much smaller print, was the disclaimer Consultation by Appointment Only.

I guess even Dire knows his first name’s a little odd and abbreviated it. Who’d want to give work to a guy who looks like they’re trying to give themselves a nickname.

There’s several paragraphs describing the office. The outer office/reception area has a coffee table with old issues of Sports Illustrated and three red chairs, like a doctor’s office with an even more limited selection of outdated magazines.

It wasn’t much, but he didn’t require any better.  Recently, his only clients had been the Kindred, and none of them worried about his taste in furniture.

Not to his face, anyway. Vampires are like suburban parents that way.

The office proper, or his ”inner sanctum” as the narration calls it, is pretty standard; huge oak desk, “an elaborate telephone answering machine,” a table with a fax machine, PC, and printer on it, some metal cabinets, and more red chairs. It was also mentioned to have an “outrageous” rent that was almost worth it for the building’s cleaning lady.

The glow of a nearby streetlight gave the room an eerie, ghost-like interior.[...]No cheaply framed photos with hearty endorsements or tacky paint-by-numbers artwork hung on the walls. McCann believed in a strictly functional workplace. Besides which, it made a better impression on potential clients.

McCann sits behind his desk and reloads his submachine gun.

Considering what had happened already tonight, it seemed like good policy to stay ready for trouble.

For all the good it did him, but good thinking I guess. Proper paranoia helps in the World of Darkness.

Then he checks his answering machine. Two of the messages are for “divorce work.” That kind of stuff “didn’t interest” McCann, but there’s another detective in the building who specialized in it, and McCann trades him leads for favors, so he writes down the names and phone numbers. Another message is trying to sell him health insurance.

McCann grinned. Considering his present circumstances, he wasn’t sure he could afford the premiums.

Finally, McCann gets around to checking the mail he was carrying around during the first chapter. After separating the junk mail, he’s left with the small box, which was from Switzerland, three letters from Venice, Italy, another from Australia, and the last from Peru. He starts with the mail from Venice.

Dated approximately a week apart, the letters contained detailed records for financial deals made during the previous seven days.  The facts and figures covered hundreds of major business transactions throughout Europe and the United States. The detective scanned the documents carefully. There were no unusual expenditures or unexplained finances. Not that he expected to find any. The masterminds of the Giovanni Clan were the greatest financial wizards in the world. They kept a tight watch on their investments. McCann merely wanted to make sure no one other than him was skimming the profits.

Interesting. Despite doing work for the Camarilla, McCann also has connections to the independent Giovanni Clan, or at least is stealing money from them, and in a way that even their “financial wizards” can’t detect. There’s an even more interesting reveal at the end of the paragraph.

The longer he lived, the more cautious he became. And, though he appeared to be in his mid-thirties, Dire McCann lived a very long time.

Huh. The summary on the back cover describes him as “mortal.” Then again it also misspells his surname as McCannan, so...

Next he opens the latter from Darwin, Northern Territory Australia, which contains a newspaper clipping. Recently, “nomadic” Aborigines fled their reservation in the Tanami Desert and set up a shanty town outside the city. Officials tried to get the “troublemakers” to go back, “but with no success.”

No one could offer an explanation for the natives’ unexpected migration. Nor were the unwelcome Aboriginals willing to discuss why they had abandoned their primitive shelters and made the long trek to the coast. Their only reply was to point in the general direction of the Macdonnel Ranges and utter the word “Nuckalavee, Nuckalavee,” over and over again.

The hell’s a mythological Scottish demon doing in Australia?

Unfortunately, no one other than the natives understood what the term meant.

Have they tried asking a Scottish person? Maybe someone from the Orkney Islands? This is like Native Americans fleeing from the Loch Ness Monster or a kappa.

For those of you who’d never heard of it, or had never played The Bard’s Tale, the Nuckelavee is this big horse with the upper torso of a rider growing out of the middle of its back, and it has no skin.

The story ended with the mayor promising city residents that the shanty town would be gone shortly.

Australians being shitty to the Aboriginals. What a surprise.

I know, hypocritical coming from an American. But still.

McCann grimaced. He understood why the Aboriginals had fled. But he doubted that the government officials in Darwin would believe his answer. Or care. Mentally, McCann noted that he should request that his clipping service search for any follow-up stories. Or reports of unusual disappearances in the Northern Territories.

It’s a minor spoiler, but not an unsurprising one given the setting, but the World of Darkness version of the Nuckalavee is a vampire; a Nictuku, the name for a fourth generation Nosferatu. Father Naples mentioned them during the prologue when he was talking about the Nosferatu, remember?

“A few of their fourth-generation progeny are rumored to be grotesque monsters, known as the Nictuku.”

But whether it’s the mythological Nuckelavee or a vampire character based off of it, it’s bizarre that Weinberg took a mythological creature from one culture, transplanted it to a completely different one on a different continent, and act like it was always a part of that culture. Even in 1994, before Wikipedia, anyone familiar with Scottish folklore would know better. Hell, check that fan wiki page I linked just now. The reference used for the page came from VTM: Clanbook: Nosferatu. It came out in 1993, and it’s most likely what Robert Weinberg used for information on Nuckalavee too. If the information on the wiki is accurate to the book, then the book straight up says that the thing is Scottish. Even if the vampire migrated at some point, more people should know about it, at least as a legend, than some scared Aboriginals.

Speaking of... I’m no expert on Aboriginal cultures, living on the opposite side of the Pacific and all, but I’m sure they can communicate better than pointing at some mountains and grunting a monster’s name in fearful tones like some old Hollywood tribal character. At least enough to say “there’s something life threatening by our reservation and we’re getting away from it.” The story’s sympathetic to them at least, but that part rubs me the wrong way.

Next, McCann opens the envelope from Peru. It contains a photo and a handwritten note from a member of the Explorer’s Club. The photo makes McCann “swallow hard”. More bad news.

Scribbled in black ink around the margin of the photo were the words, “Found at entrance to huge cavern, Gran Vilaya ruins, Peru.” The picture showed a massive stone statue of a crouching demonic figure with a misshapen, bloated female body and the face of a snarling jaguar. Circling her feet in a ring were a dozen stone heads. Judging from the size of the skulls, the demon stood a least fifteen feet tall.[...]It fronted a huge network of previously unknown caves that honeycombed the Andes for miles. No one knew for certain the purpose of the underground warren. Several members of the expedition thought it might have served as a ritual burial ground for the mysterious Chachapoya civilization due to the numerous skeletons found scattered all through the tunnels. Which would therefore identify the demonic figure as the guardian of the dead.

Credit where it’s due, Robert Weinberg didn’t just make up the Chachapoya. Little’s known about their ancient civilization, and some of what we do know come from the Inca that conquered them and the Spanish, which aren’t what you’d call unbiased accounts. They even lived in the kind of “fog-shrouded region” or “cloud forests” that Gran Vilaya was described as being found in.

The writer ended his note with the hope that McCann felt his research money was being well spent.

McCann used money from a “secret Giovanni slush fund”, which of course none of the Giovanni clan elders know about, to fund the expedition. McCann feels the cost was justified, but would’ve preferred it it if they’d found nothing.

The statue was not a representation of the spirit guardian of the dead Chachapoyas. It showed their murderer..

Not sure why the Spanish had to build underground catacombs for the Chachapoyas to die of disease and poverty in when- No, wait, he’s talking about a vampire.

A creature who abhorred all life, she was named Gorgo, the One Who Screams in Darkness. And the empty caverns in Gran Vilaya indicated that once more she walked the Earth.

Turns out she’s another Nictuku, like Nuckalavee. One with a kickass title. It looks like some very old, very powerful vampires are waking up, and McCann is not happy about it. He opens the box from Switzerland. It came from “an old friend.”

Inside were photocopies of more than three hundred pages of hand-written memos and high level classified documents. They were a mixed selection from a half-dozen different European security agencies. All were marked TOP SECRET.

But we readers don’t get to learn what they say, because McCann checks his watch and learns he’s gotta be at the Club Diabolique to meet Alexander Vargoss in half an hour.

McCann’s preparing to leave when his phone rings. Remember his “elaborate telephone answering machine?” It’s got some spiffy futuristic tech in it like a “caller ID feature” and the ability to record phone calls. Stuff that only someone secretly skimming money from the Giovanni can afford. But seriously, I enjoy reading old stuff and seeing things that are common today described as rare and amazing. Hell, I didn’t know caller ID was a thing in 1994. My family’s middle class and we didn’t get phones with caller ID until the 2000′s.

Unfortunately, none of his phone system’s features come in handy in this case. He doesn’t recognize the number, but McCann answers the phone anyway.

A man whose voice McCann didn’t recognize spoke in clear, crisp tones. “Lameth,” said the stranger, “beware of the Red Death.”

Without another sound, the man hung up, leaving a stunned McCann holding the receiver. Lameth, the speaker had called him.

Nah, Dire, despite his clear, crisp tones the mysterious caller still has a bit of a lisp. He was actually calling you “lame-ass.”

It was a name from the dawn of history, one that McCann believed long forgotten. A master schemer, the detective did not like unexpected shocks. Especially ones of this magnitude.

McCann certainly has the connections and resources to be a master schemer. Still, I’d of liked to have seen him actually scheme before the narration straight up calls him one.

He tries to listen to the recording of the phone call, but turns out it didn’t record. The caller ID screen is blank, and even the phone number it picked up earlier disappeared. This is starting to sound familiar.

Luckily, McCann memorized the number despite his previous confidence in technology. He calls the local police station, specifically a cop named Harry. He asks for a favor due to him for a bottle of wine he sent Harry for his birthday; the location where his phone call was made from. Turns out, it’s from a booth in the front lobby of his building. One that’s been out of service for months.

Let’s recap. Assassins just tried to kill McCann. Powerful vampires are waking up abroad, which is worrying for a very old schemer with an eye towards international news like him. And an untraceable magic man just called him by a very old name no one should know and warned him of a threat with an ominous name. All before he’s gotta meet with the Prince of St. Louis. Good thing McCann’s a big tough book protagonist, ‘cause I’d certainly be a little anxious.

Not a believer in coincidence, the detective knew the three events had to be linked together. But how?

The voice on the phone had warned him to “beware the Red Death.” McCann had absolutely no idea who or what the Red Death might be. He had a terrible suspicion that he would soon find out.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #115

Thurs Jul 25 2019

[05:22 PM] Wack'd: I dig this shot of how contacting the Four works from the Watcher's perspective

[05:23 PM] Wack'd: So Stan Lee's still taking credit for the story. All this really means is he's doing less work than usual [05:23 PM] Wack'd: I love the detail that Archie Goodwin is filling in for not only someone who hasn't penned an issue yet, but someone who's currently a little busy being editor-in-chief [05:24 PM] maxwellelvis: I think it's, he does a pitch or an outline and it's up to Archie to turn that into a full script. [05:24 PM] Wack'd: So basically how it always worked [05:24 PM] Wack'd: But without the pretense of Stan filling in the word balloons [05:24 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah [05:25 PM] Wack'd: Lee: Hey Roy, take over Fantastic Four for me! [05:25 PM] Wack'd: Thomas: ...how 'bout I don't and say I did [05:25 PM] Wack'd: In all seriousness, Thomas will be popping in and out over the next decade [05:25 PM] maxwellelvis: This is something that's gone on since at least Iron Man's first appearance, the whole "Story/Script" thing [05:26 PM] Wack'd: The 70s is kind of a weird no-man's-land, with lots of notables popping in for a few issues and then leaving [05:26 PM] maxwellelvis: Like Two-In-One volleying between Steve Gerber and Roy Thomas for example [05:27 PM] Wack'd: Archie'll only be around for four issues, let's see how he acquits himself [05:28 PM] Wack'd: So the Watcher, sworn though he is not to interfere, decides the least he can do is give the Four some intel so they have a fighting chance [05:30 PM] Wack'd: The Eternals are, er, immortal--big surprise [05:30 PM] Wack'd: And they enjoy going around conquering people and blowing shit up and because they're immortal no one can defeat them [05:32 PM] Wack'd: In this society you win social status through gladiator sport [05:32 PM] Wack'd: And the Over-Mind is the current reigning champ [05:32 PM] Bocaj: Are these different Eternals from the Eternals from hot upcoming blockbuster Eternals? [05:32 PM] Wack'd: It would certainly seem so! [05:33 PM] Bocaj: I thought Kirby only introduced them after he came back from DC when New Gods didn't work out [05:33 PM] Wack'd: So yeah [05:33 PM] Wack'd: These guys are different [05:34 PM] Wack'd: Okay I checked Marvel Wiki and eventually these Eternals get retconned to be a small sect of the Jack Kirby Eternals [05:34 PM] Wack'd: If that helps [05:35 PM] Bocaj: Ah [05:35 PM] Wack'd: Ben Grimm is not super-impressed by this narrative

[05:36 PM] Bocaj: I appreciate Ben poking the narrative [05:37 PM] Umbramatic: Ben is Good [05:37 PM] Wack'd: Hey, turns out Ben called it wrong! [05:37 PM] Wack'd: Kinda [05:37 PM] Wack'd: Or at least misunderstood the cause and effect at play [05:38 PM] Wack'd: See turns out eventually the Eternals did rack one up in the loss column--the survivors of all their raids form one  huge armada to come kick their asses [05:39 PM] Wack'd: And in an act of desperation the Eternals dump all their minds into Grom's body, then hide him in the recesses of space for however long that takes [05:40 PM] Bocaj: Have you done the story yet where they fight the gigantic man from planet gigantic? [05:40 PM] Bocaj: I think the Watcher shows up to exposit the backstory in that one too [05:40 PM] Bocaj: He's constantly doing that [05:41 PM] Wack'd: I don't think so, but Gigantus appears here as one of the planets that has its ass kicked by the Eternals [05:41 PM] Umbramatic: oof [05:41 PM] Bocaj: I like that you knew what i was talking about instantly [05:41 PM] Wack'd: It's not a difficult connection to draw! [05:42 PM] Bocaj: I think this is actually the story I'm thinking of, the one you're reading right now [05:42 PM] Bocaj: But I think I misremembered a thing [05:43 PM] Wack'd: Kinda? I looked it up--hilariously, you've spoiled me on the next issue [05:43 PM] Wack'd: There's a Gigantian counterpart to Over-Mind, turns out [05:43 PM] Bocaj: Aw dangit [05:44 PM] Wack'd: Reed is better at guessing things than Ben, looks like

[05:45 PM] Bocaj: The backstory included how the eternals tried conquering planet Gigantus but it was too big!! and they quagmired? [05:45 PM] Bocaj: That struck me as one of the funniest space nonsenses I've ever read [05:46 PM] Wack'd: Honestly there's so many wacky space clothes happening I found it a little hard to follow [05:46 PM] Bocaj: Fair [05:46 PM] maxwellelvis: How about hats? [05:46 PM] maxwellelvis: Have they kept up their dumb hat quota without Kirby around? [05:47 PM] Bocaj: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/452938861807403018/604067125170274324/latest.png [05:47 PM] Wack'd: But yeah rereading it does look like it was ultimately the Gigantus folks who handed the Eternals' asses to them [05:47 PM] Bocaj: It looks like this man welded a bowl to his head [05:47 PM] maxwellelvis: Dot's not a nize hat [05:47 PM] Wack'd: So anyway [05:47 PM] Wack'd: Reed decides he has to face the Over-Mind alone because he's the smartest and everyone else just holds him back [05:48 PM] Bocaj: god fuck reed [05:48 PM] Wack'd: This is evidently so wildly out-of-character that the other three immediately decide he's been mind controlled and attack him [05:48 PM] Bocaj: ARE THEY SURE? [05:48 PM] maxwellelvis: are you sure about that https://tenor.com/view/sure-john-cena-gif-5783187 [05:49 PM] Wack'd: In fairness he's not generally this brazen about it?

[05:49 PM] Wack'd: Man if I could crop the part where Reed's manhandling Sue this would be a decent anti-Trump reaction image [05:50 PM] Umbramatic: ...it would [05:50 PM] Aleph Null: give me a minute [05:50 PM] Aleph Null: after this mario maker level [05:50 PM] Umbramatic: good luck [05:51 PM] Wack'd: So Sue manages to pin Reed against one of his machines with a force field but Reed just rubber-mans into it [05:51 PM] Wack'd: Johnny, smarty he is, solves this by turning it on [05:51 PM] Bocaj: pfft [05:52 PM] Wack'd: Fortunately Reed leaves before he gets electrocuted to death [05:52 PM] Bocaj: 'Fortunately'? [05:53 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah, you don't want your heroes murdering their teammates, especially if you think they're not in control of themselves. [05:53 PM] Wack'd: ("It's loaded with safeguards," Johnny reasons, and--actually yeah "I should make this so it doesn't kill me if I rubber-man into it" checks out as Reed logic goes) [05:54 PM] Wack'd: Ultimately, Reed escapes into an air vent

[05:54 PM] Bocaj: Don't tell me what I want [05:55 PM] Wack'd: And we cliffhanger on Sue bemoaning that, if the Over-Mind can control someone as smart as Reed, than probably we're all fucked [05:55 PM] Bocaj: I give Reed a lot of deserved shit but the best Fantastic Four story I ever read [05:55 PM] Bocaj: was at the reading of his will when he was presumed dead 😛 [05:55 PM] Wack'd: That's a good rhyme [05:55 PM] Bocaj: Thank you [05:55 PM] Aleph Null:

[05:56 PM] Bocaj: Excellent [05:56 PM] maxwellelvis: 👏 [05:56 PM] Wack'd: Yes, good [05:56 PM] Bocaj: Thats right up there with "Thats what I thought you'd say, you dumb fucking horse" [05:56 PM] Umbramatic: GOOD [05:56 PM] Aleph Null: now use that as you wish [05:57 PM] Umbramatic: -saves to the reaction image folder-

[innerchorus]

Thank you so much for taking the time for this question! Which manga, in your opinion, is more reliable? 1991 or 2013? They are a little different in the details. Is the novel author attentive to adaptations? In Wiki had such a question, had the answer that Mr. Tanaka considers his novels to be his children, and manga and anime to be his grandchildren and believes that it is wrong to interfere in the “raising of grandchildren”. What a pity that it is impossible to give a link!

This is a bit difficult for me to answer, for a couple of reasons: 1. The 1991 manga has not been translated into a language I can read, so I can only try to compare it by looking at the images, and 2. I have only read the (incomplete) fan translation of the novels and summaries for the rest, so making detailed comparisons to either of the manga versions is hard.

In terms of which manga makes the least changes, my instinct is that it’s likely to be Chisato Nakamura’s version (anyone else want to confirm?) but I think there’s much more to be considered in deciding which manga does the best job of adapting the novels. In my opinion, the changes that Hiromu Arakawa has made have been carefully considered and have been implemented without influencing the overall plot. For example, this is what she has to say about the early introduction of Etoile:

“The original novel starts with the battle of Atropatene, and then jumps into the main story. The heirarchical system of the empire is described later in the story. This method only works in the novel version. If it were applied in the manga version, I think it would miss fully exploring the world of the story. Having depicted the glory days of Pars, it is easier to show how much it has fallen on hard times after episode 2. Plus, I wanted to develop Etoile as a key character in the story, so that’s why she appears in the Episode 1.”

I feel it’s necessary for adaptations to make changes, especially when the story is being translated from a novel to a more visual form like manga, and if done well then these changes will benefit the story and do not necessarily mean that anything big will be altered in terms of plot.

I’ll give an example of what sort of change I enjoyed as opposed to the sort of (theoretical) change I would dislike:

1. Introducing Kishward’s wife Nasrin and their son Ayyar earlier than the novels did (they appear in chapter 38 of Hiromu Arakawa’s manga). This change has no big impact on the later plot, but their presence in Peshawar at this point strengthens our sense of Kishward as a character and also reminds us of the brutality the Parsian people have suffered since the Lusitanians invaded, this time showing us the effects on a closely personal level. There’s also the chance that this manga may only cover the first half of the story, which may explain why Arakawa too this opportunity to show us Kishward’s family. 2. How about if Arakawa had decided to have Kishward be killed by Hilmes in the next chapter? Yes, this is a rather extreme example but I think we can all agree that it would be a bad change to make, both because I can’t think of anything of value it could contribute (it would just be unnecessary tragedy) and because Kishward is an important character who still has a big role to play in the rest of the story. If he died here, that would have a lasting impact on the future plot, and more big changes would have to be made because of it.

I’m all for changes if they benefit the story in some way. Bahman’s fate in the OVAs and anime is a good example of this (Arakawa’s version is following novel canon instead of making the same change).

If you would prefer that nothing at all gets changed, that’s fine. And if you don’t like the way things are done in Arakawa’s manga, that’s fine too In the end it comes down to personal preference. The novels are what I would consider the ‘true/original canon,’ but seeing what the various adaptations choose to do with that is fun, even if they may have their flaws. I love the art of Hiromu Arakawa’s version (both her character designs and her skilled composition), but although overall I would say that hers is my favourite version of the story, I am still very fond of the anime series as that was my first introduction to Arslan Senki (and nothing else has made my heart pound quite like the final few episodes of S1, what a wild ride that was).

As far as Yoshiki Tanaka’s involvement with adaptations of his works is concerned, in his own words:

“I have no involvement with the anime adaptations. Once I approve the project, I leave the rest to them and stay out of it. I simply look forward to seeing the finished product.”

He chooses not to exert his influence over adaptations after authorising them. He said that he wanted Hiromu Arakawa to “draw freely” and did not even check the storyboards. The view that you mentioned of his original works being his ‘children’, and their adaptations his ‘grandchildren’ who should be ‘raised’ by their own creator doesn’t surprise me at all.

[tenebroustm]

Finally a more detailed account of Edward! 

will include dark themes so a general tw but important read if you write/want to write with my Edward. Feel super free to hmu if you want any details on what could be triggering !

Anything marked with ** & italicized , means these parts are highly adaptable to change or completely dismissed ,  for either partner’s portrayals or canon expanding on edward’s story bc ultimately I do wanna have him as show based.

For those who’ve read the comic:

What i’m keeping / what can be kept or changed:

Most of Edward’s background will follow that of the comic however if these are at odd with your portrayal of a canon character they can be tweaked! Check them “*” ‘s out to see points that I could see needing an adjustment now and then.

What goes:

My portrayal will NOT include Edward returning as Harvey or the awful incestuous thoughts towards Sabrina // Edward is evil enough and that was unnecessary and all kinds of discomfort. yikes. ** Idk if I picked this up wrong but in the comic I think Diana was brought through the wedding ceremony in an actual like trance , and Edward is an evil manipulative piece of shit so there will be plenty of deceit towards Diana and I’m not saying he’s not evil enough to do that but there is a limit to that I am comfortable with when , as I said , Edward is already a constant manipulator and deciever.

For those who haven’t read the comic , here's the bio:

This is SCRAPPY and will possibly remain so because I do not want to tie down a time and location , when there’s so many sources from comics / shows. Obviously CAOS is my main setting for Edward , where he will be based but until they expand on his further I gotta attempt to tie his story together from all these sources and listen , I am not good at this. I am dumb and indecisive. So in the chilling adventures comic Ed is younger than Hilda & Zelda where in sttw and idk possibly other sources Edward is the eldest. Similarly there isn’t a set D.O.B , on the wiki for STTW!Edward he’s born 1342 , no date is given in the chilling adventures comic only what you can guess from clothing / architecture. BUT , look it is damn fun to be free to play with different time periods SO if it’s relevant it can be discussed , if not I’ll leave it vague. In comic book lore he is apparently from New York , the Bronx to be precise! That’s likely to be the case as my default. As a child Edward is a mischievous and in his own words “precocious” child. He adored books , devouring them ravenously and retaining knowledge well. He became an alter boy for the church of night , then under the watch of Father Constant. & an over achieving ( but troublesome ) student at the Academy of Unseen Arts.

          After finding a scribbled incantation in one of his copious books , Edward discovered his skills for conjuring and when he tells his friends word gets back to the high priest who encourages Edward as he becomes this conjuring prodigy. Father Constant eventually calls on young Edward to conjure the dark lord for the congregation to inspire faith , encouraging him , bribing him and when Edward has difficulty getting the spell down , beating him. Edward tricks Father Constant by summoning the shapeshifting demon named Empusa instead to appear as the dark lord. It works , and so Edward performs his trick again and again deceiving everyone and climbing the ranks of the Church. Until he only has one man to usurp , Father Constant. Edward gives the high priest’s soul to Empusa and takes the position as high priest. He takes full advantage of what comes with the power and influence. ** Including a brief triste with Madam Satan / Lilith. ( I feel a lot of the details of their relationship would change , if it happened at all IDK ) Though ultimately , guided by some clairvoyant sisters ( NAMED THE WEIRD SISTERS IN THE COMIC ,, jhfierhfrhjhhhh ) , Edward seeks a out a human woman to give him the powerful daughter the sister’s prophesized. He marries a mortal named Diana , which is against the laws of the church of night , but Edward is ever the rulebreaker and he simply calls on Empusa again to masquerade as the the dark lord ( who ofc , grants “his” blessing over their union )

** Based on a pact , agreed to by Diana , she would give up Sabrina to remain within the influence of the witches. 

When she breaks the pact and runs away with her daughter , Edward & the coven surround her in the woods , take Sabrina & Edward has Diana committed to an asylum and left her to cruel , inhuman treatment.

** Edward & his sister’s raise Sabrina until she is six , when Hilda and Zelda discover his deceit of the church of night ( passing off Empusa as the dark lord ) , the two decide they will not risk Edward disgracing them and lock him away in the hanging tree / a portal to witch purgatory where Edward now dwells in unending torment

Until …..

v.01. daddy’s home.  ** Through an incantation written by Edward himself and hidden away in one of his old diary’s Edward is returned to the world of the living ( by Sabrina? by Ambrose? By Nick Scratch? Lilith?? Whom knows )

v.02. take my place in hell. ** Like Madam Satan’s role , Edward is pulled from witch purgatory by the dark lord himself , on the condition he joins the efforts to get Sabrina to sign her name in the book.

( more verses / au’s tba when i can articulate myself ajkhefdshjhhhh )

Extras that I either forgot or can’t put an exact time on

  ( at some point he was terrorized by the sleep demon batibat for weeks , showing him all his deepest fears so vividly he began to lose his ability to tell his dreams from reality but Edward eventually trapped the demon in the Acheron configuration. )

( Faustus Blackwood became Edward’s mentor which he eventually surpassed! )

HCs. / do not have to be interpreted in threads.

Edward DID hold a lot of affection for Diana , even considered he may love her , however love isn’t what’s important to Edward , only his legacy and name take position as his top priority.

In some verses Edward is aware of Harvey’s connection to witchhunters / von Kunkles.

Edward has a soft spot for his sister Hilda

Though he is very connected to Zelda in a complex way , the two are similar in ways and they as a rule can’t seem to hide secrets from each other easily.

Edward is fully aware that Diana had Sabrina baptized in a Christian ceremony BEFORE he signed her name in the book of the beast ( this can be played out a number of ways )

( more tba in tiiiime !! )