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voidscreamintheories · 7 months ago

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HtP theory D: Who is he really? 2 of 2

This is a continuation from a first post, Spoilers for Hunter the Parenting

Speaking of his age, a few characters have called out D as looking old, decrepit, frail, or sickly. Despite the fact that we see a golden god of a man who honestly looks younger than at least one of his purported children. I don’t think this is wholly wrong on both fronts. You see, there is a particular group in World of Darkness who can only hang around on the normal plane of existence by inhabiting the bodies of the frail, the sick, or the dying. Because I think the D in Big D stands for Demon.

In the World of Darkness, specifically the game Demon the Fallen, “demons” are angels who sided with Lucifer against God. They were cast down into hell, where their angelic forms where forever marred by the torment in the depths. Sometimes, they can make their way out of the pit and back into our world. As mentioned before, and would be the case for the average DtF character, many slip into the body of someone who has a weak grip on their soul and is close to death. From there the demon can either try to redeem themselves, and perhaps find a way back to heaven, or they can just embrace what they have become and be a complete menace on earth. Now in DtF, the ability for demons to come back to earth ON THEIR OWN is VERY recent. However, I think D is a demon who was called to earth by a group somewhat akin to the shaman of his previous life, put into the body of some frail person of a bygone age, and has been trying to reclaim his angelic nature by becoming a protector of mankind from the creatures of the World of Darkness.

Some notes around this:

-In his conversation with Kitten, D mentions hunting a methusala of the La Sombre vampire clan with his siblings. I’m of two minds here, this could mean the children of the shaman-like summoners (if he has a VERY close origin to Big E) or it could mean other fallen angels, who like D are seeking redemption through monster hunting. It would make a lot more sense for a group of former angels to kill an ancient vamp than a family of hunters. This would require though that these summoners pulled a few angels up from the pit, so not sure.

-As for why some see him as old or frail, I think sometimes either the mask slips (maybe because D is stressed, or his angelic nature is weakened) or some level of supernatural ability allows them to see past the angelic personage and into the frail human body beneath. Two of the people who have called him old have either been Tremere or Tremere ghouls, and as I understand some vampire blood magic allows one to see past illusions/veils (and sometimes ghouls get lil bits of power from their vampire blood supply). I looked this one up, it’s the vampire discipline of Auspex, which the Tremere clan does have access to.

-Remold. Remold mentions that Big D’s family and his family have been enemies for generations. If my theory that D is an immortal goofster who has been around for a long time holds true, maybe it’s not so much that the Blacklaws have been at odds with D’s family, but instead against D himself, repeatedly antagonizing them as a living bloodline curse. This might explain his interest in Brok in the recent episode: D knows that once Remold has his Chekhov’s gun of a heart attack, Brok becomes the next Blacklaw that D will be fighting at all times. Why is D antagonizing this family? Well it could be an attempt to beef up some human hunters: If an entire family is constantly having to battle this one madman, and they know of the supernatural, they might become good soldiers against the darkness. Or maybe the Blacklaws have historically been opponents of hunters, Remold does seem to be against knowledge obtained through Big D’s hunts, Brok probably wouldn’t put a lot of time or effort into learning, if previous behaviour is to be believed. Maybe the Blacklaws are anti-intellectual in their history, and D wants to fight them so they can’t dismantle the arcanum or stop hunters by being ignorant. Now, there is a particular lil blue fella that I think bears mentioning, but I would like to discuss that in more detail in its own post, because I think there is a lot to dig into.

Also, quite a while ago I read someone suggest that D in Big D actually stood for Death, as in the rider of the apocalypse, since he does have a horse. This is a neat idea, but I do not know enough about WoD’s story of revelation to be able to discuss it. If this one turns out true, it’d be cool.

For now, thank you for reading this far. As always please let me know your thoughts, and if you are someone who was really engaged with WoD during the original runs, especially Demon the Fallen, please gimme your thoughts. I have a great interest in this setting, but it is very difficult to find info because it was in MANY old books.

As always, good evening.

#fan theory #h:tp #htp #hunter the parenting #hunter: the parenting #htp big d

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theladyragnell · 6 months ago

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☕ DnD!

I love D&D! I love playing pretend with my friends but having to fill out forms and involve randomization to add some structure and legitimacy! That sounds sarcastic, but I do mean it genuinely. It has been a mainstay and a joy in my life to have a weekly game for the last ... 8 years? Something like that?

It's also for sure not as universal a system as it wants to sell itself as being, from 5e onwards. D&D is a specific kind of game, where the mechanics reward combat over social encounters or puzzles (and which thus doesn't necessarily encourage players to think over the ethics of a combat), and where the assumed setting and genre is a sort of generic 80s Tolkien-style-while-not-being-Tolkien that has sure left some Cultural Artifacts in the game, starting with use of the word "race" to describe elves vs. dragonborn vs. humans etc. (I think that is being changed in the newest edition? But I can't remember for sure.)

Now that I'm DMing, I'm hacking in lots of bits of other things and changing the rules where they suit me, and pulling in a ton of homebrew. I ran a whole adventure on a modified Blades in the Dark/5e hybrid because D&D simply isn't built to do heists, it would just be investigation checks or persuasion/deception checks until that got boring, which wouldn't take too long. We've gone whole levels without engaging in combat.

I think D&D is a very fun game, and one thing it does do well is support the telling of long-term stories, I think a lot of TTRPGs don't quite have the meat on them to tell a story that could unfold across years, but I also think that taking the rules more as guidelines is a smart idea that would make more people's games much happier! Homebrewing is hard to balance with the mechanics as designed, and I have made my players' characters absolutely broken monsters as a result and have had to way beef up their opponents, but you know what? We're all having fun, and that's better for me than sticking to the rules.

#anonymous #answered asks

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cruscribbles · 10 months ago

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okay so, there are a few brainrot ideas of a jjk × hp crossover that are currently occupying my head so i'll just dump right here before i forget (just in case i either want to actually write this myself or if someone wants to write it— please go ahead!)

for now, these are all gojo-centric because he's a little shit and i love him for it <33

[ p. s. as you can see, i am too lazy and demotivated to cook my own food /hj ]

1. gojo (ends up in the hp world and) goes to hogwarts :

a. as a student - okay, this is probably going to be a bit hard to pull off, considering the man is literally almost 30, but hear me out

i could see him in either the hp generation or the marauders generation (but mostly the former)

could be an age regression thing where he gets bombarded with a curse that propels him into the hp world and for some reason he's back to his younger self (child or teen, who knows, just as long as he's around the same age as the protagonists of that era)

or maybe an exchange student program (au where jjk sorcerers and hp wizards both coexist in the same world) so maybe when he's 15-16 he's a "spy" trying to learn things from the wizard side of things?

clashes heads with harry AND draco from time to time; harry because of their different morals and draco because he probably pokes fun at him

come to think of it, who WOULDN'T gojo beef with actually

the student teachers think is gonna fail because he looks so uncaring and aloof and then proceeds to be one of (if not) the top scorers on the board

probably bothers snape constantly in his office (and probably also gets detention from time to time for being so annoying to him)

minerva also being irritated on the outside but also heartwrench on the inside because he lowkey reminds her of the old marauders in a way

every time he comes across voldemort face-to-face, he will not hesitate to make fun of him (like he did with jogo)

gojo : haha you're such a loser. voldemort? really? that's your name? you couldn't have picked anything better? *freaking fortnite dances or some shit like that*

voldemort officially has an extra child added to his hitlist after that

b. as a teacher - some of the earlier points of him as a student also apply here, except he's obviously more mature and wise in this instance

possible mentor of harry? like i said, would bond over being the chosen ones

the teacher that is either well-loved or hated (both teachers and students alike)

always the one popping in and out of the faculty with new tea and gossip to dish out

tries to hold back a little bit on the hogwarts students because they're not his students but is still absolutely relentless to them (displaying powerful demonstrations and also teasing them a bunch)

mcgonagall and snape being his favorite staff members because they remind him of utahime and nanami (idk would be close in personality to shoko tbh, then again she has the same type of dead air energy as snape but feel free to correct me woohoo)

ironically probably beefs with albus bc they are kind of similar in a sense but idk hmmm (they could also have some tea on the weekends too)

gojo : i once had a person i loved dearly that turned out to be heavily racist towards the normal human race for something they can't help and we had a messy breakup to boot

albus :

2. gojo is reincarnated as/ends up in the body of harry potter - not gonna lie, i'm more of a fan of this idea because you could do so much with this + it would be funny as HELL

harry grows up "cocky" and "prideful" (obviously still with some trauma and kindness attached because it's gojo) and correlates to the next points :

dumbledore thinking that since the boy grew up in a muggle household that he'll learn to be humble and sweet and lo and behold, he was wrong

snape getting vivid flashbacks of james from gojo!harry because of how cocky he is (gojo doing this unintentionally by being his authentic self)

even better if gojo!harry ends up in slytherin LMAO

dumbledore also getting flashbacks but of a different person : he doesn't want another tom riddle to happen (esp if gojo!harry vocalizes his want to change the world) so he keeps a very watchful eye on him

from the earlier point : gojo!harry not missing a fucking beat trying to make fun of tom "tommy boy, voldymoldy the oldie" riddle every time they meet (and not hesitating to name drop him in almost every conversation out of spite)

okay obviously he'll have some form of self-control over it but i have a feeling he'll do it just to test him and his patience

i feel like he would be SO CLOSE to triggering the underage magic alarm (or maybe he does and that's a drama for a whole chapter)

i feel like he would absolutely have a habit of disappearing and reappearing (even without magic) and he does that alot at the dursleys (especially when he's older)

gojo realizing he could talk to snakes, and he gossips to them whenever he can

moreover, it would be interesting if he sometimes has conversations with the horcrux inside his forehead (back-to-back mockery)

gojo knows somewhat quickly maybe because the signature is likely the same as sukuna in yuji's body

a really crack idea where gojo solves (one of) the horcrux problems by just hollow purpling the darn thing (wouldn't push it pass him to do it in the battle in the ministry of magic tbh)

either never gets fooled by the quidditch cup or immediately rectifies it by being able to teleport back (a good idea for a crack fic, but maybe for a more serious one he could either be serious or really dazed/overstimulated from the previous events to even think of doing so)

3. gojo ends up in the same body as harry potter and acts as a co-resident — ngl i am warming up to this VERY idea because i know it would become HELLA chaotic

i composed the original draft of this post ages ago but what gave me this idea is this amazing jjk!/bnha crossover fic titled "a hero without limits" by anonymous567 (if you haven't already, please read it because it's absolutely AMAZING)

idk how this would happen considering the shard of voldemort in harry's head (third participant forced to watch maybe) but shhh

basically gojo popping in harry's head either from the start or a from an event that happens to him later on (like the inspo)

he also makes commentary from time to time in his head and harry's like "shut uppp" — and sometimes people look at him and go "yo what's up with him""boy who lived shenanigans maybe"

it sounds stupid but i like the idea of gojo manifesting either on harry's body like sukuna or his image and his spirit manifesting on reflective surfaces like mirrors (his friends going "WHO'S THAT" while they point at the mysterious man in the mirror)

harry's magic "retaliating" and defending him when he's near death which is just a shadowy, smokey manifestation of gojo with the brightest most piercing lights as his eyes

very curious about the chamber of secrets section bc now harry probably doesn't even have look at the darn thing ("don't worry harry, sensei's got it covered!" or smth like that idk)

harry automatically deciphering the sussiness of almost every sus character because, like i said, live gojo commentary (probably would have solved the pettigrew problem faster tbh)

any adult that was around during the marauder's era straight up being reminded of james from time to time, especially the times when gojo is in control

i can imagine gojo knowing the jig is up with the horcrux in harry's head, and maybe as part of a crack idea, "seals the soul" from time to time which is the magical equivalent of taping the webcam lens with a piece of paper

gojo and the hat duking it out with rebuttals during the sorting ceremony and harry slowly going insane because of it

commentary of the black family being similar to the zenin's in influence, attitude and power (feel free to correct me); in short, gojo noting down funny coincidences and similarities to his old world

anytime someone tries to use legillimens on harry, gojo goes "uh uh uh *wags fingers*" and promptly kicks them out, promptly leaving the caster confused (gojo being harry's built in occlumency security guard <333)

idk if i want him to still have six eyes and/or limitless when he's reincarnated as harry (because it doesn't feel like gojo without them, but also he'd be so op— then again he already is by default so why not)

i think i would keep them since they're both the core ability aspects of his character but obviously in this instance, he doesn't have the hang of six eyes yet (major sensory overload as a drawback if he doesn't cover his eyes with a blindfold or a pair of dark sunglasses) and he doesn't unlock limitless until he's a teen (maybe during the gof or ootp plotline)

either way, i'm sorry if this plotline is too ooc, and please pitch in your own ideas in the comments or if you want to correct me!!

+ a little sketch of #3 because i've grown really attached to the idea JENDJEJDJ

#glycherriirambles #jjk #jjk gojo #gojo satoru #harry potter #gojo the little shit #i still love him dearly #that's why i made this post #glycherriiart

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clovis-enthusiast · 10 months ago

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Hi! What are your thoughts of a child of Aphrodite trying to pursue a relationship with Clovis? I feel like Clovis would be really shy/blushes profusely whenever he’s around them or whenever they try to make a move on him and he would try to deny it but will eventually accept it (also happy to find ur blog-made me more curious about Clovis!)

hi hi!! so sorry 4 the late reply, i hardly ever check my notifs if im not on my laptop T^T

im actually a HUGE fan of exploring clovis and aphrodite cabin dynamics!! i even ship mitchell, valentina, and drew with clovis (not all together ofc but as separate ships!) :D

ok ok so on one side we have a demigod whose godly parent is the literal embodiment of love and the other side we have a demigod whose parent is the literal embodiment of sleep; i think it's a very goofy and cute dynamic!!

here we have a demigod whose godly parent is LOVE thus making their life very motivated, inspired, and directed/guided by love (of all types!), and a kid who is lucky if he even knows what year it is. imagine being someone who has had so MUCH LOVE front and center in their life and being surrounded by half-siblings that share this trait with you and then you try to flirt with clovis 💀

since clovis seems to be very "go with the flow" and more in the dreamscape than reality at any given time, i think that would make it all the more difficult to even get him to even consider the possibility that flirting is what's going on let alone someone flirting with HIM. like he went through the trouble of showing nico the counselor meeting and didnt seem to notice that gee nico is rlly rlly focused on will weird. he's so relaxed and unbothered that detecting social cues or picking up on subtleties and viewing things as anything other than neutral demigod-to-demigod interactions just isn't something he particularly excels at. why would he need to? he's usually sleeping, so that sort of stuff doesn't concern him all that much because why would anyone be interested in him romantically much less flirt with him??? that doesn't make any sense??? so it's not so much him being unconfident or hard on himself as much as it is just his "logic."

that's how he regards his interactions with people in general... now once more: this is the APHRODITE cabin. they're generally nice, and even if it is flirting, aren't they all kinda flirty by nature? (not accurate in reality ik just bear with me here)

and for a while, DREW ran the cabin. the same drew who literally called clovis "repulsive" and seems to have some beef or just general dislike for him. with her being the head counselor (and even when she steps down, she's still an older camper with influence in her cabin) and thus being who clovis might immediately associate the cabin with due to interactions as a fellow head counselor, it seems unlikely that anyone from that cabin thinks that highly of him. and if they did, could it be a form of rebellion AGAINST drew and not actual general interest? or just some sort of cruel joke or even just the easy way out of that weird old aphrodite tradition?

i also headcanon clovis as just. Chill. Unbothered. Not Aware of Social Norms in general. he's the type to hug/lean on his friends lazily, cuddle with ppl he doesn't even know all that well at the campfire bc they're comfy, offer to share his bed with someone who is having nightmares, etc. just bc he has far less experience with actual human interaction as opposed to dreams where he can control them as he wishes. who is he to say someone isn't just being friendly/polite to him or thats just how ppl act?

that all being said though, people wanting/trying to keep him up long enough to talk to him, get to know him, or hang out with him as opposed to just to get some sleep, help with dreams/nightmares, or info on gods and whatnot, IS something unusual enough for him to notice. so when a nice, pretty aphrodite camper visits him and asks to go strawberry picking or sits by him at the campfire or asks him about HIS dreams or compliments him with no hint of malice/dishonesty in their voice, THAT can be enough to catch his attention. and THAT is when the ✨️confused flustering✨️ occurs.

this eepy boy is touch-starved, friend-starved, all KINDS of starved AND honestly just taken for granted/neglected when it comes to living in a camp full of adhd kiddos with demigodly powers so when someone whose godly parent is LOVE starts showing affection and attention to him? WOWIE UHHHH WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO????? and i think that's a lot of what gets him so flustered in such new, intense interactions: the whys? and what do i do's? and even the how does this make me feels? and do i really deserve this's? getting all worked up with that sort of stuff in ur head is gonna stress ya out and stress makes ya... well... exhausted. sleepy.

i think it would def take a LOT of time and patience when it comes to anyone pursuing a child of hypnos romantically, and i think the aphrodite cabin is just the right type of ppl to take on that challenge. being experts in all sorts of different forms of love whereas clovis is mostly only ever by himself in the land of make-believe so to speak, they're the perfect types of demigods to help clovis explore uncharted waters and be gentle and kind enough to not be too pushy to make him uncomfortable but just pushy enough to make sure he knows that hey, im being flirted with, that's something that can happen and i am worthy of having happen to me, and help him figure out his love languages (while also enjoying the cute reactions during this process uwu).

and when it comes to teasing/flustering, the possibilities for silly pet names ("dreamboat/dreamboy", "sleeping beauty", "bedhead" (affectionately), etc) and cheesy pick-up lines ("you must be tired from running through my dreams all night" "I've never met someone as cute as you; pinch me i must be dreaming" "aren't you the sweetest dream I've ever had", etc.) are endless and hilarious. whether or not he actually picks up on it or it goes whoooosh over his poor sleepy widdle head, at least it's entertaining.

and in the end, i doubt there are truly many other significant others who would be as gentle, comforting, comfortable, thoughtful, and soft all the way around as the gods' eepiest soldier.

this is kinda lackluster bc im tired myself and i havent spent time actually sitting down and writing up concepts in YEARS so i might answer this question again sometime with a better response and better concepts and ideas!! my brain's all rusty lo siento T~T but thanks for the question!! I'm always down to talk abt my BOYYYYYY!!!!!

and aaaa that last part made me so happy u have no idea im always so grateful when i can remind ppl that Clovis exists or make them reconsider him as an important or special character 🥹💛

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talenlee · 3 months ago

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Who Has Whiteness?

Here’s one of those worldbuilding ideas that’s super simple and can reveal something about your world that you may not have considered.

Can Orcs be Black?

Not are there black-skinned Orcs, nor are Orcs black-coded.

Can Orcs be Black?

Illustrated by Bram Sels

At the heart of this question is the idea of the socially constructed identities we have about race, and whether or not those things can be projected into the world as meaningful anchors for players to experience, and the places worldbuilding has to handle the pressure of being a place that real world people interact with a fantasy universe.

Content Warning: White guy talking about race in games and worldbuilding in a way that is primarily about and to white people. This isn’t about how PoC should do things, this is attempting to give a useful toolset and mindset about tackling these idea to people who may not have considered this.

First of all there are some language things to clarify here. First up, there’s this term that D&D in particular and a lot of fantasy fiction uses, which is race. Then there’s this term that real world people use in discussions of socially defined categorical groups, which is race. These are two words that are used pretty freely and homonomously, and yet, very much refer to different things. Races, in the real world, are not a pure thread of genetic lineage that expresses itself in cultural forms, languages, behaviours and patterns of practice. Race is a term we use in the real world to refer to people based on common cultural signifiers that are generally recognisable in large groups and extremely hard to specifically define in the individual, because they’re not scientific categories.

Consider: there is a very reasonable position from within the African-American community, that Barack Obama is not ‘Black,’ even if he is African-American. I’m not going to unpack that, it’s not my place and I wouldn’t know who in that space is or isn’t to be listened to but the point is that race in the real world is incredibly challenging to provide specific definitional criteria. Mostly, it’s self-reported.

In a fantasy setting like D&D, however, Races means species, more or less. A race can have gross different physical qualities to the baseline perspective, which is usually humans. You can have a race of small raccoonish subhumans or aloof ethereal nature spirits or bird people or turtle people or dog people or all sorts of other materially, physiologically, meaningfully different types of people that can add texture and metaphor to a story in really interesting ways.

Illustrated by Chris Seaman

I have a tiny beef with this in that Race is a much better word for a fantasy setting where it’s being used to remark on the differences between halflings and orcs and goblins and in the real world it’s straight up useless. In the real world, it’s only useful for conversations about itself, and what it is is a meaningless cloud of signifiers that can be extremely general or extremely specific and in either case it’s never a conversation I find helpful to have.

There are a bunch of different contexts in which this topic gets handled weirdly. In World of Warcraft, for example, Orcs across an enormous range of physical locations and populations have a homogenous building style and a fairly limited range of cultural aesthetics that sort of mish-mashes together a kind of generic racialised ‘barbarian’ and wedded to some elements of Japanese mysticism as perceived by white Americans in the late 90s. This isn’t what I’m talking about. This is the idea of giving a species a specific cultural coding, where somehow Orcs across two cultures make buildings that largely look the same even though the building materials to do that are not available in the same way. It frees Orcs from cultural materialities, and that’s weird.

Then there’s the added element of the real world. Because your players are not spherical orbs in a circular field. Players live in a world where they are racialised. For the most part, I understand if you’re reading this, you’re probably racialised as the default, as a white person, until you’re not (because you might be Jewish or Italian or whatever). And players should be able to find and place themselves into the context of a playful universe.

If a player asks ‘hey, I wanna play a guy like me,’ and that player is Black (which is to say racialised in that specific space), think about how awful a response it is that ‘hey, you can do that, here’s the one species that represents you.’ That’s not how to handle it. If humans have phenotypical diversity and cultural trends, even if you’re going to say ‘this is a nonracist society, where we don’t have to deal with these things,’ then that’s great, but that doesn’t mean you erase the presence of people of colour, and especially don’t erase the variety in nonhuman cultures.

And so, the question returns.

Can Orcs be Black?

Can a player make an Orc character who has the behaviour, signifiers and distinctive aesthetics that means people around them won’t go ‘wow, you’re weird, why do you talk like that,’ but instead go ‘oh, yeah, I know that kind of Orc.’

Can Merfolk?

Can Faeries?

Illustrated by Alexandr Leskinen

What do, then?

It’s pretty simple. Cultures transcend species. Characters in the games are being made to aesthetically reflect and represent the world that the players come from, so, in any given species, there’s inevitably going to be a variety of skin colours and tones and manners of common cultural expression and you don’t need to come up with an explanation for how and why those things formed because that’s not what this stuff is for. That stuff gets into some really weird material spaces – because, like, on the one hand, players can make use of swearing by the gods in the setting, it’s not helpful to sit there and try and interrogate where a particular slang phrase from the real world came from when it’s ported to your world.

Here’s my maxim for my world building:

Every culture has members of a variety of skin tones and phenotypical presentations, and a cultural group that is represented only by a singular skin tone or phenotypical presentation in a group of any meaningful size is a representative of a conscious effort to control a population based on that skin tone lines.

If you come into a community of bird people and find that all the people in positions of power have blue wings, that may be an indicator of something. If you find that this isn’t even genetic, and people recolour their wings magically to comply with a single aesthetic to reflect being in power, that also indicates that there is a cultural reason that people are consciously choosing to try and ensure that that’s how power is represented in their community.

Okay, equipped with that, let’s talk about an example in the case of Orcs from Cobrin’Seil.

If you find a Orcish community where every Orc is green, that means something is being done to keep that Orc community from having and accepting community with members who aren’t green. Because Orcs aren’t all green. There are definitely trends, but preventing immigrating Orcs is impossible. That means Orcs go everywhere they want, eventually, and those Orcs in different spaces are going to be affected by their environment and they’re going to develop different traits based on that.

It’s not like Orcs are green-skinned. Orcs don’t think Orcs are green, which is why they react angrily when they’re called ‘the Greens’ – because ‘Orc’ is a maximally inclusive term for the Orcs, so anything that limits ‘Orc’ to a subset of ‘Orc’ is an insult they consider, for as silly as it is to use this term, dehumanising. It’s othering language.

Orcs are green near Visente, the Eresh Protectorate and Dal Raeda, which is to say, the three largest media capitals. But those orcs are even normitive in their context, where there are darker and paler greens, and varieties of brown. Up north where it’s snowier and colder, Orcs tend towards being grey and even pale blues, and south in the desert climes there’s tendancy towards red Orcs and brown Orcs as well – it really is a strongly attuned thing to the land. There are even Orcs who have metallic sheens to their skin, with golden and silvery hues to them.

The irony of all of this is that it shows how deep and thorough the cosmopolitan people’s cultures are about understanding Orcs as a culture because so many of them when encountering non-Green orcs for the first time will invent subterms for them, like ‘desert Orc’ or ‘lava Orcs,’ which again, at best Orcs find confusing and at worst they find it incredibly insulting.

Which is to say, those terms are essentially microaggressions.

This is not a master toolkit. This is is just one idea to avoid monocultural species and hopefully dilute the way that you represent power, authority and normalcy in your world, while also giving you more spaces to do something interesting and creative with every place’s cultures and they ways they spread out from a base.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#World Building #Making

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grailfinders · 1 year ago

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Grailfinders Viewers' Choice #19: Riesbyfe Stridberg

today on Grailfinders we’re heading to the bathroom to play some Melty Blood and build a better beef sandwich. that’s right, we’re making Riesbyfe Stridberg today, the semi-immortal shielder senpai who runs around with a freakin’ pile driver strapped to her arm.

speaking of shielders, I’m taking everything I learned from building Mash into this one, so she should end up a lot more streamlined. rule one: actually trying to make a shield-based build in D&D sucks, so we’re stealing a bunch of defensive stuff from elsewhere and reflavoring them as being part of our weapon instead.

now normally someone who gets most of their power from their weapon to the point of immortality would be a shoe-in for the warlock class, but unfortunately Riesbyfe is actually not that great with magic. so much so that she only has one level in Tempest Cleric to pick up some magical defenses. The rest of the levels are all going into Kensei Monk so we can turn a spear into a pile driver. and also to learn some sick fighting game combos.

check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Lineage and Background

so, let’s get the rough part out of the way first. you were a human once, but since then your soul has been ripped out of the aether by some magical bullshit that brings rumors to life. that means you’re a Reborn, giving you +1 Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom. you also have your Ancestral Legacy giving you proficiency in Arcana and Persuasion. the former to know just about anything at all about magic in your setting, and the latter because despite your general disposition you fooled one of the smarter people in this series into thinking you’re well put together. you also have a Deathless Nature so you don’t need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and you have advantage against poison and death saves, plus resistance to poison damage. finally, your Knowledge of a Past Life lets you add a d6 to your skill checks every once in a while as you remember stuff from your time as the Dust of Osiris. I apologize now if I get any lore wrong, nasuverse stuff is weird and I’m not good enough at fighting games to get this info firsthand. if I say anything dumb, blame the wiki. …it kind of makes it weird that they bring up Gamaliel’s immortality thing in-game if its user is already dead, but w/e.

you’re also an Acolyte from all your time in church, giving you proficiency in Insight and Religion. sometimes things are simple in the nasuverse. not often, but sometimes.

Ability Scores

your highest score needs to be Dexterity. I know your shield’s got some oomph to it, but fighting games are more about reflexes than raw power. you also take “woman of the cloth” way too seriously, and aren’t wearing any armor in-game. after that, you’ll need plenty of Constitution. you tank by standing still and hoping the piece of metal you’re holding will stop everything from killing you. having more health as a backup plan is just good sense. thirdly, Wisdom. your magic isn’t great and your animal handling is atrocious, but you need to keep your head on a swivel if you’re going to block everything around you. our Strength is very low considering you punch with “up to two tons of force”, but we don’t need strength for damage, and we’ll get some extra oomph later. that means your Intelligence is just okay, and we’re dumping Charisma. you’re kind of a mess, and Neco-arcs hate you. I’m sorry, that’s just how it is.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: you’re very physical, obviously we’re starting as a monk. doing so gives you proficiency in Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as Acrobatics and Athletics to further dunk on all the nerds you fight.

your Unarmored Defense adds your wisdom modifier to your AC as long as you don’t wear armor or shields, which ironically is fine for this build. Gamliel is more of a super-unique weapon anyway, even if it can block attacks. (for simplicity’s sake we’re calling it a spear here though.)

you also learn some Martial Arts- again, as long as you don’t put on armor or shields, you get the following benefits: you can use Dexterity in place of strength for most attacks, and you always deal at least a d4 of damage, which will grow as you level up. also, if you attack with your action, you can attack with your bonus action as well, getting your combo game started early.

2. Monk 2: At level two, you can harness your Ki for even more fighting game “shmovement”- you get your monk level in ki points every short rest, and you can spend one on your turn to either attack twice, dodge, disengage, or dash as a bonus action, with the last two also doubling your jump distance as well for the aerial game. While the exact math varies based on how high your AC is compared to the enemies you’re fighting, disadvantage from dodging usually makes hitting you 25% less likely, as opposed to the flat 10% of a physical shield. Thus, your weapon is now a better shield than the real deal, if one that requires work to use.

You can also attune to a Dedicated Weapon this level, turning it into a monk weapon with all the associated benefits at the cost of an hour of meditation every day. Reborn already sleep less than other ancestries, so this is practically a moot point. Now if you ever get your hands on a real Gamliel in-game, you’ll be able to use it just as well as the fake one we’ve been using. At least, you will shortly.

For now, you can also bask in your new Unarmored Movement. As long as you follow the rules previously laid out in levels one and two, you gain additional movement speed every turn. Again, this starts at a 10’ bonus now, and grows as you level up. You’d think this wouldn’t be important in a game where the you fight in rooms that wouldn’t even allow for social distancing, but positioning is very important in these games.

3. Monk 3: At third level Gamliel kicks into high gear as you become a Kensei monk, setting yourself down the Path of the Kensei. You can now pick any two Kensei Weapons from the weapons list, so if Gamliel is considered its own thing in your campaign, you now have access to it immediately. It’s sad that this gets rid of the lore-friendly hour of work each morning, but you can always do that anyways as roleplay. The other weapon has to be a ranged one, and both of them will count as monk weapons for you, and gain access to the later features of this class. You can pick more as you level up, but again, we’re here entirely for this shieldspear.

While holding your spearshield, you can make an Agile Parry by making an unarmed attack during your attack action. As long as you hold Gamliel this round, you will have a +2 bonus to your AC- again, just as much as a regular shield. with this, not only can you add this to a bonus action dodge, but the added AC actually makes your dodge even more effective. now that’s what I call a c-c-c-combo!

You also learn the Way of the Brush and how to make a Kensei’s Shot, but the former is just a skill proficiency for roleplay and the latter only adds damage to ranged attacks, neither of which do much in a fighting game.

However, this is not all a third level monk learns. you can now Deflect Missiles as a reaction, reducing the damage of a ranged weapon attack and possibly launching the arrow back at your opponent if you reduce the damage to zero. This is our first counterattack option, and while it’s situational, it’s also very funny.

4. Monk 4: It would probably be “smart” of us to use this first Ability Score Improvement to improve your abilities directly. However, if you’re going to be using your fists in your combos from here on out, it’s best that they’re worthy of using. With that in mind, grab the Crusher feat for a +1 bonus to Constitution, as well as some extra power in your punchers. With this feat, you can move a creature up to one size larger than you five feet in any direction once per turn, and when you score a critical hit, all attacks against them are with advantage until the start of your next turn. The latter is nice, but we’re here specifically for the former, allowing you to knock creatures into the air for combos or beat them into a corner for fewer means of escape. Punching is required to turn a spear into a shield- we might as well make it fun in the process.

Fourth level monks also learn to Slow Fall, using their reaction to reduce their falling damage by five times their level- right now, this means you can fall a maximum of 39’ without taking any damage. I don’t think any fighter can juggle you that high in the air, but I’m sure Arcueid will think of something.

5. Monk 5: at fifth level monks can really dish out the pain thanks to their Extra Attack each action and their increased martial arts die. they can also turn any melee attack into a Stunning Strike to open up their real combo game- if the target fails their constitution save, they can’t move or take actions or reactions, they fail strength and dexterity saves automatically, and most importantly all attacks against them have advantage. this takes a ki point to even try, but it lasts until the end of your next turn, giving you plenty of time to keep the combo going.

6. Cleric 1: Now that we have your basic combos down, it’s time we learn how to guard. as a Tempest Cleric, there is no in-game justification for being here. You could certainly stretch and point out how God made it rain forty days and nights or whatever, but we’re here entirely for two things. one: Spells. you can cast and prepare them using your Wisdom modifier, and they’re great fun.

But first, your cantrips. Light is great, because every time someone pulls out their special move the screen gets dark for a second. If you want yours to actually hit, you have to see what you’re doing. Also pick up Guidance and Resistance to survive just about everything, including having your tournament played in a water closet.

As a tempest cleric you learn Fog Cloud and Thunderwave for free, but we’re here for Shield of Faith, which gives you +2 AC for up to ten minutes with concentration. Now you have a physical and magical component to your shield, making it twice as effective as the norm.

That being said, the other reason we’re here is for a more typical counterattack. When an enemy invokes the Wrath of the Storm by attacking you in melee, you can react to force a dexterity saving throw, dealing lightning or thunder damage to them, or only half if they succeed. You can do this twice a day for now, but it will increase as your wisdom improves.

7. Monk 6: At sixth level, monks expand their horizons thanks to their Ki-Empowered Strikes giving them the ability to punch anyone without having to worry about nonmagical damage resistances. As a kensei monk, this also applies to your shield as you become One with the Blade. Your Magic Kensei Weapons allow you to pierce resistances, and you can make Deft Strikes, spending one ki point a turn to deal an extra martial arts die of damage on one attack. It’s not quite a piledriver yet, but it’s a start.

8. Monk 7: Seventh level monks have an even stronger shield, with their Evasion preventing all damage from successful dexterity saves, just like the Shield Master feat. Even better, you now only take half damage from failed dexterity saves as well!

Also, your Stillness of Mind can end charming or frightening effects on you as an action. I don’t know how a shield prevents you from being seduced, but I won’t argue. Anyone capable of fighting Kiara is more than welcome in my book.

9. Monk 8: At level eight we can finally use an ASI to improve your Wisdom, increasing the power of your spells, your stunning strikes, and the frequency of your counterattacks.

10. Monk 9: Ninth level monks gain an Unarmored Movement Improvement, allowing you to run up walls and over water as long as you end your turn somewhere solid. Most fighting game stages aren’t wild enough to make this useful, but who knows? Maybe one day you’ll end up in Smash.

11. Monk 10: At 10th level, your Purity of Body renders you immune to diseases and poisons. It doesn’t make sense for a dead person to catch a cold, but it’s happened before. Now it won’t happen to you, at least.

12. Monk 11: Eleventh level kensei monks get their best way to spend ki, Sharpen the Blade. Bucking convention, this feature only has one use- spend ki, improve your weapon. You can spend up to three ki points to give your shield up to a +3 bonus to attacks and damage rolls for up to a minute. This only works on weapons that don’t already have a magical bonus, so hopefully Gamaliel isn’t too powerful.

It is also worth noting that this is the level your martial arts die increases to a d8, so now you can wield Gamaliel in one hand without worrying about lost damage potential, and finally allowing you to wield your shield as you do in-game.

13. Monk 12: Still, temporary bonuses can only get you so far. Use your ASI this level to improve your Dexterity for a better shield and a better shield to attack with to boot.

14. Monk 13: At level thirteen, all monks gain the Tongue of the Sun and Moon, allowing you to understand any spoken word, and for the speakers of those words to understand you. This is why every servant in FGO, from ancient Sumerian kings to distant satellites, all know modern Japanese.

15. Monk 14: Your Diamond Soul gives you proficiency in all saving throws, and you can even spend a ki point on any failed save to reroll. It’s almost as if you have some kind of ultra-powerful shield, protecting you from harm… no, it couldn’t be.

16. Monk 15: At level fifteen, your Timeless Body prevents the frailty of old age, allowing the theoretically infinite life of a reborn become a reality. You also can’t be aged magically, though I don’t recall ever seeing that as a possibility, and you don’t need to eat or drink. Again.

It’s also worth noting that Riesbyfe only mentions that you can live a lifetime, “and not show it” while wielding Gamaliel, so this technically fulfills that requirement regardless of your lineage.

17. Monk 16: We only have a few ASIs left, so it’s high time we maximized our Dexterity for the highest AC and most powerful punches possible.

18. Monk 17: With our final foray into the kensei, you’ve studied your opponent’s frame data enough to have Unerring Accuracy. Once per turn, you can re-roll a missed attack to try again. If that doesn’t work, disconnect and blame lag.

19. Monk 18: At level 18, monks have an Empty Body, thanks to your soul so thoroughly vacating it that you can become Invisible for short periods and take reduced damage, or you can astrally project. Your invisibility is the greatest defense buff we’ve received so far- even if all it did was give your enemies disadvantage to hit you for a minute, it would pay for itself before that minute was up. As is, it frees up your bonus actions for more attacks, while also further protecting you from reprisal.

20. Monk 19: Our final level feels rather basic, but it is still very important all the same. Use your last ASI for the Tough feat, giving you an extra 40 HP.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

to start things off, you’re an absolute beast of a shielder, with a good 18 base AC, plus two from your sick combos, possibly plus two more from a shield of faith, and then adding in disadvantage from dodging, and you’re really hard to hit. On top of that, you have over 200 HP on average and resistance to almost all damage while Empty Body is up, so anyone trying to whittle down your health will be there a while.

and all the time they’re fighting you they’ll have to watch out for your counterattacks, which make you a much less favorable target to go after. zap them if they’re in melee range, throw stuff back from a distance, however it goes down it’ll suck to be your enemies.

furthermore, even if you do go down you’re way more likely to get back up thanks to being a reborn and having advantage on your death saves. and of course, your enemies probably can’t wait you out, since you don’t get weaker as you age, and are already kind of dead to begin with.

Cons:

okay, there is a big caveat on that last one. you’re not really immortal, so if you decide to change things up and play a different race, or even if your DM just gives Reborn a time limit on life, you’re suddenly just as mortal as everyone else again. generally it’s not a big issue, but it is supposed to be one of Riesbyfe’s abilities, so I just wanted to bring it up.

if you’re playing to character your Range is only five feet away from yourself at any time, unless someone throws something at you first. while this usually won’t be too big an issue, it can be problematic when dealing with wall-crawling or flying enemies. of course, unless you’re a diehard Riesbyfe fan this shouldn’t be an issue- you can just throw your spear, or even use one of your ranged kensei weapons instead.

there’s a reason Melty Blood rounds only last one minute each. when you go all-out, your Ki will burn out pretty fast. you have the most ki of any build we’ve made so far, but if you don’t take short rests often it will become a problem after one or two fights. Or even just one long, drawn-out fight like the ones you cause by going on the defensive.

#nasuverse #melty blood #Riesbyfe Stridberg #DND #D&D 5e #Monk #Cleric

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sonderwrite · 1 month ago

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Prompt: 1 - stress position, "If you cry, we'll go easy on you." Fandom: Original Characters: Tao Zhiyuan (陶緻遠), random guy Summary: A dire hostage situation. Warnings: some coercion involved, stress positions, tied up ⋆⁺ ☾🩸₊⋆. masterlist link

—

"This is going to hurt."

No shit, Tao Zhiyuan thought before a kick sent him falling to his knees.

He winced as bone met concrete, but a pair of hands were already pushing his head down while another pair dragged his arms back to cuff him by the wrists. Tao Zhiyuan tried moving his elbows to gauge how much reach he still had, but got a kick in the back for his efforts and nearly ended up faceplanting on the floor.

He catches himself in time to hear a snort of laughter from somewhere in front—the same voice that warned him at the start. Tao Zhiyuan's eyes strained to see through the black blindfold wrapped around his face—but all he could make out was a vague sense of light beyond the rough fabric.

"Maybe you should've thought things through before playing good Samaritan," the voice reminded him cheerfully. "Compared to the rest of them, you're the weakest of the bunch."

"So go easy on me, why don't you?" Tao Zhiyuan joked back.

"I don't do favors for free," the man clicked his tongue before Tao Zhiyuan heard the sound of fabric shifting. The other seemed to have risen to his feet—and judging by the footsteps, was walking towards him.

Though what bothered him more was the clinking noise he made with each step. What is—

Suddenly, a hand yanked him back by the hair, forcing his head to look up. Tao Zhiyuan heard his heart pounding as the other wrapped something soft around his neck and tightened it in place below his Adam's apple.

He smelled leather.

A collar?

Attached to a clinking chain, which his captor released along with his hair as the men behind Tao Zhiyuan hauled him back to his feet. They did something with his wrists and ankles next—attaching another chain to the handcuffs holding his arms together, and then cuffing each of his ankles separately with a chain connecting them and his collar both. It was too short for the chain to reach the ankle cuffs without Tao Zhiyuan leaning down, so they just made him stand with his feet planted apart and body bent forward.

He thought about kneeling back down to close the distance, but the chain attached to his handcuffs suddenly grew taut as it pulled his arms up over his head and behind his back. Whatever was holding him in place seemed be to suspended from the ceiling. He was left standing in an awkward position instead: back bent and head hanging to form an upside-down V with his body while his arms stretched out behind him. As his mind reeled over this development, the man spoke up again.

"The D-Class hunter you replaced," he was explaining leisurely, "can hold this position for at most a day. In consideration for your physique, I've had them remove the weights and keep your feet on the ground instead of dangling you like a cut of beef."

Tao Zhiyuan, who could now barely move, contented himself with shooting mental glares in the man's general direction.

"Even so, I doubt you'd last past the hour without real damage setting in," the man observed. "How about this?"

He stopped, and Tao Zhiyuan tensed in spite of himself to listen to the man's next words.

"If you cry, we'll go easy on you. A mere human with the guts to replace a hunter—albeit a worthless one—and take the punishment in her place is due some credit."

"How are you going to see my tears if I'm blindfolded?" Tao Zhiyuan shot back.

"Cry enough until I can tell," the man's reply was flippant. "Scream, even sob. A businessman like you should know enough tricks to sell me on the act."

As if he needed to pretend. His back and shoulders were already starting to burn and sooner or later, physiological tears would hit him if nothing else.

Out loud, Tao Zhiyuan only replied, "It's going to cost extra if you want expedited delivery."

The man laughed. Then he slapped him good-naturedly (but painfully) on the shoulder before walking past Tao Zhiyuan towards the exit.

"Standard is fine. I'll come back to check in an hour."

Even the guards—or whoever it was that'd held him down in the start—stepped out to follow him, the last one finally shutting the door and leaving Tao Zhiyuan confined alone in a room of questionable origins.

Alone with his thoughts, it felt like his body was catching on fire.

—

In fact, barely 15 minutes had passed before the man returned, though to Tao Zhiyuan it might as well have been an eternity. This body lacked any training or stamina, and being forced to endure the strappado position even over a short period left his limbs and back weak and shaking from pain.

He didn't even register when the door opened again, and jerked involuntarily when a thumb ran itself experimentally across the fabric of his blindfold.

"Y-you," he hissed, stumbling over the word as his breath turned raspy.

"You might've had a point," the man remarked calmly. "With this blindfold in the way, I can't tell whether you've been crying or just working up a sweat." He observed the sheen of perspiration on Tao Zhiyuan's forehead and shook his head regretfully.

"H-hah." Tao Zhiyuan didn't buy his bullshit.

"Your new voice isn't bad," the man clicked his tongue again. More rustling ensued before a gloved hand suddenly held Tao Zhiyuan by the cheeks. "I wouldn't mind listening to it everyday."

Too pained to wrest his head free, Tao Zhiyuan settled for turning aside as much as he could manage without agitating the rest of his body—which admittedly wasn't much.

"So I guess I should make sure you last," the other sighed. "That's it for today."

It wasn't clear what he ordered next, but someone came to undo the chains stringing up his arms until they fell heavily down and made Tao Zhiyuan grunt. He lost his footing afterwards, and the man released him in time to see him collapse and curl up into a pained heap onto the floor, biting his lips hard to keep from whimpering out loud.

The man laughed again.

How fun.

#ailesswhumptober #ailesswhumptober2024 #ailess prompt 1 #lolol it's prolly mild i've never written whump before but gotta start somewhere #zzz time for bed

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narzissenkreuz-ordo · 8 months ago

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Your rb has induced this blurb. I hope you suffer(have a good day)

We will begin with Fulin. To put it simply, Fulin is Blade’s adoptive son. Fulin is a 150-200ish year old Foxian who currently is in charge of Blade’s old smithy down in Aurum Alley. Fulin has the ears of a fennec fox and greenish-black hair/fur, his skin is unusually dark due to the smithy forge and pseudo-melanism, his eyes are a vibrant purple-red. He was left at an orphanage at a young age and doesn’t remember his birth parents, not that he wants to. It wasn’t long after that Yingxing came by the orphanage, invited by Baiheng, and immediately took a liking to Fulin.

Fulin was then adopted two weeks later. He came to Yingxing’s smithy and was instantly interested in blacksmithing. From there it spiraled into Blade teaching Fulin how to forge weapons and other miscellany. When Yingxing and Dan Feng started becoming close though Fulin was hilariously protective. And Dan Feng was just as eager to return the hostility. Its hella fucking funny to think of someone like the High Elder beefing with a kid over said child’s father.

After the whole ✨incident✨Fulin was taken in by Jing Yuan who is his current legal guardian and supervisor. He’s like Yanqing’s cool older brother in a sense. Fulin has a tense and uncomfortable relationship with the General though. After all, he was Blade’s old coworker…

He’s not mad at Dan Heng though, as a matter of fact, he’s hella quick to accept that Dan Heng and Dan Feng are two separate people and does not harbor any hatred for our Danny boy.

Blade misses his son dearly.

Next up is Furor Tontrui, the last High Elder of the Xianzhou Daiyu before its fall into Thalassa. Furor is currently held in prison in a secluded planet. Why? Because he is an Emanator of Abundance.

Furor is kept in a high security prison due to his existence as an Emanator and is actually treated rather poorly at the prison, dehumanized and all. He’s only as sane as he is due to Jing Yuan visiting him. In turn, Furor is obsessed with Jing Yuan and relishes in each second the two spend together as he is the only person who actually speaks with him. He lives a very lonely life.

Furor doesn’t remember his name, not that it really matters anymore. So he goes by Furor Tonitrui instead. He was imprisoned by the High Elders at the time and has been in isolation for forever, for several hundred generations. He didn’t even know the Daiyu fell until Jing Yuan told him. He is the only “survivor” of the Daiyu.

Furor is a very sad existence and HATES Yaoshi for making him an Emanator just for the fun of it and suffers from something like bipolar disorder, constantly saying contradicting things between his “sane” brain and his Emanator brain. Oh and did i mention his horns, that were a physical thing unlike Dan Heng��s, were snapped into pieces and now only stubs of amethyst-like crystal? Not only was he stripped of his humanity he was also maimed! :D

I have more hsr ocs but i’ll keep it to two for now. I have quite a few genshin ocs(i have a GROUP) that will take several hours to talk about too. If asked, i would happily speak about them more! :)

OHHH I ABSOLUTELY ADORE FULIN...... im adopting him too. son boy. i have an undeveloped oc that ended up becoming yingxing's apprentice & absolutely hated dan feng the whole time JFDKFDS

and MAN POOR FUROR........ but ohhhh the stubby crystal horns are so cool!!! i have a vidyadhara OC that ends up having a one of her horns snapped off (during the shuhu attack on the luofu) and ive been drawing it with like. a bark like texture with the marastruck branches growing out of it :D

#ask a fool #oc hour!!!

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ibelieveinvillainsupremacy · 2 years ago

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I am indulging in myself for once and have to ask. How do YOU think V6 would be with Alan? (Sizzle) 🤓💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽🤪😼

Oooh candy man-

Alright let's get this started for my mutual :>

Wild Knuckles

◇ This man would not mind Alan company, as long as he doesn't give him weird stuff lmao

◇ Alan would probably not care about Wild opinion and that's what Wild dislikes about him

◇ When he discovered about Alan's relationship with Sven (otp in my opinion coff- coff-) he kind of expected it already

◇ As long as Sven is happy, he is also happy of his love relationship :)

Belle Bottom

♡ ooh this woman would not like Alan. Nope. Definitely.

♡ they would beef over everything. Every single thing.

♡ Belle doesn't like Alan, maybe because of their different personality (or because she is a bitch sometimes)

♡ "Sven likes Alan? Whatever. I don't see why."

Svengeance

☆ The love of his life? Adores him. Definitely.

☆ This two are the cutest thing ever. I love them 😭

☆ Sven takes out the candy man and convinced him to try rollerskates. Well, Alan was definitely traumatised lol

☆ You Alan have an amazing taste 😌

Jean Clawed

♧ They don't interact very much. Hean doesn't interact with people in general.

♧ The few times they interacted Alan probably pissed him off (or Jean still doesn't know how to take jokes)

♧ Doesn't want to try candies. Is scared he could poison him-

♧ "The candy man?" "Really?"

And Sven would stare him with those cute big eyes like "yeah :D"

Stronghold

¤ He doesn't find him annoying. Not that much.

¤ Thinks it's lame to own a candy shop (and you are lame having those bonkers out everytime >:) )

¤ After all, he is not that bad.

¤ Doesn't care about Sven love taste. Even if it can be weird sometimes (what do you mean by that uh 🤨)

Nunchuck

• Alan is terrified. Doesn't go near her.

• She doesn't enjoy his company. Or any human company in general.

• If he wants to give her candy she would kill him instantly lmao

• "I don't care about that stupid human feeling." (🤨)

Bonus :)

Nyx (:D)

♤ Since Lynn has two appearances, Alan would not recognize her at first lol

♤ He would be impressed and traumatized after discovering the thing lol

♤ Gladly accept candies just to crush them as soon as they touch her hands (they deteriorate stuff lol)

♤ 1st Svenizzle shipper in the world. Has made even posters (💀)

#rise of gru #minions rise of gru #vicious 6 #jean clawed #svengeance #belle bottom #nunchuck #stronghold #wild knuckles #headcanon #my oc nyx ♡#ask box #alan/sizzle

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weather-mood · 1 year ago

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hello!! :D <33 🍍and 🥝 !!

Hi!! 💕💕💕

🍍 What kind of AUs do you like? Are there any AUs you hate or just generally have beef with?

With a few exceptions (reformation, themasterletters fics etc which I love), I don’t really go in for human AUs typically. I’m here for the blood and gore and vampires. So mostly I like AUs set close to canon or that are just slightly canon-adjacent.

🥝 What's your favorite trope/A03 tag to write?

Probably surprising nobody who’s read literally any of my work but it’s blood drinking. Whether it’s platonic or romantic or sexual or practical, it’s all about the blood drinking. The connection of it, the visceral nature of it, what it means to the characters in those moments. Blood drinking!

It shows up in all my long fics and series, it’s the impetus behind I’ll chew you up and I’ll spit you out, it’s in Easement, it’s the driving concept of seven new ways you can eat your young, it’s everywhere!

#thanks for the ask 🥰🥰🥰#ask games #growing up taking communion means that the imagery of consumption and blood drinking is like definitely a Thing

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smokeybrandreviews · 7 months ago

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Risky Business

Buckle up, because this is going to be a long one. In my boundless dead time at my job because I am way too efficient at what I do, I came across an article about how Hollywood just doesn’t understand the popularity of anime and manga. Putting that sentiment through the capitalist filter of corporate Hollywood, it basically translates to US executives do not understand how to monetize the fervor anime has across the younger generations. For me, as a fan of the genre going on three and a half decades, it’s a no-brainer for me. Of course the Old Guard can’t wrap their heads around anime, they think it’s for “kids” because they see us, the Millennials and younger, as kids. Bro, I’m forty this year. I have friends with whole ass teenage children. We are not “kids”, just very nostalgia driven and the Zoomers are just now entering “real adult age.” I’m talking graduating from college, entering the workforce, and renting cars without a co-signer. We are not children. We are adults who are shaping, and have been shaping, pop culture for decades. Considering we, as Millennials, have raised our younger Zoomer siblings (or children in some cases), they grew up with anime and video games as a household mainstay, not some niche, geek, fetish to be enjoyed in the dark. Now ask yourself, how many mid-Forties movie executives are there in the industry? Now ask yourself how man mid-Sixties Execs there are? That’s your answer. Try selling the allure of, say, a proper, live action, Dragon Ball Z adaption to Bob Iger and he’ll scoff at the budget necessities. There’s no way something like Reincarnated as a Slime get made here, let alone the likes of the immediately controversial EVA with all of the biblical imagery. There’s no way you can adapt the vast amount of anime based strictly on the fact that the US was founded by closed minded prudes, and that sentimentality has carried over into present day Middle America.

My beef with Conservatism has long been documented on this blog. I don’t understand why so many people in this country, look back with rose colored glasses on an America that was staunched in hate and cruelty. I mean, I do, they’re white, but still. It’s insane to think that, in this, the year of our lord, two thousand and twenty-four, that cats still get their dander in a froth over something as ridiculous as being a Furry, even though bugs bunny in a dress was a sexual trigger for just SO many of these Boomers growing up. Sh*t like that speaks volumes toward the repressed mentality of people in that age range, the people basically in charge of everything. They are set in their ways and refuse to accept anything new. I see a microcosm of that with my mom. I try to introduce her to anime I believe has merit and she just scoffs at it. Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Howl’s Moving Castle (even though I don’t like Ghibli films), and even Vampire Hunter D. She hated all of them. Refused to engage because they are cartoons. And that, right there, is the crux of the issue, I think: Boomers don’t see the difference between Mickey Mouse and Goku, it’s all just cartoons. On the surface level. For those who actually give anime a chance, they’re greeted with some of the most aggressively offensive content, to their very narrow, counter-culture, Reaganomics influenced, Televangelist inspired, senses.

My favorite anime is Neon Genesis Evangelion. My favorite anime character is Rei Ayanami. Or Vegeta. They’re basically one-A and one-B for me at this point but, for the sake of this essay, I’m going Rei I. EVA is brilliant. It’s extremely well written, has fantastic world building, is f*cking GORGEOUS to look at, and deals with some pretty heavy sh*t. I’m talking borderline blasphemous, alternate biblical sh*t. How do you sell a fourteen year old, piloting a cyborg mech with the soul of his dead mom trapped inside it, punching through the Sefirot, in order to trigger the end of humanity so everyone can return to primordial goo, so his widowed father can reunite with said trapped mommy soul in eternal oblivion? How do you market that to a devoutly Mormon trad wife from Idaho or that stereotypical, god-fearing, coal mining husband from West Virginia? There’s no way, and that’s not counting the overtly homosexual (I guess?) Kowru or the hyper sexualized relationship between Shinji and Asuka, or the wildly inappropriate situationship between Gendo and Rei. This sh*t will not fly with US audiences., which brings me to the main reason why anime adaptions fail here: Americanization. The bane of any foreign adaption. Hollywood has this incessant need to change sh*t when adapting anything, which is fine to an extent, but when you butcher the spirit of the source material chasing after US sensibilities, why even adapt the sh*t? To this day, my mom thinks the original Godzilla is dog sh*t but that’s because she saw the version re-cut with Perry Mason. I showed her the original and, while she admitted it was much better than the one she saw as a kid, the damage was done. Tokusatsu was just goofy ass Japanese people., stomping on miniatures with fireworks popping off in the background. Godzilla came out in 1954. The Americanization of Japanese cinema has been poisoning entire audiences for at least that long. Guess who grew up watching those terrible f*cking adaptions? Guess who has a built-in bias because everything they saw coming out of Japan, was treated like goofy, campy, unserious, children’s fair? Guess who’s making the business decisions in adapting this sh*t going forward?

Ultimately, Hollywood can’t make anime adaptions because don’t understand anime. They don’t see the value in the source material outside the superficiality of the admittedly beautifully animated genre. No major studio is going to commit legitimate resources to any anime adaption because of the risk involved. In their minds. Look at Battle Angel Alita. That film was rather successful and stayed true to the overall source material. As an anime adaption, it’s one of the best. However, since it didn’t make a billion f*cking dollars, the studio has refused to revisit it at all. They’ve chocked that “failure” up to not connecting with audiences. No, it failed because you didn’t market it the way you should have. You didn’t believe in the franchise potential and basically just dropped the thing into the theater. Even so, Alita: Battle Angel made a profit and has garners a strong cult following which hasn’t stopped their calls for a sequel to this day. On the other end, you have the disastrous ScarJo Ghost in the Shell. There are a myriad of reasons why this thing sucks but it basically boils down to how lazy the adaption turned out. The original anime film is a staple of cyberpunk existentialism. None of that heady, deep, and challenging content is found in the remake. It’s just generic sci-fi identity thriller but pretty that usual. No substance, all flash. Now, that’s not to say there aren’t fantastic adaptions out there. Netflix has done a brilliant job, by comparison, in turning anime into live action. The Yu Yu Hakusho joint was decent. It felt culturally appropriate and didn’t squander the time they had with the characters. It was definitely on the cheaper side but that was Yu Yu, all day. I think the biggest issue people had was comparing it to the absolutely perfect One Piece outing which released just a few months earlier. That show, that take, was perfect. F*cking everything, down to the last, minute, detail. Brilliance, through and through. But it also cost Netflix a pretty penny. They took on the risk and reaped the well-deserved rewards.

But, as much as they would like to be, Netflix ain’t Disney or WB Discovery or Paramount or any of the major studios. All three of them. They don’t have the cash to drop on a sweeping fantasy adaption of Berserk or high adrenaline, hyper stylized, run at Eyeshield 21. Do you see Disney putting in the necessary resources to make a strong adaption of One-Punch Man? How about Paramount letting Secret Base take a shot at something like Gundam? Wait, I think Netflix has it’s mitts on that already. Alright, we’ll go Macross instead. Imagine if someone gave Tim Burton enough loot to adapt f*cking Big O! How dope would that be? But it’ll never happen. Even though Pacific Rim did gangbusters and the Monsterverse proves there’s an audience for Mecha/Kaiju content, no one is going to drop the sheckles to make that stuff happen. Too much loot, too much risk, not enough appreciation for the source material. It sucks because there are so many US audience friendly franchises out there which are good, can be made on the cheap, and potentially thrive here. I already mentioned One-Pinch, but f*cking Slam Dunk is right there. Overlord can definitely scratch the current DnD itch Baldur's Gate 3 has set ablaze across the nation. Chobits is another one and I think City Hunter can do well here for adults. Appleseed is right there and, if you want to go niche but full of potential, AD police and Bubblegum Crisis. The Castlevania show all but paved the way for Vampire Hunter D to get the live action treatment. There are so many franchises out there ready for adaption, ready for the gamble, almost all of which will pay off. It just takes someone in the big chair to seriously believe in that content. Someone with the foresight to commit the necessary resources to really give these adaptions justice. Believe in what is there and respect the content. Follow those rules, and you will unlock a cash cow of brand new, monetizable, media to exploit. But stay away from Akira. That sh*t is a masterpiece and doesn’t need any grubby American Corpo fingers anywhere near it!

#anime #Hollywood #Some ol' bullsh*t

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smokeybrand · 7 months ago

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Risky Business

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cptn-sulu · 10 months ago

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Howdy there! [chews on a weed]

4, 5, 7 (I know this is rude to ask, but do we not all have someone we just can not stand???), 14, 18, 20, 23, 24, 32, 41, 66, 90 and 99?

I hope these are not too many, but I really like hearing/reading the answers. :-D

P.S.: Is it even called weed??? I mean ONE “thingy” of hay/grass/straw.

i think referring to it as a weed is acceptable though it DOES almost seem like you're like. chewing a joint. which is funny as well

i'm gonna put the majority of the questions under the cut for because

4. Kind of meal you really appreciate?

answered here

5. One disgusting meal in your eyes?

i try not to label meals as outright disgusting bc i think that can get problematic quickly. but i am a fairly picky eater for sensory reasons so. there is that. p much any like. ~mushy~ food is a no go.

7. Person you really hate?

uhhh,,, most politicians? at least american. but also probably in general

14. Do you think there's a higher species than us humans?

i don't know about species?? and i definitely don't have any like. ~religious beliefs~. but i wouldn't be overly surprised at there having at one point been some kind of ~higher power~ that enabled the universe to form the exact way it did to end up here

18. What do you think time traveling would be like?

i genuinely have no idea, but i am of the "we should not" belief system. what if we like. make the world implode on itself or something from so many paradoxes?

20. Something that makes your life easier? Smth you're glad about?

answered here

23. Best ingredients for a pizza?

a pizza place in my home town has a like. philly cheesesteak. pizza. and it's by far my favorite pizza. it's got white sauce and italian beef with peppers and red onions and just. yes 1000%

24. Do you have a green thumb? (are good with plants?)

i have. a truly absurd number of house plants. and i've only ever managed to kill a handful of them, so i think i'm pretty good!

32. Seven years ago, did you expect your life would be like this right now?

answered here

41. Which film scenes still affect you? (horror movies for example)

i'm taking this as a like gross out question. ummmm not a lot? it's not a ~film~ but there was a scene in the fall of the house of usher that got me (had to do with teeth). that's the most recent one i can think of

66. In your eyes, what makes a child worthy enough to have his own smartphone?

i don't think there's a ~worthy~ about it. i think it's a matter of having made sure said child understands internet safety and behavior and all of that. i certainly wouldn't give one to a kid under like. 13/14 though.

90. If you know your go-to person currently has time, do you still text them, call them or leave a voice message?

answered here

99. Does it matter to you there is no 100th question in here?

nah not really, i think it's kind of funny actually.

ask me questions from this list

#ask game

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sodiumlamp · 10 months ago

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Picard

More like "Pic(king a better show to watch would not be h)ard"! Ha ha!

This is Season 3, Episode 5, "Imposters". I think this is a rare bird in the season, where the episode title is not some cutesy reference to classic Trek. Most of them have names like "Make It So" or "Four Lights". Sometimes they'll add a little twist like "Tea, Earl Grey Cold".

Oh... this is ass. Let's talk about continuity for a minute, because I'm still pissed off at how neither Guinan nor Picard remembered their meeting in 1893. I looked this up on Memory Alpha to see if there was some acknowledgement of the error, and apparently the people who made the show provided an explanation: Due to the changes in the timeline, General Picard never experienced the events of "Times Arrow", so this version of 2024 Guinan had never met Picard before. Which is kind of what I assumed, except Admiral Picard (the good one) still remembers 1893, but he never mentions any of it. He walks into her bar expecting her to recognize him, and he's surprised when she doesn't, but he never explains why she should. You'd think he would just assume she forgot, since it was so long ago. You'd think he would say "Don't you remember that 19th Century mine in San Francisco?" and she'd tell him she has no idea what he's talking about, and he'd go "Oh, right, because the timeline changed. Crap." But that never happens, which took me out of the show.

I say all of this because Picard usually operates that way. In the previous episode, Seven kills a Changeling, but it retains its human disguise even as a corpse. That's now how it worked in DS9, but they explain that here. Dr. Crusher makes note of how unusual this is, and she studies the body to understand why. She doesn't have a complete explanation, but she confirms that these Changelings are Built Different, and chalks it up to evolution. The upshot is that the Changelings in Picard are harder to catch than the ones in Deep Space Nine. I assume this also explains why they look more like liquid meat than the orange syrup we saw in the 90's. They wanted to beef up the Changelings and they did, but they also took care to inform the audience of it.

I say usually because Picard screws up in a number of places. For instance, Season 2 heavily implies that the Ten Forward bar on the Eneterprise-D was named after a bar Guinan ran in Los Angeles. It's not; "Ten Forward" is a designation for the most front-facing section of Deck Ten. Season 1 makes it seem like extracting Borg implants is a laborious, sometimes gruesome process, but Picard and Seven were de-assimilated pretty quickly and easily decades earlier.

Sometimes Picard struggles to get its own continuity straight. Last episode had a flashback to "five years ago", when Picard told old stories of his adventures to a bunch of excited Starfleet officers, and he unwittingly told his son that Starfleet was the only family he ever needed. The thing is, five years ago, Picard was in the middle of a fourteen-year resignation from Starfleet. He was bitter and disgusted with the whole organization, so it seems odd that he would be so eager to call it "family". His crewmates, sure, but not Starfleet. I'm not talking out my ass here, because this was all established in Season 1, set two years before Season 3, and three years after this flashback scene.

My point here is that the show is a confusing mess. Lots of TV shows play fast and loose with continuity. Hell, TNG was a repeat offender, using, distorting, or discarding TOS lore as it saw fit. But TNG could get away with it, becuase it was (a) good, and (b) it wasn't depending so heavily on the callbacks to TOS. Picard, however, is pretty much marketed as a continuation of TNG. Season 3 in particular is marketed as a damn reunion show. It desperately needs to get the continuity right, or at least mostly right. But it makes some big blunders, which means the callbacks that actually make sense are less effective.

For example, this episode sees Commander Ro Laren from Starfleet Intelligence show up to question Picard and Riker about their shenanigans in the previous four episodes. But the last time we saw Ro, she betrayed Starfleet to the Maquis. The idea here is to make the audience wonder if this is really Ro at all, or a Changeling infiltrator disguised as Ro. That's a good angle, except that the show has made too many mistakes in the past, so I couldn't ignore a third possibility: It's a plot hole.

So we get this rather well-acted scene with Ro and Picard talking out their beef, each gauging the other to see if they're really who they claim to be. But the whole time I'm trying to gauge the writers, trying to figure out if they actually watched the Ro episodes of TNG and paid attention. And it turns out they got it right! This time. It's frustrating because a lot of this episode is about trust, and I can't trust this show because it's let me down so many time.

For example, I assumed Captain Shaw would be killed off by now since they introduced him like the kind of jerk who dies in hilarious fashion in a horror movie. He's like the guy who dies in the restroom in Jurassic Park, or Peck from Ghostbusters. Yet Shaw remains improbably alive and with zero marshmallow goo on his body. Ro had most of the crew sent to a different ship and warns Picard to make a run for it, but she doesn't tell any of this to Shaw, who is the captain of the damn ship. So Picard has to convince him that Ro's news of a Changeling conspiracy is legit and they need to run, except Shaw's been burned by Picard before. He finally comes around, but it's becoming more and more clear that Shaw's sole purpose in this show is to pump the brakes on the plot. I'm sure Chicagoans love seeing one of their fellow dipshits on the show, but as far as I'm concerned Captain Shaw is like a bad Peter David Star Trek novel come to life. I trusted the show to avoid stooping this low, and they keep digging deeper.

Will the Federation Horns appear in Star Trek: Picard? Is that where we're headed? Maybe they already did, since there was a live band at that pre-launch party for the Europa mission in Season 2. They were simply biding their time, scouting the centuries before making their big move in Season 3. Their plan: pointless filler bullshit. The cybrid bitch is mine.

What else happened? Oh, Jack Crusher got cornered by a bunch of Changelings posing as security officers, and he suddenly "activated" just like Dahj and Soji in Season 1. I mean... literally exactly like what the synths did in Season 1. You'd think that the writers would get to this scene and someone would point out that this is too similar to a moment from a previous episode, but no.

Could this be an important clooooooooooooooooo as to what Jack Crusher really is? Maybe he's a robot like Dahj and Soji, by which I mean not a robot at all, but somehow a robot anyway, because the writers don't understand what words mean?

I'm gonna say no, because Worf pulls the same trick in this episode. A bad guy captures him and Raffi and makes them fight to the death for his amusement, and Worf fakes his death in order to get the drop on them. How did he fake his death so thoroughly? He used the "Kahless Technique."

...

You know what? I'm in the wrong blog, but I can roll with this. I thought Worf was acting a little too much like a Jedi in this show, but no. No, he's become a Dragon Ball Super guy. That's why his hair is white. He's not going grey, he just had to be in Ultra Instinct (mastered) so that he could properly align his ki to survive the knife wound. Also he needed the heightened reflexes and speed to ensure Raffi would actually stab him in the right place, since Raffi's such a fuck-up she couldn't win a fight even if it was fixed. At least now I know how Goku survived all those stab wounds he got in the Zamasu arc. He learned the Kahless Technique. Or he's a synth. I hate everything.

Or... they could have just caught the guy they wanted without all this nonsense and had the information they needed without all this rigamorale, but Captain Shaw can't slow down the show all by himself. We have to drag this out to ten episodes together! Come on everybody!

Back to Jack Crusher, so he beats up and kills four Changelings all by himself. Bev asks him how he knew they were Changelings and he admits that he had no idea. He's just been having these nightmarish visions of murdering every crewman on the ship, so when they tried to capture him it just sent him over the edge. He sees all this red shit when he's in this mode, so either he's a vampire and this is all a Hellsing reference, or he's like a Borg sleeper agent and the red color scheme is meant to throw me off the scent. "Ha ha," the writers said when they came up with this. "We always use green lighting for the Borg, so this time we'll use red and they'll never see it coming." No, I'm on to you, Alex Kurtzman. You ain't slick.

Oh, right, I forgot to talk about the show's opening. They didn't do a flashback this time, instead it was a dream Jack had of himself shooting up everyone on the bridge. Apparently the writers got bored trying to make a space 9/11 on Star Trek so they started doing space mass shootings instead. This show is hacky and crappy and boring and stupid and not even the Kahless Technique can save it.

#mike watches picard #sheer fucking hubris

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