#i know it's not really relevant to me because i never lived in the city and the train ride to chicago was longer than it needed to be

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I don't personally live in an area where free public transit would be relevant (our idea of public transit is uber hahahaha please send help) but thinking of what a huge difference that would make for kids in cities makes me emotional, especially for kids who don't leave their neighborhoods (or even homes) much because of costs, traffic, violence, etc.

Thinking about middle school kids being able to take the metro or bus for free to go to other free events and activities in the city that they wouldn't otherwise make it to. . . Ah, it just makes me happy. I wish every kid had that ability.

[unionizedwizard]

tumblr user unionizedwizard certified #1 shadowbringers + g'raha overthinker reporting for duty

i HAVE been thinking about sphene being the exarch's foil. because it is a very obvious case to the point they had to pick him up from SHARLAYAN as an emergency Relevant Character and also allowed him to come with us to living memory (you know it's about to get serious when they let him go anywhere with the wol)

so, obviously. both sphene and g'raha (as the exarch) were thrust into a horrific nightmarish situation where they were put in charge of a entire city/state facing an umbral calamity. both care deeply about the people they're trying to protect - their people. both have undergone (willingly or not) heretofore unknown scientific operations that irreversibly changed them, using cutting-edge technology, making them immortal and fusing them with an immensely powerful reservoir of aetheric energy, all in the name of duty and preserving hope for the future; both have become a symbol rather than a person. the alexandrians needed their queen, whose mere presence stopped them from succumbing to despair; the people from novrandt forced the exarch into a similar position (even though he kept repeating he would not stand for becoming a king of any sort); himself, on behalf of the ironworks & the entirety of the post-8th umbral calamity survivors, was willing to sacrifice himself to bring back the wol - because (and this is the really important part) of the wol's status as a symbol of hope and resilience. everyone here, the wol included, is dehumanized and worshiped and used for their good, self-sacrificial qualities, as well as their unyielding willpower.

sphene's memories were altered, muddled, to an extent that nobody really understands. the scientists who managed to create the endless are all gone, the average alexandrian forgot everything and everyone they've ever known, she herself knows she's not the "original" sphene but a copy - yet she doesn't seem to mourn this loss, and indeed i don't know to which extent she conceives of it as a loss, or a violation of her bodily autonomy (which it was! she never asked to be brought back, especially not this way, which would be a more than traumatic experience for ANYONE to go through!). in the same way, the exarch's memories encompass several timelines and realities, and he spent an entire century having to hide his identity, not being able to mention his own name, much less his purpose or homeland - i'd say this self-erasure is more than comparable with sphene's experience. not to mention that both sphene and the exarch were forced into "passive", static roles - i don't know how sphene felt about this because this is the tragedy of her character, that we don't know (and she herself doesn't know) the first thing about her, as an individual with preferences and feelings and memories.

also, this all adds up with g'raha's role in the deltascape part of ultima thule - the omicrons being, as AI mechanical soldiers, the missing link between sphene and himself. there's a pattern here, interrogating the relationship between mind, body, memory, duty, freedom and personal agency & autonomy, etc. the endless in general and sphene in particular are more than reminiscent of the omicrons on this point.

all of this to say: thinking about g'raha's gondola speech, i did not think he was talking about the scions, or even the wol. i see how this is a possible (and likely) interpretation to have, but i must confess i was surprised when i saw that this is what most people had understood. to me he was talking about the people from the First, and also the people from the 8th umbral calamity timeline, especially those with whom he'd worked for, presumably, months at a time. so many people who died after the Flood (we tend to forget that he arrived right after the Flood, in the immediate aftermath), not just because of the sin eaters but also because of the sudden and catastrophic environmental changes; all the people who could never adapt to the eternal light and, presumably, went mad (it's a real thing in real life even though night does come back eventually, so i imagine it must have been that but a lot worse in novrandt). all the people who died due to lack of medicine, because all the medicinal plants and recipes disappeared in the blink of an eye, not to mention the healers themselves; all the diseases and epidemics and interpersonal violence that arose as a consequence of the severe famine and lack of basic resources that plagued what was left of the star. and the unfathomable loss and trauma of losing millenia of culture and civilization and knowledge and biodiversity and entire families, entire tribes, cities, countries, being annihilated. g'raha has lived through this for a century, combined with the post-8th umbral calamity state of the Source. we know how much he cares for the people of the crystarium, and we only see the crystarium as a fully-developed, beautiful, and harmonious city-state; we haven't seen the century of work and planning and emergency managing and unfathomable grief and pain that went into it. in the same way, we see alexandria (and living memory) as they are now, but only glimpse a few moments of utter chaos during the alexandria dungeon.

so i'm just thinking of g'raha, seeing living memory, and being the only one among the party who truly understands. who can truly relate to sphene, and understand her. he's the only one present who has personally been through not one but two calamities, and had to deal with them on a day-to-day basis (while readying a completely crazy long-term plan). how many people that he knew, loved, wanted to protect... died of "preventable" causes during the century he was on the First, while himself was immortal - so that he could keep doing his duty, doing everything he could to save them eventually? all this happened in a manner which was truly unfair, and unfathomably evil, and - possibly the worst part - he knew this was still "the better path" (as he put it himself while trying to summon the wol). the survivor's guilt that both he and sphene must be dealing with is simply impossible to really understand, i think. we've seen the crystarium. of course he'd wish for all these unfortunate souls to endure and finally know peace and happiness. and of course, he didn't have a Living Memory, but of course he couldn't help but wonder how he'd have reacted in this situation.

and i do wish we could have had him interact with sphene, actually. it made sense that she was wuk lamat's foil and all, but i think it would have been interesting..........

[ybklix]

favorite crime

♡ pairing: bang chan x fem!character

⮑ intro

⋆cw: none ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

⋆notes: narrated from fem character’s pov. fic based on 2004.

masterlist here

a/n: help, i’m not really sure how that store used to be like since I’m writing it to romanticize the early 2000’s ok

chapters one & two

ONE

word count: 816

Excluding the part about living in an insignificant town and still attending school… it’s not relevant. None of that matters or will matter once I manage to get out of here… and finally become someone else among the millions of people in the city, amidst the hustle and bustle, broken hopes, dreams hanging by a thread, and completely void happiness, just there, I’ll be there. Living, I guess. Breathing in the smoke from some neighbor’s cigarette and questioning if this is my path, since clearly the one I’m on now is not pleasing at all.

I managed to stop my thoughts for a few seconds; my mother was shouting from the bathroom, repeatedly asking me to check on a delivery the courier had just made. It was my last weekend before a new school year, and surprisingly, the weather had remained warm, so I was only wearing comfortable clothes. August had gone by, soon it would be September, and my favorite season would finally begin.

I opened the door to find an ostentatious box with the IKEA logo engraved on it. I had no idea if my mother had ordered some new furniture, so just as I was about to grab it and drag it, I realized the big mistake. The label didn’t bear any familiar name, and in fact, the address indicated the next-door neighbor’s number. Minho Lee, 143. I grimaced, unsure if I should be the one to report the mistake, or just not bother and move the box in front of his door, hoping he’d open it.

Considering, it was strange for this kind of confusion as deliveries like this always went to the reception where they would then call the owner just to make sure if it’s okay to bring it up or leave it right there downstairs.

Minho Lee… I knew they moved into the next-door apartment almost over a month ago, but honestly, I never cared to know who lived around me. I dragged the heavy box a few meters to his door and simply knocked on his door out of impulse, without hope of any response or desire to stay there to give any explanation. But the response was quicker than I thought because, as soon as I knocked, almost instantly, the neighbor appeared, dressed comfortably all in black, in shorts and a sleeveless shirt.

He had a look of confusion on his face. I remained for 3 seconds not knowing what to do until I managed to say:

“This appeared at our door, but I think it’s yours.”

The Asian-looking guy looked even more confused for about two more seconds until he managed to read that my gaze was directed towards the ground, and it wasn’t until he noticed that, his demeanor could relax. He read the name on the label and immediately thanked me.

“Yes, it’s here, thank you.”

I gave a smile with nothing else to say and headed for the doorknob of my door as I watched him out of the corner of my eye bending down to pick up his belongings. And finally, I quickly entered, realizing the ridiculous pajamas I was wearing. I closed my eyes tightly, embarrassed, as if that action could erase how uncomfortable it was for me to realize that I had a considerably attractive neighbor. His aura, his appearance… I wished to study him a little more, but really there was nothing more to say, nothing more than, here’s your box. I bit my lip wondering if I should have spoken and started a conversation with him by saying the typical nonsense like “this mistake had never happened before… the courier must be new, just like you, since when did you move…” But precisely my outfit, relaxed and messy, and my appearance… if only I had a little more luck next time, I wouldn’t think of wasting it like this.

Minho Lee looked young, like a recent college graduate, or maybe someone in their final year. As I climbed the stairs to my room, I thought about how ridiculous it was to start creating more ideas about him. Checking the clock, I smiled realizing it was my working hour and that I could leave this apartment without excuse.

After minutes, I left; grabbing my apartment keys and without saying a word to my mother, as if we didn’t have the great freedom to know or communicate our next whereabouts. Or just any kind of communication. Living with her was strange.

The building’s elevator stopped working two weeks ago and still seems to be under repair, so I hurry down the stairs until I reach the main hall, where surprisingly, I manage to recognize whose broad back was in front of me, also leaving the building, but heading in a different direction.

Part of me felt the need to follow him just out of sheer curiosity, and the fact of feeling excitement studying a new individual was… indescribable. Who is Minho Lee.

TWO

word count: 2k

My whole world sadly revolved around an idiot who never knew how to love me, care for me, and protect me the way I would have wanted. The way a sensible father would care for his only daughter. Or at least that’s what everyone reminds me every year in every damn school; always asking about my father, wondering what his next book would be about… but I can’t even speak out loud about him, sometimes I wish he were a stranger, but I have the greatest fear that… what little I know about him encompasses important concepts of who or how he really is.

I was the only daughter of a well-known artist, the acclaimed writer Henry Waldrop, whose books were such a great success that each of them —almost all of them— were adapted in Hollywood, on the big screens, with actors of the caliber of Nicole Kidman or Brad Pitt, working with promising directors like Mendes and Fincher, winners of important awards, with Henry himself writing his own scripts on a couple of occasions, nothing took him out of Los Angeles. Waldrop has been hailed as the greatest American speaking in the world of literature since Fitzgerald and Hemingway by the Times, countless interviews in the New Yorker, and among other accolades.

He has been called everything; but I will never be able to call him dad again, not since I was 7 years old.

My relationship with him is cold, distant, and almost nonexistent; I always register my name as Calliope Moore, my mother’s last name, hoping not to be recognized in this small town, however, I can’t change it at school, for the moment I can’t change it legally either; so for now, I remain hidden like this. Meanwhile, in a part-time job after school and on weekends.

I was a child who could be considered naive and sweet, at least until I was 6 years old. Then I realized many things, that my father loved fame and excess in meaningless material things more than his family, that his writing is immature and difficult to read, never matured, I never understood why I had to do it before him, unfairly, or worse, do it for him. Despite that, I became my worst enemy, I became an admirer, not of him, but of the artistic world in which he lived; my only memories with him were his huge literary collection, his love for art and cinema; he had me captive every year of my life, I spent hours sitting in his library reading instead of having a conversation with him; I chose something from his extensive collection of movies to watch on DVD. All this on his forced weekends when he legally had to see me. And worst of all, I found refuge in letters… vaguely considering myself a writer; like he is.

I know there’s the silly idea that he really cares about me just because he’s my father, that everything can be fixed if only I would talk to him… but I wish it were that simple, the reason I preferred to be locked in his office was because I saw too many things I should never have seen, situations that a loving and careful father would ensure none of his children know about, I cried seeing women enter his apartment, thinking it wasn’t the kind of love he should give to mother, I didn’t understand why my friends at school could introduce them and I just heard ‘oh, he’s something like a celebrity, he’s just busy. Maybe someday you’ll be like him.’

I sigh and look from afar at the store manager smiling at me, it’s funny to consider he has a little crush on me and I can easily manipulate him. In a matter of seconds, the loud sound of the phone interrupts my daily thoughts about complaining about life.

“Blockbus-”

“Callie, it’s Sarah, can you urgently cover for me for two hours? I have something very important at university.”

I rolled my eyes at being interrupted and at hearing my coworker’s needy voice on the other end of the line, I didn’t need details, but I was surprised by the quick passage of time, so I checked it, she arrived an hour later than agreed and I had no idea.

“All right.”

“Thank you, I owe you one, Cal.”

I slid over the counter, resting my chin on the palm of my hand, bored. Tim, the manager, who is about 8 years older than me, took care of putting on music; I really didn’t have a specific plan for this Saturday, but two more hours of time were just time.

To kill the time, I moved around here and there, sorted movies, checked boxes of new tapes, read each synopsis, sorted each genre, and finally went to tidy up a bit under the main counter; customers came in sporadically and this was the next customer I heard since an hour ago. Tim greeted them with a good evening. I assumed they had to go between the aisles of shelves to pick out their movie or movies to rent, so I didn’t pay attention to them as I continued cleaning up a bit.

Indeed, it took about 10 minutes, when I heard the plastic fall onto the cold wood of the checkout counter and a male voice say, referring to Tim, “Are you checking out over here?”

“No, um, Callie-”

Tim spoke and before he finished his sentence, I hurried to stand up, finding the guy from this morning next to me, Minho Lee. He was still dressed in black, now with jeans, he was wearing bracelets on his left hand now. For a second, I couldn’t say anything, other than meet his gaze, but I immediately regained my composure and gave him a warm smile, but I feared that this time, for him, this client, it was a genuine one.

His gaze was tender for a second as he seemed slightly surprised by the sudden way I unexpectedly ‘sprung’ from the floor; then he softened it and kept eye contact with me.

“I’m here to return these,” he spoke, dragging a stack of 3 movies “and I’ll take these” he pointed to the stack on the right.

My gaze lowered to his hands on the tapes and on the DVDs themselves. I took the products to be returned and inspected each one of them: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Kill Bill, A Tale of Two Sisters. I gave him a smile, clearly judging, at least it was the fun part of the job; seeing what kind of person you were based on your taste in movies. And for Minho… there was no relation, a romantic comedy, Kill Bill, just Kill Bill and… a foreign psychological horror movie, judging by its cover, it seemed to be from Asia. If I weren’t trying to convince myself that someone considerably attractive like him is single, I would say the romantic comedy is something he would watch with some romantic date without a doubt.

“Name?” I raised my eyebrows, feigning disinterest as if I hadn’t seen him a couple of hours ago.

Judging by his look, it was clear that in some way he also recognized me.

“Under the name of Minho Lee, with an H between the N and O” he replied.

This Charming Man by The Smiths started playing and I noticed a slight movement of his fingers on the table to the rhythm of the melody; all while I typed his name into the computer. I was impressed by his profile, apparently, he’s a frequent customer judging by the long list of movies. He even has a membership, wow, I had never seen him here.

“Would you like the standard two-week rental?”

He nodded. I registered the new movies to rent, not without looking at them in detail: a foreign horror movie, Korean-looking, The Wig, Dracula 2, god, I heard the movie was terrible and Scream 2. I guess he wanted to watch only one genre for the moment, no more romantic comedies.

“That will be 33 dollars… 23 with the membership discount.”

“Thank you… Calliope” he read the tag with my name on my blue vest.

The story of my name is a bit funny, my father, a man without emotional responsibility whose heart was always incapable of falling in love, had his philosophy around the Greek mythology of the 9 muses, which is ironic considering the number of lovers he had, and, from what I heard, how much he promised each of the women he got involved with, that they were his muse and inspiration. My name comes from the muse of music, as he met my mother in college and that was her career at the time. My mother’s dream was always to direct orchestras, play the cello at important events in New York… but then I was born.

It would be a nice and moving story if any of my parents appreciated each other, but my mother made sure to make it clear how much she detested him and remind me what she could have done if I had never been born.

During that time, my father was working as an apprentice to a professor and substitute professor at the university. A literary cliché that inspired one of his books, by the way. Each page of the encounters with my mother severely altered, as she exclaimed, that never happened… if only things had been like that… Anyway, the book turned into a movie and considered a classic romance of the nineties. It was funny when someone came to rent it, since for now, I work at the town’s Blockbuster.

Anyway, my father had this immature belief that since I was the one growing in my mother’s womb, I would be the greatest force and source of inspiration for her, a muse. Sometimes I suppose my mother ended up hating me. She had to raise me and support Henry in his dream as a writer. I grew up and live in the same place as him; a wealthy area in northern New York state; where my teachers, absorbed by his work, expected innate talent from me.

But the pressure isn’t always on me. I have an older brother, a half-brother, named Apollo —a bit strange considering that literature says he was married to Calliope or something like that—; who likes to be recognized as Henry Waldrop’s legitimate son, with his gallery in Manhattan; however, he’s nothing more than another pretentious wannabe from the Upper East Side.

After Minho left, I pretended to close his membership and register the returned movies, but I was just snooping around, his birthday, October 25th, he’s 10 years older than me, he really doesn’t seem like it; it must be his Asian genetics I guess. His address, registered in the same building as mine, his email, his phone, and… the record of his rentals.

Not even 10 minutes passed when the sound of the door caught my attention again, Sarah had arrived, I didn’t notice the time so I checked it, she arrived an hour later than agreed and had no idea.

Sarah came in with a smile, dropping her bag on the counter making noise as she arrived.

“I’m here.”

I quickly closed the computer information and let out a jokingly annoyed sigh at her presence.

“Well, there are only two hours left until closing.”

“Three, we close later on Saturdays.”

I rolled my eyes playfully and took off my blue vest, walking to the other side of the counter, ready to grab my things and leave.

“Is this…?” Sarah mentioned, catching my attention.

I turned to look at her and she was holding the returned movies from a few moments ago. I forgot to organize them.

“Oh, let me-”

“Oh no” she interrupted me “Kill Bill and A Tale of Two Sisters, Korean horror? Did the handsome guy already stopped by?”

I frowned.

“He just left” said Tim.

Sarah made a disappointed face.

“I guess he comes often” I said.

“Of course, every Saturday at seven during my shift.”

I stared at her, perplexed.

“He’s definitely coming to see you, Sarah” Tim added, amused.

Sarah just smiled. I let out a reluctant laugh.

“I’m leaving” I announced.

“Wait, Callie, aren’t you going to organize them…” I heard Sarah exclaim just before leaving through the door, but I decided to ignore her.

She can do it alone. Maybe Minho can come back to help her.

[dice-sociation]

AP Review: Reckless Attack - Main Campaign

Listen Here: https://www.recklessattack.com/episodes/

Quick info:

Audio Quality: High Quality and Edited, Effects, Music. Vibes: Lord of the Rings, Ghibli, Never Ending Story, Avatar the Last Airbender, Frogs Extras: Discord and Patreon rewards. System: 5e DnD Average Episode time: 1 hour Uploads 1 Episode per week. Campaign/ Show Length: Long Term Campaign Platforms: Podcast, Audio Only. Accessibility: Content Warnings Language available: English Diversity: AAPI/BIPOC Number of Episodes Review is based on: 100 (This is my first review so I decided to start with a Podcast I’m already caught up on) ** If you want the TLDR, scroll to the bottom of the post **

Why Reckless Attack?

I honestly believe that part of the draw of listening to people play a TTRPG is not just the story telling but an assurance that adults can somehow actually and consistently come together, in person, to pull off a full long term game. Reckless Attack is one such podcast. They are a small indie podcast with excellent audio quality and editing. 

But, why should you listen to another high fantasy podcast? Well, have you ever wanted to see what a post-apocalyptic High Fantasy world would look like? The deeper you delve into Reckless Attack, the deeper the lore gets, and we have barely scratched the surface a hundred episodes in. You’ll join the players as they explore a world recovering from an apocalyptic event, ripe with magic and unstable artifacts, an undead army, and frogs.

Starting The Pod

Right out the gate, the listeners are greeted by a Lord of the Rings style opening monologue, giving relevant history and context to the kind of place the characters live in. I personally get the feeling a lot of the world was established in a previous game or between the DM and players prior to the start of this campaign. If, as a listener, it feels like you're missing something, don't worry; you'll get a lot more context down the road, especially once the players make it to the city of Agmar (Episode 15). The first 15 episodes are a nice slow build up. 

Conveniently, the first recap episode covers Episode 1-14! (Though I really enjoyed the first 14 episodes, I know not everyone has the amount of listening time I have). If you are so inclined to start from the first episode, you'll get nicely eased into the characters and their relationships with one another before a lot of the bigger world building really starts to soar.

(My one caveat is that I listen to this podcast at 1.3-1.4 speed since the players and Nathan speak with a good amount of pauses, and that can be a little too slow for me.)

About the Team

Nathan, the DM for the main campaign, paints some amazing pictures of his homebrew world. He has a real talent for creating larger than life NPCs and Big Baddies for his players to interact with. They all have clear motivations, flaws, and personalities that truly rounds out the overall story. When it comes to plot, Nathan kept me on my toes with plot twists that would literally snap me out of whatever multitasking I was doing. And I must recognize how often Nathan opens the floor for the players to build parts of the story and describe longer stretches of downtime. Those moments are like the equivalent of cinematic montages to represent the passing of time.

The players, Sophie, Steve, David, and Jonathan, deliver wonderful descriptions and leave plenty of space for each other to speak, balanced with just the right amount of crosstalk. Each character has a very unique voice which is helpful for listeners (especially because David and Jonathan are twins and have similar voices).

Sophie plays Valeska Carter, the Human * Cleric. "Valeska is a young woman in search of answers. Like, compulsively."* I quickly fell in love with Val, an exhausted nerd who can never have enough notes and organization. If you're the kind of person who is always rescuing animals, you will love her too. 

Steve plays Selv Asterlin, the Dragonborn Monk. "Selv’s years at his town’s icy mountain monastery has trained not just his body, but also his mind and emotions. The large dragonborn seeks to be a peacemaker in conflicts, exuding strength, calm and serenity while straying away from violence and lethal force when possible."* But don't be fooled, Selv is often one for the occasional good prank, and I always appreciate Steve's references even when the rest of the group don't understand them. (I got you Steve) 

David plays Kascorin "Kass" Brightmane, the Dwarven Warlock. "Tomorrow (Kass leaves) this city for the Golden Tree adventuring guild, and in leaving this city, (He leaves his) friends, (his) family, and (his) comfortable life behind."* Kass is very grounded, serious, and focused, until he runs into tasty dried meats. Kass has all the charm of a warlock and the grit of a soldier. 

Jonathan plays Checkers, the Gung Druid, with his trusty pals Mango and Junior. "Joining the Golden Tree adventuring guild on a dare, Checkers and his frog pal Mango are here to prove that it’s better to find your own path than to follow someone else’s. After all, where’s the fun in looking before you leap?"* Checkers is a lot like the characters I personally play. Someone who doesn't stand around for too much planning and prefers to "leap" into action. In my very humble opinion, every group needs an instigator. 

I have also come to really admire the level of trust and respect the group has for one another. They handle both wonderful whimsical beats as well as solemn moments with great care (Episode 108 was magnificent.)

*Quoted from the official Reckless Attack website. You can find this and more at their website www.recklessattack.com. (Be aware, reading the available character sheets may contain spoilers)

About the World

Ryxia is built on a world where long ago, the Gods walked among mortals, but one day they left. As if in consequence, magic in this world seems to ebb and flow, and monsters roam the wilds. Until, the "second of Ryxia’s twin suns disappeared from the sky, the Ultragiants appeared, and the Pentarchy’s great capital city of Narhasur was turned into a smoldering crater." *

You can think of the Ultra Giants as the Titans of this world, being elemental and colossal. These Ultra Giants terrorized mortals until one day, the mortals managed to kill one " wielding their city’s Object of Focus… The object was destroyed, as was much of the army. But strangely, within days, the Ultragiants no longer stalked Ryxia."*

As the mortals re-emerged, they started to rebuild despite the incredible amount of monsters who now roam the lands. 

*Quoted from the official Reckless Attack website. You can find this and more at their website www.recklessattack.com. (Be aware, reading the available character sheets may contain spoilers)

Extras

Aside from the main campaign Nathan has his own series called Reckless A-Talk. This series Nathan or others on the team interview incredible people from all over the TTRPG space. Nathan's style of interviewing is mostly allowing his guest to speak more than he does, followed by the wonderful lightning round questions. I highly recommend listening to these (as a little treat) if you are interested in learning other perspectives and other aspects of the industry. 

Bonus one shots are another part of Reckless Attack, allowing the players to take the reigns.  They serve as fun filler for when you just can't wait for the next episode to drop. 

And if that's still not enough content for you, you can always subscribe to their Patreon for even more content, including the very relaxed Reckless A-Snack.

TLDR

High Fantasy world rebuilding the world after mortals were nearly wiped out.

Listeners will get a good feel of the world within the first 14 episodes. (IMO, the pacing starts to pick up after Episode 14)

Here are "Tale Til Now," recap episodes for those who want to catch up faster. (Episodes 1-14, 14-42, 42-66, 67-84)

Non Player Characters are larger than life, with clear motives and personalities.

The Dungeon Master and Players share a lot of world building and you can feel the love and trust they have for each other.

Recommended listening at 1.3x-1.5x speed if you are one of those people (you know who you are).

Find more details about the world and characters at www.recklessattack.com.

Lots of extra content for those who just need more, including; interviews, one-shots run by the players, and patreon bonus content. https://www.patreon.com/recklessattack/home

Do you have ideas or suggestions? Please feel free to comment!

Special thanks to Artax of Who's Taking Watch for helping with editing!

No Context Spoilers:

[pokemonshelterstories]

Even after reading your FAQ and a bunch of asks you've answered, I'm still not sure if a shelter blog is the best place to ask this, so do feel free to delete this (or tell me privately that you won't post it, but only if you have the time and energy), but I can't think of anyone else, and if you do post it, you or some of your followers might have some interesting thoughts, so here goes:

How would you feel about using Pokeballs to catch Pokémon you're planning to eat?

For context, I and my siblings grew up in a small, mostly off-grid community, and while most details aren't relevant, we did hunt for food occasionally. We never used pokeballs, but instead bow and arrow, fishing rods, nets and traps.

These days I live closer to a big city, sharing a house with my brother, his husband, and their teenage son (my other nibling, their older child, has moved out a while ago, so they're not part of this story).

Last month, we visited the community my brother and I grew up in, and during our two week stay, I took my nephew on a hunting trip. He was decently enthusiastic to train his archery, but he asked why we don't just use pokeballs. Wouldn't it be easier? I didn't have an answer for him then, only that we'd been taught this way and that I'd never considered using pokeballs.

But I've been thinking about it. It would be easier, but wouldn't it also be more cruel? After all, by catching it in a pokeball, you're giving the pokemon false hope of a nice life with a trainer, only to then kill it. I feel like killing it quickly while it's still in the wild and doesn't know any better is more, like, honest maybe?

What do you or your followers think?

(If any angry vegans find this post, don't even waste your energy on a mean response or lecture, because most likely I have you blocked already, and if I don't, I'll correct that when I see you being rude to me)

oooh, this is an interesting ask to get...

i think this is really more of a matter of personal comfort with the idea of eating a pokemon that's been caught in a ball, but as long as it's done properly, i don't see anything wrong with it. after all, pokemon for the most part don't really have any concept of what's going to happen to them in the future.

as someone who hunts, you (i assume) understand our duty to give the pokemon we eat as painless of a death as possible. then, as trainers, we have a duty to maintain the 5 freedoms for our pokemon, which includes freedom from psychological stress. provided you meet those requirements, i think it's ok to catch a pokemon in a pokeball for the sake of eating it. it's more humane than certain types of traps that leave the pokemon struggling until the hunter comes to check them, and pokemon tend to relax in pokeballs, since they mimic the way pokemon curl up when healing. when the pokemon is released from its ball, you then just need to humanely slaughter it. there are some pokemon that i wouldn't do this with, since they don't immediately take well to being caught in a ball; buneary is a good example. but many common game pokemon do just fine.

i've actually used a different tool to help out with culling food pokemon- my styler! there are a lot of farms out near artazon, and rangers do sometimes get asked to help with keeping livestock mons calm in the moments leading up to slaughter. i've met rangers who aren't comfortable taking on those cases, and i've definitely gotten fussed at by my share of pokemon rights activists, but i think pokemon raised as food deserve as calm of an environment as possible. so, no, i dont think using pokeballs to trap game is cruel as long as you know what you're doing and don't stress the pokemon out. but if you're used to the way you already do things, don't feel like you have to change it up either.

[mossyivy]

I think I genuinely found the perfect song for Leon and his wife as like "their song".

(Yes ik it's the song from Twilight but it's fitting!!!)

Now, when I think about them getting married I don't think they did a big wedding. They got married on a whim because Leon had vacation time coming up. They got married by a justice of the peace at a courthouse in front of everyone they cared about and rented a party room at a nice restaurant they really love just to have a good meal and be with everyone who matters.

They didn't have a cake, no flower toss, no first dance. But you did get to dress up, everyone did. Just shared their happiness with everyone. You had a honeymoon for sure though. 2 blissful weeks in Italy together, the vacation they'd planned on taking together. Just to have a romantic get away.

You promised each other that you'd do something special for your first anniversary but you got pregnant and Violet was barely 3 months old on your wedding anniversary that the thought slipped both your minds.

But one afternoon Leon's heading home from a particularly grueling case. Everything that could have gone wrong almost did. And of course he's sitting in traffic when all he wants is to go home an see his wife and daughter. The only thing sounds are the engine and occasional honks from idiot drivers. So he turns on the radio to fill the silence. He catches the ending of some other song. The radio dj coming on and talking for a bit, he reaches for the dial when piano keys fill the car. He just goes back to waiting, sitting back in his seat as he does so.

And my God does he get emotional... He doesn't know if it's the stress he's under or if it's that he can't stop thinking about how relevant everything feels.

He knows his life is hard, It's been hard since that night in Raccoon City and everything that's happened to him. All the people he's seen suffer and the awful things he's seen. But once he met you he finally had something good. Something that gave him hope.

His life changed so much in the past 5 years of being together. You loved him. You married him. You gave him the family he's always wanted and his life is barely over a quarter of the way through. He gets to come home to you and the beautiful baby girl he loves so much.

How could he not finally be thankful for being alive?

Because he gets to live not to just be a weapon anymore. He's got something to look forward to.

Your anniversary rolls around. It's almost midnight and you're prepping your lunch for the next day at work. As Leon walks into the kitchen. Doing his usual schtick of wrapping his arms around you and burying his face in your neck. Giving you the usual kisses with a tight squeeze so you can't escape his love as you squeal for mercy. He eventually stops his torturing affection and looks at the stove clock as you zip you're lunchbox closed.

Soon you're lifted from the floor being carried by the waist out of the kitchen.

"Leon! I'm not done yet!"

"It's our anniversary now so I get to do what I please."

"That's not how this works!"

He sets you on the floor, standing as you playfully glare at him. He hustles over to the stereo, plugging his phone in and turning it up, not loud enough to wake the baby.

"What're you doing?" You question, hearing the piano fill the living room as he hustles around the couch.

"What we should of done last year. Our first dance. He wraps his arms around you, pulling you close.

"Leon, we've danced since we got married."

"Yes, but we never picked a song! So just, dance with me and listen. Please? Pleeeease?" He bounces on place till you sigh and wrap your arms around him.

You just stare into each other's eyes while you slow dance. Swaying gently to the music as you listen. Both of you getting emotional by the end of the song. Tears streaming down both your faces. Still smiling as you hug him tight.

"Being with you was one of the best choices I've ever made. I love you so much."

[fantasiawandering]

I've been struggling a bit lately and could use some advice from the hivemind. It deals with a lot of the emotional baggage I've been trying to carry lately, so I'm putting it under a cut if you're not in the headspace for that sort of thing right now.

So the relevant backstory: Dad was in love with Mum since high school, and when she died, he went to pieces. My sister, who'd been living at home, helping take care of Mum through the cancer, basically put her grief on hold to keep Dad going through the next six months. Then, on the way home from Mum's memorial six months after her death, he told my sister he was seeing someone. He met her at work when he returned from bereavement leave. Now, I do understand this is a man who never learned how to handle his own emotions. He'd always had my grandmother, then my mother, to manage them for him. But in the next year, he did pretty much everything he could to drive both of his children away for a woman who bailed on him the moment the going got tough. Without getting into too much detail, my sister checked into an institution a while back because she was having some pretty dark thoughts about her own life, and her triggers were feeling like a burden to the family. Mum assured her she wasn't, and that she'd always have a home as long as she needed it. But as soon as that woman moved in and Dad didn't need my sister anymore, he started emotionally abusing and berating my sister, telling her what a burden she was every day until she had no choice but to leave. This was in the middle of the lockdowns. My sister landed with one of the greatest people in the world, and they're living in poverty but relatively happy. Because of this, Dad has convinced himself that not only did he do nothing wrong, he was actually a great Dad, making sure his disabled child developed independence.

But after multiple infections thanks to the woman he was living with (who believed that COVID was "just the sniffles" and vaccines were poison, and as long as they drank colloidal silver they'd be fine), Dad now believes he's developing dementia. His doctor thinks it's actually "pseudodementia," which apparently is mental health related. But Dad watched his mother lost to Alzheimer's and nothing scares him more. And the second colloidal silver and celery juice didn't cure him, the woman he'd moved into the house bounced.

Now Dad's scared. And he's been pressuring us to move in with him to take care of him. My sister will never trust him or put herself in that position again, and I'm of the same mind. He used to do similar to me when I lived there. Meanwhile, I'm still sick with a mystery disease that has no cure yet. I've got GP who actually believes in Long COVID, and a series of specialists I can get to in under 20 minutes. They're basically hacking away at the hydra heads of my symptoms until modern medicine figures out where the heart is. I'm still very much disabled. If I get ANY infection, my immune system goes berserk and starts doing the equivalent of firing a bazooka into a crowd in hopes of hitting whatever is off. I'm just coming off of about 2 months of throwing up at least once a day from the havoc it's wreaked on my digestive system. I can barely take care of myself, let alone another person, and if I moved three hours away to a small town with no public transit, at a time when there's a provincial crisis and NOBODY can find a new GP, not only would I lose my health network, but I'd be essentially housebound in a way I'm not in the city. I also know that I physically cannot handle a three-hour commute either way on days when I have to go in to work, so moving in would involve giving up the career I've been working toward for twenty years.

For all of these reasons, I said no. His siblings are coming at me with varying degrees of "it's your filial duty." None of them really understand just how sick I actually am, but I also don't think that would change things. And I feel guilty. Despite knowing that moving into a place with no infection control could make me bedbound or worse, and that I can't afford to be without a GP or a medical team, I feel like I've failed somehow. I love my Dad. But I can't take care of him and keep myself healthy at the same time. I've been doing what I can from here since he first started feeling like he was losing it. Every other day, I call him and read him a chapter of Sherlock Holmes, and he's told the rest of the family how much he enjoys it. And sometimes it's exhausting to read for that long, but I do it because he needs me and it's something I CAN do. I've also offered to help with his banking and things, but he's turned me down whenever I offer.

Now, since I said no, Dad has said that he wants to sell his house and move into a care community, and that what's holding him back is knowing if he did, there'd be nothing left for me and my sister when he's gone. And I don't think that's an attempt at manipulation, I genuinely believe he's concerned, because he knows how much we both struggle currently. But honestly, neither one of us was counting on getting anything anyway, and as much as we're still deeply hurt by what he did (he also threw my mother's remains away and then informed us in an add-on to an email forward, which broke me in a way I've never been broken before, and when my sister called him out on it, HE got mad and said "it was none of your business, this was between a husband and his wife."), we still want him safe and not alone and scared. We've both told him as much, and that neither of us are the kind of people who'd be sitting around going "raaah, how dare he spend our inheritance! Who does he think he is taking care of himself?"

But it's not an easy thing to deal with, especially given that I'm the one he's leaning on hardest -- I think even he realized he didn't just burn the bridge with my sister, he nuked it from orbit. I've been crying on and off for the last three days. And I don't know how to get myself out of it. Anyway, if you've made it this far, thank you. And yeah, that's what I'm dealing with as I try to drag myself out of this funk. So here's where the advice part comes in. I've been reflecting on a lot of things, and one of the conclusions I've come to is I need something to DO. I fill my days when I'm not working with movies and playing video games with my sister, but I think I need a physical hobby. Something to do with my hands. Something that lets me create things.

I've had to put a lot of what I used to do on hold. My brain still hasn't healed enough to write reliably. I started knitting, but COVID did something to my eyes, and when I look at the knitting for more than a minute or two, the rest of the world goes blurry and I can't see clearly again for another thirty minutes. I have similar problems with the beadwork I used to do. Anything that involves leaving the house is iffy due to my health, so it's got to be something I can do from home. So. Any ideas? What brings you joy?

[thesuntookgoodcareofme]

watch my amv, boy!

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°••°•°•°•°••°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

-UTENA, A GAROTA COTIDIANA-

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°••°•°•°•°••°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

notes under the cut ♡

OHHHH MY GOD I WAS DYING TO DO THIS. I HOPE YALL LIKE IT.

So, this is my first-ish amv that i put a lot of work into. Missed some school assignments while at it, but this will be fine.

So!! What I am very excited about is that the music is by one of my favorite national artists, Chico Buarque. Im not sure if yall have heard of him, but he was a very very relevant brazillian artist especially during the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985) and his songs are often critizing this very moment in our history, highlighting the feelings of the people that went through a period full of oppression, censure, suffering and torture.

His songs are incredibly well-constructed, especially the lyrics, with very rich rhymes, wordplays, good sonority and meaning. He also sings a lot about the everyday of the people, simple people, paying tribute to the value and humanity of the often forgotten. In this song, for example, it talks about the everyday of a simple couple; A housewife and a working man, that live the same things every single day. It reflects on the exhaustion and anxiety that comes with living a life that never changes, and that you can't ever stop, even if you really wanted, because that's how you live. It shows the routine of the couple waking up early, eating (probably rice with) beans for lunch, yearning for a bigger life, going back home at sixpm, sleeping at midnight. It also counts with the heavy gender roles, of the woman that takes care of her husband, staying home waiting and cooking for him and waking him up, and the husband that works for money. All the tension that builds up from the repetition sounded greately Utena-esque for me. A life where the routine is forever the same, but you and your feelings change, and the days go by, and you know that eternity is not actually there, and you might be wasting yourself for a life you can't change. Or can you?

So, I hope I made tribute to these both I combined. Anime of course is Shoujo Kakumei Utena and the song is Cotidiano by Chico Buarque. Thank you for listening !!

( There's also a song by him called "Geni e o Zepelim" that would match Anthy perfectly. It's about a possibly transgender simple woman that is always by the side of marginalized people but, despite being a "pit of kindness" everyone on the city uses her as a scapegoat, saying that "she was made to be beaten, she's good to spit on". Then, one say, an enormous zeppelin comes flying to the town, with the powerful commander saying that he'll explode the entire city because of its evilness. But then, he changes his mind if a beautiful lady agrees to be with him. I'll write this here so i can remember later, and to he a song rec if u want!)

[tshortik]

Hiiiiiiiii 👀 👉👈 thats SUCH a cool redesign for Zariel, it got me so excited to DM a DiA campaign. Any tips for running it? I LOVE YOUR ART ITS SO AMAZING AND THE COLORS ARE SO PRETTY, THANK YOU FOR SHARING IT OKBYEE

Aww thank you so much! ❤❤❤ I LOVE Descent into Avernus, but my love is a complicated one. I do think it is a really good, albeit difficult module, to learn how to become a better DM, though... I will explain.

The lore in DiA is pretty flat and the campaign is pretty railroady by design. If you have a roleplay-heavy group, I think it is best to heavily alter the module and incorporate things in there, that are very relevant to your players. That is also its magic though, because you can make the conscious decision to just use DiA as a base and structure, that you then heavily alter. The premise of the main quest is cool and imo easy to follow, so taking that and shaping everything around it can be pretty neat. I don't think I would have learned as much as a DM, if I had just used a "perfect" module that already did everything for me. If that is not what one looks for though, that's also understandable.

Tips:

In DiA, the characters start in Baldur's Gate, which is imo the absolute worst decision I've ever seen. Elturel's fate is integral to the story, so I recommend having your PCs at least see what happens to Elturel. I recommend the oneshot The Fall of Elturel for that, where the PCs become witness to Elturel's fate from afar. It will also cover the low-level sessions in a neat way. Having at least one player character with a connection to that city also really helps. Otherwise, your PCs will just go "Oh wow how terrible. Anyway, I'm not from there anyway, don't know anyone from there, never been there, whatever lmao."

Some people cut out the Baldur's Gate part, but my group enjoyed that area a lot, so you can use it for roleplay-heavy sessions and fleshing out the lore. It is also a great sandbox to figure out how you as the DM will implement your characters goals and backstory into the plot, before venturing forth. Having a player character from Baldur's Gate or with a connection from there is also perfect. SPOILERS: Same thing with Candlekeep as well. It is a wicked cool location that is not explored in the module at all, but it might end up a very interesting mini arc for your PCs if you approach it on your own terms.

To flesh out the lore and make everything feel more lived in and logical (note: there are some very silly bits in the module, that would make a thoughtful player immediately go "that makes NO sense lol"), I recommend checking out the Alexandrian Remix. It can go on huge tangents that are unnecessary for your own means though, so don't feel like you have to stick to it 100%. It does have some really neat ideas and fixes for the lore though, and I have ended up using it more than the actual book lmao.

Avernus as a Sandbox is also great. In general, if you find a way to give your players choice in where they go in the Nine Hells, they will probably have a good time. I think they should def feel pressure and know of a goal, but also make sure that they have power over what road they take there, you know?

I mentioned Candlekeep – Elminster's Candlekeep Companion is also an amazing resource if you wanna flesh out that location. I have also heard of some people adding adventures from Candlekeep Mysteries in there, but I didn't do it myself cuz my players felt time pressure.

Contrast the evil, awful and depressing with moments that are nice and calm, even if it's just roleplay opportunities. Otherwise everything will feel like a drag. On the other hand, don't be afraid to then overwhelm your players by throwing a bit too much at them afterwards. High tensions and emotions are perfect for the setting imo, but you need to design it with ups and lows as to not overwhelm.

I have completely rewritten some of the Forgotten Realms lore, changed characters' genders and names and races in the book (Ravengard is a woman in my story, Reya is a dragonborn, etc.) especially about the deities. Don't be afraid to make the story your own. I also incorporated the player backstories heavily into the plot, which makes them sometimes go on completely homebrewed sidequests. Embrace that and don't be afraid of it!

Sometimes players also see connections where there are none, or they speculate about super wild stuff – and this might be controversial – but sometimes it is really neat to take some of those ideas (not all! otherwise there is no surprise) and make them actually relevant, even if they weren't before. If your players are engaged, that is always the best possible situation. Making some of their thoughts true can be on one hand extremely satisfying for them, and on the other hand they will make your own made-up-world much more interesting, because they collaborated unknowingly in making it so much richer and complex.

It really helps the flow of the campaign to have at least one PC that is: Morally dubious, or interested in deities, religion or lore. If not, you as the DM can attempt to make them more interested until they actually get to Avernus, through new goals or revelations. The themes of the Nine Hells have a lot to do with corruption and betrayal and emotions, so having characters with themes that go into that direction will make it easier to keep your players engaged.

This is my own opinion, but maybe play a couple devil npcs with this motto: There are certain good deeds only a devil can commit. Devils are the enemies, but they also have to become your allies. Your characters will be literally walking through a plane that is inhabited primarily by devils, and they will have to speak to some of them or parlay, if they don't want to be ripped to shreds immediately. Devils are smart and cunning, and many would prefer to talk it out, instead of risking their lives in the Nine Hells. This can also be an opportunity to explore corruption or redemption arcs, or to explore fiendish pacts. Both can flesh out the story tremendously. 👀

The setting gives you the opportunity to explore some esoteric and theological concepts. IF that is your jam (it is certainly mine), think about how you make that digestible to your players. They could find lore in a library, find strange ruins, meet a powerful deity, get visions by other deities, be manipulated by archdevils, etc. You don't have to leave it all as subtext, because devils and angels and otherwise literally become a central point of the campaign. Also don't be afraid to get weird about angels and devils. They are from a different plane – making them a little alien, letting them have absolutely wild opinions about the universe, not needing to fit them into our ideas of science – that is rly interesting stuff to explore as a PC and also DM. Resources (optional)

Flee Mortals by MCDM, Tome of Beasts (2023), Tome of Beasts 2, Creature Codex have really awesome monsters

Encounters in Avernus

The Encyclopedia of Demons & Demonology by Rosemary Ellen Guiley is a book that I own privately for some creative projects, but I got some neat inspiration from it for my campaign too!

A lot of the lore in Dnd is very questionable, but especially in the older versions you can find some wild and creative shit (and also lots of problematic rubbish you can just filter out lmao) that is mentioned once and then never again. Little nuggets like that usually inspire me the most and a simple sentence can spawn an entire lore or mission idea for me. Some books that you might find interesting (try to find a pdf version online cuz they aren't printed anymore) are Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells (3.5), Guide to Hell (2e), Manual of the Planes (3.5).

[indigosabyss]

Meanwhile, with Tommy & Kamran (Part 2)

[Part 1]

Someone was knocking on the door with great urgency. If it was an evangelist, Rebecca was going to lose it, because whoever it was sounded to be on the brink of breaking the door down.

"I'm coming!" she assured when she got to the front door, which finally made the barrage stop. She undid the chain, turned the knob, and-

"William? You have a key, why we're you knocking-" she said on autopilot, before she properly registered that her son's previously black hair was now a bright silver. "What did you do to your hair?!"

He squinted at her, and in the first time in three years, Rebecca had no idea what was going on behind his eyes.

Something was wrong.

"Who's William?" he said.

Something was very wrong.

"Who's William?" had been the first thing her son had said when he woke up after the accident. She'd thought he'd been doing better, that they had gotten past it, but it didn't look to be the case.

It was happening again.

The boy was still talking, "My name's Tommy Shepherd. Something wanted me here. There's been this feeling pulling me to this exact spot for years now, and I was hoping you guys would know why?"

Her initial wave of panic slightly, enough for her to notice that his voice was different from her son's. Raspier. He was also wearing a tracksuit William would never, and he had pinprick scabs on his temples.

This wasn't her son. This was some random boy who looked and sounded almost exactly like her son. Okay.

"I'm sorry, dear," she said carefully, trying to calm her racing heart. "I don't know anyone by that name. Or anything about strange tugs."

Desperation seemed to grab him. "Then why was I led here? Do you know anyone who I could be related to? Anywhere I belong?? You recognized me! Called me William! Who's William?"

"I mistook you for my son for a moment," she said, caught between feeling sympathy for the boy and putting distance between the two of them as he became more erratic.

Tommy stepped forward, and then was blocked from grabbing the doorframe by turquoise crystals suddenly wrapping around his hand, freezing it in midair.

Rebecca stared, flabbergasted, as Tommy struggled against it. There was another boy, standing a few paces behind that she had skimmed over, focused on this boy who looked so like her son.

He was nearer now, palms wrapped in a thin layer of the same crystals as he told Tommy, "Give it up. She said she doesn't know, your life purpose was a red herring, and now we gotta go before Damage Control tracks us down again."

"I had a life!" Tommy insisted, "I had a life before the explosion, I know it, and some part of it is here, please!" Inspiration struck in his eyes and he tried a different tack, "What about the Maximoffs? Know anything about them?"

Rebecca didn't see the relevance, but there was a Maximoff the entire world knew. "You mean like Wanda Maximoff?"

"Wanda..." he repeated, testing the name out with a nod of his head, "Yeah, that's sounds familiar. Did she- did she live around here?" he twisted his head to look down the street.

"She's an Avenger," his crystal-weaving friend told him.

"A what?"

Rebecca could feel her incredulity rise. Who hadn't heard of the Avengers? The other boy also looked shocked, so Tommy waved his hands towards the sky, "I have been in that fucking facility since the accident three years ago! You think I know anything?"

"Well, if we manage to get to Jersey City, I'm sure Kamala would love to fill in the gaps," the friend grabbed Tommy by the shoulder, and nodded to Rebecca, "Thank you for your patience, ma'am, we're really sorry about the intrusion-" his words cut off as he turned to look at two large SUVs coming down from either end of the street, federal insignias stamped onto the side. "Oh, hell no."

"What is it?" Rebecca said, immediately on guard. There was just something in the abject fear and weariness he said that which alerted her parental instincts.

The SUV closer to them stopped three houses down, and agents came out to head to the nearest front doors. At the angle they parked at, she could properly see what Department this was.

Damage Control? There hadn't been an incident here in, well, ever.

Tommy whimpered and stepped closer to the wall. The other one copied the motion.

"DODC, they've been holding me since I woke up," Tommy explained to her, trying to keep his voice low. He was speaking so fast it felt hard to distinguish what he was saying. "They- they kept us in this facility upstate, and run these experiments on us, and they say it's because we broke the law, but I don't even remember what laws-" he broke off into a panicked, choked-off sob.

"I'll fend them off," the other one said, frowning determinedly. "You run. This wasn't a total waste of time, since you know someone you might be related to now. G- go to Jersey City. The Circle Q, like we talked about. And I'll come after."

Rebecca was skeptical of that, just as she was skeptical of this boy being able to outrun the many more vehicles all over Eastview on foot.

She also saw the way both of them were barefoot. The tattered and soiled state of the tracksuits they were wearing. How thin and Tommy seemed especially, along with the slight ring-shaped burn marks on both of their wrists... It didn't paint a good picture.

So she made the executive decision to override their plans, even as she recognized she was little more than a stranger to them.

"No one's running and no one's fighting. Both of you, get inside. I'll lie to the agents if they ask about you."

They both looked at her calculatingly. She held the door open and gestured for them to go in.

Tommy gave her a blinding grin and then passed by her in a blur of silver. She blinked, disoriented. Maybe the kid really could outrun the cops.

The other one walked past her at a more normal pace, smiling at her. "Thank you so, so much. I'm Kamran."

"And the agents are done with the Wyatts next door, so get inside before they see you," she directed briskly, before smiling tightly. "It'll be alright, okay?"

[kharmii]

Kharmii Take: Meta-Human Liberation Army

Since 80% of active content creators into the Meta Liberation Army have blocked me by now, I'm free to throw out my takes that are contrary to popular fanon. Why not? It not like any of the others own these characters just because they've been into them longer.

This will get explicit so don't read if you are under 18.

First thing, the MLA people are terrible human beings. No, they aren't the 'good villains'. No, they aren't human rights activists who really care about each and every member of their secret army. If you believe they are then congratulations. You fell for the propaganda put out by the unhealthy xNFx mtbis among them.

That's not to say they aren't nuanced. Fans are allowed to like them and see good in them....it's just they are mostly irredeemable bastards. Not only are they terrible people, but they hit the ground running the moment they are introduced. There's ReDestro with Giran tied up in a chair with all the fingers cut off his smoking hand. Meanwhile, Skeptic uses his puppets to torture Twice both physically and emotionally. Curious uses Landmine to blow up random objects in the street, some of which happen to be living breathing people. Geten rolls a glacier over random citizens along with the Twice army. Even Trumpet who isn't seen torturing anybody with his own two hands still coldly watches people die around him and uses emotional manipulation against Spinner.

Bad Take 1: ReDestro saw the burdens of his bloodline as a prison. He was relieved when Shigaraki defeated him and took over.

WUT. That was the worst day of his life! -The worst day for all of them! They probably had to drug themselves to sleep at night after that.

There they were trying to put on a fun PR skit for the shits and giggles, but then it goes horribly wrong. Not only does ReDestro lose his legs, but thousands of people die when Shigaraki disintegrates several city blocks. Suddenly, they all go from being respectable members of society to criminals overnight. They probably all had such good gigs with Detnerat-Feel Good Inc-Hearts and Minds-Shoowaysha Publishing that they never planned for the MLA to come out of the shadows, or at least if it did, it would be baby steps. Between Trumpet and Curious, they would have tried to gain ground using media and legislation to make them relevant. After the LoV debacle, they were forced to come out of the shadows and fight a war. Not ideal.

Bad Take 2: ReDestro was a bootlicker who was absolutely star struck over Shigaraki being their new leader.

Not really. I see ReDestro as being a toxic ENFJ/P mtbi personality type. That means he's good at making anybody think he's their friend. He comes across warm and likeable, but in actuality, he's a phony and convincing liar. It's obvious all the MLA people are uncomfortable around Shig, and even ReD is bad at hiding it at one point. It's possible they know about All For One's influence and the hidden mechanism working behind the League of Villains. If anything about Shig intimidates them, it would def be that. Otherwise, they might all feel sorry for him if they knew what he went through, but in no way would they take him seriously as a leader.

That would make the other LoV members heading a regiment a clown show. The original MLA people are all professionals with plenty of life experience, except for Geten. Even Geten is a well-trained soldier from the time he was a child, and therefore he'd be more valuable than a rag tag bunch of good-for-nothings.

Quirk Awakenings:

AFAIK, only Geten and ReD had profound quirk awakenings due to extreme trauma and stress during training. I head canon that the others never went through enough hardship to obtain their own awakenings. Here's a question for the readers....what do you think they'd be? Would Curious be able to explode stuff through pure telekinesis? Would Skep be able to make his puppets speak? Would Trumpet be able to let out a primal scream and get anyone in earshot pumped? -Or something better? Those takes are rather boring and spur-of-the-moment. Help me out.

Character Analyses:

ReDestro: Like I said, he's a toxic ENFJ/P. With those types, it's often unclear if they actually believe their own bullshit, or if they are just really really good at making you think they believe their bullshit. Either way, their enthusiasm rubs off on people, and that allows them to emotionally manipulate people better. Sure, ReD cried after he murdered the mouse assistant, but his warped radical ideology let him think that was the correct and necessary step to make, as difficult as it was.

Said on another post that if it was true he welcomed Shig as a leader so he could shirk his own duties, then he'd have a change of heart later. Maybe one night he'd have a dream where his great great (x however many) great grandfather Chikara Yotsubashi aka "Destro" would appear before him and tell him, "You must retake your position as Grand Commander of the MLA. You must fix this huge fuck up the League of Villains turned it into. It has to be your capable hands that makes it right.."

ReD would agree wholeheartedly. He'd enthusiastically promise his ancestor that, yes, he'd fix it. -But then he'd wake up and be like, "Awww....DAMMIT!" because he'd be drugged up and restrained in prison to prevent 'stress' from activating.

Even though I head canon Trumpet as being a straight guy on his third marriage with eight kids, I still imagine lots of sexual tension between ReD and Trumpet. They are each other's emotional support, and I imagine them doing all the same cute stuff together that I've posted the Subway Bosses doing. IE: Falling asleep together on the train, or like one will drape a jacket over the other if he falls asleep at his desk.

They've messed around a bunch but have never had full on penetrative sex. The hangup is all Trumpet due to a past trauma. One time, ReD was training with Geten at like 2% stress. He made a gesture just as Trumpet walked by accidentally striking him and breaking a few ribs. Now ReD can tell Trumpet will always be afraid to be touched by him for fear it will lead to him being skewered by his stress dick at whatever percent by accident.

Geten: I'm not going to write about him much because I already wrote several posts and a whole-ass novella analyzing his personality. Let's just say he's like a son to ReD. He gets along really well with Skeptic but is colder to Trumpet and Curious. ReD totally purchased him as a child like an expensive pure-bred puppy. I'm 100% behind that fanon theory because it's too weird.

Skeptic: I admit it. I think Skeptic is a creepy incel. He's such an incel he failed No Nut November on the first day at exactly midnight. That's his yearly tradition. Srsly though, why haven't more people done fan fiction exploring the creepier side of Skep? He started out strong in the anime and then..... *thumbs down* *fart noises*

You'd think more people would have done fan fics about "Skeptic's creepy rape puppets" or something equally as entertaining. I thought my take was decent in my AO3 fic 'Trumpet's Trauma' where Skep and Shig worked together to torment Trumpet into attempting suicide. One would think that would be the standard MOD writing Skep. I made sure to make Skep's involvement in my writing vague so that he wouldn't be on the wrong side of ReD. As far as the evidence stands, there was no proof of Skeps involvement. It appeared to be all Shig's doing.

Since Skep has the surveillance shtick, I can imagine ReD asking for the link to Trumpet's shower cam. He's the pretty one they both like to creep on.

Curious: Manipulative bitch with a fun mischievous side. Trumpet tried to zero in on her straight away, but she let him down hard. She knows what he's about and sees right through him. Skeptic also simps for her, but she keeps him at arm's length. They actually get along well and are 'work spouses'.

I imagine at least once, Trumpet will be lecturing them about something, and Curious would bust out with, "This is why nobody likes you!"

Trumpet's face would fall because he's the type who wants and needs everybody to like him. Skep would smirk. Geten would be confused. After all, ReD likes him. ReD seems to like him a lot. After all, he often buries his face in Trumpets neck to take a long sniff Joe Biden style. Later, Geten would ask ReD about it, and the GC would reply that sometimes people have bad days and get to be assholes with each other.

After Curious's death, Skep made an online shrine to her that he updates about once a month after the initial photo dump. ReD looks in on it every so often, but not too often. It always makes him cry, and he's trying to stay upbeat. After Shig's death, Skep made an online shrine to him called, "The Good Things Shig Did" where he posts pictures of Shig holding puppies or hanging out with his friends. In case you're wondering how Skep managed it, I head canon he escaped in Season 7 by making a puppet of himself carrying out his equipment and then becoming detained. That could possibly be where he'd achieve a quirk awakening allowing his puppets to talk.

Trumpet: The boring sensible guy that always looks worried in fan art....and well he should. He'd been promised nothing but good times joining a fascist cult. Sheesh though...artists shouldn't draw him looking like a hand-wringing housewife or beleagued soccer dad. He's supposed to be a greaseball politician. Someone did a post recently I didn't respond to, but they head canoned the following:

I already made a beautiful wife and young children for Trumpet. The wife's name is Shigemi Hanabata (花畑 茂美), also known as Preach (せっきょう/Sekkyō). She is a member like him and has a useful quirk called Propaganda (宣伝/Senden), an emitter type that causes people to believe everything the user says as long as they either trust or find them attractive. Their children have mixed variations of Incite and Propaganda, one of them being called Excite.

That would be the arranged marriage his family made with his first wife. He's a sensible guy, and he would have realized that combination of quirks would create an advantageous quirk marriage resulting in powerful offspring. Unfortunately, Trumpet has a wandering eye, and that would destroy his first and second marriage.

His third wife would end up being Uwabami, the tall hot blonde model with snakes in her hair. It's unclear how the combination of 'incite' and 'snakes in hair' would be an advantageous quirk marriage, but Trumpet's diiiiick, erm, gut instincts told him to keep an open mind.

It doesn't behoove a politician to be such a sleezebag, but it's not like Trumpet's political party is one of the mainstream parties. He's also an unhealthy solid ENFJ mbti. Like any modern politician irl, he uses emotional blackmail to guilt the most gullible of suckers into supporting the cause of liberation. He'll do shit like convince all the heteromorphs he's their advocate, but then when he's in private with those closest to him, he'll admit he doesn't give a sweaty donkey's balls about heteromorph rights; he's just using them to gain money and power. That's the mindset he'd have watching Shig use decay on a bunch of them after he just used 'incite'.

Trumpet would be an insufferable two-face, like he'd belittle Spinner when they're on opposing sides, but then he'd pull the advocate shite the moment the PLA is formed.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

wibta if I told my best friend they can no longer move in with my family next year?

Me (17f) and my friend (17) have been friends for about 5 years. Around 6 months ago we were discussing university and they mentioned they wanted to study at the university that is in my city. We discussed them potentially moving into my house while they study here. They would still be paying rent, it would just be a bit cheaper for them and we would get to live together. I discussed this with my parents and after a while they said yes. 

The problem is recently I haven't actually been feeling very supported or understood by my friend. This feeling kinda started when I expressed doubt about being able to succeed in the career I have been working towards because my mental health is shit and idk if I can deal with the pressure involved, and they said that they were glad I reached this conclusion myself because they didn't think I could do it either. Which kinda hurt yk like they were correct and I have switched plans as of now, but I feel they couldve been nicer. Other than that I feel like neither of have done anything wrong I just think this is an aging thing, we're no longer 13 and have changed in similar ways, but I've begun to realise the way we see the world is vastly different. Also we recently keep getting into petty arguments, which is kinda my fault bc im autistic and have very strong opinions and never know when to shut up, but they're also like that we're both just very stubborn and opinionated people. Basically I feel the friendship isn't as strong as it once was and I don't like the idea of having to live with them during uni (also dont really like the idea of living with anyone tbh I fucking hate socialising and want to live alone). 

I feel like it's important to mention that although them living with me is cheaper, their family is financially very stable so they could comfortably afford to live in the uni halls or some apartment. Telling them they can't live with me wouldn't be financially that bad, its more so that I said they could and I feel that going back on my word might be quite cruel? 

Also recentlyish we've been making plans of living together and buying a house etc and yeah basically a lot of commitments have been made at a young age and I feel quite trapped. Also feels relevant to add that this feeling is definitely not mutual and they have no idea I feel this way, I'm 99% sure they are still very eager to go through with all this. I'm generally quite a communicative person, it's just these are all pretty new feelings and I'm not sure exactly what I feel.

Also sorry another thing that's probably relevant, they're aroace and our relationship idk what it is but I think it kinda goes deeper than the average friendship its kinda like a qpr but not lol.

So yeah wibta if I told them they couldn't live in my house for uni and should find somewhere else?

What are these acronyms?

[grace-williams-xo]

I have but three things to say to the anti Penelope crowd. (Neither of which directly defend many of her worst offences as Whistledown).

ONE: Some people have pointed this out but I think it’s really important we remember that she is 17 s1, 18 s2 and 19 s3. She is high school age. Girl did not have a fully developed brain by any stretch. Is that an excuse and free license to be a dick? No, of course not, but I think y’all should remember some of the stupid and regrettable things you did in high school. Now again, think of the way society operated at the time and then imagine, just for a moment, what if teenage you had an anonymous and unfiltered Twitter/Insta account that was keenly followed by everyone in your town/city/community—most people you’ll interact with in your life. You would do DUMB SHIT. It’s not just ‘she’s young’ it’s ’she’s young with an unrestricted megaphone to everyone she’s ever met’.

TWO: The Whistledown moment that sticks with me, as perfectly capturing who Whistledown is and what she does, is not anything read by Julie Andrews but what Eloise talks about in the very first episode. She talks about how LW is discussing a countess who, despite looking like her season last year was good, lives in depressing solitude miles away from the earl she married. This stays with me for a few reasons. First, it shows that—right from the start—she has access and information and connections that we do not and will not understand. How does a 17 year old know the living situation of a married woman in the countryside? Maybe she overhead servants gossiping, we really have no idea. Second, it shows her equality in reporting. Like any news outlet, she reports what people want to read, but this passage sets up a precedent and example that she doesn’t just report on people from her block in Mayfair. I always watch shows and movies with the knowledge that what I’m seeing is never the characters entire day or life. Similarly, we never hear an entire LW issue—only what is plot relevant to the Bridgerton’s and that episode. I think this was shown well again in the opening of s3 when she comments on several of the other debutants.

THREE: On Marina. It is not Penelope’s fault that Marina attempted an abortion and nearly died. We are not responsible for other people’s reactions. At no point did she wish or encourage harm on Marina, she just wanted to stop a loveless marriage. I hear you saying it’s not her responsibility to stop it, but teenage girls have big emotions that they deal with badly—and many have an overwhelming and misguided sense of justice. Marina was in a fucking awful situation but Penelope did not cause it, and it was at several points exacerbated by Portia the actual adult. I’ve just started a rewatch of s1 and my anger at Portia (and Varley bc wtf there are some really unnecessary comments) about the way she treats Marina from the day she arrives is raging. Portia was bullying Marina at every opportunity because she was jealous Marina was more desirable than her own daughters.

I am very aware that intent does not diminish impact, you can hurt people accidentally, but I do firmly believe that Penelope a literal child and did not act out of malice.

All that being said, I don’t think the relaxed and forgiving reaction at the end of s3 from the queen and the ton was in character or proportionate at all but also we didn’t really get to see much of their reactions so will be interesting to see how s4 plays out.

TLDR; Penelope was a literal child in s1, and nothing can ever convince me that she didn’t write about lots of other people in the ton beside the Bridgerton’s. That’s just not relevant to a show called Bridgerton. Most of Marina’s problems are on Portia, not Penelope.

[madeofvoid]

NORFOLK WIZARD GAME SPOILERS + non relevant rambling about The Gothic Horror RPG set in My Hometown.

I'm in love with this campaign. This is honestly more entertaining than HTP especially when the monkey(little agent/fierce?) is "on screen." I think it's just. Built this way. Like all of WoD is made so you have to play absurdism completely straightfaced and while HTP is a MASTERWORK of storytelling that I recommend to everyone I meet within 5 minutes of talking, it's just. So much funnier to know that all of the myriad Horrors that Big D and His Sons have gone/are going through, are happening at like, the same fucking time that an /x/ poster, an art student, and a fucking monkey are doing a Cyberchase.

And this is made explicitly funnier for me because like, during the time that this is set in the universe of the setting, I would've been some kid living just across the river from this shit going down. In short, the Gothic Horror RPG is indeed Set In My Hometown and I think that's really, really, neat.

In length? I can imagine exactly where the mousepad or the knickerknackery would've been. Norfolk--explicitly downtown/waterside district just screams "there's some magic shit goin on here" for myriad reasons, ESPECIALLY in the early-mid 00s.

Waterside had a sort of almost-liminality to it that came from the Y2K era crashing over itself like the waves against the docks where the giant ass paddleboat ferries would stop. Where glowing orange jellyfish the size of shopping bags haunted just beneath the surface of the water that my mother warned would poison me if I so much as dipped a toe in. I never saw any fish in the Elizabeth River like in the James or York. I always chalked it up to pollution. Nothing but those ghostly jellies can live here, I thought. Then I'd walk past a statue of a faceless, half-chololate half-weathered-copper mermaid mid stroke and just wonder at the dichotomy that it struck between the waters so murky I couldn't tell if it were a few inches or a few miles deep, and the haunting, blank visage of a creature that should represent, if nothing else, that the waters are pure and full of life. Or, at least, that they were during some point in the dubiously vague, vignette toned past that perhaps my grandmother or my great grandmother(rest her soul) knew of. I always thought that maybe they saw the mermaids in the water, but I felt it too childish to ask. (Either that or the acrid smell of old people in my great grandmother's house burned all thoughts but leaving from my brain every time I would've brought it up.)

Idunno, I'm fucking rambling about Y2K-era Norfolk now and all of it is to say that yeah, that is the PERFECT place for a World of Darkness game to be set in. I doubt there's anywhere else in america beyond the Seven Cities that would be a better fit for the setting and all it contains. Maybe Metairie or Tampa, but those lack the leviathan of NATO HQ lurking in the shadows.

Idk if SpeakerD/OgrePoppenang/Alfabusa live here, but they've picked a great setting.

[imperatorcaesaraugustus]

we come now to that most special time of the week, the time or ThoughtD: Thoughts on HotD. today we look at season 2 episode 7

my favorite way to have a conversation is on a beach shouting at each other from 50 feet away

"my father is no one of consequence" how long do you plan on keeping that fact a secret, Addam?

"under the sheets and in the woodpiles" i see we're taking this idea away from Jace (or away from mushroom, depending on what source you believe) and giving it to Mysaria

also, woodpiles? i get sheets, but why woodpiles, specifically?

Addam putting in his 2 weeks with Corlys because he got hired at a new job as Dragonrider

Corlys just saying "well done" instead of "i'm proud of you" or "i care about you, son" or "i can't believe you're a dragonrider now that's incredible"

Muppet Tully's dialogue inside with Daemon sounds off to me, like they re-dubbed it over or something

i really like this Tully lad. masterful politician

some people have expressed boredom with Daemon's continuing situation at Harrenhal. those people are wrong, this is great

this whole dynamic between Larys and Aegon is nowhere in the book, but it makes so much sense as an addition and i love it

Alyn saying "I am of salt and sea" couldn't possibly be foreshadowing for something, could it? wait... is it? how far chronologically is this show going to continue? will there be time to pay that off?

"I'm going to bed" "um, when are we going back to the castle?" "oh, maybe never" nightmare camping trip for this poor kingsguard

oops Rhaenyra, it seems you've uncovered Jace's bastard trauma!

"if lowborn have dragons, it takes away my best claim for the throne" yeah, huh, it's almost like the power of kings is based solely on the arbitrary withholding of power from vast swaths of the population. a point that would have been made even more strongly if you hadn't cut Nettles from the show

Mysaria's agent looking very... inconspicuous... in that bright red cloak

"oh, you know, i'd definitely love to claim a dragon, it's just, oof, my leg's been acting up" love this man

"nah, do it though" love this man's mates

Hugh is Saera's son? that's so cool!

okay, for those unfamiliar, Saera Targaryen was one of King Jahaerys' daughters, aunt to King Viserys. she was involved in a scandal where she was sleeping with like three different minor lords, so Jahaerys sent her off to become a septa. she escaped and ran off to Essos, where she became a sex worker in one of the free cities (i think Lys? or maybe it was Volantis?). super interesting character, love that she's being referenced here

i... i have no idea what to make of what Alicent is doing

the dragonkeepers are going on strike

Vermithor looming out of the darkness is so cool. i love his design, too. it's very asymmetrical

at first i thought Rhaenyra was straight-up leaving. turns out she was moving up to the balcony, but still

holy fuck that went badly. like, obviously most of these people weren't going to succeed, but damn

Ulf just running off into the caves where the dragons live as if there's not going to be more dragons in there

i'm not as big a fan of Silverwing's design, but it is distinctive which i appreciate. this will be relevant in the next scene where i immediately recognized her very triangular head

Ulf gets a dragon and immediately goes to the worst place he possibly could have gone, King's Landing

all in all, another episode i really liked. can't wait to see what comes next week

[intertexts]

OK HI. HELLO ROS <3 standing in ur doorway like this 🧍 listen i will read worm eventually i just have so much HAPPENING. ALL THE TIME RIGHT NOW. AND DONT HAVE THE TIME. and also jrwi has me in a chokehold u know how it b. ANYWAY. i need u 2 tell me as much about new haven wards as u can without like major insane spoilers for worm. little spoilers r ok. i watch/read everything with a few lil spoilers 2 look forward to anyway <3 i know nothing abt the universe of worm (<<has barely made a sizeable dent in it but god i will i prommy) but i wanna know what exactly nhw is about. how does the universe work. how do the powers work. what is the situation with the nhw how and why are they working together where did they all come from!! gimme the nhw lore!!! as much as u can!!!!! looking at u with the biggest saddest wettest eyes rn pls pls pls infodump abt nhw 2 me!!!!!!!! ros pls 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

HIII HI HI WHISKEY <333 UR INSANE FOR ASKING THIS. BTW. literally insane. grabbing u so hard by the shoulders there is a crazed look in my eye. anyway. FIRST i am tagging @stuck-in-the-ghost-zone here also!!!!!! bc it is his au as much as mine & i am NOT qualified 2 talk abt nhw mark n such. augh.

ok. ok. ok. new haven wards. putting the cut here.

so the basic movement of worm is that powers are from trauma. ridiculously simplified, but that's the base of it-- if you have superpowers, you have them because you went through traumatic events so severe to you specifically that it broke ur brain a little bit. the powers manifest in some way as a reaction to the traumatic scenario. (it is also more complicated than this. playing the spoiler card.) OR secret second option u put urself into indefinite debt to an extremely shadowy and ominous.... organization? person? shadow government branch? conspiracy? and get superpowers in a can, with like, a 10% chance they'll backfire and mutate u into some fucking terrible inhuman shit and then they'll completely memory wipe you and brand you and dump you off somewhere. not really relevant here. because the main way of getting superpowers is to be violently traumatized, cape society in worm tends to be grittier, more violent. there's more villains, the heroes are less shiny marvel or dc and more making whatever moral compromises they need to get the best outcome possible. at one point one of the main heroes in the city worm takes place in tells the sixteen-year-old protagonist "i don't care, there's a kill order out on them, just put a bullet in her brain if you see her, it's fine" and then a while later goes "yeah i'd vote for a kill order out on you guys too," directly to her face. worm is always going "hey, wouldn't it fucking suck if superheroes were real?". there are many horrifying and inhuman and violent threats. sexual and racial and physical violence aren't swept under the rug. these seventeen year olds are sent to crime scenes where flayed and gutted corpses are suspended from the ceilings because they're heroes! ^_^ but this aint about worm this is about the new haven wards!!!!! [wards are the child soldiers junior hero branch of the main syndicated/unionized hero organization, w/ placement in every major city alongside regional protectorate headquarters]

>key things for this au:

--william wisp changed his last name to bell when he moved to new haven (where his brother david lives :) and joined the wards, for another layer of anonymity ^_^ (he is. severely paranoid about his identity & privacy. <- also a Big and Heavy thing in worm/parahumans world. it's a Big Fucking Deal to unmask a cape regardless of their alignment)

-dakota never got the mechanical heart & biomedical augumentation so didn't meet mato cole at that time! he's still dakota damascus :]

-virion... idk why he's still virion & not vyncent actually. probably just because that was the name his parents gave him? we can't change it now though nhw virion & canon vyncent r two different guys to me...

-ashe is the unluckiest fucking guy in the world!!!

their powers are a little different from canon both bc of the ways powers work just being different frm how they do in pd & also because of the "they're always a reflection of the worst moment of ur life that you're just dragging around with you reminding you of it" thing. <333

wibby / whisperer is a breaker/shaker (<- power classifications meaning he has another form he shifts into, and also an area of effect] in his breaker form (crackling white-blue energy) he 1) can control how corporeal he is, or *how* corporeal he is, from "walks into the brick wall" to "doesnt notice there's a brick wall and goes straight through it", to "goes incorporeal to stick his hand in a guy's chest then resolidifies to instakill him" w/ some tradeoffs. & 2) shape/control energy manifestations in a fairly wide radius around him, where the power of the shaped energy is in proportion to the amount of recent death in the area-- if there's a ton of casualties in the area, he can do a lot more than he could in a peaceful small town in the middle of nowhere. the situation with his trigger event was him. growing up socially isolated and half convinced he was going crazy and everyone else Also thought he was fucking insane (deadwood is still haunted!! more haunted :]) for years & years + the loneliness + frustration + unsureness if he's actually the one just. losing it or if it's all really real + the constant feeling of being in danger, that the town is bad and malicious and out to Get you. anyway. he fell, take that as ambiguously as u do for that in canon, didn't die, but was severely injured & couldn't move. just laid there for maybe a day or so in the woods that wanted to kill him. anyway he triggered when he was found! the catalyst was not "the place that's been out to get me my entire life finally succeeded" but the helpless incandescent frustration of "actually nothing i ever do is going to make you understand. i've been trying for so fucking long to make you See It but you won't!!! you never will and you just think i'm crazy or stupid or making it up for attention even though it has such obvious fucking consequences and is manifestly Real!!" he was recruited to the wards by miss g herself, who was like hahahhahaa this kid could be a Really Fucking Big Problem if he doesn't have an eye on him!! ^_^ he never wanted to be a hero, and still doesn't, really, but he's terrified of accidentally hurting people & deadwood is like a weight around his neck and maybe things will be better if he just gets out of here. for a while they're not, of course. he just feels like. y'know. he's another sick thing that crawled out of deadwood, and his powers make that obvious. the way they interact with recently dead shit makes him sick!! living with david is awful-- a big, lovely, lonely high rise apartment, an older brother who barely bothers to speak to him, calls to their mom through the walls going "why is he here? why would you send him here? can he like, go anywhere else?"

virion sol / imprint is a trump (meaning his powers interact With other capes powers.) he can copy powers by touching other parahumans-- the copied power is just as strong as the original, whatever the original is, but he doesn't have an innate sense of how to use it; he can easily be overwhelmed or overstimulated by powers that involve a ton of sensory input, or accidentally loose cannon something he wasn't expecting and can't easily control. regardless, this is a fucking insane power to have. it's so cracked. like within the parahumans-- world, this is something so rare, especially being able to copy the full strength of the power. the very few examples in canon of something similar, the copied power is always inferior. his situation was similar to canon-- the greats were a team of independent heroes, & were like, extended family to virion. he grew up unpowered, but in the cape world-- so many aunts and uncles teaching him security, standard protocols, how to fight capes, how to run cape business and independent team business, how to handle guns and tasers and safely run background checks. y'know. a family's worth of professional knowledge. he never really wanted to be a cape, anyway, he was more than happy to do all the unpowered stuff at home that needed to be done. occasionally he came with them on patrol n stuff or snuck out to watch them. the greats' long term goal was prying out the lich, an extremely heavyweight warlord who had control over most of the city. virion's father struck a deal with the lich-- virion knows as little what the deal was For as he does in canon, but he double crossed the entire team. virion snuck along to the confrontation with the lich (setup) & watched his father turn & murder all of them. still not sure if he did it all himself or just watched as the lich's minions did it, but the way they knew all their weaknesses, how efficient and brutal and unexpected it was-- it was his dad feeding the information. virion stays frozen in shock and horror & hidden during all of this. can't do anything to help. is fucking useless, despite all he knows and has done. for the first time in his life, he wished he had powers, that ram and min and everyone could have taught him how to have and use their powers like they taught him everything else. he triggered watching it all happen. after this, he went on the run, terrified that someone would Know that he saw, that they'd be coming for the loose ends, that his dad would come back for him. all he has of his family is a couple piecemeal things he could grab before he ran-- ram's favorite revolvers, a holy medal of alphonz's, some of his mom's sturdy jewelry. anyway, he ran, moved to a different city, new haven. started figuring out his powers, started targeting specifically other capes who were up to bad shit-- minor to mid league villains, the occasional local hero who would Look squeaky clean, but after their sudden death dirty secrets would come out, etc. all very low-key, very subtle. none of the disappearances or deaths looked related. during this period he is SO fucked up. he is so fucked in the head. he's incredibly hypervigilant and paranoid and jumpy (good at looking unbothered and still clocking every single sound and movement and always facing doors and windows), mired in the grief and guilt and horror at. watching his entire family slaughtered and life shattered in a night. sleeps for no more than two hours or so at a time. even on top of the lich and his dad... what he's been doing puts an even bigger target on his back. doesn't have time or heart for anything but the dirty work. is dissociating through the periods of time where he's not actively hunting someone down or on the job. silhouette is the one who puts the pieces together-- of course he's on the protectorate (hero organization) radar. sure he's only been targeting bad guys, but how clean each one was? how well covered they all are? how whoever this is has allegedly killed at least almost two hands' worth of capes in cold blood by now? sets off alarms, if you're looking!!

anyway, silhouette tracks him down, says hey, i know who you are, i know what happened. you're just a kid. you join us, and you'll gain the resources and skill to be able to get revenge. aren't you tired of running? now... virion took to this fast and well when he did, but. before it all, he was just a teenager. despite the family business, he was just some guy! he helped his mom cook and got help with schoolwork at the kitchen table and his cool aunts took him out for lunch. he never wanted this or expected it. and of course he doesn't trust the heroes farther than he can spit, but... it's something. it's better than this. anything has to be better than the way he's driving himself into the ground. & also, of course. if silhouette can find him. anyone else who's looking for him can too. (i don't think he's even registered on the radar of anyone. his dad didn't actually survive the lich, obviously, & he was the only other one who really knew abt virion + nobody knew he triggered. he's just. so fucking paranoid.)

dakota damascus / failsafe is a thinker/mover. he 1) has a precognitive sense of any pain that anyone in a radius around him will feel in the next short amount of time. this is-- varyingly difficult to block. he can't just Choose not to feel it, although the intensity of the feeling, again, varies. mostly proportionally to how severe the pain actually is, or how many people are hurt, but, with time, he can dull or sharpen it + follow the threads of it to discern Who exactly is in pain, rather than just an ambient sensation. 2) is VERY fast & has matching enhanced cognitive speed. these two abilities work SO good together, both in combat situations & also just day to day patrolling. man. i love dakota. anyway, he triggered young-- he was out with his parents (maybe 7/8) and they got caught in an attack by siberian-- a genuinely indestructible, incredibly powerful villain who can just,,, run her hand through a concrete foundation like it's butter & collapse buildings, or scoop out peoples insides in a heartbeat. and also likes to eat people, like, raw and bloody after dismembering them. whatever level of ultraviolent shocking horror u are imagining. double it. anyway. they got caught in the scene of this attack, dakota got separated from his parents in the panic and stampede and rush to get out-- he's seven! it's terrifying levels of panic and claustrophobia and people shoving and trampling and he's not gonna leave without his parents!! of course not!! he triggers from the fear and the disorientation and the panic & he can't find them & he's trying to fight the crowd but he barely comes up past their knees & there's awful sounds of fighting & he's close enough to see her... things are doubly disorienting with the echo of the agony from everyone who gets Fucking Siberianed. he sees most of the fight. um. a while after she's driven away and it's finally finished he finds what's left of his parents. there's a beat in worm, during an encounter with siberian and the Big Heroes, the prime force equivalent, where they just.. give her a victim to chew on because it makes her happier and less of a nightmare to fight. which is something i think about frequently. anyway, after this things are kind of loose, similar to canon. he does the same shit. it's also quieter and you can feel less people hurting the higher up u are. yk? OH GOD. YEAH. at some point after this we still have not hammered it out. he confronts the slaughterhouse 9 (the supervillain group that attacked/siberian is part of) about it & gets his face slit open (half chelsea smile style) & makes a deal to either kill a guy in [n years] or that guy will kill him & several hundred other people!!!!!!!!!!!! dakota damascus killing a man baked into the bones of nhw!!!

anyway he & cat still fell. he underwent a second trigger event when this happened, actually-- the panic and desperation of that situation + the way it echoed his first trigger, etc. this is also super fucking rare, btw. there are very few second triggers & it is almost Never good. (u cannot trigger more than twice + a second trigger is always a refining or an improving of the intent of the original trigger) so that's where the speed etc. came from. tide found him, gave him. a better support system (low bar!!) + a real purpose in joining the wards. i have a lot of feelings abt this.

ashe / auxiliary / muse is also a shaker/breaker!!!!! his backstory i cannot talk too much about because it is Big Spoilers. but he is a fucking powerful telekinetic (around when he joins the wards, having not really used his power in years, he has an upper weight limit of a couple times his body weight & a fairly large radius of effect). he also has a breaker form that only triggers in certain situations & if he really really pushes himself to breaking w/ his powers-- when he enters it, he loses lucidity, for the most part, & starts warping and stretching and breaking space-time in strange, dreamlike ways-- the pavement melts, or everything gets bouncy, or cars and concrete chunks and things with no business moving float slowly around like balloons, or he pulls and crumples reality to move without really moving.... it gets Real fucking bad, real fast. ANYWAY. he eventually sneaks out one night, walks to a gas station to get. snacks. it-- okay, i'm fucking linking mac's post, i CANNOT summarize all of this concisely. go read that. so. that's ashe's deal!!!!!!!!!

THERE'S ALSO. MARK. ASK MAC ABOUT MARK i have typed this entire thing out on myfucking phone keyboard i literally Cannot keep going. help. and also their mark stuff is so fucking good its so. auuuhhgh. AND ALSO DAVID BELL. WHO WORKS FOR THE ORGANIZATION THAT SELLS U SUPERPOWERS IN A CAN W A CHANCE OF GETTING TURNED INTO AN UNRECOGNIZABLE MONSTER AND DOES HUMAN ABDUCTION AND EXPERIMENTATION. AND JADE AND X AND ALLEN ARE THE FREEDOM CITY WARDS AND GRAYSCALE SHAKES OUT EVEN FUCKING WORSE THAN IT DID IN CANON. YEAH.

SO. YEAHG. THATS. THATS THE MOST OF IT. um. yeah. theyre a dreadful little polycule they are. So fucking clingy they r traumabonded. like little trembling chihuahua puppies. separation anxiety and all. virion and dakota share a comfy old victorian house in a suburban neighborhood maybe a fifteen minute walk from the protectorate hq. wibby starts out living w/ david and eventually just... all his stuff moves over to their place. their clothes r all mixed up they know each others blood types they're all sleeping together on the couch. eventually their house gets blown up. they all get various flavors of nightmare & are 1 million shades of debilitatingly mentally ill but like-- it works. they r good for each other. theyre good together. do not separate them. etc. i'm not even gonna fucking START talking abt their dynamics other than that but like. i mean. if you want a repeat of THIS u can always ask!!!!!!!