#i know this was posted earlier today by the devs but.

[markedprey]

             Johnny Slaughter has a massive scar on his left shoulder which is the result of attacking a Texan woman in Pflugerville during the summer of 1972. After breaking into her house and strangling the woman to death, Johnny was caught off guard by her two roommates who were sleeping nearby. They stabbed Johnny in the shoulder before he could flee the scene. There’s a radio broadcast in the game that mentions that on-going investigation. There’s also a Plfugerville sticker on the “Memento” chainsaw skin. Johnny is a Virgo.

[felassan]

This post contains a transcript/text version of the dev commentary in the IGN 22 Minutes of Gameplay Video. the transcript was written and put together by Bluesky user Kiranox, they kindly sent it to me with permission to post it (thank you!!).

the post is under a cut due to length and containing what some peeps may consider spoilers.

KB: Kat Bailey, IGN CB: Corinne Busche, BioWare JE: John Epler, BioWare

The transcript also contains a note of dialogue from the game. these are included in this post as images.

---

KB: What's up everybody I'm Kat Bailey and this is our extended look at Dragon Age The Veilguard's gameplay I'm here with BioWare lead developers Corinne Busche and John Epler. Corinne, what are we looking at today? CB: Hey y'all so today we're going to be helping out one of our companions, Davin. This is part of his personal arc to rescue the griffons, long thought extinct. We're going to take a quick journey through The Lighthouse, your base of operations. We're going to head into the crossroads and make our way to the dark swamps of Hossberg wetlands JE: So you're in the lighthouse as Corinne mentioned, this is your base of operations that you inherited willingly or unwillingly from Solas. It is located in the fade, it's where Solas was able to start planning his rebellion against the Elven Gods millennia ago. Right now you and your team have occupied it, started to build it, started to shape itself around your personality. As Corinne mentioned we are going to go talk to Davrin which is who is located up above Each of these spaces kind of shapes itself around your companions as they live - as they basically spend their arcs in those rooms CB: And we see here the glowing light above indicates Davrin's ready for us. Let's check in with him

JE: So earlier in Davrin's arc you were introduced to his nemesis the Gloom Howler, a creature that's been hunting and stalking wardens for quite some time. It has kidnapped a bunch of other griffons and Davrin has been trying to track it down, now he's got a lead so we're going to go find this and go track this thing down CB: Now Davin he prefers the direct approach we're going to choose a tough response and see if we can get his approval

KB: Have to say that I find the griffon adorable JE: And very importantly, I know this is a question on everyone's mind -- yes you can pet Assan KB: Well thank goodness for that. And all right what are we going to be doing next?

CB: Alright we're going to finish getting this information from Davrin on the Gloom Howler and we'll be off to Hossberg and the Crossroads

KB: So, I assume that Assan can be helpful during the gameplay? CB: Oh, absolutely, in fact a lot of Davrin's abilities revolve around calling Assan in the heat of battle. I in particularly love when you're going against enemies and you see Assan swoop down -- especially if it triggers a combo between your companions JE: As Corinne mentioned earlier one of the interesting fun things we've done is if you see the lights on in a room, companions have something to say. You can see Harding up in that space there, Neve behind you as well and Bellara, but we have a mission ahead of us. We're going to go find the Gloom Howler if we can and we're going to go through the crossroads in order to do that. And -- the crossroads if you've played previous Dragon Age games - Trespasser in particular - is a location in the fade that contains a number of eluvians, allowing you to travel across Thedas in a matter of minutes. But at this point the crossroads are under assault by the other Elven Gods, it's a dangerous place and we are going to be in for a bit of a fight CB: And this eluvian, the vi'revas, is the central focus point of the lighthouse. This is going to take us to Solas's pocket area of the crossroads and it might look a little bit different from what you've seen in Trespasser KB: Can you tell us a little bit about the role that the crossroads plays in the structure and the gameplay? JE: Yes, so the crossroads is -again- it's the area that you spend a lot of time traveling through as you go from area to area. It's also a space that has at one point served as Solas's main base of operations and training ground for his rebellion against the Elven Gods. So as you go through it you're going to find fragments of the past, things that Solas had done previously that are going to give you a bit of insight into Solas as a character, but also into the Elven gods and their motivations

CB: Some of my favorite content that you'll find if you go exploring in The Crossroads is these opportunities to actually relive some of the memories Solas had during his rebellion. You actually get to take part in this ancient rebellion JE: And here we have the Caretaker, a mysterious spirit that was actually here before Solas was and started to help Solas with his rebellion, but also to turn this into a safe haven for spirits

JE: Again, as I mentioned before, the gods are assaulting the crossroads so it's no longer the safe haven it once was, but you're going to work with this caretaker through quite a large amount of ancillary content to rebuild this into that safe home for these creatures, that if anyone knows Solas, he has a tremendous amount of affection, for spirits CB: Alright, now we're going to get into combat here and this time we're playing as a mage. Now, mage is one of my favorite classes to play, it's primarily a ranged attacker and when we're surrounded by swarming darkspawn I really have to use a variety of strategies to control the battlefield. I'm going to use my heavy charged attacks to knock down these ghouls, get them out of the way and of course darkspawn are vulnerable to fire, so we made sure to equip our fire staff and have our fire abilities on hand JE: You may notice something about the darkspawn is that they look a little bit different than they have previously and part of that is because Ghilan'nain, who has always been focused on using the blight as essentially a "crafting material", a way to alter life itself, has been enhancing and changing these darkspawn as part of her army KB: Corinne, I noticed that you were doing a combo opportunity. Can you tell us a little bit more about how the role that plays in the actual combat? CB: Yes, so the combat system in this game, the deep strategy behind it, is really to manage the various abilities your companions and Rook have in concert. So in this case Harding has a combo opportunity with "shred". It's going to apply the sundered effect and deal a high amount of "stagger". Now you'll notice I can combo that with Rook's ability "Spirit Bomb" that's going to cause a detonation combo

JE: So again, one of the things you'll notice about the terrain here is it's very snowy, very mountainous. The crossroads is a realm that reflects the waking world, in this case it's an amalgamation of all the real world spaces that are tied to it. In this case we've got Hossberg, we've got other mountainous regions, so it's kind of this mix of the swamp and as you'll see, as we move towards these eluvians, the architecture around them very clearly reflects what's on the side we're not going to spoiler and tell you exactly what's on the other side, but you can maybe make a few guesses based on what you're seeing KB: Do I have to do the crossroads, or can I just fast travel right through? CB: So it depends how you progress through the game, the first time you go to any of the new regions in the world, you'll traverse the crossroads to get there. Subsequent times we of course support fast travel, but it behooves you to actually go back and explore the crossroads, as some of the deepest secrets lie within JE: So now you're in Hossberg Wetland, it's an area that has been almost completely consumed by the blight. The grey wardens have set up an outpost here, again, if you know anything about the grey wardens, they fight the blight anywhere they see it and they're noticing something strange is going on here. The blight is not behaving as they expect it to and as it historically has so they've set up shop in this place called Lavendel and you are here to work with them, help them out and help them find an answer to the questions about the blight that they're asking

KB: Tell me a little bit more about this area, it looks a little bit like a hub where you can get a lot of quests and things like that? CB: That's right so here we find one of the bases of the Grey Wardens so you'll see they've really built up a small fighting force here to hold off the darkspawn. What's more, the Grey wardens are a faction we're going to be working with throughout the game. We've got Holden, one of the Grey Warden quartermasters, we're actually going to upgrade his shop and see what items he has in store for us, see if maybe it gives us an edge in combat JE: And the Grey Wardens are much like the other factions, they understand the stakes of the Gods being out they want to help you, but you need to help them first. They have -again as Corinne mentioned- they're holding off the darkspawn here, they have other priorities, so getting them more powerful allows them to more meaningfully contribute to your fight against the Elven Gods

KB: So where are we going next? CB: All right, so we're heading out of the Grey Warden Fortress into the small town of Lavendel. Now this used to be a beautiful place full of life, flowers and you can see what effect the blight has had

CB: But the residents are still here, they're trying to make the most of their lives and you can see there's plenty of opportunities to help them, in fact we're going to quickly check in with Flynn The Physician and see what he has in store for us JE: So Flynn -again one of the focuses of this game is characters not causes

JE: And Flynn is a warden who you will do quests with. We wanted to make sure that the side content of dragon age the veil guard felt as meaningful and tied to the overall conflict of the game as anything else you do. We don't want to you to just go off and do random tasks. Everything needs to feel meaningful either contributing to your fight against the gods or contributing to the growth of your companions and the factions that you need at your side to stop the gods

CB: All right so we picked up a couple of quests in Lavendel, but we're here to help Davrin, so we're going to make our way through the perils of Hossberg and try to get to this Warden fortress of The Cauldron KB: Seeing a lot of - kind of organic matter, I suppose that's the blight? JE: Absolutely. So the blight at this point -as mentioned before the wardens understand it's changed, it's become a lot more organic, a lot more alive. You know, back in Dragon Age 2, Inquisition, Origins, the blight -while it was a slow moving wall. It didn't have this almost thought behind it and obviously we've talked about how the gods that are out are blighted, that probably has something to do with it and it's made this area far more dangerous than it would have been before CB: And you might notice as we get into combat with some of these darkspawn that they do look a little bit different than before and that's very intentional. Ghilan'nain the god of monsters. She uses blight like a medium to sculpt and warp the darkspawn to do her bidding, to suit her purposes JE: So right now you'll see a couple of Hurlock, uh one with some pretty disgusting growths on its back -again the idea that the darkspawn and the blight is an organic weapon, they're not just coming out and you know making swords, making armor. They're using the blight to augment themselves so they can more effectively defeat you and also give the gods the world that they desire CB: All right now I'm actually going to switch to my orb and dagger on the mage and those of you that were a fans of the Knight Enchanter in Dragon Age Inquisition, you might feel right at home with this. This is a more melee focused, more agile version of the mage. One of the main mechanics here is you can use this elemental orb to apply stacks of elemental damage to the enemy and then unleash them with your dagger to detonate them JE: So -again you'll notice that there are blight pools, the darkspawn aren't just coming out of nowhere, the blight is spawning them. Again, part of Ghilan'nain's attempt to turn this into an army for the gods is to use these darkspawn not just -again whereas you have the Venatori and the Antaam, one case representing magical power in the other case representing physical strength the darkspawn are representing overwhelming force KB: That was a pretty clutch heal a little earlier by the way CB: You know we've talked at length before that our fans have asked us "where is the healing magic? Can you bring it back?" and Neve in this game is happy to oblige with a kit of healing spells JE: So one of the interesting things that I love about our companions is each of them, their abilities, the way that they're built, they're very thematically appropriate to the character. They're very focused on making sure that the gameplay and the narrative are as close aligned as possible in the case of Neve versus Bellara versus Emmrich, our mages, each of them has a healing ability that is thematically appropriate to them, makes sense when you know them as a character

KB: Watching you play I'm struck by sort of the size and the scope of this particular area. It seems like there's a lot of explorating that I can be doing right here CB: That was really one of our goals with these areas, of course we are a mission-based game but we really emphasize player autonomy. You can revisit these spaces, they're full of secrets, puzzles, some pretty incredible bosses and treasure. And of course as we saw earlier in Lavendel, some really narratively rich side quests JE: One thing that's interesting is you'll find we're going on a quest for Davrin, but Davrin is not currently in our party. That's because Davrin has gone ahead of us and is waiting for us at The Cauldron. This is - again we want the followers, the companions to feel like they have autonomy and while they won't complete the quest on their, they will go ahead and get things ready so when you get there you can talk to them, you can have a conversation with them and it feels like they're as invested in the success of their journey their stories as you are KB: This looks like a pretty contiguous zone, is that right? CB: It is yes. So it's full of branching paths, different areas to explore and what I love is the more content you do in the area, the more shortcuts you're going to discover, you're really going to have a lot more flexibility in how you navigate between your remaining missions and quests JE: What I think is something really interesting too about the way that our team has built these spaces is there's this idea of each space has its own story to tell and while those quests - you know we talked earlier about those quests and side quests being narratively relevant they also contribute to a more of a meta narrative, meta story about the space itself. So in the case of Hossberg, we talked about how this is an area surrounded by blight and you're kind of getting to the center of what exactly is going on in Hossberg and Lavendel and these quests that you do and the content Corinne is currently engaged in helps to tell that story CB: All right we can see our companions are up here attacking this darkspawn on their own, let's give them a quick hand - all right, now I love positional gameplay making use of the environment to your advantage KB: And I just saw that you could do a takedown move, so it's kind of a finishing move?

CB: You can, now in this particular build I'm really focused on using necromantic energies to siphon life force, but if I for instance wanted to go the Stagger route I could go a full takedown build if I like. It's a really powerful heavy hitting style of gameplay

JE: All right so you'll notice Davrin is waiting for us, so let's go see what he has to say … Assan flies in

JE: So something tore through the gate that's probably not great, looks like we should probably get moving

JE: So because we don't have Davrin in our party he's going to move ahead and wait for us while we bring Neve and Harding along to clear a path for ourselves to find Davrin and get to where he is KB: Can you talk a little bit about how Nev and Harding uh sort of synergized during thecombat? JE: Yeah so Neve and Harding. Neve is a mage, Harding is a rogue and each of the classes -and you can build a party entirely of one class if you want- but the idea is that the classes synergize and they can set up and detonate each other's abilities in a very interesting way. Now because you have a lot of freedom in how you build your character you can - again as said - you can have all Rogue party, all Mage party, all Warrior party, it still works. But in this case Neve and Harding are very effective at setting up and detonating in this case, as Corinne's going to show CB: So we're in danger here and this is really what I love about the tactical layer of combat: if you get in that clutch situation where you've got this devastating incoming attack, great time to pause game play weigh your options and in this case I'm going to go back to our combo here and see if I can just quickly get out of the way … All right, you can see I've applied siphoning to these enemies so I'm actually going to be leeching their health when I use my mage beam Now you'll notice there's blight boils throughout the area and that's part of our philosophy on the combat encounters. If I don't destroy these blight boils, ghouls are going to continue to emerge. So I'm really focused on "what targets do I take down first?" this enemy is a little bit weaker, I think I'm going to have my companions focus on them while I deal with this grenadier that's giving me some problem JE: Yeah I will say Corinne is much better at this game than I am CB: As you say that! [Corinne nearly dies] JE: Well most of the time, yes, 100%. But each enemy - again really leaning into the organic - what I love about the grenadiers is they basically rip off pieces of themselves and throw them at you which explode as blight and again really leading to the idea that the blight is organic and disgusting KB: One thing that I'm noticing is that the combat encounters can get pretty intense, you'll end up fighting a lot of different enemies, you can absolutely die if you're not careful CB: Yes and this - as we mentioned earlier - this is well into the game so combat counters have really ramped up and it really shows the importance of positioning using your companions wisely and looking for those synergies and combos. [Corinne dies] Now this is interesting. We just went down. We've built our companions to be able to come to our aid, so we're actually going to use a revive here and Neve to the rescue! JE: and as Corinne mentioned, this is later in the game and Hossberg itself is what I would consider a later game area and the encounter is a little bit more challenging. It's a more dangerous space, this shows up in the encounter but it also shows up in the visuals the storytelling here. This is a place that you don't want to be, you don't want to be in Hossberg, it is full of darkspawn full of blight and generally not a pleasant place to be KB: Well we'll be able to explore more of The Cauldron when Dragon Age the Veilguard comes out on October 31st. In the meantime we are going to be continuing on with our IGN first coverage of Dragon Age for the rest of September and for everything that's great about games and RPGs keep it locked on IGN

(end transcript)

[source]

note: this transcript was written and put together by Bluesky user Kiranox, they kindly sent it to me with permission to post it (thank you!).

[mooncello]

It's Wednesday night, and the migraine I've been under since yesterday evening is finally lifting. Fingers crossed it stays away. So many updates today! I look forward to catching up on them all. Thank you for the tags @rimeswithpurple, @monbons, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @hushed-chorus

@messofthejess, @bookish-bogwitch, @artsyunderstudy & @thewholelemon.

I'll be posting chapter 4 of more than a footnote sometime over the next couple days. I'm the most excited to share this chapter, and the most nervous. We get to learn more about Dev's backstory in this chap, and ngl it's a bit nervewracking to fill out and present a char to you all that isn't detailed in canon. I don't know why but it feels extra vulnerable. Even so, I'm excited. Because I adore him. When I thought about which snippet to share in advance of chap 4, I knew I wanted to share this bit about Dev. So here he is. 🖤

Dev POV

My father makes Malcolm Grimm look like a deadass softie. My mother cares for nothing except her tennis whites, Christie’s acquisitions, and organising extravagant parties. (Sorry, soirées.) And my brother and sister … I have a few sun-flared memories of strawberry jam on toast, ringlets of inky hair tickling my cheek during naptime, bare toes while searching for tadpoles along the country estate’s creek … and then my siblings got older and left me behind and, well, honestly, fuck them, too. With their perfect jobs and perfect partners and perfect teeth. Didn’t take them long before they were parroting our parents on everything. Too little focus, Dev. Too many boyfriends and girlfriends, Dev. Those shorts are too short, Dev. You never take anything seriously, Dev. I learned very early on that the best way to survive my family is to not care. They can’t hurt you, if you don’t have any shame. 

love + tags under the cut --

I want to echo Ashton's post from earlier today, about normalizing telling people how much we like them. So in that spirit: I fucking ADORE you all. I'm so lucky to know you, here in our little, precious corner of the internet. 🩵🩵

@drowninginships @valeffelees @run-for-chamo-miles @blackberrysummerblog @orange-peony

@youarenevertooold, @shrekgogurt, @hushed-chorus, @whatevertheweather, @fatalfangirl

@cutestkilla, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @artsyunderstudy, @emeryhall, @raenestee

@iamamythologicalcreature, @bookish-bogwitch @thewholelemon, @best--dress, @rimeswithpurple

@ileadacharmedlife, @skeedelvee, @monbons, @j-nipper-95

@ic3-que3n, @theearlgreymage, @theimpossibledemon, @brilla-brilla-estrellita, @palimpsessed

@facewithoutheart, @cosmicalart, @supercutedinosaurs, @larkral

[vashtijoy]

hiya! i figured you might be interested in some p5 dev build / cut content findings i've been exploring.

for context, i've always found akechi's original rank 3 (the infamous 8/28 leblanc visit) fascinating, because it's written so... awkwardly. a while back, i managed to dig up unused voice lines (both in japanese and in english) indicating a totally different earlier draft where he didn't do any of the traumadumping -- and voice line numbering further indicating that those lines were added in later.

then today as i was messing around with the p5 2015 dev build, i managed to grab a recording of an early version of the scene that confirms those findings. the original version... with zero tragic backstory!

i figure it wouldn't be wise or polite to send a link out of nowhere in an ask, but if you're interested in seeing the video of the dev build version of the scene (and/or the post i made about the unused voice lines a few months back), let me know and i'll share 👍

I'm always surprised by how much people dislike 8/28. It's one of my favourite scenes.

THAT SAID I would very much like to see this. 👀

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA JUNE DEV LOG : “FASHIONABLY LATE”

Hi! I already wrote this entire dev log but I closed the tab by accident, so it's now 10:55pm and I'm going to try and speedrun writing something that took me an hour to write.

For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, you should already know what the gist is here I've been saying this for 6 months.

if you don't know what this is or are confused on what HYPERSOMNIA is read the other dev logs i've said this like every time lol

So, just as a heads up this log isn't going to be super long with new content because I have been insanely busy these last few months! I just graduated High School and the last few months have been me cramming to make sure I pass and could graduate and now I am!!! Yay!!!

I won 2 awards at my grad (One of them being excellence in arts :D) and the other I was given a check for 200$ so I snagged one of these!

Super happy I finally got a display tablet for drawing, I've wanted one of these since I was like 14 and it feels awesome to have one now. I got this thing super cheap too, this thing usually goes for like 300-350 Canadian and I got it for 130! Super super happy about this.

That's all from me personally, but I would like to say just as 1 last thing before the updates, Happy Pride Month to all who identify as LGBTQ+, I myself am queer and just want to remind all of you that you are loved and accepted. Hopefully I can get this out before midnight so it's still pride month LOL

OK! NOW FOR UPDATES! I don't have too much to share today but I do have somethings I want to show off.

First things first, I've been respriting some characters! Ross and Jack are the biggest edits I've made so far so I'd like to show them off.

(Left is old, and right is new!)

Ross' walking sprites were updated! I was kind of dissatisfied with how Ross looks like he's struttin' everywhere so I redid it to give him a more casual walk. I'm very happy with this change and I plan for it to be the base walking animation going forward. I also updated his side profiles slightly to look closer to the key art I illustrated.

Jack also had his idles redone! He I think was the biggest thing I needed to resprite, his old sprite is kind of cluttered and poorly detailed so for his new one I simplified a lot of the shading and reshaped his hair and mask. I think it came out really well.

Also, just earlier I was working on music for the game.

I'm really happy with how this came out, I just got high and made Half-Life music (Which is what I was aiming for LOL)

Hopefully I can get to a point where I can finish off the soundtrack for the demo and post it all. Some friends of mine were a bit sad I delisted the tracks I had up initially so I hope to get those up again soon.

I've also been storyboarding out some early game cutscenes, I can't show a lot because it's all a bit spoiler-y but I will put this in the log.

And one last thing too, THE MOTHER DIRECT!

on July 27 at 6PM ET, MOTHER FOREVER will be hosting the MOTHER Direct, which HYPERSOMNIA is a part of!

There'll be a ton of indie games, fan projects, and other things relating to or inspired by the MOTHER series! Please give it a watch if you can. If you can't make it, the event will remain on MOTHER FOREVER's YouTube channel, and I'll be uploading HYPERSOMNIA's trailer on YouTube, Twitter, Steam, and here. If you do catch the stream or end up watching it after, leave a comment! Tell 'em Ferris sent ya. Do it, or I'll cry. I'm expecting at least 1 "Ferris sent me!" or I'll cry. I swear, I will do it!

If this is your first log you're reading, or even your first time seeing ANYTHING relating to HYPERSOMNIA, I got a whole bunch of links for you to check out if you wanna know more about me and my stupid little game.

TWITTER

YOUTUBE

STEAM

UNIQUE INDIE RPG'S [SHOW US YOUR GAME!]

[PREV] [ABOUT HYPERSOMNIA] [NEXT]

[urei1031]

Also in regards to the Ai post I reblogged earlier regarding wotc. I know people have said it’s for their game dev operation but also seeing these art peices in spoilers today (mostly the tokens) really solidified how fucked we are.

The Fox token is the worst by far imo showing the tufting that generative ai does with fur and having weird fucked up paws when kamigawa Kitsune usually have hands. Also its snout seems kinda fucked up

The moon folk token kinda just has some hank anatomy with the shoulders and the lines on the whole pic just feel wrong.

Not sure about Genius himself but the hands are weird and I see tufting on Nashi and the fox again along with them being different than their respective tokens by a long shot.

This guy did 4 slots in the set and looking through his other pieces from before this most look fine, but different stylistically from these three. I’m gonna try to see if he posts process pics but the fact I can’t trust the art I’m seeing on cards makes me genuinely want to stop engaging with the game which has been a big part of my life for the past like decade.

[gadgetcheat]

[rejuv spoilers, ramble 2]

continuation crazy ramble that was too long and important to put in my first post. mostly about clear

about the part of the dev commentary that is going to be driving me insane for at least the next two weeks. clips for those who weren't there: (1) (2)

basically: someone asked "did you have any particular inspirations for clear and kieran and their personalities?", jan notes how the similarities between kieran and godot from ace attorney are (somehow) pure coincidence, clear is described as basically just a generic cold AI, "literally just a computer", but then its slipped in at the end "i will say there will be some changes occurring in her mind soon.."

LIKE um HELLO?

the reason this is driving me especially crazy is because not to brag or anything but I may have Called Itttttt? I've actually been contemplating this very thought since May...!!!! heehee!!

ignore my display name or don't if it makes me look more credible

this screenshot still conveys my thoughts pretty well I PRAYED FOR THE DEVS TO DIAL UP HER CRAZY METER AND ITS LOOKING PROMISING...!! EEEEEE!!! YAY!!!!! IM SO EXCITED...!!!!!

clear is just SO INTERESTING to meee. not to compare blorbos and i know i have mutuals who haven't played/finished reborn so im not going to go into detail on this but it's almost reminding me of florinia except i expect whatever's going on with clear to go in the exact opposite direction if that makes sense. there's no "wait.... being a killing machine is bad..." redemption arc waiting for clear (or kieran either tbh) if the savage murder android starts having a mental crisis i expect it's going to become everyone's problem. people will get hurt

not to shill my theory™ or anything but if i could be onto something with my guess that clear has the same personality/mind/whatever as xara bela, who is infamously reckless and temperamental and who has at least a couple screws loose, to say the least, then maaaayyybeee this could have something to do with that..? :D?

i dont know if this could be related to what was said in the stream but i find clear's little conversations with the player in renegade .karma interesting too... she admits to being irritated because she doesn't see the point in some of Madame X's orders, but of course she has no choice in the matter... but maybe she could? if she could hypothetically have something resembling a human consciousness could she gain agency to just do whatever the hell she wants? wouldn't that be fun to see :3

it'd be interesting too in comparison to kieran, who presumably is just straight chilling? their dynamic could become super interesting if "the cold collected one" starts to become more unstable and how if kieran remains perfectly fine how he would react to/deal with that. how will this affect the mission

tl;dr i'm predicting clear to start losing her mind soon whatever that entails. jan might have implied this in the dev commentary earlier today. now i too am starting to lose my mind

[valeffelees]

hello, happy Sunday.

funny thing: i started typing up this post earlier this morning when only one person had tagged me, and then ended up drafting and deleting it because it's quite warm today in my corner of Canada and the heat makes me terribly lethargic, i've done nothing today but slink around between patches of sunlight like a drowsy cat.

a happy round of hellos and thank-you-kindlys to @blackberrysummerblog @rimeswithpurple @artsyunderstudy and @aroace-genderfluid-sheep for tagging today. 🌇

i've finally managed to pull myself away from drawing and get back to editing W/oS, and in the meantime, altho i don't plan to focus on this fanfic much in June (i have another project i want to give my attention to), i wrote a bit more of wt: Niall vs the Amatonormative Agenda [1] [2] yesterday. my timeline is a bit mucky still, but this takes place sometime around late fifth year or early sixth year.

Dev’s eyes are pale yellow in the dark.  Niall watches the knot of their throat move when they swallow, rolling up the length of their neck and disappearing into the soft underside of their chin. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Dev has a mouth like a paper crane. It folds around their teeth like it is made of a hundred tiny parts, the way it twists beneath their nose is a strange and lovely, complicated thing. “I don’t want you to be sorry,” they say, and they reach for him through his knees, and Niall opens his arms for them the way he always does, the way he knows he always will. He likes their weight on his stomach, the warmth of them. “Fuck, you’re such an asshole. I don’t want you to be sorry,” they say again, “I just—I want you to be okay.” “I am okay.” “You’re not.” “I’m sorry.” “Shut up.” “Dev?” They raise their head. “You’re my best friend,” Niall tells them. “You know that, don’t you?” Dev presses their nose into his cheek. “Yeah,” they say, and their voice is a careful murmur, a deep and quivering sound in their chest. “Yeah, Naya. I know.”

and since i'm sure everyone has already made their posts by now, please consider these tags a hello, how are you, and some well-wishes for the week to come. 🙂

Tag, you're it! 🪄 @cutestkilla @raenestee @hushed-chorus @thewholelemon @larkral @captain-aralias @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @imagineacoolusername @ivelovedhimthroughworse @facewithoutheart

[rimouskis]

in the last three-ish days I've seen three movies, two were very very good and one was underwhelming:

the element of magical realism truly elevated the film and I thought it was fabulously rendered... it occurred to me earlier today that they literally open with showing Lou being willing to get her hands dirty. like oh my gosh that is just good writing. ugh. love. Ed Harris was so damn good in this role and I thought kstew knocked it out of the park. she was still very much herself in this role (as I think she often is, lol) but it played to her strengths and she pulled out some GREAT humor in a dark script. that being said it's such a dark story that I don't know how rewatchable it is? Like I really appreciated it as an art piece about cycles of violence and if we can escape them, but it's definitely a viscerally upsetting film lol. alas I am a little baby about some things and that does include gore and violence, which this movie wielded well as a narrative tool. Also Katy O'Brien...... what a casting. Again, they chose the right people for this movie.

I think my favorite is ultimately love lies bleeding because I was so impressed by the story and the cinematography. (That shot they kept showing of the gym with the town in the background at night... it was like a painting. There was SUCH an excellent sense of Place kn this film, and i love a good sense of Place).

a VERY VERY close second (and I think the more rewatachable film, honestly) was monkey man. I just got out of the theater so I haven't gotten all my thoughts straight yet but whaaaaat a strong directorial debut from dev... he was wonderful in his role and I was stunned by all the gorgeous visuals. I would love to know more about how this is a commentary on the current politics in India (I've read a post or tweet here and there) so I'm going to go find some articles when I get home, but I definitely will be watching this again. I thought it could have used tighter and more directed editing or writing around the middle - as soon as kid got to the temple I think the plot became a little muddled as we got his full backstory, and I do think we could have gotten a tighter or more... explicit(?) recovery journey/Finding His Purpose moment. But I think the hijra of the temple were so charming and the cinematography so beautiful that I'm willing to forgive some clunky plotting and exposition, you know? no movie needs to be perfect to be VERY good.

also my GOD the fight scenes were so visceral. once again I am a huge baby and was flinching so many times during the movie lol but I was totally sucked into the action. I was slapping my hand over my mouth several times lol.

one more mention of the sheer beauty of this film... the hijras' skirts spinning in that second to last fight were sooooo lovely and just spoke to great art direction. Will definitely watch again, and can't wait to do so with more information about the inspiration/parallels being drawn here.

My loser of the movie marathon was challengers:/ which toooo be fair it was the movie I watched LEAST closely (I was watching it at home on my computer, mostly because I wanted to see the scene with the knee injury since I saw the animatronic/fake Zendaya body they made to shoot the scene).

anyways, I wasn't in love with the cinematography nor the plot. It just wasn't my speed, and while I think Zendaya can play a haughty mean woman very well, I was... not very captured by the twisted tale of these three characters. Wasn't for me, alas.

[blackberrysummerblog]

WIP Wednesday

I’m back on my married-by-the-Crucible AU bullshit (LIES, I never left. Even the clothes-shopping snippet I posted for Six Sentence Sunday is from The WIP That Ate My Life). It’s coming along, though! And I’m going to tag people this time!

This scene is at a garden party reception that Baz’s parents throw to ‘celebrate’ 😒 his marriage to Simon, and for the happy couple to sign the Book. Baz has a brief conversation with his cousin on the patio that overlooks the party below. (Canon divergent details are that Baz was homeschooled after being bitten as a child, and Simon managed to give himself wings and a tail while at Watford, much earlier than happened in canon.) Hope you like it!

‘If it isn’t the old married man!” I’m caught off guard by someone thumping me on the back, which says heaps about my concentration today. It’s been a long time since anyone’s successfully crept up behind me, even with the amount of noise generated by the party.

“Dev.” My smile is genuine; Dev is my cousin and the same age as me, so he and his former schoolmate Niall are the closest I’ve had to real friends. He hugs me warmly, smelling of some expensive tobacco scented cologne—and underneath there’s a hint of good, clean, solid oak. (I always notice, even when I’m not trying.)

“Which one is yours?” Dev asks, waving toward the crowd below. The breeze is picking up a little, enough to carry music from the bottom of the lawn.

“You hadn’t heard I was paired with the Chosen One?” I ask, smirking. Dev went to Watford with Snow, at least for a little while; his parents sent him to boarding school in France to finish his education a few years back. Less plebby, don’t you know.

Dev winks at me. “’Course I have, but it’s been years since I saw Simon Snow. And isn’t he supposed to have wings and a tail still?”

“Temporarily spelled off for the occasion, at his request.” I search the crowd until I spot Snow, mugging for a young woman I dimly recognize as Penelope Bunce. She’s smiling politely as he holds his hands palm-up on either side of his face and hops from foot to foot—magic only knows what he’s miming, but he looks a complete fool. And completely happy, carefree in a way I haven’t seen enough of. “There,” I say, pointing at him. “That numpty over there.”

Dev follows my gesture and gives a low whistle. “He’s filled out nicely,” he comments. “I remember him being something of a ragbag, but he looks—Crowley below, look at you, Baz.” I break away from staring at Snow to glance askance at Dev. “You’re utterly smitten.” He shakes his head wonderingly. “Lovestruck.”

“I’m no such thing.” (I am. It’s a miracle Simon Snow’s name hasn’t tattooed itself across my forehead from the sheer force of my obsession with him.)

A sly grin moves across Dev’s face, one I know better than to trust. “So,” he wheedles, edging in, “How’s the sex?”

“We’re not discussing that,” I say shortly, looking back at Snow. He’s absolutely glowing.

Dev relents. “It’s just that...I’d wondered if the Crucible choosing the perfect partner meant that it was...you know, staggering.”

Certainly a word for it, yes. Still staring at Snow, I give Dev a little shrug. “I should think the Crucible would match people according to whatever characteristics are most important to them.”

“Sex for me, then,” Dev predictably replies. He folds his arms over the railing and bumps my shoulder with a companionable air. “You know, I went to school with Wellbelove, as well. Her father’s a magickal doctor, he could probably have those wings and the rest off in a blink. Make travel a bit easier—Snow was a bloody menace in the school’s minibus on field trips.”

The image of Snow haplessly trying to crowd into a minibus with his schoolmates, annoying everyone in the process, mitigates my urge to push Dev into the hedges beneath us for his suggestion. Poor Simon, scruffy and obtrusive. He’s deserved so much more than he was given.

But he has me now. “I don’t mind the wings. Excuse me,” I say to Dev, turning toward the steps.

“Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” I flash Dev a hurried smile. He’s my cousin, after all. “I just remembered something. Catch up in a bit?”

He nods, so I fling myself down the steps and into the crowd, making my way toward Simon with as few stops for polite greetings as possible. (It takes an age. A literal age). “Snow. I—excuse me, hello, Penelope. Lovely to see you,” I manage, barely remembering my manners as I take hold of Snow’s arm. “It’s the appetizers. There’s a bit of a problem.”

“What!” Simon exclaims, looking horrified, at the same moment that Bunce retorts, “Caterer’s problem though, isn’t it?”

“They need our input. We’ll just be a moment,” I say, trying to convey urgency without physically yanking Snow off his feet. I hardly need to, though, since I’ve said the one thing guaranteed to get him moving—if he knew which direction to head in, he’d be the one dragging me.

He’s prattling on as I hustle him into the mudroom at the side of the house and lock the door. “Baz, what is it? It’s not the stuffed mushrooms, is it? Or the tattie scones? Merlin, did they burn the pastry cups?!”

Rolling my eyes, I push him up against a bank of coat cupboards. He’s delusional if he thinks my parents are serving tattie scones, Crowley. “There’s nothing wrong with any of the food, Snow,” I murmur against his ear, inhaling the rich, fatty scent of browning butter that is just Simon, beneath his soap, beneath even his magic.

He turns his head and laughs when I nuzzle his neck—he always does—then slides his fingers through my hair as I kiss along his jawline. “Baz.” Pushing at my chest, Simon looks up at me with wide eyes. “We don’t have time for this. Don’t the caterers need us?”

Tagging @raenestee @thewholelemon @captain-aralias @ileadacharmedlife @cutestkilla @ionlydrinkhotwater @dazed-squid @artsyunderstudy and anyone else who would like to share!

[teememdee]

thoughts on new lol narrative direction

Okay so today’s dev update basically confirmed my suspicions that the narrative team has deliberately moved away from short stories as a medium for lore. Which… if they have the evidence that people don’t engage with them as much as they’d like then I can understand why they made that decision but I’m still a little sad about it. Out of the way sure, but short stories are really effective on giving a character voice and personality along with a deeper insight to their thoughts and feelings about the world in a way that is shown and not told through a written biography or out of universe voicelines. I would hope they still return to written narrative for parts of bigger things (like the big Star Guardian ‘22 story) or just small gaps to be filled, like the random Yorick and Illaoi post-Ruined King story they dropped months ago.

Naturally it’s hard to have a full opinion on this as they’ve just said they’ll be exploring other mediums without specifying what those mediums will be. Short stories (while still requiring great care and effort from a writer) are definitely an easy and very accessible way to get information across quickly. Comics like the Katarina comic from earlier this year I really enjoyed, I’d definitely love more of those. My fear is that they’ll put a lot of hope into Riot Forge games. I love Ruined King and I know others have enjoyed Mageseeker, but games both cost money to experience and as of right now, all RF games are different genres, which appeal to some and don’t appeal to others. I haven’t played Mageseeker because it doesn’t exactly look like my kind of game but I might find the story really interesting. The thing that I like about League Lore is that it’s so detached from the actual video game you can consume and understand and be invested in it without ever playing a single round of it. Yes gameplay videos and everything get uploaded to the internet anyway, but I personally generally prefer going to an official website that I know would contain everything. So I don’t know. I hope these mediums they’re going to explore can still somehow provide the depth that short stories can, as well as be generally accessible to all who might be interested.

And maybe this is just the art student in me currently taking a class about artist books, but part of being easily accessible is how easy these short stories are to share. If you’re talking with a friend about the lore and they want to see for themselves, you can just send a link to the short story. You don’t have to be all like “well 15 hours into this one spin-off game there’s this cutscene and hidden piece of paper on the floor that says—” like that’s. Annoying. Additionally just for going back to check references the short stories are really easy to pop in and check on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to one to check a detail or characterization moment. Much easier than having to remember some gameplay moment or scroll through a wiki to find something that hopefully someone has uploaded. You know where everything is if it’s plain and simple on the Universe site.

As for Arcane being canon now I don’t particularly care? Like I’ve never minded the non-canonness of it but also because I’m not deeply knowledgeable about Piltover / Zaun champs and lore it might as well canon for me personally, and given the ratio of people who know everything about P/Z lore and the number of people who have watched Arcane I can understand why they made this decision, it’s easier to make the popular thing actually canon instead of having like 10 people on twitter scream at others for how it isn’t. I don’t know exactly how far the ripple effect of lore changes this makes will go. But basically I don’t mind. Those 10 people are going to be mad and I can understand to an extent but I’m not one of them.

Hextech and Skarner stuff, as the video says, has probably the largest ripple effect. Again I don’t super care and perhaps it’s too early to judge and cry “booo they’ve ruined Camille!” or “they’re retconning the whole lore!!!” before we even see what these changes are. Maybe I’m too much of an optimist. I like Seraphine and they’ve already mostly adjusted her to this non-Brackern Hextech lore situation so. I think she’s fine as is now. Again we’ll see. How we’ll see though??? Would love to know. I really don’t quite understand how they’re going to do things without short stories or without a big focus on them. Like not even champion color stories? Weird.

I think there is hope for me for the Kassadin and Kai’Sa reunion to actually happen now. If they play it out in a full cinematic in any way I think I might actually die. But that’s a pretty big thread that’s just been hanging over these two characters I love so much and Kai’Sa is a true It Girl at this point so. I think it’s coming. Please go poorly. Please give Kassadin’s wife a name.

One of the devs said they’re going to focus on actually getting the narratives up before focusing on how they’re presented on the Universe site, which… these seem like things that should happen pretty much at the same time but okay. Does this mean the map will get updated ever?

Lastly, of course as a Music Universe Lover I can’t help but wonder how these changes to the base lore could reach over into the AU. Riot Games Music used to post just a simple picture / illustration of what the music-verse characters were up to maybe every two to three months and I’ve really missed those. It’s really felt like they’re leaving that kind of immersive world/narrative behind, but maybe they were just focusing on preparing for this boy band to drop. Still wish it was K/DA or even better, True Damage getting another song? Why did we need another group. Pentakill has three full albums. Anyway.

tl;dr - I’m genuinely bummed about them moving away from short stories and can’t truly get excited for more without knowing exactly how they plan on telling stories in the future.

[youssefguedira]

One of the fan casts I’ve seen a lot is Hunter Schafer as Zelda. Thoughts?

image for reference because i had to google who hunter schafer was

i could back it? she'd definitely be able to pull off like. oot or twilight princess zelda (by looks alone i haven't seen her act) really depends on what they're doing story wise. but ultimately i don't particularly care what the actor looks like as long as they are believably link or zelda to me and i just. don't think the kind of "major hollywood actors" that people toss around when talking about it could really have that effect because they're too recognisable? if that makes any sense. also a bit of a tangent but i don't know if i WANT the zelda movie to adapt an existing game or a new one, though if i had ti guess it'll adapt something connected to botw/totk and that timeline if it is in any way tied to a game because nintendo is generally trying to move away from the 'traditional' zeldas so to speak

for context this is the hypothetical cast in the article i was reading earlier:

like i respect timothee but i think seeing him as link would just make me laugh. he's a perfectly good actor i just don't vibe with this. mr. holland. can we be serious here. respect the inclusion of dev patel and steven yeun but i think this would only work in a post-oot movie that was a tragic retelling of what happens to the hero of time / an exploration of the effect of All That. which won't happen but i think they could pull it off. we're very much dependent on how old link and zelda will be but if i HAD to pick from this list i'd say aramis knight (in ms marvel) because he's not as immediately recognisable and also he's around the right age for Link That Lives In My Head

moving to the zeldas. florence pugh are you KIDDING me. again i respect her i think ms pugh is very talented. but i don't think i'd want her to play zelda. ultimately it comes down to the fact that link and zelda are almost always teenagers and i want the movie to lean into that. especially because AGAIN this won't happen but i would like an examination of the impact of being declared Saviour Of The Entire World at approximately 12-17 years old. though i guess this could also work with an adult link and zelda but that would lean towards more of a drama than a Big Action Fantasy which is what this will be. zendaya again can we be serious i don't think this would work. personally i'd go w/ kathryn newton or stephanie hsu on this list tbh. or hunter schafer i think she'd be a pretty good choice on vibes alone but ive never seen her in anything (euphoria?)

the article also included these as cast possibilities for minor characters and when i tell you some of them made me choke on my water

i respect natasha lyonne as navi because that could be funny. the others are just. really. something

sorry this answer was super long and also not coherent i should inform you that i am running on approximately 2hrs sleep today. so. but if anyone wants to further discuss zelda PLEASE do i am going through a mini phase rn

also as a second tangent. my ideal zelda plots:

skyward sword zelda during her time on the surface because you could have some REALLY good conflict between her goddess side and her human side and the way she slowly realises she has to manipulate link

zelda becoming sheik in oot!!

my roommate pointed it out the other day but i haven't been able to stop thinking about it since: majora's mask stop motion movie in the style of gdt's pinocchio. directed of course by mr Fucked Up Fairytale del toro himself

[penguin--person]

Hello Penguin, I am not God but maybe I am a suitable replacement. What is a buddy SIM short Story and why does it have you in such shambles? Was it a nice story?

you are os so so kind to me. i am in shambles all the time ever because of the game buddy simulator 1984. it came out in february 2021. its a wonderful game that has never left my mind. if you want to play it, i do say, be careful. dont play it if your depressions or anxieties are high or anything of the sort - i did, and, heh, not to brag, but id have to put a tw on this post if i were to explain what it did to me (alls good dw). its. god. earlier this year, a contest was held in the not a sailor studios (devs of buddy sim) held a contest. if the contest got like, 20 entries or smth, they said theyd make josh (one of the devs) write a short story. that short story was supposed to be. ten pages long

its 45. it came out today.

and . oh my god. it starts out innocent enough. silly. goofy. some emotional stuff here and there, but, hey, thats to be expected. we get silly. and then the . god. dear god. dear GOD. i dont know what i was expecting but it wasnt THAT. what does it mean!!!! i feel so much like i did whenever i finished a buddy sim ending (theres 4) for the first time. when i read a corrupted file for the first time. when read the last file. it so perfectly mimics that experience. i never thought id get to feel it again but i AM and i can feel the theories cursing through me. what does it all mean!!!!! thank u for the ask!!!! youre very kind to ask me... and. it was a nice story.. nicely written... my type of story!! buddy sim vibes... but dear godddd... what the helll

[cutestkilla]

I don’t think I’ve seen an ask on this from your WIP game but I will always take every kernel from your Simon at the Wedding WIP!

Ahh, thank you for asking about this one, my only WIP with actual words written! I've got a whole long-ass chapter of this done, in fact, but until I settle on exactly where I'm taking it, I'm holding off on posting.

Here's a rather long snip from chapter 1, with Baz bemoaning the conduct of his companions for the evening.

I caught the two of them poring over her mobile earlier, looking at a listicle titled “The 52 Absolute Rudest Things You Can Do At a Wedding” — as if they even needed the inspiration — and I’ve spent more time today reining them in than I have helping my father with the children. We’re in the home stretch now, though. The speeches are over, the bride and groom have just had their first dance, and if I’m lucky I’ll only need to sit through maybe forty-five minutes of Father working the room (whatever that means) before I can get the fuck out of here. “Well, that was a rubbery mess,” Dev declares with a smirk. He looks expectantly at Fiona as he pushes his empty plate toward the middle of the table.  “Yessss. Number ten, baby!” she exclaims, leaning over (right across Dev’s baby sister, who groans and ducks out of the way) and giving him an incredibly sloppy high five. (We were subjected to similar celebrations for ‘#13: You ignore the dress code’ – Fiona’s come dressed head to toe in funereal black – and of course ‘#39: You drink too much’ – that milestone apparently having been reached a mere ten minutes after we arrived.)  She pulls out her wand, casts ‘But who’s keeping score?’ and marks down another point for Dev on the floating scoreboard that appears out of thin air. I wouldn’t know, I think, looking down glumly at my uneaten chicken. I’ve not done anything more than cut it up and move the pieces around my plate a bit for the sake of appearances. Unlike some people, I don’t want to look rude, but if there were a listicle titled “The Most Beheadable Things You Can Do At a Gathering of Mages” then 'You accidentally flash your fangs at dinner' would be right at the top.

[manonamora-if]

Confession. As an IF author, I obviously enjoy feedback, especially if someone took the time to read and think and even analyse my work. But sometimes I am seriously annoyed at some comments, and wish readers would leave some things alone.

The story has barely started and some readers already demand things explained. They want that I make changes to the scenes because "my MC wouldn't have reacted that way". The nitpicks about the ROs get to me in a way I can't explain, especially if it's about core aspects of their personality that just can't be changed.

I honestly, genuinely love the IF community. But sometimes some very few readers can be so discouraging or so entitled they make your skin crawl with anxiety and you just want to quit. Like, we do this for free. Maybe we just want to see people enjoy our stories and if you don't and have nothing constructive to say, please don't take the effort to vent in an ask about all the things you didn't like. Read something else.

Hi Anon,

Some hugs, because I've had some anons like that too. That suuucks.

Unfortunately for you, anon, there is not much you could do. I'm assuming turning off your inbox is not something you want. Having clear boundaries with your audience about what is appropriate to send you might be what you'd want to do (if you haven't yet). And then delete any asks that do not follow that.

It's also ok to just not respond to asks. I don't want to reveal the twists in my projects either (even if they are completed lol). Or to turn off the inbox for a few days. Or to take a break from being online :) Or putting your project on hiatus until you feel better about your project.

Creating stuff should be fun, not fill you with anxiety.

Genuine question: do people do the same to actual non-IF/more-than-one-dev games? Like send that kind of messages to creators/coders/companies?

~~~~~~~~ CONFESSIONS ARE CLOSED FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK, I NEED TO CODE YOU GUYS. IF you send some, I won't post it. Ask again on Saturday.

I get wanting to know the whole story when a WIP starts, but that's the thing with WIPs, they're a work in progress. You'll get the information eventually, just be patient. Pressuring authors for information won't make it come faster. If you feel the need to know everything right away, maybe reading WIPs might not be the best idea...

Same with playing a game and thinking uh but in my cannon MC wouldn't do that... Like come on... Do I need to spell it out why it's not cool? (also damn I talked about those readers in an earlier post just today...) and the author of A Tale of Crowns had those anons too like last week...

Not every story will fit what you are looking for in a game. Not every story is meant for you. If you don't like it, that is fine. There are plenty of them out there. You can choose not to be a dick and move to a different story. Because it is never ok to ask an author to change their story to fit your personal cannon.

[twinhood-2dot0]

DC (Cinematic) Elseworlds

Now that I’ve detailed every single DCEU film, I’m going to get into James Gunn’s vision for the franchise, but since Sunday came upon me way too fast, I’m only doing the Elseworlds part today, James Gunn next week.

What’s Elseworlds?

So, DC Comics has a number of imprints, or rather, had apparently??? That’s news to me??? Yeah, I’m kinda behind the times, I seem to kinda keep jumping forwards and backwards. I read every Batman, Nightwing and Batgirl comic from 2009 to 2018, then I kinda went back to 1980s Batgirl??? When I desperately need to catch up to Rebirth Batman and Flash??? I’m dumb, I can’t do consistency. Anyways, wow, I really need to learn to reign in my tangents. I bet I have more tangents than actual content in my posts. It’s a wonder how I have like 60 notes. Maybe I should highlight tangents or something. Anyways, DC had various imprints that it uses to publish different kinds of comics, like my personal favourite Black Label, with darker themed stories about mainline superheroes outside of continuity, like HOLY HELL DCEASED IS NOT BLACK LABEL??? IT HAD SO MANY GRUESOME AND UNCENSORED DISMEMBERMENT AND MURDERS. Anyways uh Batman: Three Jokers, oh, oh, Batman: White Knight, Batman: Last Knight On Earth That’s a lot of Batman, I kinda don’t read much outside of Batfam and The Flash :P. So, Elseworlds was once an imprint like that, tackling“What if?” scenarios of superheroes. That is what The Batman and Joker’s retroactively called, Elseworlds stories separate from the main DCU.

This is what it looks like. Look me in the eyes and tell me it deserves the name.) as early on as Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and the first Avengers (2012) movie. It also makes an appearance in Captain Marvel which I completely forgot about.

The Mind Stone is a huge part of the plot of both Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).

The Reality Stone appears in Thor: The Dark World (2013).

The Power Stone appears in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 (2014).

The Time Stone appears in Doctor Strange (2016).

The Soul Stone doesn’t appear in earlier movies.

So you see what I mean, even though the solo movies are mostly disconnected, they still serve the plot.

And Marvel has Kevin Feige to thank for this. He helped shape the narrative that he wanted to achieve using every Marvel film released. That is seemingly what DC wants James Gunn to do for them. I’ve already explained why I think James Gunn is so perfect for the role. The DCEU of old was so disjointed and messy, in complete contrast to Marvel, so I’m excited to see what James Gunn does for the franchise.

Elseworlds Films

Joker (2019)

A character study of the infamous Batman villain, the Joker. Aw man, Todd Phillips uses the word “woke” unironically. God help me. Dude made a movie about the failures of society, I did not expect this. Why does this happen so much 😭??? Thank god I didn’t adore him, unlike a certain author and a certain indie game dev I could mention. Is not hating people for no reason that hard? Okay, well, if there’s anything I learnt from history it’s probably that not hating people is hard. Anyways, politically charged tangent aside, the movie is an unreliable origin story through the eyes of Joker. Why is it unreliable? Well, the movie is from Joker’s perspective, and Joker’s alone. And some events make us question whether it actually happened or was a hallucination or Joker’s imagination or whatever. Here’s a great video if you wanna know more.Joker: An Unreliable Character Study and the One Scene That "Ruins" It

It’s an awesome movie. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is stellar, and watching his slow descent into madness with everything in his life coming tumbling down. It’s a unique look on the character of Joker, and the unreliability adds to it, because of the multiple choice past and all.

The Batman (2022)

The Batman directed by Matt Reeves is the third live-action reimagining of the character in this century alone. A solo Batman movie for the DCEU has been in the works since 2014, and was set to be directed, written and produced by Ben Affleck himself, with influence from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Knightfall, and Batman: Arkham Asylum, the game. Then in 2017 he announced that he was stepping down as director, but would still star. So, they brought in Matt Reeves to direct the film following Affleck’s departure. The movie was initially planned to be connected to the DCEU, but was later reworked to be earlier in Batman’s career, and then later was written to be in a separate universe altogether. Reeves wanted more of a recluse, like Kurt Cobain, because of “Something in the Way” by Nirvana, which is featured in the proportional material and in the movie itself and got a 1,200% increase in Spotify streams after the movie’s release. I still can’t comprehend how wild that is. Like, 1200%. Anyways, that resulted in emo Bruce Wayne instead of the playboy socialite Bruce Wayne every other movie depicts. The movie is also heavily inspired by the Zodiac Killer and other noir films, leaning into the “World’s Greatest Detective” side of Batman that most Batman films neglect.

Might be a hot take, but The Batman is probably my second favourite superhero film slightly behind The Dark Knight. Probably my favourite movie. As awesome as TDK is, this felt much more Batman-y. I’ve watched it like, at least 10 times.

Plot: Batman, in his second year of crimefighting, doubts whether he is actually making a difference, while he is faced with political killings perpetrated by The Riddler, who leaves clues at every crime scene for Batman. A small tangent, but each of them seems to be in something that looks like a greeting card, and good lord the Batman fangirl in me was bursting with excitement. It feels awesome to get like every single easter egg in the movie. Can’t find the pictures :/ but there were easter eggs galore to Hush, The Court Of Owls, Hugo Strange, comic storylines, etc. Anyways, I adore this movie too much to go into too much detail, so go watch it.

Upcoming Elseworlds Films

Just sequels for the previously mentioned movies. There are basically no details about The Batman’s sequel, but the Joker sequel is going to be called Joker: Folie á Deux literally madness [shared] by two.  It’s obvious what that means, that’s right, Harley Quinn, played by uhhh Lady Gaga??? Idk much about her except she’s an ancient singer, but ig it’ll be interesting to see.

Prepare yourself for another huge post that you probably won’t ever finish :)