#i think i see a fantasy story and then i'm like 'what if its all in my head tho?' oof

[foxgloveinspace]

Foxglove’s big lore round up:

I made this more coherent over here but I like some of the links in this thing so. We’ll Keep It.

I don't know if this makes since, and honestly it's subject to change again at any time. I might even come back to this post this afternoon and ad things I think about. Might do that A Lot Actually.

I have many different thoughts about Sleep Token. On one hand I have a thought process that the Lore is a fantasy story, used to deal with the trauma of loss. And then I have a thought process that its not a fantasy story, that nothing in it states it as such, and that everything is about symbolism. And then I have a very deep part of myself that wonders, considering I am a bit of a witch, if maybe it’s not even completely symbolism. But then that’s just the idea that Vessel is, in some ways, a practitioner.

Lets begin.

I think the albums are released in order, but possibly the order in which Vessel could process the emotions he put into the songs, and not necessarily the order in which things happened, but I don’t want to look into that cause it makes my brain hurt, and I do like to think its a chronological time line.

First off, we have my og theory/thought process, which is that there was no woman who broke Vessel’s heart, and that its all a back and forth conversation between Vessel and Sleep. I don’t think this way anymore, I do think that some of it is a conversation between Sleep and Vessel, but I do think that someone broke Vessel’s heart, but not in the since that they left him, in the since that they died. And in doing so, left behind a very conflicted Vessel.

I have expanded on this theory/thought, to include that I think Vessel is a fallen god, and that Sleep is trying to help him regain godhood. (Or, behind the fantasy, Sleep is his reason to keep going, whether that's Sleep Token, or some form of coping mechanism or even just a muse or creative outlet, and godhood = leaving behind grief/depression).

My lore is that Sleep is genuine in his want to help Vessel (I use he/him pronouns because the one interview Vessel did he used he/him for Sleep. I think this is on purpose, and for some reason it really puts an upset in me when people use she/her pronouns for Sleep.), I think Sleep genuinely wants Vessel to get better, but Vessel is fighting Sleep because he is still in a place where he wants to deny that anything was wrong with the relationship he had with this person before they died. I think Vessel in some way blames himself for this Important Person’s death, and as such, fell out of grief, and moving on means becoming a god again.

I think theres also Some One Else in the songs, someone who is alive, and who he tried to go to as a coping mechanism, probably an unhealthy one. This is the person who he sings about mostly in TPWBYT, I think it’s someone who tried to help him after he attempted to take his own life.

Now for Fantasy, I still think that Vessel was ‘born’ with powers, but I think it’s because he is a fallen god, weather he was born, as in re incarnated, or if he just fell from ‘heaven’/Olyumpus, that's an entirely different story. I could see both.

Sleep recognizes him first, sees how powerful he is, sees that with Vessel’s help Sleep could both become more powerful, and help a fellow god out, and such he goes to Vessel.

I think that the other gods have turned their backs on Vessel for some reason. I think maybe the person he loves was important to the gods in some way, and now they are dead, and so he is shunned. I think it also has something to do with why he fell. Maybe he was pushed.

And so Sleep and Vessel have a hard relationship because Vessel is constantly pushing back against Sleep, not wanting to heal and move on even though it will be good for Both of them.

I do think Sleep is selfish in the since that all gods are, and Vessel as a human now can see it. I also think that Sleep does want Vessel to use his powers more then Vessel is comfortable with, and that’s another thing they argue about.

I still think that some songs are about trust, and Love = Trust still. I still that Sleep is partially sleep, and that Vessel suffers from insomnia. I am very adamant in my thoughts that One - Denial, Two - Anger, Sundowning - Bargaining, TPWBYT - Depression, TMBTE - Acceptance.

I talk to myself in circles about Sleep Token, and the different themes I find every time I listen to an album and Pay Attention. 

Here’s some links,

My og theory if you want to read it, as some of it is relevant to this post, but also not

Themes I hear from each song (I need to update this again cause theres also a lot of themes of survivors guilt, and I also never got into themes of Water.)

Me and Cass talking about God Mother, and who she might be.

My first post about Vessel being a fallen god

(@a-little-lynx is this the right blog to @ now, or do i still @ the other blog? any way I mentioned you in this post and linked to our conversation about God-Mother I hope thats ok??)

[alteredphoenix]

Thinking about that one YT video that goes in-depth about liminal spaces in video gaming by sorbino, and how people that view them fall into one of two categories: those that are endowed with nostalgia and the sense that they've been there before (regardless as to whether or not they were born in the era those spaces originated from), and those that feel the looming dread and fear and the hint of otherness, that sensation of wrongness that scrapes along the surface of your brain just looking upon them.

I guess I would fall into the first camp, although not so much with the familiarity and nostalgia; it's more like I can relax and put my guard down when I see them. It reminds me how, as silly and goofy some of these places used to look, they at least had heart to them. Not like today, how you'd look at them from your window out of the car you're in and see the buildings that once were colorful and bombastic are now just redesigned to have the same cold, sterile, corporate aesthetic.

(That's a deeper dive I can get into that sort of goes outside of the bounds of this topic, but I think you get where I'm going with it.)

[jackgoodfellow]

FINALLY PUBLISHED PART 2. I AM SO HAPPY. HAVE SOME PIRATES.

Top row: Phoenix the Cat & Cat the Phoenix (no relation)

Bottom row: Brook "The Beast" Broster & Otho the Demolisher

You can see more of the Birds of Prey Pirates on AO3 in the published scripts and concept art for my queer buddy-comedy fantasy-adventure graphic novel, The Blacksmith!

[readymades2002]

smiling so happily and serenely and kicking my legs a little bit because i can name things in my fantasyworld however i want and no one can tell me not to. la la la

[sunrizef1]

Water

Pairing: George Russell x Reader

Warnings: Cursing

Authors Note: a George win fic ur welcome

yn

liked by georgerussell63 sabrinacarpenter and 6,114,871 others

yn woman

load comments…

user1 oh my god she's so stunning I can't

user2 pretty pretty girl

user3 loml

user4 ahhh I love her

user5 my fav 🩵

sabrinacarpenter I'm in love with you

yn 😘

user6 she's so beautiful I can not

user7 🤩

user8 lmao George Russell in the likes 😭 like me too king ✊

user9 he's so real

user10 new music when

user11 MAKE ME SWEATTT

user12 MAKE ME HOTTERRRR

user13 prettyyyyy

user14 I think I love her

user15 lmao George Russells shooting for the stars here

tommyhilfiger ❤️💙

liked by yn

user16 queen sh*t

user17 woman 🤩

—————————

yn

liked by georgerussell63 lewishamilton and 6,998,881 others

yn water

load comments…

user18 I 😭 love 😭 her 😭

user19 that color is so pretty on her

user20 🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦

user21 love of my life

user22 my wife and bae frfr

user24 summer vibessss🌅

user25 GAH DAYUM

user26 LMAO not Lewis also in the likes 😭

user27 lol George recruited him

user28 THEY NEVER HAD A PRETTY GIRL FROM JOBURG

sabrinacarpenter the prettiest 🤩

yn no u

user29 GIRL I LOVE YOU

lewishamilton 👋

yn 👋

user30 girl wtf is Lewis doing

user31 RIGHT like what 😭

user32 pretty pretty 😘

user33 I know George is absolutely fuming over the Lewis yn notice

user34 he's singing that should be me right now

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yn added to their story

user34

now girl who tf is that

user35

NOT A MAN

PLEASE

user36

Girl… George Russell or nothing

user37

No one tell George

user38

Not my wife having a secret boyfriend???

————————

yn

liked by georgerussell63 alex_albon and 15,111,211 others

yn make me sweat

load comments…

user39 WHO TF IS THAT

user40 nah girl ur not slick

user41 she knows we can see him too right?

user42 JUMP SCARE

user43 not a man…😔

user44 can we talk about how pretty she is

user45 yeah, right? Every ones talking about the second slide but she looks so so good 😭

user46 😍

user47 if that's anyone but George Russell I'm gonna end it all

user48 girl that is not him

user47 and how tf do you know that

user49 wait who's that

user47 an f1 driver who's been in her likes for a while

user49 he's just been in her likes??? Girl that is not him 😭😭

user47 a girl can dream 😔

user50 so pretty 😍

user51 George Russell is screaming somewhere

user52 why are yall talking about a man who was just in her likes a lot??? If she was rumoured to be daring every man who likes all her posts she’d be dating like 200 guys 😭

user53 my favorite girl

sabrinacarpenter soft-launching our relationship??? 🤭

yn ofc bbg 🫶

————————

georgerussell63

liked by yn lewishamilton and 9,007,887 others

georgerusell63 🌅

load comments…

user54 GEORGE NO

user55 lmao, man saw yn got a man so he decided it was time to move on

user56 gotta respect it

user57 who is she 🥲

user58 HEY KING

user59 lock in Russell, you're on my fantasy f1 team this weekend

user60 its not a George Russell post if he's not shirtless

user61 😍😍😍

user62 he looks rly good

user63 and who the hell is that

user64 not my husband finding a gf, rude 😔✊

user65 YN QUEEN DONT LOOK

user66 lmao she liked. I think she's happy her post didn't kill him

user67 why does no one think that that might litteraly by yn in the post

user66 cuz… that's unrealistic

user67 girl why???

user66 they would 100% not vibe, that man says things like “holy moly!” unironically and she wrote “water” they are not the same 😭🙏

user68 just glad he's happy 😊🤞

user69 pls win this weekend George I love you so much and you're the only thing keeping my Mercedes fan mind together

user70 king George lol

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yn added to their story

user71

QUEEN ARE YOU AT THE AUSTRIA GP???

user72

A Mercedes girl, so real

user73

Lmao George is gonna explode

user74

I need you and Lewis in a room together

My two favs 🥰

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

yn added to their story

user75

BOYFRIEND SPOTTED

user76

Hey queen…

Pls don't let lando win…🙏

I'll give you my first-born 😔✊

user77

Don't let the sprint race fool you Bbg

We can win trust me

This isn't who they are

We are so fast

Don't let this represent Mercedes in your mind

user78

Don't let qualifying fool you queen

we are not fast

Do not keep your hopes up

We are going to crash and burn

Hopefully not literally

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TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

yn added to their story

user79

IS THAT KING GEORGE

user80

HOLY MOLY

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yn

📍Austria

liked by georgerussell63 formula1 and 15,888,112 others

yn Geo!!! Im so so so proud of you, my love! I'm so grateful that I got to be there for your first win and just as thankful to see the second one. I see the work and the effort you put in week in and week out and I can not think of a person who deserves this more than you. You're so wonderful and perfect and there's no one I'd rather have spent the past two years with. One of the best experiences I've ever had was seeing the love of my life on the top step of the podium and I pray ill get to see it a lot more because I'll be by your side for every single one. I love you, congratulations baby ❤️

(p.s. He's my only muse 😘)

load comments…

user81 WOAHHHHHH

user82 GAH DAYUM HOLD ON A SECOND PLEASE

user83 holy shit

user84 2 years??? Be so fr

user85 you're kidding

user86 wait I love them

user87 lmao throw back to all of y'all saying they'd never date each other

user88 CONGRATULATIONS GEORGE

user89 AWWW I LOVE THEM

mercedesamgf1 we’re glad to have you queen 🫶

liked by yn

user90 she calls him geo??? 😭🫶

user91 forget that, she called him baby 😭🫶

user92 wait, not my new favorite couple???

user93 QUEEN WAG

user94 girl, he's the wag

user95 TWO YEARSSSSSSS

lewishamilton 🫶🏽

yn 🫶🏽

user96 waitttttttt why are they so perfect

georgerussell63 thank you so much for being there, I love you ❤️

yn i love you too, I'm so proud of you ❤️

user97 WATER IS ABOUT GEORGE????

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@casperlikej @evie-119

[peaktora]

𝐁𝐄𝐃𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄: 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍 𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍˚◞♡ ⃗ dad!satoru gojo

𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 ┊ instead of sleeping, satoru and your daughter argue over what to name her stuffed dragon.

𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 ┊1.9k words. established relationship (#married). the toddler dialogue is purposefully not structured correctly since it’s words from a toddler. fem!reader. intended lowercase. warning: you will wish you had a kid with gojo after reading this.

𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚.┊this was gonna be a basic thought post, but i got more and more interested in the concept and was like “y’know what? fuck it, ima just make this into a full fic.” so here we are with a more full look at dad!gojo <3.

satoru mumbles, "but i think he likes being called spike,” and it's obvious that he's sulking. you don't even have to look up from your book to confirm it.

“well, you don't know him like i do!” your daughter replies, tucking herself into your side.

you flip through the picture book's pages fast, just getting brief glances of its colorful illustrations. unicorns, dragons, knights, and princesses decorated the pages. after turning the last page, you sigh and put the book down on the nightstand. despite the fact that the book was designed for toddlers, it actually looked interesting. you just know you would love to read it to your toddler. you can imagine yourself reading it to her, seeing the excitement on her face as she explores the world of fantasy—her absolute favorite genre.

but unfortunately, that image in your head will have to wait for another day, because her attention? is completely taken by the debate between her and her father.

how the argument started is beyond you. just ten minutes ago, you and satoru were snuggled up on your daughter’s bed, trying to read her to sleep. and now? satoru and her are in a heated debate over what to name her stuffed dragon. it's tough not to be amazed at how something so easy can become so complicated with him.

"i bought him, drove him around in my car, and wrapped him up in a cute little box for you. i think we know each other pretty well.” satoru smiles and reaches across the bed for the dragon.

“nuh-uh! he not even like you!” your toddler, with her tiny hands and puffed cheeks, clutches her stuffed dragon tightly against her chest. the plushie, its vibrant green scales and friendly eyes, seemed to come alive in her hold.

he retreats back to his seat on the edge of your daughter's bed, his lips curled into a frown as he asks, "how come?"

her mouth opens, then closes again. you look away for a moment to give satoru a look of disapproval, and by the time you return your attention to her, her brows are already starting to furrow. she mumbles under her breath, "because," running her small fingers around the plush dragon’s ear. she looks to be at a loss for words, as if she hasn't come up with an answer to satoru's question.

but that's okay, since you—happily, do.

"because you’re taking his time away from storytime. and satoru, in case you didn't know? when it's time to go to bed, we have storytime.”

your daughter looks up, her face beaming as she screams, "yup! and mommy picks the super-duper bestest stories ever!"

satoru gasps, his eyes never leaving yours as he rises from his bed and holds his chest. "baby, who's side are you on?"

you roll your eyes, "i'm just sa—"

"oh, sweetheart," he mumbles as he rushes around the corner of the bed, his movements quick to reach your side. without wasting a second, he rests a palm on your forehead, checking your temperature with a clear look of false concern. concerned people don’t have to hold back the urge to smile. actually, they don't have a smile at all—but for some reason, satoru does, and he's terrible at hiding it. "are you sick? having some hallucinations? is that why you've decided to side with enemy?”

your daughter giggles, and it only feeds satoru's act.

he turns his head towards the source of the giggles. a playful pout forms on his lips as he teasingly asks, "or did this little munchkin of ours use her princess magic to change your mind? she has a way of doing that to me sometimes, y’know."

his free hand reaches towards your toddler, fingers wiggling in anticipation. as his fingers make contact with your little one's soft, ticklish skin, even more giggles slip past her lips.

she tries to squirm away from his touch, but that's when he adds another hand to the tickle fest, and all chance of escape is gone. at that point, she visibly gives up, curling into herself to try to halt her dad’s tickling.

“i-i don’t have powers, daddy!” you daughter manages to stifle out through her laughs. you smile at the sound—it’s one you'll never get tired of hearing.

"you can't be a princess without powers! every princess has powers!"

“i-i'm n-not a princess though!“

satoru's fingers pause in their spot, his eyes widening in disbelief. "not a princess? how on earth can that even be?"

you’re sure if she needed him to, he could easily write an entire book about how she’s a princess.

he scoops her up from her place next to you, careful not to let her dangling legs hit you in the process. she lands on his hip, her eyes fixated on him as he lovingly whispers, "you're daddy's little princess!" he pauses, then adds, "and mommy is the queen, so that makes me—"

“the king?”

“you’re just so smart, huh? see, a perfect quality of a princess.”

“but princesses have dragons! big ones with so many pretty colors and names! they go—“ she cuts herself off and raises her tiny arms high. with a wide smile on her face, she takes a deep breath and lets out a loud roar.

satoru nods and smiles warmly at her, "oh, i see...well, y’know what? not all princesses have dragons.”

she tilts her head, and you awe at the sight. “they don’t?”

"nope," he says, taking her tiny hand in his, wrapping it securely around his finger. he lightly massages the back of her hand, and it’s soothing—scratch that, reassuring. you can tell from the way your daughter leans her head on his shoulder, tucking herself in the crook of his neck. "you don't need a dragon to be a princess. you're my princess ‘cause you're kind, smart, and full of love. i'd say that's all you need to be one."

"really?" she asks, waiting for his nod before continuing. "okay…but i still want a dragon."

"i get it, munchkin," he hums as he takes the dragon plushie from the bed. "we still haven't figured out a name for this guy, hm?"

“nuh-uh!”

“he looks like his power is being super cuddly. he's so cuddly that he puts you right to sleep…how ‘bout…fluffy?"

“ew.”

“fluffy sounds cute, no?”

"but dragons aren't cute. daddy, they breathe fire."

"wel—" satoru begins, but your daughter interrupts.

“his name should be fireball!”

“satoru, she does have a point,” you assert.

she really did. it was a dragon, not something adorable, but something that’s usually thought of as a villain—or a protector. athough deep down, a part of you just wanted this little debate to finally wrap up so you could finally catch some much-needed sleep.

“i thought i took away all of her princess magic?” satoru frowns, "stop siding with the enemy!"

you can't help but snort at his comment. mostly because, for whatever reason, he’s taking this dispute very seriously. so seriously that he doesn't seem to notice you're trying to do anything to finally get to bedtime. "baby i was just sa—"

"who says this dragon had to breathe fire anyways?" he interrupts.

when your toddler goes to respond, it hits you. "what about fluffy fireball?" you mention. it's a perfect combination of the two. well, okay, maybe not a “perfect” combination, but it's good enough to finish this debate.

if you weren't so tired, you’d stop and ogle the way they ask "huh?" in sync.

you shrug, "well, why not? he is pretty fluffy and spits out fire. there can’t be a better name than that."

your daughter holds out the dragon, looks at it for a while, then brings it up to her ear.

she gives the impression that he’s nodding his head before hushedly saying, "got it." she then turns back to face you and yells confidently, "fluffy fireball agrees!”

"well, i don't agree," satoru huffs. "the name is way too long an—"

“satoru.”

“but—“

"satoru," you say more firmly, and his shoulders sink as he mumbles "okay" beneath his breath.

your daughter lets out a yawn, and your eyes are immediately drawn to her. you signal for satoru to come over to the bed, and he does, bending down to your level.

“is my girl sleepy?”

"um," she pauses and looks at her dragon. "just a little bit."

"i can tell," you say, gently rubbing her back. you sneak a quick glance at your husband, and he looks the other way because he knows it's way past her bedtime. you sit up next to her ear and murmur, "i think fluffy fireball is ready to go to sleepy-time."

she gives the dinosaur a look before asking him, "y’wanna sleep with me?” then, she shakes the dinosaur's head up and down before exclaiming, "okay!"

you watch as she leaps out of satoru’s arms, and plops down on the bed. the room fills with giggles and the creaking of the bed as she scampers towards the middle. once she's next to you, she settles in and gets comfortable.

you can't help but smile as you see her tiny hands reaching out, playfully fluffing the pillows around her. then finally, with a satisfied sigh, she snuggles under the covers, cocooning herself in warmth.

she sets her dragon on her left side, making sure her loyal companion is there to do his job and look after her (the princess). it’s cute really. however, if that dragon becomes even a little bit too comfortable with the job, you know satoru will undoubtedly compete for the position. he'd say, "it can't just show up one day and take my job," or something along those lines. knowing him, he might even contemplate throwing it away—who knows.

you’re jolted out of your trance when your daughter asserts to her dinosaur, "you can sleep on daddies side, he snores."

satoru gasps, “i do not—“

“yes you do!”

“when have i eve—“

"guys," you sigh, feeling the weight of exhaustion in your voice. you cast a glance at both of them, making sure you have their undivided attention before pressing on. "c'mon, let's all take a breather and save the debate about your dad's snoring for tomorrow, okay?"

"but mommy, tell him he snores!" she whines. "he goes—" she cuts herself off to mimic satoru's snoring, and his face is priceless.

"now that’s just rude. how can you speak to me so coldly?” satoru scurries underneath the covers on the side of the dragon. and just like that, your daughter and her dragon are nestled between the two of you.

“this’ll be settled in a family meeting tomorrow. you two have already had one debate today. so right now? lets all go to bed.” you declare, then nestle deeper beneath the covers, closing your eyes.

as the voices of saddened "okays" and "alrights" blend together, a collective sigh fills the room. the sound of a click follows, and even with your eyes closed, the absence of light is unmistakable. it makes you feel even more exhausted than before.

you feel satoru’s arm slide around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him. meanwhile, your daughter stirs slightly, searching for a more comfortable position in the cozy space between the two of you. you can feel her movements, her small body nestled snugly against yours.

you snuggle impossibly closer to your pillow, and take a deep breath.

silence, that’s what follows—and it’s nothing but peaceful. that is, until satoru bursts out laughing. "i don't snore," he blurts out into the darkness, his voice filled with mischief. "i just provide a little background music for the night."

it's at this point that you decide to be extremely biased at the family meeting tomorrow. he’s not winning a damn thing.

[in-case-of-grace]

Alternatives to "GM" in TTRPGs

Spurred by a recent post from @imsobadatnicknames2 that found its way into my feed by way of @anim-ttrpgs' addition (this post got too big to be a reblog sorry), I've been thinking about the influence of the terms we use for the host-and-narrator role in a TTRPG. Each tends to carry some connotations and implications as to what the role might entail, and these can influence how people play your game.

At best, this may enforce your intended roles for the game, alongside its themeing. At worst, your chosen term for this role may create false assumptions, and lead to people approaching it in a way that makes it unfun for them.

There's also an aesthetic component to consider! Having a term that matches your genre and vibe can go a long way! It's gonna be a balancing act— does the term change how people interact with your game enough to become a problem? Does it match and enforce your themes and aesthetics strongly enough to balance some of those problems out?

Below, I'm gonna go over a couple common (and uncommon) terms for this role and what I think their connotations, implications, and best usecases are here. These are gonna be beholden to my own biases, of course— and you may see different connotations entirely! Maybe it'll help folk think more about what terms they want to use!

---

"Game Master" is very gamey. It implies that this person is setting up a bunch of specific, pre-made mechanical challenges-- like an obstacle course. I will admit that it does have the weakest connotations of all the commonly used terms I'm aware of, though-- simply by virtue of it having become so commonplace across all sorts of games.

I think it works best with chunkier, mechanically heavy games. Due to it having a weak connotation, though, it won't hurt your game if you use it elsewhere, it is kind of the baseline these days, after all.

---

"Storyteller" implies that this person is sitting everyone down and telling them a story. Like putting on a play. There's an implication that they are going to be controlling most of the narrative here-- and that the players don't have as much say in it.

It's also technically incorrect, given that...well, the players are storytellers too! The point of these games is to tell a story together!

It can work for more narratively focused games, it has some lighthearted, cutesy vibes that can be a good fit for some-- but its connotations can lead to this person taking more control than you may actually intend for them to have in your game.

It's one that I don't think accurately fits a lot of games, and is chosen more for its aesthetics and vibes. (Something I have done before, and with time it bothers me more and more.)

---

"Narrator" is the opposite of Storyteller-- it implies, to me, that this person has less say in the narrative than the players. They are there to impartially narrate and describe the world's reactions to what the players do, little else. A passive observer, almost.

I think it can still work fine for plenty of games-- especially those with contemporary settings. It's the sort that, to me, feels more suited to sandboxy games that are more focused on providing a bunch of simulationist tools for players to poke and prod the world with, rather than on telling a structured narrative.

---

"Dungeon Master" is particularly genre-limited. It carries a lot of the same implications that GM does, but for fantasy games in specific-- especially dungeon crawlers.

Only making a special note of it here since it is tied to A Particularly Big Game in the community. Its connotations are much stronger than GM's, though, and it feels out of place in rules light games— unless they are specifically set in a dungeon.

---

"Director" is one that can have drastically different implications depending on the background of who reads it. If they're a film buff, they'll think it implies that this role has final say on everything, and retains high levels of control that the players do not share. Very much akin to Storyteller.

However if the person reading it is more familiar with video games, and the Left 4 Dead series (and games inspired it) in particular, they'll see the Director role as something more reactive and behind the scenes. They may think this person is responsible for improvising and presenting the players with challenges and scenarios that match their current situation— be it narrative or mechanical.

There may have been a specific plan made ahead of time, but it is filled with a ton of contingencies, with an expectation that improv will fill in the gaps.

Though like Narrator, the L4D type of Director implies a somewhat passive, observer role that isn't meant to have a say in the story.

I think most people will see it with film connotations rather than the Left 4 Dead connotations— which is unfortunate, considering that the L4D type of Director is actually really well suited for certain types of TTRPGs. I think "Game Director" vs "Director" may help alleviate this somewhat, but I'm unsure how effective it'd be as I don't think most people share the L4D brain association I do.

---

"Referee," "Arbiter," "Judge," and "Moderator" all share the same problem as Narrator-- but 10 times worse. These are all heavily laced in passive connotations-- and imply that this person is there simply to determine the outcomes of mechanical situations, but has no say in the narrative.

They can work nicely with like, sports or competition TTRPGs in specific, though.

---

"Master of Ceremonies (MC)" implies that you're not playing a game, but that this person is about to lead you through an awards ceremony, drop some bars, or host some stuffy 500 year old regal event called "the Ceremony of the Ballet Fish" or something.

I don't think this one fits in TTRPGs like, at all, frankly. I just cannot imagine someone in that role being referred to as an "MC" unless we're talking about a game that is specifically about a ceremony, or rap.

---

"Caretaker" implies that this person's role is to maintain and care for the world, game, and story. It implies that they not only facilitate the garden you're all playing in, but that they also trim or rearrange it to suit everyone's needs-- including their own.

I actually think this one is very nice. It doesn't imply that they're an absolute monarch, nor does it imply that they're a passive observer. It also manages to encapsulate the amount of background work the role can often require, without taking away their say in the resulting narrative.

A Caretaker has agency in the story, while remaining cognizant and receptive of the players' agency, too.

This works really well for games focused on telling collaborative narratives, but I think it can also work fairly well for mechanically focused ones as well. It feels pretty versatile!

This one is new to me and I honestly might start using it for my games going forward, unless someone knows of a common connotation I'm unaware of!

---

"Facilitator," and "Host" both imply that this person provides the space and tools for the game, and nothing else. They handed the players the keys, told them to lock up after they're done, and left to go do sick flips in their motorcycle or something nerds do.

To me, the term by itself implies this person has very little to do with the actual game. I don't think these work any better than, say, GM, without a thematic justification.

Host could be amazing for some sort of bio-horror game— or for a game show RPG. Facilitator feels DoA to me. Both, however, could work if your game really is set up so the Facilitator/Host just provides tools to the players and does little else.

---

"Guide" implies that this person takes on a fairly hand-holdy role in leading the players through the game and its narrative. Maybe not quite railroading, but they definitely do a lot to keep the players on track.

This one, I feel, carries some "teacher" connotation— as if this person is responsible for teaching the players the rules. It's on them, not the players, to read and remember the actual rules.

I feel that this connotation largely ruins what good this term could do.

But, it can still work well in certain cases. If your game really is meant to have a focused, linear narrative, it can work quite well. The same goes for specific genres or settings— such as anything dealing with camping, national parks, or tourism.

---

"Overseer" taken at face value, actually could be pretty apt. They'd be someone who oversees the game and does what they can to keep things fun.

Unfortunately, due to the word's use in workplace environments and dystopian fiction— it has some pretty heavy cultural connotations that turn it more into a dictator role. They have complete and total control over the game and its narrative, even if the players disagree with their choices.

I think it can work well for games that deal with dystopian or corporate settings, where this person might actually be meant to have more control, or simply for the flavor— but not a ton else.

---

"Producer" is vaguely similar to the film-style Director-- in the sense that it comes from film. However, unlike the Director, a Producer coordinates and works together with the players to tell their story. It's a more collaborative role that shares power and agency more evenly with the table.

This also somewhat accurately implies the amount of work that goes into the role, much like the Caretaker.

However, given its origins, it doesn't imply they're playing a game— I can't entirely explain why, but it feels similar to MC in this sense. The term is very heavily entrenched in its origins, and carries strong film connotations— even though, yes, video games have producers too!

I think it'd be rad to see games using this, though. In time the strong film connotations may shake off! Like Caretaker, I think it's fairly versatile and could be well suited for a wide variety of games.

---

Niche terms such as keeper, warden, overlord, president, deity, and fixer are always worth considering, too! These tend to just be one-offs used in a specific TTRPG, that suit their setting and tone in particular.

Now, each can and does have its own implications and connotations to consider— weigh those against how well it serves the vibes of your game before you lock in!

---

"Host and Narrator (HAN)" implies the same things that these terms do separately-- but combines them to offset (some of) their downsides. This implies that they host and provide the tools needed for playing the game, yes, but also that they actually stick around to narrate and respond to the players.

When Narrator is combined with Host here, I think this also transforms into something a little closer to the Caretaker— as the Host and Narrator both, they have more of an active role in maintaining the space (and story) they've provided.

It feels similarly versatile, as a result. I just made this one up and don't know if there are any games that use it already, it could have legs— it is a little dry and flavorless, though. This may give it a potential leg up on Caretaker, which does have a lil bit of a lighthearted vibe that may feel off in, say, a horror game.

---

Honorable mentions - Scenestress - Conductor - SOUP (Story Overseer United (with) Players) - Their Majesty - MOMMY (Mediator Over Making Mythic Yarns) - JOE (Joe Ojoe Ejoe) - Representative (REP) - Doormat

---

Again, these are all just according to the implications and connotations I find in these terms— you may find others! What you pick is going to depend on you, your game, and your intended audience!

I don't know if perfect terms exist, and it's wise to explain whichever you use within your rulebooks— just to ensure that someone else's biases and assumptions don't lead to them misinterpreting things.

Is there anything I missed? Any terms you like to use? Do you have a vastly different set of assumptions for one of these terms? Please share!

[nerdietalk]

In the original Adventure Time, Fionna wasn't really given any kind of personality. She's a self-insert for the romantic plights of other characters. Her stories revolve around love triangles, quirky relationship drama, and romantic foibles. And even within these stories, the drama is largely conflict free. No one's really at fault and all misunderstandings are cleared up without issue.

In comparison, Finn experienced a lot of major conflicts. He torpedoed his relationship with Flame Princess in one of the most uncomfortable and ill-advised manipulations I've ever seen in any fictional medium, to the point I was reluctant to ever return to the show afterwards. But through that mistake came growth and change. Finn made a lot of mistakes, but he learned a lot of lessons.

What's really interesting about Fionna and Cake is how it characterizes Fionna through that lens.

Fionna, created as a "copy" of Finn and Jake, was always the most mature person in the room. She was cute, graceful, and solved every problem without issue. But when she's only written like that, there's nowhere for her to grow. No room to change.

Adult Fionna is inherently irresponsible. She's flighty, abandons problems on whims, and she's oblivious to people's pain unless its extremely visible. When she travels through the multiverse, she views problems through narrative tropes. She talks about apocalypse rpgs and heroic fantasies. She's shockingly self-centered and ignorant to the suffering of others. When she looks at Simon, she can only see that she's "boring" compared to Ice King's "fun." She lived in a world with clear cut moral lines. No complications.

When adventuring for the "first" time, Fionna complains about the outfit. She can't move around well in the skirt. Prismo is baffled. "You never had any trouble with skirts in my stories." She wasn't written for practical considerations in mind. She was written for easy fun for a first-time writer.

As a form of escapism, Fionna is flawless. In the real world, Fionna has never faced a real challenge that forced her to grow up.

And what really just absolutely sells this writing choice is that the narrative doesn't make this as a potshot against fandom or womanhood. It doesn't look down on Fionna, it just communicates that this is the kind of person she became as an adult. There's nothing demonized about the idea of fandom or Fionna's womanhood. It writes Fionna this way because its interested in how she can be a real person, with real flaws. The moment to moment existence of Fionna and how she can function as a real person when the cameras turn off.

Fionna has to face challenge to grow as a person. She can only be a fully developed character when she gets the opportunity to be wrong, to make mistakes, when she's forced to think through her actions. And the show's willingness to confront this idea and what it means for Fionna's existence is so genuinely smart and compelling.

Adventure Time whips is what I'm getting at.

[anneapocalypse]

On Wuk Lamat, and Female Characters in FFXIV

The Thing with Wuk Lamat is you can tell me you think she had too much screentime; you can give me numbers on how many lines she had or how many scenes she's in relative to other characters or other expacs; you can prove to me "objectively" that she gets more focus than other main NPCs; you're simply not going to convince me that this is something I should be unhappy about. And not just because it's silly to think you can use numbers to prove a story is good or bad and make someone else go, "Wow, you're right, let me just throw away all the joy I experienced with this story and revise my opinion because you've scientifically proven to me that I'm wrong."

Because while I love Final Fantasy XIV and I have greatly enjoyed its story in so many ways, fundamentally one of my biggest beefs with this game has been how much female characters have been denied complex character arcs and growth and agency and interiority.

Minfilia gets treated as a sacrificial vessel who lives for everyone but herself and doesn't even get to have feelings about her own death because that entire arc is focused on a male character's angst about it instead. The game tells us in the Heavensward patches that Krile sees Minfilia as her best friend and then just forgets about that later and never follows up on what that loss must have meant to her. Ysayle is basically right about most of what she's fighting for but harboring a bit of self-delusion is apparently such a terrible sin that she has to pay for it with her life, while her male foil is deemed so worthy of salvation that there's a whole plot point about how important it is that we risk our lives and others' lives to save him. Y'shtola is a major character who's been around since the beginning, and the game keeps dropping maddeningly interesting things about her (apprenticed to a cranky old witch in a cave! saved her own life and the lives of her friends with an illegal and dangerous spell and it worked! reserved and undemonstrative yet regularly through her actions reveals herself to be deeply caring! disabled!) and then shows complete disinterest in following up on any of those things with the kind of depth and care shown to male characters with complex arcs like Urianger.

In general there is also a repeated thread of female characters being portrayed as weak or overly emotional: Minfilia is weak because she doesn't fight and needs to be eaten by a god in order to gain "a strength long sought." Krile is portrayed as not being able to pull her weight with the Scions (despite the fact that she actively keeps five of them from dying in Shadowbringers) and the only thing they could think of for her to do in Endwalker was be yet another vessel for Hydaelyn (hmm, that sounds familiar) and it's not until Dawntrail that she gets much actual character development in the main story and even that has to come alongside "Look, she can fight now so that means she's useful." (And I love Picto!Krile, I'm just saying, there's a pattern.) Alisaie, despite having very good reasons for needing to find her own path apart from her brother, is portrayed as having to prove herself when she returns, that she's "not the girl she once was," and "will not be a burden" (while Alphinaud is repeatedly given the benefit of the doubt and reassurance and affirmation from other characters even after he takes on responsibilities he isn't ready for and fucks up big time).

And if you follow me you know I adore Urianger, and I love Alphinaud and Thancred and Estinien too, so please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here! I'm not knocking those characters, or saying we shouldn't also love them. I just use them as a comparison to demonstrate how the female characters have been neglected.

Lyse has some of the stronger character development among the female Scions, and while she's still kind of portrayed as being too emotional and hotheaded in early Stormblood, I think it's actually explored in more depth in a way that I like; Lyse has good reasons for wanting to fight for her nation's freedom, but having been away from Ala Mhigo for several years now, she needs to understand the stakes for the people who've been there fighting for years, what they've lost and still have to lose. She grows as a person and rises to the challenge of leadership, and I'm even okay with the fact that she leaves the Scions afterward because it feels right for her to stay in Ala Mhigo, and at least she doesn't die.

And by all accounts she was, like Wuk Lamat, widely hated when her expansion came out.

Unironically I think the other female Scion with the strongest character arc is Tataru. She tries to take up a combat job, finds that it's not for her, and decides to focus on where her strengths are instead. In doing so, she both holds the Scions together as an organization in the absence of a leader by capably managing their finances, and also comes into her own as a businesswoman and makes international connections that benefit both the Scions and her personally. In contrast to Minfilia, she's not portrayed as weak because she doesn't fight, and is actually allowed to be an important character who's good for more than being sacrificed. Tataru is still distinctly in a supporting role for the player character, however, and her character arc happens as a side story that takes up a relatively small amount of screentime over several expansions, which I think is probably why she doesn't evoke such a negative reaction.

But there is a pattern of the game's writing showing disinterest in the interior lives of female characters generally, and in making their growth the focus of a story.

So yeah, I'm going to be happy about Wuk Lamat! I'm going to enjoy and celebrate every moment of her character arc, of her personal growth, of watching her put the lessons she's learned into action. I'm going to love and treasure every moment when she gets to be silly, embarrassing, emotional, scared, grieving, confused, upset, seasick, impulsive, and still deemed worthy of growing into a hero and a leader. I will love her with all of my soul and you simply will not convince me that it wasn't worth the screentime after such a profound imbalance for basically the entirety of the game. We've never had a major female character get such a strong arc with this much love and attention put into it and that means more to me than I can truly say. The backlash to it is disheartening, as this kind of thing always is, but I'm not going to let it ruin the wonderful experience I had playing it and how much joy it continues to bring me.

And for those of you who don't want any of that for a female character, thank goodness you have Heavensward and Shadowbringers and Endwalker and no one can take those away from you.

(And if you follow me you know that I love Shadowbringers and Endwalker and have very fond memories of Heavensward despite some issues with it, so not only can I not take that from you, I am not trying to!)

Some of us have been real hungry for a character like this with an arc like this, so, I think, y'know, maybe we can have that. As a treat.

[nkjemisin]

Hello NK Jemisin! I'm a huge fan of yours, and I wanted to thank you for writing all of the books you've written, and doing all that you do. You're really awesome and you are doing important work! :) I had a long question, if you have time to answer! What's your commentary on creating fantasy cultures, using real ones as inspiration? You've done this before in your stories, and I wanted to know if you had any guidance on doing it well. I'm writing my first novel right now (fantasy!) and am dealing with a surprising amount of guilt regarding using real cultures as a basis for my fake ones. On one hand, I want to create a really unique fantasy world, not the bog-standard European stuff. It's not only more interesting to me, but I also admittedly want to use my story to help introduce people to concepts that might be helpful in the real world, help readers understand what these real people go through and perhaps inspire change. On the OTHER hand, I don't know if it's 'my place' to do so (I'm Black btw, but I'm not just writing about Black-coded fantasy characters). And I'm worried about representing people in a harmful way, even if it's by accident. I'm even hung up about names! Should I use names from real languages related to the cultures I'm inspired by, or should I just make them up to emphasize that, while yes these people are clearly inspired by real cultures, they are ultimately *their own* thing. I'm really conflicted on this and am hoping you can offer some feedback and/or commentary. Sorry for the long ask. Either way, have a great day and I look forward to whatever work you do next!

If I can rephrase what you're saying here, it sounds like you're concerned about cultural appropriation -- specifically, which cultures you get to "borrow from" and "remix," how much remixing you can do before you've done damage, how to depict people from cultural backgrounds other than your own, etc.

If that's what you're asking, then there are whole schools of thought on how to "appropriate appropriately." A lot of thinking on this has evolved in the past few years, for good and for ill; Own Voices, for example. (The short version: the Own Voices hashtag movement started as a grassroots attempt to get marginalized voices telling the stories of their own cultures, because there's been a nasty trend of only white/Western/Anglophone/etc. authors publishing books about those cultures. The problem? Some publishers and readers started acting as if marginalized writers weren't allowed to do anything but stories in their own cultures -- a restriction, instead of an inclusion/correction. Worse, publishers, etc started using it as a marketing shorthand, in ways that were just... not good. They made it weird, basically.) But I'm still fond of the approach that's in Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. It's centered on ethnicity/race, but a lot of its approach can be extrapolated to culture. There's too much good stuff in this book to summarize it easily, but you should read it instead of a summary anyway -- it's short.

I don't see the point of guilt, when it comes to something like this. Guilt is what you feel when you've done something wrong, and admiring another culture enough to want to tell a story featuring it isn't wrong. However, there are things you need to do -- research, conversations, considerations of power dynamics -- to reduce the harm you might end up doing by telling that story as an outsider. And note that no matter what you do, though, you might still end up doing harm. (Even people writing about their own culture can end up doing that.) If you fuck up, apologize, figure out what went wrong, and try to do better next time. That's really all you can do.

And then write whatever the hell you want. There's a persistent pressure on Black writers to only cover certain subjects, certain settings; nah. We get to have range, too. You've just got to put in the work to do it well.

Good luck.

[theminecraftbee]

i'm still thinking about the fae zedaph prompt so much that i have. an entire au in my head now. that i am now sharing, in case others are interested.

so the setting of the au is an intentionally kind of anachronistic blend of sci-fi and fantasy, and those things often come into conflict, with a lot of magic interacting badly with technology and technology interacting badly with magic. a vaguely earth-like setting from the near future, where there are robots and space travel and cybernetics, but ALSO a vaguely earth-like setting where there are portals you can slip through that will drop you into the feywild and there are magcial creatures lurking beneath the surface. the idea is like, if an urban fantasy had the 'urban' part set in a sci-fi world.

anyway, so zedaph is an ancient fey creature. a wild fey no longer really associated with either court, but at one point having belonged to the seelie court, zedaph mainly just courts chaos. he's PROBABLY some kind of archfey, but it's worth noting that even other fey aren't fully certain what zedaph is supposed to be at this point. see, in a move that makes almost no sense to a human, zedaph has started to get bored of the games of fair folk. he finds them too... predictable! and sure, to HUMANS the fair folk can seem chaotic and without rules, but to zedaph? he wants something NEW AND EXCITING.

too bad that these days, even if he IS invited into the human realm, it is a bit dangerous to navigate for a fey such as himself. his own deep connection to nature and the natural world makes it so he has some trouble when he's in the tall metal cities of the human realm.

enter: tango.

tango is an android built for... some purpose. he's not really sure what his purpose is, or if he still has one, which is kind of distressing, because his creator either died or abandoned him before tango was turned on. he likes building zany contraptions, sure, but he also sort of wants to search for SOME kind of meaning in his life, since androids aren't really built to be purposeless and that lack of purpose is starting to wear at him. and in another setting, this is a great start to a cyberpunk story about what it means to be human, but in THIS setting, tango accidentally proves he must be developing a soul when he stumbles through a portal to the feywild by accident and fails to find his own way out.

the good news for tango is also the bad news: he's not built for a natural place like the feywild. see, his creator had made him largely out of cold iron, and that, even more than any specific technology, repels fair folk magic. so the good news is that he is largely immune to fey shenanigans! the bad news is that the feywild itself is rejecting him, putting him in immense danger.

enter: zedaph, who is FASCINATED to discover that these days the humans are making machines with souls. zedaph, eager to discover something new, makes a bargain with tango: tango guides him in the human world so zedaph doesn't die of metal poisoning, and in return, zedaph guides tango whenever he stumbles into a dangerous supernatural hotspot. look, zedaph's even making a fair deal and everything, since he can't just like, steal tango's name and force him to, on account of not even tango knowing what his true name would be! the two of them shake on it, and as such, a bargain is struck between both android and archfey.

they both find each other surreal and baffling but are ALSO each other's best friends in an equally baffling and surreal world.

impulse comes into this story later--after whatever the first few adventures tango and zedaph have are, exploring both realms together to try to find something new and exciting for zedaph and something to give tango purpose, the amount of magic tango's being exposed to finally takes its toll, and tango starts to malfunction. zedaph panics as he realizes all at once that he has a friend (thing he didn't know he even could get?) and that friend is in danger. also, uh, more importantly that deal. right. that.

naturally, he then kidnaps the first software engineer he can find. this is a proportionate response, right?

luckily the first software engineer he finds is impulse, and impulse is hardly like, normal, either. like, yes, he's a fully mundane human with only the world's most minor cybernetics, he's normal that way, the way he's not normal is that he gets kidnapped by a terrifying and awesome fey to fix a paradoxical android and goes "this is so cool. hi my name is impulse it's nice to meet you! aw, geez," and acts like everything is normal. neither tango nor zedaph are quite good enough at the idea of 'normal human' to dispute this, and a friendship is then born.

impulse serves as the fixer for a lot of their problems that neither tango nor zedaph are equipped to handle, but he's also like, he'd theoretically be the everyman if he wasn't busy going "every man gets whisked away by the plot of a philosophy major's dream every once and a while right" and going with the flow on things NO SANE PERSON SHOULD GO WITH THE FLOW WITH. he's just chilling in the world's least "just chilling" scenario.

so... there you go there's the ENTIRE TEAM ZIT AU that my brain spawned from the prompt "fey zedaph" i hope you enjoy,

[genericpuff]

i find it funny that one of rachel’s drawings of herself in the afterword that just went up is just fully persephone. is that something she does a lot?

Alright so I've been making it a general rule for myself to like, not harp on Rachel in any way outside of LO as much because frankly the horse is dead now and there's not much left to say outside of what can be analyzed in hindsight. I think despite everything I have to say about her and her work, she still deserves to get away from this nonsense and I don't wanna spend eternity hovering over her shoulder.

But the afterword was posted within the LO series and is clearly meant for readers of LO in the functioning of being an afterword so let's just call it fair game LOL

I will say, on the whole, it does feel very honest and sentimental and I can respect Rachel for taking the time to write out and illustrate her afterword in a way that was personal to both her and her fans. I can understand why she went at it from the angle that she did and I'm not gonna fault her for that.

But there's also something that feels deeply... disingenuous about her approach right from the starting gun. I will say, before I continue, that I'm well aware I am biased towards Rachel as a creator, and I fully acknowledge that I could very well be reading too much into things. This is just my opinion, take it with mountains of salt.

I can get looking back on your own childhood, your past self, whatever, and going "see! it all got better!" because sure! For a lot of creators like Rachel, it must be wild to look back on where they came from and there's a lot of sentimentality on expressing that through an afterword like this where she reflects on where she came from. Though she STILL didn't acknowledge her other comics outside of LO, I can understand if she wants to leave those skeletons in the closet.

But I feel like her drawing herself as a child who's being given an Eisner by her adult self and all that just feels like some gross attempt to disarm any criticism of her because "don't make fun of me, I'm just a sad lonely baby girl!"

She's not a child. Child Rachel didn't grossly misappropriate Greek myth into their own self-indulged vanity project. Child Rachel didn't claim herself a folklorist of a culture's works only to bastardize them completely. Child Rachel didn't create a hostile environment within her fanbase by bullying anyone who she perceived as a threat, sneaking into critical spaces to try and cause trouble, and writing her own clapbacks into her comic. Child Rachel didn't claim to be challenging misogyny and purity culture only to reinforce misogyny and purity culture through her own self-insert baby-virgin-gets-rescued-by-rich-tycoon power fantasy that regularly glorified abuse towards women and the lower class.

30-almost-40-year-old Rachel did though.

At best it comes across as really cringe sentimentality from a Greek-weeb (heh, greeboo) and goes to show how much Rachel inserted herself into Greek myth without ever absorbing its messages or cultural contexts, it was all about her and her feelings as a sad New Zealand girl with dyslexia who thought Persephone's story was about another sad girl being rescued from her "horrible childhood".

At worst it's an active attempt to play on people's heartstrings by drawing herself as a child who people will naturally not want to criticize. I don't want to assume she's doing it intentionally, I really don't want to leave her afterword on a bad foot, as I can definitely understand as both a creator and a person who struggled with learning disabilities in their own childhood how and why she wants to pay homage to her past and where she came from... but let's just say, as someone who's also gotten way too "lost in the sauce" concerning personal self-reflective projects, I think there's a lot to say about how this confirms that Rachel made LO entirely for herself, about herself, without any actual intention to respect the original myths, because she never truly separated them from herself when she was a child. And, in my humble opinion as someone who has Been There with the self-insert OC's and self-reflective angsty plotlines, I can fully attest to the fact that that's not fucking healthy. Even with personal projects, you NEED to learn to get your head out of the sauce, you NEED to learn to objectively separate yourself from the narrative so the story doesn't fall apart under your own hubris and ego, you NEED to learn to draw a line if you want to have any sort of identity as a human being outside of what you make for people. And that's with just normal original stories, this was a story based on Greek myth which doesn't belong to her.

And this goes for a lot of the things she's said and done in the past, so much of her own "sources" even are tethered to things that she read / watched in her childhood and only vaguely remembers, as if she never mentally left her childhood at all, which just... if the point was to highlight her past and the traumas she went through and how they contributed to her present, an Eisner isn't going to validate those experiences. And drawing attention to her past through the lens of her childhood self absolutely 100% does not absolve her of the negative effect her work has had on the modern Greek myth zeitgeist nor the things she's said and done as a 38 year old woman who should absolutely know better.

The community she entered and took from will forever remain changed by her influence and taking, in many ways not for the better. She has the privilege of walking away and never having to think about it again, with all the awards and accolades that were bought for her, the bravado that she built around being a "folklorist" with zero credentials, and the platform she was given over many other creators struggling to even be heard.

That "place" she claims to have now was built entirely on inserting herself into another culture's works and doing nothing but taking, taking, taking, while offering nothing in return but vanity and lip service. That "place" was paid for and brought to you by Webtoons.

[armageddon-generation]

Empire of Death was bad and cemented several fundemental flaws in this season.

I watched this in the theatre, and the contrast between everyone's excitement before Empire, and their universal disappointment leaving the theatre was super disheartening. I'm gonna try to articulate my problems with episode, and how they're linked to fundenental structural issues of this season.

SPOILERS BELOW:

Sutekh

The moment the UNIT characters died the story was robbed of any stakes. (Also? Kate and Ibrahim?? During Pride month?? Disgusting)

Sutekh was pointless, big CGI spectacle who was barely there. Saying he's been latched onto the TARDIS since Pyramids of Mars was such an asspull. Why couldn't he have latched on during Wild Blue Yonder? wouldn't that make much more sense??

You're telling me the guy who holds all life in contempt is invested enough in learning the identity of Ruby's mum he willingly reveals himself??

And then they defeat him by dragging him through the Vortex just like before, which it's been explicitly stated *didn't work* last time? He just *lets* Ruby leash him??

The 'death of death is life' bit, and the idea of the Doctor representing life as a Ying to Sutekh's Yang, is a cool concept just jammed in there with no real buildup or depth.

The issue is bringing Sutekh back takes so much effort- a literal, clunky clipshow of Pyramids of Mars, a whole episode spent building up to the reveal of a silly anagram entirely unrekated to Sutekh's previous appearance. And it just... amounts to nothing. What a silly way to cap off a season meant to be jumping-on point for brand-new viewers.

Mel was just takingup space. Pointless.

Ruby's Mother

I don't have a problem with the *concept* of Ruby's mum being normal. I really like the idea thematically. The execution was terrible.

First of all it leaves so many unanswered questions (why the snow? Why was time changing? Why was she shadowed? Literally just for the sake of the mystery-box?) and represents the worst thing about this new era- RTD using fantasy logic to handwave any logic at all, and just do whatever he wants without properly justifying it.

Second, I *hate* how easy and simple and neat the reunion is. Ruby seems incapable of getting angry with anyone. She has never once argued with 15, or Carla, or anyone besides that one moment in 73 Yards. She has never expressed any kind of negative feeling towards her mother for abandoning her. And it's fine for her to reach that conclusion! It's just bizzare we never see Ruby struggle with her feelings beyond the shallow goal of wanting to find her.

(Also Carla? Has nothing to say?? Just welcomes that woman in with basically no comment? Carla is a 2D cutout of a person, used as a plot device and otherwise relegated to the single character trait of I Love My Daughter. The children yearn for the ilk of Jackie Tyler, Sylvia Noble, even Francine Jones.)

15 & Ruby

The emotion behind 15 & Ruby's split felt entirely unearned because we've never seen their bond develop. They never argue, never disagree, Ruby hasn't learned anything about herself or grown or changed. The closest we got to that is 73 Yards, which was undone. She was already brave and kind and musical and sure she loved her adoptive family when we met her in Church on Ruby Road.

Similarly, 15 tells us Ruby encouraged him to talk about family in a way he never has, but that was in what, two moments across the season? And they seemed random, unrelated to Ruby being with him. New viewers will assume 15 is just that open anyway- he was discussing fatherhood with a dead man's hologram- and old viewers assumed trauma-dumping was just a new trait of 15's personality, not Ruby-specific.

The problem is we're told Ruby & 15 are best friends but it isn't earned. I liked 15 crying initially but both he and Ruby do it so much (15 cries about 5 times in this one episode) it loses its impact and I'm becoming numb to it. There is no contrast, no downtime.

Season Structural Issues

I think the biggest problem is Season 1's storytelling priorities. It's much more interested in selling *the show* (look at our big budget! And guest stars! And how flexible our format is! Musical episode! The Beatles as props! Bottle episode! Indie folk-horror! Black Mirror! Gay Bridgerton!) it forgot to put effort into developing and investing us in its characters. I liked a lot of the individual stories this year but in retrospect a lot of them feel like they're wasting space that needed to go to essential character and theme setup.

These skewed priorities, combined with the cut down episode count, really impact the pacing of the season. Ruby and 15 were barely together! Even in Rogue they were seperated for most of the story!! We only loop back to a flashback of 15 meeting Carla in Rogue!

This is made worse by the baffling insistence on a 45-minute runtime. We know key sequences were cut from almost every episode, with highlights including:

The Gobin King invading Ruby's flat and her banishing him with scratchcards in The Church on Ruby Road: Her missing 'companion saves the day' moment!

Refrence to the Toymaker in The Church on Ruby Road, which was itself referenced in The Devil's Chord. 'I told you about the Toymaker when we first met' sir, objectively you did not.

The TARDIS jukebox playing the Sugarbabes' Push The Button in the opening scene of Space Babies, hastily cut around in the final edit. This is the setup of a running joke still in the episode, and part of the story's climax. The first encounter with the Bogeyman was also longer, with 15 taking particular interest in its skin

Extended scenes in Abbey Road from The Devil's Chord, including an apparently significant speaking role for Cilla Black, according to her annoyed actress.

Cut dialogue from The Devil's Chord explaining the musoical number was caused by Maestro's power lingering, and that banishing them undid everything they'd done. Fans inferred thos based on the rules established in The Giggle, but again, new fans haven't seen The Giggle and were left clueless.

An opening sequence for The Legend of Ruby Sunday where 15 & Ruby meet Susan as a nanny in 1947 America, a blue-skinned waitress, and an astronaut meeting a colony of giant, sentient ants. At the end of this we actually see 15 decide to go to UNIT for help. In the broadcast version he just sorta shows up.

Really what Empire of Death exposed to me is how emotionally hollow the season was. I enjoy the exoperimentalism, but not at the cost of character. And then in the finale Russell reverts to almost a parody of his RTD1 finales, with the nonsense logic and lack of consequences. All the worst bits of Last of the Time Lords and The Giggle put in a blender.

[fridayiminlcve]

what is your problem with tiktok or booktok and colleen hoover lmao its not that bad surely

the fact that it actively promotes overconsumerism, the way it sells books to you by just playing into already heavily milked out tropes with very specific character niches that are seen in every book nowadays and how the reading is just seen as something aesthetic or a part of the "it girl routine" maybe? if those are enough reasons for you?

does the fact that these books are the first things you see when you walk into a bookstore not bother you? when you ask someone for a book recommendation they'll follow it up with "its a romance slow burn enemies to lovers". it's always about the aesthetic of the book, how many lines can you take out of context and post as a compilation of your super cute romantic annotations page on instagram. no analyzing the book, no theories, no symbolism or meaningfulness at all. how people stand reading those kind of books and still feel any kind of emotions over these flat as hell books with no world or character building is genuinely baffling to me

no one seems to know about actual literature anymore, which not to sound like a boomer but i think its definitely true. there's always been trend cycles, i agree such as the harry potter craze from the 1990s to the 2000s and the dystopia hunger games/maze runner/divergent blast in the early 2010s but tiktok has just.. shortened these cycles so much. as a result, people like our darling colleen hoover whose written around 46 books since 2015 (according to google) try come up with as much fresh content as they can as quickly as possible for the readers (see overconsumption). the fact that this lady outsold the bible is not outstanding to me, its fucking concerning.

and after all that, the result is badly written books with characters who're about as dimensional as a piece of paper, overuse of tropes, read like they've been written by a toddler, toxic-ass relationships being romanticised, very unnecessary sex scenes and countless other things. seriously if i wanted to read about the kind of stories hoover tells i would just open a wattpad account.

not clowning on those who made the choice to read it. i'm trying to highlight some of the flaws i find in authors like colleen hoover, sjm, ali hazelwood, casey mcquinston. some of them might be good, i wouldn't know because i actively try and avoid them at all costs. also i am BEGGING u all who will have an objection to this post to reach out of your comfort zone and read something different like non-fiction or fantasy or one of the classics for once if you only read booktok like seriously it might be hard but just do it for the love of god!! if you're annoying on this i will block you by the way i don't care

[yusiyomogi]

this is the last time i'm gonna interact with this discourse, i promise. i just wanna tell a few things that i've been meaning to tell anyway.

yes, the larger connection you can make between elves and real world imperialism is interesting, canaries are obviously modeled after military forces of imperialistic countries. even if their goals aren't nefarious, they withhold information from local governments, ignore borders and ensure the global power of their own country. the way they deal with the threat also often disregards actual safety of local people, despite their original goals.

but when we're talking about this theme, which is important and interesting, we have to discuss other significant implications of this allegory. like, for example, people from that military force are systematically treated as completely disposable. story itself doesn't shy away from this, even their nickname "canaries" represents how ridiculously deadly their job is - they're expected to die, basically. practice of recruiting convicted criminals to the army because they are desperate and disposable is something that is actually happening in the world right now. recruiting noble kids to the army as an "honorable tradition" to ensure their loyalty and investment in country's politics is another practice that was common in real world. wealthy people are the most dangerous to their government, after all.

if we actually wanna analyze this, we need to take it seriously, not to use it to prove that some characters are "bad" because of it. kui for sure didn't do this, she specifically humanized canaries in her story and showed how participant of the system can be abused by that system (that doesn't absolve them of their wrongdoings though). just how she decided to show racism as something everyone participates in, instead of making some one-note villain characters who are racists. you can have your own feelings about it, but that's how she did it.

the other thing is, if we actually try to analyze it, we can only take it as interesting thought experiment. we can call it "reading through certain lenses". because we're still dealing with fantasy world here. functionally canaries can be seen more as international disaster response, since they don't participate in actual wars. their primary goal is to control and destroy dungeons, which can be seen as analogy to natural or technological disasters. they don't influence local politics, they don't mass murder people, they don't aim to establish their own bases on the territory of the country (at least not at the point we are in the story). so, they are an amalgamation of these two ideas rather than only one of them. we can't have a real analogy to our world, since we don't have the demon that can destroy us all just because some people have tasty desires. that's why working with allegories to real life is a limiting way of looking at the work. it's fine to do it, but it's only one way to interpret it and it's not "the only correct" way. in fact, most authors prefer when their worldbuilding is judged on its own merits.

mithrun does participate in military force voluntarily and it's an important part of his story. it's also important to analyze why he's doing it: he thinks that he's doing a good thing by enlisting to the unit, because he believes that he's the one who can change things. according to adventurer's bible, his main motivation for recovery was what happened in utaya: mithrun could see how incompetent canaries were when they were dealing with the dungeon and the demon, so his thought was literally "if only i was there...", one of the most common army movie tropes.

and he does change things, surprisingly, because we can see that he focuses on efficiency much more than any other elf. he correctly assumes that the faster they deal with the threat, the less casualties there will be. he speedruns the dungeon in 15 minutes, while utaya's investigation took 1 year before it all collapsed horribly, killing a bunch of civilians and soldiers. mithrun does it so efficiently in fact, that even kabru for a second doubts his decision to stop the canaries. mithrun believes that no secrecy is important when the world is at stake, that's why he tells kabru literally everything he knows. mithrun believes that he can change things. he is wrong though.

mithrun is wrong, because he still serves for elven government and they have not at any point demonstrated that they're interested in actually solving the problem for good (for many reasons probably, they're likely still considering that they'll need the demon's power). mithrun realized it in the end, when he decided to let laios do what he wants instead, basically giving up on his loyalty to the elves. much more obvious agent of elven imperialism in the story is flamela, because she stays loyal to the government and her queen, even when situation got desperate. mithrun also eventually left his country to live under short-lived races' rule.

so, it's kinda weird and suspicious why some people in the fandom decided to focus on mithrun as "the main agent of imperialism" when they talk about those things. yes, it's interesting to look at him from this point of view, especially if you wanna discuss how he changes through the story, but... do you really care about him as a character or are you looking for a bad guy? because i've seen both.

it's not fans' fault that they care too much about his personal character arc instead of looking at his background and role of antagonist. blame kui for it, because that's what she also decided to focus on in her story. some people just don’t wanna discuss such things, because it seems disrespectful to real life, the other believe that looking at everything in the story through allegory is limiting. i’ve seen people who mentions problematic elements, while respecting the other facets of the story that we all enjoy, and it’s amazing and i wish i could do it as gracefully.

but a lot of people noticed the tendency in this fandom to turn some characters into villains and people have right to be tired of it. the story doesn't do it, so if you don't like it... i'd advise you to look for another story, but you really can do what you want.

[neoyi]

Neo Yi's Super Fun Webcomic Reading List Time!

I wanna do it. I wanna be the guy! I wanna recommend and impart my personal views on the webcomics I've read over the better part of the year. I feel like I've read more online comics since 2023 then I had in over a decade. It is an excellent time to get into comics.

Not every webcomic on the list worked for me, but I'm not going to comment negativity on any of them because all of them deserve to be read and appreciated. No, what I am going to do, regardless of how I feel about ANY of these comics, is to state some things I liked about it. Hopefully something will catch your eyes.

Links to each webcomic will be provided, though Tumblr hates annnnnything with actual links, so I'm just going to copy and paste them in an attempt to reach a broader audience and get these out into the greater wild. It ain't much, but I hope it helps the creators making 'em.

All images I used for each comic are usually the first cover/first page. If the creators prefer I not do that or have another image they'd like me to use instead, please let me know.

I'm also hoping I can regularly update this as I continuously read more and more as I had to split the current list I had into two parts. So consider this Part 1.

No rank because this ain't a ranking list; we going alphabetical order.

1. A Dance With Death (http://overmorrowtales.com/death/cover.php)

Summary: It's the end of the world and Death is waiting for someone to dance with. Who could it be?

Hi, I went into this comic because the main cover had the Grim Reaper in a suit. I know what I'm about, son.

I left this short (really, it's only 34 pages, so you can finish it in about thirty minutes) with a mix of existential crisis and an odd sense of peace. I love seeing anthropomorphic personification of human ideas and the world around us. Just seeing the creator indulge in what they interpret the likes of the Four Horsemen, or Pain, or Fear, or etc etc was a visual treat to see.

Who Death dances with might feel obvious once you put the pieces together, but its the explanation behind why he chose them, especially in the face of an ongoing apocalypse, that both felt utterly clever in its interpretation and worthy of the wait.

2. All Known Alternatives (https://akacomic.com/)

SUMMARY: Akane must find the 42 keys spread across parallel worlds in order to get back home. Eri and Ben is spending summer vacation before university, but get caught in the conflict when one of the keys end up in their world.

All Known Alternatives is described as both fantasy and slice-of-life and it definitely feels like it. I'm a huge fan of collect-a-thon stories, a quest forever molded and shaped by the approx. one gazillion platformers that I've been playing since 1989.

The comic is still new, so for the most part, I've mostly been seeing the slice-of-life aspect of Eri (and a reluctant Ben) settling Akane in. While no doubt finding ALL 42 keys would been an ordeal task for any comic artist (indie or otherwise) to write and draw about (indeed, Akane has half the amount prior to the comic's start), I am curious to keep going to see if the main cast will get the reminding 20+ left, and presumably, enter other worlds (well, other then the ones we've seen so far.)

In-between chapters are, what I think are flashbacks, centered on a squad of military folks. Presumably this will be a "How-Did-They-Get-Here" kinda tale, possibly centered on Akane's origin, but it's too early to tell.

It's three chapters in, each roughly about 40+ pages plus intermission chapters (roughly anywhere from 6 - 10 pages), so it's got a decent-sized backlog to get into. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

3. Augustine (https://comics.windywallflower.com/augustine)

SUMMARY: August and friends are constantly surviving in the region known as the Crater as they collect bounties, often with a huge heap of trouble they tend to leave in their wake. When they stumble upon an ancient artifact, they''ll be force to contest with other bounty hunters and Gods!

As of this post, I've only wrapped up Chapter 1. I think Chapter 2 had just started, so I haven't ventured further, so there's not a whole lot I can say about Augustine yet. However, the first issue is a good introduction to both the characters (lovable misfits who all Try Their Best) and the absolute chaotic tone of the whole comic.

Augustine wants you to be pumped. It's incredibly energetic and fun, helped by the largely orange background. And I'm not talking orange orange, I am talking bright, vibrant sugar-infested Tang orange. It really lends well to the vitality of this comic and it's really gorgeous when the creator mixes it with the other color they use a lot: deep blue.

I'm also just a casual fan of Greek mythology, so I'm excited for the possibility of backstories and/or meeting with Godly pantheons. This bitch loves Godly pantheons.

4. BACK (http://www.backcomic.com/)

(Note: I used the front cover of the first BACK physical comic because the first page is kinda just background.)

SUMMARY: Abigail wakes up from a coffin and is immediately told she is the key to ending the world. With no memory of who she is, Abigail just accepts and goes about her mission. Trailing along is a druid named Daniel, someone with enough morals hoping that maybe, Abigail, shouldn't really do the whole Ending the World thing.

BACK was still updating when I first read it (up to the Dead Man Arc, I believe) and at the time, I remember being restless for reasons I now can't comprehend. I read through the whole thing again and asked myself, "Why did I feel like it dragged? This is one of the breeziest comics I've ever read!"

Ya know what I also like besides collect-a-thons? Its cousin, the "Fight Every Major Boss to Get To The Final Boss and Save the World: plot. BACK comic is actually pretty straightforward, but it's brandished with KC Green's (well, and perhaps Anthony Clark's: as of this post, I have not read Nedroid, but I've been recommended to it by a mutual) trademark sense of humor, so there's plenty of lingering weirdness and cartoonish, over-the-top characters. It's the kind of comic where the silliness never leaves, often used as much for laughs as it does for brevity whenever it gets serious. I kinda thing it'd work as a Cartoon Network program, honestly. It kind of dips a fine line between being all-age or something Adult Swim would play.

By the time I finished, I was left immensely satisfied. It's about 800 pages, but reading BACK felt effortless. Maybe I would have felt differently if I had been keeping up with it per update when it was still going, but diving into it as a whole? It works. Each chapter, character introduction, and action scenes never overstay their welcome.

I'm pretty invested in the idea of getting physical copies of these books soon, BACK is just that dang good.

5. Come Hell or High Water (https://www.chohwcomic.com/)

SUMMARY: Prince Gladimir did not want to fall in love with a pirate, but he's thrown into his world of sea-farers and ne'ers do-wellers if it means saving his kingdom.

Can I just say I love the title of this comic? Come Hell or High Water is probably one of the badassest of all catchphrases and the creator just chose to use it as their title and it rules.

Everything about this premise rocks my world: elegant princely figure falling for his dashing, roguish pirate guy, fictional kingdoms and the political intrigues and conflict that arises within, high-faring sea ventures, and etc etc. This comic, by all means, is my jam.

Soooooooo, I actually kind of fell out of this comic early into its run. Something about it wasn't clicking for me, personally, but with thirteen chapters under its belt and me, having only gotten up to, roughly, the third chapter, I want to give this one another go later down the line. There is no way I can't leave this comic left unread when EVERYTHING about it fits my particular mold so well. I'm not sure what didn't stick with me, but it certainly is not the sexual tension between the main characters which, god, Chapter One starts off with Gladinmir breaking up with his hot pirate boyfriend and if that isn't a good conflict for the two of them to work out their issues, then I don't know what is.

6. Dead City (https://topazcomics.com/deadcity/welcome/)

(NOTE: The cover is from the physical copy of Dead City. I screencapped this from their official store, hence why the link is watermarked on it. But hey, now you can go and buy it. It's good! Read it!)

SUMMARY: Two guys survive a zombie apocalypse, learn a little about each other, and maybe, just maybe, fall in love. ;O

If it wasn't for a couple of blogs I follow vouching for this comic, I might not have read Dead City. Me and zombie stuff are not syncopatico. Dead City is not about that. The zombie stuff is just background for what it's really about: a slice-of-life and cozy (yes, really!) story of two guys just trying to make through a dying world one day at a time. Throughout the comic, they learn to lean on each other, learn who they are, and get into internal conflicts fighting off their demons.

It's short (roughly 190+ pages), it's sweet, and it genuinely left me feeling like things will be alright in spite of a burning world.

7. Doris Doodle (https://www.dorisdoodle.com/)

SUMMARY: Doris Doodle is an old-timey cartoon struggling to find acting jobs in a media field where she's considered a thing of the past. However, when she is caught on camera for an act of goodwill that launches her into viral popularity, a new door opens up for her, but not without drawbacks.

I think Doris Doodle ended up being one of my new favorites. I'm fond of the Roger Rabbit-ish world of toons living in a human environment, breathed to life by animators, and going about their daily lives in-between gigs as actors. Indeed, you see a lot of crossovers from numerous famous cartoon stars (Betty Boop being a prominent one), which leaves me curious on how much workload the creator has to do with their current goal to make a non-copyright-infringement, physical version of this. It'll be interesting to see.

In any case, Doris Doodle left me emotionally yearning for a happy ending for the main character. We see how the media world chews and spit her out even decades later, and how, once a wide-eyed actress who wanted to be seen, can turn so cynical and bitter at what she was denied, through acts often not of her own faults.

The comic explores the usual horridness of Hollywood shallowness and sexist bullshit, but it also explains what its like to be an old toon out-of-touch of an ever increasing modern world. I love the latter a bit more since it's uniquely set for fictional pen-and-paper denizens; seeing how Toons exist, how restricted their livelihood is no matter what decade you were born, and the methods they go through to survive is fascinatingly good worldbuilding.

8. Earth In a Pocket (http://earthinapocket.spiderforest.com/)

SUMMARY: Anthropologist Halisi Mwangi wants to bring Earth's past to numerous human space colonies. Grabbing precious artifacts that has dotted human history, she blasts off to achieve her goals. Unfortunately, an accident causes her to be stranded on an unknown planet, with only its residences left to keep her company.

I think about the future of our planet a lot, and I'm often terrified of what will happen. I've found myself increasingly annoyed at End of the World stories heavily laden with cynical, edgy bents. I'm not saying these can't have commentary, but geez louise, one can only deal with another "Humans Suck and Can't Be Trusted In the Face of Despair" narrative without withering into a fetal position. Like, man, I get it, but also, come on.

Futurama has always been kind of a comfort show for me. There's something reassuring to see a fictional depiction of Earth a thousand years later, still thriving. Their problems aren't any more or less better or worse than ours, but they're living and doing things and it's just kinda nice.

Earth in a Pocket does something similar: it's a futuristic world where science benefited mankind. There are space colonies now and safe travels in-between, with no sign of the Earth itself in any danger. The main characters is utterly positive and obsessively in love with what humanity has accomplished. She praises the capabilities of what we have done and can do; it's this thinking that not only motivates her to survive, but educate the little adorable jellyfish aliens, all of whom are curious to learn about this strange, bipedal creature.

This is another short comic, so it'll take maybe an hour to finish. I urge you, if you ever feel sad about the current state of the world, give Earth in a Pocket a try. It's compassionate to mankind's achievements, endlessly encourages learning through curiosity and mutual respect for each other's cultures, and reminds us the good we can do. It's just feels good.

9. Fairmeadow (https://www.fairmeadowcomic.com/)

SUMMARY: Goma, a warrior orc, lost and broken, ends up in Fairmeadow, a small community of pacifists lead by Sanctuary. There, Goma is accepted as long as she abides by their peacekeeping rules, which she increasingly challenges every step of the way.

I was initially hesitant to approach this comic because of its tabletop RPG influence, something I am vastly unfamiliar with. I wondered if there would have been terminology I wouldn't get, but I strode on because the premise sounded interesting.

And it was totally worth it. I didn't need to know a goddamn thing about Dungeons n' Dragons or whatnot to enjoy the heck out of this comic. It is exactly what the summary say it is: hardened warrior who has Seen War clashes with a bunch of idealists who refuses to engage. It is damn good showing the flaws behind what an isolationist, hippie-like community is when they refuse to engage in politic strife that, though they refuse to admit, does reflect the world they live in. Goma doesn't instantly endear, both in-universe and out, but the further you read, the more you understand and even side with her frustrations on these crop-hoarding loners who seem content in their impossibly fantasy world. And I love that both sides represent their positions as justified. It's a constant battle and I am eager to find out how these characters will engage with each other, and especially, how it'll end. Fairmeadow feels like the kind of comic where we won't get an easy answer by the time it wraps up.

10. The Glass Scientists (https://www.theglassscientists.com/)

SUMMARY: In a city increasingly hostile to mad scientists everywhere, a one Dr. Jekyll took it upon himself to create an academy to encourage and prep those scientists to fit into good society. Course, things get complicated when Jekyll's other side, the impish Mr. Hyde, constantly takes over to rein a little chaos.

Okay, so, I do enjoy The Glass Scientists. The comic seem to be reaching its end point, so shit is hitting the fan, and I am glued. But I think I'm drawn more to the aesthetic of the comic than anything. Like Victorian-era mad scientists aren't my particular bread and butter, but everything about the Victorian-era fashion is, so Dr. Jekyll in a top hat as the first thing I saw was going to draw me in no matter what.

The second thing that dragged me in was the HOLY SHIT THE ARTWORK IS FREAKIN' AMAZING WHAT THE FUCK THESE LOOK LIKE ONE OF THOSE COMICS WHERE THEY SCREENCAP CARTOONS. I found out the creator works for animation professionally, so that explains a lot. This is a maddeningly great looking comic, with some incredibly good lighting haunting the streets of London.

Things really get interesting a few chapters in when Dr. Frankenstein appears and I feel that's when the comic really takes off. Like, if 19th century English literature and mad scientist gremlins are your thing, definitely give this a read. If anything, maybe you, too, will weep in tears at how gorgeous the comic looks.

11. Goth Western (https://www.gothwestern.com/)

SUMMARY: With an act of necromancy, Jack brings her lover, Evelyn, back to life, at the cost of working for the God she gave her soul to. Now she must hunt down a man in order for the two of them to have their happy ending.

Damn. "Goth Western." That's a title that goes hard. Another short comic that can be read in one fell swoop, Goth Western is pretty much what it is: a dark fantasy ol' west story between two women who would go to the ends of the Earth for each other. It's got all the hallmarks of the western genre: gun fights, bounty hunters, deserts and saloons, etc. I'm not particularly ride or die for Westerns, but it's there for those who are.

What I did love is the sheer optimism behind the grit. I like that Jack and Evie are genuinely decent people who just so happens to have no conniption committing some immoral acts or a crime or two if it means ensuring their own future. And they go through some shit. And you root for them regardless because they love each other and deserve to be together, and in spite of its harsh background, they will find it.

Honestly, with the length of the book, Goth Western feels like it could be an amazing and fun film.

12. Hans Vogel Is Dead (https://www.hansvogelisdead.com/)

SUMMARY: Ace pilot Hans Vogel dies in the Battle of Britain, wherein he ends up in a stagnating fairy tale world. Along with a girl cursed in a fox's body, Hans traverse the land as he strives to be a better person and unlearn the rampant fascism that has encapsulated his entire life.

I can only reason reading the summary above is enough for people to put two-and-two together that this takes place in 1940s World War II. And it's even more obvious what Party Hans is involved in, so if that kind of background is not to your liking, I don't recommend it.

If it's any worth, the majority of the story takes place in said fictional fairy tale world, using it as a thematic drive to explore Hans' background to have him realize, pretty early, in fact, that his entire fascist view is wrong. It's clearly a lovingly-crafted story, the creator constantly peppers each page notes with trivia and facts about the time period (her bio states she's a historian.)

I've gone in and out with the comic (one of those "I'll check back when it updates a few page" sorta thing), but I appreciate the chutzpah of the creator to make its lead character a literal Nazi and going out of her way to explore what it is like to have lived in that specific time period with a society and culture that devalued so many people. How will Hans get out of this kind of thinking and be a better person? Are his actions forgivable? I kind of feel questions like these are somewhat balanced by Hans himself, who, rather than portrayed as some arrogant jackass, is instead rather timid and unsure of himself.

Hans Vogel Is Dead feels very much like a "We will be doomed to repeat history unless we learn it" kind of comic, which, shit, given the politic course my country is going through, having a comic like this educating on why being a dangerous bigot is an awful thing, feels appropriately well-timed.

13. Harpy Gee (https://www.harpygee.com/)

SUMMARY: A young, magic-less elf enters the town of Podunk. There she has fantastical adventures with her new friends.

I know the summary's lacking, but 1.) I imagine most people already know about Harpy Gee or its artist. I've followed her stuff before she launched this comic because of wowie-zowie I would kill to use copic markers the way she does let me learn your ways coloring skills and 2.) That's kinda what Harpy Gee is.

For sure there are scenes, foreshadowing, and characters that launch off future plot points, but otherwise, Harpy Gee is like watching a family-friend cartoon. It's got the bright colors, often has cheesy little dialogues, magic and monsters, and every other little dangerous, but manageable adventures the main characters get into. It's a nice comic to read when you want to unwind, and I really dig how earnest it is with its kid-friendly appeal. There's not a drop of cynicism or edge to it; the optimism and sense of fun is what gives Harpy Gee so much of its charm.

The creator has since graduated to digital coloring (though she still inks her comics the ol' fashion way), but I really recommend checking out the early pages to see how she works her magic with markers. Like, I'm biased, my stuff is traditional artwork, so I'm endlessly fascinated when I DO see another webcomic in the wild doing the same, but her stuff is eye candy. Like *chef's kiss.*

14. Hoppscotch (https://z-t00n.tumblr.com/tagged/hoppscotch)

SUMMARY: Bunch of animal people get into wacky shenanigans and boy, that is an understatement.

So, as far as I'm concerned, this comic is only hosted on the creator's tumblr page. It also doesn't have a cover and I wasn't very comfortable even posting a full page because of where its hosted, so I just took a small screencap of a couple of panels from a newer page to give an indicator of the kind of humor you are in for when reading Hoppscotch. (Though let me know if you'd rather this pic be removed.)

In any case, this comic wondered into my radar when a person I follow reblogged the one Hoppscotch comic with the exploding school bus. I remember scrolling down thinking it couldn't possibly get any more bizarre, but it kept elevating itself until I was left in awe at how GOOD with spontaneity it is. This is a comic that sets you up to think it'll go the expected route, but will often always, always go in a completely unpredictable, unhinged ending, and it gets me every. single. time. I haven't laughed so hard in a comic in a while. I was floored by its mastery of deranged comedy and I am genuinely looking forward to more.

A lot of this is really helped by the appealing artwork. Furries aren't in my radar, but I love the character designs. They're colorful, adorable, and really streamlined. Like this kinda has a mid-to-late 2000s Nicktoons/CN sorta vibe.

15. Kidd Commander (https://kiddcommander.com/)

SUMMARY: Phineas Kidd vows to gather a crew so she can fly off to Kairos Crossing to accomplish her goal: to catch the Sun.

Kidd Commander immediately drew me in the moment I read "to catch the sun" in the comic's "About" page. Maybe it's my love for cosmic eldritch horrors. Maybe it's that one Specter Knight fancomic I'll never get to making where I have him literally cut the sun (long story), but whatever it is, I bookmarked the webcomic to read it when I had time because I had to know what the hell I was getting into.

And then I read it (as of this writing, I wrapped up the Mile High Engage arc and stopped shortly after I started the A Wretched Analog arc) and I sat there with my hand over my head, wondering, "What the heck did I just read?"

I mean that in the best way.

Kidd Commander is a dense webcomic. It pounds you deep into its constructed world, with terms that I admit, I'm still trying to make sense of. Mind you, the comic explains what I need to know. What is it about Kidd Commander is that it goes with the assumption that you, the reader, is not a moron. It won't hold your hand; it expects you to keep up with the characters' nuances, the nature of its world and how it exists, and every other little intricate of foreshadowing waiting to be unraveled. The creator has a degree in English literature and it shows, in that while this can be a wordy comic, it's less about how much is squeezed in a word balloon (of which Kidd Commander does fine), but the way it is written. If it isn't casual dialogue, then it gets evocative, especially when it gets serious and/or bigger plot stuff unravel.

After I finished the first arc (which was a sizable 440 pages), I had to take a breather. It can be overwhelming, but it's also a comic that is clearly driven both by passion and anger. It feels like the comic equ. of wanting to punch all the bastards that has ever wronged you. It wants to internally liberate itself as much as it hopes for you. Its constructed world genuinely feels like the creator's own, all the while drawing in the best of shonen comics (bonus points for the aesthetic airship. This bitch loves airships.)

I plan to read further into the comic, but I wanted to make sense of the world it has laid out first. And I found out that sometimes the best way for me to read a piece of fiction and really get to the meat is not through digital format, but physically in my hands.

So I ended up buying the book to do exactly that:

I implore people to give Kidd Commander a shot. If you want something that feels so raw, built to give you a sense of catharsis to people of things with greater power that has wronged you, then this comic might as well be its spokesperson.