#it may be wise to think about the criticisms in your favorites... but also think about what's in your favorites that delights you...

[i-love-zelda-16]

just beat spirit tracks. and oh my goddess, i love this game.

listen to this song while you read this.

my honest thoughts. will be writing Spirit meets the chain. it is obligatory.

holy hylia this game is absolutely incredible. i played this game at one of the most difficult periods of my real life and it brought so much joy to me. who knew that a “silly” little zelda train simulator game could’ve made me so happy.

each area of the world was developed and none of it felt empty whatsoever. i literally never used fast travel/portals because 1. the overworld theme is such a bop, 2. i just love traversing the overworld because it is fun. there are always places to stop, bunnies to catch, and things to do along the way!!

speaking of the overworld theme, the music is my favorite music in the entire series, maybeee tied with skyward sword. nintendo, i am begging you, give my train simulator a full remake with an orchestral soundtrack, this game is incredible and it deserves it.

okay spoilers ahead!! read at your own risk!!

some part of me broke and will forever stay broken when Zelda mentioned Tetra. that’s really when the tears started (although they started much earlier too) and never stopped.

the character development of all the characters is absolutely incredible. Link isn’t just a silent Hero, he’s an engineer and full of funny actions and facial expressions. as much as i like botw Link, these kinds of Links will always have the #1 spot in my heart. Zelda is silly and fun and by no means useless or a damsel in distress whatsoever. in the final battle, she is the one stunning Malladus (with Link’s help). Link would be 100% dead without her. NOT TO MENTION BYRNE, HOLY HYLIA. what the character development; this man is incredible. so is his theme. he literally saved Zelda’s life. he may have saved Hyrule. Anjean, my beloved. Linebeck III, my sweet little bratty guy.

and can we talk about zelink?? they are the cutest. i like them 1000x better in this game than any other i’ve played (i’ve played about 16 games). absolutely adorable relationship, nintendo really got to flesh them out since Zelda is literally link’s companion for the entire game.

the mechanics are also incredible. train maneuvering is easy, but not too easy that i can just sit back and relax while i listen to the bop of an overworld theme, i still have to pay attention. blowing the whistle is so fun. train design and even lore is so peak. during that first segment where you have to sneak Zelda out of the castle, i didn’t even realize until after that it was a tutorial for the Tower of Spirits. think about it. patrolling guards (phantoms), winding corridors, distracting guards, drawing a path for Zelda to follow on the floor, the guards can see Link but not Zelda (reversed in Tower of Spirits, they can see phantom Zelda, but not Link). what an incredible tutorial, didn’t even realize it was one in the first place.

Tower of Spirits was probably the only part of the entire game that i have to criticize, amazing idea, and it was executed fine, but it could’ve been so much better. first of all, each segment was like a dungeon within itself, and i think they could’ve made each one a lot smaller. i was in Tower of Spirits 4 for like 4 hours 😭. probably something similar with Tower of Spirits 6, although i played that over the course of multiple days so it wasn’t as bad. the staircase leading up to each level was absolutely genius, made so much sense lore-wise and it was also just fire as hell.

the connections to Wind Waker absolutely broke me in the best way. Zelda mentioning Tetra as i said before, the stained glass window of Tetra in the castle, Hyrule encyclopedia states that the guards in the castle wear green after Link from Wind Waker, the ancient gold coins having the Triforce on them; the Triforce and Master Sword are irrelevant in this story because they were lost at sea at the end of Wind Waker. this game is not in Hyrule but New Hyrule, a landmass which Wind and Tetra found after the events of Wind Waker and more specifically Phantom Hourglass (which i haven’t played, let me know in the comments if i should!!). so because of these differences, you would think it would be very disconnected from the rest of the timeline. yet somehow, it feels so unbelievably connected in such wonderful ways that make my Zelda lore brain go absolutely insane. i want to scream of joy when i think of what the devs gave us with this game. these connections are exactly what i wanted and what i try to make with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but the devs just refuse to give them to us and it’s annoying as hell. the royal crest of their kingdom does not have the Triforce, but has the symbol of the Spirits of Good because that makes so much sense. everything makes sense in this game and i love it.

the boss fights are fire, especially the final ones. the final sacred duet is so epic and beautiful, seeing everything you’ve worked for, all the Lokomos, it’s unbelievable.

and finally, the post-credit scene. this scene will change based upon what answer you choose to Zelda’s question before you head off for the final fights. she’ll ask, “what do you want to be when all this is over?” or something like that. Link has 3 options: engineer, warrior, or “dunno”. each one of these options will change the final cutscene that plays after the credits. personally, i chose “dunno” because, 1. realistically, how is Link supposed to know what he wants to be yet? he is just a kid, and although he has studied to become an engineer, he has learned of his (debatable? sure, Wind made his own destiny… hmmm…) destiny intertwined with Zelda’s, so he’s a warrior too. which leads me to my second point, 2. he’s an engineer and a warrior. (ARGHH I KEEP TYPING WARRIORS, IT’S ENGRAINED IN MY MUSCLES XD). he doesn’t have to decide, he can be both. but… that’s not an option soooo “dunno” it is.

this game is beautiful beyond words. i’m debating to say whether this game is my favorite or not, but for now, let’s just say it’s tied with Skyward Sword for my favorite. i cannot understand why someone couldn’t see the joy and hilariousness of this game, not mention the absolutely way-too-epic-than-they-have-to-be-but-the-devs-gave-us-this-amazingness-so-i’m-not-gonna-refute cutscenes. like, seriously, the camera angles, facial expressions, everything, it seems like something out of a movie rather than a DS kids train simulator game. this game is one a kind, so freaking special to me, and i will never forget it ever.

may you rest in peace Anjean, Byrne, and the rest of the Lokomos. can’t say the same about you Cole and Malladus.

Spirit will be meeting the Chain soon. stay tuned folks <3

[theoldspark]

Not the anon who criticized Skybound on the confessions blog, but I saw your reply so I thought I'd send an ask. I'm a fan of Skybound but I can see a lot of valid criticisms wrt pacing (mostly action), a large cast with many characters that don't get enough page time (tho it isn't even That large yet so it's kinda more a TF problem in general imo...), subplots that take a long time to get addressed/resolved (tho I am reserving final judgement on this until #24 comes out which will be the end of DWJ's time as the writer of the series. I started reading Skybound around #14, imo as a binge read it's fine, but having to wait half a year or more for something to get resolved is killer. I never read traditional serialized American comics before the Energon Universe so I don't know if this is typical.) More specific criticisms would require spoilers.

I think whether you'd like it or not depends on personal taste, it isn't perfect but it's fun and the art is gorgeous. If nothing else is peak, the art absolutely is. The contrast between the super stylized and saturated G1 designs next to the super detailed humans and environments is crazy. The preview of the cover by DWJ for #20 (not out yet) is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Jorge Corona's penciling is also wonderful, the "skinned alive"/tortured Autobot in #8 is SO visceral and expressive. The issue that introduced Beachcomber was similarly breathtaking. The fight scenes are also incredibly dynamic (thanks to DWJ's background with wrestling). Reading it in hand is worth it for the spreads alone. Despite what I said about characters lacking pagetime, characterization is still strong - YMMV but it definitely has one of the best Optimus Prime's, and I'm a HUGE fan of their take on Elita. The humans are also done well! They actively add something to the story.

I guess the main thing is that when I try to think about what Skybound is doing NEW I kind of come up with a blank. Mostly small things so far. It hasn't lasted long enough to do anything crazy yet because it was committed to starting from ground zero. We only got Megatron in issue #18! And #19 was a flashback, so that's over a year and a half before Megatron became an active character. The war on Earth not immediately involving Megatron was very cool (especially if you like Starscream being petty and murderous) but the plot moves slowly. I've only read a bit of IDW so I unfortunately can't compare between the two of them. Idk how far IDW1 had gotten story-wise after the first 19~ issues they published. BUT...if you (general you) enjoy G1 (especially Sunbow G1 which is the "Bible" DWJ is using), there's really no reason why you wouldn't like Skybound? FWIW I only got into Transformers within the last year and watched all of G1 as an adult and loved it, so it's not a nostalgia thing for me, but it's def the closest retread of G1 done in years. Which I personally appreciate, since there's actually a lot of really interesting G1 stuff that never got touched again!.....but that's why I actually slightly prefer Void Rivals, which has the most "Season 3"/scifi stuff in it so far, including Hot Rod in the last few issues. (yay!) We're even getting Wreck-Gar this month.

Apologies for the super long ask! But I hope this was useful.

Thank you so much, anon! I appreciate you taking the time to answer something I commented elsewhere.

To be honest, whether it is said to be good or bad, I always prefer to judge for myself after I've consumed the actual source material and not just people's opinions that may very well be biased.

However, it did seem curious to me that many fans seemed to only have good things to say about Skybound, so I was intrigued by the anon ask that said the opposite.

Reading your ask, I'll say that Skybound sounds like something I would enjoy. Plus G1 (although I haven't watched it all) is one of my favorite Transformers series, so anything closely based on it gets kudos from me. But I do see where the other anon was coming from with the criticism. Slow-paced stories don't always work, especially when you only have 24 issues to tell it. And one thing I'm not sure I'll be a fan of that I've heard of is 'Optimus puts Earth before Cybertron' once again. I've never liked that trope, but to be fair it's not anything new for Optimus Prime's character.

Overall, for the things I know, it's a story worth giving it a chance. It may not be perfect, but hardly anything is in this fandom.

[lucianapinkgirlprettycure]

My Ten Favorite Disney Movies

I knew I had to make this list at some point; as you know, I'm a huge fan of animation, because unlike live action productions, although I've seen some with children's themes, cartoons, on the other hand, know how to capture that innocent, childlike feeling that characterizes childhood; their scenes, even though they may be dark or dare to touch on mature themes, do so in a way that children can understand, and I especially find the love scenes in animated films beautiful, and honestly, I think some deserve more attention, but this isn't what I'm here to talk about; rather, I'm here to describe which are my favorite Disney movies, those that I can watch over and over again without getting bored, and that thrill me like the first time I saw them; so here they are, my ten favorite Disney movies; let's get started

Number Ten: Cinderella (1950)

I feel that this princess is underrated these days, since lately, she’s been accused of being sexist and uninspiring to the girls of the world, but if we analyze this movie more deeply, we will realize that Cinderella is anything but passive; yes, she may not be so passive as to stand up for herself, but at least she made an effort to keep hope of finding what she deserved, even if she didn’t fall in love; from my point of view, this movie is about keeping a cool head to face complicated situations, and how in the end, you get your reward when you do those things in the healthiest and most correct way possible. Cinderella seems to me to be a true survivor of abuse, and although her interaction with the prince wasn’t much, at least that was fixed in the sequels, especially in Cinderella 3, where her character and her relationship with our favorite blonde are explored more; the original 1950 Cinderella is in this 10th place because, looking at it from another perspective, I know it's a product of its time and some clichés would no longer be used today, but story-wise, Disney took a risk by realistically portraying domestic abuse and how women can be worse than men when it comes to mistreatment and abuse

Number Nine: The Rescuers (1977)

I haven't seen this movie in a long time, but I remember that when I was watching it, I couldn't help but notice that Disney also took the risk of touching on a sensitive subject: child kidnapping and how children are manipulated by their kidnappers to commit their crimes; in the case of the antagonist of this story, Medusa, she manipulated poor Penny into bringing her a huge diamond to satisfy her greedy desires, while also hurting her emotionally to hurt her feelings, but Penny, despite breaking down and crying, doesn't give up and does her best to try to get out on her own; obviously, sometimes she needs the help of Bernard and Miss Bianca to do so, and speaking of them, these two little mice are good protagonists, being two opposites who complement and support each other to fulfill their rescue mission; next time I should watch it again to determine if I still have those thoughts, but overall, it's a good, enjoyable film that demonstrates the masterful hand of a company that, despite its childish formula, knows how to venture into dark and adult themes

Number Eight: Sleeping Beauty (1959)

This is also another princess movie with a bad reputation for having an unheroic protagonist, which is true, Aurora is not one of the most popular princesses, and honestly, she fell quite short in terms of character development, but I don't hate her or have disdain for her, I just like her because she has a pretty appearance and nothing more, for those who criticize this movie and call it "bad and sexist", they don't realize that the three good fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, are the true heroines of the story, they are the ones who really save Aurora and not Philip (him in part) but the latter could not have done it without the help of these three brave old women, who love their princess with all their hearts; it also gave us Maleficent, one of the best villains in animated films, the music takes some musical fragments from the famous ballet by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky, and the gray and indigo colored backgrounds that emulate medieval paintings truly make it a masterpiece in terms of art referring to the time in which people lived back then

Number Seven: Home on the Range (2004)

This movie may not sound very familiar to you because it is one of the most forgotten, and at the time, it was a failure both critically and commercially, but personally, it is one of my childhood favorites, since its story, although cliché, is full of funny moments, such as Jeb, the grumpy male goat who did not like to share his cans, and the three main cows, Maggie, Grace and Mrs. Calloway, are some of the best female protagonists in all of Disney, not to mention secondary characters like Buck the horse or Lucky Jack, the rabbit with a peg leg, as well as its villain, Alameda Slim, his iconic yodeling, and the Willies, who make me laugh once in a while with their typical antics of clumsy villains' helpers and that generate sympathy; in my opinion, an underrated gem that should be appreciated more

Number Six: The Little Mermaid (1989)

The film that started the Disney Renaissance, and which also changed music, since apart from the classic Disney melodies, it has certain touches of Broadway; like the classic Disney princess movies, it also has its things that aged badly, but Ariel, the main mermaid, moves the thread of the plot, wanting to fulfill her wish of becoming human as soon as possible, and although she makes her mistakes, I don't blame her, she's a 16-year-old teenager with raging hormones, and how many teenagers in real life do these kinds of things for someone they're in love with? Well, many; the secondary characters are also nice, the songs are danceable and, in general, it's a good story that works for any teenager who has gone through the same thing as Ariel, whether it be having overprotective parents, or having done crazy things for someone they're in love with

Number Five: Mulan (1998)

Oh yes, this princess would undoubtedly have to be among my favorites, since she is the most feminist Disney princess that everyone crosses out when talking about Disney heroines; while the previous ones moved the thread of the plot in their own way, Mulan changed it by not only being another action heroine, but having a character arc that generally, male characters possessed, in addition to demonstrating that women could fight and enter the army, but not to show that they are superior to men, but to show that they do not deserve to be underestimated, but to show that they don't deserve to be underestimated, and that she does it to save her father; in other words, she does something out of love, at least in the family sense; the main protagonist as a character is great and with good development, the secondary characters that accompany her like Mushu, are also memorable and endearing, the songs are iconic, and the settings that represent Chinese culture capture well how people were back then, and which they continue to be to this day; without a doubt, a completely empowered woman, our beloved Mulan

Number Four: Chicken Little (2005)

Along with Home on the Range, Chicken Little seems to me to be one of the most underrated and unappreciated films by the public, since, honestly, I was a little surprised and saddened to know that this film was not appreciated at the time, yes it made a lot of money, but it is considered the worst in the Disney catalog; however, in my case it seems like a good film about how to accept a person, who is considered an outcast by others, and its alien plot is also well handled, in addition to the fact that Chicken Little's relationship with his father evolves as the story progresses, since Buck Cluck understands his son's feelings more deeply, and the secondary characters like Abby, Runt and Fish, are also people who provide good comic relief; the only thing I complain about is that Little and Abby's romance is forced, and I would have preferred them to remain just friends

Number Three: Beauty and the Beast (1991)

I used to watch this movie occasionally as a child, it's also the first film in which two characters in love get to know each other better in order to better develop their romantic relationship; Belle strikes me as one of the smartest and bravest heroines when it comes to confronting the Beast at the beginning and avoiding harassment from Gaston; the Beast, or Prince Adam, is one of the most realistic heroes given her background, and the villain is one of the most arrogant and toxic the Mouse Company has ever created; supporting characters, like Lumière and Cogsworth, bring a fun sense of humor to the story; all of this combined with animation that blends 2D with 3D, especially in the dance scene shared by the main characters; it was not for nothing that it won the Oscar for Best Picture of the year at the time; because of these achievements, it remains a film to remember

Number Two: Peter Pan (1953)

For me, Peter Pan is simply… magic; based on the novel by J.M. Barrie, the wonderful story of the boy who never grew up is accompanied by a setting that magically captures Neverland; the characters are all memorable, especially Captain Hook and his crew, who, compared to the original book and the rest of the adaptations, are more comical and fun here, and of course, we have Tinker Bell, the iconic blonde fairy who became another Disney mascot alongside Mickey Mouse, in addition to being the host of all the company's programs and DVDs; the songs are also good, and the story overall is suitable for the whole family, at least the movie, because the original book, while having its childish touches, is also darker in certain aspects

Before moving on to the top spot, here are some special mentions:

Bambi (1942)

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Lady and the Tramp (1955)

The Aristocats (1970)

The Fox and the Hound (1981)

Aladdin (1992)

Brother Bear (2003)

Tangled (2010)

Wreck It Ralph (2012)

Fine, let's move on to the number one spot:

Number One: The Lion King (1994)

As it could not be otherwise, The Lion King had to occupy the number one spot not only in my personal top, but in any top that has to do with Disney and animation in general, as well as Africa and lions; it is not surprising, since this masterpiece of animation is the favorite of a lot of people, including me; I remember that I used to watch it over and over again and I never got bored, I always went back to enjoying it like when I was a girl in elementary and middle school; the characters are endearing and adorable, the backgrounds that represent Africa are very well drawn, and the soundtrack is pure gold, with Hans Zimmer on the score and Elton John on the songs, and thus, both managed to capture the African essence of the savannah, and create melodies with choirs in African languages ​​in between; all the charm, elegance and dedication that its creators, animators and musicians put into the film make it a film that can be enjoyed by both children and adults, and that will undoubtedly captivate your heart with its moving and captivating story of a lion cub who eagerly awaits to be king, and who along the way will learn life lessons and become a good adult; well-deserved first place for The Lion King, there is no doubt about it

I hope you liked it, and reblog this whether you agree with me

[nocoffeeforoldmen]

your honor, i love them. they have loved each other through lifetimes and i will not be taking criticism on that at this time.

also i may or may not have written 20k words about their many lives together. can't confirm or deny it.

orla is not my first tav, but she is by far the most fleshed out story wise... and i think she's my favorite.

[arcandoria]

I need to know your overall thoughts on DAV. I just finished my first playthrough of 110 hours and I honestly really loved the game. I thought the team did a great job bringing in the lore and explaining how the blight was created, what happened with the Titans, etc. Some romance dialogue was a little cringe for me lol but other than that I truly loved the game and may have even cried (no I cried like a little bitch). I just constantly see people shitting on it and it makes me truly wonder if we played the same game at all. Thanks in advance for reading this and humoring me 🤣

Overall? I loved the game, and it's easily my new favorite Dragon Age game. It's not perfect, but it delivered where it could, with the limitations it had.

Important to note here: I don't quantify a favorite game just by story. If a game is cool story-wise but doesn't encourage me to replay often, then I don't put it on a top favorite. Veilguard has a decent story and a cool gameplay, so I'm genuinely excited to go back to it (which I did, I'm on my second playthrough). My favorite DAge game strictly for story delivery and narrative is Origins, but I can't stand the combat.

I got it easier, I guess? I'm mostly satisfied with what I got lore-wise from the parts that were more relevant to me, those being the Blight, Grey Wardens, and Solas' storyline. They could be better, but they're not terrible.

My biggest beef is that the franchise had its teeth pulled. There's no denying this. I feel like they were getting ready for a generation that just can't take the gnarly, uncomfortable sincerity of the other games that many of us loved and appreciated it for, so they had to chew the hard parts away to make it a little more tasteful.

There's a lot of things happening onscreen that are still plenty jarring, but most of the time, you don't see it. You just know it's there (and I assume, you gotta know the rest of the franchise to know it's there).

I also have a MASSIVELY BIG displeasure with the Well of Sorrows not being mentioned aside from joke banter. That's the one thing that sincerely and truly pissed me off. But I'll get over it eventually I guess.

The more I replay and analyze things, I accept some of my then criticisms better. I also can say I didn't get attached to the characters as much I did with previous games, but again the more I replay, the better I appreciate them.

Overall I love Veilguard. I sincerely do. The more I talk about it and think about the implications and connect things to the previous game, the more I love it.

I know how much more potential it had if the writers and devs didn't have to fight an uphill battle for this game to be what it is, but I also can't bring myself to dislike the game based on "what-ifs" exactly because of how many employees got screwed over during development and how many fights the current ones fought but lost. Fuck EA!

[wishcamper]

All in the Family: ACOTAR PART II

Welcome back to our multi-part lesson on ACOTAR and Family Systems! Today’s topic is family roles, the interplay between them, and their combination’s influence on the nuclear family emotional process in the Inner Circle.

Pre-requisites: Part I

Creds: license and mf master's degree in counseling babyyy. and unhinged enough to write it all down.

No content warnings, just garden variety family dysfunction.

oh my god what the fuck does that mean

Let's back up and start with the structure of the IC pre-Archeron invasion. We have Rhysand, Cassian, Azriel, Morrigan, and Amren in a found family. This is where we have to suspend our disbelief a bit, because you’ll notice there are no parents in this family. However that doesn’t mean no one functions as a parent, because in any system there is a hierarchy, at least in an emotional sense, and the power vacuum will always get filled.

When a parent is missing from a nuclear family, very often one of the children will step in to fill the role and rebalance the system. Older siblings caring for younger ones, female children picking up housework, even phrases like calling someone the “man of the house” confer symbolic authority and responsibility to someone theoretically on the same level as the others. The dark end of this road is emotional incest, when parents rely on a child emotionally in the same way they would a spouse, a dynamic that is deeply inappropriate and incredibly damaging for a child.

Okay, so let’s talk about sibling position to see who is most likely to step up. This is a found family, so obviously none of these are based in biology, but if we look at the core four, they have a pretty clear birth order layout in terms of both power and personality. 

Rhys: A textbook oldest child - responsibility-seeking, serious, tending toward leadership roles. Oldest children often feel the burden of setting a good example for others. Prone to relieving anxiety via control.

Az and Cas: Classic ends of the middle child spectrum (invisible to hyper-visible). Middle children are flexible, adaptable, and competitive, and often struggle with questions identity. They may seek to meet needs for connection and validation in unhealthy ways.

Mor: Baby of the family energy through and through. Youngest children are more likely to be outgoing, creative, and rebellious, and struggle with inferiority and self-centeredness. Interestingly, they’re also more likely to abuse alcohol and are overrepresented in psychiatric populations.

Amren, hilariously, comes across as an only child - they tend to be wise, independent, and private, struggling with social skills and receiving criticism. (1)

So who’s filling our parental roles here in the IC? Who has power over the others? Rhysand is an obvious choice - he regularly makes decisions for the group as well as individual members on the basis of his feelings and his political position. I think you could even argue Rhys sees the people of Velaris as his children, too, though he definitely plays favorites lol. Amren also emerges as a person with power, given everyone is afraid of her and she has influence over Rhys. Amren has some authority over the others, though she is less invested in their personal lives and so functions differently in the system than Daddy Rhys.

So Rhys is one parent, and Amren is like a weird aunt. It’s very normal in systems with a parentified child (PC) that the other children feel resentful - they’re all supposed to be on the same level, and yet one of them has been exalted above the rest. The PC can respond to this so many ways - force, charm, control, bribes, threats, ignoring them - it’ll depend on the person and the individual system. But the PC will also feel that counter-resentment and leverage the power position to create balance in the family (Cassian, Azriel, stop trying to kiss your sisters). The irony is that, in this system, no one asked Rhys to be in power over his friends - he decided he wanted them in his court and blurred those lines himself. I suspect this was intentional, though likely unconscious, because it gives him a nuclear option if he ever needs to reestablish order and control in his family. We see him pull rank in tense personal moments that have literally nothing to do with politics despite his excuse they do.

(I do think, though, that there’s an argument to be made here that, for people in certain positions of prominence and influence, all your choices are political. Your image is part of your power and so, by extension, the parts of your personal life that become public have an effect on your ability to rule. Rhys and Feyre use this rationale with Nesta in ACOSF, though my babe isn’t exactly a Hunter Biden. More of a Claudia Conway, I’d say.)

Let's go back to our scary image from the beginning.

Bowen believed in the importance of visualizing this structure, so he advocates for family mapping or construction of a genogram (2). Given what we’ve unpacked so far, we can roughly plot the individual connections and hierachy. I’ve created this one to show the basics of the relationships and power structure in the IC, and we’ll get more specific from here.

Solid lines=connectedness

Dashed lines=conflict

Arrow=direction of energy

Squiggles=ambivalence/fluctuation

Line thickness=emotional closeness

Amren’s special line to Rhys=whatever ulterior motive she has

If you remember from my last post, one of the most important forces in a family is the triangle. Take another look at the triangles above, and see which ones seem unstable to you. The one that immediately stands out to me, even just visually, is the Cas/Az/Mor triangle. Each individual relationship has a different tenor, which creates a lot of instability. You can see how Mor needs that closeness with Cas to balance the tension with Az, but in order to keep their relationship stable, Cas and Az have Rhys as a moderating presence. Because what is the one thing they all have in common? A close relationship with Rhys. And Rhys has Amren to reinforce his power and responsibility, keeping the whole system in balance.

In this way, the IC’s system, while dysfunctional, is relatively stable pre-Archerons.

To understand how that’s possible, we have to talk about anxiety. Anxiety is the main energy that moves conflict through the family and sets off the nuclear family emotional process (NFEP). Anxiety must go somewhere. In enmeshed systems like this one (members’ emotions and security are highly dependent on one another), members relieve their anxiety through the system instead of resolving it individually or in dyads. In cut off, emotionally distant systems, anxiety gets internalized or displaced outside the family.

Given the sheer variety of relationships in the system, the most likely source of anxiety is Morrigan. She has a different relationship to every person in the system. She’s in the middle of the power hierarchy between the “parents” and the “kids”, and floats around inside the relatively stable triangle of the bat boys, with individual connections to each one . She also has a pattern of internal conflict that she moderates externally via alcohol and relationships. Despite not having the most power externally, Mor’s actions and reactions often cause the rest of the system to shuffle around her, giving her a great deal of power.

But don’t just take my word for it - let’s look at this in action.

Say Mor, Cas, and Az go out together bc apparently that is something they do regularly. Mor feels Azriel getting too close, which triggers her anxiety because she does not want to talk about whatever is between them. In response, she communicates her displeasure by leveraging the triangle and focusing her intimate attention on Cassian. But this creates conflict for Cassian, who wants to moderate Mor’s anxiety without rupturing his relationship with Azriel. Hence, we get the weird overfamiliar platonic besties routine, threading the needling of giving Mor the protection she’s asking for without out-and-out antagonizing his brother. Azriel buries his hurt feelings and retracts emotionally, despite wanting to be connected, and they go back to how they were.

So we can see how Mor has generated the anxiety, and it follows down the chain: she passes it off to the boys, who deal with it through emotional cutoff (Az) and enmeshment (Cas). Cassian steps in between the conflict at Mor’s unconscious request and takes inappropriate responsibility for Azriel’s feelings of rejection and Mor’s anxiety, while Az puts his feelings away and reestablishes emotional distance. This is the NFEP in action.

And yet Cassian and Azriel are still shown to be close, so where do these feelings go? I mean, they do physically fight each other all the time lol. Azriel banks a lot of repressed resentment he has to discharge elsewhere. Cassian feels the burden of peacemaking and internalizes the unresolved conflict as his own fault, doubling down on his commitment to making it better. Mor avoids contending with her own feelings because everyone else is doing it for her.

And here’s where Rhys becomes a moderating presence for all of them. Rhys has ultimate decision-making power over who is in and who’s out of the family, and sets the rules of engagement. He decides who gets respect, who’s allowed to initiate conflict. Rhys hold’s the power in the bat boys triangle, the strongest alliance in the system, incentivizing Cas and Az to get along with each other. He also incentivizes Mor/Cas/Az to keep their shit together because Amren has influence over him, and they need their alliance to leverage power against her. Rhys doesn’t have a problem with the buffer, so they rest of them “don’t” either.

The best question to ask when it comes to dysfunction is this: who benefits? We can see this in larger systems, too: who benefits for housing disparity, patriarchy, systemic racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia? People in power. If a system is balanced via dysfunction, it’s because whoever is in power wants it that way. With families, this is often more unconscious - perhaps Rhys is just as afraid of family disintegration as Mor, and believes addressing their issues will cause them to split. Perhaps there is a more generational pattern at play. I think it’s worth considering not just how this family functions, but what conscious and unconscious choices are being made given their individual families of origin.

And then the Archeron’s come, and all these cracks will be exposed and the system will get blown to shit. See you next time, class dismissed!

Sources: 

Eckstein, D., & Kaufman, J. A. (2012). The role of birth order in personality: An enduring intellectual legacy of Alfred Adler. The Journal of Individual Psychology, 68(1), 60–61.

Brown, J. (1999). Bowen family systems theory and practice: Illustration and critique. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 20(2), 94-103.

Genogram made with Canva, art by @artworks_by_rokii, rosalynnart on deviant art, @sallteas

[jacobsbadwig]

I have this long standing analysis of YA media dropping the ball on themes and consequences for its main characters giving them huge plot armor. What I realize the frustrating part about them is that often they are fantasy or fantasy adjacent, the authors accidentally create these huge worlds and severe problems and implications, but ironically, their main characters are separate from the world they inhabit via tone or their characteristics or mindset not aligning with the world (aka 21 century American mindset in a fantasy that takes place in 18th Russian analog iykyk)

Like Bella’s story being a romance while everyone else in a horror or gothic novel or pseudo vampire thriller or fantasy series is like odd as @panlight often points out mentioning SMeyers unwillingness to really lean into the vampire of it all. Honestly in a non first person story, this could be played for laughs to even be interesting.

(Never mind Smeyers surface understanding of the novels and plays, that she references as Bella’s favorite stories. As a former English teacher, her understanding and Bella’s understanding is in fact of someone who read some classics in high school but didn’t necessarily delve into the commentary and themes of the works focusing on the aesthetics of the romance rather than understanding what said purpose romance actually serves in the narrative as a critic or other wise. Insert ‘Smeyer doesn’t know what star crossed lovers means and refuses to learn rant)

Ironically, Bella having a romance in her world is portrayed as the exception when we look at other characters, even the uncivilized vampires, she is in fact the norm.

What makes Bella special other than her shield she gets at the end? She isn’t even the only one with great control. There are other hybrids. She is special because the text tells us she is. I’m not going to compare her to other female protagonists because my point isn’t about Bella as a character but rather how her narrative allows her to be special without really, really setting her apart from everyone else.

Just about everything the narrative says is specific to Bella’s story can be found in other characters backstories (that honestly don’t matter but do matter as a comparison that Bella is the exception to the rule rather than the example as I stated above.)

I think a lot of people cling to the Twilight saga (and other YA novels) but simultaneously desire more from the narrative because we want to feel special without doing the work, which isn’t wrong especially at a young age when you are finding yourself, but once we reach a level of maturity, we want our gifts and specialness to allow us to love ourselves and move in society as it drives our lives.

It’s why we cling to characters like Carlisle who doesn’t have known powers and has had series of trauma and has to actively rise above it. Or Jacob who is beaten by the narrative and should have been a symbol of how fate is myth and bullshit and circumstances may forge your path but choices and perseverance can alter it or make the path better.

I wanted to discuss @fuckmeyer Come Nightfall along with other Twilight reimaginings and how I feel as though, hers is the best damn thing we have. But while trying to write out my thoughts and why I feel as though I could never accomplish something like that, I ended writing this post after many posts about Star Wars. Honestly, I am reminded about two ideas: we are protagonist in our own stories and we are also side characters in others. Meaning we are chosen ones chosen for something greater but that doesn’t mean no one else is a chosen one.

Maybe that’s why I have out grown YA novels. Adulthood is in fact learning that you are hot shit but not always hot shit but other people also make sure your shit stays hot and you also make sure theirs stays hot too.

At the end of this thought process, I am left asking what was Bella actually chosen for. To be born a vampire? A Cullen vampire? A vampire in general? Edward’s wife and Renegades mother? Did she actually take the Volturi down (no but I’m posing the question) Or did she deny the call to what her purpose was.

If the last thing is true, then someone must rise to take her place.

I think Come Nightfall and other ideas answer this question and make it clearer that Bella chose her path rather than it being forced upon in a way the OG Twilight didn’t convince me. At the same time, fics and musing that pose other answers are just as compelling.

As for me, I believe Bella Swan denied her call arguably the call was declined for her the moment Edward entered the picture or maybe when she went to the Volturi (the Volturi of it all is for a other post but they should have killed her or turned her like WTF? Dumb). But also Bella Cullen’s only purpose in the narrative was to be Edward’s wife and Renesemes’s mother regardless of her earlier apprehensions.

[valerieisunavailable]

Slender Brother Headcanons

These can be varied and everyone has their different opinions, but this is what vibes I get from him so--

Slender:

- Slender is blind. Sort of. While he can’t see you physically, he can see you very clearly with his mind (if that makes sense?) Like he knows where you're at and what your facial expressions are, your movements, etc., but with his mind. But nobody knows this except his brothers. (I also think this would be interesting for fanfics too)

- He does change his ties from time to time, but he rarely ever does it hardly anyone notices. He also has different colored suits, grey and dark dark blue (to wear it almost looks black). But only wears them on occasion.

- I feel like while yes, he does speak English, he can also speak Slavic languages too. (Oh to hear him speaking Russian, truly my favorite language. прекрасный. I also think it’s hilarious that people have added that he can speak German because of him constantly working and getting things done.)

- While he may seem cold-hearted, that’s not entirely the case. While he may think that he’s superior humans for obvious reasons, this doesn’t mean he necessarily despises them. Humans have done a lot of awful things, but have also made a lot of great accomplishments. They’re very creative and wise and have made various arts and literatures, And how can a bookworm hate the authors? Many of his pastas have suggested ideas to him about a multitude of things that have surprised him and consider other options.

- He has a caseload of all the pastas. Their backstory, mental illnesses, etc. He keeps this in mind always, even adding personal notes of how they respond in certain situations and ways to modify their behaviors if need be.

- If your ever finding feelings for him, trust me, he already knew before you thought of ways to show your affection or appreciation. He’s just waiting to see what things you’ll come up with, rather he’s interested or not. Your doing tons of research on his species and general and getting into chemicals naturally in the body and how their brains and organs work. But Offender is already helping you with that because he thinks it’s funny and wondering if you can actually pull it off. Trender is in the background criticizing both of you.

Splendor:

- Splendor is the way he is because he had more attachment to his mom. The others were ridiculed and tried to be forced into the mold their father were giving them. But his father seemed to give up rather early on Splendor for being too light-hearted. This also explains his rather child-like behavior. But Slender especially was forced into the mold to become successful. That doesn’t mean he isn’t jealous or doesn’t feel guilty at times. Whenever their father does come over, while he still complains at Slender, he mostly compliments him and says to him and the others that they should have done better and that they’re an embarrassment to the family name. This has lead up to multiple family fights and Offender and Trender standing up for Splendor when it does happen.

- Despite him acting happy, he is very insecure and causes him to very poorly bottle up his emotions. He tries to do what is expected of him but it never works out. He stands out more than anything and he’ll often isolate himself.

- Splendor is more lenient on humans because of how empathetic he is. Especially with getting to know some of the pastas’ backstories, he feels deeply connected with them because of what he’s been through, and what they’ve been through are as bad if not worse than what he’s had to deal with.

- Even though he generally wears the multi-color polka dotted suit and hat, that is not all that’s in his wardrobe. Oh no. He has the flamboyant hot-pink suit, he has purple suits, red suits, suits of all colors and suits with different polka-dot patterns. Not to count the amount of props and accessories he has for the suits alone-- I’m talking stop-watch clocks and everything.

- This man is also so fucking oblivious. Compliment all you want, but if your trying to show that your actually falling for the doofus, your going to have to be WAY more flirty than that. Why do you think Offender has all these extravagant ways to embarrass him? Because what your doing didn’t work for him in the first place.

Trender:

- Remember this dude is canonically gay. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he would be the dom in the situation either. While his general attitude is very intimidating, during sexual things he’s the more submissive guy. But that doesn’t me he won’t still complain or argue about things ya’ll should. And don’t think he isn’t kinky either. Some things I imagine him saying lol:

“In that position? Really? No offense, but I thought you’d be more creative.”

“Could you maybe go a little bit faster? Seriously this is kind of embarrassing.”

“ No no NO WRONG HOLE WRONG--” (They have more than two *wink*)

Then there’s just the random thoughts during intercourse:

“Do you think Kylie Jenner ever did it like this?”

“What kind of things would you think the Kardashians are into?”

- While he’s big in fashion design and will wear extravagant clothes from time to time, he does prefer more simple and cozy styles of clothing. Sometimes he likes to sit back and relax with some coffee too, you know.

- Catches onto things that others might not. These can be things that are very obvious to things that are complex and easy to miss.

- Despite being a fashion designer, he is afraid of needles. And tattoos. Anything with needles.

Offender:

- Acts like he doesn't care. He does.

- Despite being a sex addict and alcoholic, he does try to make those close to him happy.

- Has a bunch of scratch marks from gardening.

- Has, on multiple occasions, tried to get Slender drunk or high by putting things in his coffee or food. It has also, worked on multiple occasions.

- Has had multiple relationships with the pastas. Most of them have failed.

- A male stripper

- Will try any of Trender's outfits, including feminine ones. And any sexy clothes.

[endergoomi]

holding a mic up to you. tell me about your grossest, slimiest little blorbo (physically or personality wise). pleas

Ohohohoho, my guy i have two of those, and one of them happens to be my favorite character of all time

1- the one, the only, quite literally cuz he may or may not be the last of his species:

John Stranger i use this image every single time but do you know how hard it is to find screenshots of him in the wild? The Oddworld fandom is a critically endangered species dawg you can put all of us in a plane and there will be plenty of space available still

The Oddworld games already have a lot of gross and slimy elements on them so pretty much any character from the franchise would work, but well Stranger's my favorite so i'll yap about him, you did this to yourself.

Well starting by the facts this mf 100% hasn't taken a bath in years (and that's because Sekto stole all the fucking water so is not really his fault...) so he probably smells like a wet dog and broken dreams, he spits at every given opportunity, specifically everytime you defeat a boss, and iirc there's concept art of him killing someone with his breath so uhhh his breath could probably be considered mustard gas at this point.

And also this mf is like, a jerk, he'll insult everyone even if they're on his side (tho he softens a lot if they're on his side obvs), and you know for sure he's throwing hands all the time.

But enough about the gross facts cuz this dude right here is what made me realize "wait a minute, i'm trans", cuz the entire game and his character arc could easily be seen as a trans allegory, with him feeling like a freak and that there is fundamentally something wrong with him and he gotta hide it and "fix it" or he could get killed, and him finally accepting that part of him as something he should be proud of by the end of the game is just AUGDJSGD, i don't want to go into spoilers cuz i really feel the games' story is better experienced by yourself cuz my god.

Stranger is a very profound and complex character and trust me i could be talking about that for HOURS, he's my favorite character OAT for a reason, he resonates with me in a very deep level and well, he just means a lot to me. I may not draw him as much as other characters like yk, Stryker, lmao, but that doesn't mean i love him any less, i owe him a lot, and he will forever be my goat.

And the second character, and i promise to god i don't know why i grew so attatched with them cuz ????????

2- Jerma The Guy From Scorn ™️

I do not know why i started liking this mf so much, they're like a bug i put in a jar and start shaking (As if they haven't gone through enough...) I think is mostly because i fell in love with the game's art direction, yk taking inspiration from John Xenomorph himself (H.R. Giger) and his art.

The entire game is fucking disgusting, with all the rotting flesh and blood and [AHEM] other liquids of dubious origin... Not to mention the scenary with a good chunk of funny le sex imagery and good heavens the sound design. This game is obscene and disturbing and i FUCKING LOVE IT.

This game makes you feel things, mainly disgust, fear and "good god there is something under my skin", and THAT is what makes it art, it's capacity to shake you to your very core, to make you uncomfortable, to sometimes stop and think about what the fuck did yoy just watch, this game evokes those feelings flawlessly, it makes you feel vulnerable, trapped IS JUST SO GOOD, this is probs because i'm not the biggest horror fan but i don't think there's another game line Scorn, or that at least makes you feel like this game makes you feel.

And i guess that's why i like Scorn guy so much, is not much of the character themself but the game as a whole, sometimes is as if you can feel what they're feeling, and is BAD and that's what makes it GOOD

Anyway i'm yapping too much, but in short, i like Stranger and Scorn Guy very much, i'm so sorry for subjecting you to my autism, anon

[onyx-archer]

A Timey-Whimey (Shit)Storm: A Critical Look at Life is Strange 1's Ending.

It's been a hot minute since I did one of these essay type posts, and I know that the title is may suggest some kind of dislike of the game or something, and incite the ire of fans, but at least hear me out a little before getting mad. I actually enjoy these games, along with the comics, so I'm coming at this from a place of love. I especially have a soft spot for the original Life is Strange, I've just had this on my mind for a while.

Obviously, there will be spoilers for "Life is Strange," but I will also briefly cover spoilers from the Life is Strange comic series, and a brief, albeit minor spoiler of Life is Strange 2's 5th episode, and some stuff from Life is Strange: True Colors' "Wavelengths" DLC. If that ain't your bag, then you've been warned. All of it will be under the cut anyway. Before that though, I have some other house keeping to get out of the way.

I want to make it abundantly clear up front what my stance on the game being covered is, so there's no room for misunderstanding. I quite like the original Life is Strange. It's probably my favorite game of it's type (narrative adventure game in the Telltale style). I don't like Before the Storm or Life is Strange 2 though, but both of those will eventually get their own posts. I do like True Colors though.

I also want to make it clear that I am 100% on the side of "Pricefield," but I'm not really making this post from the place of a Pricefield bias or whatever, so I want to head that off at the pass.

With that, the rest is under the cut. Again, hella spoilers inbound, you've been warned.

Life is Strange is the kind of game that I have a pretty lukewarm opinion of genre wise, but manages to keep me engaged through the way it unfolds. I'm not especially fond of the narrative adventure game genre that was popularized with Season 1 of Telltale's The Walking Dead, despite having played quite a few of them. I like a few, sure, but it's generally not something I'm fond of. If not for the fact that Chloe's character design appealed to me (you'd know why if you've seen my original characters), I'd have never even touched it.

I have fond memories of playing the original Life is Strange with my best friend back when it was still being released, and how we'd actually hash out our thoughts on what decisions made the most sense in the moment while playing. I initially remember hating the ending of the original making my choices feel meaningless (as by the time "Polarized" came out, my friend and I weren't able to play together due to us living in 2 different cities at the time), and it was only after letting it marinate for a while that I came to the conclusion that I liked one of the two possible endings, and disliked the other.

I'm (rather obviously) on team "Bae," as far as the endings to the original are concerned. To me, this is the only ending that actually makes sense unless you want to argue that the whole point of the story is some fatalist, deterministic experience at it's core (which I've certainly seen argued multiple times), but I don't think that ideology is even remotely interesting to think about, and is flawed as hell. That's beside the point though. The part of this post that is dedicated to the first game is, primarily, about the reason why that ending is the only one that makes sense to me.

Throughout the game, Max (and by extension, we, the players) use her time travel powers to ultimately solve a few puzzles, and to otherwise scope out minor multiple decisions we make during the story. The moment we see Max use her powers for the first time is when Chloe (whom she doesn't recognize at the time) is shot in the girl's washroom at Blackwell. However, before she does this, she sees the vision of the Storm, and is jolted awake by it in the middle of class.

From here, the game tries to heavily imply that Max using her powers to save Chloe from being shot is what ultimately made the Storm come to pass, and drops mentions of the concept of Chaos Theory multiple times. I'm not going to bother explain what that means, but it does at least make some kind of sense. Max using her powers can alter the course of things, and create an untold amount of diverging timelines. We see this obviously through the "Bay" ending, as Chloe's death happens, and no storm comes. This is clearly to enforce the idea that Chloe not dying does something that causes the storm.

However, where this concept begins to eat shit like a skateboarder failing to bail properly from a bad Tre Flip is when Max goes back in time via a photo for the first time. She prevents the death of another person, Chloe's father, William. As we all know, this action has the consequence of Chloe eventually getting into a car accident and becoming quadriplegic, and is doomed to die when her respiratory system gives out due to the nature of the injury.

Now, this specific timeline brings with it questions, and the game doesn't really bother to answer them, despite it being a big hole in the whole "Chloe's death prevents the storm" idea.

The main question is "why didn't William not dying yield a storm?" If the idea of preventing a person from dying has far reaching consequences, and can lead to a storm, then why did William's survival not lead to a storm? Wouldn't that be a bigger shift to the "natural order of things" that Max saving Chloe did?

The cop-out answers I've heard to this are things like "she wouldn't have done it if she didn't save Chloe first to begin with" and "she didn't over-use her powers during the period of William's accident, so the storm wouldn't have been bad." I've even heard the idea that Chloe's accident is the universe saying "fuck you" to Max saving William, and while that is certainly believable, it ultimately makes you wonder "why are the dead whales even a thing in the 'William Lives' timeline?"

The second time I was left wondering is "in the timeline where Max is taken to the Dark Room, Chloe is very dead, so how is it that the storm happens at all if Chloe's survival is the reason it happens?"

Naturally, people will say "the act of saving Chloe sets things into motion, so it's too late to stop the storm by that point." It's here where I call bullshit, because it then makes you ask the question I brought up earlier: "why didn't the timeline where William lives have a storm after he was saved?" If the universe is pissed that Chloe lived, then her dying should prevent the storm, right? But if the universe is pissed at her living, then why isn't it pissed about William cheating death due to Max's intervention?

If it was just the timelines where William died but Chloe lived, I'd be like "alright, sure, Chloe cheating death caused the problem." But Willian's death being prevented doesn't do the same, so it's inconsistent reasoning at best.

Again, by the logic of the "Chloe being alive causes the storm" viewpoint, William should lead to that happening 5 years prior if he survives the day he's supposed to die, but that doesn't happen. If the storm is caused by Chloe being alive, then what does it matter which day she dies, so long as she dies before the storm is scheduled to happen? Unless you want to argue some divine punishment is occurring via a pissed off God, which would make the whole thing feel worse, then there is no logical consistency with the idea of "Chloe Alive = Storm, but William Alive =/= Storm."

It's by this logic that I think that the storm is tied to Max using her powers, rather than specifically the act of saving Chloe. This is then later reinforced, at least in part, by the sequel comics. Now, I know people will argue aren't canon, but they offer a look into a post "Bae" ending, and answer some questions about it in an official capacity, even if it's just meant to be a single view as to what could happen.

In those comics, Max's powers are tied to the storm, and are tied to her flickering between different realities, which lead her to a universe where Chloe and Rachel are alive and in LA for 2 years. She is later forced to confront another storm, and is able to prevent it from doing any damage, and then uses it to power a leap back to her original reality, albeit with the help of a guy who has the power to travel between dimensions, Tristian.

So in short, official media confirms that the powers are connected to the storm, and not necessarily Chloe's life. Max first uses her powers to save Chloe, sure, but the storm isn't linked to Chloe's fate by itself.

However, this is merely part of the justification I have for what I ultimately think is the "better" ending. The other is a simple question: how do they know that Max preventing herself from saving Chloe will stop the storm

Yes, we as the player, the outsider looking in, know that Max preventing herself from saving Chloe will lead to a Storm-less timeline, but in the scene where they decide that is what they have to do to stop the storm from happening, Max says that she caused the storm, and basically says it's due to her fucking with time. So how do they come to the conclusion her using her powers, the thing that caused the storm in the first place, to fix one more thing suddenly prevent the storm? Why would she even think that's a good idea when the consequences of her meddling with time are literally barreling toward Arcadia Bay?

In short, the metatextual element of this scene causes the internal logic of the choice to make no sense. If the use of powers causes the storm, then why would they even think using them again would fix things? If it's Chloe being alive, then William being alive should have done the same thing.

Basically, I think the issue with the ending isn't inherently the choice itself, but the logic for why the characters would even think a Hail Mary play like "go back in time and prevent yourself from saving Chloe in the first place" would even remotely work, given that they have two running ideas of the cause of the storm, and only one of them actually makes sense outside of a passing thought.

The issue with the "Bay" ending is that it leaves you with questions that have no good answers, but the "Bae" ending's questions are easier to answer.

In the "Bay" ending, if the photo jump is to the past where Max knows she can rewind time, even if only barely, then what's stopping that Max from abusing her rewind anyway? If the powers are the cause of the storm, then leaving her with the knowledge of it even being a thing is dangerous for the week leading up to Post-Photo-Jump Max's return, where that Max knows to not abuse her powers. Heck, if past-Max doesn't know of the rewind yet, and Photo-Jump Max knows that, then she can still save Chloe, and past her wouldn't know about the idea of time travel, so she'd not abuse the ability. Sure, there'd likely still be some kind of repercussions for messing with things, but it'd be significantly lessened if her powers are the cause of the storm, and not Chloe surviving.

So again, if Chloe's death has to be the thing that prevents the storm, why didn't saving William cause a storm? Why didn't Chloe dying to Jefferson at the end of Episode 4 stop the storm? If it's not Max's abuse of her powers that causes the storm, then what's stopping her from abusing the power in a Chloe-less world? We know thanks to the comics that she retains the ability to time travel after the week is done. Hell, if the "leaks" of an alleged Max-focused sequel game being in development are true, then it also confirms Max keeps her powers in a more concrete way than the comics did, so what's stopping her from abusing them outside of a sense of grief over losing Chloe?

I ask those questions because the act of letting Arcadia Bay get destroyed in the "Bae" ending doesn't highlight the issues with explaining how the storm came to be in the first place, and it ultimately could be either Chloe surviving when she should have died, or a consequence of Max abusing her powers during the week. It ultimately says "this is the cost of saving your friend. You made this bed, now lay in it."

The "Bae" ending reinforces the idea that Max shouldn't mess with time, and it shows the active consequences of doing so. It actively makes the "your choices will have consequences" thing the game shoves in your face at the beginning of every episode actively mean something, but in a way that isn't inherently obvious from the jump. From a metatextual standpoint, it's honestly really smart to have the idea of "choices and their consequences" be more of a theme rather than just a mechanic. Max ultimately has to live with the fact that her selfish desire to save her friend cost hundreds of people their lives, and she's not the only one who knows about that burden, because Chloe will have to spend a long time coming to terms with the fact that Max chose her over the lives of others when push came to shove. It ultimately feels like the journey meant something in the long term.

Conversely, the "Bay" ending just leaves me like "so there's no real consequences for anything, because this is how things would have played out if Max didn't have powers." Sure, Max has to live knowing her friend is dead because she wasn't allowed to save her, but she'd at least live knowing she did it for the greater good. It tries to say "this is the right choice" but fumbles because it ultimately just leaves people like me poking holes in the time travel logic. So long as she doesn't try to prevent someone's death again, she's free to use and abuse her powers however she wants. It doesn't reinforce the idea of "messing with things has consequences," it just lets Max have the ultimate do-over, where the only consequence that matters is her best friend is dead. She has to live knowing she let her friend die. At most, it's a tragic thing that will affect a few people, and that's it. To me, it just feels incredibly hollow.

Even if you like the "Bay" ending, I think you have to admit that the "Bae" ending has the time travel feel less problematic from a narrative logic standpoint. It, at the very least, doesn't require the answer to the question of "what caused the storm in the first place?" unlike the "Bay" ending, where it's left up in the air if it was Max's powers or Chloe's life that was behind it. From here, I'm going to basically go into some minor points as to why I think the "Bae" ending makes the most sense as the "canon" one for the series after the first game. These are not as important to the broader point, but still. If you wanna dip from the post now (assuming you made it this far) then cool, hope to see you when I talk about why I hate Before The Storm, cause that may interest people.

Some people like to suggest that the "Bay" ending has more potential for expansion, but I strongly disagree. That ending's future story potential, at least as far as Max is concerned, is just "Max has to learn to deal with the grief of losing her best friend" and otherwise has no real direction. If she meets Steph or something in a future game, for example, it ultimately will be a bit awkward for Max, and that's it. In the "Bae" ending, there's actual potential for drama if Max interacts with a former resident of Arcadia Bay, knowing she let it burn for the sake of one girl.

We can see how each ending effects David via the 5th Episode of Life is Strange 2. We know that regardless of Chloe's fate (at least as far as the two timelines that branch off from the first game's ending are concerned), David ends up in Away. David and Joyce split in the timeline where Chloe dies, and obviously Joyce died in the storm in the timeline where Chloe lives. We see how this effects David, but even then, there's more of a story to be told with Chloe surviving vs dying, at least in my view. Chloe and David being able to set aside their past issues and becoming the family Joyce had longed for them to become is a far more interesting story than David trying to reconnect with Joyce after Chloe's death split them apart. I'm not trying to suggest David is a great character or anything, but it's notable that Chloe and David's relationship is more interesting to explore in a post-Storm world, because he actually has a reason to become a better person in a Joyce-less world vs a Chloe-less one. It ultimately makes more sense for him to end up in Away because of Joyce's death rather than Chloe's. We see he really wants to be there for Chloe when he saves Max from the Dark Room, and we see how much Chloe's death affects him in that timeline, so I'm not saying he wouldn't relocate because of it if she died in the bathroom... but the drastic change he undergoes between Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2 really only makes sense in a world where he lost Joyce, and has to be better for Chloe's sake.

Steph is another character where it only makes sense to have Arcadia Bay get demolished, rather than have Chloe die. Sure, Steph is a very emotional character at her core, and runs from things that make her uncomfortable, no matter how good her life is going outside of that... but I honestly think it makes more sense for her to run from the past in a world where her hometown got levelled, because she'd have some kind of survivor's guilt because of the fact that she lived and her mom didn't. Yeah, she could still have survivor's guilt after learning both Chloe and Rachel died, but I'd argue it'd make more sense that she'd be running from Mikey in a world where the scars of Arcadia Bay run deep, rather than what happened to Chloe and Rachel. What reason would she have to avoid Mikey, her best friend, in a world where she doesn't have to feel bad that Mikey's family (presumably) died in the storm? In a world where her survivor's guilt would make talking to others from Arcadia Bay more painful and awkward for her? You could argue that, yeah, Chloe's death could hit her hard because they were good friends, and that because of Chloe being friends with Mikey too, that she'd avoid Mikey for that... but I just think it's more believable that she'd cut herself off from her past in a world where Arcadia Bay was destroyed.

Either way, this post and the time it took to write it got away from me, and I may have to refine it later when I eventually turn these essay type posts I've made into videos. For now though, hopefully this was an interesting read, and hopefully I've conveyed my views on the ending of Life is Strange's first entry at least somewhat succinctly.

[crescenthistory]

Carinaaaa, congratulations on 2k. You deserve all the love and support for all the effort and love you dedicate for this safe abode and your work. I will die on the hill that stumbling upon your works was one of the best ways to start 2025^^.

May I ask for an interpret? While my favorite artist currently is MICO and I adore his songs, my favorite song is 'Hold You One Last Time' by Mindme and LeJune. The melody is comforting for me, but what makes me resonate to this song so badly is the yearning. It does not crossing over the lines, yet still sounding so desperate. Probably because I'm a romantic but never felt the desperation for a partner, surface leveled wise. I never had the feeling of romance. At best, the want to be special friends with someone. So, I always wonder how it would be like to focus on one person like they're the center of my universe, reserving a spot for them even when the posibility of them entering my heart is unknown. To me, being able to laugh and shed tears for someone that I'm inlove with is something I always wanted to feel. Can't tell if I'm a hopeless romantic, curious or just masochist lmao.

I'm an INTP - A (last time I did the test, I was an ISTP). I'm introverted, not shy. Very adaptable, mostly a third party during conflict. I'm very protective of my friends and families, and do great things for them. Yet I offer more physical affection and company time less than I do verbal comfort. I can, but I'm just really awkward to muster up the words without tumbling over them. However, I don't shy away from words of affirmation for friends and families. Most of the time, I'm just self conscious that I'll make a fool of myself.

I like to read fiction more than non fiction, but I find interest in both genres for the same reasons: characters and building. When I write stories (fanfic ehem), I'd craft out a foundation personality and slap a backstory on them before going through a dozen of tabs to psycho analyze their effects. While I don't intend to major in psychology, I'd like to dab into how certain things can effect one's mentality and personality as a whole. I like to observe more than commenting. I'd brain rot about my ideas to anyone, but love it when they offer genuine interest and feedbacks (compliments and constructive criticism). I also play the piano, albeit a few songs and not the smoothest. I'm hyperfixated on mythologies (mainly Greek and Roman), my godly parents is Hades. (If you're interested in your own, here's a link: https://treecki.itch.io/godly-heritage-quiz)

Again, congratulations on this milestone. May the numbers continue to grow along with the love and support, as the best of everything color your path of life.

this is beyond sweet of you, thank you so much for your love and support 🤍🤍 i'm glad you were able to find me this year, you're very welcome on my page always<3

✶・•・✦・•・✶・✶・•・✦・•・✶

i will INTERPRET for anon

carina's 2k celebration

✶・•・✦・•・✶・✶・•・✦・•・✶

i think you and remus lupin would go well together!

your way with words give me a glimpse into a psyche that seems quite similar to and compatible with remus'. your complex inner dialogue where you oscillate between hopeless romanticism and a sense of deep uncertainty is one he would be able to relate to and thus understand. because at the end of the day, the most important part of any type of relationship is understanding and being able to communicate with each other, and i think that both of your barriers would be easier to overcome when you share your mindsets. furthermore, your intense creativity and passion is the type that he would be infatuated with. whether it is listening to your story ideas and mythology or watching you play the piano, he would have heart eyes. i think you could help assure each other and lessen the fear of making "fools" of yourself, agreeing to just be fools in love together instead 🤍

[door430]

It's theory time! (Deltarune edition)

I've seen the theory going around that Deltarune's Gaster is actually multiple Gasters, since he was shattered across time and space. This will be adding onto that.

There's a lot of weird characters in Deltarune and Undertale that we don't actually know the true identities of. The Mystery Man, REDACTED, the man who gives you the egg, the person writing entry 17, the two people speaking at the beginning of deltarune... and I have reason to believe that most, if not all of these characters, are separate pieces of Gaster.

Gaster is often associated with the person who speaks to you at the very beginning of Deltarune due to their similar dialects and personalities. I fully believe this theory myself. But what if the person who discarded the vessel isn't Chara/Dess/whatever people are saying these days... but an alternate version of Gaster? A lot of things suddenly fall into place. This person seems to have similar abilities to the first person, with them both manipulating game files and having some level of control over your vessel. It's possible that this is just a coincidence, but I have more evidence.

Another character commonly associated with Gaster in the fandom is the man behind the tree who gives you the eggs. He never shows himself, and he immediately disappears after you take the egg (Mystery Man vibes, anyone?) However, it's been bugging me that this characterization wouldn't quite line up with the Gaster from the beginning of the game. He's too friendly and casual. However, if this was an alternate version of Gaster, it would make sense why they wouldn't act exactly the same.

Now, we know that Jevil and Spamton have both spoken to mysterious individuals that completely changed them. I believe it's possible, and even probable, that these people were not the same person. After all, Jevil's mystery person presumably revealed the nature of his reality, while Spamton's made him a successful businessman. I believe these people were actually two individual pieces of Gaster. I also believe that every future secret boss will have spoken to a different version of Gaster.

Time for my favorite part of this theory. If there's multiple versions of Gaster just running around this world... then any one of them could be the knight. There's been so many theories about the identity of the knight, accusing Kris, Dess, Papyrus, and even Gaster himself, but I think this theory adds a little more context for the accusation against Gaster, and why the knight may be similar but still different to the Gaster we know.

Now... time for the crazy part of the theory.

Remember Sans and Papyrus from Undertale? Remember how they supposedly just showed up one day with no histories to speak of? Well, what if I told you that Sans and Papyrus are actually pieces of Gaster? Sounds insane, right? Well, hear me out.

Sans and Papyrus share a lot of similarities to the few depictions we have of Gaster. Physically, theyre all white and vaguely skeleton-esque. Speech-wise, they all speak in odd fonts, and Papyrus speaks in all caps like Gaster. But in regards to their personalities and interests, Sans particularly shows an interest in science in his genocide dialogue and with his quantum physics book/joke book gag. Hell, he literally has a key to a secret laboratory in his basement! And Papyrus isn't exempt, either. He creates and solves surprisingly complex puzzles, and even has a book titled "Advanced Puzzle Construction for Critical Minds". Most damningly of all, sans has an attack called the Gaster blaster. I don't know how much more obvious it can get.

But this is just my take. Sorry for the long post, but I'm too tired to condense it. If anyone else has any theories to add on to/contradict this one, I'd love to hear them!

[eliothedud9000]

my silly little episode notes

this was very fun i want to start doing this for every episode

i really liked how family bases this episode was with the closes and stamplers/marlowes

i cant wait until we see the oaks!!

!! SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 45 OF SEASON TWO !!

Episode 45

Oooooo intro

Anthony the penne patriot

Pasta ew the eating sounds wtf

YES THE HEAVEN CRITICISM LOL

WELCOMETODUNGEONSANDDADDIESNOTABDSMPODCAST-

The theme song went on longer than usual..? Not complaining but huh 

Will is having a stroke ig

Taylors fact: Taylor may no longer be a ranger but he misses being able to disguise himself as a trash can and being pushed on a stage

2 1/2 months of the senses???

Mr boss kicks fact: linc’s bathroom regimen revealed!? he puts all his clothes in the laundry and puts on a new pair of clothes every time he goes to the bathroom. ALSO HE DOESNT DO HIS OWN LAUNDRY??

Normal fact abt normal: normal is the FOUNDER of the school yearbook club. A book club about the yearbooks at San Demis high. They had an alumni guest last month. Normal was the only one there. His audience is usually just kids who think its the real yearbook club

Scarys fact: she has a favorite planet which is mercury because mercury has the longest day which means it also has the longest night. The longest time to write poetry and focus on regrets and be sad. (Even tho Venus has the longest day)

HERMIE FACT OMFG: hermie didn’t have a childhood and he was conjured as a freshman with memories of being alive as a child. Not real memories tho. Scam thought it was the funniest part of someone’s life

scam tf??

poor hermie he doesn't even know :(

recap: They need to fill the magic jar with daddy magic to send the doodler back to his own dimension

AND THEY FOUND TERRY FIGHTING WITH GLENN

I MISSED YOU TERRYYYYYYY

Terry is the one who shot nicks arm off and glenn is mad (for a good reason tho-)

Scary is freaked out poor scary

But Terry you messed up buddy

Oh shit is Terry going to die forever

AND HES COUNTING ON IT???? 

Oh shit Terry don’t cry you don’t deserve this- 

AHHHHHH RON AND TERRY REUNION THIS IS SO CUTE SHIT MAN THE HUG OMG

Damn these imps are wild-

Normal you have been exposed…….. release your emotions!!!

Well normal since you’re crying you should put it in the jar-

Scary and Terry omg. Reunion. Reunion. Asdfghgfdgfs

She’s saying it was just a phase oh shit??!?!!!!!!!

Damn

Terry

Terry

Buddy

You don’t deserve this

You dumb suicidal idiot

SCARY AND TERRY OMG ADSFDGFHJGHFGDFHFJG SHES HAPPY TO SEE HIM AND HES HAPPY TO SEE HER AASFDGFHDGFSGFDH

Terry takes the jar omg

No he’s crying :(

Ron?

In a field?

nick has been avoiding them, and they’re trying to be friends again ok

Nick walked out of the brush and into the cleaning

And Ron is…. Talking about his hair…..

Ron you’re going to beef it.

They want to take the people here into hell… thats why he’s upset

Ron wow you are very wise.

I fucking love the stamplers adsfergrtbrgjmt4igjn

“You become the person you choose to be around”

Lark and sparrow and Terry don’t attack him!!!!

:(

Oh shit

TERRY

NO

WHAT ARE YOU DOING

NICK WAS GOING TO TALK TO YOU

FUCK FUCK BADASS SAD FIGHT :(

Unrelated why did I just get a message from someone asking for a picture of myself????

NICKS ARM

OMG

NICCKKKKYYYY

TERRY

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

RUN NICKY RUN

Honestly Terry that’s what you get

Don’t cut someones fucking arm off

“You lied to me kiddo”

Oh no

Ron

“I don’t think you’ve been someone you’d choose to hang around with lately”

TERRY DONT CRY 

AW I FEEL BAD

TERRY ANDF SCARY HUGGING AND SHR HUGS BACK OMG OMG OMGASGDHJTHJFDG

SHE SAW HIM AT HER SOCCER GAME

OMG

IM GONNA CRY

HER BIO DAD WAS NEVER THERE

BUT TERRY WAS

AND HES CRYING LOUDER

OMIGOSH THE STAMPLERS

SORRY STAMPLER/MARLOWES 

HALFWAY JAR

The remaining families are the close and oak

ASDCFVGHBJNKMLJNHY TERRY AND SCARY HOLY SHIT

SCARYYYYYYYYY YOUU SAID I LOVE YOU OMGOMGOGTJHRGJRUJHJVDU HOLY FUCK OFGJGFIDGHJD

IM GONNA CRY ISTG

Glenn stop fighting 

Terrys fine

Chill

“I don’t forgive you for what you did but I get it. I understand” good for you nick

Yes Taylor glenn is the coolest motherfucker

Yikes

Glenn wasn’t there for Taylors birth…

Damn nick is passive aggressive (its deserved tho)

Glenn are you fucking kidding me-

TAYLOR IS BORNED

“You want to cut the umbilical chord dawg?”

Its a chill doctor

Uh oh here comes glenn

And he’s passed out and high as fuck

Great

#1 dad award

“Youre a granddad now-“ “whaaaaaaaatttt”

Aw nick 

That’s so sweet he doesn’t want Taylors first sight of his granddad to be bad

What book is glenn reading?

Jodis been there a bunch of times and glenn hasn’t. What an ass ngl

“Hell yeah bro what a cool kid…” 

The first time glenn has seen himself in the third person

And he sees the reality

OMG CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?????

MY HEART-

Taylor

Omg

You just destroyed nick

Then again obviously he wanted his dad in his life

Too little too late Nicky my man

:(

I just want to hug them all

Fuck

The closes are fucked up

Yikessssss

Taylor did 23 and me and just saw fire and the cops showed up

Nice

Uh oh 

Nick

NICK ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR NOT BEING THERE FOR YOUR KID

DONT BLAME IT ON THE OTHER DADS

YESSSS THEY MESSED UP 

BUT

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY WHERE ITS NEEDED

Taylor wanted his dad for when he was getting his yellow belt at mall karate

And the parents applauded 

And taylor looked to the crowd

His mom is there

But

His dad isn’t there

And another kid got a dad hug and got to get ice cream and poor Taylor got to skip a belt but WHAT ABOUT HIS DAD.

And he gets kicked out from karate 

;-;

YOU SHOULD BE SORRY NICK

“I think you fucked up in the same way too”

GLENN 

SERIOUSLY.

“Where were you nick >:( “ bitch-

Glenn thought that if he kept his distance in hell then he wouldn’t be a bad influence on nick 

Aww

:(

“What if we started over?”

THEY ALL GO TO DISNEYLAND AW

I WOULD LOVE THAT

Taylor doesn’t know what Disneyland is lol

Omg

There is no fixing it

Shit

This is the best its going to get

All these families are so fucked

“Dw thats just the gunfire level…”

“NOPE NOPE THATS NOT THE GUNFIRE LEVEL”

Ew the government :|

OHEMGEE SCHMEGANNN

Wait full control of hell-

OH NO

HOLY SHIT

The background music slaps tho-

Jodi says in morse code: get nick and Taylor out

I like Jodi

Hes a good guy

Oh no

Don’t fire at glenn

“Is glenn immune to bullets?”

NEW KING OF HELL 

LINC 

WHAT

NEW KING??????

NORMAL?????!?!?!?!?!

TAYLOR??!???!?!?

WHO IS IT GOING TO BE???!?!?!??!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?

Hell is locked down and no one is leaving until they have a new leader

And now they are going to fight 

HOLY SHIT

SCHMEGAN

“Only one gets to leave alive”

So overall thoughts…. Good episode. Kinda went by quick tho but could’ve been because I split it up instead just listening to it all in one sitting

After this fight and hell leader thing I feel like will is just gonna drop a bombshell of family angst and problems on us when its time for the oaks to give their daddy magic. 

But Terry and scarys reunion omg 

I was about to cry it was so cute

[teddypoi-qd]

20 Questions for Writers

eeee thanks for the tag @fuckyeahfang!! <3 i'm gonna tag @maraschinomerry if u wanna (no pressure tho!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 31! Dang I've been writing fic for a second and a half huh (Note: one of these fics is not mine lol -- I posted it for a friend without AO3)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 77,138 -- waough

3. What fandoms do you write for? Whatever's rotting my brain most at the moment -- I had a long streak of Critical Role, which went into TMA, and I have a feeling Dunmeshi might get a few fics by the time it's done with me; also original stuff but I don't post that

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My Lightbringer - 4,891 Hits, Critical Role

[incoming communication] - 3,018 Hits, Lifeline

little blue pills - 2,919 Hits, The Magnus Archives

The Hands-On Approach To Teaching Dunamantic Spells: A Guide by Essek Thelyss (Results may vary) - 2,271 Hits, Critical Role

Shitty Hair - 1,190 Hits, My Hero Academia

5. Do you respond to comments? I try, I really do, but sometimes I'll see one and be like "I'll reply to that later!" and then I don't and then it's been 2 years and I feel bad for replying so late that I just don't 😭 But I do read and appreciate them all I prommy

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? this would require me to finish fics EVER lmao... but seriously probably (Don't) Look Away. Do NOT read this if you haven't played Outer Wilds, but DO go and play Outer Wilds, and THEN read this.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Probably [incoming communication]? It's definitely the ending I'm most proud of -- it's very self indulgent, but I'm fond of it :"

8. Do you get hate on fics? nah people tend to be chill

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Sometimes, but not often, and I post it even less often. I prefer reading it to writing it, but I do like tossing around ideas I'll never write about the characters' weird and intriguing kinks lmao

10. Do you write crossovers? I don't tend to, unless they're incredibly funny to me. Reading-wise, crossovers just annoy me because there's 2x the chances for mischaracterisation/misunderstanding of the setting(s), but sometimes a really good one can scratch my brain.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? not to my knowledge!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not into another language, but I have had a podfic made of Cabin Fever -- which was great since it was a scriptfic anyway! It's really well made, go give it a listen!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Quite a few! Not in a while, but it's fun to work with someone whose brain ticks in synch with mine about a character or ship. I actually started dating my current partner in part because we were talking about a fic we wanted to write together! We'll get to it one day, and get sooo much hate about it it's quite fucked up LMAO

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? MAN. YOU CAN'T ASK ME THIS. it's like picking children. uhhh Shadowgast (Critical Role) is up there for All Timers but they are def not the only one. Probably the one I've thought most about, but now I'm thinking about Blupjeans (TAZ)... JMart.... augh. i love when people love each other despite the very terrible consequences

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? little blue pills! It's a fun concept -- I love fucking with the very rubbish trope of soulmate AUs and making them Weird and Queer, but I am not great at finishing projects and I have also cooled slightly on TMA since I started it.

16. What are your writing strengths? big emotions! being purple prose but like good about it! Weird People.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? finishing things, plotting, writing convincing dialogue -- yknow, just little things (🥲)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? It can be done well, but it needs to be considered deeply. Also, used sparingly. I like throwing in terms of endearment in other languages, but when it's whole conversations, it's not fun to be checking google translate/the AN every five seconds.

19. First fandom you wrote for? the first one that's still up? Layton Brothers! the first ever? harry potter 😔

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? i hate favourite questions i hate favourite questions uHHHHHH You Were My Conscience. fucked up monster lovers trying to moralise their way out of being responsible for a man's mental breakdown <3

thanks again for the tag sunny i love u mwah

[funeralprocessor]

Morgan Rambles: My pet project

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I've been working on a tabletop system for like, a while now. Working on is kind of doing a lot of heavy lifting as it's still just kind of a morass of mechanics and ideas, but I've been steadily chipping away at it for a while now. A big part of it has just been figuring out what I want it to be, because I didn't come at it from the outside trying to make a game that does X/Y/Z. It just sort of bubbled up organically from a lineage of horrible cobbled together pseudo-systems that existed only in full in my manic imagination and in like 20 google docs. Basically it's half "system that's geared towards stuff I personally like'' and half "mechanics/ideas orphanage" at this point, but It's slowly coming together into something kind of resembling a presentable thing. Not presentable for like, public use or anything, but like I could show this to potential players and I wouldn't look deranged. That may change and the whole mechanical core may collapse a few more times in the gestation process, but I think what I want it, tentatively called Ars Regia/ArRe, to be about/like/for is pretty well defined. Something I'm prepared to explain now that I've rambled for two paragraphs It's going to fundamentally going to be a game about power and how you use it, which sounds a bit generic I know but one of the core tenants of like the way I play and the way I run things is freedom and the many things that come from it. I like to run sandboxes with no "critical path" or main story, just a bunch of elements you can interact with as you see fit. This is a living world, or as close to one as I can simulate without losing my mind, and having characters interact with it, explore it, utilize it, or fall because they underestimated it is like one of my favorite parts of running a campaign. My job is to play the world, the players job is to decide how they want to live in it.

I also really like the collaborative storytelling and investment you get when players really dig into the world they inhabit and make parts of it theirs. That's why a big part of my design philosophy has been trying to come up with ways to empower the players to actually make big changes, and the "power level" I'm going for has kind of skewed higher as a result. Exalted and Godbound were big big influences on me (and Godbound's author Kevin Crawford/Sine Nomine Games is like one of my tabletop idols along with Jenna Moran and a few OSRsphere bloggers y'all should check out like GoblinPunch (The guy who made the false hydra! That's not a modern D&D thing that's an OSR beastie that escaped containment! All of his shit is good like that!), FalseMachine, Skerples/CoinsandScrolls, ThroneofSalt, and Against the Wicked City. Crawford's stuff is always really polished and even if you have 0 interest in running any of his games his GM tools are fucking immaculate and worth the price of admission on their own (especially since many of them have free versions)), but like mechanically/gamefeel wise aren't what I want. I'm also drawing a good bit from PbtA's enormous lineage, partially some BitD and Spire/Heart, but one of the major ones was Legacy: Life Among the Ruins. In addition to being one of my favorite games I can never convince anyone to play, Legacy does a *lot* different that I love. Your character isn't an individual, but a faction in a post apocalyptic world, with the nature of that world and that apocalypse really really shaped by the very act of character creation. If someone chooses the kaiju hunter faction, it kind of goes without saying that there are kaiju now, something that would not necessarily be the case had no one picked that playbook. That's really fascinating to me. It also has a neat system for kind of pseudo-troupe play. When you need to resolve a specific event in detail and actually RP it out, everyone creates a quick character relevant to the situation or picks one already established, which means you'll quickly get something of a cast of recurring characters for a particular faction, even if that character isn't always played by the same person. Also, because these characters aren't your "main" character it kind of lets you play a lot more fast and loose with them and take more risks. It's almost encouraged to angle for dramatactical deaths, b/c each class has a death move that can be pretty impactful and are all very resonant and fun. I'd been considering some kind of "lower decks" mechanic for ArRe since I imagine PCs will be involved with a lot of big/long term projects and this sort of thing seemed like *exactly* what I was looking for (alongside some domain management stuff). This turned out a lot less coherent than I'd hoped but w/e. Long story short is I'm basically trying to make a TTRPG all about getting players invested in and in control of the world, both by collaborating with them to create it and then giving them the tools and incentives to change it. It is kind of geared towards playing in my like established setting, but that's because I haven't actually had a chance to do any of the collab worldbuilding stuff yet. Amala is also just sort of a powderkeg and fun to throw demigods at so we're all good

[texas-electricity-ratings]

My Favorite 2025 CES Energy Saving Gadgets

My Favorite 2025 CES Energy Saving Gadgets

Which 2025 CES Energy Saving Gadgets for Home?

All the 2025 CES hype has ended. So now it's time to find out which CES gadgets and gizmos are really the most energy saving for your home.

The 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) introduced many new devices. However, only some truly help lower home energy use. Now that the hype has settled, it’s easier to see which gadgets will make a real difference. For Texans with the power to choose their electric supplier, energy costs matter. So, finding ways to save can be just as crucial as picking the right plan. Here are my favorite CES energy saving gadgets you may want in your home. 

CES Energy Saving Smart Tech 

These products could be the right cutting-edge tech for your home. Plus, you’ll have a fun topic for your next dinner party. Why talk about the weather when you can talk about the money you’ll save? But first, pick your new tech. 

Smart Power with EcoFlow AI Oasis – This AI-powered system stands out for its ability to manage energy use. It works with solar panels and battery storage to adjust power use based on home energy needs. This system makes it easier to lower electric costs without giving up comfort.

Homie Pro Mini: The Smart Hub for Energy Efficiency – This smart home hub brings all your connected devices into one system. It ensures a steady connection, helping smart thermostats and lighting systems work better. 

Eve Thermo Control: Smarter Heating and Cooling – This device pinpoints heating and cooling needs to cut energy waste. It adjusts the temps in each room separately, so you don’t waste power heating or cooling unused spaces. It also works with other smart home systems, making it easy to control from your phone. 

Upgrade Your Panel

You probably don’t think about your home’s electrical panel. But it is critical to your home’s power. Consider upgrading to one of these. 

Savant Power System: A Smarter Panel – An advanced smart electric panel helps you take full control of your energy use. This new panel model allows users to monitor real-time energy use, set priorities for different appliances, and power down certain devices during peak hours. 

Span Smart Panel: Optimizing Home Energy – The Span Smart Panel takes energy management to the next level by giving users app-based control over every circuit in their home. Instead of simply tracking usage, it lets you turn off individual appliances remotely or schedule them to run during off-peak hours. 

The Backup Power You Need

Don’t get caught in a storm without backup power. These devices can keep your home running while the street lights are out. 

BioLite Core: Backup Power for Your Fridge – This is perfect for Texans dealing with extreme weather. It keeps refrigerators running during power outages. That's important during hurricane season because it can reduce food waste and energy loss. This device ensures food stays cold without relying on a full-size generator.

Zero Breeze Mark 3: Portable Climate Control – Texans know that keeping cool can be costly. This portable system uses far less power than a standard HVAC unit. Whether camping, working in a garage, or just cooling a small space, this unit can provide relief without pumping up power bills.

Creating Your Best Home

The best CES Energy Saving gadgets help you cut costs and use energy wisely. With the right tech and the right energy plan, you can stay comfortable while keeping bills in check. Of course, the best way to save is to shop for your next power plan at http://www.texaselectricityratings.com. A new plan will employ these gadgets to their full potential.