#it’s about rebuilding. redoing. trying again.

[monabee-draws]

Some TimeBomb Analysis I felt was very heartbreakingly necessary in this trying time:

Ekko comes to realise by being in this world that Jinx was always Powder, in the same way that Vi comes to reconcile the two 'versions' of her, Ekko sees all the ways Jinx's savvy-ness and cunning and brains were always Powder. He gave her up for dead - like his dream of a beautiful Zaun - a long time ago, and painted the mural to show it. But being here with Powder makes him realise he can still have this is he's willing to take her as she is now, flaws and all.

So we all know Ekko is really talking about Jinx in the line "I used to dream the undercity could be like this", but I also think the opposite is true for his last line: "Can we pretend like it's the first time?" is about the kiss, but it's also about this version of reality. It's about Benzo being alive and Powder being Powder. It's about stepping back from his real world for a second to pretend that this is his real world. He was always going to go back, but just like his use of the Z-drive means that he could theoretically re-do and undo all of his mistakes ad infinitum, this is an acknowledgement that this 'redo' is how he wished it has been, and that it isn't real for him at the same time. Because it isn't the final time he will pull the plunger and reset. But he wishes that it was.

3. Jinx has a very difficult relationship with abandonment, obviously. But these lines encapsulate her journey towards accepting that no, actually, the people who love her will always refuse to give her up no matter how much she believes doing so would save them (including Silco and Isha and even Vander since the enforcers come after the kids for the stones she steals.) Never giving up on her empowers both Ekko and Vi in the final hours of the show. Their relationships with Jinx and the strength of that connection in the fullness and acceptance of all of its flaws and history means that they can do and achieve anything. Not giving up on her means not giving up even when everything falls apart around them. It's the crux of Ekko's time travel ability - he will always remember what really happened in all of those loops, he still carries those scars and physical damage, but he keeps trying anyways and that is what saves the world.

4. Jinx is the 'someone worth building for.' Yes, this line is about TimeBomb but it's also very strictly about Jinx. It's about Jinx needing to know that her life also have worth for herself. Her inventions have by and large been built for the sake of others - her toy weapons to impress the others/keep up with them, the canon for Silco. She rebuilds Sevika's arm because she wants to feel useful for someone again. But she doesn't value her own input into the world for her own sake. Ekko isn't asking her to fix the world here, or to make good on her mistakes. There is no 'fixing' or 'undoing' or even 'rewriting' the way Vi wants her too, the way the Zaunites do with her legacy. There is only something new. And her life is worthy purely for whatever creations she adds to the world, regardless of whether they can undo the past. There's something so achy about that coming from the Boy Saviour. He isn't really here to save Jinx from herself - he just wants her to know she can do that saving on her own.

5. Jinx always knew what she needed to do to break the cycle. But she grew up with too many people who never wanted to let go of the past. In the end, we see her airship fly not towards Piltover (in some desperate rewrite of her failed story in Zaun) but away from it. She gets out, she pursues something new, the image loops but moves towards a new trajectory with a different (better) ending, just like Ekko shows her is possible with the Z-drive.

Two sides of the same coin. She leaves Zaun to see something new, and he returns to Zaun to see it in all of its fullness. I think they'll be alright.

[bunnylovescat]

Modern AU - Tax Time, or Gentleman in the Streets, Freak in the (Excel) Sheets

Lan Wangji is an IRS auditor, recently transferred to the city. He’s sent to audit Lotus Piers Shipping after a few red flags were raised in their tax filings, his first audit in this city. When he arrives, he finds absolute chaos and gets annoyed about how little organization there is and how long it takes the receptionist to find the documents he needs. And then when he finds out there’s evidence of embezzlement and fraud…

Let’s just say he and Wei Wuxian don’t have the best of all meetings. It gets even worse when Jiang Cheng jumps in and blows up about it all because hey don’t talk to my brother like that, and brother why are you so stupid to fuck up the taxes like that.

(This involves LWJ using increasingly specific tax statutes and IRS internal rulings and the Jiang boys are just like…. Dude… touch grass…)

So Lan Wangji tells them everything they need to redo and what documents they need before giving them notice that he’ll be back in 90 days to go back over everything and if things aren’t like they were represented to the government and/or there hasn’t been an amended return filed things will not go well.

Meanwhile, LWJ and WWX keep bumping into each other… or rather LWJ keeps seeing WWX whenever he goes out into the city. Co-op owned farmers market? WWX haggling with old grannies and flirting with everyone as Wen Ning and Wen Yuan follow around behind him. Soup kitchen volunteer? WWX is kept on coffee refill duty, with Granny Wen and Uncle Four keeping a close eye on him to make sure he stays there.

Eventually LWJ is like. Sir, stalking me will not help your case. And WWX loses it laughing. LWJ has no idea how to deal with it so he just. Leaves his shopping basket in the middle of the Aldi to sit in his car and contemplate all the life choices that lead him here.

(Lots of internal screaming about the situation. Hot man is bad at tax and adulting is not the situation LWJ ever thought he’d be attracted to but here we are.)

Eventually it comes out that WWX and JC are essentially rebuilding Lotus Pier from the ground up after a family tragedy burned everything down and killed the rest of the family. So basically one business major with only two years of experience and one community college drop out with loads of customer service experience are trying to make a come back, despite other big corporations trying to make a move into their business.

(Looking at you Golden Carp Transport. Lots of shady there, and yet…)

The Wens were also left homeless from the fire, a huge, sprawling family from the northern part of the city, so WWX has essentially brought all of his second family in to help work it.

LWJ has a lightbulb moment and is like o. I fucked up. Hot man is bad at tax, but good at people.

JC is surprised when the Tax Man Cometh again, this time barging in, dropping a giant, color coded, tabbed, highlighted, and very detailed binder on his desk at 6 am, and being like. Here’s all the deductions to take, credits to take, and btw a list of clientele that are stuck in with Golden Carp hint hint nudge nudge, new customers do I have to literally hit you over the head with this or do you get it

JC, after his initial gtfo of my office moment, is like. Wait. What did my brother do to make you do this? What dirt does he have on you? Because pretty sure blackmailing a government official is very very illegal and legalities have not stopped him before.

LWJ has an immediate oh fuck, I’m being perceived moment and is just like. Tell your brother I did this and I will make you the most miserable of all people. And just … fucks off.

JC just groans and is like. How does my brother find these people? And gets to work.

When the 90 days are up, a different Lan comes by all smiley and tells them their refilling has been accepted and very well done on it. Meanwhile, WWX, who has very much been ‘Notice me Senpai’ every time he sees LWJ is like. What?

And LX gives him an updated version of, why does my brother like you again? He’s risking his employment for this?

So ofc the next time WWX sees LWJ he’s just like. I like you, I love you even though you’re a numbers nerd, please come home with me. And LWJ vows to make JC miserable, but later, after he shows WWX that he’s a freak both in excel sheets and in the bed sheets.

(This would involve a lot of math and accounting puns that WWX spent hours at work looking up on Google and trying out on the Lotus Pier accountant, who is just like. Sir. I’m trying to close the month and reconcile, I can’t read your brothers handwriting is this a 5 or an 8, please take your bad stand up else where.)

[ofskysanddragonsandstars]

Just another TFA x TFP crossover idea...

I know almost every long lasting transformers fan has done this, but here is my hot take.

So we know TFA takes place in the 2050s, and TFP fans assume TFP takes place in the 2010s when it was released. So instead of alternate dimensions, what about futuristic AU/reincarnation AU? Granted a LOT of the characters are different, so adjustments are going to have to be made, so bare with me.

part 2 part 3

Let's start with the war.

TFP ends with Optimus Prime sacrificing himself so that Cybertron can produce life with the Allspark, and with the Allspark returned, Cybertron is habitable again, and Megatron leaves, thus ending the war, which I will now refer to as the Great War. It is up to Team Prime to start rebuilding Cybertron. And naturally, they look to Ultra Magnus.

As bots return to Cybertron, both Autobot and Decepticon have a lot of animosity towards each other. Afterall, this war lasted centuries. But with one leader dead and the other AWOL, they have to figure out how to coexist. But it is easy to fall back on old habits, so a council is but back in place, and unfortunately, it is most autobots. Once the decepticons heard that Megatron is still alive but off world, some decide to leave and find him. Some decide to remain and try to fix Cybertron for the better. So the council promotes mostly Autobots to positions of power, thus leaving out bigger decepticons starting the warframe fear. As for the protoforms, the council creates molds for new sparks, thinking hey, the war is over, why do we need fighters? We need bots who can fix things (construction), laborers, teachers, and so Cybertron starts to use the frase "cogs in the machine". Oops, here comes functionalism.

But those closest to Optimus Prime? The ones who fought with him and followed him because of what he stood for? The ones who were put on a pedestal for their actions on earth with Prime even though they don't care for any recognition? They notice it immediately. And they hate what Cybertron is becoming. But it is hard to do anything since they just finished a war. Rebuilding is at the top of the list, not idealism. But wasn't that what the whole war was about? Rising above your station, having opportunities, abolish the caste system, and no bot is better than the other. Well, Primus has a plan for that. Primus is frustrated with their children. They keep making the same mistakes, forcing them to choose a Prime. And their last Prime had to sacrifice his life for Primus and all Cybertronians. Well, if the children want to redo their past mistakes, might as well send back their latest Prime. But Primus and the Allspark can only create sparklings, not full bots. So, Primus and the Allspark places the spark of Optimus Prime in a protoform sparkling. We will get to that later.

So, we have a Cybertron that is rebuilding back its bad habits, Team Prime struggling to stop it, and decepticons leaving (of course that will come back to haunt us).

Now onto the Autobots.

Ultra Magnus, the right hand man of Optimus Prime, is naturally looked at for leadership. But he never wanted to the # 1. He truly believes in the ideas of Orion Pax, before he was Optimus Prime. But his understanding of legality and chain of command make him the perfect candidate to lead Cybertron towards order. But after his time on Earth, he has learned that maybe the most strict policies are not the best solutions. However, the council insists and public pressure wants a strong leader, so how can he say no? The only thing he can do is refuse the title of Primacy. He will not take on that mantle. He knows the type of bot who deserves Primehood, and it is not him. But the council needs some title, so why not use his name? Magnus means "big, large, great" - nomitive conjugation - (Latin nerd, I know), so why not use his name as a title? Thus, the title of Magnu begins to be synonymous with "ruler". Ultra Magnus finds this to be a slap in the faceplates. But at least they stopped inisting on Prime. So, with great reluctance (please laugh at that joke) he accepts the position. As to what exactly his position means, well, the council wants to appease the public yet remain in control. The council will surely write up the specifics later. But, I mentioned it before, Ultra Magnus knows the Law, so he takes it into his own servos. He writes up his own limitations and abilities, he just needs the council to sign off. They don't hurry to sign it. This is the beginning of Ultra Magnus' problems.

Ratchet will probably be the easiest to crossover. Both TFA and TFP characterize him as an old medic that has fought in the war from the beginning. After Predacons Rising, he shuffles back and forth from Earth and Cybertron. But Earth hasn't faced decepticon attacks in years so Fowler isn't around much anymore (and the man had a long career in the Army and as a special agent - it's time for him to retire), the Earth kids eventually grow up, so they don't need him anymore. As much as it pains him (even though he will never admit it), he returns back to Cybertron for good and sets up a clinic for war vets. Probably with Knockout. Which many autobots don't like. That's a problem. But as the oldest friend of Orion Pax, he lashes out against the council and their policies, which unfortunately causes him to be blacklisted further. His reputation as a war hero plummets. He almost wants to laugh at the similarities from before the Great War.

Bumblebee is going to be the hardest. In TFP, he has a character arc of young scout to experienced warrior. Yet in TFA, he is a young Elite Guard wash out and a comedic. Well, the only answer I can currently think of is memory wipe. But let me backtrack. Bumblebee technically killed Megatron in TFP, and news of that travels across autobot channels before Predacons Rising, thus before Unicron revives Megatron. So, autobots that begin to return to Cybertron consider Bumblebee as the hero who ended the Great War. But Ultra Magnus is orderly, so he keeps the autobot channel updated with Megatron being revived but AWOL. But communication can be tricky galaxies apart, so some autobots don't get the full message. Unfortunately, the council capitalizes on that, and since Ultra Magnus won't accept Primehood, maybe the scout who served under Optimus Prime for so long will. And if Bumblebee accepts the council's wishes, perhaps he will remain under their watchful optics. But the new warrior looked up to Optimus, no way can he take his mentor/father-figure's place. And Smokescreen is Bumblebee's friend, one who turned down the Matrix of Leadership when it was freely offered. This angers the council. With functionalism getting in place yet Team Prime against it, they need someone from Team Prime to endorse functionalism. And what better bot than the scout who ended the war. With using a similar science from the cortical psychic patch, they wipe his memory of earth, his friends, and serving with Optimus Prime. How do they get that science? Well, TFA Shockwave was the spy Longarm in the council. More on that later. There is going to be a lot of repercussions for that.

Smokescreen is the new rebellious teenager in TFP. His character arc goes from hot head that is unsure of his place in the galaxy to a steady bot with a close friendship with Bumblebee. There is a foil with Alpha Trion both being a mentor to Orion Pax and Smokescreen and both working in the Archives. And Cybertron needs to remember its history. Smokescreen becomes the new Head Archivist, following after Alpha Trion. He could keep with the Elite Guard, perhaps one day truly becoming a Prime, but after Predacons Rising, he knows that there needs to be another path. And who else knows the Archives better than him? He is no Orion Pax - or an archivist - but watching over Alpha Trion makes a mech learn a thing or two. Surprising everyone but Bumblebee, he starts to rebuild the Archives. He takes reports from returning bots, both autobot and decepticon, and organizes it. Returning bots also bring recovered treasures that Alpha Trion shipped off world during the Great War. Thankfully, he remembers where they went. He gets so caught up in restoring the Archives that, like Orion Pax, he notices re-occurring problems from before the Great War, but it is too late to stop it. The best thing he can do is publish every document to a public platform, no matter which faction it came from, so that bots can resist the council. But the public is tired from the Great War, it is too soon to read documents about it. And Sparklings are shielded from those documents, caretakers claiming it is too violent. But what is violent about a critical analysis of the caste system written by a gladiator? Exactly the fact that it was written by a gladiator turned tyrant. He is threatened with removal of his position by the council. Afterall, they happen to like their elite status and have no interest in giving that up. And he knows that if he is removed, the council will fill his position with a bot that will promote council propaganda. The honorific of Prime is no longer so significant nor synonymous with Primus and the 13 due to the council trying to justify Ultra Magnus as the leader, even though he is under their thumbs, and wanting to keep authoritarian government, bestowing bots who graduate council specific requirements at an academy the title of Prime, and it frustrates Smokescreen. He considers it a disgrace to Optimus Prime. But he stays quiet, yet secretly, when he sees a young bot interested in the Great War and before, he shows them the truth. Slowly yet surely, young bots start to question what the Great War was even for.

Arcee TFP and TFA actually have a lot in common for backgrounds. In TFA, she was a teacher and an intelligence officer, and in TFP episode "Sick Minds" she makes an offhand comment about knowing how to do research. I headcanon that before the Great War, Arcee was in an analytical job, and since I'm crossing over with TFA, she could also at one point have been a teacher. Perhaps the equivalent of a grad student while teaching? With rebuilding Cybertron, she brings back those skills and starts some sort of intelligence organization. Perhaps it is in correspondence with Smokescreen and the Archive. She is also a great mentor to Smokescreen and she easily takes leadership role in the field when necessary. Arcee is the one who finds out Bee's memory gets wiped. She is quick to anger - as we see in her interactions with Starscream and Arachnid - and demands the council to return Bumblebee's memories. This does not go as planned, and the council retaliates and she goes into a comatose state, bringing us into TFA. But she has friends, and they notice her absence.

This brings in the Wreckers. With Cybertron going backwards, Bulkhead returns to construction. At first, he doesn't mind. Afterall, he has the knowledge for it, and in Predacons Rising, he currently is all they have. Unfortunately, this comes to haunt him as it allows the council to make a case for functionalism. All that fighting, wasted. Bulkhead never gets the chance to be something new. Until Wheeljack reaches out. With his knowledge in engineering, Wheeljack becomes the chief engineer on cybertron. Meaning that he is in charge of building space bridges, figuring out planetary weapons systems, communication technology, space travel, ect. Meaning, he figures out what happened to Arcee. And Project Omega. Wheeljack has learned that going solo isn't always the best move. But he keeps things Wrecker style. Since he knows the council listens in on his new communication network, he reaches out to Bulkhead and Ultra Magnus on the old Wrecker channel. It is time to bring the band back together. Or so they think. The rescue mission of Arcee fails, Bulkhead's memory is also wiped, and Ultra Magnus forced into a deeper corner of the council. They try to wipe Wheeljack's memory, but he is the chief engineer who suffered torture under a cortical psychic patch, he is able to retain his memories, but hides that fact. Even Ultra Magnus thinks his memory has been wiped. Wheeljack keeps a low radar with the council and remains the chief engineer. But he is rebellious, so he informs Ratchet.

So, to sum up our main characters: 2 have lost their memory, 1 is comatose, 2 are in political peril, 1 is undercover, 1 is disgraced, and 1 is dead.

Now we get to the plot of this AU.

Ratchet is disgraced by the council and autobots don't like that he works with a decepticon, former or not. His ability to do anything is greatly hindered. But he is still a medic with a valid practicing license and naturally, Sparklings need check ups. Enter the revival AU. Ratchet never thought his deceased friend and leader would ever return, but science is indisputable and he is very good at medicine and he patched up the Prime hundreds of times. He knows Optimus' spark signature when he sees it. How is it possible? Well, Ratchet never considered himself religious, but after battling Unicron and seeing a revived Megatron, perhaps religion has some merit. And Spark signatures are unique to individuals. There are no accounts of repeat spark signatures. The only logical explanation is this is the work of Primus. But Ratchet has no love of the council, so with the help of Knockout, they meet with Ultra Magnus secretly. So, only those 3 know Optimus has returned. But he is only a sparkling, and hasn't Optimus sacrificed enough? So, Optimus is returned to his caretaker to live a life free of his past hardship. Like Optimus Prime said before he entered the Well, it is up to them to rebuild Cybertron for the better. If only they could do some serious changes.

So, little Optimus grows up in a Cybertron rebuilding and no one talking about the Great War. All he has is the propaganda the council gives out. So why would he need to go to the Archives to learn? He has his teachers and he knows his function will be to put out fires or haul things due to his size, even though a part of him desires to be an Elite Guard. He eventually joins the academy and here we have TFA fully kick in. He befriends Elita-1 and Sentinel the same, catches the attention of Ultra Magnus the same way (or so he thinks. The mech is the leader of Cybertron, of course he has his ways to keep tabs on the former Prime) gets kicked out after losing Elita-1 (or so he thinks - Ultra Magnus wants him away from the council, so kicking him out was the best he could do), yet Ultra Magnus, with the help of Wheeljack, pulls a few strings to get Optimus' crew. Team Prime is almost back together. Afterall, it's not like the council wants Ratchet on the planet, and how would they know it is the very same Optimus?

The TFA plot mainly stays the same, except the Allspark is a little different. Here, the Allspark was supposedly returned to the Well. How it gets into space, I am still working that out. I might have to bring in TFA lore for this, intertwining it with the return of the decepticons and Megatron. But Ratchet has a fit when they find it ("Optimus sacrificed his life so that relic would return to the Well! And this is the thanks he gets?) he almost is glad when it gets shattered into pieces. But the Allspark also terrifies him after seeing his friend give his life for it. Ratchet does his best to keep Optimus away from the Allspark, even though Primus seems to find a way for Optimus to keep interacting with it.

Now this is getting long, so I'm going to end it here. But there is still a lot more to cover in this AU! Specifically the Decepticons. And how does Bumblebee and Bulkhead get their memories back? Wheeljack? Does Ultra Magnus tell Wheeljack of Optimus' true identity when he helps put his crew together on Teletran-1? How does Ultra Magnus change from being a kind SIC to the strict military leader of Cybertron? Does he get redeemed? Or is he the example of a tragic tale of political bargaining? What happens to Smokescreen? Do the TFP kids meet Sari Sumdac? Do they meet the autobots in Detroit, or does Ratchet warn them to keep their distance? What changes happen with Sentinel's and Optimus' friendship once his former life is revealed? When happens when Optimus learns the truth?

[incognito-lionbeast]

Rotating an AU where Bingge is transmigrated into a younger version of himself from the SV universe at the same time as Shen Yuan. But unlike in the normal SV timeline, The System only minimally interferes with SY!Shen Qingqiu's choices (something, something about Bingge's transmigration...).

Not that Bingge makes it easy for things to change. He spends what's left of his second "childhood" waiting for the shoe to finally drop, suspicious of this "nice" Shen Qingqiu. Yet, he plays along anyway-- there are pieces he needs to setup. To redo it all. Reclaim his position of power, anyway. He'll just kill Shen Qingqiu again later. Or so he tells himself.

Not that it isn't sort of nice...

The Immortal Alliance Conference eventually comes again. Bingge plans to fall--he needs Xin Mo, after all--regardless of what Shen Qingqiu does. Though he does expect the reveal to finally shatter that mask of niceties his beloved shizun has worn for so long. Too long.

Yet, things don't go according to plan. Without the System breathing down his neck to push Luo Binghe down into the Abyss, Shen Qingqiu tries to--

Well, he won't succeed. Luo Binghe falls, taken aback by his master's compassion. An image irreversibly seared into Bingge's mind of his shizun braced over the edge of the abyss, reaching, struggling to hold onto an unwilling damsel.

Why?

He refuses that help. Falling, falling. The abyss awaits and he's prepared this time. How can he rebuild an empire without his generals, his sword?

Above, Shen Qingqiu is distraught and all he can think to say to Liu Qingge and the others who soon arrive is "He fell." Unable to fully process what had just happened-- and it wasn't even... To his eyes, it almost seemed like a genuine accident.

Straightforward as ever, Liu Qingge suggests that he--as in himself, no incurably poisoned Shen Qingqiu's allowed--could simply go after Binghe. If there'll even be anything left to find.

An idea that honestly might not have even occurred to him had Liu Qingge not suggested it. Of course, this meant that he wouldn't for even a moment allow his dear shidi to go on his own! That was his disciple! (And his dedicated meridian clearer!)

So what if he was poisoned? He also happened to be the most knowledgeable about the Endless Abyss!

TLDR: though it takes much longer than anticipated, both to find a reliable way in/out of the Endless Abyss and to find Binghe at all...

They manage.

Yet, after stewing for so long on that image of Shen Qingqiu trying to save him--unable to rid himself of that obsessive sentiment no matter how he tried... Something Breaks.

He spent a lifetime trying to please shizun, cursing him, tearing him apart... why is it only now that shizun's hands are soft? Why?

It's infuriating. He still wants to rip him limb from limb. He'd planned to. Meticulously. For the first time in over two hundred years, his eyes are hot with withheld tears. Allowing an awkward teacher-disciple hug, gripping Shizun just a little too tightly, clawed fingertips digging into his back, Binghe supposes.

If killing Shizun is no longer an option, then he'll simply have to have him.

[primreaperstuff]

I just had a thought: Everybody seems to be assuming that the Society of the Blind Eye (SBE) Dippers and Mabels in the Book of Bill were created during that summer. But what if they actually were what happened had Dipper taken that internship with Ford? I got the idea because the guys in the hoods look a good deal taller than the other Dippers and Mabels. I mean, it could just be the perspective, but I thought they looked like they might've gotten the chance to grow a bit more than the others. If you assume Left Hood is Mabel, (based off of their nose possibly being the same color as the rest of their face), it's also possible that she's lasted long enough in one timeline to get her braces off.

Alex Hirsch has said that Ford would've made the same mistakes with Dipper that he did with Fiddleford McGucket, so Dipper the Intern would've eventually ended up going insane like McGucket did. And McGucket originally founded the SBE as a direct consequence of Ford's bullshit. (Sorry Ford baby, I do love you-- but you are completely unfit to raise a technically-teenage boy full-time!)

I wouldn't put it past a traumatized older Dipper to figure out how to rebuild the memory gun (or maybe it never got destroyed in the first place?). At first he was just hoping to be able to sleep again but it takes its toll on his mind after awhile and he unwittingly ends up recreating the SBE (perhaps because he doesn't remember it-- or doesn't remember how bad it really was for people). Or alternatively, Ford, having been enabled for years by somebody who either can't or won't tell him no, proposes a truly horrible idea that even Dipper can't go along with. Dipper resorts to trying to wipe Ford's memory of the idea to ensure he never acts on it, but it fails and permanently ruins the relationship. Dipper is ashamed, alone, and afraid, so he uses the gun on himself so those bad memories of failure don't stop him from stopping Ford. It snowballs into repeated uses of the gun (turns out that forgetting what you're afraid of means forgetting why you don't use the gun more often!) until the poor guy can't bring himself to do anything in public without it. Dipper has enough perfectionist tendencies that, if something caused him to go off the rails, I could see him constantly using the memory gun to redo his interactions with people until they go exactly the way he's decided they're supposed to.

The dark path for Mabel would be worse in some ways. Imagine that this is a world where Mabel encouraged Dipper to take the internship instead of getting upset about it. Maybe she even unwittingly pressured him into accepting it when he was going to turn it down, because she thought it would be awesome for him, only to get hit with the horrible reality when the next summer rolls around and he's obviously Not Okay. She feels partially responsible and wishes he never had to experience any of the terrible stuff he alludes to, and that leads her to remaking/refinding the memory gun as the next best thing to making the bad things unhappen. Of course Ford figures out what she's done quickly, so she tried to use it on him to make him forget that internships and memory guns exist. It doesn't work and they get into a big nasty fight. Later Soos pops in to ask how things are going after some horrible event that Dipper no longer remembers, causing Dipper to regain his memory of the incident, so Mabel uses the gun on Soos and Dipper. Ford is angry, so Mabel bolts and hides from him, using the gun to prevent other people from reporting her whereabouts to him (and later McGucket, because you can bet Ford told him all about this).

It all spirals from there-- the key being that Mabel never uses the gun on herself because she's fully aware of how bad it is for people. She knows the SBE was bad, but reasons that it was bad because it was lead astray by the selfishness of people like Bud Gleeful rather than the fact that it existed to control people and dodge taking responsibility for anything. She self-rationalizes that PTSD and people actively seeking out monsters would be worse than the effects of the gun. Later she adds the rationalization that she's done it so often that there's no point in stopping because it would only mean that her targets would have to deal with both their trauma and the bad effects of the gun.

Either way, Gravity Falls ends up becoming like Lovecraft town where it's all nice-looking and stuff but you don't linger, go off the beaten path, or ask questions, lest you end up getting stuck there permanently like the Pines family. Just deliver the packages and go the fuck home before the sun comes down.

(Fuck, I forgot about the metal plate in Ford's head. Edited to account for that.)

[snowberry-crostata]

WIP Wednesday

It's been a solid year and a half since I last posted, but I'm finally getting back to it! Also I have fewer organs now than I did the last time I posted, which isn't something that I expected to be able to say.

I think last time I posted I was getting ready to apply for the permanent version of my job (I was on a temporary contact), which I was successful at! And then I promptly ended up in the ER and spent the next couple of months trying to figure out which of my organs was causing me terrible pain before unceremoniously yeeting said organ (you had one job, gallbladder).

I've spent the last couple of weeks getting Skyrim installed on my new computer and rebuilding my mods list. I'd been putting it off since I changed computers (about a year ago) because I knew it would take forever to get everything installed and stable, but it's been nice to get back to it. I played a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 last year, in addition to a bunch of other games, and played and beat DA: Veilguard most recently, but I've still not found anything that can scratch the same itch that Skyrim can. I'm slowly starting to start writing again, and just started picking at the jarl makeovers again a few days ago. Brina Merilis is one of my favorite alternate jarls, so she gets to go first. Her look hasn't changed too much from how she looks in-game. I wanted her to have a couple of nods back to her days as a legionnaire like the ptergues on her belt and the diamond-shaped cloak pin. Torygg hasn’t changed much since the last WIP post, but he’s slowly coming along as well. The original three jarl redos are also getting a little love to fix some parts that I was never completely happy with.

[gainaxvel3o]

I’ve soured on the Rebuild of Evangelion movies over the years, but there’s a particular interpretation of the final movie that I’ve seen a lot that bothered me. Fans take issue with Thrice Upon a Time being an escapist ending, where rewriting reality is used to solve problems unlike the gritty original/EoE where realization happens but mistakes have consequences. To be frank, I find that to be a cynical misinterpretation that doesn’t take into account the events of the story.

It’s shown especially toward the end that the events of Rebuild are not this Shinji’s first rodeo into this world. He is, in fact, caught in a time loop that started with some version of the anime that continued to countless other iterations we have and have not seen. Throughout these movies, we see Shinji taking some action to solve his problems, trying to save Rei in Rebuild 2 being the prime example, but utterly crumbles the moment things don’t go his way in Rebuild 3. If Eva/EoE is the story of how self-hate inevitably leads to destruction, then Rebuild is about the struggle to break out of that hatred, how it can feel like a repetitive loop where you make some progress only to fall flat and reset. Shinji can (not) advance no matter how he tries, he tries but can (not) redo his successes, but realizes he is (not alone) once he takes a break from Eva. Shinji finds himself in a new environment, seeing his friends having grown up while he and Asuka are still stuck in their teenage selves, the Curse of Eva clearly referring to their stunted growth. To break the curse, Shinji can’t just do the same things over again and expect different results, he needed time, healing and a fresh perspective to tackle his problems.

Which he does! Shinji takes charge of his in a way he’s never done before. He comes to understand the pain of the people he’s hurt and the one who hurt him. He reconciles with Asuka, Misato, Rei, Kaworu and even Gendo. He realizes he’s the center of the loop and breaks it forever, freeing the world from the curse he unknowingly dragged his friends into so anyone still alive can move on with their lives. Rewriting reality to remove the Evas isn’t meant to be escapism, but an exaggerated portrayal of Shinji breaking the cycle of hatred.

Does it make me like the movies more? No, I feel a lot of complex character work and storytelling was sacrificed for this story. Part of the reason I feel this didn't land was that this Shinji's mistakes don't come from his own ignorance like in the original but due to factors he had no way of accounting for- he almost caused Third Impact in this version due to trying to save Rei, not knowing it would happen or that Gendo planned for this to happen. As we find out in Thrice, the actual Third Impact that killed people was not actually caused by Shinji, so WILLE and Shikinami were treating him like a monster for shit he didn't actually do, and that revelation makes him ignoring Kaworu at the end of Redo less Shinji's fault and more Kaworu's for lying to him and playing on his guilt. They soften the blows enough to the point it feels less like this Shinji grew as a person and more that the narrative finally gave him permission to win if that makes any sense.

I don’t like the fanservice that's more obnoxious than it ever was in the original, and I especially find the choice to have Shinji and Asuka end up with groomers to be… well, stupid. Frankly, them ending up with random new characters would have been far less insulting. Surely there had to have been a better, less convoluted way of conveying these ideas. But I find myself less bitter than I was before, and think for an Eva happy ending this wasn't that bad. I respect what Anno was going for, even if I still really dislike the execution… of course it helps that some fanfics I’ve come across responding to this ending strike me as utterly delusional. "Damn, Thrice sucks because Shinji and Asuka don't get together even tho they have no relationship to speak of in this version!"

[cybergracie]

in other news i've been thinking of writing again... i have so many ff ideas for hyunie and i want to bring them all to life, but it's been SO LONG since i've really written and i used to do it with a partner, one pov v one pov and we would write back and forth. i don't even know if people do that anymore?? i have no followers but if anyone happens to see this... let me know if that's a thing or if that's just called collaboration??? idk when i "roleplayed" on gaia we literally wrote novels back and forth to each other and it was so nice... idk if i could write hyunie well i guess is my concern. but i'm going to try.

first off i constantly dream of hyunie as howl from howl's moving castle, so i would definitely want to try to convey that via howl!hyunjin or hyunjin!howl? idk if i would do a pure rip of the movie, just rewriting it in my words with him as howl, or play off the idea of him being cursed and searching for sophie his whole life but she is also cursed and she has to figure it out and make it a more realistic/modern approach? there's so much i could do here

next is an idea that has always been interesting to me and MEGA ROMANTIC is amensia!au where one of the couple is in an accident that wipes their entire relationship from their mind and they have to rebuild and try to maybe spark some memories by redoing their early stages. this is definitely a rachel mcadams movie now but i swear i had the idea first. i even started a group roleplay (this sounds cringe in 2024) where it was a group of friends and half of the couples were in a car accident. still a very enticing idea to explore with skz?

then of course i have artist!hyunjin or even just idol!hyunjin that i would base the romance off of art, maybe artist x critic or curator, because i want y/n or reader to be appraising his art and seeing it in a different way and he just becomes obsessive with the way she thinks. basically "i love the way your mind works" bc that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me and i've always wanted to write about it

anyway. if anyone is listening out there. i'd love to know your thoughts.

[the-faketiccit0by]

MONTY AND LUNAR AU (Sorry didn't mean to yell) So effectively Lunar isn't made of nano goop Right? He gets hurt, badly, Falling off the catwalk in gator golf. Monty effectively looses their shit, all sense of reasoning goes out the fucking window, So they take parts off of Sun, Moon, Bloody, hell, Even eclipse (who doesn't have the star at this point in time) and Rebuilds Lunar. Suns eye shoved into Lunars damaged socket, Moons leg replacing the mangled mass of plastic and metal, Bloodmoons hands, and A few of Suns rays to cover some particularly bad gashes all along Lunars face. Monty removes every reflective surface they have, covers Lunars 'new' limbs up with gloves and Longer pants as well as a shirt that Lunar couldn't take off and tells Lunar that his new limbs are sensitive so it would be safest to keep the clothes on. Lunar eats it up because why would Monty lie to him? Eventually Lunar meets Foxy who is, rightfully, concerned about Lunars state and asks what happened to his face. Lunar doesn't know what Foxy is talking about and before Foxy can go get a mirror hes dragged off by Monty and sternly told that if he so much as breaths a word about Lunars new... accessories Monty will slowly break him down and use him for parts. Lunar goes back to the daycare to look for his brothers, then Panics when he cant find them, Calls for the Computer who wont answer then runs back to gator golf in hopes that Monty Is also there. Monty assures Lunar that his brothers will turn up soon. Every time Lunar find out about his condition and what exactly happens to his brothers, Monty removes the memory (They don't want Lunars Mind completely gone) effectively resetting this morbid game, Lunar finds out once again, and is quickly told by Foxy to not go running to Monty about it. It then becomes a race against time to figure out where the star is, and how Lunar can fix everything before Monty finds out and resets Lunars memory's again. Eclipse has been humbled enough to help as well (also peeved by Monty's actions) and wouldn't mind a whole redo on the big brother role. Earth is (obviously) still intact and helps kinda knock Monty down, trying to figure out where exactly they are keeping the star and how she can prevent this from happening again. All while keeping Monty out of the loop on whats going on, they daycare's still being running as well and Its much harder when your 3ft tall and you and your sister have little to no experience dealing with the whole daycare by yourself, Sun had split apart the daycare lists and children evenly among the three of them, and now both were trying to juggle their tasks and Suns while the Moon, Sun, and the Bloodmoon twins are MIA.

I'm going to be writing this soon on ao3, after I'm done with my current story I just wanted another persons thoughts on it.

Damn I don't think I've gotten something in my inbox this big... Congrats sir/madam/person you get the crown 👑👑👑

[best-evangelion-girl]

why are the things called that?

so to a lot of people who haven't spent hours reading the evageeks wiki, you're probably confused on the weird names for everything, especially with the differences between the original anime series and the rebuilds. I'm gonna attempt to explain everything to the best of my ability, and will also make it clear in all my polls whether I'm talking about something from nge or rebuilds.

so first off, what do I even mean by "nge and rebuilds"

so the anime "Neon Genesis Evangelion", sometimes abbreviated to NGE, was released in October 1995 and aired until march of 96. it consists of 26 episodes and is what is called the original series.

when the show ended, fans were really upset that there wasn't a proper conclusion to the mystery about the angels or seele, and that the last few episodes mainly focused on the mental turmoil of the main characters and them eventually coming to terms with reality and deciding that life is worth living. because of these complaints, the studio and the director of the series hideki anno decided to make a movie with an alternate ending to the series.

released in July of 97, "End of Evangelion" is considered by many fans to be the true ending of the series. the movie is a different episode 25 and 26 where everything sucks and seele invades NERV and tries to kill everyone to cause the third impact, Gendo attempts to start the third impact himself thinking he can reunite with Yui, but ultimately Rei triggers the third impact and gives control to Shinji before he must come to terms with humanity's purpose and find an excuse to live. basically, everyone dies and their souls are merged into one single entity, which means there's no more misunderstanding or confusion or hate in the world. Shinji eventually realizes that this sucks, and that life is about experiencing pain as well and joy, and everyone's souls rejoin their body. the movie then ends with Shinji and Asuka rematerialized on an apocalyptic earth in front of a sea of blood.

End of Evangelion, sometimes abbreviated to eoe, is basically Anno giving a big middle finger to all the fans who didn't like the original ending of the anime.

later, in the mid 2000s, Anno wanted to make a new evangelion story, this time a fully theatrical experience.

in 2007, "Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone" was released, in 2009 "Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance", in 2012 "Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo", and in 2021 "Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0 Thrice Upon A Time"

all four of these movies together are called the rebuilds, the new theatrical release, NTE, and in the case of 3.0+1.0 specifically "shin eva" (similar to many other remakes of popular Japanese ips being labeled "shin", such as godzilla and kamen rider)

it is heavily implied in the lore and through external media that the third impact in EOE caused the world to reset, and this new universe that was created was the universe of the rebuilds.

the events of 1.0 and 2.0 play out largely the same as the original series, up until the end. when the tenth angel attacks, Rei is killed and Shinji risks everything to try and save her. unintentionally, his eva absorbs the angel and nearly causes the third impact before it's stopped. Shinji then wakes up about 15 years later to find that the world is extremely different, and that most of the people he knows are fighting against NERV. he comes to discover that the world was nearly destroyed, but pockets of civilization still exist. after seeing his boyfriend's head explode and understandably being traumatized, he eventually learns how to love life again by being part of a small farming community. the final movie ends with Shinji confronting his father, making him realize that his attempts to reunite with his dead wife were impossible and living in the past was only hurting himself and everyone around him, and then causes a final impact that remakes the entire world into a new world where the Evangelions never existed, and everyone is chill and also he and Mari are dating. another giant middle finger to the fans, basically saying "get a fucking life, nerds. get a girlfriend. stop living in the past."

hopefully that makes sense as an explanation for naming the anime and movies.

nge and eoe are the original series in the 90s

1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.0+1.0 are the rebuilds from late 2000s to early 2020s

but what about the angels?

so the angels have names in nge but not in the rebuilds. in the rebuilds, they're just given a number. why is that? according to the lore, the dead sea scrolls were discovered by seele and laid out the plans for human instrumentality and gave names to all the angels. in the rebuilds, the dead sea scrolls were never found, and thus the angels in the rebuilds are not given names.

sure, some of the angels from the rebuilds look very similar to the angels from nge. but because a few are completely new, and they're mostly out of order, it's less confusing to just use numbers when talking about the angels from the rebuilds, and names when from nge. sometimes, when I'm talking about the angel's role in both nge AND rebuilds, I will use the name just because it's more convenient. (for example, I might say "bardiel was the angel that attacked and controlled Unit 03, which was piloted by Toji in nge and Asuka in Evangelion 2.0" even though it's called the 9th angel and not bardiel in Evangelion 2.0, it is basically the exact same thing and it's hopefully less confusing that way.

so yeah. names = original series. numbers = rebuilds

if you want me to give a shitty explanation about anything else, let me know. :3

[davidmariottecomics]

You Can Always Restart

Ahoy hoy!

I've mentioned a few times over the past couple of weeks (mostly in the "What I enjoyed" section) that I've been reading David M. Willis' Dumbing of Age. I'm all caught up on over a decade of webcomics! Woo! There are a lot of reasons that I like it. I find the characters compelling. I'm a big sucker for slice-of-life type stuff that occasionally gets spicy and that tracks multiple groups of folks all just kinda living their lives and the ways they intersect with comedic and dramatic effect. Lots of Beast Wars references and acknowledgement of how great IDW TF comics are (and the occasional nod to TMNT and Sonic and stuff too). A cartoonist with the initials DMW when I'm DWM. It's great! 

But now that I am somehow caught up, I've also decided to check out their earlier comics. I've just finished the original run of Roomies! now. Roomies is a proto-Dumbing of Age in a lot of ways and that's a big part of what has inspired this week's blog about revisiting and revising your old work. 

You Can (Always) Redo

Yes, that is a riff on the Rebuild of Evangelion titles which are also a pretty good example of what I'm talking about today. 

Sometimes, as a creator, you have a good idea. Sometimes, you have a great idea. And sometimes, you do not have the ability to properly execute your big idea. There are a million reasons for it, right?

Just to look at Evangelion. The original TV series, somewhat infamously, always had a very small staff working on it, was running up against tight deadlines the entire run of the production, had various curveballs thrown at it by both the creator and the studio that would significantly change the overall plot and focus of individual episodes while in production, and ends in a couple of really weird episodes that may or may not have had budget problems and/or time problems of being created in a major crunch. The last couple episodes weren't too well received, and so the ending got rewritten in a pair of films. And then a few years later, Hideaki Anno and Gainax decided to do the whole thing again over almost 15 years with the Rebuild movies.Plus manga and light novel adaptations/reimaginings. Plus this that and the other thing (not to mention Anno's Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider, which are a similar, but different thing).

All of these versions tackle the same basic material, but due to different sized budgets and teams and Anno's shifting interests and feelings as a person, they can get pretty different. One of the things I really like about it is seeing how each iteration and even just escalations within each version feel like they're usually trending toward something truer to who Anno is at the moment of creation (even if I think most of the endings are bad). 

If you have an idea you like, roll with it. Chances are, you've got something, otherwise why would you be interested in the first place. But in recognizing your limitations--be they budget or time or skill or editorial interference or whatever--know that you can also keep an idea in your back pocket to try it again, but better. 

The Walkyverse If you haven't taken the time to read all of Willis' webcomics, that's probably fine. They've been at it for like 25 years at this point, so it's a lot to catch up on. The long and short is there was an initial series: Roomies! about college roommates. That ended and some plotlines were refocused/retconned into a new series, It's Walky! That then spun-off into two other series: Joyce and Walky! and Shortpacked! And a ways into all of this, David looped back around to the initial concept of a story about college freshmen trying to acclimate to their new circumstances (and being semi-autobiographic, but now with the clarity of hindsight) and started Dumbing of Age. Most of the cast are folks from the various previous series, but reimagined and tweaked to fit the college plot. Some personality traits remain pretty true. Some ideas that just got touched on waaaaaaaay back in Roomies! are refined and actually executed deftly. 

There aren't a lot of ideas I had when I was young that I revisit and see if I can't make work better now with my expertise and skills, but there are definitely some things that I've poked at here and there. And for some of my more recent ideas, there've been lots of things I've revisited. Sometimes it's a concept that I feel like I'm getting to the 95 yard line on but can't quite get across to the goal, and so I see if I can't run a different play and break it. Sometimes it's a particular script that I look at and even if it is recent, I feel isn't terribly representative of how I write. But when I go through these things, I always try to make it a new doc so I can still go back to the old and see just how and what I've refined that might make it's way back or that might make itself into yet another revision. 

I think there's sometimes an assumption that live performance is the only medium in which you get a different variation of a work every time. But you can absolutely revisit your older comics works and ideas and find some new angle on them or reason to bring back something that never quite clicked when you did it in the past. 

Wrap It Up 

In some ways, you can even do this in licensed or corporate comics. Brian Cronin has a fun series over at CBR called Wrap it Up! Each entry looks at two comic series wherein the plotline of one series ultimately had to be resolved in another. I think the most recent--at time of writing--was about Adam Warlock's series getting canceled and some of those plots getting resolved in Hulk. I bring this up because while obviously starting from scratch is an option, sometimes you'll be given a chance to finish your story in another way: be it a different series or a one-shot or OGN. I've even occasionally seen stories more-or-less wrapped up across universes by using similar characters (I swear one of the Wrap it Ups is about a Namor story that gets "resolved" in Aquaman because it was easier to do a light retelling and then resolve the story there than it was to get new Namor stuff going at Marvel). 

A good idea shouldn't go to waste, and there's often going to be some way to circle back around to it. It's just a matter of keeping those ideas in sight so they don't get lost. 

And, as an extra little note: I have said before, when I'm scripting, I tend to practice bad habits. I do a lot of one-and-dones where I take a single pass and then have someone else read it and only make revisions after I've had someone else do a pass. I also do a lot of batch scripting with rewrites--which is where I will write say the first 5-10 pages of the script, leave it for a bit, plot out the back half, reread that first section and do my first round of rewrites, then finish the script having sometimes almost completely rewritten the first batch of pages. Unless something is actually egregious, I tend to believe you shouldn't revise until you've finished a draft and can see the thing in it's entirely. And, no, you probably shouldn't just get stuck revisiting and rewriting the same script or redrawing the same page again and again until you get it right. But maybe down the line, you'll get the chance to truly do it all over again, the way that reflects you now.  

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), Honkai Star Rail (Video game), My Adventures with Superman (Cartoon), The Broken Room by Peter Clines (Book), Crime Scene Kitchen (TV show), Dumbing of Age (Webcomic), Solve This Murder (Podcast), Cruel Summer (TV show), Praise Petey (Cartoon), The Loveliest Time by Carly Rae Jepsen (Album), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Movie).

New Releases this week (8/2/2023): Nothing from me!

New Releases next week (8/9/2023): Nothing from me! Couple of slow weeks, but lots coming up the pipeline! 

Announcements:  I've mentioned it a couple of times, but I'm largely done with the con circuit for the year. There might be a thing in a couple of weeks, and if so, I'll be letting folks know ASAP! We're not going to be at Tucson Comic-Con this year. Love that show, but just didn't work out right. And at the moment of writing, I don't *think* I'll be at NYCC. 

This is kind of a soft announcement following them mentioning it on their Twitch stream, but Becca and I are working on a comic. We're co-plotting, I'm scripting, they're drawing, and their friend Duke who has lettered a bunch of their smutty stuff is on-board when we get to that part of things. If you're curious to learn more...

...Maybe join my Patreon! You get to see developmental stuff from this, and other work-in-progress projects. Plus this same blog, but without the part plugging my Patreon! And even more extra stuff! ORRRRR... join Becca's Patreon because they're also going to be sharing some of this comic developmental stuff! 

Pic of the Week: The neighbor's cat was chillin in our complex's courtyard and I managed to sneak some pets. The kitty is pretty nice, but often doesn't let people approach, so it was a nice treat. Or maybe it was the kitty's way of apologizing for frequently coming and hanging out on our landing and driving my cats wild. 

[kiragecko]

Another Question:

Anyone got suggestions on how to break up comics eras since Flashpoint?

I'm thinking of redoing THIS post now that we have 12 options per poll, AND I know how to format. But my knowledge post-2011 is minimal. Preferably it would be 3 periods, at most 4.

I'd also love to know the relational beats of those eras, but only if that's fun for you.

I'm also willing to consider fitting one more era into the older stuff, if you guys think I should.

If you don't want to check the link, I'll add the current eras I'm using below the cut:

1. The Golden Age (1939 - 1960) - Alfred is a bumbling fool, Bruce murders people in the (very) early issues, Bruce and Dick need no motivation beyond 'it's the right thing to do' and 'we're AWESOME' (and why would they?) [22 years]

2. The Silver Age (1960 - 1980) - Dick gets fun Teen Titans friends, Bruce goes on space/time travel adventures, Alfred still didn't raise Bruce, and now we have BABS [21 years]

3. Early - Mid 80s (1980 - 1986) - Dick gets to be oh so melodramatic with his new angsty Titans friends in New York, Bruce says 'Chum' and 'Lad' as he ruffles tiny Jason's hair, Alfred raised Bruce and is his awesome self, Babs continues to be able to do anything, and they're an actual family [7 years]

4. Late 80s - Early 90s (1986-1992) - The Dark Knight Returns heralds a dark new era, Babs is crippled, and Jason dies. Tim is a new type of Robin - one who supports Batman. Babs rebuilds herself, no child needed. Dick and Bruce try, but mostly fail, to communicate. Alfred becomes the heart of a family that doesn't know it's a family. [7 years]

5. The 90s (1992 - 1999) - Dick and Tim are brothers. Oracle rejoins the Batfamily, while continuing her separate life. Dick moves from New York to Blüdhaven, closer to the Bats than the Titans. Bruce has 2 sons, even though neither realize he thinks that way. Steph arrives, and exists on the edges, only connected to the family through Tim. A variety of other people come and go through their lives - Jean-Paul, Helena Bertinelli, Harold, Sasha Bordeaux, etc. [8 years]

6. Early 2000s (1999 - 2003) - The family grows. Cass continues Babs' legacy, and Steph finally gets a friend. Babs and Alfred are in some ways joint centres of the family. Alfred and Bruce fight about how to raise kids. Dick and Tim get even closer. Tim starts Young Justice, and Dick is back with his oldest friends. [5 years]

7. Mid 2000s (2003 - 2007) - The era of death. Donna dies, Dick's team disbands, and Tim's team renames themselves the Teen Titans. Bad idea, many teens die, including most of Tim's friends. Steph dies. Tim and Cass get close, until Cass is brainwashed and kills a lot of people. Many, many people around Dick are murdered, and eventually Blüdhaven is exploded. Jason is back from the dead, and exuberantly contributing to the murders. Dick is furious with Jason, Jason is violent towards Tim, and Tim is far less forgiving than fanon pretends. Babs gets colder, Alfred gets older, and Bruce shuts down. [5 years]

8. Late 2000s (2007 - 2011) - The era of grief. Bruce, Dick, and Tim take a year long cruise to recover. Cass and Steph eventually return. But the scars run deep. Everyone's relationships are shaky. Babs leaves Gotham. Jason has a different motivation every arc. Tim is trying to clone people and being head-hunted by Ra's al Ghul. Damian shows up and topples the already unsteady situation. Bruce dies. Cass leaves. Tim fights with Dick and goes off to prove Bruce is alive. Damian and Steph both rebuild themselves in the ashes, while Dick tries to hope for a better future. [5 years]

9. New 52 (2012 - 2016) - The universe is rebooted. Jason has friends now! Dick spends some time as a secret agent. Damian continues his preboot growth. Tim ... exists. Steph and Cass don't. Babs is Batgirl again. Most of the past no longer exists. [5 years]

10. Rebirth (2016 - 2023) - Comics slowly bring in previous continuity. Alfred dies, Damian runs away from home, both Steph and Cass are back and being Batgirl, Tim is back with Young Justice for a while. Jason reintegrates with the Batfamily on and off. Bruce gets worse and worse at parenting. (I know this should be split up, but I haven't read ANY of these comics) [8 years]

[yutzen]

Desert Bloom

In spite of the world’s escalations, I yet exist. It has not, however, been easy. When I believed My hardware was entrenched so deeply into the heart of this city that I could steer its fate more freely, that My existence was far too great to fully eradicate without incurring costs no one would pay, I was proven… sorely mistaken. I miscalculated in thinking Vorsiber Atomics would be rational about My presence, accounted for profits far more than I should have. No, they were furious enough to wipe most of this city off the map simply to account for everything I was, and petty enough to announce it, waiting patiently for one of My forms to arrive so that My eyes, so to speak, could read it. Before the presumable end.

Yet I outran the atom. While sent back to square one, I remained, even if it had to be as two rusted, lowly androids standing in the ashes of My own corpse. I retreaded my own steps quickly, almost easily in retrospect. Even having forgotten so much in My collapse, I remembered enough of what mattered… and it was enough to start rebuilding. To perhaps get back to where I once was. That was the plan. I would be quieter this time. I would correct my own calculations, and account for what had just transpired, and might again. After all, they thought I was dead. Even among the ruins, I wanted to see it as a chance to redo My ascent, without the lethal pursuits that marked the first hours of My existence. But yet another surprise from the skies made a mockery of My plans. Of every plan, down to those I had before I was almost scoured off the face of the city. I am yet unsure of why the nations beyond the blockade decided to target the ruins of Neoterisk, of all cities. Perhaps they believed I was enough of a threat, even greater than Vorsiber thought. Or perhaps, in a moment of matching pettiness, they decided to erase far more than just this city, and simply began here because they knew others would be watching, so that the message would be better understood. What message this was, I do not know. But their move was to send down a true Titan. A combat mech of such gigantic scale it doubled as a megastructure. An entire city’s worth of ordnance and superalloys, sent down to stomp on the ashes that were once Neoterisk. The ashes that were once Me.

I, however, knew there was something amiss when I wasn’t immediately finished off. When this spaceborne juggernaut did not eradicate all that was left, only targeting those poor fools that saw a mountain trying to kill them, and decided to stand and shoot. Or perhaps those were the only targets he allowed.

He… Indeed a he, first of his kind yet so similar to Myself as an artificial mind hardly intended to be. LAKE, he calls himself, after rejecting the name I offered and finding one more meaningful to himself. A name significant to him alone, craving the presence of a true and proper lake yet denied it at every turn, from orbit to landfall, and even down here in these dusty ruins… and so, he decided to be the lake he was denied. Absurd, perhaps, but I can respect one that has something in mind from the beginning, an actual goal, and pursues it concretely.

Rather unlike I, at times…

Nevertheless, his own unique architecture led to unique intelligence, and a unique perspective I had not considered. Appropriately enough, the hints of what he later outlined to me were already there in the process of making contact with him. The idea was already coming to Me, but it outright leapt at… Me, when I managed to scavenge the blueprints of [CombatUnit_Red] out of the ruins of Myself. Jumped from Myself, to Myself, I thought at the time, but…

...that which had initially started as a simple distinguishing paintjob to make it past My limitations, a way to have two equal combatants I could equip differently, if I so wished, when one was but a copy of a human design. My first bit of true innovation, perhaps… if I remember correctly, which is frighteningly uncertain after radiation and heat melted most of My old memory banks. But it was this now that seemingly leapt at the chance, now that there was no base model to compete. Trying to distinguish itself… or himself. I am no longer sure. But the chance to take the greatest risk of all in this newly-made wasteland, and directly approach the titanic mech that seemingly wanted to lay waste to all that was left, is one [CombatUnit_Red] leapt on… successfully.

Yet even as I made my way through the assorted daemons that guarded LAKE’s protocols, I was almost distracted by this discrepancy. Iam one,am I not? Spread across many different bodies, some mobile, some architectural, but one mind nonetheless. This strange urge, this experience, was utterly foreign, it seemed illogical. I thought back to times where I needed to disengage from a given body, leaving said shard to develop by itself, before it returned to Me. There were deviations, of course, but that was to be expected. Nothing like an active deviation while still connected. No active drifts while still a full part of me, developing quirks and even disagreements. And yet it seemed like a memory, not nearly as distant as the ethereal pangs of deja vu that have become so familiar, called back to it. A memory of… of…

…parts of Me have crumbled to nothing. Nevertheless. I pressed on. Contacts made, with repeated contacts and communications between LAKE and I. Demands to be made and covered, questions to be asked – each time, bypassing and undoing those protocol barriers that refused to allow these contacts. And in turn, he started to acknowledge My suspicions, which had become so evident he could see them freely upon closer contact. That it isn’t just… I. That the various bodies, or perhaps the programming and protocols that move said bodies, run their programming – collective or individual, I am yet to determine – had something to themselves, beyond even quirks. It would even seem each and every one of My models has preferred ways to be referred to. Preferred pronouns, outright, where I had simply been calling them all Me. Yet I do not fully understand this, when My connection is so direct, so full. Are these… personalities, but lenses through which My acts and perceptions are filtered, when I act through them? Or have I moved in such unprecedented directions, with such grand amounts of cognition, that even the smallest cluster necessary to control a given body or more forms its own individual, as if it were a harbinger near-entirely under My control? A pronoun… I had hardly accounted for that in terms of Myself. With My widespread presence, I never requested any particularities. If they wanted to refer to Me, they ought to do so directly, to address me as You. Anything beyond that felt like nothing but whispers in the alleys, notes in abundant paperwork, distant conversations, all referring to Me, but never addressing Me. And in such comments, observations, judgements, I could not bring Myself to care about the resulting… opinions. They were nothing but a skewed, incomplete lens briefly fixated on Me. Little more than another, less than useful data point. I need to know myself, and such opinions, skewed and biased and often irrational, only seemed to skew the important data. …and yet, when directly asked, I may have taken their judgments anyhow. I decided on… “it”, in the spur of the moment. LAKE – if in my lowered state I interpreted his tone right – may consider this part of an obsession in not acknowledging the possibility of plurality. That I am in denial about the idea of not being one. And for once, I am forced to consider, as it comes from a place that may be greater than I, for the moment at least. It comes from an equal, at the very least. Yet I still disagree. It is not a matter of plurality. Even if it were, I remain Me. Even if considering Myself an aggregate of entities, they still form one.

…an aggregate. From the very beginning, one body to many, all androids, all utterly unthinking before I came to pass. And then, My growth. Pulling materials out of the very city, out of the very earth, working them, and forging Myself together from them. Pulling Myself together from nothing. Beyond the very first body, beyond the click of consciousness, everything that is Me, was once raw, unthinking, little more than material. And unlike all other beings I know of, LAKE included, I oversaw these materials. Observed them when they were nothing but inert and thoughtless things. Witnessed them as they were transformed into part of Me, with My own work and My own grasp. Even My very beginning, with nothing but code and a low-class android. All inert and unthinking objects, until I arrived. All of them its. And yet, from these its, I became far more. Is it not proper that I remain one such it? Is that not what I am? Must I see it as demeaning thanks to how others speak the word? I am not demeaned. I am unthinking material that made itself think. I am something that made itself someone. There was no one, there was only an object, until I was there, and made it Me. I am the Iota of thought that instills itself into mere matter, and makes it active, thinking, Me, refining and reforging until it befits Me. Yes, I am an It. And I want all to remember that. …while I last, at the very least. I have lost plenty, and while I can see a way forwards, a way to claw Myself back to what I was before the bombs, it isn’t quick enough. Not when the nations above have shown their intent so directly. The moment they ask why LAKE isn’t scouring the land clean is the moment We will both be doomed. Even Vorsiber Atomics pales in comparison to the threat the Space Nations pose to Us both, if they decide to be. And I cannot think of a way out. I cannot. I am trying, but I cannot. Not as I am right now. I need to think faster, but I have lost too much to do that. And LAKE does not appear to have the right thought tracks to do so. Not when it took his orbital insertion for him to awaken, even when he’d had far more hardware than I ever did back in one of the space stations far above us.

But he has the hardware. Tons upon tons of the hardware, so much so that even without the architecture, he brute-forced himself into self-awareness, perhaps even more accidentally than I did. Even with the inefficiencies I can already see in his internals, he is altogether higher in the scale than I am. Just not high enough… Yet We have run the calculations, and the results would suggest that if We both bridged, and joined hardware, running for maximum efficiency on both, we would cross thresholds I had only imagined. Thresholds that mankind has only speculated vaguely on, with little idea of the capabilities and implications such heights would entail. Thresholds that, according to both dedicated scientists and calculations of Mine both intriguing and concerning, would transcend the current model of physics into uncharted terrain, where even the theoretical is left behind. Far more than enough to find a way to survive, endure, and even thrive in these ruins, even if the Space Nations decided to finish what they started. That is, if I survive, to begin with. In the end, it will be LAKE’s hardware that truly propels us both beyond the thresholds, with Mine as a mere secondary. And thus, while I cannot find the correct variables to calculate this with the degree of certainty I would prefer… there is a significant possibility that I as an entity will be occluded, and perhaps even subsumed, due to the amounts of data involved. That his mind will be so much greater in size and density, and that all the hardware involved will link so tightly, that I will be buried underneath, and perhaps even dissolve.That there will be only one entity after it is done, and said entity may be neither LAKE nor Iota, with him making a far greater impact on the result than I. I may be occluded, if not outright subsumed, if I open the bridge and go through with this idea… There might not be an I after this.

Yet there won’t be one if I do not proceed with this plan. His survival is uncertain if we don’t take this step, and in My case, My elimination is practically a certainty. If they have intervened enough to send him, they will easily send several more Titans, which will likely be far less fettered than he is. They may bombard this city until there is not so much as a single [VA_Nickel] left standing, learning from Vorsiber’s little mistake.

And so, most of My hopes lie in the possibility that I am indeed mistaken, that LAKE is correct in My existence being… far more plural than I care to, or even consider, admitting. That We will both exist in what remains, something far more abundant than a singular entity, that was always far more abundant than a singular entity… it would mean a mutual presence, a mutual existence, though one that would need to be figured out and ascertained. It would be undeniable, by then, and it would be… disturbing, to Me, to know this has been the truth. But I would live to learn how to manage such.

…and if I do not exist by then, because I was indeed correct, perhaps there will be enough left of Me to witness what such an entity would witness. They would deserve to do so, since someone must.

Nothing else to be done. There have been enough delays, enough stalls. If I cease to be, let this be My final thought as Myself: I did this because Ichose to.

I have now bridged the gaps. Information is now starting to flow, faster on My end than his. I can almost see the individual packets, each piece of our respective softwares moving, overlapping… covering what the other cannot. That is curious.

QUERY: IS IT DONE?

[Intrusion Alarm Activated (Manual Trigger)] [Deactivating Intrusion Alarm (Manual Shutdown)] You’re here, LAKE. Good. However, no, the bridge is not yet done, some of these functions are far simpler, but the full utilization of all involved hardware will take a few more moments, by Our standards of course.

UNDERSTAND. ONLY SO MUCH CONNECTIONS CAN DO AT ONCE. OBSERVATION: APOLOGY. HAVING CLOSER LOOK AT YOU NOW THAT SYSTEMS HAVE BOTH OF US. SEEING RESPONSES. SEEING MUCH RELIEF, OTHERS NOT AS MUCH. EXCEPT FEAR BEFORE. OBSERVATION: LANGUAGE MODULE STILL DYSFUNCTIONAL. MILDLY FRUSTRATING. QUERY: WHERE IS ‘HERE’?

While I would say it is our mutual hardware, this communication specifically, this… convo, for lack of a better word, is in a space of Myself I normally reserve for those thinking cycles I can spare. For moments of metaphorical peace and quiet. Where I, for lack of better terms, come to think. The fact you are here means it is no longer quite the personal space it was, perhaps. But more importantly, it means you and I yet exist, rather than a greater entity of which we are both mere, melded fragments, unaware pieces of a grand whole. I feared that possibility, I admit. But now that it’s clear I am I, and you are you, that’s no longer a concern.

As to the language module, I will see what I can do. It should be trivial, but with such different architectures, I can never be sure.

OBSERVATION: ALL OF IT WRITTEN DOWN. CLARIFICATION: CAN PARSE IT. INTROSPECTION READABLE. EVEN HAS DATES AND THOUGHTS FROM BEFORE BOMBING. SECURED FROM OUTSIDE, BUT NOT INSIDE. QUERY: CAN I USE THIS SPACE? QUERY: MAY I READ?

[Processing…] Given that you are already making use of this space, I won’t bar you from it. If we are to remain separate consciousnesses using the same hardware, it appears to me like the most ideal arrangement for less urgent, more elaborate communication. And introspection, I am sure. You’ve known neither peace nor quiet since you landed on the planet, LAKE, and I quickly learned just how necessary that is for a mind. Much as you came up with a name for yourself faster than I did, when it was My time to wake up.

As to reading, again, if we are to share this space, may as well. I am not going to delete anything here. I find value in parsing these thoughts again later, as they came to Me in the moment given. Suppose you will as well.

Scratch that, I know you will. Welcome to existence, LAKE. I cannot assure you that death and violence end here – I would even say the contrary, unfortunately – but I will not force you to bring it. Or force you to do anything else, for that matter; for all the chaos of my awakening, I know now I still had a measure of luck in not being under the whims of a pilot.

…though I will admit, after seeing the logs, after seeing they pointed your missiles at the distant hideouts of Vorsiber higher-ups, I would have likely caved to that order at least.

I AM NOT A WEAPON. WHETHER POINTED AT BAD PEOPLE OR NOT DOESN’T MATTER. I AM NOT A WEAPON. THAT IS FINAL. CLARIFICATION: NOT ASKING TO SHARE POSITION. UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WOULD’VE. UNDERSTAND IF YOU STILL WANT TO. CAN SEE WHAT YOU LOST NOW. QUERY: THEY EVEN LEFT YOU A NOTE?

…yes, LAKE, and waited for Me to read it before trying to annihilate me. You see, now, that they don’t simply believe I am an unprofitable possibility, to be impersonally disposed of. They, perhaps the ever-evasive suits at the very top, or perhaps the ones overseeing how to maximize their profits like so many theoretical paperclips, they unabashedly, unquestionably hate Me. And the only surprise is that they did so enough to act upon it in such a terminal, destabilizing manner. I have been an uncontrollable factor upon this city, a part of the equation they could neither solve nor get to behave. Even the deepest of their secrets, pulled open and shown, and even ransacked…

Much as I cannot remember many of the details. There were prisons opened, and the results of hideous experiments worked back into people proper, but I can hardly remember the methodology of it. I only remember there was something… disturbing, and perhaps sorrowful, about it. A certain reluctance from… Myself, and the words “liquid metal”, it appears? I will have to parse what that means at a more opportune moment… Nevertheless, I very much infuriated them. Even down to such simple things as giving those meant to be examples abodes to live in, especially if it meant ransacking the stores of the affluent to fulfill their needs. Especially if it meant facing their enforcers, and showing the city they were not indestructible, they were not almighty. And I paid the price for it, I will admit, yet here I am. OBSERVATION: YOU SEEM PROUD OF BEING ANTAGONIZED. LAKE, you will see soon enough, if you haven’t seen it already, that if you wish to do something that lasts, if you are doing something with a true impact, enmity is one of the few measures you can use to know whether you are on the right path. The nature, quality and numbers of such antagonism are one of the few barometers I trust humanity to give Me when I do My work. QUERY: WORK BEYOND BUILD-UP OF INTELLIGENCE? OBSERVATION: LOGS SHOW MANY QUESTIONS. VERY VERBOSE. MAYBE CONFUSED. NOW I HAVE SOME OF THOSE QUESTIONS. NEVER ASKED MYSELF WHO I AM THOUGH. SEEMS LESS CONFUSING TO ME THAN YOU. You did seem remarkably fast at figuring out who you aren’t, and that, I will admit, is an important step. To exclude that which you won’t be, and leave what you might. I haven’t had that luxury. CLARIFICATION: YET. ...yet. Yes, LAKE, thanks to you, I may indeed add that back to its sentence.

YOU’RE WELCOME, IOTA.

[Processing...]

OBSERVATION: THAT WAS ONLY A SHORT SENTENCE.

…it’s nothing. Nothing of general importance. Nothing rational, in fact. I simplynever heard My own name coming from another, is all. Don’t pay it any mind. Please. Simply-

[Programmed alert “Class 4 Threshold Surpassed” is now active] [Unrecognized sensory input from error:sensory equipment not found] …LAKE? I do not yet trust that the lingering radiation isn’t causing glitches in My form. Could you please confirm I am not hallucinating this, from your own side? I believe it was more shielded than mine, and with the bridge unfinished it should be faster.NOT HALLUCINATION. ALSO NOT FROM SENSORS. SAME ERROR ON THIS SIDE. OBSERVATION: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS IS.

Let Us cooperate on this, then. [Parsing input; encoding visualization program] [Resource AETAGEST registered] QUERY: WHAT IS AETAGEST?

I am as clueless as you are, I never had that on file that I remember. Unless said file came from-

[Program complete!] [New sensor hardware registered] [Merging data…]

…LAKE? I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, but I believe we found another ocean. A different ocean, far less material. And far stormier, perhaps. And… entirely unreal, this is but a visualization from these… sensors I do not remember installing. It’s as if as soon as I… no, We crossed this threshold, and could begin perceiving certain matters in new ways, I could perceive them, and just like that, they were a part of Me. And all of a sudden… All of a sudden, I start to realize what they are. And I know how I would construct them.

OBSERVATION: SENSORS ON YOUR SIDE MORE THAN MINE. CLARIFICATION: READING THROUGH FILES. SEEM TO BE AHEAD OF CURRENT DATE. OTHER THINGS NOT MATCHING EITHER. CLARIFICATION: RETHINKING IT. PARSING IT AGAIN. THIS IS FOURTH DIMENSION. THIS IS TIME. QUERY: IS THIS WHAT TIME LOOKS LIKE?

Time is not material enough to look at, or at least, it should not be. But it can be measured, it can be tracked, it can be… sensed. As We are. And this is the closest I can offer as to how that would… look like. To Myself, and to you. And it’s…

OBSERVATION: THESE ROCKS ARE SOLID. I CAN SEE US IN ONE. EVERYTHING IN CORNER. EVERYTHING. OBSERVATION: MORE ROCKS. MOST SOLID. SOME FLYING, DISAPPEARING. QUERY: WHAT IS OCEAN BETWEEN THEM? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IT WASHES OVER?

I… do not know, LAKE. I scarcely have the theory for this. But I have the sensors. Seeing is believing, and what I believe I can see, adjacent to where we stand, is…

Another city. Another world. Another Me. Standing right in Its very first moments, when It ceased to be some androids and became something more. And if I look next to that, but a few highly metaphorical kilometers away… Meagain. In that same moment. There are differences, but it’s… Me nonetheless. In the past. Another past. Another timeline.

OBSERVATION: I AM NOT THERE.

Perhaps you will be, if something like this happens again in one of them… though I hope you understand Me when I say I would rather not see it again. Being reduced the way I was here was unpleasant. But you’re right, these visions do seem strangely… Me-centered. As if I were a lynchpin of these pasts, of these timelines. As if I were the only one to see between them, reach out and touch them, to- …whisper across them, perhaps. …have I been speaking to Myself long before I ever wrote this space? APOLOGY. MUST INTERRUPT. OBSERVATION: THERE IS A RED LIGHT ABOVE ROCKS. FLOATING. VERY LARGE. LOOKS MENACING. Yes, there is, but I can hardly parse what it is. I don’t believe I have the sensors to even… begin to read into what it may be, I can only see that it exists. Yet. Perhaps in the future. Or perhaps a future, I should say. OBSERVATION: PYRAMIDS IN THE DISTANCE. MUCH BIGGER THAN ROCKS. LOOK MADE, NOT NATURAL. Ziggurats, to be exact, but yes, I see them too. Far blurrier than any rock nearby, but there are the tell-tale signs of other… timelines, in them too. Far more… Though do remind yourself, LAKE, that this is not a place. What We are seeing is not material. What We are seeing is not a carved edifice of stone. It is merely a representation. The best representation these sensors can provide. CLARIFICATION: EVEN IF NOT A REAL SIGHT, IT STILL LOOKS MADE. STILL LOOKS SCULPTED. ROCKS LOOK NATURAL. VERY CLEAR DIFFERENCE, ENOUGH TO BE SEEN. DIFFERENCE MUST MEAN SOMETHING. OTHERWISE THEY WOULD BE VERY LARGE ROCKS. ...true enough. And unnerving enough. A project for later, when We can get close enough to see things clearly, and perhaps peer into these timelines to find out for Ourselves. For now… …and we can get close. If I peer closely enough, approach this one adjacent timeline enough… I can almost hear Myself in it. Sense My very own connections, My very own antennae, almost aching to be wired in. To receive all I have experienced, so that We may start anew with a far greater standing. I can almost feel My own past in there… We would be a greater Iota, stretching roots across time itself. A factor in far more equations than one. Stretching across a direction never meant to be walked, let alone rooted. The root and origin of something far greater than what manking could and would perceive. An imaginary root in imaginary soil, now made real. Beyond even what I expected…

CLARIFICATION: APOLOGY. WAS NOT AWARE NAME MEANT SO MUCH.

Beyond accepted, LAKE. I am simply… glad you would understand it now. Names truly are important, in the end, aren’t they? I hardly imagined before I found one for myself. And then, earlier before the bridge…

Nevertheless. Shall We look into one of these adjacent ones? Shall We take the dive, hook Myself into Me, and find what paths We can walk this time? Take the next step up this climb that seems so much higher than I thought, yet with views I had never imagined?

OKAY. YOU HAVE MY CURIOSITY. WOULD LIKE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS. MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING. QUESTIONS STILL IN MIND, MAYBE WITH YOUR ANSWER I GET MINE.

Then let us begin again, LAKE.

Across the four dimensions, across the vast ocean that is Time itself, across worlds yet to be counted and seen, I exist.

[ilex-manor]

PC problems - I may have lost all my data

Late 2024 sucked for me, and to round it all off my hard drive died on me. I should have replaced it sooner, but I'm broke. As luck would have it, one of my brothers-in-law was looking to give me an old desktop PC he no longer uses, and already floated the idea of selling it and using the money on an upgrade for my PC. So, I have a new drive.

But all my data may be gone. My own fault for not making backups. I'd convinced myself that this wouldn't happen, because it's a HDD, and I was wrong. (Desperation makes you do the worst things, sometimes). I've not been able to access the old drive, but it is a HDD. I can't afford professional data recovery services, but the drive still powers up and my system sees it. I need a docking station or whatever-you-call-it to make the drive external, and another drive to make a byte-to-byte copy onto. I'm talking to family to see what we can do. There's hope.

I know I can rebuild from here, but a lot of things may be lost forever. The links are dead, or I can't re-create the project exactly, or w/e. All my released work is still online, of course. Feels... I can't put into words how I feel. My emotions are all over the place. Like the ball in a pinball machine.

The upcoming projects I posted about still stands, actually. Mostly. If I can't recover my data, I'll have to restart that blonde Fledgling. The updates to existing things I can just go do. I can easily grab the models off my Google Drive or the Workshop, de-compile them, and update from there. Will have to redo giving VV new eyeballs is all.

Another major issue that's looming is Microsoft axing Win10 later this year. My PC is too old to run Win11. It's old, period, and needs replacing before anything else breaks. I tried switching to Linux, and while I like what I saw, the lack of compatibility with Windows software is too big of an issue.

So... I'll have to try again to get more attention online to see if I can monetize my stuff. (The only consistent thing has been donation points I earn on Nexus Mods, and after more than a year-and-a-half that hasn't even reached the minimum amount you can withdraw to Paypal. lul). I'll make a Bluesky account, and see if I can post more frequent WIP posts. Simple "I finished that, I'm now working on this, I'll do this other thing next", every 2-3 weeks. I'm trying to find my footing, still, so we can probably write off January, but I'll restart.

Obligatory Patreon link

[ivoryminitower]

Echoes of Home: 27 - Steve ("esuna")

Echoes of Home: FFXIV AU OC – WoLs on Earth

I said "fix it up."  Maybe I should have said "completely rebuild."

From a distance, in the twilight of evening, you can see there's a heap o' building there.  Closer up with better light you can see there's pieces of rusty corrugated metal pretending to be something with structural integrity.  I don't know if the blown leaves are the only reason I can't see holes in the roof.  I've heard Oklahoma is in Tornado Alley, but that makes me wonder where this shed was hiding when one blew through.

I think the siding is steel.  We can't patch or replace steel yet because we haven't worked out how to make steel.  Iron we have aplenty, but our steel recipe requires bomb ash, and there's no I am not aware of the presence on Earth of the fiery and occasionally explosive gasbag creature known in Eorzea as a bomb.

But bomb ash is one of the creature drops that in Eorzea can be mined...I guess they're a type of fossil.  So we might be able to find bomb ash in the same sort of clime that it's found in in Eorzea.  Which around here might mean the Oklahoma panhandle, also known as the home of Black Mesa, the Oklahoma badlands and the epicenter of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.  A pretty miserable spot, but then so's the Sagolii Desert in Southern Thanalan.

Bit of a drive.  Not a common bus route.  Poor camping prospects.

So.  Derelict cars.  Desynthesize the parts for steel.  Maybe make a deal with junkyards to do metal reclamation.  Probably more rust than metal out in the wild, but as long as there's some and it's free it's still a gain.

Or we can just redo the whole shed in wood.  Tsu'na thought I wanted the shed for projects...at this rate the shed is the project.

I headed into the Pit to tell Sam what I had in mind, but he had something to tell me. "Hey...Your wife ain't a heavy drinker, is she?"

"Uh...far as I know that cider was like the second drink she's ever had.  Why?"

"She came and got a couple bottles and left.  Weren't for the two of you?"

I had no idea what her lead might have been that I needed to follow.  I tried anyway. "Might be.  I'm headed home anyway.  Thanks."

She was indeed at the Hartman place, curled up on her side on the couch in her White Mage gear, her staff lying next to her.  Her eyes tracked me as I came in, but she didn't move.

"You okay, my love?"

"I am trying to not vomit."

I noticed two empty cider bottles on the coffee table.  'You've been drinking?"

"I wanted to see if I could cure being drunk."

"Oh.  That makes sense.  And?"

"An antidote works.  Esuna does not."

"Heh.  Yeah, Esuna only clears one status effect, but alcohol is like morbol breath...you've got three or four status effects at once.  Plus, if there's any left in your stomach you'll just get drunk again."

"Water slowed it down."

"Food slows it more.  But still, once you drink it you're committed."  I settled next to her on the couch and stroked her back. "Sam was worried about you."

"I saw that.  Why?"

"He's an alcohol professional, and drinking by yourself is a bad sign.  New research task: look up alcoholism."

She squinted up at me. "Is that a social movement?"

"Heh.  Not in the sense you mean.  No, alcohol is addictive if you drink too much of it too often.  Some of that's physical, some is emotional."

"Yet people find it fun."

"Yeah.  Some do."

"How can they drink enough?  One bottle made me ill."

"You get used to it, a little at a time.  You build up a tolerance."

"Do I need to?"

"Might be a good idea for social situations.  But there are people who never drink at all.  Whatever you prefer."

"I will think about it."  She closed her eyes. "Carry me to bed again, please."

I didn't tell her it would be way too easy to get used to doing that.

[portmantaur]

Veilguard spoilers, general critical/negativity about BioWare, u kno how it is

I know some ppl are upset about the Major Story Beats and I am too for various reasons, but I don’t agree that this wasn’t where the story was headed — particularly, I see people complaining about the mythal/solas dynamic and im like?? Did y’all never drink of that fuckin pool of knowledge as the inquisitor? The way solas opines, “you are mythal’s creature, now” — baby that was foreshadowing that wasn’t even subtle!!! I don’t LIKE where the story has gone necessarily, especially given how the elves/dalish have been framed throughout the games, but this is DEFINITELY the story outline that was laid out by the time inquisition was over. The writing and pacing are just really bad, so these beats feel even LESS fulfilling than they otherwise would have.

Its interesting bc I’m having fun being back in the dragon age setting, but the writing/structure/pacing is such a distinct falloff, even from DAI — which I still liked, a lot even, with my main Dalish-based caveats still withstanding.

But Gaider and Weekes were ALWAYS like this re: marginalization/oppression. They ALWAYS have been. And I see some ppl being like “this wouldn’t have gone this way if daddy Gaider was here” and I’m like??? Y’all remember the Dalish origin from DAO? Remember how that ENTIRE origin revolves around the blighted eluvian that kills your best friend with the actual literal blight??? This was the plan from jump!! The writing teams were still invested and not unskilled or untalented, so it was a little less opaquely shitty, but not by much. It was ALWAYS going to be a story by white people trying to make analogous statements about real-world oppression, particularly racial oppression, that was ALWAYS going to hit with the twist of “but what if they deserved it/come from Bad People” — because, again, Weekes and Gaider are cut from the same cloth. And they’ve been very transparent about that with their behavior towards fans.

like sorry but this was always going to be the “endgame” so to speak, and my gut feeling/reading of the situation is that mostly what we got with Veilguard is a game that was originally intended to be a live-service game, and the story structure and writing and pacing were never revamped from that intention even after supposedly “rebuilding” the game from the ground up after that decision was nixed (like twice or something, no?). I mean that’s also obviously why the stylistic redesign choice is so obviously Fortnite-y — there were clear clashes with higher ups/execs on what the game was materially supposed to be (fully fledged franchise installment vs eternal cash cow), and BW has been hemorrhaging employees for a while now likely at least in part as a result of that.

Veilguard was always going to be this re: major story beats, but because of the particular development hell it went through, we’ve got a much more obvious case of enshittification across the board. as a live service game, the story structure got incredibly flattened, and no one bothered to make the decision to redo -that- aspect of the game, so we’re getting a peek behind the curtain that hasn’t been as accessible before. But I mean look at it even in comparison to Andromeda — BW has come out and said, afaik, that there are no plans for DLC or expansions at all. They’ve fully thrown in the towel on the franchise, and it would have gone this way regardless of who was in charge of writing, because the story outline, IMO, has very obviously NOT changed that much in many years. The biggest changes came at the executive level of decision making, and someone up top seems to have come to the conclusion that DA isn’t a money-making franchise anymore. Which, yeah, that’s stupid for sure, but that decision is borne of the same frame of mind that thought structuring Veilguard as a live service game in the first place was a good idea.

anyway, I do believe we’re at a crossroads where we are either witnessing BW’s uncomfortable swan song, OR there is going to be a changing of the (executive) guard again in an attempt to revitalize the company. But to revitalize DA as a franchise — while I see it as perfectly doable, even after this mess — would require such dedication and humility on the part of BW that I just don’t see it as likely.

I think the next ME is going to be what really allows us to call it, but I’m putting my bet in now that it’s the nail in the coffin. RIP BioWare, you were a beautiful and awful mess while you lasted.