Finally I can post the comic for Adventurer!Zenos that has taken hold of my brain for the past week.
AKA a man who is currently running off the fumes of the literal souls of the damned being very desperate to be out of the void he was stuck in (and for the first time actually being able to just enjoy something mundane), only to get absolutely overwhelmed but all the stimuli he had just... ignored until now.
Ultraman Blazar's Salutations From Episodes 1-5 (ft. Bazanga, Leviera, and a sleeping Dorgo)
Episode 1 as well as the rest of the series can be found on youtube for free with eng subtitles and an eng audio track if that interests you
[Video description: Ultraman Blazar, a colossal grey humanoid alien with red and blue markings on his body, and blue markings on his face, performs his signature salutation in several different places and times. This salutation consists of raising his arms up to the sky in a circular motion, and bringing his knee up before stepping into a lunge and scooping his arms down and upward.
From episode 1, in a city at night, the camera watches from below, as Blazar performs his salutation and his markings flash red and blue. The shot cuts to a wider one, showing off the buildings and Blazar's opponent, Bazanga, a prawn-like Kaiju. After his salute, Blazar moves his hands into a guarded, fighting stance.
From Episode 2: Blazar stands against the bright blue day sky in a small fishing village, with much shorter buildings. He faces the camera directly as he does his salutation, and the camera zooms in on him as he does it and his markings flash red and blue once more.
From Episode 3: Blazar is framed in a head and shoulder shot and smothered in smoke as his colour time, a big round spot on his chest that is normally blue, flashes red. Once more he faces the camera as he does his salutation, before flying off, kicking up dirt in his takeoff.
From episode 4: The camera pans over a cityscape, with a highway at the front of the scene. Once more it is night time and Blazar faces off against a monster among many many buildings. The monster is Leviera, a sea-angel themed kaiju whose face is open to reveal flashing yellow lights as Blazar does his salutation from the side. Leviera is aggressively ready to go.
From episode 5: Blazar stands behind the sleeping kaiju, Dorgo, who looks mostly like a hill of dirt in this shot. He performs his salutation, and immediately begins to push the sleeping Kaiju back to its proper resting place. The shot switches to one of Blazar from behind, as he continues to push Dorgo back into place, among the green hills and mountains of the Japanese countryside. With a thump, Dorgo returns to his resting spot, and Blazar turns to face the camera as he jumps up into the air to fly away.
Dumb ramble but I hate that you can't critique The Thing you love within a fandom space without some dude breathing down your neck like "Well actually that means you hate The Author and The Thing! And what about all the times The Author did this Good Thing? Checkmate, liberal." as if you can't be critical of something because you love it and want it to be better.
every time I get on tiktok and am reminded how popular the attitude of not reading incomplete fics is I'm just so sincerely confused cause there is so much joy in just. watching something be created over time idk
if you've never worked in a cafe before and you're writing a coffee shop fic i need you to please understand that starbucks is literally the only coffee shop that makes a caramel macchiato like im begging you not to say the character works in a fancy cafe and then have them make a sbux caramel macchiato bc it's not a thing in the real coffee world
sat down to think about the Light's Out au and actually. yk. plan it out since i have Affection for it and Interest in it. and then my brain went "what about the aftermath though. why don't we meticulously plan that out" I'VE BEEN TYPING IN THIS DOCUMENT FOR FIVE HOURS straight GAY
A Crown of Candy is my favorite setting and season Dimension 20 has done so far. The way Calorum was meticulously crafted in both lore and actual mechanics demonstrates complete mastery of GMing. Political intruige is such a fun yet unsettling type of campaign, and in one of my own campaigns I've GM'd, I looked towards the world building Brennan and the Intrepid Heros did in the world as an inspiration.
With that being said, there were parts I wasn't a big fan of.
I only discovered D20 about a year and a half ago, so I wasn't around when A Crown of Candy was coming out. I have no idea what the discourse surrounding the season looked like at the time. But seeing the current Rat Grinders discourse, I can put together the peices of how bad fans at that time could have been.
Now, with ACOC, my personal gripes with the season aren't little scenes I disagree with. I've rewatched the season many, many times- and every. single. time For Candia Pt 1 (second to last episode) makes me genuinely upset. I'm a Survivor fan. I've hatewatched many hours of TV but preservered simply for the sake of completion for a lotta content. But that episode, the decisions made by some of the cast in regaurd to their character's alleginces makes me so angry.
From what I gather, there was a shit ton of hate to Emily based from her portrayal (and i guess just existance?) as Sacharina. While I don't think Sacharina was a perfect character, the choices Emily made as Sacharina were nowhere near as upsetting to me as Murph's as Theo.
((This is spoilers if ya haven't watched yet))
In For Candia Pt 1, there's the whole conversarion between the Momma Poppa lonely twin inner House Rocks family about how Amathar isn't an adulterer. They talk about how he's actually legally King! And they make the decision to tell nobody, not even Theo, because it isn't the time. Because well, there is literally war going on, and also because they're nervous about it weaseling rebellion in the troops and companions they so desperately need to work together- if but just for a few more hours.
Then the swifty thing happens, Sacharina tells Theo, and the exact thing Ruby DIRECTLY MENTIONS being nervous about happens. Theo can't keep the secret and tells people.
Now, I know that within the cannon Theo wouldn't know Ruby said that. Him knowing that is straight up metagaming lol. But what Theo does know, and hears directly from Sacharina's lips, is that SWIFTY found this out. Swifty, the "advisor" to his queen who is a known shit starter and murderer. Theo only checks if the queen is telling the truth- not Swifty, and doesn't think to double check this info.
Theo says he's known Ruby since she's been alive. He's known Amathar for decades. But he'll take the word of a rampaging violent maurader such as Swifty, who he's only known for a series of weeks.
Everybody- the cast, the other characters in game, MURPH HIMSELF- has waxed poetic about the importance of honor to Theo. Yet he forgets it so easily at times that he needs it most and it drives me WILD.
This is probably my biggest complaint with ACOC. And I know this issue does not come from some weird sense of "morality" or just straight up sexism/racism/queerphobic tendancies like a lot of the issues d20 fans come up with. It's a genuine critiqe of a character not based off of their behavior but choices made. It's criticism that garners conversation. I bet there are people who will think I'm wrong, and that's fine! I think you're wrong then too, and that's it. I don't think you're immoral or a bad person for not having a different viewpoint than me. It's interesting in a way that stirs myself and others to delve further into the season I love so much.
Because that's what fandom discourse should look like. That is what disagreements within online spaces should look like. Especially when the events being dissected are about little food people in the dice game.