#let’s ignore that we only have full designs for 2… and a casting for 4

[venomousray]

Brahm stoker’s Dracula but it’s illustrated and they look like their shipwrecked comedy designs

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #143: Enkidu

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re forging the Chains of Heaven and world-famous actor best known for their part in the 1990 smash hit Ghost (they were the pottery), Enkidu!

Our fair enby is a Monster Slayer Ranger, mixing in their anti-divine properties, self healing, and ability to sense movement through the earth around them. And that’s it. I know, I was surprised too.

Check out their build breakdown below the cut, or their character sheet over here!

Next up: If you haven’t watched No Evil yet, you should. 

Race and Background

You’re made out of clay and have a lot of robot tropes slapped onto you, so Warforged is a pretty good pick for you. This gives you +2 Constitution and +1 Wisdom, as well as Constructed Resilience. This gives you  advantage and resistance to poison, and you don’t need to eat, breathe, drink, or sleep. You’re also immune to disease. 

To supplement the whole “not sleeping” thing, you instead take a Sentry’s Rest, standing still and conscious for 6 hours instead of sleeping over a long rest.

You look like you’re not wearing armor, but that might just be because of the robe. Regardless of your stance on putting Enkidu in armor, they still get Integrated Protection anyway, giving you +1 AC, and making your armor unremovable if you’re not incapacitated. This also means it takes an hour to put on and take off, but y’know, checks and balances.

Finally, your Specialized Design gives you proficiency with one skill of your choice. You were made by the gods, so it might be a good idea to remember their names. Religion it is!

Thanks to hanging out in the woods for a while after being made you’re an Outlander. This gives you proficiency with Athletics and Survival.

Ability Scores

Since Enkidu’s stats are literally described in terms of point buy, we’re going with that too. You’ll want your Wisdom as high as possible at 15 for the sharpest senses points can buy. We need to be able to speak to animals and sense vibrations through the earth, dammit! After that is Strength set to 14... and I just realized that despite going with point buy I ended up with a stat array identical to the standard array. Oh well. Anyway, strength is next, gotta hold together when you’re locking gods in place. After that is Intelligence (13), you’ve got a perfect memory and you’re great at adapting to change. Your Dexterity (12) isn’t amazing, but your body’s tough enough to deal with issues. Your Constitution’s (10) even lower, but it gets bumped up with your racial bonus. Finally, dump Charisma(8). You have a lot of issues when it comes to understanding other people.

Class Levels

1. Starting out as a ranger gives you proficiency in Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as three ranger skills. Animal Handling will help you get along better with your master, while Investigation and Perception make finding new information to digest a lot easier.

You also make celestials your Favored Enemy, giving you advantage on survival and intelligence checks about them. It’s a shame this doesn’t enhance your magic against them, but we’ll take what we can get. You’re also a Deft Explorer, making you Canny with one skill, doubling its proficiency bonus. Double down on Perception for an even stronger radar sense.

2. Second level rangers get a fighting style, and Blind Fighting lets you feels through your feets, sensing any creatures within 10′ of you as long as they aren’t specifically hiding from you. You can also cast Spells now, using your Wisdom to do so.

Cure Wounds is a good way to get your healing factor started early, and Hunter’s Mark is effectively mandatory for rangers. Deal more damage when you hit the thing and track said thing easier.

3. Joining the Monster Slayer conclave sets you down the path a turn against your creators and chain the heavens. (This also works for bunch of other types of creatures, but hush.) Your Monster Slayer Magic gives you a bonus spell each time you reach a new spell level. Right now you get Protection from Evil and Good, which forces disadvantage on extraplanar creatures attacking them, and makes it so they can’t be charmed, frightened, or possessed by them. Fighting gods would be a lot harder if they could just assume manual control, wouldn’t it? 

You also get a Hunter’s Sense, letting you spend an action to learn a creature’s damage immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities. Despite what FGO has taught you, taking down Godmode Ishtar will be harder than slapping every lancer you have into a team and hitting red buttons.

Your last Slayer bonus for now is the Slayer’s Prey, a bonus action to tack on even more extra damage to your first weapon attack against a designated creature each turn. You can only keep it up on a single creature at a time though.

That’s not all, though! You also get Primal Awareness, giving you even more spells when your magic levels up, and you can cast these spells once per long rest without using a spell slot (or whenever if you use a slot, like duh). Right now you get Speak with Animals. I don’t know why your master is a wolf, but you make it work.

Finally, the spell you normally learn at this level is Ensnaring Strike. You go Enkidu! Ensnare those strucken enemies!

4. Your first Ability Score Improvement is going towards Strength so you can stab things deader.

5. Fifth level rangers can make an Extra Attack as part of their attack action. You also get a bunch more spells. 

From your subclass, Zone of Truth. Force a charisma save (dc 8+proficiency+wis) against creatures in the zone, and if they fail they can’t lie. It’s not really in character, but it is neat.

Primal Awareness gives you Beast Sense, letting you see and hear through a beast’s... senses... (hence the name) for up to an hour. This one’s a bit closer.

Your normal spell for the level is Barkskin, giving you a minimum AC of 16 for up to an hour. It’s not ideal since it’s a concentration spell, but it’s there if you want to be a stickler about not wearing armor.

6. At sixth level you can apply your Favored Enemy feature to Beasts as well. I don’t think Enkidu’s one to hold a grudge, but I doubt they like snakes much by this point. You also become Roving, adding 5 feet to your movement speed, and giving you a climbing and swimming speed equal to your walking speed.

7. Your next slayer goody is a Supernatural Defense, which adds 1d6 to your saves and grapple escape rolls against a creature you stuck your Slayer’s Prey on.

To further increase your adaptability, you learn the spell Enhance Ability this level, giving you advantage on any one kind of skill check for the duration.

8. Use this ASI to bump up your Wisdom for stronger spells and senses. You also become Fleet of Foot, letting you pass through difficult terrain without extra movement. You also ignore nonmagical plants when moving through them, and have advantage on moving through magical plants.

9. Another spell level up, another massive burst in how many spells you can use.

Thanks to being a slayer you learn Magic Circle, letting you trap an extraplanar creature either inside or outside of a 10′ radius circle. It’s... almost the chains of heaven, but there’s still some leeway in there. 

You can also Speak with Plants thanks to your Primal Awareness. This one’s more of a stretch, but it’s part and parcel of speaking with animals now, so have at it.

Finally, the spell you learn by choice is Meld into Stone, giving you the perfect hiding spot for up to 8 hours. You are clay after all, this really isn’t much of an issue for you.

10. Tenth level rangers are Tireless, giving you a nonmagical healing factor you can activate as an action, and your exhaustion levels get reduced on short rests now too.

You can also shapeshift into Nature’s Veil, effectively making yourself invisible for a round as a bonus action.

11. Eleventh level slayers are a Magic-User’s Nemesis, letting you react to a creature casting a spell or teleporting nearby to foil it. The creature has to make a wisdom save against your spell save DC or waste its spell/teleport. Gods tend to cheat, and the easiest way out of chains is teleportation. Don’t let them do that. You can use this feature once per short rest.

You also learn the spell Healing Spirit for another long-term healing solution. It does require you staying put for a bit, but you can always meld into stone first if you really wanna.

12. We generally front-load feats, but there’s never a bad time for a Keen Mind. This feat rounds up your Intelligence, you always have a good sense of direction and time, and most importantly you have perfect memory for up to a month. Your memories are literally carved into your being, they’re hard to get rid of.

13. Thirteenth level rangers get fourth level spells, and you get three of them!

From the slayers: Banishment lets you force another creature back to its own plane. That’s literally the opposite of the chains of heaven, but it might be the best option for something like Tiamat.

From Primal Awareness: Locate Creature helps you keep tabs on a creature within 1000 feet of you. Gods are notoriously tricksy shapeshifters. This will help deal with that a bit.

You also become a Guardian of Nature, letting you transform yourself for up to a minute in one of two ways. As a primal beast, you can move faster, get darkvision, have advantage on strength-based attacks, and deal extra damage on a hit. As a great tree, you gain temporary HP, make constitution saves and dexterity/wisdom based attacks with advantage, and the ground within 15′ of you is difficult terrain for enemies. I’d say the former is more useful, but the latter also has its charms.

14. Your last Favored Enemy are Aasimar and Genasi, so you can be just as effective against demigods as you are against their full-blooded family. You also learn how to Vanish, letting you hide as a bonus action. You also can’t be tracked unless you choose to be or it’s done magically.

15. Your penultimate goody from the slayer’s conclave is a Slayer’s Counter. If a creature you’ve hit with the Slayer’s Prey tried to force a save on you, you can use your reaction to make an attack against it. If it hits, your save automatically succeeds. We might not be able to make all your saves good, but we can make it so you can ignore them entirely.

To protect you from physical attacks, you learn Stoneskin this level, giving you resistance to physical damage types while it’s up. Your skin is literally made out of clay, so it tracks.

16. Use this ASI to bump your Strength up more for stronger attacks and a better chance of your Slayer’s Counter connecting.

17. At seventeenth level you finally gain fifth level spells!

Your spell of choice is Greater Restoration, so you can remove all those debuffs from yourself. 

Your final goody from your Primal Awareness is Commune with Nature. Now you can become one with the great outdoors and learn three facts about the area around you, up to a 3 mile radius. You can pick from: terrain and bodies of water, prevalent plants, minerals, animals, or people, powerful extraplanar entities, influences from those planes, or buildings.

Last but not least, your ultimate Slayer spell is your Chain of Heaven, Hold Monster. Force a wisdom save on a creature to paralyze it until it makes one on the end of its turn or up to a minute. No shunting it off to another dimension, no giving it space to wander around, just good old sit the fuck down.

18. At eighteenth level you gain Feral Senses, effectively giving you blindsight out to 30 feet. This renders Blind Fighting completely useless, but don’t worry about it.

19. For your last ASI, max out your Wisdom for the strongest spells, the strongest senses, and the strongest counterspells you can get. Also, in what I think is a first for this blog, you’re going to use Martial Versatility to switch out that useless Blind Fighting for something scarier, like Dueling. Your chains are pretty light if you’re trying to keep your human form, so I’d call them one-handed weapons.

If you want to launch those suckers for some distance though, I can’t recommend Conjure Volley enough. Get this, it conjures... a volley of projectiles, throwing them all over the place for damage.

20. The capstone ranger feature is the Foe Slayer, letting you add your wisdom to an attack or damage roll against your favored enemies once per round. It’s honestly underwhelming, but extra damage is extra damage.

Pros: 

Thanks to blindsight and your obscenely high perception, you’re hard to sneak up on. Also, you don’t sleep, so you’re the perfect guard for a party on the run.

You’re a tireless ranger with a lot of healing spells to burn through, which makes you pretty self-sufficient if you need to go off on your own. You don’t need another person to take watch, and you don’t need another person to lug around healing potions!

You have a lot of ways to lock down enemies, ensnaring them in place for future attacks or escapes. This is especially true of extraplanar creatures, but Hold Monster works on literally anything, especially with your maxed out wisdom.

Cons:

We weren’t able to invest much in Dexterity, meaning your AC can be a problem if you’re playing to character. Barkskin uses your concentration, and wearing medium armor isn’t super flavorful.

Speaking of, like most rangers you have problems with Concentration. Your con saves aren’t great, and you have a lot of spells vying for the same position.

While you can do consistent, decent damage, it’s damage that takes time to ramp up. You need a turn for hunter’s mark and a different turn for slayer’s prey, and that’s assuming HM stays up the entire time.

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom, season 3 episodes 3-6 thoughts!

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-johnny was actually pretty civil with danny and left when he asked! thats nice. also, SKULKER?? HAD A FRAMED PICTURE OF EMBER?? oooo fuck wait had they established they were a Thing Before?? I dont think so. thats weird. its like that country boy/goth girl meme lmfao. I think i am going to choose to ignore this new info and pretend I didnt hear it. 100% unrelated to the jazz/ember fanart I already drew and posted....😳

-LADIES NIGHT EPISODE THIS IS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. wish it didnt really center around the guys or them being pissed at them, but. willing to bet this was written by men lol

-THEY ERASED ALL THE MEN??? meanwhile, jack and danny are fishing at. silent hill or something. im glad jack is trying to read a parenting book and making an Attempt. (theyre at lake erie, but, they made it actually eerie...thats fun)

-the girls alt outfits...cute. EMBER MADE A NEW SONG TOO!!! kinda. jazz being one of the backup singers and being AWFUL. NOOOO

-'how are we going to get kitty to blow a kiss?' 'she'll have to think there are still some males in town!' ...i dont know how to break it to you, but I dont know that a 100% het girl would wish for all men to Begone. I think. I mean im not a het or a girl so I dont really know for sure. she Is probably Bi tho. esp having the other ladies in town chanting NO MEN!!! excitedly............(then again, the kiss is to get Rid of men, so, she probably would have blown it at the ladies only if they were actively trying to attack/stop them, so...I MEAN. THE DRESSING LIKE DANNY BIT WAS SO EXTRA)

-I feel like an all female cast ep couldve been way way way way cooler than that was. like. why was it still somehow all about Men. ...anyway. (where was valerie...)

-next ep opens with the observants, and, way way more of them than I expected...existed? I mean I guess them being a council/jury of some kind is what I expected from their first appearance (bc at that time they were basically TELLING clockwork to kill danny, not asking,, so I figured they had SOME kind of authority) but. there were so many. anyway, here goes vlad! letting his own hubris go brrrr. releasing a weather ghost for political gain! #justvladthings

-okay say what you will about him (he IS an asshole) but having an umbrella with his own face on it and more prepared to share is SUPER FUNNY. and him being fanned by huge wads of money by his bodyguards. SO ineffective but so Dramatic. He UNDERSTANDS that if youre rich you need to be. you know. obnoxious and kinda eccentric about it! fuckign hate when rich people are boring about it. I would trust vlad with nothing except to not be a boring rich asshole who wears...fucking khaki or some shit. man knows his Presentation Skills. and that 'V' chair in his mayoral office. is that fucking embroidered?

-maddie get your MAN PLEEEEASSSE. IM SO EMBARRASSED FOR HER. the way jack stays simping for this man. in FRONT OF HIS WIFE!!!! ...my god its like a love triangle. jack clearly loves vlad, who loves maddie, who loves jack. jack fenton is at the very least bi, right................. this is an OBSESSION . 'THE V MAN COMETH'???? i...my god. (also, on a serious note, to have a friend THIS SUPPORTIVE...and still be SUCH A DICK TO HIM (TRYING TO KILL HIM AND STEAL HIS WIFE??) NOT COOL VLAD. JACK IS YOUR 1 AND /ONLY/ HYPE MAN. if someone loved and supported me THIS HARD...LIKE. CMON DUDE.

-STOMP the fucking GAS, JACK

-this would make a great shirt design, looks like a metal band design! we love The Maelstrom

-oh, so vlad did in fact get a mansion in amity park. and its purple! good color choice! not as flashy as a CASTLE or MURDER CABIN, but still pretty eccentric, which I appreciate.

-...vlad knows the difference between picasso and da vinci? in the ep last post where we were watching him fail at conquering every historical time ever he didnt seem to know history well enough to like. be effective...was vlad taking art history at college?? (was he an art MAJOR??? we never DID KNOW WHAT HE WENT TO SCHOOL FOR. I kinda assumed business because in the masters of time ep he was still rich without ghost powers so he had to have..known something about business or something, right...but also, art and or theater FITS HIS PERSONALITY. possibly also something science-y, I guess, but I always felt like he got roped into that, esp how pessimistic he was about the ghost portal in the flashbacks to college, like, i felt like he was just there for maddie and was uninterested/un-invested at the time...)

-THIS GHOST JUST ELECTROCUTED MADDIE (THE CAT) BITCH!! THATS MY FAVORITE MADDIE!!! vlad going after vortex and being ~shocked~ .....WHEN. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN. THAT YOUR ACTIONS. HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!

-the way this random man with a camera sees the mayor laying in an alley covered in TRASH AND DECIDES TO TAKE A PICTURE HAHAH

*snap* this ones going in my cringe compilation!

-vlad 'if we're going to defeat vortex, we're going to have to do it together!' *immediately dips after dropping danny off in front of vortex* JKASDFHKJHJKN

-DANNY CAN DUPLICATE!!! ...he couldnt even attack with it, but he DID IT!!! INTO (4) OF HIMSELF!!! SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!!

-'THE ROLLER COASTER EMOTIONS OF A TEENAGER THREATEN MY PLANS!' ...0 self awareness of his own dramatic moodiness. incredible, how dumb this man is. its very close to circling around to endearing, if he was less of an asshole. at least its very very funny to see danny shooting him with tiny lightning bolts anytime he's even slightly irritated! vlad you should be nice to danny anyway. this is what you GET

-...making sandwiches and ice cream and playing video games with your nephew is a totally normal thing. WHY is vlad acting like this is the end of the world. if you were a GOOD UNCLE YOU WOULD ALREADY BE DOING THESE THINGS!!! bitch I make my nephew food all the time and dont forget what he does and doesnt like. if u didnt know danny didnt want tomatoes, thats on u. if u, a grown adult, are gonna piss of the 14 yr old by not letting him win, u deserve to have to pay for the arcade machines he ruins because he now has uncontrollable storm powers because YOU THREW HIM INTO A FIGHT WITH THE STORM GHOST. fuck u vlad. paypal me $400,000 while ur at it tho. (also, gamer vlad confirmed)

-VLAD CAN COOK THOUGH???! I assumed he had...people working for him that did that. I mean. billionaires usually dont do that. then again, we've only seen those vultures working for him (and I guess the dairy king was AT his old mansion, but it was never really clarified if he worked there...I think he probably just Hung Out and they Enjoyed Cheeses Together. thats what I think, I dont think a KING would be working for anyone and also the dairy king was nice <3) but then again he would be a private person and we cant have anyone accidentally finding Ghostly Things, so...still, that's hilarious. pour one out for that really cute banana split that got ruined 2 seconds later

-vlad just fucking picking danny up and THROWING HIM AT VORTEX TWICE WITHIN LIKE A MINUTE. JUST ABSOLUTELY LAUNCHING HIM. BITCH THATS MY SON BE CAREFUL!!! HES GOT ORGANS AND THINGS!!!!

-danny seeing those animal commercials and feeling sad is the biggest 2000s throwback so far. i legitimately had to change the channel or walk out of the room when those came on bc id CRY AND BE SAD ABOUT THEM FOR DAYS AFTER. fuck those commercials and fuck that IN THE ARMMMS OF AN ANGELLLL song 😭

-'vlads ego almost got the town destroyed!' yes danny thats the entire episode. the entire series anytime vlad shows up honestly. this episode was just him being really embarrassing the entire time, and, me laughing about it. 10/10 would laugh at him again

-NEXT EP WE HAVE A SHAPESHIFTING GHOST?? I've said it before but shapeshifting is the power I would want when asked those 'what superpower do you want' questions...its the Best power! this guy looks like a homestuck character. ive never read homestuck but thats the vibe

-I love every time we see tuckers family, they are by far the most functional family. and dash has a lil chihuahua!!! named pookie!!! i am crying (I've had 3 chihuahuas, so I am very biased, but...) AND HE WATCHES THE ROMANCE CHANNEL WITH POOKIE. POOKIE I WILL DIE FOR YOU YOU SWEET LITTLE BABY.

-danny can lift a bus! I shouldn't be surprised, but i am proud of my son. hes got lil kid fans. i am going to cry about this

-JAZZ KEEPS A SCRAPBOOK WITH DANNY'S LIL HEROICS AND NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS!!! we've actually seen it on her floor before, but I didnt realize it was a scrapbook!! thats sooo cute.

-...and danny has to stand there listening to his parents saying danny phantom sucks and is a 'filthy ghost' and calling him egotistical...i am once again stealing their kids!

-THIS GHOST RIPPING JAZZ'S SCRAPBOOK!!! ILL KILL YOU. SHE WORKED HARD ON THAT!!! BITCH

-yes, maddie, the one with red eyes is For Sure Actually Your Son. ignore the, red eyes... (CLEARLY she hasnt watched the other 2 eps where danny has been evil, she doesnt know red eyes= evil!!!)

-'billy fenton'.......................

-danny being stuck as phantom in his own house, no way out is a fucking NIGHTMARE. his parents pointing giant weapons against him and SHOOTING AT HIM. THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE.

-NINE INCH NAILS POSTER.

-this is the most screenshot of all time

-amorpho turning into mr. lancer because hes 'someone no one will want to be around' BUT HES WRONG, I WOULD BEFRIEND AND HANG OUT WITH MR LANCER SO FAST.

-tucker dressing as danny, now I have the full Tucker set of him being sam and also being danny. also saying 'the ghost...uh...RIPPED MY FACE OFF.' and then running. SMOOTH. NOT AT ALL CONCERNING TO ANY PARENTS.

-sam accepts the toast from jack. and then 2 seconds later is like 'why am i eating this.' THIS SHOWS HUMOR IS SO UNEXPECTED SOMETIMES ITS REALLY GOOD. and then the scene after, mr lancer running into his ghost doppelganger and being like 'YOURE GORGOUS' THEN FAINTING. I AM CRYING. AND DASH FAINTING TOO.

-sam disguising herself as danny again to help tucker run from the fentons. but leaving him shirtless in the streets. incredible. 'plEASE DOnt NOTice MY FACELessNESS I MUST LIVE IN EXILE' this episode is destroying me the humor in this show is exactly my brand of corny and cheesy

-the impromtu story made up by danny and amorpho to explain stuff to the fentons. my god they are both such bad liars. but amorpho is a good egg. wish danny wouldnt have said he didnt wanna see him in town again!! I want him to be reoccurring. not that thats gonna matter since I'm almost done with the series, but the idea of this being the Only Time We See him is :(

-NEXT EP SAYS STARRING MARK HAMILL??????!!! hello ! mr . joker....mr. star wars.... I feel like I should be. idk. taking off a hat im not wearing in respect. I shouldnt be surprised tho bc hes in a lot of cartoons as a very good voice actor, and dp has already had a lot of talented ones so I've been looking out for ones I might know, but....mr. hamill....

-sam has her own greenhouse, names all the plants, and says thank you to them (in the languages from where the plants are from) whenever she harvests from them. thats SO cute. and her lil gothy lunch box...

-and danny's lil red fuzzy lined jacket!!! ive said it before but every time the characters get alt outfits im like :D

-danny has ice powers now!!! THATS WHAT FROSTBITE MEANT. HE KNEW SOMEHOW WAY BACK THEN

-THIS SHOW NEVER LETS YOU FORGET VLAD IS A BILLIONAIRE, HUH.

-danny's lil 'holy hibiscus!' first off the 50s batman swearing is hilarious. 2nd. my username is from the flower sanchoyo hibiscus, so, shoutout to ME this ep. hi :)

-EURGH UNDERGROWTH MAKING EVERYONE PLANT ZOMBIES. HIVEMIND PLOTS SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME. and this dude made the city SO overtaken so quickly like how long was danny asleep?? oh god

-evil fucked up sam! now the whole trio has gone evil at some point! the voice actress did a really, really good job with making her sound like a zombie...

-frostbite's paws are so so so big compared to danny. oh my god. i want to hug the snow dog...

-the far frozen has an advanced medical stuff!!! very cool. very smart snow dogs

-im so glad danny has a friendly ghost snow dad to explain this new power and teach him!!! this is so sweet. DANNY'S GHOST SENSE WAS A PART OF HIS ICE POWER?? OOOH. COOL. we love a training montage!!!

-danny saying if he cant defeat overgrowth, that he'd want to stay with frostbite...oh my god...do you think this is the first real supportive adult figure in his life (I am NOT counting his parents because they threaten him on the daily even if they dont realize it.) I mean mr lancer is a Teacher, but he was also nice but this is different, but this is a GHOST WHO IS WILLING TO HELP HIM with his powers and also will help him when hes injured and is so so nice and comparatively so much more mature than 90% of the adults in this show!!!! god. dad frostbite is my everything.

-the framing and lighting this episode, and all the angles...they went all OUT and it looks really really good. this is my nightmare scenario, tho. like, FUCK zombies and dead city zones and hivemind shit. and using the humans as 'nutrients for the children' i am going to THROW UP.

-MALEFICENT VIBES WITH THE HORNS AND GREEN EYES! this costume kicks so much ass. sam is now mark hamills daughter, I guess.

-danny's ice powers making his eyes blue!!! thats neat. and him going for the roots underground was SO SMART. i will not stand for danny ever thinking hes stupid, hes SO smart.

almost done with the show... :"( thats a sad thought!!!

[eviclair]

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of your actual thoughts(tm) on khr, so what’s your constructive review on the series as a whole? Like some positives and negatives w/ the writing, characters, etc. If u don’t feel like answering, feel free to ignore this LOL.

 tl;dr because this is 800 words of nonsense. i think you should know i would not know a constructive review if it bit me in the ass.

my guy i have not done a full read of khr in maybe two years and i know that does not sound like a long time but i have the long-term memory of a fruit fly. please bear with me. luckily for both of us i liveblogged the last time i read so i at least have my own sparknotes jdflaksjddaf

first off! khr is a satire manga!!! i cannot stress this enough, i can and will fight you to the death about this!!! “oh but it gets serious later” it grows a PLOT, thats not the same thing. khr is stupid as hell and that is both on purpose and my favorite thing about it.

i fucking love shonen man!!! its all about FIGHTING and LOVING YOUR FRIENDS and HAVING EMOTIONS and. bro im a water sign. my mars is in gemini, there is nothing i can do about this, god made me and said “get that bitch some found family and also some incredible violence” and we all just have to live with that. 

khr is so much all of those things that i did not realize they were being made fun of until very long after the fact so my current opinions are very much not the ones i started with jaldkhjdfhd but man. once i clued in i both loved it so much more and became 100% incapable of interacting with fandom in any meaningful way L M A O

i just. the main conceit is that theyve weaponized the deus ex machina eleventh-hour shonen power up. the “my dead family came back to life to kill me” trope is used three separate times. the big bad student body president is a delinquent. theres an entire subset of above magic god powers thatre just

the tyl bazooka was just ripping on the Timeskip Arc until the Timeskip Arc actually happened?? like fuuta’s special thing is that he can communicate with the Meta Planet to divine Character Rankings, i dont know what to tell you!!! the truth is out there!!! 

like DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER that time tsuna experienced a villain’s flashback sequence FOR HIM because i fucking do, i think about it every day,

so in the sense of “please critique the writing”, i cant do that because im pretty sure 98% of all the tropey bullshit is by design. do i wish people like the kokuyo gang got more characterization outside of being ride-or-die villain sidekicks?? of course i do but thats my own damn fault for seeing cool side characters and losing all higher brain function. on the other hand, hibari being the person he is and having absolutely no backstory or motivation beyond “get out of my school” is really fucking funny and keeps me warm at night, so. win some, lose some.

(the 2% of the writing that isnt tropey bullshit that i CAN critique is whatever is happening with kyoko. Bad Female Cast is definitely a shonen trope but its a shitty one and i want it to die. within maybe four minutes of kyoko being introduced she tries to body a man and then thats just never spoken about again?? wheres that energy queen?!!! let kyoko say fuck!!!!)

((this applies to haru too in the sense that all she really does is make moon eyes at tsuna but the way in which she does so is honestly so fucking funny and unhinged that it comes back around to being great. like yeah yep yes ma’am thats 100% bonafide Girl Who Throws Skittles In A Puddle And Calls It Potion right there please may i have another))

If khr took itself even 4% more seriously it could be really deep and compelling and i think that frustrates a lot of people, but i think i like it better this way?? half the fun for me is reading in between the lines!! the subtext, however unintentional it may be!!

examples: yamamoto is one of my favorites just because theres SO FUCKING MUCH to unpack about him!! canon gives us a lot of information about him just by virtue of the fact that he’s a Main Character, but paradoxically he himself is never really the focus. he just Does Shit and you have to figure out why on your own and i LOVE DOING THAT.

i dont love mukuro because he’s a fleshed out and nuanced villain, i love him because he says shit like “i went to hell six times” and never expounds upon that or “i can definitely trust the information i got from this magic monocle called Demon Spade’s Super Evil Murder Eye or whatever the fuck” and then expresses surprise when daemon spade is an asshole. he goes and willfully fucks up the only job anyones ever given him (impersonate 80 year old leonardo lippi) because he Just Has to shapeshift into a young hot dude and hand deliver byakuran, the boss of the Flower Family, the Family that names all its members after Flowers, a bouquet that means “i am in disguise ;) cant catch me bitch ;)”

like WHAT THE FUCK!!

i dont know man. i just like puzzles and khr is a gift that keeps giving.

(sidenote that should’ve maybe just been the subject of the post but re:i cant shut the fuck up about anything ever, i love tsuna so much. so much. his personality!! his relationships!!! his growth!!! his growth!!!!! his growth!!!!!!! khr has its claws in me because i see tsuna do something cool or brave or even deeply stupid actually and my whole heart goes AAAAAAAAA bc thats him!!! thats my son!!!!! my baby boy whom ive raised since birth!!!!!! suit me up and call me a reborn kinnie, fuck!!!!!!!!!)

[azwriting]

Starlight (Captain Rex x FemJedi!Reader) Part 2/4

A/N: And we’e back! The feedback on the first part of this was amazing and I’m sorry it took so long to post this part but here it is :) I’m also splitting this up because it was just getting to be too long so extra part! Hope you enjoy! Also season 7 has me fucked up, that is all. 

Summary: After the events of Order 66, Rex with the help of Ahsoka ventures out into the galaxy in search of the Jedi he cares deeply about and relives moments shared between the two.

Word Count: 3460

Warning(s): Typical order 66 angst, Rex being an angsty boy, me making up GAR “rules”

The ballad of battle flooded the ears of the 501st as they took cover behind large deposits of rock and debris. Separatist droids had surrounded the remaining members of Torrent company on Christophsis as they attempted to hold their ground on the bridge. They could not afford to lose it.

Rex crouched down among his brothers, gripping his blasters tightly as he heaved in deep sporadic breaths.

Through the smoke of blaster shots, war was an illusion painted vibrantly. The sight comparable to the paintings he had come by on his deployments, especially on Naboo. But war was not vibrant and rich with life like those paintings. No, war was an image destroyed and never completely whole, where branches of death and despair weaved in and out of a dutiful life.

Rex had imagined a life like that painting on Naboo and in the smoke of the battlefield he could almost reach out to touch it. A bitter laugh lodged itself in his throat, a man created to fight a war dreaming of life without it, something he’d never known. Not yet…

“These clankers are gaining Captain!” Jesse shouted from his side, bucket lit by streams of blasts whirling by. His voice brings the Captain of the 501st back to reality.

“Sir as much as I love a game of count the clanker down,” On his left, Fives paused springing up from his place of cover to take a few shots at closing in droids. Each shot striking true. “I have to agree this is getting to be a bit much.”  

“We need reinforcements!” Echo added alongside Fives, causing the other men to nod in agreement. It took a lot for the Torrent company to admit they needed help…

Rex knew his vods were becoming weary, this “stealth operation” to gain intel unfortunately turning into a long drawn out shoot out, but they had to hold out just for a little longer.

“General said to hang in there boys! Said he had something big plan-” Before Rex could finish his words of encouragement a shadow moved in his line of vision.

Eyes whipping beneath his helmet in search of the movement, Rex expected to find an ambush mounting their assault on the unassuming soldiers from their rear, not … a civilian?

A figure was pressed low into the ground seeking cover behind the makeshift shelter his men were currently occupying. A tattered and distressed cloak concealed most of the unknown figure, but Rex could make out a hand hidden in a large draping sleeve clutching something tightly.

What in the Maker… where had they come from?

“Someone get the civilian out of here!” Rex shouted over the buzz of combat, eyes jumping back over to the person who had somehow successfully maneuvered themselves to crouch down besides him. The Captain froze in surprise, catching the way narrowed eyes peeking out from the hood were illuminated by streaks of red and blue.

“It’s not safe.” He spoke thickly to the civilian, unsure why they had chosen to inch closer to danger.

As if to further his claim, an explosion sounded off from the enemies line. A cloud of smoke erupted from the blast’s origin and came hurtling towards the 501st. A spray of debris showered across the bridge as the men ducked, hands cradling concealed heads as they attempted to shroud themselves from the ricochet of the explosion.

Rex’s ears rang as the echo of the blast faded into nothing but white noise. Several blue painted helmets peered over the barrier of debris to find all the clankers collapsed to the ground, circuits fried, and parts in disarray.

The armored assault tank that aided in overwhelming the Republic forces, now laid in a bed of flames, General Skywalker perched on top of it.  In one hand was his ignited lightsaber, the very lightsaber that had been used to save the Republic from defeat far too many times, its blue hue casting a shadow onto his smirking face. In the other hand, a droid popper was cradled with great care. Rex could identify it as one of those droid poppers that that mechanic Fives was so smitten with had been designing alongside the General. Their power doubled and they covered far more square footage.  The Captain supposed it had finally been time to test it in action and it could not have arrived at a better time.

“Nice timing General!” Hardcase laughed, voicing Rex’s very thoughts. He could only chuckle along at the flair of his Jedi, vaguely aware of the figure who had shielded themselves besides him during the blast, now standing to their full height. They took a step forward out of the safety the shelter provided and the blonde clone began to ponder if this civilian had a death wish. Although there were no current threats, that did not guarantee that another wave of clankers was not on its way.

“Skywalker, you trying to blow my cover?” A woman’s voice called out from beneath the cloak and Rex’s mouth opened a gap, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“Pssh, please (Y/L/N)!” General Skywalker grinned jumping down from the assault tank. “I’m just trying to liven up this battle!”

The two walked towards each other as Rex stayed in his position, embarrassment transforming his limbs into solid blocks of ice, rendering him motionless. The last name General Skywalker spoke doing so to the flustered Captain of the 501st.

“You mean you wanted to make an entrance?” The General rolled his eyes and ignored the question, instead turning to his troops, who all watched the peculiar scene before them.

“Men! This is General (Y/N) (Y/L/N), she along with the 481st have come to aid us!” Skywalker announced and shocked whispers spread across the brothers of the Torrent company like wildfire.

The hooded figure turned to the small group, the hood dropping to reveal you, the Jedi General the 501st and every other legion had heard so much about. The Jedi who was well revered by fellow officers and the Jedi Council at such a young age, who had the highest clone trooper survival rate only seconding to General Kenobi and General Koon, who along with the elite 481st legion had led separatists goons and their clankers to their ultimate destruction. Rex’s eyes watched you intently as you smiled brightly at his men and his chest seemed to constrict with an overwhelming amount of respect. Torrent company was in good hands.

“(Y/L/N) as in Dawnfire (Y/L/N)?” Echo spoke the names almost hushed, like they belonged to the legends told beneath the moonlight across the galaxy.

Removing his bucket, Echo approached the two Generals, an excitable grin consuming the face of the knowledgeable ARC trooper. The Dawnfire was a highly regarded Republic Cruiser, one that had yet to see defeat and was where many prototype weapons first saw daylight.

“Yes.” You nodded a low smirk forming on your lips. “It pays to not have an ongoing game of let’s see how many times you can damage your ship during a siege.” Your eyes traveled back over to your fellow Jedi, the man only offering you a sheepish grin and a light toss of the droid popper he still carried.

“Careful Anakin, wouldn’t want you to fry the circuits of your arm, again.” You teased and Anakin glared at you while Fives and Hardcase tried to cover their laughter with a fit of coughing.

“Anyways!” Anakin turned the conversation away from his beloved Resolute and his bad luck with his hand, gesturing to the ARC trooper. “This is Echo.”

You allowed for the change in topic, outstretching a hand to shake Echo’s firmly, “Nice to meet you Echo.”

“Likewise General.”

“I’m Fives!” The other ARC trooper jumped forward offering his hand as well as a half witted smirk.

You only chuckled, shaking his hand as well, “Nice to meet you too Fives!”

You greeted each man asking for their names, taking no assigned number as an answer, and leaving each trooper with a smile. A sweet haze clouded the minds of the 501st men as they watched the new General weave her way through the company. Your energy unlike anything the men had ever encountered.

With the guidance of General Skywalker, you were finally pointed back in the direction of the pile of debris Rex now stood patiently in front of, the same debris you had emerged from, “This is my first in command, Captain Rex.”

Your head pivoted to look at the mortified Captain, your comfortable smile stretching into a smirk.

“Oh I do believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

Your words did not attempt to hide your slyness and your eyes twinkled with a familiar mischievousness. Rex’s face warmed in abashment as he gripped the back of his covered neck, “Uh, sorry about that General.”

A light laugh slipped out from the Jedi who only shook her head, “Not a problem Rex, I’ll admit my civvies hide my true origin quite well.” As you dismissed his apology your free hand removed the tattered cloak concealing most of your figure revealing the familiar robes worn by the Jedi. Although a rich blue tunic served as a sharp contrast against the muted browns, brought out even more by the silver toned armor protecting your shoulders and torso.

Rex nodded silently, not trusting himself to be able to form a coherent sentence as his mind replayed the way his name had dripped from your lips with such liveliness. Through the tinted visor of his bucket all he could do was stare at you, the familiar weight of his blasters in his hands dissipated into nothing, the weight of the war slipping away for a moment. It was unfamiliar, especially to a man bred for war, but Rex could only surrender to it’s cosmic power.

“Speaking of, did you gather the intel?” Anakin's expression turned serious, his question slicing through the tension.

Your eyelashes fluttered as you blinked away your own daze, face quickly mirroring Anakin’s.

“Got what I could.” Your opposite hand extended outward to reveal a data chip cradled in your gloved palm. “Damn seppies only had a select amount of outposts and droid factory locations stored, a smart move for once.”

Anakin sighed but gently took the chip from your hand, “It’s something.” You two shared a hesitant smile, bother eager for this war to be waged and won.

“Sorry to interrupt Generals but we’ve spotted incoming on the North side of the city.” Jesse cut in handing a pair of binocs over to his Captain. Rex pulled his gaze away from the Jedi to look through the binoculars to confirm that they had a cluster of droids closing in on their location just a few parsecs away on the other side of the bridge and already destroyed clankers, courtesy of General Skywalker and the brothers of the 501st.

“He’s right General, seem to be closing in quickly too.” At his confirmation, Rex felt another set of eyes on him but he could not surrender to them again so he held onto General Skywalker who nodded in response to his Captain.

“Thank you Jesse, Artoo!” Anakin called out for the notorious little blue droid that rarely ever left his side. A chorus of enthusiastic beeps were heard as the blue droid appeared out from behind his own shelter of rubble.

“Hey buddy, I need you to take this.” General Skywalker handed his astromech the data chip recovered by you for safekeeping and the small mechanical arm of Artoo’s took it happily.

“I already sent my commander a backup of the intel, just in case.” You added with a light shrug.

“Where is Commander Glitch?”

“Glitch is still on the Dawnfire, instructing the dispatched companies. We got fighters supporting in the aerial confrontation and there are two groups entering from the west and the south to converge on our location.”

Anakin’s eyes flickered over to Rex, both men sharing an impressed nod, the 481st already living up to their standards.

You moved past Anakin towards Artoo, eyes dancing between the incoming clankers and the droid, “I also believe you have something of mine, given to you by one of my men, Webs?”

Artoo chirped and his body shook a little, the small opening on the top of his domed head opening. Something long and narrow shooting out, followed shortly by another, you catching each item with a comfortable ease.

“Thanks Artoo, it’s good to see you too!”

Rex surveyed as you gripped the two identical black and silver lightsabers, fingers brushing against the smooth durasteel with a distinct intimacy that could only come from years spent mastering the use of the weapon. With a stroke of your fingers, the lightsabers ignited a bright blue and a sharp green.

“So,” You twirled the two lightsabers eyeing the marching battalion of droids, “how do you want to play this?”

Anakin was quiet for a moment before raising an eyebrow and that comfortable smirk of his fell onto his face, Rex was well acquainted with the face that made rash decisions. “Do you remember the negotiations on Lothal we were sent to supervise during our padawan days?”

You groaned, head falling back dramatically, it seemed you were familiarized with the General’s intriguing way of accomplishing things too. Your head rolled over onto your left shoulder to stare up at your longtime friend, “That maneuver will never work.”

As you spoke, a blast whirled by followed shortly by another and then another. The rain of fire quickly restoring the bridge to the battlefield it once was.

General Skywalker was hasty in reigniting his own saber, “We’ve got nothing to lose!”

“Oh, just our lives and perhaps the war!” Your words did not reach Anakin though as he took off running toward the awaiting battle, flanked by the rest of Torrent. A soft groan escaped your mouth before you turned to Rex, “You got my six Captain?”

He looked down ensnaring your eyes with his own, not that you would have known, and gave a curt nod.

“Always General.”

His words brought a bright smile to your face and Rex mimicked you from beneath the safety of his helmet, saving the sight and burning feeling inside for later when the shooting had seized and he could freely dissect what it was that he felt at this very moment.

With that the Captain of the 501st spun his blasters in his hands before the two of you raced into the war zone side by side.

Rex swallowed thickly, eyes scrunching close in an attempt to focus back on his current reality. His gloved hands were secured tightly around the sides of the ladder, one foot perched on the lowest step. Slowly he unfolded each finger wrapped around the bar, each finger crying out with an unbearable stiffness from the intensity of his restraint. The blonde clone groaned lowly as he flexed his cramped hands, amber eyes drifting around to catch sight of the Togruta watching him expectantly from the gunner seat in the Y Wing.

Rex quirked up an eyebrow, silently questioning what she was looking at him for, Ahsoka only letting out a small hum.

“I asked if you were okay.” She repeated, her voice soft and still uneasy as if the ground below her threatened to give out any moment. Her question made Rex inhale roughly, shaky coughs following as he recalled only hours ago when she had asked him the same question, when she had saved him, when he had shot his brothers to save her.

He attempted to clear his throat, hoping any remnants of the discomfort within would slip away as easy as the tickle in his throat. But he knew it was hopeless, the pain of the past, present, and the future made itself known with a biting sting in his heart. Something he knew would stay with him, perhaps until death, especially with the uncertainty that lied ahead of him. He never asked the Maker for much, but kriff did he hope you were okay.

Rex knew it would be useless to try and lie to his long time Commander and friend, so instead he stayed silent choosing to focus on climbing into the pilot seat.

Because Rex was not okay, he was far from it.

Ahsoka did not ask again, rather shifting the conversation to the one of dire importance.

“Do you know where they were?” Her voice cut through the speaker in the cockpit and Rex sighed, sinking into his seat, a hand roughly rubbing his brow in the privacy of the pilot seat. He did not want for her to accompany him on this trip, but it was hard to fight Ahsoka, she was too stubborn. Something she had no doubtedly gotten from -

Rex cut off the train of thought, banishing the name that formed in his thoughts. He was not ready for the possible grief that would follow, not until he knew of your fate. He could barely handle the searing hot anguish tearing him apart, he did not want to double it.

“Heading back from the outer rim sieges, last I heard…” Rex trailed off, eyes prickling with unshed tears.

“Commander huh? Commander Rex has a nice ring to it, but you’ll always be my Captain.”

It was the last he had heard from you, just before the ships had left for Mandalore. He had not heard your voice in far too many rotations and the slight buzz of the hologram had been enough to give him some peace of mind. You had told him that the 481st and you would be sent back to Coruscant soon for rest and refuel, secretly hoping that the stars would align and perhaps the two of you would arrive back home at the same time.

A hope he had shared.

Such ignorance…

Rex was grateful for the seat beneath him because Maker, he could not support himself, could not breathe at the thought of something happening to you. And with each settling minute, each heavily taken breath Rex could feel the unease settling into his soul, something was wrong.

He was not Force sensitive but he could feel it in the air, could taste it on his tongue. Something bad had happened. He just hoped the stars had not claimed you yet, taking back their fallen star that had slipped through their fingers and graced his existence. There had not been enough time, he needed more time.

Through the small speaker, a rhythmic tapping mixed with the electrical hum of life broke through the stale silence surrounding him and Rex sighed dragging a coarse glove over his face in an attempt to get rid of the dampness that had gathered.

A clone bred to not fall ill, to have endurance in the battlefield, to strategize an outcome to any problem, and keep up with the Jedi was not meant to be crumbling in despair.

But he was also a clone bred to be surrounded by death and Rex knew better than anyone that death did not discriminate. It always took the good ones.

“It seems that their last reported location was coming out of hyperspace in the Abrion sector.” Ahsoka’s voice cut into Rex’s gloom and the soldier abruptly stuffed his pain down, needing to focus on the task at hand. A feeble facade of the clone Captain he once was, was stretched thinly over a breaking man.  

“Abrion?” His eyebrows furrowed, “How do you know that?”

The static of the speaker died down, “ Um, hacked into the Cruiser's main datapad. Most sister ships share locations.”

Rex nodded slowly to himself, the Dawnfire and the Resolute did often work closely together along with the Negotiator. The three ships were often referred to as sisters because of it.

“Abrion.” He whispered to himself still confused. The Captain was well informed on many of the Star systems and it was why he was deeply perplexed. You were not supposed to be out there…

“That system is part of the Outer Rim territories, they were supposed to be well on their way unless… ” Rex trailed off staring blankly at the panels before him, his finger dragging slowly across the schematics of the Dawnfire projected onto the small screen.

“... unless you never made it that far.” His voice was no louder than a whisper, the terror welling up inside of him.

What was that last part?” Ahsoka questioned through the speaker. Rex was quiet as he casted one last glance out the viewport to the settling smoke of the cruiser and swallowed thickly, a silent goodbye shared between him and his lost brothers.

“Setting course for the Abrion system. Buckle up kid.”

Taglist: 

@000ayfh​ @questforgalas​ @kyjoraven​

[sanstropfremir]

ok alright alright alright kingdom episode two

kinda disappointed that they only showed half the stages, but that's just an editing thing to draw out the content so you can air for longer, i'm not super surprised about that. i would have liked to evaluate them all at the same time, but at least this gives me time to go more in depth for all of them since they're full stages this time and I wrote 3000 words for last episode when they only had 100 secs. so this format will probably keep me sane for longer, i think. 

solid stages all round for them, none had especially glaring flaws on the whole. i'm not gonna do a full ranking for this episode since we haven't seen them all, but i will say that btob’s was my favourite from this set and both ikon’s and tbz’s stages were about equal; they both had things i liked and disliked in equal measure so i'm tentatively giving them the same ranking. full opinions and analysis on each stage below the cut, plus another section of general notes because hey what the fuck did you do to that stage mnet???

and for anyone that’s wondering yes i do have the qualifications. also seriously grab a drink or something because this is LONG.

some general notes

and here i thought this section wouldn't be as big as it was last time because mnet was going to get their shit together about the stage design, but noooooooooooo they had to go and make it worse! thanks mnet i hate it! remember how i said you shot yourself in the foot last time? well ya fuckin kneecapped yourself AND all your idols with this one ya dumb fuckin idiots. alright folks welcome back to stage design 101, my recurring segment where i explain the different types of stage layouts and their effectiveness for kpop idol survival shows, i guess.

ok so last week i covered the basics on theatre in the round and traverse staging, which i’ll link here if there’s anyone new or just wants a refresher. i mentioned that its likely that mnet will switch to an in the round style staging because it offers a lot more freedom for camera movement and also for directional blocking. well, i was wrong. so i'm gonna give you a quick rundown of prosceniums. a proscenium, proscenium arch, or just prosc, is an architectural feature that sits around the front ‘opening’ of the stage that delineates the stage from the audience. if you've ever been in or seen any pictures of old european style theatres it can be quite ornately decorated with scrolling, but it's almost always there in most western theatres. it basically provides your ‘wings,’ which are where you exit off into to get offstage, they provide cover from the audience sitelines. pretty much any theatre where the audience is directly opposing the stage across the 180 degree line is a proscenium stage, even if it doesn't physically have the arch. hell, movie theatres are prosc stages. now, there's a secondary architectural feature/device called a false proscenium, where you set a second, smaller archway inside the first prosc, usually done for a specific effect. think of it like a literal framing device; it's often used to visually signify that ‘this is a play, we are telling a story, please be aware that this is a play thank you.’ but sometimes, it can be a semi-permanent structure that’s set in place to narrow the prosc opening. we had this at my university, there was a false prosc set just inside the actual prosc because the stage had a hilariously big prosc opening for a university that never had casts larger than 24 people. so they set false prosc in to make the stage slightly narrower and to widen the wings, because it doesn't matter what size theatre you're in, you always need more wingspace. makes sense? ok, now here’s a very quick drawing of what i'm pretty sure the kingdom stage looks like:

before you get lost: stage directions are oriented to a person standing on the stage, hence SL and SR being reversed. a quick tip for remembering which way is upstage and which is downstage: if you go too far downstage you fall down (most stages are raised between 2-4’ from the floor, so if you step off the end you will actually fall.) the arrows on here signify the entrances i observed during the performances, which is not necessary in this explanation but i just thought it was interesting to note. still not entirely sure what the surrounding architecture is but it appears that the stage is a raised platform inside a room, and not actually built as part of the building. the ‘house’ is just a technical term for where the audience is, and in this case it's where it looks like most of the film crew and the producers/staff are. there’s pretty clearly a platform upstage centre, and i think there may be some others but i don't care about those right now. what i want to talk about is this dumbass false prosc they set IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE. now i suspect that they did this to solve some problems that they could have had that i don't know about, since i don't know who the stage designer was and what the actual limitations of the space are. but basically they've built two stages and stacked them on top of each other to create one very deep stage, and then separated it off with a false prosc in order to control the size of the space a little better, and possibly to add some visual interest. this stage is functional for its purpose, absolutely, and i think, if mnet actually gave a shit about point of view and camerawork, it could produce some really interesting performances. however, because this stage is so deep, it kind of has the same properties as the traverse stage from before, but just with some big led screens in the middle for reasons. you extra have to pay attention to the directionality because you have all the staff and cameras concentrated in one specific cardinal point, so you have to get creative if you want to crossover between the two sides frequently. again, this is not necessarily bad; restrictions often produce some of the most creative decisions.  but! we have not seen a lot of consideration for camera and sightlines and audience pov, hence why i think this setup is dumb: it’s not facilitating the best performances it could.

ok now to the actual performances

btob

this is my favourite of the group because it's very clean lined and utilizes a few simple devices to pretty good effect. i realize these reviews are making me sound like i only like simple performances but i promise this is not at all true i'm just very critical and very picky. let’s start with the costumes, because why not. 

costumes

i like these very much, i love modernized traditional clothing in all forms, and these are very well tailored and well coordinated. they do the bulk of the work establishing the theme for the performance, along with the costumes on the backup dancers. personally i would have liked them to be a bit more colourful, à la the teal detailing that was on minhyuk’s final look. i'm getting a bit tired of the whole trend of having groups only wear all dark or all white, or maybe sometimes red if they're feeling spicy. obviously uniform colour is the easiest way to tie a group together visually, but on a show like this i think the groups would actually benefit more from looking distinct from each other internally rather than establishing the group as whole.

i liked that minhyuk had a costume change but i didn't really care for how it was how it was broken down. this is a very personal quibble because i literally have spent years prepping quickchanges but the method it broke down wasn’t the most visually compatible with the garment and felt kinda clunky. please ignore this anecdote it's just me being picky.

set

i loved the forest! a very excellent way to divide the stage area and obscure the weird stage lines/architecture that mnet has made. plus the snow, flowers, and fog? makes a really sharp and immediately indicative atmosphere, a very good use of visual shorthand to establish place.

i didnt love the screens, they reminded me a bit too much of rolling whiteboards from grade school, but they are thematically relevant. also, i feel like we didnt actually get to see about half the choreo for them? fuckin mnet and idiocy again. fun use of rear projection with the dancers’ shadows, and also good use of them to direct traffic, if you will. 

personally i think that the sheet gimmick from tbz’s performance would have been a better fit here instead of the screens, especially since the fabric motif was already established at the very beginning of the performance. plus you can do some really fun shadow work with a stretch fabric screen. 

personally i think there could have been a little bit more integration between the forest area and the screen area, or they could have done the whole thing in the forest space, but that would require a bit more consideration of camera and choreo maneuverability

sound

really liked this arrangement, obviously the song is iconic but they added a more traditional instrument sound. has good structure for the loose narrative that they had and they were well to label this as ‘theatre’ version because this did follow very closely to a traditional musical theatre sound and style

lighting

no complaints. the overall theme for this episode is apparently blue and red? again with them i like their dedication to a limited colour palette and i especially like the blossoms at the climax

staging

there was pretty clear camera choreo and a minimum of nausea inducing moves. i think some of the effectiveness of the staging got chopped by the editing but that’s not really btob’s fault.

i was just saying i wanted them to give minhyuk some time to shine, i was not expecting to get it so soon! this is a very smart choreo that proves you can be interesting without doing a lot of tricking. minhyuk obviously did a lot of practice and work with that sword, his movements are very fluid and he knows how to handle it. and it looks like its either a blunted proper blade or a correctly weighted replica. a lot of the times when sword choreo looks fake it's because the person either hasn't had enough practice or the weapon is not weighted/weighted incorrectly. only complaints are that you would never hold your fingers/palm that close and un-anchored over the edge of the blade, which is just a safety thing. also you would never scrape your blade on the ground like that, nor toss the thing like dead fish but that's a respect thing with a live blade and this is clearly done for dramatic effect so i’ll forgive it. please ignore this anecdote also it’s just my third dan getting uppity.

ikon

costume/set

smart thematically to go with the sort of miscellaneous 30s-40s (western) aesthetic because it's the fastest way to make it look like you built a theme with mnet’s weird pseudo art deco nonsense they've inexplicably got going on in the set dec. however, they should have stuck the theme all the way through, it would have been more visually cohesive and more interesting. we expect more hiphop/electronic sounding songs to come with these kinds of 4th gen costumes, it would have been anachronistic in a fun way to have them do that second half in 40s style suits. here’s a performance from sdc3 that uses that kind of anachronistic play (this was a combo stage with two ballroom dancers and it has a 20s aesthetic but close enough.) also here’s another routine from sdc3 that does a similar effect on a much more abstract scale, and also it’s a fucking incredible performance and it got slept on by the captains. also yes i know these are incredibly experienced career dancers but they way they construct narrative within their routines and their stage presence is SO GOOD. 

do not speak to me about the backup dancers costumes, holy shit i hate them. i hate them so much. how do you manage to hit too shapeless AND too fitted in the same fell swoop? i'm so mad at these. i'm neutral on bodycon dresses on the best of days but these were absolutely the wrong choice for this stage. generally kpop has abysmal costuming for female backup dancers on the whole but this is just like.....especially lazy. the point of the costume are to help give an indication of where and when you set your performance. they started off with a vaguely 40s theme and then jumped abruptly modern. why? also skirts like that are the literal worst choice for dancing in, hello?? the men’s looks are just sloppy, when you have a garment that big you want it to serve a purpose within the choreo, whereas with this it's just hiding the dancers’ movements.

as for ikon themselves, see everything ive said about black on black on black styling in the previous two reviews. 

the actual set is minimal and that's tragic. i mentioned mnet’s weird art deco theme and it was smart of them to try and play off that with a lack of stuff. definitely a mismatch of stuff pulled from yg’s prop storage, but they made it work as well as they could. no other meaningful comments i’m just kinda sad about it.

sound

the arrangement is fine, no complaints from me. they keyed up the old hollywood style musical theatre sound in the beginning which i really liked. i didn't mind the song/tone switch, i think they pulled it off.

staging

same as btob they learned more towards a theatrical style, which is smart for this particular format of show. i think this was the smartest staging of these three, and also i think the only ones to not get the crew in shot.

despite seemingly leaning into a more old hollywood style the narrative was a bit too loose for my taste. i'm not sure what i would have done to make it clearer at this moment since they had so little to work with, but i did get by on my previous knowledge of the songs. that shouldn’t be the only indication of narrative though! all elements need to support it!!

also like btob they had a pretty intentional point of direction and there weren't a crazy amount of spins. they also used the camera cuts the most effectively that i've seen so far. the first half is actually all in one take!!! incredible!!! thank you!!!! this is how you do it!!

the lighter flick gimmick was well pulled off and a good example of how to use a couple of simple tricks to good effect.

ikon as a whole has really great stage chemistry with each other, and they're extremely cohesive performers. this is a really strong physical performance from them, the dance was very solid and clean. good use of levels without verging into acrobatics. this might be the best group choreo i've seen so far, but we’re not very far so that's not a very high bar to clear.

it's a shame they had the budget of 1 banana.

tbz

i liked this stage better than their intro stage, but i still think they have a long way to go and they're still over ambitious. personally i find stages based on specific pop culture properties to be kind of twee and ineffectual, because it requires a specific knowledge of that pop culture property to work. sometimes the specificity can help with a narrative but you're at risk of alienating a larger portion of your audience out of sheer non-knowledge than anything else. 

costumes

again, interesting garments physically, but not much clarity of relation to the theme other than the colour. also the backup dancers???? another case of backup dancers being from an entirely different stage, what is up with those coats/dresses? looked more like they belonged in either sweeney todd or a vampire movie. 

hands in front of the camera again, but these were used much more effectively.  i'm not the biggest fan of mixing metals and i’m partial to silver on the whole so i didn't love the jewelry, but at least it was vague and stereotypical enough to denote ‘fire magic’ even if it does rely on a derivative middle eastern shorthand.

set

the stage set itself is fine, although definitely feels a bit haphazard to me. doric columns and frozen rocks and whatever that cover for the pyrotechnics was at the front, combined with the candles and the chaise lounge? like ikon, it felt a bit like they were pulling out of the props/set storage. not that all these things do not work together, it's just that you need a thread to tie them together, and this didn't have that for me.

sound

it's a crime they have a song called ‘no air’ and its not a jordin sparks cover. just saying.

i didnt really like this arrangement, again like their intro stage it didn't have a strong structure that suited the narrative, because they were pretty clearly trying a narrative on this one. also were most of the adlibs playback? they were singing live but there were so few shots of anyone specific singing. 

lighting

probably the weakest of the three. the projection design was a bit too tacky for me, and although i appreciated the small amount of variety in colour, it felt way too concert-lighting for me.

staging

the editing on this stage is wack and did no one any good. the hands leading/pov was a really smart device and they should have stuck out the one takes like ikon did, it would have made the whole stage feel a bit more cohesive. a lot better directional camerawork from them this time around, well done. again with the hands in front of the camera gimmick which i actually preferred this time, since they were a part of the narrative. the stretch/silhouette fabric i think they pulled off quite well, even if it didn't really fit thematically with the piece. i actually worked on a show a very long time ago that used this exact same effect with dancers and also rear shadow projection, and it requires a lot of rehearsal and trust to pull off well, so props to them. i think it was the wrong choice because there isn't an established motif for the fabric, so it kind of appears out of nowhere for one specific visual moment and then disappears, and i think that time could have been better served for something else narratively relevant.

again, these 4th gen groups are overly focussed on gimmicks as a way to make up for the lack of experience. personally i think this will be detrimental in the long run, and a reliance on gimmicks means that you don't trust your performers. tbz have the manpower to be doing some pretty cool collective dance work and i dont think its being trained or utilized correctly. they are suffering from a lack of cohesive stage presence right now and that can be fixed with training and time.

this might be because the group sizes are so different between these three but this choreo is very directionless. mnet is also providing to be absolute garbage at editing and i feel like i can't see the choreo at all.

this is a thing i've noticed with kpop camerawork in general, there’s very little regard for actually viewing the choreo as a singular work. and for some reason the camera always needs to be moving???? people do actually want to see what’s happening on the stage. the choreographer can only see from one spot, so from that spot is how they are intending it to look. you wouldn't need to upload full cams of every music stage if you just filmed the choreo properly in the first place. if you watch the two sdc3 clips i linked you can see a clear difference in maintaining the integrity of the choreo, even though both shows use several cameras and a lot of cuts.  obviously for kpop you want the money shots of idols’ faces but i definitely think there’s a healthier middle ground than what we have now.

ill wait for full subs but i want to know where in the fuck in sk you can rent a tank thas clearly been custom made for underwater photography, because that’s extremely cool even if it was absolutely unnecessary to the actual stage itself. i can think of several ways off the top of my head that would have achieved that same freezing effect without any of that wasted time and effort.

mnet decided to drop full cams while i was writing this and despite watching those my opinions are the same.

in conclusion, some more general thoughts:

i think ikon and btob got it right by leaning more into the theatrical than the cinematic, if that makes sense. i might be talking up my own ass here but these are theatre performances, and they should be treated as such. trying to do things that you can do on film isn't going to do you any favours in the long run, and it makes it harder to make a cohesive performance. i’m harping a lot about narrative but it is so important to performance. although it is not technically necessary, when doing big theatrical performance stages like this it does help with clarity of intent and general success. humans have brains structured around storytelling, it is literally the way our history has been passed down for tens of thousands of years. the atlantic published an article recently on narrative and memory, and it's a really excellent read for maybe after you've taken a break from this behemoth, oh dear god. 

tldr: the stages were good but disappointing in their own ways. mnet continues to sabotage via weird stage design decisions and bad editing. see you next week! (or in my ask box if you have questions)

[monysmediareview]

Shadowhunters (Freeform show) Review

Review #2!!

In case you missed it, I wrote a review on the Mortal Instruments book series books 1-3 (they’re the only ones I read because a chapter into book 4 and I was over it). I had mixed feelings on it, as I do with most things - including the Shadowhunters TV show, which is what this review is about!

Casting

Let’s talk about the casting in this show. First of all, I think the cast matched the physical descriptions of each character in the books and I very much enjoyed that. I do like when shows take liberties with casting, especially for the sake of things like diversity but there’s something very satisfying about seeing the characters exactly as they were written. 

I don’t think all of the acting was fantastic, but it’s FreeForm so I really didn’t expect much. It did get a lot better as the series went on and I think the actors really found their footing with these characters. It’s one of the reasons that I love series so much more than movies for things like this because there’s growth and the chance to really explore characters as they exist. These characters really took on a life of their own in a way, but we’ll get into that as I go through the rest of my points here. 

One thing I will say is, while this show did much better than others in terms of diversity it is not lost on me that the BIPOC characters in this show (and in the book series as well) were all “other” characters. As is often the case, people of color in fantasy media are usually portrayed as animals such as werewolves, or other “undesirable” characters. This is an incredibly complex part of casting, creating, and writing, and I will not get into it here, but I didn’t want to not mention it. 

Gay Pride & True Love

If you read my review of the Mortal Instruments series then you already know that I love love love Alec and Magnus, but that love grew exponentially when I watched the show. Magnus was an interesting character in the books but Harry Shum Jr. really brought the character to life and that show especially in the scenes with Alec. The show also gives Alec a ton more depth than in the books and I love that they didn’t keep him hung up on Jace (a straight man) for most of the story. He fell for Magnus and he fell for him hard. Magnus is the one that broke through Alec’s shell and encouraged him to be himself. By cutting away all the petty teenager shit that was in the books we were able to see this real, complex, but honest and deep love story that rivaled the main love interests immensely. I would watch this show over and over just to watch these two again. 

Representation and diversity are two huge factors when I think about whether or not I liked a piece of media. These kinds of things are what makes media so relatable, real, and ultimately enjoyable in a lot of ways. This show didn’t make the characters gay-ness a main factor of their relationship; they just showed a relationship as they would with a straight couple. They didn’t ignore their gay-ness either, though, and acknowledged the difficulties within that. By making this normal, they took huge strides in showing these kinds of relationships on TV and I adore that. And I just cannot get enough of this pairing in general - there are so many contrasts and compliments in their relationship and it’s what I honestly consider to be a perfect OTP relationship in any kind of romantic plot. 

10/10 would watch the show just for Alec and Magnus. 

I like Clary better in the show than in the books

Clary is by far, not one of my favorite characters in the fantasy genre. I find her to be selfish, martyr-like, and just kind of annoying but I really felt like the show was able to redeem the decent characteristics that she has and shed off most of the aggravating ones. 

As a whole, I am not a fan of how stupid the books make Clary out to be. Clary falls into the category of characters I don’t like because there is ultimately nothing very special about them yet they end up with a guy who is completely out of their league in every way who is head over heels in love with them. It infuriates me so much and Clary is not an exception to this rule. Her character is still this way in the show but it is much less evident because she seems to be more of an active participant in her own life and I don’t have to sit through her endless internal monologues about how attractive or strong or whatever Jace is. Thoughts that she still has while she thinks they’re siblings. At least in the show, these characters seem to draw a strong boundary here when they think they’re related rather than making out in a field like they did in the books. 

Clary also has a much stronger sense of self in the show and often reflects on what her life was and what it has become, how she’s grown. And I think that’s a huge part of it - that she has grown when in the books she was just constantly such a dumbstruck teenager who only thought of herself. I absolutely love the difference in her character here so I’ll give the show a star for that. 

Her relationships with other characters is also so much stronger. I believe this is in part because we don’t know her every inner thought about them and we also aren’t distracted by her distraction that is Jace. Her relationship with Izzy is so much better and stronger. I’ll always give good reviews to strong female relationships! Even her friendship and relationship with Simon is more in depth in the show. Their book friendship is very baseline; they constantly say they’re best friends but that’s not really reflected in the way they act around each other. In the show they have anecdotes about the past we never see in the books, they talk in a comfortable way and even show their relationship with each other’s families a lot more. This plays into her being an active participant in her own life as well. 

The Lightwood Family Drama

This might be something that happens later on in the books (however I don’t think so because of some spoilers I’ve received on my main account) but I really liked the Lightwood family subplot. I would imagine they have some marital problems after Max’s death in the books but considering they don’t kill him in the show, divorcing them earlier and giving Maryse a second chance was a fantastic choice. I kind of wish they had kept Max’s death because to me, it was the driving force between Izzy and Simon, but overall I don’t mind the way they did it. It just felt like a missed opportunity for drama and angst.

Back to the point at hand - families are complicated and the only “normal” or rather, nuclear family we see in this series is the Lightwoods. Clary was raised by a single parent, as was Simon, and no one else really has parents that we’re introduced to to be able to judge their family life. By making their family story a complicated one, rather than the “ideal”, it becomes not only more dramatic, which is fun and interesting, but real. And it may seem counterintuitive to make things seem real in a fantasy genre show/book series but that, in my opinion, is what makes it easier to believe the fake stuff. I can focus more on the magic and the demons and the end of the world as we know it if it’s grounded in something that’s familiar to me. The Lightwoods feel like a very real family with complicated relationships between kids and parents, adopted children/siblings, and marital issues that affect everyone differently, which invites us as an audience to relate to them and doesn’t make the Shadow world so different from ours. 

A scene I loved specifically is when Izzy brings the doctor she’s seeing to the Hunter’s Moon and they’re all messing with each other, eating, drinking, laughing, talking. They really felt like a family there, like adult siblings which can be a really difficult feeling to capture but I think it was done very well. I didn’t want to go through this review without mentioning that part since it was something very special for me. 

Design Choices

Changing topic just a little bit, I wanted to talk about the design of the show. First thing I noticed was that the runes were not at all how I pictured them. Now, that may be a fault of the writer because they weren’t very well described so it all landed on imagination which is different for everyone. The show design gave me kind of Henna tattoo vibes, whereas the books gave me full black ink vibes. 

The clothing was also something very strange to me. Izzy was always described as wearing long silvery skirts. I very much imagined her as wearing borderline rave outfits in most of these scenes but she mostly just wore crop tops and low cut shirts. I also noticed that as the series went on she dressed in a bit more of a conservative way compared to the first half of season 1 when I recall her wearing literally just a sports bra as a shirt in a few scenes. It was apparent to me in the books that the way Shadowhunters dressed was something that separated them from humans, made them stand out, and the show lacked that. I think this also took away the idea that Shadowhunters are a whole race of people with a history and culture separate from being human (they are, in essence mixed raced, but this comes with a lot of implications and is not a complete statement or comparison in any way). My point with this is mostly that I wish there had been more of a separation visually between Shadowhunters and humans beyond their runes. 

I also pictured the Institute to have a very non-human, Catholic type of design and instead just got pseudo-futuristic feel. I didn’t hate it, it just feels overdone in these kinds of shows and movies. For example, the Divergent series or Maze Runner or even Tomorrowland all have this type of vibe and I was hoping for more of a DmC: Devil May Cry approach. 

Jace Wayland is a beautiful character

I had mixed feelings about Jace in the books; he felt stale and like every other straight, white, male, romantic lead. In the show, however, I think Dominic Sherwood did him a great deal of justice and gave him the depth that actually made him a desirable person that I could understand someone being in love with. He’s charming, and a little cocky but we also get to see a deeper side of him than we do in the books. We see his emotions, especially his unconditional love for Clary (whether I agree with that or not). 

The Owl plotline was a waste of time in my opinion, but the scene when Izzy and Alec go to save him from inside his mind and we see him break down is absolutely beautiful. Jace is introduced to us from the start as hard, strong, calloused and here we see him vulnerable and scared with two of the people he trusts most in the world. I will accept the Owl plotline if only to keep this scene because I think it is absolutely essential to his character arc. 

I also found that scene to be indicative of his relationship with Izzy. In the books it’s often alluded to that he and Izzy had been together in one way or another but that’s not the case for the show (thank the angel) and here you can really see them as siblings more than in any ther scene, I think. But this takes me to his relationship with Alec as well. 

Parabatai 

I don’t remember Parabatai being mentioned much in the books but it is a huge deal and talked about quite a bit. I this this is super cool, personally and it’s not something I can really think of too much in fantasy outside of sires or singers or the like in many vampire novels but that has a whole “owner” vibe that doesn’t exist with Parabatai. I am super intrigued by this idea and I loved how much they played with it being a strength and an essential part of their existence. 

The relationship between Alec and Jace is obviously stronger than just brothers, but it also isn’t quite love in the romantic sense. It’s something else and it makes them vulnerable to each other. They feel everything the other person feels, sometimes literally, and while that can weaken them they use it as a strength. It’s really beautiful how honest and open these men are with each other. I feel like the Parabatai bond breaks down a lot of the toxic masculinity traits these characters might have otherwise and I will always be in favor of tearing down those walls. A+ characterization if you ask me. 

I thought Izzy deserved better in the books - the show gave it to her

In the show Izzy is way more badass than in the books, which I wasn’t sure was possible. They made her so much smarter, gave her important roles at the institute like head of weapons and she even did autopsies? In the last episodes we even see her as Head of the Institute. Beauty, brains, and brawn simply can’t be beat. 

Her love life was even more interesting! She wasn’t boiled down to just a slut who slept with everyone regardless of species: she was a lover who fell quickly and saw the best in people despite what people might tell her about “their kind”. She’s strong and very sure of herself; she doesn’t need a man in her life but she wants love and I think that’s a really amazing trait they gave her that deepens the character. 

They made her an activist, too in a way. She’s found really standing up for her beliefs in the show and challenging the way things are. In the books Izzy is pretty stuck in the way Shadowhunters do things but in the show she speaks up when something isn’t right. Her connections to downworlders does a lot of really great things for the Shadow world as a whole. They certainly could have beefed this up a little bit, but it wasn’t a huge part of the show in general so I’ll allow the pass on it. 

Her Yin-Fen addiction was so interesting! Again, I don’t know if this is something that happened in later books in the series but this is just another layer to Isabelle that I really loved. No one is perfect, even her, and it built her relationship with Rafael (another plot I was a huge fan of) which was incredibly complex. 

All in all, I would die for Izzy. Please give me shows and books about her and more characters like her. 

This series was steamy as hell

I can’t write a review on this series without mentioning all of the steamy scenes with so many of the characters. I mean, of course, I expected as much with Jace and he got a lot but so did everyone else. We got saucy scenes with Alec, Magnus, Simon, Izzy, Maia, everyone. (Not all at the same time, thankfully). But they were all very well directed and acted and I enjoyed them quite a bit. What can I say? Sex sells. 

In conclusion, I liked this series a lot. I really was not expecting to. I was warned that it was bad, and to start off it was but I found myself unexpectedly enjoying a lot of it. There’s still work to be done and it is by no means perfect but it was entertaining and had some really good moments. I also give so much credit to the actors and creative team for doing so much with material that didn’t give them much depth in the first place. 

Would recommend for something to enjoy but maybe not think too hard about.

xoxo

Mony

[inventors-fair]

“Two Mechanics” Commentary: It All Comes Together

Well, this was a surprisingly popular contest. I know there was a fair bit of hype for it, but we got enough entries that I had to worry about shutting people out. That’s unusual to say the least, but quite pleasing to know that so many people are engaging.

I’m going to take a lesson and look at these from the lens of intention rather than explicit nit-pickiness. There will be a “nitpicks” part at the end, but that’s just for minor improvements if need be. I make small mistakes like that all the time, and if you wanna ignore that and focus on the commentary, feel free to do so. However, the nitpicks are reflections of polish. The extent to which something has nitpicks does affect judgement. 

Additionally! If you’re reading this, we’d like to know: do you read your own commentary, all the commentary, or do you skip it entirely? And if you’re skipping some or all of the commentary, what would help you engage with it? I would like to point out that reading the comments on everyone’s cards can potentially help with your own experimentation in the future and help with design choices. However, if that’s not what you’re after, we would like to know how to improve that experience.

Some cards are marked as “JUDGE PICKS,” which are cards that were close to being runners-up or winners but, for lack of space, are presented here as examples instead.

Let’s get to your wonderful blends.

@abzanhero — Herald of the Saviors (JUDGE PICK)

What I like: I really never expected to see Imprint and Fateful Hour on the same card together. I like how this is a strange, fragile tutor that can really improve the late-game if you adjust it just right, but in a build like Solemnity/Unlife Combo, this can be an insane win-con.

What we can improve: There’s not much to improve upon here. My two main issues are that 1) there’s an expectation that Fateful Hour cards have a smaller effect that’s improved by the hour (Gather the Townsfolk) although that’s not a requirement, I suppose, and 2) Imprint could have just been a search/exile clause, and there’s no real need for it to have that specific keyword. That said, there’s no reason that it couldn’t have it; it’s just minor flavor questions.

Nitpicks: “Fateful Hour” should be italicized. Mechanically, you need to point out that there needs to be “tokens that are a copy of a creature card exiled with Herald of the Saviors,” as the ETB trigger can be copied.

@aethernalstars — Collective Knowledge

What I like: Blue toolbox is a pretty fun archetype, and I do like that last option the best of all. It’s a pretty crazy mill strategy that can work really well with wheel effects. Spiral/Crypt builds could use this card for sure.

What we can improve: Without reminder text, anyone looking at this card without extensive rules knowledge would be absolutely lost. I get the vibe you were going for, but this card begs for reminder text. At uncommon, there’s no excuse for this many options without it. I understand that you might have been extremely cluttered for space with reminder text. In that case, that should have been a clue to go back to the drawing board. Flavorfully, I’m also getting major clashes between the two mechanics you’re using. Escalate is a vibrant, exciting feel of increasing public power. Cipher is a covert and subtle mechanic antithetical to Escalate’s vibrancy. I don’t understand what feel this card was going for at all.

Nitpicks: See notes about reminder text.

@askkrenko — Mocking Goblins

What I like: Goblin Diplomats comes to mind here. I can imagine that on the table in a 4-5 person commander game, this could get amazing in the late-game. Putting Overload on a permanent is actually pretty interesting, and I’m fairly certain that that actually works, right? I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t. Because of the multiplayer aspect I imagine that if this was drafted it would be in a Conspiracy-type set... Wow, yeah, this would be a fun limited card.

What we can improve: There’s not too much to improve here mechanically. I will say that the name and flavor text aren’t grabbing me at all. It’s been done before in similar ways, and heck, that’s fine for tropes. Just could have used some more spice.

Nitpicks: Definitely needed reminder text here, once again, as most non-evergreen mechanics do.

@bluebread-mage — Vorel, Rejected Strategist

What I like: I actually didn’t know Vorel’s full story, so I appreciate you adding that in there. It gives an interesting explanation of the mechanics you chose to use, and this is a slightly different version of +1/+1 counter interaction that I’ve seen around for contests like this, so kudos for that.

What we can improve: I won’t go ahead and say that this card straight up doesn’t work, but the hoops you have to jump through to make it actually do anything are difficult to say the least. So, you have Riot, and he gets a counter, and all your creatures gain evolve. Do you play a creature after that? Probably not if this is turn three. But then next turn... How do you get a counter on Vorel now? And if you do, without the means of a specific continuous counter generation like Forced Adaptation, you’d need to cast a spell to give him a counter, which means that you’re probably spending mana, which means you have less mana for a big creature, which means that the creature you DO cast probably won’t trigger evolve, and — do you see where I’m going with this? He’s asking for too many resources to make the effect worthwhile. I love the flavor idea. I love what you tried to do. It’s just not practical in gameplay terms.

Nitpicks: Your “evolve” reminder text should have been reworded to show what it would do for every creature; as it is, it would only do Vorel, which isn’t what your rules text says.

@col-seaker-of-the-memiest-legion — Diabolic Seer

What I like: So, I was reading the text, and then I got to the last line, and I was really pleasantly surprised that you brought the exploit back around to add the flash clause. Pretty great name, too, if a little meta; if the cards you were riffing off didn’t exist already, it would be radical.

What we can improve: In short, this card is balanced, assuming that:

You’re not playing any sacrifice strategies in the two colors with the most sacrifice strategies.

You don’t have any other creatures to search up a recursive win condition.

In constructed, you’re not playing fetchlands.

You’re not searching up further answers after already searching up recursion.

...and that’s my main issue with this card. Repeatable tutoring is absolutely bonkers good in literally any format whatsoever. Four-mana repeatable tutoring is, to say the least, broken. And you’re potentionally giving it flash? That is, IMO, a break. Small personal notes: I don’t know why this card doesn’t have a subtype; and the flavor text is vague. I don’t understand the character’s goals, role, or place in the world.

Nitpicks: “...put it into your hand, then shuffle your library. Until your next turn, if a creature was exploited this turn, you may cast that card as though it had flash.” Additionally, I understand the artist is Nataša Ilinčić, but I had to go on a Google expedition for that. Anglicizing to “Natasa Ilincic” may have been a better choice.

For those interested, the artist is actually fantastic. Check ‘em out HERE.

@corporalotherbear — Underworld Escapist

What I like: “Spirit Rogue” is an interesting combo that I like. Gives some neat little feeling of why it’s an escapist, or at least it’s a complimentary type. I also enjoy the idea of the escape being an adventure flavorfully.

What we can improve: ...does this card work? SHOULD it work? So it goes on an adventure, you cast it normally, it dies, you cast it from your graveyard on an adventure, rinse and repeat. Okay, that’s probably what you were going for. In that case, my goodness, this needs to be rare. Nigh-infinite recursion that can make bodies is probably too powerful. Personally as well, I understand the Amass and the flavor text, but what does a rogue making an army have anything to do with escaping? And why would it be an escape if you can cast it from your hand first? I’m really iffy on the eventual flavor of it all.

Nitpicks: None, as I understand the comprehensive rules would need to either be rewritten or re-explored for the second side to work. Hm, but wouldn’t it be cool if it was “You may send ~ on an adventure from your graveyard.” But, again, that’s more of a hypothetical question than even a nitpick.

@dabudder — Davriel, Pact Breaker

What I like: Bringing back characters for further exploration is always fun. We got a couple cool folks from WAR, certainly, and it’s always a pleasant surprise.

What we can improve: I just straight up don’t like the gimmick at all. Planeswalkers shouldn’t even have gimmicks, IMO. The first ability is fine, I would respect that if the rest of the card was completely changed. Fateseal is an unfun mechanic that, on this card, you can activate easily. I don’t have much to say about this card because of how it’s based in unfun gimmicks. I read through the wiki to get an idea of what Davriel’s like, and while I do appreciate how you tried to capture a lot of complexity in a single card, this isn’t it. I feel you’re trying to tell a massive story in a way that it doesn’t need to be told.

Nitpicks: Make sure you change your rarity, which I will assume was a mistake.

@deafeningsandwichpeach — Tempting Angel

What I like: Well, this card is weird. And I need to clarify, this is in the “What I like” section because I do like weird. It’s not broken, which is fine. Wow, though, the... Exile then Show and Tell and all? On a 9/9 flier? This card would destroy some games, and I could see it being a cube all-star and a crazy commander blink monstrosity. Once this hits the board, it needs to be removed IMMEDIATELY. Oh, and then... Containment Priest nonsense. Man, this could be a wacky card.

What we can improve: I will say, that a 9/9 body may be way too big. A six-mana 6/6 may have been more appropriate, and more balanced. In the late-game, if your opponent doesn’t have great draws, they’d probably be out of a card to put onto the battlefield. I have the feeling this couldn’t be a draftable card for that reason alone... Eh, maybe I’m just paranoid.

Nitpicks: Flying and Convoke need to be separated by a comma, not a semicolon. I think the same can be said for “permanent” and “then” in the second line.

@dimestoretajic — Gruul Rampager

What I like: That flavor text is friggin’ phenomenal, man. It’s a Gruul feel, it’s an orc feel, it’s a berserker feel. You captured an uncommon feel as well, too. I like how it’s a little more red than green, even though the two are definitely in good alignment with each other.

What we can improve: +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters should not go on the same card. Full stop. I know it’s mechanically cute, and I’ll be honest, I like how they work on this card. But it’s one of those Magic rules to avoid confusion and to stop weird triggers. The game can handle it, but it’s not fun to figure out. There’s acceptable weirdness and then there’s just inherent guidelines.

Nitpicks: Why does this card have a color indicator? Also, you misspelled “Berserker” in the typeline.

@evscfa1 — Burning Trails (JUDGE PICK)

What I like: This is a very difficult card to judge. Searching up two lands is powerful, but there are more efficient ways to do it eternally, so this card itself isn’t broken. Jund Lands and Gruul Ramp love it absolutely. I’m thinking of this in commander because, well, there’s no other reason for a rare ramp spell like this. I’d hate to open this in draft...or would I? Slightly different/better/multicolored Cultivate isn’t the worst thing in the world, possibly. This card is making me think. The versatility is pretty interesting as well, and I can see where land-matters cards would like it.

What we can improve: I’m really torn on whether or not this card needs both kinds of recursion, because as interesting as it is, my gut really isn’t understanding why they both NEED to be there. Is there an interaction I’m not seeing? I don’t think so, I think it’s just different recursion, and yeah, there’s lands-in-hand-for-retrace, plus the sacrifice to filter, but that’s just efficiency, not necessarily synergy. Honestly, this could also be an uncommon for that cost, I think. It would be a powerful-as-all-getout uncommon, but it just doesn’t feel rare to me in terms of crazy power level.

Nitpicks: None.

@forteleijon — Cordeceyp Crawler

What I like: Well, besides your lovely photograph, I think that the mechanics you chose work well flavorfully. A mutating fungus that can crawl out of the grave is pretty cool!

What we can improve: Firstly, if you can, I would highly recommend downloading Magic Set Editor for complex cards like this. Secondly, did you forget the escape cost about exiling cards from your graveyard? Otherwise, you can just cast this from your graveyard every turn without restrictions like Gravecrawler. I mean, this card isn’t Hogaak, but still. That probably wasn’t your intention, but once again, we come to reminder text. Rare cards sometimes eschew reminder text in complex sets, but mechanics like Mutate demand reminder text through and through. 

Nitpicks: Since “escape” is a verb on almost every creature card that uses it, the last ability can say “You may have Cordeceyp Crawler escape mutated onto target creature you control” as opposed to a trigger. Additionally, is that a misspelling of “Cordeceyp?”

@fractured-infinity — Emmara, Voice of the Conclave

What I like: I’m sort of content with the fact that Emmara is everyone’s Selesnya favorite. In terms of this card, I think that you chose two good mechanics to represent her and her guild. PT checks out, mana cost checks out, wording all checks out.

What we can improve: ...but she doesn’t do anything by herself, and that feels a little frustrating to me as a rare card. There’s nothing inherently or objectively wrong with this design, and there are plenty of proliferate cards that just proliferate by themselves. I would much rather have had a rare card that did at least something to make those abilities better. What if she made a token upon entering or placed a counter or something? I dunno, I’m just iffy on her power on the board.

Nitpicks: The word “Populate” you put in the reminder text should be lowercase.

@gollumni — Danz, Ascenscion Assistant

What I like: “Demon Noble” is a great typeline. I can see how this would make politics very, very complicated. Do you want to build around having no cards in hand and perhaps using the graveyard as a resource? You can discourage people from attacking and make political blocks as well. This is a very political card!

What we can improve: I can’t think of any specific improvements to this card. I think that it’s one of those cards where you yourself don’t want to be the monarch, and that’s a complex idea that I don’t know will always work out well in a draft environment like this may be intender to supplement. After all, 99% of limited games are won through combat damage. Such is fate. I think for this particular contest, I’m a little saddened that Partner doesn’t really...do anything. This contest was supposed to be about two mechanics interacting, y’know? And Partner is a mechanic that doesn’t really interact with any other on-card mechanic in the same way that our winners did.

Nitpicks: “Ascension” is misspelled in the name.

@greensunzenith — Eversworn Tombguard

What I like: Hell yeah, this card is cool. A knight sent to protect a grave or graveyard? Well, it’s not mechanically tied to your graveyard, but maybe it’s a burial site! I see that Orzhov symbol in the background. Interesting, how they might be using new techniques to protect themselves on a new Ravnica. This is an amazing draft card with possible constructed potential. I’m a big fan.

What we can improve: Besides the eternalization being a Bolas mechanic, I feel that, unfortunately, this is one of those cards where the Afterlife mechanic would be better being a different one, or no mechanic at all. Of course, that’s not your fault, and this contest asked for it. If you’re saving this card for a cube or a custom set, I would replace Afterlife with just a death trigger. Maybe it would read better, if you want to keep Afterlife, as “Eversworn Tombguard has afterlife X, where X is its power.”

Nitpicks: None.

@haru-n-harkel — Wistar, Lab Rat

What I like: I was absolutely not expecting a multicolored adventure or even an off-colored adventure. This poor ratty is going off and learning about everything, and then they come back and distribute their knowledge. So strange! Adventures are interesting cards for sure. I’ll have to find the download for that, because I just scoured my MSE and I can’t seem to find it. And you know what, I was going to gripe about keyword counters technically not being a “””new mechanic””” but whatever, that’s a personal interpretation that doesn’t change the fact that this is a fine card.

What we can improve: Is this supposed to be on Eldraine? I don’t really understand why this card is black at all. What lab are they supposed to be in? I see “lab” and I think “Innistrad” but that’s bias... What does research have to do with returning a creature? Are scientists clerics? ARE they a scientist? The gist of what I’m getting at is that this card has a couple cool mechanical ideas but I have no idea what it’s really supposed to represent. I don’t get a sense of place or strong meaning from this card.

Nitpicks: It’s hard to tell the difference between abilities in the main body; another indentation might fix that, or it may just be too much text. And also... This is the pettiest, most useless nitpick I’ve ever given, but your set symbol in this specific frame is really hard to distinguish. I would futz around with it for a bit.

@hiygamer — Woven Repetition

What I like: I can see how you got clever with this one. The splice and the rebound make for some interesting combinations. The cost is probably appropriate, if a bit high. You’d want to make some really carefully calculated decisions, unless you’re just pitching lands, to give that big spell rebound.

What we can improve: Rebound absolutely needs reminder text. Someone opens this in a booster pack and it’s going to be a head-scratcher for sure. I’m glad that it works (Thanks, Cast Through Time!) because I almost thought that it didn’t, but man, a lot of players will be confused with this at common. That’s the major issue; was that a misclick or something? This is most definitely an uncommon or rare card for complexity alone. Personally, I think that it would be best to also only exile one card, and you know what, this really could be mono-blue. What’s the white in it?

Nitpicks: None.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Steam Blast

What I like: Yup, that is indeed someone getting blasted by steam. It’s a solid bounce card that feels both Izzet-y and could see play on any other world. It’s a powerful spell in the UR archetype that could see plenty of nice draft play. The consensus is that the replicate will indeed see the entwined-ness. Hm, will it see more than one mode? Complex ideas at play here!

What we can improve: I know you have a style to maintain, but modal spells are significantly improved by the bullet points, and this card is hard to parse. As a rare, while complex, it’s a lot of colors to invest in a removal spell. Fine for an archetype, but I suppose that’s the nature of replicate. I don’t know, this card just doesn’t grab me. Maybe it’s the name, maybe it’s the nature of rare removal. There’s nothing inherently ‘wrong’ with it, though.

Nitpicks: None.

@ignorantturtlegaming — Heartwarming Reunion

What I like: This is indeed a feel. You chose a good image and flavorful bond for this card. With a few tweaks, this could actually be a really powerful GW archetype card with some great draft implications and enchantment synergies.

What we can improve: There are a few things to work on with this card.

The name “Heartwarming Reunion” implies a moment that would best be represented on an instant/sorcery card. I’m thrown off by its continuous nature.

Soulbond doesn’t affect how a creature is cast. “Nontoken creatures you control have soulbond” and it would affect them like Rhythm of the Wild. 

What does bolstering have to do with being a reunion? A relationship I can see but there’s a massive flavor disconnect. Also, it should be “paired creatures” and not “creature pairs.”

I understand what the flavor text is trying to do, but it bunches up the text above it and also doesn’t say anything that the name hasn’t told us already.

In short, there a few great ideas but they’re stuck between a couple of stumbling blocks.

Nitpicks: The last ability should be shortened to “Paired creatures you control have lifelink and vigilance.”

@joecurryat — Forsaken Devotee

What I like: I remember seeing that art a little while back, the Eldrazified Vampire. I loved Innistrad’s art direction. Anywho, though. I think that indeed Monstrosity is a fine enough mechanic for the Eldrazi. 

What we can improve: See above comments about reminder text. The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that it’s a human cleric. Even excusing the vampiric origins of the art, why is it becoming monstrous? It feels like there’s a disconnect between what the card wants to be and what it is. Annihilator was certainly...a choice. If you play this on turn 5-6 and monstrosify it on turn 7, you get a 9/9 lifelink with annihilator. The desire for powerful cards is strong, but annihilator isn’t fun, was never fun, and needs a major overhaul to be fun again. This card just isn’t it. Additionally, and this is more polish, but what on earth is that flavor text trying to say? Who’s saying that? Who is them? If it’s that hard to parse, it’s even harder for it to add meaning to the card.

Nitpicks: “has,” not “gains.”

@kavinika — Undercity Thug

What I like: The Ravnican (I’m assuming) undercity is a fantastic place for all sorts of mercenaries. The name’s not going to win any awards, but it gets the job done in a cool and flavorful way. That’s a very strong exploit ability, and would almost be first-pickable in a lot of drafts. The extra potential removal makes this formidable.

What we can improve: See notes about reminder text. When looking at this contest, we were hoping that there would be instances where the two mechanics compliment each other. This is the second revolt/exploit combo of this contest, and I’m a little frustrated that they don’t have any meaningful interaction. Sure, they both involve potential permanents leaving the battlefield in different roundabout ways, but it’s not attacking on the same turn that it’s exploiting a creature. The distance just isn’t working.

I usually don’t comment on this, because I respect the fact that we’re not professional writers, but that flavor text needs serious revision. An active antagonistic oppressor is fine in a game about conflict. The language is... Well, it needs revision.

Nitpicks: None.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants — Ceaseless Soul-chief. (JUDGE PICK)

What I like: “Orc Spirit Warrior.” Hell. Yes. It’s a big smasher, a big finisher, an anthem, a warlord, and they’re so full of souls and anger that they’ll return even stronger than before. I want to draft this card, I want to build casually with this card, and I want to see a world in which this card can come back strong again and again. 

What we can improve: I can’t think of any significant improvements. I will say that it might have been better, unfortunately, if this card was not a spirit. I can make my personal justifications however I want and I may love it, but ghosts probably shouldn’t have other ghosts in them.

Nitpicks: “Chief” definitely needs to be capitalized.

@machine-elf-paladin — Legacy Forger (JUDGE PICK)

What I like: The name actually captured me. it’s a great warrior name for sure. Mentor and Renown are two +1/+1 counter mechanics that don’t necessarily have amazing synergy, but you made them work here. This is a powerful combat tool, great use of mentor in green, and makes combat complicated for your opponents. Really awesome use of just using keywords to get your point across! Simple and effective.

What we can improve: The flavor text could use some clarification. Reads a bit clunky.

Nitpicks: Are you using MSE M15 Mainframe? If not, I would recommend it so you can get the flavor bar in and space out the words more.

@misterstingyjack — Promenade Parade (JUDGE PICK)

What I like: You can be aggro in a pinch, or you can wait and go a little wider, and even pick up a better token in a pinch! This is a pretty cool card that makes fantastic use of Ascend to bring across a flavorful card. “If you have the city’s blessing, the city grows with citizens.” Like — that’s so awesome?? I loved how you made a really surprisingly happy card in the aftermath of an otherwise dark event. And heck, it’s not a bad card either.

What we can improve: The only real “issue” that’s not even an issue is the flavor text and the name/flavor combo. The flavor text itself is in “gets the job done” territory, which you know what, that’s fine, they don’t all have to be Hemmingway. But I would also assume a Parade would be, like, a bigger event, and you could get a lot of people there. Right? Am I going crazy? This is a serious reach, so don’t take this as a design critique per se. All polish and pedantry. You did good.

Nitpicks: None.

@morbidlyqueerious — Swarming Platoons

What I like: I had to read this a fair bit to really get what was going on here. This is actually really complex, and I like the implications of what’s going on! You can get a 4/4, a 2/2 and two 1/1s, or two 2/2s. Like, that’s a lot of options in two words and two numbers! I think that I actually like the mechanics of this card a lot more than I had upon originally considering it. That text would make for a really great sort of Modern Horizons-y card.

What we can improve: I’m really lost as to how you decided to place this card in the universe. Servos are artificially created inventions, sure, so...are they natural now? Is that how Kaladesh is evolving, per your flavor text? Why is it offering answers? I don’t really see the question. You’ve made it a construct, and yet calling it nature. And the name “Platoon” is a soldier-y thing, and doesn’t convey an insectile invention feel. In short, fantastic mechanics, flavor is all over the place and confusing.

Nitpicks: “Platoon” also doesn’t need to be pluralized. 

@naban-dean-of-irritation — Starforged Legion

What I like: That’s a badass name, so that’s a great start. I’m amazed that that second ability is only a single sentence that I actually can’t find any flaws with, so that’s impressive to say the least. I assume this is sort of Theros-based? “Starforged” seems to imply that, but you know what, even though I can’t place it, this card makes me want to learn more about the world. That’s a point in its favor.

What we can improve: I don’t think there’s much to improve aside from the fact that it’s narrow. Incredibly narrow. Unfathomably narrow. Seriously, getting this card to work at all is an absolute mess of mana. Many players would love it, and I mean, fifteen mana for thirty power across six creatures would be pretty cool! But god, the effort that would have to go into making this really work and live the dream... Maybe it’s okay, you know? It’ll never see any play outside of someone’s five-color kitchen sink mess-around-and-find-out deck, but... Shoot, y’know, maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. Can’t call it a winner, but it’s a winner in my heart.

Nitpicks: None.

@nine-effing-hells — Arcanist of Ulamog.

What I like: I will definitely admit that I did not expect devoid to show up again. I also did not expect a processor wizard. You know, this card has some interesting multiplayer aspects. Your opponents also have flashback, but that flashback can be used for your own cards to copy, and... Heh. This is a cute idea with some technical interaction that I like a lot.

What we can improve: This card is also basically unplayable without dampers. Giving all cards flashback? Unless you have Leyline of the Void, Drannith Magistrate, etc, but in limited, that’s going to backfire like nobody’s business. And if your OPPONENT has either one of those cards, good lord... Yeah, this feels like a crazy bas time for you the controller. Sure you get a 4/4 for four out of it, but I don’t think that’s enough to combat the amount of crazy flashback you’ll be getting to oppose your plans. Could be fun in multiplayer though.

Nitpicks: That wording on the second ability seems correct. Someone smarter than me might find something wrong with it. Worth checking a rules guru.

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff — Pharika’s Forgotten

What I like: Using dredge was a bold, bold choice. Despite it being a broken mechanic, the fact is that in a vacuum this card could work really well. I think in limited there could be some fun graveyard shenanigans for eventually getting this card back or for using other resources from your graveyard. Honestly, this card is not top-tier, and it has to be that way, because otherwise whoo boy that would be a mess. No, it’s middle-of-the-road, pretty natural, pretty great, pretty synergistic, and not the worst it could have been for using a still-broken mechanic.

What we can improve: I don’t think there’s much that needs to be improved, even though this didn’t really grab me by the throat and make me build around it. I’ve never been one for reckless self-mill but I love mill as a strategy. Who am I kidding, this card’s probably fine. Would make for an INSANE cube uncommon.

Nitpicks: 1). “...mill three CARDS.” 2) Missing two closed parentheses. 3) Needs an emdash after Escape and no space between the dash and the mana cost. 4) “Exile” should be capitalized. And the fifth you already knew about, so don’t worry too much.

@rasputin-gold — Resonant Call

What I like: This card caused a lot of potential discussion in the chat. The ruling is something completely unusual and would have to have a lot of crazy stuff following it in the comprehensive rules. In general, the consensus was that it worked, and it would have a lot of statistics around it that people would talk about. Interesting cost, interesting wording, and the name is actually kind of weirdly nice.

What we can improve: And this card is unfathomably broken. If you have four copies of a card you haven’t drawn, and you’re going first, and you put a single counter on Resonant Call to name something, assuming 51 cards left in your library, what is the probability that you hit the named card? ... I don’t know my math that well, but in limited, if you have a single card you haven’t drawn that you’d like to cast for free, you have a little over a 60% chance of hitting that card. For a common, this is insane and build-around-able for cheating out literally anything you want faster than most any other card. And that’s pretty busted. I don’t think this concept is salvageable. It’s just too risky. Also, see notes on reminder text. 

Nitpicks: Not a critique, but is that a flea in the art?

@real-aspen-hours — Seedsower Oke

What I like: This card is pretty delightful. They’re a druid, a tree, and they make little tree babies. What’s not to love? Convoke is a fantastic mechanic, EVOKE is a fantastic mechanic, and this card could be used for a variety of getting things on and off the battlefield. It’s a card I’d love to see in limited and I think for a very casual commander audience it could work well too. I don’t think that conceptually there’s much to improve upon with this card. It’s got a great feel and I like who they are.

What we can improve: I feel that you could really have made this a 4/4 or even a 4/5. It deserves better stats for a big tree boy! That’s all, just one degree more of pushing to really make him good.

Nitpicks: Evoke should always be the last ability on a card.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Zataz, Renegade Researcher

What I like: I’m going to assume that there are some three-color counter cards in this archetype that you’re envisioning? Or at least, three-color draft support. It’s pretty reminiscent of Master Biomancer, actually. That’s not a bad thing, because that card was great, and as a three-color legend that makes artifact dudes this card is pretty great too. I would have to see a lot of support to make him work in a draft, but 100% he would be an awesome counter-based commander.

What we can improve: There aren’t any major gripes with this card. He does feel...busy. Maybe it’s the frame, maybe it’s the nameline. But I’m seriously questioning “Vedalken Elf” Those are two majorly separate species that aren’t connected in any significant way, and maybe you’re going for a Simic kind of blend but honestly, it’s far more confusing than innovative.  

Nitpicks: Perhaps you could have just said “Zataz’s power” instead of the full name. Wouldn’t have made a huge difference, but.

@shakeszx — Recurring All

What I like: Two-mana 3/3s are a big risk. Aggressive greenery is pretty standard for the archetype and often shows up in competitive aggro builds, so I appreciate you channeling this. Cute name, too! 

What we can improve: I’ve already talked about +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters, and again, it’s cute how you’re making them work here, with the evolve and all, but they just don’t belong. Maybe it’s just me but I also don’t understand the flavor text at all. Do the Golgari have an ooze issue? I thought they liked oozes. Slime Molding says otherwise. Boros would have made sense, perhaps Azorius. Not Golgari.

Nitpicks: Use shift+enter to separate quotes and attribution in your flavor text on MSE.

@snugz — Roar of Revival

What I like: Confession: I never played Battlebond and don’t like team Magic at all. So, forget all that, let’s talk about it from the perspective of someone who DOES like that sort of stuff! This card is invaluable. A big win, pulling life out of your butt and going crazy. Big life gain isn’t my favorite thing either, but you managed to make it new and improved and flavorful and interesting and gave it camaraderie. 

What we can improve: I don’t really have any major improvements for this one. It’s everything that a lifegain spell can be. I think my only caution is that, well, this only really works in 2HG. You gotta target two players, and in commander, that other big multiplayer format, this card is useless. Actually, in basically any other format this card is useless. Unless you want to play Tainted Remedy combo. ... Hmmm...

Nitpicks: This card might read better as “Each of up to two target players gain X life.” Or, if you wanna keep 2HG stuff, “Two target players each gain X life.” Also, have you considered reinstalling to the newest MSE? You don’t have to, you just seem like someone who could really push that stuff to its full potential.

@somethingtothatextent — Expansive Growth.

What I like: It’s an interesting use of cost mechanics. Overload necessarily costs more, but Convoke helps it cost less. I like that balance! The method of making rare cards feel rare and making their effects seem awesome isn’t always easy to do. I think that you dipped into some nice territory here.

What we can improve: Firstly, the name doesn’t feel as expressively creative as it could be. Without even a little context, the complex/unique mechanics lose a bit of touch. Mechanics are more important though, and I think that the way you were forced to make this mechanic happen resulted in the wording being really clunky.

Now, I do have a potential solution: Imagine a card with: “Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control, then you may double the number of +1/+1 counters on target creature you control.” So the spell now can give a counter and potentially double another creature, OR you can go ham with it like your costs want to. Does that make sense? I want to play with this card for sure. It’s good! It’s straight up a good card! Just needs world placement and some wording adjustment.

Nitpicks: None.

@sorustyitshines — Phagus, Eater of Worlds

What I like: Mythic dragons are always a smash and a hit. The devouring of historical permanents combines with the flavor text in such a way that actually makes the flavor text kind of moot. Like, it’s eating history! That’s pretty great! Hardcasting this card will always make for some groans, but the reduction gives it an appropriately mythic status. I think that it’s really powerful as hell, but it’s not unbalanced, I don’t think.

What we can improve: Really, the only major improvement is the name and the mechanical link. “Eater of Worlds” has been done in a lot of IPs. It’s cute, but. Mechanically, I feel disconnected between the cost reduction and the devour. Both of them have an interesting flavor link, I’ll give you that. They just don’t have anything to do with each other, and you’re building effectively two different decks. The things you might sacrifice to Phagus aren’t going to help you cast it again, right?

Nitpicks: “Haste” should be lowercase. The ellipses in your flavor text should be a comma and the period after “all” could possibly be a colon. Or, tbh, this card would be fine without it. That’s a lot of text. Also, I’m curious as to why you need “historic permanents” (which should be “historic permanent CARDS”) instead of just regular historic cards. The card’s already hinted at the fact that it can eat concepts.

@starch255 — Frantic Recruiter

What I like: Replicate now can indeed work with casting permanent spells, so kudos for that. I just had to look up casting and copying and the comprehensive rules for how replicate and rebound work, and as far as I can tell, yeah, this works exactly how it should! I feel the kinda Boros vibe throughout this, and casting from exile with a bunch of tokens, well, yeah, that can be pretty gnarly. A bunch of 1/1s are interesting. What you’ve done is effectively made a RW Reclaim the Wastes that can be doubled. And... You know, I wanna build with it, so that’s cool. Rally the Peasants forreal.

What we can improve: See notes about reminder text. This card is super confusing without it. If you had printed the reminder text I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have needed to look up all that other stuff, harrumph. (I probably would have anyway.) In all seriousness, all my notes about reminder text are here to express that complex ideas need space and you can’t ignore that it’s a necessity especially for ideas like this.

Nitpicks: *GAIN haste UNTIL END OF turn, not “have haste this turn.”

@thedirtside — Lunch Break

What I like: This was one of the most popular and loved cards in the mod channel, so take some kudos there. We loved it. “I’m gonna exert myself and get some food. Y’all can wait for me.” It’s pretty obviously silly, and that’s honestly great. I’ll be honest, silly cards like that outside silver-border rarely win contests, but they’re good for a laugh as long as they’re good.

What we can improve: The first iterations that you submitted, however, were a lot better in my opinion. There’s no reason for this card to be an instant, right? If you’re doing this during a declare attackers phase, that’s not going to change much from if you were to do it during your precombat main phase. Also, the wording really got messed up. I feel that you could have spent more time on flavor text as well. The card’s feeling is great up until then.

Nitpicks: So, a revised card would be a sorcert that reads. “Whenever a creature you control attacks this turn, you may exert it. If you do, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn and you create a Food token. (An exerted creature won’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.)”

@walker-of-the-yellow-path — Spellchaser Hound

What I like: Doggies! Yeah, I don’t even need to see the good boy to know I love him. Mutate feels fresh and funky, the counters are reminiscent of Ikoria without necessarily being set there, and there’s some potential for flavor in the dog fetching more prowess counters as things get crazy.

What we can improve: I really do appreciate the prowess counter reminder text. It might not say what prowess counters do, but that’s another issue. And the fact that you need that shows what we already kind of knew about prowess triggers: they’re complex as hell. Ability counters are...frankly, they’re awful for memory issues as is if you don’t have some kind of ability to remember them and they get equally weird with older cards that check and give permanent abilities... The point is, ability counters are weird as is, and prowess counters are pretty egregious. I don’t think this card is a mistake, but I think it’s really, REALLY complex in the world of Magic, and I would watch out. For what, exactly? ... Don’t worry about it. 

Nitpicks: If you don’t have a certain frame, you can ask the chat or ask for a mod who can do their best to make a render of cards like miracle/mutate/etc. The MSE Discord also has a tech support section.

@wolkemesser — Orca, Doom of Argenti

What I like: You managed to make me look up ancient Dominaria lore and yes indeed, Orca and Argenti are Magic people and words that make sense of it all. Gotta love that deep stuff! 

What we can improve: See above notes on reminder text. See above notes on +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters. But on this card, it’s especially egregious; she enters with haste, perhaps, she dies, then she returns with persist and a +1/+1 counter and starts all over again, and is basically unkillable because the counters will cancel each other out. Additionally, from what I could find, I don’t understand why she’s an Elemental when the story and her Oracle text mark her as a Demon. With flavor, I also don’t really understand the flavor text at all. She’s based on the real Orca, right? Any in-world flavor text would probably have been more appropriate.

Nitpicks: None beside the aforementioned ones.

I’m going to go hug my dog. Please keep questions and comments about commentary in mind, and if you’re reading this, be loved and be safe. Tomorrow enters a new dawn, a new time... Hm, time.....

—@abelzumi

[ihaspoorgrammer]

Legend of Korra: Alternate Season 2

In honor of LoK coming to Netflix, I’ve decided to vomit all my feelings towards that show the best way I can - creative writing - In a “What I think Should’ve Happened” essay for your reading pleasure. For those who don’t have the time, I’ll just come out and say it -- Legend of Korra was created with one season in mind, and that’s how it should've stayed.

All the concepts and ideas they introduced in the first season (and The Last Airbender) were more-or-less abandoned by the sequel so they could flounder and come to a deflating end.

So, I wrote this as a way to actually make use of them in a meaningful way that the creators so casually disregarded:

A few months after the battle with Amon, the Equalists have splintered into different cells throughout Republic City. Amon being revealed as a Waterbender weakened them, but that doesn’t take away from the larger points they championed about Bender/Non-Bender inequality. As a consequence, the United Forces soldiers are still a presence in the city, and Chief Biefong has made use of them as additional keepers of the peace, working with the Metalbending police to help rebuild and establish order, and has benefited greatly from the leadership of General Iroh and Commander Bumi.Korra is still airbending training with Tenzin as well as learning about the Avatar State, and she seems to have done a complete 180 in terms of her training; now dedicating herself to it full time to it. Tenzin is naturally happy about this development, but cautions her that the training will have to come naturally and it’s not something she can force, and is wary of how deeply her fight with Amon affected her.   The Fire Ferrets are preparing for their first match since last season against the Polar Leopards, Mako and Bolin steel their nerves while their new waterbender - Tahno - tells them to "relax" and "prepare to be amazed." After putting up a spirited fight, the Fire Ferrets and their opponents are tied. After ganging up on Tahno - who is at a disadvantage, being more accustomed to cheating - is saved by Mako. With seconds left, Tahno subtly bends the water on the opposing team’s side, and creates an ice-patch, causing an opponent to slip. Tahno takes advantage of this, and wins the match with a “Korra Special.” Only Mako notices the cheat.  After the match, Mako approaches Tahno about the cheating, but lets it slide. At Bolin’s suggestion, the two brothers go out to celebrate and invite Tahno along, but he opts out for "training” (after this, we see that Tahno has a picture of Korra in his locker, hinting that he only joined the Ferrets to make it up to her for restoring his bending).Asami has taken full control of Future Industries and personally oversees the production of new satomobiles and has saved Future Industries from bankruptcy with new airplanes designs. However, the company can't shake the black-eye her father gave it and her name, so business contacts have become scarce and shareholders have started pulling out. Worse, the board of directors have begun flexing their muscles to try and squeeze her out. She needs to come up with something good and fast.Mako, Bolin, and Tahno are in the middle of free-for-all sparring, when Tahno accidentally makes ice and headshots Bolin (which makes his vision comically go double). Mako scolds Tahno about it, causing Tahno to storm off.   Later that night on Air Temple Island, Mako brings Korra a meat dinner (Tenzin has put her on a vegetarian diet), but she declines. They begin to discuss Tahno’s participation in the team, which Mako believes was a bad idea, but Korra reminds him that Tahno has cut back on cheating, worked hard, and overall been a good addition (or stand-in for Korra). They share a nice couple-moment and laugh. We see Asami in the distance looking at them longingly, showing that she is still hurt over Mako leaving her for Korra. She starts to walk back to her room when she hears a strange noise in the distance. The source is Commander Bumi throwing his boomerang back and forth. After talking for a bit (and Bumi revealing that the boomerang once belonged to his uncle, Sokka), Bumi allows Asami to give it a throw. After a successful first try, she accidentally throws it through Tenzin's window. Bumi tells her "I didn't see anything if you didn't see anything." As he hops in the bushes to hide and Asami runs away. Laughing.  Meanwhile, a group of once-small time Triad gangs (they were "little people" before Amon "de-bended" the major families), are attacked by members of the Triple Threat. After a small battle, the Triple Threats win, and take with them a powerful bloodbender (or they start interrogating someone), leaving behind a message: “Lightning strikes twice.” ------

After that, Season 2 is in full swing. The Triads are the major Big Bad of this season because the purpose of the show was to be the opposite of Airbender, narratively speaking. So, that means keeping Korra and the cast firmly in Republic City and no more globe trotting.

This puts a bigger emphasis on the characters and their interpersonal relationships (which was the big draw of the show to begin with), rather than having to build up and explain the geo-politics of a new setting.

If they did stay for at least one more season, it probably would have emphasized a larger untapped well; the city was designed to be a 1920’s New York-style “melting-pot”, a place where all cultures come together and mix (Mako and Bolin are a product of a Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom union, and Tahno seems to be the a product of a Fire Nation and Water Tribe union). So, essentially, it’s the architectural equivalent of the Avatar. Just as the Avatar is the synergy of the four nations, Republic City does the exact same thing, just on a larger scale. One more season would better emphasize this fact, and show that despite what people think, it is possible for the four nations to co-exist as long as it’s based on mutual respect and sharing of differences, not domination of differences. This imaginary second season could also be used to address multiculturalism in any number of ways. 

Maybe the new Big Bad could’ve been a terrorist group dedicated to keeping the nations separate and "pure," and see the City as an affront to the Avatar’s “true responsibility.” And maybe Korra can see that, despite its flaws, the city and what it represents is worth saving. It also would have emphasised the “super-hero” aspect of the show; Korra being a Superman-figure who constantly has to protect her Metropolis from ever-constant calamities.  Another aspect that could’ve been added, was that the people of Republic City could’ve helped the Krew. You see, the citizens of Rep. City are constantly infantilized to the point of helplessness until Korra and co. show up to help. The opposite approach would have emphasised the multicultural aspect of the city, and how when push comes to shove, they are all one big family.Maybe even having a scene like from the original Spider-Man movie where the citizens actually help the Krew out, saying “you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!”

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

From my perspective, there’s no better way to kick this off than introducing this monkey-wrench into the Krew’s system -- the return of Lightning Bolt Zolt, Mako and Bolin’s adoptive father.

See, in the backstory that the show never did anything with, after their parents died, Mako and Bolin became part of the Triads. Though Mako stresses to Korra that he only "ran numbers" for them during his time there. . . So either Mako is a mathematical prodigy, or he's lying. Because I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say he probably received no formal education on the streets that would enable him to work for the Triads in that capacity. So that begs the question: why would he lie? What did he do during his time working for the Triads, that would make him leave and never speak of it again? It’s because he was specially trained by Zolt personally. Learning Lightningbending in the process.

Now, Zolt will use this connection to manipulate Mako for his own purposes, which involves getting his bending back, which will of course drive a wedge between him and Korra.

Zolt may be a bastard, but he was arguably more of a father to him than Mako’s actual father, and that kind of emotional connection is hard to ignore. In fact, it’s such a shock to his system that his Lightningbending stops working.

Which brings him in contact with General Iroh.

When we first meet Mako, he’s determined, blunt, stubborn, and reserved. Understandably so, seeing as how his parents were murdered in front of him Batman-style and was forced to basically raise his little brother on his own, on the streets. As a consequence, one of his most defining characteristics is his inability to relax. He’s constantly trying to fix everything, constantly trying to help everybody, and constantly trying to remain in control. So, Avatar-style development demands that he gradually realize that he can’t control everything and learn to relax, allowing Bolin to become his own person, and learning to go with the flow. Which is something they actually didn’t do in the fourth season. He was largely extraneous to the story and they actually took every opportunity they had to show how useless he was.

Meanwhile, Bolin starts being approached by Lin Biefong, who believes the young man has the potential to be part of the Metalbending police force, despite his claims that he can’t Metalbend. However, Lin eventually realizes why he never could; he’s never had to apply himself. You need to have an unrelenting drive to force the minerals within to move, and that’s not something Bolin has ever needed. In Season 4 of the actual show, I almost applauded it for having Bolin sign up for the army because I thought that’s exactly what he needed -- a place to apply himself. Mako being such a mother-hen accidentally stunted Bolin’s emotional growth, never allowing him to mature and become independent. Which could lead into a very Sokka-like confession:

B: “Do you want to know something really terrible; I don’t miss them. Mako was the one that really knew them. I remember bits of things, but … They’re just … People I didn’t get to know. Mako’s the one that’s always been there for me.”

So here, Lin takes it upon herself to be his teacher and actually show his true potential. They grow closer as a result, and she and Bolin start developing a mother-son relationship. When we first meet Bolin, he’s immature, a show-off, something of a womanizer, a shameless flirt, and a goof-off. The unifying detail with the Bending Brothers is that Mako was sort of holding them both back; Mako’s over-protectiveness never allowed him to choose what was best for himself, and stunted Bolin’s emotional growth into becoming a more independent adult. What they could’ve done - if they wanted to save time - was to have their character arcs work off of each other -- while Mako becomes more relaxed and free-spirited, Bolin becomes more responsible and goal-oriented.

The only other place that the phrase “wasted potential” belongs besides in association with Tahno we’ll get to in a minute, but for now let’s focus on him. The creators once said that they “care about all the characters … except Tahno,” which should show the lack of imagination that was rather systemic in the thinking process there (and what liars they are).

From the start, Tahno is clearly deeply affected by Amon stripping him of his bending, even if Korra gave it back to him. And while he still resorts to cheating now and then, it’s not entirely because he’s a natural cheater … it’s because his bending hasn’t completely come back, and neither has Korra’s for that matter.

They’re both so traumatized by Amon’s Bloodbending that they’re experiencing “hiccups” in their powers.

Korra has tried to deal with it by doubling-down on her Airbender training to “find inner peace,” while Tahno is just trying to ignore it.

Eventually, their arcs cross paths, and they bond of their attempts at healing, having to come to terms with the fact that the “body heals only after the mind heals.” Which further draws a wedge between her and Mako.

Now, there is still a love-triangle here, but it’s in service to why Mako and Korra were brought together in the first place: they aren't supposed to be like Katara and Aang, where it was love-at-first-sight. They’re supposed to be the more realistic couple that have problems and have to make compromises because they love each other.

Love isn’t something that just happens, you have to work hard at it and make the other person happy without looking for the advantage. Relationships - both platonic and romantic - need to be built on mutual trust and understanding, and with understanding means taking a person for both their good and bad qualities.

Infatuation is the kind of love that is more shallow and doesn’t last.

Under direct orders from Fire Lord Zuko himself, General Iroh has started staying at Air Temple Island to watch over the Avatar, which leads him to becoming an unofficial therapist to the people staying there, namely Korra, Tahno, and Mako.Iroh is unique among the cast because he’s inherited Uncle Iroh’s position of someone who already has everything figured out themselves.

He grew up with loving parents and loving grandparents, and we learn that he had the honor of being one of the first firebenders taught by the Sun Warriors, who Zuko spent most of his life helping reconstruct (where he gained the nickname, “The Young Dragon”).

This new living situation makes him a part of the Krew later on, and brings him closer contact with Asami, who he develops a rapport with. And finally, we come to Asami, who is still dealing with losing her father and potentially losing everything else.

You don’t have the founder of a company be linked to a terrorist organisation and expect that company to survive, no matter what financial magic you can conjure. Which is something Asami is learning all too well.But in this madness, she meets two people -- Commander Bumi and General Iroh (who’s under an official Fire Lord order to watch over the Avatar).

She soon becomes Bumi’s ward, eventually, Bumi will act as a surrogate father for Asami, and she will help him organize, and win, a blimp race. From then on, she starts exclusively referring to him with the honorific, "commander."

They become so close that he starts teaching her everything Sokka taught him. You see, because Aang spent more time with Tenzin and Katara more time with Kya, that meant that Bumi ended up bonding with his non-bending uncle, (who later in life became master Piandao’s best student).

That’s why Bumi carries around Sokka's boomerang; Sokka was probably more of a father to him than Aang was.

So Sokka, never having children of his own after Suki tragically died, taught Bumi everything he knew, including how to recreate Space Earth Metal.And, after they grow closer, he decides to trust Asami with this sacred technique. … 

Which she immediately tries to patent and market in order to save Future Industries. However, when she learns how deeply she hurt Bumi by doing this, she finally cuts her losses and sells the company. After that, she decides to pursue a different career, perhaps by joining the United Forces. 

And, while all of this is happening, Tenzin is informed by the White Lotus that global bending birth rates are going down with the modernization and mechanization of the world. Signifying that people's disconnection with nature and spirituality is robbing them of their bending.

Just like what happened to the Fire Nation.

And if this rate continues, in a few generations, bending might completely disappear.

------

Avatar: The Last Airbender was aimed primarily at children and early teens, because those are big transitional times in young people's lives. But late-teens and early 20's are also big transitional phases in young people's lives. Perhaps even more so, because those are the times where you have to learn how to be an adult. A very alien concept.

So, Legend of Korra seemed primed to tackle the challenges of this time, but for one reason or another, they never did.

Despite having a golden opportunity to say some meaningful things about interracial families and multiculturalism, they instead, did nothing.

This is a quote from a Tumblr post who I sadly can’t track down, but it speaks volumes to what AtLA represented to people:

“You need ALL these things to survive and grow, to hold up your community and push yourself forward. You need to unlearn myths and lies, reform them to fit new realities. You need to respect the past but mold it for the future. In short, you have to “draw wisdom from many different places” while keeping true to who you are and where you come from. IDK if the creators of AtLA thought about these things when crafting this story; I think when a story is well told, with authenticity and love, it has the potential to illuminate many perspectives and strike empathy in many different people. Diasporic consciousness is incredibly valuable because it teaches us a different way of being, a way of interconnectedness and mutual love. The Gaang symbolizes this perfectly: it took all of them with all their different skills, to end the War and restore peace and balance. A diasporic consciousness has the same power: to model a newer, more just, more empathetic way of life.”

Tying into this, I think all the Avatars were wrong in their assertion that the four nations needed to be separated. Think about it. Every single nation failed, in their own way, because they were isolated: the Fire Nation became too proud of its own accomplishments, and became a fascist regime. The Air Nomads' loose and "free" nature allowed the Fire Nation to easily wipe them out. The "go with the flow" attitude of the Southern Water Tribe - similar to the Air Nomads - made them easy targets for the Fire Nation; while the Northern Water Tribe "froze over," becoming rigid in their doctrine and tradition, and could never stand against the Fire Nation alone; and the Earth Kingdom fell too far into its "virtue" of endurance, and became a military dictatorship with a puppet king, cutting off any ties to the outside world. 

“It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If we take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, and the other nations, will help you become whole.”

While the "separate, but equal" stance towards the Four Nations may have been a good idea in the past, in recent years, it's proven to be a recipe for disaster. Most, if not all, of these failings could've been avoided if there had been more open dialogue between the Nations. There is a saving grace in the form of the Order of the White Lotus, but seeing how they all kindly fucked off until the shit really started to hit the fan, I can hardly see how they were a solution to the problem. Now, I really don’t know what else to say. I wrote this entire thing as an exercise to show how Legend of Korra failed in its duties to be an equal to its predecessor, because I was a fan.

Not just of AtLA, but of Lok as well. I watched it, I invested in it, and I was disappointed by it.

Others may have had all their hopes answered by the ending, but I was left with a pit in my stomach over how far the mighty had fallen.

And I don’t look forward to the show being adapted into live action because I don’t think I can take seeing all the lapses in creativity and common sense all over again.

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on Even More Games

[vague, unspecific spoilers for Heaven’s Vault, Later Alligator, and Life is Strange 2]

Thoughts on Heaven’s Vault

Heaven’s Vault is a game about archeology, which means it’s also a game about incompleteness. This is very clever. Inkle - also the developers of 80 Days, which I will play someday! - specialize in deep narratives that can be explored many, many ways, allowing for a lot of player choice. You make a lot of small decisions - do you share a discovery with the trader in exchange for a valuable item, or hide it so he doesn’t plunder it? do you go looking for your missing friend, or let her stay missing in case there are people trying to follow you to her? These all have their own little arcs and resolutions, and there are so many of them, and so many ways they can play out, that the game can never be played the same way twice. The overall story begins and ends in the same place and theoretically hits the same major beats, but the journey is tailored broadly and finely to each player; it’s a style of design Aaron A. Reed refers to as “not... a branching tree but a braided rope.”

Making a narrative about archeology is how you dodge the exponentially complicated nature of that design: if there are dozens of locations, characters, plot threads, bits of color, which can be engaged with at many points in time, or ignored, or dropped by the player halfway through, how do you avoid telling a story full of gaps and dead ends? Well... you don’t. Having only partial information and having to infer the rest is what archeology is.

The protagonist of Heaven’s Vault, Aliya, is digging up the secrets of an ancient civilization, having been sent by her academy to find a researcher who’s gone missing, and stumbling into his incredible discovery. Everywhere she goes, there are holes: she has partial understanding of the researcher’s journey and motives; he, in turn, had partial understanding of the mystery he was uncovering, and Aliya has only fragments of his knowledge; the ancient texts she translates are usually fragments of larger works, and she is guessing at the meanings of many of the words; the game’s constantly updating historical timeline has entire centuries with nothing but question marks. Aliya arrives in a new location and wonders aloud to her robot companion about what this place was, when it was founded, when it was abandoned, how her predecessor found his way her and where he went next and what he took with him.

The constant feeling of discovery - of unearthing - is magnificent. Site after site, I asked, “What is this place?” Always thinking, if the eventual answer is any good, this is going to be one of the best games I’ve ever played. And, in the end, it doesn’t give you an answer, it just give you enough to make the story feel complete. It answers by not answering.

Also, translating alien texts is just extremely my jam. I’m the weirdo who enjoyed the ending of Arrival but secretly wished the whole movie had been about xenolinguistics like the first half. I guess Inkle felt similar.

The game’s by no means perfect. I think I enjoyed the sailing between worlds more than most - it’s slow, but very pretty - but it’s going to discourage a replay. I don’t think the relationship between Aliya and her robot, Six, ever gets terribly interesting. Some of the archeology is a little too obviously game-y - sail around, wait to find a random ruin, beam Six down to grab an ancient doodad, translate a bit of text, lo and behold it’s from one of the sites you’re looking for and it’s narrowed your search radius somehow. (It gives Star Trek explanations the first few times - e.g. “it has radiation that only exists in one part of the nebula” - and then stops bothering.) And the game sags a little in the middle; it could’ve hacked out 3 or 4 dig sites and still given me the same experience.

But, all told, there’s magic in it, and it just feels good to be there. Do not sleep on this one.

Thoughts on Later Alligator

There’s not a ton to say about this game except that is charming as hell. Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera have build a beautifully animated world of cute alligators, one of whom is having a birthday party where he’s convinced he’s going to be murdered. He wants you to run around getting information out of everyone who’s going to be there, which you get by completing minigames. It’s a cast of weird and funny characters with weird and funny dialogue and there’s not much more to it than that.

The design can be a little frustrating. Some minigames, if you lose, you don’t get to try again. Some are annoyingly finicky. You need to complete them all to get the true ending, which means, in my case, playing the game three times to complete all the bits you missed or got locked out of. The ending was a little different each time, so it wasn’t a total wash, but the game’s on a timer that only advances when you play a game or take the bus, and once you’ve completed most of the games there’s a lot of traveling back and forth from one nowhere to another just to advance time to the next unskippable plot beat.

(It’s also a little unclear what you’re missing as you try to get the final ending, as some of the ongoing puzzle are optional.)

But I can’t get mad. The game is too damn cute! Each character is lively and unique, with tons of personality, and the dialogue is just clever enough not to fall into empty adorkability.

It good.

Thoughts on Life is Strange 2

Somewhere, early in the development of Life is Strange 2, some Dontnod employee wrote in a design document “Episode 4 - cult?” (but in French) and nobody told them “no.”

I will not forgive them for this,

After twenty minutes of LiS2, I was ready to yell at everyone who had reported it was boring. It has one of the most powerful, gut-punching openings of any game I’ve played in recent memory. And all through the first, second, and third episodes, I was in love. Unlike Before the Storm, this was its own creature, willing to make dramatic departures from the original game’s template. Instead of controlling a character with supernatural powers, you play as the superpowered character’s older brother. The one with the magic is a 9-year-old, unable to fully understand or control his abilities, suffering a recent trauma, and needing to be guided through a dangerous and racist world. All the ambition missing from Before the Storm is back, and this time the animation isn’t creepy and the writing is wildly improved (thanks to some journeyman script work from Fullbright’s Steve Gaynor) and I even have a computer able to play it on higher graphical settings.

But nothing good lasts.

Everything good about the series screeches to a halt in Episode 4, the one where some asshole said “cult?” and didn’t get a Nerf football thrown at their head. And it’s not just that it’s a terrible idea; it’s actually sort of amazing how much the game relies on an alchemy of plot, tone, theme, and writing, and how a slight imbalance can throw the whole thing off. Episode 4 has scene after scene that are powerful in their conception - brothers reunited after a violent rift; a boy having his first conversation with his estranged mother in nearly a decade; getting interrogated by the feds for a crime that can’t even be explained by physics - fall flat because the writers can’t think of anything interesting for the characters to say. (Steve Gaynor’s name stops appearing in the credits as of this episode.)

And here the game’s rickety bits, kept delicately together for three episodes, start to shake apart. Dontnod’s overly-earnest voice direction, which I didn’t notice in the early episodes, started to wear me down. (”Could you sigh mid-syllable, like you’re slightly overwhelmed with emotion?” “Sure, on which line?” “All of them.”) The thinness of the secondary characters, most of whom pop up for one episode and disappear, became more noticeable. The lack of a mechanical hook like the time rewinding of the original game, and the attendant commentary on choice-based games and power fantasies, made the game feel less substantial. The surreal imagery of the original, obligatorily evoked in the prequel, is sensibly absent, but there’s nothing equally striking that replaces it. Even the branching path decisions become less clear: the end-of-episode stat screens for the final episodes mentioned at least a dozen choices I didn’t even know I’d made, some of which were critical in shaping my younger brother’s morality and were not necessarily the choices I’d have made if I’d known I was making a choice at all.

Come the final episode, I got An Ending that seemed right for the way I’d played, but much of the way I’d played felt accidental.

So what are we to make of this? Life is Strange is a beautiful disaster, an ambitious disaster, where Life is Strange 2 is almost less interesting for being  more competent. It has a huge mess of charged topics - American racism, teens losing their virginity, raising a child outside the nuclear family, grief and trauma - and, while it handles them without the gracelessness and sledgehammer subtlety of the original, it doesn’t come to any conclusions about any of them. LiS1, for all its jank, had some opinions, where LiS2 falls into the category of “this sure is some shit, innit?” games.

It starts with a powerful premise, deeply relatable characters, fine writing, beautiful art, but can’t even manage, in the end, to be a disaster. It is the only game in the series so far to be forgettable.

[revchainsaw]

Buffy: the Vampire Slayer (1997)

Season 1

Hello and Welcome back my creepy congregation! We will be taking todays service from the Big Screen into your living room for our first Personal Devotional. That's Right! We're reviewing full seasons of television series now and what better way to bring the spirit of the genre film to the idiots lantern that with the 90s Television sensation and all around love letter to the horror genre, Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

The Message

Regardless of how one may feel about Mr. Whedon we can't deny how much we love Buffy Summers and the Kids who live and die in Sunnydale! Season one of Buffy was a spin off/reboot of the earlier film and an attempt by Whedon to course correct the franchise by breathing a little charm and attention into the subject matter.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 1) focuses on Buffy Summers, a not so typical California high school student who, due to the events of the movie, has been relocated to Sunnydale High. Buffy is not just a cute, athletic, teenage girl looking to enjoy the prime of her life, though she is those things, she is also the Slayer, an anointed warrior who has been reincarnated throughout the generations to protect our vulnerable weak human world from the forces of evil; particularly Vampires. Buffy is a sort of supernatural Captain America, that is a peak human being, but instead of Nazi Science she was born with her powers.

Joining Buffy are; High School outcasts Willow and Xander (a nerd and a nice guy respectively), The ridiculously sexy librarian Rupert Giles (her mentor, guardian, high school librarian, and all around precious papa bear), Jenny Calendar (a technopagan computer teacher armed with all the mystery an ignorant 90s boomer could attribute to the internet), Angel (Spoiler: He's a Vampire, but he's a good guy. A hunky, broody, good guy vampire love interest), and her loving but entirely oblivious mother. The Scoobies as they have come to be called aid Buffy in her quest to protect Sunnydale from Dark Forces.

And Speaking of those Dark Forces, they are primarily vampires, led by the Master; an ancient vampire who resembles to some degree Nosferatu and a Bat, a look that Guillermo Del Toro would later perfect in his own series the Strain. The Master seeks to fulfill an ancient prophecy that would open the Hellmouth (a portal to hell, exactly what it sounds like) and free him in order that he and his kind should conquer the world.

The first season is fairly short consisting of the following adventures.

1. Welcome to the Hellmouth - Buffy moves to Sunnydale seeking to leave her Vampire ways behind, but the vampires just won't let her catch a break.

2. The Harvest - Vampire Shenanigans continues. Buffy learns of the Master.

3. Witch - A fellow Cheerleader is possessed by her witchy mom.

4. Teachers Pet - Buffy vs Giant Mantis

5. Never Kill a Boy on the First Date - Buffy vs the Anointed One (Not Really)

6. The Pack - Buffy vs Hyena Possessed High School Bullies

7. Angel - Buffy vs Angel but actually Darla

8. I, Robot ... you, Jane - Buffy vs Internet Demon

9. The Puppet Show - Buffy and Sid the Dummy vs Organ Harvesting Demon

10. Nightmares - Buffy has bad dreams

11. Out of Mind, Out of Sight - Buffy vs Invisible Nerd

12. Prophecy Girl - Buffy vs The Master (also Buffy Dies)

Overall the short season, while not allowing for too much world building, kept the show to a format that allowed very little filler. So although we mostly only get vampires as villains, we don't have enough time to really be bored of it. Some of the shows dynamics and cultural concerns definitely date the series but overall Season 1 of Buffy is definitely not a difficult watch, and can be enjoyed over and over again.

Let's get to the Benediction:

Best Character: Slay Girl, Slay!

As far as season one goes the titular Buffy Summers is the best character. Sarah Michelle Gellar is absolutely charismatic in the lead role and though at times she may seem selfish or reckless it makes perfect sense for the character. The character is allowed to be weak, to be selfish, and to be unlikeable. She avoids the foibles of a Luke Skywalker or a Harry Potter. She joins the ranks of primary protagonists who are not constantly outshined by their supporting cast. I believe when Buffy is sad, I believe when she throws a punch, I believe she struggles with her destiny. The only thing I don't believe is how ditsy she let's on.

Best Actor: Head's Up!

Anthony Stewart Head. Head as Giles is just fantastic. His balance of frustration with Buffy and genuinely parental concern is heartwarming and absolutely makes Giles one of the warmest father figures in television history.

Best Episode: A 'Master'ful Finale

It all builds up to Prophecy Girl and for good reason. Television shows often have mini-finale's at the end of their first seasons because the teams behind the series are not sure they will have a chance to tell more of their story. For that reason you can see just the first season of most television series and feel like you've heard the whole deal. I wish this habit was kept up in other seasons as we wouldn't still be wondering what the hell happened to Joel at the end of the Santa Clarita Diet. Buffy is no exception to this phenomenon and therefor attempted to tie up much of it's narrative in Prophecy Girl. While that often means big bads will be dispatched, I think it's a small price to pay for not winding up in a cliff hanger. Buffy and Giles just shine in this episode, Angel is given a more heroic role, Willow finally values herself as she should and Xander stops being a fucking horrible human being for once. This episode really satisfies in all areas.

Best Villain: Sweet, Sweetheart Killer

It's such a shame that Darla was killed so early on in the franchise. She is such a great presence on the screen that she overshadows all the villains that play alongside her, even the Master. I would have loved to have seen an alternate season where she offs the old coot and assumes the role of big bad much like Spike does in Season 2. Lucky for everyone that Darla is featured throughout the show in flashbacks and I hear she is even resurrected in Angel. Also, for Scott Pilgrim fans I feel like she and Envy Adams are very much sympatico. Maybe if they reboot Buffy all my dreams will come true.

I'd also like to take this time to recommend the song Angels and Darlas by Say Hi! It's pretty good.

Best Monster Design: Internet Troll!

While I can't speak for where the money in Season 1 of Buffy went, I can say that at least some decent cash was spent on both the forms of Moloch the Corruptor from the Episode "I, Robot ... You, Jane". Moloch was pretty wicked looking as a machine toward the end of the episode, he looked like a Mortal Kombat villain, but it's the green scales and ram horns the actor is sporting at the beginning of the episode that really catches the eye. In fact, I'm feeling compelled to hunt down any Moloch the Corruptor merch that may be out there on the internet. It's certainly no mystery why the demon's face is featured prominently in the theme song. It just looks great! Good job to the make up department there.

Most WTF moment: "Pack"s a Punch on Principle

While not the greatest episode in season one "the Pack" is certainly worth the watch if for no other reason than the horror is kicked up when a group of high school students under the influence of a malevolent Hyena God, decide that the School Mascot is not enough to satisfy their bloodlust turn on the principal, and yes, THEY EAT HIM. I remember being completely caught of guard the first time I saw that scene, and it kickstarted the running gag of Sunnydale high principles meeting their demise in horrific ways.

Worst Character: No More Mr. Nice Guy

When I was in college I often felt bad for Xander. The funny guy who just had no luck with women. He was sarcastic but had a big heart, and used a horny gimmick to mask his loneliness, or so I thought. But now I am older, I am wiser, I have known the touch of another human being and I have to say that Xander Harris is a really scummy fellow. I don't remember thinking so poorly and I wonder if the character develops a more nuanced view of women as the show goes on. As it stands there's barely a point in the series that Xander does not view the female cast as objects for him to enjoy or be embittered towards for one reason or another. It's not charming, it's foul. Xander Harris of season one is absolutely a terrorist attack waiting to happen, if Buffy had happened today it would be much more concerning to see someone so embittered, horny, and entitled to womens time and energy as Xander Harris. Dude is one step away from pulling an Elliot Rogers. Calm down buddy and maybe actually listen to a woman and you may find you aren't as much of a 'nice guy' as you think.

Worst Episode(s): If you're not first ...

It's a toss up on this one. Season One of Buffy is actually so short and concise that the 'Monster of the Week' episodes will have to be up for grabs as the worst episode by default, but even they are pretty watchable and don't warrant the vitriol a "worst" dub usually entails. I'd say there is not a worst episode of season one, just some episodes that aren't as good as the rest. In that vain, take your pick from "Witch", "Out of Mind, Out of Sight", or "The Puppet Show". However, I'd be doing a disservice to those episodes not to mention that each one of them takes what could just be a basic Buffy Vs (insert Villain), and does something unique and interesting with the idea. The villain of "Witch" actually turns out to be a has been cheerleader actually possessing the body of her innocent daughter to relive her glory years, The Invisible Girl is actually the victim of social cruelty, her peers disinterest in her manifesting in her condition becoming quite literal and she is picked up by the military in the end, then the Puppet show, well, it's just about the stupidest most absurd thing that could possibly happen and it's completely unafraid of that fact.

Summary:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Season 1) is not the most groundbreaking TV, but it is absolutely evident why the show was such a phenomenon. Season 1 is particularly rewatchable. It does not demand too much investment or attention, but it will get it from you, especially on a first viewing. It's not afraid to take itself absolutely seriously or to plant it's tongue firmly in it's cheeks. It is to a degree a product of it's time, but in many other aspects feels timeless.

Overall Grade: B

[thedeaditeslayer]

Tom Sullivan - Evil Dead (Retrospective Interview)

Below is a short interview with Tom Sullivan that covers working on The Evil Dead making props, stop motion effects and special make-up effects.

Much has been said about The Evil Dead over the years. An abundance of articles and books have covered the arduous low-budget shoot, and the creativity that came out of long cold nights in the wilderness of Tennessee. The dedicated cast and crew went to extreme lengths whilst making the classic film; including memorable instances like Ellen Sandweiss running through the woods until her feet were in pieces, Campbell having his soon to be famous chin scarred when a deadite hand grabbed him through the floor, and long nights in the cabin with no running water leaving crew to wash blood off their hands in scolding hot coffee. But just as impressive as the aggressive perseverance needed to finish the 16mm low budget opus were the imaginative and gory effects that have been etched into fans retinas for nearly forty years! The blood spewing, head-severing effects were created by Tom Sullivan, who had provided makeup for Raimi’s fund-raising short film Within The Woods. Sullivan signed up for The Evil Dead and created the numerous prosthetics and blood gags essential to dismembering a cabin of teenagers, helping bring to the screen a bloodbath of carnage that Stephen King famously called “The most ferociously original horror film of 1982.”  

 With only three weeks to break down Raimi’s script and create the necessary effects needed - and a further three months to create and film the stop motion blood and pus filled “Deadite Meltdown” at the end of the movie - Sullivan built a legion of makeup appliances, severed limbs, and some of the most iconic props in horror movie history. Sullivan, who tours with his Evil Dead Museum showcasing of many of the props, makeups and ghastly creations used in the Evil Dead movies, spoke with Project Louder about what went into creating such iconic pieces for 1982’s The Evil Dead.  

Project Louder: Let’s start with the most famous of all Evil Dead props, The Book of the Dead. In the script it was described as being made from an animal skin. How did you design the book and what was your process of putting it together?

Tom Sullivan: My book is different than the one Sam Raimi described in his script, “Book of the Dead”. His book had some kind of animal skin with a couple of letters from an ancient alphabet on the cover. As an illustrator that didn’t read like an evil book to me.  So, I proposed a book covered in human skin and a human face would make it more obvious it was human skin as opposed to just leather. I had made face molds of all the actors but Bruce Campbell. So, I coated Hal Delrich’s mold about 8 or 9 layers of mold rubber, let it dry, yanked it of the mold and glued it to a piece of corrugated cardboard. The pages were a stiff card stock that I bound together with grocery bag paper. The Illustrations were not to be seen in the original script but as an artist I had to draw on everything, so I based the drawings on DaVinci’s notebooks on anatomy.  The text is all made up on the spot. I call it Bullscript.

Project Louder: What was the process for makeup design, prep and application in regard to Theresa, Betsy and Ellen?  

Tom Sullivan: Sam gave me the script three weeks before shooting began. As the make up and special effects artist all I could think was, “shoot me now”.  I had time to breakdown the script, figure out what effects and make up designs I needed, how I might do them and what supplies I would need. The original demon concepts were based on the Sumerian background. Not that I knew anything about Sumerians, but I had seen The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, so I just figured maybe the Sumerians were proto ancient Egyptians. I was hoping movie audiences were as ignorant as I was, and I was correct. So, I sculpted some designs for the deadites based on a hawk, a snake, and a dog. Sam thought it was starting to look like Planet of the Apes and I agreed. So instead of stealing from John Chambers let’s steal from Dick Smith. Ellen’s, Cheryl Deadite make up was inspired by Smith’s Exorcist make up of the demon. Betsy’s make up was the first make up I did for the film. It was black veins radiating out of her darkened eyes. That design became Shelly’s make up. Don’t waste good ideas. All of the ladies’ make ups were done in 4 to 6 hours sessions. They were built up from scratch. Only Scotty’s dog make up was a latex appliance. That was left over from the Sumerian Dog design. Don’t waste anything.    

Sam’s concept became the idea that the demons were mocking and revealing their victims. After discovering about the “latex point” during the making of Within the Woods, I was hesitant to use spirit gum on the actors. It tends to harm skin when actors have to wear glued on masks for long days upon days. So, I used latex rubber like contact cement. I’d put a thin layer on the contact surface of the mask and a thin layer on the contact surface of the actor. When the layers were drying but still tacky I would press them together. It’s important to clean the actor’s skin with alcohol to remove oils on their skin for longer adhesion.

Project Louder: The Kandarian dagger is another iconic design. What was the concept and build process?  

Tom Sullivan: The dagger was just a dagger in the script. I wanted to make it more memorable and read as a bizarre and disturbing weapon. I loved Ridley Scott’s Alien so I took a 1 ½”  piece of aluminum stock, ground it down with a sharp point, took a couple of handfuls of a ground paper mache called Celluclay added water, mashed it into a clay like substance and shaped it over the hilt of the dagger in the rough shape of the “chestburster” from Alien. I took the parts of a 12” skeleton model kit and stuck those into the Celluclay. When I ran out of kit parts, I bought a chicken, cooked it, ate it, boiled and dried the bones and stuck those into the hilt and instant horror movie prop. I got the idea for the dagger’s skull puking blood the night before we shot the Shelly Deadite death scene. I figured I could drill a hole from the skull’s mouth to the back of the dagger, stick a small, tube into the hole and have a production assistant blow blood through it for the take. I suggested the close up shot for the film when I showed up at the set. And Sam used it. He has excellent taste.

Project Louder: The Evil Dead never skimped on the blood. Would you care to share the Tom Sullivan blood recipe?  

Tom Sullivan: It’s Sam Raimi’s blood recipe. He taught it to me during Within the Woods. It is one bottle of Corn Syrup, 2 to 3oz of Red Food Coloring. 1 Cup Instant Coffee mixed with water into a paste. Mix well. It stains everything but is safe and non-toxic for your actors. However, I drank so much of this coffee syrup I haven’t had a cup in coffee ever since filming Evil Dead. So be warned!!  

Project Louder: The climactic stop motion sequence is masterful in is gore and execution. How did you approach such a complicated and time-consuming sequence?  

Tom Sullivan:  I love stop motion animation, so I was looking for an opportunity to use it in Sam’s film. Sam’s idea for the finale was for me to make some balloon versions of the Scotty and Cheryl Deadites and have them deflate while smoking. As I had been creating lots of gory effects for the film that seemed a bit lame for finale. I thought it needed an explosion of gore and as the special effects artist I wanted to throw guts into the audience’s lap. I did some storyboards of my concept for the meltdown and using George Pal’s great film, The Time Machine stop motion sequence of the Morlock decomposing via clay animation in that films finale, I sold Sam on the idea. He knew Bart Pierce, a filmmaker and stop motion animator and we met and designed the full sequence and started filming in his basement. I made the almost full-size clay models of the deadites over wooden ball and socket armatures made with large wooden beads. I made heads out of blood red dyed modeling clay sculpted into the muscles and then pressed into a mold of the deadite’s sculpture that had a more flesh colored clay. That was then removed from the mold, painted, wigged and ready to animate. To match the cabin set we used wood from the location and found out Bart’s garage’s ceiling matched the ceiling of the cabin. So, we used it. I am very proud of my work with Bart and I consider it my best artistic collaboration.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #171

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making the Berserker of El Dorado, a.k.a. the CEO of Amazones, a.k.a. yet another reason why Type Moon should stop designing teenage characters. Like several other servants from Agartha her true name is hidden when you meet her, so expect spoilers below the break.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: The reason they call him that is because you have to resist punching him in the face.

Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, is a Zealot Barbarian for a whole lot of anger issues and godly boons.

Race and Background

Penth’s the daughter of a god and also fuckign terrifying, so that’s why she’s a Fallen Aasimar. When she fell she got +1 Strength and +2 Charisma, as well as Darkvision which explains the black sclera, Celestial Resistance to radiant and necrotic damage, Healing Hands to keep her golden body in top condition, and the Light Bearer cantrip. Your weapons are glowy, this’ll take care of that for now.

You’re queen, but a queen of the amazons, so modify that Noble background to get History and Intimidation proficiency.

Ability Scores

If you want to be the daughter of a war god you’d better be able to war good, so make sure your Strength is as high as possible. Your Dexterity also better be good, I know jumping is strength-based, but running around in half a suit of armor is dex based. It definitely doesn’t look like armor, but it’s spiked, and a +2 to dexterity will let you use medium armor efficiently. After that is Charisma, you’re a shrewd businesswoman and also fucking terrifying for anyone vaguely greek. Your Wisdom’s also pretty solid, you’re good at sniffing out Achilles, and you’ve got an even keener business sense. Constitution isn’t that solid, you’re kind of a glass cannon, but you’re still pretty solid. Finally, dump Intelligence. Half the time you’re a raging ball of teeth and spikes, the other half you’re a CEO. Neither of those make me want to put much faith in your smarts.

Class Levels

1. First level barbarians start of strong (pun intended) with Rage, beefing up as a bonus action for advantage on strength checks & saves, damage resistance, and a bonus to attack damage. You also get Unarmored Defense, making running around in that outfit a slightly less bad idea. Or it would, if your constitution modifier wasn’t +0.

You also get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as two barbarian skills. Athletics because you’re literally an amazon, and Perception to help you find that damnable greek hero.

2. At second level, your Reckless Attacks will help you pierce through that jerk’s magic skin, giving you advantage on all attacks for the round, at the cost of taking attacks at advantage. To be fair, your AC’s probably like 12 right now, so it’s not like it makes him more likely to hit you.

You also get a Danger Sense, giving you advantage on dexterity saves you can see coming, like a fireball. Or a giant careening chariot. Either or.

3. Your brand new Primal Knowledge gives you proficiency with Survival. It’s a dog eat dog world, and now you know how to cook that dog. You also get a Necrotic Shroud as a bonus action, adding necrotic damage to your attacks once per turn for a minute and when you transform you scare the crap out of people nearby if they fail a charisma save. You can transform once per long rest.

On top of your divine blood activating this level, your divine blood activates this level, making you a Zealot barbarian. Your Divine Fury adds even more damage to your attacks once per turn while raging. Pick either necrotic or radiant damage, I’m not your mother, it’s your choice. You also become a Warrior of the Gods, so now reviving you doesn’t cost money. You don’t have a guts skill, so this’ll come in handy.

4. Use your first Ability Score Improvement to become a Dual Wielder, letting you attack with both sides of that giant mace thing using your bonus action. It also gives you +1 AC while dual wielding, that’s nice. Some barbarians have to die to attack with a bonus action, and you got it as a feat.

5. If you want to attack even more, Extra Attack lets you attack twice with your action, so now you can attack three times per turn. Your Fast Movement also adds 10 feet to your movement speed to catch up to that carrot.

6. Your Fanatical Focus lets you re-roll a failed save once per rage. Your golden rule means it’s hard to mess with your body, and this will help with that.

7. Seventh level barbarians get a Feral Instinct, giving you advantage on initiative checks. You can also ignore being surprised if you rage immediately on the first turn of combat. You also get an Instinctive Pounce, moving half your speed when you start a rage. Your rival is basically a manic the hedgehog humansona, so you’ve got to be able to keep up.

8. Use this ASI to bump up your Strength for more damaging and accurate attacks.

9. Ninth level barbs get Brutal Criticals, giving you an extra die of damage when you deal critical hits. Shockingly, giant metal balls hurt when slammed into people. Wild.

10. Tenth level zealots have a Zealous Presence, spending a bonus action once per long rest to inspire nearby creatures to get advantage on attack rolls and saves until your next turn.

11: Eleventh level barbarians get a Relentless Rage to avoid death while raging. If you pass a DC 10 constitution save, you drop to 1 hp instead of 0 and the DC goes up by 5. When you finish a short rest, it goes back to 0. I guess you do have a guts skill after all.

12. Use this ASI to grab the Mobile feat for even more movement speed and the ability to ignore difficult terrain and opportunity attacks. Achilles is really going to have to step his game up here.

13. Another level, another Brutal Critical, making your critical hits even more brutal. Don’t really have a joke for this one, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

14. Fourteenth level zealots can Rage Beyond Death, meaning you can’t die until you stop raging. Damage that takes you to 0 hp still starts the death save train a-rolling, but you don’t die until your rage ends, and even then only if you’re still at 0 hp. It’s a good thing you don’t have the ability to heal yourself right before your rage ends, or that would be busted. Wait...

15. Fifteenth level berserkers get a Persistent Rage, so now your rage only ends if you want it to, or if time runs out, making you immortal for a full minute of combat. Or until someone casts Sleep, a first level spell.

16. For this ASI we’re getting a little experimental with Flail Mastery, a feat from an old Unearthed Arcana. Technically it only applies to flails, but if you can convince your DM to use UA this old you can probably convince him to extend the definition to morningstars too. Anyway, you get +1 to attack rolls, can use your bonus action to negate a shield’s defenses on your attacks for the turn, and your opportunity attacks force a strength save, on a failure the creature gets knocked prone, which eats up half their movement. Not a big deal for a halfling, very big deal for Achilles.

17. Did somebody say Brutal Critical? I did, just now. Speaking of, you get another one of those, meaning your critical hits now deal double the amount of dice plus three extra.

18. Your Indomitable Might means all your strength checks are now at least your strength score, which is pretty freaking good. It’d be even better if we could bump that up higher though...

19. Your last ASI is going towards your str- no, sorry, it’s another feat, now you’re Menacing. This rounds out your Charisma, doubles your proficiency in Intimidation, and you can replace one attack from your action with a contested Intimidation v Insight check against a humanoid. If you succeed, the target is frightened for a turn. Really we’ve just been giving you better versions of the Berserker class features. Shame we couldn’t get that strength up one last time though.

20. Just kidding! Primal Champions get +4 to their strength and Constitution, and your maximum for both scores increases by the same amount so you don’t have to worry about capping out. You also get unlimited rages, so just pop a new one whenever the old one’s about to run out.

Pros:

Your race, plus all those feats you took, give you a lot of options in the middle of combat, even while raging. You can heal yourself, scare people, attack... okay, it’s three things, but that’s two things more than most berserkers.

By the end of the build, you have unlimited rages, and you can’t die while raging. Tack on your healing hands at the end of a battle, and you’re effectively immortal to anyone not packing Sleep. It’s a first level spell, so a lot of people will be packing it, but by the time this combo comes together most people will be using 9th level spells, so they’ll probably overlook it.

You’re also pretty speedy, even compared to other barbarians. 50′ of movement speed and the ability to ignore difficult terrain will make it hard for your to get space between you and it. Even moreso when your opportunity attacks knock it flat on its ass.

Cons:

Before you become an immortal rage machine, you’re pretty squishy thanks to your low constitution score. I mean, squishy compared to other barbarians. You’re still rocking almost 200 HP and rage protection, but it means you’re not quite as tanky as Herc. Until you hit level 20.

We picked up a lot of Feats in this build, so that’s a good part of the reason why your ability scores are so low compared to other builds. Your fighting style only cares about strength and charisma, but if you get in a business meeting you can’t scare your way out of you’re going to have a rough time.

You have absolutely no way of dealing magical damage. You might be able to eke out some chip damage with Divine Fury and Necrotic Shroud, but if you go up against something with resistance or immunity to nonmagical weapons you’re going to have a bad time. It’s lucky you’re not super pissed at someone who literally has that as their defining feature, huh?

[nofacenocaseblog]

𝗗𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 #3:  NARCOPISOS Inc. /Barcelona narcopisos, a necessary evil

The 3rd episode of Dope Stories is the most in-depth investigation of the series, so much that it took me nearly 3 years to gain the trust and respect of my contacts and more importantly, to get relevant insights about the local drug market and its players to show, under a different angle than mainstream media, what’s happening behind the closed doors of the Ciutat Veilla’s narrow streets.

Playground 1 - Raval, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone 

“Drugs are ruining our neighborhood! “,  “Narcopisos are disrupting the real estate market!” ,  “ We don’t feel safe!”… 

Those are the slogans or headlines you see in the media or written on banners hanging from people’s balconies.  

“Narcopisos are filthy and dangerous!”

But are they though?

FOREWORD

Before getting started, I wanted to write a few words about Barcelona. After living more than a decade in New York, my wife and I moved to Catalan capital for about 4 years.  After reading this article you might think that I m not particularly fond of the town and its inhabitants.  I won’t lie, we didn’t receive the warmest welcome, especially from Catalans. This said, the town and its vibe are unique and galvanizing.  Very much like Marseille (my hometown), Barcelona is an harbor city with the port/marina right in the center, meaning: lots of traffics, smuggling, immigration, corruption, drugs etc… There is always “something going on”, if you catch my drift.  Shady, nasty, funny, ugly, beautiful, vulgar,  the cast of “pirate-like” characters gravitating around the city center is fascinating.

Occupied - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / Nikon 3200

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been drawn toward the forbidden,  the danger, the illicit, the hidden, the bad...  To my eyes, “ugly” has always been more interesting than “beautiful”.  Barcelona is not a dangerous city but you need to keep your guard up: pick pockets roaming the subway,  gypsies asking for money on La Rambla (the city’s most touristic avenue) while releasing your back pocket from your wallet, junkies selling stolen goods or begging for change for their next fix #nextfixandchill , black people selling fake airmax on the Barcelonetta marina, drunken street fights in the early hours of the morning... Tragicomic scenes are unravelling before your eyes in an surreal backdrop: Gaudi’s most beautiful “psychedelic” buildings (Sagrafa Familia, casa pedrera, Palau Guell...) in a jungle of gothic buildings ending on a fisherman village overseeing a beautiful beachfront promenade ending with the native “star’chitect” Bofill’s famous W... 

Poolside - Barcelonetta, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone

Ok, enough with the touristic tour, time to get real!

Stairway to Hell - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Embark on a descend to the heroin inferno that became Raval.  From the fields of Afghanistan to the bloodstreams of Spain...

La Ruta [Spanish for “the route”]

19,414 Pakistanis live in Barcelona, 6,600 of them are established in the neighborhood: El Raval (1) meaning more than 30% of the total community.  El Raval has always been my favorite barrio in town.  With 47% of immigrants (2) , the mosaic of faces, cultures and shops you encounter is dazzling .  Going back to the Pakistani population, I used the word “established” for a specific reason: they actually own many of the businesses in Raval: barbershop, cheap bars and restaurants, wholesale shops, import/export businesses, money transfer services (Western Union, Moneygram), food and grocery shops... I’m not accusing here the Pakistani business owners of backing the drug traffic but they basically created a web of small businesses in a tight net community with their own language, making it hard for the authorities to see through this social fabric potentially sheltering illegal activities. 

Why the Pakistani population is subject to speculation and doubt from the local authorities?  The answer is simple: Afghanistan.  Afghanistan  is by far the biggest producer of opium in the world. According to the US military, 90% of the world's heroin is made from opium grown in Afghanistan. It makes up 95% of the market in Europe (3).  The country has been the leader in opium poppy production since 2001.  Based on the 2014 report from the UNODC (United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime), Afghanistan not only grow opium but also process heroin in several laboratory as well as morphine (easier to produce from raw opium by adding calcium oxide and ammonium chloride).  From Afghanistan, several routes are used to smuggle their prime commodities: the Balkan route has been the primary route but things are changing and the Southern route has become more and more used.  Afghanistan share 2,400km of border with Pakistan and over 50% of illicit afghan opiates are trafficked through Pakistan which enjoys a a strategic location making it a perfect dispatch zone with readily accessible by land, sea (Gwadar and Karachi seaport) and air ways .  

The same UNODC report also indicates that the majority (37%) of the heroin seized in Pakistan was en-route for Europe..

*** Read and/or download the full report here ***

By the way, let’s not forget that Barcelona is also one of the Camorra’s stronghold.  And with Russians and Albanian mafias also present on the territory, Spain -where no powerful local crime syndicate operates and laws on prostitution and gambling are “blurred” to say the least-  has become one of organize crime’s favorite playgrounds for money laundering, drug smuggling, human trafficking, gambling and prostitution... Nothing really happens here without their “green light”, but that’s another story (5)

Back to our Southern route, once the product reaches Barcelona, it becomes very hard to pin point. Narcotics coming through the Balkan route also ends up in Barcelona but in different “retailers”’ hands:  Romanian family-based clans, based mostly in Besos (a run-down project in the heart of Poblenou) and  occupying one single narcopisos in Raval (they have moved 3 times over the 4-year period of my “investigation”) but known to have the purest and most processed Caballo sold in town. 

El Caballo [Spanish for “the horse”, street name of heroin ]

[WARNING]  Most of the photographs of this post are uncensored, quite graphic and… of poor quality…. my bad, I took them.  But I had circumstances: hidden cellphone, no flash, illegal activities going on, indoor, with very little to no light…  Shots are not the best (no pun intended) but you’ll step right into the infamous narcopisos you’ve heard of or read about. And not once they’ve been searched and trashed by the police like you’ve seen in the press but while they are in full operation. Raw, those images might be quite shocking to some of the readers, but take the emotion out of he equation and you’ll come to realized that, for lack a better choice, narcopisos are a necessary evil.   My intention here is not to start a polemic nor come out as a provocateur but to shed light on a real issue, still happening, involving real people, slowly dying, failed by a syste unable -or unwilling- to help them.

Gears - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

El Raval

1989,  US superstar Keith Harring is in Barcelona for his exhibition on La Rambla.  After speaking with an old friend of him from New York living here for awhile, he decided to paint a mural, his way to to show his love for and connection with the town. The next day, Harring chose the wall in Plaça de Salvador Segui in Raval.  He was warned that the area was one of the most dangerous areas in town. Back then, in the 80’s the Spanish government had the genius idea to decriminalize the use, but not the supply, of hard drugs and did not implement any proper treatments to sustain this measure...  Spaniards have ignored the issue and it sparked a heroin addiction epidemic that saw HIV rates soar (2a).The artist was attracted to the neighborhood and decided it would offer the perfect canvas for his message about the dangers of drugs and AIDS. At first it was supposed to be a temporary mural but in the end, up to this day, you can still enjoy Harring’s mural behind the MACBA museum. Below is a photograph I took of what became now hot-spot for skateboarder and cool bars

Tricks - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

Beside its bad reputation, Raval has always been a magnet for artists and “cool kids”, misfits and outcasts but more recently the new kid on the block is named gentrification… in other word: Fun is over.   Well… not quite yet.  In Barcelona, everything moves slowly, gentrification included. The result is a mix of fancy hotels, art galleries, designer boutiques... mixed with prostitutes and their lovely clientele, dealers, junkies, businessmen, families of tourists wandering the streets… a fascinating mix of characters with theatrical scenes playing before your eyes: hustlers trying to rip off tourists, white collars finding themselves buying bad cocaine from a kid in a narrow, sketchy alley… the show is in the street, but not only. 

The Narrows - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

What businesses, in Barcelona, are open 24/7, have no vacancy, a steady stream of customers and a product that sells itself? The answer: Narcopisos Inc.

The phenomenon of the Narcopisos emerged in 2016 (a year after I moved to Barcelona) following Spain’s property crash.  Foreclosed or unsold apartments, owned by banks and investment funds were left emptied, abandoned, in a country in full housing crisis...  It wasn’t long before the vacant spaces started being squatted: some by respectable families, in need of a place to live, some by drug dealers using them as selling point and shooting gallery.  A place where you can get a cheap fix in a relatively clean room.

Ritual - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Helped - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Thanks to my various contacts, I had access to different types of narcopisos, but from crack to dope houses, most of them were operating the same way: - a cctv video surveillance in place at the street level or someone looking out for the cops. - a room with junkies to confuse police upon arrival and make it look like they are actually squatting the place - 1 to 3 dealers serving customers one a the time. - An exit back door (if available) in case the police knocks on the front door. - One or two rooms for users. - Hourly cleaning of the premises to make the place look “decent” and “squatted” in case of a bust - Little quantity of drugs at the time, no more than 10 grams of each. - Open 24/7 - Re-up every hour or so - Single use paraphernalia available to the users - In some cases, Narcan at hand (medicine used to reverse the effect of an OD).

Cleaning Session - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

My connections in the Pakistani community took time to build but  strengthen throughout the years to reached a level of trust where we came to split the bread at several occasions… no seriously, we actually got invited in their Halal “canteen” in Raval where only Pakistanis could enjoy their local cuisine, a unique experience… They also gave me access to two of their stash houses: located in legit apartments, in proper buildings, on the outskirt of Raval, close to Sant-Antoni, less prone to police check.  No users there, only wholesalers, dispatching heroin to “representatives” of each narcopisos at below retail-price: between 20 and 40 euros the gram depending on the quantity purchased. 

Going back to the narcopisos, some were run by junkies (where the product was often cut from the bash they were getting from the stash houses), some by pakistani or afghan immigrants, with decent quality product, some by Catalan families, living there for decades under stabilized rent and with their own connection and product of fluctuant quality.  Last but not least, one narcopiso was occupied by the Romanian clan mentioned earlier.  Below are some photos of one of their spot at 22 Carrer d’en Roig, later busted and walled by the Mossos d’esquadra (Catalan police)

Romanian at work - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

Boss - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

If narcopisos was selling both crack and heroin, two rooms were at the disposal of users, one for smoking their bottles or pipes and the other room to shoot up or smoke heroin on tiny pieces of foil.

Sterile hospital-like garbage disposal were available for discarding the used paraphernalia.

Bloodstream Hunt - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

#NextFixandChill - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Everything is provided to avoid the spread of disease and the use of the drug in plain sight in the street therefore reduce public disorder.

Not that dealers became humanitarian all of a sudden, but kicking customers with their (illegal) purchase out in the street expose them to being ratted on or worst, having an overdose in plain sight attracting the police and paramedics... either way, it’s not good for business so narcopisos’ “managers” rather keep their clientele indoor until they’re done using and good to do.

Now, there is another type of business in Barcelona dealing with drug users and addiction: it’s called Centre de Dispensació de Metadona - Centre d'Atenció Primària Casc Antic (the methadone clinic in short....). 

* They’re not open 24/7 but rather in the morning only * It can take up to 2 weeks to see a doctor in order to enroll in a Methadone Maintenance Treatment -MMT (true story...when a single day can be the last one for a heroin addict living in the street) * Last but not least, since the doctors and nurses’ work schedule is way more important tthan their patients’ care, some centers give up 3 to 4 days worth of supply of methadone at once to heroin users so the health workers can have their days and weekends off. The result of this amazing system: the methadone is sold in the street by users so they can buy their heroin and/or in certain case, the methadone is saved up (for rainy days) and the patient keeps using heroin instead.  Yes, the patient: let’s not forget that those “filthy junkies” actually are patients (even if they’re hardly seen as such in those centers),  suffering from a disease called addiction, or substance abuse disorder if you prefer the american way of calling it, and in need of medical care but what can I say... old habits die hard (both way...). 

Patients taking methadone to treat opioid dependance must receive the medication under the supervision of a practitioner. After a period of stability (based on progress and proven, consistent compliance with the medication dosage) and only then, patients may be allowed to take methadone at home between program visits... but not in Barcelona.

Methadone substitution as a treatment of opioid addiction does not function as much to curb addiction as to redirect it and maintain dependency on legal channels. Methadone has been designed that way, as a lifetime treatment whereas alternative palliatives such as Buprenorphine are not even considered by doctors when those therapies would be more efficient in certain cases: with users who do not shoot the drug for example, or with users wishing to quiet and get sober... but let's be honest here, sobriety has never been the objective of those methadone programs.  The real goal of this public service is not to cure addiction, but to make sure junkies don’t use, steal, rob and/or commit act of violence in the streets to feed their habits

The patient here is not the users but the society.   Those centers aren’t trying to help the user quit his habit, but to make sure the society doesn’t suffer from it.  Good or bad, Narcopisos are curbing down the spread of diseases, cleaning up the streets from users as they offering temporary shelter to their customers and operate around the clock..  It seems to me that their function is almost... complementary if not necessary.

So before eradicating narcopisos from the face of Raval, let’s pause and look at the alternative: junkies buying and using drugs in the streets of the city center, in the worst sanitary condition possible with no regard for the residents around.

Mañana

So what’s next? Keeping those illegal activities going on? Certainly not.

But before jumping the gun and closing it all at once, better get ready for the alternative because drug addiction will not disappear with the narcopisos. In my last article, I speak about users stigmatization and how society still struggles to see addiction as a disease and not a will power issue, turning the blind eye to a sheer amount of studies and discoveries explaining how heroin addiction, over time, modify the pathway of your brain frontal lobe and affect your decisional power, making it hard -to not say impossible- to say “no”. 

Don’t take me wrong.  It would be naïve to think all users roaming the streets are here trying to quit and become their better self. Most of them have no intention to do so. I’m not here to judge nor take side.  But in order to find a solution to the narcopiso situation, I would like to introduce Barcelona to his neighbor: Portugal.

Portugal had one of the worst heroin epidemic in Europe back in the 90′s and after the failed many “US war on drug”-type of approaches. They finally shift approach and started treated drug addicts as patients who needed help, not as criminals” says Goulao, the architect of Portugal drug policy.  After the decriminalization and treatments, they planned to open “supervised drug consumption facilities” Naina Bajekal says in her 2018 article in the Time “where drug users can consume drugs in safer conditions with the assistance of trained staff. Such facilities have been running in Europe since 1986, when the first was opened in Berne, Switzerland.”(5)

The result? Evidence (6) shows these these type of sites save lives, reduce public disorder, and curb the spread of diseases.

Does that sound familiar? Yes, that's right, the first of the two businesses we spoke about: Narcopisos Inc.

Purgatory - Carrer d’en Roig 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

For No Face No Case: Dope Stories chapter 4, we’re going to Italy.  Don’t worry, it won’t be another mafia-related article explaining how the N’Drangheta and Camorra became the most powerful crime syndicates in the world, you can watch that on TV.  Called “Il Racconto dei Racconti”  (Tales of Tales in english), the article will keep it real, street style: short stories from North to South: Torino, Milano, Genoa, Roma, Napoli... Stay tuned for some dope stories on how drugs are sold, used and abused in the Renaissance country 

References (1) https://www.barcelona-metropolitan.com/featuresx/report-barcelona-pakistani-community/ (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Raval (3) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47861444 (4)https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/12/07/inenglish/1544171107_204329.html (5) https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/ (6) https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/

[ravenforce]

Ithaca Pt. 5

Word Count: 6078

Warning/s: Implied smut. Angst somewhere. Steve and Val’s still kind of a bitch.

A/N: I wrote my head off for this part. Fitting word count before we transition to the Oceans 8 arc, don’t you think? God, I hope you like this part. Please, comment your reactions. I really love reading from you guys!  

PS. If there are any grammatical mistakes I’ve still overlooked, I apologize.

PSS. Since you’re already reading this part. Please, be careful out there. Protect yourself from NCOV. Wear a mask if you’re going outside. Wash your hand regularly, and bring alcohol everywhere you go. Take your vitamins C seriously, and stay hydrated. If you feel flu like symptoms, get yourself checked by experts. Don’t self-medicate. The world is a better place because you’re here. Stay with me. xx

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Manhattan: 1 | 

***

Waking up with hangovers has never been your problem ever since you started drinking when you were sixteen. No matter how much you drink, and how drunk you get, you never wake up with a hangover. Mostly, you just wake up exhausted, that’s it; today’s not an exemption. You cracked an eye open and by the cast of beautiful orange around your white walls, streaming from your window blinds, you knew that you slept the whole day away.

You and Maria left the Starks around 6:00 AM. The streets were still almost empty in the sleepy Saturday morning, so you arrived at your apartment after twenty minutes. Maria was already shedding her jacket even before you both could enter the apartment. 

“Ugh! I’m so tired,” Maria groaned as she continues to shed the rest of her outfit, leaving a trail of clothes on the floor. 

You made sure the deadbolt on the door was locked before heading to your room as well. You had to chuckle at the mess your best friend made before picking everything up. Maria’s never a slob but when she’s drunk, she cares very little where she shed her clothing. Your eyebrow shot to your hairline when the trail stopped in front of your door.

“Uhm. Bubba this isn’t your room,” you said softly while leaning on your doorway. 

Maria grunted before hauling her upper body using her elbow. “Shush! Clothes off, and come to bed, now,” she demanded before leaning back down. 

“Yes ma’am,” you whispered more to yourself before folding Maria’s clothes and leaving it on a neat pile on your chair. 

“Hurry up,” Maria whined, prompting you to kick at your jeans and stripping as fast as you could in your exhausted state. 

You crawled in your own bed cautiously. Maria was scooting over you, seeking your body warmth even before you could properly settle down. She reached back at you and made you wrap your arms around her. 

“Night Y/N. Love you,” she muttered half asleep. 

In the course of your sleep, Maria ended up facing you instead of being the little spoon. You can’t help but smile at the sight of her sleeping face and her holding your hand. You thought Maria’s breathtaking every day but at that moment, as her sleeping serene face is bathed with the golden orange of the setting sun, you thought she’s ethereal. Your smile dipped a little when you remembered. 

“I can hear you thinking, Y/N,” she whispered, voice rough and eyes still close. 

You chuckled. “Sorry,” you said gravely. 

Maria slowly opened her eyes at your tone. You stared at each other for a minute or two before she tried to lean in and kiss you but you playfully shoved her back on the bed. 

“Morning breathes, silly,” you teased before rolling on your side and walking out and in the bathroom. 

Maria groaned.

***

“You’re such a tease,” Maria said after following you in the bathroom with her toothbrush in hand.

You looked back at your best friend through the mirror and threw her a smirk. You grinned in front of the mirror to check your teeth before taking one last wash off your mouth.

“Hurry up, bubba. I need to shower,” you complained lightly. Maria rolled her eyes at you before rinsing her mouth too.

You tried not to smile too wide as you watch her thoroughly check her pearly whites. She turned towards you.

“Now,” she started, voice an octave lower. “Can I get my kiss?”

You know she’s teasing by the small smile on her face. You rolled your eyes before relenting and quickly smacking your lips together for two seconds. Before she could complain though, you decided to splash her with water. Maria’s eyes grew like saucers, and you laughed out loud as she looks at you with her mouth hanging open.

“You’ll regret that,” she warned after getting over her initial shock.

You didn’t even move to stop her when she reached for the sink and splashed you back. You kicked the bathroom door closed to prevent the water from spilling into the hallway. For a few minutes, the small bathroom was filled with nothing but the sound of splashing water, and laughter. It only ceased when Maria pinned you against her body and the wet sink. You had to fight the urge to shiver and moan at the feeling of the cold hard granite on the small of your back, and her wet warm body on your front.

“Maria,” you whispered, trying your hardest to make it sound like a warning while watching her eyes intently.

When your gaze dropped to her lips, she didn’t give herself time to think too much before crushing your lips together. Besides, it’s not the first time she’s kissing you. Yet you couldn’t help the moan that escaped you. This isn’t like the kisses she gives you every day before she goes to school when she has a class earlier than yours, it isn’t like the kisses she gives you when you're not feeling well or the kisses she gives before she goes to bed. No, this is the kind of kiss that ignites a fire in your belly, which results in a flood in your underwear.

“Maria,” you started.

You wanted to ask her what the heck you two are doing but Maria’s hands on your ass are totally fucking distracting. When those glorious hands landed on your breasts, gently kneading and squeezing, you threw all your complaints, doubts, rules, and inhibition in the window and just enjoyed the moment. Especially knowing that it’s temporary, that it won’t last. Especially knowing that any moment, you’ll have to wake up.

And it ends, as fast as it started. Maria pulled away after god knows how long you were lip-locked. She smiled that smile that tells you Maria Hill isn’t a good girl as she surveys her handiwork. She reached out to run her thumb on your bottom lip. You can tell she loves you looking so disheveled for her.

“Go shower, and I’ll make breakfast,” she said before leaving you alone in the bathroom.

You threw your head back with a groan. “Now, who’s the tease?”

***

You emerged from the bathroom after a few minutes. Even with the kitchen exhaust on, the whole apartment smells divine with the aroma of freshly made waffles and brewed coffee wafting in the air.

“God, I love you so much,” you said when you flopped down your designated seat on the dining table.

Maria placed your favorite breakfast ensemble in front of you. She stopped dead on the spot when she saw you wearing dark skinny jeans, and your old MIT shirt.

“Going somewhere?” she asked.

You made an ungodly moan at first bite of your waffles. Maria had to sit down and cross her legs at the sound. “Somewhere,” you mumbled after washing down your first bite with coffee.

Maria frowned a little but you ignored it. The two of you ate in comfortable silence, occasionally swapping engaging in small talk, and checking your mobiles for emails and the news.

“What do you think our friends think of the bomb we dropped this morning?” Maria asked while you clear out the dishes.

You creased your brows together. “I don’t know. I don’t think it matters much,” you answered while loading the dishes on the dishwasher.

“Maybe but it certainly matters to Nat and Carol,” Maria said softly, you almost missed it.

You leaned back on the counter and hummed lightly. Maria stood and faced you. “You know they like you right?” she asked crossing her arms in front of her chest. Maria has reached her boiling point on the matter. She’s way too observant to miss the signs, and she knows your not stupid, let alone blind.

“I do.”

There’s no point in lying to her anyway.

“And you like them too,” she continued. It was more of a statement than a question really.

“I do.”

You can see by the minute that your short response is getting in her nerves. You had to fight the urge to even smile for a little.

“Is that all you’re gonna say?” Her frown growing deeper.

“What do you want to say?” you asked back, hands going into the counter to brace yourself.

“I don’t know,” she answered, running her hand through her hair. “What are you gonna do about it?”

You allowed yourself a small smile. “Nothing. I plan to do nothing about it.”

Maria’s full-blown pissed now, if the nostrils flaring and the creased eyebrow is any indication. She’s about to storm out of the dining room but you stopped her by catching her wrist when she tried to circumvent you.

“You’re fucking cute when you’re jealous,” you teased her with a shit-eating grin on your face.

“I’m not jealous.”

“Right, and I’m not your best mate,” you said before tugging her towards you. For someone who’s supposed to be mad, Maria didn’t even put up a fuss when you drew your bodies together. Your hands landing instantly at the small of her back.

You started walking her back to your bedroom. “You know you can’t be jealous, right?”

Maria sighed. You’re right and she knows it. Her breath hitched when you kissed her lightly.

“Y/N,” she moaned when you started kissing down her neck.

You didn’t stop walking until you felt Maria bump into your bed. You sucked on her pulse point before lightly shoving her down on the mattress. Maria landed on it with a soft tad, face extremely flushed and pupils fully dilated.

“I want Carol and Natasha,” you admitted while pulling your shirt over your head.

Maria frowned at your admission. You looked directly in her eyes before popping the bottom of your skin-tight jeans and drawing them down your legs.

“But you know I wanted you first,” you said before the jeans joined your other clothing on the floor. “I always have.”

“I’m sorry,” Maria said sincerely. You know she’s not lying. If you’re being honest, you think Maria never stopped being sorry for it. Not even after all these years.

You smiled softly at her. “I know,” you said before diving in the bed too.

***

Yours and Maria’s phone was vibrating on your nightstand all-day Sunday but you both decided to ignore it for the weekend. Maria took a peek through after breakfast. You were half sitting, half lying on your back on the couch when she informed you that the Avengers are convening for brunch on the farmer’s market. You looked away from the TV where you’re currently scrolling through Netflix for something to binge.

“Do I look like I plan on going out today?” you asked lazily.

Maria laughed before flopping down next to you.

“You look rather comfy,” she said as she typed out a response to Thor’s invitation.

“You can go if you want.”

You continued your mindless scrolling before you decided on X-Files.

Maria looked up when she heard the opening credits. She smiled broadly at your choice, it’s her favorite. She thought if you choose it, it means you didn’t really want her to go. She finished a text to Tony before powering her mobile off.

“Nah, I think I’ll stay. X-Files is my favorite,” she muttered before scooting closer and cuddling you.

“Nah,” you whispered before leaning down and kissing the top of her head. “I think I’m your favoritest.”

***

Meanwhile, at the diner in front of the Sunday Market, the Avengers sat at the outdoor patio.

“Has anyone heard from Maria and Y/N?” Carol asked agitated while sitting next to Wanda.

Natasha, beautiful Natasha in her black Sunday dress and dark sunglasses frowned oh so little. Tony who arrived last sat next to the redhead.

“Nah, they’re not coming,” Tony declared before popping a fry on his mouth. “Maria said something about not being able to walk properly.”

Everyone gaped at the implication. When Tony looked up and saw his friends’ faces, he just laughed out loud. He always has too much fun making them squirm, and uncomfortable.

“Gross!” Val groaned. She put her headphones back on, effectively tuning out everyone else.

“What?” Tony asked with faux innocence. His grin gave him away though. “Seriously though, they’re not coming. Not even heaven and hell can get in-between those two if they want to be together.”

“They’re that close, huh?” Natasha asked. Trying to mask her intrigue with her carefully constructed poker face.

“Yeah, they’ve known each other since they’re eight, I think,” Tony mused before he got distracted and started fiddling with the smartwatch he was trying to configure.

“If they’re so in love, why aren’t they together?” Steve said with a roll of his eyes. He stood up not long after; he’s clearly not interested in gossiping about you or your love life. When Val saw him leave, she quickly followed.

“Steve has a point?” Carol mused, knitting her perfect eyebrows together.

Thor who was quietly eating and watching people stream in and out of the market suddenly spoke. “There’s definitely a reason why. And if we know, it’s not our story to tell,” he said without looking anywhere but the crowd.

Tony grunted his agreement. “You should get to know her. Maybe, she’ll tell you,” he said before going back to his experiment.

Carol and Natasha looked at each other. Even with Nat’s dark sunglasses up, Carol knew they’re looking straight at each other. And most definitely hatching the same plan; thanks to Tony’s harmless advice.

***

As much as you wanted to prolong the weekend, Mondays are inevitable. To make it worse, you woke up in your bed with the sun beating down your face, and without Maria on your side. She has an early morning class, whereas yours starts after lunch. You looked at your alarm clock, it reads 11:30 AM. You decided to muffle a scream in your pillow before rolling out of bed. 

You can hear your phone notifications going off like crazy but you ignored it. You’re not going to be made to rush your morning routine, just to be able to make it to lunch with your friends. You decided a few hours alone time could be a good thing for you too, to decompress and leave the weekend where it should be. After your shower, you decided to wear black dress pants, an MCR shirt, and a black suit jacket. 

You had roughly an hour before class. So you decided to have lunch at the local cafe library three blocks away from campus. Even on a rush hour, the place is nearly deserted as the owner keeps the SILENCE ordinance strictly in place. Rowdy teenagers hate places where they can’t yell out their stories even though the person they’re talking to is right in front of their faces. Which made the library cafe the perfect sanctuary for you. 

Alas, 1:00 rolled around and you were still two floors below your designated classroom. Thanks to the principal who asked you to carry some of her reports to her office, you’re going to be late on your first literature class this semester. Ten minutes after, you finally arrived at your lecture, panting and sweating through your jacket, in front of your classmates. 

“ты опоздал,” (You’re late) your teacher said sternly. He looks intimidating in his stocky, bearded look but you refuse to be scared by his stature. 

You stood up straight but before you can address the man, a voice you’ve grown to know well spoke all the way from the back of the class. “Сэр, она здесь новенькая,” (Sir, she’s new here) Natasha spoke confidently. 

The teacher didn’t even take his eyes off you. “Это ничего не оправдывает” (It doesn’t excuse anything).

Before Natasha can think to defend you again, you cleared your throat before speaking up for yourself. “Извините, профессор Шостаков. Это больше не повторится,” (I'm sorry Professor Shostakov. It won't happen again), you said in perfect Russian. 

“Ах! Она разговаривает. Зовите меня Алекси,” (Ah! She speaks. Call me Alexi) you professor said with a hint of a small on his bearded face. You smiled back politely. Had you been looking around, everyone including Natasha looked surprised you speak the language extremely well.

“Вы хорошо говорите на русском,” (You speak Russian well but you don't look like one), the professor assessed. 

“Определенно не русский, но ездил туда пару раз на технические соглашения.” (Definitely not Russian but traveled there a couple of times for tech conventions.)

Professor Alexi stared at you for a minute before he put your identity together. “Heads up, Natasha. You’ve got competition. Sit down Miss Y/L/N,” he waved you away smiling before turning back to the class and continuing his lecture introduction.

Natasha waved at you to sit next to her. You shook your head when you reached her. “I’m totally not competing with you,” you whispered for only Natasha to hear. 

“Why not? That should be fun,” she whispered back. 

You had to lean back to look at her face to gauge if she’s being serious. You can see her biting her lip to prevent herself from smiling. “Are you sure about that? I don’t think you’ll like losing.”

She just had to crack a smile at that. You turned your attention back to the professor who just pulled out a book from inside his briefcase. The class let out a collective groan but not you, if you’re correct in your assumption as to what’s to come next, you’re excited. 

“Alright. Settle down, children,” Alexi’s voice boomed around the whole room. “This semester, I’m assigning Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina as your reading.”

The announcement garnered another wave of disapproval. Natasha raised her hand. 

“Yes, Natasha?”

“What’s the catch, Professor?” she asked. Alexi smiled at the young redhead. 

The bell rang. Before children can think to run out of class, the professor answered. “It’ll be in Russian text but I’m not unreasonable…” he was cut short by the class disagreeing with that statement too. “As I was saying, I’m not unreasonable. So you’ll be reviewing this book with a partner. Free-range.”

The class quickly turned towards their friends and partnered up before leaving the classroom. You and Nat were the last to leave. 

“So, no one asked me to be their partner,” Natasha said almost sheepishly. 

“I think they know that you’re mine.” 

Natasha was sure her face is as red as a tomato. When you look at her, you smiled confirmed it but you decided to say nothing about it. Instead, you reached out and held Nat’s hand before pulling her to walk with you.

Natasha was not averse per se to public displays of affection but she’s never dated anyone before who deliberately held her hand in public, except for one. When you noticed Natasha’s silence, you glanced over your shoulder to look at her. You stop on your tracks and turned to her. 

“Tasha,” you said. Only one person calls her that too. “What’s wrong?”

She looked at you before her gaze involuntarily dropped towards your conjoined hands. You quickly let her hand drop. Natasha frowned just as fast. 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” you apologized sincerely. “I just didn’t wanna lose you in the crowd.”

That was a lame-ass excuse. Especially since there’s no crowd but you know there was really no logical explanation as to why you suddenly wanted to be physically connected to her; except that you want to. Before you blow a fuss overthinking though, you felt Natasha’s reaching for you and practically dragging you by the hand to steer you towards your next class.

“It’s okay, I just got caught off-guard,” she said before bumping your shoulders together. Both of you started giggling.

***

Natasha didn’t have another class after Russian Lit. So she walked you to the science labs for your chemistry with Mr. Banner. The labs are built as a stand-alone structure near the pond and away from the main building. The two of you spent the walk exchanging stories about anything except Anna Karenina.

“This is you,” Nat said when you arrived at the door of the labs.

You smiled at her. Something about Natasha just makes you feel grounded, and you like it. By the way, Natasha smiles at you often, and the way she goes out of her way to make you feel included and safe, you know that the feeling is mutual. You’re still cautious though. You’re playing on fire, and you know someone can get hurt if you’re not careful.

Before you can let go of Nat, someone rudely cleared their throat behind the redhead. When you glanced past her shoulder, you’re met by blazing hazel eyes. Carol is gripping the side of her backpack tightly, her knuckles are visibly turning white. Nat turned and saw Carol but didn’t make a move to let go of you.

“Carol,” she greeted. Smile too broad to be taken as friendly.

Carol gritted her teeth. “Tasha.”

If anyone has a plastic spoon on their hand right then and there, you were pretty sure they could cut the tension using it. You didn’t know exactly what to say or do, you’re entranced by the intensity of the two women in front of you. Thankfully, you were saved when Bruce suddenly opened the door. He was rather perplexed with the three of you standing idly on the spot.

“What are you three still doing here? The class’s about to start,” he said. “I’m just gonna make a quick phone call. Get inside.”

“Alright. I got to go. See you later?” Natasha said after Bruce walked past the three of you.

You smiled and nodded at her. Carol frowned deeper when Nat just walked around her without saying goodbye. You watched Carol take deep, calming breathes with her eyes closed.

“You okay, Car?”

Carol released one last heavy sigh before looking into your eyes. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Yeah,” she answered before opening the door for you. “It’s nothing.”

***

It wasn’t nothing.

When you sat next to each other at the back of the lab, Carol barely talked to you. You tried engaging her before class started but by either the lack of or short responses from the blonde, you figured seeing Nat holding someone else’s hand before classes really did a number on her. So you let it go, and decided to focus on the lecture and the assigned worksheet for the day. When class was over, Bruce asked you and Carol to stay behind.

Carol looked nervous. You stood in front of her to stop her from glaring at Bruce and getting in more trouble than she might already be. It effectively made her look you in the eye.

“I’m sure everything’s okay,” you tried to assure her. Your hand going on both her shoulders. And just like that, all the tension on the blonde’s body evaporated, along with it is her shitty mood towards you.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Remember the test we had to take before we took a break? I think I flanked it.”

You remember. You also remembered Carol looking rather disheveled more that day too.

“Miss Danvers, I think you know why I called you here,” Bruce cut in. When Carol just frowned and bowed her head, Bruce continued. “You can’t flank any class, Miss Danvers. Your sports scholarship is on the line.”

“I know,” Carol answered. Her usual confident, happy personality gone at the moment. “I was just distracted.”

“I can tutor her,” you suggested.

Carol looked at you with wide eyes. Bruce smiled. “That’s exactly why I asked you to stay, actually.”

“No! No, no. You can’t ask her to do that,” Carol came to her senses and disagreed.

“Technically, he didn’t ask me. I volunteered,” you answered cheekily.

“But you’re busy too.”

“Not for you, I’m not,” you said sincerely and without hesitation.

Carol couldn’t argue after that. Bruce watched the interaction with a smile. “That’s settled then. Now, leave my lab.”

Without another thought, you reached for Carol’s hands too without thinking too much; just like how you did with Natasha.

“Are you sure you’re good to help me?”

You glanced over your shoulder. “Duh. Besides, now I don’t have to make an excuse to spend time with you.”

Carol blushed at that.

***

You’ve been having study sessions with Nat and Carol for a month and a half now. As much as possible you try to study with the two separately, as studying together can be a little stressful. Especially when Natasha and Carol can’t stop teasing each other until one of them gets seriously pissed. Knowing each other too well for too long, made pushing each other’s buttons pretty easy. 

Natasha gets pretty riled up every time Carol gets handsy with you. You didn’t mind, to be honest. You liked being in Carol’s personal space because it feels warm and safe. Being around Carol makes you feel protected; a feeling so scarce in your childhood, you almost forgot what it feels like. It doesn’t help your cause that Carol’s the type of woman who doesn’t take herself very seriously, and laughs at her own jokes; you love that about her. When Carol laughs your heart skips a beat or two, no matter how much you try to deny and compartmentalize it.

Carol, on the other hand, gets pissed when you and Natasha discuss the book in Russian; completely alienating the blonde from the conversation. You couldn’t help it though, Natasha is a whole new level of experience. Being around Natasha is playing solving your favorite puzzle. You knew Natasha’s smart through stories you’ve heard from your friends but interacting with Natasha every day, and studying together allowed you to delve into the beauty of her brain. You just love being able to pick her brains every day. 

You knew you like them from the get-go. You even confessed to Maria about it but only after you started studying with those two that you figured it’s growing to be more than just a schoolgirl crush. And by then, it was too late to hit the brakes. You’ve flown too close to the sun, and now your falling.

Just thinking about it is making you cringe for so many reasons. 

First, you don’t do feelings. You haven’t in a long time. You haven’t since Maria was adopted. A conversation that arises once when you went to Lake Tahoe to help the Odinson brothers clean up their cabin. 

Loki caught a glimpse of the wallpaper on your phone after you set it down on the center table. It’s a photo of you and Maria the weekend you ditched lunch at the Sunday Market. 

“Hey Y/N, I hope you don’t mind but I have a question,” he started.

You took two sips of your beer before answering. “I don’t mind. What is it?”

Loki looked hesitant at first. “How come you and Maria aren’t together? You had a history, right?”

Thor elbowed his younger brother when he caught the sad look on your face. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

You blinked a couple of times to get you situated back in the present. You smiled at the boys, and they know, by the way, that your smile didn’t reach your eyes that you’re only being polite.

“It’s okay. The answer is pretty simple actually,” you paused to take a huge swig of your beer. The brothers glanced at each other. “She didn’t choose me.”

The silence that followed is palpable. You figured the boys didn’t know what to say or didn’t know how to proceed. You leaned back on the couch and tucked your feet under you before launching into the story.

“It’s a long time ago. We had another friend from the orphanage, his name is Bucky. He’s Maria’s first love.”

“Let me guess, she’s yours?” Loki asked, leaning forward, clearly intrigued

“She was.”

“Did she know?”

“She does. I never lied to her.”

“And then?” You chuckled at Loki’s eagerness. 

“Bucks older than us. So he aged out of the system and decided to move away. He kept in touch though.”

“What happened next?” Thor prompted you to continue. 

“And then Nick adopted Maria. Nick travels a lot for work. So he gave Maria the option to stay and make the town ‘home base’ or move somewhere else. You can guess what she chose.”

“Why our humble town then?” Loki couldn’t help but wonder.

“I found out that Bucky was here for a while.” 

“You found out?” Loki stood from his chair and started pacing. “You helped her find the guy he likes over you?” 

“I did.”

“Why?” Loki is frustrated now. “I thought you’re a genius.”

“I never subscribe to that term, and because I love her,” you answered confidently. By the look on your face, Thor understands that you don’t regret your decision, not even for a second. 

“You’re an idiot.”

“Brother!” Thor warned but you just laughed. A genuine laugh this time. 

“I know but Bucky’s the real idiot for letting Maria go.”

Maria leaving scarred you more than you let people know. It is the reason why you stopped getting attached to people and developed a very transactional way of dealing with partners instead. You developed rules of engagement to which you and your partners should uphold. 

Rule # 1: Don’t get attached. The fun stops when the feeling starts. 

Rule # 2: If you’re the one who starts having feelings first, leave. Leave before they can leave you.

Second, Carol and Natasha are your friends. You don’t fuck friends, not after Maria that is. You find it more complicated to extricate yourself from the situation and execute Rule # 2 then because you don’t quit on your friends. Especially, friends, you can’t just ignore or ghost when things go up in flames because you live in the same town, go to the same school, goes to the same parties, have the same crew, and friends you have regular breakfast and brunches with. Leaving would be too complicated, and probably heart-wrenching. 

Lastly, you’re pretty sure Nat and Carol have history. No one talks about it, not even Maria. So either, the rest of the team doesn’t know or they all agreed not to talk about it. Either way, you have eyes, and you can see the way they look at each other when they don’t think anyone was looking. It’s still full of love, and that’s the worse fuel for your hesitation. If the two still has unresolved issues and feelings with each other, it’ll be idiotic to stand in the eye of a brewing storm.

***

In the course of studying together, Nat and Carol came clean about their feelings towards you of course. On separate occasions, of course. You also laid out your cards on the table. You told both of them your history with Maria. You told them you weren’t ready, not because you’re still hanged up on your best friend but because you’ve created a thick wall of ice around your heart that it’ll take time for it to thaw. They said they understood, they said they’ll wait.

So you don’t understand why you’re watching the two women who nearly swore on their feelings for you lip-locked, sharing spit with Steve and Valkyrie in the ballroom of Thor’s mansion where you’re currently having a party. You don’t understand why this is happening now, when you’ve already made a decision.

They’re too engrossed with each other, they didn’t even hear your glass of scotch breaking in your hand. You’re too absorbed in deciphering whether what you’re seeing is reality or a by-product of a nightmare you willingly walked into.

“What the fuck?!”

Tony screaming behind you broke you out of your reverie. Your eyes started to water, you could feel the pain in your hand as a broken glass dug into your palm. Unfortunately, the pairs broke away from each other too. Nat and Carol’s eyes instantly connected with yours. Your tear-stained face, and bloody hands cut through their alcohol addled brain.

“Y/N,” they whispered at the same time before scrambling to get off Steve and Valkyrie’s lap.

You smiled before turning on your heels and running away.

***

Taglist: @kaytoopio @marvelfansince08love @marvelb00kwolf @shycucumbersandwich @subject7creed

[crusherthedoctor]

The Lutrudis Hadeer Characterization Masterpost

A while back, I made a big post about the thought process that went into the design for Lutrudis, as well as her name, species, and choice of weapons. In the midst of doing a bunch of other stuff (like the Eggman Sweet or Shite review, which is definitely still coming guys I swear, please don't leave me D':), I recently figured I could do the same for the character's... well, character, and provide some further insight into how her personality was shaped together. Cause why not, right?

Obviously, we won't be covering literally every single personality trait that Trudy has, like her hobbies and whatnot. If we went over all of that, we'd be so far into the future that Tumblr's search system might actually start working again. No, we'll just be keeping it to the central ingredients that make up the overall package.

1. A cool head? In my Sonic OC?

The recurring cast in the Sonic universe is filled with fiery, hot-blooded sorts in one way or another. Sonic might as well be the love child of Mentos and Diet Coke with how full of energy he is, Knuckles and Amy are both prone to letting their temper do the talking, Eggman... is Eggman, and the list goes on. And while there are a number of characters who are more low-key or even outright introverted by comparison, they still tend to exhibit a trait or two that makes them more in-line with the rest of the crowd, be it youthful excitement (Tails, Cream), a fiery temper (Blaze), or the odd bit of cockiness (Shadow).

So what better way to help make Trudy stand out... than by not really having anything like that at all? Contrary to most of the hot-blooded cast, it takes a lot to truly enrage her, and even then, you'll be lucky to get anything past tranquil fury. She's not particularly hammy either - flowery with her language at times, certainly, but not hammy - nor is she a cocky type, even against the weakest or most ridiculous of opponents, and although she does grow as a person over the course of the story she's involved in, all of this remains fairly consistent.

That's not to say that Trudy is not a passionate person. Far from it, in fact. She has a lot of passion. She just shows it in a different way than the average Sonic character.

2. Lutrudis? More like Unsureofdis.

Uncertain characters are also somewhat rare in Sonic's recurring cast (at least in the game universe), and just like with the previous point, even when they're there, they'll usually have something to counter it. Blaze may have been a bit insecure before meeting and befriending Sonic and Co, but as mentioned, she’s got a fierce temper, and even when she started off on her own, she felt that only she could take care of the threat of Eggman and Inferior Eggman Nega. Likewise, while Silver may have doubted himself about Leslie the Crack Dealer’s Iblis Trigger ruse cruise, he still got cocky when he had Sonic on the ropes, and he could be quite full of himself in the Rivals duology as well.

The point being, they still tend to show some semblance of the same “yep, I'm the one for the job, no questions asked” confidence and swagger that nearly everyone else has, no matter the flavor. Trudy, suffice to say, does not have this mentality. Trudy accepting Sonic and Co's help in dealing with sinister affairs in Viridonia without any haughty protest on her part isn't just because she knows they can handle it, or because they're Sonic Heroes and they'll show 'em the real superpower of teamwork... it's also because she's genuinely not sure if she would be able to take care of the matter on her own.

When she saved Cream from the wrath of the Wraith for example, she wasn't thinking “This looks like a job for Miss Hadeer!”

She was thinking “This could very well get me killed, but I have to help the poor bunny somehow...”

In other words, Trudy doesn't consider herself to be some sort of destined protector who has to do this herself. She constantly second guesses herself, and frequently believes her friends are more qualified and competent than she is. Her only reason for doing her best and helping out regardless is simply because she wants to.

3. A light at the end of the tunnel.

For the sake of tact, it's not shoved in your face relentlessly, but reading between the lines, it can be easy to get a sense of melancholy from Trudy. Particularly due to past experiences, she does indeed have an element of depression within her, and this can occasionally show in her body language and facial expressions, even if she's currently feeling positive emotions.

And yet, notice how she continues being a friendly pony. Notice how regardless of her experiences, and her thoughts on said experiences, her actual behaviour is (mostly) free of bitterness or cynicism, and that she doesn't hide the joy that her new friends make her feel. She's not outright ignoring her experiences or pretending they don’t affect her, because they clearly have affected her, and she's never ignored her scars (metaphorically and literally, the latter being a permanent side-effect of her condition), but she knows better than to let it consume her, so she tries her best to look at the bright side of life even during the darkest days.

It's Sonic's opinion that Trudy's inner spirit is a lot stronger than she thinks, with or without his help. Her refusal to give into misery and lash out at the world foreshadows that he's not unjustified in that belief. That, and it ties into the franchise’s usual taste for optimism and idealism against the odds.

4. Hadeer? More like Hadork.

So, everything thus far helps set Trudy up as a mellow, down-to-earth sort of personality. So far, so good. However, it's still the Sonic the Hedgehog universe we're talking about, filled with many colorful characters of all shapes, sizes, and eccentricities. When a franchise has a larger than life cast in a larger than life world, the characters who are meant to be grounded often risk coming off as boring and could end up easily overshadowed, because the creators or writers often neglect to give them any quirks of their own, usually out of fear that it'll disgrace the character's gracefulness. In fact, I personally feel this was a common problem with Sally, in both SatAM and Archie (mostly pre-reboot admittedly).

IMO, these writers are just being plain old silly. Just because a character is quirky doesn't mean they forfeit all their dignity altogether. Like a lot of things in life, you just have to balance it out, and that's what I did (or tried to do...) with the green equine.

So yes, Trudy is elegant, but she's also a really goofy dancer. Yes, she's gentle and motherly, but she also goes back and forth between being a heavy sleeper and being an insomniac. Yes, she serves as a warmhearted auntie figure for Cream (and a big sister figure for Amy), but she also spends a quarter of her time looking like a ninja with the way her bandana covers her face (whether it be due to cold weather, strong scents triggering her sensitive nose, or doing it in the presence of villains as a mildly theatrical way of visually conveying her disdain for them).

And of course, in the right situation, she can be just as much of a dork as the titular blue hedgehog is.

Which leads me to my next point...

5. “You might know everything I'm going to do...”

Trudy was created with the intention of having a character who is actually like Sonic himself in a lot of ways, but it's not apparent initially.

This sort of yin-yang contrasting routine has been done before a few times in the series, with Knuckles, Shadow and Blaze being the most obvious examples. But with them, their similarities are easier to spot from a distance. Knuckles is more earth than wind, but you can tell he's as stubborn as Sonic is. Shadow's methods and outlook differ, but you can tell he's still a mirror of Sonic (cause you know, he looks like him). Blaze is more distant, but you can tell how she can easily be just as worked up and angered as Sonic.

With Trudy however, if you take her at face value, you would think she's the exact opposite of Sonic. She's an introvert, he's an extrovert. She's got a calm temperament, he can get impatient even at the best of times. She's quite fancy, he's more rough and tumble. She takes things slowly, he leaps ahead without a care in the world... You would think that, outside of them both fighting for good, they would have nothing in common, and that their dynamic would be more akin to Sonic's relationship with Sally, which although they were friends, their relationship could often be somewhat rocky due to their differences in... basically every area and opinion imaginable.

But then you get to know Trudy, and the unfolding of the adventure reveals the rest of what she has to offer. The aforementioned soldiering on in spite of any depressed moments is in itself a small hint that Trudy shares Sonic's philosophy of never giving up. She believes that most people are good at their core, and while she won't excuse especially evil people or actions and will punish them appropriately (albeit with regret that it had to come to that), she's willing to give a chance to those who are willing to take it, just like with the Blue Blur. Not only does she NOT find Sonic's jokes and hijinks annoying, she actually has a similar sense of humor herself. And while reasonable people generally tend to loathe injustice and oppression, Trudy shares Sonic's uniquely intense contempt for it, and believes in one's own personal freedom just as much as the hedgehog does, let alone freedom in general.

In short, Trudy is what you get when you take Sonic's deeper qualities and general outlook on life, and apply them to a more introverted and taciturn personality. The exact same beliefs, but from a different perspective, so to speak.

6. A different kind of intelligence.

Tails and Eggman are the resident kings of scientific prowess in Sonic's world, and it goes without saying that I wouldn't want to do them a disservice by having Trudy one-up them in that department. But that doesn't mean your character can’t be talented in other areas, right? Contrary to what all those Mary Sue tests dictate, your character can in fact have a high IQ without intruding on an official character’s territory.

Therefore, Trudy is pretty good at innovation and craftsmanship in her own right, but whereas Tails and Eggman do it through technology, her field of expertise is more to do with arts and crafts, and to a lesser extent geology. For example, both her bow and her whip were crafted by the lady herself, using nothing but her decorative knowledge and flair.

Outside of that, she tends to know a fair bit about a lot of things in the world, largely attributed to her photographic memory, meaning she's bound to have a few answers no matter the subject of discussion. Granted, she's unlikely to be the absolute number one expert on any of those things, but she's at least a useful jack of all trades in that regard.

7. Feeling a little horse.

I very much approve and flat out adore the idea of Sonic characters having characteristics that remind the audience of what species they're supposed to be, so I made sure that Trudy had a wide selection of little mannerisms that would reveal her for the little horsie that she is. These include, but aren't limited to...

- When she’s fascinated or concerned by something, she’ll lean a little forward with her hands close to her chest, which subtly mimics the act of prancing.

- When she wakes up, she briefly stretches her arms and legs (albeit not too recklessly so as to risk straining her sensitive limbs).

- Her tail has a number of quirks. If she's happy, it might slowly swish to and fro. If she's REALLY happy, it might flick...

- And if she doesn't approve of someone or something, it might stiffen and raise a little bit, as if to helpfully inform the bad guys where they can kiss, if ya know what I'm saying.

- When she's being affectionate with her friends, she might give them the ol' nuzzle.

- When she's in a playful mood, there might be a little skip in her walk, the anthro equivalent of trotting.

- When she's annoyed, she might humorously let out a snort that sounds identical to a real life horse snort. And while she certainly doesn't neigh in the traditional sense, when she finds something hilarious or Sonic's making her laugh with his antics, her laughter can't help but take on a neigh-like touch to it. (The latter was actually a headcanon suggested by @darklightheart​, and I immediately agreed with it because it's cute and funny in equal measures.)

Naturally, she gets all shy and embarrassed when the neigh-laugh comes out, thinking it sounds silly. At least Sonic finds it endearing.

Note that I'm well aware that some of this differs from how real life horses react to certain things. (Eg: tail swishing tends to happen when a horse is agitated rather than happy.) But I freely admit that it's more for the sake of giving the character that extra bit of soul than it is for utmost accuracy. That's the way it goes with fiction sometimes. :P

Interestingly, Trudy tends to get Sonic indulging in a funny hedgehog characteristic of his own. That being, he might curl into a ball if Trudy's being particularly... ~complimentary~ towards him.

And there we are! These are the core elements that make up Trudy’s characterization. If you ever wanted a general list of what makes her tick, then hopefully this post will help in scratching that itch. And if it doesn’t, then hopefully it still proves that more thought was put into her than Scourge. :]