#no show has so thoroughly separated a character into these different personalities and timelines for me

[kure-kirika]

I'm gonna write about my hcs for Homura as a system bc she has a Lot going on from that angle. I was going to wait until I finished a chart I had been drawing and sorted out each part's 'role' to my satisfaction, but I Really want to share it it's my favorite puella magi hc.

Ok so Akemi Homura. Firstly she has been through a LOT of trauma and bullshit so it's not even remotely a stretch to consider (esp given she has a history of frequent medical issues even before the main story).

Secondly she has some dissociative instances that happen as pretty plot-relevant things - the entire plot of Rebellion, for one. And, depending on how 'canon' you view it, Wraith Arc is another example of dissociative coding wrt memory issues/barriers, and carries a lot of plural coding on its own. Not to mention her incredibly detached approach in everything is a form of dissociation, as a response to being in an ongoing traumatic situation (being a magical girl and constantly having her friends taken from her or turning on her)

And honestly I'm just citing base examples off the top of my head and could most likely go into more in depth analysis for any of these points.

So she gives me strong system vibes. But furthermore, she'd be a rare case in media of a character with Multiple alters beyond just the 'good vs evil' trope, had this been done intentionally. And so I've picked out multiple alters that would compose her system, between the anime storylines and Wraith Arc, so I'm gonna list those out. As I said I haven't sorted out everyone's function/origin Thoroughly but I have pretty clear ideas for each.

Glasses Homura or 'Moemura' - the closest to the undissociated Homura, chronologically speaking and potentially in terms of function/personality. Might just have been the host for her daily life prior to her contract. Represented of course by wearing glasses, but her hair being braided (as seen in Rebellion) is another shorthand indication of her presence in the scene.

Akemi Homura, as we see her in the main series - most likely the second oldest alter seen by us. Formed directly to function as the main face of the system, as well as the system protector most likely. she's a sort of shield for the system by detaching all of her trauma and past timeline experiences from the present moment, acting as coldly and shut off as possible to further their collective goal (saving Madoka) and prevent emotional overwhelm. This also doubles to protect her more vulnerable alters and emotions, because as seen in flashbacks of earlier loops letting those show more often backfires than helps.

Wraith Madoka [Wraith Arc] - an introject alter modeled after Madoka. Unfortunately I haven't reread much of her part and my notes on her are elsewhere but I think she exists as a sort of... maybe soother for the system in a way, helping Madoka feel real in a reality where she is not.

Rapunzel Witch/Wraith Witch [Wraith Arc] - I'd probably classify this witch as a persecutor or other aggressive alter. She is born from the old memories and trauma, which is rejected by Homura in this story via memory manipulation (dissociation). This is done because this witch threatens Everything Homura has fought for and is initially represented in the story as Madoka's witch self, Kriemhild Gretchen, which further pushes that divide. The Rapunzel Witch is then fused with a Wraith and grows out of control, fueled by the power of Another antagonist to Madoka's world order (according to Homura's pov). The Wraith Witch then begins killing everything instantly, including Mami and Kyouko, and sets about destroying what Homura holds dear and/or has sworn to protect and keep safe.

Ai [Wraith Arc] - not entirely sure if I should count her separately from Wraith Madoka or not? Narratively she's essentially The Same Individual but everything about her is different functionally, so it might be a subystem deal or a case where Wraith!Mado split off of her. Ai was born narratively to manage Homura's memories, a representation of the 'miracle' that lets Homura retain her memories of the old reality. But she functions independently of Homura at points, as 'a part of Homura's soul that was eaten by a wraith'. She is the essence behind the creation of Wraith!Madoka as well as the individual behind its independent movements, all unbeknownst to Homura herself during this storyline.

Clara dolls [Rebellion] - these are already pretty clearly defined for us by the text, I think primarily as emotional holders and/or maybe fragments. I'm likewise unsure if I'd count Wraith Arc's Ai as part of their number, she has the same name as the unseen doll Ai but her function is somewhat different in practice. This might be chalked up to her being more consistently active than the others though, given how much "Ai (love)" drives Homura forward

Homulilly (black dress) [Rebellion] - I think I'd break her into two alters, given we have the black dress homura and then the fully-formed witch. In terms of black dress.... She's hard to gauge since I think her behavior blurs a lot with Homura's? But her motivation is different. She might also be a protector, but designed specifically for her Witch counterpart.

Homulilly (witch) [Rebellion] - This witch is most likely a trauma holder, which I think is pretty self-explanatory given what we see of her on-screen. I would probably count any portrayals of Homura during her scenes as Also her, especially the scene with Madoka's arm reaching through the window to her.

Homucifer [Rebellion] - whoo boy ok. Not sure what I'd classify her as. With her whole spiel and self-assignment of "The Devil of this world" she leans into persecutor territory in a way? But, her true motivation has nothing to do with painting herself as evil or punishing herself. Nor is her true motivation being Selfish and taking what she wants without thought. Her true focus is that Madoka becoming a God, separated from her friends and family, was Wrong, and so Homucifer exists to forcibly reunite Madoka with the life she gave up, no matter the cost. Selfishness is a factor, as is self-deprecation, but really her aim isn't anything straightforward beyond furthering the collective system's united goal of Saving Madoka, so idk what her Function is beyond filling that niche in a way the others can't.

So that's what I've got on her! Hopefully it all makes sense, if anyone has anything to add feel free!

[eternalchant]

it's truly the way that jimmy, saul, and gene aren't the same man

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Nightwing 83 Review

guess who isn't weeks late this time. my opinion of the series is going up a little bit. it's still not great, but i'm not actively put off by it anymore the way i was after 81. not going to tag as spoilers, but be warned that they are under the cut

i’m sure you all are well aware of this but now, but dear god i love bruno redondo’s art. like, an unhealthy amount. the pink and blue is getting to be a theme with either him or just this run, but i am definitely enjoying it. the movement in this cover is clearly obvious, but well done. you recoznize right off the bat that the cover was drawn to drag your eyes down the page until you get to the bottom, but you enjoy the whole ride there. 

also, redondo’s way of drawing a character in stages of action so we can see just how much they’re doing in a split second of movement is quickly becoming something i like to see drawn with dick, and any other character that has that sort of ease of movement and body sense, like cass or sin or maybe a super. 

and he’s in action the entire time! there’s shot drawn just to show off a shirtless comic book character, the way nightwing is so often subjected to. he’s shirtless because he’s changing his clothes, and that’s all we see, no more and no less. very practical, very well done. i like it.

he looks so cute right here oh my god. the little squint, the hair curls. it’s adorable.

but also like. unless melinda has specifically outfitted the door spyhole so that the person on the other side can’t see dick looking through it (and in all honesty she might have) then everyone on the other side can see dick looking through that door. 

bringing your attention back to the “i can’t see melinda’s fbi file oh no!! it’s redacted!! whatever can we do!!” stupidity. redacted files are child’s play for oracle, and definitely doable for both dick and bruce. so that’s bullshit.

now, melinda apparently grew up with the maroni family, then took down part of the family from the inside. the maroni family is a large and notable presence in gotham, one that bruce pays a respectable amount of attention to. he definitely would have grown suspicious when two members of the maroni family were taken down, and with some investigation, he would have discovered melinda’s plan. and it should go without saying that the majority of things you see batman doing? dick can do it too.

it’s not so much that i don’t like how clever the villains/antiheroes are getting. i don’t like how dc heroes are increasingly written as less intelligent. they seem to be relying on pure fighting skills or luck, which may be the case for a couple heroes, but has never been the case for most of dc’s big name heroes, the bat family included. it’s irritating to me to see this sort of stuff pop up as a major plot point when i know that, if dick or bruce had been written with the amount of skill and power that they canonically possess, this entire mess would have been sorted out years ago.

unrelated but dick and melinda have the same hair

this may just be me, but i was always under the impression that dick doesn’t really have a “double life???”

yes, he’s talented enough to create enough differences between robin/nightwing and dick grayson’s mannerisms, way of movement, voices, and speech patterns so that it’s very difficult to put the two together.

but nightwing has never been separate from dick grayson, not the way bruce and batman is. he’s always leaned more towards clark in that aspect: his hero persona is an exaggerated, stately, larger-than-life version of who he really is. there’s no second persona, no real “dick grayson identity” and “nightwing identity.” they’re the same person with the same goals, ideas, and skills. one just pretends to abide by the law, and one gives up pretense of that.

oh good thank god. if he’d trusted her right off the bat (hehe. bat.) i would have slapped him upside the head. at least he’s still got instincts.

gosh the colouring on this is cool. the red has enough purple and pink tones to it that it doesn’t abruptly ruin the tone of the artwork. but it’s definitely glaring enough to take the reader outside of this personal moment they had slipped into between dick and melinda, to put them back in the present where they’re reminded that oh yea there are people hunting dick down. 

the next panel keeps this up too, in a less severe way. melinda’s bodyguard shows up (i forgot her name sorry :[ ) and subtly places us in the middle of an action scene rather than a private, personal scene.

laughing so fucking hard have our little vigilantes grown so accustomed to breaking into places that it doesn’t even register as a crime anymore??? tim coming in through the fire escape to pick bernard up for their date and being very much confused as to why bernard is freaking out.

i really like melinda’s shirt and now despite all the work i have to do and the fucking conference i have to host on monday i want to spend hours scrolling through clothing shops online trying to find this shirt. the mock neck/neckline is so cool i want it

so roland just assumes that a very dangerous vigilante who is highly talented in combat and a very dangerous bodyguard who is also highly talented in combat had a fight that ended with this very dangerous bodyguard being tied up and she looks completely fine? roland just assumes that her having no visible wounds or bruises means that they got into a fight and she lost that easily? uh. aight then

dick what are you doing. legitimately what the fuck are you doing. why are you posing oh my god. you are injured and tired and in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with one of main enemies. jesus christ run away or head to lower ground or something. don’t just stand around letting the floodlights show exactly where you are.

i don’t understand what he’s trying to do here??? blockbuster fully bought the story that dick fought them both, won, tried to get info out of them and failed, then hightailed it out of there. he didn’t have to draw roland out for a fight.

but it does look cool. the way the light just highlights his silhouette and the blue parts of his costume does look badass. he does get style points in my book for this.

w h a t  d i d  i  f u c k i n g  t e l l  y o u ,  d i c k ?

very classic superhero line and it does sound like something dick would say in a fit of righteous rage but also it makes me laugh so hard because all vigilantes think they’re so powerful that the law doesn’t apply to them. dick vigilantism is illegal. you’re acting above the law and pretending it doesn’t apply to you. hypocritical much?

it happens so often in superhero movies, tv shows, comics, whatever and it makes me giggle every damn time.

pretty decent comeback but before i start seeing people writing blockbuster as a thug i’m going to remind you that he made a deal with a demon for genius level intellect. if this turns into another bane situation i’m going to be a little miffed. he’s a smart man, which makes him a dangerous and infinitely more interesting enemy for nightwing.

this is so horribly in character i want to scream. (or. at least. it lines up with one of the versions of nightwing i have in my head.) he’s running right towards the bullets, miraculously doesn’t get shot, while making a sort-of pun. i hate this so much. i love him.

this is cool. this art is really really cool.

he leaped from a building right towards a helicopter that’s actively shooting at him, but none of the bullets are touching him. none of the corruption of the city can touch him no matter how hard it tries, because he’s too good to be corrupted. Comic Book Logic Can Be Good Sometimes Actually.

batman’s belt what??? swiss army knife who?? sorry, i only know nightwing’s bright blue escrima.

this is one of my favourite things about heroes with exceptional abilities, even more so if the hero is human. the things they can do are so far beyond the realm of normal human abilities that it’s equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring every time they act.

he just used modified grappling wires to hook to the door of a moving helicopter, swung around the helicopter safely without hitting the blades, gained exactly the right momentum to swing upward again right through the opening of helicopter, then fought and tied up the men before they had any idea what was happening. that’s near impossible to do.

it’s stuff like this where i just sort of sigh in contentment. no matter how many times they leave out dick’s detective skills or conveniently forget that he’s actually a master planner and team leader and make him out to be this forgetful dude who makes everything up on the fly because of his “circus roots,” at least they won’t ever take away dick’s sheer physical ability honed to perfection. 

the art, too! in a few panels, dick’s drawn a little lightened or blurred. he’s moving so quickly and fighting so efficiently that he can barely be seen by the enemy. he’s got perfect form all the way through.

and THIS!

there was a helicopter that had five men shooting at him with what looks like machine guns. most people would be dead. some would run away, and be nimble enough to survive without fatal hits. there are very few people, even in fucking comic books, who can look at that hopeless situation and turn it around so quickly and thoroughly that he benefits from it instead.

i just. love nightwing.

it was funny the first time as a comic reader aware of the meme. it’s really not anymore. why the hell would you, in universe, be wearing a shirt that has a picture of your boyfriend being hit in the face by his father. 

okay that was funny. 

look at lil bitewing, so concerned for her human!!! love her sm. 

also a question as to the timeline of things. is nightwing happening before or after urban legends? 

i was so distracted by dick wearing a robe and briefs and nothing else that i didn’t register the second part until later. he slept for two days?? babs, baby, he recently had a very traumatic brain injury. why do you sound so nonchalant?

@TIM X COFFEE SHIPPERS GET FUCCCCKKKKEEDDDDD

ngl i totally forgot about that dude oops

this comic is giving so many reaction pictures. you know how you always use the worst possible picture of your friend for your friend’s contact picture? i’m just getting so many of these.

leslie!!! the titans!!! lucius!!! dick going to go see old friends!!!! the titans!!! this part made me so irrationally happy it really did. gar being the one to just. offer dick solutions with open arms. this was the best

i wish i could just copy and paste this entire scene, but that would take up way too much space, so i’m just going to talk about it instead. 

you gave me my name, nightwing, and you gave me some of the best advice i’ve received in my life: beautiful little throwback to nightwing’s origin. you’d be surprised at the amount of people who don’t know where the name came from, or who don’t know how much clark means to dick. and the fact that dick still looks up to clark as a hero, recognizes that clark isn’t always perfect and yet continues to hold him in such high esteem, and still looks back on advice that clark gave him fondly just warmed my heart so much.

for a man who has fearlessly stood up to darkseid, bruce will do a lot to avoid a conversation: “grrr. i’m the BATMAN. i’m so DARK and MYSTERIOUS. nobody knows the true me. no one ever will. i will be LONELY for the rest of my CURSED LIFE. such is the price of a hero. ignore my farmer himbo husband in the background”

but i don’t think there’s anything heroic about being a billionaire: another nod to how much dick follows clark’s example rather than bruce. yes, this was a very poignant and important criticism, and i think it’s wonderful that this was published in a pretty popular comic book. but the thing is, there is a way to be a heroic billionaire, but only in fictional universes. the way bruce, ollie, t’challa only ever use their wealth to help people. they donate massive amounts of money to charities that they themselves create so they know exactly how the money is being used. they hire people who aren’t likely to get jobs anywhere else and pay them much more than what a base living wage is. they use their power to help push progressive laws and social change. they are helping. 

dick doesn’t fully see it that way. he spent more than half his childhood the son of a billionaire, but still believes that one could be more heroic when one doesn’t have obscene amounts of wealth. whose example do you think he followed to come to that conclusion?

superman looked up to alfred pennyworth?: i mean yea alfred may have been a wildly irresponsible guardian and one hell of an enabler but goddamn if he didn’t love his kid.

you don’t need my input. you’ve thought it all through: ooooooh this line made me grin. for so long, dick’s treated clark as a mentor and a guiding figure. he’s still seen as a kid, an up and coming, snot-nosed titan with dreams of a better world. clark still thinks of him as a kid, despite watching him grow up. but this little line was something i think dick needed sorely to hear. he doesn’t need anyone’s guiding hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t need to ask for permission. he doesn’t need clark to support him the way he did when he was a teenager. he’s all grown up now, and he doesn’t need clark’s help. i imagine it was a bit of a surprise for dick to hear that. 

honestly, i couldn’t think of a better role model: ohhh but it doesn’t stop there. clark just straight up turns the tables on dick. imagine you’re dick, and you’ve looked up to this one hero your entire life, and then one day he turns to you and says that he thinks you’re so kind and smart and worthy of a person that he wants you to mentor his son!? goes to show just how much clark trusts dick.

i swear to god dick probably cries every time he hears clark compliment him because bruce is so rare and sparing with his praise that clark giving him the slightest hint of approval is just a dopamine rush.

also, now deathstroke and superman have both asked nightwing to mentor their kids. the juxtaposition is fuckin hysterical. imagine either of their reactions when they realize what kind of company they’re with

lets talk colours for a second, because i absolutely adore how classic colour tropes have been subverted in this comic, and in this general run really.

warm tones have usually (usually, not always) been associated with light and comfort and friendship and,,,,,well,,,warmth. whereas cool tones are usually used to unsettle, or make a scene seem colder and put the reader on edge. this varies if a comic only uses cool tones, or only uses warm tones, but if a comic uses both, this is generally well-used.

that isn’t the case in this run.

dark red, orange, and other warm tones have been used to symbolize danger, action, attacks. hot pink isn’t usually included in this colour group, but it’s definitely part of it in this case. in contrast, scenes that have cool colours give us the impression of slipping into a comfortable, calm scene with babs, tim, the titans, and other allies. even the beginning scene with superman has this blue, but then it transitions into something more golden coloured. dawn broke over dick, as his new idea came to light, and that was reflected in the art (and the sunrise setting.)

have there ever been times when dick’s longed for the comfort of his mask because he didn’t feel confident as dick grayson? i can’t think of any. i may be wrong, but this struck me as pretty ooc.

am i just??? gay and reading this all wrong??

cause i was under the impression that when someone says they are grateful for your friendship you don’t immediately kiss them. 

or is this like. normal straight mating rituals.

i mean he’s smiling afterward but still babs aren’t you supposed to at least make sure it’s okay first? you guys broke up a while back after you said something along the lines of “i want to be coworkers with you and nothing more because i don’t trust you or feel comfortable around you as a civilian anymore.” like lmao after you say something like that to someone i would assume that you don’t have the permission to just kiss them whenever you want.

show of hands who else got real sad when they realized dick was talking about himself in this.

sure, he could be referencing the things he’s seen blockbuster pull, and the children on the streets. but “i’ve seen money used for enforcement,” sounds a little too close to dick’s entire life being destroyed by one man threatening the circus to pay protection money for me to completely ignore. and “i’ve seen the poorest and most vulnerable blamed and punished rather than assisted” becomes a lot worse when you remember dick was thrown in juvie for a couple months until bruce was able to obtain legal guardianship, and in there, not a authority figure believed him when he told them his parents were murdered.

he’s lived this before.

a. mother. fucking. typo.

fucking why

i mean i’ve stated my distaste for the batfamily groupchat before but like. this is reaching new levels of ridiculousness. jason sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. tim sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. steph sounds like she was written by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about steph and wanted to include her for “family points!!!!!” damian’s supposed to be completely off the grid, and everyone’s searching for him. i do love the way cass texts tho.

well god fuck now i’m crying

dick got a phone call, a sorry, and a thank you out of bruce. i feel so much secondhand happiness for him, if that’s a thing. we’ll just ignore the way bruce looks ugly af and focus on the good parts okay?

and again with the colour symbolism here!

i’m either going to love this or hate this. who knows, we’ll see.

something something hearts something something pink is an evil colour something something. i need to know more about this guy but there’s definitely symbolism there. 

is it just me or does this dude look like the backstabbing traitorous absolutely motherfucking piece of shit villain that killed tadashi hamada in big hero 6?

~~

taggggg list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan  @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption​ @capricorn-stark​ @batshit-birds​ @comics-observer @buticaaba​ 

[khaoscontrol]

oh my man you have no idea how much lore i’ve got. you fool, you’ve given me the excuse to infodump about everything!

(sorry this got super long so i’m making a separate post, also it’s 2am so i’m not gonna format this correctly or do literally anything to it)

i’ll start by explaining the timeline, i find it easiest to categorize it by the different versions of maria that exist in the au.

for starters, we have regular old canon maria. her deal is basically the same as in canon up until her death. i really just wanted a “maria lives” au but with a twist. so basically the lore is professor gerald didn’t have a lot of confidence in finding a cure for maria via project shadow so he came up with a plan b which involved creating a machine that could upload someone’s mind onto a computer (mainly because that’s just a sci-fi trope i always liked). of course this was more of a last resort kinda deal, but when g.u.n. raided the ark they didn’t exactly have a lot of options. maria was still shot like in canon and she did physically “die” but gerald managed to upload her consciousness before she actually died. unfortunately the project was still very experimental and maria wasn’t actually able to respond to any of their tests to see if it worked, leading gerald to believe it had failed. thus allowing the plot of sa2 to still happen.

so the next maria in the timeline is cyber maria. this is just the version of maria that’s living in a computer on the ark... ...for 50 years.... ........alone. unlike shadow, she was completely conscious for this entire time which meant an awful lot of time alone with her thoughts. her memories weren’t totally together at the beginning and it takes her an awfully long time to put everything together but once she finally does she’s not quite the same and her personality shifts quite a bit. she still holds the same love for humanity and her family, but she IS tired of being nice, she DOES want to go apeshit! her main beef is with g.u.n. for literally killing her and everything else they did. she’s honestly quite pissed (rightfully so) but she can’t really do anything about it so she honestly just spends 50 years worrying about her family. she doesn’t know if shadow or her grandfather survived after everything that happened and at this point she has no idea how long it’s been.

50 years pass and the events of sa2 take place exactly as they do in canon (can’t fix perfection babey!) and although she’s on the ark, maria has no way of knowing that any of it’s happening. so it’s not actually until a little while after the events of shadow the hedgehog(2005) that anything actually happens maria wise. so the scene is eggman is looking into his grandfather’s research to see if he can get any ideas that would help him beat sonic and co when he comes across the files about the whole plan b project (lmao sorry i don’t actually have a good name for what he might’ve called it). he get’s real curious about it and decides to head back up to the ark and check it out. one thing leads to another and he manages to have a conversation with maria and she’s just thrilled to know that the outside world still exists, she also makes fun of him because “lmfao what kind of name is eggman?” after all she’s still mentally a teenager. eggman mentions that he’s quite skilled in making robots and could build a body for her back on earth and maria is all for ALL of that.

which leads us into metal maria. as soon as she has an actual physical body again eggman explains to her how long it’s been, who he actually is (literally her younger cousin lmao) and a bit of what’s been going on in the worlds, he lets it slip that he may have blown up the moon a little bit and gets thoroughly scolded on that. he also mentions that him and shadow may sorta kinda be enemies and shadow maybe is working for organization that killed her, which every bit of that makes her pissed. she decides to join forces with eggman so that he can help her take down g.u.n. since he’s not exactly on their good side. she also agrees to help deal with sonic on occasion but she doesn’t do much because “what how old is he? like 15 or something? nah dude become mortal enemies with an adult like a normal person.” despite everything, the protective older sister instinct is still strong within her and she’s super against picking fights with kids (especially ones that are friends rivals with her bro) on the subject of shadows friends, she does not like rouge, omega she doesn’t mind as much but still doesn’t like that much. she meets rouge a while before she’s actually reunited with shadow and they don’t exactly have a good first impression. maria assumes that rouge convinced shadow to join g.u.n. “because why else would he do something that stupid, he’s dumb but he can’t be that dumb?” and rouge just doesn’t buy maria’s backstory and assumes eggman only made her to mess with shadow. also rouge is lowkey jealous of maria because she’s got that v good and strong sisterly bond with shadow and DAMNIT she want’s that! so the two of them are basically enemies for a while until maria finally manages to reunite with shadow and he’s honestly just really fed up with them constantly fighting and arguing so their relationship dies down to less of enemies and more of a petty rivalry. also at some point during all that maria decides that metal sonic is also her brother now and there’s nothing he can do about it (spoilers: he actually really enjoys her affection but tries not to show it)

over time maria and metal become kinda a neutral party between sonic and eggman. and honestly with maria’s constant lecturing, eggman kinda tones it down on the world domination deal and becomes more of a dr. doofenshmirtz type villain because it’s funnier that way. (sorry i ONLY make an au if it’s wholesome) he kinda only keeps up the villain gig for the press and because it’s kinda his brand at this point.

which leads us into neo metal maria, 10 years in the future maria takes over the eggman empire. it’s 110% for show. she puts on this big facade of being a villain with megamind level dramatics but she never does anything other than screw over g.u.n., which team dark has long since stopped working with at this point, finally. seriously that sucked what the heck where you thinking sega? whatever i fixed it for them ;)

in the future of this au (which i don’t focus on a whole lot because i like drawing them as a bunch of kids just screwing around, god i’m so smart sega could never) since eggman isn’t a problem everyone’s whole deal is just dealing with other threats and also just a lot of adventuring. every once and a while some old god will try and destroy the world again as per usual and maria will actually step in to help. because of this and the fact that she’s not actually violent, maria is actually quite adored by the public. which is literally her goal, she’s not a villain she’s an entertainer!

and there’s a whole lot more to this au because i actually focus on pretty much every character and how this all plays out for them. i have a different take on how some games played out with her being there (mainly 06 and forces because they’re not great even tho i love them, but her being there made them funny) but yeah i’ve put a LOT of thought into this au and it means a whole lot to me. this is literally just a summary of eveything that happens. over time i’ll expand on this more.

but hot diggity shit, it’s 2am. so i’m just gonna wrap this up with some sketches of the gal!

[ffamranxii]

It’s no secret that I love Pokemon. Like, I LOVE Pokemon. I have a lot of original characters for other series that I love and have loved since I was a kid, series that I still love and keep up with today as an adult, but I have one OC who has never, ever changed, since I created her when I was a little girl. She has always had the same occupation, the same love interest, the same pokemon. So I went ahead and made her a heavily detailed trainer card/profile!

Meet Miki, the Eevee breeder!

@peppermintwrasseler​

Biography

Miki has used Molly Hale’s pre-teen design since her movie came out in 2001. She’s one of the very first OCs I ever created. She is not Molly - she is a separate person.

Miki and her sister Nana were born in Ecruteak City, Johto. Their grandmother was a Kimono Girl, and because of her, Miki developed her fascination with Eevees. Miki and Nana began their journey as rivals, Miki with a Cyndaquil and Nana with a Totodile. They also each were given an Eevee by their grandmother.

Miki and Nana’s parents, evolution researchers, taught them to take a different approach to training and the gym challenge than others. Some pokemon trainers set out at the tender age of ten years old like the legendary Red, and others set out later. Some complete the challenge at a maddening pace like Blue, but Miki preferred to take the time to learn from and train with the gym leaders she would eventually battle, if they would have her. This led to deep, intense bonds with her pokemon, and her first Eevee evolved into an Umbreon during her second Johto gym battle.

Miki decided to travel the world around the time she completed the Indigo League, learning from experts and gym leaders, discovering different Eevees, and began breeding soon after entering the Orange League. Her first baby Eevees were evolved into a Vaporeon and a Flareon, respectively. 

By the time of the Hoenn League, Miki had begun to wonder if battling was all there was. She discovered that in Hoenn, pokemon could enter Contests, and she enlisted her Umbreon, a four time League champion, in one. They lost. Contests were not like battling at all. Nana, who was not in Hoenn at the same time, encouraged her sister, and sent her countless articles about Contests from the region she was currently traveling through. Miki spent the longest time in Hoenn, putting off the gym challenge for months while focusing on Contests, eventually winning her first one with her Umbreon. 

Miki was in her late twenties by the time she retired to the Pasio region, a small, quiet place. She was asked, for a time, to run a gym, being a highly decorated League champion from another region, and she agreed until Pasio got its own gym system running. She used her Eevees, for whom she was well known - her Umbreon, her Jolteon, and her Sylveon - and gave the Heart Badge to those who defeated her. The Heart Badge was retired after her gym closed, and special recognition given to those in the Pasio League who possess it. 

Miki lives on a large farm outside of Centra City, Pasio. She runs a dedicated Eevee breeding program, breeding Eevees for battle, show, companionship, or breeding. Her former non-Eevee battling companions live in peaceful retirement, and any wild pokemon who wander in are welcome.

Setting

Miki’s world is ever so slightly AU from the actual Pokemon world. It includes the world of the fanmade Pokemon Uranium and its Tandor region, and Mega Evolutions are permanent evolutions, Z Crystals being a kind of evolution stone. The timeline of her Eevee evolutions also does not follow game canon.

This canon is a mix of the games, anime, and manga, similar to how I constructed my C’est la Vie 5 manga. Not everything that happened in one medium is canon, and in addition there is a lot of my own fanon mixed in as well. Most of this takes place in my own head, having stewed there since I was eleven years old.

Named Eevees

An Eevee breeder, Miki of course has dozens of Eevees and their evolutions running around. Ten have names, and these are the Eevees that have traveled with Miki, battled with her, won Contests, and been there through it all. 

1. Umbreon: Nicknamed YAN YAN, this Eevee was bred by Miki’s grandmother and is the brother of Nana’s Eevee. Yan Yan is the oldest Eevee in Miki’s possession, having known her since she was a child and becoming hers once she set out on her journey. He is her strongest pokemon and her most highly decorated. He is one of her top breeders, and any Eevee fathered by him commands top dollar. His best friend is Abbi.

2. Glaceon: Nicknamed GLACIE, this Eevee was her second ever to evolve. Glacie appears dainty and frail like melting ice, which is part of a carefully calculated plot to make the opposing pokemon feel bad and resist attacking her. Her Ice attacks were deadly and when she was in battling form, Glacie was too. Glacie was always a motherly type, and took care of every pokemon on Miki’s team. Her first babies were the Eevees that became a Vaporeon and Flareon. She has several ribbons and did quite well in contests, but all Glacie ever wanted was to be a mom. She has retired from breeding, though she still mothers all the baby Eevees. Her partner is Luxe.

3. Vaporeon: Nicknamed RAINER, the daughter of Yan Yan the Umbreon and Glacie the Glaceon. Rainer is a powerhouse of a pokemon, one of the most powerful Miki possesses, and the second most decorated, taking after her father. When Miki leaves home, Rainer is one of the pokemon tasked with protecting her.

4. Flareon: Nicknamed PYRO, the son of Yan Yan the Umbreon and Glacie the Glaceon, and the younger brother of Rainer the Vaporeon. Pyro takes after his mother and likes playing with the baby Eevees. He and his sister do very well in Contests, especially as a team with their fire and water displays. He does not have the focus to compete in contests fully and Miki retired him; he nannies the baby Eevees.

5. Leafeon: Nicknamed LEAFY, Miki found him in the wild. He had been abandoned by a previous abusive trainer, and adjusting badly to life in the wild. Miki spent several weeks earning his trust and tending to his wounds. She offered to bring him with her, stating that he would never have to do anything he didn’t want to. Leafeon is a companion pokemon; his best friends are Sylvie and Nines.

6. Nucleon: Nicknamed NUKU NUKU. Nuku Nuku is the other fully evolved Eevee Miki has caught, this time in the Tandor region. Her sister Nana, having reached Tandor and deciding to settle there, was thoroughly immersed in the discovery of the Nuclear type and the absolute devastation it had wrought on the environment and she’d persuaded her sister to journey to Tandor after competing in the Hoenn League. Their parents joined them, curious at how pokemon could seemingly change their type (as Nuclear seemingly corrupts known pokemon like Pikachu into “Nuclear Pikachu”, for example), but upon learning this was not a new sort of evolution, they became disinterested and returned home to Johto. Nuku Nuku is technically Miki’s strongest pokemon, because of the inherent overpoweredness of the Nuclear type, but Miki only brings Nuku Nuku into battle against the strongest trainers or threats. Nuku Nuku is lazy and enjoys napping in the shade.

7. Espeon: Nicknamed ESPY, this Eevee has the distinction of being the last Miki ever caught in the wild. Bold, sassy, and determined, Espy can battle, she just prefers not to. Espy was born to be a star, and holds the rank of Grand Champion in every Contest she has ever competed in. Miki is flooded with requests for Eevees mothered by Espy, who is, as one judge described her, “the most perfect specimen of an Espeon ever born.” 

8. Sylveon: Nicknamed SYLVIE, this Eevee is the son of Yan Yan the Umbreon and Espy the Espeon. He has all of his mother’s beauty and all of his father’s power and the combined charm of both. (Thankfully, he also got his father’s laid back attitude.) Sylvie loves life. Sylvie loves Contests and battling. And Sylvie loves Miki. There are very few things Sylvie doesn’t love.

9. Jolteon: Nicknamed SPARKY, the ambitious son of Yan Yan the Umbreon and Glacie the Glaceon. He was born nearly at the same time as Sylvie, and sees Sylvie as his rival. He is not as powerful as his father, and sometimes is not entirely in control of his own electricity, striving to be the best for himself and for Miki. Sparky enjoys picking on Espy.

10. Eevee: Nicknamed POOF, this Eevee resembles a Gigantamax Eevee but as a normal sized Eevee. She has a huge mane and a playful nature. She is a companion and Miki hopes to use her for Contests. Poof was a gift from Miki’s friend Shiru.

11. Eevee: Nicknamed SILVER, this shiny Eevee was a surprise! His father is Pyro the Flareon and his mother is Espy the Espeon. Miki hopes Silver will help her be able to breed more shiny Eevees for Contests, but for now he is a companion.

Named Pokemon in the Eevee Project

Some pokemon are not Eevees but Miki has included them in her Eevee breeding project, for various reasons.

1. Luxray: Nicknamed LUXE, Miki was forced to take this pokemon along after it took a liking to the Eevee that eventually became Glacie the Glaceon, after saving it from a wild Manetric. Based on Luxray having been the father of all my Eevees in his debut game. I love you, Luxray, I never forgot.

2. Mega Absol: Nicknamed SOSO, Miki stumbled upon an Absol and her cub while on her way to Lavaridge Town in Hoenn, being pelted with rocks. Not understanding Absols’ reputation as the harbringer of misfortune, Miki scolded the people responsible and she and Yan Yan the Umbreon ran after the mother and baby to see if they were okay. The mother growled and wouldn’t let them near, so Miki left some Berries and food for them and sat a little ways away. Absol had been trying to warn the town of the oncoming storm, which took out power to the town, but because of Miki’s kindness, Absol let Miki and Yan Yan shelter in her cave until the sky cleared. Soso and her cub left Lavaridge with Miki, and live in happy retirement on Miki’s ranch, where her warnings are taken seriously and the other pokemon love her.

3. Absol: Nicknamed ABBI, the son of Soso. Despite his very rough start in life, Abbi has grown up knowing love and affection from Miki and her pokemon and fiercely defends his friends, Miki’s property, and Miki. When Miki leaves the farm, Abbi stays behind to guard the babies. His best friend and father figure is Yan Yan the Umbreon.

(Part 2 shortly)

[thesffcorner]

Pines

Pines is the first book in the adult mystery/ sci-fi series Wayward Pines written by Blake Crouch. It follows Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke, who wakes up in the small town of Wayward Pines in Idaho, with no memory of who he is, how he got there or even his name. After a few incidents, he regains his memory, but realizes that nothing is as it seems in the idyllic small town, and either everyone is in on a conspiracy or he really is losing his mind. I’ve read one other book by Crouch, Dark Matter and I really didn’t like it. So I was apprehensive going into this series, especially knowing that it was specifically his writing style and characters that I didn’t like; the issue is, Crouch has such interesting and unique premises for his stories, and this one was no different. I have also seen an episode of the show and it looked good (after reading the book, I won’t be watching it), so I wanted to at least read the first book in the series. I am happy to say that I liked this significantly more; not enough to continue the series, but enough to where I was reading out of intrigue, not hatred. I still had major issues with the plot of the novel, as well as Crouch’s writing, but I preferred following Agent Burke, than whatever the professor's name was in Dark Matter. The best way to describe this book is Twin Peaks, mixed with Lost and the Village. It’s a dystopian setting that looks straight out of the Stepford Wives; a small town in Idaho, the idyllic representation of small town Americana, surrounded by nature, with people who all have their place in town and are content with it. Agent Burke comes into town, looking for two missing secret agents: what he finds instead is a nightmare dressed like a daydream (yes, I hate myself too). At first, he has no idea who he is, how he got to the town, or why he’s injured; all he knows is that he has a paralyzing fear from the hospital and just remembers the name Mack. When he does regain more of his memories, he starts to see that people in the town are all acting strange: no one wants to speak to him, they give him faulty or outright false information, he can’t find his badge, his wallet or ID, he can’t reach anyone outside the town and when he tries to escape, he sees that the road curves back into the town and there is no way out. While all of this sounds very interesting, it was actually incredibly frustrating to read. I will give credit to Burke; he actually acts like a normal human would in this situation, asks questions that I found reasonable, gets angry, gets frustrated, which is a giant step up from other works I’ve read where the characters just don’t act human. I still didn’t enjoy the way these conversations went; it felt like being stuck in a poorly written RPG where all the dialogue is circular and the game outright refuses to let you ask the one question that would solve the plot (so a Bethesda game). What I found more frustrating was how the way people treat Burke, especially the sheriff, makes no sense, once we learn Wayward Pines’ secret. I’ll talk more about that at the end, but if we don’t know the twist, the way Burke is being treated is counterproductive to what the sheriff supposedly wants. He wants Burke to stop trying to cause a ruckus, but he’s not letting him leave town, he isn’t giving him his wallet back, won’t let him eat food, has him wander round the town with no detail to keep him in check so.. What’s the point? The stuff that annoyed me about Dark Matter annoyed me here as well. First we have the paper-thin, boring ass female characters. There were 4 notable ones: the nurse, who was the only character I liked because she actually had a personality (power hungry, but still a personality); Kate, the agent who Burke is looking for and had an affair with; Beverly, a local who ends up helping Burke; and Theressa his doting, entirely loyal and personality free wife. I hate the way Crouch writes his female characters, and I also hate how he views marriage. Theressa is so supportive, so self-sacrificing, so completely devoted to Burke that she has NO personality outside of being his wife. Moreover, Burke has cheated on her, been an absent husband, absent parent, has a host of other unrelated trauma that he seems to have never shared with her, that I was beginning to think she was married to someone else. All the sections with her bore me to tears; she’s worse than a cardboard cutout, she’s like an overly attached robot. Then we have Kate and Beverly. Kate is the lover; we know nothing about her other than she now married someone else and like all women Crouch writes, she is completely devoted to her new husband, but would still, secretly tap dat ass, even if it would put her life in danger. Luckily she doesn’t, though I have a feeling it’s because she’s supposed to be like 80 years old. Beverly flirts with Burke, breaks him out of a hospital, solves the case for him, and then gets brutally and unceremoniously killed because she has outlived her usefulness. As for the lead man himself, you’ll be shocked to learn I actually liked him! I know, I liked a male character, who am I? Jokes aside, I found Agent Burke to be a fascinating character. He is all the worst things; he is an adulterer, a bad husband, and an absent father, volatile and stubborn. He is also a veteran who fought in the Gulf Wars and was a PoW, who was brutally tortured. The most effective and affecting scenes in this entire book where the scenes where he flashes back to what happened to him during his captivity, and how his interactions with the sheriff mirrored that. His torturer is a walking, talking cliche; a sadistic, implied to be gay, half-white, half-Arabic man (I half expected his name to be Sayid since we are ripping off Lost so thoroughly). But their interactions and the trauma Burke carries made his character click for me, and I understood why he did the things he did, and made me root for him. Let’s talk about those reveals, so warning SPOILERS. First, we find out that we are actually in the future; Wayward Pines is supposedly the last town on Earth. Humans have evolved (if I had a coin for every time an author didn’t understand evolution) into incredibly intelligent and vicious beasts who roam the Earth like a zombie horde, and Pines was developed as an experiment by a multi billionaire genius scientist. First, we are going to ignore the fact that humans can’t just evolve into monsters like that unprompted, or that the timeline is simply not long enough for that to be the case. We are just going to focus on the sheer dumfuckery that is this concept. This man, hand selected humans from different eras of mankind starting with the 60s, and yet somehow there are 5 people who are all from Burke’s time in this town, who all know each other. K. Second, the way these people are integrated in the town is that they are told their name and where they will work and who they will marry(?), and if they start remembering their past lives, they get threatened by the sheriff. If they break the rules, like try to escape or remove their trackers, the entire town makes a LITERAL PURGE where they are hunted down and brutally killed. Burke was ‘integrated�� 3 separate times because he was so valuable, and kept almost getting himself killed, but other humans? The last humans on Earth? Fuck their life, let’s do some KILLIN! If Burke was so important (and I never once for a second believed he was actually crazy, it was as ineffective of a twist as it was in Glass) why is everyone in the town constantly trying to kill him? He almost dies when he gets attacked by the mutated humans, he is constantly starved, he gets tortured, beaten and at one point they try to LOBOTOMIZE him, and yet the scientist’s grand plan was to make Burke the new sheriff? What? His wife and son are used taken so they can be leverage over him, and yet he is constantly almost killed. Also all those soldiers in the compound… do they also live in Pines? Do they know about the outside world? Or are they always in the compound? And then Burke just gets made to be sheriff and that’s the end. Yeah… no. I was not a fan, in case you couldn’t tell. If you are a lot more forgiving of these things, check it out; perhaps the premise will be strong enough to hook you at the expense of everything else. I will not be continuing the series nor reading anything else by Crouch; we just don’t get along and it’s time for me to stop trying.

goodreads

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Hi, Sapphire One here, how do you feel about Toby in the book and the show, along with Blinky and AAARRRGGHH? This is gonna sound like a weird question, but if there were any Trollhunters characters that you feel should've died or lived? Also, I have a theory that Vendal is linked to the Heartstone, do you have any theories of your own? Finally, I've talked to my dad about Balto, and when I described it to him he was really intrigued and wanted to watch it, what do you think of the movie?

I didn’t have a ton of strong opinions about the original Trollhunters novel because I didn’t engage with it the same way that I did with the show.

It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but something about how it was written made it hard for me to get through. I had to keep taking breaks and coming back to it, or skimming ahead and then going back to re-read more thoroughly. The issue might just be that suspense and mystery are not my genres of choice for reading material and the novel is highly suspenseful.

It’s weird that book-Tobias is taller than Jim, just because I saw the show first and that version of the character design is ingrained in my mental picture of them.

ARRRGH!!! is so different that I tend to perceive her and AAARRRGGHH as separate characters.

Other than appearance Blinky seems to be about the same. Maybe a bit less paternal towards Jim Sturges than he is towards Jim Lake.

+=+

For reasons I’ve expanded on before, I feel Angor and Draal should both have lived. (Or, if Angor wasn’t going to live, they should’ve let him stay dead after the first time.) (Or if they were always going to kill him in the finale, he should’ve changed sides sooner so it wouldn’t feel like a case of ‘redemption means death’.)

I also feel like at least a few of the Changelings from the Janus Order should’ve been shown to survive, Changeling who haven’t already changed sides and left like Strickler, Nomura, and Not Enrique did. As it stands, although in character because we know the Gumm-Gumms don’t value Changelings, Gunmar’s massacre feels like a cop-out so the writers wouldn’t have to deal with the Janus Order anymore.

Nobody survived whose character arc I felt would have made more sense if they had died. I did read a well-structured argument (I reblogged it) for how Strickler’s character arc would have concluded satisfyingly with him dying in a heroic sacrifice to protect someone else, most likely Jim or Barbara, showing how much Strickler has changed from his initial characterization as someone who will do almost anything to ensure personal survival.

+=+

I have a lot of theories, yes, some of which I’ve shared before:

Draal is part-Krubera. This idea occurred to me when Kanjigar possessed AAARRRGGHH and I thought to myself that, if someone showed me pictures of AAARRRGGHH and Draal before I watched the show and told me AAARRRGGHH was Draal’s father, I’d believe them. I’d assume Draal took after his mother in colouring and spikes, but I’d believe them.

Draal got the Grit-Shaka as a gift from Nomura, as a trap; hoping he’d recklessly put himself in danger and Kanjigar would come save him so the Changelings could get the Amulet.

Nomura and Gladys (the Changeling dental hygienist) used to date, which is why Nomura called Gladys to warn her about Toby and Jim.

Eli ordering spy gear near the start of Season 1 set off the chain of events that led to the troll exodus at the end of Season 3.

The Amulet not returning when stolen is a deliberate ‘safeguard’ so Merlin can take it away from Trollhunters who disagree with him.

The Amulet being destroyed while Killahead Bridge’s portal to the Darklands is open proves that Unbecoming was an illusion, not a true alternate-timeline.

Kanjigar died on a Monday morning. Based on context clues in the dialogue, the first three episodes of the series span about a week, ending on the Saturday.

The First Battle of Killahead Bridge happened between 1297, when the caption says Angor made his deal with Morgana, and 1620, the sailing of the Mayflower, which Blinky claims the trolls also traveled on. (This was published before, and ignores, the tie-in novel Angor Unleashed, which claims Angor made his deal after Gunmar was trapped in the Darklands.)

Nose rings are a Trollhunter thing. All past Trollhunters seen have them. Obviously other trolls do too, but still.

They could’ve saved all the babies back in Season One with a Fetch and a cherry picker. (This comes up in my fanfiction.)

Here are a few previously-unpublished theories of mine:

Blinky claims the human practice of ‘oral hygiene’ is ‘a concept quite foreign to us [trolls].’ This is a factor in why Draal thinks kissing, pressing one’s filthy mouth up against someone else’s filthy mouth, is disgusting.

Remember when that museum guard caught Strickler and Bular, and Strickler claimed he’d led the man there on purpose as a ‘midnight snack’? He’d actually just gotten careless, and this was an excuse so Bular would go after the human instead of the Changeling. Possibly this is a standing protocol with Changelings who deal with Bular regularly. Bular suspects it’s a cover-up, he’s not stupid, but he lets them get away with it because this means he gets to enjoy his meal in peace instead of listening to Strickler complain about the hassle of covering up the human’s death.

The spit-check thing Not Enrique does, to show Claire how Enrique’s doing, goes both ways. A Familiar spitting or drooling on a mirror will summon an image of the Changeling to whom they are magically bound. (This is also going to come up in my fanfiction.)

These last two aren’t really theories so much as points of contention:

Turning Jim “part-troll” elongated his limbs and increased his reflex speed. Not being used to that reflex speed, he would respond by over-compensating and end up appearing to have worse reflexes now. He should have been an absolute klutz while readjusting, and said readjustment period should have taken days or even a month, therefore it was a terrible plan to transform him right before a battle. Also, the increase in his sense of hearing, smell, and possibly sight, and decrease in his sense of touch (“I didn’t feel a thing!” he declares after AAARRRGGHH knocks him across the yard and through a fence), should have caused overstimulation and increased his sense of dissociation with his new body, respectively.

As a Changeling, Strickler is already magically linked to a human. When he used the binding spell on Barbara, that enchantment could have tangled with the enchantment tying him to Waltolomew. As Familiars cannot be harmed without a Changeling losing access to human form, this would result in Strickler forcibly shifting back to troll form whenever he or Barbara got hurt. Angor knew this risk and chose not to say anything because he hated Strickler.

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Balto is a decent movie. That scene where the town carpenter is making the child-sized coffins; or the one where the telegraph operator takes down the lamp they’ve been keeping lit as a signal for the sled team to find the town if it’s dark, because everyone’s given up on them returning? Potent stuff. I like the animation. I also thought the live-action prologue and epilogue were well-crafted, setting up the animated story as what the grandkid is imagining as her grandmother tells the tale and providing an excellent conclusion with the grandmother’s identity reveal at the end. I don’t usually like when movies jump between styles like that, but, as with the change in animation style during the Dream World sequence in Mune, it serves a narrative purpose here.

[cogentranting]

Possible Additions to the Legends Team:

(It has been stated that someone who has previously been introduced into the Arrowverse will be joining the Legends in the back half of the season. Anyone who is currently a series regular on another show I considered invalid (e.g. Wild Dog, Elongated Man, Guardian). I don’t know Supergirl well enough to put any of it’s characters on this list, and I think it’s pretty unlikely anyway. Vaguely in order from least likely to most likely)

Hawkman or Hawkgirl- Technically possible. However, it doesn’t really fit within the idea of a revolving cast and I don’t think either character is popular enough to justify bringing them back after such a long absence (Kendra might be more popular than I realize, Carter certainly isn’t)

Katana- Tatsu would be further up this list except that I’m pretty sure DC has put her off-limits in the same way that Deadshot and Deathstroke are. Katana’s been teased before on the show (early season 2) and is a character I really love who (at least partly because of DC’s restrictions) didn’t get to keep coming back and showing off her mad skills. Would be an interesting personality to add to the mix because, unlike all the others, she was married, had a kid, a stable life. Could fill some of the hole left by Stein, in that sense. She doesn’t have powers though, and the show might be looking for that after losing a powerhouse like Firestorm.

Ronnie Raymond- upside: we know Ronnie, he’s a well-liked character. However, the reason Ronnie was killed in the first place is because Robbie Amell didn’t want to be a regular on Legends. So it’s unlikely that it’s changed. He doesn’t have any sort of superpower or fighting ability- in theory he could retake the Firestorm mantle with a new partner but that might move from ‘filling the opening on the team” to a full ‘replacing Jax and Stein” vibe. Hoewever, he is the only character on this list who could easily replace Jax as ship engineer. 

Vixen (Mari)- She fits in with the story, the actress is available. She’s a known character. Her dynamic with Amaya and Kuasa would be interesting. But, she has the exact same power as Amaya, which is boring. The timeline complications of having both grandmother and granddaughter on the ship wearing the same totem are a little wonky, even for Legends. Adding her shifts the balance a little far into being a show about Vixen... with some other people too.

Huntress-  She hasn’t made an appearance in four years, so it seems unlikely that she’d suddenly pop back up so drastically. How would this happen, who’s gonna recruit her? There’s an existing rivalry with Sara, that could be fun. Her skill set isn’t that interesting at this point unless you wrote in some upgrades, which is possible. But then again the actress isn’t very good so do we really want her back full time

Artemis- Evelyn could get resolution and redemption without taking up space on Arrow (which seems to not have room for her). On the other hand, she wouldn’t be around any of the people she betrayed so her redemption would lose a lot of depth. I’m also not 100% sure she’s alive. Doesn’t quite fill the superpower powerhouse hole left by Firestorm. Does fill the role of “the young one” which Jax somewhat occupied. 

Nyssa- Not very likely because A. I think her actress has her own show and is unavailable B. her skillset is probably too similar to Sara’s and C. It would likely instantly launch her and Sara into a committed long-term relationship which I don’t think is something Legends wants to do with Sara at this juncture. Conversely, they did just reference the relationship between Sara and Nyssa and seem to be showing that Sara missed it which could be interpreted as plans to revisit it (or it could be interpreted in terms of it’s parallel to the Alex/Maggie relationship-- a positive relationship which is nonetheless definitively over). But also Nyssa’s awesome and I’m always down for more Nyssa. Though I’d prefer to keep her on Arrow, cuz I think she fits better there. 

Dr. Light- I don’t remember where we left Dr. Light. I think she’s on Earth 2? And she was only in one episode of Flash so it’s pretty unlikely. But hey it’d be fun. 

Star Girl (or Other JSA team member)- Of these Star Girl has the most development and is thus most likely, but also none of them were particularly remarkable, and it would probably end up a retread of Amaya’s season 2 plot. 

Arsenal- The timing probably doesn’t work out with when he’s returning to Arrow this season. And I think that if Roy were to return to the Arrowverse full time, it would be to Arrow, where all his connections are (technically both Ray and Sara know him but... yeah...) But story-wise, it’s easier to get Roy onto a time ship than it is to unfake his death, and I’ll take anything that gets me more Roy. (Speedy is also a vague possibility. Legends has a shorter season which might work for Willa Holland. But also seems pretty unlikely that they’d separate the Queen siblings like that)

Jesse Quick - She seems to be pretty thoroughly written out of the shows by this point and when she was around mostly had her story revolve around Wells and Wally, neither of whom are present. I also think she’s a full-time superhero on another world, so she has her hands full. But, fills the super power void, and is not being used on another show, and was well-liked by fans from what I can tell. 

Gypsy- Another potential super power big gun to  pull in, but potentially too big. Breachers are really powerful, particularly one as skilled and experienced as Cynthia. I also don’t think Flash wants to give her up. And she has a job on another Earth, so it’d be somewhat hard to justify her giving that up to wander time on Earth 1. 

Pied Piper- He’s around. He’s redeemed. He’s significantly more agreeable than he was initially but would probably ruffle feathers enough to be interesting. He’s fairly different from the existing characters but also could take over some of the science related tasks left by Stein, or possibly take over as Engineer of the WaveRider. 

Golden Glider- As Leonard Snart makes his final exit, Lisa Snart could step in to take his place. She could potentially have a really interesting dynamic with Mick. She could be the schemer in a way that both Leonard and Sara used to be. She’s young, unpredictable and the CW has been trying to get her actress on a successful show for several years now and has been failing, meaning the actress is (to my knowledge) currently available.  

Constantine- He’s definitely going to make an appearance. They’ve said he’s only back for 2 or 3 episodes but that could be old information or a straight lie. He’s a character fans have consistently asked for more of, who is currently unattached to anything else. He doesn’t have strong connections anywhere in the Arrowverse so he would lose anything in transition. He’s significantly different from anyone currently on the show. He would fit with the magicky overarching vibe this season. He would be the third member of the team with magic, but his magic is a pretty different style from that of either Vixen or Zari. 

Ragman- Rory was a great addition to Arrow last season but sadly his superhero side wasn’t a good fit for the show because it was too weird. “Too weird” is what Legends does best. Ragman is powerful enough to make up for no longer having Firestorm (but likely easier on the effects budget). He’s got magic to fit with the season but it’s weird specific magic so it doesn’t overlap too much. One of Rory’s most fun aspects on Arrow was watching him be bewildered by everything and boy oh boy dial that up to 12 on Legends. At the same time, Rory doesn’t have a personality like anyone else on Legends- quiet, spiritual, artistic- meaning he’d contrast really really nicely. He doesn’t have anything/anyone keeping him from drifting through time because all his friends and family were killed-- speaking of which, it would give Rory the chance to avenge his family by taking on Darhk. It would add the complication of having two characters that go by Rory, but also that could be so much fun if you just lean into the fact that the two most different characters have the same name. If it were up to me, Rory is the character I would pick to add to Legends. 

Kid Flash- The Flash doesn’t know what to do with Wally. They’ve said as much. Flash doesn’t really have anything to do with him but also doesn’t want to kill him or anything like that, so they’ve basically just put him on a bus. Moving him to another show would solve the Flash’s problem while still giving fans all the Wally they want. Wally’s story line has also been set up as ‘looking for his place’ which is very much a Legends vibe. Wally had a cars interest early on which could be translated into making him the Waverider Engineer (at least, with Legends/Flash’s understanding of science) which in theory is needed. He’s different from existing characters while still having connections. He’s powerful enough to fill the Firestorm hole. However, Flash may not want to give him up entirely. And bringing him onto Legends may just transfer the Flash’s Wally problems to Legends: Wally is series-lead-powerful. Wally, as a gifted speedster, should be able to handle most problems on his own (he’s at least as capable as a late season 1 Barry- which is why Flash wrote him out). Meaning that including him in fight scenes often leaves other characters (especially ones like Mick) with nothing to do, or just means that problems can be resolved too quickly. 

Anyone I missed? Any viable Supergirl options that I should know about? Thoughts? Predictions? Hopes? Dreams? 

[troikacounter-blog]

Rises from absolutely nowhere, don’t mind me I’m just here to dump my feelings and opinions on Episode Ignis. Spoilers below obviously!!

One hell of an essay located under the cut, complete with somewhat separated sections and everything.

Gameplay: In the main game, Ignis has been the one who specialized in support – specifically offensive support, with the utilities he brought as well as his powerful link strikes. Regroup is such an amazing skill as well. So I was really surprised that, as a playable character, Ignis’ playstyle was more or less relentless assault. Of the three Episode DLCs I was the most aggressive as him – countering is far more rewardable than just dodging, and his mechanic revolves around using the right form of attack depending on the situation. I felt like it’s another way to show Ignis’ personality when he’s not just functioning as a member of their quartet, when he’s not merely guiding and giving advice to his friends. It’s a glimpse of the commanding presence he exuded when their quarreling in the mines became too much, and in it shows his steadfast resolve especially in this DLC’s premise.

Aside from that, I love how the fights and the mechanics gave me a flurry of emotions. There are the grandeur of the boss battles of course, as well as the determination brought out from the conditions of using the ring. A lot of these were visually pleasing! And yet, this very serious and very emotional DLC features party glasses that light up, the ability to cook while there’s missiles exploding all around you, and this ridiculous “friendly match” that involves vegetables, falling billboards, and oh my god Noctis Lucis Caelum don’t use the Ring of Lucii against your friends???

Level Design: Oh, Altissa. Part of me dreaded this setting because I got lost in its city quite a lot when I was there. But fortunately this version had more accessible areas and Ignis was being very Spider-Man so it was less tricky to explore! (I still did copious amounts of map checking though.)

I love how the mood of this area – and the mood of the DLC in general – is a stark contrast to Episode Prompto’s. Prompto’s DLC was quiet and isolated, one that encouraged introspection from one of our more energetic and louder companions. Meanwhile, Episode Ignis threw one of their more composed individuals into a high-tension and chaotic battleground, and this is why we see him at his most emotional state of mind.

Ignis: Oh my god. So, Ignis has been my favorite character since the very start and I always appreciated how he was on details, on how he wanted be sure of everything around him and be able to see it with a clear mind. I love that despite his stoic demeanor he is very warm towards his friends and provides them with undying loyalty. To be honest, if I was given a twist that being royal advisor to the king also meant they are their personal assassins I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash because I always felt like Ignis would have been the kind of person to kill somebody with no hesitation if it was for Noctis’ sake.

And in a way I was right, but also oh my god. When his name meant fire I was thinking of homey bonfires not this intense raging flame. This wasn’t out of character for me at all, this were things I knew Ignis was capable of doing, but nothing could have prepared me for the heat and passion that came alongside it. I have thoroughly underestimated what Ignis was capable of, and now I love him even more for it.

(To even think my first guess of the alternative ending was that Ignis was going to betray Noctis! I was such a fool! The absolute and complete opposite happened here!)

I’m a bit upset at Square Enix, they were using my weakness against me. A change in the eyes to represent power? Intense violin solos? Being angrily optimistic and wanting to punch destiny in the face??? I’m still in partial shock, to be honest. Ignis actually did That. Ignis Scientia actually did All of That. What a hero.

Verse 2, Meta: Is it a canon ending? In my opinion, it is because it’s made by the game developers themselves. Making Verse 2 canon doesn’t mean the main game’s end isn’t canon either! A lot of games have multiple endings and this one isn’t different. They’re both canon. What that does irk me though is how a lot of people seem to dismiss Verse 2 as just some way to pander to the fans because oh look, it’s a happy ending! But it’s an ending with so much substance in it despite its vagueness, and this is why it brought in so much theory and discussion. It’s an ending that, in its own way, made sense.

It doesn’t mean that Verse 2 is enough to replace the main game, however. There’s not a lot of details in here and I understand that – this is a DLC for Ignis, and so the content of this DLC rightfully focuses on Ignis. We don’t know how Noctis and Ravus and company did their journey towards Niflheim this time. We don’t know how long Ardyn had Ignis in captivity. There is no Episode Prompto, although I would wager that the chances of Prompto discovering his true identity and ending up in a similar experience are still fairly high – after all, there’s still this giant metal death worm to take care of. God, I wish we got to see either Noctis or Luna yell very very angrily at Bahamut for being such a massive jerkwad. It can’t replace the main game because you would need a fairly longer experience for that – and that is what I feel like they’re building up on.

Verse 2 is a teaser. The fact that this is a scenario that happened in the game means that it is a scenario that abides by the rules of this game world. After all, a possibility has to be possible. Which means – yeah, that’s right, there is a way to bring back the Dawn without following the prophecy. If they’re searching Royal Tombs then it means that a clue may lie within the history between the Astrals and the line of the Lucii. Verse 2 also hints at Ardyn’s background, especially since he’s going to get his own DLC soon. And they’re still making more content for FFXV anyway, what Verse 2 shows is a hint of what happened in this world, and if we may get our explanations soon.

Verse 2, Themes: I will be honest, I’m lukewarm towards Noctis’ fate of sacrificing himself. I accepted it eventually because in that point in the game, Noctis was already trapped and it was really the only way he could have saved everyone. They were never given a chance to try for an alternative, and there was little they could have done the moments the daemons wreaked havoc into the land. But at the same time, I was something I didn’t completely appreciate. It was because there was no time to truly understand the circumstances, no time to really work out the choices they have. Hell, even now we don’t have a full picture! It felt like Noctis was robbed of his agency to the point where the only thing he could do is to at least guarantee the safety and future for his friends. I am good with heroic sacrifices, but not like this.

(This doesn’t hold much weight into this, but it also didn’t help that XIV was also very fond of heroic sacrifices during the point XV got released. At least those characters had a choice and did it out of their own will, but it made me very tired of this trope regardless.)

I understand that sacrifice is one of FFXV’s themes, but so is friendship and the comrades that were made along the way. The way I saw it, the conclusion from the main game focused too much on the former, and Verse 2 was there to emphasize on the latter as a balance. Yes, sacrifice is sometimes necessary, but must it always be something that is paid in blood? Dying is easy, living is harder. There’s so many ways to explore FFXV yet, and restricting ourselves to the main game scenario feels like we our limited in our options to experience that. Verse 2 has its own things to offer, and those things they offer are something quite beautiful.

The first one is for Lunafreya – I believe it was by her will that she was able to communicate Ignis the details of the prophecy, and I do believe that she did so in hopes of finding a different future for Noctis. I think without Ardyn’s intervention she would tell Noctis this herself, but…well. Unfortunately, it was something Ignis was incapable of acting upon when he ended up blind, but in Verse 2 he was given this opportunity. Thus he was able to pass on this will to others as well.

Verse 2 can’t be any longer for the reasons I mentioned before, but I would kill to be able to explore the ten year gap in this iteration. This was a ten year gap with hope and determination rather than a growing dread and desperation. They were able to prepare, and that preparation was something so many individuals participated in. People from sidequests, allies from previous moments, leaders of other cities. These were all the comrades you made along the way, it showed that long journey you took, all the detours you made – those weren’t just extra EXP and gil, those weren’t just for nothing. It wasn’t just your own fight now, it was a fight for everybody that lived in this world, and everybody did what they could in order to face this upcoming apocalypse.

One thing I screamed a lot on during montage is where we see Ravus alive and well inside his home in Tenebrae. Tenebrae is intact. TENEBRAE IS INTACT! This speaks volumes – for one, Ravus surviving meant that Tenebrae can still function as its own country throughout these years. Secondly, it meant that there is a high chance that Niflheim wasn’t able to set it aflame as it was during the main game. We don’t know what happens to Niflheim and chances are it fell apart still in this timeline, but if it was able to find somebody to take command, it alongside the other countries might have been able to conduct peace terms – proper peace terms, this time – in order for everybody to become united against a common threat. There would be other concerns later on, for sure, but those can be resolved at a later time, once the Dawn greets them once more.

Nope, Noctis, no sleeping in the afterlife this time. You’ll have a lot of paper work to do.

(I just want more politics in FFXV okay)

I’m not sure if Verse 2 would ever be expanded more upon, or maybe I’m just a blabbering old fool and this really is nothing but fan service in the end, still I won’t call this other end as just something to please the fans. The themes this Verse presented are still the feelings and the emotions these characters would like to express, their desires and wishes and capabilities. And I hear them.

[unluckyadept]

//I recently stated the following:

“Our understanding of a given setting and the character dynamics inside it will naturally develop over time. I have two major ongoing story arcs; both have developed over the course of several years, and were started at some point “in the middle” of the overall timeline. Both are cases where it was then necessary to reverse engineer the beginning.”

I started the It’s A Long Story series in part to elaborate on two scenes in particular:

The scenes involving the Flame Dragons and the top of Jupiter Lighthouse.

I wanted to tell Felix’s entire story, but the series as a whole was not a linear progression. It had… developed spots that spread outward, to be linked together… helped along greatly, of course, by the series’s natural and already present canon.

And with that in mind, the (highly structured but overall disorganized) way in which I constructed the IALS “universe” holds up remarkably well over time; keep in mind that it started in earnest around six years ago, with precious little to go on regarding roughly 1/3 of the story (the beginning).

I did do my research back then, and I did it as thoroughly as I could. I had my own copy of The Lost Age, of course, and also of Dark Dawn after it came out—and the official guidebooks for all three of the games. I have the map of Weyard, the little GBA booklet that came with TLA… and of course: the remarkable assistance of the Golden Sun wiki; the diligent work of TheSinnerChrono in covering the Game Script for both TBS and TLA; and the highly valued playthroughs of MetroidHunters.

At the time, to cover Felix’s adventures through TBS, I mostly reviewed the dialogue where his name came up, and watched the cutscenes he was in. It helped me get into character for Saturos and Mendari, and as I read back through IALS years later… I do greatly enjoy how they turned out.

There’s a lot about how they interacted with Felix which is directly taken from cutscenes—which is, of course, one of the things I try to include as much as possible. And not being 100% familiar with these cutscenes (even after playing myself, as it’s just been one time), I daresay I have a hard time telling at a glance what is mine and what is the games’, though that is likely my ego talking.

The beginning parts of IALS were always a challenge for me. I was writing a perspective not shown in the series regarding events in a game I had never played, which featured a protagonist I didn’t like. The amount of research required to compensate even somewhat was rather extensive, but it still only had concrete foundation in cutscenes. The result was… poor narrative pacing, but not something I’m ashamed of. I think I did the best I could given the circumstances, and did a fair job constructing massive sections of missing pieces of the narrative.

And after all—IALS are primarily journal narratives from Felix, written when both he and I were younger. So his focus on some things over others can be excused given the format.

That being said—five years have passed, and among other things… I’ve developed a (somewhat) better sense of narrative pacing. My interest in history and culture has only grown—though I’ve rarely had time to indulge in research.

Having played the first game now, later in my life, there are many things that come together that allow me to see Felix’s journey from a new perspective. There are things which I overlooked or copped out of before, which I have greater interest/better understanding in now. Things with narrative significance.

As with before, much of it is centered around Prox—for it is Prox that has formed so much of Felix’s life, so much of his abilities and even much of his personality. But this time, there is a more wholistic approach, which I shall cover in detail later.

“What does this mean for the series?”

There’s good news and “bad” news, there.

The good news is that I do have a mojo going right now, and I am pursuing it. I’m actively writing for the series, though right now it is more of a research phase. And the results of my research are more positive than one might fear—there is so much of IALS that is either the same, or else very close.

As you may have guessed, though… the “bad” news is that I would very much like to rewrite the narrative so far.

“But why? That is the death knell for a series!”

First of all… slight exaggeration, and keeping in mind that the series has already been on hiatus for ages, and can hardly get worse off…

Why? Multiple reasons.

The shortest answer is that I have a slightly different idea of what Felix’s life was like in Prox, which affects his character development prior to Sol Sanctum. That, in turn, also affects not only how he behaved during the journey to Venus Lighthouse (which incidentally, I now know more about), but also how he led his group afterward. These are important changes, and they will help a lot in the long run.

I also want to spend more time focusing on his years in Prox to be able to SHOW this development… but that change in pacing means I have to reconsider how things are covered/divided up, if I still want this to fit into 13 Books/130 chapters.

It’s A Long Story is not a story which can be told in a rush. Not any one part of it. Which was something I didn’t quite appreciate at the time of the “first edition”, shall we say.

“So what now?”

Well, as I said, I am still in a research phase. I can’t really make a good outline until after that research is done, because otherwise my outline turns instead into a series of notes regarding specific aspects or scenes (and it shows).

How this research influences the writing and characterization is something I’ll cover in a separate post, because this one is already getting too long.

[tvserieshub]

Season 4 was never guaranteed, but boy, has it ever been satisfying. There was a lot of fear in the viewing audience when Abbie was killed at the end of Season 3. Fear, and anger. Personally, I was shocked that they decided to eliminate her character, but I have felt this entire season that this was not a matter of dislike of character, OR actress. It has felt with the entire storyline as if they wanted to take the show in a different direction than Season 2 or 3 allowed with the complement of existing characters. I have been very satisfied with the season. The story arc has been interesting, Tom Mison has had free rein to be playful, somber and show off his stage talents within the TV show – quite clever of the writers. Much of the whimsy AND horror of the first season returned with this season. Every single new character was useful. As you’ll see from my recap, this episode really allowed for a lot of closure. So, while I would be sad and disappointed if it was not renewed, at least I don’t have the awful unresolved cliff-hanger feeling.

The reviewcap begins here:

A horse gallops across a field with redcoats and other revolutionary-war-accoutered individuals observing. It appears a duel has been arranged. Dreyfuss (Jeremy Davies), Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood), Henry (John Noble)and Ichabod (Thomas Mison) are there and per Crane’s instructions, Jenny opens up a box of dueling pistols. Henry states the nature of the offense, Crane has usurped Henry as War. Stepping 10 paces, they turn. Henry fires, striking Crane. Crane says that he must take Henry out of the world, and although he’s shot, he shoots and mortally wounds Henry.

We return to present and the duel was a vision that Jenny and Crane are sharing. This vision confirms for Jenny and Crane that Henry has taken up the mantle of war. They want confirmation, so they will use Alex’s method of confirmation. Adult Molly (Lara) (Seychelle Gabriel) and Diana (Janina Gavankar) discuss how in Lara’s timeline, she spent time in the vault, but she was tutored by Jobe. All she learned came from him (and she is still apparently fond of Jobe, in an odd way). Lara wants to meet Molly. Diana realizes that Lara is actually stuck in this timeline. Jake (Jerry MacKinnon) shows Alex (Rachel Melvin) that his research shows that the four horsemen are likely more powerful together. Jake is concerned that Alex is not ok. He asks if he offended her, but Alex said the opposite. Everyone convenes with Jake and Alex. Alex says she’s been able to track but is trying to get a thermal picture, and Jenny asks if she can try to hack the satellite image. Four warm images are clearly visible. They realize the horsemen are very close to Camp David (I guess we don’t need to worry since the CURRENT president is most often at Mar-A-Lago). They try to figure out how to warn the President without sounding utterly crazy. As they watch, the horsemen take off.

At Camp David, the guards fire away at the horsemen, but are unable to stop them. A burning ax mark appears on the door of the President’s (Charmin Lee) safe room, and Headless bursts in. He swings his blade and a blue glow knocks all the guards out, but not the President. As she wonders what the creature is, Malcolm Dreyfuss enters with Jobe (Kamar de los Reyes). Malcolm sends a video message informing DHS that he has the President. The team discusses that there’s no way that the government will concede to Dreyfuss’ demands, and they all decide that in order to stop this, they have to figure out how to kill an immortal enemy.

The team rummages thoroughly through the vault, but without success. However, Lara suggests that she appeal directly to Jobe. She thinks she has a way to convince him. She uses the last summoning crystal to bring Jobe to the tunnels. Lara tells Jobe that Dreyfuss is growing tired of him. Jobe growls what seems to be a curse. “Via ad Infernum!” Although the team initially says that Jobe told them to “go to Hell,” Crane realizes that he was actually DIRECTING them to literally GO TO HELL. Diana is very unhappy with the thought of Crane and Lara going, but Crane says he’s found his way back from Purgatory AND New Jersey (heh). The team jokes about bringing back souvenirs, like a snowglobe. Crane researched, and picked his apartment because the visit would not attract attention. But, before they can complete the “go to Hell” spell, Crane gets a visit from the cable guy. (“Icheebod Crane”) Crane reschedules. That scene was really amusing. Crane and Lara successfully execute the spell, and as Crane describes Hell as Valley Forge, during winter, Lara remarks that she isn’t seeing the same thing. She sees St. Agatha’s Home for orphaned kids. This was an extremely unique and compelling way to convey the uniqueness that the afterlife and Hell might have for everyone. “Hell is the damned places we bring with us.” Great writing! Crane tells Lara that he can relate with how Lara feels, out of time. He wants to make sure that Lara knows he will never abandon her. The filming was remarkable, because as each actor spoke their lines, the scene shifted to their individual hell. They jointly see (with a great alternating screen) the entry to the actual inferno. “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter” in Latin.

Back in the vault, although they have searched the place exhaustively, Alex notices that the bookshelves appear to be more than decorative. Jenny notices a symbol, and they are switches, when depressed at the same time, release hidden compartments. They find a hidden volume dated 1789, which documents the creation of the archive. Washington (Mark Campbell) and Bannaker (Edwin Hodge) discuss a mural, and while Betsy Ross’ participation can’t be disclosed, they do leave the tricorn hat as a secret recognition of her contribution. Bannaker says that he wants to keep the archive separate from elected officials, and Washington asks if Bannaker will ever forgive him for the events which led to Crane’s “long slumber.” They realize that the weapons are IN the archive, somewhere. Crane and Lara descend a long and gorgeous staircase and arrive in Hades, where they hear the Devil (Terrence Mann) singing. (It’s “BOB the skull” from The Dresden Files!) They ask if he’s the Devil who struck a deal with Malcolm Dreyfuss. They ask the Devil to help kill Dreyfuss, but the Devil asks why he should interfere, because Malcolm is bringing the Apocalypse. Then he threatens the Witnesses. Crane asserts that the Devil can’t keep them there because they came of their own free will. Crane asks if they are going to strike a deal. (Uh oh).

In the vault, they locate a drawing on the back of a picture which identifies that there is a spot in a wall. They break the wall and see a bow and other old looking weapons. At the same time, Lara and Crane reappear. Crane shows that the Devil gave him the Philosopher’s Stone. The team dubiously shows the weapons. Crane, sensing their doubt, gives a pep talk. At Camp David, Henry thoughtfully notes that he can feel his father coming (while Dreyfuss gloats). Henry remarks that Crane was able to overcome him before. Dreyfuss reassures him and asks Henry to trust in him. (This results in an excellent opportunity for John Noble to show off his stage chops, too.)

Alex and Jake are in the forest and Jake will not lie about their chances. But, Jake reassures Alex about how far they have come as capable fighters. Alex finally admits that it bugs her that for three years she’s been working with the one person she can’t live without, and didn’t realize it, and they finally kiss (YAY!). Jenny lets the team know they are on their way. Everyone tells each other to stay safe, and Diana tells Lara that she’s still her Mom and to be careful.

Crane and Diana approach the house, and they encounter War. The team sees the other three horsemen: Famine, Plague and Death, but they notice that War is not there. They don’t know why Headless can be out in the daylight – and decide that the horsemen are more powerful together. The weapons that the team has are activated because the team is close to the horsemen. Crane gets War to talk to him, as Henry. Crane identifies that regardless of all that they have experienced, they bond over Freedom. He points out that Henry’s hatred will enslave him. Henry realizes that Freedom is a cause even he is willing to sacrifice for, so he declares a truce. The team fights the other three.

Crane and Diana arrive at the building where Jobe and Dreyfuss are holding the President. They enter and tell Dreyfuss it’s over. Crane tries to persuade Dreyfuss that he has a lot of gifts and he’s wasting them. Dreyfuss says he wants to cut the President’s throat. He staggers and Crane sees that the Philosopher’s Stone has been activated. Diana shoots Dreyfuss who jokes about his shirt. He wonders why he’s still injured. Crane shows him the stone. And, Dreyfuss asks Jobe to help. But, Jobe grabs Malcolm and says since Malcolm’s contract has come to an end, Jobe is a free agent. He grabs screaming Malcolm and they burst into flame. Crane hopes that the Horsemen have gone with him. We see the team fighting and the remaining horsemen disappear. The President asks who Crane and Diana are and they explain they are Agency 355. She says there is a conundrum but that the solution is for Crane and Agent Thomas to report directly to her. Crane points out that he is not a citizen and she instantly makes him one.

Back in his apartment, Crane is completing his voter’s registration. Lara shows up and Crane thinks he’s late for their meeting with young Molly and Diana. Lara says she’s not sure it’s a good idea. Lara points out that Molly has been liberated because Lara is the Witness, not Molly. So, Lara decides she needs to go out and figure out for herself what it means for her. Crane bows and lets her go. Crane explains to Diana and Molly that Lara needed to go. Molly is disappointed. Crane tells Molly that her future is her own now. She can choose. Plus, not only is Molly free, but so is Diana. But, she tells Crane that she felt her calling and that they all are a family. Diana gets a text from Jenny about a siren.

While they head out to the lake, Diana challenges Crane about the Devil and Crane concedes that he made a deal. He shows Diana the symbol he now has branded on his arm. He has a lien on his soul. “Sorry, what was that? Situation dire? Prognosis grim? Just another day at the office.” But, Crane says that he’s certain that since he has such a good support network, he will fix this and Diana says he won’t do it alone. They discuss what this woman in the lake might be. Not a siren…it’s a Kraken! And finish the season (and perhaps the series) “Shall we punch the clock?”

Grade: A+

This episode, in particular, was sweetly satisfying. Young Molly is released, Diana commits to the business, Jenny appears to be staying, Jake and Alex have realized they love each other, older Molly (Lara) is the Witness and gets along well with Crane, Dreyfuss has been called to the Devil and Jobe is a “free agent.” War isn’t gone, but does seem to have declared a temporary truce. We got to see Hell and the Devil (who was both charming AND scary/menacing!). The team is now officially working directly for the President. This season was tightly and enjoyably written. It managed to be light-hearted, serious, funny and scary – difficult attributes to evenly achieve. The special effects were very well done and they returned to filming techniques that Len Wiseman originally introduced the first season. Most importantly for me, the cast seemed to genuinely enjoy working together and that quality makes scenes more believable and invests the audience to a greater degree than just a good story. I sincerely hope that Fox grants one more season, because the writers and the show team appear to still have room, and they had the chops to go a completely different direction this year and still hearken back to what made season 1 so special.

Next Episode: Awwww, there ISN’T ONE! Please renew this show, Fox!

Sleepy Hollow (S04E13) “Freedom” Season 4 was never guaranteed, but boy, has it ever been satisfying. There was a lot of fear in the viewing audience when Abbie was killed at the end of Season 3.

[speakingintothedarkness]

Old Memes and Memories

Hnn.... It’s been a while. 

Still with Liz. Briefly dated a trans girl long distance over teh interwebs but it went downhill. 

Still... grappling with gender, even though I’m way more comfortable with being not-cis than I was last time we talked about this, dear internet. 

I read a thing today. Its keeping me awake, and I have this weird feeling that if I tried to talk to anyone about it, it’d come off as... either inscrutible, offensive, or both.

Ugh it’s embarassing really. Fucking Homestuck. I know, what is this 2015? But seriously I had read that entire trashfire of a webcomic when it was being released and I only just learned about the epilogues so I figured I’d read that. 

It’s a bit weird. Go figure, right? Hussie is a weird dude who leans into his weirdness even harder than Dan Shive does. The entire thing is framed around a dichotemy, a choice that one character makes and all the action that follows comes from that choice. You get to make that choice for that character, but the story only really makes sense if you do it both ways. And, perhaps typically, even though this is the epilogue to a vast spanning story, somehow it’s not even really about tying up the loose ends. In fact, it leaves you with more than you started. The antagonist of the epilogue isn’t even the villain that was built up throughout the run of the comic and then never directly addressed. 

But that’s not what’s bothering me. What’s bothering me is, of course, the trans question. 

In one of the two branching timelines, a character comes out as trans. In that timeline, he is given time to examine his gender with an understanding partner and winds up deciding on a full transition to being male. 

...but in the other timeline, the same character winds up being married to a straight dude and remains a woman, has kids and basically... goes as straight cis as she can. And its really hard to say which version of them is happier in the end. A bunch of shit goes terribly for both versions (either/both ways, this was not a happily ever after for pretty much anyone involved), but both versions wind up soliloquizing about how they struggled with their gender and are happy with where they wound up. 

This... is a thing that as a tran myself I know I’m supposed to be foaming at the mouth over. Implying that trans is a thing you can choose to be, implying that, if things had gone differently you might wish to not be what you are, even if specifically asked about it... these are cardinal sins. 

And certainly for some people, they’ve known on some level who they were their entire life. But... I am not one of them. I can point to the exact moments in time that pushed me towards this self-realization, three sentences that various people have said to me, and two life-decisions that culminated in me being forced to examine what all this meant. So I guess since I can’t sleep and this is a self-indulgent exercise to begin with, it’s mOtHerFuKiNg StOrY tImE hOnK! 

The first moment that led me down this road, the point that planted the first proto-seed of thought about my gender in my mind was, perhaps predictably, about a game. In this case a long-standing DnD game I’d played with my OC friends in the early days of my relationship with C before she decided she hated them and didn’t want me to spend time with them and that’s own fucking rabbit hole. 

In our game, our characters had become so intrinsically involved in the politics of the nation our game was set in, that we realized that going on adventures was irresponsible and might cause irreparable harm to the world. So rather than end the game, we statted up our characters’ children. To make things interesting, we randomized who got who. To my (at the time) mild dismay, I drew a girl, When I showed the others my slip of paper with the name “Tamora” written on it, one of my friends snorted “God, it’ll be hard to imagine you playing a princess.” And it.... stung. It hurt in a  way I’d never before experienced. My first brush with a now all-too-familiar sense of dysphoria. As if there were a part of me I’d never before examined that had its ego crushed. I don’t remember how I responded. 

Thing is, I played Tamora like a fucking champ. And no one ever made another comment about me playing a girl. I think I’d proven that I could convincingly play any role I wanted to. 

Which brings us to the second sentence. I’ve talked about this here before, a friend on an online game admitting to me that the gender of her character did not align with the one she was assigned at birth. It was both shocking and enticing. In a way its laughable now (we’ll probably get around to why) but at the time, I just sorta assumed that... I’d be able to tell? And S was...  she was as female and feminine as anyone I’d ever met. I’d never wondered for an instant. 

And those two things... those two moments. The pang of hurt, the desire to be perceived as a girl; and the sudden realization that there was a venue where that might be possible. That lead me to make the first of those life choices: creating a female character, deliberately this time, and dive into her so thoroughly that there were times where I was’t sure where she ended and I began. 

Things got a bit weird in all this. I mean, people asked me questions about myself ooc and I would answer as if I were a girl. Hell  I even gave myself a name in all that. Karen, if you can believe it. Its not the name I’m currently using. Who the fuck would name themselves Karen in 2018-19 right? 

But ultimately none of that really mattered, I’d so thoroughly compartmentalized my brain throughout all this that barely anything of my character in the Game leaked into my real life or vice versa. For all intents and purposes, “Karen” who played the game and the me who did everything else were two entirely separate people. 

And yet some of it must have seeped through because C noticed. Or at least, I’m pretty sure she did. She knew I was playing the Game, but I never talked about my character or her gender. She knew that that rp involved romantic and sexual subplots, but I never discussed them with her, nor she her own sex-rp’s with me. It was a sorta tacit polyamory with very specific confines that we’d agreed to in a purely theoretical sense some years back and then adhered to rigidly in practice while determiniedly never talking about it. 

But for all the fucked up shit, she knew me well, maybe better than anyone other than Liz has. I mean, we were a couple of woke 20-somethings in the Obama era, so lgbt issues were pretty forefront at the time. Guess they still are, we were just a lot more... hopeful about it. But she kept sending me articles about trans people. Like, human interest articles. 

There was one in specific that she got really... enthusiastic about, about this one trans-woman’s journey to self-discovery through WoW. C read part of the article to me out loud, culminating when the person in the article was confronted by her wife: “You can be a girl if you want to be”. She kinda repeated that a couple times, looking at me hard. And in retrospect, yeah, it wasn’t fucking subtle. But at the time... it was not a thing I was willing to examine. Like fuck, honestly I think there was a part of me that knew. I mean there had to be at that point, right? But I didn’t want to pursue it irl. I think I made up my mind that it would be something I’d approach the same time that I approached the poly question that was inevitably hanging over C and I at that same time: after we were married. So I just nodded and went “Huh, interesting” with a straight face as my at-the-time girlfriend all but told me that if I wanted to come out to her, she’d be okay with it. 

Never got a chance to see if she really would have been.

After we broke up, all this shit got put so far back on the back burner that... well hell, go back and read my first few posts if you have the fortitude to stand a lot of bitching. Like way more than I’m doing now. 

And I mean the funny thing was I was still playing the Game I just sorta figured that once... I got another girlfriend, that’d have to stop? That who and what I was in the game would stop mattering. Because I was monogamous right? Just like I was male and straight, and the fact that my character was none of those things meant that I’d have to put her out to pasture. So it didn’t matter that I’d been playing a lesbian ethical slut for the past five, six years, because once I was in another sanctioned cishet relationship, I’d have to put all this foolishness behind me and never speak of it to anyone ever again. 

Goddess alone knows if I even could have but I would have tried. I suspect it would have gone badly.

Instead... by almost comicallly random happenstance, I wound up with a poly girl. And after some initial winging about whether or not I wanted that, a part of my brain I’d been ignoring went, “Hey dumbfuck! You never cared when A--- slept around or when E--- was in another relationship, why should it matter to you that CR has a boyfriend?” 

And the rest of my brain took a second to process that and was like “E--- and A--- weren’t involved with me irl, only my character in the game.” 

And the first part was like “Oh yeah, smart girl, if that wasn’t a thing you wanted on some level than how come you fucking jumped into it with both feet in the game?”

And the rest of me rejoined rejoined, “I suppose you have a p--wait! smart girl?”

“Oh yeah, that’s a thing too. You probably better process that because this whole fucking thing is tied together like a goddamn giftbasket of deviancy. Good luck having anything resembling a normal life once you’re done untangling it”

And at that point there was no turning back. I’ve dragged my feet certainly, not... as much out of a sense of general reluctance as a bunch of worries about how my family (who I’m still reliant upon) will take it. But once that realization had occured there was no putting that bunny back in the box. 

Which I guess brings me to my point, if one can even say I have one. 

In a lot of ways this whole misadventure seems less like something that was always there and more like... a memetic virus that somehow burrowed into my brain, incubated for a few years and then burst forth from my skull like some horrifying amalgam of Athena and a chestburster. Like, if I had pulled a dude’s name from that hat... would literally any of this happened? If my friend hadn’t admitted that she was experimenting with gender herself would it have occurred to me to try? If I hadn’t created that first female online character, would I still think I was a man? Would I still be a man? I mean that’s the crux of all this. In the fucking Homestuck epilogue, is candyverse Roxy still a man like they are in the meatverse? Sorry, spoilers I guess. To them, the only real difference is an opportunity to prioritize their own self expression and gender identity. But Candyverse Roxy still has put thought into those things, just because of how and when they had the time to do so, she arrived at a different conclusion than he did in the other timeline. 

And yes, I know that the Meatverse is considered more cannon than the candyverse, and yes, Roxy is the only character  in the meatverse who isn’t being manipulated by Dirk’s mind meddling and therefore we can safely say that his epiphanies regarding his gender are genuine, more truthful and relevant to the character than the weirdness going on in the Candyverse. 

But... where does that leave me. Obviously we’re playing the  “what if” game on a weird scale here but, what if that series of events hadn’t occured? Would I still wind up roughly where I am, genderwise, by a different rout? Or would I have continued to labor under the false assumption that I was a dude... and would that assumption in this case even be false by any empirical standard? That’s the question that’s kept me up tonight. 

I think I can safely say that by the time I had constructed this Karen figment that it was a foregone conclusion. But.... if either of those two inciting incidents had gone differently... Ugh... I don’t know. I feel like some people would want to take my trans card away from me for even suggesting that there’s a universe out there where I’m happily continuing to think I’m a dude. Maybe there is... but ultimately it’s not relevent or true for me, because its not a thing that I can go back to now. In short: it’s simply not cannon. 

[atopiarp]

site guide

Joining

We have a roster of diverse characters in our story and we’re always looking to expand. If you’ve read over our information outlining the group and found yourself interested, then this is your first to stop to begin joining the group. We’re looking for people who are interested in writing, creating, and growing. If you can’t handle criticism or have a hard time keeping up with timely posting or if communication is at all an issue for you—we’re probably not the group for you. If none of those things are an issue for you, then let’s jump right into it! You’ll need to familiarize yourself with some of our terminology, words like “vessel” and “normal” and “synth,” or “senate.” In a separate location on our content page there is a listing with all organizations and functions of world building - it’s called “lore.” Be sure to read the lore in order to better understand the world of Atopia. Once you read everything and have a basic understanding ( I want to be clear that you don’t have to understand everything like the back of your hand. ) you should shoot us a message on our admin page, which is also linked in the navigation.

If there are any questions you have that you were unable to find in our content we have an open door atmosphere, we encourage anyone to come to us with their questions. No question is a dumb question. If you think you’re familiar with some of the words and understand the basics, try to check out our wanted ads. If one of those characters strike your fancy, message us about their availability. We stand by another policy: all roles are up for negotiation, meaning that you may request face changes or gender changes, as well as differences in personality and so on. We do not wholly expect everyone to play them to the “T” to how they are written. It’s very likely that we’ll encourage you to make the character your own and add or change whatever you feel fits your vision or muse for the character.

Probational Period

In Atopia all members that are new or have just joined are immediately placed on a one week probationary period. Meaning, we expect them to be into a thread or writing as their character within a week. We attempt to maintain a specific activity standard due to the amount of care and passion our more generous writers within the group have. This probationary period is a standard week from the time the person joins the group or is listed as being a member - until the seventh day at midnight. What we expect: we would love to see any sort of contribution. The probationary period ends after the first week. New members can abide this policy by writing a muse post, communicating daily in the group chat or group activities, or reaching out to members to get plots moving and a single thread posted.

Activity Standards

As a group our plot is very fast paced. We tend to have members who write or reply daily to their threads. We are however, very, understanding of our member’s schedules and real life happenings. If a member needs to take a week or two away, a single notice is all that we request to one of the admins. A notice or any sort of communication regarding the absence. Once the notice is given the member is exempt from resignation for the allotted time discussed between the absent member and the admin whom was given the notice. The truth is, members who tend to be more active within the group usually have more from the group. They have the better stories, the most development and are most connected to each character. Their stories tend to flourish and thrive and due to this, they are promoted more in promotional material. Not out of favoritism but simply because of the amount of effort they’ve contributed. It becomes clear to the admins within the week probationary period which new members have come to write, and which are there to chit-chat solely. We have no issue with small-talk, status-play or comment-back-and-forths, whatsoever. We do STRESS that our main story happens within our group forum and members are highly expected to post in threads actively each week. There is a two-week probationary period on all seasoned members at all times. If a notice isn’t given and a member has become absent, they are liable for removal after a two-week period.

To help you better understand why we have these guidelines for activity standards — We pride ourselves on being a group of writers first. We, as a group have always put writing first, and likely will continue to do so. We chit-chat, we share ideas, we converse out of character and we befriend one another; we chat about gaming, movies, television shows, etc. If in no way this hinders our ability to contribute. We do not mind being friendly, social or contributing to that circle; if anything we encourage our members to connect with one another and develop that chemistry.

Writing Format & Style

Atopia is a group that is based on forum-style writing. We have our admin account for help, aid, and communicating with potential new members. Our main writing occurs within the group in the group section of the site. Our group is used as a one-column, all-necessary information hub with the forum attached to the navigation. All of our canon, main story threads are archived publicly to other members, in our forum. This can all be accessed by those who have been invited or have joined the group. If you’re new to forum-style writing, don’t be afraid; someone within the group will without a doubt help you get more familiar and comfortable with it. The pros of hosting our threads in the forum for all members to read is that our story becomes more immersive. The world tends to feel more organic when writers can thoroughly enjoy the avenues and journey of their peers. We tend to love every character in the group as much as our own and follow their journeys equally. This allows us to really gain a full scope of the Atopian story and world.

Members are able to plot privately or publicly in our group chat. Most of our plots are member plotted, which means you are likely depended on to conceive your own plots and story path within the group. If at all you find this is difficult for you, members or admins within the group who are seasoned will help you without a doubt. We encourage you, once again, if at all you find yourself having trouble to message an admin! We love to help, we enjoy it really. If you get stuck on a plot with another member, message us! Main Plot

Our group is somewhat of a sandbox style role-play with an overall mega-plot in mind. Our main plot centers on the “vessel vs. government” struggle. Most—if not all—characters are tied to this conflict in some way, shape or form. Some characters who are more seasoned become reliant on their character-to-character connections for most of their present plots. ( this is the dramatic story telling of - he said, she said - which then creates ripples and so on ) We usually find ourselves plotting event-driven plots, or personal-driven plots. An event driven plot is when a single event triggers multiple characters to be in the same place at the same time, or react to a specific event equally. This helps connect characters. Personal driven plots are when person A goes to person B about what person C did or said. Which could cause person A to trigger an event plot via his/her actions.

Our main plot stands as an outline, a foundation for what our story overall has become. People in this world now have abilities, how do you react? What do you do? Does your power change who you are? Does it make you better or worse as a person? Where do you go from here? Are you being hunted, by who, for what reason? In addition to our main plot, we have seasonal plots.

Season Plot

A season is a time period that stalls over the group as a whole. It’s a mega-plot, and it replaces the main plot for the group for a specific time period. The season plot is usually a very wide-spread sort of plot that affects every character equally and forces them to react. It can be several events or a single event, usually changing the world as a whole as it concludes. Season plots happen in spaced time-frames. There will never be a season immediately following a prior season, members will be allowed a grace period between seasons.

In this grace period, we refer back to the main plot to write our stories. So, to sum it up, if there is a season in effect - we write that plot as a whole. If there is no season, we write according to the main plot. Every plot, whether season or main, are expected to contribute to the group or characters involved in some way. Whether to worldbuild, or character develop.

Character Types & Classes

So, we begin our breakdown of what our classifications are at this point and what sort of characters we expect or desire out of our interested party. If you’ve managed to read our “lore” section you’ll find that there are three known classifications in terms of where people align within Atopia: Vessel, Normal, Synth. So, let’s go over each one of these.

A Vessel is a person, any person, who has gained abilities through whatever means. Typically, most characters inherit their abilities on a genetic level. There is no specific age in which they acquire them; only that most do so before the age of fifty-or-so. There have been plots that outline exactly how or when people began inheriting abilities. If a reader is interested in that summary, please message the admin account for further information!

The Vessel genetic began to develop almost eighty years ago from our current timeline when a radical new disease called Hitchken’s Illness began to spread, altering the anatomy of those it infected. From that point on, it was stated that those with abilities would continue to evolve per generation. A person capable of fire abilities would go from lighting a torch to burning an entire building as natural evolution occurred with the species.

To this date this is no sure way to treat the Vessel and rid him/her of their abilities. Early on Hitchken’s Illness faded and the term “Vessel” replaced those infected, until eventually the scientific community dismissed it altogether as illness. Instead choosing to refer to it as a chain of evolution.

A Normal is any person without supernatural gifts. While about 65% of the population are Normals, they are considered mostly the minority by the newer, younger generation. Studies have shown that Normals will be replaced entirely within the next twenty years or so, as the rapidly increasing population of Vessels continue to take root in society. The common Normal is quite mad, or in fear of their species being generic, basic or going extinct.

There have no doubt been talks on the media outlets of Normals being “outdated” lifeforms as Vessels continue to take footing. This has sprung forth a plethora of Vessel-only jobs in the occupational market, further fueling protests and riots; however, most Normals still live as they would in a world without Vessels. It’s quite common for Normals to commit crime, same as a Vessel would, or even want to defend themselves with different weaponry: guns, knives, etc.

This brings us to a Synth. In fear of being outdated or left behind, technology has given Normals an answer to their fear -- synthetic upgrades. This allows a Normal to become a Vessel via technological implants. Synths aren’t just those who use technology to gain strength, torches, speed, etc. It’s the people who depend on it to live. Those with implants behind their eyes to cure blindness, or ears for deafness. Synths have various categorization, mostly depending on whether or not it's a lethal Synth or a dependent Synth.

Metal arms, legs, etc. Any sort of prosthetic is still enough to consider a person a Synth. In recent times the government has taken a lot of interested in Synths - in the story.

Alignments & Organizations

Here we’re going to be breaking down each organization within the story and the different sides that all play a vital part.

Government

The governing body of Atopia is known as The Senate. It is a council board of corporate leaders in the world. Each seat, which there are seven of, hold a percentage of distribution of wealth in Atopia; together they collectively are the most powerful, wealthiest people on the planet. They make every decision regarding the longevity of Atopia life, safety and policy. Beneath them are handfuls of politicians and senators who enact a specific role in the branch of government whether for judicial purposes, marketing realestate, distribution of consumer products, food, social technology or arms and safety.

A team of senators are employed by the council of the Senate to govern over the societal systems in each city: a team for Yorkshire, Hazel, etc.

Beneath these senators are the law firms, and multiple branches of enforcement.

This is where EXO and the PD come into play. For Normal related crime there is the casual PD; a policing department. They handle most commonly known crimes, bribes, thieves, grand theft, domestic disputes -- however, if the crime reported involves a Vessel, EXO takes control of the scene.

EXO is a branch of law enforcement that specifically handles all Vessel related crimes; the illegal use of abilities, etc. In the world of Atopia, all Vessels must be documented and their power recorded for safety purposes. A method referred to by protesters as “tagging” as if Vessels are animals. Documenting Vessels is done via a chip inserted into the body of the Vessel which alerts EXO whenever a person’s ability is being strained or overused. This warrants a patrol to appear and question the use of the ability. Aside from tagging, EXO agents also investigate murders involving abilities as well as hunt untagged down. It’s is generally their primary focus.

Which brings us to NEST, a government funded off-book surveillance / intelligence organization. NEST was founded almost twenty - or - so years ago with the idea of being a general intelligence agency. Their goal is to monitor the world as it changes and document the various unique abilities of Vessels. They are the first line of defense against threats similar to that of Abel from season one. NEST is led by twelve council members, some of which have even sat on the Senate.

NEST, has at its disposal the world’s greatest technology which allows it to be connected to the Grid on a pure observant level. The Grid is a super-computer-connected system that relays 90% of the power to technological powered systems in the cities. Traffic lights, cash registers, banks, automated gates, or civilian systems, etc. NEST, has various branches within its organization; that of data analyzing, ability documentation, profiling, investigative services, as well as geologists who are dedicated to the origin of Hitchken’s Illness and its connection with Aypos, the lost continent. ( which can be read in our setting section via the navigation )

Finally, the last organization worth mentioning is Blackwell. At some point early in Atopia’s history, Blackwell was an organization that turned out children Vessels into assassins with the intent of performing tasks to secure the Atopian society or government. They were a specific line of defense. However, that program was terminated and covered up. Blackwell subsequently became Blackwell Holdings, a front, a financial company. Further information about each of these can be found in our “lore” section.

Corporate Atopia

Let’s get into some of the companies that are connected to the Senate. Keeping in mind that the Senate are the top wealthiest company owners in the world, beneath them are the very companies they own.

Vylon Foundation

The Vylon Foundation, founded by Abraham Vylon over seventy-or-so years ago was once one of the largest distributors of common technology. At a point in time, they were the only source of technology; everything from phones, cars, and even traffic signal lights were manufactured by the Foundation. Once Abraham passed away the company was handed down to his son Benjamin, and eventually to Lauden prior to being imprisoned in which then it was handed to Layal, his sister. Who is the current CEO of the company. As it stands now, the Foundation is very low in the totem pole in standing with the Senate, even so much as close to losing their spot on the board to newer and more expanding companies, like Stryker Industries.

Stryker Industries

A tech-based company similar to that of the Vylon Foundation, however more specifical handles arms dealings - supplying local law enforcement rather than solely EXO, as the Foundation had been doing. Stryker has bought up quite the reputation with the local community of Normals, even so much as being used upon the tongues of protesters against Vessel-related companies and occupations. Stryker Industries was formerly ran by chairman, Carter Stryker but was purchased by a mysterious benefactor, who has allowed Carter to remain in a position of power as the face of the company. Moving forward, Stryker Industries is in quite the position to make a move for a Senate seat.

Porter Tech

A pharmaceutical company, leading in the distribution of medication in the medical market. Porter Tech, formerly in the tech running race same as Stryker and Vylon made their switch to primarily sell to the medical field some years ago under the handle of a prior CEO. Now, with Sidonia Porter running her family’s empire she intends to buy up as much space in the medical market as possible to privatize the sells of specific brands, forcing the common consumer to purchase Porter distributed medication only. This ingenious move has led the Porter family right into a Senate seat of their own, pushing the competition out. Sidonia has been described as cut-throat and ruthless in business negotiations. 

Society & Atmosphere

Atopia isn’t much different from Earth. It can be described as a somewhat 90’s inspired architectural concept with technology from the post-era. Perhaps, technology at its current level of growth but in the year 2030. Fashion on Atopia varies from black leather and futuristic design to common 2000’s fashion. Food is similar, if not the same, and days, months, years still occur in the same cycle. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, etc. — Those are all correct measures of times. There aren’t however, nations or different ethnical backgrounds—most simply consider each other, Atopia.

Music is the same as it is in Earth and it’s common for writers to mention songs from our modern era in the real world, placing them into Atopia. Actress and film industries still exist as do animals and preserves for them; most of those laws are still intact too. It works best to assume that Atopia is a version of Earth itself. If there is something you’re not sure about, but insist on adding or contributing to our world - please message the admin! We’re very open to any sort of additions that help make our world come to life further.

Most Atopians have switched to a more mobile form of currency, using their embedded chip within their arms, or eyes to check-out at registers using digital or virtual account space. Typically displayed via an augmentation in their eyes, depending on their implant. This, since considered a societal norm, is not considered a Synth implant.

Much like Earth there are also sports, and games - football, baseball, etc. Feel free to state things in your character or post that use these simple tools of worldbuilding.

Setting & Development

If you haven’t had the chance to check out our “setting” section on our content page, you should do so! This is just a more thorough breakdown of how Atopia, the planet, is mapped out. We hope this helps you get a more full and broad understanding of just what Atopia is.

Atopia, because it has no nations and is a single continent, is depicted as having several major cities that act as the source of attraction for its citizens. Each city described in our setting section has a unique history and background as well as plot-position in the story. As the story continues to unfold it’s possible that more locations can be revealed.

These cities are typically spanned hundreds of miles away from one another with roads and smaller towns in between by the thousands. Some of these smaller towns may have history of their own as well. Again, this is the part where we encourage our members to be creative and contribute! Feel free to design a town and throw the concept at the admins.

We welcome more thinking minds to our concept. If you want to add a town or location you feel really contributes to our story and atmosphere, please do so! Don’t be afraid to throw names of towns into your topics or stories without question. We encourage you to add your own twists to our world, the only thing that we ask is that any changes to a solidifies and posted city be discussed with the admins before the change is posted!

Creating A Character

You’ve made it this far in our adventure through the Site Guide. Which finally, finally, brings us to character creation. The whole reason for the guide to begin with. If you’ve read through the lore section, the setting section and managed to make it through this awfully lengthy guide -- and you’re still interested -- let’s begin creating a character.

I think the most important piece of any character is to make sure the muse for this character comes from within and not a trendy tv show. Here’s why, musing from a book or tv show that’s happening right at this moment, tends to create temporary inspiration for a concept. The concept needs to be the inspiration alone. Because if the tv show dies off or gets canceled, and is the sole inspiration for your muse -- your muse tends to die with it. Find a concept that you really relate to, that doesn’t get boring or old too quickly and then begin designing a character. Okay, so let’s start with alignments. Do you see them with EXO? Blackwell, maybe the Senate? Maybe none? Perhaps a Doctor, or some unaffiliated occupation. After this what sort of classification do they have? Are they a Normal? If so, where do they stand in relation to how the general percentage of Normals view Vessels? Do they protest or live peaceful?

Now, what about a Synth? Are they a Synth, if so why? What motivated their augmentation? Maybe they’re a Vessel, what ability do they have if so? Why is that ability good for your character? It’s important to pick a power that may work against them rather than for them. What sort of face are you picturing for this character, and the last and most important question — what’s special about this character? What makes them so important or unique in this world / story? These are all questions that should be within your mind as you venture through the creation process. Ask yourself, if a part of this world can exist with or without this character, how do you insert them to change that? How do you give them relevance? It’s important to try to stand out from the characters already in the group. So be sure to read up on who and what we already have! As always, if you need—any—help at all, message the admins! They’d love to help you in any way possible.

[m-green-writing]

IT - Book VS Film

When the first trailer dropped for the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel, I was unexpectedly hyped. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because of the strong Stranger Things vibes I was getting, or maybe it was because murderous clowns are kinda my jam. Whatever the reason, I wanted to go and see it, and it’s odd because horror just isn’t my genre. I think it stems from childhood where exposure to scary movies led to being thoroughly traumatised for some several weeks. All kids go through it I’m sure, but to me its more of a proactive defence mechanism when in reality I’m not so easily terrified anymore. Also, I had never read anything of Stephen King, so wanting to see the adaptation was even more peculiar with that thrown in. As a result, I decided that I was going to read the novel before the movie came out and see how everything fared in the transition.

So, now that I’ve read the book and seen the film, how do the two balance out? Well, it’s complicated. I can’t give an authentic and accurate short answer. In order to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both, we’re going to have to go deeper. So I’m going to break the book and film down into three categories and study each of them separately. Also, spoilers ahead for both the original book and the latest movie.

Part 1 - The Plot

The story of IT goes like this: Every 27-30 years a cycle of death and blood begins as a creature awakens in the heart of Derry, Maine, and hunts anything it can get its hands on. The creature has no ‘real’ form and is in fact a shape-shifter, taking on the form it’s prey fears the most. As a result, the murderous being is simply dubbed ‘IT’. In the autumn of 1957, this cycle begins anew with the murder of 6 year old George Denbrough at the hands of IT’s most preferred form, Pennywise the Dancing Clown. In the following months, more children go missing or turn up dead and a manhunt is in place looking for the murderer. As the Derry School ends for the summer in June 1958, the 7 children of the Losers Club - led by George’s older brother, Bill - get together and realise that they have something eerily in common: they have all come face to face with IT one way or another. Connecting the dots they discover that IT is the source of all the horrors in Derry and so they set out to destroy it.

That’s not all though, as the book is actually divided up into two time periods - one in 1958 and the other in 1985. You see, even though the Losers Club is successful in defeating IT in 1958, they did not succeed in killing it. In 1985 (yep, 27 years later) It returns and the Losers Club must reunite to bring it down once and for all. These two timelines are meshed and woven together in the book, and things are paced so that you don’t actually know what IT is until the end - where the two timelines pretty much converge as history repeats itself.

Having two timelines criss-crossing all over the place works fine in a book, but it can be a nightmare to coordinate that into a movie. So the guys behind the scenes made the right call in focusing only on the child timeline. Whilst this ultimately shakes up the foundation of the original book’s ideas and themes, not much of the result is altered and it helps to keep everything focused. There is one big change to this however and that is that rather than being set in the 50s, this adaptation takes place in the 80s (I.e. Some 30 years ago from current present day). 

For the most part however the plot remains untouched, with some slight deviations on motivations and character interactions - which I’ll get into in a moment. One thing that does get problematic is that, even though the story seems pretty short and simple, there is a lot to it in the book (naturally). Comparatively here, a lot of things feel rushed or underdone. It serves the film well enough, but having read the book, I couldn’t help feeling that things were going ahead really quickly. However I will say that throughout this film there are fingerprints of care and attention. This wasn’t a hacked up project, this was a labour of love. Creative licence allows for changes when adaptations come along and different doesn’t always mean bad. 

Of course, whilst things remain mostly the same between the book and the film, there is still some differences, namely when it comes to the Losers Club.

Part 2 - The Characters

Seven. There are seven members of the Losers Club. For any film to introduce and give the correct amount of screen time to each of them is asking a lot. Even so this film manages to pull it off...mostly. Some characters are naturally given a lot more attention than others - creating almost a hierarchy of importance. Some characters remain the same as they were in the book, others swap traits with each other. So let’s discuss.

Stuttering Bill Denbrough is pretty much identical to his literary counterpart. He’s got a stammer, he leads the group in pretty much every decision they make, and is by and large the lead character of the group. All that said, there are some alterations - some small, some big. For starters his relationship with the group is never really touched on. The respect his peers have for him is often not truly covered, and his affectionate nickname “Big Bill” is almost never used. His relationship with Bev is also a little rushed. In the book it takes Bill a while to realise he has feelings for her, whereas here, it’s pretty much love-at-first-sight. I understands this change though, movies don’t have time to let things simmer so I get it. What does change things in a big way is Bill’s motivation. See, in the book when George is killed, his arm is ripped off but his body is left in the gutter for a neighbour to find. George is dead, he's buried, there's a funeral and everything. As a result, Bill’s arc in the book is about coming to terms with his grief and trying to overcome the guilt he feels for not being able to protect him. When we next see him after George’s death, he is playing with friends and has generally moved on from George - at least in social situations. It’s still a touchy subject, but one he isn’t ultimately looking for answers to - at least not yet. In the movie however, George is dragged into the storm drain, leaving no body. He is, as such, labelled as missing - not dead. Deep down, the Denbrough family know that George is never coming back, but because George is Missing, Bill’s arc becomes more about redemption than anything else. He’s mission orientated into trying to find his brother, who he believes will have washed up in the Barrens - the location where the Losers Club hang out predominantly in the book. The same themes are present - grief, especially denial, are certainly felt - but a lot of Bill’s more child-like qualities are lost. There isn’t time to show Bill’s more relaxed moments because he’s always hunting his brother - or his brother’s killer. Again, I understand why they made this change, but at the same time it felt needless.

Next we have Beverly Marsh. Again, she remains very faithful to the source but there’s also a major change. In the book, the kids are all 11 - 12 years old, but here they’re a lot closer to 15 - 16. As a result, Bev is a lot more sexually aware of her femininity, and often exploits it - something she never even dreamed of doing in the book. In the book she’s at that age where boys and girls could be friends without worrying about being intimate. The idea of a date even makes her giggle, rather than taking it seriously. All the same however, the movie does stay close Bev’s confidence. She is a no nonsense type person who does what she wants without fear of others judging her. The only one she worries about in that way is her father, Al, who beats her and even comes very close to molesting her. She’s slut shamed a lot more in the movie, and we see that she is a victim of bullying too BEFORE she meets the other Losers. strangely this isn’t touched on all that much in the book, outside of her father’s beatings, but she is bullied heavily once she is part of the club. I like how these changes build on her character though. She’s sexually confident because she’s more sexually aware of herself. She’s going through puberty, which is private and so, even though she generally doesn’t care what others think, she’s still embarrassed to be seen picking up tampons. Altogether I felt Bev’s character was a loving update, and I’m even more glad that she didn’t have sex with all the members of the Losers Club simply to help calm them down after defeating IT - yes that is a real moment in the book; it’s trippy, weird, a little bit gross, and has almost no real impact on anything.

Up next Ben Hascom - AKA Haystack, AKA Fatboy, AKA Tits. Yep Ben is fat, and that’s his main physical trait, but in both the book and the film it shows that he’s actually a pretty smart kid. The book does it so much better, mind, with Ben having an engineer’s mind and a gift for architecture. He’s also deeply in love with Beverly, and their connection in the book is by far the strongest as Haystack often comes rushing to her side whenever she’s in trouble and almost ignoring all fears whenever he needs to rescue her. In the film a lot of this is kept in, but his talents are never truly explored. We never see his brains in action sadly. There’s a small nod to it somewhat with the model Ben is holding when we first meet him, but that’s about all. The main function of Ben in the movie is to be the encyclopedia guy, the one who connects all the dots to IT and explores the dark history of Derry. What makes this more odd is, in the book, that role belongs to-

Mike Hanlon - Derry’s resident person of colour. In the book, Mike is somewhat of an outcast. Doesn’t have friends and doesn’t mind not having them either. He lives with his mother and father on a farm and goes to a church school where he is ostracised often by the white patrons. Mike’s father moved to Derry not long after the war, and so - thirsty for information on his new residence - he started gathering pieces of history as a hobby. When Mike eventually joins the Losers Club - some mid way through the book - he shows them a photo album that shows that Pennywise has existed for almost 200 years - maybe even longer. Of course, as I said above, that role is given to Ben in the movie, as he is the one who is new to Derry, where as book Ben has lived there all his child life. As a result, movie Mike is arguably the weakest of the bunch - and no, that’s not a race thing (at least not on my end, Hollywood). Because his main “function” to the group has been stripped away and given to someone else, movie Mike is very different from his book alter-ego. Movie Mike works on a farm, yes, but almost as a job. He works under his grandfather as his mother and father were killed in a fire. He has very little to offer to the group going forward and his character gets very little airtime, which is a great shame as book Mike’s historical documents offer a deep narrative of IT’s actions. He gets one good moment in the film, but that’s it, and what’s worse is his rapport with his fellow Losers is practically none-existent. The only thing he brings is the bolt gun from his work which they use against Pennywise in the finale. 

Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Toizer is the Losers Club’s loudmouth in both the book and the film. Unable to stop himself from speaking before he thinks, Toizer is always running his mouth regardless of the situation, whether its relaxed with friends or being terrorised by a demonic clown. Book Richie is arguably the Losers Club’s first mate, being one of the closest friends Bill has and being almost 100% on board with everything they decide to do. Movie Richie though, whilst fundamentally the same, is a lot more argumentative with Bill, and whilst you still get the impression they’re close, he doesn’t carry the same status or rank as book Richie amongst their peers. Movie Richie however serves a greater purpose, he’s the comic relief and he’s a fairly strong one too, bringing some great laughs to otherwise bleak situations. Granted he’s comical in the book as well, but he’s not the only one.

Next, it’s hypochondriac, Eddie Kaspbrak. Eddie is very authentic to his book counterpart, with one major difference: he’s a thousand times more confident. Book Eddie certainly has his own personality but he is very much beholden to the whims of those around him. He idolises Big Bill, the source of his courage, and he is a slave to his aspirator - something that he actually doesn’t need. He has an overbearing, overprotective mother who you love to hate and his arc in the book is his growth in overcoming his vices - his shortness of breath, his mother, and his low self-esteem. In the book he does this brilliantly when he confronts his mother about his placebo meds. The same thing happens in the film, only its a lot more rushed. Again, understandable, but the power of the original moment loses its gusto. It’s a major turning point for Eddie in the book. In the film, it doesn’t have the same impact because he’s already confident enough to confront her. He’s already confident to argue with his friends and stand his ground, even going as far as to oppose Big Bill, something sacrilegious for book Eddie. Altogether though, not much else has changed, and for the purposes of the movie’s 2 hour run time, his rushed moments can be forgiven.

the final member of the Loser’s Club is the Jewish Stan Uris. Stan is pegged as a quiet individual in the book, and is easily the most fearful of the group. Even more than Eddie. Movie Stan maintains this. His more cowardly traits echo in Eddie a lot, but he speaks from rational logic half the time. For him, comprehending Pennywise and IT’s general existence is a fantasy, something he would rather ignore. This taps into the idea suggested in the book that Derry is part of IT and that the people who populate it are almost complicit in Pennywise’s slaughter - even if they don’t realise. Because Stan is probably the most mature of the group (his bar mitzvah takes place during the movie - suggesting that he is transitioning into a man) his rationale for belief in IT is dwindling to the point where he’d rather not be involved. Stan’s adaptation is a very strong one. There is a particular scene that I do like where Stan has to return a book to his father’s office. In the novel, it’s often said of Stan that he can stand being scared, but he can’t stand being untidy or unclean. Upon entering his father’s office, his hand is cupped over one side of his face as he passes a painting of a distorted woman. This indicates his fear of this woman. However, as he walks past he notices the portrait is askew and so he relinquishes his hand to set it right. In the space of less than 2 minutes we see how Stan is willing to face something he fears just to fix something untidy. It was a nice nod to the book, much like Ben’s model, and one that only proves how much care went into adapting the original work. 

There is one final character we have to talk about though and that is the Losers Club constant antagonist. No, not Pennywise, but the school bully, Henry Bowers. Bowers features heavily in the book. He encounters the Losers a lot and whenever he does they always seem to beat him. Over the course of the summer, Henry slowly devolves. His psyche is pushed and pressed with every defeat at the hands of kids he should otherwise be dominating, and eventually Henry cracks. In his mental distress, Pennywise influences him and tries to get him to kill the Losers on IT’s behalf - given how the Losers unknowingly possess a cosmic force that Pennywise fears. Henry is essentially the human monster, the much more real threat that does exist, and the courage the Losers gain from facing Pennywise, gives them the courage to face Henry. Movie Henry is much less prominent - having less dimension but still a lot to make work. He’s the victim of his father’s bullying (much like book Bowers) and he passes that on to those around him. His rhyme and reason however are somewhat missing. There are only two scenes where Bowers and his gang are defeated by the Losers: When Ben escapes down into the Barrens near the start of the movie, and during the apocalyptic rock fight that saves Mike Hanlon. There are inklings that Henry is already losing himself to psychopathy over the course of the movie, but still it does feel a little rushed. Furthermore, unlike book Bowers, he not only confronts the Losers in IT’s lair alone, but also is supposedly killed by Mike Hanlon in a face off. 

All of these characters, for the sake of the movie, work, but if you’ve read the book you’ll know just how much is missing. It’s all enough to work, and there’s clearly a lot of thought that’s gone into getting it to fit, but arguably a little more time spent on it would have really made these characters stick out. What’s more, the Losers Club coming together fully takes a lot of time in the book, but that’s because a lot of time is also dedicated to the more mellow moments. They build a dam together, they build a clubhouse, they smelt silver, play, have adventures, and get up to all sorts of stuff. The movie is very focused on the battle with IT however, which again, makes sense, but as a result the Losers rarely feel like a complete unit. Things often feel forced. Characters are pushed into certain situations because it needs to happen, not because it flows naturally, and when the internal conflict between the Losers starts, a lot of the audience investment is missing. 

Okay, so that’s the cast dealt with, but what about the Big Bad. What about IT itself, and how does it fare now taking centre stage.

Part 3 - Pennywise, The Dancing Clown

Pennywise is just one of the many forms IT takes over the course of the story. We’re first introduced to him when he meets George Denbrough in the storm drain, and this cements him as the monster in the reader’s eyes. But the truth is, IT rarely takes this form in the child section of the book. In fact, IT appears more as Pennywise when the kids are all grown up. In IT’s own words: “if bait is required, what child doesn’t love a clown?” Pennywise is a lure, to make children feel safe and happy, to trick them into a fatal trust. However, there seems to be more to IT’s preference, as often when speaking as Pennywise, IT will identify itself as Bob Gray, which could suggest that Pennywise was once a real clown that IT killed, and now it likes masquerading as a demonic copy. 

IT’s true form is a lot more complicated. IT comes from the Macroverse, a place beyond the time and space boundaries of our universe. It shared this space with one other, the Turtle. The Turtle appears multiple times over the course of the book, being nothing more than an image with no bearing or guidance, and it’s thought that he is the one bringing the Losers together and giving them some of their cosmic strength. But back to IT. 

IT came to earth before humans had evolved. It crashed where Derry would one day be built and has fed on fear and flesh for millennia. IT is not a creature of this dimension and so its source of food is a little unorthodox. IT feeds off of belief. Belief in something, often something terrible, makes the meat more tasty. That’s why IT primarily hunts children, and why many adults actually cannot see Pennywise or any other IT guise - IT even comments on the lush imagination the people of earth have and how that helps IT feast. But even then, there’s more to IT’s feeding.

IT’s true form exists beyond the realm of human comprehension, and still lives deep in the bowels of the Macroverse - a place, or thing, referred to as the Deadlights. The Deadlights are comparable to Hell, as it is a place of only madness and suffering. It’s suggested in the book that the Deadlights are IT’s true form; IT’s soul, and whenever it kills, it plunges its victim’s minds and spirits into that void, where they’ll be used for energy and sustenance. As best as I can work out, IT has a physical form on Earth and an existential form deep in the Macroverse, and the two are intrinsically linked at all times. No matter what form IT takes, Pennywise or some other monster, the book details out how there is always something in common with all of them. The form always has something silver, and something orange - usually pompoms. These are the Deadlights.

When the Loser’s Club face off against IT in both the 1950s and 80s, they see IT’s form as a spider - being unable to truly see the reality of IT’s shape. This spider’s eyes are red and these are the gateways to the Deadlights. During the battle, Bill is sent hurtling along into them and only survives by chanting his speech exercise: “He thrusts his fists into the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts”. This works because IT underestimates them and doesn’t realise a huge flaw in its feeding process until it’s too late.

IT feeds on belief, without realising it’s possible for belief to feed on IT. This is the creature’s ultimate weakness and the Losers Club exploit it. So long as they believe strongly enough in what they say and do, they can actually hurt IT, something IT thought was impossible. Bill believes that once he can talk without his stutter, his mother and father will come out of the catatonic-like state George’s death put them under and love him again. The speech exercise he recites internally wounds IT because of the belief it carries with it, and so IT is defeated; crawling away to die...only it doesn’t. Wounded badly, but not fatally, IT merely rests and starts up the cycle again long after the Losers have left Derry. 

In the movie however, there is no spider, and instead puts Pennywise centre stage. This makes a lot of sense, as audiences need to see a clear antagonist, not an amalgamation of varying forms. Pennywise is the most predominant form IT takes in the book, but in the film it is almost treated as if it is IT’s true state, appearing every time IT encounters the children one way or another. The Deadlights do make an appearance though, as Pennywise uses them on Bev when IT has her in its lair. This leaves her floating, practically soulless - hence why Pennywise will always say “we all float down here”. This floating aspect is never shown in the book, more that it’s expected to happen once the soul is in the Deadlights. The body is left to be eaten. Nevertheless I like this interpretation of the lore, adding a whole new dimension to the Deadlight’s effects. What does bother me though is, in the book it’s stated that once something is in the Deadlights, it’s essentially done for. The link to the body on earth is severed, and the soul is left in IT’s Hell. Yet, with a kiss, Ben manages to bring Bev back. More than a little fairy tale and one that we could have gone without. Maybe she hadn’t been consumed in the Deadlights yet, and that’s how she gets brought back, but I just felt it damages the whole idea of the intimidating metaphysical body.

The movie does touch upon the idea that belief can hurt IT, but again doesn’t truly explain how it all works. It could be that this is being left until the sequel which is happening. I guess that makes sense, but to those who haven’t read the book, when they see the Losers overcome Pennywise in the film, they may be a little confused as to how they managed to beat him. 

With all of this aside, I absolutely adore Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise. He plays the character with such attention to detail and is both fun and frightening to watch. I honestly wish the film had MORE of him in it, and the energy he has on screen leads to some incredible scenes. I also like how the film portrays Pennywise as almost beastly and unnatural - again, tapping into IT’s Macroverse origin. When the pretence falls away and the monster within comes out, Pennywise’s features alter both greatly and subtly. His needle-ridden mouth almost extends outward, forcing the flesh on his face to pull and tighten, and his eyes point away from each other. This is almost a visual explanation that Pennywise is just a mask, just like all the others IT uses. To me, it’s all about the eyes, which seem to move on a whim of their own, and also seem to indicate that Pennywise is a shell more than anything else - coming to life only when the eyes are present. I love it. In the book, a lot of detail is kept intentionally vague about this side of IT, so I’m glad they went as far away from human as they could get.  

Conclusion - Love and Gore

So which is better, the book or the film? Well it has to be hands down the book, but that’s only because the medium has stacked everything against the movie. There’s no way the movie could do everything the book does, there’s just not enough time or space. What the movie does do however, it does remarkably well. The movie is ultimately better for its changes, and it’s often surprising how authentic and faithful it is at times. Like I said, the film is a labour of love, and the attention to detail pays homage to the source material. 

Some scenes are literally shot for shot from the book, such as the introduction scene where George is murdered. We see him get scared of going into the basement. We see him make the boat with Bill. We see his arm get ripped off. The only difference is he isn’t left on the street. There’s even the detail of Pennywise’s eyes changing from sinister orange, to innocent blue when he’s talking to the young boy. Then there’s some of the town details. In the book, Richie is attacked by IT posing as a Derry town monument - a lumberjack. Here, the Losers Club meet and talk near the monument referenced in the book. There’s also all the history of Derry, including the explosion of the Ironworks during an Easter egg hunt, and a reference to the Black Spot - an African American hangout that is burnt down by white supremacists. Basically, if you’ve read the book, not all details will be in there, but a great many will be in the background.

Altogether, the movie is a very strong adaptation. It’s bound by certain limitations and so it has to make the appropriate changes in order to work, and I can understand that. After all the book is over a thousand pages, so there’s a lot of work to do to get all of that in a movie. I know it sounds like I’m being a stickler for details, but truthfully, I jut feel like a bigger picture is missing. Maybe that’s because they’re making a second film and they’re saving the details for that, in which case perhaps this analysis is premature. If I could tweak something in the film it would be that there should have been more scenes where the Losers bond. Seeing as how it’s their relationship that beats at the heart of this tale, it’s arguably a little weak in parts around that. I also feel spreading out the Pennywise scenes a bit more would have worked better than cramming so many back to back. It all feels rather forced at times, because the plot and the film demands that the Losers encounter Pennywise before a certain point. 

Nevertheless I enjoyed the movie. I’m looking forward to the next one and, if it does indeed close the story fully, I might even do another one of these just finalising the points. If you had to choose, Choose both, but read the book first; you’ll have a better appreciation for what’s on screen.