#plus the killing of ming xiao

[jokest3r]

Finished VTMB for the first time as the anarch ending and wow very climatic. In my character's lore I made him personally know each time someone manipulated him, he knew, the entire time. He just played along the powerful people's strings to get what he wanted at the end by the opportunities given by those same people to murder them(Lacroix and Ming Xiao). I need to make a whole character sheet for him cause he's honestly pretty innocent and naive on the outside but is pretty psychotic. I wish the damage fall off for the axe wasn't so high since i wanted to decimate the tower with it. Cant win it all I guess lol. End notes, i love damsel and that's all. Oh and cab driver a real one fr.

[sillygoofyqueer]

Caught up on losing hope and Four? You asshole (affectionate)?? You made me cry for several reasons?? (I’m only half exaggerating but tbh you got me pretty damn close) wwx being taken care of and getting emotional abt it?? Running away and having a panic attack??? HUALIAN CAMEO?!?? Tbh it’d be a little funny if they became consistent cameo characters who give advice to the disaster that is wangxian. Also you spoil me with all this good writing istg. Like, what else do I read?? It’s hard to find well written fics Four >:/! Also Jin ling crying over Wu Ming??? I was in my room yelling “you would help him escape but he doesn’t want you to because he thinks you’ll hate him!! :(!! (And you actually might…)”. Also jgy catching on?? Hello??? What’s he gonna do with that? Idk whether to hope he does nothing with it and brushes it off or that he’s an evil little asshole and uses it against both of them. I am a bit curious as to what Jiang cheng is going to think about all this. Same with Lan Xichen because in canon he denies it but he can’t really do that here because there’s PHYSICAL EVIDENCE. Or maybe he will deny it because jgy is a good liar. But yea. As per usual I wish I could give you more kudos and please remember to TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF :/

Wrestling you into the biggest hug ever right now, aight?? BIGGEST hug ever. You can't cry, 'cause then I'll cry and I won't be able to work on Losing Hope 😨😨, and nobody wants that. Hey, there's so much going on, maybe Hualian do just randomly pop up throughout the fic and are like, "don't forget, communication is key!" or "always wear red if you want to look badass" and then just vanish, leaving everyone like "???" I'm going to think about this so much now... You are so sweet oh my golly gosh, PLEAASE THERE ARE OTHER FICS THAT ARE BETTER THAN MINE (I've been reading them instead of working on losing hope, but you can't prove that)- ((my current favourite is Grimoire)). You flatter me, now I'm violently sobbing. AGAIN. This really can't be good for me, I can't cry this much. Jin Ling just wants his Wu Ming to come back! He surely could have helped his friend escape, because he cares about his friend more than anything Xiao-Shushu could say about him! No matter what he had done, there has to be a reason for it, or else he would have scared Jin Ling off, right? I think the real question is, how could he recognise Wu Ming if he were to see him on the streets? I think that is one of the biggest fears for Jin Ling, and I can't WAIT to get into that. Jin Guangyao catching on about possible communication between Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian could not be a good thing. I wonder what on earth he could do with all of this information...nothing bad, right? He's too good for that, right? :] Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen are definitely in an interesting situation in all of this, because Jiang Cheng has no idea what's going on - why on earth is Jin Ling crying? He simply has to do something about this, he has to fucking find who has made his nephew cry and kill them chat to them about why they think it's a good idea to insult Jin Ling. My favourite thing about this AU (of sorts) is that while Lan Xichen does know that Lan Wangji is madly in love with Wei Wuxian (due to being told by his brother, they can talk about these things because ✨communication✨), he doesn't know HOW madly in love with Wei Wuxian his brother actually is, because there was no confrontation after the Nightless City Massacre. For all Lan Xichen knows, Lan Wangji has moved on from Wei Wuxian because he has no idea how down bad Lan Wangji is for this chaotic controversial man of the cultivation world. This is a little ramble away from what you actually pointed out, but I think it genuinely actually helps out with it. As you've said, there's physical evidence of how Wei Wuxian's been treated by Jin Guangyao and the Jin Clan. PLUS!! Lan Xichen in canon could be seen as biased AWAY from Wei Wuxian because of how he's treated his brother (this is just me rambling at this point), meaning he would be less likely to feel sympathy and want to help Wei Wuxian even for his brother. In this world, there isn't this bias away from Wei Wuxian! Could that help with convincing him of what Jin Guangyao has done? We'll damn well see, or my name isn't Four.

[nemainofthewater]

Halfway through, Lin Chen is winning with 21.1%, then Yu Shisan with 13%, and then the write-in candidates in third with 11.2%.

Tag propaganda under the cut:

Wu Xin

#oh no I was going to vote for Ming Tai… but Wu Xin… oh nooo by @jianghushenanigans

Lin Chen

#look i have to vote for my number one horrible bastard man (lin chen) but I love so many of these characters so much by @sinni-ok-sessi

#cdrama poll#lin chen#my bestie#gotta watch the rest by @masterofmingyuehall

Yu Shisan

#i love Yu Shisan a normal amount XD#a journey to love#yu shisan by @rose-tinted-vision

#vote yu shisan bc rose says so#idk who these ppl are by @astrowaffles

Yuan Ziyi

#I voted for Ziyi but like to be fair#she's more an avenger than she is a gremlin by @tavina-writes

Wang Zhi

#WANG ZHI by @dages-big-naturals

Fan Xian

#I fully expect (and look forward to) fan xian's gremlinery removing the emperor from his throne in season 3#joy of life by @larks-and-katydids

Other

by @llonkrebboj

#dmbj#wu xie#honour is at stake#propaganda by @thelaithlyworm

#Wu Xie#100% Wu Xie#The man menaced so hard he almost burned down half of China by @epicwalrus

#slander of jing beiyuan who even has his own 'gremlin jing beiyuan' tag on ao3#he's thee sneaky plotting scheming guy who keeps his secrets and messes with others#fake fortune teller who spouts nonsense to others for the fun of it and to mess with wuxi by @yeliuxi

#dmbj#honorable mention to Wei Wuxian#Cloud Recesses arc#and generally before crap happened by @faradheia

#I'm gonna write in for both Feng Xiao and Cui Buqu from Peerless#because I just finished the first volume#those assholes deserve each other <3#the scene they both make at the auction is PEAK gremlin behavior by @vergoftowels

#a vote for wu xie#because he gremlins across so many lines#he gremlins to the point he makes friends with people trying to kill him#and when he does get cornered he just smiles#and waits for the villain to self destruct by @1ebilcat

#shang xirui 💀💀💀💀#oh yes he has my vote by @wastedwaterpotential

#i love Lin Chen but he's a responsible adult even when he pretends he's not#so I have to vote for Wu Xie by @lei-nuo

#i have voted yu shisan bc i do think he deserves it#but can i also put in a word for xiao heng having just finished the double#this man explicitly rolls up with popcorn any time some fun drama is about to happen#sometimes he orchestrates it or makes it worse but also he just had a sense for when some nonsense will happen#will he help? no. unless you're fangfei. MAYBE.#which i think is a special category somehow by @minnarr

#wen kexing should be on this list#jing baiyan should also be on this list by @cannot-kill-the-sun

#def wen kexing for me#he’s the kind of gremlin that annoys me to death and not the cute chaos gremlin#wu xie gets away with it cos he’s cute#i voted lin chen cos he’s actually decent but he purposely chaos gremlins his way through emotions and responsibilities#plus that snarky mouth of his#yeah def would not like him as a roommate by @prettymuchobsessive

They are the sort of character who is amazing to watch on screen, but wow would you not want to live with them. Sit in the background and shamelessly enjoy the free entertainment, maybe.

The amount of drama that they bring with them is surely load bearing, and though they are generally very loyal, is it worth never being able to have a nice meal out*?

*unless you have very, very thick skin

-oh sorry, have to go, my gremlin is looking restless again - that could mean anything from writing terrible poetry to plotting a coup.

Propaganda, examples, and write-ins absolutely welcome!

[bdbdhdjdhdh]

My Hero PSLE: S4E6 "This city surely doesn't breathe"

"EH WA LAO EH! WHO NEVER OFF RADAR?" "Oh, paiseh, sir, it's me!" "You better off radar ah!" "Ok sir, double confirm plus chop off liao!"

-mrbrown

*awkward silence*

*more awkward silence*

*sounds of Xiao Ming and Juqla and Six aggresively sipping the coke-wait where did they even get that coke from? I tot they never order?*

Aiyayaya anyway. "So." Finally Tempest broke the silence. "Care to explain what that all was about?"

*glances passive-aggresively at Rainslasher*

"Wth you looking at me for, remember I'm an outcast, I know nothing about what's going on now!"

Ok fine yayaya whatever.

"Aiya so easy, it's confirm only one of two things: One, that annoying bitch-ass Exuvia already knew we're planning on killing him and proceeded to plan to kill us first, and we just happened to be able to hear it. Two, is that it some sort of secret rebel tribe that communicate in code like this so that they won't be killed by that Exuvian stupid motherfu-"

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT THAT'S ENOUGH GIGACHADLINESS FOR TODAY MA XIAO TIAO YOU MAY REST NOW. Anyway so it's either a rebel ally or our worst enemy set out to kill us. Nothing more than ruining your 50/50 with this shit am I right. Anyway it's ok, I lost my last 50/50 to Keqing, so this one is guaranteed lmao.

Anyway so no matter what, Xiao Ming and gang have to find out when they plan on striking, whoever they are. Somewhere along the lines they mentioned "Chrysalis" as their name right? Ok, then, just weird to be naming your group after a My Little Pony villain tho-

ANYWAY. Just as they were preparing to leave this god-forsaken city because whether it be rebel group or Exuvia it's best to leave right, they noticed some really sus guy come in to sit with a another sus guy, so they decided to stay and see what going on. Interaction:

Sus guy 1: Alright I'll make this straight. Give me the deal. Now.

Sus guy 2: No can do man. Make a better deal, and I'll consider offering you some.

Sus guy 1: Hah! I didn't know you were such a small dog in the big undercircle. Just bring me your real owner if you're not allowed to make decisions.

Sus guy 2: *visible frustration* ALRIGHT FINE HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT? And how much are you even willing to pay?

Sus guy 1: I'll take your entire stock, mister! But before that, I have a simple task to fulfill: You know I represent the Heavenly Lord before you. So you can trust me. But I need to know if I can trust you-if you really are a devout believer of the Heavenly Lord's glory, you wouldn't mind someone dying in his noble name, would you now?

And then he *hand signaled* to the waiter guy, and then the waiter guy poured a drink, and added some SUS AF substance into it, mixed it in, and then gave it to a little kid to drink.

Well little kid, you might not wanna drink that really sus and confirm poison liao drink.

So sus guy 1 was passively smirking to himself, and then sus guy 2 oso at first smirking, but then quickly got alarmed, rushed to the little kid's table and toppled her drink before she stupidly drank it.

And then the family suddenly screamed out cos they got startled by sus guy 2, and then soon the entire café suddenly got startled and were screaming and staring at sus guy 1 and sus guy 2.

Then sus guy 1 suddenly got up, randomly pulled out a gun from the pocket dimensions of the power of plot convenience, then shot it at sus guy 2, killing him.

*more screaming and more staring*

Then he walked over to his dead body, put his foot on his very dead chest, then like that one cowboy who will stand over the corpses of his dead enemies, stood over it, and announced to the crowd at the café who heard the commotion of the whole gunshot shit:

"WE! DON'T! WANT! UGLIES! HERE!"

Lmao and then by that time like the entire street came over to see what was going on at the café cos they heard the gunshot lol.

And then of course Kiefer has to make the stupid mistake of going up to him and asking him: "Alright calm down now, mate, firstly, who tf are you?"

And to that, sus guy 1 simply turned from facing the direction of the general public to facing Xiao Ming and gang, and loudly announced to them and everyone else:

"I am the Commander of Memes, the COM of all,"

"Wait wait can you repeat that?" Xiao Ming asked.

"I am the COM,"

"Um, again, but don't pronounce COM liddat, ya know,"

"NO! COM SHOULD BE PRONOUNCED IN ONLY THE SHADOW OF THE GLORIOUS MALE SECRETION THAT HELPS CARRY ON THE FUTURE GENERATION!"

"OMG I SWEAR TO GOD IF THIS CUM GUY DOESN'T TURN OUT TO BE AN ALLY-"

"COM!"

"Yeah yeah yeah whatever,"

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Fallout Of Darkness -- A Half-Decent Sum-Up Of The Pre-War Timeline

If you follow my RP tumblr, @thevalicemultiverse, you may have seen this before (barring a few edits I made just now) -- I wrote this up as background for putting Fallout of Darkness into play over there as an RP verse. It’s as good a write-up as I currently have for Alice and particularly Victor’s lives before the bombs fell, so might as well bring it over here for more general consumption! Enjoy!

---

Alice Liddell shares most of her backstory with her Londerland Bloodlines counterpart: she’s born in 1984, loses her family to Bumby’s obsession with her sister, hallucinates her way through the horrors of Rutledge and Houndsditch with Wonderland serving as a horrific psychological dreamscape for her to get her sanity back under her, realizes Bumby’s behind all her pain and is a child trafficker, kills him, moves to Los Angeles for a fresh start, and gets illegally Embraced by Malkavian Fish and ends up errand girl to Prince Sebastian LaCroix. In this reality, though, she lives through something much closer to the standard Bloodlines plot (albeit filtered through the “all tech is at least kinda 50s sci-fi” lens of Fallout) – including saving Heather Poe instead of Victor, and finding nothing in the Giovanni basement except regular old zombies. She pushes through all the bullshit of Camarilla vs Anarchs vs Kuei-Jin vs Sabbat, convinces Heather to leave when it transpires she’s being really badly affected by Alice’s Malkavian blood (to the point of luring a guy to the haven and then locking him in the bathroom for Alice to eat), and eventually chooses the independent life, killing Ming-Xiao, letting LaCroix blow up with his tower, and flipping off the Anarchs when they try to recruit her. She flees Los Angeles completely shortly thereafter, and spends most of the rest of the next seventy-odd years on the move around America, avoiding possible reprisals from the Camarilla and watching the world go to hell in a handbasket with resources running out and the war for the last great oil pipeline. She finds shelter in Boston in October 2077, and is sleeping away the day in a presumed-safe building when the bombs drop. While she’s luckily buried in a sunlight-blocking pile of rubble, she’s also staked by a falling beam. . .and remains so for the next two centuries. . .

Victor Van Dort, on the other hand, is born in 2050, to Nell and William Van Dort of Burtonsville. William is in the fish business, and moves his family to the USA when Victor is still just a baby to seek new opportunities. What he and his wife and son get is the New Plague, forcing them to stay in Massachusetts due to quarantine measures. Despite this, William still manages to become a fish cannery mogul, making millions off his automated factories. Victor himself grows up almost entirely confined to the house and gardens, cared for and taught by a variety of robots until he was fourteen and it was deemed safe enough for him to attend a normal high school. The gardens taught him to love nature, but his caretakers taught him to love science and technology – while still a hobbyist lepidopterist, Victor is much more a tinkerer and technician in this world. Having to help fix the family’s Protectron driver, Mayhew, when he falls apart almost right in front of you will do that to a boy! He’s just more comfortable with machines than people – a fact that doesn’t make him popular in school.

In his senior year of high school, Victor is pushed to date Victoria Everglot by his parents, seeing her family’s noble history (some relative way-back-when in England was a Grand Duke) as a good way to improve their own social standings. Victor goes along with it after realizing he likes Victoria herself a fair bit, and the two soon become boyfriend and girlfriend. A few months into the relationship, though, Victor comes across a gravely-injured Emily Merrimack-Cartwell in the park, the victim of an elopement that turned out to be an excuse to rob and murder her. Victor is able to rush her to the hospital in time, and the two become friends in the aftermath. Victoria, noticing that they seem to have a growing attraction, decides she doesn’t want Victor to feel obligated to continue dating her if he’d prefer to be with Emily and actually encourages them to go to prom together. They agree after confirming she’s okay with that, and that she won’t be missing out herself. They start out having a good time together, but midway through Victoria goes to the ladies’ room and doesn’t return. Victor and Emily, concerned, go looking for her and find her being menaced by none other than Emily’s ex Barkis – apparently not satisfied with what he got off Emily, he’s now trying to rob and possibly kidnap Victoria. Victor and Emily take him down and get him carted off to jail, to Victoria’s eternal gratitude. The experience bind them all together as a trio, and – coupled with the discovery that Victoria and Emily feel much the same about each other as they do about Victor – they decide to just all date each other and see where the chips fall.

And then the draft comes and Victor is yanked into military service. He ends up a combat engineer in the Engineer Corps, and is assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry Regiment, aka “Fox Company.” While he makes some friends in fellow soldiers Nate Howard and Sam “Bonejangles” Thatcher, Victor loathes his experiences as a soldier, especially as his unit is protecting the Alaskan Pipeline on the Alaska border and watching as the US annexes Canada. Things come to a head when his commanding officer tries to get him to shoot two Canadian kids who were throwing rocks at their camp – an enraged Victor shoots the officer instead, then gets wrapped up in a sudden enemy attack on said camp (a small company of Chinese infiltrators in stealth suits -- one accidentally decloaked in his surprise over Victor killing his target), spiriting the kids to safety before managing to save the rest of his company via fast fixing of their defenses and rigging up some explosive power armor. The chaos makes it impossible for the upper brass to know for sure Victor killed the officer (though they’re deeply suspicious), and the fact that everyone else is calling him a hero (plus his father being willing to pay good money for his son’s safe return) leads to him going home for good. Having married Victoria while on leave earlier, they take in Emily as a “live-in friend and help around the house” (wink wink), and the three move to the little community of Sanctuary Hills. They have a good couple of years there, culminating in the birth of Victor and Victoria’s son Shaun. Victor, despite his worries about the resource shortages, the war with China, and his own government possibly looking for a way to silence him whenever he makes his opinions about same known, starts thinking that maybe things can be all right for him and his family at least. . .

And then, on October 23rd, 2077, the bombs hit. Victor and his family get to Vault 111 just in time, and are processed and cyronically frozen as per the experiment. However, things go bad with a security staff revolt, and the frozen family is left easy pickings for some mysterious scientists to come in, shoot Victoria, and kidnap Shaun right before Victor’s horrified eyes. When he is revived again, he finds that the life support failed for the rest of the residents (including Emily, whose pod partially thawed her and left her half-rotted), leaving him the sole survivor – apart from his missing son. He escapes the vault and returns to what’s left of Sanctuary Hills, vowing to find Shaun.

Finding Shaun turns out to be more difficult than imagined – the world above is a dangerous place, and Victor is ill-prepared to deal with it. Fortunately, he makes some friends right off the bat – his old Mr. Handy Codsworth; a German Shepherd waiting for him at the local Red Rocket, who is later revealed to be named Dogmeat; and Preston Garvey, last of the Commonwealth Minutemen, whom Victor saves from raiders at the Museum of Freedom in Concord while looking for other signs of life. Victor welcomes Preston and his settlers to live in Sanctuary, and joins up with Preston’s efforts to revive the Minutemen and make it a force for good in the wasteland (being named General by Preston in the process, a move that baffles him and his 2 Charisma). Helping settlers leads him down to Diamond City, where he was told by slightly-psychic Mama Murphy he could find some help. He befriends reporter Piper Wright there, and ends up getting her help to find her missing friend detective Nick Valentine when it transpires he – and with him, Victor’s best hope for finding Shaun – has vanished.

And during their adventures to track down Nick’s precise location, they come across a raider base, are attacked by a raider who yanks a bloody stick out of a pile of rubble – and are introduced to Alice when she bursts from the rubble and sucks the guy dry. Alice hastily informs them that she’s not a threat to them (she was just thirsty after, you know, two centuries of being staked), and they end up trusting her enough to take down the rest of the raiders with her. Victor does his best to explain what’s happened to her, and she does her best to explain her vampiric nature to him. Feeling bad for her, and like he’s finally found a kindred spirit in all this (uh, no pun intended), he invites her to travel with him, switching to a night time schedule to accommodate her. . .at least, until they go to a certain quarry mined by Dunwich Borers to clear out the raiders there. . .

[verycharismaticdragon]

He's a victim of needing to up the stakes, kinda.

Killing off a named but ultimately background character is a pretty typical move for that; compare to Qin Wanrong's death at the Immortal Alliance Conference being the first clue that the story is taking a turn into a more serious territory than a wacky parody it presented itself as up to then.

Now, why did MXTX need a blood sacrifice a named character death at this point in the story...

First is to do with relationship between Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu. Throughout the book, you may have noticed that while some of their conflict (litanalysis meaning) comes from within, a lot of it is circumstantial. It's as if every time they are at risk of having a normal conversation - and god forbid setting their misunderstanding(s) to rest - something happens to prevent them! Frustrating, right! Also clearly intentional, considering the meta-level of Luo Binghe being a protagonist. The world itself is preventing Luo Binghe (and by extension Shen Qingqiu) from having a normal one, because the protagonist is supposed to suffer and break blacken completely.

In this way, MXTX needed something to drive the wedge between Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu deeper. Something that would make Shen Qingqiu misunderstand Luo Binghe, again, and unintentionally hurt him by assuming he's evil, again. And thus drive Luo Binghe to be angry at SQQ, again. Because if he's not angry, he's liable to forgive SQQ - as that is ultimately what he wants. He wants SQQ to admit his wrongdoing/apologize, so that he can forgive him and they can make up. Ofc, the narrative will let him have anything but this.

Thus, a new event that SQQ will pin on Luo Binghe, and an impactful one, is needed. Killing off a named character with whom SQQ has a positive relationship will do that! And LBH not being the actual perpetrator also ties nicely into the thread of SQQ misunderstanding him based on his read of his 'character' (in the og novel).

Now, absolutely anyone killing GYX* would work as an inciting incident for all of the above. Hell, Mobei-jun has a canon grudge against Huan Hua, and the beginning of 'raising a worthy rival' arc with Luo Binghe! But MXTX is already setting up the TLJ&ZZL plotline, which will fill the PIDW plotholes (and satirize the stallion novels for failing to do that) of writing Su Xiyan off as nothing but a dead mother, TLJ's character not being used to its full potential, and ofc the never revealed perpetrator behind "scores of atrocities" (as mentioned in sy's ch1 rant). So, since she is already writing a mysterious death, with the only set in stone part being that Luo Binghe has nothing to do with - why not make it a characterization moment for the other team / Zhuzhi-lang in particular?

*of course, I'm saying Gongyi Xiao here because that's what happened, but in truth, it should be "any named character whose death would have meaning for SQQ". So why did it end up being GYX in particular?

Well, because it couldn't be anyone else.

At this point, the list of characters who fit the bill is pretty small: aside from Gongyi Xiao, it includes YQY, LQG, SQH, QQQ and MQF arguably, and then Ming Fan and Ning Yingying plus maybe Liu Mingyan.

YQY is out due to having an unresolved arc saved for later in the story. SQH is out due to being extremely important on the thematic level (and, depending on when MXTX decided that moshang was a thing, possibly due to that). QQQ and MQF didnt really have time to shine - and also, as a writer myself, I'm guessing MXTX was wary of possibly needing to write more background peak lords if she killed off any existing ones. NYY and LMY are still needed to stick it to the stallion novels and show them developing outside of Luo Binghe.

This leaves us with LQG, GYX, and Ming Fan. Liu Qingge can't be easily killed off, because his avoided death in the beginning is foreshadowing how the story in general will turn out: SY!SQQ just doing what he can to help, just being kind and decent, will change the course of the narrative. Killing LQG off here would devalue him being saved in the beginning, and facilitate some rather hopeless conclusions.

And between Ming Fan and Gongyi Xiao, GYX's death would have more impact on the reader due to MXTX taking time to build him up beforehand, as Ming Fan hasn't appeared much past his initial scenes as a bully. If MXTX used the three year timeskip to develop his character at least somewhat, he could be killed off instead, but... well, tbt, we dont know her planning horizon, given its a serialized novel. maybe by the time she realized someone had to get the ax, the only character near enough to Shen Qingqiu to be developed into a meanigful sacrifice was GYX. Or maybe she just didnt want to kill the only named QJP disciple besides NYY. Or maybe she chose GYX for the impact of 'character who was supposed to survive dies', similar to what she did with Qin Wanrong.....

Who knows, but yeah. these are my disorganized thoughts. hope something in here was helpful in some way.

so does anyone have an explanation (either watsonian or doylist either works) for why the fuck gongyi xiao got fridged and done dirty in SVSSS???

[windblume]

BBUT ABT XIAO. idk if its true about this part: adepti's souls are powerful and could hurt a mortal human just by being near - and that seems cold at first and no other adepti even mentioned abt that, however the other adepti (like thhe birds and the horned fuck) didnt seem to care abt humans as much as him. plus why is he at wangshu inn? does he just like ppl? he never mentioned the contract thingie so its more fondness and than responsibility. also he wanted the inn to take care of a

i thought he stayed at the inn because the boss lady there knew about him and kept his secret + theres almond tofu there lol... also the inn is kind of strange in itself isnt it? the people there are peculiar... like the weirdly strong fisherman. he also said that the boss lady is a mondstadter yet no one from mondstadt knows her. an adeptus would fit right in among these strange people.

xiao doesnt want to harm people thats why he warns the traveler that too much adeptal energy can fuck them up. the other mfs dont care as much abt that bc you can see how theyve drifted from their duties of protecting liyue’s people. xiao, however, still feels just as sworn to his duties and so would not let his energy harm the people hes supposed to protect.

they mention that xiao has a disliking for the moral world so i dont think hes staying there because he likes them (although if you ask me im sure hes fond of people deep down lol)

im reaching. but i think he saw himself in dusky ming... he mentioned she cant move on from the mortal realm yet she cant go back to what was... doesnt that sound like xiao? he cant move on from his contract, from it entails him to do. but he cant go back to a time before he killed. xiao isnt heartless or cruel. even if this wasnt the case, surely he’d have felt for a little girl that had something so tragic happen to her.

[bardofthevoid]

So, at the end of brainstorm.

In previous Post I mentioned my shitty fic, so... Since some people liked it (???????????????????) I want to make it better. Worth to be liked not just because of certain gen-kinks, but because of... Well, something. Maybe even I'll manage to get beta, lol.

Well... Here goes nothing. Svsss but told like "Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei".

I really liked "SZS", it was one of my first comedy anime that I really liked, even though by the end of second season I stopped understanding it completely. I still don't get it fully, because I live in a very different culture, BUT.

But smart people before me already figured out what exactly make "SZS" a good show. And I have my own opinions on it, so I'll just try to break down what really make SZS what it is:

1. Depiction of actual problems, which author of original manga and stuff that worked on anime were familiar with. But depiction isn't everything, just depiction is lampshading and this is kinda stupid way to deal with your pain. Since it shows that you don't get it. At all. You know about existence of problem but have no intention to deal with it, because it doesn't affect you. So, then we have next place:

2. Over the top caricatures with understandable reactions and emotions. Just... Over the top. Actual people can be upset about decline of person who they like, but most of them won't use the knife to kill that person. Something like that.

2.1. Exploration of stereotypes. What can make a young girl thinking so much about only positive things? Looks like coping mechanism, especially if you watched at least beginning of first episode.

3. Weird ideas that you think of in 3 a.m. In that case they are fully explored. How do you know that everybody around you are actually those who they are claim they are? It doesn't make much sense, but... We're talking about mess of a people here. People who make...

4. Terrible decisions that naturally comes from their world view. People who harm each other, who don't really care about each other. People who prefer choosing easy way for themselves.

And so I should imply all of this in my fic. Which in current state is terrible. And find beta coz I may easily fuck up in lots of places.

FORTUNATELY svsss is also about... Not very good people if you will think about it.

Shen Jiu? OK, we all know that he is a terrible person who shouldn't be in charge of kids. Adults are fine though.

Shen Yuan? Did you forget that at the beginning he easily made Ming Fang (a child) explore a fucking corpse? And during demon invasion: oh, good, protag-kun will be fine... How about other children?

Yue Qingyuan? Did you miss that part where he was totaly fine with his shidi abusing a kid?

Etc, etc.

Basically I can roast almost anyone in this canon (except for Gunyi Xiao and maybe QQQ, hell if I will ever write her name correctly), so the 4th... Punkt? Is totaly valid.

3 is not a problem for now, there is no point to make a picture with lack of actual characters.

2 is very closely connected to 1, and there is the heart of a problem: I can't depict problems that are valid for China. Because I live in a very different culture with very different cultural, historical and political background. So... I guess my knowledge of Russian problems from the first and second hands are going to shine. It would be a mess, isn't it?

Aaand a couple of words about comedy:

In SZS comedy is heavily based on social issues, as well as deconstructing anime tropes. Plus politics and history. The last two are obviously are not a choice, so it's going to be another very big pain in my ass.

And tomorrow according to my plan it will be time to break up characters.

Teg is "boring adventures".

And I'm going to sleep.

[bdbdhdjdhdh]

2ND MASTERLIST OF MY HERO PSLE SEASON 3 EPISODES

Season 4 and beyond:

Next masterlist:

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Alice Vs The Questionnaire I Just Made

Because it would be remiss for me to send it out into the world and not answer it myself, right? ;p

1. How many of the sidequests did your characters do? Did they manage to complete all of them?

Alice completed most of the sidequests, mostly because I find them interesting, they're good to advance the plot of my story, and -- in-game -- they're good sources of XP. The only ones I skipped/failed were (Edit: naturally I forgot a few on my first posting; what can I say, there’s a lot of side quests!):

Drug Trip -- The Unofficial Patch Plus only quest where you can get some XP and +1 Finance by stealing some drugs for Trip from the clinic. In-game, I completely forgot this was an option and never did it. In-story, Alice is trying to get drugs by more legitimate means for Mercurio rather than steal morphine, so I don’t think she’d be keen to get the recreational stuff for Trip.

Daydream Believer -- Only marked as an official “quest” by Unofficial Patch Plus, this is where you can sell Copper “unicorn blood,” fang-blunting gum, and a stake to kill the head vampire if you’re feeling maliciously playful. Alice was not -- in fact, she likes the Thin-Bloods and wants to help them. And that includes sympathizing with Copper about his desire to become human again, while also warning him off doing anything stupid.

Replanting A Lily -- The quest where you send Vandal someone to replace Lily in his blood-draining chair once you’ve freed her as part of Thinned Blood. In-game, I simply Demented him into some hysterical laughter to forget the whole thing (in case I needed him for emergency rations). In-story, Alice slammed him up against the wall and informed him the only reason she wasn’t about to kill him was because she needed to stay in the Voerman sisters’ good books. Vandal being Vandal, he immediately found this the sexiest thing that had ever happened to him and tried to give her free blood (like might happen with the Intimidation option), which she told him to stick where the sun don’t shine. Yeaaaaah, Alice doesn’t like Vandal.

Occultish Personality -- The quest where you get occult items for Pisha, and she gives you powerful items in return. Rather than work with Pisha, I had Alice kill her after taking care of the Simon business. This was purely a character choice, as I didn't see Alice ever working with her (she disapproves too strongly of what Pisha does to sate her Hunger -- she understands that the woman is under a pretty nasty curse, but the entire camera crew?!).

Venucide -- Okay, this is an interesting one -- this is the alternate side quest you get if you take Boris up on his offer to kill Venus during And Her Name Was Venus. I didn’t do this in-game -- I’m not doing low Humanity with Alice, and besides you earn a lot more with Venus alive and giving you club profits -- but I mention it because Alice pretends to take the offer, goes back to Venus, and works with her to fake her death before going back to Boris to get the reward, then kill him. Venus is quite tickled by the whole thing. XD

Dirty Dishes -- The quest where you help one of the three Giovanni relatives at the party to gain an advantage over the other two. I attempted this one, with the intent of having maybe Victor or Victoria do something with the info in the story (as they're the ones actually doing the social stuff -- Alice snuck in Obfuscated with them), but as it turned out, I didn't have the Persuasion necessary to get the dark secrets out of all three. I only managed to get Adam Dunsirn to admit he’s broke -- ratted him out to Mira for an experience point. Ah well. . . In-story, Victor will probably learn Adam’s secret while socializing, but not actually tell anybody.

Model Citizen/Cover Girl -- Imalia's quests -- either planting webcams to spy on her rival Tawni, or (if you piss her off/want extra XP after the previous quest), getting her a copy of a magazine with her on the cover back before Nosferatuing. Imalia is one of those characters who reacts very poorly to meeting a Malkavian, and is generally pretty conceited, so I didn't have Alice stick around to actually get the quests. By this point in the story, she's not doing favors for people who treat her like ass unless she has to.

Poster Session -- The quest where you trade various objects you can collect around the world to Gary for posters of the ladies in the game. Okay, in all actuality, I am doing this one in my game, if only because I'm collecting the objects he's asking for anyway while doing other quests and I might as well, but Alice in-story wouldn't be interested, and I'm not sure Gary would make the offer anyway, given their relationship.

2. How long do you think their stay in L.A. lasted, from Embrace to ending?

I'm working on figuring this out right now in my current playthrough! Part of the reason I fired up Bloodlines again was to actually work out a timeline for "Londerland Bloodlines," as the one given on the wiki feels absurdly short (and cuts out all the side quests). The way I've currently got it, it looks like Alice's Adventures In Los Angeles will stretch from October 21st, 2004, to the middle of November that same year (maybe about the 15th or so?), though I think I'm going to be adding in extra time in the story to help develop relationships and build in some extra breathing room for the characters. So, at a rough estimate, about two months.

3. Which ending did they go for? And if they're the rare Kindred who sided with Ming or LaCroix, did they somehow manage to escape their canonical fates (blown up/sunk to the bottom of the ocean)?

Alice is Independent all the way -- by the end of the game, she neither likes nor trusts practically anyone in the Kindred/ghoul community of L.A. (with four key exceptions, and one of those -- Beckett -- has already skedaddled by the end game) and just wants out. Hell, she would have left earlier if she'd gotten the chance -- she would have happily left L.A. the moment LaCroix sent her up against the Sabbat alone if said Sabbat hadn't kidnapped Lizzie and Victoria, and she would have just left straight after rescuing them and killing Andrei if she hadn't had a guilt attack about helping to get a Blood Hunt called on Nines and deciding she had to tell him about what Ming-Xiao told her. And the Cabbie is the one who talks her into taking down LaCroix and Ming-Xiao when she escapes the Blood Hunt, telling her that the only way to truly feel free is to make sure neither of them can come after her again. She is only too happy to leave the city when everything and everyone is done and dusted.

(Also, semi-related I had what I feel is a pretty awesome idea regarding why she gives LaCroix the key -- a post in the vtmb tag mentioned that anyone who had Auspex might be able to scan the sarcophagus and see there's no uber-vampire inside. The way Alice uses Auspex in her story, it functions partially as a real-life "Shrink Sense,” to fit with her madness. Maybe, at the end of the game, Alice finally uses Auspex on the sarcophagus to see what she can glean, and sees that a) there's no vampire and b) the Insane Children have drawn jack-in-the-boxes all over it, along with arrows to leave. Figuring LaCroix can suffer the disappointment of it being empty, she drops the key and heads off, not QUITE realizing WHY the kids told her to leave -- that is, until her Wonderland friends start BOOKING IT out the door when she gets down to the lobby, and she realizes those jack-in-the-boxes look like her own Jackbombs. . .)

4. How do they feel about the major power players in L.A. (LaCroix, Strauss, Smiling Jack, Nines, Isaac, Ming-Xiao, Gary)? Did their opinions of them change at any point thanks to a quest or just more time spent with them?

LaCroix: Hates him from the moment he Dominates her into leaving the Nocturne Theater instead of bothering to answer any of her questions. She's willing to keep her head down when she's around him (for fear of more Domination) up until Grout's mansion -- then she starts demanding she be paid like a proper employee, at least, and getting a lot snarkier in his presence. When the Blood Hunt on Nines was called (which involved him Dominating her AGAIN so she wouldn't warn Nines beforehand), she was about ready to gut him, and sincerely hoped there was something in that damn Sarcophagus so it would eat him. She doesn't particularly mind he got blown up in the end -- she was much more concerned for anyone else who was in the upper levels of the tower.

Strauss: She found him a little condescending, but helpful, when she first arrived in Downtown and sought him out. (Didn't think much of his poetry skills, though.) He gave her some good information on vampires around the city and the Camarilla in general, and she can't deny he paid well for helping take care of the plaguebearer situation. Her opinion of him plummets the moment she learns about his role in creating the Gargoyle, though. The idea that he kept that living, thinking being as his slave. . .not to mention, his low opinion of ghouls doesn't do much to endear him to her either.

Smiling Jack: Like Strauss, she spends most of the game thinking he's not exactly the best company, but he was helpful and gave her a hand in a very tough spot in her life. And he seems to be the most chill of the older vampires she's come across.

And then the sarcophagus explodes, Alice manages to put together the clues on who's behind it, realize he slaughtered all those people on the Elizabeth Dane and is indirectly responsible for a lot of the shit she's gone through. . .and basically exiles herself from Los Angeles forever by staking him and leaving him for the sunrise on her way out. (She is as shocked as anyone that she managed to pull it off -- she thought it would be a much worse fight!)

Nines: Alice is grateful to him for helping to save her life at her initial trial, and she likes his philosophy just fine. Unfortunately, their relationship was wrecked fairly early on by two factors:

1) Alice making a joke about the Last Round, which Nines took poorly -- Alice attempted to apologize, but Nines refused to hear it

2) Alice not liking Skelter and Damsel, both of whom immediately gave her shit for being LaCroix's "lapdog" and a Malkavian

So yeah, there was definitely some tension there. And the whole Blood Hunt mess happened, and frankly Alice is shocked Nines was willing to talk to her when she went looking for him on her way out of L.A. post-Sabbat. She sometimes wishes they'd had a chance to make up, but given that she doesn't think much of the Anarchs in general anymore. . .she's not losing sleep over their cool relationship.

Isaac: He's one of the main reasons she doesn't think much of the Anarchs in general. She thought it was pretty smart of him to have someone to direct vampires new to Hollywood to him to say hello -- up until he mentioned "tribute." That and his generally imperious attitude toward her at first means she considers him just another Prince under a different title. Learning what happened between him and Ash didn't help either -- she can understand not wanting to let someone you care about just die, more than she would admit, but he doesn't seem to have handled things well post-Embrace, given he didn't do jack shit about the hunters menacing him. (Hoping the threat would drive Ash back into his arms, perhaps?) Add in that he didn't even pay her for taking care of the Gargoyle (never mind Alice didn't actually kill it -- she still convinced it to leave), and -- yeah. She considers him everything wrong with the Anarch movement.

Ming-Xiao: Alice considered her fairly stuck-up when they first met, but really no worse than any of the regular Kindred she'd met -- and it was interesting to quiz her on how Kue-jin are different. Of course, learning that the Mandarin was on her payroll and she's actively trying to kill her lowered her opinion of her a bit. She actively avoids Ming-Xiao after the Fu Syndicate stuff, and nearly just puts her new enchanted katana straight through her when she shows up post-Sabbat. She certainly doesn't shed a tear when she has to destroy her at the end of game.

Gary: Alice thinks he's a bit of an overdramatic jerk, but she kind of enjoys matching wits with him. And at least he's more honest about being a jerk than most vampires, and keeps up his end of the bargain when she frees Barnabus, no problem. Whatever relationship they have is built upon snarking at each other, basically. :p

5. How did they handle the situation with Heather (or, if you're like me, whoever you replaced Heather with in their personal story)?

Obviously, in my world, Victor got hit by the car and got the ghouling treatment. Alice saw him lying all alone in that room and -- couldn't let him just die like that. She's utterly horrified to learn that she created an addict by doing so, and actively has Betram and Knox seek Victor out (using the Cathayan's laptop as payment) and send him her way so she can keep an eye on him and hide any Masquerade violations he may commit. Her original intent was to hold onto him until he stopped being a ghoul, then quietly set him loose, away from prying Kindred eyes. . .

. . .And then she fell in love.

Cue quite a lot of angsting over the fact that she doesn't want to lose him, but she feels so guilty about the Blood Bond and she doesn't know if Victor's feelings are actually real -- which only gets worse when Victoria and Emily join the group, as then she's like "I should let Victor be with one of them -- oh crap I like them too, what the hell Alice, years of not falling in love and now it's two mortals and a zombie." It took Mercurio explaining that his Blood Bond does not actually force him to like LaCroix, just be loyal to him, to convince her that keeping Victor -- and turning Victoria into her ghoul -- might not be as bad as she feared.

And then Victor had his prophetic dream about the Sabbat. He and Emily successfully fled the city (the "letting Heather go" branch of her mini-storyline), but Lizzie and Victoria got captured by the Sabbat and used as bait for a trap for Alice (the "Heather gets captured and killed" branch). Unlike in canon, though, Alice is able to successfully save them (with the help of Bonejangles, VV, and Bertram), and ghouls Victoria to help her heal before sending them away. They all reunite once she's done with the endgame. :)

6. More generally, how closely does their storyline stick to how you have to do things canonically? For example, in quests, did they find third options that weren't offered by the game? Are their stories affected by mods you use while playing the game?

I play with the Unofficial Plus Patch, so there's going to be some stuff from that included in my story, just because that's what I'm used to -- for example, Alice is doing the restored library quest featuring the Lasombra in her storyline. As for the main storyline itself, I'd say that, even with the character replacements and suchlike, it stays pretty much true to the game until about the time Alice hits Hollywood -- namely because I've replaced one-shot character Sam with Victoria, who has a much larger role in "Londerland Bloodlines." After that, it starts to veer off a bit more, in particular during "Italian Dinner," where Emily, Lizzie, and Bonejangles join the party --

But the most major break with canon is in the endgame. Namely, Alice decides to skip fighting her way up Venture Tower and instead climbs up the outside with the help of some climbing equipment she sources from Mercurio. :p Lacroix is more than a little surprised. XD (Though she still has to fight the bat-form of the Sheriff -- can't escape the whole boss fight, Alice!)

7. Do they have an alternate storyline/history of what might have happened had they been Embraced but not ended up the protagonist Fledgling?

I covered that a couple of weeks ago! You can read the "Mistakenly Thinned Blood" AU of the AU in detail here, but the short version is "Alice is Embraced more secretly by her sire Fish, manages to kill him post-Embrace, goes to Santa Monica, and ends up hanging out with the Thin-Bloods because everyone thinks she's one of them. Still saves Victor, meets Victoria, and rescues Lizzie, Emily, and Sam from the Giovannis, though -- and then gets out of town before the freaking-out populace who just learned what she actually is can catch up with her."

8. Is the Cabbie a) Caine, b) another Kindred who believes himself to be Caine for whatever reason, c) another Kindred playing the long con by pretending to be Caine, d) something else entirely?

He's Caine -- I like the headcanon, and the idea of him posing as a random taxi driver in L.A., looking upon all this chaos and wondering "why. why." amuses me. XD

9. How do you handle/explain away obvious "this only works in a video game" mechanics in their storyline (e.g., the inventory system that allows them to carry like seven guns and five melee weapons at once)?

With me, Alice is going to be carrying a lot fewer weapons at once -- she'll generally pick a few favorites to take with her on missions (she always has a knife on her, at least), and uses Obfuscate to truck them around invisibly when she's in crowded areas. She probably also gets a bag or backpack to carry useful things. She also goes through a lot more clothes until she gets some decent leather jackets and such -- her starting outfit is basically wrecked by the tutorial mission, leading to LaCroix's agents having to buy her a new dress before she can pick up her things and go to her new haven in Santa Monica. (I have decided to make it Symbolic by having her wear the modern equivalent of her London outfit from A:MR when she gets Embraced, and the outfit being destroyed representing her change from human to vampire.)

10. How do you explain why the Fledgling is so ridiculously overpowered when compared to most other vampires their age (beyond the fact that they're likely 8th generation, going by their blood pool)?

My personal explanation, which might come up in the final conversation Alice has with Caine in the cab, is that some people in this universe are born with great supernatural potential, for whatever reason, and Alice is one of them. There's just something about her that lends itself well to being a supernatural creature -- and a powerful one at that. If she'd been from a werewolf line, she would have been an amazing werewolf; if she had awakened as a mage, she would have been a super-talented mage. As she was Embraced, she gets to be a terrifyingly strong vampire. Alice personally considers this a pretty shitty "chosen one" status, but she can't deny she liked getting really good at Obfuscate really fast!