#set in the troika universe

[shuunnico]

You like rpgs. Do you recommend any games like baldurs gate 3?

Absolutely. I'll assume you mean CRPGs and not RPGs in general.

Computer Roleplaying Games (CRPGs) refers to a style and genre of game that BG3 follows. Some have started calling CRPGs "Classic RPGs" instead. CRPGs are typically identified by an isometric, top down view style, a heavy focus on story and exploration.

I'm going to split my list it three main categories based on accessibility factors. These factors include the amount of reading involved, the depth of mechanics and the level of abstraction/math required.

Easy Entry Level

Baldur's Gate 3 - 2023 - Larian Studios. The current gold star for easy entry CRPGs. Exceptional graphics, every character voice acted, very little reading and fairly straightforward mechanics and concepts.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 DE- 2017 - Larian Studios. This is basically a less polished, more complex version of BG3 and made by the same studio.

Disco Elysium, Final Cut - 2019 - ZA/UM. Disco Elysium is a detective/social focus game that dives into heavy narrative concepts. Failing rolls is just as viable for the story as succeeding them, making the game's mechanics take a backseat to story. However, there is a lot of reading and that may be a barrier to entry.

Tyranny - 2016 - Obsidian Entertainment. A game about being evil, it's mechanically pretty simple, but there's a fair bit of jank due to it's low budget, and the game ends on a cliffhanger, but it's story is very solid.

Mid Entry Level

Wasteland 3 - 2020 - inExile Entertainment. The long awaited third installment of the Wasteland franchise and significantly less complex than its predecessors. Post apocalyptic, frozen Colorado, grim reality and goofy ideas. This is the franchise that originally inspired Fallout.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall DC/ Shadowrun: Hong Kong EE - 2014/2015 - Harebrained Schemes. Set in the Fantasy/Cyberpunk hybrid setting of Shadowrun. Fair bit of reading, but the game's mechanics are relatively easy to grasp and don't require a lot of math. Always play Dragonfall before Hong Kong.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire - 2018 - Obsidian Entertainment. A unique setting, exploring a fictional parallel to the age of piracy. Very wordy (but a lot is voice acted), with a lot of world building, but well worth engaging with. The first game, Pillars of Eternity, is less accessible, but still good.

Kingmaker/Wrath of the Righteous/Rogue Trader - 2020/2022/2023 - Owlcat Games. Owlcat adapts existing systems into CRPGs, like how BG3 is an adaption of DnD 5e. Do not be fooled, these games are where you start hitting a lot of complexity, a lot of math and a lot potential to damage your playthroughs by accident. This is where things start to get difficult.

Difficult Entry Level

Baldur's Gate 1/2 - Bioware - 1998/2000. The prequels to BG3, these games use an older, much more complex version of DnD's rules. Be prepared for a lot of reading and complex mechanics, but you'll be rewarded with some amazing storytelling.

Planescape Torment - Interplay - 1999. Another game using DnD's older mechanics, Planescape is a completely different beast from BG3. Many consider this series mechanically inferior to the Baldur's Gate franchise, but with better storytelling and world building to compensate.

Fallout 1/2 - 1997/1998 - Interplay/Black Isle. One of the most widely known game franchises started as an isometric CRPG. Universally considered more complex, rewarding and deeper than the Bethesda portion of the franchise, you'll need some experience to get into them, but you'll be happy you did.

Games I haven't played but I've heard good things of:

Wasteland 2, DC - 2015 - inExile

Torment: Tides Of Numenera - 2017 - inExile

Neverwinter Nights - 2002 - Bioware

Arcanum - 2001 - Troika Games

Ultima 7 Part 1/Part 2 - 1992/1993 - Origin Systems

Icewind Dale - 2000 - Black Isle Studio

[tabletopgayventures]

My current list of Tabletop Roleplaying Games.

13th Age

1879

A Grim Hack

Aberrant 

Absolute Power

Abyss

Accursed 

After The War

Anima Beyond Fantasy

Animal Adventures:  The Faraway Sea

Apocalypse World

Arkham Horror The Roleplaying Game Starter Set

Ars Magica 4th Edition

Arzium

Avatar Legends Starter Set

Babes in the Wood

Badger + Coyote and their Daring Adventures 2E

BattleTech:  A Time of War

Beacon Tabletop RPG

Beam Saber

Blades in the Dark

Bulldogs

Bunkers & Badasses

Cairn

Call of Cthulhu

Candela Obscura

Cantrip

Cats of Cathulhu

Chaos 6010

Champions Now

Collateral Damage

Contagion 2e

Cortex Prime Game Handbook

Cosmic Patrol

Cowboy Bebop Roleplaying Game

Coyote and Crow

Cthulhu Awakens

Cthulhutech

Cypher System 

Daisy Chainsaw

Deathmatch Island

Defiant Role Playing Game

Denial & Yearning

Dialect

Dinocar

Dinosaur Princesses

Discworld RPG

Dragon Age Roleplaying Game

Dragonbane

Dread

Dream Machines

Dresden Files Accelerated RPG

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

Dungeons and Dragons 5e

Durance

Dwelling

Epitaph

Epoch

Essence 20

Fabula Ultima

Fantasy Age

Fate Core System

Fever Nights Role-Playing Game

Flabbergasted

Fragged Empire

Fratboys Vs

Girl By Moonlight

Glitter Hearts

Goblin Quest

Goblin Slayer TRPG

Gods of Metal:  Ragnarock

Hannukkah Goblins

Have Axe, Will Travel

Hellfrost

Here, There, Be Monsters!

Hero Kids Fantasy RPG

Heroes Against the Darkness

Hopes and Dreams

Hounds 

I’m the Badguy?!?

In Nomine

In the Ashes

Inevitable A Doomed Arthurian Western

Ink

Interns In The Dark

Into the Dungeon

Jiangshi:  Blood in the Banquet Hall

Jordenheim

Katana-Ra

Kids on Bikes 2nd Edition

Killshot an Assassin’s Journal

Konosuba TRPG

Leverage The Quickstart Job

Lilliputian Adventure on the Open Seas

Little Fears Nightmare Edition

Lost Roads

Marvel Multiverse RPG

Mermaid Adventures

Micro rpg book

Modern Age

Monster of the Week

Moonlight On Roseville Beach

Mork Borg

Motel Spooky Nine

Musketeers vs. Cthulhu

Mutant Year Zero

My Mother’s Kitchen

Necrobiotic

Never Going Home

Night Shift:  Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

Night Wolves

Numenera

Odyssey Black Tales

OneDice Pirates & Dragons

One More Quest

Ork! The RPG

Our Woodland Gods

Outcast Silver Raiders 

Outgunned

Over the Edge

Overlight

Pasion De Las Pasiones

Pathfinder 1st Edition

Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Pathfinder Savage Worlds

Perils & Princesses

Pirate Borg

Power Rangers RPG

Prism

Psychic Trash Detectives

Punk’s Been Dead Since ‘79

Queerz!

Raccoon Sky Pirates

Raven

Rebels of the Outlaw Wastes

Reign

Rhapsody of Blood

Rivers of London

Ryuu Tama natural fantasy role play

Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse

Scum and Villainy

Shadowrun 5e

Shadows Of The Past

Shield Maidens

Shiver

Someone in this Tavern is a fucking mimic!

Spell The RPG

Squeeze

Star Trek Adventures Captain’s Log 

Star Trek Adventures The Roleplaying Game

Star Trek Adventures Second Edition

Star Wars 

Starfinder 1st Edition

Starfinder 2nd Edition

Stoneburner

Syma

Tangled

Temples and Tombs

The Bleackness

The Dark West

The Dread of Night

The Play’s the Thing

The Quiet Year

The Revenant Society

The Void

The Watch

Thirsty Sword Lesbians

This Discord has Ghosts in It

This house is Fucking Haunted

Thousand Year Old Vampire

Tomorrow City

Troika!

Unisystem

Urban Decay

Utopia

Vaesen

Vagabond

Valiant Universe

Variations On Your Body

Venture and Dungeon

Waffles For Esther

Wanderhome

Warcraft The Roleplaying Game

Werewolf the Apocalypse

What Lurks Above

What Lurks Beneath

What Lurks Beyond

World Ending Game

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast

Xianta Cyber Wuxia

Xoe Microplayer

Zweihander

I'll update this list as I get more. Feel free to send me ideas and also reblog this!

[cycas]

Some Non-D&D roleplaying games that don't use the Open Gaming Licence (v1)

RuneQuest - One of the oldest and most popular D&D alternatives, with a ruleset that its many fans swear by; now in its 7th edition

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - now in its 4th Edition; WFRP's 'The Enemy Within' is a strong contender for the title of 'Best Fantasy RPG Campaign Ever Published.

Chivalry & Sorcery - a more realistic, crunchy and grounded take on fantasy roleplaying

Symbaroum - super-atmospheric Swedish fantasy RPG

GURPS - Generic Universal Roleplaying System, " one set of clear, comprehensive rules to cover any background"

Rolemaster and HARP (High Action Adventure Roleplaying)

Savage Worlds - another multigenre system and the rules set behind the Deadlands, Weird Wars and Monster Hunter International RPGs among others.

7th Sea - "swashbuckling & intrigue, exploration & adventure"

Cypher System - a modern multigenre system with an innovate rules set Numenera - standalone RPG but uses the Cypher System rules, "set a billion years in our future…a roleplaying game about exploration and discovery"

Troika! - a gonzo science-fantasy RPG with "built-in wonder and room for everyone at the table to go wild!"

Fantasy Age - as run by Wil Wheaton on his Tabletop show!

Earthdawn - sort of the fantasy prequel to the cyberpunk-fantasy RPG Shadowrun

The Hero System and Fantasy Hero - another multigenre ruleset, also used in the Champions super hero RPG

Legend of the Five Rings - famous RPG based roughly on feudal Japan with influences from other East Asian cultures.

The One Ring - roleplaying in Tolkien's Middle-earth

King Arthur Pendragon and Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne - roleplaying the Matter of Britain and the Matter of France

Forbidden Lands - "a new take on classic fantasy roleplaying…an open-world survival roleplaying game".

Legends of Avallen - inspired by Celtic mythology in Roman Britain

Man, Myth & Magic - a roleplaying game "set in the ancient world"

Overlight - A fantasy roleplaying game "of kaleidoscopic journeys: a visceral, dangerous and brightly coloured setting"

Paleomythic - "grim survival and mythical adventures in…a harsh prehistoric world"

Romance of the Perilous Land - "magic and adventure set in the world of British folklore"

Robert E. Howard's Conan - Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of - probably the best of several Conan RPGs, now coming towards the end of its licence.

Swords of the Serpentine - "a sword & sorcery game of daring heroism, sly politics and bloody savagery" using the investigation-focused Gumshoe system

The Black Iron - grimdark fantasy in "a world broken beyond repair"

The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game - roleplaying in the world of Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories

The Witcher - roleplaying in the world of Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher stories

[disastergayofcrisis]

Guns and Magic

(This is a repost from cohost I made last year but posting it here because I want to.)

So I understand the criticism against firearms in fantasy settings where magic is prevalent but also have to point out a large criticism in magical universes is that magic isn't as easily accessible to most even in settings that have entire groups dedicated to magical development.

A prime example being Elder Scrolls. On it's surface groups like the Mages Guild preach open research and teaching of magic but in reality magic is something that is watered down by the guild into simplistic spell groups, this is a in-universe complaint about magic. When we look at groups like the Psijic or the Telvanni we see they never followed these simplistic groups thus they have greater access to more powerful magic and knowledge, this results into them going isolationist and secretive of their research.

The Mages Guild is also extremely bogged down in politics and used their position in the third empire to create a magical monopoly throughout Tamriel, this has lead to other magic groups or individuals from teaching and selling spells outside of said the imperial religion or the tribunal temple. This has lead to people being forced to join the guild just to make a livelihood.

The biggest problem though is that opposed to the player's experience lorewise not everyone is adapt at learning magic, the thing that people are adapt at learning? Guns. Add in magic is widely distrusted in many fantasy series so why wouldn't people find more ways to counter magic. This was a thing in a pretty popular old crpg by Troika called Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. Magic was slowly being pushed to the side as nations began to focus on technological development, a large part of this was because magic was so inaccessible to others. It's also like, three classes in Final Fantasy 14 with Mechanist which is all about guns, robots and mechanical attacks, gunbreaker and technically Sage if you count gundam-as-hell beam canons.

I feel there is also a good idea of mixing magic and technology, bringing up the Mages Guild in Elder Scrolls a big part was of the Mages Guild was an actual altruistic ideal of spreading knowledge and research. There are so many ways a mage can use their powers or enchantments to make convinences and actual firearms, even if it could lead to their downfall which often is the cases for mages.

Guns should be more prominent in fantasy, fantasy needs to be more willing to show off magic as something that is important in technological development and research.

[mitchelldailygames]

Heroes of Song Tangent: Tunic, Oracle of Seasons, and the Reward of Not Knowing

I won’t be spoiling any of the games I’m talking about here.

I recently picked up Tunic, going in with a vague understanding of the basic sales pitch of classic Zelda but Soulslike.* What I got was a game of beautiful mystery and discovery.

In Tunic, you’re a fox who wakes up on a beach. Eventually you get a stick that can whack stuff, and you run across things that want to hurt you. Most of the text is in a language you don’t understand. This game leaves so much to discover including lore, mechanics, and secrets. Every time you scratch into a deeper layer, you’re discovering something that turns your understanding of the world or game on its head.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons came out in North America in May of 2001. I probably got it for my birthday that October meaning I was 9 and 10 for the majority of my time playing it. In contrast to my experience with Tunic, I actually had a lot of information about the game. I vaguely remember having the strategy guide, games still came with manuals in those days, and (after rewatching the opening for the sake of writing this) the game tells you a decent amount about the story in the beginning.

What I lacked was context. Oracle of Seasons was my first ever Zelda game, so as the game spouted exposition about Zelda, Impa, Hyrule, etc., all I knew is that I landed in an unfamiliar place, woke up after being taken care of by the dancing girl on the cover, dancing girl got kidnapped, and I was left in a world full of stuff that wanted to kill me with no way of protecting myself. Eventually I got a wooden sword. If I had the strategy guide that I think I did, it even had a whole section on Oracle of Ages, which I did not own, which was a lot more information with no connection to anything I was familiar with. To be fair, Link was far from home in this game, so probably lacked context himself. He also probably wasn’t named Link in my game.

So, for 9-year-old me, the experience of wandering and discovery was very similar to my current experience of Tunic. “Oh, there’s someone who appraises… something,” and, “Oh, a witch just crashed into me!” and, “Oh, I know what this thing I found does now,” all in a strange world. Oracle of Seasons is fairly deep for a Gameboy Color game too, meaning there was a lot of stuff to discover.**

A lot of video games let you discover the world or things about the game as you play. Environmental storytelling has existed for a long time. In-game journals and texts are waiting to be discovered. Item descriptions include scraps of lore. Much can be inferred about why an enemy type showed up in an unexpected place. The game doesn’t shove the exposition in your face, it makes you dig for it.

I’m thinking about how this kind of not knowing could show up in Heroes of Song. I think one approach is to tell the GM, “Hey, keep some mystery; make sure your story includes stuff for players to discover.” I think ttrpg texts can go beyond this, though, and make not knowing and discovery more essential pieces of the experience. Troika! comes to mind as a big popular one that reveals its setting through character descriptions and oblique references throughout the game text. Troika! is beautifully strange, but doesn’t deliver the level of direction I want to equip tables with for Heroes of Song.

A possible closer example of what I’m going for is Vultures. That game gives you only glimpses into the setting through character options, examples in the rules, and other places in the text while also telling you that you’re a bounty hunter who works for Space Mom. That’s clear direction in a strange universe. The way you step outside of the initial context to discover the rest of the game is super compelling.

When I talked about setting for Heroes of Song, I talked about it looking different from game to game, with the map being generated at the table. I think as I write descriptions for character options, enemies, etc., I will keep the games mentioned above in mind and think about how much I want to explain clearly and how much I want to let people discover or infer.

I think secrets will also be fun for this book. I’ve made a ttrpg text with secrets before (I think undiscovered still), so I look forward to seeing where I can take that idea with this game. I have a lot of work to do on the game before we get there, but keep an eye out.

The world is weird; kindness matters.

--Daily

*I almost didn’t get Tunic because of the Soulslike aspect and people talking about how hard it is. I will say, it has forgiving checkpoints and plenty of helpful items that so far have kept me from getting stuck or feeling so setback that I feel frustrated. I’ve died plenty, but never lost much time to dying, have always felt like I’m moving forward or getting better, and honestly haven’t found it to be that hard. I have one more big fight to go, so wish me luck.

**I recently saw something saying that the reason for the talking hat in Minish Cap was because there wasn’t enough direction in the Oracle games due to there being no Navi-type character. I can’t help but think about how that would have taken away from the (maybe unintended) experience I had if Seasons included a companion character. I also imagine a little fairy going, “Hey, listen!” in Tunic and absolutely ruining the vibe.

[zedecksiew]

Kriegsmesser

When I received Kriegsmesser in the mail I finally googled "kriegsmesser", and found out it meant "war knife". Which makes sense; Gregor Vuga's ZineQuest 2021 project is a tribute to "roleplaying games named after medieval weapons".

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's piss-renaissance Old World setting. I tend to pick up WFRP-a-likes sight unseen:

Warlock (quality);

Small But Vicious Dog (yesss);

Zweihander (which I have come to hate); etc.

Anyway: I backed Kriegsmesser without really knowing anything about it. So Kriegsmesser surprised me.

+

Kriegsmesser grew out of a Troika! cutting. Its 36 backgrounds are compatible with that system: each come with a couple of lines of description; a list of skills and possessions; an a visual cameo cropped from actual 16th-Century woodcut art.

Cohesive and competently flavourful. My favourite is the Labourer, who always starts with "an empty pine box":

"You've spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people's profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future."

(The obligatory ratcatcher-analogue , called the Vermin Snatcher, is here -- check that box!)

+

Kriegsmesser also comes with its own ruleset. Hits all the notes it needs to, with lots of orientation and advice for how to run a game -- but ultimately super-simple, mechanically:

Roll d6s equal to the value in a relevant skill, look at the highest result. 6 means you get what you want; 5 or 4 means you get what you want, at a cost.

It's not quite a dice pool, since only the highest result matters. No opposed tests.

+

Kriegsmesser intends to have this base mechanic handle fights, too. The combat rules - with armour, toughness and weapon values -- are nested in an optional section.

For a WFRP-a-like, this feels like a purposeful departure.

Many of WFRP's most celebrated adventures are celebrated for bits that their underlying ruleset does little to support: the investigative structure of "Shadows Over Bogenhafen"; the complicated timetable of "Rough Night At Three Feathers".

Ludwig von Wittgenstein never needed a statblock to be memorable.

Not to say that lethal, hyper-detailed fights isn't super Warhammer-y. (Kriegsmesser includes an injury table, broken down by body-part -- check that box!)

But here it feels like Gregor is saying: "I'm not Games Workshop and Roleplay isn't an ancillary of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; we can evoke grim-and-perilous-ness even if we fork away from heavy combat rules."

+

It has become ritual for me to read my partner Sharon to sleep.

Sometimes I read her RPG things. The other night, after I read her Kriegsmesser's introduction --

" The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural ... These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial.

" Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery.

" Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken. "

-- Sharon remarked: "Nice one."

The RPG things I read her generally leave Sharon lukewarm. She has enjoyed a couple -- but, yeah: for many of these books, text isn't their strong point.

Kriegsmesser is the only time I can recall Sharon praising the writing of an RPG book without my prompting.

Nice one.

+

That introduction surprised me. It underlines Kriegsmesser's biggest departure from its WFRP-a-like pedigree: how it characterises Chaos.

Corruption, a mainstay of most grim-dark-y games, is made an optional rule, like combat. Explaining this, Gregor writes:

" Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of 'Chaos': they are likely to become the 'rats' under the streets, and the wild 'beast-men' in the woods bringing civilisation down. It's the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ... "

Describing the Empire, Gregor writes:

" The Empire encompasses the world yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. "

Holy shit this is the first time I've seen the word "subaltern" in an RPG thing, I think?

I love this.

+

Rant incoming:

With every passing decade Warhammer abridges its Moorcockian roots more and more; nowadays it is "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", pretty much.

Gone are the days when chaos berserkers are implied to grant safe passage to the helpless (because Khorne is as much a god of martial honour as he is a god of bloodletting); Or that the succor of Papa Nurgle is a genuine comfort to the downtrodden; Or that Tzeentch could unironically embody the principle of hope, of change for the better.

As Chaos is distilled into unequivocal villainy, Order goons get painted as Good Guys by default --

Giving rise to Warhammer's contemporary problem, wherein fans are no longer able to recognise satire.

+

When I was introduced to 40K, it seemed pretty clear that the Imperium was a Brazil-esque absurdist-fascist bureaucratic state: planets are exterminatus-ed due to clerical error; the way it stamps out rebellions is the reason why rebellions begin in the first place.

Tragi-comic grimdarkness. That was the point.

Nowadays that tone has shifted -- and you're more likely than not going to encounter a 40K fan who argues that the Imperium's evils are a justified necessity, to prevent worse wrongs.

We went from:

"Space Nazis because insane dumbass fuckery, also chainswords vroom vroom rule of badass!"

To:

"Space Nazis because it makes sense actually, and also chainswords make sense because [insert convoluted rationalisation here]."

+

Even Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade line, which ostensibly offers a look at 40K from the perspective of Chaos, never truly commits to its conceit.

With prep you could play a heroic band of mutant freedom fighters, resisting the tyranny of the Evil Imperium --

But I don't remember Black Crusade giving that kind of campaign any actual support. Its supplements service the relatively more conventional "You can play villains!" angle; the Screaming Vortex is a squarely Daemons-vs-Daemons setting.

+

This tonal drift culminates, in my mind, with Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop's heroic-fantasy replacement of the old WFRP / WHFB setting.

Here's the framing narrative for AoS's recently-launched Third Edition. Let's see whether I've got things right:

A highly professionalised, technologically-superior tip-of-the-spear fighting force (the Stormcast Eternals);

Backed by an imperialist military-industrial complex (Azyrheim);

"Liberating" rich new territories (Ghur) for exploitation by a civilised settler culture (Settlers of Sig-- I mean, Free Cities);

Justified because the locals are irredeemable heathens (Chaos and Kruleboyz).

I mean, that's a sweet-ass Warhammer setting. It's contemporary, laser-guided lampoon. Except it is played totally straight.

In AoS, a literal crusade is justified as the moral good.

+

I think Kriegsmesser surprised me because its framing of Chaos -- as a promise, as the light of hope shining through cracks of a broken world --

It feels so fucking right.

Yes: its a subaltern deconstruction of the conventional moral universe of Warhammer -- but it is a take that is also already implied / all but supported in the various depictions of the setting: from WFRP to the modified title-crawl of Black Crusade.

I'm annoyed I didn't think of it, myself. Damn you, Gregor!

And I'm annoyed that more Warhammer fans aren't thinking it, also.

+

lmagine if Kriegsmesser's perspective stood on equal standing as the GW orthodoxy. Imagine if, instead of simplifying stuff into "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", GW did a Gregor Vuga.

You'd have a Rashomon-ed Warhammer, where villainy depends on perspective:

You are fearful villagers, huddled around your priest, muttering prayers against the wild braying coming from the trees beyond your gates.

You are Aqshyian tribeswomen, defying the thunder warrior towering over you, the foreigner demanding you bow to his foreign god.

You are a Tzeentchian revolutionary cell, desperately trying to disrupt a Inquisitor's transmissions so your home planet isn't destroyed by fascist orbital fire.

+

Get Kriegsmesser HERE.

+++

( Image sources: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/thoughts-on-the-4e-death-on-the-reik/ https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil https://www.deviantart.com/faroldjo/art/Warhammer-40k-Black-Crusade-273596035 https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/09/fancy-a-new-life-bringing-order-to-the-mortal-realms-join-a-dawnbringer-crusade-today/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/team-america-15-anniversary-south-park-2558750 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_children_and_Israeli_wall.jpg )

[quietlyimplode]

Natasha Romanoff Masterlist of Fic Recs - Version 2.0 - Page 3

Page 1 / Page 2 / Page 3 / Page 4 / Page 5

Updated June 2021

This is not an exhaustive list (and in no order whatsoever) of the brilliant fic that is out there. Please let me know of any i have missed or any recs to put in and I will endeavour to add it. I have not included warnings or ratings. Please make sure you look at the tags, judge for yourself and as always take care of yourself first. (16 authors under the cut)

Andibeth @isjustprogress

Dialogue of Self and Soul - 7-7 series - Clint/Nat - Natasha unexpectedly gets pregnant, but everyone knows that assassins can’t be mothers. // Set Post Avengers: the story a spy who wasn’t made for parenthood, and the journey it takes to go from one extreme to the other. 

I took a heavenly ride through your silence - POST ENDGAME - Natasha dies but wakes up in 2012. CLint/Nat/Laura 1/1

Though I play at the edges of knowing - Clint/nat. Post Infinity war - five times Natasha looked back on her past -   1/1

Winter in the Pub - Natasha/Nebula - drinks in the pub. If only they knew how alike they are.  1/1

Pour like Honey, through the darkness - Nat/Bucky/Clint - comicverse natasha fakes her own death. 1/1

Like a shadow or a friend - Nat/Clint - asexual Natasha navigating the brave new world of shield -  1/1

That would be enough - Natasha/Barton family - one shots/prompts assorted.   57/?

The war can’t touch us here - Nat/Clint/Laura/Maria/Steve - Natasha is born in war but saved by others. 1/1

Laura Barton’s House for Wayward Trauma Survivors - Nat/Laura/Wanda/Bucky/Clint - What do you mean, bringing a few guests?” Laura asks suspiciously.    1/1

We will light up the sky as we burn it down - Clint/Nat - meet me in Montauk. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems. 1/1

We are not all that stares back. Clint/Nat - tell me something true. Natasha holds onto words he tells her. 

And this is how you keep her - Nat/Clint - Natasha helps Clint heal after the avengers 1/1

If we are not spies - Nat/Clint - she’s been running, but he finds her. 1/1

Synergy - Clint/Nat - five times they spent New Year’s Eve together .   6/6

And when we’re there we’ll belong. Series - Clint, Laura and Natasha: a family’s journey, and the long (and sometimes winding) road to love. [Reading order:]

⁃i. i love only that which they defend (main storyline)    1/1

⁃ii. til the clocks run down (expanded main storyline – can be read independently but does slot into the main fic in certain ways, specifically in regards to scene placement, timing, and assumed character knowledge)til the clocks run down 21/21 

⁃iii. for the half of ourselves we have lost (post age of ultron, pre/post civil war) for the half of ourselves we have lost 19/19 

⁃iv. how to feel a tranquil life (post infinity war)how to feel a tranquil life 11/11 

⁃v. moments [the world can’t stop us] (timestamps for clint, nat and laura for this universe, can be read independently of previous three stories) 7/7 

Dancing in the dark turmoil - Clint/Nat - if anyone can find this link?? (You’re my best friend. When was I not?)

Shellybelle @geniusorinsanity

Nor we need power or splendour- Clint/Nat/Laura - a powerful look at the Clint/Nat/Laura - and how they fit together given all pasts and trauma.  18/18

If the two were one - Clint/Nat/Team - five times the team found out Clint/Nat were married - 1/1

All the transparence (in shades of red) - Clint/Nat - Clint’s broken after Loki. Natasha meets him in buffalo. 1/1

If you let me through the door, we can let the world in - tony/team. Tony built the tower - for his friends. 1/1

Like a clock in a thunderstorm - Clint/Nat - thunderstorms and confessions - 1/1

Conversations by other means - Clint/Nat - fight and a good fuck - 1/1

A gift like joy - Clint/Nat - Clint comforts Natasha (non-sexually) after a mission requires her to sleep with someone for information. 1/1

Rarely short on caring - Claire Temple /various superhero’s - Caring for others is not always so hard. 

No matter what she tells you - Natasha - 5 lies Natasha tells. 1/1

Eiluned @eiluned

Read all the smut. Seriously.

Troika series - Clint/Nat/Darcy - the deliciousness of smut - 8/8

underneath and unexplored - Nat/Clint - progression of Natasha’s emotions in 5 parts. 1/1

We make a life by what we give - Clint/Nat - Christmas Celebrations - 1/1

Play it by ear - Clint/Nat - Natasha has a secret, she loves Clint. 1/1

Know Thyself - Clint/Nat - after shield collapses, Natasha searches for who she is. 

The Cat - Clint/Nat - Natasha is stealthy like a cat. 1/1

Two Solitudes - Clint/Nat - Natasha knows Clint. Trust with secrets leads to more. 1/1

Heart Hides a Secret - Clint/Nat - series of 3 one shots. 

Five Times Clint and Natasha Slept Together (and the First Time They Slept Together) - Clint/Nat - 5+1   1/1

Scribblemyname @scribblemyname

Merry Russian Christmas - Maria/Nat - Maria wants Natasha as a friend - 1/1

Shall we dance? Clint/Nat - clint took a chance in saving Nat. She wants to find him to say 1/1

Learning Natasha (again) - Natasha/team - Natasha learns how to be around people - 1/1

They died with me - Clint/Nat - Clint says I love you, Natasha responds. 1/1

Remind me how to breathe - Nat/Clint - Natasha has a miscarriage, Clint needs her to live for him. 1/1

Deep in the throes - Maria/Natasha - Maria helps to reprogram Natasha. They become friends.   1/1

For better or for worse - Clint/Nat - they’ve seen each other at their worst. 1/1

Mitigation - Clint/Bobbi/Nat - brainwashing makes strange bedfellows -  3/3

Good with strays - Clint/Nat/Laura - Clint brings Natasha to the farm. Laura is the link to bring her to shield. 1/1

Crazy4Orcas @crazy4orcas

Underneath it all - Clint/Nat - Clint learns about Natasha’s moods through the clothes she wears - 1/1

Just what the doctor ordered - Barton thinks Natasha is perfect. 1/1

Twelve days of Clintasha (with @cassiesinsanity​) - 12 days of Christmas Clint/Nat Style. 

Kiss and Run - Clint/Nat - Natasha runs after a kiss. 1/1

Arukou @arukou-arukou 

Loop - Clint/Nat - even free of the red room she’s not free of the handcuffs - 1/1

That One Blind Writer - @that-one-blind-writer

Tumblr for the one shots which range from Clint/Nat to Bucky/Nat 

Spectral archers @spectralarchers

cute morning texts - Nat/Clint- Natasha sends Clint texts in the morning. Clint doesn’t do mornings -  1/1

Swallow your soul - Clint/Laura Clint/Nat - Clint’s past comes to haunt him. 

Wildechilde17 @transparentlyfallingasleep

In the marketplace or the Main Street you are mine - Clint/Nat - one shots of Clint/Nat - men and women loving each other without being totally derailed by it.     66/66

Flipflop_diva

If it takes three - Clint/Nat/Laura - so the thing is Clint and Nat accidentally got married. Laura’s ok with this. 1/1

If I be worthy (how can this be)- Natasha/Shuri - pre and post iw- Thor’s hammer -1/1

And in the end I’ll always be there - Nat/Tony - he’ll always find her - 1/1

The ties that bind - Clint/Nat/Laura - three decades of Natashas’ life. 3/3- can be read as 1 shots

The hardest thing, this decision I made - Steve/Natasha - Natasha has an abortion - 1/1

On this sleepless night - Tony/Nat - they both can’t sleep, he tries to figure out why she’s not asleep - 1/1

Nowhere to turn except in your arms- Nat/Steve/Tony - 1/1

Miss Jeeves

any way I do - team - tony discovers Clint/Nat got married.

Unbreakable92

warm me by your fire - Bruce/Nat - Natasha needs the warmth she has searched for so long more than ever when a kidnapping brings some violent flashbacks to the forefront.

Miss adoration @adorationamy

aftershock - Natasha/Clint- scenes after natashas brain scramble in ultron -  1/1

Builder @builder051

Nat on Fire Series - Natasha has crap coping mechanisms but she’s surviving the only way she knows how. 19/?

Creedless Assassins Series - Natasha and Clint as they make their way through. 10/?

Mohini @mohini-musing

Coming Home Series - Natasha is taken care of by Clint and Laura. 6/? Clint/Nat/Laura

Salamander

Fragments - Clint/Nat/Laura - “I know you.” “Do you?” Clint takes Natasha somewhere safe. 1/1

[dinawrites]

Westwood is so compelling im ALSO beguiled just like Tristan rip

I saw that youre open for ocs in westwood - do you have any rules for that? Creatures you creature types you don't want included or canon characters you don't want to interact with oc ideas? Rules for posting and sharing westwood oc ideas?

Anything like that? I just dont want to overstep cos this entire world is so cool an intricate and youre already so nice for letting others play in your sandbox

Thank you so much! This is genuinely so heart-warming to hear. I'm so glad that people are liking Westwood. I was worried for a bit that I was the only one who was going to be obsessing over it, so to hear these words have really validated me like a parking ticket. And to know that people actually want to create OCs for it?! I really cannot wrap my head around it. When I pitched the idea to some friends about creating OCs for Westwood, the response was a little bit shaky and disheartening, so I really didn't want to push the idea at all. But I initially created Westwood Academy with the intention of it being a safe place for fun, non-committal OCs and I'm really open to any and all OCs for Westwood. In fact, I encourage it!

I really don't want to be restrictive, but I do have some rules for Westwood OCs, the biggest being:

Please abide by the rules of the Westwood Universe.

One of the things I didn't like about media like The Vampire Diaries, Twilight, Teen Wolf, etc. is that they would begin with previously established rules and then progressively break each and every single one. The consequence of this are the stakes, now made non-existent, and characters are in danger of being so overpowered, every threat becomes laughable or easily vanquished. An example of this is Hope Mikaelson being a Tribrid, when it was previously stated that a vampire could not also be a witch. Also, why is it necessary for someone to not only possess the superhuman speed and strength of a vampire, but also turn into a wolf, and also be able to do magic?

To prevent this, I've created a set of Laws of Lore that governs the world of Westwood:

The Westwood Six (Witches, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Fae, Werewolves, Vampires) are the only creatures admitted into Westwood, as they are the pillars that make up the Recondite Citizenry.

Any other creature has not done so, are not represented on the Eldritch Council, and have elected to remain independent of the Citizenry. Although this means their freedom, it also means they are isolated from aid.

The Unseelie Court (including Imps) have no interest in interaction with the mortal plane, and thus do not attend Westwood.

The only ones capable of creating half-Fae are Elves, and even so, many do not survive to adolescence.

Nymphs have minor manipulation over their respective elements (otherwise, what reason do I have for Sorcerers?)

Warlocks are at the mercy of their Demons. The only one to have achieved ownership of his own free will was Atticus Aimes, and was driven mad by it.

The First Families were the first Witches to settle in Westwood, not the first ever Witches. More Witches exist outside of the Families, and are safe from the bloodcurse.

Hybrids cannot, and, in the current timeline of Ottoline's enrollment, do not exist. Many die, as they are unnatural, and cannot survive in nature. The only thing outside of this is Warlocking oneself, in which it is a matter of possession. Atticus himself was a Witch when he sold his soul to The Fiend.

Werewolves die during the Warlocking process as their bodies reject the Demon, and Vampires cannot enter a demonic bargain as they have no soul to sign.

Only Werewolves exist.

Only a few Witches, Warlocks, and Sorcerers remain, so I will eventually have to put a cap on how many more of them can be admitted to Westwood. But as of now, feel free to make OCs for the Troika!

Outside of that, anything goes! Canon characters are all available for OC interaction. Some canon relationships to know about beforehand:

Ottoline, Thomasin, and Eliseo are the Golden Trio of Westwood

Ottoline and Ulric are an OTP but it's a slow-burn, and we love unnecessary angst. So he is available for pairings during his and Otto's "enemies" phase of Enemies-To-Lovers

Eliseo and Thomasin are also OTP, but they try and stay away from each other romantically. This leads to more than its fair share of shenanigans. Both are available for temporary pairings

Matías and Tristan both believe they love Otto, but they really don't. They're simply being thralled by a protection spell she has placed on her by her mother (very similar to a Siren's mesmer). Both are available for pairings

One of the many mysteries at Westwood is the Disapearrance of Lucille Burke, so if you're looking for canonical angst for an OC to be made for, concern for a missing friend or lover would be perfect

Westwood Academy is a college, not a high school. All students are legal and majority of them are immortal and much older than they look anyways. So, unless a teacher is otherwise taken, they're free for pairings!

There are no rules for content posting. I'm just excited to see what you come up with! Please do not hesitate to ask any questions you may have for your OC, whether it be about the species they are or a character pairing you envision, and how that character would react or interact to certain things. My ask box is always open!

[starlitesymphony]

Holiday in Salubria Worldbuilding (re)Intro

Some of you might remember my worldbuilding posts from when I was a wee writeblr. I’m not quite as into making moodboards anymore but I’d still like to reintroduce the setting and basic concepts of my sci-fi universe! Below the readmore you will find:

The Timelost Arks (history & religion)

The Collective’s Troika (Quin’s backstory)

Life in Gallanthius (her current life)

Like the book, these pieces are written in Quin’s 1st-person POV. (1600 words total)

see my pinned post for a wip intro/summary

The Timelost Arks

It begins with the end—the end of the Earth. The planet’s crust shattered into vast fragments, each of them programmed to grow and develop into self-sustaining environments, populated by echoes of their previous flora and fauna. Including humans.

The arks wandered the stars in search of suitable worlds to terraform. They drifted out of contact with one another. Some even forgot other arks existed.

Many arks faced calamities. Their passengers were forced to adapt to the circumstances, including life in total darkness.

Not much is known for certain about those times. We call them the Wandering Age, a time before prehistory, and know only that we were different then.

Everything changed when a leader aboard the ark Gallanthius noticed a planet off in the distance. The reasons for her decision aren’t clear, but it’s thought she couldn’t bear to watch the opportunity pass. She gained control of Gallanthius and kept it on course until impact. No one knows what her name was. She’s known as the Navigator.

Some say the Mariner was her second-in-command, and that she survived the event and went on to achieve the first journey through warp, which is only partially known to be true. In fact, the Mariner lived thousands of years after the Navigator. By the Mariner’s time, Gallanthius had transformed into a thriving city.

The technology to fly through the heart of one star and emerge from another allowed her to visit and map other solar systems. She could travel from one inhabited planet to another in a few weeks rather than years or generations. She came into contact with many other human civilizations and reintroduced them to each other.

Some places, like Ruvey, my homeworld, have elaborate lore surrounding the Mariner. She did inspire the dawn of a new age, after all. She was said to have cured plagues, transformed the most desolate land to green, and driven away marauders. During the height of the Gallanthian empire, huge numbers of people traveled the stars on extended pilgrimage to sites where the Mariner is said to have visited.

The Mariner’s starship was the first of its kind. It used a special fuel, called prisma, to open stable wormholes. A large source of prisma had been discovered, but eventually, after centuries of heavy interstellar travel, it began to run out. Now, it’s the most valuable material in existence.

These days, almost no one travels to other worlds. Only the old wealth. Powerful people. Ones who speak for an entire planet. Sometimes merchants, manufacturers, business people, and their “mercenaries”.

But from what I know, no one travels through warp as often as the Troika.

It’s a word spoken only between us. The name for what we are. What our living armor makes us.

I wouldn’t say I’ve met many others. It’s too risky, Maddox tells me. Most of them don’t know about you. They don’t know I have an apprentice. It’s important that it stays that way.

The Troika work for powerful people. He does, anyway. Someday, I suppose I’ll work for them, too.

>>><<<

The Collective’s Troika

We aren’t sure who the Collective really is. But we think they’re the ones who control the last of the prisma.

They have connections everywhere and know everything. They don’t trade in currency. They operate on information and use the Troika to pull the very strings that hold the Imperia together.

We can look like anyone. We can talk like anyone. We can access the highest levels of the military and go wherever we need. We can kill anyone and make it look like an undeniable accident. Survive anything. Underwater, vacuum of space, you name it.

There’s only one thing we all have in common, Maddox tells me. In their natural state, Troika always have very long hair. It’s an armor reservoir. Our hair is alive with subatomic machines. Just like every other fiber of us.

I’ve been his apprentice since I was twelve. My armor began as a microscopic seed, implanted in my index finger. Just a background presence, at first. Then, surreal heightened senses, the ability to climb effortlessly, even upside down.

I’m twenty now. My armor’s still developing. I’m not quite invincible. Almost, but not quite.

The seed came from Maddox’s armor. Not just anyone can be implanted, though. The city of Gallanthius and the Collective search relentlessly for possible matches. They’re so rare that Maddox waited over a hundred years for me to come along.

Life as a Troika is lonely. I’ve been his apprentice for eight years now, so I know. On a cellular level, I know.

I can hear a grain of sand drop if I concentrate hard enough. I haven’t quite mastered the art of mimicking someone’s appearance and voice at the same time, but I can do a passable job. Pretending to actually be another person? Someday, that’ll be part of my repertoire. That’s what Maddox does. Sure, he’s got lots of other talents, but that’s the kind of work the Collective usually chooses for him. He steps into the shoes of a high-ranking official and changes the outcomes of trade deals, research grants, and even battles for territory on other planets.

For now, though, I let him focus on all of that.

I have studies and training, both in real life and the simulator, a virtual world where I can practice flying and navigating the endless maze of the city.

Once a year, I travel through warp to Ruvey to visit my family. Mostly just my mom, though. My cousins say I don’t have anything in common with them anymore. I don’t think that’s true; I still like surfing and sailing and bonfires. I guess it’s not enough. It seems like going home just makes me want to go back to Gallanthius.

In Gallanthius, we live five floors from the top of the tallest skyscraper. We’re so high above the clouds, the structure is surrounded by a containment field with its own oxygen-enriched atmosphere. The skyscraper is constantly growing, bit by bit, adding new levels at the bottom as well as rooting itself further into the ground. All Troika live their private lives here, rarely crossing paths as they travel to all reaches of the Imperia and back.

The skyscraper is a place of idyllic beauty. Flowers, greenery, architecture. But we don’t all stay because of that, nor for the astronomical salary the Collective provides.

It’s so they can keep an eye on us.

We do as we are told and we go where they send us.

Like the Collective, the Troika aren’t real either. We exist behind a permanent mask of fake identities. We move through our lives relegated to predetermined roles, forbidden to tell the truth, even to one another.

>>><<<

Life in Gallanthius

Gallanthius: the beating heart of human civilization, the center of the Imperia.

From my bedroom window at the top of the Collective building, I can see a sliver of ocean beyond vast stretches of monumental structures, all of them formed from glistening marble and mottled with greenery. Blue veins of magnetic tracks swarm with stacks of traffic. Shuttles and carriers glide in silently from the orbital dock as it hangs like a suncatcher from the misty moon on the horizon.

From up here, Gallanthius looks like a single chaotic organism. In a sense, it is. It grows everything we need. Space to live, textiles, materials, food. All necessary things are grown, including us.

We make our way down into the city several times a week. Sometimes we go as tourists from local moons, or officials, or even algae tenders, to practice the art of blending in. The Merchant’s Guild market includes hundreds of shops at the base of the building. Some are even on platforms creeping along the broad canals, trading everything from baubles and cakes to harpoons, and selling meals to the thousands of dock workers who live down close to the shore.

Although I’m from Ruvey, Gallanthius doesn’t seem to mind my presence. If I press an interface station anywhere in the city, it recognizes me, speaks to me. Quin Gadara of the Troika, its interface calls me. The text appears only in my eyeball. The city knows me for what I am when no one else does. It reminds me that I am not a stranger here.

I go as often as I can. I like watching people and learning, and breathing the salty humidity. The trees bloom year-round, ubiquitous pink, purple, and pale green blossoms. They release streams of pollen that color the clouds peachy cream. It quickly breaks down into water vapor, so when the sky looks nearly golden, you know rain is due.

Between my training and studies, I end up staying indoors a lot more than I’d like. It’s just Maddox and me in our sprawling flat. It’s stuffed to the brim with all manner of things he’s collected from all the places he’s been over the years. Cabinets filled with vials of sand and beach glass, organized by color. Bird’s nests, which Mother would die for if she were to ever see all of them. Insects, resting on strips of felt and entombed in glass, and labeled with his sharp, scratchy handwriting. Pine cones and seeds. Flowers, pressed and dried. So many flowers.

I never notice him gathering things when we travel together, but he always has something new to add to our nest when we get back.

The only bad thing, honestly, about my life in Gallanthius?

Tea time with Aneke.

She’s Maddox’s ancient retired mentor. He hates tea with her too, but he’ll only smile and shake his head if I complain.

Aneke is an ice sculpture brought to life. No expression, only widened solid black eyes like polished obsidian set in her face. Usually, the two of them exchange bland gossip while I eat pastries. Then Maddox says something about an afternoon obligation and we leave. There is no goodbye hug.

Has it always been like this? I asked him once. So…boring?

He shook his head. No. It used to be worse. I’m sorry, Quin. I suppose if I’m the outcast of the family, that makes you one, too.

>>><<<

[dwagom]

R. Daniel Kelemen is professor of political science and law at Rutgers University. Jacob Soll is university professor and professor of philosophy, history and accounting at the University of Southern California.

As the European Union struggles to agree on a joint response to the coronavirus crisis, calls for solidarity are colliding with the reluctance of wealthier northern states to come to the aid of struggling states in the south.

And yet, these so-called northern frugals — which includes Germany and the Netherlands — seem perfectly content to finance autocratic, anti-democratic governments in Hungary and Poland.

This hypocrisy — claiming “moral hazard” when it comes to Southern Europe, but continuing to shower generous subsidies on governments flouting democratic values — is sending messages that could undermine European integration for a generation. (...)

The politics of fiscal solidarity in the EU have for too long been poisoned by a narrative that depicts it as a morality play, pitting frugal “northern saints” against profligate “southern sinners.”

There is a popular myth in the north that the region’s taxpayers have been saddled with bailing out the south. Quite to the contrary, the so-called bailouts have been enormously profitable.

Creditor countries, such as Germany, earned billions in interest payments from loans made to Southern European debtor countries during the eurozone crisis. They also benefited as the flight to safety during the crisis led to sharp decreases in their borrowing costs. (...)

The EU has enormous financial leverage over the governments in Budapest and Warsaw. It simply chooses not to use it. Poland is consistently the biggest net beneficiary of the EU’s budget. For instance, it netted €12 billion in 2018. Hungary ranked just behind Poland as a beneficiary of EU largesse, netting €5 billion in 2018, more than 4 percent of its GDP.

During the eurozone crisis, states seeking bailouts from the European Stability Mechanism had to agree to close supervision by the Troika. By contrast, the generous structural funds countries like Poland and Hungary receive from the EU come with few strings and little monitoring, enabling autocratic leaders to misuse them to finance their patronage networks. (...)

A Union that imposes austerity on democrats while it subsidizes autocrats sets itself on a road to perdition.

[thatsuittho]

December fic roundup

I wrote some 00Q, wanted to get better at writing 00q00 and then I fell into an Alec-shaped hole without meaning to and I’ve been sorting these AUs out and they grew so much that I guess I’m writing Variations of Alec Trevelyan for a few months. (These are my biggest efforts yet, so someone help me I’m not equipped for this lol.)

MI6 Cafe Prompt Fills:

the food fairy fiasco -  Q-branch has a mysterious benefactor that leaves baked goods without a trace. Bond gets jealous. 00Q

Pull of you | holiday, interrupted - (Q-centric urban fantasy AU) Q's yacht explodes while on holiday in the Celtic Sea. In the subsequent weeks, while the police investigate the cause of the bombing, he searches for his mysterious savior. Thanks to @darkjediqueen for the alpha read and @angel-n-darkness for providing me with a logical perpetrator. (Updated weekly)

A very good team II - Spies doing spy stuff (Background 00Q00)

Explicit sex:

Four, two, six, twelve - (Warning A/B/O dynamics; consensual sex)  Futurefic set after Attention. Bond is drugged and abducted mid-mission. He wakes up to find the quartermaster incapacitated and R urging him back to London. OOQ

——

Variations of Alec Trevelyan

Pretender!Alec, inspired by The Pretender (ultimately civilian!James/Alec, worldbuilding stage):

ficlet 1, age 6 | ficlet 2, age 20-23 | ficlet 3, age 15 |

In an alternate universe, double-O agent Olivia Mansfield, 38, returns to MI6 with six-year-old Alec Trevelyan after betraying his parents to the Russian troika. MI6 realizes Alec is a Pretender, a genius with the ability ‘to become anyone he wants to be’, and spends the next twelve years training him to be the perfect undercover agent.  (This one is wikipedia’s fault for implying MI6 looked after Alec after his father committed murder-suicide. Poor wording got the creative juices flowing.)

Legends!Alec, spoiler-filled crossover between TNT:Legends S1 and Craig!Bond movies (past James/Alec, current multiple pairings, plotted and rough draft in progress): 

WIP Wednesday snippets can be found under this tag: legends!alec 

The year is 2014 and Martin Odum is on the run. In London, Q and James discover everyone in MI6 has been lied to for over a decade. Alec Trevelyan, going by the name Martin, is alive and well, if a little shell-shocked by recent events. Together, the three men must deal with the ramifications of Martin’s situation and uncover who is willing to kill to ensure Martin never remembers his past.

[nuclidic]

Given that a lot of us are stuck inside with all this COVID-19 stuff, do you have any good TimKon fic recommendations to keep us more happily occupied?

Haha yes! I have this list from years ago but it is way past time for an update.

Disclaimer: these are just things I like, please heed all tags and warnings etc. I'm also not reccing any WIPs because unfinished fics kill me every time.

Crystal Clear by Merit andAnd I'll Tell You No Lies by caecily

Two short takes on soulmate tropes that have to go first because I love them so much, I love soulmate aus, Tim and Kon are soulmates, the end.

Where There's a Wish by LeeayreBeing Robin’s vessel is hard enough: the exhaustion, the life-threatening late night activities, the bruises and bullet holes and broken bones. Trying to hide all that from his incredibly suspicious, incredibly hot new roommate while maintaining his studies and placating his parents? Tim has never had it so hard. Especially since said roommate doesn’t actually know he’s Superboy.

So the setup for this is unusual, I'm not sure if it's based on anything but: superhero identities are Personas, independent (basically magical) personalities created by the wishes of a person or groups of people who act through hosts that have the will to manifest whatever that persona does. Basically: Robin is an independent persona, Tim shares his body with him and when Robin manifests the costume and all the gadgets appear. It's explained throughout the story, but just in case you start it and are like wtf is happening. This possibly should go in the thirds section because the actual pairings in this are: Robin/Tim, Red Robin/Tim, Tim/Kon, Red Robin/Tim/Kon, Red Robin/Superboy, and Red Robin/Superboy/Tim. Red Robin can also be kind of dubconny so watch out for that if it's a concern.

Wing Beats in Reverse by firefrightJason Todd is the third Robin, not the second, growing up in shadow of Tim Drake's death. Despite this, he still manages to form strong bonds with his new family. Especially Damian, who wishes to atone for his past mistakes with Jason's predecessor. But when he's fifteen, a mysterious red hooded figure kidnaps Jason from the rooftops of Gotham, and after that his life will never be the same again.

A Robin reversal AU (ie Damian is the eldest, Dick the youngest) that's Jason-centric but of course that doesn't lessen the Tim angst. Or the Kon angst when he finds out Tim is alive. Hopeful ending, but it doesn't fix everything.Other pairings: JayRoy, StephCass (barely)

Time Flies by by LaroyenaJon Kent is Superboy. Tim's gut instinct tells him that's wrong.(Timkon fix-it where reboot!Tim misses Kon like a phantom limb. And then he gets him back.)

Sometimes you just need to cry over the lack of Kon in your life and this fic provides the PERFECT excuse. Heartbreaking and then happy. (Also brings Colin back UNLIKE DC.)Other pairings: implied Clex

Not Completely Powerless After All by ChimaeraKittenNobody was quite prepared for the kid who runs the company to visit, but they manage, in fact, they might be pleasantly surprised; they weren't expecting him to be nice. Of course, they weren't expecting him to be a possible ninja either, but you gotta take the good with the bad.

Outsider POV!!! I have never watched Powerless so you definitely don't need to be familiar with it, this is just a glorious casefic told by someone who doesn’t know it’s a case.

Matters of the Heart by DMWith Clark off-world as an ambassador to Earth, Conner has to watch over Metropolis. Though it should be straightforward, there appears to be something amiss with seemingly random crimes happening around the city. Conner has a hunch that they’re connected and calls in his best friend to help. But as the two of them spend time together working the case, Conner realizes that his feelings for Tim might not be what he had thought.

A long casefic with feelings, basically everything I ever want.

Stumbling Home by bewaretheboojumIn his mid-twenties, Tim moves back to Gotham City after several years living abroad. He's feeling adrift, unfocused and a little off balance as he tries to re-establish a life in his home town.Kon is a fireman by day and superhero by night. When mysterious fires start cropping up in Metropolis, all signs point to arson. Who better to help him get to the bottom of this arson case than Tim? And really, it seems like Tim could use the distraction...

Another casefic with older TimKon. I didn't like the initial setup with Tim having abandoned his friends for years but it won me over in the end.

the honesty in your body by LaroyenaLuthor's tech saved Kon's life at the cost of his mind. Tim must take a feral Kon across space to restore his humanity... which is just as difficult as one may think.(Batman Omegaverse AU: unabashed TimKon porn detailing their original get-together in their early teens to their definite get-together in their late teens. But mostly porn.)

Yep, this is mostly omegaverse porn and it's excellent and I love it, I really don't know what else to tell you.Other pairings: BruDick

I'm Alone Here, I Think by unluckylokiSuperboy is fighting robots in San Francisco and remembers something that wasn't.There's a new priest in the Naxos temple appointed by Dream of the Endless.Kon is missing something. Tim is missing everything.One day Krypto practically drags Superboy to a remote island in Europe and there's a dark haired guy smiling at Kon like he knows him.Maybe he does.

Sandman crossover but I haven't read Sandman in 500 years so you don't need to know most of it. Kind of identity porn, but more...fraught. Excellent Tim angst (there...might be a pattern here) and I'll be honest I'm not very into all the witches and stuff but overall very enjoyable.

Nowhere But Forward by MishaBerryIt shouldn't have happened the way it did.When Kon finds Tim in Paris, it leads to a night that neither of them will ever forget, for better or for worse. Tim is then forced to confront something he's been denying about himself for a very long time, and Kon begins to question some things about himself. The road ahead is full of twists and turns, but there's nowhere to go but forward.

I really love long fics, but tbh I found this started to drag a little towards the end. I still enjoy it overall with delicious Tim angst.

Plus One SectionSometimes when pickings are slim we can try food we wouldn't normally eat, and sometimes it's delicious. Which is to say these are fics with Tim/Kon/Another Person. Don't go any further if this upsets your OTP soul, I completely understand.

TimKonBartTroika by glitterandlubeThis is kind of written like crack and definitely won't appeal to everyone, but it's a fix-it of preboot where instead of living with the Kents in Smallville and becoming the country boy of Teen Titans (2003) Kon moves to Gotham and then scores with Tim and eventually Bart. Follows the previous canon's timeline almost to the start of Red Robin. Some (honestly warranted) bashing of Steph but also of Lois Lane (???).Also contains explicit Tim/Dick.Other pairings: Clex, JayDick

TimKonCassieTrymmetry by glymrWhy do they feel like something's missing?

Set in a universe where Kryptonians form triad soulbonds. Kon and Cassie have both always been thinking about Tim when they're together, and after Kon comes back they can no longer deny it. They have to find Tim. I wish this was ten times longer.

JayTimKon

Heart of the Hoard by firefrightJason is a knight on a mission to save a captive young woman from a cruel and vicious dragon. However, when Jason reaches the keep the girl is kept in, it quickly becomes clear that not all is as it seems with his quest. For starters, Lady Timothea is actually Lord Timothy, and - as Jason soon discovers - he's hardly a prisoner in his tower.

Perfect because Kon is an ACTUAL DRAGON though it does lean on his YJ cartoon characterization.

I (Don't) Want to Believe by chibinightowl and strikeyourcolors

FBI agents Tim Drake and Conner Kent are sent to Arkham Heights High School to investigate a series of unexplainable incidents that have both staff and students on edge. Tim's firmly of the opinion the school is haunted while Kon is positive the occurrences can be explained in a more reasonable manner. After all, he doesn't believe in ghosts.Right? Right?

Horror casefic where Tim had a previous thing with Jason but also a thing with Kon so sharing is the way to go, especially when you're more (or maybe just equally) concerned about being murdered by ghosts in a haunted former asylum.

Okay I am stopping now because otherwise I will continue forever. I hope this satisfies some hunger.

[sybright]

Cassandra Appreciation Post!

Okay, another one going up a little later than I would have liked, but I shall not skip over Cassandra! This is for the “jelliclequeens2020″ hashtag! Original post here. Now we will celebrate the queen of slinkiness!

June 8th: Cassandra.

What do you love about this queen?: Her cool demeanor and mysterious nature! She’s a very mystical queen with a calm and quiet attitude, and there seems to be much more to her than she lets on, and I find that quite fascinating. This is further built upon by her unique design that sets her apart from the other characters (aside from Tanto, Cori, and Exotica), she stands out in every scene. I like to interpret her as a glamorous diva who loves gossip, but who also has a kind heart, she may be cool but she’s not stone cold. She’s a fierce protector in the tribe who will defend them no matter what. Coming back to her design, I think she’s absolutely gorgeous! Her design is one of my favorites, especially with her braided tail and having the same wig as Tanto (and Cori) with the rolled ears!

What is your favorite version of this queen?: 1998! But I also like the 2019 version of her even if she was less mystical and was a bit more mean-spirited. 

Who is your favorite actress that played this queen?: Rebecca Parker from the 1998 film! But I also love Mette Towley from the 2019 film!

What is your wlw ship with this queen?: DEMANDRA! Oh my god I love Demandra. If I wasn’t so attached to Demebombastrap then I would totally have it as my main ship! (Side note: it is my main ship in the 2019 universe!) Part of it is aesthetic, I love their color schemes together, with the deep browns and warm golds, they look so pretty! But I also just adore imagining their dynamic. Demeter is obviously very nervous and skittish, but Cassandra in contrast is very calm and collected. I would imagine that whenever Demeter is feeling particularly out of it and really panicky, Cassandra would stay silent and simply hold her softly but firmly in her arms until she’d calm down. Or if Demeter is having a bad day, Cassandra would either tickle her or try to crack some bad jokes until she felt better (bad jokes because Cassandra is super serious most of the time and isn’t very good with humor, but she tries really hard and Demeter finds it hilarious and it makes her laugh even more). They have a completely different dynamic in the 2019 film for me, in that universe they’re both icy divas who are very flirtatious and protective of one another. I like both dynamics, although I like the stage-show one a little more and prefer their color combo, but I love the pairing regardless of what universe it’s in!

Your favorite moment of this queen in the musical?: Either when she sings “were you there when the pharaohs commissioned the sphinx” during Jellicle songs or when she says “moonlit eyes” with that ridiculous zoom in the 1998 version lol. I also really enjoy when she does the telepathic communication with Jemima in the Troika production during Moments of Happiness! (Not that I don’t love it when Tanto and Cori do it, it’s just fun to see Cassandra being all magical and spooky!)

[lobselvith8]

My thoughts on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 1 & 2

For anyone who reads my blog and is unfamiliar with Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, it is the sequel to a video game released in 2004 by Troika Games (interestingly enough, Troika Games was founded by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson because they had a falling out with Interplay after Fallout 2), and it’s based within the same universe as the tabletop RPG setting known as the “World of Darkness” (my introduction to the World of Darkness setting were the novels set in that universe, including a memorable short story with a detachable vampire head).

V:TMB is a real RPG - you have choices about how you deal with the people you meet, you had choices in which vampire clan you started out as and which faction you aligned with, you had multiple dialogue options to choose from and you could play as a good or bad person (relatively speaking given how you were a vampire who needed to feed), and your choice of clan shaped dialogue options you had (for example, Malkavians could “see” things others could not and knew things about certain people you’d never know with any other clan, while a Nosferatu protagonist had to deal with the fact that they couldn’t be seen due to how they looked like Count Orlok from F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu). Another Fallout connection between the games: Courtenay Taylor, the voice of the female protagonist in Fallout 4, voiced the characters of Heather Poe (who could optionally become a ghoul - a vampire minion), Rosa (a thin-blood, like the protagonist of V:TMB2), and Doris.

Something of note (for sheer amusement since I doubt the game will include it unless an enormous amount of fan feedback requests it) is that animals can also be turned into ghouls as well, although they usually mutate and develop a taste for blood.

Part of the problem with V:TMB was that the developers weren’t able to accomplish everything they wanted, and Troika Games folded shortly after the release of the game (so they weren’t able to address the bugs themselves), but unofficial patches by fans fixed the problems and made the game playable (as some bugs were game-breaking).

The announcement of the sequel has me pretty excited. The tidbits that we have gotten so far - being able to choose what our protagonist looks like as a human, and again as a vampire, and being able to pick the occupation they had, as well as the preferred gender pronoun - make me feel optimistic that player choice is important. Chris Avellone has said he did some work on V:TMB2. An interview with PC Gamer addressed that some additional new clans would be added to the game after the initial release, free of charge: “I’m told additional clans will come post-release, and that those will be free for all players while story-driven content (for instance) could be paid DLC.” 

Your protagonist in the story is a thin-blooded vampire - in-universe, thin-blooded vampires were feared due to Gehenna prophecies (the vampire equivalent to the End of Days), and you encounter some in the original game. Thin-blooded vampires are relatively weak as the last generation of vampire (with Caine, the progenitor of the vampires, as the first generation). Your protagonist gets to choose between being able to glide, turn to mist, or using telekinesis (you only get to choose one). It does seem that the player will get to know the different vampire clans, and will have a choice to become a vampire who isn’t thin-blooded (presumably with one of the clans, although the developers didn’t speak too much about that - the thing about becoming a lower generation, i.e. more powerful, is that it’s usually done through sorcery or drinking a more powerful and lower generation vampire’s blood to the point of death, known as diablerie, which is typically frowned upon).

Years ago, I had some discussions with an online friend from the Dragon Age community about Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, with respect to our differing views on which faction spoke to us (Nines Rodriguez and the Anarchs spoke more to me while she preferred Sebastian LaCroix). I’m curious to see if the Anarchs, or a new faction, will feature in the game. If anyone wants to discuss it, now or post-release (although it’s some ways away), you’re welcome to talk about it with me. 

[zedecksiew]

“Exotic Warrior”

(Am writing this because it’s been bubbling over in my mind. This post is an exorcism of bad vibes over bad ideas that have held me hostage, the past few days.)

+

There is now criticism on Twitter arguing that the “Exotic Warrior”, one of Troika!’s d66 Backgrounds, is racist because it is coded as Orientalist / Asian.

I would like to respectfully disagree.

(There are other arguments in the initial complaint. I am commenting the “Exotic Warrior” specifically. Because by being actually East Asian -- part of the diaspora, living in Southeast Asia -- I feel I have some standing to comment.)

+

When I encountered “Exotic Warrior” in the book it stood out as a neat background and helped sell me on Troika!.

As I read it, the Background is a deft piece of work: it references the “adventurer from a foreign land” thing, but occludes said trope’s usual Orientalism -- an attempt at deconstruction.

A foreigner, in Troika!, can be anybody. This isn’t just a platitude; it’s supported by the book’s implied science-fantasy setting -- is essentially Spelljammer, but on more acid.

It is similar to Electric Bastionland / Planescape / etc in that it features a melting-pot, nobody’s-local “city at the centre of creation”-type deal. (I have Thoughts about RPG setttings that focus on metropoles, but that’s a separate post.)

+

Here’s the “Exotic Warrior” ’s text, in full:

24 EXOTIC WARRIOR No one has heard of your homeland. Your habits are peculiar, your clothes are outrageous, and in a land jaded to the outlandish and new you still somehow manage to stand out.

POSSESSIONS - A WEIRD & WONDERFUL WEAPON. - STRANGE CLOTHES. - EXCITING ACCENT. - A TEA SET or 3 POCKET GODS or ASTROLOGICAL EQUIPMENT.

ADVANCED SKILLS 6 Language - Exotic Language 3 Fighting in your Weird Weapon 2 Language - Local Language 2 Spell - Random 1 Astrology 1 Etiquette 

Honestly? None of the above reads as particularly problematic. It’s a legit, characterful beginning point for a player-character.

Sure, my Western-media-battered brain jumps to Samurai Warrior -- 

But immediately also to Sufi Missionary or Varangian Guard. And indeed comes to rest at Indeterminately White Gentleperson Naturalist -- the kind of exotic visitor Southeast Asia got, a lot, those scouts of European imperialism.

+

These readings are possible because of the illustration the entry is paired with. Here they are together:

Setting aside the surrealist stylisations:

The shape of the costume, the belt, the “skirt” -- these look like Europeanisms, to me. And the figure’s laughing abandon opposes the standard Orientalist tropes of wise inscrutability or red-faced savagery.

The choice to run “Exotic Warrior” with a decidedly non-Orientalist-coded illustration isn’t an unintentional piece of art direction.

(PS: any critique of an illustrated text that only focuses on the words is incomplete. Image is half the text of an illustrated text.)

+

The nondescript-ness of the entry plus its accompanying image is an open door. Opening this door isn’t without risk: whatever assumptions you make about your particular “Exotic Warrior” are drawn from your own biases.

+

Regarding “Etiquette” and “Astrology” and “Tea Set”?

With my biases: I don’t read these things as uniquely East-Asian. (When I first encountered “tea set” in Troika! I genuinely thought: “English tea service”, instead of: “temae”.)

The one that I did read as real-world Eastern was “Pocket Gods” -- but many human cultures had this, pocket gods are a part of Troika!’s wider fantasy setting, and “Exotic Warrior” isn’t the only Background to start with them.

+

A note on “exotification”:

The criticism of “Exotic Warrior” fundamentally seems to be: “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD”.

I fundamentally disagree with this notion.

I have no lived experience of a society where being other-ed (in terms of culture, race, class, gender expression, etc) isn't an ever-present thread in the fabric of one's life -- and therefore a crucial and profound source of conflict and insight into the human condition.

(The ethnic fault-lines in Malaysian society have become so unbridgeable today primarily because it was official policy to sweep all that other-ing under the rug of “Malaysia Truly Asia”, as opposed to working through our ugly whispered prejudices towards understanding.)

We are not all the same. Cultural, geographic, and material differences exist. The mismatch in knowledge and understanding this creates? It matters.

In fact: To insist on universal cultural-knowledge parity; To push for “nobody’s born here, everybody belongs” melting-pots as the default framing; To nudge questions of difference and arrival into ghettos (to paraphrase one of the tweets I saw: “you can only explore issues surrounding the Other in a game specifically designed to do so”);

All that comes off to me as a very neo-liberal position, designed to safeguard and disguise the privileges of “mainstream” metropolitan melting-pots.

I read it as:

“Post-modern cosmopolitan societies want to be inclusive but don’t want to pay the admission price of history and discomfort, so they generally opt for erasure instead.”  

+++

Throughout this post I have been careful to speak from my particular context. Because context matters.

More context:

I like Troika!. Like, a lot. I think its creator, UK-based Daniel Sell, strives and succeeds at making thoughtful work. I consider him a friend, whom I’ve had personal (albeit Internet-bound) interactions now and again.

+

I have BJ Recio to thank for the following insight. Talking to him about “Exotic Warrior”, BJ brought up a crucial point that I’ll paraphrase here:

Roleplaying the outsider can be bad, especially when it is used as an excuse by the West to do fucked-up shit. But it is not default bad. Assuming it is default bad centres the discussion on “Will White people fuck this up? (Yes.)”

Essentially, the argument against “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD" assumes two things:

(a) Western participants as default; (b) harm (because of ignorance or bad faith) as default.

+

If your context -- your Background, hah! -- prompts you to experience Troika! with those assumptions; and therefore read “Exotic Warrior” as necessarily Orientalist, and racially-charged?

Your context is your context; I’m not going to invalidate it.

If you are located in a society where the binary of White / non-White overpowers everything, I certainly understand the whys and hows of your position.

Your context matters.

+

So does mine.

+++

I think I’m reacting badly to this because I personally feel turned away by this RPG Discourse Around Representation (tm), supposedly done in the name of my East-Asian ass.

I resent the idea that “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD”. It threatens to render verboten the entirety of my RPG work.

I am a SEA creator trying to explore and be true to my context. If there is one constant throughout SEAsian experience, it is difference.

Our peoples have ever encountered and glamourised and hated each other, all of us simultaneously Us and the Other:

Japanese and Malay enclaves in Ayutthaya; Mongol invaders in Java, who never left; Luzones mercenaries, employed by both the Sultan of Melaka and his Portuguese enemies; The reputation of the Ilanun / Bajak Laut; White conquistadors (aforementioned above); The entire history of diaspora Chinese identities (my identity!) in SEA, generally;

Foreigners from foreign lands -- feared, not fully understood, not fully understanding, simultaneously conquering and settling and finding modes of belonging, becoming a part of the land.

Always arriving.

+

That the background music of my geography, discordant though it may be, is somehow so harmful it may only be meaningfully depicted in the hermetic context of a “game specifically designed to explore that”?

This feels bad, and extremely unwelcoming. It feels like a shut gate instead of an open door.

I refuse to be turned away.

+++

(Hopefully I can finally stop thinking about this shit.)

[philippmichelreichold]

#review #scifi Godlike Machines @JonathanStrahan

#review #scifi Godlike Machines @JonathanStrahan

Godlike Machines

Godlike Machines is an anthology edited by Johnathan Strahan that explores the concept of "big dumb objects," or "Godlike Machines." My introduction to the concept was Harlan Ellison's "I Have no Mouth and I must Scream." Of course, his Analytical Menace" inspired the SkyNet of the Terminator franchise. So seemingly all-powerful, enigmatic, and in so far as AM or SkyNet was concerned, inimical. But to create something fresh, you need to let go of old concepts and imagine something that fits the bill of particulars in a different way. So though these machines are enigmatic and potentially deadly, they need not be inimical or particularly menacing. All of these authors are masterful and masterfully write compelling stories that should inspire tomorrow's generation of writers imagine original stories of their own. Certainly well worth the price and well worth reading, I would not be surprised to see them as springboards for discussion in workshops for new writers. The contents in order of appearance are: •Return to Titan - Stephen Baxter

•There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow/Now is the Best Time of Your Life - Cory Doctorow

•Hot Rock - Greg Egan

•Alone - Robert Reed

•Troika - Alastair Reynolds

•A Glimpse of the Marvellous Structure [and the Threat it Entails] - Sean Williams

Troika

Alastair Reynolds Troika is the first story. It tells of a Russian space mission to to an enigmatic artifact, the Matryoshka, that has appeared suddenly in the Solar System. But the real godlike machine of the piece is the even more enigmatic (and deadly) Soviet bureaucracy that Gulag's the cosmonauts for bringing home an unpleasant truth. The Matryoshka plays Prokofiev's Troika from Lieutenant Kizhe, just to let you know what's really going on, though this story is not a comedy. The twist at the end is splendid.

Return to Titan

Stephen Baxter's Return to Titan, one Baxter's Xeelee stories, is about development/progress/exploitation thwarted by those pesky environmental protection laws. The inhabitants of the Solar System use tame wormholes to travel through the system. And there's a wormhole at Titan. But the laws against intruding where there may be sentience prevent development/progress/exploitation on Titan and beyond. This is a great inconvenience to Harry and Michael Poole, who've gotten rich building wormholes and fueling development, and whose continued prospects depend on further expansion. So they induce Jovik Emry, who's in charge of protecting Titan, to take them down on an expedition to prove there's no sentience. What they find is a marvelously imagined world-- an engine that makes life on Titan possible. But even godlike machines can be vulnerable to that most destructive of forces-- human greed.

Jovik Emry may well be the most despicable viewpoint character I've ever read. While one could argue that the Pooles are even more so, and that the only differences between him and them are matters of degree/opportunity/ability, the moral difference lies in motivation. Greed is a factor for both, but the Pooles' failings are mitigated by their goals. They have built something marvelous and are possessed by an overweening drive to go on building, regardless of what obstacles they need to remove. At least backup Michael Poole has the courage and integrity to sacrifice himself for the cause. Emry is motivated solely and admittedly by the desire to prolong his own worthless existence as comfortably as possible. He approves of the Pooles' plan to remove the Titan obstacle, but rails against them over the ultimate results. He is the most despicable character in the entire anthology. No other character matches him. No, not one.

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow/now is the best time of your life

Cory Doctorow takes the reader on a richly imagined romp through a post-apocalyptic landscape involving machines that turn cities into forests, a UNC commune where happiness is hardwired, superb fighting suits and zombies that uplift you into virtuality. The viewpoint character, Jimmy, has been genetically engineered by his father to be virtually immortal. This sounds really great until you consider the protracted puberty. But then, reversing all that engineering causes its own problems. Jimmy is a character the reader can really empathize with, and being uplifted to a virtual existence makes for a happy ending, right?

Alone

Alone is among the most enigmatic of the travelers on Robert Reed's Great Ship. He does not have any memory of a time before he was on the ship and does not know how he got there or what he is doing there. For ages, he has walked the surface of the ship, eschewing contact and remaining alone. As activity on the surface increases, he travels for more ages within. The captains of the Great Ship don't lie mysteries, and he escapes capture. After a time he goes through the personal affects of a murder victim and takes his place among the passengers. Things then get a little weird at the end, and we find out something the passengers of the Great Ship would not suspect.

A Glimpse of the Marvelous Structure and (and the Threat it Entails)

Sean Williams' Structure tells the story of a spy, Donaldan, sent to gather information about the Mines of the planet Gevira. They produce an incredible amount of raw material and are the basis for the planet's economy. He's infiltrated the local police, and takes part in the investigation of a mysterious death. The deeper one goes into the Mines, the greater the likelihood of inexplicable death. The victim in this case is also still alive-- an investigator named E. C. Cotton. She takes Donaldan on a tour of the Mines, as the answers to the questions of her death and of the secrets he has been sent to uncover both lie deep below the surface. The "godlike machine" is of course the Structure-- the mines are more than just deep. Temporal mechanics are involved, and Donaldson is shaken to the core of his being by what he uncovers. The story is structured as a series of reports back to his controller and mentor, and is tense and compelling. (He carries an uplink to a Guild satellite in his head.) The Structure is a unique approach to questions of time and space.

Hot Rock

Greg Egan's Hot Rock is about the exploration of the planet Tallulah by two travelers from the Amalgam, a galaxy spanning civilization. Tallulah is an orphan-- it orbits no sun and travels among the stars. What makes the planet unusual is that its surface temperature is warm enough to support life. Members of the Amalgam commonly digitize themselves, a fine solution to mass/energy problem of space travel. They upload themselves into an insect sized drone and they're of. Egan creates a variety of bases for life in the story-- the commonality being life on the planet uses chemical and/or thermal sources as there is too little starlight to support photosynthesis. They become stranded and seek out the planet's inhabitants to learn how the planet is heated and to get help in returning home. Their arrival does not create happiness among the faction of inhabitants that intends to fight of any new arrivals and that does not believe they are merely explorers. This nearly sets off a civil war among the three factions and provides a bit of distraction from the marvelous technical aspects of the story. The godlike machine is the means by which the crust is heated and the planet steered. It has served as an Ark for eons and can continue to do so for eons more.

Digitization of the human personality, what Frederick Pohl called vastening in the Heechee Saga, is a plot device in three stories in Godlike Machines. It provides a plot twist in Baxter’s Return to Titan and Doctorow’s Life/Tomorrow and is common practice in the Amalgam universe of Egan’s Hot Rock.  

Jonathan Strahan at isfdb.org

My text Creative Commons 4.0

credit Image cover art used under fair use as part of the review. Contact publisher for reuse

190416