#sketchie of friends monster hunter character :3

[sarasie]

[aion-rsa]

The Book of Boba Fett Episode 3 Cameos Follow Robert Rodriguez Tradition

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This Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett article contains spoilers.

The Book of Boba Fett throws quite a few new characters into the mix in “The Streets of Mos Espa,” as the city’s new daimyo continues to deal with threats to his throne. A (final?) confrontation with Black Krrsantan and the Hutt twins ushers in a new band of angsty bikers now under Boba’s employ as well as a cameo by a rancor keeper you might recognize if you’ve followed showrunner and director Robert Rodriguez’s career. In fact, this cameo is tradition in Rodriguez’s movies.

Danny Trejo as the Rancor Keeper

You might know him best as Machete, Razor Charlie in From Dusk Till Dawn, or as one of the baddies in the latter two chapters of Rodriguez’s legendary Mexico Trilogy, but you’ve definitely seen him before in one of this director’s films. Danny Trejo, who happens to be Rodriguez’s second cousin, a fact unknown to them until they filmed 1995 Mexploitation Western Desperado, is known for playing gritty action heroes and villains who operate outside of the law.

Trejo has appeared in many of Rodriguez’s films since ’95, including Spy Kids, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Planet Terror, and the Machete movies, in which he starred. DC fans may also know him as the interdimensional bounty hunter Breacher on CW’s The Flash.

In “The Streets of Mos Espa,” we see Trejo’s unnamed character under the employ of the Hutt twins, who offer him and a rancor calf to Boba Fett as a peace offering. This rancor keeper makes friends with the daimyo, who quickly takes a liking to the little calf now living in the dread dungeon below the palace. Boba asks his new beast master to teach him how to ride the rancor like witches of Dathomir once did, which is something we can’t wait to see later in the series. Just imagine shooting down Pykes on the back of a rancor!

It’s clear that Trejo’s rancor keeper really loves spending time with one of the most feared creatures in the galaxy, like he’s Space Hagrid. He even imparts some wisdom about the little rancor that may change the way you think about the hungry rancor in Return of the Jedi. According to the beast master, rancors are emotionally complex and not just violent monsters. They bond quickly to the first being they see, which is why this baby rancor wears a blindfold until he’s introduced to Boba Fett, his beloved master and new dad.

That’s right, Pateesa from Return of the Jedi had feelings, but Luke Skywalker slaughtered him like an animal anyway.

Stephen Root as Lortha Peel, the Water Monger

The greedy water monger played by Stephen Root wouldn’t be out of place in a Rodriguez film, either. Especially in his Mexico Trilogy, the director explored how those who have take advantage of those who don’t. In this case, the water monger is charging a month’s wages for a week’s worth of water to kids who don’t even have any wages. “Look around, there’s no work,” one of the bikers tells Boba when he confronts them for their crimes. While the greedy usually meet bad ends in Rodriguez movies, the water monger is let off with just a warning to lower his water prices and to not bother these kids (now Boba’s employees) again.

Root has been a mainstay of genre movies and tv shows for decades. One of his earliest credits was in the George A. Romero horror film Monkey Shines, and he followed that up with parts in Ghost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, RoboCop 3, and Bicentennial Man. He also guest starred in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Quantum Leap, Eerie, Indiana, and True Blood. Most recently, he’s probably best known for playing the titular character in The Man in the High Castle and as Monroe Fuches on Barry.

Sophie Thatcher as Drash the Biker

Rodriguez’s love of sketchy bikers and criminals on the fringe translates into a stylish gang of wayward kids on colorful speeders on The Book of Boba Fett. Chief among these bikers is a young woman named Drash, who’s brave enough to talk back to the daimyo and call him an “old man” when they first meet. Later, Drash will work for Boba, even facing down the fearsome Black Krrsantan when he attacks the daimyo inside the palace. A chase sequence late in the episode shows off Drash’s driving skills, as she takes her speeder bike to the Mos Espa’s rooftops to catch up with the mayor’s runaway majordomo.

The Book of Boba Fett‘s cool-as-hell hipster biker is played by Sophie Thatcher, a relative newcomer who also happens to be one of the protagonists on Showtime’s Yellowjackets, which just happens to be the best show currently airing on American television. The show is like a mix of Lost, Lord of the Flies, Hannibal, and Breaking Bad — in other words, you should be watching it. Thatcher plays the grungy outsider Natalie.

Read more about The Book of Boba Fett here.

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[sarahreesbrennan]

Harvey trying to protect his bullies from Nick vibes incredibly similar to Jamie trying to protect mortals from that other Nick. Made me smile really big.

Aw! You are such a sweet for reading both books, I am much flattered to have my ouevre examined. And I actually have many thoughts about the courage it takes to be kind.

For those unfamiliar with one or both series of books, and I know the names make things confusing! Nick Ryves and Jamie Crawford are characters in my THE DEMON’S LEXICON trilogy. Nick Scratch and Harvey Kinkle are characters in CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA, the TV show and my tie-in books! 

(Please hold for Nicholas Cox, rough-around-the-edges scholarship boy of C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad’s FENCE graphic novels and my tie-in novel FENCE: Striking Distance, out in September. It’s a mess! Only the first Nick was my idea!!)

The characters aren’t super similar, I don’t think (though both Nicks are dark-haired and sarcastic, and I love all four of them, and I think they are all good people who are trying their best... well, not Nick Ryves, not a good person, but does try his best). Nick Ryves is a literal demon who once set the River Thames on fire, hates reading, can’t lie, and Jamie Crawford is a chatterbox earring-wearin’ magician, Nick Ryves and Jamie are friends. Nick Scratch is a warlock who’s an avid reader and a huge liar (made to be so by his world enforcing terrible things upon him!) and Harvey is a soft-spoken artist, Nick and Harvey are romantic rivals who snap at each other--but I do know the scenes you mean. And I do consistently love the idea of someone who doesn’t protect themselves well at all, stepping up to protect other people. 

I think we’ve all seen characters who’ve gone through horrible things, dealing back to the world what they’ve been dealt. And it’s always sad and sadly true to life. Everybody gets hurt and everybody lashes out.

But I think there’s also something really fascinating about seeing moments of grace, when people who have been dealt a lousy hand, make a choice not to reflect that back. 

Jamie was marked to die by inches by a demon (not Nick Ryves, whose brother would disapprove of him doing such). Harvey was abused by his alcoholic father and witches murdered his brother. But both maintain a high level of concern for others, even when said others haven’t done much to deserve that concern. And that’s an instinct which is greatly appealing, but also greatly dangerous--in a terrible world, it’s not safe to protect others--and which also has its dark side. In a terrible world, how far might you go to protect others? 

I admit, I had a high level of suspicion around Harvey at the start of the show, as ‘nice guy’ on TV often means ‘how low are our expectations for dudes!’. I kept worrying he would do one of the low-key awful things that ‘nice guys’ get shown as doing: abandon his friends, or his morals. One of the scenes about Harvey in the TV show that really got me was in Part 2. He and Sabrina had an awful break-up, Sabrina’s been distancing herself and dealing with her own stuff, her friends are hurt by the distance and dealing with THEIR own stuff. When Sabrina comes back around, her friends are mean to her, then Sabrina goes home and has to deal with witch-hunters! Then Harvey comes after her, to help her fight the witch-hunters. And we the audience know two of the witches he comes to help killed his brother. 

So when we were discussing the show, that scene and the spaces around it was something to be focused on. What on earth do the other witches think about a witch-hunter coming in to save them? That must have been so weird for them! And we came to the decision that several witches, since the witches are often up for a sexy time, might be like: ‘Is this witch-hunter... cute?’ [nightmare for Harvey, who would not be down], the two witches who killed Harvey’s brother would be like, ‘this is slightly awkward,’ and Prudence and Nick Scratch, the two non-Spellman witches most familiar with Harvey, would be like ‘This guy is a maroon who may soon cut off his own head.’ (NICK: I should stop him cutting off his own head, it would upset Sabrina. PRUDENCE: Eh.)

I also like examining how being kind isn’t easy. Sabrina’s a fixer. Harvey’s a caretaker. Your best traits are often your worst as well. Some really huge tragedies occur because of imperfect people trying to do the right thing.

The potential for unkindness has to be very present, for characters who choose to be kind. The choice should never be easy. Jamie in TDL is a naturally powerful magician, in a world where you get more power by doing an incredibly sketchy thing (feeding people to demons). He’s being promised love and power and true understanding by a corrupt circle who are saying: this is what you’re good at, this is what you’re made for.

And for Harvey, he keeps being shoved toward an inheritance of traditional masculinity and active violence. There’s a scene in Part 3 of the show where the approach Lucifer takes when tempting/messing with Harvey to punish him is to push on all his feelings of being useless, not protecting people (in this case, specifically his longtime adored friend, and new girlfriend, Roz). Thus Harvey goes off to charge at evil, inadequately armed and in the company of aggressive guys he previously hadn’t got on with. The evil that comes for us is always specific to us. In Book 1, Harvey gets scared of his own reflection seeming like a monster. In Book 2, Prudence says ‘All witch-hunters are the same. They aren’t safe’ and a dark spell plus a dark revelation does make Harvey give into rage for a moment which he overcomes. In Book 3, Nick Scratch thinks of Harvey ‘those instincts were made for witch-burning’ and Harvey’s best friend Theo is disturbed by the ‘grim witch-hunter’ vibes Harvey occasionally gives off.   

Being kind is a struggle, and easier, more attractive, more socially esteemed and rewarding options often seem on offer. Harvey’s story is as yet unfinished, and in the main not mine to tell, though I do love visiting in on him! I hope it ends well but there’s dark potential there. Jamie’s story ended well, but he was often tempted and tipping into darkness, and his kindness and decision to stick with kindness (over, say, revenge for his mother’s death) came at a horrible price. A mother. A hand. The life he wanted. I don’t think Jamie regrets it, but I want to acknowledge the price of kindness.

Ours is often a cruel world, which teaches kind girls to be kind to others to the point where they’re cruel to themselves. And which pushes kind boys to stop being kind, which twists kindness into anger and violence.

But I do believe there’s a real value in showing in fiction, and acting out in life: the difficult choice to be kind. It often feels thankless, but the choice does spare other people. And perhaps others will see you make that choice. Perhaps they’ll learn something. 

I like thinking: perhaps being kind in a cruel world will matter.

[windrocklibrary]

Galemont Talks About: Things That I Recall From E3 Conference (now that they’re over)

These are a collection of things that I mainly remembered the most in regards of the 2018 E3 Conference and my thoughts on it. They’re all a combination of things that I both like and not really like. Either way, all of these are my own opinions and spins on it.

Disclaimer Note #1: Yes, I like video games. No, I don’t/can’t play them or rather to an extent that I can play MAJORITY or ALL of them. Why? Because I’m poor -- so I might as well revel around other people’s emotions and mine (makes me sound like a vampire or something).

Disclaimer Note #2: I won’t include the sideshows or extras (e.g. Nintendo Treehouse). I am going to state things based on the things that are presented at the conferences.

ELECTRONIC ARTS (EA)

Frankly not the most memorable for me. They mentioned not much from EA other than sports games like Fifa, NFL, and NBA (ones I remembered at least), Battlefield V, Command & Conquer Rivals, and Anthem to name a few.

I kind of like how the folks at EA are somewhat self-aware on what they’re doing when talking about Battlefield V, stating that they want to depict their own image of WWII; though that’ll probably start a conversation for some folks I can imagine. It’s a bit of a downer for me considering that people are applauding at the information that there won’t be any lootboxes. Whether or not this will be true is beyond me.

Anthem looks interesting, to say the least. Though it’s such a shame that they didn’t mention, let alone, showed much. So with that being said I can’t say anything and even be very excited about it. We’ll see how it’ll go.

MICROSOFT STUDIOS

Lot’s of games. They showed off first party games like Halo: Infinite, Gears 5, and Forza Horizon 4. Ori and the Will of the Wisp was pretty neat and made me somewhat interested in trying out the Ori series.

The reveal of Devil May Cry 5 and Jump Force was very wild! The rumors that I often hear regarding DMC5 since last years Game Awards were very enticing, it was very cool to see it actually be true on E3.

Seeing Jump Force was surreal, especially when you’re watching Naruto, Goku, Luffy, and Frieza beating up each other in a hyper-realistic depiction of New York City’s Time Square; the shot of Ryuk and Light from Death Note is pretty wild too--would love to see what other Shounen Jump characters to be revealed there.

The trailer for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice looks very slick, kind of expecting it to be shown here especially after the teaser during the Game Awards.

The Amazing Adventures of Captain Spirit looks charming; a story that sets in the same universe of Life is Strange makes it interesting in my book. The game’s also free.

I’m super glad that Studio MDHR is making an expansion for Cuphead! It has always been a dream of mine to for Cuphead to have an expansion of some sort and I’m actually really excited that it’s real! They even made Ms. Chalice a playable character so that’s cool!

The game Cyberpunk 2077 was almost thought to be a myth until now. It’s essentially one of those games where you heard it and you’ll never know when the game will actually be released or revealed again; so seeing it back up again is pretty cool especially with their own flares for an introduction. Hopefully, it won’t go off into dark again.

BETHESDA

What’s the deal with that big dude during the Rage 2 presentation? He was like silent for a straight 15 seconds or something, some said that maybe his prompter bugged out? Who knows. Most of the presentations there were a little awkward, though it’s probably because most of them aren’t exactly used to standing in front of a big crowd or something.

Speaking of awkward, the Andrew W.K. live performance was whacked. He didn’t sound good there if I have to be honest, I don’t think most of the audience were jazzed about it too.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood was interesting, DOOM: Eternal caught me by surprise. Most of the other games shown there were interesting but didn’t really move me a lot.

Frankly speaking though despite the often awkwardness, there were some funny moments as well. Todd Howard’s presentation was a fun one to me; he was very self-aware of the jokes that went all over about him. I’m glad that Fallout 76 was expanded more in this conference because it was showed on Microsoft’s; it’s going to be an online multiplayer experience but apparently, it’s pretty divisive among folks, I personally think it’s neat--the nukes, however, is probably going to be a little sketchy in my opinion.

They also announced Elder Scrolls VI. Well, I say announced, it’s basically a tease; then it’s over.

DEVOLVER DIGITAL

Same thing they did last year: a satirical shitshow that makes fun of the conferences. It’s pretty fun, but admittedly I kind of got bored with it and I just want to see games more than them losing their minds. I say that because most of the jokes they do are basically beating on the same old topics that have been talked by folks for so long. Their conference is basically a self-contained story-arc, this one being the continuation of the previous one and I’m sure they’ll probably continue it next year.

They did show some games. 3 I believe. A battle royale shooter (I think?) called SCUM, a frenetic and comical platform shooter called My Friend Pedro (the one I’m most interested), and something called Meta Wolf Chaos XD which is a remaster of the cult favorite FromSoftware game of the same name. I’ll probably need to look it up on that more, looks fun.

SQUARE ENIX

Not really intrigued with it to be perfectly honest. Some of the things that they showed there have already been shown during the Microsoft conference (Kingdom Hearts 3, Just Cause 4, and Shadow of The Tomb Raider). While they did somewhat expand on it a bit, it kind of lost the impact that I think it could’ve had.

They announced an expansion of sort for Final Fantasy XIV Online along with a crossover with Monster Hunter World, showed Dragon Quest XI, and a new title called Babylon’s Fall by Platinum Games that is basically a teaser. Speaking of teasers, they also teased another new title called The Quiet Man; which admittedly has the strangest trailer.

Somewhat disappointed that they didn’t show anything about Final Fantasy VII Remake. It’s been so long since they announced it and showed a gameplay footage of it. Hopefully, they’re doing alright because the longer it goes on like this, it might become stale.

UBISOFT

The things that they showed there feels rather unsurprising because I kind of expected the things that they would do at the conference.

Kind of happy that they showed their new Just Dance game as their first thing, that way they cut the fluff and make the rest of the show focus on larger titles. There’s also a dude who tripped himself into a television.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 showed a new cinematic trailer, featuring Jade--but evil or something. The presenters said they want to show a gameplay footage but they showed very little. Joseph Gordon Levitt popped in and talked about putting people’s creative work into Beyond Good and Evil 2 (at least, that’s what I recalled)--didn’t really go into details on the incentives though.

For Honor got a new update featuring Chinese warriors into the mix, and they’re making the game available for free to grab for a limited time until June-18-2018.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 was showed again but explained a little more there, it looked interesting despite feeling like another generic rpg shooter. It looked interesting, they mention how they’ll do season updates throughout the year for free and I thought that’s cool. I do hope they’ll do well on this one.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas was showed a bit more again there and good golly they made a surprise with Star Fox crashing the scene, especially making Fox McCloud being playable with his Arwing. Pretty slick. Yves Guillemot even made a surprise by giving Shigeru Miyamoto a gift and I thought that was adorable.

The DLC for Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle that features Donkey Kong was shown there, looks neat but didn’t show much, it was explained in further details during the Nintendo Treehouse though.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was announced there and it’s surprising to me considering that Origins was out since last year. It looks pretty I’ll say that much. You can also play between two characters in the game: Alexios and Kassandra. It also looks like they’re making the game very action rpg-esque, kind of like Origins.

PC GAMING SHOW

This flipping conference went on for WAY too long. 2 hours for crying out loud! I also fell asleep halfway through or something because many of the things they showed there weren’t fascinating to me.

Satisfactory won the award for the punniest game title.

Lot’s of SEGA games are coming to PC, ones that caught my attention being Shenmue I & II and Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 0.

 Untitled Publisher, a publisher that’s new to me announced 3 new indie games--2 of which I found the most interesting: Bravery Network Online and Overwhelm.

The game Maneater is basically a game about you being a shark and I have an iffy feeling it’ll shed a bad light on sharks for the public (I hope not).

Took so long for them to show Ooblets, a game that I’m very excited for, showed a new trailer though it showed some things. Wished there was more though.

SONY

The conference kicks out with The Last of Us: Part 2. Ellie is pissed as hell and I have no idea why and I’m scared. She also kissed a girl so that’s something. It kind of caught me off guard because I didn’t follow the previous game and its DLCs, so the whole information of Ellie being a lesbian is pretty new.

Resident Evil 2 Remake is revealed and it looks slick. The fact that Capcom released and announced games lately that actually looked cool as heck is wild. Hope it goes well for them in this one as well as DMC5!

This year’s E3 Conference showed off not one, but THREE samurai games; two of which were shown off in Sony’s conference: Ghost of Tsushima and Nioh 2. Not complaining, they all look slick.

Kingdom Hearts 3 also appeared in this year’s E3 Conference not once, but THREE times as well at different conferences. I should’ve mentioned before that every trailer did show something different, with the one in Sony having the most difference. It looks like Kingdom Hearts 3 is going to have Ratatouille and Pirates of the Carribean joining in.

I remember wanting to see more of Death Stranding and know what the heck the game’s about, and they showed some gameplay footage during the presentation. Still have no clue what it’s going to be about though.

There’s a weird looking game called Control, something to do about a girl with a gun who has telekinesis. Looks minimalistic and clean; it might be good too.

Spiderman features a handful of villains beating up on Spidey in the end. It’s a gameplay footage and oddly I don’t feel that intrigued by the trailer for some reason.

NINTENDO

Surprisingly not a lot of big games were announced on Nintendo Direct. I’ll say it here and now that the majority of the Nintendo Direct is mainly for the new Super Smash Bros. Aptly named as Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Needless to say, a lot of people were happy and so was I; though I’m surprised and mildly sad they didn’t show anything about Metroid Prime 4.

The first thing they showed was a mech game called Daemon X Machina. I first thought it was Armored Core, but the surprising part is I somewhat half-correct. The game was actually made by the same people who made Armored Core! Pretty funny to me considering that the design of the mechs in Daemon X Machina and Armored Core looked very similar. The trailer was wicked sick too so I’m sold.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 got a new DLC called Torna: The Golden Country that is available this September, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses is also announced to come out next year. So I’m sure the fans of those series would be very excited.

Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee got a small spotlight there, but it’s mostly on the accessory Pokeball Plus. Turns out, every Pokeball Plus comes with a Mew for free inside; which to me is basically a way to make people want to buy the accessory then (that’s marketing ploy right there). This is interesting to me because it reminds me of the message in the last Let’s Go trailer that mentioned: “you’ll meet a special Pokemon”. This could either mean Mew or something else. So we’ll see.

Fortnite is on Switch, not a surprising thing to me and I think it’s good for the game and the devs who made it. I personally think Epic Games deserve the success with their game in my opinion.

Overcooked 2 is coming soon and now features online co-op which is great! Killer Queen Black looks interesting and my personal favorite Hollow Knight is finally out the day the Direct was on! If you’re into metroidvanias I highly recommend Hollow Knight very easily--the game is generally worth having as well in my opinion.

Super Mario Party was also revealed and I’m genuinely happy; it would feel weird for a Nintendo console to not have a Mario Party game. It also has a Goombah as a playable character there too!

The Direct also bust out a montage of games; the ones that caught my attention were Dragon Ball FighterZ, The World Ends With You, Splatoon 2 Octo-Expansion, Wastelands 2 Directors Cut, Megaman 11, Paladins: Champions of the Realm, Arena of Valor, and Ninjala.

Now for the big one. Super Smash Bros Ultimate. The announcement was great and crazy long, and you can definitely tell that Masahiro Sakurai and the devs were busy when they made this game. It’s essentially a port of the Wii U, but it’s brand new and it adds so many things it might as well be a new game. The game’s biggest feature is the fact that they’re having ALL of the characters throughout the history of Smash Bros. ever; being someone who got introduced to the series since Brawl, seeing Snake and many other old characters was super cool.

They also showed off new characters as well. Princess Daisy is finally in Smash and that was very exciting to me; she’s treated as something called Echo Fighters, which is a fancy term of a character that is a clone but with some variations (other Echo Fighters being Lucina and Dark Pit). They showcased Inkling and what they can do, and in the end, they announced Ridley from Metroid.

END

And thus concludes the many things I found interesting in 2018 E3 Conference. I think this year’s E3 Conference has been rather modest as so many of the games are mainly coming out next year--and these are the ones that are meteoric as well. As to who won E3, well that’s beyond me, especially considering all the factors on what makes someone win E3. If you’re talking about the number of games revealed, I’d say Microsoft. If regarding the games released in 2018, I’d say Nintendo. Either way, I just want to see great games that are fun for people to play with. If the anyone can have a good time and be genuinely happy with a game; then that’s a win in my book.

[durenjtmusings]

Help me - I accidentally built a world.

So, I was plotting out an interesting ABO variant story (SPN) - my very first exploration of ABO, and I decided I needed a patriarchal theocracy setting to fit in with the ABO story concept I had in mind. I was playing with creating a new AU from scratch, but then said:

“But SPN is supposed to be about the American midwest - I wanna keep it in the midwest. Hmmm, how could I end up with a patriarchal theocracy in the US midwest?  Oh, and I’m a gonna need a more ‘typical’ US for my characters to ‘escape to’ as well.”

3 weeks and several discussions with friends and family later (including a sketchy map drawn in a restaurant), I found that I had created a complete alternate US (and Canadian) historical timeline (based on a different outcome of the US Civil War) - with Monsters. Oh and THREE countries (ok, technically 5) instead of just two.

Today I made myself WRITE IT DOWN. If you’d care to peruse a description of my recent madness, feel free to read below the cut. It is STUPIDLY detailed for the fanfic I have in mind - and at this point, contains no ABO references. That’s TOMORROW’s task.

[Or maybe a nicer MAP is tomorrow’s task - we’ll see.]

ALL apologies to actual historians and anyone from Canada. I am a European medievalist historian *at best*. While this is SORT of based on actual dates/events, I played really fast and loose with history...and I can DO that because this is FICTION and I am the AUTHOR (ne:god). Feel free to yell at me in the comments - or blog about it if you are really incensed intrigued.

At the start of the story (2000ish), the North American Continent is divided up into three sections:

The Northern Alliance [two countries - the northern US (the Union) and Canada],

The Confederate States (southern US states plus a few midwestern ones), and

The Republics of California (CA, NV, & HI) and Texas (TX, AZ & NM) [Technically 2 countries]

These are distinct governing entities (countries) with distinct socio-political cultures who actively control border crossings and trade between one another. It has been this way for roughly 100 years.

Continental History

Civil war ended in a very bloody ‘draw’ between the Union and confederacy, Lincoln having been assassinated just after the Proclamation of Emancipation in 1863 resulting in [unspecified military decisions] and increased horrible losses on BOTH sides. Lincoln’s VP (Hamlin) died of winter illness at Fort McClary just before the assassination, and the newly appointed VP was a coward [need a name], who, injured during Lincoln’s assassination, became quite fearful for his life (PTSD?). In addition, [misc horrible war stuff happened- supernatural flavor]. This caused the VP to requested peace talks by the fall of 1863 during which the North agreed to the secession in order to stop the war.

The war treaty divided up the western territories along 42nd parallel, splitting Nebraska in half, and abandoning Kansas to the CSA. The south keeps all of MO and TN, but gives up KY and WV.

CSA attempts to “keep” CA, Union insists it has always been free (this wealthy state is big bone of contention in the war treaty discussions) but eventually CA declares loudly that it is NOT CSA, and if the Union can’t keep them, they’ll survive on their own just fine, thank you (Republic of CA). The border between Oregon (Union) and CA is WIDE open/comfortable and after a bit, CA forms a close partnership with the Union. CA claims HI almost immediately.

In 1898, Texas pleads with CSA for support to Cuba and Caribbean against Spain and is refused. Always more strongly sympathetic to Hispanic cultures than the deep south, Texas closes its eastern border and declares secession. CSA, still poverty stricken and lacking in forward-thinking leadership, has been having trouble managing its southwestern territories (full of ick, dark skinned mexicans and runaway slaves) and allows TX to leave, in the process giving up both New Mexico and AZ to TX.

TX then forms an alliance with CA who has meanwhile, essentially annexed Nevada from the CSA. Utah’s Mormons then beg to join as well soon after, but the CSA staunchly keeps Colorado and Nebraska. (This is all sorted out by WWI.) As both CA and TX wish to remain essentially autonomous, they each become “republics” with regularly negotiated treaties. The Texas republic’s northern borders are only lightly patrolled, but all ‘darks’ tend to avoid the CSA states. The border between CA and the Union’s Oregon & Idaho is similar to modern day Canada and the US. Texas’s eastern border is *tightly* patrolled/guarded (but water entry by the gulf or land entry by Mexico is significantly easier.) Texas remains antagonistic towards the CSA.

The Union/AU also struggled to recover after war (lack of leadership, access to western resources - lack of cross-continental rail - and the lack of the opportunities from a beaten south) and moves to form closer alliance with Canada. The Union (Renamed the American Union after the war) fosters discontent with British “Dominion” status and encourages Canada to sever ties with Britain (Edward VII) in the 1900’s. Together they become the Northern Alliance of States and Provinces (NASP) often just called “The Alliance”. Borders between Provinces and States are completely open/equal).

Together they negotiate with Russia for Alaska (and increase access to fossil fuels) and Alaska becomes (and remains) an “Alliance territory.”  The Alliance/Union has almost no ties to the Republic of Texas except through the Republic of California. Relations are strictly business between them.

Monsters/the supernatural has always existed and different cultures have treated them differently (gods, vermin, partners, etc.) - often with different rules for different types of monsters. Witches and warlocks and those who ‘just study’ magic are also treated differently. Hunters and the MOL have always existed to study/control the supernatural and are generally paid/supported by the community (equivalent to police, military, bounty hunters or pest control, depending.)

The Alliance (American Union & Canada) “Unionists” vs “Canadians”, “The Union” (or AU) vs “The Provinces”

Essentially like 1990’s Northern US - culturally, politically, socially, etc. More folks speak French. About the same number speak Spanish. By 2005, cell phones are still pretty simple and for the wealthy. Personal computers and the GUI internet are beginning to take off.

The AU government seat was moved to NYC and then Albany after the war. This puts it only 5-6 hours from Ottawa (Canadian capital).

The AU maintains positive relationships with CSA border states (VA, TN, MO, KS, NB), but chilly relations with the CSA government as a whole. They are very cautions about sharing technology with the CSA and are, in part, the cause of their slow entry into modern technological society.

Monsters are classified as pests, pets, wild animals, domestic animals or humanoid in the Alliance and laws differ between classification. Hunters are prohibited from dealing with humanoid monsters (that’s a job for the police) and only deal with the other classes. Almost all ghosts are considered pests or pets for legal purposes.

The CSA (Confederates, Statesmen)

“White, male, god-fearing” leadership passes laws that treat non-whites (darks - including native americans and hispanics) as inferior humans although outright slavery technically ends due to limited #s remaining.

All women remain 2nd class citizens (although some functional matriarchs exist, they are rare and have ‘beard’ husbands). Women rarely work outside the home, have no vote and birth control is illegal.

A strong “clan” culture is developed - focusing power in extended families (at all social levels) and to be clanless eventually becomes barely one step up from being ‘dark.’

The CSA struggles after the war, slaves escape in droves and recovery is very slow. CSA draws heavily on Texas and western areas for resources, while western settlement slows significantly, leaving its western territories very disorganized into 1900. Technology development is slow, by 2000 the CSA is developmentally stuck in the 50’s/60’s  - struggling to computerize systems. Thus it is easier to become someone else/hide who you are in the south, but as clanless, you will never fit in.

Florida uses an influx of hispanics/Cubans and caribbeans as a resource - indentured servants and blackmarket slaves to CSA southern farms. This prompts these refugees to aim for much more accepting TX (see TX secession above).

Nebraska & Colorado territories are redrawn immediately after the war and Kansas is expanded north to the 42nd parallel (now bordering the Union at the Dakotas) - sort of as a “sop” to Kansas. Kansas tends to be way less conservative/racially biased than the more southern states (and antagonistic to the CSA government) and routinely ignores CSA border regulations for Provinces. An easy exit/entry into the CSA is through Kansas’s northern border.

Oklahoma remained Indian Territory - no man’s land (very dangerous for outsiders), even today. Good place to hide - if you can survive.

Monsters/the supernatural are worse than ‘darks’ - Hunters have the right to kill any/all on sight. Hunters are usually part of a clan, and are paid for their services by the community. Individuals or remote communities can hire clanless Hunters, but the pay is much less, and they are seen as untrustworthy or a necessary evil, generally. Witches and warlocks are treated as monsters (and thus avoid the CSA) - UNLESS you are in the Appalachians, where they are a quietly revered part of society.

The Republics of California and Texas (RCA and RTX) “The Twin Republics” or “The Twins” - “Republicans” [NEVER Californians or Texans unless you are specifically referring to folks from that specific area of the Republic] ‘northern’ or pacific republican vs gulf or texmex republican (never “southern” republican).

The cost of living is VERY high in either Republic unless you wish to either ‘live off the land’ (technically illegally) or enter ‘public service’ (essentially, a lifetime of minimalist servitude to the government/public sector, unless you can come into wealth some other way.)

The joint RCA and RTX borders are completely open. They agree to abide by each other’s laws (marriage, legal contracts, etc.) and extradition. Trade between them is healthy and strong.

By 2000, the RCA passes a monster bill of rights requiring them to abide by human/living laws  or face imprisonment/other penalties. Some monsters work in public service to work off their crimes. Monsters are NOT to be killed without due process (including ghosts). Hunters are strictly licensed and regulated, and both Berkeley and Stanford have renowned monster cultural study programs.

In general, the RCA has laws/rights similar to what CA has in 2017 re: racial, gender, sexualy diversity. Pot is legal. Witches and Warlocks are also strictly regulated - but it is essentially a service industry job like any other. Technologically, they are more advanced than RTX or the UA - by 2005, smartphones and tablets are all the rage.

(RCA) NV - “What happens in NV, stays in NV.” It is a VERY good place to hide/party/become someone else.

(RCA) UT - an odd mix of religious sects  - both conservative and accepting. More conservative near Colorado/Nebraska, less so next to Nevada.

The RTX does NOT give access to due process to monsters, but prohibits public/unregulated killing. Hunters are required to bring monsters to quarantine/incarceration centers (where they are “rehabilitated, exported or humanely disposed of). Because of this, some border hunters “release” monsters in to the RCA instead. RTX does not care - less work for them.

In the RTX, Witches and Warlocks are expected to deal with supernatural threats, but may call in Hunters to ‘assist’ in dangerous cases. “The dead should stay dead” is the RTX opinion of the matter.

In general, the RTX has laws/rights similar to what CA had in the 1970’s re: racial, gender, & sexual diversity, except pot is legal (because they can export to the RCA). Technologically, they are similar to the Union.

Overall, rules (or adherence to them) in the RTX are more rigid the closer you are to the eastern TX border and less so in NM and AZ (the closer to CA).

OMG, I am a complete IDIOT. Help. Me.

If you have read this far - feel free to leave a comment with YOUR suggestion as to what this AU should be called. Currently I haven’t ONE clue. The damn story (or series - I haven’t decided) doesn’t even have a name yet...but it has a socio-political HISTORY dadgummit.

[the-bloody-thief]

A few of my trolls

Showing off a few of my trolls here in hopes of finding some new role playing partners. If you see any you like please feel free to shoot me a message so we can work something out! In order of appearance:

1. Daxton Dedric, the mid blood "Enforcer" 

Daxton is my main troll. A mid blood (turquoise) "Enforcer", think of him as mob-hitman meets secret agent. Similar along the veins of an assassin, but a lot less in the shadows and better known of overall. He has a soft spot for lizards and hopes one day to retire to a life of bar-tending...not likely with the people he works for, but he can dream. 

(For more info his full bio link is here)

(Picture done off a commision of my character by the artist Anetrala)

2. Kentlr Atlans, my mutant (deep)sea-dweller. 

Kentlr is the result of me both wanting to play around with the "mutant" concept as well as the first sea-dwellers. I wanted to explore the idea of deep-sea trolls and modeled him after the angler fish, and he has the rather shy but at times intense personality to match. Due to primarily living in the intense pressures of a deep-sea hive as he grew into young adult hood this lead to him developing heart issues whenever her had to venture up to the surface for supplies or other such errands. His solution was to augment his already strange body with a bit of mechanichal improvements he dubbed his "rig" around his heart area. Over the years of study and working on this project has earned him quite the skill set in "bio-mechanical engineering", surgery, and inventing. 

(For more info his full bio link is here )

(Picture done off a commision of my character by the artist Anetrala)

3. Valorn Diliun, my witch-doctor monster hunter 

Valorn is likely my most forward fun and flirty troll, you have to be when by daylight you spend your time facing down the undead hoards of alternia and other such things that go bump in the day. Valorn himself is no saint either however, although he might argue otherwise. He enjoys practicing voodoo and other sorts of (sometimes rather sketchy) magics to give him and edge on his undead enemies. Still if you can put up with his antics he can be one hell of a party 

(For more info his full bio link is here )

(Picture done off a commision of my character by the artist Anetrala)

4. Sigurd D'lenth, my morose zombie bookworm

Sigurd is one of my rather more....experimental trolls. He was created by the above mentioned valorn during a night of...well let's call it "inebriation" (and that's putting it nicely), while he was trying to find ways to revive to of his other friends that were cut down. Now, niether sigurd or valorn are too happy about this situation. Valorn views sigurd as a mistake and an abomination, and sigurd well...undeath isn't eactly the most pleasent of situations to be in. Yet no matter how hard it's tried...sigurd won't....stay dead like other zombies. Destroy him any way you want...a few days later he's back on his feet. Since the rest of death has abandoned sigurd, he instead spends his time mostly reading in abandoned cemetery crypts or trying to figure out who he was in life and what to do about his current situation. He can come off as a tad somber and depressing at first, but really...well he's mostly rather lonely. Hard to make friends when everything seems so differnt..,can't even visit a book store without getting run out of town. 

(For more info his full bio link is here )

(Picture done off a commision of my character by the artist Rancidarts)