#so still mostly stuff we see in game like teleporters and some of the story traits and such

[arolesbianism]

Every day I think abt Olivia Broussard dst character mod and every day I get sad that it will never exist because I sure as hell ain't doing all that

[phoenixcatch7]

Thinking about possible totk dlc again... Listen, we all know we want it XD.

Thing is, I've read the interviews, and I think Nintendo is right. There's just no more mechanics they can add to the game without completely breaking it. Totk is maxxed out on mechanics and options and playability. There really is nothing more they can add ability wise without bogging the whole thing down and causing a million problems, both for themselves and players.

But that's not all there is in a game, is there?

There's master mode, for one. Gold enemies are missing from totk entirely, never mind all the craziness of regenerating enemies, new mob camps just floating around, the gleeok they'd probably put on the great sky island. People loved master mode in botw, there's no reason not to at least drop that button back in.

But... People do have a few complaints. There's stuff they're missing, stuff that leaves loose ends, stuff that wasn't explained well enough. It all mostly boils down to one thing.

Story.

We could have an answer to where the divine beasts and all the sheikah tech went. We could find a giant scrapyard at the bottom of a new/old chasm because hyrule tossed everything in that could be pried up. There could be like five remaining active guardians, just so we can mess them up like we did in botw. There's voids where water is on the surface, there's plenty of space! It'd solve both the 'where tf did they go' and the 'man I wish we still had guardians' issue in one fell swoop.

We could get casual dialogue that all the divine beasts were driven out to sea and sunk! I don't know! Some sort of closure! We could talk about generational trauma responses! The instinctive fear of sheikah tech if there is one! Link is certainly canonically traumatised, did you see him with the first sky tower??

We could get wolfie back! Update his teleportation code so he can keep up with our stupid endeavours and not get caught in crossfire! Make him immune to zonai tech, idk.

We could get a resolution to kass and Penn! That whole storyline ended so sadly, and the lack of kass is straight up disturbing. We could rescue him from the depths where he fell in or smth idk!! Just because you're a bird does NOT mean you can fly a kilometer + straight up in pitch black through a narrow cylinder with lethally toxic sides. Now he's got enough material for life! (and probably trauma. The only food down there is stuff the yiga brought, which - well, it's not like they'd worry about thieves down there.

That stupid chef from lookout landing who ran off to the castle. That's TOTALLY a quest come on :(. Let him come home.

More lookout landing expansion, if you're desperate for stuff that isn't 90% dialogue! Please let me install bigger towers and a bathing area and more shops or SOMETHING. Little outlet stalls from every capital! Let me rebuild the first home in castle town! I! D! K!

More newspaper news! We could randomise it like the spider man ps4 news feed, that was hilarious. Absolute hogwash rumours and stupid feuds between neighbours and the results of pumpkin growing competitions! Mix it up, traysi had bonkers stuff, it was so good. What does life look like from inside the world?

Hylia gossip? We know she doesn't keep strictly to her 'find shrine rewards for increased gains, link' thing. Let her ask link for random stuff for 'power buffs' and give him, like, a random buff that lasts precisely 24 minutes.

Maybe even a 'now we opened the plateau again, people want to investigate' side plot. No one wanted to see :(. I didn't like that the only people up there were yiga :((. Send some new research team dude to wax lyrical and beg link for photos of different areas or symbols.

Gloom hands should be able to attack link in the depths. This would solve nothing and in fact make things much worse, but it happened to me twice and it was so much worse than on the surface lol.

Maybe some idiot managed to make it to a Sky island with balloons but now they can't get down, whoops lol. Some of them really aren't that high up and there's a lot of very determined people XD.

Someone's been captured by the yiga and link has to do a full infiltration and smuggle them the keys to their cell. Come on, the yiga base is underutilised!!

The gerudo stable was being shut down because of the sandstorm turning away travellers. After we solve that, maybe we could help reopen it? It made me so sad...

Link vs the flower lady. She wants a sample of every single flower in hyrule to get it all nice for her majesty! She remembers his crimes...

Link and the new sages could have a silly bonding quest each! Let him test his mettle against them in a spar! I don't know!

The ability to pet dogs and horses! An idle sitting animation that makes link sit down properly to enjoy the view!

Heck, a master cycle equivalent....

There's just a almost infinite amount of options available for real, actual content, it doesn't just have to be new mechanics and new dungeons. Yes, it gets the adrenaline going, but neither the fans nor Nintendo want nor need more of that.

We know the story is more lacking in botw/totk than previous zelda games, an understandable and acceptable sacrifice when you're working with such a huge and complex open world as this, but this is the perfect opportunity to fix that, Nintendo, don't you see? Give that incredibly elaborate coding a break and give the writers something else to chew on.

Tag what quest line or question you want answered in the comments or tags!

[oc-siblings-bracket]

OC-Siblings-Bracket 1.13

info down there because these posts are long ↓

Riley & Kiara Parker by @attorneybout

Info:

OKAY. SO. leaving out a lot of details because their story takes place entirely in a huge crossover roleplay and it'd be fucking wild if halfway through i was just like "so anyways, dimentio-" so we will not do that <3 no info about these guys is on my blogs. they're only on discord sorry.

ANYWAYS.

so. riley and kiara are sisters, with riley being th younger sister, at 12 (kiara is 16). kiara's dad actually found riley alone in the woods one day, and, with seemingly nobody else looking for her, took her in. neither he nor kiara knows about her biological parents but judging from how riley acted and how scared she seemed when he found her he hopes they never come back for her (they will! well. her bio mom will. her bio dad isn't relevant)

riley was basically very jumpy and anxious for the longest time because of how her mom treated her but eventually she came out of her shell and now shse's so sillygirl /pos she's very close with kiara and also close with kiara's friends it's really nice. kiara is really quiet mostly but undeniably Very Cool and she's also a streamer (sometimes she streams playing games with her friends or with riley too!)

however! a lot of stuff happens to riley, like an obscene amount. she got possessed, once. she got kidnapped into a fucking void dimension for a while. and she even got mind controlled. and kiara couldn't take seeing her sister hurt so often and even though she can't do much she has to try to get her sister back, so she ends up joining this vaguely shady organization who promises to help get riley back.

and! it works. sort of. they manage to catch the guy who mind controlled riley, with some outside help, and kiara questions him for a way to reverse the mind control. but he say he can't just reverse it like that. BUT. he offers her something. if they let him go, he'll give them something that they could use to try and reverse engineer a way to get riley back.

but if kiara lets him go, then he could go on to cause more mayhem. mind control more people. possibly even destroy the world.

but like. small price to pay for your sister being okay. so kiara, after some hesitation, lets him go. and, for the time being, they've even gotten away with it. sure, someone else got mind controlled, but not riley. never riley again. and nobody suspects that they let him go, at least not to her knowledge.

but she still feels a little bit bad about it. i mean, who wouldn't? sure, she can tell herself it will work out and that they had no choice, but she knows it's not true. and the truth is, riley wouldn't have really wanted that. but riley, despite having more confidence in herself now, is insanely self-sacrificial, and would have said it's better for everyone if she was simply gone forever if that meant everyone else would be safe.

other fun bonus things include:

riley is a realm-hopper. she doesn't know it yet. realm hoppers can basically teleport and travel between dimensions. kiara is vaguely aware of this but hasn't told riley about it yet

riley is trans!

kiara she/they swag

kiara is nonverbal at times

one of kiara's friends is also siblings with one of riley's friends but they're less iconic so i'm submitted these two instead. but their names are liberty (libby for short) eagle lawson and justice forall lawson and i need you to know that their parents are fucking insane for that one

kiara aroace swag also

riley lesbian swag

kiara doesn't share all of the same interests as riley but she always knows so much about riley's interests second-hand

kiara taught riley how to do crafts

they have a cat!! the cat's name is kiki :) i'll include a picture of her too but that's just for infodump purposes. kiki is actually named after a nickname riley used to call kiara

riley (first image) drawn by me and kiara (second image) made using this picrew https://picrew.me/image_maker/92646 and kiki (third image) made using this picrew https://picrew.me/image_maker/1713721 if i'm lucky enough to get motivation i might draw them together because i really need to anyways honestly

Additional Cat Photo:

Mischief & Magic Grape by @mystic-sunni

Info:

Mischief Grape is a Adventurer who travels around to the islands in Poptropica. With how much he travels he helped many people and became a hero to many. Magic Grape is his little sister just a year apart. Magic Grape is a well known author who has many successful books and is very kind to people. They both love helping people whenever they can. Also fun fact about Mischief Grape is that he has some clumsy moments that definitely are only seen in cartoons.

[missizzy]

A Game Novice's Baldur's Gate Log, 78 1/2 Hours In: I got rid of my lag! Mostly

Masterpost

(Note: this will definitely contain spoilers for all I've played through, and probably quite of a bit of the later stuff I've also seen.)

Patch 7 may not actually have come out, but early this week, my game somehow reset its settings. I had to agree to the TOS again, the tutorial instructions started popping up again, and also it reset graphic settings to the highest quality. They were beautiful. They also made the lag worse than ever, and made the crashing when I go to camp happen almost every time. And even when I did get there, Halsin and Volo were both missing, and when the former's arc is now just kicking in.

But now having the certainty that the lag is indeed affected by said settings, and doing a bit more research, I finally did what I probably should've done ages ago, and set all the graphics to low. It hasn't gotten rid of the lag completely, but it's made it much less noticeable. It might not be the finest view, but it's still not at all bad. I feel like I can play a little more normally now.

Last week ended with my still needing to deal with Dolly x3. I had watched one streamer go all the way through the scene with her in the lantern-and not free her. So I was a little anxious when Sara could only get her to agree to help them "duly," dangerously ambiguous for a fae. But ultimately, there was no way she wouldn't free her, especially not after Karlach urged her to. Thankfully her blessing seems to be working quite well so far.

First order of business after that was getting the infernal iron, and so we headed into the mason's guild, which I had already located, but of course couldn't get into on only torch and dancing lights. We wandered through its rooms, looking into every box and barrel I saw, wandered down to the basement, and had one scary moment when Sara got trapped between the portcullises and misty stepped out, but I briefly thought I'd teleported her the wrong way, couldn't misty step again, and realized I hadn't saved since resuming. Thankfully I'd just gotten confused, and I had taken her the right way. When, after that, we went back upstairs and I finally spotted the iron sitting right there on the table, I gratefully grabbed it and waypointed back to the inn.

Then, of course, came the next scene with Dammon, and sharing a very laggy but still very sweet hug with Karlach once he'd done his work. Then he dropped the bad news on us. Poor Sara very badly wants Karlach to live, but she's never going to truly push her towards returning to Avernus to do so. She ultimately tabled the conversation, and right now is telling herself they'll find another way to save her. I don't know what she's going to do when she's finally forced to face that there isn't one.

I wasn't quite sure what to do after that, so I took the party out to explore the Shadow-Cursed lands further, waiting to see if I ran into Moonrise Towers, or the House of Healing, since I knew about its existence. Instead I ran into a haunted house, He Who Was, whose person and attitude towards trying the dead creeped Sara the fuck out, and then enough shadow and shadow-cursed beings that fighting them got us up to level 7. I saved right after leveling up, so when the next fight didn't go quite so well, I just exited without saving, planning to instead go back to camp, come back with Wyll and Karlach swapped out for Astarion and Shadowheart, because I was pretty sure they both had story beats coming up, and try it again then.

Except that this was when my game reset, and when I finally got to camp two crashes later, the lack of Halsin there alarmed me. I went to look up if maybe he'd teleported to the inn on his own, and then learned that I really should've gone into rightward room on the bottom floor. Disoriented further by an evening conversation where Astarion seemed to believe, contrary to all observation, that Sara might have some ambition for power in her, I went back to the inn again the next day without even doing the character swap, which I was glad for when Counselor Florrick turned out to be there. Although it did come off as kind of weird that she was suddenly there, so soon after the Duke was kidnapped from a different inn. I suppose it might've felt less so if that whole sequence had happened earlier, as the gamemakers must've intended.

I was also glad to have Karlach there when she told us about Lord Gortash, and his Steel Watch. When Florrick warned Sara they might not be able to come help, she definitely secretly hoped they wouldn't. I was even tempted to have her promise Karlach they'd take revenge on Gortash, but I don't think she's quite yet ready to commit to going after someone that powerful. But meanwhile, we also got a look at Art Cullagh, and were promptly asked to go tell Halsin about it, which meant needing to be able to talk to him at camp. I saved, tried to go back there again, had the game crash again, and went off to do my research.

I finally got there after changing the settings, although I'm still wondering why going to camp while being in the inn sent us back to one of our Act I camps. At least Halsin was there-until I told him the news, and he promptly told us to meet him at the inn and blinked out of existence. I did my planned character swap before following him back. I wasn't sure about even having Shadowheart in the inn, but just being there didn't cause her to make any trouble. We stayed there long enough to look at Cullagh again with Halsin, and get directed to go to the House of Healing, the location of which was then helpfully added to our map.

En route to it, we first battled another set of shadow-cursed beings, and got to view brief arcane recordings about Sharran oppression that I suppose Shadowheart is probably going to ignore. But having her when we found Arabella did trigger a cut scene, and I was very glad to be rid of the lag as I for the first time I got to watch the flashback of her being found by Shar's supporters and supposedly saved from a great wolf I suspect they actually set on her. Sara might come to suspect it too, but right now, I think she's still processing everything.

We entered the hospital through the children's ward, which meant we found Arabella's dead parents minutes after talking with her. I knew already they were dead, but the quickness of it made it feel much sadder. By the time we reached the receptionist, we had also learned how terrible a person the master surgeon had been even in life. I amused myself by having Sara throw a barbarian tantrum when told to wait in the non-existent line, which got us into the surgery theatre, where I conversed with him and the nurses until I got bored, and they seemed ready to do terrible things to us, so I attacked.

I would say this was the first battle where I kind of shifted tactics partway through it, when it became clear I'd need more firepower to take the surgeon down. Although we managed to do so without him performing any surgery during the combat, which is actually my first official uncommon achievement in this game. Shadowheart went down at one point, and I wondered if being killed by these followers of Shar might have an impact on her after we brought her back, but ultimately we managed to get her back up first.

We looted the lute off the surgeon, but I was aware that bringing it back to the inn would ultimately lead us a certain battle I wanted to be long rested for, so I decided to end the day with a little more exploring. First I just took us out of the hospital, and while attempted to avoid another shadow-cursed group, we got ambushed by Githyanki, and once again I was forced to reload, when I hadn't saved since finishing the battle with the surgeon and nurses. Not wanting to deal with them again, I instead explored the hospital a little more, exited off the roof, and came to the Grand Mausoleum.

When Raphael showed up at the entrance, and told us about his very dangerous enemy, he may have talked about how he wouldn't try to persuade us from striding in there anyway. But his warning probably would've actually put Sara off going in, if Astarion hadn't then decided to make his deal with the devil, and she pretty much let him. So now we're committed to going in and killing an orthon, but that definitely sounds like another thing we should do after long resting. I'm not sure I won't wait to do it until after Moonrise Towers, especially since we got the hint the Gauntlet of Shar is also in the area, and that's probably the last thing in Act II I'm going to do.

A little further wandering around brought to the area of the Githyanki and shadow-cursed groups again, and this time we got hit by the latter while trying to avoid the former. That fight proved easier, but still drained us enough to call it a day and go back to camp. Sara, still her blunt honest self, told Arabella her parents were dead immediately, and for the second day in a row, she had an angry Tiefling child refusing to believe her, and no idea what she's going to do about that.

I've left off there, and am still a little unnerved that Halsin was not at camp that night either, though Volo was. Near the empty tent that I *think* is Halsin's, so I'm really hoping he's just overnighting at the inn, and that he will return in time to become an official companion, since I know that's about to happen, too.

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[autumnslance]

would you be willing to make a masterpost of all your sharlayan research and headcanons? please please please and THANK YOU if you do

I can certainly try! A lot of my info is from what little we have so far, and my own fics are where a lot of my headcanons go to live, with little snippets about various characters here and there in my scattered lore posts, as well as stuff I’ve collected from other players.

Other Resources In Louisoix’s Wake - The twins’ official Calamity short story on the Lodestone. One Name, One Promise - Thancred’s backstory, from Limsa to Sharlayan training to his early assignment in Ul’dah and then early Shadowbringers. Mirke’s Menagerie - A compilation of lore info from in game, lorebooks, panels, interviews, short stories, etc. There are about 4 or 5 Sharlayan-specific posts @mirkemenagerie has made.

Encyclopaedia Eorzea - If you can get your hands on copies (physical officially; digitally is Unofficial so far as I know), I recommend it! They’re both good reads, though EE 1 is the one with a blurb on Sharlayan as a nation.

Posts by Other People - that I have collected Leveva Comment About Archon Loaf - Keeping in mind Sharlayan’s bad cuisine has been canonical for years per lorebook 1. They care more about ease of eating while studying, also seeing culinary arts as an academic field, not a practical daily exercise. Lorebook 1 Astrologian Lore - screencaps from the lorebook. Phaedra’s Teen Scion Sharlayan Antics fic - I am happy to take responsibility for inspiring @phaedra-mero to write this delightful scene.

My Own Posts Red Mage Research - Includes books from Gubal Library. Scion Ages - Pointing out the ages of the Scions, particularly the Archons.

My Fics - Sometimes there’s more HC musings in the Notes and Comments. I try to stay close to canon, at least as it is when the fic was written. Rogue’s Prelude - Multichapter, teen Thancred meets Louisoix, Yda, and Papalymo. Written a year prior to Thancred’s official ShB story above. Aetherology & Skulking Boots-Beginnings - Y’shtola agrees to tutor Thancred in how to speak properly as teenagers in the colony. Chin Up - Yda gives Thancred advice as youths in the colony. Dreams of Home-Lucubration - Yda, Lyse, and Thancred in the colony. Younger Sister - Thancred’s relationships with the Hext sisters over time. In Violet’s Wake-Louisoix’s Children - A Master Matoya PoV from StB patches. There’s a brief chapter with her and Y’mhitra in Dreams of Home, too. Excerpts from other posts - things that ended up as commentary on other threads, with some editing since.

From a thread that started off as about Thancred’s Gear from ARR to HW:

Sharlayan is a nation on an island NW of Eorzea proper; the Sharlayan everyone we know hails from was a colony that became a city-state a few hundred years back and part of the Eorzean Alliance, in the Dravanian Hinterlands, where Idyllshire is now. After the fall of Ala Mhigo and then the Battle of Silvertear Skies, the Forum (their ruling body) decided to abandon the city and return to the motherland, a process that took 5 years before they all just teleported out in a day. Except Matoya, and those archons that worked for Louisoix and that he asked to stay and go to the remaining 3 Alliance cities. This would have been 15 years before ARR/Heavensward.

The Students of Baldesion are also Sharlayan; the Isle of Val, their headquarters, being under that nation’s banner. Sons of St Coinach are another offshoot; Rammbroes (Crystal Tower raid story) was originally part of Louisoix’s Circle of Knowing (who eventually became the Scions), and Y’shtola’s sister Y’mhitra is one of the Sons and part of the Summoner storyline.

Thancred got involved as a youth–by trying to pick Louisoix’s pocket, and impressing the old man with his skills, and so Louisoix brought Thancred back with him to give the kid an opportunity for study. Yda and Lyse escaped Ala Mhigo, and with help from Papalymo, who was part of an effort to help refugees seeking shelter in Sharlayan, they ended up there, and Yda is the one who actually became an archon.

Most of the other senior Scions, so far as I know, are native to Sharlayan, either the motherland or the colony. The Leveilleur twins were born in the Hinterlands Sharlayan, but raised in the motherland, as they were less than a year old when the exodus happened. The university they and Krile attended is the Studium. Becoming an Archon seems to be a separate process not everyone goes through, and is a demonstration of mastery in chosen field(s) of study. That’s the significance of the tattoos some of the Scions have on their necks or faces.

Sharlayan is basically a nation particularly focused on academia; the trouble is, for the last couple decades, it’s been controlled by a faction of isolationists who would rather hoard knowledge and sit in the proverbial ivory tower looking down on non-Sharlayans, claiming others would abuse their knowledge, and that they should simply observe history and not try to affect it. Louisoix, Matoya, and the organizations they associate with (the Circle of Knowing/Scions; Sons of St Coinach, the Students of Baldesion, etc), think that viewpoint is stupid and go against it. A big part of the Astrologian storyline is dealing with Sharlayans who dislike Leveva’s family sharing Sharlayan astrology with outsiders, for example.

What sort of relationship Sharlayan and Ishgard had before the exodus isn’t really detailed much; both were pretty insular and focused on their own issues (like many of Eorzea’s city-states outside of crises), and the Dravanian threat at the time might have kept them pretty separated by land. Sharlayan was responsible for Eorzea’s aetherytes and keeping the aethernets working, though, and it’s suggested they still handle that post-Calamity to some degree. We pay fees for teleports because reconstruction and upkeep is pricey for all of the city-states.

Next post:

The Isle of Val was the headquarters of the Students of Baldesion, Krile’s family and order, and was a Sharlayan institution. It’s destruction/missing status happened during the ARR patches, and Krile was saved by Hydaelyn as she has the Echo (as an aside: you can hear Minfilia talking to Krile via linkpearl in the background on the Enterprise after rescuing the Scions from Castrum Centri before Ultima, and she constantly refers to and worries about Krile after the Isle of Val goes missing, but then plot happened to Minfilia so we never see them together as friends). The Ascians seemed to have a hand in the Isle’s disappearance…but there’s story about the fate of the Isle of Val and the Students of Baldesion in Stormblood’s Eureka plotline.

As for the Archon Marks, if they do confer social benefits, aside from being an easily seen status symbol for some highly skilled & educated folks, it hasn’t been mentioned yet in concrete terms, though we know the rank has benefits (like access to forbidden lore). Mostly they are a way to tell at a glance who has obtained the rank. It’s like if people with doctorates had a tattoo of their degree symbol on them so you knew just by looking.

As of Shadowbringers 5.4, we know that to become an Archon a thesis is required, and it’s a great deal more work than a Studium graduate’s final thesis. It strikes me that Studium (which some of the Scion Archons also attended) is like undergrad or Masters studies, while Archon is a Doctorate level.

I personally headcanon that the arcane marks confer some minor, slowed visible aging and other vague magical benefits befitting their rank in Sharlayan society. Really, that’s a way for the devs to avoid new models and add to the confusion in 1.0′s intros and the running joke about Y’shtola’s age, BUT let’s come up with an in-world thing, too. There has to be some explanation for Thancred’s perpetual baby face when he’s not RPing a Mountain Hobo ;) Also we really don’t know for sure how old Matoya is. Just old.

Lorebook 2 Notes:

Mikoto Jinba (Return to Ivalice, Save the Queen storylines) worked on aetheric siphon research with Moenbryda, and at 29 is the youngest Raen with the rank of Archon in recent history. It was Jessie’s connections that brought her to Cid’s attention and got her involved in the Return to Ivalice story.

Ejika Tsunjika (Eureka storyline) went to school at the same time as Krile and Leveilleur twins, endorsed by Galuf Baldesion, who Ejika later chose to work under. He’s resentful of Krile and the twins as Ejika himself is of humble origins and had to struggle to get to where he is, yet hides his Archon brands with high collars as he refuses to believe himself unique or exceptional.

[swarmkeepers]

tâm, in the after (wandering isles epilogue thoughts, to say goodbye for real)

the tl;dr: tâm stays on the delrose. ari stays too, for years of travel and study, before  finding their footing on an island to grow on their own. xarus leaves shortly after the fall of castellane to open his dancing hall on solid ground, and before they go he trains tâm to take over their position as quartermaster. lian teleports back on board for weekends playing go fish. but tâm will spend the rest of her life on its decks with thalia and eris and vesper and a family bigger than she ever thought possible.

it’s hard to tell if tâm got a little taller (even at 19) or if she just stands a little straighter. either way, she’s not making herself look small. she’s gotten her legs on the cloudsea and stands a little steadier; her eyes aren’t darting around all the time so much as scanning a familiar horizon.

smiles so much more, is so much more tactile—leaning her head in towards lian or eris or ari or nyx’s to hear what they’re saying, laughing at thalia and eris bickering on deck, looping her arm around someone else’s as they walk, bodily scooping up some of the delrose’s younger crew and slinging them over her shoulder like a sack of flour as they shriek with laughter. she's learned she's allowed to love her family like this; she's learned it's enough (it's everything, really)

tâm isn’t really a letter writing person (she’s not even really a words person), but “i. uh. please can you help” comes easily, if nothing else does. she sends some of the first letters of her life to xarus and is both surprised and delighted when they write back, lots. there’s quartermaster advice and life advice and mutual commiseration over paperwork when all your cargo is illegal and the WORSE paperwork when your pirate ship is starting to become less illegal in the pillaging-for-profit sense but still illegal in the mutual-aid-via-piracy sense. eventually tâm will ask xarus to tell the story of how he became quartermaster with a genuine curiosity, and maybe xarus will tell her

in the process of managing the continual chaos that is the delrose’s inventory as quartermaster, she gets herself a bag of holding and, among other things, keeps her pike in it. it’s always near at hand, still, but she’s not towered over by her own ten foot weapon all the time. also, she thinks it’s funny to surprise the new crewmates the first time they see her pull a ten foot long weapon, magical aura and all, like scarves out of a hat out of the bag that usually holds paperwork and snacks

she mostly uses her bag for snacks, makes herself the first person to greet new crew, size them up for clean clothes, and ask them their favorite food. she grew up hungry, and no one on this boat is going to do the same—for tâm, this is what makes working as quartermaster worth it far more than the raiding parties or the paperwork. when eris shows the younger crewmates and kids the delrose takes in up to the teen zone, tâm usually won’t be there to greet them (she’s still. not the best with new people) but their favorite snacks will be.

“well, thalia gave me this crisp $20 bill” was dead serious but especially now that thalia is her first mate and not her captain Going Thru Some Shit i think. that she and tâm both learn to laugh more, figure out they share the same kind of sense of humor. tâm will continue finding thalia and vesper being extremely cute on deck and/or conducting captain business without thalia ever leaving vesper’s lap and fake-roll her eyes for months once she feels comfortable enough to get away with it.

she still loses game after game of go fish to lian. eventually she’ll win one. i don’t think they bet anything, but these two thieves might make a variant game out of both playing go fish and trying to pickpocket the other at the same time. winning is based both on who won the game of go fish and who got the most stuff.

when nyx steps off the delrose with intent to leave, and eris is standing on deck unsure how much space to give her, tâm will find a deck of cards and then go find eris and ask if eris wants to be distracted by winning game after game of go fish.

the teen zone grows. the teen zone is enabled by the fact that technically tâm does the budgeting on board. things tâm and eris consider adding to the teen zone: more blankets, cannons so eris can be the ship’s gunner, better wine than that blueberry stuff they keep on board for pirate ceremonies, extra snacks

with incredible confusion, for the five long years that eris and tyche are being incredibly homoerotic rivals: “i don’t do romance but i thought YOU do romance so. uh. ARE you trying to do romance right now?”

(by the time tyche joins the crew, there have been a lot more crew coming and going on board the delrose, but. tâm is reminded of something specific when there’s now a rogue/cleric bickering stubbornly with eris on board again, different person notwithstanding. she’s absolutely NOT telling either ari or eris about the similarity.)

tâm grows up. ari grows up. there are things that are undefinable but there is family, and there is love, and that’s never been the hard part between them

there are also care packages, and most of them have bread. tâm learns she likes exploring new cities as the delrose crisscrosses the isles and tries to send ari some new kind of bread every time she finds it in a new marketplace. sometimes, if they have time, she’ll teleport right to their apartment from the bakery to give it to them still warm

eventually the delrose comes back from a long trip through the outer isles and docks in geline for a long stretch of time. tâm wanders the capital’s streets and realizes she’s unsteady. under constance’s new government the city is developing in a new way that she doesn’t intuitively know like she knows the back of her hand (she no longer knows these streets, and she no longer knows blood and hunger here either). she balances now like she’s ready for the deck of the ship to toss in the wind, not like she’s ready to sprint across rooftops on the run. it feels weird. it feels like growing pains. it feels good.

at ari and nyx’s wedding: your vows were very nice, tâm tells ari seriously, slinging an arm around their shoulders to wrinkle their clothes but also to let them preen a little about what they wrote. she hugs them so, so tight and says, i’m SO proud of you for saying them

a few weeks after ari and nyx get married, tâm will look at eris for a long time while they’re both working on the rigging and tip her head to the side and ask, very confused, “are we. siblings?” (the consensus is not siblings, but yes family. it doesn’t make sense. that’s fine)

sometimes you grow closer to people when you’re not living out of each other’s pockets all the time, and that’s tâm with much of the crew that killed prynne castellane. they’re family, tied together by tragedies and victories and magic and letters and visits and love

what’s important to her, when she can’t be the one leading her crew into fights, is training someone new. tâm goes to miles’s magical community school and earnestly asks if they have any accounting classes suitable for one of the younger crew members and gets a weird look, but it’s important to her that they come into this job better than xarus had to, than she had to. that they know how, but they also know why—so they can feed and clothe and take care of and protect this crew, in the big ways in and the small

she still mostly thinks one day at a time, in a better way. tâm will keep putting her body and her weapon in front of her family to fight for them until she can’t anymore. she’s done being scared, and she’s learning to like being scary when she wants to. wherever the bow faces that day is where she’s facing too, and she’ll stand at the hand of her captains and first mates as the positions change hands over the years. tâm will spend the rest of her life on deck, in the storm and the cloudsea. she gets to help people feel safe, at her side and behind her guard.

[createandconstruct]

Just botw 2 things

A new teaser! And a teaser it sure is. They’re really showing us the bare minimum of the map and story. But at least we got to see some new gameplay! There’s a bunch of things popping into my brain watching that new teaser a thousand times.

Cool stuff

Sky islands. I wasn’t blown away by this reveal because this was my guess for the longest time but it’s great to it confirmed and also to see the potential the paraglider has now for air travel.

Also the islands aren’t all level. Some are higher and some lower in the teaser like in skyward sword which can vary how we explore the sky, use the glider or that funky danny phantom water teleportation through the ground

New enemies! Which means more variety! Weird arm mouth thing?! Love him! Can’t wait to kill him. Also the new guardian looking guy who’s also aesthetically reminiscent of the lanayru mining facility. Is he an enemy or friend? Only time will tell.

The slate runes return with an enhanced twist! And they’re arm only exclusives. Which asks questions about the shekiah slate

Other weird arm weapons? The fire lizard head thing (flamethrower) that Link uses is not on his new ghost right arm. He’s using it on his left which seems to mean that it is a completely new item you can use?

The shrine/temple thing in the sky. There seems to be an alter inside with something glowing? Now I wouldn’t say this is a concern but I’m wondering if these structures are shrines but for the sky?? I don’t think so but it’s a possibility. I want full themed dungeons as much as the next person but because this a sequel I could see it staying close to the shrine structure of the original. But this time the shrines are open air levels and puzzles.

Concerns? Things I wanna see more of?? Questions???

This teaser had me asking more questions than ever before, mostly about the map. How big is the sky area? Are the islands only going to be in one spot? Is what we saw the only sky area? Will the islands cover the whole map?? Do more islands fill the sky overtime? Can we see the islands from the ground or are they an entirely new area that loads in when we use that teleportation move?

How much of the og map has changed? They REALLY aren’t showing us the map, which, that’s fair. That’s part of the surprise. But I’m questioning/concerned about how much new there will be. I trust Nintendo but the talus/bokoblin combo, unicorn horn bokoblins, and sky islands isn’t enough to pump me up. I need new enemies across the map, new locations, and TOWNS

Though it does make me think we may see different enemy team ups and combinations? Rather than Link vs Lynel maybe we’ll have Link vs Lynel and his army of Bokoblins. Enemies combined or working together which would be interesting. New enemy types to force new gameplay tactics.

...Zelda. If I’m putting on my Zelda Dev brain cap and trying to think like Aonuma and co. then Zelda may be placed into the damsel roll again. She falls down into the depths under what we assume is Hyrule Castle, and then we transition to Link diving in the skies. This makes the underground the new Final Dungeon where we have to eventual go to defeat crusty corpse-a-dorf (allowing us to still beat the game whenever we want like the original) and the likelihood the she is playable dwindle. She’s the one character we - and link - have a connection to so I can see from design perspective why the devs would use her to motivate players to accomplish the end game goal. But I’m SALTY. It’s a sequel so I want something fresh for the motivation and story.

Even if Zelda isn’t playable I would love for her to be a world hub helper? Like someone you can return to like Impa or Purah who can help you with updates or quest info. Or at worst she’s like incapacitated via malice flu in Impa’s house. Let me at least VISIT HER AONUMA PLEASE. Though as much as I scream Zelda’s fate has already been decided so we’ll have to wait and see.

What’s the SUBTITLE!? 

[fayesdiary]

FEH Talk: The Soul and The Soulless

I don’t know about you, but ever since Nobodies in KH2 the Soulless trope always fascinated me, especially when it’s treated as not inherently evil. You know, since “lacking a soul” is usually associated with cruelty, being a sociopath, and stuff like that.

But still, that mix of lacking emotions and purpose and having to find both all over again, having remnants of both feelings and memories from the past, and having absolutely no idea about who are you as a person makes it one of my favorite tropes, right up there with Symbiotic Possession (two or more people sharing a body and helping each other willingly).

Anyway, I want to talk about what a soul is in FE and how people lacking one tend to act, while making a few farfetched connections here and there.

The Witches and Idunn

While the soul itself has never been a major theme of FE, there are various examples of people lacking one, mainly Witches in Gaiden/Echoes and Idunn in Binding Blade. I don’t count undead creatures fitting the deal, because they’re mostly corpses reanimated by dark magic (or by parasitic insects for the Risen) and operate mainly on instincts and can follow only basic orders. People often mention their souls being trapped, but that seems more of a belief than anything concrete. But, in general, they all tend to share a lot of similarities:

They all have their souls taken by an external factor, either devoured by a god or being completely destroyed;

They lost almost every memory of their past life, and their personality along with them - some in particular retain fleeting memories and even feelings from their past lives (Celica, Hestia);

They can’t feel any emotions, because they would just get in the way of performing their tasks;

They have pretty much no free will of their own - they’re forced to obey their masters without hesitation, and this is one of the main reasons to turn a person soulless in the first place;

They are, biologically speaking, alive (proof being that Witches don’t count as Terrors);

They gained unfathomable power from giving up their soul, willingly or not - Witches gain incredible magic prowess and the ability to teleport, and Idunn can create literal dragons out of nowhere.

The main difference between the Witches and Idunn is how they’re treated in the story: The Witches’ condition is treated as irreversible, with various characters stating that only death can set them free, while it’s implied Idunn eventually regains some emotions and sense of self in Binding Blade’s secret ending.

Takumi (and Anankos’ other vessels)

“But wait, doesn’t the Takumi you face in Conquest lack a soul as well? Why haven’t you mentioned him?”

Well, it’s because when you look at him and how Anankos��� vessels (or whatever you want to call them) they are indeed soulless, but they function completely differently from the other examples. In fact, the complete opposite most of the time! Let’s just pick Fallen Takumi as an example:

His soul didn’t get destroyed or stolen - it moved on to the afterlife, where Corrin eventually meets him. So at most, Anankos possessed or reconstructed his body after his death, making him more similar to a Morph;

He retains all of his memories and emotions, or at least the negative ones - they are what gives him power;

He seems to retain free will, but in truth his emotions are easily manipulated by his master to do his bidding;

Beyond being stronger, Takumi didn’t gain any new powers beyond his new bow, Skadi, which is an Outrealm bow that creates a copy of him;

Fates doesn’t have undead as a game mechanic, so we don’t know if Anankos’ vessels are biologically alive or not, but I tend to believe the latter.

I talked about Takumi because we get to see a lot of him both alive, slowly getting possessed and ultimately becoming a Vessel, but the other named cases function very similarly (Mikoto’s attachment to her family becoming an obsession style “I’ll kill you so we can be together forever under Master Anankos”, Garon getting his well-intentioned extremism (implied) cranked up to absurd, laughably evil heights, Arete and Shirasagi as well)

At the end of the day, it’s very interesting to see that the soulless state means a completely different thing in Fates. Which is fair, because not every game takes place in the same world so they’re going to have different rules as well.

Morphs and Quintessence As a last case, I want to mention FE7′s Morphs, as they are a weird hybrid between soulless persons and resurrected bodies.

They are Nergal’s creations, made with the quintessence (AKA life force) he stole from other people he killed. However the game doesn’t state if Morphs are bodies reconstructed with the quintessence, or corpses imbued with it. But given the Final Chapter’s Morphs, being most bosses you faced through the whole journey, I’d be inclined to believe the latter;

They actually can have emotions, but they start with them only if Nergal believes they’re useful - this is the case with Ephidel and Sonia as they needed to infiltrate human organizations, but not with Limstella, since they serve as Nergal’s main harvester of quintessence. Limstella themselves state the emotions Morphs feel are but a construct, like the sorrow they feel upon dying. But it begs the question: Why would Nergal make it so his Morphs feel sad upon defeat? That doesn’t seem very useful, does it? Which means they can eventually form their own emotions, regardless if Nergal gave them the ability to feel it upon creation.

They don’t even have emotions or a conscience if Nergal doesn’t deem it necessary - such is the case with generic Morphs, the Deadlord-like Morphs of the final chapter, and the one and only Denning.

So... do Morphs count as Soulless? That depends, really. But I think Limstella is the one that fits the description most.

But it’s interesting to reflect upon quintessence and its relations with the soul: Are they correlated? Or heck, could they be the same thing under different labels?

Can a soul be restored?

Just a warning: we’re straying further from canon here and straight into headcanon territory, just bear with me.

Short answer? Yes, but actually no.

Long answer? Yes, given enough time and interactions with the outside world, which is a very slow but steady process that can’t get any faster.

I believe that, unlike revived bodies, soulless people can recover their soul because they actually retain a very small fragment of it, which can grow and recomplete itself over time (which is why Soulless people are so dependant on others). Why do they have it? Well, because they’d just be a corpse otherwise. To completely lack a soul is to be devoid of life, and they are of little use that way.

But the catch is that this new soul would be completely different from the old one. The Idunn regrowing her soul and with it a new personality sense of self would be a different person from the Idunn from before her soul got destroyed.

Even across versions of the same world, there aren’t two souls exactly alike, and you can’t just craft a replica of one. The old person, the old soul, that one is never coming back, and best case scenario it’s chilling in the afterlife. Or in Askr.

Celica is an exception, because she was a Witch for like an hour at most, still retained memories and a sense of self even if she couldn’t control her body anymore, and she got stabbed with Falchion, died and revived by Mila, a Divine Dragon who gave all her life force so she could come back to life.

All of this is what made her come back as herself, with her original soul restored, but it’s something that it’s basically impossible in every other case.

In every other case, to become soulless is to be basically reborn, and with time, care and company, they can become their own wonderful person.

Anyway, here’s why I love soulless characters and why I believe they hold limitless story potential,

and thanks for coming to my first major FEH Talk.

Love you! <3

[anarchscry]

Let's hear it, tell us about Mage

Mage: the Ascension is a tabletop roleplaying game (originally released in 1993) set in the World of Darkness, a darker reflection of the real world where crime is more common, the working class is even further beaten down, and society is more apathetic to the problems of the world. Also, monsters are real, and some of them prey on humanity from the shadows.

Most of the World of Darkness games (including Vampire: the Masquerade and Werewolf: the Apocalypse) focus on playing as the monsters in the shadows, dealing with things like vampire politics or fighting against the cosmic force of decay and corruption. Mage focuses on, well, mages. Within the context of the game, mages are people who become aware that reality is more flexible than most people assume, and by taking the right steps, they can do the impossible through magic. Well, mostly that.

There are three(-ish) major factions in Mage. The one that is generally the default player option is the Council of Nine Mystick Traditions, usually just shortened to “the Traditions”. They believe that magic should be embraced, and that humanity should be Awakened to their full potential. (Considering what the world would be like if people were capable of throwing fireballs is left as an exercise for the reader.) The nine Traditions come from very different backgrounds, however, and often disagree on exactly what that end goal should look like, which limits their ability to effectively pull it off.

Somewhere between protagonist and antagonist (depending on your personal view of them) are the Technocratic Union, or often just “the Technocracy”. Technically they’re mages, but they don’t see themselves that way. They don’t “do magic”. They utilize advanced scientific principles that are simply beyond the understanding of the average layman. They don’t have strange vision-quests that advance mystical understanding. They have breakthroughs of understanding of those advanced scientific principles that allow them to better utilize those theories. The Technocracy’s long-term goal is a neat, orderly world where everything operates according to easily understood science, without any of this messy “supernatural” stuff going on. Doing so might snuff out all creativity and drive to change the world in major ways, but that’s the trade-off between freedom and security. The Technocracy is also very, very organized, and might actually be able to pull it off.

Fully on the antagonist side are the Nephandi, a group which initiates new members by putting them into their own personal hell where they’re forced to embrace all the things they see as wrong, perverse, and evil, which in turn inverts the part of them that makes magic possible. They can still do magic, mind. It’s just that all of their magic is channeled through destruction rather than creation. For example, a normal mage might teleport by traveling along the metaphysical connection between two points. A Nephandus might do the same by destroying the concept of distance between those two points. Nephandi are bad news, and everyone wants them stopped before they unmake reality.

(There’s also Marauders, who are less a faction and more of a phenomenon. Essentially, they’re mages who fall into a sort of magical “insanity” (for lack of a better word) known as Quiet that warps their perception of reality, and reality shifts to match that perception. Marauders are also bad news, but more because they’re capable of causing mass chaos depending on how far their Quiet can reach.)

Now, obviously, having even a small group of people capable of warping reality would radically change the world. Imagine someone being able to throw fireballs, teleport from place to place, or turn vampires into lawn chairs. Now imagine two people like that fighting. Fortunately, there’s a cosmic limiter on mages that prevents that kind of thing from happening, known as Paradox.

My favourite description of Paradox is “reality’s way of bitchslapping you for messing around with it,” which is pretty accurate. Essentially, whenever a mage manipulates reality in a flashy way (like throwing fireballs down the street, or firing a super-tech plasma cannon), they accumulate Paradox, and eventually that Paradox snaps back like a rubber band with varying effects. Depending on how much Paradox goes off at once, it could be anything from a splitting headache, to vanishing into a pocket dimension, to bursting into eldritch flames that erase you from ever having existed. Basically, Paradox is bad news, and should be avoided at all costs. Fortunately for the mages, subtle magic (referred to as Coincidental magic) generally doesn’t accumulate Paradox, so if you can keep your magic from being obvious, you can do magic relatively safely.

With that out of the way, we can cycle back around to that post about Cain and Abel, and how Cain was the first murderer. Hopping over to Vampire: the Masquerade briefly, the origin story for vampires in the World of Darkness is that Cain killed Abel and was cast out of Eden into the lands of Nod. While in the lands of Nod, Cain was given four chances to repent for his deeds and seek forgiveness from God. Each time, Cain refused, and each time he was given a new curse, which ended with him becoming the first vampire. Caine (now spelled with an E at the end for some reason) eventually Embraced three new vampires, who in turn Embraced more, and so on down the line. There’s some other lore there, but it’s not important here.

Mage interprets the story of Caine and the creation of vampires slightly differently. See, before Abel was killed, murder just wasn’t a concept that existed in reality. It was effectively impossible, the same way that magic is effectively impossible without being a mage. And it was also very obvious and flashy. So according to the Mage view of things, Cain was essentially a mage, killing Abel was an act of very flashy magic, and those curses that transformed Caine into the first vampire? They were a unique and very unusual form of Paradox backlash that turned Caine into a bloodsucking undead monster.

People who prefer Vampire: the Masquerade to Mage: the Ascension very much do not like this way of interpreting things, since it re-centers an entire group of supernatural creatures as being an extended Mage thing, but I still find it an interesting take on the whole thing.

[qrovidcore]

hey what’s up tumblr i’ve now seen hbo’s watchmen all the way through Three Fucking Times and i very well may go for a fourth if given an excuse whoops and apparently i can’t stop thinking about Laurie’s joke in She Was Killed By Space Junk, no i’m not the first person to analyze this and i’m sure i won’t be the last but i sure do have some Thoughts^TM,  so here’s some meta let’s go.

major spoilers ahead for the entire series:

Hey, it’s me again. I’ve got a joke. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. There’s this guy, he’s a bricklayer. He’s really good at it. He’s a real master of his craft. Because he’s precise. Every brick has its place. Anyway this guy has a daughter and he’s gonna teach her to be a bricklayer because after all, all a man has is his legacy. So dad decides to build a barbecue in the backyard. He does the math. He figures out exactly what he needs and he shows the daughter how to do everything. Step by step. And when he finishes, it’s a beauty. It’s a perfect barbecue. Just the way he drew it in blueprints. Only one problem. There’s a brick left over. One single brick. The guy freaks out. He must have done something wrong. He’s gonna have to start all over again. So he picks up his sledgehammer to knock the thing to pieces and his daughter suddenly says ‘daddy wait! I have an idea.’ She picks up the orphan brick and throws it up into the air as high as she can. And then…shit. Messed it up.

Okay forget that joke. Can I tell you another one?

As I said, I’m not the first to break down that Laurie is referring to specific people who have an influence on the story, there’s plenty of meta posts online that’ll say the same thing. I just think this is a Really Clever way to introduce us to her, to the major players in this story, and to the events from the comic that are going to end up being referenced. Anyhow, the bricklayer here is The Comedian. Laurie’s father. I’ll get back to this and how it connects later, but given that one of Watchmen’s major themes is the concept of legacy - who carries it and how, and what happens when that legacy is painful - this is a neat little hook into that idea. Laurie’s dad’s legacy. What she’s done with it, what she’s going to do with it, how she feels about it. Again, coming back to that.

Okay. Forget the brick. New joke. Three heroes die and they all show up at the pearly gates. God’s there and he’s going to decide what their eternal fate shall be: heaven or hell. Our first hero is dressed up like a big owl. God says to him “I gifted you the ability to make fantastic inventions. What did you do with this amazing talent?” Owl guy says “I made this really awesome flying ship and lots of cool outfits and weapons so I could bring peace to the city.” God asks, “So how many people did you kill?” Owl guy seems offended. He says “Zero. I didn’t take a single life.” God frowns. “Sorry owl guy, your heart’s in the right place but you’re just too soft.” God snaps his fingers and the hero goes to hell.

I'm not super into the comic so it took me a while to get that she's referencing Nite Owl. I think this is strange since he doesn't appear in the show himself, whereas everyone else she talks about does, but I suppose it gives a more rounded-out view of the different approaches to heroism, and what exactly constitutes it, and also ties in another one of the original Minutemen. They did cut this over her arrest of Mr. Shadow in the bank, which makes me wonder about his role and why he appeared, and I still find it strange that this part of the joke wasn't about someone who had more of a presence in the show. (Though that being said, DC making fun of Batman, their own big-ticket character? 10/10 thank you for this).

Where was I? The pearly gates await our next hero in line for Almighty judgment. Our hero number two is confident he can game this out because that’s his God-given talent: smarts. Some might even say he’s the smartest man in the world. “So what did you do with that big brain I gave you?” asks God. “As a matter of fact, I saved humanity, ”says Smarty Pants. “Well how’d you do that,” asks God.” “Well I dropped a giant alien squid on New York and everybody was so afraid of it they stopped being afraid of each other.” “OK,” says God. “How many people did you kill?” Smarty Pants smiles. “Three million, give or take. But you can’t make an omelet without breaking a couple of eggs. “Christ,” God says. “You’re a fucking monster.”  “Am not,” says Smarty Pants. God snaps his fingers and our hero goes to hell.

GOD YES PLEASE DRAG OZYMANDIAS. GET THIS FUCKER’S ASS. Though the line that’s sticking out to me here is “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a couple of eggs.” Watchmen’s got an egg motif - and that’s an entire post on its own - and wow this is a place to drop it. I find it interesting that it’s given to Adrien here. Especially since it comes back later, when Will tells Angela that that’s what Jon said in justification of giving his life to stop the 7th K/Cyclops and Trieu. Eggs are used for a lot of things, but this line ties the motif solidly to a value of life here - how Adrien is the way he is because he refuses to value other peoples’, and maybe how Jon is the way he is because, when you can see the future laid out before you and live knowing how you’re going to die, how do you learn to value your own?

Okay. We’re down to the nitty gritty now. One hero left. God cracks his knuckles ready to administer the final reckoning. Now Hero Number 3 is pretty much a god himself. So for the sake of telling them apart, he’s blue and he likes to stroll around with his dick hanging out. He can teleport, he can see into the future, he blows shit up. He’s got actual superpowers. Regular God asks Blue God what have you done with these gifts?” Blue God says “I fell in love with a woman, I walked across the sun, and then I fell in love with another woman. I won the Vietnam War. But mostly I just stopped giving a shit about humanity.” God sighs. “Do I even need to ask how many people you’ve killed?” Blue guy shrugs. “A live body and a dead body have the same number of particles so it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter how I answer your question because I know you’re sending me to hell.” “How do you know that?” asks God. Blue God sounds very sad when he softly says “Because I’m already there.” And so, a mere piston in the inevitable of time and space God does what he did and will do. He snaps his fingers and the hero goes to hell.

And now, we’ve got Jon. Dr. Manhattan. It's a neat moment of insight into his actions, motives, and how those are perceived by others (namely Laurie), and it's a nice thread of introduction to his previous actions to drop for audiences who haven't read the comics (actually, I can make this point about Adrien’s part of the joke too). Especially because most of what we get of Jon in-show is his relationship with Angela, his entire character arc really revolves around her and we don't see him portrayed as the contentious, unfeeling figure the world sees him as. So this sort of contrast between him as a figure and him as a person is very telling, doubly so coming from someone who it's clear knew him. And I really appreciate that there’s just as much stiffness as there is warmth to the Jon we the audience see - he’s kind, he’s loving, but he’s also very matter-of-fact and deterministic, and that bit of characterization really spans the gap between these two versions of him.

And so it’s been a long day at the pearly gates. All the heroes have gone to hell. His work done, God’s packing up to go home and then he notices someone waiting. But it’s not a hero, it’s just a woman. “Where did you come from?” asks God. “Oh I was just standing behind those other guys the whole time, you just didn’t see me.” “Did I give you a talent,” God asks. “No, none to speak of,” says the woman.  God gives her a good long look. “I’m so sorry. I’m embarrassed. Seriously, this almost never happens but I don’t know who you are.” And the woman looks at God and she quietly says “I’m the little girl who threw the brick in the air.” And a sound from above, something falling: the brick. God looks up but it’s too late. He never saw it coming. It hits him so hard, his brains shoot out his nose. Game over. He’s dead. And where does God go when he dies? He goes to hell. 

Into some Thoughts^TM that I haven’t seen anyone theorize yet(?): I think God is meant to be Lady Trieu, and even if Laurie wouldn’t know this yet that’s some brilliant fucking foreshadowing. It's not as exact, but enough parallels are there that I think they're purposeful. It makes Trieu out as the ultimate judge of everyone - and in a way, she is. She sees herself as the most deserving of power of everyone, and it's her who kills Dr. Manhattan - sends him to hell, you could say, and he knows she's going to do it. It also hints at how she's going to die too, crushed by her machine falling from the sky like the brick, because she didn't expect anyone would be capable of stopping her. And where does God go when he dies? He goes to hell. Trieu isn't ultimately above the others, and she's subject to their justice as they are to hers. 

Fitting too that Laurie is involved with the plan to stop Trieu, since, as I said I’d come back to, the girl who threw the brick is Laurie herself. Her depiction of herself in this way is representative, perhaps, of Laure's own feelings on vigilantism and what justice is, and that she's the force that's going to bring down these overblown personalities and their many incorrect uses of their abilities. Given this, it's interesting to think how the "failed" joke at the beginning connects, given that Laurie's dad is the bricklayer, and he's definitely... not a good person, or at least not in this continuity. But I wonder if it's indicative of what Laurie mentions about her parents training her up to do vigilante stuff (especially since she’s based in part(?) on a member of the Minutemen from the comic), and how she feels about her father and his work. If the brick is symbolic of his work as a vigilante, is Laurie throwing the brick in the air, and ultimately taking down the threat at the top, meant to indicate how she sees herself using what she learned from him, or - maybe and - a disrespect for his work based on her justified hatred of him?

Roll on snare drum. Curtains. Good joke. 

[yetanotherbuffyblog]

“Everyone’s talking to me, but not to each other.”

Willow’s back!

I mean, she was back before, but she’s back in Sunnydale now. Except by some weird magic she can’t actually see, hear, or touch the Scoobies, and vice versa. So this leads to a lot of despair, as Buffy and Xander think that Willow’s ditching them, and Willow thinks that her friends don’t like her anymore.

Also, there’s a monster that’s flaying people! And of course, because Willow did it that one time, the Scoobies think that maybe she’s gone evil again and is flaying people with magic. And because Willow herself isn’t stepping forward, they can’t prove that it’s not! So they sort of flail around the Plot a while before they figure this out at the end, because Anya’s not a part of this spell.

[Willow doesn’t consider her as much of a friend, I guess?]

I think that even if the concept was a bit silly on the writing side, and it had to stretch a bit to make it work, it was still a really good idea for an episode, and it’s really cool to watch, because you get to see how scenes play out for different characters. There’s a lovely scene where both Willow and Buffy and Xander go to talk to Spike, and we see it from both points of view, and the scene doesn’t make much sense until the second go through. And of course the characters chalk it up to Spike being insane (which he is) but it’s a cool thing.

[Reminds me a bit of the scene in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell in which the magicians try to cure King George III’s madness and fail, only for Strange to witness the king talking to the Gentleman, even though he can’t see him for himself.]

So yah, I liked this one.

-Willow saying “I feel responsible” to Anya about the things that she did last season, for Anya to reply “You ARE responsible!” That’s good. Good stuff.

-Also Anya can’t teleport right now because it’s a penalty for reversing a curse. Good way to not write an easy out into the story.

-The skin-eating demon (Gnarl) was freaky! That it had a personality made me think it was supposed to be more than a Monster of the Week, but it was not to be--Buffy kills it by ripping out its eyes with her bare hands at the end of the episode. What the fudge!

-The demon can paralyze people with its claws, and then eats their skin and laps up their blood while it’s alive. What. AND it starts doing this to Willow until Buffy, Xander, and Anya come to rescue her.

-Willow flashes back to when Warren killed Tara, which reminds me of how BS it was that a bullet bent through the window and hit her in the chest?? How does that even happen?! (PLOT)

-So is the Gnarl a one-of-a-kind, or a type of demon? I’m not sure, especially because the Gnarl refers to itself as Gnarl. Anya says specifically it’s not ‘the Gnarl,’ just ‘Gnarl.’

-Gnarl also claims he’s immune to magic. Which is… a bit of a convenient way to make it so that Willow has to be saved. But considering that Glory wasn’t immune to Willow’s magic (though also very resistant to it) made it feel a bit odd. I also thought that, if the show was more about Willow than Buffy, she could figured out a workaround--like not using magic ON the Gnarl, but on stuff around it, to circumvent that limitation. A similar thing happens in Dresden Files.

-Do Anya and Spike see Willow because they’re not counted as important enough friends? Or is it because they’re supernatural beings? TV Tropes seems to lean towards the latter.

-This season seems to be trying to go with “Magic isn’t bad, only if you let it control you,” but Willow has a history of her magic getting out of control and I feel like we still kind of brush past it. She basically rewrote reality this time for a short period of time and we’re just… leaving that alone? Maybe it’ll come up again later.

-The Gnarl reminds me of how the Erkling looked in the Harry Potter games.

-The Scoobies are now mostly all together! What adventures will they have next?

[roxstarash]

Re: Zero kara hajimeru isekai seikatsu (Re: Zero starting life in another world) Season 1 episode 1 – Hajimari no owari to owari no hajimari (The end of the beginning and the beginning of the end) episode review

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be in another world? Like in fantasy games and RPG? Or ever gotten curious to what it’s like meeting mythical and magical creatures and interacting with them? Or even having a guild or something of the like? Well, if you said yes to that, then you must be an Isekai fan! What is that anyway? Well it’s a Japanese term for anime that has another world for a setting. Which means, it could be that you, like me, are from regular earth and may wound up teleported or transported via a magical circle or whatnot to another world. Anime with that kind of theme is called Isekai.

Most Isekai-type anime I am fond of is Konosuba, Tweeny witches, Digimon, Shield hero and Magic Knight Rayearth, just to name a few. So I decided to watch Re:zero because it was really popular and the art style attracted me that I got curious, thinking it must be like the ones I watched. But apparently, that was not the case. Some aspects were the same as the usual Isekai anime but they also had some difference. (I was not prepared to actually love it.)

Before I dive in further, I’d like to inform you that some spoilers are ahead and that my narrative is meant to showcase my opinion alone and not represented by any organization or whatsoever with which I have been, am now or ever to be affiliated.

I’d like to give a brief background of the main character. His name is Natsuki Subaru. He is an average boy probably in his late teens and is shown in the first episode wearing sweats. It was that simple at first. He was seen buying snacks in a convenience store (Mini Stop to be precise) It was a very normal setting.  As this scene keeps going, some flashbacks or visions of other parts of the episode was being shown. It seemed that Subaru was not aware of the visions. Soon after he went out of the store and no preamble, he just blinked and voilà! He is for some reason, in another world! The world he was teleported into was medieval-looking and had various creatures but mostly humans were there at that time. The town he appeared in is later revealed to be Luginica. It is definitely not like other typical Isekai wherein a creature of some sort starts to explain stuff or maybe even a fairy transports the main character via a magic circle. There was no further explanation. The funny thing is that he was even wearing the same sweats, and armed with a plastic bag of chips and noodles. (Not exactly his very hero-like expectations at all) Subaru even walks around this other-worldly town checking if he has some powers but still his expectations failed him. The written language was unreadable and the money is a different currency. This, he discovers as he asked a fruit vendor and is shooed away because he was considered moneyless in this world. Eventually he runs into a group of thugs followed by a running girl who is later known as Felt. Felt was actually a thief who was running away from someone she stole from and did not stop to help Subaru. In a while after being harassed and beaten by the goons, another girl appears. This time it is Emilia. (Take note that this is her real name but first goes to introduce herself as Satella.) She is a beautiful half elf with silver hair. A slight segue, she is voiced by Rie Takahashi who happens to voice Megumin from Konosuba. Fun fact: Re:zero has a fun spin-off and crossover with other Isekai anime, titled: Isekai quartet and Rie Takahashi will be playing both roles.

Continuing on, seeing a helpless Subaru, Emilia, along with her familiar Puck, saves him from the goons. But thinking initially that it was Subaru who stole her Insignia. After clearing up the misunderstanding, Subaru returns the favor as a “good deed” and helps Emilia to look for the thief. In looking, they wound up in the slums of the town late at night, in a loot house of Old Man Rom.  Subaru went inside the dark loot house because no one answered and stumbled upon the corpse of presumably, the Old man Rom. Subaru hears a female voice. Unfortunately, the killer was still inside and slashed him. Emilia also enters and gets killed first. Subaru, writhing in pain dies moments later. Yes. He died. The main character died.

Now, while I was watching, I was surprised by the turn of events. This was shocking to me because it was really unexpected. I was thinking like, “what the heck was that?”

The episode is not yet finished. It’s longer than most anime and continues on to Subaru a moments later being alive! How? The next scene after he died, he was right back to where he started – talking with the fruit vendor in the town. However, Subaru clearly remembers where he was before and how he died so it was confusing to him as to me. Now, I’m going to stop here for now because I am not going to summarize everything afterwards that happened. I already revealed the gist of how the story goes. (I even feel I revealed too much) but for me, what I said above is the biggest highlight and I want to express how things led to it. I wanted to give a background to how thrilling and exciting the first episode is! Did I like it? Yes! Do I want to keep watching? Yes! Is it highly recommended to fellow anime enthusiasts? Yes! I especially admire Subaru. Despite being a regular person, his personality is really great, considering he just got himself in really dire, life and death situations. He was in pain. He was slashed, and killed! Despite what happened (and keeps happening) he still wants to be a hero for Emilia’s sake. In the succeeding episodes, I think we can see more of his heroism and a closeness between him and Emilia will be evident.

Overall, this anime is really great! The story is entertaining and this is just the beginning but it already packed a punch! The second season also got released this year and as soon as it was released, it was already the talk of the town, much to be expected of a great anime anyway. I also hope that a third season will be underway because Re: zero is definitely one of my favorite Isekai anime.

Despite loving the storyline of this anime, I don’t think I’ll be daydreaming about being in another world for the time being. Dying and dying all over again doesn’t seem too appealing to me.

Note: This is one of my handwritten review that I submitted last Nov. 18, 2020 to Aniradio+ for my anime reviewer application. Unfortunately out of a rough estimate of 2,400 applicants, I am not one of the 20 who were chosen.

Copyright

Star Ashley Cruz

[noddytheornithopod]

Holy shit my thoughts on Mind over Mutant got surprisingly complicated so uh here’s a massive discussion under the cut, lol.

Out of all the main post Naughty Dog games... this might be my favourite after all? It’s far from perfect, but I think I had the most satisfying experience overall.

To start, visually everything looks pretty good. Granted I’m using the PS2 version which has a few visual bugs because it was designed for Wii and X360 graphics more, but generally I like how it holds up? Shame 360 emulators aren’t a thing as of now, and I’m not buying some old console just for one game, lol. Speaking of PS2, there’s no Coco option because apparently her moves were too complex for the system, RIP.

To start... yes, fuck the backtracking. It’s perfectly reasonably why this pisses people off. For me, it’s mainly the transition between Wumpa Island and the Ratcicle Kingdom since you have to go through AND back twice, with little variation. Other paths at least have you only needing to retread once for the story or there’s a new extra path in it that unlocks. At least some of the enemies change up I guess? But honestly, I think what bugs me more is that it’s not exactly consistent in its implementation. Because for a while, yeah you’re going back and forth retreading old ground, but then you get the key for the Junkyard on Wumpa Island and you’re just teleported to the Junkyard gate. Same thing happens when you get the Uka Uka bones. And of course, there’s the teleporters to find said bones, which is kind of striking a middle ground. Basically... it’s kinda inconsistent. Tedious when it is, but when you suddenly start to get used to it, you’re given massive leaps lol.

There’s stuff from Titans that was changed that I don’t really understand why? For example, the block with Crash no longer has a dodge, and dodging is now purely responding to mutant attacks. I like the addition to help even out things between Crash and mutants, but why no dodge normally? There’s no board sliding anymore, nothing calls for it obviously so it may have been pointless but it is kinda funny. Also Crash’s glide is replaced with the spin drill, which of course has its uses, but I miss having that glide too (you could have both, maybe the drill is by holding square or even pressing triangle, IDK).

On the topic of Crash, I kinda feel like Crash’s gameplay is oddly sidelined? I think it’s because of the mutant storing. Even if there’s less combat, much of the platforming now uses the mutants, and because there’s only some sections where you have to be Crash, it means you end up being Crash rather sparingly unless you really want to stick to him. Like, mutant storing is a good idea and works with the kind of game, but compare to Titans where even if it was more combat focused, the fact you had to use Crash in more parts meant you end up playing as him more than this game, and thus it feels like he has more of a presence with his own move set.

The combat felt off at first, but I ended up realising it’s because I became used to the Titans system... to start, it’s less intense and slower paced. You’re rarely gonna be swarmed so you actually have a chance against enemies. There’s also the mutant mojo upgrades, which means your mutant actually grows stronger with each upgrade, making combat different each time.

I like how they use mojo... for the most part. I like that the mutants can now be upgraded, and Crash of course grows stronger. My one reservation is that the upgrades don’t feel that diverse? In Crash’s case it’s probably because he keeps most of his moves from Titans, but still, only strength and spin upgrades isn’t the most exciting. Same with the mutants, getting stronger and the occasional special attack boost is cool, but it’s not the most exciting. I guess I need to view it like a Ratchet and Clank situation, because that’s what this is more like... including the multiplier. Including a multiplier with your combo level to make mojo worth more helps a lot with upgrading.

Because mutant gameplay is now more diverse instead of just a few classes that do their job, it also comes across as more inconsistent? I like that there’s improvements like them being able to jump now and more attack variations eg from when you block or jump and hit attack, but I also find some of it a bit awkward. Like, many of these attack variations are cool, but the tutorials give fuck all clues to them, so it’s hard to figure everything out.

For example... seriously, it took me ages to figure out how to use the TK in combat. TK is a pretty fun mutant, but until you figure out how to shoot and combine attacks with their telekinesis, you’re gonna be stuck to slow heavy attacks and awkwardly throwing enemies around.

I also find the Rhinoroller awkward. Because of the new moveset compared to Titans, it’s on one hand less slow, but on the other, it can get pretty annoying to control.

Ratcicle feels kind of overdeveloped. They can freeze stuff AND surf on shallow water. I mean, it’s great, but it kinda makes the other mutants look less exciting, lol. But yeah, one of the best mutants in this game because they definitely thought of much.

There’s a few mutants that are fun to play as like Spike, Sludge, and Battler, but unless you go outside the main story, they don’t really feel like they have much of a presence. The introduction pacing feels off, basically.

Snipe and Stench are back as ranged mutants. Snipe suddenly gets an upgrade and is pretty fun to play. Stench I’m not so crazy about, like now their special attack isn’t ranged anymore so that kinda messes up the gameplay with them, and while the fire rate is improved from Titans, every now and then they do a reload animation which I assume was meant to add detail, but all it does is slow the gameplay down and make the rhythm of firing off.

Magmadon is around, and while they aren’t underused, I do think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity with this game’s increased platforming focus that it doesn’t have any fire/lava abilities. There’s only one place that’s too hot for other characters and thus making them necessary too. Like, imagine if you could use it to melt through ice or even metal, eg a door that must be melted down to progress. Sludge’s shrinking ability is only used like two or three times (and I think only one is mandatory), so I think there’s missed opportunities there too. The shapeshifting and extendable arms stuff could’ve made for some cool mechanics. Adding more platforming abilities for mutants might overcomplicate the game of course, but... still. Especially with Sludge, give them some more use, even for secrets and such. Speaking of secrets... Spike needing to use the special attack on that one spiky part on the way to Mt Grimly is pretty random, huh?

Scorporilla and Yuktopus serve their role as the massive powerhouses (and Scorporilla even gets a beefed up melee combo), though I must admit it’s odd Yuktopus is now demoted to a regular enemy/sub-boss class (seeing two in the minigames was surreal when I was young lol). And I mean, random changes in design and stuff is something I find odd in general. I mean, the returning mutants mostly have improved designs, but for others I’m not as sure on, eg Rhinoroller looking less rhino-y, and Sludge suddenly being a boar instead of an frog or chameleon or whatever it was in Titans. Guess some is NV mutations but whatever, lol.

On the topic of enemy design, one thing I miss from Titans is the colour and outfit variations. Maybe they had less time to do it and at least the single models they get look good, but still, it’s a shame. We do get the hero mutants, but the PS2 version fucks up their looks for some reason, lol (and for some reason their mojo upgrades separately from the standard of their species, which is weird, especially since it’s not counted in the game’s completion).

Grimlys are cool, probably my favourite mutant in the game. Kinda funny how they don’t have a block and instead a lock on function, but it makes sense given they’re meant to be used faster than other close range mutants. But yeah, time slowing is so cool it’s even back in Crash 4 with one of the new Quantum Masks. Really helps you rake up that combo count to get all that mojo too.

The minions are... interesting. They mostly do their job, but then suddenly you have Doom Monkeys and Znu that have these massive stun attacks that can get annoying if there’s a lot of them. Slap-Es can block but as long as you’re not Crash they’re as quick as any others. The Doom Monkeys are less annoying in speech too, thankfully.

I get a few audio bugs. Most annoying of which is being unable to hear enemy conversations. But sometimes I just got sound effects cut out for no reason. On the inverse... some of the mutants are very noisy and need to shut up. Aku Aku also sometimes adds commentary when unnecessary, making him feel a bit handholdy. Yes, I’m going to the damn roller village, be patient, dude.

Probably the thing to impress me most revisiting the game is actually the continuity and worldbuilding. I mean, to start, you have all the mutants becoming free and forming their own societies, only for the NVs to turn them into evil warriors again. Said societies are pretty interesting as well.

Wumpa Island is mostly the same (sans all the stranded Ratinicians gone wild lol), but then you have the Ratcicle Kingdom. A Kingdom formed mostly out of ice, and also near Cortex’s evil public school. Nothing like this was in Titans, so was there always a cold part of Wumpa Island, or did the concentration of Ratcicles allow them to make enough ice to form a cold climate and society despite this being tropical nearby? All the designers and stuff are cool, and some of the characters are quite peculiar (I love that one masochist Ratcicle lol).

Then there’s the Ice Prison and Evil School. IDK how the Ice Prison was made, but it seems like it’s Cortex’s doing since the Brat Girls run it AND Evil School (while also being students?). As one of those lore junkies that headcanons Wumpa Island is the second island from the original Crash games, this fits oddly well, because in Twinsanity Cortex suddenly has a massive floating Iceberg lab. Maybe Cortex also made the school and prison nearby, and the Ratcicles took their Wumpa Island residence and connected Cortex’s base. Yeah, I’m getting crazy with my speculation, but the game letting you fuel this is fun. Also cool how the Brat Girls leave Nina after she loses in Titans and end up as Cortex’s grunts, ironically.

The Wasteland seems new, and I assume it’s the evolution of the Lumberyard from Titans. We also have rhinoroller elders even if it’s only two years of existing lol.

The Junkyard is apparently born out of the remains of N Gin’s weapons factory (I heard somewhere the Weapons factory was apparently on N Sanity Island but IDK if that was ever confirmed, it makes more sense it was on Wumpa Island TBH but if it was imagine all that junk moved there lol, TBH Cortex Island could work for the weapons factory too, it would make things less cluttered and it’s possible there’s still unpolluted beaches but whatever). It’s a pretty cool setting, and the Doom Monkeys being in the remains of their old location but under new leadership (and somehow with rockets removed from their heads... maybe they were merely aesthetic? lol) is nice continuity. Judging from the concept art it also seems to be around that volcanic area in Titans, which makes sense given that had more machinery.

Mt Grimly is completely new. Surprisingly it’s not an evolution of the Uka tree (though there is one creepy tree place with the hero Grimly on Wumpa Island), and as a result it’s much harder to work into my 2nd island headcanon (I mean, at least that island always had a giant tree lol). Cool location, but unfortunately we don’t really learn much about its normal state compared to the other worlds, unless it’s permanently inhabited by evil dudes, lol. Also I still wonder what the heck the Znu and Grimlys are. Are the Znu supposed to be the same thing as Grimlies? Are the Grimlys NV transoformed Znu??? Who knows.

Even the changing enemies in revisiting locations relates to the story. For example, the sludges in the Junkyard will say how Slap-Es and Stenches have appeared from “the sky”. Besides random occasional appearances from different mutants in various locations, you also have the Znu and Doom Monkeys moving out of their home levels to the previous ones after you make it through said levels the first time. I’m very perplexed by the sudden increase of Battlers when you revisit evil school and the ice prison paths though... either they’re also favourites of Cortex, or the Brat Girls disappointed Cortex after he saw Crash break into school and Nina helped him and he... used NVs on them to make new Battlers. Other stuff like Snipes in the Wasteland because of the Snipe hero are clear enough, but this one is... interesting.

There are some inconsistencies that bug me though. For one, it feels like nobody acknowledges Cortex’s blog video. Aku Aku acts surprised that N Brio is back and working with Cortex, and later wonders how Brio gets dark mojo even though Cortex explicitly says he’s using Uka for that. IDK, I guess Aku Aku doesn’t like watching internet videos and expected Crash and Coco to do everything, lol (I mean, he doesn’t really acknowledge it after watching anyway). Also a bit confused on how evil school works... it’s implied the Brat Girls are the main students, especially when one NPC says it’s all girls, but the intro video includes all genders and shows non-Brat Girls so... something’s up (maybe the NPC misheard or the ad was lying and only had girls because EVIL). Also apparently there’s another evil school somewhere besides Madame Amberly’s (is it also public? how is it public, is there a government funding these evil schools? did Cortex declare some regime?).

The humour and cutscenes are mostly pretty fun and there’s many funny moments. There are a few jokes that are... questionable at best (Uka I know you’re evil, but you don’t need to be ableist), and some of it probably seems outdated, but I actually appreciate most of it. The 2D cutscenes in different styles simulating changing channels like you have an NV is cool and has some pretty fun jokes with them, though it does suck you don’t see some character models well if at all as a result. The whole satire of consumerism and the latest tech fads was a nice addition (between this and the different mutant powers and stuff, it’s almost a classic Ratchet and Clank type game), not to mention wild stuff like evil recycling (and I mean, green movements ARE co-opted soooo) and many edgy but still mostly jokes I doubt would pass today.

Bosses are fine. Cortex was fun, but Coco was too easy (plus she’s freed from NV control a bit too soon, they could’ve saved her for the Ice Prison or even Evil School or something to raise the stakes, I mean if you’re not gonna fully commit to playable Coco then you may as well go the N Tranced route). Crunch wasn’t as hard as I remember, in fact he was kinda underwhelming. If anything the Scorporilla and Yuktopus acting as sorta sub-bosses in-story were better fights than saving the bandicoots (also one of the sludges says Crunch is Crash’s brother... confirmed?). Also small nitpick but why doesn’t Coco have her evil model in the enemy profiles, even as she has her boss lines?

Music is legit one of my favourite soundtracks in the series, Marc Baril doesn’t get enough credit. He manages to have such a range and it all works so well even as it has a distinct and fitting style.

Voodoo doll collecting is more involved which is cool, and there’s also golden wumpa now serving as health upgrades because we don’t have lives anymore. Yeah, Titans and MoM did gold wumpa first, not CTR:NF and Crash 4. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up even earlier. Minigames are optional too which means less stress for 100% completion, though there’s also the arena minigames (oh hey, more Ratchet and Clank similarities), and they unlock enemy skins... unfortunately unlike Titans which had skins for every enemy, there’s only a few skins here (one for each world’s games), which is disappointing.

Anyway... yeah. Mind over Mutant isn’t as polished as Titans and is a bit messy and inconsistent in some places (most likely because this game has less time than Titans), and some of the backtracking is tedious, but in general I had a pretty good time with it, and was actually pleasantly surprised by some things.

[manekinoodle]

The Worst (TM) Pathologic Ship

A preamble is probably necessary here. This is written in good fun and is not meant to offend. Imagine me cackling obnoxiously while you’re reading. It’ll set the right mood.

TLDR: Andrey/Mark conceivably works as a ship.

How was this idea even born?

Y’know when you say something funny and then a friend says something funny and it keeps building up? That’s what happened. If you remember my little comic about Andrey teaching Grace to shoot, the dummy was in Mark Immortell’s likeness. The following conversation happened with regards to that:

>Peter was just trying to save Andrey from getting even more on Mark’s shitlist

>mark “oh please, if you want to use my likeness for target practice, just hit me up”

>Sounds like a date

>i mean you can’t shoot mark right

>OH NO

>Andrey/mark

At this point the gears started turning. My first thoughts were “haha cursed” as they are about a lot of things, and then I decided to hit up Wattpad for some terrible x reader fanfiction to help me write a Mark Immortell x reader fic.  I didn’t hit up Wattpad because I’m currently at home with my parents who dictate me a nice early bedtime. I slept on it for a bit.

The next morning, I screamed (internally) because somehow the Mark x reader idea I had slept on became a strong urge to write/draw Mark/Andrey. Ironically, of course. That’s my brand. Heh.

I chewed on the idea until it wasn’t so ironic anymore.

Actual stuff under the cut.

Ok, but why?

Look, this isn’t gonna be full of evidence or whatever since these two don’t interact, but this is a joke post anyway, so why do you care? I’m half-kidding, please keep reading. I used the wiki as a loose reference.

An important note is that I’m mostly taking my points from Pathologic 2 characterisations here, especially with regards to meta.

The Players

Let’s take a look at each character separately first. I’ll bring up important canon personality traits and personal interpretations which will play into the relationship dynamic.

Mark Immortell

The most relevant part of Mark’s character for this is his relationship with control. His relationship with it is straightforward in both the play and the meta. After all, he is one of the few impervious to the plague in the story and as the showrunner in meta. In between games, he wrests control of the metanarrative too, so there’s another point for him. I like how he seems to enjoy exercising his power too! He’s a Utopian through and through; he breaks the limits of the play and exercises control beyond what he should be able to as a showrunner in the game. In short, nothing gets on top of Mark Immortell. Figuratively. I think his back might say otherwise.

Andrey Stamatin

I have a lot more to say about Andrey! We’ll start with what lies on the surface, though we’ll get to the good stuff later. Andrey is the red oni to Peter’s blue; he’s the more outwardly aggressive and impulsive of the twins. In canon, Andrey’s character is about breaking the limits set in front of him. We see him do this quite effectively with the construction of the Polyhedron, but what happens when there’s a limit that can’t be broken placed in front of him? We never see this in either game. While both twins drown themselves in something or other that stops them reaching their full creative potential (at least when we see them), no limits are placed in a way where they’re seen actively having to tackle them.

We can get an idea of how an unbreakable limit might present itself to Andrey by taking a look at his relationship with Peter. There’s a lot that can be said, but I will focus on the aspect of control. Andrey fashions himself as Peter’s caretaker, taking control of the latter in a sense. This isn’t a bad thing, considering Peter can barely look after himself properly. On the other hand, Andrey allows himself to be dragged around by Peter’s creative visions. He’s the driving force that brings those ideas to life, sure, but ultimately his strings are being pulled by someone else. From this I think that Andrey is receptive to being controlled in a relationship. Being presented with an unbreakable limit can conceivably end up with him being pliant.

Let me make a slight detour by giving you a couple of personal thoughts on Andrey. Feel free to disagree on this since it’s all interpretation based on gut feeling. A good first impression to Andrey Stamatin would be having your figurative fangs out. A seemingly pure existence without hidden fangs is something that cannot exist to him (an exception can be made for Eva, since she’s so out there that it’s 100% not an act). I don’t believe he places sole value on honesty, per se (think Grief and how soft he actually is), but it plays a large part in his perception of someone. Basically, put your worst foot forward. Andrey is down for that.

How would this work, exactly?

On one hand, we have the meta-dealing Chris McLean himself, and on the other, Mr Andrey “I break all the rules” Stamatin. Let’s try and tell a short story, and I’ll bring up the points I made above when appropriate.

SCENE 1

Every romance must start with a meet cute. Refer to the comic I mentioned at the beginning. PETER has tackled ANDREY to the ground. GRACE is holding a fake gun. There is a training dummy with the likeness of MARK IMMORTELL.

Enter MARK. He calmly walks past the scene and examines the dummy. Impressed, he turns to ANDREY, who has since stood up.

MARK IMMORTELL:         Quite an impressive dummy you’ve made, Andrey.

MARK snickers. The focus is on ANDREY and MARK as PETER and GRACE slowly back away. They expect a fight. Just let them leave, they don’t do anything. PETER and GRACE decide to get some ice-cream off-stage, or maybe paint at home. Anywhere that isn’t here.

MARK IMMORTELL:         If you really wanted to use my likeness as target practice, you could have hit me up.

This was his attempt to provoke. I read this as Mark acknowledging his invulnerability, but this could also be read as an amorous proposal. ANDREY takes the bait and tries to intimidate this tiny little theatre man. He makes to kick MARK in the shin, but Mark’s valise finds itself under his chin before he can do so. ANDREY stalls. MARK looks satisfied with his reaction. He won’t be satisfied for long.

MARK IMMORTELL:         I hope you don’t mind me taking this. I’ll use it in my next show. Do come to see it, won’t you, Andrey?

He leans in towards the other. ANDREY tries to verbally protest, but he finds he cannot speak.

MARK IMMORTELL:         It would be quite a shame if you didn’t.

MARK calls a tragedian to pick the dummy up. As quickly as he entered the stage, he leaves with the tragedian. ANDREY’s gaze follows him, confused. Fade to black.

SCENE 2

The Theatre at night. Enter ANDREY, somewhat nervous. Well, he is nervous but doesn’t act like it. He’s hoping nobody asks him what he’s doing here. BACHELOR and HARUSPEX are chatting in a corner, noticing but not acknowledging Andrey’s presence. CHANGELING is on the second floor, looking down at the scene. ANDREY doesn’t notice her. She snickers into the camera.

Lights are cast on the stage and a pantomime plays out, featuring Andrey’s dummy. ANDREY watches, spellbound. I don’t have an idea of what the pantomime would be, so use your own imagination. After the show ends, only ANDREY is left in the Theatre. The three healers have left in the meantime. They knew what was going to happen. ANDREY, as if possessed, approaches the stage. MARK enters the stage from stage left and they stop in front of each other. MARK looks down at ANDREY almost derisively, but to his surprise, ANDREY just stares back. Beat.

MARK IMMORTELL:         I didn’t expect to see you here today, little shark pup.

Pet name? It’s Mark being a meanie! Andrey is eating this up, however, because overt control is something he can accept. Mark just established dominance over him in Scene 1 and he’s okay with not fighting back… If this was longer, I would have had him try to push a bit more, but we don’t got time for that. Back to the actual play.

ANDREY tries to say something, but it comes out as an unintelligible mumble. MARK lifts his chin up with the end of his valise so ANDREY is properly looking at him.

MARK IMMORTELL:         Did you say something?

ANDREY expects to be unable to speak again. He hesitantly opens his mouth.

ANDREY:                            (his voice cracks slightly) You… asked me to come, didn’t you?

MARK is taken aback (not visibly) by this honest admission. He (and probably you) expected Andrey to put up a small fight at least. However, this little puppet does not mind his strings being pulled. Mark decides to try and push a little harder.

MARK teleports ANDREY up on stage. ANDREY stumbles a little, but Mark’s valise still being under his chin steadies him. MARK pulls the valise so Andrey’s face is quite close to his again. I don’t know what to do from here, so fade to black.

The way I imagined the dynamic going is Mark teasing Andrey and trying to provoke him. Andrey does get pissy sometimes, but it’s extremely cute and low stakes, like teasing a pet. Then, at some point Andrey doesn’t get provoked which would throw Mark off guard. It’s a moment where two characters are going at each other and suddenly stop, allowing the weight of the moment to sink in. It’s in almost every romance story, but I can’t exactly put a name to it. Have enough of that, and we’ve got a nice rom-com on our hands.

Of course, this is just a theory. A Game Theory…

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog - 2012 annual

iirc the annual takes place between 7 and 8, or something. whatever, im gonna go for it

shifts in art style always throw me off phewwww

i cant remember what theyre doing but i find it really funny that first aid is there squaring the fuck up to punch shit

ah yes of course how could i forget the time they shrunk down to fight tiny robots in ultra magnus’s head. a comic classic 

poor magnus lmao

HBJSDKFBSHJFDHJSD HIS TERRIFYING SMILE HAUNTS MY NIGHTMARES. LOVE IT

love the continuation of magnus’s law-vision

the fact that everyone is dunking on magnus for smiling ONCE hvbhjdksbfjks

rewind and chromedome ough

i feel like cyclonus spends 90% of his early mtmte screentime staring broodingly out of windows lmao 

tg so precious

lmaooo i love the flashes of rodimus saying ‘til all are one’ All The Time

rodimus just wants to be like his dad ok

rodimus telling drift to go meditate or something vbhjfdbhdsjkf

i love rodimus calling magnus out on referring to himself in the third person lmaoooo but also I'm like Oh I See That [eyes emoji]

wish i had emojis on the computer sigh

lmao so the circle of light is a bunch of pacifists With Big Ass Swords

them betting on how long it'll take rodimus to say ‘til all are one’ vbkjsdhbfjhkhsdf

damn so ambulon rlly did switch sides late in the game 

cyclonus is here!! being an emotionally closed-off fool as usual 

nooo rodimus let tailgate speak

cant believe rodimus graffiti’d tailgate

drift, immediately: rodimus is FUCKING POSSSESSED 

ratchet: ok, no, 

godddd everything abt the galactic counsel here is so funny. ‘its big - its grey - its taxpayer funded’ hvbkjshdbfjkdf and the fact that their ship is called ‘the benign intervention’ lmaooo

also DAMN that is a BIG ASS SHIP 

‘a fleshling in a stupid hat’ i love rodimus and his irrational hatred of hats

magnus comin in CLUTCH with the dry-ass clauses shit 

rewind vhjbdskfbaksdfn ‘the sub-section 7 defense - sneaky’ ily

tailgate hvbhjadkfbjskdf its ok that you don't know what's going on

also tailgate serves a vital role in the story as the audience insert character (or w/e its called), bc he’s often confused which allows for handy exposition that we the audience also need lmao 

i find it so interesting to see how the cybertronians are viewed by the rest of the galaxy - we don't see a lot of aliens but its always fascinating when we do, because of COURSE they’re mostly gonna think of the cybertronians as destructive and war-like when that’s what they’ve been up to for 4 million years 

ooof swerve :( swerve is one of those characters who you’re like ‘haha he’s funny’ most of the time but pretty often he’ll have startling moments of like, deep pain about life or w/e, and you’re like Oh Shit and then you kinda move on, until finally the swearth arc hits and it all comes together. what I'm saying is that this is some nice building towards that 

HGDSBJFKJSJBDF THERE IT IS THERE IT ISSSSSSSSSS

THE PANEL WHERE REWIND IN ALT MODE CAN FLY FOR SOME REASONNNNNN

i fucking love that shot so much. does everyone see this. rewind is a GIANT FUCKIN FLASHDRIVE and he’s hovering ominously thru the air. like, what happened to all the biz from issue 1 or w/e where his husband was roasting him for having a non-mobile altmode? if he can fucking HOVER than Actually rewind is the fucking coolest, no contest 

or like, is the implication that they all teleported there (having switched to alt mode along the way i guess?) and rewind is just like, suspended in midair? bc that's what the speed bubble text implies, but it also totally looks like they're just travelling across the area and rewind can levitate

anyways. that panel has always cracked me up lmaoooo

rodimus calling the council ‘fascists’ hvbhduifbjsdjfajskf sir i love you 

GODDD and there's the joke payoff from a few issues ago - rewind, facing front, hearing drift transform behind him and not only being able to tell its drift without looking, but also being able to tell that drift is upset, JUST like chromedome said he could....fucking PEAK i love that type of payoff humor

ooof and more swerve introspection. i mentioned earlier but i fucking LOVE how this series showcases the extremely wide range of reactions/coping mechanisms that everyone has towards the endless war finally being over - and swerve really nails it here: confusing peace with happiness, and assuming that everything would automatically be better after the war is over, when in reality you still have to work just as hard to build shit rather than break it

also i adore the horror of a guy who is half-embedded in the wall, his face stuck in a rictus of terror & death, waxing philosophical about how peace is about the freedom of choice, and how they should all just feel lucky to have survived...oof, that's very specifically ironic coming from you, dude 

but i do love the little characterization we get here for ore, a character who is literally already dead and has so far been used as a plot device pretty exclusively, but we still get to know little things about him here, and how HE feels about the war and the current peace, etcetc. it really makes the story and characters seem believable, like every character has a story even if we don't take the time to see it 

love cyclonus posing coolly 

kinda love how clear it is that drifts whole hippy schtick is just a front to cover his anger, and a tool to make him seem like an approachable, upstanding autobot

drift dramatically monologuing while pointing his sword at the sky is extra funny with everyone else just staring at him doing this

cyclonus why are you grabbing at the edge of the hole you're falling into, you can LITERALLY FLY, 

magnus finally getting some appreciation for being The most law abiding guy like, ever 

genuinely forgot abt the whole metrotitan plot that happens here 

GOD when rodimus is like BRAIN QUEST TIME and then we smash cut to them at the brain ‘six minutes later’ vhbhkudfjbjksf i live for that shit 

also that would be even funnier animated which further proves that we need an mtmte/ll animated series, please, somebody, 

HBDSJKFSHDJF REWIND IS SO FUCKING FUNNYYYYYY you cant even tell if he GENUINELY didn't think cyclonus could talk or if hes just being a dick but either way? comedy gold 

oh i adore the flashbacks being in a different artstyle, especially one that's so retro 

i love rewind being a history geek, and cyclonus passionately explaining cybertronian creation theory

HHHH i fucking LOVE the myth/lore stuff like....a lot of franchises tend not to dwell in this type of mythology, you tend to get The True Version Of Events, but this kind of explanation rocks bc it totally sounds like the kind of religious mythology that naturally develops based on a species’ progression

and drift and ratchet’s very opposing and polarizing views certainty do make for interesting perspectives, tho i feel like the story sometimes leans too much towards ratchet being ‘more correct’ bc, logic! or something idk i feel like i used to have a couple mild opinions on this but i don't remember

and its funny bc i am, irl, an atheistic medical professional who believes in science above all else - essentially just like ratchet. but i feel like the narrative portrayal skews a little more in his favor than i’d like, despite that 

skids just out here being a bummer, completely unprompted. cant even blame you tho dude 

hhhhhh chromedome talking abt rewind ;_; 

and when he says ‘maybe there’s someone out there who can save your life, too’ and cyclonus is there....hhhh

god i fucking LOVE drift and rodimus’s entire relationship. the layers...the LAYERS!!!

OH HEY ITS THOSE ROBOTS SKIDS FOUGHT 

ah, inconvenient laser time!

ok i fuckgin love how cybertronian’s brains look just like the planet cybertron. that's so fucking great 

of COURSE brainstorm brought his shrink ray 

truly i love the convo between ore and swerve, especially overlaid onto everyone fighting 

oof, the themes and plot threads of this annual are all so nicely tied up (which is something i love abt mtmte, especially early on when the story is smaller), with swerve now choosing to disobey an order from rodimus

oh yeah, the circle of light! that's who you've been looking for this whole time basically! 

and then the ending, hearing that magnus smiled (willingly!) :) i love it

rodimus’s profile says ‘finds it difficult to sit still’ bc rodimus is an adhd icon

lmao i feel like over half of my sentences in this recap - and in most of my recaps - contain ‘i love it’ or ‘i love how-’ or some variation upon that theme. I'm predictable 

anyways - the annual! i love this issue. its really long which is cool and i feel like it does a lot to flesh out the setting and lore, and even the characters as well. also, as i said above, it does an excellent job telling an exciting and well-contained story, with solid story beats throughout and plot threads that emerge and get resolved all within this issue, even while leaving plenty of stuff up for future resolution. that's the Early MTMTE Special, and i adore it. tho i will say I'm glad we’ll be getting back to the regularly scheduled art style, bc this one didn't really do it for me