#the one who’s behind it all
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icemintfreeze · 7 months ago
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//IDFB Fear Garden
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Scarlet’s physical form (and her gaseous form in the 2nd image). She has a backstory, but tldr; she’s the italicized voice in fear garden.
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egophiliac · 1 month ago
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I don’t think we’ve ever seen you draw knight of dawn before 🤔 what are your thoughts about him? Or take?
I've drawn him a couple of times, just really little/in the background. but I should draw him more, I love this guy a lot! I have many, many thoughts about him and the way he parallels Silver...and also I think it is extremely funny that his ghost is stuck in a ring. especially considering where that ring has been for the last 16-ish years.
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 2 months ago
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None of our hands are clean
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#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#jin guangshan#mianmian#The secret meaning behind one of the jin members scuttling off is:#I couldn't make three people work out in the remaining panels and per my rule of '3 attempts and take a different approach' he had to go.#Sometimes there are meaningful reasons why something happens in the background. And sometimes it is like this.#Let's just say he saw what was about to happen and got out of there before mianmian started throwing hands.#Okay no more delay. The sheer boldness to call WWX a killer in a room full of people who wear their war body count as a badge...#It's about hypocrisy yes - but it is also about how the narrative shifts on the same action depending on the frame.#Because at the end of the day...the blood on our hands is still blood on our hands.#Both the deaths on the battlefield and the deaths of the Jin's abusing the Wen remnants are still deaths caused by another.#They are also deaths that - depending who holds the frame - are noble acts to protect others.#But it isn't supposed to be about who was right and who was wrong.#It is about the need to be seen as the victim to avoid culpability.#Because if you aren't responsible you don't have to be held accountable. You don't have to grow or change.#If someone takes all the blame then there is no need to reflect on your own faults.#We have to protect our fragile ego from the mirror lest it shatter and we have to remake it anew.#Horrifically enough...even if WWX spared the Jin guards or even never ran into Wen Qing#He wouldn't have been able to escape being the scapegoat. He downfall was set into motion a long time ago.#My goodness...What a deliciously tragic story Wei Wuxian's first life was.
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dykesbat · 2 months ago
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help a palestinian doctor evacuate his three family members in gaza
vetted by operation olive branch (line 85)
$25,830 raised of $50,000 as of november 5
since this fundraiser has started back in early 2024, we've only managed to help fund the escape of dr moath and his mother, basma. three family members remain in gaza including moath's father and his two younger brothers.
please help his family. this fundraiser has been stagnating badly and i'm incredibly worried for yusuf, ahmed, and their father. we need less than $5000 in order to evacuate one of them. if you have any money to spare please please please contribute to this campaign.
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shushmal · 7 months ago
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okay but a like post-series fic i want that's like: steve harrington being the only man left in hawkins fighting monsters
and not like a 'everyone died, last man standing' way but just. they beat it back, the story ends, nice little tie-up and neatly concluded, eleven loses her powers because their world is completely cut from the other. and life goes on. eddie (yes, eddie lives au don't fight me) goes off with his band, robin-nancy-jargyle off to separate cities for college. the kids go to high school, graduate high school, and scatter across the country. joyce and hop buy a beach house far-far-far away from goddamn hawkins indiana.
steve though. steve stays. he does it too without comment, takes all their calls telling him all these amazing things. the years pass. the calls are fewer and far between. he's mostly in contact with only dustin and robin. except robin's out of country doing some crazy temp job in some remote country, she never catches him at home right now so just leaves him messages. and it takes a couple of weeks for dustin to realize he hasn't gotten steve on the phone.
frantically he calls around "have you heard from steve???" except the most people talk to steve anymore is like phone calls during holidays and holy shit what could have happened??
and what if it's back?
cue everyone who can in that moment, rushing back. eddie hopping on a flight from fucking london direct to indianapolis somehow, heart in his throat. he manages to meet hopper in the airport and they pick up max and dustin at the bus station.
they get to hawkins that is even more different that what they left. a smaller town, a town that shuts down completely when the sun sets. it's creepy and deserted.
except for the fucking upside down monsters of course.
and they're in their stupid little rental in front of this demogorgon and they're screaming but then the thing just goes splat on the concrete and steve fucking harrington is blinking owlishly at them.
"Oh, hey guys!" he calls jogging up to the driver's side window. "Wow, what brought you back down this way? You should have told me, I would have told you about the curfew!"
turns out steve just forgot to pay his phone bill that month, didn't even realize he was missing calls and he's been fighting monsters the entire time because actually they WEREN'T cut off from the upside down at all and he's just been casually fighting monsters for the remaining hawkins residence—the whole town knows now and steve's the guy you call when you have a monster problem
sidebar: WAYNE still lives in hawkins, and he and steve are best friends, eddie munson you are gonna LOSE YOUR MIND
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ballpitwitch · 1 year ago
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𝐊𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐮 𝐑𝐞𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤 𝐇𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐭𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐍𝐉 - 𝟏𝟎/𝟎𝟖/𝟐𝟑
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the-woman-upstairs · 9 months ago
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Really fucked up that, when they’re young, Patrick and Art are SO tactile with each other, so comfortable sharing the same space. Art lets Patrick touch him and move him and physically overwhelm him and easily acquiesces to it, if not outright enjoys it.
Then in the present, they’ve been so far out of each other’s orbit for so long, held such animosity that when they have their moment alone in the sauna, Art physically recoils from Patrick’s close proximity! It’s so painful to watch because even as Patrick’s goading him, it’s so obvious he wants to be able to get back into Art’s space. But Art has erected all these walls around himself, he refuses to give Patrick an inch or even admit to missing how close they used to be!
AND THEN we see Art and Tashi later and he wants her to hold him, to be gentle with him, and just TOUCH him. Like, he does miss that kind of close physical contact! He either doesn’t know how to ask for it or is uncomfortable being that openly vulnerable. Worth noting that he pretty much always defers to Tashi in regard to initiating physical intimacy (with their first kiss, though he does state his desire, SHE has to be the one to make the first move). And it seems pretty obvious that Tashi herself isn’t comfortable providing that intimacy, whereas Patrick actively seeks to provide it (the hug/forehead kiss after their win together in the early years, dragging the stool closer to him).
Art has tried very hard to act like he doesn’t need physical affection and even though his discipline and devotion to Tashi has made him a stronger tennis player, it’s made him a hollow person, which, in turn, has kept him from becoming a GREAT tennis player.
All of this, of course, is why the ending hits so damn hard.
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quicksilversnails · 28 days ago
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Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!
(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)
(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off
(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods
(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry
(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch
(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits
(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!
(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were
(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well
(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol
(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations
(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable
(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them
(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated
(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season
(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.
(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!
(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails
(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good
(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild
(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.
(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected
(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly
(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly
(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat
(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.
(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly
(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season
(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again
(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much
(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.
(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey
(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔
(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)
(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.
(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster
(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect
(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily
(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%
(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos
(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously
(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.
(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential
(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)
(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video
(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool
(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations
(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused
(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team
(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met
(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them
(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them
(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap
(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning
(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end
(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair
(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)
(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days
(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily
(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.
(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability
Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)
(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights
(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on
(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators
(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"
(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage
(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character
(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable
(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"
(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them
(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died
(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.
(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting
(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)
(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)
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stealingyourbones · 2 months ago
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Everyday I exist and every day I get more and more exhausted seeing the “lol Batman looks at Danny and goes “who’s gonna adopt this kid” He’s so adoptable!” posts.
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littlefankingdom · 7 months ago
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I saw another post criticizing Bruce for having children fighting at his side, and I must say: tell me you don't know shit about the batkids' stories without telling me. Bruce fucking tried to stop those kids from being vigilantes, but they keep doing it behind his back, so he decided the best thing to do was to give them the proper training, an armor and to have them stick at his side so he can watch over them. You know, like a parent telling their underage children that they can drink alcohol but only at home where they can watch over them.
Dick became Robin because he wanted revenge over his parents' murder. He would run out in the street of Gotham as a 8 years old, all alone, to go fight Zucco. Bruce helping him make Robin was the compromise to keep Dick safe, because the child would not listen. (And yes, it wasn't the case in the very first canon, but it was like the 40s. Do you know how many kids fought against the Nazis in Europe at that time???)
Barbara Gordon is not his daughter and he has no authority on her being a vigilante. He cannot even ground her.
Jason became Robin after helping Bruce take down Ma Gunn's school. It is implied by Bruce, while talking to Dick, that he offered Robin to Jason as a way to gain a child because he missed having Dick around. He didn't need a Robin, he just missed having a kid. Bruce used the Robin mantle with Jason like people use churu to appease stray kitten. AND JASON'S DEATH, let's talk about it. Jason ran away, which leads to him being killed, after eavesdropping on Bruce and Alfred talking about Jason's mental health. Jason is benched as Robin, but not because Bruce thinks he killed someone like fandom says, but because Bruce knows it is not helping or healthy for Jason. They are talking about getting him help for his traumas and how violence is not helping Jason. And, when he is older and has healed, they can try again if he wants to. That's why Jason or people saying that Jason died because he was a soldier, or blaming Bruce for Robin's existence is false. When Jason died, Bruce was against Jason being Robin for his own health! And Jason knows that, he heard the discussion, he wasn't bench like how so many of his siblings are, with little to no honest explanation. Jason died in the Robin's costume because of his own stubbornness, not because of Bruce. (And that's not blaming Jason for his death. He is not to blame, but neither is Bruce. It's just about the Robin's colors. Jason would not have been wearing them at the time if he listened to Bruce.)
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Tim Drake imposed himself as Robin. Bruce was against it, Tim literally went "Don't care, didn't ask". And Tim was already following them around before. Bruce already have Jason blaming him for making Tim Robin when he had no control over that.
Stephanie Brown became a vigilante before Batman knew her. He has tried SO MANY TIMES to make her stop, and so many fans hate that he did it. Make a choice, is it bad that he didn’t stop her more or that he didn’t let her more be a vigilante? He even got his kids to try to make her stop. AND SHE IS "KILLED" TO TEACH HIM THAT MAKING KIDS VIGILANTES IS BAD WHEN HE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE OF HER BECOMING ONE AND TRIED TO STOP HER! No shit the man blames himself for things that are not his fault, everyone does it.
Cassandra Cain was 17 when she becomes Batgirl, so I don't know if she counts. But when Bruce tries to make her stop for her own health, with the support of Barbara and Alfred, Cass is devastated and doesn't obey him. She puts on her costume and fights him physically.
Damian Wayne was trained as an assassin. In every version of him being introduced to Bruce, Bruce is against making him Robin and Damian keeps sneaking out. Damian wants to prove himself to his father so bad and refused to be kept away from the fight. In the comics, it's Dick, DICK, that makes him Robin when Bruce is gone, because Bruce was against letting Damian out at night.
Conclusion: Bruce is a tired father of a bunch of kids that cannot understand they should stay home at night and not be vigilantes.
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blorbologist · 7 months ago
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Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.
I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.
... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.
Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.
NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!
The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.
Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?
They're level 13.
At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.
At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.
While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.
Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?
The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.
Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.
Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.
It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.
This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.
They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.
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bluerosefox · 1 year ago
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Joker Messed Around and Found Freaking Out.
Okay hear me out..
Class trip to Gotham, class gets held up by Joker who actually can scare the class cause they are still teens and they know Joker has a high kill rate, like yes they're used to ghosts and junk but none of them wanna die yet or at least die outside of Amity, if they die they wanna have a chance of coming back as a ghost at the very least.
Anyways, Danny feels pure dread when Joker takes Jazz hostage, who was elected to be a chaperone for Danny's class since her volunteering would look good on college recommendations, and finds her little mutters about his mental health reminding him of Harley before she left him. He even jokes about needing a new partner and wonders how long it'll take to break her like he did to Harley.
Danny is frozen in his spot but something snaps when he hears Jazz cry out after Joker backhands her. Before anyone, even the Bats, realize it Danny is on top of the Joker beating his face in, he only gets up once, takes Joker's discarded crowbar and slams it over his head, barely grazing the dazed man but it does destroy the flooring behind him, while screaming to never ever touch his sister. That he will destroy Joker if he even thinks about coming after her. That even in the afterlife he'll never be safe from him.
All this happens so fast that by the time the Jocks from Danny's school, Red Hood and Nightwing get Danny off, Joker is beaten badly. He's still feral screaming at Joker though, calling him everything under the sun, spouting off about how the dead are ready to rip him apart when Joker (or you can have Danny call him by his actual name if you wanna strike some "the fuck? How'd he know that?") Finally passes away, that even death will not save him from Danny's wrath. Danny is squirming hard in their holds, nearly breaks free a few times when he hears Joker groaning, but only stops when Jazz, after getting looked over by Red Robin comes running over and just..
Hugs Danny.
And like a kitten getting scuffed by the neck he goes limp. Just breathes heavily, eyes burning from anger, fear, tears, and relief, before he returns the hug. He starts crying and mutters low that he can't lose her, that he almost lost her again and "is this even a fraction how Dan felt when he lost you?"
And Jazz just shushes him and does what she can to comfort him...
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 5 months ago
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Ghouls night out
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#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#lan wangji#Scopophobia#Don't be mean Lan Wangji - the dead girl aesthetic is a curated one. Support women's rights to look dead!#I have been waiting for this scene for ages...the ghost girl entourage is such a good look for WWX.#And by gods does the audio drama actually do something interesting with one of them.#Namely that we actually get to see WWX talk with them and learn about who they were and what they left behind.#I love necromancer characters but it's way too common for them to be like “Go! Ghost no.145!” like they're a pokemon#and not...you know...someone who had a whole life that they left behind.#I love me a necromancer who has an awareness to whose soul/body they are using. It adds a lot of flavour!#MDZS is a little hit or miss with this. I think the fans do a lot of the work with making Mo Xuanyu a bigger character.#Yi City has this in spades. Even though we don't individually get character backstories#We get many painful reminders about how these 'corpses' were people.#We also get a few lines about how WWX used whatever corpses he could get his hands on (including grandparents - Woof!)#MDZS often (but not always) likes to remind us that every sacrifice and every ghost was a person.#It is so close to nailing the landing regarding the deconstruction of the necromancer character.#Anyhow. You may have noticed the uptick in quality in the last two comics. Rule of three means next one is going to be a treat B*)#See you all very soon!
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somnimagus · 1 year ago
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My page for @kairizine. It was such a huge honor to be part of this wonderful book with everyone, I had so much fun!
[id in alt!]
#kingdom hearts#kh#kh kairi#kh xion#kh namine#i don't really feel proud of my own stuff usually but#i really think this is the drawing i'm most proud of from this past year!! it made me think 'oh maybe i can draw' haha#i'm still kinda bad with colors but something clicked with this one. and i feel like i got the sentimental feeling i wanted!#ooh but this project's about flower symbolism so ramble incoming:#protea symbolizes resilience transformation and diversity; hollyhock means 'please remember me.'#so my general theme was finding a sense of self.#these 3 have struggled with finding their own identity; they tend to get left behind both in-universe and in general plotwise#and naminé and xion both resemble kairi and were overshadowed by her memory. but i feel like all 3 have transformed into their own people#xion and naminé have their faces covered partially by hollyhock to show their wish to be remembered for who they are-#instead of the parts that they share with someone else#and the protea bouquets show how they each held on and resiliently grew into their own person despite it all#i put a little swervy path on the hill behind kairi to give that hopeful sense of growth and moving forward. it's a little hard to see#hopefully that makes sense! i really love symbolism but i think in visuals so i'm really bad with words#but gosh working with everyone on this project was so fun. it was like impossible not to get swept up by the team's hype for this zine#i need to hunt down everybody's work and rb it#ohh and everybody's flowers are so crisply drawn it's insane!! i think if i lined all these flowers and leaves i'd die haha#fan art#my art#project stuff
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idontmindifuforgetme · 8 months ago
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how are you so in love with yourself...this is not me accusing you of narcissism or smth i genuinely am in awe of how much you seem to like yourself and be in love with yourself and I try so hard to be like you and do that too but i fail every single time...i really really want to know how I could be like this too because i know it is one of the biggest things stopping me from achieving happiness
Not sure if this is a ubiquitous experience, but for me personally affirmations can only go so far. There’s always been a direct correlation between me doing action-based things and my self-esteem increasing, so I try to keep my promises to myself (study at x time, work out at y time, just doing whatever I need to do even if I don’t have the motivation for it). Someone told me that self-esteem comes w doing esteemable things, and I’ve never forgotten that since. What someone thinks about me (including the gargoyle voice in my head lol) won’t faze me if I have tangible accomplishments under my belt I can refer back to on bad days
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vaperarmand · 9 months ago
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have you ever seen two people more married in your entire life. please
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