#the twins' first death is heavily implied to have been very early on in the world's life since the Great Dragons were created in answer

[cyraen-ae]

Random Dragonfable Theory : the Twin Dragons and Hawkscry

So, a while back, the DF devs posted this Pantheon Chart

So a bit of time ago I decided to take a stab at it, with... mixed results

However, the one I'm currently focusing on is this one

Clearly, the two green squares made alongside the Avatars by the Aequilibria are the Twin Dragons. However, this singular square beneath them bothered me... a lot. I couldn't find a proper idea of what it could possibly be And then, an idea struck me Let's go back to a poem that was the source of a previous theory of mine for me : the Hawkscry Calamity Poem

The first three animals are references to Mechquest and GEARS, right? But what about the Dragon. A reference to their disappearance in MQ? Maybe, but... how does it relate to Hawkscry But, there is something else that relates to dragons and disappearances

The twin's first Death, directly described by GenoKratos and implied by a book in the Falconreach Libraseum So, to recap Hawkscry's destruction, according to the AF2 Poem, involved a dragon, somehow, somewhere, and it resulted in this dragon's disappearance The Twin's first death was also explicitly described as a disappearance, with the source of their death unknown What if these two are linked? What if whatever caused Hawkscry's destruction also resulted in the death of one or both of the Twins. What if they were actively responsible for Hawkscry's destruction, or were simply present and caught in the explosion. Of course, all of this could be circumstantial evidence, nothing concrete... however there is one more thing that has been on my mind. And it's the text that appears if you hover your mouse over the Fissure in the Travel Map

Symbolism much?

[lucky-sevens]

mechanisms fiction!

also known as: i read all the fiction so you don’t have to!

under the cut: summaries of each fiction, word count, and content warnings! the summaries are of my own writing, and unlike the ones on the website, i’ve opted for useful rather than intriguing. i’ve also ordered the list to make a bit more sense/fit better timeline-wise!

some of the fiction has an audio version; i’ve included links to TheVoidSings’ lyric videos of said audio where applicable!

i’ve put the ones with relevant lore in bold, the ones i personally like in italics, and i’ve put a * after all the ones that include the mechs!

AURORA AND THE CREW

breakup*

summary: nastya and aurora have an argument and then both go off to sulk. mostly focuses on nastya. interesting thing: scuzz is in this one!

word count: 707

content warnings: implied nsfw

the story of the toy soldier*

summary: it’s the toy soldier’s backstory! covers what’s probably at least a decade and has a lot of lore! also has illustrations, most likely courtesy of ts!

word count: 605

content warnings: murder, images of choking, implied rape

who killed doctor carmilla?*

summary: carmilla’s just been pushed out an airlock and various mechanisms are going around trying to get an alibi out of everyone.

word count: 647

content warnings: n/a

interview transcript 34/08/7012*

summary: a police officer attempts to interview jonny when he’s in prison. includes a lot of information about him that’s nice to have for characterization!

word count: 782

content warnings: discussed murder, including child murder; attempted suicide

archive footage*

summary: an ivy character study, pretty much! goes into her fucked up brain and how it works. one of my personal favorites, as it’s very well written.

word count: 1390

content warnings: death, minor blood/gore

octokittens*

summary: a short one-off featuring some ashes and jonny banter!

word count: 208

content warnings: guns, animal death

feeding the octokittens*

summary: another one-off: this one has some quality tim, ivy, and nastya content. very fun!

word count: 455

content warnings: animal death

tales of the blogbot*

summary: comes off as an odd fiction, addressing the ‘blogbot’, the thing that used to send out the updates on the mechs mailing list (among other things) and makes passive-aggressive comments about them occasionally. goes through a few answers to what the bot is, and comes to no conclusion, but directly links to the next fiction in my list, ‘ghost in the machine’.

word count: 988

content warnings: referenced mass murder, implied nsfw

ghost in the machine*

summary: what happened to aurora’s programmer when jonny and carmilla took over ‘her’ ship (which is explained/expanded on in ‘how the aurora was won’); lots of aurora lore, as well as a more close view into the actual atrocities the mechanisms commit.

word count: 1152

content warnings: death

how the aurora was won*

jonny steals the aurora from the cyberian navy, in the most unsettling way possible!

word count: 631

content warnings: suicide, graphic depictions of violence

a bedtime story*

some fluffy nastyaurora for the soul!

word count: 326

content warnings: n/a

drive the cold winter away*

part of a group with cyberian demons and nomadic spacers! i think i’ve arranged them chronologically, but might have messed it up.

nastya visits the ruins of cyberia. jonny and ashes are there.

word count: 432

content warnings: n/a

cyberian demons*

a nastya character study- reflections on her memories, as she works on destroying what is left of cyberia.

word count: 1699

content warnings: blood, violence

nomadic spacers*

an outsider pov on the events of ‘drive the cold winter away’ and ‘cyberian demons’.

word count: 1120

content warnings: death

out*

nastya leaves the mechanisms for good after she finds her love, aurora, is no longer who she once was; presumably, this is her death.

word count: 1210

content warnings: suicide

ONCE UPON A TIME [IN SPACE]

gingerbread

hansel and gretal’s villain origin story! (they were the scientists speaking in ‘the twins’)

word count: 609

content warnings: child neglect, murder, needles/syringes

midnight

a bit of a cinders character study/some more of her backstory!

word count: 628

content warnings: n/a

mirror, mirror (audio version here!)

post-pump shanty/snow’s flight. the beginning of snow’s descent into a worse person, and how it overlaps with the myth of snow white/how she begins to take on the role of the evil queen.

word count: 860

content warnings: smoking

a fireside chat

a radio broadcast by scheherazade, king cole’s chief propaganda minister.

word count: 842

content warnings: mentions of concentration camps, death, and bombings

a rebel yell (audio version here!)

counter to ‘a fireside chat’- a radio broadcast by tom thumb, the voice of the rebellion! one of my personal favorites, as it’s very funny.

word count: 574

content warnings: mentions of mass murder

chapter’s end*

mad jack spratt and jonny d’ville play cards.

word count: 790

content warnings: discussions of death

by any other name

basically all the lore around briar rose, in a form of a report by hood, the rebellion’s hacker!

word count: 2023

content warnings: murder, graphic depictions of violence

this little piggy

all of the (incredibly fucked up) lore around the three little pigs!

word count: 993

content warnings: child abuse, brainwashing, non-consensual body modification, medical abuse (it’s a very intense one, please stay safe!)

what big eyes

all the lore we have on hood, in the form of king cole’s intelligence officers trying to figure it out.

word count: 1946

content warnings: mentions of war crimes and death

in the army*

the toy soldier and a group of rose reds hang out in a bar together! it’s a very fun one, with lots of banter! presumably takes place before the toy soldier met the mechanisms, but we don’t know that for sure. lots of lore about the rose reds, as well!

word count: 707

content warnings: mentions of war crimes and death

true love

colonel belle’s report on her efforts to manipulate adam ‘the beast’ bete into joining the resistance. (the mechs’ take on beauty and the beast). also a small bit of lore about rose!

word count: 1151

content warnings: manipulation, torture, unhealthy relationships

one thousand and two

a character study of scheherazade- the thoughts running through her head as rebels are about to find and kill her.

word count: 2236

content warnings: suicide; mentions of torture, concentration camps, and child death

ever after*

you know how jonny was being annoyingly cryptic about what happened to briar rose! well, they have a fiction that says!

word count: 680

content warnings: graphic depictions of violence

ULYSSES DIES AT DAWN

you’ll have to tell us the story sometime*

the mechanisms explore the ruins of the city, thousands of years after the events of ulysses dies at dawn!

word count: 469

content warnings: n/a

death in the metropolis

not anything super relevant- a news article about gang violence and the increased shifts for acheron workers as a result, setting a bit of a mood for the city as a whole. establishes hermes’ role in olympus.

word count: 547

content warnings: nothing to note, but there’s the background fucked-up-ness of the city going on and mentioned!

how not to die

another news article, this one focused on a group of people (���helljumpers’) trying to escape the acheron.

word count: 926

content warnings: suicide

fao: hermes – not urgent

a bit of a followup to the previous two fictions! the editor, herodotus, gets in trouble for discussing the helljumpers.

word count: 453

content warnings: n/a

orpheus, dionysus, muriatic acid and the strange whirring thing*

a look into orpheus’ character and how he ended up in the ulysses job! (mechs don’t heavily feature- just a note of the role brian took on, as well as mentions of ashes of course)

word count: 5017

content warnings: addiction, suicidal thoughts, police; implied nsfw, but only in the context of orpheus being a sex worker

orpheus and narcissus go to the seaside

i personally really love this one! it’s low-key the mechanisms’ take on the great gatsby- takes place a few years prior to the above fiction, and explores orpheus and narcissus’ friendship! it’s morbidly funny, with lots of very good banter/interaction! 

word count: 6300

content warnings: eating disorders, addiction, implied nsfw (again in the context of sex work), suicidal thoughts, mental institutions (even if that’s not normally a problem for you, they get very dark and graphic, so be careful), non-consensual drugging; technically self-harm, but it’s a lighthearted joke

in the madness of war

how ulysses was forced into the war (a darker take on the story about him attempting to avoid it at first).

word count: 817

content warnings: n/a

the hacker’s mistake (a fiction to accompany prometheus)

prometheus is revealed as corrupt, but that doesn’t stop people from believing in him, so he is made an example of.

word count: 903

content warnings: torture

one of the chosen

another low-lore worldbuilding piece- this one about a teenage girl who gets conscripted to the acheron early.

word count: 824

content warnings: n/a (it’s fairly dark, though, so be careful).

eskhatos*

after the events of ulysses dies at dawn, the mechanisms leave, but not without causing a bit of chaos first.

word count: 464

content warnings: cannibalism

HIGH NOON OVER CAMELOT

the fastest shot

guinevere’s backstory! 

word count: 792

content warnings: murder, child abuse, alcoholism

the sharpest aim

a western-style tall tale, starring lancelot!

word count: 1667

content warnings: relationship abuse, murder, violence

i will rule this town*

another personal favorite! expanding on ‘ten caliber railgun he got off a bandit in the flooded sectors’, it deals with arthur’s attempts to bring down nimue, the lady of the lake, and gain control! also has some lancelot/arthur/guinevere fluff, and a bit of an insight into his friendship with brian- as well as his original hopeful mindset, and how that diminished.

word count: 1488

content warnings: murder, drowning

the wake

morgan le fay (mordred’s surrogate mother)’s funeral, and mordred’s decision to go seek out camelot.

word count: 1045

content warnings: death (but only in the context of it being a funeral), cultural cannibalism

pellinore and the beast (audio version here)

this one’s a bit of an odd one- i’ve included it for the sake of completion, as it’s on the fiction list, but it’s just the lyrics to the mechs song pellinore and the beast? i’ve excluded the word count and content warnings for this one, as it’s literally just the lyrics. unsure of what to do here.

OTHER

the prisoner of dorian gray

the mechanisms’ take on the story of dorian grey! this one is part fiction, part song lyrics with a note of the tune they should be sung to.

word count: 1746

content warnings: suicide, torture

and that’s it! the fiction is all very good and well written, and i’d highly recommend reading at least a few of these!

[radramblog]

Radiohead Retrospective Part 9: Hold me, hold me

We’ve arrived at the final Radiohead album to date. The only one to come out since I became a fan, and as such the one I can actually remember listening to for the first time. On a cold winter morning in Perth (so not that cold), releasing on a Monday, I excitedly ran up to buy the album on iTunes and download it before I had to catch the bus to uni. The last time I think I will ever have bought music on that platform, at this point. I remember listening to the opening two tracks, the two that had dropped with gorgeous videos over the weekend, before diving into the album proper.

And then a mate showed up at the station when I was transferring buses so I ended up talking to him instead of listening to the second half, and I didn’t get to do that until the afternoon.

I think it’s fitting that this album be the one with such a story attached, considering how personal an album it is compared to the previous few. A Moon Shaped Pool is a clear reflection of the events surrounding it- Thom’s divorce from his partner of 25 years, Rachel Owen, and her subsequent early passing from cancer, and the death of producer Nigel Godrich’s father during the recording sessions. There’s a deep loneliness and tragedy in the album, and one that seriously resonates with the times.

With that in mind, Burn The Witch is kind of an odd fit for the album. Themes of mob mentality and moral panic, images of medieval plague houses and witch hunts don’t quite suit the tone A Moon Shaped Pool generally conveys. Which is why it’s probably for the best that the song appears at the very start of the album, somewhat separated from the bulk of the work.

This might imply that I don’t like the song. Far from it, for a while, Burn the Witch was my favourite track on the entire thing. I adore strings on rocky music, and in this case, they almost chug, like the guitars on a System of a Down song, with the electronic elements being such an excellent subtle contrasting part of the music. Thom’s vocals are all-encompassing in the chorus, and the timing of the strings getting that little psychotic edge to them at the same time is so perfect.  

As much as the album is separate from this song, it’s still an excellent choice for an opener, both in the tracklist and the promotion. Because like a fair few other songs on this album, Burn the Witch has been a Radiohead song without a home for a very long time, as early as the Kid A era, with early versions of its lyrics showing up in the Hail to the Thief art and website. It was something hardcore fans had been clamoring for for more than a decade, especially after one live show where Thom responded to the cries by playing the first few bars- and then saying “alright for the rest of it you’ll have to wait until we get the orchestra” (paraphrased). And get the orchestra they did, with its majesty in this song being a statement.

Daydreaming is an extremely different song from Burn the Witch, as one would imagine from what I’ve said previous. Piano driven and muffled with allusions to Plato’s Cave, it’s a song that sounds like giving up, and all the pain (and all the comfort) associated with it. The song is a slow, slow build to an emotional climax who’s lyrics are incomprehensible on account of being backmasked. For the record, it’s commonly believed that they’re “Half of my life”, a reference again to Thom’s relationship with his late wife.

The song is relaxing for its majority, the soft pianos and vocals a cold comfort to the defeated emotion the song portrays. This is sort of shocked out of the system 5 minutes in, as the strings are louder and clearer, and the backmasked vocals get more distorted, and loud, sounding like snoring, drowning out the gentler electronic sounds. This does eventually settle, with both strings and vocals lowering to more of a rumble, everything else fading out until they are all that remain. The note the song ends on is kind of disturbing, frankly.

It’s somewhat awkward that the two songs with music videos are at the very start of the album, leaving the rest of this to be a wall of text. I’ll find something.

Track 3 presents an interesting parallel with OK Computer, with both Decks Dark and its Subterranean Homesick Alien using UFOs as metaphor for the human condition. Instrumentally, of course, they’re completely different, but the thematic tie is there. Decks Dark has also at some point vied for the place of my favourite track on the album, the very fun, rhythmic delivery of the vocals in the verse something I’m fond of singing along to, and that absolutely killer backing choral giving the song a haunting feel.

Decks Dark effectively has four distinct sections- Chorus(?) 1, Verse, Chorus 2, Outro. The first chorus is this very mysterious thing, light on instrumentation aside from an electronic drum beat and a simple piano line (with heavily panned noises that I’m pretty sure are only in the right ear). The verse, as I mentioned, has the haunting choral and fresh bars, a heavier piano laden into its airy instrumental, a quiet but killer bassline that gets to kind of show up in the second chorus. Chorus 2 feels like a reflection of the first, a bit more grounded, the mystery explored, and the outro is… I mean the bass and piano are great but I always forget about this part of the track, like I could take it or leave it. Fortunately for said outro, the song is very much more than the sum of its parts, and it’s an excellent fit for the album.

Speaking of being able to take or leave things, I’m not particularly huge on Desert Island Disk. A low acoustic guitar-based track, with a distant echo of an electronic piece playing only in your left ear for like, half of the track, with less subtle electronic sections following up, panning between ears, that (and I mean this as a compliment) remind me of the Spore soundtrack. Christ that’s a weird comparison.

There’s an interesting moment where a new acoustic riff comes in right as you’re getting lost in the haze, cutting through the electronic fog (as it becomes the only instrumentation present), which is honestly a very precise bit of musical timing. I do enjoy the lyrics to the song as well, what with its final line probably not deliberately being an LGBT+ affirmation but sure working as one. The song is, basically, pretty okay, but don’t be surprised if I skip it on my next (less thorough) listen-through.

Ful Stop is a track that often convinces me I’ve fucked up my headphones or something, because of how quiet and how slow the buildup for its introduction is. It’s probably the angriest track Radiohead has put out in the last decade, harsh electronics and accusatory vocals kind of a surprise after the chillness of Desert Island Disk. The bass is killer in this song’s first half, and the almost cyclical presentation of its various elements as the bass and drums are still slowly getting louder and clearer is excellent until it breaks into its second half. I…forgot how long the first section of the song was, frankly.

The second section is really interesting, with its twin vocals making like the instrumentation as “Truth will mess you up” slowly gets quieter and quieter to the point of inaudibility and “All the good times” rising into clarity, all while the instrumentation just keeps chugging. I understand this one is one of the songs that predates the album (and unlike Burn the Witch was actually played live), and I’d like to see exactly how that particular one panned out before A Moon Shaped Pool took it’s approach to it. Good track!

Glass Eyes somewhat reminds me of Faust Arp, in that it’s a much quieter, shorter, and vocally driven track than what surrounds it. And just like Faust Arp, I really enjoy it. This track is distilled, purified anxiety, brutal yet familiar lyrics and a soft, hesitant piano line to accompany it. The strings are absolutely beautiful on this song, rising and falling with the lyrics, and especially with the second verse.

This song feels intimate, particularly with its last two lines. “I feel this love to the core” is a great illustration of how, when surrounded by harsh reality and anxiety, positive feelings like love can be amplified in context and touch deeper than they otherwise would. Of course, it’s followed up by “I feel this love turn cold”, as this album is, in fact, about tragedy- what do you do when that source of comfort goes as icy as everything else?

Track number 7 is Identikit, and no I don’t know what that means. Actually I don’t really know what any of this song means, to be honest, but it is kind of a jam. It’s also the track where the album’s title, and this post’s one, come in, in a nigh-incomprehensible background refrain in the first section that I’m pretty sure we only know the words for thanks to the lyrics booklet. The first half of the track is fairly simple, vocals (+ that refrain) along with a simple drum loop and guitar line.

And then the bridge comes in. Larger-than-life, especially as the electronics and backing vocals come in for its second section, but it’s always briefer than I recall. Most of the song stays in the relatively relaxed mood of the first verse, with the second being basically the same as the first instrumentally, though the guitar is doing some really fun noodling and there’s some electronic stuff going on in the other ear. I kinda forgot how much panning there was in the album in general- not the type of album for those with only one working headphone. Identikit is a track for which my feelings are a lot more muted than they used to be- not a bad one by any means, but I used to like it more and I’m not sure what changed.

The Numbers opens with n o i s e s and this luscious piano section, experimental and jazzy but ethereal and vague, before its main guitar and drums kick in. It’s a very folksy track by and large, still having the feel of the rest of the album but with a twangier guitar and more consistent percussion, grounding the more airy elements of the track with this very real instrumentation.

Speaking of Very Real, this might be surprising for people who only follow Radiohead’s music and not their politics or people, but The Numbers is actually a climate change protest song. It gets a bit more obvious in the second verse, as the strings come in with this very determined mood, and the lyrics get a bit less subtle about the whole thing. I can’t say I know if anyone’s played this track at a climate rally I’ve been to yet (but they should), but it’s kind of interesting that it took this long for such a song to get made, considering how long Thom in particular has been a staunch supporter of, well, not having oil companies burn the world down.

Our next song is Present Tense, one which I think currently sits as my favourite from the album, but boy does it shift. It’s a very groovy piece, almost liquid in its presentation, one I can’t help but jam to a little bit when listening to. There’s some really surprising elements in the track, a…shaker, or whatever you call those things that aren’t quite maracas, as well the echoing vocals feeling like backing singers, whispering almost as they’re layered on top of each other over and over.

The lyricism in the song kind of speaks its own mood- “As my world comes crashing down, I’ll be dancing, freaking out”. It’s a dance of rejection, of denying reality and shutting down to avoid the world and its pain, but you know, while groovin’. There’s a duality to them, with the verses presenting this anxious spiral and its avoidance, as the chorus’s one line- “in you I’m lost”- suggests a lifeline for the person experiencing this scenario. All in all, it’s an excellent track.

Our penultimate track is one with a total so long that Spotify really doesn’t want to show it all, Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief, which I’m not going to repeat because this post is already super ridiculously long. Fortunately, I have surprisingly little to say about this song. The majority of the track is pretty much fine, good vocals, a relatively basic instrumentation that gets more luxurious for the second verse/chorus, with a second clearer piano line and drums overlaid on their electronic substitutes from the first.

And then the final minute and a half happens, and it’s incredible. There’s no way they could have kept this up for the whole song, but the orchestral section in this part of the song is utterly mindblowing, a beautiful crescendo that serves as the album’s climax, more and more things and strings adding on as the progression of the song just goes and goes until it just…ends. I do wish it was longer, frankly, because there is a whole like half minute of outro that I just wish was more of that instrumental.

The final track on A Moon Shaped Pool is True Love Waits. But to talk about True Love Waits, we need to talk about True Love Waits.

That is to say the live version of the song from a 2001 Oslo concert, present on both I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings and Radiohead: The Best Of (the closer for both and the concert itself), since along with other tracks from the album this was one that had existed for a while before it finally got put to vinyl. It’s a lovely but surprisingly simple acoustic love song, depressing lyrics and wavering vocals aside. The chorus of the song is “just don’t leave, don’t leave”, a desperate plea for companionship that, in this case, seems to have succeeded. The track genuinely feels happy despite itself, a hopeful end to what was surely a melancholic concert. The video above isn’t that version, it’s from a different performance, but it’s close enough.

But of course, in reality, she eventually did leave. And then she died not long afterwards. This tragedy is reflected in the A Moon Shaped Pool version of True Love Waits, an utterly crushing piece of music. Those same lyrics over a simple piano version of the instrumentation, one that feels almost empty, or hollow, echoing into the void with only itself to answer. Those same lyrics that now feel so much more pained, an awful reminder of what was. The line “I’m not living, I’m just killing time” is so much harsher when the song doesn’t have that bright undercurrent to keep it going. While there’s a lot of emotion packed into the rest of the album, True Love Waits is the sonic equivalent of weeping.

It’s…hard to listen to. I believe it was literally scientifically determined, as far as something like that can be done, to be the most depressing Radiohead song. It’s basically not a song I ever listen to as a result- I really don’t need that energy in my life, honestly. Grieving is hard, obviously, but it’s not really a zone I want to deliberately put myself into.

And that is, ultimately, how A Moon Shaped Pool, and Radiohead’s current album legacy, ends. Not on a whimper, but something kind of like it. It’s a very good album, clearly, but there are moments from it I’d rather pass on most of the time- hence I don’t think it’ll ever be, like, top 3 for me.

At this point, Radiohead’s future is kind of uncertain. The members of the band took a break after this to work on solo projects and the like, but at this point, all of those have pretty much wrapped, and so the rumblings of LP10 are likely on the horizon. There’s no way of knowing what another album would look or sound like at this point, so we’ll just have to see. The band did release a 20 year anniversary edition of OK Computer, though, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see one for Kid A/Amnesiac within the rest of the year. It would, uh, have to be within the rest of the year.

The future of this series is of course similarly unclear. While I could and probably should end it, move on to talk about other albums and bands, some part of me does want to go back and take a look at some other Radiohead stuff. There’s B-Sides, there’s solo projects (which I really haven’t delved into personally), theres TKOL RMX 1234567, the list goes on. I guess you, and I, will both have to see next Tuesday. I hope to see you then, whatever it ends up being.

[thephantomporg84]

[REDACTED] be complaining reg. the reactions of having "placed the cultist island Fortuna off the coast of Florida" while having the gall of "It’s the story & the way it’s told that should fucking matter" & "Who cares? It’s fictional geography, you idiots." Feels a bit like failing World-Building 101. I mean, Red Grave based on London would also be a callback to Dante's early concept of being a Brit.

Someone already sent me the whole post of hers that I’m pretty sure you’re referring to lmao. I’m in a particularly cunty but pleasant mood rn, and analysis is kind of my thing, so lets’s break it down, shall we?

Maybe someone can send this her way and… learn that tiny little brain of hers a thing. 😉

It’s fictional geography called world building, you idiots Karen after the cut:

‘I love how a number of shitheels have screeched amongst themselves on this hellsite about how I had placed the cultist island Fortuna off the coast of Florida or somewhere around the Gulf US states (re: the fanfic & project link in my header), whining that it should’ve been in Europe, namely Italy.’

An admission to stalking profiles is not exactly the best way to start a self-righteous rant or advertise your… magnum opus, but go off, I guess.

‘Not only that, but they whined about “plotholes and inconsistencies” without elaborating on what the latter are. The asshole who made the rant was annoyed when I used a poem as a spell in the story (“if I heard that, I’d turn off my PS4.”), but I’m sure she didn’t bitch about the cutscene before the last Agnus boss fight in DMC4.’

Like the movie The Room (2003), it’s just easier to say “all of it” is bad because “all of it” contains plotholes and is inconsistent in tone, has terrible half-baked ideas and plot threads that remain unresolved and/or do nothing to further the plot, is rife with poor + inconsistent characterization, has a lack of any knowledge how the medium it exists in is made, and in general makes me wonder how much pottery enamel you’ve been huffing to think any of this was a good idea. Howeverrrr, in contrast to you, Tommy Wiseau is kind of odd and weirdly charming both in general and about his terrible movie — he’s found glory and success in its terribleness. You, in contrast, remain a miserable cunt with delusions of grandeur.

Dante and Agnus’ Shakespeare bit is actually a pretty well known trope called Ham-to-Ham Combat. Dante and Agnus are both ridiculous Large Hams in DMC4, and when two Large Hams meet, in general, they are likely gonna try to ‘out-over dramatic’ each other. This can lead to a scene becoming either really funny or really corny (or both) really fast. If things go too far — and they do, in this case — the scene can become a Hormel Event Horizon.

‘…but they LOVE the plotholes & inconsistencies if Capcom makes the latter, and writes a terrible story! And Crapcom’s canon for DMC is as straight as a paperclip or a dog’s hind leg. Hypocritical pricks.’

Subjective opinion is not, and never will be, objective fact. People are, as of when I checked again in the last ~5 minutes or so, absolutely able to enjoy whatever media they want regardless of what the general consensus on the quality of that media is.

As an example, I enjoy The Room (2003) despite its terribleness and it never fails to make me laugh, while your magnum opus makes me want to huff pottery enamel so the pain will stop despite you thinking it is the work of an idiot savant.

‘They were also mad that I wrote Dante as a wiseguy who is a little more low-key about it due to the circumstances— instead of being a pathetic manchild airhead that tries too hard.’

You didn’t write Dante.

You wrote Reboot!Donte — a fucking terribly out of character version of him, at that.

‘I was primarily concerned about moving the story along. I didn’t care about where a fictional island is supposed to go.’

You literally had one (1) job, Karen.

‘…Meanwhile, not a single character in DMC4 had an Italian accent, so uh, why should I give a flying fuck where I put it?’

Haven’t you been like… shitting on the DMC staff… for terrible writing… this enti— You know what? You’re obvs way too dumb to notice that contradiction, so I’ll let it slide.

Just… a word of advice, if I may? Don’t ever watch dub TV shows. That last brain cell would fuckin’ just burst all over your carpet.

(Actually, don’t watch subtitled shows either. An extremely popular anime that was set in Italy just wrapped and all the characters — le gasp! — spoke fucking Japanese. You would shit.)

‘I wasn’t paid to write any of what I wrote, but be my guest & send a PM if you want to throw money at me. By all means, do that.’

Oh, thank fuck, because they would have been ripped off, big time.

[ btw, you sound p. jealous of people that write/do creative work/commissions for ko-fi/payment tho. Not a good look tbbh. If it’s any consolation, though, I don’t get paid for making fun of you and/or analyzing your dumb bullshit, either. :( ]

‘The pricks at Capcom didn’t even bother giving us a proper DMC4 and it was a half-assed game, with the latter half being hasty filler material. The “special edition” they coughed up in 2015 was just glorified overpriced DLC.’

Ya know, you gotta be pretty far up your own ass to think this much of your opinion. And I’m saying this as a person that’s pretty far up her own ass like 85% of the time.

‘And another thing, Redgrave City in DMC5 seems to be in England, yet no survivors speak with English accents or slang/dialects.’

Pretty sure no survivors had speaking roles.

If you played the game you’d know this.

‘Meanwhile, Dante and Vergil had lived there when they were kids (until age 8), but they both have ordinary American or Canadian accents. Furthermore, how did the twins make it to the USA or Canada? According to the little booklet in the DMC1 game case, Dante’s office is in modern America.’

You know that invoking the imagery of a specific place without naming your location is normal and standard practice, right? Overwatch even does this (For Ex: Byōdō-in (平等院), Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan is the inspiration for Hanamura, Château de Duingt, Duingt, France for Château Guillard, etc.)

Furthermore, you know the original DMC was a rejected first draft of Resident Evil 4, right? This is what retcon is for. You at least know what retcon is, right?

‘…That information isn’t very important, but I’m bringing it up to illustrate a point that being a fucking pedant about geography in a fantasy game is idiotic, even if the setting is akin to modern Earth.’

So is freaking the fuck out and sending death threats over a fantasy game but you didn’t let that stop you either lmfao.

It’s actually super important to establish your scenery and the way your world operates, especially in a written work in which readers are dependent on your vision and your descriptions, and if you were a decent writer, you’d know this.

‘It’s the story & the way it’s told that should fucking matter.’

YOU HAD ONE (1) JOB, KAREN.

‘What US states are the Arklay Mountains located in?’

General description puts them in the U.S. Midwest. Raccoon City itself is stated to have a population of ~100,000 at the time of outbreak, and the only city in the Midwest that matches that population in 1998 is Springfield, Missouri, with a pop. of ~110,000.

Springfield is on the Springfield Plateau of the Ozarks region of SW Missouri. So they’re part of the Ozark Mountains.

This all took less than ~3 minutes to google, btw.

‘Where is “Zanzibar Land?”’

I actually just wrote a comprehensive answer to an ask a few weeks ago about this. It’s actually stated to be in Tselinoyarsk (Целиноярск), the (fictional) area of the former USSR in which Big Boss carried out the Virtuous Mission/Operation Snake Eater in 1964. Tselinoyarsk itself is heavily implied to consist of parts of Kyrgyzstan and/or Tajikistan. If you played MGS3 you’d know how important the setting and the varied environments/climates are to the game mechan-

oh yeah wait you believe in segregation of story and gameplay mechanics. I forget you’re completely tone deaf sometimes lmao.

How far is ‘Salem’s Lot or Derry from Bangor? Who cares?’

Stephen King does, quite a bit. He even has a map on his website of ‘his’ fictional version of Maine:

My disappointment is immeasurable, Karen.

[joisbishmyoga]

Ok, so, Deshah liked what I implied about Wizarding America in Golden Globe, and asked for my headcanons on the politics/culture/history of the area.  Fair warning: some of this will be difficult and may be offensive.  Hopefully not as much as canon, though.

Wizarding America Headcanons

What I can categorically, unequivocally state is that a LOT of the history, and therefore current politics and culture, of Wizarding America (North, South, and Central) is rooted in two factors: magical healing, and low magical populations.  The first meant there has always been a MUCH larger surviving native population overall than the Muggles know about, and the second meant that the non-African settlers were almost entirely Muggle, having only numbers without magic on their side.  (Africans had a lower percentage of magicals successfully kidnapped and shipped over among the rest, but not as low as the Europeans -- European magicals never had the same kind of poverty and overcrowding inspiring them to move that the Muggles did.)

With higher numbers of natives, lower numbers of magical settlers, and Africans almost all captives and slaves, North America* ended up even more racially divided on the magical side than on the Muggle side.  Which is.  A feat.  Not a good one.

The native tribes of the Americas hid early on.  Starting in the 16th century (the 1500s, the first century of European conquest), epidemics raged through both continents.  Muggle estimations place the death toll upwards of 90%: for comparison, the Black Death was closer to 30%.  Wizarding estimations, able to work with full records, place the death toll around 50%.  The missing 40%, millions of people, quarantined themselves as word of the epidemics -- and just what an epidemic was** -- spread with the plagues.  This eventually solidified into several dozen tribes and tribal alliances living in sovereign states with enforced borders, some more hotly contested than others.

Facts about the North American Nations: - No Squib has ever been born in the NANs. - No one born in the NANs is ever required to demonstrate or study magic.  This is completely unrelated to the Squib rate, of course, wink wink nudge nudge. - The Native Americans of Muggle North America are the descendants of people exiled from the NANs as criminals, prisoners of war, scapegoats, political rivals, the dishonored and shunned, and sometimes voluntary decoys.  (I did warn for offensive.) - Tourism to the NANs is almost impossible, and immigration almost entirely prohibited, even if you are born to Muggles within a nation's borders.  Because, - Epidemics still hit harder in the NANs than anywhere else in the world. - The sole exception to tourism and immigration prohibitions is Cahokia, the largest wizarding city in the world.  It covers nearly half the southern tip of Muggle Illinois, a roughly 100x50 mile strip of "very boring farmland" (spoiler: it's not) from St. Louis to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.  In terms of fame and cutting-edge magic, Cahokia is comparable to Muggle Tokyo.  It still has tourism and immigration caps, though, with some odd requirements.  Tourist visas are expensive and there are no affordable hotels.  Buuuut if you are a proven innovator, like perhaps a Weasley twin, all you need is a medical OK to get the bills waived and immigration papers offered.  (This really sticks in the Malfoys' craws.)

Next down in population are the migrating islands of the Caribbean.  Several hundred of these, ranging from the size of Manhattan down to a rock that can fit thirty ritual dancers and a caretaker's hut, are affiliated in two loose political confederations, though they don't call it that.  The more westerly-tending islands are Taino, and the easterly are Carib, though the majority population of both are of African descent.  When African magicals were captured by slave traders, they would often manage to escape -- in early years of slavery, by surprise and magical ritual; in later years as more and more slave owners outlawed the items they needed, by rescue, sometimes by magical pirates waylaying slave ships.  Since the Caribbean islands can't cross deep ocean, the freed slaves settled with the Taino and Carib and other freed slaves.  For over two hundred years, Muggleborn blacks would be rescued from slavery by the Taino and Carib as soon as they were detected, rarely with permission to cross NAN borders and often with mock corpses left to cast suspicion away from the remaining slaves.  The custom persists, only now it's widespread kidnapping and one of the most contentious issues among the ICW.

Facts about the islands: - the Carib have a wizarding boarding school that arguably should count among The Eleven, but the ICW snobs have completely unfair regulations against shanghai'd students and studying aboard a pirate fleet instead of in a boring landbound building. - magic in both nations is very heavily rooted in Yoruba-derived religions, related to voudoun, voodoo, and hoodoo, but with less Christianity synecretized into it.  Taino houdoun has more Mesoamerican elements, Carib boudou more South American. - the islands count several ports on the mainland and Muggle islands, including New Orleans, Miami, Cancun, Curacao, and Cumana, Venezula.  New Orleans especially has been a favored staging point for the kidnapping raids since they were slave rescues.

Arguably the smallest population of Wizarding North America are the non-native non-blacks (3NBs), whether white, Asian, or Hispanic.  The majority of these are Muggleborn, and the majority of the Muggleborn are schoolchildren studying by mail (or after-school programs, in those few areas where it's legal and there's enough of a population to have an actual class).  Due to immigration laws in the NAN, once a non-native Muggleborn has reached their majority and graduated, they must leave (unless residency is approved, which happens for about 1% of everybody willing to deal with the red tape).  They most often go to Norumbega (a migrating island city which is not part of the NAN, in the Great Lakes), Europe, or South America (where the most ethnically diverse and immigration-friendly wizarding nation in the world stretches from Venezula to Suriname).

Facts about 3NB Wizarding America: - Norumbega is one of the most crowded wizarding enclaves, with most people living in fancy versions of Mad-Eye Moody's trunk. - Those 3NBs who moved to South America's immigration-friendly nation, whether straight from Muggle parents' homes or from Norumbega?  About 50-75% of the white families moved on to Europe as soon as they could claim or fake four magical grandparents and call themselves pureblood. - Since Muggleborns are usually descendents of Squibs exiled from the wizarding world, and 3NBs usually emigrate before they start having children at all, North America has the lowest rate of Muggleborns in the world.

*Although North America generally includes Mexico, it had a different sociopolitical history than America and Canada, and so followed a more Central/South American path.

**I recently read a compilation of the most recent research into the first peoples of the Americas.  A (Native American's) quote from a chapter about the post-Columbian death tolls was like, "[at the time, my people] didn't know you could catch someone else's sickness any more than you could catch their broken leg".  Which I'm sure makes some of us scoff, but almost all our diseases are the result of 8000 years of living with a couple dozen species of domestic livestock and having theirs mutate and jump species -- which didn't happen in the Americas, they only domesticated about four, one of which was dogs -- and various insect-borne diseases that got killed with the insects in the cold of the Bering Strait.

[aragakisan]

[ i’ve seen several complaints about the fact that atlus decided to give shinjiro a route in which he doesn’t die in portable’s femc version if you max his social link. all this talk about how it ruins the game’s theme of death and its inevitability, the myth between castor and pollux, how it’s a cheap cop out etc etc etc and while for most of these i can definitely see where people are coming from, i’d like to talk about why i personally love it a lot, aside from just the fact that, well... my favorite character lives.

...under a cut because i ramble so damn much, as always.

so let’s look at the first argument. death is definitely a huge theme in p // 3, you could even say the main theme, especially after the plot twist with ryoji. and while this is true, it’s good to not reduce the whole game to just that one theme. because aside from this, the persona series as a whole is also very heavily focused on the power of bonds. protagonist having just enough strength to stay alive until meeting everyone at the rooftop, thanks to the promise these friends made? bonds. the forces holding the protagonist together in their battle with nyx? power of bonds. “the power of friendship surges into you” or whatever. it’s cheesy, sure, but what persona game isn’t at some point? c’mon. 

it’s been confirmed that shinjiro’s survival, though made possible thanks to the pocket watch, was actually mainly based on the bond you form with him as femc. it’s not a coincidence you have to max his social link for him to stay alive - you have to form that “unbreakable bond” for it to happen. in the p3.p fanbook i bought a while back there is a section in which theo and elizabeth talk about this particular difference in the femc route, stating that this bond was what had the power to “raise him from the abyss” (i know, i know it’s really funny and over the top but bear with me here) which clearly implies this bond being the key element of why he kept holding on during that seemingly-impossible-to-recover-from coma. i mean, even the stuff he says during his social link about her “messing things up for (him)” when “(he) thought his life was the way it was supposed to be” kind of tries to hint that this bond is slightly faltering his preparedness to die and thus, when given a chance to hold onto life (coma) he does. now, this brings on the question why in the hell would this particular bond then be so damn significant but that’s a meta post for another day. and while it obviously kind of is ship fodder, i personally believe it can make a lot of sense regardless. i think there are good reasons someone like the femc (romantic or not) could have caused a reaction this strong. but that’s beside the point of this particular post. 

--- either way. bonds. bonds being strong enough to have the ability to defeat death. hate it all you want, but you can’t say that the persona series hasn’t used this explanation before. and tbh i myself do enjoy it. give me that tasty cheese.

secondly i want to dissect the “cheap cop out” argument. and to be honest, i ain’t even denying this one. but at the same time, putting shinjiro in a coma is pretty much the only way you could keep him alive in the plot without changing it so significantly that it would collapse on itself. there’s really no other logical way to dish out similar impact as his death provokes in akihiko and ken, to keep him out of the story for the rest of the game ... without killing him. 

now, why am i so against killing him then, besides the fact that he is my favorite character? because! shinjiro’s death route reduces shinjiro to nothing but a plot device! i am not even kidding, he’s literally the textbook definition of a plot device in canon. “ah, let’s just put this character here for the sake of killing him off so he can provide these other characters with some character development! now that that’s over, let’s mention him a couple of times afterwards but other than that act like he pretty much never existed in the first place!” even as early after p.3 as FES’ the answer he is barely mentioned anymore and he doesn’t even appear in the end credits with everyone else and now metis is here to “replace” him as the axe-wielding hierophant. do you see why i would have a problem with this?

shinjiro as a character, in my opinion, has too much potential to let go to waste like this. have you ever considered that ken’s change of heart after the october 4 incident literally would solve shinjiro’s biggest, deepest problem did he get the chance to be aware of it? sure, the accident with ken’s mother is trauma he will never 100% recover from, but i personally believe reconciling with ken could stop the poor boy from obsessing over it, with some time. even enough to give him a new resolution and with that a new persona, as it would provide him with the change needed in order to gain one. a new chapter in his life, in a way. and i’ve also talked about how i think shinjiro wouldn’t be on suppressants nor need them anymore after his recovery (more about that here & here)

so, would this not be the biggest character development you could possibly give shinjiro? and you have all the ingredients for it, put right there ready, set, go -- yet you still think his death route is better? well, to each their own, but i would personally be much more interested to see shinjiro’s character in its fully developed form. he deserves it. and thinking about how having shinjiro there even after all of the events would affect akihiko and ken etc differently is also interesting as hell, imo. i mean, their initial resolutions still remained the same despite the differences in the femc version and the original... so, how would having him back change things? and i mean, ken and shinjiro reconciling..... i think this could give ken some additional character development as well. closure.

lastly, i’ll briefly look at the castor and pollux (polydeuces) thing. so, twin brothers - castor gets killed, so obviously shinjiro needs to die too, right? no more castor, so polydeuces also disappears as akihiko gains caesar. but what if instead of thinking about death in this case literally and directly linking shinjiro to castor and castor’s plot we thought about it symbolically? i talked about how i could see ken’s forgiveness being that one thing, if anything, that would cause a new resolution and a new persona in shinjiro. gaining this new persona would be as if turning a new chapter in his life. symbolical death of castor, no longer chaining him to his past. and thus, the twin brothers both move on together - like in the myth they were cast onto the sky as the gemini constellation. castor’s literal death in the myth was by a spear anyway, like shinjiro’s was supposed to be by ken’s spear, but wasn’t. this already made stuff a lot more symbolic than literal. so i dunno... i just personally feel it all doesn’t have to be so literal. it’s not like akihiko and shinjiro literally did all the things pollux and castor did in their mythology, despite sharing some obvious similarities with the mythological twins and there being a good reason the two of their personas took this form.

...more than anything if i had to give just one reason why i need shinjiro to not die is the plot device thing. he’s too good of a character to let his story end there, at least with how little development for his own sake atlus gave him, giving everyone else a ton of it! it’s just not fair. he was here just to serve a role. and god dammit if he doesn’t deserve more. he has so much potential and he’s a pretty complex character despite the little screen time he was given. this is just how i feel and i feel it quite strongly. shinjiro survival route ftw. ]

[gincvramolly-blog]

{dawn}

“I just really wish you would try, darling.”

Her bare feet slid across the creaking old floorboards, catching on every grain and groove as she tiptoed across the landing. Ginny’s hand floated along the well-oiled wooden bannister as she descended the staircase from her low-level room into the center of the house. Once again, Ginny had found herself lying awake into the earliest hours of the morning, unable to sleep for fear of her own dreams. Countless nights had passed where she’d wake up in a cold sweat, or even in tears. The dreams where she was falling kept coming, but instead of feeling as if she’d landed in her bed, the falling sensation kept pulling her inward, long into her waking hours.

A familiar metallic ticking of gears filled her ears, but she moved straight across the hall and into the kitchen. The clock was mocking her each day, and she could no longer stand to look at its face. One of the hands hadn’t moved in over three months, not to “work” or “school,” let alone “home.” The hand had stayed constant; a reminder to them all of just how much they had “lost.”

Fred couldn’t be dead. After all, she had just seen him, smiling and laughing, and making fun of her love life for the millionth time. He had been playing a game of keep away with some of the back stock from the joke shop, refusing to let her near the special line of love potions and beauty products. She had always assumed that he didn’t want to think about his kid sister using them, but later on, George told her that it was because the twins had always believed that she didn’t need them.

The cicadas sang to her through the open window, inviting her out into the nighttime paradise of her mother’s garden. She bent down to retrieve her worn out boots from beside the kitchen door, slipping one foot at a time into the perfectly broken in leather. Her hand rested on the frame of the door as it groaned open, and a cool breeze gently grazed her cheek, the dust particles from the kitchen swirling and spinning, suddenly full of life. Ginny tucked a billowing lock of auburn hair behind her ear, a slight rustling of paper catching her attention.

She turned to gaze at the old wooden table, glancing at the opened envelopes and familiar emerald green ink, still vivid in the pale moonlight. So many late night teas, early morning breakfasts, and everything in between had happened at that very table, memories heavily laced with every emotion available. Now, in the soft light of the early morning, there was an objective harshness to it; a cold detachment from the laughter-filled evenings spent under warm candlelight.

How was she supposed to go back? Her mother seemed convinced that it would be the best thing for her, for her future, but what did that even mean anymore? So many of her friends and classmates didn’t get to have a future anymore; it seemed unfair to plan hers out and proceed as though nothing had changed.

She pulled the door behind her as she stepped into the night, taking care to leave it open just a hair, enough to get it back open without creaking or crackling. The muddy earth squelched under her boots, but Ginny didn’t stop or slow as she headed across the field. It wasn’t even a conscious decision—her feet knew where she was going before even she did.

She’d expected her mother to beg and plead, to yell at her, something—but Molly had been eerily quiet for weeks, saying next to nothing about the letters from Hogwarts. Her mum was resigned and withdrawn, and that scared Ginny more than the raging storm she’d grown up around. Tonight had been the first time Molly had said anything close to resembling an opinion, and it had echoed around the young woman’s half-asleep mind, keeping her from drifting off in anything resembling peace.

The small stone outhouse grew as she drew closer, and before she was even aware of doing it, her fingers had found the handle, and she felt the heavy, rough door swing open towards her. To any muggle, the sight of almost half a dozen brooms in a spider web-strewn shed may have been dismissed after only a moment, to Ginny, it was paradise. The small, smelly building had been her safe haven on countless nights like this one… Maybe it could be that again, just one more time.

She had six brothers, but Fred and George had always been the siblings that she was the closest to. Sure, she had always had a special bond with Charlie, but once he moved away, it was just the Twins who were there for her every day. They took care of her, teaching her how to be small but tough, and unassuming but deadly. She followed them around like a stray cat, and they took her under their wings, guarding and protecting her while simultaneously building her up to be the strongest she could possibly be.

The brooms were all familiar, handles well polished with the oils from loving palms—that was, all except one. She bit her lip, running her fingertips across the handles and stopping when the light layer of dust stuck to her clammy and cold hands. Ginny had spent years taking each of these brooms out in turn, but it had been months since she’d been in here. Her fingers closed around the dusty handle, and a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature ran down her spine. All of her late night raids, and Ginny had only ever been caught once. He hadn’t said anything to her afterward, and she had done likewise, but she knew he was there, watching from the edge of the orchard.

People always told her that she was so strong, how good she was for taking care of her family, how it must be so difficult. How they could never do what she did. Never be the strong one. Whenever people said things like that to her, she always thought about a picture she’d seen once in a muggle newspaper. A house had burned down completely, but the chimney was still standing alone, teetering, and threatening to crumble with one small gust of wind in the wrong direction.

She moved slowly, but her actions were decisive as she exited the small stone shed, broom in hand. The darkness had given way to a cold, pale blue, and a faint pink glow was just barely discernable beyond the trees. There was a rustle and a snap of a twig, and Ginny’s grip on the handle tightened as she spun to face the source of the noise. Something furry dashed between the trees, and she froze. The lack of sleep but be getting to her, because for a split second, she had almost believed it to be a hyena, wild and full of laughter. A gust of wind tangled her hair around her face, and by the time the mess of red was under control, the beast was gone… almost as if it had never been there to begin with.

“He was so brave,” they always told her. As if brave made up for everything else that had happened. As if they were scolding her to be better, to be brave like him. He hadn’t been as brave as they implied in that moment, though. He hadn’t seen the blast coming; hadn’t chosen to look death in the face…

But they all did, didn’t they? They all had chosen to face the battle and volunteer their wands and their lives for a cause. She always tried to tell herself that he had known this was coming, that he had chosen this, but it never quite helped. Because he was dead, and she wasn’t.

Because maybe she should be, too.

Maybe that would be easier than going on every day, afraid of simple things like walls and books, afraid of the evil that every teapot and spider web could potentially possess, if forced to. Easier than putting on her emotions like she put on her makeup. She knew it was stupid, knew she should just learn to cope like everyone else in the world seemed to.

“I just really wish you would try, darling.”

She was trying—but maybe her goal had been wrong all along. Her family had been the priority; being the caretaker had been her only desire for months, but maybe she was being selfish. Maybe trying didn’t mean being trapped in a house, frozen in time and grief. Maybe trying meant living.

An image of the Hogwarts letters drifted across her mind, and she sighed. Maybe that could be how she remembered everyone they’d lost, and how she helped everyone else left behind. Maybe that was a new way to try.

The summer night was warm, but a cold gust of wind sent a shiver down her spine as she mounted Fred’s broom and kicked away from the ground, leaving her worries behind for the first time in months. Air whipped around her face and her eyes began to water, but whether it was caused by the wind or something much more powerful, she didn’t know.