#they did not have to go this hard a motw

[heyhay13]

Heyhay13 tell us more about Hayden and my life is yours

MY MOTW BOI!! So!! Hayden is a Monstrous class character in a game of MotW I play with friends!! I love him very much and He Has TRAUMA! Some bits about Hayden: - Hayden was turned into the Mothman by a basically "passed along curse" where the last mothman attacked him and passed the curse onto him. - Hayden is a transman. He hasn't had top surgery yet but was on T for about two years before he was turned into Mothman. After that, he wasn't able to get ahold of T because he's been homeless/on the run. BUT- I put the MAN back in Mothman as he's found his body still acts as if he was taking his T. BECAUSE I SAID SO - Hayden recently confronted an angry momma Amarok and convinced her *not* to kill his awful ex-boyfriend's dad. It was a whole ass time and there was so much crying - Hayden's roommate is a soul-bat creature living in his underwear drawer. He feeds it rice crispies and Anthony named it Jacket. - Typically, Hayden is hard of hearing. This is when he's wearing his beanie (which is most of the time) to cover up his antenna. He doesn't have human ears anymore so the result is dulled sense of hearing and smell when he has the hat on. HAVE SOME COOL ART I GOT LATELY!! From @beandaqueen Hayden getting ready to go to a party (it did not go well). Featuring Jacket!

From the amazing @ffruitsalad Hayden's moth monster form!

[housewarningparty]

If you're still interested in doing the AU concepts thing I would love to give you an opportunity to talk and to hear more about s7 hot janitor!Faith

The biggest weakness of s7 au is that I don't actually want to deal with the plot of s7 at all, I just think working class ex con Faith would be really hot and it would be cool if she and Buffy teamed up again. So with the disclaimer that this is strongly vibes over plot

Definitely envisioning a s7 that's more aligned with what "Lessons" set up: Hellmouth shenanigans at Sunnydale High, but this time Buffy is approaching things from the perspective of a counselor instead of a student. More lower stakes MotW style events. Some kind of Hellmouth centric big bad - maybe an evil PTA or something. Who gives a shit.

S7 feels like a good time for Faith to re-enter the scene anyway. Not that everyone's over what she did, but SO many monumental shifts have happened, I think she'd be an easier pill to swallow at this point. Anyway I like the one in/one out rule for redemption arc baddies. A Spikeless Scooby Gang feels like it has room for Faith

The 50/50 Sunnydale High split that Counselor Buffy and Janitor Faith are able to work out is pretty efficient. Being closer to students and faculty means Buffy can keep an eye on rumors and look out for trouble that way, while Faith literally has the keys to the building and license to be pretty much anywhere at any time. I also like the idea that there are certain kids in a particular kind of trouble that would gravitate more to Faith than to Buffy, but that they might be able to work together to help those kids anyway

The high school rumor mill around Buffy and Faith would be insane btw. Dawn would get so sick of people asking her what their deal is. But Buffy and Faith are always whispering to each other off in some corner! They arrive at school together sometimes! They're always staring at each other! SOMETHING IS GOING ON

Dawn would definitely struggle at first with accepting Faith, I think she'd be very committed to resenting her on principle, but the key to Faith's relationships in this au is not winning people over by charming them, but simply by being there, doing what she said she would do regardless of how other people treat her. She is trying very VERY hard to take the lessons of prison and the Angel Brain Walk to heart. But much like in actual s7, the key difference in dynamic between Dawn and Faith vs Dawn and the rest of the Scoobies is that Faith doesn't treat her like a little sister. She doesn't try to tell Dawn what to do or how to be, but I think she'd look out for her in her own way - noticing when a store clerk clocks Dawn shoplifting and subtly stepping in to make sure Dawn puts everything back before she leaves the store so she can't get in trouble, covering for Dawn when she wants to sneak out, stuff like that.

@jewishsuperfam and I have talked about an s7 AU a bunch before, tagging her to jump in and embellish this if she wants to

[randomfoggytiger]

How would you rank the seasons of TXF from first to worst. I know canon ends for you at S8 so you don’t have to include the other seasons if you don’t want to. Mine ranking goes like this (first to worst)

3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 7, 2, 1, 11, 9, 10

Hot take (kind of) = S10 and S11 are not canon… I hate what CC did to the mythology, William, breaking up M and S, etc…

Extremely hot take: IWTB > FTF. I have reasons but I’m not going to get into that right now

I have four answers for this: the seasons ranked by mytharc, the seasons ranked by MOTW, the seasons ranked by quality, and the seasons ranked by favorites.

(Beware: I flame all garbage herein, including my own. ...And there are bound to be typos-- will ghost edit later~.)

Breaking down each season by its characteristics, two main strengths stand out: their narrative or MOTW focus. Each season plays more heavily with one facet than the other (except Seasons 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8, which blends them to varying degrees of success.)

In order of consistent theme-- if not, at times, quality:

The Narratively Strong Seasons: Fight the Future, Season 8 (I know, hear me out), Season 6, Season 3, Season 2, Season 4, and Season 9. Each entry is held together by the backbone of one (or several interconnecting) ideas: Fight the Future quite literally functions around the mytharc, and is stronger for it; Season 8 punctuates almost every. single. episode. with one or more characters trying to either find Mulder or the answers to his disappearance; Season 6 rides the coattails of FTF as the leads find a mytharc resolution and begin to iron out the wrinkles in their personal relationship; Season 2 never forgets the duo's loss of the files and Scully's abduction, peppering his and her struggles into most of the episodes; Season 3 mostly deals with Scully's abduction memories, Melissa's death, and the unfolding mytharc; Season 4 is half cancer arc and half well-written filler, only returning to the main theme here or there; and Season 9 supposedly follows cop-style casefiles and Scully's single motherhood (but is really about Scully weeping on and off while events just happen to justify the next surprise twist.)

The MOTW Seasons: Season 1, Season 5, Season 7, Season 9, Season 11, IWTB, and Season 10. Each season is punctuated by its monsters rather than its mytharc, with the latter taking a backseat to the former. Season 1 is the epitome of the MOTW formula, saving mytharc for a whiff here and there but mainly focusing on the monsters always around; Season 5 is chockful of cryptid excellence and mid-to-fleeting mytharc narrative impact; Season 7 pulls its head above water with each good MOTW episode; Season 9 would be solid if Scully's characterization hadn't been so heavily butchered; Season 11 is iffy on the quality of its characterization and its casefiles; IWTB is appalling in MOTW quality; and Season 10 is the worst, with very little making sense, even in the MOTW moments.

Ranking the quality of each season is a hard and nuanced task. Because I am but a mere mortal with only so much time for contemplation, it's one I shall leave for the individual. Objectively-- the total quality of the product, not just one's favorite parts of it-- though, I think we can all agree that S1-S6 were the best, and that S7-S11's writing wheezed a long death rattle. While enjoyable in parts, perhaps even narratively satisfying at times, the latter's execution iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis bad.

Ranking My Favorite Seasons: Season 8, Season 6, Seasons 1/2, Fight the Future, Seasons 4/5, Season 3, Season 7; then descending order of the sloppily written (S9, S11, IWTB, and S10.) For the fun of it, I'm going to go a little more in-depth on my choices.

Season 8 is a HOT mess, and I won't even attempt to deny it. The MOTWS are mid and the mytharcs are worse. Its strengths, however, lie in how tightly wound the narrative is to Mulder's abduction, which forces the characters to introspect more openly on-screen. Which is great. ...However, the writers lose interest in that angle after Mulder's return; and jump right back into mytharcmytharcmytharc without taking a moment for Mulder to process his own trauma, as well. What separates Season 8 from Season 9 is its characterization: Scully and Mulder stand strong as themselves. While S9 Scully wilts and becomes a background character in her own narrative (which began in Essence-Existence, AHEM, ahem) and S9 Mulder breaks his character off the bat by leaving (even if Scully asked him to... which she wouldn't, given what happened in Essence), S8 Scully doesn't put up with anyone's condescension, making her own-- good and bad-- choices based on established personal work and growth; and S8 Mulder keeps the core of his character in tact-- regressively and progressively-- as he works through the fresh angle of abduction PTSD. We can track Scully's determination, fire, doubts, and fears exactly where Season 7 left off; and we can watch her stretch and grow as she's forced into Mulder's shoes-- so much so, that it's harder for her to walk away from the files to an extent, than her former partner. Meanwhile, DD came back to the season fresh from other acting jobs and injected Mulder's (neglected) trauma with as much nuance as he could. (The lack of exploration for Mulder's PTSD is, by far, the season's largest demerit; and that hinders-- read: butchers-- the finale two-parter because none of Mulder's actions and reactions are properly explained.) I thoroughly enjoy Doggett: his introduction as Kersh's operative and his journey to overcome his mistakes was one I would happily rewatch any day. He's a great character that the writers misused, too-- creating one-off, "going nowhere" episodes just to "explore" him more (which were wastes of screentime, by and large.) By far, his best moments were alongside Skinner (who he becomes tight with), Scully (who he advocates for), Mulder (who he keeps trying to understand), Kersh (who he loses respect for), and Monica (who is here-and-gone; but provides an interesting dynamic, nonetheless.) Skinner is gold in every scene (and that stays strong, no matter how badly written the seasons or movies are); Monica is okay, though not a strongly defined character; Kersh is perfect to hate.

Season 6 is great, great fun; but, unlike Season 7, it doesn't lose focus on what beats are important to maintain (and DD hadn't burnt out completely, so there's that.) My preferred cup of tea is MOTW over mytharc; and this season wraps up the latter decisively. (Perhaps that's factors in this decision.)

Seasons 1 and 2 are just wonderful; and, lo and behold! The mytharc is kept to a minimum-ish. Season 2 mostly revolves around the narrative of Mulder and Scully working through their issues on-screen (...and, now that I think of it, I'm beginning to see a pattern.)

FTF is spectacular, no notes.

Seasons 4 and 5 aren't a particular favorite-- angst isn't my preferred rewatch material-- but I do love their early (and one or two middle) MOTW episodes. I acknowledge, however, that the episodes are in these seasons are incredible; but, again, objectively great, subjectively eh. (Great fodder for analyses, though. ;)) )

Season 3 is so tightly knit to the mytharc that it falls into a greater "meh" category for me. (It's not incredibly satisfying when I know said mytharc falls apart, reinvents itself stupidly, then self-destructs only to reinvent itself even stupider. Over and over and over.)

Season 7 is the slapdash "we're almost done!" season. It has some great-- though cracked here-and-there-- moments; and Mulder and Scully had fun having fun. But the MOTW quality really suffers, and that's the bread and butter for this season. Not to mention the mytharc quality, which really suffers; and if not for the acting, S7 is narratively unsatisfying.

The Slop, as I shall call Seasons 9-11, are just so, so poorly handled. Most agree Season 9 has some great MOTW; but Scully's characterization is broken, and she becomes a sidekick to the Doggett and Monica Show instead of a lead on The X-Files. (I'll forever wish GA had stuck to her guns and not renewed a contract for Season 9; but CC kept asking her to, so, here we are.) I put this before Season 11 only because I haven't watched it (though I know each plot point in its entirety.) Season 11 is incredibly hit-and-miss. The good MOTWs always run into a snag that unravels the logic of the episode; and the bad MOTWs (and both mytharc episodes) are bad. Mulder and Scully haven't grown or progressed as characters, despite their age and relative experience-- in fact, they become less intelligent; and are given impossible abilities and impossible chances to escape death without proper explanation. (The main series put Mulder and Scully in impossible situations many a time; but always set up another logical factor or explanation to get them out of it. When they didn't, that was a pronounced failing, too. The main series, however, did not dim their established intelligence for plot-convenient reasons.) IWTB's MOTW is abysmal (my rants are here and here); and Mulder and Scully whiplash between in-character hesitations and mean-spirited unintelligence. Season 10 is by far the worst of the batch: no internal consistency, be it characterization, plot, or narrative follow-through. (You can find my rants under the Revival Reviler's first-time watch through hashtag.) A failure on all levels. Sidenote: but let me be clear-- if we compare Season 10's worst episode (one of the Struggles) to Season 11's worst episode (My Struggle IV), the faultier season for characterization would be 11, hands down, because it has a higher fall from grace.

Anyway! Those are my thoughts. :DDD Always open to change them if I hear better alternative reasoning~.

[cas---2y5]

going to say something controversial yet brave re my last post: I actually didn’t hate the leviathan story line from s7. In fact, I really enjoyed it and am lowkey pissed they squandered its potential. A much too long rant below the cut

Like hear me out - they were good villains in the beginning. Original evil rising from the depths, they’re invincible to any weapons any hunter knows about, they’re smart and blend in really well, and the only thing they want is everything under their control - all things that make good villains. They were a true adversary later in the show, which was hard to find after the literal apocalypse. They were actually a challenge for the winchesters. Sam and Dean actually had to be clever trying to avoid them, and they had to fight with the purpose of getting away, not winning. Imho, a lot of the later seasons fall victim to ‘Sam-and-Dean-as-unstoppable-killing-machines’ which makes the villains seem watered down and the main stories boring (there’s no stakes if we know salmondean are just gonna wipe the floor with the MOTW).

But s7 had a perfect opportunity to change that. Monsters that they don’t immediately know how to kill, with knowledge on them not easily accessible, and a widespread presence lurking around every corner. The Winchesters had to use more brain than brawn with them. They had to learn how to use tech (or find someone who did) to stay off the grid, bc the leviathans sure as hell were using it to track them. They had to keep a low profile, reinvent new identities for themselves, just to keep hunting them. They could’ve had frank play a bigger part. They could’ve expanded on the fbi manhunt angle more. They could’ve shown them sneaking around more to avoid confrontation with something that even decapitation can’t kill.

And then they DIDN’T DO THAT. They had borax be the all powerful weapon and watered down the leviathans to be less of a threat to the Winchesters (what, no more leviathans tracking their aliases? No more just out and about in random small towns? Not a single one reporting them to local and federal law enforcement??) And don’t even get me STARTED on the whole “cut off the head the body will die” arc where they actually only have to kill dick and then yay! All solved!! No more leviathans!!! They could’ve done such interesting things with the leviathans and then they just DIDNT. Just like with the hallucifer story arc but that’s a whole different 17 page post.

TL;DR, they wasted the potential of the leviathans bc they realized they were too powerful of monsters for the winchesters to solve in one season and for some reason decided this big bad wasn’t worth a multi-season arc a la angels & demons & the MoC

[thryth-gaming]

The Flexibility of Team Playbooks (MotW)

Recently I've had a couple of re-watches of Ghost Hunt and have started watching Jujutsu Kaisen with a friend of mine and I've realized that it's possible to represent both anime with the Hauntbusters team playbook and decided it would be interesting to take a look at the way you can color the same Team Playbook to different flavors.

So let's go ahead and use the examples I mentioned above.

Ghost Hunt and Jujutsu Kaisen are both focused supernatural problems born out of human misery. Both deal with the need to be highly intelligent and workout the limits and abilities of different sorts of powers.

Ghost Hunt focuses on deduction, investigation, rituals, and threats that don't have much physical presence but are still dangerous.

Jujutsu Kaisen focuses on action, tactical analysis, political intrigue, and supernatural curses that remain invisible to most people but are very apparent physical threats.

Some of this is going to go toward the type of hunters involved.

A Ghost Hunt flavored game would lean toward playbooks like Mundane, Expert, Flake, and Searcher. Tough won't be a big focus since the team will rarely be involved in a physical altercation.

A Jujutsu Kaisen flavored game would lean toward playbooks like Hard Case, Monstrous, Wronged, and Chosen. They are going to have good to excellent tough, or ways to fight with other ratings.

Both have characters that could fit the Initiate, but in Jujutsu Kaisen the organization is center stage whereas in Ghost Hunt only one of the characters has association with a sect.

So that's a given: the selection of Hunter playbooks in your series are going to have the heaviest impact on what sort of game you're going to end up running. So let's move on from that and look at the way we can take the Hauntbusters team playbook in different directions to lean toward one flavor or another.

Let's start with Style:

Purgers style asks "Did we destroy a tenacious evil?"

Keep Clean style asks "Did we keep our conscience clear?"

Prevention style asks "Did we stop regular people from committing evil deeds?"

There's also the option of creating our own style.

In this case, I think the style differences between Ghost Hunt and Jujutsu Kaisen can be found in the first two styles easily enough. Neither show delves too much into preventing people from going down a path that causes curses and haunts to happen. The subject is brought up in both shows, but it's not a major element in either show as focus remains on the development of the protagonists over the people they meet.

To be clear, both the heroes of Ghost Hunt and those of Jujutsu Kaisen are focused on destroying tenacious evil and the worry about whether or not they are doing the right thing, but there is a very distinct difference in how they approach each question.

With it's focus on action and intrigue, Jujutsu Kaisen seems to focus far more on the confrontation and destruction of evil and treats the staining of conscience as an inevitable consequence. It does delve into this topic quite a bit beyond the surface and there's room for it to change things up later in the series, but for now it definitely feels like a Purgers style.

Ghost Hunt on the other hand very much focuses on the team making sure they are keeping their conscience clear. This is a repeated conflict in the team between the matter of whether or not to run from an investigation that got to dangerous vs whether or not to take an easier, pragmatic option vs a more difficult, moral option. Which means they fall more into the Keep Clean style.

And now on to Team Enemies:

Jujutsu Kaisen has a clear team enemy in the form of the Curses seeking to create a rebellion in the nature of the world such that humans become subjugated to Curses. I'm not sure this conspiracy has a specific name, so I'm going to refer to it as the Curse Revolution.

Ghost Hunt does not have a specific over-arching enemy but has a more general team enemy that fits within the sample "All the poltergeists" though they sometimes deal with antagonists that aren't ghosts, those antagonists still use ghosts as their weapons.

As to Team Allies:

Ghost Hunt presents a small organization which would be a very large hunter team that would be hard to manage on a table. In that regard, it's very likely that some of the team; like Lin, John, or Masako who are often brought in later in a story; are allies rather than hunters. This allows the table to fill out the small organization.

By comparison, Jujutsu Kaisen's protagonists are members of a much larger and older organization and not high up in its ranks. So their allies represent their mentor to start and then later their handler and the other sorcerer team. This gives them the feel of being part of something much bigger as it is implied their allies have connections to elements of the society the protagonists don't.

And now Team Moves:

In Ghost Hunt the story proceeds at a more sedate pace even with large time skips between days occurring, however, the team often gains clues from the occurrence of suspicious and dangerous events. This seems to fit the team move of bad vibes which allows the team to ask an investigate question in exchange for suffering a -1 forward or 1-harm ignore armor. This fits the cases of characters getting trapped in rooms, falling out of windows, or other unfortunate things that come with valuable information.

With Jujutsu Kaisen's focus on action and battle, it feels like survive the worst is the best option for them as it allows each member to reduce harm suffered by 2 once per mystery with the caveat that they will need to get treated as soon as possible afterwards.

Finally, let's get to Assets:

While Jujutsu Kaisen's team moves around a lot, they do have a central location that they return to between missions. So Headquarters feels the most appropriate especially as that headquarters contains a lot of resources and places to live. This hits the feel of being part of a larger group better.

Meanwhile, Ghost Hunt also has a central location they return to, but it is largely just a place to meet clients and when it comes to resources, there's a greater focus on Naru's mobile headquarters where he brings his van and they set up a central room to monitor the haunt from in each case. So it feels like Mobile Base is more appropriate to a team that is much more discrete and smaller group.

Did I say finally? I think I'll hit one more thing and that's how they level up over the course of their series:

Jujutsu Kaisen continues to hit the feel of expanding on the organization by leaning into introducing more and more allies and assets. If you were to reframe the anime/manga as a MotW series then the players spent a lot more time building the organization than their own team cohesion.

Ghost Hunt hits the feel of a small team learning to work with each other and investigate better by focusing on collecting new Team moves. As they were a small organization and a couple of friendly freelancers, they spent more time focusing on their teamwork and collective skills.

So that's two examples of ways the same Team Playbook can go in two very different ways even accepting that the chosen hunters involved will have the heftiest impact.

[tyrantisterror]

Those of you who are fond of my Midgaheim stuff might like to know that I am now running a campaign in that same setting - one that I'd like to be more or less canon, too! Having a campaign set in Midgaheim is something my tabletop friends and I have discussed a few times before, and up until now I've been hesitant because no system I knew of really seemed to fit it. Like, all of my friends play D&D 5e, but I don't really... like 5e, at least as a DM, because I find the mechanics of it a bit stifling. I mean, I don't hate it or anything, it just doesn't gel with my style. And while I do like Monster of the Week, the system I use for my Offbeat Melody campaign, it doesn't really fit with Midgaheim either.

But then my friend @dinosaurana introduced me to a system called Fabula Ultima, which is explicitly patterned off of JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. And I love JRPGs! It's not as rules light as MOTW, but it's not as complex and specific as D&D 5e either, finding this really nice balance of complexity and freedom that I'm excited to explore. And since it's designed to fit stories as wildly different in content as the many different entries in the Final Fantasy series, as well as other JRPGs for that matter, it was not hard at all to make those rules mesh with Midgaheim's specific brand of bullshit.

^ The Player Characters. Lines & colors by @scatha5, @northstarcene, and @dinosaurana, pencils by me.

^ Some NPCs. Lines by @scatha5, colors & pencils by me.

Last night we did our first session of the first Midgaheim campaign I've ever run, which is also the first Fabula Ultima campaign I've ever run, and I think it's going to be a good one. We've got cursed princes, heartless witches, foul-mouthed dragons, and more! So join us, won't you, as every Monday night we play a new session of No Small Feat: A Midgaheim Fairy Tale.

And if this goes as well as it has so far, it may well be just the first Midgaheim/Fabula Ultima campaign I run.

[yumizurueleonora]

7, 14, 19, 29

7. How many ideas do you have for fics right now?:

So. So many. At all times. A few of them are

-Arata and Akito decide to team up to tease the shit out of one of Arata’s fans that is also Souma’s mortal Twitter enemy

-A certain fic of a certain universe that we’ve been working on

-More Star Trek and MOTW AU stuff

-a baby gets dropped on WEEKEND GARAGE’s doorstep

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, which one would it be?:

Seasons May Turn, But Things Still Stay The Same. It’s the funniest one and I would love to see Kamui being a moron.

19. Post a snippet of one of your WIPs:

He’s still zoning out when Kuba looks past Arata and addresses Akito directly.

“And who are you?” She asks.

Next thing Akito knows, the chaotic spirit of Mizuki Akiyama overtakes him and he has the funniest idea.

“Akito. Akito Tono.” Akito says, reaching his hand out to Kuba. “I’m his little brother.”

Arata’s surprised for a split-second, but then he smirks and reaches out to ruffle Akito’s hair.

“Yeah, Aki’s such a cutie, isn’t he? He even wants to be a singer as good as me someday~”

…Akito’s starting to regret starting this.

Like, immensely.

But he can definitely turn this back around on Arata.

“Yeah, Onii-chan’s such a good singer. But, hey, you’ve never told me about her!”

“What, am I supposed to tell you about all my adoring fans?”

“Well, you always talk about Gale. Gale this, Gale that, ‘did I tell you what Gale sent me this morning?’”

Arata’s jaw drops open slightly and he turns bright red.

“Aki…!”

“Oh, you and Gale… text?” Kuba says, and Arata’s clearly unable to figure out a response, so Akito smirks and turns to her.

“Oh, yeah. All the time. He’s practically Onii-chan’s internet boyfriend.”

Arata glares at Akito as hard as he can before turning back to Kuba.

“Sorry about him. You know how kids are, Masuyo-chan. Can I call you that?”

He winks at Kuba, and she lets out a breathless laugh. Oh my god, she has a huge crush on Arata.

This is terrible. Akito hates this so much.

29. Post something you’ll never post or a scene that was cut from an already posted fic:

This is something I wrote a while ago for fun that I never posted because it’s just this one scene:

When An walks into WEEKEND GARAGE, she doesn’t know what she’s expecting, but it’s certainly not whatever the hell this is.

Kohane and Toya. Screaming at each other at the top of their lungs.

Arata’s sipping on a cup of coffee with the most exhausted look on his face, and he flashes her a glance that says “Get your partner under control.”

“Whoa, whoa!” She yells. “What’s going on?!”

“An-chan, tell Toya-kun he’s being a moron!”

“No, An, tell Kohane that she can’t possibly be a bigger fan of Tsukasa-senpai than I am!”

An freezes.

Oh. Oh no.

There’s an ooh from the corner, and Kisara, Akemi, Tatsuya, and Kotaro are all watching intently.

“Look. There’s no objective way to solve this.” Arata groans. “Can’t you just agree that you like him equally?”

“There actually is an objective way to solve this, I just don’t want to do it.” Akito responds.

“Then fucking do it, whatever it is has to be better than this!” Arata snaps. “You dragged me away from my partner for this! End it!”

Akito groans, and An shakes her head.

“Oh no, you’re not making me betray my partner like that. You call him.”

Kohane looks at her like she’s crazy, and Toya has the smuggest smirk she’s ever seen on him. God, he takes this way too seriously.

Akito sighs and unlocks his phone, dialing Tsukasa-senpai and putting him on speaker.

“Ha ha ha! Hello there, Akito! What do you need?”

Toya’s eyes light up.

“Senpai!”

“Oh, Toya! Are you calling me from Akito’s phone? Do you need anything, my love?”

Suddenly everyone that doesn’t go to Kamikou just freezes.

“Oh no, Senpai. I just needed to prove a point to someone.” Toya says. “I’ll see you at dinner?”

“Oh, of course! I’m making pasta, and I think Auntie’s making cookies?”

Toya tilts his head slightly.

“Mother’s making cookies? What’s the occasion?”

Tsukasa-senpai freezes.

“…Nothing.”

Toya’s face turns slightly amused.

“Senpai, you can’t lie to me.”

“I’m sorry! Auntie swore me to secrecy!”

And suddenly Toya’s eyes light up again.

“She got it, didn’t she? Her and father’s latest recording just went platinum?”

“AGH! Toya, you can’t tell Uncle! She’s planning to surprise him!”

Toya laughs into his hand.

“I won’t. I promise. I’ll get going right now, I think Mother could use some help with the surprise.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry! I’m helping her!”

“Please, I insist.” Toya says.

“Alright, see you!”

Tsukasa-senpai hangs up, and Toya finishes up his coffee before throwing some cash on the table.

“Thank you, Ken-san. Fuck you, Kohane. I’ll see all of you later.”

“Hey! You can’t say that about Kohane!” An tries, but he’s already out the door before she can yell at him more.

“So they’re… cousins?” Arata asks, and Akito sighs.

“It’s a long, long story.”

“I think we have time.” Tatsuya says.

[ananke-xiii]

Some thoughts about tragedy in spn.

Just fyi, I’m not even sure what my point is, so don’t expect anything that’s well-structured or even well written (yay! I’ve got you SO engaged right now, lol). To be honest I decided to share some of my thoughts because I wanted to hear what other people had to say on the topic 😊 so let me know what you think!

My little brain started going off in all directions after 15x20 because I was like “what is going on?”. And I’m not talking about facts, events, stuff that we’ve been presented in the finale and whether I liked them or not. I’m talking about the structure of the whole series. Like, I think SPN never truly decided whether it wanted to be a tragedy or an epic and I personally think that this is what led to the audience’s conflicted response about the finale: ultimately, from a structural point of view, the scale was tipped off in favor of the tragic narrative but the audience was eventually given a (badly made, imho) epic narrative ending.  

We all know that when Kripke pitched SPN he mentioned “On the road” and “The Odyssey” and “real Joseph Campbell stuff”. And in the very first scene of s1e2 we see some guys playing video games (the ultimate media for quests narrative) and one reading “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” so, you know, visually he kept his pitch promises. We’re all set for an “epic hero’s quest across the United States”. But we also know that in s10e5 “Fanfiction” the MOTW is… *drum roll* Calliope! The muse who presides over epic. And she wants to eat The Author of Supernatural . As if this was not enough, Maggie, one of the theatre girls, hits Calliope with… The Odyssey! I know this episode is forever famous for, well, the fanfiction aspect, but I suspect that Robbie Thompson was also telling us something else, considering that by the end of the episode Calliope is dead and Chuck, the established Author and the suspected (back then) God, is alive and well.

So, tldr; I think the load-bearing wall of SPN is tragedy and the epic is just whatever non-bearing walls do.

(and I’m not saying that epic cannot have tragic tones, like at all, I’m talking about narrative structures and, consequently, possible narrative endings)

Because I cannot stop thinking about this thing. Supernatural starts as two guys on a journey to find their father so we got the journey, fine. But what about The Return? Where can they return to? The only “place” that’s identified as a sort of “a return” is the fucking white picket fence life which is a) a “place” that was never really theirs to begin with so, technically, they cannot return there (unless we count it as a sort of “Eden”, a return to their childhood home and memories although, unfortunately, this reading would mean the saddest/most beautiful quest ever cause nobody can really return there without acknowledging the trauma of the fall from it) and b) we know right from the end of the pilot that there is no metaphorical return, as it turns out the narrative is not linear but cyclical. Because, really, whether or not Sam (I will only focus on him as a character for this post or I’ll never stop writing) accepted “The Call” was inconsequential for the story and we’re actually showed this. Sam is, like, this intrinsically tragic hero trapped in an epic hero’s body. His mother died and the story began, his girlfriend died and the story continued. What’s worse is that they both didn’t really have to die, to be honest, because Sam already had demon blood in him. We have literal flashback episodes that show us all the events leading to Sam’s birth. Azazel didn’t care if Sam hunted monsters or not, the demon played his role and the day of reckoning would have happened anyway (and it did and Sam “lost” but this is for another day) like it happened for all the other “special kids”, even if John wasn’t blinded by his grief and didn't vow to avenge Mary’s death .

And I think this is why s4-5 hit so hard and people love them so much: because there the trick is exposed, the narrative was never an epic but a tragedy. Destiny enters the chat once and for all and there’s no going back (and it’s even better when we find out that this supposed destiny is not really a destiny, rather an orchestrated video game but that’s also for another day). We have this whole blood/choices thing that’s a real catch-22. Sam’s demon blood was the result of his mother’s choices. Sam’s childhood and upbringing was the result of his father’s choices (metaphorically speaking "blood"; not just "demon blood" represents Sam's parents choices combined, "the sins of the fathers" sort of stuff) ). So what about Sam’s choices?

And then we have Ruby’s dialogue, one of the best things in the whole spn:

Ruby: No. It wasn't the blood. It was you... and your choices. I just gave you the options, and you chose the right path every time. You didn't need the feather to fly, you had it in you the whole time, Dumbo! I know it's hard to see it now... but this is a miracle. So long coming. Everything Azazel did, and Lilith did. Just to get you here. And you were the only one who could do it. Sam: Why? W-why me? Ruby: Because... because it had to be you, Sammy. It always had to be you. You saved us. You set him free. And he's gonna be grateful. He's gonna repay you in ways that you can't even imagine.

It was NOT the blood! It was YOUR CHOICES! I mean, can’t you see this is the stuff tragedies are made of? And why Sam accepting his fate but deciding the way he was going to handle it is so important? Frankly, I don’t think that s5’s ending is the best finale ever, but I cannot not say that from a storytelling pov it’s a thing of beauty. To me it clearly showed that there was no real “return” for Sam. Not because of his demon blood but because of his choices. His fucking choices led him to where he is now. As in, “everything you audience have seen so far was actually supposed to happen, right until this very ending point. The journey was a diversion, cool, but it was more of a going in circles rather than moving forward. The hero was forever trapped, and he was trapped BECAUSE of his choices, the more he wanted out the more he was forced back in, ha-ha!). And yet he somehow manages to at least write his own ending, which is super sad (but, again, tragedy!) but this is possibly THE ultimate human question: is my ending written or will I be able to write it myself? By the end of s5, meager consolation that it is, Sam at least manages to have an answer to this question (I’m in no way saying that I agree with Sam’s final choice, just that it was *his*).

But, as it turns out, it was not in no way his ending both because the show continued and because in s15 we’re told that the game is doubly rigged since Chuck was the one pulling the strings. And, honestly? This makes me feel so much for Sam, like to me he’s given THE worst ending ever (And Dean’s death has traumatized me to this day and I won’t ever re-watch that scene, it’s just wrong for me on so many levels but, from a narrative pov, his death mirrors Sam’s “death” in s5 so what I have said about him is valid for Dean, too) ((and, I cannot stress this enough, I don’t agree with both decisions, the message they send is too grim))

(((although in Dean's case, he chose the "wrong" path every time forcing Chuck's narrative to find new ways to keep him trapped and this is what makes the two brothers both so different and so similar)))(((because archetypically speaking brothers and/or sisters are the same person, they represent the different parts of the psyche but shhh))).

Sam’s left behind, so he goes and keep on living a blurry life without processing all the trauma. And then he dies. Wow. Most Unsatisfying Ending ever. And it’s as such precisely because Sam was not an epic hero, the return to the ordinary world is not an apt ending for him. Now, I’m not telling that Sam should have died. What I’m trying to say is that the finale is unsatisfying and, whatever they could have done or even will do if they decide to give SPN another chance, will forever be unsatisfying because, after s5 the show was unwilling to let go of its tragic, aching bones but, simultaneously, force-fed them with the winning formula of the epic narrative structure which, in turn, made tha tragedy even more tragic. (s6 really really tried something different with the whole Godstiel thing but, again, this is for yet another day).

New trials, new villains, always worse than the ones before, the seasons’ quests becoming comically impossible (s13 stopped all the pretenses and was like: look, from now on all the quests will just be quests for random ingredients for spell, just don’t ask and keep watching). In the meantime all characters were SCREAMING, they kept making the "same old- same old" mistakes, their scars were never healed, their trauma always THIS close to be resolved and yet... they all wanted catharsis so bad, they all needed a moment to breath but it was never afforded. Why? Because SPN is a friggin' tragedy and affording catharsis to the characters and the audience means the show is over.

So, you see, on the surface we keep seeing the thousands faces of the heroes but we’re never given the opportunity to see the heroes’ real faces. The s15 episode of “The Heroes Journey” maybe tried to tell us so, to warn us in a way.

Wow, I’m done. I guess. Again, please bear in mind that these are just my silly little thoughts, I may even change my mind because I’m incoherent like that. I’m far more interested in your silly little thoughts so let me know what you think 😊

@iminsideyourgrapefruit i'm tagging you because I promised, but as usual ignore if unsolicited ;))

[ferdieinceladoncity]

My head feels like it's being kicked in [unrelated. Just sleep deprived] yet I feel the need to ramble ANYWAY ^girl who just watched William. I wasn't really bent out of shape because like I knew this plot point + headache diminishing emotions + SADLY we didn't even really get to see her bond that much with this baby. Which kills me most of all. It's true I guess, I GUESS that a baby around would have convoluted the MOTW format of the show but as much as I do really enjoy most episodes of season 9 it couldn't have hurt to reference this baby more. Maybe it's hard to film babies so they didn't want to include him in a lot of scenes [I wouldn't know. It seems babies might be hard to film, like animals.] All the same in many episodes scully just sort of wouldn't talk about him. I guess there's an argument to be made that if she DID it'd be reducing her, yknow, whole 'badass FBI agent/forensic pathologist' thing to being A Mother but I disagree actually. You can have both. You can very well have badass scully doing autopsies and scully expressing concern over her baby.

The scenes where Scully WOULD interact with baby William were so sweet. I would like, after rambling, to go and read fics about it. About her sweetly caring for her baby son. I'd like, in the future, to write one. Just a slice of life type thing. I love his stupid bunny ear hat and his decorated room. Crazy thing to admit maybe but I've always sort of thought, hey, I don't really want children, but I've been having thoughts to a different tune lately and I've got to tell you that it's probably as shallow as, wow! Pretty lady with cute baby! The Dana Scully effect at work on me only not in the intended manner.

There's something to be said though that my mother pointed out that I ruefully have to agree with in that she could occasionally make the worst choices about his safety. She was altogether way, way too trusting leaving that kid in rooms with total strangers. Girl, perhaps it was only a matter of time. Yes, letting the random guy who is POSSIBLY mulder but also could be some abhorrent poser faking at being him and I don't know for sure, hold my son, that's a great idea. His fat wet tear will land straight in my sons eyeball and I will not take it out of his hands.

Wah. Anyway. Ow. Poor guy. I don't fault Scully for her choices. I don't think I would have made them, and I'm internally yelling "that's her BABY! You can't just ask someone to give up their baby!" But I've long settled with the fact that scully makes choices that I would certainly not because she is one]fictional and 2]a deeply traumatised fictional character at that, so giving up her son made sense and I respect that.

Yknow what I do love? About this episode, but about all I've seen of season nine in general. Doggett and Reyes are so, so fucking willing to drop everything for Scully and I can't love them enough. Reyes is like, if you want to get to scully you'll have to go through me first, and then DOGGETT is like well if you want to get to reyes or scully you'll have to go through ME, and then they're just standing all in a line (and you could probably tip them like dominoes.) I just really love Doggett and Reyes, so much.

[sleepy-seal]

Welcome back to another episode of: TMAGP & Treats!!!

This week's treat is......... Hot Chocolate Fudge!!!

This is an amazing success after the failures of episodes 7 & 8. Mostly. We don't talk about the marshmallows

And without further ado, here is my thoughts!

- lets get this show on the road

- haha fudge!!! so fun!!!! (frantically looks up how to set up a double boiler)

- interesting title

- uhhhhhhhh

- sam maybe don't say that)????

- damnnn guess theyWHAAAT

- HANG ON WAIT A SECOND

- MAGNUS INSTITUTE????

- that is SO rude dnd is fun

- HEY THAT SOUNDS LIKE MOTW

- oh dammnnnnn it was a trap

- gamblers high,,,,,

- DUDE HE LITERALLY TURNS INTO A SUPERVILLAIN

- this is reminding me of that one arc in taz amnesty

- TEDDYYYYYY YOU'RE BACK

- woahhh is alice jealous??? damnn

- get behind me girl they're gonna think you actually wanna kill celia

- SAM NO

- okay since the fudge is set to cool for 4 hours that Should give me enough time to write my final thoughts and also write some miscellaneous things

FINAL THOUGHTS:

okay so, i can't be the only person who assumed that this episode reminded me of taz amnesty a Lot. maybe i've just been listening to the mcelroys too much lately but the 2d6 thing reminded me a Lot of the motw ttrpg. the dice reminded me a lot about the success of your rolls compared to how it translates in motw. like 2-6 is a hard fail, 7-9 is a mixed success, and 10+ is a full success. it could be a coincidence though. what's also a coincidence is the dice. i've mentioned it already, but the phenomenon of something altering fate that makes good/bad luck occur is so similar to one mini-arc of amnesty where a giant cottonwood tree was literally altering the course of fate with its cottonwood seeds to make bad things happen (accidents, that sort of thing. the mention of how the one guy died in this episode - being hit by a truck and being the only one to die because someone fell asleep at the wheel - reminded me a lot of similar "accidents" during that particular mini-arc).

also, i find alice's reaction to sam's (potential) crush on celia in this episode to be very telling. i don't actually think she's going to Kill celia, just to get that out of the way. but i think she does miss being with sam. maybe that's why she was acting like sam had a massive crush on celia when she was first introduced. i could be wrong though! maybe she's still trying to process her feelings but due to her nature of passing basically everything off as a joke it's being shoved to the side for her to deal with Later. the very classic "this is probably something i have to process but i'll push this aside for future me to deal with". that's not to say that alice and sam aren't good friends! i'm very glad that we have healthy examples of people who have broken up but still remain friends. you don't get that a lot.

also TEDDY!!!!!!! i'm so glad he's returned. i was worried for a moment that he was just not going to come back but i'm very glad to see he's still around. i started to sweat a bit when he mentioned that he already got fired from his last job but i was very relieved when he got a new job interview. stay out of the OIAR teddy.

also i find it very convenient how the moment sam admitted that he is saddened by the dead ends for the magnus institute, another case pops up with a reading on artifact storage with a pair of dice that apparently change your fate and bring you good luck/bad luck depending on how you rolled. And it's read by chester no less. i can't tell if chester is trying to bring sam further into this, or is cryptically trying to tell sam to stay away but sam just Isn't Listening.

going back to the pair of dice, i think it's interesting how the person writing the report for spooky dice stressed that he did not feel compelled to roll the dice in any way, nor did it feel like he was being possessed. he just Willingly did so. and so did everyone who rolled those dice. even the one man who tried to give them away couldn't resist rolling the dice one last time before getting snake eyes. this almost reminds me of gambling addictions, where while you technically Can stop at any time and it doesn't hurt you to (aside from i guess the consequences you already have), you feel the want to keep rolling. you wanna see what happens. you want that rush that you get when you roll high. that's a bit superficial though so i won't say that's the "true meaning" of the statement. i also must point out that this isn't exactly how any prior fears have acted. you could say "this falls under x, y, z, and b fears", but that kinda defeats the point. guy has spooky dice; things go wrong. also i find it laughable that the guy just goes full cartoon villain and dresses for the part of "guy who gives you dice and you roll them and Something Happens To You". sad that he died right at the end.

i like this episode a lot actually! i have to say this is probably my favorite one, genuinely. love the idea of spooky dice that make your life a literal ttrpg. i can't wait for episode ten where "alice and sam go to a place and do a thing". that's gonna be a special episode since that day's pi day! see you soon!

[hadesbullshit]

hi hades! i have a lot of strong opinions on a couple specific spn episodes, and id love to hear your thoughts!! i will not judge for your answers, because this show fucking sucks but also its the greatest piece of media ever so any opinion is correct objectively. ok anyways

what do you think about: faith (season 1 episode 13) , roadkill (season 2 episode 16) , and playthings (season 2 episode 11)?

I'm gonna rewatch them to ansure this (bc y be normal about media when u can go ferral) but pre rewatch: Roadkill is one of my fav eps ever.

1x12 (faith is 1x12. 1x13 is Route 666 (also a very good ep as a dean charaitor study if u do want my thoughts it)):

i forgot how much i love this ep. I'm really into religious imagery in any media. dean on deaths door in the singlar reazon I'm gay /j. Sam's desperation to save Dean was always hinted at but this ep really does the "show not tell" thing right in a way most of the show doesn't. john not coming to help dean is one of the reasons i fucking hate the guy. Dean refuses to believe there is a God pre s4 because what god would put him though everything he's been though, i love him so much. the parrales between john and god with Dean's faith in an absent father.

Quotes:"i didn't pick you dean, the lord did" "why do you deserve to live more than my daughter" "it must be ruff. to belive in somerthing so much and have it disappoint you"

2x11:

of the 3 eps this is my least favourite I'm going to be honest but i still love it so much. The twist is so good. the sibling devotion, they would rather be dead together then one of them leave (Sam and Dean prrallels). "what do you mean we look the type" is iconic (Dean vs people knowing he's bi before he does). Sam's break down, begging Dean to be the one who kills him is so well done.

2x16 (this will be looooong):

when the audience learns things after Sam and Dean/the narrative isn't chronological but we think it is, it makes the twists better. Sam wanting to ease Molly into the fact she is dead vs Dean wanting to tell her straight up bc in Sam's life knowing about monsters has only ever been a burden wear as Dean (Has not met Mary yet and doesn't know she knew about deamons) thinks, as John thinks, that he would still have his family if more people knew how to protect themselves. (i might be reading to much into that part but i am a lit & media student). then after the half way point Sam wants to tell her because she thinks David is dead and that is the worst thing in the world for her whereas Dean wants to comic to lying because telling someone the truth this far in would be hard and he cant have emotional convocations to save his life (see also; Gadreel arc).

This ep is so good for rewatching it and putting into context the things Dean says. The resolution of her letting go of the loop AAAAAA.

Every motw ep in spn has a little twist in it and using the different graves to fulfil the audience expectations only to pull the rug out from underneath with the "Molly is ALSO a ghost" .

The enphisis on the idea people are not born monsters especially in relation to Sam. "what ever it is, they just hold on too tight. caught in the same loop" (sam talking about the ghost but also him and Jessica (among others)) and "something happened to them. something they couldn't control" (sam with his whole being a deamon & yellow eyes' army in s2) bc Sam in the early seasons is insane and so full of self loathing.

The question of what happens to monsters after they die (and people) being uninsurable, beng afraid of death and the unknown feels like a nod towards s3 with dean waiting to die having no idea what will happen. "hope is kinda the whole point" them pre hell, and pre knowning just how fucked up every is AAAAAA

[myassbrokethefall]

xf rewatch: squeeze and conduit

(As if this wasn't already apparent, I'll warn you that any off-the-cuff posts I manage to spew out as I rewatch are going to be rambly, unorganized and rudderless. I am tagging all of these "xf rewatch rambling." And I will be kind to us all and put in a cut.)

Eps 3 and 4, and we're still building some real foundational XF DNA here. Squeeze of course is our first MOTW and it's all nicely laid out for us: Colton and the jackass squad are all like, hurrrr it's ol spooky mulder he thinks a flying saucer did the murders, and even Scully is like, so whaddya think, these are the stretchy fingerprints of ALIENS? And it gives him a great opportunity to say, please Scully, I have range, we don't ONLY do UFO episodes cases on this show in this basement, sometimes we might have a "week" where we are investigating a "monster"! That will keep us busy!

It's also really interesting to see Mulder interact with the rest of the federal law enforcement universe for the first time, and how he plays into it in a smartass way, but how it really is relentless (with Colton in particular like physically blocking him from the crime scene even before he calls off the stakeout). Mulder doesn't get really mad about it until it gets to the point where he knows they've let a killer go and no one will listen to him about that. He's just such a fundamentally Good man, and it's a lovely thing to once again see through Scully's eyes how he is not the unreasonable one here, that despite his willingness to connect the dots to make a picture that is Beyond the Realm of Science, he IS, in fact, connecting dots, he's not just making shit up, and none of these dudes making fun of him are actually listening to him. I am loving watching how they draw his character in these early days.

Then with Conduit we're back into UFO stuff and it's our first Gordon/Gansa ep. This is the first episode I don't know like the back of my hand, although I remember it pretty well (and I don't know Squeeze AS well as Pilot and DT). It is quite solid, and MUCH more based on Carl Sagan's Contact than I remembered. As I rambled to a friend earlier today and will now do here again probably even less coherently, this whole thing was great for me until it falls apart at the end with the pieces of paper forming the portrait of Ruby. Despite this being a nifty reveal, the portrait is just SO GOOFY!!, and it is just a step too far for me. The aliens are sending numbers through the TV to Ruby's little brother — sure. And he's compelled to write them down and they turn out to be, in binary, the aliens repeating back to the humans what they've heard in transmissions from Earth, in what is assumed to be a way of reaching out or saying hello (this is what happens in Contact). I love all that, it's very spooky, it's a fun side-swerve when M&S get interrogated by the NSA because Kevin was accidentally transcribing top-secret military info, and it is undeniably a great moment when Scully goes upstairs and looks down and has the realization that it's a picture of Ruby. But... how can the 1s and 0s be BOTH encrypted satellite transmissions AND the precise sequence that makes a physical picture of Ruby's face? Also, is it like, a school portrait? Why is she smiling so hard? Did the aliens tell her to smile and snap a photo of her on the spaceship? Are they reading Kevin's mind and that's how he pictures her, with a giant cheeseball grin? It just kind of falls apart for me and it is silly enough that it breaks the momentum of the episode. 

On the other hand, I get that they wanted to make it unequivocal that the aliens were communicating to Kevin about Ruby specifically — and to make that explicit tie between this situation and Mulder's memories, as expressed in the hypnosis in the (very emotional) last scene, about Samantha's abduction: the voice saying that she's ok and she'll be returned to him. This is a touching consistency that I never really picked up on before, that it is the aliens' MO when abducting a kid to make an effort to let a nearby loved one know that they don't have to worry. So working instructions for how to arrange the papers on the living room floor into their tv transmissions in order to make a giant Sears portrait of Ruby is another way of delivering this ultimately benevolent, hopeful message, I guess. 

You couldn't keep it this way indefinitely, but I really do feel wistful about these early days when there was such a sense of wonder with the possibility of aliens, and so much unknown, before it all got bogged down in super soldiers and magnetite and consortiums and viruses and black oil and impregnating people with science against their will. You can FEEL Mulder's agitation and urgency in wanting to get Ruby's story and his agony at being blocked from it, and yet also understand Darlene's refusal to let this crazy-sounding stuff that has branded her a kook her whole life define her daughter's life as well. Just good stuff.

I will note though that there have been 4 episodes here so far, 3 of them dealing with UFOs, and in all 3 of those they have done the thing where you think you're seeing UFO lights and then it turns out to be a vehicle Very Much Of This Earth. I think you could give that one a rest for a little while, show. 

Let's get real, this is all prelude to Jersey Devil, up next. Yeah baby. 

[foulbearobservation]

I actually think adapting something like monster of the week (a powered by the apocalypse game) would fit pretty easily!

Namely, I think they've struck a really good balance between The Chosen playbook (the chosen are literally designated main character at birth, lots of fun to play within that space) and the rest of the playbooks! Tldr: The Chosen might be the narratives favorite. That is not a good thing.

So you could very easily imo hack The Chosen into The Halobearer, and the other playbooks (The Professional, The Divine, and The Flake for example seem to fit right in in the wn-verse as standins for Beatrice, Lilith, and Yasmine) can mostly stand.

All powered by the apocalypse games lend themselves more towards narrative > number crunching, even tho motw does technically have a harm system to keep that sense of danger up. I think this works really well in a "well so-and-so has plot armor but they did also get stabbed by a tarask so they did die and there will be consequences because of that" kinda way.

Pick demons as your monsters, give the whole game a good ol' catholic spit polish, change the game mechanic of "luck" into "divine intervention", and you've got 30 minutes of work that turned into an incredibly good, narrative focused, warrior nun hack of monster of the week!

I think someone mentioned mixing WN with D&D on Twitter a while back and I hope that, if so, "D&D" was being used as a synonym for RPG rather than actual D&D 5e (which you shouldn't really do because they aren't synonymous, but I know it's a common thing).

Adapting Warrior Nun into 5e rules seems a bit like fighting the system rather than working with it, at least to me.

Here is a game that depends on character classes -- how will you make it work when all characters will probably share the class of sister warrior? If the idea is to differentiate them through skills, then isn't it better to just ditch the concept of class altogether? Maybe take inspiration from something like Knave, Maze Rats, Cairn if one wishes to stick with a D&D-ish aura.

Fights in WN aren't all that long if you think about it; so how will you conciliate that with the HP sponges that 5e characters are? (An anecdote: the other day I saw someone complaining about their weak initial character, who had some 20 HP. Playing old school D&D, I've had players start with 4. Ask them if they weren't scared shitless of dying -- and if this fear didn't make them play smarter and end up valuing their PCs much more when they levelled up!)

The economy system of 5e (well, of D&D as a whole, really, including older editions) has very little in common with the one our favourite ass-kicking nuns would use -- would it even be necessary, if we assume the Vatican is responsible for providing them with gear?

I'm not asking any of these questions simply because I dislike 5e (which I do, I admit) or to dissuade people from mixing WN and RPGs (I even did it myself once and might or might not be doing it again with another play style and basic system in mind), I just ask that they take mechanics into consideration. 5e can be good for what it's made for (or so I'm told), but in this particular instance it seems inappropriate for WN.

If I may be so bold as to offer amateur designers some suggestions...

I'd start by taking a look at Nathan Paoletta's RPG Design Zine, just because it helps you think about what the hell you're doing.

Generic systems are just that, generic, but they can be much easier to adapt than something so heavily-coded for a certain type of game as 5e is. They can be more complicated (maybe GURPS, though you could go for Lite and consider getting, idk, Religion, Martial Arts, Low Tech, High Tech... Go explore) or lighter. I am a gigantic fan of Freeform Universal Classic, but you could do something cool with FATE or FAE, Mini Six, hell, I don't know! There's a good deal of generic systems out there.

You could be a little more daring, if versed in PbtA games, and hack one up yourself, why not?

All I'm saying is that you shouldn't be wrestling with the system to make this thing. Have it work for you, not against you; find something that can "translate" the show more easily than 5e does.

There's a whole world of games out there, a wealth of inspiration to work with. A lot of creators stick to 5e because it's popular and it helps them get visibility for their products -- and I don't fault them for it, but you aren't going to sell this, are you? You're not the IP owner. Others use 5e because "everybody knows the rules" -- which isn't true and, honestly, if you're going to change the whole thing up so it matches WN, then what's the use of knowing how rangers in a high fantasy campaign progress if you're playing nuns with guns?

I guess my point is: just don't tire yourself out trying to make an apple pie out of ingredients meant for chocolate cake.

[docholligay]

Sailor Moon Tweaks

I wrote a version of this that is basically a fic outline in its own right, trying to spare you that, but: we’re adapting the 90s anime with a few things in mind and a twist. I actually like both magical girls as a genre and the Cosmic Space Epic bullshit we see in the manga, so I’ll be playing with that while adding a very significant cost to all such bullshit. Also, for this to be possible I would have to have threatened, blackmailed, or bribed SO MANY HBO executives SO HARD that we’re going FULL wish fulfillment, we got five thirty-episode seasons and a budget that will make Game of Thrones weep. (Why 30? Because while we won’t be beholden to the MOTW format, they do give some nice structure for character development and interactions, and we will want downtime, not just ‘minimum viable room for this amount of plot’ time, which I’d put at about 20-25 episodes.) The action sequences will be glorious, the transformation sequences will each cost about as much as an entire standard episode and will be played DEAD SERIOUS, and for everyone who complains about them I add another sparkly flounce to whoever comes next. Now, for the actual show. 

Okay, so mostly I tried to respond to these comments anon so i’m responding to the IDEA and not any personal relationship or feelings I have about someone (I don’t think i’M LARGELY a biased person, but I try wherever I can not to give myself the chance to be) But I HAD to check which response this was because I am OBSESSED with your tone here. I love you. i am not going to out you to everyone here but you MUST know that I did not expect the length or ferocity of this entire essay from you and I am CHARMED. I would love to hear your idea for these transformations, as I have many opinions myself. 

 1) In the first season, we get a SUPREMELY expensive SilMil flashback two-parter that reveals Queen Serenity, as she set her daughter for reincarnation, bound the core of the Silver Crystal into her daughter’s soul. (I think I’ve used this headcanon before, it’s a favorite of mine.) As she uses it, she will bind herself further to it, until the two are completely merged and she becomes someone powerful enough to restore the Silver Millennium and defend it against all harm. We see enough of what it’s like to realize this is not a good idea. The girls, who identify firmly as Earthlings in this life, are not comfortable with this. Worse, the ginzuishou’s kind of sentient and it wants the same things. For the rest of the series, every resurrection Usagi performs, every massive act of magic, and every powerup she gets that allows her to stay competitive with the escalating series of threats is slowly bringing her closer to that outcome. (Her hair steadily gets lighter in tone, the way she speaks changes when she’s in Serenity Form and that starts bleeding into her normal life, etc. Usagi’s arc is one half growing into someone who will fight for her friends and planet, and one half a very sparkly horror story as a magical rock parasitizes her and she knows it.) The growing distance from Naru is a symbol of Usagi losing herself to her own magic. 

I think I love this! It is nowhere NEAR where I would go with it, but I think it could be so good, and so interesting to pick apart that I actually think I do want to be on this writing team ahaha WE!!! LOVE!!! CONSEQUENCES!!! IN!!! THIS!!! HOUSE!!!

 2) That bleeds into the idea of Crystal Tokyo. Chibiusa’s future ceases to exist the moment she goes back to the past to change it (we’ll be making her about ten from the start here), but what she represents remains. She is the future where they fail, and the Silver Millennium is essentially restored, and Usagi as they know her is lost to be another Serenity. By the time they realize this they’re pretty attached to Chibs, but it leaves them unsettled. Can they subvert a destiny that seems set in stone? Beryl thought Usagi was too dangerous to live because of the Serenity line, was she right? Usagi is even more set on trying to save Hotaru, and as many villains as possible, because she ultimately wants to be able to save HERSELF. (She does get to save Hotaru, who gets the chance to redefine Sailor Saturn for herself and doesn’t become a baby, but this of course comes at the cost of more of Usagi’s own autonomy.) 

So what do you do with Hotaru then? My issue with Hotaru has always been that’s she’s a bit OP, and her and Pluto really cannot do a lot with the narrative other than die when they’re cast that way, which is why i sorta *wiggles fingers* about the whole thing. Which is basically a non-answer, and I cop to that, but i FEEL like Hotaru dying is the only other option and while I do enjoy getting murdered on the internet, I doubt HBO would. 

 3) Apart from the Black Moon Clan, all post-Beryl villains - movies and Doom Tree included - are from off-Earth. This is because the galaxy is magically active on the whole, with planets who haven’t awakened their potential frequently becoming vassal states to those who have. The solar system has escaped this bullshit since the fall of the Silver Millennium by being a backwater system where nothing really important is, since the Serenity line fell and somehow took the Silver Crystal with them. This is hinted at as early as season one, but serves as Season Four’s big reveal. Incidentally, the Nehellenia arc’s conclusion will be the Stars version, the Outers get a role in SuperS besides the special (though we’re keeping that because Peak Michiru,) and we’re cutting Helios’s maidens and secrets horseshit in favor of him being some kid who went to sleep as the Earth Kingdom was falling, woke up in the modern era, and is therefore a source of Earth’s old magical knowledge. So anyway, these three things culminate in the final showdown with Galaxia being a massive, awesome fight between the Senshi and all the allies they’ve gathered over the series on one end, Galaxia cutting them down effortlessly on the other, and her dealing a massive blow to the Earth that blows the masquerade wide open, forcing Usagi to use the Silver Crystal one last time, wipe Galaxia out, and resurrect the dead, leaving Usagi in a magical crystal flower bud at the epicenter of what was once Tokyo while the Silver Crystal finishes their metamorphosis. This is not actually the final fight. The ACTUAL final fight is the people who love Usagi versus the Silver Crystal itself for her, and by extension, the ultimate fate of Earth as the SilMil Mark 2 or a magically active planet capable of shaping its destiny for itself.

If you kill Usagi at the end of it all to save earth I will kiss you on the mouth. 

[lab1rynth]

Hi!! It's 🌻 :3 I'm sending this in for your Fit for a Yandere event, if it's not open yet or closed please feel free to delete!!

I'd say I'm a pretty nerdy person, most of my interests fall in the nerd stereotype. I'm really into tabletops (D&D, MoTW, VTM, etc.), I currently play in 4 campaigns! I'm playing very support based characters right now!! That being said, I love reading and learning new systems. Video games also go in hand with my love for ttrpgs. I love story based games.

I'm also studying botany and entomology! I'm considering branching more into mycology. I spend most of my time occupied with school related things. When I'm free, I usually try and keep myself busy. I have a bad tendency of overworking myself and find it really hard to actually take time to myself.

I'm not sure if this is too much or too little,, I'm a bit nervous to send it either way!! Have a good day/night pb!! <3

𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝙄 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙢𝙮 𝙗𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙡 𝙄'𝙢 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚. . .

I ship you with...

YAN!GAMER

You both met over D&D, you, a few friends, and a few of their friends joined up on Discord to play D&D online since most of you were either too far to drive to a specific spot to play, or just didn't want to go through the hassle of making an actual board.

Yan!Gamer was introduced to you from one of your friends, they met over COD and eventually clicked, becoming close friends leading him to joining this little group. You both enjoyed talking and you both eventually grew closer. You knew how he was, how he looked and how disorganized and trashed his house was, though to you it didn't matter much since you both were long distanced, you did try to encourage him to clean up though.

He loves hearing you rant about things you enjoy, books, videogames, your interest in your studies, all of it. Every time you go to school, he searches up about things you've told him your interested in, wanting in on your ranting. He saw how you acted when he knew a little about a game you liked, the wide smile on your face behind the screen as he told you what he knew. He wanted to see you happy, happy he knows about your likes.

He makes you sleep with him on call, he doesn't want to keep you up too much due to school but every weekend he asks you to read him a chapter of your favorite book, falling asleep and soothed by your voice. You're basically the only reason why he has a good sleep schedule.

If you move in, before you do he's absolutely on it, trying to clean up everything and anything, even the smallest things. His house looked cleaner than it ever did, despite the mountain of trash bags sitting outside on the lawn, waiting for it to be taken away by the local trash company. He also made sure to take a shower, despite his dislike for the water, he does an everything shower, using all of the soaps he has. He also decides to order some star patches for his acne, plopping them on the red bumps on his face. He thought he looked quite cool!!

He tries to maintane himself when your around, same with his house. You guys play games together and read together, you both even got a cat! He normally helps you afterschool with school work (he searches it up), and he cuddles you whenever you're relaxing. I believe you would turn Yan!Gamer around quite a lot!

. . .𝑨𝒎 𝑰 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝑵𝒐𝒘?

EVENT

[frida--y]

Let's get the party started!!

Man.... Dondon is. Great!

I loved it a lot, plot wise and pacing aside, it's very obvious the heart of the show is its characters.

In terms of its predecessor, Zenkai celebrated in the tokustau of it all, and Donbrothers celebrated the characters. Like Inoue's other works, he really makes great protags. Takkun, who’s afraid of betraying others so that's why he doesn't want to get close to others, and Taro who’s lonely and wants to understand true happiness, both a bit similar in their loneliness. They both find humanity throughout life, through opening yourself up with others and creating inseparable bonds. And have bfs

I do think Inoue's main writing strength is in his characters. Everyone has changed from the first intro... Another strength is his willingness to collaborate and be flexible. Always heard about Jetman's finale on how it was conceived through drinking with Gai's actor and how the both of them thought it would be funny if they ended the series like that... like.. that's hilarious. And through collaborations, Sonoi, Sononi and Sonoza got to live!!! Making bonds and establishing friendships though eating meals together in real life saved them. Ugh, I really love getting these behind the scene stories.

These two..

They kill me. THEY KILL ME!!!!!!!!!

Just. The small moments too. Sonoi running back upstairs to just SEE what oden looks like... I could not stop thinking about it when that episode dropped, it was hours later. Sonoi.... wanting to understand art, just like the humans do.. wanting to enjoy human food. To enjoy the food Momoi enjoys. To- enjoy- food.. to.. enjoy sharing the moments of eating alone and eating with others.... to-

Taro's daydream of casually eating oden with Sonoi, I had to get up and walk around...................

okay im back.

The Notos. MY BELOVEDS! Sononi, the failmoe girl. Of course it’s eye rolling that she became so attached to Tsubasa, but the fact that she’s so failmoe after cringing over everyone around her AND her finding Tusbasa worthy for falling over despite being a fucking DOG is. so funny. Go get him girl, do not get him chocolate though, he’s a dog after all. I loved Sonoza with Haruka, it’s so cute! For the one that wanted to understand raw emotions, it’s so great to have him see that Haruka manga could save others like him! 567 my messy messy beloveds... the staff’s love and oden could not save you.. :(

siiigh, rip my evil trio, you WILL be missed. Hopefully the staff can pull something out of their ass to revive you three. I NEED them.

So now the talk about the show for real.. Pacing in the beginning was awful, did not like it tbh! Once I was poisoned enough though, I got it. It definitely helps that I’ve seen a lot of Inoue’s shows (especially changerion) that a lot of it’s problems just bounced off me. His rushing and refusal to use certain characters brings down the show at times, and that’s double for the motw. It is an after thought at the worst and something that has to happen due to it being a sentai. It’s hard for me to pay any kind of attention when the fighting starts and when the mech fights, but that’s me problem in sentai in general, but it’s reaaaaaly bad in donbrothers where sentai fans even complain about it lol. The show’s comedy is great though!! Haruka’s actor beter go places after this, she’s def the highlight, and even veteran director Tasaki had said something similar to, “Donbrother’s is Haruka”, it started with her and it ends with her :)

Everyone else on the team are freaks!! I thought I would really love Saruhara through my blue bais, but I didn’t! Weirdo (affectionate) <333 His money lines are so Inoue coded... Tsubasa is also a character designed for me, dark and mysterious, but he is also a freak (theater kid), I CANT believe I fell for Kijino LOL Jirou is adorable, just so bright and loving, I wish his story got a longer run time, but it was still very effective. I’m just so glad he wasn’t someone the team had to fight, I’m so glad he accepted himself and found happiness that way :””) Murasame.

Of all the things left out, it is great that Kaito didn’t get explained... or did he?? 

I wonder if Kaito going into this world, (or the Kaito of this world) had this happen to him. I wonder if this would get explained in the VS movie.

.

and for thoughts on the finale:

I loved that Taro got a final scene with everyone, but with Kijino’s scene it felt somewhat special, he was the first one with Taro after all! So satisfying that Kijino is focusing on himself too! I know that he had that scene with Natsumi, but it came with the caveat that Natsumi chose this herself, she wasn’t a prize at the end for Tsubasa and her wants, her dreams is what’s important. I WILL ignore the wedding ring back on in the final scene, it’s fine that they’re together but I’d like to think that it took a longer time for them to get married. I mean.. it’s two volumes of donbros that came out before Haruka got her award so... and Kijino needs the time to himself!

God you have no idea how much I teared up here.. such a great roll call!

The fact that they held up on doing a complete roll call in the show proper with EVERYONE is so worth it. It was for a gag for sure, but after Sonoi’s revival, it was on purpose. The team was not complete. GOD and the MOON here.

I wanted the Noto trio to join the team soooo bad and be shown to be as silly as the doncrew when I saw them dancing in the intro and it came true.. THE vision. THIS is tokustau. The innovation, the onset rewrites, the relationships that grow on set. The love for the characters and what you do. 

DONBROTHERS!! AHH! TWO SENTAIS IN A ROW ABOUT LOVE YOU FIND WITH OTHERS!

alright bonus talk that is just my thirst talk:

juiced up Sonoi got me [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted][redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted][redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted][redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted][redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] 

I will placed in jail for what I want to say. 

Just know that I would [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] . <- this is a real sentence, you have been warned.

To quote Rain, “Kijino is the only fuckable donbrother. This is the rawest sexual energy donbrothers has on offer”

😤 AGREE 100X, YES ! HE IS!!

You do not want to peek into my mind when I first saw this ^

This is a warning. This made me fall for him even harder.