#totem bake

[ettisurreal]

Bunch of renders I've made for Forsaken AR. Really happy with most.

[phantomrose96]

Okay I have a story.

So my birthday is this Sunday (May 26th). My mom ordered some presents for me but one of them (an Etsy purchase) was seemingly stuck in transit and might not make it on time. I tell my mom all good, no worries. She gets in contact with the seller. After a long delay in response they get back with "Right we'll fix it!" It ships, tracking label and everything, good to go! ETA May 22nd (yesterday.)

During the work day I check the tracking and it says it's been delivered in/at mailbox! I double check with my mom "hey, is it mailbox size?" because if not, I don't want it sitting at the front door where anyone walking by could snag it.

She says "it's definitely NOT mailbox size." Okay. I text my neighbors in the building "Anyone seen a package delivered? It's a birthday gift from my mom and I wanna make sure it gets inside!" Success! Floor 2 David (not to be confused with Floor 1 David) had brought it inside. Inform my mom. All good!

I stop by home briefly around 4pm, because yesterday was hot-hot and I just installed my window A/C that morning in the living room, and according to my cat cam my stupid cat hasn't spent a single second in the climate controlled living room and is, instead, voluntarily baking herself elsewhere so I'm like "great" and hop on my bike to go home (10 minute ride) to check on her.

I get in the building door. Patches is crying from the top floor because she heard me. I maneuver my bike in the front hall. The ugliest fucking 6-foot-tall cat tree(?)/totem(?)/statue(?) I've seen in my entire life is just. Standing there.

My first thought is "What the fuck is that." My second thought is "Oh fuck that is for me." I look around at the floor in case there's perhaps anything else that might, in fact, be the gift.

No. Me and Cat Pole.

It's taller than me. I turn it around to face me and its face is painted and this is, in fact, uglier than it looked from the back.

Um.

Patches is crying. So I just haul it up to my level. MAYBE it was supposed to come with twine that I wrap around it (and hide its face from the world) for Patches to scratch. Maybe this is a prank. Maybe this is an inside joke, because when my mom moved into her current house the neighborhood gifted her some ugly-as-hell totem that apparently, by tradition, each newest-comer to the neighborhood is required to have and display in their window so maybe this is a very good riff on that.

Patches rubs against it. She's not afraid of this horrid facsimile of her kind.

Great.

Meanwhile SHE'S fine and the condo is a little toasty but totally liveable so I'm like "Good, cool, you're not baking. You're having a good time. Enjoy your new sister, I guess, I'll see you later."

I go back to work because this is a problem for later me.

After work, after my run, after whatever, I get home and it's like 8:00pm and Patches is so happy to see me and the totem pole is still just. There.

I text my friends like "so a bday gift is here from my mom and it's the Biggest Ugliest cat pole I've seen in my life. Is this a bit? Did my mom go 'that's so ugly haha! send!' Maybe she genuinely found it cute. How do I navigate this." My friend Sarah has the good advice to maybe text my mom neutrally like "Got the cat pole!" and feel the waters whether my mom is like "Isn't it ugly? 😂" or "Hope Patches likes it! 🥰"

My mom goes to bed early so I don't do any of that yet. Problem for tomorrow me.

This morning, Patches wakes me up for breakfast. I get her situated and I'm staring at the fucking Cat Pole again. I wonder if my Mom's been wondering all night what I thought of it.

I take a picture. I text her.

Okay.

I get on call with my mom. I ask for clarity that the ungodly horrid thing is NOT my birthday gift and is in fact a mix-up from the seller who sent me this instead of my actual gift. She's wheezing between words. She thinks I'm being too charitable for the amount of Absolute Fucking Ugly this is. I have to gently talk her out of using the word "monstrosity" while messaging the seller asking what the hell happened here.

I tell her I need to apologize for harming her dignity with Floor 2 David, who thinks this fucking thing is my mom's idea of a great birthday gift for her to-be-28-year-old daughter.

My heart goes out to the poor soul who did actually order this cat totem and is lacking it on this lovely day.

[luthordamnvers]

Outgrowing Supergirl

A/N: The finale I deserved, tbh (Also on AO3)

Cat's voice kept repeating in Kara's head since Alex and Kelly's wedding.

'Ker-rah, you need to stop making excuses, and you need to decide what your course will be. Now, there is important work to be done, and I hope you'll join me. But more than that, I hope that you will choose to become your full self, because that would really be something to see. And it would be interesting because this is boring.'

Boring.

Her life had been torn to pieces a few times over, with destruction and missing on half the happenings of her own life because she was busy saving the world… the universe, and Cat Grant categorized it as boring.

Kara laughed to herself. She didn't know the half of it. And yet, her reluctant mentor also had some encouraging words.

'I believe in you, I always have.'

She had offered an Editor-In-Chief position.

One position she wasn't entirely sure she deserved, but as Alex said, 'That was her dream job.' Not one she expected to get, so soon. It was one she expected for when her superheroing had dwindled, and she was well into her human midlife. When her birth-date would say she was in her late forties, and she had to pretend she followed some strict regimen to look as good as she did, because the yellow sun wouldn't really let her age that much.

Her own words, also bounced in her head.

'I give speeches inspiring people to live their best lives. But she's right. I am too afraid to live my own.'

'My entire life, I've hid behind these glasses. It's gotten in the way of every job I've ever had, everything I've ever wanted to do, every relationship.'

'I think hiding who I am is the reason I couldn't pass the courage Gauntlet. I created Supergirl that night because the thought of saving my sister as myself was too terrifying.'

At that precise moment, she did thought that. but in the days since her sister's wedding, she could ponder long and wide over it. That may have been the totem's argument. But the totem didn't know about her safety. All the times people knowing her identity, put them in danger.

The totem didn't live Jeremiah having to surrender himself to work for the D.E.O to protect her. The totem didn't know about the D.E.O recruiting her sister out of college, because she was an alien. The totem didn't know about Max Lord trying to date her sister just to try and uncover Supergirl's identity. Or Rick Malverne keeping Alex hostage, so Supergirl would do his bidding. Or Haley finding out her identity, and use it to manipulate her sister and herself.

The totem didn't understand Lex Luthor capturing her niece in exchange for more power.

Or Agent Liberty kidnapping Lena to force her to reveal her identity.

That didn't happen in this reality, but it did happened to her. And she caved, of course she did. But it was dangerous. Too dangerous.

Lena's words constantly swam in her mind too, 'You've had your entire life, people telling you who you're supposed to be and that if you didn't hide your true self then the people would get hurt. I mean, it's tough to move beyond those type of core wounds.'

"It wasn't until Lillian told me the truth that I realized I haven't been living my own life. And finally, now I am. And it feels amazing." She had said, as they walked together, one next to the other.

"I don't even know what that would feel like for me. Connecting with someone as my whole self. To not be afraid to just be who I am.." Kara confessed. "It sounds like it could be empowering," Lena encouraged her.

It wasn't until days later, that she realized she'd lied to her best friend.

They were both sitting in her couch, watching The Great British Baking Show. Kara didn't even remember which season they were on.

"Are you even paying attention to the TV?" Lena asked, like reading her mind.

"No, not really," Kara sincerely admitted."I was thinking about what we talked at the wedding. About living my own life."

Lena turned to look at her instead of the TV, "You took of your glasses."

"I did. But I don't think that's the correct move for me," Kara confessed.

"Then, what is it?"

Kara sighed, "I'll accept the Editor-In-Chief job."

"You seem awfully conflicted for someone accepting her dream job," Lena frowned.

"I just need to convince Cat Grant to accept my conditions."

"Ah," Lena let out. "I see." She looked at her with a smile. "If anyone can convince her of anything, is you."

Kara was mesmerized by her. She thought about how much their life has changed, since they met. How miserable she was when Lena wasn't in her life. How unhappy she was when she had to run away from her, a lie in her lips. And how much better it was now that she knew the truth and was a willing participant of her life as a superhero.

She didn't realized she had done it, get so close to Lena she'd just had to lean in a few inches to touch her lips to hers.

"I lied at the wedding, too." Kara whispered.

"Lied about what?" Lena asked, in an equally low mumble.

"That I didn't know how it felt connecting with someone as my whole self," Kara explained. "I do know. I've always done it with you, even without the obvious. But especially in the last year." Kara paused. "And I think… I think you are more than my best friend."

Lena didn't move, she kept looking into Kara's eyes looking for something, and it seemingly she found it. "And what are you going to do about it?" She muttered.

"I'm going to kiss you, if that's okay with you," Kara said, finally closing the distance between their lips.

Kara could fly, and yet nothing had ever felt like kissing Lena.

"I got it," Lena announced, entering the loft.

Kara was nervous. She had managed to convince Cat Grant of it, but of course, her mentor and boss, couldn't let the dramatics go, and didn't let Kara even look at the cover of the magazine before sending it to print.

"You do look very good," her girlfriend said.

She was still over the moon about calling Lena her girlfriend, but not even that could squelch her nervousness. The kiss Lena gave her as a greeting did, though.

"Ready?" Lena asked.

"As ready as I can be."

Lena flipped the magazine in front of her, showing the cover to Kara. A picture of herself in her SuperSuit looked back at her.

'Supergirl is out, Superwoman is in.'

"She could have gone with a less cliched headline," Kara commented in a whisper.

"It's not that bad," Lena said, throwing her hands around Kara's neck, keeping her close. "But if I'm completely honest, you know Kara has always been my hero."

[tsukikonikushimi]

Avatar the Official Cookbook of Pandora (Recipe Masterlist)

I have finally gotten my hands on the cookbook. So there are four chapters, I will start posting them, but with what should i start?

Further down there's the list of recipes, if somone wants a specific one, write it down in the comments.

Omatikaya Offerings: (11/11) -> COMPLETED

1st Recipe -> OVUMSHROOM BURGER: Here

2nd Recipe -> FORAGED FRUITS BREAKFAST: Here

3rd Recipe -> HALLELUJAH MOUNTAIN CUPS: Here

4th Recipe -> WOODLAND MUSHROOM RAMEN: Here

5th Recipe -> PARADISE COCKTAIL: Here

6th Recipe -> TACO SURPRISE: Here

7th Recipe -> RAINFOREST SOURDOUGH TOAST: Here

8th Recipe -> GREEN SHAKSHUKA: Here

9th Recipe -> BOTANIST’S LUNCH BOWL: Here

10th Recipe -> HUNTERS’ TRAIL MIX: Here

11th Recipe -> HARMONY SALAD: Here

RDA Rations: (14/14) -> COMPLETED

1st Recipe -> FRONTIER PANCAKES: Here

2nd Recipe -> WARRIOR "WINGS": Here

3rd Recipe -> HELL’S GATE CORNBREAD MUFFINS: Here

4th Recipe -> RDA CORN RIBS: Here

5th Recipe -> LOCKED AND LOADED TORTILLA CHIPS: Here

6th Recipe -> UNOBTANIUM ENERGY BITES: Here

7th Recipe -> BRIDGEHEAD CITY BURGER: Here

8th Recipe -> HYBRID MAC ‘N’ CHEESE: Here

9th Recipe -> SUPERCHARGED STEAK: Here

10th Recipe -> BASE CAMP BAKED PASTA: Here

11th Recipe -> COMMAND CENTER CHIPS AND DIP: Here

12th Recipe -> SKIPPER STEW: Here

13th Recipe -> INTERSTELLAR SOUP: Here

14th Recipe -> SCRAMBLED TOFU WRAP: Here (Poll for next time) NEW!!

Metkayina Bounty: (9/14)

1st Recipe -> SMOKED TROUT ROLLS: Here

2nd Recipe -> ZESTY SEAWALL SKEWERS: Here

3rd Recipe -> NA’VI SUPER SMOOTHIE BOWL: Here

4th Recipe -> SPICY SQUID MORSELS: Here

5th Recipe -> SEA SHIMMER POKE BOWL: Here

6th Recipe -> REEF BITES: Here

7th Recipe -> SEAGRASS TOFU STACKS: Here

8th Recipe -> OCEAN ORZO: Here

9th Recipe -> ZINGY FLASH-FRIED SHRIMP: Here

TBA

Clan Feasts: (11/11) -> COMPLETED

1st Recipe -> HALLELUJAH CELEBRATION CAKE: Here

2nd Recipe -> LUMINESCENT ICE POPS: Here

3rd Recipe -> CHOCOLATE BARK OFFERING: Here

4th Recipe -> PANDORAN PARTY PLATTER: Here

5th Recipe -> BLUE SEAS TEAR-AND-SHARE GARLIC BREAD: Here

6th Recipe -> HOMETREE PLATTER: Here

7th Recipe -> PURPLE SKY COOKIES: Here

8th Recipe -> SWEET AND STICKY CHICKEN: Here

9th Recipe -> CELEBRATORY CLAN ROAST: Here

10th Recipe -> SANCTUARY STEW: Here

11th Recipe -> TOTEM DIP: Here

Omatikaya's recipes:

RDA's:

Metkayina's:

Clan's:

[cattimeswithjellie]

There seems to be a pervasive opinion that Scar is winning the MCYT Tumblr Sexyman contest due to a misunderstanding of what Tumblr Sexymen are, and that in fact Scar's fans believe he's just a regular sexyman. This is in fact not true at all. Scar's pathetic squishy wet-cat-standing-in-a-puddle-even-though-the-door-is-open credentials have long since been established in the fandom. (This contains spoilers for most things Scar has been in lately.)

In Hermitcraft Season 9, Scar won Statistics Roulette last week on "number of deaths" despite the fact that his statistics were reset only three or four months ago. Pathetic squish of a big-hatted man died more times in four months than Impulse or Grian did in ten. And because of the reset, it doesn't even count the twenty or so times Grian and Mumbo murdered him for fun on the very first day of the server!

In Double Life, Grian literally snagged him with a fishing pole and dragged him home with him in an ultimately futile effort to keep him from dying. Scar learned that Grian was cheating on him and passive-aggressively snarked about it to other people for two episodes, then baked cookies for Grian's secret soulmate.

In 100 Hours Hardcore, Grian and Joel basically formed a protection squad to keep Scar alive, to the point of coating the land under his base with beds to fall on and raiding a mansion for totems of undying. They still failed because Scar put apples in his off-hand instead of a totem and didn't notice his elytra was ready to break.

In Season 8, Scar was killed when a llama spat on him. His hat was unimaginably tiny, so tiny that he was forced to commission a huge model hat to wear on top of the tiny hat.

In Last Life, Scar got scammed out of one life, blackmailed out of two more lives, then lost another one by falling into a trap he'd been warned of two minutes earlier, even while people were yelling at him not to fall in the trap. He had no diamond armor so he wore a diamond-colored skin but painted abs on it as well so he would look more buff.

In Third Life, Scar attempted to get a monopoly on dark oak without checking to make sure there wasn't an entire dark oak forest on the other side of the server. He tried to get a monopoly on sand by putting his home in the middle of a large desert and yelling at people who came to get sand. He was the first player to die, blown up in a prank gone wrong.

In Season 7, Scar wouldn't even shave or put on pants until he wanted to be elected mayor. It may actually have been a fake beard. He had to terraform the entire shopping district twice when he lost the Turf War because the other side didn't actually like mycelium, they just liked causing problems for Scar.

In conclusion, yes Scar runs around without a shirt and has abs so ferocious that they show through his "diamond" armor, but he is not a Sexy Man. He is a sexyman, a real Onceler through and through, and he deserves his sweep. Vote Scar!

[incandescentsims]

Magical Mythical Creatures Legacy Challenge

Play through all the sims 4 occult life states and develop your legacy across seven generations.

Feel free to change anything to fit your own gameplay/storytelling style and above all have fun!

Parts of this challenge were inspired by the Simblr Halloween Challenge created by @spacenez and @daddy-winter 

You can also find the full seven generation legacy challenge HERE (Google Doc).

Generation 1 - VAMPIRE

Aspiration: Master Vampire

Traits: Music Lover, Erratic, Gloomy

Career: Freelance Artist

Skills: reach maximum skill level for each.

Vampiric Lore

Pipe Organ and/or Violin

Cross-Stitch

Painting

Objectives:

Start as a vampire or be turned into a vampire.

Live in Forgotten Hollow.

level up to Rank 5 – Grand Master Vampire.

Grow at least one plasma fruit tree and Sixam mosquito trap.

Earn the Night Owl trait from the reward store.

Marry a vampire. (vampire spouse must be in the Criminal career)

Have an affair with a werewolf from Moonwood Mill.

Have three children, your decision who sired them (vampire or werewolf), but the heir must be sired by the werewolf.

Generations 2-7 are under the cut

Generation 2 - WEREWOLF

Aspiration: Pick one of the following - Emissary of the Collective, or Wildfang Renegade

Traits: Bookworm, Active, Loyal

Career: Vet Clinic

Skills: reach maximum skill level for each.

Wellness

Veterinarian

Fishing

Objectives:

Live in Moonwood Mill (move in with your werewolf parent as a teen).

Have at least one pet dog.

Level up to Rank 5 – Apex.

Join one of the wolf packs - Moonwood Collective or Wildfangs.

Explore the underground tunnels in Moonwood Mill.

Read werewolf literature and unlock the Lunar Epiphany ability.

Catch at least one luna fish and display in an aquarium or mounted on the wall.

Marry your fated mate.

Have as many children as you wish, but the heir must be a dormant werewolf.

Collections: optional - complete them all or pick n’ choose.

Collect all 12 Moonwood relics.

Collect all 12 feathers.

Complete the fish collection.

Generation 3 - GHOST

Aspiration: Soulmate

Traits: Foodie, Cat lover, Clumsy

Career: Freelance Paranormal Investigator

Skills: reach maximum skill level for each.

Medium

Cooking

Gourmet cooking and/or Baking

Objectives:

Move into a haunted house. (your choice of world)

Have at least one pet cat.

Grow at least one death flower plant.

Earn the Brave trait from the reward store. (purchase after they've lived seven days inside the haunted house)

Have a friendship with a ghost that turns to romance.

Make ambrosia and resurrect your ghost partner from the dead.

Have 5 children.

Collections: optional - complete them all or pick n’ choose.

Collect all 10 sugar skulls. The Sims 4: How to Complete the Sugar Skull Collection

Collect Paranormal Rewards.

3 specter buddy jars

6 bizzare totems

7 hello dahlia dolls

3 clay hands

3 specter sips

1 ectocake

4 strange overgrowth

12 soul pieces

10 candy jars

Generation 4 - SPELLCASTER

Aspiration: Pick one of the following - Purveyor of Potions or Spellcraft & Sorcery

Traits: Goofball, Adventurous, Romantic

Career: Social Media

Skills: reach maximum skill level for each.

Mischief

Charisma

Rock Climbing

Skiing and/or Snowboarding

Objectives:

Live in Glimmerbrook.

Become a spellcaster and level up to Rank 6 – Virtuoso.

Regularly duel with other Spellcasters.

Holiday in Mt. Komorebi every winter and reach the mountain peak.

Earn the Iceproof trait from the reward store. (purchase after their first holiday in Mt. Komorebi)

Have a new romantic partner each life stage from teen - elder.

Never marry.

Have 2 Children.

Collections: optional - complete them all or pick n’ choose.

Collect all 25 frogs.

Collect all 26 magical artefacts.

Collect all 12 simmies.

Collect all 5 spirit dolls

Generation 5 - PLANTSIM

Aspiration: Super Parent

Traits: Unflirty, Loner, Loves Outdoors

Career: Gardener

Skills: reach maximum skill level for each.

Gardening

Flower Arranging

Nectar Making and/or Juice Fizzing

Objectives:

Move into a Micro Home with a very large garden. Lot sizes must be 30x30 or bigger (your choice of world)

Collect all 7 Magic beans.

Enter the Mystical Magic Bean Portal Tree and obtain the Forbidden Fruit.

Regularly eat forbidden fruit to turn into a plantsim.

Grow at least one Forbidden Fruit Tree, Cowplant and Money Tree.

Earn the Super Green Thumb trait from the reward store.

Have no romantic or sexual relationships with any sims.

Have no legitimate children. Once they reach adulthood, either adopt or use the Whispering Wishing Well to wish for a child (this child will be the heir).

Collections: optional - complete them all or pick n’ choose.

Complete the gardening collection

Create all 13 nectar varieties

Create all 15 scented flower arrangements

**How do I turn my Sim into a PlantSim?

Have your Sim reach level 10 of the gardening skill. With level 10 unlocked, you can buy rare seed packets using the computer, or in Build Mode.

Each rare seed packet contains one magic bean. To plant this, buy the Magic PlantSim Stump in Build Mode.

When you have six magic beans, your Sim can plant them in the Magic PlantSim Stump.

After watering, the Mystical Magic Bean Portal Tree will grow from the Stump and your Sim can travel through the portal.

When your Sim returns with the Forbidden Fruit of the PlantSim (they don’t always return with this, it may take multiple tries) they can eat it and turn into a PlantSim.

Generation 6 - ALIEN

Aspiration: Nerd Brain (*Optional - StrangerVille Mystery)

Traits: Socially Awkward, Genius, Recycle disciple

Career: Engineer

Skills: reach maximum skill level for each.

Handiness

Robotics

Logic

Knitting

Objectives:

Live in Oasis Springs (*Optional - Live in StrangerVille and complete the StrangerVille Mystery).

Build all Utili-Bots and a Servo.

Build a rocket ship and travel to Sixam.

Be abducted by aliens at least once.

Marry an alien.

Have as many children as you wish.

Collections: optional - complete them all or pick n’ choose.

Collect all 20 metals.

Collect all 20 crystals.

Collect all 4 space rocks.

Generation 7 - MERMAID

Aspiration: Beach Life

Traits: Child of the Ocean, Green Fiend, Outgoing

Career: Conservationist

Skills: reach maximum skill level for each.

Singing

Photography

Fitness

Objectives:

Live in Brindleton Bay as a young adult with a mermaid roommate.

Get into a romantic relationship with your roommate only after you become best friends.

Move to Sulani after visiting for a holiday (*Optional - live off the grid).

Become a Mermaid by obtaining and eating Mermaidic Kelp (either from exploring the cave in Mua Pel'am or befriending a dolphin).

Earn the Heatproof trait from the reward store.

Marry a mermaid (can be their roommate or someone else)

Have as many children as you wish.

Collections: optional - complete them all or pick n’ choose.

Collect all 13 seashells..

Collect all 18 buried treasure.

Collect all 10 underwater photos.

[spaghettioverdose]

The fundamental problem with trying to make tolkien-style fantasy worlds with dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs etc. that aren't racist is that the very premise of this world is "races and race science are real, races can have a race character and some races are better in most ways than all the other ones (except that they can't breed as fast)". The way fantasy races are thought of and treated as, is very much just taking colonial race science categories, exaggerating them and adding magic into the mix. That is an inescapable fact of what fantasy races are and why they're even called races in the first place.

A lot of fantasy racism discourse tends to gravitate around orcs often being inherently evil creatures who mostly exist as dumb brute enemies to be slaughtered at will, but I've personally seen less mention of the fact their role in the stories and games is to essentially represent The Barbarian Oriental Hordes and The Savages. This becomes very apparent if you look at the way they are designed. The good guy human faction has cathedrals, churches, temples, priests and clerics. The orcs have tents, totems and shamans.

This also applies to elves. The high elves are basically always some sort of tall, blonde, white skinned ubermensch who are vastly better than everyone in most ways except breeding (almost always borders on some sort of great replacement theory type shit). Wood elves are almost entirely the noble savage trope.

In almost all cases they also get a racial character where for example the high elves are depicted being smart, elegant, speak in an eloquent and flowery way and have all sort of other behaviours baked into them. Orcs are framed to be stupid, brutish, have no appreciation for art (their totems and paintings don't get counted because they are "savage" and "primitive") and are naturally destructive.

The only real way to avoid the racist tropes of fantasy effectively is to drop the whole race aspect of it. And this doesn't mean that you need to have a regular-human-only setting. You can still have a guy with pointy ears but just without framing them as a race of people. As an example, the fantasy setting I've been working on (on occasion) doesn't have races but it does have people with pointy ears, multiple eyes or other stuff like that. In this setting it is due to mutation and transformation brought through magic in one way or another. Some through using magic, others through curses.

[deepspaceboytoy]

Into the Breach, part 1

The first shot rang out even before Corvus Nino raised his head above the trench line. The plasma round glassed a patch of dirt behind his head, and when he looked back at it, the fused soil reflected his helm lenses back at him, red like the sun filtered through Tremaine’s febrile atmosphere. His color decanus pulled him back below the lip of the trench as more sniper shots shrieked overhead, the superheated plasma rounds igniting the air around them.

All along the trench line, officers rendered anxious and nervy by the years-long siege took glances out into the hellscape separating Nino’s lines from the Igorians. A blasted, pitted ruin of bleached, sickened trees, left baking in the sun like skeletal totems, and broken, blasted-apart bodies, it was Nino’s responsibility to get his troops from one side to the other, and damn the risk of devastating casualties. It was not the first time this war saw an action like this required of him. It would certainly not be the last.

He checked the internal chronometer projected onto his field of vision by his helm’s onboard computer. Five minutes, he thought to himself, five minutes to see whether the 244th Drop Assault Legion survived the day. He shunted a data dump to his officers, filled with as much up to the minute recon intel as he could scrounge from what was left of Legion Intelligence’s sensor capabilities. It was woefully incomplete. They barely had terrain scans, let alone a picture of enemy numbers, positions, or armaments. All he knew about the Igorians was that he was going to lead his troopers into a withering hail of munitions.

“Shatriya, what do we think? Go time or call it off,” he questioned his executive officer, Captain Shatriya Demetrius Srinivasan, over a private comms line, careful not to let his friend hear the fear he could feel simmering inside him, burning steadily like the fusion reactor keeping his armor running.

“I think you need to stop worrying and get ready to get about it, Corv,” they replied, giving their rifle one last check before the order to go over the top. “Waiting’s only gonna make it worse. I say bite down and take what’s coming.”

“Pleasant phrasing there, Riya. You think it’s gonna be that bad? We’ve lasted this long, maybe 244 has a few more years left in it.”

Srinivasan grunted, either noncommittal or amused, though Nino tended towards the latter most times. “I don’t think any of us have a few more years. This world’s already dead, and it’s taking us with it,” they said, pointing to an ion supercell storm off on the horizon, marking the descent of another dead battleship falling from orbit. “You’ve got Imperial warships raining down like whale fall and sick earth beneath our feet. This place is a tomb,” they finished bitterly, helm lenses darkening briefly as they shifted suit power.

Nino’s own power armor ticked and whirred, damaged servomotors whining in protest whenever he moved. It was banged up, damaged goods just like everything else on Tremaine at this point. He thought-clicked through his onboard computer, the suit’s AI compiling and displaying a radar scan of his troops’ position. They were dug into the base of a plateau atop which sat Fort Zama, the floodlights ringing its defensive walls casting harsh light out over the barren earth in front of his trenches. Well beyond the trenches, you could see the faint pinpricks of light that marked the start of the Igorian lines, packed full of elite Fethtrite warriors.

He looked back to his captain, several responses on his mind. He thought he’d found the best one, a way to maybe open up to his closest friend, speak what had largely been unspoken between them, when the first alarm blared. The words died on his lips, unsaid.

Then everything else died around him. He was already up and over the wall, the first legionary out of the trench, his troopers streaming behind him, when the first defensive fire found his forces. Plasma batteries rained constant, arcing bombardments and fusion lances speared down into the tide of legionaries at his back. Black-armored giants were annihilated down to their constituent atoms, vaporized instantly by plasma munitions millions of degrees hot.

Nino’s command squad made it to the first rally point, midway into no man’s land, intact, his techcomm and color decanus dragging a few more legionaries into the blast crater Nino had marked out before the assault. A solid rain of eye-searingly bright plasma flew overhead, keeping them down close to cover. To his left, another squad of drop troopers hunkered in a shallow ditch. He was screaming orders to advance when a plasma bolo wrapped itself around the squad leader’s armored head, the twin explosives wiping the position clean of life. All that was left of his soldiers were a few smoking pieces of legionary armor.

He checked his legion’s progress against the tactical map displayed on his HUD, teeth gritting as he saw the casualty lists growing. Already, 7th Cohort’s 1st Maniple was gone, the few survivors instantly reassigned to other nearby units by Beatrix, his AI command assistant. Back at Fort Zama, she would be rapidly ingesting combat data from the suit computer of every one of his two hundred thousand troopers, giving him up to the minute intel.

They were taking steady casualties, but his forces were still advancing at speed. Most of his units had reached their assigned primary positions. The legion was ready for the final push. Nino shunted the order to his unit leaders, and it filtered out from there, a visible ripple in the Imperial line as the first units broke cover to pound their way across the remaining distance.

Nino’s squad cleared the crater, emerging back out into the blasted nightmare of no man’s land, onboard rad counters spiking as they passed a column of burnt out tanks, turned into rusting husks by Imperial artillery and fusion beamers. The irradiated wrecks turned their path into a maze, but one that mercifully provided cover from the storm of defensive fire flying overhead.

His boots pounded through mud and brackish puddles, stomping over the bodies of Igorians and legionaries alike, the remains of past, failed assaults left to rot between the opposing lines. He nearly caught himself on a half-submerged armored greave as he crested another crater, but Srinivasan caught him. He turned his head to nod thanks, but they were already pacing further ahead, legs pounding to cover the remaining distance.

All around him, other legionaries were doing the same, and the speed was having an effect. Tightly packed they may be, but the combination of power armor assisted speed and redoubtable armor plating kept more of his troops alive than he’d expected.

Ahead of him lay one last armored wreck, a superheavy siege tank, too big to go around. He lowered his shoulder, thundering his way into and then through the side of the monolithic vehicle, rusted armor first bending and the breaking, and he shot out the far side like a bullet.

He was looking into the face of an Igorian. He hadn’t realized just how far he’d come, already in sight of the enemy trench. He pounded out the last few meters before he and his command squad jumped as one into the Igorian line. He landed with a wet thud, armored book sinking into a blown open chest cavity as he came down hard on the reptilian warrior he’d been staring down just a second earlier. Immediately, his squad was in the thick of it, legionary battleplate and strength of arms carrying the day now that the volume of fire had slackened. The entire 244th Legion impacted as one against the Igorian lines with him, massive armored infantry simply driving over the first rank of Fethtrite soldiers.

Nino’s combat blade was deployed, jutting out from his wrist, the monomolecular edge flensing skin and severing arteries as he and his troops whirled through the overmatched defenders. He put two rounds into the skull of an Igorian lining up a shot on Srinivasan, the kinetic rounds shredding its head into a fine mist before lodging deep in the rear of the trench. His sword lashed out at an off-balanced fighter, cutting down through the shoulder and out the abdomen, viscera splashing across one of his troopers as the Igorian spun away, dead.

He took two glancing shots off his pauldron, turning on his heel to bear down on the Igorian who’d fired at him, batting the plasma caster out of its hands before he levered an armored fist through its face. His legionaries stalked this section of trench, killing enemies where they stood. Overhead, the first shells of a renewed Imperial bombardment flew past, landing several hundred yards ahead of Nino’s new position, blasting flowers of dirt, rock, and Igorian bodies hundreds of feet in the air. The bombardment lasted less than a minute, just enough to keep the second defense line’s heads down while Nino’s troops gathered themselves and finished clearing the first row of trenches.

Gunshots continued to sound out, legionaries breaching and clearing the extensive network of dugouts and pillboxes that dotted the forward line, mopping up the last pockets of Igorian resistance. Captured field guns and weapons emplacements were re-sited, positioned to face the second line of trenches, while legionary sniper teams began eliminating any Igorian gunners or officers they could see. All along the twelve kilometer long line, his troops were rechecking weapons, patching armor breaches, and securing what ammo they could from the bodies of fallen legionaries. Every round counted.

As the last few shells fell, Nino shunted the next order to his officers, and the trench line exploded with activity, tens of thousands of legionaries surging back out into the mined and boobytrapped land between the lines. Captured plasma lances gouged out sections of Igorian troops, searing light and superheated gas annihilating reptilian bodies where they stood.

Nino and his command squad ran through the maze of razor wire, tank traps, and minefields, dodging bursts of sun-hot plasma and high energy fusion beams. Inside his suit, the hairs on his arms and legs were raised, static-y from the constant discharge of legionary magnetic accelerators, the air heavy with electrical discharge. Already, ion arcs were leaping between his troops, blackening the paint on their armored pauldrons. This was where legionaries were most at home, riding the storm they generated as they thundered across no man’s land.

What few Igorian guns had been brought to bear did their best, reaping what toll they could as the armored infantry fell upon them, but it was not enough. The Legion’s charge wasn’t even slowed as the crested the last few hundred meters, falling like a wave across the secondary line.

The low hum Nino could just barely make out quickly shattered the illusion.

A shadow fell across his section of no man’s land, and instantly he knew doom awaited his soldiers. As the AV-14 Combat Armature hove into view, underslung macro-cannons swinging ponderously on its arms, it unloaded a torrent of smart missiles, hundreds of tiny engines bursting to life as they cleared the rotary guns. They fell amongst his charging troops, bursting armor plates open, cratering helms and breaking bodies. Scores of his soldiers lay dying already, and he could hear the telltale whir as the macro-cannons spun up again. Across the line, he could see other armored behemoths wading in amongst his warriors, bashing legionaries apart with their massive gunbarrels or stomping them into the mud with their huge, splayed feet. To his left, a micro-missile hit his quartermaster square in the faceplate, his head fountaining with gore and viscera, dead so fast his body took several more steps before it finally dropped.

Srinivasan looked at him, nodded once, and charged for the one weak point the armature had: its cockpit. The pilot saw it instantly, sweeping an arm into their path, knocking them aside and sending them flying back. It had given Nino the opening he needed. He sprinted, rocketing up to his full speed in the blink of an eye, and leapt, sailing through the air to land with a thud on the cockpit, combat blades extended, biting deep into the armored viewport, anchoring him to the armature. The warsuit shook, the pilot desperately trying to throw him off, but the blades were embedded deep in the internals of the suit. Nino imagined the pilot panicking, a thousand pounds of pissed off legionary inches from his face, frantically trying to find some means of dislodging him. He had to play his hand right, wait for his moment. The suit’s left arm briefly sagged, and he knew it had come.

In the same instant the pilot dropped his control stick to fire his sidearm, Nino retracted one of his swords and drove his fist as hard as he could into the armored, crystalline surface. The plasma shot glanced off his chestplate as his blade plunged into and then through the pilot’s cranium, bursting it like ripe fruit. The suit faltered, and then it toppled, Nino riding the fall back to the ground. He retrieved his rifle from where he’d dropped it, looking for any sign of Srinivasan in the muck. His captain rose slowly from the mud, and Nino could imagine the grin plastered across their face. His executive officer lived for this, the thrill of the charge and chaos of the melee.

Nino never saw the shot that blew Srinivasan’s head off.

[ultraericthered]

King Magnifico: Reimagining A Good Baddie Into Disney Villain Excellence.

I did not plan on doing another post about King Magnifico but dammit, the man just compells me. Since I recently drafted a revision treatment for the story of Wish, dubbed The Fully Fulfilled Edition, and it got me thinking more about Magnifico and the iteration of the character that I envisioned for my version of Disney's sentimental centennial tale. I've covered the troubles with the finalized official Disney character enough times already; I feel like the handling of his character and execution of his role as the story's villain was like a basketball wobbling along the rim before falling through the basket rather than a straight slam dunk. He's easily the most well-realized, enticing, entertaining, and developed character of the whole picture, the only one who comes close to being three-dimensional. But even he could've been better. If all the kinks were to have been ironed out in him, what might that actually end up looking like in practice?

Note that for this undertaking, I did not want to super drastically alter Magnifico's character to the point where he'd become completely divorced from what we got in the film and just be Magnifico in name only. I make just enough expansions, alterations, and fixes necessary to turn what I find good enough into what I'd consider truly great.

For starters, his tragic origin story being told to us upfront right out the gate helps to clear the air early into the picture, when we've not yet met King Magnifico but are given the background information of the man who became King Magnifico, wed Queen Amaya, and built the kingdom of Rosas. In my take on the backstory, the young would be-King Magnifico's family lived in a harbor town, working slavishly on what's implied to be export and trade. It's said that one day the young man, wanting his family to be happier and have more time for him, made a wish upon a totem for his family's burdens to be lifted. Well, that ended up being a vague wish that in a way did come true, as the town was soon attacked by a band of greedy marauders. In the storybook images the town would be shown going up in green flames as young Magnifico takes a boat to survival. Unfortunately, the boat ended up getting wrecked landing on a desert island, and the story would tell us that the youth lost everything he had in the wreck...even though he'd clearly be holding onto something in the accompanying picture. It is then said that Magnifico understood well the value and the danger a wish can hold, which inspired him to learn the arts of sorcery and magic that can extract a heart's deepest and most precious wish as a tangible substance held within a magic orb. Eventually he and the loyal wife he'd married built a great kingdom on that very island Magnifico had landed on, the kingdom of Rosas, where the citizens wishes are given, protected, and granted in the benign rule of Magnifico and Amaya, the "long lived" king and queen.

With that backstory and the reasons for why Magnifico founded Rosas and created the wish giving system established, the first in-universe look at the king we're given is in statues, in murals, in his face painted in various locations, even in the cookies Dahlia bakes. The face looks very kind, dignified, wisened, majestic, and above all gorgeously handsome. His presence is also subtly felt in what we'd be shown of the average Rosas citizens - some who are overly happy and enthused in a very cult-like manner and some who are only half-awake and half-heartedly trying to stay into it. This is heavily implicit as being a result of the system and society in Rosas, where the happier people are the ones who've had their wishes granted or have such good standing with the royals that they feel they're likely to have their wishes granted in the near future, while the lethargic ones are those who've given their wishes away, cannot remember what they even were to start with, and have been tirelessly waiting for when the time comes for Magnifico to grant them in a wish ceremony.

So then when we’re properly introduced to King Magnifico after all the build-up, it'd be immediately striking how the appearance of the man himself doesn't quite measure up to what we'd seen depicted in the kingdom's arts and crafts. We were told he's beloved by all, yet the man we meet here would come off very...Stephen Strange-ish. He'd be very smarmy, disgrunted, irrate and patronizing towards Asha, visibly or verbally condescending to her and treating her like a silly, hapless child who he doesn’t believe will attain the position. However, he is coming off of another interview that ended poorly, so we think maybe he's just in a sour mood and we shouldn't assume too badly of him. If we hold onto hope for his better nature to win out, it seems to pay off when he appears to empathize with Asha after she's told him of her deceased father and all the ways in which he'd inspired her to dream big and to love Rosas; it's almost like the king sees some of his younger self in Asha, and through that, he's able to recognize that she could be a good fit for the job of working for him as his apprentice, someone he can shape into being more like him and following his ways. He'd do the "I too suffered great loss at a young age due to the selfish wishes and actions of greedy thieves and built Rosas as a place where that would not happen" thing like in the movie, but not only do we understand that more due to having been given the whole backstory, it'd also be more noticeable just how...calculated it feels. Like, Magnifico might as well say "I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. Y'know, my late son, Beau..."., y'know those shows of pseudo-empathy that political leaders love to do.

Once Asha has the job and returns to the castle for her first day of apprenticeship, King Magnifico would show us that oh no, this guy might actually be worse than we'd thought he was before. He's now in full Handsome Jack from Borderlands mode, acting more giddy and animated because he just loves his apprentice's first days where he can "dazzle them with all his splendor, and win over all of their love and devotion and appreciation for all his royal duties." And he just acts completely unkind and insensitive to Asha, making her do all sort of minor chores the way Lady Tremaine would do to Cinderella. He lets Asha into his sanctum of wishes, where he holds, juggles, balances and caresses some of the various wishes in a way that seems unsettlingly possessive, akin to how Mother Gothel stroked Rapunzel’s golden hair, and as he does he sings these words:

If happiness was a tangible thing, it would be you If you'd have told me the feeling you'd bring, I'd think it untrue And people search for a wonder like you all of their lives You still amaze me after all this time You pull me in like some kind of wind Mesmerized by the hold I'm in Leave you here, I don't wanna I wanna promise as one does I, I will protect you at all costs Keep you safe here in my arms I, I will protect you at all costs At all costs

Then the shoe drops. Magnifico reveals that he doesn't just collect these wishes to safeguard them and grant them in ceremonies: he uses the magical blessings cast upon the wishes as means of keeping his own magic powers charged every day, and it's also how he has sustained such slow aging and long living for himself and his wife. Yes, the royals feed off of the souls of their own subjects in order to keep their lifespan going, with the wishes extracted from the beautiful innermost part of those souls serving as convenient battery power for them. Unnerved as this makes Asha feel, the subject of a long life span naturally calls her almost 100 year old grandfather to mind, and she makes the dreaded "nepotism favor" request that the king consider granting Sabino’s wish at the ceremony. Magnifico, disappointed but not surprised, declines this request, rationalizing the wish could be too vague and might pose a threat to the kingdom. Asha then realizes Magnifico intends to never grant most of these wishes yet refuses to return the ungrantable wishes to their owners. She openly questions the king, telling him it's unreasonable of him to keep the most beautiful part of his subjects very selves from them if he truly has no inclination to ever grant them with his magic, and he should return those wishes to their owners so that they'll remember them and gain the drive to at least try to work towards fulfilling them themselves. Magnifico lashes out at her in fury ("I decide what everyone deserves!") and as consequence we get the ceremony where Magnifico pulls the spiteful fake-out with the wish granting just to shame and humiliate Asha, and let her know that her family's wishes will be kept by him forever, never to be granted. Also just barely noticable in the same scene would be that Magnifico reveals the wish of the person he grants it to and how it had been worded, but what he gives is notably a distorted alteration of the original wish. For all his high horsing about "be careful what you wish for, wishes worded too vaguely might go wrong when granted and that's too much of a danger risk", he himself exploits vaguely phrased wishes in order to twist them into something with benefits to the kingdom, his rule, and his image. For years, he's really only been using this system of wishes to make his own wishes come true, and has been routinely dishonest and hypocritical about it as he defrauds his people, committing theft by deception. What a self-obsessed bastard.

After Asha's made her wish to the stars and called Star down to Rosas, Magnifico and Amaya, having witnessed the wave of magic it brought, fear an unknown magic source that might threaten their kingdom and the hold they have on all the magic and wishes, but they find no answers in their books and scrolls to what this strange light might be. Magnifico starts acting furiously paranoid, remarking about how much he hates craven thieves and traitors. Due to how things went over with Asha, she is his primary suspect who he fears is now out to usurp his power and might not even be acting alone. As he starts to be overcome by desperation, Magnifico turns to his tome of forbidden dark magic and goes to unseal it. Fortunately for him, Amaya remains level-headed and is able to talk him out of it, to which he gives a very transparently half-hearted "thanks", followed by the "I am a handsome king" bit when Amaya tells him that, as they cannot baselessly accuse and arrest Asha for treason, they use the people’s love of him as their monarch to get them to reach the truth for them.

Of course, during the briefing with the public, people start asking how and why their wishes might now be in danger, which leads to questions about why Magnifico established the system the way that he did, which leads to deeper questioning such as why everything in Rosas is so tailored towards the king despite his role being to protect and provide for the people - like, why does the king need to have his handsome face plastered everywhere? When everyone feels the next wave of magic from Star’s evolution, it proves definitively what Magnifico told them: that this magic didn’t come from him, and that only creates a sense of disillusionment among the people. A furious Magnifico warns of a traitor within the kingdom conspiring to use this magic to steal all wishes and topple the monarchy, who must be found and punished, and that a wish will be freely granted to anyone who identifies this person. Then he shuts the doors back into his castle, frantically pacing about and looking to see if the magic came from somewhere within. Visibly aggitated, Amaya tries to soothe her petulant husband urging him to calm his mind and cheer himself up by gazing at his reflection in the mirrored walls. Which leads to....

"This Is The Thanks I Get" (Revised version)!

In between the second chorus and the bridge, Magnifico walks in front of the forbidden magic tome and vocalizes that in his years long reign, he has been far too soft on his people, spoiling them into becoming greedy, entitled ingrates who are all no better than thieves, so he needs to harden his heart and exercise more power “for their own good”, to tighten his grip over Rosas and preserve his power. So he unseals the book, opens it up, and gains power from its corruptive influence. And he made sure to do this when his wife wasn't around to stop him from doing so. This was his choice. He wanted this. In his desperation to not let his power over Rosas slip from him, he turned to what he knew as wrong primarily for the convenience of it enabling him to shed anything within himself that was restraining him before, and to grant to him more destructive, awesome power to squash all dissent with. This is what takes him from "big jerk" to "true villain."

After being told by Simon that Asha was indeed responsible for Star's summoning and has been plotting against him, Magnifico goes to Asha's family's home and assaults Sabino and Sakina with magic that’s holding them down when Asha and Star return. Declaring he must arrest the whole family for both high treason and harboring a criminal, Magnifico also takes time to relish some cruelty towards Asha, not only stepping on Sabino's already broken lute in front of her but bringing out Sakina’s wish and using his new dark power to shatter it in his grip, making Sakina reel in agony as the energy from her wish, a sacred part of her soul, gets absorbed into Magnifico’s black magic. Realizing how much power he can claims from the wishes delights the vainglorious monarch, who says had he known this, he would've broken wishes ages ago! So now Magnifico has a singular goal: to absorb the magic of both Star and all the wishes in order to become an all-powerful tyrant, motivated purely by pride, spite, desire for retribution and control, and the power high he's on.

Forging his new dark magic scepter, Magnifico addresses the public once more, revealing the traitor to be Asha and Simon to be the one to sell her out under the promise of having his wish granted. But be careful what you wish for, Simon! Magnifico twists the wish once again ("to be the king’s greatest, bravest and most loyal knight"), this time using his new dark magic to bewitch and brainwash him into a magitech knight. Magnifico then puts out the reward of another wish granting ceremony for the wish of whichever of his subjects helps the knights capture Asha and Star, with the added threat that the longer it takes for them to be captured, the more wishes he will break so that no one may get their wishes granted in the end, which makes the masses erupt into carnage and division between the fearful but still adoring loyalists to the king, and those who see this is not right and want no part in it. To quell this disorder, Magnifico unleashes more magic, desecrating the area and putting lives at risk, prompting a distraught Amaya to suggest he reign himself in better, and to her surprise, Magnifico points his staff at her, telling her to never again second-guess him or give him orders or else. He then orders all dissenters to be rounded up and thrown in the dungeon. So it's pretty clear by now that Magnifico is far gone, and this time the needless "looking for a way to save Magnifico from the thrall of the dark magic only to learn it can't be done" plot point is omitted, as this Amaya knows from the get-go that once you open the book and read from it even once, your addiction to the power it grants is unbreakable.

At the climax of the story, King Magnifico ascends the castle’s tower, sucks the life out from every wish that has been released into the night sky through his sanctum's open ceiling, and absorbs it all, sending droves of people in the kingdom into agonizing pain, anguish and despair. With no wishes to charge himself with, he gleefully traps Star in his scepter to act as the new living magical battery for his power. He thanks Star and Asha for how they've challenged his rule, because if they hadn't, he'd not have ever learned how much more gratifying it was to take all that he wants rather than "pretend to care and lightly snack on the magic of those wishes only in desperate moments". Asha's attempts to stop him are easily overpowered, as he then KO's his wife with a magic blast for her betrayal, then uses his dark magic to block out the sky so that the citizens never again may wish upon stars, then creates magical chains from out of the ground that bind all the citizens in place, and when the knights rush to stop their mad king, he not only chains them too, but unleashes waves of dark magic that set Rosas ablaze with green fire, madly declaring that he will oppress the disspirited masses forevermore: "No more hope, no more dreams, no escape, no chance to rise up, no one to tell any tales, and no one to challenge me ever again! And I would gladly rather see my great kingdom burn and crumble to Rosas' soil than give up this awesome power I so majestically wield!"

What happens next...well, you all probably know that by now.

So that's Magnifico's progression as the villain in my revision of Wish, but there's one last tiny yet hugely significant touch I'd add to fully bring his character together. A little before the big climax, Amaya would make reference to the fact that sealing the forbidden black magic inside “that heirloom” was among the first fundamental cornerstones of Rosas, but Magnifico has now totally backtracked on that and betrayed his oath to his people and their wishes. Hearing the book called an "heirloom" and then looking back at the storybook images of Magnifico's origin story at the start of the film makes the two pieces click together. That tome of forbidden magic belonged to Magnifico's family, the marauders sought it out and opened it up, which is what actually set the town ablaze, Magnifico took it with him as he fled to the boat, and it was the only thing he had that survived the boat's wreckage onto the shores of what would become Rosas. Throughout the story, Magnifico would have lines expressing his disdain for "thieves", "traitors", "cowards", "ingrates", and "weaklings". ...But this did not really come from just his trauma with the thieves. It's because he felt as though he himself, as a youth, was all of those things. He was a thief who stole his family's book, he was a traitor for making that vague wish that brought the marauders there, he was a coward and an ingrate for fleeing and leaving his family to burn, and he was a weakling for lacking the power to stop any of that from occurring and get things under control. To us on the outside looking in, it's easy to see how irrational it is for Magnifico to blame himself like that and have such self-loathing for boyhood mistakes and things beyond his control that were not really his fault. But tragically, no one ever told him this, not even Amaya. So what drove Magnifico forward in life was a pathological need to change his self image, to become someone greater and more powerful than that thieving little coward, to assert himself as the height of perfection, someone who could be loved and who could love himself in turn. He needed to be a king, for back in the day, a king was considered the only flesh and blood mortal human on Earth close to or secondary in power to the divinity of God Himself, for they had "the divine right to rule", the mandate of Heaven. So not only could Magnifico be that, but his magical power, the extension of his life via the wishes, and the system for taking the secret hopes, dreams, and prayers of the commonfolk to protect and decide which among them to grant, could put him that much closer to being a god among men. That is the core of what King Magnifico wanted; to feel like he was God, so as to erase his own inner pain over the fallability of being human. He was for years perpetually feeding his own power and ego, and yet it was never going to be enough. And he became so enthralled in his own God-and-Savior Complex, in playing at being the highest power in all the land, that he became a greedy, immoral, disruptive and destabilizing individual who brings suffering to the lives and wishes of others, like he'd once been the victim of; he became the very threat to Rosas that he’d been so wary of. And so, he got rewarded as such a threat deserves.

Dammit, now I'm low-key pissed at Disney! Say the line, Peridot!

[foolishbuilders]

Random QSMP Fic Recs

Somehow, Sundown by Coby_Thinks

"Don’t- Fit, don’t try,” Bad wheezed from the ground. “When he’s like this, it's-” “Oh, when I’m ‘like this’ what?” Foolish knew he was probably just being honest, seeing as Bad had seen him like this a good many times. Hell, Bad had driven him to this point, pulled him back, joined him in it… but he still turned to glare down at the demon. “What, Bad? I’m unreasonable? I’m- what, fucking dangerous?” They both knew that the last one was very true, and Fit seemed to sense it. Rated T, 4.6k words, Totem of Death Foolish

precious things (that time forgot) by Coby_Thinks

The word ‘immortal’ had some common misconceptions about it, sometimes confused with ‘eternal’ or ‘invincible’. No, that’s not how it was. Foolish knew that better than almost anyone Rated T, 23.6k, Fooligetta

just yesterday i could've gone far away (today it rains again) by justlukahere

Pac is running through the forest when a jolt of pain makes him fall to the ground or; on the run from the red pack, Pac steps into a trap Rated T, 1.7k, purgatory teams and werewolves

lightning strike by bonesandthebees

Although some of the tension in the woman’s shoulders loosened, she continued to keep the gun pointing at Cellbit. “How do I know you’re actually their parents? People are fucked up these days. Especially when it comes to kids.” So Tallulah and Richarlyson were here. They were here, and they were probably right through the door to her left. But despite how badly Phil wanted to run past the woman to grab his daughter, he knew that right now, that would end with a bullet to the back. “Let us see them,” Cellbit argued. “Then you can see.” “But you could be trying to intimidate them. How do I know you haven’t, I don’t know, kidnapped them or something?” The woman questioned. “They’re our kids! Why would we lie?” Etoiles asked. “Because you took them into a fucking horde!” Rated T, 10k, zombie apocalypse

the best laid plans are half baked by sparklesandjazzhands

Wordlessly, Cellbit hands over a piece of paper with the rough sketches he had drawn early that morning. Charcoal letters across the top proclaim “FUCK THE BEAR!” in a messy scrawl. They match the dozens of scribbled-out pages littering the ground beneath his feet. Foolish reads the title without comment and holds the page up to his face for closer inspection. “Huh,” he mutters eventually. m Rated T, 1.7k, post purgatory au

I Hate You Too by foolich

“So.. you guys.. dated?” Jaiden carefully inquires. “No – “ “ – Yes.” Their heads swing towards each other. Bad was the one who said yes, and Foolish, is the one who rushed to deny. Foolish takes the leap to properly explain, like it’d soften his fall from grace, “We kissed for like two seconds.” “There is absolutely nothing between us.” Bad adds. “I do not feel anything towards Foolish.” Foolish pauses, his expression crumpling, “For some reason I feel like I should be offended by that.” Unrated, 2k, foolhalo/landduo shenanigans

[simgnomeful]

On to Gen 3 and we are living in Glimmerbrook in a Haunted House!

Generation 3 - GHOST

Aspiration: Soulmate

Traits: Foodie, Cat lover, Clumsy

Career: Freelance Paranormal Investigator

Skills: reach maximum skill level for each.

Medium

Cooking

Gourmet cooking and/or Baking

Objectives:

Move into a haunted house. (your choice of world)

Have at least one pet cat.

Grow at least one death flower plant.

Earn the Brave trait from the reward store. (purchase after they've lived seven days inside the haunted house)

Have a friendship with a ghost that turns to romance.

Make ambrosia and resurrect your ghost partner from the dead.

Have 5 children.

Collections: optional - complete them all or pick n’ choose.

Collect all 10 sugar skulls. The Sims 4: How to Complete the Sugar Skull Collection

Collect Paranormal Rewards.

3 specter buddy jars

6 bizzare totems

7 hello dahlia dolls

3 clay hands

3 specter sips

1 ectocake

4 strange overgrowth

12 soul pieces

10 candy jars

[solaneceae]

grief

a team bolas oneshot (read on ao3) written before green team was split between red and blue, so in this they all died. angst with a side of family comfort. tw: blood and gore, temporary character death, self-inflicted burns

Pac wakes with a deep ache inside his chest and at the back of his mind — like a fresh, open wound that’s still bleeding. He reaches out, for the comforting hum of his soulmate’s sleeping mind on the other side, and finds nothing.

He doesn’t understand. But he also does. He’s surprised he’s not immediately breaking down screaming, but maybe he’s been broken for a long time and just didn’t notice until now.

He finds Pierre and Bad, busying themselves at the anvils. And he asks.

(Nothing, he has nothing, Richas missing, Cellbit insane and on the hunt for him, Forever dead, Mike dead, Bagi dead, Felps still MIA.

Fit.

Fit’s gone. Fit has died hating him.)

“I see,” he says, numb and empty.

And he draws out his sword.

When Red Team wakes the next morning, some of them are still holding onto hope. Hope that it was all a lie, hope that Green would merely be dissolved, its members assigned to the two remaining teams.

Hope is a cruel, fickle thing. And it dwindles fast in the minds of team Bolas as the hours start to trickle by, with no sign of any green-tinted name popping up on the global chat. Even faster when Carré comes back from recon, reporting the disappearance of Green’s spawn barrier as well as their mission NPCs.

The silence within their cave is deafening, only broken by the sound of a hammer hitting red-hot metal over the anvil. Some of them just check their comms obsessively, fraying minds tethering between denial and a complete breakdown. 

Cellbit hasn’t moved an inch since he woke up, sitting up at the center of their shared nest with absolutely nothing in his icy, blue slitted eyes as they stare at his commlink. At the last messages he’d sent to Roier, still unanswered. (His husband is gone. His sister is gone. His best friend, his President is gone. He has nothing left, and his tongue tastes like unspilled blood.)

Phil is looming over a crafting table, mindlessly placing and removing materials with no rhyme or reason. (Étoiles is gone, his best friend and brother in arms, his devil-may-care attitude, his humor, his fearless smile. Fit’s gone, his shameless flirting and unwavering determination. Forever. Forever. Kristin is eerily silent.)

Jaiden sits in a faraway corner, sharpening her sword until the edge can slice the very empty space between atoms. (Roier taught her. He taught her so much. She would make him proud.)

Charlie is off near the ovens, baking bread after bread after bread in a compulsive act of self-soothing that doesn’t quite work. (He thinks of his bitch wife, and hopes he’ll be smart enough to stay asleep today.)

Baghera’s shaking, huddled close to her fellow avian and mentor as she watches him work without really processing it, the crow’s hand occasionally tapper on her arm to keep her from ripping her feathers off. (She thinks of her brother. Her stubborn, annoying baby brother and his cursed bleeding heart. His hair had been cut so short, she’d been wanting to take a moment to even it, maybe style it a little even. She thinks of Pierre, and feels hatred. She thinks of Badboy, and feels betrayal.)

Foolish straightens up, rolls his shoulder as he admires his handiwork. (He thinks of his adopted son, and remembers why Bad always told him not to get attached to mortals. But Foolish never listens, and never will, despite how much it hurts every single time.) “It’s ready,” he drones out, catching the attention of everyone present. Phil turns to him, expression set in stone and unreadable. “Let me see.”

Team Bolas congregates around their leader, slightly bowed in something like reverence as he walks past them towards the shark-totem. Foolish grins, mirthless and cold, as he hands him a metal stick. The head of it is adorned with a strange shape, still reddish from heat. “Good job,” the Angel of Death nods, eyes and hands stained black as a few stray plants and roots wither away under his feet. His flock shivers like a single entity, all of them fastening their masks over weary, tear-streaked faces. Foolish whistles, spinning the branding iron like a majorette would their stick. “Thanks, Crowfather sir! Wanna do the honours?” Foolish chirps.

Philza Minecraft nods, silently letting his robe fall off his shoulders, exposing his naked back. “Let’s do it quick,” he says, looking over each of his fledgelings, who bow their heads in unwavering loyalty. “Today, we don’t let them rest. Not for a second. Doesn’t matter how many times they kill us, we swarm them, again and again. We, teach them pain.” He feels the heat of the furnace on his back as he sits before it, Foolish humming a cheery tune as he pokes at the blazing inferno inside. “Baghera, how many chainsaws did you make?”

The duck tilts her head. He can see her red-tinted eyes through the mask, and they crinkle in vindictive joy. “More than enough,” she coos, and Jaiden bumps her mask against hers, hello, clean, flock, hello. Phil croons out a yesyes. “Good. Very good.” He beckons her over, runs his claws through her hair-feathers lovingly. “You’ve become stronger. I’m proud of you. All of you.”

“Thanks Dad,” the duck hybrid whispers, preening under the praise. “Get ready,” Foolish warns. Phil doesn’t wince, doesn’t brace himself. Doesn’t care. “Jaiden,” he says, and the conure chirps in acknowledgment. “Taunt them. Trick them. Use every dirty tactic you can think of, I don’t care, this is no longer a fight. It’s retribution. Carré,” he turns to the warrior in the cat onesie, “I trust you. Put the fear of you in their hearts.” Carré gives a salute, sword gleaming in the dim light of their den. “Charlie, Foolish, literally go apeshit. Now’s the time.” Foolish laughs, eager, and Charlie’s codified parts glitch in anticipation. “Cellbit.” and the detective perks up. Phil flashes him a cruel smile. “Do what you do best,” he declares, and the Brazilian looks like Christmas came early.

Then red-hot iron slams against the skin of his back, and Phil lets out a gasp as his flesh starts to sizzle and burn. His talons dig deep into his own thighs in an attempt to distract himself from the pain, and the air smells like cooking meat. Cellbit starts howling first, the last of his sanity breaking when the smell hits his nostrils even through the mask, pupils dilating — like a shark smelling blood. The rest of them soon join in, screeching and laughing, too loud, too high-pitched and broken. Then Foolish removes the iron, and Philza almost falls over under the mixture of pain and relief. The rest of the flock rush over to support him, glancing at the result of Foolish’s hard work with barely disguised awe.

Angry red lines, bloody and bubbling, form the simplified shape of a gas mask right between the mangled remains of his ebony wings. A symbol of loyalty, devotion, belonging. (Pack, flock, family, murder.) “How’s it look?” the crow wheezing out, somehow still mustering the strength to make a joke out of his own agony. Jaiden flashes him a thumbs up. “Nice.”

“I want to go next,” Baghera pipes up, wings twitching with anticipation. Foolish nods, letting the others help Philza wobble away to let him recover for a minute. “Alright. Get over here then, sister.”

(There is no coming back after this, they all know that. Those marks would be here to stay, because self-inflicted scars don’t get erased by respawn, as some of them had found out over time. They all count on it.)

***

The trip is like a blur, partly because of the pain making their vision go hazy and, partly because the sky is red red red and it makes their minds fuzzy and time all wibbly-wobbly.

Charlie remembers hot desert sun hitting his shoulders and colouring them an angry red, Carré taking off his hood to breathe properly. He remembers Foolish carrying them through a freezing river, ice-cold water a temporary balm against the fresh burns in the center of his chest. (He doesn’t regret it. The pain is worth it. And the code infection is so cold, cold cold, the blazing heat radiating from the brand mark is almost soothing in comparison.) He remembers Baghera, limping the whole way, yet refusing any help. Pushing herself further than she ever has to keep up with them. Refusing to be a burden, refusing to drag them down. “I’m fine,” she would say, brushing her feathers over the mark on her right hip. “I’m fine.”

The sky is red, everything is. The blood-fog rolls in, or maybe it’s the toxic gas disaster. They can’t tell, with the masks that keep them breathing and tinted lenses painting the landscape crimson. They press on, helping each other whenever one falls, because their armors might be shit still despite yesterday’s grind, and they might have nothing. But they have each other.

When they finally find Blue, it doesn’t quite feel like catharsis. Not yet. All seven of them loom over their location - Pierre, Bad, Tubbo. (A shame. A shame he was here. He’d tried, they all knew that. But it hadn’t been enough.) They can’t see Pac anywhere, but given the few death messages that popped into global chat earlier, Phil can take a guess at what happened. (Note to self: extend an invitation to the Brazilian later.) No words are exchanged (quiet, quiet, don’t get spotted), only quick glances and flexing talons and flashes of teeth hidden beneath rubber masks. The sun hits their backs (it hurts, for Phil and Cellbit, who has chosen to place his own brand in the small of his back. He’s forsaken armor for this, he wants to feel every slash and tear, he wants to feel something, anything), their shadow-cast silhouettes stark against the red skies.

(They are pack, scavengers. They are eager to sink their teeth into writhing flesh and sharpen their claws on picked-clean bones.)

Philza raises an arm when Bad spots them, immediately barking out orders at Pierre and Tubbo, who doesn’t look like much of a leader at the moment. (What a shame. He deserved better.) The flock tenses, talons and claws digging into loose dirt, eerie growling and giggling and Charlie’s eager ‘how about now? can we go, please, dad?’

The Angel of Death looks down as his children. He lets his arm fall, and six shadows take off and rush downhill in a cacophony of barks and howls and cackling, hyena-like laughter.

Cellbit can see nothing at all, blinded by burning demon blood in his eyes, in his mouth, in his hair and beard. His knife digs into something soft and warm, someone screams, doesn’t know who. Something trips him and his head hits the ground, stunning him, and a sword stabs him in the shoulder and he laughs, ripping it out to roll away, uncaring of the copious amount of blood he’s losing. He hears the revving of an engine nearby, and wipes the blue liquid out of his eyes just in time to see Baghera slice at Pierre with her chainsaw, severing bone and tendons from his left shoulder to his right hip. Blood and viscera fall out of the gaping wound as he chokes, impossibly blue eyes widening, and then his body falls and the chime of death-respawn rings out over the battlefield. One. 

“First kill!” Carré woops, blocking strike after strike from a hissing Bad. “My turn now,” he grins, feral and they all know he’s the only human here how could a human feel so much like them, and his legs do a thing none of them can comprehend but he’s behind the demon now, thrusting his blade forward and into a groove in the fiend’s diamond armor. Chime. Bad falls, dead before his body hits the ground. Two. The Argentinian Beast swipes to the side, ridding his blade of sickly blue liquid. His sleeve creeps back up his arm, revealing the bottom of their symbol. “Mejórate, noob.”

“Oh SHIT!” Jaiden cackles, busy carving out the inside of Tubbo’s ribcage like a halloween pumpkin. “Carré’s out for blood, we love to see it.”

“Where’s Pac?” Cellbit grumbles, teeth around someone’s liver. Foolish rushed back from respawn, waving at them cheerfully, and bodies an incoming Pierre to the ground to bash his head against a rock until his skull gives and splits in half like a watermelon. “Uuuuh, dunno! Why, wanna eat his other leg?”

“Maybe.”

“Be nice,” Baghera pouts, beak splattered in red as she discards her broken saw, only to summon a fresh one from her inventory. She looks down at it with motherly fondness. “He did kill Bad earlier. And he lost Mike, and my brother. I say we leave him be.”

“Mmmh. Careful, here comes BitchBoy.”

“Oh, hello,” the duck chirps, evading a strike from Bad’s scythe. “Did you miss me, Bébou?” she giggles, thrusting her saw forward and cutting through the demon’s armor like it’s butter. Bad lets out a frustrated what the FUDGE before the blades pierce through the enchantments and through his belly. Chime. “I don’t know if I missed you,” she hums, throws her machine away, summons a new one. “I’m still thinking about it.”

Jaiden howls at her, Foolish barks, and all of them devolve into throat-tearing screams as their clothes soak up all the red, red above, red below, red, red. Philza climbs up a tower and swoops in, deadly precise, skewers another Tubbo that just showed up. “You should really give it a rest, mate,” he hums without an ounce of aggressivity, sitting on the lad’s chest as he wheezes out his last breath. “You’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be.”

“Can’t—” the goat hybrid chokes, bloody foam bubbling out of his mouth as his lungs fill up with fluid. “I’m. Tina. Nikki, Missa.” The name makes Phil blink. “Can’t… abandon them.”

“Suit yourself,” the Crowfather shrugs, then plants his blade into his former protégé’s neck with nary a sound. Chime.

Chime. 

Chime. 

Chime. 

They don’t always win, far from it. Chime . But they don’t care, losing themselves in the cycle of fight-kill-die-respawn-run-fight. Chime. Even when their resources run out, when they have nothing left but their own hands to fight with, they still come, again and again, moved by the collective desire to make them pay. They get less and less kills, armors and weapons gone, their own bodies piling up in a grotesque display. Chime. Chime. Chime. Blue Team tries to run and hide, but Jaiden and Foolish sniff them out like a pair of bloodhounds, always on their tail as the rest of the flock follows. The hours trickle, too slow yet too fast, and Blue is now winning because they kill them a lot more often than Red kills them, but they don’t give a single shit about that stupid bar made up but a stupid eyeball thing that they are done entertaining because THEIR FUCKING FRIENDS AND FAMILY ARE DEAD.

They rip, and tear, and bite when nothing else works anymore. Everything hurts, repeated respaws and the brand mark making their bodies stumble and fall and shake and seize against the cold dirt, making them easy targets. But they keep fighting.

Cellbit starts crying at some point, tears washing off the blood in twin lines on both his cheeks, and he repeats his husband’s nickname like some fucked up mantra as he stabs into Pierre’s chest over and over again, the engineer long dead. Yet he still keeps going, until Phil gently tears him away from the body to press his own bloody forehead against the Brazilian’s, letting him cling to his robes like the crow’s his last anchor to the mortal plane. Foolish and Jaiden come back, huffing, saying they’ve lost track of their target, and everyone stands still for a moment.

Phil’s commlink buzzes. He glances at it, spots something blue, turns it off. No more parlé, no more talks. “I think they’re done for today,” he sighs, helping Cellbit to his feet. “Let’s go back.”

“To the den?” Charlie asks, ripping off his mask to shake off stray pieces of viscera before putting it back on. His entire body is soaked in red, but Phil can spot some green beneath it. His code arm glitching erratically, but he barely seems to feel it. 

Philza nods. “To the nest.”

“Can we burn?” Baghera asks. Her voice is shot, just like after an intense session of karaoke. “I don’t wanna walk back. I wanna burn.”

“Me too,” Jaiden raises her hand, Charlie following suit. “Oooh, we should all do it,” the conure gasps, already piling up dead wood and whipping out her flint and steel. “It’s like a warpstone! But crispier.”

Maybe Phil should discourage that. But his bad knee hurts like a motherfucker, and what’s a little more agony after today. “Sure, fuck it.”

The pier lights up their surroundings as they dance their way into the flames, hot coal burning the soles of their feet. They briefly wonder if this is what witches did back in the day, before their last hearts are drained and they fall into the space-between-spaces, respawn mechanic spitting them out the other side and into the damp coolness of their cave-home-nest-den.

Their wounds are gone, as always. But not the brand, still pulsing with dull pain on each of their bodies. They all put ice on it, mechanically, minds already far away as their timer nears its end for the day.

None of them bother to clean up before it hits zero. The pack huddles into the nest together, blood-sticky and shaky and Cellbit is still sobbing, Jaiden’s arms around him while she croons and chirps, avian words eaten up by her own hiccuping sobs ( help, sad, sad, flock) , Charlie rubbing soothing circles into the cat hybrid’s back as he wails. Carré whispers praise and fighting tips to Baghera’s who’s only half-listening, wrapping up Dad’s sprained wing in a makeshift splint. Foolish sits close, humming absentmindedly as he finger-combs the knots and bits of flesh out of Jaiden’s long hair. “...You guys wanna move to Eggxile with me?” Charlie asks, drowsy and sluggish, Baghera’s hand-wing in his code-infected one. “When we go back. You can- you can take care of Flippa with me, if… you know. If this shit doesn’t work out.”

Jaiden laughs, wet and unstable. “I’d love that actually.”

“Your house has fumes in it,” Cellbit adds, so quiet it’s hard to make out. “I like that. It’s homey.”

“We can keep the masks there, it’s perfect,” Baghera approves, and Phil finds himself considering it because Charlie’s ramshackle house might be turning into code shit, but at least it’s far away, safe, away, away, and he doesn’t know if he can trust anyone outside his flock after this. Not stay on the wall, where everyone and their dog can show up unannounced. “Maybe,” he says.

Then their comms buzz, darkness claiming them quick.

[tsukikonikushimi]

Avatar the Official Cookbook of Pandora RDA R. Recipe N°8: HYBRID MAC ‘N’ CHEESE

The winner from last poll was the HYBRID MAC ‘N’ CHEESE's recipe.

The recipe is under the poll for next week's recipe. As always, if somone wants a specific one, write it down in the comments.

This is the link with the post with all recipes (under the "keep reading" line): Here

OO = Omatikaya Offerings / RDAR = RDA Rations / MB = Metkayina Bounty / CF = Clan Feasts

HYBRID MAC ‘N’ CHEESE

[theseventhoffrostfall]

A while back, me and my buddies were discussing stuff we'd like to see in the event hell freezes over and Elder Scrolls 6 is released in our lifetimes.

There's the obvious general stuff. More weapon types, with bigger movesets and more distinctiveness between them. Dual-weilding and offhand weapons are now a thing, so bringing back stuff like throwing knives/stars and maybe introducing the likes of javelins, atlatls and even slings as a one-handed marksman option would be nice.

And I shouldn't have to say that not only should magic have more spell options (though I like each spell being of a fixed, distinct function rather than earlier TES games having vague mix-and-match effects that lacked any flare and were frequently confusing as to what the in-narrative explanation for what the wizard thought he was doing was) but make spell damage scale so lower-level spells (and also, like, any spells at all) stay relevant at higher levels. And ideally let conjurers some of those old weird summons back instead of having like five options. And let them summon a bunch, because the reason people play summoners and necromancers is not because they want a pet, ever. They want a swarm to throw at their problems. Maybe there's a few basic conjuration spells that are there to mystically command your horde.

More utility abilities and spells. Climbing should be a mechanic, and in a perfect world this comes back alongside athletics and acrobatics returning as, I'd not skills, then things you can invest into to make yourself notably more mobile and make traversing smoother. The Alteration school can once again shine instead of having like two spells that aren't mage armor. There's the inevitable fast-travel debate, which I'd like to compromise by just ensuring the PC has some sort of divine intervention ability or spell that sends them back to the nearest point on the big connected web of fast travel systems. So you still get to explore and master that but also don't have to trudge around wilderness you've seen 500 times.

Restoration used to be about buffs rather than being exclusively the healbot button. In reintroducing buffs (which should be "raise melee damage/ reduce damage taken/ boost movement speed" and the like; I think bringing back attributes is a one-way ticket to cludge-town) you can borrow from the likes of Grim Dawn and use a magicka reserve system, where portions of your total magicka are blocked off for the spell's duration, which will frequently be "until you toggle it off". Keeps people from chugging potions and the like to buff-stack themselves into godhood.

Equipment-wise, smithing just increasing damage and armor rating obviously has to go. My suggestion would be to ditch the linear progression of strict upgrades in weapon type (iron-steel-elvish-dwarvish-etc) altogether, but I realize that's kind of a totem for the series. Instead, have smithing give you the option of applying different affixes to the item, ideally in a flavorful way that shows on the item model. Silver edge for bonus damage to ghosts, poison reservoir in the pommel for extra charges/duration to applied poisons, yadda yadda. The amount of affixes you can smith onto an item is based on smithing skill and item type. Think Fallout 4's upgrade system if they didn't give up halfway through and make most of the options static damage-tier options. Same for armor, along with armor having properly flavorful effects baked in. I should be more cold-resistant wearing fur and more sneaky wearing dark leather.

That being separate from enchanting, which, most of my notes here will be what I've said before--if enchanting can't just be a static boost (as it shouldn't be, if it's an activated ability) then make the bar recharge over time like it used to. Stop making my sword take ammo.

These systems together mean there are fuckloads of possible weapon/armor combos and possible drops from enemies, bosses and chests. Which brings up the main point:

By now, you're probably thinking that I'm talking exclusively about combat, buildcrafting and exploration mechanics, and I should instead be demanding intricate plot, better worldbuilding, an engaging and often arduous world with a slow start. I should be another voice in the choir demanding Morrowind 2. Thing is, that's plainly never going to happen. Realistically, I don't want to see modern Bethesda's attempt at it. Respawning enemies, radiant quests, Fo4's legendaries, Starfield outright having color-tiered rarity, level locations having increasingly-elaborate traps and all ending with a quasi-boss enemy guarding a chest of valuables; Bethesda clearly wants to make a combat-focused, first-person, wide-open sandbox-based hack and slash action RPG, the kind where story is optional and diving into a dungeon crawl is a reward all its own. And frankly, I'd love that kind of game. It's not Morrowind, or Oblivion, or even what Skyrim ended up being, but it's fun, and the success of games like Elden Ring show that the mass market will readily bear more mechanically complex and skill-intensive games than Skyrim. My wish list here is based entirely on trying to make said ARPG an actually good one

[a-forger-and-a-point-man]

So this is so not thought through it’s not even half-baked, it’s still some raw cookie dough I bring you BUT I hope you enjoy anyway. SO I don’t know if I’m a big believer in the”it was all a dream and Cobb made it up” theory BUT I always thought if that was the case then Arthur and Eames were projections of real people but I just had the thought of what if Arthur is also made up because Arthur -> Arthurian legend -> incredibly loyal knight taking on seemingly impossible tasks for the one they have sworn fealty to

omg ok so isn’t this why Nolan chose the name Arthur to begin with???? Surely?? It always confused me why his totem wasn’t the knight chess piece 🤔

(I love when you have ideas and shoot them my way!!!)

[mmmmalo]

Free associative rambling, anti-semitism cw

The whole "juice" thing made me wary of the word "juju" as possibly stupidly disguising "jew-jew", but I couldn't find much to bolster the suspicion. At best there was Jake's question "what the bejesus is a juju?", which could be tortured into an dichotomization of the (familiar) Christian and the (alien) Jewish. As far as bad puns go, this would be on par with the cherubim's major food being the candy Jujubes and literal Pounds of Flesh (the recurring Merchant of Venice joke) -- though I don't know if Special Stardust can be squeezed into that thematic groove. Perhaps if the bit where Gamzee throws Special Stardust in his face were distortion of the biblical mourning practice of sprinkling ashes on your head...? That would certainly resonate with the association of the Ashen quadrant with cuckoldry... and the Special Stardust corrupting Act 6 Act 6 were effectively ash, that would resonate with sense of decay assigned to file compression artifacts (like the glitter in Condy's literal file)? Even independent of antisemitic motifs, the infertility symbolism around the Baroness (or the Barren-ness, as lime-bloods noted) would make ash pouring out of the folder resonant... and it would also wrap around to the anti-semitic connotations of baking? Hm

Emphasizing arc-juju Lil Cal (and his eyes) as a container for some evil essence is consistent with paranoid notions of sight explored elsewhere (eg Lord English's 88/HH eyes), but more generally... well to quote lime-bloods:

Lil Cal isn’t just“a juju”, but is “FILLED WITH BAD JUJU.” Magic in Homestuck has always really been about the idea that believing in something can make it real, and the purpose of all Homestuck’s dealings with chucklevoodoos and jujus is to evoke the anthropological concept of the “fetish”; an item whose power comes from human beings ascribing supernatural qualities to it. Jujus are all part of the “game” the cherubs play, with all its rules and quirks; breaking an enchantment is like breaking a rule, in that it changes nothing about the real world: you’ve just infringed upon an idea. The juju isn’t the object; the juju is the power, good or bad, ascribed to the object.

To me, the possibility that Freud was invoked in an anti-semitic capacity (resistance to his Particular theories being a disguise for the story's General depiction of hostility towards abstraction) makes the above seem haunted by Freud's appropriation of the anthropological fetish for psychological purposes... though I suppose the story's incorporation of various Indigenous symbols* for paranoid purposes could poison the concepts independently of Freud's discussion of fetish and totem -- it's weird how this mode of reading can suggest that concepts might be deployed in bad faith and good faith at the same time, in several distinct paradigms.

*though Caliborn's name, as I've mentioned before, resonates with Shakespeare's language-hating islander Caliban (cousin of "Carribean" and "Cannibal"), such that the Pound of Flesh motif can function as a Native and Jewish smear simultaneously? I'm dizzy