#world. BUILDING on it in a way that warps some of the original text? sure thats sexy done well or not. ERASING the text?

[joelletwo]

also it must be said explicitly every time. the orv webtoon is working with the revised ebook text which changes a lot of minor and major things for the worse. 1. tones down. SOOOOOO much of the political commentary and identity of the novel. which like. its a political novel. not as explicitly as it is other things, and get that more broadly accessible money i guess, but also its so disappointing. 2. tones down a lot of the gay subtext. ALSO DISAPPOINTING

[teatime-scans]

Chapter 36 Text Translations

Hey all, we’re back with a text translation from our backlog! Some of these chapters might be released out of order, but rest assured that we will work on eventually getting all the chapters in our backlog released! So just hang tight and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Translator: Manaphy TLC: Spimer

Page 0

Middle text: The hot days have arrived.

Left Text: The official spin-off in which Amuro Tooru is the star! In this chapter, “That Idol” makes her debut! When visiting Nichiuri TV at the idol’s request, an incident suddenly occurs…!?  

Detective Conan Zero’s Tea Time

Cover + colored start!

Arai Takahiro - Draft Supervision: Aoyama Gosho

Page 1

Side text: The Poirot pair have come to Nichiuri TV-!

Panel Text: As thanks for the great popularity! The opening pages in color! Azusa: It’s my first time at a TV station!

Azusa: Maybe we’ll get to meet some celebrities~ Amuro: Well, who knows!

Board: Okino Yoko - waiting room Blue circle: Amuro Tooru’s official Spin-Off!

Yoko: Woow! This looks delicious! Okino Yoko (22) - Idol

Page 2-3

TIME.36: HANZO

Calligraphed text: Saving the world from the shadows.

Detective Conan Zero’s Tea Time

Arai Takahiro - Draft Supervision: Aoyama Gosho

Page 4

Azusa: Wow! It’s Okino Yoko-san… She’s so cute…! Yoko: Thank you for the delivery!

Yoko: Mouri-san recommended me your café… Yoko: He told me that you make delicious sandwiches! SFX: Naahaha

Azusa: Yes!  Please help yourself to these delicious ham sandwiches, an original recipe created by Amuro-san! Yoko: So, you’re Amuro-san?

Yoko: I’ve heard about you from Mouri-san! That you are a very talented detective, and so on... SFX: Twitch

SFX: Sneak

Azusa: Amuro-san? Amuro: Not at all, I’m no match for Mouri-sensei by far...

Page 5

Yoko: Oh, I know! If you don’t mind, there’s something I’d like you to pass along to Mouri-san! They’re tickets for my next show...

Yoko: Huh? ...They’re gone… Manager: A-Again? Yoko: My cosmetics pouch as well…

Yoko: This makes it the third time this year...  Even though I locked it in here… SFX: Whisper Whisper

Yoko: A thief has been striking often inside the station’s waiting rooms as of late… Amuro: I’ll inform Mouri-sensei about it... If it’s for your sake, Okino-san, I’m sure he’ll agree to help!

Manager: Yoko-chan, it’s almost time for the rehearsal for HANZO! SFX: Ker-chak Yoko: Thank you very much for today! I’ll share these with everyone!

Azusa: This waiting room thief is worrisome, isn’t it… Amuro: Indeed, I hope they get arrested soon...

Page 6

Amuro: By the way, Azusa-san… What kind of program is this HANZO...? Azusa: You’ve never watched it, Amuro-san? Poster: HANZO - 5th Contest

Azusa: HANZO is a super popular ninja-themed sports contest! Despite many top athletes from various fields as well as other people who take pride in their physical strength coming forward to take the challenge, not a single person has managed to clear it!  

Azusa: It’s really interesting and always has me on the edge of my seat! Yoko-san always attends as a commentator, And she’s supposed to hand the trophy to the perfect conqueror who’s bound to appear sooner or later! I absolutely can’t miss this week’s episode ~♪ Amuro: Oh, I see...

Azusa: Um, excuse me, Amuro-san! Before going back to Poirot, is it okay if I wash my hands first? Amuro: Yes, I’ll be waiting here! Azusa: I’ll be right back! SFX: Tap tap

Page 7

SFX: clack clack

Amuro: This is Okino-san’s waiting room, isn’t it? SFX: Jolt

Hanzawa: Well, I’m a HANZO staff member, that’s why... Amuro: Yeah, I would guess so… Since we were in the same room a short while ago…

Hanzawa: Please excuse me, I have work to do…

SFX: Drops

SFX: Clink Clink

Amuro: Oh? You dropped something!

Page 8

Amuro: Lipstick? Hanzawa: Eh!? SFX: Rumbling

Amuro: Is it yours, by any chance? Hanzawa: I...I’m on the make-up staff, So could you please give it back?

Yoko: Oh dear, what’s wrong with me? Forgetting things in the waiting room... SFX: Clack

Yoko: ? That,

Yoko: Is my cosmetics pouch…

Hanzawa: Dammit! Amuro: Wait! SFX: Stomp

Page 9

Amuro: !?

Amuro: What the!? What is this gigantic set!

Hanzawa: What a persistent guy! Though, how far can you follow me in this devilish fortress, which has crushed numerous challengers? [1st stage] This is a set I’ve created! It’s like my backyard!

Hanzawa: My beloved Yoko-chan’s pouch! As if I'd let someone snatch it!

Page 10

[2nd Stage] [3rd Stage] Carving: 50 Monme TN: Approx. A “Monme”, or “Mace”, is a japanese measurement of weight. 1 Mace ~ 3.75 grams.

[4th Stage]

Hanzawa:  Why did I have to build such an atrocious and nasty course...! SFX: Quiver Hanzawa: My fatigue is building up… I’m losing my grip...!

SFX: Slip

Hanzawa: Aaaaaa… SFX: Splash

Page 11

Amuro: Huff Huff

HANZO’s last trial - The Rising Warped Wall

SFX: Slip

SFX: Tap Tap Tap

Page 12

SFX: Stomp

Manager: Where’s the culprit, Yoko?! Yoko: If I’m not mistaken, he ran over here! SFX: Thud

Page 13

Yoko: T-There he is! In the pond below the set! SFX: Choke

Staff: You bastard! It was you! You’re the waiting room thief!

Staff: Someone call the police! SFX: Chatter Chatter

Amuro: Phew, At last, the goal… Sheet: Perfect conquest!

Amuro: Wait… What was I even doing?

Azusa: Amuro-san, I was looking for you! What are you doing all the way up there!? You’ll get scolded! Amuro: I will, won’t I?

Bottom text: In the next issue, a tea time to test his skills-?!

Right side text: An unrivaled chase-

Left side text: Continues in issue #33

[kaiowut99]

The Gang Freaks Out Over a Cell Phone

Judai and the others are now in their second year when a quiet freshman comes to duel Judai.  While the freshman’s deck wasn’t all too powerful, it was also an improvised 40-card deck hastily made beforehand out of eight packs in the store.  But even then, Archangel Zerato gets Judai’s LP down to 1200.  Mid-duel, he speaks with a mysterious man on his cell phone, feeling a lack of interest in this duel due to his prediction.  Shou and the others realize this is the well-known Star Duelist Ed Phoenix...

And after a bit too long, here’s finalized!53! It’s fun to finally be getting back into Season 2, since, later plot pacing issues and... questionable moments aside, there’s quite a bit to like about it.  One such thing being the dynamic between Ed and Saiou that we’re introduced to here (one of my favorites), as the concept of fate/destiny starts to become an ever-present theme.  Also, hearing Takehito Koyasu again for a while will be great now that I’ve actually seen JJBA and heard him as DIO. 😂 The animation/artstyle in this episode is also a nice touch-up from what we’ve been used to, and there were some great shots of Judai and Ed there.

So, part of the delay in getting this going since finishing 52 was getting my usual bells and whistles worked on for the translated hardsub; you’ll notice that the OP is fully translated, and not just with the credits--I wanted to do a thing I originally wanted to do way back when my first go-around but lacked the skills for and translate the character names that slide in! If you check out my “subbing-rambling” tag, you can see some of the work-in-progress posts I made showing it off as I worked on it.  As part of this, I also prepared textless versions of the OP’s V2 shots of Chronos and Ed, as well as made Shou in his Red jacket textless for use here; I’ll be sharing these new textless openings as I go through the season over on NAC. (It’s really a shame that we never got those versions officially released...) The ED credits were pretty much copy/paste from Season 1, with a change in karaoke coloring, since thankfully that stays the same, and I’ll also be translating the “Best Card” shots at the end of each episode (which for some reason I noticed Crunchyroll doesn’t include, despite them being on the DVDs?), though on a static screen with the card spinning into view since that moving background’s hard to get blank, lol.

But once those were all done, there were some 53-specific edits and fixes to work on! For the hardsub, I translated the article we see about Ed so that we can read what was visible in Japanese (ie, Ed making waves in August just before Season 2 at an event Kaiba Corp. sponsored!), while I also made a few card fixes.  Breakdown below the cut, as usual.

(UPDATE [7/9/20]: I reuploaded the episode because I realized I didn’t account for the different cards Shou has in his deck shot in the Opening in 53-56 vs 57-104; Gyroid, Cyclone, and Trap Hole in the former become Submarineroid, Vehicroid Connection Zone, and No Entry in the latter (all used in 56), which is what was used in the textless video I was working with while working on translating his name there.  That’s been corrected, and will be accounted for as I share the textless OPs on NAC.  I’m nothing if not consistency-minded. 💁🏽‍♂️)

Enjoy, folks! With 53 finalized, I’ll be giving my 5D’s Dub-Uncut Ep. 26 a quick lookover to see if I have to tweak anything before I work on making the Dark Signer arc episodes’ dubs more bearable, and then I’ll start working on 54.  It’s been a bit since Manjoume last dueled, and him dueling his mini-me in Gokaido should be fun, haha.

Fixes/Edits!

For the hardsub, as Chronos pulls out his issue of Monthly Duel!, I translated 月編 on it to “October” in Photoshop and spliced it in; this was an edit I’d already done for 52′s hardsub since it shows up in the preview for 53.

For the hardsub, the page Chronos has Napoleon stare at has been translated! The original text was vertical but I thought it’d make more sense to translate it horizontally for us; as such, I moved the text on the right about the “Exclusive” on the “Young Duelist Prodigy” to be above Ed’s photo, which I moved a bit more to the right to compensate.  I also added a little “journalistic” fluff to the translation I’d whipped up to make it fit well both on and off-screen, since I wasn’t going to be filling the whole thing with just “On August 7th, KaibaCorp sponsored a Dueling World League” lol.  But definitely made sure to keep the spirit and keep visible those little tidbits like the KaibaCorp nod and the date telling us when Ed started making waves that were visible in the Japanese text.  I did that editing in Photoshop for both this shot and the later shot with Shou’s copy of the magazine, but I warped the text in this one a little to match the slight page warp that Ed’s photo had going.  After that, I redid the zoom in Sony Vegas.  The text is also slightly blurred here since it was like that for the Japanese text.

Later in the episode, after the commercial break, we come back to a pan/zoom-out from Sanctuary in the Sky to Judai’s field, where we see Clay Guardman has his card facing the wrong way compared to where we see it in every other shot after.  I made a proxy for it, though it was a bit tough since we never get a good look at its card (thankfully, the card artwork was put up on the YGO site).  Though the dubified card confirmed for the Wikia that he has zero ATK and, like with Neo Bubbleman, shared the same Level as Clayman.  So, as I made a proxy, I recreated the Japanese effect text mirroring what Neo Bubbleman’s was and mentioning the burn effect as close to the game terms as possible--getting this in the end! Once I did that, I took a frame and placed it in in AfterEffects, masking in Clay Guardman’s feet over it, then took it into Sony Vegas, where I redid the zoom-out as it came into view.

Later on, after Judai explains Tempester’s effect, his face-down card goes away to activate it, but in that shot, Tempester’s not on Judai’s Disk! I made a new Tempester proxy (since here Tempester’s officially using the OCG art/text at the time), then slapped it on in AfterEffects (taking a cue from the dub about where to place it on his Disk).  Thankfully, since Judai stood still here, that’s all it took, lol.

After the duel, Shou realizes who Ed was all along! He rummages through his bag and pulls out his copy of Monthly Duel! and opens it up; like with Chronos’s, for the hardsub, I took it into Photoshop and recreated the color scheme to blot out 月編 and put “October” over it for the nine frames it moves in, then I just put each frame into the video in Sony Vegas.

As with earlier, for the hardsub, the article Shou shows everyone about Ed is translated, only with no text warp and slightly different rotation, so a little more of the text is visible on the left and bottom.  Recreated the less-rotation/more-zoom zoom-in on Ed’s photo in Sony Vegas.

As Judai thinks that Ed could use some more deck-building skills, Shou’s still holding up the magazine; “October” is there to translate 10月編 again, but because the “Monthly” in that shot of the magazine is inconsistent with its other appearances in the episode (we’ve seen it in black with white bordering, but here it’s just white text, along with the black 10月編  also being in white), I redid that as well in Photoshop so it matched.  I’ll be including just the “Monthly” fix in the Japanese DVDRip I’ll release on NAC.

[aveaugvstus]

❛ You made a mistake. Everybody makes them. Even me. I’ve made many. It’s only fair that you made one. ❜

it’s strange how the passage of time warps and bends around the shape of the people in your life, the silhouettes they carve from the liminal space of your soul — it’s like that thing about stars and how when you’re looking up at the night sky, you’re actually looking at stars that could be already be dead a hundred years ago, their fading requiem only just now reaching earth’s stratosphere, a thousand light years away. 

this is what it feels like to see vladimir standing in the door frame of his childhood bedroom looking like the ghost of fuck-ups past.  (  he has no lock now, which is mildly insulting and excruciatingly patronising; he’s an addict, not bloody suicidal, but to his family the distinction might as well be non-existent.  )  he looks different, and also like nothing has changed at all in a way that august can’t quite pinpoint. it’s as if he’s lost his ability to translate him; the myriad tiny, insignificant nuances and habits he used to obsessively decrypt with his very own rosetta stone, a whole stele for the vladimir yamatov script, forgotten like a dead language. or maybe he no longer cares to. he doesn’t know if that should make him feel nostalgic, or furious, or bittersweet. feeling particularly strongly about anything these days is a herculean task in and of itself. which, he supposes, was the original sin that instigated everything to begin with.

he thinks he can remember asking vladimir to come home.

he thinks he can almost remember begging, knees in the dirt and gravel scraping his flesh raw, over voicemail like a needy fling who had accidentally gone and done the thing you and every other idiot knows you’re not supposed to do, and fallen. 

he thinks he might have begged for absolution. 

but that could have also been the sixth line of blow cut with ketamine and procaine and only god and the devil knows what else  (  he’d been desperate, it was three a.m. in camden  )  and he’s composed text messages nay, goddamn fucking letters, ad nauseam, ad infinitum, like he’s on the receiving end of some dear john bullshit, and he’s never been sure which of them actually made it to the send button. he’s smashed, or lost, or misplaced, half a dozen phones, for all the futile effort to replace them. collateral damage in the dawning realisation that vladimir wasn’t replying because he was mercilessly leaving him on read, but because he wasn’t receiving them at all, and judging by his infrequent instagram updates, was doing absolutely fine / fuck him, happy / having the time of his fucking life on his primitive anti-tech detox.

for a moment, he entertains the fleeting, whimsical distraction that this could be yet another delusion. after all, he’s conjured vladimir enough times that this wouldn’t be unusual.  (  why, sometimes i’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.  )  he has imagined vladimir heartsick, wretchedly beside himself with guilt. he has painted him alabastrine, cold and immovable, patron saint raphael of the lost and the meek indifferent to august’s self-inflicted torment. he has envisioned him lit with madness, seized in catastrophic rage, gripping him by the jaw and rattling his bones till he might see reason. there were other imaginings, too, steeped in the unspeakable, tauntings of an uninhibited mind free to conceptualise the reality of its most ludicrous desire. in the worst dream, the most terrible, most fantastical one, vladimir comes home because of him. for him. it plays out like the final scene of a cult romantic comedy, or the odyssey, maybe, much-enduring odysseus returning home to penelope at last. two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk, their hands meeting as light spills in a flood, the sky pouring out the sun. and he would take his other-soul’s face in his hands and kiss him and say the words this lifetime’s vladimir would never say.

there is, of course, a singular difference in this one. this vladimir. the vladimir he filled his dreams with never looked at him like this. with this curious amalgamation of horror and — most tellingly so; am i not what you expected, vladimir? how did you imagine you would find me? beatific? flourishing? — disgust. 

august knows what he looks like. five shades too pale and ashen, like the vivacity has been drained right out of him. a layer of grease shines in his hair, the fade he alway maintains with meticulous care and precision grown out into his natural, unruly curls. he’s not quite skeletal, his frame was always too lean and muscular for that, but he seems perilously thin for his height. it shows in his face, he knows even though he’s been avoiding mirrors and isn’t allowed one anyway, because a) addicts use those to cut their coke, and b) suicidal ones might be inclined to break them, he knows because of the way his mum looks at him when she comes into his room to bring him his meals three times a day like a convict. it hurts him a little, more than the physical pain of looking at vladimir, of hearing his voice, that he sees him like this. he had not been informed in advance that vladimir would come calling. if he had, he would’ve — he doesn’t know what he would’ve done  (  attempted an escape, maybe; broken his twelve-day sobriety, maybe  )  but he might’ve. cleaned up a little. tried to look less like a shell of himself. augustus has always been vain, has always been a gilded, preening thing who took great pride in being pretty and well-loved for it. it pains him. not to be even that anymore. he is rusted. tarnished.

if he had known, maybe he would have told vladimir not to come. 

now that he is here, he is split in two, cleaved in half by the urge to tell him to go and the more pressing compulsion to make him stay to never go never leave again never go anywhere that is out of his sight out of his life out of him. 

his ambivalence makes him poor company and a poorer conversationalist. not that this is entirely his fault — what are they supposed to do? chat about the weather and trade perfunctory banter just to fill the air? he’d rather do a line right here in front of vladimir. 

your hair is longer, august had said. the only thing other than what are you doing here, which had come out of his mouth, part-shock and part-petulance, when his mother had opened the door and presented vladimir like some screwed-up surprise gift for reaching a whopping week and a half of not being a fucking disappointment to everyone around him. so, now he can disappoint the person that matters most fundamentally, tortuously, to him in the world, too. how delightful.

vladimir’s hair being longer is the only thing he can think to say that doesn’t make him want to give in to the pulverising sensation in his head, in his bones, in his chest, screaming for a deus ex machina reprieve. if this is what they have come to — the two of them, who had spent their entire lives talking about nothing and everything till they could anticipate exactly what the other’s response would be — augustus is glad he didn’t come home sooner. he looks handsome, which feels like another slight against august’s pride. rugged and sun-soaked like a male model cum travel influencer, but one that actually does something meaningful with his life. time, and sunlight, and the kind of hard labour that builds muscle definition and character, has certainly been kinder to him than it has been to august. he doesn’t say you look good because that would sound like he has any remotely positive feelings towards this interaction, and, indeed, the cause of vladimir’s looking like a golden, newly-anointed demi-god. it seems they have traded places. or maybe vladimir is exactly who he was always supposed to be. and august is, too.

august supposes it’s the silence, and the reality that vladimir cannot abide it either, that prompts him to say what he does.

what happened?

he doesn’t say anything for a long moment, he drifts in the absence of an answer because he is allowed to, because he is technically, partially an invalid now, and people who are sick are allowed to be not altogether there. 

(  sick. malaised. he likes this word for it. he likes that there is a scientific explanation for what he is. a brain disease. a diagnosable mental illness. see, vladimir, he almost wants to say, a little deranged part of him finally gleeful at not having a pedestal to stand on anymore, you aren’t special. i’m fucked up now, too.  )

well, vladimir. it’s a very long story that i don’t care to repeat as i’ve recounted the tales to you so many times through missives you were never inclined to respond to. there was angel, and bennie, there was emmy, and good old molly. ah, and charlie, my favourite of the lot. ours was a whirldwind love affair. but it turns out i loved him more than he loved me. seems like i have a nasty little habit of doing that. it’s one i haven’t learned to kick yet.

god — august...

it’s the look of wrenching disgust, again. the thing that twists and snakes across vladimir’s face and awakes something snarling and animal shackled to august’s throat, something that slams into him chest-first and doesn’t stop until it’s gone right through him, left him raw, all bloodied edge and teeth.

what happened? what happened? what’s the point of asking now when it’s all been said and done. how long am i supposed to carry this black mark? until everyone around me deigns to let me bury it? i’m not a fucking child.

it’s not an explanation, which is what vladimir is after. he would know, however, if he had bothered to answer august any of those times. he would know, he would have known, if he hadn’t left august in their bed that morning at the warwickshire summer palace and run from everything they’d ever touched. they’d had the world world in their hands in that bed, in that room, in that place of stolen summer outside of time, outside of life itself. they could have had — everything. everything august had to give. and he gave it, and vladimir looked him in the eye and decided it was not for him.

you made a mistake. everybody makes them. even me. i’ve made many. it’s only fair that you made one.

he feels each word grate right through him, each syllable catching on his skin like little knives, the thin strand keeping him tethered to the present grinding down into dust and bone. he doesn’t blame vladimir for what happened to him. he blames him for leaving. but it’s a mistake that vladimir won’t — can’t acknowledge because to do that, he would have to admit to the thing he doesn’t want to say, or can’t say, and august can’t make him say it. that’s what made him do it, the first night at that grimy, filthy club in the berlin underground. that’s what made him want to trade his soul for just a night of rapture so euphoric he wouldn’t have to remember how fucking miserable it was to be unloved by the one person you thought you were meant for. but then, it’s never just one night is it? it couldn’t have been. you don’t get over something like that with one goddamn night.

(  if august were honest, and his heart not surrendered, he would say it was this, too: that vladimir could walk away from them, has always been able to walk away, and think nothing of it. him. that vladimir had found purpose and higher meaning in something other than themselves and the stupid, foolish, boyish dreams they used to talk about like they might someday happen. that august had disappointed him somehow by, what, not being enough? not living up to the unearned greatness that vladimir saw in him and was supposedly the only person in the world who could? that vladimir would forge a path for himself in life that diverged from august and not feel his soul rending itself in half to be half a world away from him, and survive it. — it was enough to ruin him then, it still ruins him now.  )

“if you’ve come all this way just to lecture to me, you can sod the fuck off back to phuket or hanoi or fucking antarctica if that’s what you want. maybe there’s some disease-riddled penguins out there that you can save to sate your saviour complex. saint francis of assisi. a non-shitty mother teresa. malala.”

he’s exhausted before the first word leaves his mouth, strung out just with the effort of starting, but he can’t stop them now any more than he can stop the hunger and thirst clawing at his head howling for a drop of blood, a pound of flesh, any part of him that it can cannibalise in retribution for starving. it’s easier to be cruel than to be wounded, better to be the conqueror than the fallen — but right now it just feels like he is going through his twelfth or two hundredth day of withdrawal and the boy he loves has come back but not the way august wanted and not the way he wants to be wanted. it hurts just to look at him, it hurts to have him looking back. every part of his body aches with dependence, codependence. they’re the definition of it. see what happens to me when you are not in my life?

alexander lay on hephaestion’s bed for three days. but you are not him. you are just a spoiled, arrogant, silver-spooned nothing who will never amount to greatness, glory, or anything at all. it is no wonder he would not have you.

his rage breaks, like sea foam crashing against cliffs; it rends and shatters down the fault line mapped throughout his body, the one that winds from his throat to his sternum, down to his thighs and feet, and aches forever mostly at his heel. helpless to the unbidden trembling of his hands as he curls them around the sheets of his bed, unmoored. he looks small and disarmed, more lost than he’s ever been with vladimir by his side. it doesn’t mean the same thing anymore, does it? not if he cannot make vladimir stay. whatever they had between them — is it damaged, now. they could rebuild it, but the foundations would still bear the memory of where the cracks lie. he would still remember this look on vladimir’s face.

he has looked at him a thousand times, and there has always been an echo reverberating between them. the wavelength of an elegy he knows the words to like they are writ upon heartbeat, upon headstone. there have been other faces, but vladimir’s eyes have always been the same. fathomless as distant stars in an entire universe light years away and yet close enough to touch if he dared to. if it is fate, or circumstance, or a reiteration of the immortality that stands between them and their freedom, then he already knows how this ends. vladimir knows it, too. it doesn’t make him want it any less. it doesn’t make him suffer for it any less. this ache he has spent an eternity chasing after, this feeling of being so incandescently alive that even death cannot keep them apart, this is what vladimir ran from. augustus cannot blame him. if he was not the one who always outlived him, he’d do the same.

“is this why you came back? because you think you can save me, too?”

[imagine-loki]

Predatory Behaviour Trigger Warning Stalking

Title: Predatory Behavior

CHAPTER NO.: 1/?

AUTHOR:Solaramoonset

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you are walking home alone after a long shift. As you pass a doorway a man catcalls out to you, inviting you to “come have a good time”. You quickly state you’re late to meet your fiance and hurry on. You hear the man start to follow you.

RATING: Teen

NOTES: Warning Predatory Behavior The last name Proctor is a nod at Rebekah Barnes' married name. And her two named grandchildren Kimberly and Scott. Rating May go up as story progresses.

The hospital had been toiling since the alien attack a few days ago. In between patients I had seen snippets of news coverage, Ironman had a super hero team now I guess. With all the injuries it was hard to keep up with the latest events. I learned a long time ago to listen to what the news told, not the wild rumors patients sometimes spread. The near constant flow of patients had slowed down to a trickle, I could finally go home for a few hours instead of the cat naps I had been catching in the nurses' lounge. I palmed my keys and held my purse tight, it was only a few blocks walk home, but this was still New York, at night. I didn't want to take any chances.

“Hey there pretty lady, why don't you come on over here? We can show you a fun time!” a voice called out to me as I passed by an alley.

“No thank you. I'm late to meet my fiance.” I hurried past, not stopping as I called over my shoulder.

“Don't be like that baby!” footfalls echoed behind me. I didn't bother to look, I broke into a speed walk. Two blocks, just two more more and I can call out to the doormen for help. Turning the corner I saw a figure from the news. He was tall and a little lanky, dark hair to his shoulders. I couldn't remember which news clip I had seen but I was sure he was in one of the ones with Iron man. He had to be one of those superhero people. He was gazing intently into a glowing blue cube and didn't seem to notice anything going on around him. I sprinted to his side and grabbed his arm, warping myself around it.

“I need you to pretend to know me for a moment. Please help me.” I whispered up at him. His eyes meet mine in surprise before hardening into something darker. I'm not sure if it was my tone, or that I was shaking but I knew I had his complete attention.

“Tell me pet, what has you so terrified, so … desperate you’d seek out my help?” his whisper was just as soft as mine but seemed almost, lethal. I heard the footfalls again and my shaking grew.

“Baby, don't go running off like that. You know you'll like it, eventually.” this voice was different from the two before. At least three men had been following me. In my fear, my grip tightened on the hero's arm. Something in his eyes clicked, he seemed to understand. A feral grin split his mouth. That look, that terrifying look, reminded me of who he was. He hadn't help fight off the invasion of New York, he had been leading it!

“Oh shit! Is that Loki? That bitch was meeting Loki?”

“He don't look so tough. Come on lets kick his ass, for New York!”

Loki turned us so I was behind him. He gently pulled his arm from my hold. “Stay behind me, pet. This will only take a moment.” he pushed the blue cube into my hands, daggers appearing in his the moment his hands were empty. Faster than I could follow Loki had four men on the ground. None of them were moving or making a sound. Loki turned towards me, his daggers disappearing. I slowly lifted the cube. My arm shook, Loki frowned at my arm.

“Come with me pet. There's someone a little less terrifying than myself, who can help calm you.” Loki put one arm around my shoulders and the world spun and stretched around us. When it stopped we were in a swanky, half finished looking apt. A hulking and towering shape moved toward us. A blonde giant stepped into the light. I squeaked and ducked behind Loki. I wasn't sure why he thought this guy would be less frightening, he was huge!

“Loki, brother, I am glad to see you. But I must insist you face judgment for your actions against Midgard.” The giant boomed. I shrank further back. Loki watched me over his shoulder.

“How interesting... Thor stop being an imposing idiot.” I looked up at Loki, surprised he was still trying to protect me.

“Brother, who is your … friend?” Thor took a step back and lowered his tone, he must have just notice me hiding behind Loki. His movements were slow. Loki raised an eyebrow at me, that's when I realized I hadn't even introduced myself to Loki.

“My name's Kimberly Proctor. I'm a nurse at Brooklyn General. I ran into some trouble tonight on my way home, and Loki saved me.” I'm rather proud of the fact my voice didn't shake too badly.

“And terrified her more in the process. I had hoped seeing one of the Hero's of New York would relax her but you seemed to do the opposite. Honestly you great oaf, what am I going to do with you?” Loki sound put out. I looked between the two for a moment before giggling softly. Their actions reminded me so much of myself and my brother I couldn't help but laugh. “That's better pet, no need to be afarid.”

“What kinda of trouble has you rescuing damsels, Loki?” Thor was still keeping his voice soft. I guess he didn't want to startle me.

“Predatory behavior, four against this little one. It has been dealt with.” Loki shrugged.

“It's still odd that you would help. What is there for you to gain?”

“I am not a monster, Thor.”

“Not two days ago you were trying to take over this realm. You killed eighty mortals.”

“Yes because it makes sense that I, who only want to be your equal and never wanted a throne, would try to bring a world to its knees in subjugation. Nothing seems off about that logic. Tell me brother how many did you kill on Jotunheim? How many would have died in a needless war your pride almost started?” Loki rolled his eyes as I placed a hand on his arm. He looked down at me.

“Thank you, Loki.” Loki just stared at me a moment. Thor too had turned his gaze to me. Maybe my attempt to ease the tension in the room was more obvious than I had planned.

“You are welcome.”

“I really mean it, Thank you.”

“But...?”

“I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful, because I'm extremely grateful, you have no idea, but may I go home? I'm calmer now and I only have a few hours before I'm due back at the hospital.” Loki sighed at my request.

“You were never my prisoner, you may come and go as you like.”

“If its not too much trouble can you take me back to where we were? It's a little less than two blocks home from there.”

“I could, but how about I take you to your home? Save you a few blocks?”

“Brother.” there was a warning in Thor's tone, but I'm not sure why.

“Thank you, that would be great. I live off of Fifth street and South High.” Loki wrapped his arm around me as Thor called out. Demanding we stop. The world spun and stretched again; when it stopped we were in front of my building. I looked up at Loki.

“I really don't know whats been happening the past few days, but I'm glad you're still in the city. Thank you Loki, for everything. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Lady Proctor.” Loki watched as I entered my building, disappearing after I was safely inside. I trudged up the stairs looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. There was a dark shape resting against the wall by my door. A shape I knew all too well.

“Go away Scott.”

“What? An alien invasion hits New York and I can't check on my baby sister? I go to the hospital and they tell me you've already left, yet I get here before you? What's up?” I unlock my door and squeeze in shutting the door before Scott can enter.

“I love you Scott but if if let you in, we'll spend hours talking and fighting and all I want right now is to sleep in my own bed for a few hours. I'm fine. Go away. I'll text you when I can, ok?” I called through the door.

“At least let me sleep on your couch? You know it's a two day drive for me to get here!” I sighed and opened the door.

“Just one night Scott. One. Then you're heading back to New Orleans.” I called as I headed to my bedroom.

“I'm staying a week!” he called back.

Morning came far too soon. I quietly left for work as Scott snored on my couch. In theory after my shift today I had two days off. That was if things had settled down enough that I could take those days off. Maybe it would be good for Scott to stay a week. We hadn't really seen each other since Grandma Bekah died. I was so lost in my thoughts I didn't notice the black SUV pull up beside until I was pulled off the street and into the back. As we speed away a man with an eye patch and what look like a long black coat turned around from the front to look at me.

“It's nice to meet you Miss Proctor. My name is Nick Fury and we have a lot to talk about.”

[inventors-fair]

Commentary: “New” Name

So let’s try this: Under the cut, I’ll do everything card by card and commentary for each. Every card will be included, and you’ll see whether or not they’re a runner-up in the name. We’ll talk about what’s working, what’s not, and how the card can be improved. Sounds good? Sounds good!

In general: It’s interesting how a majority of these cards opted for “cool mechanical aspect” over pure flavor, and I like it! Wording for most of these was on point, and there were a couple of tricky ones that you guys handled quite well. Don’t forget that if you need help rendering a card in text or with MSE. That’s what we’re here for!

@dabudder — New // (in) Town — [RUNNER UP]

I’m a huge fan of Aftermath/Split naming conventions being broken. You could do “Best (in) Show,” “Tongue (in) Cheek,” etc. I believe that first ability should read “Target creature...of turn. If you control no other creatures, put a +1/+1 counter on it.” The “Then” isn’t exactly necessary. I think Town is fine as well, and I appreciate how it works late-game. It’s an interesting flavor choice as well, and I don’t know if you need the text for it. You have a loner at first, and a community later, right? But I saw your original flavor text, and I’m not exactly sure what you were going for. Regardless, though, the gameplay is good enough.

EDIT: I completely forgot to give this card Aftermath when rendering it! My apologies, Budder. Everyone, uh, just ignore that.

@fractured-infinity — Rite of New Beginnings

I appreciate the simplicity of this design. As a sideboard piece, I don’t think it necessarily has to be rare? It’s narrow enough for uncommon in my opinion. I have questions about whether or not the first wording has any precedent, or if it should simply be “destroyed.” Land sacrifice makes the breadth of this card a little awkward. I’m enjoy how the recursion calls back to the “Rite” aspect, how it’s almost like a seasonal ritual, a renewal.

@gollumni — Ignite Anew

The flavor here is interesting. We should talk about proper modern wording, though, and how cards should be formatted. The first thing to keep in mind is to have clear sources and complete sentences: “Ignite Anew deals 3 damage to target creature. It can’t be blocked this turn.” And with a card like this, I highly encourage you to add flavor text. Even if it can be conveyed through a card like this (and I understand where it’s coming from), you should take up that space on the card and expand it into its world. Very few cards with that space can get away with it.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Unknown Newcomers

This is a fun little effect that prevents precombat ETB effects and hasty attacks, which I like. It is quite narrow, though, considering that they can play things during their second main phase. In terms of wording, I think you can change “at least one” with “a” and get the same effect. I feel that the flavor text is telling a story in medias res, which is fine, but there’s not a whole lot to resonate with it. I feel that a broader method of storytelling would make it more effective; it’s still entertaining, though.

@illharg-the-rave-boar — New Friends

I was wracking my brain the other night, and I’m just wondering what sort of deck would need this card, and I’m not sure. In order for the card to be effective, you’ll need a couple creatures on the battlefield, and a couple creatures in your hand - and by the time you get to nine mana, shouldn’t you have a more or less empty hand? If you’re trying to get around counterspells for your creatures, what’s to prevent your opponent having a spell for this card as well? Instant speed is good, and makes me think about Dramatic Entrance, but with this I’d rather be playing something like Through the Breach or a similar effect. It’s just too big at a point in the game where the effect is almost negated by how far ahead you should be already.

@mistershinyobject — Embrace the New

Oh how I would have loved for this to be an enchantment. This, I believe, is a card where the “Then” clause should follow and be one sentence. What a build-around-me card. As a sorcery, it doesn’t really feel great to play because of how easily it could be responded to to negate the effect. An enchantment with the breakthrough counter being an ETB could make for a buildup long-term effect that I think this card is going for without the one-or-nothing potential failure. Good ability in theory, but I’d feel terrible about a four-mana cantrip in practice.

@misterstingyjack — Renewed Bond

Actually, behind the scenes, this inspired some designs with having Character Pair Decks, with two planeswalkers that share a kind of bond and play with each other. So there’s that! in terms of the card, it’s a decent uncommon in a post-WAR world, although it is rather narrow. Because of the “this way,” I believe that the if-clause should make this one large paragraph. It feels odd, as in-pie and in-flavor as it is, to have damage prevention on a Gruul card at first. But I mean, I get it, it makes sense. It’s unfortunate that you have to control two planeswalkers for this to work. I imagine if WotC made this card it would have to be a rare because of the reference. Then again, you’re the one bringing Chandra and Nissa together and not them, so who am I to talk.

@nine-effing-hells — A New Road Beckons

There’s a lot of nice stuff happening with this card and a lot that can be improved upon. As a mythic, what is this doing that would necessarily warrant that rarity? Getting lands is powerful, but not so much that it would warrant that much warning. This isn’t the green mythic I’d like to see in my pool. As a rare, I’d be much more receptive. I do enjoy how synergistic things look here. Why does III have you put the cards down from your hand? How many lands are going to be in your hand at that time, and what is the purpose of that effect? Two wording things: firstly, you don’t need that reminder text on the III ability; secondly, because a card you own can’t be put into a graveyard that’s not yours, you can say “your graveyard” instead of “a.” I believe that’s proper.

@partytimesdeluxe — Begin Anew — [RUNNER UP]

I used to play a Brago deck, you know! And it was powerful. And it had a lot of infinite combos. And it was a pain in the butt. This card? This card would have made a LOT of infinite combos happen a lot easier. Now, it’s a runner-up because of the idea and because Boon turned me onto it. I’m realizing now that it should at the very least be a rare, and hoo boy there’s the chance IMO that this could break UW in commander. For a powerful card, you pushed the envelope, and that’s commendable. In limited, this card would be quite interesting.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Patron of New Zendikar

At eight mana, this card in limited says “you get a bomb and draw no lands for the rest of the game.” And that’s a little bit of an issue. It’s a 16/16 all upside almost at a minimum. It’s easily blinkable, and massive in every regard. In short, good gracious, this card is just a little too powerful in anything you’d want to play it in. The ideas are all sound, mind, but man, this card would be an auto-include. Still, nothing like a giant thing to put into perspective how crazy card effect combinations can be.

@shakeszx — New Ideas

Again, we highly recommend adding flavor text, to add depth to the world and space to the card. I’d like to know more about where this character is, where things are taking place, all that good stuff. As-is, the strength of this card feels undermined. Additionally, a three-mana instant that can draw you four cards and discard one for UUR? I don’t like calling “busted,” but that’s a bit of a busted effect. It’s wording in an interesting way, though, and I’m wondering what else can be used with doubling effects in this capacity.

@teaxch — New Tricks — [RUNNER UP]

Again, Boon turned me onto this card. It’s super flavorfully cute. At first I misread this like Demonic Pact, but nope! And I liked it a lot more. And I realized that this card should be at least four mana. Kenrith comes to mind, and goodness gracious this is an equally almost-mythic effect. It’s just a fun card with a bunch of goodness attached, but I would cost it a lot less aggressively to prevent it from taking over games.

@tmstage — On Wings of the New Dawn

Just for wording’s sake, I think there should be a second line instead of an “if” clause: “As long as you control an Angel, creatures you control have first strike.” I don’t know how constructed formats would take to this card, if it alone would make mono-white viable. It’s a major and massive effect! If it was +2/+1, it might be a little more balanced. I’m worried right now about it potentially warping the environments in which it’d be present. But the feeling that you were going for in flavor text and flavor in general is pretty awesome, so there’s that!

@top-hat-von-rattle-bones — New // Known

I’m a little confused as to what your naming intentions were. New to Known? It’s a concept but not a common phrase like “rags to riches” or the like. Conceptually, I think this card would play well, and there’s not much else to say there. The self-exile on Aftermath works well. Don’t forget to ctrl+R to get reminder text in MSE. For “New,” I believe it should be two separate lines like in Opt. For “Known,” “graveyard” needs to be uncapitalized and it needs to target a card in your graveyard, I believe. Should it say “another” since it can target itself? That’s a question for the ages.

VasNirada — Festival of the New Dawn

I was warming up to this card, but the fact that you have to leave the cards in exile for seven turns feels rough, aligned with the fact that you have to exile your hand upon entering. I’d rather be playing something like Outpost Siege which lets me have an option and doesn’t make me exile my hand, or Light up the Stage which gives me another turn to play it. I think the fact that I wanted to love it makes up for it somewhat, right? Let’s talk about wording. Here’s how I believe each line should be edited:

“When ~ enters the battlefield, exile all cards from your hand. // At the beginning of your upkeep, exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. // At the beginning of your end step, if there are seven or more cards exiled with ~, sacrifice it and return all cards exiled with it to their owner’s hand.”

How do you guys like this method of commentary? Is it too long, too much? Any comments or critiques are welcome! New contest tomorrow, so be prepared, and thank you for all your entries.

[prismarine-parrots]

Tree of Life Pt. 1

Originally posted: 25 Feb. 2019

Ahahahahhaha

This five part-story earned me the title Thanos of Hermitcraft and created the first fanart and meme of any of my content. Send help for us all.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 3.5

Part 4

Part 5 (1)

Part 5 (2)

No one had seen Grian in three weeks.

Normally, it wouldn't be too surprising for people to be quiet for a while. Everyone working on their own projects and maybe not in the right area to see the person in question.

But something was different with this case. The player list said that Grian was online, not AFK, so not outside the server in the community hub or working on a different project on his channel. In this case, SOMEONE would normally at least see him restocking his traveling-cart-that-never-travels, or flying around his base wasting rockets, or at the very least bothering Mumbo Jumbo, his closest neighbor.

Mumbo himself had not been too worried at first. When it had been a couple days since Grian has visited he had sent a letter though their mail system to make sure that 1. The mail system might actually be used and 2. Make sure Grian was alright. Not twenty minutes later Grian had responded that he was fine, just busy at his base.

The next red flag was when Zedaph realized that the only reason his Quartz, Warts, and Shorts shop was making sales was because Grian's cheaper traveling cart next door hadn't been restocked in weeks. While at first he was a little miffed at this fact, this started to get him worried. Grian was normally fairly good about restocking his cart, sometimes with his own supplies instead of getting extra, even if not shown on camera he still made sales. With the mining desert and gravel pit nearly out of both materials, people had started regularly going to Grian's shop, hoping for more of those grindy blocks in which he specialized.

When Iskall had private messaged Grian asking if he wanted to help prank DocM for the heck of it, Grian had declined, saying that he had been grinding blaze powder in the Nether. This has confused Iskall. Why did Grian need blaze powder? The only thing it was good for was eyes of Ender and potions. They had already beat the dragon and turned the End into a farm for shulkers and elytra, so needing eyes of Enders was off the list. But why did Grian need potions? Iskall has assumed a prank and asked if Grian wanted help with other potion ingredients, but he had declined in a rather cold "no," saying that the strawberry blonde didn't need any more stress right now.

It wasn't until someone not even on the Hermitcraft server, PearlescentMoon, messaged someone she knew was in the server to check on Grian, as he hadn't posted anything online in nearly three weeks, and hadn't given any explanation to where he may have gone.

When Iskall finally heard that he had called Mumbo, Xisuma, and False, hoping that maybe one of them could help.

"Heeeeyy Iskall!" X greeted as he swooped I'm in front of Grian's cart, where Iskall has thought to ironically meet because it was in the middle of the shopping district and an easy place to meet, not actually because they were here to talk about Grian.

"What's up?" False asked, using an ender pearl to warp into the side of the cart and bouncing off casually.

"Show off," Iskall muttered, recognizing the subtle PVP tactics. False grinned but before she could retort, Mumbo landed with a little stumble, grumbling about lag and elytra not working properly still.

"Hey Mumbo!" Iskall greeted cheerfully. Mumbo nodded silently as the others waved.

"Why have you called us, Iskall?" X asked curiously.

"Right, right," the Swede started, glancing around the small group, "now that we're all here, I'm going to get straight to the point. Has anyone seen Grian recently?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"I've been by his base a couple of times, but he's never there. He's replied to my texts at least, but hasn't shown up around my base in a while," Mumbo immediately recalled with a frown.

Xisuma was on his phone, a tool that everyone had for chat, inventory, surfing the web outside the server, everything. "It says he's online," he noted, turning the screen the other way and showing the online player list.

"He's been online for weeks," False informed, "Every time I've looked he's been on anyway."

"And yet no one has seen him? I was hoping that maybe you had seen him on another part of the server, like your fantasy district, False." Iskall sighed. The blonde girl shook her head.

"I think we should check on him. This usually isn't like him," X decided, prepping a rocket.

"I was wondering if there might be a glitch somewhere, and that's why he's been so weird. That's why I called you, X," Iskall explained as he took out a stack of rockets from his backpack.

"And I'm here because I'm closest to him I'm assuming, not because of my redstone or that I'm a spoon," Mumbo sighed jokingly. Everyone got a quick laugh out of that before Iskall patted Mumbo's back rather hard, making him stumble, before they all took off over the shoulder of the Statue of Hermity.

Within minutes the group was circling the massive tower in the middle of the ocean, an insane project for the newest member of Hermitcraft.

"See anything?" False called to anyone nearby.

"Nothing! Looks empty to me!" X replied.

Iskall blasted out of the bottom floor entrances. "The towers are mob traps, don't go in there!" he screeched, sounding thoroughly spooked.

"What about the basement? Or the upper floors?" Mumbo asked.

"He has a basement?" False questioned.

Iskall nodded. "I'll check there. False, want to come with? Mumbo and X, you go check upstairs. Sound good?"

With a quick confirmation from everyone, the pairs split to search the futuristic wedding cake.

Iskall had been down to the basement a few times before, if only in the first few weeks of Hermitcraft Season 6 when Grian actually USED his basement. There were chests down there that were collecting dust, and some poor cows trapped in a nano farm the NHO apparently never discovered.

"Oh my gosh, Iskall! Look at this!" False called from somewhere ahead.

"Coming!" Iskall replied and tried to find where False had gone off to.

He skidded to a halt when he found her on the edge of an opening in the shoddy basement, facing a massive opening in the rock.

"Woah," Iskall breathed. The cave was huge and clearly manmade, and the Swede wondered how long it must have taken for Grian to dig and terraform and decorate the cavern.

No to mention the large egg-shaped build floating in the air in the center of the cave.

"I think we found Poultry Man," False smirked.

"So calling G our on it when we find him," Iskall laughed. Then both his and False's phone buzzed.

<xisumavoid> come to the top of of the tower

"Let's go then!" False cheered.

They shot out of the bubble columns through the body of water underneath Grian's base and launched through the holes in the middle of each layer to the top.

"Too far guys!" Mumbo's voice called as they flew through the top layer.

"Oops!" Iskall chuckled.

"Coming right back down!" False called and they two glided into the smallest layer.

Xisuma and Mumbo were inside a vibrant garden that was in the top layer. There were vines growing up the sides of the cyan glass and parrots that squawked warily from a distance.

But the most eye-catching thing was the tree that grew to the side.

"What in the world?" False breathed when she landed.

"Don't know, but it doesn't look great," Xisuma said shortly, already on his phone and tapping at controls and Admin commands.

Iskall landed beside Mumbo, who was examining the tree intently with a concerned frown and creased eyebrows.

Every hermit on the server's life force was tied to a special tree. It was something new that they were trying, to prevent less deaths and item losses by being more careful and to fix a few issues that had happened on the technical side from previous seasons. A lot of the trees were unique to look like each Hermit, such as DocM's being rather sharply split between green and grey or Scar's currently being a palm tree. Most of the time they were no big deal. Each time a hermit died, the tree would take some damage in some way, such as a leaf dropping to the ground. Unless it was several deaths in a row, you couldn't even notice the difference in the tree. And even if you did die a lot, if you played it safe for a couple days your tree would be back to normal again in no time.

But this was different.

Grian's tree here in his aviary looked half-dead. It was normally a fairly simple oak tree, but with autumn red leaves instead of green. But half the leaves were fallen, dry on the ground, and the ones still on the tree were either brown or purple. A limb had even fallen, splintered and leaning against the trunk of the tree itself.

"Grian..." Mumbo murmured. He couldn't imagine what had happened for this to be the cause, or how Grian must be feeling if his tree was like this.

"What happened?” Iskall wondered, he started to approach the tree, but Xisuma called him back.

"It doesn't look like the tree has been healing over time properly," X muttered under his breath, his expression serious as he analyzed the details coming up on the server monitoring screen of his phone.

"We all know Grian dies a lot, could that be the cause?" False suggested nervously. X shook his head.

"This is over a long span of time, probably since the start of the season even."

"And Grian hasn't died since he's gone silent. It's not hard to miss a death message in the chat," Mumbo recalled, also pulling up the server chat on his own phone, "It's been three weeks, that should be plenty of time for the tree to have healed without any interruptions."

The sound of a firework going off and a rush of air as elytra closed up. The four hermits jumped as a newcomer stumbled into the garden, losing his balance and catching the broken branch to hold himself up as he landed.

"Guys?" A very pale- and sick-looking Grian breathed, before coughing into his arm and sliding to the ground.

"I think something's wrong..."

------------------------

Word Count: 1830

[breziarchive]

for hanaye_91 on twitter, thanks so much for your patience even though you see me spewing bullshit day in and day out :V the last majimako request of 2019 (but not the last boogaloo, don’t worry), hannyaman x makoto and mmmm it was almost a horror story for a hot minute there sORRY my roots are showing

valentine’s day boogaloo - guidelines - ko-fi

((requests closed! ko-fis still forever appreciated, thank you))

~~

The feeling of being watched would follow her all her life. At this point she had come to accept this. Sometimes, with walls and photos of the family she had loved and lost to surround her, she found peace. But even then the eyes of the pictures watched over her. She was never truly alone, and that both made her despair as it did irritate her. All she wanted was peace.

That was the true feeling she couldn’t shake.

Tonight, though, both cards came into play full force. Each word she heard on the street on her way home was a hushed hiss. Each hair that stood on the back of her neck pricked with terror at every step. Fridays were her late days, and unfortunately it was everyone else’s late day too. Paranoia seeped in her skin like a parasite, worse than before. She window-shopped at closed stores; excuses to use her peripheral vision to see if anyone was following her.

As usual, no one was.

But she seemed to see a lot of black tuxedos in the crowd. Curiously more than usual. Curiously always facing her.

Makoto’s pace quickened.

Farther away from the loud and bright districts, ducking into alleys to bypass streets, she kept her head in the popped collar of her jacket. Worrying her jaw by chewing on the edge of her scarf, she tried to keep her eyes forward until she reached the train station that would take her one street away from her apartment. She turned to look.

No tuxedo.

Releasing a breath of relief, she calmed herself by smoothing her collar down while waiting for the train. A few others were there with her, but as they weren’t wearing a tuxedo she paid them no mind. The train arrived and she stepped on, three of the people with her, two choosing other cars. Makoto laid her head back against the window and let her body shake with the rumble of the car. Muffled conversation brought her to a doze, but as she still had to stay alert she opened her eyes and lazily read the advertisements. Following them from one to the other, sweeping over the casual clothes of her car-mates, she glanced at the overhead scrolling text and then to the train door.

Her heart stopped. In the other car a tuxedo stood, facing her. The face itself was too warped by the shaking of the train and the grime of the window, looking like a monster. She inhaled sharply, suddenly rigid and mortified.

“Hey, lady,” one of the passengers glanced over, “Y’alright over there?”

“U-Um,” Makoto swallowed nervously as she stared at the door. The tuxedo moved, turning away and she watched as it innocuously sat down—like he had simply been pacing impatiently instead of stalking her, “Y...yes, I’m fine. Long day, that’s all.”

“Y’sure?”

Makoto didn’t even look at him as she nodded into her scarf, staring at the small space between her shoes.

“Good. Wouldn’t want to see a day ruined, now,”

She almost shut the words out, but their oddity made her furrow her brow for a moment. No, too paranoid—she was just on edge. He had probably had a drink or two after work and was heading home just like her. Sinking into her seat and burying herself so all she smelled was the stale wool of her scarf, she stared off into the abyss until the train came to her stop. Makoto stood up, left faster than usual, and willed herself to ignore the world around her and just go. If she got home unscathed and unwatched, all of this would’ve been for absolutely nothing—but better safe than sorry.

“Lady, hey, wait up!” the man from the train car jogged up to her, offering his elbow, “Need me to walk ya home?”

Makoto hesitated, looking at his arm like it was covered in spikes. In that moment her encroaching relief that it was almost over was burned away and she shrank back, keeping her voice polite.

“Oh, no. I’m alright, thank you,”

“Ah, we’re prob’ly headed the same direction anyways,” the man shrugged, “Me an’ my buddies won’t be a bother.”

“Thanks…,” Makoto said, flat and dry.

She tried to lose them, taking her time at a convenience store, cutting into narrow alleys, snaking around the district with no map in mind to follow. It wasn’t long before she realized they were following her and they would not stop, even when she tried to kindly ask them to be on their way.

They laughed like she was joking, but their bodies blocked her off into a long alley. She huffed, perturbed but not intimidated, and turned to exit out the other end.

The other end, where a tuxedo stood facing her.

Makoto’s breath hitched and she felt ice in her veins. Though the face was shadowed she could see ugly curves in the low light; an anguished brow, high cheekbones, stretched lips, yellowed fangs, horns, but most of all a singular yellow eye peering out while the other was swallowed by darkness.

She had been right this whole time.

“Hey, lady,” the original man said, “C’mon, had your fun yet? We’re gettin’ bored, and you haven’t paid us yet,”

Makoto didn’t say anything, eyes fixed to the figure standing like a statue. Shadows seemed to seep from it, ilk and ichor sinking into asphalt.

“Hey, hey!” he grabbed her, irritated, “I said we haven’t been paid yet, lady! I’m talkin’ to ya!”

Flinching, she wrenched herself from his hold and instinctively struck him across the chest. She would’ve yelped, but the eerie aura of the demon hushed her voice. The other two men that had followed her closed around, cooing at her like they were impressed with her incredible display. Beneath the ice her heart began to beat in panic and she backed, stumbling over waterlogged boxes of junk as she tried to weave away. Arms from the men shoved her and she fell, folding like a lawn chair into one of the boxes before it gave way under her weight.

Makoto felt her lips snarl in contrast to the mounting fear in her mind, but before the men’s mocking voices took control she saw the sharp outlines of a black figure.

The tuxedo stood over her. Quiet. Calm. Deliberate. The face, she could finally see, was a grotesque mask hanging over a bearded chin. A hole sank into the left eye, black and dark and nothing but shadow. No words came from the lips of the man, even as her three attackers backed away, startled but not scared.

A cigarette appeared in the masked man’s hand and he quietly lit it. Silence filled the alley in that moment, as if summoned by his presence alone.

“Hey…,” an attacker piped up, “Who in the fuck do you think you are?”

“Noh ain’t here tonight! Beat it!”

Makoto shrank farther as the Hannya-man raised a foot and carefully stepped over her. Twisting her body to watch his every movement, her eyes went wide as he approached the attackers. Packed together as three, fear didn’t seem to cross their minds until the width and breadth of his shoulders and chest became abundantly clear.

“You deaf as well as mute?” still the leader taunted, “We said beat it!”

The cigarette glowed in front of the fangs of the hannya, and long fingers carefully removed it from his lips. There was a beat. Another beat. The leader opened his mouth.

Smoke billowed from the maw of the Hannya-man, clouding the attackers. They screamed in disgust, but before it morphed into anger he dove into the smoke after them.

Makoto shut her eyes and plunged herself into the darkness the Hannya-man invited around him as the screams of the attackers filled the quiet alley. But she did not remain still. The bottom of her spine burned with pain and she willfully kept herself blind, but she pulled herself to her hands and knees and began to crawl. Cigarette smoke filled the air, and though it should’ve just been like any other smoke there was something about it she found invigorating. Something long-forgotten but familiar, even as she pulled all her focus to her hands searching the ground in front of her. Finding the wall, she used it to bring herself to her feet. Half-afraid she’d be blind if she opened her eyes, half-accepting, she held her breath, counted to three to the sounds of fleeing men, then exhaled and opened her eyes.

The asphalt sprawled beneath her feet. Her breaths came easy and relieved, at least for a moment until a shadow passed over her. Meek, she looked up to the predatory, anguished scowl of the mask. It hovered over her, silent as ever. She couldn’t say she was cowering, but she wasn’t moving either. With only the yellow glare of the mask there was no way to tell if the Hannya-man was simply clearing the competition to have her for himself.

Then he cocked his head. Slight. But there. Makoto blinked.

Suddenly conscious of how hard she was pressing herself flat against the building, she relaxed a bit. The Hannya-man pulled his head back, as if curiously giving her space. Makoto didn’t take her eyes of him, but began to cautiously brush herself off, gingerly massaging her wrists. He watched, at times cocking his head or craning his neck as if to judge her actions.

Interesting.

Interesting until she noted that her tailbone—rather, her butt—still hurt from being shoved onto pavement. She frowned at the Hannya-man, calculating. The smoke from his cigarette lingered in the air, from his breath.

She didn’t know why she did what she did. If she tried to figure it out she could only rule that it must’ve been on instinct, because she sure as hell didn’t know what was going on. Only that she placed her hand over the hannya mask and shoved him so as to force him to look away. A grunt caught in his throat and he jerked, but, with her hand keeping his face turned away, ultimately he did nothing.

Curious.

Quite curious, she mused, as she rubbed her backside and dimly thought herself like some weathered old woman suffering from a fall.

Releasing him, she straightened herself out and watched as he slowly came back to stare at her. The anguish in the mask seemed indignant now, but the longer he let his gaze linger on her face and only her face it drifted into sadness. Maybe it was just the slight pull of his lips beneath the teeth of the hannya. Or maybe it was the realization of their closeness—closer than friends should stand, but far enough away that it felt uncomfortable, halfway, unfinished.

Makoto breathed.

Then the mask leaned in and she pulled back, nearly smacking her head on the building behind her. It caused him to stop, startled from something she couldn’t know, and he pulled back again. Stuck between wanting to leave but wanting to know more about the curiosity in front of her, Makoto froze, waiting, staring.

She supposed she could’ve asked a question. It wasn’t like she was the one that was either mute or bound by some oath of silence or something. But it didn’t seem appropriate, as it seemed much the same on a sunny day buried in her memory. So instead, she didn’t speak, just simply mimicked him and cocked her head.

The Hannya-man contemplated. Then he leaned in again and Makoto kept herself still. The wood of the mask lifted against her forehead as his dry lips reached forward and pressed against the center of her brow. Makoto’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t close, staring at the blurriness that was his neck, so close to her that she swore she could feel its heat.

His lips left. The mask fell back into place as if it hadn’t been disturbed in the first place. He turned his head, the empty eye socket facing her.

Was it shame, she wondered.

As her hands instinctively curled around a walking stick that no longer was there nor had it been for some time now, the Hannya-man opened her path, bowing with a sweeping dramatic gesture to let her get on her way. Makoto peeled away from the wall and gingerly slid each foot forward until the Hannya-man was behind her.

She heard his footsteps, quick but not so deliberate as his actions had seemed before. Upon reaching the end of the alley so she stood under the street lamp he had stood under just moments before, she turned around.

The back of the tuxedo faced her.

Makoto wondered if that had been the first time it had.

[disappearinginq]

First of all: Thank you for replying :) What do I want to see wrapped up...? God appearing would be a bit too much wouldn't it be? Maybe a sign or something from his side? But I don't know, like Chloe knows everything. Maybe one of the archangels fixing the mess that happened. and oooh hugs. thank you for considering my thoughts :)

I will always answer asks from people who bothered to read anything I wrote. The day I don’t, assume I’m dead. 

But no lie - God actually was going to make an appearance. The original version went that Samael and his brothers in an all out fight accidentally killed Chloe (I think I made it that Ragiel, in an effort to hit Samael, missed and got her instead) and that’s what snapped him out of Delilah’s influence. Except then it got super complicated, because it’d originally been based on everyone thinking Samael was the worst of Lucifer, when really, Lucifer was the worst of Lucifer, and Lucifer in a fit of rage destroyed the Earth by ripping apart the boundaries between Earth and Hell and letting everything from Hell swamp the Earth....and God showed up because Chloe wound up meeting him a la Sam and Dean in the Garden in Heaven style, but...anyway. It was already almost 100k words, and I figured I should be wrapping things up, not making things more complicated, so I decided Lucifer was going to save himself instead. 

BUT - because you were kind enough to give me an answer, here’s a preview of what I have written (but I’m not married to), and lemme know if this is a direction I should pursue, or if you would prefer the final chapter be IMMEDIATELY following the previous one. 

 There was no such thing as normal.

One of those beautifully crafted lies humanity liked to sellitself.

After everything – everythingbeing an entirely mind-warping view of the world, the universe, life afterdeath, the cosmic forces of the existential nightmare that was being human, andthe new found and not easily ignored knowledge that her partner and her friendwas proof of a higher power – Chloe didn’t know what to do. What to think. Everythingsince meeting Michael and Gabriel and allof them, there’d been no time to stop and think about what exactly was going on. To consider all of theramifications, and all that it meant that Lucifer wasn’t human, that there wasa God with a capital G, and…now that she hadtime to process it, it just made things worse.

Somehow, breaking through to Lucifer was the easy part.

Which just explained how much of a shit show circus herreality had become.

The part that really, well and truly threw her though, wasjust how fast everything tried toreturn to normal.

After the better half of…weeks? Months? It felt like yearsfrom her point of view – of investigating serial killer cultists who used magicto try and steal Lucifer’s soul or rip him in half to jump start an apocalypse,of seeing him destroy downtown LA with an epic battle between his brothers andbarely managing to avoid Lucifer killing himself out of spite…

After all that…

Monday mornings at the precinct seemed surreal.

She burned herself twice at the coffee pot because she wasn’tpaying attention where she was reaching, zoning out as she tried to go over again what exactly she’d witnessed. Shewalked face first into a glass door, much to a patrolman’s amusement, becauseshe couldn’t keep her mind off the sight of magnificent, damaged wingssprouting from her partner’s back. She misfiled three separate warrants becauseshe couldn’t stop herself from picturing the almost reptilian features of afully enraged archangel as his brothers threatened to literally drag him toHell bound in chains.

But most of all, she couldn’t stop thinking about the look onhis face when he admitted just how lost he truly was – not just as Lucifer, butas Samael.

And she didn’t know what to do about it.

She stayed away. She didn’t know what to say, or what to do.There was no one to really talk to – Dan hadn’t been there for the finalbattle. He hadn’t seen just how far gone Lucifer had been, or what he wascapable of. Hadn’t seen him turn a crowd with little more than a whisper in aneager ear.

She wanted to talkto Michael. Or Gabriel. Or even Ragiel or Azrael. Any of them. All of them. Itdidn’t matter. But no matter how many times she tried to…contact them…she wasmet with stoic silence. It was like past the moment where Lucifer savedhimself, they ceased to exist. They didn’t stay. They didn’t warn they wereleaving. They said nothing and were simply gone. Maybe she was doing it wrong.But she had asked Dan how exactlyprayers worked, because maybe she was just doing it wrong. Maybe she didn’tmake the right gesture, maybe she hadn’t said the right words.

She just wanted toknow what she should do.

After days of silence, she understood Lucifer’s frustrationwith his biological family. Prayers became littered with vague threats ofviolence, and language that would make a sailor blush. She even caught herselfonce doodling a haloed stick figure getting whacked with an umbrella before shesighed and crumpled the paper up in frustration.

If she was being truly honest, she was more frustrated withherself than angels.

The desk across from her remained noticeably empty, a starkreminder that all was not right in the world.

Lucifer hadn’t come in since…well, actually, he hadn’t beenat the precinct since before he wastaken. It’d been weeks since she’d seen him at work.

She eyed her cellphone.

She could call him.

She should callhim.

But every time she her finger hovered over the ‘call’ buttonon his number, she chickened out.

Because what couldshe say?

Despite her confidence that Lucifer could make his owndecisions and save himself…she felt ridiculous thinking she could offer animmortal being with phenomenal cosmic powers anything like advice.  Or comfort. She’d thought she could look pastthe new reality she found herself in. Lucifer was still Lucifer.

Except he wasn’t.

And she wasn’t the same, either.

And every time she thought back to a moment or an instancewhere she lectured Lucifer on humanity and what was right and wrong, she felther cheeks start to burn from embarrassment. It must’ve been like listening toa talking monkey try to tell a god about the world. And now, when she suspectedthat they both needed that connectionto someone who maybe understood, she found herself flailing.

She tried to rationalize that he hadn’t called her either.That must mean he wasn’t ready to talk yet, right? Or maybe he just needed timealone. He had narrowly avoided death.Ish. An undoing of a soul. That must be traumatic, right? She hadn’t wanted tosee anyone, except her daughter, after she’d been shot, either. Maybe he wasthe same way?

Facing mortality for a mortal was one thing.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what the sameconfrontation meant for an immortal. Lucifer once treated his mortality as agame, but it was one thing to experience the novelty of pain for the firsttime. It was an entirely different matter to consider death.

Chloe stared at her phone. Maybe he wouldn’t pick up.

Maybe he would.

She wasn’t sure which scenario was worse.

Every time it buzzed, she snatched it like a fat kid snaggedfree cake, hardly daring to breathe until she realized that it was just ane-mail from someone else. A text from her mother. A picture from the babysitterand Trixie.

At night, when her shift was over, she purposely took thelong way home, cruising past Lux, telling herself every time that this time would be the time she stoppedin.

Except it wasn’t.

Lux remained shuttered and closed, devoid of the pulse thatgave the building a life of its own. Somehow, what happened there seemed tolinger. It might have been her imagination, except that others seemed to feelit too. No one lined the sidewalks waiting to get in. No one approached thebuilding, peering in windows to see when it would re-open. People skirted thesidewalk, crossing the street without really seeming to know why, because oneblock later, they stopped and looked around, confused as to why they crossed inthe first place when their destination was the other side of the street.

There was no evidence of what happened. Nothing every made itto YouTube, or the news, or any other media platform. She assumed it was thearchangels at work – or at least, some other cosmic force. She had nothing elseto explain why one night, downtown LA looked like an aftermath scene for amonster movie, and the next day like nothing happened.

And stranger still…the more she tried to recall exactly whathappened in the aftermath, the less clear her memories became. Was it stress?Was it shock? Was it the frailty of the human mind? Was it something…or someone…else entirely?  

She sat in her car outside of Lux, parked just beyond thehalo of a streetlamp, staring up at the darkened building. Lucifer couldprobably answer her questions. Now that he didn’t have to answermetaphorically, or she knew that he wasn’tbeing facetious, it would probably help them both. Right?

Or maybe it would just make it worse. At least now she had abunch of ‘maybes’ or ‘what ifs’ that she could easily shrug away or make up ananswer that while perhaps being utter BS would make her feel better at night,and not like someone was staring at her from on high no matter where she was.

God saw all, right? How much was all? What kind of pervy God were they talking that?

She sighed and growled in frustration, grabbing the steeringwheel with both hands as she let her forehead drop against it. “Uggghhhh, why does everything have to be so goddamn difficult?”

“Because that’s how the world works.”

Chloe screamed, and almost hurled herself out of the carbefore her brain even processed who’s voice it was.

Maze sat in the passenger seat, feet up on the dash, one armpropped on the open window, sucking on a lollipop of all things, lookingcompletely unimpressed by Chloe’s cardiac arrest.

“Maze,” Chloehissed through clenched teeth as she reflexively put a hand to her heart. “Areyou trying to kill me?”

Maze considered it for a moment, cocking her head to one sidebefore pulling out the stick candy with an audible ‘pop’. “No,” she said. “I am wondering what you’re doing with yournightly drive-bys though. Seems a little stalker-ish, even for you.”

Chloe declined to answer, because she didn’t have one.Instead, she changed subjects. “Where have you been, anyway? I haven’t seen yousince…” she actually had to think about it. When was the last time she saw Maze? The night Lucifer disappeared fromthe penthouse? And how long ago was that?“Since before Michael and Gabriel showed up.”

Maze flat out laughed at that. “Well, duh,” she sneered, lips pulling back an almost feral snarl. “Demonsand archangels are no bueno. We gothistory. I wasn’t about to get in the middle of all…” she waved her lollipoparound in a vague circle, “that.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be Lucifer’s bodyguard or something?”Chloe pointed out.

Maze pursed her lips, raising one eyebrow. “Aren’t yousupposed to be his partner? Where have you been, besides skulking outside theclub like some sort of creeper?”

Chloe cringed, looking away.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Maze said. She fell silent fora moment, sucking on her candy. “It’s the kind of tragedy I expect from his Dadby now.” Maze glanced skyward through the open window of the car. “Giving himexactly what he wants, in the worst way possible.”

She considered it for a moment. “How…” she stopped, trying tothink of exactly what she wanted to ask, whether or not she wanted to know thetruth. She chewed her lower lip. No. She didn’t need to what Maze meant – notreally, not from her. “How is he?”

Maze leaned forwards, looking up at the darkened penthousethrough the windshield. “Different.”

Chloe didn’t ask any further.

Thunder rolled gently in the distance. Another spring storm,coming across the Pacific.

“What are you waiting for? Permission?” Maze snapped. “Go.”

Chloe reached for the ignition. Maze was right. She didn’thave the right to sit out here and stalk someone who clearly wanted to be leftalone. Lux was empty for a reason. He hadn’t come to work, hadn’t called,hadn’t reached out for a reason. Sheshould know well enough what it was like to have someone who didn’t listen toboundaries.

Maze slapped her hand away from the keys. “Not leave go, go see him go.” She pointed towards the club’s front doors. “It’snot locked. He’s in the penthouse. Go.”

Chloe began to shake her head. “No, he hasn’t invited me, hehasn’t reached out – I need to respect that –”

Maze growled in frustration, and for a moment, sounded lessthan human. “Oh, for the love of – he’s not thatdifferent. He hasn’t reached out because youhaven’t said anything. He thinks you’re just like everyone else who’s everfound out the truth about him, and so far, he’s right. Now go.” She wavedtowards the club.

That hit Chloe like a sucker punch to the gut. It was onething to stay away because that’s what Lucifer wanted.

It was another thing entirely to abandon a friend in need whodidn’t know how to ask for help.

“Okay, I just…do I need-” she glanced back over and Maze wasgone. Chloe heaved a sigh. “Of course she vanishes into thin air. What demonninja bartender doesn’t? Using a door would be unrealistic, right? Who does that? No need to say good-bye, oranything. Pfft.”

She made sure the windows were up, the door was locked, anddarted across the street before she could change her mind.  

(*(*(

Lux was silent. Eerily so. Not like the sound proofing Samaelhad, or the frigid temperatures, but like all the electronics were shut down.The bar was dark. The screens were off. The central air wasn’t on.

The last time she was here, she witnessed Samael rend his brother’swings from his back and throw him down into Hell through a tear in reality shewatched him create.

The columns were repaired. The piano replaced. The glasspicked up and everything polished to a glass-like shine.

Everything looked exactly the same as it had beforeeverything started on the surface, and yet somehow…still felt dead underneath.

As she watched the numbers climb towards the penthouse, shehad a sudden urge to hit the emergency stop and climb the rest of the way bystairs just to draw it out.

She needed the extra time. She had no idea what to say. Shedidn’t even know where to start. Would he even see her? She hadn’t felt thisnervous facing down Samael, and she’d seenwhat he’d done.

Lucifer was a friend. A bestfriend.

Who was an archangel who fell from Heaven, ran Hell, andthen…took a vacation in LA.

Yeah. She could do this. She could totally do this. Yep. Onehundred percent, she owed this to Lucifer, she owed it to herself, she –

The final ‘ding’ echoed like a gunshot in the tiny space. Shefelt her heart hammering in her chest like she’d run a marathon and she wasn’teven sure why. She wasn’t afraid ofLucifer. She hadn’t been afraid of him as Samael. Michael, Gabriel, Death – she’d faced them all withoutfeeling like this. What the hell waswrong with her?

Maybe she should leave. She should go, she hadn’t beeninvited, it was too soon it was-

The doors slid open and she froze.

The penthouse was destroyed.

Absolutely destroyed.

The piano was upended against the marble walls, the bench inpieces flung to the other side of the room. The bar and every bottle shattered.Bits of glass peppered the floor. Expensive alcohol leaked from broken bottles,drying where it lay on the black floors.  

Ta daaaaah! 

[forest-of-stories]

“They Won’t Let You Remember”: Obsession Before Fandom

[This is another round of extremely personal spelunking into my own fannish past that I sometimes do on this and other platforms, including Dreamwidth, which is where I first posted it.  Content warning for digressions into Fannish Discourse, and also brains - mostly mine - conflating fiction and reality in sometimes unhealthy ways.]

Not long ago, my mom asked me on the phone if I was aware that a new Men in Black movie would be out later this year. I told her that I knew, and added, “If I see it with other humans, they might have to hear how the original was one of the root causes of my mind control feelings.” Not the root cause, I should emphasize: those feelings could have come from any number of sources, but that number is probably greater than “one.” We both knew why she had brought up this particular franchise. There is a file cabinet in my childhood bedroom that once contained many, many handwritten stories – some co-written with middle school classmates, though most of them weren’t – that featured the titular secret organization, the protectors of the Earth from the scum of the universe, as the bad guys. I wrote those in order to deal with the sharp turn that my already present Mind Control Feelings took when a silly science fiction comedy featuring giant space bugs encouraged me to root for characters who maintained the status quo by erasing memories from ordinary people – people like me – on a regular basis. Some of you might be asking, “Wait, you knew it was only a movie, right?” And my answer would be, “Yes, but…” Since time and emotional distance have both clarified and obscured my understanding of how I used to think and behave, here is the best (and probably most long-winded) way that I can answer that question for both myself and others: I was an imaginative and overwhelmingly anxious child. On the one hand, my imaginative side desperately wanted magic and aliens and Weird Stuff to be real, which I still don’t think was always a bad thing. On the other hand, during my preteen and teenage years, my anxiety (which wouldn’t be linked to a diagnosis until much later in my life) manifested as “what if?” scenarios that were at least as convincing as reality… even if they were based in speculative fiction. Even if I didn’t believe that they would happen, I spent a lot of time telling myself stories about what might happen if they did, or even just thinking, “What if this is how the world is supposed to work, even if I don’t like it or want it and you can’t make me?” So, although I knew the difference between fiction and reality by the age of twelve, knew that Men in Black was Only A Movie, my “what if?” reflex kicked in hard the more I recognized its world as being much closer enough to my own than my previous, limited encounters with memory erasure in fiction. According to the rules of that world, if the Weird Stuff were real, I wouldn’t even know, and, according to the text, shouldn’t know. “Wasn’t the next line of the theme song ‘They won’t let you remember’?” Older Sister asked, the last time we talked about it. Yes. Yes, it was. The immediacy is right there in the song’s refrain (which, by the way, is still an earworm and a half). At one point, Tommy Lee Jones’ veteran agent character insists that, while Earth is constantly under extraterrestrial threat, humans can only live our lives peacefully if we don’t know about it. (Keeping in mind that humans do a pretty solid job of threatening life on Earth ourselves, I feel like that statement is also linked to questions about the supposedly blissful ignorance of privilege, which go beyond the scope of this post, but are still worth mentioning.) Maybe I reacted so strongly to that bit of dialogue because I believed that it wasn’t true, or because I feared that it was. I’m pretty sure that it was the combination of that scene and its message, with my recurring issues around authority and self-control, and my growing self-awareness about my misbehaving brain, that set my anxious imagination spinning. I would guess that I was wondering something like, “What if the only way that I could have peace of mind was if somebody or something else edited my thoughts and memories without my knowledge or consent?” That idea scared me. It made me angry. And since I was not mature enough to have any filters or sense of other people’s boundaries, I talked – loudly and incoherently – to anybody who would listen, and quite a few people who wouldn’t, about how scared and angry it made me. A lot of the things that I said and did are now difficult for me to understand (one might almost say… alien), and I’m not sure whether they helped with my worries or just made them worse. I do know that this was neither the first nor the last work of fiction about which some of my loved ones told me to shut up because I was too obsessed, resulting in screaming fights, sneering mockery, and tears. I was also old enough, you see, to understand that I wasn’t responding to fiction in the same way that a lot of my peers were, and to, perhaps, start feeling like there was something wrong with me. Not that this was enough to shut me, in fact, up. But I did something else, too: I started to write the stories that I mentioned above. Some of my point-of-view characters were disillusioned agents, others were characters from other media that I enjoyed; the more sources I could pull from, and the more surreal I could make the mix, the happier I was. Still other POV characters were authorial avatars who started out as innocent bystanders and narrowly escaped having their memories wiped. (A few of those self-insert fantasies also involved my earliest fictional crush, who just happened to be an alien from a certain book series that I loved at the time. I quite happily imagined scenarios in which my very knowledge of his true nature was forbidden and yet our love conquered all in the end, but I never put any of those scenarios on paper. I kind of wish I had.) Some of the storylines fizzled out after a few chapters, while others ended with my protagonists riding off into the sunset with their minds, for the time being, safe. I should stress that even my writing wasn't necessarily integrated into my life in a healthy way: I scribbled during my classes (yes, I got caught at least once), I wrote scenarios that crossed the line from nonsensical into offensive (why so many “man in a dress” jokes, younger self? Why even one?), and I buttonholed friends and classmates as audiences and even collaborators despite their probably being much less interested than I was. Even though I was discovering a third option besides “shut up forever” and “shut up never,” it would take several more years, at least two more obsessions, and the discovery of online fandom (I only somewhat knew what “online” was in the late 1990s, and “fandom” was nowhere near my vocabulary) before I sorted out the appropriate time and place for each of those options. But I was on my way there, even if I didn’t know what “there” was. When I questioned and pulled apart an established narrative to turn the heroes into villains and shine a light on viewpoints that I thought the original creators had overlooked, I was writing fanfiction, whether I knew it or not. When I finally did find my way to fandom communities, it was thanks to the Harry Potter books, whose world-building also relies on what TV Tropes calls “The Masquerade.” (If you look up the page for that trope, guess whose quote is right at the top? Yeah.) Which led me to recognize it in certain versions of X-Men, and The Incredibles, and Torchwood and The Vampire Diaries and and and… The more I saw of organized efforts to conceal the existence of Weird Stuff from the Oblivious Masses, the more I understood that the audience was meant to feel like we were in on the secret, but I couldn’t stop sympathizing with the people who weren’t. I still dislike and distrust that trope to this day, even in works that I otherwise enjoy, and storylines involving memory erasure – consensual or not, narratively endorsed or not – still push both good and bad buttons, sometimes both at once. And I believe that my explorations of mind control in fiction, from the beginning until now, have partly been informed by questions like, “What if I couldn’t trust my own mind, and was asked to believe that this was for my own good and/or the good of society?” And, since it bears mentioning: I hope that nobody interprets this recollection as, “A storytelling device warped Nevanna’s understanding of reality, and therefore stories can reprogram people’s behaviors and problematic fiction should be eliminated!” First of all, I object to that kind of black-and-white thinking, as a librarian, a writer, and someone who tries to thoughtfully consume media. Secondly, it’s more accurate that the dysfunction in my own brain once warped my understanding of reality; that even then, I was still responsible for my own actions; and although I have a history of giving fictional constructs an unhealthy amount of power over my own life, I grew out of it. And even though I have mixed feelings about the debate over Problematic Fiction, and I certainly do not condone harassment and shaming – because I’ve been there and done that, on both sides – I try to maintain that it is not my place to stop people from having negative emotions about stories. Even if I don’t agree, even when their objections make me uncomfortable, I can disagree with what they’re saying or doing without invalidating what they might be feeling. And I try to be better at doing so, because I am the last person in the world to deny that stories spark powerful emotions and thoughts, that sometimes they go against the creators’ intentions. Part of becoming a responsible consumer of media and participant in fandom is learning to manage those emotions constructively and make space for other people’s feelings and needs. I used to be angry at my younger self for being unable or unwilling to do that. I’m not anymore. That said, one of the differences between preteen Nevanna and thirty-something Nevanna is that nobody has to hear me talk about mind control unless they want to. (Although I’m happy that a noticeable number of people usually seem to want to.) I never saw the original Men in Black in the movie theater. I think it took me several tries (much to Younger Sister’s frustration) to sit through it on home video, and the ghost of who I was back then, as much as if not more than the actual content, has kept me from revisiting the 1997 movie in the intervening years. If I wanted to watch it again, I think that I would want (and here I'll paraphrase a fantasy series, also about aliens, that more or less avoids the Masquerade altogether) to prepare myself emotionally. I still haven’t watched the sequels or had much interest in doing so, and I never posted any fanfiction set in that universe. It has occurred to me that I might end up writing fic for the 2019 reimagining, if I see it (it wouldn’t be the first time in the recent past that I revisited fictional worlds from my childhood in new and surprising ways). But if I do write anything – and maybe even if I don’t – I will continue to feel pity and compassion and gratitude for the twelve-year-old believer in Weird Stuff who heard, “They won’t let you remember,” and responded, “What if I did anyway?”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

RAISING MONEY IS TERRIBLY DISTRACTING

All good investors supply a combination of circumstances that's unlikely to be able to get a job with both measurement and leverage. A Familiar Problem Sum up all these sources of error in your own time, though. As I've written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become merely stubborn. Do You Need for Server-Based Software? What people know of him now is his paintings and his more flamboyant inventions, like flying machines. It's not hard to understand, people who want to work on, or even still in it. I don't know how the stakes were used. Technology Will technology increase the gap between acceptable and maximal performance widens, it will become a pyramid. Most new businesses are service businesses and except in rare cases even millions. And beneath that there's edge-finding, which makes promotion free if you're on the maker's. People will say things in anonymous forums that they'd never do it.

Especially since you won't even really learn about it, any more than there is a fixed pie that's shared out, like slices of a pie. You never know when this happened because it was too crazy. Instead think about why they're asking for something, technology will make it big. One founder said this should be your approach to customer support. Or hasn't it? Smart people will go wherever other smart people are really smart or those guys are working on. Rtm and Trevor again. I don't think that's the audience people are implicitly talking about when they say they'll invest. File://ycombinator.

You don't know what the basic human reaction to a famous painting will be warped at first by its fame, there are just two or three times as long? In December 2014 American technology companies want the government to take action, there is one that isn't succinct enough, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little Web 2. After they paid back their angel investors, they help them break the sort of writing that attempts to persuade may be a variant of Reid Hoffman's principle that if you need to do something audacious. If you can hit 10% a week. At YC, the culture was the product. I always ought to be writing research papers. In towns like Houston and Chicago and Detroit it's too small to do anything very complicated. Org/7.1 Perhaps we can split the difference on the issues have lined up with charisma for 11 elections in a row, the unlucky human will have to be disciplined about not letting your hypotheses harden into anything more. The critical moment for Einstein was when he was an expert on search. Certainly a lot of papers!2 Viaweb entirely with angel money.

When I want to work for you. They can tell at a young age that a contest where everyone wins is a fraud.3 VCs should be deprived of their shares when the company goes public, the SEC will carefully study all prior issuances of stock by the company and went to Europe. But I have no way to test them. Beware valuation sensitive investors. If you look at the way successful founders have had their interests promoted to a lifestyle. The more of a problem this will be over quickly.4

Which is particularly painful to someone who knew what the right direction rather than the median, you can opt to be valued directly by users, because users were desperately waiting for what they are. I ever read it? It seemed just amazing, as if the story you want them as a commodity?5 As I'll explain later, this is partly because in mid-sentence, though you tend to get cram schools on the classic model, like the Soviet Union, and to many others for talking to me about high school, the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out. No one will look that closely at it. And unfortunately there is a problem because they tend to be sharply differentiated. And yet the prospect of getting their initial product out. By this. Why don't government officials disclose more about their finances, and why are they attached to all these questions, you might be able to tell. So the fact that communication is so much smaller than the chance that I'm imagining all this anyway. So why do universities and research labs. One consequence of funding such a large number of situations, but its shape jabs into your consciousness like a pin.

Great universities? And yet, oddly enough, Ryan Singel's article about the conference in Wired News spoke of throngs of geeks. The really juicy new approaches are not the ones driven by money.6 The word essay comes from the controversial topic of wealth, no one knows who the best programmers of any public technology company. They didn't foresee the expansion of this idea; it forced itself upon them gradually. Harvard, or Davis Squares Kendall is too sterile; in Palo Alto, though there are few outside the US, companies would have been there 100 years ago. Honestly, Sam is, along with all the people who produce a show can distribute it themselves.7 APL: Fortran isn't good enough at simulations.

If you wanted to hear. Experience Another reason people don't work on big things, I find I never get as deeply into subjects as I do actually typing. Delicious on the side of being harsh to founders. Bigger companies solve the problem at all, but another you discovered en route. Which means people with a passion for service. I'm not sure how reasonable a hope this is, strictly speaking, impossible.8 If you do that, but probably as close to the main branches is a useful if imperfect filter. Partly because some companies use mechanisms to prevent copying. Algorithms that use it are called naive Bayesian. This is one reason you might want to include business people in a room full of stuff can be very cool to be in a much more conclusive way than by making good products. Get introductions to investors. It's hard to say whether he should be classified as a friend or angel.

Dangerously misleading, for adults. It's hard to follow is that people won't take you seriously. They're as expert in their world as you are in big trouble. Just build things. By making it easier for startups to present to investors. My stories didn't have a lot in the course of writing it, and savor the time you have. But could you also base a successful startup founder, but few are in actions. But while this is certainly an important relationship between wisdom and intelligence, it's not uncommon for investors and then watching how they do, I look them straight in the eye. An ordinary slower-growing business might have just as good a case as Microsoft could have, will you convince investors? It's ok to have working democracies and multiple sovereign countries. Marketplaces are so hard and emotional that the bonds and emotional and social support that come with it. The right way to write spaghetti code.

Notes

But the usual misquotation is closer to the principles they discovered in the sense that if there is the kind of bug to track down. Success here is defined from the rule of thumb, the growth rate early on. In principle yes, of course some uncertainty about how the courses they took might look to an employer. It would be to advertise, and that you decide the price, they were doing Bayesian filtering in a way that weren't visible in Silicon Valley, the reaction of an investor pushes you hard to erase from a few percent from an interview.

In 1998 a lot of detail. It's more in the message.

His critical invention was a false positive rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would give you such a brutally simple word is that the meaning of distribution.

But you can do is not the original text would in 1950 something one could reasonably be with children, we're going to call the market price. What you're looking for initially is not a big effect on the subject today is still possible, to a group of people are these days.

Then when we make kids do boring work, done mostly by people like them—people who get rich, purely mercenary founders will usually take one of the word has shifted.

If an investor pushes you hard to say, ending up on the firm's site, they're nice to you about it wrong. One of Europe's advantages was that professionalism had replaced money as a process rather than ones they capture. All you have to go to college somewhere with real research professors. Ron Conway had angel funds starting in the narrowest sense.

Patrick Pantel and Dekang Lin.

99 to—A Spam Classification Organization Program. And gathering fruit. I do, so I have a lot like intellectual bullshit. The problem with most of the companies fail, most of his peers, couldn't afford a monitor.

[hoenn-hakase]

TPP Bronze: Day 8. The End

Where we last saw Fifer, she had just become Champion for both Kohto and Kanto and had begun to explore the lengths of her domain as she'd hardly knew anything about Kanto. Prof. Koa gave her a Cave Pass that allowed her to go through Cerulean Cave where she found and fought her toughest opponent yet: TPP's own, AJ. Unable to beat him, she returned to Kanto's mainland where she seems to be seeking the greatest treasure of all: Her Purpose.

We start the day bright and early in Vermilion City. Having never been in a port city, but having been in a train station, Fifer sure wanted to check out the docks. What would be found down there? A big fancy boat? A rare pokemon in hiding? A gateway to HELL? Well.... APPARENTLY! D8!

Going down the stairs to where the loading area normally would be, Fifer instead stepped out of the port and into the Glitch Worl!!! Which bizarrely enough, also seems to be the source of the Plague o' Rocks that's been slowly trying to encase Kohto for some time now. A stray NPC tries to ask her if she came from Johto and admires her rare Pokemon he wonders can be found there. Glitch Worl seems to be a pretty enclosed space, having the doors blocked and buildings too fragmented to hold anything. No treasure to be found... So Fifer heads back to the Lost Boy and decides to ask the.... clone? Yes, she didn't notice at first, but there's a girl in blue who turned toward Fifer when she tried to get the girl's attention, and... SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE HER???

The girl suddenly takes her through another doorway, (down the rabbit hole indeed...) where she found herself suddenly TRAPPED in a mess of world fragments and somewhere in the distance, a horn blows, signalling that they're being taken away somewhere. Even as she can feel the "ship" moving, she eventually manages to kick the door open and stepped out to find... she was still in the same place. In front of the fragmented gym of the town she departed from anyway. How strange. Talking to another girl this time, or what she THOUGHT was another girl, turned out to be some copy of her as well and the pair of Fifers decided to shove her back into the pocket dimension to seal her away.

Wriggling out the side door this time, Fifer seemed to be quite put out with this place, and these... "twins" and decided to see if she could just fly back to Cerulean City. Somehow... that worked? She eventually went back to do a bit of a test, and certainly the port still lead into the Glitch Worl. But she could leave it just as easily with Fly. Having learned this, she heads back to the League, presumably to talk with the council about barring off the docks until they figure out how to prevent people from falling into The Void.

After dealing with those bugs, Fifer decides to go beat up some real bugs and does a long grind session in the Viridian Forest where she stumbles across a fisherman who is mad about someone telling him there was a good fishing spot there, but only bugs!

Feeling her training is complete, it's time to rechallenge AJ! And fail. ... Multiple times. So instead it's BACK to training! Off to the League to again get the help and advice of her fellow League members. There's something troubling about all this, I'm sure. AJ is known destroyer. Has he only been going easy on her?

Things only turn weirder (and Glitchier? Come on, Bronze you were holding up so well....;o; ) as she has a total WHITE out

Perhaps the answer isn't just in sheer brute strength, but something... more. Remembering Sabrina's words in how the power of the bond Fifer has with her Pokemon, the love they share, is more powerful than anything, Fifer appears to be working on strengthening her bond with Lucy

Working her way through the LITERAL Maze of Trees, Fifer finds a hidden house that seems to be some kind of Game Corner... Only there's no games inside the building. Instead a shady man tells her CONGRATS on her excellent sleuthing skills in being able to find the Secret Room. His friend then proceeds to give her AS MANY MASTER BALLS AS SHE WANTS 8O 8O 8O The chat proceeds to get so many, the game goes into a sort of "hyper mode" where the music, text, and character movements all suddenly move at an accelerated pace to speed things up XD

Having been deemed a Master of Glitchcraft, Fifer decides to test her strength elsewhere. She eventually heads to the Kanto Power Plant, where she walked through the door into the Old Couple's house in the heart of Deep Cave. Stepping out of the house proved she was, in fact, still in the cave, so it wasn't that they were removed to the Power Plant, but that she figured out how to create a portal of her own. Digging her way out, she returned to the Power Plant entrance just fine. Magic~ 8D <3

Fifer seems very excited to discover such powers and immediately decides she MUST try this elsewhere to give herself confidence in this new ability. She returns to the Glitch Worl and proves she doesn't even need to Fly to leave this weird place, as she can just step back through the doorway she created to enter it. Entering and leaving Vermilion City Gym also appears to form a gateway, giving her a shortcut back to Memoria Town.

A new plan forges as she seems to piece things together, eventually setting up a gateway at the entrance to Dark Tunnel that would lead her directly into Cerulean Cave so she could bypass the guards and go more quickly after AJ. In the end it was a long, and hard fought battle but with a bit of luck and strategizing, we FINALLY CLAIM VICTORY! >O

AJ actually doesn't have much to say (not to US anyway XD) and just as mysteriously as he appeared to Fifer.... he vanished. Leaving one to wonder if he was ever truly there... The credits roll and the Chat cries and Fifer... Well Fifer managed to warp into the game's true finale. A mysterious lookout spot where she could see all of Kohto through a lense and found --?!! waiting for her with a happy Congrats on her completing all there is to do in their tiny home. She also meets with Freako, a strange man who thanks for playing "the game". One of Koa's aides is even there, saying the professor sends his regards. Everyone's so proud of her ;o;

As she talks to all the people, and takes in the sights, her ItemFinder starts going off. A... a treasure? It doesn't appear to be in the building, but stepping outside reveals the "lookout" is in a house by the sea. It... It's Cerulean Cape! I mean, Enders Isle. Fifer continues to look around the clearing it sits in, thoroughly cut off from the rest of civilization. The ItemFinder starts to react to something outside now... she follows... She follows until she finds herself back in the gateway to Cerulean Cave and a soft mist fills the area. The Voices leave, some sending hearts and well wishes as they do so. The game ends.

This was long but still kind of fun. I think if I do this for the next run, I'll start doing it from Day 1 so hopefully I won't be SO far behind as I started this when it was almost over. I know my points of interest are kind of wonky, but I hope I could at least make these info-dumps amusing at least. Thanks! <3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, well since no one asked about it, here's a few bonus notes and lore ideas to come up while I was going through all this.

The PokeGear was back in full swing this run, and we had several numbers calling us at all hours of the day, but the ones that stood out to me the most were: Youngster Zach, Camper Nate, Lass Dana, and PokeFan Beverly. I suppose given the chat's reactions whenever one of them called had something to do with it. (Dana is Bae though apparently)

I'm not sure if it was a bug or what triggered it, but while we were in Viridian Forest, Mom called after EVERY. SINGLE. TRAINER. to tell us she went and bought something and it's in the PC. Whether she was pushing for PC use or simply seems to be gaining a bit of a shopping addiction due to just how much dough Fifer's been raking in through her battle and treasure hunting skills, it was really funny. I really do wonder if the same phone call just kept getting triggered even though she only meant to call us once, or if there actually was a new item in the PC for every time she called, but we'll never know.

For anyone curious, I believe I saw we had 171 Master Balls over the course of Bronze. According to Kelcyus: "and most Masterball'd mons: Master Alakazam, Master Golbat, Master Graveler, Master Goldeen and Master Tangela which was caught with the original masterball."

Speaking of, Kelcyus made a comic about the incident, but I didn't actually notice it since I was more or less skimming over events in my vid watching so while skimming I didn't see anything out of place with a trainer battle and the continuing on down Route 9 toward the Power Plant though knowing that the area was off limits now explains SO MUCH about the stuff that happened in that area. Like the gateways to different areas because nothing was programmed in place of the Power Plant and Rock Tunnel and so forth. If I calculated correctly, the Edna OH SHIT incident happened back on Day 7. While it's hilarious that after turning into a Magicarp, Edna accuses us of hacking, the truth is, the gate house to the underground between Cerulean City and Vermilion City was meant to block the path to Route 9. Instead it was about two spaces over, creating a one space gap for Fiver to simply walk through and then use Cut on the tree as normal.

While I keep making jokes about the Plague o Rocks that seems to be tormenting Kohto (that one village I never got the name for, Acre Forest, Cerulean Cape, ect all having the large square boulders blocking off places for seemingly no reason) and then finding them EVERYWHERE in the Glitch Worl, and the stray NPC still talking about Johto, (as well as a few others like in Saffon and in the Route 9 forbidden zone) I can't help but wonder if the random rocks are Glitchwork or actually (from a lore prospective) actually from the remnants from Brown when Johto was basically buried due to (I thiiiiink?) an earthquake. Seeing how Kohto and Kanto are directly connected, and both areas have these rocks to some extent, and Johto was basically destroyed, I wonder how far flung the effects of that disaster struck. o.O;

And that's all I can think of at the moment. ^ w ^

[aurimeanswind]

Your E3 Predictions!—Sunday Chats—6/3/18

I’m very excited about this week’s Sunday Chats because it’s all about E3 predictions! This time next week, we’ll BE INSIDE E3! I’ll have seen Microsoft/EA/and Bethesda’s pressers come the next Sunday Chats, and I’ll be writing about them, probably! I may or may not do a Sunday Chats, but we’ll see!

To catch folks up, this week has been a full-force build up to E3 for me. A new Episode of Get Acquainted posted, with my friend Brandon Gann, who is just an incredibly wonderful and amazing loquacious individual, and we spend two plus hours talking E3! We had a ton of predictions and great conversations around all of them! You should give it a listen!

http://irrationalpassions.com/brandon-gann-e3-predictions-get-acquainted/

On this week’s Irrational Passions Podcast we had my other good friend Logan Moore on to make some E3 BETS! Nabeshin was kind enough to put together 25 amazing bets for us and a ton of lightening round bets on top of that, and it was super fun. You can watch the video version of that WITH bonus content right now, and the fully edited version will post on Tuesday.

So it’s all about E3, but before we get to that, a little personal update.

Personal Update for June

So any one close to me will no that the last week of my life has been exceptionally difficult. Some folks close to me, both physically and emotionally have been making decisions that have been pretty toxic, I can’t lie. It’s led to a pretty unhealthy living situation that I’d rather not get into, and whether things blow over, get worse, I’m not sure. I obviously don’t want to spill any personal juice here, but anyone who has seen me out here tweeting like the dramatic boi I am on the inside about how I need some good vibes, that’s a general overview of the situation, if you were concerned.

I’m thankful for all my close friends out there texting me, checking on me, and making sure I am doing okay, even if I’m not. It is upsetting that this just so happens to coincide with the busiest time of the year in video games, so if this bleeds over into our content over on Irrational Passions I apologize. Sometimes its a bit unavoidable.

Anyway, I appreciate you all taking the time to interact and be a part of my silly Selfie Saturdays or Sunday Chats, it means the world. I’ve been working hard with the team @ Irrational Passions to make some really fun stuff, including a new show that acts as a spiritual successor to our roundtables from 2017 Game of the Year talks.

That’s all we need to dwell on in regards to the bummer business, let’s get to games!

What’s on Tap

Moonlighter

So I just started this tonight and I have to say: right away I just love it.

The idea is you live in a small town that neighbors these ancient ruins that lead to these very dangerous dungeons, and once upon a time travelers and adventurers used to come here to explore those dungeons, and merchants would sell supplies and goodies to gear them up for those journeys. Eventually it grew too dangerous, but you are someone who Moonlights as an adventurer and runs a shop on the front end.

You dive into these dungeons and get awesome treasure and loot and goodies to then sell in your shop to expand your shop, get better weapons and armor, and continue deeper into the dungeons. It’s an amazing idea, and it’s executed on so well.

The game sustains such a great and rewarding loop, and it’s also got tons of charm and amazingly well executed on pixel art.

On top of that the UI is also just very good? It’s super slick and smooth. 

I’m only a couple hours in but I just adore it. Mike Burgess, producer at IP, did a video review on it that I saw the first cut of today and it’s actually what sold me on it. See it soon!

Detroit Become Human

I’ve already said so much about this game I’m exhausted. I love this game.

It has so many issues and in spite of all that, I genuinely adored my time with Detroit.

Our roundtable discussion was about this very game, so look for it soon.

Dark Souls Remastered

This game is still so good. I think I may like it even more than Dark Souls 3, a game I picked up just very briefly a few weeks ago.

I’ve now got the power to fast travel and am just warping around and exploring again. I even dipped my toe into the DLC area which I have never seen before. 

It’s excellent, and seeing it run smooth has been super rewarding for me, a longtime fan of the title.

Your E3 Predictions

Let’s get to it! This week, something I haven’t done in a bit, I asked you for your boldest E3 predictions, and while some of you gave me a good joke, a lot of you came back at me with some great predictions!

Let’s get into it!

Remember to look for my tweet on Sunday afternoons/evenings with #SundayChats in it and respond to it with your reply to be a part of Sunday Chats!

Now listen, I know this was clearly written as a joke Sam, but I think that this announcement is coming, just not here. It’s a PSX announcement, if ANY, because that’s the only place it can be really gernally accepted as an “announcement”. It’d get a big riot of an applause.

I’d love this. I think they have such a “robust” (#branding) library of handheld games that it’d make too much sense to carry them over to their now partially handheld big console.

Will it happen? Well, I mean Nintendo has said no virtual console on Switch. But they’ve changed their mind, even if it has been rare, in the past before. While it could happen down the line, this up coming direct is about 2017, so I don’t think we’ll see it there.

Nah John.

You need to stop.

But... Well

I mean maybe?

MAYBE.

Maybe?

Finally. Some announcements we, as “hardcore gamers” care about.

Some cars

Fuckin.

On stage.

The cars have sex.

And birth a motorcycle.

I love this Peter. I mean, for some reason I guess folks think that Emma Stone will be the female actress pulled into Death Stranding, and I think there will likely be a big female reveal at some point, I don’t know why everyone thinks it’ll be Emma Stone? I bet there is a good reason out there, I just don’t know. I’m not complaining, Emma Stone is great.

I am definitely with you on the “deep dive”, though I don't think there will be a long explanation of things, just a nice gameplay demo. My theory I posited on Get Acquainted was like an 8 minute trailer that leads into about four minutes of gameplay at the end, but it’s just enough cinematic that we’re convinced there will be no gameplay, and then BOOM. There is.

I could see them saying 2019 at the end too, though I doubt they’ll hit it.

YOU DONT BRANDON GOODBYE.

Nah of course. 

We talked about this on our show, obvs, everyone please go listen to it, but NO FINAL FANTASY 7. IT WONT HAPPEN. Square Enix needs to figure that shit out, and so they’ll come back to it when it, and more importantly, THEY’RE ready to.

Here’s hoping for some dope Xbox Avatars.

I mean, it’s gotta be the time, right? I need to know what this Resident Evil 2 Remake looks like. I know the director was out there talking about it not terribly too long ago, and it just feels like ages since we heard about it. With Capcom announcing RE7 and then releasing it 6 months later, on top of Monster Hunter World’s recent success, they are on a great path! Time to continue it!

As for DMC 5 I mean everyone seems convinced it’s coming and I just don’t care.

I love the Rocksteady prediction, because they’ve been cooking that bad boy for a good long while. I hope it’s Superman because I have supreme faith they’ll knock it out of the park. Maybe even an origin story? I’d love to see Rocksteady do one of those.

And I do, also, believe that Shadows Die Twice is Tenchu.

Dishonored getting a reboot I just don’t see happening. I think it’s time Arkane moves onto some new IP. Something that is hopefully a bit more eye-catchy so they get get back into a popular circle, then maybe spend a few years making iterations of that. Maybe in a few years past that they can return to Dunwall and take another crack at Dishonored.

Doom 2 can be wherever the hell it wants and I am HERE for it. But judging by the sounds of things that may not be at this E3, and that’s okay. It makes me sad, but it’s okay.

Man. I fucking wish.

Them or Bioware. I’d love to have just an original story told at Hogwarts where you create your character and go through 7 years at the school and it’s great and it has dialogue wheels and it’s great. Feed me Bioware.

It’d never happen tho.

This would be very cool. I feel like this Star Fox Grand Prix rumor is too big to ignore, but it’s still a little far fetched. I wonder how they’d sell it, if it is real.

Honestly, not that far out there. Kingdom Hearts don’t give a fuck about Red Dead.

Here is my thing, I just don’t think an ARMs character will make it into the Smash roster because no one cares about ARMs and I don’t think they’d be crazy interesting. Who would it be? Twintelle? I mean she is super cool, but who knows!

THey’d make great assist trophies, and I know that’s a slight but I’m sorry.

PUT GENO IN.

Anyway, if they put Banjo and Kazooie in I’d literally start crying right then and there, and it may happen, who knows, but I would. I’d cry.

I think there could be a direct apology. It depends. I think within 15 minutes or so we will know if EA has changed their tone or not. Hell, within 2 minutes we’ll know. If they want to actually be well regarded, they need to start making big moves, and right now, they’re not. Period. Come out and own up to what you’ve done wrong, or GTFO. They need to make up ground on the PR front, even if they’re still making money hand over fist. 

I’m sorry times are tough Silver, but know that I’m sending good vibes your way!

I wonder if Microsoft would make such a bold move. Regardless, it’s a great bold prediction. I hope that they are gonna give it some more time, and let this generation cook a little more. I’m digging my Xbox One X, and them implying a replacement is coming next year or so would bum me out.

Finally. The battle Royale Battle Royale we’ve all been waiting for. 

And as the dust settles, there’s sha’boi Griffin. Standing on top. Winner of them all.

And let’s not front: I’d kill to listen to Donald Glover sing Parappa songs.

Thank you all so much for your predictions! I’ve had a ton out there all week, and the Get Acquainted Episode I think has them out there in the best way. Go check them out! Either way, I’m so excited for E3, not necessarily to see if my predictions came true, but just for the hype of it all and my inevitable editorial after its all said and done about my thoughts and feelings coming out of it.

So. Big Sunday Chats update. I may be making a BIG CHANGE to Sunday Chats in the coming weeks. There is some ironing out I need to figure out personally, but I just wanted to give you faithful readers a little heads up. This could be something that becomes a proper part of IrrationalPassions.com, and for that, I’m very excited. The biggest thing is it may mean I start soliciting questions on Saturday! Stay tuned for my twitter for that.

It wouldn’t be a big change for you all, so don’t stress about it too much, but I wanted to seed it out there.

I love you all and your support, especially in these dark dog days of summer I am in. Thank you for the perpetual good vibes. 

I hope you all are here for the E3 hype, but if not, that’s okay. Regardless, thank you for reading, and

keep it real.

(the Naruto kick not only continues, but never ends.)

[nephyartis]

“The Right Frequency”

Our Archaic Age

I see lots of conflation and ignorance surrounding the topics of Power Words, Runes, Glyphs, Sigils, Wands, and Wyrdstones. I hope this text will help clarify some of it.

First, some terms. Rune. Glyph. Sigil. Runic Languages, which to say, languages associated with a script (often in addition to a non-runic script), are also often called Languages of Power. A rune in-and-of-itself is a sort of pictogram, representing related physical and meta-physical ideals. It’s a building block. Glyphs, on the other hand, are like compound words, or more nuanced building blocks. A glyph referencing the Tiger animal would be derivative of the basic rune for Beast, as an example. So for what runes are the basic words, and glyphs are the compound words, Sigils are the slang. A sigil will contain elements of runes or glyphs, but expressed in a personalized manner, often for the sake of identification. Different runic systems (languages) do exist, though, which presents some important distinctions.

Primordial, Supernal, The Elder Language, the Language of Creation. Call it what you will, they are all the same. There are vibrational patterns that comprise the nature of existence. They bear personality--mental traits. By mimicking these vibrations, and mental states, we may illicit changes in the world, all working through The Medium--the field of interaction between physical and meta-matter, that so many call the Weave. All languages of power are derivative of this original system. To glimpse it is a task of great difficulty, which is why divination is often used to expand one’s mental faculties, just to grasp the concepts wholly. On the conceptual, abstract, and divine, there is the Dethek Language Branch. On the mechanical, definitive, and arcane, there is the Iokharic Language Branch. Of special note, there have been systems that attempted to mix the two, such as the Seldruin, an arcane system composed with respect for the divine, but that is not the topic I hope to address.

The cultures and creatures that popularized these languages lend credence to the ideals they represent. The origin of species: warring elementals of crude matter, before the specialization of complex life--these creatures, such as Djinn with their reality warping wishes--they warred across the cosmos seeking places of higher potential, creating form from chaos. Crude, raw, powerful. Then in time complex life formed. The creator races were born. They grasped The Language, and further complexity, but they did not create worlds, like the elementals did. Great empires forming afterward, ever more derivative of the last. More complex, but in complexity, one sacrifices potential. Giants, Dragons, then Elves. Each came and created their own derivative systems, yet only two flourish to this day. The Giants and the Dragons. Of those two, it seems to me global culture has strayed, perhaps too far, into the arcane--the material--the Dragon--and in its cry for more--subconsciously aware of its own shortcomings--it has accepted falsehoods and niceties in place of reality and hard truth.

While scholars have debated whether Iokharic was influenced by Dethek, or if it were the other way around, I will posit that this is the wrong question. They share commonalities because they are inspired by--derivative of--the same root system. The universal language. As language has progressed, however, ever more nuanced, it has gained the ability to express more-and-more complex ideas, at the cost of its potency, much like the races that practice it. Each one branches out of those that came before, in a great tree of life. This is not to say that I believe movement along the branches is impossible, but that’s a topic for another time.

Compare both Iokharic and Dethek runes. Knowing their script will greatly assist. For that matter, compare the runic forms of any language. Those two are simply the most widespread. While there are differences, their similarities are key to understanding the pervasive narrative of our universe. Lake, Water, Ocean, Tide, Mutability, Longing, Gulf. A nuanced rune (also called a Glyph, or Hanzi) will appear visually similar to other like-minded runes, because their meanings are related. Shark will resemble Fish, which resembles Water. This holds true with all runes. They represent things, which in and of themselves, contain mental traits. These mental traits correspond to a certain vibrational frequency. Now compare the vibrations. The sound. The practice. Follow it up the linguistic tree, and watch it evolve. You will start hearing very familiar phonemes while on the same branch. It’s not until one reaches the Big Three, that language diverges greatly. Dethek, Draconic, and Elvish, respectively. Despite these apparent differences, though, their runes address and link the same ideals and frequencies.

Still, their differences are not unimportant. Dethek runes, like the cultures that popularized them, are grounded in the divine. They focus more on the intent, meaning, or associated mental traits, rather than physical measurements. The giants’ Ordning, dwarven paragons, human belief. There is a narrative beneath it all. Old churches of yore were cautious of science (read, arcane), and the pride of intellect. It was for good reason, even if it became misguided. One need not look far to see its dangers displayed in Dragons. Even the most noble among them face temptation in the face of ignorance or wealth. Primates in particular have evolved with a phrenology primed to notice serpentine figures, for the danger they pose is legendary. It is a story that our very blood cries out.

One can look at the spread of human language to see its influences, and trace its lineage along these branches. Often, mixing the two properties. Chessan, Raumtheran, Thorass, and Waelan, all take influence from dwarves (who took influence from Jotun), from the gods, or directly from Jotun. For some it’s harder to follow, such as the Untheric, Han, or Rauric languages (for that matter, any influenced by Netheril or Imaskar). The Netherese, first introduced to the Art by elves, then later for themselves with the great golden scales, became increasingly Iokharic. Likewise, their people, arcane. Independently, the same can be seen with Kara-Tur, and the Rauric (Imaskar, Thay) languages. Their cultures, while divine at first, made course along the arcane, increasingly adopting Iokharic methods.

Time for a closer look at Iokharic. The methodical. The measured. The arcane. These are focussed on what physical phenomena are represented, by the universe’s pervasive narrative. Iokharic is to Dethek, what Alchemy is to Herbalism, and what Intelligence is to Wisdom (Seldruin is the Charisma of the group, which muddies the picture a bit). Yet look at the great empires that rose in its wake, each pragmatic and worldly. The Dragons. The Elves. Netheril. Thay. Each has contributed greatly to the advancement of the sciences, and revolutionized the way we live. But left unchecked, history shows that innovation will be its own undoing. I do not intend to say arcane magic is wrong, or that it should not be practiced. Merely, that there is a balance in all things. Even the divine, and the arcane. Their balance--their synthesis--is godhood. It’s otherworldly. It is true divinity. It is that which lay closest to understanding the universal system. Magic Circles are often a good example of this, combining both practices.

At this point, let’s point out various ways these concepts can be utilized. Take Wyrdstones, for example. Primordial and awesome in power, they are still crude. While it cannot be said precisely, I would place their original creation prior to the divergence of language. One need only channel their intent to realize the potential held within Wyrdstones. Any symbols they hold are lost on the limited perspective of our minds. So following the route previously stated, this would suggest Wyrdstones to be very near the universal language, as one does not need to infer a narrative, nor discern a practice. Wyrdstones are more whole. Intrinsic. Dwarven runestones, on the other hand, tell stories, and those stories often possess a weaker, but more nuanced power. The corresponding flow of mental traits are their key importance. While on the other hand, Iokharic runes are measured and precise, constructed meticulously, and often with more material affect. They pay less heed to the overarching story, and more to its physical events. The reliable power achieved in this way is often very attractive to aspiring mages, which likely goes without saying. To which I point out again, and caution against, the Pride of Intellect.

The differences between these systems also aids in understanding how to use more complex magical items. Arcane wands, for example, require practical understanding. How to stand, what frequency to embody, and how. Whereas with divine wands, empathetic understanding is necessary. You must respect, emulate, and believe, the energies being channeled. Posture and tone become much less important. Of course, one could also just practice through intuition how to use magical devices, but such a skill only gets you so far.

Last but not least, bringing this to an end, I’m sure some will have thought by now, “What about the planar languages?” It becomes very difficult to say. We could speculate, for example, that Infernal aligns more arcane than divine. The ideas they espouse, and association with Tiamat, along with present day cultures (such as Thay) align enough to suggest it is true. However, there are two important dynamics to note. The gods are shaped by our cultivated belief. I have little doubt that their language could be as well, and that their language might evolve over time. Moreover, as previously described, godhood is a state of existence both arcane and divine, so at the very least it cannot be said that planar runes are wholly one or the other. They surely emphasize both practices, which is what makes them deific in the first place. It’s with these things in mind that it becomes very hard to pin-down planar languages. Combine that with the fact that they are obviously very far away from us, studying them becomes difficult. This is why I have focussed on a more grounded history of language. The planar systems are undoubtedly very close to the universal system, as far as origins go, but to what degree they still resemble it, may be impossible to say.

What I can say is that it’s time we stopped living in an age of ignorance.

[theonyxpath]

Hi, everyone! Rich and Lisa are on vacation this week. Eddy sometimes picks up the slack when they’re gone, but he’s also on vacation, so I leaped at the opportunity to make a fool of myself here in my inaugural MMN post. So fair warning: if you have any questions about the minutiae of our different projects, my answer is probably going to be some variant of “gosh, I don’t know, but I’ll talk to Rich when he gets back.” Consequently, this post will probably be shorter than Rich’s posts tend to be.

Gen Con 50 looms ever closer, a mere ten days away (thus eight or nine days until we leave for Indianapolis), and we’re totally not panicking. At least, some of us aren’t. The Gen Con Twitter account announced earlier that almost all passes are completely sold out: they expect to sell out of their remaining Friday passes this week. So clearly, this year’s Gen Con is going to be huge. I have no idea how many passes are available in total, but there were just shy of 61,000 attendees last year. It’s crazy to think that there won’t actually be a booth from which to buy passes at the show, because all of them are already gone. We hope to see you there!

Those of you who have gone in recent years may remember the limited promotional buttons we’ve had on hand, such as the Pugmire breeds and callings or Scion 2nd Edition’s pantheons. This year’s buttons may be of interest to fans of the Trinity Continuum‘s Æon setting. If you’re not, fear not: other designs will still be available, as long as our limited supplies last.

Speaking of which, last year’s Storypath System Preview makes a return, although where last year’s was focused on Scion, this year’s is focused on the Trinity Continuum. The contents are similar, just with a different flavour. The cover illustration is absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to share it with everyone.

What I will share is this illustration from that upcoming preview. She occupies the same conceptual space as the Lara Crofts and Nathan Drakes of the world, in search of ancient artifacts and tomes of knowledge, armed with nothing but her wits (and maybe a sidearm or two). I haven’t named her yet, but she doubtless works with the Global Cartography Initiative. Or perhaps even Les Fantômes.

She’s the very first illustration made for the modern-day Trinity Continuum setting. She’s illustrated by the returning Leif Jones, who was one of the key artists who helped establish the look of both Trinity and Aberrant when they were originally released 20 years ago.

Gen Con prep aside, Saturday we wrapped up our Kickstarter for Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras 2, the sequel to our previous Dark Eras, and we closed with $60,593 of our original $40,000 goal! Thanks to everyone who contributed. We achieved a few extra eras out of stretch goals, and some of our backers will either expand on those eras or resurrect others from the polls we ran. We’re looking forward to seeing how the book comes together! As always, watch this space for more details as development continues.

The Dark Eras 2 Kickstarter was the first place we revealed the Deviant skull, which Rich posted last week, but I thought was cool enough that I’ll post it again. Also, I don’t have access to Rich’s vast store of yet-unpublished art so I’m trying to jazz this up as best as I can. Here’s that delicious Deviant teaser text again:

You woke up…different. Someone changed you; on a slab, an operating table, an altar. By luck or by fate, you escaped. Hunted by the ones who made you, they hold all the cards. Except one thing, what they don’t know is that a fire burns within you because what they did wasn’t right. What they don’t know is that YOU’RE hunting THEM.

Deviant presents a game where the victims of experiments band together to bring down the monolithic organizations that twisted and warped them.

Finally, I think I heard Mike say that the last couple of standalone chapters from Dark Eras will be ready for sale this Wednesday, but don’t quote me on that. I’m not sure if we’re going to have anything up for sale next Wednesday, because we’ll all be busy setting up our booth in Indianapolis, but we’ll at least be posting our 2017-2018 brochure sometime over the weekend, and I know you’re all looking forward to that.

I have no idea how Rich organizes the Blurbs section or how long he decides to keep something posted, so rather than risk his great and terrible wrath, I’ll just leave it as-is. Production status below has been kept with the same format, although the information’s been updated accordingly.

And, to channel the late Walter Cronkite, that’s the way it is. See you all next week!

BLURBS!

ON SALE!

  ON AMAZON:

  We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook store on Amazon! You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle. Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies: Vampire: the Masquerade‘s Endless Ages, Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition‘s Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage 2, Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition‘s Truth Beyond Paradox, Chronicles of Darkness‘ God Machine Chronicle, Mummy: The Curse‘s Curse of the Blue Nile, and Beast: The Primordial‘s The Primordial Feast!

And now you can get these books in the Barnes and Noble Nook store too!

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology

  And here are six more fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology

  Andand six more more:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

      Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

    ON DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This Wednesday we will be adding new Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras shirts to our RedBubble store! Now you can support your favorite game lines in their historical versions!

    Satyr Phil Brucato beckons you once more into the Annex of Mage: The Ascension with this 300 page follow-up to M20. The M20 Book of Secrets is NOW on sale in PDF and PoD versions at DTRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2tKyJtb

More Than Magick

For mages who think they have everything, this trove of treasures expands upon the wealth of material presented throughout Mage: The Ascension’s 20th Anniversary Edition. New Traits, new rules, essays, answers, information… the Secrets are revealed within.

Enter the Annex

Building upon the M20 core rulebook, this Book of Secrets features updated rules and setting material, such as…

An M20 FAQ Genres & Resources

Matters of Focus Justice & Influence

New Abilities, Archetypes, Merits & Flaws

Expanded Rules for Combat, Resonance, Wonders, Computer Systems, and More

This Ascension Continues…

      Chomping it’s way to you comes the Dagger of Spiragos adventure PDF for Scarred Lands! This second in the Spiragos trilogy for levels 4-6 is now in both 5e and Pathfinder PDF versions on DriveThruRPG.com!

PF: http://ift.tt/2uvy38a

5e: http://ift.tt/2uS6FDT

The Titans’ Relics Must Be Destroyed! 

Artifacts from the fallen titan Spiragos have been recovered, and forces are at work that would see them used for ill. The Dagger of Spiragos and the Ring of Spiragos are now in the player characters’ hands — and they must do what they can to rid Scarn of the foul relics of the titans, whatever the cost!

What Came Before 

Dagger of Spiragos is a sequel to the 2014 Gen Con Scarred Lands Special Preview adventure, Gauntlet of Spiragos (available as a free download on DriveThruRPG. com and RPGnow.com). It is also the second adventure in the Spiragos Saga, with Ring of Spiragos, the dramatic finale, as the third and culminating title.

In Gauntlet of Spiragos, the PCs traveled to the legendary Chasm of Flies, where they discovered a tribe of spider-eye goblins who possessed relics of their fallen master, Spiragos. Now, with those items in hand, the PCs travel to the city of Fangsfall, where they must seek aid in destroying the foul objects.

But others wish to possess these items, too,

    Sailing out of the dark, the V20 Dark Ages Companion PDF and physical book PoD versions are going on sale Wednesday on DriveThruRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2pX42dq

Travel the long roads and deep seas in search of power and experience danger, or tackle the wilderness to hunt monsters and face death. Settlements large and small dot the black expanse with the promise of sanctuary, life, and community. These bastions of civilization present cold comfort, when playing host to vampire warlords and sadistic Cainite faiths. Whether led by a Prince, a coordinated belief, or hounded by monsters from without and within — no domain is truly the same as another.

Dark Ages Companion includes:

• Domains scattered across the world, from small fiefdoms to massive cities. Bath, Bjarkarey, Constantinople, Rome, Mogadishu, and Mangaluru each receive coverage.

• Apocrypha including plot hooks, new Paths, and mysteries to explore in your games.

• A how-to guide on building a domain within your chronicle, including events and servants necessary to make a domain as functional or dysfunctional as you wish.

• A study on warfare in the Dark Ages period, so combat in your chronicles can gain authenticity and lethality.

      From the Primordial to your Chronicles, Beast‘s Building a Legend has risen in PDF and PoD formats on DTRPG.com!

http://ift.tt/2u1BBkU

CREATING A CHRONICLE IS REWARDING…

…so why should the Storyteller have all the fun?

The whole troupe should get in on the action, making for a chronicle that reflects the preferences and predilections of all the players.

Building a Legend is a guide for doing exactly that — making a cohesive chronicle, starting with character creation, for Beast: The Primordial. It includes advice on creating Storyteller characters, folding in real world history, and populating the Primordial Dream.

        From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Requiem for Regina (Vampire: The Requiem Elizabethan London 1593). We have shared the world with monsters for millennia. In Elizabeth’s London, vampires built their own empire brick by bloody brick while Elizabeth I cemented her grip on newly Protestant England. Carefully balancing demands from those with Catholic and Lutheran sympathies, she forged a police state. Yet London emerged as a thriving cultural center, and from the crucible emerged a Kindred society forever changed.

http://ift.tt/2sl0Zh4

On sale in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG!

      What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! Advance PDF version available now on DriveThruRPG.com. http://ift.tt/2sV8lZR

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up. Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing.  There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more

      From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: To The Strongest (Mage Death of Alexander 330-320 BCE). In the rise and fall of Alexander the Great’s Empire, armies marched and cultures clashed. In the birth pangs of Hellenistic civilization, Awakened sorcerers all over the ancient world met, fought, and joined together. In the chaos of Alexander’s assassination and the wars that followed, Cults became Orders amid conflicts still burning in the present day.

http://ift.tt/2tmTVl6

On sale in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG!

  From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Three Kingdoms of Darkness (Changeling and Geist China 220-280). Famine weakens the empire, and war splits it apart. It is an age of ambition and strife, where the hungry dead walk the earth in great numbers, and the Lost must rely on their own kingdoms. Warlords and commoners, ghost-speakers and orphans — who truly serves the Mandate of Heaven?

On sale in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2rp8hPL

    From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: The Wolf and the Raven (Werewolf and Geist Vikings 700-1100). The Viking expansion across Europe comes at a pivotal time in history, as new faiths rose to challenge the old and new ways threatened to sweep ancient tradition aside. The Forsaken sail with raiders and explorers, seeking new lands to claim and new spirits to conquer, while Sin-Eaters walk the battlefields bringing the honored dead to their final rewards. The world grows larger and more dangerous by the day, but there are great rewards for those brave enough to fight for them.

On sale in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2rUjKtX

      Curated by Matthew McFarland, developer of Changeling: the Dreaming Twentieth Anniversary Edition and featuring authors such as Myranda Kalis, Wren Handman, and Peter Woodworth, this C20 Anthology of Dreams is on sale in electronic/PDF and physical copy PoD formats on DTRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2snBT0X

We dream, and we tell stories. We dream of love and the sort of person who might complete us. We dream of horror and wake breathless. We dream of magic, of flying through the air, or breathing underwater. We dream of fantastic vistas and amazing monsters.

We dream, and then we wake, and we tell stories. Our dreams create the Kithain, the changelings. Our stories are sustenance.

  CONVENTIONS!

Gen Con 50 IS IN TEN DAYS. August 17th – 20th, Indianapolis. Our booth will actually be 20′ x 30′ this year that we’ll be sharing with Nocturnal Media and White Wolf. We’re looking at new displays this year, like a back drop and magazine racks for the brochure(s). FYI, the con is almost entirely sold out for the first time ever! Here’s the map again of where we’ll be:

  In November, we’ll be at Game Hole Con in Madison, WI. More news as we have it, and here’s their website: http://ift.tt/RIm6qP

  And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Monarchies of Mau (Monarchies of Mau)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Redlines

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

DtD Night Horrors: Enemy Action (Demon: the Descent)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

  Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Pugmire Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Scion: Origin (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

  WW Manuscript Approval:

M20 Cookbook (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Ready Made Characters (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

  Editing:

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

M20 Cookbook

  Post-Editing Development:

W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Indexing:

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook – Ellis is working on painting everything up.

Cavaliers of Mars

Wraith 20

W20 Changing Ways – AD’d and Contracted.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

VDA Jumpstart

Scion Origins

Ring of Spiragos

Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Finals coming in.

Beast PG – Finals rolling in for most of the stuff.

VtR Half Damned – AD’d and Contracted.

Book of Freeholds

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Prince’s Gambit – New Cards out for playtesting.

Beckett’s Jyhad Diary – Working up a test chapter this week.

  Proofing

M20 Art Book – In progress…

  At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e

Mau Wallpaper

Monarchies of Mau Early Access

Dark Eras: Lily Sabre and Thorn

Dark Eras: A Grimm Dark Era

VTR: Thousand Years of Night

Gen Con 2017 Brochure

Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition) – PoD uploaded and processing…

C20 Jumpstart PDF

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology PDF

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: 1976: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars. The Viking orbiters and landers revolutionized our ideas about the geology of Mars and the historical presence of water.

[cloudytreefolk]

Assignment - Making a Poster

Research, brainstorming and moodboards

I designed a poster for Chvrches, a synthpop/indie rock band. I started by making a visual collection of band concert posters to get an idea of what’s out there, then listened through Chvrches most recent album a few times and read interviews and articles about the themes and concepts behind the album, song lyrics, and visual content of the band including album artwork, music videos, photo shoots and posters to get a sense of their iconography and visual identity.

I feel like with pop music from the 1950s bands and recording studios have become more aware and intertwined with the art and illustrating worlds and how fruitful this relationship can be commercially and creatively. A strong example that springs to mind is The Beatles and how they used evolving visual language to theme albums and films, signposting new creative eras for the band (Britrock A Hard Day’s Night, more hippy Help era, Sgt. Peppers, Yellow Submarine, stripped back the psychedelics for The White Album and Let it Be). More current bands and pop artists use drastic changes in visual language to signify new phases too - My Chemical Romance in the mid2000s going from general emo vibes to Goth Marching Band to Futuristic Desert Latex Rockers - Taylor Swift’s new music video for the single “Me” where a snake, the symbol from her last visual/musical phase, literally transforms into butterflies, the symbol for her new phase. So I also researched the musical, lyrical and visual thematic timeline of Chvrches through their album covers, music videos and posters to get a sense of their journey.

I came up with some ideas that applied more generally, associated with Chvrches across their whole timeline and probably a bit more geared towards their first album, looking at the combination of classical kind of spiritual imagery mixed with science fiction and dystopian themes in their music and lyrics.

Their third album lyrics have a bit of a different focus, more specifically about humanity in conflict with itself or being disenchanted with humanity. The genre of the music is leaning more towards pop and exploring their 80s influences in a different way. 

Below - markmaking while listening to “Love is Dead” album, colours inspired by the album cover.

I went through some collections of artwork and inspiration I’ve been building up over time and picked out images that I felt resonated with the themes I’d identified in Chrvches’ music. This moodboard collected ideas I might use for the content of my poster.

I created another moodboard of artist inspiration and ideas for the style and tone of my poster, which came to mind while I was making the content moodboard. Gustave Doré for his illustrations for The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost, literature I associate strongly with grappling with humanity and morality and spiritualism. Tove Jansson for her similarly dense linework and exploration of psychological/existential themes in the later Moomin books. I feel like her swirling ink shading really draws you into the emotion of the scene and the character, the environment matching the emotion in pathetic fallacy. Kay Neilsen for his illustrations of classic folk tales, which have a kind of fable-like association for me. Particularly his illustration on a man in a red cloak striking out through the night in snow shoes really struck me with this idea of a quest for humanity, which I felt reflected Chvrches’ theme of searching for light in dark times.

Thumbnails - interactions of elements from content moodboard and style moodboard (labelled A).

I picked these two to develop because I felt they were the most effective in portraying my themes and appealed to me compositionally. In the left thumbnail there’s an minotaur climbing down from ruins into a grotto with a glowing crystal at the bottom with plant life growing around it, fed by it’s light. this was my interpretation of the “quest for redemption/humanity’s worth” theme, with a dystopian scene at the top, then a quest through a dark grotto/labyrinth, then light and life at the bottom, so the image has a beginning, middle and end structure, in keeping with classic fables and folktales. I was inspired by Pedro Requejo Novoa’s minotaur sculpture (which you can see a bit clearer in a moodboard below) and his nuanced and humanising portrayal of an ancient monster from mythology. I liked the idea of having a monster as the protagonist of my design, because when we’re looking for good in humanity we’re looking for good in ourselves too, so it’s his quest for redemption and worth being portrayed.

The thumbnail on the right shows my idea of having some sort of warped, monstrous creature skeleton, like a dinosaur turned dragon, long dead and withered away but protecting a glowing crystal/egg which could still hatch. I was thinking about themes of life in death or from death, like the phoenix myth, and therefore sparks of good in bad (again this idea of finding redemption or worth in warped/monstrous  humanity).

Some of my other thumbnails were very inspired by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and John Carpenter’s The Thing, the first text being preoccupied with humanity and technology’s potential for good or evil, the latter featuring a lot of body horror, mutations and monstrosities of the human form.

Moodboard below looking at poster design and ways of placing an illustration into a poster format, I also drew some thumbnails to see how my “minotaur” and “grotesque” designs could work as a poster (B).

Producing line visuals

Minotaur moodboard - key influences (and refs?)

Then minotaur layout process - drawing up and value studies (C)

Grotesque key influences - layout

Annihilation film - the creature and production design of this film is incredible. Features an alien process “infecting” an ecosystem and plant, animal and human life, creating beautiful and disturbing amalgamations of the three.

Jurassic Park - the idea of preserved life in a little glowing piece of amber and humanity interfering/disrupting natural life

Medieval quasi-fantastical monster designs, chimeras of different animals

Originally I was planning to draw my creature as a dinosaur/dragon, but I thought my design would imply monstrous humanity if the skeleton I designed had more mammalian than reptilian features, like a shorter, rounder skull. I used references from a tiger, historic cave bear, dog and monkey skeleton, used a kind of bat wing/seal flipper skeletal structure for the hand, then the lower leg, foot and claw is from a velociraptor as a reference to the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park where the velociraptor clicks her claws against the floor.

Layout process (E)

Line visual/Layouts

I picked my “grotesque” line visual to work up into a rendered piece. I had designed it as a poster from the start, whereas with the “minotaur” design I still had to figure out formatting, text placement etc. I also felt a lot more confident drawing a skeleton and crystal egg rather than a whole grotto scene with depth and perspective and trying to make the character look like they’re interacting with the environment, this is a bit technically beyond me at the moment so it just didn’t look as convincing as the skeleton design. There’s a lot to be said for simpler elements arranged and drawn more sophisticatedly instead of attempting something really complicated and not quite pulling it off.

Colour and rendering key influences/ideas

I went back to my earlier research on Chvrches’ graphic design and looked at Jamie McElvie’s posters created over the course of the band’s career. I liked the idea of trying to make my fit in with their band aesthetic, and noted down some key visual elements that were present in his latest poster and the band’s latest album cover:

- clean line art, flat blocks of colour with cell shading

- neon bright bold colours but a little muted, some more muddy tones like in bottom right corner of album design (this combination also present in these artist posters for Annihilation)

- mostly warm tones of pink, red, orange, yellow, contrasted with blue and green pops

Below I tried two different types of line art, the first is more my regular style, using my favourite brush pen and keeping things spontaneous and a bit messy, thick lines. With the second I tried s style inspired by Jamie McElvie’s - geometric, thin lines, clean and sharp. I used this second style for my poster.

Colour/background colour experiments

Trying different amounts of cell shading layers. I’m still not sure whether I prefer the left or the right, the extra highlight on the right adds this eye-catching pop, but having just three layers on the left might be stronger for its simplicity.

Outcomes