#[handwaves Dramatic Rescue]

[quietbluejay]

The Buried Dagger 2

Loken??? repeated sparkle emojis

Loken: hey how about we don't torture or mistreat the traumatized rescued prisoners in an attempt to make them coherent

aaa loken you really did have a good character arc an actual positive one!!! a miracle in this series

okay, i will say, i am intrigued by the story of this psyker ultramarine or former ultramarine waitttt 1s i gotta check something in Know No Fear I think he got one scene YES HE WAS THE GUY I WAS THINKING OF he got a headache the day before the attack but because the emperor got rid of the librarius he ignored it because they weren't supposed to use their powers any more

oh boy we're back with mort and….people have begun getting sick wow this is very gross

oh wait he's STILL ALIVE yikes oh noo mortarion tried to mercy kill him but he's still alive and suffering oh back to the past mortarion is feeling Emotions seeing people reunite and of course some of them wanted to kill typhon and mortarion mortarion gets exposed to "laughter" and "music" he has friend (!!!)

(pulling up Godblight (?) quote)

HE ACTUALLY WAS A CHAMPION OF COMMON PEOPLE NO JOKE

And you get a horrible backstory and you get a horrible backstory

he wants to actually fix things

Man, what happened to you In the end, he once again became the death dealer of an evil overlord okay so the villagers are getting ready to harvest the wheat and You may be able to tell from this sentence where this is going

picking up the scythe first as a farming tool rather than a weapon

(But also like it does take practice to figure out how to harvest wheat with a scythe I too have read Island in the Sea of Time I know how this works I kind of hate how every time I have an objection of this nature it can be handwaved away by "primarchs are just built different")

OwO Girl got trapped under the cart with all the wheat and it’s broken So Mort pulls a Jean Valjean Uh oh overlord interrupt

And on that note it’s back to the present Interesting choice of cutoffs

This explains the poison drinking I guess

I kind of want to stab him a bunch for this But then I think the story is gonna do it for me

The spooky sickness has somehow spread all over the fleet despite zero contact

Bruh What about your super dramatic speech at Nikaea Mortarion: covid lockdown time

lmao Mr I Have No Theatricality Unlike Some People Oh boy one of the ships tried to leave the warp and uh got crushed Everyone on board is dead

back on the Terra plot thread and Malcador has a very creepy library

malcador is basically a supervillain mastermind and Rubio is being called out for taking initiative and taking the Silent Sister they rescued to White Mountain even though it was what Malcador says he would have ordered him to do anyways anyways as you might have guessed I'm not a Malcador fan

oh yeah they put together what all the captured sisters were saying and it looks like it's Horus trying to negotiate a truce

….thinking of it as arrogant sure is revealing something about you. but also really does sum up the imperium huh

aw, Loken

;-; okay hey we have timeline! it's been 7 years since the war started

it's hard to think of a path the emperor could have taken that would have created less peace

malcador and the emperor had good intent but absolutely abysmal macro and micro planning skills

"oh yes it's just the fault of the bad advisor the emperor of course can do nothing wrong" bleh

horus somehow, possesses rubio or he was a sleeper agent or sth welp this is why we can't have nice things

Okay so mort is keeping a daemon imprisoned in a secret compartment That only he can access And he is going to visit Oh dear the warp whispers to mort

Daemon: and it slaps. Cancer is great

Back in time again They’re winning, but still...

lol

he actually has a sense of humour!

Hm. Foreshadowing. Mortarion, don’t make your friends drink 150 proof….

Why does he sound like my mother

typhon does mortarion analysis

oh dear typhon thinks about how if they used warp shenanigans they could end the war in. weeks or even days

back over to Loken he's fighting pro-Horus groups on Terra

that's loken, all right also Malcador continues to be dramatique

#warhammer 40k #bluejay reads warhammer

[greatwesternway]

Edward for the bingo?

You know what? I like "A Shed for Edward". And I love watching other people be mad about it. On the whole, I feel like people who are mad about that episode seem to want and expect this big dramatic moment where all the OG guys reflect on their long-ass lives together at Tidmouth Sheds and it's all very heartwarming, but the reality is, they weren't that close. And anyway, how many moments like that has the show ever given you before?

That moment they're looking for is in "Forever and Ever" when Gordon asks Edward to come back to Tidmouth Sheds since there's another berth open with Henry deciding to stay at Vicarstown. It's revealed that this is not the first time Gordon has made this proposition and Edward has to gently turn him down yet again.

Edward has no regrets or worries about staying at Wellsworth now because he sees this move the same way literally everyone else does: he's not Gone, he's just Over There. They're all still going to see him all the time. Gordon is the only one getting loopy about it because Gordon took him for granted. Gordon spent years making fun of Edward, telling him ought to be scrapped, preserved, or retired, and calling him weak, small, old, and unreliable.

Edward was, in fact, the most reliable presence in Gordon's life. Gordon is No. 4, meaning the other guys who were there when he first came to the NWR were Thomas, Edward, and Henry. Thomas is... *handwave-y gesture*. Henry was always sick or shut up in a tunnel or just ambiently being a discount version of Gordon which is awkward. Edward is the only other guy in the shed who was consistently present from the first day Gordon arrived on Sodor. And now his presence is gone and Gordon has to wonder if (confront?) the fact that maybe it's his own fault. It's not; this is all just practical as so much of stuff that trains worry about is, but Gordon is a train and so it goes.

While we're on the subject of Edward and Gordon, I'll also throw down that I think "Old Reliable Edward" is the best of the "someone talks shit about Edward and then he shows them the fuck up" episodes. It's the only one where Edward actually puts the screws to the shit talker. "Old Iron" he just gently teases James about having rescued him, "Edward's Exploit" he pulls a miracle out of his ass and lets it speak for itself, "Edward the Really Useful Engine" is just Edward doing his job like usual.

See, what happens is, Edward will pull some stunt like that and everyone will stop saying he should be retired for a while. Then eventually it starts up again. Because after a while they forget about those stunts and even they don't, that was so long ago and Edward's only gotten older since then.

But Edward forcing Gordon to personally acknowledge his necessity, to make him beg for his help getting over the hill and extorting his politeness in receiving it? Gordon won't be forgetting that shit for at least another forty years.

#ttte edward

[castielcommunism]

like it was inevitable that dean was going to have his heart absolutely broken by mary. the pacing of their relationship in s12 is a little goofy and I know there was some behind the scenes/actor availability stuff that played into that, so I wish the fight where mary left happened later even though realistically it couldn’t, but the emotional beat is still correct. which is why I’m generally quick to handwave her decision to leave and work for the bmol, because like even if the literal details of the plot feel kinda absurd and overly dramatic, the emotional landscape makes perfect sense. dean laid himself completely bare at her feet, emotionally responding to her as if he were still a desperate little four year old who needed a hug from his mommy, and that level of emotional intensity from a strange adult man she doesn’t know was always going to eventually drive her away. and like from dean’s perspective, regardless of what she actually ended up doing after she left the bunker, her leaving may as well be her sleeping with the enemy. the betrayal he feels is narratively justified by her doing something legitimately sketchy and wrong, but like dean would feel that way even if mary left to work at a coffee shop.

and like dean has this habit of deifying people he loves and then being fucking crushed when they don’t live up to that expectation. and I don’t blame him for that really, his father did it with mary and it was the foundational logic of his entire life, AND he’s so socially underdeveloped because of how isolated he was growing up that boundary setting and healthy social expectations are things he genuinely needs to build up over time, but that also doesn’t mean mary isn’t allowed to find it overwhelming and exhausting and terrifying. the whole point of their conflict is that they’re two people grieving the 30 years they lost together and the destruction of their family. neither of them are innocent, but that doesn’t mean there’s a correct “side” to the conflict. it’s a situation where the only way forward is for them to both reconfigure their expectations of what life is going to be like. mary does on some level have to accept that it was her decision that ultimately killed her and jumpstarted this entire thing, and she has to accept that her sons are strangers and her husband is dead and take responsibility for the situation in front of her. heaven for her was this escapist fantasy where she could pretend her history as a hunter would never come back to haunt her. and dean needs to realise that mary can’t be a replacement for his father and she can’t be this perfect Mother who will fix all of his emotional problems and rescue him from himself. like mary is not his salvation and he still needs to live with who he is and who they are as a family. but it’s GOING to be messy and fucked up and they’re going to fight and get their feelings hurt. recovering from the trauma that is their own family is going to take time and effort and energy but the point is that it’s worth it!!!!!!!

#mary.txt #dean.txt #mary & dean #meta #dean studies #they are. the best thing to happen on the show ever #season 12

[secret-engima]

For your recent vox machia X ffxv: how is Ravus taking it? Did he know his (twin?) sister was a twice born? Are these new people ‘stranger intruding on my family’ alarming or did Pike tell them enough stories that they feel familiar? If this is all news to him, does he feel like he doesn’t really know Pike at all?

Back of the envelope math : Sol is 18-19 ish in book, so 8/9 pre time skip . So if Noctus was early 20’s in game then that’s a 11 - 14 age difference. If Percy is the same age then at 15 Sol would exist, you can have her be baby in arms or toddler depending upon which way you fudge it :)

Either way I bet he has a baby carrier to hold her on his back/front. best way to keep track of baby and have hands-free +++ I think it would be adorable 🥰 �� just, perfectly put together Percy with a baby backpack. Tiny Sol babble waving after he said something and him responding like “yes exactly Sol” or “that was unnecessarily” generally talking like a full adult to this tiny baby . 🥰 

What are the other canon characters up to? Anything interesting?

I've decided to make Ravus her younger brother and not her twin. But he's ... not entirely taking it well at first. Pike never told them? She never really hid it, and she told them stories of Vox Machina growing up, but Ravus always assumed those were *made up*. And now they're- not and he's torn between being grateful that Pike has friends that will help, angry that he never knew she was twice born until now, and just- off balance in general. Most of it is just the grief talking.

He is *horrified* when she kisses this- this *street musician* in public and then instantly agrees to marry him. But Scanlan manages to win him over eventually.

Well honestly I was pegging Percy closer to Ravus's age when that happens, making him around 15 when Tenebrae falls so technically Sol isn't supposed to exist yet I think but WE'RE GONNA HANDWAVE THAT. And just make her an actual baby when Percy stole her and ran off into the hills. She's maybe six months to a year and some change by the time they reach Lucis.

Also ftr Noctis is 20 when the game starts :). And if I remember right, Prompto is technically *19* even though he's listed as 20, because his birthday hadn't happened yet when they set off on the roadtrip.

Percy 100% has a baby backpack for his tiny niece and he is very protective. If he has an arm free he always shields her eyes and ears during a fight and when he shoots with is a futile gesture because Sol-now-named-Cass utterly adores it. She claps and giggles. Grog, proudly, "She wants murder Percy! Let her see!!"

Percy, fiercely: *Not until she's 30 if I can help it*.

He can't, but it's a nice sentiment.

Percy absolutely talks to her like an adult. he doesn't use too many large words on her, but he definitely holds conversations with her baby babble and talks to her with full sentences and not a drop of baby talk. His niece is highly intelligent and deserves to be treated as such so there.

Hmmmmm. The canon cast are mostly doing canon things, at least until Vox Machina roll up into Insomnia to deliver Ravus, Luna, and the rescued Noctis (who they found being kidnapped. Trinket said no.) AFTERWARD Regis definitely sends Cor to try to shadow the group and learn more about them and the possible twin children he thinks he may have had, unaware that it's actually the cheerful redhaired Huntress.

Ardyn is nosing around where he shouldn't, definitely. He was highly amused when the heir to the empire up and ran off (he knows a dramatic faked death when he sees one), but now the group Vox Machina is cropping up and he's getting ... curious. Maybe bitter and confused over these people. The moment he gets too close, Pike is going to sense him, the group is going to pin him down, and she's going to aggressively go Cleric on him and his terrible hat. Pike may not be the Chosen Oracle, but she's a War Cleric and she's purged things far more problematic than the boatload of Scourge Ardyn has.

Percy sympathetically rubs his back during the ensuing meltdown. He knows how badly it sucks to have something insanity inducing and malevolent mucking up your head and how jarring it is to have it purged. Vex probably spends ... two days? Maybe two days, being prickly and angry at Ardyn because he's the Chancellor before she gives up and adopts him as her newest stray just like the entire group knew she was going to do. Welcome aboard Ardyn, how would you like to commit some Imperial Murder. Or you can sit back and babysit Cass if you'd rather not fight, that works too.

Ardyn does in fact end up being the designated Baby Bodyguard when Percy needs to not have a baby sling on him for some reason. Not babysitter, he's too much of a disaster human to remember things like feeding schedules and naptimes, but he makes a lovely guard and Cass adores listening to him tell stories, so it's fine.

#SE asks #randomriverreader asks #Secret Engima Rambles #Vox Machina in FFXV verse #long post

[mostlysignssomeportents]

One of the very last events I attended before the lockdown was a thing in Silicon Valley attended by many old friends, but the best moment of all was the chance to hang out with Kim Stanley Robinson, a friend and inspiration.

That's when Stan told me he had just finished a book that might be his last-ever novel, The Ministry For the Future, and that his future work would be nonfiction, starting with his long-planned book about the Sierras.

I was stricken. Robinson's novels are a lifeline for me.

The first Robinson novel I read may just be my favorite: Pacific Edge, a green utopian novel about a successful transition to a post-climate-emergency, just and stable world. Re-reading it is a vacation from all my anxieties, still.

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/01/15/pacific-edge-the-most-uplifting-novel-in-my-library/

My first novel, DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM, wouldn't exist without Pacific Edge. That was the book that taught me that small disputes over beloved local treasures could be as dramatic as (and microcosms for) global conflicts.

I have been both dreading and anticipating MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE, not wanting to read my last KSR novel but also wanting so badly to read this one, because it's the book in which he imagines the end of capitalism.

You've heard the phrase, "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism," variously attributed to Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Žižek. As the author of a couple of postcapitalist novels, I have a real appreciation for the details of that truism.

It's actually not all that hard to imagine a postcapitalist society - but imagining the actual END of capitalism, the euthanasia of the rentier, the reversal of the doctrine of virtuous selfishness, the abandonment of the idea that some are born to rule, that is damned hard.

And while PACIFIC EDGE is my favorite KSR novel, my favorite KSR series is the string of books that starts with 2012's 2312 - a string of books that really leans hard into imagining the actual end of capitalism.

xhttps://memex.craphound.com/2015/01/15/pacific-edge-the-most-uplifting-novel-in-my-library/

2312 is set 300 years into postcapitalism. It's a novel of solar-system-scale civilization, riven by its own problems and contradictions, filled with tech marvels, a tale of natural wonders that showcase Robinson's incredible, John-Muir-grade genius for pastoral writing.

2312 was followed up by Aurora, one of the best space-exploration novels ever written, about the arrival of the first-ever generation ship at its destination world, and the hasty retreat it is required to stage.

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/11/02/kim-stanley-robinsons-aurora-space-is-bigger-than-you-think/

The book provoked a vitriolic reaction from science fiction's great reactionaries! I love a book that enrages the right people, and I was delighted to publish Robinson's rebuttal to their peevish complaints.

https://boingboing.net/2015/11/16/our-generation-ships-will-sink.html

From there, we move on to New York 2140, a novel of a pivotal moment in the transformation of capitalism and its relationship to the climate emergency.

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/03/18/new-york-2140-kim-stanley-robinson-dreams-vivid-about-weathering-climate-crisis/

These are like an artilleryman rangfinding a mortar, first overshooting his target and then walking his fire back, drawing closer to his bullseye. For Robinson, bullseye is the moment at which our society is transformed into one that can survive the coming emergencies.

It's telling that the 2312 books never got there. It is so fucking hard to imagine the end of capitalism.

But that is what The Ministry For the Future Does.

Sort of.

It's a novel about a specialized UN agency, chartered through the Paris Climate Agreement to represent unborn generations and the natural world in legal proceedings related to climate devastation.

Talking about this book, Robinson has described it as a kind of futuristic documentary, told in many voices, as a way of describing a phenomenon as vast as this global transformation.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/14/final_ver2/#ksr

Like many docs, it follows a couple of main characters, but weaves in dozens of other voices, some of whom we hear from only once or twice, recounting pivotal moments in which a moment calves away from our reality as we know it - moments of shear, giddy and terrifying.

Robinson is so good at this stuff. This is the book that he has been practicing for all his life. The vignettes are superb little jewels, mostly illuminating flashbulb moments in the lives of strangers met fleetingly.

But some of the most powerful moments don't even have characters: there's a transcript of the openng a fictional congress of global climate remediation groups after the crisis that is just an alphabetical list of countries and their associated projects.

This literally made me burst into tears of joy, bursting with hope at the thought that we could, as a species, spawn so many evocative and hopeful projects to save our world, our species, and our nonhuman cohabitants.

Robinson's versatility is on glorious display here: from long lists of hypothetical ecological projects, he veers into closely told moments of human endeavor in the natural world, showcasing his pastoralism with scenes so vivid you could reach out and touch them.

But all that said, the most interesting thing about this book is the stuff that Robinson couldn't or wouldn't put on the page. Robinson's hypothetical scenario for the end of capitalism is a baroque scheme of global cryptocurrency money-creation tied to carbon drawdown.

His technocrats trick capitalism into spending itself out of existence in a plan that is by turns brainy and daffy (as all blockchainism tends to be), with some pretty epic handwaving (especially when it comes to the breakup of tech monopolies).

But all of that would fail were it not for acts of absolutely brutal, ruthless terrorism. Robinson's transformation isn't merely about the carrots of double-bluff get-rich-quick schemes, it's heavily dependent on the stick of terror.

The aviation industry isn't (just) replaced by airships and rail because it's better and cleaner - but also because parties unknown use drones to bring down every private jet in the sky, and then commercial liners, until the aviation industry seizes up and dies.

And the world doesn't abandon beef because vegans win the moral argument or because greenies win the practical one - the decisive factor is drones that dart an unknowable plurality of the world's cattle with bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

There's more - pitiless, remorseless, anonymous. And while Robinson gets up close and personal with one traumatized individual who engages in an ecologically motivated, short-lived (and nonlethal) kidnapping, we never meet any of the terrorists or their victims.

The terror that begets the transition is recounted in the dry language of an encyclopedia entry, not dramatized like the pivotal moments of so many other characters.

It's a very telling omission.

My 2019 novella "Radicalized" is about an online community of men who, after watching their most treasured family members die slow, painful, preventable deaths because of insurance company fuckery, become suicide bombers who murder health execs.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/who-says-violence-doesnt-solve-anything-a-review-of-radicalized-four-tales-of-our-present-moment-by-cory-doctorow.html

Writing that story was an intensely uncomfortable experience (and, judging from reader comments, it can be uncomfortable to read, too).

It's one thing to recognize that a systemic problem might not be solved without grotesque, mass violence, and another to put yourself in the shoes of either the perpetrators or the victims.

Robinson's end of capitalism is, superficially, a story of a transition, not a spasm, not a capital-T Terror. The lives we inhabit in this novel are people who are engaged in struggle, but not mass-murder.

But right there on the page is Robinson's uncomfortable and only partially elided conviction that we're not in for a transition, but rather a bloodletting, a reckoning commensurate with the ecocidal crimes that led up to this moment.

MINISTRY is a book that, on first consideration, feels like a utopia - not merely for the beautiful descriptions of people, animals and environments finding a way through the emergencies, but for the emergencies resolution.

But on closer examination, MINISTRY represents the dark fears of one of our brightest, most hopeful writers, that the world can only be saved by means that are literally too terrible to contemplate up close.

It's an uncomfortable read. It's a brilliant book. If it indeed turns out to be Stan's last novel (oh please don't let it be Stan's last novel), it will be a fitting capstone. But the subtext of this book is that we are past the point of no return.

Not only will rescuing our planet entail sacrifices of species, habitats, and coastlines - it will also entail sacrifices of the moral convictions that make vast spectacles of bloodletting unthinkable.

#pluralistic

[thornescratch]

Alright, I'm here with mandalorian thoughts. So, up until now we've technically been following Din, but like really, we've been following Din and Grogu. So now there's 3 options: We follow just Din, we follow just Grogu, or they somehow end up together end and we follow both again. I think it's reasonably obvious we won't follow Grogu, because uh, it's called the mandalorian... (1/?)

It, to an uninvested disney exec, seems logical to follow just Din. We've set him up perfectly for another plot arc. He's got the darksaber, his covert is dead or scattered; there's definitely a story that can be made there. But I hope that they won't do that; because they'll probably quickly realise that people aren't all that in invested in just Din alone. People are here for him and Grogu. (2/?)

So, we're down to one logically option: somehow reunite Din and Grogu. But we have problems here. The one that first comes to mind is Luke. I looked up how the young luke thing was done (given the credits have Mark Hamill), and it's all CGI, not good makeup or prosthetics and a bit of CGI, or a double and a bit of CGI. That means having Luke is time consuming (because of all the CGI needed) and expensive (Mark Hamill + people doing the CGI). So logically, you want to cut down on Luke time

But if we cut down on Luke screen time, how do we reunite Grogu and Din? Yeah I dunno about that one... Maybe Luke decides he can't take Grogu? Or maybe that isn't actually a problem. The other slight problem is that Mark Hamill talked about this as a cameo, not as a cameo before a proper role. (Maybe there's stuff out there saying he's confirmed for season 3? idk I didn't really look).

Other thoughts I have: I can't imagine Gideon just being left. This can't be a tidy end to his arc. He's coming back. If he doesn't, what's the 'bigger, badder' enemy? Also, we haven't actually seen Luke leave the ship. We know 1 additional ship of dark troopers arrived. Do we really believe there's only one? Also there's still those TIE fighters out there.

So, my predictions are: We start on the ship again. Luke and Grogu go to leave. More dark troopers, or the TIE fighters, or both, or something else arrive. Luke returns to the bridge with the rest. They fight. Din either leaves with those two, or takes Grogu with him. Something happens and either Gideon reveals he's been working for someone and they're on their way, or he gets free or gets rescued. And then idk, I'm not that good at predictions

Now watch me be completely wrong about everything I just said...

I’m with you in that Grogu and Din and their relationship is not just the heart but also the bread and butter of the franchise, so I doubt they stay separate the entire season. (And since I think Disney is hopefully cognizant of the optics of implying that their cutest merch moneymaker gets brutally slaughtered by Kylo Ren some years down the line, I also doubt they go down that path to indicate that’s his future.)

I also agree they’re not likely to have a ton of Luke Skywalker because of the difficulty of the CGI needed for his appearance and because I don’t think they’re quite ready to pull the trigger yet on recasting him with a younger actor like Sebastian Stan or any of the other names tossed around. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that they would recast-- they did for Han Solo, after all, though that film was a bit of a dumpster fire-- but you’re talking about one of the most iconic characters of the franchise and fans already have, uh, strong opinions about how the character was handled in the most recent franchise sequels. Maybe whenever Luke does show up it’s in holograms or whatever; you could probably fake a bit more of the appearance that way; the deepfake wouldn’t look quite so uncanny, then.

(I’ve been spending way too much time on wookipedia figuring out the timelines of everything and how old everyone is, and while I’m sure Luke’s complete solemn frozen face act was mostly the CGI issues, it’s also kinda hilarious to think Grogu is his first padawan/force sensitive child pickup, and he’s been psyching himself up, all, “OKAY LUKE, ACT SOLEMN AND DIGNIFIED, BE A REAL JEDI, YOU GOTTA SELL THIS HARD, YOU’RE THE LAST ONE, YOU GOTTA MAKE THIS ENTRANCE DRAMATIC AS FUCK SO EVERYONE WILL TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY, YOU CAN DO THIS, NO SMILES. I SAID NO SMILES.” I kinda hope Grogu is the first, as that would work better, in my opinion, if he doesn’t have his school/temple set up yet-- it’s only, what, five years or so after Return of the Jedi. Given the almost foregone conclusion Grogu will be reunited with Din at some point, I kinda like the idea that Luke is just getting started there.)

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of Gideon either; though I imagine he goes on trial. Maybe he plays into the whole “Din trying to get out of being Mand’alor” by yammering about it and ruining Din’s ability to just hide the dark saber in a closet and sneak out the back.

ANYWAY. See, I’m going in the opposite direction for how they start season three; I suspect we’ll start season three with a time jump, and that way they kick the can down the road on showing Luke (and if you show TOO many cameos, they can lose their impact, though Favreau/Filoni have been pretty good at hitting the sweet spot of original SW nostalgia, Western vibes, and new shit) and they also don’t have to explain Gina Carano’s absence. I mean, she’s been fired, so they’re not gonna go right back to the bridge. Like, she’ll maybe just get handwaved as either back on Nevarro doing shit, or trying it out somewhere else.

My bet is that season three is going to be about Din either reluctantly becoming the Mand’alor, Din trying to get out of becoming the Mand’alor, or probably some combination of the two. I bet that’s the main plot line for the season, plus potential crossover with the Book of Boba Fett and maybe the Ahsoka shows. So, probably more Bo-Katan and her group, and more exploration of the different factions of Mandalorians, and maybe more on the culture.

Or maybe (I hope, anyway) they also plan to explore more with him reconnecting with his old covert, and part of the season is about him tracking them down, since now he’s technically fulfilled his mission with Grogu and I feel like it makes sense for him to return to that as his focus. Plus, with the whole helmet removal as a sort of Chekov’s gun thing, you gotta figure that’ll come up in some kind of confession/confrontation with the covert. (Of course, as stated, I doubt that his arc with Grogu is completely done, and we’ll see that come back into play.)

Favreau in this article seems like he has a pretty good handle on plotting things out in advance, so I’m willing to trust he knows what he’s doing. And those are My Thoughts on what’s ahead, I guess.

(obviously I also think Din and Luke should go through a weary bounty hunter/cheerful space twink courtship, get married, and raise a chaotic blended Jedi-Mandalorian family that could take over the universe and erase vast chunks of the sequel movies but that is a rant for another day)

#Anonymous #The Mandalorian #Star Wars

[atamascolily]

So I want to talk about one of Luke’s less publicized fails in Legends, namely with Cray Mingla and Nichos Marr in Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly. It’s not as flashy and obvious as his failures with Kyp Durron and Kueller, since only two people die, and the New Republic government doesn’t get involved. It’s framed as the result of his students’ choices, rather than their teacher’s, and Luke benefits a great deal from the fallout. But the more I study the backstory for fic purposes, the more convinced I am that Luke Majorly Screwed Up, and I want to call him out on it.

When we first meet Cray and Nichos, the situation is presented as both a tragic love story, and also a Done Deal. Two Force prodigies (and childhood best friends?) fall in love and come to Yavin to train, only for one to be diagnosed with a fatal illness, and the other uses their life’s work to save them. It’s a Nicholas Sparks novel with robots.... except it doesn’t work.

Instead of successfully transferring Nichos’s spirit into a new body, Cray creates a droid replica straight out of the Uncanny Valley, with life-like face and hands. a metallic body, and all of Nichos’s memories. (How she does this is handwaved as techno-wizardry, with a little bit of Ssi-ruuvi techniques thrown in the mix, which is... even more horrific if you start to think about it.) The result isn’t the “real” Nichos--it’s not the man she fell in love with. It’s a construct, a copy, not a human being.

I get where Hambly was trying to go with this meditation on what constitutes personhood, but I feel like dismissing the new Nichos as “just” a droid” is kinda sketchy, given that machines and droids in the Star Wars universe have emotions and personalities and are clearly capable of independent agency not directly contradicted by their programming. Maybe this new Nichos is “another Corellian by the same name”  and not the original, but does that make him any less deserving of autonomy and personhood? I don’t think so.

Droid-Nichos is clearly aware that he’s not human--he pretends because he wants to please Cray (and there’s a not-so-subtle implication she programmed him to do that, which is hella creepy)--but his conversations with Threepio make it equally clear that he sees that as his only function, and he’s not of much ‘use’ for anything else. His very specificity makes him an outlier among droids. He doesn’t fit into either world, which is why he’s so willing to sacrifice himself at the end of the novel--besides the fact that Cray asks him to and he’s not in position to be able to say no.

But Cray is so deep in denial she refuses to admit that this isn’t the original Nichos until droid-Nichos is unable to rescue her from torture because he’s wearing a restraining bolt. Then she breaks down completely, sending droid-Nichos up to shut down the ship and be shot to pieces while she commits suicide by letting Callista’s spirit take over her own body.

So where does Luke fit into all of this? Isn’t it unfair to hold him responsible for Cray’s decisions, given that he was unconscious at the time and determined to sacrifice himself instead? At twenty-six, Cray was a grown-ass adult; if she wanted to create a walking RealDoll with the memories of dead lover, that was her business, right? Right?

The thing is that Hambly makes it clear during Cray’s breakdown that Luke knew all along that Cray hadn’t saved the “real” Nichos.

“Luke …”

He looked up quickly, to meet the blue glass eyes. In the shadowy gloom the face that he’d known so well was almost a stranger’s, affixed monstrously to the silver cowl of the metal skull.

“Am I really Nichos?”

Luke said, “I don’t know.” He had never in his life felt so helpless, because in his heart—in the secret shadows where the truth always lay—he knew that this was a lie.

He knew.

Luke knew exactly what the new Nichos was, and he never sat down with Cray and talked about this or staged an intervention of any kind. He let her deceive herself, even though one of the foremost principles of being a Jedi is self-knowledge and facing grief and failure directly. He knew and he never said anything, because....  I don’t know, exactly.

The Doylist answer is that Callista needed a hot young body to inhabit, and Cray’s entire existence was to provide her with one, more or less guilt-free. (I still think it’s incredibly creepy, and I know I’m not the only one, but most of the characters in-universe let it slide, and I just... can’t even...)

“Am I ‘another Corellian of the same name’?”

“I’d like to tell you one way or the other,” said Luke. The bolt came away from the brushed-steel chest, lay thick and heavy in Luke’s hand. One hand real, one hand mechanical, but both his. “But I … I don’t know. You are who you are. You are the being, the consciousness, that you are at this moment. That’s all I can tell you.” That fact, at least, was true.

The smooth face did not alter, but the blue eyes looked infinitely sad. “I had hoped that, being a Jedi, you would know.”

And Luke had the uncomfortable sensation that, having been a Jedi, Nichos knew perfectly well that he was keeping something back.

It’s worth noting here that Luke is one of the few people in the GFFA who we see treating droids as people. He’s not dismissive of Nichos’s existential angst, and he’s not going to dictate what Nichos is, no matter how much Nichos wants to be reassured one way or the other. I don’t know if other characters who are less sympathetic to droids would react this way.

I also like the juxtaposition between Nichos’s metallic body and Luke’s mechanical hand. Luke is human; Nichos isn’t--where’s the line between them? Isn’t Luke’s point here is that the line is where you define it to be?

Or at least that’s the image Luke wants to project. He’s still holding something back--namely, the real truth, which he shares with Callista:

“Is Nichos all right?”

Luke nodded, then caught himself, and shook his head. “Nichos … is a droid,” he said.

“I know.”

Callista sees right off that Nichos is a droid; she calls him “the droid with the human eyes” and asks if he’s some new creature of Palpatine’s when she and Luke first meet. Luke can admit to her that Nichos is a droid, but not to Nichos or Cray--not even when Nichos directly asks him. So, #TeachingFail there, I think. What the hell was Luke thinking?

This gets even worse as Callista continues:

“Luke,” she said gently. “Sometimes there is nothing you can do.”

He expelled his breath in an angry gust, fist clenched hard; but he did not, after all, speak for a time. Then it was only to say, “I know.” He realized he hadn’t known that, two weeks ago. In some ways, learning about Sith Lords and cloned Emperors had been easier.

So if Luke didn’t know there was nothing to be done but accept the situation as it was, why didn’t he try to do something for Cray before now? Why did he let her coast along in denial with her robot boyfriend for months?

Which makes it all the more ironic that the conversation turns to the role of mistakes in the education of a Jedi, as well as recounting of Luke’s other teaching mistakes.

“I just wish some of those one thousand eighty mistakes didn’t involve teaching students. Teaching Jedi. Transmitting power, or the ability to use the Force. My ignorance—my own inexperience—cost one of my students his life already, and threw another one into the arms of the dark side and caused havoc in the galaxy I don’t even want to think about. The whole thing—the Academy, and bringing back the skills of the Jedi—is too important for … for ‘Learn While You Teach.’"

Luke isn’t responsible for Nichos’s illness or his death, but he is responsible for letting Cray keep her illusions for so long. He isn’t responsible for the dramatic, over-the-top way in which Cray’s fantasies come tumbling down--but why did he let it get to that point in the first place?

Here’s Cray’s reaction when Luke does try to talk to her about Nichos:

“I know he had a scum-eating motherless restraining bolt, you jerk!” She screamed the words, spat them at him, hatred and fury a bitter fire in her eyes; and when the words were out sat staring at him in blind, helpless rage behind which Luke could see the fathomless well of defeat, and grief, and the ending of everything she had ever hoped.

Then silence, as Cray turned her face aside. The nervous thinness that had advanced on her during Nichos’s illness had turned brittle, as if something had been taken, not just from her flesh, but from the marrow of her bones. Over the torn uniform, grimed with blood and oil, the blanket hung on her like a battered shroud.

If they had had this conversation before now--after Nichos’s death, or at any point before that trip to Ithor--would matters have come to this?  Is Luke culpable for all the things he didn’t say to Cray, as well as the things he did say to Gantoris and Kyp (cited above)?

Does Cray fall prey to the Dark Side here? Is that why Callista loses her powers? I don’t know. I love this novel, but so much of its logic is incomprehensible to me, and I don’t understand it. Maybe that’s why I love it so much, because it keeps me thinking about it.

“Don’t hate him for being what he is,” he said, the only thing he could think of to say. “Or for being what he’s not.”

The words sounded puerile in his own ears, like a half-credit computerized fortune-teller at a fair. Ben, he thought, would have had something to say, something healing … Yoda would have known how to deal with the wretched ruin of a friend’s heart and life.

The mightiest Jedi in the universe, he reflected bitterly—that he knew of, anyway—the destroyer of the Sun Crusher, the slayer of evil, who’d defeated the recloned Emperor and the Sith Lord Exar Kun, and all he could offer someone who had been disemboweled was, Gee, I’m sorry you’re not feeling so well …

Luke, you should have had this conversation with her months ago. Or if you didn’t feel up to it, you should have insisted she go to THERAPY as a condition of her continued training at your school, you knew damn well she wasn’t okay, and you just let her go on her way as if nothing was wrong and I just... 

As a result of his screw-ups with Cray and Nichos, Luke survives, his ghost girlfriend gets a body, and the Eye of Palpatine is destroyed, so I guess it works out pretty well for him. Cray and Nichos, not so much, sadly. Does he learn anything from the experience? I don’t know, because nothing quite this weird happens ever again.

Anyway, I don’t know why I’m so mad about this one point from a novel published twenty-five years ago that only a handful of people remember, but I can’t read it anymore without wanting to smack Luke here for his part in this whole mess. Even though I think I understand why he holds back, why he’s afraid he’ll make matters worse, and why it’s easier to just to leave Cray alone and hope it all works out, it’s still the wrong decision and Obi-wan and Yoda and I are all shaking our heads at him, because really, Luke, why did you do that--??

#star wars #star wars legends #Luke Skywalker #Children of the Jedi #SW meta

[tsarisfanfiction]

Melt III

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: Scott Tracy, Gordon Tracy, Virgil Tracy

Part 3 of my entry for @gumnut-logic‘s SensorySunday: Smell. Part 1 | Part 2

So I decided I was not going to do more than basic research for these SensorySunday fics because they’re supposed to be quick little things.  Ended up in a two hour Q&A with a paramedic-in-training I know about how he/his team would handle this scenario and dumbed it down/handwaved half of it after all that.  Oops.  Very interesting discussion, though!

When he was thirteen, Scott had burnt his hand on the stove.  Dad had been at work, and Mom had been busy with a fussy Alan, so he’d taken it upon himself to get started on dinner.  It hadn’t been his first time in the kitchen – far from it, with his mother determined that he would not inherit the Tracy line’s lack of cooking ability (their Dad might cringe from his mother’s cooking, but with the exception of pancakes he was no better), Scott and his brothers had been subjected to many a cooking lesson.  Even little Alan was learning to throw flour around when they baked cakes.

It had, however, been his first time in the kitchen unsupervised, and with a five year old brother running into the room and pretending to be an octopus – got your legs, Scotty! – the young teenager had stumbled and made the dangerous mistake of not looking at where he’d put his hand to brace himself.

That had been the last time he’d screamed, summoning a frantic mother and several brothers to where he was being assaulted by a tearfully apologetic younger brother – I didn’t mean to hurt you, Scotty!  I’m sorry!  Gordon had learnt a lesson about playing in the kitchen, and Scott had learnt to watch where he was putting his hands.

The urge to scream now was strong.  Scott had suffered many injuries, some serious, in his life, mostly through his work for International Rescue, but there was nothing that could quite compare to the all-encompassing, overpowering burn of hot metal.  It seared through his suit, pressing the neoprene against his skin and channelling agony all the way across his chest and abdomen, where the metal sat, immovable against both his and Gordon’s best efforts to move it.

Through the haze of pain, he heard Gordon shout for help, almost a scream in its own right.  He sounded hurt himself, but Scott couldn’t focus through the excruciating pain of his flight suit – designed to protect him, but not from this – enough to see what had happened to his brother, how badly he was hurt.  He couldn’t even ask, reduced to rasping his brother’s name over and over again with a throat restricted by pain.

And then the rumbling began. Scott knew that rumble, heard it in his nightmares, sometimes imagined a phantom of it on snow rescues.

This wasn’t a phantom. This was real.  This was the same monster that had torn their mother from them, and it was no doubt coming straight for him.

“Run,” he rasped, begging Gordon to go, to find some escape or at least better shelter than the burning remains of a HeliPod.  If Gordon replied, he didn’t hear it over the pounding of blood in his ears and the ever-increasing thunder approaching.

He felt a grip on his wrist, a desperate tug that yanked him partway from under the metal and elicited a cry of pain, and then everything went black as the snow hit.

While he knew what an avalanche sounded like, what it looked like, he’d never been caught in one himself. The one that had stolen his mother and made a good go at his younger brothers had passed him by, travelling a different slope to the one he’d been naively snowboarding on.

There was a lot less being tossed around than he’d thought, the snow slamming into him with less ferocity than expected.  It didn’t even free him from the metal, although the frigid cold doused him, leaving part of his body numb.  Numb was, for the moment, better than pain.  It let him think.

“Gordon?” he croaked. There was no response and terror gripped him.  “Gordon!” The grip on his wrist had gone, and snow encompassed his vision.  He pushed at the metal again, breaking the numbness on his hands as searing hot metal once again came to contact with his already burnt and blistered fingers.  Around him the snow was melting, giving him a greater hollow to manoeuvre in and finally letting him slide from underneath the metal.

Almost immediately he slammed into something else hard and unmoving, gasping as the movement and subsequent sudden stop jarred the snow-numbed area.  It didn’t seem hot, as best as he could tell, and Scott awkwardly pushed against it, trying to get past it.  He needed to find Gordon, and this lump of-

He got a good look at it and another gasp that had nothing to do with pain tore itself from his lips. It was metal, a silver that was as familiar to him as his own hand, but-  That couldn’t be possible.  He followed the metal, pushing and pulling his way through the snow until he reached something big.  Something that shouldn’t be there.

Buried in the snow, immediately up the slope from them and clearly the reason Scott hadn’t been jumbled halfway down the slope, was his precious Thunderbird.

The how and why could wait.  His Thunderbird had – somehow – shielded him from the worst of the avalanche but he was still buried, if in a decent-sized air pocket beneath her extended wing, and Gordon was still missing.

In an avalanche.

It was as though he was fourteen again.  The snow-numb parts of his body meant nothing as he turned away from the silver hull of Thunderbird One and dug his way through the snow downslope, ignoring the red streaks from where his damaged hands swiped the wet stuff out of his way.

Gordon.  He had to find Gordon.

“Gordon!” he shouted. They’d both been wearing their helmets when they’d crashed.  Gordon had a better knee-jerk reaction to keeping his helmet on than Scott did, and as Scott was still wearing his that meant Gordon probably hadn’t removed his, either.  There was no response and he scrabbled harder, following his ‘bird’s wing and praying the Thunderbird’s protection had extended to Gordon as well.

The wing was slanted down, at an angle it would never be if landed properly with landing struts extended. Scott could even see the strut, still in its housing inside the wing.  In the back of his mind, the section not occupied with thoughts of Gordon, must find Gordon, he realised that however Thunderbird One had ended up buried with him, there was a high chance that she wasn’t going to be flying out of there again.

Red-stained snow parted in front of him to reveal blue, and he dug all the more ferociously, ignoring the pain starting to make itself known through the numb again as he uncovered the crumpled form of his younger brother.  Gordon had been caught rather more literally than he had by Thunderbird One, with his back cushioned by the wingtip.  It was obvious immediately that Gordon’s left leg was broken, although Scott had no idea if that was from the crash or the avalanche.

More pressingly, despite wearing his helmet, complete with rebreather in place, Gordon’s eyes were closed and the aquanaut was clearly unconscious.

“Gordon!” he called, fumbling for his shoulder but unable to get a hold on the neoprene.  Red streaks marred the blue from his attempt.  There was no response and he tried to dig further, to completely expose his brother, but the pain in his chest and abdomen flared up with a sudden intensity that drew another sharp cry of pain from him and had him collapsing in a heap over Gordon’s unmoving form.

He heaved for breath, but each inhalation hurt as it pulled on the parts of his body subjected to the burning metal.  Attempts to push himself up failed, the adrenaline that had pushed him to find Gordon ebbing away now that he had, in fact, found Gordon.  Apparently his brother’s unconscious state wasn’t enough to give him that additional kick to get him moving again, or maybe being under the protective wing of his Thunderbird was making him feel safe, despite still being buried.

Alternatively, his body had decided it’d been ignored enough and was collecting its dues.  He hadn’t looked at his uniform to see the damage, was now in a position where he couldn’t.  Slumped over the top of his brother, he just couldn’t get his breathing under control from where it kept hitching in pain.

They had to get out. Survival rates dropped dramatically after fifteen minutes, and even with a Thunderbird buried alongside them, Scott wasn’t naïve enough to think that that rule wouldn’t apply to them, either. Not Gordon, unconscious as he was, and not himself, with blood staining everything he touched and undetermined damage from the crash.

They had to get out, but his body wasn’t responding, his strength sapped by the cold, cold snow and before that the flaming hot metal.  He could still feel the heat, getting closer and closer…

Wait, what?

A white-hot tip burst through the snow near him, quickly followed by the familiar dark green of a Sherpa Pod.

“Scott!  Gordon!”  Virgil leapt out of the pod and hurried over to them.

“Virgil,” he replied, voice still a shaky rasp.  “I’m- I’m okay.  Gordon’s… unconscious… broken leg.”  He tried to push himself back up, off of Gordon so Virgil could get to their younger brother, but his body refused to co-operate.

“Like hell are you okay,” Virgil responded, crouching down beside him.  “Come on, let’s get you-” he stuttered to a stop, and Scott could see just enough of his face to see that he’d paled.  “Shit,” he hissed.  “Have you seen yourself?”

“No?” Scott offered, his attention still on Gordon even as warm hands gripped him and guided him off of Gordon, laying him down on his back.

“That’s probably for the best,” Virgil muttered.  Scott was relieved to see him assessing Gordon, splinting his leg before moving him into the cargo bay attached to the back of the pod.  “Gordon’s okay.  Broken leg and wrist, but nothing else.  You, on the other hand.  How the hell are you still conscious?”

“It’s not that bad,” Scott protested, once again trying to move.  It hurt, but he was conscious.  “Gordon-”

“Will be fine,” Virgil repeated, and Scott let out a pained gasp as he found himself being lifted. His vision fuzzed around the edges and threatened to grey out entirely.  “I’m more worried about you.”

Scott made to protest again, but just as he opened his mouth his vision cleared again.  From his new position in his brother’s arms, he could see his body for the first time and bile surged.  The entire right side of his uniform, from shoulder to leg, was blackened and looked almost as though it had been melted.

He shut his mouth again, fighting back the nausea at the realisation that a large part of his uniform had been fused to him.

“We’re getting out of here,” Virgil said.  “John’s keeping an eye on the snow stability but the less time we spend here the better.” Scott wasn’t complaining, hissing as the pod started to move and the harness knocked against his right shoulder.

“What about Thunderbird One?” he asked, realising they were leaving his ‘bird behind.

“Lives first, machines second,” John butted in, hologram appearing in front of him and looking concerned.  “I’ve still got her location signal, and no-one else knows where she is.  Thunderbird One will be fine until we retrieve her.” That made sense, as much as part of Scott protested at leaving his damaged ‘bird buried under snow.

Sunlight streamed in through the glass as they broke the surface, showing a beautiful white vista of snow.  Scott couldn’t appreciate it, though.  Not now.

Thunderbird Two was ready and waiting for them, three climbers in a vibrant orange that Scott had almost entirely forgotten about despite them being the reason they were out there in the first place hovering inside the module.  They were saying things, babbling apologies, but Scott couldn’t respond as he was lifted back out of the pod and placed on a stretcher to more temporarily-greying vision.

“Gordon,” he insisted as engines hummed into life and the green behemoth took off.  Virgil sighed.

“He’s secure in there. John’s keeping an eye on him.  Now let me have a look at you.”  Scott didn’t have the energy left to fight as Virgil cut off his uniform as best he could, trying not to think too hard about the fact that a large part of it still remained where it was firmly stuck to the skin. Virgil’s face did not look reassuring, and to Scott’s internal horror he was approached with a needle.

“Is that really necessary?” he asked.  Virgil rolled his eyes and pawed at his left arm.

“You know it is,” he said as the needle went in, and Scott scowled.  “Let’s get you warming up and hydrated, then I’ll see to Gordon.”

The unsaid message was clear.  The less fuss you make, the faster I can look at Gordon.

Scott swallowed any and all urges to make a fuss.  Despite Virgil’s reassurance that the aquanaut would be fine, he was still worried, but he knew when he was facing a losing battle.  With his compliance, Scott found himself soon warming up and relatively pain-free, despite the cool water running over his burns.

“Stay right there,” Virgil warned, John’s hologram now appearing by the stretcher.  “John is here if you need me-”  Scott had no intentions of needing anyone until Gordon was awake “-and I have three volunteers here to make sure you don’t move.  I’ll be back to deal with those burns of yours in a minute.”

With that, Virgil headed for the pod, leaving Scott with his immediate brother in holographic form, and three nervous climbers for company.

Part 4

#sensorysunday #sensorysunday2020 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #scott tracy #gordon tracy #virgil tracy #john tracy #melt

[vagrantblvrd]

Concerning that post about gold cards, imagine Gavin actually being skilled enough and throwing them and just slitting someone's throat with them cause of course that's also a weapon cause fake ah crew is insane

!!! OKAY, SO.

Gavin knowing all the cool card tricks with the shuffling and sleight of hand and whatnot because it looks cool as hell, but also helps with the dexterity and thiefiness of his grubby little thief hands?

(Also, he does the coin tricks too with the rolling them over his knuckles and may or may not roll coins over his knuckles at Ryan after the infamous Coin Argument to be an asshole? Although, you know. Ryan can never prove it, because Gavin always has this set of special coins he keeps on his person at all times because distractions Hitman-style and the aforementioned thiefiness dexterity thing.

But Ryan knows, Gavin, okay. Knows that asshole would totally take one of his coins out and roll them over his knuckles at Ryan being all smug and passive-aggressive and Ryan’s not paranoid, dammit! >:((((((((( but everyone is like, “Uh-huh,” because wow, Ryan. WOW.)

Anyway.

Gavin knows there are a lot of distrustful people out there – hurtful, not being trusted – and when he sits down for these poker games with crew allies/enemies/whoever to make an impression he knows they’re going to want to check the cards are legit, right?

Expect him to be cheating or whatever because suspicious/paranoid and Gavin is like, :D at them and lets them check his gold playing cards over to their heart’s content.

Does some flashy shuffling and all that before he hands them over and again when whatever suspicious  person’s checked his cards over. Wink and a grin and some flashy shuffling/whatever and “Alright then?” before he deals the cards.

And then, friend, AND THEN.

Something goes wrong while they’re playing/discussing the particulars of a new deal or truce or whatever they’re there to do?

That One Asshole who went there with the intent to start a war with the Fakes makes their move, says something unforgivably insulting regarding the Fakes as a whole or refuses to compromise or whatever.

Their goons posturing, because hey look, they have guns and Gavin’s some smooth-talking idiot who clearly isn’t a threat, you know? Has to have the crew’s heavies with him everywhere he goes to protect him and so on because otherwise he’s nothing. (The usual.)

And Ryan or Michael or Jeremy who are leaning against the wall behind Gavin watching all this happen are just.

Watching.

Going off Gavin’s cues because he’s calling the shots here and Gavin hasn’t given them the sign to correct this asshole who’s mouthing off, right?

(Unless this is the scenario in which Gavin is there to rescue one or more of the others and is there alone, in which case he should be easy to deal with, shouldn’t he.)

Gavin looks up from his the cards he’s shuffling, and smiles, all bright and friendly and just taking these insults because this whole poker game/meeting is vital to the Fakes, right?

A deal/arrangement they need for whatever reason -for business reasons or for him to rescue the others, whichever.

He keeps right on smiling as he slips a card from the deck in his hands and holds it up for a moment. Looks at it, the way the light catches it just the tiniest bit differently from the other cards in his gold deck, heavier than the rest, edges sharper, and throws it with a flick of his wrist.

Follows that up with a couple more – shock and surprise around the table because that one asshole who’s been tearing him down has a fucking playing card in his throat. Not enough to kill him, probably, but it makes for a hell of a surprise and Gavin’s a bit outnumbered here isn’t he.

The table gets kicked over and all the dramatics of the chips and cards and drinks and whatever else going flying.

And just.

Lots of Drama and Action and Gavin Gav Slitty-ing things up.

Brushing lint and whatever else off himself when everything’s said and done and sighs as he looks around because he looses more sets of cards this way, you know?

Can’t be bothered to go around picking all the cards up, and anyway, the place is a mess. All that blood and such, and just not worth it in the end.

Also, what a way to make a statement, don’t you think? Gold playing cards scattered about and one lodged in that asshole’s throat and better things to do anyway. (Besides, he can afford it.)

And then, idk, Gavin looking at what other survivors there are and getting quick agreements to whatever  terms he may have at that point or going off to rescue his crew.

Whichever.

If he’s got one of the others with him who have never seen him use his murder cards before he’s just “Oh, didn’t I mention? I had those specially made,” regarding said murder cards.

Like.

The “normal” utterly ridiculous gold playing cards? But also a handful of murder cards that he keeps on his person and slips into the deck once some suspicious asshole has verified the cards are legit?

Lets them poke and prod the cards and when they give them back to him uses that sleight of hand to tuck those murder cards in with the regular ones. So used to handling them all he can keep track of the murder cards while he deals or whatever until he needs them. (And when he doesn’t he just slips them back out of the deck and up his sleeves or wherever he hides them like nothing’s amiss.)

AND.

You know the murder cards would be jokers or the ace or spades because he’s got all these one-liners to toss out with them?

All “joker’s wild,” and “i suppose that’s why they call it the death card” and other things I’m obviously not thinking of right now?

Just.

Utterly ridiculous and probably not practical/possible at all? AND YET. I am leaning so hard on handwavy-handwaving.

Because rule of cool, and stuff. (Also reasons. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

....I cannot help but think of Ryan being all :O and possibly “Oh, no, he’s hot,” the first time he witnesses Gavin put his murder cards to use?

And like.

“Dates” in which Ryan and Gavin go somewhere to throw knives/murder cards that is somehow not a euphemism, although eventually it turns into that and the whole crew Suffers whenever they mention that’s where they’re going and now I’ve turned this into Freewood, oops???

Also/or:

Prior to this Gavin pestering Ryan to teach him how to throw knives and somehow coming up with the idea of murder cards?

Like.

The guards will take his weapons/check him for them before letting him into some of these backroom poker games? But no one expects the murder cards. (When Gavin points that out someone’s “Is that a Monty Python reference?” because lol.)

Anyway.

Gavin has his murder cards made and no one else knows about them until Gavin’s forced to use them and Ryan is like :O  “Oh, no, that’s hot” and has to admit to himself he’s totally got FEELS for Gavin. (And while he can see why people would think it’s tied to the murder cards they’re just a lovely little bonus. Also the thing that made him realize why he’d be all *___________* at seeing Gavin with his murder cards.)

OR maybe they’ve been in a relationship since the whole knife throwing lessons and this is just unfair of Gavin because hot and Ryan would really like to try his hand at Gavin’s murder cards and everything sounds like a euphemism to me this morning, sorry. /o\)

#ragehappy #freewood(ish?) #fahc au #murder cards #this is all a mess because sleep deprivation and obscene amounts of coffee #sorry anon #replies #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #Anonymous

[fictionerd]

Good to see you, friends!

Assuming you’re around to be seen given how late this post is anyway. I’ve come yet again to speak of Boogies which Pop. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Synopsis: We open on Jin reading from one of Seichi Kirima’s books “The Victor’s Principle The Victim’s Future”. The passage he reads is “It appears that all of my hopes won’t come true until further into the future. No matter how much you dream it is not the dreamer who will achieve it, but the next generation. And for them, it’s not a dream. It’s established fact. It’s that kind of sacrifice that propels people forward.” To which he responds “Sacrifices, huh?” 

Shifting perspectives: Suema and Touka pass by someone on a cellphone who mentions Kotoe and her strange shift in behavior which we know is from Spooky E nabbing her. Since she was supposed to be helping Kotoe find out what was wrong with Jin, and because she’d seen Jin’s weird Imaginator session with the two girls the night she snuck into his office; Suema decides to look into the matter by going to Jin personally about it.

The two share a rather intense scene. They’re meeting in the breakroom where Jin’s painting of Snow in April is hanging (Which I can only assume is going to be an oft-recurring location at this point). Suema manages to push Jin’s buttons with her knowledge and the conclusions she’s come to as a result. In return he shakes her confidence by going full bond villain and expositing his grand plan. That plan? Using his ability to see people’s hearts he plans to track down a girl he’s seen who possesses a fulfilled heart and from her create a seed that will then be planted in all humanity thus fulfilling everyone. For this he’ll need that girl to become a sacrifice. 

Granted he doesn’t spell it out as bluntly as I just did, but he wraps up his menacing expository dialogue by offering to help Suema fill in what she is missing. She refuses saying she’s already been saved by Boogiepop. Jin then laughs the whole affair off and claims that he was actually talking about changing the world through his art. He handwaves the “girl becoming a sacrifice” bit by claiming he was referring to a model. They have to sit in the same pose for as much as eight hours after all, and since he’s been spending long stretches of time either tracking this girl down or working with her that Kotoe must have gotten jealous and he’ll be sure to take care of the situation as quickly as possible. Suema allows herself to be bustled out the door seemingly not having the mental footing to fire back at him.

Of course we know his painting schtick is all bull. Imaginator shows up for the first time in several episodes to comment on how Suema could know so much. Jin isn’t too worried about her, but thinks that Suema was right about one thing. This whole situation needs to be his top priority. As such he’s going to make a point of directly confronting Spooky E!

Speaking of! The next pov shift sees us regrouping with Spooky E 2: Electric Kotoloo as she stalks our boy Masaki aka the Heroic Boogiepop. He notices her and her goons stalking him and so books it into some underground passages. The place is laid out seemingly like a grid and so he’s able to lose them in blind corners and get his Boogiepop getup on while NOToe tries to provoke him. Once he’s ready he goes full-on batman on SpooKotoE’s goon squad and then begins questioning her at freaking gunpoint. HOLY SHIT, dude that was intense.

He’s stopped, however by the arrival of Nagi! Yeah, you know that supreme badass we’ve barely seen since the Manticore arc wrapped up? Also known as his older sister? Yeah she shows up in full Metal Gear sneak suit and gets him to back down, but just from the current situation. In the tussle with SpooKotoE he’d snatched a key and intends to run off to find out where Orihata is and rescue her from whatever situation she’s in. Apparently the Messiah Complex runs in the family. Meanwhile Nagi is left to deal with SpooKotoE and her goon reinforcement squad which she does with shock baton, fisticuffs, and a few still frames because the budget was a bit tight? For dramatic effect? Who knows.

When SpooKotoE wakes up she’s confronted by Jin who speaks directly to Kotoe through Spooky E’s photocopy. He tells her that he’s always known about her feelings for him. That it was a mixture of yearning and pity. She never had anything she felt dedicated to and this fed into her sadness. She incorrectly believed that he felt the same and thus her infatuation, but the fact is he can’t feel sadness. He claims that this is why he can’t return her feelings. 

Kotoe seemingly broken free from Spooky E’s control begs Jin for help, but he simply says that he can’t help her even though he’s wanted to for a long time. That he’s not sure how he could help. However, he’s going to do his best to make a world where no one will have to feel her sadness again. He’s going to go and get that seed.

So saying Jin is off to confront Spooky E the original in his not-quite-ivory tower. Somehow all of Spooky E’s terminals have gone offline which is down to, as Jin puts it, Imaginator being on a whole other level. The two of them have a lengthy conversation where Jin reveals that he’s known about the Towa Organization for some time. They released drugs out into the populace to see how they’d effect people. Some of those people died, and we’re shown that one of those people was Jin’s father. He makes it clear that he considers the Towa Organization to be his enemy, but also that historically the best method of dealing with an enemy is to make them your ally. Since his powers through Imaginator are similar to Spooky E’s it’s a simple matter. Jin will remove Spooky E as a threat and take his place. Using that cover he’ll take over the Towa Organization spreading Imaginator throughout it.

When Spooky E moves to attack Jin uses Imaginator to strip the thorns from Spooky E’s heart rose. This removes his capacity for aggressive action. His anger and hatred. That malice being removed, however, gives Spooky E the chance to do something he’s wanted to for some time though couldn’t because the strength of his hatred was holding him back. He lifts his hand to his own head and we know what’s coming next, but before frying his own motherboard Spooky E has a message for Jin. “Boogiepop is looking for you.”

Around the corner Orihata is trussed up. We can assume that she heard the entire exchange between Spooky E and Jin. However, Jin then walks around the corner to face her. She is apparently the seed. How Orihata can be the complete flower that Jin wants doesn’t quite click with me since we’ve SEEN that she lacks something in her life, but Jin tells her that he wants her to become a sacrifice, that there isn’t much time since he hadn’t counted on Spooky E dying. Their conversation is interrupted by a call coming in from Masaki. Jin picks it up and lets Masaki talk to empty air where they both can hear. Orihata is at first relieved to hear Masaki’s voice, but as he keeps calling out for her to answer that relief is replaced with a look of what appears to be determination. It would seem that Orihata knows she’s not going to be rescued from this situation and my guess is that she’s now readying herself to take Suema’s advice and fight.

Thoughts: I really the opening scene. Top to bottom. It’s a nice cold open for the episode and engages rather well since up to this point we’ve been having episodes pick up in continuity with each other this sort of feels like an act break. As though we’re moving into a new phase of the story. On top of this there’s the fact that the ominous droning pipe-organ music in the soundtrack gives us an ominous dramatic vibe juxtaposed against the fairly mundane and cheerful setting of a family diner where Rin is reading this. Oh, and why is it in a diner? Well I don’t know if or why it is in the book, but here the visuals of customers at other tables are used to emphasize the passages. 

When Rin reads the passages “No matter how much you dream it is not the dreamer who will achieve it, but the next generation.” the shot is focused on a mother, father, and young daughter at a nearby table. Visually backing the concept of a new generation. When he reads the next section about those dreams being established fact for that generation we’re focused on a different table where a group of teenage girls are hanging out and one of them is showing a couple others something on her cellphone. This underscores the “Established Fact” part. The dreams of the past and technology’s cumulative advance are a mere fact of life for many in the world today.

As Rin moves into the section on sacrifice the camera jumps to a pulled back shot of him sitting at his table reading the book in question. We zoom in as he finishes out the passage, and snaps the book shut one-handed. When the book closes the music that had filled the scene just stops and in that silence Rin poses his question, “Sacrifices, huh?”

As for that term’s recurrence throughout the episode and Jin’s plans I’m not so sure. It comes off to me that Jin just happened to hit upon the perfect clean-up word for his plans regarding Orihata and is repeating it now almost as though to convince himself that’s what it is.

The fundamental problem with that line of logic is that the quote from Seichi’s book seems to be referring to SELF-Sacrifice whereas Jin is going for a more Ancient-world approach. Furthermore I can’t get behind Jin’s whole “Standardize the human soul” thing. Wholeness and contentment aren’t what drive people forward: Their lack and hunger do. Seeking that fulfillment is what motivates people not being given it. Sure if everyone in the world is content with their life wars will end, but so will a lot of good things like infrastructure, and I’m just preaching to the choir aren’t I?

Yeah I don’t suppose we’re actually supposed to be behind the VILLAIN’S PLAN, but I do still understand why he wants to do it. He sees people all around him every day who are missing what he perceives as an essential piece. It only stands to reason that he’d want to fill in that gap, to give them a complete existence. Much as he lectures Spooky E for not factoring in the possible existence of the soul, Jin is failing to account for the possibility that people lack certain things for a reason.

One last note before we go. We got another Touka/Boogiepop hotswap moment at the beginning of the episode when Suema and she were walking together and I’m still giddy about seeing those glimpses of Boogiepop nudging affairs from behind the scenes. Pulling strings as it were. That all being said I look forward to the next episode.

Until next time keep talking fiction, friends! I’ll see you soon.

#Anime #Let's Talk Anime #Boogiepop wa Warawanai #Boogiepop and Others #Boogiepop 2019 #Fictionerd #In-Character #Winter 2019 #Winter Anime 2019 #Winter Season 2019

[syrupwit]

Letter for Trick or Treat Exchange 2021

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Hello there, and welcome to my letter for Trick or Treat Exchange 2021! I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to read this letter. I hope that it will provide you with clarification, inspiration, or whatever else you may happen to be seeking from it.

Although I’ve written more for some sections and less for others, rest assured I would be thrilled to receive a gift for any of the requested fandoms, characters, or fanwork types. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out through the mods.

I have requested Fic Only, Tricks and Treats for all canons.

Please see the table of contents below:

Likes

Do Not Want (DNW)

Fandom - Dishonored

Fandom - Fallout: New Vegas

Fandom - The Magnus Archives

Fandom - Stellar Firma

Fandom - What We Do In The Shadows (TV)

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LIKES

I have a very long list of likes here.

For Treats, some general things I like are:

Absurd, silly, or situation-based humor

Surreality, weirdness, crack treated seriously

Lore and worldbuilding

Unusual team-ups

Dramatic rescues

Get togethers and first times

Halloween tropes and trappings that tend more towards the fun or cheesy (pumpkins, candy, trick-or-treating, costume parties, bad horror movies, haunted houses, autumn weather, friendly supernatural creatures, black cats having a good time)

For Tricks, some general things I like are:

Dark comedy, gallows humor, horror-comedy

Psychological, paranormal, gothic, and cosmic horror

Creepy lore and worldbuilding

Unreliable narrators

Corruption

Hurt no comfort (esp. emotionally)

Supernatural creatures and goings-on of all kinds

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DO NOT WANT (DNW)

Characters depicted as under age 18 involved in sexual situations

Characters having sex without mutual sexual attraction

Hate speech or hate crimes (discussions/mentions of bigotry are fine)

Harm to pet animals (the existence of ghost pets is OK, and it’s fine to mention pet animals that have canonically died, but I don’t want to hear about injury, abuse, or noncanonical death of pet animals)

Bestiality

Scat

Necrophilia (sexual activity involving ghosts or sentient skeletons/undead is OK, just not inanimate corpses or remains)

Sexual activity involving worms / spiders / insects

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FANDOM - DISHONORED

Ivan Jacobi's Grandfather

This character is so inconsequential that he only shows up for a few sentences in an in-universe memoir in Death of the Outsider, but the little glimpse we get is fascinating. Tell me more about this stubborn old man who moved into the family crypt and let his impressionable grandson sleep over among the skeletons. I want to hear his ancestor stories, the creepier the better.

Kirin Jindosh

My favorite antagonist from DH2! I'd love to hear more about his abominable creations, his alliance with Delilah, and what he got up in his brief studies at the Academy of Natural Philosophy. I ship him pretty hard with Emily, but I'm open to any pairing. (Note: I'm fine with mentioning or exploring his canon nonlethal fate, though I'd prefer it not be played for comedy.)

Billie Lurk

Of the Dishonored protagonists, Billie is my favorite. Someone, I can't find the source, once described her character arc as "atonement without redemption" -- I really like that. Death of the Outsider highlighted a intriguingly cocky streak of hers I hadn't noticed before, also (the things she says about the bank job!!).

I'd love to hear more about her years as a ship captain, the connections she built across the isles; her early years with Daud and the Whalers, how those relationships changed; and anything post-canon. Gen-wise, I really enjoy her interactions with Daud, Sokolov, and the Outsider, and I'd like to see how she didn't get along with Galia Fleet.

Ship-wise, I like her with Daud or any female character. Seriously -- Billie/Teresia Cienfuegos! Billie/Thalia Timsh! Billie/the surviving witch in the basement jail in that one mission of Death of the Outsider! Ooh, what about Billie/ghost!Deirdre? I am, as they say, just spitballing here. I also like Emily/Billie, Delilah/Billie, and Billie/Lizzy, for some less rare pairings. :-)

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FANDOM - FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS

Dean Domino

Vengeful petty bastard. He was my favorite of the three companions in Dead Money, and the reveal at the end blindsided me. I really liked the atmosphere and story in Dead Money -- I'd love more about Dean Domino's pre-ghoul days, how he survived, and what it takes to sustain a grudge for centuries.

Mr. House

Everything about Mr. House and the Lucky 38 is fascinating to me. I'd love something about the years he spent waiting and planning, or the dynamic between him and a more evil or chaotic Courier.

Doctor Mobius

Old World Blues is my favorite DLC for this game, and I loved the showdown/reveal with Doctor Mobius! More roboscorpions, more ridiculous schemes, or interactions with the Courier and the other Big MT scientists and denizens would be great.

Stealth Suit Mk II

Why is the suit cute, and why won't she/it stop trying to give me Med-X? I'd love to hear more about this adorable sneaky suit and her/its relationship to her/its wearer. If you want to go to a shippy place there, please feel more than free.

Ulysses

So dramatic, so tragic, so vague at times. I really, really like his relationship with the Courier and the way it develops in Lonesome Road -- I ship them romantically, one-sided on Ulysses's part and reciprocated, but I also like their many possible dynamics as gen. (I have no preference on gender or alignment for the Courier -- feel free to write the character however you prefer.)

Ulysses strikes me as very lonely, and he seems to be finally feeling grief that he suppressed. I'd love something where the Courier rescues or comforts him, or where the possibility of being rescued/comforted occurs to him but is never actualized (PAIN). Alternately, interactions between Ulysses and any random character, the more unexpected the better, would be great, as would Ulysses solo gen about what he gets up to post-DLC.

Yes Man

My favorite amoral AI! His passive-aggression is hilarious, but I love that he's also genuinely scary. I'd enjoy hearing more about his origins and development, his dynamic with Benny, and his relationship with the Courier and anyone else he might encounter.

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FANDOM - THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

Adelard Dekker

Dekker is cool! I like that he's pragmatic and competent, not without a sense of humor, and somehow genuinely religious even in the world of TMA. I ship him with Gertrude, but I also enjoy them as friends. I'd love anything about his pre-canon adventures, origins, relationship with the Web, or interactions with unexpected characters.

Harriet Fairchild

An incredibly minor character (she shows up for a few lines in MAG 21, "Freefall"), but I'm so curious about her. What is her relationship to Simon Fairchild, and how did she become associated with the Vast?

Neil Lagorio

In-universe fictional media is one of my very favorite things, and I loved the episodes with Neil Lagorio. I'd enjoy hearing more about his filmography, strange experiences on his sets, criticism of his films, popular reception, or anything along those lines.

Peter Lukas

An unrepentant monster, and a terrible boss, but awkward and petty in enjoyably human ways. I would love to see how he interacts in a fish-out-of-water scenario, a meeting with other avatars, or a situation where he feels threatened. Seeing him interact with Gertrude would be fantastic. I ship him romantically with Martin, one-sided on Peter's part or grudgingly reciprocated, but I also really enjoy their gen interactions.

Original Statement Giver(s)

I'm always down for original statement fic, whether it's about an encounter with a specific entity or something more ambiguous. <3

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FANDOM - STELLAR FIRMA

Bathin

We've heard so much about Bathin, but what is he really like, outside that one recording? I ship him with David and/or Trexel, but I'd also like to just hear about him.

Enola

Post-canon, what do they get up to aboard The Terpsichore's Vaunt? Vent gremlin to captain of a Star Puncher Class vessel must be a bit of a leap.

David 7

Poor David has been through so much. I'd love something about them post-canon, figuring out the wider universe beyond Stellar Firma, or a canon divergence AU from any point. Additionally, I think it could be fun to explore common fic tropes with them -- coffeeshop AU part 2, fake dating (which is also their first time doing anything dating-like?), arranged marriage because *handwave*, time travel or time loops.

I ship David with Bathin and/or Trexel, and with Trexel and Hartro in a triad, although I'm open to other pairings. Platonically, I like them with I.M.O.G.E.N., or meeting anyone outside the station.

With regard to David's gender and pronouns, I don't have a strong preference or headcanon -- please feel free to go with your favored interpretation.

Trexel Geistman

Trexel is my favorite. I enjoy the childish, silly side of his terrible self, but I also love it when canon decides to take his issues seriously. Please let him bumble around like a jackass making poor decisions, projecting onto those around him, and occasionally providing his own brand of "help" or insight.

I ship Trexel with just about everyone, but particularly David 7, Hartro, and/or Bathin. I really enjoy him as the pining party in a ship, whether his pining is one-sided or reciprocated. In general, though, I just really like Trexel.

For Halloween-related prompts, I'd love something with him as a horror host a la the Cryptkeeper, or maybe something with him encountering the ghosts of the Board or one of his more illustrious ancestors. Less Halloween-related, a Groundhog Day time loop AU with Trexel as the POV character could also be fun.

Hartro Piltz

Hartro is also my favorite. She's... god, she's ridiculous. I love her interest in the arts and her taste for Drama. I was really pleased with her transition from antagonist, to semi-frenemy, to antagonist again, and finally to tentative ally.

Ship-wise: I ship her super hard with Trexel and David as a triad and Trexel as a pairing, although I also love the three of them as a gen group. We haven't seen Hartro interact with a lot of other characters in canon; there are no other canon dynamics that ping me as particularly shippy, that "yum" from IMOGEN and the bit of flirting with Sigmund Shankeray notwithstanding. However, I am open to any pairing or gen interaction for her, including OCs. Seriously, please go for it! I just really like Hartro.

Promptwise: The last bit of bonus content, "No Love For Spies," involved impromptu scripted roleplay with Hartro, David, and Trexel. I'd love a scenario like that, but maybe shippy or awkwardly sexy (well, more awkwardly sexy than it already is, with evening-gown!Hartro lounging around on tables). I'd also enjoy something set pre-canon, something about her life outside of work during canon, or post-canon exploring how she gets along in a post-Stellar Firma universe.

Also, I realized I forgot to say so, but I opt into the foot thing. Lol.

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FANDOM - WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (TV)

Guillermo de la Cruz

I recently watched this series for the first time, and Guillermo is far and away my favorite. The way he compartmentalizes what he's been doing for the vampires, the repression, the hints of manipulativeness, and then the fact that he's just really cute -- he's great. I'm enjoying the slayer!Guillermo storyline and the sort of power reversal, or power redistribution, that's come about because of it.

I ship Guillermo/Nandor pretty hard, one-sided and reciprocated, but I'd also love Guillermo solo gen, friendship fic, or ensemble fic. For a Treat, canon-typical slice of life would be great, or something about what he gets up to on Halloween. For a Trick, perhaps he encounters a hostile vampire or other creature, defends or rescues the others, or himself needs to be rescued? Guillermo gets yanked around and disappointed so much in canon; I'd love something where, no matter what trials he is subjected to, the vampires come through for him in the end.

#optional detailed letters for exchanges tag #this signup is no longer in progress!

[kyanve]

This is a really dumb story.

So to preface:

I’m genderqueer and grey-ace.  This took a very long time to figure out.

Part of this story is that it’s the day, in retrospect, I should’ve figured out both, because my reactions and what everyone else had expected as reactions are explained THOROUGHLY by it. 

The other part and why I’m putting it under a cut is that my old stalker, before I’d hit being fed up with his bullshit and he’d hit “actively physically dangerous”, ran a D&D campaign.  He made two attempts at plots using my character for self-gratification.  Neither of them actually worked. 

The second attempt will probably get told sometime; it was an attempt at him using my character to both set up something where he could pat himself on the back about how clever and devious he was when he was neither, and where he could soapbox about how Morality is Fake and how “good” is a lie and it was easy to make “good” people do awful things b/c human nature.  It failed in hilarious ways and is the less creepy story in retrospect.  I can’t say it failed by accident because the entire time it was obvious what he was trying to do and I was going “....WHY ARE YOU TARGETING MY CHARACTER FOR THIS S/HE’S THE LEAST LIKELY TO FALL FOR THIS SHIT DID YOU READ HIS/HER SHEET?”

The first attempt is today’s story, and it only recently, over a decade later, sank in on me that he’d been trying to turn my character into fetish fuel, but it fell flat on its face and became a non-event b/c I may have bled a little too much of my own sexuality/gender identity onto the character without even realizing what it was yet.  (Over a decade and a lot of distance/work on dismantling shit and I can laugh about it, and have been since it hit me.)  

Warnings for attempted fetishization + his overall crappy grasp and handling of transgender/genderfluid and a lot of failed misogyny.  

So my character was a late addition to the campaign, and I had to get a backstory that would work.  The party needed a rogue type, and I liked playing trope-subversion characters.

So I rolled a lawful good assassin.  (It was 3.5, so he was a Rogue with assassin build/skillset/prestige class.)  

Basically, Toc had started out as part of a very small organization that operated in a highly populated urban area whose job was to exhaustively investigate and research, then take out crime lords, evil mages doing things that’d impact large parts of the population, etc., as quietly, cleanly, and with as little collateral damage to the general citizenry as possible.  He was in the area of the party because his group had been sold out and framed for a bunch of unrelated murders of innocent people, and he’d ended up exiled/sold off, and the party basically rescued/bargained/swindled him away from the people who were keeping him.

Needless to say, Toc was Tired, disillusioned, grouchy, and more than a little suspicious, but still *very* dedicated to his codes and methods, which involved a lot of harm reduction and minimization of force; he would not be violent without a direct threat to his life, the lives of his companions, the lives of civilians, or clear and solid confirmable evidence that such was about to happen.  

Toc as written was 5′11″, male, and (before I had the vocabulary for it) ace/aro, disinterested in romance or relationships, he had more important things to worry about tyvm.  

In the first session with the party, they were going through a trial put in front of them by a powerful mage NPC - a maze of traps and puzzles.  

Toc, being a rogue, was going ahead and disarming traps, and that meant that inevitably eventually the dice failed him and he got hit in the face with a magic trap.

Stalker-asshole dropped some dice and claimed the results were random; none of us saw the dice rolls. 

Toc went from being 5′11″ human male, to 5′2″ fox-person female.  

There was a long silence where the rest of the party was expecting a dramatic reaction and Stalker looked ready to gloat and full of glee.  

Toc’s reaction, after a moment of confused consternation, was basically “....huh.” and carrying on as if nothing happened, because it wasn’t like being MALE had ever been an especially important part of his life and personal identity, his gender/sexuality had mostly just been “Duty” and “Protect the weak”.  The rest of the party made jokes and tried to console him that it was probably temporary, and he gave them occasional confused glances, b/c it wasn’t that big of a deal.  

I will note here that in retrospect, my usual reaction to people springing “what would you do if you woke up one day A Guy” has always been “??????? I’d...have different parts?  There’d be changes to the meatsack to adjust to?  People would be less annoyingly shitty about what hobbies I should have but just as annoyingly weird about what clothes were appropriate?”, and I’ve usually been most comfortable when people are periodically Not Sure with swings through “the more male the better” and “GIVE ME DRESSES AND MAKEUP” depending on mood, which ..... is where I probably should’ve figured out “genderqueer” sooner, but I had a lot of gender role related issues to work out.  Most of my D&D characters ended up with tenuous relationships with gender and sexuality.

So Toc basically carried on with little more reaction than occasionally grumbling about being shorter than s/he was used to and adjusting to having a tail and fur.

After the trip through the dungeon, the slightly creepy NPC mage offered to reverse the transformation in return for some unspecified future favor to invoke at an unknown time.

Toc gave him the same confused stare as s/he’d given the rest of the party, only with more suspicion.  The NPC knew Toc’s history.  

So the reply was “Actually I’d rather stay this way.  If we ever run into anyone tied to the people who framed me or who recognizes me and the record they gave me, they won’t recognize me, and I could walk into my old home city with my name on a sign around my neck and NOBODY WOULD BELIEVE ME.  This might be the best thing to’ve happened to me after that.”  

At one point there was actually a few OOC questions about how suddenly being tiny and female impacted Toc’s hypothetical sexuality.

They were reminded that I hadn’t been joking when I said his/her sexuality was “duty”.  

A party member, run by a decent human being, was a male fox who was a flirt; he made one or two passes at Toc, got “..../quiet frustrated glare/ Not interested, go away, push it and you’ll have shorter ears and might lose part of your tail”, and left Toc alone after that, because the player was not an asshole.  

Once we got off the island, of course, nobody would recognize Toc anymore, and Toc had embraced his new state as the world’s least sexually interesting female fox furry, so there weren’t any opportunities for NPC’s to make a big deal out of it; Toc turned down any advances with irritation, and the rest of the party would back up “lay off” if anyone didn’t seem like they’d take no for an answer.  

It wasn’t usually necessary b/c Toc was not above very calm and confident threats of castration and demonstrations of ability for such if the first rejection didn’t take.  

(This happened a couple times with NPC’s, but then, it also did happen to our other female party member, who was a volatile-tempered Chaotic Good firemage played by my feminist roommate who would absolutely threaten to light people on fire if they didn’t go away.  Both Toc and the mage took special spiteful glee in showing up NPC’s who made any insinuations about the women as the weaker members of the party, even if Toc was hitting “will respond to whatever pronouns addressed with”; the rest of the party occasionally forgot and lapsed back into male pronouns for him, -I- would use either, and OOC slips were pretty easily handwaved as IC moments of “this was a guy when we met them”.  Toc may not’ve had a strong attachment to being female either, but Toc did think assholes who thought less of women for being women deserved to be humiliated for it.)  

After a while, Stalker had gotten weirdly sulky whenever the topic of Toc’s transformation came up, since Toc’s utter apathy about it and acceptance of it was the source of most of the jokes and humor value to me and the rest of the players; we basically had “what’s in your pants” “justice” jokes about if anyone ever caught the party jumbling pronouns and tried to ask Toc.  “Are you straight or gay/lesbian/do you like men or women”  “:|  Duty” remained the other joke.  

Years later, well after I’d cut ties with Stalker and most of that group, my fiancee tracked down Stalker’s “GREATEST MAGNUM OPUS” giant Ranma 1/2 fanfiction he’d been very proud of and often beaten me over the head with as “REAL writing” and constantly tried to ego-preen and verbally browbeat me into reading.  I’d started avoiding it out of spite, esp. since I had no interest in Ranma anyway.  

Among other things (such as “.....Oh my god Birdy did this guy seriously try to pick apart YOUR writing if I didn’t know you’d met him and heard him talk about it I’d think this was an intentionally bad trollfic”), it became very quickly obvious that he had male-to-female transgender/transformation fetishes along with transformation and genderflip fetishes in general, of the creepy and gross-skeevy kind.  

So it finally sank in that there is no way in hell that trap’s result was truly random, he did it intentionally, his glee when it first happened and occasional failed attempts at picking at gender/sexuality were probably him trying to fish for fetish fuel,

And I managed to completely nuke it and leave him frustrated and disappointed WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT AT THE TIME by playing the character too close to my actual relationship with gender and more aroace than I am + having other players who thought my “Gender: Justice, Sexuality: Duty” was hilarious.  

#d&d #tales from tabletop #queer things #stalking mention warning #trans fetishization warning #misogyny warning

[aledethanlast]

7 writing tips to keep in mind for science fiction and fantasy

1. We can get to the plot right after I run some errands

“We must defeat Voldemort, save the wizarding world, and finish our homework.” -The plot of every single Harry Potter book

In general, the main plot of the story will not be the sole focus of your characters’ attention. They have relationships to maintain, personal goals to achieve, and sometimes just plain rest. Most of the tension in the story will likely evolve from moments where the characters must address both plot problems and personal probblems at the same time. This is doubly important if the characters are trying to keep the facade of normalcy.

There needs to be a certain level of balance. Too much plot, and we don’t get a good sense of character. Too much routine and the plot feels forced.

When designing a character, be mindful of what their lives looked like before the story, how that life would be disrupted by the story, and what would the character do with their life after the story (assuming they live).

2. Murphy’s law of obstacles: If it’s not your enemies on purpose, then it’s your friends by accident.

Character: Frodo Baggins. Objective: Get the ring to mordor. Superficial obstacles: Sauron’s dark army, giant spiders, various douchebags he meets along the way. Actual obstacles: The ring is corrupting Frodo’s mind, gollum is trying to screw them all over at every turn, Gandalf is a cryptic piece of shit, Aragorn needs to help them raise an army to distract Sauron, which is hard enough becuase the guy isn’t even sure if he wants to be king, Saruman is acting like your cousin who took a political science course last semester and now thinks he’s fucking Machiavelli, etcetera, etcetera.

Adventures are complicated because there’s always multiple things going on at once. This quest would be simple, except this supporting character has a completely different goal and has no issue with screwing everybody over. This friendship would be awesome, except their mutual crush just died violently and each of them blames the other. This character could leave the town, if only the war he thought of as far away hadn’t come right to his doorstep.

This is how good plot twists happen. Storylines that have up until now run separate meet in the worst/best way possible. This is often combined with the infamous what could possibly go wrong.

3. Inflation of the competence economy.

“Because he’s Batman” -Fake nerds everywhere

You have your characters. They’re badasses, the best in the business, absolutely unstoppable, every single one of them. They’ve so far beaten everyone who’s tried to stand in their way. Yet somehow they’re also the underdog.

Your problem is simple: you have no frame of reference of what is within or outside of your heroes’ capabilities, and since their gains are more frequent than their losses, the reader will just assume that the protagonist is going to pull the victory out of their ass like they always seemingly do.

Coming back to the Batman example: Batman follows this rule very closely, closer than many other comic heroes, but he appears to be invincible because he’s tirelessly worked to build that reputation. Batman get the shit beaten out of him all the time, but he’s known in pop culture to be unstoppable because he does his job so well that it often seems effortless.

The solution, naturally, is to give your characters limitations. Scenes where they’re expected to preform some amazing feat but instead take one look and say “Not happening.” Scenes where they underpreform at what they’re supposedly good at. You can stretch the boundaries of what is possible, but don’t break them.

4.  Limitations > Powers

“We’ll use the force!” “That’s not how the force works!” -The Force Awakens

The title of this one is actually Brandon Sanderson’s second law of magic, and he explains it much better than I can, but I’m summarizing anyway.

This is where a lot of writers trap themselves by creating a scenario that’s meant to be dramatic or a major obstacle, but the tools at the character’s disposal make the obstacle trivial, and so there’s no tension. Some try to solve this by pretending that the tool doesn��t exist, but that only serves to make your character look like an idiot.

The formula above can be applied in multiple ways. Lets say character A is in scenario Z, and has the use of ability X. Character A may not want to use ability X becuase:

Using ability X would be a temporary measure, and scenario Z could become something even worse.

Using ability X would go against character A’s code of ethics.

Ability X has limited uses, and scenario Z is just not imporant enough to bother.

Ability X is volatile and unpredictable, and the risk of doing more harm than good is too high to be ignored.

Ability X is useless in scenario Z and using it would at best do nothing and at worst expend precious resources.

These kind of situations force your characters to come up with more creative (and more interesting) solutions to their problem.

5. The internal consistency test

Hogwarts has moving staircases, living pieces of art, and a telepathic hat that makes judgemental comments about little kids? Fine.

The Ministry has access to time machines and has no problem giving one to a 13 year old girl, but don’t use it to punch out Voldemort? The fuck.

Readers won’t care if your explanation boils down to a handwave and “It’s magic” or some sciency jargon, but they will absolutely care if you contradict yourself, or if your rules leave giant holes in them.

A good way to check yourself with this is to ask “would a knowledgeable and competent character find this decision/explanation/occurance to be reasonable or absolute bullshit.”

That said, if you leave out the context that would explain this seeming plot hole because you want it to be a big reveal later, then you need to lampshade the plot hole. You have to promise your reader that yes, I am aware this doesn’t make sense, but bear with me here.

6. Genre is a suggestion.

Lasers + spaceships + aliens + exotic planets = classic Sci Fi

Magic powers + wise old mentor + princess rescue + ancient order of mythical knights = classic fantasy

Lasers + spaceships + aliens + exotic planets + Magic powers + wise old mentor + princess rescue + ancient order of mythical knights = Star Wars

This one is the core principle of AU fanfiction and retellings. Taking a bunch of different elements from unrelated sources and letting them interact to create something new.

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer is sci-fi fairy tales. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a fantasy heist novel. This Savage Song by VE Schwab is an urban fantasy/crime noir story. The possibilities are endless.

But in terms of actively writing, remember this one when you feel pressured to add or remove a certain element from the story because of the genre. Not every space story needs laser guns. Not every high fanstasy needs a monarchy. Elements can be played with as you wish.

7. Originality = fun > logic

"Why?” “Becuase that would be fucking awesome.”

This is primarily a world building tip, but it can easily work for plot too. As a writer, you’re looking for something that is unique and entertaining. Creating something unique is pretty challenging, but something entertaining? So much easier.

Forest scene feels bland? The trees can now scream in pain. Which they do. Constantly. Let’s see your characters have a boring old conversation when their chairs are begging for death.

Another example: Stabby the space roomba. It’s literally just a vacuum cleaner with a knife duct taped onto it that goes around stabbing people. Why is so popular? Becuase it’s ridiculous.

Logic is still important, naturally. These awesome things need to make sense. But that’s dependant on context. That screaming forest? Just establish beforehand that it’s a thing that exists. Stabby the roomba? I mean people are posting pictures of their actual real-life roombas to which they taped knives, so yeah, context allows for Stabby. 

From a plot standpoint, the trick lies in creating context for a moment of pure awesome which would make zero sense otherwise. Example: this page of Ms Marvel. How in hell does any character land themselves in a situation like that? Well if you read the comic you’d know.

It’s good to keep in mind that while this is a good way to generate ideas, the “awesome” things that you start out with won’t necessarily stick around as the world and story evolves. You may realize that your “awesome” doesn’t gel in with the rest of the story, or it can be improved upon, or that you only needed it as inspiration for a different awesome moent that you do use. But don’t ride or die for all of these ideas, it will only hold you back.

#writing #writing advice