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grailfinders · 4 years

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Fate and Phantasms Far Side #2: Tohno Shiki

We have another guest build today from u/Magical-Biche on Reddit! While I’ve been tackling Fate Grand Order characters, they’ve been hard at work making builds for other parts of the Nasuverse. Today, they’ve built Shiki! No, not that one. Not that one either. No, Tohno Shiki. No, the other- you know what? Forget it, I’ll let Magical-Biche take over from here. (I’ll put the level-by-level breakdown below the cut, or you can check out the spreadsheet here.)

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Now that my personal favorite is done, today we’re attacking the main protagonist of that really good *anime* that is Tsukihime, Tohno Shiki. As with the previous build, this one will contain heavy spoilers for many routes of the visual novel. Read at your own risk! Also, this build works for Nanaya Shiki, just make sure you change the alignment from neutral good to like, chaotic or neutral evil. This build is based on Tsukihime, Kagetsu Tohya and Melty Blood.

Tohno Shiki is a skilled demon slayer who fights with a knife. He’s merciless against his targets, as he falls into a trance while fighting them to tap into his latent potential. He can also use the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.

For this build, we’re looking for 3 main things, which are :

Shiki’s bread and butter, the mystic eyes of death perception. While there is no simple way of having the MEoDP, we’ll try to maximize our damage on a single hit, on a single enemy.

Shiki might not look like it, but he’s extremely agile. While we have low health, we’re pretty hard to hit, and good at simply avoiding damage.

Shiki has a weird fighting style where he’ll fall into a trance when he’s fighting certain enemies, such as demons and undeads. We might not be able to get that as a feature, but we can easily get bonuses against our favored enemies.

Race and Background

Shiki is a plain old human, fighting with only his own limbs. And his OP Mystic Eyes, but we’ll come to that later. We’re playing the variant human, as we have little use for more than 2 stats on this build, and we’ll be using that extra feat. Shiki fits the Urchin background… okay-ish-ly. He’s an orphan, but he grew up playing outside in a gigantic mansion. However, he did know Arihiko the delinquent for a long time, which means he certainly did some illegal things once or twice. Anyway, the proficiencies are great for the build, and the bonus feature fits our role very well. We’ll be taking the alert feat so we’re better at not being surprised and pretty much always hit first. We also get a skill proficiency, and we’re going for Survival.

Stats

Going with the standard array, we are going to need a few stats for our multiclassing. However, all three classes we’ll be getting levels in are Dex based, and 2 uses wisdom heavily, so we won’t spread too much. We’ll start by getting as high Dex and Wis as possible, as those will be our main offensive stat, and main spellcasting stat. Shiki is nimble and agile, and when he’s not obsessed over a target, he makes wise decisions. As is needed for a harem protagonist, he has a decent charisma, so we should get that stat to at least 13. Next, we have our little quirk: Shiki has bad health because of “Anemia”. In truth, he’s only alive because his sister gives him half her life force, which explains why he tends to pass out. He’s actually resilient, but for the sake of fluff, we’re going to let our Con sit at 12, not bad, but not great either. Next, we’re not particularly intelligent nor are we stupid, so we’re leaving our Int at 10. Finally, we can dump our Str. Who needs strength when you can cut anything easily?

Class levels :

1. Ranger 1: We’re starting by getting our first favored enemy with a few levels of ranger. At level 1, we get our favored enemy. We are taking the Fiends. That gives us an advantage on survival checks to find them, and on intelligence checks to recall information about them. It’s not really strong, but it can always prove handy. Additionally, we can take the Abyssal language, which is common among demons, and fiends in general, to communicate with them. We also get natural explorer, which helps us move in certain environments. For the sake of flavoring, try to convince your DM to let you choose the “city“ terrain, which doesn’t exist in the rules, but simply makes a lot of sense. If they refuse, we can take Mountains, as we grew on a forest on a mountain.

You also get Str and Dex saving throws proficiency. The Dex is awesome, but we dumped Str, so that one won’t be too useful. We will keep our leather armor for now, since we might die if we are too underprotected, but we’ll get rid of it later. Also, you could play with a single knife, to stay true to the character, but let’s say that a shortsword is basically just a very long knife, or else our damage will really be pathetic. We won’t use the bow, but it doesn’t hurt to have it as an option on the side.

2. Ranger 2: We get our fighting style and our spellcasting. We’re taking the Duelist style, which makes us hit harder when we wield a single weapon. We will have plenty of use for our bonus action later, but for now, we can stick with dual wielding when the party needs more DPS. For our spells, we’re taking Hunter’s mark, which is the closest thing we have from the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception: it boosts damage and it helps us tracking our target, as if we could see its lines of death. We’re also getting Fog Cloud, which is an amazing tool for our hit and run tactics we’ll only get better at with levels.

3. Ranger 3: We finally chose our archetype, and we’re going one on one master with Monster Slayer. This archetype gives us a new spell, protection from evil and good, a great defensive spell that even works on allies. We’re also getting Hunter’s sense, which is another part of our Mystic Eyes. It lets us see a creature’s weaknesses a few times per long rest. We’re also gaining Slayer’s prey, which boosts our damage just a bit further beyond. Next, we’re getting our primeval awareness, which helps us track our arch nemesis, the fiends, and other creatures too.

The last gift level 3 gives us is a new spell to learn, so we’re getting Jump, to further boost our movement.

4. Ranger 4: Our first ASI, and we’re getting our Dex as high as possible to boost our AC and damage.

5. Ranger 5: This is why we haven’t multiclassed yet: we finally get our multiattack feature! Now, we can really start doing some big damage despite our weak weapon.

Also, we get a new spell from our archetype, Zone of truth. It’s a… niche spell, if anything. It can help with interrogations, but that’s about it. We’re also taking darkvision, which helps our poor human eyes with a LOT of encounters, because demons hunt at night, usually.

6. Monk 1: We’re taking a very short detour into the monk class. We’re here for the unarmored defense, which can give us a very high AC later on, which is great for our survivability. We should sell our leather armor at that point, as it’s no longer needed. Also, we get martial arts, which let us do an attack as a bonus action with our fists, as long as our other hand is wielding a monk weapon. Our fists now deal 1d4 damage, plus our Dex bonus, which is actually weaker than our other shortsword. However, it makes it so that we can still do three attacks, with our multiattack feature, and keep the bonus damage from dueling. In the end, the lower base damage of the fist is mitigated by the +2 of our fighting style. The multiclassing into monk only gives us proficiencies we already have, which is unfortunate.

7. Ranger 6: We get a new favored enemy, the undead. It gives us the same bonuses as before against undead, which includes vampires. Since undead don’t have a dedicated language, we’re taking undercommon as a new language, since it’s a common language enough that Undead might speak or understand it. Undercommon, undead, maybe they’re related?

We also get a new terrain for our natural explorer, so we’re getting forest or mountain (if you could deal with your DM to have the city terrain for your first level). It honestly doesn’t matter much, as we’re a city-dweller, so we should go with what our party needs there, really.

8. Rogue 1: We’re getting our final new class this level, the rogue. A level 1 rogue gets Expertise, which makes us experts at 2 skill checks. We’re taking Perception and Stealth, so we’re less likely to be surprised and more likely to surprise. That puts us, if we did take the Standard array, a whopping +10 on Stealth checks and +9 on perception checks. We also get our big boi damage with Sneak attack, which let us deal an additional 1d6 damage if we have advantage on our attack, or when we have an ally in melee range of our target. We also get the Thieves’ Cant, which we won’t use much because of our lore. We get a new skill proficiency, acrobatics, as well as a proficiency with thieves’ tools.

9. Rogue 2: We get our cunning action, our main hit-and-run tool, which lets us dodge or disengage with our bonus action. It does not sound that great, but it can really save us in some situations, we can’t forget we have that!

10. Rogue 3: We get our roguish archetype: we’re a Swashbuckler, to further our ability to challenge a single opponent. This subclass gives us Fancy footwork, which lets us play around our enemies freely, as long as we hit them. Great when combined with our multitude of extra attacks. We also get something else that’s great: Rakish audacity. This feature allows us to duel pretty much anything and still deal our absurd sneak damage. This makes it that we can always sneak attack creatures if no other enemy is near our target. We also get our charisma modifier added to our initiative, which is cool, but we already have our starting feat which gives us plus 5, so it’s nothing more than icing on the cake. Also, our sneak attack goes to 2d6.

11. Ranger 7: We do a last detour, now that we have somewhat stable damage and nice utility, to complete our Ranger build. We get our second archetype feature, Supernatural Defense, which makes us extremely resilient to our prey’s grappling and skill-check-triggering spells. We also get our last spell, which will be Silence, to help us sneak around.. You know, it’s almost like we’re a Rogue or something.

12. Ranger 8: Our last Ranger level gives us an ASI, which will go to Dex, maxing our base damage and pushing our AC to 18. We also get our last Ranger feature, Land’s stride, which is niche but helps us not to be grappled by plant monsters and plant based attacks, as well as crossing even difficult terrain really fast.

13 Rogue 4: The only thing we get this level is another ASI, which we pump into Wis, which boosts our AC and that’s it, as we have no spell which requires or triggers checks. It also helps tracking our prey, and boosts our passive perception through the roof.

14. Rogue 5: UNCANNY DODGE! Finally, we’re starting to get our survivability to the next level. Just react to halve damage, once per turn. Yes, it’s limited to enemies we can see, but just look at our perception. We just know where everybody is. We can face tank the big boss’ big hit, if it manages to even hit us, or just survive one more turn a dumb arrow who managed to hit a 20 on the dice. What’s more, we get a shiny new sneak attack dice, pushing it to 3d6.

15. Rogue 6: A new layer of expertise. We can grab expertise in Insight, which will help us find out if Arcueid really is Arcueid, or some weird theatre obsessed 500 years old vampire, and Survival, so we just won’t lose track of our prey.

16. Rogue 7: We gain another extremely useful defensive feature with Evasion. It simply allows us to completely negate incoming fireballs, most traps and a lot of other stuff by changing how we take damage from those effects. Whenever we need to make a dexterity saving throw to halve damage, we take 0 damage on success now, and half on a failure. Nothing much to say, it just is as strong as it sounds. Our sneak attack goes up to 4d6.

17. Rogue 8: Fourth ASI, we’re getting our damage even slightly higher with the martial adept feat. We gain a superiority dice we can use to trigger either the Disarming attack, to have an even greater advantage on our poor opponent, or the Precision attack, in case we’re 1 or 2 away on the dice to hit our opponent in a critical moment.

18. Rogue 9: next is our final subclass feature, Panache. It’s… not the greatest. We’re taking this level mostly because of the last feature we can grab, but using this feature can quickly become dangerous, no matter how evasive we are. It can fail, as we have low Cha, and Wis saving throws are quite frequent. We should only use it as a last resort. It can help us get our harem outside of battle though, so there’s that. Our sneak attack now deals 5d6 damage.

19. Rogue 10: ASI time! This time, we’re finishing our Wis, that goes up to 19. Our AC is high, our perception checks are even higher, and we have huge bonuses to even skill checks we aren’t proficient with, like medicine. We have a +15 bonus to our perception, so no one really can hide from us anymore, no matter how sneaky.

20. Rogue 11: Our final upgrade before going to beat the hell out of Tarasque. We’re reliably talented, which means we can’t realistically fail skill checks we’re proficient with anymore. In other words, we will always have a minimal result of 27 in Insight, perception, Stealth and survival skill checks, and a minimum of 21 in sleight of hand checks. Finally, our sneak attack dice caps at 6d6.

Pros : We’re a big damage dealer, without even using precious class resources. As long as there’s one creature at the edge of the pack, we can use our Sneak Attack as much as we want, once per turn. We have pretty good stats, excluding our Constitution, which makes us weirdly tanky. Bad dice RNG can fuck us up, but we have a way to mitigate most damage. We’re also great at escaping thanks to being a rogue with access to jump, even though a few more Monk levels would have made us an escapist expert.

Cons : We have pretty low HP thanks to only a +1 modifier on our constitution, so we’re not great at long fights. We pretty much have exactly one way of attacking, which is slashing, slashing and slashing. Investing in special enchanted weapons might be a must past a certain level. Also, our fist attacks are a bit useless outside of using them for Fancy Footwork. Finally, our damage can fall off quickly if the enemy attacks in large numbers.

#Fate and Phantasms #Tsukihime #Tohno Shiki #DnD 5e

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lastoneout · 4 years

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Comfort Food

Fandom: Persona 5

Rating: PG

Summary:

Akechi has a food blog, Futaba thinks that's hilarious, Akira is a good friend, and Sojiro needs a drink.

Notes:

This was supposed to just be me projecting my issues on to Akechi because he's my emotional support bastard boi but somehow it turned into nearly 2500 words of tooth-rotting slice of life fluff. Whoops.

A03

Goro learned the hard way that hiding things from Futaba was impossible.

To be fair it wasn’t like he was trying to hide his food blog, he mentioned it in passing a few times and he knew that most of his followers were his fans, but he never really expected any of the Thieves to actually read it, let alone read it out loud, in front of him...while laughing at it.

“What are you, a high school girl?” Futaba said with a snicker after she finished reading his latest post aloud, “I’ve seen little girl’s diaries with more class.”

“Oh my god.” Akira choked out from beside Futaba behind Leblanc’s bar, desperately trying to muffle his laughs as Goro floundered.

He knew he shouldn’t care. The Thieves always poked fun at each other. ‘It’s what friends do,’ Akira had said. If anything he figured he should be grateful that Futaba considered him enough of a friend to playfully mock his hobby. But Goro was never good at regulating his inner emotions, and so as much as he tried to not let it get to him, it did.

Truthfully, he never meant to get into food. For the longest time, he considered it a pointless expense. In the various foster homes that he was tossed between food was almost a luxury. And to someone who often wondered where his next meal would come from it was hard to justify the cost of a fancy dinner when the same money could get him a month's worth of instant ramen and convenience store bento lunches.

But when he got into high school and wormed his way into the police force he suddenly was financially stable enough to justify luxury spending. Nijima-san was kind enough to pull some strings to get the agency to act as a guarantor so he could move out of the foster home and into a small apartment, and after he paid his bills and rent he was left staring at the remaining sum in his bank app, trying to wrap his head around how that money was his, and he could do whatever he wanted with it.

He tried to keep a level head and decided to go to a nearby department store to pick up things to furnish his new home, but on the way there he passed a diner and was stopped dead by the incredible smells drifting out the door. His stomach growled, and he found himself trying to remember the last time he had eaten something that hadn’t come wrapped in plastic and styrofoam.

His stomach growled again, and before he had time to think about it, knowing that if he did he would decide against it, he hurried into the restaurant. He was seated quickly, and despite feeling weirdly giddy and anxious he smiled at the kind waitress who took his order. The simple latte and plate of pancakes were probably the most delicious things he had ever tasted, and he couldn’t help how his eyes watered after the first bite, the food filling some empty part of himself he hadn’t even known existed.

Looking back on that day he’s grateful that he wasn’t famous yet, as no one cared to pay attention to the skinny teenager in the booth by the wall trying not to get tears in his dinner.

After that, he ate out at least once a week. He spent little on necessities, picking up most of the things he needed at the ¥100 store and buying used clothes, saving every extra bit that didn’t go into bills for food. Eventually, he started looking up new places to eat, and after finding a few food blogs he decided on a whim to start his own. It didn’t take off until after his big break, but he didn’t mind. The simple pictures and reviews he posted weren’t really for anyone else, and on days when he felt empty and angry, he would scroll back through them and feel a little bit better. Almost happy at the little niche he had carved out for himself.

Shortly after that Akechi’s entire life quickly became a delicate web of lies. He was a double, even triple agent, under so many layers of falsehoods even he struggled to keep it straight sometimes. If anyone ever bothered to break him down to his bare parts there really wasn’t much he actually did for himself. Every single facet of his life and personality had been carefully crafted to ensure he would be able to get the revenge he so desperately craved. He hardly ever did anything just for himself. Every interest he shared in interviews or mentioned around his ‘friends’ was for show, not something he honestly cared all that much about. It was annoying sometimes, having to pretend to care for things he felt apathetic towards, but it was necessary.

But food? Food stayed safe. It helped his Detective Prince facade once he got popular, after all the only thing teenage girls seemed to like more than cute boys was trendy food. And cute boys who love trendy food? That’s a check that writes itself. It made him look soft, approachable, and normal. So he indulged. Actually enjoying sharing the one part of himself that wasn’t fake.

Maybe that’s why Futaba’s mockery stung so much. He wouldn’t care if people made fun of his fake interests, but when it was the real him? It hurt.

He tried to laugh it off, blushing and begging her to stop. He insisted it’s just for his fans, he’s not really that immature or girly, it’s just for show! But each plea seemed to only make the situation worse, so he gave up and silently begged for her to get bored soon, his face an unnatural shade of red.

Akira, ever perceptive, seemed to notice something change in his demeanor, and without a second thought, the teen reached forward and plucked Futaba's phone right out of her hands.

"Hey!" She shouted, grabbing for it.

"Alright, alright, that's enough." He chided, holding the phone just out of Futaba's reach, "We all have our hobbies. But since we're in a sharing mood how about I tell Akechi-kun all about your Featherman shipping blog?"

A chill came over the room. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, I would." He turned to Goro with a devilish smirk, "See she loves the red and blue rangers together-"

"Akira I'll end you!" Futaba yelled, diving forward and attempting to tackle him. Akira, however, was taller, and easily deflected her blows.

"She was telling me about this doujinshi she read the other day-"

"I'll spread rumors about you on websites you've never even heard of!"

"It was so romantic-"

"I'll leak your bank info on the dark web!”

"It's by her favorite author too, she buys everything they release-"

"I'll destroy you with malware, you won't be able to BREATHE near a circuit board without getting a virus!"

"Tell me, Akechi-kun, do you know what smut is?"

"AKIRA!!!" Futaba shrieked, and it was quickly followed by the sound of clanging pots and Sojiro swearing loudly from the kitchen.

“Would you two cut it out?” He shouted, poking his head around the corner.

“Sorry Boss, just giving Futaba a lesson on being a good friend,” Akira replied with an apologetic smile.

“Well next time can you do it outside? You’re lucky I don’t have any customers in here right now.”

“You never have any customers...” Futaba mumbled.

“I heard that. And Futaba, I thought I asked you to tie up your hair when you’re behind the counter.”

“On it...” She grumbled, pulling her hair back into a lazy bun with the scrunchie on her wrist.

“We’ll keep the noise and health code violations to a minimum, Boss,” Akira said, shooting a lazy salute Sojiro’s way. The older man eyed them for another second before sighing and mumbling something about herding cats as he turned back to the curry.

With the situation defused, Akira and Futaba stared at each other, having a silent yet very animated conversation, but eventually, Akira seemed to win and Futaba sighed heavily, "Okay, okay,” She turned to Goro and gave him a bow, “I'm sorry for making fun of your blog Akechi-kun."

Goro hardly knew what to make of the display, let alone her apology, but it made him feel a bit better, so he relaxed and gave her a genuine smile, “It’s alright, Futaba-chan, I forgive you.”

“Can I have my phone back now, please?”

“You may,” Akira replied amicably, handing the hostage technology back to Futaba.

She smiled triumphantly before another dark look crossed her face. She eyed Goro, suspiciously, before blushing and tapping her fingers together “A-and Akechi-kun...you won’t tell anyone else about the...shipping thing, right?”

“To be honest...I’m not sure I fully understand what you were talking about,” He replied, “But your secret is safe with me.”

“I’m so proud of both of you,” Akira said with a fake teary-eyed sniff, “My two little introverts, making friends.”

Goro and Futaba broke out in protests, but a quick glare from Sojiro shut them both up.

“Wow, you’ve really got that ‘disappointed dad’ look down, Sojiro.” Akira quipped.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than raise hell in my cafe?”

“As much as it breaks my heart, yes.” Akira said, untying his apron and heading around the counter, “I’ve got a date with a pile of dirty dishes in Shinjuku.”

“You’re not taking Morgana?” Futaba asked as he grabbed his bag and jacket.

“Nah, he hates The Crossroads, says the alcohol smell makes his nose itch. When he wakes up from his nap just let him know where I went.”

“Roger that.”

“Thanks,” He said, “See you guys later! Oh, and try not to get into too much trouble while I’m away.”

Futaba rolled her eyes dramatically, and Goro, still feeling a bit lost, simply shrugged.

“Akira, text me when you get there! You know I don’t like you going to that part of town so late.” Sojiro called, and Goro had to suppress a smirk. Akira had faced down far worse threats than the red light district at night. But it must be nice, he figured, to have someone worry about you.

“Got it!” Akira replied, the bell jingling as the door closed behind him.

Futaba seemed to deflate in his absence, looking anxious. She had explained once that Akira was something called a ‘key item’ that gave her ‘a plus ten confidence boost’, and he assumed that just meant she was shy when he wasn’t around. Goro turned back to his discarded coffee, grimacing a bit when a sip revealed it to be lukewarm.

“Uh, I can make you another cup...it’s my fault that one went cold anyway.” She said, clearly trying to make things up to him, “Sojiro’s been teaching me. It probably won’t be as good as his though. I’m still totally stuck on tutorial mode.”

“Oh, um, that would be lovely.” He replied, “Thank you.”

She started the process, carefully measuring grounds as the kettle heated, “You know, you should write about Leblanc on your blog. You like the food here, right?”

“I-”

“Absolutely not.” Sojiro interrupted, joining Futaba behind the bar to supervise the brewing.

“But Sojirooo! Akechi-kun is popular, you might actually get some business for once!”

“I don’t want that kind of business. Sorry Akechi-kun, but hundreds of fangirls in here every day ordering fancy drinks and asking when their beloved Detective Prince is coming back? I can feel my blood pressure skyrocketing just thinking about it.” He replied with a chuckle, “A man my age can only handle so many loud teenagers at once, and Akira’s band of hooligans already pushes the limit.”

“Don’t worry, Saku...uh, sorry, Boss. I understand.” Goro clarified, “There have actually been several cases of popular food writers unwittingly causing small restaurants to close due to their articles increasing interest to an unmanageable level. I wouldn’t dream of doing that to Leblanc.”

“Glad we’re on the same page then.”

Futaba finished making the coffee, grinning when Sojiro complimented her technique. She eagerly pushed a fresh cup to him, practically vibrating while she watched him take a sip. It was true that it wasn’t as amazing as her father’s, but it was still good and had its own charm.

“You did well.” He said, and he couldn’t help chuckle when she broke out in a wide smile, a warm feeling blossoming in his chest at the sight.

“Yes! I leveled up! Plus five coffee making exp!”

“We’ll make a barista of you yet.” Sojiro said fondly, “Now, it’s getting late. Akechi-kun, do you have dinner plans? I’ve got enough curry back here to feed an army, you’re welcome to stay.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose...”

“Just say yes.” Futaba whispered to him with a smirk, “Sojiro put all of his stat points into feeding wayward teens.”

“Then...yes, I’d be honored.” Akechi said, too confused to be offended by being called ‘wayward’.

“The honor is ours,” Futaba replied solemnly, giving an overly formal bow before breaking out laughing.

Sojiro wasted no time serving up three plates of curry, chatting idly with Futaba as she went to flip the open sign to closed. The two of them managed to herd Goro into a booth just as Morgana trotted downstairs, asking about Akira and demanding food. Futaba poked the poor not-cat a few times while Sojiro retrieved Morgana’s food bowl and popped open a fresh can of cat food.

“Sorry,” Sojiro said, pulling up a chair and making room on the table for Morgana’s dish, “He throws a tantrum if he doesn’t get to eat with us.”

“I do not!” Morgana shouted indignantly, “I’m just too civilized to eat on the floor.”

“Chatty cat,” Sojiro replied, giving Morgana a few chin scritches.

“Morgana is family,” Futaba said sagely, “And a family that eats together, stays together.”

‘...Family, huh...’ Goro thought to himself.

“What’s up Akechi-kun?” Futaba asked, and he blushed lightly as he realized he was staring off into space.

“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s nothing,” He deflected, “The food looks delicious, Boss. Thank you.”

“Thank you for the food!” Futaba yelled before digging into her plate, and the rest of them quickly followed suit.

As the four of them shared the meal, Goro felt the warm feeling from before grow and spread through his chest. Futaba was using her fork to flick small bits of meat at Morgana despite Sojiro’s half-hearted complaints, cheering as Morgana somehow managed to catch every single one. The smell of curry and coffee and cat food mingled in the air with laughter and shouts, giving the whole room a feeling not unlike a comforting hug.

Goro allowed himself a small smile, sure that the only reason he felt so happy was the food.

#persona #persona 5 #akechi goro #futaba sakura #akira kusuru #no persona 5R spoilers #loo writes #please read my trash #long post #just in case the readmore doesn't work #Me And Mine #Text

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spellnbone · 4 years

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Dell [41] - Traveller [Magi Colegio, Mexico] Rigby [31] - Editor for Lore&Lore, Hogwarts Textbook Publishing Company -- (currently on a pre-paternity break) [Hufflepuff] Edgar [28] - Columnist for the Daily Prophet [Ravenclaw] Amelia [28] - Barrista at the Wizengamot [Hufflepuff] Colter [25] - Dragon Researcher and Reserve Ranger, Russia [Hufflepuff]

Growing up in the roaring twenties and raising herself to be a firework of a woman in the thirties, Laura Bones never wanted children. Had there been day-cares in the south of Wizarding England, perhaps she would’ve considered it, but as it was, children were but something she thought would tie her down. She wanted to travel and explore as many cultures as possible, so when a new friend, Jorge Centello, invited her to come explore the Wizarding Americas with him, she had no doubts.

Gone they were, for two entire years, and eventually friendship changed into passion and by her 19th birthday the young Witch had to declare to her parents that she was pregnant. An accident, perhaps, but she was too proud of a person to say it was anything less than on purpose, and to prove it, she married Jorge -- under the condition he took her maiden name because “do you know who the Bones are?! You’d honestly want me to take that away from me?!” He didn’t want to, and, in fact, took her name. A promise that, well, perhaps the child was an accident, but he was committed. Wild as she was, he had long given up on denying how he felt about her, and firmly believed that if he could spend the rest of his life with her, it would be a happy life.

Jorge was fiery himself, but more like a steadily burning camp fire than whatever explosion Laura appeared to be. Brave and unwavering as he was, he didn’t fear the judgement of the much stricter Wizarding Society of England, telling her again and again, even in his unbreakable vows at their wedding, that as long as they were together, no amount of rain could dowse his flame.

So, Dell was born. The young family remained unstationary as they had before, travelling the Americas until it was time for Dell’s magical schooling (age 13-19), for which they returned to Jorge’s hometown in Mexico. With his grandparents there, it didn’t matter that Laura kept travelling for months on end, returning mostly for birthdays and holidays like a child at boarding school. But she was not a neglectful mother. She taught her son all she thought important about the world, taught him about his family in England and the high sense of justice they fostered. And, being so far away from them, Dell took great pride in them. A pride akin to a niche interest, the way one is interested in certain periods of history, or dinosaurs.

Dignified like his grandparents -- who didn’t have much, but who carried the kind honour the way only humble people know how -- he put a lot of emphasis on making his family proud. Aware of his precious, bicultural heritage, he was open-minded in situations where others would be more tight-lipped, always hoping to do his name justice. He wanted to be an exemplary Bones, succeeding easily. He was well-loved at school and studied hard, which earned him a traineeship position at Gringotts in London after his graduation. Why England despite speaking English as brokenly as his father? Well, partly because he finally wanted to see all the things his mother always told him about for himself, and partly because he wanted to show off in England what admirable off-spring the Bones had produced.

The reason why Laura agreed to follow a year later? Well. Ten years ago, another such accident as Dell had happened... By the time Dell was off to England, little Rigby was almost old enough for his letter from Hogwarts, and Jorge thought perhaps it was his time to struggle with helping with his son’s homeworks, instead of his wife. Laura agreed, though her reasoning was simpler. Less pragmatic. Less humorous. The truth was, when she looked into her little boy’s eyes for the first time, those big blue orbs like her mother’s which no other Bones-Centello has, she was overcome by the strongest, deepest and most earnest feeling a person can have, a feeling which Jorge had already felt many years prior when he had first seen Laura and which had only grown with every day he had given Dell a big, long hug: loyalty. Loyalty to family. Loyalty to a need of togetherness. Loyalty to a creation of ‘home’.

It made her miss her own parents, made her miss seeing the same people every day, made her miss looking at a pile of bricks and think “this is my house, this is not just where I sleep, this is where I live.” A big, happy family, all gathered in one place, this was what she wanted. So off they went.

Rigby, who had seen Dell go through his school-career with stellar grades, wanted nothing more than to be like him. He adored his big brother. Worshipped him, really. Always followed him everywhere. All the “why?” questions typical for children his age were directed at Dell, not his parents or grandparents. Everything Dell had, he wanted to have, too. Everything Dell was, he wanted to be, too. There was a joke going around the Centellos, that his eyes were only so big so they could see all of Dell at all times, and only so blue because Dell’s school uniform was blue, like the sky and ocean sharing each other’s light and colour. In his private schooling he was studious -- because of Dell. In social situations he was attentive and friendly -- because of Dell. His clothes were always neat and clean -- because of Dell. So naturally he was devastated when Dell moved away. He tried to hide himself in his suitcase! And in return how happy he was when his mother finally agreed that they’d all move to England!

But oh dear. The shock that awaited him there... Dell met them at the Port Key and they found that their good little boy had turned into, well, into a hippie. Long hair, no shoes, and strong convictions on his lips. Whatever he had expected England to be, it had bitterly disappointed him. He had been horrified by the strict structures of the Wizarding Society there, the conservatism, the purebloodism, the way half-breeds and magical creatures were treated, everything! He had promptly quitted his job and joined a few travelling magi, and by the time his family had followed him, he had turned into the Dell we know today. And the first thing he told them as they arrived in the old House of Bones he had always dreamed to live in once, was: “I reject the heritage, by the way. I don’t want to own money that has been used to oppress the unfortunate.” In fact, he declared that all money was bad and that he’d be travelling some more now, dismantling all of society’s norms until everyone had accepted Diogenes’ teachings as their one truth.

Needless to say that his mother was incredibly proud of him and had Jorge pack a lunch for him. He’s always welcome to come back home, and whenever he does, for birthdays and the holidays, just like Laura used to do it, he explains how he denies social norms to have an effect on him through personal actions, such as helping others for no rewards, rejecting monogamous relationship structures or negative opinions on ‘bad habits’, and wearing dresses and wearing lipstick beneath his bushy beard. Every year for Yule, he comes back with more strange concepts, and every year his family gathers around and listens attentively, though never entirely capable of distinguishing his jokes from his serious suggestions.

But before all the family could adjust and grow fond of the Bones gene showing itself once again, Rigby’s little heart had to break. Seeing his brother like this, so ... different from how he remembered him? It upset him terribly. Perhaps the first time a Bones has ever disapproved of another family member’s weirdness. But you see, it wasn’t logical. It was something deep within Rigby that was shaken and, in a way, awoken. Until now, his personality had been this idea he had had of his brother. But if his brother wasn’t Dell anymore (no calculated smile left, no gender left, no shoes left), then who was Rigby?

His first two years at Hogwarts he tried his best to uphold who he thought he’d been. Perhaps to prove himself that one couldn’t just be so wrong about one’s identity. But the more aggressively he studied, the more care he took in what others thought of him, the less ... happy he was. And when his younger siblings, the twins, joined him at school, he became more and more aggravated by the day to see them taking ‘who they were’ so easily. Amelia just bursting with ideas and love to give, and Edgar floating through the halls as though he thought himself a ghost, untouchable by others anyway. Between who he was and who he wanted to be grew a chasm. A chasm only one person could allow him to cross and help him to explore: Dell.

For Rigby’s thirteenth birthday, Dell took his brother aside. The talk lasted all night. It went from the Bones’ family history and values, over fears and love and imagination, to how no one could and should tell you what is ‘right’ but the unfilled cavities of your own heart. Rigby cried a lot that night. It’s not always easy to quite detect where the thorn sits, but with a bit of luck, patience and acceptance, water washes out the wound.

Rigby never became as wild as any of his siblings. He might’ve given up to put such weight on scholastic achievements but he never quit caring for proper attires or quoting particularly charming passages from his favourite books at the prettiest boys he could find. His sense of justice, different than Dell’s, is a private one. It’s not the world he wishes to flip off, just all the factors that could influence who he is. Dell doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him, but Rigby very much does. He needs people to understand who he is, to accept him fully and to not ask him to cut himself down. Not society needs to strip itself off all judgement, but every person needs to see what is truly within them, and accept it. That is what he wants.

Naturally, his family agrees, and when he finally introduced them the -- by then (in)famous long-term -- boyfriend (and his former boss at work) he had always carefully shielded from the weirdness of his family, saying that they’d not only exchange vows next Summer but also planned on adopting a child, everyone was more than elated. Until they realised that this meant by the terms of the tradition, the heritage would therefore not be able to go to him either. He could’ve gotten a wife and have a child with her for good measure, even left her afterwards, but Rigby refused to because of his integrity to who he was. And because no one wanted to fight with him about it, all eyes went to Amelia, fifteen at that time. With a gasp she pointed at Edgar: “He’s five minutes older!” who had long realised what was going to happen and was intently hiding behind his book.

Amelia and Edgar had never any doubts about who they were. Perhaps because right from the very beginning, they always knew that they were each other’s other half. One right-handed, the other left-handed, they were able to do most anything while keeping their fingers locked, not mirroring each other -- never mirroring each other! -- they were more all the assembled parts that the other didn’t have. What one was brilliant at, the other failed, what scared one, intrigued the other, and yet their laugh had the same melody, chiming in unison as though a well-rehearsed song. At the age of eight, after leaving Mexico, where they had shared a small room, their parents could finally offer them each their own bedroom, but Amelia’s was barely ever used. Yes, they were tucked into their own beds every night, with both parents telling them a story each to make sure they’d actually fall asleep, but before the clock would strike midnight, Amelia would be hiding under Edgar’s blanket.

Thus it came, that after their first night at Hogwarts -- which both had anticipated greatly! -- they stomped into Professor Dumbledore’s office demanding another try with the Sorting Hat. By the time Rigby renounced the heritage, they had almost peaked in their independence. Like Dumbledore told them that night: them being apart had not washed soft all the perfect little puzzle-locks that had made them fit beforehand -- like glass in the ocean -- but actually created more of those edges which only the other could fit in. Returning to each other over the holidays was never difficult, but they no longer required each other to feel like a full person. The first year at Hogwarts, Edgar had tickled the pears every night, meeting Amelia on the couch in the Hufflepuff Common Room to find sleep in her arms there, the second it had been mostly every day except the few ones where they were too tired and slept through the night, the third it was mostly when they didn’t have to wake up early the next day, the fourth mostly on weekends and special occasions, and by their fifth year, it happened so rarely that Edgar had to explicitly tell the resident Hufflepuffs who he was when he entered the Common Room because they were no longer used to seeing him there.

During their sixth and seventh year of Hogwarts, Amelia stood in constant correspondence with Rigby. She had always been very close with him, trying to comfort him when Dell had left Mexico, trying to lose him up in his dark times before he turned thirteen, and trying to cheer him up when his OWLs had turned out even worse than expected. They clashed, too, being no less impulsive than the other, but when it came to it, when it was important, she was always there for him. Feeling no less awful than him whenever he struggled, crying with him whenever he worked through a heart-break, and staying up many long nights with him in the Common Room just talking about this and that. Both of them demanded to be their true selves, to not be disciplined or caged in for their needs and wishes, and this brought them closer. As Rigby grew more and more confident in who he was, Amelia grew proud of him, defending him whenever someone even dared mumbling something bad about him.

On the other hand, Edgar’s Eurasian Eagle-Owl Maxwell fluttered in at least weekly with a new letter from Dell. Knowing Dell, one could easily imagine that Edgar was heavily influenced by his principles and philosophies, but the truth was that Dell’s convictions were rooted in the factual problems one could pin point with a finger. He’s the kind of person to raise his voice when he gets heated about a topic he cares about, to accuse those who don’t live by their words with harsh insults, to actually goes through with what he preaches. Edgar on the other hand had always been soft-spoken and more passively curious about the world. When he speaks of what he’s learnt, he doesn’t offer advice, he doesn’t have unchangeable opinions or ever thinks himself more right than the kind person before him. But learning of Dell’s adventures was learning of the world out there, and that was why they wrote so many letters. And Dell? Well, Dell did patiently answer all of his brother’s questions and lectured gently through the parchment, but in truth, he too learnt from his brother open-minded way to view the universe, always surprised by what he found in those letters in the end.

Perhaps Amelia and Edgar would’ve gone on to live fairly separate lives, unwavered by what the other was doing whatsoever, forever. At first it seemed to work. Amelia went to study and do her traineeship at the Ministry, while Edgar went to travel around with Dell for a few months, then alone. They barely saw each other during that time. Loving each other still, yes, but no longer needing each other as desperately. Sometimes they joked about it. That they were grown up now. That they had done as Dumbledore had told them they would: become their own, full person. And then came the war. The Order. The first deaths. The intrusive thoughts, whispering doubt into this head that had always seemed sure of itself all these years. And Edgar found himself in Amelia’s arms again. She too saw the world changing, knowing of her twin’s secret only a few nights after the Order had sworn him in already, and she knew that whatever had happened -- they never spoke of the Order -- it had hurt him terribly. Therefore it hurt her too. By the age of twenty, they were as co-dependent as they had been with eleven. Child-like, clinging to each other, seeking each other’s warmth, feeling incomplete without the other there.

At age fifteen, when the heritage was rewritten in Edgar’s name, to be received after his marriage upon his first child’s birth, it mostly seemed like an awkward topic to talk about for him. But now? Now, at age twenty-eight with multiple failed, long-term relationships and death following his every step? While he does long for a peaceful family life, he doubts it’ll come soon. He is too anxious, he’d be distant, he’d not be able to commit to love someone he could so easily lose. Who could lose him even more easily. So his gaze goes to Amelia again, the same way it did when they were fifteen. But now his gaze goes to her because in theory she’s the one who lives the secure life, the one who could be a safety-bringing mother to her child. And his gaze goes to her because -- and no, he’d never admit it -- the idea of Amelia finding someone more important than him, makes him sick to his stomach...

Amelia wants Edgar to find someone to love that way, and she’s certain that it’ll happen for him eventually. But as unspoken as he is about it, they know they feel the same about it all. The idea he might love someone more than her terrifies her. She had a few relationships as well but the love never felt as deep, as palpable, as important as Edgar’s love, and sooner or later she’d sabotage it -- consciously as well as subconsciously --, make the other break up with her so she didn’t have to break their heart. So if he were to leave her, she’s certain she’d have no one left.

They could reject the Bones’ heritage as well. The family book into which the traditional vows are carved into and only ever need the names changed out, would probably sigh at their nonsense, but it wouldn’t refuse. These are the Bones we’re talking about, after all! When has a generation ever been easy? And as long as at least Laura Bones is alive, there’s no rush in inscribing the name into the vows just yet anyway. And who would receive the heritage then?

Colter. The youngest. The wildest. The most dangerous, courageous roaring lion that has ever lived. Being his father’s precious little treasure, he comes after him. When the Centello grandparents came to visit once, they said that Colter resembled Jorge so terribly, it was as though someone had turned the time thirty years back. And with every year he was surrounded by Gryffindors (he was a Hufflepuff but chose himself mostly Gryffindor friends), he became wilder and wilder. Amelia’s bratty influence certainly didn’t help. “Hey you go do this and see what mom says because you're the youngest and you can get away with it,” was her way to go about it, rather than acting like an older sibling. No sorrows seemed to weigh on Colter ever, no fears would ever affect his muscles, no injustice would ever pass his mind. He was the youngest and had it the easiest, never worrying about the future whatsoever. And so, when Edgar took him to the side one day and asked him how he’d feel about getting the heritage, he almost choked on a horrible laughing fit. Here he’d been, thinking to be left alone with all that traditional baggage, only to find his oldest brother a Cynic, his older brother queer as a 2/5th Knut and the twins too stupidly intense about each other to find another spouse.

He never said no, so that’s currently every Bones’ hope, but he did buy a one-way ticket as he left to tame dragons in northern Russia, so...

#{ it's rotten work }#{ wisdom begins in wonder }#listen #this is so long #it's #just so long #its a compilation of every hc ashley and i came up with so #please don't feel obliged to read this #it's ok i swear #and if you want to skim thru it it should be possible to just read the bolded stuff to give u an overview #i #yes #pls forgive

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timegal25 · 5 years

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The Odd Side of Youtube

YouTube, the popular video sharing website, has been around for over a decade. It’s had it’s over abundance of videos themed around Fortnite, “emotional apology videos” stuffed to the brim with ad revenue, a disturbingly high number of poorly animated nursery rhymes, and surprisingly graphic skits targeted at kids. But it’s also been an outlet for creative expression and connection for those outside the mainstream. For a socially awkward and isolated kid who found companionship in watching YouTube, fandom videos offered a sense of connection, belonging and reassurance that there were “odd people” out there who shared his interests and passions.

While the vast majority of people know about things like “Gangnam Style” and “Let’s Plays,” not as many can say they have extensive knowledge of the various niche fandom videos that make up a good portion of the website itself. These are the odd clips that either you only come across by looking up directly, or have randomly pop up in your recommended feed with no real reason as to why. In my case, I remember a majority of these from watching them when I was younger, and then rediscovering them when looking deep into the site on late night nostalgia binges. It’s a common hobby of mine, and it usually leads to me finding some of the strangest things as a result. Oddly, a great many of these strange finds just so happen to include Sonic the Hedgehog.

Let me preface this by saying what follows is in no way an attack on any of the creators of these videos, nor is it a call for others to go out and harass them. In fact, that’s part of the point. Many of the people who create some of the more odd or innovative content on YouTube are doing it as creative expression of who they are or what interests them. It’s a place to express a part of themselves, and it takes courage to do it. It’s easy for those who aren’t so brave to attack the creators. I actually enjoy a lot of the content I’ll be referring to because the people behind it are genuine and clearly having a ton of fun making it. This is all done in good fun, and shows just how strange and odd fandom culture as a whole can be. And for some of these innovators who dared to put themselves out there, it paid off big time just by how fondly remembered they are by those who talk about them. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin.

Part One: Hedgehogs and Dragon Balls

To start things off, let’s look at a project that is fully animated. Before YouTube, there was the popular website Newgrounds, a place where you could watch videos, play games, and just mess around. This is where a lot of influential and important creators got their start by posting their little animations on the site. On August 14, 2006, user Chakra-X (real name Aaron Cowdery), posted the first part in a three-part movie called Sonic: Nazo Unleashed with part two coming a week later and part three following in 2007. All three parts were later uploaded all into one HD remaster under the title of Sonic: Nazo Unleashed DX on YouTube in 2014. The film follows Sonic and his friends as they take on the mysterious and powerful Nazo, an unused form of Sonic from a promotional video for the anime Sonic X.

Now what makes this special from say the dozens of Sonic themed fanfics that follow a somewhat similar premise? Chakra-X did something no one had dared to do before. The animation was very heavily inspired by the anime megahit Dragon Ball Z and its then airing sequel Dragon Ball GT . The sound effects used and the presentation of special moves were ripped right from the series and even parts from the climax are just ideas presented in the show such as two characters fusing to make one new powerful being. In 2006, it was unheard of to see Sonic characters perform such high speed anime action. What was even more notable is that it was created by one single guy on the internet. The professionally produced Sonic X TV show that was airing at that time paled by comparison, even with a team of professional animators with high tech equipment.

In the decade since Nazo Unleashed originally came out, Chakra-X has been a part of various animated collabs and now works for Titmouse Inc , an animation company that has done work for companies like Warner Bros., Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and even Disney. What was even more inspiring for me, Chakra-X is a young black man . This was the first I’d become aware of anyone who looked like me being a much sought after animator. It told me that I could be him, I could be in his position if I put in as much effort and love into a creative project. And with how amazing the upcoming sequel he’s working on looks, I feel that kind of hopeful inspiration even more.

The next piece I’m going to examine is another well known series in the Sonic fandom community that also is heavily influenced by Dragon Ball Z. While it is also animated and is full of high speed action packed fights, this one has its own amazing identity. The series I’m talking about is the always spectacular Super Mario Bros. Z by Mark Haynes, aka Alvin Earthworm, starting in 2006 and going until 2009. While this series was originally created on Newgrounds, it’s real exposure and popularity came from being uploaded to YouTube.

The series follows Mario, Sonic and friends as they go on an epic race against time to secure the powerful chaos emeralds from the clutches of the evil Mecha Sonic. Much like Nazo Unleashed, the influence of Dragon Ball Z series is anything but subtle, with the plot of “good guys need to find powerful objects before bad guys” being one of the key ways to describe Dragon Ball as a whole. One of the key things that makes this stand out on its own is the fact that this entire series is animated using sprites from the games. Just about every character that wasn’t made specifically for the series has their models taken right from their games. Mario and Luigi for example come from the Mario and Luigi role playing game (rpg) series on the Gameboy Advance (GBA), while the Sonic and Shadow sprites come from Sonic Battle also on the GBA. An extra step is taken by having the characters act like they do in their retrospective series. Mario and Luigi never actually use dialogue boxes in their games, with other characters still understanding them. The same is true here with the brothers’ words never actually being seen on screen. Going that extra step to emulate the games made the videos feel more authentic.

I was relatively young and new to the internet when Super Mario Brothers Z (SMBZ) started popping up. I wasn’t fully aware of what sprite animations were, as they weren’t as easy to make or common back then as they are now, so I would see all the action and Sonic and Mario on screen together and I thought that it was an actual game. I wanted to play it so badly on my Gameboy Advance SP. On one trip to a Gamestop, my young self boldly walked up to the lady working the register and asked “Hey, do you have Super Mario Bros Z ?” She gave me this look that said either she knew exactly what I was talking about or didn’t have a single clue at all and just nicely said that they didn’t. I went on to repeat this at several more gaming stores before I realized that it wasn’t a real game, nor did it ever claim to be. It was then that I started looking for games I wanted myself because sometimes just saying a title out loud can make you look like the strangest person around.

What made the SMBZ series so attractive and so entirely different from anything found on YouTube at the time was the animated action. You might think that since the series is using pre-made assets and models, that there must be some limitations on what can be done. However, with a bit of help from some custom new sprites as well as some fast editing and sound effects, things can get insane . Being able to translate the speed and intensity of a Dragon Ball Z fight is hard enough to copy with regular animation, yet Mark was able to do this with 2 dimensional sprites and flashing lights. And even that pales in comparison to the pure adrenaline of fights concerning the series main antagonist, Mecha-Sonic.

Originally starting off as a mostly side boss in Sonic and Knuckles , Mecha Sonic became a fan favorite thanks to this series. Like any good antagonist, he can easily prove himself as a threat to the heroes while also being able to take the hits himself. This comes across easily in the series most popular episode, Brawl on a Vanishing Island . This 30 minute episode has a variety of characters going up against each other, but the mood quickly turns the second Mecha Sonic arrives and absorbs the power of the Chaos Emeralds. What follows is an absolutely brutal beatdown of another team of antagonists, the Axem Rangers X. The speed, the sound effects, alongside an amazing remix of Sonic and Knuckles’ Doomsday Zone playing in the background, this is a simply amazing bit of animation that can’t really be put into words without it sounding absolutely ridiculous. And much like with Nazo Unleashed, so much of this was done by just one guy.

After episode 8 in 2009, things basically ended on a cliffhanger with the series being presumed over. Haynes had his own life and things to deal with, and something that took up so much time to make could be easily seen as poor use of it. In the years following, many others tried their hand at sprite animations with heavy action scenes with that becoming its very own subgenre on YouTube. Then, in 2016, Mark made a glorious return with the first episode of what was basically a reboot of the series. Fans loved it, amazed to see how far things had come. And then..there was basically nothing else. Originally, Haynes had a Patreon set up so that fans could fund him making this as well as possibly being a way for him to make this his job. It was shut down, most likely due to him directly saying it was going towards the series and Nintendo seeing it as someone else profiting off their IP. With any funding that could go towards rewarding all this time and effort being taken away, as well as Haynes having more important personal things and depression, it is unlikely that we’ll see an update anytime soon. It’s been three years since the first episode went up on YouTube, and while I still hope someday he’ll return, but as someone who knows that forcing yourself to make something others want even if you don’t want to is like, the personal happiness and health of Mark Haynes is so much more important. He’s already left an amazing legacy on the net, and the stuff he’s given us is already great enough as is.

And now to go from flash animation, to sprite animation, we’re reaching the next logical step. Out of all the series discussed in this part, this one is my absolute favorite. And it is one of the weirdest things out there. Another crossover series featuring the world of Mario and Sonic, alongside a few notable others. One that’s full of action and character, and it’s all animated in PowerPoint (no, I’m not kidding), this is Chocobro Cinemas’ The “Dimension” Saga. Strap in, things are gonna get really, really weird.

The series started in 2007, with Dimension Mix-Up as it followed various characters from Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog, Frogger, Invader Zim, and Calvin and Hobbes. That was all 100 percent serious, and to the credit of both this and Super Mario Bros Z, there is a feeling of self-awareness running throughout the whole series. I unironically love this entire series from start to finish, mostly just due to the fact that there’s so much creativity and love being put into something that most people would just brush aside as another cheap fanfiction. When I originally found this back in 2007, it was like the most amazing thing ever. The computer I had at the time took forever to not only load flash animations, but even playing them took like 5 years for just a few seconds. I hadn’t really known what Newgrounds was fully back then either, so Super Mario Bros Z also wasn’t something I watched at the time, and I came across this. An action filled adventure that had characters not only from Sonic and Mario, but also Invader Zim which was still super huge at time, and Calvin and Hobbes?! To a megafan of all those things who would actually spend their time on Fanfiction.net reading stories about this stuff (Yes, even Calvin and Hobbes), this was like the holy grail. Also Frogger was there, so...that was cool?

This story should not work, these characters all being together on screen expecting viewers to care for them all should not work, this idea of using powerpoint back in 2007 to simulate animation of any kind should not work. Yet somehow...it does. Even with the fact that this is clearly just a camera recording a screen at this point, there’s something rather entertaining about it all. And the action isn’t half bad for something made with a tool that clearly was never meant to be used in this way. It can actually be creative with how some fight scenes are done. The whole of episode 6 is able to show off a giant robot boss battle with some pretty decent speed, while episode 8 can trick viewers with its looping backgrounds. The best part of this comes just from watching how not only does the quality of the video improve over time, but so does the writing and the story. Dimension Takeover and Dimension Obliteration are amazing and admittedly addicting watches that have the same level of love and care put into them as the previous two series discussed in this. Giving the fans such high quality action and adventures while also doing a really great job of making all the interactions feel like they’re from their source material. Well, at least as close and one can get when you have a hedgehog talking to an imaginary tiger and a group of cartoon frogs. I can’t say thank you enough times to the people who’ve made all their series, as my love of writing stories based on my own favorite series probably wouldn’t be as strong today. And hey, one can surprisingly do a good job with powerpoint. At least it wasn’t just a slide show.

Part Two: These literally are just slide shows!

Sticking to the topic of Sonic, he seems to be a super popular subject for crossovers. Besides Mario, he and his friends have appeared in both official and nonofficial meetups with all kinds of pop culture favorites. The one series that seems to dominate the realm of Sonic crossovers online is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic . The series itself has had quite the impressive run of nine years, with its final episodes airing this year. What probably would have been seen as just another cheap product placement by the majority of people if it hadn’t been for the rather large audience of grown up fans that for a time basically ruled the internet. While in the later years the fan base has shrunk as all fandoms do, there are still those that happily enjoy watching cartoon ponies and doing various things related to them online, myself included.

Now how does a super fast and cocky blue hedgehog that saves the day from an evil egg shaped man and his army of robots have any kind of connection to a cartoon about six colorful and talented ponies as they go through their lives learning about and solving problems with the power of friendship? Well, both are series that have similar characters with Sonic and Rainbow Dash both being blue,fast, and cocky. Both series deal with giant world ending disasters by using powerful gems and the power of teamwork. And both believe in the real power of friendship. So, yeah. There’s bound to be a ton of fan series based on seeing these two worlds meet up. And hoo boy, Youtube sure seems to love hosting a ton of them.

The common theme in all the Sonic/My Little Pony Crossovers in this part is that they’re all going to be slideshows. There might be a few clips from the shows or games, maybe a piece of fanart or two, but 99 percent of the stuff in these videos is just going to be static text. Let’s start with the...highest quality one of the three brought up in this part, Sonic X Equestria by Speedstar Productions . The plot is nothing new. Eggman shows up to wreak havoc and Sonic must team up with the cast of My Little Pony, or Mane Six as they’re called, to help stop him. When I said most of these are just slideshows... I wasn’t kidding. The entire series will go from random screen cap to random promotional images, with text overlaid on the bottom. There is no original voice acting either, with the only voices that occasionally can be heard coming from the clips or sound bytes. There is no promised sense of consistency either, as photos of the characters can be pulled from different seasons, games, comics and shows all together. In this, Sonic is supposed to have his normal modern look but some screenshots are from Sonic Boom which is a show with different designs. Another example of this comes from shots of Twilight Sparkle. This show takes place in the My Little Pony world after Twilight becomes the princess of friendship and gets her own wings. Even shots from the first episode will use photos of her without them. It’s never actually a thing that matters to the show, as it acts like everything is on model, and that we can perfectly see everything that’s going on.

Another thing that this and many others like it seem to have in common is the idea that Sonic is the one doing all the work, while all the ponies just kinda...watch in the background. Sure, Twilight will pitch in with her magic every once in a while, but if Sonic’s taking on Eggman? He’s mostly going in solo. Sure, these ponies have easily taken on things like chaos incarnate, and powerful tyrants with black magic. But a man in a giant robot suit? Too unpredictable . Sure, one could argue that it’s because the mech being used in the fight only has images of Sonic fighting it...but in a later episode , the girls join in a fight that’s entirely animated! I shouldn’t be mad about this, yet I am!

Though..despite the rant, I still find myself enjoying watching this series. I can’t fully explain if it’s ironic or if it’s unironic. Maybe it comes from the fact that everyone still acts in character to their on-screen counter parts, leading to interactions that fans wanted to see. We want to see the ponies talk to Sonic characters, and help take down Eggman. The use of actual pictures from the shows and games helps too, making us help visualize it as if it were an actual episode. Maybe it comes from the fact that it feels like something I would watch in the early days of Youtube. The kinda low effort yet also decent attempt of trying to make events appear coherent in some way, even if the images shown aren’t the most in continuity. Though, episode 11 is literally the Shadic vs Nazo fight from Nazo Unleashed. Those things aside...this is still kind of a guilty pleasure watch that I’ll binge from time to time.

Sometime last year, I was looking up Nazo Unleashed videos late one night, due to that time bringing out a large sense of nostalgia for days gone. As I was looking, I saw a thumbnail that stuck out to me. Or rather...a title that stuck out to me, as well as a runtime that had my interest set to max.

The Adventures of Sonic in Equestria Nazo Unleashed The Movie HD , by Adam Selvig, is a title that feels like it should be one of those videos that promises an upload of a current movie in HD that only links to scam sites that will give your computer a virus. It isn’t that. This is a slideshow that’s the length of a movie. College lectures aren’t this long. The best way to describe this one is that Sonic and the ponies must come together to defeat Nazo as well Tempest Shadow, a character from the My Little Pony movie. Also, Sonic and Rainbow Dash have a daughter called Sondash, which is literally just art of a child Rainbow Dash. This series is weird. Another strange thing is that a lot of the channels posting Sonic / My Little Pony stuff in series like this...usually have around 1K subs. That’s nothing to any major Youtuber, but the idea that even just one thousand people subscribe to watch this stuff as soon as it comes out..is just mind blowing.

This film is part of a series, one that started all the way back in January of 2018. The playlist for this thing says that the series as of March 4th, 2019...is 103 videos long?! And with seemingly all of them in the 20 minute range...the question becomes, how long has Selvig been working on this thing, and does he have others help him with it? And again...why is it always Sonic that seems to be doing everything around here? Are the ponies just lazy now that an outsider is here?

The odd thing is that there are so many Sonic/My Little Pony crossover videos on Youtube, but when looked into, so many of them are the exact same content. Stills and transparent photos with clear backgrounds with text overlaid. And so many are able to get these creators at least a few hundred subscribers. In a surprisingly deep sea of similar executions, are there any left that stand out above the rest? Good news, there is at least one series that goes in another direction. In more mixed news, well…

This is Harmony and Chaos by Michael Evans. While originally popping up as text on gradient background sometime in 2017, the whole series is now being voiced over by its creator. That’s all this is. Text on a background while one man narrates over it in various voices. And for the most part, there isn’t much there at all in terms of action. Now, I’m only nine episodes in this seemingly sixty plus episode run with multiple seasons series, so I might be wrong. The main focus of this series is romance, and boy is there a lot of it. If there’s a male character from Sonic and a female character from My Little Pony that interact a lot in this thing, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll end up smooching somewhere on down the line. This sounds exactly like what many seem to see fan bases as general as, writing overly long amounts of fan fiction that are also chock to the brim with romance and needless drama. In this series, Rainbow Dash is getting a divorce from her husband who she thought was cheating on her, when really he only made it seem that way so that she wouldn’t have to know that he was dying from a deadly disease. It’s a move right out of the soap opera playbook.

Despite all of this, I find myself coming back to all of these series and watching them in huge chunks. It comes from a sense of odd curiosity on how the story is going to play out. It also helps that the people behind this stuff seem like just genuinely nice people that want to post their creations online and share it with the world. It’s just that the stuff they make is really weird, not bad, just strange. And even then, it’s not the most strangest thing on the net that’s out there.

Part Three: Big Adventures, Bigger Casts

The best way to start this final part was with an image. An image that perfectly tells someone everything they need to know, as well as absolutely nothing at all. Welcome to Pooh’s Adventures , a seemingly endless number of movies and tv shows that are “edited” to include characters from Winnie the Pooh, My Little Pony, Transformers, Thomas the Tank Engine and so, so many more. I put edited in quotes because really, does this count as editing in any way, shape or form? To give a basic plot outline of just about every single Pooh’s/Thomas’/Insert Character name here’s adventure, large group of characters are inserted into popular movie or show, where they help the main character of said movie or show against the antagonist who is now usually joined by other villains from various forms of media. Rinse and Repeat for every movie ever with vague hints of events from previous adventures running into this one. Take any movie, and there’s a good chance there’s at least the idea for a Pooh’s Adventures on it. Like for example Winnie The Pooh vs. Jaws , which while not a real movie as of this writing does have a devoted page on the fan wiki . And it seems to promise quite the cast of characters.

It can actually be somewhat hard in trying to find some of these, due to the fact that they’re just full movies with other copyrighted clips put in at random intervals. Those that are still up on Youtube seem to be the ones that use the most obscure of movies as their source . And just like with the Sonic/Mlp stuff, all of these channels seem to have at least a few thousand subscribers thanks to it. Of all the adventures that still remain on Youtube, Winnie the Pooh Goes to Hotel Mario / Pooh’s Adventures of Batman Forever is the one I’m most proud still remains. There is no connection between the two, besides the fact that both Hotel Mario and Batman Forever are both seen as surreal experiences that have very little connections to their source and are enjoyed in a “so bad it’s good” way.

There are still ways to find both older and newer uploads of the various adventures online. Many of the members will just upload their older stuff to Google Drive or Dropbox , and more recently, a lot of uploads are being moved to Pandora.tv, a mostly Korean based website where they can run ads on the video.

The wiki for this fandom is massive, with there being over thirty five thousand articles as of the time of this being written, with new ones being added or updated seemingly every few minutes. Most fantasy wikis can’t reach numbers that high! Though, most of the pages on it are bare-bones with only a single line or two for a ton of characters while others are pages clearly ripped right from other fandom wikis. There’s also ideas for series that are just the title and then nothing else, along with transcripts and posters put next to dozens of dead or empty links. For a site that seems so bloated and full, it’s actually pretty empty and hollow upon closer look.

I wanted to share all of this because so much of this resonates with me in some way, even Pooh’s Adventures , since I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought up crossovers with insanely large casts that really should have nothing to do with each other.I guess in a way...I saw these all as the things I wanted to make but never knew how to. I’ve always wanted to animate, to tell my stories with these characters that I know and love to as many people as possible, to hear their feedback on all of it. That’s why I got so passionate talking about all certain moments or episodes, it’s all the things I would do! They’re people just like me, and that’s why I wish Mark Haynes the best in his life, why I’ll say the guys who work on the Sonic and My Little Pony seem like nice people. That’s why I’ll be so amazed by someone having a thousand subs or more. I see myself in these creations and the experiences of their creators. The pains of depression, the joy of seeing how their work has influenced others, the effort and care put into these things. I want to see them succeed and be supported, because that shows me that I can succeed too.

#informal essay #crossover #sonic the hedgehog #pooh's adventures #smbz #Super Mario Bros Z #sonic #super mario #Mario bros #nazo unleashed #My Little Pony #my little pony friendship is magic #dimension mix up #youtube #essay #calvin and hobbes #invader zim #fandom

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kyndaris · 5 years

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Opening Up Your World

Back when I was a penniless high school student, there were these twins I knew at Chinese school who tried to introduce me to a little known Nintendo DS game with, what they thought, had some excellent art aesthetic. Curious, I managed to find the elusive game. And for a couple of minutes, I took it out for a spin - wondering whether it would pique my interest. Though it was colourful and looked to have an intriguing story, the confusing controls and my assumption that each mission would have a real-life countdown saw me put it aside in order to finish off other quality games such as the Ace Attorney series and Pokemon Ranger.

This game was called The World Ends With You.

Fast forward a decade later and the niche cult hit was announced for the Switch. After encountering Neku and the others in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, I decided to pick the game up. Again. And after hearing many good things about the game over the years, and now with more time on my hands because I was a full-grown adult that had control of my own life, I thought it best to enjoy the things that I had to give up due to my studies.

The World Ends With You centres on Neku Sakuraba. Despite his vivid imagination, he is a solitary denizen of Shibuya. Headphones over his ears, he wants to shut the whole world out. One day, he wakes up to find that he’s trapped in a game of life and death. The only way to win is to partner with another of the ‘players’ and survive seven days.

It’s a simple premise but its simplicity belies the depth with regards to story and the game mechanics themselves. Over the course of the game, Neku is able to connect with others and broadens his view of the world. In a society where we often strive to tune out the myriad of people all around us - mostly by staring at our phones - it’s a poignant message despite the fact that The World Ends With You was released in 2007. We have become so insular and our social media feeds have become echo chambers of our own perceptions that we often forget that there are others out there. They might have different views or an understanding of how the world works. But just because it is not the same does not mean we should invalidate their opinion or their thoughts.

Only by coming together, by sharing ideas, can we truly grow and become better people. Everyone is different. And that is a good thing.

Look at how many other games that have explored the concept of a society that is uniform. In Tales of Berseria, emotions were stripped from the denizens because negativity spawned demons. But to do so also stripped people of their free will. What about Assassin’s Creed? The conflict with the Templars is all about whether order should reign or freedom. What I liked about the most recent entry: Odyssey was the fact that both were required to keep the balance.

I found it an intriging theme to explore and days afterwards began to wonder about the similarities and differences I shared with my common commuter on the train. We build all these walls around us but a potential friend could just be beside you. Yet, you might never be able to explore that opportunity when wrapped up in your own thoughts that are all focused internally.

As for the combat, the Switch version of The World Ends With You, throws aside the dual screens. Instead, players are just required to control Neku. Armed with pins, Neku uses the power of psyches to damage the Noise. These are remnants of Souls that are used by the Reapers to attack players. In the secret reports, they are often used as a tool to whittle down the prospective candidates. One pin could grant Neku the ability to summon fire. Another might allow him to throw cars at the enemy.

Each one can be activated by slashing at the screen, pressing and holding a specific button or by dragging Neku himself. I found that those that were easily implemented the best in my playthrough due to the fact that I was also battling with the motion controls on the Switch. While The Worlds Ends With You can be played undocked, the fact that I was so terrible at putting on the screen protector meant that I kept it docked and made do.

Initially, I had issues with the constant drifting. After a couple of hours, though, I managed to familiarise myself adequately enough with the controls. That and a few choice pins saw me through to the end of all three weeks, giving me a new series to fall in love with.

I also want to give a shout-out to the soundtrack. While I’m not sure if it would be as relevant in the future as it was when the game first came out, it suited the style of the world. The voice acting was also enjoyable and I loved the little mannerisms that came through of each partner’s personality during combat.

Though The World Ends With You can be a little unorthodox in its execution, the message within is just as prevalent now as it was when it was first released. Perhaps even more so as we descend into the digital age. The only puzzles that remain were: how did Shiki know so much about the rules when she first partnered with Neku? Did Hanekoma provide her some context before she headed to the statue of Hachiko about the game or were all players briefed on the rules before they woke up in Shibuya and that knowledge was also stolen from Neku as part of his price? Also...does Neku just have really good hearing or is the noise cancellation on his head phones simply terrible?

#the world ends with you #video games

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binkywinky · 5 years

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hi! Comics rec anon here! to answer your question, I'm not entirely new to comics, have read a few but not enough to say I have a specific type. The first series I read was all the jessica jones comics which I really liked, also the miles morales series which i enjoyed and the spidergwen series which was cute but the art was kinda annoying lol. i also like a couple of dc ones like mister miracle. so i think i prefer a general rec from you since the comics world is so big. thanks in advance!

Got it. Hmm… let’s see. It’s probably easiest to break it down by publisher then. I’ll try to give a mix of ongoing, finished, and “classic” stories.

Fair warning, I read a lot of comics (probably about 60 per month, and that’s not including manga), so even though this may feel like a long list, it’s short for me.

Marvel

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - Relatively new series, and it’s been fantastic so far. Great art, and a bit more grounded than the Amazing Spider-Man run (which is also great). Stellar art, too.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man - A little YA-ish at times, but overall enjoyable. You get to see a lot more of Miles’ personality in this one, which is always fun.

Superior Spider-Man - Because nothing is more fun than seeing a semi-reformed Otto Octavius try to be a hero.

Captain Marvel - Kelly Thompson does a phenomenal job with this series. She has a great hold of Carol’s voice. Would highly recommend Kelly Sue Deconnick and Margaret Stohl’s previous runs to give context (Captain Marvel 2012-2017, Mighty Captain Marvel, and The Life of Captain Marvel).

Jessica Jones - Not sure if you’ve read Kelly Thompson’s recent run or just Bendis’, but hers is definitely worth a read.

Avengers (2019) - actually a solid run. I would check this out if you’re more into crossover, large-scale storytelling. They’re in the middle of War of the Realms, though… so maybe wait until like August or September?

Immortal Hulk, Daredevil, and X-23 - also good. I read them off and on (not really my fave characters to read on their own, I enjoy them in ensembles), but the stories are solid.

Rogue & Gambit - mini series that I absolutely love by Kelly Thompson (she does great character work) that came out last year. Mr. & Mrs. X is a follow-up to it and also tons of fun (nearing its end as well).

Runaways - I fell off of this when Brian K. Vaughn left, but I can say up through his run ended is well worth the read.

As far as classic stories, Infinity Gauntlet, The Dark Phoenix Saga, X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, Secret Invasion, and Secret Wars would be my first recommendations.

I would’ve recommended Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, but maybe wait on that. It’s about to end soon and transition to just Ghost Spider (where she leaves Earth-65 and comes to Earth-616 where Peter and Miles are). Same for X-Men. I’m currently reading Uncanny, but X-Men is about to be overhauled soon. So probably hold on that front.

DC/Vertigo

Honestly, not the biggest DC fan (I lean more towards Vertigo actually), but there are a few that I enjoy.

Action Comics (starting at #1000) - I am not a Superman fan, but I enjoy this series, which says a lot. I enjoy what Bendis is doing with him in this run.

Naomi - a new series, also by Bendis, following the story of a young Black girl who is investigating the circumstances around her adoption. Don’t want to give too much away, but probably my fave DC run at the moment. And Jamal Campbell’s art is fucking gorgeous.

Dial H for Hero - it’s fun. It’s weird. Not for everyone, but maybe give it a shot.

The Flash and Batman, New 52 runs - New 52 gets shit from fans a lot, but I thought these runs were awesome. Very good story-telling.

Dark Nights: Metal event - Probably one of the best things DC did in a long time. It’s a massive event that pretty much reworked the DC universe and all the characters. Enjoyed it immensely.

Heroes in Crisis - this miniseries ended very recently. It’s a story focused on a major event that happens at Sanctuary, a rehab for superheroes suffering from mental health issues (e.g. PTSD after doing something that nearly killed them). Not your usual superhero story, which I liked.

American Carnage - very gritty story focused on a white-passing Black man who infiltrates a white supremacist organization. It’s really fucking good.

High Level - I picked this book up randomly because the cover looked cool. I’ve been reading it ever since. I would say it’s weird sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk adventure. A little strong on the language, but very interesting story and great artwork.

Birds of Prey - awesome series with the DC women. A little shaky sometimes, but Gail Simone does really good character work. Her run is probably the only one I’d bother reading.

Deathbed - miniseries by Vertigo that ended maybe a year ago. It’s so bizarre and hilarious and out there. I loved it.

Batwoman (J.H. Williams run) and Batwoman: Rebirth - Kate Kane, my favorite lesbian superhero. Williams did a great job in his run (and the art is to die for). Don’t read the back half, they change writers and it’s a goddamn mess. But then Marguerite Bennett (a queer woman) picked it up in Rebirth, and it got awesome again. Also, shout-out to Greg Rucka for officially making her queerness canon in 52.

Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman’s my fave of DC main characters (along with Martian Manhunter and Wally West I & II), and my favorite run for her is Greg Rucka’s. He does a surprisingly good job of writing women. The run is over at the moment, but I’d check it out. Good stuff there.

For classic stories, Kingdom Come, Watchmen, Flashpoint (precursor to New 52), and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman are some of my faves.

Image

Image is probably what I read the most. Definitely has the most diverse pool of comics to choose from.

Saga - My favorite comic series of all-time. I’ve gotten so many people to read this and they love it. It’s weird - really weird, actually - but the storytelling is phenomenal. And it’s on hiatus right now, so plenty of time to get caught up.

Ice Cream Man - This series is so fucking weird, but I love it. It’s sorta like… Tales from the Crypt? Different stories (mostly horror) that all feature this demon ice cream man.

The Weatherman - This series is such a goddamn delight. I don’t want to ruin the plot but just… yeah. Read the first issue and it just goes crazy from there.

Man-Eaters - Sort of a niche story. Basically, this takes place in a society where when women get their cycle, they turn into giant cats and maul men, so they’ve given them pills to keep them from menstruating. Sounds weird? Wait until you read it. Probably a highlight series of the year for me.

Black Science - You might not like the art in this one, but maybe give it a shot? These scientists are trying to solve the problem of limited resources on Earth by hopping across dimensions for new ones (infinite dimensions, infinite resources). Only problem is, their machine got damaged so now they hop uncontrollably to whatever dimension it chooses for however long it decides. It’s a wild ride.

Middlewest - An interesting take on parent/child relationships and how the consequences of abuse, anger, and depression can manifest in dangerous ways. Sounds more bleak than it is - the story actually has quite a bit of humor.

Excellence - Very new series, but with a PoC lead, about PoCs, with mostly PoC creators. A story about a secret society of Black magicians and a son whose next in line to take on the mantle, and it’s pretty fucking cool. Issue 2 comes out this week - check it out!

The Walking Dead - I don’t think I have to explain this one, do I? Zombies.

Lazarus and Lazarus: Risen - Sci-fi story set in a dystopian society where the world is ruled by like 15 or so families, and they each have a Lazarus to fight for them. This is told from the perspective of the Carlyle family’s Lazarus, Forever.

Die - If Dungeons & Dragons and Jumanji had a baby, it would be this book. Sounds weird, but once you read it, you’ll find the description to be accurate.

Anything from Brian K. Vaughn - I have yet to read something from Brian K. Vaughn that I don’t like. Saga, Paper Girls, Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Barrier… his shit’s always good.

Independents / Not Marvel, DC, or Image

Some of these are nostalgia-based, so fair warning.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BOOM Studios) - very new series that’s out. Great art. If you were a fan of the show, I think you’ll like it. It’s a re-imagining of sorts. There’s also an Angel series that just started.

Nancy Drew (Dynamite) - Listen… I could not stand Nancy Drew as a kid. Never got into it and thought it was boring as hell. But I really loved this miniseries (another Kelly Thompson run). It’s maybe 5 issues?

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Go Go Power Rangers (BOOM Studios) - Honest to God, if you had told me 3 years ago one of my fave comics would be a Power Rangers one, I would have laughed in your face. Both of these series are really good and provide the continuity, nuance, and characterization the show lacked. Fan of the show or not, I’d say it’s worth checking out if you enjoy the teenage superhero genre. Also, just some really amazing art and world-building.

Anything from Jinxworld - This is Bendis’ own publishing company. He’s put out Cover, Pearl, Scarlet, and United States vs. Murder, Inc. All of them are really good.

Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse) - This is the series the Netflix show is based off of. Right now, they’re doing Hotel Oblivion in the comics, but start with Apocalypse Suite and Dallas.

So, there you go anon. There are FAR more I would recommend, but I tried to give a good range of books for you to choose from without (hopefully) overwhelming you. And if you have any questions, I’m more than happy to talk about any of them.

#binky answers anons #binky talks comics

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amidst-snow-and-ice-moved · 11 months

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(For Elrohir from Tauriel!) ‘ even the smallest person can change the course of the future. ’

"Indeed they can. Be that the future of the world, a Quest.. or that of a loved one." there was a knowing look in silver eyes as Elrohir straightened up from assisting some of the Dwarf architects with blueprints.

"Greetings Lady Tauriel. Can I help with anything or did Oin kick you out of the medical wing for a break?" he asked quietly, aware that it was more likely the latter. not that anyone could blame the former elf Captain; for Kili and Fili had only survived through his unexpected yet timely arrival.

@swordoaths

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ambreignsfans · 7 years

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WWE’s Dean Ambrose and Renee Young: Power Couple (VegasSeven Interview)

The Las Vegas residents and World Wrestling Entertainment stars square off on the realities of life inside and outside the ring

You might have tuned in to E!’s Total Divas to see the inner workings of the women of World Wrestling Entertainment. Las Vegas resident Renee Young, a popular announcer and interviewer, is one of those featured, and her boyfriend, WWE superstar Dean Ambrose, sees his share of screen time.

Five years ago, it was improbable, to say the least, that Ambrose—then wrestling under the ring name of Jon Moxley—would be on a show called Total Divas. Ambrose had dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of wrestling professionally, training at Les Thatcher’s Heartland Wrestling Association. He made his in-ring debut in 2004, finding success in several smaller “indie” promotions. In 2009, he started wrestling for Combat Zone Wrestling, an indie that features “death matches” in which, although no wrestlers have actually perished, thumbtacks, barbed wire, cutlery, fluorescent light bulbs and even the odd power tool are fair weapons. Ambrose excelled at CZW’s bloody mayhem, winning the championship twice and establishing himself as fearless.

Then the biggest wrestling promotion in the world called. Ambrose signed with the WWE in April 2011. After a stint in the developmental Florida Championship Wrestling, he debuted on the main roster as part of a faction called The Shield. Since splitting with The Shield, Ambrose has been a fan favorite in the WWE, bringing intensity to a number of feuds. At last May’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view, held in T-Mobile Arena, Ambrose did what many thought was impossible: He captured the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, the top accolade in the wrestling business. He’s since dropped that title, but is currently featured, alongside Young, on Smackdown Live, where he is the reigning Intercontinental Champion.

It’s a path that shows the world really does work in strange ways. Six years ago, Ambrose was getting forks jammed into his forehead until he was streaming blood and powerbombed on thumbtacks in front of a few hundred fans. This year, he won the business’ biggest prize in front of 19,000 Las Vegas fans and hundreds of thousands watching on the WWE Network. But what probably means more to him is that the intensely private Ambrose snared something even more valuable: a rewarding life and someone to share it with.

Ambrose and Young talked with Vegas Seven about what he does and why he does it, with Young sharing her own perspective.

What’s it like being where you are now?

Dean Ambrose: I made a pretty good name for myself before I got here—hustling and working every single possible indie promotion and all over the world for years, and through YouTube, creating the biggest buzz I could for myself. I figured then that WWE wasn’t something I was destined for; I was gonna be a little cult hero in my own little niche. And at the time, I was totally happy with that, even though I always knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to be over there. So I think it’s a cop-out when you go, “Oh, well, I don’t wanna go there.”

Back then, nothing came of it materially, but I felt like I was as good as anybody in the world and I’d never get to prove it. Once I got here, it was about climbing the ladder. But that was all just icing on the cake.

By then, I wasn’t seeking validation or approval from anybody. The successes for me aren’t championships or any of that kind of shit. It’s that I get to do what I love and get paid for it, and it’s fun. And we get to do Make-A-Wish, meet kids and be an inspiration to people, and that’s such a blessing. How many people would love to be in that position? I was able to pay my mom’s house off, I have a home for myself, and another bonus was I was able to meet the one woman on planet fuckin’ Earth that could ever put up with me.

I feel like all the stars aligned. I’m one of those “I think the whole universe has a plan” kind of guys. And if you put enough good karma into the can, it’ll come back to you in the end. I feel like I’ve been able to put enough in by doing enough of the right thing …

Renee Young: Your karma can is looking good.

What do you have to do to get to where you are?

Ambrose: When I was a kid and first started wrestling, I would go to practice—they gave me a key to let myself in—I’d go in there and lift weights for a couple of hours and then roll around and practice. It’d be three hours of conditioning, wrestling, running, and then I’d stick around for another hour and wrestle. Then I’d go to my job and work at this factory from 11 at night till 7 in the morning Sunday through Thursday, which was the perfect indie wrestler job, because you got the weekends off. I’d get off at 7 in the morning from lifting these metal things onto hooks or whatever.

Then I’d get home and just put in wrestling tapes. I’d have guys make me tapes, like, “Give me a six-hour tape of the Rock ’n’ Roll Express,” and I would sit there and watch wrestling all the time, trying to learn. I’d see somebody do a move, and I’d head to the school and I’d try the move. I feel like I’ve watched every match that ever happened anywhere, ever. But still, you’re constantly looking at it and surrounded by it.

My first two years on the road, I did Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday—every single week for two years. I was home for 36 hours a week, if that. A lot of times I wouldn’t even go home, ’cause it just didn’t make any sense to fly from Allentown, Pennsylvania, or Philly or whatever on a Wednesday morning just to fly back on Friday morning to New Jersey. So I [would] just kick it in New Jersey for a couple of days.

What about people who say wrestling is fake?

Ambrose: We let everybody go behind the scenes and we make no effort anymore as a business to make it seem real. I don’t take myself too seriously. It’s 2017, [and] if you say wrestling’s fake, I’m not gonna flip out or whatever—you’re just uninformed. To me, there’s nothing fake about the miles that I’ve put on my body or the actual work that goes into perfecting this as a craft. I put in the same hours to get good at this as a surgeon who went to college. It’s just a much less important job in the realm of society. But as far as the man-hours you put in, it’s hard to do. And there’s nothing fake about the injuries, the risk and how dangerous this is. It’s extremely dangerous. But I won’t be offended by [the comments]; people say it all the time.

How about fan fiction?

Young: You know what I saw the other day—it must’ve been on my Instagram or on Twitter or something, but somebody tagged me in it—it was a shirt that was a picture, obviously a fan-drawn cartoon thing of just you and Roman [Reigns, a fellow WWE Superstar] in … a deep embrace. I wanted to buy it. [Laughs] It was a thing on Etsy, a real thing that I could’ve bought. It was hysterical.

Ambrose: There are psychotic fans.

Young: Insane.

Ambrose: Especially, like, I think I draw a certain … I think a lot of my particular …

Young: Fan base?

Ambrose: I have a particular demographic. I think I appeal to a lot of people who might have problems of their own [and] they relate to me. It’s cool when you can help and inspire people and stuff, but sometimes people just attach to you for strange reasons, [and] their behavior is not the best.

Like what?

Ambrose: I’ve been stalked, I’ve been—

Young: I get many a death threat.

Death threats?

Young: Well, I mean, there’s a lot of anti–Renee Young pages out there.

Ambrose: It’s actually good to make this point. But without going into too much detail, I’ve been stalked on the phone and my home and hotels, to the point where it’s a little Single White Female scary, though I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna get beaten up and kidnapped by a 15-year-old girl.

Young: I don’t know … there are a lot of steroids in foods now.

Ambrose: I’ve been stalked fairly regularly for the last two years. I have to go to great lengths to keep that shit at bay.

What if you hadn’t become a wrestler?

Ambrose: I have nothing to offer you. I can’t remember a time when wrestling wasn’t the only thing that I thought about or cared about or did or had any intention of doing. But if I would stop wrestling now and had to do something else, I think I can make a hell of a park ranger.

Young: Or a private eye.

Ambrose: I like getting into stuff; I like investigating. I’m a big outdoorsy person who fell in love with Vegas, and I’m huge into mountain biking, hiking and rock climbing. I love being outside. I love being able to see the mountains every day. So to work here … that’s not a bad job. Sit out in Red Rock all day just saying hello to people. That ain’t that bad. I’ve Googled this before, actually. That seems like a decent job, just hanging out in the park, going around, counting flowers, freeing raccoons from traps and stuff.

Young: Check out the flora and the fauna. I think that there’s definitely something to be said that when you don’t have a fallback plan, you have to just do it. It does really require all of your attention to get it off the ground, right?

Ambrose: Having a fallback plan isn’t a bad idea, but if you ain’t got one, fuck it. Just go for it and see what happens. Because if you don’t have one, that probably means you’re so single-minded that you’re gonna have the drive necessary to make it happen for yourself.

Young: You have to make it work.

Ambrose: Because if you’re like, “Well, you know what, my fallback plan is to be a nurse, but I’m gonna take a shot at this wrestling thing.” You won’t have the urgency to really go for it.

Young: It needs your full focus. I read that in a Janis Joplin book one time, and it stood out to me so much when she was saying that she didn’t want to have a fallback plan. I was like, “Oh, yeah, of course.”

Ambrose: I never looked at this as a job or a career until I got to the big-time. Then it was, “Oh, this is how I pay my bills.” Before that, I didn’t really have any bills. Maybe some rent, because I did a lot of couch surfing and being a vagabond; wrestling was just what I did. Now it’s a job because now I actually make money out of it. You gotta have that mentality.

And now you’ve starred in a movie. What was that like?

Ambrose: I knew nothing about acting or how movies were done. I had no intention, but for whatever reason, they thought I’d be good in this movie, the 12 Rounds franchise, which John Cena and Randy Orton—two of the biggest stars of this generation—had done. For the third installment, they asked me. I said, “Hell, yeah, I’ll be in a movie. Are you kidding me? Let’s do it.” And it was hard work. I got off the road, went straight to the set—14-hour days, every day for five weeks. And I got off the set, got right in a plane and was back in the ring the next day.

It was a cool deviation, something new. I found the fight scenes were so much fun. “OK, punch, kick, punch, throw him on the ground, pick him up, duck the knife, hit him in the gut, grab the glass bottle, hit him over the head.” And it was a 10- to 12-move thing; I picked it up instantly. Because I’m a professional wrestler, a choreographed fight scene might come easier to me.

The thing is, WWE performers are the Navy SEALs of entertainment. You might go out there on Smackdown Live with no net, talk for five minutes and then wrestle for 20 minutes, and at the end of it, plummet off a 20-foot ladder and through a table. You might have to do dialogue, a 20-minute fight scene and a stunt that you do yourself, all in the span of 30 minutes, all live, one take, on TV.

Young: Like entertainment boot camp.

Ambrose: We’re doing all these things live on the fly and bing, bam, boom, we’re so used to the high pressure of it.

Young: When I came to WWE, I was almost an outsider because I don’t wrestle, and I did TV shows prior, but I think the stigma that comes with WWE, of people thinking that they’re bad actors or whatever, it’s bullshit, because they have to go out on a drop of a hat. There’s no rehearsal. There’s nothing even close to it anywhere else.

It’s crazy.

What about when you have to do something you don’t necessarily believe in?

Ambrose: I’ve gotten asked to do things that, sometimes, I think, “That’s stupid.” If you do anything a hundred percent, if you commit to it, even if sucks, it’ll at least suck a hundred percent. One my favorites was when Vince [McMahon, the driving force behind WWE] wanted me to carry this little red wagon full of weapons around the ring in Brooklyn, the hardest audience that we have. And I’m getting ready for a fight with Brock Lesnar. So I’m like, “I’m about to go into a match that will be a fight to the death with the beast incarnate, who’s going to probably kill me—this is not a time for laughs. If I come out there with a little red wagon, they’re gonna laugh at me.” But he’s like, “No, you’re not even gonna look at Brock. You’re just gonna pull that wagon, put your weapons in it, walk around, go to the back.”

Young: And it was great.

Ambrose: He said, “Because it’s not a joke to you. This wagon is serious”—and in Vince’s mind, he saw it a certain way, and I went, “All right, fine, OK. I’ll drag the little red wagon, and I’m gonna drag the shit out of that little red wagon.” And I went out there, was mean-muggin’ with this little red wagon, and it was so ridiculous, but I took it seriously. They loved it, and I was like, “I cannot believe that worked.”

What’s the reality of reality TV?

Young: Doing reality TV is a different beast. He and I, we’ve always been very private about our relationship for the most part, so for us to have that on a reality show. … I’ve been doing television for over a decade. I’ve never been nervous for something to air. And I [was with Total Divas]—you’re so vulnerable. I [was] excited for people to see Dean and I and the shit that we get up to. There [were] nine cast members [and] a lot going on, but I think just delving into the relationships of so many of the people at WWE [was] really cool.

Ambrose: I hated it at first—hated the idea of it, hated the thought of it. I was like, “Hell, no.” But it’s just like any other television show. It’s entertainment.

Young: If I’m at a TV broadcast, the cameras are gonna be there and they’re following you. They’ve come to our house and filmed. We’ve been lucky enough to go on really great vacations with Total Divas. They will catch you in your moments, definitely. I think the biggest thing that tripped me out when I first started doing the show was that I would fall asleep and I’d wake up and still think that the cameras were on me. It was a very bizarre experience of always being on camera—I got over it, but it took me a couple of weeks.

Ambrose: I did a 180 on it. Once I saw how it works, I was like, “Oh, well, this is just entertainment. It’s fun.” So I was like, “I’m gonna have some fun with this.” And it turns out Total Divas is superfun. You do fun activities. I act like a goofball on TV, and even if they tried to sneak up on me and film me when I didn’t know they were there, I’m like a ninja. I can sniff a camera; I’m like a freakin’ bighorn sheep in the desert. I can sniff a camera from a hundred yards away. Nobody’s filming me when I’m not allowing it. So I don’t feel like there’s an invasion of privacy or anything weird like that.

Why do you wear a shirt when you wrestle?

Ambrose: I said, “What I’m going to do is dress as plain as humanly possible.” I’m not going to wear anything fancy, I’m not going to have fancy music, I’m not going to have fancy pyro—I’m literally just going to be a dude walking into the ring. I’m going to look like I just got off work from a construction site and I am now punching you in the face. That was my goal—be as simple as humanly possible. I pretty much stick to Hanes or Fruit of the Loom. You can wear large, you know, but you like to make it a little snug sometimes, shape the contours. It’s best to leave a little bit to the imagination, then at a certain point in the evening, in the match when the intensity is high, you get to rip off the shirt.

Young: He is a secret stripper.

Ambrose: You get a big pop for that. And then you can throw the shirt to somebody. It gives you another prop to work with. You can get your shirt ripped off or halfway ripped off, and then you look like you’ve been beaten up a lot more than you really have.

Young: You’re just a piece of meat.

#dean ambrose #renee young #vegas seven #interview

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kaijusplotch · 4 years

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I’ve got three stories on AO3 that aren’t finished...

(Not including all of the finished stories that are part of a mini-series like Sea(l-mer) life and Blind Dragon) and i want to re-write them, but i want to try and focus on one story.... So anyone wanna vote?

Here are the stories, Fandoms, and the synopsis

Survivor’s Guilt (MCU post Age of Ultron) - Vision carries a secret, one that could put everyone in danger. He cannot let one life end when it only just began, even if that life took so many before.

Crash Course in Mythology (Pacific Rim universe, AU) - Contrary to popular belief, Hermann CAN be pushed too far. Especially if you touch his parka. Newton finds out why.

Jaegermon (Pacific Rim universe, mini-jaegers and mini-Kaiju) - When the Kaiju first appeared, not many people were scared. Most of them were small and barely any danger. Boy were they wrong. They moved in and cleared out a niche for themselves in our world, and then the attacks started.Conventional weapons didn't work too well. The Kaiju were too many and some too small. Along with the fact that the little monsters caused a lot of collateral damage going after people. So they created Jaegers; 3 to five foot tall robots who could help defend towns and be in the military with one or two Rangers to help direct them.Whole units of Jaegers and Rangers were able to fight against the Kaiju Swarms and push them back. It worked. Really well actually! People wanted to buy the Jaegers for their own personal body guards, or even some as gifts for their children. A way to fund the program was practically handed to them.That's where we come in. My brother Yancy and I got our Jaeger, Gipsy Danger, and life was never the same.

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jacewilliams1 · 4 years

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Light Sport Aircraft aren’t selling well, but the LSA rule has still worked

In 2014, I stirred up a hornet’s nest by proclaiming “the LSA rule is a failure.” My argument was that the new breed of airplanes were moderately successful in keeping older pilots flying, but they had done nothing to inspire a new generation of aviation enthusiasts. Many readers (well over 100 at last check) considered this sacrilege and weren’t afraid to tell me how wrong I was. Others thought it was outrageous to try to draw conclusions so early.

Six years later, some readers have asked for an update to that article. Have Light Sport Aircraft (LSAs) taken off in popularity since then? Are Sport Pilot certificates more common now that the economy is stronger? At the risk of provoking another argument, my review of the data suggests no. The Light Sport world is still alive, but it’s a niche industry with few breakout winners. That’s not just a function of youth, either: the original Light Sport Aircraft rule has been with us for over 15 years now, plenty of time to get a read on things.

First, though, let’s be precise about what we’re measuring. Discussions about “light sport” flying include both LSAs as an airplane category and the Sport Pilot as a pilot certificate level. These are related ideas but separate; a commercial pilot can fly an LSA, but a Sport Pilot cannot fly a Cirrus.

Failures

As a certificate, the Sport Pilot certainly hasn’t set the world on fire. Less than 200 were added to the FAA rolls in 2019, compared to 27,000 Private Pilots. That statistic doesn’t tell the whole story, since many more pilots are flying under Sport Pilot privileges with a higher level certificate (for example as a Private Pilot “downgrading” to the looser medical standards). For those older pilots the new certificate is certainly welcome, but calling that a win feels like moving the goalposts: a key aim of the new rule was to welcome new pilots to the industry with lower training requirements. That’s simply not happening. In a typical year, a busy Florida flight school can add more pilots than the entire Sport Pilot training industry.

There are dozens of LSA models, but none have really caught on.

As a type of airplane, Light Sport Aircraft have been a little more successful. Just under 700 LSAs were registered last year, according to the always-interesting Dan Johnson website. That leaves the total LSA fleet at about 8,800, which sounds impressive. The footnotes matter, though. These numbers include “Sport Pilot kit aircraft,” a broad term that includes experimental airplanes that can be flown by a Sport Pilot—not true LSAs.

In fact, these kit aircraft account for the vast majority of LSA registrations last year. For “factory built” LSAs, the numbers are pretty small: only 41 Icon A5s, 60 Tecnam LSAs, and 63 Flight Design CTs were delivered last year. I’m not cherry-picking statistics; these are the best-selling models. The closing of the Sport Aviation Expo last year certainly isn’t a positive sign, either.

For comparison, Cirrus, Cessna, Piper and Diamond delivered over 900 piston singles last year. Curse those expensive SR22s and Skyhawks if you like, but they are selling much better than most factory-built LSAs. Heck, even Robinson helicopters sell better than most LSAs (142 piston model R22s and R44s were sold last year).

Causes

Why have LSA sales been so anemic? There are plenty of reasons, but three stand out. Most notably, prices have stayed stubbornly high, removing one of the key benefits the category was supposed to offer. The Icon A5 seaplane is the most dramatic example, with a price that has exploded from under $150,000 at launch to more than $380,000 today, but it’s not the only one. That sexy Carbon Cub SS can easily top $250,000 with popular options. Even utilitarian models typically cost more than $150,000 with standard equipment.

Are LSA manufacturers simply ripping off customers? It sure doesn’t seem like it: these are not high margin businesses, and most are small companies that struggle to break even. The typical complaints about product liability, low volume production, and regulation apply here, but another cause of high prices is that owners simply want these airplanes to do more than they were designed to do. “Needle, ball, and airspeed” makes a great catchphrase, but most buyers prefer “glass cockpits, datalink weather, and autopilots.”

A glass cockpit and an autopilot in a two-seat taildragger? It’s surprisingly common in LSAs.

Whether an airplane is a good value or not depends on what you compare it to. While a $250,000 LSA represents a significant savings over a brand new Cessna, that’s not the real competition. A prospective airplane owner is more likely to compare an LSA to a used Part 23 airplane, like a Piper Archer. A quick search finds some attractive models available for less than $70,000—and remember these are four place airplanes with modern IFR avionics. Yes, the airframes are older, but for the money invested they still offer a much better value.

Another reason for weak sales is flight schools, a key target for LSAs in the early days, since they were supposedly hungry for a new type of training airplane. Unfortunately, that market hasn’t really materialized. Some schools have found success with airplanes like the RV-12, and Sport Pilot-only training centers do exist. The current boom in pilot training, however, is powered by Cessna and Piper. In fact, Skyhawks are so popular right now that prices of used ones have skyrocketed (if you own a 172S, you should answer the phone!). Piper even introduced new training versions of their most popular airplane, years after cancelling a short-lived LSA program.

One final frustration relates to maintaining and upgrading LSAs, which has proven to be trickier than expected. Because the airplane manufacturer must approve most upgrades, owners are very much dependent on the factory for support. Many LSA owners have learned this lesson the hard way with ADS-B Out, a relatively minor upgrade that has required serious paperwork changes for some owners. So an airplane category that was supposed to offer flexibility has, in some cases, been harder to maintain than a 50-year old Beech.

The new cool kids

In a practical sense, the ultimate verdict comes from customer attention and business investment. In both cases, the industry has moved on from LSAs and Sport Pilots. Electric airplanes and vertical takeoff (VTOL) designs are the hot new ideas, with venture capital flooding into new companies with futuristic designs. The solution for “democratizing aviation” seems to be cheap octocopters and urban heliports, not two-seat sport airplanes. And pilots? The future envisioned by the most starry-eyed tech boosters involves no pilots at all. Don’t get me wrong: I find these proposals to be outlandish and naive. Most of these are probably years off (and many won’t make it at all), but they are where the action is right now.

Experimental airplanes, like the Van’s RV-10, are the hottest segment of the market.

While we await our Jetsons future, it’s worth recognizing the real winner in personal aviation: experimental aircraft. This is where low cost innovation is taking hold and where general aviation pilots are most excited. You can go a lot faster than 100 knots, you can fly IFR, and you can even carry four people in some models. The most exciting new Cub design isn’t the LSA model, but the souped up Carbon Cub. For traveling, the Van’s RV-10 offers performance similar to a Cirrus but at 1/3rd the price. There are plenty of other options too, from the SubSonex personal jet to the Zenith CH750 bush plane.

Customers are voting with their wallets. More than 10,000 RVs are flying today, a number that has more than doubled since 2008. The LSA registration numbers above show a long list of kits, not factory-built S-LSAs. They are kit airplanes first and foremost, and if they happen to satisfy the LSA rule, so much the better.

A silver lining

It’s not all bad news. One reason LSAs haven’t found momentum is that, like a good football coach at halftime, the rest of the general aviation industry has reacted. In this sense, the Sport Pilot and LSA rules have been successful—because they have inspired meaningful change elsewhere.

BasicMed is the most obvious example. The “driver’s license medical” that comes with the Sport Pilot certificate hasn’t proven to be a major safety risk, so the FAA felt a lot more comfortable extending this concept to Part 23 airplanes in May 2017. No, BasicMed isn’t quite as relaxed as the Sport Pilot rules for medical certification (one reason Sport Pilots will hang around), but it’s a major step in the right direction. AOPA estimates that over 50,000 pilots are flying under BasicMed—impressive adoption for a relatively new rule, and lots of pilots who don’t have any use for a Sport Pilot certificate.

Beyond BasicMed, the looser airplane certification standards also helped usher in a new era of avionics. The concept of industry consensus standards was pioneered by LSAs, and once again the industry provided good evidence to regulators that a new certification approach could lower cost without reducing safety. The steps were tentative at first, but the last five years have seen a flood of new avionics, from affordable primary flight displays to “non-certified autopilots” in certified airplanes. This is real progress for thousands of airplane owners, breathing new life into older airframes.

The future

LSA rules desperately need to be updated to allow more powerplant options.

The LSA industry isn’t dead. A recent Flying magazine edition features an ad for the Colt from Texas Aircraft, a new LSA that looks to be well made and practical. Another newish LSA is the Vashon Ranger, a $100,000 LSA designed by the founder of Dynon Avionics. I had the chance to fly one last year and enjoyed it—it’s fun and well-made, with some innovative design choices. But the Colt still costs well over $150,000, and fewer than 30 Rangers are flying. Hardly revolutionary numbers.

There is some hope for regulatory relief, which might spur a new round of airplane designs. The FAA seems serious about updating the LSA rule to potentially raise the maximum weight, increase the maximum speed, and allow electric powerplants (a critical shortcoming right now for innovative companies). These are desperately needed to prevent LSAs from being passed by traditional certified airplanes in terms of flexibility, but any such change is likely years away from being reality. By the time it comes into force, new Part 23 certification standards themselves might unlock some of the same potential as an LSA—but with fewer restrictions on performance.

In fact, the ultimate goal for industry groups and airplane manufacturers may be to eliminate the clear lines between experimental, LSA, and certified in the first place. The FAA wants to move to “performance- and risk-based divisions for airplanes.” As the airplane goes up in performance or as the type of operation goes up in risk, the requirements for aircraft and pilot certification will tighten, but without today’s arbitrary categories. At that point, LSAs might cease to be called LSAs.

No matter how you look at it, LSAs have not transformed flight training or reinvented recreational aviation. They are and probably always will be a fairly small niche. Likewise, the Sport Pilot certificate has not played much of a role in the growth of student pilots—for that we mostly have the airlines to thank. Apparently a pilot hiring boom is worth a lot more to the industry than a new certificate level.

In spite of all the disappointment, though, there is reason to celebrate. The typical GA pilot has more options for equipment and medical certification than he did ten years ago, and the Light Sport industry deserves some credit for that. US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called states “laboratories of democracy” for their ability to test out new ideas at a small scale before being adopted at the federal level. Maybe that’s the legacy of LSAs: laboratories for the FAA.

The post Light Sport Aircraft aren’t selling well, but the LSA rule has still worked appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/02/light-sport-aircraft-arent-selling-well-but-the-lsa-rule-has-still-worked/

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strongfeelingsaboutsalads · 7 years

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So I keep meaning to put together a nice little collection of character profiles. I finally got around to writing some “messy little blurbs” for them, but... they got out of hand. So much text below.

Ainbheach

Sylvari. My precious troubled boy. Something over a year old. Complicated relationship status. Recovering alcoholic. Had something of a human preoccupation right out of the pod, since his Dream showed him mostly images of them and Kryta. Traveled to Divinity’s Reach as soon as he could, and very soon ran into a particular human he was certain he’d caught a glimpse of in his Dream. They had an affair, in Ain’s eyes a grand story of fated love. Unfortunately, this was also around the time he discovered alcohol. Things spiraled out of control and the relationship disintegrated with a lot of hurt on both sides.

The following months involved a lot of fumbling around the city and self-discovery and working through the bitterness of having naive dreams shattered by reality. He’s doing much better lately. He’s starting to find a kind of peace with himself. He went through a bit of a rejection of his human-fanboyism which led him to shed some ideas that upon reflection didn’t feel natural to him, including strict concepts of gender and presentation.

He ran into his ex boyfriend again more recently. Through work, no less. And he still very much has feelings. It’s a very, very uncomfortable situation.

Arisaema

Sylvari. Gunsmith. Maybe 7-ish? Spent a fair bit of her life in the Black Citadel honing her craft, but that came to an abrupt and unpleasant end after Mordremoth rose. Between the shifting attitudes and the voice calling to her, all she felt she could do was flee. This only helped one of her problems. She did have the dubious fortune of running into a far-flung Nightmare Courtier named Cearnan and a human he seemed to have some sort of control over. Both sylvari’s main goal was just to resist Mordremoth, and both succeeded, but it was far from a pleasant experience for Ari. She didn’t even realize that Mordremoth had been defeated until some time after, when [someone who thanks to multiple reworkings of this story is now uncertain] killed Cearnan.

The human turned out to have his own complicated history and quite a bit of his own trauma. Ari took it upon herself to look after him since he was quite incapable of taking care of himself at that point. They currently live peacefully in Applenook Hamlet.

Galen Blake

Human, early-mid 20’s. Married. Very polite, but also very disinterested in the affairs of most people. Much more interested in his necromancy and his religion. And seeing as he has a particular affinity for Grenth, he tends not to think of there being a huge distinction between the two things.

Common born. Had a bit of a tiff with his parents and doesn’t really talk to them anymore. All because it’s apparently considered in bad taste to practice your necromancy on recently dead relatives. Pffft, some people, amirite? (Though in all seriousness, he DOES feel pretty bad about that now.)

The story of how he met and got involved with Rilias is one of chance meetings and unspoken longings and observant third parties trying to nudge the dumb boys in love into actually talking to each other, and it’s all much more than I can go into here.

Galen’s current social status is… odd. Rilias is technically kind of nobility, but in a loose, no-actual-power kind of way, putting Galen in the even odder position of only sort of marrying into nobility in a way that doesn’t actually offer him much of an elevation in status. But he does have access to more luxuries now, and he’s quite asocial anyway, so it works out for him.

Jeanine Cantrell

Human. A bit of a non-character in that she does have a backstory and the start of a personality I like, but a good chunk of it doesn’t actually belong in GW2. In another universe, royal badass and drag king.

Cearnabhan

Pod-twin of Cearnan. (Originally Cearnan WAS Cearnabhan, but they got separated out into two characters because I got tired of my only guardian technically being dead. And evil.) Not very developed yet, though there’s probably a whole lot of juicy drama to explore around the whole “my twin fell in with the Nightmare Court” thing. Both are pretty blueberry boys, but I suspect Cearnan got the bulk of the overt charm.

Cearnan - Deceased Nightmare Courter. Not a character I actually have, but he got some development. The twins probably started off bright and promising, quickly becoming capable future fighters of evil.

But Cearnan was starting to think. He’d heard Nightmare Court propaganda and dismissed it as such, as he’d been taught, but as he had time to let some of their ideas roll around in his mind, the more sense they made to him. He found many of Ventari’s tenets vague and unhelpful. And what tight did a long-dead centaur have to dictate sylvari morality, anyway? Still, he wasn’t certain he much cared for the Court’s methods.

As time crept on, however, he came to the conclusion that the better way he was looking for just didn’t exist. Life in the Grove was peaceful but stifling, and running off to some isolated village trying to cut himself off from the world wasn’t his idea of freedom. The Nightmare—he’d seen the Nightmare by now—wasn’t pretty, but that was the strange appeal.

Unsurprisingly, it did not go well when he finally brought all this up with his brother. They had several heated arguments over the next few days in which each tried without success to bring the other to their way of thinking. In the end, they reached an uneasy sort of truce and went their separate ways. They did not meet again.

Cearnan turned out to be quite good as a Courtier. Charisma was his tool. He could make people feel comfortable around him and present his ideas gradually in the most appealing possible light. There were plenty of young sylvari who could be convinced to follow his lead. Forcing the issue was a last resort. He always maintained a sort of disdain for those among his number who seemed to enjoy the chaos and destruction too much. He did start to understand where they were coming from as he embraced the Nightmare more fully, but there was still a goal to meet that required focus.

The story of how he ended up dead all the way out in Ascalon is a whole other thing that I’ll write up another time. (Only partly because it still has a couple holes I need to work through.)

Chwilen

Sylvari, 14 years old. Initial interest in necromancy had a very artistic bent to it, focusing on craftsmanship, an understanding of anatomy, and an eye for form. As time passed and her talents grew, so too did her awareness of the word around her. She had an idealistic streak and a sense of wanting to be useful to her community that drove her into the fight against the Elder Dragons. She found a niche with the Order of Whispers, were someone small and quiet with the ability to quickly summon a small army of backup proved helpful. And when the Pact eventually formed, she was part of it.

The fight against Zhaitan was quite possibly her peak. The risen, while not quite the same as her minions, were still something she felt she understood and could handle. She was at her most confident and focused on a clear goal. And of course, there was sometimes the presence of a certain Firstborn whom she idolized.

Mordremoth changed everything. The Pact which had become her community was torn to shreds. She, so used to being the minion master, was now feeling the pull of another’s will. She’d come to think of herself as one of the protectors of Tyria, but that felt like a thin sham against her now certain knowledge that she was created as a tool of Mordremoth. She’d always been a good follower.

It took every ounce of her will to make it out of the jungle without completely losing herself, helped in no small part by her brethren and thoughts of the friends she’d made in the world she wanted to protect. She had to convince herself that the feeling of wrongness was just the dragon’s mind games. She didn’t entirely succeed at that, but she did press on.

The worst part of it all was that she felt very little relief at Mordremoth’s defeat. She’d done the right thing, she must have, but she didn’t feel like it. Word of Trahearne’s death only left her numb. It seemed portentous. Something more fundamental to the world than an enemy had died. That idea scared her more than Mordremoth ever had.

She tried to keep working with the Pact to help them rebuild, but she was thoroughly burnt out. Worse than that, the unspeakable sense that perhaps Mordremoth should have won stuck with her. She lived with friends for a time while she tried to settle back down into a life without thinking about the Elder Dragons. She has been doing much better lately, though she tries to avoid too much news about recent activity. Some of the things she’s heard stir up the old feelings that she may not have been on the right side after all.

Culcasia

Sylvari. She has a pretty sword and is my warrior. That’s literally all.

Ferthainn

Sylvari. No real development. But leaf puppies! Three of them. At least. (Ranger pet, sylvari elite summonable, and mini.) He probably cares for them or raises them or something. I’ve decided to justify the summoned that he can’t just wander around with all the time as being a rescued hound that the Court was trying to turn. So it’s a bit touchy still.

Ikallis

Charr. Not very developed. The most terrified looking of charr and/or the sweetest grandma charr, I can’t quite decide. I told myself I’d come up with a warband for her “later,” but it’s been years and that hasn’t happened so I don’t even know anymore. Keeps devourers.

Jattzil

Asura. Revenant. No character.

Alaric Landi

Human. Noble. Pretty boy who hasn’t quite found his niche or his confidence yet. One of my too many magic nerds, with the twist being he’s not… Well not any good at it. At all. Probably a fair bit of tension with his sister Amara since she’s the competent one. At least he can use a sword and shoot straight.

Amara Landi

Human. Noble. Needs development. Mesmer. Sister of Alaric. Probably the one actually running things.

Liathann

Sylvari. Magic nerd. Probably very water focused and possibly some earth? Possibly some other areas of interest. Escort boyfriend who’s also a history nerd. Probably a fairly casual sort of thing. Not very developed yet, but he’s a very pretty twig.

Ilta Lightweaver

Norn. Needs development. Cute little sylvari girlfriend who’s not actually that little for a sylvari, but norn. Probably one of my low-combat characters, with something nice and mesmer-y for an occupation.

Mari Ovesdottir

Norn. The smallest and daintiest of norn. But with firearms. And a baby griffon that’s probably canon. Needs development.

Lynette Rhodes

Human. Lesser nobility. Aromantic. Lesbian. Tends toward a lot of friends with benefits arrangements. Not to be mistaken for detachment or flightiness, she cares very strongly about maintaining friendships and alliances, just if you’re looking for romance you’d best look elsewhere. A lot of what she does is with the ultimate goal of building allies, status, or funds to maintain her family’s somewhat tenuous position. Notable part of a couple other character’s lives: Employed Galen for a bit and is responsible for him meeting his husband; Chwilen’s partner on some Order of Whispers business, as well as one of the aforementioned friends with benefits arrangements. Pretty close with Chwilen, actually.

Calanthe Riverwind

Human. Common. Might have a girfriend? Has a twin sister, Catrione. (Also I think a brother, oops I don’t do enough with her and the brother belongs to someone else.) Cat’s the more outgoing of the two and an unrepentant flirt, while Cala tends to be the quieter bookish one. While Cat is more likely to be the troublemaker, it doesn’t exactly take much convincing for Cala to run with it. Not to be mistaken for meekness. Mess with her or get her angry and she will respond with fiery passion. Quite possibly involving literal fire.

Garrick Selway

Human, common, jeweler and keeper of dogs. Needs development.

Tetchii

Asura. My oldest character and holder of random crap that doesn’t fit in my bank.

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