#I actually liked ORC a lot despite the fact they put up some really weird ideas in there

[cainite-bite]

What do you think about side spinoffs for resident evil like opperation racoon city, mercinary mode, outbreak and so on?

tbh I actually don’t mind them. I know that’s a not so welcome opinion as far as most people go but I actually have had a lot of fun with them. Merc mode is always a classic, outbreak and some of the others are interesting looks outside of the usual same 4 characters we typically get. ORC to me is also fun, but it’s just meant to serve as mindless entertainment and for me it does a good job at that

#Biohazard #I actually liked ORC a lot despite the fact they put up some really weird ideas in there #but i view it no differently as what the prototypes for RE4(one of which became dmc) or RE8 #but at the same time i knew ORC wasn't going to bug me in the same way it does everyone else #because to me resident evil has never been horror its always been a pewpew fest #because RE has never ever been scary because its about trained people good at combat killing zombies #there's no scare in safety nets #and ORC still falls into that #none of it's a masterpiece but I will say ORC does easily have some of the worst writing but thats what you get with popcorn fests #my fave spinoff though is revelations 2 #1 kinda sucks ass and I can't deal with it but 2 is by far my favorite #and i like the chronicles games #darkside was pretty damn fun imo and i love it more for covering CV #plus I love steve and krauser and claire so thats a fucking triple bonus #Anonymous

[radiantmists]

i feel like this is gonna be an unpopular opinion but i sometimes see people talk about grizzop as a sort of paragon of logic and morality and it always bugs me.

bc like. yes, i love grizzop. and i think it’s clear that he is very much trying to be good, and he’s very committed to doing what he sees as the right thing. 

but the same are true for azu and hamid and plenty of characters, and i don’t think he’s any better at moral reasoning than most of the rest of the party. i think the impression that he is comes from his unshakeable confidence and his mastery of what I’ve started to think of as catholic logic. 

(this is fairly stream of consciousness and i’m not gonna tag it bc it’s not gonna be entirely coherent or especially well argued, i’m just getting some thoughts down. but my understanding is that sometimes untagged stuff shows up in search, plus ig i have followers, so feel free to reply and discuss this, i’d actually love that. but not much i say here is stuff i’m super confident about so... please don’t get too offended by my wrongness. just tell me why you feel im wrong without aggression, or move on.)

the first bit is the confidence. we don’t ever see grizzop have a moral crisis in the way that most of the other characters do. I can’t think of a time that he’s appeared to look back on something he’s done and wonder if it was wrong; the closest that occurs to me is when he regretted shooting the guy’s legs off in the cairo bar, but tbh i think that was more of a judgement error where he expected to hurt the person much less than he did. we don’t see him question things like flooding the orc town near damascus or dragging sasha into the politics of ancient rome when she didn’t want to be, and honestly, i think this lack is mostly to do with how short a time he was with the party.

most of the arcs he were present for were focused on hamid and sasha’s growth. where he played respectively the accuser and the protector, both roles that made him look good because they cast him as the arbiter of who was right. 

i think hamid, especially, bought into this in the cairo arc, because i think hamid is very consciously in the process of recalibrating his moral compass at the time and he has a marked tendency to do so based on the people he admires-- and the loudest voice in the room. hamid really doesn’t like people he admires having a problem with him, and he already felt that he wasn’t necessarily a good person, so he was very open to seeing grizzop or azu as the authority on whether he could be good, and since grizzop pushed where azu prevaricated, grizzop was the one who got the final say.

but in the same arc, you can see sasha and azu starting to question grizzop’s moral compass; sasha notices how legalistic grizzop’s judgement is, and that it really ought to condemn her too, while azu takes issue with how brutal grizzop’s methods are (see punching wilde). but neither of them are willing to press the issue with him at that point, and so he’s never really confronted with something that contradicts him.

and notably, grizzop’s confidence comes from the obvious source: he believes that artemis is inviolably good, and he knows she approves of what he’s doing because his powers still work. but there’s an arrogance here, too, a very strong belief in his own moral superiority with the slightest confirmation; look at rome, where he refuses to listen to azu and ed’s assertions that there’s something wrong with the gods there, because he was able to bull through to artemis the one time he tried, so obviously he must just be a better paladin of a better god, right?

grizzop has very strong beliefs and opinions, and he takes whatever route works best to fulfill them-- both in terms of actions, and in terms of logic. take his decision to forgive/endorse hamid near the end of the cairo arc: by his own assertions, people should experience consequences for their actions, and we know he knows what manslaughter is because he brings it up when hamid first starts talking about accidental murder. but where saleh and carter belong in jail because they’re ~bad~, hamid is allowed to continue on because he’s ‘trying to be better’, never mind that that  was hamid’s whole argument about why saleh didn’t deserve to go to jail. plus, saleh’s one goal when he thought he’d killed someone was to resurrect them, which imo makes a lot more sense as a redemptive gesture than going around killing entirely unrelated people. the rules are different because grizzop likes hamid (and probably a bit because ben didn’t want to break the party, but shhh).

this twisting of the logic to fit what you’re trying to prove is what i mean by ‘catholic logic’ (i’m catholic dont @ me); it sounds really good if you don’t think about it too hard, but in fact it’s generally post-facto rationalizations for decisions that have already been made.

grizzop is very enthusiastic about poking holes in other people’s moral reasoning, as we see with apophis, but i think his issue is that he’s got a blind spot when he looks at himself and his own decisions. in grizzop’s world, grizzop is right as long as artemis is still with him and everything else comes after.

now i’m personally of  the opinion that alex doesn’t bother/want to engage with the idea that gods take away powers, post-poseidon nonsense, which if true i sympathize with; doing so is either going to lead to the sort of inscrutability zolf had a meltdown over, or put a player in the weird position of making their character do what alex has decided their god would require or having to entirely reinvent the character without those divine powers.

on another meta level, my understanding is that grizzop  was designed to be very resistant to doubt because of ben’s difficulties playing zolf, so i think he might have been nearly as resistant to growth on that front as bertie was in general, because believing unshakeably that he’s right is a core element of his character. 

but i think if grizzop had lived longer, alex absolutely would have done some hammering at that absolute conviction. that might have come in the form of vesseek and the fact that grizzop is apparently an absentee father; even if he is sending home money, i can’t imagine that not being something that gets mined for angst. 

i also think he would have eventually come into a similar sort of conflict with azu, sasha, or cel (whoever was there) that zolf is in right now, where he absolutely believes that whatever killing he’s committed/intending to commit is not only right but a moral imperative, and they disagree. 

now whatever side you fall on in the barrett debate, i think grizzop ought to be a lot less willing than zolf to say ‘i’m not gonna go through you lot to do it’, not because i’m convinced grizzop would be hugely more willing to physically fight the rest of the team over it, we know that despite his practicality he seems to overlook some ‘’’wobbles’’’ in people he already cares about,  but because zolf is capable of giving up on something in a way that grizzop just isn’t. i dont know how that would play out; chances are, it would get interrupted by a fight, but. who knows.

#stopping not bc i think its a good ending but bc im out of energy #i welcome other people's thoughts but i know this isnt v coherent sorry

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Tanana.”

This was super fun to write this morning. A little bit funny, and I always enjoy hurting Adam a little, accept in a fun way this time no angst.

Hope you guys like it :)

Just a little bit closer.

The small creature looks on innocently munching on a crop of moss. It has four large eyes, two on either side of it’s head, six legs and is about the size of a small to medium-sized dog. It has really long ears, and if it stays still long enough, it’s going to be my dinner.

I scoot closer over the rock arm raised to the low ready, the spear clutched tight in my right hand.

The creature lifts its head.

Shit, it must have heard me. In my panic, I make a decision out of haste and throw the spear. It goes wild and clatters across the stone. The Drev rabbit takes off, and I am left standing stupidly in the middle of the open field weaponless and looking like a jackass.

“Tsa din dasdarish darat?”

I nearly leap out of my skin, turning around to find Hijan standing a few meters behind me near a coiltree.

“Shit, hijan, do you really have to sneak up on me like that.” 

The old drev looks at me in amusement. I Know she doesn't understand most of what I am saying, but somehow I  think she still gets it.

“Zha deengan.” I say, one of the first phrases I learned how to use. Being able to say I’m hungry is very important in any foreign language.

She tilts her old wizened head at me, “tsa tin danehanish ee dengish?” You were going to kill and eat that?

I shrugged, “Yid zha deengan.”

She crosses her arms, a habit she’s picked up from me, “ene tsa deengan datadish zha dadee sa deeng datahaik.” IF you were hungry I would have given you food.

I sigh, she wouldn’t get it, but still she walks over and hands me a miss twist. I call them that because of their distinct shape, kind of purple and in a strange sort of spiral. When you dry them out they are crunchy like chips though not particularly salty.

I munch absently on the weird plant? Fungus? And she absently plays with my hair. I try to shrug her off, but she’s a lot like my mother in the way that she won't let me be. I am about 100% sure she thinks I am one of her Drevlings. Which has caused a bunch of interesting changes in my life as of recently, not one of which was her decision that I wasn’t colorful enough.

Apparently Drev see humans a lot differently than we do. They can see the way the UV light interacts with our skin. She describes thousands of little spots which turn into swirling stripes. When I asked her to describe the color she said it was similar to turquoise or blue, though I obviously can’t imagine it.

Makes me jealous as hell though.

However, she said my “Carapace” wasn’t colorful enough. When I asked her what she was on about she clearly meant my hair and my nails, which are made up of similar stuff to the Drev carapace.

Long story short, I now have green hair and nails.

Yeah yeah, laugh all you want, but whatever the hell she put in my hair is not coming out. And when I say green, I am not talking like a nice moss green or forest green. I am talking like the color you paint your new Lamborghini kind of electric green.

Not to say that I haven't had my nails painted before, but never this color, and never in tandem with bright flaming green hair. Don’t know why everyone associates me with the color green. I would say it was only my second or third favorite color. Either way, I look super weird as of late, green hair green nails, no shirt, no shoes, and a slowly expanding five-o-clock shadow.

You know I am not a big fan of beards, mostly not a big fan of them on me, but I forgot to bring a razor, so in that department I am kind of fucked.

I mildly wonder if she is going to make me dye my beard green when it finally grows in.

She makes me grab my spear, grabs me by the hand and drags me back towards the village. She doesn’t let go of my hand. I don’t try to fight her, she is stupidly strong, and despite being a grown ass adult, I am apparently her child now.

The other drev find her adopting me very, very funny, but at least now that she has they don’t call me dazhit anymore. The last time someone called me a bitch in front of her, she kicked the crap out of them. I thought it was pretty funny personally. They danced around the circle like a loon expecting her to be weak in her old age, and she just stood there then jabbed them in the throat with the butt-end of her spear when they weren’t expecting it.

I laughed so hard I cried.

Ever since, they have treated me with a little more respect. 

We make it to the village, and with one hand she pushes me off towards the training grounds as if to say, “Go join the other kids.”

I sigh and roll my eyes but go.

The last time I tried to skip out she almost had my hide.

I go at her bidding meeting up with the others who are around my height. Hijan watches sometimes, and she has made it very clear that the kids deserve to get the shit beaten out of them. I don’t like it much, but these kids don’t seem bothered when you knock them around. In fact, most of them like it.

I think our trainer is a bit mad that I can actually fight.

I smile to myself 

Now that I do fight, I am at the top of the class.

The kids think I cheat, difference is I have different training than they do, and a lot more experience in combat despite what the Drev seem to think.

“Tanana! Naktan ts adon.” Tanana, my nickname, or my drev name I guess means alien. Hijan doesn’t like the name much, so she calls me tsata which means gift. Personally I am pretty flattered she thinks that about me.

I walk into the circle at our leader's orders and Dark ‘the other kid’ steps into the circle across from me. He’s an ugly little shit, and I’m not just saying that. He’s a dick to me on most occasions. When our teacher isn’t looking sometimes I make fun of his coloring, that usually shuts him up. I should probably feel bad for making fun of a kid, but I really don’t. He's a dick and everyone knows it.

Problem is now he has a bit of a vendetta against me, and is pretty hell-bent on putting his spear through my throat.

Good thing we only fight in hand-to-hand combat these days.

“Aleeshazh!” 

The kid does not wait till the end of go before he is charging at me hands wide Some of these kids are under the impression that guarding your center is like…. Dishonorable or something. They would be wrong because even Drev now it’s stupid to come in arms wide open. However, at this point I’ll take what I can get.

I dodge past two sets of arms and come in sharply towards hims middle. He has reach on me, so I go in close and brutally aim for what I am hoping is his liver, if Drev have them. My single punch has him staggering back across the circle gasping.

The teacher does not look happy.

I feel kind of smug.

Of course the little brat won’t give up, I’ll give him that, he isn’t a quitter, and charges for me again.

He’s making this too easy, 

I wouldn’t call myself a martial arts master or anything in the slightest, but before he knows what’s happening, he’s on the ground with my legs across his chest. I pin his lower arms with my right leg squeezing his upper arm between both. I have tight hold of his wrist, and just as he begins to squirm, I slowly place upward pressure on his elbow by arching my hips upward.

If I wanted to I could snap the joint.

Damn I love a good arm-bar.

He squirms and squeals for a couple of minutes as I continue to apply pressure until the teacher eventually tells me to knock it off.

I let go and he frowns at me. He doesn’t approve, but there isn’t uch he can do. My move wasn’t against the rules or anything.

He looks at me for a long moment eyes narrowing at my unconcealed expression of pride, and a hint of smugness.

I can see he wants to wipe the look off my face, “zha jasti tsa jej atatchan teeya dzhalakat.”

I grin, “Of course I am too skillful for children. Surprised it took you so long to see that.”

He does the drev equivalent of a frown. I know he can understand most of what I am saying, unlike others, but I think it still annoys him when I speak English.

Tough luck bro, my mouth goes way faster than my brain, its one of my worst qualities. If it didn’t I’d speak Drev More, but for now it was going to take practice.

“Ene tsa ditan atatchan juhkee tsa tehish zheengat s dzhal.”

Well shit. 

His if you are so skillful than you can fight with the adults was not an encouraging statement.

I honestly hadn’t meant that to come out as dickish as it did, but now  I was definitely already regretting my decision to be a smug bitch.

Guess that is what karma does to you.

I see Hijan at a distance, watching as I am dragged over to the next training field. The Drevlings follow at a distance chirping to themselves excited to see me get my ass beat.

We come up over the rise just as one of the training circle is in session. 

Two Drev go at each other with spears so hard sparks are flying. Their feet cut tears in the moss as they push each other across the stone. As we come up one of them is hit in the head so hard they are knocked completely out of the circle.

“Dazhit.” I mutter

Our teacher and their teacher stop to speak at each other. I can see them staring at me pointing and speaking quietly with each other. 

The older class adjusts themselves and looks on in great interest.

I don’t know these guys well, but I am pretty sure I am about to know the butt of their spears pretty well.

I sigh and shoulder my own spear, which…. Is significantly shorter than everyone else’s.

I’m not self-conscious.

“Tanana daeen hajish.”

I walk over as ordered my spear still over one shoulder.

“Tsak nantan tarik.” Your new teacher 

I lower my head, “Tarik”

She seems amused and motions towards the circle, “Tanana ts adon. Zha nin tsa tehish darat zhegingi jastat.” get in the circle, I want to see what you can do.

Oh, great.

I do as told stepping into the circle as she calls one of her students forward. She’s a light colored Drev, the color of cream/orange rose petals. I am pretty sure the Drev would consider her pretty…. Did I mention that she’s at least two feet taller than me?

No

Well she is.

She rams her spear butt into the dirt, and I swallow hard.

The Tarik waves a hand and we begin to circle.

I hold my spear like they taught me, though I am much better at hand-to-hand combat. We test each other for a minute moving forward and back, watching each other’s guard. Of course, she strikes first though.

I dodge out of the way quickly, expecting to come in and wrap her across the back of the knees, but she spends around and blocks me at the last moment. We connect together so hard that my hands go almost immediately numb.

She brings the butt of her spear around, and I am just barely able to duck under it. She comes at me again, and I step back as the spearhead slices past my chest.

My eyes go wide as I stare at my almost evisceration.

I barely look up in time to block her fro the side.

The hit makes my bones hurt.

I flick my spear up trying to catch her in the face, but she knocks me away with impunity.

She has me backed against the edge of the circle.

She doesn’t expect me to make it out. Too bad I have seen way more action movies than she has. As she cuts over me, I slide under the cu on my knees skidding over the rock and past her into the center of the circle. 

She turns to find me and barley blocks my strike.

I’m doing pretty good.

This isn’t so bad.

That’s when the kid gloves come off, and she strikes me so hard and fast I can barely raise my spear to block her. A vicious second later she comes in with the killing blow, or the crippling one.

Did you know you can knock someone out by hitting them hard enough in the liver?

Yeah I didn’t know that either, apparently the body sense major trauma and is just like nah fam I am not about that life. The vagus nerve gets activated too.

So there I am lying on the moss and the dirt curled up in a ball trying not to vomit or pass out.

I can hear that little gremlin Naktan laughing in the background.

God I hate him.

And I am in SOOO much pain. I am pretty sure my liver has been ruptured pretty sure I am going to die right here on the face of the planet.

I groan, “Hijan… help…. hijan .”

Yeah yeah practically crying for my mother like a wuss. I know no need to point it out 

But guys, I am dying. Or at least I am pretty sure I am.

Luckily for me she shows up and eventually the others leave. I can feel her running a hand through my hair, which would be nice if I wasn’t pretty sure I was dying 

Turns out though, I wasn’t dying, I am just pathetic 

[reinekes-fox]

@varart​

Some dramatic writing for my MC, and an aesthetic under the cut.

Words: 1.687

They needed a distraction and as soon as he saw the pole he knew what he would need to do. They didn’t need two agents after all, surely Atin would be fine without him. A part of him didn’t like it, remembering the stares that made him feel both desired and dirty. He could turn people heads by just undressing, a talent -at least that’s what he liked to call it... it sounded better to him than stripping- that he never thought he would have to use ever again. The other part almost looked forward to it, to this exercise that showed him he was able to perfectly control his body and movements, to make it look effortless and almost ethereal. He made his way over to the platform, Quinn the one to gently stop him while Atin just looked at him confused. Off course Quinn would be the first to understand his intention. For a moment he seemed almost scared but that had to be a trick of the quickly flashing lights. The music almost loud enough to drown out the elf’s words. „Are you sure about this, Xaver?“ Poor Atin still didn’t seem to get it... or maybe he didn’t want to. Knowing a trusted colleague used to work such a job? Surely it destroyed the picture Atin had about him...

„It will be a good distraction.“, he made sure his hands were dry and tried to ignore his faster beating heart. From fear, excitement, disgust or the fact that Quinn seemed almost like he was about to go up there himself?

He was quicker than the elf, making sure that others stayed safe was his job after all, and on the stage  the familiar view he had on the crowd made him almost feel like nothing had changed at all. Colourful lights, loud music that he could almost feel in his veins, all eyes on him... he would earn some money, go home to a family that hated him, or maybe spend the night outside, just wasting time and getting into trouble just to do something? He took a deep breath, those times were over. Different time, different bar, different him. He wasn’t a scared and angry teenager anymore, he had a purpose now. Still he couldn’t quite shake of that feeling as he slowly started to move, almost immediately falling into the rhythm of the music and doing some easy but impressive looking movements on the pole to get a feeling for it. It was easier, falling into old habits, smirking provocative at the customers, too easy for his liking. His favourite part, teasing them with his looks, his slowly removed clothes, he could even pull that off with ugly clothing if he just moved in the right speed, and showing what they couldn’t have. Selling pretty illusions and nothing more, seeing the hope die in their eyes when they realized they were only allowed to look, the surprise when he proved to be stronger than he looked like, but not always strong enough. The scars in his face only added to his charm, they gave him something dangerous and mysterious, an unspoken question as to what exactly happened there and made him more interesting. Not like something delicate that only looked pretty, he was pretty sure he had some werewolf in this weird family tree of his, it gave him strength despite looking like a graceful doe... Who knew, maybe some other race was the reason why he was tiny but that probably had just been his bad luck in the genetic lottery. It made what he was able to do even more impressive, everyone fooled by his looks. Off course it did nothing for him when he became an agent and he had been strangely happy about it. He began to unbutton his shirt, he shouldn’t do that now, he should just stop and get off the stage, back to the normal life. Where the air didn’t smell like alcohol and too many people dancing in a room, where there was no music that made his body vibrate with the bass, no people staring at him like they wanted to own him... He blinked and the music seemed to be muffled, blood pounding in his ears, his heart hammering in his chest and he felt the sweat running down his neck, his muscles burn under the by now unused exercises. But he still moved, he couldn’t stop now, not when he managed to get everyone’s attention. He could feel the stares, in his hazy mind like barely tamed beasts that would devour him if they could and seemed to burn his skin. He wasn’t sure how he managed it, but he stopped, bowed with a playful smirk -it felt unfamiliar on his face, his lips dry and hurting like he carved that smile into his cheeks and sticking glass shards into them so he would stay smiling and looking pretty- and left trough the back. He also wasn’t sure how he managed to leave the building itself but the cold air helped him come back to his senses a bit. His legs began to shake and he sat down, surely he didn’t dance that long? Shivering he pulled his still open shirt around him, and took the phone out of his pocket. Missed texts from all three, but the mission had been a success. It felt almost surreal they were worried about him... he hadn’t been the one to do the actual mission after all. When a hand was on his shoulder he flinched, but calmed down when he realized it was Quinn. The look on the elf’s face was painful to watch and Dathan wanted to ask him who hurt him, but no sound left his mouth. Atin and Roga stood a few meters back, looking at them to make sure he, and probably Quinn too, were alright. Quinn slowly reached for his face, so that he could pull away whenever he wanted. The warmth made him realize how cool his skin was, for how long did he sit here, and he was surprised when Quinn gently caressed his cheek, wiping away the tears. When did he start crying? He had no reason to cry! „Come, lets get you home. I bet Roga can make you something to calm down, how does that sound?“ He managed to nod and slowly stood up, hating himself for behaving so damn weak in front of everyone. Angrily he wiped across his eyes, half expecting his fingers to be covered in that cheap shit glittery make up he had worn back than. It had looked good on stage, that had been all that mattered. „Sounds good.“ he finally managed to say, proud that he sounded perfectly normal. He could almost ignore his still open shirt, his still hammering heart and all that stuff that went wrong with him. He was an agent now, his badge his shield against all the shit from his past. His hands were shaking and he angrily stuffed them into pockets, the air too dry when he breathed in. He missed the small warmth and well known smoke of a cigarette but no way he would bring back more ghosts from the past! They could stay exactly where they were now, on that graveyard in his mind, where he buried them with his bare hands. The grey smoke that would vanish within seconds wouldn’t help him, but only pull him back in that old life he worked so hard to leave behind. Plus it took him ages, to get that smell out of everything he owned and he really had no desire to repeat that. But his thoughts kept going back to that bar. „How many people call you Xavier?“ He looked up, Atin stepped closer, it was clear his colleague was worried about him. But distraction always worked and he smiled thankfully at the tall half orc. „A lot... It’s not like I don’t pronounce it clearly! There is no i, stop forcing it in! Unless it’s the nickname.“ „What is the nickname?“ Dathan began to slowly close the buttons again, his fingers still cold. „It’s Xavi off course.“ Nobody said anything and when looked up they looked at him like he just grew a second head. „...What?“ he asked slowly and Quinn just laughed, before casually putting an arm around his shoulder. Trying to ignore the weird angle because of the height difference, which was easy because Quinn’s touch did distract him from nearly everything and like always when Quinn did something like that his brain turned into mud. But this time mud was welcome, it blunted the sharp and ragged edges of the memories and let them sink back where they belonged: deep into the back of his mind, locked away until they managed to claw and bite their way out again. „It sounds so damn cute!“ Atin was grinning too, probably thinking about the countless situation where he could use it. „But come on, lets go home.“ It felt easier talking about it here, in the safety and comfort of his own home. He was safe here and his past was far far away, too far away to hurt him except in his own head. „I can do that shit in high heels too.“ Atin nodded, thinking about that new piece of information to that puzzle called his colleague... that puzzle had gotten a lot of new pieces today and it changed the overall picture into something darker and much more depressing. „So, why don’t you wear them more often, Xaver? You clearly have the balance and you would be taller. No offence, but we all know you hate your height.“ Dathan just snorted and took a sip of the tea. „Sure. But you explain this to Jakeman afterwards.“, he tried to recreate Atins voice, but he sounded too high, who knew maybe there had been a siren too in that ridiculous mess that were his ancestors, „Sorry, Stark broke his ankle while chasing a criminal in 12 cm high heels and he accidentally tripped.“

[paradoxcase]

Something that isn’t really communicated well in the movie when they are speaking to Saruman at Orthanc after the Ents have destroyed Isengard is that Saruman’s voice is actually magic, and he casts spells by speaking that make people agree with and believe him, and also distrust people who contradict him.  In fact, this whole chapter in the book is called “The Voice of Saruman” and there’s a lot of description of his voice having an effect on the Rohirrim who came with Gandalf and Theoden to meet with Saruman, they are even verbally agreeing with what he says in some places despite just having fought the battle of Helm’s Deep where Saruman clearly tried to wipe them all out with a huge army of orcs.  There’s some tension in that until they speak you’re not really sure that the regular normal people like Eomer and Theoden are going to resist Saruman’s spell and there’s even a time when it’s not entirely clear if Gandalf is under the spell or if he’s just given Theoden his space to say his piece.  They do make his voice a little echoey in the movie, but I think there’s no real good way to portray what was described in the book.

Most of the dialog is straight from the book in this scene, until Gandalf starts asking Saruman for intel and Saruman pulls out the Palantir and starts talking about some new evil thing that Sauron has planned in very vague terms, but before he can actually say anything useful he’s killed by Wormtongue.  None of that happens in the book at all, Gandalf is actually pretty well informed about everything that’s happening at this point, before meeting with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli he had just got back from a grand tour with Gwaihir the Eagle and seen a lot of stuff from the air, he also communicated telepathically with Frodo when he was at Amon Hen, etc.  It’s also not true at all that Saruman is “deep in the councils of the Enemy” as movie!Gandalf puts it, Sauron consistently hide shit from Saruman and Saruman doesn’t have any real idea what he’s doing.  The movie seems to imply that Saruman gets some insight into Sauron’s mind via the Palantir, but this is not how it works in the book.  And, as far as I remember, the movie never follows up on this and reveals whatever evil thing Saruman was talking about here, when it’s made to seem like it’s actually important.  Are we meant to take away from this that Saruman was bluffing?  Saruman and Wormtongue also do not die here, and actually reappear in the story at a later date, but I guess Peter Jackson didn’t want to include that part of the story and didn’t want to leave everyone wondering what happened to Saruman, so he included this little drama with Wormtongue.  In the book, Saruman simply slinks back inside after Gandalf breaks his staff.

In the movie, Saruman’s first words to Gandalf are to accuse him of wanting the keys to Orthanc, Barad-dur, and the staffs of five Istari.  Which is kind of weird, because Gandalf hasn’t said anything yet, and also, this makes it sound like Saruman is accusing Gandalf of asking Saruman for these things, which makes no sense, since Saruman can’t give Gandalf most of that stuff anyway.  But this is a line of dialog from the book, it’s just been taken out of context.  What happens in the book is that Saruman first tells Gandalf he should ditch Theoden, basically telling him that he is too good to associate with the likes of the Rohirrim (this is the context where he describes the people of Rohan as brigands and ruffians, which in the movie is used to trigger Wormtongue’s reaction) and asks him to come up into the tower so that they can work together.  To which Gandalf tells him that he won’t come up, but if Saruman comes down and surrenders the keys to Orthanc and his staff Gandalf will let him go free wherever he wants, and won’t sic the Ents on him, etc.  It’s at this point that Saruman accuses Gandalf of wanting all five staffs, and the keys to Orthanc and Barad-dur, which makes total sense, since Saruman is working off of the assumption that Gandalf wants similar things to what he wants.  Saruman also addresses Gandalf as Greyhame in the movie, which is odd because Greyhame is specifically just the name of Gandalf in Rohirric (modernized, because Rohirric is supposed to be essentially Old English).  Perhaps we’re meant to connect this to when Theoden called Gandalf Greyhame when he was possessed by Saruman, as if it were an insult of some sort, but it actually just means grey-cloak, it’s not a pejorative at all.  There’s also no real reason to think Saruman might be speaking Rohirric here, as opposed to Westron, especially since at least Merry, Pippin, Legolas and Gimli probably don’t know any Rohirric.

In the book, the Palantir is thrown down by Wormtongue, who may have been aiming for Saruman and may have been aiming for Gandalf.  What’s interesting about this is that the previous day, the Ents did their utmost to destroy Orthanc, but although they managed to destroy a lot of the surrounding stuff in Isengard they were not able to really do any damage to Orthanc because Orthanc is Super Magical.  But when Wormtongue threw the Palantir, it crashed down and actually destroyed the stairs, which the Ents were not able to touch.  Unlike in the movie, when it has at this point been shown being used multiple times, in the book we don’t yet even know what the Palantir does.  There was a reference very early in the Fellowship to a seeing stone that the Elves use, but it is in no way connected yet to this thing that Wormtongue threw.

#lord of the rings #lotr #saruman #gandalf #palantir

[theartofbeinganeldar]

The Art of Being an Eldar: Legolas x Reader Prologue

Summary: You're a fantasy-loving, LARPing human from this world, who's the black sheep of society because of your obsession for the unreal and alienation of what's real. When you're in the middle of a LARP battle with some pretty phony boars, you fall out of a tree and bust your head. You wake up, alone, and are suddenly attacked by some very pissed-off, very real wargs. Without any idea of how you got there, you got dropped into Middle-Earth, with only bits and pieces of memories of Tolkien's masterpiece, though your recollection of everything else is perfectly clear. And of all places in Middle-Earth, you got dropped into Mirkwood, with some suspicious, potentially hostile, Woodland Elves...

Chapter No.: Prologue

Key: [Y/N]=Your Name [F/N]= Friend's Name [B/N]= Bro's Name [S/N]= Sis's Name [M/N]= Mom's Name [e/c]= eye color [h/c]= hair color [s/c]= skin color

Notes: So, this is my first fanfiction on tumblr, and I'd thought I'd try it since I have very little time for DeviantArt's chaos. It's much different from my Legolas x Reader on there. I added a small loving family to make the emotions relatable-- even if you don't have siblings, or have more than what I added, it's just fanfiction! Also, I tried to make my pronouns for said reader gender-nuetral so that everybody can enjoy it! The reason your character is so wild is for the sake of not fitting in to this world, yet you're used to it, so that later points in the plot can become more... Well, you'll see. And yes, I made Elves pansexual because I don't think they'd care much about gender or age at that point. LARPing plays a big role in the prologue, because your character is really into it for personal reasons. If this isn't your cup of tea, don't drink it. I hope you like it! Feedback, likes, and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

Warnings: Fluff, angst, graphic depictions of gore and violence (Cuz of orc battles y'know?), more angst, slow burn, some light depression in the first few chapters, some amnesia about Middle-Earth because the Valar say you're not supposed to have foresight, hard-core language, feels, lots and lots of feels, mentions of NSFW content, maybe some eventual NSFW content, LGTBQ+ characters, Thranduil being a jackass at first because he's fabulous, Legolas being a hot edgy prince that nobody can handle, Kili being an innocent bean, Hobbits being smol innocent beans, except for Bilbo 'cause he's been through some tough shit, Bard being dad of the year, Thorin being one dumbass boi, awesome dragons, awesome Nazgul, awesome scenery, awesome stuff in general, Elrond isn't listened to by anybody, confused Aragorn is confused,  Denethor's a bitch as always, brace yourself for creepy as fuck Cream of Wormtongue Grima Wormtongue, Boromir lives, Gandalf. (yes these are all legit warnings don't judge me.)

Pairings/Ships: Legolas x Reader, Legolas x you, Aragorn x Arwen, Faramir x Eowyn, Thranduil x Elvenqueen, Galadriel x Celery Celeborn, Boromir x OC, Thorin x OC, Fili x OC, etc. general LoTR standard shippings plus some of my own cuz I can't stand my boys being lonely

Word Count: I try to keep my chapters short, under 2000 words.

Rating: Teen (14+) for now

You'd never been considered normal by anyone. You enjoyed LARP instead of reality. Your "job" was just staying at home and captioning videos all day every day you weren't LARPing instead of interacting with society at a normal job. Your home? A tiny studio apartment that only cost $450 a month without bills, and you did without cell phone, car, and electric for the sake of being your weird self. You hadn't been to college yet, despite the fact that everyone told you to go once your gap year was over, and it almost was. What would you even study? Acting was all that got you close to who you were, so, ok, guess that's fine, but nobody else thought of that as a career. Maybe you could write fiction-- you were good at that much.

You weren't always like this. There was a time when you were just a normal kid, living a normal life. But somewhere around ten, you started to change, and by sixteen you'd become who you were today. If the Old You could see the New You, you weren't sure if they'd think you were weird too, or if they'd stare up at you in awe.

Hopefully it was the latter, which made you feel good.

I mean, come on, were you born in the wrong timeframe or what?! That's what you thought, anyway. There's no way that this world was for you. The fact that nearly all people were heartless jackasses that enjoyed destroying the planet, the fact that everybody had to be the same or were considered freaks, prejudice and injustice were key factors of life and the rich got handed everything on a silver platter while the poor had to scavenge... Just, everything of this reality made you hate it. If only you'd been born five hundred years earlier, or, y'know, in Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings...

You'd really liked to have been born in Middle-Earth. You had so many books about it, you knew practically everything there was to know, even the confusing shit about Faramir being in the Fall of Gondolin. You'd practically memorized Elvish, and dwarvish, and you knew the whole six movies by heart, every line. And of course, like most Lord of the Rings fans, you had a massive crush on a certain Elvish princeling who was too pretty for his own good. In fact, Legolas was who inspired you to learn archery; maybe one day you'd be as good as he was.

Despite your wishes, you were stuck in reality, however much you hated it

. Even amongst your LARP groups, you were considered outlandish.

Everybody else had normal lives outside of their games, whereas you pretended this was your life. You didn't have any job aside from the small caption jobs you did when you weren't LARPing, no social life, nothing. The only people you had was your mother, brother, sister, and your only friend, [F/N]. They accepted you and your strange fantasies, even if they thought you'd one day regret acting in a way when you could've been beginning a normal life and being productive.

So excuse you if you decided to invite them to a LARP event and let them borrow some of your costumes. It wasn't the end of the world. But your LARP group apparently didn't get that memo.

"You invited your mom?!" A royal asshole sneered, yet you took satisfaction in the fact that his knight costume looked like it was made of cardboard painted silver, whereas your sci-fi Elf getup was actual leather and cloth. His name was Jacob Brent; you'd never really liked him. He'd always had it out for you because your costumes were so much more fabulous than his. Plus you may or may not have actually known swordplay and archery and dagger throwing and martial arts... Kinda. You were still in the process of learning kickboxing.

You cocked a sky blue-- yes, sky blue-- eyebrow to your equally bright blue hairline, spiked up in a short faux hawk. This was your first sci-fi Elf, and you'd wanted to go all out. A cocky grin split its way across your face. "Yeah, so? It doesn't effect you on any level, Tin Can."

He sniggered with his cronies. "I can't believe you don't have anyone else to come with you." He mimicked rubbing his eyes like he was four. "'Oh Mommy, I need somebody to come with me!'" His whole group burst into laughter.

You surprised them by joining in, actually appluading. "Oh, wow! Wonderful, just wonderful! Hey, should I tell Mindy that I seen you feeling up Roxie behind your fort last week?" He paled, and almost everybody in his group of crappy cosplay got 'o' faces. You put your hands on your hips. "Guess what, asshole, just 'cause I'm close with my family and you're not with yours doesn't make it a crime to hang out with them. It's my life, my decision, and I enjoy spending time with them." You hefted up a disappointingly fake spear, turning to walk away. "Oh, and by the way, your paint's chippin' off."

Reason for Hating Reality Number 6, 965: Immaturity levels are almost incomprehensibly high.

Your mom glared daggers at Jacob's Immaturity Harem. She'd always been a tough gal, always sticking up for you when you got bullied when you were younger, but now that you were an adult, she had to let you kick ass yourself; you were pretty good at it. "I don't like him." She stated casually, and you chuckled.

"'Course you don't. He looks like a cheesy robot costume you'd get from Wal-Mart with a too-big crotch protector that's not impressing anyone but himself, and he has the face of a roasting pig. Too tanned, too grubby, and always with something in his mouth."

She smiled slightly. "Has he always been giving you trouble?"

You swung your gear pack off of your shoulder, letting it yank itself down to earth. "Since the day he tried kissing my ass 'cause he didn't know me." [F/N] must've overheard that last sentence, because he burst into laughter when he approached with your brother, [B/N], and your sister, [S/N]. "You talking about Jacob?"

"Sure as hell."

You'd first met [F/N] a year ago, when you'd joined extra-curricular activites for your last year of high school. He thought your personality was incredibly brave, especially in this modern world, but even still... He was just a friend, not a best friend. You'd never had that luxury outside of your tiny family. You just didn't trust him after the life you'd had.

Unfortunately, it seems they didn't like the getups. "Do I have to wear this?" [B/N] asked dramatically, slumping over. He didn't look right in the pauldrons and leather breastplate.

"It's too heavy!" [S/N] complained.

You sighed theatrically. "My piteous children, deal with thy armor, for it must be worn despite thou complaints."

[B/N] pressed his palms together and bowed down. "Screweth thou, false companion."

You mimicked his bow. "Off to hell with thee."

"Hey! You guys! It's starting!" [F/N] cried, and ran off, his pack of weapons and magic bags trembling dangerously on his back. The rest of you followed more slowly, as you explained to your family how exactly LARPing worked. Battles weren't actually bloody, magic was just colored powder, you get points for a hit, and so on and so forth. [B/N] and [S/N] got it immediately, but your poor mom, who hadn't even ever played Skyrim, had no idea how the point system and leveling up worked. You had to explain it six times over before you'd reached the massive gathering of LARPing cosplayers. [F/N] returned to you as you reached it, carrying a map. "We were in Larsgyushter Prairie last, right?"

"Duh," You shrugged, at the same time [S/N] asked with a grimace, "Luckyestire Prairie?"

[F/N] inclined his head. "Well, I made some arrangements because your family joined us. We made for Glewnburg, where we picked up their characters, and then headed into the Elder Woods."

You took the map. "Sounds fair enough."

[S/N] frowned. "What exactly were you guys doing last time?"

[F/N] blushed; he must've liked her, which made you feel proud and like pummeling him all at once. "A quest to defeat a horde of wildebors in order to get a good amount of gold."

"How much?"

"Four hundred."

Your mom seemed confused. "Is that a lot?"

"For the land of Sisgremor," You retorted, "Not much. But it's enough for us. We hunt for food, and sleep in the woods. It's summertime, so we don't have much need for shelter unless it storms, and we know where to find caves. The coin is for some new bits of armor, and some weapon upgrades and a couple of magic books for [F/N]."

"Oh," Your mom said, and you took the lead, getting into your Elven character with a huge grin on your face.

"Come, my children! We must meet the bors by midday!" You ran off, but you didn't miss the looks over half of the LARP community gave you.

~le time skip~

The one thing you didn't like about LARPing was the enemies. They weren't believable and were crappily dressed, at least in your community. They were crappy actors and their dying acts were unrealistic. Unless they were orcs that had good makeup skills and good cosplay, they weren't worth fighting, but you had an imagination to kick them up a notch.

As always, the wildebors were just some guys in black outfits decorated with needles, and wearing pig masks with an underbite bearing tusks. Your imagination knocked them to eight-feet long beasts with bloodstained tusks, wild red eyes, and porcupine-like needles that shot out of their near-impenetrable hides if provoked.

You'd only fought these beasts once. They had three separate healthbars, each a different strength: eight hundred, four hundred, and one hundred. Your spear-- the only weapon you could afford after your bow snapped (Poor prop craftsmanship.), had a damage rate of ten health per hit, thirty if you could make a three-combo move (The highest combo move allowed.).  [F/N]'s magic bombs, bolts of energy, and other magic stuff only varied from ten to fifty health damage per hit, except for his Fyrering, which was a once-a-day power that was ninety health damage, plus a three minute window of burning which took ten damage every thirty seconds.

The boars were also viscious; one hit from them took around fifty health, and at level nine, you and [F/N]'s health bars were only at two hundred and fifty, plus your armor rating of fifty and his of twenty. Your family, however, were only at level one, with a one hundred strength health bar each and armor ratings varying between ten and fifteen.

In short: that meant a hell of a lot of hits, very little openings, and there were always numbers to consider. There were six of them, and five of you. If you had your bow, this would be easy. You'd climb a tree, avoid their needles, and fire your twenty-five damage arrows relentlessly (With the thirty plus bonus from your actual bow.) while [F/N] pelted them with magic. You could take down two, maybe three that way before retreating, waiting for your strength to regenerate and your undamaged arrows to "respawn" before coming back for more battling (The arrows don't actually exist, for safety reasons. You had to wait for ten minutes before an approximated number of arrows, determined previously by the quest-giver, "reappeared" in your "inventory.").

But you had to think of a new plan. A brand new plan. You had three level one novices, two level nine intermediates, and six angry-as-hell wildebors that were level twenty. This was an impossible quest. You should never have accepted it knowing your family was coming.

You were hiding behind a huge oak, and glanced around it; for a split moment, you saw the crappy actors, but your mind quickly fixed that. Above and to your immediate right, [F/N] hid behind a mound of boulders up on a hill, and you'd positioned your family similarly. You just couldn't see them. [F/N]'s hand waving caught your attention. Frantically, he pointed above you. You whipped your head up, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. You gave him a look like WTF dude, and he rolled his eyes. He picked up a rock as an example and pointed back up into the branches, but still, you didn't see anything. He gestured again, almost forcefully, and this time, you seen it: brightnuts, a specialized kind of walnut bred specifically to explode into a bright white light on impact, with dangerous shrapnel and poisonous fumes that had one hundred and fifty health damage.

Of course, in reality, they were just blue and white beanbags hanging in nets rigged all over the branches, but you pretended they weren't.

But still, perfect.

You'd start calling out orders as soon as you started throwing them. [F/N] knew how to improvise to a plan already, but your family didn't. You propped your spear up on the tree, and started climbing, wincing when the bark scraped your palms; you were wearing what'd used to be white bridal gloves, but you'd tinkered with them to match your costume, sewing sky blue patterns into the gloves.

You personally didn't make a sound, but a couple of leaf-covered branches fell; luckily, wildebors were mostly deaf and blind, so you should make it to the top of the tree without any consequences.

You flashed [F/N] a triumphant smile when you reached the topmost branches, snatching a bag of brightnuts and holding them high above your head. He shot you a double thumbs-up, then made a wheel-like gesture to get you to move on. You stuck your tongue out at him, then readjusted yourself on the branch to get a good aim.

A few seconds of struggling against the knot, and you'd gotten the net open. With barely a minute of hesitation, you drew your arm back, and fired. Your aim was almost perfect. You hit one of the wildebors in the side, and you seen the actor as he started the most over-acted reaction you'd seen yet: a violent jump, then what sounded like a deranged "Guuuugh!" You rolled your eyes. So dramatic.

Either way, [F/N] whooped behind you. "Hit! A hit!"

Before you could give any orders whatsoever, [B/N] charged down the hill with his realistic-looking wooden battleaxe bellowing a war cry. You slumped over. "Aw, shit."

In the blink of an eye, [B/N] was officially dead but still pummeling the poor actors, your mom didn't know what to do, [F/N] didn't realize what was happening from behind his rock, and [S/N] was dodging air like a boss. You waited on the branch until the coach of the actors stood, took off his mask, and blew his whistle.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You with the axe! You died already! Come on everybody, regroup, come on..." Your mom and [S/N] were laughing it off with a couple of the actors, but [B/N] was having a heated argument with the rest of them, and they were starting to shove each other around; he'd always been a sore loser. The coach separated them, and [F/N] called to you from below. "Guess we failed this quest, huh?"

You shrugged. "It's all good. There are other, less dangerous quests."

He perked up. "Yeah, so hurry up and get down here! We've gotta get back to Glewnburg!"

You tossed the beanbag you'd had in your hand back into the net. "Comin'." Unfortunately for you, you were a bit of a show-off. You stood, stretching your arms out for balance, walking quickly and carefully across the bough. A loud snap that echoed through the forest silenced everyone: your sudden movements had weakened the branch down the middle, where a split was slowly cracking open.

"Oh shit." Did I have to choose the top branch?

Everything seemed to be in slow motion as you fell. Your ribs exploded with pain as you slammed into a slightly lower branch full-force. Your ankle snapped. Your arms were whipped and bruised. Your head cracked painfully across the thick, unmoveable base of one branch, and white and yellow dots burst in your vision. Your sight started to fade, as did the pain, until you met the ground with a dull thud.

I should've went to college.

~time skip~

When you woke up, the first thing you realized was, Hey, I woke up! I'm alive! which was immediately followed by, Holy fucking shit what the fucking hell did I break, then a much more painful thought of Why the fuck am I still in the goddamn forest? 

And you were. You were laying on your side, in a couple of very small but still immensely terrifying pools of drying blood, one of which came from the corner of your mouth. Your entire body throbbed painfully. Every breath you took caused sharp, white-hot pains to spiderweb across your entire torso. Your ankle was burning up, and you couldn't move it or your left arm. Your head felt like you'd been hit by a truck. A truck made of solid wood...

Why were you still in the forest? You knew your mother well enough to know that she've panicked. She'd've screamed your name and ran to you and called 911 immediately. [F/N] would've done the same. In fact, there was no reason why they wouldn't have called for a medic. You fell from the equivalent of a three-story building with poles sticking out of it.

By all accounts, you should be near death.

So why were you still in the forest, exactly where you'd fell?

With immense effort, you rolled onto your back, panting heavily and wincing against the pain. Your vision swam, and things were blurry. The trees were different; the tree where you'd fallen from was tall and branchless for most of the way up, and definitely not an oak. To boot, there weren't any nets full of beanbags, and your spear was gone. Behind you was  a cliff with an outcropping of rock that looked similar-- but not the same-- to the one [F/N] had been behind. There were roots and underbrush and bushes and walls of thorny branches surrounding you, and in between the ground was filled of orange and gold fallen leaves; up in the canopy, which hadn't been as thick before, the leaves were all dressed for Fall. You stared at it in confusion. "What the hell?" Shit. Even that hurt.

Where were you? Why weren't you in an ambulance with the sirens blaring? You were pretty positive you'd broken quite a few bones, and from that fall, you couldn't not have internal bleeding. So where were you?

You waited, but no one came. When the sky started to darken and the pain began to worsen, you were forced to move, slowly getting up, inch by inch, until you'd managed to be in a sitting position. It felt like all the blood rushed from your head and torso, making you cold in the evening chill. You hugged your right arm to your chest, really wishing you'd've worn arm cuffs or something; your short, high-collared, sleeveless, sky-blue leather jacket over a thin white crop top and a black corset-style belt really weren't meant for chilly weather.

"Hello?" You called out. Your voice carried on, but you got no return call. Blood trickled down your chin from where your lips had rebusted; you were lucky you hadn't bit your tongue off or shattered teeth. "Hey! Help!" Still, nothing. "Hey!"

After a twenty-minute bout of screaming for help, you gave up. You were confused-- so, so, confused. Where were you and why were you here? Where was your family? Where was [F/N]? Where was the coach, and those shitty actors? Hell, where was the rest of the LARP group? You'd even be relieved if Jacob appeared out of nowhere.

The moon had risen by the time you’d made it to your feet. Your ankle wasn't as bad as it was earlier; you could put some weight on it now, even if it wasn't a lot. You must've only sprained it. You tried calling for help a few more times, but only the crickets replied.

Then, they went silent.

You frowned. In books and movies, that was usually a bad sign. What'd caused them to shut up so abruptly? Not aliens, you hoped, like in Signs.

A low growl from behind you-- behind you, dammit-- made your skin crawl. A chill ran down your spine. You turned, slowly, hoping you wouldn't aggravate the wolf or coywolf or whatever it was; it wasn't either of those.

It stood on top of the small cliff, and it was at least the size of a horse. A boar-like coat, dull brown, covered its entire body, spotted in places. Its head was broad and massive, bearing an underbite of fangs and small beady eyes. Drool fell from its jaws as it snarled at you. You were half tempted to try the "Nice doggie" before you seen the rider.

Damn, it was ugly as hell. Small, malformed, with dark green skin and a crooked nose. Greasy, thin hair hung from its wrinkled scalp. Nasty claws protruded from its wart-covered fingers and dug into the horn of some kind of saddle. It sneered with an evil grin, and a mouthful of sharp teeth.

You didn't know what else to do; you took off running at full speed, ignoring the pains shooting up your leg from your sprained ankle. Branches and weeds whipped your skin, trailing blood. You glanced back once. The monster-- which you knew was an orc-- and the giant dog that you couldn't place the name of watched you for a couple of moments more before the orc gave a sharp order in a language you didn't understand, but it felt familiar. Two more of the giant dogs burst from the bushes on either side of the first, and they did give chase. Shit, were they what'd happened to your family? Some whackjob dressed as an orc riding a pitbull on steroids mauled everybody?!

You pushed yourself to run faster. Your heart pounded in your ears. Adrenaline rushed through your veins. Each step jarred your aching body, but you couldn't stop. The dogs were enjoying the chase, keeping their strides slow enough to still be on your heels, but not close enough to get you yet. A new sound-- a river, maybe-- gave you hope, and you tried to move even faster, your lungs burning from the strain.

It was a river you'd heard, but it was down a steep hill filled of arching roots and thorny bushes. You didn't have time to stop; you barreled forward, tripped, and rolled the rest of the way, hurting your body even further. By the time you reached the pebbly shore (With all of the sharp edges of the rocks jabbing into you unnecessarily.), the dogs were halfway down, the orcs riding them laughing like hyenas.

You couldn't swim, but you'd rather take your chances with the river than with the giant pitbulls. You waded in, and were immediately swept off your feet by the strong current. It dragged you under, and you were bashed into some boulders, getting cut up badly. One slammed into your hip, nearly causing you to suck in. Another rammed into your already-broken ribs, and this time, you did scream, getting a huge gulp of water. A crimson cloud engulfed you as something long and sharp burst through your calf. You were pushed up against another boulder, and you grabbed on, hauling yourself out of the water and hanging on for dear life, hacking and coughing out the water that'd filled your lungs.

The dogs had chased you up the shoreline, and the orcs carried shortbows with arrows of dark wood. A glance down and, sure as fuck, they'd hit you with one in the calf, dammit. You looked ahead of you: rapids, a slow and drawn-out death. Ahead of you, probably a very painful death, but hopefully it'd go faster than drowning while being battered to a lifeless corpse.

I should've gone to college.

You squeezed your eyes shut tight and braced yourself for the next arrow, but you were pretty much forced to open them again when you heard the sound of dogs yelping and orcs wailing. One of the dogs was dead, neck slashed open and pouring blood onto the rocks. It had landed on its rider, who struggled beneath its weight. The other dog had taken off, but its rider had an arrow jutting out of its face.

A troop of warriors, clad in forest-colored tunics of dark browns, greens, and grays had appeared in the second you'd closed your eyes. Every one of them had long, straight hair, braided away from their faces. Most had a quiver of arrows and a longbow, but some, like the one who'd killed the dog, had a curved longsword. Others still had long knives. Compared to the dark orcs, these people seemed to almost be made of light...

Oh shit.

Elves. These were Elves.You could see it clearly now, in the way they carried themselves: regal, majestic, every move perfectly balanced and smooth. Their ears were pointed, but not drastically like the ones from Zelda, and they were taller than most average men. You were in awe.

These were some damn good actors.

No, they couldn't be actors. That clicked, finally. Especially when you were able to see the one that'd killed the dog slice off the struggling orc's head cleanly and deftly before kicking it into the river. Thankfully, it didn't come near you.

Shit. These were real orcs, real giant bloodthirsty dogs, real Elves... This was all real. But how...?

You heard the sound of a bowstring being pulled taut, much closer to you. You couldn't exactly whip around in your current state, but you still moved as fast as you could. Another Elf, standing on the flat rocks halfway across the river, no less than thirty feet away. How the hell did he get there?!

After the initial shock passed, you realized there was an arrow nocked in the bow. You'd already felt one once in the last ten minutes, you didn't need to feel it again, so you stayed still. He watched you with eyes so blue you could see them from where you were. He was illuminated from the side by the moon, giving him an almost ethereal appearance. His hair was somewhere between platinum and very light blonde, and a quiver of orange-feathered arrows hung over two identical sheaths for ivory-handled long knives. His bow was almost as gorgeous as he was: dark wood engraved with golden leaf designs. His tunic was dark green, and you admired his fancy Elven belts and buckles and bracers for a second before your eyes were drawn back to his face, the profile of which was almost... Dished, in a way, like an Arabian horse's. Your eyes locked, and you felt as if you'd seen him somewhere before...

An Elf on the shoreline spoke, breaking the trance. You couldn't understand what exactly he said; you could've swore you knew some Elvish...

The Elf staring you down watched you for a minute longer, then jerked his bow toward you in gesture, shouting an order to one of his comrades. His voice sounded so familiar... It was on the tip of your brain... It was deep and soft and gentle and commanding all at once. You couldn't explain it. Two Elves followed his order, nimbly leaping from tiny rock to tiny rock to get to where he was, then past him, coming to you. Their weapons were sheathed, so you hoped they were going to help you instead of kicking you into the water or something.

Carefully, noticing how banged up you were, they grabbed you underneath of the arms and lifted you onto the flat rocks the blue-eyed Elf stood on, still ready to fire, and stepped back as you coughed up some water in a delayed reaction to nearly drowning.

When you finished, your eyes felt like they wanted to close on their own. You felt too tired, too weak, too pained... Despite that, you sat up, shivering in the chilly evening air. "Th-thank you..." With a start, you realized they might not even understand English.

"Who are you?" The blue-eyed Elf demanded. "Answer me quickly; do not think we cannot throw you back to the river."

Shit. Pressure. Suddenly you forgot your name for a split second. "I-I'm [Y/N]."

"What are you doing in these lands?"

"I was chased," You looked pointedly at the dog and orc.

The Elf watched you for a minute, judging you... He signaled. "Throw them back into the river." Suddenly, you were being dragged.

Aw, fuck. You struggled against the Elf's strong grips. "W-wait! I don't even know where I am! The last thing I knew I was playing a game with my family and I fell out of a tree! All of a sudden I'm being chased by giant dogs and being manhandled by a couple of Elvish pri--!" You were cut off by a bought of coughing that wracked your body so hard that you doubled in on yourself, pulling the Elves down with you. Your eyes widened when blood trickled out of your mouth, leaving crimson droplets on the rocks. Shit.

The blue-eyed Elf ordered something in their tongue, and the two dragging you halted on a dime. He finally decided to lower his bow a little, inspecting you. "Are there more of you?"

You shook your head; you were getting dizzy, and your vision was blacking out. "I-I don't know... I was alone when I woke up."

The Elves conversed in their own language for a few minutes, and the blue-eyed Elf finally came to the conclusion that you weren't much of a threat in your current state. He looked to the Elves on the shoreline, and gestured at one of the ones holding you, who then scooped you up bridal style, but like you were the ugliest bride he'd ever seen. "Und win'doheim!" Shouted the blue-eyed Elf, obviously the one in charge, and lead the progression back to the forest.

I should never have gotten out of bed today...

Despite the crazy situation, you managed to doze off a few times on the Elf that carried you, until a coughing fit or pain would wake you up. A fever spiked up as you crossed a bridge, and you were half out of it as you entered some kind of woody building surrounded by trees and rivers that you couldn't comprehend very well in your feverish state. You were panting and wheezing, and couldn't see straight. It all seemed so surreal, like you were viewing this from somebody else's perspective. This had to be a dream... A very vivid, very painful dream...

The last thing you remembered was Elvish chanting, golden and white lights surrounding you, and the silhouettes of the Elves. Your pain faded, and you fell into a forced sleep.

When you woke up, a breath of relief whooshed out of your lungs. It was a dream! It was all a dream! It was night, and your nighlight had gone out, but your hall light was still on. You turned over to see what time it was, but your nightstand was gone. So was your window, and shelves and desk and computer and all of your things. Your bed was different. Your relief dissipated to terror.

Fuck. It wasn't a dream.

You were in a small room. An orange-hued light came through the low doorway, and the dark walls were ridged, as if carved from the earth itself. You felt the remains of your injuries from earlier-- or days ago, you couldn't tell how much time had passed-- as throbbing remains. Your clothes were still ripped and bloodstained, and as you stood up, it felt like you were just coming off of the flu.

Wobbly, you staggered over to the doorway, hoping to find somebody that definitely wasn't an orc or Elf.

You slammed face-first into elaborately crafted iron bars.

Outside of them, fully-armored Elves patrolled on small ledges beside the spiraling rows upon rows of cells like yours. This was a dungeon.

...Well shit.

Tag List: @tesserphantom​ @thedragonghostofmordor​ @taurlel @hauntedsiriel

#legolas x reader #legolas x you #au #LARP #LoTR #legolas greenleaf #orlando bloom #orcs #wargs #elves #eldar #prologue #theartofbeinganeldar #fanfiction #romance #angst #fluff #gender-nuetral #wild #misfit #reader-insert #forest #mirkwood #middle-earth #ronanstolkienfam #the hobbit

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Season in Review - Fall 2019

Winter 2020 already started? This season ended ages ago? You’ve already posted your Top 10 of 2019 and Crunchyroll Anime Awards thoughts? Shuuuuuuuuuut up! If fuckin Kandagawa Jet Girls and Rifle Is Beautiful didn’t delay themselves into a new fucking decade this post’d be out by now, but I really wanted to wait for them and since they’re done now, it’s time for this post. Haha that time of year again is a thing I open some of these posts with right??

Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld

First thing’s first, we’re opening up on the newest season of Sword Art Online. Yep, once again we’re in this position. You know, finishing the first cour of Alicization was a weird one for me, because that was the first time I’d really talked about SAO on this blog, and about the first time I’d really majorly thought about it in like 4 years. Now though, I’m kinda getting used to being here.

So what’s the deal with War of Underworld? Well fuckin, honestly I’m inclined to call it the worst single season of SAO so far. Definitely not worst arc, fuckin leagues ahead of Fairy Dance and Caliber, really the quality’s more comparable to the Aincrad arc, albeit with a pretty different set of strengths and weaknesses that kinda just, add up to the same level of quality I guess. At least for me anyway. But in terms of singular season of SAO, definitely the weakest.

But I should probably make an effort to back that up rather than just kinda say it and not expand. That’s kinda the point of these posts actually. So yeah, War of Underworld. It definitely lives up to the “war” in the title, from about episode 4 or something onwards maybe, the show consists almost entirely of a war between the Human Empire that we saw so much of in Alicization, and the Dark Territory’s armies, comprising of a shit ton of new characters from the until-now-unexplored Dark Territory. And I’ll say that I respect that they are focusing on this war, giving it not just time to breath but time to actually feel like, you know, a war, a drawn out battle with conflict and consequences, thousands dying left and right in battles for the sake of the world. Honestly it is an interesting change of pace from what SAO usually has, and the specific nature of the stakes – that being each side’s opposing plans for Alice and her AI and how that’ll affect Underworld, a character which we do actually kind of care about and a world that could reasonably be destroyed as opposed to whatever the fuck they tried to do in Caliber – makes the war feel like, actually earned I guess is how I’d put it.

Unfortunately, the execution is still often a bit messy. First of all is the fact that despite saying it lives up to the “war” in the title, it kind of, doesn’t feel like it that often. Casualties on either side are so detached and meaningless for the most part, and none of the war tactics employed ever really feel like meaningful decisions, particularly on the Human Empire side. It’s kind of just saying war stuff, talking about flanks and shit, but the actual nature of the fights never once changes or feels impacted in any way by the tactics supposedly employed. It’s a war, we’re told, and the CG crowds of faceless grunts dying lets us know that lots of people are involved, but it mostly feels like war in name only.

Now I said “mostly” and “often” a bit in there because that’s not like an unconditional truth of the season. The Dark Territory armies tend to actually employ tactics in an attempt to gain an edge, generally at the order of the main villain this season, Vecta, (who I’ll just flat say it, fucking sucks) and at the great expense of many of the individual forces in their army. For example, Dark Wizards couldn’t use magic for a spell because Alice depleted all the spatial resources for a way bigger and better move, so Vecta orders the orcs or trolls or like 5 types of goblins or some faction of fantasy creatures to sit there and die so the Dark Wizards have spatial resources to do their move. Unfortunately this barely means anything, but particularly on the Dark Territory side there is actually a feeling of like, the horrors of war, even if it’s not quite a “necessary sacrifice” or anything like that. And I think this is particularly emphasised by a gang called the Pugilists, and their leader whose name I do not fucking remember and I feel bad about because he’s honestly pretty great. They’ve got it pretty rough because Vecta’s kinda just an evil bastard, and like the first Integrity Knight they go up against fucking decimates a huge swath of their army without breaking a sweat, so the leader goes against her, and it’s the first battle against a Dark Territory group that doesn’t just end in some faceless nobody enemy commander getting slaughtered. Which is great because the problem of faceless nobody enemy commanders plagues this season quite a bit, particularly early on where most of the antagonists should be like major figures but they’re just fodder to introduce/reintroduce some Integrity Knights. So it’s cool that this one survives, and since he’s kind of like a hot blooded shounen MC but with the responsibility of an entire army under his command, and he’s actually mature enough to where that’s not like a problem with him, he’s just like automatically the most likeable new character in this season, and though maybe not strictly the best villain or anything, he’s one of SAO’s most likeable villains in general. And then he’s forced through some pretty fucked up shit, tons of his goons die trying to cross a pit with some ropes that Vecta forced as a plan, and just in general he gets so pissed off at Vecta that he fucking rips his eyeball out to break that seal thing and he kinda sorta joins up with our side. He’s not technically fully on their side because of some plot sauce, but it’s more development than many other characters in the show have and more or less a redemption arc, and one that’s fully justified specifically because of the war. So TL;DR sometimes the show can feel like a war and the Pugilist leader is the best character in this season specifically for how the war affects him.

Should be noted that the Integrity Knights do feel like busted overpowered by the way, in fact aside from the Pugilist guy none of the Dark Territory put up any real fight for any of them, and the one time an enemy nearly gets Fanatio of all characters, it’s because of dumb SAO sci-fi bullshit (which there is a lot of this season) and it ends up being one of her faceless knights that dies rather than her herself anyway, so. The Human Empire are never really framed like villains or anything but the odds are so heavily in their favour that I kinda felt bad for the Dark Territory, but then also I didn’t because faceless CG grunts. I don’t know how to describe my thoughts on that, I guess I just wish there were more enemies like Pugilist guy who don’t go down in a single fight, basically just don’t have the war look more like Dynasty Warriors than an actual war.

Instead the stakes tend to come from more personal threats, Vecta’s brother nearly slits Ronie’s throat for example, we do actually have like one or two casualties from Integrity Knights that we know and, uh, well, we just know them is all, some Integrity Knight like runs away for a bit, stuff like that. And then the biggest threat ends up being Vecta directly kidnapping Alice before the show just ends, and I talked about this when I talked about SAO but I’m fine forgiving the abruptness of the ending because blah blah anime production and we know we’re getting more. I should be and I guess am rooting for the heroes, their goal is to not let Underworld be destroyed after all, but I was weirded out by the fact that the stakes felt higher for, mainly Pugilist guy, than it did for anyone on our side.

Back to busted OP though, this season actually sees the introduction of a couple of real world characters to Underworld. Particularly Asuna, though Sinon gets an epic gamer moment in the last episode too, and though they’re unable to show up to Underworld, Lisbeth and the rest of the gang are able to convince the entire ALO playerbase to help out as well so we’ll see them maybe. Already complained about account conversion and the logistics of logging into Underworld before in another post so I ain’t wasting time doing that again. Main point is that Asuna’s here, and it’s nice to have her, but she’s also busted OP. She literally logs in as a goddess, and I think that’s fair enough, main villain did it so let Asuna do it, it’s literally a Deus ex Machina but I’m willing to accept it here because fuck it, but the thing is, they quickly establish a limit on her powers, before breaking it anyway. I can take her being super strong and shit because she’s an experienced melee combatant, whatever, but as a Goddess she can do large scale terrain warping to basically erase armies, which she does a few times when she’s introduced, says she only has about one or two left before she dies of really bad headache, but then proceeds to sort of just keep doing. I appreciate that they put a cap on her because while I’m willing to accept her log in as a Goddess, I’m not willing to accept the implications of that, so them breaking that limit anyway just because is annoying. What else is annoying is that my biggest fear came true, Asuna and Alice got into a fucking bitch fight over Kirito’s cock, and in fact 2 other girls joined in. Urgh, that was insufferable.

Oh, we’re about 1.5k words deep into this Sword Art Online section, and that’s the first time I’ve mentioned Kirito! The main character! Yeah let’s talk about him. For literally this entire season, Kirito’s basically comatose. After his Fluctlight got kinda fried at the ending of Alicization, as well as I like to think a healthy dose of PTSD from his best friend of like 3 years whom he was never apart dying in his arms in the worst fashion imaginable, he’s wheelchair bound, can’t really do much else with any other part of his body, can’t speak, and his ability to understand basic communication is extremely limited. All he’s really got is an attachment to his and Eugeo’s swords, and when Asuna talks to him he’s able to cry and I think say her name? But he doesn’t wake up or anything. Straight up, I really respected this. It’s always cool to have a little break from Kirito and doing it in this specific way is really effective, it makes the consequences of the last season feel genuinely and meaningfully impactful, and though Kirito inevitably will come back properly and probably do his usual Jesus shit, I hope this little experience of his he’s in right now has a lasting impact on the character, because it’s really fucked in the best way possible, and a good way to keep Kirito out of the narrative kinda to let the focus shift to others.

That being said, Kirito being out of the picture makes Alice the de facto protagonist, and honestly, her presence is fairly weak, I think. To be honest she’s about as much of an everyman as Kirito is, except rather than “gamer” for personality it’s “stoic”, except when she’s around Bercouli at which point it’s a bit closer to “pupil”, cause even if he doesn’t strictly teach her in the literal sense, he kind of makes the decisions and gives the answers that Alice needs to hear. I like Alice for sure, I’ll say that much, but I think because she kinda just mops the floor with all the opposition and doesn’t really bounce off of anyone around her in a meaningful way, she doesn’t really develop this season. I mean there’s a bit at the start before all the war where we learn about the status quo pre-war, she’s developed by then, fought back against the remainder of the church who would try to kill Kirito, she has agency in that sense of taking a pre-emptive stance to protect someone, and dealing with fallout in her old hometown that won’t take her back and stuff, hell even re-bonding with her estranged younger sister and stuff. General point is that at the start she’s developing a bit, or rather our understanding of her is, but for most of the show she’s just a soldier in a war that’s really powerful and the only other thing she has going on is, say it with he now, horny for Kirito.

I already said the villains are crap and I already said there’s lots of dumb sci-fi bullshit, so I should squeeze in this little bit to say that we get plenty of cuts to the real world to talk stale exposition with Rath and the gang, almost all of which generally relates to either the boring as shit villains or dumb sci-fi bullshit. Unsurprisingly I think the show could do without that stuff, at least in the quantity it comes in. I don’t recall any entire episodes being devoted to that sort of shit like happened in Alicization, but definitely entire halves at least, and hey maybe full episodes and I’m just misremembering, who knows.

I actually feel like that’s pretty much everything I have to say about the plot? It’s 3 in the morning as I’m writing this section so uh, yeah, but I think that’s all I have to say about this season’s I guess characters and flow of events and all that fun stuff that makes a story a story. It’s mostly just kinda, not brilliant I feel.

Musically, it’s just SAO. More Yuki Kajiura music that does its job perfectly well but I know for a fact she can and has done way better. The OP’s honestly pretty shit, I like Haruka Tomatsu’s voice, she did great in Courage which is probably my second favourite SAO OP, but this one’s really forgettable and sounds bland as hell. ED’s decent though, it’s a bit different than Alicization’s previous EDs, has a slower feel to it, but I enjoyed it enough. Voice acting’s all SAO stuff, you know the drill. Visually, it’s an interesting one, because it looks pretty great actually, specifically it’s very consistent in its quality, and that quality is pretty high, you can expect a lot of solid artwork and action cuts that look nice. But while the consistency was impressive, I was kind of unimpressed anyway? Yeah nice visual fidelity, the graphics were great to quote a gamer, but there aren’t really any like major sakuga moments or anything, and a lot of the attacks are so heavy on special effects to where it feels closer to a fireworks show than actual animation. Compared to, say, the goblin scene in episode 4 or something of Alicization (anyone pissed that that’s my only comparison?) this season’s animation was tame. I’ve mentioned the CG crowdshots a few times so I do quickly wanna say that they’re honestly not that bad. There are times where it’s fucking atrocious, but that’s honestly super rare, and for the most part the worst you’ll see is just recycled animations appearing a lot in the one shot. By and large though the CG crowds are hidden pretty well by good 2D artwork dominating the frame or just smoke and cloud type effects and stuff, they just don’t draw attention to the CG is the point so it’s significantly more bearable here than in a lot of other shows. Overall, the best way to sum up the visuals is that the show mostly looks pretty great, but there are very few to no standout moments visually, and that’s pretty disappointing, but the consistency is still respectable and overall I’d call it a strong season visually.

And then, I think that’s everything, that’s War of Underworld. I’d give it a 4/10 to be honest. It’s better than Caliber, it’s better than Fairy Dance, it’s even with Aincrad, and worse than everything else. Though where Aincrad is an open and shut case of straight mediocrity most of the time, this one’s more of a, I guess bad a lot of the time, but it shoots for the stars really often, and is so close to hitting the mark but, it just always ends up missing. You know what I can say though? This is officially the only SAO season with no sexual assault whatsoever. Thank. Fucking. GOD.

Anyway yeah we’re done.

Houkago Saikoro Club

This is actually the first section I’m writing for this post, I just put SAO first because I wanted to get that out of the way. But yeah, this show. The first of multiple cute girl anime we’ll be seeing in this post, because aside from SAO and one later entry, I only watched cute girl shows, so I want to do all of those in order. Let’s fuckin’ talk about it.

So this show is about cute girls that play analogue games, which encompasses board games, card games, just, physical games in general. And it’s actually pretty great. I’m fairly confident that most people reading this have, at some point in their life, played a board game, and while I don’t think I’ve played a single one of the games this show covers (because it goes beyond deep enough for me to assume the writers have a genuine respect for the medium), the kind of general things that playing board games can do for individuals and different groups of people are explored a lot in this show. Just to get the most obvious out of the way, board games are supposed to be fun, and in a cute girl show, you wanna have fun, so our main cast all get united by the fun of playing board games. But we’ve also got board games to settle disagreements among student council members, or a board game to end a fight between a character and their dad, or board games to give a guy with a crush a chance to bond with that crush, and more. We actually go through quite a few side characters that get these sorts of mini arcs as a result of playing games with our girls and I think that’s really great, plus one of them’s a hot delinquent girl in her 20s and she fuckin kicked ass, loved her.

So all that stuff is key to the show going a long way to being a great time, but a cute girl show still lives and dies on the shoulders of its cute girls. And yeah, they’re all great too! Miki’s our main character, and she’s the kind of shy and reserved type, but also obviously super nice and the one time she has to be remotely mean she literally can’t bring herself to do it, and I liked her a lot! Maybe my favourite character? Board games are a fitting way for her type of character to open up to others I feel, but what’s great is that while they bring her closer to her friends and give her an easier time with others, she still only grows at like, a fairly gradual rate, so she doesn’t feel like she’s immediately gone from introvert to extrovert because she played, I dunno some German game one time. Aya’s her first friend, and she’s the genki girl. There’s not much more to her than that, she’s a trope that’s played really straight, but I also really liked her! Maybe me favourite character? The way she’s written, how she engages in the games and acts and reacts in any given situation, you can generally tell exactly what she’s going to do, but she’s such an infectiously energetic character and I liked her a lot more than I expected to. Then there’s Midori, the board game expert that introduces us to this brand new world. And she’s also a delight! Maybe my favourite character? She’s the kind of more serious, straight man of the group, but also the boardgame otaku that’s the most passionate about it, and she also has the most solidly defined arc of everyone, wanting to create a board game and initially failing because she kind of wanted it to be a project she made purely on her own, which is like a completely fucking fair mentality for a young designer to have, but through the power of friendship and stuff she learns to be a better designer. It’s a neat little arc and I’m glad she had it. The show does start off with these 3 girls, but there’s no such thing as a cute girl show with less than 4 girls, so we’re introduced to another – Emmy – who Midori kinda repeats her arc with but that’s because Emmy also wants to be a game author and she’s from Germany too so it’s kinda justified that Midori would be more afraid of showing her game to her. That retread of her earlier arc was fine though, and Emmy herself is great. Not my favourite character, but I liked her a lot. She’s kind of like all three girls combined, game otaku, genki, and polite, but also German, and her seiyuu gives her like a weird accent that does make her sound slightly more foreign than the typical foreign cute girl so I respect that. She’s a nice addition to the cast in all. So really, all 4 are great, their friendship feels genuine and appropriately earned, and with a nice supporting cast to boot, the show’s got pretty great characters all around.

Visuals are also pretty good. It’s appropriately adorable, but also, it doesn’t really look like any other cute girl anime I can think of. The art style isn’t anything especially striking I’d say, but it’s also not something I’ve seen many others do. I do like it, and I love the designs of the girls too. The show kind of goes for a more pretty look than a cute one, almost. It doesn’t really go as far as beautiful, but like the shape of the faces and the way the hair’s shaded gives it kind of a shoujo vibe, while still being moeblobs. I’m a fan. Music’s fairly typical slice of life fair, compliments all the scenes quite well, I wouldn’t call the OP or ED all that great but they’re serviceable, oddly more of a rock tone than you might expect to hear in a cute girl show. And of course, voice acting’s great, everyone, but especially Aya and Emmy, sound super adorable all of the time.

And with that, I think I’ve said basically everything I wanna say about the show. It’s a really solid cute girl show that, like many of the genre’s best, you could get a fun time watching it all in one sitting, or maybe you wanna pop an episode on every so often just for the hell of it. 7/10. Would recommend.

Rifle Is Beautiful

So in some ways, Houkago Saikoro Club is technically a sports show, the sports being all the board games and stuff. And like I just said, that show was great. So in direct contrast with that, we’ve got another cute girls do sports show, but this one fucking sucks really badly.

Rifle Is Beautiful, as its name suggests, is a show about rifle shooting. A sport in which you stand a good few meters away from a target and shoot at it with a rifle, 60 shots in 45 minutes, and are scored accordingly. It’s a very boring sport to watch and the characters in this show know that, they remind you of the fact that it’s considered boring in universe as well pretty much every episode. In that sense, this show is actually very true to life, because like the sport it revolves around, this show is boring as fuck. I respect that it revolves around the sports narrative, they have aspirations to go to the Olympics that they try to follow through on, they go to nationals, practice games with other schools, there’s some sort of shooting match pretty much every single episode, but if you take a boring sport and have it be performed by boring girls, what can you expect other than a boring show?

See, the girls in this show suck really badly. They’re all exact stock templates for characters that you’ve seen before, with not a single unique trait to make them stand out, and the fact that they do rifle shooting means basically nothing for any of their characters. MC’s the dumb idiot friendly girl, her childhood friend is just, a nice person, and mistakable for any background character, there’s a tsundere, and then there’s the deadpan quiet one. That’s it, that’s their entire character, none of them have any more than that going on ever, none of them are remotely enjoyable, every single joke they ever do, you’ve seen before (like the only thing this show did that was new to me was have MC be totally flat unless she takes her shirt off at which point her breasts become comically large), they overexplain all of their jokes with intrusive textboxes for some reason, and perhaps most offensively is that, for a cute girl show, these girls are ugly as hell.

Rifle Is Beautiful, contrary to what its name suggests, is one of the worst looking TV anime I’ve ever seen. The character designs are atrocious, every single character is so off model all the time, especially in the faces, that I can’t imagine they even had model sheets. The animation from start to finish is basically non-existent, and for some fucking reason the rifles and hands are all CG? Like they never have the rifles appear in any angles that’d be difficult to draw, and they’re pretty simple in general, so I have no idea why they didn’t just, fucking draw them, rather than have really ugly CG that clashes horrendously with the also ugly 2D visuals. The backgrounds are lame, art’s lame, animation’s lame, and the fact is that this isn’t a case of like, oh the first episode looked good but it fell off a bit, nah the entire show somehow looks repulsive for its full duration. It also sounds like shit, with a ton of insert songs that try really hard and completely fail to make the rifle shooting at all fun, a lame OP and ED, and even the voice work is some of the worst I’ve heard in a cute girl show, they managed to make every single main character just not sound good, and then weirdly all of the minor characters (of which there are dozens named) sound like, pretty much fine? So that was weird.

Show’s just a fuckin horrible time from start to finish where the only really positive thing you can say about it is “they tried”. But it was so poorly produced that we got a recap episode like 5 episodes in and the last episode was delayed about 3 weeks or something, which is why this post is as late as it is. And while it’d be easy to just dismiss this as a really horrible cute girl show, what makes this show actually painful for me is that it’s a show by Studio 3Hz. One of my favourite studios responsible for a ton of anime I really like and that look fucking amazing. What the hell went wrong here for them to produce this? Make 3Hz great again. As for this show, 2/10, only salvageable aspects are some of the minor character girls, namely Akira Shinonome and this one girl that has like actual abs, being okay.

Null Peta

Next is an ONA where cute girls do, or no, one cute girl does comedy things with her robot recreation of her sister who died, at least until closer to the end of the show where it becomes action, and then a bit of mystery, and then existentialism, and then cute girls do cute things for our ending. And it was decent.

So as stated the show begins as a comedy, and for the first like 7 or 8 episodes it’s kind of just that. The comedy’s not that funny, it’s kind of just Peta being weird and acting like it’s normal while Null overreacts to the entire thing, but there were enough jokes I hadn’t heard in there combined with the fact that Null is honestly super cute to where I still managed to watch the show easily enough. Plus like, episodes are only like 6 minutes long, so even though the comedy wasn’t that entertaining it was at least short enough to where I never got tired watching it week to week.

But then yeah, as we approach the end it becomes this weird action show where some like, idk slime/virus type enemies just kinda take over the world and we spend two episodes fighting against them and it was impossible to care about the world or the enemies but I guess it looked pretty good? For action sequences in what was otherwise just a cute girl comedy they were fairly solid, but that was like the only saving grace of this mini-arc since it was probably the worst part of the show for me.

And then after that, Peta disappears, which I don’t really mind since she annoys me, and then we’re in that little mystery and existentialism bit I mentioned which ended up being my favourite bit of the show. It kind of starts off with Null questioning a lot of the details about the world around her, the abundance of weird signs, the total absence of people, the fact that she can’t die, and some other stuff. The design of the world and attention drawn to it gave this bit of the show an almost Studio Shaft type feeling that I really liked, and between Null’s questioning about the world as well as the fact that, yeah, she can’t die, plus obviously the world design, the show had a really nice sort of surreal horror vibe to it, which I actually really liked. Cute girls wandering a desolate world and questioning the nature of existence really appeals to me if Girls’ Last Tour is anything to go by. Now the revelations that happen as a result of this are fairly lame, Null realises that her sister didn’t die in a car accident, she herself did, and now she’s in a coma and this is all basically a coma dream, and then when she does wake up, the final episode has her sister reveal that that coma dream was a digital environment she made just so she could keep in contact with Null in the coma dream? That’s weird, I didn’t really get it, it doesn’t explain the viruses to me nor where Peta actually disappears to for a bit, and just overall the ending felt kind of like a copout that was a weak excuse to end a narrative they didn’t know what to do with. Which is a shame because it really was doing well, I’ve said before it’s the best part of the show and I wish it occupied more than the 2-ish episodes it does.

So that’s my thoughts on the show from start to finish, it’s an okay comedy, an okay action, a great existential and surrealist horror piece, and then a weak ending. I either wish those first 2 things were way better or that 3rd thing occupied way more of the show. But the whole thing it still quite cute, Null really is adorable, and again episodes are only 6 minutes long. From start to finish the show’s barely over an hour and because I was watching it weekly it was super duper easy to digest without getting bored. I’d give it a 5/10 and say that you should watch it if you want to.

Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne!

Now we’ve got cute girls do isekai fantasy party, is anyone mad that I did this “cute girls do x” joke in my last Season in Review?

Anyway, this long ass light novel title, henceforth just Noukin, is a show about a girl, Mile, who gets truck-kun’d into a basic isekai setting, wishes for quote “average abilities”, and because it’s an isekai, that means she gets abilities that are the average of the weakest and strongest creatures in this world, hence she’s an overpowered isekai protagonist. Yep, it’s that again. Except since it’s more of a cute girl show, with Mile recruiting a party of 3 other cute girls, I wanted to watch it anyway, because while I don’t really care for isekai, I sure do love cute girls, evidently.

So the show’s a comedy, and for the most part, yeah, it’s decently funny. You’ve got the usual comedy that comes with Mile being so powerful that she surprises everyone around her, and she also trains her party members so they end up pretty damn strong as well and now “cute girls look weak but surprise everyone by being not that” is their collective gimmick. Individual character wise there’s Mile obviously, an otaku that makes a shit ton of references so that was neat. There’s Reina, the tsundere, she’s like if Megumin, Kyoko Sakura, and Nico Yazawa fused into a single entity. I quite liked her, she’s probably the most developed character of the bunch but I’ll talk more about that in a bit. She and Mile are pettankos, whereas our next girl, Pauline, has big tits, so there’s some “comedy” they sometimes use. Pauline’s also the one that looks sweet and stuff but is maybe a sadist. Last is Mavis, who’s boyish and not quite as in on the jokes as the rest. They’re all fine. Even if they’re all pretty tropey and nothing you’ve not seen before, they’ve got decent chemistry as a group and since Mile inducts them into weebhood, despite them not knowing what anime is, they all get to be super goofy and generally funny enough to where you’ll enjoy watching the show and not want to claw your eyes out. Plus like, they’re cute, the designs are really nice, Mile and Reina especially.

Where it gets awkward is that this show’s actually not always a full cute girl comedy. Very early on we get like a mini-arc about protecting some travelling merchants, and it turns into a really serious backstory and morals type thing with Reina, who attempts to kill some attacking bandits because of her really edgy backstory about her entire family being murdered and then her adoptive family being murdered as well. And the arc’s a decent source of development for Reina, she gets to learn to sort of have faith in her friends’ abilities to not be fucking murdered, as well as the usual bullshit “don’t kill or you’re just as bad” type thing. It’s a fine enough story on its own but it kinda comes out of nowhere, and if the show wholly committed to this new edginess I wouldn’t actually mind, but it still puts some comedy in which now gives us tonal whiplash, and once it’s all over they return to pure comedy and all I felt was “well what was the point of that?”. And they kinda do that again albeit a bit less whiplashy with Pauline and Mavis’ families, the former not getting much development beyond “oh protect my family” and the latter getting a “stand up to my dad” arc. These arcs are too serious for no reason in a comedy that doesn’t need to waste its time on this. They do it one more time in the last episode by making us fight some Elder Dragons that knock Mile’s shit out, and suddenly we’re all dark and stakes again, but they overcome it with the power of friendship, all tension is erased because Mile gets up and then basically gives us “the dragons caught her off guard is all”, and then Mile has a fake emotional sendoff that has no place in the show other than to I guess reaffirm the group’s friendship.

I mean the TL;DR is that it’s a comedy for 100% of its runtime, but an edgy serious almost grimdark isekai for about 30% of that runtime, but during the edgy stuff the comedy’s still there and it’s now inappropriate, and just as a whole the show feels pretty confused about what it wants to be. And enough of the episodes are the kind of bad edgy stuff to where the show has a bunch of episodes that just straight up aren’t all that fun to watch.

As said, show does look good, animation’s decent, artwork’s decent, love Mile and Reina’s designs, the others’ designs are pretty solid, really did not like the look or sound of Nano-chan, the talking animal companion only Mile can see that adds nothing to the comedy and only exists for weird exposition, blah blah blah. Soundtrack does its job while being completely forgettable, sans the OP which is a nice fun cute girl bop type thing I enjoyed. And then the voice acting’s nice, Mile and Reina in particular sound adorable, thank god for Azumi Waki and the legendary Sora Tokui respectively for those ones.

Think that’s about everything I want to say about this show. If you wanna see a cute girl fantasy then it’s a decent time, though tbh I’d honestly recommend you check out Endro instead, it’s a bit more baby-ish in that nothing bad happens ever, but that also means it has a more consistent tone and while I’d say I like the character designs themselves less, it definitely has a much cuter aesthetic as a whole, and tbh I might even say it’s funnier, relies less on references for its humour after all. But yeah, Noukin. I’d give it a 5/10.

Kandagawa Jet Girls

And lastly for cute girl shows, we have cute girls do jet skiing. Except actually it’s not jet skiing but like this fake sport called jet racing where 2 people get on a jet ski and race another pair and one person’s the driver while the other is a shooter and the latter uses their gun to try and sort of disable the opponent and then hopefully your pair can win the race.

And it’s eh.

First thing’s first is that that premise, combined with the fact that there’s an abundance of massivelt-titted girls all in wetsuits that break away as they get shot sure uh, sure makes for an interesting video game idea, huh? Because this is actually like a multimedia thing and this anime ties into a game, and it’s all done by the Senran Kagura guys which should give you an idea of the uh, aesthetic, this show goes for. That being overwhelming horniness for 12 episodes straight. And if there’s any sport that you’re gonna make overwhelmingly horny I think a watersport is a solid choice, and the specific mechanics of this fake watersport are mostly believable enough for me to have a fun-ish time with it. Now a lot of the girls seem to play it really poorly, everyone getting numerous opportune moments to shoot at their opponents and just, basically never doing that until it’s actually a bad idea to shoot at them, and the ridiculously inconsistent ammunition in any given weapon also damages the tension a lot, so I mean in general it’s hard to be that invested in the competitive aspect of the show since everyone seems braindead, but like, eh, shill your ecchi game, who cares if the characters are bad at it. It’s mostly 1 team vs another team but in the last episode all 6 teams get to go against each other and that was honestly fairly enjoyable, so like, yeah.

About the teams, this show’s cast is comprised of 6 teams of 2 girls each, for a total of 12 girls, but actually, it’s more accurate to say most of the teams are comprised of 2 identical clones, so there’s way less personalities total. The 2 gyaru girls are exactly the same as each other, and their personalities are that they’re gyarus, the 2 American weeaboo girls are exactly the same (Emily Orange best girl anyway though bc Ai Fairouz voices her and she’s great) and their personalities are that they’re American weeaboo girls, the 2 idol girls are exactly the same (their tits are the least gigantic which makes them the hottest pair) and guess what their personality is, and then the remaining girls do actually have the most differences in each pair but it’s still sort of just, the two serious experts at the sport, some other pair of posh elegant Japanese types but one of them’s a delinquent when they race but that means nothing, and the two main characters, one of whom is the genki excitable type and the other more quiet and reserved, though they still go through the exact same arcs as each other of trying to be their own Jet Racers and not copy familial figures that also did Jet Racing. It’s a pretty large cast but having the pairs be basically identical means you only need for a single character and just split the lines between a pair of two – effectively halving the writing process, ain’t that neat? It does also mean the cast feels smaller than it actually is, which I guess isn’t really a terrible thing? Simple fact is I at least remembered every character, even if I remembered like 2 of their names, by the end of it, so they must’ve done something right there.

So the sport’s okay but kinda dumb, the characters are all kinda dumb but decently enjoyable, so let’s talk visuals. You’d want a show that’s horny 24/7 to be hot. It basically never is. Like Rifle Is Beautiful, the artwork is really ugly from start to finish, and I’m not convinced they had model sheets, especially for the main girl. The only time the artwork ever looks good, let alone hot, is very specifically when nipples are visible, and like a midriff shot or two maybe idk. This isn’t a case of like, “oh I saw a nipple and it completely clouded my judgement” type thing by the way, they really did just put more effort into the entire shot when a nipple’s in frame, so that was really weird. The Jet Races look really terrible, and make excessive use of also really horrible CG with jank as hell animations. Moreover the environmental art is especially disgusting, so like, the real background, the river they’re racing on, and the jet skis on the river, literally never look like they coexist in harmony, they’re all equally terrible in completely different ways that just makes it hell to look at.

Sound stuff is eh, voice acting’s decent enough for the most part, again shoutout to Ai Fairouz on Emily Orange, her Engrish is just the best, and then the soundtrack, it’s really repetitive, like they only had like 5 songs or something. OP and ED are skippable garbage but like the one or two songs they use during the races give them a nice energy, which is complemented well by the commentators’ enthused uh, commentary. Even if they’re prone to overexplaining really basic things I did enjoy that we got commentary at all so that was neat.

Overall, despite most of the things I just said being mixed to negative, I did actually kind of enjoy this show. In so far as, fairly early on when my initial wave of repulse over the visuals stopped bothering me as much, and when I realised that all the characters are the same and have very basic personalities so were hard to really “forget”, I was kinda just having fun with it, like, even though it’s bad, it’s not bad enough to where I wish I didn’t watch it, and unlike Rifle Is Beautiful which has the shame of being made by a studio I love releasing a product I hate, Jet Girls is sort of just a bit of a goofy show that I don’t have that strong an opinion on. I’d give it a 3/10 tbh.

Anime of the Season – Beastars

And so we’re done with cute girls, and onto the last show I watched this season. And if you’ve read any of my episode coverage this season, or my Top 10 Anime of 2019 that came out before this post did, you’d have known this was coming in as my favourite anime of Fall 2019. That’s right, it’s time to talk about the furry anime.

Beastars is a pretty simple show to explain the basics of. Take Zootopia, or any story about anthropomorphic carnivores and herbivores living in a society for that matter, and just kind of, make it edgy. Well, that’s not entirely true. Rather you take that premise and decide to use it to explore everything. Beastars is here to tell a story about high school love in that carnivores and herbivores setting and just see what happens if that setting has literally no narrative safeties whatsoever, if that society was literally a real thing, how would it look? And the execution is fucking god tier.

First of all I really don’t want to understate just how real this society manages to feel, cause while this entire show’s really great from start to finish I think the actual society and the impact it has on the characters in it is the most interesting thing about the show. If carnivores and herbivores are supposed to coexist then you sure wouldn’t want the former eating the latter, and that’s true here, but if carnivores also have instinctual desires then people will find a way to meet those desires. Hence this show has a black market, one where you might find a herbivore selling his fingers for tens of thousands of [CURRENCY] a pop. Or how about the Lion Mafia, who operate so shadily that people don’t say their names for fear of their own lives, and whenever they might kidnap a herbivore to savour their delicious meat, that herbivore may as well be considered missing forever. Even actual politics as presented to the general public, the mayor’s a lion, but those are big and scary, so this mayor has had plastic surgery and dental replacements plus wears his hair in a ponytail to appear as nonthreatening as possible, and he doesn’t want word about the Lion Mafia to get out else the good image he crafted for himself might be lost. I don’t wanna be the guy that praises stuff for being “mature” since that can easily come across as pretentious but like, this show has such a mature approach to the society it portrays that it surprises you with just how incredibly interesting the carnivore and herbivore setting is. It also still does the more expected things with that type of society by the way, smaller animals keep to the sides of corridors so as to not be stood on and they have their own little smaller doors too, and then because the society isn’t just “carnivores instinctively bad and herbivores good” we’ve got stuff like the nocturnal carnivores using their cool night vision to protect herbivores in the event of a blackout and stuff. As much as this show wants to explore the bad side of this society, it’s not so grimdark edgy as to pretend there’s nothing good about it either.

The majority of characters being in high school works really well here, I think that transitional period in everyone’s life where they’re figuring out who they are and their place in society is immediately more interesting when the society being portrayed is what it is.

The depiction of this society alone is brilliant but as stated, the impact it has on the characters is also super interesting, so yeah it’s obviously important to have good characters, and this show definitely has those in fucking spades.  The main character we follow is Legoshi, a grey wolf, and immediately it’s great that our main character is a carnivore, cause this show explores carnivores and herbivores in more or less equal depth but these sorts of works tend to depict carnivores as the “more problematic” group, so it’s nice having someone in that group to really root for straight out the gate. That’s not to suggest he’s some straight-laced hero or anything though, in fact one of the first things he does is attack an herbivore and nearly eat her, and like he manages to suppress himself but damn that’s a hell of an introduction. And then his main arc is actually related to falling in love with that girl, a giant predator like him who doesn’t know what it means to be a predator falling in love with his prey, what does that mean? Is he confusing love for lust because he’s got carnivorous instincts? Or has society led him to believe that, but actually, his feelings of love are genuine? What about the people around him, what do they think? Like the very ambitious also grey wolf girl Juno, who longs for Legoshi? She obviously wants to pressure him into going out with her, they’re both strong grey wolves, it’s what society wants. This sort of high school drama you’d see anywhere that I usually don’t care about becomes so much more interesting when you remember that, yeah, society here’s weird, and the response to a love between two “fundamentally incompatible” people being so negative parallels what I’ll broadly describe as “queer” relationships (“queer” here not just meaning LGBT+ relationships, but any type of relationship society has or had looked down on, eg mix-raced relationships) being stigmatised too. Legoshi really struggles with his identity, because yeah high school’s weird for everyone and society’s expectations can do a lot to confuse you. He’s just very incredibly written is the point. Still talking about carnivores, the aforementioned Juno’s presence contributes a lot to the narrative, she strives to be the next Beastar (haha show title!) which is some big actually really important and meaningful title awarded to people based on some sorts of merit and the way her ambitions contribute to her actions, but also how they make her an obstacle for Legoshi, Legoshi and Haru’s relationship, and Louis all at the same time, without feeling like an arbitrary contrivance just to have someone play “antagonist” is fucking amazing. And then, Bill, a tiger with like one episode where he’s a major character, he likewise manages to sort of be compared and contrasted with Legoshi through being sort of, his own embodiment of the ideal carnivore, an ideal that Legoshi has to like consider and later oppose. Bill has like an episode of screentime where he drinks rabbit blood (which is treated kind of like an adrenaline drug) and takes the lead role in a stage play where mid-fucking play a “staged” fight between him and Legoshi goes way too fucking far and they’re like actually tearing each other apart while they get extremely fucking mad at each other for their opposed ideologies about carnivores. And what’s great is that Legoshi doesn’t actually have an ideal here, I just said that for the sake of the sentence, Legoshi isn’t fighting for what a carnivore is, he’s fighting for what he absolutely wants a carnivore to not be, and then he sort of starts discovering what one is on his own with this fight being a factor. And Bill and this fight contribute so much to that journey of Legoshi’s, all the while Bill’s interesting because hey remember when I said it’s easy for herbivores in these types of stories to act like carnivores are the problematic ones? Yeah well Bill fucking hates that, he hates having to suppress himself to keep up societal standards, he just wants to be able to be himself at the expense of others, and that’s an extremely fucking interesting motivation! IRL that parallels some pretty fucked up shit, you see like incels and school shooters with that sort of mentality, it’s not a good one at all, but within the boundaries of this fictionalised animal society it’s fascinating to see unfold.

And then we get the herbivores, of which there are perhaps less that are interesting, but they’re definitely not to be dismissed. The main herbivore we see is Haru, the rabbit girl Legoshi falls in love with. First thing I want to say about her is that I really respect that she’s a slut. What I mean by that is that “slut” characters in high school stories tend to be called that despite either being a virgin or having only had sex with like, one person, and maybe one time. But nah Haru fucks, quite a lot, and I respect that that’s not something this show’s afraid to touch on. It has a couple of sex scenes actually. And then the specifics of why she fucks as revealed by her backstory are, unsurprisingly, really interesting and easy to understand. She’s so small and pitiable, everyone’s always nice to her because they sort of look down on her, she’s like 3 feet tall. She likes to fuck because it’s the only time people don’t look down on her as this weak little animal, they treat her evenly. I think that’s a fucking brilliant reason to have your character literally fuck like a rabbit lol. And then when she meets and gets to know Legoshi is where the bulk of her screentime lies. She likes Legoshi, she sees him as a friend, but when she picks up on his feelings of love for her, that’s when she becomes, confused? Afraid? Because she genuinely likes him, but fucking society again! She’s constantly living in fear of death or disappearance at every moment, the latter of which turns out to be a rational fucking fear because of that Lion Mafia by the way, and even if she likes this big ass wolf guy, isn’t he a real danger to her? Maybe he’ll cave into his instincts and eat her, maybe she’ll cave into her own body’s instinct and be eaten by him, what does society think about this tiny little rabbit girl dating a giant wolf? Argh, it’s so great! Also I love that she has agency by the way, she’s not necessarily the most secure person but she’s confident in her choices so even though she’s literally damsel’d and has to be rescued by Legoshi, it’s not like she’s his trophy to be won, he gives her the choice of where to go from there, he’s not demanding they be together, he wants a chance to confess his love and let Haru decide from there. It’s nice. Haru’s a really good girl. And then the one other big interesting herbivore we get to follow is Louis, a deer that fucking, god where do I start. He’s the lead performer of the drama club and something of a celebrity, that wants to be the next Beastar and is in good with the mayor as well. Dude’s got huge fucking ambitions and the willpower to back it up, in fact he actually breaks up the fight between Legoshi and Bill with his words and acting alone, all the while not breaking character, not letting the audience pick up on the true nature of the fight, and with a broken ankle at the same time to boot! The main thing he doesn’t have is the body to back up his ambitions and willpower, because he’s a deer. He’s genuinely strong but Juno, Legoshi, Bill, he can’t physically hold his own against any of them, and if the plan to lynch him went through without Legoshi’s interruption (oh yeah that fucking happens!) there’d be nothing he could do. He’s only really safe because of what society looks like right now and what Legoshi does for him, but fuck me if their dynamic isn’t all sorts of complicated. Louis has this clear deep hatred for Legoshi, which is returned 10,000 fold when Haru is kidnapped and literally because of his ambitions to become the Beastar, and some advice from the mayor, Louis can’t do anything about it, and because he’s not doing anything about it Legoshi just squares the fuck up and punches him in the fucking best most gratifying fight scene this year, my god. I actually wish we saw more of Louis, because after Haru’s kidnapped he actually sort of goes off the deep end, shoots the Lion Mafia Don in the head (cool scene btw, make up for his lack of physical strength with weapons of society) and then tells the remaining lions to “leave nothing but [his] horns”. And then we never see him again. It’s an unexpected and kind of unsatisfying end to his character, so I hope season 2 can maybe see him return, because we don’t actually get confirmation that he’s been eaten or anything and there’s another good guy in there with him who we don’t see after the raid, so maybe he could save Louis? Speaking of that good guy, he’s a somewhat more minor herbivore character that’s super interesting in his own right. He’s a giant panda who takes in Legoshi briefly when he’s gotten lost and afraid in the black market, and the dude shows Legoshi what can happen to carnivores that act on their instinct. We see animals that have lost fur from the stress, self-harmed to the extreme, and some that have eaten their own limbs for a taste of meat. It’s so fucked and we don’t learn a lot about this panda but it’s impossible to not be interested in him, just because you can see how a society like the one in the show would mold him into the doctor he is, and he’s enough of a badass to where he joined Legoshi on that rescue mission to the Lion Mafia HQ I just mentioned which is just, fucking cool as hell.

So yeah we’ve got crazy interesting characters in a crazy interesting society, and the dynamics between the two different groups of characters and the way in which they interact with their society and are affected because of it are just fucking, jaw-droppingly well-written.

Do need to mention some negatives though, and I guess I’d say the biggest problem with the show then is, aside from Louis’ unfinished arc, is that the show can feel, I guess kind of unfittingly shounen at times? Namely the Lion Mafia raid actually, it’s a pretty fun rescue mission to watch with some good action animation, it reminded me of Streets of Rage since I watched the Streets of Rage 4 trailer like the day before, but it is still a scene where a high schooler with no real fighting experience beyond being a wolf and those are pretty strong effectively solos an entire Mafia force, with only a panda with a crossbow to help, but then their opponents are all lions and have guns but just, never use them. And then when Legoshi goes up against the mob boss he genuinely gives us an “I’m sorry, Haru-chan” and I couldn’t help but laugh, fuckin “master, please forgive me” bullshit. And then whenever that happens we get like a slow-mo shot of Legoshi like, quivering around as this sort of glowing orange representation of I guess carnivore instincts flies through his nervous system. It’s a cool visual but it makes him seem like a shounen MC with fuckin superpowers and I wasn’t that big a fan. But like, that’s actually it. That’s all I’ve really for problems, one of which is a possible mystery the second season might resolve and the other of which like, isn’t really a big deal and only really affects one episode. Other than that the show’s just fucking great.

This is gonna feel weird to say but this is definitely the season’s best looking show as well. Yeah, the 3D CG show. The models are really high quality though and move really well, the majority of animation’s really smooth and pretty to watch. Some like background characters are kinda stilted but not even any more so than is the norm in 2D shows, let alone those that use 3D crowd shots and shit. The backgrounds and environments are all really nice and they throw in some 2D animation here and there that looks good with the 3D too, plus one thing in particular the show’s decently fond of is segments with really stylised animation. In the first episode there’s a murder scene in a school theatre where everything is entirely black except from all the outlines, which are this sort of glowing blue (might’ve been red) and it looks beautiful. In the ??th episode there’s a sort of internal monologue Haru has, or it might be when she’s fucking Louis, that looks like this really pretty watercolour painting in motion, it was gorgeous. And then for Louis’ backstory scene we’ve got this sort of paper cutout abstract scene that looks like Gekidan Inu Curry stuff albeit a bit easier to visually digest. Show just looks really great from start to finish, it’s a great example of the strengths 3D animation can have when done right. Sounds great too, the voice acting, Legoshi’s especially, is really well acted and I particularly like how his own thoughts are recorded, they’ve got this sort of echo-ish feel to them (I don’t know what sound design is so idk how to describe it) that sort of gives the feeling of knowing what Legoshi sounds like to himself as well as what he sounds like to others, it’s done really well. Music does its job incredibly well, the OP fucking slaps and the stop motion visuals in it are brilliant too, the show’s just a really pretty and polished production from start to finish, I was never bored looking at or listening to it.

And uh, that’s Beastars. I said “society” a lot in this section, (24 times says Word) which is funny because haha we live in a society haha Joker (2019) but for real this show is fucking brilliant, one of the best and most polished stories I’ve seen put to TV. It has an interesting theme that it explores in greater detail than many of its contemporaries and the way in which every single detail of the narrative shapes and informs everything else is genuinely genius. I very strongly recommend you watch this if you haven’t already, it’s a fucking marvellous piece of work and I’m extremely hyped for season 2.

9/10.

I thought about 10, I really did, on a rewatch I might even give it a 10, and I’ll for sure rewatch this, but as it is now I’m feeling 9.

Girl of the Season – Miki Takekasa

I’m sure Haru seemed like the obvious choice based on all the praise I had for Beastars, but I ain’t no furry, Miki meanwhile is a cute and extremely moe anime girl and I really like those. Like I said, Miki just sort of has surprisingly nice development throughout Houkago Saikoro Club, and the way in which she’s able to open up a bit and grow more confident through the interactions she has with others thanks to the board games, it’s done really well, and with a gradual enough pace + reaffirmation of her arc in the last episode to where she doesn’t feel like a fundamentally different person. Plus she’s just, she’s really nice, there’s an episode where it’s raining so they can’t go to the beach and the girls see a little boy who’s really upset that he can’t go play so Miki like scouts him and teams up with him in a board game and argh it was really sweet I really liked it. And she’s also just, really really cute. She looks a lot like Sayaka Miki so I initially had a bit of whiplash seeing her aesthetic moe clash with her personality moe, but upon watching the show more I’m able to accept those two elements working well together. This show has really good girls and narrowing it down to just the one was difficult, but hey I’ll always be a sucker for quiet girls, so Miki has to win.

Boy of the Season – Legoshi

On the other hand, we’re actually choosing the furry pick here, because every other show is a cute girl show and SAO’s males suck pretty hard, especially since Kirito’s comatose and Eugeo’s dead, so Beastars is the obvious pick. But nah I’d have gone with him anyway, he’s the second most interesting thing about Beastars next to its society obviously, but of course that society’s impact on his character so cannot be understated and it’s really great. I said pretty much all I wanted to say about his character in the Beastars section so uh, not much to add here. He’s just a phenomenally written main character and the perfect vehicle to explore the society Beastars presents us with. Great show.

And that’s Fall 2019. As you can pretty clearly tell, I didn’t watch a lot of shows this season, a mere 7 if you weren’t counting, but hey I had fun with all of them, more or less. And also, this is my first Season in Review where I didn’t drop anything at all, and since all the shows were single cours and I chose to wait until Jet Girls and Rifle were finished to post this, this is by extension the first Season in Review where I’ve actually fully finished every show I’ve covered. I’m pretty proud of that one. And I had a lot of fun writing this too, I feel like all of the shows were interesting enough in their own ways to where I could say a fair bit for each of them, and hey that’s always a good thing, plus unlike most of my Seasons in Reviews there’s not really any sections in this that I rushed just to get out or anything, I really tried my hardest to make sure I’m proud enough of every section. Obviously my perspective on my writing is informed by my own biases so maybe you think this post is shit and you fucking hate me but like, eh, I had fun with it. So I really enjoyed this season for the opportunity it gave me in this writing, even if most of the shows I watched ended up not being great, and hey we still got Beastars out of it so that’s a really solid way to close out the decade. I think that’s pretty much it. End post.

#season in review #19.1.20 #sao #houkago saikoro club #Rifle is Beautiful #null peta #Girls' Last Tour #noukin #konosuba #pmmm #love live #endro #kandagawa jet girls #beastars

[dicecast]

Blast to the Past: Planescape Torment tutorial

Ok so if we really want to talk about 

Now planescape torment as a game is mostly strongest in the start, the game reaches its peak once you leave for the Outlands and doesn’t really recover until the very end at the return to Sigil, something which I wish the enhanced edition would have fixed.  But I think one of the reasons why this game is so beloved is in large part due to its strong opening.  And whats funny at first is that it is actually closer in structure to the Pathfinder:Kingmaker situation than the Baldur’s Gate I opening.  You awake in a crisis and need to escape from a building with different rooms having different mechanics be introduced.  And while it is a lot faster if you don’t do the sidequests, you can’t just finish the tutorial in 5 mins the way you can with Candlekeep.  Despite that, I think Planescape surpassing even Baldur’s Gate in its opening.  Lets talk about why

1) Aesthetic.  One of the most powerful thing about Planescape is that it has a very specific art direction, one which I have not seen in any fantasy before or sense, this philosopher hobo view of cosmic metaphor.  While PS:T is undeniably part of the D&D universe and is just as much fantasy as Baldur’s Gate, it feels wholly unlike the former, even though both games are canon in the same universe.  The game specifically removes most of the trappings of fantasy, there is a single sword and a single suit of armor in the whole game (the suit of armor is a companion), there are not dragons, there are no goblins/orcs/giants/drow/Mind flayers, you never explore ancient ruins of a lost civilization or restore a monarchy, you don’t even defend a village from monsters.  

   This game abandons the conventional trappings of fantasy instead having an aesthetic of...well a slum.  Your initial weapons include an iron spike, a scalpel, a plybar, a severed arm, and a crunch, you travel to sewers and are murdered in like 40 different ways.  And the Morgue is an absolutely great to place to set the tone, the whole place is full of images of emboldening fluid, dissected corpses, and body parts, but rather than being used to be creepy or evil it is actually rather nice.  They aren’t enemies to be destroyed...they are you.  This place of corpses and preservatives is where you belong, because you are after all, a corpse who keeps refusing to die.  

2) it sets the tone, specifically in not judging a book by its cover.  The Mortuary could easily have been a sinister realm of necromancers with their zombie servants doing experiments among the dead, but the tutorial puts you in the framework of not assuming that the sinister is evil.  A floating skull can be your friend, you don’t have to attack the zombies, and the weird necromancers in robes talking about True Deaths are just stoic goths.  In a Planescape setting and especially in a game that is as role-play heavy as this one, it is important to communicate to the player that they need to take the weird stuff on its surface rather than assume things are going to follow a standard fantasy storylines.  Maybe the two demon ladies can be your friend, maybe its best to talk to the creepy hag, assumptions will not help you in this game 

3) Its not entirely linear.  A lot of the content is optional If you want, you can get through this tutorial in maybe 10-15 mins if you skip the side content.  Also much of the content has multiple resolutions depending on your play style, making it much more an example of self expression rather than “I need to pick the locks now” 

4) It is an actual story segement.  My issue with Kingmaker or Bloodlines is that the tutorial is just....a place you learn the mechanics and nothing more, while the Morgue is directly related to the plot of Planescape.  You need to learn about yourself as the Nameless One, you get to meet and learn about Morte, you meet Dhall and find out more aobut the story,  You meet Deionarra, and most importantly where you wake up is also the entrance of the final boss.  The Tutorial level is absolutely necessary to understand the story of the game and is infact more necessary than the whole Curst nonsense. \

5) It establishes the mechanics.  Despite using the same engine and being set in the same universe as Baldur’s Gate, the experience is totally different in terms of gameplay.  PS:T needs to introduce how important dialogue options are, that your stats can effect the various conversions, that you are immortal and that htis game has a much more visual novel/adventure game feel to it than the more combat oriented BG.  lets contrast some points real quick

In Candlekeep, you have to do an errant for a guy and normally he gives you some money but in one of my playthroughs he gave me a +1 dagger.  I didn’t know why the difference until I looked it up and was like “oh I had 18 charisma”.  Meanwhile planescape torment, it informs you about the different stat and their effect on dialogue in order to let players know to plan their stats accordingly

To use another example, in the Mortuary there are a bunch of giant skeletons chilling around in the upper level.  In BG that would be a challenge to defeat, but in PS:T, talking to them while having this one book and a high enough Int means you can deactivate them, getting XP for each one and looking their armor to learn spells.  This is going to be a hallmark of PS:T and it is established here

The fact that you can get through this whole level only killing a single zombie is right away a major different from BG, where you kill like 90% of the cast.  

6) It sets the tone of Planescape.  One of the reasons why this game is so beloved is that PS:T kinda delivers on the RPG promise.  There are like 20 zombies in this level and almost all of them has a different way of interacting with them and unique appearance.  One of them has stitches that you can cut with a scapel to find a not, one is holding a book, one losses its arm that you can lose as a club, there is a zombie who is actually a human spy dressed up as a zombie (who can dress you up too) almost everything in this level has a unique method of interactivity, and that is before Morte tries to hit on them.  Honestly one of hte failings of PS:T is that no other part of the game is as interactive as this particular level.  

7) You can return to the Motuary throughout the rest of the game, making this place useful.  Even if you do every single side-quest you can first time through, there will still be more to do. You come back here when you die, you need to go here for the final dungeon, some quests take you but most critically there is a whole zombie sidequest here.  later in the game a crying zombie will give you the power to talk to the dead.  If you think of it, you can return to this place and talk to every single zombie here, each of whom has their own story, a few of which are quite elaborate, and one of them is your old buddy who has some items for you.  

In short, PS:T is to me the ideal RPG tutorial (though I do wish I could get through it a bit faster on a second play-through) because it feels like an actual part of the game rather than simply “the part where you do the mechanics” 

Next time I might finally talk about why the tutorial for Pathfinder;Kingmaker is so bad...but I might not bother, its boring. 

#Blast to the Past #Planescape torment #Dungeons and Dragons #Dustmen #Nameless One #morte #Rolepalying Games #RPG #D&D #Tutorials #Game Design

[utilitycaster]

Oh sorry, I meant fav Fantasy High characters! I think Unsleeping City was just on my mind bc I finished it recently and am in my feelings about it

So I don’t know if I fully have a favorite yet. I like Fig and Adaine especially, but honestly the only one who’s not clicking with me yet is Fabian, and I think Lou’s acting is great - it’s just hard to relate to the rich entitled jock at this point (I’m about to start episode 6). So, here’s what I like about the others.

Fig - I play a bard and bards are great, and I just really love the tough-girl facade plus the obvious insecurities she has, plus the fact that she was basically the first one to be like “I really like you guys” despite that facade, and also her tendency for bold chaotic moves. I usually don’t get why people are so obsessed with tieflings and have always found them a little unsettling and off-putting*, but Fig plus Jester from CR (who I also love) helped me figure out why and it’s that I am really not into the solid-colored eyes. Since Fig is depicted as basically looking like a wood elf with horns, and Jester has normal eyes as well, I did not have this issue and so I can appreciate the fuckery of casting thaumaturgy at every opportunity. Note: this is absolutely totally about the eyes, because I am in favor of ignoring alignment recommendations, at least good and evil (I actually do like the idea of races falling along lawful/chaotic lines, but anyone can be good or evil or in between), and I think half-orcs and drow are awesome so I don’t care about the PHB “this race is EVIL” thing. It was weird to realize that was my whole hang-up. Anyway.

Adaine - while my parents are not absolute trash I do relate to her anxieties a lot as a high achieving perfectionist nerd myself, and also I love me some arcane casters (Fig is like, who I thought was cool when I was in high school. Adaine is closer to who I actually was). Also I think she’s had two of my favorite scenes, namely her killing Doreen with a ladle, and just absolutely picking apart the trilby AV Club bro.

Gorgug - I love a barbarian who loves flowers, apparently. Also I love how hard his parents are trying, and how just generally awkward he is, and that he sort of doesn’t understand his rage. I’ve found his and Fig’s interactions to be just a really great budding and unexpected friendship. I hope he learns to play the drums.

Riz - I like how he has a really clear and unique goal what with looking for the missing girls, and also he’s already really kind of figured out who he is and is not going to change to be cool.

Kristen - this is more of being super excited about the potential direction for the character. I am EXTREMELY turned off by proselytizing/missionary work of any kind as well as the “I’m approachable and everyone’s friend!” attitude that those people tend to express, but I am always into a good questioning faith story, and there are extensive signs it will also be a coming out story which really isn’t something I’ve seen much in D&D and which I think would be lovely to see.

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #Anonymous

[flutterbyhime]

So, like everyone, I’ve got some thoughts on Voltron Season 7. Spoilers inbound so... skip this if you still haven’t watched it. Which you should, because despite at least half the fandom acting like it’s the end of the world, season seven is actually pretty goddamn engaging. Like “oh, I’m just gonna watch the first three or so episodes and call it a night. I’ll watch the rest tomorrow.” followed by “It’s nearly three in the morning and I have finished Voltron season seven.” engaging

Okay. So I just want to give everyone a quick warning apart from spoilers, that I am not super used to writing reactions/reviews. Usually I just mule it over in my head, talk it out with some friends, and then that’s about it. BUT~~ since I’m the only one in group of friends that loves Voltron and I would like them to watch it at some point without certain story beats spoiled, I figured I would write out my thoughts this time. You know, try and put my thoughts, praises, and criticisms in a concise and constructive piece. And while I realize that some of the things I’m going to say are probably gonna invite some interesting...responses on my post or inbox, my first few browses of the Voltron tag haven’t actually shown constructive/concise criticisms outside of how the writers handled Shiro’s relationship with Adam (something that I’ll go into detail later. The actual relationship and what I think the text is, feeding on my first Voltron season 7 post, that is. The whole backlash to the writing I do in the next paragraph).

Which, speaking of how the writers handled Shiro and Adam’s relationship! First things first, I just want to say that I can see and understand why a lot of people are upset. Voltron has grown to mean a lot of things to the fandom, and with the news that Shiro is a gay man serving in the military with a long term relationship that was leading to marriage before Kerberous Mission was really exciting. It was fantastic to get a beloved character to be confirmed to be apart of the LGBT+ community. It still is in my book. The fact that Shiro has been through a lot of shit and still has hope and love to give to his newly found family already made him an amazing character. And with his confirmed sexuality, it’s like extra decorative and delicious strawberries on an already amazing proverbial cake. It brings that much more depth and interest in a character that could have very easily been a one note character. And for me, the confirmation announcement and the announcement that we would see parts of Shiro’s life pre-Kerberous was exciting. Of the core cast, the person we know the least about in terms of home life was Shiro. With everyone else, we either knew or learned some aspect of how their lives were before this grand space adventure happened. But we never really knew with Shiro beyond he took in Keith at some point and that he was a prisoner of a ten thousand year old war for about a year. So the glimpse of how he met Keith, came to took him in, and how his relationships were before leaving for Kerberous was a welcome story addition (also greatly needed from a character stand point in my opinion. Shiro was starting to get a touch...mythical). So with what we saw of Shiro and Adam was a fight about Shiro wanting to do the Kerberous Mission, followed later by Adam passing in a first wave offensive and later with Shiro realizing that Adam died, yeah... I see why a lot of people are upset. And if you are upset, I completely understand. You have every right to be upset. But here’s the thing.  Sending hate or being nasty to the writers and the cast isn’t going to help. What will help is giving actual feedback to Dreamworks and the writers. Whatever passion you feel for the show will come through, but an off the hip reaction doesn’t give someone a lot to go off of. Being calm and concise does though. Again, you can be disappointed and upset, but you can voice it in a way that doesn’t come off as an attack (which is what a lot of initial criticism read to me).  Joaquim Dos Santos, an executive producer of Voltron, wrote a wonderful open letter to the fandom addressing all this that you should read. A lot of it puts a number of things into clearer light.(https://twitter.com/JDS_247/status/1029181981572050945)  And I don’t want to get tin-foil-hat on you guys, but something tells me that the writers and producers had to fight to get ANY LGTB+ representation in, let alone confirm it. Which is sad, but Voltron is still a kids show. And I wouldn’t be surprised that some stuffy, out of touch white guys in suits said that you can’t do the gay thing because children can’t be corrupted or some similar bullshit. So be mad, be upset, be loud. But be loud at Dreamswork.  Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers and producers were showing all this backlash to the suits and going “YOU HAVE TO LET US GIVE THEM THE GAY FOR SEASON EIGHT. LOOK AT HOW MUCH THE AUDIENCE IS DEMANDING IT! THESE ARE THE PEOPLE BUYING THE MERCHANDISE FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!” Because I sure as fuck would.

And with that out of the way, let’s move on to some positive things!

This season was actually well-written. Were there mis-steps? Yes, but again (and getting a litte tin-foil-hatty here), I feel like certain elements were probably more studio driven than writer driven (looking at you Axca and your weird stares at Keith!). But overall this season was excellently written. The stakes were kept high, there was tension throughout, and the comic-relief episode was a wonderful play on fan headcannons (making Keith a terrible artists is something I’m still laughing about). And yeah, the last few episodes can be a little too similar thanks to all the action scenes, but at least the stakes were upped at each turn. And also, what better way to introduce the new big-bad than right after defeating Sendak?! It subverts the exception of a huge celebration with showing our heros that they may not have the chomps to fight against this new threat (which, let’s be real, it’s most likely Lotor and/or Haggar. If it’s not either of them, I will be thoroughly surprised).

One of my favorite things from season seven though is that is explores what happens after a major political leader of an empire is killed. It would have been so easy just to have another galra take the reigns of the Zarkon’s empire, but the writers went with the harder option of a bloody fallout. They showed a world/universe where people have formed their own factions and fighting for power, along with the mess that that creates. You honestly don’t see that a lot in fiction, let alone fiction aimed for younger audiences. 

And let’s talk about episode five for a hot minute. It’s been a long time since I was legit terrified from a children’s show. Like since Avatar: The Last Air Bender (that blood bending episode still gives me chills). The set-up and pacing is so perfect. Starting light before slowly turning tragic, which only leads to the sheer-terror of not only the situation, but of how brutal and cruel the universe has gotten in Voltron’s absence. With so little, it makes the viewer question of what’s happened to other allies of Voltron. And considering it follows the game show episode, it’s the hard left turn I personally wasn’t expecting. But I’m not going to lie, it’s probably my favorite episode of the season. Also, I legit started tearing up when Keith called Krolia “Mom” and they hugged. While I wish there was more mother-son moments in general when in comes to Keith and Krolia, I think that moment alone showed how much Keith has grown. He may still have some abandonment issues, but it’s clear that the trust he has in his family is helping him overcome that. That he trusts Krolia to come back and that he trusts his team/new family to be there for him. And I’m hoping we get that explored some more in season eight. (#MoreActualSpaceMomPlease)

There’s also the fact that they made the four years of Sam Holt’s time back on Earth engaging to watch. While I think we all knew that they were going to explain what Sam, the Garrison, and Earth in general was doing before Voltron arrived, I was worried how they would handle this. This is exposition that’s very easy to make clunky and a slog to get through. I was worried even when the first shot was “Four Years Earlier...”. Even with two episodes dedicated to some very important exposition, this is stuff that I think any writer can tell you is tricky to pull off. Yes, Sam is Pidge and Matt’s father, and we get the bonus of Lance’s sister Veronica (#BestBigSister #MoreVeronicaAndLanceSeasonEight), people who we’re emotionally invested in because members of the core cast are, but this is still focus away from characters we’ve gotten to know and love for six seasons.  These two episodes had to not only re-familiarize us with character we met briefly in season five, but had to reintroduce us to characters we’ve really only seen in episode one with brief cameos in various flashbacks, introduce us to both new characters and the command structure of the Garrison. And that’s a lot to do in less than a total of forty minutes. So the fact that it’s engaging and does not only that, but also clearly gives and raises the stakes for the rest of the season without ham-fisting it is impressive. We knew that Voltron was going to have to save Earth thanks to the trailer, but we didn’t know how dire the situation was going to be when we returned to Earth. Even though these were the episodes that Adam died, I still found myself emotionally invested.  If anything, its inspired me to write AU fanfiction where I take all the ‘humans are space orcs and Earth is a death planet’ ideas and put them in there, having Sendak and the Galra lowkey realize that the Lions of Voltron probably chose the most-level-headed humans to the be the paladins because fuck man, earthlings be terrifying and maybe we should leave??? (I’m serious about this bit. I’ve been going through all my saved screen-shot pins of them on pinterest and making note of which ones I want to use)

I like how we get to see more of the relationships between all of Team Voltron and the core casts’s family. I like that we got to see more of Hunk’s story and how Lance’s relationship with his siblings is very much the same as Keith and Shiro’s in terms of the emotional bonds (seriously, the paralles between Lance and Keith when their siblings (or if you’re a Sheith shipper, loved ones) are in danger is great. The Klance shipper in me is on the floor in tears crying about how these two boys will sacrifice themselves if it meant that their loved ones would live. Thanks for emotionally wrecking me on that Voltron writers). I love that we got to see Colleen Holt reunite with her husband and straight up go “FIGHT ME”  and win when Garrison command tells her she can’t stay because protocol, along with her being active in her own way. When she and Sam broadcast to their entire planet that an alien invasion is imminent, she doesn’t shy away from being the one to drop this bombshell. From the text, it appears that she fought long and hard trying to figure out what happened to her family long before Sam came back, I love that about her. She just wants to know her family is safe, or at least get some potential closure if their not, and she never backed down from that fight. So it’s great to see that reunion. And, quick aside, it’s clear from the visual text that she and Sam have a beautifully healthy relationship despite their years apart and they emotionally support one another. And I hope that we see more of that in the next season. And I’ve got high hopes for season eight for so many more reasons!

So now I guess I should address the one relationship that I said I would talk about at the start of all this.  Shiro and Adam.

Okay, so some of you may have already read my thoughts on an earlier post how how I didn’t believe we were going to get a tearful and heartfelt reunion between the two. (here’s the link if you want to read it in full: http://kirika-hime.tumblr.com/post/176794551537/okay-before-season-7-of-voltron-is-up-ive-got-a  It’s long, so sorry about that, but I’m going to be referencing it a bit here) And even with what little was given to us or even what could have been given to us, I can’t fully get behind Adam. 

Yes, we pretty much just got a fight, but hear me out for a moment. First things first, that fight, when you’re paying attention to it, actually sounds like a fight between two adults who care for each other and have been gone over the topic ad nauseam. Adam sounds tired. Shiro sounds tired and frustrated. The topic of Shiro going on the Kerberous Mission when his health is probably beginning to decline is clearly something that has truly strained their relationship. The acting and the animation show that with so little. And here’s the thing with that, it makes me asks a lot of big questions. If Shiro had stayed and they had gotten married, would that strain still be there? Would Shiro potentially resent Adam for convincing him not to go on the mission? If he does, does that strain begin to grow into a rift? What if their relationship was already showing some cracks in the foundation and they didn’t realize it? What if the fight and their split actually healthy for the two of them?  Would Sam and Matt still have gone the Kerberous Mission? And if they did, would Matt still even be alive? Would Sam find a way to escape? What about Pidge? Colleen? What happens to them? If Pidge is still demanding for answers, does Shiro demand for them as well? Does their relationship change? Does Pidge and Keith’s relationship change? Does Shiro get kicked out of the Garrison instead of Keith? Does Pidge still disguise herself And what about Voltron? Would the Blue Lion have been found at all? Or would Zarkon have found the others, including the Black Lion? Because if that’s what could happen, what does that mean for Allura and Coran? What does that mean for Earth? For Lotor and the Alteans he deceiving and manipulating? What about Romelle? What would have happened to her if Keith and Krolia never found her?

And I know a lot of these questions probably seem dumb and fanficcy to a lot of people, but I think they’re legit questions fans should ask. A lot of this story hinges on Shiro, Sam, and Matt going on the Kerberous Mission when you boil it down. So it’s important to explore how certain characters made certain decisions.  I don’t doubt that Shiro went on the Kerberous Mission to fulfill his dream one last time. He had no way of knowing that he was going to be abducted. But I’m positive that he wanted to be out in space one last time. I don’t think it was about breaking records, like Adam seemed to suggest. I think it was one man trying to get as much joy and fulfillment out of his life before he was fully confined by his illness. Shiro didn’t want to have any regrets when that time came. And possibly, he wanted to show Keith that even when the deck is stacked against him, he could still do amazing things. And it’s also selfish. Which is great because it gives Shiro a character flaw! And we can see how it shapes him when rewatching previous seasons. The guilt he feels from how he left things with Adam, of how he left Keith behind, probably drove a lot of his decisions and choices during his time as a prisoner and as the Black Paladin. Adam may have said that he wouldn’t be waiting for Shiro when he returned, but that still doesn’t mean Shiro wants him, anyone, to experience the horrors of war. Not when he potentially keep that from happening. As a Paladin, he can potentially redeem a lot of his perceived mistakes. That’s what makes Shiro interesting! (It’s also what makes him so difficult to write)

Adam is in his right to not want to put up with Shiro’s selfishness.  But I still hold from one argument from my previous post, that Adam gave up on Keith.

Now a lot of this is on assumptions and personal interpretation of the text (both actual words and visually) that’s been given to us, but I stand by that Adam gave up on a kid who needed him. No matter how you view Shiro and Keith’s relationship, Keith’s important to Shiro. He saw a lot of potential in a lonely child who, more than anything, needed someone to care about him beyond questioning if he was going to get into trouble or not. And as Shiro got closer to Keith, he saw a child who needed a family. A person who he could turn to when things started getting rough, for someone to be in his corner.  Keith at a young age was difficult to get along with, the first episode of this season showed us that. He’s closed off, kids his age don’t really want to take the time to understand him, and it seems that most adults aren’t willing to invest in the time to tease and pull out his strengths or see the kid that feels deeply for his loved ones. Keith has a lot of emotional baggage, and combine it with whatever possible galra childhood tendencies he might have that no one could have known about, you have a really tough job on your hands. And that’s what makes Keith and Shiro’s relationship so powerful. That Shiro was able to see the potential in him. Not just to be a great pilot, but to be a great and loving person. Shiro never gave up on him. 

But Adam did. Not once during episode seven or eight do we see Adam inquire after Shiro or Keith. Something that would have been so easy to include, and it never happened.  Adam no doubt was the first person Shiro talked to when it came to Keith (followed most likely by Sam, because, hey. Sam’s got two kids, he’s gotta know a thing or two about parenting overly-talented children, right?). He probably tried to get feedback, ideas, even confirmation on how he was interacting and raising Keith. And considering how close Keith and Shiro are, Adam definitely met and interacted with Keith.  Adam may not have fully agreed with Shiro pseudo-adopting Keith, but he saw how close the two were. He knew that Shiro was trying to give Keith the tools to succeed in life and get him out of a system that clearly did not care for him. And that could have been part of the reason why Adam loved Shiro.  Like I said in my first post, I fully believe that Shiro asked Adam to look after Keith while he was gone. I still believe that Keith acted similarly to Pidge in trying to get answers after Kerberous went belly-up. And I still fully believe that when Keith was kicked out of the Garrison and left homeless. And I still fully believe that Adam did nothing to help. Nothing that was given to us indicates that Adam tried to reach out and support Keith when Shiro disappeared.

In fact, I’m more angry at Adam now than before season seven was released. He understandably ended things with Shiro. He was tired of watching the man he loved putting his personal goals/desires before his health and couldn’t watch anymore. He told Shiro that he wouldn’t be waiting for him anymore. And I get that.  That sucks. Watching a person you love potentially destroying themselves hurts. The more you care about them, the more it hurts. But Adam, whether he meant it or not, included Keith in that. He cut Keith out of his life too. I don’t have any doubt that Keith tried to get Adam to help him in finding answers. Keith probably had his fair share of fights with Adam, trying to appeal to him that Shiro was too of a pilot for there to be an error, illness or not. That they have a right to know what happened to a person they love.  And Adam shut him out. He abandoned Keith. Whether it was to deal with his own emotional pain over Shiro’s disappearance or that he never cared for Keith in a similar way that Shiro did, I don’t know. But his response was to abandon a child he knew had no one. We get no indication that Adam opened up his home for Keith, or that he tried to find out where Keith went when he left for the desert.  And that’s what makes me angry. Is that Adam, whether he felt equipped to deal with Keith’s problems or not, abandoned a child who needed support more than ever. He didn’t have to care about Keith like a brother or a son, but he could have saw someone who was hurting as much as he was. Adam could have tried to talk to Keith and give him support. They could have potentially healed together over the loss of Shiro. But Adam let a young teenager, a child, feel abandoned once more and homeless on top of that. 

I can’t forgive him for that. Nothing in the text, via words or visually, indicates that Adam tried to help or be there for Keith. And I really wanted to like Adam, but what I’ve got to work with says otherwise.  Who knows, maybe season eight will prove me wrong. But until then, I just can’t. 

#Voltron legendary defender #voltron #voltron season 7 #voltron season seven #let's talk about the good things #and the bad things #also #don't send hate to people #that's the worst #i just really liked season seven guys #Shiro #Takashi Shirogane #Keith Kogane #Lance McClain #Hunk #Pidge #Pidge Holt #The Holt Family #Holt family is best family #Klance #Adam #Adashi #sorry for the long post #I'll try to break it up next time #why i'm not on board with Adam #why i'm not on board with adashi #what do you think? #really wanna hear #man that got sad at the end #i didn't mean for that to happen

[woohooligancomics]

A Personal Racism Issue. Can I Get Your Advice?

I'm at a bit of a loss... so I'm hoping some of you hooligans might be able to help me out. This weekend I'm tabling a gaming convention with a friend of mine (and I'll leave his name out here for reasons that will be apparent -- I'll call him X). Admittedly, I'm a comedian and a cartoonist, so a gaming convention is slightly off-brand, but I'm hoping there will be a good cross-section of people who also enjoy comedy, and at the end of Friday I've already collected 5 new subscribers to our newsletter, the Woohooligan Weekly Dick Joke Advocate.

This came about when I got an unexpected call from X about a month before the event and he mentioned in passing that he'd already booked a table for this event. I offered to share the booth with him, because I want to attend more cons and I thought I could handle the 5hr drive. I've tabled about a half-dozen cons so far, this would be his first. And although he's a relatively new friend (a year?), I didn't have the impression he was racist -- at least not overtly or knowingly so... I wouldn't associate myself with anyone who identified as "Alt-Right", I think that should be apparent from my work, of which X is aware. Dunking on these racists was part of all three of my most recent YouTube videos, and a comic I published in 2016 which appears in my recent Woohooligan Vol 2 (page 29) that I now have on the table at the event thanks to our recent Kickstarter.

What I didn't realize until I arrived at the event, is that X is selling t-shirts labelled "Fantasy Lives Matter". There are about a dozen of them, roughly half of his t-shirt designs, so for example a picture of an orc with the text "Orc Lives Matter", another for Elf, Dwarf, etc. I hoped at first that it would go unnoticed as people often don't read the text and just check out the artwork. I've already noticed one girl at the table this morning was put off. She asked me, "are you a Black Lives Matter person or an all lives matter person"? To which I responded "black lives matter... I haven't had that specific conversation with X, though I suspect he's the same"...

Apparently I was wrong, which, I realize in retrospect is what I should have expected, because I think the majority of people would have picked up on the poor taste of trivializing serious problems faced by real people. I want to say I think most people would have picked up on that faster than I did actually, since I think I'd seen these graphics before (I mean, months ago), and it just hadn't clicked in my mind, despite all the work I've done.

I tried to have a brief conversation with X about it, which went nowhere good...

Me: Hey, X. This girl just left, put off by the FLM designs... she asked if I was BLM or ALM.

X: [rolls eyes] Yeah that was my dad's big problem too, thinking people would be offended, and if they are, fuck 'em. I'm saying "all lives matter", even fictional ones.

(That last sentence is a huge problem for me, for reasons I think should be obvious.)

Me: "All lives matter" is intended to shut down people trying to address serious problems.

X: People don't know how to address problems... and to be honest, some of those people running in with the police deserve what they're getting.

(We're way into not-okay territory here and I've invested a huge amount of time and a notable amount of money in this event, and knowing now that X apparently has difficulty staying awake while driving on the freeway, I'm also concerned about his safety if I decided to just leave suddenly... but at this moment I'm not ready to get into what seems like is likely to devolve into a screaming match in front of everyone at the con.)

Me: the BLM movement only exists because there's a huge amount of injustice built into the system. When everything else is held equal, a black person on average receives 2-3 times more jail time than a white person, and that should never happen.

(I don't have reference for that specific figure on-hand -- please check my work and leave a link if you have one, whether I remembered it correctly or not. Thank you.)

X: [basically murmurred agreement]

I don't want to make any excuses for his diminishing of real-world problems, I think it's bad... I'm conflicted about how to address this problem for myself... I plan to publish photos of myself at the con, and the signs for those designs will be in the background... do I black them out? If I do that, am I enabling him?

I don't *think* he realizes what the problem is... I don't *think* he's deliberately racist. On the way back to the house from the convention he offered to buy me dinner at a shawarma place (I'd never had it -- it was good -- it actually reminded me of some southern cafeterias, although the seasoning and the decoration were a little different.)

The waitresses wore hijabs and he was familiar them (had been there many times), and treated them nice enough... though I will say that some of the things he says seem fairly insensitive in a general sense. For example, he makes a lot of objectifying comments about women, including for example, one of the shawarma waitresses, "[damn she's hot]... and great tits". (Of course, he's only seen her breasts 100% covered -- not even cleavage -- so it's a little odd to me to hear someone be so overtly objectifying of someone who's entire outward image is one of "I am not here for you to ogle".) And the whole day at the con was similar -- frequent mentions of "she's smokin' hot" or "that red head" or "I've never wanted to give wood to an elf so bad", which I tried not to encourage. (I like porn too, but my interest in potential partners isn't based on their looks.)

These are things I hadn't noticed in previous phone or online conversations. So I'm a bit conflicted... He's open enough to be friendly with the shawarma waitresses... but he's also interested in them to the point of sexual interest in women who're being very careful to be NOT sexy. So how confrontational should I be about "fantasy lives matter"?

I don't plan to share a table with him again if he's going to continue promoting them... I would hope he would eventually figure out that the phrase is likely to reduce his sales, even when a person might agree with his sentiment, because they don't want to buy a shirt that's going to get them into verbal fisticuffs with people. But this being his first event, and saying that he's already plunked down $1400 into it, it seems to me unlikely that he'll learn that soon. Though in honesty, it always feels like cold comfort to me when someone is doing the right thing only because they realize some kind of financial reward for it.

So should just not sharing tables in the future be where I leave it? Is it okay to accept that, "he's not a deliberate racist, just kind of an insensitive jerk" and just limit my involvement? As an autistic person who knows what it's like to be ostracized for being unintentionally insensitive, am I being too harsh if I say I feel like this is too much? Does that make me a hypocrite? And what about the fact that there are now photos of me in the act of affiliating myself with the creator who promoted "fantasy lives matter"?

Regardless of how it may impact my image, I'm trying to figure out what course of action will produce the best results for everyone -- that hopefully anyone who can become a better person will, regardless of how it impacts my image. Obviously I always have to think about my image, we all do, but that's a secondary concern. I feel like I should be willing to sacrifice my image if the alternative is being hypocritical, cruel, or even just unwilling to evolve or better myself.

Thanks for reading and helping me with this. I appreciate any advice you have.

- Sam

(Now I need to get about 6 hours sleep, because I spent too long composing this blog and have to be up early for the event tomorrow. Thank god my diabetes didn't trash my energy today, and fingers crossed I have the same luck tomorrow.)

UPDATE 9/17/2018

Maybe I should have waited until the end of the event before writing this blog, but the subject distresses me and I wanted to talk about it sooner than later. At the end of Friday, neither X or I had sold anything at the event. Saturday morning, X printed off about 4 shirts as samples to lay on the front of the table (good marketing), to show people that, "hey these pictures on the poster in the back go on t-shirts". It worked and over Saturday and Sunday, he sold at least a half-dozen shirts, most of them "Fantasy Lives Matter" shirts. So while there are some people who are offended by them, there are apparently also a large number of people excited by them (I think exclusively white people that I saw, although most of the attendees looked pretty white to me as well). ::sigh::

Over the course of the event, 27 new people signed up for our Woohooligan Weekly Dick Joke Advocate mailing list. I know many of those people were either indifferent to the FLM shirts or some may have even been excited by them... but I have no idea how many people may have simply avoided conversation with me all-together because of them.

I still have no plans to share another table with X. It's weird to me, because he's really sensitive about other things, like he kept profusely apologizing for falling asleep in the car because he apparently suffers from pretty bad road hypnosis. He's made the hour drive before, but I was concerned about him making the drive after a full day manning the table at the con. Meanwhile I also discovered he's got a huge chip on his shoulder about (of all things) shaking hands.

X: I hate it. I don't like people touching me.

Me: You know people are about 30% more likely to buy from you right?

X: You may be right, but I don't care. It was originally a symbol of distrust. Do you know where it came from?

Me: Yeah, it was originally a way of showing that you weren't armed, but it's evolved into a symbol of trust.

X: It's evolbed into a bullshit thing we do for no goddamn reason!

So to recap: shaking hands is tragic evidence of the decline of civilization, while Black Lives Matter is deluded and don't know how to address problems, and "many of them deserve what they're getting anyway".

I just can't fathom how a person can have that set of priorities when they go out of their way to eat shawarma and so forth and don't appear to be outwardly racist in any other way that I can tell.

His FLM shirts outsold mine by a wide margin, and frankly I don't care... or rather, I find it disheartening... and I'm not about to deliberately associate my work with it in the future. All people need justice, and if you think it through, you should realize that "all lives matter" is the actual meaning of "black lives matter". Saying "all lives matter" as a response is like saying of the condition of slaves, "slave owners have problems, too!" It takes air away from the importance of addressing a great deal of injustice in our country and I don't want to contribute to trivializing that in any way. Even if I stood to gain financially from it, I wouldn't do it.

I'm still not sure what else to do, beyond just not sharing con tables with him again, and would still appreciate hearing any thoughts you have on it. Thanks.

- Sam

#racism #public relations

[goldenagewebnovel]

Volume 1 Chapter 1

The feeling of loading into a new area is really weird. Not to say that it’s unpleasant, but for those first few seconds nothing makes sense. Then it's like everything is being drawn in three dimensions with different colored lines and vectors. Then just as you slowly start to get an outline of what’s in front of you, boom! All at once, with color and sound, the whole world explodes into life.

I remember hitting that cloud at terminal velocity but now, not only am I no longer falling but there’s even a gentle breeze blowing across this still field.

There is a quaint little village further in front of me. Rows of houses and buildings, all made up of wood and stone, and looking like they belong in medieval Europe. There’s even smoke coming out of some of the houses. There are cobblestone roads connecting everything in the village, that eventually extend into dirt paths, and those paths lead into green grass everywhere else.

Off to the right of the village is a small forest, with inviting shadows and soft rays of light glowing in-between the trees. Instead of a sky it looks like there is a softly glowing cloud dome surrounding the entire area.

Directly in front me is what looks to be a ring of flowers. They are surrounding a perfectly manicured circle of grass that I’m standing on…

Wait. 

I look down with trembling eyes and realize: I’m standing. I’m actually standing on my own two feet. That’s a sight I thought I would never be able to see.

Whatever strength was allowing me to stand leaves my legs, and I collapse to me knees. I can only hold on to my face and cry. Deep, shuddering cries. In this moment it doesn't matter what else this game promised. For this gift alone I am already grateful. 

I would be embarrassed to say how long I sat there crying, but I genuinely don't know how long it was. By the time I could stop shaking and actually wiped my eyes I noticed that there were other people in a half circle around me. There were eight people standing just in front of the flower ring and they were all looking at me. At least none of them looked too uncomfortable because of my breakdown; in fact, most of them were giving me really warm smiles.

If I hadn't just finished crying my eyes out I would have been shocked at the spread of people in front of me. Nothing quite prepares you to see creatures that are clearly not human but still entirely intelligent. That aside, all of them looked to be varied in age and ethnicity. The one in the middle, who looked to be in charge, stepped forward. 

“I’m guessing this is your first time playing a Full VR game. It’s different for everyone, but from my experience a lot of people with disabilities who play for the first time react pretty much the same as you.”

“Yeah, I’ve been in a wheelchair my whole life. I know this technology is supposed to be crazy, but it kind of overwhelmed me there. Sorry about that, my name’s D0n.”

“No worries. I’m Arinn, the Magic Instructor.  I’ve got first shift to greet the new players. We’re heading to the Magic building first, so follow me and I'll give you a basic rundown of the game.”

Arinn looked young, but aside from that he was wearing the classical magic outfit. Flowing red robes with a big gnarled wooden staff, just like you would expect to see from a sorcerer in a fantasy world.

I put my hands on my knees to stand up, but in that moment I realize that I have no idea how to really stand. I don't know how to walk.

“Um, do you think I can get a hand? I don't really know what I'm doing.”

“Oh, sure. My bad.”

Arinn and two of the guys waiting with the group come over and help pick me up. It’s wild; I know this is just a game but I can really feel their touch. The roughness of the cloth and the feeling of their body heat are clearly felt through my arms. 

They set me on my feet but the most I can do by myself is wobble in place. Arinn turns to me and tells me not to worry about it. 

“You're really not alone, D0n. A lot of first timers — no matter their situation — tend to have a hard time wrapping their head around how to move in Full VR. I'm going to go continue the tutorial with the rest of the group but why don't you stay with these two? They also need a bit of time to get adjusted, you all can help each other out.”

He points at two other players, already off to the side, who look as unsteady on their feet as I do. One of them appears to be a young boy, who can't be much older than 10. Next to him is an old woman, she’s looking around the area and appears to be a little shocked by what she is seeing. From the way they are holding on to each other it looks like they are grandson and grandmother.

The two players who helped me stand up also help the three of us walk over to a soft patch of grass near the Magic building. Both of them are nearly two feet taller then me and with their green skin they’re clearly orcs. They let us know that these are actually some alt characters they are making, so they don't need to go through the tutorial. Once they finish helping us out they are just going to go straight to the main game.

After the three of us get situated the orc pair make their way towards what looks to be a gate at the far end of the Village, in front of a large hole with a pedestal. We wave happily to them until they are completely out of sight. I hope they have a good time with their new characters.

The sensation of standing still feels really unnatural to me, so I stay sitting on the grass and try to get used to the feeling of being able to move my legs freely and without pain. The grandmother is leaning against a nearby wall, using it to support her walking; it looks like she has plenty of strength and balance to walk but is unused to having that strength available in the first place. Her grandson is still a little bit clumsy in his movements but he is already running in literal circles around the both of us. His eyes are shining as he tries to look at everything at once — getting dizzy multiple times because of it.

“What's your name again, dear? Oh, I guess I should ask what your character’s name is. I decided to call myself Nana, that way my little Ethan can continue to call me like he’s used to.”

“My name’s D0n. It’s an old username I’ve had forever. Those old games were definitely different then this though. It’s a lot to get used to, but I got the time so I figure I'll take it slow.” 

The young boy, Ethan, walks over to his grandmother and hugs her around her hips. Nana gently pats his head. 

“You’re not quite at at my age yet, but us older people can't allow ourselves to fall behind the youth. Nothing else to do but try it out and get used to it, right?”

I really respect how open minded this old lady is, but something she said doesn’t make sense. “That’s an awesome perspective to have! But, I'm still only 28.”

“Oh my, so young, I'm so sorry. Still, if you go out of your way to give yourself gray hair like that you're only going to give people ideas. Enjoy your youth, there's no need to rush into having hair like mine.” Nana says as she pats her snow white hair. 

I have no idea what she’s talking about. Then it hits me — I told the Overvoice to just make my character look exactly like I do in real life. Wait… so even in a video game, I still can't escape everyone saying I look like an old man???

I put my head in my hands and groan, realizing my mistake. Nana and Ethan laugh lightly while I grumble about how I could've picked any other hair color. It’s a fantasy game after all!

Despite what she said, Nana is able to pretty quickly get used to moving around with a game body. I wave at the two of them as they go to enter the Magic instruction building a few minutes behind our group. I’m still going to need a bit more time to wrap my head around legs that actually work.

It's not that standing or walking is all that hard to do. In fact, whenever I stop thinking about it I'm able to do them both fairly easily. It's just that since I never had to get used to that feeling in the real world, I get caught up with how unreal it is that I can do it in the game, and then it’s like all the strength leaves my legs. Still, I decide to go at it without getting discouraged, and I'm eventually able to walk a full circuit around the village — and even run a little — without falling down. 

The secret is to make sure I just don't look down.

I was able to see the whole scope of the tutorial village from the spawn point but as I walk along the cobblestone roads it hits me that this place really is quite small. Most of the buildings look identical. Wooden walls with cobblestone foundations and big oak doors. The biggest difference between them are the signs hanging above the doors. Each one has a picture on it: a sword, a shield, an anvil, a bow.

All the doors are closed and there are no windows to look inside. But I can still hear totally different sounds coming out of each of the buildings. At the far end of the road there's a building larger than the rest, that has a big sign with the word “Library” on it.

I'm tempted to walk over there right now and see what books they have but since the village is so small that there’s not much to do in the first place, I decide to finish exploring the outside first. I still have to get used to my body anyway.

I leave one of the dirt roads and start to cross the grass, towards that small forest I saw earlier. Behind me I can hear players walking about and I can see Arinn going to greet a new batch of new players.

The edge of the forest looks just as inviting as it did at first glance. There are plenty of trees and bushes and vegetation, but none of it is so dense as to feel oppressive. In fact, it looks like the perfect place for a nature walk. Deeper in, I think I can see some deers and rabbits grazing.

I reach out by the foot of a nearby tree and pick up a rock the size of a baseball. I toss it up in the air and catch it as it falls. 

It's strange how natural the action feels. Even if my strength wasn't the best my hand-eye coordination was always pretty good. But there's nothing special that I have to do to use it inside the game, it feels just like doing it in real life. I take the rock and mimic the pitching throw of the baseball players I’ve seen on TV. The rock shoots out in a straight line, flying so far between the trees that I can't see where it lands. It flew with way more force then I ever would have been able to use normally. 

So like real life, but a little cooler.

There's not much else to look at in the outskirts of the village. The clouds that make up the surrounding dome are super fluffy but totally impenetrable. I’m tempted to start poking around some of the other class instruction buildings but I want to save them as a treat for later. I spend most of my time getting used to walking and jogging and comfortably moving in my own body. 

Arinn comes to ask me if I'm ready to move on a couple of times but I’m honestly having a lot of fun just running around. At one point I'm even able to pull off a cart wheel for the first time in my life!

I have no clue how much time I spent just playing in the field. I’m so used to having a watch or my phone on me at all times that it’s hard to judge time off the top of my head. I guess it's something I'll have to get used to in a medieval fantasy game. Eventually though I see Arinn waiting by the flower ring for a new group to spawn, so I make my way over to him.

He gives me a wiry smile and says, “Had your fill?”

“For the moment.” I give a grin back. “So what are you doing in this place?”

There's no way I can imagine an NPC acting this much like a real person.

“I've been playing this game for about six months now.” Says Arinn. “I do it pretty casually, so I don't really level up that fast. But theres a really cool book of fire magic available for instructors at the moment and I gotta have it.” 

He goes on to tell me that Golden Age offers quests with rare rewards for putting in time a Tutorial Village as a class instructor; as long as you are above a certain skill level. This way, new players can get a chance to talk to people who actually know what the game is like, and experienced players get the chance to get unique rewards. If no player has taken the quest yet, an NPC will spawn in the village.

“Since I won't be able to devote a lot of time to this place in one go I'm just gonna put in a little bit of time each week, for about a month. I know it's a little odd to basically have a part-time job inside of a game, but I have to say, when I look at players who are just starting out it really lets me feel how far I've come.”

I smile at Arinn. It’s really cool that the game devs found a way to offer this kind of support to new players. But man, people really will do just about anything as long as you say the words “rare loot.”

A new batch of players spawn in a beam of light at the stone column. Arinn greets them and we all make our way to his class building.

It doesn't look like anyone broke down crying in this group.

The Magic instruction building seems to be pretty sparse on the inside. One wall has an array of bookshelves, filled with all kinds of super old-school magical looking books, and little knickknacks of strange creatures and oddities in glass bottles. On the other wall there is a row of straw dummies, lined up like a shooting range.

“All right, since you all decided to play a fantasy game, I figure you'd want to learn how to use magic first. So I'm assuming some of you have played an MMO before. Honestly, what can be done in Golden Age isn't that much different from traditional MMO’s. What makes this game special is that unlike a normal game, Full VR gives allows you to feel what it’s like to use magic for yourself.”

With that said, in one smooth motion, Arinn turns, points the end of his wooden staff at a training dummy, and says the word, “Fireball.” From the tip of his staff, streams of bright red fire gather into a ball, pause for a moment, and then shoots off. It strikes the center of the straw dummy, catching it on fire. The dummy safely extinguishes after a few seconds.

“As you can see players are able to genuinely wield magic in this world. There are three things that make magic special in Golden Age. 

“For the more experienced gamers, you can see that unlike most MMO’s there are no damage counters or enemy health displays. Those numbers still exist but the developers decided to show them through the way a mob or a player reacts to getting hit. As you get used to fighting you're going to have to get used to reading the responses of your opponents.

“Second, is that almost all magic in this game is run through Golden Age’s elemental system. There are eight elements: fire, water, wind, lightning, earth, metal, light, and dark. Now there are some outliers, like combined elements or neutral mana, but I’ll let some of the other class instructors cover that. The main point is that these elements affect what spells you can use, what skills are improved by what element, and what the effect on the target is.

“The last and most important thing for you to get used to in this building, is that you can physically feel mana as it moves through your body. There is a plate in front of each dummy that has the incantation words for each of the basic elemental spells. While you are in the Tutorial Village, you don't have any specializations; so while the game will not assist you much, you can try out anything you want while you’re here. Why don't each of you walk up to a dummy, hold out your hand, and recite one of the spells? They may not always come out right the first time, but it will give you a chance to get used to what mana feels like.”

I don't know how I was able to hear anything Arinn said. As soon as I saw that fire ball spell — real magic — I feel like I've been bouncing on my feet the whole time. Considering some of the giggles coming from the players next to me, I think I might've actually been bouncing. 

I ignore it, and make my way over to the row at the back of the building. 

I pick up the plaque and stand behind the shooting line. It looks like the basic spell for each element is some form of ball that you shoot out. Seems like a good standardized way of setting up the magic, since the most basic use is just shooting it out of your hand. I decide to re-create the fireball spell that I saw the magic instructor use. Because after all, when you think about magic, it's got to be a fireball right?

“I call upon the spirit of the flame to guide my path, Fireball!” 

As I read the words for the incantation it suddenly feels as though I am aware of every time I miss-speak or fail to put emphasis on certain words correctly. From the center of my body I feel a warmth gather and then travel up my shoulder, through my arm in a clockwise spiral, to gather in my hand. When that warmth reaches my palm I see little streams of fire come forward and gather with the mana leaving my hand, all curling together into a tight ball. I am so surprised by the alien sensation that I completely fail to aim my hand, made worse as the backlash of the spell shooting out shoves back my arm. The fireball dissolves pointlessly against the wall over the right shoulder of the dummy.

I can hear the other players doing about as well me, with Arinn repeating for us to not worry about our aim and just get used to the feeling of it. 

I look at my hand, shocked. Again, I know it's a fantasy game, and I know it's not real life. But I could feel the heat of the fire against my palm before it shot. I even feel a little bit of an emptiness from the mana that left my body.

Arinn gets all of our attention one more time.

“Even though those were basic spells, they still cost some of your mana. I want each of you to focus on your status window, and get an idea of how much mana that spell just used. You can either focus on the symbol that is in the corner of your eyesight, or some players get used to it by reaching out to try to touch it.”

Until he said something, I hadn’t noticed it, but in the corner of my eye there is a small, almost translucent square with what looks to be the symbol of a body on it. When I try to see what it looks like more clearly it expands like a hologram in front of my eyes. I can see my name, my stats. An empty section for my skills and my future classes. 

There is a section for what looks to be my inventory — the only things in there being the clothes that I am wearing. In the top corner of the screen there is a dual clock that shows the current in-game and real-world time. 

Huh, so that’s where the watch is. 

Underneath my name I can see a green bar and a blue bar. The blue bar is not quite full, but it looks like the mana has already started to regenerate. 

Arinn speaks again.

“Now there are some players who don't like doing this, saying that it messes with their immersion, but I highly recommend that you all select the option to always show your Health and Mana. That way, it'll be in the bottom right of your vision, and you won’t be shocked if they ever run out. At least do it until you get used to feeling out where you are by yourself.”

I decide to take his advice and click on the display option next to my health and mana. When I exit out of my menu I can still see the body icon in the left-hand corner of my vision, but now on the bottom right I can see green and blue bars that are just as translucent. If I try to look at them, they come into sharp focus.

By now the blue bar has pretty much refilled. I wonder what the actual rate of mana recharge is. Did it refill so fast because the spell I used was a basic one or because I only used a little bit and then took a break? In fact, I realize there are a lot of things in this game I just plain don’t know about.

Arinn begins to suggest other buildings — and other instructors — the players gathered in the room might be interested in visiting. Essentially, we’re free to do as we wish now. 

There are some people next to me that are still testing out a couple of spells, with varying degrees of accuracy. I can hear a party of three friends — two elves and a dwarf — discuss how they might check out the archery building, but they seem more excited to just get into the game and start playing. In fact, that seems to be the general idea of a lot of the players in this room. I guess it is true that if there is anything they don't understand, they can always just look it up later.

As many of the players make their way out of the building I see Arinn pull out a few books from the bookshelf and sit in a chair by the doorway. I guess he’s off duty from greeting the new players now.

I’m still a little undecided on what to do myself. I look at the emptying room, with it’s wall of bookcases and knickknacks. There are still two people here practicing spells; I’m still just as wowed by the sight of real magic in front of my eyes. So for lack of a better idea I decide to try one more spell before moving on.

“Wash away the obstacles before me great spirits, Waterball!”

I can feel the mana start to gather in my core again but it’s different this time. Not a warmth, but like a cool flush. It flows into my shoulder, taking a slightly longer path, and flows to my palm in a counter-clockwise spiral. This time, I feel little droplets of water against my palm as the spell shoots out. I’m just as distracted as the last time though, and the waterball hits the wall above the dummies left shoulder. 

Wow. These devs were able to make a game so realistic that it feels like I’m really here, standing on my own two feet. It’s like the most freeing dream imaginable. The fact that they even put that attention to detail in the magic, that the elements move and feel different from each other: it’s impressive. 

But more than that, it makes me curious.

It’s that same curiosity I had when I didn’t know exactly how mana recharged. And I think back to what Arinn had said. That even though all of the numbers and stats are really there, you can only tell by feeling.

I hold on to the spell plaque I was going to put down. I stretch my hand out, reading the incantation for a windblade in my head first.

I wonder… if I take my time and experiment… just how much control over magic can I get?

#Volume 1 #Story

[funky-stars-and-roses]

Psst... You should talk some abt your ocs if you want. I wanna know random facts about them.

hi anon!! i’ve been working on some world building for my ocs so i hope you don’t mind me dropping that in as well- im putting it under a read more bc i wrote a LOT-

also, i kept accidentally deleting this so i’ve had to rewrite this multiple times :’) but it’s fine, i like infodumping-

heres a link to my og post about them! https://enbees-and-lavendar.tumblr.com/post/642206592824213504/holds-up-these-ocs-hello-and-welcome-to-a-new

so, there’s 3 kingdoms, all w/different morals & ideas:

The Kingdom of Preocupat: their whole moral system is “as long as you don’t damage property you can go wild.” unsurprisingly, they have a lot of crime here-

The Kingdom of Cordeno: upholds kindness & respect, try their hardest to remain “pure” in the eyes of their deities (who im still working on-)

The Kingdom of Tenbrarum: ok yeah, this kingdom is barely a kingdom- the people call for anarchy & the royalty try to get them to stop

 these kingdoms are all in a conflict: Cordeno wants everyone to just chill & not have any death, Tenbrarum is trying to basically kill off all of their citizens in hopes of starting anew & Preocupat is helping both sides out, not really caring about their placement in it all.

 so its chaos in this realm- but there are groups from each kingdom gathering, trying to help the conflict to the best of their abilities.

 the ocs i posted about? they might be a group, but they definitely aren’t trying to help the conflict anytime soon- they might have incredibly powerful people in the group (which i’ll talk about soon!) but they would rather help out random travelers & small taverns in the woods than help the kingdoms

 they’re just a group of people who do the side quests of this realm-

 Aeolanyira (she/her):

 w/all that story stuff out the way, lemme talk about the gang! (also, they all either have ADHD or are autistic, this is mostly bc I self projected onto all of them so- im mentioning this bc im gonna talk about their favorite stims)

she’s dating Moonweb

a funky lil musician who travels around the realm, uncaring of consequences

she didn’t have a family, so she’s traveled around for as long as she can remember

she often makes pit stops at taverns to perform, & her music enchants anyone who listens to it

basically, when she sings, she has the power to control the elements & keep people/enemies drawn to her

she doesn’t really have that much control over these powers, (she has accidentally set a tavern on fire once) the most she knows now is when to stop singing

despite her not caring about consequences, she is rather wary of how her actions affect others, bc she’s seen the best & worst of people & she’d hate to be someone that caused hurt

she smells like cinnamon!

 Moonweb (she/he/they):

fav. stims: F L A P P Y  H A N D S. also, humming/talking to herself!

she’s dating Aeolanyira

a half elf, half demon who lives among the mortals to help do jobs for his father

although they never knew her mother, his father is actually very caring (for a demon lord) & usually sends them around so he can teach her various lessons

they actually met Aeolanyira in a tavern & decided to follow her around to see what she does on her journeys

he actually doesn’t have many powers apart from being able to fly & having heightened senses-

she prefers flying around, but ever since they’ve joined the gang he tries to walk more often so she can hold Aeolanyira’s hand 🥺

they tend to present themself as very kind, but if she doesn’t care about you then you’ll end up being a pawn in his game-

his scarf is the only remnant they have of her mother

fav. stims: flapping their wings around despite not flying & smelling cinnamon bc it’s a nice smell & reminds her of Aeolanyira

he’s dating Orsal

 

Whiskey (he/him):

an orc from the kingdom of Cordeno who follows the messages of his Goddess

he has a ton of siblings. his parents taught them all the messages of their Goddess. he ended up leaving bc the family started putting too much pressure on his shoulders

while travelling around, he ran into Aeolanyira & Moonweb, who were stuck in a ditch somehow?? he helped them & decided to stick around bc they looked like they could use some help

he doesn’t have powers on his own, however he’s pretty damn good w/a sword & can ask his Goddess for help

when asking his Goddess for help, he has the power to just slash the crap out of everyone (this technically goes against his morals, but he’ll do anything to help his friends)

due to his upbringing, he tries to keep kindness & peace first, but the gang definitely can make that hard-

his armor piece was a gift from 1 of his favorite sisters

fav. stims: tapping his foot & clinking his sword against stuff bc he likes the noises :D

he’s dating Whiskey

Orsal (he/him):

a powerful demon lord who was sent up to the mortals’ realm to basically babysit his friend’s child (Moonweb-)

he doesn’t have family, he was born out of the mortals’ rage

he honestly was just stumbling around the realm until he bumped into Moonweb, who was hanging out w/Aeolanyira & Whiskey in a tree-

he basically just gets his powers from people’s rage. someone’s intensely upset? Orsal gains power from that, using it whenever he can

when using people’s rage, he grows bigger & stronger. he can grow up to 15 feet & tends to stay at this size after battles

he has very similar morals to Moonweb: he uses people to his own benefit, but he doesn’t try to hide it like Moonweb. he’s very soft & protective of those he cares about tho (the gang 🥺🥺)

his eyes change color! when using his powers, his eyes go black & red, but outside of that his eyes are blue & green

fav. stims: destroying things & touching the others (not in a weird way- it’s more like him playing w/or stroking the other’s hair & wings)

currently single, but she has a secret admirer 👀

Zanna (she/her):

a powerful witch who lives in a cottage just outside the outskirts of Tenbrarum

her family’s dead- she’s alive bc she cast a successful spell that keeps her alive longer

the rest of the gang met her when they were on the run from Tenbrarum forces- she kinda just opened her door for them & was so amused by them that she joined their little journey

she’s a jack of all trades who’s basically learned all types of magic- she does grow tired when she does too much magic of any kind, so she doesn’t pop off as much as she could  

she specializes in healing & defensive magic, but she’s definitely very good at offensive magic

she’s been alive for so long that she’s basically grown desensitized to everything. she’s seen it all & she’s not gonna try to change anything anytime soon. the only things she cares about is the gang, so F in the chat for anyone who messes w/them-

bc her sleeves are really long, her hands rarely show. it’s become a joke w/in the gang that if her hands show, she means business

fav. stims: fidgeting w/her sleeves & doing flashy magic to watch the colors change :D

currently single, but crypt’s pining hard for Zanna 👀👀

Enador (crypt/cryptself):

a vampire who became the “familiar” of Zanna & is her personal bodyguard (tho not really since we all know Zanna can handle herself)

crypt’s family disowned crypt bc crypt showed way too much interest in other species- 

crypt hid crypt’s human form from the gang for a while- 1 night crypt just chose to shift & the gang was like “ZANNA YOUR BAT’S TURNED INTO A HUMAN” & Zanna was like “lmao i know”

crypt is honestly just a normal vampire- besides being able to stand in the sun & having crypt’s animal features pop up, not much is different

the most impressive thing about crypt is crypt can just transform in the blink of an eye- crypt just spreads crypt’s wings out & suddenly there’s a bat there

crypt’s been alive just as long as Zanna, however the 2 have very different morals- crypt just has SO much pent up rage, so crypt’s morals are basically “if you inconvenience me or my friends even just a little bit, i will choose violence & not hold back”

crypt has claws- i can’t tell you how many times crypt has accidentally scratched someone in the gang & had to apologize immensely

fav. stims: rocking back & forth & lightly chewing on crypt’s skin (Zanna didn’t know about it until later & that’s when she gave crypt a bunch of random things to chew on in the meantime)

...sorry for how long that infodump was- but i love them a lot & i might post fics about them! (that is, if i have the time & people like them-)

#enbees writing #aeolanyira #moonweb #whiskey #orsal #zanna #enador #ocs #long post #tw long post #long post tw #ask to tag

[lightofthetrees]

Maedhros

favorite thing about themThere have been a lot of posts going around about the complexity of Maedhros’ character, and I agree with many of their points. I’m going to focus on one particular thing here: the fact that Maedhros gives up the High Kingship of the Noldor. This shows just how deeply he cares for his people - he is unwilling to put their welfare second in his heart and actions. He sticks to his principles despite his brothers protestations, knowing full well that he cannot balance the Oath and the role of High King. He showed strength not just by surviving the horrors of Angband, but trying to mitigate the damage of the Oath.least favorite thing about themI don’t know/I can’t think of one? Yes, he did his share of not-so-good deeds, but they add to the complexity of his character. favorite line1. “Thus Fingon found what he sought. For suddenly above him far and faint his song was taken up, and a voice answering called to him. Maedhros it was that sung amid his torment.”This scene just gets me emotional every time I read it. Of all the ways for Fingon to find him after he’s been hanging from a cliff for years - singing. Like, DAMN. brOTPRussingon. I love the two of them just as much in a platonic relationship as I do in a romantic one. The strength of their devotion to each other works with either interpretation (and a strong friendship is generally a good foundation for a strong romantic relationship, so…).OTP…Russingon again. See above.nOTPI can’t really think of a specific nOTP, but it’s weird to me to see him paired with anyone but Fingon. :P random headcanonThis is actually from one of my fanfics, but it counts as a headcanon anyway! I love the idea that Mairon/Sauron made Maedhros forge the steel band that held him to the cliff-face. With him being a son of Feanor and all, I feel like that would make a cruel and ironic sort of sense (and I love me some cruel ironies, oh yes).unpopular opinionAgain, I can’t really think of anything super unpopular? Maedhros doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of debate in the fandom right now (as far as I know), so…I’ll give my interpretation of why he went to meet with Morgoth’s emissaries. Yes, he did try to turn it into a trap for the orcs etc., but I feel like that was an attempt to make the best of an inevitably bad situation. The Oath compelled him to go - if he had not sworn it, I do not think he would have ever gone to treat with the bad guys. But his father had literally just died and had made his sons re-affirm their Oath. song i associate with themSONG, singular? Here, have my playlist because character playlists are MY JAM.But the highlights are: Iron - WoodkidElizabeth III: Fall From Grace (yeah, this is where things get really dark towards the end)favorite picture of themThis one, but I’ll throw in some Russingon for good measure…

#answered asks :: you've searched & you've found #maedhros :: headcanons :: war is never cheap dear

[sevi007]

I called it, I freaking cried because of the Hobbit movie.

(Since last time I babbled over GotG I spammed a lot of people, let me just sum it up this time and put it under a read more)

“Battle of the Five Armies” was absolutely brilliant and I enjoyed almost every second of it – which is saying something, since I normally cannot sit still for two and a half hour without doing at least tree things simultaneously.

First of all – a big shout-out to the actors. Every last one of them did an amazing job, be it their expressions, little quirks of body language they showed throughout the movie, voice acting or all of it together. Those guys absolutely lived their roles, and I couldn’t have imagined it any better than what they did.

Then the scenery. Good lord, the scenery. Be it the burning city in the beginning, the illuminated Erebor, the darkness of Gol Dulgur, the Shire in the end… It was breathtaking more than once, and I was this close to taking pictures of it or something. (Which shows how enraptured I was because that’s exceptionally silly, even for me.)

And the soundtrack. There was some soundtrack I recognized from LotR, like the Shire theme, and teared up over because it felt a bit like coming home, and then there was the soundtrack belonging to the Hobbit series that made me want to shout “Du Bekar!” alongside the dwarves. “The Sons of Durin”, the one that plays when Thorin joins the fight, is absolutely amazing.

As for the plot – it’s been a while since I watched the other two movies or read the book. (Then again, I guess I can ignore the book, since I firmly believe that book and movies have to be regarded separately from each other.) I feel like the three movies should be watched shortly after each other, since they tell one big story, and it felt a bit strange watching the last one so long after the others.

But all in all, I loved the plot, thin as it may have been (again, I think that’s because the movie are so tightly linked together, this one was all about the battles and the “back again”). It was a battle through and through – the battle between the humans and Smaug, the battle between the Elves, Dwarves and Humans, and the battle between light and dark. The battle inside Thorin’s company. The battle Thorin had to fight with himself.

I won’t go over the whole movie, mind you, I won’t be able to stop, but a few of my absolute highlights:

Smaug was great, not ifs or buts. The whole dragon was beautiful and terrible at the same time to watch, probably the best dragon I’ve seen for a long time. I was almost, almost sad when he died, but then again, that was for a good cause – and showed, once again, where this sickening greed will lead in the end.

(Thumps up to Benedict Cumberbatch, too – I switched to English as long as Smaug was in the movie, just to hear the original voice acting. Amazing.)

Bard, side character that he may be, was very interesting to watch. Next to Bilbo and Gandalf, he is probably the only one of those characters that had bigger screen time who never acted selfishly for a second. He only ever thought of his family, and his people – especially when he broke free in the beginning of the movie and went to fight Smaug instead of fleeing or looking for his family, because it was the only way to stop this dragon’s madness.

The dwarves. I love Thorin’s company, adored them since the first movie, and watching them breaking apart and despairing and finding back together was painful and beautiful to watch.

The way Balin shook and almost cried while he saw the sickness take hold of Thorin. Bofur letting Bilbo go in the middle of the night because Bilbo is his friend, and he half-hoped Bilbo would leave before the battle because he didn’t want to lose him. Dwalin crying when he confronted Thorin one last time before Thorin woke up from his madness. Fili and Kili’s death freaking killed me, I was crying even though I knew they would die.

The rather unusual way the company fights in the last battle was a highlight, too. I was laughing and cheering the whole time, to be honest. Bofur jumping on of the giant orc to control it, Bifur losing his axe and starting to talk again, Balin claiming that he is too old for this and then proceeding to kick ass… it’s so typical for them. They are not an organized army, they are a ragtag bunch of workers, some fighters, friends that grew close over the course of a long and hard journey, and it shows in the way they battle. It’s messy, weird, odd, and it’s built on the trust they have in each other.  

Thorin’s Downfall and his Redemption. The sickness taking hold and morphing Thorin into something like Smaugh was so well done. From time to time, you could see Thorin – the real one – shine through the sickness – a smile, a twitch in his expression, a short hesitation. The look he gave when Bilbo showed him the acorn. When he gave the Mithril shirt away to his friend.

But most time, he even sounded like Smaug (the voice of Smaug being heard when Thorin talked was on point). The viewer can watch the gradual fall of the proud King who seems to be less than he ever was, and it’s heartbreaking to watch.

Thorin waking up when he already lost everything – trust, respect, friends – is very amazingly done as well. The voices echoing in his head and Bilbo’s being the loudest (because Thorin learned a lot from Bilbo on this journey), really showed what was going on inside him. And when he throws the crown away and discards the kingly robes, looking more like a King without them and more like the man and leader he was during the journey, it’s very clear that he is back.

His death was even more painful to watch than Fili’s and Kili’s and that’s saying something. The only comfort I had that he died knowing that Bilbo had forgiven him and was still his friend. He had righted what he had done wrong, he could die without regrets.

Bilbo. Bilbo’s role in this is bigger as he probably realizes, and yet he isn’t directly included in the fight, which is perfect. Bilbo Baggins is no fighter, no warrior. He is the voice of reason in that bunch of hard-headed and prideful dwarves, and especially a counterpoint to Thorin – who, despite being a good diplomat and leader when the situation calls for it, can also be blinded by pride.

Bilbo is this quiet voice of reason that I related most to in the movie: He was the one untouched by greed and pride, trying to save his friends, trying to do the right thing. His actions and words didn’t stop the battle directly and instantly, that much may be true. But there’s a reason that Bard felt his decision not-fighting the dwarves was right. There is a reason why Bilbo’s voice in Thorin’s mind was the loudest. There’s a reason the dwarves refused to throw their thief over the wall when their mad king wished it.

Bibo crying over Thorin… Billbo showing the little acorn that’s worth so few and so much at the same time (“Plant your trees, watch them grow”)… Bilbo refusing Gandalf to go and help his friends… Bilbo inviting the others for tea after all of it ended… and Bilbo returning home stronger than before (because this journey changed him, and awakened some stubbornness and backbone of steel that lay dormant before)… Bilbo may have had a smaller role in this movie, but he was super important, and super relatable. Great work by Martin Freeman there, too!

 Phew, I could go on and on about this. I’m saluting to everyone who made it to this point (how are you not bored yet, my gosh, I’m sorry XD). In the end, I will just sum up a few little things that I noticed and liked, too:

Galadriel being the ethereal, otherworldly lady she is. (She’s freaking terrifying, do not cross her, never, ever.)

Legolas and Thorin keep saving each other over the course of the movies, and it reflects very strongly of what Legolas and Gimli will have in the future, this “I don’t like you but actually I respect you and keep helping you” and it’s just so funny.

Legolas keeps on doing impossible stunts in fights like when he slid down stairs on a shield in LotR or jumped on a running horse. His extra-ness is legendary.

Bilbo storming into the Shire and taking the lead while taking back what is his – it strongly reflects how much he has changed over the journey. He was always a bit at odds with the rest of the hobbits, the weird and different one, but before the journey, he was too polite to really voice aloud when he was angry and annoyed at the others. Now he doesn’t have that problem anymore, and gained the confidence and charisma to make them listen to him. In fact, add the dwarven gear (especially the mittens look like Ori made them) and he seems more similar to a dwarf than to a “proper” hobbit.

The way things from this movie wrap things up for LotR. The Mithril-Shirt Thorin gifts Bilbo with saves Frodo’s life such a long time later. The eagles flying in and saving the battle explains why Merry (or Pippin?) later yells “The eagles are coming!” with such conviction – because Bilbo told them the story so often that the young Hobbit believes that everything will be alright now. The last scene of this movie is the reunion of Bilbo and Gandalf in LotR. Of course this scenes are all in the books and of course it’s logical that they would be in the movie, too, but they could have been cut out, or less importance could have been put onto them – but Peter Jackson decided against it and made it important, and I love him for it.

Alas, I just have to say – it’s a wonderful trilogy of movies, and Battle of the Five Armies was as amazing as the first two movies, at least to me. Absolutely loved it! =D

#spoilers #long rambly review #the hobbit #battle of the five armies #sevi is rambling #bilbo baggins #thorin's company #thorin oakenshield #lotr #lord of the rings

[wyrmguardsecrets]

I’ve been seeing a lot of nit picking in both secrets communities lately over what can be played and what cannot, so I figured I’d throw my two cents in.

Grab yourself something to drink and take a seat – you’ll be here awhile.

When I first started RPing on wow (back in vanilla!), I used to be of the opinion that you could “only” RP something which WoW lore allowed. If you wanted to RP a race or class which wasn’t actually playable in the game, you were bad and should feel bad. I like to think I’ve come a hecka long way since. Don’t get me wrong – if you try passing yourself off as the next Gul'dan or Arthas and/or try to claim you’re related to a major lore character in some way, I’m probs gonna cringe and eyeroll at the idea, but I’m not going to lose my shit over it. I’m not going to go out of my way to claim you’re a “bad” person for doing this or go on some sort of hidden crusade to stop you because really, it boils down to the fact it’s your $15 a month to do with as you please.

I KNOW there are a lot of you out there who disagree with me on this one, but bottom line – unless you’re paying their sub fee for them, they can do whatever the fric-frack they want. If you’re strongly against what they’re RPing as, don’t RP with them. Don’t even acknowledge them. Whatever happen to just.. ignoring shit that bothers you? Since I’ve embraced the art of ‘Not giving a Fuck’ and letting people just be, it’s made life so much less stressful and more enjoyable! Am I absolutely fluent in it? Nope – I have my moments, but the more I practice it, the more I enjoy my overall RP experience.

If you want to RP your character being a Darkfallen, half/full demon, or Dragon, at least do your homework prior. Take into consideration how your character would react to being around those of potential negative effects (such as a demon being around someone who radiates holy energy, or being near a place such as a church). Or, the possible repercussions of announcing your character is a dragon mascaraing as an elf or human – remember, dragons are mortal now and may not want to put themselves in danger if they can avoid it. Or (again) if you RP a race that isn’t normally a playable part of your faction (like a Vrykul or Arrakoa, think about how the other races and faction would react to your character attempting to enter/walk around the city. You can’t exactly get mad at players for wanting to execute a Kolbold walking around the city or Naga walking (slithering?) around Orgrimmar, no matter how good their intentions may be. Do your homework and consider the repercussions (if any) of what RPing a certain race would be.

Of course, you can also be unique and different while still obeying lore by deciding your character can possess different traits that normally aren’t seen. The obvious example I can give is the fact my main is a fat orc. Normally, when you see orcs, they aren’t fat. They’re built to be lean and buff. So, in a sea of muscled brutes, an orc that is fat is going to stand out like a sore thumb. I’ve received my fair share of criticism over  my choice, but I’ve also received a lot of praise for choosing to RP something that isn’t the ordinary. At the same time, I’m not a -huge- fan of Pandaren who are slim and trim, but if that’s how you see your character, go with it. In a culture that embraces cuisine and having a bit of a belly, a character that is thin by most standards is going to get a lot of weird looks (and potentially offers for second helpings of dumplings!), but whose to say your Pandaren might not like the way thin looks on them versus fat.

There’s also other ideas (less subtle, if you will) over having a different body type; such as your character wearing glasses, having a sort of disability (i.e. prosthetic or missing limb) having different colored hair, tattoos, piercings, a glass eye, being abnormally short or tall, a different accent and all the other things that we, IRL, have that set us apart. Do keep in mind, if you choose to RP a character that is missing a limb, can only see out of one eye, or has something as ‘simple’ as a stutter, do a little homework on what it would be like for you to have this challenges. I’m sure we’ve all heard the groan-moan over the case of a one eye sharpshooter who despite having a disadvantage with vision depth, can hit with 100% accuracy, every time. Sure, he might be just THAT good, but think of the RP potential if they missed. ;)  Being unique (imo) is something that is engraved into our DNA – but you don’t have to go to super extremes to make your character stand out – unless of course,  that’s the point you’re trying to make!

Honestly, in the end, that’s all I think one can ask for; do your RP homework and RP your character well. Some folks won’t like it and throw fits over it, but that’s more on them than you. I’ve met some of the most interesting folks who RP unorthodox characters (and classes) by swallowing that nerd rage and letting them just be. Think of all the cool people you might encounter if you just practice the same. After all, your new best RP bud might be the person who chooses to RP a race of class that’s out of the ordinary and would you -really- want to pass up an opportunity like that?

#submission #not a mod post