#it also a VERY dangerous game for me to keep installed

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: sapphic romance for people who like Hannibal and Interwiev with the Vampire, aka fucked up and toxic

Enemies to lovers, lovers to enemies, fucked up power imbalances, manipulations, plain bad people doing bad things - if you like your sapphics a little bit dark check out these books!

Some of these end happily, some tragically, some are more will-they-won’t-they than full on romance, some focus on healing while others focus on Getting Worse, but they’re all very juicy.

For details on the books, continue under the readmore

Feel free to recommend more books in tags and comments!

Othe book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding

Really cool sci-fi worldbuilding

Mermaid books

Vampire books

The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie

Young Adult. tumblr classic back in the day! A trainer of sea monsters genetically engineered to protect ships from pirates is kidnapped by, you guessed it, pirates, one of whom happens to be very hot.

Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden

While my feelings on Escaping Exodus were mixed, it cannot be denied that the dynamic between the two leads and the way they go from childhood best friends to enemies on different sides of a class and power struggle is very delicious. It also features some really cool worldbuilding of living, alien generation spaceships and the human culture that has developed inside them.

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

This book fucked me up when I read it. It’s weird, it's gross, there’s So Much Viscera, there are literally no men, it has living spaceships and biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable. Had I to categorize it I would call it grimdark military sf. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one.

The Lumionus Dead by Caitlin Starling

Possibly one of the most unsettling books I've ever read, and definitely the most claustrophobic. Gyre, a caver on an alien planet, ventures into the dark and dangerous underground, guided only by a woman who has no compunctions on using and manipulating Gyre as she sees fit to obtain her secretive goals down in the caves.

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

On the less toxic and fucked up side of the spectrum, but still pretty juicy. A princess held captive by her own brother, who wants to see her dead, tries to trick a servant into helping her escape, but with undeniable attraction growing between them and the servant having her own goals things quickly get complicated.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Listen, if you're on tumblr I probably don't need to explain this book to you. Trust me when I say it's exactly as good as people claim. There are indeed lesbian necromancers in space (quite a few of them, actually), but also incredible worldbuilding that keeps growing with every new installment, interesting political commentary, morally complex characters with fucked up dynamics, and well-thought out plot that keeps you guessing until the last.

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

Listen, sometimes you just want to read about a vicious bisexual lady professor who murders predatory men and falls for the woman trying to solve her crimes and that's okay.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

The source of not one but two movie adaptations, Fingersmith is a story of trickery and manipulation as a young conwoman works to gain the trust of a heiress. I don’t want to say much more because the twists are some of the best parts, but trust that it doesn’t take long for things to get real complicated between them.

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark

Tourraine, who was stolen as a child and trained as a soldier for the empire that conquered her home, is recruited by Luka, the future leader of the conquering country to route out a rebellion. A game of twisted loyalties and attraction is soon to develop.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Again, if you're on tumblr (or twitter, apparently) you have in all likelihood already heard of this one, too. Just like GtN it lives up to all expectations. It features two women on different sides of the titular time war, who starts leaving letters for the other to find as they chase each other through time. A quick read, slightly surreal, and absolutely beautiful, I cannot recommend this enough. Pretty mild on the fucked-up-scale.

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

In a world where the rich drink blood to preserve their health, Marion applies to a position as bloodmaid in a notorious noble house far from home. Suddenly showered with luxuries and debauchery, Marion soon gains the interest and favor of Lisavet, countess of the house. A fresh take on the idea of vampires.

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

A young pregnant woman flees a cult that left her body strange and changing in terrifying ways. Hidden from the world, she does her best to raise her children while trying to find out the truth of the cult and being pursued by a hunter in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. In no way a romance, but certainly has some fucked up sapphic shit going on.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

After her home was conquered by another land, Baru is determined to join their forces and climb the ladder until she’s in a position to free her people. To prove her loyalty, she’s sent to bring order and quell rebellion in another conqured region. Baru is set to succeed, but also has to struggle with her feelings for Tain Hu, a duchess of this region.

Ice Massacre (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai trilogy) by Tiana Warner

Young Adult. A small island is forced to defend itself against intruding forces of vicious mermaids. As all men trying to fight them get lured in by their siren song, a ship filled with warrior girls is sent instead. However one of them, Meela, had a complicated past with one of the mermaids, which is brought back to life when the two reunite on the battlefield. This one is also available as an ongoing webcomic!

Borderline (The Arcadia Project trilogy) by Mishell Baker

Urban fantasy mystery. Very much of the will-they-won’t-they variety, with a bisexual lead who has a male love interest as well as a female without falling into the typical pitfalls of a love triangle. Plays around with various fucked up power dynamics. A year after a failed suicide attempt that cost her both her legs, Millie is recruited by a secretive organisation that works to control traffic to and from Arcadia, the land of faries. Bear in mind that while the sapphic-ness is present throughout, it has a much smaller presence in book 1 than books 2 and 3.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

The Hunger by Whitley Strieber

Ancient vampire is on the hunt for a new partner, none of which tend to last long.

Codename Villanelle by Luke Jennings

Precursor of the famous Killing Eve tv series. While I don’t know much of the books, I did enough research to know this: their endings differ.

#next list will be either vampires or mermaids #(probably mermaids bc i have a couple of vampire books i hope to finish first) #book recs #nella talks books #wlw books #I've been playing around with the layout of these posts and you know what i like this #might edit the first to rec posts to the same layout to make everything nice and cohesive

[theresattrpgforthat]

I'm a TTRPG designer, and also a big fan of the video game Terraria. I'm stuck on fun ways to handle material gathering and crafting. Send me some inspiration! Thanks!

THEME: Gathering and Crafting

Hello friend! Putting this one together was very fun. I hope you enjoy it!

Stoneburner, by Fari RPGs.

Stoneburner is a sci-fantasy solo-friendly demon-hunting community-building tabletop role-playing game.Inspired by the new school revolution movement, players take on the role of a group of dwarves who must assume control of a demon haunted mine, along with its accompanying settlement, which they inherited after the death of their distant relative.The game focuses on the dwarves' journey as they navigate the challenges of their new responsibilities, rebuild a new thriving community, and clear the mine of its fire spitting monsters.

A techno-fantasy game of exploration and survival. You’ll be delving into a mine to extract resources and attempting to maintain and protect your community not just from magical beasts, but also greedy and plotting rivals. The system is built on Breathless, which is pretty rules-lite on the face but has a lot of possibility to expand, borrowing quite a bit from the NSR but giving the GM specific cues where they have a license to complicate the story. You’ll find a lot of familiar pieces here, with character classes, special abilities, and loot tables. Stoneburner isn’t fully ready to be published quite yet, but in the meantime you can check out the free preview!

Hostile (Rules and Setting), by Zozer Games.

Welcome to the gritty, retro-future universe of HOSTILE. Based on the Cepheus Engine, these rules add in realistic combat rules as well as setting-specific rules from some of the eighteen HOSTILE supplements. When combined with its companion book, the HOSTILE Setting, you will have a complete, stand-alone, retro-future sci-fi game. HOSTILE is a gritty, near future roleplaying setting that is inspired by movies like Outland, Bladerunner and Alien. It is a universe of mining installations, harsh moons, industrial facilities, hostile planets and brutal, utilitarian spacecraft.

When I looked up info about this game, HOSTILE was described as not an ALIEN RPG, but rather an RPG that you could plug Alien into. It’s a space horror setting, but what kind of space horror is up to you. The Rulebook has rules on trade, salvaging, and other pieces of resource management, while the setting book contains construction rules for your own mega-ton spaceship. There’s also plenty of colonies, survival rules, campaign advice and encounter tables. If this is interesting to you, I’d recommend checking out the Double Shift Bundle, which offers both the Rulebook and the Setting Book for 20% off.

Forbidden Lands, by Free League Publishing.

Forbidden Lands is a new take on classic fantasy roleplaying. In this open-world survival roleplaying game, you’re not heroes sent on missions dictated by others - instead, you are raiders and rogues bent on making your own mark on a cursed world. You will discover lost tombs, fight terrible monsters, wander the wild lands and, if you live long enough, build your own stronghold to defend.

As raiders and rogues, in Forbidden Lands you will need to scavenge to survive. Built on Free League’s Year Zero Engine, this game uses an abstract resource called consumables which your characters will have to find regularly, because food goes bad and you can only carry so many things. The game focuses on the dangers of the road, although not all dangers are terrifying - you’re not fighting orcs all the time - sometimes you’re just battling mosquitoes and cold weather. There’s also rules about building, maintaining, and defending a stronghold, which sounds kind of similar to building and defending your house in Terraria. There’s a lot to keep track of in Forbidden Lands, and as long as you don’t mind playing characters with a somewhat loose moral compass, this game might be for you!

A Fistful of Darkness, by monkeyEcho.

A Fistful of Darkness is a Weird West Fantasy hack of Blades in the Dark with heavy emphasis on the fantasy part. It’s not intended to be an accurate history lesson or a simulation of past times. It is designed to be a cinematic game which lets you play all those Weird West tropes towards the end of the world.

Imagine a world with the magic and mystery of the frontier: wide open plains of the Old Wild West in all its beauty and madness, where violence and sacrifice dominate every single day. Now add the Hellstone rush, underground mayhem in mines and brand new sciences & machines. Don’t forget immigration, injustice, vigilante justice, outlaws, gunslingers, slick talkers and setting suns. This all in the face of an impending doom: Demons and the four riders bringing the end of the world as you know it. How do you make it to the top of this powder keg, which side will you take in the impending war and how much will your soul suffer? Let’s play to find out!

Forged in the Dark games abstract your resources a bit, but the Hellstone of A Fistful of Darkness is so important to the setting that you’ll find yourselves doing whatever you can to get your hands on it. It’s a crafting material, it’s currency, and it’s the bringer of mutations and curses, what with it being a demonic material and all. Because you’ll be running a group playbook alongside your own characters, you’ll be working together to improve your tools, allies, abilities and home base, especially if you choose the Scavengers Posse. If you like action and suspense as much as you like inventory and communal goals, then this game is for you.

LOOT, by Gila RPGs.

Do you love loot? Then you're in the right place.

Go on quests, find loot, do it all over again. Your character is entirely defined by the loot they wear and carry. Loot is generated and passed out at the end of each quest with a dynamic loot pool system.

This is an application of the LUMEN system that eschews dice. Players have a number of uses for each of their approaches, which can be spent to overcome obstacles. Complications arise when you have to cobble together a solution using a different approach, or when you avoid marking an approach at all. This is a game still in a free playtest, so the designer is happy to hear feedback if you decide to give it a whirl!

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #gathering #crafting #resource management

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

a compilation of overcomplicated hypothetical future IEYTD installments that i would kill to be canon

ft various spoilers for all three of the current non-hypothetical installments also ft really bad names for them in order to keep the list organized

I Expect You To Die; Once Burned, Twice Shy

During one of their usual heists against one of Zoraxis' latest schemes, Phoenix finds themself caught in what turns out to have been an orchestrated trap from the start. Not only is Zoraxis unscathed from the agent's attempt to stop their plans, but in the process, they find a way to pin their escape/the damage left behind on Phoenix in a catastrophic way, severing the Agency's trust in them and their handler.

Time after time again, Zoraxis have underestimated the Agent, but by separating the biggest thorn in their side from their main source of intelligence, power, and even locomotion, what can they possibly do to stop them from tearing down the rest of the Agency? And how is the Agency supposed to stop them without their star pupil turned 'traitor'?

Left with nothing aside from the guidance of their handler and their own sharp intuition- devoid of the Agency's tools or assistance- Phoenix needs to prove to Zoraxis and everyone else that they're more than just the tools the Agency lets them wield.

The 'gimmick' of this plot is kind of meant to be a parallel to what happened with Zoraxis at the end of the sequel. That being losing their trust with the rest of the world, and being forced to work in the shadows as opposed to hiding in plain sight. Because of this, a variation of this plot could be Zoraxis framing the entire Agency, instead of just Phoenix, forcing all of them to work and exist under the radar until they can clear their names. I just think the Phoenix specific plot is more entertaining, and made more personal by focusing on the protagonist.

I Expect You To Die; Pick Your Poison

The Fabricator probably has the most untapped potential and implied history with the Agency aside from Zor themself. While to me it feels like she's such an important character any plot that focuses on her would be a very late-game element, I can definitely see her serving as the 'main' antagonist of her own entry to the series.

The Agency- despite knowing the location of at least one of the Fabricator's workshops, are too intimidated by her lethality and talent to consider sending any more Agents to apprehend or face off against her. Behind Zor themself, they've gone on to list her in her dossier as the most lethal mind in Zoraxis' sprawling arsenal.

The Fabricator already has a bit of a vendetta against the agent, if not for the damage done to her workshop, then for the damage done to Zor's schemes, and by association, all of the tech she engineered for them.

There is also the point to consider that the Fabricator is in a very interesting place, for an antagonist position. Knowledgeable enough to know what happens to disappointing Zoraxis operatives- the cause of Juniper's death, almost Prism's, and who knows who else's- and yet… she seems more or less unbothered to remain by their side despite. The Agency wanting to get the Fabricator out of Zor's hands partnered with her seemingly deep running loyalty has very interesting implications for a betrayal arc of sorts.

I Expect You To Die; Reach for the Sky

Solaris is another character that has been brought up again and again in various ways, implying relevance- or at least, future relevance- to the series. While it would make perfect sense for her to accompany a Fabricator-focused installment, there's an equal probability for her to get something to herself.

Solaris- while perhaps not considered as dangerous as the Fabricator- is on par with her in terms of intelligence, and the Death Engine is still considered by the Agency to be one of the most powerful weapons to scourge humanity (as opposed to exclusively agents, as something like project KBOOM would have been).

While her loyalties to Zoraxis were obviously shaky even during her first appearance, Solaris is very self driven, and just because she may have broken ties with Zoraxis* doesn't mean she's completely out of the picture. As one of the Fabricator's tapes in Eaves Drop would suggest, Solaris still holds a grudge on the agent that destroyed her life's work. It isn't out of the question to consider that she would try to seek out her revenge, even on her own terms.

It's interesting to consider an arc that separates on competing with Zoraxis, rather than against them. Maybe- despite severing alliances with them- Solaris' tech is still of interest to Zor, which gets them involved the spat by proxy. Or maybe Zor- much like what they did when Anna intended to defect- is sending out a couple of operatives to take care of their newest loose end, with Phoenix finding themself caught in the crossfire.

*It is also possible that Solaris' 'defecting' from Zoraxis may have been a hoax or an effort to save face, with her being publicly tied to a newly exposed homicidal company. While somewhat unlikely, were this the case I don't think much about this hypothetical plot would change, save for Zoraxis being more of a main player (as they usually are) as opposed to a background threat.

I Expect You To Die; Playing With Fire

Vitti will almost certainly be given a mainstage role in a future installment, though with so little known about her, it's difficult to place how or where she'll show up. We know she used to be a field agent (maybe even Reginald's agent, when we consider that he used to hold the title of 'lead handler' at the same time she was 'lead agent'), and that she either had or gained ties to Zoraxis that may have lead to her erasure from Agency history. She also has the best case argument for being the Phantom, implying an interest in the Phoenix, as well as their survival.

To me, she's the perfect case for a betrayal/eluding-to-betrayal style arc without dipping into mind control. With the Agency being a dubiously-moral force as it stands, Vitti seems the perfect character to at least raise the potential that the Agency isn't really as good as they project themselves to be… and that the Phoenix isn't as safe with them as they'd like to think they are.

Maybe the two of them communicate off radar- Phoenix chasing after Zoraxis' tail while Vitti watches from the sidelines- breaching their coms to say her piece… Maybe the handler gives a piece of advice that Vitti contradicts, with her's being the safer option… Quietly worming the idea into the agent's head that even their own handler may not always have their best interest in mind… Whether or not there's any member of the Agency they can actually trust.

At the end of the day, Zor wants to tear apart every last facet of the Agency. But, they have a rival's fondness for the Phoenix… If they join Zoraxis, they'll be spared. They'll survive. If they stay with the Agency, they'll inevitably burn with the rest of them. She made her choice a long time ago… and she expects the agent to choose correctly.

I Expect You To Die; World in Your Hands

I don't care if it isn't likely I would do ANYTHING for a mind control arc (or something similar, at least), where we play as a Phoenix who- one way or another- has become a Zoraxis operative. It doesn't need to make sense while it happens because it would be fun as shit.

It isn't as if Phoenix still doesn't get to leave a trail of fiery destruction in their wake, it just isn't to the detriment of Zor this go around… Instead of the handler in your ear (🙁 no jared mason…) you can have one of the Zoraxis Operatives- either a new one, or a rotating cast of old ones (😊 yay mela lee). The souvenirs you bring back being exceedingly dangerous contraptions, explosives, prototype weaponry, and of course, many, many Zoraxis brand foodstuffs of varying degrees of quality. AND it would give Schell an excuse to bring back things like genuine gun combat from the first game.

And you get to be evil. Which literally who doesn't want to be evil?? Hello? We can get an epic evil cinematic intro and everything? An encounter with the handler where his voice shakes in genuine fear- for his life, for who his agent has become, for what Zor has done to them- HELLO??

#ieytd #ieytd3 spoilers #LONG POST... SORRY. except im not. my autism power... #should i tag like. the relevant guys?? #i don't see why not #agent phoenix #the fabricator #commander solaris #the handler #dr zor #v. vitti #i think that's the tag. for her #i am coping with the solaris mention but also i fail to see why they would continue to make her relevant if she's really out of the picture #they showed her quitting zoraxis and then showed her agency dossier still tying her to zoraxis?? 🤨🤨 whats the deal here #anyways. i still think either her or fabby could be mainstay villains/get a game to themselves #and im very excited to see what schell does with vitti in the future. yay evil women

[pixelchills]

So... Organic Apocalypse AU?

As you saw me hint towards it yesterday, I have a new AU in the works. It seems like my artblock ended up being the cause of this, as instead of drawing I've been playing some games instead.

I've been playing a lot Left 4 Dead 2 lately, with the FNAF workshop models. So basically running around killing zombies with Sun and Moon :>

This, then apparently wanted to reach to my dreams too, and I had a dream about a zombie apocalypse... in the pizza plex. I let the idea mature inside my ADHD brain, and here's what we got so far:

So, instead of animatronics, they are Animutants (species named by my lovely @petitefrancis ), organic creatures made in laboratories by scientists. They're made for labour, basically computer-coded and DNA-manipulated to serve a certain purpose. Multibillionaire Companies use them to save money in the long run; they're workers that don't get sick with human illnesses, don't need to be paid, don't get vacations, and are basically treated like property.

Fazbear corporation uses them to do most of the work, humans are mostly just supervisors in their locations. Animutants come in three different sentient levels:

Basic level: Technically a moving plant with very few needs and tasks to perform. Not sentient. S.T.A.F.F. -'bots' are an example of this level.

Second level: Somewhat sentient. About an animal level of understanding and the possibility of simple feelings and personality. Usually understand most of the spoken language but do not speak themselves. DJMM is one of these.

Third level: Fully sentient. The main gang and our Daycare Attendants are at this level. They're capable of being just as complex as adult humans with their personalities, skills, and understanding of the world.

Despite being on the same level of understanding as humans, Level 3 Animutants are still considered to be less than a human in the economic system. They have no rights and are controlled by electric shocks with a microchip installed on the back of their heads. These chips are made to keep them fully obedient to the company or household rules. (For example, a Glamrock animutant tries to exit the Pizza Plex? Zap, they get a shock.)

Despite this, our beloved characters are living a comfortable life. Well, that is, until a dangerous virus breaks free, and turns 99% of humanity into zombies in a very short amount of time. Animutants are immune to the virus. But now they need to survive in a falling world full of zombie monsters, trying to rescue the few humans and other animutants they run into and build their resources to survive in the new, apocalyptic world.

Unfortunately, our boys got some trauma and this AU is almost the complete opposite of the Dolldrops. Scary, gruesome, loads of hard feelings and fearful moments. Ofc peppered with some sweetness here and there.

Sun is called Sunrise and Moon is called Moondrop. But they use a lot of nicknames for each other. They're not related, they were created in separate labs and worked in different locations for 12 years before meeting again. (They did meet when they were first created because they went through the same education since both were Daycare Attendants in different locations.)

Later on, the locations merged together and they became best friends, and eventually a couple. (hush it's my comfort ship, ofc I'll have it in every AU I create)

The whole AU is mostly Sun-centric. He is not the "main character" but I feel like I want to share most of the story from his point of view. Also, there are no y/n or self-inserts in this one! At least not yet :>

Hope you enjoyed reading this, I'll post more doodles and drabbles soon!

#fnaf #moon #sun #fnaf sb #pixel draws #security breach #fnaf daycare attendant #fnaf au #sundrop #moondrop #the daycare attendant #sunrise #animutants #zombie apocolypse au #nightlight

[nobodysdaydreams]

THE SI-5 WILL PAY FOR THEIR SINS IF I HAVE TO WRITE THE FIC FOR IT MYSELF! BLESSIE WILL BE AVENGED! (or my reaction to episodes 32-34 and mini episode 5 of Wolf359)

Sorry (again) for the delay, but I did warn you my schedule would be very inconsistent. Thank you everyone for your patience. At least I was able to finish these notes tonight.

Tagging the mutuals who got me invested in this, and if you want to be tagged or untagged from these posts, lmk, or you can follow my blog or simply follow the tag "#bods wolf359 reactions". Anyone who has followed me for a while knows my updates are inconsistent, so I apologize in advance for that and for any spelling/grammar mistakes in my posts.

@sophieswundergarten @oflightningandstars @acollectionofcuriousreblogs @herawell @commsroom

Episode 32: Controlled Demolition

I'm reacting to this while doing chores, so sorry if this is super brief. Hopefully it's not too plot heavy.

Have I mentioned I hate Kepler? Honestly the worst. I don't trust any of them.

Let's see...not a fan of Jacobi either. Of course I don't like Hilbert or his Decima project (which btw, it was very nice of the virus to not attack and kill Doug during his 100+ days alone in space without Hilbert keeping him stable). But Jacobi clearly doesn't know what he's doing, leave the dangerous chemicals alone!

Also the whole idea of Doug keeping someone on task...hilarious. Makes you wonder why Kepler REALLY gave him this assignment. Maybe to keep Doug distracted.

And then Maxwell. Looks like she has an interest in AI that's not entirely hostile, but at the end of the day, she's still working for the bad guys. When push comes to shove, she's gonna have to chose between Hera and Doug and Cutter and his errand boys. But I guess I hate her the least right now out of the three. She at least detected that Hera was in pain and is trying to do something. I hate to applaud someone for doing the bare minimum but that’s where we’re at I guess.

And Hera...you could have told Doug. He would understand. He's your friend.

I feel so bad for Hera. I just know they're gonna install some program in her that forces her to hurt her friends. It's only a matter of time.

Also, of course Kepler wants to play chess. That's the most villain thing ever, threatening someone over a chess board. Just once, I want to see a villain use a less ominous board game just to be funny. Like imagine Kepler with a nice Whisky in his hands mulling over a game of "Chutes and Ladders" or “Candyland”. It would be funny. Well at least Kepler embraces the villain aesthetic.

Though it's interesting: command doesn't know where the two years of Lovelace's life went. Or at least they claim. Now I'm curious. Was it the aliens? Is Lovelace a robot clone after all? Maybe Doug was right yet again!

A liability? Fire when ready? Oh my gosh is Jacobi gonna shoot Lovelace? Or Hilbert?

What was that?

Nice of Dr. Maxwell to make sure Hera wasn't in pain. But um...what did they just destroy on the Hephaestus? Another secret lab?

Oh my gosh. Just from the way Doug says the word "is". I've pause the episode but they better not have. THEY BETTER NOT HAVE.

If they did I'm gonna go insane.

NO.

THOSE BASTARDS.

USED TO BE?

BLESSIE DID NO HARM HE DIDN'T ASK TO BE CREATED! HE DIDN'T ASK TO BE BORN AND HE WASN'T PUTTING ANYTHING IN JEPORDY! HE WAS A GENTLE SOUL. 🥺

JACOBI AND KEPLER HAVE FORFITTED THEIR RIGHTS TO REDEMPTION ARCS. CUTTER'S ERRAND BOYS DESERVE NOTHING. 😠

Mixed feelings about Maxwell. At least she helped Hera but...she did it so they could kill Blessie. I still don't trust her.

"It's just business" WELL GUESS WHAT KEPLER? Maybe my business is about to become writing 500 fics where the plant monster eats you! How do ya like them apples?

You all knew this was coming didn't you? You, person reading this right now. You saw my love of the plant monster and hate for SI-5 and smiled to yourself. You've been waiting haven't you? Well dear readers. Here it is. I hope it was all worth it to you. Because for the rest of my Wolf359 reactions, I'm gonna have nothing but hate and contempt for Cutter's errand boys and their stupid chess games and inability to properly inspect a chemical lab.

Episode 33: Don't Poke the Bear

Yeah Hilbert, Doug is allowed to be mad at you. Just because there are worse devils in the world than you doesn't make you an angel.

Hey that's actually a pretty good quote. Good for me.

"You won't even know I'm here". You know Kepler, if you threw yourself out of the airlock, then you wouldn't be here at all, you plant murdering psychopath. I hope you drown in your own Whisky.

And stop talking. And slurping.

Never thought I'd support Hilbert, but Here. We. Are.

Kepler. What kind of childish power trip is this?

Oh ew. Jacobi. Maybe you can help Kepler out the airlock.

Wait...are they trying to tell them how to do this? ARE JACOBI AND MAXWELL BETRAYING KEPLER? Or is this all part of some grand scheme? Jacobi still shot Blessie, so even if he is helping them, I really don't care, and I don’t believe it.

Oh ew Kepler. You don't get to call Hilbert out. THAT'S MY JOB. You forfeited that right when you shot Blessie.

And stop pretending to care about Doug.

"Mr. Ballistics Dummy" okay Jacobi. "Mr. Errand Boy" it is.

Yeah Kepler seems pretty paranoid.

"I'd kill for five minutes in the achieves without red tape" "She's being metaphorical" ...why do I not believe that...

And Jacobi...you seem unusually calm and laid back about this. Why do I think this is all you trying to trap them?

"Just because we do awful things doesn't mean we have to like it". YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. You're still morally responsible. Forgive me if a few tears shed over those you killed doesn’t cut it.

"This empty coffee cup outranks you" Kepler I hope one day your Whisky glass outranks you.

No decima research? Oh my goodness what a surprise! Command doesn't care about you Hilbert! Who could have seen this coming? Oh my gosh evil people stab each other in the back, I could have nevvvveeeerrrrr seen that one coming. 🙄

"He can be very...enthusiastic when it comes to guarding his secrets" Oh I bet.

THE WHISKEY SPEECH IS A ROUTINE SPEECH HE GIVES?

Kepler really is discount Cutter.

Ah...grand scheme it seems. I knew I was right to put Jacobi on my hit list. And Maxwell, it seems you're interested in joining the party. Welcome, welcome.

They didn't even deliver their letters? Man they are embracing the villain aesthetic.

"Kepler is manipulating you." Of course he is.

Solid advice Hilbert. "Don't trust me. But don't trust him either."

IT GREW HIS FINGERNAILS BACK?

Oh my. This is big. But then why does Cutter want to shut it down? Is he so against doing good that he won't do a good thing for society even if it will make him famous and considered a good guy for curing a ton of stuff? He really is the worst.

Episode 34: A Matter of Perspective

People need to be nicer to Doug. He has the least blood on his hands. And every time Jacobi and Kepler talk I lose brain cells. "I do evil but it's necessary" yeah, except it's not. It's literally not. What's wrong with you?

I don't care about the stupid superpowered three-legged pig.

Oh my gosh HE IS STILL GOING.

...

He can't even remember the punchline. Pathetic.

More music! 🎶🎶🎶

...They have board games?

Ugh. Pryce and Carter again. "The existential terror that is funzo."

Why is that in the manual? And if it is, why bring it to space? This raises so many questions.

Well at least it's not chess. Though it's no "Chutes and Ladders". Or “Candyland”.

Have I mentioned I hate SI-5 yet? Poor Doug.

Oh my gosh is this more funzo? Is the game even real?

"Hidden inwardness card"? "Time Vortex?" What sort of old-timey board game is this? Loyalty round? Wheel of ages? Sunken Idol? Celestial Steps?

At least Hera seems to like it. Did they bring it for the AIs? To keep them entertained?

WHAT IS THIS GAME. 😂

IS HILBERT THE REF? 😂 Oh my gosh he is being tortured.

Okay Jacobi and Kepler have history. But here's the thing Jacobi. There's a difference between a coach that pushes you to do your best on a football team, and a known murderer who pushes you to become a murderous psychopath.

WHY DO YOU TRUST HIM WITH YOUR LIFE JACOBI? He's crazy. Nutso. Why would you blow up Doug for him?

Oh. A forbidden picture of Doug. Maybe that's private. It does make me wonder about his past though...

"Reality Storm".

...ooohhhh... the "Golden Loyalty Card". How fancy.

I hope Pryce and Carter had fun designing the game. Sound like they really had a good time with it.

"I never wanted to be up here in space" well, then WHY ARE YOU HERE? WHY ARE YOU GIVING IT EVERYTHING?

"Kepler is gone" oh that's such a stupid cop out. "The old me died" nah, you're still here you're just making terrible life choices.

"Jacobi's a smart man" No, not really.

Oh great the pig joke.

Hahaha...that's not funny you psycho. That's not funny at all. It’s also clearly a metaphor for them. A slow death doesn’t make it any less of a murder.

Oh there's more? Is it just me or are the episodes getting longer.

It's his birthday again! And Christmas! Well, this is nice. They remembered this time. 🥰

"The same thing I do every night. I get older". Don't we all Doug. Don't we all.

Mini Episode 5: Long Story Short

What is the Argentinian incident?

Well I guess we'll never know.

Oh flashback land.

Yikes Kepler really seems to like to tell stories. HE HAD A FUNK BAND? HABERDASHERS? WHAT?

Well I guess even cold hearted villains need hobbies. Charges of insider trading? Saw Maxwell's feet? Okay that one was weird. What's out there in the woods? "I don't remember anything from 1987?" ...why are these silly stories getting more ominous.

Is that it? Yikes that really was short. Really short did I miss something? Okay, well I guess that's it.

Kepler should have stayed with his funk band. Maybe then he wouldn't be on my airlock launching list.

Thanks for reading dear readers. See you soon!

#bods wolf359 reactions #hera wolf 359 #renee minkowski #isabel lovelace #daniel jacobi #alana maxwell #warren kepler #wolf 359 #W359 #w359 #hera w359 #doug eiffel #alexander hilbert

[fools-fall-much-too-soon]

Leon's personality "change" between RE2 & RE4

Disclaimer: I'm not a huge fan of the remakes so I don't really take them as 100% canon. When reading this, understand that I'm taking parts from both the ogs and the remakes, but primarily the og games. (TD;DR is at the bottom of the post)

Something that's been on my mind a lot lately is how we went from heart-on-his-sleeve, genuine RE2 Leon to loud, confident, sassy RE4 Leon.

RE4 got me into resi as a kid and remains my favorite game in the franchise. HOWEVER, it's pretty clear (on first inspection) that RE4 Leon is an outlier in the character's development.

In RE2 we get to see rookie cop Leon. I've seen a lot of people claim that og RE2 Leon doesn't have much of a personality but I'd have to disagree. Its abundantly clear that Leon is incredibly pragmatic, a very quick thinker, quite friendly and seems to be able to work well with just about anyone, he even kneels down to get on people's level. Often it seems more like he was trained as an EMT than a cop.

He doesn't approach strangers w a gun. He's so sincere and almost gullible in his faith in other people. That's not to say that he's stupid, he doesn't immediately trust people including Ada (although some folks wanna act like Leon is some lost puppy dog with 0 self-preservation skills). In a lot of ways he comes off a lot like a shonen mc despite him being so snarky. If anything, the closest comparisons I can think of are characters like Percy Jackson or early (comics-era) Peter Parker. All genuine, kind, smart people who are also spunky and funny. He stands his ground, voices his opinion, and is driven by duty. Yes, he's logical and level-headed and pleasant/easily digestible but he's definitely a big personality and a strong character. Practical =/= Boring.

I can't say that much of this changes going into RE4. The only real difference is that he's less gullible and sincere which definitely doesn't feel like its coming out of nowhere. He is 6 years older to be fair and while we only know of Operation Javier between the two installments, we know Leon gets sent on other missions... despite none of them being directly connected to BOWs until OJ. He's been trained by the military which is absolutely part of why he's less gullible other than the obvious reasons. And even then, he's so quick to untie Luis, despite not knowing if he's armed or dangerous, doesn't question the medicine Luis gives them, trusts Ada's intel for some reason, and still considers Krauser a good guy.

Leon was lied to by Ada, who he wanted to protect, and was left feeling used and betrayed. Only to be abandoned by Claire and had to look after the recently orphaned Sherry alone. That, plus the training would make him grow up quick... So what we're left with is the same old snarky, idealistic, but duty-driven Leon who is only a bit more grounded in reality/jaded.

It's also my opinion that all his cheesy one-liners is more than just a way to cope with stress.

Really think about how military training is meant to strip you of personality... It'd make sense that on solo missions he'd finally have the space to let his personality show. He has to hide it so much, ofc he'd be extra when there's no higher-ups to keep him in place. The thing that really hammers it home for me is that he tends to act a lot more serious when there's other agents/military involved. In both Degeneration and Operation Javier, Leon isn't funny. Even in most of Infinite Darkness he keeps his jokes to himself. He's been silly/campy since day one, it's just time and place and RE4 was the right time and place to let his personality shine (especially with all the other big personalities around him).

Leon's personality "change" just seems like a natural progression in response to his environment.

speaking of natural personality changes... I think Krauser and Luis's deaths really messed Leon up. In one day, Leon has to watch so many people die all over again. Innocent villagers slaughtered at his hand. I can imagine that knowing the parasite could be removed and that the villagers were tricked didn't sit easy on his mind either. Like yeah he gets Ashley home but that's one person saved vs the ~1000 that died. Krauser and Luis were important to him in different ways and in the end, things ended up just like Raccoon.

I think that's when it truly starts to set in for Leon that he's just as helpless as everyone else and what he's doing isn't much in the grand scheme of things... Not that he has a choice to stop. It also very easily explains why Leon starts to get more serious as time goes on. Fundamentally, he never really changes the part of him that gets easily attached and cares deeply about the lives of others, but as he ages, it gets harder for him to believe that what he's doing matters since nothing changes.

TD;DR: At the end of the day Leon's personality in RE4 isn't an outlier in his development, but likely of one of the last moments his personality gets to shine without as heavy a burden on his shoulders as he has later in his life. He was been always sassy and kinda campy since day one and him being the way he is in RE4 makes a lot of sense, even though he gets more serious in later installments.

#resident evil #leon kennedy #resident evil meta #re2 #re4 #long post

[alectology-archive]

omg bff why do you not like brandon sanderson's books? (im asking both bc im curious and also in hopes that you will rant your heart out)

I let my thoughts cool for a while before answering this sjdhwifhskf because his books just make me so mad. I've tried to organise my thoughts but I haven't really succeeded so it's mostly a compilation of all my annoyances with him. This is partly a me-problem in the sense that writers who’re only good at plot (which is mostly the case with him) just do not work for me at all. In my list of priorities good plot is ranked a lot lower than interesting thematic explorations and good prose (but he also sucks at characterisations - most of his characters are carbon copies of one another with slight differences, which means I don’t really end up liking any of them).

I’m going to put the rest of the rant under the cut because this turned out longer than I expected although I was typing this on my phone during class today-

His writing style is just really brash and lacking elegance or nuance - plus he has the most boring prose I've ever come across, maybe? I very much think he needs to step back and stop publishing so many books with such large wordcounts when most of his exposition turns out to be pretty useless. I just HAVE to drop a couple of quotes because some of them are such an eyesore, full of nonsense fragments and repetitions. 

He stared northward.

At the black and silver clouds.

He’d never seen their like before. They blanketed the entire horizon to the north, high in the sky. They weren’t gray. They were black and silver. Dark, rumbling thunderheads, as dark as a root cellar at midnight. With striking silver light breaking between them, flashes of lightning that gave off no sound.

LIKE.

War had come to Andor in the still of night. The approaching refugees would soon discover that they’d been marching toward danger. It was not surprising. Danger was in all directions. The only way to avoid walking toward it would be to stand still.

Me when I’m trying to desperately say something #deep (he does manage to write thoughtful stuff. But he also fails a lot of the time and he needs a better editor.)

Outside the palace, the Asha’man line was finally weakening. They’d given him the better part of an hour, blasting back wave after wave of Trollocs in an awesome display of Power.

When I talk about him prioritising Drama and Plot over thematic importance, this is what I mean, essentially? One of the main themes RJ’s books deal with is that war is a tragedy, but instead of trying to maintain the spirit of that, he delves into how Cool the asha’man look killing the enemy’s armies and dedicates a whole book - a memory of light - to endless war sequences that I don’t quite understand the need for... at all.

I've only read mistborn, his WoT instalments and parts of the way of kings so I can only speak for them, but mistborn was generic-YA-bad and the way of kings reads like a person who doesn't know how to write trying to desperately write fantasy so I had to drop it early on (I'm still trying to read it, but college has been keeping me very busy, unfortunately so I'm trying to prioritise Good Writers instead because I can tell that reading his WoT instalments has rotted my brain and ruined my prose. ugh). I've also seen people describing the experience of reading his books as interacting with a textual translation of video games (in a not-good way) and I agree, honestly!

What I hate MOST is that he specifically instructs readers how to feel about characters doing certain things instead of trying to steer them towards those conclusions. He lets you know that you’re supposed to hate x character and sympathise with y character instead of letting you decide yourself based on their prior motivations/actions in the story. I hate it when an author tries to spoon-feed everything to me and tries to force me to feel about certain stuff in a way that they specifically want me to - such writing also means they’re probably a bad writer if they feel the need to clarify to the T why I’m supposed to feel a certain way. 

Again, mistborn is one of his earlier books and I don't know if he's improved since, but there's also a bunch of fridging in his books, a sense of female caregivers being put on a pedestal, and female characters undergoing a character arc to embrace their femininity (while they previously rejected it) which means I have a harder time trying to believe he actually enjoys writing female characters. The 'how dare the oppressed subclass hate it's oppressors' thing he keeps pulling repeatedly in his books will never stop infuriating me either.

Also he is not funny and I wish he'd stop trying to be funny because I feel like throwing my book against a wall whenever I read what is supposed to be a ‘humorous’ passage. Shallan Davar bless you, the fandom loves you but I may never just because you get the brunt of his ‘funny’ dialogue:

“Well,” Shallan said to the captain, blushing but still eager to speak, “I was just thinking this: You say that my beauty coaxed the winds to deliver us to Kharbranth with haste. But wouldn’t that imply that on other trips, my lack of beauty was to blame for us arriving late?”

“Well…er…”

“So in reality,” Shallan said, “you’re telling me I’m beautiful precisely one-sixth of the time.”

“Nonsense! Young miss, you’re like a morning sunrise, you are!”

“Like a sunrise? By that you mean entirely too crimson”—she pulled at her long red hair—“and prone to making men grouchy when they see me?”

He laughed, and several of the sailors nearby joined in. “All right then,” Captain Tozbek said, “you’re like a flower.”

She grimaced. “I’m allergic to flowers.”

I’m sighing for a thousand years.

#it's also the homophobia thing and the mormon thing mostly #see I have my own beef with grrm but he knows to Write at least lol #I can't say the same for BS - he just doesn't read like a person who really knows how to write #sure he's creative. but he's not translating it well into a written medium. #asks #willowycreatures #text #brandon #<- I know I have a lot of his fans following me at this point so you're welcome to filter my rant tag #sanderson critical

[twisted-wonderland-shenanigans]

Is Ortho a sort of artificial Kaiju in your AU ro is he a type of Kaiju with the ability to use surrounding materials as a sort of armour. Because his real form is too small.

That is a very good question! I’m gonna put this under a read more just in case since there is a bit of angst in here that might make people uncomfortable, but keep in mind that some ideas may change over time if something better comes to mind.

If I have to tag it a specific way, please let me know and I’ll do so! There’s also mostly spoilers for the secondary antagonist(s) in the story, but at some point I’ll see about doing a post for these antagonists…or I might introduce them in one of the later chapters~ >v>

I’m still fleshing out some of the details on him, but for the most part—much like his normal self in game—Ortho in this AU is artificial…and yet in the same breath, he isn’t.

In the early days, Ortho was a normal Kaiju just like his brother who grew up on the Isle of Woe and traveled to the Isle of Sages at some point when they (aka Idia) were in their early teens searching for a safe place to call home. Given how emotionally shut down Idia was even amongst the most anti-social Kaiju, one had to wonder: what exactly happened to the two, and why did Idia keep this mechanical version of his brother so close? If you were to ask, all you’d get from him would be two words:

The Precursors…

No one knows what these beings are or how they came to be. No one has even seen what they look like outside of their metal shells that closely resembled humans wearing masks and carrying electro staves. Yet one thing was for sure: they moved in synch, working together in such unison that it was as if they were one being. They behaved like…a hive mind. And they were dangerous.

Were you to ask the older Kaiju themselves, it might come as a shock to learn that they fear these smaller beings due to the terrible things that they can (and have) done to their Kaiju in the past. Were they originally the creators of these giant beasts? No one can say for sure as it had been so long since the Precursors have been seen, very few Kaiju remaining from that time that even remember the truth of their origins. However…there is no mistaking that the very experiments they did has left a very real horror that still lives on even in the younger generations.

A horror that would result in the appearance of phantom Kaiju.

So…what does this have to do with Ortho? Well, messing with the very DNA of Kaiju wasn’t the only thing that was happening. After all, how else would they figure out the resiliency of these massive titans? Or perhaps they wanted to see how a mechanical version of one of the Kaiju would be received by other Kaiju? We may never truly learn what their intentions were…

How Ortho’s mind managed to survive through this ordeal is difficult to say: natural Kaiju resiliency? Sheer determination? Or sheer force of will and spirit to not leave his big brother alone in the world? Who knows. Yet, somehow, he managed to hold on to that child/cub-like joy and innocence as he follows his older brother around the Isle of Sages, consuming a mixture of organic and inorganic materials to maintain his new form over the years and utilizing energy sources around the island to stay online.

In fact, Yuu manages to see him chowing down on some metal ships from afar, during the first chapter when they’re trying to figure out how to climb down from their mountain-view “home”! The metal that constitutes his body is considered to be “living metal”, which slowly regenerates with the nanites that the Precursors installed. Consuming pure metal or even metal ores from rocks can actually help speed up this recovery too by providing the nanites in his system the materials needed, hence why he doesn’t require maintenance to replace missing or broken parts.

Like I said, I’m still working out some of the finer details behind Ortho since it would be much harder for Idia to be tech savvy in this AU (though in a way they do have their own “tech”), but I can say for sure that he’s not completely mechanical nor is he completely organic anymore. He’s still the sweet, adorable bean we all know and love, just in Kaiju form and with trauma for him and Idia!

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland kaiju au #twst kaiju au #idia shroud #ortho shroud #faun speaks #if you guessed that the secondary antagonists are based on the robots in chapter 6 you get a cookie!

[ahamkaracature]

Omg okay so. HTTYD 3: The Hidden World is, in my opinion, a good solo movie. It is NOT, however (and this is popular among many fans I see), a good sequel, as it blatantly disregards lore from not only the series’, short movies and (questionably canon) games, but also arguably the movies themselves. They should have went with the original concept of ‘Night Fury Cave’, and I hold this opinion within my very heart and soul.

Some spoilers for both the TV franchise and the books. This is really long, so sorry.

First of all, the entire message goes against the point of the franchise itself. HTTYD1 is a lesson on not judging/seeing the best in others, despite what others are saying. It’s about being brave enough to be yourself and do what you trust is right, even if it goes against what you’ve been taught/ what others think. The dragons and Vikings are at war, but Hiccup realises that Hey, They Aren’t So Bad Actually, and refuses to harm them even at the very real risk of being turned on by his community. This message is more or less continued in HTTYD2- though the overall moral is that you must learn to grow up, the fact remains that the vikings and dragons fight for what’s right, despite the enemies they’re undoubtedly provoking.

The Hidden World takes one look at this, considers it. And then takes a bat to it.

At first glance- and as a solo movie, which is what it should have been- this message of having to say goodbye, and doing what’s right even if difficult, are fine. Great even. However, the main problems arise when put in to context of the franchise: this movie practically erases all the progress and work from the entire rest of the show. Of course you could argue that Hiccup NEEDED to befriend the dragons first IN ORDER to send them away, but that only raises more questions— if the above ground world is so dangerous for them, why didn’t they just leave themselves, with no intervention needed? Where does One Viking get the right to send away entire races of deadly creatures because ‘it’s too dangerous’ (and weren’t they defending themselves perfectly fine before they bonded)? Most importantly, and one the one I have most issue with, how is the environment supposed to function when unbelievable amounts of dangerous apex predators suddenly disappear?

All these questions and more deserve their own posts, but I want to keep this (relatively) simple so it hopefully doesn’t get too out of hand.

I feel that the reason for this decision was simple. Dreamworks wanted an end to the money making series, and the ending of the books they’re (pretty loosely) based off provided a good scapegoat. We know for certain this is the inspiration for the ending, as the final monologue is the same as in the books. However. There are many things that don’t make sense with this decision that support my statement of ‘they wanted a quick and easy ending’. The first is that it doesn’t match up with the TV series at all, which leads quickly to the next and likely most notable point- never, in the entire rest of the movies or shows, did they follow the book so closely. Ever.

I mentioned previously that the adaption to film is ‘pretty loose’. This is an understatement. Perhaps the only things that these franchises have in common is the title, some names and relationships, and the fact that they both have Vikings and dragons. Maybe some vague design cues for the Vikings. Trust me when I say that is IT.

And we’re perfectly fine with that! Ecstatic, even- both are incredible ideas, and anyone who’s consumed both almost certainly hold affection for both, though in different ways. The dragons are incredibly designed yet uniquely different in both, the relationships are intriguing, yet fairly different in both, and the conflicts are interesting, you guessed it! But different in both. This leads to the issue of The Hidden World- of all times to reintroduce the book elements, why now, in the final instalment? I’ll tell you why. To put this bitch to REST in the easiest way they could. Also coincidentally the worst way.

The books and TV instalments don’t only differ with relationships, designs, characters and their personalities, and plot- though those are all obviously very important changes, to the point where some characters would not be recognised at ALL as their counterparts if not for the name. No, probably the biggest and most prominent difference is the COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WORLD-BUILDING.

That’s right. even if you only changed the names of the current TV franchise, you would NEVER be able to link the two series’ to the same universe- at least, not without some VERY impactful reaches.

In the books, the war is not the backstory- it’s the result of building tension THAT WE SEE growing throughout the novels. This contrasts directly with the already-present animosity in the movies. In the books, the dragons have a language that hiccup can speak (another point for ‘the dragons are sentient’ which I may or may not mention later- why are they acting like wild animals in the 3rd movie if it’s reportedly based on these books?), and are practically kept as pets or work animals, like dogs or horses, with Vikings having multiple dragons each with the jobs of flight/transport and hunting respectively. They are used for the Vikings’ convenience, with the overbearing conflict being that they used to be equals, and the dragons are not happy. THIS is what leads to sending the dragons away- they cannot coexist because they don’t, as a whole, see each other as equals. They will always be fighting for power, and the war will solve nothing, and so the dragons will be hidden until the humans wise up.

This ending is so unfit for the movie franchise- whose whole point is basically that coexistence and mutual respect IS possible and wonderful- that it’s not even funny. Why is this random man, who we’ve never seen before and are supposed to believe ‘killed all the night furies’, where they draw the line? They have faced way bigger threats before (albeit mainly in the shows, which not everyone has watched [though that’s no excuse to nerf the protagonists for the sake of conflict]), and this guy doesn’t even seem to know his stuff anyway (again, deserves its own post, unfortunately).

The answer is it’s not. It never has been, I doubt it ever will be.

But fine. Say that they really, genuinely wanted to tie in the books, and this was the intimate goal. Why stop there? This ending may not make sense with the context it was given, but if they used more ideas from the books, surely it would have made more sense?

What I’m about to say is coming from a place of love. Of understanding. Of ‘this is my favourite character and I’d never recover if this happened but he must take one for the team’.

If they were set on this. If there was no other way for this to end. If this was IT.

They should’ve killed off Snotlout.

LISTEN. I don’t know if you’re all that familiar with this franchise in the first place, but Snotlout Jorgenson is the most specialist guy ever. Embodiment of ‘he’s such a Guy I want to put him in a blender’. Of course, this adoration is largely due to the development he goes through in the series’ and not really in the more recent movies (and also maybe a bit subjective 🙈) but I digress. This guy was the first ever recorded instance and possibly the cause itself of my reliable formula for my favourite characters in every media I’ve ever consumed- Guy That Could Be My Son. I love that little rascal with questionable morals with my whole heart.

.. which is why it’s physically painful to see what they did to him in the 3rd movie. If they smashed the messages of the previous movies with a bat into an unrecognisable corpse on the floor, then Snotlout Gary Jorgenson is in a body bag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. All his development out the window, though this could, if you were generous, possibly be attributed to his character in the books. I would honestly prefer they killed him off to what they did, though this particular interpretation of him is already dead to me so maybe it wouldn’t make much of a difference.

In the books, Snotlout is a the antagonistic cousin of Hiccup (leading to the fairly popular headcanon of them being cousins in the movies) who later sacrifices himself by disguising himself as Hiccup and valiantly charging into battle in order to distract the enemies so Hiccup can escape, leading to his death. If this happened in the movies- just this one, simple detail- the ending could be explained. A direct loss of someone close to Hiccup could ‘open his eyes’ to the danger they are putting themselves in for the hope of ‘friendship’, and force him to realise that it’s safer for dragons and Vikings to just… let go. Make the ultimate sacrifice of saying goodbye for the sake of their individual peoples’ safety.

Unfortunately the writers did not think this through. At all. And the ending is the only thing they took from the books because the two franchises are practically unrecognisable from each other anyway.

I could talk for HOURS all about the points I skipped; my complicated thoughts on the light furies, the inconsistencies about the world building that make No Sense at all, the blatant mischaracterisations that only serve to make the protagonists look like incompetent coworkers who kinda hate each other rather than the near lifelong friends they really are and to make the villains seem more threatening than they actually are, and of course the ‘domestication’ of the dragons/ the removal of their intelligence despite the many reassurances that they stay because they WANT TO and they had MULTIPLE CHANCES TO LEAVE and have proven TIME AND TIME AGAIN that they stay for COMPANIONSHIP and NOT NECESSITY and the topic of animal instincts and finding a mate has ALREADY BEEN DISCUSSED IN THE SNOGGLETOG SHORT MOVIE-

But this is already way longer than I thought it’d be 🥰 if you read all this way. Um. Sorry 🥺🥺 thanks for the option to rant my family are tired of hearing this 😼 toodles

Damn I hadn’t even seen the third movie and DAMN that was a lot of typing

Very well written 10 out of 10 would 10 again

[drivingsideways]

Fic projects 2023  (and beyond?)

Making a list just for kicks! (So I can beat myself up at the end of the year? PERHAP.)

Cheongdam-dong couple ‘verses : 

1) Strawberry ‘verse:  Han Sung-hyun is a rockstar and South Korea’s first openly gay musician/celebrity. Park Do-won is...just some ex military guy who runs a laundrette while trying to keep his family of seven (5 daughters and 2 grandmas) afloat. After almost accidentally saving Han Sung-hyun from death-by-bullet, Park Do-won gets bullied into hired as Sung-hyun’s bodyguard. Why yes, they do fall in love, but first Sung-hyun must PROBLEMATICALLY flirt with his new LORGE employee and get social media cancelled for it, have a couple of near-death experiences, become Fraulein Maria to Do-won’s five girls, and generally be rescued from his life of fun and depravity to become a BORING DAD (spoilers: he loves it), and also maybe rescue a whale. I have lots of ambitions for this project; for one, I want to imagine what having someone like Han Sung-hyun out there between 2000 to date might have meant. I know there are a few prominent gay celebrities in SK, and I plan to read up whatever I can get my hands on about queer culture in SK as well as the music industry in the last twenty years. The latter is probably easier to access. So far all the google search on LGBT issues in SK has given me is..fairly depressing pieces that are centered around the very real homophobia and discrimination. If anyone has any recs- either in fiction or non fiction about being queer in SK, and about the music industry as such, throw it my way! Thank you. :D

2) Wooster -Sageuk verse:  Yes, you read that right. Ok, this is the one in which (JWS/Bertie) is the fourth son of the current king, and a completely useless royal. His brothers, both elder and younger are in a death match for the throne; our guy is chilling out on his small estate up north doing the bare minimum to keep the barbarians at the gates. Into his life comes one Very Brilliant Person (Kim Tae-ri/Jeeves). Now, Tae-ri isn’t a noble born AND she had the misfortune to be afab in those Neo-Confucian times but is she going to let that stop her? NO. So she wiggles her way into (useless) spare heir’s household dressed as a man, and quickly becomes indispensable to him. Meanwhile, LJJ is a soldier in JWS’ army and also a conman with a business on the side; he’s basically sticking with JWS because he figures this guy is not basically interesting enough for his life to be in any kind of real danger, so he gets his soldier’s pay as well as quietly makes money selling contraband. What he *doesn’t * know, and couldn’t possibly begin to guess is that JWS has been PINING for his low born soldier for A WHILE. So, the main plot would be around how Tae-ri, having realized that all the other princes are genocidal freaks, starts an elaborate game of thrones to put the Useless (but not genocidal) Spare on the throne of Joseon, while also solving his Love Problem (which is the only problem that Useless Spare is actually interested in solving.) I want to write this because I love Wodehousian shenangians and queering history, but I’ve also watched like- three sageuks in my entire life- so I feel like I don’t know enough about the genre or you know, actual history, to pull it off with any degree of competence. Still, it *is * one of my favourite ideas, so I’m going to keep it on the list.

The above two are probably the more “high difficulty” writing ideas, and realistically,  I’ll have time for one. At the moment, it’s going to be Strawberry ‘verse, but well, you never know. 

Other Fics:

3) Lucky Star: This is the next instalment in Terms ‘verse, and is the story of  how Do-chul and Hong-gi adopt their son, Min-woo. This fic was meant to be a bridge fic to the final instalment of the ‘verse, but quickly expanded itself in my head. I’ve been trying to crack it for some months now, and it’s not going anywhere, because I can’t seem to figure out what I want this fic to be about. I hope I can do that *sometime * this year because I love these characters so much, and I want to just keep writing in this ‘verse. 

4) Sequel to Juche/ Part 2 of The Exiles: This one feels like something I’ve made unnecessarily difficult for myself by throwing the characters into mid 1980s Patagonia, for god’s sake, at the end of Juche. I mean, I did it for Reasons (good Reasons), but I also know very little about that era, so this is basically the classic “bit off more than you could chew” problem, which, come to think of it, maybe the problem with all my fics. Still, I have a much more solid idea of where I want this fic to go than Lucky Star and I think I can fudge some stuff and hopefully get away with it, so! 

5) Christmas Fic : This is the one F/F fic I want to write about [Kim Hye-soo] and [Tang Wei], long time frenemies, who both got out of the small town where they grew up and made good. Christmas sees them back together in their hometown for the first time in many years: Hye-soo’s boyfriend has just dumped her, and Tang Wei’s fiance is looking for an excuse to break up with *her * although she doesn’t know it yet. Cue small town Christmas event shenanigans between the two women as they try to one up each other; with the stakes getting progressively crazier until everyone around them can’t wait for them to just leave; they WILL, and they’ll also kiss (and other things), and go back to their fabulous big city lives where they get even richer and make men cry. (The good thing about this one is that I don’t have to start writing this until October at least.)

I suppose there are chances that some show or movie might come along that grabs me by the hair and derails my nebulous plans for the above, but it’s unlikely. Kdrama- at least the ones I enjoy watching- doesn’t seem to trigger the fic writing part of my brain, and I don’t feel enthused by most of what I see the mainstream fandom producing either. I’ve had the most fun last year creating  these imaginary worlds that are largely untethered to any particular show/ canon, while retaining the fannish aspects in terms of world building and style of story telling. 

Fellow writers! Tell me in notes/ replies what you’re hoping to write this year, if you had unlimited time and energy.  What’s ticking inside your lovely brains? TELL ME ALL!

#writing #wips #fanfic

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 2 replay, Omega:

-Drinking with Chakwas somehow results in improved medigel capacity. We need to make it mandatory for this woman to drink more often.

-Once again, Shepard is standing after a drink that knocks someone else out. They did not come back quite right.

-Chakwas says she’s with Shepard because Joker needs her. I think this is true; if you refuse to let her come with you in ME3, she tells Shepard to look after Joker.

She also says that Shepard provides stability, as an immovable center. I question that – Shepard provides a purpose, but I wouldn’t call them stable. They’re constantly on the go and their objectives rapidly change as they learn more information.

I wonder if she came with Shepard because she thought Shepard would need her. All she knew at first is that Cerberus brought Shepard back. Cerberus could have done anything to them; Miranda repeatedly mentions she wanted to install a control chip.

If so, what more could Shepard need than a reliable doctor looking after their interests, not Cerberus’? Someone who would, say, find an excuse to remove the control chip and insert a fake one.

And even if Shepard did not come back unchanged, they’d be on a dangerous mission with unreliable allies – would Chakwas trust their well being to a Cerberus doctor?

So I suspect Chakwas is here because she thinks Shepard needs her as much as Joker does. But Shepard isn’t ready to hear that, and Chakwas is smart enough to know the ship is bugged. So she says a half truth about being here because of Shepard, but lies about the why.

-Why can I no longer restock my medigel on the ship? Cerberus spent how much bringing Shepard back, but won’t invest in the medigel to keep them alive?

-Kasumi freed a child a child art prodigy from slavers by smuggling her out.

Poor form of me, but my first thought was to wonder if there were other slaves on the ship and if Kasumi left them behind. It seems odd that slavers would only have one slave, even if that slave is special.

-Huh. Shepard has some autodialogue when they first arrive arrive on Omega and speak to Moklan. Very short line, but I don’t think there’s been much if any autodialogue so far.

-Moklan seems to Aria’s right-hand man in ME2. In ME3’s Omega DLC, it’s Bray. Why the change?

-That Omega’s news broadcasts aren’t subtitled is an eternal frustration to me. I have a hard time making them out, and they’re very interesting. This is a huge accessibility oversight that didn’t exist in ME1; that one did subtitle the broadcasts.

-One of the broadcasts is for a group that wants to dethrone Aria. Why do I suspect this is trap Aria set up?

I highly doubt any news broadcasts she disapproves of are played. At least, not for long.

-Of course there are pirates planning to intercept the relief being sent to Freedom’s Progress. I don’t know what I expected. I suppose for it to not be so brazen.

-Interesting that the Citadel news broadcasts are interspersed with Omega only broadcasts.

The former are voiced by a human, the latter by a batarian.

Generally speaking, the Omega broadcasts are hilarious for how awful they are.

-As on the Citadel, there are numerous human/turian pairs scattered around.

-Omega has way too many humans given that humans entered galactic society 30 years ago.

The Citadel makes some sense – it is the center of galactic politics.

But Omega is in the Terminus. Why are there so many humans here so soon?

-Relations with batarians are a toss up. Most are fine with you, such as Moklan and Marsh. You see humans and batarians speaking in the background.

Then you have those actively hostile, like the bartender that poisons you.

The tension humanity had with turians in ME1 seems replaced with batarians now. And once again, this will be dropped in the next game.

-Huh. I never registered that the mad prophet mentions Reapers before.

-I get Harrot is supposed to be a mob boss, but giving him a cigar is ridiculous. It just floats in front of him. Elcor mouths aren’t designed for human cigars.

-What is the meat at the food stalls? It’s shaped like a person, but it has a tail.

There are some small ones that look like babies or children.

Is this supposed to horrifying? It always feels horrifying. I initially thought they were vorcha until I saw the tails.

-What’s up with the news broadcast that the Sirta Foundation made a breakthrough for an interspecies influenza? This played on the Citadel as well.

This is obviously related to Omega’s plague. However, it seems to have no impact on the storyline. Mordin still has to develop a cure.

So what’s the point of it?

-Funny that the porn mag Fornax depicts nearly all species, but notably not turians or salarians.

Salarians I’ll give them; they’re asexual. But why no turians? As the fandom will tell you, many humans find them attractive.

It can’t be a political issue – it includes batarians!

-I’m curious if Captain Gavorn was supposed to have a bigger role at one point. The vorcha in the alleyway make a big deal about him, which permits you to speak to him. His job is to keep the vorcha numbers down and out of Aria’s sight.

If you speak to him again after Mordin’s recruitment, he congratulates you on the decreased number of Vorcha.

It certainly feels like there was more for him to do at one point. You could play through the game and miss that he has dialogue.

-Captain Gavorn’s dismissiveness of the vorcha also makes for good foreshadowing about their role in spreading the plague. He can’t even imagine they’re capable of such a thing.

-Also, why do Vorcha wear bondage gear?

I’m sure it’s supposed to be something else, but it looks like bondage gear.

-Kenn’s situation cannot be an unusual one for quarians on a pilgrimage.

What’s up with endangered species in ME2 and trying to kill off their young adults?

The quarians send them off into the galaxy with wide eyed and bushy tailed to find out first hand how awful it is.

The krogans straight up try to kill them so only the worthy survive.

Resources may be scarce, but you’d think they want to keep a broader genetic pool at a minimum.

-Kenn’s also a trap. First playthrough, I immediately gave him money to get off the station and lost my chance to get a discount from Harrot.

-Speaking off, what happens if you go renegade when speaking to Harrot about Kenn? Does he just kill him?

If you return to Kenn’s stall, he’s no longer there. Harrot says he gave you a discount to all his shops.

-Fist has quite the victim complex. Once thrown into a den of criminals, he didn’t have what it takes to climb on top of the heap.

-The Patriarch also mentions ardat-yakshi. Yeah, the asari are not doing a great job hiding them.

-Shepard keeps telling old krogans they must have great stories.

You think they would have learned after Wrex bit their head off in ME1. Patriarch’s kinder, but the same message – the past hurts too much to talk about.

-Shepard gets poisoned at Afterlife, and when they come to they’re told that the rule is humans shouldn’t drink at Afterlife.

And what do I see when I return to the bar? Two humans drinking there.

To be fair, they’re not near the batarian bartender. But still.

-Forvan’s family was killed by humans on Bekke. Miranda says they were planning to destroy the Citadel Council.

This is another story that was told in a spin off, isn’t it? This is getting old. Please include some context in the game.

The Codex is right there. Did they forget how to write Codex entries?

-Ogrinn, who shoots the batarian bartender if you go paragon, says he has a mate.

I think this is the only time the turian word for their partner is used (other than Garrus if you romance him, who may use human terminology because Shepard is human).

If you don’t like this it’s easy enough to work around – claim it’s a dialect or the like – but I always appreciate when the nonhumans are permitted to be nonhuman.

-I’m still puzzled how Helena Blake became a social worker, but I’m sure she’s a terrifying one.

I wish the game had done more with her. I love her. Add her to the Omega or Citadel DLC, please.

-You can’t start the Garrus recruitment mission until you speak to Aria.

The game wanted to make sure you met her. Interesting, given that meeting the Council is optional.

-Huh. The dancer by Aria also draws a gun on you when you approach. I’ve missed that before. I suppose she’s actually a guard.

-It feels like the game tried a little too hard to make Aria intimidating, but she’s a huge improvement on the asari from ME1. She actually feels powerful and commanding.

-Although she is controlled by the writers, who take another opportunity to insist that Shepard is totally the real Shepard. They must be, Aria just scanned them. Sigh.

-Time to return to the ship to restock the grenade launcher now that I’ve increased my heavy ammo capacity.

I’ve also increased my pistol and submachine damage, but couldn’t afford to buy a shotgun upgrade. :/ After recruiting Mordin, hopefully.

-When speaking to Donnelly and Daniels, the renegade option is tell them that gambling is forbidden on the ship when they invite you to a game.

Very odd. Gambling seems something that renegade would be happy to partake in. Neutral would be to abide by the Alliance rules.

-After agreeing to the game, you can lose credits if you go neutral and say you play friendly! Every other option, you win.

#mass effect #mass effect 2 #mass effect 2 replay

[denimbex1986]

'David Tennant’s comeback tour as the Doctor began with the glorified greatest hits set that was “The Star Beast”– a sweet, funny slab of kid-friendly telly that lovingly scratched its audience under the chin. But returning showrunner Russell T Davies had promised that “Wild Blue Yonder”, the second of Tennant’s three 60th anniversary instalments, would be “darker… not scary… just genuinely weird”. He wasn’t joking.

There have always been many sides to the BBC’s most beloved sci-fi franchise. One of its more distinctive flavours is “Weird Who” (remember those killer wheelie bins from Davies’s first season in 2005?).

It is a tradition that the enjoyably bonkers “Wild Blue Yonder” follows with a spring in its stride. Set aboard a haunted starship, this second adventure featuring the reunited Doctor and Donna (Catherine Tate) tips its hat to Ridley Scott’s original Alien. Meanwhile, its plunge into claustrophobic body horror suggests a familiarity with the Dead Space video games.

Whatever the inspiration, it’s great fun – illuminated by the livewire enthusiasm of the two leads. And that’s despite a worrying moment when the Doctor references the dreadful and completely baffling Chris Chibnall’s “Flux” story arc from 2021, which made even hardcore Whovians feel adrift in time and space.

Never mind, the script pushes swiftly on, and we can again forget Flux ever happened. Nevertheless, some fans may be slightly underwhelmed. The BBC hasn’t done itself any favours by keeping the plot of “Wild Blue Yonder” under wraps. In so doing, it has fuelled wild speculation among Whovians – to the point where director Tom Kingsley had to take to Twitter to dampen the hype. “The story of ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ isn’t a secret because there are any surprise returning actors or villains,” he wrote. “It’s just because we thought you might find it fun to watch it without knowing what’s going to happen next.”

“The Star Beast” ended with Donna spilling coffee on the Tardis control panel and sending the machine into the temporal vortex. Taking up the story, “Wild Blue Yonder” has the pair initially materialise atop a tree in England in 1666 – watched on by an astonished Isaac Newton. “Was it me or was Isaac Newton hot?” Donna later wonders. The Doctor nods: “He was so hot.” Then, a pause. “Oh, is that who I am now?”

It is the latest indication that his sexuality may be more fluid than historically believed (as already broadly hinted during the Jodie Whittaker years). Donna shrugs: “It was never that far from the surface, mate.”

His orientation is the least of their concerns. The Tardis has beamed aboard a spaceship while its speakers blast “Wild Blue Yonder” – the anthem of the US Air Force. Why a war song? And why vanish suddenly – stranding the Doctor and Donna?

The Doctor has a theory about the latter. The Tardis has a “Hostile Action Displacement System”, which kicks in when danger is near. It’s taken itself off somewhere safe – presumably to return when the coast is clear.

In the meantime, the duo have a vast spaceship to explore. A sad robot shuffles down a corridor, and a command bridge looks out at sheer emptiness. They’re at the very edge of the universe – gazing into a terrifying void where only madness lurks. Viewers can replicate the experience at home by tuning into the next episode of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!

But they’re not as alone as they think. The ship is also home to a pair of shape-shifting aliens, who turn into carnival mirror approximations of the Doctor and Donna. Comedy and horror bump against each other as the doppelgängers struggle to keep it together. “My arms are too long,” says the fake Doctor, dragging two massive rubberised hands like an oversized bendy toy.

Davies is correct to describe “Wild Blue Yonder” as more weird than scary. It’s a hoot seeing the real Doctor and Donna chased by the amorphous ETs, who briefly grow so large that they wedge the corridor like exiles from a Lovecraftian clown show.

There is further fun along the way as Davies replays the old TV trope of two lookalikes, each pretending to be the “real” version of someone. He also comes up with the clever idea of the aliens feeding on the anger and fear of the Doctor and Donna. It reads like a commentary on how social media monetises our darkest emotions (the monsters are temporarily powerless when Doctor and Donna clear their minds).

This is the point at which Chibnall-era Who would try to be clever by chucking in extra story elements and confusing everyone. Davies plays it straight, keeps it simple, and allows the Doctor and Donna to outsmart the shape-shifters, whose ultimate plan is to mimic the newcomers so perfectly that they can take control of the Tardis.

They are defeated, of course, and it’s back to London. There, we are treated to a moving cameo by Donna’s grandfather, Wilfred Mott, played by the late Bernard Cribbins in one of his final screen appearances (which sets up next week’s adventure when a passenger jet screams overhead and crashes).

One of the most impressive aspects of these new Tennant adventures is their determination to play it straight. Davies’s big return could easily have tripped up on its self-importance. The 60th anniversary is on the way, and Tennant is making history as the first Doctor to return for an entire arc.

But all of that is left unstated. Davies, Tennant and Tate are here because they love the Doctor. That uncomplicated enthusiasm ripples through an episode that is ultimately just another great helping of Who.'

#Doctor Who #60th Anniversary #Wild Blue Yonder #Russell T. Davies #David Tennant #Catherine Tate #Donna Noble #Flux #Tom Kingsley #The Star Beast #Wilfred Mott #Bernard Cribbins

[kimaratomoya]

You said yesterday that you were interested in a fanfic idea I had? Well here it is.

It's about a pair of fangirls going into freddy fazbear's pizzeria and deciding to stay the night there for shits n giggles. But it's a deconstruction of several things, such as wanting to get isekai'ed into the media of your choice, the fact that I kept wanting this despite the fact that teenage me would have made a terribly dysfunctional protagonist, the way how fandom seems to fill out every gap that canon lacks, but causes the place to be confusing as if reality overlaps, as somewhat of a side effect.

It was because when I was 13 and talking with my friends online, we used to get a kick out of pretending Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria was a real place, we'd be looking up vandalised google maps places and joking about going there. The fanfiction is similar, but it's also a deconstruction of the idea because FNAF in real life would be Very Dangerous regardless of if you're 20 or 12, or a fangirl or not. And it's also about how the real world would react to the haunted animatronics, I think there might just be two entries in the series but I'll focus on the first one for now.

It takes place in around 2016 or so when FNAF had less content, and had much more of an 'urban legend' aesthetic to it than it does now. If I am ever to write this fanfiction however, I think I'll need to change that. However this goes in contrast with the 'urban legend' aesthetic I had in mind, so I'll either find a workaround or I'll just not make it about FNAF in general. The main point is to deconstruct this adventurous tangent I had in mind and demonstrate how actually fucked someone in the situation would be in, regardless of how much they know about the lore.

The names of the two girls are Áine (awn-yah) and Jene. One of them values enjoyment over personal safety, and the other is an insecure liar. Áine's the one who suggests exploring the places where the children were killed staying the night when Jene wants to look around and then leave, and Jene, while having a higher sense of self preservation, compulsively lies to Áine and other characters to try and keep them safe. The conflict is about them keeping safe from the animatronics of course, but also to work together even though they eventually end up fighting a lot and Áine starts to slowly transform into her self insert OC and lose her memories. Jene's quick lying ability comes in handy as she is able to write Áine's self insert's backstory even closer to Áine's actual memories, and preserve them quicker.

There's also a plot about how the fuck the pizzeria even came into being in the first place, because most stories where fans are transported into the medium of what they're fans of don't tend to dive into this.

In the beginning, Áine says she wants to invite whoever is the night guard over to her house so they're safe from animatronics, and Jene suggests spending more time with them to determine whether or not they're Purple Guy first. This is foreshadowing towards the end where they crash, fictional characters and all, at Áine's house and Áine's mom is like WTF. It also sets up the sequel since Áine has irreversibly been touched by whatever forces have been at play in the pizzeria, she needs to stay close to it or she might vanish from existence entirely. Áine's mom can't have her daughter staying so close to something so dangerous, so she becomes the manager and strives to make the place safer. She does things such as putting the animatronics in giant hamster wheels the whole night so even though they can free roam, there's no way for them to harm people, and installing an emergency escape door for the night guard and also doors that don't use electricity.

That's some of what I have for now. Also since FNAF has so many continuities, part of the early plot is Áine and Jene trying to figure out which one they're in. The books? The movie? The games? Some fan artist's AU? Someone's fan fiction? They learn kind of later in that it's Áine's own AU which she never fully developed and based it off a bunch of other works.

Should I continue?

Bestie

Write this please, I'd 100% read it. Sounds like something that genuinely could be in the books (with some of the weird shit that happens in them *cough cough* the fucking mpreg one *cough cough*).

Genuinely, go for writing it. I kinda am torn about hearing more, because I don't want you to spoil it tbh.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fazbear frights #fanfic #fanfic ideas #ask response #bestie

[mickstart]

How do you manage money at uni? I’m worried about finances and having enough money and like. Does it just work out?

Ummm for me it Just Worked Out. I was living in one of the most cost-effective places in the UK to study and also severely depressed and anxious so I never did anything and basically just bought groceries and video games. It really depends on you and what you're going to want to do. If you plan to have a lot of nights out it can get away from you quickly

Some practical advice:

You should be getting your loan money in 3 installments each year. Divide each installment by however many months it'll be until your next installment. That's how much money you have to work with each month. Subtract one month's rent from that and that's your budget for food and other things each month. Try to keep a note of your spendings (your online banking probably has this information for you to review at the end of each month) and you'll work out how much you spend each month pretty quickly. If it's fine, you're golden.

If it's more than the money you have to work with each month, don't panic.

You should have an interest free overdraft which will be a huge safety net, and unless you bought a whole car or something you're probably not in danger.

Go over your spendings and see if there's anything you can cut back on.

Grocery store value for money hierarchy goes Lidl/Aldi > Tesco > Asda > Sainsburys > Tories

Your student services probably has a job shop or something you can sign up to which will find you work if you need it, or tutoring in your free time is a very simple and accomodating job.

If you're ever really in trouble - worst case scenario, not likely - your uni will probably have a student hardship fund you can apply to.

This is a pretty good guide with some helpful links. It can be very scary figuring out finances for yourself for the first time, but I promise the odds are it will work out. Especially if you're living in dorms you probably won't be paying water/electricity bills as this will be included in your rent.

#ask

[incarnateirony]

Hi! I’m only asking this as an anon because I don’t really want my name out there. But just fyi, I totally believe u and I’ve gone through ur blog and seen that everything you’ve said has turned out to be true so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the Winchesters info. I’m pretty sure from what I’ve gathered through ur blog that u work in the industry, but not directly with Warner Brothers? So just wondering how you’ve gotten so much info about the Winchesters? It’s totally cool if u don’t want to answer, I was just curious. I’m pretty ignorant on how the tv industry works. And also, do u know how many seasons the Winchesters is supposed to go for? Or at least what they’re aiming for? And is it leading into something else like a sequel or a reboot?? I mean obvs they’re gonna reboot SPN eventually, but is this directly leading to it? I’m really enjoying the show so far so I’m just curious.

Frankly, it came by several angles. Initial sending went one way. Followup additions went by another source. The script for net4 draft was found publicly. Fandom proposed it was fake, but minding the initial send, and previously available information included like the arenas I've talked about--as well as basic info like when drafts are submitted or sent out for order--well. You recognize shit and can see the authenticity stamps, and when you have older drafts on hand, there's certain shit you can't fake.

So there's that. One thing I've been clear about: I am not from Vancouver filming. At all. If anything Vancouver was lowkey enemy territory of Atlanta, due to the whole... WB pickapart of TBS, the ship out to New York, the pedowitz installation and then bulking out shows to Canada. So like. On that front, it's like a blood walking into crip territory. Like I know the game but I am DEFINITELY outside my perimeter. So on that front. You keep your head low and you know how to navigate.

My SPN attuned sources are, by and large (with a few new exceptions) separate from my industry sources. I fully admit I weaseled my way through things for years. I made very calculated decisions that seemed minor at the time, often unnoticed.

I was ripped up into a shitstorm on day one that fell me into an ITK group of old. It quickly educated me on a lot of fandom issues and contacts and information. Then TAW hit, and I got ripped further up the chain and tapped for information and reports. And then TAW kept hitting, but you guys never found out, because I was busting my ass, you're welcome. All those squabbles with "Castiel's Angels" or Lineage weren't just silly fandom drama, that was playing Pin The Travis Hydra Heads. For about 3 years, every 3 months or so we had a travis incident, and I'd have to shove out new reports which, tldr, basically went to misha's legal team, and no, I'm not going to break down how or where.

You guys saw public bickering with front accounts of his. Maybe you even saw the doxxing website. Hell, maybe you're one of the unfortunate dozen or so people that ended up on it. But you know what? Big Scawwy Awmy Man Twavis only updated one person's listing to Armed And Dangerous. People stopped knocking my mailbox down. And that was AFTER he was already mad enough to Fuck Around And Find Out, because he was already blacklisted, because the dumbfuck pissed his pants on my facebook where facebook will helpfully first degree his bullshit to names like Hilfigers. Great job, douchecanoe, you played yourself.

throughout I also made outreach efforts. Yes, I did message authors. Yes, I do know at least two have followed my youtube for years. yes, I know several read my blog and even refer to my mythos meta. Yes, I stayed involved with Wayward, and author support, and listened closely to what they said or didn't say, and took my chances to speak with them, and be known to them, and be a welcoming face of the fandom that loves their theology as much as their fight for ships. To listen to their love for each other, to treat them like humans, to learn who they admire in the room, and how that room works.

And over that time, after giving that help, I was asked for other help. Like author mute lists. Or actor danger watch lists to give to their security company.

And again randos will be like RECEIPTS. bitch i don't care, i didn't screenshot me sending off the importable excel file, just fuckin' deal with it. [gestures vaguely at Mark P teleporting out and disappearing from cons at an increasing rate] dude's busy now. Totes coincidence. Nothing to do with a recent explosion. He and his lawyers assure you.

...Anyway.

That's separate from what I've told of myself in the past--I have innate Atlanta history. Really it's more of the gulf, I just talk about Atlanta most because that's where I got fired out towards and where the real engine is. Technically I got scooped up in houston, yeeted out to Atlanta and bounced around with various projects. I mostly hovered in the music industry but my personal work ended up market testing near to TPS, and via a fella i now call big bro that this fandom loves to deny exists, my pasty ass got adopted into a black entertainment community, by a long series of dominos I don't feel like re-unpacking in this post.

That said, if you review the long history of the fall of TBS to WB's vulture picking I've posted about, just shuffle me in there. I'm not gonna get terribly more specific but put a bullseye roughly in that ring of the gulf and that market, and assume the majority of my connections are there (with exception to a designer that moved up to New York and did some other work after I walked and an independently developed relationship with the Arrowstorm company by other means, so randomly, Also Utah, Because Life Reasons.)

Now look at the names behind Nexstar's leadership. Now look at TBS. Look at Dennis Miller, former creative under Ted Turner. Turner Broadcasting System. Look at Schwartz, talking about Tyler Perry nonstop. Look at the Assembly, look at all the stuff I been talking about, look at my talk about IAC, meredith etc etc [continues to gesture off in that direction]

Basically, the sources are many. The industry flow/stations/syndicates/affiliates/channel purchase/business/blahblah is like. One side of the lane. Make that column A. Column B is "holy fuck how did I get sucked up into this Vancouver clusterfuck LET ME OUT oh well might as well run some useful messages."

Also along the way I also do collect random shit. Sometimes fans just know I have a lot of info, and find something, and figure it might fit into the giant fuckin vault I'm hiding in the back and help us all piece out something. Like I won't lie, that happens a lot. Because sometimes you can have 95% of the puzzle but just the right pieces are missing, and someone trips and falls on the one that helps you figure the rest out.

No leaker or industry person ever has 100% insight just from a pipeline. It's something I talk about with people like Wiki, or Manchin back in the day. They get very overconfident with their new shiny badges and don't understand how their data is filtered, how most information is need to know, that the editing department doesn't get news about market testing, that the tech consultant doesn't get full modern scripts or advanced news on major elements that they're trying to keep tight, etc. But they all love to blabber to other equally unqualified idiots, which is how you get pipelines of "there's no market testing, (coffee runner) said so" "Berens has no intent, (coffee runner) said so." "The script is fake, (coffee runner) said so." Then like oops debunker proved it oops berens self proved it OOPS. OOPS THE PILOT AIRED AND THEY TRIPPED WITH THEIR OWN SCRIPT AND WERE EVEN LYING. WEIRD.

The older and more versed you are in the fuckeries of media, the more critical you are of sources, because even high sources can be limited in perspective from, say, the business angle you're coming from.

So I take a little from Column A, a little from Column B, I apply my compendium of industry knowledge and common sense, and slip in a little bit of Option C when it's slid on, and there you go, you have a self-critical and self-supporting 3-pillar structure to sort through extremely complicated truths in.

Beyond that, things like the filming I find is a mix. Like, IG exists. But I also worked in the area so I know which IATSE groups to follow even if people aren't technically listed yet, because they might free up on one job and wander in to replace a colleague in another, then of course there's the ones that you can find if you know the IATSE group. Like, the average fan doesn't give a fuck about the Electrician or Set Dresser, but I Fucking Do. So basically, take that as more "I know a few of these guys, trained a few of the guys that trained these guys, I know the neighborhood, I know how to waddle around and find shit."

Hope that helps.

(Congrats now you know why I he-haw at 2po's twice-badly-interpreted M&Gs that he self-proved as bullshit. amazing sources buddy.)

Oh and there's other random what the fuck hows, like eugenie's cousin being a friend of mine on a fluke, or the fact that i accidentally and unknowingly married sera gamble's second cousin and didn't realize it until I had to mail a package and shit my pants. Eventually you just get so tangled up in this shit you're like a fly in a spiderweb. I don't fuckin know why. My soul is attached to this show for some goddamn reason, there's no getting out. For a while I was the opposite of that LET ME IN guy. LET ME OUUUUUUUUUUUT. But I decided now that the battle is over and we won I'm just gonna lay on the floor while the assholes burn and take it all in. I done my duty and beyond.

#oh and just deadass #i forgot to include #some new and old folks are just #in the server 2po screams about #which makes it all very very funny.

[retcon-writer]

9/5/23

The sound of the thunder scares me to death. It’s not the sort of thing you’d expect from someone like me, scrawny as I am. Weak people like me generally need to be quick to be brave against the world to survive around here- not that I’ve had a chance to go elsewhere, what with the tight security around nowadays. Impossible to leave without a permit, I tell you. Not that I don’t get it, what with the recent events and missing persons incidents, everyone’s scared outta their mind… running around like rabid rats if you ask me.

No… rats are harder than people. It’s because they’re weaker, so they can sense danger better. It used to scare the hell outta me, I always found them so ominous as a young ‘un. Always lingering around, watching, thinking…

Of course I figured that was a load of hot air when I caught and cooked my first one, I suppose the fact I hadn’t done so already was what allowed me to catch it so easily. Y’see, the weak also hope. They hope for the companionship of someone stronger, someone to protect them- not that I’m like that, I just noticed that in others… no, perhaps that was a lie.

But this hope, I noticed it, and took advantage of it, the rats, they skitter around so frantically when they realise one of their brethren have gone missing. Luckily, I had a talent for cleaning- as my last occupation left me with lots of experience and a bruised eye on my way out, and I am very good at keeping myself clean because of it. I’d just simply revisit the rat den and they’d welcome me- hoping with all their beady eyes that I’d either feed them or drop dead, I made sure to snag one on my way out when they were all focused on their own activities.

That kept me going for a good while, but soon they’d install curfews and guards stationed around, hoping it’d help; I found it very cute. All I’d need to do is call out with promises of food or throw an off-hand insult from an alleyway to get a drunk to come down with a score to settle- though I tend to avoid them, processed alcohol isn’t as nice as you’d think, and I need to keep a straight head to remain careful. And here I’ve gone on and on and I realise, I haven’t been scared of them since I gutted my first. They were no longer indecipherable beings that always seemed to watch, I no longer had issues figuring out what they were thinking while looking at me: pity for a poor child, desire for companionship of a fellow weakling, rage at a brat that had called them a “lumbering oaf”, fear of prey looking up at their predator.

I used to do it for the food, but nowadays I just do it for the sport, thrill of the hunt and all that- but it truly is an amusing game, even if the other players don’t feel the same way. And if they truly don’t wish to play, they can always leave; as if! Guards have set this district in a more or less complete lockdown. And everyone knows it’s not to hold the culprit here; it’s for the people. They can’t have the other districts overflow, or have people leave the city, otherwise what would happen to their precious tax income? And of course they need their guinea pigs- lambs of slaughter I say- to get more hints and clues to further their limping investigation. I’ve noticed they’ve been cursing their protectors more than their killers on their deathbed as of late; not that I’ve suddenly grown a bleeding heart, personally I find it quite amusing. I have to say though, I do pity the lower ranks of the guards that do the actual investigating. Higher brass who locked ‘em in here are safe in their ivory towers (they aren’t) while the guards down here come across my rosy works and barf, which is quite rude if I have to say.

Oh yeah, I’ve been getting into art as well recently. I know it’s bad taste, but “what is art if not a way to express oneself”- I think someone once said that to me anyway. Recently I’ve been thinking this pond has gotten a bit small for me, I think I’ll likely see what a district closer to the castle has to offer, perhaps I’ll have some towers to climb.

But for now, I’ve noticed a few rats following me again, it’s not very rare but not exactly common either, so I’ll have to take care of this, making as little ‘a commotion as possible, I bid thee adieu.

I think I’ll be able to make a pretty flower with these ones.

#rats #murderer #probably medieval #writing #thing i did #just writing #long #first proper post #just a neat thing i was satisfied with