#will do a baddie tier later on

[only-polls]

#basic b condiments #sauces and condiments #condiments #condiment battle #condiment poll #did not include sauces but will #basic bitch #will do a baddie tier later on #polls #tumblr polls #poll #only polls #tunblr #tumble polls #tumblr poll #choose #vote #tumblr culture

[centaurianthropology]

Why C3E51 worked so well (a DM’s perspective)

I have seen a lot of absolutely bananas critiques of C3E51 (thankfully not nearly as many around here, far more on Reddit, which I should not have visited).   And the ongoing theme of those critiques is that Matt should not have imperiled former PCs, and if he brought them in should have either done lengthy side-bars with those characters or let them win the fight against Ludinis and have a chance to take him out themselves, since they’re ‘god tier’ or ‘high level’ and that makes ‘logical sense’.  What these critiques really boil down to, IMO, are people who were really invested in the former campaigns upset that their faves didn’t get to do cool things, treating it more like a TV show than a game.  But even as a TV show, that would have been disappointing from a narrative perspective.  Because even in a TV show, this is a sequel spin-off show, starring new characters.  The story is about THEM.  And more importantly, the game is about the players and about telling their story.

So let’s break this down from a DM perspective.  How do you build a Kobiashi Maru situation for your characters?  For those of you who aren’t familiar, the Kobiashi Maru is a Star Trek term for a scenario designed from the jump to be unwinnable (Kirk beat it by creativity, but later admitted that he missed the point of it).  In Star Trek this was done to test what a future officer would do if faced with certain failure.  In a D&D game it’s a little more complicated.  Part of it is to set up the BBEG, put their plan in motion, and set the stage for the next leg of the game.  But it’s also to give your players, who are clearly into it, a darkest-hour scenario.  Not every player group is going to be into facing down the Kobiashi Maru, and it’s clear from the aforementioned critiques that a lot of them are on Reddit.  Power-gamers who always want to win are not going to enjoy this sort of storytelling, but players who are really into RP and working through difficult times and failures will eat this stuff up.  And this is absolutely the sort of table playing on Critical Role.  There is a level of trust there that can only be built after years of working together, and this was finally the moment when Matt could pay off years of planning and campaign-spanning set-up.

Matt carefully plotted the structure of this episode out to give maximum agency and impact to a party of dramatically under-leveled characters.  And they knew going in they were under-leveled.  This wasn’t a surprise, but a potential suicide run by people who knew they weren’t the heroes they needed to be, but were the only heroes in the right place at the right time to try anything.  So they came up with as good a plan as they could, and executed it fairly well, all things considered.  

They knew they couldn’t take on Ludinus directly (and this was a great way to demonstrate exactly how much he had planned and how long, to bring in elements from C2, hints we’ve had for years about Ludinis, only to reveal it went deeper than any of the characters could have imagined), so Matt gave them some winnable objectives.  This is a great way to keep the characters invested in an unwinnable scenario: the ultimate outcome may be beyond the characters, barring some insane genius or incredible rolls, but they can still help.  They can do something that will have a tangible impact on events and hinder the baddies enough to give them another chance at a rematch and a way to stop the apocalypse when they’re higher level.  So Matt gave them the batteries: take out as many as you can.  While this would not stop the ritual, I suspect that the more they took out the more Ludinis would have to drain his own power to make the key work, and the longer the process would take.  Knocking out the feywild key, as well as multiple power sources turned what would have been an instantaneous event if they had done nothing into a more drawn-out affair which, I suspect, could be stopped or even reversed.  It gave them a window to come back and demand a rematch.

Then we have the high-level PC allies, and how to play with those sorts of characters without pulling focus from the PCs.  Matt handled this very well, by having the players roll for their former PCs, taking the specifics of their actions out of his hands and letting the dice of the former players decide.  He also revealed that Keyleth’s involvement, and baiting Vax with Otohan’s permadeath poison, was key to Ludinis’ ritual, which was why she couldn’t just dive in and clean everything up.  But again, because of this story, it ties less back to Keyleth and more back to Orym.  That was the point of the attack on Zephrah, to get her attention by getting her to look into who did it and then coming to get some payback, but the little guy on the ground has always been caught in the middle.  Orym has been Ludinis’ unwitting pawn from the off, his family’s deaths merely a means to an end, and that is vicious and amazing set-up for character growth for him.  

Beau and Caleb had to be there by the logic of the story.  It didn’t make sense that Caleb would sit out a world-ending event orchestrated by a Cerberus Assembly member after spending years trying to take them down.  Beau would obviously go with him.  It also made sense that they would be the only two there, because they were scouting when Ryn got taken down, and after that were trying to keep a low profile.  Shit accelerated too fast for them to call in reinforcements.

Which is the in-story reason for them to be there, but isolated and vulnerable, making them useful allies and wildcards (who likely could have been more useful if ultimately failing as well, but failed early thanks to Liam and Marisha’s rolls).  But they were still outmatched.  I have no idea what the challenge rating of Otohan, Leliana, and Ludinis are, but we know Otohan was considered ‘beatable’ back in Bassuras.  That indicates she’s the lowest CR, particularly with the glowing weak-spot on her back.  But she can still wreck a level-20 PC if she gets the jump on her, which she did.  And that meant that she remained a massive threat.  Caleb and Beau were playing it smart, keeping to the shadows, but still got caught by Leliana.  Between dice rolls, careful planning, and some great enemy design, Matt really set up a team that could take on high-level players and win.  And he made it clear that Ludinis did not leave this to chance.  He has the best people he could muster after 1000 years of planning.  Nothing short of a miracle could have truly stopped them.

Which is why we cut back to Bells Hells.  Because ultimately this particular story isn’t about Keyleth or Vax or Caleb or Beau or any other former PCs.  This is about the current party being caught up in events much larger than them and having to rise to the occasion.  This is the story of the schmucks sent in to take out the batteries, but who have personal beef with the big bads.  Ludinis orchestrated the plan to attack Zephrah to bait Keyleth and draw out Vax, and Otohan carried it out.  And he used Orym as a pawn throughout all of it.  This makes taking them down, but especially taking Otohan down, the cornerstone of Orym’s personal quest.  Letting an NPC take her down would be taking away a critical part of his motivation and goals, which is an absolute no-no for a DM.  NEVER bring in a god-tier NPC and take away player agency or story beats.  Especially never have them resolve important player goals and backstory events!  Every NPC, even the powerful ones, are there to support the story the players are telling.  So of course Keyleth wasn’t going to take out Otohan.  Of course she wasn’t going to stop the ritual.  Beau and Caleb might have been able to do something more if Liam and Marisha hadn’t rolled so badly for them, but ultimately, they had to get caught or fail in another way.  

For the sake of gameplay, Bell’s Hells had to be the only functional team.  They had to be the ants that were beneath Ludinis’ notice long enough to really accomplish something.  And as much as it feels like they failed, they had minor victories: Laudna and Ashton took out more batteries, making Ludinis drain his own power to kick off the apocalypse.  They only failed to take out Otohan’s backpack by 2 HP, which showed them that she was an achievable goal in the future.  If they had rolled a little better, they probably could have taken her out entirely, which would have felt like a big accomplishment for them.  Imogen made her mother pause in her assault before doubling down.  This leaves open very interesting future beats for their interactions.  Can she ultimately redeem her mother or would she have to take her out?  Every step that Matt set up in this episode, from the reveals about Ludinis’ plans and Orym’s past, to Imogen’s interactions with her mother, to Chetney and likely Ashton finding themselves staring down their own backstories after the party split, was focused on this party, on getting them ready to step out of low-level play and advance.

And that’s the point of E51.  It’s not a climax of the story, but the ultimate set-up.  It’s putting all the pieces onto the board in a way that all the characters can now recognize.  Yes, unless the players came up with something genius, the apocalypse was going to kick off, but their actions slowed everything down to a place where it could be combatted.  Yes, the god-tier former PCs were always going to get neutered, because this is Bells Hells’ story, and you cannot have NPCs fix PC problems.  They might have been able to do a little more before this happened, but the dice rolled.

And it’s honestly good for the PCs how things turned out.  They have a clear objective, but are split up.  This gives them great incentive to level up, explore character backstory, deal with their personal shit, get stronger, and then come back to kick the asses of all three of these villains (or possibly redeem one, we’ll see).  Their powerful allies are now temporarily side-lined.  Keyleth is badly hurt and will need time to recover.  Caleb is collared and will need time to get that removed.  Beau is likely up and moving now, but will need to safeguard Caleb for a while.

The Bells Hells are on their own.  The Darkest Hour has come, and it’s time for them to rise up and go from nobodies to heroes.  This is their true call to adventure.  And as a DM, it was so cool seeing how Matt set up all the pieces over the campaign, only to pay them out in such a satisfying and motivating way in this episode.

#Critical Role #Critical Role spoilers #I really liked this episode #both as storytelling #and in terms of structure #this is how you do long-term setup #and payoff for a villain #he had planned for everything #but this annoying party of gnats muching up his works #and the gnats are going to be what takes him down #that is such a good way to let a low-level party get set up to take on a high-level villain!! #anyway #this is to combat some of the negativity I've seen toward this episode

[a-b-riddle]

Hi pookie! Hope you're doing well 💛

I came to say that I love your writing, the poly 141 piece is just so good and angsty in a way that makes me anxiously wait for the next parts. It's so satisfying to see a baddie reader who tries to prioritise herself, but also is a human and deals with emotions that results in not always the most reasonable actions. Love it!

But... While I found your blog through that piece, I found another COD masterpiece in your masterlist and I just have to give it the love it deserves.

You won my heart with Kyle & his Love because firstly there's too little fics about Gaz, our boy should get the recognition he deserves. Second it so good in showing d/s dynamics. I've seen too many pieces that reduce it to just sex and while I love reading smut (and the way you write it is also amazing), but seeing the boundaries and the whole talk about the using safe words is tier top.

So yeah, here's my ramble and I hope that maybe we'll get to see a little more of your thoughts about dom Gaz 💛 take care of yourself pookie!

I am SO glad you mentioned the lack of Gaz.

So I do mention later on why Kyle did what he did. I understand that someone people have preferences to the 141 with a specific character but it’s hella fucking sus to write about John, Simon, Johnny, Alejandro, Alex Keller, Valeria, Rudy, Roach, König (FUCKING GRAVES) but not Kyle motherfucking Garrick? Or having 141 poly but Kyle isn’t involved.

I mean…. Come on.

Anyway, end rant. I love Kyle’s redemption chapter. All of them have a pretty good arc I think.

[woodaba]

We Wouldn't Have Alan Wake II Without Quantum Break

Remember Quantum Break? The first game announced for the Xbox One? The link between cult classic Alan Wake and surprising studio-saving hit Control? That prominently features Lance Reddick, the much-missed actor who was frequently one of the most electric screen presences of our time?

Don't worry, I barely do either, and I played the game yesterday.

So, a refresher. Quantum Break, announced in 2013 alongside the Xbox One and released three years later, is a third-person shooter starring Shawn Ashmore aka Iceman from the X-Men movies as Jack Joyce (and not Jake Joyce as I constantly remembered him as. In my defense, it's a better name, if only because then his superhero name could be Quantum Jake...), who, after being turned into A Remedy Entertainment Protagonist after a time-travel experiment gone wrong, battles against fellow Remedy Entertainment Protagonist Aidan Gillen aka Doctor Pavel I'm CIA as Paul Serene, over what to do about an imminent apocalypse after Time starts Breaking because of the aforementioned time-travel experiment.

As a rehabilitating former Doctor Who obsessive, I'm particularly open to this kind of time-travel nonsense, but Quantum Break is frustratingly unwilling to capitalize on its own premise. Interesting things happen, sure: people get stuck in causality loops, confront and become acausal time monsters, and live entire second lives in the past after time-traveling, but almost none of it occurs to Jack Joyce: he just spends his time just shooting guys in a series of warehouses and offices. Quantum Break is a potentially interesting story that we don't really get to see anything of, instead anything compelling in the narrative is relayed to us second-hand, by the myriad emails and documents scattered throughout the gunfights, or over the radio, and, of course, Remedy's now-signature multimedia ambitions.

In between acts of the video game Quantum Break, you'll be treated to episodes of the TV show Quantum Break, a live-action c-tier circa-2009 network TV production starring some of the big(ish) names that headline the game Quantum Break, but mostly follows a cast of extras who navigate around the events of the game while working for baddie Paul Serene's Evil Corporation, Monarch.

It's in the TV show that what Quantum Break actually is begins to take shape. Remedy, as a studio, has always been interested - and unusually adept at - pastiche, whether it's the noir comic stylings of their still-astonishing Max Payne duology or the rickety but deeply charming Stephen King love-in that is Alan Wake. And here, they do a genuinely stellar job at replicating the look, feel, and sensibilities of a 2008-2013 network TV Lost/Fringe rip-off that gets canceled after one season.

That may sound backhanded, but I assure you it isn't. I've long been a fan of Remedy, in spite of, or perhaps because I don't think they've made a truly great game since Max Payne 2. In a medium that often pillages relentlessly from Film and TV, Remedy set themselves apart from their competition with the depth of their understanding of the production of film, bringing into games a deftness of set construction and filmic pacing that blows their contemporaries out of the water. Even more-lauded names like Naughty Dog and Rockstar come up short against Alan Wake's hauntingly gorgeous misty woods, best illustrated with Rockstar's Max Payne 3, which matched Remedy's cinematographical flair in the cutscenes, but fell far short of their level design chops and breadth of influences.

Quantum Break is, in aesthetics and production, a genuinely extremely well-considered pastiche of this period of sci-fi television that is now comfortably in the rear-view mirror, the time since its release having given it a real nostalgic charm that would have been dulled at the time of release. It really reminded me of the years I spent watching shows like Heroes, or Flash/Forward, shows that may not have been very good, but are intoxicatingly emblematic of their time and place, hiding just beneath the floorboards of the shows that would actually get to be remembered.

It's a shame, then, that it just fails to really compel on any level beyond appreciation for the pastiche.

Much like the gameplay, the TV episodes of Quantum Break feel almost ancillary to another, better story that we never get to see. The stars of the game feel wasted here - particularly Lance Reddick, one of my favorite actors, who steals the show every time he appears, but is given vanishingly little to do in comparison with a group of wafer-thin characters that struggle to manifest a single dimension, with relational at best connection to the concerns of the narrative. It looks like a particularly budget-strapped episode of Warehouse 13, sure, but it doesn't really feel like one, as the episodes - until the last one, which is a noticeable improvement - are shockingly paceless and devoid of the arcs that would make a singular episode of television compelling. They are, ultimately, primarily dreary, overlong, and constantly highlighting the fact that they are largely interstitial filler.

It would be wrong to accuse Remedy of not having their heart in Quantum Break, as there is too much evident passion to discount, but I do feel like they struggle to find a core to this idea, something that they truly want to explore. Whether I'm playing the game or watching the show, QB leaves everything on the surface, with nothing to really find beneath the surface. It's notable that the game is absolutely filled with constant allusions to Alan Wake - including a full-blown trailer found on a TV moments after starting the game that bears startling resemblance to the eventual plot of this year's Alan Wake II - and that the game started life as a pitch to Microsoft for Alan Wake II: one suspects that they would much rather be making that game at this moment in time than Quantum Break, or that the game is a test-bed of ideas for the studio's future, the act of throwing a thousand darts at a quantum dartboard, and seeing which ones find their mark. It's just that for this effort, precious few of them do.

And yet, the surprise is that by the end, I truly felt like Remedy was genuinely onto something with the spirit of Quantum Break's ideas, if not the execution of them. The television show is the thing that makes Quantum Break live, that marks it out as something worth remembering in a sea of slick third-person shooters with cinematic ambitions. It is the icon of the foundational belief of the Xbox One, that the future of games lay in a synthesis with television, a dead-end future that had already worn out by the time the game was actually released. What remains is little more than a gimmick, sure, but it is one that, by the end, is oddly compelling, even if most of it is terrifically boring to actually experience.

There is a genuine thrill to seeing characters in both video game graphics and live-action forms, shifting between the two seamlessly thanks to some genuinely well-realized digitized actors that still look good today, a shift that blends well with the time-space bending of the plot. Do I care about Jack Joyce, as a person? Not even slightly. Did I still grin when I saw Actual Shawn Ashmore briefly appear in the TV episodes after controlling Virtual Shawn Ashmore? Absolutely. It's the same kind of shallow thrill you get from Cheers allumni showing up for a visit in Frasier, or when the Torchwood crew talk around the presence of Mr. Doctor Who, Esq, but as something that works with what the game is doing rather than distracting your attention elsewhere.

The gameplay portions represent time breaking down with (genuinely cool, if shallow) shards of space and glass and stuttering loops of physical time, but the collision of the Real and the Virtual feels so much more effective in communicating the idea of time and space shattering and colliding into one another. I just wish it played in this space more, focusing on Ashmore, Reddick, Monaghan, and Hope, rather than the cast of goons and extras who feel wholly separated from the game until the final mission.

I'd like to say that I'd love Remedy to take another crack at this idea, with the lessons they've learned from Control and Alan Wake II, but that already feels like a fool's hope. The ballooning costs of video game development make the idea of filming an entire TV mini-series alongside it feel laughable. Sure, Control's live-action segments were plentiful and superbly produced, but they were also far more restrained than Quantum Break, focusing on short segments with one non-big-name actor each in a couple of highly reusable sets. With both this and its open-world, side-questing structure with plenty of loot and upgrades to collect, Control is something largely in line with the realities and productions of modern game development

Quantum Break isn't rooted in reality for even a second. It's a time-locked instant, the most 2015 game ever made, which makes it all the better that it came out in 2016. There's no future in what Quantum Break envisions. It's a failed experiment, something to shrug at and move on. And yet, it compels me regardless, despite the fact that I don't really like it.

We need games like this, I feel. Historical curios like this show that the shifting landscape of the medium isn't a straight line, it splits off into splintered fraying timelines, some leading to nothing, but others spilling back in unexpected ways. After all, Courtney Hope, who played Beth Wilder here, returned for the starring role in Control, and that game feels so keenly like the product of lessons learned from QB, with everything from the live-action segments, the document-reading, and the combat feeling like a progression from Remedy's previous work. In particular, my complaints about QB's narrative taking place almost entirely off-screen evolves into a hugely compelling aspect of Control, with the genuine highlight of that game being reading the endless documents detailing the horrors and nightmares of America transcribed into corporate mundanity.

And while I've only played a taster of Alan Wake II, there's no doubt in my mind that that game, a bona-fide critical darling the likes of which Remedy hasn't had since Max Payne 2, owes a great debt to QB. Not least because its engine provides the framework for the game, but also because, well, it's been in there, this whole time.

Waiting for The Return.

#video games #remedy entertainment #alan wake #alan wake ii #quantum break #control game #Youtube

[torse]

AU / headcanon scenes - "Military" excerpts

warning: there's some violence and Pathologic-tier dark themes but nothing super bad. I can't write for shit so it's not super descriptive anyway

—

⦁ Notkin and Grief lived in a town with an insane crime rate, huge wealth inequality, and unheard of levels of corruption in the government. ⦁ Notkin's mother died in childbirth ⦁ Notkin's father developed a chronic illness something-or-other (consumption? idk not important, sorry pop), became an alcoholic in despair ⦁ Notkin befriended Grief at a very young age (6?), and would get "medicine" for father every once in awhile (watered down booze) to help him ween off alcohol (once Grief figured out what was goin on ⦁ eventually dad figured it was best to join military and die out of sight rather than in front of his child so.. yeah that happened ⦁ Notkin waited around for him to return but once he got the letter, he disappeared, Grief finding him a bit later and taking him under his wing

—

⦁ they were COOL STREET CATS together ⦁ Notkin still loved animals, even said Grief was like a bird Grief: Like what, a crow? I do like the shinies.. eheh Notkin: No.. a vulture! Grief: Hah! Why, because I'm big, mean and ugly? Notkin: No.. because you keep things clean, only take what won't be missed, and.. are very important to the other animals. ⦁ Notkin still had his gang of kids and animals in a warehouse, but he interacted with grief much more than in game

—

⦁ Several years passed, eventually things got so out of control (despite Grief's efforts, he even succeeded to keep crime down in his territory), an inquisitor was sent to deal with the problem **At the time Notkin did not know this or even what it meant, but Grief had heard rumors ⦁ the military started smoking out the slums, ALL squatters / slum class were to be "forcefully evicted" ⦁ Grief made plans with his crew, made plans with Notkin to get his kids out, then they were to meet separately (from their gangs) on the "road by the docks" at dawn 2 days from now [intentionally vague ending]

—

⦁ in military service, Notkin started at 14, Sticky was probably 16? ⦁ Sticky was a field medic, Notkin worked his way up a bit and led a small unit thingy (idk military stuff), they ended up being best buds ⦁ Notkin's face scar (17 years?): an enemy had gotten into melee range, knocked Notkin to the ground, and had his knife to Notkin's eye.. but thankfully the baddie ended up losing the arm wrestlin match and Notkin pushed the knife away so that it grazed his cheek/nose instead ⦁ Notkin's leg (19 years?): Notkin's unit, as well as several others, were leaving a cleared area, Sticky was nearby behind him ⦁ Notkin started getting a Bad Feeling and yelled for everyone to HOLD UP. They hesitated and were confused? He wasn't really sure but... ⦁ He heard a whistling and started to yell for everyone to "spread out" but a mortar hit very close to him. more started showering the area ⦁ He got up and immediately tried to help other people, ears ringing, Sticky was yelling at him to stop, but Notkin could barely hear him over the adrenaline and everything else- Sticky was next to him now, screaming, Notkin tried to tell him to piss off, but he looked at Sticky's horror-stricken face - Sticky: BRO. BRO, STOP. NOTKIN, PLEASE Notkin: WHAT Sticky: YOUR FUCKIN LEG Notkin, looking down, sees a minced meat patty with some bone splinters: ....AH. ⦁ Then he goes for a nice "nap" (passes the fuck out) and wakes up in the med tent minus a leg and is insufferable for the next few weeks bored out of his mind. ⦁ Sticky is impossibly patient and gives in way too easily to Notkin's requests. ⦁ Sticky and Notkin (and the whole unit) got discharged after that, Notkin went with Sticky to his home city since he didn't have anywhere else

—

⦁ They're like,20 now? ionno the ages are a vague range I need to rewrite this part so I'll give an even shittier than normal summary: Sticky's in a home owned by Artemy, but wants to go intern with him soon after he recovers from his own injuries. but Notkin won't be able to work / afford food without him. Sticky starts poking around town to see how much a prosthetic might cost (he has crutches now, and can definitely do SOME work, but no education, still healing injuries, and people are dicks and won't give him a chance ) Long story short they end up at a watch shop. With Grief at the counter. And he doesn't seem to remember Notkin well. And Notkin's brain 404s. Grief can't make actual prosthetics, he only has tools for small devices, but he knows a guy that can probably make something. Grief asks what kind of prosthetic, Sticky gestures to Notkin and says his leg. Notkin finally speaks up and is desperately trying to figure out why Grief left him, why doesn't he remember him now, and says that he was forced to join the military- even though he hated the soldiers for taking his home and the military for taking his dad. the city had locked everything down to the point where Notkin could no longer scavenge for food. He was literally starving to death and chose to sacrifice his pride to stay alive. He had to do a bit of begging to get the recruiter to accept a starving 14 year old but in the end he got food and shelter. and lost a leg :( While Notkin was having A Time, Grief had been nabbed by the inquistors. I've run out of creativity for this part so "they fucked his brain up real good". He tends to talk like he's repeating things he might say, rather than having genuine emotions

—

Grief ends up remembering Notkin enough that he offers a room so that Sticky can go intern and Notkin can recover (he has to heal up more and do some leg exercises and shit before he can use the prosthetic) Unfortunately they have to re-bond, and Notkin had a bad habit of shoving all the bad feelings down so eventually he crumbles with depression and post-war awfulness. Grief has NO idea how to deal with this. some funny shenanigans happen too though, its definitely not all bad. and Grief starts showing more and more genuine emotion around Notkin. Healing all around ~

#pathologic #headcanon #notkin #bad grief #pathologic sticky #briefly #they #whump

[ear-motif]

ive been thinking a lot about the emotional motives behind nbc hannibal’s killers lately…

youve got our first baddie, gjh, who i think killed out of a fear of losing control. His only child was going away to college, and for some reason or another, he was terrified of losing her. I think he was fearful rather than angry because he’s never shown to be angry at Abigail. He knows it’s not her fault that he feels like this. But his feelings could also be framed as a fear if rejection from Abigail herself; choosing to go to college would mean leaving him. So he has an insatiable need to keep her close that morphed into knowing that he was going to snap. That he was going to kill and eat her like a buck so that he could honor her and she could never leave. But killing her would be a loss in and of itself, so he sublimated this desire by killing girls that looked like her.

Next, we get Will goin a lil apeshit on gjh. Yes, he was terrified for Abigail’s sake, but he also felt powerful, righteous, and just. I think his emotional motive for this kill and all his subsequent ones is righteousness - a combination of the joy and thrill of being powerful and the anger of someone committing an injustice that hasn’t been punished. I think Hannibal has the same emotional motivation, which is why he and Will connect so well.

I bring up fear of rejection in gjh’s case because it tied into our next two killers (not counting Abigail); Eldon Stammets (mushroom guy) and the Lost Boys. I think Eldon was driven by a yearning - fearful of connection due to possible rejection, but joy in the beauty of his art. The Lost Boys were children manipulated into killing their families and for the child we focus on (the youngest one, Christopher) his motivation is obviously the fear of being rejected by his new family, plus maybe fear of retaliation from the mother figure and oldest “brother”.

Ok, back to Abigail. Her motivation for killing whatshisface sorry it took me so long to look up christopher’s name and NICHOLAS BOYLE there we go. Anyways its obviously fear at first but um. She guts him. And later on her and Hannibal exhume gjh so she can punish him via slitting the corpse’s throat. So I think that her motivations are the most interesting and most subtle - I think she’s a righteousness killer too. Like Will and Hannibal, she’s been desensitized to the violence and horror of murder, so now she utilizes it as a punishment.

An interesting thing is that her and Hannibal share a connection here - they both use murder to take back power that was stripped from them. I don’t really see Will doing that, he kills for purposes and while he does feel powerful, murdering people doesn’t give him much power over the one person who is taking it all away (mr medical malpractice.jpg). It curries him favor with Hannibal, and you could argue that his murders in s2b are part of his manipulation of Hannibal and therefore add to his power, but I still dont think reclamation of power is a motive for Will. It definitely is for Hannibal; his traumatic childhood led him to do all this and as much as his pride would have him deny it, building himself as a god among pigs ensures that they can never hurt him again.

Ok so we got fear (subcategorized into fear of rejection, fear of loss of control, and yearning [fear + awe and joy]) and anger (all i outlined was righteousness=anger at injustice + the thrill of punishing wrongdoers but I’m sure there’s more). Later I wanna add on my thoughts about Michael Brown’s motives and Will’s emotions behind killing Randall Tier specifically (bc the motive was obvious, he needed Hannibal to trust him as a fellow bad bitch in baltimore, but I think his emotions with Randall are a lot more complicated than they were for gjh). But I’m done for now

#hanniblogging #i say nothing new here im basically giving myself a powerpoint presentation to organize my thoughts #so read at ur own risk ig

[ghostlenin]

Avalon (Better Late Than Never Promo)

Back in February - 80 days ago, according to itch - I released my third FIST supplement. This time it stretches the system out to a medieval hack-n-slash, swapping out Cold War mercenaries for Arthurian knights, and I've called it Avalon.

I'm really quite pleased with this one! Since this has been out for a bit - and has also received one major update - I figured I'd reflect on the design process and what I was aiming for mechanically with this one.

Design

The idea for this came up organically: what if FIST but knights. That's a solid high concept pitch, so I went for it. I've long been a fan of arthuriana, the grail cycle, old myths, and subversions or reinventions of the old stories. For this though, I wanted to play it more straight-up than revisionist, more grounded than fantastical, since the thrust of the FIST system is to make combat-focused chaos engines.

So when it came to dealing with things like magic and dragons, I figured I'd shoot for a matter-of-fact presentation. The fantastic in Le Morte d'Arthur is just there, no explanation, no in-depth discussions of the repercussions of magic existing in society; wizards do magic, there's weird stuff in the wilderness.

I started with a couple new Traits in mind. Traits are the building blocks of FIST characters and are the source of equipment, abilities, and stat changes. These were classic things like "oh I need one for jousting", "what about where they're from", and "some that capture some of the more famous knights of the round." As I got more into my research, I wanted to include Traits that touched on what being one of the Round Table might actually look like in a combat-heavy ttrpg setting and how the church/faith aspect of arthuriana could be included in a way that was 1) not specific to Catholicism or even Christianity and 2) not required for players to engage with. I also wanted Traits that could change with, or at least track, a knight's progression through the ranks. I'll touch on how all of that came about in the next section, though.

The other major choice for players in vanilla FIST is choosing a Role, or an archetype with a personality motivation to act in particular ways that, when you do the thing, you can take an Advancement and improve your character. These quickly changed to Virtues in Avalon, and I went with the classic chivalric seven. Vices, or choosing one of the Virtues that your knight has the hardest time with, came later, but (in my opinion) cemented the feeling of an arthurian knight: the quests aren't just about the physical obstacles, they're also (or arguably, mainly) about the internal moral struggles.

After I figured out the Virtue-Vice setup, the Quests part came pretty easy, especially after I laid out the rules I'd use for myself in writing up a Quest:

A Goal connected to a Primary Virtue

A main physical obstacle

A main moral obstacle that targets a different Virtue than the Primary

The idea here was to emphasize the choices in how players resolve problems. This definitely drags FIST closer to the OSR side of things (not that it's not pretty OSRy anyway!) and gives Referees/GMs a versatile framework for building out Quests.

The Bestiary came with the big 1.1 Update, and frankly was a blast to write. Splitting it up into three tiers was a no-brainer: it makes sense to me to have a rough idea for the "combat rating" of baddies in relation to the characters, and that's why the tiers are mapped to the Rank Traits. It was also fun to come up with unique abilities, cycles of enemies that appear in multiple tiers (like the fey), and just absolutely brutal stat blocks. This was also the area where I got to plop in some of the weirder medieval woodcut images I found in the public domain--the one of the giant fish chomping on one dude while his buddy runs away cracks me up.

Mechanics

By far, the biggest thing Avalon does to advance the mechanics/system space of FIST-based games is in how I deal with Advancement, or what happens when your character levels up.

This started with an idea when I was drafting out Traits: what if there were some parts of Traits you lost when you took a new one? On the FIST discord, the group had been engaging in lots of really good discussions on topics like "how do you deal with characters that have like 8 traits" and "should I make my players retire their characters when they get too strong? and what does too strong look like?" and "how can we fix WAR DICE so people actually choose them."

What I came up with was a combination solution that tries to address these issues. First: putting a max on Advancements (12, of course) and a max on Traits (5, with some exceptions). Second: creating rules and mechanics for replacing traits. Third: codifying retirement (your knight hits the Advancement max) and replacement (your knight retires or dies and a new one takes its place).

The Traits max came first, and the rules for replacing Traits came right along with the development of this system. I wanted to do two things with this max: incentivize taking options other than Traits when you Advance and making replacing Traits an interesting choice. Many of the Traits in the finished product have a black diamond for a bullet point: this marks parts of the Trait that go away when it's replaced, and they're usually the strongest or most unique part of the Trait.

Flavor-wise, I intended to evoke the idea that as you focused your attention elsewhere, you lost access to some of the things you used to be able to do. The Origin Traits are great examples of this. If you build a character with an Origin Trait, you're declaring that they grew up away from the Castle, and they have some bonus to exploration because of it. Ex: Mountborn says that "You can scale rock faces and squeeze into small spaces with no difficulty" but you lose that part of the Trait when you replace it/as you become more integrated into the lifestyle of a Questing Knight in service to the King, you lose touch with where you came from.

I think this is the biggest innovation, and I'm proud of it!

The Advancement max had some interesting knock-on effects, so I wanted to talk about that briefly, too. At first, it was just a hard cap: you get 12, that's it. I wrote out what the Advancement options would be, adapting and expanding the options from the base game, and called it good. The rules in the Virtues-Vice section for falling and recovering from a fall provided a nice little outlet for some additional increases that didn't count toward your total to reward roleplaying the moral/inner strife part of being this kind of knight.

However, I realized that this wasn't quite enough, so for the 1.1 Update, I made a couple changes. The first was to actually add Advancement boxes onto the character sheets. The second was to bake in regular WAR DICE gains on the Advancement track. Not only is this easier to see how far along your knight is in its journey, but it also gives you regular boosts for keeping your guy alive. Quality of life improvement plus a buff, what more can you want!

I'm going to let Avalon marinate for a little bit and give it some more playing time before returning to its design space, but I do really like this project and I plan on a revisit at some point.

In the mean time, Avalon is for sale for $5 on my itch page. If you do grab a copy, give it a read and a play and then go rate it!

#ttrpg design #ttrpg #compatible with fist #arthuriana

[dio-the-thot-exterminator]

reflections n stuff

Post about me trying to explain some of the projects I got going on. Hopefully, it makes sense lol.

I guess to start, most of my writing and projects are…comedic? I just want to embody tomfoolery. Some of the projects I was creating with my coauthor, I've mentioned them before. (LOL if you saw my rant that one time), (and it wasn't just once my ass can not stop mentioning it) (yes I'm mad). They basically stopped contributing so ALL the projects were put on hiatus. Yeah :/ but I refuse to let all those years of hard work sit inside a Google doc never to see the light of day again. So here we go. 

TSO22 (Completed)

Hiii its me and my story. Titled semi-censored bcuz i uploaded it to YouTube and you can literally search it up and I'm not ready for that yet.

Anyways My second short film!!!! With real actors and a production team so exciting!! It's about a witch who seeks revenge on some children who wronged her! She casts a spell on a toy plushie and makes it come to life. She sends the toy to kill Fuzzy Lilypill, Large Plumjum, and Final Baddie (judging by their names you can tell this is extra goofy). Honestly one of the best things I've ever done, it was so much fun. Even though the film is hella cringe (kind of the point) it makes me laugh…like a lot and that's all that matters.

I need to tell everyone about the top-tier advertising like the way everyone pitched in to help was wild. We had lil signs and business cards and everything! The advertising was how I was able to book the actor who played Final Baddie!!

And ugh the bloopers in this film are so silly they were a lot of them bcuz nobody here has ever starred in a film before and it was a little awkward at first. But once everyone understood that this was just for fun and not really that serious we got some good content.

(Now I also need to do some complaining like I literally had to get down on my hands and knees and beg people to join. It was not fun. Why doesn't anyone want to create things anymore so sad) 

The Internship (Partial)

Yes yes yes all me. This was a script that I had written for another short film! It's self-explanatory.

The Killer finds out that the internship they applied for was given to one of their classmates! This can not be! Filled with rage the killer kills that bitch and the victim's friend group because of jealousy and whatnot. Since the first pick is…well dead, the killer gets a callback and now the internship is theirs! Wow what a happy ending. I’m actually living for this script :)

I did multiple rewrites and created some google form sign-up sheets for people to join the project.

created a storyboard of the film (will search for it later).

And I started creating a custom score for it as well.

Unfortunately, no one wanted to join :( so it never came to life. That being said, once I find an animation app and learn how to animate, it's over for you hoes. And I guess this goes for all my future films lmao. (unless I actually find people to star in them praying I do tbh). 

Beastly Bordello (wip)

This was a project we (me and my coauthor) started in middle school. It went through lots of rewrites like Jesus Christ. The first pass was garbage. I was crying when I reread it omg.

Anyways. How do I say this with the least amount of spoilers? There are 3 “books”, The first book draft is “complete”, we have the whole thing outlined, the first 2 chapters ready, and just need to fill out the meat of the texts a bit more.

This part of the story follows the human characters. We have the main character Debbie Smith, she is basically a bum loser 😷 and everyone hates her (it’s giving depressed!abused!timid! reader). We have Meredith Castaño who is like her cool best friend 😎 (I've drawn her with Dina. A side character who may or may not be her boo). And then we have Becky Maurice, Hanna Peters, and Lisa Blake (We call them BHL) . They are like the mean girl trio 🤬. Book 1 is meant to be a typical 2000s high school movie. Dare I say a “coming of age story” smh.

Becky is out for revenge and will stop at nothing to make Debbie's life a living hell (we are just bullying Debbie for 200+ pages).

On top of that, we discover that Debbie's homelife is not so good 😞 with her abusive parents 😭 and terminally sick sister, how will Debbie move on to the next phase of her life as she approaches high school graduation and adulthood 😱?

Omg the girls are camping! How fun! (totally not a slasher movie waiting to happen and 100% does not have a musical mid-way through).

People are dying 🪦!! Kids are going missing!?!?! Does this have anything to do with Debbie’s mysterious nightmares 🧠!? She's always had them, as she’s gotten older they’ve become more frequent, almost every day, and she even starts seeing 👀and hearing 👂 things while she's awake?

That's so scary. Oh nooooo she knows doom approaches and she is powerless to stop it :( silly silly complicit Debbie.

Like damn her life couldn't get any worse…and then BAM bitch it does!!! OMG supernatural 👹tingz and bloods🩸and crips 🔵 murder 🔪and oh shoot people are being kidnapped. Yikes.

This is book 1, Book 2 and 3 are not written yet (and honestly might not be written as I do not have my coauthor helping and it is a very ambitious project). As I said, we do have supernatural characters. The creatures. I'm pretty sure you've seen Octavia at least once? Maybe. We have our big baddies like The Lord, The Madam, The Master, The Empress, The Doctor, The Scientist, etc. Then we have our “good” creatures? They are just mf who were also kidnapped, like Alexa, Alexis, Mackenzie, Amelia etc. damn that's a lot of names that start with A.

This is reaching the spoiler zone so not sure if I should go farther. Anyway they work together to try and escape and find out where they are, why they were kidnapped and try to get home etc etc. More death and murder, staples in my work :P

This project has the most progress on it, if you go into the Beastly Bordello tag you can find some of the character designs. Not all tho because a lot of them…were meant to be drawn by the coauthor and I never got themmmmmmmm 🙄🙄.

I like really REALLY wanna continue this but gotdamn it's a lot of work and I get so discouraged easily <- lying my ass was carrying this book by myself for like 3 years.

If anything I'll design the rest of the creatures by myself. That's all I see myself doing, for now, oof. 

Beastly Bordello: The Musical (Completed)

LMAOOO THIS WAS A PROJECT I HAD TO DO FOR CLASS!!!

I had to make a jukebox musical thing and I chose the wonderful Emilie Autumn. The script is short, just around 36 pages and it’s like a transition between book 2 and book 3.

It follows The Madam and she is processing the new shipment of humans she just got in.

Which would be our lovely main characters (Debbie, Meredith, BHL, etc) and we are given a little tour of the brothel (is not actually a brothel we just call it that, think of it more as a farm, a meat farm).

We meet the other characters like The Master and those lil goat mfs (main characters in the original original beastly bordello). We also get a brief introduction to our main creatures (monsters) like Mackenzie, Jia, Isla, Amelia etc (you’ve seen them before).

They then get tagged by The Doctor and The Scientist (I love those gay niggas)

And then everyone gets split up and Debbie finally meets Octavia.

What do people say? OOC? I think that means out of character? Because we have to make everything fit the song, so they just be saying stuff at one point. But shhhhhhhhhhh it's okay.

Anyway, It's just more foolishness and camp and because it's a musical it gets stupid. But I love it either way. That's what I aim for yessir, like wow something beastly bordello related that I actually completed. Wild. 

Adventure to Find Jelly (wip)

 Hiii another middle school project, I was working on this with my coauthor. Okok let's see how do i explain this with no spoilers. This is apart of our “sentient object” universe.

It takes place in an apartment and the family has gone away to visit relatives so now every object can come to life and do what they want.

The story follows Peanut Butter (PB) 🥜, a quiet and kind jar of peanut butter who is tired 🥱 of living the simple life. And decides to sneak out of the cabinet to go to the club (inside a closet) and that day he meets Jelly🪼(she a jar of jelly but they ain’t have the right emojis)

She is the new girl in town (the family got her from the grocery store before they left). They instantly fall in love😍 and Omg this would be like his first girlfriend, PB finally got bitches 😤.

They spend a lot of time doing couple stuff 😘 bcuz PB never got to do any of that before. Jelly is very sweet and loving 🧐 but…something is off about her…just a little 😨.

PB doesn't seem to notice nor care. But his cooler 🍆 asshole brother (who is super overprotective) tells him not to trust Jelly and leave her🙅🏿.

PB’s parents are angry 😡 and disgusted 🤮 that PB would disobey them and go to the club🕺🏿. And spend a lot of his time outside the cabinet instead of staying at home and being a good son 🤓.

PB is tired of people thinking he aint that guy 🥲 and he decided to run away 🏃🏿 to live a life with jelly.

But in a twist of events 👃, when PB arrives at Jelly’s cabinet he discovers it trashed 🗑️💢!!! And jelly is missing 😱😱😱😱😱!!

He tries to tell the police 🚔but they don't believe him, they’ve never heard of anyone called jelly 🪼 before.

PB is confused but figures out he has to do this on his own 🦸🏿‼️, he has to go on an adventure to find jelly.

It's very cheesy but like my other stories it involved murder and drama. So it's not uneventful . Hmmm we outlined 10 chapters. And started outlining the sequel book. But we never actually started writing any of it.

I’m pretty sure some of you have seen jelly before. And possibly PB because I was just given his design a couple days ago. I'm definitely going to continue making art of them, and hopefully, we’ll get Sunbutter soon. But I'm not sure about writing out the rest of the story. It's a lil problematic.

Being A Fruit (wip)

Middle school project strikes again and yes you guessed it my coauthor was involved as well. Another story taking place in our “Sentient Object” universe.

From the title you can tell this series was going to involve all the fruit characters. Bananas, strawberries, apples, etc and I think I designed a good portion of the characters too. But y'all when I say drama. I mean DRAMA. Like “how to get away with murder” type drama. This story is batshit. And it's 10x more stupid because it involves lil fruits.

I'm going to quote this for you: our strawberry character Rosette is traumatized because she “watched entire family get chopped into a fruit salad”. And then we have our villain who “loves to abduct baby fruits”.

Besides character bg we don't have any chapters drafted. But to be fair we were going to make this into a mock podcast. Like the character fruits were going to call in and tell their stories, and the radio host would have to piece together what happened. And if someone stopped calling in then they got killed oop.

Because this is like a one-off, if anything has a chance to make a comeback it's this one. Idk if anyone would want this tho besides me. Because I will go crazy in the google doc and write this myself. This story is wild. 

When Two Erasers Touch

Damn did I peak at middle school? Another coauthor and me classic. This was I think the first book in our “Sentient Object” universe.

It is about lesbian erasers. Our first love story! They find each other bcuz their humans bring them to school and they chill inside a desk or something. I think we only wrote 2 chapters for this. We love a trendsetter though.

I don't think our two erasers Jika and Marei will make a comeback. But omg I am just rereading the chapters and is soo melodramatic!!! These lil erasers are going through it. Ok, I won't make any promises but…maybe we might do like a throwback chapter. Just once. Maybe. I'm not really a fan of Romance but It's so dramatic I can't even describe it. 

The Hecatomb Trilogy (wip)

Finally! Something recent and does not involve my coauthor. This is one of the stories that came to me in a dream. It's hard to recall because my dumb ass didn't type or write down all the information.

I drafted the introduction and the dialogue 10/10. It's a horror movie (I say movie but it's a book bcuz everything is a movie to me). Slasher movie, of course, just a lot of carnage and ridiculous stuff. I don't have much but I have a note on the side of the google doc, that says “3 survivors bond throughout the story, connecting over their trauma and become a polycule.”

So… I have priorities lol. The first movie takes place in the neighborhood and just follows everyday people, dying you know. The second movie is meant to take place in a hospital following the survivors. And the third and final film is meant to reveal who the killer is and their backstory.

From what I have written it just says the killer is dressed in all-black leather and is super strong ;P Damn now I kinda wanna pick this back up again and put some thought into it. I see the potential ngl. We'll see. Who knows. 

Adherence (wip)

All me this time. Another story that came to me in a dream. And I think everyone needs to write a gay vampire story once in their life. This one is mine. I guess it classifies as a slice of life? It's just a cute lil story about the “last” vampire adjusting to the modern world and falling in love with his would-be victim.

They do things like go to the corner store <3 and get robbed afterwards LMAOOO. The MC has to chase a naked vampire around the apartment bcuz that nigga is scared of the shower at his big age... The Vamp fucking loves modern tech and is thoroughly entertained by it. His favourite is those little toy bears that you find at like CVS and u press a button and they start dancing. The vamp meets his neighbor and she does his nails.

Just a lot of shenanigans and also of course killing. I know I keep talking about the dialogue but my god it's working my pussy out.

Damn…is this my humor? Idk why I'm surprised. Hmmmm I would want to complete some of my other projects before I start working on this. But who knows. 

(SU pearl and pink diamond fanfic) wip

I don't wanna claim this. I wrote a pearl and pink diamond fanfic on wattpad back in the day. And I actually got one of my SU friends to read it. It was great. I don't remember the name tho but I wrote like 8 chapters of it and I'm proud I made it that far. Scared to actually read my old writing so I will not be searching for it. Just know it is out there. 

_____________

And so soooo much more that I don't feel like listing atm. anyways sorry for typos i am not editing this i'm tired.

Ask questions if you want to, uhhhhh you wanna make something? I'll be happy to help, yeye byee

#bobs looseleaf #not tagging anything else sorry #you know as i was typing this i just remembered the name of the SU fic #you will NOT be getting it #why am i so ambitious? #gosh why cant i just sit in stare at the wall like the good ole days

[lesser-mook]

My Hero Academia: Rising Heroes (film recommendation) *some spoilers

Very plot armor heavy regarding Nine’s refusal to take advantage of his power level, usual MHA cliche’s, however:

Katsuma’s arc was wholesome, him learning to speak his mind and come into his own (building his own confidence) was a well executed little plot thread.

Bakugou’s very clear development post Season 3 displayed here (ie.he’s better written here)

Deku inspiring the youth to follow their goals as All Might did for him- a nice display of the future greatest hero uplifting the next generation.

The setting and the Class reaching out to the community on a remote little island was a nice change of pace.

For hero work, or the essence of a hero is technically the community service, which is basically most vigilante’s anyway. 

The music is top tier as usual. 

Too many characters ie. Class 1A clusterfuck as usual but they’re not in the way too much, everyone’s got something to do, but they’re not always in your face here. Standard Class 1A, just dialed down compared to the show.

It’s mainly Deku, Nine, Bakugou, and the little ones.

Better focus here vs the show.

The villain is weak as hell (not in power, but in execution) for the same reasons why CHP355 doesn’t work, yet another baddie *Clearly made TOO POWERFUL but doesn’t immediately wipe the floor with the weaker opponents or at least catch some bodies*

You’d think for someone with their life on a timer they wouldn’t be moving slower than a T-800, drove me nuts how he didn’t just wreck a lot of people. ESPECIALLY with his particular gifts.

Villains explaining their weaknesses, for some reason. (Standard Anime trope btw, it’s not a MHA thing)

And ONE FOR ALL was basically turned into a magic plot device in this movie. No longer just a Quirk compiler, it is basically just magic.

A consequence i didn’t expect to happen was teased to be permanent which would’ve course corrected Deku’s character in a way (which we know is bullshit given S4 and onward, he still has OFA)

But ofc a very convenient (Uno reverse card springs up outta nowhere resetting status quo) thus Deku’s plot armor is still unrivaled.

One For All made a decision to reinstate itself because Deku was willing to sacrifice it for the right reasons. Good idea in concept but that's bullshit, OFA is basically magic.

The way Aang suddenly got the Avatar State back in the series finale was equally bullshit convenience/contrivance but at least he DID NOT have access to it the entire season as consequence of getting hit by Azula.

Most consequences do NOT matter in My Hero, if Deku had to go through S4 WITHOUT OFA and he got it back in S5, that shit would’ve been interesting.

But i digress.

The later half of the final fight is some of the best “second wind” deus ex machina’s i’ve ever seen, the choreography felt so hyper-emphasized, like you felt the power those two wielded.

One For All, is a serious super power, one of the best in fiction. Period.

And the music playing over the action is 11/10 and i’ve NEVER praised the show like this before but holy shit- 

That’s just good directing. (*chefs kiss) When it does something right, it does something right.

I naturally took notes heavily criticizing the minute details, some nitpicks, others just overall gripes with MHA’s very braindead way of getting the message across. But overall this wasn’t a bad little movie.

Much better pacing & a better plot than the first movie. 

#my hero academia movie #rising heroes #anime #movie #izuku midoriya #katsuki bakugō #one for all

[daisylikesmedia]

Series 7 Episode 9: Cold War

Hii everyone, today I’m going to be tackling Cold War, featuring the return of the ice warriors! Last seen in season 11 of the classic series, we’ll have to see if these truly classic villains can work in the modern era.

And y’know what, they kinda do? Emphasis on the kinda, but Skaldak does work in this story. I love when villains come back and are then expanded upon, and seeing Skaldak escape his shell and hunt the humans was a refreshing new take on the Ice Warriors. Sadly though, I did feel that despite this he was rather a one-note baddie and so didn’t linger around in my memory for too long.

I also feel the ending of this episode comes out of nowhere. Skaldak is primed to set these missiles off and despite the Doctor & Clara’s claim to their empathy, Skaldak is just beamed off of the ship and flies away with his martian friends. It feels like a bit of a miracle and like a bit of a lazy solution? I’m not exactly sure what I would have preferred but it feels like a hell of a coincidence.

My biggest issue with this episode though is simply that it feels incredibly run-of-the-mill. I honestly can’t recollect any of the side character’s names bar the professor, I had to google the transcript to figure out just how this episode ended, and yea it felt like this episode flew by without a second thought. It wasn’t the kind of bad where I get very angry and go on a big long rant over it, but it still wasn’t an experience I found super enjoyable either.

THO there is a lovely bisexual 11 moment with the professor where he asks to kiss him and they’re like maybe later yea that bit was fun I remember that :3.

TL:DR/Overview: This is a much shorter review than usual and it’s because I simply don’t have much to say about Cold War. It’s use of the Ice Warriors is fairly interesting, leaning into a fresh new idea with them being able to escape their suits (unless they did this in the episodes w/ them I haven’t watched sdgklhj), but the contrived ending and general lack of focus that I could muster watching this episode leads me to the conclusion that I’m placing this in C tier.

EDIT: Just wanted to mention that this episode also has a rly fantastic atmosphere. The claustrophia of being trapped on a sinking Russian sub with an uncaged Ice Warrior chasing ya about is rly good. Was gonna mention it in the main review but I forgor..

#daisy reviews media #doctor who #11th doctor #cold war

[magical-awesome-kid]

Due to @the-stove-is-on-fire‘s comics and fantastic art, I now ship Spideypool (I mean I did before but also never mind that now) with Danny being their adopted nephew. Why not son? Because it’s funnier to have Jack and Maddie still be in the picture and somehow convinced that they’re related to Peter or Wade.

(There’s a fake family tree on paper somewhere that ‘proves’ that one of the heroes is a so-many-times-removed cousin to the Fentons).

Peter is actually a good influence on Danny having been a former teen hero and has tons of tips AND can help on the math and science homework. Wade is pure chaos and unafraid to visit Amity, ‘borrow’ some guns from his ‘cousins,’ and go bat shit on Danny’s villain of the day. Danny’s not sure if he should be amused or horrified but hey Wade’s treating on tacos so why not?

(Wade keeps many of the guns and, with a few modifications from Danny and friends, uses them when he goes out ���villain hunting’ with his BF. They have all the power and fun of real guns but really end up knocking out and gumming up the baddies - which Peter appreciates so much more then the blood and guts and k-word-ing.)

Once Danny figures out How to Play With Portals (he finds a spot that regularly spawns in the Statue of Liberties’ flame), he’s visiting whenever he needs a break or wants to get some hero advice. New York is crawling with the good guys, after all, and occasionally he helps clear out some of the supernatural threats (Steven Strange has his eyes on the ghostly teen that Deadpool is currently arguing with Pizza over - Danny thinks Chicago is FAR superior to New York, and Peter is about to throw in as well).

I feel like Peter is probably also slightly less monetarily strained in this AU because Deadpool offers to do jobs (he steers clear of too many contract kills because it makes Peter sad but he’s all for fucking with the criminal underworld and getting paid for it), so Peter has time to do his degree and get a better paying job - maybe scientific writing or journal review, because both would offer flexible hours but also require high end understanding of the concepts he loves.

Danny then ends up using the portals and the excuse of “I could learn so much science studying with Uncle Peter this summer” to go back and forth from Amity and spend time with Peter and Wade fucking around and kicking ass on occasion. He comes back to Amity on the daily for ghost attacks but also gets to actually enjoy his summer (and get his grades up with online summer classes - Peter is a godsend and Wade always has take out ready for when everyone’s collective superhuman metabolism kicks in). Wade and Danny also share a very dark sense of death humor that would concern anyone not in the know (and even those in the know are a little - or a lot - concerned).

BONUS: Peter hears about Danny getting bullied. Wade threatens to kill the kids, but Peter, who suffered his own bullying, has a better idea. Danny ends up downtown in his normal form when Spider-Man crashes in, a low-tier villain of the day causing a ruckus. Danny, in human form, manages to help. Later, a video from a very new and strangely anonymous account shows Danny being a bit of a badass (followed by Spidey webbing the baddie and thanking Danny) with Danny tagged by Tucker. Danny finds out that the popular crowd has seen and is losing their minds, Peter and Wade look too innocent, and the next day Danny posts a picture with Spidey saying something along the lines of “this guy seems pretty chill but Phantom def still has the better costume.”

The Official Danny Phantom account likes the post, which starts a whole chaos all over again.

#Spider-Man #Deadpool #Danny Phantom #Peter Parker #Wade Wilson #Spideypool #Danny Fenton

[vagrantblvrd]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Another one in the Evil Supervillain(TM) Tony AU pile?

Presumed Evil(TM) because HYDRA infiltration of SHIELD and careful manipulation of facts and the whatnot, and also Tony being like “Well, I do have the facial hair for it, so...”

(Also it’s hilarious and actually works to his advantage, so yeah.)

Initially the Avengers see him as a serious threat, right? But then the whole alien invasion in New York and the nuke he flew through a portal over the city and anyway.

For an Evil Supervillain(TM) his body count is surprisingly low and it’s kind of..odd the way his Evil Supervillain Team-ups(TM) usually end badly for whichever baddie he’s working with and thwarted plots and schemes while he gets away in the confusion?

Like.

Every time.

Also, also.

Various shenanigans in which he works with the Avengers to thwart some big bad, or is thrown into situations with them - individually or as a whole - in which they have to cooperate to survive and so on.

Also, also, also.

Pranks???

So many pranks.

Clint is delighted when Iron Man declares he’s Iron Man’s Arch Nemesis after a particularly creative prank war, and anyway, yes.

So Iron Man gets placed lower in the Dire Threat system but really considered more of an ally? (Just, like, never call him that because he gets all sulky about it.)

But then!

Somewhere in there Tony runs into this human disaster of a spider-kid who almost gets himself incredibly dead and is like oh fuck me because no and also !!! because this kid has no self-preservation instincts???

It’s alarming, really, because Tony had to take him to one of his safe houses/lairs after he got knocked out and was quietly !!! because he’s pretty sure he kidnapped the spider-kid and that’s a tier of villainy he never touches.

(Well, there was that one time, but really. Rhodey was looking a little tired and Tony kidnapped him to one of his private islands - one of the tropical ones - and he had a nice weekend away and was it really kidnapping anyway???)

While Tony’s having his little freakout Peter comes to and there’s a brief fight (scuffle, really) with Peter being all !!! at being in a supervillain lair and all before Tony convinces Peter he’s not going to hurt him, Jesus, kid, calm down before you hurt yourself already.

Because supervillain lair and therefore supervillain gadgets and whatnot and Peter finally looks around and is all “Wow” because so much science???

And before Tony knows it he’s got this spider-kid tracking him down and asking all these questions and chattering on and it’s so stupidly adorable and charming?

But, Evil Supervillain(TM) so he tries to chase Peter off - which gets him this skeptical look and snort and Tony is like oh fuck me because he likes the spider-kid and it’s not like he can let the kid run around in that costume of his in good conscience and all.

So he builds Peter a suit and an AI to help him and all that?

And Peter kind of sets up shop in that first lair of Tony’s he was in - one that Tony hadn’t used much before bringing Peter there, but it’s a safe(ish) place for the two of them to meet up and hang out and science together and whatnot, so yes.

They do the whole Sekrit Identity thing for a while, until Tony gets hurt in a fight - a mix of Avengers trying to ~gently thwart him and Rumlow’s STRIKE team  not-so-gently trying to murder the shit out of him and he’s kind of a mess?

All battered and bruised and bleeding and he’s not expecting to find Peter in the lair doing his fucking homework of all things (in his suit) like seriously, what the hell, spider-kid??? but there he is anyway.

Peter for his part is all !!! and rushes to help Tony and there’s a head wound so of course the helmet comes off and Tony is like *SIGH* because he’d been so careful before all this?

But after a moment of :O from Peter over the identity reveal fusses and frets and gets Tony patched up with JARVIS’ help and Tony is like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  because okay, yeah, the kid would have figured it out sooner or later anyway.

And look. Tony loves Peter, okay? But the kid’s kind of a shit liar - how the hell May doesn’t know is a mystery - and he half expected him to tell someone he’s BFF’s with Iron Man by now, wouldn’t blame him because this kid, okay? But surely now he knows Tony’s Iron Man surely it won’t be long until he’s found out?

But it doesn’t happen.

And Tony’s like huh, okay, because he can work with that.

But then, okay, but then.

Peter actually asks Tony what his deal is - has been working up the nerve to do so for a while, but didn’t want to push too hard thinking Tony would boot him out of the lair/their friendship.

But now that he knows it’s Tony in the suit, the fact Tony goes after SI weapons stashes that were sold to bad guys and the whatnot makes more sense, but why the everything else?

(Secret SHIELD bases and the whatnot in Tony’s effort to expose HYDRA and the whatnot.)

And somehow - Tony is still confused how - Peter talks Tony into letting him help.

So, you know.

Peter’s right there when they raid a HYDRA base and find a cryotube and this human popsicle.

Who, by the by, almost murderizes Tony when they defrost him, but Peter’s there when it happens - “I thought you had a field trip?” “I called in sick,” - and stops him from the murderization of one (1) Tony Stark.

(Peter totally lied about being sick because he knew Tony totally lied about when he was going to defrost the human popsicle to keep Peter away in case the guy turned out to be dangerous. Which he did.)

ANYWAY.

That’s how their little Evil Supervillain(TM) and spider-kid team gains a formerly brainwashed assassin.

Tony set JARVIS on finding anything he could on the human popsicle the moment they found him and it’s awful and ugly an horrifying, and that’s not counting whatever files HYDRA had on his missions/kills, which Tony is putting off looking at for another day.

(Preferably never.)

Takes a while and trial and error but they get Bucky to a kind of sort of okay place, enough that he has the gall, the audacity to question Tony’s (well-deserved) title of Evil Supervillain(TM).

“...right.”

Peter mcfreaking loves Bucky and Bucky is adorably confused by him and the fact that apparently not even the Winter Soldier is immune to his charm and Tony is just.

Off to the side wondering how the hell this is his life anymore because the two of them are utter menaces and really, no, complete menaces, don’t think he can’t see you laughing, Parker! >:(((((((((((((((((

Bucky despairs at Tony’s inability to remember that basic human needs are a thin and dear god, eat something you asshole, and the whatnot.

Bickering and bantering and oh, oh no, is that flirting?

Fuck, it is.

The Winter Soldier is flirting with Tony, and Tony is flirting back and Peter - Peter are you laughing at Tony right now, young man???

The Avengers being like “Are you recruiting?” when they catch Iron Man and his friend with the intense Murder Face(TM) utterly wrecking a SHIELD HYDRA base and Bucky yeets Steve across a field and anyway.

NO.

>:(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

...but then Tony stumbles over Bruce while hunting down a lead in India somewhere and is like shit, are the Avengers right? when he invites him back to his lair and oh, fuck, they are, aren’t they?)

Bruce stays in the lair to help science with regards to suits and gadgets and the whatnot, but also has a day job in SI’s R&D department and a floor in Stark Tower and anyway, yes.

(Bucky, for the record, is Tony Stark’s bodyguard what with Happy looking after Pepper these days and Bucky also has a floor at the Tower and so on and so forth.)

Shenanigans and the whatnot and then HYDRA grabs Tony and his Evil Minions(TM) - “Friends, Tony, we’re your friends.” - team up with the Avengers to rescue him and that’s hen HYDRA gets punched in the face by Captain America and friends and Tony is like “I can explain” and also “Please don’t punch me in the face, I bruise easily” because Cap looks pissed, okay.

(He is, but mostly because Tony’s hurt and also HYDRA and so on, and also, is that BUCKY??? Which then leads to FEELINGS and Tony being like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  because he has no idea how this is his life, and also  yes, yes it is Bucky. Surprise?)

Shenanigans in which Tony gets stealth-recruited to the Avengers after his name is cleared, but he refuses to call himself a hero, okay.

(Only nerds are superheroes, sorry, Peter, but it’s the truth. Evil Supervillain(TM) is where it’s at, just check out the facial hair.)

The Avengers are like *SIGH* but for some reason they’re fond of that asshole, and also he’s Peter’s mentor, Bucky’s dating him, and Bruce is his science bro?

So yes.

#marvel nonsense #marvel #winteriron #bucky/tony #iron dad #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #long post

[tsaomengde]

I finished Horizon: Forbidden West's story today, and popped the Platinum trophy about 15 minutes later when I looked up the two remaining hidden trophies and found they were piss-easy things I just hadn't done because it didn't occur to me to try them.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this game.  Horizon: Zero Dawn was one of my favorite PS4 titles, and Forbidden West is a worthy successor.  That's not to say the game is perfect, but I definitely think it's worth a playthrough if you enjoyed the original.  It is not a game whose plot you will appreciate if you haven't played the first one, though.

More detailed observations with no main plot spoilers below.

- The first Horizon was appreciably diverse in terms of featuring many people of color as important characters, and this one continues that trend.  I also noticed a lot more queer folks than the first time, which was a welcome addition.  There's also a storyline about a character who loses a limb that doesn't just end in "he got fixed and is better now," which is rare and beautiful.  Not much in terms of neurodivergent representation, though it is very easy to read Aloy as autistic if you want.

- Visually the game is stunning and the design of the new machines is great.  This is the game I bought a PS5 for and it did not disappoint.

- That having been said, while the open world is absolutely vast, I don't think we needed all of it.  Most of the little question mark icons are just caches of valuables or crafting materials.  All of the high-end weapons and armor are earned from quests, bought in shops, or won from the arena you unlock about halfway through the game.  That leaves little incentive to explore every nook and cranny.  I did, because I'm me, and was generally unimpressed with the findings.

- Speaking of weapons and armor, I played on Hard and found the game's challenge to be reasonable but not overwhelming at first.  Then as I really zeroed in on upgrading all of my gear and doing the Arena to get the best weapons and armor, I broke the game over my knee and just had to occasionally stomp on it when it twitched.  The process of getting your endgame gear leveled up is grindy, and involves killing a lot of ultra-powered machines more challenging than anything you face in the course of the main plot.  It's also totally unnecessary, because unlike in other games there are no optional superbosses or ultra-challenging side missions.  I killed each of the final bosses (you fight one and then another) in about five or six shots with my Uber Bow.

- However, the upshot of this is that there are no difficulty trophies, so if you just want to absorb the story you can set it on Easy and power through and you will be just fine.

- On the note of the Arena, that was the only part of the game I found actively frustrating because in each tiered set of 4 challenges, the fourth challenge gives you a fixed loadout so your time can be compared to other players' on a global leaderboard.  These fixed loadouts are often garbage, or totally conflict with your accustomed playstyle.  I do not now nor have I ever given a fuck about comparing my performance with Little Alphie Adderall's.  You can totally drop the difficulty for these fights, which I refused to, but it's still irritating that this is a Thing when nowhere else in the game is there any online component.

- Endgame combat in Zero Dawn boiled down to, for me, "notch 3 arrows, zoom in with slow-mo, and shoot the baddie in the glowing weak point, repeat."  Forbidden West successfully adds a little more variety if you want it, with a number of super moves and weapon techniques, but at the end of the day it boils down to "shoot the bad guy with the element they're weak to and then use the advanced precision arrows with 30% crit chance to do incredible amounts of damage."  It does not fundamentally change the formula of what worked, but it also isn't a next-level innovation either.

- The game tries to kind of do what Witcher 3 did with Gwent by introducing a minigame called Machine Strike, which is like a cross between chess and Warhammer.  Gwent is the better minigame by far.  Machine Strike has just enough going on that it takes a few hours to learn, but there are so few players compared to Gwent that by the time you feel you're competent at the game you've beaten everyone (3 beginners, 3 intermediates, 3 skilled, 3 experts, 1 master, 1 friend at base who falls around intermediate and doesn't count).  There also isn't much of a meta; it is always worse to be moving on the attack and to end your turn within striking distance of the other person's shit, so a lot of games with the harder AI boil down to trying to bait them out of their turtling by sacrificing a small piece.

- The game also has racing!  It is bad.

- Honestly what kept me playing as long as I did and finishing every single side quest and looking in every nook and cranny was because I really like the world the devs have made, the story they're telling, and the feel of inhabiting this place.  That hasn't changed and I'll definitely be playing it again in however many months or years.  I 100% feel I got my money's worth for the $70 entry.

#horizon #horizon forbidden west #horizon zero dawn #horizon: forbidden west #horizon: zero dawn #hfw #hzd #review

[proof-i-love-merthur-fics-a-lot]

Blog cheat sheet

I'll try to stay consistent with this...

Preferences:

I am not picky in the least, as long as it’s endgame Merthur I’ll most likely read it. However, I have preferences and there are some things I truly can’t get behind.

One of these things is when one of the two characters (let’s face it, it’s always Merlin) acts overly feminine or naive. They are two guys, I feel making one of them a girl in all but name is... unfair? I can’t find the right word for it, but still... I’m never one to talk about heteronormativity and stuff like that, I’m not into identity politics, but like come on. So no hidden hetero under the guise of two bros chilling in the hot tub. Obviously, it’s fine if a character has some feminine traits, I’m not saying guys should be 100% masculine.

I don’t dislike gender bent fics though; I feel as if it’s just another way to look at the dynamic, it’s not among my favorite, but it gets an honest D tier from me. I don’t get the feeling the author is trying to fool me, you know? 

I’m not into poly shipping at all when it comes to Merthur. I’m sorry, I’m very boring, whatever. Still, I only read monogamy and I won’t try out anything else. That’s just what I like.

I tend to avoid unhappy endings and Major Character Death, because I want to keep my psyche intact, thank you. I’ll dive into it if it’s an excellent fic tho.

Also, as a general rule... Nothing too political. I hate when the political ideology of the author somehow becomes the same as all the good characters, and the baddies are somehow all on the opposite side of the compass. It's annoying.

And that’s it. I think I’m pretty open to basically anything else.

Tags:

Every time a fic is ‘introduced’ on this blog, it will get tags describing it, which I’ll explain later. What I mean by introduced is the first time I share a particular fic on here, by linking the entire work. This means that a fic can appear several times on here. It will happen mainly for chapter updates, so for WIPs, or a completed work that I want to revisit or talk about some more. For chapter updates, the tags will be as follows:

#name of the fic (ex: #The student prince)

#chapter update

#chapter n (ex: #chapter 3)

Now, for the introducing posts. They’ll get this particular tag:

#introduction

Along with the name of the fic like before.

For every new fic I’ll also tag the author(s, if it’s more than one)

After, I’ll either put

#WIP

or

#Completed

depending on the fic, and I don’t think I need to elaborate further on that.

If I believe a fic deserves more attention, I’ll add:

#Underrated

If a fic doesn’t have this tag, it doesn’t mean I don’t like it, if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be here, it just means that I believe it needs more appreciation for one reason or another. For example: I like The Student Prince, but it certainly isn’t underrated.

Along with these personal tags, I’ll also include a word count if the fic is completed, they’ll be divided this way:

#<1k

#1k-5k

#5k-10k

#10k-30k

#30k-50k

#50k-100k

#100k-200k

#200k-300k

#fuck-its-long (>300k)

Why these random numbers? Idk, that’s how I mentally divide them.

I’ll also put the year they were uploaded. Not completed, as some rightfully take several years to make. I don’t think I need to list all those tags, it will literally be just the year.

To each fic I’ll add some actual tags found on AO3 like the usual

#canon era

#modern au

#soulmate au

#high school au

and some other tags not included in the work that I feel would fit.

If a work is part of a series I'll make an introduction linking to the latter, with the following tags:

#Name of the series

#Series

I know, I'm very creative... and handle the individual works as chapter updates with this tag:

#work n (work 2)

I think that’s it for the tags.

Suggestions:

Now what is this? If I ever actually get enough fics on here, I’ll try to do this thing I’d love to see on AO3, but alas, it’s only on Wattpad. Omg, Wattpad, I avoid bringing back memories, but this is one thing I did like about the app! In between chapters of a certain fic, Wattpad would suggest some similar works that you could read later, how cool is that? So I’ll try to do that on my introduction posts. Let’s see if I can keep this up long enough.

Which brings me to...

This blog:

How long will it last?

2 weeks? 2 months? 2 years? 2 DAYS?!

IDK

I have no idea. I guess I’ll find out!

#merlin #bbc merlin #merthur #bbc merthur #fanfic #fanfiction #merlin fanfic #fic recs #how original

[sortavibing]

what the haikyuu!! boys/girls favorite songs/bands are📼

hello! this is my first post so i hope im doing it right :P anyways enjoy!

karasuno💾

daichi: Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. he’s such a typical dad holy shit so yeah he 100% listens to this i don’t know what else to say like- 🤠 yeah he probably sings it in his minivan (you cannot convince me that he doesn’t drive a minivan)

sugawara: WAP by Cardi B. yes we stan this bad bitch. he LOVES this song like he can do the dance and everything and he pulls it off like the baddie he is please someone animate this i NEED it anyways yeah he doesn’t really sing it but he 100% has done the dance in front of daichi.

asahi: Lullaby by Johannes Brahms. this baby hes such a slut for classical music and he always listens to it before a big game to calm his nerves. he pretends that he’s listening to something “tough” but everyone knows that he listens to classcial, they just pretend to not know.

nishinoya: Old Town Road by Lil Nas X. yeah, he hasn’t gotten out of the old town road phase and he unironically sings it and does a yeehaw dance. no one can stop him because everyone (except tanaka) is too embarrassed to be around him when he sings and dances, so he thinks it’s ok (honey, no), also, tanaka sometimes joins in and it’s painful to hear and see.

tanaka: GOOBA by 6xi9ine. he thinks it’s “badass” and tries to rap it whenever it comes on, and he fails horribly, but nishinoya always hypes him up saying that he did a good job, causing him to start singing again please save karasuno from hinata, nishinoya, and tanaka’s singing

ennoshita: Cough Syrup by Young The Giant. though it may not seem like it, but this man has got music TASTE like- yes. anyways yeah this song is a vibe and he really likes it. he once tried to introduce good music to tanaka and nishinoya, but they said it was “boring” and “sappy” and he never wanted to beat them up more than he did then.

kageyama: he listens to like play by play volleyball games or podcasts that talk about improving your skills because he’s a hoe for that volleyball shit try and prove me wrong i dare you

hinata: Red by Taylor Swift. he has terrible music taste and he literally just listens to what’s popular and like what his sister listens to. he likes to sing outloud and his voice is worse than oikawa- like karasuno cannot handle hinata singing at all it’s literal earrape.

tsukishima: Fancy by Twice. tsukki is a hardcore kpop stan, and he 100% listens to twice religiously, like that's the majority of his playlist, and he refuses to play his music out loud, and everyone thinks he listens to like rock or some shit like that. only yams knows that tsukki listens to it and he was sworn to secrecy.

yamaguchi: Sports by Beach Bunny. he likes to hum it quietly to himself because he really likes the beat and the lyrics. tsukishima has this song saved on his playlist just for yams and he plays it whenever they share headphones.

kiyoko: Body by Megan Thee Stallion. i dont know what to say, she is just a baddie who loves the confidence boost she gets from listening to this song as she should kiyoko is amazing she even learned the tiktok dance to this song and she performed it to yaichi yaichi.exe has stopped working but she won’t show it to anyone else anyways shes just a baddie and we stan.

yachi: Green by Cavetown. yeah she really likes the calming peaceful vibes this song has and she likes to sing it quietly when she is in a public place, like a bus or a subway to calm herself down and she also plays it when she studies.

aoba johsai 📼

oikawa: Bubblegum Bitch by MARINA because it just raidates that “i’m hotter than you” energy (just like he does our twink king). he prob sings it in the locker room while everyone is changing and his singing bursts everyones eardrums omg the whole team hates oikawa’s singing so much

matsukawa: Toad sings WAP he’s such a memer like- yeah so he and makki probably obsess over these toad sings video because 1. they are funny as hell like it’s some god tier comedy and 2. they say oikawa sounds like that when he sings it’s true tho

hanamaki: Toad sings Sweet Home Alabama. he and mattsun have a running debate about which one is better, and they ask the opinions of literally everyone they meet about it. so far more people have chose maki’s favorite song and he’s a little smug about it.

iwaizumi: Ride by twenty one pilots. this is probably like one of his secret pleasures. most people think he listens to like rap or something like that, but he really likes this song. he hopes that oikawa will never find out about this, because he will never hear the end of the teasing, so he just listens to this song while he is by himself, or just without the team.

yahaba: Walking On A Dream by Empire Of The Sun. idk this just feels right, like i really have no explanation why i think this works it just does🤠

kindaichi: Wake Me Up bye Avicii. this man is borderline bad taste, but we will let it slide for now, so yeah again, he just gives me the avicii stan vibes, he probably thought he would like rap more, but one day he heard avicii playing on the radio and he was hooked. he still pretends to like rap because he has a “reputation”

kunimi: Advice by Cavetown. this man gives absolutley zero fucks about everyone’s opinions you bet your ass he listens to this song. he 100% puts headphones in to listen to this while someone is talking to him because he just doesn’t want to have a conversation with them. everyone hates when he does that, but again, he doesn’t give a shit.

kyotani: We Will Rock You by Queen. yeah this is probably his pump up jam and he always listens to it before a game to get hyped up. if anyone dares to talk to him while he has headphones in, he will not hesitate to bite their head off i know this for a fact.

nekoma💾

kuroo: Yarichin Bitch Club OP. ever since kenma introduced him to anime OPs, he’s been obsessed, and he loves the yarichin op becuase 1. it’s dirty and he thinks that’s funny and 2. it actually slaps like why does it go so hard i’m in awe- anyways yeah he always sings it in the most public places just to get attention bc he’s a whore for the spotlight like that 😌. he also sings it with bokuto whenever they are together bc we stan the dumbass duo.

yaku: Arms Tonite by Mother Mother. yeah he is kinda obsessed with mother mother but this is hands down his favorite song. lev once heard yaku listening to this song and made fun of it, and let’s just say lev got the ass whopping of his life, yaku takes no prisoners- anyways yeah he just vibes with it and it’s great.

yamamoto: Who Let The Dogs Out by Baha Men. the whole nekoma team HATES his music taste, and they never let him play any music becasue- it’s just so bad i’m sorry this man has no taste like have you seen his hair? (the slander is real :))

kenma: Hikaru Nara (Your Lie in April OP) kenma loves to listen to anime ops while gaming bc they are highkey all bops and he says they help him concentrate. he tried to get kuroo to listen to the songs with him, and kuroo started to like listening to anime OPs, so they usually listen to them together.

fukunaga: he listens to like john mulaney comedy shows becuse he’s a little dork like that and (timeskip spoiler) he becomes a comedian later on so it just fits 🤠

inuoka: Roar by Katy Perry. again, it’s just the vibes that i get from him, i can’t explain it, he just seems like a big dork who would like this shit. so yeah, he probably sings this song really loudly when it comes on and the whole nekoma team just has to tolerate him when he does it.

lev: Ra Ra Rasputin by Boney M. he probably started listening to this song as a joke because he’s Russian, and the songs about Russia, but he genuinely started enjoying it and whenever it comes on, he starts singing. his voice isn’t actually that bad but yaku still gets annoyed as hell when he does it and beats the shit out of him.

fukurodani 📼

bokuto: Mr. Brightside by The Killers. he gets really excited when this plays and always gets up to sing it really really loudly, and do a really energetic dance. akaashi calm your child please he’s not a good singer, but he’s not a terrible one either, so the team has just gotten used to it.

akaashi: This Side of Paradise by Coyote Theory. eep akaashi the hopeless romantic we stan- anyways yeah he found this band in like his first year of high school and has been addicted ever since. he doesn’t really share his taste in music with others, but the one time he let bokuto listen to music with him, bokuto got way to excited and accidentally dropped akaashi’s phone and cracked it.

konoha: Spirits by The Strumbellas. idk i just feel like he would listen to this song. he would never play his music out loud though, because bokuto always takes the aux cord/ speaker before anyone gets the chance to.

shiratorizawa💾

ushijima: he doesn’t listen to music. like if tendou offers to play music with him, he’ll accept, but like he’s just confused why people like listening to music so much, so he will just listen with that face he always makes (😐) while tendo is jumping around, dancing, and going batshit crazy.

semi: All I Wanted by Paramore. he is flat out obsessed with this band and he learned how to play this song on his electric guitar and has went to a couple of their concerts. semi 100% makes fun of his teammates music taste as he should

tendou: Yoda CBT remix (i linked it if you want to listen), ok but seriously, i think money machine by 100 Gecs. tendo is so chaotic and i think his music taste reflects that. he cannot listen to music without dancing or singing, and he always plays his music on full volume (hearing? what’s that?) tendo never gets the aux cord, because the last time they gave it to him, the speakers almost broke.

goshiki: Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. this little dork omg i really don’t have an explanation for this, it just fits and i take no criticism on this because y’all know it’s true.

shirabu: Cigarette Ahegao by Penelope Scott. semi introduced him to this song and he pretened he didn’t like it but he’s secretly obsessed. i think he generally doesn’t like music but this song- this song is such a vibe that he has to like it. (anyways yeah go listen to this song its so good)

inarizaki 📼

kita: Animal by Neon Trees. he isn’t really open about listening to music, he only listens to his songs when he is alone and when he has earbuds in, and if someone walks up to him to talk, he takes his earphones out (we stan a respectful boy). so yeah, he isn’t a big fan of music, but he still likes to listen from time to time.

aran: You Know It by Colony House. he will never listen to music in front of anyone because whenever he hears this song, he has to sing, and he doesn’t like singing in front of people (the miya twins are annoying he can’t do anything in front of them🙄), but yeah, this songs really good we stan this man’s music taste.

atsumu: Girls in the Hood by Megan Thee Stallion. this man LOVES this song like- he is obsessed. if you ask him something, he will literally reply with “can’t talk right now, doing hot girl shit” and he just walks away and ur just like- what the fuck bro. anyways yeah he thinks he’s a bad bitch but he really is just a dork.

suna: 505 by The Arctic Monkeys. yeah, the basic choice would probably be “why’d you only call me when you’re high”, but i feel like he would like this song better because it starts off kinda vibey, and then it goes into this great guitar bit, and just- the v i b e s so yeah i think he really likes this shit.

osamu: cooking podcasts. like he literally doesn’t listen to music, just shit about cooking. atsumu makes fun of him for it and he is just like “bitch shut up and go do ur hot girl shit 😐” and just walks away and keeps on listening to his cooking shit. (we stan this petty bitch)

others💾

saeko: E-GIRLS ARE RUINING MY LIFE! by CORPSE and Savage Ga$p. this is self explanatory, she just is a bad bitch and this is what bad bitches listen to 😌 she def has played this song while getting it on with someone.

terushima: Bust It Open by Lil’ Wil. we all know terushima listens to these thirst trap songs and tries to do the tik tok dances that are associated with them. he probably posts videos to these songs on tik tok and they get a good amount of likes (cough cough he has a following of many thirsty girls).

sakusa: 24 hours of nothing yeah he doesn’t listen to music he just puts this on with headphones so people won’t bother him. he finds the silence relaxing and hates it when people interrupt him (cough cough atsumu)

btw: for some of the songs that aren’t on basic streaming services, i linked the youtube video for them.

anyways, i hope you enjoyed my first post [eep finishing this made me really happy]! have a nice day!

bye for now🌊

#haikyuu #haikyu #haikyuu drabbles #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!! #haikyu imagine #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines

[vbartilucci]

Some (non-spoilery, I think) thoughts about genies in fiction, in reference to last night's episode of DC's Stargirl

In most cases, the purpose of a genie story, at least in Western fiction, is to teach the lesson that you shouldn't make wishes, and the only way to get everything you want is hard work and personal toil. The aforementioned "Monkey's Paw" is a seminal example of this strange sub-genre - wishes made go wildly (often horrifically) wrong, and wish-maker exclaims that he wishes he'd made no wishes (or never found the wish-making tool) in the first place.

There's endless examples of this in almost every medium - Twilight Zone and Night Gallery both did them, there's been movies, short stories, you name it. 

The stories are usually either horror or comedy, but both serve to make the same point- "Wishing gets you nowhere"

The idea of "you have to wish carefully" appears a lot as well. In some cases, the genie is incompetent, and the wishes going wrong is by accident. In others, he's a trickster, and takes delight in finding ways to twist the wish in chaotic ways. So in both cases, wishing for "a million bucks" will almost certainly result in a massive herd of deer in your front yard.

So in summary, while Thunderbolt is supposed to remind you of the Genie from Disney's Aladdin ("Phenomenal cosmic POWER..."), right down to being voiced by a popular comedian, more technically he's the Genie from the Aladdin TV show - de-powered, and the wishes going wrong more often than not.

Now that ties in with the initial tone of the Johnny Thunder(bolt) comic - he WAS supposed to be comic relief, and his membership in the JSA was more an honorary position. It's only in later years (and especially in Geoff's run) that they tried to make him a more seriously-taken hero. But even then there was a need to nerf the T-bolt, because as they said, he's easily as powerful as the top tier heroes. Can't have that running around.  So Geoff added the idea that his magic carries a price - Jakeem magics up a block of apartment buildings out of nowhere, and the next day, a similar block of apartment buildings in Upstate new York (maybe Canada?) collapses mysteriously.  So again, the power of the Bolt had to be used sparingly, and with great care.

That is why we're seeing the Thunderbolt do such a poor job of helping in this first episode.  As the season goes on, I expect we'll see he and Jakeem get better at working together, but we'll almost certainly never see them regularly make "The big tall wish" that set the continents of the Earth back in place. It'll stay funny, even being an impediment to progress, until the dramatically perfect moment when they both work together, use everything they've learned as a team, and get one blow in perfectly, if not saving the day, certainly putting the baddie on the back foot and turning the tide.

#Stargirl