mach-talk

[mach-talk]

JRWI RIPTIDE IS BACK BABY!!!

[mach-talk]

So JRWI fans, I just noticed something in Blood In The Bayou.

⚠️Spoilers for Blood In The Bayou⚠️

In the first episode, Roland’s trip is a PHENOMENAL, albeit probably accidental, piece of foreshadowing to the events of the story. Even if the shrooms weren’t real, he thought they were, and he heard Kian’s tires talking and faces in the trees…

Disembodied voices that only he can hear? Faces only he is able to see? It’s almost like he’s DIFFERENT FROM EVERYONE ELSE. He didn’t even know it, but thematically it just went together so perfectly.

[mach-talk]

Shameless repost ❤️

JRWI fans, tell me if this is something that makes sense to you: I think Dakota Cole is the first superhero in a VERY long time to feel like an actual superhero.

⚠️Spoilers ahead for both seasons of Prime Defenders, if you haven’t finished it already, what are you doing here?! Go watch it!!⚠️

I think Grizzly did a phenomenal job in his research of superhero media before making Dakota, and that research really paid off for how real Dakota feels as not just a hero, but as a person. Season 1 made me fall in love with the characters and the story, but as an avid Marvel skeptic, season 2 made me believe in the superhero genre again.

I’ve talked about my disdain for modern superhero movies before, but to condense it, I feel like they don’t really feel like HEROES as much as “the lesser of two evils in a fight that’s destroying a city.” A lot of modern heroes feel too gritty and gloomy, not the symbols of hope they’re meant to be, but only focusing on the reluctance of their position.

Dakota Cole’s story is different to me: we’re able to see all sides of it, the good and the bad, and spend enough time in those moments to feel what he feels. His story feels so perfect to the Hero’s Journey, both in what we start out with and what we learn along the way.

First and foremost, I’m grateful to see heroes that WANT to be heroes again, not just to save one person or some moral obligation, but for the sake of wanting to do good and help others. Prime Defenders as a whole is such a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre for its message, and it gets to the heart of what makes superhero movies good. It feels, for lack of a better word, colorful. In a world of low light and gritty heroes making hard decisions, we get moments like the fight for New Haven where the heroes came together with the sword to defeat the planet, or the showdown with Powerhouse, while we get silly moments like the Wasp Vs Bee debate or the chaos portal in the Winnebago. That doesn’t mean we don’t get dark or gritty scenes, of course- I’m still deeply impacted by Ashe’s sacrifice to save everyone, William’s spiral with his brother, and (most relevant to this rant) Dakota’s surgery. But because we got to see the whimsy and the heart behind the heroes, it just made all of those moments so much more impactful.

Dakota Cole, though, feels to me like the result of dissecting the superhero genre and finding what makes it so appealing and meaningful to people. He is, upon first glance, hopeful and confident, optimistic perhaps to a fault, and wants to see the best in people and bring out that goodness. He starts with a very rigid view of what good and evil is, but as his mindset shifts, we see him open up to other ideas of what goodness means to him.

You’d think this would immediately fall apart when he goes through the heartbreak and disillusionment of losing someone to a villain, and that’s what we see with Ashe’s loss in season 1. He is clearly devastated by the loss, but is the first to believe that they can bring him back. He even says it as some of his last words to Ashe before he becomes The Trickster- “Don’t forget that you have somewhere to come back to.” After the loss, though, he’s only more motivated to save his friend. He goes to train and get stronger, and is the one to suggest getting him back. Throughout season 2, as well, we see the backstory that had been set up throughout season 1 come back to the front, and how it impacts him not only as a hero, but as a regular person. His love for his aunt, his attitude towards others, his willingness to sacrifice…

The first thing that he did for himself, in my opinion, was the heart surgery to keep himself alive, and even that wasn’t all for him; it was largely to help William rather than just staying alive. But he was so desperate to help others that he found the thing he needed to learn most in order to be the hero the world needed: patience. His heart surgery and subsequent training with Master Cole taught him the patience he needed to put his abilities to use.

But I think what his training arc taught him best outside of patience- the lesson that stuck with me the most- was that it is okay to ask for help. In fact, one of the quotes that still sticks with me is the quote from Master Cole: “Sometimes, we can’t carry the weight of the world alone.” He spent two seasons up until this point trying to carry every burden on his own, but this was a turning point for him. He realized that he has a team for a reason, and that he doesn’t have to protect them, and that allowing them to help him will make everyone stronger.

In my opinion, Dakota had the most personal growth out of the Prime Defenders from S1E1 to S2E40. He lost a lot of the innocence and pure optimism he had before, but the wisdom and patience he gained from it turned his passion for saving people and his genuine desire to do good into a more productive and successful energy that could save more lives than before. Sure, he had his silly moments- the consistent Fortnite jokes during his training arc, the goofiness of creating The Purps, etc. But his humor served to deepen his character, and the balance of genuine care and compassion for others with the humor and the struggles he faced (and still faces) just make him such a deep character.

He’s a silly goofy guy and he is one of the best written characters in modern hero stories.

[mach-talk]

Should I do my post on Arthur soon?

[mach-talk]

Sometimes playing dnd online is fun. Sometimes it’s forcing yourself and your scene partner to go “don’t look at chat” like a mantra because nobody can be serious.

[mach-talk]

Okay but JRWI editors, hear me out: an edit of Chip to the song TV by MICO 👀

[mach-talk]

Update: one of my party members found out about this. Fuck.

recently did a dnd pc commission over at ig! meet Moray, A Way of The Open Hand human monk! She was very fun to make!

my commissions are open if you'd be interested to take a look!

ko-fi || commissions

[mach-talk]

JRWI fans, tell me if this is something that makes sense to you: I think Dakota Cole is the first superhero in a VERY long time to feel like an actual superhero.

⚠️Spoilers ahead for both seasons of Prime Defenders, if you haven’t finished it already, what are you doing here?! Go watch it!!⚠️

I think Grizzly did a phenomenal job in his research of superhero media before making Dakota, and that research really paid off for how real Dakota feels as not just a hero, but as a person. Season 1 made me fall in love with the characters and the story, but as an avid Marvel skeptic, season 2 made me believe in the superhero genre again.

I’ve talked about my disdain for modern superhero movies before, but to condense it, I feel like they don’t really feel like HEROES as much as “the lesser of two evils in a fight that’s destroying a city.” A lot of modern heroes feel too gritty and gloomy, not the symbols of hope they’re meant to be, but only focusing on the reluctance of their position.

Dakota Cole’s story is different to me: we’re able to see all sides of it, the good and the bad, and spend enough time in those moments to feel what he feels. His story feels so perfect to the Hero’s Journey, both in what we start out with and what we learn along the way.

First and foremost, I’m grateful to see heroes that WANT to be heroes again, not just to save one person or some moral obligation, but for the sake of wanting to do good and help others. Prime Defenders as a whole is such a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre for its message, and it gets to the heart of what makes superhero movies good. It feels, for lack of a better word, colorful. In a world of low light and gritty heroes making hard decisions, we get moments like the fight for New Haven where the heroes came together with the sword to defeat the planet, or the showdown with Powerhouse, while we get silly moments like the Wasp Vs Bee debate or the chaos portal in the Winnebago. That doesn’t mean we don’t get dark or gritty scenes, of course- I’m still deeply impacted by Ashe’s sacrifice to save everyone, William’s spiral with his brother, and (most relevant to this rant) Dakota’s surgery. But because we got to see the whimsy and the heart behind the heroes, it just made all of those moments so much more impactful.

Dakota Cole, though, feels to me like the result of dissecting the superhero genre and finding what makes it so appealing and meaningful to people. He is, upon first glance, hopeful and confident, optimistic perhaps to a fault, and wants to see the best in people and bring out that goodness. He starts with a very rigid view of what good and evil is, but as his mindset shifts, we see him open up to other ideas of what goodness means to him.

You’d think this would immediately fall apart when he goes through the heartbreak and disillusionment of losing someone to a villain, and that’s what we see with Ashe’s loss in season 1. He is clearly devastated by the loss, but is the first to believe that they can bring him back. He even says it as some of his last words to Ashe before he becomes The Trickster- “Don’t forget that you have somewhere to come back to.” After the loss, though, he’s only more motivated to save his friend. He goes to train and get stronger, and is the one to suggest getting him back. Throughout season 2, as well, we see the backstory that had been set up throughout season 1 come back to the front, and how it impacts him not only as a hero, but as a regular person. His love for his aunt, his attitude towards others, his willingness to sacrifice…

The first thing that he did for himself, in my opinion, was the heart surgery to keep himself alive, and even that wasn’t all for him; it was largely to help William rather than just staying alive. But he was so desperate to help others that he found the thing he needed to learn most in order to be the hero the world needed: patience. His heart surgery and subsequent training with Master Cole taught him the patience he needed to put his abilities to use.

But I think what his training arc taught him best outside of patience- the lesson that stuck with me the most- was that it is okay to ask for help. In fact, one of the quotes that still sticks with me is the quote from Master Cole: “Sometimes, we can’t carry the weight of the world alone.” He spent two seasons up until this point trying to carry every burden on his own, but this was a turning point for him. He realized that he has a team for a reason, and that he doesn’t have to protect them, and that allowing them to help him will make everyone stronger.

In my opinion, Dakota had the most personal growth out of the Prime Defenders from S1E1 to S2E40. He lost a lot of the innocence and pure optimism he had before, but the wisdom and patience he gained from it turned his passion for saving people and his genuine desire to do good into a more productive and successful energy that could save more lives than before. Sure, he had his silly moments- the consistent Fortnite jokes during his training arc, the goofiness of creating The Purps, etc. But his humor served to deepen his character, and the balance of genuine care and compassion for others with the humor and the struggles he faced (and still faces) just make him such a deep character.

He’s a silly goofy guy and he is one of the best written characters in modern hero stories.

[mach-talk]

Hi, commissioner here! Wanted to take a moment to introduce her, and how she died.

If you are my dnd party, now would be a good time to scroll away.

She is an absolute bastard in every sense of the word, which is to say, a cocky and loud-mouthed girl who served as a poor excuse for a monk and had no time to get better, but plenty of time to haunt the narrative. Her primary weapons were her fish-hook spear and her makeshift meteor hammer that she nicknamed “Undertow.”

Moray started life as Allisandra Greydon, a wild child living in a small coastal village. At the detriment of the temple she was raised in, she would explore everything there was to offer- including pirate ships. She made friends with a mangy-looking girl on the outskirts of town- she didn’t care that she was a werewolf- and together they would explore and cause mischief.

She stowed away by accident when she snuck aboard the ship of a weird but cool man who gave money to the temple, and once she was discovered, she put up a fight to try to get back. She got her nickname because she bit the captain of the ship so hard when she was discovered that he still has the scar!

That man, turns out, was a monk, and began to teach her his ways. She stayed aboard the ship for ten years, but when she could no longer learn anything from her master, she was left on the shores of a different continent to further her training in-person. She ended up wandering aimlessly, nearly calling herself a fighter rather than a monk, when she found her party.

She met with our fighter and artificer, Yundin and Hjoldrum, first. They all three went hunting for a killer in the city, whom Yundin believed was a werewolf. Naturally, they find out that this werewolf is Cora, the werewolf from Moray’s childhood. They catch up, she is added to the party, and we meet Ophelia (a cleric with a gambling problem) and Ashera (the ranger/druid who is Way Too Fucking Cool™️) to finish our party.

What she didn’t know: Hjoldrum is also multiclassing… as a warlock bound to our BBEG. So before the party sets off to the capitol of this continent, Moray and Hjoldrum go to hunt for something to cook as rations. Moray climbs a tree, doesn’t see Hjoldrum lift the gun-

The shot hits her in the spine, paralyzes her legs. She falls from the tree, and suddenly the horrifying visage of the queen of demons is upon her. She congratulated Hjoldrum before lifting Moray up, crushing her and taking massive bites out of her, encasing her soul in a coin as his prize before leaving her half-eaten body there. Her last word? Cora. Her dying wish was to make sure the girl who was like the sister she never had was safe.

The party thinks it was a demon attack. It’s what we’d been investigating, and Hjoldrum had roughed himself up to make it look like they were both mauled. Cora was heartbroken; her player, my irl sister, actually screamed in rage at the table. They don’t know that her death was purposeful, that she was betrayed.

RIP my girl Moray, you were the biggest disaster lesbian and dumbest smart person in this world. May your legacy of pretending to be a valley girl to a cultist group and pulling the barmaid when nobody else could be remembered.

recently did a dnd pc commission over at ig! meet Moray, A Way of The Open Hand human monk! She was very fun to make!

my commissions are open if you'd be interested to take a look!

ko-fi || commissions

[mach-talk]

we dumped tea into the harbor for less

[mach-talk]

Are there any fans of both The Magnus Archives and Epic: The Musical on here? Like, do they overlap? Because I have thoughts.

⚠️You know the drill by now, spoilers for both Epic and TMA here.⚠️

I think Odysseus, as a major Greek hero, would be marked by a lot of entities the same way as he had the attention of a lot of gods. I think if we were to compare his time in The Iliad versus his time in The Odyssey, he was marked by The Hunt when he was a warrior of the mind, but lost favor after My Goodbye.

HOWEVER

I think Odysseus would be an Avatar of The End. Think about it: from Astyanax, Polities, Anticlea, Eurylochus, his WHOLE CREW… most everyone he loves is dead by the end of his journey, some by his own decisions. He is doomed in a way only an Avatar of The End can be.

I do think he was marked by two other entities, though: The Lonely, and The Slaughter. The Lonely would be a background force for the most part while he’s pining, but from Love In Paradise until the end of Odysseus it is in the forefront, feeding on the loneliness caused by The End’s influence. He would be truly marked by The Slaughter for the first time at the very end of Thunder Bringer, where it would take interest once he chooses himself over his crew, but it would be under the surface since Ruthlessness. It would bubble up and consume him during 600 Strike, but he would not be an Avatar of it- think Melanie when she was marked. It would have its fill from the end of 600 Strike to the end of Odysseus, but would fade once the danger against his family was gone and it wasn’t being fed anymore.

Penelope wouldn’t be an Avatar, but would definitely be marked. One of them, of course, would be The Lonely; she spent twenty years almost entirely alone, three of which were spent shut in her room to hide from the suitors. The other, though, would be The Web. Hear me out for this one: she had to be cunning to avoid upsetting the suitors during their time as a guest, as per the hospitality laws of Greece during this time. This, and the isolation of her situation, can be represented by the loom she uses to make Odysseus’s shroud. The loom is the first object we see her with when she is first introduced, and as she continues to buy him time, so too does she weave an intricate web of lies and dodging the suitors. She is just as cunning as her husband, but in a different way.

Telemachus would be marked too; he would be newly marked by The Hunt, like his father before, and learning what to do with the focus and power it gives him. The Little Wolf is still cutting his teeth, but he has that entity on his side.

Rant over, let me know what you think!

[mach-talk]

See, you get it.

⚠️Spoilers! Also, gonna be a long post.⚠️

Prime Defenders made me fall in love with superhero media for the first time. I truly dislike a lot of Marvel because I feel like it was such a large contributor to the uptick in gritty, broody, edgy superhero movies that don’t even feel like superhero movies, just action movies with simple motivations. Prime Defenders, though, feels like what superheroes are meant to be. They’re kind, they’re goofy, they’re hopeful, but above all they’re motivated. Not motivated just to defeat their enemies for the glory, but for the good of the people around them. And it’s believable. You can see how much they want to do good, and they don’t make mistakes in spite of this, but BECAUSE of it. They’re kids, and the cast shows this phenomenally; they’re impatient, rebellious, and get mad when heroes who have been through it before tell them that something won’t work. And even though they change- and save- the world, they still lose Ashe, and it fucks them up.

And then we get to season 2, after they’ve gone through all of these traumatic events, but especially losing someone so close to them, someone they fought so hard to keep. All of them fall into their coping mechanisms, but ultimately pull together to save him. When they do this, they rediscover why they set out to be superheroes in the first place, and become better heroes from it. They get closer through their struggle to get him back, and don’t just fight cartoon villains and in underground rings, but fight with each other on what they’re feeling. They’re complex, they show emotions, they cry and have outbursts and get depressed. And the way that the cast shows these emotions makes it that much better than other superhero media I’ve seen. They’re not just stoic heroes who save the world because of some stated moral expectation, but because they’re compassionate, and that can weigh heavily on them.

I can make a whole post on how their personalities are played out too, but this post is already getting too long. But my point remains: you’re absolutely right, and Prime Defenders as a whole made me believe in the superhero genre again.

& ive said this before but the thing is like. idk. things Can be that deep. its hard to play a character in a ttrpg for months or years and Not be genuinely attached to them u know. a game can have silly beats and also be serious. i feel like im yelling into the ocean telling jrwee fans this a lot of the time because. idk. maybe a lot of u are burned from mcytisms where a lot of it Is oh wow this creator genuinely doesn't give a shit and hates u. but pd specifically IS a serious campaign it IS meant to be weighty it IS meant to have heavy fucking themes and youre not reading way too much into it if u want to spend time with those themes. you can do that. its good. its free. its fun. half of the guys at that damn table have their characters inked permanently on their fucking skin grizzly talks like. monthly abt how important dakota is to him and how playing him made him go holy shit maybe i Can do this va thing for real maybe i Do want that. i think its entirely good and valid and the intended way to interact w/ the campaign TO take it seriously!! if they didnt want that i don't think pd would be Like That!!!

[mach-talk]

genuinely so poetic how most ex dsmp fans have moved on to different fandoms and people and content creators and yet we all still come together to gather like its the last supper whenever dream does some stupid shit. communal white man shaming unites the world like no other

[mach-talk]

I do this when people rb my posts as a whole.

I DO obsessively read peoples tags when they rb my art

And, yes, I DO kick my little feets and giggle when I get compliments

[mach-talk]

I’ve been DYING to talk about this.

⚠️Spoilers ahead!⚠️

Whether intentional or not, I think Charlie hit the nail on the head with a lot of BITB, especially as an allegory to the Satanic Panic itself. Here we are following a group that was directly impacted- stoners, counterculture participants, dnd players, and LGBTQ+ people. Meanwhile the evil here affected everyone, was found in everyday people. I think the biggest takeaway I took from this was how not everyone in Galloway started as a monster, but gradually it took over. To me, it feels like what happened with the fear mongering of counterculture, how it spreads around communities (especially small, rural communities) and makes people afraid of their neighbors for something as simple as provocative music or fantasy games. It even reaches the main crew at the end: Kian having to be brought back, Roland always being affected. It’s a really clever metaphor for conservative fear, and it’s why I always come back to it as a series.

i am deeply enjoying the bitb talks i've been having/seeing for the last few days

[mach-talk]

Well, you know, some bathroom graffiti offers insight.