#I should just randomly post it without context

[arthur-lesters-glabella]

Thinking about my shitty almost 100 page highschool paper analyzing and breaking down Good Omens through a queer lens. That was an insane time guys. That’s when I got Tumblr?? Every time I think of that I get a little more- Idek. Just wow-

[1dkreally-moved]

(spoken through gritted teeth) your experience is not universal your experience is not universal your experience is not universal y

[wonybi]

How Haikyuu Boys Would Confess Their Feelings

First post!! I apologize for any mistakes or if it's shit hehe (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) .ᐟ.ᐟ

Hinata Shoyo: He did it though text because he got too nervous but then realized he should've done it properly and biked to your place.

Kageyama Tobio: Accidentally blurted it out somehow when Tsukishima was teasing him about it, you just happened to be there. 

Tsukishima Kei: You kept provoking him in the middle of doing class work but for once he didn't retaliate, he kept avoiding you until one day you cornered him and he confessed his feelings. It was your turn to be quiet, and he was loving it. 

Yamaguchi Tadashi: He was a nervous wreck, in his head all he wanted to do was stay in the shadows and admire you from afar, however he did promise Shimada he would try and be more confident, so he confessed when you ran into each other at the store

Tanaka Ryunosuke: Probably liked you since he first saw you, so probably confessed right then and there. 

Nishinoya Yuu: He was pretty shy at first but he would make sure that he does it properly and make sure to make a grand gesture out of it to wow you. He'd show up at your door randomly and get down on one knee and confess while you just stand there blinking at him. 

Sawamura Daichi: There was this guy who kept bothering you and there were many times where he stepped up and defended you from him. So one day after it happened he confessed to you and asked you out to make sure that guy would never come near you again.

Sugawara Koshi: Was studying with you and you caught sight of some scribbles and doodles on his notebook, you pretended not to see it but he caught you. He passed you a note later on confessing his feelings for you and asking you out.

-

/ᐠ - ˕ -マ

Kuroo Tetsuro: He was always pretty flirty with you, but you figured it was just his personality. So the time he tried to sit you down and confess you thought it was a joke.. whoops

Yaku Morisuke: You were pestering him about who he had a crush on and he told you to guess, he kept saying no to every girl you said until you guessed yourself… he went real quiet after. 

Kozume Kenma: He'd build something for you in the shared Minecraft server and just leave out signs confessing his feelings, most likely not wanting to do it in person. 

Haiba Lev: He invited you to watch one of his practice matches against another school and once he won he excitedly came up to you and asked you out with a new profound confidence.

-

⊹₊♕₊⊹

Oikawa Toru: Was trying to fend off his fangirls and grabbed you saying that he wasn't interested. You asked him if he was for real (teasingly) however he blushed and confessed his feelings after his fangirls left. 

Iwaizumi Hajime: Was contemplating it for a while because you and him were pretty good friends and he was hesitant to even do something, one day he just decided that he should do it and immediately called you and confessed before he has the chance to chicken out, bought you flowers the next time you meet.

-

ᓀ ᵥ ᓂ

Bokuto Kotaro: He'd make a card and give it to you, watching you as you opened it with the biggest grin on his face.

Akaashi Keiji: He'd write out a heartfelt letter and leave it at your desk, he left the class as soon as you returned. You caught him outside the gym (much to his dismay). 

-

🦅࿐

Ushijima Wakatoshi: He'd stop you in the middle of the hallway or catch you as you're about to leave and just blunty reveal he has feelings for you. 

Semi Eita: Made those playlists where the songs form a sentence and just sent it without context. 

Tendou Satori: Kept throwing hints at you but you never caught them, and honestly gave up and told you one day with a box of chocolates. 

-

⪩. .⪨

Kita Shinsuke: He'd make you a basket with some snacks that he knows you love and leave it at your door. 

Miya Atsumu: You could hear some rustling near you as you attempted to study, however you felt a looming presence after a while and decided to look up, you saw the one and only Miya Atsumu standing next to you and you caught sight of his infamous two friends behind him. He blocked their view and started flirting with you before sighing and confessing his feelings properly. 

Miya Osamu: He'd wait until valentine's day and prepare some chocolate or sweets, he'd wait for you to arrive at school (making sure to arrive sooner than Atsumu), and confess with his gift of delicious sweets (Definitely expects you to share with him).  

Suna Rintaro: He sent you a meme and left you on read when you asked about it. Genuinely could not tell if he was for real until you chased him down next time you saw him.

[judesmoonbeauty]

Can you give the context of BLE chap 25? Pleasee

Hi anon, of course! - MDNI

Longish post

25 BLE starts the morning after Kate and Jude sleep together. While Jude is still sleeping, Kate wraps a sheet around herself and explores his room because she's never been inside of it. As she's looking at all the books on his bookshelf, she doesn't realize that he's come up behind her. He hugs her from behind and calls her out for sneaking around his room.

He says it's fine though because he'll just do something in exchange for it, so he slides his hand down her waist before he rips off her sheet. He pinches her nipple with one hand and then slips a finger inside her with his other hand. He teases her verbally, and then Kate asks him if they're now a couple which surprises Jude.

He says she should know without him saying it, and she argues that some things can't be understood without words. Jude never says 'I love you' to her. Instead, he grabs her by the chin and kisses her with force, and marks a snarky comment that she turned red when she was kissed by a man who isn't her lover (he's implying he is her boyfie), and she says, "then we are a couple." Kate is satisfied with that because she never expected normal words of love from Jude.

Before she can kiss him, he pulls his finger out and says he's got a business meeting that morning. Kate, who is is now wet and horny, asks about the continuation. Jude laughs and tells her to finish off herself, and that's what she gets for cheating him. She asks if he's upset that she consulted Victor and the other Crown members instead of him, about staying at Crown. He says she can think what she wants to think and then leaves......

Darius asks Nica if Jude would be a good fit for their family, and Nica is like...uhhhh, no.

Jude also gives Victor heaps of paperwork and contracts to sign as his punishment for going behind his back to help Kate remain at Crown. Still, he thinks Jude is as vindictive and adorable as ever. Ellis says that up until now, Jude has never once been happy, but since it seems to Ellis that he's at his peak happiness, so he asks Victor if he thinks it's okay to kill Jude now. Victor laughs and says that he can kill him later. Ellis is disappointed, but agrees and then he tells Victor he's going to deliver something to Kate.

However, Kate is not at Crown because she is under cover as a new recruit for a criminal group that's been causing a ruckus lately, and who now have been using Raven Co's products for nefarious purposes. Jude isn't having that.

Kate is in a luxurious room filled with men, booze and smoke. Her part of the mission was to go undercover and steal confidential information, which she already has, so now she's just waiting for Jude's arrival to start his revenge as her signal to leave. But, a thug comes in and says that Jude's been captured, which surprises Kate.

Flash back to a few days before prior to the mission when Jude and Kate are reviewing the operation details, (in which Kate narrates that after they became a couple, Jude often randomly touches Kate, but it's also a regular occurrence that he does before each mission.)

So, we have a very touchy-feely boyfriend.

Any way, Kate repeats the plan to Jude. She'll be undercover for three days, and then he will show up at 8:00 pm on the third day. He asks if she remembers her promise she made to him, and she reiterates that she promises she won't die. Jude says that when it's all over he's going to make love to her until she's hoarse, but her improv skills suck so....

Kate denies that statement, and says that she can too improvise and adapt in any situation. Jude smiles and says he looks forward to it.

Back to the present, Kate realizes that Jude got caught on purpose because he wants to see what she can do. This both annoys her that he'd do something like that to his girlfriend, and excites her because that means that Jude has complete trust in her abilities and he recognizes her. So, she calls out to her boss that she'll take care of Jude Jazza.

When she walks into the room where he's being held in handcuffs, the group is cheering for her to kill him gloriously, and she says to just leave it to her. Kate notices that although Jude looks beaten, his amethyst eyes are twinkling with a smile. She walks up to him and straddles his lap, points her gun at him and asks how she should kill him. The two quietly talk to each other as the people around them jeer for his death, and Kate suggests a bullet to the brain.

Jude says that's fine, but if that happens then she won't get her treat later on. Kate retorts that without her his life would be boring, and Jude admits that while may be true, he's going ruin her life for the rest of her life until they're in hell together. He'll never let her go. Kate says that's fine, they can suffer until they die, together.

His cuffed hands are hugging her waist, and before you know it he's got the cuffs removed, and Kate shoots her gun, and the both of them laugh and smile together as they bring down the criminal group, in his cycle of hatred and revenge.

Let's keep making unfulfilled promises to each other. -So long as I can dream the same dream as you.

The last two lines that finish the chapter are rough translations.

[auroratumbles]

first of all, do NOT in any way harass nor send hate to anyone mentioned in this post. this is simply to raise awareness about it all!!

user @/ceneid (formerly) was a popular person in the genshin writing community who lied about their age, identity, faked an ed, and was just mainly a shitty person in general.

all the information on this post comes from an anonymous source

the blogs that were owned by elise are:

ceneid

hikoiaa

umiloa

ha-yami

scarasgfreal

symphxony

fionvancia

fixnaie

a quote from my source:

"for context, elise ran a total of 4-5 accounts, with her very first blog being ceneid that was also mutuals with you - they’re the same person. elise had multiple accounts where she claimed she was different ages and it was fairly obvious it was her due to the fact that she didn’t bother to change her typing style or themes, one of the blogs claimed she was 18, a few of my friends and i ended up noticing she had a terrible tendency to say things like “oh i haven’t eaten in 20 hours! should i eat? oh nvm” and such which led to everyone being concerned, these were EXTREMELY frequent, and she’d speak about self harm - randomly putting it in a casual conversation without warning.

she also asked for my location at some point, and overall i eventually grew tired of it and blocked her. later on, someone i know made a callout post on her and it ended in shambles, elise continued to try to get them to take the post down but to no avail until elise deactivated ceneid and started the hikoiaa blog. the person who made the post found out it was her and the cycle continued, until elise ended up admitting everyone and apologized to everyone per the person’s request.

after elise did that, the person deactivated their blog thinking elise had changed for the better - and i even interacted with her too because i thought the same thing. unfortunately, we were all wrong and found out elise owned the @/symphxony blog where she says she’s 17. multiple things have it away that it was her such as coincidentally posting the same things, following the exact same people, and elise also bypassed someone’s boundaries by interacting with them through the blog as a way to become friends with them despite the person telling her to not interact with her directly.

elise made excuses when i confronted her and told her to stop, and she played it off as coincidences like she did before when the owner of the call out post tried to talk things out with her. i have people who can vouch for everything im saying, as well as some screenshots that would unfortunately not fit into this ask because there’s too many of them, she also has this strange obsession with following and interacting with people that i follow and interact with in any shape or form, this has happened almost 7 times now as well. she’s constantly made blogs to follow me on despite me telling her to NEVER contact me again. this stopped a few days ago when she blocked me."

screenshots provided were

another quote:

"elise’s stories never made sense, they were always exaggerated and/or made her seem smarter than she actually was - this was a small bit of the proof that she was lying about her age at the end when she claimed to be 16. she linked a few tiktoks on her blog, revealing her account in the process that studied 7th grade science"

she was called out by someone else on tumblr initially, but that post was lost to the depths. she lied about having a joint blog with someone when it was really just her. to save her own skin, she dmed them.

when that blog blocked her, she made a 'burner account' to talk to them even more.

another blog named 'scarasgfreal' was made. they were 𝜗𝜚 anon and 🦢 anon. the blog was made a few days after the incident mentioned above.

the blog confronted elise.

part 2 of this post

[bendyartistic]

Be aware of alexbstudios.

Over the course of what I believe a few months maybe, Alex has been harassing me with strange behavior and as of recent hurtful remarks too. He's been bothering other people as well from what I've seen. Probably going to say I should've just blocked him, but I wanted to keep an eye on things just in case. Today was the point in time after everything that I realized I should let people know about this kid.

I want to show from the beginning to present time of the interactions he's done with me. And maybe something can be done about getting him off the platform...

Firstly I want to say Alex has admitted to being 12 years old... apparently. I know this from this reblog. This already is a very large red flag. Considering the young age, no a callout doesn't seem right but I still want to warn people regardless since he's still active on the platform.

Though I am uncertain if this is true, he did not confirm nor deny my question about it.

Now lets get to the start of things. I don't like people reposting my art anywhere without credit, surely that can be said for everyone.

Randomly in May Alex reposted my art, no credit, mention of who made it, or where it came from. I should mention Alex had been following me well before this post, so he knew who I was. Rightfully I responded with a request to take it down as I didn't appreciate this.

Upon making this request he made a small complaint about it, which was unneeded. While he did "delete" the post, it still technically there, just edited. Therefore never officially removed like I had asked.

He also uploaded two other drawings I did, but he did not remove those ones.

Not too long ago on a post I made showcasing my Chris model, as it had been a while since I posted it, and I wanted to let people see it.

Alex later said some... questionable things about it. And it really made me uncomfortable to say the least.

For context in my AU, my Chris is 29. This has been stated before a few times.

I want to get to the biggest thing here however, as this is what drove me to make this post. The consistent weird and hateful DM's he has sent me.

I have told Alex to leave me alone on several different occasions and he has refused to do so. Again I know I should've blocked but as I said, just wanted to wait in case. Truth is I don't like blocking people, never have, I feel weird doing it. But anyways Alex made a poll a week ago if I recall correctly of whether or not he should keep or delete his account. The poll won on keep. No sooner did this happen, Alex was in my DM's bothering me about it after I again told him to leave me alone.

The DM's are as followed with context and info:

He responded with something along the lines of "Then my account would become lost media!" to which I only responded "No one really cares."

Next post is where Alex starts to mock me for being slow with my replies. I don't quite understand what speed he expects me to write my replies at, I guess 5 seconds?

So as you have noticed Alex is now making fun of my autism, and it's going to continue in this unfortunately. Bringing up a disability in an argument should not happen. However at some point Alex accused me of creating alts to vote against his poll, I have none.

I'm not sure why me specifically... and I hate how me being "slow" keeps getting brought up. Also racism is somehow brought into this as well.

He spammed me with the same image repeatedly, and it continued for a while. Passing that, he wanted me to run the same poll he did on if I should keep or delete my account. I obviously declined.

He then blocked me after this.

Alex in the past DM'd me, when he made those remarks about my Chris model. I wasn't happy then and I'm still not about it.

I'm still puzzled as to why he calls being blocked as banned. Besides that this comes to the end of the DM ark. Alex has done other things, such as suggest people to draw strange stuff, edited other peoples work, steal other peoples work, and tried to stir up drama at one point.

In conclusion,

Alex is immature. And should not be here, especially this fandom. But in general he should not be online, it is clear he has unlimited access to whatever he wants.

I am sorry to my friends and others who have had to deal with him. That is all I have to say.

Any questions or whatnot is fine. Reblogs are appreciated in order to spread the word.

[dereks-unrelenting-heart]

SFTH Chaotic Highlights (The Dark Moons of Slough)

My fourth longform highlights post and I think I'm getting better at this commentary thing

Starting off with yet another example of Luke and Sam being on the exact same wavelength. Luke hears the title, gets onstage, within a second starts cackling like a witch, and Sam joins in with zero hesitation. I love their dynamic so much, they bounce off each other so well

Luke's insistence on having 3 witches like it's Hocus Pocus or something-

AJ's voice dying while he tries to do a witch voice lmao

Synchronized improv must be insane to attempt, the fact their little chant made any sense at all is astonishing tbh

And yes, the witches' spell building up the scene just for it to create soup to win a food festival is pretty funny

Have any of the fanartists drawn the witches with their big ball of floating soup? Because I just really wanna see that visualized

"We do not speak of the Great Wizard, Ascaroth!" Only a matter of time before someone fucks up that name

"We don't do it anymore, we just call him.. That PrickTM"

I wasn't 100% sure but yeah, The Big Book of Soups does in fact exist. And now I want it, purely as an inside joke

Before a quick google search, I did not know who Jamie Oliver was, so the whole first run through this play I had no idea what the naked chef jokes were referencing, I just appreciated them without context. Just like I did for the entirety of The Prime Minister's First Day (because American)

Sam taking any opportunity to moan #1 (probably not actually the first time, but I'm gonna start a tally istg)

I like when someone tries to set up a plot point and we as the audience get to watch it either slowly fade away or burn up on impact. "Maybe we should sabotage That PrickTM" by Sam is an example of the latter

The bottled soup bit where Sam's confused (because apparently it's a Spain thing) and Luke also being confused (because I'm certain he completely blanked on the fact bottled soup is not normal to see in the UK)

Another thing they do a lot is when two characters are bickering and quickly descend into unintelligible noises and a third person typically has to calm them down

AJ deciding to randomly sing That PrickTM's name (yes I'll be doing that the entire post), and Sam just has to explain it away by saying it's his ringtone

Hugh Fernly Whittingstone/Stall might be the fastest name fuck-up they've ever had. But I think the subtitles are the only ones that noticed, so it barely counts

Might need to start a tally for AJ entering the scene as a random animal as well

This time, only to get brutally murdered and eaten. The most fucked up thing I've laughed at in a while, that was an insane move on Sam's part

No, I will not be trusting that process Sam

No wonder the witches call him That PrickTM

"It's me, Jamie Oliver" AJ acting like this is new, previously secret information

"I know it's dark magic, Jamie. How else would someone like you become a famous chef?" Okay I didn't learn that much about him, do people not like Jamie Oliver?

Live reaction while making this post: "Hey Jemima, good to see you again :) Last time we would've seen you was.. wait IS THIS THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF JEMIMA?!"

Jemima origins

"What happened last time with the witches was a one-off thing" As this series goes, we'll soon learn how much AJ loves using the phrase 'one-off thing', I can think of 2 examples off the top of my head but y'all are just gonna have to wait and see

Yeah Jemima, she's always had the snort, don't be a dick about it

"What if the witches enter again?" Very curious what happened with the witches the last time, because they seem relatively harmless this year

Sam entering with his perfect comedic timing as a 'young boy'

"From the valleys" deserves to be in one of those sfth vocal stim compilations

AJ's internal monologue "Okay I need to differentiate this character somehow but we don't have props today. This character is obviously evil, he provides dogs to be cooked for God's sake.. Oh I know!" *wraps himself in curtain* "A CLOAK!"

"Why are you dressed like Emperor Palpatine?" Hold on, I need to google something... Yeah, that's funny.

Unexpected Calm app shoutout

AJ searching desperately through his mind catalogue for the word 'update'

They're doing a bunch of what I'd assume is difficult shit, now Sam's out here improvising soup recipes (that double as classic witch spells that make you speak in tongues)

I'm with Luke, what is so funny about 75 years of soup tasting?

Why do I love the way Sam says 'the valleys' so much, it's so funny to me and I will repeat it every goddamn time

"Memories flooding back of childhood" "It's like Ratatouille" I guess I gotta rewatch Ratatouille

Love their universal sing of flashback being repeating the last phrase over and over while they spin around awkwardly

"I have to go find my mother" He abandons the scene and the play ends, roll credits

When one of them yells with such a random aggression "The competition, don't ruin THE COMPETITION!"

"Then I will find mama" "Yes, you'll deal with that later.." AJ's character are very good at not caring at all recently

"I was hold back" Please AJ, grammatically continue

"This soup is called leek leek leek" Leek³ you might say

Luke laughing in the middle of his character's second memory-related breakdown as he realizes how dumb this is

"Which of you is my real mama??" I think Past Hugh just drugged himself

Forgot to mention Witch #1 as Luke's first gremlin mode character in my sfth recurring roles post

Luke: "I'm a 16 year old!" Still Luke: "Do all of you just announce your ages?" Luke just setting himself up like that

".... Leek" "We've got a theme going" Okay but the real question is, are all of them from The Valleys?

"You took my mother from me" Oh did Jamie Oliver kill Hugh's m- "We've been on many, many long evenings" Oh Jamie Oliver FUCKED Hugh's mom

Wizard Duel (featuring Sam with special effects) goes hard

"16 raw eggs!" I don't think that's a spell, I think you're just pelting him with raw eggs

Wait a second, is this whole duel just a food fight where they magically summon all of their ammo-

"What score do I get?" "... 9.8, that was fucking good" Bro went on one hell of a trip

"Ah yes of course, Akaram" Hey now, we all know the Great Wizard's name is That PrickTM

"Get it right, you racist" Aside from the fact I have no idea who this would be racist towards, it's giving the same vibes as the one Book Game where Tom calls the Chinese book Japanese and Sam ofc takes the fuck-up as a chance to call him a bigot

*Me, watching this play for like a 4th time* "... Wait.. Something's off here.... WHERE THE FUCK IS TOM?"

I know where Luke is most of the time when he's gone, but where's Tom at? Same question for Sam during Burglary and Bobsleds

"Stiff like the naked chef's erection inside your mother?" ".. How public was the dream I just had?" That moment you relive your traumatic backstory via magic/drug/leek soup and it turns out they were broadcasted to the rest of the crowd as well, so now the whole city knows Jamie Oliver fucked your mom

I literally just rewatched this a few days ago and I've already forgotten what That PrickTM's soup did

Jamie Oliver: *gets possessed* That PrickTM: "Ainsley Harriott has joined us as well" Well off I go to google another English chef

Turns out the captions spelled his name wrong

Luke having to play his own character's mother is very in character of him actually

"By the power of the Great British Bake Off" fucking GOT ME-

"Mother, you're alive!" "Just about" wtf does that mean??

Final Thoughts: Oh the power you hold when you're the first one onstage.. Who knew Luke's witch cackle could bring us a story of leek soup, missing mothers, and an evil English chef

[fellow-human-writer]

On writing motivation and writer's block (+ a special piece of my own writing)

So, for a self-proclaimed writer, I haven't been doing very well with my writing lately. It's been well over six months now since I last wrote anything of substance (I spent two weeks writing a chapter every day and burned myself out, but that's a story for another day). Right now, it's hard to not feel a bitter sense of guilt about it all. Where has all my motivation gone? How dare I call myself a writer? Maybe I should just forget about it. I'd never make it anyway. But then, I remember one particular piece of writing I produced over 9 months ago, some time before hitting my big wall. A seemingly random fragment from chapter 9 of my semi-abandoned WIP. Perhaps it will read as nothing special to you. I won't claim it to be perfect, or even great writing. But to me, it is hope. I showed it to my one and only beta (more like alpha) reader at the time, who'd been keeping up with my novel-writing endeavors, and they told me that these paragraphs had evoked deep feelings in them. That they were beautiful. It won't have that effect on everyone—hell, it won't have it on most people. But, at the very least, I made one person feel something beautiful with my writing. I know that. And is that not what this is all about? As long as I can make one person feel, maybe it's all worth it after all. I will keep calling myself a writer. I won't give up. And I guarantee, you reading this right now have the ability to make people feel too, no matter what. Be strong, friend. I will be rooting for you. I want to share that special fragment of mine with you all. It's out of context, given that it's from chapter 9 of a novel, but I think it can mostly stand on its own. One crucial piece of worldbuilding first: The main trait this fantasy world has is that its two continents (gigantic floating islands/landmasses) are situated in such a way that the one on top (the "highlands") block most of the light/sky for the residents of the one below (the "lowlands"), which is where our POV character currently is, going through some magical trial or other (you'll see!) Without further ado, here's said piece of writing. I hope at least one of you out there who randomly came across this post enjoys it :]

Leiden looked up. The base of the highlands couldn't be more than a couple dozen paces away. From so up close it felt even more oppressive than usual. He noticed a second plaque, inlaid in the roof of the tower, where he was standing. There was more to the trial, as he suspected. After reading its contents, however, he felt confused. ‘I'm glad to see you make it here. Your task is simple: Feast upon the beauty of the sky.’ He looked up again. It would be hard to feast upon what wasn't there. If he looked to the sides, he could just barely make out the thin lines of sky visible beyond the highlands. It didn't feel like enough to exactly feast upon. For the sake of trying something, he lied down with his back to the stone. He had enjoyed cloud watching, back when he was above. Even though there were only rocks on top of him, he wrapped his hands behind his head, and tried to remember the feeling of admiring the sky. He closed his eyes and pictured a summer afternoon, with an open sky decorated by a few lonely clouds. What was the point of this trial? Maybe it had once been possible to see the sky from here. Had the highlands not always been above the lowlands? Perhaps it was all part of the trial. Slowly, those complicated thoughts ran out of steam, and Leiden became fully involved in his personal sky, and his little clouds. It was nice. It had been a while since he'd felt like he could afford to take a moment to just relax. He saw shapes of all kinds in the clouds, as they swirled and morphed and danced with the wind. Sometimes the sun peeked from behind, bathing him in rays of light. He realized there was no need to limit himself to one kind of sky. A wave of darkness swept over the azure background, and small brilliant dots started to cover the sea of black. The moon stood out amongst them all, shining with borrowed light. It seemed larger than usual, like it was stretching to cover Leiden's view to the fullest extent it was capable of. For a moment, within himself, Leiden stopped feeling alone as he became part of a whole. He was a blade of grass, swaying in the dirt, surrounded by acres of grassy fields. He was a star, shining with the endless power of the sun; a speck, part of a map of dots where each one represented wonders beyond a human’s capability to understand. He was everything, and yet he was nothing at all. It was a realization that often eluded a species defined by their willingness to work against nature. What separates a human from an eagle, soaring through the clouds; or an ant, working hard for the good of its colony? What makes us so different from a flower, helping the bee produce its food in exchange for having their lineage continued? Are we so different from a gust of wind, ephemeral in its passing, yet meaningful all the same? Leiden felt like a mote of dust, suspended in a beam of light. Visible only as long as the sun shined, yet always there. He floated in the air, no longer supported by the steady stone beneath him. Well done, child, a voice said. He was so surprised by the voice that he snapped out of his daydreaming. He opened his eyes and realized that he really was floating—or he had been, until the free fall started.

Thank you sincerely for taking the time to read it. It means a lot. I would love to hear what more people think of it. I'm still severely lacking as a writer, but I'm proud of it. It's more poetic than what I usually produce. That's all for today, friends. I hope you have a wonderful day. Good luck on your writing endeavors! We'll make it through, together <3

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

That last ask about Animaestro, about LB's cat phobia made me remember that this chapter, chronologically, is before Chat Blanc... So, now I can't help but wonder if that was supposed to be some type of foreshadowing and/or the creator giving us a bit of a low-key spoiler.

It would have been a nice touch, if Maribug really got some screen PTSD (that someone from the PR Team said on their twitter that she indeed has it?). Yes, I know there is that chapter where she has this nightmare about Alya betraying her, but there is nothing else.

Awesome blog, btw, I love your pov regarding this show. I don't really feel that you are aggressively salty, just dissappointed about the wasted potential (like some of us). Even your "salt" towards the writers is pretty tame, but still pretty sure That Guy would block you lol.

(Post in question)

That's an interesting theory. I wouldn't put money on it being intentional, but it is totally possible! Chat Blanc was probably in the writers' minds for a while.

And did someone really claim that she officially has PTSD? Oh boy... I don't want to imply that mental health conditions only present in one way because they absolutely don't! There are a wide variety of ways that they can present themselves! There's also not a tried and true way for someone with PTSD to be triggered. Triggers can be really weird and seemingly make no sense. Things that seemingly should be triggers can somehow not effect you in the slightest and things that seem benign can be massively triggering. Brains are weird like that.

However, this is a story, so I can evaluate Marinette as a tool used to rep someone suffering from PTSD and not as a real person with PTSD who has no obligation to meet any sort of arbitrary standard. In that context, I feel comfortable saying that Marinette was not good rep. You don't get over PTSD by talking to your boyfriend and it's usually not a minor condition that lies dormant most of the time, letting you go about your life without any need for professional help.

One of my biggest pet peeves is stories giving characters a disability that never actually effects their life in a meaningful way. (Yes, PTSD is considered a disability or at least it can be one depending on how it presents.) They're called disabilities for a reason! They can and do have massive impacts on peoples' lives. If you want to include rep, then do it right! Don't give Marinette this condition and then only let it effect her when it's convenient for the story! Figure out her triggers and then let them effect her throughout the narrative because that's how PTSD works! If you don't want to do that, then don't say that she has PTSD.

You can be traumatized without getting PTSD. That is a thing. PTSD is not a synonym for trauma. It's a specific type of trauma response. It's also a real medical condition that requires professional help and a lot of hard work to manage because PTSD never really goes away. You just hopefully learn how to live with it and, in the process, get your symptoms to a manageable state.

Here are some examples of moments when Marinette's PTSD could have triggered, keeping in mind that this is a fictional character and not a real person, meaning that we're looking at this from a "set up the reveal" perspective and not a "people with PTSD have to react to this kind of trigger" perspective.

These moments from Dark Cupid and Derision are a perfect opportunity to show Marinette randomly panicking and to then bring it back during the reveal:

[Image description: two pictures of Kim down on one knee holding out a gift. The first image is from Dark Cupid and the second is from Derision.]

Marinette falling into the same pool in Derision and Mr. Pigeon 72 is another good one:

[Image description: two pictures of Marinette falling off of the same diving board. The first image is from Mr. Pigeon 72 and the second is from Derision.]

These were prime moments to show off her PTSD in a way that fit the story, but they didn't. Yet her condition is so bad that she panics over a bowl of cereal at the start of Derision, implying that her PTSD is pretty darn extreme! If it's that bad, then we should see at least a few hints of it before Derision or even after Derision, but we don't unless we're counting the many, many, many jokes told at Marinette's expense. Hopefully no one is arguing that those should count because using a trauma response for jokes is not quality rep. It also feels like a total cop out because the panic attacks in Derision are played in a wildly different manner from all the times Marinette freaked out in a silly, over-the-top way. It's not intuitive to connect those moments and it should be if those were supposed to be a true setup for the PTSD reveal. They weren't even treated as foreshadowing where Marinette's actions made no sense! Just what are we even doing here, writers?

If the writers are claiming that her PTSD comes from Chat Blanc and not Derision, then we have many examples of Chat Noir getting a white makeover without bothering Marinette, once again begging the question of where her PTSD is? What are her triggers? How is she learning to handle it?

I'll end this section by noting that I do know people who are officially diagnosed with PTSD and I even discussed Marinette with one of them, which is why I feel so comfortable saying that this is bad rep, though obviously you should defer to real experts on this one. If they say that this is great rep and that Marinette is presenting in a way that I'm not familiar with, then ignore me! My sample size is very limited.

I'll finish this off with a quick thank you for the lovely complement:

I don't really feel that you are aggressively salty

My goal is to come across as giving a critical assessment of canon and not just angry ranting, so this was very nice to hear! I want this blog to make you think, I'm really not looking to be angry or to make other people angry. I can't say that I'd blame That Guy for blocking me, though! I've never found creators doing that to be some kind of bad sign. Who wants to read brutal, unsolicited take-downs of their work? That's a special kind of doom scrolling. I'm a big fan of the "reviews are for readers" stance.

[liedownquisition]

A Paltry "Defense" of RHATO (From someone who actually kind of hates RHATO) Part 2

Part 1 (Cheshire, Lian, and recognizing the basis of a reboot), Part 3 (A Generous Take on Intent vs Execution, and Koriand'r)

Disclaimer: I'm not kidding about not liking it yadda yadda yadda and, for further context re: this part in particular. Roy Harper is my second favorite character in the entire DCU, only surpassed by Black Canary herself, so I need you to understand how complicated this one is for me.

Before I really get into it I'd like to add a little bit of extra content that ties the last post to this one, namely this:

This is from This Fan Answers Interview.

I keep seeing posts about Why is "x/y/z hanging out with JASON, they're (Insert other bat but mostly Dick or Tim, tbh)'s friend." Do you guys bitch about this when Wally hangs out with & gets along better with Connor instead of Roy? Or, idk, Kyle's friendship with Roy and relationship with Donna, who is Roy's ex? What about the fact that Damian and Rose struck up a friendship bcs of their similar-ish pasts? The fact that Conner was Tim's friend ("friend"?) first before dating Cass? When Tim was part of the Titans which had membership overlaps with Dick's Titans? When DAMIAN was on the Titans which had membership overlaps with the previous two's teams (barring weird age-fuckery)?

DC is an interconnected universe with all kinds of characters with all kinds of different storylines meeting and hanging out and fighting together esp when there's an overlap of interests/work. The "cape" community is fundamentally the same thing as a hobby club, except the hobby is fighting crime (and/or evil which sometimes aren't the same thing). So it's not even weird for people who are friends of a friend or friend of a sibling/ect. to just kind of meet up randomly and organically form their own relationship. Separate from the other people that they know. This is also normal in real life. Seriously do you know how many people I know who are/did date/marry their sibling's best friend? or just generally became better friends with them than the sibling who originally knew them?? or the fact that it's a popular romance trope? Or how many (okay only like, two that I knew personally-ish) people dated and married their sibling's ex-fiancee??? ALSO A NOT TERRIBLY UNCOMMON ROMANCE TROPE? NOT TO MENTION THE PEOPLE WHO ARE STILL FRIENDS WITH THEIR EX-FIANCE/SPOUSE'S FAMILIES?

Just because people are known for having a specific connection to one character, doesn't mean they can't, or shouldn't, have connections with others. Or, that the connections they do or don't have can change. Y'all're just assholes who are mad someone doesn't play dolls the way you want them to. Grow up. Additionally, this should also apply to Cheshire. She shouldn't always be restricted to Roy & Lian, either. As a child, it's understandable that Lian's everything was largely tied to her parents, but even pre-Rebirth she had her own relationships with, say, Mia or Rose or Dinah. YES those are relationships are somewhat because of Roy, but they're still their own thing.

Now, before I get too into this I want to state that inasfar as RHATO is concerned, Lobdell is not the sole writer throughout its run, and when it comes to analyzing the characters' personalities (as this post is going to focus on Roy), I'm going to analyze them separately. Lobdell's Outlaws are different from Tynion's Outlaws are different from Pfeiffer's brief run with the Outlaws. And I'm going to focus mostly on Lobdell, because he's the one everyone always gets mad about, but Tynion holds enough blame (and my ire) to get a decent chunk of attention as well.

Without further ado,

FBAT (Frequently Bitched About Topics):

I'd like to start this particular topic (Roy) off with something I see a lot and that, after reading, I've discovered is so very patently false that I made a meme about it too:

"It's Jason's fault Roy relapsed. RHATO/Lobdell are the reason for the trope of Jason "fixing" Roy's addiction. Roy is just there for Jason to look better by saving him from it."

This one is actually a little fascinating to me. Like, where does this idea come from? The earliest ao3 jayroy fic that involves anything along these lines debuted a month before RHATO came out. A month before the sneak preview even came out, actually. I could not find any platonic fics that predated that either, but the point stands that clearly, we don't need canon content to derive this trope. Yes, we knew at least a bit of Lobdell's opinions on Roy as a recovering addict, even before then, but they're not the kind that really springs to mind "he needs someone to save him," you know? And, frankly, Lobdell doesn't seem to see it that way either.

Throughout RHATOv1 and, later, Red Hood/Arsenal, Lobdell seems to view Roy's sobriety as almost sacrosanct. At no point in these issues when Jason and Roy share any screentime does Roy EVER relapse, which is particularly interesting, because there's another title that exists in the time somewhat parallel(?)* with the end of RH/A called Titan's Hunt. And, well...

Roy fails his sobriety right in the first issue of Titans Hunt and spends a majority of it drunk, or with other members of the Titans forcing him to remain sober. *I'm a little unclear on when exactly it happens. RH/A started release in August 2015 & Titans Hunt in December of that same year. There's not exactly a lot of space to fit it in, but it's also referenced in RH/A #11...

Counter to this in the second issue of RH/A:

"Rockabilly genius" is Lobdell's... idk, tagline for Roy in RH/A. He does the same thing with Starfire in RHATO by emphasizing her as an "alien former-slave princess" and "living nuclear reactor." Is it stupid? Yes. I hate it so fucking much guys you have no idea.

Now, other than that one reference to it, it otherwise makes the most sense to have it happen like... after RH/A since it pretty much leads directly into Titans: Rebirth and then Titans (2016), the reformation of the OG-ish Titans team, but y'know whatever. Comics, man.

The funniest part about this is RHATOv1 has not one but TWO addiction plotlines, that run CONCURRENTLY, but neither of them are Roy. Actually, Roy's mostly down for the count or working out his issues with Ollie for the bulk of it. Instead, Starfire and Jason have their own issues going on. Personally, I think Jason's was slightly more realistic of the two, and had some juicy potential considering that Bruce once had a Venom addiction storyline, but that was dropped soooo fast after it was picked up.

Also? While it could be argued that Jason leaving him potentially prompted his downward spiral in Hunt... It's really interesting to me that the last "relapse" we see from Roy prior to HiC... wasn't actually a relapse at all.

Titans (2016) #20

Cheshire is well known for using toxins on her nails to poison people, it looks like this time she decided to use the drug that Brain and Monsieur Mallah were using to extend Brain's power and control. She was, after all, hired by them. So, while I personally wouldn't quite say "It's Cheshire's fault Roy relapsed," there is... significantly stronger evidence to suggest that one, yeah.

Anyways this leads into Wally and Dick absolutely dismissing Roy as facing any real threat and deciding he's just suffering paranoid delusions associated with having a relapse and when you contrast it to Jason's absolute faith in Roy's ability to be honest with him and desire to not come off judgemental even when asking about Roy's sobriety it is SO fucked up. Everyone who insists that they're "better" friends for Roy owes me fucking money for this bullshit. I'm soooo close to just writing up a whole post dedicated to how much Roy gets fucked over by the Titans despite giving them his all - and yeah he fucks up too, I'll be honest. I'm also not going to pretend Jason's perfect on that front either, but there's definitely significantly less material to say he's a shitty friend than between all them.

ANYWAYS long story short: There is, quite literally, zero basis for this. If anything, Roy'd be the one helping the other two. but Lobdell doesn't do that, either.

Okay, so obviously I had a few complaints with this one.

But it's worth noting to me that he dedicates in the middle there an ENTIRE PARAGRAPH of his answer to Roy's sobriety. And this isn't the only time he does that. He also references AA a lot. Look, I personally don't care whether or not Lobdell was in AA or NA or anything to that effect, but it's really clear to me that either he was, someone close to him was, or he does some kind of volunteering in that area. And above everything else about Roy, this is very distinctly the most important part to him, and as such the way he handles it is from a perspective that most people don't view addicts from.

The MOST important thing, I think, is that he does not view addicts as people who can be "saved" by someone swooping in and telling them to. Whether it's Roy choosing every moment of every day to stay on his course, or Jason choosing to give up Venom because he doesn't need it when he's got friends, or Kori giving up on the space drugs because.... I'll be honest I still don't understand (I know in a literal sense but I don't think his framing worked) why she was on space drugs in the first place so I can't even begin to imagine her motivation to stop bcs it's not like it happened right after she nearly killed Roy bcs of them, which would at least make some sense. Anyways, he acknowledges this as a choice the addict themselves has to make first, but that it's easier to follow through when you have support.

... Moving on from things that aren't true, let's discuss what Roy's characterization in RHATO actually is...

"RHATO made Roy an idiot."

Okay, sorry, I partly lied. We're breaking this one down because it's kind of the "Yes but no but yes but no" of the issues people have with RHATO's Roy. And here's where I start breaking it down by writer.

First up, Lobdell (0-19, Annual #2, 32-40):

Lobdell's Roy wants you to think he's an idiot. He's quite literally the embodiment of this post over here. I don't think he actually likes being the idiot, but I think he considers it a safe place where he doesn't have to worry about it if he fucks up.

Teen Titans (2011) #16, which was also being written by Lobdell

The really shining moments, I think, for Lobdell's Roy are RHATO #16 & #37. The first one of those is set during the Death of the Family storyline which ugh but this is the issue that I was very much "Oh, yeah, I think he's got Roy there."

In this particular storyline Jason's captured by Joker and Roy was bugging his phone to route audio of any important sounding calls to the ship so Roy could paranoidly keep an eye on him. Stalking as a love language is something only a Bat could appreciate, as even Kori mentions thinking it's a little weird. So they fly out to Gotham to try and help out and run into the Teen Titans, who are leader-less because Tim is also captured, though Wonder Girl is doing a pretty good job herself (as she should be) but they're still overwhelmed until Kori and Roy step in to help.

From here this pretty much leads into a whole thing where Roy is doubting his capacity to lead, because canonically for this timeline he's never done so and has a low opinion of himself, while actually managing to pull off a semi-mentorship kind of role flawlessly. Now, it's a bit cheesy because it's all condensed into a single issue, but it very much does feel like callbacks to Roy's self-image issues from previous comic runs.

#37 is pretty much all about his relationship with Ollie I would say that this is not entirely out of character for him. At this point in Canon the two of them have not patched anything up, but Roy standing up for himself in this does feel reminiscent of, y'know. Roy punching Ollie in "They Say it'll Kill Me... But They Won't Say When."

(I'd also like to note that RHATO #37 feels very much like Lobdell was bitter that HE didn't get to write Roy & Ollie's relationship dynamic, so he... write it again, and pretty much retcons a bunch of Tynion's iteration, & in the process he really made it look like Roy was Ollie's sugar baby. lol.)

Anyways, while those two issues do have a lot of focus/flashbacks on Roy's backstory, which is completely different from pre-52 canon, I think it shows him having a much better grasp of Roy's... emotional core, I think, than the other two writers on RHATO. There's a really good post here about Roy being techy even prior to 52, but I do want to tack on the caveat that "Roybots" was not a Lobdell invention, and you pretty much won't see anything similar to that outside of Pfeiffer's 3-issue run on RHATO. Lobdell largely sticks to Roy with implausible gimmick arrows and playing mechanic for spaceships.

That's right, bro has a body disposal arrow. (RHATO#16 for Analysis Arrow, RH/A #9 for "gun arrow" which I couldn't resist including bcs its so dumb, RHATO#35 for the "Evidence annihalator")

Now otherwise I would say Lobdell's Roy does suffer from a lack of impulse control (barring his staunch control of his addiction) which is far more apparent in RH/A (insert "She was 90% of my impulse control meme" abt Kori), which can make him seem dumb, and he has a little bit of bro-y immaturity. Yes, Jason calls him an idiot sometimes, but idk, feels a little more like how you might say "my friends are idiots, but they're my idiots." Also it's not like Dick and the other Titans never did that either, not uncommonly because Roy was being a little silly guy.

Outsiders #11

Note that Roy does tend to talk down about himself even in this pre-52 scene, too. He DOES also stand up for himself and his abilities from time to time, but he can go either way depending on the situation.

Anyways tl;dr of everyone writing RHATO I think Lobdell actually understands Roy the best. He's immature, mouthy, and self-depreciating, but he's also capable, a highly-intelligent mechanics kinda guy, with latent leadership qualities and decent tactics laying just below the surface of his self-doubt. You could sell me on this being a younger version of Roy Harper who never had a kid pretty easily. Execution's just a little clumsy and the vagueness of the ages under the condensed timeline or, worse, the re-corrected(???) timeline after Convergence/Rebirth/ect do NOT help. Note: This is NOT an endorsement of RH/A's Roy characterization though. Lobdell how the fuck did you go so far backwards with that one.

Tynion (Annual 1, 20-28)

Sigh.

Tynion's Roy is... 90% self doubt, and the rest is love for his friends. He is big of heart and dumb of ass. He is THE most emotionally driven person throughout this entire arc and does some stupid shit in the name of friendship and love that almost screws them all over but then his deep abiding love for his friends sways the heart of one of his enemies who desperately wishes someone cared for HER that much (see the Cheshire portion of the previous post) and she switches sides in honor of it.

It feels a little bit like Tynion needed one person to be "the girl" who thinks with their heart and not their head but didn't want to be a stereotype and make it Kori, so Roy got the job instead. (Meanwhile Kori got the logic-brained role. Yeah.)

I think the only real part of this arc that I kind of enjoyed was this sequence over here. Like yeah, that's Roy. Roy might have his own issues, but they're nothing to him when it comes to needing to step up and help a friend. UGH and I'm too afraid to read n52's Green Arrow but I hate his naked face and the shitty personality Tynion gives him. He is SUCH an asshole. And yeah in that sequence that's just a manifestation of his self doubt wearing Ollie's face, but he's... not really better when he shows up in person. I'll be honest, I don't like Lobdell's Ollie either, and he's also kind of an asshole, but he is NOT on the level that Tynion writes him. At least #37 ends on halfway decent terms and actually FEELS like they're on the path to patching up their relationship.

Anyways yeah also for some reason Hugo Strange is Roy's therapist. There was probably some ongoing plot about that but I can't stand that whole whatever it is so I'm not going to examine that one right now. Maybe if someone starts paying me for these posts.

I kid, I'll get more into that when I discuss the Amnesia arc in entirety.

Pfeifer (29-31)

Okay so first off, Pfeifer's characterization is almost(?) not bad actually. It carries over some of the better parts of Tynion and Lobdell. He does however still have the issue of making Kori too much of a bitch, and he's the one who decided to take the "Roy is a tinkerer" to its logical extreme and create the whole concept of the Roybots, which are nanobots. And really this whole plot is just a wank-fest for nerdery.

This is straight up just some refined points of the other two and then yknow, the "haha nerds rule" vibes. They were making fun of him for his weird AI bomb and then his AI infected the nanobots and he saved the world AND his friends. yaaaay.

Wow. (Seriously was that "summary" to pat yourself on the back really necessary?)

Um you know I think that's all I've got off the top of my head, because actually the complaints that were SENT to me weren't really about him but I'm starting off with some more broad analysis on the characters to give myself a foundation to address some of the more specific complaints going forward. Next I'll do Kori, then Jason, and then we'll move into more specific topics. If there's anything specific in here you'd like me to address or argue re: Roy, feel free to reply here or send it to my inbox and I'll see what I can do. I definitely feel like I glossed over something, but my goal here is to open up more of a discussion in general.

If you want more RHATO analysis particularly based on common complaints that you would like to see either challenged or supported with extensive degrees of evidence so you can feel that sense of superiority that comic fans are all a little obsessed over without having to actually read the damn thing yourself, you can send me the specific topics in the replies Here or to my inbox.

EDIT: I had previously incorrectly labelled the issue with Roy & Ollie as #32, it's #37.

[lediz-watches]

Oxventure

Because dammit, I need to smile today and no one makes me smile more than these people.

Oxventure is an amazing group of people that play tabletop roleplaying games on youtube and spotify. They are Chaotic Good in the best way possible.

And I think we all need more chaotic good in our lives today.

Okay, first off, I must show my colours: I have been watching their parent channel Outside Xbox almost since it began, and they are actually why I got a Youtube Premium account (Youtube, you owe these people more than 2/3rds of my subscription). They are my background noise. So obviously I'm biased, but this post is about the Oxventure channel and why I love it.

Lately, they've been marketing themselves as an actual play channel, technically rivalling Critical Role, but I don't like to think of them like that. To me, Oxventure is more storytelling improv that happens to use tabletop mechanics as a prop. And the reason that's an important distinction is because Oxventure is at its best when it's being silly.

So. Some background.

Oxventure is, in alphabetical order, Andy, Ellen, Jane, Johnny, Luke, and Mike, and a host of guests when they feel the need. It began as a one-off milestone celebration on Outside Xbox where everyone but Mike (he had a Car Thing) played Dungeons and Dragons--most of them for literally the first time--on camera. Since then, it has expanded into its own channel with six series of varying prominence and many one-shots.

If you want to see them at their most condensed and I would argue truest form, I recommend DnD but everyone is a Kobold.

Their shows can run the full gambit from silly (the kobold shows) to high adventure (Oxventure Blades in the Dark) to wholesome (Tea-Time Adventures) to absurd (DnD but it's Pokemon) to emotional body-slams (Oxventure Deadlands) to quietly creepy (Oxventure Wyrdwood). But at its core, whatever series you're watching, Oxventure is about friends gathering together to have fun as they make their way in a world that seems a bit insane.

The original game/series/what have you is The Oxventurers Guild, which remains my favourite. Their motto (seen in Latin above) is "Everyone Should Have Thought Of Everything", meaning that they have a habit of just diving into things without thinking and then being shocked Pikachus when the consequences arrive.

The characters (and world) are a mess, but the thing that was most wonderful is that the group were learning how to play DnD on screen. They screwed up the rules, they lost dice, they forgot about feats... a running gag is that Mike, playing a paladin, has only the loosest concept of his own abilities and will randomly read his character sheet to discover something that would have been useful last session. Meanwhile Ellen made arguably the most powerful character, with what should have been one of the most powerful spells, and yet was the first knocked out in their PVP session because of a few unlucky rolls.

Johnny is an amazing first-time DM, too, because they just... let the group play. They run with the rules until the rules stop being fun. And that's what makes Oxventure so enjoyable for me.

I remember trying to watch a few Actual Plays after the first episode of Oxventure, and I can remember the exact moment I checked out. It was when a player made a joke, and the DM gave her a very direct Look and firmly informed her that if she didn't immediately take it back, there would be mechanical consequences.

Compare and contrast Johnny, whose attempt to show the Oxventurers Actions Have Consequences nearly ended with a bunch of evil skeletons realising that actually, they didn't realise how hard it was to avoid evil consequences so maybe they should cut the players some slack and stop giving such horrible consequence - wait! No! Bad bosses no make skeletons behave!

(We love the Sixty Skeletons, Flaming Skull Foreman, and Skeleton Donkey) (don't ask) (it only kind of makes sense in context)

But that's not all on Johnny - a lot of it comes down to the beautiful muppets that are the original players, and specifically Andy, Jane, and Mike, who have been a chaotic force of good online since they joined together to form Outside Xbox in 2009.

These three, and by extension all of Oxventure, are a little silly, always snarky, incredibly good at what they do but always beset by terrible luck and worse technology. They are also incredibly well-meaning (and hilarious) even when they're actively trying to be horrible (unrelated to this post but PLEASE watch their Hitman videos for further proof of this). And that carries through to their characters, who can be card carrying evil and yet still care so deeply about their friends that you can't help but love them.

An example of their chaotic competence is in an episode of their latest series Wyrdwood. There was a short of Johnny and Producer Zack talking about how Wyrdwood is a very creepy series starring the human equivalent of the Muppets, which is so true, but I would like to draw attention to a specific moment to prove my point:

In this particular episode, Johnny has created a truly terrifying scenario: trapped in mist with music playing beyond their hearing, the team are being picked off one by one despite specific measures to the contrary, until the characters played by the Oxbox trio are alone in oppressive danger. Things look dire. They know they're in trouble and helpless. It's only a matter of time before they're all gone.

They promptly spend the next five minutes flailing, yelling at each other, completely ruin Johnny's nefarious trap, locate their friends, and set themselves up to win the whole day while seemingly focussed entirely on figuring out which of them should be blamed for screwing up.

Even Johnny doesn't seem to know whether to be offended their whole scary vibe was just destroyed or impressed by how effortless the trio made it look, and I feel like that's the correct response.

And I think that's what I love about this series, and these people. They give me a kind of... exasperated hope for all of us.

I have to admit, when I first heard about Wyrdwood and saw the art, I was worried, because I thought Oxventure were going serious. But then, only a few minutes into the first episode, Jane uttered the immortal words 'Luck Pervert' to describe Luke's newest character and I knew we'd be fine.

These people are silly. They tell silly stories.

But they are stories about love, and friendship, and trying even against impossible odds, and making tough choices, and growing as people. All while you and the world around you are a complete mess and everything seems insane. You can still be better, and make the world better, even if it seems like you're just making more of a mess right now.

You watch, and you cringe, and you sigh and call them all 'absolute muppets', and then you cheer as they come up with some insane plan that shouldn't work and yet always, somehow, without rhyme, reason, or explanation... works.

They are silly, and they are heartfelt, and I suspect I will binge-watch the entire channel all over again this Christmas break.

Because while the Oxventurers' motto may be "Everyone should have thought of everything", the fact is no one has. So just go with what you've got.

And it might work out okay.

[rei-ismyname]

X-Men/Mutant Dynasties

Something I've always felt uneasy about is when offspring of Marvel mutants basically inherit their mutant gift 1:1. The X Gene (though I don't love that either) is supposed to be a naturally but randomly occurring thing in humans that causes them to develop a strong mutation. In many cases, a superpower as opposed to six toes. I'm sure people experience such minor mutations as well but it's not due to the X Gene.

A character that exemplifies the my dislike of this is Raze, the alternate reality/'future' child of Wolverine and Mystique. Them existing in a pretty ridiculous era with a constant nostalgia recycling is a factor too.

His stupid face makes me angry

This idiot. He literally just has both parents gifts - shapeshifting, claws, and a healing factor. Keep in mind those are metal claws too - something Logan doesn't have biologically. Maybe it's a Mystique thing and she's like a ditto in Pokémon breeding because her kid with Xavier is this chump.

It's just Charles Xavier again! I'll admit part of the dislike is them featuring in such mediocre, unimaginative stories, and they're pretty transparent Nostalgia bait. Has it lead to good stories? I don't think so, not as a critical element. Could you honestly tell me what either of these idiots' motivation is without looking it up?

Also, I think taking the randomness out of it just leads to eugenics and bioessentialism - a place the x books should not go, or at least not have nominal heroes doing it. Leave it to Mr Sinister.

Mutant trait inheritance has been around since almost the beginning. Polaris has Magneto's powers but weaker, Siryn has *similar* powers to Banshee, Nightcrawler looks like Mystique (though that makes sense through retcon. Shit, maybe she IS a Ditto.) On the flip side, there's even more Mutants that inherited none of their parents' mutation.

IRL Mutation is supposed to be, well not random per se, but the result of damage to genes. In our universe it's neither a good thing nor bad thing. In 616 it's pretty muddled tbh. I'm not a scientist - I'm a writer, so I'm not going deep on something that doesn't have internal consistency. I'm always going to dislike thin characters trying to evoke familiarity through mashing two iconic ones together, but it's more than that. What's the source of my discomfort then?

Yeah, it's the eugenics. HoxPoX actually took it further, revealing that Moira and Charles intentionally sought to breed reality warpers, to the point of researching partners that would give the desired result. They were successful too, resulting in Proteus and Legion, two of the most powerful mutants alive. The ethics of these actions aren't editorialised but I think they're meant to be read as horrifying - especially when you consider the context of the 'pairings' and the lives these poor kids have had. Maybe it's not so surprising Xavier views David as a weapon and Moira seems to hate Kevin. It makes Chuck and Moira look terrible.

Pic unrelated, I just wanted to break up the text and what better than Beatnik Namor?

The superbaby schemes never come to light and they're not really punished for being shit parents. Certainly not socially. I'd love a book where they were, but the time has kinda passed. Maybe the fairy tale morality of big two comics doesn't have the framework or the desire to explore it, though I think that if you're going to put eugenics in your fiction you probably should.

I've been sitting on this draft for months because I feel like I don't have the knowledge or vocabulary to explore it properly. I'm probably missing something. I've decided it's been edited and rewritten enough and I'm posting it as is, so if you have any thoughts on this I'd love to hear them. Join the conversation!

[violetasteracademic]

Hello!! I absolutely adore your posts and how well you've researched and thought everything out. I am curious what you think about Mor being Azriel's mate. I go back and forth on the question - it's a lot to tackle with Mor's sexuality and how mates are chosen etc. I feel like there's some language that could indicate they're mates, but I know it's not a popular theory in the Elriel bubble and ACOTAR fandom as a whole. It would also solve the question of "what would Azriel do if him and Elain aren't mates, but he found his mate later on?" Just curious if you have any thoughts on the matter. :)

Hello my love! First of all, I want to genuinely thank you for your kind words. I have quite a few days in this fandom where I wonder if I fit in here, but my deep enjoyment for writing theory posts and fanfics keeps me going! You caught me on a day I was sort of in my feels about it, so it was really lovely to see a kind word attached to the ask!

I am 100% a Morrigan and Azriel are Cauldron breeding mates just like L/ucien and Elain truther, and I have soooo much to get into about it and am bringing my usual receipts. I'm pretty convinced that even if she ultimately opts not to go that direction, she for sure was thinking heavily about it.

This post is EXCEPTIONALLY long (as usual) because I think Morrigan is a character that receives unjust hate in every microcosm of the fandom and some things need to be noted, and I hope you all will give it a chance even if you dislike Mor or hate this theory!

It is important to remember that every character is in fact *not* a real person, but the author. And sometimes character flaws are not intentionally curated for arcs and development, but they are author flaws. I believe this is partly the case with Morrigan. I don't spend a lot of time critiquing SJM. This is not because she is above reproach, it's simply because there are plenty of people out there doing it and there are valid spaces for that. That being said, I cannot address the Morrigan situation without addressing the very real issue of SJM and her blind spots when it comes to representation. This is something that SJM and Bloomsbury have addressed and made necessary steps to improve:

Time article published January 30th 2024, found here.

SJM has fallen into a lot of bad tropes and stereotypes when it comes to her BIPOC and LGBTQ representation, to the point where she has hired sensitivity readers to ensure she does not continue to so do. This is a great thing, and personally I think sensitivity readers should be the bare minimum and the absolute norm and not solely employed in response to criticism. Alas, it is a new addition and her past mistakes live on.

Sexuality is a spectrum, and while some people might identify with the way SJM has represented it, she had a pattern that she did not break until recently: Tokenizing sexual representation as bi characters interested in having sex with all genders and orientations without experiencing emotional attraction outside of their preferred gender.

*TOG spoiler* The Aedion bi reveal in the second to last book served literally no purpose other than- look! More representation! He had no romantic or emotionally intimate experiences with men throughout the series, but very suddenly and randomly reveals he has sex with men. It is mentioned once, then never again, because he is pursuing a heterosexual relationship. That is a valid experience with sexuality but in the context of ToG it was a brow-raising and unearned attempt to throw in an extra queer character because she was being criticized. That's a hey you tried but maybe do better next time.

But then it happened again with Helion- freely having sex and experiencing physical attraction with both men and women but only suggestions of having fallen in love with a woman, and will likely only persue a hetero relationship.

Then it happened again with Morrigan (with a slightly flipped script), who only experiences love and romance with women but freely has sex with men. Now we see a *pattern* and at this point its like, mmkay, skill issue. Even if it does feel authentic and representative to *some* readers, it is also a reflection of the authors limitations exploring emotional intimacy with her bi characters and just treating them as wanting/willing to have sex with anyone while only like liking just boys or just girls.

I bring all of this up because I am going to bring in my usual methods of comparisons, themes, development, ect- but I am typically talking about things SJM did exceptionally well. When it comes to Morrigan, I don't necessarily think she has done things all that well. But the threads are still there, and my love for Morrigan and experience with her themes live beyond an irritating skill issue on the authors part. Lets get into it.

I've made quite a few posts about the usage of the mating bond as a plot device and the development of theme. The best one to catch up on if you'd like is probably this one here.

The biggest indicators to me that Morrigan is Azriel's corrupted Cauldron (aka breeding) mate are twofold: parallel behavior between Mor and Lucien as well as the development of Morrigan's theme of her value being tied to her breeding in ACOWAR alongside the introduction of the mating bond being nothing less than a tool for powerful breeding, also for the first time in ACOWAR.

With the confirmation that the Asteri corrupted the Cauldron, along with the conversation regarding the Asteri forcing mated pairs outside of sexual orientations and not caring (*HOSAB), SJM doubled down on all of this. The Asteri need powerful offspring. They will force queer women to mate with men to do it.

Spoiler alert: Celestina does *not* prefer males. And the Asteri do not care.

CC also, in my opinion, cemented the two-bond theory. The Mother Bond (also known as Urd or Wyrd) the true soul-mated pairs, and Breeding Bond- created at the behest of the Asteri.

With breeding bonds, you can experience a sense of ownership and possessiveness over someone you are not even remotely romantically interested in:

Both Mor and L/ucien go stiff during representations of their *alleged mates interacting romantically with someone else even when there is no attraction or emotional intimacy. For L/ucien, he doesn't even know Elain. He doesn't automatically assume they will even be together, because he wants to know more about her personality and decide if they are a good fit. Honestly? Super healthy and valid.

Morrigan is having her moment during ACOFAS. She is very much out as queer (again, with some confusion of whether or not she is bi due to a skill issue on the author's end, but 100% confirmed to not be romantically interested in men) so why is she going tense at the sight of Azriel acting like a BDE husband to Elain? The unjustified and unsympathetic take (imo) is that she is being weird and jealous and wants Azriel's attention even though she doesn't want him. This makes no sense. She has actually only ever acted positively towards Elain, and before this dinner mused on Azriel giving Elain truth-teller without a shred of jealousy. But then to see them together, even though she does not want Azriel and only wishes for his happiness, she tenses, then recovers quickly. To me, both of these moments indicate a jerk reaction to the breeding bond at work.

There is also this idea of feel a pull to explore their *alleged mate just once:

L/ucien actually has already seen Elain, and although he had some immediate instinctive reactions, it didn't leave him immediately feeling like this was the woman he was supposed to be with. Alternatively, Morrigan deeply loves Azriel, just not in that way. She loves him so much that sometimes she wonders if she should try, just once, just to know for sure, even though she is not capable of falling in love with men. Both of these scenes are from ACOWAR, and tie into the way mating bonds are finally described, and how most mates feel like they should try:

Even though neither Mor or L/ucien experience romantic feelings for their mates, they feel a pull to try. They think about giving things a chance just to be sure. This is not something any of our other mates have experienced.

This passage also leads me to another important note- which is the severity of mating bond rejections. Again, all of this is in ACOWAR and thematically connects. Both Elain and Mor have very good reason to be afraid of a mating bond rejection. It can drive a male mad and make them go violently insane. We can criticize both women all day long about how they should just reject their mates and have the conversation so everyone can move on, but when this is what is on the table for them? A man possibly killing because of the power of the mating bond? That is no joke.

The only reason Morrigan slept with Helion is because she was sick and terrified over Azriel handing Eris his ass because he called her a slut. Mor has already seen Azriel act in an uncontrolled and violent manner that could not easily be stopped on her behalf. If she is afraid of what a mating bond rejection will do to Azriel, the depth and complexity of her decision, and her behavior to try to distance and avoid the conversation is a lot more sympathetic. I also believe that Morrigan, Azriel, and Elain will be doing some work together in Vallahan, and the issue of the Cauldron being wrong for both Azriel and Elain will resolve during that storyline. You can read more about that here.

And then of course, there is this:

Rhys only brings up Mor when Azriel brings up the Cauldron. That feels extremely intentional to me. I think Rhys either knows or assumes that Azriel and Mor have a mating bond. I think both Az and Mor know (I also think Azriel absolutely knows Mor is queer, and their weirdness and his constant confusion and staring at her has more to do with that than being in love with her, because he doesn't understand why she is sleeping with men at all.) Crack theory, but I think Eris knows. What happened between Mor and Eris isn't a secret, it was all revealed in ACOFAS. But I think somehow, for some reason, Eris is also aware of the mating bond between Az and Mor, which is why Morrigan gets so pissed when Eris needles her about not telling the whole truth. She isn't trying to hide what Eris did to make herself look better (he didn't do much, really, still left her to die even though he did her a solid by not accepting her as his wife) but he also knew that a Blood Duel could be called by Az over her.

Here's the thing: ACOWAR states that some courts allow men to kill each other over their mate choosing or having other partners. The bonus chapter clarifies that violence as the Blood Duel. I do not believe the Blood Duel can be called over anyone over any situation- it is specific to mates. I could be wrong, but it seems strange that Rhys would talk about outlawed violent practices that is not allowed in his court but is in others, and then we would see the Blood Duel brought up as the Autumn Court tradition, and not see them as one in the same:

Ultimately, all of these characters are grappling with their choices being affected by deeply held cultural beliefs about the mating bond.

If Azriel and Mor are breeding mates, she is struggling with genuine love for him but being unable to love him romantically. She thematically is dealing with hiding her sexuality because there is no greater dishonor to the culture of her family than a woman not being used for sale and breeding. If Azriel and Mor are mates, so much of her behavior and her themes and experiences make so much more sense. Rhysand's response to Azriel thinking the Cauldron was wrong when he has a mate in the Inner Circle whom he already loves makes more sense. Azriel knowing Mor is queer and not understanding why she sleeps with men but also not pushing her to have a conversation about their bond makes more sense.

Everything makes more sense if Az and Mor are mates.

If they are not, well, skill issue, I guess.

Either way, I truly hope Mor gets her HEA and SJM's employed sensitivity writers will help her do it justice.

How did we do? Did anyone stick with me on this one? Have I won you over? I can't wait to see what happens, however it pans out! And I'm grateful for the addition of sensitivity readers to Sarah's work. I hope she does her best to represent as well as she can!

[greyplainsttrpg]

5e Villain Arc 6

There is a sentiment that I hear/read a lot when engaging with the darkness (read as D&D discourse) (and by D&D, I specifically mean Wizard's of the Coast's Dungeons and Dragons). "High level caster SHOULD be more powerful than martials, however they should be reasonably close together for gameplay."

Here is the thing: I don't agree. In fact, I think this sentiment is fundamentally wrong. In order for you, the reader, to firmly empathize with this part of the argument, it was necessary to build to it via the other frameworks established in the previous villain arc posts. The main thesis of this argument is that "Magic is anti-creative gameplay." However, I will interrogate this thesis with alternative argument that is more strictly on topic...

This Post is about the Caster/Martial Divide in 5e

Part 1: Why martials suck conceptually.

Imagine this scenario. You are playing a monk. In the game, there is a dragon. If the DM plays this dragon with the intelligence that a several-century old being would have, what are you supposed to do to pilot this monk to defeat the dragon?

This is a genuine problem that is worth trying to solve. Even if this is a Level 500 monk, they still only have so many tools on their character sheet that has any counterplay to a well-played dragon. Sure, a Level 500 monk could destroy a dragon if they could get their little kungfu-fighting hands on it, but good luck.

Instead, consider a level 10 wizard. What can they do to fight a dragon? Quite a lot, actually. Recently, the larger TTRPG discourse calls these options "paper buttons." The player can push the paper button on the character sheet, cast a spell, and there we go--we are immediately making progress. What does the monk do? I don't know. It depends on the context. What kind of dragon is it? Where is its nest? Is the objective to kill it or is the dragon just an obstacle? These are things that a character without pregenerated, potent options has to consider when dealing with complex problems.

Despite spellcasters having, like, pre-wrapped solutions to problems, spellcasters are generally considered to be "more difficult" than martials. I think this comes from the idea that "having more options" is equivalent to "more difficult to do." Because there is more text, surely this means it must be harder to play. This is fundamentally untrue. I suppose that there are "more" decisions to make as a spellcaster-player in various parts of a session. In a vacuum where neither the player nor the character can predict the upcoming situation (or if they got spells randomly) then I would be more willing to compromise with this argument. It would be tricky to know when you should or should not cast your probably shit spells in a situation that you cannot predict.

However, in practice, how smart do you REALLY need to be to prepare fireball? Oh, there is a magical buff being applied to the boss? Gee, I WONDER if I should cast dispel magic or counterspell? Decisions decisions. If all the spells in the game were like create water and rope trick, then spellcasters would be on equal-ish footing with martials in complexity of actual play.

Let's return to the monk and the dragon. I ran a session in my my own system, Simplains, where the objective was to "get a dragon egg." Spellcasting in Simplains is limited, so everyone was playing essentially as martials with some special features (that are technically spells). How are they supposed to get a dragon egg? Their solution was to:

Go to a dragon scholar and learn more about dragon eggs.

Acquire a letter of introduction from this scholar for a young (not yet egg-laying) dragon.

Go to the young dragon an find out if there are any dragons willing to sell their eggs.

Determine what the mature dragon is willing to trade for an egg.

Turns out that a mature dragon doesn't really need any more wealth, however she does need a dragon partner to lay fertile eggs, which she does not have.

Create a dating profile for the dragon and seek viable, compatible partners.

I have to point out that I did not plan this. This was not the "intended" story path. There was no story path for this quest (I am not against playing or running more linear games as a rule). The Players largely directed this gameplay themselves.

This is objectively way funnier than:

locate object or scry (dragon egg)

teleport

invisibility

done

This is, perchance, a "style" difference between me and modern DM/GMs. As you can probably tell, I am a bit of a grognard in that, in my opinion, the point of playing TTRPGs is primarily to solve fantastical problems with unusual tools. The text of the rules are a necessary medium to facilitate and moderate gameplay.

When I read D&D Reddit or other social media, I see that somewhat similar stories will appear as "CAN YOU BELIEVE MY PLAYERS DID THIS LOL XD SO RANDUM." This is regarded as players "going off the plot." GMs might stop this sort of behavior because resolving it would take too long compared to the concise adventure that they wrote where they do a heist and steal a dragon egg. Why do all this work? "The tools to your success are right there on your character sheet!" If 5e DMs banned (or heavily restricted) spellcasting, I guarantee that these kinds of events will happen more often in their games. Magic is actually depriving the DM and their players of fun via access to easy, carbon-monoxide poisoning induced solutions. It's okay little buddy, you don't have to think. Go ahead and push that paper button and feel the trickling dopamine from the satisfaction of killing another 15 goblins with another fireball on another day of another session of playing Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014).

Part 2: Why martials suck practically

The caster/martial divide has existed for a long time in the history of Dungeons and Dragons. The early idea for the divide is that casters start off very weak in terms of health, combat prowess, and even poor spellcasting access and make up for it if they survive to later levels. There are a number assumptions baked into this that I actually do not fundamentally disagree with.

The caster has to live long enough to be good.

The life of the character is the responsibility of the player and the whole party.

In this thinking, the spellcaster surviving is not assumed (because no-one's survival is assumed). Spellcasters are weaker but they have the POTENTIAL to be good (but still vulnerable). Keeping the character alive is a priority for the party. Because, while every problem can be solved conventionally in older games, having a wizard around really helps in specific situations. It is really important to stress how poor spellcaster survivability was. In the first version where Classes have different HP, Spellcasters had a grand total of 1d3 HP per hit die. While the damage is also somewhat lower in these older editions, it was not that much lower. 1d3 is terrible. They can't wear armor, they can't use real weapons, they have horrific THAC0, and their spells aren't even that good. Fighting Men, on the other hand, are excellent. 1d10 Hit Die, weapons that actually do damage, armor, magic weapons and armor, THAC0 that works. This is amazing in OD&D. The goal of the game in OD&D (more often than not) is to use the Spellcaster and the Cleric to put the Fighting Man into position to beat the dungeon boss. The Fighting Man breaks down the locked door, kills all the monsters inside, picks up the treasure of gold, and then drags it back out of the dungeon so the Cleric can heal them. The Magic User deals with the booby traps and allows the Fighting Man to circumvent as many fights as possible (via spells like Sleep or Pass-wall).

The gampley loop of OD&D (and similar games) is therefore:

Magic User casts spells to avoid conflict.

Magic User Runs out of Spells.

Fighting Man has to get everyone out of a fight.

Cleric heals Fighting Man.

Rest and try again next in-game day.

It's obviously not always exactly like this, but that is the intended game-loop (more or less). In this version of the game, the Fighting Man played as critical a role to party success as the Magic User (and the Cleric). However, what if, and hear me out, we gave the magic user more health; added several universal mechanics to make sure everyone can get more health; made the magic powerful, plentiful, and accessible to most classes; and then made it so the Fighting Man equivalent also did not get better THAC0 (equivalent)? Wouldn't that be EPIC!

This is related, of course, to Villain Arc 3 (the Beastmaster Ranger one). D&D is limited in its thinking that spellcasters can have access to supernatural abilities and that martials should be grounded to generally what is physically possible. As per that post, and of Villain Arc 4 where I discuss the unbounded/utility elements of Strength in past editions of D&D, this is simply ridiculous. Furthermore, the fact that Cantrips, which Casters can do an infinite number of times ALSO scale with the Caster's level whilst also being a full Caster is ridiculous. Let's talk about Cantrips.

I know the counterarguments to the Cantrip issue. 1) They do not have flat modifiers to damage; 2) they often require saves for 1/2 damage; 3) they are not strictly as good as martial extra attack. My counter-counterarguments are 1) So? 2) So? 3) So? These points do not fundamentally resolve the issue that Cantrips present in the game--undermining resource management of Spells. Also, I'd like to point out that the only Martial that receives more than a single Extra Attack (no strings attached) is the Fighter. This means that Cantrips might outperform the total number of attacks made by the Barbarian, Ranger (not technically a full martial but LMAO) or the Rogue (without Sneak Attack). To get equal or more damage at higher levels, the Paladin HAS to use Divine Smite (a spell slot) to keep up with Full Casters (not using a Spell Slot).

If Cantrips existed to 1) smooth out the difficulty curve of playing a low-level Full Caster (who should have AT MOST 1d6 HP) and 2) provide consistent utility, then I would not actually have an issue with that. If Fire Bolt did a constant 1d10 damage, that would be fine for me. I'm not such a grognard that I believe Full Casters should suffer at low levels in every system they are present. I am, however, against undermining the gameplay purpose of a Full Caster. Martials do not have to worry about resource depletion while Casters do (as far as spells go). That should be the advantage to a Martial: It always JUST WORKS. Martials should be reliable, consistent, non-gambling characters, and Full Casters should be high-risk high-reward utility glass cannons. If you take out the risk of being a Caster, you only get reward. Compare this to the boon/bane (or pros/cons) divide of the Martial. The Boon/Pro is that everything they do just works (or should; bounded accuracy/d20 moment). The Bane/Con is that they are limited in what they can accomplish. Martials have few ways to escape their Banes (and are actually more limited than they used to be in many ways), and their Boons are not even as valuable/potent; both in isolation (due to a variety of factors, but bounded accuracy in particular) and in comparison to the Full Casters.

Usually when talking about Martials, the discussion revolves primarily around the Barbarian, Fighter, and Monk. However, we cannot forget what they did to my beautiful baby boy, the Rogue/Thief. I love this Class. It is my favorite Class in all D&D games. I love the skill-monkey playstyle, and the fact that the skill-monkey got shifted to the Bard in 5e devastates me--mostly because the Bard, themselves, is now a Full-Caster. For the Caster/Martial divide, I actually want to bring up the AD&D Thief Class. Behold:

These Thieving Skills are present in AD&D and 2nd Edition, but this version comes from 2nd Edition (because I am more familiar with it). If you read Villain Arc 4, then you are familiar with Bend Bars/Lift Gates. It is also a percentile roll, and the result is that the Character can perform any of a wide range of super heroic strength feat. The Thieving Skills share more in common with BB/LG than they do with the modern "Stealth" and "Perception" skills of 3rd edition onward. While those Skills are based on these, the WotC equivalents to Thieving Skills are horribly nerfed. This is for several reasons:

Thieving Skills are easier to succeed at most levels: So long as the Character is investing points into the Thieving Skills they plan to use, the Thief is likely to succeed at them pretty easily starting at like Level 3 or so. They flesh out their skills after around Level 5 or so to be more balanced and useful. This is to say that the Thief Skills are not bounded into the same funnel that every action in 5e is.

Like BB/LG is SUPERHUMAN, Thief Skills are similarly SUPERHUMAN: Let me be clear--there is a big difference between "Move Silently" in WotC D&D and TSR D&D. In WotC, it just means that the Character succeeds without making easily detectable noise, however creatures can counter it with Perception. Not so in AD&D. When they say Silently, they mean as per the spell, Silence. Better, even, because it cannot be detected via magical means. The Thief is BETTER THAN MAGIC. They are impossible to detect. This is essentially repeated from Villain Arc 4, but it is important to repeat it here in this context. This applies to all the Thieving Skills in ways that you may not expect. Some examples:

3. They are locked to Non-Casters: While other Classes do get Thief Skills, no other Class gets all of them or any of them with the same potency. Specifically, Wizards and Priests (the overarching categories for Full Casters) have no access to Thief Skills. This is because the drawback of playing a Full Caster is a lack of access to renewable options in exchange for resource-based flexibility. You do not NEED a Thief in the party, but having a Thief means that the Wizard/Cleric do not need to step in to fill the important role that the Thief serves (meaning they cannot invest into the things that make them better). Since WotC changed Skills around, this has not been true, and thus the Thief is not nearly as useful going forward.

This is not an immediately obvious without deep knowledge of the game, but the asymmetric leveling system of AD&D (2nd in particular) also means that Thieves level up much faster than any other Class. This means that they get their utility options online before any other Character gets theirs. This has shadow-buff ramifications for the Thief in other ways as well, but those are not strictly relevant here.

Moving on from the Thief back to the warriors, one of the things that is interesting in older games is how one can use their attack more flexibly.

Yes, you can execute battle-field tactics with your attack. These options are laid out in more detail in Combat and Tactics, but the principle of trading an attack for some sort of utility has always been present. This is a huge (but sneaky) buff to Fighters in particular. Fighters get weapon Specialization which grants them access to more attacks per round than any other character in the game. In addition to the obvious and consistent improvement having more attacks generates, this also means that Fighters in particular can shuffle around a battlefield and resolve niche utility nonsense with their unbounded THAC0. One of the funniest things Characters can do with their Attack is to grab objects out of an opponent's hand. Have an enemy with a dangerous staff that turns people to stone? Well, it's the fighter's turn, and he/she/they move(s) 120 YARDS and Grabs the staff from the stupid, weak wizard's pitiful arms. THEN, with your next attack, you can quarterback the quarterstaff (hehe) to your own Wizard, and now THEY'RE DRIVING THE BUS. You can also do all these actions with you off hand with a penalty because every Character can choose to attack with their off hand as well. Epic gameplay.

In these ways, martials can circumvent their lack of flexibility from not having Spells by being pretty useful/reliable in other situations/contexts. With the limited scope of what an "Attack" is combined with Bounded Accuracy and generally not that many attacks, you end up with some pretty lame martials who cannot get much done.

Part 3: Conclusion

Martials have been progressively stripped of all the things that make them useful, powerful, unique, flexible, and interesting. At the same time, casters get more HP, more instantly rewarding spells, and benefit from saving throws being wacky in this game.

Wait a minute. I haven't talked about saving throws. OH NO.

Part 4: WAIT A MINUTE SAVING THROWS

Remember the part earlier where Saving Throws were mentioned as if that fucking mattered for nerfing Cantrips or Spells? Surprise, I'm circling back to that now because this post will never end. I've been working on this for weeks. Yeah, Saving Throws in this game SUCK. Each Character only gets proficiency in 2 of 6 saves? With bounded accuracy? En esta enconomía? No fucking thank you. Okay, say for the sake of argument that you are not a fucking idiot and you know that there are 3 real saves in this game (Dex, Con, Wis), 1 pseudo-real save (int) and two absolutely fake saves (Cha). Most monsters you fight have a similar spread to characters in that they only have proficiency in one to three saves (not counting legendary resistance). Okay, now just look at the monster and GUESS which saves it probably doesn't have. Players can prepare Cantrips that target one of each major Save type and just spam them without push-back. In practice, I know that it is more difficult than just that, but among a whole party it isn't. With a full party, there is always one Character AT LEAST who can sit back and spam the most braindead fucking option imaginable. For spells that are AC based, bounded accuracy makes AC so low on average that the Player doesn't have to think either. And spells do non-physical damage. Wait a minute...

Part 5: Elemental Damage

CANTRIPS USUALLY DON'T DEAL PHYSICAL DAMAGE which many monsters resist. Brought the wrong weapon? I guess you're not really damaging the skeletons today. The Caster? Just spam a different cantrip. Don't worry about spending spell slots little buddy. Everything is going to be alright. The world is your oyster, and martials can dance and sing your praise as you bedazzle them with all the problems you can easily solve that they can't. "Oh, but you can just bring all the weapons you might need." Sure, but no. Due to the limits of Magic Item Attunement, it is not reasonable to expect every martial to bring every kind of weapon necessary to fight every kind of monster when the wizard just really does not have to deal with it at all. Also, does the monk have slashing hands? Yes, I know they can use Slashing weapons, but has anyone ever seen a monk use a weapon before? That is the most vestigial class element that I have ever seen.

Part 6: Hey, that's the same as this Villain Arc!

Thanks for sticking with me for this long post. This has been the most "old man yells at clouds" one yet, but I actually got to some analysis at the end there. I have always liked martial characters, and the obvious Caster/Martial divide was one of the things that caused me to have such a bad time playing and running 5e before writing my own system.

I am not sure how many more true villain arcs I have left in me. I do not want to discuss the play-culture too much in these arcs specifically because my focus is solely on the game mechanics. I might start my "5e Revengeance Arc" soon, which is the parallel to this arc that goes through the logic of how and why Greyplains is a specific response to all the things that frustrate me in 5e.

Anyway

#transright

#freepalestine

#buymybook

Previous Villain Arc

Next Villain Arc Post:

[traegorn]

"Get therapy lol" you're a real empathetic motherfucker.

Laughing at people in pain really doesn't fit with the picture of a kindly uncle looking dude, that's really sad and I'm sorry I ever followed you. Fuck you, fuck men who want to yell about slamming doors.

For real man, I'm sorry I ever followed you I'm crying now what the fuck? What the fuck?

What the fuck is wrong with you? "Get therapy" is what you say? Fuck you.

Maybe on our call this week I'll tell my therapist about the fake asshole who tries to act like an understanding elder but just drops edgelord epic bacon putdowns when somebody shares how something made them unhappy. For real, fuck you.

Okay, you sent me this string of anons because of my flippant response to this ask.

But like, my dude... I'm a stranger on the internet. I am not an "understanding elder" -- I'm a middle aged nonbinary office worker who makes some podcasts and writes comics and novels. I don't know what you think our relationship is, but I think you need to step back for like a minute.

Like I don't think you've remotely considered my perspective in this entire interaction.

I'm sitting here cooling off after a workout, watching this week's Dimension 20 episode, and I'm scrolling Tumblr. I had reblogged a poll about car door slamming, with a little thought appended about the subject... and then there's a contextless anonymous ask in my box which:

Complains about Europeans who are not even remotely referenced in the post I reblogged. Which is, y'know, weird.

Vents about their father. To me. A stranger in Wisconsin. Who again, neither knows who you are or who your father is.

Like, dude, let me remind you what you sent me. This is your exact ask:

My father used the stupid fucking car door as a reason to yell at me all the time, Europeans sound like whiny bitch ass motherfuckers who could use a few doors slammed at them. Fuck that persnickety shit. Fuck them.

Like what the actual fuck did you expect me to make of this, anon? You brought this energy to me. You didn't ask me for advice. You randomly vented to me, a stranger, without any context.

And randomly insulted Europeans, who hadn't even joined the chat.

Like the whole "who tries to act like an understanding elder" and "kindly uncle" is something you've projected on to me. I am not trying to be some wise elder or any other bullshit -- and I'm not going into how you've decided to use exclusively masculine terms for me.

Because your use of those words shows you don't know shit about me.

I'm just old and trying my best. I know some stuff, so I try to tell people that stuff. If you're coming to this from the witchcraft side, I have always maintained that all witches are equals and I am not above anyone. If you've put me in that position, I definitely didn't ask for it.

So yeah, this is where I'm at my limit. You've crafted a pretty weird parasocial relationship here and I have to get up and work in the morning. I'm glad you're getting some help, because this entire interaction has been wild from start to finish.

I am not your guru, and I am not your mom. I'm just a tired queer person who should probably go to bed.

(Also, I mostly added the song "Therapy" to the end there because it's a fucking bop and all nonbinary band Kat and the Hurricane's new album comes out tomorrow/today and more people need to listen to it)

[derekscorner]

Fated Rantings: Of Gods and Men

Hey, how ya doin? It's been a while

I haven't made a proper Fate post in a while. I've had smaller things here and there but nothing grand because I simply haven't seen anything new in a while.

I'm waiting on the Fate Extra remake that seems forgotten and I've yet to see Strange Fake because I don't want to spoil it with manga nor do I wish to pay Crunchyroll money.

I'm in a fated dry spell with only random videos and FGO tide me over. u_u....BUT NOT TODAY! Because I'm gonna ramble about my favorite topic in Fate, the gods. (ok second favorite)

Casual Reminder

Before I do that I must once again (like every post) remind you of Fate's multiversal nature. It began as a light novel with multiple routes and endings. Each of those routes and endings have been animated in some way over the years.

You've even seen original anime stories like Apocrypha and things that are referenced in the novels but depict a different chain of events like Fate Zero. The 4th Grail War Saber mentions in Fate Stay Night and the 4th Grail war you see in Zero are not the same thing.

Just like the Waver Velvet you see in Lord El Melloi isn't the same one you saw in Strange Fake even though both lived through a 4th grail war.

So when you're diving into the Fate Series do keeps these things in mind since what I'm about to tell you may not apply to every single Fate timeline.

However, what I'm about to tell you does apply to most of them if not all until something comes along to contradict me.

The Swirl of the Root

When discussing the fascinating (and silly) nature of the gods in Fate you can not skip over earths origins since many of them shaped the planet just as the planet gave birth to them for that function.

This beginning was called the "Age of Gods" which lasted an untold amount of time and ended when Gilgamesh turned on the gods when their age and influence was weakest.

Yes, love him or hate him, Gilgamesh's Uruk was the foundation for modern human civilization and history. His arrogance isn't without validity.

Of course, there are other factors to mention as well such as dragons, THE God, the planets will itself, and even aliens. All of these things do actually exist.

The Abrahamic God does exist in Fate although the series never states which of the religions based on him is the "real one". Which is a smart call and one they should always maintain.

I'm also bringing him up here a bit randomly since that's all I know of him in Fate's context. Even the voice Jeanne 'D Arc heard was potentially the counter-force though I don't think anyone likes that statement and I've never seen it brought up again.

BTW: It is also true that the Demiurge also exists within Fate since, like the pagan gods, human faith made it so. It's mentioned rarely so I don't know much beyond seeing it referenced in FGO and in videos.

Earth's Progeny

So with that said I can only make assumptions for you. We know the "center" of the Type-Moon multiverse is "The Root" the source of all that is but whether the root "is" God or its simply the point from which God made creation is just presumptions and theories on my part.

What's relevant to our fun dive into the gods is what comes after the old man upstairs and the root, earth. In a very metaphysical sense earth is the center of creation.

It's not in the literal center of the universe or anything like that but it is at the center of everything in a way. The beings that shape reality live there and even beings of alien origin eventually wind up there.

And that planet has a will of its own. The mages of the modern era refer to it as "Gaia". And what is unique about Gaia isn't that it has a will, technically every planet in the solar system does (that's a headache for later), it's that it's will is divided.

Of course, that is later. In the early days Gaia was in charge and many of the beings that would be labeled gods by humanity were born from it.

Usually with some sort of role or purpose in mind.

One of the earliest beings we know of was actually Ea himself. One of the names (or versions rather) of the creator god in Mesopotamian mythology. The very "sword" Gilgamesh wields (seen in the gif above) was forged and used by Ea to shape the planet.

He was an elemental, perhaps the earliest, and that was his job. Give the earth shape. The nature of earth back then is unknown to anyone but it must've been a fascinating contrast because the materials Ea's sword is forged from no longer exist.

The whole reason Shirou can't trace and copy the sword Ea with his Unlimited Blade Works is because it's made from things his mind can't comprehend. Which is a big statement because both Shirou and Archer can replicate Excalibur, the mightiest weapon on earth...I mean it'll kill them if they do it but they CAN replicate it.

(hell, the whole reason the sword Ea is cylindrical is because the concept of a "sword" didn't exist yet)

But they can't replicate (sword) Ea. That's the type of world earth was when (god) Ea roamed it.

She's so pretty T-T

We know not how long Ea did his work but we do know that science and mythology actually align in Fate which is wild to fit together. Ea may have worked millions of years but either way he disappeared when his job was done.

It was at that point that you had newer beings show up such as Tiamat and her husband Abzu. We don't really know what form both took initially but we know their names mean salt water and fresh/rain water respectively so they both likely came to be when the earth began to cool and the gases shift into liquid.

I should also clarify that I do not know how many "primordial gods" appeared nor who came before the other. Thanks to FGO we know there was Ea then Tiamat but it is entirely possible that Ea had other "siblings" of a sort also shaping the planet.

Just like Tiamat may have been just one of several mother goddesses. I'm only listing them in this fashion because we know that Ea preceded Tiamat and that the Mesopotamian myths are the oldest on any record. Both IRL and in-story.

To get back on topic, Tiamat's role was actually to seed life. She considers herself mother to all things roaming the earth and she's not entirely wrong to think it. Her appearance in FGO actually shows us what her authority was, the primordial mud.

Ya know, that dark gunky stuff that comes out of the grail? Tiamat is that personified. She's also so early in the timeline that she predates a concept of "death".

The whole reason I said Ea "disappeared" is because death wasn't a thing back then like it would be fore modern man. I actually have no idea what became of Ea but I presume that, like Tiamat, he was thrown into the Zero Space once he job was done.

And no, just like my FGO post, I’m not explaining Imaginary Number Space. It's a complex as hell thing to even word because it's a plane of existence that doesn't exist. I'd be trying to quantify "nothing" to you.

And you're likely wondering why I'm putting Tiamat and Ea on a pedestal after just recapping earth's history. It's quite simple reader, I'm doing this because I want you to grasp something.

What I just explained to you, these are the things that the "gods" done before they were "gods".

I'm not rambling for the sake of talking, I'm setting up a key factor in what makes a god a "god" in Fate. Because everything in Type-Moon is based on something that was once real.

You see this most in the heroic spirits/servants but this actually applies to even gods. The gods were creatures of another sort before they became gods. They did things only a "god" could do from a humans understanding.

They also roamed the earth for millions of years doing these tasks. The whole reason Quetzalcoatl can summon Pterosaur's is because they were still alive when she first arrived on earth.

While not "gods" these entities were exceedingly old forces of nature born of the planet. They were extensions of Gaia's will.

What makes a god?

So what makes these entities gods? Simple, humanity does. Although it's hard to say when, eventually humans do appear on the planet.

And I say "hard to say" because the metaphysical and physical were the same in the Age of Gods. Meaning both mythology and science were based on a long forgotten truth.

That's also why I cut the Tiamat recap short. We know she was put into Zero Space after her role but the whole mythology of her, her husband Abzu, and Marduk killing her was made by humans. Whether they wished to understand the world around them or simply to enjoy a good story.

I can't remember if Tiamat actually killed her husband in Fate but her death was at least false. For one, she can't die and second she was too powerful for anything other than the earth itself to put her away.

Of course, you do see Marduk's axe in FGO so it's possible he "killed" her in the sense that she was sent to the Zero Space but you get the idea. The truth of that past and the mythology humans made around it can differ.

Everything in Fate is based on a real thing but not every story surrounding said thing is true.

The Role of Man

Back to mankind, the belief in something can elevate it. What makes something a god in Type-Moon is the faith placed into it. It really is that simple.

Humanity believed Ea was a creator god so he took on a divine nature. Humanity believed Tiamat was a mother goddess who gave birth to other gods and so she was and so too did her children become divine.

Humans also believed Tiamat was or could turn into a dragon and so she did when revived as a beast of humanity in FGO. It doesn't end there either. Men who gained godly status, elementals, spirits, every fairies, all of these things were made into gods because of humanity.

It's not a quick change nor is it an easy one. It takes thousands of years of religious growth and cultural evolution but eventually the object of their worship will become divine.

And more often than not the gods born of that religion are bound to the mythology humans painted for them.

A facet of human collective consciousness I touched on when talking about how myths alter Heroic Spirits/Servants. (linked here)

The biggest underlying and overt theme of anything Type-Moon is humanity. That's why you usually see an average man or a human with a unique power overcoming some monstrous enemy. It's all about the strength of humanity.

But that too is a topic for another day. What's important here is that you fully grasp just how much this opens up on the Fate universe. So many things exist just because humans believe in it and the impact it has on the object they've focusing on can vary wildly.

Such as Medusa and her siblings. She was originally just a minor earth goddess of beauty but was shaped into her older self because humans crafted an idol of ultimate beauty and then the myth of the gorgons warped her into a serpent.

Medusa had to experience this in real time as she slowly changed into a monster that ate her own sisters. And yes, Fate changes the cause of her curse which is fair since the myth of Medusa's rape by Poseidon is actually a "newer" myth. The further back you go the more that changes.

And Medusa is probably one of the more tragic examples. Some of the most wild examples are alien in origin.

You see this shit? ^^ That's Zeus.

Granted, I pulled this image from a Lostbelt from FGO. Lostbelts are alternate timelines that "went nowhere" and were pruned. Despite that, it's true for every timeline that Zeus and the 12 Olympians were originally alien space ships.

No, you didn't read that wrong, they were the AI of space shuttles. They were originally one shuttle named Chaos that came into the Fate universe from a universe of unknown origin.

The passengers they were meant to transport all died and eventually Chaos broke up into 12 others creating the precursors to the Olympians.

They eventually found their way to Earth, and somehow, formed a contract with Gaia. In this era they were the 12 machine gods of Atlantis.

They even made a type of construct to communicate with people. For instance this is lostbelt Zeus but likely what any version of Zeus originally looked like:

(You can even see the resemblance to Heracles)

What's even wilder is that these 12 eventually became the 12 central gods of Greece, the Olympians. Not only showing the resilience of their divine spirits but the resilience of humanities faith in them.

Not only was Atlantis eventually destroyed but all 12 machine gods were destroyed, as in their original ship bodies, by the white titan. A being that too was of alien origin dropped on earth to wipe it clean of life.

This being left such a mark on the earth that it's remnants were also deified and shaped by humanity. Such as the giants who later attacked Olympus, they were remnants of this thing.

Another remnant of the titan also reincarnated as Attila the Hun and Attila, as a servant, to this very day wields the sword it stole from Ares when it killed him.

The original Atlantis Ares that is. That's why Attila's sword is more like a lightsaber than a blade.

This being was so powerful that the Earth resorted to forging Excalibur to destroy it. The first, and as far as I know, only time that Excalibur was used completely unsealed.

Funner fact, it was an unnamed human who wielded it. So Saber isn't the first wielder of the blade even if she's the most famous.

Pandora's creation by the Olympians

Again, I probably seem like I'm rambling aimlessly but I'm not. These 12 machines became gods, were destroyed by a literal planet killing, god slaying, alien giant and still reappeared later.

That is the resilience of humanities faith in their gods. It literally reconstructed Atlantian gods into the Olympians with those specific 12 being incorporated into whatever other minor gods existed in the region such as the aforementioned Medusa.

This also around the time you had other gods all over the earth. Such as Odin and the norse gods. As I learned in FGO last week, they not only existed but their authority and territory of Scandinavia encompassed 9 or more realms.

How much of these realms were actually made by Odin is a guess due to the nature of what gods are vs what humans believe but they still existed. Literal planes of existence wrapped around a specific region on earth.

Odin's kinda scary ngl

You're likely wondering why Earth, as a sentient thing, would allow this. Yes, many of the oldest gods were spirits it birthed for a purpose but many more grew beyond that or fell from space.

Some are even as small as parasites. The aforementioned Quetzalcoatl was originally a parasite from space. The entire Mesoamerican pantheon was as such. They landed on earth in the age of the dinosaurs and began hopping from one host to another.

It was humanity that defied them and it's also the reason Quetzalcoatl is female as a servant but remembered as a winged serpent. That female form is quite bluntly her current host.

As for "why" earth let them be for so long, well, it's simple. It's humanities faith in them that makes them gods but the earth itself, the will Gaia, grants these gods their authority based on how many humans believe in it.

They're not only gods because humans believe it so but because the earth allows them to be. That's what "authority" is when you're watching Fate. That's the thing the earth gave them power over.

Such as Zeus and Odin commanding the skies and lightning or Tiamat the seas. All of these gods bow to the planet in a way.

But that is also why their age came to an end.

Let us circle back to Uruk and the age of man's beginning, back to this f*cker here. ^

Ya see, the gods are so reliant on the planet that they can't maintain a physical form without it's mana. Especially if the bodies they originally had are destroyed like how the Olympians lost their ship bodies.

The White Titan is actually to blame for this in part. Before the Fae forged Excalibur and gave it to it's human wielder to slay the titan it razed earth to the ground.

80% of life was lost and many of the gods who guarded the planet were slain by it. This is crucial because mana stems from life and vice versa. If you wipe away 80% of the life (including fauna) on the planet then a huge chunk of it's mana is going to disappear.

This began the downward spiral for the age of gods ending. As life slowly rebuilt the mana never reached the levels it had before. In fact, it's continually dwindling even up to the modern day in Fate.

Even the dense mana of Uruk, which was deadly for Fujimaru to even breath, was a far cry from the mana that sustained the gods.

This loss of relevance and physical presence forced humanity to begin to rely on themselves. They began to understand the world around them rather than seeing gods and mystery at every corner.

Sure, humans still believed in them but they couldn't as easily interact with humanity. By the time Gilgamesh was born the gods of that region were using human hosts.

Gilgamesh himself was specifically made to try and extend or even save the 'Age of Gods'. It was the butting heads of both parties, the spite and arrogance, that made Gilgamesh turn on them. Killing Enkidu was the last foolish thing they did.

On top of that, the very divine powers Gilgamesh was born with due to them worked against them. Gilgamesh had mystic eyes that could see the future and one of the futures he saw was humanity abandoning it's "mother" earth for the stars.

Believing in his own kind and spiting the gods he purposely did something to prevent the age of gods from reviving. He sealed their casket.

It is here that human actually begins to turn on the gods. If human faith makes them then human independence undoes them. A fact that causes many of the gods you see in FGO or other source to have a love/hate dynamic with mankind.

They love them but they hate them for abandoning them to the ether.

And so the world split in two

Earlier I mentioned how the earth had planes or textures to be specific. A la the underworld such as Hades or the 9 realms of Norse myth. I also mentioned that the metaphysical and the physical occupied the same space.

Well all that changed. With faith in them dying and the earths mana drying up the gods and every other mythical being retreated to what's called "The Reverse Side of the World".

Essentially, the metaphysical became it's own plane of existence separated from the modern age of humanity. Even gods that died at one point now exist there as "divine spirits".

Think of Zeus, Odin, Ishtar, etc. They still exist but only as a spirit, something humans remember as a "myth" or "legend" not a "real" person.

Some of them even exist in the Throne as heroic spirits such as Heracles and Medusa.

All of this because the earth is shaping to what humans understand and believe. In fact, humans have grown to such an extent by this point that Gaia no longer rules the earth alone.

The collective mind of mankind has created Alya or as you commonly see named the "Counter-force".

The absence of the old gods has spurred along human progression and now humans are at a mid way point. They are both of the planet but also separate from it.

Does that mean the gods can never return? Actually no. The Lostbelts of FGO are 7 different histories attempting to revive it in some form and it's said that the Reverse Side is held up by "pillars".

If you take out those pillars it's entirely possible to cause the metaphysical and physical to once again collide and return the Age of Gods.

But know this, doing so in any facet means the end of the Age of man if not the potential extinction of mankind.

After all, despite all the love I've put here and all the love the gods have for man it's still a fundamental fact that humans are defined by progress while the gods eventually settled and tried to keep stagnation.

The biggest hatred Gilgamesh has for the gods is the unwillingness to change. The world would completely shift into a new status quo that the gods wouldn't let change.

Especially when the modern humans likely wouldn't survive it. If the denser mana of Uruks day was just deadly to breath then you can imagine what the return of the gods age would do to the population at large.

Wrapping up finally

Though I enjoy how humans overcome monsters and events in Type-Moons stories I do have to admit I find it incredibly depressing how the fantastical world it occupies is slowly dying.

In every timeline the mana continues to dwindle, the Reverse Side grows further from the age of man, and many futures of this Earth are bleak ones.

That is a personal thing however. I hate when any story just turns a wonderful world into our own modern one. Even if I love Fate enough to tolerate that nitpick in the grand scheme.

I do hope we one day get a true look into the Age of Gods when this world was at its most interesting. Whether it's some AU event like a Lostbelt or even just a series set in a world where the age returns or never ended.

I may love our Seiba, or unlimited blades, or even some Apocrypha but I'd love even more to see them do something with the age of gods when this universe was it's most interesting and magical.

I hope you enjoyed this random lore dump of Type-Moon gods, bye~

===========================

For my other experiences with Fate go here: https://derekscorner.tumblr.com/tagged/fated-rantings

Be warned, for some reason my links work on PC and IoS but not Android. =[