#<- is a lie its ACTUALLY a lore thing from a different story i did a long time ago

[absurdumsid]

I love the way u draw the boys with lines under theyre eyes, it makes me think of all of them applying makeup in the morning lol

killer is in charge of doing it for them i think

[thelongestway]

hey no shade but you know dungeon meshi isn't actually based off dnd right? there are definitely some overlapping concepts and it can be fun to analyze it through a dnd lens but really it's its own homebrew fantasy setting. just checking bc i nearly got in an argument w someone over dungeon meshi lore the other day only to realize it was because they were trying to apply dnd lore to it ahahaa

Oh yeah, absolutely, it's its own thing. You don't even have to go far to show how it's its own thing: for one, the whole set-up with the dungeons being what they are isn't found anywhere else in D&D-inspired material that I know. You could maybe reflavor Halaster's Undermountain to something like the Dungeon Meshi dungeons, but that would be another layer of homebrew. That said, I do have the feeling that Ryoko Kui grew up on the same kind of D&D material that I did - stuff like Elminster's Ecologies, or old school Greyhawk materials. Her story genuinely feels like an AD&D game run by an old-school DM, maybe even earlier in the editions (hi, Chilchuck and "I'm a rogue, I'm not gonna fight"!). I don't mean that she follows D&D canon in any meaningful sense--her stuff isn't set in Greyhawk, nor on Abeir-Toril, nor on Krynn, etc. But I do think she's someone who's inspired by old school stuff, even as she makes her work thoroughly her own.

An acquaintance of mine once wrote that long tabletop games gain a quality that she called "being well-trod". This is when the players and DM are so familiar with the world they live in that it becomes, well, lived-in. They don't need to look up rules anymore to extrapolate: they understand the logic of the setting, and they get the same kind of intuitive feel for the world that we do when living in our own world, in real life. A feeling of where the boundaries lie, and how things work.

This is how I feel about Dungeon Meshi and D&D. It feels like a work written by someone who walked the same paths that I did, and whose work is therefore both new and startlingly familiar. That's it in a nutshell, but then I also wrote a bunch of examples, which got very long, so cut for length and spoilers!

I wrote somewhere in the tags on my Dungeon Meshi posts that it's incredibly surreal reading a story that seems to be informed by the exact materials that you base your own homebrew games on. Kui takes her work in a wholly different direction than I did - but the disparate elements of the story would fit in like a glove, because they're based on similar logic. I could quite literally take any of the ecologies elements of Dungeon Meshi and put them into a given module I'm running, and it would need less adaptation than 5e material. And most of the cultural/racial elements of Dungeon Meshi? That, too. Where it's not a one for one match, it would so easily be explainable by "different continent".

Let's take the example you're probably here from: the Canaries and elves in general, and let's take elves in general first. In D&D, there's been a switch in models of elven aging throughout the years: from "they are literal babies up until 60-ish, and then have 40 years of actual adolescence" to "yeah they grow to full adult size at about the same speed as the other races, and are then just culturally considered too young to make their own decisions". I am decidedly not a fan of the second model - I think it takes away from the cool biologies early D&D thrived on. BG3's treatment of Astarion's age of death, for instance, keeps throwing me. Yeah, I get it: it fits in with the edition they're working off, but I hate it. That's not how things work on our Faerun! But then we get to Marcille's backstory, and we see that she has the problems old school half-elves did, and you're like "oh, well of course someone invested in weird cool biology as an author would interpret elves like that." Her treatment of age makes sense to me. She makes the races as alien as possible, and hits that vibe of "D&D-style fantasy is its own thing, with its own set of rules" that I love. In contrast, and unlike any prototypes I know, Kui takes her half-foots in a different direction! They don't live longer than tall-men, they live shorter lives, closer to goblinoids. And I think it's for the same reason: because it's that much cooler to have different experiences of life in humanoid races. This is decidedly Not D&D, but it would absolutely fit into that vein.

With smaller details, I keep joking around here that the Canaries are grey elves, and of course they're not. But then Kui keeps putting in these tiny little details - which can be either nods to existing material, or the same extrapolations that other authors drawing upon high fantasy tropes have made. The white ships that have travelled all the way from Tolkien's Valinor to Evermeet and now to Shima. The fact that the Canaries have basically the right color scheme for grey elves threw me completely: I was not expecting that! Elves being that specific brand of destructive that they are - jeez, the Canaries would be right at home in Myth Drannor, or during the Crown Wars. So I joke around about these specific dolts a lot, and I am having an inordinate amount of fun seeing if my predictions that come from running a Myth Drannor game for a good long while now come true. And it goes on. Marcille doesn't prepare spells, and the magic here is obviously not Vancian. But Mithrun's teleport shenanigans are literally stuff I've done in games. The differences between races in D&D aren't because of wishes made by mortals; they're built in by gods for their own purposes. But the towns that spring up around anomalous spots and that have to deal with the weirdness have the same vibe. Kui draws on a more extensive tradition than just D&D, of course, but she transforms the tradition in a very similar way to old D&D. Of course the elves' magic in Kui's work does weird and creepy stuff with soulbinding and immortality; that's been their dark side since Tolkien and Celebrimbor's work with Annatar, and then it turned into stuff like elves regularly sacrificing their lives in high magic rituals in Faerun. Of course Senshi's backstory is about the dwarves that have dug too deep - but they are, of course, distinct from gnomes, and the gnomes are a peculiar and interesting breed of arcana specialists. Of course Chilchuck is a Burglar - but he works on dungeon delving unions, of all things! It's a familiar transformation, so the world makes sense to me, and I love it. So yeah. Tl;dr: not D&D ofc, but the vibe is there, and I am having fun with it.

Also - can you tell me about the argument? I am super curious, and I wonder if the person you were arguing with was working from 5e material.

[rutadales]

Do you not think cDream is the villain? Sorry this is not at all meant to be agressive or anything, I just have trouble understanding that interpretation. I’m genuinely interested in what you think bc I’m not as well versed in lore as many dsmp fans but from what I’ve seen, cDream is a pretty unequivocally bad person. I think few of the characters aren’t to be fair, but though cDream is more complex than the common interpretations, he doesnt necessarily seem to be morally better? Again, don’t mean to sound rude or anything!! Just kinda trying to understand :)

So this question kinda expands into several branching off points for me, but I'll try to keep it simple and break it down into sections as best I can. this is going to get long

So do I think c!Dream is a villain? Depends on what definition you're using first of all but also in what context, in which storyline, and from whose perspective you're consuming the story from. A strength of SMPs as storytelling devices is that the concrete plot and hard facts of the story are often pretty fluid; what happened when, who was there, who saw what, and who is a villain or a hero is all dependent on which stream you chose to tune into at the time. But as much as this is a strength, it's also a detriment. Entire character beats and motivations can be missed or obfuscated by simply not tuning into a creators stream. A big example of this is how many people missed the Staged Finale reveal, anyone who didn't watch Punz stream will still be operating under the belief that everything Dream did in the disc finale was his true nature, and not an act. Completely changes how to interpret those characters and the entire finale as a scene.

The nature of stream based storytelling is audiences are consuming completely different stories, simultaneously, and there's no hard copy of this story. It's not a book you can go pick up at Barnes and Noble or a movie you can stream on Netflix. To get caught up and engage with the fiction you either have to go back and rewatch hundreds of hours of live content (with dead space and parts that have been completely ret-conned), watch recaps edited by third parties who are at liberty to cut out anything they deem irrelevant to the story, or get it exclusively word of mouth by the audience. A character being more loved by the audience now means that character's narration is given higher value in contrast to other characters. Even supposedly non-biased sources, like the fan wiki, meant to lay out bare bone facts of the story are riddled with un-sourced fan interpretations of the media. Look here

Now, reading a characters unreliable narration as reliable isn't a failing as it is more just engaging with the media as intended. The intent of utilizing unreliable narrators is often to "trick" the audience or to showcase how that character sees the world. Its fine and is used is a lot of different mediums, I'm actually a huge fan. Love me some bitches who just lie. The thing is, due to everything I've laid out above, having a character who is unreliable, like c!Tommy often is, in this medium means fans who only consume the content via world of mouth are getting an unreliable narration without the context that its unreliable. This completely changes entire swaths of the fiction and more, to our point, who is the villain.

A really, kind of neat phenomena in the fandom is how fans bought into c!Wilbur's lies about L'manberg the same way the characters he was manipulating did. Fans became part of the narrative in a strange way. Which is actually a perfect example for how other characters shape the narrative around Dream, both within the fiction and within the fans trying to engage with it.

With that in mind, I don't even read the dsmp as a story with "villains" or "heros", its a story with a lot of different perspectives that clash with each other. Those terms don't really lend themselves to the kind of questions I'm asking about the story.

I think the question you're really asking is "Do you think c!Dream is a good person". You bring up being "unequivocally bad" and moral a couple different times, which to me flags as a question about fictional morality. Because the question of who is a villain in the dream smp is completely dependent on who you watch, which streams you've watched, and whosever narration you decided to subscribe to-- and is why I find the label villain in dsmp analysis fairly mute. It's kinda a pointless exercise to try and determine who earns that label and who doesn't. Not the kind of analysis I'm interested in.

But to answer the question I think you imply here, no I don't think c!Dream is a good person. I don't think anyone on the smp is. Maybe Michael? Well he tried to break into a prison for information, so by some moral standards, absolutely not! I'd certainly agree with you that Dream is more complex than common interpretation would lead us to believe, but that complexity does lend itself to morality in some cases.

Is Dream wrong to want to prevent his home from being split up into countries and thus filled with conflict? Is it worse to threaten, torment, and assault someone because you're pathologically obsessed with them or because you have a larger goal in mind and find those actions beneficial to the goal at hand?

To me, that's it's just pointless hole to get sucked into. I am personally uninterested in ideas of a character possessing or gaining moral purity and much more interested in characters learning to move on from the harm they've caused. C!Dream is interesting to me, not because he's a good person, but because hes a complex one. TL;DR: I am uninterested in using villain as a term within the context of dsmp and find the discussions of the moral goodness of characters reductive.

If you have any other questions feel free to shoot me an ask! I actually quite enjoy breaking down how I think about characters and media and am always open to (friendly) discussions on the matter. <3

[spearxwind]

Hi hello I wanna talk a bit about CD currently but Im not sure if its gonna be too long/negative so I'm gonna put my thoughts under a lid <3

So like. To start off it's really not a secret that I have a lot of trouble when it comes to crafting stories. This has been the case for many years, and will continue to be the case probably forever.

Challenger Deep felt like an exception to this at first, but since starting development on it my life took some turns that made it clear that CD suffers from the same and from different problems

To start with... I started using it as a vehicle for my grief at the start. Talas (especially) and Graves were both used as vehicles for my grief while I was going through stuff the past couple of years, and that inevitably bled through into The Everything.

It's not a bad thing to do this at all mind you (It helped me immensely) but it gave CD a strange foundation for me to build on that now I feel like I am at a major disconnect with, so I would like to build some more foundation around it, so to speak.

I would like to recraft the story (not rewrite it entirely because theres things i rly love, but theres others that I'd like to improve), and a lot of the lore (I feel like I closed my options a bit too much with some of it so I want to make it more expansive too. Part of why I wrote it the way it was was so I could invite friends to make stuff for CD but that did not go over well at all so I think I am going to not do that again). I just havent had the time to work on it properly, and since it's in this state where I feel like I need to "fix" it, I don't feel as passionate about it as last year so at the moment I'm letting it ride and waiting for when I'm excited to work on it again

I would like to add more characters as well and actually do justice writing-wise to the characters that are already in there too.

Also I won't lie, a big part of my investment in CD until recently was my oc ship, with Talas and Hades, and ever since I got into my current relationship I just havent thought much about them at all because I started pretty much actually living all of the shitposts and tropes I'd written and it started making me feel a bit strange to write/draw about that, so I need to fix that as well. See why I feel weird about it and what I can do to stop it and get back to those two

Additionally I've had a redesign of talas and hades' markings in my WIPs for months now. Hades is done, but on Talas' side Im not sure how to add in his bioluminescence pattern because something isnt working for me. I wanted him to be more visibly purble though with said markings. Everything else I really like, its just the glowy pattern (though watch me change the markings anyways bc im an indecesive beast)

Here's a snippet of them:

I wanted them both to have more natural fishy looking markings pretty much

So yeah, that's currently the state of things. I miss it a lot and i rly wanna work on it again proper, maybe now that I've acknowlegded it and made a post about it I will get a second wind like I've gotten before after getting The Gunk out of my chest.

If you read all that thank you I hope you have a swag day <3

[ardnin]

My thoughts on Splatoon 3′s Hero Mode

Since I haven’t really talked about it too much I started wrting down my thoughts on the story of the new Hero Mode and oops it got quite long lol

So click keep reading if you’re interested in my thoughts!

In many aspects the Hero Mode was really great and I absolutely loved most things like the actual levels, the music and especially Alterna as a setting and the lore around it. The detailed lore on humanity's downfall and construction of Alterna blew me away and they didn’t lie when they said we’d get to know where Inklings came from because they described the cause for the evolution of these species in surprising detail. I always especially love lore about humanity in Splatoon, so to have this much about it and also stuff like actual “human music” with the background music on the Alterna sites was easily my favorite part of it. However, lore and story are different things, and while the lore was great the story was really disappointing.

I think the main story just feels really flawed, which is frustrating since it might steer the lore into an uninteresting direction, at least for my taste, but it also leaves behind plot holes and kinda ruins how sensible Splatoon lore has been up until this point. The entire Mr Grizz plot is just extremely bad and it’s not even the fact that he’s a bear. I know this is the thing people are memeing about lore fans malding because he’s a bear but that’s not even the problem. I think having a sentient bear that was once on the humans Ark Polaris and then came crashing down to earth to grow mad at the lack of mammals is a premise that could work, since we have a similar deal with how the Judds also are mammals from human times that possess human level intelligence, probably through human experimentation. I can even excuse the lame justification for the insane plans of Mr Grizz since he may have just grown mad over time.

My problem is the amount of unnecessary plot points and unthoughtful explanations for Mr Grizz and Grizzco. What is this nonsense with Grizz needing Cuttlefish’s “brain”? Is it the crystals inside that he needs to make the ooze? But at that point Grizz should already be done with producing all of it right? All this talk about “needing a representative for earth” and then Grizz just launches the Rocket without any explanations.

I do have some ideas why he might’ve needed Cuttlefish, but with the rest of this story I don’t have high hopes there will be any sensible official explanation for this. To me it just feels like they did it only to create a fake dramatic moment and they wanted to “kill” Cuttlefish without knowing a better way to do it.

It just doesn’t feel fleshed out and you also notice this with stuff like ORCA and its test chambers. They don’t even explain why ORCA has these Inkling weapon optimized tests for the player character when the computer was meant to provide testing for humans in these facilities. In the Octo Expansion, there was a clear reason why Agent 8 was going through these tests, because Tartar actually was looking for people from the current societies in Splatoon, that’s why these test chambers existed. But here there is no clear reason for it. It just feels like “oh people liked Octo Expansion so let’s do the same thing again” without putting the effort into the reasoning behind these tests ORCA does.

The biggest problem for me though is the connection between Mr Grizz and Grizzco. Because the connection is absolutely unnecessary. They destroyed all the depth Grizzco had as a company by saying that Mr Grizz founded the company. How would this work? They said power eggs are an important energy source for the Inkling world, but now the whole company is just a vehicle for Grizz to produce Fuzzy Ooze? Where the game itself doesn’t explain why he even needs the eggs? Does Grizzco not contribute to the world's energy needs after all? The entire plot of Return of the Mammalians could’ve worked without Grizzco’s involvement and the power eggs at all, they lifted the mystery behind Grizzco in the most boring way possible. I was hoping for Grizzco to be this dubious company led by actual people in the Inkling world with an interest in money and power by being an important pillar in the security of the cities as well by fending off Salmonids, entangled in many shady networks the company would have real ambitions for power within the Inkling world, and not be a hollow plot vehicle only existing for Grizz to realize his plan. And this could’ve been easily avoided if they said that Mr Grizz only took over an existing company and basically ordered the eggs from them, while the actual people running the company still had their own interests. But they had to do it in the most mundane and boring way possible by saying he “made” the company, without giving any thought about maintaining this sense of depth Grizzco had if it had actual people from the Inkling world running it with their own shady ambitions. And the worst part is that after the Hero Mode, it is implied Lil Judd is now “running” the company. Why can’t they just let Grizzco be an actual interesting company ran by shady people? Why do they set up another dumb mammal related thing with Lil Judd? My biggest fear is they double down on the evil mammal plot and make another similar thing with Lil Judd. I was hoping the thing with him being “evil” was just a joke plot and not relevant to the main lore and story of the game, but now this is a real possibility. It would just be the exact direction I was hoping the game’s story would not take.

But please don’t take this criticism too heavily. Overall this is still the most impressive Hero Mode they ever made and I appreciate the ambition they had with it. The criticism is purely about the story and not the entire experience.

Here’s some additional bonus-thoughts I had that I cut from the main write up since it’s more like smaller disappointments than anything else since it’s partly things that would’ve been unrealistic to expect anyways:

“Another thing that slightly disappointed me was that the Crater segment was seemingly building up something huge - they literally mocked the previous game’s Hero Modes with it -  only to send us to Alterna and use the exact same formula as the older Hero Modes. The Octavio bossfight was so fucking cool and I was really hoping that after that, Octavio and Cuttlefish would accompany us together, and there would be some more interactions between the two with some actual story segments that would happen as the game went along. Instead they just made the two vanish and saving Cuttlefish became the ultimate goal for 90% of the story and it was basically the same as ever with no story content during the middle of the game aside from the Deep Cut encounters. And Octavio literally only shows up at the very finale out of nowhere and there is absolutely no character development for him or Octavio. He doesn’t even show up at the camp in the end and the only mention of Cuttlefish about all this is “Who would’ve thought Octavio isn’t that bad”.

In parts it feels like to me the devs bit off more they could chew with this because there definitely is a lot of ambition since there’s even more cutscenes than in Octo Expansion, but with moments like the revival of Cuttlefish that feel like it was supposed to be an emotional moment, the timing and pacing of the scene was so bad and everything happened so fast it felt funny and silly more than anything else, which is sad because this could’ve been a nice emotional moment. But even that isn’t that bad since it’s their first time doing cutscenes at this scope and they will probably improve in the future.”

[covencupid]

Unfinished Friday (I was too late for WIP wednesday)

I had a draft for this but it's gone AUGH.

Basically I wanted to write a cute story where you give Danny a sandwich because you noticed he hasn't been eating.

What I wanted to say was that I began writing this as I first began playing DBD. I've now unlocked all the lore pages, and thing is I got to one tome where the way it started it just made me things fuuuuuuuuuck this sounds similar. Like it is and it isn't? If any of y'all have read his lore pages lmk if you see what I mean. Like the story doesn't go in the same direction and it's overall different, but the similarities did give me pause, and not gonna lie it kinda took the wind outta my sails to continue this. So this may be all there will be plus a tiny part I have half written, but idk. It was just a bit disheartening to because I don't even wanna walk the line of "ripoff" territory, but I already had this part written and I was really proud of the drama. Idk y'all tell me.

Anyway, here's the beginning of the sandwich story.

A little Something

       Richard Thomas.

     Two first names and twice the pain in my ass.

     Danny had chosen the non-descript man because there really was not much there to begin with. He was a blank canvas. On the outside, Richard Thomas was the perfect empty vessel for the masses to insert themselves into the story. A mirror to the populace that tells them “It could be you.”

     Great idea. Perfect idea. It’s what they want, they want to relate, they want to wear the victims shoes and feel comforted that it wasn’t them. It was just anybody off the street, so feel caution, but feel gratitude that it was someone else this time.

     But little Bitchard Thomas, Danny found himself thinking, apparently had something that very much set him apart from the rest. An entire wriggling mass hiding under his squeaky clean skin. If he looked back, Danny thought that the clues were all there. For his exterior the two words Danny would use to describe him would be “plain” and “particular”. He was inoffensive, if not dull. Plain of looks, personality, and opinion. He ruffled no feathers, he had no hills to die on.

     But he went about life, even in his most private moments, as if he was being watched. Yes, of course he was, but at this point Danny hasn’t made any contact and Bitchard had no reason to believe he was actually being watched.

     By now, Danny had been watching the man for five weeks. By week one Danny figured out his daily routine, his preferred route to work and back, and how he spent time. Week two he was able to account for how he responds to deviation and the type of things that would mess with his routine. Week three went by like the first, and so did the fourth. Week five is when the bullshit began. It started with him going down to his basement late at night on Sunday. Danny didn’t see what he did there but he went in at 2am and didn’t come out until 5:33am. Whatever he did, he looked haggard by the end of it. The next day Danny decided to pay his little basement a visit and find the reason for his late night rendezvous.

     After seeing little Bitchard off to work, Danny went about his investigation. He was annoyed because he already knew the house. He could walk through it blindfolded. Danny knew where he kept his sheets, where he put his birth certificate, and which drawer he kept his dirty magazines. He could give tours of this boring little bitch palace if he wanted to. But now, in his home again with a new sense of skepticism, it felt too plain. It’s not well kept, it’s pristine. It was lived-in in the way IKEA showrooms gave the impression of a very neat life lived in their implied walls. 

     Danny put himself at the entryway of the home. He turned around towards the door and closed his eyes. Danny inhaled deeply, held it for 8 seconds and quickly spun around for the length of his exhale. He opened his eyes and steadied himself as the entryway funhoused its way back to normal. He took a step forward. 

           Okay. Let’s walk the house for the first time again.

       The first thing that Danny noticed as he took measured steps around the squat bungalow is that everything at the front of house was displayed. Every single thing was displayed just so, angled at either side to face the doorway. A subconscious invitation to look inside and see the perfect domestic display. Danny walked forward until he reached the inner hall that splintered the rest of the house. He spun around sharply on his heel and looked at the display from the back, towards the door. It was almost right, almost normal, but aware as he was now Danny saw just how hollow it was. A life did not cause the end tables to be shifted at a slight angle towards the door. Everyday motions did not tousle the stack of books into its perfectly unkempt spot. No, no, it was all wrong. Looking at it all together it looked like the inside of a TV. The shiny screen hiding the mess of wires that allowed it to function.

     Danny continued on to the bedroom. This room had more signs of life, of actually living, but it was all so surface level. Rumpled sheets, dirty laundry abandoned halfway on the floor, at his desk a picture with friends and some drawings from his students. 

     He’s walked the houses of many varied people. Type A people, Type B people, minimalists, maximalists, the eco conscious, and the hungry consumer. They all lived differently, and their home was always a reflection of themselves. Their personalities lived in the idiosyncrasies of their dwellings, their tchotchkes, their mementos. This house had nothing. It was as if the furnishings were the decoration. Sure a handful of milquetoast prints that all seem to be variations on a theme dot the walls. There are small vases with fake flowers. Two plaques with generic homely quotes. Nothing identifiable to its homeowner, but giving the impression that it has a homeowner, like an open house. 

     It didn’t make sense. This guy definitely lived here, walked through these halls, and shit in these toilets. Yet for all of its evidence of a life lived, the house felt just as empty a vessel as Danny hoped Richard Thomas would be.

       Alright that’s enough.

       Danny made his way to the basement. In his prior walkthrough, the basement was far less intriguing than it was now. It was cold, damp, and littered with everything you would expect to be forgotten down here. There were some plastic boxes of old clothes, and a handful of outdoor Christmas decorations.There was a set of old wooden furniture bunched up in the back corner of the basement by the stairs. Next to it was a stacked upright workbench either bolted to the wall or built into it. Danny looked at the whole of the room. The placement of the furniture, packed awkwardly close in that far corner, felt at odds with the rest of the room. The basement was definitely spacious enough for the furniture set to be spaced out without taking up much room. In fact so much of the basement was empty. It’s not that the furniture looked out of place, but it didn’t make sense with how precise and evenly spaced out the rest of his belongings sat throughout the house. No, it doesn’t jump out at you. It’s some old shit. But there’s something so oddly human about the way it’s slapped against the wall. Something entirely at odds with the rest of the house.

       An odd tugging feeling was inching its way up Danny’s spine, it wasn’t fear but it was equally potent. He approached the wooden furniture the way you might approach a cat you’d like to take. Cautious, observant, eager. Danny’s eyes raked over their lines and angles. There was a notch in the wall in the spot where the workbench met the wardrobe. It was small enough to be imperceptible at any distance that wasn’t intimate. Danny felt his eyes lock on the knick, it extended the line that united the furniture ever so slightly. He carved his gloved fingers into the crack, gripping the wardrobe from the raised trim at its top. A groan strained from his throat as he pulled the wardrobe out toward him an inch. He pulled it the rest of the way out by its side. A tickle of satisfaction made Danny give a short huff. 

       A discreet panel blended into the wall, negligible if not for the faint glint along its edge. Danny felt along the wall, placing light force along its inner perimeter until he heard a faint click. The small door eased open enough for Danny to be able to grab onto it and pull. The entry was cramped and looked like the open maw of a beast. It was a black hole. With more intrigue than trepidation, Danny made his way into the short passage into a black open space. Feeling along the wall, Danny felt a small panel and flicked a flat switch. The room blinked to life.

       This was Richard Thomas. There was a squat couch to the right of the room with a few clothes cast about. Two doors faced him on the far wall. On the left close to one of the doors, a desk sat flush against the wall with a computer, several stacks of CDs and floppy disks. Danny went to examine it up close, the screen had a bar flashing but seemingly making no progress. Above it the screen read “Upload in progress. Do not power off or exit the program.” Danny went for the adjacent door to its right. Unlocked, no lock on the door at all. Doesn’t expect intrusion, cocky even by his measure. Smug little prick. As the room formed from the shadows Danny recognized what this room was instantly. 

       It was a darkroom.

       Richard, Ricky… What have we got here? No photos out here for me? Making me work? I will find everything you’re hiding under that drab little skin. I’ll flay you alive if I have to… Well shit, I want to.

     Looking through the drawers and cabinets in the darkroom, Danny only found various supplies for developing film. Danny turned to exit the room. 

       What kinds of people hide their hobbies? What kind of person hides their hobby this much?

       Danny went to the door by the couch. No lock. Probably real pleased with himself. Opening it, he felt for the switch by the doorway and flipped it as if acting on instinct. Like Richard would, walking in. He was met with a four by four room with wall to wall cardboard file boxes. The room was exceptionally cold, biting. 

       The boxes had dates, some had dates and locations. April 1985, October 1990. The boxes reached up to his nose. His finger reached out to tap the date on the box closest to him. February 1988, Ft. Lauderdale. His hand reached into its open mouth. Pulling it out, it held the weight of, if not a large dog, maybe a small child. He popped the lid off and let it slide onto the floor. It was filled to the brim with envelopes large and small. Larger ones lay flat and the smaller ones sat stacked together in neat rows, some grouped together with large rubber bands.

       Danny plucked an envelope from a bottom heavy stack, grouped awkwardly in a corner.  He plucked the flap up from the throat. Negatives, two thick stacks. Danny slid one out and held it up to the light. Awkward arms, hard to fully make sense of it at first. Then he moved the negative up to illuminate the next frame. It was undeniable now. 

       Jesus fuck. This fucking-

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

(Note: All of these asks are before episode 206 (Season 2 finale) so some may be dated.) 1. I can't even trustt this "cute" moment between zeus and artemis bc rachel is just way too anti zeus and too big of a fan of "twist" villains that I just have the feeling she's going to use this as a stepping stone to set up artemis the next villain because idk she doesnt like hades still and be like oh what BETRAYAL of persephone! now both of the twins should be punished now! or w/e.

2. It's not just that a time skip is lazy and out of place, if you're just going to flashback to explain what happened anyway, then don't do a time skip? Just show the progression as you already have done? Why skip ahead only to jump back? She's basically trying to do too many things at once and none of it is done well.

3. the wild part to me is has rachel ACTUALLY read the old texts? because they're way more progressive than her work. demeter's hymn praised her and persephone while calling out the abuse of men, women like aphrodite (who has a ton of sex with many partners) or artemis who didnt have sex were all held to high respect and never shamed for their choices, and stories like the odyssey/Iliad explicitly called out slavery, yet rachel is here in 2022 being ore conservative than men from 800 BC. like???

4. A time skip in LO isn’t a bad idea in and of itself. We’ve been complaining about RS’s slow pacing for years and she’s finally taking a different approach, which is good! The only problem is that her execution of the time skip ends up leaving out integral and interesting details about how the characters’ relationships with each other have changed in the decade since we’ve seen them. I was looking forwards to Minthe and Perse reconciliation arc but we don’t even know how they grew to that point

5. I love the her current look is a "turn off" line tho bc it's both persephone being aware hades is a gross old man who only dates under 25 years olds but doesnt seem to linger on this realization (P is legit so stupid) but also that rachel has zero self awareness that shes not a very good artist bc persephone still looks exactly the same despite being ten years older. like rachel will just say whatever lie she thinks up despite direct contradiction in comic and be like wow im such a good writer

6. Out of all things wrong with LO, I don't think I mind the switch from serious to silly in the mid-season premiere chapter? The part where Zeus gets threatened with ConSEqueNCEs for punishing Persephone is dumb as hell, but the transition to her speaking to the screen like she's talking to the audience before revealing something ridiculous is a tried and tested way of moving to a new scene, so I kinda like it. It's marred by her talk of pierced ears and green hands, but it's not bad.

7. How did you get into  Lore Olympus  in  the first place?

From OP: I found LO after seeing a lot of ads for it. I already knew of its existence but decided to try it because why not (I think I got into it around episode 70ish). I was obsessed with it, not solely because of the romance but because of the art. However, I started to question a lot of the stuff in the story and looked through youtube and tumblr to see if I was the only one feeling this way. Surprise surprise, I wasn’t and now I’m here lol.

8. I'm confused with the whole Artemis being called protector of women. You'd think she would do something to earn that title, but all she did was ask to be with Persephone in the mortal realm? It makes zero sense.

9. I know changing your physical appearance is sometimes an external sign that a change is going on internally but... did RS really have Persephone pierce her ears as the ONLY sign of her taking her life into her hands? I don't mind it as a heavy-handed metaphor but girl has done the bare minimum in ten years (a punishment she was happy with until they actually sentenced her with it) and you're telling me it's #girlboss because she pierced her ears???

10. What's so annoying about the timeskip too is it's not just lazy, it makes the last FOUR YEARS be for nothing. HxP relationship is exactly the same and their characterization is stagnant, big deals like Leto and Kronos are just swept to the side, Eros and Psyche was dropped I guess? Minthe and Daphne is resolved off scrteen, and the now the actual myth is supposed to start after FOUR YEARS of nothing happening? It's just a waste of everyone's time, but Rachel gets rich off of it at least 🤨

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

What were your inspirations for fae AU? It’s the first fae thing that every held my attention, so to me everything you did was crazy out of the blue original lol! Not to say that I don’t think your work was original—I really, really enjoyed it to the degree I amped up my efforts to get friends to play AA so they could read it and talk about it with me lol—but I write too so I know the best stuff is riffing on other stuff u know? And I want to trace the lineage so to speak I’m fascinated.

You made your friends play Ace Attorney so you could share my fanfic with them? I am incredibly flattered!

The Fae AU is really weird foundationally because I was not deeply into fae stuff when I started writing it. I dashed off the first chapters riding solely on the "fae and lawyers are alike because they can't lie" joke, which.... probably was put into my head off a tumblr post or something. Tumblr has its own minor love affair with the fae. (Elsewhere University is definitely baked into the DNA of the Fae AU, I know that for sure. The vibe in that comic where you're not always sure where regular college weirdness crosses over to magical weirdness - love that.)

But once I sat down to actually start crafting lore, I did basically the same thing I did when I was writing stories with werewolves and vampires in high school - what I like to do, with those folklore creatures that have long histories in folklore and pop culture, is to toss all the pop culture knowledge out of my head and start my research from the ground up. Then I just read until I find stuff that makes my brain itch. It doesn't have to be deep research, I'm not writing a paper, but I'll read Wikipedia and follow some citations from there, read a couple books, these sorts of rabbit holes are fun for me.

A lot of the Fae AU lore about fairies really does just come from it being an Ace Attorney adaptation, though. Curses as they are come from me looking at the games like, "yeah, our protagonists keep stumbling into crime scenes because this is a mystery game and we need to have some crimes, and they can't start every case with a client just walking into the office and asking for our help, that'll be boring if they repeat it too often, BUT while this is a genre convention that doesn't need to be explained what if I did explain it with fae magic?"

I'd probably have ended up crafting very different fae lore if I'd been writing a fae AU about any other series - Ace Attorney weirdness really helped shape the series and its fae into what they are.

[thegirl20]

#1 Omg, those memes are so funny but also where is the lie🤣 I'm not debating that she cares for the others too, it's just not even close to how much she cares about Yennefer. You are so right though, we know very little about their dynamic and tbh I think it's ridiculous that supposedly Yen only spent like.. 4 years at Aretuza? Pretty sure it's much longer than that in the books. That's ridiculous, how could they learn how to wield magic so quickly?

#2 Plus it's not like they don't have all the time in the world to learn all they can. Omg I wish you wrote the show instead of the useless lot that are actually writing it🤦‍♀️ "explained more about the heirarchy of the Brotherhood and how the Council works and stuff" honestly THIS. I haven't a fkin clue what the difference is, whuch group holds the most power and so on. I even looked it up but I'm gonna have to again cause it's confusing.. Yeah, the show is super inconsistent about everything

#3 Someone said that it's like the writers just expect people to go along with all the crap cause everybody just binges it and then moves on. Except there are a lot of people who were familiar with the world of The Witcher before the show and know the lore. Better than the ones writing the show from what it looks like.. This is an interesting point though because I have not considered what the people who only know what happens on the show would think.

I don't know that I'd agree with binging culture meaning that you don't need to care about telling a good story. Especially in fantasy, lore and worldbuilding are so much a part of the story because it's not our world and we need to understand how it fits together. Personally, I like bits of The Witcher and I work with those bits. But a lot of the stuff in the show, when subjected to any scrutiny at all, doesn't stand up.

#4 It seems the majority either knew it before or wanted to know more so decided to do some digging or read the books even. I think it's well worth doing that because you don't get to experience this amazing world at its full potential otherwise. You only get a very limited and frankly warped version full of plot holes and inconsistencies.

I did read The Last Wish, but I can't say I enjoyed it. I know loads of people love the books, but the bits I've read don't appeal to me. To each their own and all that. Plus, Tissaia's my favourite character, and book Tissaia seems to be a totally different character (and not actually around much) in the books, so I don't have much motivation to read them.

#5 I have shipped a few ships that were unlikely to be canon but not a lot. Can't really think of one right now even. No, actually Rizzoli&Isles but my interest in them wasn't anywhere deep enough like it is for Yennaia🤦‍♀️ Honestly I totally see why you would not care for Yen's relationship with Geralt, the show doesn't even remotely do it justice. Whereas in the books it's one of the most important things, along with Geralt and Ciri's relationship. And Ciri and Yen's (as far as I know).

I know many people were pissed off at the Yennefer and Ciri stuff in Season 2 because of how their relationship is in the books, so I can understand that disappointment and betrayal. But for me, as a non book reader, I have no investment in their relationship based on what I've seen in the show. So the last episode of season 2 was pretty hollow for me.

#6 Honestly I think part of the reason why I ship Yennaia despite what I know about the books &games is because show Yennefer is so different from book and even game Yennefer that she might as well be a totally different character. And come to think of it, her relationship w Tissaia does feel more genuine than what she has with Geralt, no matter how one chooes to interpret it. So I totally agree with you there. As for Mr Manbun all I'm gonna say is that I hope he won't be alive by the end of s3

I did write about my thoughts on the developement of those two relationships in the show.

I believe he's around for a while, unfortunately. If they stick to the books.

[neyliaart]

Damn im in the oc brainrot today

So im gonna dumb stuff without context.

Skylar was meant as my gender discovery at the time I made him while Isaac was somewhat of a self insert now that I think back. Poor boy has all my anxiety and good will and need for validation and Skylar was subconciously tailored to help him with that because I needed help with that. Skylar was without my knowledge the person I needed IRL and she will forever be loved for it my precious little daughter. I love the both of them.

But also my sona Xaly whose name I stole and who is my pfp exsists in the same universe as them just on a different planet.

I have yet to create a fully built out planet that does not have racism for some reason?? I mean Isika has racism because of literal god. Like she made it up. Its lore. Nobody knows. Its secret. I mean the celestials know but their moral value doesnt lie in messing with their fellow celestials when they play god so they really dont care what she does with her world.

The spirit of creation can be killed but it will always rise again and is nurtured by the flickering flames of desire because without creation it will burn us alive. And he™ is so gonna hate me for it but thats his problem not mine.

I have the impending urge to kill Isika's god but I am bound to my own rules and she didnt join the gang because she wouldn't fucking care so she didnt anger him™ so he™ has no specific desire to tear her apart and i dont know who else would either.

I should make death and I should make death and Mother Nature be friends and I should make death exceedingly gentle and a little sad and its basic but I will never not love it and speaking of Love i still havent made her. But Love is lesbian for Life and im gonna make them tragic and actually I need to at least wound one of them he™ wouldn't let them go.

Like yeah Solaire did the most fight but momma nature definetly joined the gang and Love would join her which sizes the gang up to FOUR. HOOORAY. Thats an actual size for once and not just a random team up of two guys who are pissed. I need more tho just to convey how much of a threat he™ actually is to everyone and everything.

Death wouldn't care too much I mean hed need the death of living things to survive so why would he care? Feathers neither. The foxfires would but she cant fight so she is at most sideline support (what if I kill her that would be tragic?) and Legends? How do Legends stand in all of this? Legends stem from stories and life and need people to exsist. To be born and to be alive. SIZE UP TO FIVE hed be joining.

And in all of this lives my sona and what does she do? Go to college. Sometimes I cant believe what im doing in this universe

Official Apology, as always, goes to the unnamed undesigned Barman who has to put up with way too much fuckery for someone I still didnt draw and who doesnt even get a mouth. How does he talk? It is a mistery and he™ will never find out because im petty and its gonna keep him™ up at night lol.

[gelataisa]

Same anon as before and not gonna lie I like your fanon more lmao. That being said I do believe flames were in fact something Amano did add later as they developed the story during that arc. As we all know it originally wasn’t intended to be a battle shonen so of course Amano had to add some more “magical” elements.

But in the world flames have always been a thing (because it would be insane in-world if it were just invented during the ring battle). That being said then, the other instance we see “flames” being used by someone outside of vongola before the ring battle is Mukuro as his illusions are powered using by mist flames.

Does anyone else being shot with the Dying Will Bullet during the daily life arc also count? Such as Ryohei and Kyoko? Since that’s technically their flames being activated similar to Tsuna if you think about it. There was also the bullet Longchamp’s family had but… that’s probably its own this lmao. Anyway sorry for the ramble I just find your takes very interesting.

Well I'm very glad you find them interesting!!! I'm here exactly for this

But yes, amano certainly built lore along the way, I am pretty certain that all the different flame types were thought for real only at the beginning of the future arc, with the concept being born with Basil's "rain" flame (I do not even remember if it was an actual rain flame at the time). And I'm also pretty sure that mukuro's illusions being mist flames is said later, while in the varia arc/before it was just "many illusionists end up being mist guardians", considering mammon as well.

And no, people being shot with magic bullets, at least for me, does not count:

The dying will (flame) is certainly present in (almost) everyone, but the flame is possible only in extreme events, such as being shot by the magic bullet, so much that it erupts directly from the head, being uncontrolled

Only very few people - aka the most powerful, aka vongola bosses - are able to condense their willpower to make a flame and use it as they want. And until the varia arc they also needed a special weapon as catalyst (not just a ring), even Xanxus's flame is described as possible only with certain bullets in his guns

Basil's roles is basically to teach Tsuna not only how to maintain his flame, but also to use it without reborn shooting him if I remember well. Sure, he has the mints, but I'm pretty certain that later in the manga that is lost as well and Tsuna can just ignite as he wants (though it's tricky territory, to consider later lore, even if we look at its evolution)

So yes, flames have always being a thing in reborn lore, but I believe that they were incredibly rare before the future arc (so much that at its beginning it is explained that they a new advancement in battles) and reserved for the most powerful, when used with consciousness (and not just, going berserk because of a magic bullet)

[onecanonlife]

okay i have processed enough to write my initial thoughts i think. still haven’t watched everything that happened today (i.e. sapnap’s stream, jack’s stream, techno after tommy went live) but. i want to talk a little bit

(also i always get nervous sharing my takes as my anxiety is. bad. so i’ll preface this by saying that i am absolutely not trying to start anything with or go after anyone whose opinions are different lmao. this is all very much /lh)

okay. so. in no particular order

i’ve determined how i feel about c!ranboo’s death. the answer is that i feel very little. i am open to changing this opinion based on others’ reactions (c!tubbo pls return king i’m begging) but currently i am not. mourning. like i did for c!tommy. that ficlet that i wrote was definitely me trying to make myself feel something and it didn’t quite work. that being said, i’m very happy that cc!ranboo’s finally gonna get to tell a story the way he’s wanted to!

c!niki. girl. please.

kind of on that note, i will not lie i normally find techno’s lore streams to be fun, at least. and this stream had its moments that i enjoyed? but overall, was not digging the syndicate pov today. really, really good to have confirmation that c!techno doesn’t actually like c!dream, tho

gonna round out my discussion of the syndicate. c!phil. he fucking fascinates me. i want to shake him and i want to punch him and i want to hug him. i want to be in his brain. i want to give him a reality check. but his interactions with c!tommy today, i honestly thought was one of the highlights of the lore for me. like, he still doesn’t get it. i would really like for him to get it, at some point. i want him to understand why l’manberg is important. and the fact that he went along with c!techno’s plans despite the fact that he knows how fucking awful c!dream is has me seething. but like. at least he’s made it really clear that he’s in c!tommy’s corner. i do enjoy that

okay so. c!tommy. i don’t. i don’t even consider myself an inniter. but the return of c!tommy had me feeling some kind of way let me tell you

it’s been said by so many other people, but cc!tommy’s acting? holy fucking shit. he and dream absolutely killed that moment. that was just. chilling. i don’t even really have the words. (and that blooper was also so fucking funny i love them)

and i’d like to talk for a second about c!tommy’s forgiveness? like, that moment where he forgave c!phil really drove it home for me. he obviously doesn’t agree with him, but i think he saw where c!phil was coming from, decided that c!phil actually believes he was being helpful (which. like. no. but that’s another thing), and so was able to forgive him for it. c!tommy really forgives people very easily. even people who have hurt him very personally. i am not going to make this about c!wilbur i am not going to make this about c!wilbur but c!wilbur as someone holding a gun shooting at someone else and he’s on his side but he still doesn’t feel safe because the gun is still there i am not over this i will never be over this

the walls. god. the walls make him feel safe. i can’t. i fucking can’t

i said i wouldn’t make this about c!wilbur but if c!wilbur doesn’t see the walls and have a fucking emotional breakdown then what even is the point okay sorry i’m done i swear

cannot let c!quackity go unmentioned. like, he is one of the best people to be helping c!tommy rn, because he’s had the whole c!dream-escaped-panic. he’s been there and done that. he’s ready to be effective. he’s ready to do what needs to be done. and he’s decided that what needs to be done is protecting c!tommy. it really doesn’t get any better than that

uh what else. c!sam. my beloved. my beloathed. he’s probably one of the best written characters on the smp. i love him. i hate him. goddddd

this goes without saying, but c!connor absolutely stole the show /hj

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune and a strong jaw must Batman.

My Personal Ranking of the live action Batman incarnations based on their Jawlines.

No. 9

Lewis Wilson - Batman [Theatrical Serial] (1943)

Lewis Wilson was, of course the first on-screen portrayal of the Caped Crusader, so there's something that must be said for that, regardless of the fact that his story has little to do with the comics and his dialogue, being written in the middle of WWII was inevitably cringe regarding the Japanese villain of the story. War time propaganda notwithstanding, this serial did introduce many aspects of now standard Batman lore which were canonized in the comics following its release, such as the Batcave, and the characterization of Alfred we know and love.

But I'm not here to talk about any of that. I'm here to talk about Lewis Wilson's jaw. At the time his casting was praised for accuracy, even if his performance was found wanting. He looked like Bruce Wayne-- but for my money he just didn't have much going for him where it mattered. Since the jaw is the only exposed area of Batman's face, it counts for it to be distinctive and Wilson's just isn't.

No. 8

Robert Lowery - The New Adventures of Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder [Theatrical Serial] (1949)

Budget wise Robert Lowery got the short end of the stick when he literally took up the mantle from Lewis Wilson for the 1949 sequel serial, but he did benefit from a major reduction in the racial slurs in his script.

Jaw wise, Lowery isnt much of an improvement on Wilson. It was incredibly difficult for me to find a good picture but I'm willing to give lowery the edge.

No. 7

Christian Bale - Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

To be honest this is the only thing that's always majorly bothered me about Christian Bale's Batman. Perhaps the narrowness of his chin was why they felt the need to overcompensate so hard with the Batman Voice.

No. 6

Michael Keaton - Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992)

I love Michael Keaton. He's one of the broodier Bruce's, but he manages to carry that bit of whimsy that sets this Era apart. Crazy to think that these films were the first dark on-screen take on Batman when you compare it with the modern dark and gritty obsession.

Keaton's jaw isn't the strongest but like the movies and his performance you have to give credit where credit is due--it is distinctive.

No. 5

Ben Affleck - Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), The Justice League (2017)

I've never seen either of these films, so I can't pass judgment on Ben Affleck's turn in the role, but then I've always considered Justice League Batman sort of different to regular Gotham flavored Batman, so I don't hold him to the same standards. Except in one area.

Not gonna lie, that's a formidable chin. He's got the dimple and everything. The rest of the actual JAW leaves more to be desired though, but we're definitely getting there.

No. 4

George Clooney - Batman & Robin (1997)

I'm not a George Clooney fan in general. Quite apart from the hatefulness of this movie (and I DO hate it SO very much, for its wasted potential more than anything), I didn't really care for Clooney IN it. Perhaps it's because he's George Clooney (TM) but I find his range of performance very, very limited. Although he had some excellent scenes with Alfred, the writing everywhere else was not helping him, at all.

The one area where he can't be faulted, is of course the one I'm here to discuss. Now, No. 4 is pretty low, all things considered for a chin as renowned and impressive as Clooney's, but he is so low because that's not Bruce Wayne's jaw: it's George Clooney's.

No. 3

Val Kilmer - Batman Forever (1995)

Now here's where we get into some real quality. What? No my love for Val Kilmer as Bruce Wayne didn't influence my ranking. Perish the thought. Though I will say he did end up landing higher on this list than I thought he would.

What I really like about Kilmer's jaw is the clean lines. No distinct dimple on the chin, but that's made up for by the straight cut of the jaw as a whole. It's a bit softer, (and so, so pretty), but very reminiscent of Adam West. Which makes sense, given the influence the 60's TV show had on Batman Forever.

No. 2

Adam West - Batman (1966-1968)

Speaking of straight cut jaws, get a look at that. Adam West's legacy looms heavily over every subsequent Batman, and I think that's with good reason. The mandible knows no distinctions in tone, it is a constant so no matter how far removed your Bruce Wayne is from the Camp and Circumstance of 1966, there's one standard by which all Batmen can be judged, and that my friends is the square cut gem pictured above.

No. 1

Robert Pattinson - The BATMAN (2022)

One that certainly measures up to that standard, in my opinion THE ONE that even surpasses it, is Robert Pattinson's recent outing in the famous cape and cowl. Everything here is running in Battinson's favor: his cowl is the only one designed to give full exposure from corner to corner and I would like to kiss the costume designer because there's so much to be displayed here. What angles! Really God gave us a gift when he was sketching out RPatts. We've got the prominent chin, with dimple but not one deep enough to distract from the sharp angles of that jawline. If I was Selina Kyle I'd be afraid of cutting my hand.

[thetypedwriter]

Dark Rise Book Review

Dark Rise Book Review by C.S. Pacat 

I have been thinking about this book for days now. 

The sequel to this novel shot to the top of my Christmas list as soon as I was done reading it, it’s just too bad that it won’t be out for probably another year or two. The thought makes me want to weep, but at least re-reading is always an option. 

People always ask me what my favorite books of all time are. I’ve told several people that, for me, a mark of a good book is when it sticks with me, when it sticks in my head.

 It’s when the characters won’t leave me alone, when it inspires my own creativity and imagination, when I hear songs and immediately think of scenes from the book and attach it to events. 

This does not lie mutually exclusive with “excellent” books. I’ve read trash stories that have had this effect on me. I’ve also read classic novels and while I appreciate them and I enjoyed them, I didn't have the after effects of the book lingering on my mind for days or weeks or even months afterwards. 

I finished Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat several days ago and It’s still at the forefront of my thoughts like a song stuck in your head.

 The strange thing is that I don’t think it’s a perfect book. It has problems, especially with pacing and world building, but I still find myself fascinated. 

That, to me, is a great book. 

Now, you might have heard of C.S. Pacat before, either online or even from my reviews. Last year, I read the Captive Prince trilogy for the first time. You can read my review of the trilogy here.

 I expected it to be meretricious, but to my delight and surprise I found the Captive Prince trilogy to be well-written, engaging, lovingly crafted, and leaving a lasting impression on me-just like Dark Rise. 

If that’s not C.S. Pacat’s super power, I don’t know what is. Simply put, I like her stuff. It’s dark, it’s interesting, it’s different, and it sticks with me. I’ve even felt the cravings to re-read The Captive Prince trilogy since it’s been a year and that desire has only doubled since Dark Rise. 

There’s just something about C.S. Pacat’s work that my mind can’t leave alone and I’m not complaining. 

First, I don’t normally mention book covers, as I’ve found that it truly doesn’t depict the inside, but I was immediately drawn to Dark Rise’s cover. I actually saw the cover first, the author second, and third, pulled out my wallet to purchase it a nanosecond later. 

The cover just draws me in. From the haunted look of the character on the cover, to the lettering and colors and bold font. I loved everything about it and fortunately, for me, it did depict the inside material quite well. 

The plot itself isn’t all that original. 

It’s a very classic light vs. dark, good vs. evil kind of story. 

I was trying to explain the story to my brother over Thanksgiving and when I finished, he remarked that it sounded like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. He’s not wrong because at its core, Dark Rise is a very classic bad guys versus good guys kind of story. 

However, it’s the characters, the writing itself, and the end that really left a mark upon me. 

The actual plotline of dark and light is very Kingdom Hearts where they literally mean dark as a force and light as a force. The Dark King versus the Lady of Light. They are not ephemeral or symbolic. 

The Dark King is named as such for his control over shadows and monsters, and the Light for its control over the same. There are some odd interwoven pieces of lore like unicorns, but otherwise the world itself felt pretty par for the course. 

The characters and the ending is what really shined for me. 

I like all of the characters. As I’ve remarked time and time before, that is actually quite an astronomical thing. I do think that Pacat introduces a horde of characters very quickly and it is a bit peeving to switch POVs because my curiosity was not quite quenched.

 I still feel like I’ve only really gotten to know the surface of most of these characters, but I find myself inherently wanting more. 

But that’s the thing: I want more. 

I’m dying to learn about these characters, their relationships to one another, and where they go from here. Will felt like a very archetypal hero before suddenly he wasn’t, Violet felt very tomboy and rough until she changed, Justice was just amazing, Cyprian developed a heart, Katherine showed she had worth on the inside as well as the out, a unicorn appeared in the flesh, Simon’s darkness, Tom’s cruelty, James. Just James. 

Honestly, half of the intrigue comes from James alone. 

There are so many interesting characters and I want more of it right now. 

This, in large part, was hugely due to the ending. I knew a twist was coming, it always does, but I also believed that the climax was behind me. And I was right, but I was also wrong, because the so-called twist I was expecting was actually very surprising and downright insane. 

It made me so interested in what’s coming next and dying to see the characters, which is quite a plot twist if I do say so myself. My brain certainly felt twisted. 

The beginning of the novel starts off quite strong, but the middle does get quite muddy. This is when Pacat spends the most time world building and depositing her exposition and while it is necessary, it is a bit bland and boring to get through. It would have been less of a chore if the exposition had been more interspersed throughout. 

But when the ending does come through, it comes through with shining colors and the forces of dark and evil using their full potential and power which left me breathless and unable to contain my excitement for the installments to come. 

Which they will. 

And I can’t wait. 

Recommendation: This isn’t a perfect book, but it was one I enjoyed immensely. C.S. Pacat does not disappoint and more than any book I’ve read this year, I’m more excited to read the next installment of Dark Rise than anything else and that is the highest praise I can give it. 

Read it. Then read The Captive Prince trilogy. And then re-read them again and bask in the interesting worlds and words that Pacat has created. 

Score: 8/10

[stxleslyds]

You always seem down on the idea of the Batfam. I mean, it is hard to take seriously when writers make Bruce hostile or downright abusive towards his kids, or when Batfam members never interact. But do you think the concept itself is good, and it's just been the victim of bad writing? Or do you think the Batfam is a bad idea that can never work?

Hi there Anon! Thank you for the ask!

Hmm, this is a difficult question. Maybe I can answer this better if I do it in parts because the concept of “Batfamily” is used in different ways currently. A way to separate them can be, DC’s Batfamily, Fandom’s Batfamily and Fandom’s Batfamily lore being introduced in comics’ canon.

DC’s Batfamily:

My rejection of this version of Batfamily comes from all angles, it is not a good concept within comics lore anymore, it’s badly written and used to hide and move on from truly horrendous actions done by Bruce towards the rest of the family, and DC uses the concept of “Batfamily” that fandom has become so attached to, so they can profit off of it without writing anything of real essence with it.

Why did I say that the Batfamily isn’t a good concept anymore? Well, because the Batfamily that I first came across in comics included, Bruce, Dick, Alfred, Barbara, Tim and Cassandra. It was rather small and their books interconnected and had pretty solid relationships with one another. Dick and Tim got along and spent time together, Barbara mentored Cass so she could become Batgirl and so on and so forth. The family was smaller and more connected. But they still had problems and bad habits then. So, I liked them as a group of people that worked together and the name they received was “Batfamily” as a way for DC to profit from it.

Right now, the Batfamily is huge, I don’t know if you have seen those splash pages with all the members of it for Rebirth and Infinite Frontier, but those promotional pages were crazy big, characters like Harley and Clownhunter are now considered part of the “Batfamily” and all that. Then there is the kind of characters like Cass, Steph and Kate who are all connected to Batman but that haven’t been appearing in books for very long, so putting them on that page really feels like DC is trying to prove that their “Batfamily” actually has women on it, but it’s just for show.

And then there is Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian, the most recognizable faces of the Batfamily aside from Bruce and Alfred (but Alfred is dead now so he doesn’t really count), all of them have had issues with Bruce or are indifferent to the existence of one another. Yes, Tom Taylor has included Tim in Dick’s book but here is the thing, it feels like he put him there just to make fans shut up about the lack of content with both of them acting as they used to do. But its false and lazy, Taylor just brought Tim to the book but we don’t get to see Tim and Dick interact in ways that can explain why they drifted off, it kinda seems like all those years where Dick and Tim were pulled apart never happened to DC and that makes me think “cash grab”. I would have loved to see them interact again if it meant that we would have some solid story for them to develop their relationship once more.

At the end of Rebirth, Damian was pissed off at Bruce and they had a fight and Damian left the manor completely. Bruce beat up Jason, then gave him a hug but still told him that he was banned from Gotham and all that abuse and manipulation was swept under the rug when DC came out with Urban Legends: Cheer, all they did with that story is lie and made-up stories about Jason wanting Bruce to go on a killing spree so Gotham can finally be the home to his beloved family (lies, lies, lies).

On top of all that we have the neglect, abuse and manipulation that Bruce had going on with Dick, ever since Bruce manipulated Dick into joining Spyral his actions haven’t faced any consequences (the family still believes that Dick was the one who lied about dying). And as recently as the end of Rebirth, Dick suffered from a head injury that left him amnesiac and Bruce absolutely didn’t care enough to look after him when he was so vulnerable and alone. DC had the audacity of having Bruce say that he was looking after Dick while Dick went from one villain manipulating and hurting him to another, and if we look at Batman’s run, we can see that he spent some of that time in a weird pit or playing catch the pussy with Selina in a tropical island.

So, taking all those things into account, I honestly believe that the Batfamily is a concept that absolutely does not belong in comics. If it were to be taken seriously then DC should come up with (organic, not forced) stories that make these characters connect once again, but they have to be careful, just because they can connect it doesn’t mean that everyone gets along and they have group chats and eat dinner together of Fridays, that would be a blatant lie and just too out there for their kind of dynamic, so, they should take things slow, start re-building what once was an make it better (if they want to make it work and feel like less of a cash grab).

I heard that there is a book with Cass and Steph being mentored as Batgirls by Barbara coming out in December, that to me is a good thing, what was done in Robin #5 was awful, Jason didn’t have or want to be there, Tim, what the hell was Tim doing there? The only ones that have gotten along with Damian and have had a solid relationship with him were Dick and Steph. Dick had a very nice moment with Damian in that issue, but Steph didn’t, they preferred to have Jason wanting to hug Damian instead (what the actual hell was that?).

Fandom’s Batfamily:

Fandom is a place where people can take any concept from anywhere and transform it into whatever they please. This fandom is just like any other in that matter, but I have noticed that sometimes the Batfamily Fandom tends to blur the lines between what’s fanon and canon. Their lore is so deep and established among people that they sometimes (willingly or not) make new readers or other people believe that how things and perceived in fandom is how things actually are in comics, and that is a huge problem.

Things like “Dick sent Jason to Arkham when the Joker was just a cell away”, “Jason has pit madness and when he gets mad his eyes turn glowy green”, “Dick was a horrendous brother to Jason before Jason died”, “Jason would be good friends with Tim and Cass”, “Jason is the only one that sees the world differently from Bruce and the other robins because he is the only one that comes from a life with no luxury” and so on and on and on…

All of those things are sometimes treated as the absolute truth by fandom and no matter how many times people have debunked and explained that those things aren’t part of comics’ canon because they are simply not true, fandom stills treats those things as the basis of their Batfamily lore.

That lore would be actually fascinating if people didn’t lose sight so easily of the fact that at the end of the day none of that lore can be applied to comics’ canon.

When you enter this fandom things can be extremely confusing and the way some of the characters are characterized are completely different to their canon characterizations, I knew that the Dick fandom was writing about was not real, but I had no idea that Tim being a coffee addict that hasn’t slept in five months and is an absolute genius in everything and anything that he does was completely out of character for him, I just thought that was true to his character in comics too. Something like that happened to me when I took a peek at Jason’s side of fandom, by that time I had read Red Hood/Arsenal, UtRH and New 52 RHatO (yeah in that order, Red Hood/Arsenal wasn’t finished yet though), with the already conflicting characterizations of those books, the first look that I had at fandom’s Jason confused me even more. After considering all those I decided that the Jason that I wanted to see and actually looked appealing to me was UtRH Jason.

Not all people in fandom read comics and that is ABSOLUTELY VALID, I have zero problems with people not liking the comic characterizations of the “Batfamily” characters, but that in itself also creates a rift between fans themselves.

Fandom’s Batfamily lore being introduced in comics’ canon:

This is obviously the intersection of the other two points and this is the biggest problem that I have with the Batfamily concept. The fandom lore has been leaking into comic’s canon for a while now but right now we are kinda drowning in it. Decisions that have been made recently in DC like, Jason giving up his guns, the group chats in Nightwing issues, the family dinners that were hinted at in Cheer #6, and Bruce having had at the ready a Red Hood suit for Jason with a Batman logo in its chest, have been proof enough that DC is planning on skipping any kind of solid writing for these characters to actually get along. We are never going to see these people sit down and talk about their differences and respect each other’s work ethics.

We are never going to get stories of actual essence that prove that these characters understand and care for each other, we are just going to be told that “all is good” and now everyone loves one another and they will build from there.

That is a problem for me.

-

And it also takes away duality from Gotham’s vigilantes, I know I say this too much but it’s the truth, putting all these characters under the ruling of Batman makes them all bland. Jason shouldn’t be part of any sort of group that involves Bruce! My god, I don’t want to see them interact anymore! Bruce has been absolute trash to Jason ever since he came back from the dead and I am tired of DC trying to make them be on good terms!

Jason and Bruce not getting along can co-exist with the fact that Jason isn’t a villain to Batman’s legendary hero. Jason is his own character, with his own morals and he doesn’t need a bat symbol on his chest or book logo to be relevant. Same with Dick, Tim and Barbara, let them be characters that can stand on their own because they have already done that!

Barbara as Oracle worked WITH Batman if she wanted, she had her own logo and had passed on the mantle of Batgirl because he had grown out of it.

Dick is Nightwing and has become an even better hero than Batman could even aspire to become, he has contacts with everyone in the DC universe, has led countless teams, he doesn’t NEED a batman logo on his book or to be constantly dragged back to him just to make the Bat more compelling.

Jason, my sweet Jason, he had his own logo! It was gorgeous and then Lobdell had the audacity to stamp a Batman logo in the middle of the book name and in Jason’s chest! Have we gone absolutely mad? Why did they do that? Lobdell’s constant back and forth with Jason and his feelings for Bruce, he respects him and he doesn’t, he kills and he doesn’t… each issue felt like a new take on the character! It was crazy!

And that has happened with everyone in the “family”. I will end this by saying that Bruce/Batman being at the centre of this “Batfamily” dynamic is the most laughable thing in the DC Universe. Batman isn’t family to any of the people that they constantly surround him with, he is a piece of shit.

Anyway Anon, I hope this answer doesn’t ruin your day and that you understand that even though I really don’t like the “Batfamily” concept, you and everyone else are allowed and encouraged to think differently!

Hope you have a marvellous day Anon!

[horde-princess]

jesus/adora meta pwease 👉👈😳

okayokay ive been thinking about this for a long time and the reason ive never written about it is because like. its so BIG. i like to think of adora’s character as a reflection of noelle’s experiences as a former christian, and there is still so much to dive into with that- however i do agree there’s another more abstract layer to adora’s story that challenges some bigger theological ideas. this is probably about to sound wild lksjljfdf i’ll try my best to explain my thought process just disclaimer that it will not make any sense 😌 when do my metas ever make sense tbh. U KNOW WHAT YOU SIGNED UP FOR WHEN YOU FOLLOWED ME BYE

Parallel 1: There’s at least one jesus/adora parallel that’s undeniable and that’s the whole ancient prophesied messiah thing. this wasn’t in the original motu lore so you know it was added for a reason.

Parallel 2: Adora was raised by shadow weaver and light hope to be a willing sacrificial lamb.. the isaac to their abrahams. her faith in god (aka her allegiance to the horde / first ones) demanded that she sacrifice herself to save the world.

i think these 2 parallels provide sufficient evidence to move on with this analysis but later i wanna mention some of the more specific details bc they are super interesting! but yeah for now--there was clearly some theme going on here about subverting the story of jesus... adora was given a divine destiny to save etheria, but save it from what? and why does it matter?

She-Ra criticizes the penal substitutionary atonement theory

what the fuck is that right lsdfdkj I WARNED YOU THIS WAS GONNA BE ABOUT THEOLOGY

ok basically. evangelical christians like to say that jesus died to save us from our sins, but what they actually believe is that jesus died in our place to save us from god’s wrath. that’s an important difference. let me uhh put it another way

god defined sin (as disobeying him), created humans to be inherently sinful, decided he would punish us for the way he made everything.. then sent jesus to save us (from his own unjust anger?? as if it’s an act of mercy lmao)

in a similar way, horde prime defined sin as disobedience, then decided he should kill everyone for it. but he is a 1D villain for the purposes of the show right so instead of prime sending adora as a savior, it’s light hope who sends her. a lil confusing but its all part of the same story light hope is just another metaphor for religion. so far adoras story = jesus.

AND THEN THIS IS THE GENIUS PART--as we know adora’s destiny was never light hope sending her to the world, that was all a lie... her true powers, her true “destiny” came from being chosen BY the world.

!!!!!!! THERE IS. so much here. the whole christian narrative is flipped. writing the next part in italics because its important lkdfjldj

in christianity, a good god sends a savior from heaven to redeem an evil world. in she-ra, it’s an inherently good world that chooses it’s own human hero to save it from an evil god.

which (finally) brings us back to how she-ra criticizes the evangelicals atonement theory. because humanity doesn’t deserve god’s wrath any more than the etherians deserved prime’s wrath. condemning people for disobeying arbitrary rules (e.g. “believe jesus is the only path to life”) makes no sense. however..... if disobedience is not a sin, that means there is no need for atonement. no need for atonement = no savior. no sacrifice. 

tl;dr she-ra compares jesus--a deity sent from heaven as a sacrifice--to adora, a human chosen by the world itself, who avoided that same sacrifice. to me this is a rejection of the idea that humanity needs a divine savior. and beyond that, a rejection of the specific evangelical theory that we needed him to die in our place because we are sinful.

Resurrection through love instead of faith

ok that was a lot lsdkjfld but.. to shift gears a little..... the fact that adora’s sacrifice was unnecessary isn’t as important as how the sacrifice was avoided.

i said before that god defined sin as disobedience but in practice that just means having any personal desire that exists outside of him. shadow weaver and light hope tell adora that in order to follow her destiny she has to “let go” of her friends... as if they’re mutually exclusive, her desires and faith cannot coincide, she must choose between them. its a reflection of the same kind of black & white ultimatums you hear in church. this is how the show was able to frame adora’s love for catra as sinful without explicitly stating it.

when adora ignores her mentors guidance and kisses catra..... first we all cried ldkfj but also. she is committing the ultimate “sin” !! she’s giving into her desires so, according to the dichotomy set up by sw and lh, she’s also rejecting her destiny/faith by default. 

but then... it’s this sin that actually saves adora’s life, whereas faith would’ve led to her death. wait hold on i [goes outside and screams]

so jesus and adora followed very similar destinies right. jesus spends his life rejecting his personal desires, dies for god, and god resurrects him for his obedience. but adora LIVES and its BECAUSE she embraces her earthly desires, leaving behind the religious idea that rejecting your desires leads to salvation.... which is once again the opposite of jesus. like jesus died to save an evil world from sin, but in contrast adora reclaimed her “sin” as something good and it saved her from death, it saved her from needing resurrection at all !!!!! at least, not from god. maybe catra’s kiss symbolizes a different kind of resurrection, one inspired by love instead of faith. new life that isnt earned through sacrifice but given freely (as christians like to claim god’s grace is).

THAT IS SO LDKJFLDFJDDF and this entire time i havent even MENTIONED the fact that this is all in relation to LESBIAN love and LESBIAN desires which is obviously the point of the show and why these themes hit so hard. but even when you take away the lgbt aspect, she-ra still holds up as a fantastic criticism of evangelical theology.

........ 🙂 ok i think my brain is broken jdjdjsj why did i write this