#Perhaps there is still a future for anachronisms

[imhereonthekitchenfloor]

Rating Taylor Swift songs based on how they would be perceived by medieval peasants*: Fearless

*context: I'm imagining showing medieval peasants how awesome the future is by playing them the greatest music of our day and age (Taylor obviously). I am also trying to have them not go insane nor have me be accused of witchcraft.

Debut rating

👑🤺🛡⚔️👑🤺🛡⚔️👑

Fearless: pavement, parking lot, car?? After the confusing first verse this song becomes a really sweet tale about riding in a wagon or cart and ruining your nice dress for the oen you love. Considering most women only own one nice dress and one day dress, this is a beautiful sentiment🥹 8/10

Fifteen: the setting of this song is very confusing. It seems (?) Like this may be about the upper class going to school. A senior boy means a lord. A freshmen is a novice. Fifteen is a good age for marriage, but how is this not arranged? 3/10

Love Story: this is so romantic 😍 this is the most beautiful love story ever heard!! They were going to run away because they didn't have parental consent. Regardless of being peasants, they were each other's prince and princess. 10/10!!!

Hey Stephen: hasn't every medieval girl fallen in love with that boy that every other girl is offering their dowry to? Very relatable but nothing too special. 7/10

White Horse: fun fact! White horses have always been a fairytale symbol throughout ancient history so this symbol would translate well to medieval times. The idea of not being a princess or someone chasing after your hand with promise of a horse are also relatable medieval imagery. 8/10 due to some confusing and modern dialect.

You Belong With Me: 😳 what is happening? There's something here about unrequited love but the details are all lost. 2/10

Breathe: medieval friendships were usually a contractual agreement and the few positive and real friendships were reserved for men as masculinity was seen as a holy state and and only masculine beings could have real friends. This song is likely about 2 men having a falling out. Not super relatable but it mostly makes sense. 4/10

Tell Me Why: is this about a physical fight? Are knights facing off? Is this about lovers?? I'm a little lost on context. 5/10 just because everything but bullets and shots makes sense

You're Not Sorry: what happened here 😳 someone MESSED UP. Who knows what a phone is but this song hit deep. 9/10

The Way I Loved You: passion vs sensibility. A secret lover vs someone who is committed. Marriage is very rarely romantic, so this song feels very relatable. 8/10 because the acting insane is a bit questionable. Why are you risking being accused of witchcraft?

Forever & Always: this sounds like a devastating divorce. Perhaps there was an agreement with another women? That is one of several grounds for divorce and it would track with the anger in this song. Unfortunate. 3/10

The Best Day: pumpkins? Tractor? Car? Video? There's too many anachronisms to listen with ease but some lyrics still can hit. 5/10

Change: Are the serfs revolting??? Good for them! This song is so hopeful! 10/10 even though it's unrealistic.

Jump Then Fall: "jump then fall into me" in itself is a weird phrase but cute enough song about blossoming love. 6/10

Untouchable: a song of yearning AND the singer dreams of being literate. Relatable dreams. 7/10.

Come In With The Rain: (tbh, my twilight analysis of this song made this one really difficult) this is likely about another serf living on the masters property and it sounds scandalous. Clandestine affairs are not aligned with the medieval Christian values. 3/10

Superstar: Is this about a traveling performer or nobility visiting the town? Another song about being into the guy every girl will offer her dowry to, this time with more anachronisms. 4/10

The Other Side of the Door: Nothing is more exciting than passion in romance! It's so rare in the world of arranged marriage. I can't help but wonder if these two are in different social classes and thus the secrecy of throwing pebbles🤭 juicy! 6/10 for all the talks about phones and photographs

Today was a Fairytale: fairy tail? 👀 fairy as in the french word for fae as in A MAGICAL BEING??? "Time slowed down whenever you're around" ‼️ the ability to control the flow of time? "Can you feel this magic in the air. It must have been the way you kissed me" 🔪 THAT'S IT. LET'S GET EM BOYS. 0/10 (you have been burned at the stake for witchcraft)

You All Over Me: Did you say God? Medieval songs LOVE talking about God!! This song seems to be asking for penance. Some of the song is a little confusing but good job being devout! 9/10

Mr. Perfectly Fine: mister as in master, right? Is this song about a master (craftsman) leaving his betrothed? The grammar here is pretty confusing so 2/10

We Were Happy: HE WAS OFFERING LAND AND YOU HAD TO LEAVE HIM? You didn't have choices? Who had a larger dowry and best you to him? 😭 9/10

That's When: oh medieval songs love repetitive choruses and the words "that's when" really delivered! 9/10 because this would raise 0 red flags but also barely makes sense in modern English let alone medieval

Don't You: this album is full of unrequited love. I can imagine walking into the market place and seeing the peasant from two properties over with the woman he ended up choosing. Then he DARES to ask how you are? I don't like it. This is too much. 3/10

Bye Bye Baby: this is DEFINITELY a divorce song. I mean... a traditional couple meets at their wedding and these two used to share a bed so.... The sadness of the singer leads me to question the cause of divorce. Did he commit a crime? Were they spiritually related? Did he have relations with another woman? I have more questions than answers. 2/10

[kitkatt0430]

For the reverse unpopular opinion game…the Armageddon crossover 😂

Lol, oh no, saying something nice about Armageddon. Not pulling your punches here, huh? (hehehe) Really gotta think this one through...

Okay, so with how S7 ended, Barry was shown as being waaaay faster than Eobard now. With Eobard running off threatening revenge (as usual) it was definitely a big question mark on how Eobard would manage to position himself as a credible threat again after Barry just... casually sped up to watch Eobard (still speedster fast himself) in slow mo before tossing him aside.

And for all my issues with Eobard's actual game plan, I do think Armageddon succeeded in making Eobard a credible threat again for the duration of the event.

Eobard had to find a way to make himself the faster of the two of them, so he lived up to his name quite literally. He reversed their fates. He rewrote time to make himself the Speed Force's zippy darling - we don't see the Speed Force during this event so she may not have even looked like Nora Allen anymore, but perhaps like Eobard's mother? (something to consider for fanfic down the line...) - which meant he was the faster of the two of them now. Barry became the one who was a temporal anachronism and paradox that would be erased from history if he didn't do something drastic (use the Negative Speed Force, destroy the world... it's all drastic measures of some kind). It was actually fairly clever idea and no doubt a difficult one to execute... which might explain why Eobard attempted it three different ways before getting it right.

It also had a surprising amount of foreshadowing for the rest of the season (as well as S9) going on in there. Chester/Allegra aside, there's Alex meddling in Team Flash relationships. In Armageddon she's being nosy about Chester and Allegra, in the real timeline she sets Caitlin up with her new boyfriend. The new boyfriend (whose name escapes me... Marcus??? something Marcus??? Marcus something???) is actually at Robern's (blink and you miss him) as Caitlin's date in the future arc of Armageddon. Cecile's powers growing stronger as she learns to embrace her emotions instead of fighting or rejecting her feelings during her adventures with Top in the present. Joe leaving as a series regular (thankfully not by death). Iris' time sickness being connected to the Negative Forces does, in retrospect, get seeded here. Arguably even that a main character was going to die because Cisco - a beloved former main character - was dead in the Reverse Flashpoint timeline's future.

It's fairly common for the timeline to correct itself by having one death or tragedy 'fixed' by causing another one down the road. The hurricane force storm + tidal wave Mark Mardon caused in S1 was averted only for the city devastating doom to turn out to have been a can kicked down the road that popped up in the form of the singularity event. Wally's death - the death of a brother - in Flashpoint became Dante's death - the death of a brother - in the re-established timeline. Similarly the death of Cisco (an OG member of Team Flash) almost became Caitlin's death (another OG member of Team Flash) and did become Frost who, though not an OG Team Flash person... was technically there from day 1 as she slept inside of Caitlin. Legends doesn't really have this kind of symmetry of tragedies going on with their time travel, but it has been an interesting thing to look for with The Flash's time travel hijinks.

[stillresolved]

💕 For all my blogs, uroborosymphony, geaesaekki, usuhan, yaoogui, devangelis

Dammit I sent without finishing my line : for all my blogs even though we already have many pairings and ships already<3 (2/2)

@uroborosymphony / send 💕 and I will tell you some muses...

HELLO LYNNIE nyahahaha, i'm here to enable you some more my dear friend bc we can never have too many plots/dynamics JFKSLDJFL :'D i'll talk about characters i have on my other blogs and to obligate myself to write out the new muses profiles, i will also include the muses i planning on add in the (hopefully) near future <3 i'll go in order here :3

@/uroborosymphony:

okay so i know that CALISTA is on hiatus, HOWEVER would she like a friend aka can YOOJIN be frends with her bc they are both immortals who lowkey wanna die (yoojin's just better at hiding it :'( )...but they cope with their immortality in opposite ways. whereas calista hides away from society in one place, yoojin is a nomad, can't stay in one place for too long. i could see something in calista resonating with yoojin when it comes to tru feelings....also just thinking yoojin randomly visiting her like once a century bc 'hi i know we haven't talked since like the 1900s so how have you been'. also more opposite vibes in that calista loves reading and you would have to pay yoojin to hold a book :'D

we did talk about this briefly but...ILANA?? being the lu*cy-gr*ey figure for my interpretation of SNOW 🤩🤩🤩 aka being the one person who haunts him for life bc she was the one person who escaped him....and who he could never control. i see them being like toxic lovers ( although the toxicity is probably coming from his side more :'D )...this is also to say though if we're doing something similar to the books, i would love...if ELISE, the mockingjay figure in our THG verse, could perhaps be a descendant of ilana since she had to have heard one of ilana's songs (the hanging tree) from somewhere....i don't think elise would have to be a grandchild of ilana, but you know ilana haunting snow would be a dream come tru of mine <3

still building on that though, PERHAPS?? in the crime verse, since i plan on SNOW being like the mastermind of ANACHRON, maybe he and ILANA could also have been lovers for a brief time too?? before she scams him and maybe it was a while back , but snow also suck at letting things which is probably why he ended up opening base in seoul aka subconsciously looking for her, but also wanting to hm, how should i say this, show her how much better off he is without her anyways if that makes any sense?? basically he's a boy having a temper tantrum about a situationship that didn't work out fjskldfjskl

also obviously GREY and ARA, still gotta work out most personality and backstory stuff for him, but grey would follow ara to the ends of the earth <3

@/geaesaekki:

we talked about this briefly in the dms, but STILL, GAYA in the THG verse being SNOW's wife by arranged marriage, but lowkey those two could be a power couple (panem needs more than just a despotic president uphold the system :'D) BUT ALSO in the crime verse perhaps, after her fall from grace (unless you have other plans for her of course), he offers a means of redeeming herself in the public's eyes aka ANACHRON's front is a charity organization so if you want her to pick the evil side again :3 they can casually date too if you're interested <3

i feel like GAYA and GA-RAM could probably have a connection of some sort too since most likely gaya would have heard of ga-ram's father AND probably about yo-han as well...maybe they were acquaintances since they're technically in the same field.

also i remember!! seeing a plot you once posted with the other muse killing someone and MARA being there to help them through it....what if that muse was ANNIE :3 ( although she might end up going to ARA instead though 🤔🤔🤔 ). this could also be NELL since she wouldn't want to tell myungdae or alfred about this :/ nell could also help mara with mask girl things since that does take place...over the net too!!

on a lighter note though, perhaps MARA could be acquaintances with SUKI since suki does drop by the gangnam police station often to visit her friend there...i think they could get along and also suki is....a fan of vigilantes so she would probably following the activities of mask girl bc she can 🤩🤩🤩

also if MARA is looking for more...illegal information, perhaps ALFRED could be a source of information. i have a thought about him opening up shop in seoul with a coffeehouse as cover for dealing with the exchange of information (it also acts as a community center in the neighborhood tho <3)

more MARA apparently :'D i think you also mentioned looking for undercover threads so perhaps since FELICITY is also undercover as an executive assistant for guess who, SNOW, she and mara could be allies of sort on the field? more on that later!!

@/usuhan:

okay this is where i'll be talking a lot MORE about the muses to be added because i would like for SNOW in his modern verse?? to be a patron of La Rose because one, his favorite flowers are roses, two, he'd be rich enough to get in anyways, but also three, he's deprieved enough to want to be a member there :/ anyways, if you want, he could be casually hooking up with SERAPHINA while being 'pals' with DANTE ( although that might contradict the fact that in his THG verse, he's technically married to gaya...but then again he is a bastard so i'm not putting him above sleeping with sera before switching over to being lovers with gaya :// )

you know how GA-RAM hates rich people? you know how BELLAMY is a textbook example of 'rich people' so what if ga-ram was part of the fighting ring circle bel watches bc ga-ram needs a way to let off steam (they're already rich thanks to yo-han :'D)...maybe bel can sponsor them??

obviously we have SERAPHINA and AERI to develop, but also what about aeri and DANTE's relationship aka in-laws interactions, although i'm not sure what assumptions to make about dante quite yet...although perhaps mama kang made aeri go see dante for like 'therapy sessions' :'D i could see aeri at least begrudgingly respecting him....maybe dante sees her as amusing to be around if only to psychoanalyze her fjskldjfslk

also if SNOW is in la rose, i have a feeling he'd also drag FELICITY into the club too. maybe SERAPHINA and/or DANTE could be suspicious of her since her only connection is through snow and low key i could see felicity wanting to down la rose as well...also just an aesthetic thought but felicity in a fine dress and also pseudo flirt(ish cause she's technically only an assistant) with dante to try and get more information and felicity will be giving the popular girl vibes :D. no feelings on her end though bc she's already in love with you know who <3

@/yaoogui:

gonna be honest, i don't know if i have as many for the muses here since most of my muses aren't exactly involved with straight up ya*kuza crime life...that being said, i still would love?? for DAI and SUKI to like be friends kinda?? since i MUST continue the trend of suki being friends with the most unexpected of ppl...maybe she doesn't have to know about dai's history, but she could become a regular at the octogon club... dai probably invited her bc he thought she was funny and she was like 'well i like free alcohol, can you get me paper too' ...gonna be honest but i feel like this would be more of a crack dynamic :'D

oh!! but also perhaps DAI and ALFRED have a business partner kind of relationship/old comrades kinda relationship?? i'm thinking of alfred deciding to fly solo when it comes to information dealing and maybe he did a favor for dai and they became drinking buddies back in the day....so if alfred needs a favor, dai's the guy to go to unless it impedes on yamazaki clan business

@/devangelis:

alrighty we're on the last one, so obviously if she knows myungdae, then she would probably know about ALFRED and NELL....but also!! i would love for her to meet SUKI as well since suki is friends with myungdae aka the pigeon man ( obviously ONE DAY....i want deva and alex's hyuk to interact too bc those two are both important ppl to patrick :'D )....perhaps deva would be amused by suki as well

since deva is devoted to proper journalism, maybe she could have been looking into GA-RAM's father's death and the circumstances there and yeah there is ga-ram refusing to help at first but also 'c'mon don't you want to clear your family's name once and for all?'

also if DEVA is a friend of patrick, i could see FELICITY approaching her at least once just to say 'thank you for being there for him when i couldn't be' <3

adding one more to this, it's angsty one, but perhaps during the revolution let's say both PATRICK and deva's beloveds are kidnapped by the capitol so the both of them?? are literally just going stir crazy out of their minds with worry and wow, the only ppl who are going to be able to calm them down is each other :'D....either that or they take turns breaking down bc they are mom and dad someone has to keep it together for the rest of the victors :'D

okie that's all i got for now, but we don't have to do any of these if you are not interested!! THANKS FOR ENABLING ME AGAIN LYNNIE and cheers to the 48293048230 plots we will hopefully develop in the future 🤩🤩🤩

[uroborosymphony]

What is her thoughts on sharing turf with other vigilantes? Since she likes to quote-on-quote ‘play with her prey’, what about a person would make her consider them an equal and therefore take them seriously?

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐏𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐍 (𝟐/𝟓).

What makes Quinn's cohabitation with the other vigilantes so difficult is the little trust she has in other people's definition of Justice, she only fights for the one Taiyang and her has built, like a Sacred Oath. All her life she has been disappointed by any form of authority such as the governement, the law, the police : the System overall, believing the game was rigged, corrupted and in favor of the privileged only. Quinn has been growing in the poorest neighborhoods, through the system and even when she managed to "evolve" and found herself studiyng along with elite of the society, she still felt treated less due to her origins and her unability to "pay her way through it". She kept on growing up and started defending the young, for example girls who got raised in similar foster houses as her and had no voice when trying to denounce the abuse they were going through, or even young boys finding themselves locked up and getting their future compromised for little mistakes meanwhile bigger crimes from powerful influencial grown up rich men would never be condamned. To her biggest disappoitment, she felt alone when trying to fight for these causes, as if it wasn't simply the System the issue but even the humans around seemed corrupted themselves. Nobody would fight for these kids, not even the parents in foster, not even the teachers, not even any figure who were supposed to "care and protect". She has lost faith in the human heart in general. So to her, the other vigilantes are a threat to achieving her goals of taking down the rich. "These masked baffoons are probably corrupted, too" She would think. And the furthur she goes in pursuing her own vision of justice, the more the other vigilantes will try to stop her, the more she will believe "See, they really don't want to fight for the good of this city. Their motivations are not as noble as mine." To play and treat them as preys is a way for her to get rid of them. If she manages to figure out their real identities, their affiliations and goals, can come blackmail and leverage for her to force them out, they are in her way. To consider them her equal however, she has to be taken off her high horses - there is a lot of Jesus the Savior complex in here : a conversation or a confrontation are needed. Taiyang's words could truly call her back, he would do it with care and patience and she would listen to him, if he tells her : give them a chance, you're bringing more turmoil than solutions - she would listen to him. I foresee the game she will play with Myungdae and Hyuk as perhaps a Key too. Watching them operate, fighing by their sides - when she will play a double identity with Hyuk for example - Will come conversations with either of them, about morals, about admitting there are other ways than hers to fight for Justice, it would take time to sink but besides her pride, she is smart enough to process and little by little, realize they are Not the enemy. I'm also thinking about ANACHRON, learning about what they did to Annie would drive her insane, however realizing Myungdae has been fighting against them before she was even born, Quinn would give him her respect, she admit she's not As strong as she thinks on her own , that the vigilantes have a lot to offer in these batltles.

[a-life-in-film-by-wc]

The Flintstones (1994)

Another whole family outing, which we were all excited about after staying in the most rundown (I think we can safely assume unofficial) Flintstones themed campsite the year before in America. I remember getting burns on my knee from crawling along a ragged carpet inside a fibreglass dinosaur, as well as losing my maroon plastic camera. Great times.

I don’t think I really understood the tone of this film and was disappointed by the millions of years of anachronism* after the recent groundbreaking handling of dinosaurs on film still fresh in my memory from the previous year. I guess I enjoyed it but perhaps I was starting to get tired of saturated colourful kids’ films. I wouldn’t have known Kyle McLachlan at the time but I wonder what my mum and dad thought having recently watched him in Twin Peaks. It was also the final outing for Elizabeth Taylor, which was lost on me. Not so with my first glimpse of future Academy Award winner, Bond girl and X-man Halle Berry as Sharon Stone (a role initially to be played by Sharon Stone, apparently).

I recently enjoyed the 2016 comic adaptation of The Flintstones by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh, which had an existential spin on the concept that I now wonder if I had simply not picked up on in the cartoons. I think it’s fair to say it was largely absent from this film.

*Worse than any of the rock puns for me was renaming the B-52s the BC-52s for the title song, which seemed to suggest that Fred et al lived during the reign of Julius Caesar, along with dinosaurs from 150 million years before the Neolithic. ‘Jesus, Will. It’s just a cartoon (movie, song and comic)!’

[vaguely-concerned]

Hanzo slid between the sheets, already pleasantly warm from Jesse’s body, and Jesse made a bleary sound and blinked his eyes open, reaching out to loop his arm around Hanzo’s waist and snuggle close with sleepy thoughtless sweetness.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Hanzo said, pressing a kiss to Jesse’s forehead in apology and smiling against his hair when he tilted his head insistently to ask for another one.

“Glad you did,” Jesse mumbled, closing his eyes like a pleased cat as Hanzo stroked his fingers through his hair, combing it away from his face. Their legs tangled together, and Hanzo’s body settled into both the bed and the embrace like a space had been carved out of the universe there just for him, with the comforting ease of a skill practiced into instinct. Jesse grinned when Hanzo brushed their noses together; his hand idly stroked up and down Hanzo’s back, the metal cool against his skin until it picked up some of his body heat. It was a tingly and oddly satisfying contrast in temperature, the perfect cosiness of the shared covers and the brighter chill of the prosthesis – a familiar sensation that had always meant Jesse and no one else. “I like it when you’re here.”

“I am happy to hear that,” said Hanzo, who had long ago been forced to realize that he would go to war for the blithe unguarded nonsensicality of Jesse’s sleep-drunk ramblings. 

who else is also always Here for hanzo regularly having small soft ‘I would kill, die and live for you’ moments around jesse lol 

[keyofjetwolf]

I don’t know what I love more: that there’s a phone book for spaceships, or that pirates are listed in it.

I REFUSE TO CHOOSE

I LOVE IT ALL

[perpetual-stories]

22 Essential Literary Devices and How to Use Them In Your Writing

hello, happy Monday. Hope you’re all having a wonderful day!

I will skip the pre-info and dive right into it.

What Is a Literary Device?

is a tool used by writers to hint at larger themes, ideas, and meaning in a story or piece of writing

The List of Literary Devices:

Allegory. Allegory is a literary device used to express large, complex ideas in an approachable manner. Allegory allows writers to create some distance between themselves and the issues they are discussing, especially when those issues are strong critiques of political or societal realities.

Allusion. An allusion is a popular literary device used to develop characters, frame storylines, and help create associations to well-known works. Allusions can reference anything from Victorian fairy tales and popular culture to the Bible and the Bard. Take the popular expression “Bah humbug”—an allusion that references Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol. The phrase, which is often used to express dissatisfaction, is associated with the tale’s curmudgeonly character, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Anachronism. Imagine reading a story about a caveman who microwaves his dinner, or watching a film adaptation of a Jane Austen novel in which the characters text each other instead of writing letters. These circumstances are examples of anachronisms, or an error in chronology—the kind that makes audiences raise their eyebrows or do a double-take. Sometimes anachronisms are true blunders; other times, they’re used intentionally to add humor or to comment on a specific time period in history.

Cliffhanger. It’s a familiar feeling: You’re on minute 59 of an hour-long television episode, and the protagonist is about to face the villain—and then episode cuts to black. Known as a cliffhanger, this plot device marks the end of a section of a narrative with the express purpose of keeping audiences engaged in the story.

Dramatic Irony. Remember the first time you read or watched Romeo and Juliet? The tragic ending of this iconic story exemplifies dramatic irony: The audience knows that the lovers are each alive, but neither of the lovers knows that the other is still alive. Each drinks their poison without knowing what the audience knows. Dramatic irony is used to great effect in literature, film, and television.

Extended Metaphor. Extended metaphors build evocative images into a piece of writing and make prose more emotionally resonant. Examples of extended metaphor can be found across all forms of poetry and prose. Learning to use extended metaphors in your own work will help you engage your readers and improve your writing.

Foreshadowing. At its core, storytelling has one ambition: to capture and sustain your reader’s attention and keep them reading your story. Foreshadowing, or slyly indicating a future event, is one technique a writer can use to create and build suspense.

Humor. Humor brings people together and has the power to transform how we think about the world. Of course, not everyone is adept at being funny—particularly in their writing. Making people laugh takes some skill and finesse, and, because so much relies on instinct, is harder to teach than other techniques. However, all writers can benefit from learning more about how humor functions in writing.

Imagery. If you’ve practiced or studied creative writing, chances are you’ve encountered the expression “paint a picture with words.” In poetry and literature, this is known as imagery: the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience in the reader. When a poet uses descriptive language well, they play to the reader’s senses, providing them with sights, tastes, smells, sounds, internal and external feelings, and even deep emotion. The sensory details in imagery bring works to life.

Irony. Irony is an oft-misunderstood literary device that hinges on opposites: what things are on the surface, and what they end up actually being. Many learn about dramatic irony through works of theater like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. When deployed with skill, irony is a powerful tool that adds depth and substance to a piece of writing.

Metaphor, Simile, and Analogy. Metaphors, similes, and analogies are three techniques used in speech and writing to make comparisons. Each is used in a different way, and differentiating between the three can get a little tricky: For example, a simile is actually a subcategory of metaphor, which means all similes are metaphors, but not all metaphors are similes. Knowing the similarities and differences between metaphor, simile, and analogy can help you identify which is best to use in any scenario and help make your writing stronger.

Motif. A motif is a repeated element that has symbolic significance to a story. Sometimes a motif is a recurring image. Sometimes it’s a repeated word or phrase or topic. A motif can be a recurrent situation or action. It can be a sound or a smell or a temperature or a color. The defining aspect is that a motif repeats, and through this repetition, a motif helps to illuminate the central ideas, themes, and deeper meaning of the story in which it appears.

Motif vs. Symbol. Both motifs and symbols are used across artistic mediums: Painters, sculptors, playwrights, and musicians all use motifs and symbols in their respective art forms. And while they are similar literary terms, “motif” and “symbol” are not synonyms.

Oxymoron. An oxymoron is a figure of speech: a creative approach to language that plays with meaning and the use of words in a non-literal sense. This literary device combines words with contradictory definitions to coin a new word or phrase (think of the idiom “act naturally”—how can you be your natural self if you’re acting?). The incongruity of the resulting statement allows writers to play with language and meaning.

Paradox. “This sentence is a lie.” This self-referential statement is an example of a paradox—a contradiction that questions logic. In literature, paradoxes can elicit humor, illustrate themes, and provoke readers to think critically.

Personification. In writing, figurative language—using words to convey a different meaning outside the literal one—helps writers express themselves in more creative ways. One popular type of figurative language is personification: assigning human attributes to a non-human entity or inanimate object in an effort to express a point or idea in a more colorful, imaginative way.

Satire. Satire is so prevalent in pop culture that most of us are already very familiar with it, even if we don’t always realize it. Satire is an often-humorous way of poking fun at the powers that be. Sometimes, it is created with the goal to drive social change. Satire can be part of any work of culture, art, or entertainment—it has a long history, and it is as relevant today as it was in ancient Rome.

Situational Irony. Irony: it’s clear as mud. Theorists quibble about the margins of what constitutes irony, but situational irony is all around us—from humorous news headlines to the shock twists in a book or TV show. This type of irony is all about the gap between our expectations and reality, and it can make a memorable and powerful impression when we encounter it.

Suspense. No matter what type of story you’re telling, suspense is a valuable tool for keeping a reader’s attention and interest. Building suspense involves withholding information and raising key questions that pique readers’ curiosity. Character development plays a big role in generating suspense; for example, if a character’s desire is not fulfilled by the end of the book, the story will not feel complete for the reader.

Symbolism. An object, concept, or word does not have to be limited to a single meaning. When you see red roses growing in a garden, what comes to mind? Perhaps you think literally about the rose—about its petals, stem, and thorns, or even about its stamen and pistil as a botanist might. But perhaps your mind goes elsewhere and starts thinking about topics like romance, courtship, and Valentine’s Day. Why would you do this? The reason, of course, is that over the course of many generations, a rose’s symbolic meaning has evolved to include amorous concepts.

Verisimilitude. Verisimilitude (pronounced ve-ri-si-mi-li-tude) is a theoretical concept that determines the semblance of truth in an assertion or hypothesis. It is also an essential tenet of fiction writing. Verisimilitude helps to encourage a reader’s willing suspension of disbelief. When using verisimilitude in writing, the goal is to be credible and convincing.

Vignette. A writer’s job is to engage readers through words. Vignettes—poetic slices-of-life—are a literary device that brings us deeper into a story. Vignettes step away from the action momentarily to zoom in for a closer examination of a particular character, concept, or place. Writers use vignettes to shed light on something that wouldn’t be visible in the story’s main plot.

I’ll make a post going into each of them individually in more detail later on!

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[queerenteen]

Your top five 🌊 Fanfics? Any fandom works

Running on Air by eleventy7

Draco Malfoy has been missing for three years. Harry is assigned the cold case and finds himself slowly falling in love with the memories he collects.

This is one of the first fanfics I read seriously, and I did it the day before my prelims paper.

I still don't regret it--this is one of the most hauntingly gorgeous things that I have ever read and builds up in a fantastic slow-burn with a shroud of mystery wrapped around it. Cannot recommend it enough.

Until My Feet Bleed and My Heart Aches by reiya

‘…Of all the rivalries in the world of sports over the years, perhaps none has become so legendary as that of Russian figure skater Viktor Nikiforov and his rival, Japanese Yuuri Katsuki…’

A single event changes the course of Yuuri’s life, throwing him into a bitter rivalry with Viktor Nikiforov that spans across his entire skating career. But as the years go on, rivalry and hatred begin to develop into something very different and Yuuri doesn’t seem to be able to stay away, no matter how hard he tries.

Hatred and love are two sides of the same coin and even though everything changes, some things are still meant to be.

This is beautiful. I absolutely adore this au, with an amazing enemies to lovers scenario.

It is a what it could have been, perhaps even more dramatic than the original, and somehow, some things turn out the same anyway.

The Art of Burning by @hella1975

Zuko had never excelled at anything. Azula was a prodigy. Uncle always knew what to say. And Father... Father was strong, iron-like. But Zuko had only ever been good at surviving. Putting one foot in front of the other in a grim show of stubborn determination, gritting his teeth and bearing it. Survival was all he had ever been taught. He knew how to do it. So when he was kidnapped by the Southern Water Tribe, he expected to fight as he always had. He didn’t expect to be taught instead how to live.

In a warring land, the Water Tribe forgave the enemy in an act of defiance. For this, he was torn from them, and this time, his wounds won't heal so easily.

Forced back into nothing but survival, the last person Zuko expected to see was Hakoda's son. Hakoda was a promise of safety. The relentless blue of Sokka’s eyes was a promise of happiness. Zuko could have both if he just reached out his hands, but he found them clutching into fists. After all, he’d been burned one too many times.

But hey, at least between Hakoda and Sokka, Zuko could appreciate the family resemblance of pure, asinine stubbornness.

Can I just say how amazing this fic is?

I went into it for the zukka and instead got an absolute masterpiece, with some of the best character dynamics, plot and stunning writing.

I love it so much and I know that this is another one that I will keep coming back to when it's done.

Anachronism by chellethewriter

Catra clenches her fists. She won’t let it happen. She won’t endanger their future. “We can’t change anything. We’ll just have to wait, and do everything the same way we did before.”

Adora grabs Catra’s shoulders. Her grip is so tight, it’s nearly painful. “But do you realize what that means for us? Playing along. Letting things go the exact same way as before–”

Catra’s expression darkens. “I know,” she says, struggling to keep her voice from trembling. “You’ll have to leave. We’ll have to be enemies again.”

*** Years after defeating Horde Prime, Catra and Adora inexplicably wake up in the past—on the day that Adora first found the sword. If they're going to make it back to the present, they'll have to relive their past from start to finish, pretending to be enemies despite being in love. Despite being married. Despite knowing exactly how the story ends.

But it's not easy, waging war against the person you love most.

Okay, it's not easy to make Catra and Adora's past even more painful but this one really takes the cake.

Going through these horrible, painful events--pitted against the person you love most once again, just to get back to the future you remember?

It is breathtaking, highly recommend.

area cryptid upset no one bothered to inform him of his tragic backstory by crimsonseekers

“My life is a nightmare,” Dabi muttered blankly.

“Nah, this is hilarious,” Hawks said, and while he wasn’t explicitly laughing, Dabi knew that those weird little chirps he was letting out were pointed at him. “Imagine if we go through all this effort and you don’t even have some sort of dramatic background or tragic backstory to justify you being this emo, you’re just a hot topic junkie or something.”

“That’s fucking worse.”

Or,

Dabi has amnesia and keeps reading conspiracy theories about himself in an attempt to figure out who he is, gets the League in on it, and they dismantle organized crime, revolutionize society, and ravage the hero system in the process. Hawks suffers.

Dabihawks is such a good ship and this is god tier content right here. I read this fic and then two days later immediately reread it. Enough said.

(I really shot myself in the foot with the whole top 5 so instead, I'm just giving all the top fics from the fandoms that I have)

Lynchpin by @shanastoryteller

He can’t get Jin Guangyao’s words out of his head.

If he’d only believed in Wei Wuxian, if he’d only been willing to stand up for him, could it all have been avoided?

Yunmeng Siblings get to live happily ever after because Jiang Cheng changes the timeline.

The fix-it fic where the entire cultivation world is saved from ruination with the help of time travel and a good bit of communication.

Company by galori

You’ve never minded eating alone (before.)

Or: Asami and Korra are both intelligent, just in different ways.

Modern au where Asami is the CEO of a company with the stain of her father's legacy and Korra is an ecologist who wants to create and protect to the best of her abilities. Their paths intersect and once they do, there is no untangling them.

Not enough people have read this--everyone go read this now, it is absolutely amazing.

Okay, I have so many more fics that I want to talk about because these are all my novel-length fics but for now, here's my bookmarks (I love them all)

[opaljm]

turbulent – kth

➻ female reader x taehyung

➻ greek gods/olympians au  +  hades!taehyung + persephone!reader + enemies to lovers + marriage au

➻ genres: angst, romance, future smut

➻ length & status: 2k words; incomplete

➻ rating & warnings: 16+; nipples are mentioned but otherwise, not really anything

➻ summary: You wandered away from home only to find yourself in Taehyung’s grasp and being quickly transported to his underworld kingdom where he had you live as his queen. Your mother does not respond well to Taehyung’s abduction of her daughter and decides to raze Gaia to the ground until he finally agrees to let you spend time with her for half the year.  A self-indulgent hades!taehyung drabble series.

➻ disclaimer: Not historically accurate or mythologically accurate. Mild anachronisms (avoid this fic if that annoys you). Unedited. Thank you for the cover @jamaisjoons​ ♡

⋆ my masterlist ⋆ 02 ⋆

Your mother had been reprimanding you as usual, gone into one of her spells of insanity where she thought you would never catch a man. She berated you for your laziness and general unkemptness, derailing you for long tangled unbound locks and the grass stains on your gown. You had slipped your toes under the flowing edge of your frock to conceal your bare feet, the bottom of which were covered by a light dusting of dirt.

She had caught you out in the pastures in the back of your large farm style manor, frolicking in the field of newly grown grain, your hair a flowing curtain in the wind and your lightweight muslin gown clinging to the crevices and curves of your form. She dragged you back home while you had loudly protested all the while, failing to understand why your mother, the goddess of harvest was suddenly acting so uptight all the time, pulling you away from the wide open fields that spanned your mother’s vast properties to the indoors where she stacked books on your head and taught you her many recipes training you to be the proper wife.

You had stood still while your mother took a hot iron rod to your hair and tied it up with an emerald green ribbon, leaving a few curls to frame your face, you sighed. Perhaps you were not being entirely truthful with yourself. After all, Mother had only been falling into her spells after your father, Zeus, the god of the skies and the king of Olympus, had deemed the two of you with a visit. You had gotten the feeling that your father, the most important deity, had not been very impressed with you. Your mother had let you grow up wild, racing along the long stretches of open land and frolicking in nature like a free-spirited nymph, not taking care to learn about the societal expectations of women, especially those like your father’s other daughters. You had gotten the sense that you had disappointed him.

When he had left, your mother who always became a little sad after he left, a reminder that he had picked their sister Hera over her, grew into a tyrant, dictating your every action. Your mother, though an Olympian herself, would despair that your father would never pick you to live alongside him in Olympus, giving you the distinction that he gave his other children, a seat of honor besides him, a place in the pantheon with the most important deities of the time.

But now the night had fallen, your mother had gone to bed long before, claiming a headache with an underlying harsh edge to her words that suggested that you were the cause of it. Deciding to take your chance at freedom, you had unbound the thick restraining fabric your mother had claimed you had to wear to constrain your upper half and slipped off your thick soled shoes and stockings. You ran through your home on your toes, with your skirts held up to your knees, your feet knowing which steps to take after years of practice, allowing you to leave your manor with ease. Your mother was none the wiser, sleeping fitfully in her room.

The moon was out tonight, a full gleaming one that lit your complexion with a luminous blue-tinged light as you skipped to the very outskirts of the fields, where they met the thick cluster of trees that lined the edge of the forest. You loved the forest, often sneaking away to go to bath in a hidden pond in the midst of it during the days where it was particularly warm. You had never gone into the forest in the night but for some reason it was drawing you in. It carried an aura of magic and mischief and inexplicable sensuality that had you easily tripping over loose pebbles and exposed roots as you scampered into the woods. As you went deeper within the trees, you stepped over a fallen branch. It snapped loudly, causing the birds to go shooting into the skies at the disturbance. You thought you could hear a horse rearing up and braying further in the depths of the forest. You stumbled closer to the sound, fighting your way through a thicket of heavy bushes and brambles, the thorns catching at the delicate thin fabric of your gown. When you finally made it to the clearing, everything seemed calm. You would have thought that you had imagined it all if you had not seen the long dark stallion that was quietly nosing at the dirt besides a male who was reclining peacefully atop of a tree stump. His face was tilted towards the moon as he sat lightly humming as though he had all the time in the world.

His face looked as though it had been sculpted by the gods, perfect smooth skin that looked as though it had been made of the highest quality marble in the lands thanks to the moonlight shining on his face. His lips were a pouty rosy pink, and his nose had a smooth slope that was unmarred by any bumps. His eyes which had been closed with its long dark lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks opened suddenly and the powerful weight of his dark poignant eyes pierced into your very soul as he fixed his glance on you, looking at you from head to toe.

You stood still at his heavy examination, blushing hotly as he tracked his eyes over your form. You thought that his eyes had stopped at your chest where your breasts were no long bound, and your pointed dark budding nipples were surely visible from under the light-colored fabric in the moonlight. His eyes finally moved away from your chest as he started his perusal of your face. You stared at him while he glanced at you. There was something deeply attractive about his tousled dark locks and the faint shadow of facial hair that lined his hollowed-out cheeks and chiseled jaw. His clothes were all shades of black and gray. His pants were a fitted dark leather than clung to his legs like a second skin and he wore a billowing dark gray silk shirt underneath his heavy cloak which seemed to be lined with black feathers, covering his form almost like a pair of oversized wings.

"Hello beautiful,” he rasped. His voice was low and sensual making your body go taut as a pool of something dark, heavy, and inexplicable settled around your middle.

Your fingers curled up against your sides, bunching up the fabric that made the skirts of your dress. You were fighting with an emotion that was foreign to you, one that you did not even understand fully. But you knew one thing for certain, you were enthralled by this man, unwillingly captivated by his form as he stood before you in the luminous glow of light from the moon and stars.

“Who are you?” you breathed.

He smirked, “I am known by many names, as are you my dear Persephone,” you scowled at the reminder. You preferred to be called Y/N above all else. “But you can call me Taehyung.”

As Taehyung spoke in his silken mesmerizing voice, his horse chortled near the two of you, breaking the spell the two of you had been in. Swiftly, Taehyung took the reins of the stallion, and straddled him, now looking at you from his seat up high. As you stared him down, he murmured, “Would you like to join me for a ride, Y/N?”

…

There was a warmth in the air that disrupted your slumber, waking you up instantly. You blinked your eyes rapidly until your vision adjusted to the darkness that was caused by both your drawn curtains and the blackness that seemed to entomb the entirety of the underworld. You reluctantly moved away from comfort of the thick bundle of blankets that covered the surface of your bed to slowly set your bare feet on the sleek obsidian tiles that made the surfaces of Taehyung’s cavernous underground palace. The glass floor was cool, a welcome respite from the slightly warm air that enveloped you in its midst. Making your way to the black iron door that closed off your living quarters from the rest of the palace, you quickly snuck out of your room to go out in search of one of the massive open balconies that lined the palace walls on multiple levels. You might have been in the underworld, but you were still on Gaia, which meant that even if Taehyung had willed it, he could not escape from the many things that affected the earth. The ever-changing seasons' effects permeated the earth even deep within the underworld.

Light on your toes, you slinked towards Taehyung’s enormous throne room, where your husband often sat in his massive throne made almost entirely of bones that had been encased by hardened lava. The first time you had seen the monstrosity that was your husband’s royal seat he had grinned and said he would make you a matching one soon. And sure enough, the throne that was next to Taehyung’s was a “daintier” version of his made with smaller more delicate bones over which gold had been poured, gold that had long since hardened.

To your dismay, his giant three-headed hellhound had been sleeping near the door to the throne room and growled when he saw you. A loud, reverberating bark came out of Yeontan’s mouth which awakened the other two heads, Tata and Soonshim, who both quickly joined him. Your ears rang as you glared at the insolent three-headed Cerberus. Of the three heads, Yeontan was the one you hated the most, always staring you down with his angry eyebrows making thick livid slashes across his forehead.

Like clockwork, your husband suddenly appeared, “Yah Tannie, stop barking I was trying to sleep. You are such a bad influence on Tata and Soonshimie.”

He fawned over the overgrown puppy, scratching all three heads under their chins and behind their ears before he finally turned to you.

You sucked in your breath at his disheveled appearance. Taehyung no longer looked like the man you had met many months ago, his hair was long now, perhaps even longer than yours, flowing down the back of his robes to stop near his hips. You had the feeling that your husband might have been bare as the day he had been born underneath the wrapper of his black robes. From what his improperly wrapped dark colored robes revealed, you could see the hard planes of his chest, a golden stretch of smooth skin over hard muscles and peeks of his dusky round flat nipples as your husband folded his arms over his chest.

“I suppose you can sense the changing of the season,” Taehyung mused, looking at you with his hardened eyes. His eyes changed color from the lightest blinding silver to a dark inky black depending on his mood. Currently his eyes were so dark that you could not even make out the distinct separation between his irises and pupils.

“You are after all the new Primaveral goddess. Take care not to appear too excited, however Bride,” he intoned, “You’ll find that I am not the most understanding of husbands.”

After ducking down to scratch the Cerberus’ tummy, he walked away, likely in the direction of his own private chambers. You were no longer excited to find a balcony and breath in the air from the outside, to reminisce that even thousands of miles away underground that you could still sense the first breath of Spring and know that now for the first time since Taehyung had stolen you away to the Underworld, you would finally be able to go up to the surface and reunite with your mother.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International License

©OPALJM 2020

[samedmunds]

My litany thoughts on 1999 cult classic strategy video game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is a game of the early Civilization variety from the EA golden age and ranks very highly in my top ten. While you probably heard of it if you were playing video games around the turn of the century, I've found members of my age cohort to be tragically unfamiliar with this masterpiece.

Alpha Centauri is an unofficial sequel to Civilization II, a game where the only way to way to win is either completely eliminate all competitors to the last city or, rather more easily, send a spaceship loaded with colonists to the title star system. Shortly after leaving home, the ship loses contact with Earth, which would make sense to a player of Civilization II where the bonuses to science and trade from democracies evaporate when technology ends, upon which point all the AIs revolt and become militant fundamentalist theocracies and climate change rapidly destroys the planet, leaving the player with an endgame that is literally 1984. Either way, when the already strained ship arrives at the Alpha Centauri system an unknown partisan assassinates the captain of the UNS Unity and the population fractures into seven opposing factions before firing the colony pods and exploring an inconveniently hostile planet.

The player starts here, in typical Civ fashion: a scout, settler, and absolutely no technology to speak of. That isn't to say you are a bunch of primitives, all your units start out with some approximation to modern guns and judging by the amazing quotes and wonder videos your society is well beyond the 21st century--more on the story later. The gameplay is incredibly well-balanced in spite of its age and quirks (with the exception of the freight-train progression of Yang). Rapid early expansion as the bountiful Peacekeepers may leave you at serious risk to the relentlessly martial Spartans, who are in turn threatened by the uber-specialized technocratic University--but be careful to underestimate the backwards Lord's Believers, their probe teams will just as quickly rob you of your gains. The Morganites can afford to sparsely defend their home if they're willing to pay off their aggressors, but they'll struggle expand over great swaths of territory without irking civil unrest drone riots from corruption. Meanwhile the Gaian Acolytes can harness the permanently-dangerous mindworms to great effect from the beginning of the game. Yang just... builds. And keeps building, and next thing you know he's conquered the Peacekeepers and turned Miriam into nothing more than a puppet and where are all these cruise missiles are coming from?

In short, the strategic design of this game is nothing less than a work of art, but that isn't to say it doesn't have its anachronisms. The User Interface has taken its inspiration from early versions of Microsoft Word and it rapidly pays off to know the hotkeys. The wonder videos are resolution locked and can sometimes cause problems depending on your display configuration. The unit creation system is simultaneously wonderful and horrendous. It allows me to create special long-range nerve gas bombers that eradicate cities shortly before orbitally-dropping specially-trained garrisons to quash all resistance. On the other hand, if you do not accept the cumbersome slew of computer-generated options, keeping your new weapons systems up to date with your latest technology (especially when playing as Zakharov) rapidly becomes a chore.

That said, there are a variety of features in the game that I think deserve to make a reappearance in the Civ Games. The pick-your-government system is incredibly balanced and fun to roleplay. You can't get away with crimes against humanity when solar storms hit in Civilization VI, nor can you weaponise climate change to flood your rivals cities, or strategically terraform to alter weather patterns and deny your neighbors arable land. At the bare minimum, we should be given the option to nerve staple rebelling cities when our control runs out!

All that said, there is also the story to contend with. One is at first tempted to think that a 4x strategy game with a marked emphasis on replayability would necessarily have a tacked-on story, if one at all. After all, the point is for the player to create it through their actions, not have it spoonfed to them. The majority of what you learn about your world that isn't printed in numbers and small pictures on the mapscreen is through blurbs that accompany each discovered technology or new building. The aforementioned wonders even have their adorable early-CG renderings, sometimes mixed in with some experimental film footage. There are occasional interludes that describe the mindworms and machinations of Planet, but the bulk of the wordage comes from epigrams of the faction leaders and the occasional bit of Nietzsche or Plato. It's so good that I can't help but stop and listen to CEO Nbwadibuke Morgan ramble on about supply chain economics or Sister Miriam's apocalyptic warnings every single time. Take some examples.

Proper care and education for our children remains a cornerstone of our entire colonization effort. Children not only shape our future; they determine in many ways our present. Men and women work harder knowing their children are safe and close at hand, and never forget that, with children present, parents will defend their home to the death!

--Col. Corazon Santiago, "Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

Or perhaps, a more on the nose one:

"The Academician's private residences shall remain off-limits to the Genetic Inspectors. We possess no retroviral capability, we are not researching retroviral engineering, and we shall not allow this Council to violate faction privileges in the name of this ridiculous witch hunt!

--Fedor Petrov, Vice Provost for University Affairs Accompanies the Retroviral Engineering technology

The game often doesn't directly tell you what Retroviral engineering is, nor does it labor to explain just what having someone nerve stapled means, or the precise function of the Recycling Tanks, but through its quotation it beautifully circumlocutes the world you are shaping--and being shaped by. It really never pulls any of its punches, even if its just on Organic Superlube--great stuff--and I still catch muself quoting it regularly.

Ursula LeGuin once wrote

"Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. 'If this goes on, this is what will happen.' [...] This may explain why many people who read science fiction describe it as 'escapist,' but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because 'it's so depressing.'"

Alpha Centauri is absolutely extrapolative fiction and very firmly rooted in the 1990s and I love it. It was released in the Aaron Sorkin TV, pre-9/11 days where the word Internet was more often than not followed by the words, "is like an information superhighway" and it absolutely no efforts are made to cover it up. The main factions are a cross-section of the New Millenium's hopes and anxieties. A New Russia that went a very different path before Putin took over, a cheerful clan of ruthless Western capitalists hellbent on putting Morganvision on every network set, a group of vaguely Scottish free-love peaceniks hellbent on defending the most-of-the-time incredibly hostile environment. There's the Second-Amendment preaching Spartans or the optimistically-influential UN which, judging by its naming scheme for its bases, seems to dedicate entire cities to bureaucratic agencies. The All-American Christian fundamentalists don't entirely butt heads with the frighteningly powerful Human-Hive (if your country calls their cities names like "Huddling of the People" and "Paradise Swarming" you might not be the good guys). The expansion also brings in more dynamic characters like the Information Wants to be Free! data angels Brian Reynolds very clearly came up with after watching Swordfish and Hackers back to back or the Nautilus Pirates who have no right to be as fun as they are.

The visions of the future are at once both anachronistic and prophetic; while elements may come off as cheese, I see it as a sort of window to the past, a way to examine what was once (and sometimes still is) on our mind. All in all, I give Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4 out of 5 stars and a definite all-time favorite, warts and all. You can pick it and its expansion up for $6 on Gog.com and play it through a built-in emulator that works for most systems. If you're willing to brave a dated interface and an older-fashioned gameplay style, I would definitely recommend it.

[kitkatt0430]

More rambling Eobard meta and headcanons anyone?

The show writers really dropped the ball when it came to writing Eobard as a recurring villain.

Obviously, of course, Eobard is a recurring villain. He shows up somewhere in every season and always left poised to return again somewhere down the lane. And he always returns, showing up like Barry's own personal Spanish Inquisition meme. No one ever expects the Reverse Flash, especially not Team Flash.

But the problem is that what we got on the show season 4 onwards isn't what seasons one, two, and three were building towards with Eobard. And it's unfortunate because the story direction for Eobard teased by season 2 and the start of season 3 was actually really fascinating.

Alright, so season one Eobard was the overarching villain. A chess master who's downfall came not his plotting skills but from ultimately underestimating his opponents. He manipulates Barry beautifully all season and the closest we see him to being at the top of his game like this again is season 5 when he plays Nora like a fiddle to get himself out of lockup before his execution, trading his life for hers.

Season 2 shows us that even with Eddie's sacrifice and Eobard's death, he's not really gone. First we get the time remnant from the original timeline, an early version of Eobard who has only just traveled far enough back in time to learn what era of history the Flash actually hails from. He already kills without consideration of the effects on the timeline, shown by how he'd have murdered Tina McGee had Cisco not had his vision that sent Barry to rescue her in time. And because the time remnant's existence is still necessary to the stability of the current timeline, Barry has to let Eobard go. Sure, doing so saves Cisco's life, but the episode is one where the villain wins in the end. Later in the season Eobard shows up yet again, this time because Barry travels back in time to try and manipulate Eobard into giving him the information he needs to become faster than Zoom. And Eobard proves once again to be better at playing the manipulation game than Barry. The only reason Barry ultimately comes out on top is because he stops trying to play by Eobard's rules and pulls a move out of Leonard Snart's playbook instead.

And then Season 3 opens with Barry keeping Eobard captive in Flashpoint and ultimately having to ask Eobard to clean up his mistakes. Eobard mockingly asks Barry which of them is the hero and which the villain now, but does as asked. The timeline resets, more or less back to how it was before, and flashpoint!Eobard runs off to become a thorn in the Legends' side.

The point being, Eobard's death at the hands of his own hubris and Eddie's suicide (back when Eddie's sacrifice still meant something, even if it was still a terrible message for the show to send) was still permanent. And yet Eobard's story wasn't finished yet, because he lived his life as the reverse of Barry's. The young version of Eobard, who'd just learned the major players in the early days of Team Flash, ought to have been the beginning of an anachronic telling of the Reverse Flash's growing enmity for Barry as his adoration for the hero turns into a hatred that drives Eobard to become the man we meet in season one. And in turn, the more Barry learned about Eobard, perhaps the more his hatred turned into pity and the recognition that the man Eobard was before he became a speedster was someone he might have liked and respected, under different circumstances.

Season three gave us a look into another step in the anachronic storyline, when Barry went back in time and created Eobard's flashpoint remnant, giving both Barry and the viewers insight into who Eobard was at that point in his life.

To be honest, I was initially expecting Savitar to be an early version of Eobard again, using his foreknowledge to manipulate Alchemy and push Caitlin into becoming Killer Frost. It would have fit with his future Flash claims, as there were various points in the comics where Eobard claimed to be the Flash, at least once even going so far as to take on Barry's physical appearance in an attempt to take over Barry's life. (My issues with Armageddon aside, I loved that they were finally playing with that plotline from the comics.)

While it was probably for the best that Savitar wasn't Eobard screwing with Barry again, it was definitely an overload of speedster villains on the show at that point. And with the reveal that season 1 Eobard mysteriously survived and found himself on planet nazi during season 4, the idea that we'd be getting to see Barry and Eobard's story playing out in reverse order finally culminating in the Red Skies crisis bring their rivalry to a peak and bring Barry once again full circle to the night of his mother's death, this time as the version of Barry who fights Eobard in the house, rescues his younger self, and subtly acknowledges season 1 Barry's presence while still recognizing that the timeline has to be maintained even though the price is his mother's life.

What we get on the show is a wibbly wobbly but ultimately very linear progression of Eobard's life post season one, which is certainly fun for letting Tom Cavanagh play the villain again - he clearly enjoys playing that part and he's such a scene thief that his acting can excuse a multitude of plot hole related sins - but as a result we haven't seen the Matt Letscher version of Eobard on the Flash since season 3. Which was definitely a mistake.

Season 4 at least left us with the taunt from Eobard that Barry would never know who's face Eobard would be wearing next. At that point we were still left open to the possibility that Matt!Eobard could show up again or that Eobard might pull something similar to what he did with Professor Stein on the Legends, where he temporarily took Martin's appearance as an opportunity to spy on the team.

It was a plot lead that never panned out. Every subsequent visit from Eobard on the show has been Tom!Eobard. Even season 6's appearance where they could have had both actors in the same episode again, with Tom!Eobard in the real world due to him possessing Nash and Matt!Eobard in the mind space, revealing that despite his theft of Harrison's DNA being responsible for him surviving as part of the Wells Hive Mind (or whatever was going on there), he still manifested in his own thoughts - and thus in the shared mind space - as his original body.

But it wasn't just season two and three that hinted at past versions of Eobard being how his story continued. Season one hinted at it as well in the form of Eobard's obsession with the news article.

Eobard's obsession with that article was multi-faceted. It was a guarantee that the Red Skies Crisis would be averted. It was an easy way to check that the Flash was still hitting important timeline milestones despite Eobard's meddling. It assured Eobard that his ancestor wouldn't wind up married to the wrong woman, thus assuring Eobard's continued existence in the future. And it also chronicled an event where Eobard fought the Flash and disappeared in a flash of light with him - which is how a temporal breach using the speed force might appear to onlookers unfamiliar with what they were seeing.

The article was Eobard's guarantee that the event of him traveling back in time to kill Barry and murdering Nora instead had become a stable time loop instead of destroying the timeline as he knew it.

But with the story being told of Eobard becoming a linear path continuing beyond his season one 'death', his past with Barry suddenly become irrelevant. A joke, even. A petty grievance writ large. And the importance of maintaining Eobard's past timeline to ensure the stability of the current timeline was dropped entirely, culminating in Eobard's absence from the Crisis on Infinite Earths plot entirely. The man who was once front and center alongside Barry in the Central City Citizen's accounting of the red skies event was no longer part of the story at all. Because the story originally intended to be told by that event had been scrapped entirely.

So imagine things had gone differently in season three. We get back a Snart who somehow survived on the Legends but came back wrong. Barry's always seen so much of himself in Len and the Flash's rivalry with Captain Cold and the Rogues is a much bigger part of the comics lore than Eobard Thawne is, no matter how hard Eobard tries to change that. It would have been interesting to see a version of Len who is careening out of control after the events with the Legends, struggling and angry and using the Rogues to lash out at Barry. We could have seen some payoff in Lisa's flirty friendship with Cisco, with her ultimately coming to Cisco for help stopping her brother when he goes to far. With Mick still with the Legends, Team Flash would be her only real hope at getting through to Len. It'd also leave room for another episode building the Reverse Flash's 'reverse order' storyline, where at some point Barry accidentally runs into the future - a storyline from the comics, even - and winds up fighting Eobard there, giving Matt!Eobard a second guest appearance that season.

It also could have ended with HR returning to his Earth - instead of being killed off - to help champion some much needed social changes on Earth-19 instead of what we got with the Collectors in season 4. I know Cynthia was Cisco's love interest and they didn't want to question the ethical implications of her job too hard at that point, but... wow did those ethical implications need to be questioned.

In the new season 4 we still get DeVoe's plan and flashbacks to Tom!Eobard meeting DeVoe before the accelerator went boom. And when Barry's in jail, there's his awkward reunion with Len, who jokes about missing the wedding. And instead of bus metas, we get that DeVoe is obsessed with a certain grouping of metas from the night the accelerator exploded, making figuring out who he's going after even more of a needle in a haystack from the original season.

Beyond the flashbacks to Tom!Eobard, at some point Barry could have traveled back in time to ask Tom!Eobard for help using the speed force to think fast enough to out-think the Thinker. Which, of course, sets pre-accelerator accident Eobard on the path to seeking out DeVoe in the first place.

In season five we could finally get a speedster villain again. The Future Flash, a man claiming to be Barry but who now punishes villains instead of bringing justice. It could have still incorporated Nora West-Allen, who perhaps traveled back in time to learn why her father would act this way after having been thought dead for so long. The plot would have been more evenly set between the current time and the future, with Eobard being played by Matt Letscher as well as Grant Gustin... and maybe a throw away cameo of Tom Cavanagh as Eobard as, in order to mess with Barry, he takes Sherloque's (or Harry's) appearance as well. The season would end with Eobard's defeat and his device that let's him steal other people's appearances having been broken. But he runs into the past to get away from Barry, not the future, ending with Matt!Eobard's arrival in the season two episode where he nearly killed Tina.

All of which would have set the stage for a Red Skies Crisis in season 6 where just as the Monitor recruited heroes, so to did the Anti-Monitor recruit villains. Specifically the Anti-Monitor enticing Eobard with the warning that if the Flash survives the crisis then Eobard's fate to die in battle with the Flash will be sealed, a very 'exact words' type of manipulation that leaves out Eobard's death isn't actually at the Flash's hands just that they're mid battle when it happens. After the crisis is over, Earth Prime is still created somehow and it's a bittersweet win for the heroes. And Barry seems to have gone missing along with Eobard, a mystery cleared up in the first episode of the Flash to follow the crossover event as Barry chases Eobard through history, culminating in the fateful fight in the Allen residence on the night of March 18, 2000.

Barry returns home, not dead but certainly months later to an Earth Prime that isn't quite the same timeline he remembers. And his story line isn't about the speed force dying, but struggling to process his trauma and figuring out what his life is now when he finally stops letting his mother's death and his hatred for Eobard define his life.

And while there would still be plenty of room for Eobard to show up to mess with Barry after that point, Barry's genuinely let go of his hatred at that point and it's clear that Eobard realizes he doesn't mean as much to Barry as Barry does to him, infuriating Eobard to no end. There'd also still be room for flashbacks to Tom!Eobard during those thirteen years he spent biding his time, waiting to strike with the accelerator. He learned patience and manipulation during that time and could have easily set a number of villains into motion the way he did with Grodd and could have done with DeVoe.

While it'd be too much to say that everything comes back to Eobard, having him lurking in the background, putting more stock in his importance than he really has, would fit quite well with the character from the comics, lashing out at Barry for having the life Eobard covets for himself.

It would have been interesting to know for sure what the plan for Eobard going forward from season 2 really was, though the changing of show runners multiple times since then have meant that a lot of plot threads with Eobard were ultimately left hanging. Past versions of Eobard showing up never really paid off, Eobard's threat in season 4 of wearing other people's faces was never followed through on, his season 6 threats that he'd find a way to return in his own body all on his own was replaced with the Speed Force having to do it for him during an enemy mine situation. As new writers conceived of new threats for Eobard to embody, a lot of the setup for other potential plots were left by the wayside. But none quite so unfortunate, from my point of view anyway, as the story of Eobard's past being inextricably linked to Barry's future.

[esonetwork]

WHY THE SUN NEEDS TO SET ON THE GALACTIC EMPIRE

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/why-the-sun-needs-to-set-on-the-galactic-empire/

WHY THE SUN NEEDS TO SET ON THE GALACTIC EMPIRE

Two of the most recent science fiction films and television series are adaptations of two of the most beloved and seminal works of Science Fiction literature. Dune, by Frank Herbert is about to be released in theatres all over the world, and Foundation by Isaac Asimov is currently streaming as a television series from Apple TV.

Both of these films are visually stunning and are made with cutting edge technology to tell the amazing stories of life for humanity among the stars and in the far flung future.

Why, then, are both of these works saddled with the most outdated and untenable form of government?

According to Miriam-Webster, an Empire is:

a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority especially : one having an emperor as chief of state. (2): the territory of such a political unit. b: something resembling a political empire especially : an extensive territory or enterprise under single domination or control 2: imperial sovereignty, rule, or dominion

Now, this is not new for science fiction, particularly the brand of Sci-Fi that gets trotted out onto the silver screen. The original Star Wars dealt with a galactic empire that was in the midst of tightening its grip on the far flung space kingdoms of a galaxy far, far away.

Indeed, even literary science fiction is lousy with galactic empires. Bran Aldiss edited a collection of stories dealing with the concepts of Galactic Empires and it came out in two volumes.

So my question is simple: Why?

Why, in a future of faster-than-light travel, high level mathematics, incredible supercomputers, ‘droids, blasters, hovercars, thopters, personal force shields, and cloning, would you retain a political system as archaic as an empire?

Why do you need Emperors, or Princesses, or Counts, Dukes, or Barons when the guys who repair and/or invent all of the technology should be A#1 top of the heap?

Under our current capitalist system, the free market is the emperor. The only thing we have to debate is whether it should be regulated or, as the Randian Libertarians would prefer, completely unfettered by government oversight. The closest thing we have to kings or queens are the oligarchs (and those are merely side effects of corruption and nepotism the way that cockroaches are side effects of poor living conditions). The only royals in our modern world are merely vestiges of a by-gone age, allowed to persist in acknowledgement of the romance of the age of empire.

And that, maybe, is the point. Romance. Not as in Harlequin, but in the traditional sense of the word. The romance of the bygone era.

But that’s a frivolous thing to include in a science fiction novel, isn’t it?

Well, Asimov, with his Foundation Trilogy was, admittedly, retelling the Fall of the Roman Empire with a science fictional bent, so we can, perhaps, forgive the inclusion of the Galactic Empire. That was his whole thesis, that the Dark Ages need not be so dark. Having a Galactic Empire is essential to that thesis.

But what about Dune? Why the Empire? Why the Dukes and Barons and Princesses? Frank Herbert’s novel was inspired by the political situation in the Middle East with OPEC. Certainly the ruling class of the Arab world held on to power in a petty way, while being manipulated by the United States, a situation Herbert mirrors with the Spicing Guild and the CHOAM company.

His story, the story he wanted to tell, had to have those petty feifdoms squabbling for power and the Fremen and their Kwisatch Haderach eventually overthrowing the empire. Baroque was the way to go when constructing the world of Arrakis.

But why does it persist? The galaxy is indescribably vast. Even given the existence of faster-than-light travel, either through “Folding Space” or massive singularity drives or whatever, the logistics of administrating an empire over such vast gulfs of space is completely unworkable. Even just contemplating a supply chain for an imperial invasion force is unrealistic.

So why do we do it? Why do we posit the existence of Galactic royalty?

Aside from the romance, it’s experience. The sun set on the British Empire long ago but we still lionize the royal family. Former subject countries still celebrate their independence from the yoke of the empire, yet at the same time they fetishize the monarchy that once held them in thrall. Even the United States still defers to royalty despite the fact that they won their freedom from it through violent revolution.

We know Empire. Our history reeks of it either in opposition or support. The most recent and best example of a world conquering organization is the British Empire, whose ships and soldiers kept a network of trade afloat for centuries.

The audience, it seems, is able to relate to that older, venerated institution better than today’s world of high finance, political compromise, and supply chain logistics.

I guess it’s shorthand, but dammit if it doesn’t saddle a lot of science fiction with anachronism and unreality.

[meloncubedradpops]

Repo! The Corona Opera

For every rotation that Earth has completed around the sun since the dawn of humanity, humans have created art to cope with the realities surrounding our everyday life. We weave stories in songs, movies, plays, books, paintings, and so forth, that help digest the world around us and provide an entertaining escape from the cruelties we endure. Some stories take place in abstract universes or in the future, and we rely on what we know in our present reality to build upon these fantasy societies. My favorite movie, Repo! the Genetic Opera, certainly makes this list. We are currently experiencing perhaps the most surreal year of our collective lives, and with each passing day I argue that we find ourselves closer to the world crafted in Repo. I have seen this movie, at least 20 times. If you haven't watched Repo! the Genetic Opera or you haven't seen it in a while, I recommend giving it a view. The movie is unique in that it falls under three distinct genres: musical, horror, and sci-fi. And while the jury is out on whether our future society is going to go full on gothic aesthetic, I can say that the Repo! movie experience offers a glimpse into a dystopian fascist post-plague world wrapped in unapologetically hilarity with a heaping side of camp. It doesn't offer any spiritual cleansing that our souls collectively need, but it does show us what a new normal could look like if we really go off the rails.

As things stand, right now, so much of our daily lives and culture are impacted by the coronavirus. All of our institutions have been impacted, from school, to work, to family, to the way we interact with strangers, and especially our economy. We have all felt the effects in one way or another, and honestly? Most the impacts are of our own undoing, for better or for worse. I am going to write three pieces analyzing Repo! the Genetic Opera. First I will create the foundations that bridge our contemporary life and the world of Repo! Second I will explain how the Repo! universe operates under the definitions of fascism. And third I will weave together parts one and two into our contemporary world (particularly in the context of the United States) to highlight the dark path we heading towards. My viewpoints are of mine, and my own alone. Let's dive into part one.

Part I Repo! the Genetic Opera takes place in the year 2056. Humanity was on the brink of collapse as a result of a medical crisis that caused massive organ failure.

I never gave the premise much thought, at least not until recently. We aren't given much detail beyond the fact that entrepreneur Rottissimo "Rotti" Largo solved this crisis through his company GeneCo. GeneCo provides organ transplants that can be repaid through a payment plan. Witnessing the coronavirus unfold in real time and seeing its wrath, particularly on severe cases, honestly makes me wonder if the writers had some sort of "super plague" in mind when creating this universe. For the purpose of this analysis, I will assume that humanity suffered at least one infectious disease crisis. And just to reiterate covid-19 particularly, we really *don't* know what it's going to do to us long-term. Let the parallels begin. 

The world in Repo! the Genetic Opera, operates as normally as the citizens possibly can, which appears to be quite limited. I have noted how dated some the technologies look.

For a world 30 years in the future, it lacks cell phones and easy access to internet. When we enter Shilo's world (aka her bedroom!) she watched Blind Mag sing on a busted up tiny ass TV and the program itself looks like an ad on Home Shopping Network.

The Graverobber is shown reading headlines on a newspaper. The news reporters shown in the ribbon cutting ceremony during the 1st Italian Post-Plague Renaissance have old school cameras with flashbulbs.

The most contemporary technology appears to be a Wish.com version of an Apple watch, and even that looks like a leftover prop from Spy Kids.

Obviously the people who made this movie intentionally inserted these anachronisms, but why? This is a science fiction movie after all. I speculate that they reverted back because the impact from humanity's crisis resulted in an overall professional "brain drain" from the sheer volume of professionals that dropped dead. In fact every scene depicting medical procedures looks dimly lit and lacking in sanitation. We will see this as we struggle to contain the coronavirus, at least in America. Healthcare workers have already died from this thing, and I am sure many prospective college students will have second thoughts about a career in healthcare. I mean hell, look at no other than GeneCo itself. That company employs workers called "Genterns" who are most definitely not in full PPE. I don't doubt their medical expertise, but they appear to be disposable (please see: that time Luigi killed one for NO REASON in "Mark it Up").

On that note, it really was quite incredible how China built the pop-up hospital in Wuhan in under 4 days, but it was also not the most safe or structurally sound building by far (it collapsed, people were hurt!). Maybe at this point, the people in Repo! don't have much of a choice. I am sure there were likely legit hospitals, but the fact that the Renaissance had gross surgery tents is a bit unsettling.

This is a world that is completely built upon the social more of valuing your health above all else. There had to be a turning point in the GeneCo business model where they really played on up-selling organs for the benefit of "genetic perfection". "I needed a kidney transplant desperately. GeneCo showed this single mom sympathy. This makeover came for a small added fee. Now I look smashing on live TV!" Imagine signing the documents for your power of attorney while actively going into renal failure, when your doctor chimes in with an up-sell for breast implants. When all is said an done, your body is now not only functioning again, but you're hot! Even in a post-plague dystopia we are still holding value to having a nice rack. What's not to love about GeneCo? Obviously we know right away that GeneCo has a dirty side. Rotti Largo personally lobbied to make organ repossessions legal, and he does not hesitate to recollect his property. The concept itself is, of course, wild. In America, our healthcare system is incredibly broken and expensive.  You would wonder how it could get worse without us backpedaling many steps on the industrialization timeline. And in a lot of ways, I could see a company like GeneCo thrive here. We already hate the poor, and we have political think tanks that salivate over the idea of cutting social programs that keep people alive. Our president has wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act while many people are unemployed during a pandemic. In Repo! we hear about those who don't pay, but obviously there are plenty of people who do. Those who can will happily pay, either for vanity reasons or to stay alive.

And while society cites Rotti as being a "hero" for humanity, we see more and more evidence that the crisis is both not under control and life is cheap.

His son murders multiple people, in front of others, with seemingly no repercussions. In the scene where Shilo meets the Graverobber for the first time, adjacent to the graveyard and tombs owned by wealthy families who could afford grave markers, lies a poorly constructed wall hiding thousands of corpses piled on top of one another. We even get a glimpse of a truckload pouring more onto the pile. I would not be surprised if there is a disinformation campaign there keeping the public in the dark (although you'd think the smell would be unbearable at this point).

There are multiple indications that propaganda works in society (still), and no one is getting the full picture of how much of a raw deal the people in Repo! have. We see poster after poster about GeneCo, in the literal absence of other corporations. 

And a lot of them bear resemblance to 20th century Russian propaganda. It would be a real shame if the goals outlined The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia were actually realized. Imagine going to visit your mother's grave and hearing commercials for hardcore analgesics play through the cemetery. Also, there's a police presence too. Apparently the police are called Genecops and have authority to execute any assumed graverobbers on site.

Imagine the hellscape it would be to live in a world where your loved ones may have died from a terrible pandemic, and you face a non-zero chance of an over zealous cop murdering you thereafter, and because their qualified immunity bypasses the judicial system entirely...oh wait. Anyways let's circle back to the Graverobber character.

Graverobber's role in Repo! appears to be minor on the surface. Rotti's daughter, Amber Sweet, appears to almost despise her relationship with him. And that relationship involves him supplying Amber with what he describes as the "21st Century cure". This cure you ask? A super effective painkiller with the clinical use to accompany GeneCo surgeries. This drug is called Zydrate, and it has a street version that he acquires and sells, with clients including Amber Sweet.

Graverobber makes his living sucking the glowy blue brain corpse goo and injecting them into people on the streets. Yum!

Not everyone who needs an organ transplant can pay for it all upfront. Luckily for them, GeneCo provides payment plan options! The caveat to this is if you fail to make those payments, legally GeneCo can come and repossess your newly acquired organs. If you find yourself past due, you will soon see the last face before your doom, the Repo Man. He will harvest GeneCo's property, and it won't matter where you are or what you are doing. There is no anesthetic, and you will likely die! This was all made legal through Rotti's lobbying efforts.

Society, as it's set up today, allows for property repossessions. This can be as straightforward as a repossession of your vehicle to as heartbreaking as a foreclosure on your home. At the end of the day, the impacts of that are difficult and life changing. Currently millions of people in America are out of work, and the threat of losing everything is at stake for many. We could lose our homes, our vehicles, and our sense of purpose. And while many government bodies have created temporary moratoriums, they have not provided any substantial financial relief to keep the proverbial repo man at bay. What went wrong in this dystopia to normalize the concept of death due to nonpayment? Fascism! Ah yes, the dreaded f-word. In my next essay, I will outline the 14 characteristics of fascism and how it relates to the universe in Repo! After I will relate that to our modern world so that we can try and stop this from becoming our reality.

[luasworkshop]

Magical Skills: Prior to their death, Lua had a certain amount of… overconfidence. Everything they did came easily, and if it didn’t – they didn’t spend time on it. This meant that while they were (and are) quite gifted in many arenas, they didn’t necessarily hone their skills into something masterful. Death, both tempering their courage and heightening their focus, seems to have caused them to settle more on what they are best at. Lua excels primarily at two things – shape-shifting themselves (a skill they have had throughout their life), and imbuing mechanical objects with spells and other cleverness (something they have been interested in a long time, but that they are more recent at trying to perfect). They also have a natural affinity for the ocean. In contrast to canon, even before they have their memory back, Lua does not refer to themselves as Asra’s apprentice (their memory may be dodgy but it’s still a weird power imbalance. Aleis is the same.)

Shape-Shifting: After their skills fully return and develop following their reincarnation (sometime after the main events of the story), Lua is able to take on the shape of just about anything. They are capable of taking on any animal form, appear as other individuals, make themselves appear as inanimate objects, and so on. In the form of animals, they have all of their natural skills and abilities – flight, speed, gills, etc. and are able to use them to their full extent. The upper and lower limits of their size seemed to be determined by life living on the planet (as their upper limit seems to be about that of a blue whale, and lower limit being about a bacteria). In order to facilitate this change, their mass is either borrowed or lent to some arcane realm, specifically designed for this physical change. Lua finds shape-shifting innate and easy, so the exact mechanisms of this are not totally clear, but they are always attempting to better understand them. It does seem that changes in excess of approximately 200lbs are quite taxing physically and magically (and can only be maintained a short while – and usually require significant time to recover from). Unlike Aelis, they are unable to split their consciousness into multiple forms or become semi or fully incorporeal. They also tend to fully shift into things (even if it’s something fantastic) rather than just giving themselves piecemeal aspects (although they can, they find it easier to just go all-out – there are some exceptions to this). Lua also uses their shape shifting to better understand various animals, their biology, environment, and how the world around them works. Despite Lua’s overthinking (perhaps because of that awareness) they always have a clear sense of their own self which assures they are not lost in shape-shifting. They are able to return to their comfortable human form no matter what shape they take, as they are confident in their own body in this regard.

Other Shape-Shifting Ephemera:

- Lua’s shifts are very quick, generally less than a second. There’s body horror and uncanny valley stuff in there but it’s usually too quick for the human eye to catch. Usually. Lua can deliberately slow the process if desired but it may prove uncomfortable.

- Allowing themselves to breathe underwater is so innate to them they don’t even slightly think about it anymore.

- They use shape shifting to keep from getting drunk if they don’t want to (this requires conscious effort and they don’t always do it in a timely manner). They can use it to other metabolic effect as well.

- They can embrace the abilities and instincts of other creatures without loosing their own mind. (This would be much harder if not.)

- They don’t necessarily tend to have a ‘set’ form of any given animal – they can be whatever they’d like. They tend to be a specific species example when animal shaped (being, for example, Epicrates cenchria the ‘rainbow boa’ rather than just ‘a snake’ or ‘a boa’), and if they’re not feeling obtuse or deliberately trying to blend in they’ll be a color morph that feels recognizable as them (earthy toned or blue-black furred with some white flecks, medium/large sized, somewhat lank, gold eyes, etc.)

- They have a rather encyclopedic knowledge of animals, furthered by curiosity, travel, and study.

- They are not particularly able to use shape-shifing to heal themselves – they can use it to prevent injury in the first place if they can catch or react to something in the first place (shifting around blunt force or strengthening the area where the blow might be) – but the amount of energy needed to use this ability to rapidly heal makes it a moot point. Wounds shift with shifting, scaling appropriately. More injury makes it harder to shift (owing to pain and exhaustion).

- Getting sick is similar – if they catch a cold early enough they might be able to forestall it by running it through a different immune system, but if they’re in the midst of the flu they can’t really shift much anyway, it’s too taxing and hard with a gooey head.

- They generally can’t take their clothes with them, needing to remove them so they’re not damaged if they’re going to get a lot larger. (There’s an internal pocket based workaround but they can do but don’t like to use it as it’s distracting). There’s probably a way to shunt clothes off to another arcane realm and summon them back in a tidy fashion but they’ve not yet figured that out.

- They can mimic clothes and other trappings with their own body but it takes focus. It also leaves them vulnerable to cold and sun. This is great for espionage, party tricks, and not much else.

- They tend to keep their earrings in in casual situations if it works with the form (short of it being too small it usually does).

- They don’t shape-shift in their sleep, which would be on par with very dramatic cases of somnambulism. They might have little rivulets of color, fur, feathers, scales, etc. move across parts of their skin now and again if they’re having a really dramatically weird dream (much more akin to sleep-talking).

- Their shape-shifting is kindof ‘sticky’, if they fall asleep as something they’ll tend to stay that way until they wake up and consciously change back (although another magician could force them out of it, depending on the situation).

As mentioned – their mass relates to an arcane/magical relationship. This is the same for their ‘library’ of forms. Lua is well traveled and very knowledgeable, but they are still able to shape shift into animals (and other things) they are not immediately familiar with (with enough description or information) by accessing through an internal, magical connection, an inter-dimensional arcane library of information. This is, again, not well understood and comes naturally to them – but relates to how they (and Aleis, and other shifters) are able to take on various forms without breaking themselves or reality. This is not a ‘curated’ or human-created thing – more of a 4th dimensional log of information that is accessed through magical means at blisteringly fast speed. Lua’s ability to access and reference this information is so internalized they themselves would not be able to explain it well (it would likely take some magical scholar who understands very high end physics).

Artifacts: Lua has a mind for clockwork and other mechanical contrivances and skill at imbuing these with spells and other magical effects. The work they produce stands on its own as fully functioning once it’s complete, and has fascinating abilities because of it’s magical nature. If one were to consider Lua in the modern era – they would be respected as some sort of robotics engineer. As it is, they create work which tends to be beautiful, esoteric, and serve some sort of strange function. Lua’s primary income stream is from private commissions on this work – it is complex and time consuming to produce and their rates are high (Nadia is a repeat customer these days). The practical work they produce include things like astrolabes that can project an entire moving star map, lockpicks that reveal what is happening inside the lock, automota which can serve as two-way communication devices, and so on. The more artistic work they produce can be more delightfully frivolous – a hand organ that that plays in colors, jewelry that can turn into a little creature and run around, music boxes that change their melody based on mood, and on. Combining their skills with their spouse’s skills with miniatures has made for some decidedly fascinating and weird results. Because of all of this – Lua is an impeccable draftsman, and is generally seen with a shoulder bag full of drawings and drawing equipment (they do not usually bring their pieces to work on when traveling/visiting unless they know they will have a works space where they set things up and leave them undisturbed, however they will gladly plan out future projects and refine ideas wherever they can set down a piece of paper – and draw silly or entertaining things at times).

Lua is also adept at repairing non-magical clocks, music boxes, and other automata only using magic as a means to assist (rather than permanently repair) the object (such as magnification, steadying their hand, creating light, etc.) They tend to take on fewer of these projects as they prefer to imbue or work with items which are magical in nature. They are not an all-purpose expert (as some automata, even non-magical, are incredibly involved), but they can certainly get a pocket watch going again with no trouble.

Their work never really mimics modern technology – these are esoteric, magical items, not ‘fantasy cell phones.’ They do sometimes demonstrate what may seem like anachronisms (precise knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, physics, etc.) but these are things based on Lua’s studies, travels, and personal experience and a dash of magic.

Combat Magic: Weapon-wise, when pushed, Lua favors what is functionally a compound bow, which is more sympathetic to their magic than a recurve, when dealing with long-distance armed combat or hunting. (This is highly anachronistic but so is the piano that Nadia plays.) Lua is not adept at hand-to-hand combat (they are not particularly trained at this apart from very basic blocks and holds from Aelis) and they prefer to use their shape-shifting to fight. They are incredibly clever and dangerous when it comes to fighting this way, able to shift quickly, and utilize the abilities of various creatures to their advantage (speed, strength, armor, venom, etc). A shape-shifter battle is very exciting to watch. They have a similar approach to hunting, as for them much easier to be a predatory fish or bird than hook up a line and reel (though they don’t care to eat their catch raw unless it is particularly delicious to the human palate).

Divination: Lua is passable at divination, but doesn't generally like to do it. They rather fundamentally object to asking others what is ahead of them (as they prefer to take charge of themselves), and when it comes to reading for others their heart generally isn’t in it. They don’t object to the arcana themselves – they find them fascinating and an incredible resource, but so far as Lua is concerned they have better things to do with their time than deal with fussy mortals. Aleis and Lua have turned to it as an income stream in tough times, but it only has made Lua more resentful of it – that’s Asra’s business (they don’t really mind him doing it, he has a much better personality for it, both for chatting with the arcana and for dealing with customers). Aleis excels more at the ‘headology’ part of divination – giving people what they want to hear to feel better than Lua does, but Lua isn’t bad at it when pushed. Lua prefers wood/bone burning rather than tarot reading.

Other Magic: Lua and Aleis are still powerful magical generalists, and while mastery takes time and effort, basic functions tend to come easily. Still, magic that is sympathetic to their personality is the easiest to work with, and Lua tends to take to conjuration, summoning, and other ‘creation’ magic (whether it’s elemental lore, otherworldly entities, or simply starting a fire). If there are written instructions or known spells Lua can usually parse through them pretty quickly for at least passable results (not masterful or clever or elegant ones mind you – just workable). Antithetical to Lua’s nature is magic that involves control of other people - illusions, manipulation, teleportation, and similar effects are very difficult for them to get their head around. The same goes for magic meant to control or manipulate natural phenomena. This is why it takes Aleis’ help for them to help shape-shift other people. Fortunately Aleis and Lua’s magic compliments each other nicely, and where Lua struggles Aleis thrives and vice versa. Together their magic is incredibly strong and they are used to letting the flow of raw magic power go between each other to compliment their work.

Familiar: Lua is extremely obtuse when the matter is mentioned. Most people are not sure if they do or do not have one (in fact Julian and Lucio have an ongoing game of trying to figure out what it might be and bringing various animals to Lua to see if they ‘stick’ or ‘click’. Fortunately Lua likes animals. When it doesn’t work they get them off to wherever they belong – the sanctuary, a farm, back home, etc).

Retreat: Like Asra and Aleis, Lua has their own retreat. Their cozy log cabin is on a rather lush, generally uninhabited, crescent-shaped island off the cost of a northern rain forest, full of tall pine trees, sandy beaches, rocky outcroppings, and dramatic winter storms. They built this prior to their death, and have been happy to return to it – giving them peace away from other people (although they occasionally bring friends with them, the rule for all the magician’s retreats is that unless you are invited you should not show up unexpectedly). With a small footprint, their cabin is the only indication of habitation on the island. It has enough room for a bed, work table, fireplace, small kitchen, and a detached Japanese-style bath Lua has set up with magically running hot water. While there is suitable game on the island (and certainly a bounty in the sea) Lua generally prefers to stock up their larder with groceries whenever they visit.

Gate: Lua and Aleis share their magical gate. It is a beautiful but lonely, rocky island in a storm-tossed sea. It’s high basalt cliffs protect an inner forest sanctuary, who’s lakes and streams, bubbling up from deep underground, flow out through underground caverns and give secret access to and from the sea. There are creatures in the woods, some familiar and many not, they watch strangers with attentive glowing eyes. Despite the apparently small size of the island, it seems as though the woods go on without limit, unless they want to allow you to access the steep rock and precarious climbs of the protective rocky coast, or onward to wherever it is you are going.

[vaguely-concerned]

i'm not sure if you're open to prompts, but i'm curious as to how the others would react to jesse and hanzo after their proper reunion? i'm pretty sure they're not outwardly lovey-dovey, but it must be obvious that they're very close and very much in love. plus the fact that they have shared quarters later, wow can you imagine the conversation with winston afjdkfj. and for the older agents i would imagine that this jesse is the happiest jesse they've ever seen?? so yeah. just curious, and (1/2)

i'm always hungry for more content for you. your writing is just so fucking beautiful, gah. <3 (2/2) - 🌵

Oh yeah, I think they’re definitely not lovey-dovey in public in the uh conventional way, but they do very much have that dynamic that’s like... you know how some couples are very clearly a Team, even when they’re in a larger social group? It’s not really that they’re excluding you, they’re just so tuned in and safe and effective with each other that they sort of have their own thing going and you know they function as an autonomous unit that could stand on its own at a moment’s notice. Basically they have Big Partner Energy going on and from the sheer intensity of it any observer would be very hard pressed to read it as anything but the ‘life partner’ variant lol. And you’re completely right about the older agents (and some of the ones who are younger and must have seen him as sort of an older brother figure) seeing Jesse being uncomplicatedly happy and I’m. emotional about it ;_______________;   

I also feel like neither of them are interested in talking about their personal life with anyone else, so poor Genji might end up being the one who has to tell Winston that if he needs Hanzo or McCree for something, just... maybe make sure you knock on that door nice and loud a couple of time before you go in there just to be sure, huh. Oh how the turntables, Mr. Used To Be A Playboy, how much do you want to bet this is a precise reversal in dynamics of a bunch of situations that happened when they were younger when Hanzo frantically had to cover for him    

(And thank you so much for the kind words sdfhksadjflh that’s so nice. Y___Y My policy with prompts is mostly ‘technically my door is always open! but also I’m a real mess at all time so I can make absolutely no promises’ haha)