#and it’s also so in league with grievous’ character

[whippedcloudsofcream]

Grievous was having the time of his life wiping out the Nightsisters because he knew he was going to go right back to getting his ass handed to him by the Jedi.

[folfar]

16, 39, 47 & 55!

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

So I have two pretty hefty ideas that definitely will see the light of day this year (ie I've started writing them), and eight more in the pipeline! The two big ones are a Love Island AU, where Damen has to enter the villa to save Nik's tv job, and a Persephone AU, where Damen is Persephone, because I love to cast Damen against type.

The rest of the list includes - because I never ever give up on a WIP (I believe in my heart I will finish everything I post, my most grievous fault) - some absolutely ancient ideas, such as a Yuri on Ice fic that I will probably never post, which is about... Chris. And Georgi, kind of.

And a Wandavision fic! Which is the second least likely to be posted, because it's already not canon compliant because the MCU is exhausting to keep up with. This is sad because I think it's the funniest thing I've ever written, and the premise is "What if the citizens of Westview found Wanda and told her to come back and get her creepy witch friend she left there?" But Agatha is still stuck in her sitcom-self, and they have to go and live in a canadian shack about it. And then they fuck while the darkhold seethes in the corner.

39. Share a snippet from a WIP

From the Persephone AU! This is a very rough snippet - but I'm really looking forward to writing this fic:

Damen is doing spring, enjoying it but thinking it hollow. He moves through the world leagues at a time, stepping through his father’s sunbeams.

Spring is also the time of long shadows and cold evenings, when the stores run low and the calves starve, when death stalks the land; that’s how they meet. Laurent is a beautiful shade come from Hades. Damen is not unfamiliar with these pale emissaries of hell, come to take the sleeping dead in hand, but he has not seen this one before.

Damen protests at Laurent taking a spirit down to Hades. “It’s not right,” he says, “it wasn’t his time.”

And who are you to argue? The pale ghost says.

“I’m the god of spring; his sheep will lamb tomorrow, a fine and healthy crop. I have seen it - he will drink the milk and be well. I fed them ichor,” Damen confesses. Laurent stares at him, eyes as flat and silver as the coins on the eyes of the dead. 

“I didn’t like the sound of his cough.” Damen admits. He presses his case. “One more day.”

“Fine,” Laurent says, as if surprised with himself. “But you come to Hades with me - and explain it to the prince of hell yourself.” 

Damen creases his brow. “May I have a half-hour to ask my brother to take over my duties for me?”

“No,” Laurent says. “I have made my offer.” The farmer’s soul is coiled in his palm like a skein of wool. Damen looks at it, looks down at where the man is slumped by his byre.

“Fine,” he says. Laurent raises an eyebrow, and takes his hand.

The farmer wakes to see two sets of footprints - one iced over, crackling with cold - and the other, where in the indent, tiny, early strawberries are already coming to fruit.

47. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

hahahahha.......almost everything I have ever posted on ao3 is a first draft. when it is done i want it gone! you know when you have a fever and you're like i must strip IMMEDIATELY. like that.

sometimes I submit to a SPAG beta from longsuffering friends but i'm so impulsive i normally just post immediately and then kind people tell me "babes your tenses are fucked" and i have to revise on the fly.

don't be like me!!!!!

55. Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones?

The reaction to Sunblind over the years has been so lovely it probably has to be Auguste because I am creature that lives and breathes for praise!

Also - when I started writing Auguste/Sunblind, it was because I had a personal vendetta against what I saw as a character getting put on a pedestal - the popular idea that Auguste had been everything Laurent said and more.

Given how Pacat demonstrates that character's perceptions of their own relationships often turn out to be incorrect or based on assumptions as the books go on, I wanted to do the same. I wanted to write him as imperfect in the extreme - a bit violent, a bit foolish, sweet but not as thoughtful as Laurent remembered - and a victim in his own way of their Uncle's manoeuvring, because I can't believe a plan like that comes from nowhere.

People have been really receptive to that, in a way I didn't expect when I started it - and it's taken me so long to write the damn thing that he's been with me for five years now. How could anyone supplant him?

[clonewarsarchives]

CLOAK OF DARKNESS (#103, SEP 2008)

The Clone Wars animated feature—and the television series to follow—provides new insight into Anakin’s heroics and the wartime abilities of the Jedi generals and their clone soldiers. Fifteen-year animation veteran Henry Gilroy is a chief writer of the new tales. Here, he tells Insider how The Clone Wars is different from other animated series, how many of the story ideas came from George Lucas, and which member of the Jedi Council is going to be your new favorite.  Words: Dan Wallace

Insider: What can fans expect from the movie and series? Having already seen glimpses of The Clone Wars in Revenge of the Sith and the final, treacherous way that Darth Sidious brought an end to that conflict, how do you handle writing characters with predestined fates?

Henry Gilroy: Have you ever missed an episode of your favorite serialized TV show and refused to watch the 411 current episode until you’ve seen the one you missed? We’re going to see the reasons why Anakin misses Padme so much in Episode III. We’re going to see why Grievous hates Jedi so much. We’re going to see why the Jedi are so war weary and determined to end the fighting.

In Episode I, Qui-Gon Jinn told Padme, “I can’t fight a war for you.” In Episode II, Mace Windu says, “We are keepers of the peace, not soldiers.” Dave [Filoni, director of the movie and supervising director of the series] and I wanted this theme to permeate everything, because while the Jedi are forced into the role of military generals and must command clone armies, they are doing something that is opposed to their ideals. It really set the stage for interesting stories that have relevance today about how easy it is to be drawn into wars that maybe we shouldn’t [be].

How did you come to be writing for Star Wars: The Clone Wars?

Back in April 2005, I met with producer Catherine Winder. I brought her a one page pitch of what The Clone Wars could be with a logline that read, “Star Wars meets Band of Brothers.” I don’t think anyone ever saw my pitch, but I think she was impressed that I knew the universe well enough to have something prepared. I also had written several Star Wars comics [The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones] as well as having a decade of experience on various animated action-adventure series [Batman, Justice League] that made me a good candidate. I think another big reason I got the job is that I love to collaborate with other creative people, and being able to do that well is a necessity on a project like this. After weeks of writhing in agony and suspense as Catherine met with other writers, I got the thrilling news that I was ‘the chosen one’ and here I am three years later.

How did The Clone Wars go from script to finished animation?

The initial 15 or so story ideas were generated by myself and [director] Dave Filoni. We’d develop the stories into one- or two-page premises, then meet with George Lucas and he would input his ideas. Once George liked a story, we’d go through the outline process to figure out the specific character and plot arcs, and then we’d turn that into a script. Once we were happy, we’d send that back to George for his input. When George liked it, the script went final and the story would go into production, which means characters, ships, and locations are designed by our terrific design team. Then the script is pre-visualized, or storyboarded, by our awesome story team.

When the script goes final, it’s not really ‘final.’ The final script would be the end of the writing process on 95 per cent of animated television series. But at Lucasfilm, George uses movie-like pre-visualization and editorial stages as a big part of the writing process. The great thing about working this way is that you can really refine the story visually, adding and subtracting story elements to build drama and tension. Even though The Clone Wars started as made for television, George wanted a process where he could be involved creatively at every step. So making The Clone Wars series is more like making an animated feature except that every single episode is done this way! As Dave and I came from TV, George would regularly remind us, “We’re not making television here. We’re making cinema.” And that’s why it wasn’t really a surprise when he decided to release The Clone Wars first as a full-fledged animated feature.

It sounds like George Lucas was involved every step of the way.

George is the Alpha and the Omega, and is involved in the story from beginning to end. On The Clone Wars, that means from the initial story idea until the final sound mix. I knew from the moment I got the job that The Clone Wars was going to be George’s show. My job was to execute his vision and I have always tried my best to do that.

Who are the other writers involved?

My chief collaborators were Dave Filoni and George Lucas. Every story idea I had, Dave would hear first and once we got it to a place we liked, we would submit it to George who would bring his own magic. After about the first batch of stories, George got so excited about the show, he started writing his own story outlines! He’d send them over and we’d craft them into scripts. As time went on, George became more involved and wrote more stories and just about every story now comes from ‘The Maker’ himself.

The primary freelance writer I worked with was prolific animation veteran Steven Melching, who was invaluable because he is a great talent and really knows the Star Wars universe well. Then about a year into the project, I got some much needed help at Skywalker Ranch in writer Scott Murphy, who brought his experience as a live action TV story editor to the production for a few months. A couple of other writers I’d like to mention who did solid work on the series were George Krstic, Paul Dini, and Katie Lucas. [The screenwriting credits for the movie go to Gilroy, Melching, and Murphy.]

Are there any characters from the prequels you really wanted to explore?

I really enjoyed writing Obi-Wan Kenobi. Early on, I pushed for a story that gave us a little window into Obi-Wan’s past that added a new dimension to him. I think it really deepens this character that we already love. I had a personal goal to realize every member of the Jedi Council on the screen as a memorable personality that we would want to see again and again. I want to credit Lucas Licensing and the novels and comics creators for laying the groundwork for those characters, which we tried to stay true to. As for original characters in the series, I really enjoyed working with George and Dave to develop Anakin’s relationship with his Padawan, Ahsoka. Their snappy big brother/little sister interaction was a blast to write and I have high hopes for Ahsoka as a character who will soften the heart of even the most skeptical Star Wars fan. Jedi Master Plo Koon was the biggest challenge for me. I have to give all credit to Dave Filoni for really defining his voice. I think Plo is going to be an enduring favorite of fans for a long time.

So how readily did you and Dave Filoni collaborate?

In the early days of the studio, somebody created the nickname “Filroy Gilroni” because we were always together. In the very beginning of development, Dave and I used to meet at this coffee shop in Burbank almost every day and talk Star Wars, and we still talk Star Wars every day. We discuss the films, novels, comics and the stories we are developing and how to execute them thematically and visually, and how the characters interact and grow. Did I mention that the coffee shop is right next door to a Toys “R” Us? After our story meetings we’d go nerd out and see what latest Star Wars goodies were available. Anyway, it’s always been a lot of creative give and take, where I might pitch Dave an idea for a character or a story and the next day he’d email me this amazing concept painting for it. Or he would pitch me a one sentence idea for a story and I’d write it into a two page premise—Plo Koon, hint, hint.

Once I get the stories onto paper as premises, outlines, and scripts, Dave reads everything and his collaboration helps me get it ready for George, as well as production. Because Dave sits in editorial so much with George, he knows better than anyone what George wants. As time went on, George gave us boundaries and then took them away. He challenged us all the time to make it better than just good. One of his favorite quotes as he would finish our meetings was, “Dare to be great!”

We’re excited about the movie, but can you also give us any hints about episodes from the series?

I always tried to give the episodes titles that sounded like they came from the pulpy adventure sci-fi serials of the 1930s that inspired George. Here’s a few that don’t give anything away: “Rising Malevolence,” “Cloak of Darkness,” “Lair of Grievous,” “Downfall of a Droid,” and “Ambush in the Outer Rim.”

Keeping the right tone is critical to having something feel like Star Wars. How do you do that without getting bogged down in formula?

As far as the kind of stories we could tell, George told us that Star Wars could be a forum for any kind of tale. So even though the movie and series are set against the backdrop of The Clone Wars, there are dramas, romances, mysteries, horrors, comedies, and more. The biggest challenge was making the universe feel as large as it is in the existing Star Wars movies within the limitations of an animated movie and TV series, meaning we couldn’t go to three new planets every episode or have 10 new characters. We tried to include new characters in every single episode, extremely difficult on a weekly CG animated TV show. There is the time limitation—the original attack on the Death Star took 20 minutes of screen time, but our entire episodes are only 22 minutes, so it was great to be able to start with a full feature-length movie. It’s always a great challenge to squeeze in all the stuff we love about Star Wars: exotic planets and aliens, epic space battles, exciting lightsaber duels, plus the solid character development that brings it all together into our limited screen time.

How do you capture the voices of characters that fans know inside and out from watching the movies?

I was working directly with George and he created these characters. No one knows them better. The fun part for me was putting the characters we know from the live-action movies in new situations to explore how they would behave. I think Dave and I got it right most of the time, then George would come in and add bits of action, dialogue, and humor that only he can to give it that classic Star Wars feeling.

WHO’S HENRY?

As well as scripting the Dark Horse comic-book adaptations of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, writer Henry Gilroy has had plenty of experience writing for animated TV series and movies made for DVD release. Here’s a selection of his pre-The Clone Wars credits:

Transformers: Animated (2008)

Justice League (2004)

Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003)

Bionicle: Mask of Light (2003)

Atlantis: Milo’s Return (2005)

Timon and Pumba (1995)

The Tick (1994)

Batman (1992)

WRITER’S ROOM

What have the other writers on The Clone Wars done?

Steven Melching

Legion of Super Heroes (2008)

The Batman (2004-05)

Scott Murphy

Flash Gordon (2007)

Angel (2001-02) [writer & story editor]

The Nightmare Room (2001)

[elenathehun]

Watching the Clone Wars, Part 5

Hey, I’m actually being prompt this time, and not letting this sit on my desk for the rest of the week.  Good for me!  In this viewing session, we watch one “good” arc, and one terrible one.  Guess which is which ;)

“Storm Over Ryloth” (1x19)

Aw, the fourteen year old is going to engage in very dangerous dogfighting?  For those of you old enough to remember X-Wing: Rogue Squadron, remember how leery Starfighter Command was of letting sixteen year old Gavin Darklighter join Rogue Squadron?  More innocent times, for sure.

Anyway, Ahsoka just got eleven men summarily killed, all to set up a tedious episode on the nature of command.  It’s so wild how Rex and the bridge officer clone actually defer to her.  Maybe, just maybe, GAR would win if they gave a bit more power to the highly-trained war machines the Jedi purchased, eh?  Instead of the barely-trained teenagers with no business in a war zone.

I’m not even going to talk about the actual tactics because they’re superfluous.  It’s a shame the jedi don’t understand the purpose of consolidating their force and utilizing a joint attack.  Maybe Anakin could have saved a ship or two if he, Mace, and Obi-Wan had attacked as a group.

No, you’re right.  That’s too smart.

“Innocents of Ryloth” (1x20)

Obi-Wan’s low-impact strategy is a bit stupid.  Like, the CIS is explicitly engaging in terrorist tactics on Ryloth, the Twi’leks most likely have no homes to return to.  But, whatever, that’s not the point of the episode.  The point of this episode is Waxer and Boil.  I love them, but I also love the casual specie-ism/racism on Boil’s part.  Dude grew up on Kamino, which is basically an isolated military boarding school, where would have learned a word like “tailhead”?

Oh, that’s right, the scum of the earth working as trainers.  Never mind!  I like to think that the clones, while generally very nice and polite young men, also have a very strange idea of appropriate language and conduct outside of their very isolated, insular upbringing.  I do love ye olde culture clash plotline!

The CIS continues to devolve with internment camps, animal cruelty, and yes, weaponizing animals to kill clones in a suitably horrific way.  Good job, guys, way to lower the bar!  With that said, Numa is adorable, and it’s amazing that she managed to survive on her own in this ghost-town while her family and community have been rounded up into camps.  

Obi-Wan may be a subpar general, but he is definitely a very capable psychic super-soldier.  The fight scenes were incredibly enjoyable to watch, and although it’s a bit silly, I did really like the Twi’leks pulling the tactical droid who was their warden out of his tank with their bare hands - they definitely deserved that.

“Liberty on Ryloth” (1x21)

This is a Mace Windu episode, and I am here for it.  What an icon, what a legend.  I do think that he is portrayed as having exceptional control of the Force, and it’s always really interesting to see him use it in a fight.  The episode is a fairly basic one: He’s trying to link up with Cham Syndulla to get rid of the rest of the CIS army; the senator for Ryloth, Orn Free Taa, is more concerned about the disposition of political power on Ryloth after the invasion is complete.  I have...so many questions about how political power on Ryloth is distributed: is Orn Free Taa the ruler of the planet and the Senator, or is there a different kind of power-sharing agreement?  Is Cham Syndulla just the sort or ordinary person thrust into extraordinary times, especially by the abandonment of their people by their leadership and the Republic?  It strikes me as a setting rich with potential plots.

Of course, that’s only a small part of the episode, which is mostly Mace being a badass and basically being a one-man army.  Again, the direction is remarkably good in this episode.  As usual, air supremacy is not a factor in this war.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  Even though AT-RTs really make no sense, I want one very badly.  Lastly, based on the clone trying to pet the blurrg and Boil and Waxer’s treatment of Numa last episode, I believe the clones are going through that stage where they just want a pet of their very own.  It is actually a little adorable.  

Shout-out to the tactical droid obtaining full sentience and ditching his boss and lying to Dooku.  Still wish that a subplot of Dooku’s droids turning against him had been a thing.

Season 1 Restrospective:  It only took five weeks, but we are finally finished with this season, save for 1x22, which is actually set sometime in the third season.  There were some high points, but man, this was an absolute slog mostly.  There were way too many Jar Jar episodes, and the clones were not given nearly enough screen time.  “Rookies” and “Lair of Grievous” were the outstanding stand-alone episodes imho, and the “Ryloth” and “Malevolence” arcs were generally ok, with two of their three episodes being rewatchable.  

But in a series about the clone wars, there is very little character development of the actual clones - like, poor Rex is barely a presence in this season.  And the CIS is just so cartoonishly awful that I can’t take it seriously at all.  It actually does strain my belief that Palpatine could keep these plates spinning for more than a week.  Anakin is just...blah.  And although I know I’m supposed to like Ahsoka, I just can’t help but find her annoying, mostly because she’s a kid.

Well, we’re about one-sixth of the way through.  She’s got another six seasons to grow on me - and hopefully she will, because otherwise this will be very tedious.

“Holocron Heist” (2x01)

No sooner do I say that than Ahsoka reverts to being a dumb fucking kid.  However, is a full Council meeting to investigate the fact that she’s a dumb fucking kid actually a good use of the High Council’s time?  Just curious.  This arc is honestly really stupid, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, only to say that Cad Bane’s aesthetic is very choice for an outlaw, and the Jedi have laughable security.

“Cargo of Doom” (2x02)

Another Anakin & Ahsoka episode where they and Yularen share one braincell, and Rex is the one who holds it most of the time.  Also really love how the Jedi with the list of all the potential Jedi recruits apparently took his sole record with him to a warzone.  That makes perfect sense.  I’m not really going to get into this episode, except to point out that we saw a Jedi tortured to death on-screen, which leads me to my most pressing question: how much money, per episode, did Lucasfilm have to use to bribe the MPA?  

As for the choice Cade Bane gave Anakin at the end?  As @spiraling pointed out, people don’t die of decompression and vacuum exposure immediately.  Anakin could easily take Bane out and rescue Asohka in that time.  She’d need a dip in bacta, but she’d live.  

“Children of the Force” (2x03)

This episode is actually the worst of all, because the Jedi (who, by the by, are an actual government entity with access to priority comms and lots and lots of computer space) don’t have backup lists of their recruits, nor do they, say, call ahead with the address and have the local government set a trap before they arrive.  Poorly done, Obi-Wan, poorly done.  

Anyway, the kids are rescued from the unspeakable horrors that later children will be exposed to, children like Mara Jade and Lumiya.  Good for Anakin and Ahsoka!  However, I’d like to present a more awful possibility:  If it weren’t for the need for a holocron, Cad Bane (and by extension, Palpatine) would have gotten away with it.  Like, Palpatine is a Sith Lord, trained by a Sith Lord, and his putative apprentice is a former Jedi who had access to the temple and the various Jedi stores until about a year ago.  Do you really think he doesn’t already have a holocron ready to go?

So instead of stealing a holocron to start off with, Cad Bane just... targets and captures Bolla Ropal under the guise of a CIS attack.  He steals the kyber crystal.  The Jedi are very, very worried, of course, but it takes time for them to realize it’s gone missing.  in the meantime, however, Cad Bane just takes it to Dooku, they pull and copy the list, and the harvesting of Force-sensitive children can continue.

This is, I think, one of the great disappointments of TCW.  For a show that likes to use the model the Justice League cartoon of the early 2000s pioneered, they haven’t quite figured it out yet.  This is the sort of plot that could fuel an entire season of investigation, but instead they have these little three-episode arcs that never connect to the rest.  It’s a real shame.

Next week: We continue Season 2 with “Bounty Hunters”, “The Zillo Beast”, “The Zillo Beast Strikes Back”, “Senate Spy”, “Landing at Point Rain”, “Weapons Factory”, and (time permitting) “Legacy of Terror”.

[codenamesazanka]

hhhhahhh I really hope your gecko-regeneration thought could be true, but at the same time...wouldn’t he had used it on Compress’s arm? I mean maybe it’s just magic/plot logic but…agghhh.

Ooooh, if Spinner does have generation abilities...

Spinner’s quirk is 「Gecko」. According to Hanabata, all he can do is stick to walls. Here’s the thing, though; this is what the MLA found out through their research, presumably from public (and private?) records. That’s how Curious learned of Toga’s quirk... but she didn’t know of Toga’s copying of quirks, because it was never reported, wasn’t in her ‘quirk profile’.

Quirks are registered in a government database, but it’s apparently purely self-reported. They’re diagnosed in elementary school and registered, but should someone discover more about their quirks, they can update their quirk profile.

For those with ‘animal’ mutant quirks, the name is often just the name of the animal: Frog, Centipede, Orca. Brief search through the MHA wikia tells me that each of these individuals have quirks that are the ‘summation of various [animal] abilities’. You look like the animal and can do whatever the animal could do. And the quirk we have now from Spinner is just, Gecko.

Now we have Spinner, who was an hikikomori - a shut-in, presumably didn’t go to school or work, didn’t do much. We know it was because of the discrimination and bullying, and that harassment was probably pretty intense: he grew up in a ‘backwater countryside stuck in the last century’ - the ‘last century’ apparently including anti-meta groups that killed Destro’s mother and the mutant hate cult CRC.

Not the best environment to test out your quirk and see what you can do with it.

Here’s my theory: in elementary school, Spinner got his quirk registered as Gecko, description of which is ‘he can stick to walls.’ In the next few years, tormented by the outside world, he stopped venturing outside his room. Never got himself down to city hall or wherever and update his quirk profile if he ever discovered something new about it. Plus, plagued by maybe internalized mutant self-hate, Spinner also never tried to see what else his quirk can do.

Never was in a position to get a limb cut off and see if it could grow back.

If Spinner does have a regeneration quirk, which I hope for because it’ll be badass and the League needs a fucking healer of any sort, it’s possible Spinner doesn’t even know about it! He didn’t offered to help Mr. Compress because he didn’t know he even could help.

In this chapter, we get to ‘conveniently’ see an injury happen to Spinner. Pierced right through the arm in multiple locations! Ouch. But his battle with Hatabana continues. Maybe he will heal real quick and he and the League (and the Doctor) can finally realize what he can do; and utilize that.

Additionally, we also have the Doctor. Who can perform miracles such as keeping a headless AFO alive, create Noumus, probably replicate Overhaul’s bullets. He probably has a quirk enhancer thing or two. Enhance Spinner’s Gecko, maybe bring out those regenerative properties and utilize that yet again. Wait doesn’t his Noumu have a regeneration quirk already? He can use that?

I don’t think it’s purely by chance in this arc that everyone is loosing body parts left and right, (and those that aren’t have suffered grievous injuries). That’s gearing up for the League obtaining a healer for necessity, a healer who can get people growing back limbs - an ability generally known about lizards.

*

There are slight issues about this. The ‘miracle recovery’ of amputees and disabled characters in general is a pretty bad and cliched trope. I so far liked how Mr. Compress’ injury and prosthetic use has been portrayed! That he has issues like prosthetics breaking and money needed for the repair, that he still manages well and the League had helped him and continues to value his membership.

I actually don’t mind Shigaraki losing his hand. It’s sad, sure, but he’s made of tough stuff. He can survive it. The League will find a way to accommodate him, as they did for Mr. Compress and Twice.

Good, accurate portrayals of disabled characters are rare. Once again here they’re Villains, yeah, but they’re our protagonists that we root for, the heroes of the story. I feel we might be on path for ‘the miraculous cure’ to make the League ‘whole’ again, and I’ll be a little disappointed. But let’s see first what is up next!

[stvlti]

Short analysis of the character writing of YJ!M'gann / Miss Martian

【Spoilers for S2E07 and S2E10】

When she was first introduced she was just so... vanilla and all-American in all but name that I almost wrote her off. But now I'm 1 and a half season into the series and I gotta say she's had the most interesting arcs so far.

Of course, there's the whole identity crisis and struggles with belonging that she had in S1. In S2, her character flaw and central conflict is revealed in such a way that shows how it affected/affects her relationship with Conner... Effectively solving a mystery of their breakup (as S2 throws us into the story in media res post-timeskip) and kick-starting M'gann's arc in the same breath.

Really gotta hand it to S2E07 "Depths" for the way they've handled the reveal. Every single line in that bioship conversation she has with Conner is designed to reveal information without going into heavy exposition territory (and in fact put us through the characters' own emotional turmoil):

M'gann: So now we're never talking again?

Connor: Gee, you read my mind.

Those are some fighting words, and the grim sarcasm there tells us something happened between them.

M'gann: I don't have to read your mind to know how you feel, Connor. But the breakup was your idea.

That's our cue, and a smooth segue into the reveal.

Connor: Don't pretend you don't know why.

M'gann: I know, I know, you disapprove of how I use my psychic powers.

See M'gann's dismissive tone ("I know, I know") and the words she uses that minimises the situation ("disapprove") tells us that she really didn't know why Conner proposed the breakup.

Connor: You mean how you abuse them? Ripping intel from the minds of your victims with no concern for what it does to their psyches.

This conversation comes at the heels of M'gann's apprehension and psychic "interrogation" of the Kroloteans. YJ does it again! Planting details that look suspicious to advertise for a future conflict / reveal.

M'gann: They're not victims, they're the bad guys! That information is helping the Team, the League, the entire planet!

This I find very interesting, because didn't the others tell her it's okay to use her abilities on "the bad guys" (that the bad guys are the exception to the rule of telepathic 'etiquettes' on Earth) in S1? So she's not exactly a villain here, she's just parroting the same black and white thinking that most kids her age held.

Connor: And leaving your victims in a catatonic state. It's not right, M'gann. You're behaving no better than Psimon!

That Psimon comparison! Shots fired, and you can see M'gann's shocked face accordingly. This is what a realistic couple's spat looks like - pulling out all the stops and saying just the right thing that can hurt each other.

M'gann: If you feel that strongly, why not tell Nightwing? Or the League?

Connor: I was hoping I mattered enough to make you stop. I didn't think you'd try to tamper with my mind. Try to make me forget I was upset with you.

"I was hoping I mattered" - heartbreak time 😎

M'gann: Connor, I'm so sorry about that.

Connor: Sorry you did it? Or sorry you got caught? After all we'd been through... How could you think I wouldn't recognise your touch inside my mind? Didn't you know what that touch meant to me? And to have you... pervert it like that.... Guess I was kidding myself. I mean how replaceable was I? Two minutes after I ended you're dating the rebound guy from the Black Lagoon.

"How could you think I wouldn't recognise your touch inside my mind?" Goddamn that's a romantic line

"Didn't you know what that touch meant to me?" It is at this point that, if you have the context of everything that went on in S1, you realise Conner is the person that shared M'gann's troubles in her mindscape so fearlessly when she was having doubts in herself. (Conner also saw her real white Martian form and didn't love her any less.) "After all we'd been through..." - that is the significance of her telepathic "touch" for him. So little words, yet so much is said in Conner's lines.

(There's also a little bit of fridge angst/drama here when you remember that Conner has had a bad experience with telepathic manipulations due to his time in Cadmus; M'gann was his first and only exception, he trusted her with his mind. And everything she's done so far in S2 - both on screen and as regaled in this conversation - betrays that trust he's put in her.)

And then, YJ does that thing again with its brilliant writing, picking subplots back up with a sustained continuity a few episodes down the line. And so the impact is that much greater when we see her continuing to misuse her telepathic powers until finally in S2E10 "Before the Dawn" she commits a grievous error on an ally, an error that may not be able to be reversed. And of course that sequence ends on Conner noticing that M'gann did something, yet also seemingly missing her internal turmoil, the beginnings of a lesson in guilt and remorse. This is some top notch character conflict and development (for M'gann) through trauma.

[davidmann95]

This week’s comics?

TOO

MANY

COMICS THIS WEEK

*Deep breath*

Batman/Superman #1: The surprise of the week for me! I was getting this almost grudgingly in the hope Williamson would transcend what I’ve seen as his limitations as a C+ writer inexplicably granted a position far beyond what his work’s merited, given how much I love the characters and because Marquez is AAA+. As it turns out, he did! Nothing spectacular, but this was a really solidly entertaining little start to an adventure, with a vibe as though Loeb’s own Superman/Batman was rocketed into the future and made to interact with Snyder’s current DCU superstructure. As that descriptor might imply your mileage may vary, but I quite dug it.

Justice League #30: Great stuff, the kick-off to I assume the final arc before an event book to close this epic out, but when do the Justice Legion show up that is all I care about in the entire world

Superman #14: I enjoyed it, but I’m definitely more than ready to see what’s next.

Action Comics #1014: An unprecedented Bendis super-two-for-one week! While Superman’s largely been my favorite of the two, today this came out on top.

Justice League Dark #14: This continues to just manage to hold my attention with some delightful flourishes, even though this sort of thing isn’t usually my cup of tea.

Martian Manhunter #8: Something of a return to form - I’d been getting somewhat disappointed with this book (though I’m sure it’ll read better in trade), but this grabbed me again.

Dial H For Hero #6: Good goddamn, just about any other week and this would have taken home the gold. Easily one of DC’s best, and leaving me considering going back through Humphries’ whole career given the possibility that while I’ve discounted him in the past I, in an extremely rare but I suppose not entirely unprecedented case, may have been wrong.

Ice Cream Man #14: I suppose you could call this something of a return to basics here, which is the opposite of a problem because the basics here are horrifying and spectacular.

Marvel Team-Up #5: Losing me quick, though I guess there’s only one issue left.

Captain America #13: This one’s tough to unpack. In terms of keeping my attention and keeping things moving this felt better than the last several issues, and I get what it’s going for, but its characterization of Cap...like I said, I get what it’s going for in reinforcing him as the stiff and trying to break him out of that. I’m the guy who considers MCU Cap one of the only times ever where I distinctly prefer the adaptation to the original, specifically because he feels so much looser and warmer. But there’s stiff in the way he’s traditionally been, and the way this issue portrays him, and I’m not sure I can bridge that gap with how he’s been portrayed over the years. In isolation though, still liked this one.

Absolute Carnage #2: Keeps up the pace! I remain shocked by how much I’m liking this one.

Venom #17: An extension of the above, and again, I like it.

Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales #1: Surprisingly disposable, tbh.

Spider-Man: Life Story #6: ...is one I’ll discuss when going into the series as a whole sometime soon. But yes, it really is that good, and the best of the week in a walk.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11: A perfectly enjoyable one-off - good to know that while Amazing’s passing me by, Pete’s in good hands even as Zdarsky moves on.

Avengers #23: Man, this book has gotten so much better since that wet thud of a first arc. Not up to snuff against its cousin in Snyder and company’s Justice League, but cut from a similar cloth and if you’re enjoying that absolutely give this run a whirl.

House of X #3: We’re definitely in the part where I think it’s gonna lose a lot of the new converts as the Earth-shaking reveals die down for now while remaining a resolutely Full Hickman take on the X-Men, and I for one am content to wave them goodbye as I ride this glorious train into the sunset.

Thor #16: A delightful ‘end’ - the true upcoming finale in King Thor notwithstanding - to one of the great runs of this decade. All-Father willing whoever follows up on this one plays with the toys Aaron and Del Mundo leave behind here.

Marvel Comics #1000: The big’un. And better, for that matter, than Action or Detective #1000. Not perfect by any means; there’s still a small handful of stinkers here (though the relative hit-to-miss ratio for this sort of project is unbelievably good here, hence the previous comparison), plus the much-publicized issues regarding the altered Captain America essay and the horribly skewed gender representation, PLUS that...THAT character of all characters gets a (second!) page for 2013 rather than Ms. Marvel. But for what this is, that it comes together as coherently as enjoyably as it does is honestly little short of a miracle. The advertised Ewing spine of the thing is of course great, and such a Ewing as HELL take on the concept on every level; that plenty of these don’t even nominally tie into it doesn’t bother me, since that throughline is exploring the background of a world the rest of this puts on display.

To set the record straight (going by years rather than characters/creative teams, since I feel like remaining spoiler-adverse here and it saves space): for me the actively bad ones are 1966,* 1995,** 1996, and 1999, and the notably good ones not by Ewing are 1943, 1944,*** 1949, 1952, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1965, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2014,**** 2015, 2016, and 2018.

So that’s about 5% bad, and counting Ewing’s contributions (aside from his oddly lackluster single page that isn’t part of his larger story), over half I’d call especially good! And pretty much all the rest of it ranges from decent to quite good, so again, by the standard of these sorts of anniversary anthologies this is basically a minor miracle. Very much looking forward to Ewing continuing his story next month and presumably the incoming 2020 event (a Ewing event comic! So rad!), and also hoping #1001 will correct the grievous Fantastic Four deficiency here.

(Minor SPOILERS for the final notes below)

* This, uh, felt like some real grouchy old man respectability politics business. Would have thought twice before, but given Priest’s recent Vampirella interview, I’m feeling a little more willing to jump straight to ‘this was bad.’

** Oh, Hickman. My boy. How could you? Even given you visibly didn’t give a shit, that was really all you had in the tank? And for the year I was born, no less! Johnny, you wound me.

*** Yeah, I know, believe me I know. But it’s still a good Cap speech - even at this late, largely lamentable stage of Waid’s career, he can crank those out in his sleep.

**** For what it is, i.e. a couple scenes from Apocrypha slapped together and redrawn with a couple DC names swapped out for Marvel names. Shamelessly, admirably lazy on Gaiman’s part.

[isolaradiale]

Lost in Space 13

Hello, Isolans! We have conducted an activity check for the month of September!

If your character isn’t on this list, make sure to check this page to see how many stars that character has earned this month! Stars can be used for purchases at the marketplace.

The blogs that were removed from the Isola Radiale masterlist are under the cut. Note that both blogs with broken links and deactivated accounts will be included both at the top of this list and in their proper categories.

If you were removed in error, please simply send a re-application message. Several different people work on the activity checks, so it’s possible there are mistakes! If this happens to you, you will be able to keep everything you previously had, you just may be placed in a different residence.

Our general activity rules regarding checks are as follows:

Make at least three in-character posts during a calendar month.

Only one drabble and/or meme response of 300+ words counts as activity.

One-liners or minis not tagged #isola mini also do not count.

Please Note: If you are removed during two consecutive activity checks, you will not be allowed to re-apply as that character for two calendar months. 

Additionally, anyone removed during the activity check will have a 12-hour window from the time of posting to re-claim their character. Any character not reclaimed during that period will be open to the community at large.

Please send in your reapplications from the account of the character that was removed.

Broken URLs:

... none!

ACE ATTORNEY

Franziska von Karma (HOUSE 103)

ANGRY BIRDS

Red (APARTMENT 310)

BIOSHOCK

Jack (TOWNHOUSE 230)

BLOODBORNE

Micolash (HOUSE 106)

BORDERLANDS

Handsome Jack AI (APARTMENT 333)

BROTHER'S CONFLICT

Louis Asahina (HOUSE 147)

DARK SOULS

Siegmeyer of Catarina (HOUSE 133)

DRAGON AGE

Merrill Sabrae (APARTMENT 329)

FATE

Berserker (Tamamo Cat) (APARTMENT 312)

Archer (Robin Hood) (HOUSE 124)

Lancer (Hector) (TOWNHOUSE 209)

Avenger (Kingu) (APARTMENT 324)

FINAL FANTASY

Haurchefant Greystone (HOUSE 103)

Warrior of Light (Dancer - Tora Yatsurugi) (HOUSE 121)

Fordola Rem Lupis (CONDO 415)

Garnet Til Alexandros (TOWNHOUSE 224)

Rydia (TOWNHOUSE 211)

FIRE EMBLEM

Shigure (APARTMENT 322)

Kagero (Takumi's House (Cotes))

FRUITS BASKET

Hatori Sohma (TOWNHOUSE 207)

FUTURE CARD BUDDYFIGHT

Red Riding Hood Emma (APARTMENT 307)

GANGSTA

Alex Benedetto (TOWNHOUSE 220)

GRANBLUE FANTASY

Vane (APARTMENT 309)

Ilsa (TOWNHOUSE 224)

GRIEFER BELT

Scott (TOWNHOUSE 262)

HAIKYUU!!

Oikawa Toru (HOUSE 142)

HOOKY

Daniela Wytte (APARTMENT 304)

JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE

Jotaro Kujo (HOUSE 102)

KARA NO KYOUKAI

Ryougi Shiki (APARTMENT 306)

KINGDOM HEARTS

Larxene (TOWNHOUSE 228)

Roxas (CONDO 442)

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

Ekko (HOUSE 106)

LEGEND OF ZELDA

Vio Link (CONDO 407)

MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH

Hikaru Shidou (APARTMENT 313)

MAGNUS CHASE AND THE GODS OF ASGARD

Magnus Chase (HOUSE 108)

MARVEL

Cletus Kasady / Carnage (CONDO 401)

Johnny Storm (The Human Torch) (HOUSE 105)

Eddie Brock / Venom (Earth-616) (CONDO 434)

Flash Thompson (Agent Anti-Venom) (CONDO 423)

NIGHT IN THE WOODS

Gregg Lee (TOWNHOUSE 236)

Steve Scriggins (HOUSE 104)

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

Kaori (TOWNHOUSE 217)

Klaus Avenue (CONDO 438)

Locke (War) (HOUSE 140)

OSOMATSU-SAN

Choromatsu Matsuno (TOWNHOUSE 204)

Osomatsu Matsuno (TOWNHOUSE 236)

PANDORA HEARTS

Leo Baskerville (CONDO 433)

PATHOLOGIC

Artemy Burakh (CONDO 412)

RWBY

Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck (TOWNHOUSE 219)

Neopolitan (CONDO 439)

SAINT SEIYA

Pisces Aphrodite (HOUSE 125)

SENNEN MEIKYUU NO NANA OUJI

Ewan Juno (HOUSE 115)

SERVAMP

Mahiru Shirota (TOWNHOUSE 259)

SHE-RA AND THE PRINCESSES OF POWER

Adora (She-Ra) (CONDO 423)

STAR WARS

General Grievous (HOUSE 126)

TALES OF

Emil Castagnier / Ratatosk (APARTMENT 319)

TENJHO TENGE

Maya Natsume (HOUSE 155)

TOUHOU

Youmu Konpaku (APARTMENT 332)

TSUBASA RESERVOIR CHRONICLE

Sakura (Princess Tsubasa) (HOUSE 116)

VA-11 HALL-A

Dana Zane (APARTMENT 309)

THE WALKING DEAD

Daryl Dixon (TOWNHOUSE 201)

THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU

Neku Sakuraba (TOWNHOUSE 240)

YORU NO NAI KUNI

Arnath (APARTMENT 313)

[angelofberlin2000]

Keanu Reeves May Be Pure, But He's Not Oblivious  

America’s most memeable actor is back in John Wick: Chapter 3, a movie that's in on the joke of our obsession with Keanu. He might be too.

Alison Willmore

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on May 17, 2019, at 10:40 a.m. ET   

For a guy without any official web presence or expressed interest in things online, Keanu Reeves goes viral a lot. He's spawned memes when he's looked sad and other memes when he's looked happy. There's a Twitter account, 198,000 followers strong, devoted to "Keanu doing things" like wearing a fedora or hanging out on set with Sandra Bullock. Creepshot footage of the actor giving up his seat on the subway or rattling around the Bakersfield airport after an emergency landing has racked up thousands of delighted views. Reeves may have risen to fame as a Gen X movie star ("the most soulful while being the most stoner-bro," as the New York Times recently put it), but it was millennials who carved out a permanent place for Keanu in the internet boyfriend hall of fame, as an embodiment of inexpressible melancholy and a figure too pure for this world.

The fact that the actual Reeves — like any living, breathing human — is likely a lot more complicated than that has never gotten in the way of how he's been enshrined in the popular imagination, in part because Reeves has never seen fit to fight it. Reeves works hard onscreen, while barely seeming to notice the eyes (and cellphone cameras) that remain trained on him when he's off it. Where other stars attempt to actively sculpt and control their public image, Reeves submits to the sometimes intrusive attention with bemused acceptance, aware of but apparently unbothered by the fact that there's an outsize version of himself living in people's heads. When questioned about it, he tends to be kind: "Yeah, I guess that’s like an invasion of privacy. They didn’t ask me," he told Uproxx of the bus video, the existence of which seemed to be news to him. Then he added, "They were nice people. We were in it together. We had a nice car ride."

When Reeves went viral again last week, it was for something he definitely knew was being recorded. He was on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, doing promo for John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, the preposterously enjoyable third film of the action franchise that's come to define this period in his career. Reeves, sporting some “I'm-between-roles” facial hair, talked up the stunts and how he was set to reprise his role as world-saving slacker Theodore "Ted" Logan in a third Bill & Ted movie, nearly three decades after the last one.

All of which led Colbert to coyly ask Reeves what he thought happened when we die — a ludicrously weighty question for the average talk-show exchange, but a perfect one for the bodhisattva of showbiz. And Reeves did not disappoint, answering simply that "I know that the ones who love us will miss us." It was both a perfectly shareable aphorism and a poignant reminder of his own experiences with losing loved ones, which are real and terrible and which were also outlined in a Facebook video that blew up to the point that the fact-checking site Snopes felt compelled to put together an entry on it, judging it to be "Mostly True."

Reeves is now 54 years old. The inhuman splendor of his youthful beauty (seriously, have you seen My Own Private Idaho lately?) has gradually softened into a more manageable gorgeousness that shows the touch of time while remaining a little unreal. The fact that Reeves isn't a kid anymore is, in fact, the whole point of the John Wick trilogy, which puts the actor in the eponymous role as a retired killer yanked back into violence after an arrogant Russian mob scion kills the puppy gifted to him by his late wife.

The John Wick franchise is the creation of Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, stunt coordinators turned filmmakers whose elegant action sequences make clear how often it's really Reeves there doing the work, having a swordfight on a motorcycle or slowly sinking a blade into a struggling foe's eyeball. His physicality is front and center, and it's both impossible (John should be dead a thousand times over) and extremely human (John bleeds, staggers, reels with grief). Like Reeves himself, John is at once larger than life and extremely to scale.

Reeves is famous for action. His biggest films are the Wachowskis' Matrix trilogy, those landmarks of bullet-time choreography and heady stoner philosophy for which his flat affect was perfectly suited, as well as Speed and Point Break. But he's always harbored a romantic streak too, even if it hasn't always been showcased well by leading roles (like his in 2006's The Lake House) that leave him looking lost. He's better as the losing corner of the love triangle in Nancy Meyers’ 2003 rom-com Something's Gotta Give, despite the grievous injustice of Diane Keaton throwing him over for Jack Nicholson. The John Wick films work so well not just because of their fight sequences and increasingly arcane assassin mythology, but because of the degree to which they're romance-adjacent. They're heartfelt films about grief, with John as a man lamenting the death of his love and losing pieces of the life they built together in each subsequent installment.

The further the John Wick series has gone on, the more it's curled around Reeves' own persona. The first was a comeback vehicle for Reeves that also happened to be about a hitman's comeback from normal living, and the second was a riff on contractual work obligations. By the third, John is as beset by admirers as Reeves was at that Bakersfield bus stop, only in the film they're affectionately trying to murder him. When he faces down two henchmen (played by Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayan Ruhian of the Raid series), they thank him for the honor of fighting him, and maintain a running commentary on his performance in Indonesian during the sequence. "He's getting slow," muses one as John peels himself off the floor, while the other points out that he is recently out of retirement.

The main antagonist in the new movie, at least physically, is a striver and self-declared fan named Zero (Mark Dacascos), who’s a devotee bumped up to the assassin big leagues. "I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long time!" he declares. "And so far you haven't disappointed!" Zero is a surprisingly funny creation who owes something to Sonny Chiba in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, in how he's introduced, and something to Anne Baxter in All About Eve, in how he's ready to destroy his idol and take his place.

But Zero and his team also feel like a meditation on modern fandom at its most intense, where people need the person they admire to live up to the image they've formed of them, with an implied threat as to what might happen if the object of their obsession doesn't manage this feat. Most of the characters in the John Wick movies are bewildered by John's efforts to get out of the game and live like a normie, but they treat him as a fellow professional. The baddies in John Wick 3, on the other hand, are fans who feel a sense of ownership over John because they've tracked his career so closely.

Reeves may have the most even-keeled relationship with celebrity of any A-lister working today, but in the beleaguered looks he shoots at his foes in this new movie, there's a hint of wry self-awareness. It doesn't feel accurate to describe Reeves as a reluctant movie star, not when he devotes so much of himself to what he does, and when he gamely participates in every aspect of the process. But in playing this reluctant killer, the actor does offer a glimpse of himself as someone who's aware that there’s a finer line between being loved by the public and being devoured by it than anyone would like to think about.

There’s a thrill watching Reeves in this role that’s related to how delightful it feels to see him turn up as what looks like himself in the trailer for Netflix's upcoming Always Be My Maybe — the rom-com loser and internet boyfriend all in one, mashing his face into Ali Wong's while muttering, "I miss your taste." We may like to treat Reeves as a kind of holy innocent, but just because he avoids artifice doesn't mean he doesn't know what's going on. ●

[titleknown]

“Do you know what I dislike Blackmidi?” The King of the Mountain groaned in his ponderous voice, wreathed in shadows behind closed doors in his golden palace, its sparkle as bright as the shadows were deep and the silence was cold and deafening.

“Most thinks, mein sire?” the goblin organist Blackmidi said, trying to conceal the contempt in her words.

“Yes, indeed, most things,” the king said unaware of the insult “But ESPECIALLY INTRUDERS INTO MY KINGDOM!”

He looked through the crystal shining red hot at the center of the room in which they occupied. Upon whom’s surface they saw a flickering image of a small steamship floating in a flashing red sea in the world below...

“Are you sure it isn’t just und traveler passink through?” Blackmidi asked,

“NOBODY PASSES THROUGH THE KING’S DOMINION WITHOUT TRIBUTE!” the king bellowed in Blackmidi's face, “OR ELSE I, IN MY MIGHT, SHALL PASS THROUGH THEM!”

Blackmidi scuttled forward after the recoil from the bellowing. “Well, yes mein sir, but are you sure you might vant to be sendink a valuable ship against what could be-”

“What matters is not what they could be, what matters is that they are insubordinate to the king!” His crystallien eyes narrowed, and his scintiating aura flared up “And, perhaps you may be viewed likewise, if you do not shut your miserable beak and play me a tune to calm my nerves as I direct my men against this GRIEVOUS INSULT!”

“Yes, of course mein leige” Blackmidi said, scuttling to the organ. She had no love for this bellowing idiot who had taken her eyes so long ago and forced her to play for him, but rather, for the one who was stowed away on that ship with some very precious cargo in that fight against that king.

But, she did trust that agent. And who knows, if any scuffle occurred and the King also lost that valuable cargo he had decided to transport in there, well, that was one less weapon for that blustering buffoon to use.

She just hoped that tiny ship could handle whatever they were getting into...

---

“APE FUCK POWER IS A STRENGTH OF THIS SHIP!”

“oh come the fuck on, are you kidding me?!” Quentin said to nobody in particular, as he saw the ship’s hold and the gargantuan orangutan with a mountain of full bottles of bizarre suppliments behind it.

“Well,” Ooky-Spooky said, “The League of Purple Magic does like its jokes with who it ends up booking with. But it’s probably for a good reason! Maybe even a functional one beyond jokes!”

“HERE, YOU GET FREEBIE!” the ape said, shoving a pill bottle into Quentin’s hand as it adjusted a valve with another arm “GOOD FOR TATE-FAIRCHILD, MAKES IT STRONGER HARDER! IT’S PERSPECTIVE IF MAKE BETTER, FUCK YOU IF DONT GET. BUY ME”

Ooky stifled a giggle. “Not. A Single. Word.” Quentin replied.

So, yeah, continuing last week’s storyline, with a reference to another! I hope I got the “blustering idiot 80s fantasy kids show villain” vibe I wanted for The King!

I also did an experiment with using DeepStyle for this week’s pic for it, hope you like how it came out! BTW, the ape piloting the ship could be considered a Jojo reference, but it’s also a callback to a thing! Because I go there!

As per usual, this drabble is under a CC-BY-SA license for direct adaptation, but all the characters/concepts/settings/ect are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY-Vanilla license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!

And, if you wanna support me, maybe check out my Patreon, or even just send a Ko-Fi my way! Every penny is appreciated, and I am eternally grateful for those who donate!

[gayroleplayads]

Seeking m/m Pokemon or fantasy rp!

♕ INTRO

↳ hey all, i’m wren and i’m a 23 y/o grad student in the est time zone. i’ve been rping for over 10 years and am looking for some cool new people to plot and rp with. i’m a huge fan of chatting with and getting to know my partner — if this isn’t your cup of tea that’s all good, but i’m always open to dorking around and finding playlists for our characters if it is! i'm looking for people older than 20, as i feel more comfortable when my partner is around the same age as me! i also like writing long posts and would prefer someone who has no problem writing at least 4 paragraphs per reply. i usually reply once a day or every other day and don’t like being poked for replies, so if you’re more of a rapid fire rper we probably won’t work out.

right now i'm primarily craving a pokemon rp! i have some plots that i will list though i’m up for brainstorming as well. i’d like something in the realm or more realistic and unconventional: unusual plots, pokemon can get hurt and injured, wild pokemon are like intelligent wild animals, etc. if that sounds up your alley then read on! i'd also be open to rewriting these plots using animals or mythical creatures/beasts so if you know nothing about pokemon but are interested in the plot please message me~

♕ SIDE DISHES

↳ i'm interested in some other things besides pokemon and i'll list those here!

• adventure; anything with a band of people coming together and forming a found family, traveling together on the way to a goal with obstacles thrown in their way

• fantasy; i adore fantasy, whether it’s magical realism or all out medieval fantasy. world-building is one of my favorite things. sci-fi is great too, but i’m not great when things get too tech-y haha

• paranormal/mythical creatures; sort of goes with the fantasy, but i’m always down to rp different species in any sort of setting

• fairy tales; i love taking old fairy tales or stories and giving them a unique twist, whether it’s making them #gritty or just tossing them in a different sort of setting

• superheroes; people with superpowers using it for good or evil and coming together yesss

• romance; romance is great and i’ll discuss that below, but i prefer this to be like a sub-genre

• AUs; i love taking a fandom and making it an alternate timeline or AUing it completely. also once we have characters and a rp established, i love love love talking about AUs for our characters. i will AU everything, there is no AU too AUish for me

those are just my favorites so feel free to suggest others, but i will not do slice of life. i just find myself bogged down when there’s not a defined plot, and it doesn’t keep my interest. i also love these things if you’d be interested in tossing any of them in the rp:

• mages

• shapeshifters

• daemons [like from his dark materials]

• people with horns or wings

• pirates

• dragons

♕ MAIN COURSE

↳ okay i am hecka interested in doing a more serious pokemon rp. i’ve whipped up descriptions for some plot ideas, but i can expand on them more and i’m very up to brainstorming or altering ideas. also like i said i’m very open to replacing pokemon with daemons, animals, monsters, etc. most of these plots mention two individuals, though i’m happy to expand and play more characters.

underground

Orre has been conquered by Cipher. The region’s government are puppet leaders being controlled by Cipher’s strings, leading to the mass production of shadow pokemon. The public was deceived into thinking that pokemon ownership was unsafe and thus pokemon were banned, saved for by Cipher-affiliated trainers who put on gladiator battles for entertainment. However not all of Orre has cowed to this new leadership; a group of rebels have begun to grow, spread out between cities with their main headquarters being in the Under. They keep pokemon in secret and pass coded messages about how to free the region from Cipher — though Cipher always has their ear to the ground, and the rebellion may not be as secretive as they believe.

team cell

The Sehazi region is high in elevation, primarily mountainous with dense forests and taiga plains. Like the other regions, Sehazi has its gym leaders and champion, though its hostile conditions make it a relatively small League compared to other regions. After a large earthquake, sightings of peculiar pokemon have been seen around Sehazi — pokemon larger and more aggressive than usual, or pokemon that seem to be a mix of others. An organization called Team Cell has emerged to hunt their escaped pokemon back down, simultaneously exposing themselves to the public and making the League realize a threat has been growing beneath their nose for years. Team Cell is an expert in creating fusion and chimeric pokemon and plans to use their creations to seize dominance of the region. In addition to the League, a counterforce called Splice has emerged to fight Team Cell and rescue their pokemon, though neither group may be in the right.

guardians

Borrowing inspiration from His Dark Materials, people are born with a guardian, or a part of their soul that is represented as a ditto. As they grow older, the ditto takes permanent shape of a pokemon that represents their personality, and then will evolve as the person matures. This could be incorporated with any of the other plots, or be about individuals with guardians embarking on a typical pokemon adventure. Additionally I have a separate plot about a powerful monarchy killing the guardians of the territories they conquer and a rebellion forming in response to that and the cultural genocide.

tournament

A massive tournament has been hosted, inviting powerful trainers from many different regions. However only at the conclusion of the event it’s revealed that the tournament was actually a trial to find the strongest trainers to help carry the Colored Orbs to Mt. Pyre. Entrusting the victors with the three orbs, they set off towards Hoenn, though quickly realize that they have plenty of adversaries pursuing them, as well as the temptation that they could summon three legendary pokemon with the orbs at their fingertips.

around the world

Two rivals struck up a competition on who could sail around the world first, though when hit by a storm early on, one made the decision to save the other and they continue on their quest together with their pokemon partners. As they trek around the world, they find legends and myths yet untouched by civilization, and a temptation that tests the friendship they’ve begun to form.

time is of the essence

A modern individual has an encounter with Celebi and finds themselves forcibly thrust back into time, landing in the past where they save someone from near death. The two realize they have been brought together for a purpose as they are continuously brought to different points in time in which they arrive just at the moment to save something from certain disaster. As they try to piece together this mystery, they realize that they’re having a permanent affect on the timeline, and that there are clues of a sinister force spanning time response for wreckage.

the hunter

In a time before pokeballs, one individual makes their living by hunting wild pokemon bothering livestock and towns. They’ve earned themselves a reputation as they’ve traveled throughout the region, until they bite off more than they can chew: they’re offered a handsome reward to save a town that Darkrai has taken residence in and put to sleep. As they and their partner/benefactor/guide gather information on the town and the circumstances surrounding Darkrai’s presence, they realize this is far more than any mission they’ve tackled in the past. 

pelago

It was not just Mohn who was transported through the wormhole, but his entire research team. These individuals and pokemon became stranded on a series of islands they’ve called Pelago, and initial exploration of the nearby islands revealed fruitful trees, fertile land, a cave, and hot springs — all they needed to survive. However the longer they’re stranded, the more desperate and hopeless they become about ever returning home. That is, until some of their bottles tossed out to see have been returned with beans and odd trinkets. Two brave individuals have set off into the ocean to find out who is out there — or what.

fairy tale

↳ la belle et la bête

A wealthy or noble individual has either committed a grievous offense, or was deceived by their enemy and ultimately were transformed into a beastly pokemon. The individual fled into the wilderness and became trapped in time, slowly becoming a legend and a terror. The spell would be broken if the bells of the three regions were gathered and rang by one who loved them — but who would love a beast?

↳ hēraklēs

A young individual is looked fondly upon by one of the legendary deities, and has been protected by them throughout their life. However when they made a terrible err, their deity abandoned them, leaving them to the mercy of the court, which enlisted them with horrible tasks to complete as punishment. With their pokemon and a friend/sibling/messenger of their deity, they embark across the regions to complete these trials.

↳ die sieben raben

A father in want of a daughter promised away the lives of his seven sons in order to save the life of his infant daughter. The sons were transformed into various pokemon and scattered to the wind. Growing up, the daughter heard murmurs that she previously had brothers, and her father finally confessed so. Realizing that the curse could be broken if all siblings were together again, she set off to find her brothers and restore them to their human form again. 

♕ CONTACT

↳ if you’re interested please message me at wingsofaren@gmail.com! thank you for reading (:

[thegamecollection]

EA 2018 Press Conference (Part 1)

Battlefield V

EA kicked off the first press conference of E3 2018 with a look at Battlefield V. The trailer shown focused on multiplayer action. Weapons will now be moveable around the battlefield and the environments will be even more destructible. Not to be outdone by Fortnite and CoD Black Ops 4, Royale mode is coming to Battlefield V, reimagined with the core pillars of destruction, team play, and vehicles. Apparently, it will be unlike anything you’ve played before, but we’ll all have to wait until later in the year to find out more details. In single player - War Stories will show the heroism and brutality of war. Nordly’s War Story will be shown in the Xbox briefing tomorrow. The big news though – no loot boxes!!

FIFA 19

UEFA Champions League is coming to FIFA 19 (sorry PES fans). There will be a Champions League mode, it will feature in the story mode (The Journey), as well as in FIFA Ultimate Team. The presentation didn’t go into specific details but we were promised plenty of gameplay improvements. FIFA 19 will arrive on September 28th 2019.

If you need a football fix while waiting for the World Cup - a FIFA 18 free trial is now available complete with World Cup mode.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

In a slightly awkward interview with Vince Zampella sitting in the audience we learned a little about the upcoming Star Wars game. No trailer was shown but we were told it will be called Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. It takes place during the dark times when Jedis are being hunted – between Episodes III and IV. The release date is currently set for Holiday 2019.

Star Wars Battlefront II

There’s a stack of new content coming for Battlefront II. Clone Wars will be the largest level ever built for a Battlefront game. General Grievous, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker are all coming to Star Wars: Battlefront 2 in the coming months although no specific dates were confirmed.

Indie Games

In the Indie section of EA’s presentation two new titles were detailed – Unravel Two and Sea of Solitude.

Unravel Two is the follow-up to the popular Unravel from 2016. Yarny is back with a pal in Unravel Two as it’s designed to be played with two characters. Ideally, this would be co-op but it can also be played in a single player mode with two characters present on-screen. In single player mode the two characters will combine and then split apart at the more interesting parts to complete puzzles and move past obstacles. The big news though – it’s out TODAY!

I’m not quite sure how to describe the second indie game if you haven’t heard of it before. Developed by Berlin based Jo-Mei Games, Sea of Solitude is an exploration based adventure game. It features a young woman Kay exploring an abandoned, submerged city and it’s creatures. Cornelia Geppart described the game as being all about loneliness and the most personal and artistic game she had developed. Sea of Solitude is due to be released early in 2019 and on this evidence looks well worth checking out.

NBA Live 19

The NBA Live 19 trailer highlighted the return of The One, the well received career mode that was seen in last year’s, slightly under the radar, NBA Live 18. NBA Live 19 will also feature EA Sports’ Real Player Motion animation technology that debuted in FIFA 18 last year so we can expect to see some vastly improved visuals. NBA Live has some tough competition from the well established NBA2K series and it hits the shelves on 9th September 2018.

continued ...

- Giles

[tigerkirby215]

5e Aphelios, the Weapon of the Faithful build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Pan Chengwei. Made for Riot Games.)

(Shit meme by yours truly.)

Yes I hate Irelia so much I’m genuinely making an Aphelios build before her.

But I really don’t get the “Aphelios too confusing 200 years” memes. Don’t get me wrong his kit’s weird and certainly overtuned but it doesn’t take that long to figure out what his guns do. Calibrum has long range and fires a skill shot, Severum has lifesteal and attacks fast, Gravitum slows and roots, Infernum attacks in a cone for AoE damage, and Crescendum attacks very fast and creates a turret.

Just because I understand this does it mean I can play Aphelios? Fuck no. Did I learn all this from Legends of Runeterra by playing Labs with Aphelios? Yeah kinda. But all I’m saying is that if my stupid support-main ass can do midway decently as Aphelios on free-to-play rotation I really think the hype around him is overblown.

That’s enough hot takes from me. He’s the point where I list 5 goals for this build instead of 3 and make 200 years jokes.

GOALS

Calibrum - We’ll need a long-ranged weapon to harass our foes and pick them off when they try to run.

Severum - If enemies get too close or we get too low we’ll need a way to keep ourselves alive in a 1v1.

Gravitum - We’ll need to control our foes to always stay in an advantageous position.

Infernum - AoE damage is always useful to deal with crowds.

Crescendum - To take down the toughest of foes we’ll need to unleash all our firepower and even get our weapons to fir themselves.

Basically we need literally everything, all packed within 20 levels of D&D and 200 years of game design.

RACE

Aphelios is a human... but ellipsis means that another race makes more sense. Aphelios has his sister advising him wherever he goes in life, so to play two spirits in one a Kalashtar is a good choice! Your Wisdom score increases by 2 and your Charisma increases by 1. Alune’s Dual Mind grants you Advantage on Wisdom saving throws, and her Mental Discipline lets you resist Psychic damage. Alune also keeps you Severed from Dreams, meaning that you’re immune to spells that require you to dream (like the Dream spell) but not spells that require you to sleep (like Sleep.)

Aphelios doesn’t talk (unless you want him to) but Alune can make a Mind Link to speak telepathically with others! You can speak telepathically to any creature you can see that’s within a number of feet of you equal to 10 times your level. You don’t need to share a language with them, but they must be able to understand at least one language. You can also use your action to give that creature the ability to speak telepathically with you for 1 hour or until you end this effect as an action. To use this ability, the creature must be able to see you and must be within this trait’s range. You can only give this ability to only one person at a time however, as it ends when you give it to someone else. Oh and speaking of languages you know Common, Quori (which no one is going to have outside of Eberron lol), and one other language of your choice: Celestial probably makes the most sense but you can pick whatever you fancy.

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - You’re a kpop pretty boy, because Aphelios has more guns than body types in League of Legends.

14; WISDOM - I mean you get advantage in Wisdom saves anyways: may as well make the skill good too?

13; DEXTERITY - You are a marksman but we aren’t really using DEX for combat. So in other words: something something Medium Armor.

12; CONSTITUTION - You are one of the squishiest ADCs in the game but you do have enough sustain to keep yourself alive.

10; INTELLIGENCE - You were trained spiritually, as opposed to academically. That being said Religion is an Intelligence skill for some reason.

8; STRENGTH - I mean look at Aphelios’ arms; kid’s a freaking twink.

BACKGROUND

Aphelios fights for him and his sister’s faith in the Lunari... bit unorthodox, but you’re certainly quite the devoted Acolyte. As an acolyte you get proficiency in Religion but I’d replace your proficiency in Insight with Medicine, which you’re probably used to after drinking so much poison. You also learn two languages that you won’t use because Aphelios is mute. (But yeah pick whatever you think will be useful and if you want to feel free to swap your languages for tools or something. A Herbalism Kit or Poisoner’s Kit actually works rather well given your favorite drink to keep close to your sister.)

Alune may be in the Shelter of the Faithful but you can return to the temple from time to time for solace. You and your adventuring companions can expect free healing and care at a temple, shrine, or other established location of Lunari faith (you have to provide any material components for spells though.) The Lunari will support you (but only you) at a modest lifestyle in the temples.

If you’re near your sister’s shrine you can ask the chosen Lunari priests for assistance, provided the assistance you ask for is not hazardous and you remain in good standing with your temple and your sister.

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Legends of Runeterra by Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - SORCERER 1

Starting off as a Sorcerer for proficiency in CON saving throws lol, but also for proficiency in Arcana and the Insight skill we skipped from our background. But Sorcerers get to choose their subclass at level 1 and to get closer to the Aspects grab a touch of the Divine Soul. As a Weapon of the Faithful you are Favored by the Gods, letting you add 2d4 to a missed attack roll or saving throw once per Short or Long Rest for a touch of Alune’s guidance. I’m going to mention now that a death saving throw is technically a saving throw, and I mention it because your AC is 11 and your health is 7. Level 1 ADCs, am I right?

Anyways: Divine Souls get Divine Magic for one extra spell from the Cleric spell list: technically you’re supposed to take one of the ones they suggest to you but I’d recommend Guiding Bolt for Calibrum’s Q: a long ranged shot that lets you shoot the target more easily afterwards.

And of course being able to cast spells implies that you have Spellcasting! You can learn four cantrips from the Sorcerer or Cleric list which means you can grab Guidance for a bit more of your sister’s help. You can also grab Word of Radiance to attack everyone near you with Severum’s Q, Acid Splash for some AoE damage from Infernum (should it be doing fire damage? Yeah probably), and Light to see with your dumb Kalashtar eyes. You can also learn two leveled spells like Sanctuary to protect yourself or your allies as long as they act peacefully, and Ice Knife for a more ranged AoE blast from Infernum.

If you want you can grab Mage Armor or something because your AC and HP are kinda uhhhhhhhhhh... trash?

LEVEL 2 - WARLOCK 1

Hopefully you didn’t die as a level 1 Aphelios with 7 HP and 11 AC; we didn’t even get 200 years of damage yet! Warlocks get to choose their subclass at level 1 as well which means you can shape yourself as the Fiend the Solari see you as. Dark One’s Blessing grants you temporary hitpoints equal to your Charisma modifier plus your Warlock level whenever you slay a foe for Severum’s lifesteal and passive shield.

You also get Pact Magic, which is like regular Spellcasting but your spell slots are funny! You can learn two cantrips from the Warlock list like Eldritch Blast to blast while you eldritch, and Chill Touch for some Grievous Wounds. You can also learn two Warlock spells like Burning Hands from the Fiendlock list to blast your foes with Infernum, and Hex to mark your foe for death under the moon.

LEVEL 3 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get access to Eldritch Invocations like Agonizing Blast to agonize your blasts, and Lance of Lethargy to slow your foes with Gravitum. You can also learn another Warlock spell like Unseen Servant for some extra sisterly help. I mean, you’re probably going to replace these all next level anyways.

LEVEL 4 - WARLOCK 3

Third level Warlocks can choose their Pact Boon and truthfully? Just about any of them work. Pact of the Blade would be the most “in-character” but your Strength and Dexterity are both kind of bad and you don’t need to use weapons. Pact of the Chain will let you personify Alune on your person and get a shitty version of Crescendum’s turret but Aphelios doesn’t have a pet. Pact of the Tome lets you get Aspect of the Moon which is funny in its own right and more cantrips are universally useful. And hell: even Pact of the Talisman is useful for your sister to lend her aid to someone else in the party. Basically this is an elaborate way for me to say that your Pact Boon doesn’t matter much for this build, as we won’t be using any of the abilities or invocations from your Pact Boon much. So pick what you think will be useful and fun and make your own Aphelios!

With that being said: you can also learn second level Warlock spells now! Shadow Blade will serve as Crescendum’s blade that you can throw at the enemy, but it is based on your DEX which is kind of... bad? Well at least you can replace Unseen Servant with Misty Step, because a summoner’s Flash is more useful than your sister’s unseen help.

LEVEL 5 - WARLOCK 4

Man isn’t it fun to wait until level 5 to not die when the enemy support breathes on you? That uneven Dexterity score was done so you could grab the Moderately Armored feat for +1 to your Dexterity and proficiency in Medium Armor and Shields. Grab both to get hit less, basically!

You can also learn another spell like Hold Person for Gravitum’s root. And another cantrip like Minor Illusion for your sister to summon some props that you can hide behind.

(Artwork by Jennifer Wuestling. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - WARLOCK 5

Hey that Medium Armor doesn’t really fit your outfit: how about the Mask of Many Faces invocation to put on some skins?

Third level spells are also useful! Vampiric Touch will let you heal in close range by damaging your foes with Severum.

LEVEL 7 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Fiend Warlocks get more guidance from Alune. The Solari may call it the Dark One’s Own Luck but all it lets you do is add a d10 to an ability check or saving throw once per Short or Long Rest. I mean hey: if you want a load of saving throw insurance this plus Favored by the Gods basically means you’re adding +10 to a saving throw!

You can also learn another spell but the only ones I’d want have very expensive components. Basically I want a Tasha’s summoning spell for Crescendum’s turret, but you’re going to be replacing it with...

LEVEL 8 - WARLOCK 7

4th level Warlocks can learn Summon Aberration which is a little more than just a turret! You can choose between a Beholderkin turret, Slaad tank, or Star Spawned Aspect! I’m not going to go too deep into this spell as you can read up on it for yourself but the point is you’ve got some backup now!

Alternatively if you want I think your sis could use some friends: Banishment will send them up to the temple where they’ll have to sit around and chat peacefully with Alune. Or if they’re not from the plane you’re in they’ll just be sent home.

Oh and you can also get another Eldritch Invocation like Eldritch Spear to keep your range with Calibrum.

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 8

8th level Warlocks get another Ability Score Improvement: you should probably increase your Charisma for more damage and accuracy with your weapons.

Speaking of weapons Dimension Door will let you head back to fountain to buy more weapons, or get out of danger and in range to use your weapons.

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Legends of Runeterra by Riot Games.)

LEVEL 10 - SORCERER 2

We’ve gotten all of out basic auto attacks: now I want some of Aphelios’ finer abilities. Second level Sorcerers get a Font of Magic for Sorcery Points which currently do nothing other than let you get more spell slots. You can melt down your Warlock slots however to get more Sorcery points, which will be useful later.

And of course you can learn more spells, but we’re going to wait for...

LEVEL 11 - SORCERER 3

Third level Sorcerers can finally learn Metamagic to empower their spells! You can take Quickened Spell for some Attack Speed, or Seeking Spell for some armor penetration to deal with higher AC enemies.

You can also learn second level spells like Icingdeath’s Frost (UA soon to be in Fizban’s hopefully) to blast foes with Infernum then Gravitum, or Dragon’s Breath to blast Infernum all throughout the fight.

LEVEL 12 - SORCERER 4

Would be good to cap off that Charisma, so go ahead and do so with your ASI.

You can also learn another spell like Spiritual Weapon for a turret you can move around a bit, and a new cantrip like Mage Hand for your sister’s help reaching the top shelf.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - SORCERER 5

5th level Sorcerers can get some Magical Guidance from their sister to reroll ability checks, because she’s been reading up on Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.

You can also learn a new spell like Fireball... I mean I really shouldn’t need to justify this. It’s Fireball. Blast them with Moonlight Vigil for a burst of Infernum’s fire!

LEVEL 14 - SORCERER 6

6th level Divine Soul Sorcerers can use their Sorcery Points for Empowered Healing... wait you have healing? Well whenever you or an ally within 5 feet of you rolls dice to heal from a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to reroll any number of those dice once, as long as you’re not incapacitated. This technically doesn’t work with Vampiric Touch (since that spell does damage and then heals you based on how much damage it deals) but if your support heals you or a nearby ally there’s no reason not to give them an extra pick-me-up!

You can also learn another spell but I’m going to hop back to second level real quick for Mirror Image. It perhaps doesn’t fit as well (which is why I didn’t take it until now) but it’s very good to keep yourself alive, and as a squishy Lunari boy it’ll be very helpful to make it harder for the enemy to hit you.

LEVEL 15 - SORCERER 7

7th level Sorcerers can learn 4th level spells like Guardian of Faith for a turret that actually stands still! It shoots at anyone who comes close, and when it runs out of ammo it disappears. But what’s cool about this spell is that it lasts for 8 hours, which is plenty of time to rest through the night while your sister watches over you.

LEVEL 16 - SORCERER 8

8th level Sorcerers get another Ability Score Improvement or Feat: seeing as you’re mostly casting War Caster would be a good pickup to keep your Concentration with your bad Constitution and also hit those who come too close with magic. Or you could just get better Constitution maybe since it’s a bit late for War Caster tbh...

You can also learn another spell like Death Ward, for a Guardian Angel that you’re probably going to need seeing as you still have less than a hundred health.

(Artwork by Francis Tneh and West Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - SORCERER 9

9th level Sorcerers can learn 5th level spells like Teleportation Circle to recall back to base or to your sister’s temple. If you know the sequence of sigils to go back to a teleportation circle you can use this spell to link yourself back to it. You can also create a new circle over the course of a year. (And by spending a lot of gold.)

Basically this is my way of saying that we got all we wanted after level 16 tbh and I’m kinda just going through the motions of grabbing your last few levels.

LEVEL 18 - SORCERER 10

10th level Sorcerers get their third Metamagic option! Hurrah! By this point you have enough spells that force saving throws that Heightened Spell is a good option to make it a lot harder for your opponents to resist 200 years of magic!

You can also learn another 5th level spell like Hold Monster for Gravitum’s root against a ganking Fiddlesticks. And another cantrip: I somehow didn’t take Prestidigitation until now, so grab it for all sorts of basic Lunari magic.

LEVEL 19 - SORCERER 11

11th level Sorcerers can learn a 6th level spell! This is going to be your final, highest level spell; your ultimate ability! And I’d consider an ultimate from a fed Aphelios to be a Circle of Death. It’s a huge AoE that does a lot of damage: a simple nuke for a simple ADC that isn’t remotely confusing.

LEVEL 20 - SORCERER 12

12th level Sorcerers get one last Ability Score Improvement or Feat... I’m going to be honest: this doesn’t fit Aphelios but you likely have around 100 HP. Do yourself a favor and grab the Tough feat for 40 extra health.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

For every phase, a weapon - Wow who would’ve guessed building for versatility makes you versatile? You have a huge variety of spells for just about any occasion: AoEs to deal with crowds, single-target spells to take down big foes, crowd control to keep enemies in place, summons to keep enemies targeting them instead of your allies, and of course more than enough damage to shake a stick at.

In your hand; from my heart - Sorcery points also give you plenty of flexibility, notably in your ability to greatly increase damage output thanks to Quickened Spell on Eldritch Blasts and Seeking Spell to reroll missed Eldritch Blasts. But being able to turn your Warlock slots into ammo for your more useful guns is extremely useful and allows you to better adapt to various situations.

I am with you... shining above - Medium armor goes quite a long way! A Breastplate and Shield gives you a solid 18 AC, and if you’re willing to have Stealth Disadvantage upgrading to Half Plate gives you a respectable 19 AC!

CONS

You make yourself a weapon, so you do not have to feel - Skill proficiencies are reserved for those who don’t spend 200 years on damage. You have two skills from your background and two from your class and none of them are particularly great. Sure your Insight and Medicine skills are fine enough but you’re going to be beaten in Arcana by a Wizard and Religion by a Cleric also a Wizard, because Religion is an Intelligence skill for some reason.

Your life upon the altar, brother... - Even with the Tough feat your health is extremely poor. d6 hit die hurt and anyone with Power Word Kill can easily execute you. While I did give you good Wisdom for roleplay’s sake you could (and probably should) opt for Constitution instead.

An omen in your grasp - Your low health is kind of a problem when a lot of your spells force you into close range. There are ways to use spells like Burning Hands, Dragon’s Breath, Shadow Blade, and Vampiric Touch without getting too close (those methods being the Distant Spell Metamagic which we didn’t take; you could totally replace Seeking Spell if you wanted though) but Severum and Infernum are balanced around their low range. There’s no reason you can’t throw balance out the window to take spells that will likely be more useful.

But you are a weapon, sworn to carry your faith and show the world the light in the darkness. Your task is to slay those that deny the right of your people before they even know you are there... Sure confusing them as to what you are even doing is also effective, and I guess it doesn’t matter if your abilities make sense if they’re all dead. They’ll have 200 years to figure out how you killed them: I’m sure that’s plenty of time to read your ability descriptions.

(Artwork by @NAOMM29 on Twitter.)

[rennaefricke]

Character Q&A

What is your full name?

“Rennae Fricke, or so I was told. Never met my mother or father.”

What do your friends call you?

“Rennae. Some call me Ren, but I hate it. They also call me Fricke in various puns or if they’re feeling like giving me hell.”

What is your favorite animal?

“Dogs, most likely, but I don’t think about it.”

Where were you born?

“On a ship off the western coast of the Eastern Kingdoms.”

Do you have children?

"I like children, but I’m a realistic person.”

Is there a person/people you love?

“Yeah, but it wasn’t ever mutual.”

What is your favorite color?

“It’s blue.”

What is your full occupation?

“Currently I’m a Sergeant of the League of Lordaeron, a paramilitary organization that specializes in reclamation of the north. Before that I did a lot of freelance contracting for people wanting things and treasures around the world, along with my own more-private ventures.”

Are you good at physical fighting?

“I would say so, but I know my limits. Men are bigger, and stronger.”

Which form are you best at?

“I might have to say archery. I’ve always been good with shooting. Other than that I have a wide experience of other weaponry, the more common ones at least, spears, swords, broad ones...”

What about magic?

“Not at all.”

Which type are you best at?

“I said no, but I’m good at a lot of things...”

Craftsmanship?

“I’m not much of a ‘crafter.’ I’d make a decent housewife though.” She snickered.

Any other skills?

“When I was young I learned a technique in palm-reading. I’ve carried that with me and even make a decent coin on whims doing those sorts of readings.”

Are you an only child?

“There weren’t any other children with me, growing up, so yes. Biologically? I don’t know.”

Where do you see yourself in five years?

“It’s hard to say. I haven’t really found myself staying in a single place for long. In five years? I might be back at sea, to be honest. Perhaps have my own ship. Another good idea would be living in a bigger home, doing more of my contracting I used to do. Who knows, maybe I’ll settle down somewhat?”

Have you ever almost died?

“It’s hard to say in this world of warcraft, when the most grievous of injuries come and go with waves of hands. But yes. I still have the odd nightmare at times of black skies, yelling, and monstrous waves. Almost capsized in the middle of the ocean. That was truly a night to remember.”

Do you have a secret, not just a secret, but like a really big secret hardly anyone knows?

"No,” she spouted with a smile to accentuate a sly lie.

Salty or sweet?

"Sweet, unless I feel sick.”

Do you like yourself?

“Too much.”

Do you believe in the Twelve?

“I don’t know what that is.”

Are you religious?

“No, but I like to think that I’m a decent person.”

Do you carry prejudice with you?

“I want to say not really. I still carry ‘preference.’ Otherwise, I understand that there are a lot of things you can learn about someone or a situation if you keep an open mind. Everyone does things for a reason. And nobody is quite ‘stupid.’”

What do you consider entertainment?

“I’m easily entertained, even by the most simplest of things. The world is a wonderland, and I’d like to keep exploring. But, if you’d like a straighter answer? People.”

Favorite drink?

“A cold beer.”

Do you have any family traditions?

“I consider my old crew my family, and no.”

Thank you for answering my questions.

An amiable nod.

Tagged by @stormwindian

Tagging: @a-nebulose (Tlayna) @willowstead

(Anyone else who is interested should absolutely do it too, even if I forgot to tag you!)

[junker-town]

We drafted basketball teams made up of ‘Star Wars’ characters. Which is best?

Was the Force with any of us as we made our picks?

A short time ago in a galaxy very close to here, the Skywalker saga reached its conclusion with the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Episode IX maybe the finale of the series’ third movie trilogy, but it’s far from the end of Star Wars as we know it, thanks to the limitless runway Disney+ offers and the overwhelming desire for nostalgia that is Hollywood today. (Give it a decade before we get the beginning of another movie trilogy). But it still marks a pivotal turning point for those of us invested in the saga.

So to celebrate, five diehard sports and Star Wars fans came together to do something (long pause) truly special: draft a five-man basketball team to take down a crew of alien ballers hiding out in the Unknown Regions.

There will be a substantial reward for the team who defeats these invaders. Managers were free to use any draft methods necessary, but we want this to be a fair fight. No superteams.

So, we laid out some important ground rules:

Only one Force-wielder — i.e. Jedi, Sith, etc — per team.

Only one droid per team. (Though one of the teams doesn’t have a droid).

Each team must possess at least one sentient alien. Unlike the Empire, who looked down on non-humans, we don’t discriminate.

All Star Wars canon can be considered, and by all, we mean all. (No Legends canon, though). Because of that, we made use of lots of characters from the many animated shows, The Mandalorian, and other side projects. We took this very seriously.

We’re building an actual basketball team, so chemistry matters. As the old basketball saying goes, there’s only one thermal detonator.

Those guidelines — particularly the one limiting everyone to just one force user— made for a fascinating draft. Here’s how it played out.

Allow everyone to explain themselves.

The Slamdoshans (Tyson Whiting)

PG: Ahsoka Tano (Force user) SG: L3-37 (droid) SF: General Grievous PF: Bossk (alien) C: Sarlacc COACH: General Armitage Hux

With the guidelines in place for the draft, I wanted to make sure I picked a team with players who would bend the rules as much as possible.

Some might find it “unfair” that I have two lightsaber-wielding players on my team. To be clear, Grievous may have lightsabers, but he is not a Force user. Plus, though he is mostly machine, he is technically of the Kaleesh race, therefore making him an alien pick. (My masters degree in Star Wars is already paying off). His four arms and ability to turn into a weird spider thing has the potential to surprise opposing players.

I was criticized at the time for choosing Ahsoka Tano over a Skywalker as my Force user, but she was trained by Anakin Skywalker, so she knows all his moves. She’s a great leader and showed her craftiness in tight situations during the Clone Wars.

L3-37 and Bossk are my sleeper picks of chaos. L3 will-trash talk you into submission, though I might have a problem with her on Twitter. I picked up Bossk’s nasty 7-foot-tall ass because he will walk through you, hissing and spitting while he does. I also assume he has incredible ball control with those three-finger hands.

So the Sarlacc. I know what you’re thinking: yes, I AM a genius. Sure, he (it?) can’t move, set a pick, or really leave the ground in any way. But stick this bad boy under the net and you’ll never surrender a layup or rebound EVER AGAIN.

Also Coach Hux will hit you so hard with those pregame speeches that you’ll have no choice but to win.

Tosche Station Power Converters (Caroline Darney)

PG: Cassian Andor SG: Lando Calrissian SF: The Mandalorian PF: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (Force user) C: Chewbacca (alien) COACH: Orson Krennic

Look at this perfect squad. Getting Chewbacca with my first-round pick (No. 2 overall) was clutch, and his big frame will dominate in this league. Anakin/Vader was a steal in the fourth round, and this is Rogue One peak-condition Darth Vader. His rage may lead to some bad fouls, but he’s been instructed not to force choke the refs.

I decided to lock down a pair of sharpshooters on the wings in the form of Lando Calrissian (Solo’s Donald Glover version) and the Mandalorian (affectionately known as Mando). They can run off of screens set by either big man (seriously, the screens are going to be so beautiful), and are both catch-and-shoot players. Mando’s inability to take his helmet off could get in the way at times, but his support of Baby Yoda makes it all worth it. Also, imagine the fits Lando will wear walking into the arena before the game. The capes! So many capes and furs!

To bring it all together, I needed the ultimate team player running the point. Enter Rogue One’s Cassian Andor. Quick, resourceful, and full of the intangibles coaches love, Andor is the perfect distributor for this squad. He doesn’t care about personal stats, but he will come through in the clutch if he has to get a last-minute bucket.

I know there may be questions about Director Krennic running the squad, but he’s here solely for the perfect quotes. Just imagine: when the defense is lacking, Krennic can hit them with “Are we blind? Deploy the garrison!” When my team wins the title, you can already hear him saying, “As we stand here amidst MY achievements.” Or, if his job is in question, hitting ownership with “your concerns are hardly warranted.”

But let’s be real. Vader is the player-coach of this team.

Dooku Blue Devils (James Dator)

PG: Yoda (Force user) SG: Greedo (alien) SF: Boba Fett PF: K2-SO (droid) C: Rathtar COACH: Watto

How did they sleep on this roster? The fools. The intergalactic fools. I’ve got Yoda running the point as my Muggsy Bogues-esque hero and distributor. I wanted my Force user touching the ball every single possession, and this was the best way to do it.

From there, I wanted to lock down the paint. I have some big basketball beasts as my enforcers. K2-SO is 7’1, and Rathtar has as astonishing 20-foot wingspan thanks to its tentacles, which will be too much for most teams to overcome.

The secret to my team is Greedo. I needed offense, and everyone knows his love of shooting first. (Editor’s Note: Please strike the end of that sentence from the record). If he needs to be kept in line, I have complete faith in Boba Fett’s “game respect game” bounty hunter familiarity.

Finally, I picked Watto to be my coach because I want a merciless cheater.

Project Harvester (Mike Prada)

PG: Bo-Katan Kryze SG: Sheev Palpatine (Force user) SF: IG-88 (droid) PF: Captain Phasma C: Jabba The Hutt (alien) COACH: Grand Admiral Thrawn

My toughest decision came in the first round. Do I wait on picking my Force user and build up the rest of the team, or do I just bite the bullet and take the most powerful being in the galaxy, personality issues and all? In the end, I gave in to my hate. Talent trumps character.

After that, I couldn’t take any good guys because there’d be obvious philosophical clashes. Jabba’s ego makes him a risky pick, but I’m gambling that he’ll be fine protecting the paint if Palpatine gives him a few post touches. IG-88 and Phasma are quality 3-and-D wings that’ll take on the tough assignments, and Thrawn is a master tactician who has the star’s trust. Point guard was tricky, but Bo-Katan has the versatility to play a secondary role while not being afraid to challenge the star if he steps slightly too far out of line. (I hope she has more respect for Palpatine than she did for Maul in Clone Wars).

Palpatine will take all the shots, which isn’t ideal. But hey, it works for the Rockets.

The Bombads (Russ Oates)

PG: R2-D2 (droid) SG: Rey (Force user) SF: Jar Jar Binks (alien) PF: Cara Dune C: Wampa COACH: Admiral Ackbar R2-D2 is the true hero of the Star Wars saga and always knows what to do in a tight spot. He’d be an excellent floor general on the court. While she is new to the Force, Rey keeps picking up points and has been able to disrupt the First Order’s offense. Cara Dune is a former New Republic shock trooper, so yeah, she’s going to grab all the rebounds. Better watch out for the claws on the Wampa, or you’ll be sorry. Admiral Ackbar can spot a trap by the opposing team.

Y’all can hate on the Jar Jar Binks pick if you want. I’ll accept the creative destruction he will cause on the court.

Which team are you taking to address this looming threat in the Unknown Regions? Vote in the poll below. The winner gets the full bounty. The loser is stuck with a bunch of useless tracking fabs. (Click here if you can’t see the poll).

[fyrapartnersearch]

Seeking Pokemon or fantasy rp!

♕ INTRO

↳ hey all, i’m wren and i’m a 23 y/o grad student in the est time zone. i’ve been rping for over 10 years and am looking for some cool new people to plot and rp with. i’m a huge fan of chatting with and getting to know my partner — if this isn’t your cup of tea that’s all good, but i’m always open to dorking around and finding playlists for our characters if it is! i'm looking for people older than 20, as i feel more comfortable when my partner is around the same age as me! i also like writing long posts and would prefer someone who has no problem writing at least 4 paragraphs per reply. i usually reply once a day or every other day and don’t like being poked for replies, so if you’re more of a rapid fire rper we probably won’t work out.

right now i'm primarily craving a pokemon rp! i have some plots that i will list though i’m up for brainstorming as well. i’d like something in the realm or more realistic and unconventional: unusual plots, pokemon can get hurt and injured, wild pokemon are like intelligent wild animals, etc. if that sounds up your alley then read on! i'd also be open to rewriting these plots using animals or mythical creatures/beasts so if you know nothing about pokemon but are interested in the plot please message me~

♕ SIDE DISHES

↳ i'm interested in some other things besides pokemon and i'll list those here!

• adventure; anything with a band of people coming together and forming a found family, traveling together on the way to a goal with obstacles thrown in their way • fantasy; i adore fantasy, whether it’s magical realism or all out medieval fantasy. world-building is one of my favorite things. sci-fi is great too, but i’m not great when things get too tech-y haha • paranormal/mythical creatures; sort of goes with the fantasy, but i’m always down to rp different species in any sort of setting • fairy tales; i love taking old fairy tales or stories and giving them a unique twist, whether it’s making them #gritty or just tossing them in a different sort of setting • superheroes; people with superpowers using it for good or evil and coming together yesss • romance; romance is great and i’ll discuss that below, but i prefer this to be like a sub-genre • AUs; i love taking a fandom and making it an alternate timeline or AUing it completely. also once we have characters and a rp established, i love love love talking about AUs for our characters. i will AU everything, there is no AU too AUish for me

those are just my favorites so feel free to suggest others, but i will not do slice of life. i just find myself bogged down when there’s not a defined plot, and it doesn’t keep my interest. i also love these things if you’d be interested in tossing any of them in the rp:

• mages • shapeshifters • daemons [like from his dark materials] • people with horns or wings • pirates • dragons

♕ MAIN COURSE

↳ okay i am hecka interested in doing a more serious pokemon rp. i’ve whipped up descriptions for some plot ideas, but i can expand on them more and i’m very up to brainstorming or altering ideas. also like i said i’m very open to replacing pokemon with daemons, animals, monsters, etc. most of these plots mention two individuals, though i’m happy to expand and play more characters.

underground

Orre has been conquered by Cipher. The region’s government are puppet leaders being controlled by Cipher’s strings, leading to the mass production of shadow pokemon. The public was deceived into thinking that pokemon ownership was unsafe and thus pokemon were banned, saved for by Cipher-affiliated trainers who put on gladiator battles for entertainment. However not all of Orre has cowed to this new leadership; a group of rebels have begun to grow, spread out between cities with their main headquarters being in the Under. They keep pokemon in secret and pass coded messages about how to free the region from Cipher — though Cipher always has their ear to the ground, and the rebellion may not be as secretive as they believe.

team cell

The Sehazi region is high in elevation, primarily mountainous with dense forests and taiga plains. Like the other regions, Sehazi has its gym leaders and champion, though its hostile conditions make it a relatively small League compared to other regions. After a large earthquake, sightings of peculiar pokemon have been seen around Sehazi — pokemon larger and more aggressive than usual, or pokemon that seem to be a mix of others. An organization called Team Cell has emerged to hunt their escaped pokemon back down, simultaneously exposing themselves to the public and making the League realize a threat has been growing beneath their nose for years. Team Cell is an expert in creating fusion and chimeric pokemon and plans to use their creations to seize dominance of the region. In addition to the League, a counterforce called Splice has emerged to fight Team Cell and rescue their pokemon, though neither group may be in the right.

guardians

Borrowing inspiration from His Dark Materials, people are born with a guardian, or a part of their soul that is represented as a ditto. As they grow older, the ditto takes permanent shape of a pokemon that represents their personality, and then will evolve as the person matures. This could be incorporated with any of the other plots, or be about individuals with guardians embarking on a typical pokemon adventure. Additionally I have a separate plot about a powerful monarchy killing the guardians of the territories they conquer and a rebellion forming in response to that and the cultural genocide.

tournament

A massive tournament has been hosted, inviting powerful trainers from many different regions. However only at the conclusion of the event it’s revealed that the tournament was actually a trial to find the strongest trainers to help carry the Colored Orbs to Mt. Pyre. Entrusting the victors with the three orbs, they set off towards Hoenn, though quickly realize that they have plenty of adversaries pursuing them, as well as the temptation that they could summon three legendary pokemon with the orbs at their fingertips.

around the world

Two rivals struck up a competition on who could sail around the world first, though when hit by a storm early on, one made the decision to save the other and they continue on their quest together with their pokemon partners. As they trek around the world, they find legends and myths yet untouched by civilization, and a temptation that tests the friendship they’ve begun to form.

time is of the essence

A modern individual has an encounter with Celebi and finds themselves forcibly thrust back into time, landing in the past where they save someone from near death. The two realize they have been brought together for a purpose as they are continuously brought to different points in time in which they arrive just at the moment to save something from certain disaster. As they try to piece together this mystery, they realize that they’re having a permanent affect on the timeline, and that there are clues of a sinister force spanning time response for wreckage.

the hunter

In a time before pokeballs, one individual makes their living by hunting wild pokemon bothering livestock and towns. They’ve earned themselves a reputation as they’ve traveled throughout the region, until they bite off more than they can chew: they’re offered a handsome reward to save a town that Darkrai has taken residence in and put to sleep. As they and their partner/benefactor/guide gather information on the town and the circumstances surrounding Darkrai’s presence, they realize this is far more than any mission they’ve tackled in the past. 

pelago

It was not just Mohn who was transported through the wormhole, but his entire research team. These individuals and pokemon became stranded on a series of islands they’ve called Pelago, and initial exploration of the nearby islands revealed fruitful trees, fertile land, a cave, and hot springs — all they needed to survive. However the longer they’re stranded, the more desperate and hopeless they become about ever returning home. That is, until some of their bottles tossed out to see have been returned with beans and odd trinkets. Two brave individuals have set off into the ocean to find out who is out there — or what.

fairy tale

↳ la belle et la bête

A wealthy or noble individual has either committed a grievous offense, or was deceived by their enemy and ultimately were transformed into a beastly pokemon. The individual fled into the wilderness and became trapped in time, slowly becoming a legend and a terror. The spell would be broken if the bells of the three regions were gathered and rang by one who loved them — but who would love a beast?

↳ hēraklēs

A young individual is looked fondly upon by one of the legendary deities, and has been protected by them throughout their life. However when they made a terrible err, their deity abandoned them, leaving them to the mercy of the court, which enlisted them with horrible tasks to complete as punishment. With their pokemon and a friend/sibling/messenger of their deity, they embark across the regions to complete these trials.

↳ die sieben raben

A father in want of a daughter promised away the lives of his seven sons in order to save the life of his infant daughter. The sons were transformed into various pokemon and scattered to the wind. Growing up, the daughter heard murmurs that she previously had brothers, and her father finally confessed so. Realizing that the curse could be broken if all siblings were together again, she set off to find her brothers and restore them to their human form again. 

♕ CONTACT

↳ if you’re interested please message me at wingsofaren@gmail.com! thank you for reading (: