#giant massive plot rework

[citynewsglobe]

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[ducks-and-stuff]

Respawn headcannons

so I have this very specific mindset for what it’s like when Minecraft players respawn that I’m going to share here because it’s Tumblr so why not. Basically once a player is poofed they enter a void-like space that they then drag their consciousness out of to return to the physical world. This of course, as is the case with many of my head-cannons, is stupidly more elaborate. Yayyyyyyyyy. 

For one they’re all the same pocket dimension except each consciousness winds up extremelyyyyy far from one another. You could drift through that space for an eternity and never see another soul. Some very powerful beings may manipulate this but for the most part, each void space is very private. 

The second thing is that it is the player’s responsibility to get themselves out. They must rely on their own strength and will to return to the typical world. 9 times out of ten this is no problem, however, if they’re extremely sick or something like that they are internally much weaker and it becomes harder for them to come home. Hence why it’s important to make sure someone isn’t suffering the full effects of the flu or something before you go ahead and take them out. 

Third: you have to come back quickly. The void is part of all players, thrumming inside of them, beckoning them home, and when they return to it for that time it’s always going to try and take them back. It’s absorbing and confusing and the longer they just wait floating there the more clear it becomes that they’re essentially one in the same. Eventually it will make them forget who they are entirely, and the fact that they can even return in the first place will be entirely beyond them. The only exception to this is when they’re changing forms. Things such as Lizzie being a giant ocean goddess or Jimmy turning into a toy are plot points that require them to look much different than their usual selves. In order for players to do this massive shift they get themselves poofed and rework their framework in the void. Rather than drifting aimlessly, they are in a state of complete focus for a period of time, and once they feel the transformation is complete they drag themselves out of that instead. How big the shift is determines how long they’re out for, and requires a lot of energy as well. Although every respawn will always leave you physically refreshed, it has the potential to be a bit mentally taxing depending on who you are.

[lunapwrites]

Omg I'm dying with the titles!!! Can I have something from "waiting room"?

Hi hello yes friend! <3 I am fairly certain this is another bit from LTL, but let me check...

OH NO. Ohhhhh this is from a VERY OLD version of the bathtub scene (still Remus POV!), before I ended up reworking a bunch of things. I'll note what changed under a cut, but uh. Here is a small, inoffensive snippet of this one lol

-

"I can't believe you did this." Dora snorted, squirting different coloured dyes into several small bowls. They'd broken out the good china for this exercise, he'd noticed. "I absolutely can." Sirius sighed dramatically, and Remus was beginning to suspect he'd somehow switched consciousness with his fifth-year self. "I just fancied a change."  "Then paint some walls or something, you prat, not…" He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at Sirius' hair, which truly looked horrid. "Eugh, look, no offence, cariad, blond is not your colour." "You don't think it makes me look like my cousin? My dear old mother used to say we had the same cheekbones." He pursed his lips, tapping his cheek with his index finger. He did have lovely cheekbones, but that was rather beside the point. "Probably why she tried to marry me off to her, come to think of it." "Cissy had actual colour to her hair. This is… erm…" "White?" Dora supplied, grinning as though she weren't at least partially responsible. "Well, that's a word for it, isn’t it? Thank you Dora." Sirius scowled; the effect was rather ruined by how ridiculous he looked. Don't laugh, Lupin, you'll just get him all het up again. Whatever made him happy, right?

Right. "I’m never staying blond, ta very much." Dora winked at Remus, then grabbed Sirius' head firmly and turned him so he was looking straight down into his lap. "Too right you're not, now sit still so I can apply this."

-

OK, so if you want to see the changes...

This was the version where Remus ALSO sat down and let Dora dye his hair (he no longer does this.) Fun fact: this is what my PFP is from lol. I'm still a little sad I lost that bit, but. Oh well. It really wasn't that important.

The hearing never happened in this version, so Sirius was still trying to figure out a legal way to clear his name rather than Remus flinging himself at the situation like an angry cat.

The whole borderline alcoholism angle with Sirius was not addressed yet like it has been in LTL-canon, and the problem was going to be a lot worse. I decided to walk it back a little because he didn't really get the chance to full-on spiral down that particular well like he did in actual-canon.

This version takes place the same night the Weasley kids + Harry show up at Grimmauld Place. I pushed it up earlier in the month instead because it was WAY too messy and honestly I didn't want to put a bunch of anxious teens in the same house as a couple of inebriated adults. As I was writing it out, the discomfort overrode any comic value.

Sirius got to be The Adult In The Room, which... I ended up reworking as a concept into some better/healthier moments, since it's important for his character arc.

The discussion between Remus and Dora re: his past addiction issues was originally going to happen here, and Remus was also going to mentally draw parallels between his past and Sirius' current struggles. I felt it was a little too on the nose.

I had been laying the groundwork for actual UST between Dora and Sirius here, which no longer strictly lines up with where they're headed in LTL.

There was a photograph of Remus with green hair. I will be working this into LTL canon SOMEWHERE, or so help me XD

Remus took paint thinner to Walburga's portrait, and Dora drew a dick on her with a sharpie which she couldn't scream about, owing to no longer having a mouth. While the scene is hilarious, I could not in good conscience keep this as is, and the writing in the dialogue is so genuinely terrible I want to cry lol. (Not like the words they're saying are bad, just I was still in the "need to write the way they sound" mode, and it just isn't a good look, it's going back in the hole forever.)

There's probably some other changes here but yeah, just generally tone and trajectory and pacing and plot alllllll changed from where this was at initially lol.

Thank you for the ask!!

[fruitsofhell]

This isn’t from Twitter but it is related to my Heardle Thread (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 ) :

     Definitely the coolest thing about how Kumazaki does series lore is how he reworks and re-contextualizes old cryptic Kirby stuff into his new writing. Like Galactic Nova is a great example cause Super Star is super iconic, and Nova was already set up with a really weird air. And a massive part of that is the music and interior of the machine.      That really harsh and metallic percussion and the frantic strings, and the part with the tempo change too, everything about Heart of Nova is super jarring compared to the rest of Milky Way Wishes. And when you look at Nova from the outside you think, “Yeah that's a weird giant mechanical comet, that seems like something whimsical enough for Kirby!” But the inside is electronic and futuristic and its so weird. Even before that was the intention you could see that Nova was a very odd machine that probably held a looot of secrets to how it worked people didn’t understand. It had the air of an odd magical artifact at first, but inside it is something far more advanced than anything you had seen in the series up till then.      And knowing how important it is now in retrospect is fun because... well it’s role in the story is to be fought over by two silly magical children before being sent careening into a planet, only to get blown to smithereens cause the kids fought and one knocked the other into it at Mach 5 gfyasukgfsydauf. I really really love how even when Kirby has massive world-building set pieces the character are always oblivious to their importance, so you get stuff like the plot of Milky Way Wishes - the story of two very powerful children having a dumb fight over the giant ancient mechanical artifact that holds aeons old technological secrets, and accidentally destroying it in the process.

     The intention of Nova being that was always there, but the way Kumazaki has worked its presentation into a greater mythos is so fun. The dissonance of harsh mechanical set-pieces in Kirby is a long tradition in general, within Super Star the Halberd is another example. It might be a very unique thing to the original Super Star though, because it’s early CG backgrounds had a lot of jank in them. The aesthetic of the Halberd and Nova’s interior are completely different from that of the Shiver Star Factory or most stuff from Robobot which still had some whimsy to it, the former two are a lot more on the hard mechanical side. Its totally unintentional and kinda just bad graphic design but... shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, let me pretend my favorite Kirby game is a masterpiece...

[tchallasbabymama]

Troubled Waters Prologue

Hey y’all! Some of you may have seen this already, but I took it down and reworked it a little bit. Check out my masterlist to read my other stories, and let me know if you want to be tagged in anything. Enjoy!

Word count: 1,723

Aziza [a-zee-za] noun: A benevolent magical species with moderate stature, pointed ears, colorful wings, and deep brown skin that always has a slight glow. They enjoy music, dancing, and frolicking with human children. They also have a propensity for plant magic and hunting and tend to dwell in or around the rainforest.

Long before humans ever stepped foot in Wakanda, the aziza were appointed guardians of the land by the panther goddess, Bast. Aziza lived in harmony with the other magical beings, with a few exceptions, and the queen of the aziza ruled over all of Wakanda. That is until these strange, magicless creatures stumbled into the forest one day and were immediately accosted by some of the more malevolent beings that inhabited the land. Several aziza sprang into action to protect the newcomers and were able to stop the evil obambo from possessing them and driving them mad. When the heroic team of aziza brought the defenseless humans to the queen, she welcomed them into her kingdom with open arms and gave them their own plot of land that was locked between her forest and a dangerous mountain range.

When left to their own devices, the humans began to fight with each other over resources and the right to rule. Queen Ani grew tired of the fighting and called on Bast to help end the constant wars. The goddess instructed her to find a man named Bashenga and bring him to her garden. Apparently, her favorite flower had a strange effect on humans. To all the other beings under her rule, the flower simply acted as an ointment of sorts, but it made humans powerful. Queen Ani followed Bast’s instructions and ground up the petals for Bashenga to consume. She buried him in the rich soil, and when he emerged minutes later, he was a new man. He was a leader, a champion, a king.

Humans and magical beings lived in harmony in isolation from the outside world for centuries until a strange thing started happening on the continent. People were disappearing from the western coast, and when the queen of the aziza heard about it, she brought it to the human king’s attention. King Amir refused to help out of fear of exposing his kingdom to the world, and Queen Onara became incensed. She couldn’t believe he was turning his back on his own kind. The queen wanted nothing more to do with him and his cowardly people, so she called on Bast again. The goddess made another realm within Wakanda for the magical creatures to live in. Onara assumed it would be difficult to get the other species on board, but, as it turned out, most of them were eager to get away from the humans. It seemed the only ones that actually liked them were the aziza, but that quickly changed upon hearing of their negligence. A few even chose to travel to the new world in disguise to help the humans that had been taken. The aziza operatives did their best to help them, but there were just too many for them to save. Their numbers were few, but they were able to perform small acts of magic to help where they could.

Over the years, magical creatures became a thing of the past to the Wakandans. They became bedtime stories and folk tales, but nobody truly believed in their existence anymore except for the children the aziza would occasionally visit when they felt like being playful.

————

One sunny afternoon, a little aziza was playing down by the river when she sneezed, and her surroundings changed. Everything looked almost the same but slightly less vibrant despite the bold greens and blues around her. She turned around and couldn’t see her village in the distance, but instead, she saw a boy about her age splashing in the water.

She emerged from behind the bushes and called out to him, “Sawubona!”

The boy looked up, and his eyebrows furrowed. He was sure he had been alone.

“Um, mholweni...ungubani?”

“I’m Nia. Who are you?”

“You speak Xhosa?”

“I speak a bunch of languages,” she giggled. “You speak Zulu?”

“Yeah. I bet I speak more languages than you,” he challenged her.

Nia’s face scrunched up as she counted up all the languages she knew.

“I speak thirteen so far, but I’m only eight,” she shrugged.

“Wow, thirteen?! I can only speak five.” He looked dejected, and she hated seeing the look on his face, so she quickly changed the subject.

“Can I swim with you?”

“Sure, but...where did you come from?” the boy asked as he looked around. “You just sort of came out of nowhere.”

Nia was young, but she knew she was in the human realm. She had visited plenty of times with her ubaba and knew it well. She just wasn’t sure how she got there this time. However, she knew not to tell him exactly what she was, so the little aziza tucked her ears under her colorful headband as she stepped closer and tried to think of a good explanation.

“My ubaba says I’m sneaky like that,” she shrugged. “Want to play tag?”

“You’re it!” he yelled as he splashed her and swam away as fast as he could. She cut her eyes at him and wiggled out of her clothes before jumping in after him. She quickly caught up to him, much to his surprise, but he stopped when it was his turn to chase her. The boy noticed something strange on her back as she swam away, and he grew concerned.

“What happened?”

Nia quickly turned around, confused by the tone of his voice, “To what?”

“To you. The scars,” he pointed to her back.

“Oh,” Nia had to think fast again. “It’s just a really big birthmark.”

“Really? That’s so cool! It looks like two wings,” he mused before his eyes lit up and he gasped loudly. “What if you can fly?”

“I wish,” she said with a certain sadness to her voice that confused him. He noticed the heaviness in her eyes and decided to lighten to mood a little by splashing her in her face. It worked, and they were off again.

The two of them spent the afternoon splashing away in the river, laughs echoing loudly as they played until a deep voice called out, and the boy froze.

“T’Challa!”

“Coming, baba!” he yelled back before turning to his new friend, who had just figured out that she had been playing with the Crown Prince of Wakanda this whole time. “I have to go. I’m not supposed to be out here.”

Nia’s face deflated until she looked at the shadows and realized too much time had passed since she left home. She nodded solemnly, and they swam to shore. They begrudgingly got dressed in silence until T’Challa spoke up.

“Can I see you again? I had fun today… I don’t get to have fun often,” he looked at the ground, and she hugged him tight to make him smile.

“I can come back tomorrow,” Nia said, making his face light up.

“Deal!”

The two kids said their goodbyes, and Nia watched as T’Challa ran through the trees towards the disembodied voice. She turned around to leave the same way she came and jumped at the sight of her father.

“Did you have fun?” he asked with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Nia nodded enthusiastically, “I made a friend!”

“I saw,” he chuckled. “How’d you get over on this side?”

“I sneezed,” Nia shrugged as she grabbed her ubaba’s hand, and they shimmered back over to the magic realm. That night, he began to teach her how to clear her mind and travel between the realms intentionally. Nia took to it quickly, and she was excited to explore the human realm, her mother’s realm, more than ever before.

Amare, an aziza, and Celeste, a human, met and fell in love while he was stationed in New York for his first tour as a secret operative. When Amare heard about what the human Wakandans had allowed to happen to their kin, he jumped at the chance to make a difference. It was a dangerous job, dealing with humans and the occasional fae, but he loved it. Almost immediately, he met and fell in love with Celeste, a vivacious and opinionated brown-skinned beauty from Harlem. They lived together for two blissful years before they found out they were expecting a child. Celeste was over the moon, but Amare couldn’t help but worry. There had been very few half-human, half aziza babies over the years, but they always took a massive toll on human mothers. Amare knew then that he might have to say goodbye to the love of his life. Sadly, he was right. The baby’s higher need for energy to fuel her growing magic drained her mother dry, and Celeste was even too weak to push. She didn’t survive the cesarean.

Amare brought his baby girl back home to Wakanda, and they lived in a small home near the rainforest on the outskirts of the Border province that he had enchanted to straddle both realms. He raised Nia the same as any other aziza child, but they often traveled to the human realm so she could be among her people. Before popping over to the other side, he’d always cast a glamour spell to hide his wings, making them lay flush against his back so that they looked like intricate tattoos. Nia was always jealous of her dad’s bright orange wings since she never got hers, just the giant wing-shaped scars that covered her back. She always felt a little broken, like she wasn’t as good as the other aziza kids, so when she met T’Challa she was excited to have her first human friend. Or so she thought.

Nia went back to the river the next day and waited for T’Challa. She waited and waited, but he was nowhere to be found. She tried again every day for a week, but he never showed. His absence started to weigh on her, and Amare hated to see his little girl look so sad. After day seven, he put a stop to it and Nia eventually gave up on her so-called friend. However, the pain of his abandonment never really went away.

Next Chapter

Taglist: @maddeningmayhem, @theblulife, @motheroffae, @love-mesome-me, @toni9, @bribrisback, @impremenior, @ljstraightnochaser

[thekingofwinterblog]

Getter Robo Retospective - Getter Robo Part 1 -Ryoma Nagare

So, Iv’e been wanting to do an overall retrospective of the Getter Robo manga franchise for a while now, and since the Getter Robo Arc is nearing it’s finale as of the time of this writing, and will either give it a definite ending, or be the final nail in the coffin that the series will never be finished before Getter Robo falls into public domain, I thought now might as well be the time to do it.

As such, I’ll be doing an overall analysis over the entire collection of Ken Ishikawa’s Getter Robo manga series, it’s plots, themes, characters, and covers the various ideas this crazy and amazing sci-fi series covers.

Also, this retrospective will NOT cover the various anime adaptations, or the behind the scenes stuff that has gone on with Getter Robo over the years, such as Go Nagai being credited as the writer of the original manga despite only having come up with the overall concept and designs for it(the rest was by Ken Ishikawa), or the way that Ken went back and added in some extra chapters in the original two manga to explain some things and to tie the early manga more closely into what came after.

For the purposes of this retorspective, I will be focusing exclusively on the manga itself, and what it has to offer, without going into anything else.

And of course there is no place better to start, than the beginning.

So, what is the story of the original Getter Robo Manga?

Well, the overall plot of the original manga is about the conflict between two sides of a conflict, as laid out rather well in it’s prologue chapter.

The first is our protagonists, the Saotome Institute of Japan, who’s leader and namesake has invented the titular giant mecha, the Getter Robo.

Powered by a revolutionary newly discovered form of energy called “Getter Energy”, this enormous metal behemoth is a fighting machine unlike any other.

This war machine was originally supposed to be used for space exploration, but due to necessity, it has instead been reworked into a fighting machine.

It’s only weakness is that it requires 3 different living pilots to operate it to draw upon its full strength.

Opposing the Saotome Institute, is the forces of the Dinosaur Empire

An empire of humanoid Sentient Dinosaurs that long ago was forced to flee the Earth’s surface after it was bombarded with a strange kind of energy from space that was deadly to their kind, their only way to survive being to use their incredible technology to hide on the only place on Earth where the rays couldn’t reach them. The Earth’s very core.

Now, after millions of years underground, and the rays that forced them beneath the earth to begin with having seemingly ceased, they have finally returned to reclaim the earth’s surface for their own. At it’s disposal, it has incredible technology, and giant cyborg dinosaur monster in it’s quest to wipe out the newcomers, the human race, to achieve total dominance over the Earth.

If you think this premise sounds very generic, and you’ve seen it in some form or another in countless other Mecha series, you are not wrong. Ancient evil group attacking the protagonists, and only the new giant robot can stop it, probably the biggest stock plot in mecha overall, having been done in everything from Neon Genesis Evangelion to Megas XLR in some form or another. The set pieces and details are different, but the overall plot is the same.

However, where Getter Robo fits into this, is that it was one of the first giant robot manga there was, and many, many of the tropes and ideas it pioneered would be used and imitated by its successors.

In fact, I would argue that Getter is the second most influential mecha series in history, only second after it’s big cousin, Mazinger Z.

However, we are not here to detail how it influenced the manga industry, but how Getter holds up on it’s own, and in this regard, despite having a plot that has been overused time, and time again by it’s successors, this isn’t really that much of a problem for Getter Robo. Because like any good Mecha series, Getter’s biggest strength is it’s cast of characters.

Starting off in chapter 1, we are introduced to the first of the Robot’s giant pilots.

Ryoma Nagare.

Each of the pilots of Getter Robo is given an introductory mini-arc to set them up, and Ryoma’s is easily the best of the 3.

We are introduced to the main character of most of the franchise at a very unusual spot to open a main character, especially for a Shonen protagonist.

At the end of a revenge story.

To put it bluntly, Ryoma does not start off this series as a particularly likeable, nor good person, as his introductory scene is him crashing a perfectly legal martial arts tournament and beating the everloving shit out of it’s referee, it’s participants, and the judges who arranged it.

His reasons for doing all of this?

Revenge for his old man.

As it turns out, Ryoma had a massive beef with the arrangers for this contest, as his father, Ichigan Nagare was a pro karate champion back in the day, whose reputation was purposely destroyed by those arrangers.

Now he’s come to take revenge by utterly crushing their disciples on national television, to hammer in the point that his father’s martial arts was superior to theirs for all the world to see.

During this whole thing, we also get a very good look into how Ryoma thinks at this point in time.

When the arranger tries to appeal to the “Sacredness” of the Sport to get him to stand down, Ryoma laughs in his face, proclaiming that there is nothing sacred about combat at all. The only thing that matters is who emerges as the victor.

This is backed up by how he doesn’t show the least bit of compassion or honor to the first of the contestants he defeats, easily smashing him to the ground then gloating over him after having demonstrated the sheer difference in the combat prowess between the two of them.

He is very blunt about the fact that he believes that one should pursue strength for strenght’s sake alone, and never stop until you have crushed anyone who stands before you. Always train to get stronger, and always seek out those who can challenge you and beat them too.

Might makes right.

This is a REALLY good introduction for showcasing Ryoma as a character. How he thinks, his immense near superhuman strength, his ruthlessness, his pride in his own strength.

It also ties in directly into the themes of this series, as this kind of thinking is essentially Evolution itself boiled down to it’s bare core. The survival of the strongest. What is the point of Evolution after all, if not this? Those with the traits to survive and thrive will do so, while those who cannot, will be crushed by those who can, who in turn will pass down what made them successful to begin with.

Of course that is not what the actual message of this series is, but it is a concept that this series is rather blunt about, and it’s not a coincidence that the most prominent of all the main characters of this series began his journey while believing wholeheartedly into that ideal.

All in all this scene is just great, and it sets up Ryoma really well, as well as making it clear that this is a boy who has a lot of growing to do as a person.

And so, having achieved his life’s work that he’s trained for for years and years, Ryoma nagare quietly leaves the arena, leaving behind a dozen bruised, battered and broken men on the ground.

Of course this display of power has not gone unnoticed, as in the audience were two men from the Saotome Institute who came here hoping to find someone strong enough to pilot their giant robot.

As it happened, they just found one that fit the bill rather spectacularly.

Then in the next scene we are showcased Ryoma’s home.

Ryoma Nagare, a fighting genius that at the tender age of 16-17 smashed the greatest karate practitioners in Japan with ease while being outnumbered a dozen to one, lives in a ramshackle part of town, in a rundown old building that has broken windows, a leaking roof, and can at best be called a ramshackle cottage.

It’s a rather brutal contrast to the sight of the prestigious, well made and maintained karate tournament building we were just in.

Inside we find the sight of something else rather unusual for a Shonen protagonist. Having now achieved his goals, and avenged his father’s memory, Ryoma is slowly starting to come to the realization that this has all been one giant waste of time. He hasn’t actually earned anything on this journey. His father is dead, he’s still poor, and his only belongings is this shitty building and the clothes on his back.

As we learn here, Ryoma has spent his entire life being trained in martial arts, to insane degrees even for an adult man, much less for a child. All for the purpose of one day doing what he did today, and avenging his father’s memory.

This scene really hammers in the fact that for all his ridiculous strength, Ryoma is a child, and he has a child’s way of looking at things.

He thinks back fondly on being pitted against stray dogs in death matches, and he reveals here that in his mind, this was all about “Redeeming” martial arts somehow, as if this display would really change anything in the grand scheme of things within the sport.

It wasn’t of course. This was all about revenge. Everything Ryoma ever trained for was for this moment, this moment of what should have been absolute and total triumph as he achieved a truly spectacular victory and proved his father’s fighting style the best in all the land and he has proven that he himself is the strongest fighter in all Japan.

Instead he is coming to the realization that so many people that wasted their lives on vengeance have come to over the years. That it was all a giant waste of time.

Revenge is a suckers game.

Having achieved his goals, Ryoma has found them to be completely empty, and has nowhere to go. This is a really fascinating way to open up a character arc, as usually a character that learns the lesson that David Xanatos knew so well, happens either at the end, or somewhere later down their line. Ryoma however, learns it in the very first chapter, and now has to find something else to live for.

However, his soul searching is then interrupted by a few gentlemen from the Saotome institute.

Who immediately tries to kill him.

Now before I discuss the next part, I wanna praise this overall scene, because it really works great within the context of this chapter.

Ryoma has been introduced as a massive asshole, who firmly believes in the mantra of Might makes right, and he doesn’t feel any regret at having brutalized a dozen of innocent people, just the fact that he realizes that there was no real satisfaction to be had from it. Now the other shoe drops, and HE is attacked in his own home, completely unprovoked for reasons that frankly he has no personal involvement in on his own side. While this attack does have an in universe reason behind it, it main purpose is that it serves as a nice cathartic moment for the reader, as while he’s never going to legally punished for what just happened at the tournament, he is punished by the narrative for his actions, which is something i’ve seen far, far too many stories do over the years fail to do with asshole protagonists.

It also serves to put Ryoma’s current belief in Might Makes Right to the test. After all, aren’t these men doing exactly what he said that those who practice martial arts should do? Seek out those stronger than them, then crush them.

All of this makes it a shame that it is horribly undercut by the one, genuine stain on the original manga. Namely that one of the attackers is this guy.

And it’s at this moment you realise, oh yeah, this was made in 1970’s Japan. The unfortunate fact is that Mangaka of this period generally based their depiction of black people on early American comics(Which had plenty of this kind of artwork), and Ken Ishikawa was unfortunately not an exception to this rule.

He would THANKFULLY not repeat anything like this later down the line(his depiction of black people is far more natural and realistic in later manga), but hot damn is it both uncomfortable and distracting to read the pages with this guy. And it’s a real shame too, because frankly, not only is the following fight scene very good as a narrative punishment for Ryoma, but it’s just a good fight scene in general.

Unlike the Tournament fight, which was mainly a beatdown to establish Ryoma’s ridiculous strength, this is an actual fight, which showcases Ishikawa’s ability to draw energetic, exciting fight scenes where action flows very naturally.

It also shows that for the kind of ridiculous strength Ryoma possess, he isn’t some superhuman, as early in the brawls he’s heavily wounded by the rather mundanity of taking a throwing knife to the shoulder. This is in general something that makes action if Getter Robo stand out from other shonen series too. When characters, or Robots for that matter, takes hits, they rarely shrug them off with no problem, instead taking real, genuine damage that doesn't just instantly go away. They might power through them, but that isn’t the same as them disappearing into the ether.

In any case, the battle ends up outside the house when Ryoma is thrown through the wall.

He’s then forced to do the classic, catch the blade between the palms of his hands trope, which is depicted much more believable than most cases I’ve seen, as despite succeeding, it still left him bleeding from those palms.

Ryoma then redirects the blade into the big guy who is attacking him from behind, killing him. I really love how the artwork sells that this is a desperate move on Ryoma’s part. He is genuinely fighting for his life here, and he’s pulling out every trick he has to to win despite his wounds.

He then follows that up by ripping the blade out, and throwing it at the knife thrower guy. I also like that after doing so, he immediately falls flat on his ass, in a rather realistic manner(he is fighting in the rain after all, so the ground is undoubtedly pretty slippery.), while also showcasing the force of the throw. My only main complaint is that for this one panel Ken forgot to include the wound and the knife on his shoulder, as I think it would really sell just how desperate Ryoma is here if we’re visually reminded in the moment that, oh yeah, he’s powering through and using the arm whose shoulder has a knife in it to to throw this thing.

Thankfully, that missed opportunity for visual grittiness is more than made up for by the next part.

Having now effectively won the battle(I think the swordsman broke his foot in the fall, at least that’s how it looks), Ryoma suddenly realises that, holy shit, he just killed someone. The contrast between here and how he looked as he challenged the tournament fighters couldn’t be more different. The cooky, arrogant youth is completely gone, and you're reminded that Ryoma is just a kid. A kid who just had to kill someone. The bravado is completely gone, leaving only a kid who is tired, confused, in pain, and probably pretty scared.

He is then approached by the man who just had 3 grown ass men jump and attack him, Dr. Saotome.

Wounded, and mentally exchausted as he is, he is in no position to argue as Saotome declares that Ryoma is what he’s been looking for, and as one of his men rips the knife out of his shoulder, Ryoma screams before losing consciousness from the pain. Afterwards he is dragged into a car, and bandaged up.

Then as they're driving, the’re attacked by a giant flying dinosaur that grabs unto the car and flies away with it, Ryoma and Saotome barely managing to get out in time, alongside one of Saotome’s unlucky goons who breaks his neck in the fall.

And so ends Chapter one of Getter Robo.

All in all, other than the horribly racist black guy, this is a really good first chapter, that sets up Ryoma Nagare really, really well, showcasing his way of thinking, his origin, and where he needs to grow, while also showcasing his ludicrous strength, and that he is fully capable of going balls to the wall to win a fight, which will be showcased many, many times in this series. It also ends on a reminder of the fact that oh yeah, this is a series about one side vs dinosaurs, as Ryoma gets his first introduction into the enemy he will be fighting time, and again in this manga. It also gives a distinct first impression of just how ruthless Saotome is, as he is perfectly willing to send 3 dangerous goons on a teenager just to test his prowess in battle, which is absolutely going to come into play in future chapters.

All in all, it’s a good start. Not an amazing beginning, but certainly a good introduction to our first main character.

[sparksadrift]

Writing rant # 1!

Presently, I'm working on a very long and very complex non-linear Grindeldore fic, and it's doing my head in. The story started about a year ago with just one little line, and it sparked a whole massive world that swallowed me whole. I was a woman possessed, I fell in love with the plot and didn't stop writing for two weeks straight. Also came up with a sequel and started working on that simultaneously.

Anyways, I was not happy with my writing, and after 100k+ words, countless chapters, and two failed attempts at writing this story - I scrapped most of it, but ended up combining both stories together, after toying with the idea for several months. Thus, the birth of my current WIP, and it's one fucking beautiful piece of chaos.

I'm quite pleased with myself, I've finally got the outline all sorted out, just need to make some minor tweaks within the timelines. Strictly speaking, this will be two stories told at once, but I opted for this method because of the many parallels I found in both works, and the creative liberties I can take to enhance the whole story.

Needless to say, I'm over the moon and ecstatic about how well everything is coming together.

I'm a little frustrated because this story is going to take so long to complete, and I still need to figure out the chapter structure. It could be anywhere between 20-45 chapters as of now. I just want to finish it so I can get it posted, and most importantly- read it. You wouldn't believe how restless I am, this story has existed in my head for almost a whole year!

Anyways, I took a mini break this week to refresh my brain a little, got distracted and wrote a bunch of one-shots. Ending up starting, editing, and posting a crack-esque fic in one afternoon lol. The pressure and procrastination is real.

So, to the point - My main story was originally called Sunlit Days, usual story of the summer of 1899 with some twists; and the sequel was called The Sun's Demise, which takes place between 1910-1945. I was more than a little metaphor happy with my titles, they both represent the general tones of each story.

Since I'm combining my stories into one giant beautiful mess, I thought it might be clever to combine the titles. Sunlit Demise sounded stupid, so I've titled it The Demise of the Sun instead. I'm quite pleased with it.

I'll be alternating timelines every one or two chapters (still working out the kinks) in both characters perspectives. So it will look something like Present A - Past A - Past G - Present G.

You would not believe how much fucking work this story is, but it is going to be so worth it. My writing as tremendously improved in resent months, and I finally feel qualified to tackle such a complex piece of work.

If by some chance you're already familiar with my work, then you'll know Sunlit Days, and I'd like to tell you that I was not happy with it one bit. I tried to run before I could walk, and that became the result of a really good story with really poor writing/planning.

Sunlit is on my ao3 and FF for now, but eventually I will put it up on here and delete it from my works, since it won't ever be updated. Thankfully, the death of the first attempt at this story has breathed life into the current version. All of the plots within Sunlit will still be apart of The Demise of the Sun, but infinitely better.

I've been tirelessly rewriting and reworking everything from my old stories, and I'm positive it will be worth all of the stupid amount of effort I've put into it.

So, if you like the sound of this, you're welcome to sub me on my fic pages, but I know this story won't be ready for a few more months. I am, however, going to post some more one-shots soon, so there's that.

Writing rant over. Also, I apologize if you actually read this whole post lol.

[mentalmars]

What if Battleborn was a Smash Hit?

Different Universe Sadly Battleborn wasn’t the commercial smash hit we all hoped for. However, what would have become of this awesome game if Gearbox Software continued to actively support it? That’s the question I’m gonna try to answer. Of course, everything is speculation but there is solid reasoning behind it and I think these things would have made it to the game if the stars aligned. More Story Operations With the 1st Season Pass, Gearbox made 5 Story Operations for Battleborn. The last one, Phoebe and the heart of Ekkunar, was filled with details that expanded the game’s universe. But on top of that, it ended on a massive cliffhanger that still has fans speculating about what’s to come. The plot twist with Rendain returning from the void opens up a  ton of possibilities on how the story would continue. Battleborn’s Creative Director,  Randy Varnell,  mentioned that if they did another season of content for the game, they would continue that story. The origin of this plot twist finds its roots in the mission, The Algorithm, where ISIC tries to destroy the universe. During the mission, Ghalt tries to stop ISIC by presenting him with a logical paradox. However,  ISIC responds with some food for thought and one of them is about the Varelsi and their motivation for darkening the stars. You think the Varelsi are bad? What do you think they’re running from? C’mon, champ. Think about it! What do you think could possibly scare the Varelsi into leaping across the dimensional divide, snagging the very stars from the sky, and dragging ’em back with them? What do you think has THEM planning for the worst? What do you think that looks like, champ? Really… really think about it, champ. – ISIC So if the Varelsi are on the run, who are they running from? Are we getting a new enemy that threatens existence as we know it? Does this mean we will encounter Varelsi heroes? Why would Rendain return from the other side? What does he know that we don’t? Will he be our savior? More Playable Characters Battleborn is all about the heroes, the game event launched with 25 playable characters. With the 1st season of content, Gearbox Software even added 5 new heroes to the game, 1 for each faction. But Gearbox Software wasn’t out of ideas after releasing those additional characters. They not only had a big pile of character concept designs ready to go, but they also prototyped a lot of characters. Randy Varnell even mentioned that for a game like Battleborn the character roster could go up to 50!!! That’s an insane number but I would have loved to see what crazy designs they would have come up with. And while creating a new hero takes 100 men weeks to develop, the team was confident that they could outrun the “competition”. One of the new characters would definitely have been Nova in a robot suit. When the team caught on how popular she was, they already locked in their DLC characters. Seung Kim did create unofficial concept art for Nova in a Robot Suit. While it might be obvious that Nova would have been an LLC character, she could also be placed in one of the other factions except for the Eldrid. One of the things that got players excited was faction wars. However, this would also mean that each of the factions needed to be balanced. The Peacekeepers are missing a dedicated healer and this is something that Randy wanted to add to the game. When Battleborn was in development there were several quadruplets in the works. However, the team had some difficulty implementing these as they quickly got stuck on the terrain. While it would have been cool to see a character like Ejo-Lorr come to life, I don’t think he would have become a playable character. Maybe as a  boss fight in a controlled environment. More Features Character Balancing: Of course Gearbox would have continued to try and balance all of the different characters. This would have been an ongoing thing as the meta would shift from week to week. Better Bot AI: One of the things that was on the Battleborn Roadmap was to improve the AI of the bots. They weren’t always that smart, especially Boldur as he was just broken and wouldn’t attack.  One of the other noticeable things was that the CPU tried to retreat but would fail to notice that there is a giant cliff in front of them. Rework Gear: Randy Varnell did mention that they were looking into Gear Crafting, but later on he mentioned Reactive Gear. Ranked Mode:  During the  Choctaw Festival of Gaming live stream it was mentioned that Scott V. was working on the foundation of a Ranked Mode. This would have been great for the hardcore players. Bots in Story Mode: For the Kid Ultra reveal, 2K Games send me some footage so I could use that to showcase the character to you. What I noticed from that footage is that the characters that were running alongside Kid Ultra had the same nametags as bots would have in Bots Battle. Battleborn was promoted as a 5 player game. Having those bots around to support you would have made the story missions more enjoyable as not every hero was great in story mode. Some missions even came with a disclaimer, that the mission would be challenging with this hero. Having bots to help you out would be a warm welcome. What did you want to see coming to this game?

Continue reading on https://mentalmars.com/game-news/what-if-battleborn-was-a-smash-hit/

[aion-rsa]

Mortal Kombat: Biggest Changes the Movie Makes to the Games

https://ift.tt/3sJUwuD

This article contains spoilers for Mortal Kombat.

The Mortal Kombat movie may be one of the first true blockbusters of 2021, but for millions of fans of the games, it’s also another chance to “get it right.” Sure, 1995’s is a somewhat underrated live-action adaptation of a video game, but its irredeemable sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, left many fans doubting that we’d ever see another big-budget live-action Mortal Kombat movie much less one that comes close to capturing what makes the games special.

You can read our review of the film itself for a better look at how close the new movie comes to accomplishing that lofty goal, but suffice to say, the movie makes a lot of changes to the games it’s based on. Some of those changes were almost inevitable given the transition between storytelling mediums, while others are more…debatable.

While there are a lot of little differences longtime Mortal Kombat fans will spot in the movie, these are the biggest ways the movie changes the universe of the games.

Scorpion and Sub-Zero’s Origins and Rivalry

We’ve covered this more extensively elsewhere, but the most popular version of the Sub-Zero/Scorpion rivalry as it’s portrayed in the games involves the sorcerer Quan Chi whose task pits Sub-Zero and Scorpion (who are members of rival clans) directly against each other. Sub-Zero kills Scorpion while trying to complete that assignment, but Quan Chi resurrects Scorpion after making him believe that Sub-Zero killed his family and clan. 

The Mortal Kombat movie cuts through some of that by suggesting that Sub-Zero and Scorpion are simply members of rival clans and that Sub-Zero did actually kill Scorpion’s family. It also cuts Quan Chi out of Scorpion’s resurrection. The idea that Sub-Zero is directly responsible for those deaths could close the door on a future storyline where Sub-Zero’s brother and Scorpion unite to get revenge on Quan Chi, but streamlining this particular plot point makes a bit of sense when you consider that adding Quan Chi to the movie would have only added another piece to an already busy film. 

The Reason For Jax’s Mechanical Arms

Again, we’ve covered this story before (in a great article you really should read), but Jax has lost his arms in a variety of ways over the years across Mortal Kombat’s various games, timelines, and adaptations. 

However, none of those stories involved Sub-Zero ripping off Jax’s arms, which is pretty much what happens in the movie. Given that the story of how Jax lost his arms has changed so much over the years, it’s hard to blame the movie’s writers for not sticking to an existing story. Besides, making Sub-Zero responsible for the incident is a nice way to tie two of the bigger characters in the movie together. 

How Mortal Kombat’s Fighters Are Chosen

In the Mortal Kombat games, people participate in the tournament for various reasons. For instance, Johnny Cage joins the tournament to prove he’s more than an actor who relies on stunts and effects, while Liu Kang joins as a fighter trained to protect Earth. There’s really no universal explanation for how people get there. 

The movie tries to offer such a universal explanation by not only suggesting that fighters are chosen by fate but that you can become one of the fighters by killing an already chosen participant. That idea is already becoming one of the film’s most contentious changes as some ask whether the whole concept is just one plot point too many. 

The “Arcana” Explanation

Why do characters in the Mortal Kombat games have special powers? The storyline explanations vary. Some were born with those powers, while others acquired them through mechanical enhancements or gifts from the gods. Mostly, though, giving characters powers was just a way to spice up the original arcade game’s special moves. 

In one of the biggest departures from the games, the MK movie suggests that Earthrealm’s warriors have to unlock the “Arcana” ability within them. We’re going to cover a couple of the more specific instances of this explanation deviating from the games in a big way, but it’s worth highlighting the fact that this idea of Earthrealm warriors needing to unlock the Arcana within them was never really mentioned in the games. It’s a very “Midi-chlorian” way to approach the whole idea.

Sonya Blade’s Powers

Again, we could spend quite a bit of time talking about the many ways the Arcana concept changes the video game versions of Mortal Kombat‘s biggest characters, but Sonya Blade is one of the most interesting and notable examples of such a deviation. As those who saw the MK movie know, Sonya gets her powers when she kills Kano, becomes one of the tournament’s chosen fighters, and unlocks her Acana ability.

How did she get those abilities in the game? It’s a little muddy in the beginning, but later entries in the series suggest that her abilities are based on mechanical creations rather than an inherent power. The idea of Sonya having a device attached to her arms that allows her to shoot projectiles really seemed to be part of an effort to help explain her otherwise unexplainable abilities in the original games, but it was a pretty effective way to do just that. 

Kano’s Eye

The origin of Kano’s “laser eye” in the Mortal Kombat games is really pretty simple. Kano suffered massive damage to his eye in a battle against Jax and had a mechanical plate and enhanced eye grafted on to cover the affected area. That eye so happened to grant Kano the ability to fire a laser beam as well as access several enhanced modes of vision. 

The Mortal Kombat movie not only suggests that Kano’s physical trauma was caused by Reptile (more on that in a bit) but that Kano’s ability to shoot a laser from his eye is part of his Arcana ability. It’s an…interesting deviation that is arguably the most unnecessary of all the Arcana plot points as Kano’s eye was one of those pieces of lore that was explained in the games fairly early on and has since become one of the character’s defining physical qualities.

Read more

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Mortal Kombat: 15 Most Powerful Characters

By Gavin Jasper

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Mortal Kombat and Bloodsport: The Strange Connection That Changed Gaming

By Matthew Byrd

Sonya Blade: Exposition Machine

In one of the movie’s stranger moments, Sonya Blade lays out a sizable bit of lore as she explains the concept of the Mortal Kombat tournament to Cole Young and helps him understand what it means to be chosen. She doesn’t have all the details, but what she does know is described as the result of a lengthy investigation. 

This is another one of those instances of plot convenience, as there’s no early version of Sonya Blade in the games who is so well-informed about the tournament. In fact, in both the original game and the 2011 “reboot,” Sonya stumbles upon the tournament in progress while hunting Kano. 

Reptile’s Design

I told you we’d get to Reptile. In the games, Reptile is a humanoid/reptilian ninja who is loyal to Outworld’s rulers and Shang Tsung. He is typically described as a gifted assassin and warrior.

The Mortal Kombat movie keeps some of those traits but strangely portrays Reptile as little more than a giant lizard. While it’s true that Reptile’s in-game humanoid attributes largely hide his “lizard” form, most of the games portray him as a creature with a somewhat human physical structure. Actually, one of the only MK games to show Reptile as a pure “creature” was Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, and that design was not exactly well-received by many fans. 

The Mortal Kombat Tournament’s Rules

While it probably seems like the Mortal Kombat tournament is basically a free-for-all, many versions of the tournament seen throughout the games do adhere to some basic rules. One of the most important MK rules says that you can’t attack another realm’s fighters prior to the tournament and that a violation of that rule could mean having to deal with the wrath of the Elder Gods. 

The movie throws a lot of that out of the window. It does mention that rules exist, and it rightfully suggests that not everyone plays by them, but at some point, everyone seems to ignore the whole tournament concept altogether in favor of just killing each other. Meanwhile, the Raiden stands by and lends little help despite seemingly being able to step in and start smacking the cheaters around as soon as the rules were broken. 

Liu Kang’s Origin Story

From the very first game, Liu Kang has been portrayed as an incredibly skilled warrior who stands as one of Earthrealm’s most capable defenders. The details of his origin have been played with over the years, but there’s long been the idea that he was one of the Earthrealm participants who has trained for this moment for quite some time. 

The movie doesn’t stray from that story too wildly compared to other reworked origins, but it adds a couple of wrinkles by suggesting that Liu Kang was once a down-and-out orphan and that he “earned” his place in the tournament by killing a child smuggler who had the mark on him. The change seemed to be a way to explain how Liu Kang got his powers in the film’s universe and joined this version of the tournament, but it’s another one of those aspects of the movie which was perhaps overthought and creates a few character complications that aren’t quite resolved.

Cole Young: Scorpion’s Descendant

By now, you probably know that Cole Young was a character created specifically for the Mortal Kombat movie and doesn’t exist in the games. If you want to know a little more about the meta reasons for the character’s creation, I highly recommend checking out this article. 

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What’s fascinating, though, is that the movie goes on to reveal that Cole Young is one of Scorpion’s descendants. Scorpion’s children have been featured in previous MK works, but they typically don’t appear in anything more substantial than a flashback or vision. The whole idea of Scorpion’s descendants living on through the years creates questions the movie doesn’t necessarily answer. If anything, that idea feels like a play on a moment in MK 11 when Scorpion confronts his younger self and convinces him to defend Earthrealm. 

Did you spot any other major changes in the Mortal Kombat movie? Let us know about them in the comments below.

The post Mortal Kombat: Biggest Changes the Movie Makes to the Games appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3dLSkP3

[shadowofthelamp]

A list of Zim’s Schemes

This is mostly for my own use to figure out a ‘pattern’ of sorts so I can come up with ideas for Zim to be planning to feel authentic my own fics. Some were more implied as they’re mentioned offhandedly. I cut the ones that aren’t really ‘plottish’ relating to invading like Germs. I threw a couple of personal observations at the end. (Sorry to mobile people if the readmore doesn’t work)

SEASON 1

-Infiltrating a human school

-Using a human as a ‘friend’ to blend in

-Something to do with laser weasels

-Entering Dib’s body via mini-ship to mess with it and force Dib to get rid of evidence of him being an alien 

-Using the robo-parents as his ‘real parents’ to blend in

-Consuming human organs to be ‘more human’ and blend in

-Attempting to retrieve his ship from humans who had captured it- notable for having complete control of a crowd of humans that he didn’t brainwash and being uncomfortable with it

-Dropping a giant water balloon on Dib in retaliation for being basically tortured by water earlier in the episode

-Trying to figure out how to control the world’s population via fast food. (Considering his species seems really attached to junk food, not an unreasonable assumption)

-Saving the planet from Planet Jackers because it’s his to conquer/destroy.

-Something to do with shooting chickens into space after spinning them around

-Hypnotizing his schoolmates and using said hypnosis to force Dib to give him information about a weak spot in his security.

-Using time travel to erase Dib from existence

-Using a wormhole and moose to get rid of his bullying classmates, especially Dib

-Mutating a hamster to massive sizes, with the intent to make humans bow to him because they can’t resist its cuteness

-Tries to interrogate a baby, then dispatches with the Na’gok via stupidity ray

-Captures Dib who snuck into the base with the intent of performing horrible experiments on him

-Sell candy for a fundraiser to get the ‘mystery prize’

-Return movie to avoid suspicion by the FBI

-Turn Dib into bologna for setting off his allergies

-Find use for Mars, and then, use it to squish out all life on Earth

-Try to make Dib look bad on TV

-Sabotage the PEG to blow up the planet, after using a Dib robot to walk past security. (Probably one of his more elaborate plans. Why did he have a Dib robot, though? I can’t imagine he made it in the span of like... two hours.)

-Not Earth-related but go through extra training to get weapons

-While doing time field experiments on Dib, has to deal with the slow explosion

-Gets a giant stealth mech, immediately attempts to kill Dib with it

-Pumping cows full of sewage to taint the food supply

-Attempts to put GIR into defensive mode to make him more useful, changes a guy’s brain who sees him with a squid’s

-Puts Dib in some kind of virtual life simulator to make him admit he threw a muffin at him

-Stop Tak

_______

SEASON 2

-Controlling the Massive to get the Tallests to watch his plan about unleashing a brain-eating parasite on the humans

-Infecting the city with genetically enhanced vermin

-We never found out in Zim Eats Waffles, but he’s got a happiness-inducing brain probe (possibly for human slaves to make them more docile?) and a demon mutant cyborg squid, so that’s something

-Messes with Dibship and tries to get it to get rid of Dib

-Wants weapons from the ‘Plakoosians’, gets them. Also something to do with a globe stuffed in a fishbowl- maybe making the fish giant like Peepi, or shrinking the planet?

-Uses the skool election to try and gain power

-Packed Gir full of monkey explosives

-Pretends to be Santa to make humans obey him and build a teleporter to be beamed to the Tallests as slaves.

_______

MOVIE:

-Sit in a toilet for like a year to get Dib out of shape and even more obsessive than usual, then bring Earth to where the Tallests can’t ignore it.

_______

THOUGHTS

-Of these, three/four (depending on if you count Mysterious Mysteries where he tries to discredit Dib) were pretty much for the sole purpose of ‘blending in/appearing more human’. 

-Nine involve animals (ten if you count rubber piggies, I guess, eleven if you count the brain-eating parasite)

-Megadoomer, Bolognius, Dib’s WLOD, and objectively Mysterious Mysteries are all super petty.

-I was originally going to say The Wettening was petty too, but nah, he earned that. I still hold to my theory that that episode was a reworking of the pilot (the plot to both is ‘Zim discovers an allergy to an earth thing and Dib immediately tries to exploit it, leading to them both building machines to trying and get back at each other using the allergy thing) and it’s Dib at his most sadistic.

-One thing from the show bible that sticks with me is that a lot of plots could be derived from him taking what he hears other students/humans saying seriously, like someone mentioning cooties and him demanding more information on this strange disease. This is where Door to Door/Career Day/sort of FBI Warning especially come in.

-Utilizing gaps in his knowledge about humans (like babies being not a threat) can be used in tandem with that ^^^

-Zim is pretty competent when it comes to actually building things, he just doesn’t really think beyond whatever the next step of his plan is. IE: With Peepi, the idea of increasing the size of an Earth animal that seems to immobilize humans isn’t a bad one, but he didn’t think to brainwash said animal to listen to him. Or making an energy-absorbing blob, again without some kind of failsafe built in. 

-He also seems to enjoy experimenting on Earth animals, although that’s probably because it’s fun to play with alien stereotypes.

-He’s somewhat protective of Earth, in a possessive ‘only I get to destroy it’ way. He wants to impress the Tallest with this planet, and that means it needs to be in one piece long enough to get them here. He’s still totally willing to demolish parts of it if need be, though, see the Wettening or Hampstergeddon or Battle of the Planets.

-Oftentimes, his plans are prompted by something Dib did to either annoy or try to expose him.

[missmaxime]

13, 34, 46 for the writer's ask thanks! ❤️

13.  Describe your writing process from idea to polished First of all, bold of you to assume I have a process. I think when it comes to ideas I immediately put them in my phone notes, because I will forget otherwise. Those notes are highly unorganised because every note has both work ideas, personal shit and GG fic all jumbled together. An idea could really start anywhere for me. Wild at Heart started out with the idea that I really wanted to do three different timeslines with different pacing that complement eachother (without any idea what it would really be about yet). And Technicolors happened because I wanted to do something with how kids process trauma, and the prompt was like a gift from the fucking heavens to explore that.  So. Once in a while an idea really sticks and I open a new note to just throw a lot of plotpoints in, dialogue, a bunch of scenes and locations over the course of a few weeks. It usually has a massive list of potential titles which is totally irrelevant in that stage but who cares. In the mean time I also start to think about story-structure. I really like doing wonky things with that as is obvious from my published fic. I really don’t have like a line in this process, it starts out a pile of all these above things and I just start entangling the knot until I have something I like and I can work with.  Then I TRYYY to map out the story. I write a vague synopsis that has an ending (even though I usually deviate from that - I just need something on the horizon to see where I’m going). For Wild at Heart I have a planning for the order of the three timelines for every chapter. But I don’t really map out the scenes so much but I do write something like [Beth and Rio meet the big bad. Have to make a deal. Beth’s being annoying. Wedding shenigans. Remember there’s only ONE BED. Cops?] and the chapters are themed for this, I have that roughly worked out for the overall fic. For Technicolors I HAVE to make a bunch of notes because there’s a lot of reveals from the Jane POV to the Rio POV, and I will forget if I don’t write it down.  For the Modern Arranged Marriage fic I really rammed that one out in like two days, in terms of story-structure and plot. Something things just come to you? It’s vastly different than the other ones and I don’t need to plan so much other than arranging the chapters (haha, o my god this must sound so vague). It’s a puzzle but I think it’s pretty clear that I like that.  OK so for the actual writing I mostly have to make sure I’m just sitting at my desk and have a bunch of coffee and not get disturbed by my RL job. I’m a very chronological writer, so I have to wrap up a scene before I move on to the next. I never really end up doing a lot of rework after that - especially because I end up putting a word in that then I see is already two sentences down and really that INFURIATES ME SO MUCH, I just can’t.  So after many many hours of writing I read it again to fix typos and then I close my laptop and leave that bitch alone for at least a day before I do my editing. Somewhere during this process I picked a titles from my giant list. And depending on the fic I’ll run it by a beta, do some adjustments when it gets back to me and then I post it.  34.  What was the hardest scene you ever had to write? It’s still coming but it’s the last scene of the second chapter of I See Your True Technicolors, and I’m not going to spoil that one! But from what’s already published I think the opening scene of Wild at Heart, because I hadn’t written fic in years and I was still kind of searching for Beth and Rio’s voices. Overall I’d also say action sequences, which I actually write plenty of, but I do spend a lot of time on it to make everything comprehensible.  46.  Do you reread your own stories? Yes, definitely. Usually because they’re ongoing WIPs and I need to get the story straight. But I read some older (non GG) work every now and then. I really like my own jokes and I will laugh out hard when I read some of them back. Or read through fic and be like ‘Pretty good sex scene, for a virgin.’ when I read one from like, 2005.  Ask me Writer’s Asks!  

[worstfruit]

Okay so i reworked this using bastardized doric, which i intend to lessen over time but i think its still a bit much

The tower wasn’t anything like what Gwen had anticipated. It was far too kempt for starters, and though it was deep within the woods outside of town, it was still just sitting out in a clearing. A bit too obvious for her liking.

And yet, on the opposite end of the spectrum it was far too subtle. There were no twisting vines or dead trees. No heads on pikes, no ribcages or femurs strung up on display. In her experience, that meant a trap. Dazzle camouflage—hiding in plain sight with how garishly cute the garden was. She’d never met a wizard who grew chamomile. But even after waiting and watching and sneaking around every angle, Gwen hadn’t triggered any sort of trip wire nor spotted even an open archere in the stone. There was a locked cellar just around the back, next to the small plot of tilled soil. The lock looked rusted to hell, likely from disuse. The garden, though brimming with wildflowers, was a bit out of order as well, and Gwen had to wonder if anyone even lived inside the tower. Still, it did meet the description the locals gave her (an unassuming but old stone pillar erected in the forests southeast of Backwater), and was exactly where the bandits said it would be (a clearing found left of a fresh deer carcass a short distance off the path’s second fork, the side with the big boulder).

She’d been a paladin long enough to learn that if it walked like a duck, and sounded like a duck, then it was probably a duck. Besides, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and at the moment, Gwen was in quite the pickle. Not three weeks prior had she been ousted from her Temple and indefinitely suspended of knighthood by her order. Taking down a necromancer, one that had alluded authorities for over 6 months, would be just the kind of deed she needed to get back in good graces.

Gwen readied her sword and stepped towards the stone structure, still anticipating some sort of magical barrage. An explosion, maybe even just a ‘hey you!’ But as she made her way up to the dry rotted entrance door, there was nothing.

Based off reports, she was half expecting hell itself. A fortnight prior to her expulsion, the temple formally briefed a number of paladins on the mission, recounted ongoing complaints of dug up graves, missing corpses, and robberies from the town of Backwater. It was a small and poor little stop along the way to Capitol; one of the few human villages between the Mission and High Elf territory, mostly used as a last minute night’s stay or provision pick up.

Tangent reports of missing cattle, children, and even the infirm were lumped together due to how small the townships outside of Backwater were. The bandits, who had tried to ambush her during her initial trek through the woods, informed Gwen of an elderly spell caster who conjured demons and brimstone from his own hands. The Backwater locals’ descriptions varied from vampiric in nature, down to common thugs, but all stories had a few principle things in common: he was old, he was in the woods, he worked with fire, he lived in a tower, and was evil. Taking in the scenery before her, Gwen sized it up. She certainly was at a tower in the woods.

For a moment, her manners almost got the better of her and she raised a gloved hand to knock. Thinking better, she gently pushed against the arched door to find it unlocked. It was ill fitted for the doorway, shrunken with age and it glided without touching the threshold.

Generally, necromancers were known to have a penchant for decay, dilapidation, just a general unkemptness that this tower absolutely did not have. The interior was lackluster to say the least; a bit old but otherwise rather mild in all regards. The floors were rugged with some dust in the corners, the stairs narrow but clearly well used, and there was even a small boiler with a little shitty kettle atop. Keeping her hands on the hilt of her blade, Gwen continued onwards, taking gentle steps so that her sabatons did not clack too loudly against the cobbled floors. She used to rugs to muffle her steps, stretching her short gait to match their haphazard patterns. She noticed a number of odds and ends befitting of her grandmother more so than a necromancer; things like doilies and little dried out gourds with sad little faces painted on them, a cracked tea cup here and there, some with tea leaves wet at the bottom. Still—Gwen had been spurned too many times to assume, perhaps the wizard was an elderly woman, or perhaps it was all a ruse. Cute or not, she had a job to do and a reputation to save.

 Doing her best to ignore all the warning signs (or, lack thereof), Gwen pressed onwards, towards the spiraling stairwell. There were a few tomes laying about. She stooped to flip through one, noting that while the contents weren’t strictly of a necromantic nature, they were still damning nonetheless. Poison herbs and writing on anatomy, charts of stars and moon phases, a grimoire here and there and even one on exotic animals.

The stairs were lined with melted wax, an odd wick here and there sticking out like stray hairs on a bald man’s head. The tower, save the open door and natural sunlight pouring in from the top, was poorly lit and only so large; though there was no apparent latch door-- there may have been a basement along with the cellar; there was really nowhere else to go quietly but up. Even the archeres were boarded up with odd bits of rays poking through and spilling onto the bumpy walls and cracked wood; it made her ascent a bit difficult but Gwen was nothing in not cautious. She waited long enough for her eyes to adjust to the shadows before pressing onwards.

The next level was even more cramped than the first, and more of a resting area than an actual floor. Gwen froze just as her line of sight passed over a step and into the room—just around the curved corner of the tower’s central support pillar (a massive, cylindrical oak beam), there was a chair. Tartan fabric, frayed, with feather filling coming out about the seams and around the corners, but atop the chair sat…something. It was small, maybe the size of a medium hound, greenish skin and a shock of red hair and cloth curled around itself. She couldn’t quite understand the anatomy if it from the glimpse she got before concealing herself behind the beam, just that it was alive and likely asleep.

Gwen peaked back around just to confirm her suspicions. The beast was tiny and most definitely asleep. Oddly enough, it was also clothed in what appeared to be a little cloak, fit for a child. She could identify its head, its long and pointed nose, two bat like ears and two giant, but closed eyes. It breathed in a gentle rhythm, clawed paws and feet tucked by its side much the way the temple’s pet cat curled up on Gwen’s bed some nights. It resembled a sand imp, ghastly little creatures all wrinkles and teeth. She didn’t want to wake it up to find out if it had the very same fangs.

Next to the chair was a small rickety stool with a book atop, and on top of the book was a half-eaten apple, already yellowing. She looked as far as she could upwards. There was enough of a ceiling for her to guess the third floor was a bit more substantial. As quietly as she could, Gwen moved her foot upwards. She hesitated placing it down unto the next step; if the creature was anything like a sand imp, she did not wish to wake it. Even before she finished her step, she saw its ears twitch. Perhaps this was the warlock’s familiar, and perhaps she was lucky to have caught it sleeping on guard duty.

Rather than continuing upwards, Gwen considered her options. The thing was small. It would be a but a stain on her long sword. But, if it really was some sort of fucked up, green sand imp (perhaps it was rabid or jaundiced), then it was probably fast. Their claws were nasty and they were just intelligent enough to know exactly were to slide them between the seams of plate armor. It’s almost as if they were completely willing to die, just so long as they could make you bleed, even just a little. They had zero regard for their own safety, no sense of reasoning, and no hesitation. It would be like a setting off an alarm bell for sure; loud creatures they were. She hated them more than feral, rabid rats, and while she would surely be able to take one (yet alone a puny, runty, sleeping one), she would rather not.

Which brought her to the next option. The creature all but confirmed the identity of the tower’s primary inhabitant. What sort of old woman would live with a pet sand imp? And, by law, familiars and death magick were strictly prohibited and punishable by, well, death. Love or hate the elves, they had a moral code she could agree with.

Gwen didn’t like to play executioner often, but for her own sake, she was strongly considering the alternative to continuing forward to confront the villain-- which was to go back to town, rile up the locals, gather a shit ton of wood and hay and oil and slow burning lards, and light the sucker up.

 Nodding resolutely to herself, Gwen slowly, ever so carefully turned to head back down the stairs. She was feeling pretty pleased with her decision making, a bit clever too (she had found the tower after all, and could report the deed back to her temple even if she wasn’t the one to personally kill the necromancer. The townspeople would think her a hero and she would be allowed back into the Order, surely), until the very same little, shitty kettle she had spotted earlier flew right past her head. Gwen didn’t even have a chance to duck. It clattered against the stone wall loudly, spewing scalding hot water and steam all about. Thankfully, her armor caught the brunt of it, though a few flecks nipped at the nape of her exposed neck and she felt a painful flush of wet air blossom against her cheek and eye. Without hesitating she lunged forward and tackled the offender. She didn’t have of a chance to get much of a glimpse besides a hunched cloak and some white hair.

 Her shoulder made contact and the two hit the floor, Gwen’s plate and mail pealing against the stone like a muffled bell. She flipped herself over to throw him to the side so she could land face up. Whoever had attacked her fell by her side with a dull thud. She used the pause to grab at her sword and roll over so that it was against them in a warning. Gwen miscalculated this move, however, and instead of holding the sword to their throat, her adrenaline and weight forced her forward much more quickly than she had intended. The blade plunged into the figure’s middle like a paring knife into a mushy peach. She heard a weak ‘oof’, before she felt the give of steel against flesh. It took a moment for it to register that both of them had stopped moving.

She clambered away and regained her footing using the boiler to stand fully. The ‘necromancer’ was on the floor, staring at the ceiling with glassy, bloodshot eyes. It was an impossibly old man, clean shaven and white like porridge. He wore a fuzzy purple cloak and a blue, linen nightgown beneath. His middle was a burgeoning blossom of bright red, two sinewy legs poking out from beneath his sheer gown and thick robe, twitching in a way that reminded Gwen, once again, of the little black cat that slept at the foot of her bed back at the temple.

 Remembering the sand imp, Gwen gasped and turned towards the stairs waiting for another attack. Instead, she saw the green thing poking its head around the corner, clutching the empty tea kettle to its chest and staring at Gwen with big, yellow eyes. Just like the temple cat, Pitch.

Neither she nor the creature moved. Instead it moved it’s eyes from Gwen to the dead old man and back a few times, before finally opening its mouth (to which Gwen could see that it indeed had sand imp teeth) and saying “Is ye the witch?”

The last thing Gwen expected to hear was a voice. Words, intelligible common! It even cocked its head, clearly surprised, clearly afraid, clearly upset but otherwise completely unmoving.

She didn’t answer. She was stooped, breathing heavy, and unsure how to even answer the question. So instead she stood up straight and opened her mouth, then closed it, then looked to the freshly dead man on the floor for an answer. Receiving none, she looked back to the imp and cocked her own head back it. “What?” was all she could muster, though the incredulity in her voice certainly carried other questions. The imp, a he based off the voice, which was scratchy and a bit high (yet so clearly NOT a child, she would have to hear it again to confirm how oddly inhuman yet…human it sounded) adjusted its stance in a way that suggested he was reminding himself of where he was.

 “Ah. Er, Ah mean ye. He.” The imp pointed to the man with a shaky claw and let out a short, desperate kind of laugh, and then spoke so quickly that Gwen almost didn’t catch it, “Vern aye says the witch he mairriet fair go cum ben back fur his heid een day, sae, is ye her? The witch?” He retracted his hand and used it to clutch the kettle even tighter to his chest. “Ye're gonnae kill me neist? Gonnae get me head too!?”

 Gwen didn’t get the chance to answer or even ask for clarification; the imp seemed to realize his own words and swallowed them faster than he had said them, and without any warning, he chucked the kettle, as hard as his little twiggy arms could, directly at Gwen.

This time she didn’t have the chance to duck.

Gwen saw stars. The kettle was cast iron, and the imp was stronger than she gave it credit for. It connected with her forehead and sent her sprawling back against the tower’s wall with another clang. Gwen threw her hands to her face, cursing loudly and sliding senselessly against the wall and floor as she tried and failed to gain purchase. The wet rugs bunched at her sabatons and the tea kettle kept getting caught underfoot and rolling her backwards. She heard, rather than saw, all four of his clawed feet scuttling up the stairs like a frightened dog beneath the sounds of her own struggle. With a scream, Gwen kicked the rugs free of her feet and the kettle clean across the room, shoving herself upright. The paladin screwed her eyes shut and threw her sword down.

“Come back down here!” she screamed, stepping over ‘Vern’s’ body so she could reach the stairs. She wasn’t expecting an answer. “I won’t hurt you!” Gwen added in a much quieter voice. That was partially true, she wanted to ask the thing questions, and generally liked to refrain from violence if it could be helped. Unfortunately for Gwendoline, it could rarely be helped, and her entire face was smarting. She waited a beat for a response and then began trudging up the stairs, ignoring the dull throb emanating from the impact zone throughout her entire head.

The chair she had seen earlier was empty, and she continued upwards to the third level, all the while speaking in as calm but loud a voice she could manage through grit teeth; “I need to know more about Vern, he may have been a very bad man! Let me ask you some questions, please, and I won’t take anyone’s head!”

The third floor was a bit less boring than the first two. The walls were covered by a bookcase, the wooden panels following the curve of the stone walls behind them. Each shelf was full of knick knacks and dust. Jagged chunks of crystal and spindly plant stems with fuzzy leaves, bird and fish and rat bones, metal instruments and trinkets and tubes set up in between all of the books. The shelves broke in the center of the room, an arched little cove cut into them where an oil lamp hung unlit. Beneath was a small table with various, incriminating things on it, like mortars and pestles and scales, all kinds of little glass vials and broken bottles, quills in dried inkwells. Enough to convince any layman of Vern’s profession, surely.

There was a latch door on the ceiling, but the rope ladder attached to it hadn’t been completely unfurled; instead it hung limply so that the rope was in a loose coil, stuck against the nail lock. The thing was still in the room.

Next to the stair entrance on Gwen’s right was a sad little bedroll, not even a cot, with bits of hay sticking out bellow the fur blanket on top of it. The blanket had a lump beneath it, and the lump seemed to have a long, pointed nose attached.

Even assuming it was out of tea kettles, Gwen didn’t want to alarm it. Instead of addressing the lump, she simply spoke with a steady, but softer voice, to the room at large.

“I am sorry if he was your friend, imp. I. I did not intend to…end his life. Honestly. He caught me by surprise. I am a paladin from the Order of Fragan’s Templar, to the north of Backwater. I was tasked to…investigate reports of a necromancer terrorizing the woods surrounding Backwater and the road to Capitol. I truly mean you no harm, so long as you intend none in return.”

The lump stirred, poking a claw out so that the fur could be pulled back to reveal a narrowed, yellow eye. This time, his voice was more level, accusatory even, than afraid.

“Seems like a gayand quick in-inspectigation.”

“Investigation. I was attacked.” Gwen bit back.

“Ah didnae hear ye cum ben in. Didnae hear anyain let ye in.”

“You were asleep. The door was open; I didn’t hear anyone behind me!” Gwen pinched the bridge of her nose, “I entered just to talk, but since it was dark I was on alert. I was told this man was very dangerous. I saw you and. Well, I became frightened!” She paced forward and stood before the bedroll, using a foot to kick the fur clean away from the imp. He remained bent over, looking up at her. “So, you are Vern’s…familiar? He was a practitioner of some sort, I see.” Gwen gestured to the room around her.

The imp sat up onto its knees, still staring up all small and pathetic.

“A wis his slae.” He said, simply. He seemed to chew the rest of her words over but remained silent otherwise.

“Slae-slave? Was he practicing the dark path?” She asked after a moment. The imp shot her a questioning look. “Necromancy! A wicked pact with some malignant force?” Gwen pressed.

“Uh, he. Ye mean, the witch? Fit path? The wids?”

“Did he raise the dead? Was your master some sort of evil wizard, or otherwise unlawful caster? Did he rob graves, steal towns children and sacrifice animals, consort with the spirits and the like? And please, annunciate this time.”

The imp seemed to understand this and nodded slowly, placing a claw to his lower lip.

“Nay, Ah dinnae think sae.” He adjusted himself to stand and crossed his arms over his chest as if he were self-conscious in regards to what he was about to say, “He mostly wrote mince doon in, uh, in books fur fowk fa  couldnae reid. They’d pey him tae scrieve a lot, or make tae make queer balms an sic, stuff thon smellit odd or brunt bricht in jars, an sometimes he e’en conjured portals!” He relaxed a bit as he explained, seemingly distracted with his own tale, moving his hands about, “Or skin a coney--”

“A coney?” She had to pause this time around, though she initially noticed he talked a bit oddly, she hadn’t heard him say enough to catch the accent. Even still, it wasn’t familiar. Mostly understandable, when he talked slow. Perhaps similar to the Northerly elves at most, but very off.

“Jumpy fur craiter, wit the lang lugs an sic.” Fizzle mimicked whatever a coney was by grabbing at his large ears and making an unidentifiable face.

Gwen just shrugged, signaling the imp to continue.

“Deer too, but then he fair hae me skin it an take aw the coin an fur an then!? Guess on whit he dae. He’d gae an send it off tae the witch! He aye talkit aboot her! The witch! The witch I thoucht ye wis. But yer’re no? Yer’re no gyan…tae kill me, richt?” He finished, seeming to remember he wasn’t alone and looked up at Gwen like he’d just spilt milk.

Gwen found herself leaning in, even squinting as she tried to decipher just what the little creature was saying. She caught the gist of it all, up until this point, but he spoke so fast, and all of his words had a way of melting into each other, stumbling and lilting at the oddest moments. She almost wasn’t sure if it was common tongue.

She put her hand to her mouth and rubbed her upper lip. So. The man hadn’t been a necromancer. She eyed the imp a bit as it spoke. It could be lying, or perhaps not know the difference between a portal mage and a necromancer. She let his question linger in the air for a moment before regarding the creature with a sigh. Gwen at least understood that he did not want to die.

“No imp. I will spare your life.” She said, with a bit more monotony than she had intended. Had she not been so distracted with the current predicament, she might’ve found the way he perked up endearing, in a pitiful way. Like a pig spared the slaughter. But, instead, Gwen sunk to floor next to the imp (even when seated, it barely met her eye line) and pressed both hands over her mouth once more, staring straight ahead. “Vern. Vern was his name, you said?” The imp nodded. “Vern…did he have family? Friends, the like?” she asked from beneath her gauntlets.

“No…I dunno aboot the witch, bit, aside frae me an a puckle fowk, nae a body comes bi affen.”

“Fowk? Do you mean folk? The people. Like, towns people, from Backwater? Do they come often asking for things like portals and potions?”

The imp thought for a moment, his red irises rolling up to the side to regard a stray cobweb floating down in a beam of sunlight.

“Na, no anymore. Ah actually cannae remember fin we haed ane. Mebbe aroon lest hairst.”

“Huh?”

“Hairst! Neeps n pumpkins, ye ken?”

“Pumpkins.” She was losing patience. Luckily, Gwen dealt with her fair share of Northerners while posted at the wall, though the conversations were often limited to work related issues. “H-harvest? You mean the autumn, when the leaves fall?” Fizzle nodded excitedly. And in turn, Gwen nodded solemnly, then stood to pace in front of the imp. His head trailed after her movements. “Okay. Yes. We are getting somewhere, despite the clear barrier of tongues. And you, what is your name?”

“Fizzle.”

“Fizzle. Good. Yes. Were you, fond? Of Vern?”

Fizzle simply shook his head, a definite ‘NO’.

“He enslaved you, you said? Made you do things against your will and skin rabbits for no pay?”

“He foond me innae tree stump ane day an pit me innae sack! Ah was hidin an he still foond me. Ah dunno how! Ilky time Ah triit tae scowp awa faet, he wad aye track me doon an 'en dunk me intae the river till Ah cooldn’t stain it na mair!” Fizzle crossed his arms and huffed, looking away for a moment to consider his words before looking back up to the woman. “Aye, he did bad magick. But nae daith magicks.”

Gwen leaned forward excitedly, latching onto one of Fizzle’s words. “Okay, okay, so…would you perhaps say that he was a bad man? A mean man?” she asked, eyeing one of the many decorative squashes peppering the tower. It stared back at her.

“He wis mean an he lovit tae zap fin ah let kettle fussle afore fly cup. Een time he gart me boo like a bench, ower on ma hands an knees an he dane putten his feet on ma back, aw kis ah accidentally brunt his favourite stool!”

Gwen nodded eagerly as she walked around the room, and continued shaking her head to herself well after Fizzle had finished speaking. There was ample evidence supporting Vern’s ‘treachery’. From his choice in literature to the indentured servitude of a sick sand imp! Gwen was smiling to herself as she considered this: he probably enchanted the poor beast to make it sentient (and green)! She was sure the Order would not be pleased about that in the least. Truly a vile, vile man!

“Okay! Great.” She clapped her gloved hands together with a metallic smack, startling Fizzle; “Well, there we have it, my little friend! I came to investigate Vern. I followed the tips of the towns people, and two unscrupulous bandits who tried to accost me on the road here! They told me of his ways, how he had devils shooting fire from their hands. I entered his tower in search of him, just to talk! To confront him, and yet the coward attacked me without warning.” She paused her theatrics to turn and look at Fizzle, eliciting a nod from him which made her assume he was following along and compliant. “So I defended myself! And rightfully so, as I come to find, he’s put some sort of evil enchantment on you, to make you walk upright and wear clothes and speak as if you’re a regular halfling! What other forest critters he must have tortured!” Fizzle raised a brow ridge at this, but Gwen continued on, “The townsfolk will be happy to be rid of that man, of this I am certain.”

“Fit div ye mean, enhancement? On me?” he looked himself over, but saw nothing awry.

Gwen bit her lip. Was it cruel to tell a donkey it’s true nature? Certainly not if it, as donkeys ordinarily cannot understand you. But a talking donkey? Who ever heard of such a thing. Informing poor Fizzle as to what he was seemed akin to kicking a puppy begging for scraps. Needless cruelty (and Gwen had her fill of that for the day). But the imp just looked up to her, and despite her best efforts, she found herself relenting. She figured he deserved to know, and besides, she liked animals quite a lot.

“Well, you are but an imp, are you not? Never in my days have I encountered a walking, talking imp. Let alone a green one! And so far north.”

Fizzle was shaking his head before Gwen was even finished, “Am fae wye wye up north, past the waa.” Fizzle considered this for a second as he noted Gwen’s confusion, “The big, lang rock. Miekle rocks n sic! Man made.”

“The wall?”

“Aye! The waa. Vern wis buying dwarven wares n fit not, fin he fand me up near the mountains. Aire’s a lot o’ ma kin up aire. The caves an moors are ours. Belong tae us.”

“The north? The Great North, with dwarves?! I’ve never heard of sand imps living anywhere but south! In the salt flats and around the shores with those wild folk.” Now Gwen was shaking her head. “That would explain the accent, however.”

“Nae wi Dwarves, no, jis near tham. We hate dwarves an they hate us, an ah div nae ken fit the fuck an imp is, bit am a goblin, lady. A’ve nivver been faarer sooth nor here.”

“Repeat that last bit, where you just cursed at me.” Gwen asked, impassively. She was staring past the little thing, gears turning in her head trying to work out what he was saying.

“Err, Dwarves, richt? Sae, they hate me, an I hate ‘em. Dunno if they name us ‘imp’, bit Aim tellin ye, Aim a goblin.”

Gwen shook her head dismissively—semantics didn’t matter, and she was certain that whatever a ‘goblin’ called itself didn’t change the fact that it was an imp. She knew there were multiple tribes of elves who looked different enough from one another, and humans and halflings and dwarves had the tendency to range from an alabaster white to deep, rich browns and near blacks depending where they lived. Maybe sand imps weren’t just confined to the sands! Maybe they could be green?

“No matter, Fizzle, let’s just keep this between you and I. Those I answer too are not particularly fond of Northerners, and will have a much easier time understanding sand imps.” She filed away his strange account for later consideration; more important was the matter of staging the scene. Fizzle shrugged and continued to look up to her expectantly. It dawned on her that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. If the town’s excuse for law enforcement came to access the scene, they would surely want to get rid of the little guy. Gwen sort of pitied him. He had been helpful despite the kettle incident, and she didn’t exactly want to send him from his recent slavery straight to death. “But we will worry about that when the time comes. For now, I need your help.”

 Gwen was not proud of this talent, no, but she recognized it as a valuable one nonetheless.

Over years of training under Thalodin Lldewig, she had learned many ways to…suggest things. Through dress, body language, gesture, facial expression, choosing words, and perhaps most importantly, through setting up bodies of evidence (as well as literal, dead bodies) to insinuate. Certain things. Many things. In fact, according to Thalodin, you could say just about anything, without actually ever saying a word. Things that may benefit him, and keep any officials outside (or sometimes, even inside) the Order from asking too many unnecessary questions.

Gwen didn’t like to think of this as lying. She detested lying. Every time she muttered even a white lie, she could feel the eyes of her patron saint burning a hole through her, even from a young age before she ever committed herself to the Order. But again, her mentor had the unfortunate habit of stretching the truth to such a degree that he was ‘forced’ to stage the occasional ‘crime scene’ in a way that may have ‘flattered’ him more than it should have.

It was something that took Gwen quite a while to come to terms with, but eventually, it rubbed off on her. She didn’t like to steal, to cheat or lie or kill, yet situations like Vern’s had been requiring her to do just that as of late.

She thought about her recent expulsion. The shame made her stomach sink and cheeks burn bright. But then the anger set in. Gwendoline was far from perfect and she was so keenly aware of this. It didn’t bother her, if anything it was a reminder and motivation to continue striving for grace; to earn redemption and pass it along to others who needed it more. There was nothing she hated more than injustice and while she knew it was not her place to enact revenge, seeing such wild imbalances in power such as the Elven nobility or even among her own temple’s magistrate made her blood boil.

So she killed an elderly man? It was an accident, and it was done. If she was smart, it could benefit her, and even Fizzle (though admittedly, she was far less concerned about that if she were being honest.) It would quell the minds of the townspeople and perhaps scare off whatever else was lurking in the wood.

She considered these things as she dragged Vern out of the tower. Fizzle helped Gwen to locate a wax dipped tarp Vern kept in the cellar. Together, they slid the tarp beneath his body and Gwen had opted to do the heavy lifting while Fizzle focused on cleaning. Once the blood was sufficiently cleaned and the floors decent, he was to collect all of the tea cups and gourds and doilies in the tower and put them in a sack. By then, Gwen would have staged Vern’s body; dressing him up in more practical battle attire and scoring the earth around their supposed fight stage.

[binkywinky]

hi! Comics rec anon here! to answer your question, I'm not entirely new to comics, have read a few but not enough to say I have a specific type. The first series I read was all the jessica jones comics which I really liked, also the miles morales series which i enjoyed and the spidergwen series which was cute but the art was kinda annoying lol. i also like a couple of dc ones like mister miracle. so i think i prefer a general rec from you since the comics world is so big. thanks in advance!

Got it. Hmm… let’s see. It’s probably easiest to break it down by publisher then. I’ll try to give a mix of ongoing, finished, and “classic” stories. 

Fair warning, I read a lot of comics (probably about 60 per month, and that’s not including manga), so even though this may feel like a long list, it’s short for me.

Marvel

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - Relatively new series, and it’s been fantastic so far. Great art, and a bit more grounded than the Amazing Spider-Man run (which is also great). Stellar art, too.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man - A little YA-ish at times, but overall enjoyable. You get to see a lot more of Miles’ personality in this one, which is always fun.

Superior Spider-Man - Because nothing is more fun than seeing a semi-reformed Otto Octavius try to be a hero.

Captain Marvel - Kelly Thompson does a phenomenal job with this series. She has a great hold of Carol’s voice. Would highly recommend Kelly Sue Deconnick and Margaret Stohl’s previous runs to give context (Captain Marvel 2012-2017, Mighty Captain Marvel, and The Life of Captain Marvel).

Jessica Jones - Not sure if you’ve read Kelly Thompson’s recent run or just Bendis’, but hers is definitely worth a read.

Avengers (2019) - actually a solid run. I would check this out if you’re more into crossover, large-scale storytelling. They’re in the middle of War of the Realms, though… so maybe wait until like August or September?

Immortal Hulk, Daredevil, and X-23 - also good. I read them off and on (not really my fave characters to read on their own, I enjoy them in ensembles), but the stories are solid.

Rogue & Gambit - mini series that I absolutely love by Kelly Thompson (she does great character work) that came out last year. Mr. & Mrs. X is a follow-up to it and also tons of fun (nearing its end as well). 

Runaways - I fell off of this when Brian K. Vaughn left, but I can say up through his run ended is well worth the read.

As far as classic stories, Infinity Gauntlet, The Dark Phoenix Saga, X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, Secret Invasion, and Secret Wars would be my first recommendations.

I would’ve recommended Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, but maybe wait on that. It’s about to end soon and transition to just Ghost Spider (where she leaves Earth-65 and comes to Earth-616 where Peter and Miles are). Same for X-Men. I’m currently reading Uncanny, but X-Men is about to be overhauled soon. So probably hold on that front.

DC/Vertigo

Honestly, not the biggest DC fan (I lean more towards Vertigo actually), but there are a few that I enjoy.

Action Comics (starting at #1000) - I am not a Superman fan, but I enjoy this series, which says a lot. I enjoy what Bendis is doing with him in this run.

Naomi - a new series, also by Bendis, following the story of a young Black girl who is investigating the circumstances around her adoption. Don’t want to give too much away, but probably my fave DC run at the moment. And Jamal Campbell’s art is fucking gorgeous.

Dial H for Hero - it’s fun. It’s weird. Not for everyone, but maybe give it a shot.

The Flash and Batman, New 52 runs - New 52 gets shit from fans a lot, but I thought these runs were awesome. Very good story-telling.

Dark Nights: Metal event - Probably one of the best things DC did in a long time. It’s a massive event that pretty much reworked the DC universe and all the characters. Enjoyed it immensely.

Heroes in Crisis - this miniseries ended very recently. It’s a story focused on a major event that happens at Sanctuary, a rehab for superheroes suffering from mental health issues (e.g. PTSD after doing something that nearly killed them). Not your usual superhero story, which I liked.

American Carnage - very gritty story focused on a white-passing Black man who infiltrates a white supremacist organization. It’s really fucking good.

High Level - I picked this book up randomly because the cover looked cool. I’ve been reading it ever since. I would say it’s weird sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk adventure. A little strong on the language, but very interesting story and great artwork.

Birds of Prey - awesome series with the DC women. A little shaky sometimes, but Gail Simone does really good character work. Her run is probably the only one I’d bother reading.

Deathbed - miniseries by Vertigo that ended maybe a year ago. It’s so bizarre and hilarious and out there. I loved it.

Batwoman (J.H. Williams run) and Batwoman: Rebirth - Kate Kane, my favorite lesbian superhero. Williams did a great job in his run (and the art is to die for). Don’t read the back half, they change writers and it’s a goddamn mess. But then Marguerite Bennett (a queer woman) picked it up in Rebirth, and it got awesome again. Also, shout-out to Greg Rucka for officially making her queerness canon in 52.

Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman’s my fave of DC main characters (along with Martian Manhunter and Wally West I & II), and my favorite run for her is Greg Rucka’s. He does a surprisingly good job of writing women. The run is over at the moment, but I’d check it out. Good stuff there.

For classic stories, Kingdom Come, Watchmen, Flashpoint (precursor to New 52), and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman are some of my faves.

Image

Image is probably what I read the most. Definitely has the most diverse pool of comics to choose from.

Saga - My favorite comic series of all-time. I’ve gotten so many people to read this and they love it. It’s weird - really weird, actually - but the storytelling is phenomenal. And it’s on hiatus right now, so plenty of time to get caught up.

Ice Cream Man - This series is so fucking weird, but I love it. It’s sorta like… Tales from the Crypt? Different stories (mostly horror) that all feature this demon ice cream man.

The Weatherman - This series is such a goddamn delight. I don’t want to ruin the plot but just… yeah. Read the first issue and it just goes crazy from there.

Man-Eaters - Sort of a niche story. Basically, this takes place in a society where when women get their cycle, they turn into giant cats and maul men, so they’ve given them pills to keep them from menstruating. Sounds weird? Wait until you read it. Probably a highlight series of the year for me. 

Black Science - You might not like the art in this one, but maybe give it a shot? These scientists are trying to solve the problem of limited resources on Earth by hopping across dimensions for new ones (infinite dimensions, infinite resources). Only problem is, their machine got damaged so now they hop uncontrollably to whatever dimension it chooses for however long it decides. It’s a wild ride.

Middlewest - An interesting take on parent/child relationships and how the consequences of abuse, anger, and depression can manifest in dangerous ways. Sounds more bleak than it is - the story actually has quite a bit of humor.

Excellence - Very new series, but with a PoC lead, about PoCs, with mostly PoC creators. A story about a secret society of Black magicians and a son whose next in line to take on the mantle, and it’s pretty fucking cool. Issue 2 comes out this week - check it out!

The Walking Dead - I don’t think I have to explain this one, do I? Zombies.

Lazarus and Lazarus: Risen - Sci-fi story set in a dystopian society where the world is ruled by like 15 or so families, and they each have a Lazarus to fight for them. This is told from the perspective of the Carlyle family’s Lazarus, Forever. 

Die - If Dungeons & Dragons and Jumanji had a baby, it would be this book. Sounds weird, but once you read it, you’ll find the description to be accurate.

Anything from Brian K. Vaughn - I have yet to read something from Brian K. Vaughn that I don’t like. Saga, Paper Girls, Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Barrier… his shit’s always good.

Independents / Not Marvel, DC, or Image

Some of these are nostalgia-based, so fair warning.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BOOM Studios) - very new series that’s out. Great art. If you were a fan of the show, I think you’ll like it. It’s a re-imagining of sorts. There’s also an Angel series that just started.

Nancy Drew (Dynamite) - Listen… I could not stand Nancy Drew as a kid. Never got into it and thought it was boring as hell. But I really loved this miniseries (another Kelly Thompson run). It’s maybe 5 issues?

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Go Go Power Rangers (BOOM Studios) - Honest to God, if you had told me 3 years ago one of my fave comics would be a Power Rangers one, I would have laughed in your face. Both of these series are really good and provide the continuity, nuance, and characterization the show lacked. Fan of the show or not, I’d say it’s worth checking out if you enjoy the teenage superhero genre. Also, just some really amazing art and world-building.

Anything from Jinxworld - This is Bendis’ own publishing company. He’s put out Cover, Pearl, Scarlet, and United States vs. Murder, Inc. All of them are really good.

Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse) - This is the series the Netflix show is based off of. Right now, they’re doing Hotel Oblivion in the comics, but start with Apocalypse Suite and Dallas.

So, there you go anon. There are FAR more I would recommend, but I tried to give a good range of books for you to choose from without (hopefully) overwhelming you. And if you have any questions, I’m more than happy to talk about any of them.

[rwbyconversations]

Why Cinder’s plan is brilliant

I’ll freely admit that I can be a bit of a negative nancy about RWBY. In fact I’ve partly made my blog off of it, alongside sharing other people’s content. But I like to think that, going off the responses I get to my analysis posts, that they get a good reception. So today, I’d like to try something different and do some positive analysis of RWBY.

Volume 3 has become known as the highlight of the show for good reason. It’s the volume that brings together the past two years and concludes the first act of RWBY’s story on a truly desolate note- the heroes have failed and only narrowly pulled victory from the jaws of defeat, while the villains nearly got away without a single notable casualty, their plan having successfully gone off without a solitary hitch.

And what a plan. Cinder Fall’s nefarious schemes across the prior two volumes come into the forefront and utterly cripple Beacon. In one semester, she plants the seeds of a multinational world war, cripples the world’s communication network, kills countless citizens and Huntsmen, secures the powers of a demigod and gets away with killing one of the most powerful men alive. Not bad at all Cinder.

So that’s the purpose of today’s post. I’m going to break down, in my opinion, why I think Cinder’s plan to destroy Beacon was nearly full-proof and why it’s a genius scheme. Buckle up, I get wordy. 

Cinder’s plan has the least presence in Volume 1, though that’s more due to Volume 1 thinking it was too cool for things like plots and overarching narratives. But more seriously, the Volume 1 part of the plan needed some quiet reworking after Cinder’s power source was changed.

See, Cinder wasn’t originally a Maiden. In fact, the Maidens only existed after Volume 2 had wrapped. CRWBY have been quite open about this plot change, as it was one Monty came up with prior to his untimely death. Cinder instead would have simply been a powerful Dust Mage who was using the Dust Roman stole to gain power for herself and the White Fang. In all honesty going from using Dust-infused clothing to the Maiden powers was one of the smoother retcons in RWBY’s history, especially compared to some of the more egregious incidents like the handling of Aura. So Cinder quietly went from a Dust user to someone with half the powers of a Maiden Ultimately since most of the major elements in Cinder’s scheme such as Ironwood, the transfer students or the mech army are present, Cinder herself has little to do in Volume 1 after saving Roman and looking Mysterious.

And that’s the point. Roman’s part of the plan is to be as attention-seeking as possible, Cinder’s plan relies on Roman getting all eyes on him as he steals as much Dust as he can carry. Not only does he deplete reserves that go into the White Fang and her own pockets, but it also creates distrust in Vale, brewing up tensions that the White Fang use to radicalize more people and bolster their numbers.

Volume 2 marks the point where Cinder begins making deliberate steps on her plan. Now that Ironwood (and his ships with all their robots and big guns) have arrived along with the transfer students now entering Beacon, Cinder has the perfect cover to slip into Beacon undetected thanks to the security nightmare that is the Vytal Festival alongside Mercury and Emerald (and Neo I suppose), and she wastes no time with setting the stage. Mercury is immediately set out to analyse the most powerful fighters at Beacon and figure out their Semblances ahead of time. Emerald meanwhile played social butterfly, getting in good with some of the teams and sneakily learning who they were sending forward ahead of the matches. And Neo... was busy helping Roman and likely only appeared in the first episode of Volume 3 so people wouldn’t ask who the fourth person on Cinder’s team was. This was mostly a three-man mission after Cinder got to Beacon while Roman and Adam prepped for the bigger events. 

Even here, Cinder was already setting up three chess pieces of her own in her master-stroke to take down Ozpin: The assaulter, the murderer and the patsy. Barring the murderer (who was almost always going to be Pyrrha because Cinder loves dramatic irony and nothing’s better than a champion helping cause the apocalypse), these roles could have been taken by nearly anyone. Once Cinder knew which team members would advance, she could play around them. Hell, if Cinder hadn’t learned about Penny’s robotic nature, things could have easily been set up for Pyrrha to kill someone else instead- 

Cinder even manages to spin a school dance in her favor. It may seem on the service like some harmless fluff between the big battle episodes, but the dance arc episodes are made critically important through Cinder’s infiltration of the CCT and planting of Watts’ Queen Virus, alongside the episodes themselves letting us see Mercury and Emerald’s parts of the plan. With this in play along with the White Fang, Cinder had half the work done for the Fall of Beacon before RWBY even had a clue she existed. 

When you’re this confident in your plan (and when you don’t ever skip leg day) you earn the right to make some sick flips

Talking of RWBY, it’s interesting how they never really had a chance at stopping Cinder. Thanks to Roman hogging the spotlight, RWBY genuinely think they’ve stopped his plans entirely after the Breach. Qrow has to tell Yang and Ruby that yes, crime’s down, but every hydra’s got another head. Cinder basically sets Roman up as a patsy, and I think it’s safe to say she didn’t really care if Roman lived or died after the Breach. If he happened to live, then she could use that and send Neo to break him out before they caused more damage during the Fall, but it wasn’t a be-all-or-end-all if Roman died early. Regardless, the Breach was a giant distraction, a gambit that Cinder intended to lose. It was one that RWBY jump-started early, but the results were ultimately the exact same. 

There was no hopes of the Breach being enough to take out Beacon, even if Cinder, Emerald and Mercury had personally joined the fight. Its goal was always to make Ozpin’s leadership look incompetent. Under his watch, with the Vytal Festival looming on the horizon, a massive terror attack occurs and Ozpin is left looking like a headless chicken. People being to distrust Ozpin, the council gives James new privileges and more emphasis is placed on the Atlas military for security reasons. Which, with the Queen virus in place, is exactly what Cinder wants. The more androids on the night of the Fall, the more images of Atlas mechs firing on civilians to fill the nightly news. The Breach was never Cinder’s endgame- to quote @alexkablob, it was just Act 2. 

With Volume 3, the stage is set. Once Ironwood connects his scroll to the CCT, Cinder has access to all of his personal files, and that gives her the cherry on top for her Murder Souffle. With Penny, Cinder has just been given the prime target to set up as the fall guy for the Fall of Beacon.  

Also on the subject of the Vytal Festival, can you imagine what it must have been like to be the first year team that had to fight Team CMSN? Two trained assassins, a master illusionist whose stealth skills make her just as lethal as the assassins, and a 23-year-old posing as a teenager in leather pants who didn’t even use a weapon to kick your ass. The whole “How’d your team do?” Emerald flashes back to her team ripping some first years a new asshole “... Really well.” joke is one of the best gags in all of RWBY BTW.

Lady can you CHILL

With her hacking of the CCT, Cinder basically just needed to do one fight and then she could sit back and enjoy the fireworks. She had her Actor in Mercury, and after watching the Vytal matches, it was easy to find someone with a short temper who the crowd could believe was willing to shoot an injured man after he’d already lost, breaking his leg. Penny was the perfect target to die, but make no mistake, Cinder would have used anyone else as the victim. Heck, in an alternate timeline, whose to say someone like Ruby wasn’t the one gutted on Pyrrha’s spear in the Vytal finals?

Pyrrha, however, was always going to be the Murderer in this little stage play of Cinder’s. Cinder likely pegged Pyrrha as one of the candidates to become the new Fall Maiden early on, and if she hadn’t before the finals, seeing Pyrrha and Ozpin enter the CCT was the red flag she needed. Pyrrha was the Invincible Girl, the one everyone knew as a hero, greatest Huntress of her generation, and she was someone who it wouldn’t look suspicious if she curbstomped all of her enemies. Why else does JNPR fight BRNZ, a team with at least one electrical weapon, in an environment that spawns thunder? Neptune’s weapon also would have likely supercharged Nora, so the SN vs NP match that was cut for time would have had a similar outcome (including another water biome). Pyrrha was really the perfect person to take to the finals, and her polarity Semblance just made Penny that much better a target. 

To further my point, here’s a stellar post made by @alexkablob, with the relevant part quoted:

But she (Cinder) 100% wanted Pyrrha, specifically, to be the one who killed her opponent in the finals, and she wanted that as early as volume 2. Because Pyrrha is the Invincible Girl, she’s the greatest huntress of her generation, she’s the world’s icon, she’s a hero in the making, she’s on the cover of every Pumpkin Pete’s Marshmallow Flakes box. And Cinder wanted to take that image and tear it down for the entire world to see.

So when the finals came around, after the crowd had already seen barbarism from Yang, Pyrrha’s shoddy mental state after the last few days combined with Emerald’s Semblance to make a show no one ever forgot. 

Once the Fall kicked off, everything went straight to hell in a handbasket. The mechs went rogue, Adam’s White Fang brought Grimm in and caused chaos while an army of Grimm charged Vale. Cinder cut the broadcast on Atlesian mechs firing on civilians, all while delivering a monologue that nailed home just how utterly screwed everyone was. The Huntsmen were scattered, and the fleet was firing on itself thanks to Roman. 

Which let Cinder lead Ozpin into the final stage of her plan. 

Cinder needed Ozpin to come out onto the battlefield, so that the CCT would be unguarded. Ozpin would be forced to choose between the people he swore to protect, the citizens and Huntsmen who he tries to care for as people and as children, and a sickly, dying woman. If he wasn’t there, her chances of finding Amber and killing her skyrocketed. The only way it could be better was if Ozpin basically led her right to the Maiden-

Well, well, well. YOU HAD ONE JOB, JAUNE.

And with that arrow, Cinder wins. She’s got this in the bag, she just got the full Maiden powerset, Ozpin is alone because his need to put The Men First meant that he sent Qrow and Glynda into the city instead of staying with him to protect Amber and the Vale Relic. As an aside, look at their faces.

As @ozcarpin pointed out in this post that I took some notes from:

The logical option here is to double down on protection of the Relic and Amber, a few more casualties cannot hope to compare to the destruction that Salem can wreak with a maiden on her side. But Salem knows what option Ozpin will pick, what he can’t help but choose again and again no matter how many times it does him over.

Glynda and Qrow come to him, looking for direction amid the panic, torn between what they know are their duties, and he tells them to leave, to go to the city. Their enemies are coming for the vault, and they don’t know how many of them there are, how powerful the opposition might be, but Ozpin chooses to go alone. Cinder later calls it arrogance but Salem knows better.

Even knowing that he’s dooming them all, even knowing that he’s likely marching to his own death, Ozpin will always pick the safety of his people above all else.

And in that moment, all three of them knew it.

Cinder makes short work of Ozpin after this, even with all of his experience she immolates him. After that, before going to secure the Relic, she returns to Ozpin’s office to lord over her victory. And gee, it’s almost like Cinder’s big weakness is that she’s prideful and will always take time to gloat before confirming the mission’s complete! Like, seriously, if Cinder just grabbed the Relic and snuck out of Vale with Em and Merc, she’d have been clear. Roman and Neo would have likely died and taken a lot of the heat posthumously and Cinder would have had perfect checkmate.

But she had to go to his office, and she had to gloat. Meaning she had to fight Pyrrha and had to kill her, meaning she had to take Ruby’s Silver Eyes right to the face. Because you can have the best damn plan, but if you let your ego control you, the best laid plans often go awry. 

In conclusion, Cinder’s plan throughout Volumes 1-3 is perfectly laid out and designed in such a way that Cinder was able to make rapid adjustments on the fly. Thanks to using Roman and the Breach as scapegoats, she diverted attention away from her (in spite of Qrow nearly seeing her face when she went for Amber), her underlings were able to assist in pinpointing who would be fighting and when, and Watts’ Queen Virus let her wreak havoc on Beacon when the time came. Cinder’s plan is genuinely a well-written masterplan; the pieces were on the board right from the start, but only in hindsight did we see everything after all we knew and loved had come crumbling down around us. Or to put it another way:

The shining light will sink in darkness

Victory for hate incarnate

Misery and pain for all

When it falls...

Thank you for reading.

[nikkxb]

What I learned writing.

I said I would do an official post of my experience and the various things I learned in the month of April. (Daily recaps can be found here.) I planned on looking back at those posts and using them as a guide to sum up my experience, so are the Three Main Lessons I Learned Participating in Camp NaNoWriMo.

1. Writing Sucks.

It does. It sucks a giant bag of flaming dicks because it’s not easy. It’s not consistent. It’s not anything you can really count on unless you do it every day. And writing every day doesn’t allow you the distance you need to properly evaluate your work. 

I can’t tell you how many scenes I wrote that I know will end up deleted from the final draft. So many scenes. That’s part of writing. You’re going to write things that will never see the light of day. It’s going to suck, it’s going to tear down your confidence, and it’s going to leave you feeling hopeless with no where to go.

And that’s okay. It’s okay because Writing Sucks and as soon as I accepted that I wasn’t going to vomit out a masterpiece on my first go, I allowed it to suck. I let my writing be crappy and redundant and not make any sense with the plot. And it was because I slugged through the suckage that I learned more about my characters, that I grew to identify things they’d been hiding from me, and that I was able to identify an actual plot and actual issues and actual pieces of gold after sifting through all that dirt.

Part of how I did it brings me to my next lesson.

2. Writing isn’t a solitary hobby.

My main male character is ridiculously easy for me to write. I get him. I’m pretty certain he’s been in my head for years, just biding his time until I was able to give him the attention he needed. Scenes following him flowed, his voice was so clear to me, and I wrote a good majority of those 50k words standing over his shoulder.

My main female character? I can’t get a damn sentence out of her mouth that actually fits without massively reworking it. I don’t get her. I understand her character and I recognize when what I write is wrong, but there’s so much about her I don’t see immediately and I could not have been able to write her without the guidance of a very close friend.

(If you followed my posts, you know I met up with my Writer Friend every Thursday. The angel that saved my female character is Writer Friend’s Wife.)

WFW loved asking me about my story, mostly because I was writing paranormal fantasy and she’s drawn to historical fiction. She said it was interesting to watch the development of this kind of story when it’s something she’d never write. I, gasping for air as soon as the month started, took all the help I could get.

And it worked. WFW saw my female character clearly. She identified with her. When I had an issue with FC, I would simply talk to WFW and see where I went wrong. It was ridiculous how much those two ended up having in common when my character was never supposed to resemble someone I knew in real life. (Funny how writing doesn’t ever do what you plan for it to do.) Without that help, though, I wouldn’t have the story I have and I damned certain I wouldn’t have the potential my characters gave me.

I said earlier that writing every day doesn’t offer the distance you need to evaluate your work, but having an outside friend to bounce ideas off of does. You don’t need to take a week off to gain a clear view when you have people around you that already have that distance. I found a very valuable resource with her.

3. Research ONLY when you absolutely need to.

I’m going against pretty much everything I’ve ever believed with this one, but sometimes you shouldn’t research when writing your first draft. Sometimes, you should just write. Write whatever you need to and if you can fake it, fake it until the draft is complete.

Know what I had to learn pretty quickly? Researching = procrastinating. Big time. I procrastinated hard when I sat down to research. Countless hours later and I’m no closer to continuing my plot than I was before. I lost days convincing myself I needed to research before I continued writing. Did my research help? A bit! Some of it changed the direction I was going in and I’m really grateful I looked it up. Was it necessary? No. Most of it wasn’t. Not at all.

There are going to be some things you need to research. Cultures, history, languages, weapons, so many different things. But how much of that research is absolutely mandatory when writing the first draft? Not as near as much as you think. You can get pretty far half-assing it while you’re focusing on the plot, then go back in and fix the details. I learned that the hard way and the further I got in my draft, the more notes I made. 

I have countless notes telling me what I need to research when I’ve started working on editing this thing. That research might change a hell of a lot, but I’m already going to be editing. I’ll already be changing a lot of things, why not do that all together? I was losing valuable time “researching” when I should have just been writing. It made absolutely no sense to drag out the writing process over a few changes that would be easier made after the first draft was finished.

If you absolutely cannot continue writing without looking something up, look it up. And then get back to writing. The rest of it can wait.

[teafortwo29]

'Lucifer' Revived at Netflix After Fox Cancellation

JUNE 15, 2018  by  bryn.sandberg@thr.com  Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com

Courtesy of FOX 'Lucifer'

The streaming giant has picked up the fantasy drama for a fourth season.

Lucifer is getting a second life.

Netflix is reviving the canceled Fox drama for a fourth season. The DC Entertainment series, which hails from Warner Bros. Television, was axed in May. An episode count for the new season has yet to be determined.

This isn't the first time the streaming giant has picked up a canceled show from the Time Warner-owned studio. Netflix previously revived Warner Horizon's Longmire after A&E axed the series. The two companies are also in business together on Kiernan Shipka starter Sabrina, a Riverdale offshoot. (Riverdale, meanwhile, remains a monster hit on Netflix, which has SVOD rights after originals air on The CW.)

Lucifer joins Brooklyn Nine-Nine as the second Fox series to be canceled this season and move to another outlet (Brooklyn was saved by NBC). The decision to drop both Brooklyn and Lucifer — neither of which were owned by Fox — comes as the network is undergoing a dramatic shift amid its studio counterpart’s pending sale to Disney (or Comcast). Gone are niche comedies like Brooklyn and narrow dramas like Lucifer as Fox plots a shift to broader audiences with a slate of procedurals and multi-camera comedies including Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing. (The latter was revived at Fox — whose 20th TV owns the series — a year after it was canceled at ABC.)

Lucifer never really set the ratings afire. In its third season, it averaged a 1.3 rating among adults 18-49 and nearly 5 million viewers once all live-plus-seven-day lifts were factored in. Its live tune-in was a limp 0.8 rating in the key demo, and not for a lack of attempts to give it a fighting chance on the network’s part. It aired alongside such power players as the original X-Files revival and Gotham.

Netflix revived the DC Comics-inspired drama after a massive fan campaign. Season three ended on a cliffhanger with creator Joe Henderson tweeting out that the axing "fucking hurts" and that he was sorry for frustrating "the hell out of you fans." Series star Tom Ellis, for his part, tweeted that he was "gutted" by the cancellation. "It fills me with great sadness to confirm the rumors that some of you have been asking. Fox has indeed canceled #lucifer I’m so sorry guys," he wrote at the time.

Lucifer was one of multiple series to have the proverbial rug pulled out from beneath it amid Fox’s creative shift. Established shows and pilots continue to move beyond their initial homes as the peak TV era offers more choices where one outlet’s miss is another’s hit. It's also worth noting that Netflix didn't even have the SVOD rights to Lucifer — Hulu did — meaning that deal had to be reworked, similar to the way Amazon recently revived Syfy’s The Expanse after having to renegotiate SVOD rights as the first three seasons were sold to Netflix.