#leverage fusion

[onlygenxhere]

August brings a non juke fic for this featured fic Friday! Check out The Revenant Job by where-you-go. It’s a jatp/leverage fusion fic and it’s so SO good! There’s some Reggie/Julie romance but it’s mostly about getting back at Caleb.

“Knowing things is my job. For example, I know that you three should be dead. I know that you run cons on rich men, but only special kinds of jobs for unique clients. And I know you’re very talented, otherwise you would’ve been caught sooner by someone less good than me.” Julie Molina died when Caleb Covington killed her mother. The woman she is now is on a journey of revenge and she's just met three ghosts who are going to help her take him down.

[escriveine]

The Wraith and Replicators, they take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes it takes new people to beat old enemies. We provide... Leverage. — Ronon "the Brains" Dex

Also on AO3

[lucy-hp]

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw this picture was : a team of heroes and/or villains.

Then my mind went "I have an awesome idea for a fic you will never write!!! This team as a Thai version of Leverage"

Now my brain going in circle to decide who is who and what to do with Noeul.

At the moment, my idea is :

Peat as the mastermind

Fort as the con artist

Boss as the brawn with hidden depth

Chanya as the incredible thief that can blend in every crowd

Aya as the computer genius

Chanya could also be a great con artist thanks to her fluency in 3 languages.

For Noeul, I'm leaning towards the doctor who keeps having to deal with their crazy asses or their legal specialist.

Maybe it is the idea that will awaken my muse and push to write again. But if anyone wants to play with this idea, please do.

[grittyreadsfic]

rewatching leverage counts as fic research, right?

[lynne-monstr]

so the bad guys’ justifications in alchemy of souls essentially boiled down to “the rich and powerful take what they want.” so now i want the leverage/alchemy of souls fusion where instead of hunting soul shifter, a ragtag group of criminals steal back the displaced lives that people have lost from being the victims of an illegal soul shift.

[stars-inthe-sky]

For the fic meme! 3,5,18,29! 🙏

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

It's like choosing a favorite child! tell me where your strength lies is the thing I'm probably proudest of having written, just because of its sheer length and complexity and timeline. I think Every Part a Flame may be the most "me" story, in terms of bringing together, like, all my favorite things in a fic and showing readers what I'd learned in years of writing. And Days of Awe is easily the most personal, and also a deep point of pride for entirely different reasons.

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

Oh, the answer to that is always Star Wars Watergate, which I explained in detail almost a full decade ago here. Anyone who actually wants to do the research is welcome to the idea, just let me know so I can actually read it. In the meantime, I will think fondly on it anytime I see pictures of the original trio hanging out in the 70s.

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

From Hello, Flying Fatality (aka Rosa Diaz the Vampire Slayer): "Okay, we’ll call you Lady Van Helsing, mysterious and leather-clad defender of the night, and I will be Sir Jacob the Tenacious, killer of the vampyres and slayer of the ladies, if you know what I’m saying. Codename: the Fancy Garlic. No, wait—”

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

I've had this Old Guard/Leverage fusion in my head for a good few years now but have never figured out what the actual caper would be. Details under the cut, because I do feel strongly about them, and would be down to collaborate if anyone can tell me what the actual caper would be.

The premise is that Nate's backstory is exactly the same, right up until he actually does drink himself to death after losing Sam, and—lo and behold—he wakes up again. Being Nate, he figures out the basics of what's happening (if not why) and, based on the dreams, tracks down the others to meet up.

Hardison is the next-"youngest," having died for the first time somewhere in the American South in the early nineteenth century. He's spent his immortality leveraging whatever technology is available to fuck with wealthy people and empower those without—so, confounding bloodhounds with the Underground Railroad, robbing robber barons, eventually defrauding the Bank of Iceland, etc. (Part of the actual writing of this would be crafting that backstory in a way that's not, like, exploitative and flat-out racist, just for the record.)

Eliot died fighting in the American Revolution, on the side of the U.S. He's since been every kind of soldier for the cause, in and out of the light, but if Vietnam didn't break him than the Bush Administration(s) definitely did. He switched to mercenary work at some point but has always kinda felt he could be doing something "better" with this immortality thing.

Sophie was a traveling player in the Middle Ages somewhere, and while she probably did not die of the Black Plague, she and her troupe may have been accused of spreading it. Or perhaps she just got caught admiring some manor lord's décor by someone with a short temper. Or not. Who's to say? Since then, she's mostly been flitting around impersonating her own aristocratic descendants in several European countries, buying and/or stealing art, and doing a spot of wealth redistribution when it suits her.

Parker...no one knows how old Parker is, or how she originally died, or where she's from. It's unclear if she does. But she is the best of the best at what she does, which is stealing and hoarding and flying solo, and also occasionally teaching kids how to crime. (She did, for a short time, have a mentor whose name sounded something like Archie to modern ears, but that's how she knows they can die. So she doesn't get close now.)

Key here is that the others have never met before. They've all had the dreams, they've just had their own things going on and no real interest in the others. (Hardison: "And what, like I'm gonna be friends with the guy who spent the whole Civil War in gray?" Eliot: "Damn it, Hardison, I was a spy for Grant!" Parker: "Which Civil War?" Eliot: [sputters])

But something about Nate's journey to date has them all under threat. This is where the caper needs to come in. Presumably someone (Sterling? Dubenich?) found out about Nate, and by extension the others, so they have to work together to eliminate the evidence of their existence and con whoever into believing they are not immortal. But I don't know what that is in practice, and I don't expect the Leverage crew to leave quite the trail of bodies that the Old Guard does in the movie. Think more extreme hacking plus over-the-top performance kinda con—very Leverage, minimal actual non-Eliot violence.

Somewhere in the course of that caper, we meet Harry, who's pieced together the holes in history where these people fit in and realized they did some good, if not always on purpose. But he's given the information to the bad guys, and now he feels quite bad about it. I think Breanna is an enterprising intern (?) of some sort who has been quietly following all of this and is thrilled to pitch in in some fashion.

Once things are resolved, the team goes through the same "no repeats" routine that they do in "The Nigerian Job," and then they almost immediately realize that they all belong together and could do something special and meaningful with their collective talents. (Plus, the dreams have stopped now that they met, so they just might have to keep in touch the regular way. You know. If they want to. Possibly Hardison is already drawing up plans for their own Avengers Tower.)

[thecoachingdirectory]

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[crystalandrose]

Bill breaks out of theraprism and unleashes all the alt. reality pines kids that are desperate to replace the once that lived, but Also this includes Evil!Ford, which- excited to see bill is alive in this reality when bill died in his- makes a deal with bill and now its possessed evil ford vs canon ford and both think the other is an idiot that threw away their chance at true happiness/fulfillment.

(More ideas on this below)

Evil Ford thinks that Canon Ford is stupid because he 1) spent so much time in the portal and wasted most of his time (if he was gonna go against bill, why also push everyone else away, all his other relationships were worsened cause of bill so why go against him if hes already suffering consequences) 2) threw away a chance to be happy AND be recognized for his talents/heroism/etc.

Canon Ford thinks Evil Ford is stupid because 1) cannot fathom a world where he is happy with what Bill's plan was 2) Doesn't think Bill genuinely cares about him, is just using him.

"Can't you tell, you're being used!"

"What's so wrong with feeling- no- BEING useful?" *continues fighting*

An issue is that 1) people cant tell the two apart enough visually when not possessed and 2) mabel/dipper/others feel bad about beating up a guy that looks just like their uncle. Stan, not so much.

I also thought itd be interesting if Bill and Evil Ford are so in-sync that their voices both speak at times when Bill is possessing him (similar to how certain fusions in SU overlay voices, would also have similar lines like "It feels so great to be back!"). They may be evil- but they have a more stable relationship so maybe possession is more of an equal control deal.

Along with the regular journals, Evil!Ford has a golden journal with an eye on the cover that he always holds close. Its cursed so only Ford's eyes can read it (this includes canon ford!) and inside it has details about cipher, communications between the two, and more personal diary-type entries. While Evil Ford still had Bill in his mind (in his universe bill still "died" after/before/during weirdmaggedon) so they could communicate that way, Ford still let Bill take over while he slept sometimes (so that he could get more work done) and Bill would spend time looking at other realities (explaining his absences). So the book was a way to jot down communications without forgetting. So Canon ford gets his hands on it somehow (maybe they imprisoned evil ford in order to trap bill or something) and is reading trying to find a way to get leverage with Evil Ford but its like a teenage girls diary or like a note being passed in forth and its just a bunch of flirting 💀.

(An idea I had is Evil Ford put something in the book saying "to allow other eyes to see, recite this aloud" and ford- sleep deprived staying up trying to find answers in the book- gives in and recites it so others can help. But upon reading it a glitter explosion happens and the words "LOL YOU THOUGHT STEALING MY EYES WOULD WORK?" either pop up or are said. Evil ford in the cell laughs and said that was a trap for eye-thieves and he never even thought alternate fords eyes would be a problem.)

Last thing: Given that the canon universe is the only one where Dipper and Mabel survived maybe?, Evil Ford's Dipper and Mabel died while Ford was away. Evil Ford feels guilt, worrying if it was somehow his fault for not returning to GF sooner or prioritizing protecting his family (he believes/did make a deal with Bill that his family would be spared). So when he sees the Canon twins, he stumbles and stutters a bit in his resolve. He can't bring himself to go against them, only when he is possessed by Bill is his body able to not hold punches. (Maybe canon bill and evil ford's bill are a bit different, and during possession evil ford realizes this and is worried).

[pin-k-ink]

another daddy hoshina and pregnant reader drabble. i can’t get enough of this man 😩

The sight of you drowsing amidst the rumpled sheets, rounded with the swell of his child, made Hoshina’s morning wood throb insistently against his boxers.

He drank in every lush, soft detail as you slept on obliviously - the way his oversized shirt had ridden up to expose the vee of your thighs, engorged nipples straining against the thin cotton. Tousled strands of hair fanned across the pillow, framing those kiss-bruised lips he knew from experience would soon be parting on a breathy moan of his name once you woke up.

Unable to resist any longer, Hoshina padded towards the bed on bare feet. He sank down on the edge, calloused palm skimming along the curve of your bare calf before gliding higher. Further up to trace the swell of your knee, the impossibly soft skin behind your thigh, until his fingertips teased along the cinched hem riding up your ass.

A shuddering sigh slipped past your parted lips, back arching ever so slightly into Hoshina’s caress. He felt his cock jump eagerly at the response, molten need swirling hotly through his belly. This close, he could make out the fine sheen of exertion still clinging to your body in a dewy sheen - lingering evidence of last night's little fuckfest that had made you both pass out sometime after the ninth round.

Hoshina had to grit his teeth to resist palming himself through the tented cotton at the memories alone...

Of him pinning your squirming, whimpering form into the mattress from behind, thick cock spearing in deep on every ruthless thrust. The breathless cries spilling from your lips as he rutted against you with dominant, mind-numbing intensity. Your hair had stuck to the sweaty expanse of your back and shoulders, thick ropes of it knotting in Hoshina’s fists as he used the leverage to pound you open obscenely wide around his girth.

He recalled the harsh growls and snarls rumbling from his chest with every punishing grind, the desperate, keening wails you tried muffling against the crumpled sheets to no avail. How your nails had scoured deep, bleeding crescents down his bulging forearms as Hoshina stuffed you absolutely full of his cum over and over, thoroughly ruining you for anyone else's inadequate efforts.

And when his orgasm finally crested in a blinding rush, Hoshina had smothered your sobbing gasps with the crush of his lips. You'd trembled and jerked with each convulsion, every pulsing, thunderous release of his thick ropes painting your walls in scorching bursts all the way to your very womb...

Hoshina shuddered as if electrified by the memories, heavy stare devouring you sprawled in naked, post-coital abandon. Throwing caution to the wind, he slowly leaned over your slumbering form, drinking in the clean, musky scent of your sex mingling with his unmistakable masculine musk in a dizzying, intoxicating fusion.

He nosed aside the tousled curtain of hair to expose the delicate slope of your throat and jaw, watching in rapt fascination as your pulse fluttered weakly beneath the thin, sheened skin. Plush lips parted ever so slightly around each deep, even exhale fanning hotly over Hoshina’s bared chest and abdomen as he hovered on all fours caging you in.

Unable to resist a moment longer, Hoshina ducked to brush the barest wisp of a kiss against your exposed temple, dragging his stubbled jaw down the curve of your cheek. His free hand skated back along the sumptuous swell of your pregnant belly in a featherlight, revenant caress, feeling the taut skin stretch beneath his roving palm.

"Still getting used to having my gorgeous girl all round, and swollen up ripe with my kid..." he husked against the fragile whorls of your ear, coarse timbre choked with quiet awe. "Like you were made for nothing else except taking and keeping my seed buried deep inside that greedy little cunt..."

Your slumbering form shivered beneath him and Hoshina smirked against your nape as he felt the first telltale stirrings of arousal blooming between your thighs. He wedged one thick, muscular thigh between yours insistently, grinding his rapidly stiffening cock into the lush swell of your ass with a low, feral rumble.

"Gonna wake up all needy and soaked through for Daddy again, aren't you baby girl?" The raw, guttural words dripped straight from Hoshina’s psyche without preamble, barely filtered through conscious filters. "God, I fucking love seeing you in this state, so ripe and overflowing with my cum. Bet that greedy cunt is throbbing for relief after our fun last night..."

One huge palm burned a scorching trail up the dip of your spine, tracing the knobs of each vertebra until he could cup the sleek curve of your nape firmly. Hoshina plastered himself flush against your side, rocking into the cradle of your shapely thighs with delicious friction building between each ponderous grind.

"Soon as I get a taste I'll have you screaming beneath me again," he promised in a molten growl that seemed to melt straight into your slick, awakening folds below. "Gonna spear you wide around my cock until you're choking on my name, filling you up properly for good this time..."

Just as the deliriously filthy promise tumbled past Hoshina’s lips, you stirred beneath him with a soft, mewling whimper. He immediately stilled his insistent rutting, eager to see those heavy lashes fluttering apart to reveal your lovely, unfocused eyes blinking up at him in hazy bewilderment.

For a protracted beat, you simply blinked and took in the tantalizing vision of Hoshina’s sculpted torso hovering mere inches above you. Lips parting reflexively to drink in the musky, intoxicating fusion of your mingled scents saturating the sweat-damp sheets. Then your gaze drifted lower, widening fractionally as you registered the insistent ridge of his cock tenting the front of those flimsy boxers so deliciously.

"Mmm...Soshiro..." you breathed out in a barely-audible rasp, voice still thickened by the dregs of lingering sleep. "What're you...?"

The inquiry trailed off into another trembling whimper as he rolled his hips with purposeful emphasis. You felt the blunt, heavy length of him drag along your satin folds in a torturous stroke, stoking sparks of need to reawaken in your belly.

"Just admiring the view, sweetheart," Hoshina husked against the velvet expanse of your throat. He punctuated the words with a scorching flick of his tongue, tasting the rapidly fluttering throb pulsing beneath your skin. "My gorgeous baby mama splayed out and practically begging to be stuffed full again..."

You shuddered as the rough timbre of his gravelly desire scraped over your sensitized nerve endings. Unconsciously, your thighs parted wider in a silent entreaty as fresh slick flooded your neglected pussy in anticipation. Hoshina clearly noticed the subtle invitation if his low, triumphant growl was any indication.

In one fluid motion, he hooked your legs over his hips and shifted until the thick, heavy line of his cock nestled snugly against your weeping slit. You gasped sharply at the sudden, delicious pressure, back arching instinctively as need lanced straight through your core.

"Yes..." Hoshiro purred in grave approval, trailing open-mouthed kisses along the fragile column of your neck. "That's my sweet girl, responding so prettily to Daddy's touch already..."

You could only whine in fervent agreement, overwhelmed by the slow, indolent grind of his hips working his rigid length through your slick pussy. The delicious friction built swiftly into an intoxicating glide, fanning your simmering arousal into a bonfire that threatened to consume you both in its raging.

Just when you thought the smoldering tension might liquefy your bones, Hoshina suddenly angled his thrusts higher, raking the swollen head of his cock against your engorged clit. You cried out in a mixture of shock and blinding ecstasy, nails scoring his shoulders reflexively as you arched and writhed beneath him.

"There it is," he growled approvingly, drinking in every micro-expression of rapture crumpling your features with slavish rapture. "Let Daddy take care of his needy baby mama and give that hungry little cunt exactly what it craves..."

With that guttural purr of reassurance still echoing in your ears, Hoshiro sealed his mouth over yours in a searing, demanding kiss. You surrendered to the possessive brand without hesitation, every nerve ending alight and humming in supplication as he thoroughly mapped and plundered. Sharp teeth grazed your lower lip in a stinging rebuke until you yielded completely with a moan, legs splaying wantonly as he plunged forward in a single, brutal stroke.

[ziorite]

sure i may be watching leverage because i read a really good fanfiction fusion of it but it's serving heists, eat the rich energy, and an ot3 to BOOT like this is literally my dream show

[sexymemecoin]

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[ariadne-mouse]

This post discusses addiction & mentions related heavy topics.

The addiction comparison for what Laudna has going on with Delilah is certainly not 1:1. Most obviously, addictive substances & activities IRL are not sentient evil wizards who have found a way to cheat death (that we know of). Put more seriously: in-universe, warlocks exist all over and the relationships they have with their patrons don't necessarily evoke addiction; someone saying they are a warlock does not mean are an addict. But I've seen a couple takes thrown around for why Laudna's connection with Delilah isn't or can't be compared to addiction, and I'd like to examine those briefly.

Let's start with the origin of their entanglement - it's notable, for instance, that Laudna's fusion with Delilah's spirit was not something she chose or was necessarily even conscious of at first; however, equally notable is that not all IRL addiction begins with a person making bad choices to do the addictive thing, such as in the cases of forced drug use in trafficking, painkillers post-surgery, etc.

There is also the point that Laudna would die if Delilah were to be removed, whereas addicts can put aside the object of their addiction. But here there is also grey area: in some cases, unassisted withdrawal from serious substances can in fact kill you. And for another angle, even when it is quit the object of addiction will still exist in the world somewhere; it cannot be completely removed either, and it is the recovering addict's challenge not to engage.

Next is the way feeding Delilah gives Laudna new powers she can use to help the group - and certainly, IRL addiction doesn't give you magical combat abilities! But a substance being abused may indeed provide an effect that the user can leverage to their advantage (stimulants for work productivity, alcohol for relaxation or confidence, etc). Addiction happens because the mind and/or body are getting something in return that feels good, at least in the short term.

I mention these counterpoints not to say it's all a slam dunk, but rather to point out that addiction is a hugely complex issue, both mental and physical, taking many forms. If you want an addiction comparison to apply to Laudna, or not, you can probably find a manifestation of addiction out there that aligns with your argument. Marisha and others of the cast using addiction to describe Laudna's behavior just gives us one (1) possible lens to orient her experience and motivations, and, critically, to envision a way out for her: to fight Delilah with every ounce of willpower she has, to ask for the support of her friends in that effort, and to shove Delilah back into the sub-basement of her brain and keep her there for good. A common adage around addiction is that there is no "curing" it, just the lifelong work of recovery; and similarly, if Delilah can't be fully removed from Laudna, she has been successfully suppressed before and could be again. I think it would be incredibly powerful to see Laudna take that journey! She has agency in her circumstances and she can seize it. Also, she still has responsibility for her actions when they harm those around her; addiction, like trauma, explains but doesn't excuse.

The addiction comparison for Laudna and Delilah seems to have mixed reactions from fandom, and that's fine! If it truly just doesn't resonate with you, fair enough - there are plenty of other valid ways to describe Laudna's behavior and circumstances, and not mutually exclusive with the addiction angle either. We don't have to pick only one way of interpreting what characters do (in fact I advise against it), and as the story evolves our frameworks of interpretation may change too. A lens is just a tool for understanding. But for the handful of folks on the two sides of the polarized reaction coin at the moment - those either overly defensive about the comparison or conversely leaning into it in an ugly, mean way - if you think the word "addict" by itself irrevocably condemns Laudna or deprives her of compassion for her circumstances, perhaps consider mulling over how you view addicts IRL.

[thelakesuite]

The Rusty Lake Story in Bitchass Baby Terms

this is ALL off the top of my head (and i haven't experienced like 10% of it maybe?) so i might be wrong but i don't care right now

the lake itself isn't, like, that well established 'cause it's a mystery game or something so we don't need full exposition. it's some deity-like thing as old as the mammoths (not canon) that eats time. or rather memories that are stored in lil cubes. and it gives its zookeepers immortality so they can keep feeding it. they call themselves the Rulers of the Lake but we all know the truth. 'immortality', or rather enlightenment, is represented by you becoming your fursona and living maybe an extra century. mr. owl's looking for a new heir pretty quick in the process but we'll get to that.

corrupted souls are kinda a byproduct of all this. truly the lake's farts. when a person dies horribly, when their memories get extracted wrong, or when the plot demands it, they become corrupted. corrupted souls still talk, and some of them are even sensible (like your mom oooooh), but generally they're jumpscare beasts or wet little puppies. sometimes both. yes you can get corrupted when you're enlightened, and right now it's the more likely outcome actually. there's a whole 'elixir of immortality' that gets harped on, where one drinker gets corrupted and the other gets enlightened, but that is literally only a thing for roots and a little bit of cave so don't worry about it too much. unless you're making dramatic fanart in which case leverage that shit.

cubes come up a lot in cube escape, believe it or not! black ones are bad memories, white ones are good memories, blue ones are connected to the past in a way that's somehow not a memory, gold ones are connected to the future, red ones only exist in my fangame that ellesian recently unearthed, and green ones are jello yum. also suck it anyone who told me pre-tpw the gold cube thing was unestablished. anyway. it was a big thing mr.'s owl and crow were working on, creating a golden cube (presumably to extend their own lives) as seen in cave, but then one just kinda appears in the past within when albert does electric jujitsu. jury is still out on that.

onto the actual narrative i think.

in paradise, you're mr. owl pre-owling (1790-something). the lake's current suckass servants are your family who tried to sacrifice you to it way back, but your mom took your place for mom reasons. now mom's corrupted and guiding you to... well, to get sacrificed for real this time. but with your powers combined (yes mr. owl was two people, no it is never addressed) you get enlightened and tell your family to fuck off 'cause you're building a hotel on that island now. you also get a tease in the secret ending that dale and laura will do a similar fusion dance to be the lake's next suckass. we've been waiting 6 years for that to happen.

in roots, two alchemist brothers get that elixir shit going (1860-1935). one of them becomes mr. crow, while the other becomes a playable character for a game. and corrupted. you rope your whole bloodline into this, harvesting their body parts (usually after they die from other means, but you totally caused most of their deaths) for a reincarnation ritual involving a magic seed (that also only exists for this game). this is where the best characters come from because rusty lake actually wanted to tell a story with this game. you reincarnate into a woman! don't think about the implications.

in samsara room, the inside scoop of reincarnation is fuckin' weird, dude (1935). the original was made before rusty lake began, so it's not truly part of the narrative, but it got folded in for the fifth anniversary.

in hotel, you do not get the backstory of the third bird man (1890ish). instead, you get to kill mr. owl's family again, but one-on-one as animal people. how did they become animal people? fuck you that's how! mr. owl probably did it on purpose to spite them with shit sandwiches and bullets to the brain. oh, also, there might be an evil twin of mr. rabbit that shows up later.

in arles, you're vincent van gogh. that's it. he's not relevant. but it is funny seing the death date of paul gauguin in the timeline docs.

we're talking about the past within later but the 'past' segment takes place around here. 1926 iirc?

in birthday, your parents get shot (1939). you're going to be an important detective, dale, but like right now you're getting traumatized. or rather you're experiencing that memory, then doing blue cube magic to fix it and have your grandpa shoot evil mr. rabbit instead. is your grandpa actually mr. crow? no. shut up about it now.

in underground blossom, your mom gets abducted (1935-1972 maybe). okay, well, not you. this is the laura backstory metaphor game but you're actually playing as the third bird man who is both her stepdad and her pet. and her grandpa albert takes her mom rose for his own nefarious reincarnation schemes maybe probably. rose is surprisingly okay with it but characters rarely put up a fight with the plot anyway. laura's a lonely kid, starts dating robert, picks up art to soothe her nightmares, gets murked, then reaches some kind of epiphany that we just train ride away from before finding out what actually happens. she's your daughter, damnit, you should support her transcendence. not enlightenment importantly. also, no, laura's life didn't literally happen at train stops, it's just a vehicle. not even a pun don't fucking laugh i see you snickering.

in seasons, you set up a really interesting plotline that gets utterly countered by everything that came after (1960's-80's). it's just laura time in there, and she uncorrupts herself, thank you very much. the series has been struggling with how laura gets her corrupted self to 1980-whatever, and so far only one other game's even taken place after 1972. and that game's the past within which also counters every other plotline. sigh. maybe we're not smart enough for these puzzle games. at least harvey's cute and bird-shaped. key point that's impossible to fuck up is that laura dies in 1972, and it's unclear whether it was a murder or suicide. that's why we get a detective.

in harvey's box and the lake, uh i don't know really (1969). these are early games that are basically spinoffs of seasons. they help with the overarching stuff but aren't much for the narrative at this point. also they suck

in case 23, dale starts investigating laura's death and gets wrapped up in the lake stuff (1972). it was supposed to be just another murder case, but he got too into it and it got too into him, so he gets teleported to the lake chapel and ferried off to. somewhere idk. he goes into an elevator that takes him down memory lane to the lake floor.

in the mill, mr. crow is really trying to clean house before dale gets here (1972). this is where laura gets her ass corrupted by mr. crow, and we find out how the lake eats memories or whatever. it's supposed to overlap with case 23 and it almost succeeds. whatever skrunk is still there is forgiveable, this was the flash era after all.

in theatre, dale learns about ripoff hinduism, goads a man into suicide, and abandons his darling toilet fetus son (1971). it's like birthday again, where this is a memory we're seeing, but that is a light distinction. robert kills himself at the bar, and we take his memories for legal reasons. there's some sixfold wheel we learn about that doesn't matter much.

in the cave, mr. crow still cleans house before dale gets to the Magic Memory Machine (1972). mr. owl's kinda sorta dying, and dale's been elected his son or something. gotta get his mindmeats. you read a textbook about cubes, pilot a submarine to the lakefloor, put dale and laura in a surrogate fusion dance machine, then give dale the golden cube it makes before sending him up the elevator again. hotel did imply something serious was gonna happen when he gets to the top, but that was eight years ago. the devs probably forgot and fell too in love with albert vanderboom in the meantime.

in the white door, robert unkills himself and gets wrong psychiatry (1972). as it turns out, mr. owl has a front business running a for-profit psych ward to extract totally good and healthy memories from people. this one is an actual factual spinoff but is kinda relevant for the greater rusty lake metropolitan area.

in paradox, fuuuuuuuck who knows maaaan, isn't it all just a metaphor? (1972). there's a consensus that none of the stuff that happens in paradox actually happens, and that it's all in dale's head while he's in the Magic Memory Machine from cave. even though there's five different endings, he kinda walks away at the end, which might be the worst ending of the lot. the information's solid though; mr. owl spells out the whole heir thing, there's bits of backstory for dale and laura everywhere. also the movie's sick.

in the past within, albert becomes a mechanical engineer for the sole purpose of making plot armor (1926/1984). yeah, remember that guy from roots? the voodoo murderer who got third-hand alchemy information to make up for his lack of pussy? yeah, he invented a time machine decades ago. and he enlisted his daughter to talk to her past/future self to grow him back to life in 1984. with a gold cube that he somehow got. and somehow his scar is genetically coded in him. and we don't see his wiggly lineart dick. what does he do in 1984? trap his daughter in a time loop then who the fuck knows. he's stuck in his jumpscare beast ways from being corrupted for so long. how did he get corrupted when he was literally buried in the ground and salvaged bones from? next game!

there's an ARG that i never saw a thing of because i hated it, best kept memory. from what i gathered, it was another front scheme for memory harvesting, except in the 2000's. does that mean it's enlightened dale/laura doing this one, since mr. owl presumably passed on the title then turned into a fish? i'd like to know too!

also, a chapter of underground blossom i haven't completed, and a paper-based game coming out within the next two years or whatever. i don't know how much they'll clear up.

toodles!

[pilesofnonsense]

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[amyfarbright]

Sonic 1 Mega CD Port

(download here)

(if you think this is cool, consider helping me find work/money <3)

Welcome to the Next Level!

NOTE: I'm aware of issues regarding audio playback and transitioning between zones, and intend to push an update once the contest judging period is over. In the meantime, you can use level select (Up Down Left Right A + Start at title screen) to explore the game.

At the 1992 Consumer Electronics Show, a teaser for a Mega CD version of Sonic 1 was shown within a sizzle reel. No Mega CD version of Sonic 1 was ever produced, and this footage is almost everything we know about this project, but it's extremely likely that this idea is what morphed into the separate game Sonic CD, the only Sonic game officially released for the console.

In 2006, Stealth released the Sonic for MegaCD tech demo, marking the first time any substantial effort was made to bring another Sonic game to the console. It contained the title screens and first levels of Sonic 1 and 2, with three playable characters. In the following years, he would build on the ideas in that demo further, eventually reaching a point where his setup accommodated a Mega CD version of a rom hack called Sonic Megamix.

For a long time, this rom hack was the only way to experience Sonic 1's levels, and was the closest you could get to playing the original game on your Mega CD...

until now.

This is a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog (revision 1, mostly) to the Sega Mega CD (running in Mode 2/off a CD). Not a mere one-zone demo, not affected by an original hack's mechanics, this is a full playable Sonic game running on the Mega CD, with the source fully available, and with the intent of enhancing the game with the extra hardware.

I started this project about a month and a half ago to enter into the annual Sonic Hacking Contest. This was done as both a learning experience for myself to learn new hardware (I was already familiar with programming for Mega Drive, but wanted to explore its addons), and as an example others can learn from.

This has been tested with BlastEm, Fusion, Gens, and on real hardware using a Mega Everdrive Pro.

Features:

Expanded Sound.

The Mega CD comes with a chip supporting PCM playback for up to 8 channels, complementing the 10 sound channels already in the Mega Drive. This port leverages that by moving playback of drum samples to a custom PCM sound driver running on the Mega CD CPU.

Because drums no longer need to play on the Mega Drive hardware, an extra sound channel was added in the main sound driver to allow for more sound effects to play without cutting out channels of the music.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get CD audio playback fully implemented in time for the initial release. Most of the pieces are there though, and I intend to add it in a future update.

An open-source Mega CD game. The scene for Mega CD has grown significantly over time, and over the years there has been new homebrew and hacks of other games, but not nearly as much done with the blue guy this contest is about. This port aims to change that; this is a full game running on Mega CD, with source code and development history available for browsing right now. Code for the kernel programs to load and run the game from disk is written in mostly C using the megadev toolchain. Rom hackers and developers more familiar with the Mega Drive standalone can use the code repository as an example of how to bring more full-fledged MD projects over to Mega CD with as few changes as possible.

Other features:

Custom loading screen while files are loaded from CD

Modified title screen, to remind you that this is indeed utilizing Mega CD hardware

Various bugfixes applied (for those familiar with Sonic Retro's Sonic 1 disassembly, FixBugs is turned on)

Much smoother special stage. The movement of objects making up the maze was unlocked, and the walls now display with 128 degrees of rotation (up from 16).

Even though I started this project to have something for the contest, I'm incredibly happy with what's been done so far, and I intend to work on it further after the contest to add more features. I consider this the beginning of a goodbright future for Sonic games and hacks on Mega CD.

Note: Debug mode and sound test have not been fixed to accommodate for the code that has been moved around. Try at your own risk!

Credits

Main developer: Amy Farbright

Playtesting and bug reporting: The Let's Talk About Sonic Discord

Special thanks: @fiffle, @milly, @crepe

Code used/referenced:

drojaazu's megadev toolchain

Devon's partial Sonic CD disassembly

SCHG How-to Guide

tversteeg's Rust implementation of rotsprite

Graphics used:

CD graphic on title screen: Sega Multimedia Studio, converted from sprites ripped by Mister Man

[mmmmalo]

forgive me if i'm conflating several different things here, but the idea that a cue ball - and by extension doc scratch - represents a cancerous trauma left by sexual assault was one of your earlier analyses wasn't it? the idea seems so ubiquitous to me now but i felt like a lot of people could benefit from revisiting it in the wake of that latest beyond canon update

Mm… like you said, you have my earlier analyses a little mixed up. And honestly my current take on the subject focuses more on how the problem of rape is leveraged towards transphobic ends in political discourse? So... perhaps not what you're looking for.

My old approach was to regard not the cue ball but the Green Sun as an emblem of trauma: for example, Rose talks with Jaspers atop a monolith of the Green Sun, when Jaspers's apparent drowning caused Rose's fear of water. Talking to Jaspers seemed to involve confronting that trauma, and the significance of that interaction transferred upon the Green Sun as a symbol. So later when Jade combines her dreamcorpse with Bec, Jadesprite's tearful inability to turn away from its searing light seemed to imply that fusing with Bec somehow awoke a traumatic memory that Jade was no longer able to suppress.

Various scenes led me to believe this was a memory of sexual assault: the dream sequence where Bec Noir creeps upon WV (who is in Jade's bed) and instigates some distressing fusion of their bodies, as the fire of the Green Sun Burns. The dream where Jade attacks Clubs Deuce (resulting in a DEAD GRANDPA SMACKDOWN in the waking world), only for CD to return later and attack Jade with an explosion of white foam (through which he implicitly continues to embody Grandpa). The point where Jade goes grimbark after spotting Jake's groin (as though it were a distressing trigger) and where Jade is, after again calling attention to the banana hammock, crushed beneath Jake's white hope explosion (which echos CD's shaving cream). I could go on.

But the above is all bait: Jade goes grimbark because the very notion of a man in panties is posed as the violent intrusion of the masculine upon the feminine, posed as rape. The hints of assault function as homophobic scaremongering, feminism of the trans-exclusive strain. Jade is afraid of lightning, which is posed as a masculine pneumatic intrusion into the inert feminine vessel -- which is to say, bringing Frankenstein/Jadesprite to life with a zap comes to represent rape, and the overwhelming urge is to REMOVE THE LIGHTNING, GET IT OUT GET IT OUT (the scene has visual reference to Aradiabot ripping her heart out following Equius's violation), hence Jadesprite's urge to die. Jade earlier displayed distaste for the pneuma via her always-ill-fated reader interactive sections: playing flute, selecting fruit, fighting (and in her own mind conversing with) Grandpa. Though ostensibly early, abstract indications of Jade's sensitivity to violation, these events also just display homophobia: blowing into wind instruments is a cocksucking joke inherited from Problem Sleuth, "fruit" means gay, Jade calls Grandpa a "bag of wind" because his cornball shit is gay (derogatory). It matters that Dirk is a Gay Guy who overwrote Jeanne Betancourt's voice for Pony Pals and now overwrites robot Rose's will on occasion because the story is satirizing a worldview wherein a "boy" adopting feminine characteristics is committing metaphysical rape.

The same goes for Doc Scratch: retroactively, he has the Handmaid locked up in a room because Caliborn got gender envy from the How To Draw Manga girl. Damara speaks in stilted staccato sentences for the same reason, it gives the impression that she is possessed by Lord English, that some insidious masculine force is speaking through her. Which again: transphobia. Or rather dysphoria, in this case, which was a major point of discussion in Openbound -- anxieties about internal and external reproach for expressing yourself abound, the imminent Rufioh/Horuss breakup represents bodily dysmorphia... I've talked about that elsewhere. The main point is illustrated by 583 of Problem Sleuth, where Nervous Broad (essentially a trans woman) looks into the mirror and sees a horrendous beast. This is why the Handmaid cannot escape Lord English: he is how she sees herself. The big bad of Homestuck, the embodiment of all that is foul of patriarchy, is an embodiment of transfeminine self-loathing, or more generally the picture of trans women that transmisogynists like to paint.

Vriska has a conversation with June about how she doesn't actually want to indulge her violent tendencies, how she thinks a life of peace could actually be the way to go. As she says all these, we are treated to a shot of Vriska's red boots crossed in such a way that a huge red X is imposed over her groin: this conversation is about dysphoria! Vriska implicitly declares violence and aggression to be phallic -- an association strengthen by the sexed roles of moirallegiance, in which women must sooth violent men. Elsewhere in the story, Vriska's seemingly inescapable violent tendencies are embodied by Doc Scratch -- therefore he is, in essence, Vriska's phallus, which she resents even as she is compelled to obey its directives.

There's actually a bit with Jake where the cue ball (or rather, a tower orb that resembles a cue ball) is used to represent a dick: "The space in your inventory is mainly hogged up by one incredibly huge thing. You guess you should get rid of it. But you can’t shake the feeling you might need it someday, and you don’t want to risk ditching it and be caught with your pants down later." As Spidergirl shoots her webbing on the floor nearby, Jake briefly considers losing the dick. That Doc Scratch's head is a nuclear bomb makes this motif coincide nicely with Jake's association with the irradiated dick of Doctor Manhattan (and Hulk), which as you've pointed out before was used in Watchmen to illustrate homophobic scaremongering.

Or hey, let's try to establish a new connection between Doc Scratch and Bec: perhaps epilogue!Jade's dog dick, was already present from the moment Jadesprite was born. Perhaps the anger Jade feels toward this newly formed phallic woman (who she calls a pansy) is informed by the contempt she expressed for fursuits, and how the people within them are dumb to think that makes them real animals -- a transphobic barb followed in short order by more slander for Grandpa, a hunter who skins animals and places the pelts by armor and portraits of women. Perhaps all this drama is condensed on page 6630, where Jake's big gay Hope bubble crushes Jade's green fireball, forming a portrait of Doc Scratch.

Perhaps we should pronounce "Doc Scratch" with an English accent, so that it becomes "Dog's Crotch".