#like *spoilers* but partners in crime(fighting) has a time element to it too | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

danny-chase · 3 years

Note

Regarding Robin & Batman #1 I kinda bit admit there were two elements of it that kinda bit threw me off about it

1) The use of the ‘Soldier’ term in which Brice describes Dick, in which in general regarding Bat-lore has always made me cringe a bit given of its connotation that suggests Dick and the other Robins have far less agency in their lives and their decisions regarding crime-fighting, making Bruce look like as if he sees Robin not as a mostly equal partner but an expendable assent to his war on crime, tying into…

2) Bruce‘s seemingly cold blooded and authoritarian parenting in which seems like Dick is just one bad notch on the crime fighting field away from Bruce outright sending him back to the orphanage and disowning him. Now his attempt to make up for it with the upgraded suit might seem nice until you realize he looked through Dick’s journal without permission, leaving the latter in an even worse emotional spot than he was beforehand.

Now I could be talking out of my butt here but I wouldn’t be surprised if next issue has Dick straight up sneak out of Wayne Manor, no Robin suit at all to prove himself and just get away from Batman yet it’ll frame him as being in the wrong for doing so. Again, this is just me talking out of my butt here, but I just needed to vent those feelings regarding this book.

If you like it all the way though, I have no problems with that, you’re free to like what you like ;-)

But hey, still better than the Seeley book at the moment

With all due respect i do disagree (I like this comic all the way) and putting it under cut for spoilers.

1) Bruce never addresses Dick as a soldier in this comic. That distinction is made by Alfred who is calling out Bruce's harsh behavior. Bruce says "This only works if he has the armor he needs to survive out there. I won't put a child in danger. He needs to become something more." and later "Leniency would have gotten him killed by the truck driver. Leniency would mean me bringing home a dead child." While this isn't the best version of Bruce being presented I think his motivations make sense and are in character with the Bruce we've seen in modern comics up to date. Dick's not really supposed to be an equal partner here, he's a ten to eight year old still in training.

2) I don't think Bruce is being written as irredeemable in this comic. Maybe its because i've read so many bad dad Bruce comics that my standards are in hell (and i can understand being wary because comics are comics), but the opening scene to me reads as Bruce nagging Dick because he's worried (ie: "Knife! Behind you!" and "Careful!" sandwich the "you're not paying attention" remark). It reads to me that Bruce is antsy about Dick being on his own, hence why he barges in. He's angry when he shows up and is curt because he watched Dick almost get knifed by the driver. (This is my interpretation of the comic, a good story can still have multiple interpretations though.) From there when they drive home, Bruce is still angry and he probably is trying to cool down when Dick tries to talk with him. In this case, it almost seems like Bruce is using the incident as an excuse to cancel everything because he's nervous. "You almost got yourself killed! I knew you weren't ready." The first line states what happens, the second line is Bruce using the incident to get what he really wants - Dick to stay home "You need more training. More discipline. I'm sorry, but it's too soon. We need to take a step back." (dang when was the last time i heard Bruce apologize). His response to Dick later seems childish - "Your behavior is only proving me right! Having a tantrum like a damned child!" - he definitely should not swear at Dick, but when I read this I still just see someone snapping because someone they care about almost died and are trying to use that to justify keeping said person in so it can't happen again. Next we have the conversation discussed in 1). Dick reads this all as mistrust, but we know that that's not true because Bruce made the suit for him. The suit pretty much symbolizes to me that Bruce cares, Bruce trusts Dick, and he trusts him in his own way. Moving on. The next time we see Bruce he has his own internal monologue saying "I was so worried about how the boy was doing that I missed something." Which reinforces my interpretation of things. It seems to me that Bruce projects on Dick a lot in this story - in terms of the whole "he has to become more" thing, I think this is Bruce thinking about his own journey - and he knows his journey was dangerous so he's trying his best to give Dick exactly what he needed back when he was a child. Bruce needed to become more, so Bruce thinks Dick needs to become more as well. Bruce is pushing Dick, because Bruce wishes someone would have pushed him. Bruce distracts Dick with training, because that's what he needed. And like. To me that doesn't make Bruce a bad person. He's not a great parent, mind you, but he's not doing it because he's a cruel person (like ASBR). He's also young when he meets Dick, he was not really ready for having a child, and I have hopes for this version of Bruce to grow and understand Dick better. And he's trying to understand Dick better - he read Dick's journal so he can understand Dick better (he missed the whole personal space thing - but that's a boundary that a LOT of parents struggle with - my parents are good parents and they struggle with this too with me and my siblings, so that whole scene hit me right in the feels because it's just classic parent/child struggles). Bruce and Dick are both rough around the edges in this but to me it still feels like Bruce is trying - he takes Alfred's advice after all "Perhaps the answer is letting him be who he is." I did not get the sense that Bruce has any desire to send Dick back to the orphanage in this. The two times we saw him react harshly were in direct response to Dick almost getting killed, and it feels to me like this is a struggling single parent rather than an abusive/neglectful asshole. Like to me he just seems genuinely surprised/shocked by Dick's reaction to the Robin suit "But I thought this was what you wanted? It -- it was a gift." because he thought Dick understood that there were no secrets between them. I would dislike Bruce keeping a secret from Dick in this comic because that would kind of

taint this moment a bit so hopefully they don't ruin it.

Specifically I have hope that he'll understand Dick better because of next issues solicitations.

"Dick Grayson is struggling in his training to be Robin, and the Batman decides the young man needs a break…and takes him to meet the Justice League! In an awe-inspiring moment, he meets the World’s Greatest Heroes…and their sidekicks! Will these teen titans get along?"

Which indicate Bruce sees that Dick is struggling and understands that he likes other people so he tries to do something good for Dick by taking him to the Justice League. Like my mom tried making me friends when I went to college 😭 because she thought I wouldn't be good at doing it by myself and that's what this reminded me of. Parents trying to help their kids make friends. I don't think they'll have Dick sneak out again - he did that this issue. And I don't think in this issue they framed him in the wrong for doing so. They framed it as a miscommunication, and Dick knew it was a dumb thing to do, and Bruce knew it was a dumb thing to do, but he still shows Dick the gift because he trusts Dick, and in this case wants to set the record straight and show Dick he always trusted him. I guess I just see the mistakes Bruce makes in this as reasonable mistakes, and this is the beginning of the story so I have hopes for Bruce to grow.

I also didn't think Dick lacked agency in the story - I think the best possible interpretation of Dick's childhood was presented here - that Dick knows how to sneak out and get himself in trouble and that Bruce knows that Dick knows how to sneak out - which is why Bruce thinks that he needs to train Dick as good as he possibly can because if Dick sneaks out he might literally die. Which irl isn't justification for having a child as your vigilante child 'soldier' partner but for modern age comic books I think is the only justification they can provide that makes sense (with some suspension of disbelief of course).

Anyways that was long, but I really loved this comic book and my guess is we just interpreted it different ways. I'm not really put off by bad dad Bruce, because I didn't start off as a Bruce fan, I started with Nightwing comics and kinda just thought he was an asshole so I'm glad to get any crumb of good dad Bruce content that exists and isn't from the 40s - 80s (anything before NTT-era i legit just can't read because the dialogue kills me, i'm struggling so hard to get through the original Teen Titans 😂). I'm also inclined to see the best in people so I could be speaking out of my butthole and projecting myself on Bruce (the classic I struggle to communicate emotional-related things and so does this character therefore we must have the same intentions? no?). Also here's the solicits for the third issue

"To reconcile his trauma and move toward an optimistic future, Dick Grayson must first confront his tragic past. Unfortunately, that step includes a confrontation with an enraged Killer Croc, who is out for Grayson blood! This action-packed issue concludes the epic tale of a young man learning to live and love in a nightmarish world"

On a completely different note I'm pretty intrigued to see what this comic is going to do with Waylon. Like adding him to Haley's Circus is something I would have never thought of and personally I think is pretty interesting. I know we did the Raptor plotline but it would be neat to see more characters from Haley's showing up in comic books. I can't tell if Waylon is angry on behalf of the Grayson's (ie: because a stranger is wearing their costume) or if he knows that Dick is a Flying Grayson and he's mad for another reason but the former would be so sad and I live for those kinds of feels.

#Robin and batman #asks #sorry it was so longgg #Bruce Wayne meta #i guess?#uh more like in depth comic book discussion #man my younger self would cringe at me so hard #like here i am on a tuesday night analyzing the dialogue in a comic 😂 but you know what this makes me happy #so suck it younger self my younger younger self would be proud #tmi in the tags

27 notes · View notes

mirrorgrets · 3 years

Text

Teyvat, the twins, and the Archons: a theory

Hello today I will be explaining my genshin impact theory which is most likely right because I say so and I have an inflated ego

Note: I will be referring to the MC as traveler and the Leader of the Abyss Order as such or as the missing twin for neutrality’s sake. And also because I chose Lumine and I can’t bear to say Lumine is “evil”

Note after writing all of that: Actually, I’m wrong. Reading it made me realize how batshit off the rails it all sounds. But here it is anyways because it’s a funny theory.

Contains multiple spoilers for the entirety of the game (1.3 edition)

Part 1. Gnosticism, Archons, and Humanity

I think by now, most of us have heard of the Gnosticism theory. If you haven't heard of it, Gnosticism is the belief that humanity could be more than what we are at present because of the world we're in.

Gnosticism has many versions but the basic concept of it is that humans are stuck in a fake world where our full potential is locked away because of our belief in false gods. The true God is the creator of the true world and between us and him, are beings called Aeons. One Aeon who is called Sophia (meaning Wisdom) created a being who thought of himself as the One True God and created the physical world in his flawed image. Oh, and he gave seven beings rule over the world he created, who are called the Archons.

Under Gnosticism, humans are thought to be part physical, but also have a spiritual component in us that grants us divinity. But because the false god and archons actively work to make sure we never realize that there is divinity within us, we never reach our full potential.

Connecting this with genshin impact, the humans in Teyvat have access to visions that give them power, as well as a chance to attain godhood. However, they believe that it is a gift from Celestia instead of a thing any of them can attain themselves. In fact, they don't even know that if one "receives" a vision, they can become gods because it's a secret that only Archons are privy to. Venti says this himself at the end of the prologue section of the main storyline when we ask him about visions.

It seems like Celestia doesn’t want humans to ascend to godhood. If we pair this with what we know from the Main Storyline trailer that Dainsleif narrates, it becomes clearer. He says that Celestia goads humans with their seven treasures, rewards for the worthy, the doorway to divinity. However, it seems like there is a warning for those who dare to try and ascend, as if they say that the throne in the sky is not for us even if we have the means to.

Doesn’t that seem to contradict the purpose of the vision? Yes, it is a means to help humans live in Teyvat, but why give out visions when the Archons know fully well that it could help them gain access to Celestia? Doesn't it then seem like visions are not gifts from the Archons but instead innate power that all humans possess?

Part 2. What are the twins + What is Dainsleif + What are they doing in Teyvat + the Genesis Pearl = A Loop

Most signs point to the idea that the twins are actually older than they look. It seems like Lumine and Aether landed in Teyvat at least 500 years ago during the cataclysmic event that wiped out Khaenri’ah.

Going back to the idea of Gnosticism, the true God sends out Messengers of Light to the false world to guide the humans to their full potential. And we see traveler helping their companions ascend further, reaching their fullest potentials when they “max out.”

Furthermore, it doesn’t seem like they’re human. During the 1.2 Dragonspine event, Albedo does tests on us, and though he doesn’t tell us his complete findings, he alludes that we are like him, created from a substance that is yet to be defined. This goes off from the theory that he’s a homunculus, created from chalk, purified soil, the building block of the world. Aside from that, after our fight with Childe, one of the dialogue options after he mentions the fact that traveler can use both anemo and geo, is that they’re slowly gaining back their true power.

And of course, when the twins first enter the world, they have actual wings which were stripped by the Unknown God. Doesn’t seem very human to me.

So, if the travelers are Messengers of Light, then why is that not their main goal? Based on the We Will Be Reunited trailer, when the Abyss Mage mentions the traveler to the missing twin, their face looks shocked, like they just remembered that they have a twin. There’s desperation in their steps when they rush to the cliff to see their twin again, like it’s been so long since they’ve seen their sibling who they literally forgot. I think that aside from stripping them of their power, the Unknown God also took away some of their memories.

So the missing twin might remember the actual purpose as to why they’re in Teyvat, but didn’t remember their sibling until recently, and traveler remembers their sibling but doesn’t remember the reason why they were in Teyvat in the first place (or they do but that isn’t their main concern since they’re putting their sibling first).

So how does Dainsleif relates to this particular segment? Well, in another version of Gnosticism, Aeons come in pairs. Sophia’s partner was Jesus. Now, in the Main Storyline trailer, Dainsleif alludes to a woman when at the very end of the video where he says “My memory has all but faded completely, but I will always remember, how she too loved these flowers.” The flowers are the flowers Lumine especially likes, the ones she adorns in her hair. A flimsy connection it may be, but a connection nonetheless.

Now, I’ve seen theories about Dainsleif being an older version of Aether, but that theory doesn’t hold water if you choose Lumine as your traveler or if you consider the fact that Dainsleif and Aether don’t share the same eye color. Yet, it’s not completely off. There are thirty Aeons in total, although this number can differ in other versions of Gnosticism.

Now, in Dainsleif’s quest, we immediately question this stranger as he is somehow omniscient, if we haven’t already questioned him with all his narration in the Collected Miscellany videos where he hints that he knows more than we do. I will say it now: I think that Dainsleif takes upon the role of Jesus.

I could be wrong. But I think I’m right. For now.

In another version of Gnosticism, Jesus goes to the false world and saves Sophia, as she forgets who she is, she forgets her divinity and is stuck there. If we follow the theory that Dainsleif is actually the second heir from the Gnostic Chorus teaser, and that he is searching for the Genesis Pearl. The Genesis Pearl symbolizes the beginning and purity that is incorruptible. This could be the essence of Sophia, the lost Aeon who incidentally created the false god.

Back to the Main Storyline trailer, Dainsleif says that the war has already begun, and that is just a continuation of past battles. We could take this in a sense that the conflict has reached its boiling point and that it was only because all these problems were left alone for too long. However, we could also consider the possibility that Dainsleif has lived through whatever the twins are going through right now because he is the first Messenger of Light to step foot in Teyvat.

We can also look into Dainsleif’s name, which is a Nordic name, actually written as Dáinsleif. This means Dain’s Legacy which is the sword of King Högni, which aided him in a never ending battle that went on until Ragnarok.

It seems like the twins are repeating a cycle that has already happened to Dainsleif and whoever the unknown woman who also likes the flowers the missing twin likes. All four of them are Aeons or Messengers of Light.

So who is that woman? I have no idea. It could the unknown god but that feels like a stretch. The unknown god might actually be the demiurge, the false god that created Teyvat and the seven Archons, and not Sophia herself. It could also be Paimon who might have some kind of relation to the unknown god, whether it be that she is the unknown god, or she is a being from Celestia. Either way, both feel like shaky theories.

But of course, Mihoyo is only taking inspiration from Gnosticism and several other sources which could lead them to take creative liberties when applying it to the game.

Part 3. The Abyss Order and Khaenri'ah: war crimes against humanity

Going back to my point about the twins’ original goal to why they went to Teyvat in the first place, let’s question why the missing twin joined forces with the Abyss Order and began to lead them to burn the throne of Celestia.

While we don't hear the missing twin mention Celestia in the We Will Be Reunited trailer, the only other time a throne is mentioned is in the Main Storyline trailer when Dainsleif mentions that Celestia does not want humans to ascend to take up a throne in the sky.

Back to the safety of the game's actual lore, we understand that Kaenri'ah is a godless nation that might have underwent a calamity that might have killed off most of its people since they were closer to understanding the truth, and were technologically advanced, compared to the other nations of Teyvat. An alchemist named Gold ultimately led to this cataclysm due to their greed for seeking erudition.

It is safe to assume that Celestia wiped out Khaenri'ah and all the technology they created. We could also assume that the people were all killed, yes, but it would be better to assume they were cursed instead. Into what though?

The hilichurls.

In the archive section of the game, under the books, there's quite a lot written about the hilichurls, thanks to Jacob Musk. The author describes the hilichurls to be drawn to old relics of the past, with even attempts to recreate it. Their way of lifestyle is even described, and it looks like they worship the element itself and not the Archons who represent it.

Doesn't it seem like the hilichurls have a connection with the ancient civilization of the past? Not to mention their strange connection to the elements in which shaman hilichurls (samachurls) can harness the elements without the use of a vision? If I am correct with my theory, then hilichurls were once citizens of the bygone Khaenri'ah who discovered they could harness the elements without an Archon's blessing that came in the form of a vision.

It doesn't feel too surprising considering that for monsters, hilichurls are quite smart. They even display human-like characteristics. In the game, we see them dancing, sleeping, just minding their own business in general. They have their own architecture and their own language. In the Hilichurl Cultural Customs book, we even discover that hilichurls are not as barbaric as they are made out to be as they have leaders who decide their policies and course of action. It's as if they have their own culture.

Ultimately, the hilichurls are part of the Abyss Order. The organization's main goal is to get undermine Celestia's rule, and at this point of this mess I call a theory, doesn't that make them stand in a position where nothing is painted as black and white as it seems. Yes, they do heinous things like steal, possibly murder, and set off a dragon on Mondstadt, but it looks like they're operating through a "the end justifies the means" kind of morality.

And the missing twin shares this sentiment. As they had seen what Celestia had done to Khaenriah 500 years ago before the beginning of the prologue, their desperation grows. Their war with destiny will not stop until Celestia falls because it is their ultimate mission. Traveler has taken up the safer side of this war, wherein they help the humans but the missing twin has taken up the side of fallen humans. This is why they're not evil per se; just going through questionable steps to achieve a righteous goal.

Part 4. Teyvat and its Archons

Based on all that, it seems like I’m painting the Archons to be the bad guys. I am. They wiped out an entire civilization on the basis that they might learn the truth of the world, and their uncanny closeness to Celestia.

But we like Venti and Zhongli, right? Of course we do! However, they were still complicit in the downfall of Khaenri'ah and the limitation of humanity in Teyvat.

To start, Venti had his gnosis was forcibly taken from him. He doesn't seem to mourn over that (although he could be hiding it) and it looks like he can still present himself in a godly manner as we see in Venti's quest when he revealed himself as Barbatos to Stanley. When we spend time with him under the tree of Vennessa, while he divulges the secrets of Celestia to us, he still seems to comply with them. This could be chalked up to the fact that ultimately, he is Mondstadt's Archon and also the weakest of the seven. We could also consider the fact that at the time of Khaneri’ah’s downfall, he was in Dragonspine with Dvalin, dealing with Durin.

With Zhongli, it becomes a bit more interesting. He gave away his gnosis under the agreement of a contract we do not know the details of. But why he did? Why not because of his regret as the geo Archon and of love? Zhongli once ruled over Guili Plains with another god named Guizhong, the god of dust. Guizhong loved their people but perished during the Archon War. He then moved their people to Liyue Harbor and in her place, began to love them. Although he is stilted with the way he deals with his people, we see that he cares. Over the years, he has grown soft and shed the persona of Morax, a god who dealt with war. He says this himself and it feels like his ability to care extends beyond that of Liyue. It's possible he gave up his gnosis because he understands what the Tsaritsa is doing and what she's fighting for.

The Tsaritsa is the cryo Archon and the god of love. However, according to Tartaglia, she had to harden herself to go through with her plan. But what is her plan but an act of love for humanity? Wiping out Khaenri'ah could've opened her eyes to the inherent cruelty of Celestia. The timeline makes sense because Venti said that 500 yers ago, he knew her well but now, not so much. It’s at that point she loses whatever loyalty she had for Celestia. She had to steel herself and begin her plans to overthrow Celestia, which involves taking the gnoses of the six other Archons to fight the false god and alleviate humans from the hell they are in. That is her way of showing her love to humanity.

Teyvat is only a false world. We have seen many instances of this being hinted at like when Katheryne of the Adventurer’s Guild says “rebooting” or “error” as if she is only a program, or when Scaramouche says that the sky and the stars are all fake. Even in the game, if you take a closer look at the stars, it feels fake, as if it is a dome that traps the humans in Teyvat. Even more unsettling, when going deeper within the Spiral Abyss, the more stars you see which could mean Teyvat is actually upside down and that go deeper within the Spiral Abyss, we are ascending closer to the true world.

What greater act of love could the Tsaritsa commit other than giving humanity the truth?

Part 5. In conclusion: none of this makes sense

To summarize my main points:

Genshin Impact takes a lot from the mythos of Gnosticism

Visions are not gifts from the Archons but an inherent power from humans that come from their own "divinity"

The twins and Dainsleif are related in some manner

The twins are repeating a cycle that Dainsleif has already been through

The twins are suffering some kind of memory loss

The twins are in Teyvat to help humans realize their power

Celestia is not heaven but more like hell

Teyvat is a false world

The Tsarita is actually good

The Abyss Order is a morally grey organization

Archons are bad

This could all be wrong as this is only a theory. But the connections I pointed out make a bit of sense. There’s still more lore to uncover as we’ve only unlocked two regions and the Pale Princess and the Six Pygmies only have one volume out so far (this book is important because an Abyss Mage says that there is a lie within it) so this could all be debunked when new regions are unlocked.

Still, it’s a pretty fun theory to believe in at the moment. Thank you for reading this mess I call a theory!

#genshin impact #genshin impact theory #lumine #aether #dainsleif #venti #zhongli #and when im wrong ?#who cares this is a funny theory actually #if anyone wants to discuss this theory ahaha my dms r open #also if i have made any mistakes pls tell me LMAO #take shot whenever i say gnosticism I HATE IT HERE MY BRAIN IS SO FRIED #i could write this more seriously but to keep myself from slipping im writing this what i call i can get away w comedy in my academic papers #bc its not funny #just me barely holding onto the tendrils of my sanity #yes i linked a wikipedia page LET ME BE I DONT WANT TO EXPLAIN RAGNAROK ANYMORE #wont mention battle pass anymore for dainsleif its too long lmao

115 notes · View notes

transthaumaturge · 4 years

Text

Squirrel Girl is Super Gay for her Roommate and I Want Everyone to Know

A gay infodump of sensible length by Rachel Tikvah

ALRIGHT, SO The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl was the very first comic that I ever read regularly, back when I was looking for more stories with strong female protagonists but didn't really know why. Back then I just thought I really liked strong female characters and not that I was being gay on main, but now I know the truth. The comic had a 5-year run, and it was the first time that Squirrel Girl, AKA Doreen Green, had had her own series. She had a brief run in the mid-2000's where she was established as someone who could beat up Thanos with her bare hands well, more like squirrel hands but was mostly a joke character that happened to be incredibly buff and had indestructible plot armor. USG decided that Doreen's next major life goal would be to enroll in college to become a computer scientist, because her writer, Ryan North, is really into computer science and they basically gave him free rein over Squirrel Girl canon for five whole years. Like, a solid third of the plots are solved with some kind of computer science smarts. It’s really cool. Anyway this is Doreen in one of the gayest solo pictures I could find of her on short notice, which is also one of the variant covers from the actual series:

And this is her college roommate, Nancy Whitehead:

I'm like, 99% certain that Ryan North intended for them to end up as a couple and Disney!Marvel told him no. So he decided to make them AS GAY FOR EACH OTHER AS POSSIBLE without explicitly saying that they were a couple, and it ended up going under the radar. What follows is evidence for that claim. I’m going to put a "read more” after this so it doesn’t clutter everyone’s dashboards, but please read on if you’re interested. There’s a lot of cute gayness after this point. I’m also going to put all of the image descriptions at the end, since they take up a lot of space and I don’t want to break up the flow of the post. Finally, a quick spoiler alert for one arc in the middle of the series and a couple major plot points from the final few issues.

AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES

So for a while it was just kind of hinted at that they’re in a relationship, mostly because they were basically domestic life partners for like, two whole years in-universe before the comic run ended. But it really came to a head with an arc that was ran about 2/3 of the way through the series. Some pictures of them being, like, so cute together in general and/or talking about how much they care about each other before I get to that arc, though:

Also Doreen describes her and Nancy's cat as "co-parented" in one of the last issues:

ANYWAY, THE ARC. THE HYPERTIME ARC. So one of the villains created for the Squirrel Girl run (I think they liked making weird shit canon just because they could) was a dude who went by the name "EpicCrimez". He’s a crime streamer. He livestreams his crimes to an online audience. I don't know. *Throws up hands*

He had some kind of laser gun that he built out of scavenged alien tech but didn't really know what it did, so he shot it at Doreen and Nancy for kicks. It shot them into hypertime, so suddenly the rest of the world was moving at a fraction of the pace that they were. They were moving so quickly that they were slated to live out their entire lives over the span of a single weekend if they didn't figure out how to reverse the effects. And...they did. Live out their entire lives together. For the two of them, they were the only two people in the world. There were other people, but they looked like statues unless you spent a very long time observing them. Doreen and Nancy grew old together in a world where they only had each other. This is an incredibly cute domestic scene from a little while after they found themselves in hypertime:

Gosh, I wish I could find more official art from that arc of them just living together, it was so good. But the point is, they were both old by the time that Nancy figured out how to get them out of hypertime. And it wasn't ideal. Their bio signatures were stored in the gun that EpicCrimez shot, and they could essentially "reboot" their bodies from when they were first shot and send themselves back into the regular timestream. But they wouldn't remember anything about the life that they had shared together. Nancy almost didn't want to do it. She raised the possibility of them just living out the rest of their lives together, because she didn't want to forget their life together. This is the conversation they had:

"I don't regret any of it. I don't want to lose it, and I don't want to lose us." "You're not getting rid of me that easily." Every time I look at that last picture, which took up an entire page of the comic, I start to cry. We’re seeing the final moments of two people who love each other more than anything, who were each other's entire lives, savoring their last moments together and wondering what the future holds. Sacrificing the life that they built together so that their younger selves could live a better, fuller one. Dying in each other’s arms, scared but comforted by the fact that they had each other. And then the arc ends, and they can't remember anything, so the status quo is restored. They have some paintings they made of each other while they were living together in hypertime, but they move on pretty quickly without ever knowing the significance of those lived decades. Still, it's clear in the arcs that follow and the adventures they embarked on afterward that they would die for each other. All of that continues until the end of the last arc. Their shared apartment's been blown up at this point by a supervillain who wanted to ruin Doreen’s life before eventually killing her. And in the aftermath of the fight, they're sifting through the wreckage for anything that survived (don't worry, the cat got out in time) when they find the picture that they painted of themselves during the hypertime arc:

They have a really cute conversation about how this chapter of their life is over, but they're going to be okay and they're going to build a new life together. And then Nancy basically tells Doreen that she can't live without her:

And then Doreen says something super queer-coded about how she likes the idea of the world knowing her secret identity now:

On the very last page of the comic, after all of the action is over and the series is about to end, they're talking to each other in what's supposed to be a twitter thread and Doreen asks Nancy a very thinly veiled question about whether she still wants to spend time with her now that her identity's out. She pretends it's about a class project, but it's really not about the class project. Here's how that conversation goes:

With no knowledge of what happened during the weekend when they shared their entire lives together, without ever having heard Doreen say it to her before, Nancy’s heart still knows which words to choose. "...you're not getting rid of me that easily. <3" I believe that the author of the series, Ryan North, did as much as he possibly could to portray them as a couple without saying it outright. And as the last piece of evidence to support that claim, I want to share a response he wrote in one of the series' last-ever letter columns:

"as for more Doreen and Nancy, I hope so too. A Squirrel Girl book without Nancy would feel like--like--like some sort of hypothetical "Super" "Man" book without an equally hypothetical "Lois" "Lane"!" It's easy to write off this analysis as wishful thinking, or as a misreading of the subtext. But when the author of the series says that these two characters are meant to always be together and compares them to one of the most famous couples in any comic series ever, it's clear that there's more to it than that.

Some Additional Thoughts: 1) Doreen and Nancy are both probably bisexual or pansexual, since they both expressed romantic interest in men throughout the series but they’re both clearly interested in each other too. There might be an element of demiromanticism there as well if part of the reason that they’re into each other romantically is because of how emotionally close they’ve become over the years. I want to make sure that that facet of their romantic orientations doesn’t get erased, because bi and pan folks get erased enough as it is. Neither Doreen nor Nancy are lesbians, just super-cool WLWs.

2) HERE’S WHAT THE ISSUE 50 VARIANT COVER LOOKED LIKE

That’s NOT a fun, totally straight way to pose with your platonic gal pal. They’re so incredibly cute together! I have no words! In Closing If you got this far, thank you so much for letting me talk to you about a comic that’s very important to me, and a couple in that comic that I care about very much. I spent way too long making this (six hours and counting), mostly in writing the image descriptions, and I’m very proud of my work but very tired now. Hyperfixation is a hell of a drug. If this resonated with you, please consider reblogging it so that more folks can see it. If not, even a like is nice. I’d also love to engage with people who have their own thoughts, so feel free to leave some comments in the notes if you’ve got an idea/a reaction/any additional cute Doreen/Nancy scenes that you’d like to share with me. At any rate, this post has gone on long enough and I don’t want to ask y’all to read any more than you have to. So have a great day, good morning / afternoon / night, and stay safe. Thanks again for reading! ~Rachel Tikvah, AKA @transthaumaturge Image Descriptions: Image 1: [ID: Squirrel Girl, a young woman with light skin, is posing in front of a brick wall that she seems to have crashed through, leaving a perfect outline of her body. She’s facing away but looking backwards over her shoulder at us and smiling. She’s flexing upward with her right arm and has her left fist resting on her left hip. Her sidekick, a squirrel named Tippy-Toe, is standing in the cutout she left in the wall and is making the same exact pose while wearing a light pink bow around her neck. Squirrel Girl is wearing brown lace-up boots, fur-lined hot pants over grey tights, and a brown fur-lined jacket with sleeves that come up to her forearms and a symbol of an acorn embroidered into the back. She’s also wearing a hairband with fake squirrel ears on it over short reddish-brown hair. She has a large squirrel tail coming out of her hot pants that sweeps down in a curve behind her lower legs. The illustration is drawn so that everything is bathed in the light of a sunset, and Doreen is casting shadows on the wall in front of her.] Image 2: [ID: Two frames depicting a scene between Doreen and Nancy in their college dorm room, with many cardboard boxes still not unpacked and sitting on a bare bed mattress. Nancy Whitehead is a young woman with dark brown skin and short, curly black hair. She's wearing black tights, a white dress-top, and a yellow cardigan over that. Her arms are crossed as she holds her white cat, Mew, against her chest. Doreen is wearing grey tights and a black long-sleeve shirt with a wide collar and white stripes across the chest. She's holding Tippy-Toe up to Nancy with both hands so she can see her better. The following dialogue ensues: Nancy: "A squirrel? But weren't you the one who was all about pets not being allowed in--" Doreen: "Yeah, I know. But this really interesting person I met today told me that obeying an unjust law is itself unjust." Nancy: "...You know, I was worried I'd get a weird roommate, but you're all right, Doreen Green."] Image 3: [ID: Doreen and Nancy are both sitting on a lavender-pink couch in nightclothes. Doreen has short, orange hair. She is wearing a loose-fitting grey long-sleeve shirt and steel-blue cutoff shorts; Nancy has cropped black hair. She is wearing a dark purple top with sleeves that come down to her upper arms, and loose-fitting navy-blue shorts that come down to her lower thighs. Doreen is side-hugging Nancy as she says, with an ecstatically happy smile, “Nancy, you’re the greatest. You know that, right?” Nancy gives Doreen a full smile as she responds, “I’d always suspected it, but it is nice to have it confirmed.”] Image 4: [ID: Nancy is shown from the shoulders up. She has short, curly black hair. She’s wearing large, disc-shaped gold dangle earrings, and a red jacket with prominent shoulders and a yellow collar. She’s fixing the observer with an angry, determined stare as she says, “She knows this man wouldn’t dream about betraying her, or he’d have to answer to me.”] Image 5: [ID: Doreen and Nancy are eating breakfast at the brown, circular kitchen table in their apartment. Doreen’s wearing a skin-tight athletic crop top that’s striped in black, red, white, and blue. Her arm muscles are well-defined and clearly visible as she puts a spoon in her mouth, closing her eyes as she does so. She has a bowl of cereal in front of her, and half a banana in front of that. Nancy is sitting to her left in a pink camisole top that’s also exposing her muscles, scrolling through something on her smartphone. Her hair is in a yellow fabric wrap that’s knotted on one side of her head. A cup of coffee sits in front of her. The clear blue sky is visible through the window centered on the wall behind them.] Image 6: [ID: Nancy and Doreen are facing away from the vantage point, walking towards an Empire State University campus building and holding hands with their fingers intertwined. Nancy is wearing a long knee-length grey coat and black knee-high boots, with a baby-blue side bag hanging from her left shoulder. Doreen is wearing a magenta sweatshirt with the periwinkle-lined hood down, light brown form-fitting denim pants, and black ankle-high boots, with a dark brown side bag hanging from her right shoulder. Trees and bushes hem the walkway in on either side. The building in front of them is dark red, with glass doors and a row of floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor. Doreen is saying “...we’re just going to have to take the long way around.”] Image 7: [ID: Doreen is facing towards the vantage point and is visible from the legs up, standing in front of a pile of rubble in the background. She’s wearing high-waisted light blue shorts over black tights, and a red windbreaker with sleeves ending at her upper arms that’s opened to reveal a white t-shirt underneath. Tippy-Toe is sitting on her shoulder. There are two people facing Doreen, each slightly in frame and silhouetted in black against the light of the setting sun. Doreen is fixing them with an angry, determined expression, resting her right fist at her hip while she gesticulates with her left hand and says, “So! I don’t know about you all, but Melissa kidnapping my friend and blowing up my life and my house and almost blowing up my co-parented cat makes me feel like giving her a piece of my mind. Friends...”] Image 8: [ID: A full comic page. EpicCrimez is looking like a dork in a green and black skin-tight jumpsuit, bright red ski goggles, and a green wig cap with his brown hair sticking out the back in a mullet. He’s standing inside a jewelry store and holding up a fist of expensive gems and pearls-on-strings as holds up his smartphone and speaks into it. He’s facing off against Squirrel Girl, with her allies Koi Boi and Chipmunk Hunk on her right, and Nancy and Brain Drain on the left. The following scene ensues: EpicCrimez: “And for those of you just tuning in, welcome to another successful heist by your boy EpicCrimez, streaming live! Now with 10% more live crime action than any other streamer! Don’t forget to like and subscribe!! I know some of you in EpicCrimez Nation have been forgetting to do that lately. Not acceptable.” Squirrel Girl: “You picked the wrong small business to rob, crime-initiator! Because this mall is protected by super heroes.” Brain Drain: “HELLO” SG: “And also an unrelated civilian friend I brought along too!” Nancy: (Not looking up from her phone) “ ‘Sup.” EC: “Check it out--Squirrel Girl and her miscellaneous friends are here! It’s action you won’t find on any other channel!” SG: “Are you...streaming your robberies?” (Nancy pockets her phone) EC: “Yeah I am! For money reasons! And with you “heroes” in it, I’ll make even more!” SG: (Whispering to Nancy:) “Question: a fight scene just gets him more traffic, which lets him profit from this crime even more--so does this mean we don’t fight him?” N: (Whispering back:) “I feel like letting him go causes more harm, but I look forward to us teasing apart the moral implications of this later.” SG: “Nice.” SG: (No longer whispering:) “I’ll like and subscribe, EpicCrimez! I’ll like fighting crime, and subscribe... to a worldview wherein the strong protect the weak!” EC: “Oh my gosh, are you like wholesome Spider-Man or something??” At the bottom of the page, small text says: “Wholesome Spider-Man, Wholesome Spider-Man/Does whatever a wholesome spider can/Is he tough?/Listen bud/He’s here to hear you talk about your day and tell you it’ll all be fine while taking you out for your favorite meal for dinner because he knows you deserve it.”] Image 9: [ID: Another full comic page. Doreen and Nancy are in their apartment together, and their friends Tomas and Brian (AKA Chipmunk Hunk and Brain Drain respectively) are frozen as they look down at the machine that Nancy is on her knees in front of, working on. Nancy, barefoot, is wearing cerulean-blue athletic pants, a black long-sleeve spandex shirt without shoulders, and narrow-framed glasses. Her hair is partially covered by a yellow cloth head wrap tied on the left side, with black dreadlocks spilling out the side and back. The machine in front of her is made of dull grey metal, about a meter tall and roughly circular. Wires dangle out of a hatch that Nancy is fiddling with. Doreen is wearing a flowing, dark-purple pantsuit with wide, ankle-length legs and a halter top with the sleeves tied off at her shoulders. Her shoes are light-brown ankle boots with a horizontal gap on the bridge of each foot. Her wavy orange hair is parted in the middle and down past her shoulders. She looks incredibly cute. The following scene ensues: Doreen: “What do you think?” Nancy: “I think--come on you stupid screw--I think we’re still years away from this thing working, if it ever does. Who knew time machine construction is really hard, except of course for everyone who has attempted it?” (She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand) D: “Hah! No, I mean my new outfit.” N: (Looking up and checking her gf out:) “Doreen! You look amazing!!” D: “Liberated it from a very expensive department store uptown!” N: (Now standing) “Tony paid for it?” D: Tony will eventually discover he was kind enough to leave some expensive jewelry in trade, yes. I pinned a note to him so he knows.” N: “There really are advantages to being friends with billionaire playboy genius philanthropists.” D: “Right?!” N: (Taking Doreen’s hands in hers:) “It’s a shame we can’t take a picture of you all dolled up.” D: “Not without standing still for a few months, yeah. But I was thinking about that. I picked up something else at another store downtown. Thought maybe it could help us with that.” (Holding up a shopping bag with one hand while still holding onto Nancy’s hand with the other:) “Nancy Whitehead, I thought you and I might take up painting sometime.” At the bottom of the page, small text says: “Tony Stark moves from meeting to meeting, his body accumulating dozens of notes every second. He sighs. Stuff like this didn’t happen before he knew Doreen. But then he smiles, because after all...stuff like this didn’t happen before he knew Doreen.”] Images 10-16: [ID: Several pages worth of comic frames, posted together to depict one scene. Doreen and Nancy are now old women, likely in their seventies or eighties. Doreen has short, grey hair. She’s wearing a tan button-up waistcoat and an orange ascot, brown flats with an olive-green skirt, knee-length and softly pleated. Her tail is sticking out the back of her skirt over the top, bushy and brown but with stiffer, less-dense hair. Nancy has her grey-black hair done up in a ponytail, a mass of tight curls behind her head. She’s wearing thin oval glasses, black dress pants, black flats, and a lavender cardigan with a flower motif along the edges, open to show the yellow-orange top underneath. They’re standing in front of a completed time machine. On either side are tall pieces of machinery, and in the middle is a round, flat metal dais hooked up to everything else with snaking cables. The following scene ensues: Nancy: “So...this is it, babe. The new machine.” Doreen: “Your secret project! Nancy, it looks like you started from scratch!” N: That’s because I did. I finally realized our old machine was never going to work. Maybe if we had a few more decades, but...there’s no time. And given that our backs are to the wall, I took a risk. I disassembled the gun right down to the metal, and examined all the parts. And I did find something: a data chip. Doreen, the gun stored our bio signatures when it us.” D: “What are you saying?” N: “I’m saying my new machine won’t send us back in time, and we’ll still have lost a weekend of real time. But it will restore our bodies to normal time.” D: (Hugging Nancy tight:) “Nancy! You saved us!!” N: (Resting her hands on Doreen’s shoulders:) “Not--quite. There’s a catch, Doreen. Our bodies will make it...but we won’t. Look, Doreen...I’m an old woman. I’ve spent most of my life in hypertime. This wasn’t how I saw my life going, but...I don’t regret any of it. I don’t want to lose it, and I don’t want to lose us.” D: “I don’t understand.” N: “It’s like restoring from backup. Our bodies will be restored to how they were the moment we were first hit. But--that necessarily includes our brains, too. Everything we’ve done since we entered hypertime--our entire lives spent together...we’ll forget.” (She looks at Doreen in distress) D: “I don’t either, Nancy. You’ve been the most important person in my life. But if we do go back--we can do it again. All of it. It might not happen again quite the same way, but--well, like you say...we’ll have all the time in the world.” N: (Their faces inches apart, they both tilt their heads down and smile sadly:) “Twist my arm, why don’t you.” (They both step onto the dais holding hands, and blue energy starts to ripple around them:) “You filled up Spidey’s web-shooters before we go?” D: “Yep. Again.” N: “You and me, saving the world.” D: “Well,” (holding Nancy’s hand in both of her own) "No reason we can’t do it twice.” N: “You know, there’s a chance things could turn out differently, now that we’ll have video games to distract us. In 40 years we might decide we don’t like hanging out after all.” D: (Hugging Nancy even tighter than before as the energy from the time machine starts to envelop them, resting her face in the nape of Nancy’s neck:) “Nah. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”] Image 17: [ID: Doreen and Nancy are sifting through the charred rubble of their apartment as night starts to fall around them. Doreen is wearing faded blue jeans and a navy blue t-shirt with a Captain America star in the middle. Over top of the shirt, she’s wearing a dark reddish-brown leather vest with four metal studs at the four points of the folded-out collar. Nancy is wearing black tights and a light green long-sleeve shirt with olive-green sleeves. The front of the shirt has a picture of Cat-Thor, Cat God of Cat Thunder’s head on it. The following scene ensues: Doreen: “So I know we’re only a few hours into it, Nancy, but I think my identity being public isn’t gonna be as bad as I thought.” Nancy: “Oh?” D: “Yeah, Tony’s given me lots of tips, and it does honestly help to know that my parents are protected by a robot tree with laser eyes and my friends live in a city with the most super heroes per square mile.” N: “Most super villains too, but--Hold on. I think I found it.” (Nancy lifts a picture frame out of the wreckage, charred around the edges but otherwise no worse for wear. It has a painting inside of it of Doreen and Nancy, arm-in-arm, from hypertime. Doreen is wearing the lavender pantsuit from before, and Nancy is wearing a tight-fitting lilac dress.) “...And it looks like you and I made it through just fine.”] Images 18-19: [ID: Two later comic panels from the same scene. They’re wearing the same outfits, but Nancy’s now cradling her white cat, Mew, in the crook of her left arm while she holds onto the picture frame with her right hand. The following scene ensues: Doreen: “Come on, let’s talk about it! If we’re starting a new chapter in our lives, and we can decide what’s in it, what do you want it to contain?” Nancy: “Doreen...” D: “What are the three things you can’t live without, Nancy Whitehead?” N: (Holding up the picture so that Doreen can see it:) “Fine. If you must know, all this girl needs to be happy are cats and squirrels and knitting and computers and friends and secret tattoos and super heroes and lots and lots of love. Also food and shelter. And water. And internet.” D: “That’s more than three things.”] Image 20: [ID: Same scene as before, a single frame with a close-up on Doreen from her chest upwards. Doreen cups her chin with one of her hands and says, “Honestly--I thought about it. I really did. But I realized that where I am now, I’m safe and I’m loved and I kinda like the idea of not having to lie to people anymore, you know? Even if it is just a lie of omission. I want to share my whole self with the world. I don’t want to have to hide who I am anymore.”] Image 21: [ID: Something resembling a twitter thread, with dialogue between Nancy and Doreen stacked chronologically as horizontal boxes. Their respective names and handles are at the top of each of their comments. Nancy is Nancy W. and @sewwiththeflo, Doreen is Squirrel Girl and @unbeatablesg. The following conversation ensues: Nancy: “You think I’d leave you high and dry??” Doreen: “I think I don’t want our lateness harming your grades and therefore harming your post-secondary education or career choices and therefore harming your ENTIRE LIFE?!” “So yeah I think you should switch to someone else, real talk. I honestly don’t mind, I promise.” Nancy: “Please. If there’s one thing I know about you, about me, and about how we spend our future together, it’s this. Doreen Green...” “...you’re not getting rid of me that easily. <3″] Image 22: [ID: A paragraph of text, black text on a yellow background. “As for more Doreen and Nancy, I hope so too. A Squirrel Girl book without Nancy would feel like--like--like some sort of hypothetical “Super” “Man” book without an equally hypothetical “Lois” “Lane”!”] Image 23: [ID: A group picture of Squirrel Girl and friends sitting down on a grassy hill and watching the sunset together. Kraven the Hunter is in the foreground for some reason, looking almost directly at the camera. In the background we see Koi Boi, Mary Mahajan, Chipmunk Hunk, Brain Drain, and Mew the Cat. In the middle of the shot, Doreen and Nancy sit together. Doreen is in her superhero outfit with Tippy-Toe on her right shoulder, and Nancy is in a yellow cardigan and jeans on Doreen’s left. They’re holding hands, fingers intertwined, as Nancy leans against Doreen with her whole body. Their heads are tilted inward towards each other, the side of Doreen’s head touching the side of Nancy’s, as they look off into the distance together.]

#the unbeatable squirrel girl #squirrel girl x nancy #squancy #squirrel girl #nancy whitehead #queer comics #WLW comics #long post #described #squirrel girl spoilers #thaumaturgethoughts

321 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

The Suicide Squad: What’s Next for Harley Quinn in the DCEU?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains major spoilers for The Suicide Squad. We have a spoiler free review here.

The Suicide Squad might just be the best DCEU movie yet. Not only is it a sterling ensemble piece about the horrors of American imperialism but it’s also the world’s weirdest buddy comedy. And in a film full of stunning performances–Idris Elba, David Dastmalchian, and Daniela Melchior please stand up–we got another killer turn from Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

After kicking all kinds of ass in Birds of Prey, the Mistress of Mischief is back and better than ever. This is a truly emancipated Harley, one who hates the Joker, will kill an abusive man in a second, and who plays a huge part in saving the day after choking out a man with her thighs, of course.

While Robbie has said she has “no current plans to reprise the role” after The Suicide Squad, we couldn’t help but think of where the DCEU’s most badass and brutal on-screen anti-hero has been and where she could go next. Thanks to the comics, cartoons, and imagination of those at DC Comics, we’ve got plenty to draw on.

Let’s start with where Harley has been to see how it impacts her potential future…

Before the DCEU

Harley began her career in the beloved Batman: The Animated Series cartoon as a one-time henchwoman for the Joker. But that quickly changed and she soon became a core part of the show, and not long after became a fan fave character in the comic book universe.

This iteration of Quinn was a huge influence on James Gunn in bringing her to The Suicide Squad and might explain that unforgettable animated sequence as she escapes from the palatial prison of Corto Maltese.

It’s also important to note as until The Suicide Squad her most popular contemporary iteration was once again in a cartoon, but this time it was the DC Universe turned HBO Max smash hit adult animation series that bears her name.

Harley Quinn in 2016’s Suicide Squad

While David Ayer’s Suicide Squad might not have been for everyone–apparently including Ayer himself–one thing stood out: Robbie as Harley Quinn. While she was mostly sexualized and used as eye candy, Robbie gave Harley depth, humor, and heart. It was the standout performance and is a huge part of why the DCEU version is so popular today. While it’s great to see Harley’s growth, we have to mention the movie where Robbie made her debut.

Birds of Prey

Cathy Yan’s brilliant Birds of Prey let Robbie go wild with her take on Harley. This was the action heavy R-rated take that fans wanted to see. With a predominantly female creative team behind it, the film eschewed the male gaze and misogyny that Harley has sometimes had to fight through.

Here we saw a Harley who was freed from the Joker, had her own crew, her own incredible fashion sense, and even her own burgeoning moral code. Not only was this a badass outing for Harley but it feels tonally and aesthetically in tune with the route that James Gunn went in The Suicide Squad. The emancipation of Harley Quinn began here, long may it reign!

The Suicide Squad Sets Up What’s Next for Harley Quinn

While it’s unclear where Robbie sees the character going next, we get a good feel for Harley and her new found freedom here. The world is her oyster. She has new allies–maybe even… friends?–and a magical javelin. Basically, anything can happen as she heads into the future.

Poison Ivy

This seems like the clearest and most popular option for more Harley Quinn.

While it looked like it might happen in the form of the now not happening Gotham City Sirens movie (which Suicide Squad director Ayer was once attached to), there’s still legs in this partnership which has been delighting fans for decades. In both the comics and cartoons her relationship with Poison Ivy has been a key part of Harley’s lore. While they began as friends, the canon has shifted to being on-again off-again romantic partners in all mediums. So we need to see that on screen in live action… SOON!

It would be really easy to take the comedic action stylings of the HBO Max Harley Quinn series which saw the pair traverse the hard realities of love in Gotham and bring that to either a longer format series–which we’d love–or a movie. Just putting these two A-listers together would be a huge selling point and if they played into the queer romance it would make huge waves.

“Trust me, I chew their ear off about it all the time,” Robbie recently told us when we asked about the possibility of adding a live action Poison Ivy to the DCEU. “They must be sick of hearing it, but I’m like, ‘Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy. Come on, let’s do it.’ I’m very keen to see a Harley-Poison Ivy relationship on screen. It’d be so fun. So I’ll keep pestering them. Don’t worry.”

If DC decided to go a little more dramatic they could take from the pair’s comic book canon. It would make a lot of sense to explore Harley’s love life post the Joker as both of her most recent DCEU appearances have made note to mention his negative impact on her life.

During the 2013 Harley Quinn comic series fans got to see the pair finally become official as Harley came to terms with her abusive relationship with the Joker. An easy route for the DCEU to take–either seriously or more comedically–would be to make Harley and Ivy a sort of Thelma and Louise of the DCEU, a couple of cool gals against the world… and if they have their “daughter” Cass Cain with them too we’d be very happy.

While they broke up in the official DC Comics continuity, they are currently getting back together in Harley Quinn: The Animated Series – The Eat, Bang, Kill Tour. The hilarious sequel to the cartoon expands on their romance and plays into that more humorous angle. But simply the fact that the pair are together again in the comics means that there’s even more canon to take from here.

Female Furies

In spite of the sad news that Ava DuVernay’s New Gods movie is no longer in production, we might have found a silver lining. In recent years Harley has faced down against Granny Goodness and even joined her Female Furies. This has happened in both the ongoing Harley Quinn comics series and the DC Universe cartoon. It’s a really cool and out there idea for the character in the DCEU, and could be a cool way to introduce the more cosmic aspects of the universe through the lens of one of the world’s most popular comics characters.

It would be pretty easy to do a Female Furies movie or TV show where Harley is enlisted into Apokolips’ hardcore squad of warriors. There’d be an exceedingly fun fish out of water element as well as the potential to do something totally different than we’ve seen before.

There’s also the option to emulate the Harley Quinn TV series and follow Harley as she seeks out Granny Goodness in order to gain the nefarious power of the Motherbox, which would obviously go wrong pretty quickly. While we’ve seen elements touched on in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, DC isn’t afraid of reimagining things regularly and we’d love to see Harley on an epic cosmic adventure with Darkseid on her heels!

Another HBO Max Spinoff?

If the villainous Peacemaker is getting his own HBO Max show, why shouldn’t Harley? And there are a ton of incredible routes the series could go. The most obvious right now would be continuing the Harley we see in The Suicide Squad.

Seeing as Rick Flag and Harley were clearly close, it would be very easy to intertwine the Harley show and the Peacemaker series. What if while Peacemaker was trying to “save the world,” Harley and potentially Bloodsport–he served with Rick and clearly cared about him–were hunting him down in their own series? That would be a pretty smart way to expand the radical world of The Suicide Squad while giving Robbie far more space to play with the character she’s long defined.

Ever since Birds of Prey, fans have been wishing for a Black Canary or Harley-focused spinoff. With Peacemaker setting the precedent for solo DCEU shows, this could be another great route. We’d love to see the return of Ella Jay Basco as Cass Cain or even the return of Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya. This is a little more of an outlier but the gritty crime movie tone of Birds of Prey really fits into the current DCEU and HBO Max vibe. And in our real dreams, Cathy Yan would get the Gunn treatment and direct.

Batgirl

We’re finishing off with what is currently the most likely of our options. The upcoming HBO Max Batgirl movie is penned by Christina Hodson. Hodson and Robbie have a close working relationship as the Bumblebee screenwriter also wrote Birds of Prey. There’s also the fact that Robbie is a huge supporter of female-led storytelling so bringing her clout and fan favorite character to Batgirl would do just that. It would be really cool to see Harley pop up here as either an antagonist or ally to Barbara Gordon.

As this is going straight to HBO Max, there’s likely more freedom to play with canon and format. But with Robbie unsure of Harley’s future it could be more realistic to expect a brief cameo rather than a full on-screen Harley storyline when the movie hits the streamer down the line.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The Suicide Squad is on HBO Max and in theaters now!

The post The Suicide Squad: What’s Next for Harley Quinn in the DCEU? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

2 notes · View notes

anika-ann · 4 years

Text

Hands Too Cold, but Heart of Gold - Pt.3

The Mission

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader, Matt Murdock x reader (no SR x MM x r)

Word count: 2700

Summary: Avenger!reader AU, love triangle. Mission in progress; You’re going in. Spoiler alert: it goes about as well as Steve expected.

Warnings: violence, blood, swearing, banter, unconsensual drug use (kinda?), injury

Story Mastelist

────── ·❆· ──────

“Alright, guys. We’re clear about everything? I’m coming in first, opening the door for you. Natasha, you’re with Clint, you’re going after Vasiliev and intel. Frosty and Daredevil are onto the girls and their guards. Tony, try to get to the basement level, I’ll join you as soon as possible. Questions?”

“Won’t Secretary Davis be pissed about Frostbite coming to save his daughter instead of Captain America?” you noted, a bit annoyed that you actually had to ask that question. You couldn’t care less and you were actually fine with your task, but… sadly, this was politics too, not just a rescue mission.

Steve sighed. “I’m the leader of the mission. I’ll be everywhere, that has to be enough.”

“What’s in the basement?” Clint questioned and you could see a shadow of worry covering Steve’s face as he put on his helmet.

“I don’t know. And I don’t like it. That’s why I’m sending the least vulnerable people there.”

You gulped, chill running down your spine. You didn’t like they should be going there just the two of them. “You should wait for us.”

Steve shook his head. “Can’t do. If there are weapons the guards can use against you, we need to secure them.”

“Goddammit, Steve! You told me-“

“You have your orders, Frosty. Follow them. You know this distribution of resources makes sense as it is,” he shut you down, his blue eyes piercing yours in warning.

You knew he had told you something he didn’t want to tell the others and you shouldn’t have pulled it out. But you trusted his instincts and you felt like this was the source of his concerns and the others should know that.

You raised your chin, crossing the short distance between you and the Captain.

“You don’t go there alone. You stay with Tony.” He escaped you gaze and you grabbed his forearm. “Steve.”

He looked back at you, his eyes burning with honesty. “Same goes to you, Snowflake. Everyone. Don’t do anything on your own. We’re a team. Don’t forget that.”

As if someone could ever forget being a teammate to any of you – you were all a bit too special for that. But you could see what he meant.

The team nodded in agreement, gradually leaving the jet. They ‘parked’ it about a mile from the building Tony had located the girls in, nothing but woods around you. You kinda envied Tony his suit – what you wouldn’t give for a flying suit to avoid the running right now. Or any time, really.

Alright, stop whining. Let’s do this.

────── ·❆· ──────

You hated Steve sneaking in alone, but he was your best shot; he could be the most subtle apart from Natasha, who lacked the super-strength needed for breaking the locks. You could have frozen the locks, made them fragile and broken them easily, but Steve was better at hand-to-hand combat, which allowed him to get rid of the guards. Also, his body was less vulnerable. You agreed with Steve being the best choice; however, that didn’t mean you liked it.

When he opened the back entrance for you, you couldn’t supress the wave of relief; he seemed unharmed. It was ridiculous, because the mission barely started, but you hoped that from now on, he wouldn’t be alone.

“The hostages are in the west wing of the building,” Tony’s voice sounded in your ear and you nodded, glancing at Steve one more time. He smiled at you warmly before taking off.

“Stay safe,” you murmured as if he could hear you.

“Let’s go,” the Devil encouraged you softly and you both broke into a jog. Time to save some sorry asses.

The Devil turned out to be a good partner in crime – he always stopped you before taking a turn, warning you when someone was close, which gave you enough time to prepare yourself and won you the element of surprise. Also, he totally kicked ass; so far you had had the opportunity to see him in action once, because your own opponent had already been knocked out, and if you would say you didn’t forget how to breathe when seeing his quick sharp blows, you would be lying through your teeth.

“You okay?” he had asked you then and you had just shaken your head to snap from your trance and beckoned to him to move.

And then there was the door. The door, because Daredevil tilted his head to side, his hand on your forearm to pull you closer.

“Fifteen heartbeats. Four of them younger and scared. That’s our girls,” he whispered almost soundlessly into your ear and you bit your lip, nodding in acknowledgement.

“Weapons?”

“Few riffles.” His jaw tightened. “Probably knives, it’s hard to tell. There is no wood or water in the room as far as I can tell, but there’s lots of metal, the sound is bouncing off it – I think the girls are on the floor, leaning their backs against it.”

You stared, awe-struck, forgetting to try to imagine the picture he was drawing for you; instead, you were watching him as he had a look of the highest concentration on his half-face.

“You okay?”

You blinked, waking up once more. Jesus, get a hold of yourself, loser. “Yeah, sorry. Just… it’s incredible.” He seemed puzzled. “What you can do.”

A brief smile raised the corners of his lips. “Thanks. Not too bad yourself. Work your magic.”

You obeyed, touching the round doorknob, its metal immediately covering in a layer of ice and spreading to the whole door – its temperature dropped enough for the molecular structure to change.

Daredevil spared one more glance at you and the two of you simultaneously kicked out; the door shattered as if it was made of thin glass.

All hell broke loose. You barely managed to disarm two shooters by icing their weapons before a spray of bullets rained your way and you had to take cover behind one of the metal cabinets, the Devil throwing his billy clubs and disarming two others while knocking one out.

“I’m icing the main alley, you okay with that?” you hissed over the distance and he immediately nodded.

Your hand hit the floor, sending a thick belt of ice down the route – to your satisfaction, you could hear the gunmen curse and few of them went down with a thud and blind gunfire to the ceiling as they slipped.

A second later, the path was clear of ice, the distraction allowing you to attack again while the Devil sneaked into one of the smaller alleys, surprising the men from behind.

Freezing their hands was the priority; the weapons fell on the ground one after another. Unfortunately, that also meant the men went after you and they were really pissed. The ones who could still handle to carry some kind of a weapon switched to blades; Daredevil had been right.

You did your best to fight off everyone who came at you, using an icicle through their limbs when necessary. It was a method far from your favourite, but it was efficient when needed.

The floor was quickly covering in a layer of bodies of unconscious men. It took them a while to realize that their buddies were being attacked from behind by Daredevil – idiots, lots of them.

Receiving a kick to you lower back sending you into a cabinet, making your belly meet the edge, put you into the category of idiots too.

Shit, how had you missed this one? You quickly turned, still leaning onto the cabinet and blocked his lunge by kicking his stomach, making him stumble backwards. Next thing he knew, he was frozen to the wall and you punched him unconscious.

You spun on your heels to look for another opponent, ducking on instinct – a second later, a knife was sticking out of the wall in the same level your head had been.

A crack echoed in the room, followed by an agonized scream. Your gaze shot in that direction immediately, seeing the Devil cracking a guy’s wrist and dislocating his shoulder. You winced. With the man being the last one standing, you only guessed he had been the one to throw the knife. And Daredevil just elbowed his face, his own teeth barred in a savage grin which only a fool would call a smile. The man fell to the ground.

“Remind me to not to piss you off. Ever,” you panted, approaching Daredevil’s masked figure. His hands were clenched in fists, his chest rising and falling rapidly, but he seemed fine. He snapped his head higher to face you better, his posture relaxing just slightly.

“Same goes to you,” he beckoned to one of the bastards who had their thigh stabbed with an icicle, impressively big even for you.

“Didn’t have the time to be gentle.”

“Incoming. Six more men. Fair sharing? Four for me, two for you?”

You gaped at him, not sure if he was kidding or not. The smug was so evident even on his half-face and you just couldn’t-

“Wipe that smirk off!” you hissed at him, laughing, spinning to the girl who didn’t get the memo and hadn’t hid yet. “Go to the corner, take cover. Things might get messy again. Anyone hurt?”

You took the zero response as a no. Devil confirmed your theory. Because of course he would know. He knew fucking everything.

“Which door?”

Daredevil beckoned to the one that were still in place. You grinned, creating a layer of black ice right away. They deserved a proper welcome. Daredevil gathered his weapons and prepared himself too.

Three fingers on Devil’s hand raised.

Two.

Now you could hear the gunmen too.

One.

You hit the ground with your palm once more and let the black ice spread under edge of the door too – they threw it open with their balance already shitty. You and your partner used the advantage immediately. They were disarmed before they even realized what was happening.

The Devil was right in the end – you only got stuck with two opponents, the thugs probably assuming you were the lesser problem. Sweet summer children… the winter is coming, bitches.

By the time you were done with yours, Daredevil was still fighting two of his own, one of them just throwing himself on the armoured figure; you quickly created ice for his feet to be stuck in. He almost lost his balance from the momentum with his feet suddenly disabled. The Devil sent the other man down with a powerful hook, soon elbowing the one standing pretty much frozen behind him to his face. The man lost consciousness immediately, his body going limp; you released his feet.

“Thanks,” the Devil called out and you spent one precious moment shooting him a smile. A second later, his billy club flew inches from your face, successfully taking down a guy behind you that you apparently hadn’t knocked out properly.

“Thanks,” you parroted, your smile faltering. Sloppy.

“That’s why we’re partners, right?”

For a second, you lost yourself in the lopsided grin he gave you. Shit. You heart. His smile widened.

“Get a room,” one of the girls whined and you snapped from your trance, squatting to her to untie her hands. “Thanks.”

“Fuck,” Natasha cursed in your earpiece and you tensed. Had not everything gone as smooth as with you and DD? “Steve, get out of there. NOW.”

Your heart must have stopped that second; she sounded as if she was panicking. Natasha Romanoff never panicked.

“What is it, Romanoff?” Steve asked lowly, a little out of breath. You could hear him fighting and your feet itched to get to the basement. But someone had to stay with the hostages.

“I’ll go,” Devil whispered, brushing your arm and you wordlessly pleaded him to rush. He disappeared in the doorway.

“Just get out! It’s a set up. They’re experimenting, developing an antidote to the serum that-”

She was cut off by gunshot and you sprang to the door as well.

“Stay in position, Gerda! I’m heading his direction,” Devil’s voice sounded in your ear and you had no doubt he was talking to you. You forced your feet to stop, gritting your teeth. If you weren’t so on edge, you might appreciate the nickname he had come up with.

“Steve, run,” you ordered adamantly, silently praying and absently checking on the four girls in the room. They were just bait. Vasiliev knew that taking Secretary’s daughter was a way to get Captain America here. Fucking shit.

Come on, Steve, don’t be a dick, don’t play hero and just get your ass out of there. It’s over anyw-

Three more men burst into your room. Shit. So much for things being over.

You didn’t worry about getting them seriously hurt now. You froze their guns first, their shocked screams echoing in the room as the icy metal gave them an immediate frostbite. Then you created a layer of black ice under their feet, their lunges in your direction ending up in their limbs tangled together. Some of them were frozen to the floor by hands, some of them by their feet, sides. You didn’t give a fuck. You knocked out all of them, stabbing one of the other goons who came back into consciousness with icicle through his forearm. He roared in agony and passed out again.

A different scream made your blood run cold.

You never heard that sound before, but you were sure as hell whom it belonged. It was Steve’s. Steve was in pain. And in horrible pain, because you had never heard him scream.

“Shit!” Tony cursed through the comms and the sound of his repulsors came next. “Romanoff, get the documents on that substance and head to the jet. I’m bringing him in and calling Banner right now.”

You barely heard him over Steve’s cries, though they were falling silent. You didn’t think that was a good sign.

And then they died out completely.

For a second, the world stopped. Everything froze as if you had blasted your energy, yet nothing went cold. No, the time itself must have frozen.

“Get out of your asses!” you yelled after the girls, startling them all. You were coming to the jet right now, all of you, because you couldn’t leave them here, but you wouldn’t worry about the goons. Others would take care of them or the clean-up squad of agents coming after. You needed to see Steve. Now. “NOW!”

The girls shrieked, but complied, stumbling to their feet.

“Move it,” you hissed. “Down the corridor, stay close so I can protect you, but for fuck’s sake move.”

You barely heard them muttering something under their breath, your pulse too loud in your ears.

Steve was hurt. Steve was probably injected with some fucking anti-serum and— you blinked away your tears. Not now. You would see him first and then came to catastrophic conclusions. Not now, not now…

The way out of the building was endless.

“Faster!”

The girls immediately did as you ordered. They were probably scared of you; you couldn’t care less. Your friend was in unbearable pain. And shit, you felt cold all over your body. You hadn’t felt that for a while.

Tony had cut himself off, so you couldn’t hear him until you stumbled into the quinjet, seeing his figure hovering over Steve’s, lying unconscious on the improvised bed. There was a hologram of Bruce’s face, Natasha flipping pages for him; at your incoming, she handed the file to Tony and went to help you with the hostages.

“Stay here,” you hissed at the girls, pacing to the bed.

Steve’s back arched, his body in spasm and you gasped, reaching for him.

“Don’t touch him now, let it be.”

“You’re kidding right?!”

“He’s right, convulsing person shouldn’t be held down-“

“Read you fucking files, Bruce!” you shot back, but clenched your hands in fists to stop yourself from touching Steve. You vision blurred.

“Hey, cool it, Elsa!” Tony snapped at you, trying to make a sense of the files as well. “We’re trying! You have a Ph.D. you haven’t mentioned ye-“

“That’s it,” Bruce called out, astonished. “She needs to cool him down until you get him to me!”

Glares of everyone in the room locked you in. You tensed, horrified at the suggestion.

“You want me to WHAT?!”

────── ·❆· ──────

Part 4

────── ·❆· ──────

Tags: @mermaidxatxheart, @murdermornings, @elisaa-shelby

As always; anyone wishes to be added/removed, shoot me an ask or a message.

Thank you for reading!

117 notes · View notes

sammysreelreviews · 4 years

Text

Counting Down My Top 20 Films Of The Decade: Part 1

Ok so I wanted to include pictures for all 20 films so I broke the decade list into two parts! The second part will have a way longer and more sentimental intro but I’m lazy so this one is gonna be short. If you want to read my other decade lists you can read all the television ones here, here, and here AND you can catch my previous movie ones here, here, and here! Hope you enjoy the list these movies are films I’ve seen over and over again and I know you’re gonna scratch your head at a few of these but hey I like what I like okay?! As always *THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!!*

20. The Kissing Booth (2018)

Yes you read that right I indeed put Netflix’s The Kissing Booth on my decade list. Why you ask? Well because it’s literally the perfect movie to put on for background noise, it’s cheesy as fuck which I love, and Jacob Elordi is a fucking smoke. DEAL WITH IT!

19. Project X (2012)

Project X has a special place in my heart because it came out when I was my wildest in college. It’s a party movie that never stops the momentum and honestly has one of the best soundtracks like ever. Also the car in the pool is just fucking legendary.

18. Assassination Nation (2018)

This may be one of the most underrated films fucking ever!? The story about a town that goes batshit after everyone’s internet history is exposed is wild from start to finish. The film focuses on four besties (Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, Odessa Young, and Abra) who have each other’s backs when the town turns against them. Bella Thorne, Bill Skarsgard, and Cody Christian are also in this! I started to write a think piece on this movie cause I really think it says a lot about today’s society but maybe I’ll finish and release it in 2020! If you’re a woman please watch this movie! Also did I mention that, Sam Levinson the creator and writer of Euphoria, also wrote this! If you love how batshit Euphoria is this is that times ten!

17. Thoroughbreds (2017)

I only saw this movie cause it was the last movie Anton Yelchin (RIP my king!) was in and even though he had a small part in this dry dark film became one of my favorites. Besides Anton being perfect, Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke give fucking brilliant performances as ex besties turned partners in crime. If you like Gossip Girl, dry humor, and murder this is the movie for you!

16. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

I knew Leonardo DiCaprio was a phenomenal actor but I didn’t really get to see his full range until The Wolf of Wall Street. Leo is always acting serious on screen and in my experience and opinion it’s easier than being genuinely funny. Comedy is hard cause you either have it or you don’t but boy did Leo have it in this one. This movie is long but every fucking scene is bonkers. My favorite might be the fight Margot and Leo have the morning after he comes home drunk in his helicopter. “YOU WOKE UP SKYLA!” Iconic, truly. My fellow film buffs may fight me but I honestly think this is one of Scorsese’s best.

15. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Christopher Nolan was absolutely in his motherfucking bag when he was given the job to direct a Batman trilogy. There’s been so many god damn Batman movies but none of them hold a candle to any of Nolan’s and the third installment had a lot to live up to after The Dark Knight but boy did it rise to the occasion. Bane (Tom Hardy) was a super villain who people still do impressions of and Anne Hathaway does not get enough credit for her rendition of Catwoman! Ok before I forget, Joey King is in this movie but in the flashbacks you think she’s someone else and she wasn’t famous then but I knew who she was so I knew the twist at the end of the movie. Sorry I had to get that out there. Any who, no one has made a superhero franchise, besides Into the Spiderverse, that good well like ever! And no one has ever made a third movie in a series that fucking good like, ever.

14. The Duff (2015)

The movie based on the best selling YA novel was the last great teen rom com we had in YEARS before Lady Bird and Booksmart happened. I mean it’s actually fucking hysterical and I feel like it’s vastly underrated. I personally saw it because I stan miss Bella Thorne, who is excellent in it may I add, but I think everyone should watch The Duff I HIGHLY recommend it!

13. Love, Simon (2018)

Fun fact, I saw Love, Simon in theaters THREE times. Did I cry every time i saw it? Yes. Did I see it because I have a thing for Nick Robinson? Yes. Did I write a review for it that you can read here so I don’t have to talk about it for a 4th time on this blog? Yes. Watch this godforsaken movie and if you want more LGBTQ+ movies to watch check out this list of my absolute favorites here.

12. About Time (2013)

About Time is the best rom com of the 2010’s. PERIODT! Ok I was gonna end it there but honestly guys I fucking LOVE this movie so much! First of all, I have a huge girl crush on Rachel McAdams like she’s literally perfection. Domhnall Gleeson is so charming and funny in this you can’t not love him. The scene when he goes back in time and his daughter changes to a boy!? I was SHOOK. The scene where he goes back in time to see his dad again before he dies!? I CRIED REAL THUG TEARS. If you like movies that are funny, good, British, sad, have elements of time traveling, and lovey dovey, well this is the god damn movie for you. This movie should also be a tourism ad for Cornwall cause I’ve been dying to go there ever since.

11. It Follows (2014)

It Follows was the film that made me start this blog! I’ve written about it too many times to count so my review (that I wrote four years ago!) for it is here if you want to read it. It Follows started the modern horror renaissance and it has haunted me ever since the first time I saw it and that’s why I love it so god damn much.

85 notes · View notes

samsbastardzone · 4 years

Text

Hey, you know that 35 d&d questions ask meme? I answered all of them.

This is a long ass post. Be warned. It took up seven and a half pages in google docs. Original post here.

1. A favorite character you have played.

Would have to be Zize Fortier, dragonborn gunslinger. Their tag on this blog is #zize and you can find their bio and info on my character page. Love that bastard!! He’s sweet and bratty and a total delight to play (we are such an OP party, y’all).

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

UM UM gonna talk about a few here. To be fair to people I play a *lot* of games with, I’m only gonna talk about one PC per person.

- The bastard trio in my Wildemount game– @toomanyorphans ’s Nakoria, @overplannedbutunnamednpc ‘s Zier (also an NPC in the campaign Zize is in), and @glasyasbutch ‘s Nissy. They all really suck so bad but in SUCH funny ways. They’re varying degrees of self centered and awful, but we trust each other in this campaign, and those 3 players are SO funny in their RP.

- (RIP) Avri in my Wildemount game. They and Bly named each other,,,, they were parent and child…… VERY sweet. huge goliath with tiny bird in backpack.

- @bekahdoesnershit ‘s Raini. Zize’s BFF, and her tag on that blog is rich. She’s SUCH a bitch but we love her.

- @bhissar ‘s Saela. She is a dream character for me to DM for– very little fleshed out backstory with room to explore, with still-concrete events in it. Consistent character choices and personality, to the point I can sometimes predict what she’ll do. Very cool aesthetically. And overall? EXTREMELY sweet. Baby, baby bird.

3. Your favorite side quest.

Either the one going on right now in amnesia, where we have to collect brain matter from big powerful elementals, or the stop we made at a family of vampires in Acarnya (the one I played Osfyr in).

4. Your current campaign.

There are five of those, with two on hold.

-Wildemount, aka the Frozen Sick module from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount (we’re almost done with that, my PC is Bly).

-Amnesia campaign aka high level campaign: we woke up in hell with no memories! PC is Zize.

-Hoard of the Dragon Queen module, near the beginning of that, PC is Pointy.

-Horror campaign, only two sessions so far, but we’re trapped in an alternate dimension carrying out tasks for a creepy dude. PC is Vinny.

-Kithan, where we’re high level monster hunting guild members searching out ancient artifacts of the gods (campaign based on the Monster Hunter games), PC is Topaz.

-Silas, party is currently trying to help dragons free themselves and stop a… dude? No spoilers! I DM. On hold because I had too many campaigns going at once.

-Silas v2: extremely vaguely based on the plot of season one of the web series Carmilla. A tweaked version of the first arc the Silas party went through. On hold because it was played in person at school.

5. Favorite NPC.

I don’t really have any NPCs in my campaigns that I’m super attached to, except– Nikeo, a goliath rogue PC in Silas 1, had many adopted children. Three of them– kobolds– sometimes stand on each others’ shoulders, put on a long coat, and help out around their parent’s store. They’ve named themselves Koby.

As for favorite NPCs in campaigns I’ve played, I can think of… a lot. The first is Laurel, a blue dragonborn loner type who followed Osfyr and friends in Acarnya. They were kind of broody and dark, but they really drew me in. They were the first NPC we really talked to– they were sitting on top of the post office laughing at the mob scene of people protesting not getting their mail delivered.

I’d also pick Osfyr’s partners in that campaign– Yelkian, a backstory love interest I came up with, a flamboyant soft sorcerer. Jupiter, politician’s niece, who took pity on Osfyr’s attempts to seduce information out of her and let them succeed on both counts (seduction and information). Xerxes, extra AF rogue with a big loving family, who swept in after a fight on the back of an eagle-wildshaped Brysth (npc druid).

There’s a blue dragon in the HOTDQ campaign that we don’t know much about. I really enjoyed the way @dungeonsanddraconicqueer played him. He’s just a dude! Lex’s warlock made a Deal with him to leave the town alone. We still don’t know the implications of that. It’s fine, guys.

And then, there’s Stewart the Skin Steward, a servant of False Mystra. Fun dude. Very cavalier– nigh, enthusiastic!– about the fact that his entire city was made of skin. Something of a skin connoisseur, in fact!

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

Saela, hands down. She got breathed on by a dragon, yo. We then had to stop playing for 4-5 months because a player lost access to the Internet. I wrote a vision/speech from her warlock patron, the Raven Queen, the night she died, and basically didn’t touch it until I read it out in game. It involved a confession that the Queen was tired of being a god, and showing Saela all the lives she’d touched. Then we used Matt Mercer’s rez rules for her. She came back– but it was her choice.

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

Fucking tinkering dude!!! I don’t get to do it enough as Zize and that is entirely my fault. @ morgan, eyes emoji

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

I LOVE creepy shit. There was a train car with people dancing in it, and party members got enchanted to dance along and eat the food, and the revelers were clearly in pain, and snuffing out a candle caused a reveler to disappear. Creepy shit!

In Kithan, we had to climb a staircase, and we timed it with produce flame which is a 10 minute duration cantrip, and we were climbing for 50 minutes. We started to see things in the edges of our vision. Then someone realized it was an illusion, and it all vanished. It freaked me out so bad.

In amnesia campaign, at level 19, we were traversing a cave, and our shadows started dripping the same black goop we were there to investigate. We killed one and it took down the max hp of the person whose shadow it was, and then they straight up didn’t have a shadow until they long rested. It really freaked us out, realizing the shadows were actually creatures, but they were like CR 1. Really effective use of a low level monster.

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

The way it has something for everyone… the way it’s brought me so many friends… the way it’s inspired my OC creation like nothing else.

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

I’m not sure if this is asking about NPCs I’ve had as enemies, or any monster in D&D canon? The longest campaign I played in didn’t have long term enemies per se. I’d say I was frustrated with the cultists that ambushed us last session in HOTDQ, but I didn’t hate them! I just couldn’t seem to hit or dodge them. As for a favorite… probably False Mystra: the demon lord Orcus who’d taken over the position, and therefore the duties, of Mystra, the god of arcane magic. We killed it, but then whoopso!! Our wizard lost her powers.

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?

I play an ideal amount, honestly: four times a week, for about 2.5-3 hours a session. HOTDQ Tuesdays, Kithan and horror campaign switching off Wednesdays, Wildemount Thursdays cause we miss CR, Amnesia Sundays.

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

Amnesia: Yocheved, the party barbarian/full time fish, has a secret third arm and/or a prosthetic ass. Cylthia, the druid, does arson (but actually). Relentless is a Crown paladin, so she puts her fingers in her ears when we do crime/lie. She also has a rod of lordly might that, immediately post amnesia, she made into a 32 foot climbing pole. Yocheved eats pounds and pounds of raw fish for every meal.

Wildemount: just the shenanigans and sabotaging each other that the Bastard Trio get into. Example: Nissy was tasked with buying Zier a cloak for cold weather and purposely got him an ugly one. Zier then prestidigitated it to be a nicer color.

13. Introduce your current party.

Oh boy, I have 6 of those. Here goes. Keep in mind many of these characters are played and games are DMed by my friends who have OC blogs of their own: Raini and Ayen are bekahdoesnerdshit, Ezra, Nissy, and Roona are glasyasbutch, Horror DM, Lent, Eve, and Nakoria are toomanyorphans, Wildemount DM, Saela, Daecyne, and Cylthia are bhissar, HOTDQ DM is dungeonsanddraconicqueer, and Amnesia DM, Zier, Nyxi, and Sarril are overplannedbutunnamednpc. Not an OC blog, but Yocheved, Avri, Arbor, Thraf, Nikeo, and Whisper are mickgoesabsolutelyhamforbarbie.

Amnesia (Zize): Lent, tiefling paladin, former crownsguard who “fell” (became an oathbreaker), then un-fell when we lost our memories. Cylthia, tiefling/elf druid who can shift between tiefling and elf forms and loves setting things on fire. Yocheved, 14 foot tall nereid (fishfolk) barbarian with a dry sense of humor, is the party parent. And Raini, aasimar wizard, sass machine and Zize’s bff.

HOTDQ. My PC is Pointy. Ezra, quiet human paladin. Theata, moon elf rogue. Freya, sweet (human?) light cleric who sometimes misreads situations. Eve, 13 year old (!!) human warlock who kinda sucks, but like, she’s 13. Nyxi, motherly gnome bard who Is going to adopt Pointy.

Wildemount (Bly): Alene, human barbarian. Quiet and with somewhat of a parent instinct. Some sort of Mysterious Backstory. Delta, aasimar rogue, similarly shady backstory? Unclear. Sticks with Alene. Nissy, drow rune knight, sucks. Zier, drow sorcerer, also sucks. Nakoria, dragonborn warlock, ALSO sucks. (Those three make up the Bastard Trio.) Avri (F for them), goliath bard and Avri’s guardian, died last session by falling on a floor full of knives.

Horror campaign (Vinny): Roona, halfling bard, very impulsive, eats exclusively with her spoon that says ASS, and chills in Vinny’s fanny pack. Ayen, elven teenage warlock with a dark backstory. Sarril, Ayen’s not-dad, half elf beast barbarian who got it from his wife. Arbor, dryad monk, who wears an all white plague doctor outfit at all times.

Silas v1 (DM), Original party before 1 left and 1 died: Hacka (RIP), human luchador-styled drunken monk. Nikeo (left), goliath rogue with so many adopted children. Inferno, fire genasi paladin/phoenix sorcerer with anger and impulse control issues. Saela, babiest aarakocra warlock of the Raven Queen. Hacka’s player now plays Voda, a stoic water genasi tempest cleric who cast Raise Dead successfully on Saela. Nikeo’s player now plays Whisper, a tabaxi astral soul monk.

Kithan (Topaz): Thraf, monsterborn (universe-compliant dragonborn) barbarian. Very social, very outgoing, very stupid, and very traumatized. Fucks majorly. Daecyne, sweet tiefling druid and Topaz’s good friend. Viosa, aasimar homebrew class I forget the name of, uses her small stature and allure to her advantage. Damur, half-orc eldritch knight, the party’s only braincell.

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

Acarnya. My PC was Osfyr. Soraphine, traumatized halfling bard. Azalea, human fighter. Durzuell, haughty high elf sorcerer. James, nerdy half elf wizard. Drago, erratic Russian dragonborn monk. Kairon, slightly edgy ranger/paladin (but we love him).

Nordenheim. My PC was Cap. I will admit: we only played 2 or 3 sessions, so I don’t really remember most of the other party members except Rory, a fire genasi ranger who almost burned to death.

Silas v2 (hopefully will continue; I DMed): Kysseris IV. Half-elf paladin, uptight. Tower 1-6, warforged wizard who crawled out of the desert and is looking for info on how he was made. Mae “Pock”, gnome rogue, very small and sweet. Josh, human trickery cleric, kind of an asshole, but in a way that’s funny and hasn’t bled over into IRL annoying.

[school] West Marches campaign (Ner): by the nature of West Marches, there was never a consistent party, but a few stood out to me. Red Foot, a hyperactive kobold sorcerer who’s level 8 against all West Marches odds. Lyra, Great Old One warlock of Tzee’Mhor, an abomination goat that a party I was in accidentally created. Fildo Baggins, divination wizard who can only affect allies whose toenail clippings he has in his vial.

15. Do you have snacks during game times?

Hell yeah babey!!! I mostly play digitally, especially during COVID, and I need something to munch after DMing for a while. Shit’s exhausting.

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?

Welp! Online mostly, since everyone I want to play with has the audacity to live far away, and now exclusively online because of COVID.

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

Our Amnesia party is so rich that we just don’t keep track of money. In Kithan, a lot of rules that make characters less powerful are just… abolished (like the bonus action spell rule). (The DM likes super OP characters so she can throw SUPER OP monsters at us. My character has a necklace that gives 5 additional uses of channel divinity.)

18. Does your party keep any pets?

Nope. No opportunities for them. Zize’s party has a little water snake on the druid’s arm but I doubt that will last very long.

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

Absolutely. Cursed dice get j a i l.

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

Acarnya got me into d&d, it was my first campaign, and it was happening at the place I lived. I’ve been playing almost 2 years. (Critical Role inspired me to DM)

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?

Not sent a fucking letter to say goodbye to their boyfriend before the world-fate-deciding bullshit that was gonna happen and possibly destroy shit. It was fine in the end though!

22. What color was your first dragon?

Red. Man, that guy sucked, he almost killed Osfyr. We were investigating a monastery secretly run by dragons disguised as humans.

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?

Original campaigns. I’ve never run a module before! I’m not opposed, but most of my campaigns came from ideas that I had. I’ve never been short on ideas for a game.

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?

As a player, I just open my character sheet and get out dice. As a DM, I try and think about what material I want to get through this session, and write some narration and/or stat things out if I feel like it.

For DMs

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

A lot of times, Inferno has rushed into battle from what I’d built as a stealth mission, and gotten her ass and sometimes the party’s asses kicked. I should really have learned by now.

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters?

Definitely Saela’s resurrection ritual and vision.

27. Do you allow homebrew content?

Yes! I’ll check it first, but I’m all for expanding the boundaries. I homebrew items and monsters all the time, why shouldn’t my payers get to homebrew their shit?

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?

Too often in my first arc. I had like 7 NPCs running around at all times (they were Carmilla characters). Super not recommended. I have 0 right now.

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions?

I’m still finding my groove with RP as a DM. I like encouraging my players to RP amongst themselves. I consider myself fairly good at combat on both sides of the equation, DM and player, so that’s always fun to me, especially when my players enjoy it too.

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?

I have one actively reforming murder hobo player, the rest are diplomatic. (The character, Inferno, is having a great growth arc. I’m super proud.)

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

I fucking love genasi as a concept. Favorite class would have to be rogue or cleric, but gunslinger’s up there too.

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)

I honestly don't have the patience to not play DPS. I love doing lots of damage. Healing is satisfying, support is satisfying, but there’s a reason I picked rogue twice and tempest cleric over other domains.

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

Sometimes the backstory is part of the character concept– especially for Pointy, because I had the name first, then went hmm why would she have this name. Almost always, though, more backstory gets written during the campaign when I have an idea. Sometimes a character will act in a way I don’t expect, and it’s fun thinking of a justification to fill backstory gaps.

34. Do you tend to pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?

Mostly usefulness honestly. I’ll make choices among several for flavor, but I’m a big proponent of using mechanics to build character. What I mean is, think about Magnus in TAZ Balance– his protection fighting style contributed a lot to the way Travis played him as a protective person. I love that shit.

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?

I like to do a lot, but unfortunately my energy is pretty down lately so I haven’t been doing as much.

#zize #pointy #cap #bly #osfyr #ner #vinny #topaz #dm thots #meta thots #asks #amnesia campaign #hotdq #horror campaign #wildemount campaign #silasverse #kithan

6 notes · View notes

hethrewmyheartinthecut · 6 years

Text

Peaky Match #247: Freddie Thorne, Alfie Solomons, Esme Shelby

This is a result from the Who’s Your Peaky Match? quiz. The content is under a read more to prevent spoilers for those who haven’t taken the quiz yet.

Give And Take

You have a wonderful and mutually supportive relationship with your partner. Together, you and your partner are building something that you think will last and grow in a healthy way, setting boundaries and helping each other through rough times in life. You’re not afraid of asking for what you need or getting your partner’s help with some part of your own business, whether it’s to do with crime, politics, or family. Trust and communication are ultimately the cornerstones of your relationship, and that’s why you two have been able to last for so long, despite all the drama in Birmingham.

Family First

To you, nothing is more important than the group of people that are closest to you. Since this is the 1920s, that’s probably your family, but in some circumstances, this could be your found family, your group of friends, or your community. You cherish the shared traditions, memories, and inside jokes that you have with the people you love, and you fight really hard to keep them all safe and happy.

Examples: Polly Gray, Luca Changretta

Paper & Brain

Your greatest strengths are your ability to strategize and your analytical mind. While others may question your decisions, you are playing a long game and you’ll see it to the end. Your skills may show themselves in business, academia, or even the arts; ultimately, your talents are not confined to one specific job. If you don’t already have a good education, you make sure to get yourself one, because you want to have as many mental tools at your disposal as possible. Nobody wants to play chess with you, but everyone feels a little safer if you’re on their side.

Freddie Thorne

(post-WWI AU)

Over the course of the war, you set up a massive network of loosely connected leftists, to hide conscientious objectors, communists, and the like from London police. Your near-eidetic memory and fierce personal honor towards your friends are sometimes the only things holding the network together, and this inspires fierce loyalty from your friends, enmity from the Met, and awe, apparently, from Freddie Thorne. At first, you’re suspicious of the Peaky associate, but after a while, you’re so charmed by his rakish charm, nimble mind, and genuine goodwill that you acquiesce to a long courtship.

Unexpected Bonus: You’re not the only one who can play the long game. On your first official date, Freddie brings you a used copy of Coriolanus that he picked up at a secondhand shop. Though it’s not your favorite Shakespeare play, you’re taken with the little actor’s notes in the margins, and Freddie brings you books every now and then. The morning after your first kiss, the time after he disappears for a few days, evading the police, the conclusion of a successful strike. When you finally start stacking books on the floor, he casually suggests that you two move in together, for the sake of better shelf space. You give him a look and he breaks out into a smile that destroys any possibility of the book pileup being a coincidence.

Alfie Solomons

(post s2 AU)

You have an absurdly prodigious talent for fucking about with numbers, more than one powerful corporate titan on your tail as a result, and a family to protect. Alfie Solomons has a rapidly expanding territory in need of a cash infusion, a “meh” approach to the law, and plenty of security forces at his disposal. It’s a great business deal on paper, but in person it’s even better; the both of you start flirting with such shamelessness that Ollie actually blushes and tries to manufacture a reason to leave the room. There’s just something completely infectious about Alfie’s shit-eating grin.

Unexpected Bonus: Alfie doesn’t do normal dates. They’re all at one end or the other of the spectrum of wild dates: either ridiculous with some element of business, violence, or deception involved, or lazy and domestic and private. Exhibit A: Alfie pretending to be a Gentile to get into a private poker game, getting endless tips from you (you’re counting cards, obviously), and making half a dozen offhanded comments to the various lords there that could certainly be taken as insults if thought about in the right light. Exhibit B: Alfie frying up eggs for breakfast-as-dinner, not bothering to put on pants, then flopping down on the bed afterwards and arguing with you over the finer points of Sun Tzu till he falls asleep.

Esme Shelby

(pre-s1 AU)

When the owners of the Black Patch try to evict the Romani community there, Esme recruits you to defend her and her family. As a hotshot lawyer, this definitely isn’t your first eviction case, but it’s the first case you’ve had in a long time that makes you really care, the money aside, the victory aside, about whether or not you lose. Maybe that’s because you’re so drawn to Esme, her fiery confidence, the precision of her most vicious speeches, the intensity of her loyalty. When you win the case, she asks you to dinner with you then and there.

Unexpected Bonus: You warn Esme you have no experience with horses, but she’s adamant that if you’re gonna be together, you need to know how to ride at least a little. Somehow, this turns into a whole trip to the French countryside, borrowing a couple mares from her second cousin, and getting completely lost. Turns out she can navigate by the stars, and she takes good care of you. It’s maybe one of the most terrifying things you’ve ever done, basically putting your life in her hands, but so worth it. You tell her this on the last night, curled up by the fire, holding her, and she tells you that she trusts you, too.

To read more imagines like this, feel free to peruse the masterlist.

If you enjoyed this quiz/these imagines, I’d love it if you could send an ask, leave a comment, or reblog. I’m curious to see if you thought your matches suited you!

I’m also especially curious about what you did and didn’t like about this quiz. I’m very open to feedback. I plan on writing another quiz once season 5 is done which will match you with a season 5 character, so I’m looking to improve here.

#Freddie Thorne #Alfie Solomons #Esme Shelby #Freddie Thorne x Reader #Alfie Solomons x REader #Esme Shelby x REader #Peaky Blinders imagine #Peaky Blinders #Peaky Blinders fanfiction #mine #Peaky Match #Peaky Blinders Quiz

37 notes · View notes

thisweekingundamwing · 6 years

Text

This Week in Gundam Wing Apr 1st - Apr 7th

Another week, another roundup! Special thanks to all who submitted works, both for themselves and others.

As a gentle reminder, we’re here to highlight any new content from the previous week. If we missed a submission, we’ll be happy to update our post or carry it over to the next week, but if we tried to include everything beyond a week, we’d never get a post finished!

Thank you so much!

--Mod Rem

Fanfiction:

A Little Piece of Gundam Wing

The archive is being ported to AO3! Check it out!

AerisEithne

The Snow Queen

Days after the incident that nearly sparked a new war, Relena returns to the Sanc Kingdom to contemplate her future. She can’t help but wonder which path the perfect soldier will choose… and whether their destinies will continue to collide.

Pairings: 1xR

Warnings: Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrop, Preventers (Gundam Wing)

@the-indomitable-bhg, Morbidbirdy

Animus

A ghost of Heero's past takes possession of his life, relationships and his identity.

Pairings: 1x3, 2xH

Warnings: Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Post-Canon, Psychological Torture, Blood and Violence, Explicit Sexual Content

@claraxbarton , @kangofu-cb

Bad Company

"The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown

Years after the wars, Preventers has decided to tackle one of the most powerful and oldest of all the Terran crime syndicates. Embedded dangerously deep in an undercover operation targeting the violent and bloodthirsty Sinaloa Cartel, Trowa Barton is pushed beyond even his flexible morals - and when his new "partner" arrives in the very unexpected and unwelcome form of Duo Maxwell, the one person he'd been trying to protect at all costs, both men must deal with the realization that preserving peace for humanity is turning into a bloodsport.

What follows is race against time to uncover the evidence they need to bring Sinaloa, and its beautiful but deadly leaders, down - all while keeping each other alive in the process

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Violence, Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Moral Dilemmas

CosmicAether

Untitled GW Resistance AU

When their communicator breaks down, Duo and Trowa must survive the night before attempting to rendezvous to their extraction point. Duo confronts Trowa about their relationship that night and vow to be more honest with each other, they need only to make it home first.

Pairings: 2x3

DarkDanc3r

April Writes Playlist Challenge

30 days, 30 songs from a Spotify playlist. Characters and pairings will be at the start of each chapter.

Warnings: Tumblr Prompt, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Fix-It of Sorts, Damnit Prowl Lives

GlassAlice

The Pictures He Drew

Hiatus is over! Last chapter will be up in two weeks. Re-write of a fic posted to 1x2 yahoo groups I wrote forever ago and lost. Only the bare bones of this fic have anything to do with the first one. Hopefully this one is a bit better. Originally posted under name Duos_hallelujah. Simple get together fic with Duo being an artist.

Pairings: 1xR, 1x2

Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Song Fic Kinda, Rape/Non-con Elements, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, these boys are messed up, they need therapy, after war, the pilots trying to live their lives, 1x2, 2x1 - Freeform, 1x2x1, 1xR non con, 1x2 end game, we're back from hiatus, boys just trying to figure shit out, relena is kind of the bad guy, Sorry Not Sorry, i'm anti relena, so expect her to be treated badly, bullied duo, attempted suicide, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, language trigger warnings, a bit dark, Angst

Lithle

Like Oxygen

Five years after the war, Wufei seeks Duo out for one more mission. But Duo has his reasons for wanting to be left alone. As Wufei and Duo grow closer, so do Duo's memories of the war, and with them, the old scars and dangerous thought patterns that make even breathing seem difficult.

--Note: Originally published on FF.net, this is my 'Editor's Choice' edition. It's been edited and slightly rewritten for flow and cohesion.

Pairings: 2x5

Warnings: Unhealthy Relationships, Post War Trauma, Suicidal Thoughts, no EW, Post-War, Post-Canon, POV Duo Maxwell, Explicit Language, Sex, Duo is Broken, Wufei is Pretty Broken Too, Gritty, Get Together

Luvsanime02

Just One Day

Relena gets a surprise on her birthday.

Warnings: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Light Angst, Family Issues, Cocktail Friday

Maldoror

The Source of All Things

Center, a planet where magic and technology blend. Or more accurately, fight tooth and nail. A planet of Sources, holes in our boring dimension letting through arcane power, chaos and pseudo-deities. In this hot-house of myths and very real dangers, Trowa and Quatre find a mysterious man at the end of a shamanic voyage. Portents suggest this Heero Yuy is crucial to Center’s survival. He’s important enough to have some interesting enemies after him, at any rate: a devious killer and thief called ‘Shinigami’, and a very irate Dragon. Beyond them looms an even greater threat. Indeed, the greatest of them all.

Pairings: 3x4, 2x5, eventual 1x2x5

Warnings: Violence, alternative universe, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Plot Twists, fairly graphic depiction of sex, Mild description of self-harm, Mathematical Magic, weird science, crones - Freeform, Magic and Technology brawling and eventually screwing, Eventual Threesome, Kinda, Insanity of arcane origin, The universe is a pile of marbles and other dubious allegories

Two Halves

The two kingdoms of Sanq and Lin were at war for years; a conflagration involving magic, armies and political murder. The conflict left both nations devastated and strewn with refugees. The king of Sanq finds his infant son, lost at birth, among the death and the ruin, a miracle he barely dared to hope for. But there isn’t just one boy, there are two, clinging together like two halves of a whole that cannot be separated. Decades later, the truth behind that second child’s existence will put a hole in the world, or possibly save it.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Fantasy AU, medieval setting with magic, starts with our heroes as children, Cousin Incest, sort of, eventually, being royalty this is in fact the norm and rather expected of them, Canon-Typical Violence

Margaret_Armstrong

Queen’s Rook

Rook; definition:

1. a gregarious Eurasian crow with black plumage and a bare face, nesting in colonies in treetops.

2. a chess piece, typically with its top in the shape of a battlement, that can move in any direction along a rank or file on which it stands.

Queen's Rook; definition:

(chess) A rook on the queen’s side of the board at the start of the game.

Truly, a female bodyguard is just what the Vice Foreign Minister needs. There are dangers about.

Pairings: Canon Relationships, 3x4, 2xH, 1xR

Warnings: Violence, Women Being Awesome, brothers in arms, everyone protects Quatre except Quatre, L2 forever!, The Past Never Stays Buried

@noelleian

The Pact

After seducing Quatre, the other four ex-pilots brave the uncharted waters of their new abilities and learn to cope with the unintentional gifts they were given. But as always, power requires responsibility and the humbling acknowledgement of humanity's weaknesses. The struggle to stay true to themselves becomes a dangerous and terrifying endeavor as they skirt the boundary where conscience bleeds into chaos and the dark abyss of temptation.

Pairings: 1x2x3x4x5, 3x4, 1x4, 2x4, 4x5

Warnings: Smut, Porn With Plot, OT5, Fluff, Humor, Fivesome - M/M/M/M/M, Angst, Newtypes, Possessive Behavior, Alternate Universe - Dark, Non-Graphic Violence, Alpha/Omega, Omega Verse

Green Olive

Duo's had a rough day and needs to unwind, but this time he's in the mood for some company.

Warnings: Friendship, Bromance, Underage Drinking

@noirangetrois

Cocktail Friday

This will be a collection of my Cocktail Friday snippets.

Pairings: Various

Warnings: Cocktail Friday, Alcohol

The Story of Wrong

Duo recounts his experiences during the war in order to explain... well, why he was wrong.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Violence, Major Character Death, Duo POV, Angst, Drama, Tragedy, slight AU, Spoilers, very dark, Heero and Duo don't die, I promise, Yaoi, slowburn, Mental Instability, Mental Health Issues, Mental Breakdown, If those are in any way an issue for you then go ahead and skip this, Eventual Smut, VERY eventual, this is mostly canon-compliant but I've changed a couple things here and there

Outrightmight

MCU One Shot Series: After Colony 195

"It took Bucky a split second to get his bearings. The portal had spit them out into an aircraft hanger. The make and model of the one and only small jet was unfamiliar. He would have said it was of Soviet make, but the 50-foot robot idly standing in the middle of the hanger was making him second-guess himself."

Warnings: Natasha Romanov (Marvel), James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Duo Maxwell, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Heero Yuy, Canon-Typical Violence, One Shot

@remsyk-blog

Souls for the Bayou

For Trowa Barton, exploring the bayou is the ultimate adventure. Drawn to its borders since before he could walk, he spent his childhood learning its paths and uncovering its secrets.

But a chance encounter sets him on a path that spans across time, challenging everything he thought he knew, plunging him deeper into its mysteries than he ever thought possible.

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Supernatural - Freeform, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Bayou, Cajun, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Mystery, Slow Burn, Technically Speaking, Young Love, Use of accents, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, I don't want to give it all away at once, Fandom Trumps Hate, Time Jump, Suspense, Quatre is a great friend, Mentions of Children Disappearing

Shenanigans

A Collection of my shitposts from Tumblr.

Enter looking for a good time. Expect the tags to change as more installments are added

Warnings: chat fic, shitpost, Professor!Trowa, Cooking, Pinterest, Pancakes, Exercising, Tumblr Prompt, Originally Posted on Tumblr, In depth analysis of riding dick, New Year’s Eve, Jenga, Stupid Dares, Just Heero Things

ShenLong

Bound, Bonded and Betrayed

Heero is the eldest son of the King of Colonia. His 21st birthday is approaching and as tradition dictates his betrothed is soon to arrive. However he is also bound by tradition to select his own personal slave. The events that unfold lead him down a path that not only tests his sanity but his humanity and love as well.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR, 3x4, 13x11

Warnings: sap, Angst, Bondage, Slavery, Yaoi, Lemon, Lime, Het, Violence, Fluff, AU, OOC. - Freeform

@softnocturne

P.S. I Miss You

Quatre is missing Trowa who is off on a month-long mission.

Pairings: 3x4

Warnings: Fluff, Angst

StarLove18

Believe in Yourself

Children will live what they learn. Pain is costly, until one incident sparks a new flame of hope and a promise to persevere.

Pairings: 1&2&3&4&5

Warnings: Original Character(s), Bullying, Comfort/Angst, School, Minor Violence, Loss of Parent(s), Alternate Universe, AO3 FB Challenge

Thai_tea_addict

Abyss

Duo's not in a good situation when he falls in love with the man next door, and it goes downhill from there.

Pairings: 1x2, 2x3x4

Warnings: Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-con, Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark Character, Abuse, Stalking, Murder, Sadism, Infidelity

Warnings: DARK – please don't read if you think any of the following subject matter could hurt you: depictions of abuse, sexual assault, stalking, murder, sadism (not the fun kind).

Whenpigsfly84

Doormat Babe

A mysterious child is left with Duo one morning. As he seeks for answers he'll have to face his past and prepare for a haunting future he'd never expected. Will he be able to reconnect with old friends or will he lose all those he loves?

Pairings: 1x2, 2&H, 1x2x5, 3x4

Warnings: Violence, Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Swearing

White_fox

Life is a Highway

On an impulsive plan to travel from California to New York City to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Heero Yuy did not plan to pick up a hitchhiker in nowhere Texas. Faced with some setbacks and a growing attraction to his passenger, Heero goes through more challenges than he planned on facing.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR

Warnings: light slash, Fluff, Road Trips, Dubious Morality

Snippets:

@lifeaftermeteor

Duo’s Apartment

@noirangetrois

Ladies Night

@weiclown

WIP

Headcanons / Meta / Discussions:

@remsyk-blog

Gundam Wing on Ao3 - Breakdown of Fanfiction stats

@terrablaze514

Ladies of Gundam Wing

Secret Magic Heero Yuy

Four Months after Mariemaia

Fanart:

@noelleian

Zero Three Zero Four

Hipster Quatre

@remsyk-blog

Duo Maxwell Hip Hop

@showtime-eric

Trowa and Quatre, Sandrock and Heavyarms

Crackposts:

@the-indomitable-bhg

BDSM

Calendar Events:

Cocktail Friday

https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/

A new prompt every Monday!

Submissions should be posted Fridays between 3 and 5pm EST, and tagged with @gwcocktailfriday

Interview with a Creator by @remsyk-blog @interview-with-a-creator

Remsyk has created an online interview for fandom creators to fill out and then she features one each week so that everyone in the fandom can learn a bit about each other.

This week features @scacao

If you haven’t filled out her interview, go! do! now!

#thisweekingundamwing #gundam wing #weekly roundup

17 notes · View notes

secretlystephaniebrown · 7 years

Text

Why Rebirth’s Stephanie Brown isn’t the Same as Preboot Stephanie Brown

Hi I’ve got opinions about how the reboot has been handling my girl.

I’ve been enjoying Detective Comics for the most part, but I’ve been frustrated with Stephanie Brown’s role in them for a while. And I think I’ve finally put my finger on it.

Special thanks to @renaroo for all her help finding panels and issue numbers!

Below the cut is 2k of screaming and panels.

Stephanie Brown in the preboot era was a kid with a bad past. Her mom was a drug addict, her dad was abusive and a villain. She lived in poverty for at least chunks of her original run as Spoiler. She dated older guys, one of whom got her pregnant and ran away, and has been implied to be a sexual abuse survivor.

And as Spoiler, her life wasn’t necessarily better. She dated Tim, and they had a pretty decent relationship, but Tim didn’t tell her his secret identity, on orders from Batman. For reasons. (Bruce later told her his identity without Tim’s permission, which… doesn’t really make things better.) From day one, she was an outcast from the family; she regularly got locked out of the Batcave, wasn’t informed about major developments in the family, and Bruce denies her training and resources. She even suspects that this is because of her family life.

(Robin (1993-2009) #100.)

@renaroo and I have talked about this, and a part of Bruce’s reaction to Steph during this time period was clearly based off Bruce’s recent trauma because of Jason’s death. Steph, Cass, and Tim’s relationships with Bruce in the preboot were all tied to that event. Tim stepped up as Robin, providing Bruce with the balance and support that he knew he needed, so Bruce couldn’t really send Tim away. Cass had no secret identity, no life to return to. Bruce looked at her and saw his own morals concentrated, a dedication to the cause that he thought makes Cass an ideal protégé and possible successor down the line. (Not that it ever happened of course because of course it didn’t.) Besides that, Cass was a better fighter than he was, and had been looking after herself for years. Firing her wasn’t very effective, although he certainly tried in the later parts of Cass’s initial Batgirl run.

But Steph?

Steph was none of those things. Bruce didn’t need her, she wasn’t trained and capable like Cass. Instead, everything that Bruce saw when he looked at her probably remindd him of Jason. A mother lost to drug abuse, a father entrenched in crime and violence, a kid from the less great parts of the city. The parallels were right there to Bruce. But Bruce was too late to save Steph from this life, unlike Jason. Instead, Steph had decided to save herself. But he looked at her, and he saw a kid with no training and no experience. And he’d just lost a partner from a background very similar to hers.

He told her to go home. He never really stopped, not until she became Batgirl. (Although they had some amazing bonding moments as well, which I’ll probably make another post about later)

As a result Steph was an outcast for the majority of her run as Spoiler. She got brief flashes of integration and family; she teams up with Cass, works with other heroes like Black Canary, Huntress, and Oracle. She worked with Tim and Bruce as well. But just as often, Bruce did things like forbid Cass to patrol with Steph and the aforementioned locking her out of the Batcave and not telling her that the family was undergoing a MAJOR crisis at the time.)

(Batman: Bruce Wayne: Murderer? Robin (1993-2009) #98 - Yes Bruce was in prison at the time, but you’d have thought that SOMEONE would have thought to tell her he was unavailable.)

The end result of this should happen when she becomes Robin. Steph becoming Robin should have been cathartic; a culmination of Steph’s hard work paying off and Bruce recognizing her place in the family. And it was for a while!!

(Detective Comics (1937-2011) #796. Making me nostalgic for what could have been. Steph with anger issues and a complicated but growing relationship with Bruce? Amazing.)

Instead, it was a cheap stunt by DC. Steph got fired, Steph screwed up by starting a gang war, Steph died. (And then came back in an outrageously OOC manner, but that’s another story.)

We got some of the catharsis of her becoming part of the family in Steph’s run as Batgirl, but it was undermined by a lot of things. To make her Batgirl, Miller began what Tynion and the Nu52 (and later Rebirth) continues to do.

They take away what makes Steph interesting.

Steph’s anger issues were integral to her early character. She canonically went to visit her father in prison to fight him. Her anger was not once touched upon in Miller’s Batgirl. Her status as a teenage mom was similarly erased. Her trauma at the hands of Black Mask was only hinted at once, after Steph was shot in the head, when she saw him in a flashback.

(Batgirl (2009-2011) #6. Don’t worry, this will never come up again.)

And her friendship with Cass, a relationship I would say was defining and important to Steph, was washed away, with Cass not even appearing in Steph’s history of the Bat Family. Steph still had to fight for her acceptance in the family; Babs didn’t want her to be Batgirl, her first ever meeting with Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne was a disaster, and she struggled to find her place. There was still catharsis there; she built a team and support network for herself, and it was wonderful, despite my issues with that run.

Miller also started moving Steph away from her roots with her mom; Crystal in Miller’s run was clean and she and Steph seem to have achieved financial stability. But in the preboot, both of those worked, since we’d seen how far they’ve come. Arthur’s abuse wasn’t directly stated, but his attack on her specifically through Black Mercy mad it pretty clear that there were still elements of abuse present, even if the events Steph had referred to in previous stories weren’t shown.

But Tynion doesn’t have that history to build off, because the Nu52 annihilated Steph’s entire history.

Steph in Batman Eternal is from a perfectly happy middle class background, with her parents already split up and with joint custody. Her dad isn’t abusive (in fact, him being a supervillain appears to be a complete surprise to her), her mom isn’t an addict. She’s never been a teenage mom, and although she starts a relationship with Tim off page, she knows his secret identity from the beginning.

(Batman Eternal #3)

And Bruce accepts her into the fold right away in Detective Comics. As a fan of Steph, the catharsis is there on a meta level; Stephanie Brown is accepted enough by the company to allow her to be in the comic which they named themselves after! What a change from the days when Steph was brutally killed off and then banned from appearing in any medium! But in universe? That catharsis doesn’t exist.

So suddenly, Tynion is faced with a character with many of Steph’s traits; the name, the upbeat attitude, the costume, with none of her history or markings.

(Sidenote: Steph’s anger isn’t completely non-existant in the Nu52/Rebirth era: Selina notes that Steph is angry during Steph’s appearance in Catwoman #42.)

(Catwoman (2011-2016) #42. Thank you for this moment, it’s a balm to my soul.)

Steph’s inclusion by Bruce in this initial team he sets up is a fascinating choice. He’s integrating her into the family from the very beginning of her character arc. This could have been a chance to let Steph grow in new directions; she could have grown closer to Cass and Harper, have Bruce and Kate as mentor figures, and explored her relationship with Tim in new and exciting ways. She could have met Duke and Jason and bonded with them over their similarities.

But instead, Steph and Cass barely interact, Harper’s relegated to cameos and sage advice, and Steph’s character is instead defined solely by her relationship with Tim. She has a few nice moments with Bruce, like the hug I’ve been waiting for ever since I got into comics.

(Detective Comics (2016-) #940. THAT HUG)

But overwhelmingly I’ve been left wanting more, and not in the good way. It’s not satisfying. Steph has some great moments in ‘Tec and even some great lines, just like during her run as Batgirl. But there’s a kind of hollowness there for me, lacking the heart and soul of Stephanie Brown.

Tynion also makes some strange changes with Steph; she loses her snark and attitude that even Miller managed to maintain.

(Robin (1993-2009) #56. Just hanging around, you know.)

(Detective Comics (1937-2011) #796. Poor Bruce has to hang around with snarky teens.)

She’s lacking her relationship with gravity.

(Batgirl (2000-2006) #20.)

She also no longer loves being a hero and doing good, instead having her arc being dedicated to… saying that superheroes shouldn’t exist… while still functioning as a vigilante… (I really don’t like this kind of arc in comics, not going to lie, so I’m predisposed to not be happy here. But I still think this is a RADICAL departure from Steph’s prior characterization.)

(Robin (1993-2009) #100. Here we see Tim planning on retiring, and knowing that Steph is hardly about to stop being a hero.)

It all culminates, of course, in Steph’s departure from the team after Tim’s death. She calls out Batman for his actions, raises some valid points about how he’s not really parenting Cass (which… Tynion continues to ignore, because what, letting Bruce adopt Cass and teaching her to read? Nah, she’s too busy learning Shakespeare and hanging out with Clayface.) And after that moment of awesome she… leaves.

(Detective Comics (2016-) #947)

She becomes the outcast again. But this time it’s her fault.

And it’s so frustrating to me, this idea that Steph’s isolation is her own fault in Rebirth. That Bruce offered Steph a place and a team, but that she rejected it, is so aggravating. Steph’s isolation is supposed to be Bruce Wayne’s mistake which she pays for throughout her superhero career. Steph wants this place with the family, fights for it tooth and nail in the preboot. Now, if Steph had gone through the preboot arc, fighting for this, trying to earn it, and then turning away from it out of frustration with Bruce? I’d have been willing to listen, and might have even been excited for it.

(Detective Comics (2016-) #957. This is just such a departure from preboot Steph that it boggles my mind.)

But this is a Stephanie Brown who has not been a hero for long. This is Stephanie Brown, who is about the age preboot Steph was when she became Robin, new and inexperienced (meanwhile Tim is exactly where he was in his own timeline when Steph was Batgirl, a frustrating process that’s also familiar.) Steph is younger than she was in preboot and less competent. So are Barbara Gordon and Cass. The Batboys have gotten to grow up and improve. The Batgirls were forced backwards in both age and ability, and yet were older when they started their superhero careers, making them inherently less experienced then their male counterparts.

Part of it is, of course, DC’s refusal to let the Batgirls move forward in the status quo. Babs can’t become Oracle again, Cass can’t become Batgirl, and Steph can’t be Robin or Batgirl. The Batgirls (and Harper) are all now around the same age, and their relationships have been completely and utterly decimated by the retcons and reboots. Steph and Cass aren’t best friends, Babs isn’t a mentor to either Steph or Cass. Steph’s relationship with Bruce is no longer the complicated beast that it was pre-Flashpoint, she still hasn’t met Damian and established their bond, and her first interaction with Dick was an aggravatingly airheaded “kiss me sexy Batman”.

(Batman and Robin Eternal #2. Just. Why.)

And her relationship with Tim is lacking some of the most interesting elements; the drama of Steph’s history and Bruce’s disapproval. But despite its blandness, it continues to be the front and center of Steph’s arc. It’s what drives her away from the others and causes her to isolate herself. Steph functions as a manic-pixie figure to Tim, encouraging him to live his dream, while still being the goofy and funny partner he needs, with her primary motivation being his death.

Her goofiness and mourning are both clearly about to pay off in a manner which I am terrified about. In Detective Comics, Anarchy clones Steph’s phone. A phone which, it was shown in the previous issue, to contain information which could compromise Tim (and by extension everyone’s secret identities).

(Detective Comics (2016-) #963. Oh look and Tim even told her it would be a bad idea! Haha, how funny!)

(Detective Comics (2016-) #964)

We could be about to witness War Games, reboot version.

But this time, there will be no one to blame but Stephanie Brown. She chose to isolate herself, she was sloppy with her phone’s security, and she was fooled by Anarchy.

If Tynion does what I’m scared he’s going to do, we’re looking at some next level bullshit.

I live in fear.

#Stephanie Brown #DC #Detective Comics #Steph Reads Comics #DC Rebirth #Steph vs The Bat Fam #Steph Writes Steph (Brown) Meta

989 notes · View notes

gamer2002 · 3 years

Text

AI: The Somnium Files - Review2002

AI: The Somnium Files is a VN game with puzzle/adventure elements. Story-wise, I personally describe it as Lethal Weapon with SF elements in anime format and with bonus twists. The game was created by Kotaro Uchikoshi, of Zero Escape series. Similarly to ZE games, the story has branching points and multiple different endings, with some being required before reaching the others.

You play as Kaname Date, an amnestic detective in a slightly futuristic setting, whose partner is Aiba, an AI in Date’s cybernetic left eyeball. The main plot is about catching a mysterious serial killer, who removes left eyes of his victims, and discovering Date’s forgotten past. Through his investigation, Date, with help of Aiba, enters to other people’s dreams, the titular Somniums, in order to discover secrets hidden within peoples’ subconsciouses.

Comparing to Zero Escape series, I wouldn’t say the AI’s twists and revelations are as mindblowing. But AI is definitely stronger when it comes to emotional scenes, and highs of this game are incredibly high. It’s also at least as good Zero Escape when it comes to characters – while maybe the game doesn’t have characters on the level of the greatest in Zero Escape (999’s Zero and Ten from VLR)*, it has even better main duo than VLR (the best main duo in the series), has no weak characters (Quark, Alice and Clover are the reason why VLR cast can’t outshine 999 cast), and has an entertaining villain (999 had a good villain, but VLR and ZTD had their issues with it).

* Boss and Renju are good and quite complex characters, but Renju is an off-screen entity, while Boss doesn’t really have any kind of arc. Which is why they aren’t on the level of Ten, let alone 999 Zero.

Music is great, visuals are nice. The game is also the most immersive VN I’ve played. Instead of having static background with 2D characters, we, as Date, stand, or sit, in a 3D environment and turn around our head to look at various characters that are talking with us. Thanks to that, we can shift our focus from a talking character, to a character reacting to the other character’s words, and then even roll our own eyes over what we’re hearing.

Somniums are the main gameplay sections, just like the escape rooms are in Zero Escape. While investigating dream worlds is a fascinating concept, and I had some fun with completing them, the gameplay itself boils down to trial and error. There are rules and hints that help you solve the Somniums as puzzles, but I went through most of them by managing items that save limited time. And “perform an action, that has nothing to do with solving the current puzzle, to be able to perform next action in just one second” isn’t a legitimate puzzle solving. Sure, I can blame only myself for gaming the system, but I couldn’t game the good old escape rooms. And some Somniums were required to be gamed, particularly, the final one.

When it comes to the story, it’s good, but better not to approach it like Zero Escape. ZE were SF mysteries, while AI is a buddy cop story with elements of SF mystery. With such elements like the ridiculous actions scenes, Ota’s family character designs, or Mizuki’s abilities, Uchikoshi clearly wanted to have some anime fun with this project. And it is fun. The main duo is always entertaining with their back-and-forth, the intrigue and mystery are interesting, and the different paths allow to look at characters through different angles. The scenes that are intended to be touching are way batter than any attempts at that from Zero Escape. But there are really silly scenes, and there is a lack of complex elements, like motives of the villain. Still, with Uchikoshi botching complex motives in ZTD, I prefer simpler, yet more entertaining and memorable villains. And AI does provide such.

Overall, I recommend this game for fans of VNs and adventure games that don’t mind silly comedic elements. It’s a 8/10 story, with some interesting ideas and really well done character moments. And that’s what it comes to a spoiler-free review, as I decided to try starting blogging about interesting me aspects of writing in stories.

So, spoiler warning - I have couple of specific subjects to talk about. Those subjects are: the issue of the right side of the flowchart, why you don’t see the greatness of Iris’ character, and the Psync Machine sized plothole. That’s a lot of critique, but (assuming I will continue this series of blog posts), you should read me for spotted writing errors and solutions to them. But to not be overly negative, I will also praise and outline a good writing job, by focusing on the topic of Aiba as a perfect partner character.

The problem of the right side of the game.

Common complaint about the game is the right path from the first branching point, specifically Iris Route. Actually, I happened to complete Iris Route first, and I didn’t mind it. I still didn’t know what Uchikoshi was up to this time, and Zero Escape had taught me that an ending in Uchikoshi games isn’t a start yet.

Still, in retrospect, Iris Route has an issue with pacing and can feel bit jarring, after playing left side of the game, which is much more focused on the murder mystery. There’s also a problem of Iris herself, but that’s a separate topic.

The left side is laser focused on the game’s plot. The goal is to catch the serial killer, the stakes are bringing him to justice for killing Mizuki’s parents, the urgency is genuine threat of another person becoming the killer’s target. Urgency and stakes raise with each next victim. More and more questions are piling up, while all our actions are strictly plot related – we either try to obtain information from a separate criminal, clear up another framed suspect, or confront the apparent man behind it all.

Iris route is more SF focused, to a degree that is shocking after completing left side’s routes. There are raised questions that are related to the main mystery, but the focus is shifted on Date’s past and stuff like a possibility of prophetic dreams. Then we have Iris’ “death” with an emotional high in the form of questioning So and entering his Somnium. But then we are bamboozled with “Iris’ body” vanishing and her sudden “resurrection”, with the focus shifting on the possibility of altering reality with dreams… And then we fall into the rabbit hole of Naixatloz.

When I played this route, which was my first one, I assumed that Uchikoshi was telling me “you know my love for pseudoscience, so get a pile of pseudoscience and guess all the red herrings”. That in itself isn’t bad, but the stakes and urgency were gone, with the primary goal becoming more and more unclear.

Instead of more and more victims being targeted by the killer, like it happens on the left side, Iris route boils down to her status shifting between “not in danger”, “in danger” and “dead”. There are no more victims, only the first victim is dead. Stuff happens, like the attack of mercenaries and escape of a prisoner, but none have the weight of left side’s deaths and injuries. There is a possibility of bringing victims back to life, which removes any threat. Sure, this one sets up a beautiful tragedy for the route’s finale, but that’s the finale. Between So’s Somnium and the finale, the only real emotional moment is revelation of Pewter’s betrayal, but this doesn’t have any proper payoff akin to confronting So in Mizuki’s route. Fighting goons of a passive villain that hasn’t hurt anyone isn’t the same as fighting goons of a murderous villain that is prepared for a showdown. Renju with his mysterious agenda also isn’t the same threat like the serial killer that keeps killing or hurting characters around you. #89 can piss you off with his escape, but that’s as well.

Instead, the route is filled with exposition after exposition. We discuss Somnium technology, mythology, Iris’ close ones, alternate realities and conspiracies. We don’t progress with the case, we only get Iris back to the “not in danger” status for few times. Date becoming apparently brainwashed by her is intriguing, but that won’t carry a route with unclear shifting goals we don’t really progress toward. What’s left, Date getting lectured on Mizuki’s well-being? If you played the left side, you know her situation isn’t that bad as it could be. If you haven’t played it yet, you don’t know her enough to care that much.

Overall, Iris route has a good beginning and finale, but the middle is exposition filled and nowhere as engaging as the left side. And while Date and Aiba duo can easily carry the game, Iris route is a problem.

Iris – really good character dragged down by an execution misstep

There is a complaint that Iris, unlike Ota and Mizuki in their routes, doesn’t have a character development. For starters, Ota and Mizuki don’t really have much of character development outside of their routes. Iris does develop in her route, but negatively. The real issue is that the game doesn’t properly justify her early actions, which you may or may not like, depending on your subjective opinion.

Personally, I have a soft spot for cheerful/wacky female characters that can bring a smile on my face. Iris, being a girlish idol with trollish tendencies, was enjoyable for me. I liked her blackmailing Date to let her tag along, and I liked her trolling Ota or Moma. Although, the way she talked about Egyptian mythology or nanomachines was bit too infantile for me.

But when all is said and done, Iris is a good character, or at least there is a really good idea behind her. A crazy idol-slash-troublemaker that produces a scandalous video, just to force a detective to let her look at a crime scene and go wild with her imagination, is in fact a terminally ill brain cancer patient that tries to have as much fun and excitement she can get in her soon to be over life. She wishes for something special to happen to her, an adventure, a conspiracy, or to find at least a replacement for her lost father-figure. Unknowingly to her, she is a center of conspiracy her mother is part of, in order to protect her from the killers of her actual biological mother. Unknowingly for her, her mother has a plan to obtain money for her treatment. Unknowingly to her, the man she things as a replacement of her father-figure is her father-figure, but they both are unable to recognize one another. She had a special life, she had a chance for a long life, and she had discovered the man he was looking for, but she was unaware of it all.

And then she gets the adventure she wished for, in form of unknown armed men trying to kidnap her. Trauma from that event, mixed with the condition of her brain and tons of conspiracy theories, pushed her into delusion. The worst of all, she ended up dragging into said delusion the man that could help her, if she had not made him lose his own grasp on the reality. Unable to handle the trauma, she succumbed to her brain tumor, wondering if she was dying in the arms of the man she wanted to reunite with.

When Mizuki’s and Ota’s stories end on positive note, Iris’ story ends on a tragic one. Her wish for excitement before the end of short life provided her with excitement that prevented her life from being prolonged. The careless troublemaker that could irritate us at the beginning was understandable, but paid the ultimate price for her own actions.

But the execution fails to deliver that.

When it comes to Mizuki and Ota, the game is clear and to the point. We don’t have to connect the dots, to see what is moving about Mizuki finding that she has her family in Date. We don’t have to reflect deeply about it, to see that irritating manchild Ota actually deals with an unhappy situation of the person he does deeply care about. When you want to emotionally move the player, you can’t expect from him to figure out why he has to be moved, you have to directly slap him with reasons to care and then bash him with emotional scenes.

The problem is that in Iris’ route we don’t learn about her brain tumor. We learn about it when we switch the path and look for information in reality, not in her delusions. The additional layer to the tragedy in her ending is revealed to us when we are avoiding said ending. Plus, the game doesn’t ever connect said revelation to her early behavior with constantly forcing Date to let her tag along, that aspect of her remains unexplained. And not every player will think that deeply about it.

The game had an occasion to hammer down why Iris’ behavior had a purpose beyond her forcing herself to the plot. After the second discovery of “Iris’” body, but before Aiba helps us with figuring things out, Date could mourn Iris and think about everything he had learned about her. He could remind himself how Iris wanted to be around him, he could realize she knew that her days were numbered, he could conclude that she was just desperate to feel alive before her own end. Then, after Aiba helps him figure out that the body doesn’t belong to Iris, he could also think about the importance of staying in reality and that it would be a tragic mistake, if he had believed Iris about the conspiracy. It’s not much, but it clarifies the purpose to everything.

It’s subjective whatever you like Iris leeching on Date, it’s subjective whatever you find the above explanation as a sufficient justification. But the character’s actions being clearly purposeful and meaningful, and not just being borderline obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious, is an objective quality to your writing. When it comes to Iris, the game does not have such a quality, when it easily could have.

Two short monologues, with some montage of flashbacks, and the character would be put into a different light. That’s why you need to be direct about emotionally affecting the player about your story and your characters. Otherwise, you won’t affect many.

The plothole with Psync Machine prototype

So, six years ago, Saito swapped bodies with Date in Rohan’s body, using the prototype of Psync Machine. Date escaped with Saito’s body, while Saito remained in Rohan’s body, and both have lost their memories. Date was found by Boss, who made him join ABIS. The police arrested Saito, and locked him up in the local Arkham Asylum. For six whole years, the Psync Machine prototype remained in secret location, with two knowing about it men suffering from amnesia.

But there was also a bunch of Saito’s people. You know, the same guys that stole the prototype and witnessed Saito and Date swapping their bodies? Whatever happened to those guys, and how come that they never said a word about it, especially to Saito’s father?

The game doesn’t recognize this at any point. We are supposed to accept that the prototype was hidden in abandoned chemical plant, and nobody knew about it until Saito regained his memories. Sure, Saito’s people could remain loyal to him, but how come that six years later Saito was forced to work on his own and, in true ending route, had to improvise swapping the body of dying Renju? And Saito really isn’t any kind of charismatic leader that would made bunch of criminals to never use or take away a machine that allowed them to become literally anybody. That’s simply an unbelievable plot convenience.

There is a simple solution to this. One way for explaining why nobody touched the prototype would be causing the explosion in the chemical plant right after Saito and Date swapping their bodies, which would be the cause for everybody present losing their memories. After the body swapping, due to Saito overlooking one of the prototype’s properties, Date was hit with an adrenaline shot, while Saito was drugged. Or maybe Saito’s men were the ones that didn’t tell him about that feature? While Saito was unable to do much, Date was still surrounded by Saito’s men, that were going to betray their boss and use the machine for their own ends. But Date did gain access to Saito’s memory, who had a plan of causing an explosion in the chemical plant, and also had finished his preparations. Perhaps Saito choose the chemical plant as a place for the body swapping, because he intended to trap there his own men and Date, because he wanted to become independent from his father and keep the secret of body swapping machine for himself. So, Date, not having any other way of preventing the Psync Machine from falling into wrong hands, finished what Saito had started and caused the explosion, wiping everybody’s memory. Of course, Date had no intention of losing his own memory, but something went wrong and he ended up barely escaping.

While this issue is an easily resolvable plothole, I doubt if Uchikoshi would prefer such a solution instead of keeping the hole unfixed. I mean, while Date’s decision to cause the explosion would be understandable, due to being outgunned by criminals and a dangerous device being at stake, Uchikoshi wouldn’t be able to have his happy dancing party ending anymore. Because Date would be indirectly responsible for Ota’s father death.

It’s because of the chemical plant explosion that Ota’s family’s diner has lost their consumers. Because of that, Ota’s father had to take different jobs and overworked himself to death. Because of that, Ota was the only one who could support his mother, after she started to suffer from dementia. Such a revelation couldn’t be just overlooked, to let everyone dance and have a shamelessly cheesy finale that celebrates Aiba’s miraculous resurrection.

Perhaps Uchikoshi planned for Date to cause the explosion, but backed away from it, realizing its implications. Which is why he has changed things last minute (moving the explosion two years before), while doing a rather sloppy job at it (so, people could enter the epicenter of explosion two years after it, but only six years later the restricted zone was decontaminated?). I can understand him making such a decision, having a dark twists for the sake of it isn’t really that good. It’s respectable that he wished to have an upbeat ending. But he should have think things through.

But to get myself out of this game’s shortcomings, let’s look at how it delivers what it promises in its title. AI, also Artificial Intelligence. Ai, also love.

How to write a Partner Character for a video game with Love in its name

Each medium is different, each medium has its different strengths. Books allow for imagination inspiring descriptions of events, and good books make their readers lost themselves in their settings. Movies allow to condense plenty of events in one-two hours, good movies make their viewers to invest themselves in an emotional roller-coaster. Video games (and RPGs) allow direct involvement in their events, good games make their players to have intense personal experience.

Which is why gaming journos that endlessly complain about video games writing supposedly not matching to books or movies (especially when they talk about movies) are nothing more than a bunch of desperate rejects from pop-culture sites they’d like to become a part of. But I digress.

In a book or a movie, Aiba would be a supporting satellite character. While I’ve compared the game to Lethal Weapon, she isn’t exactly a Danny Glover to Mel Gibson in this. While Gibson’s character ends up having more character development and ends up being arguably the protagonist, Glover’s character is still his own independent entity with his own supporting cast (his family), and he still makes his own major plot advancing decisions (sheltering a smuggled family in 4).

Aiba is closer to Aladdin’s Genie. She was explicitly created to support Date, she doesn’t really have much of an arc, up until the very end she has no interactions with most of the cast, and in her every single decision she faithfully aids Date. So, while she shares equal screen-time with Date, she doesn’t share an equal standing with him. And while both Aiba and the Genie are memorable, entertaining and likable, and also they both form a connection with their protagonist, with whom they have great chemistry (although Date and Aiba have greater, due to being bigger opposites), there is a limit to how much you can get invested in the fate of such a character. Let’s say that Aladdin couldn’t defeat Jaffar, but the Genie sacrificed himself to save the day, and then he got his own miraculous Disney-like resurrection. Let’s make it easier for the Genie, and imagine him as a more appealing waifu material.

On paper, Genie’s sacrifice and resurrection would be the same Aiba’s is on paper – a rather predictable nice to have miracle in a kids story that has no balls for a lasting tragedy. Even when said tragedy pretty much only could impact a single character, even if said character was our viewpoint protagonist. Even if the character is fun and them being okay can make you happy, depending on your subjective experience.

But we aren’t experiencing video game plots by reading them on the paper. Aiba isn’t just a fun and likable character that solely aided another character that we were following, Aiba is our Partner Character that aided us. The reason why she didn’t get much of interaction with other characters isn’t because she is some satellite character, it is because she was, rightfully, preoccupied with us and nobody else.

We people are quite selfish, and you’re lying if you deny this. The purpose of Aiba’s character was to make us feel sadness, over her sacrifice, and joy, over her resurrection. For that, the game needed to make us love her, which wouldn’t work so well in a book or a movie. How a game can make us love a character, in a way that other mediums simply can’t? By appealing to our selfish needs of usefulness and reliability.

Aiba is extremely useful to us. In Somniums she becomes playable, with the game presenting it as her following Date’s, ours, instructions. Outside of Somniums, Aiba’s abilities and tips help Date, us, to advance the investigation, making the game proceed smoother. Zoom, x-ray, lie detecting, hacking, googling information, perfectly calculated ludicrous plans, you name it. Aiba is also completely reliable, being the character that aids us 99% of time, and also one of very few that never turns against us. And like I’ve said before, she is always fun to have around.

While in other mediums Aiba could be more than just Date’s little useful techno-Genie, in a video game this isn’t just not needed, it would be also a potential hindrance. If Aiba had another character with similar importance to her as Date, in order to establish that she would have to, at some point, push Date aside for said character’s sake. And that would be pushing aside us. Notice that the second most important character to Aiba is Mizuki, and Mizuki also never turns against Date.

Add to that she always secretly loved Date, and we have our perfect videogame waifu. You will love her, you won’t want her to die, you will want her to return, you will rejoice when she returns. On the paper, it will be one of the most played out and cliché plot turns. But you won’t be experiencing it by just reading some paper.

#ai the somnium files #ai: the somnium files #somnium files #vn #video game #video games #game reviews #game review #story review #story analysis #review2002

1 note · View note

mikariazure · 4 years

Photo

http://miliblue.carrd.co http://twitter.com/miliazure http://app.roll20.net/users/5710223/mili

This is a homebrew adventure full of inprov scenes and random fun so the plot has changed over time as new ideas come and new characters are added. These are two versions of it, one that I made originally just to detail a series of events that corresponded to the characters’ background stories and another that I turned into a homebrew campaign where my characters are NPCs offering clues, quests and items and the main adventures falls to a group of unnamed adventurers. The geography of the land also changed a bit with each draft until I decided to keep everything in the same general area. If you want to play my homebrew when I DM it without spoilers, this is your chance to stop reading.

Homebrew Timeline Many years ago, a group of good Dragonborn monks sealed an evil dragon underground in a secluded island. One of them volunteered to stay behind frozen in time, only to awaken if he needed to defend the seal from intruders. Starlight Kingdom was located in a small island, secluded from the rest of the world. The vast majority of the population and the royal family were humans, but there were also a few elves and half-elves. An elf was chosen at birth to serve as the caretaker of the magical archives and tasked with dedicating her life to studying magic. The shrine maiden died of old age and a new elven shrine maiden was selected, Azure. Though she had no claim to the throne, she was given the family name of the royals, Starlight, to show their connection to the kingdom’s magic. The evil elven sorcerer Blanc Noir reached Starlight island and casted a spell to make the island invisible. This caused ships to become disoriented and travel to be almost non-existent. Blanc Noir and the human wizard Cerise, had twin boys. Blanc choose one as his heir and partner in crime and abandoned the other, deeming him to have insufficient magical potential. The captain of the royal guard, sir Larry Lavender found a half-elf baby abandoned in the forest and adopted him as his son, Lore Lavender. Blanc Noir kidnapped young prince Crimson Starlight IV. Tabaxi adventurer Lilac and her young daughter, Cyna, accidentally ran their boat into the shores of Starlight Island. The citizens of Starlight were suspicious of Lilac. To earn their trust, and because this was in her line of work, Lilac left her daughter in town and set out to help rescue the young prince. Lilac and Larry, teamed up with a few others and rescued prince Crimson. However, Lilac was mortally wounded protecting the prince. With her dying breath, she asked that her daughter be taken care of. In gratitude for the safe return of his only son, King Crimson Starlight III adopted Cyna as his daughter. Azure Starlight became tired of her life of studies and isolation. Princess Cyna, who missed the life of adventure of her childhood, helped Azure escape from the archives and leave the island. Azure arrived in a neighboring continent and started looking for work as an adventurer. She teamed up with another adventurer called Genesis and continued to travel with him ever since. The Tenshi Knights met the genasi seer, Rose Pyro, who told them of an island that disappeared years ago. She sensed that a great evil was on the island, but was unable to perceive any further details. She gave them precise directions to reach the island that they would not see until they set foot on its shores. Tenshi Knight Turquoise and his daughter, Indigo, who were in training, teamed up with Larry, Lore and a few others to defeat Blanc Noir. Blanc knew he couldn’t win, so he retreated in a weakened state. The Tenshi Knights left Starlight Island, which was visible and ready to reconnect with the rest of the world. After that mission, Indigo became an official Tenshi Knight and began her own journey, able to take on missions on her own. The human wizard Cerise, poisoned Sapphire lake, to exterminate the triton living in it and take over the magical artifacts they collected. Most of them survived, but had a slow recovery, unable to stop Cerise from taking their treasures. Aquamarine was away from Sapphire Lake during Cerise’s attack. When she returned from her trip she was shocked to find out about the attack. Cerise stole her family’s treasured Bowl of Commanding Water Elemental, which Aquamarine was determined to get back. At Starlight, Blanc’s son, Void Noir, pretended to be Lore while the real Lore was off on a trip, but Larry realized that wasn’t his son. Before Larry could inquire further, Void managed to kill him, but not without a witness. Lore returned home to find his father at the verge of death with the look alike murderer before him. Lore tried to stop him, but Void escaped. Void’s existence was a secret, so everyone thought Lore was guilty, since he was the only one anyone thought they saw going in and out of his father’s house. Declared a traitor and murderer, Lore realized that Void had fled the island and went on a quest to find him, traveling under the alias of Mythos. Princess Cyna believed in Lore’s innocence and after the king declared him a wanted criminal, she had enough of the life she was never truly comfortable with. Cyna left Starlight, but she occasionally wrote to her brother, who had also disagreed with his father’s decision against Lore. The king contacted the Tenshi Knights and Indigo took on the mission of investigating Lore’s whereabouts. Blanc Noir began to take over the Emerald Forest, trying to make it his next base of operations, like Starlight Island had been in the past. Cyna wrote to Crimson about a delicious dessert made with fruits from the Emerald Forest, which got him curious about it. The people of a small human town called Lost Edge, located just outside of Emerald Forest, said the centaur came out to trade for weapons, which was very unusual, but it gave them access to fruits of the forest. After Starlight was freed, they became traders, being an ideal point in the middle of a long stretch of ocean for ships to stop. Due to the increasing maritime commerce, many exotic products could be found at the Starlight markets. Prince Crimson left Starlight Island on a diplomatic mission to establish a trading contract with the rulers of the Emerald Forest. The centaur of the Emerald Forest were very territorial and didn't like establishing trade, but Crimson was adamant in taking any opportunity that could be good for the Starlight Kingdom. The prince ignored the warnings from the people of Lost Edge about getting lost in the forest. He became separated from his guards and though the guards managed to make it back to town in a disoriented state, thanks to some help from a mysterious centaur, the prince was missing. King Crimson fell ill during his son’s absence and the nobles began to fight over who would inherit the throne. Word reached Cyna about her brother’s disappearance and the king’s condition, so she began to search for the prince. During her travels, she found Azure and asked her to temporarily return to Starlight and reclaim her position as shrine maiden to help stabilize the kingdom. Cyna revealed that she took responsibility for Azure’s departure and to save face, the royal family had kept it a secret. The nobles thought the shrine maiden had retreated deep into the magic archives to study for the benefit of the kingdom. Indigo found Mythos and sensed no evil in him, thus promised to help find the mysterious evil twin. They met up with Cyna and learned about the missing prince. Indigo, Mythos and Cyna ventured into the forest and become disoriented. They were attacked by dangerous plant monsters, until they were found and guided out by a centaur called Vermilion, who had also helped the guards before. Vermilion explained that his people didn’t usually accept help from outsiders and generally kept to themselves, but were up against an enemy of great magical power, the elven sorcerer Blanc Noir and human wizard Cerise. While Cyna, Indigo, Mythos and Vermilion prepared to venture back into the forest, a strange light overtook the forest. Upon investigating, they found runes had been carved into the trees surrounding the outer forest, encircling the center. They discovered Cerise casting a strange spell on the forest. Indigo, Cyna, Mythos and Vermilion teamed up to defeat Cerise. After she was defeated, her magic dissipated from the Emerald Forest, but it was too late. Upon examining the forest, they found several of its deceased inhabitants, reanimated as undead monsters. After getting past the undead and making their way to the center of the forest, they found some suspicious magic scrolls that were not able to decipher, but no signs of the prince. The surviving centaurs rebuilt their village and Vermilion decided to continue traveling with the group until Blanc was defeated. Cyna suggested going to Starlight to ask Azure if she could get any clues from the scrolls. Blanc was clearly gone and was unlikely to return, since he had clearly gotten what he wanted from the Emerald Forest. Aquamarine arrived at Starlight Island, following rumors that a man on a ship had used what could be her heirloom. She hoped to collect information, since so many ships stopped there and rumors from across the globe reached the island. A nobleman was drowned by a water elemental. While Azure investigated the happenings, she met Aquamarine and learned her story. Rose Pyro arrived at Starlight requesting an audience with the shrine maiden in the name of the Tenshi Knights. Though she was not a Tenshi Knight, she knew the name of the Tenshi would be the fastest way to get an audience. She had finally been able to decipher the prophecy that took the Tenshi to Starlight long ago. A dragon was slumbering sealed beneath Starlight Island, waiting to wake up and devour the kingdom. Azure, Aquamarine and Rose went to Blanc’s old hideout and found a secret passage thanks to Rose’s predictions. Underground they found a frozen Dragonborn encased in an icy crystal. The ice melted away and the Dragonborn attacked. After fighting him, he began to regain his senses and Rose realized he was trying to prevent the evil dragon from being woken up. They assured him that was not their intention and advised by Rose, laid down their weapons. Upon investigating the caverns further, the Dragonborn, Silver, realized that someone had already gone past him without waking him thus if the dragon still slept, it was left that way on purpose. Silver couldn’t explain how someone got past him, but knew it was no one in present company, since they were unable to get by without detection this time. They wondered why the dragon wasn’t awake if Blanc Noir possibly made it through before. The water elemental attacked and began to flood the caverns. Azure, Aquamarine, Rose and Silver tried to locate the source. Aquamarine went underwater to attack Void, and try to make him lose control over the elemental. Silver, Azure and Rose took the chance to catch up and attack Void, who retreated and got away. Aquamarine had recovered her heirloom but decided to stay and help her new friends. After Void was gone, the group continued to explore the caverns and found many previously magical artifacts drained of their power next to the dragon. The cave floor was filled with strange runes and a dome of energy surrounded the large red dragon in the center. When the group tried to approach they were teleported unto a trap. They discovered some runes that could focus energy and used them to have Azure receive energy from Rose, Silver and Aquamarine, for a teleportation spell strong enough to escape. That explained the drained artifacts and how Blanc got past Silver. Azure mentions she might not have figured it out without the knowledge of the outside world. Cyna, Indigo, Mythos and Vermilion returned to Starlight. Mythos, who was reluctant to return, went into hiding while Cyna and Indigo sorted things out. Cyna, Indigo and Vermilion met up with Azure, Aquamarine, Rose and Silver. Azure was able to interpret the scrolls and found that the magical energy from the artifacts the centaur kept was drained out of them and absorbed into something or someone else. Cyna told the king they found Crimson and he stayed behind doing business protected by the Tenshi. In a separate audience, Indigo told the king that she believed in Lore’s innocence and they were working on finding the real culprit. The king passed away that night and Cyna announced to the nobles that Crimson was on his way home. Mythos tracked down Void and challenged him. The battle caught the attention of Tenshi Turquoise, who had recently arrived at Starlight and chosen to keep his presence a secret. Though he just barely made it, Mythos managed to defeat Void and Turquoise captured him. Void was taken captive and interrogated. They found out that Blanc was already somewhere on the island and he had prince Crimson captive. They also learned the truth about Lore’s origin and his parents, Blanc and Cerise, but kept it a secret from the rest of the kingdom. Silver returned to guard the red dragon. Rose said she was unable to see the future, as her predictions came at random. Void escaped from prison and used his necromancy that he claimed to have learned from Cerise, to raise a zombie army, but overdid it and his life was consumed by the intensity of the spell. The royal guards scattered overwhelmed by the zombies, but Turquoise, got them organized to protect the kingdom. A mysterious masked bard joined the fight on the side of the zombies. Indigo, Mythos, Vermilion and Rose went to check on Silver and he met them half way. The Dragonborn had left the cave to announce that the red dragon within the energy dome disappeared and he had a bad feeling about it. Azure, Cyna, Aquamarine encountered the mysterious bard and fought him. Cyna recognized him as Crimson and the rest of the group met up with them. After tiring him out, they were finally able to destroy the mask used to amplify his power and control him. Crimson was saved, plus Turquoise and the royal guards were getting the zombies under control, but they still didn’t understand what happened with the dragon. Blanc Noir finally revealed himself. It was Blanc’s plan all along was to fuse with the dragon to obtain his power, a process that was very slow and required a lot of magical energy to accomplish it and survive. While Turquoise and Crimson protected the Starlight Kingdom alongside the royal guards, Cyna, Mythos, Indigo, Azure, Silver, Rose, Vermilion and Aquamarine faced the final battle against Blanc Noir.

Homebrew Adventures Characters are introduced, make notes about their background. Level (1). The adventurers are looking for work and learn about the genasi seer, Rose Pyro. She reads their fortunes and gives them specific directions to Starlight Island. The group must choose a ship to travel on between merchants, fishermen or pirates. The merchants are attacked by pirates and a sea monster, the pirates betray the adventurers and the fishing boat almost sinks because of a sea monster. The adventurers get 100 gold each from the merchants for helping them. They also level up (2). Upon reaching Starlight, people are suspicious of them and the group learns about the island and Blanc Noir. They can also buy supplies. The royal guards take the adventurers to Azure and Cerise. If they resist they must fight the guards, Cerise and Azure. If they go with the guards Cerise explains more about Starlight’s traditions of the royal family and shrine maiden. Then she tests the adventurers by sending them on a dream adventure. The adventurers are transported to an illusion of Starlight’s past. The queen is killed and the prince is kidnapped. They meet young Cyna in town and Lilac has gone to save the prince. The adventurers must get through the traps in Blanc Noir’s hideout in time to save Crimson. Arrow corridors, slippery stairs, trap bridge, monster den, if they take too long they fail, but if they hurry, they see Lilac die protecting the prince and take the prince outside. The illusion is so real they somehow level up (3). If they succeed Azure gives them a choice between: Tome of Clear Thought (Int +2) Tome of Understanding (Wis +2) T of Leadership & Influence (Cha +2) Manual of Bodily Health (Con +2) Manual of Gainful Exercise (Str +2) M of Quickness of Action (Dex +2) Cerise storms off and Azure talks to the adventurers a bit more. They can’t get the benefits of the book yet. Indigo arrives and tells them she represents the Tenshi Knights and is here following Rose’s prediction about an invisible island containing a great evil. Cerise says Blanc is gone and his hideout is abandoned but Indigo insist on investigating. They go through the same hideout but the traps have been rearmed with a spear corridor, poison gas stairs, lava bridge and a stronger monster den. A masked figure challenges the group. Indigo says she senses a greater evil deeper in and tells the group to move forward while she fights the masked figure. The group fights Cerise, defeats her and levels up (4). Indigo caches up and says the so called servant was the real Blanc, who teleported away. They report to the king, who rewards them with 1000 gold. Indigo says she senses something on the island but can’t quite figure out what’s going on. The king is feeling unsure and requests that Indigo stay in the palace. They can also stop for supplies. Mythos is accused of killing Sir Lavender and the adventurers must investigate. There’s a chase through town with obstacles in the city. They finally see the twin and follow him into a haunted house. They chase him, fight ghosts and find Mythos and Void together. Void and the ghosts are defeated. They level up (5) and obtain the Oathbow. The king is growing restless and insist Indigo stay at the palace. Cyna asks the adventurers to consult with the centaur. When they go to the Emerald Forest they find it full of zombies and must make their way to the center. They help the centaur and Vermilion gives them the Cloak of the Mantaray and they level up (6). He tells them the triton know a lot of old legends. At Sapphire Lake Aquamarine tells them about the Dragonborn atop the mountain and gives them the Pearl of Power. She says that the water of Sapphire Lake will awaken the mountain guardian. At Lightning Mountain they must pass through narrow paths, an unstable bridge and climb. The top has a lot of lightning strikes and a petrified Dragonborn. Using the water on him wakes him up. Silver tells them about the Dragonborn monks and the sealed dragons. He gives them the Staff of Thunder and Lightning. Blanc Noir attacks and the city is filled with zombies and ghosts. He appears riding the red dragon. Indigo leads Azure, Mythos, Cyna and Silver to protect the island while the adventurers fight Blanc. They level up (7). Indigo will continue her travels as a Tenshi Knight. Azure wants to see the outside world and make friends. Cyna wants to be an adventurer. Mythos wants a vacation. Silver wants a nap. The king and prince reward the group with 2000 gold and the Helm of Brilliance.

#Dungeons and Dragons

0 notes

fyrapartnersearch · 6 years

Text

M/M Original Mafia RP & Mafia 2 (the game)

THE MAFIA FANATIC IS BACK YA’LL! CLASSES ARE OVER AND ITS COLD AS HELL SO I RATHER SIT INSIDE AND WRITE!! Time zone: Pacific Time. If RPing smut, are you of legal age in your country?: Yes, 23 What characters do you have/play?: A 24 male character. What characters would you like to play against?: Another original older male character who’s in their 30’s, to early 50’s. (Who is protective over his younger partner? I love this dynamic of “No one messes with that kid on my watch”.). They done have to be in the same branch of familia, mafia if you don’t choose them to be. Hell they could even be an undercover cop, or a rival enforcer I haven’t don’t those one before! I would like a partner with experience, (and usually someone 20+ age). This is heavy more in depth writing, so if your more on the lighter side. This may not be for you. Preferred rp medium: Email, and only Email since it is what I am most comfortable with, I can access it on my phone and reply much easily. Contact information: [email protected] I have written this with more than a couple partners but it still remains unfinished or abandoned stories for this RP since it’s created prompt. They either disappeared into the void or some times loss of interest happens over time. Eh, no big deal just keep moving forward haha! In all honestly I just want to finish and finally bury this story! Plot: A 24-year-old marine, a victim of human trafficking as past high-class prostitute is the new recruit in the Italian Mafia. He’s on the run from his pervious owner, needs protection, money and his freedom from his owner trying to reclaim him. Luckily the Don of the Italian mafia sees he’s useful. Even if the new kid will never become a made man in the family because he’s Spanish, the Don can see greatness in this young man who has the potential to rise in the ranks quickly. The new guy gets paired with an old hand, who meet each other again after a near deadly one night stand. The marine finds himself a bit smitten and enraptured with the older man who’s a living legend in the family. They work well together, and have saves one another’s ass more than once. The old pro doesn’t want to admit the kids got an unbreakable will to survive and good with a gun, better with a knife but instead just secretly becomes very possessive, if not a little infatuated over his young charge. There’s a tenacity to new guy that the older man can’t help but admire. How someone can go through so much yet still rise to one’s feet the way the kid does and still keep fighting. He’ll make sure nobody else forces the kid to relive the past from which he’s escaped. Now things have a chance to change for good with each other at their back. While the new guy works on his own secret motives hiding something he knows from the rest of the family that could give the Don an advantage that could shake the crime world. *Important: You do get a bit burnt out or frustrated when partners only give back two paragraphs compared to your eight-ten paragraph reply. (I’ve learn to lessen my length of replies and dial it back haha). Mafia 2 What characters do you have/play?: A male OC or Vito Scaletta What characters would you like to play against?: Vito Scaletta or an another male oc. I’ll just be so happy someone else wants to do a Mafia 2 RP! I’m undecided which one of us will play Vito Scaletta but that can be decided when we talk. As well as the other characters from the game or original characters you would like to add in also. Plot will be following the game of course, or if you’d like even post game dealing with the aftermath. (spoilers) I want to see a sad Vito crushed by the loss of Joe, trying to not resent against Leo Galante. Additional notes: - This mafia RP will be dark and gritty/dark as FUCK with all that beautiful crime world fucked up goodness with dangerous and powerful criminals. - I want a long term partner! (PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT ME IF YOU ARE THE TYPE TO DISAPPEAR WITHOUT A SINGLE WORD). At least say goodbye! -Good character chemistry between our character’s ALSO THE BEAUTIFUL power struggle! -I am looking for M/M for the main paring for this RP. With other multi-pairings on the side. We can definitely double and have other relationships in the background. -I stick to 3rd person, past tense, in paragraph/novella style.(I once had someone ask me what “Paragraph writing” was…I couldn’t answer them because I felt that my brain broken in half) - I love well rounded characters and their development, Please have a character with a personality! - I really like to use face claims or don’t mind it if you want to include a picture with your character. Just for the love of god don’t send me anime character references! -I love talking in OOC, its fun to pitch ideas back and forth as well as brainstorm with my partners. -I am highly responsive when it comes to letting partners know if I need more time to work on my replies or if I’ll be busy. I also just love discussing characters and plot outside of the story! Brainstorming creative ideas is something of a talent haha. - I’m the type to give equal effort or even more so for my partners. I will write even 20-something long replies if you give me long and detailed responses in return. I will always be creative with my writing and try to make it very interactive for your character(s). So I expect the same effort back. -let the characters grow and develop, never let them stagnate or never learn from anything, Let them evolve. So none of that plot convince, it’s so boring. -I won’t nitpick grammar, basic spelling and sentences will do just fine, I’m not a perfectionist and am here to have fun writing. -I love writing smut, if the setting is appropriate. But plot will be the main focus. ALTHOUGH I LOVE ME SOME SEXUAL TENSION AND POWER STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE TWO! - No limits to violence/language/etc. Since this is going to be in the world of a gritty mafia so expect dark themes. What I don’t want: - Half-assed writing.I’ve been RPing more than five years, I work on and edit a lot of stories for scripts classes so I can tell when something is rushed. Please come with at least some standard of your writing. - THE LACK OF CHEMISTRY BETWEEN OUR CHARACTERS, JESUS DONT FORCE THINGS IF THE FLOW DOESNT WORK. Not everyone can be friends and that’s okay! - Supernatural elements randomly thrown into the story because I did not sign up for that shit. (Also honestly, not too big of a fan on it sorry!!). -A Boring RP with no effort. -All smut - SEME/UKE or Submissive/Dominate stereotypical pairings, (get that away from me). - To be the one holding up my end of the RP Please for the love of god, GIVE THE STORY PLOT TWISTS!!! - Unimaginative plot lines - The “emotionless” character trait. Its boring, uninteresting, and not at all fun to interact with. -Sending 4 lines of mostly dialog after I send you 5 to 10 paragraphs, Come on now…Have some depth or details to your writing. Show not tell! Kinks/what I’m okay with: Suit & tie, uniform, light bondage, toys, edging, dubcon, noncon, legal age gap, Spanking, voyeurism, praising. (Maybe a daddy-kink if you fancy it and A/B/O, but if your not one for it then that’s fine. (ask away if you want to include things). Limits: Scat, vore, vomit, bathroom stuff (not into the water sports), underage (no brainer), furries, feet, fisting, talking animals (this isn’t a disney movie), sounding and diaper/infantile. Just please don’t message me with; “Heeeeey do you want to RP???” No? I’m here looking for baking recipes Duh. Hahaha! Or “Hey I saw your ad and think we should be friends!”. No??? Who are you? I don’t know you, and coming at me like that makes me anxious to respond. It just feels so awkward on my end. And finally if you come asking about this RP and your under 18 but your hoping for a chance because you REALLy like the prompt, my answer isnope! Your name, introduction about yourself is simple and perfect! :) Along with the character you have to play and plot ideas you might have in mind is just fine! Also include which RP you wish to write for since I’ve posted a lot of ads on here and it gets confusing for me keeping track. I don’t know what someone is referring to when they messaged me; “I liked your RP plot!”…THAT’S GREAT! WHICH ONE?! BECAUSE I HAVE NO CLUES TO THE ONE YOU WANNA DO FRIEND! I know my ad sounds and looks intimidating or has a serious tone, I’m just trying to put into words what I’m looking for in a writing partner and type of RP I’d enjoy having. I’m really quiet the opposite haha. I’m a really goofy person who gets over excited about stories and get over eager with plot ideas. So if it sounds Interesting or want to talk more about plot and characters, please message me! P.S. If any of you are non-english speakers or bilingual please do not hesitate to shoot me a reply. I’ve had plenty of partners who were non-native english speakers! :D

#oc rp #multiple paragraph #long term #email #smut rp #submission

2 notes · View notes

comic-movieheroesranked · 7 years

Text

Cinematic Comic Characters Ranked! (Year 2009) Part Two

It’s rough coming right after a fantastic year of movies (2008) but 2009 did pretty well for itself. Terminator Salvation is our only sequel and we also get an X-Men spinoff with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Kids favorite shows come out with Astro Boy, Dragonball: Evolution, and G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, and we got a couple of thrillers with Whiteout and Surrogates. We also get the debut of the controversial Watchmen! Let’s get started with numbers #60-41!

*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ALL HIGHLIGHTED MOVIES ABOVE*

60. Master Roshi (Dragonball: Evolution)

"You are the only one who can do it."

It was like Grandpa Gohan never even died once Roshi showed up as his replacement. They both train Goku, they both understand the elemental fighting style, and they both tell horrible jokes. The only difference between them is that when Roshi dies, he gets to come back!

59. Sparx, Robotsky, and Mike the Fridge (Astro Boy)

"Viva La Roboto-lution!"

Sparx, Robotsky, and Mike the Fridge are the founding members of the RRF, an rebel organization that aims to free robots from their human slavery. They're able to recognize that Astro is a robot and 'save' him from the surface kids. Even though their heart is in the right place, the trio never actually do anything that helps Astro and his friends, but that doesn't stop them from trying again and again and again.

58. General Clayton M. Abernathy/Hawk (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra)

"When all else fails, we don't."

A war veteran, General Hawk has moved on to lead the G.I. Joes in their missions to save the world. After temporarily adding Duke and Ripcord to the team, Hawk does his best to protect the valuable nanobite warheads but ends up getting defeated by Storm Shadow. The beatdown supposedly leaves him in a coma and he doesn't show up again until he bails the team out of the French prison. He leads the team against Cobra in the final battle before officially adding Duke and Ripcord to the team.

57. The Prophet (Surrogates)

"We're not meant to experience the world through a machine."

The Prophet is a man who starts cult following by people who refuse to use surrogates. He has them believe that they are an abomination and an act against God. Turns out The Prophet is actually a surrogate himself, belonging to the surrogates creator, Lionel Canter. The Prophet is just one of the many tools he uses to put on end on the surrogates forever.

56. Fred Dukes/Blob (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

"Did you just call me... Blob?"

Another member of Stryker's team, Fred Dukes is so strong he can take out a tank missile and it wouldn't leave a scratch on him. After retirment he really lets himself go, becoming the Blob most comic fans are familiar with. He has the information Logan wants but refuses to give it up after he thinks Logan makes fun of his weight. He ends up beating the shit out of Logan in a boxing match but once Logan gets the upper hand and wins, he tells him everything he needs to know.

55. Hamegg (Astro Boy)

"They're robots! They do what I say!"

Hamegg used to create robots for Astro's father, but then moved to the surface world so he could participate in the robot fights. He adopts all the orphan kids he finds and sends them find him parts for the perfect fighting robot. He seems like a nice guy, but in the end he's only nice to his own species. He's able to find out that Astro is a robot and quickly throws him in the ring to get him destroyed. He's stopped by ZOG who then takes care of him while the surface kids go rescue Astro.

54. Grandpa Gohan (Dragonball: Evolution)

"Always have faith in who you are."

Grandpa Gohan was that grandpa who most have been really popular when he was younger so he still cracks jokes now that he's older. He was really nice to take Goku in after the other came flying down to Earth in a meteorite as an infant and started training him how to fight. Didn't expect him to die as fast as he did, but he pops up one more time after Goku 'dies' to tell him he's not actually going to stay dead.

53. Russell Haden (Whiteout)

"You crazy bitch!"

I think it's funny that this guy had the audacity to call Carrie a crazy bitch for threatening to cut off his fingers when he literally killed three people within a couple of days and was willing to kill more. I didn't like Haden at first glance so when Carrie finds out he was the killer, I wasn't that shocked. And I know the scenes where he chased Carrie outside were suppsoed to be serious but I couldn't help but notice that even at the brink of death BOTH of them continued to follow safety procedures when it came to clicking themselves to the safety rope. Of course we see the reason why when Carrie cuts Haden's rope free and he ends up getting blown away by 100 mph winds until he slams his upper body into the facility's pillars, killing him instantly.

52. Andrew Stone (Surrogates)

"You left us no choice but to take you out."

In charge of the police force, Andrew Stone is an old man who uses a younger, more attractive surrogate to do his day-to-day activities. When the creator of the surrogates threatens to shut the whole thing down, his partners give Andrew the weapon to kill him. Andrew hires a amateur hitman who ends up killing Canter's son instead. After being found out by Greer, Andrew pays for his crimes when Canter confronts and kills him.

51. Rex Lewis/The Doctor/Cobra Commander (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra)

"The time has come for the cobra to rise up and reveal himself."

You know what's always interesting about mad scientists? They always get obsessed with the scientific breakthroughs that would destroy all of humanity instead of helping it. Like can we get a breakthrough in cancer? No, but here's a breakthrough with mind-controlling soldiers and city-destroying nanobites. What's also a trip is that The Doctor willingly goes for it, unlike some of the villains who turn out to be mind controlled. He just loves being evil so it's no one's surprise when he takes command of Cobra himself by the end of the film. Too bad he literally gets arrested right after.

50. Mai (Dragonball: Evolution)

"I could disrupt them."

Piccolo's little assassin who would've been just as boring had it not been for all the fights she ended up having. I'm assuming she's the one that breaks Piccolo free from his prison before she joins him in hunting down the Dragon Balls. She hardly talks but she has a cool trick of turning into people as long as she has a part of their DNA. She uses it on Chi-Chi to get the remaining Dragon Balls. In the end she's shot dead by Yamcha after she nearly kills Bulma.

49. Hershel Dalton/Heavy Duty (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra)

"Don't make me shoot a woman."

Heavy Duty was kinda my least favorite Joe member-if we're not counting Cover Girl who was there for like, five seconds. I didn't necessarily NOT like him because he was always there when the team needed him and packed a mean punch when it came down to it. He was just a bit boring. Even when he leads all of the Joe's in an ocean fight against Cobra, I found myself more invested in everyone else's mission.

48. Robert Pryce (Whiteout)

"I think you warmed up to me."

I'll say it, I thought Pryce was going to turn out to be the killer the whole time. With the whole backstory on how Carrie's last partner betrayed her, I figured Pryce was going to do the same. He didn't, he was actually innocent. You know what else he was? Useless. He didn't do a damn thing to help solve the case except give Carrie something to worry about. Ok, he did figure out how to get them all out of the plane but Carrie would've figured it out eventually so there really was no reason for him to come down from his UN headquarters.

47. Jennifer Peters (Surrogates)

"It's not safe to be without a surrogate."

Jennifer is Greer's partner on the police force and assists him on Canter's son's murder case. She's seen to be a loyal partner, caring about Greer when his surrogate is destroyed but she's taken out of the game early when Canter kills her in her real body. Her surrogate hangs around and does most of the work when it comes down to Canter destroying the world but is shot down before Greer can really stop her.

46. Zane, Widget, Sludge, and Trashcan (Astro Boy)

"Yay, Astro!"

Zane, Widget, and Sludge are the main surface kids who befriend Astro when he shows up to their world and Trashcan is the robot dog that accompanies them. They become family to Astro, which is nice to see after his father decides not to accept him. Trashcan forever is trying to out Astro as a robot, but when the truth comes out even the dog is sad to see Astro get captured by President Stone. The kids join Cora to rescue Astro and end up interacting with citizens of Metro City once the city falls onto the Surface World.

45. Star (Terminator Salvation)

*silently survives like the young Queen she is*

Star is definitely one of my favorite kids to be portrayed in an apocalyptic world. She's mute, but that doesn't mean she's useless. She has a weird ability to sense when a terminator is nearby, something that helps her and Kyle survive. Plus she actively participates in keeping herself alive, not just relying on the adults. At one point she loads up Kyle's guns and even hands Marcus a flare to blow up a giant machine trying to kill them.

44. John Wraith (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

"Hey be nice! Or be your approximation of nice."

Probably the friendliest of Styker's team, John Wraith's abilities of teleporting allow him to stop any type of sneak attack from the enemy. He retires and spends his days with Fred Dukes until Logan shows up. John travels with him to New Orleans to find Remy Labeau, but runs into Victor instead. You'd think with his powers, he'd win easily, but Victor is able to predict his moves and crush his spine. He takes a sample of his blood to be used on Deadpool.

43. Yamcha (Dragonball: Evolution)

"Ow, my balls!"

Yamcha kind of came out of nowhere to rob the main group of their belongings, until he agrees to help them out in exchange for him being added to the nonexistent profit they think they'll make once they find all seven Dragon Balls. He sticks around mainly because he has a thing for Bulma, but he bravely helps the group try to fight off Piccolo from destroying the world.

42. The Terminator (Terminator Salvation)

"attacks naked*

I always wondered how the future John Connor was going to meet The Terminator and what he was going to do. I didn't expect the answer to get his ass handed to him, that's for sure. The new and improved Terminator takes on both Connor and hybrid machine, Marcus, easily, all while being completely nude. He manages to mortally wound Connor but ends up freezing after being drenched molten hot magma.

41. Bobby Saunders (Surrogates)

"We just saved about a billion lives there."

Bobby works for the police force and is the only human in the department who doesn't use a surrogate. Against the whole thing he stays in his watch room and looks for crime, coming up with a code to temporarily block a user from their surrogate. This comes in handy at the end when Greer uses the code from saving every human on Earth from dying when a virus destroys all their surrogates.

2 notes · View notes