#like it’s a lot of people’s favorite! the fact that it was such devastating watch implies that it resonated with viewers!

[chompe-diem]

shoutout to my discarded poll post for my followers asking whether or not i should watch crown of candy

[anonymous-dentist]

Hi, I’m A.D., I’m a historian, and let’s talk about the nuclear bomb and why the one that exploded at the end of QSMP’s Purgatory Event probably didn’t kill all that many people upon initially exploding.

The nuclear bomb, as everybody knows, has only ever been used in a war twice. Both explosions were caused by the United States in their war against Japan at the tail end of World War Two in one final terrible last ditch attempt at ending the war through any means necessary.

Pictured above are the atomic explosions at Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right.)

These are big huge clouds, which makes sense! Nuclear weapons, on average, have the strength of somewhere between 10 and 50 megatons of TNT. Hydrogen bombs, meanwhile, are WAY worse, with the first test coming in at a whopping 10 MILLION tons of TNT.

To put it in Minecraft terms for all you nerds out there, imagine Doomsday from the Dream SMP and how it razed an entire nation to bedrock level by using somewhere in the range of 20 stacks of TnT (if I’m remembering correctly.) A nuclear bomb, in these terms, would have blown L’Manberg up something like eight times over and then some.

So that’s. Bad. Right?

Well, here’s the QSMP’s bomb as was constructed by our favorite depressed detective, q!Maximus:

This bomb, notably, is underground. It was never dug up, it was just moved somewhere else. It isn’t above ground, and it never left this room. Watch the cutscene back (linked here), the bomb never left the room.

So this is where underground nuclear testing comes in.

Underground testing began in 1951, and it remains the only form of scientific nuclear testing not banned by the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

No big surprise, a lot of early underground tests were conducted by the US out in Nevada, where they kinda tested nukes legit fucking EVERYWHERE in the desert for a long time. Below are some photos, just for funsies:

What’s important about underground nuclear explosions is that they actually end up releasing less radiation into the atmosphere than regular nukes do. What happens beyond that depends on whether or not the radiation remains contained.

A contained explosion’s aftermath:

And an uncontained explosion’s aftermath:

There hasn’t really been many negative biological effects reported from these underground tests, which is really saying something considering how close to nuclear blasts the US had its guys at most of the time (see below)

The worst you got out of the underground tests was some radioactivity in cows’ milk, which is NOTHING compared to the effects of the above-ground nuclear testing at the Nevada Site:

So… what does this mean for the QSMP?

Well, if we’re going off of historical and scientific precedent, legitimately nothing substantial happened to the islands of Purgatory. There’s more of a risk of dying from the pre-established radioactive rain disaster effects as well as the earthquake and meteor disasters.

Fun fact! Underground nuclear explosions usually registered as weaker than actual fault line activity, aka actual earthquakes.

If Maxo’s nuke was dropped from above, the devastation would be greater. Nuclear fallout is no joke; even today, cancer rates in the American West are still pretty high from the above-ground testing conducted at the Nevada Site. The Bikini Atoll will never be the same after all the testing the US did there, either.

But, because this nuke seemed to have gone off underground, I can safely assume that the damage done to the islands above was minimal at worst. Maybe there’s a radioactivity leak, but everybody staying on the islands had already experienced radiation up to that point.

It’s important to remember this because several characters did stay behind on the islands, and the fandom is assuming them dead because, well. A nuke went off. But those characters aren’t dead yet (outside of q!Maxo, who was possibly directly above the nuke when it went off and thus would’ve been hit full-force by the explosion.) Many were on the beach, far from the the nuke. They’re fine, and you can prove it with history!

TLDR; the nuke from the end of Purgatory was assumedly set off underground, which would have negated a lot of its potential damage, so everybody’s fine except for the unfortunately deceased q!Maxo

[kkami-writes]

waiting for us — chapter nineteen. the gig cw. some slight anxiety + alcohol mentions ↝ wc. 1.5k + 2 SS

It was about thirty minutes before 3RACHA were scheduled to perform when you arrived at the bar. Thankfully it wasn’t too crowded but there was still a decent amount of people around, the place was nice and spacious so you were still very impressed. You were sitting directly at the bar, some fruity cocktail in front of you as you chatted with Ryujin and Yeji though the two girls were a little busy with each other. You didn’t mind at all, you found the two absolutely adorable. Besides you were a little distracted yourself, eyes fluttering across the growing crowd. 

On the left you could see the boy you had met just yesterday who was with Hyunjin and the pretty fairy boy. Ryujin had told you his name was Felix and he was famous on campus for his brownies. You had to admit, it was probably the best thing you’ve ever put in your mouth. The cat-like boy then looks over at you, your cheeks flushing as you quickly turn away, downing your whole drink in pure embarrassment. The alcohol burns down your throat but you could care less - you might need to be a little intoxicated if you were getting out of this evening alive. Soon enough the lights are dimming and three boys are walking onto the stage. You turn around in your seat, content staying all the way in the back to watch the performance. 

They each take a moment to introduce themselves, the one on the right was Bangchan and you noticed he had his own set of devastated dimples. The one on the left was Changbin, who was wearing a sleeveless shirt, showing off his muscled arms. Of course they were both perfect, all eight of your soulmates seemed to be almost inhumanly gorgeous. It didn’t make sense to you. How did you of all people end up with these men? Fate was either fucking with you or trying to make up for the fact that she had given you the worlds shittiest parents and brother. 

Either way you don’t have much time to contemplate what Fate had in store for you as they began their performance. You had heard most of these songs already, what with you having been playing their songs on repeat for a few days. You couldn’t be blamed, they made such good music. You bobbed your head to the beat, a smile on your face as you watched them on stage. It looked like they belonged there, moving and interacting with the crowd that screamed for them. Unknownst to you, seven eyes were watching you carefully as you enjoyed the songs.

They had even played their solo songs, your body sitting up as soon as you hear the familiar tune of Alien playing. Your eyes practically sparkle as Jisung sings your favorite song and it doesn’t help that he looks so good, a few strands of hair in his eyes and black nail polish. You were convinced that he was trying to kill you. Little did you know that Jisung had begged his other bandmates to put Alien on the setlist, he desperately wanted to perform your favorite song for you. 

The others that couldn’t take their eyes off on you found it extremely endearing as you lip synced with Jisung. The fact that you had memorized the lyrics had definitely pulled at their heartstrings. Especially with a song that meant a lot to Jisung. 

They play for about an hour before their time is up, thanking the crowd for coming and to look out for some more solo songs being released in the next coming weeks. Soon after there’s another group coming up but you’re not paying much attention anymore. You order another cocktail, bracing yourself for what was going to happen next. “They’re good huh?” Ryujin asks as she leans into you, a smile on her face. You nod your head, happily accepting the drink before downing it. “Woah- you good?” She questions with furrowed eyebrows, slightly concerned but slightly impressed on how fast you swallowed the liquid. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” You mumble, letting the alcohol infect your veins. 

Ryujin gives you another glance at you but doesn’t question it anymore. She had always been fairly good at reading you, knowing when not to push you. “If you say so. Me and Yeji are gonna dance for a bit ok? Come find us when you wanna go home,” She gives you another smile before she’s pulling Yeji by the arm, the latter giggling as she follows her soulmate into the crowd. 

You’re thankful to get the moment alone to try to ground yourself. Your heart is already pounding in your ribcage at the prospect of meeting your last soulmates. How much worse is the ache in your chest gonna be after finding all your soulmates? The unbearable pull you felt towards them, your heart angry at the weak strings that threatened to snap at any moment. All of this happening because you had yet to solidify the bond, something you weren’t sure you were ever gonna do. 

“Mio!!!” A voice cuts through your thoughts and you turn around to see Jisung, that adorable gummy smile as he walks over to you, his two other soulmates behind him. 

“Hi Sung” You reply back, trying to will yourself to calm down. He falters for just a second at the nickname before shaking out of it, pulling you into a hug. You’re terrified he can feel your heart pounding against his chest but you still reciprocate the brief embrace, thankful they probably can’t see your flustered cheeks in the dim bar. 

“Mio! This is Chan hyung and Changbin hyung. Hyungs, this is Mio!” 

“Hi, it’s nice to finally meet you,” Chan greets you first, holding out his hand. Once again you’re pretending you don’t feel that zap of electricity when you slide your palm into his. 

“Likewise,” 

“Nice to finally put a face to your name,” Changbin also holds out his hand and you repeat the process. You force a smile on your face as they make small talk, awkwardness seeping into your bones. Oh how badly you want to run away. 

“Hey! There you are!” You look over at the voice and you find Hyunjin who is throwing himself into Jisung’s embrace, giving him a quick kiss. “You did so good Hannie,” The latter is blushing. It’s rather interesting to watch the two interact - you hadn’t had the opportunity to really see how the other soulmates were with each other. It both makes you wanna coo at how cute they were and maybe slightly jealous. But you push it down, trying to convince yourself that you don’t care.

Soon enough the other soulmates are coming over, greeting their lovers and commenting on how they enjoyed the show. While it’s endearing to see all of them together, the sudden realization that all your soulmates were in front of you sends pure panic into your stomach. Some of them greet you and you do your best to wave back, hoping your smile doesn’t look as strained as it feels. 

It’s like they know though, reading your thoughts as they keep the convo light, not forcing you to talk if you don’t want to. But it’s all too much. It feels so overwhelming, the feeling that’s pulling in your chest and you don’t know if you want to scream or cry. Nor do you know if it’s in a good or a bad way. Suddenly you really regret the two cocktails you had downed, your head starting to pound and you thought that you might be sick. 

“Mio? Are you okay?” It’s Jeongin who asks, noticing your face getting pale even in dim lights. 

“I’m. I’m fine,” You manage to mutter out, pulling out your phone to pretend to look at the time. “Oh man, I need to get home,” 

“Oh! Do you have a ride? We could-” You cut Jisung off quickly. 

“I came with Ryujin and Yeji, it’s ok. Bye! It was nice to meet you again!” The words spill from your lips as fast as you possibly can and you all but jump out of your seat, running into the crowd. Desperately you look for Ryujin or Yeji, eyes already burning with tears and your chest aching with a need you’re not sure you could ever give it. 

When you find the girls you’re a little out of breath purely from the fact that you’re trying to not have a panic attack right now. Ryujin looks over at you with concern, lips pulled into a frown at how distressed you look. 

“Are you-” “I’m fine. I’m fine,” It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself even though you didn’t believe it. “Can we go? Please,” You strain the last word in desperation and all Ryujin does is nod.

“Of course. Come on, let’s go,” She puts a reassuring hand on your lower back, helping you through the sea of people, exchanging a small look with Yeji.

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[boimann]

What about medic x heavy really does it for you? Is it their individual characters? Their symbiosis during gameplay? The way they look together? No hate, just curious.

Sorry if this is a repeat ask

hi no problem I jump at any opportunity to gush about heavymedic :D

i think it's a mix of a few things, a lot of the stuff you suggested are it actually!

I do love them both on their own, they are very easily my favorite characters. I also think their personalities are very compatible, they are opposite in a way (medic being the more hyper one who can't shut up and heavy being the seemingly calmer quiet one) but they also have a lot in common they are both insane, violence loving incredibly intelligent men. and the fact that this compatibility carries over to their gameplay is just *chef's kiss* ya know?

on the battlefield heavy is this devastating force ready to gun down anything that moves and has a massive health pool but he is the slowest class in the game which can leave him extremely vulnerable to pick classes, while medic on the other hand is fast but kind of easy to kill, he has low health and can't output much damage and he also has a huge target on his back being the team's only healer. but together they complement each other perfectly!! medic can watch heavy's back and heal him and heavy can protect medic by shielding him from incoming damage and gun down anyone who gets too close. also uber charges are the equivalent of in game gay sex to me

and yes I am a sucker for big man x even bigger man, you said it best they look good together, I can't deny that a big part of why I love this pairing is because I'm extremely gay for both of them, I'm a simple man ok?

but also I feel like there are a lot of ways to interpret their dynamic that I love, I see a lot of people saying that heavymedic is boring but I think that's because a lot of the fandom is stuck only seeing them as being a soft old married couple (which is super valid I love this interpretation of them too) but there are a ton more!! they can be a brutal couple of manics, they can be a mad scientist and his favorite experiment, they can be an freak of a man x "oh shit my freak of a man is doing things!" etc... there is a lot of untapped potential that i'd like people to explore more

and finally I love that their whole relationship revolves around trust, heavy trusted medic to literally mess around with his heart in meat the medic, and trusted medic enough to jump in front of him while they were being charged by a bunch of enemy soldiers so medic could test out the machine he stabbed into his heart that had litterally blown up his previous one, and in the last comic medic trusted an extremely injured heavy to get up and finish cheavy after medic had distracted the him, Chevy was filled with australium and hated him enough to kill him once before and medic only had a pen to defend himself

idk I just that's beautiful

[elleloquently]

omg hi i was wondering if you could do ellie with a fem reader where ellie is always hitting on her and teasing her but reader keeps it together because she doesn’t think it’s genuine. then ellie acts really sweetly when the reader is vulnerable so she kinda folds and trusts ellie’s feelings and thenn boom…! 🤭🤭🫣 ❤️‍🔥i love ur writing smm!!! 💞💞💞

| a/n : i literally dropped everything to work on this when i saw it in my inbox. now it is 3am and we have this! the end. thank you for requesting dear anon, happy to have you reading <3 | c/w : swearing, alcohol

unrequited, requited - ellie williams

there was a lot that you loved about jackson.

you loved the sense of community, and just having a place that you were finally able to call home. you loved having neighbors, people you trusted. you loved being able to create your own strange sense of normalcy, despite... everything.

you loved the animals, having access to water, and knowing that you could rely on always being able to be fed.

most of all, though?

your favorite thing about jackson was ellie williams.

despite the fact that she often gave you a hard time, and despite the fact that you felt as though you could never really let your guard down... something about her caught your eye and damn near made your head spin.

maybe it was your smile, the polite one you gave if you were feeling too shy to speak up, or the way that you managed to be so aloof when you were alone with her that made ellie intrigued enough to attempt to make you crack.

it was unlike her, really, to feel suddenly so bold that she could make a move or quite obviously flirt, but the way you refused to bite had ellie truly stumped. in fact, awhile after you had arrived to jackson, ellie was convinced that the two of you would eventually be something more.

ellie was there for you instantly, partly due to force and then because she truly wanted to be, (she had been assigned to be your guide, but the two of you just clicked) so could you honestly be blamed when you started to develop feelings for her?

ellie was intimidating, even with her awkward charm and short fuse. it was the way that she carried herself, she had been through so much and handled it all in ways that you couldn't even imagine. truthfully, you felt so... beneath her. the idea that she would ever look at you in the same way that you viewed her was laughable, so you didn't acknowledge it.

it was too much, too quickly, and you felt yourself begin to pull away from ellie before you even made the conscious effort to do so. she was always around, and sometimes you felt like you couldn't even trust yourself to be around her. it was too much pressure, acting like she didn't change your life just by being kind and like it wouldn't devaste your entire world if you finally allowed yourself to properly care about her, just for her to be ripped away from you.

no, you couldn't possibly handle it.

so instead, you pulled away.

"hey you," ellie said, practically breathless as she came to a standing next you.

the corners of your lips turned upwards and you straightened your posture. always on edge.

"hey back," you replied curtly.

ellie side eyed you and hesitated. you were already in a sour mood and she'd only spoken two words to you, perhaps a new record.

you stared straight ahead, watching couples and friends dance together only a few feet away.

another thing you loved about jackson?

the little affairs you held together as a community.

tonight's occasion was a party, a much needed reminder to take a breath. it had been a tough winter, and spring was finally making its way into the world. the sun felt a little bit warmer and the grass was a little bit greener... cause for celebration, apparently, but you weren't complaining. honestly, you loved it. it was a reward, and nobody would deny the opportunity to let loose for an evening.

"penny for your thoughts?" ellie murmured, pulling you out of your mental stream of consciousness.

"dina is consistently impressive," you remark, trying your best to sound lighthearted. "i think she's managed to dance with just about every person out there. she's incredible," you conclude, trying to fill the silence but still genuine towards your friend.

"uh huh," ellie hums, but she doesn't follow your gaze to the dancing girl. she only stares at you.

you eventually turn to meet her eyes. she falters, only briefly, realizing she's been caught. ellie saves herself, grinning at you and refusing to break eye contact. always a dork but somehow sauve, nevertheless. it only made you roll your eyes in return.

"what are you doing here, williams? i thought you hated these things," you finally question, raising an eyebrow curiously.

"any chance to see you is worth it," she quips without missing a beat. she's proud of herself for her quick response and you can tell, the way her cheeks tint pink.

your smile betrays you but you wave her off, however ellie remains encouraged.

"come on," she presses, jokingly. "let me get you a drink?"

you blink, really considering it. it's just a drink with a friend.

you don't automatically say no and ellie is on cloud nine, one side of her mouth twitching upwards. it's impossible to stay neutral around her and you grin, yes, and ellie's hand is entwined with yours within a moment, leading you to the bar.

ellie's being cautious tonight, you can tell because she spares you her entire 'hey pretty girl, come here often?' routine paired with an obnoxious southern accent.

(you claim to hate it, but it always makes you laugh anyway.)

the choices are slim and you're provided with a beer, "for the prettiest girl in jackson," ellie announces.

"you are ridiculous," you mumble, your face becoming feverishly hot at how easily the compliment rolled off of ellie's tongue.

"what? what's ridiculous?" ellie teases.

you shake your head, taking only a small sip from the bottle of alcohol to hide your growing smile. the flavor makes you wince anyway and ellie looks on sympathetically.

"you know what," you say pointedly.

eyes wide, ellie shakes her head in denial. "no. have i told you that you look beautiful tonight? because you do, by the way."

"ellie."

your tone is dismissive and she knows it, embarrassment thickening the air as her compliment is left hanging. ellie takes a step back, giving you space, and dread immediately overcomes your senses. she's being nice, she's being a friend. just as yourself and dina compliment each other, you shouldn't shut ellie down and make her feel poorly just because you were struggling with your own feelings.

you swallow hard and then force down another sip of your drink before smiling apologetically at ellie.

"thanks, els. you look nice too." your voice practically comes out as a whisper, a stark contrast from the wholesome music and sounds of people talking and laughing that surrounds you.

"are you gonna go dance?" ellie asks, and you're grateful for a change of topic.

crinkling your nose, you shake your head and tear your eyes away from the dancing. it feels like too much pressure to meet the green eyes that have hardly stopped looking at you, but you do it anyway.

"no chance," you laugh.

"you better stop watching dina then, you know how she is. one moment of eye contact and it's over for you, she'll be pulling you to dance before you know it," ellie tells you.

you nod once in agreement, bumping ellie's shoulder as your body finally begins to relax again. "why don't you go out there?" you question, stifling a laugh from the idea of ellie actually putting herself out there and twirling around with the others.

"you're funny," ellie deadpans. "hey, if you wanna dance, i'll dance," she offers, almost wistfully.

"tempting," you say sarcastically, but it is.

ellie holds out her hand and you pass her the beer, allowing yourself just a moment to stare while she was distracted with taking a drink. part of you loved the attention that she provided you with, while another part of you would swear that you absolutely loathed it. it felt like a joke, a routine almost where ellie tried to see which one liner could make you red in the face.

you weren't having fun playing. you had wanted her, so badly, for so long, and she was just acting like everything was up for grabs or something. for what? the moment you reciprocated you were certain that she would be appalled, insisting that it was just a joke and your friendship would be doomed, tainted by your inability to read the room. you needed to stop taking things so seriously, so that's what you did.

the lukewarm bottle is returned to your grasp and you remain next to ellie, arms touching as a comfortable silence envelops you. the sun has gone down and the early traces of spring slip away. the nighttime chill is unforgiving and you shiver, debating whether or not you should quickly finish the rest of your beer just for a chance of warming up.

"shit," ellie mutters, quickly shrugging off her jacket. "are you cold?"

she doesn't even leave you room to answer because her jacket is wrapped around you within a moment. you breathe in deeply because it smells like her and you just want to melt. you know you ought to thank her but your words fail. you smile in place of a verbal acknowledge and using your free hand, tug the jacket tighter around yourself.

"better?" ellie asks softly, looking after you fondly.

you hum in agreement, peering at her freckles while darkness settles over jackson. your heart seizes and it's a little too much to bear, the way ellie's eyes are boring into yours and the softness of the spring celebration is making you feel soft, sensitive with an overwhelming wave of emotions.

"what's got you so quiet tonight?" ellie muses, and it's enough to finally prompt you to break eye contact. "i miss your voice. at least make fun of me like normal so i don't keep thinking you're pissed at me."

"i am not pissed at you," you quickly clarify. "just tired, i guess. i'm sorry," you add.

ellie leans closer into your side, presumably for warmth as she's now gone without a jacket.

"i think i might head back, call it a night," you admit, your body tensing.

"want me to go with you?" ellie asks, almost sounding shy.

"you wish," you breathe, preparing to return ellie's jacket but she places a hand on your arm to stop you before you can even shrug it off.

you remain in her warmth, debating the idea of continuing it on further. tugging on ellie's sleeve, you gesture that you're going to leave and she follows you instantly. you walk alongside each other, slowly dragging your feet. how could you feel so desperate to get away, yet so desperate to stay in her presence?

"you don't have to come, if you want to stay at the party," you point out awkwardly.

"i'd rather be where you are." another smooth response. your stomach flips and you resent it for that.

"i mean it, ellie. why don't you just go back?"

her eyebrows knit together in confusion, especially considering the fact that you had invited her along. "seriously, what's wrong?"

you sigh, mentally forcing yourself to get a grip on things. you were perfectly fine with forcing yourself to hold it together, laugh at ellie's jokes and be good friends without letting her empty words get into your head. you had managed it for so long, so why did you suddenly feel like you were going to fall apart at the seams?

"i can't do this," you mutter, shaking your head at your feet while you walk. your quiet confession catches ellie's attention and she pauses, expression wavering as you continue on your walk.

"can't do what?" she asks you to clarify, frozen in place.

you press your lips together in a thin line, forbidding yourself to speak any further.

"you can't do what?" ellie asks again, finally jogging to catch up and appearing at your side.

"i can't do this!" you gesture wildly and ellie's confusion only grows, her cheeks and the tips of her ears growing red from the cold. you can faintly hear the joyful music in the distance and you just want to run home and hide under your covers.

"ellie," you prepare. "you can't just say things to people and expect it to not mean anything. it's not fair," you vent, laughing bitterly. ellie frowns, her eyebrows raising up on her forehead.

"what did i say that i didn't mean?" ellie presses, she looks intimidating but she doesn't mean to be.

you kick your foot at the ground, sighing heavily. "that i'm pretty."

this catches ellie off guard and she laughs. it's sudden and it escapes her before the action even registers. you groan, turning away from her once again. you walk forward just for a couple feet before you stop again, not wanting to actually walk ahead without ellie, despite the situation.

"are you being serious? why would i be lying about that?"

shrugging in response to her question, you whip around accusingly. "the prettiest girl in jackson?"

ellie blinks at you, silent but only because having her words repeated like that feels frankly embarrassing. "i didn't lie," she insists.

"it's not funny ellie," you lecture regardless. "you can't say things like that to me, okay? because... because, fuck, it means something to me and i can't just sit around and hear you joking around like that and just... i can't okay?"

you lose momentum while you're speaking, feeling dejected and defeated. you're practically convinced you just destroyed any ounce of relationship that you had with ellie but she surprises you by stepping forward and placing her hands on your shoulders.

"it means something to me too, alright? it means something to me too." ellie whispers her confession, eyes wildly darting back and forth between yours as she waits for any sort of reaction. you feel as though your thought process halts, unable to comprehend the words of the auburn haired girl standing right in front you.

"but..."

"it means something," ellie reassures you. "it's always meant something and it always will, okay? i promise. i wouldn't lie to you, ever."

it's too good to be true, but yet she's there, confessing and reassuring and waiting for you. surely you're dumbstruck, you never even allowed yourself to consider the possibility of ellie feeling the same way. your lips part in surprise, her words ringing in your ears.

"just tell me if you feel the same way," ellie says gently, wanting to reaffirm her feelings for you over and over again until you didn't have even a fraction of self doubt.

"i do," you utter, and that was all of the confirmation ellie needed.

as soon as the words fall from your lips, ellie is pulling you forward and pressing her lips to yours. they're cold but her mouth is warm and your heart is racing, a million thoughts dance through your mind but at the same time it feels silent and ellie pulls away, scanning your face.

"don't ever doubt it," ellie says and her voice is soft, gentle with you as she always was and always would be.

"i had no idea," you admit, breathless from adrenaline.

ellie scrunches her face and looks at you sideways. "you had no idea? i thought i couldn't make it anymore obvious," she cringes but you laugh in relief as she wraps an arm around your waist.

you finally allow yourself to relish in the comfort of her touch and you sink into it, melting into her as you both fall into step once again.

"come on pretty girl, let's get you home."

[lasandra]

Sketches of the Dragon Age men I've romanced + my reactions to their romance! For funsies!

Under the cut because it's quite long... There are spoilers for DA:O, DA:2, and DA:I (Probably not an issue because all these games have been out for 10+ years but I wanted to say, just in case).

These are just how 'I' feel about them. I'd love to hear everyone else's opinions on the characters as well! One thing I love about Dragon Age is that the characters are so complex that people can have very different opinions on them (and mostly not kill each other for it! :P).

Alistair:

Alistair was the reason I started playing the game back in 2010. My father had been given the game by his best friend and he would always let me watch him play games. He hadn't gotten further than defeating the Ogre in the Tower of Ishal before he quit playing, however, much to 12-year-old me's disappointment. I had immediately fallen in love with Alistair and wanted to see more of him! I asked if I could play and fortunately my father was not as careful about checking game ratings/content and said sure!

Words cannot describe how stunned I was when I found out you could romance companions in this game, this was an entirely new concept to me that blew my 12-year-old mind. To this day Alistair is my favorite fictional man and I would destroy all of Thedas to protect him.

Zevran:

I didn't have as positive an experience initially with Zevran as I barely took him anywhere with me initially (so my approval with him was always pretty low). Back then I figured he always would betray you when Taliesen shows up. One day I decided to run a playthrough where I romanced him. When I knew I was getting close to when Taliesen showed up I was sad, but thinking he was still going to betray me, I removed all his weapons and armor so that it would be easier to kill him. Boy was I surprised when he didn't betray me and was instead punching the other crows in his underwear... It was that playthrough that I realized how important it was to check approval lol.

Anders:

Anders and Nathaniel Howe had been my favorite Awakening characters. In my canon playthrough, I had protected the city but lost the keep, with Anders and Justice along with it. Or so I thought. When I loaded up DA:2 and saw him, I thought him being alive was a bug and was so excited that he wasn't dead! And when I saw that you could flirt with him, 13-year-old me was like, "Yeah, I'll be doing THAT!" It was all going great until the end of the game when he BLEW UP THE FREAKING CHANTRY! I was so upset, I wondered what I did wrong to make him do that. I loaded so many saves and started the game over 3 times trying to figure out how to avoid that. When I realized I couldn't stop him no matter what I did, I was completely and utterly devastated and PISSED. He is the reason I have trust issues in Dragon Age. I still choose to romance him sometimes because the guy is such a romantic but I do so expecting sadness and anger in the end lol. Knowing Hawke will never be as important as the cause and the fact that he LIES to Hawke, tricking her into helping him without full knowledge of what she's taking part in, will never cease to annoy me.

A lot, I know... He just makes me feel a lot of things xD It's a complicated love-hate relationship.

Fenris:

It took awhile for me to warm up to Fenris but he is by far and a way my favorite DA:2 romance now. Things are complicated with him and within the romance but it's very clear that he actually cares about Hawke. I can relate to him a bit in one way, the reason he leaves after he and Hawke get together in Act 2. Trauma like that can really ruin things that should make you happy, and it can be very frightening when memories of the traumatic event surface, and the last thing you want to do is make the person you care about feel bad or like it's their fault. It just makes me want to give him a hug. Poor spikey boy...

Sebastian:

I really wish Bioware had had the time to do more with Sebastian. I really do. His romance has some cute moments (and there are some interesting implications if you rivalmance him) but he was made as a DLC companion and it shows. I still quite like his character though, I know a lot of DA fans aren't fond but yeah lol. He can be a bit of a dramatic pain in the butt if you don't kill Anders though. That is very valid criticism.

Cullen:

Ah... Cullen... He was always controversial. A lot like Solas is now. There are people who hate Cullen's guts and people who adore him. I am quite obviously the latter. I wanted to romance him in DA:O, I wanted to romance him in DA:2, and then we finally got him in DA:I and it was better than I ever could have imagined.

Honestly, I kind of suspect that if I hadn't done Alistair's romance first, that Cullen's would be my favorite in the series. It's so sweet and he PROPOSES and married you IN-GAME. That's freaking awesome! And his ending slides after Trespasser just make me really really happy lol.

Alistair is still my favorite but Cullen is a very close second.

Blackwall:

Blackwall is a solid character and a sweet guy; his story and romance are very well written as well. Honestly though, he just looks too old for me. I was 16 when Inquisition came out and I'm 26 now. Dude looks like he could be my dad and so it's hard to convince myself that my characters would be interested in him. No shade to those who like him, just different preferences, and like I said, he's still a very compelling character and if he were younger or less bearded, I could probably enjoy the romance too.

While I make a big deal about Blackwall lying about being a Grey Warden, it's mostly just me picking on him. I actually do think it makes for an interesting narrative. It's so easy to sus him out when you've played Origins though lol! That being said, I DO make him become a legitimate Grey Warden because it just feels right to me and ensures that every Dragon Age game I play has at least one Grey Warden companion (so that everything is right in the universe).

Please don't hate me Blackwall fans lol!

Solas:

Am I a massive hypocrite for loving Solas so much while not being all that fond of Blackwall? Probably yes... But I can't help it! To be fair though, before I finished Inquisition for the first time (this was before the Trespasser DLC btw), I didn't even think I'd be interested. I'm a diehard Solavellan now, but I had initially just seen him as a pajama-wearing fade nerd (aren't I sweet?). As I've said I was 16 when I first played Inquisition and was too busy romancing Cullen to notice all the (in hindsight) obvious signs that there was more to Solas than met the eye.

When I saw that he was the dreadwolf... I kind of flipped my ever living shit. Fen'Harel had been the most interesting of the elven pantheon to me since I played my first dalish elf warden in Origins and now my Lavellan had the chance to romance him??? So naturally I did just that my next playthrough.

I didn't use the internet like I do now so I had no idea what was coming in Crestwood though. OOF! I was in shock. How dare this pajama-wearing fade nerd elven god just dump my poor Lavellan like that! Then Trespasser came out I had round 2 of getting my heart ripped out of my chest, dashed into a thousand pieces, and strewn about the fade in the most tragic way possible. *Is dramatic*

Cullen and Alistair may be my favorite romances for the romance itself, but Solas is my favorite romance for the overarching story. I mean, because the Inquisitor is seen by so much of Thedas as the Herald of Andraste, Lavellan is canonically a religious figure of the chantry whether she agrees with it or not. Solas is a religious figure of the elves. This means two religious figures from two separate religions get together and that is just SO interesting from a story perspective!

I can't wait to see what they do with the Solavellan romance in Veilguard. I hope it doesn't hurt too much xD

The Iron Bull:

16-year-old me was not prepared for this romance... At ALL. My poor mostly innocent eyes lol (Cullen's too!). It's a fun romance though, and my default inquisition romance for my Qunari and dwarf characters. He's cool. Plus I had a bit of a crush on Freddie Prinze Jr when I was a kid so like, that makes it kind of neat!

Final Thoughts:

Bioware has always written truly amazing characters and romances and I am so excited to see what Veilguard has to offer. I am probably going to have to do two playthroughs at once so I can romance Lucanis and Davrin so I can play both without knowing too much in advance.

Like I said at the top, I'd love to know what everyone's opinions of the characters are! Loveya!

[desertfangs]

I haven't yet read the books (there's so many!) I've only watched the iwtv movie and TV show and I love Claudia in both but I've had people tell me in the books she's awful and considered to be one of the series villains. Idc about spoilers I just wanna know how true that is bc I dunno if I'd want to read that lol

Hi anon! I was excited to see your ask this morning because I'm gonna tell you something: Claudia was one of my first favorite characters in the series and her death devastated me. Louis was my first fav (understandable, he's literally the protagonist of the first book, we're meant to sympathize with him!) and when he lost Claudia and became numb in his grief, I related. I hated Armand for what happened to Claudia and I held a grudge for a long time.

Anyhow, I can't speak to the show so much as I've only seen season 1, but if you like the 94 movie, you will probably like the novel Interview with the Vampire. It's a pretty close adaptation.

To get to the heart of your question, no, Claudia not an awful villain. Anymore than Louis or Lestat are. If anyone is a villain in IwtV, it's Armand, and even he is not a mustache-twirling evil guy.* Everyone in this series in morally gray and does terrible stuff. I emphasize that because I've been in this fandom for a long time and I've seen all kinds of arguments about who is evil and who is not, and the fact is, all of our vampires do questionable things. That's sort of the point. So it's arguable how much there even is a villain in IwtV outside of Louis' own depression and grief, but Armand probably gets that honor.

Claudia in the books was turned around the age of 5. She is a very small, doll-like child who doesn't seem to retain much, if any, memory of her human life. She is more purely a vampire than Louis or Lestat can really fathom because she lacks that humanity and a connection to humans. She's a natural hunter and killer.

She doesn't understand Louis' sentimentality for humans, and resents Lestat for withholding information she knows he has about their kind. She is a complex and fascinating woman trapped in the body of a small child to the point where even Louis, who loves her dearly, cannot really see her as an adult and struggles to accept her agency. She does manipulate both her parents, in part because they don't often see her as a capable equal, which she very much is.

She does eventually rise up to kill to Lestat out of desperation. She believes he will not let Louis go and knows she can't travel around alone, given her appearance. Lestat himself is devastated by this and by her loss, and even says later he understands why she did it. That he probably deserved it for what he'd done to her, which was trap her forever in the body of a very young child, something he admits was selfish. (And something Marius had actually warned him against doing beforehand, LOL!!)

Like in the movie and the show, she does die at the Theatre des Vampires, and Armand is more responsible for that than I've heard he is on the show (he tells Louis he couldn't have stopped it, only to later reveal he orchestrated it, which Louis knew the whole time).

She appears later in The Tale of the Body Thief mocking Lestat and acting as a sort of voice for his subconscious, but she is just his hallucination in he book. He's dealing with a lot of trauma and grief and that manifests itself as Claudia's ghost.

Where you might be hearing she's a villain is from Merrick, where both her diary and spirit appear and are... not very nice. I gotta say, I am not convinced that is actually the spirit of Claudia that gets conjured, and even if it is, it's possible she's been warped somehow. But I also haven't read that book in decades and often tend to ignore it, so I am not an expert on that score.

I hope this helps! I'm always happy to answer questions about the books! (They are my special interest, if you cannot tell.)

But I do want to say that if you are a fan of the show and curious about the books--which are very different!--I highly recommend you read at least the first few yourself. The best way to judge if you'll like the book versions of the characters and story is to experience it yourself. There's a lot of misinformation that gets passed along about the books, and a lot of misinterpretation due to that because people just repeat what they've heard without having read them. And hey, they still may not be your cup of tea, and that's totally fine! But you won't know if you don't try, you know?

Anyhow, thank you so much for the ask! 💖 Claudia is awesome and deserves more love in the book fandom, but because she dies so early on, she doesn't get as much attention sadly.

*And even when he is, we love him.

[thrashyraccoon]

Live after death (Eddie Munson x Metalhead!Reader)

Summary: You and Eddie go to an Iron Maiden concert in Indiana in 1985.

Warnings: none at all.

This day definitely couldn't get any worse, you were sure of it. Not only did the Iron Maiden concert in Indiana sell out as soon as tickets became available, but you also forgot that you ate a bucket of your favorite ice cream and had nothing to drown your sorrows in. Well, all you can do now is curl up in a blanket and watch TV, hoping to forget about the concert. However, your plans are ruined when you hear the phone ringing.

"Who the hell interrupts my wailing?" You complain, then go to the phone and pick up the receiver.

"Hello?" You say, slightly annoyed.

"Hello, did I throught to the most beautiful girl in Hawkins?"

You knew who it was. It was your boyfriend of about a year, Eddie, with whom you were going to see Iron Maiden, and he was waiting to buy tickets just like you.

"I think you've got the wrong numbers, you're not talking to Chrissy Chunningham." you say sarcastically before hearing a light chuckle on the other end.

"Listen, I can come, there's something important."

"Is this so important?" you wonder what he means, but after a while you agree and Eddie unexpectedly hangs up.

…

After 15 minutes you hear a knock on the door. When you open it you see your boyfriend, way too happy than you expected.

“Hi, honey,” Eddie gives you a kiss on the forehead and you invite him inside.

"What's going on Eds?" You say and then you see a smile on his face. "Something happened? You're acting very strange considering the fact that you won't see the band you've been waiting for and you reminded me of this fact every day. I thought you'd be in even more despair than me."

Boy smiles even wider.

“Eddie, what are you-” you stop as he pulls two Iron Maiden tickets out of his pocket. At this point you stop talking and look at Eddie.

"So," he begins to say, "I was at Rick's this morning. When I came to see him, devastated by the fact that they were sold out, he told me that he knew someone, and that someone knew someone else who could get the passes and could contact them. And here they are!…baby, are you okay?" Your boyfriend looks at you and waves his hand in front of your face. You stood there frozen, but finally you started talking

"Does it mean-"

"Yes"

"That we-"

"Yes"

"Are we finally going to the concert?"

"YES"

When this information finally reached you, you couldn't stand it and you threw yourself at Eddie with so much force that he landed on the door.

"You are the best boyfriend I could have ever dreamed of!!!" You screamed and then you cupped his face and kissed him passionately. Eventually, you both started running out of oxygen and Eddie managed to register what had just happened. When he succeeded, he gave you the biggest smile he could, grabbed your waist, and the two of you began to spin around your living room in each other's arms, laughing as you did so.

However, when you stop, he looks you in the eye and says: "I don't know if I am him, but I know one thing" he makes a small pause "JUNE IS OUR BABY!!!"

After this sentence, you become euphoric again and you start kissing, this time longer.

…

6 months had passed and you and Eddie were already at the Mesker Music Theater, where probably one of the best things you will experience together was about to take place. There were a lot of people and you still wonder how you managed to squeeze through the crowd so effectively that you are in the first rows.

“I'm so excited,” You say, unable to keep still.

"I see." Boy laughed, still looking at his beloved.

Suddenly you felt a strong elbow hit your shoulder, sending you flying towards Eddie. It was some complete stranger who probably wanted to get closer to the stage. You were lucky Eddie caught you in time.

“Ouh, idiot,” you shouted, then held onto your arm lightly.

"Everything's all right?" he looked at you with concern and then looked with an irritated look in the direction the stranger had gone, even though he had already disappeared in the huge crowd.

"It's just that my arm hurts a little," you said, holding your arm. You suddenly felt your boyfriend holding you tightly by his waist. You looked at him questioningly.

"I'll hold you for your safety, honey. I don't want some idiot to slip again or when the concert starts it might be dangerous, especially during the moshpit," he said, looking at you with the same concern.

“Thank you, my knight,” You smiled, turning to face him, wrapping your arms around him and giving him a kiss on the cheek. Eddie just responded to you with a genuine smile. You stare at each other until you both hear the intro symbolizing that the band will soon take the stage and the cheers of the rest of the crowd. You smile at each other and then turn your back on Eddie. After 2 minutes, the band comes on stage and starts playing "Aces High". Everyone starts cheering and goes crazy. The concert is in full swing and although you both managed to indulge in euphoria, headbanging, shouting the lyrics at the top of your lungs, going crazy, Eddie kept an eye on you the whole time so that no harm would come to you, regardless of the fact that after the second song you broke away from him while playing "2 minutes to midnight". This was what this boy loved most about you. When you devoted yourself to something you loved, you were almost unstoppable.

…

Two hours passed and the concert began to end with the last song "Phantom of the opera" playing. You don't hide the fact that you were a little tired, but you tried to stay in shape. The song ends and the crowd cheers and insists on an encore. Half of the people were leaving and the other half were waiting for the band to leave the stage or for some goodies like picks or drumsticks, you and Eddie were the other half considering the fact that you were quite close to the stage. Suddenly you feel like your boyfriend is giving you the lead.

"Eds, what are you doing?!" You say in a bit of shock."

"Like what? Let's grab some stuff, honey!" He says this by showing you a toothy smile from below.

You can't believe what's happening, but you manage to grab the guitar pick. You were really very lucky. You get off of Eddie's arms and he hugs you and you both shout happiness.

However, when the band leaves the stage, you both walk towards the van to calmly drive back towards Hawkins. You both reach Eddie's van and, in classic gentlemanly fashion, your lover opens the door and offers you his hand. Of course, you take advantage of his help and give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"It was amazing!" You scream in a low voice from the fact that you've already had your throat busted at the concert.

"Very much. It was very metal!" he says, happiness quite visible in his eyes and voice. “One thing in particular” Boy looks at you and you realize what he means. You pull out the dice you managed to grab from the pocket of your own combat jacket. You look at the obtained item and then say:

“It's yours, baby,” you move your hand towards Eddie.

“No, I don't agree, it's yours,” he pushes your hand away from you.

“Eddie no, she's yours,” you laugh at him. "I know how much you love Iron Maiden and it's thanks to you that we're even here."

"No, it's yours, I insist. I love you enough and I trust that it will be in good hands, after all…" he replies to you, holding out his guitar pick necklace. "I already have mine," he smiles at you, waving the pendant.

"Are you 100% sure about this?"

"I'm 1000% sure, honey. Someone has to hold it eventually to show it to our future children," she replies shyly with a big smile. You look at him, then at the ankle, and then back at Eddie. Suddenly, with a burst of emotion, you approach him and kiss him, trying to convey everything you currently feel. However, you finish and wrap your arms around your boyfriend, not having the strength to tell him what's on your mind due to the sheer amount of happiness.

"I love you too, angel, I always will." he starts to soothe you by rubbing your back in circular motions. You honestly couldn't believe how you had come across such a loving and devoted man like him. However, after a few minutes, Eddie decides that it's time to go, even though he wants to stay in your arms for the rest of his life.

"Honey, let's go home now, shall we?" He speaks calmly but you don't answer. It turned out that during these few minutes you had already fallen asleep from the exhaustion after the concert and the warmth from the hug. He starts laughing softly and tries to break away from you so as not to wake you up, placing you straight on the seat and fastening you with a seat belt to keep you safe. He looks at you for a moment with concern and love, then starts the van and starts to drive out of the parking lot. He hopes that you will remember this event in your peaceful old age.

Fun fact: There was actually an Iron Maiden concert in Indiana on June 8 in 1985.

This is my first fanfic. I'm not particularly good at writing, but I hope it's not too bad. Thank you for the warm reception of the rest of my entries. Please share your kind words and reaction if you liked the fanfic. I will try to answer everything <3

[thecrystalkid]

what is your opinion on the tdc Netflix show?

i haven’t posted in a billion years but HII thanks for the ask!!!

it’s been a hot minute since i’ve rewatched the show, so it’s far from being fresh in my mind, and i’m of course not an expert on it. all the same, i still have a lot of thoughts and opinions* on it (*some of these might be a lil controversial as far as the TDCAOR fandom goes but i’m not trying to attack or criticize anyone for enjoying anything in this show, go in peace, ily❤️)

the show itself

to be honest, AOR has never been my favorite installment in the TDC franchise. i’m very attached to the original movie and jen and kira, so i think the obvious absence of them in the show may have played a part in that

but this^^ has nothing to do with the fact that the show is an objective masterpiece of artistry. it’s overwhelming how immersive and beautiful every inch of the environment is within thra, and whatever the creative team and everyone involved with the making of the show were paid, it’s not enough.

the design and craft of the gelfling is another thing i’m obsessed with, i loved the distinctive fashion and presentation of every clan (especially drenchen i love u drenchen) and just the sheer quality of every individual puppet. there’s something so uncanny and beautiful about the realistic skin, hair, and eyes of the gelfling, each one is so mesmerizing to watch.

sadly, i’ve always kind of disliked the overall voice-acting of the show. i love taron egerton, anya taylor-joy, etc. as much as the next person, but personally, their voices seemed so detached from their characters, which i think could be partially attributed to the fact that several of the actors are not professional voice actors

i’m beating the very dead horse here but i’m never not devastated that the show was cancelled when it was. it may not have been my favorite installment in TDC but not knowing what ultimately became of deet haunts me forever and always

not a day goes by that i’m not sad that lisa maxwell (kira’s voice actor) didn’t do the opening narration for the show. i didn’t even know that was a possibility until i listened to a podcast episode about it and found out lisa was originally going to do it. i still love sigourney weaver but like come on.

characters n in-universe stuff

one thing i love about the show is how many sibling relationships it explores. as someone with older sisters i obviously am a sucker for the dynamic between brea, tavra, and seladon. i always love seeing an absolute gutpunch soul-crushing diabolical sister relationship in media, the mirroring each other, bringing out the best and worst of each other, i love it it’s terrible. also gurjin and naia, i’m also a sucker for comedic siblings

i really really hate to say it but i’m not a fan of rian and deet as a romantic pairing. i just never really felt any chemistry between the two of them, and the fact that their whole thing started so shortly after the death of mira has always personally rubbed me the wrong way. obviously i’m not here to beat up stonegrot enjoyers, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the pairing or people who enjoy it, it’s just not for me. i love and am happy for stonegrot folk, god bless <3

augh you know what pairing i do like though is brea and kylan, this whole post could be about them. idk, i know it’s one of those things where they barely have any interaction with each other but i always die at kylan’s little “and brea!” when they’re rescuing them all, and i would’ve DIED for an interaction between them where they discover they both can read

i do also really love how the show explored the skeksis and mystics being two halves of the same whole, and how that relationship can differ. it’s one of the most interesting concepts from the og movie and i’m glad it was expanded upon

i’m sure this may have been being saved for a possible continuation of the show but i would’ve loved a deeper look at each individual gelfling clan, like a really detailed thorough episode(s) about the life/history of each clan (dousan especially i feel like they were skimped on the most)

i, like many, am obsessed with aughra, and i love that she played such a major role in the show. i love how they showcased her maternal role and connection to the gelfling and thra, whilst always keeping her stern, choppy personality present

this is just my conspiracy theory but on the subject of who jen and kira’s respective parents are, i choose to imagine it’s not anyone in the AOR cast and just some other gelfling we never/haven’t met

wow that was a lot of yapping but again thanks for the ask!! i love being able to just dump all my thoughts into one place, it’s always very fun! 

[elzorton]

Some thoughts about Otohan Thull, the impact of chance on storytelling structures and themes in ttrpgs, and the catharsis of fulfilling story beats.

BIG SPOILERS FOR C3E91 OF CRITICAL ROLE UNDER THE CUT

You have been warned.

Hang with me here cause for the first half it could sound like i’m whining but i promise that this isn’t a negative or critical post. (also, i’m a little sleep deprived so if i’m not making sense just ignore me oops)

Okay, so a thing for me when it comes to ttrpgs compared with, let’s call it ”traditional” mediums of storytelling such as books or movies, is that the randomness that comes with dice rolls, chance and improv can sometimes leave certain story beats feeling… unfulfilled? Chance can lead to things getting resolved in a way that doesn’t feel impactful - or at least not as impactful as it could’ve been.

The death of grand villains such as Otohan Thull is a very good example of this. We expect villains to meet their demise dramatically, and thematically. As i was watching the latest episode, i found myself hoping that Laudna, Imogen or Orym would get the hdywtdt on Otohan. They are the ones who personally have been hurt by her the most, and therefore ”should” (according to my brain that is used to certain story structures ) get the final blow. If the story was told through a traditional storytelling medium, these are very likely scenarios. I’m not saying that it definitely would’ve happened like that, but I’m saying that however it would’ve happened, it would’ve been in a thematically impactful way.

In ttrpgs however, the thematically impactful death of a major villain isn’t guaranteed. The fact that some things aren’t gonna get resolved in the most fulfilling ways is something that we just have to accept. And i DO accept that - but it doesn’t stop the moments where it happens from feeling… incomplete.

WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID - here comes the part where it will stop sounding like i’m about to be whiny about the way it played out.

The outcome of this episode, the death of Otohan, DID feel fulfilling and impactful. It WAS impactful - and thematically relevant. Just not in the way that I expected. Which is exactly what I wish to experience around storytelling.

FCG’s sacrifice is heartbreaking and beautiful. It left me devastated and thankful. Otohan Thull has been so masterfully set up as a villain throughout the campaign. For their death to feel fulfilling, it kind of NEEDED to happen in a grand and impactful way. To me, she DESERVED a memorable death. The most obvious ways that could’ve come true is if Laudna, Imogen or Orym would’ve killed them. Laudna, she would kill the person who murdered her and further her spiral downward into Delilah’s embrace. Imogen and Orym, they would’ve gotten revenge on the person killing the people they loved the most.

Of course, those scenarios aren’t the only thematically fulfilling ways Otohan Thull could’ve died. What transpired this episode is absolutely, 100% meaningful and fulfilling. It just fulfilled another story beat then the ones I expected.

I have already seen a lot of posts highlighting 4SD discussions, previous conversations between characters and the growth of FCG as a character preceding this episode, where among other things FCG’s tendencies to want to sacrifice themselves, their journey towards the Changebringer and her philosophy of choosing your own path, and their growth towards viewing themselves as a living being with a soul. Therefor, I don’t feel the need to go into details of why their death felt thematically in line. We knew they were a ”ticking time bomb”. We knew they wanted to keep their friends safe with any means necessary.

What this means for the death of Otohan, is that it happened in a way that is bittersweet, cathartic and simultaneously expected and unexpected. THAT, is everything you could wish for in the death of a major villain. Otohan Thull has been one of my absolute favorite villains in all three campaigns. She has been brutal, involved and has kept the characters looking over their shoulders in fear everywhere they go. They deserved a grand death. They deserved something impactful, thematically relevant and unforgettable.

Otohan’s death will forever be etched into my brain. As Brennan said so beautifully: ”Why do we tell stories? To try to make sense of a world that can be terrifying and enormous”. This made sense. It was still terrifying. But it made sense. It was fulfilling.

TL;DR, ttrpgs don’t guarantee that major villains will meet their ends in thematically fulfilling ways. In this case, it WAS fulfilling and impactful. Just not in the way I, personally, expected.

[theaceofskulls]

Beat Space Marine 2 and yeah... I enjoyed it but that one PC gamer article that pissed people off wasn't entirely wrong about some things.

The co-op design of the game led to some annoying design decisions that could've been mitigated in the single player by a squad command system, but that's a lot of complexity and isn't just a "this should be patched in" kind of thought.

To explain, the game asks you to manage melee and ranged threat simultaneously against hordes of enemies, and the ranged threats tend to not be trivial even when they're horde enemies, but especially for special and pseudo-boss enemies. Enemy aggressiveness seems to be increased when you attempt to aim when they are swarming you, meaning that the person who needs to deal with ranged threats needs to not be the person in the thick of things.

Enemies tend to prioritize the player, which is the correct way to handle these games as it engages them more and asks them to problem solve. It's therefor the wrong answer to have your AI squadmates deal with ranged threats for you without any input on the player's side.

This extends to weapon selection. Your AI partners will always be using the average across the board guns and ask you to figure out what weapons you want to take, especially to deal with special threats. With only two weapon slots and a melee weapon, because the game was designed for multiplayer where you'd want someone to be more specialized, it's difficult to justify picking up two heavy hitting, but specialized and low ammunition weapons, one of which must be a pistol, so I often found myself avoiding a lot of the more interesting primary weapons as the plasma pistol tended to just be the better answer for that slot for me.

This is not to say you have useless AI partners, and the game regularly throws enough things your way to feel like they're actively contributing, but the flow of combat can often feel like you've gotten stuck in melee (emulating the tabletop somewhat) and are frustratingly trying to clear enough room to deal with the ranged threats that can be more devastating, especially since the tools to dodge ranged attacks don't seem to have as much invincibility frames for melee attacks, often leading to dodge rolls that end with you being sucker punched from the back.

It's also worth noting that like with a lot of Warhammer games, this is indulgently for fans and will introduce almost nothing. The first game had this issue, and this is clearly for the fans, but watching people ding Age of Sigmar's game for that then immediately shout at anyone new who engages with their favorite game for the same thing is annoying. It is a legitimate criticism when the game is being broadly aimed outwards and a lot of the fanbase spent months going "This should be the game that finally makes 40k mainstream".

I have to reiterate, I liked this game. I really enjoy dumping a couple days into it and want to try out the multiplayer as people finish up the campaign and don't just drop into lobbies only to immediatley quit them so they can customize their marines because for some reason there's no option to mess with that without joining a game despite the fact that the technology is clearly there (I don't blame anyone for leaving when I realized I'd done the same thing).

This is a type of rough game that we don't get a lot of anymore. It's a finished game with a lot of issues in its design because it's aiming to be something that's not sanded down to be a universal game, and it's trying something out with enemies and game flow in a third person shooter that honestly manages to remain enjoyable for over 10 hours.

Its story is there for the fans and a lot of subtleties are going to be based off preexisting knowledge and expectations of the factions going in (one character kind of demands that you know what a Primaris Marine is and what Calth was, which was 19 books into the Horus Heresy if you're not the type to watch loretubers) and a big late game thing depends on you knowing about some characters that were much more important to the story of 40k before the "current era". It's going to get some wildly different reactions that I'm already seeing, and that's also because this game was built up by the community.

Even with my love of the setting, this is a game that had enough small gameplay annoyances to get me to think about the reasons why they exist while playing, and I definitely could see how much being a fan matters to your final score of the game, probably raising it by a whole point or two on a 10 scale.

A lot of it does feel like a direct response to Space Marine 1 criticisms (and even some about Boltgun), and the first time there was dialogue on an elevator I almost lost my shit after watching Mandalore's video on the first one recently.

If this is a game for you, you likely already know that it's for you and the only thing this post will tell you if you haven't picked it up is that the hype is overselling it and that it's not perfect and you probably won't think this is the greatest thing you've ever played in your life like some people claim, but that it will still be for you (though you might want to play with the difficulty almost dynamically during certain sections to mitigate fights with enemy AI designed for human players coordinating with each other).

If you don't know 40K or are not that big into Space Marines, this probably isn't a full price kind of game for you but there's a good chance that if you're willing to put up with a few frustrations you'll actually like it as well down the line, especially if you played anything in the 6th or 7th console generation (PS2/PS3 era).

[knullanon]

Vandal savage losing one his young kids and finding them decades later, his kid taken into a family and decently stable civilian life

yess i love your ideas, I have so many of them almost finished too. also, there might be something I'll post tomorrow because it was written and then I forgot to save it, so while I still have the ask, everything that was written was gone. which sucks, but oh well. so, either later today or tomorrow it will be up :) love yall!

Lost and Found

words: 1878

warnings: drugging, a little violence, kidnapping, lmk if I missed anything!

~~~

He was devastated. You were his baby, his precious, even when you were born, he knew you would be different. All throughout your years, he would teach you, care for you, he would show you all around the world, to tell you that this is what you would rule over. That this was your domain, that you would one day be ruling over the people around you.

Unfortunately, that vision he had given you had never come to fruition. He still remembered the day you were taken, when you were little. He left you with your siblings, thinking that you would be safe, that you wouldn't be in any danger.

He goes over that day every night, about the what if's and what could've changed. What he could've done differently. If he had just taken you with him, if he had just assigned more guards. After a few years, he had assumed the worst had happened. He knew that he would never make this mistake again, he swore to himself, but it didn't help the hurt and pain he felt every time he thought of you.

He thought he would never see you again. By the time you would have been an adult, he had come to terms with what happened. He would still think of you, but he knew that he would have to get over it, that nothing would bring you back. No matter how much he tried, you were gone, probably dead.

And so when he received a file from one of his children showing that you were alive, that you were on the other side of the world, fine and unharmed, he let himself hope again that you were there. That it wasn't a trap, that you were actually alive.

Savage realized what would happen if it was a lie. That it would restart his pain, his hurt. But he let himself believe that maybe, you were still alive.

He hoped he was right.

--

You were having a terrible day.

Your mother had called you, telling you that she wanted you to move back in with them for some reason or another, even though you just rented your first apartment, something you were very prideful about, and she didn't even tell you why. This caused an argument where she yelled at you for 5 minutes before hanging up.

Then, on the way to work, you were stopped by a cop, which made you late, which then caused your boss to yell at you in front of your coworkers. Later in the day, some lady was mad because you got her order wrong, and made a huge deal about it to your boss.

After she left, he told you that your raise you were going to get, albeit small, was going to be postponed until he saw "better results". You had tried to argue, but he had shut you down, telling you to do better.

The rest of the day was a blur, besides the few angry people who would come up to you telling you something was wrong, or to go work on this, or work on that.

By the time you were clocking out, you were ready to be done with your day and cry yourself to sleep.

Walking down the road to the parking lot, you thought of everything you could do the next day to make yourself feel better. You had that TV show you wanted to watch, some snacks, and you could even get some food from your favorite restaurant-

"______?"

You paused and turned around, expecting one of your coworkers telling you you forgot your keys or something similar. You were not expecting a tall lady who looked like she could kill you with a punch to be there.

"Yes?" You fully turned to face her, worried she might try something, but she didn't move. In fact, she seemed surprised that you even answered her. You had never seen her before in your life, which made it even more suspicions.

"Do I... know you?" you asked, hesitantly. You didn't know what she wanted from you, and the fact that she knew your name was not a good sign.

She didn't answer your question. Instead, she told you, "I can't believe it. You're _______ Savage?"

Savage? What? "My name is _______, but my last name isn't Savage-"

"That's all I need to know." Confused, you were about to ask her what the hell she was talking about, when she suddenly rushed forward towards your face. You tripped yourself backwards trying to get away from her, and ended up falling flat on your ass.

This didn't deter her, though. While you were trying to figure out how the hell you were going to get away from her, she took the opportunity and lunged towards you. You covered your face, but she didn't automatically go for you. She went behind you.

Before you realized what was happening, she had you in a chokehold, holding you down while you tried to yell out for help. You saw something glint from her other arm, and you were smart enough to know what she was planning on doing.

You tried to kick your way out of her hold, but you cried out when you felt something prick your arm. Something cold, something that felt weird under your skin poured into you. You finally had the bright idea to shove your palm at her nose. She let you go and you scurried away, trying to get ahold of yourself when you started to droop.

Your arms, legs, even your face weren't moving as fast as you normally would have been able to. You tried to get up, but even then you struggled. By the time you hoisted yourself onto the nearby wall, she was already back on her feet, walking towards you.

When she grabbed you by your arm, and you fell like a rag doll, you knew you had lost. You didn't even notice her cradling you like a baby, or when she carried you to a car that you didn't even see beforehand. The last thing you remember was falling asleep to her telling someone to drive.

--

Your head felt like crap. It was almost like what a fever felt like: you could move, but your body didn't want to. It was too tiring, too slow. It was too hot, too cold. You groaned to yourself. Did you really have to get sick on your days off? Opening your eyes, you were going to see if you could convince your body to get some water, only to realize this wasn't your room.

In fact, it was the opposite of your room. In comparison to your tiny little apartment, the room you were in was huge, probably the size of your parents house. There were shelves with trinkets, statues and books. There were huge paintings on the walls, some of them seemed to be originals.

When you looked at the bed you were on, it was gigantic. It looked like one of those princess beds, with black lace curtains, sheets and pillows. The headboard was carved to show what appeared to be a battle, the detail showing even in the smallest of areas. There was two doors that probably led to some hallway or another, but what got your attention was the window.

It was to your left, and it showcased a tundra of snow and trees. It was enticing, seeing the beauty of it all right in front of you. There were mountains, covered in snow, and it almost looked like another planet.

Everything in the room, while luxurious and expensive, made you remember in your daze everything that had happened the day before, including the kidnapping.

You threw off the covers, and jumped out of the bed, which made your head hurt even more, but you didn't care. Panic and adrenaline started to set in, and even through your headache, you stumbled over to the two doors, which was a struggle just from your body being so disorganized.

When you finally reached the doors, your body was already done. You had wondered what had happened to you to deserve this treatment, when the knob suddenly turned. You stopped as it opened, your heart sinking when you saw who was on the other side.

It was the biggest man you had ever even seen in your life. You didn't recognize him, and yet he looked so familiar. He was holding a tray of food that seemed to be some kind of soup, and some flatbread to the side of the bowl. It also held a glass of water.

You tripped on your feet as he walked in the room, and gently shut the door. He walked past you, towards the bedside table, and set down the tray, along with the glass of water.

He turned around, and his expressions softened. "______, are you feeling alright?"

"Who are you?" You mumbled out. Not knowing who he was and yet he somehow knew your name made your stomach turn, and it didn't help you had no idea where you were.

He didn't respond, and he only walked towards you, saying, "You look ill. You should be in bed, you know."

You couldn't even respond before he grabbed you by your neck, like a kitten, and walked back to the bed. He dropped you where you were before, and pulled the sheets and blankets over you again. While your mind was yelling and screaming, your body took comfort in the warmth from the covers.

"Who are you?" You asked again, more panicked and rushed. He grabbed the tray and placed it on your lap, since you were already sitting upright.

"You do not remember me?" He asked, almost sad that you weren't able to recognize him. You shook your head, and flinched when he reached to cradle your cheek.

"______, I am-"

There was a sudden ping from his pocket, and he angrily pulled out what appeared to be a cellphone. He answered, "What is it?"

"Father, there's trouble with one of our reserves. They have asked for an emergency meeting with the rest of the Light." The voice sounded similar to the lady who had taken you.

He growled, and you could see his fist shaking from anger. It scared you.

"Tell them to be ready by the time I get there."

He hung up without saying anything else, and turned to you again. He grabbed your hand and rubbed it, almost trying to give you comfort of some kind.

"I'll be back soon enough. Please eat at least something before I get back."

He let go of your hand, and got up from the bed. He walked over to the door, and turned around one last time, and gave you the smallest smile, before opening the door, and leaving.

You did, however, hear the doors lock, before you heard him walk away. You looked down at the food he had given you, and slowly, you ate, too hungry to even care if he had tampered with it.

You knew you had to have a plan to get out of there. But for right now, you decided to rest, and figure out why you were here.

~~~

I was gonna write this completely differently, but it came out weird so I re-wrote it. anyways, I hope you enjoyed it ヾ(￣▽￣)

[voltstone]

…about the clementine comic (again): why is she illiterate?

I've already written an exhaustive essay about the Clementine comics written by Tillie Walden, and that was before the first book was out. It was more of a discussion of what was already seen from the teaser, Walden being an…interesting choice to write this, but more than that, it was to preemptively stake the claim that no, it isn't canon. Not in the way that's just "ew I hate this I refuse," but more so, "the games (and character) by design and functionality do not allow for single interpretations to adequately continue the story."

These comics can be…a canon. But not the canon.

In the same way as The Walking Dead Game's (TWDG) fanfiction, like my own where I'm writing only my canon interpretation, the others who do the same, and so on.

(This right here is the essay, by the by.)

It has been a couple years since then. I have read both comics, and there is a lot I can say about them. I may one day, but not right now.

Instead, I want to direct attention to how…weirdly anti-apocalyptic it is?? Because it bothers me. A lot. That I'm watching a Clementine as a character get reduced to a kid who doesn't know how to read or write, doesn't know how to dress and care after a wound...

All things necessary for survival—the reading especially within an apocalyptic setting. Which. No. I'm not kidding. I do mean that.

Before I really indulge in my grievances, however, I will start by outlining the world that TWDG has established, and what it actually takes to survive within it.

(And yes, this is another lengthy post.)

[Surviving the Apocalypse]

Throughout the games, we ultimately see the apocalypse under two overarching eras. The initial stage is calamity. The walkers swiftly overrun what people upheld as a stable, and very secure way of life. And the fact that it only takes one factor to destroy the "we're untouchable" notion, it's terrifying. (Which, on that note, though the undead is an extreme, we did maybe learn this post-COVID. Ergo, stories like these may resonate a little bit better than they had before.)

What's different about The Walking Dead (TWD) as a universe is that…, the true calamity arguably doesn't hit until later, because the dead themselves aren't what really destroys the untouchable mindset as before. In most universes, such as The Last of Us, it's something contagious that you don't want. However, it is also something to overcome and fix. Though the dead in TWDG's cousin is far more brutal, if you isolate them, or find a way to vaccinate…, there could feasibly be a future where the fungus is more akin to rabies or the black plague rather than a devastating change in society.

Because that's how diseases like these work. They will never go away, especially if humanity mishandled their responses to them. Rabies is still out there, because it is a violent disease (am also under the impression that walkers is very synonymous with rabies, but I digress). The Black Plague? That whole thing? Yeah, the plague itself is also still out there. The problem was solved by nature, where a fire torched all of London.

But since then, we have vaccines. We know better (…I hope) in how to appropriately respond. And…that's the best we can do. Pathogens will always dictate life.

Of course, this isn't to undermind what outbreaks as seen in those other stories do to the world. They evidently are a turning point, if not the end, of humanity's way of life. The reason why, however, falls more in-line with a society being greatly unprepared, and a virus, fungus, whatever being the perfect amalgamation that spreads rapidly. It's what we as humans have gone through, will go through, to an absolutely extreme. Complete annihilation. That kind of deal.

Here's the thing about TWD, and I honestly could go on and on with this (and why it's my favorite apocalypse I've seen in fiction):

The bite is not what does it. Everyone is infected.

And the longer you think about it, that in itself will not end. I'm in the camp that it would be maternally passed-down given how blood circulation works within pregnancy, so. You know.

The point here is TWD as an apocalypse is very unique in this one change. It fundamentally breaks how people approached these kinds of stories. The walkers are not particularly fast because they don't have to be. They are a looming presence. As they deteriorate, because they're so slow-moving (as apposed to clickers), they manage to tell their own stories in how they died. You can see if they were bit, or starved, or shot… List goes on.

They are representative of nature reclaiming the world, and on top of that, a dangling threat to anyone who has the gall to think they're above it.

Because they're not. So either make sure your head is shot, or deal with walking around like a mangy pile of rot.

It changed how people approached this because rather than a devastating outbreak, this feels like a sort of damnation. There is a very bleak sense of finality to this universe—to the point where… Yeah. They could live on, try to find a cure, but this is it.

This is the true calamity of this world—not the walkers themselves, but the fact that they are there to stay, there is no going back. At least, for a long, long, long time. You can't just isolate them. If someone dies the wrong way, there could be one in the room right with you. Hence…making sure your head is shot.

And as with in the games, it is such a bleak reality that it forces people to just move on.

Which they do. The way to survive this initial era is, amongst a wide scope of things, to accept the fact and carry forth.

The characters that don't, and are simply too rooted in the past, like Katjaa… Well, they don't make it, do they? There's a reason why we don't see that many unable to let go after the first season, because they don't last. If they do, like with Tenn, it's because they got lucky and had a community to fall back on. Regardless, given what we see with Katjaa, Season One (S1) is this time.

The second era of the apocalypse is seeding. Both in the literal sense, and symbolic.

I'm not talking established communities, no. The closest we get to that is the boarding school, given they do have established practices. But, with how many things need to be done, the schoolkids are still within this second era.

Season Three (S3) is arguably the first season of the four solidly within the second era. Sure, there are still scavengers, but there are also several communities at once—enough so that the conflicts between end up being why they fail, not purely the dead. This leaves Season Two (S2) to be the fitting chaos that ensues between the eras, where much of the world is scavenging, they're reminded of how cruel winter is actually, but there are already solid efforts in building communities; then, Season 4 (S4) as well within the second era, with clear signs that there is the gradual chance of establishment.

The second era requires not only what the first proposes—moving on—, but also a sense of ingenuity. They're left with the scraps of the past world, but that past world also grew out of the earth, so they can cobble those scraps and earth together and make something out of it. We have Prescott on the airstrip; that is the epitome of cobbling things together. There's Richmond, and Howe's Hardware as well, where it's making use of the scraps left behind to establish proper farms. Then Ericson's as a meld of both—the kids have their structure, but they needed to feed off the land. (Not quite at the farm stage like the others were.)

All of what I've discussed thus far, however, is on an overarching scale (and isn't exactly exhaustive either). It can be extrapolated and used in reference to an individual's survival, but there are ways to better articulate an individual's survival than just…get the fuck over it, and build a farm.

And what's interesting is there is a vast difference in requirements depending on how they choose to survive.

With a community. Or. Alone.

The benefits to a community is you yourself don't have to encompass the three traits to survive. (Oh, yeah, this essay will have three primary traits of surviving on an individual scale; obviously there will forever be more nuance, but…shush. I'm typing.) Within a community, you can rely upon others that do encompass the three traits—and it doesn't have to be all in one person. The people within a community can specialize in skills.

And the schoolkids best emulate this.

Tenn and Willy, though they have their own skillsets, are example of those who need to rely on others. Both have the school, though they are closest to Violet and Mitch respectively—those, if asked, would likely be considered the closest thing to caretakers that either boys have.

And right alongside them, Louis, because my man…would like to say he's allergic to work, but really, it's the self-doubt. Now, if not a person who is reliant, he is good for raising spirits. He knows games to play. He brings entertainment.

There's Marlon, who's the well-spoken leader. Ruby, who plays nurse. Aasim, who…writes? Writing's important and stuff in the apocalypse, right?

(Yes. It is. Again, we will get to that, so, hush-up.)

Rosie. Dog. (This is also very important. You can pet her!)

Mitch was likely the muscle, or something along those lines. Omar, the cook.

I would say Brody sits near the "needs to rely" camp, given her anxiety, though, she does actually pull her weight, ergo, support. You can task her with anything. She'll likely be able to do it, such as with fishing and hunting.

Violet was also probably another support, though it is difficult to really tell at the beginning because she's withdrawn from the rest of her people. (I've always felt the Violet we meet at the start isn't who she was before the twins left. Of course, Violet is Violet, but… Depression, and stuff. Probably BPD stuff.) Here's the thing though: come to find, Violet is also another thing.

That being deputy. She can step-up and play leader when need be, but will step down because that isn't quite what she is—hence why the leadership ultimately goes from Marlon to Clementine by the end. This has Violet be the ultimate support. She can do whatever, fill in the leadership role, so on and so forth.

As the community develops, the others will find more nuances in themselves like these. Beyond what I've outlined, and the present nuances already in S4.

The thing with this line-up to understand is there's huge variety here. Not only in the nature of each role, but also their complexity. Because…, turns out, there's a lot to living.

Which. I mean. All of that is no shit, Sherlock. Because yeah.

When I go on about, say, Violet, it's to explain a very specific concept that one word is not going to do. There's a specific reason why I say deputy, and not second-hand; there is a thing where roles will and do change depending on circumstance, and time. (As with Willy (and Tenn) when he grows up, and when Louis becomes more confident.) But this doesn't mean it's more important. When I say "Omar, the cook," or "Ruby, who plays nurse," neither are to designate either as lesser roles.

They're actually crucial. Because no fucking shit. You need to eat. You need to learn how to mend yourself.

It's why those roles are so…simple. Because title alone says everything.

Certain roles, like Violet's (which…may or may not be ironic), are very community-centric. Others, like Omar and Ruby's, are fundamental to just life. And what you see is within communities, those fundamentals go from just skillsets to an art or to a science. When you have people who specialize in each, they are given the time and space to truly understand the ins and outs of what they're doing.

Cut to alone.

Those like Clementine.

Surviving alone is difficult because not only are all of these crucial roles in the community on one set of shoulders, there has to be great sacrifice. Of course, a leader or deputy isn't needed because there's just one. The social aspect of a community is not present.

With that social aspect follows specialization of the core fundamentals.

You need to eat. You need to learn how to mend yourself. And defend...

When you are on your own, without the security of a home, you are not given the time nor the space to truly know those ins and outs. So, when you look at those like Clementine, yes. She's not going to know little tricks, or the sciences, in what she does. The stitching for example:

Clean it. Sew the fucking body part shut. Wrap if you can. There you go, you just did stitching.

Which she does. However, S2, part of why the dog bite (oh, and yes, comic people? yeah, there's supposed to be a deep, concerning scar down her left forearm) scarred the way it did is because 1) …um, she was in a shed, dunking-back apple juice in between sutures in my case, getting jumped by a dead dude, and 2) the stitch-work was very rudimentary. Enough to close the wound and have it heal, sure. Then, S3, the same with Javi; Kate upon inspection does mention that she sees it bleeding through, indicating that again, it's very rudimentary. But, we have Eleanor examine it, and she notes that it is satisfactory, so long as it's looked after.

Had someone like Ruby, or better yet Eleanor (who Dr. Lingard complimented this exact skill) done it, they would have known different stitch techniques that not only closes the wound tight, but also leaves minimal scarring. And the other things, like how to adapt the techniques to different parts of the body, because…no, you really can't just stitch a knee like you would a back.

But again, Clementine didn't have the time to really learn the specifics. She's busy learning how to cook, and hunt, and defend, and scavenge supplies, drive, shoot, car maintenance, feeding a child, taking care of the child, protecting the child, prioritizing necessities…

Essentially, in terms of community vs solo, it's an argument between the specialized, and the jack of all trades.

Stay with me now. I'm not exactly done going over what is needed to survive, because there are more. There's the three traits I mentioned. But as I babble on, once the discussion over the comic begins, I do hope it's clear as to why I am going through these things as meticulously as I am.

Now we get to why Clementine of all girls would be able to live in this kind of environment. She's a kid, but like…young adult given the context. (I'm sure the medieval ages wouldn't argue.) She's like…stupid, or something. She only went to so much school, and we all know that only smart people graduate from school. I never met a dumbfuck at college ever! No!

…got a little side-tracked.

Genuinely though, what is it about Clementine?

I'll start this with a curveball:

What is the dumbest thing that she has ever done within the games?

There's room for debate, but the majority will probably point to S1, where she goes on to trust the voice at the other end of her radio—the voice being the Stranger's.

It's the decision that we, as an audience, thought Clementine was above doing even at that age. It's also what ultimately kills Lee.

Here's the thing, though:

Clementine putting faith into the Stranger wasn't just a child being stupid. For one, she is…eight/nine. So. A child. But, two, it was an exercise of her greatest flaw:

"She's a puzzle."

Something that is brought up, time and time again. To my mind, it's most notably done by Katjaa, whenever they're beside the train, and Duck is of ailing health. Clementine sits on her own log. Doesn't respond much to Lee, not until Chuck (as a breath of fresh air) comes to join the party.

See, she heard a voice from the other end of this radio—one of two (including the hat) mementos she has of her family—, and the one thing that she had in way of sanctuary. The Stranger said the right things, so she kept to herself with that radio, and let her desperation flourish.

Finding her parents was the one thing she wanted. So yes, through a child's gullibility, and a man's manipulation, she believed the wrong person.

We see this sort of flaw propagate time and time again. Granted, it does depend on the player's interpretation of her for S2 and S4, given we play as her, but in S3 where she's (quite literally, for the most part) out of our hands, what does she do? She keeps to herself. What happened to A.J? was a question on our minds, largely because of her reluctance to open up. Clementine lies to Javi about the New Frontier, then she turns around and explains her lie…, reveals her branding…, purely for survival's sake, not because she wholeheartedly trusts him.

Of course, in S3 it's understandable that she doesn't just open up to Javi. That game covers only a handful of days—short of a week by the end—, with the exception of the flashback sequences. (As opposed to S1, across several months, S2, a few weeks to a month, give or take, and S4, which sits about the same.)

Still, however. This is absolutely a part of Clementine's character: she's reserved. Without the player, her first inkling is to keep herself from the topic of conversation.

The thing to understand about this flaw, and how it bleeds into the comics, is that…I think(?) Walden acknowledged this part of her character. But…half of it.

The reason why comic Clementine pulled away from the boarding school is because she…, as she does…, kept to herself after her leg, got into her own head, and thusly ran off. I will say, I do agree that Clementine would be an absolute fucking mess with her leg gone because she has to rely on people again. (Which is devastating because of her specific trauma: à la parentification.)

Now…, run away…? Um…

(…it's also this specific trauma that… Um. Yeah no, she would not leave A.J.)

Whatever. Not the point of this essay.

The other half of this flaw, the half that the comics blatantly miss, speaks to quite an…insightful aspect of Clementine:

She is a very, very perceptive individual. Because the thing we see in S1 is that she's not just quiet. She's watching. She's observant. Clementine is quiet, not only because she gets into her own head, but because she's taking in the world, and so she notices things that other people don't pick up on.

Throughout S1, there will be moments where Lee can try to sugarcoat things, particularly after Duck's bite, only for Clementine to say it plainly:

"You don't know that."

Those moments speak to a kid who knows the difference between reality and not, and telling Clementine that she won't get snatched or bit is…not reality. It will likely happen, and it does.

Other moments, she'll notice details in the environment. She can point them out. Help Lee, as with getting into the train station. Make a comment, like in Hershel's barn with the "dookie"/shit/manure.

Or, back in the drugstore, where Carley (…not too subtly) outs Lee as a murderer in front of Clementine. …which, of course, Clementine picks up on. (The trigger for this is to pick up the photo of Lee with his family, hence why it can be before or after moving the desk.) To which, upon leaving the drugstore's office, she'll ask about it, and you'll have the option of being open and honest, sugarcoating it, or just flat out lie.

Staying in the drugstore! Lee asks for something to bar the entrance. Walkers are scratching to get a nibble. And? Immediately, she goes to his dad's cane (cuz that man ain't using anymore!).

S2. Same spiel. Because…, oh boy, incompetence is rampant as it turns out, and as I've stepped into adulthood for myself, I've come to appreciate that season as essentially "Clementine learns why the motel family fell apart, adults are grown ass children, she has to babysit them— KENNY, DOWN! STOP IT! STOP BITING THE RUSSIAN!— throughout a winter."

Because. Newsflash. Adults? About as stable of a concept as a table with a missing leg, then another one of mangled-together cutlery. And I will forever adore stories from a kid's perspective slowly realizing this fact.

(…also, parentification's a knocking. It wants in.)

Then, S3, where she gave up being the hero, but still…, somehow…, rattles off exactly what the player needs to do and where to get the tools when stealing a truck because she just can't help herself.

…okay, I think I've done enough. S4 also speaks for itself.

Point being, Clementine is a very perceptive, very resilient, and very adaptive person. It's why she out of all the kids she comes across is the one to survive.

Sarah immediately comes to mind as someone who really struggled with adapting. She can, but the tragedy of it is that it's not in time. Too little, too late. (Circumstances also don't help.)

With Gabe (if he dies), same kind of thing. He always struck me as someone painfully unaware of how good he had it, and how bad everything else was. And he needed to grow up. Fast. But again, that alone isn't what saves him—his uncle, and/or Clementine do(es). If he's saved at all, anyway.

Duck? Same fucking thing. And it was his death, through Chuck, that spurred Lee to start teaching Clementine the basics.

To which she adapts, and she adapts well. Their first outing doesn't go…all that great. Clementine freezes. But, throughout S1, she does shoot her first walker (with Omid, or in Crawford). If Lee cannot fight off the Stranger, she will be the one to kill him. And then, of course, the whole Lee death scene thing.

The second season starts off with Omid dropping because of a neglected gun. (Clementine freezes again.) Change is always on rocky road—despite the season prior, she still had a lot to learn, and she did throughout said season.

Perceptive, and resilient, and adaptive. To be those is the ticket to survival. Those are the three.

So why…does it seem like the comics don't know?

[VANCOMYCIN]

To anyone unaware, vancomycin is not a random string of letters for Clementine to work her mouth through. In fact, she knows how to read it. Had to, in order to inject this medicine into A.J within S3—whether or not she goes through with it is dependent on player choice.

Vancomycin, to give a better idea of the sheer desperation she was in, is not something to treat the common cold or flu. It's to treat Gram-positive bacterial infections—hence why it wouldn't necessarily work for colds or flu, given most are virus-borne—, and is generally synonymous with more serious infections.

Meaning. A.J was genuinely sick.

(My hunch is bacteria-borne pneumonia.)

I don't know what most of the fandom assumed, but it was not just a little bug. It was…bad. And a legit miracle that he survived (whether it be without the injection, or…with the injection where Clementine poked the syringe through his shirt? Game? Graphics?).

What likely happened was, somewhere down the line, he either just caught something on an off chance (the world hasn't been sanitized), or he got too close to danger and got himself sick that way off of one of the walkers/animals around. (If it was pneumonia, he likely inhaled something.) Regardless, Clementine was at a point where she…just did not have the resources to help him, would not know where to look, wouldn't feasibly be able to scavenge for it, and so she joined the New Frontier (whether or not you had her agree initially) because it was just that bad.

It is a heavy drug. Not only does it give insight as to why Clementine chose to join regardless of your choice for her, it also explains why the group threw her out for even handling it. It's not like aspirin that's easy to come by.

And, of course, there's the pronunciation of it. As with every medical term like this, it looks and sounds convoluted, but as you break it down, it's pretty straightforward.

Keep this in mind as I rattle on further. I find the vancomycin to be a very succinct contrast to what I take issue with in the comics.

Speaking of, the comics.

Hello there.

…Clementine.

The Clementine Comics, by Tillie Walden, read as a hard reset on the series, from S1 onward. Which yes, is the core issue. There was no effort in even trying to continue off from S4, it was just a way to have Clementine still run around, while avoiding the whole Telltale-RPG implications of a continuation.

So, if you're somehow out of the fandom and you're reading this, hi? Welcome. This is why people are upset about the comic, and for once, no, it's not just because this fanbase is being…unhinged. (In a bad way.)

On top of the plot decisions, however, there are things that just prove Walden was not the artist for this project. The artstyle is an interesting(?) fit for TWDG, but ultimately is an aside. There's the focus on romance. There's the dull characters.

And then there's Clementine herself. Very out of character, and that's coming from someone whose Clementine has…made decisions in her life.

What this essay will focus on, however, is the choices made to have Clementine incompetent.

Medically so.

In the first book, Clementine is taught how to clean and dress her amputated leg. I can get behind learning how to wrap the thing properly, because it is a different part of the body, and it's a different angle—on herself, not someone else.

But she asks…why she needs to clean it. Like she doesn't know. Clementine has to be taught that.

This kind of ignorance then follows her into the second book, because she fell ill (and slipped into a month-long coma??), largely due to her not cleaning the wound. Her leg had an infection. And it spread.

…okay. Um.

That's very interesting considering Clementine:

(S2) Got bit by a dog, felt like she needed to take care of it herself due to circumstances, cleaned it, sutured the wound with fishing wire, and then went to bandage it (before getting attacked). (By the way, the scar is not on comic Clementine. So.)

(S2; optional) Can sit beside Rebecca during her pregnancy to help, but then does have to assist with the walker/lurker problem.

(S2) Tended to Kenny's lost eye because he was beaten by a walkie-talkie by cleaning it.

(S2) Probably had to deal with that whole wound in her shoulder, you know, from the FUCKING RIFLE SHOT, either with Kenny, Jane, those at Wellington, or on her own (feat A.J). (No, they did not patch it up because time, and it went clean through. When Jane and Kenny fought, Clementine just had an open bullet hole.)

(S2/S3) Had to take care of a baby. With Jane or Kenny or in Wellington, and/or on her own.

(S3; alone S2 ending) Broke her finger on a car door to the point where she (presumably) had to amputate and cauterize the finger herself.

(S3) THE WHOLE VANCOMYCIN THING. I WILL GET BACK TO THAT.

(S3) Cleaned and sutured Javi's arm after he got shanked (cuz Gabe… never mind).

(S4) Twas a great start. Car accident—boo boo head.

(S4) Had to patch-up A.J cuz he got shot by a shotgun. And was in recovery for two weeks.

(S4; optional) Louis/Violet gets their finger chopped off. Probably helped deal with that.

(S4) Um. Her leg? You know. The one she lost, and the schoolkids managed to get her stable. Willing to bet Ruby would lose her fucking shit if it wasn't cleaned properly.

And that's just what we do see, in regards to Clementine personally.

Do I…have to go on and explain why it's fucking stupid that she doesn't know the basic information she had to learn in the comics? No?

Okay. Good.

I will get back to it, because I think this choice is indicative of a larger issue. We'll get to that weird…bias the comics have with Clementine being negligent and ignorant to all things medical.

Because now, we're here.

Not only is Clementine ignorant medically, she struggles to read her way through a dictionary. There's scenes of her sounding out words like she's in preschool.

For what reason?! Because in a world where people don't have higher education, they just don't read and write?! What?!

Okay, so, no, I didn't outline precisely why reading and writing (more so reading) is crucial of a skillset to have within an apocalyptic setting. I will do so now.

Because it's the crux of this essay. Hence why I've given it its own section. (…that's what this is, by the way.)

Why is it, exactly, "so" important Volt? Society's gone!! You don't need to read!

Listen up, ✨ dipshit ✨ This is an apocalypse. Not a nomadic setting.

Okay, that was a little mean. If you're asking this, you're not a dipshit.

Anyway, I am being genuine here. To the point where even implying that nomads by nature are illiterate is also…wrong. Because that's not necessarily true either, but assuming so falls into such an ignorant bias that people in 1st world countries have. (The same that the comics have.)

And this bias is the reason why I really, really want to have this discussion because the comics really rubbed me the wrong way with this, and, I'm kinda sick and tired of reading other people implying the same thing.

So let's start here:

What distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom? Why is it we consider ourselves more intelligent?

The answer boils down to one thing:

Our mouths.

We can talk. And in doing so, we can communicate to each other very complex and nuanced concepts that require articulation beyond body language and emotion.

It's why we're able to distinguish things like envy versus just being irritated by someone. Because frankly? They physically feel the same because they are the same emotion. The context is what differentiates envy vs irritability. The why.

"I feel [this] because I want what they have." vs "I feel [this] because they're being stupid right now."

The [this] is the same. The body only has so many ways it can tell you what you're feeling, so it ends up boiling down to very basic emotions, where they can be felt at different extremes, or in unison. So. You know. Think Inside Out. What makes envy special is…you have to take context into consideration. Yes, it is also irritability, but it goes beyond that. And it requires language to communicate such a thing.

When you look at animals, that's why they're "unintelligent." They respond to what they feel the way they do because they don't have a way to articulate it. So they just react. Rather blindly in our eyes. Same thing with babies. They haven't gone through language acquisition just yet—they're in the same boat. It's also why a lot of dog breeds are said to "have the same intelligence as a 3 year old." It's related to language. They feel the same emotions, or whatever equivalent (can't claim I know how their bodies process emotions). However, they physically cannot exercise language verbally. Ergo, they're more or less stunted in the acquisition.

And then you have that we are wired to speak. Our mouths by design are made to verbalize complex sounds. A lot of our brain power is in being able to talk, or at least comprehend patterns in speech if the individual is mute. I for one was a child who rarely spoke for my first ~4/5 years, but I knew what people were saying. (Funnily enough, I was a lot like A.J.)

Beyond emotions, it's also to communicate things rather than [follow me, are you following, I'm looking at you, follow me,] it's "okay, I'm going over here, meet me by this tree." There's immediate clarification. There's a passage of thought between two brains. We don't have to interpret body language as much, we have to comprehend words.

To the rest of the animal kingdom, that makes us already mind-readers. Given that people are honest, and can articulate well, we literally are.

…it's also this emphasis on verbal language that has people be real fucking shit a reading body language, but whatever.

The point here is language is so fucking important. And there's a reason why we started writing things down. Some of the first records of written language, hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, were to keep track of agriculture. We also forget things, so we wrote those down. Heard of the Iliad? The Odyssey? Those were orally passed down for generations, but Homer decided to scribe them so they weren't forgotten. (From what I remember, he wrote those during the Hellenistic era of the mythos. …I want to say the stories come from the Mycenaean times?)

And above all.

Long distance communication. Or. Leaving behind knowledge.

So there would be couriers. There would be scholars who learned from scrolls of scribes decades before them.

(In modern times…, labels on products so that you know what it is, how to use it… Just a thought.)

Language is what makes us different. And by proxy, writing helps us retain that.

It is never something people are just going to abandon when the world goes to shit. If anything, it's going to be the one thing people will grapple onto by the skin of their teeth.

Out of the two, yes, language would come first. There are many cultures that lived (even thrived) without having a true writing system, and did just fine because the culture had such an emphasis on oral tradition, or other ways in cementing their culture to the test of time. A lot of the Native American cultures come to mind. Nowadays, however, there's been an effort to have them written so they aren't lost because…colonialism. I don't really need to explain that, but I do think the history is important to understand (the linguist in me is also morbidly fascinated). In summary, however, the way in which these cultures were torn apart rattled people, and people saw their way of life was evaporating with every person lost. They couldn't leave anything physical behind.

I do bring this contrast to light, however, because there is a detail to understand about an apocalyptic setting, and its relationship with written word: it's reflective of what society fell. If the society before was like a lot of the Native cultures, where their culture was recorded through oral traditions and other practices, then sure, I would expect the people left behind to be "illiterate". …at least, in terms of writing. They're literate in those oral traditions and practices.

But, that's not TWDG. What we have is a society that is reliant on writing. So much of our world is articulated through an alphabet printed onto a surface.

In any case, back to the apocalyptic setting.

Another thing is, yes, we do see language come before writing. In survival, it does land people in situations where it's "I don't have time, I've been starving, I'm going to grab all the food in this place before the books." Of course. Then you have that books are heavy. You're not going to realistically carry a library around. You're going to choose other things that would help immediately.

Like a knife. Or a gun.

Those do better bashing heads in than a book (but a tome wouldn't do that bad).

Here's the thing though. To step back to how reliant our society is on writing, I don't think people realize just how much they read. (Hint: you're reading right now. You had to read in order to navigate this page.) So here's the follow images of things that, in an apocalypse, are pivotal for survival, and requires of you reading comprehension:

Signs. Food labels. First Aid labels. Maps. Manuals. Guidebooks.

You need to know where you're at. You need to understand what it is you're eating, how to cook it, and quality (ex: expiration). You need to understand first aid, what you're working with and how to apply it. You need to know where you're going. If you have equipment (like, say, a car) that you're not privy to, but need it, you need to learn basic maintenance. If you're not familiar with how to do certain activities (how to make jerky, how and where to put your urine/fecal matter), you can learn in a guidebook.

Literacy is about self-sufficiency. And each of these represent different aspects of how to live off of the scraps of a failed society.

Signs are pretty straightforward. They're articulated landmarks, and given how streets are, they're good to follow for navigation. If they're signs for complexes, they're a good way to know where you should scavenge should you be looking for a specific thing. Ex: hardware supplies; you're trying to build a camp. Either it's get lucky, or go over to someone's garage, or go over to a hardware store.

Food and First Aid labels are different things—the way they're organized is very different—, however, they serve the same purpose: those are there to inform consumers how to eat/utilize. Even though each have a very specific language, they are designed so that people not specialized in food or medicine can use them. This also applies to a lot of agriculture. Things like seed packets. Or anything that can be planted. If it has a consumer-base, there's a label on it. If it doesn't have instructions, it will most likely inform what it is.

Maps is where we start to get into more "optional" territory. Do you necessarily need a map to survive? No. It would be a life-saver to know where you are, even away from where the society was established. It would also tell you where the next town vs city is (which, to someone like Clementine who may be inclined to avoid cities, she would know which roads to take).

Manuals and guidebooks, again, are the same. They also fall into the kind of thing where weight now has to be considered.

But. Here's the thing: how many people know how to go camping? How many people were ever in boy/girl scouts? And how many more people didn't have to learn any of that because society promised security and the fact that…we don't need to focus on survival?

Okay sure, go on and on and on about how people who knew those skills already and prepped for the apocalypse would be the ones to survive. Because, uh, don't know about you, that's not necessarily how that works (luck is always a thing, and people surprise you), but also, within TWDG, I can only come up with so many people who would fall into that camp: Lilly, Mark, maybe Larry (military experience), Christa (got the vibe), Pete. Um… …Carver? He talked about, like, sheep and stuff. In reference to people, sure, but like… Uh. Hm. Well shit.

You know all the people who didn't have the experience before the apocalypse? Everyone. Fucking. Else. Including Clementine.

This is the reason why manuals and guidebooks are invaluable. They speak to a luxury because you do have the space and capacity to carry them around, so that you can gather what knowledge they have. And people just don't know this shit. Community helps, because you may meet someone who does, or has read up on it, so you don't have to. But when you're alone? …kinda a really, really good thing to have.

And none of that is going into how important books are in just passing the time. People get bored. Books are nice if you got a bum leg.

Regardless, my point should be quite clear. Sure, reading and writing will not be important in the same immediate regard, and neither will be as prolifically done as it was before. Within an apocalypse, it's not about texting, or emails, or news reports, or essays… None of that. Ergo, they're designated as an investment that weighs heavy (quite literally). It takes time to read. It takes strength and space to lug them around. You may not have any.

However. With all of what I raised, it goes back why it is, actually, so fucking important to be literate to some capacity. And to build upon that literacy. Because these people are not just living in caves. They're not in a place where humans have never gone before—quite the opposite.

Which makes it an apocalypse.

In order to navigate within the carcass of a fallen society, you need to be able to comprehend the very scraps that you're taking from said society. It left behind food, and medicine, and tools, and machinery, and knowledge. To just put that all to waste because you can't read?! Really?!

And what about a life-and-death situation where it entirely depends upon your skills in being able to read and comprehend information given to you?

I'm going to go back to the vancomycin now.

It's not something the game harps upon, but it is significant enough to Clementine's arc in S3. This medicine, regardless of injection, is why she could not see A.J, and why she had such a resentment for the New Frontier. They said they could help. In her eyes, they instead left him to die.

It is also a significant point of interest as far as this essay is concerned. Because this scene alone encapsulates all of what I'm rattling on about:

The medicine itself is a scrap of her past society. They're not making these anymore, and while I can…question how good that medicine would be by this point in time after the apocalypse (shots do have an expiration date; they also need to be stored appropriately, like in refrigerators or freezers), the vancomycin represents a limited, valuable resource.

Clementine's comprehension of what this medicine is, and why she needs it, speaks to something far from an ignorance medically. She is competent. She even knows to ensure there aren't air bubbles trapped in the syringe (hence why she lets some of the drug out before injecting; air bubbles can lead to…really nasty ways to die).

How she actually knows which drug to use, well… Either someone wrote it down for her, or she wrote it down herself. Maybe Dr. Lingard told her, or she found a resource somewhere and realized that's what she needed. It speaks to literacy, despite the challenge medical terms often have—even for medical professionals themselves.

This…is what it takes to live in an apocalypse. You have to be perceptive, and resilient, and adaptive.

Part of that adaptation is being perceptive of your environment. This environment asks you to read it—because it says everything, wears its heart on its sleeve. Ergo, you have to adapt by learning how to read.

Maybe not novels, or scriptures, but specific things. Like signs, or labels. Maps.

But this comic, it falls into a bias that a lot of people have.

And that bias bothers me. A lot.

[Why Does This Hurt Me So?]

There are three reason why this just does not work for me.

First of which, Clementine's characterization. The continuity of it. I really don't have to go on about this, since if I do, I'd just regurgitate all of what I've established before. For the sake of this section, it's just that Clementine is medically competent, just not in a specialized sense, and she knows how to read to get by. (She even starts to teach A.J how to both read and write.)

Now we'll get to the larger points of discussion.

Secondly...

How the fuck did Tillie Walden get this project?

Say what you want about the artstyle, or the characterizations, or the narrative. None of that is really what this essay is on, but are all viable criticisms down this same line of thought. You have the artstyle being very whimsical…, but…since when has TWDG been about whimsy? Or the characterizations? Which…, by now, we know about that—again, I don't need to regurgitate. Then, the narrative too? Why does it read like a romance by the time the second book comes around, rather than a story of survival?

Actually, that last one may be relevant to this after all.

Walden does not write apocalyptic works. Of course, there is no correct way in writing an apocalypse, but I'd argue this is one of the wrong ways. Not only do these comics misinterpret the bulk of Clementine's character, and precisely why she's been able to survive as long as she has—to the point where her playing the games at all is put into question—, these comics also have a strange notion on basic intelligence, and does the thing where people without school are just…stupid, almost, if not plainly illiterate.

It goes against what I've outlined as a mark of an apocalyptic setting—the survival both within nature, and within the rotting shell of the society it once was.

And, it feeds into this bias that I keep bringing up.

That bias is the third reason, and it's not a comment on Walden herself, because she's far from the only person I've seen/heard make the same assumption(s).

The bias I refer to is what I'd like to call the Modern Intelligence Fallacy. I'm confident that I and this essay are far from the first to comment on this…thing people do.

Essentially, it's whenever people judge the past and/or present group of people for being "dumber" than the current society they're based on, solely because "we're modern; we have technology, and medicine, and schools. And we know how to read and write too." It's when people undermine other cultures and/or time periods because they themselves are ignorant to what intelligence actually means.

Going back to Native Americans, and any cultures alike that didn't have a written structure. I've heard people make comments and assumptions, rather ignorant ones. But the fact is, no. The lack of a writing system is not indicative of intelligence, it's indicative of what the culture valued, and how they wanted to express that.

Part of why writing is such a core element in many European cultures, for example, is because…colonization. Look at English, and why it's such a patchwork language. They had to find ways to communicate long distance, because have of them were separated be countries between. Ergo, they wrote. Nowadays, there's telephone, or video. Then, there are other contexts which beckoned for writing, but I digress.

With a lot of these Native cultures, they valued community. That's why so many of their traditions fall within that, and that's how they communicated and passed down their history. Essentially, they just found other ways to do what the other cultures around the world were doing, and it worked for them, so what of it?

The attitudes behind this fallacy doesn't care, however. This bias does put value on the presence of language in written word in regards to intelligence, and an overall sense of superiority.

Yes, I've gone through and maintained that I do not believe, for a second, that Clementine is illiterate, and I've been defending that tooth and nail. I also do put value in language—I'm a writer, and I love linguistics. Of course I do.

And that's the awkward bent in this essay.

So, I must say, the thing to understand is…it's not really about the language itself. It's the attitudes behind the bias.

You here to argue that Clementine isn't as competent reader/writer like a girl her age would be now? (…present issues with the school system aside,) yeah. Probably.

But then why…does the comic have her be negligent with medicine? To the point where it comes across as, "Yeah, Clementine! Clean your wound! Everybody should know that! And that's just the basics!

"Silly kid in an apocalypse! She needed a grown adult to carefully explain it to her!! Oh boy, we would be so lost without our society now!"

This is why I've also taken note on the medical throughout all this. Because the medical practices aren't really related to literacy. You can be told, like Clementine was in the games, and go from there.

In the comics, however, the moments where she's told about how to take care of her leg, and the moments where she is learning how to read… They read the same. Because they are the same. They're commenting on this weird idea that humans would be stupid without our current advances, which is ridiculous because in order to have said advances…, we needed to be learning this shit before in order to create them.

These moments come from this Modern Intelligence Fallacy, and it bothers me because, let's face it, we're just as smart as we've always been.We have more knowledge. Whether it's we pass them down through specific traditions, or we've written them down to share beyond time and distance. But in terms of intelligence… No.

Do you know how many stupidass people there are out there?

There's tons of them. If anything, there's more of them now because they can rely on their communities to do the heavy lifting. And they saddle themselves right beside the people who need to rely on others, and not by choice.

I'm talking as though I'm not one of them. I don't know. I might be.

I did accidentally melt two plates in microwaves on two separate occasions so. If you want to take my words with a grain of salt, fine.

With that, though, hopefully my point(s) came across well enough.

[Conclusion]

And now I am left here. With…this.

I'm not as resigned as I was of TWDG since the comics came out, because quite frankly, there's so much to these comics where…it just feels like I'm not watching Clementine. Whether it be I'm on a couch silently judging someone else play the games, but nodding along to play nice, or just…this isn't the character at all… Yeah, I'm still stewing on it. But, I have my fanfiction, and I have the games. It is easy to ignore the comics.

The reason why I've decided to write this is 1) I find it interesting, 2) the bias people have is SUCH a pet peeve of mine, and 3) I am BAFFLED by Skybound. I honestly don't know what qualified Tillie Walden to write this, to the point where I'm frankly impressed.

It's one thing to hire someone who's unfamiliar with the franchise in hopes of an objective and new perspective, or an artstyle to try something new and unique...

And entirely another to hire someone who either isn't interested in writing, or doesn't know how to write, the genre. There are so many ways to go about writing in an apocalypse, but at its core, it will always be "no matter what, humans are going to human." This is how you can have stories of hope in an apocalypse. Or have them be bleak. And so on. With TWD, it's always been a meld of both.

Because it's human are going to human, this…bias towards any scenario where people are not traditionally educated gets in the way. Because "traditional education" is not traditional, actually. It's societal. What is traditional is people learning an array of skills to survive, much of which is medicinal, and with writing… That's dependent on the environment. Way back when, in times where the world didn't rely on literacy, absolutely not many people would be literate. But in eras where so much hinges on at least being able to navigate?

Or or, in times where you are relying on a recent past that did write and read as much as it did for survival? Um. Yeah. You do need to be able to at least read, if not write as well, for communication's sake. Which I didn't go much into, but oh well.

And this right here is what TWD is set in. This universe isn't a hard reset. You're effectively just going back a couple hundred years. All the infrastructures and scraps left behind are still there, just not maintained.

So… Yeah. I don't get it. The most I can fault Walden for is being negligent, but this is just…Skybound, not caring enough about this story to the point where they'll hire anybody for some reason.

I also don't get the bias people have about intelligence, and stuff, but I really…, really don't want to go on a spiel again. It incites violence within me. I've already gone and done a mini spiral over the comics themselves, and they were kinda but not even the point.

Ah well. I'll just crawl back to my hovel now. The links to some of the linguistic concepts I raised are below, if you want to do any additional research. The specific articles are more generalized to give a broad picture, but can be used as a jumping off point should they pique an interest.

I'm just gonna continue to write about my alcoholic Clementine.

Hope you enjoyed.

:)

Linguistic Articles:

History of Writing Systems (1), (2) ; Language Acquisition (1)

Native American Language History (1), (2), (3)

[tender-hearteddd]

when aot was just abt to end, there were leaks ofc as there always are lol abt eren not really achieving any of his plans. and so much of the aot fandom, who have never lived through war, were genuinely upset over this. eren literally commits global genocide, he and his plan doesn’t deserve to achieve anything. especially not anything that would benefit him.

eren wasn’t one of my favorites until season 4 because of how utterly fucked up he is. he was a tragic MC who started off as a hero and as the story progressed, became a monster. even though we know what leads to his corruption, genocide is still wrong actually and having a characters worst fear come to life due to their own actions is the sort of tragic irony isayama loves. we’ve already seen isayama do this with reiner, zeke and grisha. it’s satisfying yet devastating at the same time how harsh the story is on them.

and the story should’ve been a lot more harsher to eren instead of the positive reaffirmation he got in 139 and from most of the fandom. eren claims the rumbling was for paradis, like thst shit didn’t kill off most of paradis’ population, and than he claims that it was for his friends (like pieck, who he has never even had a conversation with) but than he admits it was for himself - and it wasn’t satisfying at all because isayama wanted us to feel bad for eren and it worked. never mind the fact that eren killed his own mom, that he manipulated his own father for taking the FT for his own gain, that he annihilated 80% of the world - he did it for his friends 😊 so it’s okay! friendship >>>> genocide 😝

aot taking a very strong stance against eren’s actions and plan, denouncing them as wrong (bc they are) and showing them that nothing good comes out of them is wayyyyyy better the woobification and the mini redemption arc we got from him in the last chapter.

this is why i hate it when aot fans talk abt aot like it’s the greatest anti-war anime ever made. i think majority of aot fans are westerners or come from developed countries. it’s easier to understand war when ur watching cartoons of it instead of actually living through it. a huge part of the fandom justifies eren’s genocide, even with characters explicitly condemning him. do you really think it’s clear with its anti-war message when all we got was a few sad faces and a huge thank you from the main cast? one of the main themes in aot is the moral grayness of the world. the warriors did what they did because they were child soldiers trying to protect their families, EMA would’ve done the same. the scouts raided liberio (and were heavily against it). and masses of innocent people died in the name of other groups interests. there were literally no winners in this at all.

but why have characters that should’ve narratively and thematically been against eren suddenly forgive and praise him?

why break all the characterization, break all those different point of views, for the warriors specifically, if not for the final woobification of eren?

eren could’ve had one of the most extraordinary corruption arcs in all of anime just for that to be ruined and i will forever be mad abt it

[saika077]

The Dorm Leaders as Jojo fans

AN: this is just some silly goofy hc that caters to me specifically.

Riddle Rosehearts

Phantom Blood enjoyer

Started as a manga reader and is rightfully horrified at Dio's actions (if you know you know).

Giorno is his favorite Jojo.

Joseph's wittiness and Caesar's hotheaded personality reminds him a lot of Ace and Deuce.

Was devastated at S1 Ep 19 where they have that breakup arc and in the next episode where...yeah...

Trey can hear his cry of anguish from down the hall.

He does not tolerate part skipper in a "How can you just skip the basic fundamentals of the story?? Blah blah blah" type a way.

Jonathan defender. Doesn't take kindly to people who call Jonathan boring or "Phantom Blood mid".

I'd say that his favorite OP is probably Traitor's Requiem

Doesn't really have time to get caught up so he recently just finished Golden Wind.

Leona Kingscholar

A basic Stardust Crusaders fan

I'm sorry, but he looks like he'd be a part skipper 😭 (I'm still gonna give him the benefit of the doubt)

He's not gonna skip Stone Ocean tho, that's for sure.

Jotaro and Jolyne are his favorite Jojos

I feel like he'd be a Jolyne kinnie due to the fact that they both have parental issues

Doesn't take kindly to people who slander Jolyne

If he doesn't skip parts, I'd say that Kars is his favorite Jojo villain.

Doesn't admit it but he was pretty devastated at the "My name is Emporio" scene and cried silently.

I can see him having Sono Chi no Kioku as his favorite OP or maybe he's a rare Chase enjoyer (Chase is actually a great OP, people are just mean :(( )

Is currently halfway through Steel Ball Run

Y'know he actually shares the same VA as Weather Report in the anime.

Azul Ashengrotto

Heard about it from Idia in the Board Game club when he was making a funny quip about having the upper hand but he didn't get the joke and Idia's like "uh, it's a Jojo reference, dude" and everyone else in the club got the reference.

Rare Jojolion enjoyer

Jodio is actually his favorite Jojo

His favorite character is Kishibe Rohan (no, I will not elaborate).

His favorite villain is Yoshikage Kira

I can see him being a Fighting Gold enjoyer

Jojo poses in private and the twins caught him doing it one day.

Kalim Al-Asim

Makes Jamil sit down and watch with him.

His favorite part is either Battle Tendency or Diamond is Unbreakable

Josuke is his favorite Jojo

Likes Joseph too, but he cheated on Suzie Q so that takes away some of the points. But at the same time Joseph cheating gives us Josuke, and he really likes Josuke so...yeah

Cried like a bitch during S1 Ep 20 (same)

I don't see him actually liking any of the villains but if he had to pick a favorite I'd say he'd pick Diavolo

When the ED of Golden Wind came on, Jamil covered Kalim's ears so fast. Toniiiiight~ I need your boooody~

Likes Great Days

Bonus: Jamil is a Golden Wind fan, his favorite character is Pannacotta Fugo and he actually reads Purple Haze Feedback (and cried).

Vil Shoenheit

Stone Ocean enjoyer, both the part and the OP

He also really likes the aesthetics of Golden Wind

Jolyne defender #2

Doesn't trust people who don't like Jolyne and sees it as an immediate red flag (same).

Pucci is his favorite villain.

I'd say his favorite character is Lisa Lisa. I feel like he's either aspiring to be like her or "god she is so me fr"

Trish kinnie (idk, to me specifically he kinda reminds me of her)

He reads the manga but hasn't had the time to get caught up.

He needs to know why or how Araki never ages in any of the pictures of him.

Idia Shroud

Manga reader and is caught up to the recent chapters

His favorite part is Steel Ball Run

Johnny kinnie

Doesn't tolerate part skipper but in an elitist gatekeepy type of way

Sings Sono Chi no Sadame on top of his lungs in his room.

Would never admit it but he had the cringy "Ora Ora Muda Muda Kono Dio da!" Phase (it's a Canon event almost every Jojo fan has to go through).

The kind of Jojo fan I do not want to interact with. Ever. (Mf is canonically insufferable to talk to irl)

Idk he just gives me the annoying SBR fan vibes.

He actually shares the same VA as Baoh in Jojo ASBR

Malleus Draconia

Phantom Blood Enthusiast

Finishes Phantom Blood and was like that clip of Clone High Gandhi where he's just like "wow...I- I need a minute to think about this..." And doesn't touch the series for a while. I don't think he knows that there are more parts.

I feel like the only Jojo media he watched is the old Phantom Blood OVA that is now considered a lost media.

Lilia finds him sulking in his room and when he asks him what's wrong, he just replies "Jonathan and Erina deserves happiness" and doesn't say any more than that.

Number one JonaEri shipper. If JonaEri has a million fans, he is one of them. If JonaEri has one fan, he is the one. If JonaEri has zero fans, he's already dead.

Enjoys Dio as a villain.

Loves the old OVAs

Feel free to add more or if you'd like to disagree, I'm open for discussion.

[tina-mairin-goldstein]

So, I saw a post from ao3commentoftheday about talking to mulitshippers for more works with your rare pair tag, and I would love to elaborate on mine.

My two very rare pairs at the moment are Marvel MCU based: Ancient One/Kaecilius and Pepper Potts/Tony Stark/Stephen Strange. Allow me to introduce to the reasons I like these.

The Ancient One is a very underrated character without a lot of backstory! But we DO know she lived a very long life, and no one really knew her. We can easily assume this long life was lonely and hard. That she definitely lost everyone she ever knew and loved through illness, injury, and old age. Mordo stated that he didn't know much about her, that no one did.

I like giving her Kaecilius as a partner because he can relate. They cut it from the movies, so he seems like a stereotypical power-hungry villain, but he did the things he did because his son, and then his wife, both died, and he just wanted them back. He understands what it is to lose the people you love. His robes are also the ONLY ones we see in the movies that are the same color as TAO's, which indicates that they were equals in rank. So, no power imbalance to worry about if people are going to take it to that. No teacher taking advantage of her student. Maybe they aren't in it in for the long-haul, it isn't a deep all-consuming love, but they at least get an equal and someone who understands their pain out of the relationship. There are also many indications that they knew each other well before the rift between them. Now, that doesn't always mean a romantic relationship, but fandoms have shipped for less.

Bonus: TAO was confirmed to have seen the future, so she knew what would happen, but she chooses Kaecilius anyway, so they can both be happy and have companionship, at least for a short while. You get a doomed-by-the-narrative couple. Or an AU where they can find peace and healing in each other and find happiness again.

Moving on to Pepper Potts/Tony Stark/Stephen Strange.

I will be honest that I only know Tony and Pepper's relationship from the Avengers movies, as I haven't been able to watch the Iron Man movies, but I really like what I've seen.

Stephen is one of my favorite Marvel characters. He and Tony are similar in ways. Rich jerks whose lives get upended by devastating injuries. They have a lot in common they can bond over. And in Infinity War, we know Stephen saw 14,000,605 futures and only saw where they won. But we don't know what he considered winning, really. There could have been others where they 'won'. But Stephen is a doctor. We see him time and time again reference his oath to do no harm. He became a surgeon to save lives, and his own above all others. Tony reversing what Thanos had done and most everyone living could have been what he saw... But he didn't give the Time Stone up to Thanos immediately despite only seeing one future. He only did it when Thanos was killing Tony. The fandom has certainly latched onto this potential.

BUT what about Pepper? She and Tony survived rough times together, their relationship survived it. They are very much partners and in love. The fandom usually just casts Pepper aside with no explanation (did she die in the battle? Die giving birth? Did they get divorced? We don't know). She already loves Tony. She clearly cares for the people he cares about. So, if he cares about Stephen, it's not much of a stretch to say that she would care about him too. Plus, given the fact she loves Tony despite his less-than-pretty-history, she could totally love Stephen! From what I've seen, she is a caring person. Stephen saved Tony, which would at least get her to talk to him. He doesn't have many people. Things can go from there.

Why are we wasting a perfectly good F/M/M ship just so it's a traditional two-person couple? Why can't Morgan and Peter have THREE amazing parents who can teach them tech and magic? Why can't these three battle scarred people find love together?

That is my TED talk on my rare pairs. Thank you!