#like they're so mysterious because they're never given any backstory

[sattelite-of-love]

Daphne Rubin-Vega as Detective Gloria Perez

WILD THINGS (1998)

[000marie198]

Are there any sonic au’s you would recommend? I am trying to find more to get into so would love to know if you have any favourites out there :D

Hello! Oh there are so many! :D I definitely have some favorites and some which aren't favs but are pretty great.

Putting these under the cut because there are so many! And there's definitely more cool AUs that I haven't seen or haven't saved.

Anyways, please enjoy my personal selection:

Seven Years Too Soon by NightFuchia. Basically what if a much younger Sonic accidentally set Shadow free from Prison Island. It has awesome characterization and happens to be one of my favorite stories. The rest of Team Sonic is also present

Brotherhood's Twist by @/drawloverlala even though I don't think it counts entirely as Au but it still sort of does. Unbreakable Bond ageswitch due to Zeti's meddling.

Passion's @sonic-tangled-au . I love it! So very much. The lore and backstories are so good.

Noonui's World Restored in Imbalanced Chaos au. Extremely engaging and good. Has a bunch of world building and fun concepts and lore.

Sonic's Super Totally Awesome Mixtape, though it seems to be discontinued, I'm not sure. It's pretty good so far! Takes place in the movie verse.

@brainworms-all-night-long is working on a Dreamtale Au which I'm hyped for. The tag in use is 'dreamtale and sonic tomfoolery'.

@/the-starlight-project comic is pretty good too. Mystery! And emotions. So many emotions ough.

And there's @the-emerald-isle-au by @0vergrowngraveyard . Very intriguing. 👀

Please do check out the Pandora Au by @/starrjoy. It's great!

The Fair Folk by Irritable_Fabulamancer, this fic is one of my favorites! Team Sonic as Fae my beloved! I love fae AUs.

On that note, if you're alright wanting to read a Fae!AU which is pretty much a sonadow fic, there is also I don't believe in fairy tales [but I believe in you and me]. Fantasy and Fae! Satbk inspired, another one that had me hooked.

My Arms Are Blue by thekyuubivixen and its unofficial, fan-continuation (My Arms Are Blue! Final Four Edition) by PlaystationPassenger. The story doesn't completely count as an AU but I'm recommending them anyway cuz they're really really good and has that watching your own show from different dimension trope. It's also hilarious and fun.

Burning Arrow, Wildfire Heart by Taranea is SatSR novelisation AU with Sonic's other friends present too, it's pretty fun. Not very accurate regarding the desert but it's a good read and I come back to reread it often. Must read in my opinion. Just don't dare use it as guide for desert travel or you'll be shriveled up in the sand somewhere

This fic. Read it, I will not elaborate this one. Just trust me :]

And don't miss out on @shadofiredragon's Legends Never Die fic. It's a future fic! And an awesome one. I won't spoil much but it is so good. She also has lots of fun AUs in the works.

Down the Foxhole series by MoonlitNightin. Sonic Prime AU series which is great! Tails' pov. The Shatterverses have their own Sonics. Engaging and great.

Feel free to check out @/Son1c's 10verse and other AUs. Those are some pretty great ones. Love the different lore and variants given to the Shatterverses in 10verse.

Spirit of the Wind by TrenchCoatGecko. Satbk inspired fantasy au. Sonamy, has focus on magic and lore and other characters as well.

If you'd like some Forces angst with Unbreakable Bond focus, please do read Illusionary are your arms around me by @nixoon-again. The feels will kill you /pos

Chaos Barren by but_why_not. I forgot to add this earlier (this is an edited addition). Takes place in the Blue Devils AU, great story!

Baby Tails shenanigans by @myymi . Tails got turned into itty bitty infant kit. (And also check @0vergrowngraveyard 'baby tails' tag for more little gremlin scenarios)

Myla is also working on @tails-and-the-ink-machine au

Feral au by Oneshot_bravo. Little short stories or drabbles taking place in Unleashed but the werehog is feral yet keeps his memories. Very lighthearted and fun and cute

Three or more foxes form a skulk by @/chiropter36 . Post Prime au fic, loved it! Go read.

Also, @donelywell 'roadtrip! sonic au' and 'Casino Nights Au'

Haven't yet started reading The Fox's Burrow by @/space-gutz but I'm planning to. Recommending it either way cuz I feel like it's gonna be good. Unbreakable Bond but ageswaped au.

@/sonicchaoscontrol comic. Another in-progress au which is also quite intriguing. Sonic jumps through a portal and exits in future where the planet is a mess. The mystery of what and how it all happened and what's going on slowly unfolds.

The Buzzsaw Dillemma by redpenship. I haven't personally read it myself but I've heard many good things about it, especially it's world building.

Incomplete and won't be updated anymore but if you haven't read them yet, DO NOT miss out on Ghosts of the Future and The Murder of Me fancomics by Evan Stanley (spiritsonic) and Gigi Deutrix (gigi-D) respectively. They're a must read. Both are available on DeviantArt.

The Heart of a Monster comic, @/the-heart-of-a-monster. It's in progress and updates regularly. Unleashed retelling, really really good with some extra lore and everyone involved.

Sometimes the Picket Fence isn’t Perfect and Sharp Edges (Sonic Prime AU) series by @/skimmingthesurfaces. I'm holding off the first one to read later, like that one book you've been saving so I'm not sure if it completely counts as an AU, still putting it in recs, and the second one is intriguing so far. I have heard a lot of good thing about the Picket Fence series.

Dark Boom by Smash50. The entirety of Team Dark in the Sonic Boom universe. Alongside it, there's also Boomtober by the same author.

It Always Snows by the 24th by Selendred had me hooked even though it's a oneshot. Great au and would love to see it explored more.

No One said I Wish by SylWritesStuff. One of my fav stories from the Sonic Platonic Fairytale Week event. It's really funny.

Sonic Phantom Forces (SPF) au comic. Sonic Forces au, blue boy gets taken away but not in the way you think, pretty cool story so far. It's in-progress and available on both Tumblr and DeviantArt. @/spfau

If Black Doom tried to be a better father by Tirainy. Don't take this one seriously. It's pure comedy and I love every second of it. Shadow is having a time for sure XD.

Silent Talkers by @brainworms-all-night-long. Takes place in the Prime Bros verse, feels intensified, all the good ones. A must read, trust me.

And speaking of the Prime Bros AU (in which all Shatterverse foxes also got adopted by Sonic and are now brothers), feel free to scroll through the 'prime bros' tag here. So many awesome posts for this particular au by everyone!

There's so many more, cool ones, epic ones. I haven't saved all and I'm probably forgetting some great ones too so I'm leaving this open for others to add. If y'all have more cool AUs, plz add to these (I wanna check em out too)

....

And now a few from the Fanfiction.net site because it doesn't have much audience compared to AO3 and there are some actual gems hidden there;

Premonition by thekiyuubivixen (not entirely an au but it feels like one due to the unique ability Sonic gains)

The Sonic Project by SconnieSA. Rated M but it's a pretty awesome AU and the rating is due to more serious themes and uncensored language in some parts. Highly recommending this one

Survivor's Resolve by DC111. Not entirely an AU but I must rec this fic it's so good and doea havs some AU vibes.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Attorney of Law by thedraconicwerewolf. Ace Attorney type AU with Sonic and Tails as main characters. Not too adventurous but very very fun and interesting and still managed to keep Sonic in character. Though it has a sequel started, I only rec the main story, not the sequal as it seems to be abandoned and isn't needed to be read like them cliffhanger stories.

beLIEve by Meow21. I have only read snippets from this, waiting for this story to continue but it seems to be discontinued. Felt like an epic story too and deserves to be recommended.

Sonic and the Golden Journey. Sonic gets thrown in another storybook, this time it's a children's classic fairytale. Short but very comedic and fun. Go read it.

Tales of a Samurai. I am begging you to read this one, please it's so good. Also by Taranea.

Wonderful and it's sequal Sanctuary by Inflamore for some Unbreakable Bond angst. (Kindly ignore the obliviousness of earlier ff.net for not knowing the meaning of certain symbols, there's nothing of the sort in story, trust me.)

Regrets by MazzyBooks. A high school au of sorts. Sonic centric with some heavy angst. I'm not kidding about the angst part, trust me. It had me hooked from the first chapter though and I believe it deserves a rec.

You need the cracks (to let the light shine through) by king.needlemouse. Istg this is the most underrated thing I've ever come across, it's one of my absolute favorite fics which I can never forget. Do read it.

Within this Nightmare by sonicfan1990. Sonic get transported to an alternate universe which has gone post apocalyptic and his counterpart in that universe has been dead. Pretty great story, lots of angst and everything.

And that's all I could remember and have saved for now. I'm leaving this open to more AU recs (yes even self plugs are welcome) so if you know any I missed, plz feel free to add. I hope you enjoy all these great AUs!

Thanks for the ask!

[canmom]

more baldur gate

I think I've gathered most of the party now. time to venture forth

we did find another warlock it turned out. they've got a spin on him as a kind of demon slaying folk hero, which is cute. what's weirder to me is when characters will just casually speak of game mechanical stuff like being a 'warlock'. like, oh yeah i made a pact with an eldritch entity beyond space and comprehension, but it's no biggie, you know? there's one in every neighbourhood. though that is something of the problem of Forgotten Realms, it's such a kitchen-sink setting that it's very hard to figure out any sort of coherent narrative thrust for any of it.

my character seems to be settling by default into the kind of default 'pragmatic, generally prosocial crpg hero' model. most of the other dialogue options just seem needlessly standoffish. they do have certain party members disapprove when you take plot hooks, but honestly that all feels a bit silly to take as a prodding to play a more selfish character because like. what do you want me to do, not engage with the game? occasionally you get to click a 'hey, look, I'm also from baldur's gate!' dialogue option, but it never adds up to much.

it's frustrating in a way, because this being so specifically D&D-based really calls attention to the difference between CRPGs and TTRPGs. at the tabletop, I can give my character a distinctive voice, motivation, general habitas - and other players can respond to that and react appropriately. of course, this is not possible in a CRPG to the same degree, except within the rails laid down by the game writers. since the main character is unvoiced and characters react to dialogue the instant you click it, she is even further diminished from the voiced characters.

something noticeable in this is that it has a similar line reading problem as a lot of Bioware RPGs. characters' lines will sometimes noticeably differ in how they're acted - intonation, force, etc. - and there's that ever-noticeable cut between individual lines of dialogue. it has the feeling that the lines were recorded separately in a studio without much in the way of context.

overall the NPC acting in this game is... well it's that classic modern AAA videogame problem right? the character models and rendering are very lifelike when they're still, but the way the characters move is a bit stiff, a bit broad, a bit unnatural. of course nobody has the money to individually hand-animate every single dialogue line in a CRPG of this sort of scale, so they're leaning on canned animations and procedural blending techniques, and it works sorta well enough. it's got that fuzz of videogame jank to it.

it looks like we're about to run into the Evil Races D&D Problem pretty soon, oh boy! the goblins are attacking the poor tiefling refugees. why? i'm sure it will be given a clear understandable motivation and not just that they're evil by nature, right? this is something that I'm pretty sure the game is inheriting from the OG Baldur's Gate games - I definitely remember venturing into a mine to fight gnolls or something. Minsc was there. I have no doubt Minsc will show up in BG3 as well - he's like the most iconic character in the series.

the contrived nature of the premise is classic D&D shit. "you all meet on a mind flayer spaceship, united by parasites in your brain" is definitely the sort of thing that a human DM would cook up as a campaign starting point. that said, it does feel a little weird that everyone on the mind flayer ship between them cover most of the player classes, each with their own colourful backstory and an identically sized tent that they can pitch in your mysterious extradimensional campsite. I think the fact that the introductions are spread out a bit makes it feel more artificial - I get why they didn't want to frontload it with every single character right at the beginning, but it's like, 'damn, this guy has a player character sort of vibe, i bet he was on the airship' and sure enough, he was...

(speaking of the immersion-breaking camp, the respec guy really seems kinda unnecessary as a diegetic element. just have a menu somewhere, trying to make this skeleton guy make narrative sense just raises way too many questions.)

but I mean I can't complain too much that a videogame is a videogame, right? as I recall, in BG1, the recruitable party members were just random adventurers who you'd run into here and there. this is more of a KotOR II-like scenario, where every character has a thing in common that pushes them together.

the Tactician difficulty level, combined with the squishiness of level 2 characters, is definitely pushing me a bit. I had a fight with some bandits. all of them had names and unique voices, interestingly - really applying the Apocalypse World principles. however they will not like, surrender or anything. don't ask me why I was fighting these people to the death, I don't think they did anything that really did any harm to my character, but I wanted to unlock the respec character and you have to get past them to do it. not that I knew that when I saw hostile characters.

anyway, it was a cool fight because it was a bit of party-vs-party - the enemies were using the same abilities I was, and using the environment to their advantage (read: blowing me up with exploding barrels, the nerve of it). Larian of course have their fancy fluid sim system from the Divinity series, which actually integrates rather well with certain D&D spells like Grease. there's a lot of potentially interesting tactical possibilities, although in the end, it came down to the familiar tactics of 'split them up', 'disable them with debuffs' and 'focus dps'. D&D combat is very swingy - once I took out a couple of that other party, the fight was pretty much decided, but when I'd taken a few downed party members, there wasn't really much reason not to just load the quicksave.

I decided to spec my 'lock as a bladelock - I'm playing a chainlock on tabletop so this seemed like a good way to mix it up. of course then it turned out that Wyll is also a bladelock, so he's probably not gonna get much time in the party ^^' but maybe I should bring him along and we can just be warlock buddies. that said... the 4-person party size is... I can see its necessity as a balancing measure, but it does feel like it pushes me towards the standard healer (shadowheart)/tank (lae'zel)/rogue (astarion)/me structure. since I need someone to unlock doors, I need someone to heal, and I need someone to stop the enemy beating up my poor squishy party members. but now I'm a bladelock, maybe I can take over from Lae'zel as the frontliner and free up a slot for one of the other guys. probably it's a big enough game that there will be room to mix and match parties over the course of it.

one thing I do kinda miss from Bioware's games is the intra-party dialogue triggers. the characters here mostly don't have random conversations, at least so far - maybe they will later in the game. that stuff did a whole lot to add life to your party members and make them feel more like characters.

honestly? this is making me want to go back to various isometric CRPGs like Tyranny. so far, despite spicy elements like the mindflayer thing, I'm not fully hooked by this story. but I will give this one a chance all the same.

[all-pacas]

being unfamiliar w house md i at least know of most main characters except for 13, mind explaining what their deal is to an outsider?

MY GIRL

So first of all let's just make it clear for the record. Tumblr loves her because 13 is a) played by Olivia Wilde so she's super pretty and b) a Canon Gay (bisexual). For a show like Hatecrimes MD, she's actually pretty fairly portrayed -- it's fetishized a little and joked about a lot, but she's shown in relationships with men and women, there's no bi erasure involved, when she does play into the All Bis Are Slutty trope, it's because she's having an elaborate mental breakdown and sleeping around to cope. Hilariously she's like the third person on the show to do this, so it doesn't even come off as "those slutty gays!"

(I mean. Arguably they're all slutty gays. But you know.)

AS FOR WHAT HER DEAL IS.

In s3 House fires/loses the original team of Foreman, Cameron, and Chase, and eventually (after as much stalling as he can get away with) hires a new team:

TAUB, sleezy little guy plastic surgeon, just here to have fun

KUTNER, Kal Penn playing an enthusiastic nerd here to have fun,

and 13, real name Remy Hadley.

To fuck with Cuddy, House originally hires 40-odd doctors -- anyone who sent him a resume -- and then began whittling them down one by one. To keep track, he'd given them all marathon placards. 13's number was, you guessed it, 13. Her whole gimmick was that she was "mysterious" -- House found her hard to read and she was good at not giving him any hints, and she played into it by refusing to talk about herself and continuing to go by "Thirteen" even once everyone else was introduced. Her name was later revealed, after she made the final team, but House keeps calling her 13, and he often jokes that people who call her Hadley don't know who she is. It sticks around as a nickname at work. Her personal friends/girlfriend/boyfriend tend to call her Remy, but her coworkers stick to the nickname.

It's kind of interesting to note that reception for her was actually kind of negative when the show started. She gets a LOT of character focus, far more than Kutner and Taub, and this was soon enough after losing the first team (Chase and Cameron in particular barely existed on the show for a while, Chase only becoming a major character again two and a half years later) that folks resented her "stealing the spotlight" or having main character syndrome. In retrospect, I don't think it's that bad, although it is definitely true she's favored over other characters.

Anyway.

Part of 13's secretiveness is because of the House Obligatory Tragic Backstory. 13's mother had Huntington's, a genetic disease that is fatal and super degenerative. So did her older brother. 13 knew she had a high chance of having it as well, but refused to get tested out of fear. She eventually does -- and oops, she has it as well. This means she's got about 10 years left to live, and fewer without symptoms. This causes her Existential Sex Bender and a general pattern of risk taking: it's a hard thing to cope with.

Meanwhile, she's on House's team. She's really good: creative and unflappable, if maybe not as devoted to diagnostics and the team as a "lifer" like Foreman or Chase are. She and House also grow close; refreshingly (COUGH Cameron) it's never treated as a shipping thing. He just... sees her becoming self destructive and cares enough to stop her; he cares about her.

13 is still notoriously secretive, and she literally vanishes in s7. Tells everyone she's going on vacation and cuts her phone lines. It turns out she goes to prison for over-prescribing meds... to her brother. She euthanized him, as he was suffering badly from Huntington's. Made it look like an accident, that he did it. This sort of destroys her: she feels like it was the right thing to do, it's what he wanted, but she still killed him. 13 tells House, and House offers to do the same to her when her Huntington's gets bad enough.

She doesn't stick around the team for long after getting out of prison. She meets a woman named Amy, and they fall in love; she and Amy go off to some Greek island to try and enjoy the 8-ish years 13 has left. (In episodic terms: she's on the team for s4+5 and most of 6; vanishes for almost all of s7 because she's in jail, and has only guest roles in s8.)

She briefly dates Foreman and it was just really weird. No chemistry. No idea what they saw in one another. The show is so bad at romance.

Most compellingly to me specifically, she and my boy Chase end up being really good friends. They had some Ship Tease for a while, the show might have been trying to set them up, but Olivia Wilde's career was taking off and she stopped being a regular on the show. This was, as far as Chase/13 is concerned, a good thing. Because the show is bad at romance. So instead they just become good friends. Chase also murdered a dude one time, and 13 ends up telling him about her brother. In the same episode, she calls him late at night for help and he just... shows up, no questions asked. They have a lot of shared issues: sick/dead mothers and complicated feelings about them, murder, Existential Sex Benders when they're depressed, and a dislike about talking about personal issues. They also are uniquely close to and good at reading House, and the show even goes so far as to refer to them as the "prodigal daughter/son" in relation to him. So fandom has sort of latched onto the idea of them as "like brother and sister," "best friends," which isn't super supported in canon (they ARE good friends, but no more), but... the venn diagram of these two is a circle.

Crucially, both 13 and Chase, despite putting on good fronts, are very lonely people. So is House. So it's nice to think they can have their own sad little found family, especially once House "dies" and might not bother letting his prettiest employees know.

[xaharadesert]

Greetings! I'm rereading your headcanons for the Arcana, and they're all very well-written and interesting. I wonder, do you have any ideas about how MC and Asra grew close and started a romantic relationship before the plague? No pressure if you don't feel like answering.

Hello!! I’m so glad you enjoy my headcanons :) even if I don’t write as much as I used to, I’m proud of my work. Based on your message, I wasn’t sure if you were asking for headcanons or just my thoughts, so I’m going with the latter, but feel free to submit another request if it was actually the first one!

So, as usual, I’m gonna add a little disclaimer stating that I haven’t played the game in a very long time, and can’t really remember what’s canon vs fanon, so forgive me if I say something that’s just blatantly wrong. Also, I’m referring to Asra using he/him just to differentiate them from the MC, who I’m referring to with they/them, and I am aware that Asra uses he/they.

Anyway, the game itself gives us very little to work with in terms of MC’s backstory with Asra (obviously so people can fill it in how they please), but I do believe that it’s canon that the shop used to belong to MC’s aunt?

In my mind, I always imagined that MC’s aunt was a semi-well-known magic user, and MC left their home to study with her and learn magic and such. They probably worked at the shop as well, since they lived there and it would be a bit rude not to help out.

Now, this is where I’m essentially just making things up: I believe that Asra and MC bumped into each other a lot without ever really having a proper introduction in the first few months. I’m not sure if there’s any indication about what Asra was doing after his parents disappeared, but I’m like 90% certain he was just homeless and making money by running errands or doing tricks/small spells/tarot readings for people. So, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that they casually saw each other around when MC was exploring or running errands for their aunt.

When it comes to a proper introduction, my mind is split between a cliché meet-cute where they literally run into each other, a curious MC seeking out Asra because they think he’s mysterious and therefore must find answers, or MC’s aunt hiring Asra as part-time help. Either way, it definitely starts as a casual friendship between two magic users who feel a little out of place, with Asra absolutely working at or spending a lot of time at the shop.

Over time, I think the two would naturally grow closer as they harness their magical abilities together. Asra has found a place that feels like home, and MC has found their first close friend in a new country. I think it would be a little co-dependent from the start, given Asra’s unfortunate circumstances, and MC becoming the owner of their aunt’s shop (it’s never confirmed, but personally I believe that the aunt died and left a young mc to take over).

At some point, after the aunt was gone, Asra would move into the shop (it’s practical, even if it’s only platonic, since he works there and MC is probably a little lonely), and while things might not be completely romantic, feelings are probably developing. I always imagined MC and Asra to be around the same age, so they’re probably young adults at this point, and still figuring things out, but they know that they want to be together in some way.

I don’t think there’s a clear line that can be drawn between “before” they loved each other romantically and “after”. Like, yeah, there’s a first kiss, but it doesn’t feel like a giant momentous moment, it’s just a casual action that feels completely natural. Neither of them probably even process it as the first time, and wouldn’t remember it later, because it just fits. And if you’re thinking about the first “I love you”, then I hate to disappoint, but I believe they always said it platonically, so neither really registers when it becomes romantic.

At least in my opinion, Asra and MC are the ultimate best friends to lovers, and it happens like a frog in a boiling pot of water. They don’t even realize that they’re in a committed relationship until MC dies and Asra finds them back at square one. Then he’s like “oh fuck how do I recreate 6 years when I don’t even know how it happened?” Falling in love and being with each other every day was as natural to them as breathing, and having that relationship stripped away suddenly must have felt like being dropped into ice water.

Anyway, those are my basic thoughts! Not very detailed, because, really, there is no canon backstory! This isn’t even what I use for my OC MC, it’s just the vibes I picked up when I first played through :) let me know what you think, and what you would change! Also please let me know if there are any mistakes, because I typed this all out on my phone at 1am and just kinda rambled without thinking

[practically-an-x-man]

Colored Pencils, Eraser, and Palette for Nikoletta!

Thank you!!

OC/Writing Art Asks (that I created lol)

Colored Pencil: if given the choice, would this character splurge on an expensive (but potentially worthwhile) branded product, or buy a low-budget alternative even if the quality suffers?

Low-budget by far. She's been under the poverty line almost her entire life, and is more used to having to skip meals because she can't afford them than even thinking about name-brand products. Even once she has a little more money to spare, it's still hard for her to give any thought to quality instead of just necessity.

Eraser: what's one way this character has changed over time? Either over the course of their story, or over the course of designing them as an author.

Oooooh now she's an interesting one for this question. Big ramble incoming...

When I first designed her back in 2021, Nikoletta was a very different character. She still met Abner back in Belle Reve, she still operated at the Queen of Belle Reve and had partially contact-based powers, and she still got her powers from STAR Labs at about the same time Abner did.

However, her powers were completely different, and they were much more lethal. Originally, she was given this sort of nightmare-illusion power, where anybody who looked her directly in the eyes or touched her skin-to-skin would experience a waking nightmare that inevitably ended in a brain bleed/aneurysm.

However, some people were mysteriously immune to her powers, with no apparent pattern to them. This would be a big mystery for a while, until it was finally revealed that her powers caused people to imagine unspeakable mental trauma until their brains overloaded, and the people who were immune were the ones who had already experienced extreme trauma in their lives and had learned to process it without being overwhelmed- like war vets, or some of the metahumans in Belle Reve with particularly tragic backstories.

Her appearance also changed quite a bit. Part of her abilities included a sort of demonic appearance to most people, and the ones who were immune to her powers were also immune to that illusion, and could see her for how she looked before she was sent to STAR Labs.

The one other detail I had that changed is that while in the final version of her story, Nikoletta escapes STAR Labs years before Abner burns it down and only realizes much later that their time there overlapped, the original version of the story had them interact much more while in STAR Labs and escape at the same time. The idea was that they were friends while they were there, would talk through the vents and try to comfort each other through the experimentation, but they never learned each others' names or met face-to-face.

Then it would be a reveal in Corto Maltese, they're in the jungle talking about STAR Labs, and Nikoletta pulls up her sleeve to reveal a burn scar on her arm in a perfect circle (where she was singed by one of the polka dots when Abner burned down the lab), which leads to them realizing they'd actually met years before and didn't know it.

In the end, I changed up her powers to "ground" her a little more. I wanted her powers to be more dangerous on reputation than on actual ability (i.e. how her shadows themselves don't actually hurt people at all, she just builds so much reputation around them while in Belle Reve that they seem dangerous), and I thought having her interact with Abner in STAR Labs just... didn't line up as well as I wanted it to, the more I thought about it. I think the original version of her character was cool, and still fit with the other metahumans in the DC universe, but her final version feels much more dynamic and human to me.

Palette: list four of your character's primary skills, then share at least two ways these skills might blend or overlap

She's great at keeping her emotions in check when assessing a problem, manipulating social situations, breaking down a problem into manageable facets, and generating mystique around herself.

All of these skills were built from her becoming the Queen of Belle Reve and generating her reputation there. Manipulating social situations and generating mystique was how she was able to take that mantle to begin with and turn her relatively harmless powers into something that could keep the whole prison in line. Keeping her emotions in check and breaking down problems are what helped her maintain that persona in the long-term, since it allowed her to keep that position of power and quell dissent in a way that kept most of the other prisoners in her favor.

[emerald-truth]

characters with unknown names and the concept of "real" names

aka it's time for me to write a stream of consciousness essay because I have collected a number of these characters, and comparing media I like is my passion. I'm gonna talk about four characters: The Doctor, Coach Beard, Fleabag, and Remington Steele. I will be addressing them in terms of what their lack of name, or at least lack of name known to the audience, means for them both within their own narrative and from the outside perspective of why I feel the creators made this choice. (just my speculation, I don't actually know why any of these choices were made. if the creators have spoken about it I'm not aware of it) I am also not rewatching any of the shows these characters are from for the purposes of this post, so if I get something wrong or forget something please bring it up. Without further ado, my favorite nameless characters:

The Doctor: If you are on tumblr I assume you know about doctor who and I don't need to explain it. I'm also certain many doctor who fans will have more complex thoughts on this than I have the knowledge to share. Also caveat that I've only seen nuwho. I think it's rather interesting that the name of the show, as with three out of the four shows here, references the character's lack of name or pseudonym.

I think The Doctor is as much a name for them as whatever their "real" name is. It's a name they chose which has significance for them, and it's the name they use with almost everyone. To me, a real name has significance because you personally identify with it, and because you use it with people you love, and I think The Doctor is just such a name for them. Clearly though, their Gallifreyan name has significance to them too because it's important that they share it with River as part of their close relationship and marriage. It's also a name that connects the Doctor to their people and the significance of their past, and I think that's part of why it's significant in their relationship with River, who shares time lord experiences. I'm pretty sure the Master also knows the Doctor's real name so that's another way they're connected through shared history. Of course I could also talk about the name Theta Sigma in this context too but I'm not gonna go there. Donna also presumably learned the Doctor's name when she became the DoctorDonna, through shared time lord experience. I don't think this means the Doctor's relationship is lesser with people who don't know their name, I think it's just that the name isn't significant to their relationships with non time lords.

From the writers' perspective, this whole thing mostly serves to make the Doctor more mysterious and build up their relationship with River in particular. If we were ever to learn the Doctor's name it could never live up to the infinite possibilities of the unknown. The fact that we humans can't know the Doctor's name also makes them more alien.

Coach Beard: This is a supporting character in Ted Lasso, whose name was actually sort of revealed at the end of the show but I think he's relevant to discuss because you know. we usually learn characters' names when they first appear, as well as because it's not the name he uses. I actually have rather a lot of feelings about this one because I have been rather upset by how Beard was treated as a character.

Beard is the name this character is called by everyone else in the show. It's unclear whether it's his last name or refers to the fact that he has a beard. Probably both. Whether it is actually part of his given name or not, I would absolutely consider it his real name because it's the name he goes by, seemingly by choice.

Beard is Ted's best friend and is therefore always there to support him both as a friend in the show and narratively. However neither Ted nor the writers are there to support Beard. Beard's backstory is developed mostly through scattered, usually joking references to his colorful past. He is mostly used as comic relief and to support other characters' arcs. We learn near the end of the show, mostly in service of another character's story, that Beard was addicted to drugs and imprisoned and Ted is the one who gave him the second chance that saved his life. In a show that cares so much about how its characters are shaped by their past experiences, this is a lot to drop on the audience without much further expansion.

However my biggest problem with the way Beard is treated (and I promise this will come back to his name) is the way his abusive relationship is handled, especially in a show that general takes relationship abuse seriously. It's clear his relationship is hurting him and his girlfriend is emotionally manipulating him. Many of the other characters discuss this including Ted. However Ted doesn't help him out of this situation at all, and the show ends with Beard marrying his abusive girlfriend with the support of all the other characters, in what is implied to be a happy ending. Throughout the final season, his girlfriend's abuse is treated as a joke and used as comic relief.

In the scene where Ted calls him by his name, Beard is making the decision to stay with his abusive girlfriend, in a romantic trope where he leaves a plane that's about to take off, and Ted is supporting him. Beard tells Ted he loves him, and Ted responds "I love you too, Willis." This scene would be a touching show of their closeness, symbolized through the use of a first name, but with the ways in which Ted is undermining Beard's safety, it doesn't come off that way at all. The use of a name Beard has never used before comes off more like a break in their relationship, despite saying they love each other. I would think that if Beard wanted to be called Willis, Ted would call him Willis more often. Instead, Ted only calls his best friend Willis after drifting apart from him all season, in a scene where Ted is leaving to live in another country, and leaving Beard in an unsafe situation. Given this reasoning I think it's possible to question whether Beard even considers Willis his real name.

Overall, I feel the choice to keep Beard's name a secret, as well as to reveal it in the way it was, shows the attitude of the show towards him as a character who doesn't matter on his own. The reveal of his name was built up to as a fun surprise, not as an important character moment. His character was underdeveloped and treated as a joke to a point where learning his name felt cheap, and its significance unclear, at least to me.

Fleabag: Another character whose not-name is the name of the show they're from! She is played and written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge in a somewhat dark comedy about a woman who is just really struggling. I think of the four, this lack of name is the most purposeful and successful from a metanarrative standpoint.

Unlike the other four characters here, Fleabag does not have another name which characters call her. They do not call her anything. I think she's the best candidate of these for not actually having a real name, by my criteria. She is not called any name by her loved ones, and there is no name she tells us she identifies with, despite speaking directly to the audience at many points. Despite the fact that she considers us friends, is it a real friendship if we don't even know her name? Fleabag struggles to make nourishing connections with the other characters and feels worthless at many points in the show. Her internal namelessness, and the failure of others to name her, symbolizes and enforces both these tragedies.

I think it's worth noting that a number of other characters, including her main love interest in season 2 (the hot priest) also don't have names. Because Fleabag is the narrator, it's possible this reflects on her own ideas about names. Perhaps she sees them as insignificant. Perhaps she chooses not to name other characters in order to bring them down to the level of herself who is nameless. I think the case of the priest is especially interesting, because she both brings him low and elevates him. The most obvious way she brings him down is through polluting him with her sinfulness and sexuality, but I think she also thinks of herself as so low as a nameless person that she will only be deserving of him if he is equally insignificant. On the other hand, his lack of name elevates him to, rather than an individual, an archetype and symbol of the desirable and good. Her own namelessness by choice can be looked at as paradoxical in this way as well, as an egocentrism with which she assumes she doesn't need to tell us who she is. Even in her self hatred, she centers herself and displays herself to the audience overtly as a uniquely despicable thing performed for our attention.

It is my impression that this is all very purposeful, and even if not all my conclusions were intended by Waller-Bridge, I think this type of reflection on the namelessnesss of the character was absolutely intended.

Remington Steele: I saved him for last because I love him so much. Also because this show and its obsession with real names is the reason I'm writing this post. The show he's from also shares his name, although I think more in reference to the idea of him than him as a person. It's an 80s detective show which is actually more about the two detectives' personal lives and romantic relationship than solving mysteries.

However despite being one of these two detectives, Remington is not actually a detective, he's just pretending to be a detective, and is in fact a con man and thief with many false names and identities. Although most of the characters call him Remington Steele, this name was created by the other detective Laura (who is a real detective) as the name of her ideal man and fictional boss, who she was pretending existed to fool misogynists. He himself doesn't know the name he was given by his parents when he was born, and he becomes obsessed with finding his father and learning his "real" name.

I think the fact that the name which becomes something like his real name in my opinion is the name of an idealized person whose role he attempts to fill says a lot about his relationships with other people. Throughout his life he's gone by whatever name the people he's with have given him. His desire is to become whatever others want him to be, in the absence of a sense of inherent self with which he was born, symbolized by the name he is looking for.

Over the course of the show though, I would say Remington Steele becomes his real name especially as his relationship with Laura grows. It becomes a symbol of his new life with her as opposed to his old life of crime and his previous relationships with people who called him other names. By choosing her and her name for him, he creates a sense of self that is shaped primarily by his relationship to her, as well as his role as a detective. There's also a really cute scene where Laura (and mildred) gives him a new passport as Remington Steele after all his fake passports under names of movie characters (assumed identities performed as part of his previously hollow sense of self) are confiscated.

I'm really not sure how much of this the writers intended, I really don't think they put that much thought into it.

OK THAT'S THE END THANKS FOR READING MY UNPOLISHED EXTREMELY LONG POST

[fancyshooting]

OCELOT'S CODENAME

like the other members of foxhound, revolver ocelot's codename is derived from his weapon of choice and an animal. why an ocelot?

here's an excerpt from this 1998 interview with hideo kojima:

How did you came up with Ocelot’s name?

Well, originally he was going to be named Lynx, which is a wildcat [山猫/yamaneko in Japanese, literally a mountain cat]. However, to a Japanese person that name doesn’t quite convey that image. I thought making him a wildcat would be cool, wouldn’t it? So I really wanted him to be a wildcat.

So there’s a story written by author Yoichi Funato about a certain wildcat and it’s an ocelot, so that’s when I thought “alright, this is the one.” [Kojima is likely referring to the novel Yamaneko no Natsu/山猫の夏, otherwise known as The Summer of the Ocelot.]

Are ocelot wildcats?

That’s right! I decided on Revolver Ocelot since it sounded cool and was the easiest to understand in terms of image. Like an “old man wildcat” who happens to be sly. 

the book is set in brazil and tells the story of a feud between two families. this "ocelot" is hired by one of the families and violence ensues. it's only in japanese so idk much about it other than what google translate shows... but the wiki page lists four things about the character: he's in his 40s, he is good at shooting, he is a skilled martial artist and he likes the caipirinha cocktail. some of these traits are of course shared by our ocie. whether that includes enjoying a refreshing caipirinha I do not know

and from the "summer of the wildcat" synopsis:

"Wherever the wildcat moves, blood splatters immediately. When will the terrifying identity of the mysterious wildcat be revealed?"

reading this, you can see why kojima thought "ocelot" suited his character - the lone, mysterious, middle-aged killer

in mgs3, as pointed out by para-medic, the name "ocelot" is a hint to his split allegiance ("why would a soviet officer be using the name of an american wildcat?"). it also appears that ocelot identifies with these proud creatures somewhat. why's that? here's what I think:

for this to stand, you need to believe that ocelot's NSA backstory is true. the ADAM and EVA defection is based on the irl martin and mitchell defection and they followed the typical defector route of US -> cuba -> USSR. ADAM almost definitely travelled through south america. which animal can be found here? THE OCELOT!!

they're elusive but maybe he caught a rare sighting of one. he was only sixteen years old at the time and maybe he was feeling a bit apprehensive about this extremely important/complicated/risky mission that he had no say in partaking in. maybe a comparison was drawn between ADAM and the ocelot by whoever he was travelling with (EVA? the real one obv -_-). the ocelot is solitary and hunts under cover of darkness, much in the same way ADAM is expected to operate. stay hidden, be independent, never forget your objective. the mission will take years but don't let your prey escape. no matter how much you think you trust someone, remember: you hunt alone. "ocelot" was a sort of a last-minute codename to prepare him for his mission

"You're not a snake and I'm not an ocelot. we're men, with names."

this is ocelot acknowledging that "ocelot" is as much of a persona as "shalashaska". snake seems to be the first person to recognise the humanity in ocelot, which is the primary reason ocelot is drawn to him imo. I wrote about this before blah blah blah, back to the point: raised as a tool of the philosophers, ocelot's true personality was constantly suppressed so that he could adapt to any given situation. if mgsv really is a closer depiction of his true personality, then clearly he is a lot more benevolent and sympathetic than is ideal for a soldier-spy-terrorist-interrogator. he is only "ocelot" for most of his life because the characteristics he has attributed to that persona are those that are most suited to his all-consuming work

also ocelots stand slightly bow-legged and it reminds me of the classic cartoon cowboy stance:

^^^ all cowboys ^^^

what really happened is whoever gave him his codename saw an ocelot standing like this and said adam that's u lol

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 8: A Place of Safety

Hello and welcome to another chapter of an incredibly long reread of The Wheel of Time, complete with spoilers. For example, the last book's title is "A Memory of Light". Spoilers! Run away! Or just block the tags. You know, whatever makes you happy. Or miserable, if that's what you're into. I won't judge until your back is turned.

This chapter icon is of Moiraine's staff, and it's used in chapters that are about her. As this is the chapter where she heals Tam, it's a lot clearer what it means than the last chapter icon was!

While he was still coming through the door Rand’s eyes went to his father—his father no matter what anyone said.

It's really very nice that Rand refuses to see Tam as anything other than his father, even when he does stop living in denial. This was a bit before the trend of stories that really went out of their way to normalize the concept; in fantasy in particular there was a lot more, "Oh thank fuck these assholes aren't my real family, my real family are magical royalty and I never have to look back".

“I do not like that man. There is something about him I don’t trust. I did not see a hair of him last night.”\ “He was there,” Bran said, watching Moiraine uncertainly. “He must have been. His cloak did not get singed in front of the fireplace.”

--

The fact that Lan is mistaken about Thom's whereabouts is high praise to the gleeman, though Lan is kinda right to be suspicious between Thom's immediately ducking out of the inn when they show up and also his whole backstory.

Her eyes traveled slowly from Tam’s feet to his head, but Rand had the prickly feeling that she was looking beyond him in some fashion.

Rand also has a prickly feeling because one of the gender asymmetries in channeling is that men can tell when women have embraced the source, even if they can't see what they're up to with it.

“That is a fine weapon you wear. Is there by chance a heron on the blade, as well?”

Lan is of course very miffed that someone's already given his soon to be protege a sword, because that was going to be his thing.

“Strange thing for a sheepherder to buy.” Rand spared a sidelong look for Lan. For a stranger to wonder about the sword was prying. For a Warder to do it. . . .

It's still prying, Rand. But at the same time, Lan is doing something so few people in this series do and actually giving Rand information. It's terse, but straightforward, though sadly it's not too useful because Tam's backstory is pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I almost wonder if Tam was supposed to be a bigger part of the series going forward, or if all the mysteries of his past were just Jordan being loathe to throw away his ideas for an older, singular Dragon character.

A question of his own popped into his head then, one he did not want to ask, one he needed an answer to.

And Rand communicates, a little more obliquely but still, in turn! He freely provides information about the Fade to Lan because of his desperate desire to be re-adopted, or just because Lan has shown himself to be trustworthy. Maybe both. Shame Moiraine takes forever to realize how easy Rand is to handle by just being straightforward.

Had I known when I left Tar Valon that I would find Trollocs and Myrddraal here, I would have brought half a dozen of them, a dozen, if I had to drag them by the scruffs of their necks.

While obviously Rand and to a lesser but noticable extent the Wondergirls blow the expected power scale out of the water, I am going to try and pay attention to how the regulars scale with basic Shadowspawn, in no small part because both the conclusions of the book and the first season are irksome in just how pathetic they make the enemy forces seem comppared to our heroes.

(Also please someone write a fic where Moiraine finds this out early and does indeed drag a dozen Aes Sedai after her. Any dozen. Hilarity will ensue.)

“Carrion eaters.” Lan’s mouth twisted in distaste. “The Dark One’s minions often find spies among creatures that feed on death. Ravens and crows, mainly. Rats, in the cities, sometimes.”

So, as a corvid lover, what frustrates me about this particular association is that carrion eaters and rot and all the other "bad" stuff is exactly the sort of behavior that a fully cyclical system needs to be able to keep popping up the parts we humans actually enjoy. It doesn't seem fair that they'd end up being closer to evil when they're just as important a part of the system.

On the other hand, I can already hear people arguing that the Shadow serves the same moral purpose so I am just gonna hafta deal with it, huh?

Trolloc weapons are made at forges in the valley called Thakan’dar, on the very slopes of Shayol Ghul itself. Some of them take a taint from that place, a stain of evil in the metal.

Since people propose that the Two Rivers is radioactive, why not Thakan'dar? It's not elemental evil, it's polonium poisoning!

So few remain, the Amyrlin Seat almost did not allow me to take this one. It is well for Emond’s Field, and for your father, that she did give her permission.

I'm really more surprised that Siuan had the slightest difficulty in saying no, under the circumstances. Like, who could possibly have better reason for taking an angreal than the woman hunting the DR? Seal that shit to the flame and move on, Siuan.

Also, AoL folk really loved making angreal and sa'angreal in the shape of people, huh? Is that just what survived, is there a design reason, or was that just the art they were into at the time?

Fades are Trolloc spawn, throwbacks almost to the human stock the Dreadlords used to make the Trollocs.

Is it odd to anyone else that this particular detail survived? I suppose it too is a little wrong (Aginor made the Trollocs, not a collective of Dreadlords), which means this chapter has two new counterexamples of magic things being wrong (the other being Fade height), so I guess my earlier claim was nonsense, but anyway.

Point is, knowing where Trollocs come from is one of the least important parts of actually dealing with them or Fades, so it doesn't seem like information that would survive the Breaking, let alone the Trolloc Wars.

Halfmen have the Dark One’s own luck.

If you're curious as to why and how the Dark One is lucky, it's because as the personification of entropy his desired outcome is the most likely one on the table.

Lan’s head jerked up; his eyes were blue stones. “You talked to a Trolloc?”

Lan is surprised because Trollocs can't speak, but Rand can understand their tongue because he has a bit of Morid- wait no, wrong franchise and wronger sequence of events.

Still though, Lan's reaction here is how I feel about the whole exchange in hindsight. Again, Trollocs are not conversationalists.

Lan’s face softened slightly, if rock could be said to soften.

Lan is very, very excited that he and Moiraine are going to be kidnapping Rand soon, now that their target is a Trolloc killer.

There are far fewer of us now. Some talents are all but gone, and many that remain seem weaker.

The White Tower is so decayed as an institution that Moiraine doesn't even know how much she's underselling the crisis, and she's actually pretty knowledgeable. Shit's not just all but gone, quite a few things are vanished entirely.

“Anything. As long as it does not hurt the village, or my friends.”

Too late for that, Rand. You said anything before and didn't have any conditionals. Now take this knife and go ritually sacrifice Perrin before he gets married.

“Did you know,” Lan said suddenly, “that some homes were not attacked?”

Again, Moiraine just tries to tell Rand what to do while it's Lan who actually gives him reasons to behave. Right now it's of course because everyone's exhausted and no one's communicating efffectively as a result but later this disconnect will become more and more of a problem.

“My age?” Rand’s voice shook, and he did not care. “Light! Mat. What about Perrin?” “Alive and well,” Moiraine assured him, “if a trifle sooty.”

Sadly, his sisters are now in a bizarre superposition wherein they're both alive and yet have never been born at all, and they probably won't make it to another Bel Tine.

“I told you I asked questions. And I also said young men of a certain age. You and your two friends are within weeks of one another. It was you three the Myrddraal sought, and none others.”

Since those other boys - and so far as we know, no one else - did see the Fade, I would guess that Fain gave a general guesstimate into ages but didn't care to be that accurate because he's a dick (or wasn't told). The Fades, being smarter or more informed, were able to suss out who was who.

I could send to Tar Valon for some of my sisters; they might have time to make the journey before we need them. The Myrddraal knows I am here, too, and it probably will not attack—not openly, at least—lacking reinforcements, more Myrddraal and more Trollocs.

Sadly, Moiraine is quite mistaken. Since they're traveling through the Ways, the Shadow forces will be able to overwhelm her far faster than word would even get to Tar Valon. Hell, they'd be doomed before word got to Whitebridge. If they stay, things go to shit very quickly.

A journey all the way to Tar Valon was almost beyond thinking. A journey to a place where he would be surrounded by Aes Sedai.

Sadly, for Rand this would not be a place of safety (Moiraine makes a title drop!). Even if the Red Ajah didn't just lobotomize him, even if the Black Ajah didn't kidnap him and toss him into the Ways overnight, he'd still be part of sixteen different political schemes in about as many minutes. Every time Moiraine tries to make a Big Plan about Rand, it's the sort of thing that would be disastrous if it ever actually happened.

“How long will my father sleep?” he asked at last. “I . . . I have to tell him. He shouldn’t just wake and find me gone.” He thought he heard Lan give a sigh of relief.

Lan's just like, "Oh good, we got him."

She did not press hard, but it was an iron grip that held him as surely as a forked stick held a snake.

Probably not any kind of Compulsion, probably just mundane manipulation.

“You just leave me to worry about that. She and I had a long talk. And keep your voice down. If you wake Tam, you’ll have to answer to me and Moiraine Sedai.”

This is extremely Southern, but not in a "I'm going to call out Jordan for not understanding his experiences aren't universal" way. Just in a good-spirited and hilarious way.

Abell Cauthon’s house flared up—odd that; it’s nearly in the middle of the village.

al'Vere is so close to noticing that something's up that I wonder if he put two and two together once Moiraine ran off with all the boys whose homes were attacked. Or did Egwene's leaving too muddle the issue for him? Probably that; probably another reason the Pattern needed her to leave, to confuse any other villagers who would be smart enough to notice the pattern and potentially muddle things up.

Tam was his father, and nobody could tell him what to say or not say to his father. He just had to stay awake until Tam woke up. He just had to. . . .

Another ironic ending, though this one immediately clear to even the first-time reader. Jordan really liked them, I guess. But on the plus side, Rand is finally ready to pack, so we are going to be taking leave of Emond's Field here soon; just as soon as our boy wakes up. Til then, sleep tight. Don't let the Trollocs bite!

[meanmisscharles]

my promised update on WEDNESDAY having now watched all of it:

the black characters are not actually all villains. in fact, none of them are villains. there are three real villains in the show and they're all white.

THAT SAID, i understand why someone who watched the first episode would've been like 'fuck no' because both prominent black characters are positioned as antagonists in it.

the most significant black character is BIANCA the queen bee at wednesday's school. she's super competitive and good at everything and so is wednesday so she's positioned as a rival. (her ex-boyfriend is also into wednesday.) however within a few episodes she and wednesday have had a Moment of Connection, the rivalry is dropped, and you get bianca emotional arcs and backstory and shit and she gets her hero moments during the climax of the season.

the next most prominent is LUCAS who is part of a group of townie kids who beef with the kids from the school wednesday attends. he and his (white) friends have an altercation w/ wednesday in the first episode then he's basically The One With Second Thoughts through a few later things, at one point changing his mind about pulling a prank and then being overridden by his friends. he's also given a little bit of an emotional arc and you're clearly meant to empathize with him.

the other major black character is lucas's father NOBLE who's the mayor of the town. he gets less screentime than lucas and bianca and he starts off vaguely shady and is presented as someone who has made moral compromises, but so is literally every other adult as part and parcel of it essentially being a YA murder mystery, but it's eventually revealed that he's also trying to solve the murders/protect everyone. there IS one deeply egregious scene w/ him but that's more pursuant to:

the actual biggest issue with the show in terms of race is that it does the dumbfuck fantasy racism bullshit with "outcasts" (supernatural people) and "normies" (regular humans) and presents that as the axis of oppression on which everything turns. and it does this while simultaneously trying to do this constant commentary on not whitewashing historical sins, but other than a few lines acknowledging stuff like how awful the pilgrims were to native americans it doesn't actually engage with any real oppression. just fake racism. this, plus the fact that mayor casting was clearly colorblind and then given no further thought, leads to a scene where he told by morticia WITH HER WHOLE CHEST that "men like him" never had to deal with authorities not believing them lolololololololololol.

so yeah verdict, not actually targeted antiblackness. bianca is a cool interesting character. lucas is fine. you're meant to extend all the same empathy to the black characters as everyone else. but the show is still dumb as fuck about race in the classic I Am Going To Do An Allegory While Ignoring The Real Shit I Could Easily Address Instead way.

THANK YOU! This is so helpful, because I can't with the Anti-Blackness anymore.

😙

[brightbeautifulthings]

Find Him Where You Left Him Dead by Kristen Simmons

"'You're more likely to get eaten by an alligator than die in a plane crash, which is twenty-nine million to one, by the way.'"

Year Read: 2023

Rating: 3/5

About: When they were kids, five friends started a mysterious game called Meido. Only four of them survived. Now in high school, the remaining four are summoned by the ghost of their dead friend to complete the game by dawn or be trapped inside its uncanny Japanese underworlds forever. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Tor Teen. Trigger warnings: character death, body horror, gore, captivity, violence, fires, drowning, spiders, neglect.

Thoughts: This is such a great title, isn't it? I would have picked it up based on that alone, but the premise of a horror game really grabbed me. I forget sometimes how hit and miss that trope can be, and it's not my favorite here. The readers don't know the rules because the characters don't know the rules, so there's never any sense about what's working or not working in the "game" or when/why they're going to be punished for breaking the rules. Everything is sort of hastily (and sometimes wrongly) explained after the fact. The game structure ultimately ends up being a bit flimsy, and I feel a little bait and switched into reading what's more like a standard other-world dark fantasy novel.

And we know I struggle with fantasy. It was extra hard for me here because each time the characters "level up," I had to reinvest myself in an entirely new setting with new monsters and NPCs. The chapters are plenty long enough to do this, and Simmons excels at world-building and descriptions, but it didn't stop me from feeling bogged down in all the changes and details. I suspect this has far more to do with me not really being a fantasy person (not even horror fantasy, unfortunately) than anything the novel does wrong. The Japanese folklore elements are really interesting and creatively done, and that was probably my favorite aspect of the book.

The characters are enjoyable and distinct enough, if not terribly memorable. The book relies a lot on their past friendships to ground the group, but given that we're not present for that and they all hate each other now, it's not as effective as it could be. Then there's also the fact that the game makes them randomly start forgetting things, so they suddenly start acting like friends again. There's not a lot of consistent development among the five of them, aside from a couple shaky romantic subplots. I did like the build-up to one character reveal far more than I liked another. It works well the first time, and the second time I was just bothered that everything kept changing. Pick a plot point/setting/backstory and stick with it, please. I suspect most of this would come clear on a second read, but I'm not invested enough for that, nor to continue with the series.

[mermaidsirennikita]

I’m not sure if it’s the absolutely abysmal weather where I live or what but I am feeling super depressed (the kind where you’re like huh my life has no meaning and everyone else has everything figured out and I’m so alone…) Anyway I want to treat myself to a new historical romance and I’ve been eyeing Beauty Tempts the Beast by Lorraine Heath - which I know I’ve seen you recommend. All this to say I love Lorraine’s books but they’re not always what I would call upbeat so do you think that one would be a good choice or can you recommend anything better given my situation? I also realize after writing this that it may be time to book another session with my therapist!

Well, first off, I'm sorry you're down! I promise you everyone else doesn't have it figured out because I don't lol, but I've felt this way quite often in my life (... like from June to October last year with no stop) so I get it. I hope that it cools down soon. I love therapy and it's always something I'd recommend.

Re: Beauty Tempts the Beast--I definitely wouldn't call it one of Lorraine's darker books, and I don't think it would've made mY mood worse if I was down, but I also have a very high tolerance for sad fiction and I also feel that I seek out that stuff sometimes when I'm down, on like a weird sympathetic level.

Things I'd give a heads up about:

--the entire conceit of Sins for All Seasons is that the Trewloves (all but one) are not their mother's biological children; rather, they were all illegitimate, with different bio moms, and left at a Ettie Trewlove's doorstep. She was a baby farmer--basically, this is a thing where women would take illegitimate children on for a fee. They were either paid to care for the kids, often in subpar conditions, or they were paid to like... quietly kill them. Ettie basically got besieged by guilt/lost her kids after quietly letting two babies die (.... yeah ..... I was never... 100% on board with Ettie, even though she was humane about it lol) so she took on the Trewloves and raised them on her own. (They love her, it's fine.) So while I wouldn't say this has a HUGE dark shadow over Beast's (the hero) backstory it is a thing... to be aware of. I mean, Beast finding his bio parents is a huge deal, but the whole baby farmer thing is more of a shadow over the series.

--Beast has a physical abnormality that people made fun of him for. It's not super visible with the way he presents himself, but it was hard on him and I was very "oh baaaaaby :(((" about it.

Overall, definitely lighter than, say The Scoundrel in Her Bed (the darkest Sins for All Seasons book but also my favorite lol). Definitely lighter than say, Between the Devil and Desire. But angsty enough.

For lighter stuff, I would always recommend, of course, Tessa Dare. Her Spindle Cove series is so fun, especially A Week to Be Wicked. I also love Any Duchess Will Do, though the hero does have a very sad backstory (no spoilers, but it's not abuse-related). When a Scot Ties the Knot and Goddess of the Hunt are also books of hers I'd recommend. They're funny and sexy and overall lighthearted, though not without emotion.

Stephanie Laurens writes a hilarious book. They're older and they're usually wacky, often with a funny mystery plot that's like, glaringly obvious and an alpha male hero who has A CONQUEROR'S SPIRIT. A Rake's Vow is a ridic cozy mystery vibe in which our hero Vane goes to a house party, some shit gets stolen, they're like "VAAAANE YOU'RE SO GOOD AT FIIINDING" and he's like yes I am I shall find the culprit (it takes him the entire book even though it's very clear but the mystery is just a framing device lmao) and in the meantime this fatherless teen boy starts idolizing him, but the teen boy's sister Patience is like NOOOO VANE IS SUCH A WHORE MY BROTHER CAN'T BE LIKE HIM!!! And Vane is like "True! But hurtful!" However, by then he's already decided she's The One so he begins a hot pursuit.

Scandal's Bride is another great one, though of course heads up the heroine drugs the hero for their first time (her first ever lmao) because she wants to get pregnant by him without him remembering (it's a long story). His reaction to this is just "freaky; I'M ABOUT IT" and they spend the rest of the book fucking like bunnies in Scotland while a MYSTERY is afoot. I'm not even gonna lie, this is a new favorite of mine. I don't care. Richard and Catriona are FREAKS and they're perfect for each other.

A Secret Love is another funny one wherein the heroine disguises herself as a veiled widow in order to get the hero to help her out with a financial fraud mystery. Which is ridic because they were childhood friends, but because they grew up and got horny they started hated each other (as they want to rip each other's clothes off). Wild. Insane. They fuck without him knowing who she is. At least twice. Love it.

Vivienne Lorret writes a really cute, light, sexy time! I'd for sure recommend The Wrong Marquess (best friend's brother, dislike to lovers), How to Steal a Scoundrel's Heart (mistress contract, "cold" hero), and Never Seduce a Scot (cat and mouse across Europe, duke with glasses, a big WHOOPS).

Alexandra Vasti's Halifax Hellions books are soooo fun. They're technically three novellas about the Halifax siblings, Margo (on a roadtrip chase with my brother's best friend who's secretly in love with meeee), Matilda (secretly kinky and on voyage with a kinky duke I drew porn about), and Spencer (I have a SECRET WIFE AND NOBODY TOLD ME????).

Alexis Hall has a duo of super lighthearted queer historicals--Something Fabulous (m/m, stern grumpy proposes to a woman and when she flees, starts chasing her with her sunshiney frivolous twin brother, ass eating and RIDICULOUS DUELS ensue) and Something Spectacular (genderfluid lovelorn lead is supposed to help her ex gf hook up with an nb castrato soprano, only for said rockstar soprano to go mmmmm I'd rather fuck yooooou; they also accidentally inspire a gay poetry orgy).

Elisa Braden's Midnight in Scotland series is so fun. Some heavier stuff happens (check TWs), but I would say that tonally she is much more lighthearted than Lorraine, and the books are quite hot.

[aroacehanzawa]

What are kaleidescope of death and global examination? You've piqued my interest after your liveblogging lol (as in, I'm very curious to know what makes one so terrible and the other so good, and what they're about)

Heyy! They are both danmei webnovels of the unlimited flow genre, with basically levelled survival games where if you die in the "game" you die in real life. Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu (147 chapters, info carrd) is horror-focused, where characters who are close to death must pass 12 doors that are kind of like elaborate escape rooms filled with ghosts and monsters typically from urban legends. Global Examination by Mu Su Li (166 chapters, info carrd) is similar but less focused on horror and follows characters who have been pulled into a mysterious system where they have to solve exam-style questions except the questions are actually dangerous scenarios where it's easy to die. And there's romance in both of them <3

GE is brilliant in the way that both the MC and ML are well-written with fleshed-out backstories and they are both incredibly smart and complement each other's skills perfectly. The exam system is really cleverly laid out and the way the characters solve each level is presented in a very logical way, so that the way they are smart doesn't feel forced and instead reads very natural! The world inside the system is also consistent and we get to find out more and more about it at a good pace, and the recurring characters all turn out to be very important not only to the plot but also to our protagonists.

To me the plot never felt like it was dragging on, because on top of solving each exam level there is a greater narrative connecting everything, so that eventually all the plot points come together in a very satisfying way at the end! The leads also have great chemistry even without knowing their backstories, which makes it even more emotional and romantic after you learn everything about them. It's genuinely one of my favourite webnovels!!

In comparison, KOD just falls flat despite the amount of 5 star reviews and the hype i keep seeing by people who recommend it as a similar novel to GE. I didn't think the horror part was scary at all, at least for me, because it relied mainly on stuff like grotesque ways to die and mutilated body parts, which i thought were just gross instead of actually scary. But the main problem i have with this novel is that the main characters are presented as 'smart' but the way they solved each door relied too much on luck and coincidences or them somehow coming to 'obvious' conclusions that seem like they just came out of nowhere. It was like the author just kept telling us that 'oh here is this random item or situation so clearly it must be like this' without any intermediate steps, and most of the time they never would've even escaped the door if the ML or MC hadn't ~somehow~ stumbled on a key item or hint.

There is also a ridiculous amount of plot armor for the main characters, which i could suspend disbelief for, if the rest of the story wasn't also written in this hand-wavy style of 'anyway so this is how they solved the problem' and 'anyway so this is how they got out the door'. The world of the doors is never clearly explained or given any more meaningful treatment than if they were levels in some random video game, and the climax felt like a poor attempt at bringing it all together but just ended up with basically 'then so-and-so many days passed and they survived'.

The characters were not very fleshed-out*, especially the MC who seemed like he was only given basic traits like 'exceptionally calm' and 'cat-lover' - and even the cat-lover part was forgotten for most of the story and feels like when you make an OC and give them random traits that are only ever mentioned in the character sheet... The way the leads got together felt abrupt and superficial, and after that it's like no other characters mattered, which i suppose is a romance trope of its own, but when you apply it to shallowly-written characters like this, it just feels forced.

*) My biggest gripe was the author deciding to put key plot twists about the main characters in the first extra chapter after the ending (like ?!?!?), that changed the whole perspective of the story but didn't actually add anything of value to the plot itself and just makes everything more convoluted and plain worse if you think about it. The side characters who were actually interesting were either used as plot devices or plain forgotten about. And the ML who starts off relatively interesting in comparison to the others, is practically reduced to a caricature of himself by the end.

Anyway. Sorry this got so long i really had to rant about KOD to get it out of my system. Basically GE did everything that KOD tried to do but wayyyy better, and if you're looking for a well-written infinite flow novel with an ingenious plot and well-written characters with outstanding chemistry, look no further than Global Examination!!

[femme-malewife]

hi i'm new to the heroines run the show fanbase! i see a lot of your posts and just wanted to ask why do you not like liphiyo? don't the guys like her? also am i allowed to follow you?

Hello! Welcome to the fandom, first off! Yes, following me is fine, if you're okay with the fact I don't ship the "main ot3" and ship aiyuu and nagihiyo instead (and consistently lovemail them)

As for why I don't like the ship and your other question...

Well, the short answer: I just don't vibe with it.

For the long answer...tagging this as "ship hate" even though it's not really hating? I'm just gonna explain why I don't like it, why I prefer aiyuu/nagihiyo, and ramble about spoilers for the movie/anime/novels.

If you really like the main ot3 and the other variations of them, consider yourself warned if you read ahead. These are my personal opinions and everyone is entitled to them.

Where do I start..?

Well, I guess first off, when I joined the fandom back in 2020, I was actually fine with the ship. Above neutral but below "I ship it". A lot of fans on twt and yt comments ruined it completely for me, though. A lot of rude people who scream at aiyuu fans when they're just in their own bubble. Some who scream "the novel has so much content for them, you look ridiculous!" and calling us fujoshis. (Granted, I know there are some aiyuu fans who are way too extreme and rude and harasss others and I want to clarify that this is NOT okay either!! However, I've seen much less of those than I have of people who ship Hiyori with any or both of the two LIPxLIP boys)

Another reason...is given the boys backstories, and how much they went through even before they met Hiyori, they had a strong bond. Their bonds only get stronger with new content that pops up.

Aizou doesn't want a girlfriend. He said so himself as well.

And given he has trauma with women thanks to his abusive and alcoholic mother, he's likely not going to change his mind just because a girl is sporty and not feminine. I can relate to that.

I have trauma with men. I'm 100% fine being friends with men, but I can never see myself dating a man.

As for Yujiro, he's a loner who has never had any friends until he met Aizou. I personally don't see him getting easily emotionally attached to anyone, especially in a romantic sense. I feel like he's kind of on the ace spectrum, somewhere? Demiromantic gay? Given that Yujiro is shown to be annoyed with girls but he's more comfortable being around guys. (And yeah, one can chalk that up to him being being an awkward teenage guy, but again, everyone's entitled to their own opinion)

With what they have gone through in the movie (which is finally english subbed. It's fan-subbed, so it's not on any official sites, but I personally use gogoanime since you don't have to really fight tooth and nail to make gross ads go away lol), as well as the Romeo novel, one can really see their bond and how they grow to care so much about each other.

Their stories are always about how they grow as a team. The hanipre events show us this as well. They're translated somewhere on tumblr. There's "If I go on a Trip with You", the Valentine's Event, the White Day Event, and the Halloween Event. And of course, the solo events. These events are all about Aizou and Yujiro and their bond, which only grows more and more.

What is LIPxLIP's story with Hiyori?

Getting used to having her around as their manager, and helping her dress up to become a heroine and, in the MV, confess to the "mystery boy" she likes. In the anime, it's to prove to her childhood friend that she can be pretty too, given Hiyori opened up about her insecurity with being feminine.

Now, the anime...

I'm not gonna lie here, you shouldn't really look to the anime for what's canon, and what's not canon. They took away a lot of what made these three characters stories charming. They also changed up a lot of the characters personalities and made everything so ridiculous and...it was just...straightbait. Even in episode 5, which I consider to be one of the better episodes (1 - 8 were good, 9 - 12 were not), the anime team made Yume Fanfare seem as though the song is made for Hiyori.

It wasn't. These two have a personal moment before their first concert with this song, and they dedicated the song to each other. (Also, Yamako's fanbox states that the song is for them, so...no idea what the team was thinking, tbh? Kinda lied to everyone, and if you're unfamiliar with the lore, then it can definitely be misleading).

I already made a post about my grievances with Herotaru here though, so if you want to read why you shouldn't accept that as canon, go read that. I'll just end up repeating myself too much and making this longer than it already is.

I got off track.

Anyway, so...to me, while forcing the boys- after everything they go through together and the suspiciously homoerotic things they do (like, canonically applying kiss marks to each other...)

...into a relationship with a girl, in which their story arc mostly revolves around helping her get a boyfriend...I just can't see it. It feels very comphet to me. (And, given I myself have trauma with being comphet for most of my life, I have very strong feelings about that)

(Also, twice, they have something about keeping a secret..? I dunno, feels a bit too sus for me. Here's to hoping it's not just queerbait lol. The second image is for Samishigariya which, you should 100% check out. It literally compares Aiyuu with Shibarisa. They're both singing of love to their most important person...which is another reason why I don't think that Aizou or Yujiro like Hiyori. If they did, why haven't they gotten an MV yet? Sure, Nonfantasy exists, but that MV was just a dream on Hiyori's part, and dreams don't really have to mean anything. She fell asleep watching the Nonfan MV, so of course she's gonna end up thinking about it. I have a whole rant about that from a psychologist perspective but that's not for here...anyway, the MV here proves that the two care more about each other than anyone else- otherwise, other people would have been shown as well)

Anyway, onto Hiyori...

Now, I love Hiyori. I really do- she's one of my favorite fem characters of honeyworks. She's adorable and relatable. That being said, I personally think she can do better than Aizou or Yujiro (who have a LOT of trauma with them anyway and I don't think she can handle all of their baggage, and the fact that she doesn't know their trauma, but they know the extent of each other's trauma...anyway, I digress).

She's always thinking about how cruel the two were, in the novels. She's dreaded being in their presence multiple times and they've made her genuinely cry. She has also thought "they make me feel so stupid" (which...idk about anyone else, but if someone makes me feel stupid, even if it's a super hot woman, I really don't think I'd want to be in a relationship with them...but eh, whatever you're into?)

Are they good friends? Yes! And I LOVE their friendship! I think their friendship is super important!

Do I think there's any romantic undertones? ...No.

A problem I have with Hiyori with the guys is...they just...don't work out that way, imho. I mean, when Hiyori went back to her usual self after her makeover, the guys were upset and confused.

To which, she replied that she shouldn't be wearing dresses when she runs. (She's finally accepted herself and knows she can be a heroine)

One can say that the two were just curious, but...no, they're actually pretty shallow with women. In the MV, they made her dress up because in their eyes, no one will accept her love if she's not conventionally attractive.

I dunno, that kind of thing never sat right with me. It only amplified in the anime seeing them mock her about being a heroine when she was finally happy with herself. Sure, they were only teasing her, or that they genuinely wanted to help her, but the way it went about it just felt off to me.

For Hiyori, being paired with a guy who would want her to dress up more and be more like the typical woman, vs someone who loves her no matter what, it doesn't feel like it's right for her either.

For the boys being paired with her, to me, it feels like comphet.

For Hiyori, being paired with them, it feels less validating that she's a heroine no matter what she looks like.

I also made a post about why I think nagihiyo works, which you can read here, if you want to read about why I personally think Nagisa is the best fit for Hiyori.

AGAIN, THIS IS ALL MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION. IF YOU HAVE OTHER TAKES OR DISAGREE, THAT IS FINE!!!

I prefer to just stay in my own little aiyuu community bubble and I don't touch the liphiyo, yuuhiyo, or aihiyo bubbles. They have their own communities they can vibe in.

I do think, however, we can all co-exist. Let's bond about the other ships.

Let's talk about sarauru. Let's talk about shibarisa or kotahina. (or, if you really want a good OT3, I recommend kazufuuyui. It's not really a popular ship, since pretty much all of their content is in Fuuma's novel, but I personally like those three, and all variations of the ship! So I'm happy with kazufuuma, fuuyui, and kazuyui...but this post isn't about that! I'll happily accept asks about why I love it though!)

So, yeah. Those are why I don't ship liphiyo, or the other few variations of the ship. Of course, there's another very personal reason, but I'm not comfortable disclosing that in public, and I don't trust just anyone with the information.

I love their friendship to pieces, but I just can't see them in a romantic light.

Especially when a lot of their interactions remind me of me and my older brother and his friends??? Like- a lot of the Yujiro and Hiyori interactions in the novel just reminded me of me and my brother, because we've done a lot of similar things. And in the anime, those actions were transferred to Aizou and Hiyori. So, seeing them as a couple makes me think of me and my brother which ...is very gross to think about lmaooo.

Anyway, sorry that this is so long. If you still ship them, good for you. Like I said earlier, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. This ^ is just mine. And we can still talk about other ships we do agree with. It's not hard to just avoid talking about the ships we disagree with.

I like looking at couples and their impact on each other. If something is canon and healthy, then I'll ship it. If it's not canon but healthier than the canon ships, then I'll ship it and not whatever is canon. I just prefer to analyze the relationship before making a decision.

...Being queer myself also gives big bonus points. I get stupid happy seeing healthy same sex couples.

Anyway, that's all, for reals.

[limetameta]

For the october-themed writeblr ask: 🍎 apple!

🍎 apple: let’s talk about friendship in your wip. do you have any favorite friend/platonic dynamics? any friendships gone sour?

i'd like to talk about the friendship of Maes Hughes and Solf J. Kimblee. I love those two. They're buddies. Maes saved Solf's life in Ishval. Solf feels slightly indebted towards him. Like, it's not equivalent exchange until they're even steven, you know?

Though Solf isn't really good friends with Maes. He's much better friends with Gracia than he is with Maes. Now in Metallic Crimson, because I wrote that before I realised how funny it'd be to have Kimblee and Gracia as besties - in early MC we mainly see Maes and Kimblee interacting due to their close proximity on the job. And they're definitely friends. Maes invites KImblee over. Kimblee always comes over. He plays with Elicia. But any meaningful conversations between these two? No, not really. It's always either work related, Maes' family related, or trying to dig up Kimblee's backstory for Roy's sake.

So, the more Ishval became further and further away the less Solf sees Maes as Maes rather than Gracia's husband and his CO. Like, they're still friends. Definitely. But are they really good friends?

Maes doesn't keep Kimblee at arm's length, and he certainly treats him like a human being more than your average soldier - but my god isn't that just the bare minimum?

''I'm friends with Kimblee even though he's a bit terrifying because of his bloodlust in Ishval, wow, I'm such a good friend! But- ha ha - oh wow - you know - not 100% on that whole if he'll hurt my kid or not front :D but that's not on me - if you knew Kimblee, you'd be the same way!'' - Maes Hughes on a regular basis wanting to be given a Gold Star in Friendship class.

In MC before Kimblee gets his ass handed to him by Scar, he was talking to Riza, visibly upset about the whole Nina situation as well as the Elrics bailing on their duty. But the main thing he was actually upset about is how people (mainly Maes) think he's just a human weapon who would carelessly escalate situations - how people still continue to perceive him as a ticking bomb and not an individual capable of reason and restraint (he even thinks to himself - i am all restraint - and the man is, if he weren't he'd have succumbed to the urge to blow them all up ages ago). Maes was worried about Elicia's safety, true, and that's very nice of him - but if Kimblee really was your friend you wouldn't be afraid that he'd do something to your kid. That he'd teach her alchemy and that she'd be able to hurt herself.

And the only reason why he blows up on Riza about this is because a) i've been writing this man as chronically sleep deprived on account of his ptsd so he can't keep up the facade anymore in this stage b) it's Riza and Riza's not Central City so Kimblee was hoping she'd understand him better

But let's get back to Maes.

Maes has a dose of fear when it comes to his view of Kimblee. Because he saw him in Ishval and he'll always associate Ishval first with Kimblee. Gracia won't. Gracia met PH stone-less Kimblee and befriended this very crushed man. Roy and Maes don't know anything real about Kimblee. They see Kimblee as this mystery to demystify and they even base most of their interactions with Kimblee around trying to figure out his mysterious backstory. Roy doesn't think Kimblee can even care about others (his surprise about Kimblee liking his own cat well enough to get emotionally invested in it, let alone his ability to form relationships with others genuinely - it could also be a way for Roy to further help himself understand that no- no, Riza Hawkeye would never be with Kimblee because Kimblee's incapable of forming a relationship with her so I'm in the clear there - she'd never go for him, not rly, she isn't blind just LOOK at the way he acts and the things he says)

Alex Armstrong believes humanity is wasted on Kimblee. This was put into context with Alphonse's state of humanity being put into question, how can someone as kind as Alphonse be regarded as not human because he doesn't have a body, whereas someone like Kimblee could be seen as human. Alex Armstrong remains with the belief that Kimblee shouldn't be human because of the way he acts. That he's a weapon in human form and nothing else.

Maes believes the same, actually, but his way of thinking and showing this is so much more subtler. Perhaps he doesn't even notice he's doing it, but when you mention things, when you act on things like this and they gradually build up into a mountain ready to topple down on Kimblee, he's bound to notice. Kimblee's not stupid, not at all. He's just got a very, very long fuse.

Maes never asks after Kimblee for the sake of asking and wanting to know things about him. He doesn't know much of anything about him, really. Definitely not anything that he wouldn't quickly tell Mustang about because they're both invested in this dehumanising little game of theirs where they're trying to dissect Kimblee like a book about his background and why does he act like that - like why does he just say stuff like that? what's actually wrong with him??

Kimblee's not from Central City. He's said so on multiple occasions, and yet he's expected to just understand everything about Central City because the setting demands it. Because he's regarded differently if he's from the outside. It's exhausting keeping up a front like that constantly. And Maes doesn't really interact with anyone other than Central City people or soldiers in Central who know how to act accordingly. Edward's a kid, he doesn't count - Maes is tolerant of that. But Kimblee doesn't talk about his background or his food or his culture with Maes, because Maes would just brush past that. Kimblee talks much more openly with everyone out of Central City, with a notable exception here being Gracia. But that's a whole other thing. Gracia's not really a great representation of Central attitude. Because she runs away from that life much more and tries to be better than her parents and her surroundings.

Everything Kimblee says and shares is regarded as a lie or a fib he did for a bit of comedy. Or as a misdirection to throw someone off or for shock factor because nobody knows Kimblee well enough to be able to tell whether or not he's even telling the truth.

Kimblee's been established in MC as a liar when it comes to talking about his mental health on account of his not wanting to be dishcarged from the military and the homunculi making sure he never gets discharged because he's useful to them. So he can't talk to a medical professional about his shell shock, even though he clearly has it. He can't talk to the veterans because his perception of that time differs immensely from theirs and Kimblee's going to become ostracised yet again by speaking about it. He can't talk about it with civillians because they won't understand AT ALL. But he's got a very big need to talk about it. He's the one that always starts the conversation because he's deprived of a chance to speak through it and get over what happened. Very traumatic for him, too, even though he caused a lot of destruction and was visibly having fun in Ishval. Post Isvhal, post-returned ph stone Kimblee is struggling hard.

Maes is out of Ishval. He doesn't want to talk about it and he definitely doesn't even want to understand Kimblee's perspective on the matter, because to him this is a finished matter.

In the dr marcoh chapter of mc, i think chap 7? not sure honestly it could be 6 - Alphonse says: I think Kimblee just wants to be understood. Not agreed with, not disagreed with, not called wrong or right - just understood. Just listened to. That's why Kimblee likes Alphonse so much, because Alphonse figured this out. Edward still thinks Kimblee wants to be debated constantly until it's proven that he's right and Edward's wrong. That's why they butt heads to often. Edward's like you're gonna agree with me or you're gonna die. He doesn't listen to Kimblee really. Neither does Maes.

Maes definitely listens to Kimblee when Kimblee talks and maybe 20% of that even goes inside his head, but the 80% just doesn't. Because at the end of the day Maes would have acted on instinct and saved Kimblee or any other soldier in uniform regardless of who they were.

Oh definitely Maes knows Kimblee loves the opera, but he doesn't know why. Maes would definitely go out with Kimblee, but that's also on a basis of wanting to not disrespect Kimblee because Kimblee's helped him out a bunch of times. Not particularly because he understands Kimblee or really wants to do it. He'll enjoy himself with Kimblee and he does like Kimblee, but if knowledge is a basis on friendship, Maes is incredibly starved of that knowledge.

And Kimblee's aware of that. But he's also aware that Maes so firmly believes that he's really good friends with Kimblee. And yet if asked anything about him, he won't be able to tell you anything.

Honestly, at this point, Kimblee's not even sure Maes knows what the J. stands for in Solf J. Kimblee. And isn't that just very insulting?

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Call of the Sea

I'm loving this wave of story-driven, first-person, point-n-click games! I'm not BLOWN AWAY by this one in particular, but I'm enjoying it!!

I bought this game with Christmas Money. And I can't remember if it was last year or the year before...either way, it's been sitting in my queue for a while. I knew when I skimmed a few gameplay videos that this is exactly what I've been looking for. Now sure why I've been holding back...

Right at the beginning, I got Titanic: Adventure out of Time vibes (you should play that game, BTW). I also got Bioshock Infinite vibes. It leans more to the latter than the former. The set decoration is great and the graphics are "high end" cartoony--but I noticed a few flaws, like waves of water appearing on dry land cause the designer or artist didn't sculpt the gameobject correctly. Ah-well. We're all human.

The Titanic vibes end quickly. Three levels and a prologue in and I've not directly spoken with any other charters...let alone seen one. So this is much more like Kona and Deliver Us the Moon--which is sad. While the game is story driven, the lack of human interaction is disappointing. I would at least like an AI companion on the level of Uncharted or Bioshock Infinite--or at the least, King Kong.

Wait...never mind--this game is giving me KING KONG VIBES!

Instead of character interaction, there's a near constant voice over from the main character. This is much improved from Kona's random narrator. I can hear the characters feelings through the voice acting, and it's more personal cause it's not narration, but self-reflection. I'm good with it.

But at the beginning it was a bit much. They knew they had about 5 minutes to get the player caught up, and they chose to use cheesy plot dumps via self-reflection. A woman with an unidentified illness has gone to find her husband who has not returned from an uncharted island looking for the cure. Almost immediately we find the husband's camp, and through the things that are left behind--including notes and letters written to the main character, we learn more about him and their backstory. This is an appropriate time to plot dump. You don't have to spill the beans right at the beginning. Just give us little hints that you pay off later.

The levels are surprisingly big. I had expected the game to be open world. It is not. But each level is of fairly decent size when there's not much to do but walk, look, and solve the occasional puzzle. The size does play into the "exploration" side of things--but, as I said, there's not a ton to do yet.

The first area had some things to look at, but there were only about two puzzles. They were fairly straight forward, and didn't seem "big enough" to define the end of a level. But there's some interesting cultural explorations about Polynesian tribes. I assume they're right. Better than how King Kong handled tribal representation at least.

The second level, the Camp, had a little more going for it. I was stumped for a little bit on a puzzle and wished the game had given me a few more hints along the lines of Uncharted. But I got it figured out. I think the struggle was that I was 95% correct in my solution and the only response I got was, "I don't know how this works or what it's for." Thanks game. thanks.

Story wise, it's ok. It's got all the ingredients of a good mystery. But like Kona and Deliver Us the Moon, everything is past-tense. It's all already happened. While it makes for a fun mystery (which I why I love Resident Evil games), there's nothing happening NOW except that I'm solving puzzles (which Resident Evil always has a now-plot). And maybe if there was more to the puzzles that would have helped...

As mentioned, there's few puzzles to solve compared to the level size. I'm nearly halfway through the game already, and I've only solved about 4 puzzles. Resident Evil could get away with this because they had supply scavenging and combat to balance the gameplay. I prefer this game's no-combat rule, but that does mean it needs more puzzles. That's also something I was expecting to see more. I think Kona gets away with fewer "puzzles" because it's an open world. There are few moments that are strictly puzzle--it's about exploring and figuring things out. There's also a survival element. So Call of the Sea just feels a little more barren.

I also learned that I probably wasn't setting my PC to improve performance speed before. I started to notice slowdown on my laptop and got disappointed. This thing is supposed to be as powerful as a Playstation 4 Pro--and that's pretty good. But I think I needed to tell it to go into performance mode, cause it suddenly got better and the fan went into overtime.

Despite some of my dissatisfactions, I am enjoying it. It's similar to the game I made for my wife, here (except I have character interactions). And it's kind of a chill game, so I could see myself playing through it like an afternoon hike, or something...