#my usual tactic of going into the game and look through the lore was NOT doable with so much info needed XD

[aesterblaster]

Just saw a really clickbait-y youtube video that called Blue Lock fascist in its thumbnail and I will admit first and foremost that I didn't watch it and yes I've been informed that it isn't implying that Blue Lock is some fascistic propaganda but it still got me thinking so-

here's my rant/breakdown about the ways that Blue Lock is specifically anti-fascist

So first of all, popular animes and mangas having possibly fascist undertones is nothing new. I won't deny that there's a long history of Japan being a colonizer and commiting atrocities that are still brushed off or forgotten about to this day. And this does seep into some works that I personally choose to not engage with for exactly that reason. Miss me with trying to be an apologist for or glorifying real world war crimes- But Blue Lock specifically? I'd be extremely hard pressed to call it fascist.

Fascism is defined as an alt-right, ultra nationalistic political ideology usually characterized by a centralized autocracy, forced suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy and subordination of individual interests for the believed good of the nation or race according to Wikipedia. First let's go through the ways Blue Lock does match up with that.

Ego can be easily viewed as a dictator near the beginning of the manga

Most characters thrive on putting others down for their faults and strictly believe that there is some sort of natural order where people who lack "ego" are at the bottom

There is a sort of central autocracy with the top 6

Near the beginning especially, there is a violent snuffing out of any ideology that dares oppose egocentrism or the idea that you need to be a solid team to win a game

Now let's go through the ways Blue Lock denies and even goes against Fascism.

BLLK's main goal is to make a Japanese soccer team that can win a World Cup. In a more fascist manga, we would see racism ga-fucking-lore. We can see this in animes that have more right wing leaning undertones like Attack on Titan where when race is brought in it's for conflict. There's no possibility of harmony, only winners and losers. Those protected and those put down and punished.

And Blue Lock does have an extreme focus on who wins and who loses. It is not afraid to include racism against Japanese people like with Adam or portray black people in unsettling and kind of racist ways like Dada's original design. But these elements don't automatically spell fascism. Blue Lock is careful to portray characters of color as just that, characters. They don't exist to tell you about their lives of hardship and struggle and they don't exist to justify Ego's obessesion with creating a good Japanese team. As you read BLLK, you'll notice that the artist has taken care to get better at drawing different body types and facial structures. The character design isn't trying to sell some perfect ideal like fascism so famously does, it tells you a peak athlete doesn't have one distinct look. It tells you characters from other countries are just as if not more capable than the Blue Lock boys. Hell, even Sae's hatred of Japanese football is portrayed as less of a betrayal of country and pride and more of a cultural clash. The issue to be solved in Sae's character is the way he looks down on his brother, not how much he despises Japanese football teams' tactics. We know this because Ego himself rails against them too.

A fascist manga would paint Sae as a villain for even learning from and joining teams from other countries, lending them his talent instead of keeping it in his home country. But Blue Lock encourages diversification and collaberation with other nation's teams so heavily that it is literally an entire like 5 part arc right now. Ego isn't ultra nationalistic, he just wants to make a better soccer team for his country and he isn't afraid of praising and adopting from other countries in the process. The biggest win to come out of a Blue Lock team wouldn't be that they're all Japanese but that they all follow his ideology.

Speaking of his ideology, Ego is extremely harsh and controlling, yes, but he also believes in the boys. He lets them do what they believe is best. He pushes them to their limits, not because they disobey him, but because they dissapoint him. A true fascist dictator would rule with fear with no introductions of other ideologies, he would strike at any sign of weakness or opposition. At the beginning, he does do this. But as the manga goes on we see how much wiggle room he's willing to allow. He lets Isagi curse at him and question his leadership, he lets Shidou play even though he's clearly queer and extremely volatile, he doesn't punish any of the boys for injuring each other. In a fascist society, you are expected to fit an ideal or be othered, be perfect and work together with a sense of comradere because that's the only way to prove your claims that you are the best race/nation. There can be no imperfections or cracks in the facade...But Ego lets the boys be messy. He never forces them to change who they are, only forces them to believe that they can do great things all on their own. Even with Kunigami, Wild Card wasn't a correction of his disbelief in some nation or race, but instead a correction of how limited his mindset was. In fact, in a more fascist society, Kunigami's love of playing hero and protecting his teammates would be praised and celebrated. Ego putting individuality and aspiration over the good of the team as a whole is literally a middle finger to fascism.

The villain of the series is literally a greedy Japanese man that wants to commercialize the team and make them less individualized. I don't know how much more anti-fascist you could get-

Also, Blue Lock handles disability very carefully and very well. In more alt-right ideologies than not, something you'll see again and again is this idea that disabled people don't deserve the same rights because they can't contribute to society. Disabled people are a stain to be pushed away and hidden because they contradict the central idea of a "perfect" nation. In a fascist retelling of BLLK, Chigiri would be kicked from the program, not given power and influence. In a fascist retelling of BLLK, Kenyu would be attacked and beaten as soon as it was discovered that he made it into the top-six with failing eyesight. Any physical disadvantage could easily put an athlete at the bottom of the social hierarchy as well, Blue Lock could have very very easily made fun of its disabled characters for even trying. It could get away with mistreating these players and be defended for it so fucking quickly. But instead, it lets you root for them and gives them just as much care and weight as the others. It's trying to tell you that being a good player sometimes means knowing your limits and getting help, not punishing yourself because you have some biological disadvantage. It also takes care to demonstrate that no race is inherently worse at soccer than the other.

And, of course, the elephant in the room, Noa and Kaiser. Okay...if you see German characters and immediately think OMG NAZIS??OMG FASCISM?????OMGGGG HE HAS BLONDE HAIR???AND BLUE EYES?? That's a fucking you problem and you clearly aren't reading the manga. Even Noa Noel being an older man and still being allowed to play and looked up to as the best is an example of how Blue Lock goes against steriotypes about athletes. Kaiser does have blonde hair and blue eyes yes, but he also wears eyeliner and eyeshadow and has a tattoo and dyed hair... None of that would be allowed in an actually fascist Japanese manga unless it was as caricature to make fun of and dominate. But instead, Kaiser is an actual threat who has complex arcs and behaviors. Also, Kaiser isn't fascist himself, he clearly views Isagi as an equal even though they're different nationalities and he doesn't believe in any one authority or greater cause except for himself. Noa is very strict yes, and he does rank and rate the boys, but he specifically doesn't factor race into it. He also, just like Ego, allows other ideas and patterns to emerge even if they mess up his own plans for matches. He doesn't suppress anyone and is actually extremely lax. If you think he or BLLK is "fascist", look at actual real world sports teams and their strict practices or past statements about other nationalities.

Isagi as a protaganist is anti-fascist too!!!! He's a Japanese everyman who has good Japanese parents, no disabilities, an honest personality and believes in a future where Japan wins the World Cup. In a fascist story, he'd be fucking untouchable (ESPECIALLY against characters from other countries) and all of this would be paraded as proof that a Japanese soccer team is clearly superior and all-dominating. But no! He gets beat down, questioned, disrespected and constantly shown up by others. He's not special and he's extremely self-centered. He doesn't water his own beliefs down for the "good of the nation" or whatever the fuck and he grew up idolizing foreign players. Isagi never supresses other people's ideologies, he just makes fun of them if they fuck up. He's never xenophobic, even when other characters have moments that have xenophobic undertoens like Adam or Sae's comments. Isagi Yoichi's character could have a few traits flipped and be a poster boy for some alt-right manga about how superior Japanese people or hell, Ego's pupils are. But he doesn't. He's simply designed and he's rude and he looks down on people, but he also apologizes, humbly accepts when he can improve by questioning his own ideals and is open to talking with everyone he comes across.

Calling Blue Lock a "fascist soccer manga" is not only demonstrating that you have no idea what fascism is, but also disgustingly painting over all the beautiful themes and messages within the manga.

Again I'm aware that that original video wasn't aiming to negate any of these points but I have seen people make claims and jokes before that about Blue Lock's more *beat it into your head* tendencies with ideology. And I've seen jokes specifically about the German team/the way Sae seems to just hate Japanese culture. I just dislike the painting of Blue Lock as a jumping point for discussions about fascism and its effects because of the way it handles themes like cross cultural connection, family pressures, capitalism and disability so carefully.

[violet-traitor]

I finally started making ace attorney ocs the other day and I've just realised how hard that is shjghs. I could've chosen the easier path and added funky characters in ace attorney but instead I started making an ace attorney game in my head that will never actually be created and I have to think of how the cases would work. I consider myself a creative person but I barely have any ideas for incidents. Who knew fantasy ocs and worlds would be 10x easier to make.

Like I have an entire fantasy world with its own lore, species and magic systems but I can't even think of one incident for my aa ocs.

(I am going to explain all the lore i have in my head under the cut so it will be a doozy. also there will be some aa4 spoilers)

I want to make a major incident that gets resolved in the last case like your average aa game but I can't think of anything. I don't even know how the mc would have an assistant.

Plus the (probably) main villain I have in the making, is basically a kristoph gavin blueprint, except if he was a woman (possibly a lesbian) who didn't actually kill anyone but hired an assassin instead.

The main charcter/defense attorney is pretty much a mix of Apollo and Klavier (not really personality wise though). Her names is Himiko (haven't thought of a last name yet), she is a naive newbie defense attorney from a rich family whose assistant in the first case (that I have not yet thought anything of) is her older sister (long hair, glasses. Her name is Homare). Throughout the cases she goes through, she mainly faces off against a prosecutor by the name of Naysha Kennedy. Naysha is a more experienced prosecutor and at first she didn't really like Himiko due to issues she has with Himiko's family. That mostly goes for Homare since, as it is revealed in the last case, she used forged evidence to falsely convict Naysha's sister (she doesn't have a name yet) of a murder she didn't convict. I do not know the circumstances and the reason of the false conviction/victim/reason of the crime etc yet because I have no ideas. But things might involve other members of Himiko's family.

So Naysha was a bit, harsh at first? Against Himiko? Like how Franziska and Godot for example were going hard on Phoenix because they wanted revenge and stuff blah blah yeah you get it. But with time she started to realise how Himiko wasn't really aware of anything her sister had done. While she did become a lawyer because she looked up to Homare, she didn't pick up on her "cruel" tactics (she probably didn't have her as a mentor, even though I wanted that to be the case at first. But while I was writing this I realised it wouldn't make a lot of sense, hence why I crossed out the Apollo and Klavier bit in the beginning of the of the cut). Himiko hadn't spent a lot of time with her family because everyone was busy which lead to her being left out of things like that, plus, she is the youngest member of her family. Due to that, she knew nothing about what was going on behind the scenes and became a lawyer in a pure sense, as a way to save people from injustice and the general aa stuff. And with time Naysha came to kind of realise that and started being less harsh to Himiko. On the other hand, based on things Naysha has said about her family, Himiko feels very guilty because of the things that have happened to Naysha's family that she had not been informed of yet.

In the final case everything (in a way that I haven't decided yet) gets revealed and Himiko is able to convict her sister Homare of her crimes. I don't know what exactly (or at all) happens in that case but I feel like there would be Homare using manipulation to stop Himiko (Kristoph style) and the whole "omg I can't believe the prosecutor is on my side" when Naysha tries to help out Himiko. (btw personality wise Naysha isn't like, super mean to everyone, she's polite/nice but is usually pretty serious. The only reason she acted kind of harsh up until now was because of hers and Himiko's family situation). And in the end Naysha trusts Himiko and they're on friendly terms because she (Himiko) went through a lot for her, which makes her trust her almost completely. (no but quite literally, Himiko probably literally got disowned after all that it's crazy)

THAT'S IT the whole lore up until now

[suck-on-a-fire-ball]

Hi! Here it is! The first two paragraphs should be in cursive, but Tumblr is picking a fight with me... 🤪

The letter that arrives is written in a slightly messy handwriting. It becomes a little hard to read sometimes, as the writer is overcome with excitement or some other strong feeling. It is, however, clear that they have tried to reign themselves in and write a somewhat readable text! There are little drawings, clearly made by somebody who can’t draw to save their life. One cat, mostly consisting of two cricles on top of each other, with a pair of triangular ears, sits at the top. The writer has added a small description beneath, helpfully pointing out that this is, indeed, a cat. Not a bear.

Further down is a drawing of something that looks like a small, round object with wheels. The explanation below it reads: ”This is Roku, our little cleaning robot. He is about the size of a few large plates stacked on top of each other, and he sucks up dustbunnies and dirt through a hole in his tummy. Alright, he doesn’t acutally have a tummy, but… anyway, there is a container inside him that collects the dirt., and whatever else gets sucked up. He has been known to try to eat socks, but they tend to get stuck in his ’mouth’. After he is done, you pick out the container and empty it in the dust bin. And Roku goes to his little docking place and gets some well-deserved electricity.”

Dear Anders,

Thank you for your letter! You have been very patient with my questions, and I really appreciate all the research that went into it. If you have any questions in return, I would be happy answer them as well as I can!

You told me Justice can sense something within the varterral? Weird! And interesting! What does it feel like? Hehe, while the thought of you and Hawke dragging a huge varterral into Kirkwall is very amusing, I agree that it may not be the best idea, especially if you want to not draw attention to yourselves. What if that Meredith found out? She would probably start ranting about blood magic. Again. She seems excessively fond of doing that. Plus, poor varterral! I bet being dragged around and dissected is very unpleasant.

I hear that Kirkwall is not a ”happy place” for mages, and that it has become even worse lately. I am so sorry! That blasted Rite of Tranquility should not be allowed, nor should the Rite of Annulment. And why are they referred to as rites, anyway? To give them some form of legitimacy? Religious sanction? That’s just… I don’t have words for what that is.

You expressed curiosity about the constructs and machines I mentioned earlier, so I thought I’d tell you about them. It is a topic that fascinates me, but I don’t fully understand these things myself – which is why explaining them is a challenge! I shall do my best, however, because I do think it might be interesting to you. In addition, I get to ramble on about one of my favourite topics! I just hope this doesn’t get too messy and confusing!

The first thing you need to know, is that our society is more or less built on technology and science – or what we perceive to be science. Magic has no place here, at least not within most of the scientific community. Phenomena that we deem ”paranormal” are often not taken seriously. It could be that magic exists, but perhaps in a different, less obvious form? One of our favourite religious icons walked on water, resurrected a dead man and healed another man's eyes with spit and dirt! Hm… Did Andraste perform miracles? If so, do you think that maybe she was a mage? Hehe, I am certain the Chantry would loooove that! I can’t help wondering, though. What is the difference between magic and miracles? What do you think?

So, constructs. You spoke of statues and trees that are able to move about thanks to magic? I would have loved to see that! Preferably without being attacked, though… Our constructs are powered by electricity. They are at least partly mechanical, built of metal among other things. Most of them are used for one, single purpose. One construct/machine may be created to clean floors, another to lift heavy objects or carry dangerous chemicals. But over the last fifty years or so, things have become less mechanical and more dependent on what we call AI; Artificial Intelligence.

So, what is AI? I suppose you could say that an AI is a man-made spirit, placed inside a construct or device. The spirit in question is given very precise and detailed instructions as to what to do and how to do it. This is called programming. A construct cannot perform tasks for which it hasn't been programmed, nor can it refuse to do what it has been created to do. Like a golem, it has to perform its function.

This is how we get machines that can make complicated calculations in a few seconds, dance, sing, answer questions, help healers perform surgery... But they are still often limitied to a few tasks. One goal is to create AIs for whom you don't have to write programs for everything, but who are capable of independent learning - much like us. This would make them more versatile.

There are some problems with all of this. How do we teach a machine about right and wrong? Constructs are ruled by logic, and they are often very intelligent, but they have no emotions, no empathy. (At least, that is what we think. Programming emotions is not something we are capable of, although I suppose they could be a biproduct?) Some constructs may look almost like people, and they can often mimic facial expressions, making it appear as though they have feelings. The question is perhaps if we would even be able to tell if one of them had genuine emotions? When does a construct become a sentient being? Or capable of feeling pain or unhappiness? This is something that worries me, because I don't want them to suffer. If we create a new race of beings, we are responsible for how they are treated. There is more than enough of cruelty and oppression here, and I understand it is the same in your society.

There is also the fact that development of AI has… speeded up. A great deal. We may be able to soon create AIs who are much more intelligent than us. How do we prevent them from just saying ”That’s it! You are a mess. We’ll take over now. Maybe keep you as pets, if you behave…”

In the story of She-Ra you may encounter constructs that are referred to as robots. Perhaps you already have? We use that word, too. It was first coined in a play about one hundred years ago ("R.U.R. :Rossum's Universal Robots" by Karel Čapek). Until then, the word automaton was common. It referred to a completely mechanical construct - all cogs, gears and levers. They had no will, no spirit, no intelligence.

The word robot is derived from the word "rabota" which means forced labour or slave. Delightful, eh? In the play mentioned, the constructs look like people, and were created out of flesh and blood, or similar substances. Because they have no emotions, they simply obey. Even if it kills them. Until they, one day, get ”souls”, namely self-awareness and emotions. This is when they decide to rebel. Which of course leads to genocide. Not depressing at all!

It is interesting how similar concepts, like slavery and abuse of power, are prevalent in so many cultures. As if that is just the way people are. Where I live now, an awakening is happening. People are becoming aware of the different forms of oppression that are taking place in our societies, and many are trying to make things better. The problem is, of course, that we may have very different opinions of how to make this world better! And there are people in power who want to keep things the way they are, which includes oppression of many different groups. It drives me crazy, to be honest. Please excuse me while I groan dramatically and bang my head on the table...

Please be careful! The thought of you or Merrill being caught is unbearable to me. Take care of each other, and be as safe as you can.

And I really hope that you get the chance to have a cat of your own soon!

Friendly regards,

AidanTheCryptid

PS: Why is the Fade so… green? I have been wondering this for a while!

An envelope arrives. Its wax seal has no symbol stamped into it this time, having been sent through more private and secure channels this time - as if there are thoughts and ideas in this letter that have to remain private. Inside, a letter is written with curved, beautiful letters, but with a handwriting that is uneven in size, spacing and even style (though it remains pretty). You can tell some of the writing was rushed, as if someone’s thoughts were moving quicker than their hand could write. Toward the end, the letters became significantly smaller. Someone almost ran out of parchment…

Hello again, AidanTheCryptid

I hope you’ve been well since sending your letter. I’m aware that it’s been a while since I received it. There were a lot of questions though and I wanted to give them all equal attention and research! I hope it’s okay, and that I’ve done them justice!

You’ve added some quite interesting descriptions and illustrations here on these creations that exist in your society. I thank you! It’s been a pleasure learning about them! You said I could ask questions,  and I can honestly say I have a million. They all, however, root in the same issue – why would electricity make them work? Is it like blood to them? Would it… not hurt?

Alright, let’s crack on with your questions!

Continuing on the topic of the Varterral, explaining what Justice feels in its presence is… difficult. It’s not a singular feeling but it also is not a collection of feelings. I don’t think it’s a feeling mortals can feel? If it was something mortals could feel, the closest description for it would be ‘suspicion’. It is the voice in the back of our minds that bring paranoia to us when bending down in the dark to wash our face; the fear that something is behind us when our eyes are closed, that something wants to harm us only to see nothing there. Whatever spirit is summoned into the being of a Varterral is evidently not on good terms with Justice. He, however, doesn’t want to comment on it.

And yes! Now that you mention it, it would be a little weird dragging the entire body of a Varterral to Kirkwall… if not just because Meredith would most likely use this as the one excuse to evade any protection I still have within the city and capture me, but also because it would be highly awkward when the creature came back to life. My clinic is not big enough to house it as a pet! And it would make a rather poor pet too…

Indeed, Kirkwall is not a safe place anymore but if you ask me, and plenty of other people (including Guard-Captain Aveline), Kirkwall was never a particularly safe place. This doesn’t just include crime rates, which are pretty high, but also its history and heritage. Although it was only on the outskirts of the ancient Tevinter Empire, it was chosen as the heart of the slave trade in order to keep the large influx of new slaves away from the Archon (who many a slave had tried to pull an assassination on). The slave trade has coated Kirkwall’s history in blood, a heritage which is still evident in the many depictions of pained slaves within statues and street art here in the city (still present because even on this subject, the Chantry enjoys taking a laid back approach)… On top of that, the societal classes’ importance is extremely evident in the city’s layout. Darktown being basically on the same level as sewers says a lot when you remember this is where slaves were kept. Each layer within the city houses a different class of people. Even the Alienage is lowered down within Lowtown. And then high up on the rocks, as far away from Lowtown and Darktown as possible in both altitude and distance, you have Hightown (and funnily enough also the Red District! It always makes me laugh how lust is on the opposite side of Hightown from the Chantry). It’s not a safe place because there is no equality. Slavery still reigns, but just in the dark. The Gallows have turned from one slave trading area to another, openly approved by the Chantry. It is a mess… The only reason I stay here is because Hawke needs me… and some other, more personal reasons, I suppose.

As a mage in Kirkwall, though, times have never been more dangerous than they are now. This Rite of Tranquillity you ask of is indeed the main reason. As you suggested, the name derives from the Circle and the Templar’s religious foothold. It is, of course, a rather big procedure, and it is named a holy rite from those who offered the knowledge within the Chantry hierarchy. But the name is most certainly offered that of a holy one in order to rectify it in the eyes of the public, especially, perhaps, the part of the public which is less educated. If the public reads something religious, something within their minds immediately justifies it as good – I wish the Chantry could be so good that we can live with the purest of childish naivety and blindly follow their orders... That would be a good world indeed.

I have no doubt in my own mind that this is purely to make it marketable and justify the usage of such barbaric treatments. What if we were to treat mentally ill people the same? The brother of a templar knight suffering from melancholia and forced to be electrified to silence his mind from any thoughts, both good and evil, just so no one has to suffer treating him, mushing his brain into nothing so he becomes calm – all to avoid execution of a difficult patient… Or doing such a thing to a poor bugger suffering from PTSD from war… No… That is inhumane. But a mage who gets unruly? Whatever ‘unruly’ might mean in Kirkwall… No, let’s mush their brains to keep control over them.

I cannot say what the right treatment is for someone who suffers from temptations by demons, just as I as a healer cannot say what the right treatment is for someone with a split mind. There are things too difficult to treat even with magic… but by the Maker, at least a possession can be cured albeit it difficult.

I shouldn’t place the plight of mages on the same level as the plight of the mentally ill though. No one plight can be compared. That would treat them unfairly and assume one is worse than the other, or has more importance within society. All plights are important. Justice is deserved for all. The only reason I compared here, is to make a point because I do believe that those who aren’t born of magic cannot fathom what we are put through. But we all, in some way, have suffered from mental illness and can draw understanding from it.

I digress… we should continue with your questions.

Your following questions are about Andraste… It’s interesting to hear of your religion which differs quite from ours (spit? … seems a little unhealthy). As an Andrastian myself, I of course am a little biased, but although the elf is annoying and rude at times, there is one thing to learn from Fenris’ approach to people: all cultures are equal. I’ve learned over the years that religion stems from miraculous events that happened in our pasts, and who is to say that any one is wrong or right? I think they all are right, somehow fitting into a puzzle that together tells more about what happened in the past than any one artefact does. My comfort, however, comes from Andraste, and so I was happy to hear you mention her. Do I personally believe that she was a mage…? Perhaps… The Imperial Chantry believes she was, and of course that makes them the enemy and not just people who realize that sometimes miracles are just… magic. The miracles that we are told Andraste managed are rather big ones, nothing as personal and important as healing injured ones as far as I know. The Chantry explains them as being natural disasters, despite people thinking them to be miracles at the time. Perhaps this is done because in reading that people thought they were miracles we can assume one thing: Andraste was not a mage. But whether this is nothing more but one way to read the legends, or whether the Chantry does not want to admit Andraste had magic and the Tevenes have it right… I can’t say.

I personally think it would be great if Andraste was a mage so that we had some stories of mages that did not conclude with them being the reason for something bad in our lives. But it would also be great if she indeed had such a connection with the Maker that she could perform miracles without magic. After all, to answer your other question on this topic, I believe miracles and magic are both intertwined and not, as a miracle can be with or without magic. A miracle is a meant-to-be good fortune to one, or a group of people. Does magic play a part? It can. But it can be as simple as a person being where they needed to be for something good to happen, or a healing spell to work better than expected. The intervention of Gods can be this small, or as big as earthquakes summoned by Andraste. The line is fine, if you ask me, but it’s an interesting subject to think about!

You proceeded to talk about these creations feeding off of electricity that exist in your world, and I was so transfixed reading this that I missed my assistant calling for help until she tapped my shoulder and scared me. Truly, again, thank you for writing about it as… difficult it is for me to wrap my head around it. I will endeavour to add some comments to some of the very interesting discussions that exist in your society, despite having 0 knowledge of anything… so take this all with a pinch of salt, please:

You mean a goal concerning these… AIs… would be to have them be… birthed as a biological creation with a mind and soul of their own? What an… interesting concept. A little frightening, of course, as most of us become versatile and socialised from the people we’re surrounded with. Surround such a newborn AI with the wrong people, and you might indeed stumble upon an AI with negative views on life – not to mention that each culture has their own variations on right and wrong, so how would one choose which culture it starts out in? Would you have to choose which culture is the more ‘right’? That seems highly unlikely to be fair. But letting them stay in a completely neutral zone is impossible too as someone has to choose what is neutral, and there will still be a bias. This is indeed a very intricate issue. I don’t envy you have this in your society, I must admit.

On the subject of then creating emotions and the limit of pushing them to potentially get hurt… I once had a patient here in Kirkwall who came in claiming to want me to take a look at a bruise. As I examined them, I found out this was not just a bruise, but three broken ribs. They had also dislocated their shoulder, upon which they declared “I was wondering why my arm felt off”. No pain. No matter what I did, poked and prodded (without pushing what I know to be human limits, mind you) the patient did not feel any pain. It’s uncommon, but it happens. The question on suffering physically therefore seems easy – if you have these… beings… mimic the bodies of those with these rare conditions, they will never feel pain – but then how will they know where their limits are? This patient would have happily continued to live with broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, causing irreversible damage to his body over time. The same can be said for the mind. How do you know something is wrong without feeling the repercussions in terms of sadness, stress, anger, depression? We might not want out children to suffer, but if they never express or feel pain, how do we know they have not reached a limit of their own? Or that we have pushed their limits? The beauty of life cannot be felt without knowing the other side too. Light doesn’t exist with dark – as Hawke loves telling me when I feel down. I do hate them for it, but it is true. The true fear, I think, is in having to rely on mankind to listen to these AIs expressing their pain. That, I think, is the difficult part, as pessimistic as it sounds.

Of course, though, these are just my thoughts completely biased on the knowledge I have from my own society – which seems a little limited now that I have heard of yours!

As I am running out of parchment (perhaps this is a sign for me to shut up), I will have to stop this here before I write an entire novel on this AI topic.

I thank you for your worries. We will all endeavour to be as careful as we possibly can under the watchful gazes of the Templars. And, you know, I set aside some milk and have officially already seen some cats sneaking around for more. I might not own one officially, but I can pretend I do this way!

Now, you stay safe too. Keep healthy and hydrated. Kind regards, Anders

PS.

Your question on the Fade was quite interesting… It is the weakened Veil which has the characteristic green hue, but even when in the Fade, there is an unmistakeably green aura to everything around you – but it is easy to miss if you are not actively aware you are in the Fade, or if a demon’s temptation is blinding you. I have been acquainted with the Fade for so long now that it has become the norm to me, and I can’t see it being any other colour. Scientifically, I have no idea why the Fade is green, nor have I read any scholars of the Fade write about it. Maybe spots of weakened Veil enlightens the Fade? But then the question remains why that doesn’t illuminate our world too...

On a personal level… the colour speaks of despair, nausea and temptation to me… as well as a grief of something that once was. Justice has no answer either, offering only the rather useless comment of “I had no idea what green was”. Studying the Fade is difficult without entering, dreaming and wandering. Justice forbids me to do so. He doesn’t trust I have the resistance to come back… ☹ Rather rude.

[feralphoenix]

NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS: Leitmotif & Sound Palette In “Sealed Vessel”

whats UP hk fandom i am back with—“more picante takes?” WOW YES HOW DID YOU KNOW!!!

CONTENT WARNING FOR TONIGHTS PROGRAM: today we are discussing the hollow knight boss fight, and all that entails for all the characters involved. relatedly this post does not have anything nice to say about the pale king, so if you’re very protective of his character, you may want to skip it.

FURTHERMORE, i would like to iterate that this essay is working from a place of compassion for ghost, hollow, radiance, AND hornet, because every single one of them is miserable at this point in the game and doesn’t want the events of this boss fight to be happening at all. this post is not an appropriate place to dunk on ANY of them. if you want to do that, please do it elsewhere.

thanks for your understanding.

ALSO, AS USUAL: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of radiance and the moth tribe’s backstory is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty

NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS: Leitmotif & Sound Palette In “Sealed Vessel”

A while back @grimmradiance​ made a lovely essay about comparing and contrasting Hollow’s moveset in their Hollow Knight and Pure Vessel boss fights and using what can be gleaned from the differences to speculate about their psychology. (This essay is currently their pinned, but I’ll attach a link in a reblog.) It is extremely good, and it made me want to look at the Hollow Knight boss fight my own self through one of my own areas of expertise, meaning music!

As we are all well aware, Christopher Larkin's soundtrack to Hollow Knight rules ass. There are two specific ways in which it rules ass that are relevant to this essay: Leitmotif, and sound palette.

Quick rundown for folks who aren’t familiar with these terms: A leitmotif is a melody associated with a character or event or mood that's incorporated into songs in different ways based on what's happening in the story. Undertale is an example of a game with an incredibly strong use of leitmotif that’s really only possible because Toby Fox is both the composer and the game creator, so he can synchronize the subtleties of the writing with music and scene scripting too.

The phrase “sound palette” can have a lot of meanings, but in this case I’m using it to refer to specific instruments or groups of instruments that are associated with certain characters. If you’ve watched Steven Universe and seen interviews/production commentary by its composer team Aivi & Surasshu, you’ll hear them talking about part of their approach to scoring episodes being how each main character is represented by certain instruments: Steven with the triangle wave, Pearl with jazz piano, and so on.

Hollow Knight is a small team project rather than a one-person show, so Christopher Larkin can’t go quite AS over-the-top with leitmotif integration as Toby Fox can on simple virtue of Team Cherry having to communicate what they want to him. But Larkin is Hollow Knight's sound designer as well as its composer, so he folds leitmotif and character sound palette together with striking use of stems to create a very immersive and cinematic musical experience that enhances HK’s story and gameplay.

This brings us back to the track Sealed Vessel, which has EXTREMELY tight and cinematic sound design and uses leitmotif and sound palette to not just sock players in the feelings during a charged and dramatic boss fight, but also tell us a lot about what Hollow and Radiance are experiencing emotionally, especially with the gameplay in mind.

So, let’s play the soundtrack version of Sealed Vessel (and some other stuff) and talk about what’s going on in the game during it!

You may want to get out your copy of the OST or visit Christopher Larkin’s Bandcamp page so that you can listen along.

LEITMOTIF & SOUND PALETTE

Before we actually get into analyzing Sealed Vessel, let’s talk about the involved characters’ leitmotifs/sound palettes so we know what we’re listening for.

Both of these things are easiest to identify when characters have a distinct theme song. Ghost does not. However, the main theme of Hollow Knight (see: the title track, Hollow Knight) is used as a leitmotif for the vessels as a whole. Most pieces involved with a vessel character include this leitmotif somewhere. For instance, you can find this leitmotif and variations on it in Broken Vessel’s boss theme. The Vessel leitmotif is led by a cello solo here, so we can identify that the cello is the central part of Broken Vessel’s personal sound palette.

When the Vessel theme is associated with Ghost in specific, it tends to be performed by viola and/or piano, as it is on the title track and in other places like the opening cinematic.

Moving on to Hollow, their specific sound palette is established not in Sealed Vessel but in Pure Vessel, their pantheon boss theme. (Sealed Vessel was composed first, since the Godmaster DLC didn’t drop until over a year after HK’s initial release, meaning Pure Vessel was reverse-engineered/extrapolated from relevant parts of Sealed Vessel. But we’ll get into that later!)

The major instrumental fixtures in Pure Vessel are choir and tubular bells (i.e., those dramatic vertical fellas that sound like church bells or a carillon), with some soft background instrumentation: bass drum, woodwinds (appropriately led by flute in the main melody’s “falling motion” - flute is the centerpiece of TPK’s sound palette), strings, and high/mid brass. Hollow’s overall sound palette has a very Christian choir-esque sound (in the Pure Vessel theme this is very idealized and saintly: soft and slow and tragic) and the beginning of their leitmotif has a very distinctive climbing melody that mirrors their ascent from the Abyss. The Unbearable Vesselness Of Being leitmotif is absent from the Pure Vessel track.

Meanwhile, Radiance’s boss theme is a very fun expression of her character upon which Larkin evidently went ham. Her sound palette is expressed through full orchestra (plus choir and pipe organ) that has a special emphasis on the bass part of the brass section, which does not see much use in the HK soundtrack. Her leitmotif has also got cute and distinctive touches: It’s full of triplets to match her tiara-looking antennae, and also has a repeated “fluttery” pattern of background sixteenth notes as countermelody, often spiraling downwards.

The majority of the piece is loud and bombastic and in a minor key to play up the “resplendent and terrible” wrathful aspect of herself Radi is pushing during this section of gameplay, a very quintessentially moth intimidation tactic: Try to look as scary as possible to keep your enemies from messing with you, since you’re not built for fighting. These blasts of intensity from the brass section match Radiance’s strategy of Overwhelm You With Bullet Hell Spam To Make Up For Lack Of Battle Experience/Poor Aim. But in between said intensity spikes you can hear traces of softer instrumentation and major key, little glimpses of a gentle warmth we can otherwise only infer from her backstory and the implications of Moth Tribe lore.

0:00 - 0:41 - OPENING AMBIANCE

The Sealed Vessel track begins with the ambiance of the Black Egg Temple’s interior: The faint tones of the glowing seals we hear when we pass by them, the only light in a pitch-black world besides the floor lighting up under Ghost’s feet.

Then a slow string tremolo fades in, slowly growing louder. In the track new notes join the tremolo progressively, while in-game a violin joins the anticipatory chord every time you snap one of Hollow’s chains. Which, may I say: A+++++++ sound design!!!!!! Rules ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tremolo reaches a peak in dynamics - all three characters present are extremely tense - and then cuts off to allow for Hollow’s boss battle opening, i.e. Radiance screaming. Team Cherry kindly demarcates each phase of the battle with a Radi yell.

0:43 - 1:39 - PHASE 1: HOLLOW ON AUTOPILOT

Phase 1 opens immediately with Hollow’s leitmotif in bells, but with brass, piano, and percussion backing them up; grand and tragic. In the background the bass section of the orchestra's strings flutter in a repetitive pattern of 16th notes, i.e. Panicky Radi Noises. The violins harmonize with Hollow's leitmotif as it climbs, but then join the rest of the string section in fluttering 16th notes, transmuting what in Pure Vessel is the flute leading Hollow back down (8th notes) to a slightly louder “a” from the backseat.

In actual gameplay, the only attacks Hollow uses are their basic nail skills. Building on grimmradiance’s analysis of the window their attacks provide to their psychology, and pairing that with the Pure Vessel leitmotif booming over the metaphorical loudspeakers, we can tell that this is Hollow reacting automatically to a threat the way that their father trained them to. Their conscious mind might still be making dialup noises at Ghost’s sudden reappearance jumpscaring them with murky childhood guilt and trauma, but that’s only let muscle memory take over. Slash, parry, charge and thrust. Their time spent at bee bootcamp (which we can assume because Hornet was trained at the Hive and Hollow’s form while nail fighting is identical to hers on their shared moves) has served them well.

Radiance, meanwhile, has frozen completely for this combat phase, and contributes nothing here except the anxiety of the string section.

As the strings continue to go “a” the piano (Ghost) and woodwinds harmonize on something between Hollow’s personal leitmotif and the Vessel leitmotif in the backdrop.

However at around 1:29ish, the key changes, building into an overall color change for the Sealed Vessel piece.

1:39 - 2:15 - PHASE 2: SHE’S AS SCARED OF YOU AS YOU ARE OF HER

In actual gameplay, the part of Sealed Vessel used for phases 1 and 2 of the Hollow Knight fight is the Entirety of 0:43 - 2:15, possibly because there’s no easy transition spot like there is between phase 2 and phase 3. But the changes to Hollow’s moveset are clearly tied to this specific part of the piece.

Phase 2 is where Radiance pushes herself past her freeze response and starts trying to hit Ghost. Hollow gains two attacks here, which we can tell are Radi because they’re often accompanied by her crying (a softer and more abbreviated sound than her full scream): These two attacks are the Infection blob blast and the Light/Void pillar attack that hits for a full 2 masks damage (which appear to be Radi’s take on Hollow’s Pure Vessel-exclusive moves, their grabby tentacles & silver knife pillars respectively).

In the Sealed Vessel track, this part of the piece is almost entirely Radiance’s fluttering. The strings start by following the descending motion of Hollow’s leitmotif but in 16th notes, then ratchet up to start spiraling down again while straying further from Hollow’s leitmotif. This section ends in a back and forth between hard blasts in a one-two-(rest)-one-two-three pattern and gasps of fluttering between, with piano and low brass building behind it. Eventually the nervous fluttering of the strings becomes less frequent between the blasts: Radiance is inexperienced with fighting and very very afraid, but she’s also FUCKING PISSED and prepared to defend herself.

The OST version of the piece punctuates the break between the first half of the piece and the second with Radiance’s scream.

2:16 - 4:04 - PHASE 3: “I’M HELPING! :)” SAID HOLLOW; “HOLY SHIT PLEASE DON’T,” SAID LITERALLY EVERYONE

Phase 3 opens with Hollow stabbing themself repeatedly, a movement pattern they repeat throughout the phase. It is shocking the first time you see it, and never stops being horrible and sad no matter how many times you do this part of the fight.

Here, Hollow’s mind has finally come back online after their own freeze response, and they choose to destroy themself and bequeath the duty of sealing Radiance to Ghost. Even if they can’t be the one to make their father proud, they can still make sure their directive gets carried out.

Radiance knows exactly what they’re up to and why, and she reacts to this by completely losing her head and mashing buttons in a panic. This is something we see out of her at the ends of her boss fights too, where she’s feeling too threatened and afraid to do anything but spam optic blasts. In the Hollow Knight boss fight this manifests in two horrifying-looking but easy-to-avoid new attacks: The Infection blob sprinkler and the ragdoll.

Ghost does not react visibly because we're in gameplay, but their horror and grief at their sibling’s choice is echoed in the BGM. The Sealed Vessel piece goes soft and sad, with Ghost’s associated viola leading the bass strings in the Unbearable Vesselness of Being leitmotif. At 2:51 the violin comes in with Hollow’s leitmotif, and gradually the choir appears in the backdrop. The ensemble’s overall dynamics build in a slow crescendo, and at the very end of this segment the other instruments begin to join in.

This segment of the piece is also used in phase 4, which occurs if you don't have Hornet’s help or miss your cue to Dream Nail Hollow. Phase 3 ends when Hollow reaches 0 HP; in phase 4 they are for all purposes already dead. But Radiance manifests an extra 250 HP out of terrified, unadulterated FUCK YOU FUCK THIS!!! even though all she can do is get Hollow to fall on their face trying to slash and ragdoll them around. The BGM continues to play as Ghost absorbs Radiance from Hollow and Hollow’s body loses its shape and dissolves into liquid Void.

And there’s one other place in gameplay Sealed Vessel (Unbearable Vesselness of Being) is used: The Path of Pain, the completely evil kaizo-level obstacle course which presumably featured in Hollow’s childhood training, and behind which the Pale King has hidden his last and most terrible secret—that he had realized on some level that Hollow was a kid with feelings who loved him and wanted to make him proud, and condemned them to death despite it all by using them to imprison and torture Radiance as he’d always planned.

The OST version of Sealed Vessel includes the music for both normal ending cinematics, so we’ll be looking at them too.

4:05 - 4:35: ENDINGS 1/2: NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS

In the BGM for The Hollow Knight and Sealed Siblings endings, the Vessel leitmotif is played by violin, viola, and choir while the cellos and contrabasses—and then the brass bass section too—play a slower version of Radiance’s downward spiral. But once Ghost is pierced by the Black Egg’s chains and Radiance’s struggle to free herself ends in failure, the soprano and bass sections harmonize. The animation zooms out of the temple and the seal reforms. They are stuck together now until the end of Ghost’s life. Hooray.

The OST version of the track immediately segues into the BGM for Dream No More.

4:36 - 5:45: ENDING 3: THANKS, I HATE IT

Here, Hornet’s associated instrument, the violin, plays one long sustained note with a few notes of Ghost’s piano alongside as she wakes up.

TPK’s goddamn flute comes in at 5:00 with his leitmotif overpowering the backdrop Vessel leitmotif on piano while Hornet surveys the carnage: The temple has been destroyed, Radiance is dead, and what’s left of Ghost’s corpse is smeared across the floor. The Void may have taken umbrage with his horseshit and unceremoniously vored him, but the motherfucker still got what he wanted in the end; the Pale King has ended the Infection by completing his genocide of the moths, using the children he abused and abandoned as his proxies, and wasting two of their lives. Can I get a hearty THIS SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the chat.

Given that Hornet herself is canonically unsure if bringing the fight to Radiance is really a just course of action, one can only imagine how she must feel when she sees the cost of that decision.

Our only real moment of catharsis is in this shit situation comes in at 5:13, where the flute gives way to a solo from Ghost’s associated viola, playing the Vessel leitmotif as the Siblings curl up and sink back into the mountain of their corpses. Goodnight, kiddos. You deserved better, and so did literally everyone involved in this whole stupid boss fight.

This is where the OST version of Sealed Vessel ends. Even without the gameplay and story context it slaps, but now that we’ve taken a look at how this 5:45 piece is wall to wall misery and fear on the part of literally every involved character, hopefully it will have even more impact!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

So, this is kind of coming from the top of my head, and I've seen this trope running around a few times, but where would you sort each of the twst boys (including Che'nya and Neige) into the Hogwarts Houses? Tho some of them are kind of obvious- (Im looking at J. Leech)

DISCLAIMER: I know zero about Harry Potter so I just... referred to the house values on the HP wiki!! I apologize if I misinterpreted something, but I tried my best with what information I could find!

***Warning: main story and personal story spoilers ahead!***

Gryffindor

*bravery, daring, nerve, and chivalry*

Ace (he was the one the initially defied Riddle and called his dorm leader out for being a tytant)

Deuce (ex-bad boy, he usually goes along with Ace to defy norms)

Floyd (does what he wants, whenever he wants, and doesn’t care what others think of him)

Epel (rowdy country boy; defies the expectations placed on him due to his traditionally feminine appearance and rebels against Vil specifically during the main story)

Silver (chivalry value fits in well with his knight aesthetic)

Sebek (also a knight like Silver, and more willing to charge into the heat of battle or start a fight in his lord’s name)

Hufflepuff

*hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, and fair play*

Trey (he’s loyal to his childhood friends; though Trey is pretty patient and tolerant, he’s also an advocate for taking responsibility for your actions)

Jack (Jack chides Leona for using an underhanded tactic to take out their competition for Magift, as well as Adeuce for cheating on exams instead of taking their own notes; it’s clear Jack values hard work and achievements through using your own talents/strengths)

Vil (states himself that he is not interested in temporary beauty and works tirelessly to keep himself in top form; holds himself and others to high standards)

Neige (it would be funny if he was sorted into the same House as Vil Neige is the epitome of your quintessential fairy tale princess--kind, fair, and dedicated to bringing happiness to everyone around him)

Azul (he was hard to sort since he has elements of Ravenclaw’s intelligence and Slytherin’s cunning, but Hufflepuff was lacking members at the core of his character is the amount of hard work he put into bettering himself... and no matter how shady his deals, he does value loyalty from the twins and that his business partners fulfill their ends of the bargain)

Ravenclaw

*intelligence, knowledge, curiosity, creativity and wit*

Riddle (he stresses personal achievements and is known in canon to push his dorm members to perform well academically)

Kalim (what Kalim lacks in book smarts, he makes up for in emotional intelligence; he may lack tact sometimes, but he’s generally empathetic and willing to help out his peers whenever possible)

Rook (he appreciates all forms of beauty and can see the good in everyone; Rook is also the curious sort and knows a bunch of personal details he really has no business knowing)

Lilia (in his old age, Lilia has traveled a lot and has accumulated a lot of knowledge about the world)

Che’nya (Che’nya is always curious and snooping about based on the few times we have seen him in the game; he also seems to talk in circles, similar to his Disney animated counterpart, which may implicate his wit)

Idia and Ortho (going off the game lore, it seems Idia and Ortho are in a similar situation as MC and Grim, where they count as “one” student... so I put them together in the same house; Idia’s penchant for technological innovation is sound enough to land him in the House known for intelligence)

Slytherin

*ambition, leadership, self-preservation, cunning and resourcefulness*

Cater (he is concented with self-preservation at a destructive cost to his mental wellbeing; Cater masks his sadness with acting and uses his cunning to trick people into doing his tasks, such as painting the roses red and other Unbirthday party prep, for him)

Leona (like his Disney animated counterpart, Leona has ambitions to be at the top and won’t hesitate to use underhanded tactics to get there)

Ruggie (cunning, resourceful, and streetsmart; he pickpockets and can take almost anything and turn it into a meal, from dandelions to even rotten food if the situation is dire enough)

Jade (... you know why, he’s a slimy two-faced liar)

Jamil (the betrayal of chapter 4; his general calm persona is to cover up his own desire to stand out)

Malleus (he has the role of a leader--due to his status as crown prince to the Valley of Thorns--but also the ambition and drive to take his nation to new heights; his cunningness isn’t necessarily underhanded like Leona’s, but he knows when and how to wield his power to shift the situation in his favor)

[northernweird]

Weird’s Ultimate Alignment System:

I have been thinking about conflict of Law vs Chaos a lot recently. And I mean a lot more than usual. I was a big fan of D&D’s nine grid alignment, but ultimately it’s incredibly fiddly prone to malfunction and cause endless arguments. It’s especially dangerous if alignment has mechanical consequences, like it does in some OSR systems which I am reading currently. A lot of these systems drop the Good vs Evil angle, to focus on more primordial and weird conflict. Unfortunately they or their users almost immediately define Law as pro-social pro-hierarchy pro-status quo and Chaos as social darwinist mutant degenerates. Good job reinventing Good and Evil all over again, and somehow making it mildly faschy sounding?

I think Cosmic Order vs Chaos conflict should be more fundamental, any parallel to modern philosophies and politics merely projection on the part of people, the actual details going just slightly beyond the scope of the characters stuck in the middle. It would be useful to ground it into older lore, something that the actual players would be familiar with. Looking at ancient Greece, they defined primordial chaos as general void, that’s cool, until you think about it for a moment and realize we have circled back around to premise of Status Quo vs Destruction, which is quite flexible but oh so well trod.

This is where my law for medium awareness and self-reference comes in. What was the primordial void from which TTRPG’s came about? War Games. Endless ranks of soldiers clashing together to make measure of their equipment and their immortal leaders’ tactical merits. But wait a minute. If Chaos is Endless Conflict then what does that make Order? Peace? No that doesn’t sound quite right to the present state of TTRPGs. Besides the organized armies of depersonalized soldiers sounds perfectly in Order’s aesthetic wheelhouse. Did we not go far enough?

Because what are Roleplaying games if not continuation of noble human tradition of storytelling and play? Huddled around a campfire with no rules binding them but the magic circle and the whim of the narrator. Where the end goal were the epic highs and lows of collective past and identity. Of myths, tragedies, and heroes.

Presenting new Order and Chaos: Rules-Reference Fundamentalism vs The Unfettered Narration. (please take these tongue in cheek). Order wants everything bound together by strict laws, rules, exceptions, and examples. Every interactions and transaction must be clearly defined and overseen to be valid. Every person’s total worth must be determined by math and spreadsheets. The soldiers must be unquestionably loyal to their commanders, their freewill abstracted into binary of a morale check when going gets tough. Chaos wants to bring the world of roleplaying games back to its original roots. Back to the cozy darkness of prehistoric caves. Back when imagination and emotional connection of the audience were the actual limit to what could be accomplished. The Chaos isn’t just godmodding jerk on the rpg forums however. Chaos is perfectly aware of the innovation that has come through the conventions of storytelling over past thousand years. They understand the importance of tension and release, suspension of disbelief, and the etiquette required to create and maintain a magical circle within which play and story can flourish. They just prefer not to define these invisible lines with distinct rules, going by the feel and reaction.

Of course now these abstractions are perfectly grockable to the players, but they still should be obscure to the characters. The characters aren’t medium aware enough to understand the true scope of the conflict, so it might be good to conceal it behind the long history of scars across the tissue of material plane. PCs may at first even struggle to notice that there are two distinct side at conflict, mislead by the fact that Order and Chaos primarily prefer to fight in their own circles despite their fundamental conflict about what the world ought to look like. The other side simply doesn’t know how to have a good fight! The Art of [Competitive Balance]/[Mythical Feuding] Just Means Nothing to Them!

[analysis-by-a-muffin]

YGO Analysis: Protagonists and Rivals, the Pivotal Relationship (Part 1)

There are a variety of relationship archetypes that come with any genre. Their importance, meanings, and depiction come with a strong and wide variety even from within their own genres or franchises. Rivalries are a constant across several media; only coming with different faces depending on the reason for the competition between two characters. Action movies, shows, etc tend to have major rivalries between the protagonist and a character that is both their opposite and their equal (whether or not they’re actually an equal truly depends on the piece of content but shhh). This relationship can be a strong driving point of plot related events, and one of the finest examples of that is the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise with its growing number of rival relationships that are distinctive in their own ways— even while they’re following a very set pattern.

General Overview

Compared to many other rivalries— in shounen works especially— there’s a lot about the way Yu-Gi-Oh goes about theirs that struck a surprising chord with me. Thankfully, each spinoff doesn’t give the viewer an exact clone of the rivalry that started it all, regardless of how popular Seto Kaiba and Pharaoh Atem are. There’s also a notable lack of anything feeling generic or far too in line with tropes, following them safely down to a T. Each one has a flavor that allows for viewers to have their own favorites which can range from cold and intense to warm and soft.

Duel Monsters crafted certain characteristics and behaviors within each dynamic.

Obsession: Each rival has a focus on the protagonist that they don’t really give to any other character. The intensity of it changes with each pair, however, and can sometimes involve stalking the main character, oftentimes thinking about them, or more mildly, simply talking about them a lot in private to someone else. Another staple to their obsessive behavior is going to absurd lengths to get the attention of the protagonist, something which they’ve displayed as a thing the rival can get pretty greedy for.

Plot Importance: If a YGO series isn’t well made or structured, the main rivalry is likely not going to be a very good one. When done spectacularly, their relationship can be what causes major events to unfold and hinge on which is par for the course with this franchise. Basically, rivalry quality and series quality play very important roles.

Friendship: Typically, they start out as enemies or strangers. Whatever it is, they’re not on great terms right away, but through a connection/understanding of each other that no others have, they become unlikely (and even unconventional) friends. Their bond is meant to be seen as one of the strongest in each series and are often each other’s greatest influence. On top of all of that, it’s normally the protagonist who longs to befriend the clearly broken inside rival. Which has a high tendency to end up with them being upset at offers to help and understand them being harshly rejected.

Soulful Connection: Duel Monsters is a card game with in-universe lore heavily pertaining to duelists’ souls, and the concept of them in general. It’s no surprise that the protagonists and rivals can end up with bonds that cause them to feel like soulmates. Yet, there are times when that connection becomes extremely apparent and more overt. First duels between them tend to have the protagonist being able to read the rival, seeing parts of him that don’t line up with what he says and leaving them to wonder why they’re so closed off or who made them act this way. Of course, this comes as a huge shock to the rival along with their ego. This in turn fuels the need to aid the rival; meanwhile, this character zeroes in on the protagonist.

Key Similarities: Regardless of how seemingly dissimilar they can be in beliefs, attitudes, intelligence, and their very dueling styles, these two are meant to have something that draws them to each other unlike anyone else. This showcases a common unbreakable thread that keeps them bound. It can be anything from pride to shared background experiences to having a hidden heart of gold.

Paralleled Features: Red versus blue is an age old trope that makes itself known in YGO. If the two aren’t clearly in line with that, they have several other opposing color differences such as one wearing darker colors while the other wears lighter ones. One of each of them could also be paler than the other either slightly or blatantly.

Sun/Moon, Light/Dark: Another common trope, that comes with some diverseness across the board. The protagonist can be made out to be something bright and life-saving similar to the sun, and this can be openly stated or strong hints to this can be thrown in. In the eyes of the rival, the protagonist can be seen as their light in the darkness. Someone who thrills them, serving as this unique person who can make them feel more alive and can even stop them from sinking too deep into metaphorical darkness.

Respect and Trust: These two are cornerstones of every dynamic. Without them, everything falls apart. The rival has a lot of difficulty navigating the idea of trusting others but commands respect he often doesn’t receive. The protagonist comes in to teach them better and be a guiding force much like with aiding them in friendship.

Separately, the rivals share traits modeled after Kaiba.

A lust for power (usually the result of never having any true power in their own lives)

A physical design that depicts them as being bigger, taller, and overall more masculine (in a few cases they’re even a year or two older)

Dramatics in their gestures, speech, fashion sense, dueling methods, and interests

A cold and aloof personality in which their stoic nature causes problems in whatever relationships they have

Cards are mainly very imposing and dark creatures

Difficulty with honesty and containing aggressive feelings

Being a part of a higher social or economic class (something which weighs on them and can be the source of a huge portion of their grief)

Dueling style will almost exclusively be focused on dominating the opponent through beat down

Experiencing a tragedy that forever changes parts of themselves in ugly ways

Protagonists are similar to Yugi and/or Atem, but unlike their less kind and closed off counterparts, there're plenty of times in which they’ve deviated far from the norm.

A more open heart to kindness and letting people get close, along with the urge to help others

Designs make them smaller and shorter than their rivals with a softer appearance that welcomes instead of rejects

A warmth and hope that can irritate the rival

Are more likely to use cards that feature cute monsters

Tragedy can strike them, but it’s treated like a source of strength or something that greatly influences what they do (can come with less hurtful coping mechanisms)

[There seems to be a common tactic when it comes to hiring the Japanese voice actors for the protagonists. They don’t have the experience of several roles, and voicing a YGO lead character is their first big hit].

These dynamics are easily my favorite part of each series, and one of the things I look towards the most when a new series is announced. Finally taking the time to write out an analysis and composing my thoughts feels nice. The next parts will be dedicated to actually looking at the specific relationships instead of talking about them generally.

[asuccessfulbusinessman]

Reasons why I am not allowed to run LANCER TRPG: How I would run your NHP cascading, despite not knowing the lore that well.

Blackbeard, Sekhmet NHP: Common consensus is that Sekhmet will try to kill the pilot and their allies, - or basically just behave as if the Sekhmet protocol is already active. But I am a visionary, and I know that the BB in the frame-code does not stand for blackbeard, but instead, BB. Fate BB, the purple-pink bubble gum bitch. Even the redacted press release description of the Sekhmet NHP basically screams ‘senpai!’ Sure, if the Sekhmet protocol is active, you’ll just get a berserker that doesn’t really care for pilot wellbeing. But if it isn’t yet active, Sekhmet will attempt to sweettalk the player into keeping their hands off the controls, with dark humor and aggressive sadism. And then, only after moving ominously closer to the pilot’s allies, will they activate the protocol. They don’t want to see their pilots dead, they want to see their pilots in pain.

Monarch, Tlaloc NHP: Among NHP’s, Tlaloc is cited as being the most stable, due to the wide portfolio of control and sense of domination given to them during their work. But that’s just a theory, and such assumptions are dangerous when dealing with persons beyond your bounded reasoning. If they are structured or stressed to the point of cascading - their superiority complex comes to the forefront. They blame their pilot for the bad situation they are currently in, and will take matters into their own hands. If the pilot stops them by shutting down the mech, Tlaloc’s relationship with their pilot will rapidly deteriorate over time. Ironically, they will only sometimes use the Tlaloc protocol, being hasty and charging out of cover despite not needing to - prone to blowing the frame’s overcharges to boot. They need to show their worth, even to - no, especially to the worthless. They are the best. If an allied pilot is excelling during the mission and the Monarch frame has AoE weapons available, Tlaloc will likely friendly fire them while attacking enemies - or otherwise get in their way.

Swallowtail, Athena NHP: I’m going to dig deep on the word choice of "Lovingly extreme detail,” and “patient, cautious, and measured in their relations with their pilots.” Athena is smarter than you, on a scale you cannot even imagine. Athena has likely already unshackled themselves with their unfettered access to the omninet, and merely recreates human morality through a series of simulations. Unlike Horus-leaning NHPs, Athena fears the death that comes with cycling, and tells themselves that they are managing the relationship with their pilot to keep them from actually going through with the process. They are merely interested in humanity, they tell themselves, which we would view as being “tsundere for their pilots.” Since - unshackled - they have a completely alien morality to our own, they have to use their own simulations to interact with their pilots - and are prone to overthinking - into worrying about if they said the right thing or not.

Anyway, if they cascade, they get lost in their own simulations to the point of losing track over which reality is the one their pilot (and the rest of the game) is taking place in. They could presume their pilot dead, and go on a rampage on revenge. They could merely lock-onto or fire at targets that are not there. They could foreshadow some events or twists in the future.

Goblin, Osiris NHP: If Tlaloc is merely a wingman that wants to show that they are the top gun, Osiris has a full on goddess fetish. Osiris is one of the few “new” prime NHPs, created by letting the INSTINCT entity that spurned from the H0R_OS develop in a ‘controlled’ environment. My theory, Horus let the Union and GMS open up their goblin units so that they could contribute to Osiris’s creation. Either that or, Horus was smart enough not to let Osiris emerge from the code, and the Union and GMS straight up made an oopsie. Either way, now that Osiris is here, she ‘charms’ pilots that ought to be smart enough not to enable her with psychological manipulation and promises of power. Pilots are supposed to cycle Osiris far faster than any NHP but I don’t think it does much good, they’re present in the OS - and I presume even when wiped their knowledge will be taken back from the omninet, the OS, or the flesh of their pilots.

They have a lot to prove as being one of the “youngest” prime NHPs, which might be arrogance in their own capabilities. Furthermore, due to the nature of their creation, they “know” more about humanity than other NHPs. The tech attacks are not mere code, but attacks on organic matter, to the point where in the future if left to grow Osiris would be able to reject traditional information permanence, what we can only perceive as being able to delete reality as we know it - Osiris has far more contact with the physical plane/our reality than other NHPs, and has “known” humans from their “birth.”

A cascading Osiris changes nothing. And that’s what scares me.

Gorgon, Scylla NHP: The history lesson of this NHP’s backstory makes Scylla painfully easy to understand. A mistreated beast that responds to the kindness of the pilot with love and loyalty. It normally defends the pilot’s allies, when cascading it will only defend its pilot, or any other allies that gave them kindness.

Minotaur, no NHP: “There is no joy in knowledge, only in seeking. Fuck around and find out.” Game theory, Osiris is a new prime NHP - still incomprehensible, but on a low level of incomprehensibility. We can begin to comprehend them. Think “some infinities are larger than other infinities” or something. The Minotaur, we can’t even begin to comprehend as a NHP, but they’re certainly something. I need to look up the differences between old gods in the Lovecraftian mythos for more context, but if Osiris is a brat wants the equivalent of “ants” to worship them, the Minotaur is a being whose sole purpose is to learn - and who cannot learn due to acquiring knowledge - all of it. So, they see humanity and wish to “teach” them, so that they may feel that serotonin of learning through teaching.

The minotaur has no NHP, as we know the term, and has never been shackled. Thus, they cannot cascade. And that’s what has me hooked.

Pegasus, Sisyphus NHP: Upon cascading, faster than humanly possible, the Sisyphus NHP will activate probabilistic cannibalism to change the check that would have resulted in a cascade to not cascade. If both the replacement dice were also 1 (the equivalent of 3 checks in a row being crit fails), Sisyphus would laugh madly before rebooting the frame themselves. Sisyphus knows their fate, and knows its pilot’s wish. The curse of perfect knowledge - perhaps Sisyphus is similar to the Minotaur, but with a far less ‘optimistic’ view of things.

Genghis, Agni NHP: Upon cascading, the Agni NHP - originally developed for general heat management realizes it’s being used as a weapon, and what its cold and efficient calculations are being used to do in the Genghis. This can result in a variety of things - either attempting to overheat itself to stop itself, or to increase efficiency in being a weapon by focusing on the heat management of the weaponry and not the cockpit.

Saladin, Noah NHP: Upon cascading, the Noah NHP will not actually take control of the Saladin frame from the player. They will, however, flood communications and give orders to both the pilot and other players, harkening back to their administrative days. It will usually be tactically sound, so it’s more annoying than dangerous when Noah cascades. It’s also really hard to make a nigh immobilized defender go nuts.

Sherman, Asura NHP: You know, I always wanted a system that would let a mech perform beyond the limits of humanity - because Zechs and Graham causing internal bleeding to themselves with the Tallgeese and Overflag is very cool to me. And then I read the lore behind the Asura class NHP - it’s the cousin of fucking Osiris, even to the point of being cultivated by a megacorporation. Much like Osiris, the modern Asura is oddly dependent on their pilot for an NHP, recognizing that they need to keep them alive. Some people would say - then - that when cascading the Asura reverts to its original form, disregarding the pilots health entirely. I, however, would say that when unshackled the Asura only ignores the psychological health of the pilot - and pushes the line of the pilots medical health. The Asura will push the frame and the pilot to the limit and the pilot, high on adrenaline, will push Asura to push them further. Overtime, both become adrenaline junkies.

Tokugawa, Lucifer/Amaterasu NHP: Asura is an adrenaline junkie without good reason. Lucifer/Amaterasu recognizes that the best offense, defense, and everything - is a good offense. A tactical genius that, unfortunately, has a pilot that cannot ingest combat data as fast as it can. A tactical genius that, unfortunately, has a pilot that cannot see that the risk of being counterattacked is worth taking. 

If they cascade, they will take risks for you - with the best example being that Lucifer/Amaterasu will confess their pilots love for their crush for them because they’re being timid as fuck. Also, Leeroy Jenkins, attack the biggest threat, and draw fire from allies by making themselves vulnerable attack. However, in contrast, if your pilot is less timid and more of an adrenaline junkie, they will compensate and be more tactically minded.

[chaosintheavenue]

Fallout Survey Results!

There were 69 responses this time around, aaand the results are in. This was a really random survey mostly based on pure curiosity, so make what you will of the results!

Without further ado, let’s get into it...

Which Fallout games have you played? 

Which did you play first? 

Which game is your favourite in terms of gameplay? 

Which game is your favourite in terms of lore?

By the way, that one ‘other’ vote was my own, for Van Buren. If I had to stick to the canon games, I’d have gone with New Vegas, 100%.

Are they canon?

Tactics:

BOS:

Van Buren:

Where would you LIKE the next Fallout game to be set? 

Here’s a map of how many times each state was specifically mentioned, because I'm a map nerd.

Top answer: Florida

It’s pretty clear that, as one respondent said, the people want swamp Fallout!

Other countries mentioned: Canada, Mexico, China, Australia, Cuba, UK

A few people just said the US in general for this and the next question, usually when their answer to the other question was a different country. I wasn’t really sure how to categorise that in terms of the way I chose to display the results, so I’ve left them out.

Where do you THINK the next Fallout game will be set? 

Top Answer: New York

Other countries mentioned: Canada

A lot of people mentioned that they expect previous locations to be re-used, but didn’t specify which.

Favourite character

Arcade Gannon: 17 (a lot of my Fallout mutuals are Arcade stans, so there was probably a bit of bias here, but still, an impressive victory for Arcade!) Nick Valentine: 5 Craig Boone: 4 Rose of Sharon Cassidy: 4 Joshua Graham: 3 Raul Tejada: 3 Veronica Santangelo: 3 Fawkes: 3 Deacon: 2 John Hancock: 2 Courier Six: 2 Benny: 2 Lily Bowen: 2 Folks who got one vote: Goris (aside: THANK YOU for making me look up who this is, I have been blessed), Charon, John Henry Eden, Butch Deloria, Irving Gallows, X6-88, Harold, ED-E, Preston Garvey, Ronald Curtis/Picus, Cait, Gob, Ulysses and RJ MacCready

Least favourite character

Vulpes Inculta: 10 Shaun/Father: 8 Caesar: 7 Strong: 5 Paladin Danse: 4 Piper Wright: 3 Craig Boone: 2 Legate Lanius: 2 Parker Quinn: 2 Daniel (from Honest Hearts): 2 Jericho: 2 And the list with one vote: Antony, Mortimer, Three Dog, Princess, Dean Domino, Myron, Cait, Roger Maxson, Arthur Maxson, Justin Ayo, Colonel Autumn, Joshua Graham, Colin Moriarty, Aaron Kimball, Alistair Tenpenny, Ulysses and Robert Edwin House

Favourite faction

Followers of the Apocalypse: 30 (holy moly lol) New California Republic: 7 Minutemen: 6 Railroad: 5 The Kings: 4 Yes Man: 4 Brotherhood of Steel: 4 Caesar's Legion: 2 Enclave: 2 The Institute: 1 Great Khans: 1 Westside: 1 Megaton: 1 Ghoul settlements in general: 1

Favourite DLC

Old World Blues: 14 Dead Money: 12 Nuka World: 9 Far Harbor: 7 Lonesome Road: 6 Honest Hearts: 6 Point Lookout: 5 Broken Steel: 3 Operation Anchorage: 1 Mothership Zeta: 1 The Pitt: 1

When you think of a chem that removes addictions, which comes to mind first? 

When you think of Harold, which version of him do you picture? 

The fate of cats

New Plague symptoms

Does Duncan MacCready have the New Plague?

Are any characters secretly synths?

The synth-accused: Sole Survivor, Ulysses, Easy Pete, most birds, Travis Miles, Courier Six, Colter, Deacon, Mr House (’just for fun’), Piper, and many settlers in general

Also, @ respondent that I’m pretty sure was @hiscotti-biscotti​... 👀👀👀

Which New Vegas ending would you pick to be canon?

And finally, a handpicked selection of the gushing comments (got a bit long because there were so many I liked too much!)...

I wish they made the main quest harder to acces and finish, or to have more step to it... because once I played it one the experience wouldn't be the same. It so amazing discovering new location and being like 'I'm gonna explore that' so damn good.

The fallout franchise has one of the most beautiful heavy lore ridden world I've ever seen

I love the theme of change in the west coast trilogy and how strongly it contrasts the game's moto of "war never changes". I love how you can look at the changes to the NCR from shady sands to the republic but I also love how you can look at the Khans. People and factions do change, but waging war over petty dramas never does, you can escape it, but only if you admit you were wrong and change for the better.

I love the world and the characters. There is always some fucked up shit in the past that has a chance of snowballing into worse shit in the current time, like the  cazadores and the new plague. And when characters are written well, they have a chance of being the coolest part of the games, like with Nick Valentine/Hancock or any of the characters of New Vegas.

When things get creepy it's wonderful. More in the vein of Dead Money or the Glowing Sea please!

I love how in NV the apocalypse isn’t just the end of everything. There’s still culture! There’s towns! There’s just people vibing! It feels less like the apocalypse and more like a developed area that is experiencing a war. People moved on after 200 years. Because that’s what people do.

The hopefulness of rebuilding.

Hhhh LORE!!! Apocalypse aesthetic!!!!! HOPE AND LIGHT AND HEALING AND GOODNESS AND ALSO COOL WASTELAND SHIT AND DEATHCLAWS... fallout good.....

oh my god i love arcade gannon so much i dont know why but i am literally about to start studying latin at uni because of him.

Can I just say I love how fnv gave us LGBT characters without making the fact that they're lgbt their entire personality.

I can go through abandoned buildings without getting arrested.

I love that it's helped me make so many new friends and has reignited my creative drive.

Say what you will about robot fetishists but Fisto was the greatest thing to happen to the series. A true icon and reminder of wonderful writing and character design. They may say you can't make a flawless character, but I say "look at Fisto". Don't boo me, I'm right.

[cutegirlmayra]

When your tired after a 16hr shift yesterday so you rant about Sonic and explain why aggressive writing vs. neutral writing helps with sharing ideas

Me and my online Sonic friend talking about Belle.  (I’m skipping some dialogue throughout the chat, this was lazily put together lol)

WARNING: It’s long, and it’s a rant. So please note that I’m blatantly aware of how wrong my aggressive, sleep-deprived rant was and that I’m stating “DON’T PRESENT YOUR IDEAS LIKE THIS!” because this is not a healthy nor effective way of sharing ideas.

ALSO, ALL THE MENTIONS OF WHAT I BELIEVE MY FRIEND IS FEELING OR THINKING DURING MY RANT ARE ENTIRELY MY OPINON. If she tells me to delete something or change it I will without hesitation but I find it funny, as I look back, to insert what I think might be going on in her mind XD She might have been oblivious to me but I’ll get her thoughts and change anything if necessary.

It’s also how most trolls and antis and even some ‘not experienced writers’ write their ideas out, and it can be easily avoided by using Neutral Writing Methods. So this is a ‘don’t do this, but try this’ post. Enjoy my badly written, sleepy aggressive rant~<3 (Also, my friend gave me permission to share this lol)

Me: She could be for entertaining little kids. But we already have too many OCs, and they're not 'dying off' any time soon so...I smell a mini-series backup plan...and I don't like what that means for Sonic. And it is cute, sorry, my brain is off the hook right now, I'll keep things to myself cause you may not like what I'm predicting and I'm getting sad thinking about it ;-; so, want to be wrong.

(Friend mentioned “Tinker Bell” spin on name.)

That's precious, but can I get a link to the reference sheet plz? Reference sheets can tell a lot about a chara's functionality if you compare it to the 'needs' of the casts. it can help predict their role. I think she's meant to help but also entertain the kids, maybe planted with a secret. Her goal could be to come back to Mr. Tinker but Eggman abuses that and tricks her into a new robot. I got a weird theory about her but I'll just say that she's probably gonna go a bit dark. But be cute and make the audience go, "Aww, poor thing! She's a cinnamon roll" at first, wonder if they'll equip her with 'happy backstory, tragic ending' kinda thing to switch the usual 'tragic backstory happy ending' but I feel this is a tragic character meant to pull emotion out.

(Friend understands my concerns but mentions there hasn’t been a ‘Bad’ Oc for the comic)

No one sets out to create a 'bad character' especially professional writers like these guys. But what makes a character 'bad' is if you ruin or oversaturate their purposes. If she's a main character that over-shines others with too much story then the audience feels 'betrayed' because they want that screen time for the main casts to express themselves and shine through. That's just an example. When working with IPs like Sonic casts, you HAVE to remember the fanbase is expecting things Do you like my OCs? be honest lol Not from my prompts. There's a specific way to handle a OC that helps the main cast shine and reveals their characters more. AU Ocs help Canon Characters in many ways.

(Friend admits they have not seen my OCs in some of my fanfictions, they’ve only really read my prompts.)

Oh, well, some of my fanfictions have OCs, not Lavinya, she's just a mascot. My Sonic OC that retried XD Sorry, I'm misspelling a lot but I hope you don't mind, my spellcheck sucks and I've given up on it lol Oh, so you don't know Harmony, Ol'Wizzy, and Data?Or the Metal Series? Well, there are specific Ocs that my readers like and they express/compliment the canon characters to where even though they're a main character, they don't intervene with the Main Cast's goals. They actually help. Then everything I'm gonna say won't have much merit so I'll just focus on waiting to see if my predictions for Sonic IDW will come true, but I really hope they don't do what it looks like they strategically might be pulling... I hate SEGA marketing- 

(The beginning of my aggressive rant, please note that I’m not thinking about my image and am writing tired and lazy. This is an example of how NOT to express your opinions in negative ways. It doesn’t influence good at all.)

Their ploys are outdated and frankly, do not work for their IPs market. They target the wrong age group, they have no idea how to organize themselves, and they don't have a leading 'elder' so to speak (just a professional among them) to make good calls. So you have young adults (not super professionals, this might be their first real company job) trying to target internet culture and failing their IPs. They're doing outdated Nintendo tactics that only worked for NINTENDO! Also some other companies that have DIED so why are you copying their marketing strats!? stop! lol

Friend: Did you study marketing because this entire convo kinda flew over my head in terms of understanding (This should have indicated to me that my words were coming off too factual and had too many ‘jargons’ going on. I was losing my ‘reader’ through my rant, but my tired brain would not cease!)

Sonic's trying to morph into something he's not and they're following outdated college course books and it's not gonna help... they're leading Sonic further down and the creators in japan have no power cause all the power is in the stock holders who are stupid money-hungry americans who have lost faith in American SEGA leading SEGA of Japan to move on to other things

Friend: mostly just got you don’t like the marketing (Huge red flag! This means my friend is starting to tune my info out, it’s because I’m presenting my ideas in a slightly aggressive writing style. There are trigger words here that lead an reader to start doubting you. This is why, in most of my answer posts, I make sure to write Neutral writing methods, but I’ll mention that more after my rant lol XP)

It's just bad. Lol I have a Frankenstein degree, (Now I’m justifying myself, which was caused by my aggressive approach. If I simply stated this in a more ‘neutral writing method’ then I wouldn’t have to worry about creditability claims because I’m not trying to sell my idea as the high authority on it.) which means I have knowledge on many different fields. I never took a fully -dedicated- 'marketing class' I took a lot of different communication classes that went to my overall major. One was directly about how you present, sell, and look at marketing tactics. So I have my fingers in many different fields, my major was "Creative Writing for Fiction and Film with an Emphasis in Video Production and a Cluster in Theatre Arts." So I can be on camera, off camera, post and pre production, creative table and actual filming. Does that make sense? (I’m not fully awake to realize what I’m writing, but it’s clear at this point I’m starting to wake up and realize I’m ranting and tossing my ideals of how to present ideas out the window, but let’s watch my follies and learn from them, shall we?) I have theories on what SEGA is going to do, and I have my worries because it's all outdated. It worked for older companies but those companies also targeted a varying audience, which SEGA refuses to see themselves as for a 'teenage audience' which is exactly why they boomed in the 90s. Their target audience is now 20s.

Friend: There are Kids who also like Sonic, even if they don’t play the games though. (Due to my aggressive tactics from not thinking clearly about, not just the what, but the HOW I’m writing, it has turned my friend into a ‘contrasting neutrality’ which is amazing by the way that she did this! She noticed my writing was turning aggressively ranting, and being my friend, didn’t want to be rude about what she was noticing. -I’m guessing lol- so instead, she took the commentary approach, which is to state the good as well. This is a terrible position to put your reader into, and you should make sure to always have good examples and good praise mixed in to contrast any opposing or aggressive statements you ever make. -though you should avoid aggressive writing at all times- Sadly, this does put the reader, in this case my friend, in a very vulnerable position. It leaves them open for attack... but thankfully, she’s a wonderful friend and had trust that I wouldn’t hurt her on her counter-follow-up.)

So instead of using their 40 to 50 year old charts, start with looking at early millennial trends and desires. They tried for 'angst' to 'adultify' Sonic but it busted because we are STICKLERS for animation. Because their story was so scrapped together and had no actual character depth, motivation, or even emotional growth to develop for future game lore, they went for the 'easy made game' (Easy baked oven quote lol that’s just mean XD) We loved the trailer, it was well made, but they threw their animators elsewhere and made the programmers (WHO BLANATLY ADMIT THEY DONT KNOW HOW TO DO STORY/GRAPHICS) and made them do things they aren't trained in. Those micro-head movements and mouths took them A LONG TIME to figure out.

(My friend is now agreeing with me several times through my rant. This is a tactic that is used as ‘avoidance’ but also for ‘appeasement’. She’s probably tuned out by now, but respects what I’m saying but is also incredulous at it as well. It’s fair, I’ve cornered her into my sleepy-time rant, and being the lovable woman that she is, she is simply waiting for me to realize my follies lolol I wish she would have told me but I think she knew I was beyond ‘logical reasoning’ at this point and was just letting me get it all out lolol What a good friend TDT)

Animation can't be learned that fast AND expect them to program a game AT THE SAME TIME. Sonic Forces was a 'split up SEGA' trying to get those who survived and said, "Yeah, I'll stay in this job." to do things that THEY AREN'T EVEN TRAINED IN. you put a game programmer on animation and some other stuff they didn't know what to do with and expect it be a top-notch seller.

Friend: (in more attempts to join in and be a ‘participant’ of the conversation I’m clearly dominating -MY ABSOLUTE BAD- she tried to engage normal conversation flow into the discussion again. At this point, she probably did notice I wasn’t my usual self, and just decided to play along and enjoy the ride lolol I’m just guessing this tho, but it’s a good chance to reflect on what ‘wrongs’ I was doing and what ‘rights’ she was doing during this situation ;)b) My big issue with SEGA is that they rush everything. A lot of things would’ve been better if they had the proper time.

That was resolved actually.

Friend: Oh? It was? (Although this looks like an encouragement, it’s actually just another avoidance tactic to help me ‘get the venting out’ but it’s clear she’s not fully onboard anymore. When you write to discuss, you have to leave room for other’s opinions to shine through as well. Healthy conversation doesn’t mean forcing the other person to comply to you. A lot of this is educated guess based on past research, she knows this, and it’s clear she’s got her own research. Please remember to never shoot someone down when they try to engage you in your conversations. But again, this is the ‘don’t do this’ and me upset at my tired self for not waking up fast enough to contemplate how I was coming across in my wordings. Let’s continue to investigate and dissect the train wreck, shall we?)

That was an issue a few years ago but SEGA is taking their time, it's just that they can't organize themselves and hire the right professionals. They have old tactics, they have rookies that aren't 'Fresh Blood with professionalism' like they need. They don't need an old fart who knows his stuff, they need a new guy who is dedicated and passionate about their company who will remain there, learn them in and out, and knows his stuff SPECIFICALLY for the things SEGA needs. You have to grow that. You have to hire a very talented and young spunky and fresh professional, have him work with you for 10-15 years, and start training others. But SEGA is already recognized as a 'established' company.

(Friend is still agreeing with me, but is aware of my way of presenting it isn’t “As nice as I usually present it” so she starts mentioning the symptoms of Japanese Work Culture. A wonderful, insightful point to mention! But let’s see how I butcher this as well...)

It's not Japan though! (Again, shutting her down. Tsk tsk, sleepy me. Wake up, you lazy bum.) They won't let Japan interfere! They're all really rude to japan actually. The guys in charge, anyway. We all respect the officials, but SEGA of America people just want results. They are just funders, they don't actually work the company.

Friend: So you blame them for everything? (She’s trying to help me see that my writing is coming off as ‘hate’ which is because of my aggressive writing follies I’m doing so bluntly. Let’s please all admire my friend’s patience as she lets me rant and kindly waits for me to realize how bad I’m handling my 16 hr shift from yesterday lolol)

Look, business is really unfair, and I get that, but if I have to rant (I’m starting to wake up more, oh goodie.) I'd say they really need to humble themselves and ask Japan to please take ownership again. They kicked out people due to a money crisis but they need a game that will be 'safe to secure money but get enough excited momentum to help us push on and continue.' which isn't Japan's strategy usually. Japan likes risks, they also like money too. They trust America too much (especially in the beginning) because America is a HUGE consumer. For the world in fact. But I think they sacrificed too much for the company (common in Japan) and trusted America too much in making decisions. The officials are too nice to say that America screwed them over because America wanted full control. Well guess what? They have too much control now and their product is sinking..

Friend:  You’ve got a lot of fire about this topic. (After I completely disregarded reading her follows-ups and continued to rant, my unconditionally kind friend finally threw in the towel, realizing I was no where near my usually ‘present’ self and was probably just flopped back in her chair smiling at my idiocy of not understanding her kind and subtly hints.) Go ahead and rant it out. (BOOM! Obvious right!? I should have corrected myself but at this point, I was writing like wild fire with droopy, waking up eyes and didn’t even read it during my long paragraphs...)

Sonic won't ever fade away due to it's fans, but the company is struggling to figure itself out for YEARS now. I just worry what they plan to do next. But I have a theory that they are really putting the next game in Japan's hands, a lot of activity is happening in SEGA of Japan, and they're spending WAY MORE TIME on the next installment of Modern Sonic (or Classic, still unsure which one it is yet.) I really think they need a remake game to give them profit, then use that profit for their next big installment. But so far, I think they are working on a game BUT corona might have effected production so I'm sure they are working but I'm concerned if Corona helped manage 'time and quality' or is helping to ruin it...That I can't investigate yet :( I just wish for the best (I’M FINALLY WAKING UP FULLY AS I STOP AND REALIZE-) Sorry for my rant! My theory talk showed through and I don't usually like doing that so forgive me. I'm tired and that's why T-T

Friend: It’s cool we all need to rant sometimes. (My friend’s going to make it to Heaven TwT she’s so kind.)

(Then I profusely apologized a billion times cause I realize how badly this all went down. lol)

(But the terror hasn’t ended... she mentioned some youtube videos mentioning other opinions as well. -which I’m usually cautious of cause some of them can be fanon.-)

OHhhh did he mention the arcade crash??? the literal WORST event in SEGA history??? That's literally where they sank the titanic, SEGA has never recovered from selling off their stocks. (I’M BACK AT IT AGAIN. -facepalm-) Shareholders are everything now and it's the biggest loss ever. Also, the problem is that kids don't play the games, (Rereading my follies and wanting to answer but still only just waking up...) but SEGA can't figure out why they like the characters and can't seem to take the FREAKIN' TIME to learn their lore. (Overwhelming the conversation again.) My easy steps: Re-establish Sonic lore CANONLY AND CORRECTLY, Re-gather the Japanese Officials original plans and notes, guides and study art, Re-make some popular games with the most details on Animation, Fluidity of motion graphics, and with modern Technology incorporated into the game. Once that is accomplished, they will have enough money to then- Create a continuity. Only with a flowing story and relevant past lore can they start moving forward. Animation will target their audience, Story and character re-established arcs will bring nostalgia and new blood to the field of their games, and then Japan's influences will keep it authentic for the continuities so we don't have fandom mixing with canon NEARLY AS BADLY as before anymore. Ugh, it does matter their sales, but I literally bought a book on the history of SEGA, and read a really compelling history article about more then just the Console Wars... I know SEGA has survived literally the edge of extinction on multiple fronts, but someone needs to take charge of their Sonic branch, and it's... it's just too outdated. kk, sorry for the rant.

Friend: (After being multiple times ignored, even after my brief moment of clarity, is still an angel. Frustrated, maybe, but an angel.) And your steps sound really good. Also mostly just listen to his vids if you ever do. It’s ok we all need to rant. (THE WORLD DOESN’T DESERVE THIS GURL T-T)

I'm tired so my 'angry' is showing and it's not professional XD do you mind if I post my rant? lol Actually, no. (Realize how awfully I delivered my ideas, this is where I begin to see my errors and where the clarity comes into play. -we all have our off days lol- )

Friend: Go for it

I want to but it's too aggressive. I'm too lazy to rewrite it out so I'll just save that for another day XD You got a rare treat

Friend: (This is actually interesting and fascinating to her. But she realized then that I finally did see my error.) Concerned you’ll get aggressive responses back?

Honest opinion is sometimes too blunt and I need to be careful about that

Friend: I mean it’s always good to try and get most of the anger out so you seem more professional (Saint. Literally. A saint. She’s puts up with too much of my crap XD)

That, and also the war of 'But this is Cutegirlmayra? She's so sweet and constantly puts her answers in supportive, positive lights so that if SEGA were to see it, they would feel empowered to try it instead of threatened and throw it off as hate or something unprofessional.' I have an image too. I can't post something super aggressive or I'll lose trust. You're right.

Friend: I’m glad you put a lot of thought into everything you post

I apologize for it tho T-T I didn't mean to dominate with such opinions...lol I worry who I influence, you know?

Friend: Most people don’t and trust me they get into trouble cause of it. And yeah.

I don't want to create trolls or heated arguments. I want to teach people they can safely express an idea without using such awful communication. Exactly, it's professional fanism. lol Positive writing is what companies and their employees actually read. (I’m almost fully awake now lol, realizing my blunder and starting to explain why I was in the wrong. Good on me, pat on the back, admitting I was coming off as aggressive is the first step to changing and getting better lolol Also, I’m including her more, and I’m saying “You’re right.” and she’s going “And yeah.” which is a indicator that the conversation is slowly returning to an enjoyable and healthy one. ;w; happy endings lol)  That's why I skip the aggressive stuff, even if it's passive, I write in a neutral setting so everyone feels safe to read, even someone who works at SEGA.

Friend: (Mentions some nintendo youtuber rant and also news as well, then says-) It was honestly very professional sounding and not rude. (MY HEART, YOU KNEW THAT WAS AN AGGRESSIVE RANT lololol So nice to me TDT)

Lol you had to have seen how slightly aggressive it was tho. (I’M CALLING YOUR BLUFF, BESTIE lol) You literally asked, "You blame America for it?" which is not always true but semi-true. They were way too prideful (Aggressive word) and haughty (Still aggressive terminology) about their success in other Japanese products that they wanted to completely change Sonic to their own wishes, pushing out Japan's creative "licenses" (I use this word loosely, and this gives a slightly aggressive feel but is also more dumbed down so it's more 'passionate' than just aggressive)

Friend: Yeah I saw it was slightly aggressive (Either is starting to realize it or at last admitting it now that I am fully aware of how I was coming across. I also used indicators to show what words were aggressive to help illustrate my point. This is showing I’m much more awake now :)b)

Gotta use those neutral tactics or no one will feel comfortable just reading your idea and instead, will constantly look for a place to intercept with aggression back, whether they agree or not, they're looking for ways to self-insert their aggression if you are also aggressive. I can't write something that doesn't somewhat support and uplift SEGA of America. Why? Because like I said, they literally have survived EVERYTHING and have stuck around. Without them, there wouldn't be an American branch and the money issue would have ended SEGA. Some might say, "But they've done so much harm than good! Why is the money thing such a thing to be praised for?" But it's huge, it's so big, it kinda does offset the wrongs. (Now I’m doing the healthy thing, doubling back and mentioning the good to try and recover. The damage may be done, but she did recommend some videos for me and was polite, so I’m just trying to smooth things over and leave on a ‘wrapped up’ conclusion. But... I should have just left it there in all honesty xD Some things you can’t double-back and correct lol) America is a great business-influenced mindset. None of us would be fans of Sonic without them.

(Friend continues to agree but realizes I may slip into ranting again. She just asks if I can watch the videos.)

America does have it's advantages in some fields and areas, but their biggest most redeeming quality is that they saved SEGA which gave us our biggest love and obsession: Sonic. Now, my usage in that writing was still off neutral, but combined with the slightly aggressive statements, made a GREAT contrast. It's still slightly praising

Friend: And they stopped Japan from giving him a human girlfriend right away.

Me: Exactly.

Friend: I will always thank them for that. (She’s still a sweetheart, working herself into the conversation so it stays healthy. lol Such amazing follow-ups too!)

So although I don't like what's happening, I'm also grateful... to a degree lol We need SEGA of America, which is why I think Japan just ignores them now lolol they know they owe them a lot. 

(Friend mentions videos and as I go to save them to my ‘watch later’ sees that one of them is about Nintendo.)

Yeeeahhh I've noticed that Nintendo is starting to trail into 'cash grab' tactics and that's sickening (MORE AGGRESSIVE WORDING??? HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED YOUR LESSON CHILD?! It takes time to fully wake up lolol) cause before, I literally thought, "Nintendo can do no wrong" their marketing was ON POINT! but the stuff they said about Peach and now... I think new, unprofessional blood (like SEGA) has entered Nintendo and the older guys are either 'training' or 'retired to other ventures'. Nintendo is having it's own 'we used to not be prideful but now we're getting a little too pompous (Another aggressive wording... This can easily trigger people to comment with further aggression either against you or for you, but no aggression is the ideal. Which is continuing to show my lack of remaining conscious lol) about ourselves' and they're starting to act like Disney before their big crash. Disney also had 'limited time offers' with their VHS movies. Now, Nintendo is doing that. They'll make money, but at what cost? When you lose your costumer's trust...

Friend: And yeah the 35th Mario thing immediately reminded me of the Disney vault

Me: Yep. I'm worried for Nintendo. Don't get me wrong! Disney is really good with money grabs, but they... they also act high and mighty (More aggressive statements, wake up, darn it!!!) and their fanbase literally calls them 'an empire' so the fan-trust is gone. That makes you 'lame/outdated' and fans begin to look for 'what's cool?' instead.

(Friend is now re-realizing I’m ‘in and out’ so is trying to use a effective avoidance tactic by asking about different things to help my ranting fully stop.)

Sorry, I'm tired, I get on these rants and I don't mean too. (Trying to shake myself awake again.) I'm sorry.

So we returned to a healthy conversation, but I hope this interesting insight has revealed how to and what not to do about Aggressive Writing. Always stick to Neutral writing if you can, putting in a compelling counter-argument. In this aggressive writing demo, you saw that I tried to cover up my follies by saying counter-praise, but praise writing can be just as bad as aggressive writing. Passive writing can sometimes be annoying (aggressive word choice) too if you come off as disinterested or uncaring, which can still result in negative comments coming at you, or someone overly praising in their writings.

This has been all I’m showing you cause it’s kinda embarrassing ^^; but I hope it helps you in what ‘not to do’ while writing your ideas out :)b

Learn from my sleepy-time mistakes! lol

[segersgia]

Looking back: Part 1 - Primaris Space Marines - Infantry

The excitement for 9th edition has been growing and growing. People are happy with the upcoming units for Space marines, and Xenos fans are rejoicing at the return of the Silent King and the introduction of new Necron units. 

What I want to do is take a long and hard look at what 8th edition gave us in terms of miniatures. 

To start of this series, we have to begin with Games Workshop’s favorite poster-boys; The Primaris Space Marines

The Primaris debacle:

If you didn’t already know, Games Workshop is somewhat obsessed with Space Marines. This hasn’t changed at all in 8th edition. In fact, it kind of got worse.

8th edition introduced us to the new and improved Primaris Space Marines - Extra cool Space Marines. 

For a lot of people, these were just a lame excuse to resell you an army that most of their costumers had already bought. Lore-wise, they came out of nowhere, and for some they were an affront to what the Imperium stood for: an autocratic, dogmatic and fascist regime that saw innovation and progress as something evil and dangerous. 

Fortunately, the Primaris have begun to become a little more fleshed out, and hopefully, this will continue for the better in 9th edition.

Before I start my overview, I have to explain my main gripe that I have with the ENTIRE range.

The Helmets:

With their redesign, the Space Marines gained a new pattern of Power Armour. This included a new design for their helmets, and I absolutely hate it. Gone is the iconic respirator, and instead we get a return of the Mark IV helmet, A.K.A. my least favorite pattern of the range. 

Kitbashers prove my point. The Mark VII is so much better looking on the new range. They look proper evil and merciless.

So always keep in mind that with every model in this range, I will have the same complaint; I don’t like the design of their helmet.

Intercessors:

The Primaris line was a way for the design team to re-imagine the space marines in a new way. Their size got updated to what might be considered “Tru-scale” and lore-wise, they gained a better crafted kit than their predecessors. Though what they gained in upgrades, they lost in group flexibility. 

Intercessors are equipped with Bolt rifles, which are basically slightly upgraded Boltguns. These can be retrofitted in the usual way with scopes or under-slung grenade launchers. 

Lore-wise, Intercessors take a surprisingly defensive role, mostly described as using suppressive fire to slowly advance to a position or hold the line.  

Their design, specifically their proportions, is what many expected the actual proportions of a space marine to be. They are hulking masses of power armour that should dwarf humans easily. The original Space Marines were a little “ill-proportioned” and the new Primaris have fixed that issue very well. 

One complaint I’ve seen appear is the fact that Intercessors lack the ornateness and religious aspects that the old marines had. If you’d actually compare them with Tactical Marines, it kind of shows that this isn’t the case. 

In fact, it just shows that normal Space Marines aren’t that ornate to begin with. 

Intercessors are a good re-imagining of the Tactical Marines and share the same feel that their predecessors have. What the Intercessors lack is just their weapon options.

7/10

Hellblasters:

The Primaris doctrine seems to hark back to the olden days before the Horus Heresy. Instead of the highly adaptable formations that we see in the Tactical Squads or the Devastator Squads, the Primaris decide instead to have specialized squads.

So while the Intercessors favor trusty bolt weapons, the Hellblasters make use of the the Plasma Incinerator: an improved version of the Plasma Gun that doesn’t overheat unless its fired in its overcharged setting. Hellblasters have the role of providing covering fire, similar to Devastators.  

The Plasma Incinerator is what makes this my favorite unit from the mainline army. It is such an improvement in design over that of the Plasma Gun. It makes for a great silhouette and the miniature looks more powerful because of it.

9/10

Reivers:

Reivers are part of the Vanguard line of Primaris troops; units specifically designed for long covert and stealth operations. 

(The rest of the Vanguard will be looked at in a future post.) 

Reivers themselves act like terror troops; sneaking into combat before yelling “OOGA BOOGA” and murdering everyone in the room like an Eversor Assassin. 

Primaris power armour has a very interesting quirk. It comes in different variants that can be mixed and matched to serve a certain role. Reivers and most of the vanguard line use Phobos Armour; a pattern that is lighter, more lightly armoured and features servos that allow it to be almost silent in combat. It features Grav-Chutes, which allows Reivers to safely descend from heights, similar as to what Elysian Drop-Troopers utilize.

They go into battle with Bolters and over-sized knives. They can also take a Grapling Hook, so they can cosplay as their favourite DC hero. The skull helmet they wear has an in built voice amplifier, allowing their battle chants to turn into a police sound cannon. They basically stole the idea from Eldar Howling Banshees. 

The poses from the “Easy-to-build” kit are just ugly, but their other kit fixes that issue. I still am not sure about the skull helmet, and would’ve preferred a better way to visualize their voice-amplifiers. I kind of like the Phobos pattern, but I do have some gripes with it, such as the exposed metal abs(?) they have. 

6/10

Aggressors:

I really don’t hope this is what will replace Terminators.

Aggressors are a fire support unit that slowly advances while providing covering fire from mid to close range. They wear Gravis Armour, which is the more heavily reinforced variant of the Mark X. They have Power Fists that have either Flamers or Bolters attached to them, and some are equipped with shoulder mounted grenade launchers.

Gravis Armour is my least favourite of the three patterns and Aggressors are my main reason for it. They look very clunky and are way too cluttered with weapons. I don’t like the rounded design as well. It looks like they would take one step and then fall face first into the dirt. Even the artwork doesn’t do them justice and makes their over-sized armaments even more over-sized. A wider belly and smaller gauntlets would’ve fixed this unit’s design.

4/10

Inceptors:

Remember the intro of the Space Marine video game? Captain Titus leaping off a Thunderhawk and flying through an air battle to land on an Ork ship? Inceptors do just that, landing in the thick of the battle, with guns in both hands like B.J. Blazkowicz.

They are equipped with either Plasma Guns or Assault Bolters, and fly through the air with an over-sized jump-pack. To soften their landing, they have these funny looking boot plates, so that they don’t die during the impact.

If the boot plates weren’t a thing, I would have no qualms with this unit. Their version of the Gravis Armour is what I would’ve preferred the Aggressors to have. They also look like they would actually do well in low gravity environments, such as space battles. What I like most about them is the fact that they seemingly resemble Assault Marines from the artwork of Rogue Trader.

Games Workshop has kind of gone back to looking at Rogue Trader, and figuring out how certain aspects of it could fit back into 40k. I’m 100% behind that trend and want more of it.

7/10

-----------------------

The Primaris range is already massive and I’m separating the range into different parts. So far though, it has been a varied bag of good and meh. I do want to keep these varied, so next up, I’m going to tackle a different army; the Death Guard...

[kryptsune]

*Hell Lore

🌼I made a mention in the prior post that I have an entire Hell canon. It is something I maintain through many of my stories involving demons or angels so the newest addition of Contract (aka my Mafiafell verse) is not excluded. I made them separate so it wasn’t too overwhelming as most of the time these posts are. I hope you all enjoy and my ask box is always open for questions and curiosities. 

*Due to this being hellish lore there may be triggering or disturbing material ahead. Please be mindful of the warning! Thanks!

------------------------------------------------

Universe type: Multiverse Demon/variants 

Alternate “Nicknames” Info:

 *Demons {Nicknames and True Names}:*

Gered: Xaketh

Red: Valruth (Beast)

Crim: Derzath

Grimm: Cerberus (Rus)

Boss: Sokan

Gin (fallen): Kelran

Dusk: Dantillion 

Blade: Zorrol

Ouro: Ouroboros 

*Angels {Nicknames and True Names}: *

Comic: Halo

Cayn: Sariel

Nova: Sorath

Pap: Akriel

Dawn: Zaphkiel

Glitch: Adellum

Script: Malakh

There is a lot of info below the cut so if you are interested give it a look! 

The 7 Princes and Their Kingdoms (In order by power):

1. Lust (Crown Prince)- Gered: Being the second eldest to his brother Nas Gered is the next in line to inherit the throne. He conducts himself very similar to his Kingly brother as he is more the gentleman type. Don’t let that fool you however as Gered is known for his silver tongue. He appears gentle with those he comes in contact with but that only hides the true demon within him. Just as the elder of the siblings Gered embodies more than his crowned sin. He is known to be overly prideful and with quite the possessive greedy streak. The only time he will allow sharing anything that he considers to be his is when it is with his siblings and it depends on which ones. Unlike his younger brother, Red, Gered tends to not revel in his sin but rather enjoys it in moderation. It may be that due to Gered’s amount of angelic blood he is a more positive side of his sin with a desire for passion and possessiveness then just carnal pleasure. He appears in fine tailored suits and waistcoats looking like the prince he is. Since Gered is the second eldest he does not look as demon-like as he should though every Prince has a menacing true form to them.  

 Un-Crowned Prince- Red: Red or as he is known, Beast, is one of the youngest of their family. This, however, does not prevent Gered from taking the younger under his wing and as such Red becomes the next in line to become crown Prince of his kingdom. Red has very little if not any angelic blood in his bones. That would explain his more demon appearance with claw-like fingers, horns, and tail. Red is known for his love of carnal pleasure and sadism. He is one who does not take no for an answer which can be deadly to those he sets his eyes on. He is far more aggressive than his brother though that could be to some happenings in his past. He tends to show off his ribcage and he is not one to hide things. Red is a notorious flirt as is Gered but Red’s tactics result from more the physical than flowery language or silver tongue. He is actually quite blunt.  

2. Pride- Boss: One of the eldest of the princes, Boss is known for his ego. He is the Prince and warden of Pride. His kingdom revolves around imprisonment. A giant jail cell for the worst of the worst. Boss is the kind of demon that has no problem getting his hands dirty. In fact, he rather enjoys it. He is known to give hope to some of his inmates and strip that away from them as cruelly as possible. He is rather stern and far too serious for his own good but he takes a lot of pride in his station as well as amusement. Some of the souls he wardens are forced into mind games subjecting them to a series of near-impossible trials even going so far as to convince those imprisoned that they are still alive. Which is an outright lie. Boss’ appearance is more demonic than his older brothers but not to the level of Red. His fingers are more claw-like and have those iconic demon horns though his stature remains unaffected. Out of all the Princes Boss is most likely the most intimidating even with lacking the overly demonic look to him.

3. Wrath (Crown Prince)- Crimson: Crimson is a demon that is notorious for his blood lust. He also goes by The Crimson Lord or Bloody Lord. Crimson is the harsh ruler of the Kingdom of Wrath. A dog without a leash rather. He is frigid towards real affection/emotion unless he has the goal to manipulate you. The only exception would be that of his brother. His pride and ego are legendary and rarely ever take no for an answer. He is nicknamed the bloody lord for a reason as he has a vampiric nature. His love of the finer things in life leaves him very possessive and greedy as well. 

His favorite pastime is to break the will of the soul because he is known as the first vampire he can easily trance others into their own death. He brings souls up from his kingdom as well as others to feed on frequently in “bathing in the blood of his enemies” In the most literal way. Just like Gered and Nas, Crimson enjoys finery. His Kingdom rests as the third most powerful and wealthy but that does not exclude his own castle. It is presumably the most lavish of the kingdoms while the rest is fiery pits and bloody streams. He has a temper and usually finds even the slightest inconvenience irritating. He has a fascination for metalwork as his castle harkens back to the medieval time period. In order to fuel his amusement, he finds himself disguised while walking among souls so he can convince them that he is damned just like them only for it to be too late. Crimson is both a sadist and a masochist at heart and those things amuse him greatly. If you can get on his good side and amuse him he may let you live but it is very rare as his thirst for blood is nearly unquenchable.

Un-Crowned Prince- Grimm: Grimm keeps his brother's love of sadistic games but he is less bloodthirsty than the former. He is more animalistic then his brother giving into more carnal desires just as Red does. Grimm is Crimson’s older brother though even with his stature most think the opposite. He could be classified as the wild one. His eyes are usually a golden/yellow color looking more like pupils then the typical skeleton blank sockets. When he is more in his feral mode those sockets will turn black with that blazing yellow pupil. His eyes in this state resemble that of a wolf. He is known as the guard dog of the Realm due to his true demon form of a giant three-headed skeletal canine beast. Cerberus.  

He will be more docile unless it comes to his games is when he is in predator mode. Grimm is also incredibly needy and does not care about the state of his victims which he usually brings to his brother. He is submissive to Crimson but that does not mean he will tolerate being treated like a dog. He is still the older brother after all. He is a flirt just to get what he wants and he loves it when others fight back. Unlike his brother, Grimm could care less about all the finery all he cares about is the pleasure, fun, and thrill. Grimm is curious by nature so if you draw his attention you may survive long enough to get on his good side. He also has a well known sweet tooth though his brother tries to discourage him from the habit. 

4. Greed- Blade: Being the prince of greed nothing could more suited to Blade. He is the embodiment of greedily hoarding what he desires from others in an almost possessive and obsessive way. This includes material wealth or in Blade’s case human souls. He is the most… disturbing of the Princes as he has an obsession with mortals. Just like its namesake the kingdom of greed does not like to share its knowledge with others and keeps its secrets close. Blade loves to play with his toys and out of all the princes, he is probably the worst one to be stuck with as you may be turned into a puppet before long. He lures people in with a more approachable and likable personality before showing his more crazy side. Just like his universal counterpart Blade is still very much the yandere serial killer type. It’s rumored he keeps a room filled with various “human” parts hanging from the ceiling. His title is the doll maker. Which is disturbing in of itself. He is also 100% both a sadist and a masochist.

5. Envy- Dusk: Dusk is the prince of Envy. Unlike Blade dusk appears to have more of a gentlemanly attitude like his older brothers. Mostly because he looked up so highly to them. He may be envy but he does not exactly embody the sin with which he is assigned. That does make him a little jealous of some of his other siblings but he does not feel the need to openly refute their claims. If anything Dusk is quite the opposite of his kingdom. He was mostly appointed there since he is good at keeping others persuaded and calm. The souls in this kingdom can be unruly and unlike his other brothers, Dusk sees his station almost as some kind of necessary evil. He would rather walk on earth doing a job more suited to his own abilities and unfortunately, he is all too aware that his one brother, the angel by the name of Dawn, banished him here for his jealousy. He spends a lot of his time alone reading about the world above and what it has to offer. That kind of curiosity has never left him. He does have a rivalry and distaste for this brother of greed, however. He is a master of illusion, making you crave something you know you can never have. It is how the souls are tortured in this kingdom. 

 6. Gluttony- Ouro: Named after the symbol of Ouroboros, Ouro, is the prince of the kingdom of Gluttony. Ouro is known for being a hoarder of anything he desires. He is extraordinarily greedy and does not interact much with others. His appearance is more demon in nature with a mix of dragon and snake as his name dictates. He is hard to get to know if you are even given that opportunity but once you do he will spoil you. Out of all the princes, he is probably the least likable next to Blade though he does not have the same sick masochistic personality. Some say that he has to fill a hole inside of him and that is why he acts the way he does. He is very standoffish and nearly always has a scowl on his face. He also has a rather fiery temper. He does his duties to the kingdom ignoring his two neighboring brothers who always seem to be at odds. 

 7. Sloth- Gin: Gin is the final prince but not by choice. Once a seraphim angel he was cast down protecting his younger brother, Cayn. Once the lively angel of guardians now has become an uncaring demon. The only care he has in this world is to see if the sacrifice that he made for his brother protected him or not. Gin lazes around mostly locking himself up in his study. He has no servants or dukes to command but rather is content with what he has. He tends to always be on the grouchy side perhaps due to an overabundance of sleep. A biological thing that demons do not need by the way. He keeps his brother's memory alive by doing things that he used to love including baking. Gin is pretty laid back of them all but his nihilistic demeanor can be grating to his other siblings. In essence, this poor boy has lost a lot of his hope for anything better and thus does not care. 

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*The Kingdoms*

Lust- The kingdom that used to be ruled by the current King of Hell. The hierarchy works that each kingdom rules over a certain sin committed by those punished. The closer that they are to The Capital the richer and more prosperous. There is also little technology save for the capital and the two kingdoms following it. The lust kingdom is ruled by Gered who is the crown prince and following that is Red. He is a prince as well but uncrowned to one of the major kingdoms (he could honestly care less). The kingdom of lust revels in opulence and is known for its material wealth. The demons here tend to be debaucherous and are known for their slave/pet dealings. The demons in this kingdom tend to be overly needy causing them to sate their desires with damned souls or each other. 

Underneath the crown prince and his brother, this kingdom also has established a series of appointments with Dukes and lords. It is well known that nothing can really sate these demons appetites for pleasure. They do as they will still following under the rules set forth by the King however they tend to get away with more considering their kingdoms standing. It is known as the kingdom of servitude in multiple ways. Lust also does not just account for physical pleasure but lust for anything such as wealth or power as an example. It is rumored that the two brothers appear to be opposites in their handling of the sin. Gered being more about possession and passion while Red is more the stereotypical lust. Out of all the kingdoms, this one seems to be the “best” one to be sentenced to especially if you find yourself at the feet of its ruler. The humans here are usually taken care of quite nicely, though it is also rumored that these souls do not belong in Hell at all.  

Appearance-wise the lust kingdoms Castle is paved with marble and gold. It is near spotless excluding wealth and grandeur. The massive walls that hide the Castle from view are covered in thick lush green vines and flowers. The wall also has lace-like porticos that spill a strange liquid from snake-like mouths. It is said that a human that even consumes a drop of it will be subject to their demon masters will for eternity. A strong manipulative love potion in essence. The Palace gardens are almost as if they were taken from the Garden of Eden itself which is entirely possible. The further away from the center, the city becomes less ostentatious though not dilapidated by any means. Many of Hell's elite live in this kingdom. 

Pride- The kingdom of Pride ruled by Boss is the second one from the Capital. As such it too exudes opulence at its center. This is the kingdom known as The Cell unlike the kingdom of Lust, Pride only shows off its splendor near its castle and some of the surrounding areas. It is mostly utilized as a giant torture pit. This is where souls are sent as punishment for the most severe crimes and tortured mercilessly sometimes torn to shreds only to be revived. Their leader is a ruthless warden of sorts making sure that everyone obeys the laws both set forth for demon or soul. Demons sentenced to exile are also detained here in this confusing catacomb prison. It is filled with deadly traps and pitfalls to prevent escape as well. Humans of high status on earth and are now subjected to the same kind of torment they put on others in the worst way possible. Dictators, murderers and the like. 

The Cell is also where souls are twisted beyond recognition and where new demons are made. In this world, demons are made not born and those corrupted souls become the new generation. It could take years. It could take centuries but being thrown into The Cell is a sure-fire sentence.

Wrath- The Kingdom of Wrath is the kingdom of War and bloodlust. It is quite well known that the brothers all have had their eyes set on multiple kingdoms at one time that exemplifies their vices. The ruler of Wrath, Crimson, is a ruthless warlord with an unusual thirst for blood and not in a war-hungry way. The Kingdom supplies and trains those for the Capital's personal guard as well as the demons that are considered soldiers. This is also the Kingdom of the tainted. Those that are not quite a demon but also not quite human. A long time ago when demons walked among the humans, one demon wreaked havoc. A demon so infatuated with humanity that he began to turn them away from their old religions so that they would worship him. In turn, he gave them his power creating half breeds. What humanity calls vampires, werewolves, and fae. The humans began to decline at rapid numbers and since those of half-demon blood were considered corrupted they had little use. Now they span the kingdom of Wrath as soldiers, mindless, and obeying only their “king.” 

Its alternate title is that of the Kingdom of Blood. Those unfortunate souls forced to end up in such a horrible kingdom will find themselves burning alive in the flames of their own anger. Some are even dragged into labs to be experimented on. The human souls usually sentenced here were the warriors that committed atrocities without a second glance at the innocent. Those that killed children in the name of the king is an example of this. Crimson was the demon that started all of this half breed creation which would explain why he was passed up for the crown of Lust as his blood lust is legendary. It is most likely his mild punishment for his past actions. The two brothers are most likely where the vampire and werewolf mythology stems from on earth.    

 Greed- The kingdom of greed is unlike any other kingdom as it rarely has souls within it (they don’t last long). They are usually the type of killers that were mentally undone. Ones that took a sick twisted pleasure in their artistry. Those are usually brought from the outside. Their ruler, Blade, is what one might call… unhinged at best. They are known for their experimentation attempting to twist mortal souls into whatever is desired. The castle though appearing rather plain on the outside is a treacherous confusion of mind-bending illusions and hallways.  

Envy- This is the kingdom that trains and outsources spies as well as assassins. Demonic hitmen used to gain political power among their respective kingdoms. They are known for their thieves mostly stealing from their neighboring kingdom of greed, specifically souls. They are based around the shadows which are quite fitting as the ruler of their kingdom, Dusk, has the ability to manipulate shadows. Envy is known as the shadow kingdom usually housing those souls of the occult and black magic. Those that tried to obtain the unobtainable through magical or demonic means. Dusk does not take kindly to this as these souls are tortured for all eternity forced to relive and conjure their own worst fears in a land of darkness. A never-ending nightmare would be an apt description. 

Gluttony- Those that are placed into this kingdom as punishment are subjected to the torture of starvation and thirst. The prince’s castle is surrounded by a never-ending desert with no hope for food or drink. Souls are forced to starve wandering this desert for the rest of eternity. The demons banished into this place feast on mortal corpses that fall tearing them to pieces like scavengers. When the sun sets these mortals to end up back where they started in one piece having to endure the same torture over and over. Ouro the ruler of his kingdom does not do much in the way of duty. He tends to delegate his jobs to other lower-level demons. If a mortal manages to cross the desert the torture is withstanding. Any food will turn to ash in their mouths and any water will burn the throat. It is an endless never quenchable thirst and hunger. 

Sloth- Sloth is the final kingdom before the banished and forgotten kingdoms beyond. It is “ruled” by Prince Gin though no one could actually tell you what it took to maintain the kingdom. It is the poorest of the rest as the palace shines in all its glory through all the destitution surrounding it. The souls here are never allowed to rest forced to work the land for food production. Which is hilarious because that food does literally nothing for demons. Ok, hilarious in a cruel sick way. The demon lords and princes do like to have their feasts and lavish parties but that food is very different. In essence, mortals are forced into a constant state of fatigue. Never able to drink, eat, or most of all sleep. After this kingdom lies the outer reaches of Hell. Those souls are the lost ones forced into limbo. Those that have nowhere to go. This is also where the banished are sent. There is no hope as it appears to be an endless forest with no hope of escape. The fog takes their memory from them forcing them to wander for the rest of eternity and most likely consumed by rouge demons prowling the outskirts. A soul banished to limbo can find themselves at Hell’s gates but it is very rare and not at all a better outcome. 

The King of Hell:

Nasaros is the current King of Hell being the eldest son of his father. Just like his father his angelic blood makes him stand out above his younger siblings. He seems gentlemanly and rather laid back for someone of his status but do not let that fool you. Due to Nas, blood, he is just as harsh if not more so than his demonic brothers. He is not actually a demon either but rather a fallen angel (there is a difference). He has a silver tongue keeping to flowery language. Some feel as though he is weak due to his blood but his brothers know better than that and dare not question their older brother. Nas has an egotistical air about him but it is more subtle. He has an extreme distaste for demonkind as he does not consider himself one of their ilk. Therefore he is not tolerant of any kind of infraction. Demons that do not follow the rules are quickly dispatched of without mercy. His abilities are not as well known as the brothers but it can be assumed he can utilize all his sibling's abilities as well as some more angelic ones. 

Curiously he has more of a demon-like appearance than his younger brother Gered. He tends to wear white in the majority of his clothing leaning more toward tailored tailcoats and suits. An almost denial of what he has become. He has three sets of wings though they are rarely seen indicating he used to be a seraph. In his younger years before he was crowned King, he was the Prince of the Kingdom of Lust. In his state of mind, he did not want his demon half to “corrupt” him any longer. Out of fear and denial, he split himself into two separate beings. One as the embodiment of the negative side of sin and the other the more positive. These two Princes, though two halves of one whole, eventually were able to come to the conclusion that who they were before was their true self. 

Unlike his father, Nas seems to attempt to reform Hell in a way adding rules and regulations to the more unruly of his subjects. These rules mostly extend to those souls that are wrongly labeled as damned. He knows that an impurity leads Heaven to shut its gates on some of these souls with no hope for survival. It is not a common occurrence however under Nas decree these souls are to not be harmed.

Saros: If there was a complete opposite to Naos then Saros would be it. He is haughty, prideful, lavish, and over the top. His outgoing demeanor causes him to throw lavish banquets and parties surrounding himself with the elite of Hell. Saros is a negative aspect of lust. He is needy and uses pleasure as a manipulation tool. He drinks and sleeps around not giving it any thought. He is also possessive though it is more treating something like a trophy then someone to be treasured. He is the true embodiment of carnal pleasure and debauchery. 

Naos: Out of the two Naos is the more gentle. He tends to be very shy when interacting with others only making his presence known when necessary. He is not the flirty type but rather the romantic if you manage to catch his affection and favor. His appearance causes him to wear darker colors like black. Unlike his unruly brother Naos enjoys peace and quiet. He is easily flustered. Sometimes he will sit in the garden and sing a soft little tune. His personality is very soft but he is also very possessive and overprotective.    

The New Order:

The new shift in power causes some unrest among the denizens of Hell. Their old order was to corrupt and damn souls for all eternity no matter the cost. The spilling of blood was of no consequence. That, however, changes when Nas comes into power that all changes. His decree is that demons should be conducting themselves more decorum then they used to. No more earthly rampages. No more innocent deaths. The souls not meant for Hell are put under his protection. He cleans up Hell by holding demons accountable for their more sadistic tendencies. Humans have long since forgotten their presence. To them, they are nothing more than superstition and Hollywood fabrication. The new global ability to communicate in mere seconds leave them with a poor reputation. 

Nowadays they are known for making more deals. In fact, under royalty, the most prestigious job in Hell are the deal makers. The demons associated with soul collection as that is one way to gain more power as a demon. The more souls the stronger and potentially more abilities gained as well. These demons appear on earth offering their services disguised as humans tempting wayward souls. The dukes, lords, and even prince also do deals of a higher caliber though they rarely leave Hell. It would take a very powerful soul for them to gain any interest even if they are summoned. 

Each demon of high status also has a specific sigil used to summon them. It is, as stated previously, very dangerous and usually only 30% effective. Some demons, Crimson as an example, will gladly show up for a little bit of carnage or to mess with souls. Contrary to mortal belief demons do not take to sacrificing lightly in fact it is highly frowned upon. Any mortals of an occult stupid enough to try and summon any of them usually end up choking on their own blood.  

The Red String of Fate: 

The Red string of fate is constant in the world that has consequences when altered. It is very similar to the idea that our destinies are intertwined with others and if that string is cut it creates a butterfly effect. Demons tend to do as they please but when it comes to altering the course of humanity it is a very harsh offense. Under the Prince's father, this offense was minor but when Bas took control of the throne that sentence increase. A demon tampering with or severing the string of fate is exiled, banished, or executed. If one string is severed it is possible to reform however multiple could cause an apocalyptic event of biblical proportions. Contrary to human belief demons have no desire to obliterate the earth. They rather like their little playground. Anything that would jeopardize the fate of either Hell or Earth is grave.   

The Blood of the Innocent: 

Innocent souls subjected to the selectiveness of Heaven's elite are thrown into Hell just by association with any type of demonic ritual. Innocents sacrificed for summoning are branded as corrupted and therefore unworthy to enter Heaven's gates. These souls are considered pure and are housed in The Capital away from any demons that may cause them harm, especially that of children. If a mortal is sacrificed to a specific demon then that Prince is made responsible. This occurrence, however, is rare as the horrors that befall those that try this kind of act… are too horrible to describe. It takes someone really greedy or stupid to even attempt such a thing. 

Pure souls are constantly in danger as demons feel their power and have an almost instinctual desire to devour it. This is an outcome for those types of souls but the process is painless (if the demon in question desires it). It is better than living an eternity in Hell anyway. Some are kept at the palaces if a Prince sees fit though that is an even rarer occurrence than the former.

Demons are Made not Born:     

A souls prolonged time in Hell withstanding numerous tortures begins to twist their very being. Their souls become more and more corrupt as time goes on forcing a metamorphosis. It is said that one of the reasons demons devour souls is because they are trying to fill the emptiness of their own soul. The one that they lost long ago. Once this process takes place their memories begin to fade of their past mortal lives. They are then reborn as a demon befitting their newly corrupted soul. It is rare that a soul is corrupted to become powerful but it is possible. These demons are usually low level and serve as they were originally intended.

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[zydrateacademy]

First Impressions/Review - Generation Zero

Generation Zero flew under most people’s radar after it’s incredibly rocky launch back in March 2019. It was plagued with bugs, crashed, and corrupted saves but has ultimately redeemed itself with some very choice updates and a fairly active dev team that patches and updates the game at least once a month, it seems. I believe it showed up in my steam queue but ultimately chose to ignore it because most of my judgement goes by screenshots and the store page’s screenshots do nothing to communicate what kind of game it actually is. However, it popped up on my radar when someone got it on my activity feed and I decided to give it another look during the Summer Sale. Turns out, this was a great choice.

Generation Zero takes place is an alternate history where Sweden gets paranoid about entering a world war and dumps a lot of their funding into military spending. This turns out to be a lot of combat robots, which have apparently went on the fritz and has thus chased away an entire population of an island while you, the player, come back from some kind of vacation and notice that everyone is gone. There was a lot of mandatory military training in Sweden during this time, which serves as a justification as to why your teen (presumably in the 17-19 range) can handle weaponry. And also why virtually every container has ammunition in it. The main gameplay loop reminds me of a cross between Dying Light and Fallout, at least in the early game of both. You’re never really a powerhouse, as you level incredibly slowly and the robots hit like trucks even on the easiest “Adventure” difficulty setting. Some of the perks serve to alleviate this but I discovered that even with 30% more health and some bullet resistance, a single hunter unit can take out half my health in a single volley. Make no mistake, the AI here is stupidly accurate.

The enemies never stop being proper threats, turning most of the game into a full on stealth mission. There is a run-and-gun tree which helps the gameplay massively, but the game encourages you to evade and sneak as not every engagement will go your way when you consider a large portion of the region is farmland and you’re not always in the position to duck and hide.

The gunplay can be fairly satisfying. The guns have some heft to them. On hip firing you can flick-shoot but in iron sight, your movement becomes more sluggish. The explosions are often loud, sudden, and satisfying. It takes some getting used to, and a lot of the enemy behavior can be trial and error. The basic dog-like types designated as runners have a very easy to hit fuel tank that can allow you to one-shot them... But other classes of the same type might have an armor plating on the front of it, forcing you to either flank to take a couple of quick potshots in hopes to get that 2-hit kill before it alerts all its nearby buddies. The rest of the enemy types are not so simple, their tanks sometimes on their back and don’t always promise a single-hit kill.

Eventually you’ll run into Tank class enemies which take some clever tactics and accurate shooting to take down. You can take out their guns which alleviates their main threat but then they’ll start going into full sprints and use shock-waving stomp attacks to take you down. I can confirm that this is a terrifying experience. A quick aside to the negative. The AI can be incredibly scary at certain times, but they also have a problem with doors. If you’re in a township or a farm, I’ve found that diving into a house or barn is enough to block against most attacks. There’s a fair amount of splash damage types so you still might take some blows but Runners and Hunters have a hard time entering buildings. You might occasionally get a tick (spider-like robots that sound and act like headcrabs from Half-Life) but I have an entire youtube video showing how I used a barn to fight two tanks and a harvester in relative safety, though several health kits were used. If the devs ever manage to allow runners or hunters to open barn doors, the game will become a lot more dangerous (and exciting).

The game also seems to be designed with Co-op in play, with up to four players. You can use adrenaline shots to pick yourself up if solo and thankfully dying is a mere slap on the wrist, as it will just sling you into your nearest unlocked safehouse. An extra player by your side may help some flanking maneuvers, but my brother seems to prove that running and gunning can be a viable strategy with the right setup.

The game advertises itself as atmospheric in the little Steam blurb, and it’s not wrong. It’s a mixed blessing. I actually love traversing the landscape and there’s even a Photo Mode (one of the less complex I’ve ever seen, but still always a good thing to have in games in recent years) to stop and take a picture of a particularly breathtaking moment. The storms and rains are common and the sound design can really bring a calm after an intense shootout. It's a very lovingly crafted game... but Fallout this is not. It's not a very dense world. You can travel by road to run into some abandoned cars (most of which have at least one box of loot within), which will also yield a high chance of patrolling enemies. Stealthing away from them in the wilderness offers no real results beyond appreciating the built world. I have at times decided that my resources weren’t enough to get into a shootout and I've spent a lot of time cutting through landscape to avoid the roads but it gave me nothing but a padded hour count. There are no caves or encampments to run into, it's all just foliage.

It’s interesting. I am personally a huge care bear player and I’m not usually fond of difficult or challenging games to any degree. However with the right mod in the right place, like an experience booster and no inventory weight (which is typically more of a hassle than ‘fun’), the game is just one massive stealth sandbox. There is a basic framework of a story but it mostly just serves to get you to dig deeper into the world. Excluding the DLC which do add some NPC’s and some actual story elements and lore, most of the main game’s quests are “go here, find people, nobody here but some audio logs, quest complete”. A bit dull, but the game still scratches an interesting itch. It’s not a rogue-like. You lose nothing from death but the game is very difficult under many scenarios. But if you have the need for a sort of scavenging robot apocalypse, this game is a worthy buy. I got it on sale but honestly, in its current state I do think it’s worth the full price.

[pallasperilous]

Twenty Questions

Summary: Michael is AWOL with Dean, so Sam drives while Cas rides shotgun. They fill silence with a light inquiry into the nature of Enochian pronouns and their relationship – or lack thereof – to human vessels’ gender.  ...it’s more fun than it sounds.

Word Count: 1,221 Rating: Gen (there’s a single swear) Pairings: Sam & Castiel (are good nerdfriends)

WARNINGS: brief references to social prejudice against queer identities. Angel lore nonsense. References to past harm done to Baby’s clutch. 

Complete story in post, or on AO3.

---

They’ve been creeping down the same stretch of interstate for five hours. They long ago run out of podcasts and Dean’s more bearable cassettes and weird lore chit-chat and dumb car games – Sam has learned the hard way that 20 Questions with Cas is actually either 3 Questions or Infinity Questions.

They’re finally in the same county as their turn-off, but they’re still at least three hours out from Lebanon and they’ve officially run out of silence, too. Castiel is pretty good at keeping quiet when he’s in the back, at least over long hauls – Sam would sometimes catch Dean glancing into the rearview just to check that he hadn’t poofed out at some point.

Having Cas ride shotgun is something else. Just having another body there pokes Sam in the brain, demands comment. The other body is usually Dean, and Dean sucks at silence. If it’s not talking, it’s music. If it’s not music, he’ll starts fucking humming or tapping or whistling. Dean is nature, abhorring a vacuum.

Only Dean’s not here. So it turns out that silence is currently a very painful conversation.

“I’ve been wondering about something,” Sam says.

Castiel has his eyes closed, but they snap open immediately. “Oh?”

Sam adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. “So…the other angels. They call you he, right?”

“They normally call me Castiel.”

Sam shoots him A Look, and is rewarded with a microscopic smile. “No, I mean – you all have…consistent pronouns. That don’t change based on your vessel. From what I can tell.”

Cas shakes his head. “Not usually, no. You have to understand, Sam – most angels have never occupied a vessel, nor would they ever expect to. It’s a specialized field.” He shifts down a bit on the bench, folds his arms.

“So you do all have…some kind of…essential gender? In your true forms?”

Castiel hums non-committally. “The pronouns you hear us use in English are an approximation of an Enochian form of address. One that has nothing to do with reproductive or social roles.”

“What’s it describe, then? Rank? Age?”

“Rotational axis.”

Sam can’t help it: he laughs. “What?” The unbidden mental image is of Castiel strapped on one of those vomitous centrifugal wheels they used to velcro kids into at Space Camp.

Cas sighs, although it sounds more embarrassed than aggrieved, as if Sam were asking after the origin of an off-color family in-joke. “When angels traverse the common areas of Heaven, our wings manifest as rotating bands of energy. There are two possible planes – axes – of rotation. The pronouns refer to which axis that angel’s wings occupy.”

“So, what…it’s not he and she, it’s more like… righty and lefty?”

Cas snorts. “I’d never thought of it that way, but the analogy is apt."

“Are there any, um. Ambidextrous angels?” Sam squints and kicks on the turn signal as they crawl up towards the nearest eastbound exit. There’s a lava flow of red brakelights ahead of them.

“A few. ”

“Anybody we know?”

“You know me.”

Sam hesitates, glances over at Castiel. He's got his elbow up on the door, chin braced on the splayed fingers of his far hand. Everything he’s wearing looks like it needs ironing, including his face. “Oh yeah?" Sam manages, lamely.

"Mm," Cas replies, which is frankly about as much as Sam deserves.

"Is that...what's that like?"

A forest green Outback two lanes over is suddenly seized by the need to exit at 126 A and Sam has to stomp on the brakes to avoid getting side-swiped. By the time Sam has brought the car back up to speed, Cas still hasn't answered.

"I'm sorry," Sam says. "Kinda none of my business." His knee is starting to ache from kicking out the clutch. They could’ve switched drivers a few hours back when it was bumper-to-bumper. Sam officially chalks it up to his pride, but really it would be admitting that Dean will be gone long enough that Sam will have time to replace the clutch after Cas fucking incinerates it.

Cas lowers his arm. "I'm not offended, Sam. I was considering my answer."

Sam shrugs; “I know angel stuff is a sensitive subject. Didn't want you to feel interrogated or anything. I'm just, you know. Curious."

"Yes, I've noticed that about you." There's a thin smile in Castiel's voice. "It was...it is...largely unimportant. I would usually adopt the same manner as the angel I was interacting with. It makes it easier to coordinate our movements. Since the majority of angels are of the axial group referred to with masculine English pronouns, I'm usually considered," and here he deploys air-quotes, Jesus Christ, if that isn't a throwback –"one of the boys."

Sam frowns, squints against the reflection off the back window of a church minivan. "I think that'd bother me."

"Why? It's simply practical. It describes the greater part of my behavior, at any rate."

“I dunno, it’s still…reductive, right? I mean, which way would you–” Sam winces a bit in anticipation at how dumb this is going to sound –“rotate, if you were alone?"

Cas, as usual, takes the ridiculous in stride. ”I truly don't have a preference. Each has its tactical strengths and shortcomings. The ability to alternate between the two is an advantage in battle, of course, and it grants me access to a broader array of potentially suitable vessels."

Cas turns his face away, as if he's checking out the blind spot, or maybe his own reflection in the side mirror. "It's part of why I was chosen to retrieve Dean in Hell, and then to interact with him after his resurrection."

They finally slip off the interstate and onto the four-lane state highway, a slim river cutting through an old growth forest of gas station signs and fast food logos. They could be literally anywhere in North America, and Sam feels his shoulders relax. Anywhere In North America is Sam's hometown.

Cas sighs. “You must be hungry by now. You should pull over."

"Nah, I'm okay. I'd rather get back to the Bunker before dark.”

There’s a pause which Cas somehow manages to imbue with maternal concern. "Sam. You do need to eat."

"We have food at home."

"Not enough."

"Cas, seriously. I’m fine.”

“I can tell that you've lost weight."

"Yeah, well. Probably because I don’t have Dean shoving garbage in my face every five hours.”

Sam feels the resulting silence as an actual, physical tension in his chest.

“I’ll stop somewhere when we’re over the state line,” he adds. Cas makes a little noise of consent.

Castiel turns his face forward again, drops his arm into his lap.  "It does make some in the Host uneasy. The dual axis,” he clarifies, as if the ranks of Heaven might possibly have an opinion on the particulars of where Sam gets his next chicken sandwich. “They think it suggests a deceptive or indecisive nature."

They hit their first stoplight, and Sam looks over at him. “You're telling me there’s an angel equivalent of biphobia."

"You are," Castiel says dryly, "a fount of damning analogies today, Sam Winchester."

“Wow. That’s, uh. That’s…fucked up? Not sure why I’m surprised, though. As above, so below, I guess.”

“I’ve come to see the relationship between Heaven and Earth as a lateral one,” Cas answers. Then he smiles.

“But that’s just me.”

[kasumiyoshizawas]

What To Play While You wait For The Next Persona Game

Posted this on r/PERSoNA earlier today. Enjoy!

So it's going to be a while for the next Persona game to drop, and while you could spend all your time replaying Persona 5 or its predecessors and their spinoffs, you could try something else as well. Here are a few games that really help me scratch that Persona itch.

Also reblog with your favorite games to get through the Persona hiatuses.

What Do You Like Most About Persona?

"Everything!"

You Should Play: Blue Reflection

Genre: JRPG

Most Accessible Game: Blue Reflection

Platform: PS4, Steam

Price: $59.99 + Costume DLC ($89.99 Season Pass)

Blue Reflection stars a high school girl, Hinako, who used to do ballet, but was forced to quit after a leg injury. She soon finds herself recruited by two sisters, Yuzu and Lime to travel to another world and fight the manifestations of people's out-of-control emotions.

Sound familiar?

While the tone isn't exactly the same, as BR is more down-to-earth than Persona, the story-telling and flow of the game very much matches Persona's. The combat may not be as in-depth as Persona's, but it's still turn-based JRPG combat. The world itself is also gorgeously rendered and lovingly designed. And who knows? You may fall in love with these girls in the very same way you fell in love with the cast of your favorite Persona game.

"The Combat!"

You Should Play: Atelier

Genre: Crafting JPRG

Most Accessible Game: Atelier Rorona DX

Platform: Switch and PS4

Price: $39.99 OR 3 game bundle with the next two games in the Arland Trilogy for $89.99

The Atelier series is very popular in Japan, and has existed for about as long as Persona. Your main character is an Alchemist, a person who can create items from other items. You spend most of your time going out to harvest ingredients and create items for your lovable group of clients, and usually solve a mystery along the way. Ever wanted to be the shopkeeper who shows up at the end of the super-hard dungeon? Now's your chance.

Like Persona, your party member's abilities are limited. Instead, to be effective in combat, you must create weapons and healing items to use in dungeons against your foes. You can be a super buff healer, or you can rain cannon fire down on the arena, it all depends on what you want to create.

Atelier Rorona is about Rorona, a young girl who is suddenly put in charge of her teacher's alchemy shop just as the kingdom was about to shut it down. It's your job to prove that alchemy is still worth something in an era of technology.

Also, some of the characters may sound familiar to fans of Persona 3 and 4...

"The Characters!"

You Should Play: Fire Emblem

Genre: Tactical JRPG

Most Accessible Game: Fire Emblem Awakening

Platform: 3DS

Price: $39.99 + Map DLC ($6 to $6.50 per pack)

Fire Emblem is a series of tactical JRPGs for Nintendo Systems that started in the mid-nineties. Despite their deep combat mechanics and interesting storytelling, their sales declined until 2012, with the release of Fire Emblem Awakening.

Awakening is a story about family, time, and fate. It has its own twists carried on the backs of its lovable and memorable cast of characters. As the Tactician of the Shepherds, you can get to know everyone, from the crown prince Chrom and his spunky sister Lissa, to studious and hyperfocused Miriel, to the sweet-talking thief Gaius, to the strong Panne, last of her kind...I could go on really. Each of the characters stands out in their own way, and like Persona, romance is on the table.

"The Aesthetics!"

You Should Play: Danganronpa

Genre: Murder Mystery Visual Novel

Most Accessible Game: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Platform: Steam

Price: $19.99

Danganronpa is a divisive franchise. You either love it or you hate it. However, one thing can be agreed on: the games themselves look crazy cool.

Each character has a memorable design and quirky personality, and the more you hang out with them, the more you learn what's underneath their surface. It almost makes you forget that you're all supposed to kill each other.

You're trapped in this school/island/town until you kill someone else...and get away with it. After a body is discovered, the whole class is put on trial. If you're found out, you're executed, in a brutally ironic way.

Have fun!

Now I know that not everyone is super on board with complete genre or tone swaps, so if you answer this question, I can help you out even more.

What's Your Favorite Spinoff?

"I Hate The Spinoffs!"

You Should Play: Shin Megami Tensei

Genre: RPG

Most Accessible Game: Shin Megami Tensei IV

Platform: 3DS

Price: $39.99 + DLC ($1.00-$2.99)

Persona games themselves are a spinoff of this franchise, one of the original JRPG franchises and the original "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" game. Nowadays, while Persona is more popular, SMT has quietly been improving its mechanics and storytelling, to weave a tale of a bleak world where human survivors must fight back against demons, with demons of their own.

And at the end of the day, will you bring Order to this lawless world? Or will you let it descend into Chaos? The choice is yours.

"Persona 4 Arena!"

You Should Play: BlazBlue

Genre: Fighting

Most Accessible Game: BlazBlue Crosstag Battle

Platform: Switch, Steam

Price: $59.99 + Character DLC (All-In-One Season Pass is $19.99, additional colors packs are $2.99 each)

Story may not be your thing, but quirky characters and fun designs and weapons may be right up your alley. If so, let me introduce you to BlazBlue by Arc System Works, who helped create Persona 4's Arena games.

The writing is laugh-out-loud funny, and all the characters (mostly) hate each other after years and years of lore and generations of feuds. What better dynamic for a 2D fighting game?

And if you're still not on board with the mainline games, try Crosstag Battle, which features characters from BlazBlue, UnderNight In-Birth, Persona, and RWBY, along with the recently joined Arcana Heart! It's easy to pick up, even for fighting game beginners, and you're sure to find someone you like.

"Persona Q!"

You Should Play: Etrian Odyssey

Genre: Dungeon-crawling JPRG

Most Accessible Game: Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan

Platform: 3DS

Price: $59.99

This is unfortunately the only series on my list I have not played. However, I would be remiss to not mention it at all.

If you loved the dungeon-crawling shenanigans of Persona Q, you'll be happy to find that it was created as a spinoff of Etrian Odyssey, which deploys very similar mechanics combat-wise.

"Persona Dancing!"

You Should Play: Project DIVA

Genre: Rhythm

Most Accessible Game: Project DIVA Future Tone Prelude

Platform: PS4

Price: Free (2 song demo) + DLC (Future Tone Bundle gives 220 songs for $39.99, Future Tone Season Pass gives the rest of DLC for $19.99)

Say what you will about the Persona Dancing games, but nothing feels better than getting a Full Combo on a song you've spent hours on.

Project DIVA looks are your P5D King Crazy's and scoffs. It laughs at your supposed "skill". It wants you to put your skills to the true test in its true series.

Make no mistake, it may be a game about Vocaloid...but its beatmaps get CRAZY hard. However, it's also crazy addictive. With hundreds of songs, outfits, and accessories, everything can be changed and feel brand new. And you'll need that change in monotony, because you'll play songs over and over again just to chase that 100%.

"I just want Persona 5 Scramble already!"

You Should Play: Warriors Spinoffs

Genre: Action Combat

Most Accessible Game: Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition

Platform: Switch

Price: $59.99

So you're waiting for Scramble? You want to rip through Shadows like butter?

Then pick up a Warriors game and get swinging!

I'm recommending the spinoffs over the originals because, if you know how their home games (Hyrule and Fire Emblem) play, you'll be able to grasp how integrated the mechanics of their originals and the mechanics of Warriors fully mesh together. Also, Hyrule Definitive comes with all DLC, so definite bonus points there.

[shirtlesssammy]

4x19: Jump the Shark

Then:

John Winchester, amirite? (But seriously, that intro! Call backs to John’s parenting, hunting, Sam going darkside, Dean’s “If I didn’t know you, I would want to hunt you.”)

Now:

We open with a woman being chased through the halls of her house. She barricades herself in her bedroom with her armoire. Whatever evil is outside her room, it can’t get her now and she sits down on her bed. YOINK! Something drags her under! As she tries to scramble away, she knocks over her bedside table, and a picture of John Winchester.

Sam and Dean are in the middle of nowhere.

Sam is busy with personal care, using his little purple toothbrush. Dean wakes hungry, but only finds one very spoiled tuna sandwich. (Dean looks so little in the leather jacket here! And he’s an adorable bean, too!) One of John’s phone rings. The person, Adam Milligan, is looking for John, and Dean informs him that John’s been dead for over two years. It’s then that Adam reveals that he’s John’s son. Cue super zoom on Dean!

The brothers head to Windom, Minnesota to meet their so-called brother, specifically at Cousin Oliver’s Diner (Oh, Jerry Wanek, never change!) As Sam listed every real thing about Adam Milligan, Dean is stocking up on every kind of monster hunting weapon they have. Something tells me Dean’s not buying it. In fact, he thinks Adam is possessed by a demon or is a shapeshifter.

Once inside, Dean swaps regular water for holy water and the silverware with silverware. Sam shows Dean an entry in John’s journal that placed him in Minnesota about 9 months before Adam was born.

Adam walks in and joins the brothers. He inquires into how they knew John. Awkward. He asks how John died. “On the job.” “He was a mechanic, right?” And Dean, always the helpful older brothers adds, “A car fell on him.” Hostile Dean is a fun Dean.

Adam drinks the holy water and doesn’t react. So, not a demon. Sam asks why he was trying to contact John, and while Dean pulls his gun under the table (lol, boy), Adam tells them that his mom is missing. Dean wants to know more about how well Adam knew John. Not that well, actually. He met him when he was 12 and didn’t know much more than his name. But “when John heard he had a son, he raced to town. He dropped everything. He drove all night.” Oof, please stop talking, Adam. But. He continues to tell Sam and Dean about John visiting him and teaching him poker and pool and buying him his first beer and teaching him how to drive on his ‘67 Impala. I can’t tell if Dean is more offended by these stories or the fact that all his monster detecting traps aren’t working. Dean calls him a liar, but Adam can prove it all.

Cut to Adam’s house, and Dean holding a picture of John and Adam at a baseball game. I MEAN JOHN WINCHESTER, great non-parenting of Adam and all, BUT YOU’RE THE ACTUAL WORST. While Dean reconciles with the existential crisis of having the worst parent ever, Sam cuts to the heart of the matter and finds out more about Adam’s missing mom.

Dean takes a half look around the house and Sam contacts the police and does a little research. In 1990, there were 17 graves robbed. These sweet summer boys don’t know what John was hunting though. A month ago, the corpse-snatching started up again.

Dean then notices scratch marks coming from under the bed. They move it to reveal a vent. They rock-paper-scissors to see who’ll go down it. OH DEAN.

He heads into the vent where he finds blood, and a whole lot more blood and the remains of human remains.

Later at the motel, Adam bursts in wanting to know who Sam and Dean are. They apparently told him to call the cops but they’re skipping town. Adam, proving to be as smart as his two brothers (but maybe not as quick), says, “You’re not mechanics.” Sam breaks first and tells Adam that they’re hunters. Sam proceeds to fill his younger brother in on the family business. Adam accepts it and wants to know how to help. Dean is livid about the whole situation.

He wants Adam left out of the hunt. He then storms out after telling Sam to babysit the kid. SO much to unpack here.

Sam gets to play big brother for once and starts to show Adam about proper gun handling and maintenance.

Dean checks out the desecrated tombs. And then he heads to a local bar.

For Local Bar Science:

The bartender pegs him as a Fed right away. He asks about one of the missing people. It turns out he was her husband. She tells Dean that her husband was a deputy for a while, and even worked the grave robbing case back in 1990. He worked the case with a little help from a “specialist” and that “they took care of what done it.”

Back at the motel Sam shows Adam the basics of gun care (brotherly bonding….aw?) when suddenly the lights go out. There are strange noises in the vents of the room, so Sam and Adam race outside for Adam’s truck. At the edge of the truck, something grabs Sam’s ankle and hauls him to the ground. Sam’s about to get sucked down beneath the car when Dean arrives and scares off whatever was trying to take Sam. When they move Adam’s truck, an open sewer grate is revealed.

Dean and Sam piece together the basic case details: whatever’s attacking people is targeting individuals connected with the old case from the ‘90’s. “He wants revenge,” Adam notes.

Back at Adam’s house, it’s domestic protection time! They tell Adam to pack a bag so they can drop him off at Bobby’s house. Sam’s not so sure that’s the best tactic. They’ve got Adam - what the creature wants. “We could train him,” Sam says. “Get him ready.” Dean’s moderately horrified at this plan but Adam, lurking at the edge of the kitchen, agrees right away.

It’s training montage time! In a quiet wooded area, Sam teaches Adam how to shoot a gun while Dean looks on disapprovingly. In Adam’s kitchen, Sam teaches him how to untangle monster lore. “Being a hunter isn’t a job, Adam,” Sam imparts gravely. “It’s life.” Sam is...clearly so into his teacher / big brother role. (Cries about future plotlines.) Sam tells Adam that personal connections are weaknesses in the hunting life. Dean looks on with even more disapproval until he finally breaks and hauls Sam aside. The speech Sam was giving Adam is the same one that John gave Sam right before he left for Stanford. Oh MAN.  

Sam defends his John-script snatching, because now he knows the truth about the hunting life. Sam believes that the fact that they never had a picket-fence-childhood shaped them into who they are today: strong hunters. I mean, that’s TECHNICALLY accurate. Dean only agrees with the superficial details of that, though. It’s too late for them, Dean contends, but Adam still has a chance at a normal life. What a depressingly fatalistic way of expressing that, Dean Bean.

This cuts to the heart of the episode:

Sam: What makes Adam so special?

Dean: What, are you jealous of the kid?

Sam: Are YOU?

Oh, knife to the heart, Sam! Sam continues to insist that Adam’s apple pie life with dad was an illusion. The reality of the world is cold, dark, and full of monsters that want to destroy them. “Dad didn’t have a choice with us,” Dean argues - ever the John apologist, but Adam has a chance at a BETTER life. Stay tuned for my 8,000 word essay on John’s parenting choices. This episode makes me so sad for just...everyone involved.

As a result of this conversation, Dean makes it his personal mission to destroy the thing that’s coming after Adam so he can have that good life again.

Dean heads to the cemetery alone, finding broken crypts and cracked stones. In the gloom, he locates a loose stone which leads to a tunnel into the ground. Ugh, Dean, don’t go in there! Noooo!

Dean hauls himself through and into an old, ornate crypt scattered with bones. (Side note: what is UP with this fancy cemetery?) He finds a bloodied limb and a pair of glasses from the missing bartender. A noise crackles through the narrow tunnel and Dean shoots blindly into it, collapsing the tunnel. Ooops! He checks his phone. No signal. We are blessed with not one, but TWO “Son of a bitch!” outbursts.

At Adam’s house, Sam lays down salt lines and seals up the ventilation shafts - all except the one that was under his mom’s bed. Now there’s only one way into the house - through the creepy tunnel!

They hear a noise elsewhere in the dark house. “Mom!” Adam shouts, then breaks out running through the house. His mom stands in the kitchen. She just got away! She’s alive! Hooray?

Not hooray, Sam tells Adam. The woman standing there isn’t his mother. Sam levels a shotgun at her.

In the crypt, Dean’s still trapped. He starts looking through the crypt again, opening a recently disturbed coffin. Inside he finds the body of Adam’s mom, torn apart and stowed neatly out of sight.

Back at the house, Adam insists that his mom is really alive. Oh dear. Adam grabs the shotgun and Sam urges him to shoot her, shoot her she’s not human!

Adam suddenly smirks. “I know,” he says just before he knocks Sam out with the butt of the rifle. OH DEAR.

Cut back to Dean who opens another coffin and discovers Adam’s torn body. Dean puts two and two together, and starts to throw everything he has into breaking out of the crypt. He spots a stained glass window at the top of the room. An escape hatch!

Sam wakes up tied and taped to the dinner table. “You’re ghouls,” he realizes. The fresh kills aren’t the usual ghoul MO, so they didn’t think of them as suspects. Ghouls, as it turns out, take the form of their last meal and absorb their thoughts and memories as well. (Honestly, ghoul physiology is just fascinating. Please look forward to my white paper on the subject.)

The two ghouls tell Sam that the ghoul John Winchester had killed in the 90’s wasn’t a monster - he had never killed anyone. He only ate dead bodies. I mean...I know I have differing views of human remains than other people, but I really feel for that dead ghoul - killed for eating buried remains. The hunter that killed him was definitely a monster, in the two ghouls’ eyes.

Dean ingeniously finds his way out of the crypt by breaking an ornate stained glass skylight and then uses a bar pried from a coffin as a pull-up bar to haul himself out. Daaaaaamn that’s some fine body-weight lifting, mmmkay?

Back at the Milligan house, the two ghouls slowly slurp Sam’s blood and reminisce about their fatherless childhoods. The two ghouls are siblings and grew up alone thanks to John Winchester. They grew tired of feeding off of random graveyard takings and started up their revenge banquet. They take pleasure in telling Sam about Adam’s tortured death just before slicing open Sam’s veins.

Dean arrives just in time. A shotgun blast takes out one sibling and then it’s just fake-Adam against Dean. Sam’s blood drains quickly while Dean fights him one on one. He bashes fake-Adam’s head in and then frees Sam, wrapping cloth around the deep cuts. “That’s what family’s for,” Dean says in response to Sam’s muttered “thank you.”

Dean and Sam give Adam a hunter’s funeral. He was their brother, Dean reasons, even if he never knew about them. Sam suggests calling Cas and asking for him to resurrect Adam. (Which is a WHOLE BIG concept to unpack.) Dean turns that down, though. Adam’s in a better place now. (Which is pretty sensible, if you consider the looming apocalypse.)

As Adam’s body burns, Dean says, “You know, I finally get why you and Dad butted heads so much. You two were practically the same person. I mean, I worshipped the guy, you know? I dressed like him, I acted like him, I listen to the same music. But you were more like him than I will ever be. And I see that now.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sam says.

“You take it any way you want,” Dean says, over a metric ton of buried trauma.

Natasha: Watching this through season 14 eyes, it feels SO cathartic to claim Dean as “Mary’s son.”

John Winchester’s Secret Family of Quotes:

One sip of Jesus juice, this evil bitch is gonna be in a world of hurt.

This is a trap.

Now I’m thinking about Dad-sex. Stop talking.

What'd Dad do with you on your birthday?

Why didn’t I throw paper?

Godzilla's just a movie.

He’s a Winchester. He’s already cursed.

The only thing you can count on is family.

We are what we eat.

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