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greatwyrmgold · 2 years

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More Otherverse OCs

A bunch of people liked the last post I made about an Otherverse character I made up, so I figured I'd share a couple more with varying degrees of detail.

Frode Kvasir, the Emptied Vessel

I'll start with Frode, since he's possibly the most detailed out of all of these. But those details are all in this Reddit post I wrote on him, so I won't write too much here.

Frode is basically an Other in the form of a transient, which faeries created and use to gather and refine the experiences of people faerie don't want to directly interact with. He's stuck in a cycle where he gets rescued by local unhoused people; listens to, refines, and shares stories; and has all of that knowledge violently extracted from him before being abandoned again.

Eve Penders, Glamour Alchemist

The protagonist of Pith, a fanfic I posted one chapter of. Her backstory was supposed to be explained in chapter 2, but I never got that to a state I was happy with before getting distracted.

Born Evelynn Micaiah Isolda Pendra, firstborn of a couple of lesser faerie Practitioners. Her parents pawned her off to the faerie for reasons she was too young to understand. The terms were relatively lenient, with three important points.

First, there was an option to buy Evelynn back at a later date, if the original price plus interest was paid. The parents intended to use this option more or less immediately, once they used the amount borrowed to do...something...but if this worked, being sold probably wouldn't be a defining moment of Evelynn's childhood. After all...

The faerie swore not to seriously or permanently harm Evelynn for the duration of the contract. No long-term transformations, no maiming, no stripping away her identity, stuff like that.

Finally, the contract would end when Evelynn came of age. No more special protections, no precontracted buy-back, etc. Evelynn would have one chance to win her freedom at that point, with terms left up to her owner. If she won, she'd be given a new life to replace the one she lost. Otherwise...

Eve's feelings about this arrangement are complicated. She recognizes that her parents cared about her to some extent; if they didn't, they could have gotten a much better price out of her. But at the same time, they still sold their own child to the Fair Folk. If they truly loved her, wouldn't they have found another way? If nothing else, one parent could have agreed to be temporarily sold. Aren't parents supposed to do stuff like that, to sacrifice themselves instead of their children?

Stripping away details that only matter in the context of the unwritten fanfic: Evelynn's contract was passed around, and wound up in the hands of Guildmaster Morcant, a faerie businessman who ran a literal sweatshop. (His workers make stuff, but the sweatshop's primary money-maker is the sweat of exploited children.)

Morcant has a thing for stripping away names and identities from his workers, to make them fit into his machine better, but he was limited in what he could do to Evelynn by the terms of the contract. He could reduce her name to Eve Pendra, but couldn't eliminate her personal identity or ties to her family. Eve caused enough problems for this faerie that he wound up selling her off; he sees the whole thing as a big disgrace.

As her eighteenth birthday approached, Eve's contract wound up in the hands of one of Morcant's rivals. Eve convinced her that she could embarrass Morcant again by selling Eve to him, specifically so he could get vengeance on her through the contest...and also giving Eve enough of an edge that she won the contest he rigged.

That happened; Eve won. She kept the gifts she was given to win the contest (notably including the ability to produce a small amount of glamour herself), and also gained a new life to replace the one she was taken from.

Eve Penders was no longer connected to the Pendra family, but she had awakened at a normal age and was trained in the art of using glamour. Eve Penders was awakened, bound by the Seal of Solomon as a Practitioner, but Eve technically never took the relevant oaths herself; thus, her Practice tends to be fragile and ephemeral.

Eve has the skill of someone trained by a family of faerie Practitioners, but this quirk of her Awakening exaggerates the weaknesses of glamour-based Practice. Luckily, she chose to attend college in a town where a prominent alchemist lived. Alchemy is a much more stable Practice, to the point that even non-Practitioners can use it to some extent.

Eve still uses glamour sometimes, both on its own and in conjunction with alchemy. For instance: After she decides to turn against her tutor, for reasons irrelevant to this bit, she steals alchemical reagents she's working with, replacing the stolen portion with glamour. Since some of the active ingredient is still present, the potion has part of its normal effect; the glamour makes it appear to be fully effective. Eve hopes nobody will realize it isn't before she's rescued her tutor's homunculus-clones and turned fully against him.

The Melomanic Bug & the Calamity Bug

This story starts with a third bug, the Millennium Bug. This Bug was a Nex Machina, created when a technomancers tried to channel some of the global fears over Y2K into an entity they could use. They wound up snaring more of the Y2K panic than they anticipated, creating a centipede-shaped Other powerful enough that it took most of the powers in one of the world's largest cities to contain.

Luckily, the technomancers tried this in late 1999, so it wasn't long before Y2K went—and with it, most of the fear that kept it going. The Millennium Bug collapsed in on itself as people realized that Y2K was largely under control. But that much power can't just go nowhere.

First off, the Millennium Bug created a powerful echo. (A pale shadow of the original Bug's power, but that's still very potent, especially compared to other vestiges.) It was bound by a Practitioner with an interest in creating artificial Others, who sacrificed several visceral Others in an effort to stabilize the echo. The first of these was a musically-inclined bogeyman, which was disproportionately influential over the end result—a slithering bug-snake-thing surrounded by haunting music. The Melomanic Bug.

Now, part of the process of stabilizing the Melomanic Bug involved forging a sort of master-familiar bond with it. The Bug's creator(?) assumed two things: That the stabilization would be largely effective, and that a familiar bond with a powerful Other would be less hazardous if he designed the Other for the purpose of being his familiar. These assumptions were theoretically sound; in practice, what he was doing was too experimental and volatile to have that much hope in things going according to plan.

The Melomanic Bug's "master" now spends most of his time maintaining either the Bug or his connection to it. It's only a matter of time until something disrupts him enough that he gets utterly subsumed by the Bug. Whether this results in the whole thing messily collapsing/detonating or gaining enough Self to truly stabilize depends on the circumstances.

But the Millennium Bug didn't just leave a ghost, it left an impression, something like the Carmine Beast's. But instead of collecting violence, it collected fear; and instead of manifesting as violent behavior, it coalesced into a new bug. A scorpion-shaped mass of the dread people felt towards a seemingly inevitable doom.

Known as either the Millenarian Bug (a reference to millenarianism) or the Calamity Bug, its core was formed around fears that the city would decay under a crime wave, which has a strong influence on it. However, over the past couple decades, most of the power it accumulates comes from global climate change.

The Calamity Bug can take human form, appearing somewhere between a corporate executive and a yakuza boss. (Did I mention that these characters were written for a fic set in Tokyo?) If it isn't trying to look normal, it has a stovepipe hat like a caricatured 19th-century industrialist, aside from the fact that it's belching smoke like a literal stovepipe.

Aside from this shapeshifting, the Calamity Bug retains some of the Millennium Bug's Nex Machina nature. In particular, it infects areas with its presence, cutting them off from reality. People trapped in these areas emerge, apparently the victims of either violent crime or industrial accidents. And of course, it has an affinity for technology—especially internal combustion cars and industrial machinery.

The Calamity Bug and Melomanic Bug are nowhere near the godlike power of the Millennium Bug, but they're certainly among the city's local powers. (Well, the Melomanic Bug's "master" is—that Bug isn't fully sentient.) They're remnants of a calamity that almost befell the city.

The Virgin Killer

A bogeywoman, living in the same town as Eve Penders up there. They are, in fact, friends! It's probably worth noting that the city they live in has an associated realm, called the Undertow. It's a bit like Kennet's undercity, but shallower and less bloody. The details matter in theory, but aren't interesting enough to get into here.

The Virgin Killer usually goes by Virginia or VK, both because her true name is a double misnomer and because it's not a name most people would want to be called by. The big thing I like about VK is the way she hunts.

Imagine you're some stereotypical frat boy, bar-crawling to get lucky. You're drunkenly hitting on girls, ignoring them when they tell you to buzz off, maybe getting a little handsy. Finally, one girl responds positively, a girl wearing a white jacket over a red sweater. Virginia. She looks vaguely familiar, but you're pretty sure you've never seen her before.

Virginia invites you to her place, and you accept. But something's off about the apartment. it's eerily quiet, and you notice that she doesn't turn around after taking off her jacket, even when she's leaving the room. As Virginia goes to tidy up her room, you think you see something move by her shoulder. A trick of the light, surely.

When she's ready, you head into her room. Virginia faces you still, sitting on her bed, wearing her red sweater. On the wall behind her is a great big mirror; you can see that Virginia's sweater is backless.

So is Virginia.

Where there should be smooth human skin, there is instead a gaping cavity. Bloody things squirm in her hollow torso, like a cross between intestines and earthworms, coated in blood.

You flip the fuck out. Virginia stands up, asks if something's wrong. The things in her back unfurl, stretch out behind her. One reaches forward, you stumble backward before it can grab you. This shit is not worth the pussy.

You run out of the apartment, Virginia following. You scream for help, but nobody responds. One of her bloody tentacles almost grabs your arm, your ankle, your neck. You run out the back door, duck through an unfamiliar alley, keep running, running.

Suddenly, you realize she's gone. You're in the middle of downtown, in the middle of the night, high on adrenaline, with a bit of red smeared on your cheek. But you're alive.

Over the coming weeks, you keep thinking you see Virginia in the corner of your eye. It's not her, just some classmate or neighbor or random chick who looks kinda like her. But seeing those girls reminds you of that horrific night again.

So yeah, that's VK. She hunts douches, brings them to her apartment (which straddles the normal city and the Undertow), reveals her true form, chases the douche back through the Undertow version of her neighborhood into the normal city, and lingers in their mind.

That last effect is achieved through glamour she barters from Eve, which lets her look a bit like the women her targets run into. Not their friends or family, just random women they happen to pass by regularly. Each time someone thinks they see VK and is afraid it's actually her this time, she feeds on that fear. And there are a lot of douches in town.

VK is, physically speaking, one of the strongest Others in town. She works as an enforcer for the local council—keeping peace in the market, intimidating ornery goblins, driving out unwanted intruders, that sort of thing. She doesn't have a lot of special tricks; she looks human, looks familiar, and has basic bogeyman tricks plus extremely strong back tentacles.

Okiko, the Cinder-Urchin

A side character in an Otherverse/Jujutsu Kaisen crossover fic I never wrote. My notes identify her as "an 'it's complicated,'" specifically noting "Ghost:Wraith::Revenant:Okiko". Which doesn't feel quite right, looking back, but it's a snappy opener.

There once was a petty thief, shot to death by police officers while running from the scene of a crime—a common enough occurrence in any large city. Somewhat less commonly, she got up and began killing police officers in revenge.

Practitioners working in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department reacted quickly. One of them caught the revenant and threw together a quick-and-dirty positive binding to keep her in place long enough for her to be bound properly. As Pact/Pale nerds know, positive bindings bind like with like; they're not particularly forceful, but they feed power into the bound Other, so it generally chooses not to break the binding.

The Practitioner contacts Sakura*, a local incarnation of Spring. She wove living green plants into the revenant's binding while the group's more powerful members got ready to deal with it. In theory, this was replacing the positive binding with a negative one, binding (un)death with life, which would keep the revenant trapped against its will. Instead, the revenant kept drawing power from the life-infused binding.

This made the revenant verdant, stronger than expected, and unsuited for what the police Practitioners had prepared. She escaped to kill more police officers; they tried to bind her again, this time in fire, but again she drank from their binding and became a burning torch of a revenant.

I'm a bit torn on whether the group should try to bind her with a third thing, have her overcome it a third time to cement Okiko as a breaker of bindings, and then contact the local Lord; or if they should see that coming and contact the Lord first. Either way, the Lord gets contacted.

For most Lords, this should be the end of the story. The Lord sees that this new Other is a threat to the local community and puts it down. But this is a Jujutsu Kaisen crossover, and part of the fic's premise is that Satoru Gojo is the Lord of Tokyo.

For those who don't read/watch JJK, Gojo has an anarchist streak. In my fic, he took the position of Lord specifically to prevent anyone else from using it; when he realized powerful Practitioner families and such took this opportunity to abuse their power even more, he instead started abusing his Lordship to disrupt various power blocs in Tokyo's Practitioner community.

So instead of destroying the revenant, Gojo shapes her, guides her. This is where the revenant becomes Okiko. No longer is she blindly attacking anyone in a police uniform; she's a being of life and fire and freedom, delivering righteous violence on those who abuse their power over others. Police officers, of course, but also corrupt politicians and abusive businessmen and the like. Obviously the police Practitioners aren't happy about this outcome, but the optics of complaining about how she still murders the cops who brutalize people aren't great, and it's not like they could directly oppose Satoru Gojo even if he wasn't Lord.

That's Okiko. A revenant who gained a knack for absorbing anything used to bind her, consolidated into someone who punishes abuse of power.

*Sakura isn't notable in any way I feel like sharing, but I really like her name. See, sakura/cherry blossoms are symbolically important in Japanese culture, and specifically symbolize the start of spring, when the titular cherry blossoms—hey, where are you going? Come back!

Carl Thurow, Magus at Law

(He isn't an attorney but I don't have any other law magi to make that joke with)

"The universe is perfectly balanced. Action and reaction, good and evil, debit and credit. All things have a price equal to their value, and that is how it should be."

A Law Magus/accountant who buys into the status quo hard. He started with significant advantages that he turned into overwhelming strength, so he assumes anyone else could do the same if they worked at it. Never mind the fact that he actively made it harder for others to succeed as he ascended.

Another critical part of Carl's worldview is the belief that everything is a zero-sum game. He believes that for anyone to gain something, someone else needs to lose something. (Justified in part by seeing the world as innately competitive; if Alice gets stronger, Bob gets weaker. Mostly justified by being extremely loose with his logic.) The only way to make the world better or worse is for the "good" people to gain as much as possible at the expense of "bad" people.

He has two unique points of Practice.

First: With a proper ritual space, tools, and enough time, Carl can calculate a numerical representation of value for a person/object/etc. Their karma, their Self, their social clout, their personal strength, and so on, reduced to a single number. This process involves drawing a diagram around them—like long division, but magical (and circular).

Once he's done this, Carl can add additional elements to the diagram to either drain or add raw power to them. Draining power leaves them diminished but exaggerated; a goblin becomes pettier and nastier, a faerie becomes more ethereal, an Incarnation becomes less human and more axiomatic. Adding power dilutes them, making them less special (though more powerful).

Second: With a bit of raw power and the right ritual diagram, Carl can create two equal and opposite spirits. This has many uses; for instance, some elementalists would be interested in someone who could turn a store of raw power into fire and ice elementals.

Most often, though, Carl does this to create Omens of fortune and misfortune, binding the former to bolster his own luck and inflicting the latter on those he deems deserving. (Being a Law Magus, he's naturally skilled at finding karmically-deserving targets.) Frequently, these people are already desperate; an extra dose of misfortune drives them to do even worse things, which makes Carl feel justified in targeting them.

A literal shower-thought idea.

Blackforest Angler

A concept that I've worked into a couple of different characters for different fics.

Step 1: Have a powerful Blackforest Trapper who uses Others in the "trap". (This usually involves something brothel-adjacent, binding succubi and the like, but anything that requires trapping Others to serve as part of the trap could work. Or maybe mundane humans, if they're bound to it magically and not just by a salary.)

Step 1b: The Blackforester has the full Practitioner panoply. His place of Blackforestiness is his demense, and his familiar and Implement are in part used to control, tap, or otherwise interact with it.

Step 2: The Blackforest Trapper dies, but his connections remain. (Maybe justify this with an exotic form of death that doesn't sever his connections cleanly, or entangles them, or something.)

Step 3: The spiritual remains of the Blackforester—his legacy, his memory, the connections between his panopoly and other possessions—stick together, animating a new Other.

This Other, the Blackforest Angler, is formally a complex spirit. It's composed of the Others bound within the Blackforest Trapper's Practice, the demense and building it was based out of, the Implement that...was involved somehow.

The angler is a living symbol of the idea that the harm someone does can outlive them. The system our Blackforester created outlives him, continues to ensnare new Others to keep it working and claim new victims to empower it.

It's powerful; not as flexible as the Practitioner that originated it, but about as powerful, and not tied to a single fleshy body.

Unnamed car salesman

I never got around to naming this character. Let's call him Kobeni, because his cars rate more highly than he does. He's a chaos mage, which is like a Finder except that he calls himself a chaos mage (and doesn't think of what he does as "finding" things).

Kobeni buys and sells cars, but the most notable car on his lot is his own work. He dragged a sedan off the Paths and gave its internals enough of an overhaul that a mundane mechanic should be able to fix it if something goes wrong (taking Lost engine bits for use in other projects).

He also channeled the car's Lost nature into a very useful ability. If nobody outside is looking at the car, and everyone inside the car closes their eyes, it can teleport to another empty street with the same name. The big limitation is that the jump consumes as much gas as it would normally take to drive there, and the car has pretty crummy gas mileage for its weight class; if you don't plan things out carefully, you'll be stranded on the wrong Third Avenue with an empty tank of gas.

It also hasn't been extensively tested; in particular, Kobeni hasn't tested things which might let the car slip back to the Paths. Don't teleport to or from roads with "oak" in their name, don't drive on those roads too long if there aren't people around, and definitely don't drive off a cliff.

There's also a gremlin-built city car which has been on the lot for years. It was probably designed to be crashed, so obviously not many people want to drive it.

Batteries Spirit

I guess this isn't a "character" in the conventional sense, but I don't know what else to call it. A magic item with a soul?

It's a complex spirit—part electricity elemental, part automotive spirit, part infrastructure technomancy...thing. Its primary hallow is a portable car jump-starter. (You know, one of those batteries with the jumper cable clamps that you can stick in your car to jump it in case you don't have a friend around when your battery dies?)

That jump-starter is very good at jump-starting cars, in part because part of the batteries spirit enters the car's battery. While that segment of the spirit resides in the battery, the car is basically guaranteed not to have battery problems (no more jump-starts, no matter how cold it gets). In exchange, the spirit siphons some energy from the car's engine, which has somewhat worse performance and gas mileage. The effect is easily large enough to be noticed if you're already tracking those things, but probably not if you aren't.

The spirit segment in a battery can thrive or starve, depending on circumstances. If the car is driven every day, it will grow to fill the battery and infiltrate parts of the car's electrical system; it shapes the electrical system of that car to serve as a better hallow for itself. Such a segment can spread to cars which its host vehicle jumps.

On the other hand, if the car isn't driven much at all, the segment withers and dies, returning the battery to normal. If the segment inhabited the vehicle for any significant length of time, other immaterial Others might take up residence in its place, with all sorts of interesting effects on the vehicle.

I keep calling these spirit segments "segments," because they're all still parts of the same complex spirit. The spirit is distributed over dozens of cars, giving it significant power...while making it difficult to use that power for any specific thing. And since events which let it spread from one car to another are relatively rare (a car it inhabits being used to jump another car), it's not likely to spread across the entire continent any time soon.

Whoever holds its primary hallow can consult the spirit for its wisdom. It knows a lot about automotive electrical systems, of course, and also understands the flow of electricity in general. Mostly, it's a way to tap power from cars across the county. Of course, drawing too much from the spirit risks draining the weaker segments to death, removing both a source of power and a spot it could theoretically spread from. (And creating haunted car batteries, but that's somebody else's problem.)

The batteries spirit itself doesn't have much personality or agency. It has dreams of spreading to one of those new electric cars, with their massive batteries, and maybe figuring out a way to infect the broader electric grid from there. But it doesn't have any plans for that other than "Hope someone jumps a Tesla with one of my hallow-cars," and it's not clear whether it could spread to something charging a battery it's in the way it spreads to batteries it charges.

The Bogey-dragon

Just a random weird idea. Dragons are created when power feeds into itself, like a fire burning on itself, growing stronger faster than it consumes itself. Bogeymen get power from fear. What happens if a bogeyman sustains itself on fear of its own reflection?

#pact #pale #otherverse #wildbow #pact oc #original character

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hey-hamlet · 3 years

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The SCP AU has only been mentioned ONCE but I’m already thinking about it! AU where sometimes, children have anomalous abilities and attributes. They may be showing it of to their classmates. They may be desperately hiding. They may not be of this world. They might not even notice it. But there is a foundation that calls them SCPs, and it wants to steal them away to a place of cold cells, calculating researchers, and containment. Where they will never see the light of day again. That is, if they don’t succumb to their own powers or get killed by some other SCP. But if they are careful, and brave, and in need… a door will open.

those doors lead to UA! And UA isn’t just a high school. It’s also a research center, a college, a middle school, an elementary, AND a preschool. Anything a lost child could need while they learn who (what) they are and what they can do. SCPs get a basic curriculum for whatever dimension they plan to live in, plus the skills (if possible) needed to blend in- the courses offered are varied. Most move to a more accepting place (three Portlands is a popular destination). They can also choose to live permanently in UA, as staff. Adults… can SOMETIMES get in. If they’re lucky. And Nedzu is looking for new employees. (parents of young anomalies might get an exception)

UA is… if a place could be the definition of “reinforced”, that would be it. The main building gets, well, destroyed or blown up every now and then, but it always puts itself back together by sundown. Reality benders find the locally reality to be unusually… stiff. Unbendable. It has separate buildings for each school level, student dorms, staff apartments, Several massive underground bunkers, all the regular stuff. A few gyms open up into seemingly indefinite planes of grass, for especially dangerous SCPs to practice.

As for where UA is… nobody can tell if it’s a pocket dimension or a parallel world, but across the wall is a view of regular Japan. Getting close to the walls is impossible- you simply find yourself on the other side of the property, or right where you started. Students have attempted to cross reference the view of “regular” Japan to events happening in REAL Japan, and things don’t quite match up! Some swear they’ve seen Nedzu exit the front gates and return with a little bag of groceries, but he’s probably just messing with them. Maybe.

As for the price… Nedzu is a little fey-like when it comes to the price. A student can pay back tuition as a no-interest loan, but most are encouraged to instead become alumni- basically pledging to protect UA and its students in any time of need. Protecting can mean many things, from obtaining critical resources to infiltrating oppositional groups to straight up serving as Nedzus own private (hero!) army. (1/3)

Random character backstories:

Eraserhead has the ability to drag halt abnormal things. But if he stares for long enough, he will bring ALL things back to normalcy- a grimoire becomes a book. a teleporter is forced to walk. A god becomes a man.

Of course, living in normal society, he had no idea. But one day his friend came to school nervous and excited and pulled off his hat and his hair was made of mist!! And he could make little clouds!!! And Shouta thought it was some crazy prank, but he went along with it. Until lunch time when a bunch of strange men in black robes with guns and tattoos all over their faces broke into school! They demanded to have “the missing link”, and then they blew up a hallway and people were screaming, and then black ooze was dripping from the walls and blood was dripping out of their eyes and they killed someone. and then helicopters were landing outside and different men in white were running in and shooting back and the cafeteria ceiling collapsed and the sky was RED and someone grabbed Shirakumo and tried to drag him away but Yamada started yelling except he was SCREAMING and the ground was shaking with his voice and his mouth was too wide and the building started to collapse and this is all TOO MUCH and this is ILLOGICAL and WRONG and Shouta grabbed his friends and ran for an exit but Shirakumo turned around to throw a cloud over a kid under a falling wall and Shouta and Yamada fell forward and the door shut and there was a little white mouse in a tuxedo and Shouta.

Blacked out.

Tokoyami bought a fake grimoire on eBay and accidentally summoned a real demon to his soul

Recovery girl wasn’t hired by Nedzu, she just showed up one day on UA grounds to heal. Sometimes she mentions ancient history like it was yesterday.

Ectoplasm is a ghost. Like, a dead guy. Nedzu had his grave, dirt and all, moved to one of the apartments so he could “haunt” (teach) at UA.

Shoto is the son of a high ranking manager in the SCP foundation. Endeavor very much does not believe in sympathy for SCPs, and he made that clear when Shoto was locked up.

Hawks is a first responder to attacks on UA, due to his ability to “fly” between dimensions. He is also somewhat overworked.

Iida didn’t need rescuing- his parents are well respected alumni so he and his brother got in free. Having practically grown up there, he is among the few who NEVER get lost no matter how many times the school rearranges itself. Some kids joke that he is one of the many robots that keep UA functional.

Ashido ate an entire packet of Wondertainment® ExTrA sOuR gummy worms.

(2/3)

A bonus Crack backstory- the SCP UA is situated right in the regular BNHA world. Nedzu grew up in a lab like normal, but he never escaped. He just… popped out of existence one day. Twenty years later he returned, older, wiser, impossibly powerful. He sniffed the air, wandered Japan like a little cryptid, and finally found a nice hill in the woods. The next day… UA sprouted like a sunflower fell from the sky unfolded from the wrong dimension materialized from nothing APPEARED, and everyone aptly freaked out. Heroes stood guard as scientists and researchers poked and prodded at the walls, but nobody could get through the barrier. The people inside are weird and wrong but don’t seem to notice them, or even the occasional nearby villain battle. Even all might tried to break through, decades later, when he spotted a little girl get decapitated (she’s fine), but UA simply isn’t of this world. The main cast goes to Ketsubutsu, I guess. And if there are rumors of doppelgängers, of heroes swearing up and down that they saw themselves (but WRONG) inside The School, well. Those are just rumors.

!! Everyone read this this is so good!!

#asks #bnha au #scp children au

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sineala · 3 years

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Captain America: The Great Gold Steal

I wrote this up last week because I did not have access to my usual comics files but I figured I could review something that was just a book. So here is a review of the 1968 Captain America novel Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White, with an introduction by Stan Lee. I really liked it, actually! It was surprisingly good!

This novel features: Cover art of Captain America holding his shield in one hand and a very large gun in the other! A scene where the villains dramatically unmask Captain America and have absolutely no idea who he is! Captain America being extremely, extremely depressed about being in the future! Captain America dropping acid!

(I'm not kidding about the last part. In this novel there is a lot of LSD use. By Captain America. Talk about something the Comics Code wouldn't ever let you put in a comic book. Thank you, 1968.)

Faithful readers may remember that some time ago I posted reviews of Marvel prose novels from the 1970s. There was a line of prose novels featuring everyone's favorite Marvel superheroes, published by Pocket Books in the late 70s; I have reviews of the Iron Man, Captain America, and Avengers entries in the series; I liked the Iron Man one best, and I also have a Doctor Strange one I have not yet read. They're all short and action-packed paperback reads, of varying quality; the only one by anyone you might have heard of is the Avengers one, which was written by David Michelinie, who was actually writing the Avengers run at the time. That one was, um. An experience.

(Yes, it's "prose novel" because otherwise the assumption is "graphic novel.")

Marvel still publishes prose novels now, of course, also of varying quality; some are new plots and some are straight-up novelizations of comics arcs, which I guess is useful if you want to, say, read Civil War and not look at pictures at the same time. I also have a bunch of those that I could probably review if anyone wants. But, anyway, I personally am particularly intrigued by the older Marvel prose novels, both because the stories are all original and not retellings, and also because I often prefer the characterization found in older comics. And the older prose novels of course use the then-current characterization. So reading a Marvel prose novel from 1979 is like getting to read a brand-new comic from 1979, and that's a whole lot of fun for a nerd like me. Also do you know what's not subject to the Comics Code? Prose novels. So things can happen in these that definitely could not happen in comics of the same era.

This brings me to my current prose novel, which is something else entirely. I mean, okay, not really, it's still a Marvel prose novel. But it's not part of the same line. It's actually a lot older.

Bantam Books actually published Marvel prose novels in the late 60s. Yep, a full decade earlier. They published exactly two, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they were probably not bestsellers. The first one, which I do not own and now sort of want to track down, was an Avengers novel in 1967, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker. And then in 1968 they published the novel I am currently holding in my hands, Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White.

(I am still not sure why no one involved in titling this book thought of the word "theft.")

Judging by the back copy, it appears to be about Captain America foiling the villains' dastardly plan to steal gold from the Federal Reserve. Oh boy. Fun.

So this book is from 1968. The modern Marvel universe had kicked off just a few short years ago! Captain America was just getting his own solo book after the end of Tales of Suspense! And here's a novel about him, back when certain elements of his characterization were perhaps a little more flexible than they are today, by which I mean that the cover art -- which the internet informs me was painted by Mitchell Hooks -- is a striking full-body portrait of Captain America, head held high, shield in one hand... and a very large gun in the other. Hell, yeah. Not gonna see that in today's Cap comics, are you? It's amazing and I love it.

(Okay, you might see that in Ults. I'm pretty sure I have seen that in Ults, actually. But this is still cool.)

So the cover art is a definite plus, and apparently it's one of the few reasons anyone has ever heard of this novel. The other reason -- and the reason this is more expensive than the later novels, I assume -- is that Stan Lee's name is slapped on the cover, because he wrote an introduction. (I think I paid about $30 for this. The others were definitely under $20.)

All right. Here we go.

The first page is actually a brief summary of Steve's origin story, but not a version I was familiar with. Steve was born July 9, 1917 (yes, I was surprised too), was orphaned at a young age, and was a student at Columbia University (!) before Rebirth, which in this version is a gradual process that is also extremely body-horror. Steel tubing was inserted into the marrows of his bones. He was fed "high-protein compounds." Then they gave him a chemical that "gave him complete control over every nerve, muscle, and cell in his now-magnificent body." Sweet. Where can I get some of that?

The blurb also confirms his control over his own metabolism as well as his healing factor ("wounds would heal in half the normal time"), which is nice, because sometimes I wonder if canon even remembers the healing factor.

(I don't know why Marvel has this kink for filling people's bones with metal, though. It's not actually empty in there, guys! You need your bone marrow! How else do you want people to make new blood cells?)

The book is dedicated to "Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, without whom there would be no Captain America." Hey, Marvel, Joe Simon would like a word with you. I'm just saying.

The Stan Lee introduction is three paragraphs written in Stan Lee's, um, inimitable, distinctive and extremely florid narrative style -- if you've read any of his work, you know what I mean -- and making the point that Captain America is incredible and you will like him. If you are just discovering him for the first time, you will definitely like him. Okay. Thanks. I guess.

Oddly, the writing style here is substantially different than any of the other Marvel prose novels I've read; it doesn't immediately front-load you with exposition and a cast of colorful superheroes. It opens with a sort of James Bond spy-novel feel, running through a series of unnamed villains and bystanders, and a man who wants nothing more than to talk to Captain America but is killed before he can. Steve comes in halfway through the chapter, and he seems to be written for a reader who doesn't necessarily know who he is, and he isn't introduced as Captain America with his shield flying ahead of him to smite evildoers, or anything like that. He's just a tall, handsome blond guy who is reading a bunch of novels and is unsatisfied by all of them because all he can think of is the past. It's definitely an attitude I would expect from Steve in this era -- he is very much a Man Out Of Time here -- but it's also not how I expected the book to introduce him. You wouldn't even know he was Captain America by the end of the opening chapter, which then ends with a digression about the history of NYC subway tunnels. It's like it wants to appeal to someone who has watched a bunch of Man from UNCLE and just wants to read a cool thriller. Which is not at all what I was expecting.

By the beginning of the second chapter, of course, we discover that Steve is Captain America, as he changes into his uniform. The narration refers to him as Rogers when it's in his POV, if anyone is curious. He apparently keeps the cowl off in the mansion, because the cowl annoys him.

It was not so much that he needed to conceal his identity these days, because for all intents and purposes he had no other identity. Steve Rogers was officially dead, and had been for almost twenty years. Captain America *was* his identity. It was only when he donned the tight-fitting blue uniform with its shield chest-emblem, the red snug-fitting leather boots, and the heavy, yet pressure-sensitive red-leather gauntlets, that he began to feel real -- a complete human being.

Steve? Buddy, are you okay there? You're really not okay, are you, huh?

You see what I mean? They're really hitting the early-canon angst. Hard.

(Also it sounds like his uniform is a few sizes too small.)

We then get an expanded version of the backstory from the beginning excerpt. In this version of canon, Steve actually has an older brother, Alan, who is handsome and athletic and basically amazing, and when they are orphaned they are raised by their aunt and uncle. Steve gets TB twice as a kid, nearly dies from it, and when the stock market crashes, ends up separated from his brother and in an orphanage after his uncle loses everything.

(Honestly if I were writing this book, his brother would be the secret villain. Chekhov's Gun!)

Steve has glasses, gets bullied, is a nerd and an honor student, and studies law at Columbia because he wants to help stop fraudulent business practices and also fight organized crime. Legally, I mean. In a manner relating to law. I guess he's sort of like Daredevil. The lawyer part of Daredevil.

And then he joins Rebirth, and this is the part where I had to put the book down for several minutes, because Erskine's secret chemical, the key to making super-soldiers... is LSD.

Oh my God. You should see my face right now. My expression is, I am sure, indescribable. I'm trying not to wake the dog up laughing.

I just. Holy shit. This book is from 1968 in a way I definitely was not expecting. What the fuck, Marvel?

This project was headed by the brilliant biochemist, Dr. Erskine. His work with the endocrine system, and chemical body control, was well beyond that of his contemporaries. Only he, of all his colleagues, had fathomed the secrets of the Swiss Dr. Hoffman's 1938 discovery -- the mind-controlling LSD-25.

Let's just pause here for a few minutes and contemplate this.

I will point out that Albert Hofmann (yes, the book spelled his name wrong) didn't actually discover that LSD was a hallucinogen until 1943 when he accidentally tried it, but I am positive that 1968 here was a time when Some People were convinced LSD was a wonder drug. I'm still laughing. As far as I can tell, legal manufacturing of it stopped in 1965 so I am pretty sure that the author did not just decide to name a drug that had an ostensible legal therapeutic use, because it wouldn't have still had one by '68.

Anyway, in this version of events, Rebirth is a month-long process that involves a lot of vitamins, physical conditioning and training, and, yes, putting metal in his bones like he's the next Wolverine. They're filling his bones with stainless steel rods to make him stronger. That doesn't seem like a great idea to me, but I am also not sure about dropping acid to gain superpowers. Clearly I am not a genius scientist. Also Erskine knows what DNA is, apparently, because he's just that great. Anyway. Other than the metal, those all seem like relatively normal interventions. So far.

Now Steve has become fairly big and strong (and I guess he still has metal in his bones? this concerns me!) but they need to make him superhuman, so, yes, really, it's time to drop acid. Several pages of this book are devoted to describing Steve's acid trip. His acid trip is amazing and he discovers that he has conscious control of his entire body down to the cellular level. He can control the adrenaline in his bloodstream! He can tighten his muscle fibers! And when he's done tripping he still remembers how to do this, if not exactly on a conscious level, but he can still access the abilities. And that is how you make a super-soldier. It's LSD. Remember, kids, drugs are awesome! Do drugs!

Let's maybe take a few more minutes to think about this.

I just. I have no words. How did anyone at Marvel agree to print this?

I think for the most part superhero origin stories tend not to involve real drugs because people are generally aware that drugs they've heard of won't make you into a superhero. I guess this is what it looks like when you invoke the names of real drugs. They probably wanted something that sounded more realistic but somehow I don't think this was the best way to go. (Radiation, of course, will definitely make you into a superhero but I feel like most people have accepted that as one of the conventions of the genre.)

Anyway, after that Erskine gets killed by Nazis, of course, and Steve goes to war, and for some reason this book contains footnotes by Stan Lee himself listing the comics you can read all of this in. Just like the actual comics do!

We are introduced to Bucky, who for some reason is also from the LES in this version, although not anyone Steve knew before the war, and there is of course a description of Bucky's tragic death and Steve's subsequent icing.

They are really, really stressing the Man Out Of Time thing here:

No other man could have survived so fantastic a voyage through time. And no other man could feel so displaced by time.

He was a man twenty years in his own future. By rights, he should be nearly fifty years old -- nearly twice the age of his fellow Avengers. Yet his mind and his body were not yet thirty.

When the Avengers had brought him back to New York with them and insisted that, as an honored hero of the past, he join them, he felt a sort of melancholy homesickness for his own time and world.

We then get a few paragraphs with the usual being sad that he let Bucky down and got him killed, and also that he misses his family, and that Steve Rogers doesn't exist anymore, and that nobody is alive who remembers him, and that war is hell.

Hey, Steve, maybe the drugs you should do are antidepressants. Just a thought.

Also, this book is 118 pages and we're not out of the origin story flashback until page 34. I think there are some pacing issues here.

Actually, I lied, the flashback keeps going, but now we're up to the Avengers finding him, and I have to say that the list of things Steve finds strange about the future is kind of charming when the future is 1968. Men have long hair! Women have shorter skirts! Everyone is kind of blasé about rocket launches because there have been so many space missions now. (Oh, come on, you haven't even landed on the moon yet, 1968! You're not that blasé.) Color TV! And, excitingly, LPs! You can now listen to 36 minutes of consecutive music. (I actually don't know what previous standard he's describing that is a ten-inch record that holds six minutes a side because I don't think 45s are that big. Yeah, no, I just checked and 45s are seven inches in diameter. Hmm. Oh, never mind. He means 78 rpm, doesn't he? In my defense, the record player my family had when I was a kid didn't play those.)

The description of Steve coming into New York for the first time is definitely written by someone who knows New York, which is fun. There is generally a lot of local flavor to the setting of this book. That’s one of the best parts.

There is a brief summary of Steve's feelings about all the Avengers -- he is most impressed by Thor, which, I mean, fair, he's an actual god -- and Hank telling him all about how he can live in Tony's mansion. With Jarvis. Who Hank says is actually from Flatbush. Apparently Steve spent a lot of time at the NYPL branch at 5th and 42nd trying to catch up on history. And then of course the Avengers ditched him and gave him the Kooky Quartet, and for some reason they're not here right now either so it's just Steve being sad and alone and dealing with this mysterious dead guy. I think probably the book is also done explaining fiat currency now. This is definitely the weirdest Marvel novel I've read.

Anyway, we have now returned to what is ostensibly the actual plot. Steve shows up at the New York Federal Reserve Bank (I guess the theft is happening here and not, like, at Fort Knox) with the gold bullion that the dead guy from the beginning of the book had on him -- I think I got distracted by the LSD bit and forgot to mention that part, but the dead guy was carrying some US government gold -- because the actual plot is that villains are trying to tunnel into the bank vault and steal gold. Steve discovers this after he gets the bank manager to give him a tour. The bank manager tries to refuse, citing security concerns -- Captain America could be anyone under that mask, after all! Steve just smiles and says, "If I removed my mask, would you have any better idea of who I am?" and I guess that's a flawless argument because he gets his tour.

(I'm sorry, all I can think of is that one gif from the JLA cartoon where Lex Luthor bodyswaps with the Flash, announces that now that he's in the Flash's body he's going to discover the Flash's secret identity, then pulls off his own mask, stares at himself in the mirror, and says, "I have no idea who this is.")

Given that the theme of Steve's interior life in this novel is "Steve Rogers died twenty years ago" it seems even more sad that Steve is just walking around basically saying, yeah, well, I'm nobody. And apparently that is being reaffirmed for him by the narrative.

So Steve goes down the tunnels, takes out some of the bad guys, and gets himself knocked out and buried in a collapsing tunnel. Don't worry, he's gonna be fine.

A lot of this book, by the way, is from the POV of random people, like this bank guard who went with Steve into the tunnels:

He had wondered, briefly, if a man like Captain America ever knew the pinch of too many bills, had ever felt desperate over the arrival of yet another mouth to feed. But, of course, Captain America had no family, and would hardly concern himself with such matters. It didn't occur to Thompson to wonder if this in itself might not be something for which to pity Captain America.

Rude. I mean, come on, do we really need random characters telling us Steve is a sad sack whom nobody loves? Steve's already got that covered! (Also, how does this guy know Captain America has no family?)

Anyway, thanks to the power of LSD, Steve is going into a trance, amping up his metabolism (he loses "several pounds" in a few minutes), and making himself super-strong so he can dig himself out. Hooray. This is definitely how human bodies work. Also LSD. This is definitely how LSD works. Yes.

Steve then finds out that a couple of the guards who were with him in the tunnels died down there and he goes home and eats dinner while stewing in miserable guilt because he was responsible for their deaths. He's really not okay. I'm not sure the book actually understands how not okay they have made him. Then someone from SHIELD is on the phone for him and he is briefly cheered up by the thought that it might be Sharon although I think we should also note that the narrative makes it clear that at this point in canon Steve still doesn't know her name. Remember when that was a thing?

Alas, it is not Sharon; it's just a random SHIELD agent who happens to have information about the plot and asks to meet. Then, as Steve leaves to go to the meeting, we get two pages of exhaustive description about the mansion layout and how it's built relative to the surrounding buildings. It feels like this book was written by a frustrated city planner. But anyway, the meeting is a setup and the villains capture Steve.

They knock Steve out, drug him, take him to their hideout, and tie him to a chair. Except, once again thanks to the power of LSD, the tranquilizer they're using wears off way sooner than they expected and so Steve feigns unconsciousness and listens to them discuss their evil plans.

And then the villains unmask him and I swear it's exactly like that JLA gif:

Rogers heard footsteps scuffing across a thick carpet, and then Sparrow's voice again, almost directly over him. His ears still buzzed, but he fought to catch the elusive familiarity of the man's tone. He wished he dared open his eyes.

"This is a moment which I, personally, have long awaited," Sparrow said, his voice rising in triumph. "*The unmasking of Captain America!*"

Then, his nails scraping along Rogers' face, Sparrow dug his fingers under his cowl, and ripped it back. Rogers felt air strike his exposed cheeks and forehead. Then fingers clutched his blond hair and pulled his head back. "Behold!" Sparrow said.

Raven was first to speak. "Well, I dunno about you, Sparrow, but it rings no bells with me. I never seen him before."

Starling agreed. "His face means nothing to me."

"He could be anybody," said Robin. "What good does this do?"

Sparrow let Rogers' head fall back to his chest, and his voice when he spoke was defeated. "I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I always wondered. I felt, if these guys -- these costumed heroes -- wore masks, it must mean something."

"Captain America was missing for twenty years," Starling said. "That could mean the first one died, and this one took his place. He looks awfully young."

"Perhaps. It doesn't really matter. Let's get going."

(Yes, the villains all have bird-themed codenames. I have no idea why.)

This scene just makes my day. I love dramatic unmaskings. I bet they'd have been a lot happier unmasking Iron Man.

The villains then leave Steve and go to a power plant, where we switch POVs to one of the plant employees and get two entirely unnecessary paragraphs about his racist and anti-Semitic thoughts about his coworkers before the villains murder him. Great. Thanks.

Anyway, the villains cause a blackout, while meanwhile they've left Steve alone with the girl villain, and Steve is busy trying to persuade her that crime doesn't pay. He's moved from the "do you know what they'll do to you in prison?" theme onto "how exactly are you going to spend a billion dollars in gold bullion when it's illegal for civilians to possess? who are you going to do business with?" and then points out that gold is heavy and hard to transport, which is when she gets out a a knife.

The bad guys are off to steal the gold, and Steve has now successfully turned the girl they left him with, because she frees him. Of course, the first thing he does is put the cowl back on.

"Why do you wear that?" she asked.

"The mask?" He smiled. "It gives people something external to concentrate upon."

"But..."

"Without it, I'm just another ordinary-looking man. With it, I become a symbol. For some people it creates awe; for others, fear. Look at me. I'm different now, aren't I? With the mask on."

"Yes," she nodded. "You look -- bigger, somehow. Stronger. Fierce, implacable. You look a little scary."

"Exactly. You no longer see me as a person, but as a thing -- an Avenger. It can be a potent psychological weapon."

"They were so disappointed, when they took your mask off. As though underneath they'd find a famous person."

"Maybe that goes on TV -- handsome playboys, and all that. But I've been anonymous all my life. Even my real name would be meaningless to you, to them. No, the mask is part of the uniform, a psychological device. That's the whole story.

Now: let's get out of here. You have a good deal more to tell me yet, and we can't waste more time."

Bwahaha. In a few years, Steve's going to be pretty surprised about who superheroes are, I think.

STEVE, now: Superheroes definitely aren't secretly handsome playboys! That would be silly! STEVE, after Molecule Man: fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUCK I'm such an idiot

I'm definitely looking forward to that.

Also, not that the issue of Steve's psyche actually recurs after this, but he's once again having the narrative vindicate his belief that Steve Rogers is dead and whoever he is under the cowl doesn't matter. Steve, I don't think this is very healthy.

Steve then tracks down the villains stealing the gold, has some geopolitical thoughts about where the gold could be going (he thinks either South Africa or Russia for the best laundering potential) and then hides himself in the villains' trunk while they drive to Staten Island, which is where they're taking the gold out of the country from.

During the final confrontation, Steve finally gets to see the villains, and he discovers that the one in charge is in fact the director of the Federal Reserve Bank who Steve met at the beginning of this book. Gasp. But that's not all! He's also... the Red Skull!

Honestly, I was kind of surprised; I didn't think this was the kind of book where we'd get any known comic villains, but I guess it's always gotta be the Red Skull. I think he's the only one of Steve's big villains who likes to disguise himself; Zemo has obvious disguise issues and I imagine it's also hard to cover up Zola's Teletubby-esque television body.

Steve shoots one of the villains, because I guess that's what he does in this era of canon.

So the plot wraps up in, like, two pages, because for some reason all these early Marvel novels wrap up very fast. Red Skull, of course, attempts to escape and then disappears and his body is never found. The end.

Well.

That was definitely a book. That I read. Believe it or not, I actually think it was the best of these early Marvel prose novels that I've read so far, even if it was also the absolute weirdest; I thought the thriller-style plot was entertaining, I liked Steve and his Extremely Sad characterization, I obviously enjoy all the identity themes, I liked how very detailed the New York setting was, and I do like how they tried to treat it all seriously. I mean, sure, this did lead to LSD in the super-soldier serum in presumably the name of realism, but I felt like the book was trying to present superheroes in a way that didn't feel silly and also didn't really take for granted that the reader would automatically accept superheroes.

It felt like a book that was written hoping that people who weren't superhero fans would read it, if that makes any sense. And I thought that was interesting, because most modern superhero work that I can think of assumes they've got complete audience buy-in and everyone is willing to suspend their disbelief and we all know the genre conventions and are expecting people running around in brightly-colored spandex. Whereas this is more like a James Bond novel if for some reason James Bond were called upon to defend his decision to wear brightly-colored spandex instead of bespoke suits. But I assume no one read it, because Bantam never published a Marvel book after this one.

If you can actually find a copy of this one for a price you're willing to pay. I recommend it. It was delightful and way more solid than I thought it was going to be.

Also, come on, you know you want to read about Captain America's acid trip.

#posts i actually wrote

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firebunnylover · 4 years

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LoSH S2 discussion

I love Legion of Superheroes. And i love season 2, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about how it could have been improved. In terms of quality, it varies more than season 1. Some parts are top tier while others… eh.

Season 2 is darker than season 1. And there’s the inherent stigmatism that darker means better. But it’s not true.

A horror schlock film is not inherently better than an animated film.

I don’t blame the staff on all its shortcomings. Kids WB was on its deathbed, so they probably had less time to work and iron out ideas. And executive meddling.

The second season had a lot of good elements, but there are things that weighed it down. I am here to discuss how to improve said things.

Heads up: ended up editing part of this post after rewatching the episodes.

This first bit is more of a personal preference, but instead of the 41st century, maybe move the original source of conflict to a farther region of space, one that the UP doesn’t interact with, and has been growing in terms of turmoil until they finally resort to bringing the Legion over. In other words, it has just been put aside by everyone else to the last minute.

Parallel to Brainy’s relationship to Brainiac. He doesn’t want to deal with it. He never brings it up. But maybe if he did, he wouldn’t have gotten corrupted.

This place still has plenty of old documentation of the original age of superman, so Kell is disillusioned with the ideal glory days. Keep Kell Edgy.

Kell’s home and K3NT still gets destroyed - reflects Krypton’s own destruction.

SPEAKING OF KELL:

Make his story more apparent that it’s one realizing that kindness is not an inherent weakness. And neither is being soft. He was raised for fighting and killing Imperiex, and was taught to think that they were weaknesses. Have him realize his identity can be beyond the Clone of Superman made to kill Imperiex. Or rather, have him react more to realizing that he’s moving beyond his given identity.

To clarify; they do address his development in the show a few times, but I want more continuous development instead of the rapid nods we get. Have him try to interact in a more humane way with others. Especially with other members of the Legion. Where they have to take a double take in seeing him acting not that edgy. Maybe offer more flashback of him fighting Imperiex in comparison, and how he treated allies then.

Also put K3NT’s story under the microscope. I doubt Imperiex just came out of nowhere with his attacks. Plus the fact they went far enough to send a hitman after a fucking child? That screams yikes and maybe we need to double check the story.

And an overall issue to be addressed is what rights do robots have and what conditions need to be met? Because let’s face it, we make robots to do complex work for us. But Colu is a culture where the main people ARE robots. Like in Transformers. What line do we draw between non-sentient robots vs the sentient ones in the 31st century? And what about cyborgs/people who give up their original bodies for robotic ones?

Plus Imperiex himself came to be because of the perfected combination of organic tissue and robotics. This topic of robots and individuality/personhood could have been a fun topic to explore.

Don’t sideline the girls. Leave TG alone.

Don’t put SG in a coma for nearly the whole season - seriously it’s the reason why the guys make one bad decision after the other. Although with that said, it’s because she’s not around we got the majority of s2 plots. She’s the goddamn mom of the squad. Just make her busier and unable to keep an eye on her idiot boys for the plots based on bad decisions to happen.

Or have her deal with after-effects of what Esper did to her. Maybe after a whole season of being the emotional support character, have her be the one in need of emotional support or not being able to help directly, especially when the group needs emotional support. Emotional support paradox.

Maybe don’t make Cosmic Boy appear as much as a dick in the episodes where he does show up. He’s trying to hold this goddamn team together, and there’s a goddamn tyrant trying to conquer the galaxy. HE’S FUCKING TIRED AND STRESSED. AND IM SURE THERE ARE A BUNCH OF JERKS WHO WANT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT TO DISSOLVE THE LEGION. Better yet, throw in some more backstory with him and his little brother Pol!

And in regards to Imperiex… The dude has a lot of potential. I like his voice actor, Phil Morris. The guy voiced Dr. Sweets from Atlantis.

But his writing needs help.

In the original DC comics, he’s the embodiment of Entropy. Anyone who’s seen Madoka is probably familiar with what that is. But if you're not, here’s a definition: “ the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work...” He’s the embodiment of that energy that cannot be used for anything. And Entropy grows over time.

Another definition of what Entropy is “lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.”

In the comics, he’s more of a cosmic being as a result of him being an embodiment of unusable energy. He’s been in existence since, well, the beginning. He had destroyed the universe and recreated it multiple times. Okay, so that lines up with how the show portrays him. And technically, he does get the universe to reset itself in the 41st century when he alters the 31st century enough.

But I personally feel that making him a cosmic being is kinda… meh?

I personally prefer more personal villains most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, an Eldritch being done right makes a great character, but I can’t see Imperiex as one. At least not LoSH’s version.

Plus I like it when the protagonist sees the villain has a point and has changed as a result for the better.

You know, over a year ago, I used to think that it was impossible to make a tyrannical villain who’s presented as real evil seem complex.

And then… I was introduced to TFP Megatron.

Now for you LoSH fans who haven’t watched Transformers Prime, Megatron was once Megatronus. A low caste member who worked in the mines and Gladiator games. He wanted to fix the growing corruption of Cybertron. To make things better.

But his worse personality traits took over, and he lost that good motivation. Now he’s just fighting to win and defeat Optimus Prime.

But despite the change of goals and ideals, he doesn’t want to simply abandon his relationship with Optimus. He and Optimus, or as he used to be called, Orion, were fighting for the betterment of society. And they meant something to each other. Megatron doesn’t want to just get it over with. He wants fanfare for his victory over Optimus. And he doesn’t want anyone else to rob him off that. But he isn’t opposed to getting Optimus/Orion back on his side. It’s because of this you can still argue that there is a remaining shred of good in him.

They were the best young lovers anD NO I AM NOT CRYING OVER THEM!

Also, the fact we know he was part of a minority group in the form of the lower cast that was enslaved can make us sympathize with Megatronus of the past, as well as understand how he came to be.

It doesn’t mean we forgive him for his actions - and he has done a lot of shitty things. And I mean a lot.

But his history is more understandable. TFP Megatron’s a fall from grace.

OK I’m done dissecting TFP Meg’s writing.

We know Imperiex was a slave, and was originally organic, who’s from a society where his purpose is literally just to fight, and was gradually stripped of his original body. He was originally stripped of any agency before then though.

But he says this was a good thing. Calling his original body a weakness. And refers to his old self as a pathetic slave.

He gave up whatever softness he had.

Also, this is where K3NT’s story needs to be reexamined. Imperiex was made during what K3NT described as “A Time of Extended Prosperity”. That time had freaking slaves. And K3NT says that when Imperiex did rise up, they were unprepared. So… they were prosperous, but lacked defense to prevent anything like that happening? Or perhaps those who were in charge were that unpopular that it was easy for Imperiex to start the war.

What made him decide conquering the galaxy was the next thing to do after he had every bit of his original self stripped away? Why go as far as destroy it?

What I’m trying to say is that they could borrow a few pages from the Megatron book. Maybe he was once trying to better the society he was part of, but he decides to play the violent card at some point. And somewhere along that strategy, he starts to lose sight of the initial goal. With that, being the victor and in control becomes the main one.

Or perhaps he has grown cynical of the galaxy as it is and decides it just needs to go all together, and then start from scratch.

Like the second definition of Entropy, he gradually declines in predictability and descends into disorder.

Maybe to juxtaposition the fact that Brainiac became the main threat at the end, make him the opposite or foil to him. Rationality or logic do not serve as first-or-second influences to decisions under pressure. Emotions and his own perceived ideas do.

Speaking of Brainiac, maybe offer more of the OG Brainiac. Give us more of that smooth-voiced Corey Burton.

Or TFA Megatron.

Seductive Bastard.

I’m sorry I have fallen for the shady-business-mafia-boss-but-morally-grey robot.

Also, the members of the legion that only get one episode focus? Give them more screen time. You can’t just introduce superman’s new adopted son Karate Kid and just not bring him for another speaking role again!

Actually, that brings me to another point.

As @spandexinspace pointed out, his episode is not the best, and is arguably the worst written of the whole series. Things that are issues do get brushed off to the side.

So a proposal on potential rewrite:

First, have the legion look over its current rules and what exceptions/changes they need to make.

Explore the subject of kids having to participate in these fights.

To clarify, kid shows are meant to be escapism for kids.

Shocking, I know.

So it makes sense that some characters would be the same age as the viewers.

But while this is good representation, as you get older, you find yourself going “WHY WOULD THE ADULTS LET THEM ENDANGER THEMSELVES?!”

Kids having to fight at that age does have consequences. Batman Beyond certainly addressed it. So did Steven Universe Future.

Steven ended up being responsible for so much, that when he no longer needed to take care of things, he was unsure of who he was. And then there’s the fact he ended up with PTSD because of him having to fight so much. Then you have the fact that Greg and Rose never intended to raise him like their caretakers did... but as good as their intentions were, they still caused damage. Rose for… all the gem stuff. And look, Greg is a great dad, but not enforcing anything for Steven when he’s growing up still has it’s cost.

With Batman, he’s obviously going to do his damn best to keep kids safe, including the Robins. But sometimes, it’s not enough. He wasn’t able to keep Tim safe in the event with the Joker in Batman Beyond. Where he was held captive and tortured.

But the Batkids are never expected to resolve this stuff by themselves. Because Batman knows how much you can get screwed up as a kid. He fucking cares.

And to be fair, in most continuities I’m aware of, the other sidekicks came out pretty okay overall.

Except Jason Todd.

So my proposal?

Have Val originally with Grimbor, as a sort of Protege. But have the legion capture him, only to go “uhhh this is a child with no powers”. And Superman, being the good, wholesome paragon we all love, takes him under his wing.

In all honesty, I want Superman pulling a batdad for Karate Kid in his intro episode the whole time. That was the best part of the episode for me.

Plus after the events of “Cry Wolf”, the Legion should examine the no-killing rule. Because they do need to kill Imperiex to save the universe. But that goes against the code. But they can argue it’s a necessity. But Mar Londo is also a monster. He’s the everyday monster some of us have grown up with.

When do you need to make exceptions to kill someone?

And my final main suggestion:

Add more Mekt.

What the heck were you guys expecting? You all KNOW me by now. I LOVE MY GARBAGE BOY.

Joking aside, here’s what I would do.

Have the Chained Lightning episode pushed back, but have Mekt with Imperiex earlier. Most of us would yell “Why the heck would you join the guy whose main goal is to destroy the galaxy?!” But this is one of the easiest things to address.

Explore more of his past. Use the comic sources with him being outcast for being a solo on Winath. With that in mind, him deciding to side with Imperiex can make sense.

Why try protecting something that has done nothing but hurt you?

There’s actually a pretty good reason why he would side with Imperiex, as seen in Champions and Lightning Storm. Remember, Mekt was willing to cheat to get ahead of the sports competition he was introduced in. And also was thrilled when fighting Garth and was beating him on his own. He likes being in power.

Imperiex offers him that.

As for why Imperiex would bother with Mekt? That’s a little harder to answer. He knows that Mekt has a soft spot for his brother, and in turn sister, which proves to be the reason why the Tachyon Cannon fails. You’d think Imperiex would remove a huge fatality.

But he doesn’t.

Maybe he could hold another type of value for Mekt. Perhaps... nostalgia?

I’m still sold on the idea that they were sleeping together.

Also, give us a conclusive answer on where Mekt stands with the LSV. In the comics, he was the leader, but that role was given to Tyr in the cartoon more or less.

OK I think this has been polished enough for me to post now. What you guys think? Feel free to add on!

#legion of superheroes #legion of super heroes #losh #OH GOD I STARTED THIS IN SEPTEMBER #IT'S FINALLY DONE

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dork-empress · 4 years

Text

So I started making a list of british actors for varied parts. A lot of it is variable, as most of Temeraire is a bunch of Uptight British Gentlemen types, and England makes those in Bulk.

HOWEVER, as I was doing it, the cast list looked very...white. In future books/seasons where they go to other countries, this list is expanded, of course, but still. I thought 'well it is a historical piece, so it is accurate' and then I threw up on myself and came to my senses. It's all made up anyway, and Naomi Novik herself came up with a plausible reason to have women lead characters. I could do the same!

I still do want Will Laurence to be played by a white man, specifically this one:

Charlie Hunnam, of Pacific Rim and King Arthur fame. The Perfect Twunk British guy who's all strong looking, but could play both the Very Proper (Awkward) British Gentleman, as well as a fun loving dragon dad, and a feral warrior captain. He's our fish out of water character, so it makes sense he's as close to our idea of old timey british man as we can get.

NOW THOUGH: The aviators in this series are canonically lower staffed as it's hard to find people unafraid of dragons, plus they're a bit looser with the rules: as long as they get people on the dragons, they dont much care who they are, and dragons certainly don't give a damn about racism. Therefore, I think *historically* it would make sense as a career for a Freedman, or a Freedman's son, who may not have many prospects.

Enter John Granby:

THATS RIGHT ITS A PACIFIC RIM REUNION

Canonically, John Granby is lower-class, and was sent to the Aviators at age 7 because his family couldn't feed him. This contributes to how bitter he is about Laurence, a gentlemen, just GETTING an uber rare dragon egg with no work, basically. Changing his race doesn't really change his backstory, and in fact enhances the tension with Laurence: We imagine he has had to have worked 4 times as hard as everyone around him to get half as much. Plus, John Boyega can do the physical comedy amazingly once he gets his own dragon (spoilers) who is a fireball.

Harcourt and Berkley can go a number of ways, though I favor Rose Leslie for Harcourt because pretty and feisty red head. Though Bonnie Wright may also work. I have Timothy Spell for Berkley, but again, I just need an overweight british man, I think I can find one.

For Jane Roland though:

ITS CERSEI'S TURN FOR A DRAGON, BITCH!

But honestly it's her role in Imagine Me and You (great lesbian film if you're looking) that sets her as the crass but firm leader that Jane Roland needs. Plus, look at her, she could definitely Dom Laurence.

(though if we're opening this up to American Actors, she may have to fight for the role with Charlize Theron....)

For the dragons voice acting, I would like a Chinese-British voice for Temeraire, seeing as he's a Chinese Dragon raised British. You could bring forward some great british voice actors like John Rhys Davies and even, I'll say it, Benedict Cumberbatch. Say what you want, he has a good voice. Also Tom Holland for Levitas. Saying a brittle "You Came!" to his Captain as he dies, in the same tone as Spider-man's "I don't feel so good..." Ugh, I'm gutted thinking about it.

I want to throw Riz Ahmed in there somewhere. Maybe for Keynes, the Dragon Doctor? I can't pin it down, but he feels right for this series. I'd like a few British Indian's among the cast, considering the time period.

for season 2 I think Chow Yun-fat for Prince Yonxiang, Benedict Wong for sympathetic Sun Kai, and Gemma Chan as voice of Lien, the "evil" dragon. In Season 3, we need someone mixed Chinese and Caucasian for Tharkay, and I think Andy Serkis to do voice for the Feral Dragon Leader Arkady. Oh! And change Gong Su the chef to a woman. If you really want historical accuracy, maybe she came with her husband who died (there was another chef who disappeared on the journey). we just need more women of color in here. Maybe one on Temeraire's crew? Hm.

So yeah. I mean, it's not like a lot of them are set in stone, but I'm happy with a few of these choices to the point I can see it clearly in my mind.

#Temeraire #casting thoughts #i just #please put me in charge of this show #HAND OVER THE RIGHTS PETER JACKSON #YOURE NOT USING THEM YOU MADE THE HOBBIT INSTEAD

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earthstellar · 4 years

Text

INTERVIEW: Transformers lore and characters as discussed with my 74 year old mother

Backstory: I talk about fandom stuff a lot with my mom (she’s one of the original Star Trek fangirls so she knows her fandom shit lmao) and recently I’ve been discussing Transformers with her.

Me and my mom are very open with each other, and we have some interesting fandom conversations.

Here are some lines from a recent call with her that I thought might be interesting, regarding Transformers stuff and especially some interesting elderly person perspective on Ratchet. There’s also some talk of the theology in Transformers lore, including Drift and Spectralism, and a bunch of other stuff too.

All conversations transcribed from a recent Skype call, with my mom’s permission.

M is my mom, Me is just me-- So that you can tell who’s talking, lol. When other real people are mentioned, their names are redacted and replaced with an X for privacy.

Getting Started:

Me: Okay, there are a lot of younger fans for Transformers who might be interested in this kind of discussion, but I don’t see a lot of these conversations saved and shared anywhere, so if you don't mind I want to share some of your reactions to learning about Transformers stuff.

M: That’s okay, very professional of you to ask! The internet is a job now, I guess. I’m being interviewed, fancy.

On Ratchet’s Age/Health and older people in media:

Me: Ratchet’s the medic, he’s an old guy. Older than a lot of the other bots. In the comics (MTMTE/LL) he has a chronic illness and he eventually passes away from either that or complications related to it, although we don’t see it happen on the page. It made everyone sad; He’s a fan favourite.

M: I know how that feels, getting old and dying! I had years of thyroid symptoms before they had to take it out, I had endometriosis and they told me I couldn't have you, it’s an unsure thing. Now I’ve had skin cancers removed, I have too much potassium in my blood, I have fibromyalgia. I never expected to live this long.

Everyone is really just guessing at health stuff. It’s ironic that the doctor couldn’t diagnose himself, but I think he probably knew what was wrong and couldn't bring himself to accept it. Old people might accept that we can’t do some things any more but we tend to be depressed about it. Nobody really copes with it very well, you know X had a stroke and now she’s aphasic, can’t speak anymore, can’t read anymore, and she used to be a nurse. She’s older than I am, but it’s sad. She’s so smart and clever, and we’re just old. It’s what happens.

I bet Ratchet was scared. As a doctor, he’d know what can happen when you get old and decrepit. I think he was in denial, a lot of old guys seem to be like that.

Me: He was the medical lead on their ship, the Lost Light. I think you’re right and he wanted to be functional for as long as possible; He wants to be helpful and his job is his life. It would be hard for him; He struggles with retirement in the comics.

M: Sounds about right. I’m old as hell and I still work! Although that’s mostly because we all need money to live, and not so much because anybody wants to have a job at this age, but still. If he liked his job, he wouldn’t want to be pushed out. I loved working at the park; When I had to quit, it was devastating, but I didn’t really have a choice.

By the way, the audiobooks you sent me for X have really made her happy, she can read again, sort of! So thanks for that.

Me: I’m glad the audiobooks I sent you helped!

M: They have, you’re a life saver!

Me: I’m just glad they’re useful for her!

I think it’s interesting that his age is a part of his character in terms of personality and story arc; Do you enjoy seeing older characters in media that reflect the realities of age and being old, even when it’s difficult or possibly depressing?

M: Yes! There aren’t a lot of old characters, and the ones that are out there are mostly just joke characters or you never see them too often. I think the creators must think that old people don’t watch TV or anything, but the reason we don’t tune in is because everything is all about young people, and that can be hard. Watching people run around when you can’t anymore can be painful for those of us who have lost that ability now that we’re elderly, or watching kid-focused stuff can make us miss our families.

It would be nice to see old characters that are included and are competent.

Me: Representation is important.

M: Yes.

On Religion in Transformers:

Me: So, you work in a church. Just pointing it out so readers know where we’re coming from on this.

M: Yep, Episcopalian on the beach here, a small church. Services are mostly online due to COVID so I’ve lost hours on Friday, unfortunately... But I’m not complaining.

Me: And we both like the more spiritual lore type of content, it’s some good shit.

M: Always love seeing ancient Gods in space!

Me: So, there’s another old guy character, Alpha Trion, who’s a kind of sage-like mentor to Optimus Prime.

M: Optimus! He’s the truck! Everyone knows him, he’s the main guy.

Me: Yep! So Alpha Trion is an archivist, and when Optimus Prime was younger, depending on what version of the story we look at, he also used to be an archivist.

M: Librarian truck!

Me: Yes!

M: I love it. You worked at a library for a little bit.

Me: That work placement was the best, loved it. But Alpha Trion, depending on which version of the lore we look at, is hinted to be one of the formative deity-entities on their home planet, Cybertron.

M: Cybertroooooon. Haha! Good robot planet name. I’m into this so far, very cool.

Me: It is! And Alpha Trion is sort of the living memory of the early days of their planet and civilisation, but nobody knows. Everyone just thinks he’s a kind of cryptic weird old guy.

M: Relatable. I like this concept.

Me: It’s pretty good. So generally, things vary a lot from version to version of the story, but there are usually a handful of beings, early Transformers, who make up the character of their ancient lore. These are called the Primes, named after Primus, who pretty much always is depicted as their main God. Like Zeus, or Odin.

M: Very cool. Optimus is a Prime!

Me: Right! In a few versions of the story, he is the final Prime essentially reincarnated. The Thirteenth Prime.

M: That’s very cool.

Me: And in some other stories, Prime is mostly purely a title that has political connotations as well; It gets into a sort of weird Divine Right kind of area to help underscore some of the problems in their planetary political structure that led to the conflict that eventually became their civil war.

M: That sucks, but unfortunately, also relatable. It’s very real world, especially right now. It’s interesting how Transformers is so incredibly in depth; I never would have guessed from the cartoon ads that were on TV when you were little.

Me: Yeah, they seem to hide a lot of the lore, which is a shame. The comics are more adult than most of the TV shows, I think you’d like them.

M: Sounds like it. I love the spiritual robot stuff.

Me: In the comics, there is a religious practice called Spectralism that you might really like. They see auras by filtering different light wave bandwidths through their optics in order to detect mood, and all the colours have meanings assigned to them. They change their paint colours in accordance with those colour meanings as well, on some occasions. Meditation is part of the practice. One of the transformers, Drift, had at least one vision; It’s hinted there might be more to Spectralism, but we don’t see all that much of it in any further detail, unfortunately. They also believe in Primus as a deity.

M: It’s a shame they don’t elaborate more on it. It sounds very cool, like the stuff we were doing in the sixties and seventies. I bet Drift has some black light posters in his room, we had tons of them. Loved the velvet ones.

Me: He does have an altar, I think. Or a least a prayer area, it’s mentioned he meditates fairly frequently, from what I remember.

M: (Starts singing Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple) That was the best, put some tunes on... Good driving music, too!

On Femme Transformers and Sexism in Sci-Fi:

Me: So there are some lady Transformers, too!

M: Ooh!

Me: There’s Arcee, who is the pink one you probably remember from the ads or the cartoons, and in the comics she’s officially transgender.

M: Excellent! Trans-formers. Good.

Me: Yes! And there’s not just her, there’s Nautica and Velocity in the comics as well, plus Elita-One... (I showed her pictures of each.)

M: I like Velocity. I love the teal, the Thunderbird on the back is excellent.

Me: I like Velocity, too.

M: Elita has the head cones, not sure how I feel about that. She’s also pink, it’s hard to keep track of them all. I like Arcee, she has the Princess Leia hair helmet!

Me: I figured you’d like that. It’s pretty good.

M: I like Arcee and Velocity the best so far.

Me: There’s quite a few female or femme transformers now. There didn't used to be, and there were some mistakes made here and there, but nowadays there’s a much wider cast.

M: That’s good, I’m surprised, but in a good way. There were never women main characters in sci-fi stuff when I was a kid, it’s why Star Trek was such a big deal, and even then, it wasn’t all that great. There was Uhura, Nurse Chapel, but there were a lot of weird episodes...

Me: I love the Romulan Commander, though.

M: She was the best! Wished we got to see her more.

Me: Me too. But in Transformers, they’re doing a good job with the female coded characters, as least as far as I’ve seen.

M: That’s good to know. I’m glad that exists for girls who want to play Transformers, too. It always seemed like such a macho thing, the way they advertised it.

Me: Yeah, that’s still a problem to some degree, but I remember it being way more aggressively worse in the 80s/90s.

M: It was worse in the 50s when I was a kid! Cooking sets were the girl toy. They made Star Trek for boys, but when all the girls ended up being the main demographic that watched it, they cancelled it. It was Lucy from I Love Lucy who brought it back, I remember you told me that!

Me: Yep!

M: I’m glad little girls have Arcee. And little boys. They’re robots, they don’t have gender!

Me: Exactly!

If this kind of interview/conversation excerpt type thing is interesting to anyone, we’re happy to keep doing it!

Give me questions or things to ask my mom, she’s happy to give you some “old lady perspective”, lmao. ❤️

#Transformers #Transformers Prime #TFP #interview #fandom #MTMTE #LL #Maccadam #Maccadams #tf ratchet #tf drift #spectralism #transformers lore

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chorusnihili · 3 years

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I'd love to hear more about the development of your Gaster! :D

BACKSTORY ASK MEME 1. How did you first come up with your muse’s backstory, if you did at all? Continued from here Also asked by @alagaster

So I left off with the question of just how Gaster's soul ended up in pieces.

I’m actually going to detour at the moment and say that it was around that point that I had decided to make the blog. I had a vague beginning and an ending, and usually that’s not enough for me to want to start, but I was excited, I had a lot of fun, so I went for it.

Honestly, one of the first things I need to have before I even think of making a blog is a good url. Urls are super important to me, and generally, whether or not I think of a good one is a key factor in whether or not I actually make the blog.

But in this case, I was too eager to start and I actually just threw together chorusnihil so I could get started on the pages. The thought process remained the same--the chorus is from Greek plays, the group of characters that narrate the actions occurring in the play. nihil is Latin for nothing--and I later changed it to nihili, which is Genitive, to roughly make the “chorus of nothing” or “nothing’s chorus,” a reference to the fact that the guy wiped himself out of history, and so there’s no protagonist to narrate. This was supposed to be a temporary URL, but I got attached to it, for reasons I’ll get to later.

(And really, isn’t a roleplay blog a modern chorus in it’s own way?)

Also there’s the phonetic pun-- CORE-us, anyone?

So I threw together a lot of the basic bios. Most of the stat pages are really bland, most of the guts of the story comes from the hidden details, most of which were added on later.

Something that came up around this point was Gaster’s relationship to Asgore. A lot of fanon pictures them as really close. A lot of fanon also portrays Gaster as Gaster as desperately wanting to retake the surface, which...as mentioned previously, my Gaster just, wasn’t into.

So it sort of put Gaster in between Asgore and Toriel--he wasn’t happy about the decision to go to war with humanity, but he wasn’t going to abandon everyone, even if he did become really reclusive.

I thought about the idea of the human souls, and I knew that Gaster would immediately hate the idea of working with them. And that was convenient, too, since it allowed me to further separate Gaster and Alphys’s work. At first, it was just a heavy disagreement. The idea that Gaster killed Asgore accidentally came a great deal later, but it honestly served to be a rather critical piece of the story.

The design of the DT Extractor and Sans and Papyrus were also very vague concepts at this point.

Revisiting the idea of his fall. We know from the canon dialogue that he fell into his own invention and that he was scatted across space and time.

The CORE is the common culprit and it was what I had chosen, too. But how? How could an energy source... do that?

So the idea occurred to me that maybe--maybe that was exactly as it was designed to do. After all, even in the real world, we have power plants that operate by ripping apart molecules. So... magic. Why not magic? A machine that derives power out of ripping apart magical energy.

And monsters are made out of magical energy.

Falling into that sounds like a very grisly fate, indeed.

The idea of how he got erased from reality isn’t one I really have solidified. G has a couple of theories, and I’m willing to roll with either of them, but, really? I’m not super interested in making a hard reason for it. Namely to adapt to other versions of fanon other muns might have.

Essentially, the theories say that the CORE destroying him released so much energy that it tore a hole in the Determination that pushes the timeline forward, thus allowing the Void to enter and merge with his soul.

From there, either,

A., his Determination very briefly was larger than that of the Timeline, and he himself invoked a Reset, but given that he was outside of the timeline at the moment, it was corrupted and only erased certain parts rather than fully resetting. I think that this was the original theory that I used in the original RP.

B., the Void acted as a corrective force trying to correct the hole in the timeline. In doing so, it erased Gaster from the reality, thus replacing the existing timeline with a new one in which certain things never happened.

C., something involving the power of Rewrite that Gaster has from the duality of Determination and Void.

D., something else entirely.

And so we had the scattered Unbound Gaster.

Which, funfact, the name Unbound Gaster for the form was supposed to be temporary, as well. It’s a reference to Unbound Hoopa for Pokemon. (Which is why Provoked Form Gaster isn’t called Unbound Form!)

Within the original RP that I developed most of this lore, Refused Gaster didn’t exist. In fact, that roleplay ended with Gaster’s permanent death--and being permanently forgotten to the world. A choice he intentionally made because the damage he did to the timeline by falling into the CORE was still present and only getting worse, and the only way to fix it was to allow his Soul to come together and pass on properly, thus allowing the damage to mend.

It was sad. I cried. I got emotional.

I got attached to a traumatic asshole character I literally had for four days.

Somewhere in here, I began to think about the origins of Gaster. Like, way way way in the past. Some people have Gaster being actively involved in the war, but it didn’t work for my portrayal, of having him be so afraid of humans and the surface. So for it to work out, I had him really young for the war, really young when everyone got driven underground.

I killed off his parents because ......

Frankly I didn’t want to design them :|

There’s a lot of varying opinions and interpretations about skeleton monsters, and it’s a section of the fandom I’ve decided to stray away from for now.

But I didn’t want the loss to be traumatic. Gaster’s been through a lot already, and I have personal vendettas against characters who solely consist of trauma after trauma.

So I decided to make the loss very distant--he’s aware he probably had parents, or maybe he came to be some other way--but he doesn’t remember them, there’s no tragic “my parents were killed in front of me,” it’s simply something he didn’t have, and something he never needed given the nature of monsters to be kind and caring.

...

But it felt like it was missing something.

So I started to toy around with this idea of a mentor, one who played the role of a father-figure, one who would plant the seeds to give Gaster the appreciation of science and knowledge. Someone who could take this lost and terrified boy and start to turn him into the intelligent and steady doctor we end up with.

Then came the problem of how he and this mentor would actually meet; Gaster’s scar proved to be a convenient excuse, plus it gave me a backstory for that, as well. A few humans attacked him and delivered the injury, and Gaster’s mentor found the wounded boy and took care of him.

The mentor is meant to be a vague entity, and you can view this in action in this memory. (Only partially because I didn’t want to name them.) Unfortunately, as per the nature of characters created post hoc, their fate was already sealed. I made the choice to cut their influence on Gaster’s life short.

(If they were around longer, who knows? Maybe they could have prevented some of the stupider things Gaster has done. Maybe they could have changed fate. But... as we’ll get to, everything happened exactly as it had to.)

Again, I made it a very distant loss. It’s a rather simple conclusion that not every monster would be happy vacating the surface--Gaster’s mentor had lived there their entire life. It was their home, they were not leaving, even upon threat of death. And so it was a bittersweet parting, but one with closure, and Gaster said his farewells and departed to the Underground.

Honestly, what I find really shocking about this character is just how intensely he wants to do good. I mean, I’m no stranger to good characters, but few of my characters push it as far as Gaster does, and how quickly that feeling came to me, considering he started in the original roleplay as a ruthless asshole bastard more than willing to fuck over and torture a bunch of children just for a chance at being whole again.

Most of Gaster’s early life in the Underground found in this post was written on the spot as I wrote that post, so it came really late.

I still find it hilarious that he used to work in therapy. You’re well aware you need therapy you fucking bastard. Quit denying it.

So, revisiting the idea of Gaster and Asgore. I do like the idea of them being close, and Gaster even calls Asgore his best friend. The declaration of war put a huge strain on the relationship.

I originally thought about the idea of him accidentally killing Asgore for shits n giggles. At my heart I am indeed an angst gremlin, so I was just thinking about what an alternate timeline where that happened might be like. After all, Gaster’s angry, Asgore’s full of guilt, with the way monster magic works, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to think that it could happen.

But the more I thought about it, the more it fit eerily well. The guilt gave Gaster a reason to create Sans (and later Papyrus) as part of his belief in Karma (creating a life to replace the life he took) and to look into Alphys’s research into Determination enough to create the blueprints for the DT Extractor; both of these things were things that I couldn’t otherwise really fit into his storyline.

And finally...

His declining mental state and despair over the concept of the DT Extractor was what led to him being distracted enough to make such a critical mistake and fall into the CORE.

And given that the timeline changes when he falls, I realized that... I could have this happen, and the current timeline be unaffected.

Now, given that I said that I wanted to avoid more trauma in Gaster’s life, this decision might seem contradictory. But, it also served a very important point--Asgore returning to life, that mistake being fixed upon his fall gave Gaster something to hold onto. Something that made his fate not as awful as it otherwise would have been. A small piece of solace in hell.

Plus, Gaster’s guilt at the incident caused him to resign as Royal Scientist, further allowing him and Alphys to have their separate stories.

And pretty much everything snapped together at that point. Really, strangely well. I joked before on this blog if I’m really the one writing it.

If Gaster had not killed Asgore, he would have never created Sans and Papyrus, he would have never created the DT Extractor blueprints; if he did not create the blueprints, he would have never been distracted enough to fall into the CORE, if he never fell into the CORE, the blueprints would have never ended up with Alphys, she could have never created Flowey, and if Flowey was never created, he could have never used the souls to break the barrier and the True Pacifist ending would have never come to pass.

It all happened exactly as it had to.

It feels oddly poetic, given the way Undertale works.

In some ways, it’s cruel. Gaster regularly struggles with the idea that for his people to be happy, he had to literally be wiped out of existence. But in other ways, it’s a comfort--for at least he knows that his suffering wasn’t for nothing. That there was a purpose--that even if he had to be erased, he played a vital role in ensuring his people found victory.

Oh. One final note... In finalizing this story, you may notice that Gaster follows a classic pattern. We have a hero, who’s mostly good, but through his own flaws makes a tragic mistake and seals his own grim fate.

It’s called a tragedy and they’re common in Greek plays.

What was that about a chorus again?

I think that’s just about every important point I could cover. That being said, if you couldn’t tell, this is a very fascinating topic to me, so if you have any further questions or need any clarifications, feel free to send them in.

#let type = out of character #let type = answer

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nekoprankster218 · 4 years

Text

Just Wanted to Do 10 Fandoms, 10 Characters

Nobody tagged me but I saw one while scrolling and just felt the want to gush about 10 different characters (plus it said anyone who wanted to who wasn’t tag could, so that’s enough of an invitation for me!). In no particular order:

1. Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam from Halo

I love a bunch of Sangheili characters, and if the rule wasn’t “10 different fandoms”, half the list would just be them. But there’s one that just rises above the rest (funny, given he’s actually shorter).

2. Penny Polendina from RWBY

Ever since Volume 7, Penny’s quickly become my favorite RWBY character. Maybe it’s because of everything that happened in that volume, or starting a found family crossover fic with her as the focus, or something else. Either way - four episodes in, and I’m already worried about what the writers have planned for her this volume!

3. Entrapta from She-Ra: Princesses of Power

Probably the most recent favorite out of everyone on the list - she’s half the reason I finally started watching She-Ra (the only half was Catradora)! Not finished with the show (last I had time to binge, I finished season 3) yet, but I doubt anyone’s gonna take the “favorite character” medal away from her. Probably biased, because I am autistic and firmly believe she’s at least coded.

4. Paarthurnax from Skyrim

I like several named dragons from Skyrim, but Paarthurnax gets the honor of being on the list. Is it maybe convenient that a lot of his story arc mirrors Thel? Perhaps. I also attached to Sissel’s dialogue about her dragon dream immensely, despite knowing it probably meant nothing to Bethesda.

5. Sachiko Shinozaki from Corpse Party

I have a soft spot for ghost kids in horror stories, and Sachiko’s probably the epitome of that. She’s fun as a villain, has a nice balance between childish and mature that I like to see played around with, although you also can’t help but feel bad she ended up that way. You can tell she’s one of my favorites because she’s one of my go-to characters in multi-fandom crossovers (Thel also being one!).

6. Gajeel Redfox from Fairy Tail

Pretty sure Gajeel was the first time it really hit me that I liked reformed antagonists. I can’t even explain why he became my favorite (same for some of the other characters on this list, actually). It was just nice to see his arc develop over the series - his personal growth, his budding romance, his dynamics with others. (Also yes, I liked Fairy Tail, dunno why that’s such a controversial opinion in the anime community.)

7. Rattlesnake Jake from Rango

Speaking of antagonists! I know I just said I really like reformed antagonists, but villains without a redemption arc are good, too. Especially in Jake’s case, where you see he still has his own code; it’s just that, his own code. And let’s be honest. Rattlesnake with a gattling gun on his tail? He has only 10 minutes of screen time and he stole the whole damn movie. If they never make Rango 2, I really hope they at least make a Rattlesnake Jake spin-off.

8. Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy

Looking through the entries on this list, starting to think I just find intense/deep character arcs pretty neat. Rocket’s an a-hole, and usually I do not like a-holes, but he’s also a really interesting case. The MCU has yet to really say much about Rocket’s backstory, but the little crumbs it has given speaks volumes, so when Rocket’s doing his self-sabotaging behavior or talking out his mouth...only negative emotion I really feel is sadness. He tries to act tough, but he probably needs more therapy than Volume 8!Penny or Red!Sachiko.

9. Hakase from Nichijou

If I could put the whole Shinonome household, I would. Their segments were always my favorite part of the episodes just because kid scientist, big sister robot, and talking dad cat. You know how Ouran Host just got a second season announced? Can that happen to Nichijou? Just, please, there’s more manga to cover!

10. Godzilla from the MonsterVerse

‘Nuff said.

And that’s my 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, in no particular order and certainly missing plenty of characters from the same fandoms and different ones. Also tried to keep it varied. Kinda weird actually that I never once brought up-

11. TouHou Project

I. COULDN’T. DECIDE. There are so many good Touhou characters! I really couldn’t narrow it down to one! This is probably a promise that I’m gonna do a 10 favorites post just for TouHou Project.

Anyway, usually people tag 10 others, but I really don’t have the confidence to tag 10. So, uh... @katthescalie show me what you got (if you want).

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patchdotexe · 5 years

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So, I have a character who is a system, and I wanted to know before I develop them further, how does DID work, from a personal account? I really really really don't want to accidentally create yet another TOXIC misinterpretation of a real condition (because I know how horrible that can feel), and I hope I'm not saying anything wrong even now. (P.S. I love your blog, but I'm too shy to come off anon.)

hey anon!! it means a LOT to me that you sent this message :D theres a lot of really messy-bad potrayals of DID in the media so seeing people actually going to the effort of asking systems abt their experiences is really heartwarming for us. (plus the fact that ppl keep asking us in specific abt system stuff omg,,)

im gonna preface this by saying that, in the end, i can only really talk about my own experiences with full confidence. systems can work pretty differently from each other, but this is how we function and also some details ive noticed from system friends + general discussion over the years

so, to start off: Dissociative Identity Disorder is, at its core, your brain trying to respond to trauma in a pretty severe way. that being said there ARE systems that didnt experience severe trauma and still developed, and im not really sure about the mechanics behind that but i find it really cool and it totally exists. im gonna focus on trauma-based systems bc that’s our ~tragic backstory~ and also tends to be what most people opt for when creating system characters anyway, but the only real difference from what i can tell is, uh, a lack of trauma.

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR ME TO SAY THE WORD “TRAUMA” A WHOLE LOT JFC

(system friends are welcome to reblog with corrections or added info!!)

anyway. the way your brain responds to things is really weird. if something happens where you’re just, like, completely unable to handle it, like you dissociate yourself so hard because there’s no way you can manage this, your brain has a chance of going “uh… well, fuck, uh” and generating somebody who can manage it. or it might decide to be a dick and take all of the fucky internalized garbage and turn it into a person whose sole existence is to be an asshole. (they have the potential to get better, i think… ours didnt.) honestly theres a bunch of reasons and a bunch of “roles” that could lead to an alter/headmate* forming.

* we use the terms interchangeably depending on mood and whos fronting. i think its supposed to be “alter” is DID, “headmate” is implication that theyre non-traumatic? we like using “headmate” because it brings this fun mental image of us being a bunch of roommates constantly starting shit with each other and goofing off which is pretty accurate about 75% of the time

i keep getting distracted bc my cat is here. this is gonna be fun to go back and edit.

whatever the original situation is, you’re suddenly not alone in your own brain. and it’s REALLY WEIRD. communication was VERY hard. Icarus, our system original, used to do a very “cliche” thing of sharing a journal with their early headmates, where theyd write a sentence and then theyd write a reply (although back then they didnt realize that was a system-related thing and just thought they were having a fun conversation with their ocs. which… they were, just. Actually Talking.) they didnt have any inward perception of themself or their headmates either, so that kinda built up over time (with some help) along with the appearance of our headspace so that there was… actually a location for people to interact in. once they had a better awareness of things, mental communication got a bit easier– its sort of like background chatter really, when everybody’s awake. sometimes i get weird out of context things from Mae yelling at somebody, or sometimes ill be talking to a friend and someone’ll butt in.

when talking out loud, this usually leads to us suddenly stopping and then laughing or going “no!!!”. when on discord and around people who know who we are… well.

speaking of Mae, she’s pretty much my sister. not like… biologically? because i don’t think thats possible for me, but shes kinda literally my “other half” which ill get into later. headmates can have strong attachments to other alters! friends, best friends, family, dating, whatever. they can also do that with people outside the system, and itll be different for each headmate. there’s like 4 people dating Jorb but i just see him as one of my best friends. we’re people and we have complex social interactions that can get to be kind of a nightmare when you’re around a bunch of people who don’t know that you’re Not Leo and that youre suddenly not super up to existing around people in general.

plus even if like… so Jorb’s dating 4 of us like i said, but his relationship w/ each of them is different? Ica is very clingy and likes rambling to him, Summer’s pretty much just always happy to hang out, Mae makes fun of him a lot but in a loving way, and Leo is… kinda “all of the above” because that’s his gimmick. plus even tho a few other alters have a sibling-ish relationship with Mae like i do, usually its just me and Mae that do the “chaos siblings” bit.

the basic system.. thing… is that there’s “front”, which is being in control of the body– so, like, i’m currently fronting/in front, because im the one currently active and using our computer and staring at our cat.– and then theres the headspace, where everybody hangs out when theyre not in front. the headspace itself can differ in style & functionality for each system, and i think theres some systems that dont really have a location at all? but for us its like a full on location where we have individual rooms, places to visit if we get bored while away from front, etc.

theres also like, being at/near/away from front? so currently im in front, but Leo is pretty much always lurking nearby if he’s awake (we have individual sleep schedules that dont always sync up to the “irl” one, Trust is almost always sleeping), Ica’s somewhat in the back talking to Rookie so i cant really make out what theyre saying (its probably about either a youtube thing they both like or about a comic they want to do), and everyone else is either asleep (in which case they could be nearby but i cant currently “ping” them, so id have to actually take a sec to ground myself in headspace more) or in a different room. communication is easier if im in front and somebody is nearby, or it can be like with Ica rn where im like “well, theyre talking, but i have no idea what theyre saying and am making a guess based off their usual interactions”, or i could pass off front to go talk to Ica and come back (in which case my memory would be kind of vague and weird because information doesnt always properly translate), oooor i could actually go bug them while still in front. which.. im not gonna do rn bc then id get super distracted.

switching front differs between systems a lot! and even varies from day to day. like there are days where we wake up and we have absolutely no idea who we are bc we went to bed as one person and woke up as another. or we could be talking to somebody and then realize “wait, i stopped being Leo a bit ago, who am i”. or we could pass off front to somebody, like if Summer really wanted to front sie’d run up to me and let me know and we’d swap. or if something critical happens (usually a breakdown), Leo or one of the other headmates that’re more built to handle stressful situations will literally drag somebody out of front to make sure they dont hurt themself. or sometimes we throw front at people unexpectedly, like either mid-breakdown where we go “okay i dont wanna be here anymore, tag youre it” or sometimes because we think its funny because its the metaphysical equivalent of getting clonked in the head with a dodgeball, except the dodgeball is “being in control of our shared physical form”. usually mae’s the one that does that lmao

there’s a couple major categories of how alters come about. there’s “walk-ins”, where they kinda just… appear externally? like they just show up. sometimes we get a feeling of “huh. i think somebody might be here? or somebody might be showing up soon.” and have to rummage around for a while until they approach us or we find them. our walk-ins aren’t like, inherently aware of system stuff at first, so they usually get a crash course before they first front (if they choose to front at all) and it can be kinda entertaining. Rookie’s a walk-in! also Hiro, from a couple years ago. most of our walk-ins are fictives (fictional characters, usually appearing in response to us getting extremely attached to something or somebody) but a couple of our trauma splits are also fictives so that’s not like, a Rule or anything. i think these are mostly associated with non-traumatic systems but we get em fairly often so man idk

theres also… uh, i dunno what theyre actually called? we used to call them “constructs” but that sounds kind of mean. these alters exist to fill a specific role! and we usually dont talk about them on here with the exception of one major one, they just kinda hang out. Dhe exists to keep the system stable and manages the “backend” so to speak. Imp is kind of a mix of our intrusive & impulsive thoughts that came about from us trying to separate ourself from them so that we had an imaginary entity to go “nope!” at, which… stopped being imaginary, and is now a gremlin that lives in my brain. they can show up in response to trauma but arent split off of somebody, they kinda just pop into existence to help manage things.

the more… well-known, i guess? alter origin is “trauma splits”. rather than “just showing up one day with no real connection to the system origins”, trauma splits are formed when somebody in-system, uh, splits. it could be in response to a single situation or something built up over a long time, but somebody just kinda breaks and somebody new that has a bit of the original alter’s identity (if kinda influenced by the situation) shows up.

this can vary. All is a trauma split off of Leo himself, who got saddled with all of our brain hell about our ex and their insystem appearance is influenced more by eir than by leo which is… something they struggle with. Mae has a trauma split from a similar situation that is “Mae but from 2 years ago”, so basically her old identity before she reworked herself after getting put through total hell. and then uh… then there’s me and Mae! Icarus quite literally exploded into several people, with Pat (me) and Mae being the most distinct ones. we’re STILL finding out alters used to originally be a part of them that later evolved into their own people, like Summer and Toby. my identity is shaped pretty heavily not just by who Ica was at time of splitting, but also what they wanted to be jumbled together with trying to rationalize what was happening to them (they’re a pretty big fan of megaman star force, which has a media-typical system in it, so they leaned into hard “its like pat and rey from mmsf! i like pat, i wouldnt mind being like pat, its scary but im like one of my current favourite characters” and so i ended up being like, half-weird shapeshifter, half-green-haired prettyboy. and yeah thats where my name comes from!)

(Ica got put back together w/o anybody needing to integrate, which we were all very scared about, and it’s still kind of surreal to me because… me and Mae used to be able to stick ourself back together and thats how we found out about what happened to Ica in the first place? and we havent tried that since bc we have no idea what would happen. Ica 2: Ica Harder?)

despite their origins, trauma splits can be way more than… being a split. :V;; Toby’s not just a tiny splinter of Ica, he’s a quiet guy that gets stressed out and isn’t totally sure how to interact with people. i’ve existed for like 7 years at minimum and im a totally different person than i was when i thought i was still Ica, ‘cause ive had time to grow and change (and a problem Ica keeps running into now that theyre back is… they kinda Didn’t change because they were MIA for 6 years.) like everything else though this is variable– there can be “temporary” splits that dont develop properly and might get integrated back in, which has only happened to us when we were at the lowest point in our life where we were stuck constantly splitting to try and cope with whatever the hell was going on.

so Ica was gone for 6 years, which meant our system was without an original or main– there wasn’t anybody to be head of the system, basically. for a while i was operating under the assumption that i was Ica, so i filled in that role for a few years before i made the realization. eventually i kinda… stopped being able to, though, bc of stability issues, and then we were back to not really having a proper main anymore. to make up for it, we started going by Leo collectively and kinda… trying to pretend to be a single person? and so that ended up creating a construct to fill the role of “system main and the person we pretend to be when passing as singlet/not a system”: Leo himself! he’s kinda the most prominent traits we all have in common rolled into a single guy, which means that not only is he a pretty good system representative but we can also pretend to be him pretty easily (unless it’s someone like Toby who acts totally different). i dont know how common this situation is, i think normally it’s just “if system original is gone, another alter steps up” like originally happened to us before i had a severe case of problems disorder.

uhhh this is very rambley bc there’s a Lot to cover and now im trying to figure out how much of it i HAVE covered. systems are complicated and weird! OH WAIT okay i have one last bit.

so like, for us, first realizing we were a system was total hell. we fought a lot. as more alters showed up through various means, there were times where Ica felt like they were completely out of control of their own life bc of having to manage everything. there were a lot of panic attacks of people fronting and not being sure they were even REAL, despite… being in front. but we still felt like we were deluding ourself. this was in, like, late 2011, so systems weren’t a THING. they were a very fringe community that everyone hated. we got constantly harassed, which only fed into Ica’s panic hell and our identity issues. interpersonal relationships became a nightmare, especially because we have BPD as well which varies in severity for each of us but… for me it’s pretty bad! there were times early on where every day was another fun new breakdown from us arguing with each other or our friends or not being understood or… etc.

so… how are we holding up ~7 and a half years later? pretty well, actually! we talk to each other. we do things for each other, like buy food or games we know specific headmates like. Ica is back and way happier than they were in 2011, and is thrilled to get to hang out with everybody that’s showed up since. we help each other through problems, because at the end of the day our system ended up being a support network. Ica couldnt function on their own, so we’re like… 10+ people working together to try and be a single functional person. and we feel pretty okay with that! we still fight, and we still start shit, but we’re not in constant crisis anymore. we’re still working through all of our trauma, especially the more “recent” stuff that kinda broke our system for a while until we were able to start rebuilding, but we’re doing it together. :D

so… yeah, it can start out as a stereotypical “nightmare system”, with constant infighting and toxicity and self-sabotage and etc. but we worked through it! it took a while, but we’re overall more stable than we were before. we got out of the bad environment that was fucking us up, we got mental help for our other brain hell (we havent been able to bring up the system to our therapists bc its literally a non-issue now and we focus more on other things like our depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc), we found people that support us for being us, and we were able to like… figure things out. and it was a mess! i still have issues about my own identity because of literally thinking i was someone else for two years. Ica’s still trying to figure out how to adjust to things, especially bc they missed our entire “cringe culture” phase so they came back to find that i’d dismantled a lot of their middle-school settings. and, uh, some of their friendships as well.

systems are fuckin weird

#leo chirps #leos reply #system shit #i dont think i covered EVERYTHING #and im not sure how coherent this is #but i tried! :D #Anonymous #ask #pat.txt

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ladyloveandjustice · 6 years

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Fall 2018 Anime Overview: Zombieland Saga

Sakura Minamoto wakes up in a creepy old mansion one day to find out she’s a zombie with no memory of her past life. What’s more, a mysterious and obnoxious man has gathered her and a bunch of other zombie girls because he wants them to become pop idols who will revitalize the Saga prefecture.

Zombieland Saga lets you know right out the gate it’s all about the unexpected, when it interrupts the typical “cute clumsy girl following her dreams” anime schtick with a (literally) heart-stopping surprise. It’s a show that celebrates the unusual and features some of the most loveable and charming characters of 2018.

ZS sort of straddles the line between being an affectionate parody of idol shows and a quirky celebration, but whatever its goes for, it’s always an entertaining, wacky romp. The first episode sees this gang of zombie girls doing a heavy metal concert, the second features a rap battle and the fifth episode involves the girls running around in ungainly chicken costumes. ZS also fully plays up the body-horror-comedy potential of its zombie cast- expect to see some eyeballs flying. It’s wild, weird and colorful.

But wacky hijinks aren’t enough to carry a show, it has to have character and heart behind it, and this show fortunately has plenty of that. I love this gang of misfit girls. The zombie idol group Franchouchou includes a former child star, 19th century courtesan, biker gang leader and one shambling classic non-verbal zombie who remains shrouded in mystery, on top of idols from different eras and what not. Needless to say, it’s a cast from far more varied backgrounds than most idol shows and they all have a fun dynamic.

Saki was definitely a big fave, because I absolutely adore aggressive delinquent girls and the show clearly does too, glorying in her tough girl ridiculousness. Her focus episode, rather than fully condemning her delinquent lifestyle, celebrates her individuality. Though one of her friends is happy leaving delinquency behind settling down to what she calls a “normal” family life, Saki’s response is “what even is normal? I don’t think I’ll ever get it.” She attracts biker girls to the audience and gives a performance where all the girls join in on her sukeban style. The message is clear- Saki is happy living an unconventional life and she’s not going tone down her vulgar attitude as an idol either, in fact, she’ll flaunt it.

And happily, the show really puts its money where its mouth is in showing an idol group that accepts all. If you’re big into the anime community, odds are you’ve heard that one of these girls is revealed to be trans. It’s handled better than most would expect from a comedy anime- the girl is a full rounded, realized character, she comes out and reveals her past on her own terms and the other girls ultimately accept her and support her, saying they won’t treat her any differently.

Which isn’t to say its unassailably perfect by any means- the depiction of her dysphoria might be considered too slap-stick-y, she’s thrilled with being a zombie because she was concerned about her body changing which ignores that there are medical options for that way preferable to y’know, dying young (still, nice she found an upside to her situation), the girls are obnoxious about it when they first find out, with one even going into a laughing fit about the “manliness” of her dead name, though they are at least called out and settle down about it- but all in all, its a sympathetic portrayal and just presented as being a new facet of an already great character, and that’s sadly rare to see in anime and media overall with trans characters.

The show could have focused solely on teamwork and cooperation like a lot of its type, but I think the fact it puts a lot of emphasis on individuality and people from all walks of life coming together is what allowed me to click with it a little more than I have with other shows in the genre. This is reflected in Franchouchou’s fans- because the girls are so versatile, they end up with an audience that included death-metal-heads, the elderly, pre-teen girl gangsters and so on. As one of them puts it “More weirdos! That’s what Franchouchou’s all about!”

The show’’s got more going on than that too. There’s some gentle jabs and examination regarding the business side of the idol industry- two of the zombie are former pro-idols from different eras, and clash over how the business has changed in with how it involves the fans over the years, which is an interesting aspect to see. There’s some faint zingers thrown in occasionally too, like a flippant comment that at least as zombies they can’t die from overwork, and stuff about staying “in-character”. It’s nothing too challenging, and is ultimately the show is very glowing about idols overall, but it’s at least interesting to see these things acknowledged. There’s also stirrings of a larger plot starting to unfold with hints about how the girls may have become zombies, reporters noticing fishy things and mysteries abounding. It makes me look forward to seeing where the show goes- anything could happen, honestly.

Though I do admit there are some faults. The girls’ manager, Kotaro, was always a bit of a sticky element in the show because he’s a raging asshole who has gathered all these young girls to do his bidding, without giving them any info about what’s going on or how they ended up here. I was okay with it because the girls basically always snapped back at him, treated him as the shady weirdo he is, didn’t have any regard for his orders and did what they wanted, and even beat the shit out him when he went too far. It IS really weird they don’t demand more answers from him, instead just accepting the status quo, and the whole thing kinda falls apart if you think too hard about it, but, you can roll with it.

What I can’t roll with is how Kotaro just kind of makes the transition from horribly obnoxious shady person no one trusts to quirky-mentor-who-is-extra-but-means-well without really earning it. He’s still keeping the girls in the dark, he’s still a jerk, he’s done nothing to clarify or make up for his earlier behavior, but the show seems to expect me to accept him as a benign cryptic ally after a few pep talks and it uh, doesn’t really work for me.

And then there’s the final episodes, which revealed something potentially very concerning. Major spoiler territory here for a bit, so watch out.

I did find the last arc, which focuses on Sakura’s angst over her memories of her past life and wanting to quit the group, a bit predictable and “meh”, though it wasn’t bad by any means. I was probably a little disappointed because there were other characters who hadn’t been explored at all who I really wanted to see more of, but the show’s almost certainly getting a second season, so I should be patient, I guess.

Our first hint of Kotaro’s backstory is given in these final eps and it’s...a little troubling. It could go in some bad directions, some of which would have to potential to break the show. It turns out he was a classmate of Sakura’s when she was alive, and he’s kept this from her, which makes the dynamic between them even more screwed up. Especially since Sakura had been agonizing about not remembering for so long while he said nothing, and clearly doesn’t remember him even now. Why did he bring her back from the dead? If it turns out he had a crush on her when they were kids and WORSE, if we find out that crush persists even now that she’s still a teenage zombie and he’s an adult and this is framed as okay- yeah, that would be a reason to drop the show for sure.

I’m hoping it doesn’t go there. ZS is all about playing around with expectations after all- the first episode already took a piss on the idea of a romance by having Kotaro get all up in her face and seem like he was talking seductively and giving her the doki dokis...only to show she was actually just freaked out this weirdo had fried squid in his pocket. (And later it’s shown throughout the show Kotaro does his up-close-and-personal thing with anyone, regardless of age or gender, so presumably he doesn’t mean it romantically and it’s just how he is.)

But still, Sakura being the one of the girls most willing to go along with Kotaro’s bullshit and accept his orders makes this revelation even more troubling, the power dynamic between them is BADLY unbalanced and Sakura is in a very vulnerable position.

I AM intrigued how the hell Kotaro went from “apparently regular high school student” to “weirdo who knows how to raise the dead” and what his connection to the other characters are (especially the mysterious man in the bar), so provided they DON’T go a super creepy direction with it and he IS called out properly for his deception it could be a really interesting plotline. So, we’ll see I guess.

spoilers over

Overall, Zombieland Saga wasn’t a perfect show, but it was a fun time with fun characters, and that’s exactly what it set out to be. The show’s also mercifully light on fanservice and other nonsense, which is a plus. If you like zombies, hijinks, friendship, zany comedy and awesome girls, this is definitely worth a look.

#zombie land saga #sakura minamoto #saki nikaido #fall 2018 anime #anime overview #my reviews #long post

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lovetheangelshadow · 5 years

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N'Pressions: Shazam!

I found out about Shazam (or Captain Marvel as I knew him and still prefer to call him but I won’t for the sake of clarity) almost a decade ago by sheer accident. My college library had a huge collection of the Showcase Presents DC Comics volumes from Justice League, to Batman, Teen Titans, and of course Captain Marvel. And with all the Batman films that kept coming out, Shazam was the one DC hero above all others I really wanted to see on the big screen. He had a cool costume, a crazy assortment of villains from the over the top Sivanna, to his dark double Black Adam, and Ibac who gets his powers from the sum of four of the most evil men on earth at the time of his creation. Oh and Mr. Mind who is a telepathic alien worm. And side character Talky Tawny who is a basically an anthro tiger. While Endgame is still on my roster of must see in the theatre movies, Shazam was one superhero movie I really wanted to see when it first came out. I know I’m late in posting this, and that’s on me.

Anyway the movie opens with young Sivanna being summoned to the Rock of Eternity to be tested if he is worthy of the new Champion mettle but gets tempted by the Seven Deadly Sins and hoo boy we’ll get to you even in good time. Oh and I guess he was seen as worthless by his dad and bulled by his older brother and blah blah not like we haven’t seen it a gazillion times. I know it’s an odd thing to harp on but the biggest reason it bugs me in retrospect is because for the most part the film plays itself very straight forward and there really wasn’t a big payoff at least for me. Anyway Sivanna becomes obsessed with finding the way back to the Rock of Eternity. When he finally gets back there, he releases the Seven and absorbs their spirits to gain power to go and get revenge. Afterwards we see Billy Batson trick police and breaking into their car to locate an address. So Billy’s semi new origin story was that he was lost at a carnival and has run out of foster homes to try and find her again with each result leading to a dead end. At least this one does pay off later. The system sends Billy to a group home run by two former foster kids who have a very strong sense of communal family and he meets Freddy who is a major superhero buff. Later at school, while Billy is distancing himself from the rest of the family, Freddy is bullied. Billy at first just walks off but then defends him to where he has to run to escape and hides in a subway car. From there the wizard summons him and chooses him as champion because there isn’t much time before the Sins really tear things up.

So the movie goes on from there with Billy and Freddy figuring out just what Shazam can do and screw around; slipping classes, buying alcohol, etc. Especially not really acting like a hero. Am I mad? Not really, no. Considering that Billy is a teenager yeah this is something that a teen would do first when he got superpowers. Heck, Spiderman did until it bit him in the arse is a big way pushing him to be the hero that he needs to be though sometimes dancing with temptation to just do things for yourself. Plus the humor around it was pretty fun and natural. Save for maybe a couple times where it felt a little cringe but they quickly passed and didn’t drag like Ghostbusters 2016. Also Zac Levi. And yes I could not unheard him as Flynn Rider I am not sorry. Sure both Billy and Freddy are kind of selfish brats, but they are also kids who have gone through some shit and this is their big break of levity. Also their messing around does have concequences. Freddy starts bragging and his boasts get him suitcase wedgied and Billy nearly kills a bunch of people because of his recklessness. Also them getting their family held hostage by Sivanna and Sins.

I give props to DC for not going the dark, deconstructing route that it had been doing for some years now. While I haven’t seen a lot of the animated film catalog for some years now, at least even from trailer standalones they looked a lot more interesting and felt right in comic book movie tone than the live action ones did. Sure, Marvel has had some duds here and there but at least they knew and embraced what they were building and varied it from hero to hero as needed. DC? Hey let’s just keep copying the Batman template even if it fits just as well as a 30 pin dock connector into a lightning port. I am not opposed to dark comics and dark comic book movies but when it is the same every single time and you don’t tailor it to what each hero is and represents, it really gets aggravating. Also the Justice League cartoon did it better. ANYWAY.

If there is really only one (and a half) thing that bugged me, it was the villain. Not that is isn’t a viable threat, not that he doesn’t push Billy/Shazam to his limits to where he finally gets the hero thing. He’s generic. He was honestly a villain I’ve seen so many times and nothing about him really stands out. Granted, I haven’t read the comics in ages, but this didn’t feel right for Sivanna to me. Sivanna, to me, as a over the top mad scientist who wanted to be supreme ruler because he thought he was better intellectually. He had diabolical twin children. Heck, his looked like a human rat for crying out loud. This kinda wasn’t Sivanna to me and the whole backstory, personality, and heck powers seemed a better fit for Black Adam. Sure, Black Adam has a different backstory in the comics as being a former Champion who went bad but heck making his powers come from the Seven Sins would have worked and him being obsessed with power and getting revenge on the Wizard and others he feels crossed him just would have fit so much more nicely. Granted Sivanna was the first villain in the comics, but what are you going to do. Oh and the Sins were just meh. I couldn’t tell you who was who except they were voiced by Hulk and Wolverine

Other than that I really enjoyed this movie and I hope this is turning point for DC movies going back to basics and finally getting a real chance to shine on its own without being compared and/or overshadowed by Marvel. And from rumors on both sides of Marvel and DC, we might get that. One can only hope even as oversaturated as the comic book market has been. I’m Noctina Noir, and beware of random lightning strikes on sunny days in Philadelphia.

#shazam #dc captain marvel #n'pressions

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avicebro · 6 years

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Murder Children & Fate

Hello we’re going to talk about a trope I like to call “murder children”.

Introduction

I think before I can start talking about murder children I should first explain what it is. As its name implies, it’s a character who either is, or looks, like a child, and kills or is interested in killing. I do not care if the character is actually 18 or older or whatever the original source material suggests—if they look like a child and are into murder, they fit into this trope.

This is a pretty popular trope, especially in Japanese media, and it has a varying degree of success. A lot of times it’s a murder little girl character. This relates to some gross stuff and while it would be great to talk about the disgusting stuff, we’re going to focus on how to write a good murder child, and how to not.

We’ll be doing this by looking at the fate series, as I’m a huge fate fan and this is the series I know the most about.

The fate series has had a murder child since its inception. This began with Illyasviel, a character who, while she is technically 18 years old, looks like a child and in her first scene, joyfully tells Shirou that if he doesn’t summon a servant he’s going to die. This has continued as fate grows, with most of the fate spin-offs having a murder child. The only one I can personally think of off the top of my head that doesn’t have a murder child is CCC (and that’s still tentative because Elizabeth returns in CCC).

With Grand Order, we have a lot more murder children. The majority are girls but depending on how you view young Gilgamesh—how he is portrayed in Prisma Illya certainly suggests that he would fit into this category—we also have three boys.

So, we are going to dissect two of my favourite characters to demonstrate how this trope can be used to say something, and how not to.

Illyasviel von Einzbern

We’re going to focus on Stay Night for hopefully obvious reasons. Prisma Illya, while it is so close to making things interesting with Kuro, falls short and ultimately removes what made Illya interesting in the original visual novel up to the point where they had to reintroduce the original main character to make the series interesting again. But I digress.

As mentioned previously, Illya is the first murder child in the fate series. In my opinion, she is the best written. Again, I hate to be that person, but if you have the time, please read the original visual novels (novels because she does show important development in Hollow Ataraxia as well).

In the original visual novels, we learn why she acts the way she does and why she has a world view that rivals what Shirou believes in. She’s in this war to prove herself, not simply to the Einzberns, but Kiritsugu, and eventually, Shirou. She wishes to prove that despite having basically grown up by herself, she is strong, and will win the war. She pushes herself past what’s healthy for her and summons a servant that most mages would not be able to control. She’s the pinnacle of the Einzbern homunculi and if she does not win, then even the epitome of homunculi construction is useless and should be abandoned. She has a lot weighing on her shoulders.

Furthermore, she has this extreme interest in Shirou. Illya is raised believing that Kiritsugu deceives her and abandons her. She’s orphaned in this cold, empty mansion. She wishes for revenge for what Kiritsugu does to her. When she learns that she cannot get this revenge, she turns her attention to the next best thing: Shirou.

She’s jealous of him. She was left behind and Shirou got the life she wanted. She becomes enraptured in him—resulting in her kidnapping him in the Fate route and also killing him a lot in the Fate route too—and wishes to figure out what it is about him. What is it about Shirou that made it so that he was the one chosen, and not her?

This all culminates into her personality. She’s seen as a murder child because she’s seen so much death at a young age having lost both of her parents early. She has a sense of superiority because at the beginning of the war, well, isn’t she the best master? She has, by all accounts, what is considered the strongest servant and has the magical prowess to control him. Finally, she has this obsession with Shirou because she feels like he took her place. This already puts her characterization leaps and bounds against the second murder child we’ll be using for contrast.

Roche Frain Yggdmillennia

If you know anything about me, you know that I love this guy. So, I am biased. Plus, it’s pretty easy to make fun of Apocrypha. A lot of Roche’s issues stem from the fact that Apocrypha is a series where each servant is trying to fight for more time, leaving most characters not fleshed out before they are killed off.

This also doesn’t help when comparing it to Stay Night. If Stay Night had only been one route, then Medea would have been a blip, we wouldn’t know who Archer is and we wouldn’t get the mapo tofu scene. However, with Strange Fake, we know that wars of this scale can be written well. Strange Fake only has one servant less than Apocrypha and has still been able to give everyone the time they needed. But that’s another meta post.

Out of all the servants in Apocrypha, I think Spartacus is the one that gets the worst treatment. Poor berserkers. However, if I was asked about which servant I think got the second worst treatment I would probably say it’s Avicebron. And, unlike the other black masters like Caules or Gordes who got more character development, as Roche is his master, he gets probably the worst treatment of actual masters that do anything in the war, maybe behind the actual train wreck that is Celenike.

I think that also the anime does an even worse job of allocating time to Roche. If you aren’t interested in reading the light novels, I’d recommend reading the manga, as it is overall doing a better job at showcasing Roche’s true personality. However, since most people know about the anime, I’ll be discussing that primarily, sometimes talking about how the light novels and the manga portray him to back this up.

While this is not really discussed in the anime, Roche is raised by golems. As such, he dislikes humans and is awkward around them. He considers speaking to humans like talking to animals. He does not have the interactions with humans necessary to work with them. This makes him unfit for this kind of war. The only person he deems important is Avicebron, who he calls teacher, as he is another golem mage who led the field.

He is also very much a murder child. When Vlad goes out to kill the clock tower mages, he’s happy to see them being slaughtered. Later on, in the manga, he can be seen kicking the dead homunculi. When Avicebron asks him if he’d prefer to watch from inside as to not get hurt, Roche tells him he wants to see the war up close. He enjoys seeing murder.

Furthermore, he is okay with murder as long as it leads to the activation of Avicebron’s noble phantasm. He doesn’t care about who has to die as long as he can see its activation—and ultimately for Avicebron to win, so he can continue to learn as his student.

If I did not tell you this however, and you only watched the anime, you might not see this. We only see Roche interacting with another character besides Avicebron twice: once when he rolls his eyes at Astolfo:

(which funnily enough is one of my favourite reaction images)

And the other time, when he half-heartedly listens to Fiore’s commands and gives this expression to Gordes:

These two scenes, besides one line at Darnic, are the only times we see of Roche interacting with other humans. Then, we have his death.

I’ve talked about his death before and how poorly executed it was, but overall because of how little time we get for Roche, it leaves the viewer confused. On one hand, it’s a young kid who is being betrayed and murdered. On the other hand, it’s a character that we have not gotten attached to and thus we don’t have the emotional impact.

Time to compare death scenes.

Death Scenes

Illyasviel doesn’t die, if you play the visual novel correctly, until Unlimited Blade Works. Illyasviel has a lot of development in the Fate route; turning from a murderous, young girl, into Taiga’s little sister who sometimes comes over for dinner. We learn more about her interest in Shirou, and how she acts as a grail. The climax of the Fate route involves Shirou going to fight Kirei to get her back. In sum, you as the reader have gotten close to Illyasviel at this point.

(Even more if you are like me and died a whole bunch in the Fate route and got to see her in the dojo)

When you reach Unlimited Blade Works, you don’t see Illyasviel as much, as the majority of the route is about Archer and Medea. However, there is the fight at the beginning, which diverges from your first fight with Illya. Arguably she acts more like the murder child in this fight, as Shirou does not take the blow from Berserker. The next scene is her death scene.

However, the scene (both in the anime and the visual novel) is very lengthy. We get the fight between Berserker and Gilgamesh that lasts a long time—it’s not 100% one-sided like some of the other Gilgamesh fights in the series. During this scene, we also get to learn about Illyasviel’s backstory and how she and Berserker originally bonded. We learn that Berserker is losing because of he’s trying to protect Illyasviel. We also see another side of her, not the more murderous side from the Fate route, but a strong, determined master who fully believes in her servant not because of her own strength, but because of her trust in her servant.

As we have seen all these sides to Illyasviel, her death hurts even more. It creates more of an impact when Berserker is taken down. We know that because of how she was raised, that with Berserker’s death, she feels fully alone.

Now let’s compare to Roche’s death scene.

At the point where Roche goes out to visit Avicebron, we’ve had basically 3 scenes of him: the first time we meet him, where he discusses Avicebron’s noble phantasm, the scene he has explaining how he does not care about how many people need to die just as long as he gets to see its activation, and then the scene where he’s talking to Caules, Fiore and Gordes. Those are the big scenes—we get a couple others sprinkled in, like the Astolfo rolling eyes scene, and in the light novel when Avicebron asks if Roche would like to watch from inside.

In the anime especially, all we really know about Roche (if people remember him) is that he’s a golem mage who is obsessed with his teacher and will do anything to see his noble phantasm come to life. In the manga, we get the added shots of him being happy at death, but also cut down on the scene of him talking about how he wants to see the noble phantasm come true. I personally don’t mind this as we already know that this is how he feels.

This is not enough time to grow attached to the character. We already know this. We also know that something bad is going to happen to Roche—heralded by Fiore screaming ‘Roche’! and then immediately after not seeming to care about his death—as he is no longer Avicebron’s master.

In the anime, because we have only seen one side of the character, we feel bad for Roche because all we know about him is his infatuation with his teacher. This makes Avicebron deceiving him hurt even more. They mess up the scene by trying to force in the fact that they are the same.

Yes, Avicebron and Roche are similar: they both hate humans and prefer not to interact with them. This leads Avicebron to wear a mask so he doesn’t have to look at them.

Yet, from the anime, we have no leads besides Roche cooping himself in Avicebron’s workshop to suggest that he dislikes humans. Him saying that he doesn’t matter who dies as long as Avicebron’s dream comes true ties back to the only character trait he has in the anime—his adoration for his teacher. The two scenes of him interacting with someone besides Avicebron? He rolls his eyes because Astolfo wants to get off without working, and him waving off Fiore’s comments can be seen as a younger brother type ignoring his older sister.

This doesn’t point to him being a murder child. This does not point to him being the same as Avicebron.

The anime shoving this in before his death makes no sense. It’s supposed to make us feel better about his death, to not be angry about it because in the end Roche is forgiving him, but because we have no real signs of him demonstrating this hatred for humans, we can only trust Roche’s word. This coming from a character who was clinging onto life just a minute prior.

A Good Murder Child

I will be honest. I don’t like this trope.

I find it’s too closely tied to disgusting things and rarely gets executed well. However, I do like Illyasviel. The things I do like about Illyasviel are not the fact that she is a murder child; but on the other hand, when those aspects of her tied to her being a murder child are removed, like in Prillya, she loses what makes her interesting to me.

Ultimately, what makes Illyasviel a good character is her relationships with the other characters.

With Shirou, we get to see a complex character. We see her as a murderous little girl in fate, but then also a younger sister at the end. In Unlimited Blade Works we have her as a strong and competent master, who in the end has one of the harshest death scenes in the fate universe. In Heaven’s Feel, she becomes the older sister to Shirou, where we get to dive into her complicated relationship with Kiritsugu and her family, as well as her feelings about Shirou and how they conflict with her world view.

This gets added on in Hollow Ataraxia with her relationship with Angra Mainyu.

Her relationship, as a younger sister to Taiga, is sweet, and hints at what Illya may have been like if she had been raised by Kiritsugu.

Finally, through her relationship with Berserker, we get to see two lost souls finding each other and fighting. We see their bond go from a master trying to get a wild dog to do what she wants to a trusting master-servant duo both worried about each other’s well-being. When one dies, the other realizes how much they depend on the other, and how lost they are without them.

What makes Illyasviel an interesting character is that she is not just a murder child.

A Bad Murder Child

Even if we look past the anime, there’s still so many problems with Roche. Again, it mostly stems from the fact that he does not get the time to develop. We are given information about him without really the story showing us this about him.

However, this also comes from the fact that we don’t get to see him interact with other people besides Avicebron.

If he had been given the opportunity to actively show his dislike for humans, then we could have a different emotion about his death besides, “oh well that happened.”

He has the backstory to give us an interesting character. We could have had him being forced to interact with the rest of the Black faction masters. Perhaps use something that Caules or Fiore does to make him realize that oh, maybe humans can be as cool as my teacher. Make a rift between him and Avicebron before that makes him think differently. Hey, maybe instead of just having Fiore scream his name out and say to look for him and then like, not care afterwards, maybe have her find him and make him choose between Avicebron and the Black Faction. Or, since Chiron and Achilles are also used to describe the teacher and student relationship, have Chiron save him.

Even if you wished to kill Roche, maybe have Roche as the core affect Adam.

Even if you wanted him to be this murder child, demonstrate why he hates even his allies. Show clear rifts between him and the other masters. Make him act like a child. Sure, the rolling the eyes and the shrugging off works, but if he hates humans, and thinks that interacting with humans is akin to talking to animals, make him fight their plans. Have him go against their plans and almost die from it.

There is so much possibilities that could have been added into the story to demonstrate his dislike of humans that unfortunately was not given the time. Thus, in the anime, he’s only given the role of liking his servant, and because of it the only memorable thing is his death.

In comparison, there is so much more to Illyasviel than one of her death scenes. So much that type moon decided she warranted a (much worse) spin off, and she almost had a route of her own. While she is introduced as a murder child, she becomes more than that through her relationships with the other characters. Something Roche was not given.

Conclusion

I would gladly like this trope to die off the face of the earth. Especially in fate where we got already enough, especially amongst the girl characters. However, if they are going to continue writing these characters, they should take a page out of Illya’s book.

Especially the Prillya mangaka in terms of Kuro. C’mon.

We are still in the process of writing the Apocrypha manga, and as I mentioned, it is doing a much better job at portraying Roche than the anime. I’m interested to see if they will change it or not.

If you would like to discuss, especially Roche because I love him, please feel free to message me! Thank you for reading this long meta post, I have a deep love for Roche and believe he deserved better.

#roche frain yggdmillennia #meta #pollyux writes #illyasviel von einzbern

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spacebrick3 · 6 years

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Questions for the Author

Tagged by @loopyhoopydrabbles - thanks so much!

1. Who has the darker backstory, your protagonist or your antagonist?

Probably the protagonists, in any of my WIPs (except possibly Technomancy, which varies back and forth based on who is actually the antagonist in each part of the story). Empty Space’s main antagonists are the Crystallines, which live between the wormholes - since the protagonists are human, there’s more opportunity for backstories there. Contact Magic is similar - also, I haven’t been able to develop the Arbiters as much as I’d like to.

2. What creeps out your main character?

Lin:

Sadie: She’s fine with confined spaces - she has to be, as a former ship mechanic - but she really hates not having an escape route.

Aura: Confined spaces or spaces where she can’t see the horizon. This leads to some strange instances where this comes on - it can happen both in a dark, confined room or outside in the mountains if they hide the horizon. This is why she likes sailing - most of the time, you can always see the horizon.

3. How long have you been working on your latest WIP?

Technomancy: Since late Dec. 2017

Empty Space: the idea’s been floating around since…a while, but I’ve only been working on it since around Jan. 2018

Contact Magic: …two weeks? *checks tumblr* since about the 4th of May, it turns out. .

4. Which character is most like you and why?

Er…I don’t know. Maybe a mash of the Empty Space characters, but I’m not sure if there’s a specific one.

5. What genre is your latest WIP?

Contact Magic is a…high fantasy, I think? *checks Wikipedia on high vs low fantasy* Yes, it is a high fantasy, since it’s set in a different world.

6. What’s your main character’s idea of a perfect date?

Lin: I don’t know, but taking her to a movie would be nice since she’s never seen one before and so would be utterly fascinated probably the whole time.

Sadie: Sadie doesn’t really seem like a “date” person - she’d probably more just hang out with whoever and kind of gradually become closer if she liked them.

Aura: Hard to say, but maybe on a boat somewhere? Or something out in nature?

7. If your main character was an animal, what would it be and why?

Lin: maybe…like, a large animal that’s generally peaceful but can absolutely maul you if it gets angry. So like a bear or a moose or something, I guess.

Sadie: something stealthy. i don’t know enough about animals to say though.

Aura: Golden eagle. After all, she a) is literally golden due to her magic, and b) loves being up high.

8. What books/films/songs have influenced your WIP, if any?

Technomancy: Harry Potter, definitely - it basically stemmed from an internal conversation where I tried to figure out why electronics wouldn’t work - plus, probably most of the books with magic where science is then otherwise ignored for some reason.

Empty Space: It’s not a story, but Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark really gave me a bunch of ideas for multiverses and the wormholes, and then the very, very, very first story that eventually became Empty Space was inspired by The Martian (it was about somebody who got trapped in a black hole).

Contact Magic: Probably Mistborn or any other of Brandon Sanderson’s works.

9. What annoying writing habit do you have? (ie, too many commas, too many loong sentences etc).

I think I can only write like…three or four sentence structures overall? I don’t know, but I feel like I keep seeing the same structures in my WIPs and it bothers me.

10. Describe your WIP in one sentence.

Technomancy: Combining science and magic breaks first the magical political balance and then the universe.

Empty Space: Dysfunctional military engineers invent the wormhole; then deal with the fact that a) everybody wants to use it, and b) there are creatures in the multiverse who don’t appreciate being disturbed.

Contact Magic: In a world where magic dictates the color of your hair and eyes, the dye and contact industry has been recently outlawed; the solution, of course, is revolution.

I’m not going to tag people since I have lot to do right now (AP Calc mostly plus like five other tag games i need to get around to) but feel free to do these and tag me!

#tag game #questions for the author #thanks for tag #aaaaaaagh ap calc #why do i care about the volume of revolved solids #who knows

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lysical · 7 years

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I was introduced to a lot of the Batfamily via the Morrison run. How screwed up is my perception of them? Comics are an effing minefield of characterization—I know, I’m a Hank Pym fan because I ran into him first in one of his highly rare likeable periods. Any tips/recs? It feels like everywhere I go the characters aren’t the “real” ones, and idk where to find these “real” ones. (This goes for Tim too, although you seem understandably down on him lately & might not want to talk Drake anymore

It does vary by character, actually. There are some fundamental things he does that are a bit out of there, and other things that are just plain offensive, but he’s not the absolute worst to come in on, as damned by faint praise as that is.

Long post ahead

Bruce: Morrison and I fundamentally see the character very differently. He sort of subscribes to some ideas about Bruce as Batman that I just don’t like re: emotions, life, family. He uses a lot of allegories and devices in his work and the depth is there, I just don’t agree with what he was doing and had to say about Batman on a fundamental level. Post-Crisis Bruce is a bit all over the place. A lot of different writers got their hands on him and the dark and gritty post-Jason transformation of the character was intense and permanent. Because of this, coming into Morrison doesn’t really hurt you that much--especially since for a lot of it he’s functionally dead. Maybe check out some runs like Hush (more emphasis on the family), Dark Victory (some young Dick Grayson), Batman: Year One (say what you want about Miller, but it’s a decent book and the atmosphere and art are great for an introduction to the modern character), and then hop over to some of Bruce’s team books. Sometimes characters get distilled well over in their team books compared to their solos (especially since the Bat Department is...weird at times). Maybe check out Superman/Batman, the old team up from the early 2000s. For Bruce it’s just best to cast a wide net and read a variety. JLA: Tower of Babel is a good one to see Batman and the wider superhero community in conflict, which brings in a lot of Batman’s negative aspects in a way that was decently balanced and didn’t villainize him via narrative even as the characters might have felt that way about him (Young Justice certainly did XD), but I havent’ read it in a long time so ymmv.

Dick: One of the few characters that didn’t get that bad a hand by Morrison, or too much of a characterization shift (his character shift had happened during the Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson period, although the latter more than the former). Unlike new 52 onwards, while he was softened a little to pair effectively with Damian, it wasn’t too much as we saw at times later and how fandom kind of tends to portray them (’Shut the hell up, Damian’ comes to mind). The Dickbats run was a nice change and development for Dick, a natural progression. The things that were sort of tweaked to create conflict with that transition (Dick not wanting Batman, some characterization behind that) were pre-Morrision, during Battle for the Cowl and the setup to Morrison, so while they follow on from that they’re mostly absent from the run. For the modern Robin Dick stories, go for Teen Titans: Year One, Dark Victory, Batman: Year Three, a couple of the other year ones are decent, although some incorporate those characterization shifts, but that’s comics. I’d go back to New Teen Titans (starts in Pre-Crisis, goes into Post, but the book doesn’t have a huge change due to the crisis and it’s just a really good run, deserving of being the benemoth during that time period that it was) to get the best of Dick on a team, then maybe check out Prodigal (follows on from Knightfall, Dick’s first run as Batman), skip Nightwing: Year One (it’s got tiny amounts of Dick and Jason bonding but Dixon ripped everything else about Dick’s early Nightwing period to shreds). From there, depends if you want his solo or his team stuff, he’s a pretty easy character to follow. I like to start chronologically with him because then you see the shifts happen as he falls back under control of the bat-books, and his solo and team stuff have some interesting contrasts (I lean towards his team stuff generally because Dick has always been about that for me, rather than running solo).

Babs: Birds of Prey is her essential stuff, I don’t think Morrison really did that much with her but my memories of it all are a bit vague now. I’d personally take anything when she’s romantically involved with Dick with a grain of salt, that relationship was a bit of a disaster and they both do terrible things to each other (I believe the one responsible for it all is Devin again but it’s been a while since i visited that train wreck) and there’s some victim-blaming that happens that’s not so good. I prefer Oracle having a bit of distance from the Batfam, as she’s just surpassed being someone who is under Batman’s authority and is just crucial to the entire operation of the superhero community in general, so Bird s of Prey.

Jason: Hnng. Here’s where Morrison really just decided to throw away established DC continuity and try his hand at a bunch of crap that fell completely flat. Just toss it and purge, tbh. Winick got Jason back late in the run but it was too late for that. Maybe there are tiny aspects of characterization that aren’t bad (Pride and Prejudice) but Morrison misunderstood Jason on a much more fundamental level. Also the red hair was probably some attempt to make a witty visual pun and add ‘depth’ but there are so many problems with it. Continuity-wise it makes so sense with how pre-crisis and post- worked, particularly for Jason, and additionally Morrison is realllllly wishy-washy with his ‘EVERYTHING IS CANON’ stuff that it rings false, plus in Pre-Crisis he was like...blonde I don’t understand. The implications of Jason being forced to dye his hair are absolutely disgusting for Bruce and go back into that fundamental problem I have with how Morrison sees Bruce. Jason, Post-resurrection suffers a lot of DC writers not knowing what to do and unloading a lot of DC’s baggage and some unconscious, problematic tropes onto him. Read his Post-Crisis origin (Batman 408 on, there’s the origin and some issues after set up by his original Post-Crisis writer Max Collins) and maybe all his Post-Crisis, pre-Death stuff since there’s honestly not a lot and it’s fairly obvious when Starlin starts pushing for his death. For post-resurrection, Under the Red Hood, Lost Days (it goes off the rails at the end, so I only half rec it honestly), Outsiders 44 and 45, Countdown (but only if you’re skipping the plot and just reading the Jason (&Donna &Kyle) bits, it’s one of the most even-handed treatments he actually gets in Post-Crisis but the book is otherwise terrible). Then just go straight to RHatO Rebirth.

Tim: Ignore new 52 and Rebirth entirely. Red Robin is a book a lot of Tim fans really like but I personally think it’s bad in general and also don’t like what the writer does with Tim, but ymmv. Tim’s origin is also pretty weak and his initial mini and series aren’t that great at establishing him as a proper character outside ‘this kid is Robin pls like him we want to get away from the controversy of the last one’ so it’s hard to connect with him there without nostalgia glasses. By Knightfall (1994ish) on, that’s where he’s more of a character himself, and his stuff from about then through to the early 2000s is the best (before Geoff Johns got him in Teen Titans and Didio started doing Things, which basically led us to today to be honest). Personally, I think Tim functions best in a team, there are aspects of what his writers do in his solo where they just...missed the implications and it kind of grates on me. His stand out book imo is Young Justice (the og comic not the cartoon which only shares the name and nothing else tbh).

Steph: Another who actually got treated decently well during the Morrison-era, as opposed to the crap she was dealt earlier during her time as Robin and War Games. Steph’s Batgirl run is something I definitely recommend, and her stuff with Dick and Damian in Morrison’s era is contemporary with that. Her origin is actually really good and compelling, so I’d dig into that (TEC 647, i think, is her first appearance). She kind of just revolves around Tim during his run and their relationship is kind of...there are implications there that are a bit cringe. Her stuff with Cass on the other hand is really enjoyable so I’d recommend those. Her brief Robin run is decent if melancholy considering what we know happens, and I wouldn’t touch War Games with a ten foot pole.

Cass: Shafted from the mid-2000s on, tbh. She got a bit blessed with a solid creative team to start her off in her Batgirl run, it attempts some pretty deep and interesting explorations of her character that while not perfectly executed are still really good comics. I’d just read her No Man’s Land stuff, follow her book and stuff with Steph and pretty much just ditch out when One Year Later hits. Her Black Bat outfit is cool and there is some retroactive backpedalling by DC to justify shafting her but it’s all Morrison era anyway so you might be familiar already.

Damian: Morrison created him and he took a lot of liberties with that backstory which unfortunately have had a lasting impact for Talia, which is frustrating. As Damian’s creator, what you see is what you get. Morrison didn’t want him to be likeable and he also didn’t really want him to be permanent (ties in again to how Morrison sees Bruce and family tbh), other writers gave Damian development later, but despite being around for over a decade now, there is still a lot of push and pull between writers about his characterization and development. It’s unfortunate but there’s a noticeable lack of consistency with Damian and his development that is frustrating to read. Probably read Tomasi’s stuff if you want Damian’s softened, developed arc and avoid other stuff. I’m not the best for Damian because most of his stuff is during the new 52 which I wasn’t around for and am picking through only occasionally.

Hope this helps.

#asks #anon #opinionated opinions: dc comics #batfam #recs: dc comics #ymmv on all of this #and i put it together really quick off the top of my head #but i hope it helps #bruce wayne #dick grayson #barbara gordon #jason todd #tim drake #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #damian wayne #no one who came in later because obvs they weren't around for morrison #if i missed someone....rip

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