#sorry guys currently in a side character lore era

[ladylyra]

we need to talk (1/3)

[sleepyowlwrites]

Sleepy's Organic Blorbo Salad

I'm so sorry, dear Kyanite. I was watching Father Brown with my parents.

As per my exchange with @blue-kyber, an organic blorbo is one who springs up and ends up being much more complex and important than previously intended. So here's my salad of organic blorbo vegetables.

Catlan, from my last last line tag, who is an ally of the protagonists in Thief Story. Her thing is that she's from a rival thieving group but mostly does what she wants. (actually I think I spelled her name Katlan when I first invented her so we'll see what I stick with)

Ben Averis, from apocalypse story. He was just a guy from that story I kept not developing, and then he became a proper blorbo when I kept having Thoughts about him, and he's become full of detail and interesting.

Dair Sin'Claybeak, from Summon Story was just going to be an npc, but he's on track to join the questing party now.

the Abisos siblings, from Guild Story. Marz and Mareye were always supposed to have a lot of siblings but I hadn't intended them to be feature characters. but then SIBLINGS FUN! and now they are. we've got Martain: the oldest, he's a good egg, Marisse, eldest daughter, practical and pretty, Marlin, the lore-obsessed inventor adventurer, he's quiet, Marelli, the spunky one, she can't keep her mouth shut, Mareye, the skinstich, she doesn't remember signing up to be the mom friend, and Marz, the youngest, our plucky young lad for this wip.

Teshek, from Portal Story, which barely exists. he's the personal bodyguard to Era, and trying desperately to keep her from harm when she's pretty much incapable of not wandering into trouble at any and all available opportunities. he's always Tired, and has exactly the right amount of mistrust for Era.

Xiyun Jinan, from Guild Story. she's one of those gorgeous and deadly types, with some creature undertones. she'll duel with you, she'll complain about you breaking curfew, she'll take a contract that pisses you off because she thinks it's only logical, and she'll flip her hair at you when she's annoyed. she always tips servers and servants and steals small trinkets from the houses she fulfills contracts for. she's always hungry. she's very smart.

Jemmi, Vern, and Sardha, from Rain Story. I needed side characters and these three came along and were like "did you mean more protagonists?" and I was like, "uh, sure?" Jemmi is the lively daughter of a retired sailor and he and his wife own a tavern now. their food is AMAZING. Vern is a blacksmith's apprentice and wants to learn detailed jewelry and fine weapons work. Sardha is a seamstress with a talent for embroidery who has latent material magic! she doesn't know that.

is that enough for now? I also have a bunch of seedlings, but since my current crop of blorbos is so big, I'm content to leave them growing for now.

uh, is this a tag? might as well be. tell me about your organically grown blorbos! @oh-no-another-idea @zmwrites @ashen-crest @strangerays @incandescent-creativity @memento-morri-writes OR ANYBODY

[villainship]

[Writing WIP Questionnaire]

Reflecting on my drafts folder w/ the previously-skipped section of the questions I was answering here.

If you read this: . . .don’t look @ me. LOL. (Exposing my secrets -- and also hiding from them.)

-

Sum up one or more of your wips!

Most aren’t for tumblr-posting, mind u. But:

(Divided up by which character has narration rights)

-a Vette story I keep forgetting abt, where she is trying to figure out TD’s post-binge fate on Nar Shaddaa, having decided she’s actually invested in this weird Sith’s wellbeing.

-Quinn experiencing TD’s response to betrayal (TD: “I’m not mad, I just want you to acknowledge your life is in /my/ hands. Forever.”)

-like 4 separate WIPs of ‘joint midlife crisis’ Zahied & TD engaging in their unsanctioned fraternizing in early times/getting to know each other -- however eagerly (TD) or reluctantly (Zahied). -Alliance-era, mid-50s Zahied thinks hard abt where he is, tells TD he ready to dump him (probably. Soon. --For real, though. NO relapses. When it’s done it’s /done/, 100%. Swearing off this shit- . . . Yes, he’ll still teach ur damn kids their hand-to-hand fighting.)

-Alliance-era TD, fraught with relationship issues/feelings(???) beyond his comprehension (dumped by his boyfriend; wife still touchy that he is hot for his boss; boss ignoring him b/c 1. she has never considered him significant or attractive 2. she’s busy with the happiness of being reunited with her bug husband), takes a team (incl. his Apprentice) to Hoth for a mission, where they lose contact with home base & can’t send an update to confirm they’re still alive. --He thinks that’s fine he didn’t want to hear from anyone there for a While anyway-- (but something else Will go wrong.) -Agent Vensys is assigned as chaperone for traitor-on-probation Sith Lord Liio (going Where? idk) -- which may be AU content, or I might make it canon. . . or I might split off into 2 different versions (one where they potentially makeout a little, & one for sailing the crack ship onward to far-distant horizons that veer OOC for at least 1 of them). Lolll. -(?canon?) Kallir has a nice day. -Kallir runs afoul of a posse of Imperial troops privately harboring anti-Sith sentiments in a garrison on Taris (? question mark). (Visiting pumpkin Agent was witnessed holding hands with a Sith who recently came by) -- I’m evaluating how much violence I’ll include as canon. (Less than I wrote. . . but some. He definitely gets bullied. Punches someone in the throat. Maybe knifes a guy a little bit?? I wrote that scene, but I’m not sure it’ll fit.) -Kallir undergoing an entire ordeal living among space pirates & becoming slightly unhinged. -in AU: Kallir (the Minister of Intelligence), dragged away from the tail end of a formal ball, puts up with Vensys plying his charms at him (again)

-total shipping AU: Kallir, Liio, & Zahied, lonely hearts club, attempt to distract one another from mountains of baggage in the only way that comes to their minds when they recognize everyone else is hot and thirsty. (Fellas. . . you’re a mess. Sorry I’m so into that.)

Which story took the most research?

Well- the extent of research I’m willing to do is stuff like “what’s this place/object look like in SWTOR?”, or “what does the internet say about these star wars aliens?”

Which story has the most lore?

TD going to Hoth to blow up a Star Fortress maybe (regrettably, I don’t know the relevant lore & I’ve been incapable of doing the gameplay I want to do to get there).

Current word count of all your main wips?

I do Not track those stats. . . I think I know which are the longest, though.

-Part 1 of Liio/Kallir/Zahied AU is. . . 54 pages (for. . .3-4 scenes, essentially. dkfshgkjf). -Part 2 combined WIPs are 15 + 6 + 3 + .2 (a paragraph) (split up due to time-jumping mid-draft, starting a new file, & returning to unfinished business when I feel like it)

Fic that isn’t a total departure from character canon: -Part 1 (of the in-depth edition) of Kallir’s pirate story is a 32 page WIP, w/ an 18-page side chapter (which might not get any longer) -Part 2: 6 pages so far.  -Aftermath follow-up: 7 so far.

How many projects do you have going on right now? Are there any that you doubt you’ll ever finish?

(My answer to question 1 is more-or-less my entire list) It’s hard to say I Won’t finish anything, but also--I don’t often finish writings.

What was you first major project? How far along is it?

And I wouldn’t necessarily call any of them ‘major’ projects (pirate fic got pretty big--but. idk). . .

My first SWTOR fic was for TD & Quinn, and I got lost on it. lol. It’s one of those drafts that feels convoluted to look at (there’s a lot of patchwork pieces), & I’m not sure exactly how much of it is worth having in there or what I actually Want to write into it. (Quinn is hilarious to write, though.)

What are some tropes and character dynamics found in your wips?

. . . gay little scene-slice stories of charged & intimate interactions--aggressive or/and soothing. Just people having their emotional problems in various Situations (sometimes amid danger/stress. . . sometimes when they are trying to enjoy themselves. . . Sometimes those mix).

So. . . tame (generally tame.) psychological whump (mainly psychological.) I Guess. H/C-aligned.

Describe the setting of one or more of your wips

All my stories are in settings of Convenience, and usually defined more by who is there than details of the place itself. (eg. I’m picturing “Kallir gets bullied for having a Sith bf” somewhere on Taris b/c it seems like the kind of place where the military doesn’t get a lot of oversight). Nothing too exciting (or original).

What are some things that inspired your stories? Real events? Maybe a dream?

Game events sometimes, of course. ehehh.

I also have. . . not uncommonly come up w/ concepts for scenarios based on outfits. (Pirate fic arose b/c I previewed the Belsavis zap collar on Kallir. Vensys’ formal outfit was the starting point for that AU fic with the formal event)

What story are you the proudest of? Why?

I dunnoooo-- I have. . . a weird relationship w/ my writings. I don’t have consistent feelings about them (whether I think anything is so good or absolutely Unbearably terrible/cringe changes based on my own moods), and. . . A lot of the time I’m ashamed even making some/most of them for various reasons.

. . .BUT. I was (and still am) pretty proud of how I wrote our charas in the pumpkin-meets-Severine mini-story from a While back (which I just re-blogged cuz of the improvement edits last night). hehe. On fire w/ that one, writing a couple of my favorite personalities--successfully (I’d say) channeling a character that’s not even mine. 

And I don’t feel like I wasted my time if it’s a gift 4 a friend & I’ve been able to make their day with it. <3 We luv our charas. hell yeaaaaaaa

[queenhawke]

ok goddamn here are all my Gripes with the timeless children/s12 more broadly in one post so i can just get it all out there and stop thinking about it hopefully. 

this is far too long and frankly very rambly and incoherent but i absolutely do not have the time or energy to write some sort of Coherent Essay lmao

but uhhh tl;dr get ya head outta the past and into the present, chibs

ok so first of all it’s just a badly written episode. like chibs my dude my bro my pal why the Fuck did u think having the master just Exposition at the doctor for 40 minutes was a good idea. why did u think that i would care about any of the 4??? side characters (i can’t even fuckin remember how many there were!!!) when they are just. complete nonentities. why should i care about obi-wan ko sharmus sacrificing himself when he’s just. There. and his backstory gets explained 5 seconds before he dies and it’s not even that interesting. wHyYyyy would u leave Time Lord/Cyberman Hybrid for the last 5 minutes and then have them just stand around doing nothing!!!! why on GOD’S GREEN EARTH would u take the genuinely interesting concept of a cyberman zealot/cult leader and then just be like ‘ye so he wants to be a robot and also he has a big Death Bomb now for some reason’. like having the master point out that it’s a dumb plan doesn’t make it any less of a dumb plan aaaahhhhhhhhh

BUT ALL THAT ASIDE all that nonsense aside.......... what is this timeless child thing, really. like what does it add to the doctor as a character. what does it add to the time lords as a concept? like. the Big Shocking reveal is that...... time lords are bastards, lied about shit and manipulated an innocent child? like YA BRO WE BEEN KNEW, that is exactly what they did w/ the master in the end of time (which. i also thought was dumb but w/e). like this ain’t new, chibs! except now it’s about them doing it to the doctor and now it’s Revealed that the doctor is the Most Specialest Person In Time Lord History and like

why tho

like is this really more interesting than the doctor just being a regular, even kinda shitty time lord who became a good person

“oh but it adds more mystery” does it???? how?? bc idk what y’all saw but to me it looked like they just explained the doctor’s entire fuckin backstory. like. all we don’t know is 

1. where the kid came from, which honestly...... isn’t that interesting a question bc it’s either like another planet/dimension or mayyyyybe it’s some sort of stable time loop thing idk but like. yawn. sorry maybe other people find that exciting, it sounds extremely boring to me.

and 2. we don’t know the full extent of what the doctor did w/ the Division (which. god i can’t stop thinking about the video game whenever i see that name) but like........ ok let’s say maybe the doctor did Bad Shit when they were w/ those time lords. that’s kind of the implication right? either they were forced to do bad shit or they initially voluntarily did bad shit and then rebelled and that’s where ruth!doctor comes in. like that seems the most likely trajectory that storyline takes

but

like

that’s all way in the past

like that’s happened and judging by ruth they’ve basically already learned and grown from that AND THEN presumably they got mindwiped and started over as a kid so like...... can you even hold the current doctor accountable and also like.

like it’s done

like it’s over

ruth is here

we’re already at the end point of this progression you know

i mean unless chibs intends to do episodes from the perspective of that pre-hartnell era, which i kinda doubt but who knows. but otherwise, the only way you can show that whole like... chain of events, is through flashback and exposition and i just. hmmmm im already tired

“oh but it fits perfectly in the lore and it makes sense and” ok but i don’t!! care!! how it fits in the Lore!! like if you do care about Lore that’s cool but like im sorry i fundamentally don’t give a shit UNLESS it is backed up by genuinely interesting character stuff and i just

don’t see anything here that wasn’t already in the show u know

“oh but morbius doctors explained!!” u think the casual audience knows or cares about the fuckin morbius doctors??? im not a casual viewer and i don’t even give a shit about the morbius doctors. im sure people do!!! i know people do But God Jesus Christ the last thing dr who needs to do is continuously go back into its own history to fix plot holes that really aren’t important to any of the characters at all. it’s a 56 year old show, there’s gonna be inconstencies and unless “““fixing”“““  those inconstistencies leads to actual interesting stories i Just Do Not Give A Shit

and like i get the feeling that this whole thing was smth chris chibnall has had in his head since forever, like this was his Big Bold Plan when he was a young guy watching classic who. and like. i get wanting to do that story now, but... the show has moved on, the world has moved on. he can do whatever he likes, but things have in fact happened, and sometimes you gotta adjust your big dream story to account for those things that have changed. sure, every showrunner is completely entitled to do with the show what they want, BUT the audience is still experiencing the show as one continuous story, and you gotta take that into account unless you want it to be super jarring for them! you want the master to blow up gallifrey, but gallifrey has been blown up + brought back in very recent history? find another way. this story could easily have been done without destroying gallifrey. i mean, have the master kill some time lords, sure, whatever. but keep them around! have them react to the doctor finding out the truth, have them confront each other!!! isn’t that a much more interesting story, anyway?

ok jesus this is getting way too long LISTEN

here are my main points:

- like the cartmel plan before it, it takes away far more mystery than it adds. it takes the vast and endless Unknown and turns it into like... a “mystery” plot the size of your average scandinoir thriller. before, the doctor’s life before an unearthly child could be anything you want. now it’s.... this

- the actual execution of it is bad. the dr sits in a cage for 40 minutes and is shocked and then she gets over it in that same episode

- it robs the doctor of a certain kind of agency and accountability. instead of a privileged time lord who got better through their travels and companions, now they’re an abused, adopted child who was always an outcast. and that’s not like..... an inherently bad story!! i get why that resonates with people, i do. BUT BUT BUT....... why does that have to be their story. why does that have to get shoved into the doctor’s backstory when that could be the story of a companion? why are you replacing one story when you could be creating new ones?

i think actually that’s my Main Gripe with all of this.

why is this the doctor’s story?

for an era that is supposed to be all about inclusivity and diversity and Space For All, why is the end result that the companions get shoved to the side in favour of doing gallifrey and the master again, in favour of Lore, in favour of the fuckin morbius doctors? why would you dangle jo martin in front of my face and then reduce her to the Magical Black Woman trope in this ep? why does the character who has up to this point been portrayed by 13 white men and 1 white woman, get the backstory about being an adoptee, why are you making all these past doctors people of colour and of different genders, instead of just... acknowledging that doctor who’s past wasn’t very diverse, and forging ahead with NEW stories instead. 

doctor who thrives on change, but this isn’t.... like it’s not going forward. it’s looking back and prioritising the past instead of focusing on the present, on the new generation. i didn’t like s11 much, but not using any past monsters was a good refreshing choice! no, they weren’t all great, but we got stuff like demons of the punjab and ITYA out of it, stories that were genuinely great and new. and in many ways s12 was an improvement, but going so full-in on classic monsters and stories... it felt like a step back.

i want new stories. tell me about yaz. tell me about ryan. tell me about places that aren’t england or gallifrey or other places we’ve been to. tell me about monsters that aren’t the daleks or cybermen or time lords. tell me about new mistakes the doctor makes. let her fuck up now, in the present. let her make bad decisions, let her do shitty things now, not lifetimes ago. let graham, yaz and ryan fuck up. let the fam clash with each other, really clash, not this half-assed stuff we had this season. tell me new stories with these new characters, that i still feel like i barely know despite having had two full seasons with them.

and give me jo martin as the 14th doctor goddamn

[biscuitreviews]

Biscuit Reviews The Witcher III Wild Hunt (2-year Anniversary Review)

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is perhaps my favorite game to come out of the PS4/Xbox One/Wii U-Switch console era. It’s won tons of awards and was game of the year for many people in 2015. I didn’t get into the Witcher series until Witcher II: Assassin of Kings was a free download for Xbox Live members in 2016. 

After I finished Witcher II, I immediately went to Witcher III and my god, talk about an amazing sequel. It was bigger, it was better, and for being the end of Geralt’s story, it did a great job for making newcomers such as myself, not feel lost at all.

I’m going to be spoiling the game so if you haven’t played Witcher III, definitely play it before going into this review.

The story of Witcher III, revolves around Geralt of Rivia, a witcher looking for his adoptive daughter Ciri alongside his on and off again lover Yennefer of Vengerburg.

Geralt will travel through large open world zones during his quest. Velen took inspiration from the Polish and Northern German countryside, Novigrad is reminiscent of the Polish city of Gdańsk during the medieval era, and finally you have the Skellige Isles, taking inspiration from Ireland. Each of these areas are massive and beautiful to look at. It’s easy to forget that you’re in a world currently being ravaged by war or filled with monsters until you stumble across areas that give you a stark reminder that there is a war happening.

One thing that I love about the game is how it handled decisions. There’s no clear good or bad decision, everything has a shade of grey. Sure there are choices that sound better in the short term, but it could have long term ramifications that could come back to haunt Geralt. One example is Triss’s quest line in Novigrad. Sure, you’re helping mages escape the city to where they no longer have to fear for themselves, but by doing so, you give the witch hunters a new target to pursue, which are non-human races such as elves and dwarves. However, if you don’t help mages escape, than later in the story Geralt’s dwarven friend, Zoltan, can help him with a jailbreak. If you do help the mages, Zoltan won’t be able to assist Geralt due to not wanting to face the wrath of the witch hunters.

Even the types of decisions you make are fantastic as well. All of these choices are actions that Geralt himself would make and do in that situation, it’s just a matter what you believe would be the overall choice he would go with. With many choice based games, dialogue options cover many aspects of a character archetype, because normally, you are making a character and are taking that character on the journey. In this case, Geralt is a character, he has his own beliefs, likes and dislikes, and dialogue choices reflect his specific personality rather than a personality a player would create.

It’s also why some aspects in gameplay are limited such as crafting. Geralt is able to craft oils and potions on his own as long as he has the formula and the ingredients. Applying the proper oil and drinking the necessary potions are necessary for fighting monsters in this game, which I’ll discuss more about later. When it comes to making armor and swords, Geralt has to seek out a Blacksmith to make these items as Geralt himself doesn’t have the kind of skill set, therefore he has to seek out a person able to build these items.

I also love how story quests and side quests interact with one another. Main story quests could go differently if you’ve done some side quests that relate to that specific quest and vice versa. Also the fact that side quests have just as much weight as the main quests make them feel more important and worth doing for that extra bit of lore or for that impact it could have on the main story.

As well polished and built the Witcher III is, it does have some minor glitches being an open world game. Sometimes you’ll find objects just randomly floating in air. Occasionally the input to talk to NPCs won’t work and you’ll have to either step back and walk forward to have the prompt reappear or just reposition Geralt himself for the NPC to talk to you. The fact that Geralt can either die or get heavily damaged from ridiculously low heights is also highly annoying and instills a fear of any small dropping points.

Another issue I would like to point out is that it’s not exactly the most socially inclusive. A lot of the main women are highly sexualized and sometimes feel that they’re nude for the sake of it. There are moments where you can choose anti-LGBT dialogue options when you encounter those characters, which I found exteremly baffeling that it was an option considering Ciri is bi and Geralt seems supportive in the dialogue they exchange. I get it, it’s a choice, you don’t have select those options, but the fact that they’re there to begin with just leaves a bit of a bad taste. Let’s not forget the entire ocean of white people in this game. I’m sorry, but including two people of color in a DLC just doesn’t cut it. Does it break the game for me? No, but I think not acknowledging that this exists within the game is even worse.

As mentioned previously, monsters have certain weakness and you are expected to exploit those weakness when fighting monsters. Using the proper tools to easily take down a monster feels great and makes you feel more invested in the world as you have to research these creatures in your bestiary to know their weaknesses. 

Going above and beyond to take on an extra tough enemy or a monster clearly above your level although feels great at first, it’s quickly brought down when the experience gained is very little and the loot isn’t something that equates the struggle you went through. It’s just a bit disappointing that you’re encouraged to research monsters and exploit weaknesses and when you do just that, the rewards just don’t reflect that.

There’s also one quirk with dialogue as well that’s honestly more funny than terrible, but the way it happened just made it more memorable to me.

This instance is going to a wake party with Yennefer in Skellige. She’ll comment on how she likes that Geralt is growing out a beard. Now if Geralt does have a beard in this instance, it makes sense, however if Geralt is clean shaven, Yennefer will still make the comment which I always found that to be a funny little programming quirk. It’s obvious that this response was to happen when Geralt has a beard and the programming within the game was supposed to read that. There are a couple of instances that NPCs will react to Geralt’s appearance and the reaction is appropriate in those moments. But the beard moment, always brings out a chuckle.

Granted for a game as massive as Witcher III to only have a few minor issues, it’s actually rather impressive. However, I will admit that it has been four years since it’s initial release and there might have been more bugs then, but now it’s a mostly smooth experience.

As mentioned in a previous post, I do refer back to this game a lot for professional research as well. CD Projekt Red used a branching writing program known as Articy Draft, a program I use in my day job. I’ll do different decisions, I’ll change the order of when I do quests and just imagine how the branching dialogue looked within Articy and the type of variables used to determine how certain events play out.

One also can’t talk about Witcher III without mentioning Gwent, what is perhaps one of the best mini-games within a game since Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad. Gwent is an easy to learn, but tough to master card game at the start. It’s tough at first as Geralt doesn’t have many cards at his disposal, but once you finally get a win, the dam starts to break little by little. Geralt will begin winning more powerful cards that can be added to his deck. Eventually it does get to a point where everyone becomes a bit easy to defeat as you gain more powerful cards and build your deck for effective strategies. Regardless it’s a game within a game that you can easily get lost in. 

Witcher III also set what many gamers regard as the “Golden Standard” for how DLC should be treated. Witcher III includes 16 free DLC additions ranging from additional quests, items, additional costumes, and Gwent cards. Then there’s the two paid DLC expansions, Heart of Stone and Blood and Wine, which involves two new stories.

Both of these expansions also add additional gameplay mechanics to make Geralt stronger, which you will need to take advantage of for Blood and Wine as monsters and enemies in that particular expansion are a bit tougher than in the main game and Heart of Stone.

Blood and Wine also contains my favorite quest in the entire game. The quest is called “Paperchase” and it’s hilarious. Something about a legendary monster slayer still having to adhere to the bureaucracy of a bank to get a reward for saving a guy years ago is just amazing. It shows that not all great quests have to involve you having an encounter that puts you on the edge of your seat.

The Witcher III is a game that deserves the praise and reception it has received. It has made a mark on the RPG genre that many developers are taking note and implementing in their games. The most famous case being Ubisoft with the Assassin’s Creed series by following a similar dialogue decision based structure and having side quests impact the main story and vice versa. This is a game that has earned its status as a modern classic, which I’m sure will keep that status for a very long time.

As I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone on Tumblr or any denizen of the internet, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt receives a 5 out 5

So far it’s been quite an interesting two years on this site. Frankly, I expected to just be a reviewer that would continuously scream into the void. To my surprise, I’ve had quite a few of you that like and share my posts adding more to the conversation whether you agree or disagree. I’ve also recently passed the 50 reviews milestone as well so the 50 and the two year mark happened rather quickly!

Here’s to the march on getting to 100 reviews...at some point!

[minisception]

So I saw this guy, ‘Haarkon Worldclaimer” when the warhammer community article went up (link), and I’ve got a lot of mixed feelings about him.

Starting with the good, I love the model.  Yeah, it’s super busy, but I actually really like that in a 40k era chaos marine lord.  To me it’s a great blend of the dark vengeance chosen and current raptor kit.  I like that there’s more of that mutated/daemonic look going than in the Blackstone Fortress character.  Lightning claw and... power lance?  daemon weapon?  Seem like potentially an odd equipment load, but that’s not too hard to convert around if it isn’t particularly effective in game.

Admittedly the posing & proportions are a bit weird.  At first I thought that the central chest armor detail would prevent him from seeing anything directly in front of him whenever he was just standing on the ground, then I noticed the oddly elongated midriff, and realized that his whole upper torso craned back to look forward mid leap, instead of just his neck, which is just sort of awkward.  Also, the connection to the base seems remarkably small and fragile, but that’s been a common problem with GW models lately.  When and if I get this guy for myself, I’ll have to build up the base a bit to provide some more stable contact points.

But again, overall I love the model.  The character on the other hand?  There I’m not so sure.

Before getting into lore stuff, rules-wise the “new characters” lately have just been generic heroes with particular, usually suboptimal, wargear.  The Blackstone Fortress lord is literally just a generic black legion lord with a thunder hammer.  Granted chaos lords can’t currently take thunder hammers, but still.  I kind of expect the same here, just a generic lord with jump pack, lightning claw, and... power lance?  The spear might end up being a unique daemon weapon, but those are pretty hit & miss.  Having a jump pack is a good starting point in the current csm ruleset, though, and it shouldn’t be too hard to convert an alternative weapon loadout, so even if ‘Haarkon Worldclaimer’ isn’t a competitive unit in and of himself, he will make a solid foundation for reasonably competitive conversions.  Well, to the extent that any generic chaos HQ that isn’t a daemon prince can be competitive these days.  So... he’ll be a nice display piece.

The lore side of things is the bigger issue.  I /should/ be excited to see a new name and face added to the Black Legion’s lineup, and I /want/ to be excited to see the legion get some more ‘screen time’, but past experience tells me not to get too excited.

Chaos Marines in general and the Black Legion in particular have a history of being used as the go-to jobbers of the 40k narrative.  It’s a reputation some authors have been fighting to reverse - ADB in particular has done a good job of that in his series covering the origins of the legion - but for every ‘Talon of Horus’ or ‘Black Legion’ that depicts the legion as dangerous and competent there’s a ‘Pandorax’ or ‘Fall of Cadia’ that depicts their soldiers as background fodder and their commanders as buffoons who either fail miserably or succeed despite their own best efforts to the contrary.

There’s this related problem of portraying Abaddon as discount bin Darth Vader and the soldiers under his command as knock-off storm troopers.  This despite the fact that, if any faction in 40k were to be the analog of Star Wars’s Empire it would be the Imperium.  Chaos marines are the rag tag rebellion relying on the individually superior skill and passion of its soldiers combined with hit-and-run guerrilla tactics to chip away at a larger and better supplied foe.

As such, Abaddon isn’t the supreme commander of an omnipotent military state served by countless interchangeable soldiers brainwashed from birth to be obedient to the point of self destruction.  Rather, he’s the head of a ramshackle allegiance of self interested traitors and turncoat drama queens.  Abaddon can’t just expect obedience from his forces, he actually has to convince them that they *want* to risk their lives for him.  Every time he kills his own people it makes it harder to buy that he’d ever be able to do that.  It’s a really awful bit of characterization that never worked to begin with, yet was so commonly employed that it came to define his character, to the point that his Battlefleet Gothic rules had him firing on his own ships if they missed a roll.

And that brings us back to the actual topic of this post, Haarken Worldclaimer, and I’m sorry to say it but everything about this character and his introduction screams ‘jobber’.  I mean, first, look at is name.  World”claimer”?  So he’s named not for something he’s /done/ but for something he’s boasted he /will do/?  That’s a pretty bad sign to begin with.  And what is it he’s claimed he’s going to do?  Win the Vigilus campaign by himself against like 9 other factions?  Including the big re-release/update of fan and franchise favorite Calgar?

Being showcased opposite of Calgar in particular screams that Haarken is not a serious new player to take note of, but rather a no-name, no-stakes easy win to make the aging Poppa Smurf look good after his recent hip replacement.  Once again, it seems the Black Legion are being employed as the ‘jobber marines’.

But Haarken isn’t just boasting that he’ll take Vigilus from all the other forces vying for it, he’s boasting that he’ll do it in a scant 80 days.  And that particular tidbit, to me, screams that the dev’s aren’t *just* going to have Haarken job to Calgar, but rather are going to have him slink away in failure, or worse keep fighting till the 80 days are up only to have Abaddon show up and kill him for his ‘failure’ in another example of GW clumsily and lazily aiming for “this guy is evil and scary!” but instead landing on “this moron is a bigger threat to his own followers than literally anyone else,” and I’d rather have no new Black Legion character at all than one that only exists to job, and in the process of jobbing to undo some of the hard work that’s gone into rehabilitating him as a credible threat.

So yeah, I *want* to be excited for a new Black Legion character, but everything about the setup for the ‘worldclaimer’ screams “this is a nobody who exists only to make your chosen faction look bad and who won’t even exist six months from now when his model is re-packaged as a generic unnamed chaos lord.”  I hope I’m absolutely wrong about all that.  I’ve been excessively pessimistic about CSMs in the past, so maybe I’ll be wrong again, but we’ll see. 

Honestly, even if I *am* wrong about all that, I still kind of wish this was a Night Lords character rather than a Black Legionnaire.  Even if Vigilus doesn’t go down like I expect it to, and Haarken does stick around long term, did we really need another Black Legion special character when Word Bearers, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion, and Night Lords don’t have any yet, outside of a couple half baked Forgeworld heroes?  In particular, of all the legions that might want a jump lord model, wouldn’t Night Lords want it most?  If this guy had been a Night Lord to start, maybe the fact that there aren’t any other Night Lords named characters would make the dev’s less likely to waste him just to build up calgar.  And even if they did just set him up to job regardless, the night lords haven’t already been used in that role to the point of losing all respectability.

It’s rare enough that the Night Lords get any ‘screen time’ at all, so getting some focus, even at the cost of taking a loss, would probably be seen as a positive development by most Night Lord players, especially if they got a permanent named hero out of it.  Where as Black Legion already has a named hero, and have been overused as the losing faction in grand imperial victories to the point that, even after Fall of Cadia (which was a rather embarrassing “victory” to begin with), no coverage at all still seems preferable to taking yet another dive.