#story: dead mans hand

[cabinetsart]

Dealer's Choice...

[ominous-horse-noises]

not done talking ab fhjy actually so i'll just say some of you guys who go on about how you could've done better themes and narrative arcs can't even think critically about the one in front of you.

i do wish that the other bad kids had interacted with their foils more this season because it was fun seeing them trade insults, but i also dont think it would've done much for them. i mean, people forget the tbks did try to turn reuben early on (they literally saved him from grix even though it was his fault he showed up trying to kill people). adaine thought oisin was cool and tbks were onboard with thinking maybe he wasn't that bad, and then he sent his grandma to murder them and their entire school. fabian tried to get an 'in' with ivy and it nearly cost him a genuine relationship with a character who had a way better chance of helping them figure things out without the risk of being betrayed. kipperlilly had an ego-driven hateboner for riz since BEFORE the rage stars and killed her own party member in cold blood just to stick it to kristen, and you're telling me that she could've been my little ponyied into giving up her chance to squash the symbol of all her inadequacy? buddy and maryann are the only rat grinders who havent fucked them over meaningfully and guess what? they're not thrilled about having to kill them- they're actively avoiding targeting them! almost like theyre capable of distinguishing between someone not on their side and someone who's proved to be a threat!

brennan made it pretty clear that trying to befriend trgs in their rage forms was futile and actively punished it ingame. you can have your opinions of that, but it definitely had a narrative point: if you get rage starred, you cant be 'this isnt youuuu'd out of it. you think ONLY of rage, and rage can't be reasoned with. it's arguably worse than death, bc at least someone can revivify you and there's no lasting consequences. think about how hard brennan was trying to push the ihs into taking rage tokens. he knew exactly how dire he'd made the consequences and that was on purpose. the season has no stakes if you can just talk your way out of being rage starred bc tbks could save each other easily. the whole climax literally can't happen if trgs arent being evil bc porter can't be a living god of rage without followers. tbks hating trgs isnt a flaw in the story: it IS the story.

[alatariel-galadriel]

finished dead boy detectives! first of all, what a fun watch. I loved the entire ride, and the showrunners did a fantastic job of bringing a rich and intricate world to life.

It’s not perfect—I think it has some minor issues with pacing and a bad habit of over-explaining via dialogue, but the actors did an *incredible* job and brought so much charisma and heart to the show that it was easy to overlook. there’s a brilliant balance of humor and genuine emotion that made it so easy to fall headfirst in love with the world and all the characters in it

I would really recommend giving it a shot if you haven’t already!

[danidoesathing]

Vide Noir + Strange Trails

[seventh-district]

so uh. that 2.2 Special Program, huh

[doodlesdreaming]

What if, instead of living the same day over and over again, Blobby was sent further back in time, to when the King and his Queen still lived. Could they possibly prevent the malise that ruined an entire kingdom, or be the cause of the destruction? More at 11.

(King Headcanon- @yore-donatsu)

[soccerpunching]

Hey i just had an Idea like i don't know if you are familiar with the Harvest Moon/Rune Factory series but imagine there was a Inazuma Eleven Harvest Moon game (They did this with Doraemon too as far as i know) and imagine everyone lives together in a small village and you can play soccer but also farm and marry the other IE characters (As their adult versions of course) and like farm Crops that make you learn special hissatsus when you eat them or something

I 100% AGREE!! i also love the part where you learn a hissatsu technique from eating the crops you make, OH THAT IS GOOD!!

would you believe me if I say that I had planned and abandoned a choose your own adventure project once in the go timeline but in a world where kageyama won (and successfully made kidou his predecessor) just bcs im insane? the mc (you) is supposed to nurture a soccer club (tenma's team) to be strong enough for something

the characters are also romanticeable (is that a word???) and will develop feelings for you depending on how youre nurturing the team and the dialogues you choose. then you get kicked out if you havent been taking care of the club. anyway that's scratched bcs OBVIOUSLY my brain cant handle all that. I still love that timeline though.

oh but imagine if they do a game like that for ie... good god i will never sleep again. ME LIVING IN A SMALL ISLAND AS A LITTLE FARMER WITH MY FAVS THAT I CAN SEDUCE??? YEAH. THAT IS THE LIFE. I WANT A QPR W THEM FR

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Ulmer of the Kingswood jammed his spear into the ground, unslung his bow, and slipped a black arrow from his quiver. Sweet Donnel Hill threw back his hood to do the same. Garth Greyfeather and Bearded Ben nocked shafts, bent their bows, loosed.

One arrow took Mance Rayder in the chest, one in the gut, one in the throat. The fourth struck one of the cage’s wooden bars, and quivered for an instant before catching fire. A woman’s sobs echoed off the Wall as the wildling king slid bonelessly to the floor of his cage, wreathed in fire. “And now his Watch is done,” Jon murmured softly. Mance Rayder had been a man of the Night’s Watch once, before he changed his black cloak for one slashed with bright red silk.

- Jon III, ADWD

… away, he meant to say. When Wick Whittlestick slashed at his throat, the word turned into a grunt. Jon twisted from the knife, just enough so it barely grazed his skin. He cut me. When he put his hand to the side of his neck, blood welled between his fingers. “Why?”

Then Bowen Marsh stood there before him, tears running down his cheeks. “For the Watch.” He punched Jon in the belly. When he pulled his hand away, the dagger stayed where he had buried it.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

- Jon XIII, ADWD

Hmmmm 🤔

[cloverhatsandflowercrowns]

Congrats to Cole ninjago for being an actual aroace icon

All my man needs is cake and his friends and he's perfectly happy with that what a legend

[illiana-mystery]

I want a Color Version of Dead Man...

[syrakhanistan]

((man, I hope they release another Walpurgisnacht trailer soon…

If I was any good at video editing myself, I’d probably do a fan-edit of the trailer and/or the series (+ Rebellion), but with ONOKEN’s “Fragment” or with Hikaru Utada’s “One Last Kiss”.

Last Kiss is obviously related to Eva 3+1 and WR being the (presumably?) last entry in their respective franchises, and thematically appropriate.

Fragment is less to do with the song itself, and more to do with just the music… and definitely not inspired by Loyalists’ Girls Frontline fan-mod trailer for BO3.

I’d mainly picture my fan-edit of Fragment x Rising in a similar manner. Overhead shots of Mitakihara, the city moving along, the building works seen in the trailer… A society where God is AWOL and the Devil runs the show in secret, with a select few yearning to fight back. A society where said Devil has explicitly stated that she might just end the world after her job is done (“Perhaps, when I’ve eliminated the last of the Wraiths, I will do just that…”) and her love remains… Well, Madoka is as Madoka does. Madoka and Homura love one another - but can Madokami respect the wishes of AkumaHomura? And can the Devil understand the plight of an omnipresent God? And, while a War in Heaven becomes increasingly more likely, the city continues to simply be. The magical girls barely hold onto their sense of magic, even as they try to fight against a world that never even wanted to keep them in this Devil’s reality (or, more likely, Akuma’s concentration on Madoka has failed to take into account her subconcious need for friends that dragged the Quintet into the New World - her rival in Sayaka, her mentor in Mami, and her best pal in Kyoko).

…

If you couldn’t tell, I may be getting ‘doka Withdrawals. My writer’s block for the tale of the First (and the continued endless hiatus of the sacred texts) probably don’t help.

Still! One can dream. As I say, I can’t (don’t know how) to do video edits, and both of them are probably copyright anyway. But… That fast paced feeling. A world on the brink, that doesn’t recognise the impact coming, the instability of a Devil trying to hold the reins in of an omnipotent and omnipresent deity, the friends who cannot hope to defeat Akuma in open combat nor can fully comprehend the level of threat involved… and the girl at the centre of it all, who cannot be allowed to learn of magical girls, lest the whole reality crumble into an endless war.

Yeah…))

[qasian-tech-support]

Please ignore if I clicked the wrong blog to respond to.

But I also want new Megas and Protomen :(

RIGHT?!?!

I mean, yeah, the Megas also have their takes on Skullman's theme ("Cracked Skulls"; inspired by MM4) and Chill Penguin's theme ("Chill XMas"; inspired by MMX), and I guess there's also one based on Storm Eagle's theme ("Rougmer Storm"; MMX), but I haven't listened to that one yet.

Like, I get that they have a good story arc to cover the first 3 classic games, but it would be so cool if they explored some of the themes of the following games, y'know? Or flesh out the MMX or other series music! Or hell, pick and choose some Robot Masters and make a new narrative, or like literally anything, please, people are starving over here! And it's not like they aren't still active. Don't get me wrong, I love their Castlevania stuff under the Belmonts label, but it would be nice to get Mega Man content outside of just remixes/remasters of their existing songs. Plus, they're still doing concerts, so like the audience is there for it!

And as for the Protomen, I hope that they actually end up releasing Act III at some point. Having listened to The Fight, it makes me crave it to an unhealthy degree. I love the grimdark kinda take on Mega Man that focuses more on the role that humanity takes in all of the conflict. I feel like that angle gets extremely neglected in Mega Man media.

Idk, as a fan, it's just kinda frustrating how neglected mega man gets. Like, it feels like the rare times whenever we do get content, it focuses on the first three or four games (if we're lucky), and then it just dies off! Or goes dormant for a decade or more. The franchise has so much creative potential that just isn't realized and it's so sad!

[danidoesathing]

would it help if i asked you to infodump on hyperfixation

YES THANK YOU

Ok so like. I'll be the first to say I way prefer the music video's version of the World Ender story over the comics. I really like the fire motif Cobb has and personally I think the pacing of the MV's story is better (in the comics he killed Winthrop first and then forms the World Enders gang to help track down the rest vs in the MV him going after the employees first and forming the world enders as he goes along and killing Winthrop at the end).

But. but. ok so his origin in the comic is the same except instead of a house fire, it's a sinkhole below their house. We know the whole Yawning Grave thing and it does later come back in the comic. Additionally, he had actually worked in construction for Winthrop and had actually bought the land from him (while the MV implies Winthrop had started the house fire to acquire the land). The reason Avery goes after revenge this time is because Winthrop had sold the land knowing there was a very big structural issues underneath it but never said anything. Which, while still very evil, is much less actively malicious than him actively setting Cobb's house on fire with him and his family inside. The comics also plays with the flaws in Cobb's idea of justice and if these people are deserving of his vengeance. Specifically, there's a comic page that has this as a sort of narration:

"I suspect there are some who say that Andrew Winthrop is undeserving of such a designation as 'evil'.

Does money lust make you evil? How about ambition?

What if you'll do anything to get it?

Cobb didn't ask for the land documents when Winthrop gave him the plot for his home.

If he had, he would've known about that sleeping sinkhole.

Does ignorance make you deserving?"

ALL OF WHICH. IS OVERLAYED ON THE SCENE OF HIS HOUSE COLLAPSING INTO THE SINKHOLE. WITH HIS FAMILY INSIDE. AND HIM RUNNING INSIDE TO PULL THEM OUT.

WHICH. FUCKED UP AND EVIL ACTUALLY???

and I'm so so interested in what is going on with him now. the World Ender storyline(s) take place in the 50s, and the latest point we see him is in a brief cameo in Vide Noir (which takes place in 1967). During this time, we know that he passes the leadership of the gang onto Alex. We have no clue 1. why he passed the leadership onto to Alex or at all and 2. what he has been doing in the mean time (is he still with the Enders?? is he still going off killing to try and satisfy his rage??? has he stopped??? has he chilled out or is he still violently angry??? did he ever find a way to undo his immortality???). And then his appearance in Vide Noir just. leaves me with SO many questions. What is he doing in the club at all? Why was he down there? Was he there at all, or was he a hallucination/vision/ghost? why did running into him trigger another time space jump? is it because he's inhuman? what does that mean in terms of his connection to Vide Noir? if he was a ghost/vision/hallucination, what the HELL does that mean in terms of how he's related to Buck?? if he wasn't actually there, why does Buck see him at all when he's got no clue who/what the World Ender even is?? did Cobb know there was something up with him and his fucked up stasis with the universe?? or his encounter with johnnie?? does he know anything about the events of Vide Noir?? what was he doing??? what does it mean what does it MEAN

and then like. what the HELL is the World Ender curse?? is it the specific brand of immortality he has??? Cobb is the only immortal character that we know of, but he's not the only undead character and Secret of Life implies there's more out there (though that could be metaphorical, but its hard to tell when Lost and Time in Space turned out to be literal). The curse is referenced a few times in random places but I've still got no idea what it means. and what the HELL does any of it have to due with the concept of the Yawning Grave. Yawning Grave (the song) is one of the few Strange Trails songs that both has no listed narrator but also with no clear connection to any of the established characters (both then and now). As far as we know, the narrator of Yawning Grave is a deity/force of nature of some kind, but not much more than that. But the comics imply that Cobb probably has got some connection to it. which. how??? in what way??? Is he the actual narrator??? is it just a random lyrical reference or does it have actual effects on the lore?? im so curious about him and even if he's gotten so much content theres still so much about the guy we dont know.

[starsandthorn]

read through all of neuvillette's stories on the wiki and. what do you MEAN people were right about him giving furina her vision

[nicnacsnonsense]

📖

Okay Dark Lord of Derkholm AU. I don't believe you've read that book from what I recall of our Dianne Wynne Jones conversation, so I will be sure to explain the relevant parts of the plot as we go.

Our setting is a world that vibes similar to a standard fantasy setting -- which is a key plot point -- and they have a serious problem. The Badminton Twins who are business men who forty years ago managed to capture a demon, which they use as leverage to make the demon king do their bidding. (I have no strong feelings on who should be the demons, but I do think it would be funny if it were Mary and Doug, and since the demon king does help our protagonists, but really only to secure freedom for himself & his mate, it works). Their bidding being to force the upholding of a contract the people of this world signed to hold Badminton's Pilgrim Parties.

Every year they have to do up their world to look like an even more exaggerated and tropey version of a fantasy setting, all of which must conform to the Badminton's exact very racist and sexist expectations, and give a fantasy world quest to 100+ parties of about 20 Pilgrims (people from our world) which culminates in them defeating the Dark Lord and saving the world. They are paid for this service, but it's significantly less than what the Badmintons earn selling the experience, and also significantly less than the cost of running it in resource and labor on the people in the world.

(It's a colonialism. The whole story is an anti-colonialism & -capitalism allegory that's honestly pretty light on the allegory part of it.)

Our story starts with Spanish Jackie, Chancellor of the Wizard University, having an emergency meeting with a number of other various guild leaders, heads of state, high priests, etc. etc. About how they are going to stop the Pilgrim Parties. Their plan is to go see the two Oracles and do what both of them say. The instructions come down as make the first person you see the Dark Lord and the second person you see the Wizard Guide for the last tour group. Upon exiting the second Oracle, the first two people they see are Stede and his younger human son Olu.

Stede is regarded by people in this universe to be just as cringefail as he is in canon. He did technically graduate from the University and is a wizard, but he did very poorly. The trouble was he couldn't seem to conform to what was required of him -- which was to perform to specific standards to cater to the Pilgrim Party economy -- and only wanted to do his own magic that he was good at. The University was a very traumatizing experience for him and decimated his self-esteem, but he now has a beautiful farm/estate with a whole bevy of animals and a loving husband and many children where he is very happy and can focus on the type of magic he likes (or at least he could until this whole Dark Lord thing interrupted).

His preferred magic is kind of like a biology magic, I guess? Plants and animals. He's super great at using magic to grow any kind of plant. Nana, a high priestess/queen of one region, gives him an orange that she bought off of a Pilgrim because she is fully confident Stede will be able to use the pips from this fruit that isn't native to their entire world to grow a whole grove of orange trees. And as far as animals, at his home he has flying pigs, flying talking horses, Friendly Cows (they are so fucking dumb, but they have kind eyes), invisible cats, super intelligent geese (which tbf, I'm pretty sure are just normal cats & geese), etc. etc.

As to his children, Frenchie is the eldest. He's in training to become a bard. And I already mentioned Olu, who is the next oldest and who wants to train to be a wizard. These two are probably adopted in this version of the story. And then we move on to his & his husband's biological kids.

Pete is the oldest, and he and Olu are often refer to as the twins since they are about the same age. Pete is also a humongous black griffin. Yeah, so Stede took some of his cells, his husband's cells, cells from a lioness, and some cells from an eagle, did some kind of magic, put it in an egg, and out hatched a baby griffin, who is also a whole sapient person. John, Roach, and Swede (and possible Ivan & Fang, haven't decided on that) are their other griffin children.

For the rest of the crew, starting with Lucius, he is an elf prince in this one. He and his people are supposed to pose as dark elves and the Dark Lords minions. Stede manages to get Lucuis to agree to give him some additional help because (and this is different than the book) Lucius is into Pete. Lucius the elf is dtf the massive griffin, because why not.

For Jim, as a reminder Olu is the wizard guide for the last tour group (and Frenchie comes along too as their group bard). Jim is one of the Pilgrims in that group, but it eventually comes out they're here to try to figure out what happened to their parents, who went on a tour when they were just a kid, and never came back. We don't find out for sure what happened, but we are able to conclude that the Jimenezes were probably marked down as expendable.

Because yeah that's another service the Badmintons offer. You can pay an exorbitant sum to get an X put down next to a person's name, and that person will meet with an unfortunate accident and simply not make it back from their trip to the other world.

(Also in Olu & Frenchie's tour group are Evelyn, Hornberry, and Wellington. They are posing as a married couple plus sibling, though I'm not sure which configuration of that would be funniest. Ultimately it doesn't matter because they are all revealed to actually be undercover agents from various government organizations in our world investigating the shady shit the Badmintons are pulling).

Buttons is the nickname that is given to a dragon that randomly shows up, half-crazed and very confused. HE just took a little 100 year nap, and when he woke up the world was entirely different. Stede helps hims recover and reacclimate, and in return Buttons helps him out with the whole Dark Lord thing.

And then, saving the best for last, Ed. Obviously Ed is Stede's aforementioned husband. He is a very well-respected wizard and can do these little pocket universe things that everyone loves. When Stede is volunteered to be the Dark Lord, Ed is likewise assigned the role of Glamorous Enchantress. The vibe here of the Enchantress and her domain seems like it's kind of going for a Fae Queen & her court kind of thing. Anyway, as the Glamorous Enchantress Ed is required to look extraordinarily beautiful and extremely sensual if not overtly sexual. I'm picturing him having shaved his beard for the role and lounging about in his loose plait, pearls, a robe, and probably nothing else. To the point that when Frenchie & Olu's group show up off-schedule because Olu got them horribly lost and this was the first place they were able to find, Ed is running around freaking out trying to find his tiny gold shorts (thinking a real RHPS number here) because his kids are coming and he needs his least slutty outfit.

As for the actual plot beats, mainly what's important is that the story is about Stede and his kids running around trying to fulfill all the requirements of the Dark Lord role through an escalating series of everything that can go wrong, will. Made worse by all the people who have had enough of the Pilgrim Parties and are actively protesting in some fashion or another, and Izzy, another wizard who is supposed to be helping them but is actually secretly working for the Badmintons, helping them to mine magic from the ground and import it back to our world, and Spanish Jackie who has decided that the point of Stede being the Dark Lord must be that he's going to fail so hard that the whole operation is going to fall apart, and secretly actively working to make things harder for him.

The worst of Jackie's actions being the enchantment she put on Ed to compel him to leave Stede, so Stede is dealing with all of this and the additional stressor of his marriage suddenly and inexplicably falling apart. Of course when Jackie finally realizes what an asshole move that was and removes the enchantment, Ed is immediately all over Stede, like oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't even realize how I was acting, I love you so much.

So our happy ending when things all come to a head, Izzy is discovered for his crimes and arrested. Mary is set free and she and demon king Doug go off together. The gods show up (finally) and imprison the Badmintons inside the jar they kept Mary in and put Jackie in charge of working toward setting the world back to rights after the mess the Pilgrim Parties made of it. All the Pilgrims go back home to their own world, except Jim who decides to stay. Pete and Lucius official become an item. Buttons is revealed to be king of the dragons. And we end with Stede & Ed deciding to have another baby, this time a winged human. The End.

[flowerflamestars]

Robin fic snippet

“Just, whoever’s out tonight, don’t come running in.” Extra noise there shouldn’t be, water, and Jason realized she was probably holding the com instead of wearing it. Because why would she be wearing it? Why would she even have the right frequency, if B hadn’t given her one, just in case.   A panic button thrown in a coffee mug, a secure line, and cave clearance that triggered a lockdown.   Asshole didn’t even have the decency to make the same mistake twice, ever.   “You redecorating, Elle?” Dick joked, wary, worried blue gaze finding Jason.   He was too far into the motion of flipping him off to stop, when Elle said, approximately a thousand miles away. “I have to hold a burial.”

The line went dead.   Tim spit out the scrunchie he’d been holding between his teeth, tied off the end of the French braid he’d woven into Steph’s hair, and sighed. “She found the bodies.”   They’d him taught not to freeze. To barely breathe. To control his entire body and kill anything that could be killed and Jason sounded like it, sounded like that person again, made of Talia’s selfish, endless violence, as he ground out, “What bodies.”   Tim looked at Dick, rescue not coming, Robin original too busy wrestling his phone out a clinging yoga pants pocket.   “Tim,” Jason growled, “What fucking bodies?”   It was Bruce who answered.   “Eleanor has been looking for her predecessors.”   Someone had laid the foundations of that house, a witches hearth waiting for Elle to come back, for Elle to be strong enough to belong to this city.   He’d fucking known she was too cagey about it.   “Witches die when they want to die,” Bruce said, calm and detached. Too sure. He knew or thought she was okay, and when hadn’t Bruce’s variable definition of okay failed everyone in this room? “Or in extreme violence. She had to find them, to know.”   “So we’re going to help, right?” Steph was the only one besides Bruce in full uniform, purple cape flinging out as she jumped upright and propped her elbow on Tim’s shoulder. “And I finally get to meet her? Boyfriend?”   Tim shook his head. “Wardens work alone.”   “Fuck that,” Jason spit, “Fuck”-