#technically this is not spoiler and it's kind of old case

[shunin-gumis]

Nagi Hachinoya Novel

Essence of a Bouquet

Track 01 - Secret Energy that can attract Happiness

Please note that the novel contains some major spoilers in regards to Nagi's past that is revealed in L4mps main story before you read!

The dialogues do not actually state who is speaking, but I noted it anyways to make it easier to understand.

"Now, let us dive deep into the sea of memories…"

As if guided by the voice I hear from the podium, I close my eyes, and dive deep into the depths of my memories.

The earliest memory I have is that of my mother, the two of us having fun at a park.

The fresh and vibrant four-leaf clover.

The happy times, immediately followed by our separation at the laundromat.

The moment I learned that the scent of partings was the smell of fresh laundry.

'……'

I open my eyes.

'Why did you have to leave me behind…'

'I want to go back to that day, a day that should have been filled with happiness.'

In the corner of a special venue in mahorova, I look around and see the avatars all around me were in tears. I had already come to terms with what happened with my mother, so I didn't join them in their tears. But I could still understand their feelings very well.

If it were truly possible for me to return to that day, I would be willing to make any sacrifice. That's what it means to be 'sad'.

This was the orientation for beginners who want to join the "Society of Secret Energy to Attract Happiness". The gathering had around 30 members, and since everyone was in their anonymous avatars, there was no way to tell anyone's age nor gender.

The person talking at the podium was known as the Flower Princess, Master Hideko. She was the one responsible for leading this gathering. She had the avatar of an old woman in her sixties… but I had a feeling that's how she looks in real life as well.

Master Hideko looked around as everyone was crying, and with a solemn yet gentle expression on her face, she started speaking.

Hideko "Please, dry your tears. I am certain that you will all be able to return to those happy days once again. "Good fortune" is simply an energy that attracts happiness based on the principle of attunement wave function, in other words if you can access your "Secret Energy", you can-"

She was using a lot of technical terms, but it was very informative. I'm glad I attended.

After joining HAMA Tours, although I was late to the party, I started browsing videos on dazzle. Strangely enough, after a bit of searching, I found that my feed was full of videos that were related to luck.

One day, I asked Buchi-san about it while I was in the living room with him.

Nagi "Seeing all these videos on the topic of luck, I wonder if it's all the rage these days…"

He responded with-

Daniel "That's just the target algorithm doing it's job."

Nagi "Algo-huh?"

Daniel "I mean, it's because you keep watching those kinds of videos all the time- ah forget it. It's too much of a pain to explain."

Nagi "So what does it mean?"

Daniel "Yeah it's all the rage, but only in your phone."

-Is what he said.

I thought it was popular because it was effective, so I'd immediately applied to join the gathering.

I myself had a predisposition that made me attract bad luck proportional to the happiness that I receive. But rather than simply wanting to be happy for the sake of being happy, I wanted to be able to spread happiness through my flowers, which meant I had to be happy first.

Hideko "Say it together now, Secret Energy!!"

Master Hideko's voice grew louder. As if everyone was pulled by an invisible force, they all stood up together. I got up in a hurry as well.

"Secret Energy!"

"Secret Energy!!"

Before I knew it, everyone was chanting "Secret Energy" over and over while hugging the person next to them.

I see, this is the power of "Secret Energy".

Everyone was hugging the person next to them as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

In which case, the person next to me…

Black cat avatar "Secret Energy!"

When I looked over, a person with a black cat avatar was already waiting with their arms wide open.

Nagi "Secret Energy!"

That's why I returned the hug as well.

I don't think I've ever hugged anyone before, but now that I have, I could feel my heart being filled even in this virtual space.

I don't even know this person, and even if it's just through virtual avatars, this is not something that I'd experience normally. Is this one of the secrets to happiness?

As a matter of fact, the avatar in front of me seemed quite happy. There was something about it that made you feel a connection, beyond age, gender or even words.

Once again, Master Hideko's voice full of love washed over us.

Hideko "The next gathering will be for the intermediate level, so make sure you all do your assignments before you attend!"

Nagi "Phew… that was quite the passionate session."

I got a glimpse into ways of increasing happiness from a perspective that's different from mine. As I thought, it was good thing that I participated today.

Just as I was about to log out, I felt a tap on my shoulder-

Black cat avatar "Hello again! I just wanted to say, it was a really fulfilling time despite being a beginner's session."

It was the person with the black cat avatar.

Nagi "I agree. I'm looking forward to the next session."

Black cat avatar "Right!"

Since I felt like I shared in some happiness with this person, I couldn't help talk with them at that moment.

Apparently, he was a 35 year old male. Although I was one generation younger than him, he didn't mind at all and was very frank, all smiles.

Black cat avatar "I'm glad I got to meet someone I can get along with! Feel free to talk to me the next time you see me!"

Nagi "Yes, I will."

Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 /Part 5

[protagonistpolling]

DRAMA IS HAPPENING IN THIS COURTROOM

Why should you vote for these characters?

Why should you vote for Phoenix Wright? (3)

"Cross examined a parrot, ate a glass necklace containing poison, seemingly immune to death in any form, just an all-around chaotic force of nature dear god"

"He is so so silly. He ate a glass bottle that contained traces of poison (and was fine) on purpose. Look at any of his college days "feenie" sprites (with the pink sweater). He adopted a kid at 26. He was punched into unconsciousness by an 8 year old. He's kind he's annoying he's a bitch. He still uses a Nokia phone, held together by tape. He wears a pendant with his daughters picture in it. Said daughter is a magician who's also a human lie detector. He's bisexual. He's transgender. He fell off a burning bridge. He has it all"

Why should you vote for Layton and Luke? (1)

"You say there's a tournament with all the 'good guys'? How strange. Actually, that reminds me of a puzzle..." *throws a box of matches at your face* *because more than two matchsticks were moved, you lost the puzzle*

Why should you vote for Miles Edgeworth? (1)

because this anon was nice to me

Why should you vote for Apollo Justice? (3)

"he’s transgender and spikes his hair up with gel every morning and accidentally has an incredibly rare male calico cat."

"Hes SO DESPERATE to prove himself. And SO LOUD. He WILL get u acquitted of criminal charges but also have an anxiety attack while court is in session."

!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS FOR APOLLO!!!!!!!! "I'm sure plenty of people have submitted Phoenix so I'm putting a word in for Apollo. I saw someone describe him as someone who has invented the "Most Normal Guy" award and is trying his best to win it, and that description is very accurate. He has a magic lie detector bracelet. He shouts a lot to train his "chords of steel". Everyone thinks he's a teenager when he's actually 22. He punched Phoenix Wright in the face once. The detective on most of his cases throws her snacks at him. His best friend is a 15 year old who is actually his sister but neither of them know this. He has at least three backstories that don't TECHNICALLY contradict each other but you can tell they were all made up on the spot. After his three backstories he decided to become a lawyer for some reason. And despite it all, he's STILL the most normal person in the entire series. Nobody is doing it like him."

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for accidentally spoiling a movie that is nearly 50 years old and a huge part of popular culture?

This is probably not as scandalous as other cases here but it's kinda nagging at me.

I was on an online meeting today and, while we were making small talk and waiting for people to log on, one of my coworkers asked another whether she'd watched the original Rocky movie yet. She hadn't. Others chimed in with comments about liking Stallone's work, how they had visited the Rocky statue in Philly, and how the movie was generally great.

Now, I love talking about movies, especially discussing emotional themes in the narrative. So I said something along the lines of how "I loved how Rocky didn't win, but he also did win, y'know?"

Someone then said "Wow, spoilers!", but the conversation quickly moved on, as more people were online and we had stuff to do in the meeting.

I feel like I may be the AH because I technically did say how the movie ends, but I also feel like the movie is so old and such a big part of pop culture that it's common knowledge, much like the relationship between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader or what happens to the horse in The Never-Ending Story. Plus, I feel like him winning or losing isn't the important part of the movie; it's more about how he gets there and his relationships to the other characters that make the movie good.

I told my husband about it and he said that it was kind of an AH move, even though I didn't mean it and was just trying to engage in conversation.

So, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[waitingforsecretsouls]

Traumerei & Zahard (Pt. 1)

(Tower of God #580)

We're far enough along in Traumerei's character and the depiction of his relationships to other Family Heads now that I feel confident in trying to analyze them a little more in depth, beyond meme edits or brief speculations in the tags of said memes, with a focus on doing this mainly in comparison and contrast to his relationship to Zahard as this posts main focus, highlighted as his most prominent and defining one from well before Traumerei's actual introduction.

Warning: This will include spoilers up to roughly #638 of the Tower of God Webtoon, and in part draw on SIU's blogposts of published chapters of the Hidden Floor arc. Under the cut for length.

My Thesis Statement: The defining aspect of Zahard and Traumerei's relationship, built on a basis of genuine comradery and mutual support between the two, shows Zahard as the only Great Warrior so far who actually expects things from Traumerei (or to paraphrase, who, in however limited a form you want to argue, places his faith in him). We see Zahard confide in him, console him, and entrust vital tasks to him, to the exclusion of all their other comrades; not only as the first comrade Zahard turns to in the present day story (in what's Outside Zahard's technical debut), but also a long way back in the past, before the first war with F.U.G. even broke out.

I'll try to structure this into three segments (and going by the likely amount of screenshots, probably a reblog chain rather than one self - contained post as I had hoped):

Zahard and the Family Heads

Traumerei and the Family Heads

Zahard and Traumerei

1. Zahard and the Family Heads

The first thing I'm going to argue for this purpose is Zahard's sentiments towards his old Irregular companions. Contrary to what seems like a popular opinion in fandom, that the present day Zahard views them as means to an end exclusively, devoid of any kind of positive or emotional sentiment at all, I actually think it's the opposite, and that he would have a far easier time, strategically speaking, if he did view them in this indifferent manner.

1.1 Zahard and Self

I feel like the origin of this perspective of Zahard as a purely cold, ruthless and calculating mastermind stems from his treatment of the Hidden Floor, where he collaborated with his data to first segregate the data of the Great Warriors into the hidden hidden floor, and then delete them.

My main argument against the validity of this would be, first of all, that the recorded data of their past selfs are very much not equivalent to their Outside, real selves, and that it would be perfectly natural for Outside Zahard to not hold the same feelings for them as their "real" versions.

Secondly, I feel like people really overplay the extent to which Zahard manipulated his data self in this: Yes, we have Zahard sport a malicious grin when he reveals data Zahard's ignorance of events on the Outside, and declares him as a "poor thing", "a fake me":

(Tower of God #386)

However, what this scene itself confirms it that 1) data Zahard likely only got forcibly edited (and only regarding these specific memories) when Bam asked him about Arlene, since "their names" is unlikely to refer to Edahn, with whom he converses perfectly fine and in a familiar manner and thus likely to refer exclusively to Arlene and V, who were erased from offcial history on the Outside as well (and whom Zahard likely sometimes wishes he could edit out of his own memories as easily as in data Zahard's case).

This is basically all but confirmed in the beginning of #368:

and 2), that Zahard has a rather nostalgic side, considering that he harboured the wish to leave the remnant of his young and optimistic self in the world in any form at all.

We also get from data Zahard himself that he helped Outside Zahard of his own volition, in a scene that's arguably centered around the Outside Zahard's strong emotions:

(Tower of God #387)

The emotions in said case being "anxiety" and fear, but still ultimately serving to demonstrate that Zahard is far from limited to the stoic and ice - cold killer we saw in his words to and subsequent treatment of Bam immediately prior, something concluded in his decision to honor his young self's wish for Bam to reawaken his passion as he did for said data self, despite the fact that said data was already in the irrevocable process of being erased from existence, lacking crucial information about Bam and his current Outside self.

(Tower of God #388)

(Note that this is AFTER Zahard noted "That really is a power that desires the abilities of God" about the Second Thorn Fragment, about whose origin and purpose he would know, as well as a multitude of potentials regarding Bam's origin and "fate". That is not the kind of choice someone robotically calculating the best possible outcomes and most ruthless way to get there would make, much less at the prompting of a soon to be deleted "fake me" he truly held either nothing but contempt or no emotional connection to at all, one he might easily have deleted outright).

Also, I didn't quite know where to bring it up, but I'll also mention that there is no immediate correlation between the data of the Great Warriors entering the "Hidden Hidden Floor" and being automatically deleted. As data Edahn reveals, they were tired of their existence as data, and followed Zahard knowing there might have been something fishy about his mirror from his Outside self. For all we know, they might have been deleted upon explicit request, similar to the data of Yura's and Hwang's bodies mother, somewhat detracting from data and Outside Zahard as ruthless killers and deceivers in that particular matter:

(Tower of God #386)

But all of this has been very centered around Zahard and his interactions with his own past self, so when am I going to get to his relationships to the other Family Heads?

Well, this segment was important in and of itself for getting there, demonstrating that Outside Zahard is not an unfeeling robot but actually fairly sentimental, and will alter his course based on the considerations of people close to him whom he respects (even in ways that are arguably highly disadvantageous to his own continued well-being), even if in this instance said person was a version of himself, which still serves its own purpose of demonstrating a senitmentality regarding his younger days, back when he and his comrades where comparatively unburdened and driven young adults climbing the Tower together.

1. 2 Zahard and the Family Heads

(Blogpost Season 2 Episode 292)

In light of the abovementioned arguments, I don't think Zahard purposefully sawed of all connections to his old comrades because he no longer cared about them, but rather that he still values these relationshop above nearly everything else, and distanced himself because he though that was what was his duty as their leader and a "KIng", about which he developed something of a complex, in case you didn't notice.

Introduced in his data self of course (I promise, we'll leave the Hidden Floor after this one):

(Tower of God #365)

This mindset smells of Outside Zahard, and comes specifically after Bam mentions Arlene's name, which we have establish to have been one of the primary "triggers" installed into data Zahard. I also feel like the following "What do I look like to you now? A human being? Or a monster?" might reveal another sad aspect of Zahard's current self-image/conception, but I' ll have to restrain myself with the images if I want to be able to at least conclude the Zahard and Family Heads portion in this posts image limit).

In another form, we get this in Traumerei's (but truly, Enkidu's and Gustang's) recent flashback arc, specifically #618:

But since I'll have to save many of these more recent points for Traumerei's portion of the post lest I needlessly repeat myself, I think it's enough to conclude this with the observation that at least part of what drove Zahard to change his mindset and become the solitary figure he is in the present day story was a feeling of responsibilty, acting according to their stations, soaring far above anyone else in the Tower, an expectation he extended to his comrades.

As Kallavan said, With Great Power comes Great Responsibility, and all that:

(Tower of God #477)

And we do see Zahard explicitly consider the Family Heads in the big decisions/doesn't simply overrule them, such as involving Bam:

(Tower of God #539)

We as readers know that Zahard and Traumerei had their private conversation prior to the Nest that probably truly determined what happened wrt Bam, but if anything this just strengthens my point, since Zahard explicitly allowed Traumerei to do as he wished.

(Tower of God #551)

(The reason I included the panel with Zahard's reaction is that I find it very interesting and important to the point I'm making. I don't have a conclusive opinion, but to me he appears almost taken aback by Traumerei's answer. Because remember, Traumerei's answer here is his reveal of the "condition" under which he'd take up Zahard's proxy war against the Poe Bideau family. That's quite a selfless "condition", or at the least purpose for said condition, to place, so I might well imagine that Zahard was taken aback by the lengths Traumerei would go to, specifically for him. Even in a more cynical reading, this is still Zahard allowing Traumerei to recruit himself a second Irregular into his family (the one he may know is considered as destined to kill him) and therefore also showing a certain degree of trust wrt that. But more on their relationship in particular in the eventual concluding part of this post)

Last but not least (arguably the opposite), we also have what may be the implication of Zahard as the one who gave the Great Warriors access to their famous Imortality Contracts, or at the very least having done something to make Traumerei regard him as the main cause behind their current positions and perpetual longevity of said positions:

"From the moment we got to the top, the only choice we had was to fall or not. But Zahard has given us a way to avoid falling forever. Only now that we have defied the laws of the Tower have we become beings who will never fall."

(Traumerei, Tower of God #632)

So while I'll certainly agree that we don't have many direct interactions between Zahard and the Family Heads, he does leave them free room to act with the only stipulation basically not to declare war on him, and doesn't brute force his own choices over theirs. He is very lenient (so far) even in regards to the Family Head who has broken this one rule, and has shown considerable respect for Traumerei's opinions and plans. Furthermore, he may well have ensured or enabled the Family Heads current hax, for which I would find it difficult to see another reason than wanting to keep them with him.

While there is a very interesting conversation to be had about Zahard and Gustang (and whether Zahard was aware of Gustang's preservation of the Thorn and Floor of Death all the way back or not), it's worth pointing out that Zahard's order to destroy Gustang's family (something we now know Gustang himself desires) only occured as part of his three orders, and Gustang himself is not targeted by default.

Basically, I haven't seen anything so far that convinced me of the "Zahard doesn't care about the Family Heads anymore" stance.

And with that out of the way, I'll move on to Traumerei's relationships to the other Family Heads depicted so far (who thankfully does have some more actual interactions with them).

(And again, a point I didn't know where else to fit in in which only occured to me towards the end of this post: I do think it's noteworthy that Outside Zahard does adress data Edahn as a avalid representation of Outside Edahn, to the point of not considering that he may hold differing sentiments from Outside Edahn wrt his relationship with data Zahard. Which goes against one of my first points, that Zahard may have drawn a sharp line between the datas and Outside selves, but supports my main points even better:

(Tower of God #386))

[forthegamesmyguy]

putting this all under a read more bc it's technically spoilers (on the decisions that matter from prior games)

I'm ngl I'm pretty annoyed. I had already bought the game when I watched the release date trailer bc like I'm sorry but I've been waiting 10 years, 1/3rd of my life, for my Solas closure game and I'm going to play it. But I just read the ign article talking about the old installment choices and I'm genuinely getting a bit irritated. There is a have it both ways kind of talking point here. Epler is quoted going on about how they don't want to invalidate player choice which is why they just aren't mentioning shit anymore apparently (even though inquisition healthily respects your choices for the various possible states of the world).

But like. You aren't? Not mentioning things is one thing. I'm annoyed but I understand exponentiation happens at a rapid rate and it is unreasonable to keep adding more and more what ifs for all your random background chatter or codex entries (though I have to say, I think they've sort of taken on that responsibility by not moving the time/setting around like other series would be doing to avoid this very issue, on top of INSISTING on having some characters - leliana, morrigan, etc - appear even still!). But when you also do not accommodate the depth of choices? Bruh.

To explain: we are told the ONLY things we are being asked about are who your Inquisitor romances if anyone, if they disbanded the Inquisition, and if they said to redeem or stop Solas. Nothing else. Yet my character is going to appear in this game, I know that for certain. Will the Inquisitor be mute? I believe the old VAs have already said they're in it. Will I be given the option to choose my dialogue? I doubt it. It would ~confuse new players~ (which could be solved with a toggle on choice or something ...). It wasn't in the case of Hawke, though critically we had the BAREST of distinctions in choosing one of the three personality types to dictate our auto dialogue. This does NOT stop your Hawke, who can BE a blood mage, from having a cameo that almost entirely exists to say "blood magic is evil, it's basically the only thing I know for sure in this world"... How very respectful of my choices as a player, a creator of a player character in your role-playing game world. Presumably we are going to be defaulted to one of two (possibly a slight variant of a third for a romanced Solas though romanced to completion is NOT the same as breaking up, which these games always treat as simply never having happened) personality types for our Inquisitor, one who is kinda gruff bc they're sooo mad at Solas for ruining everything wow he's such a bastard gross, and one who is kinda somber bc theyre sooo sad about Solas for not listening to them wow he's such a fool tragic. I guarantee you I GUARANTEE you 99% of solavallens are NOT my Lavellan. I can tell you already the 20 odd Inquisitors I've made over the years are NOT the same people. Yet they're all gonna be... exactly the same. Because it isn't their game anymore. This sucked with Hawke but at least it was one tiny little main quest. Your Inquisitor is fundamental to Solas' character development. Yes I'm excited to meet Rook but not at the expense of my Inquisitors girl come on now.

Now we get to the "Chelsea is mad and angrily screenshotted your quote to say how dumb she thinks it is" portion of the post.

> "you can shape to a large degree" but only in the confines of this one specific game. What happened before? Does not matter. Mentioned in later material? Well, he actually turned into One Specific Mold. Yeah, they get bland when you do this but it's so much less contradictory, don't you think?!?! You really mattered! All that stuff you did and all that Shaping To A Large Degree really mattered!! Like, you don't even want to ask me if Solas had low approval or high approval with me? You just assume stop = one, redeem = the other?

> "something of a blank slate" ah yes my favourite protagonist, Guy Who Could Be Anyone. Just like the Inquisitor was, truly truly riveting. Like when all you do, in the role playing game, is make choices but you don't also have a place in the world, you're, in my mind, not actually in a role-playing game... There is a massive difference in weight to your protagonist as the Warden to as the Inquisitor, in terms of your place in the world. It isn't just "in one conversation, says one sentence". You could just say something totally different in the next conversation and it wouldn't even matter because no one reacts to you, no one cares, it is just you saying in one conversation "I'm from Haven and I was the only dwarf there" then in the next you say "I am from Rialto and I was raised by clowns" and no one registers any information. It was a system where people met you where you were, and then inside of that layer, you could react. It wasn't just you blabbing, people could see you and build base assumptions which sure isn't ideal but this is the world and how we live, if people hear a fereldan accent they'll have a reaction to that if they're familiar in a specific way. People could see an elf without tattoos and go yeah probably not dalish, and inside that, your elf could feel a certain way. This entirely blank slate model is just cutting out the part where you live in the world and people react to you in it. Instead, you are just constantly saying your story "oh I'm this person, this was my history". But does it mean anything? Are you actually there? I sure didn't feel like my Inquisitor was any meaningful part of the world, on any of the origins. Bro the dalish route gets so much flack for all the ppl saying since Solas/elven culture is so crucial to the narrative of the world that it's unfairly favoured but like siblings. Have you played it? You have to have MORRIGAN explain your culture to you. You don't live there at all, man, like, it's NOT substantively different... it's flavour. Barely. And now, if there's not even like, different world states to play in? The lack of my PC diversity means this just like lost miles and miles of replayability bc what is the point?!!??! It's like replaying BG3....what is the point once you did it twice and chose every different binary option? That's all there really is to explore

Ohhhhhh okay okay. She's even MORE important than I thought. Hey you know what that is so cool! Tell me! Do you think she's the exact same woman in a world where she's got a child with the Hero of Ferelden, who is approaching their Calling soon, as she is in a world where she always had low approval and was denied the dark ritual or always had high approval and was STILL denied, and each the same as a best friend for the very first time ever (possibly lover, with Kieran) to a Warden who did the ultimate sacrifice? 😊 Tell me. Please. How they're all the same. The exact same flavour of woman. And the well of sorrows choice not being relevant is genuinely insulting... I get it, they had Flemeth shove Mythal into her anyways with the post credits stinger. But my Inquisitor could've possibly spent the last ten years listening to the voices of the well, and now been on standby to be compelled...my elven Inquisitor could've spent the last decade studying their language. Apparently not though!

> "the Inquisitor to some degree feels guilty or responsible for Solas' actions" see this is what I mean. About not respecting my choices as a player in your ROLE. PLAYING. GAME. This is Hawke and blood magic all over again. There is nothing that says you ever HAVE to even talk to the man!!! Yes he is there. But so what. I can accept Hawke/Varric being a high rivalry/friendship relationship by default... But only because I'm being very generous. But this? No. Your Inquisitor is never in any world state required to give a single solitary fuck about Solas. Forcing guilt on my character to advance your plot is not cute. In a, again I cannot stress this enough, ROLE PLAYING game. It's not "decide the fate of the world, the simulator" where you just make a few key choices about political shit and slay the big bad. It's "decide the fate of the world while living in it and growing with this games host of companions" and that growth can be in any number of directions that the writers allow for. But this sort of thing turns this franchise into the former. And you can't go around saying you're a leader in player agency if you're doing this sort of thing

This idiot: "granted, that might not seem like a ton of choices" motherfucker you listed THREE. And one of them isn't even a world state choice, it's who you fuckin dated. Are you joking? Game four in a franchise of easily 100+ branching choices per game: 3.

Like even just the romance thing is so. Ugh it's so stupid! It's out of context!!!! You can romance Bull and then have to kill him bc you chose one of two paths in his quest, but there's no option for this, so it doesn't matter! Every Inquisitor that dates Bull now is with him in the exact same specific way! Presumably, don't pick it if he ended up fuckin DEAD. Bc there's no room for nuance! Oh, you romanced Cassandra and then made her Divine? Well, we don't care about who's Divine because it's Just One Line of Dialogue so guess what! You will just generically say "ah Cassandra, I really love that woman tee hee" and who gives a fuck about anything else.

Sorry but who's Divine actually would matter to Northern Thedas? Tevinter may scoff and not gaf, but the Qunari will certainly be very very aware of whatever political and religious machinations /anyone/ gets into. And why would the Nevarrans or Free Marchers not care??? The Anders? Like these are places that have Andrastian Chantry influence... This is still Thedas? Even it it's not Ferelden or Orlais???????? I don't get this. Tevinter, again, reasonable, but isn't that only one small place we're going?

Bringing up the Chargers... girl ... Sucks to be any Inquisitor that didn't save them and romanced Bull (I mean that already sucks right but like to be removed from the possibility of existing? Stone cold).

Idk I just. Can't get behind the notion that simply not referencing something is inherently more respectful. But I think I'm just mostly annoyed at this take bc it seems frankly to be kinda disrespectful, actually, to remove the nuance from my experience. You genuinely don't even care if we have low or high approval with this guy but you want to say that relationship was vital and shaped him and also force a position of responsibility on my PC? You don't want to know how my Inquisitor responds to things in terms of emotional response? Every single Inquisitor is the exact same person now, even moreso than before (and I rly genuinely think inquisitor is the weakest PC by far)?

And to just handwave and say oh well, we can get away with this because we're going north. Okay... Well...what about characters from or living in the north? We could've sent feynriel, the very first dreamer to be born since the veil was erected, to tevinter. we could've forced Fenris back to his slaver, in tevinter. How is Isabela fitting into this narrative? Will we be dealing with many or any other Pentaghasts? Obviously she's a default companion again but again I find it's crucial whether or not you have low or high approval, but apparently, these things don't matter actually. In fact you are always responded to exactly the same without fail. It's called role playing!!

I did already buy it and I will play it and I know I'm going to love it like I have the other three. But I did NOT love the inquisitor and I am not expecting to feel differently for rook, and I am really only here for Solas at this point... I mean, nothing else I ever did seems to matter anymore lol. But that's kinda worrying for me, like if the series continues with games set in the dragon age, are they all just going to be increasingly The Same? So why call it role-playing if we are actually all arriving at the same destination... You can stretch the definition to fit this mold, yes, but I personally do not care for it. If every character I put into your world turns out the same and if all the choices I made actually aren't meaningful enough to change the course of the world's history (even when they're as big as who is king, emperor and pope, and who is at war and who isn't), like, genuinely does it matter? Yeah yeah every story is a journey but Dragon Age is set in the DRAGON AGE. I admit I don't know anyone else trying such an experiment and it's always been a huge draw for me. I get that it's daunting. But they've shown they actually can handle this.

The pragmatist in me says the solution to a dangerously "quantum character," as they call them, is to just stop bringing them back. If you think Morrigan's got too many permutations between motherhood and relationship status then I'm sorry but just uh, don't bring her back. Ignoring those things? Is the worst possible option. The lyrium ghost shit with leliana did have a few lines of attempted explanation, which was in the end enough for me within the constraints of this world of magic. But saying NOTHING? would've been a slap in the face. Ugh. I love this setting I really do and I love these characters, but if you can't bring them back respectfully, then, well, respectfully, fucking don't!!!! I don't ever want to hear my blood mage Hawke talk shit about blood magic ever again lol. Just don't bring them back. An even simpler solution is moving the setting, and I don't mean moving from America to Canada bc that's what tf they're doing. Northern Thedas is *right there*. I'm talking, go to another continent. THEN I can believe no one knows who the fuck the pope is in a Catholic world 🙄 Ughhhh. Of course if you use the same host of characters in four games of choice, you're going to end up in a permutational nightmare!!! This much should have been obvious from game 2!! I feel like at that point you have a responsibility to address the encroaching beast and either wrap your story up sooner so you are dangling far far fewer variables or you shift setting/relevant characters to the plot so that you can avoid them, tactfully and respectfully. They are attempting to do the latter while still bringing in characters like Morrigan or your own PC, characters that require nuance to place in disparate world states! These characters are not one size fits all 😭

I cannot stress enough that I really do get it on a mathematical level. But to say bioware doesn't have a canon while not allowing there to be room for nuance from the canon thus far :/ :/ Idk. Just not looking forward to having to turn so much of the world building that's already there into headcanon

[krystaldeath]

Cotl Auuuuu

It’s modern time babeyyyy

* This au does take place in modern day but it technically “starts” in the late 90s bc it’s a Narinder and Lamb were childhood best friends au :))

* I honestly have the most ideas for when they’re in high school but I’ll get to that in a bit (also should say this was inspired by that one prom post from redcrowncafe where Lamb talks about their prom date who was an asshole and wishes they knew Narinder then so they could’ve gone with each other. Saw that and thought “okay but what if they did” and that spiraled out of control)

* I’ve yet to say that my personal headcanon for Lamb’s family is that they had two moms, and three younger siblings (a sister about 12 years younger, and 18 years younger twins; one male one amab gender-fluid). The twins don’t show up till Lamb is, well, 18 tho so they won’t come up much yet

* The Bishops (Bishop is just their last name here) are all foster siblings who have shitty foster parents. Shamura stays even a bit into their early 20s because of this since they don’t want to leave their younger siblings alone with those two. The foster parents’ were abusive in multiple ways, and they also kept any money the Bishop’s respective parents might’ve left for their offspring to themselves (spoiler: Shamura’s in particular were LOADED and so when the Bishops are finally away from these two they’re pretty much set for life). It’s after a particularly scary night where a two year old Leshy and a six year old Heket are threatened while Shamura and the parents are arguing that something in Shamura snaps and they begin to plan to murder their foster parents. Yay!

* I don’t have the details but they in fact /do/ kill them. Thing is they’re super smart about it and hardly any evidence can be traced back to them. It is a small town though so there aren’t too many suspects and overall the one who would have the motive and probable method would be Shamura (unless they wanna try and pin it of 13 year old Kallamar or 8 year old Narinder). Thing is, their foster parents? No one liked them. So no one’s gonna point fingers. The police try and press people to give a suspect but no one does. So the case goes cold. But, even though no one liked the two, murder is still frowned upon by most so the siblings move away.

* But BEFORE all that let me explain a bit about Nari and Lamb’s friendship: they met in kindergarten (idk why they’re in the same grade when I hc Lamb to be a year older but shhh) and while Narinder tried to act “cool” and “aloof” Lamb was having none of it and dragged him along on little kid adventures like playing in the mud and pretending to be power rangers. Also almost from the get go Nari had a little crush on Lamb lol. Since Nari and his sibs move away when he’s 8, these two knew each other for 3 years. Idk what all happens in that time. Like I said most of what I’ve thought up for this au (mainly about Narilamb) happens in their high school years. It is thanks to their play dates at each others houses that Lamb figures out that being nonbinary is a thing from Shamura and is like “Wait… Me too???”

* After the move, Nari and Lamb stay connected through letters and phone calls. They also send pictures of all kinds of things, mainly of themselves so the other “won’t forget what I look like!” Neither make many lasting friends, at least, not ones around the same age as them (Lamb befriends Ratau and his buddies. Narinder befriends kind library assistant Forneus and her two twin sons).

* Lamb is loud and proud about who they are, which unfortunately makes them targeted for bullying, though it’s not just for their gender, it’s also because of their - Idk a better word than quirky Sorry - personality and the rumors about their long distance best friend; there’s multiple rumors, like that he doesn’t exist (this comes from those who don’t know much about the whole Bishop family scandal) or that he’s a murderer, just like his older sibling (this comes from those that /do/ know, ofc)

* Btw over the course of these years they’ve been apart Nari’s crush has only grown and Lamb has also gained a crush on Nari themself

* OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY TIME FOR THE BIT I HAVE THE MOST OF AN IDEA FOR GET READY (it’s super cheesy and corny and honestly feels like a Disney channel original movie but this fandom could use a little more of that imo so let me live)

* So, I know some schools would let Juniors have their own prom. Let’s say Lamb’s school does that. They had been asked by some guy to be his prom date and figured “why not?” and accepted. Thing is the guy asked if they could buy his ticket, and being the nice person (yet to decide if this is also a human au or if they’re still all animals) they are they do so. The guy then just takes the ticket and tells them to get lost. Lamb didn’t like the guy but it still hurt to have their kindness taken advantage of. They tell Narinder all about it and admit they probably won’t even go to the prom, even though they already bought a ticket and outfit. Nari, who Lamb can’t see bc it’s just a phone call, is absolutely SEETHING.

* Now Narinder has a mission: Get a tux, flowers, and other gifts. Convince Shamura to let him go in his truck (yeah he drives a truck in this au, idk it’s just the car I imagined when I thought it up lol) and be away from home for a few of days (it would take about a day to drive there, then he’d want to stay for at least one or two, then another to drive back). Shamura is reluctant (that town holds a lot of bad memories and him being so far away when he’s only 16 is scary), but seeing the determination in his eyes makes them relent.

* He calls Lamb’s moms and lets them know his plan, but wants it to be a surprise. They both agree to convince them to go to prom even if they will be going alone, without letting it slip that they will have a prom date after all.

* Prom night comes around, and Lamb, who is dressed in a tux-dress combo, is confused as to why their moms, who were so insistent that they go, aren’t ready to take them? (Projecting my reluctance to learn to drive onto them here, so that’s why they can’t drive themself). Then the doorbell rings. They answer and see Narinder (who is now like a foot taller wow couldn’t tell that in the photos he sent) in a tuxedo holding a bouquet and corsage. He’s got a nervous smile on his face as he says “I know it’s a little last minute, but will you allow me to accompany you to prom?”

* Almost a full minute passes in silence, making Nari sweat and begin to regret doing all of this. Then he gets jumped by Lamb into a hug that topples them both to the ground as they scream “YES!!!”. Thankfully they aren’t hurt and their formal wear is alright, though they wouldn’t notice otherwise, their focuses only on each other’s laughter and presence.

* When he opens the passenger door for them there’s a basket of treats, jewelry and a black cat plushie. “Ohh, Narinderrrr! You’re making me feel like I’m royalty!” “You are, to me.” *pause as they look at each other in flustered silence* “A-ANYWAYS WERE SHOULD GET GOING RIGHT?” “OH YEAH YOURE RIGHT. Uh, help me up?” He helps them climb into their seat, close the door, and silently screams about how dumb that was (while Lamb is inside internally screams about how sweet that was and oh no they think they’re falling for him)

* They get there (Yeah I realized Nari doesn’t have a ticket but let’s say somehow there was enough for him to buy one at the entrance) and they’re having a good time (only barely noticing the looks they’re getting and the whispers of “Isn’t that one of the Bishop siblings? Figures Lamb would have to settle for a murderer to be their date.”), dancing, eating and drinking the possibly spiked punch. I’m sorry to say some hurt is about to happen

* They have a run in with the guy who tricked Lamb and Nari almost breaks the guys nose before Lamb pulls him away saying it’s not worth it. He’s about to disagree and say something embarrassing again like “maybe /he’s/ not worth it but /you/ are and he hurt you so he deserves to be punched” when a girl “accidentally” spills her whole cup of punch onto Lamb’s outfit. Everyone around them laughs and Lamb, barely blinking back tears, runs out of the building. Narinder growls at them all and runs after Lamb.

* He finds them curled up by a tree outside, and sits down next to them. He tries to comfort them but they sob out “Just take me back home.” He agrees to do so, but tells them to go wash up a bit in the bathroom while he gets something. As they’re washing up he knocks on the door and asks to come in. They let him and see he’s holding a box. He tells them he planned on giving it to them later after Prom for something else he had planned but figured they’d just go now since Lamb didn’t want to stay anymore. He hands it to them and says he’ll be waiting outside.

* Surprise! It’s another outfit :)) It’s a bit more cozy than what they were wearing before, but still fit for “royalty”. And a black crown with a big red jewel inlaid in the middle-front

* They get dressed and marvel in the mirror before going back out. Narinder’s heart skips a beat when he sees them.

* Idk what to put in between so let’s skip ahead to when they’ve arrived at a spot out in the open wilderness where it’s easier to star gaze. He sets up the trunk bed to be comfy and reveals he had a cooler and basket of food for them to have a night picnic under the stars.

* After they’ve eaten some, one thing leads to another, and then Lamb pulls Narinder into a kiss. They both confess and spend the rest of their time cuddling (until Lamb gets a phone call from their very nervous moms because of how late it’s getting and they’re not home yet lol)

* I have more ideas but to sum them up for now: The rest of this AU is just Narilamb long distance relationship angst & fluff. Eventually the Bishops move back to the small town and then it’s not long distance narilamb (and eventual leshycat and whatever else).

* I will say this: Another murder will happen, this time it’s Lamb who commits it. That’s all I’m giving y’all ;))c

[kanansdume]

Hello! Your pro-Jedi posts are so precious in mostly anti-Jedi rhetoric circulating around fandom and canon (sadly). So I wanted to ask: have you read a novel Ashoka by E.K.Johnson? If you haven’t, I hope you don’t mind some spoilers and a small rant.

I didn’t expect a lot while getting to it, but it still rubbed me wrong. Cannot remember specifically, but the general idea was ‘The Jedi were so trapped in the past and dogmatic, so they’re partially to blame for their downfall’. After reading lots of Jedi-defending meta, it just hurts.

One moment I remember most, though. After Ahsoka and Bail Organa save population of a small planet, occupied by the Empire, Bail calls her a Jedi.

Ahsoka: I’m no Jedi.

Bail: But you act like one.

And I’m just: yes! Yes, you do act like a Jedi! You meditate the Jedi way, you think the Jedi way – how come you’re not a Jedi? Only because you weren’t knighted? Meta-speaking, Kanan, Ezra and Luke also weren’t fully trained by the community, but they still are Jedi. Especially in a non-Jedi Imperial world. And non-Force-sensitive population in-universe won’t see the difference between a fully-trained Jedi Knight and an almost fully-trained Jedi Padawan – they’re still ‘Jedi’ to them.

I felt like this novel enforces the current idea that Ahsoka is better that ‘those stupid old dogmatic Jedi of the Prequels’. Sorry for the rant and thanks for reading.

Thank-you, I'm glad you've liked what I've managed to contribute to the pro Jedi fandom!

As for the Ahsoka novel, I haven't read it (but I don't mind spoilers since I don't ever plan to). I read like the first two thirds of Queen's Peril and then got bored and then I started hearing some pretty nasty things about E.K. Johnston and have refused to ever pick it back up again or ever read another of her books. So I'm not at all shocked that she's part of the Jedi critical crowd. It's even LESS shocking that it came out within the Ahsoka novel, just given the way Ahsoka as a character has been going for YEARS. It sounds like it's handling the issue in the same basic way a lot of people have done, nothing unique there.

If I'm willing to try to re-interpret the "I'm no Jedi" stuff into a more pro Jedi version, Ahsoka doesn't see herself as a Jedi because, unlike all of those other characters, Ahsoka LEFT the Order before it was destroyed and before she officially completed her training and never rejoined it. Kanan never left it at all, it was just destroyed around him (the same is true for Cal Kestis from the Jedi games). And he does TECHNICALLY get Knighted by Yoda during Rebels and takes on a Padawan, hallmarks of a Jedi Knight. Ezra and Luke never had an Order to join to begin with, so their willingness to identify themselves as Jedi isn't dependent on having officially joined the right organization so much as it is about having learned from someone else who identifies as a Jedi and being told their training is complete. Both Ezra and Luke kind-of reach that point with Kanan and Yoda, so they never question their identity as Jedi.

Ahsoka is in the VERY unique position of having not been a Jedi OFFICIALLY when the Order was destroyed, which leaves her in slightly more limbo than most others. She HAD the ability to rejoin it before it was destroyed, she just didn't, and now she has to kind-of move away from the idea of needing to be a part of the Order before she can call herself a real Jedi. She also never has a master tell her she's done with training. In both Kanan and Cal's cases, their masters died to protect them and so someone else (Yoda and Cere) has to step in to finish the job. For Ahsoka, her master is STILL ALIVE, he's just now a Sith and is trying to kill her. Nobody steps in to try to finish the job he started with Ahsoka (nor does Ahsoka really ever seem that open to it). This ALSO leaves her in a little bit of limbo in a way nobody else is.

So I'm generally willing to sort-of re-interpret her choosing not to identify as a Jedi within this context to make it less about feeling like she's better than all the other Jedi and more that she feels STUCK in how to get back to that identity in a way nobody else is. Just because she still meditates and tries to help people doesn't make her officially a Jedi when she intentionally left the Order for a reason. She chose to stop being a Jedi for a reason. In the Prequels Era, just being a kind Force sensitive person didn't make you a Jedi, so it works for me that Ahsoka would insist that she ISN'T one for a while, even when she looks a lot like one to an outside perspective. I could even see a more Jedi positive narrative taking the fact that she still acts and thinks like a Jedi in an interesting direction for her.

It's easier to utilize that interpretation in Rebels where Ahsoka is GENERALLY more positive about the Jedi and, despite not really identifying as one herself, she seems fine with getting lumped in as a Jedi along with Kanan and Ezra. She intentionally seeks Kanan and Ezra out for "Jedi stuff" once or twice during season 2. She ONLY brings out the "I'm no Jedi" line when Anakin throws the Jedi (and the fact that she'd left the Order) in her face during their confrontation before he's explicitly revealed to be Anakin (which means Ahsoka can still pretend he's NOT Anakin and be angry that this is the person who KILLED Anakin instead). She seems like she might be on the path towards becoming a Jedi again by following these two people who are slightly further ahead on that path than she is (and then she sees Anakin as Vader and she gets blown right off of that path all over again apparently). Ahsoka isn't the main character of Rebels and the entire narrative is about Ezra and Kanan coming together as teacher and student to become true Jedi by learning compassion and selflessness via sacrifice. Ahsoka can't overshadow or outshine the two main characters by making her seem BETTER than the two characters who are explicitly learning to become Jedi by emulating Prequels Jedi, which is helping her.

It's HARDER to utilize this interpretation within something like, say, the Ahsoka show, where it's absolutely clear that its take on the Jedi is NEGATIVE. Sabine calls herself a Jedi, other people call her a Jedi, but Ahsoka explicitly states that she doesn't want Sabine to be a Jedi AT ALL and never identifies as one herself. She calls the Jedi failures and implies that it's because they were elitist. She and Sabine constantly refuse to abide by Huyang's standard Jedi protocols and seem to see them as useless and old-fashioned. There isn't a SINGLE thing about the Jedi that is represented as positive in this show, which makes it decidedly difficult to pretend that Ahsoka is refusing to identify as a Jedi simply because she's in a particular emotional limbo about it that she needs to work out. Instead, Ahsoka refuses to identify as a Jedi because she associates being a Jedi with being an elitist asshole apparently and might only start reclaiming the title when she decides that she can sort-of... be a new kind of Jedi that's better than the old ones (not unlike what Baylan claims to be doing with Shin). It's DECIDEDLY anti Jedi in tone and I'm generally unwilling to try to rework the entire fucked up narrative of the show to try to pretend that it isn't. The Ahsoka show is an explicitly anti Jedi narrative and that's just... the facts of the matter. It sucks, but it's true. It's not worth me putting in any more work than that.

I haven't read the Ahsoka novel, so I don't know whether its tone is closer to Rebels or the Ahsoka show. If it feels to you closer to how the Ahsoka show landed, my advice would be to just purge it from your canon. That's the nice thing about Star Wars, you can pick and choose what's canon to you and what isn't. If it doesn't work for you, you can straight up pretend it doesn't exist. As far as I'm concerned, the Ahsoka show never happened. It's stupid and doesn't deserve to be considered within my canon. If, however, it feels closer to how Rebels ended up, my advice is to see if you can find some way to re-interpret some of the more Jedi critical pieces or just pretend THOSE parts don't exist and separate it out from the parts you DO enjoy.

[chysgoda]

September 09 Lend an Ear

Another Way: Linkpearl Conversations

Timeframe / Spoilers: beginning of Stormblood

Bel has a conversation with Unukalhai after Hrasvalger assigns a second task.

“They figured out you lied about where you were going.”

Bel flinched away from Unukalhai’s linkpearl greeting. Kal was just enough old than her (technically he was thousands of years older, but effectively only a few years older) that all of the adults in their lives would expect him to not let a little sister run off into the wilds by herself. She cleared her throat, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have put you there.”

“It’s better someone knows where you are in case something goes wrong or you run into some kind of… trouble,” Kal sighed. “How is it going?”

“I’ve figured out how to do some of the jumps with just my regular aether, not dragon aether. And Master Matoya’s not-”

“Bel,” Kal tried to interrupt but she just kept going.

“-all that bad it’s like being with aunt Shtola if she was ancient. I was in Anyx Trine-”

“Bel…”

“- when a clutch hatched. I wish I could hear the Dragonsong. It was so exciting that they let me be there when the hatchlings broke through-”

“BEL,” Kal shouted into the linkpearl. Bel wrapped her tail around her shins and hunched into her knees. She really did not want to answer the question he was going to directly ask now. “Did Hrasvalger help you?”

Bel shifted uncomfortably against the broken masonry she’d been using as a back rest, “He said he’d help now, but I have to earn it by rebuilding the blessing of light myself.”

She could hear the very very long breath Kal drew in and then let out before speaking, “he wants you to find a way to recast a spell set by HYDAELYN?”

“I’m asking for a lot-”

“You’re really not.”

“Mom was able to!”

“Art’imis’s blessing hadn’t been completely destroyed and she had Midguardsommer guiding her.”

“It’s still possible.”

“Bel, did he actually say he would DO something after this?”

Bel fidgeted with the end of her tail, “He’s a dragon of the first brood Kal, it's his rules in his house.”

“I know how this goes, Bel. If you don’t get him to commit to some kind measurable action he’ll just move what you’re working for out of reach again and then give you an even more impossible task.”

There was a very quiet resignation in her brother’s voice. She wondered what life had been like when Elidibus had been Kal’s guardian. “I’ll make sure I have a real promise next time.”

“I should have told everyone where to find you when you told me that he wanted you to remove Hydaelyn’s blessing in the first place.” She could hear foot falls on stone as he began to pace. “You’re vulnerable now. What happens if Ravna is summoned and you get caught? Or if someone else finds you?”

Bel knew that ‘someone else’ really meant the Ascians. Which was a topic they didn’t discuss unless they KNEW no one else could hear them. The mix of nostalgia and low grade paranoia tended to put others off. OR draw unwanted concern since Kal still referred to the Emissary as ‘Master Elidibus’ and she still attached uncle to Lahabrea.

“I’ll be okay once I rebuild the blessing, Kal” Bel said softly. “I’ve seen the array around mom with the Echo. I can puzzle it out from there.”

“That’s not going to save you from the lectures everyone here is going to give you.” Kal said flatly.

“Yea I expected to get that no matter what.” Bel sighed, she was definitely going to get it from all sides after this. “Thanks for listening and helping.”

“I can alway lend you an ear, Bel. Please stay safe.”

Bel leaned back against the masonry again and looked up at the washed out blue sky. After a moment she pulled her soul stone out of her coat, from the pocket next to her heart. Bel held it up to the light. There was just the very faintest hint of a blue green color in the crystal.

She’d learned more, but this was still a very long way to go.

[albentelisa]

Hi!

Here's an interesting idea. What if Jim had actually been born a member of the Arcane Order, but eventually switched sides like Nari due to Bellroc and Skreal resurrecting Arthur who he couldn't stand?

Well, I'm rather fond of a juvenile deity archetype, so...

In this AU, Jim was born (well, more like 'created' by the Arcane Order) during the times when the Arcane Order started giving up on humanity. He was meant to be a 'judge' kind of deity (his element is lightning), so he is capable of destroying humanity - back then, the Order was reluctant to unleash the titans and overwrite the world, so creating someone who would correct mistakes of the world they created, seemed like a better solution.

Jim was still a child (despite being several centuries old) during the Camelot times, and his views about the world were pretty much black and white. He was deadset that humanity was bad and should be eliminated (like it was his role to do that eventually) and Arthur was pretty much the embodiment of all the worst traits humans possessed. Jim not only couldn't stand him, he absolutely loathed Arthur (well, Merlin as well, but we'll reach that point later).

Nari's betrayal hit Jim a lot, but unlike Bellroc and Skrael, he was absolutely convinced that humans had deceived and corrupted her. He wanted to 'save' her from them. Moreover, when Bellroc and Skrael resurrected Arthur, claiming it was for the better outcome, Jim got his own idea about what exactly had happened. From his point of view, Bellroc and Skrael had also fallen and were manipulated by Arthur. So Jim planned to escape and save his family.

And, at first, he didn't manage to escape, unlike Nari. Jim may know a lot about the Arcane Arts (way above even skilled wizards), but it's still below the level of any adult Arcane Order member, not to mention that he has no outside allies (unlike Nari who went to Merlin). So he was brought back and scolded - several times actually as he kept making attempts, adjusting his plans each time.

Jim comes to the conclusion that Bellroc and Skrael can track his magic signature, and attempts to mask it. It backfires and Jim somehow ends up in the body of a mortal human kid around five years old. It's when Barbara and James find him.

At that point, Jim thinks that his outright humiliating position won't last for long and that he can revert it (spoiler - he can't). He doesn't care that much about any cover story, and he just picks James's name (as any name would do, honestly, and he isn't that versed in human names). Initially, Jim ends up in the police and after a lot of misfortunes (and nobody being able to locate his family) Barbara talks James into adopting Jim.

James, however, doesn't like Jim at all (well, simply because Jim is uncannily creepy). The dislike is mutual, to be honest. On the other hand, Jim takes a liking to Barbara (to the point that he is willing to admit that there is ONE good human in the world). James and Barbara start to drift away, and James leaves(though, to be honest it would happen in any case).

Meanwhile, Jim tries to get his deity form and powers back without any success. The only good thing is that Bellroc and Skrael can't find him now (so he technically got what he wanted). Jim befriends Toby (and good human status goes to the second person), then he gets attached to Nana... The list keeps expanding (including his eventual crush on Claire) and Jim starts to genuinely appreciate his mortal life.

Growing up as a mortal human gives Jim another perspective, and he realizes that Nari actually tried to save the world when she ran away. Now Jim feels he should try to find a way to create a world where humans and magical creatures can coexist. However, he still thinks that Bellroc and Skrael are manipulated by Arthur.

No one knows Jim's secret though. He doesn't believe that sharing his secret will change a thing.

And then the amulet happens - which is, surprisingly, a lot. Jim has nothing against trolls (he's supposed to be magical creatures' protector), but being Merlin's champion is the bitter pill to swallow. Jim tries to tinker with the amulet a bit to break any connection it may have with Merlin (especially 'for the glory of Merlin' command - that one is like a major insult to Jim). Unfortunately for him, the amulet is more connected to stones' magic which is more of Nari and Bellroc's domain. Jim simply doesn't have enough knowledge, which leads to the amulet malfunctioning for him a lot - he might know enough not to break it for good, but it still lacking to make it function like intended).

When the lightning hits Jim during the incident with stalking, he recovers some of his control over electricity. Blinky mistakes it for Jim having some wizard ancestry. And Jim wonders if he can fully reverse his curse (as he feels he could do more in his original body).

Angor's curse doesn't work on Jim, which makes him curious. Angor deduces that Jim has to be a more powerful being, but he keeps the knowledge to himself. Later he makes a deal with Jim - and Jim agrees to liberate him as he feels sorry for Angor. From that point, Angor Rot is Jim's secret ally - and he fakes putting a binding spell on Barbara.

Angor also 'accidentally' drops the shadow staff as a handicap. Claire picks it up. Angor warns Jim that shadow magic is dangerous and corruptive, but Jim dismisses the warning (he has seen Morgana, but somehow missed her unstable state).

Angor gets his soul back in this AU and Jim captures Strickler (he talks him into changing sides eventually. However, Jim still goes to the Darklands alone - simply because he believes he shouldn't needlessly endanger any of his allies (and everyone will give piece of their mind about it later).

Much like in the canon, Jim gets Enrique out but gets captured and the bridge is destroyed. As Aaarrrgghh never temporarily dies here, Angor is the one who offers his body as a vessel for Kanjigar (as having no soul for some time made him a fitting candidate for a medium.)

Gunmar is still out, and eventually, the time comes to contact Merlin. It's something that Jim is heavily against. Merlin is on his shit list, much like Arthur. Jim begrudgingly agrees in the end, but only after Claire gets possessed by Morgana.

Speaking about the possession, Jim unwittingly creates a telepathic link with Claire after traveling to the Shadow Realm and now they both can sense each other's emotions. Claire figures out that Jim is hiding something from her and others and talks Jim into confessing his true identity. And somehow, without the burden of that secret, Jim feels much better.

The team finally goes searching for Merlin as Jim steels himself for the meeting. He doesn't plan to reveal himself to Merlin, hoping that somehow everything will be fine, but Merlin learns his identity at once, sensing the Arcane Order energy in him.

Merlin doesn't trust Jim in this AU, thinking that Jim fakes the love for humanity. Merlin has known only past Jim who was full of destructive urges and he believes that nothing has changed.

Jim is willing to swallow his pride and actually ask Merlin for help. He feels that he needs his full power to fight Gunmar, but Merlin tells him it's impossible to break the spell that turned Jim into a human. Jim suspects it's a lie and Merlin simply doesn't want to cooperate (which is true as Merlin believes that full-power Jim is a way bigger danger for humanity). Merlin gives a different suggestion - he will help Jim temporarily unleash more of his magic, but as a side-effect, his abilities will be sealed for good afterward. It's not an easy decision for Jim, but he agrees.

The thing that neither Jim nor Merlin has anticipated is that when the Green Knight attacks and Jim is hit with the obsidian shard, both Merlin's seal and Jim's spell start to deteriorate, bringing Jim's original form and powers back (ironically, it happens when Jim comes in terms with his new mortal status). Moreover, when Jim cast the spell he was a child deity, but now he is close to an adult one and is even more powerful. The Green Knight has no control over him, but Bellroc and Skrael actually can manipulate his mind, seizing control and bringing Jim back to the Order.

Nari prompts Claire to use the telepathic link to reach Jim and she manages to help him break free.

Now it's two Order members vs two. Nari goes against Skrael and Jim fights Bellroc, while the team deals with the Green Knight.

Jim doesn't get Excalibur here - he leaves it for someone who will be humanity's champion. He and Nari decide to work together and actually build a world where humans and magical beings live together.

[canmom]

games games'd recently

Solar Ash: the second game by the people who made Hyper Light Drifter. My feelings about it largely align with the reviews: gorgeous aesthetic if not quite as personally a vibe as HLD, the skating flows really nicely, the 'track down all the collectable things' structure was a little frustrating at times but I got used to it, the Shadow of the Colossus-like boss battles were a lot of fun when they worked.

It's a game about a decaying world full of people trapped in cycles of facing their last, worst moments. Most of the people you meet are some kind of animal people - cat people, fungus people, snail space imperialists - and the tone varies between darkly comedic and Meditating Severely On Death. The tone often swings a little pulpy.

So, ultimately - spoilers! - it turns out to be a time loop (something they pretty heavily foreshadow). Your player character Rei is one half of a split being who, after failing to save her world, has been resetting time and time again. The character 'Echo' who you encounter after every boss fight, with a white theme in contrast to your character's black motifs, is the other half of you - the half that isn't convinced to keep trying over and over again to save your planet and is pretty mad at Rei for prolonging this whole miserable existence.

In the true ending finale sequence, Rei finally concedes and turns into a big monster, and you play as Echo (who conveniently controls the exact same as Rei) to pull out the big spikes impaling her, metaphorically allowing her to reconcile with you and allow the world to move on with the other characters .

So like, big old trauma flashback metaphor I guess? The character's inner world is reflected in a big expansive scifi.

The thing that intrigues me most about this game is the tech art. For example, take the cyan goop you surf along in various levels. It looks like it's made of metaballs, and I kind of wonder if they are doing some clever stuff with meshing, or if they're rendering with signed distance fields, or what... in any case, it leads to some very cool level design where you can skate over all surfaces of the blobby space matter, and there is no consistent 'down' direction.

I went looking for how they did this and I ended up finding a half-hour talk from the lead technical artist, which doesn't really address the cyan goop, but does talk about integrating Houdini procedural simulations into the game using Unreal...

He talks mostly about the process of authoring the game's 'islands' (using a procedural editor tool that runs Houdini to generate the geometry), but does casually mention the clouds becoming 'really cool SDF clouds' in game, so I guess I called it! Really cool that that can run real time without being too expensive. I am definitely curious about how they handled raymarching so many metaballs (assuming they used raymarching, but that is the standard way to render SDFs).

It's kind of crazy that Heart Machine could go from a Game Maker game (even one with fantastic art direction) to a game as ambitious as this one. In practice though... running all over the bosses is cool but with the amount of camera hinting (necessary at the speed you're moving) it kind of feels like a series of QTEs, just figuring out where the next node is and trying to avoid jumping in the black goop, and if you screw up, you have to try again from the start. They're really cool sequences, but from a gameplay perspective, more like a rhythm game than anything.

This game didn't quite hit the same level of 'wow vibes' of HLD for me - I liked the atmosphere of HLD, the quiet and haunted world, the Nausicaa-like monsters. But I definitely enjoyed my time with it, and it's crazy inspiring on a tech art level.

The Thaumaturge: This is the latest game from 11 Bit Studios, of Frostpunk and This War of Mine fame. It's a fascinating concept: an RPG set in Warsaw at the turn of the 20th century, a world of boiling-over social tensions, in which you play essentially a wizard who summons invisible demons salutors to reveal secrets and manipulate people. Your father (also a wizard, you hated him) died mysteriously and now you're back at the family home to try to investigate.

I haven't finished this game yet (nowhere near, it's a big game), but I wanted to briefly comment!

In the first ten minutes of this game, you go to meet Rasputin. From that point I was already pretty much sold.

After sorting out some peasant-y business in what is essentially the tutorial area, you travel to Warsaw where the bulk of the game takes place, currently ruled by the Russian empire. Pretty much as soon as you get off the train, you run into Tsar Nicholas giving a speech, and get caught up in a tense standoff between the Russian cops and Polish workers. I ended up in prison lmao

This is the type of RPG that does have a combat system, and finds some... kinda awkward reasons to get Wiktor Szulski into fights now and again, but it's a pretty intriguing design oriented mostly around applying and exploiting status effects. But really, I'm here for the story, and the period setting. Although 11Bit are not a Polish studio, the game has the option of full voice acting in Polish, which is really sick - apparently they put some effort into giving it period language as well. And even though this is an occult story about wizard business, there's clearly a huge amount of love for the historical setting - there's a bunch of mini sidequests that just take you to look at landmarks and get a little bit of xp from it.

Wiktor is a fun protagonist to inhabit, and the game encourages you towards spicier dialogue options with its system of Flaws - essentially, each salutor is associated with a point of characterisation, such as pride, and if you feed that flaw by picking prideful dialogue options when they're offered, that will apparently make your salutor more powerful. It is certainly reminiscent of Disco Elysium's design with the thoughts as characters, but it's got enough of its own flavour to not feel derivative.

I will surely have much more to say about The Thaumaturge as I progress through it, but honestly, just wanted to shine a light on this game because it's fascinating. This kind of RPG doesn't come along often enough.

Neon White: Only just started on this one. It's exactly what everyone says: an addicting game designed to ease you into speedrunning. I have two friends on Steam who have played it and both of their times are very tight and several seconds faster than what I'm able to do lol.

Everyone also says the plot is a bit ehh and well... they're right. Strangely the tone reminded me most of all of the anime Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers: oddly casual, and despite the weebcore vibes, the character archetypes are more American - bubbly psycho girl, femme fatale, frat bro. It's very much aiming for humour, and generally it's not terrible, but the hit rate there is kinda mixed. I'm actually a bit surprised by it - given the aesthetic with the hannya masks everywhere, I was kinda expecting something way more chuuni, but it's quite laid back so far.

But none of that matters really because it's a speedrunning game, it's not about the story! The controls are tight as hell, the levels are elegantly designed to steer you towards picking up on shortcuts with a compelling learning curve, and restarting is incredibly easy. So far I've grabbed Ace medals on every level I've played, but there's a huge amount of room for improvement still. Definitely reminiscent of doing time trials in Mirror's Edge back in the day. Definitely gonna play this more.

[protagonistpolling]

PROTAGONIST POLLING

Why should you vote for either of these characters?

Why should you vote for Apollo Justice? (3)

"he’s transgender and spikes his hair up with gel every morning and accidentally has an incredibly rare male calico cat."

"Hes SO DESPERATE to prove himself. And SO LOUD. He WILL get u acquitted of criminal charges but also have an anxiety attack while court is in session."

Why should you vote for Phoenix Wright? (3)

"Cross examined a parrot, ate a glass necklace containing poison, seemingly immune to death in any form, just an all-around chaotic force of nature dear god"

"He is so so silly. He ate a glass bottle that contained traces of poison (and was fine) on purpose. Look at any of his college days "feenie" sprites (with the pink sweater). He adopted a kid at 26. He was punched into unconsciousness by an 8 year old. He's kind he's annoying he's a bitch. He still uses a Nokia phone, held together by tape. He wears a pendant with his daughters picture in it. Said daughter is a magician who's also a human lie detector. He's bisexual. He's transgender. He fell off a burning bridge. He has it all"

!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS FOR APOLLO!!!!!!!! "I'm sure plenty of people have submitted Phoenix so I'm putting a word in for Apollo. I saw someone describe him as someone who has invented the "Most Normal Guy" award and is trying his best to win it, and that description is very accurate. He has a magic lie detector bracelet. He shouts a lot to train his "chords of steel". Everyone thinks he's a teenager when he's actually 22. He punched Phoenix Wright in the face once. The detective on most of his cases throws her snacks at him. His best friend is a 15 year old who is actually his sister but neither of them know this. He has at least three backstories that don't TECHNICALLY contradict each other but you can tell they were all made up on the spot. After his three backstories he decided to become a lawyer for some reason. And despite it all, he's STILL the most normal person in the entire series. Nobody is doing it like him."

[crimsonkat59]

Campaign two end spoilers!!!

I just had a thought on how the party would just have to stare at their reflections for a while. It’s kind of fucked up in a way, suddenly seeing a completely different face.

Like, Mathilde knows they’re an aarakocra and knows the features well. Black feathers, beak, wings, talons. They know their accent as well. How crazy would it be to suddenly see a human face and suddenly your accent doesn’t even sound right because it’s not yours. They’re not technically French anymore.

Chip knows he has a tail, horns, and purple skin. He can adjust easier since they’re more minor changes. Different accent, different skin tone, different physical structure; sure, but it’s less of lot a derailment.

Barney is possibly glad to be young again. Though, he has officially lost his family. In two senses (the family left in Grotethe and the fact that Ellga is not the same person (?) and has a completely different family (?)). Maybe he thinks he looks similar to how he did in his prime, with a change in hair color (unless Barney wasn’t ever blonde and was brunette?).

Ellga is fifty-fifty. No more fangs, but canines can be sharp. And she’s finally all grown up! Different accent, however. Like Mathilde, that’s a fairly big change, the entire way you speak out the window.

Oh, and they’re names. Imagine waking up and one guy (who is definitely a woman you were just with like an hour ago and was, emotionally, one of your party member’s mom) and some other guy say: “Oh yeah, your eternal souls have different names than the ones you have now. Oh. And please save the multiverse.”

Like WHAT. This is insane i love it

(Also like what if they get to go back to grotethe, hell, even faeza, and gus is like ‘cool! Here are your old character sheets!’ And in that case, would they even be able to do anything? Like, could they save anyone? Or are they all gone? Is it futile, or do they get to say one final goodbye?)

[phantomram-b00]

Imma use my hottake post to explain it since I felt I should give more context with this take to explain myself why I have this opinion on the topic of this.

For those who don’t know or don’t wanna look back with the link, it basically that my hottake is that I don’t like the theory of what Crowley’s angel name was/could’ve been. I know this might be a bit controversial since I think everyone in this fandom (not to assume ofc), and whilst I get the curiously since Crowley almost never talk about his time over at heaven, mostly for valid reason that I’ll get to. Before I get into this, I know it been month but I wanna still give that this haunted blog/post does contain heavy spoilers so if your planning to watch good omens or haven’t seen season two yet go watch it and come back here, or you can still read— what can I say, I’m only a phantom that have lot to say about good omens and making it everyone else’s problem. But still spoiler warning ahead! So without further or do,

let get into it and talk about our favorite snake demon and a good old fashion lover boy/girl/enby—

So, okay, seeing Angel Crowley, that’s cool and honestly wholesome— despite the poor trauma he’s going to endure and will sauntered vaguely downward for. I remember hearing the theory about how his name could be Raphael, seen some AO3 tags of Crowley used to be Raphael or just people buzzing what his name could’ve been (even some saying it could be Castiel or Cassiel). And while the curiously of it all is cool, for a while I couldn’t really pin it at first as to why I personally didn’t like it. And Idk if that make be boring or a bitch for not wanting to know, it just to me, I felt why does it matter if Crowley himself don’t even want to remember about his time at heaven?

Sure season 2 when he didn’t even say it might have been what spiked it, but i think the whole point about him is the fact that he clearly moved on from it. Does he still hold resentment? Of course, why wouldn’t he be? And from unfair circumstances too:

But, as we’ve seen from most of the flashback, he moved on from it. He using hell as long as he can (lonely? Yep, which is a perfect parallel to how Aziraphale following heaven—), he doesn’t want to remember the angel he is before, he even said it to Aziraphale when he tried to stop him from killing Job’s kids. But I think of how he’s dealt with is how his trauma grew seeing how he doesn’t want to be considered nice or kind; I feel it goes deeper than just because he’s a demon now, I believe (and this is just my observation), he rather not remember the kinder side he was once before because of how the “light” casted him away and how heaven runs things. So why would he want to be associated with those word when it remind him of his time, he rather not remember it (or in a case run away from heaven as much as he can), he rather associate himself from being mean or remember himself as a demon now rather than an angel he once was. (Even though, he is very kind and I wish to hug him. Don’t start-).

Plus, he more comfortable with his new name now, that’s why he even changed it back at the flashback of the crucifixion of Jesus as his named used to be Crawly (which honestly real.) and changed it to Crowley (now technically he changed it again to Anthony J Crowley, but we hardly heart anyone even Aziraphale say it outside from the blitz flashback, so I kinda wanna count it but I’mma not just incase, but I like the name tho-), and since then, he’ve wore that name proudly and never look back, and Aziraphale an ally he is suppose him and call him by his prefer name. That is him saying “I’m not whoever I was before, so I’m going to change my name to move on from my past”, and honestly I stand, I love the fact he want to move on from his time as an angel/move away from his deadname to be the person he is today, proud of the wily serpent ^v^

“But phantom, that still doesn’t explain why you dislike it?”

You’re right, it still doesn’t so imma explain it a bit more, I just feel it shouldn’t matter what his name was, it really up to his (or Neil’s but this is Crowley we’re talking about) own terms, it him that should be able to say his deadname. And if it never reveal, I wouldn’t care since Good Omens from both season shown, Crowley moved on from his angelic past even if he have the grudges he have now after 6000 years he rather accepts his life now and hopefully with the Angel that have supported him and stood by him. And I know the finally is making it seem like Azirapahel want to change him, but like I said here that I don’t think that the case, I don’t think he would ever want him to revert back to the person he was once before, he could never ask Crowley to do such a thing knowing the progress he made. Like I said and will say again, I think this was Azirapahle (in a poor way given the situation and that their communication is the equivalent of a ghost (invisible as fuck)) to give Crowley a change to fix the broken and toxic system heaven been running on since the dawn of time, to give Crowley the chance to fix what need to be fixed with Aziraphale, and Crowley said no, and I think rightly so in his point of view, heaven did treated everyone especially Crowley poorly and is the main source of his trauma, so I’m happy he said no, it not his place to fix the one thing that in his eyes was broken and have always been. So good jobs Crowley for standing your grounds.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, my point is that, Crowley have moved on and it shouldn’t matter what his deadname was, I think we should all respect that when it come to not just his but everyone’s deadname. Crowley clearly doesn’t have to remember his time on heaven, and I gotta respect that. Because if I was in his shoes, I wouldn’t neither if I was a bit braver than he was.

“But phantom what if it was revealed anyway?”

Again I wouldn’t care, like the commenter said (I don’t know how they feel about tagging so I won’t just to be respectful) and I do agree, if it had to be revealed it should be on his own terms. And I do agree, it is up to Crowley, he should be able to say it as it could garner the impactful moment, especially if he does say like “I’m not *this name* anymore” or whatever he’ll say in season 3, (which please let it be greenlit, I’m begging atp).

And honestly, I don’t doubt it really, it seem it might be revealed, which, fine, this is Neil’s work so gotta respect. Just I hope it on his term, and that no one else say it, I don’t even want aziraphale to say it. Just him. He deserve it.

But that’s my take on it. That’s my spew on this. Might be boring or lame to not be curious, but honestly like I said, he’ve going down a path away from heaven and accepted what happen to him. May not be in a healthiest way but regardless I love this demon and I am happy he moved on and I can’t wait to see him again in season 3, David Tennant a perfect Crowley and I wouldn’t have it any other way ^v^

But I hope you enjoy my yet another insane ramble of this show, frankly this show is becoming my life atp and I don’t hate it. I love this show, it my comfort, I’m happy to have this show; if you want to ask me any other questions you can in the AMA box or comments, but also tell me what do you guys think of this theory? Do you love it? Have qualms with it? Or anything? Tell me in the comments or reblog. As always this is phantom, imma go haunt somewhere else.

[usafphantom2]

SAC Crew Dogs: The Elephant Walk, The Wing Commander, and the Boom

T Campbell

@tcamp202

·

4h

… as the crew pulled up to the Alert shack, they could see the Wing Commander’s Chrysler Reliant K-Car parked right at the main entrance to the shack. The Air Force blue car was still smoking a bit, and most of the paint had been burned away… somebody was gonna get a chuck taken, that much was sure…

This is the retelling of a story I heard as an A1C (Airmen First Class) while pulling SAC Alert at Loring AFB when I was a Boom Operator in the KC-135 A model. It was probably embellished when it was told, and I might embellish it even more… cause you know, that’s how Alert Stories go. I do hope that I do it justice in my retelling.

In order to understand the humor in this small fairy tale, I first need to explain a couple of technical details about KC-135 operations. It’s a lot of background to tell a silly old story, but please bear with me… the story is funny (or at least I think it is.)

Engine Start: The KC-135A was equipped with the Pratt and Whitney JP-57-P/F-43W, good solid engines, but they required a lot of tender loving care, and if they didn’t get it, they let you know in a hurry. There were a few different ways to start the engines.

The most common was to have an air cart connected to the aircraft. It would supply air to the bleed air manifold and would be used to start all four engines.

Another way we could start the engines was often called a Cart Start. Using a Cartridge, a canister about the size of a large coffee can, filled with a slow burning explosive, which could create enough air to turn the starter long enough to start the engine. All four engines could use Cartridges.

If you had any single engine running, you could use bleed air from that engine to start the others, however, you had to push up the power a bit to generate enough air pressure in the bleed air manifold.

Image

Gases escaping after turning the engine starter during a Cartridge Start on a KC-135A.

Photo from https://www.airliners.net/photo/USA-Air-Force/Boeing-KC-135A-Stratotanker-717-148/666058/L

Hot Starts: One thing that these engines did not like at all was being started with an insufficient amount of bleed air, whether from a ground cart, or the other engines. Failure to get the engine turning fast enough when adding fuel often resulted in hot starts with flames shooting out the back of the engine, kind of like an afterburner, but these flames weren’t blue… they were a reddish yellow, like fire and could reach out to the tail of the aircraft. Sometimes flames would even shoot out the front. They were dangerous. Fire bottles were always on hand for engine starts, just in case.

Engine Shutdown: After landing, the pilots would stow the spoilers, retract the flaps (otherwise, tower might think we’d been hijacked) and shut down two of the engines, usually the inboards to avoid accidentally sucking up anything from the taxiways into the engines, and also, so that when the ground crew chocked the tires, they wouldn’t have to walk closely to a running engine.

However, on Alert, we always shut down the outboard engines first, so the ground crew could install a new Cartridge in the #1 engine (furthest to the left.) The cartridges were dangerous, and the last thing the crew chief wanted was a running engine behind him and no escape route if there were any problems. Once the cartridge was installed, the other engines could be shut down because we had the ability to restart the jet if required.

Ok… if you’re still with me… great! Last thing you need to know is about Elephants walks on Alert. An elephant walk is where a group of airplanes get all configured for a mission, start engines and taxi out, but instead of taking off, they just taxi down the runway. Kind of like a parade.

For elephant walks on Alert, this process is started with the Klaxon going off and the brass inspect the aircraft as they are taxing to ensure they are all properly configured for takeoff. Think of it as your typical military inspection… you know, “Trim those nose hairs” type of affair, but with airplanes.

Last thing to remember… SAC took Alert VERY seriously. Everything had to be done by the book, and if it wasn’t, there’d be hell to pay. The aircraft always had to be ready to launch on the nuclear mission to refuel B-52s. As they say, failure was not an option.

So… now that you are armed with some knowledge on how the KC-135 normally operates, it’s time to tell our story.

Image

An Elephant Walk. KC-135 R models (bigger engines), not A models... but it gives you the idea... imagine a car driving between the aircraft to inspect them. Our ill fated crew was somewhere in the middle of the line.

Once upon a time, there was a crew… we’ll call them R-113 with Captain William Bligh as the commander, the co-pilot and nav shall remain nameless, but the Boom Operator was SSgt Fletcher Christian. They were on Alert, spending another seven days cooped up in the Alert facility, and serving their country. Breakfast started the day followed by a mandatory briefing at oh eight hundred. After this, maybe some ground training or bon bons and the Price is Right, and then it’s lunch time. A combat nap would take up most of the afternoon, followed by dinner around five. All the while, waiting for the Klaxon to sound off. Not exactly riveting stuff, let me tell you.

“FOR ALERT FORCE, FOR ALERT FORCE, KLAXON KLAXON KLAXON”

One day, our fateful day, the Klaxon went off and the crew sprinted out to their aircraft. This is a hectic event. Get the covers off the engines, get the door opened, rush up into the cockpit, check all is clear, and fire up those Cartridges to start the engines. Black smoke is billowing everywhere and it’s hard to see, but the engines get started, the crew chief makes his way up the ladder into the aircraft, and they button up to the aircraft, ready to taxi.

On the sidelines, the Wing Commander is proudly watching his KC-135s do what they do best. He watches the rolling clouds of thick black, toxic smoke as the engines start.

“FOR ALERT FORCE, FOR ALERT FORCE, MESSAGE FOLLOWS… SIERA NOVEMBER ALPHA FOXTROT UNIFORM…”

The message from command post… it’s an elephant walk exercise. The aircraft will taxi out of the Cage, the Alert pad for the KC-135s, and out to the runway. There, they will taxi about halfway down the runway, turn off and line up, nose to tail, on the returning taxiway waiting to be inspected by the Wing Commander.

While sitting in line, with a tanker just in front of him, and another just behind, Captain Blight decides to save some fuel, he’s going to shut down two of the engines. This is normal. However, instead of shutting down the outboard engines, as was normal in this situation, he shuts down the inboard engines as if he’d just finished a normal flight.

As soon as the throttles were in the cut off position, he realizes his mistake, but there’s nothing he can do. He announces his dilemma over the crew’s intercom… so the boom, SSgt Christian says, “Hey, just restart them, what’s the big deal?”

Meanwhile, at the end of this line of KC-135s, the Wing Commander starts inspecting the aircraft. He drives by each jet, taking a zig zag route through the jets, looking to ensure the flaps are set correctly, the stabilizer trim (the horizontal portion of the tail) is trimmed to the correct position for takeoff. He’s quite proud of his jets… maybe he’ll get another promotion and get the h*ll out of this sh*t hole base.

Captain Bligh says, “In order to start the engines, I’m gonna have to push up the outboards a bit to get enough bleed air, but I don’t want to FOD (foreign object damage) out the jet behind us, but ok, let’s do it.” He pushes up the outboard throttles as much as he dares and starts the engine start sequence for the number two engine (left inboard). He turns on the ignition, and then after the engine has just barely enough rpms, the turns on the fuel.

Right about this time, the Wing Commander has finished looking at the jet behind our ill fated crew, and he is crossing behind Captain Bligh’s number two engine, when a huge flame, at least forty feet long come shooting out of the back of the engine, right onto the hood of his car.

As you might be able to imagine… the radios come to life and the Wing Commander starts screaming about the jet with the flames coming out of it… followed by “Everybody report to the briefing room (at the Alert shack) after re-cocking the aircraft.”

It was pretty quite for the next thirty minutes or so, while Captain Bligh and crew got their aircraft re-cocked for Alert. After they wrap things up, they get in their Alert truck and head back. There was a little discussion though, they had to get their story straight.

As the crew pulled up to the Alert shack, they could see the Wing Commander’s Chrysler Reliant K-Car (remember, we bailed out Chrysler) parked right at the main entrance to the shack. Oh sh*t… this wasn’t going to be good. The Air Force blue car was still smoking a bit, and most of the paint had been burned away from the front fender and hood. There was no doubt, the briefing room was not going to be a pleasant place to be.

As the last crew sat down, somebody called “Attention”, and everybody stood up at attention. The Wing Commander walked down the center isle and up to the podium. “Crew 113… get up here!”

The Wing Commander addressing Captain Bligh asked, “Why on earth were you restarting your engines?”

Captain Bligh responded, “My Boom Operator said to.”

Lesson learned… if you are the lowest ranking guy, always look be on the look out for sh*t rolling downhill.

@tcamp202 via X

[voidscreamintheories]

HtP Theory: Blue Man in a Pound Land 1 of 2

Spoilers for Hunter the Parenting This is part 2 of a series exploring the potential identity of Big D, and what we can do with that information. Part 1 here

The Blue Man. Who is he? Well, obviously HE IS THE BLUE MAN. And also an allegory for capitalism. As I understand it there are organizations in WoD who are big capitalist nightmare companies that are either ran by demons/devils or they try to shove demons into their products to get demons into the heads of their customers (maybe both at the same time!). So it would not be out of the realm of possibility for “Line must go up” Blue Man to be a demon of some variety. The whole interaction about GROWTH and inevitability is obvious capitalism satire, yes, but I think also points towards the Blue Man as being only part of a greater whole. Perhaps similar to a branch of a chain. Though in this case the corporation is some evil cabal of demons from hell. The suggestion to “invest” may have been a classic “join us and experience great power” villain trope. Similarly “We are coming soon” implies that this group of demons is planning to break out of hell soon.

“If he’s a demon doesn’t that mean he is a fallen angel like D? How come D needs to inhabit some frail old guy to be on earth? Didn’t you say that demons might need a bunch of magic users to call them up?” Great questions all, and ones that I think actually help the idea of him being some kind of fiendish being. If he is the same type of demon as what I theorize Big D is, a fallen angel, then he doesn’t have to be a good one like D. Some of the fallen decide to roll with the punches and just lean into being evil bastards, perhaps the Blue Man is one such high torment being. Or perhaps he’s another kind of malevolent entity that my unawakened mind calls “demon” because he fits a lot of criteria that I associate with those creatures, even if he is something else. One example here is the possession of a frail body/soul: On one hand, maybe the old, oxygen deprived body we see IS the host of the Blue Man, an aged and hypoxic man. On the other hand, and what I believe to be the case, maybe the Blue Man doesn’t need to be fully over the threshold and on earth to do whatever it is he wants to do, and that leads into who might be calling him. At the end of the audiolog we see the manager call up the Tremere regent and she informs her that D found the pit, which she calls the “entrance”. So if the Blue Man was called by a group of magic users, I think I know a certain bunch who would fit. However, let’s discuss that at the end of this theory.

I think it’s made clear to us by the end of D’s part in the audiolog that the encounter we witnessed was not happening in the flesh and blood real world. The distorted sound during the encounter, and the evidence D himself notes indicate it was some kind of mental/spiritual encounter. BUT D does get a physical blender, and a very nice one at that, so what does this mean? I think the Blue Man and the 99 pound shop represent a classic Faustian bargain. A deal with the devil where you get precisely what you want, and it might even seem like a good deal on the surface (a very expensive blender for only 99p!), but the REAL price is more than you thought you were bargaining for. In this case that may have been literal, D’s horror at being in a 99 POUND store instead of 99 pence, but I also suspect figuratively. There is no way D just gets that blender and walks away, there will likely be some devil-deal cost somewhere down the line. HOWEVER, D didn’t pay the full cost of the item. Giles spotted him a pence because he was one short. I don’t think this moment was put in as a throwaway. Either this means D has a way to wiggle out of the deal and associated cost on a technicality: He didn’t pay the full price and thus the deal didn’t actually happen. This would fit with some of D’s behaviour around legal dealings, such as not TECHNICALLY being divorced from Occam since D never signed the papers. Back to Giles though, there is also the potential that him chipping in to paying for the blender means he is now roped into whatever punishment is coming D’s way.

Have to split this post up again, too many words, second half here

[whyreyousoobsessedwithme]

463 spoilers and theories

Ok this is a little late, I’ve been busy with sorting out my student loans and then I was struggling to find the previous chapters I needed for this post. But it’s here

Vinjin’s baby sister

My first thought when I saw this was “he SAed her” because of the state of her uniform, then I thought maybe he just bullied her to the point of su*cide.

IF that fake blonde fuck didn’t SA her I have a theory for Vins sister’s death.

I don’t remember that chapter but we know that both vin and Mary are from a small town or village and we also know that vin was called a monster due to his condition. It could be that the village (I think it’s a village and I’ll get to it why) they lived in was extremely superstitious and gave vin a hard time due to his eyes. I also thought that maybe his sister might’ve been forced into some weird ass ritual because in the image above there are talismans around her. I also did a quick 5 minute search and found that the bells beside her body are called “Mudang” and they’re used in shaman rituals. Also the tree behind her has several stripes tight around it in different colours. According to my research, that is a scared tree which is usually outside of villages, at the entrances to be exact, and they’re called “scared or spirit trees” and are meant to be shrines for village guardian spirits. These shrines are locations for rituals of protection, good harvest and prosperity. These trees usually have a rope tied around them with stripes of mulberry paper, white cloth or 5 coloured cloth. Just like the one in the picture.

I know this theory is a stretch but the tree and talismans really had me questioning a lot of things.

HOWEVER, if this isn’t the case then I would like to add onto the SA theory because I noticed a couple of things in the previous chapters.

Let’s start off with how vin and Mary’s old mates love her but hate him. I always found that odd because of they hate vin for supposedly killing one of their own then why not hate Mary too, instead all we see is admiration and guilt (from Mc pesticides).

Obviously there’s some kind of misunderstanding because one, both Mary and vin were shocked to learn Taejin is alive and two, the other members seemed to be upset about his “death”.

Did Mary also almost get SA or bullied by Taejin? Did McPesticides know? Why is is he guilty? This would prove the bullying theory I have of Taejin bullying vins sister, maybe he also bullied Mary except Mary didn’t try to commit su*cide? We also know that once you get labeled as a murderer things become extremely difficult both in terms of mental trauma and economically, obviously taking a human life can be mentally taxing for many people and finding jobs with the label of a murderer is also hard; there were theories that maybe that’s why vin decided to become a rapper and Mary followed him because she’s all he had left and he apparently killed for her sake. It’s been stated that vin’s old crew helped him run away and as a result they too received backlash

In this theory I believe that vin and Mary were the only ones who knew of Taejin’s true nature. And obviously Vin is technically not a murderer because Taejin’s nasty ass is still alive.

Either of these theories could be true or both, maybe Taejon did SA vins sister but he did in front of the sacred tree to maybe mock her that the guardian spirit wasn’t protecting her? Honestly the 2nd theory would also explain why Taejin is in workers, he was probably on the run and had nowhere to go, or he got captured by the workers.

Knowing ptj there a high chance it is SA.

I’ll probably come back to edit this post if I remember something else. ✌🏼