#the problem is with the entire level system in and of itself

[deanpinterester]

rebel is flagsmashing 101 if i've ever seen one "what if the guy who wants to change the oppressive status quo....... actually secretly wanted to be an evil dictator!" we've seen this story a billion times

[dailyadventureprompts]

artsource

Manifestations: a homebrew mechanic for running spirits, gods, and otherworldly entities

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’ve had your party on the trail of some dastardly cultists who are looking to summon a demon lord or lovecraftian horror for whatever reason. The summoning happens (because of course it does, you've been looking forward to this bossfight) and over the next 3-5 rounds of combat all the tension and dread you've been building up over the past half dozen sessions evaporates as the party wipes the floor with your supposed big bad.

While you perhaps could have planned that encounter a little better, the problem here isn’t with the fight itself:  it’s the narrative expectations you wanted to set up (a threat beyond what the heroes are equipped to handle) clashing with the combat system the game runs on (which is purposefully geared in the party’s favour).

Speaking from experience, throwing tougher and tougher monsters at your players won’t fix this discrepancy because you're still running these encounters the same way you'd run any other fight. We're well past the era of the TPK, so we need a way to make these encounters feel epic without just pumping the boss's stats and damage output beyond reason.

The solution? Make your party EARN that bossfight. The moment you let them roll initiative your party is going to be intent on whittling them down to 0HP, so make them jump through some narrative and gameplay hoops before beforehand. I've got my system and my reasoning behind the readmore but if you want the TLDR: Higher order monsters (especially those with an extraplaniear nature) don't hit the battlefield immediately. Instead they exist as curses, hazards, or even regional effects for the party to avoid while working on various objectives to bring the monster's "manifestation" score up. Once It's hit a certain point, the monster is forced to take on a physical form the party can fight in the regular way.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, I figure it's important to explain WHY you might want a mechanic rather than handwaving the bossmonster's invulnerability:

Having a codified mechanic gives your party a concrete goal, even if they're initially unsure of the steps to reach it. Just like hitpoints in combat or successes during a skill challenge, working towards points of manifestation makes their progress non-arbitrary.

It also divides the encounter with the big bad into distinct "phases" , one where they can't damage it until they do some problem solving, and another that can be solved through regular combat.

One of the advantages of this system is that it lets you address narrative challenges in a way that aligns with d&d's mechanics: Getting rid of a generational family curse with a simple use of restoration or dispel magic is anticlimactic, whereas performing an exorcism only to have the curse manifest as some manyeyed thing of grasping limbs for a showdown is not only a good way to squeeze a fight in where there wasn't one before, it's also rad as hell.

Non-Manifested monsters should still be a threat in their own way, whether that's because of the danger they pose in the story or some negative effect that threatens the party during their adventure/encounter. You can picture a haunted manor filling with dread and horrific visions before the ghost ever makes an appearance, or the dragon helping a besieging army doing the occasional flyby attack on the party while they're fending off the invaders.

How Manifestation works: To Make a monster manifest the party need to achieve a number of manifestation points equal to the creature's proficiency bonus X2. Exactly how they obtain these points depends largely on the scale of the encounter. A dungeon's endboss might be manifested after the party slay its summoner and destroy the prerequisite number of arcane crystals growing throughout the ruins, while adventure level villains might require the party to undertake entire subquests to move the needle. Here's some examples:

Researching occult information like the creature's true name

Performing a ritual (skill challenge) at a place of power

Defeating the monster's lieutenants

Destroying the things that anchor its power, one ring style

Personally pissing it off in the time honoured tradition of adventurers everywhere.

Making sacrifice at the appropriate shrines

Invoking the aid of supernatural allies who may ask favours in return

Conversely, you might run an encounter where the goal is to STOP the creature from manifesting (such as the ever classic "force the lovecraftian tentacle monster back in the portal"). This gives the fight an alternate win condition, which is really useful when you want to preview an endgame threat without expecting your party to go toe-to-toe with something WAY above their challenge rating.

[utilitycaster]

I've been a pretty harsh critic of Dr. Friedman and Polygon's general Critical Role coverage in the past, and while I think her latest article for them critiquing Campaign 3 is a fairly good one, it does in many ways cast an even harsher light on her kid-gloves handling of D20 and WBN. However, I want to talk about these two excerpts, because I think she hits on something I've increasingly noticed in Actual Play:

"This is where Critical Role’s strength — that Exandria often feels like a real, complex world — collided with the needs of a D&D campaign (a clear adversary, clear plans of action, forward momentum)."

and

"But the confused way D&D handles religion and divinity — polytheism as imagined by midwestern American Protestants — turned the question of how to handle this particular cosmic horror into a glue trap, paralyzing the players for dozens of hours of circular existential debates. Gods once mechanized (or digestible) become just another power bloc, and for players used to a system where in the end you are “basically gods,” the line gets blurrier still. And as D&D’s messy cosmology added friction to much of the campaign, D&D’s mechanics also don’t have the necessary friction for the interpersonal beats that make Critical Role compelling."

I agree with both these statements, as someone who, to be clear, enjoys D&D 5e. D&D supports a range of narratives, but all are ultimately a story of gaining power and fighting off or through a series of adversaries; if your characters are not doing that, it raises the question of why you picked a system that gives you few other options. (This is also, I should note, an increasingly loud question when it comes to Worlds Beyond Number; I fell behind for personal reasons after the Coven arc, but Brennan's initial statements about D&D as scaffolding were perhaps too true; almost every interesting mechanic, in a game with minimal combat that has thus far felt primarily focused on how the three protagonists have fundamentally different adversaries, has been homebrewed, to the point where the cosmology and baggage of D&D has felt like a liability rather than an asset).

D&D also has, in part due to such programs as D20, developed a reputation for being world-agnostic, and that ultimately isn't true. D&D does struggle to make the lines between "real divinity", an archfey or similarly powerful entity, and a L20 character feel sharply defined on a mechanical level; once you give a god a stat block, it can be killed (and on a metanarrative level, revealing the gods' statblocks in Downfall serves to make them both immense, yet also more fragile. The hit points are many, but still finite.) There are a number of questions most D&D worlds simply fail to address - and to be clear, this is not a flaw provided you have buy in. A level 2 warlock in D&D is, in most societies, an one-person lethal force unless the entire town swarms them at once, knowing that many of them will lose their lives in the effort; a level 2 warlock PC, however, is almost never, in-world, treated this way, and indeed is framed as an underdog in a harsh world despite usually having the ability to destroy the entire tavern.

D&D has also developed a (not undeserved) reputation as being The Dominant TTRPG put out by a massive corporation, and has developed a (not deserved) reputation as being itself uniquely problematic as a power fantasy, particularly by people who conveniently forget where Pathfinder came from. I've previously covered that, for all people demand non-D&D actual play, the viewership drops precipitously whenever a big AP show that made its name with D&D dares to branch out, and, related to that, I've seen an uptick in people who are excited for D&D to subvert itself. They wanted Campaign 3 to subvert these norms of divinity and heroic fantasy, cheered for it...and ultimately it was unable to do so. I don't think it's accurate to say that D&D's lack of interpersonal mechanics was the problem here, given that Campaigns 1 and 2 (and again, D20) have no such issue; but rather that since D&D's lack of interpersonal/RP mechanics require more effort from the players to initiate, the debates on the nature of divinity in a world and system that could not sustain them sapped any energy for the late-night watch conversations D&D can support when you're not fighting against it.

I think one of the many lessons we can learn from Critical Role Campaign 3 is that if you go up against D&D with an attempt to destroy it from within, your story will instead find itself conforming to the shape of its container, often to its detriment.

[skaldish]

Alright folks. Here it is, my theory of what Ragnarok actually represents. It is very messy and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to actually convey my understanding clearly like I try with most things, because genuinely this is shit I would write a doctorate-level thesis on.

But we're going to try anyway.

So. After doing a lot to try to replicate animistic thinking, as well as taking a VERY deep read of the Norse myths, my theory is that Ragnarok is specifically allegory for societal collapse—the "end of the world" imagery and such is meant to convey what this feels like.

Recall what Odin says in Grimnismal. It goes something like this, since I can't be arsed to find the exact quote:

Huginn and Muninn fly over the world every day; while I fear Huginn ("thought") may not return, I fear Muninn's ("memory's") absence most.

When a society collapses, so does it's memory. It loses its technology, its methodologies, its paradigms, and everything it has learned about the world up to that point. Gone. Entire chapters of history erased.

What causes societal collapse is not always a conquering force, but is oftentimes the result of circumstances that a society orchestrates for itself. Think Rome.

People who have gone through societal collapse will probably develop an invested interest in figuring out how to prevent it entirely, so they don't have to start society all over again.

It's one thing to preserve the memory of "things collapsed and here's why" using a story. But it's another thing to do what apparently the Norse people did, which is cultivate a methodology for cognitively hardening their own society against collapse, using stories as a way to do it.

Like...I'm not kidding when I say they legitimately knew how the human mind works, and then built an entire system of stories and narratives that intentionally support the mind's freedom, cultivation, and agency. I can only convey a fraction of how this works in this post because the rest requires a deep-dive into behavioral psychology and neurological development.

All the tales leading to Ragnarok demonstrate various instances where the gods choose to follow their own agendas at the expense of the real people and forces in the world. All of these little things contribute to the magnitude of the event that is Ragnarok.

The tales represent these transgressions using allegories rather than literal events. This is because these stories were designed for children, who don't process information through a prefrontal cortex like we do as adults. They don't have them yet. But this gives kids an intuitive understanding for how circumstances of collapse feel, so they can recognize them in all their forms.

Loki is an allegory for the mischief we feel as children, and for the behaviors we demonstrate before we get to the age where we start valuing cooperation. In the myths, every time Loki causes mischief in ways that creates problems, the gods get mad at him and threaten Loki's life until he fixes his mess. Loki eventually becomes vindictive, kills Baldr in a jealous fit, and then is punished by being bound and buried beneath the ground, only to fight against the gods in Ragnarok.

The surface-level takeaway is a lesson in parenting: If we punish kids for their mischief, they're going to become vindictive adults, and these adults are going to have it out for the rest of society because they've been disenfranchised.

But it doesn't just end here. Consider how we punish ourselves for our own sense of mischief, beating ourselves up for having "problematic" thoughts and trying to bind and bury those thoughts in the depths of our mind.

These thoughts come from a place our mind known as the limbic system, which is focused on avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, and—most importantly—does not understand the world or make decisions using logic and reason, but in terms of what feels enjoyable and what doesn't.

We tend to call this system our inner child.

When we punish our inner child, that child starts doing exactly what Loki does and resorts to malicious and petty tricks. We can hold this behavior at bay until something causes us to "snap" (like Jörmungandr's tail does) and out comes the malice of the disenfranchised inner child, which creates a terrible cascade of social consequences for us.

Now, if we were to listen to these stories as kids, we would naturally be very upset whenever Loki was threatened of punished, because we think out of the limbic system at that age and Loki is meant to represent us—specifically, the state of being a kid. We would see what comes to pass, with Loki being imprisoned and fighting the gods against Ragnarok, and it would become clear to us that there's consequences for punishing mischief AND also causing too much of it.

Now I don't know about you, but I was very motivated by a sense of justice as a kid. Hearing Loki's arc would have inspired me to learn how to be friends with my sense of mischief while also learning to use it in ways that were cooperative and social, because this would have been how I could right the wrong I felt was done to Loki. It would also mean my own limbic system will not fight against me in the future, but be a modality of thought I can always access. (This is the beauty of the way the Norse myths are crafted; they are designed to instill knowledge of the world using mechanisms that reinforce one's own sense of agency and competency, so rather than being told the moral of this tale, it sets me up to run right into the conclusion it wants me to draw, but in a way that makes me feel smart and therefore inspires me to value it.)

The binding of Fenrir serves a similar allegory. When we become explosively angry in the way that Fenrir represents, it consumes our wisemind the same way Fenrir consumes Odin during Ragnarok. But this only happens if we bind Fenrir/our anger. By demonizing this nature of ours simply for existing, it will not only refuse to listen to us, but also turn against us. Remember that Fenrir was willing to socialize and cooperate with the gods before his betrayal.

(Honestly, I believe this is why ulfheiðnar existed the way they did. Even though the animalistic rage of ulfheiðnar was too terrible for domestic society, it was not demonized, but instead given a social function. People would learn to understand and partner with their own sense of rage, and I'm guessing this is also how they were able to keep their sense of reason and priorities straight even while going berserk from psychoactives.)

These two examples serve to illustrate how societal collapse stems from binding or punishing our own natures. But also fearing our own nature as mortals factors into it.

For example, Naglfar. This is a ship constructed of dead people's fingernails, and its completion is part of what signals the beginning of Ragnarok. But as the story goes, we can delay Naglfar's construction by trimming the nails of the dead before we bury them.

Naglfar represents "neglect for the dead," and this is significant because the act of no longer viewing the dead as people is sort of like the canary in the coal mine for no longer view each other as people...and no longer seeing people as people is what defines Ragnarok.

A society is at peace when its people have no fear of death, and having no fear of death comes only by incorporating death as a normal and familiar part of life, just like we do with birth. Our relationship with death is a litmus test for our relationship with our own humanity—if we fear the dead and cannot see them as human beings, then we are always going to fear a part of our own humanity, and be at war with it. The simple act of keeping the nails of the dead well-groomed because it stalls Naglfar's construction was a way to remind people why such a simple act was profoundly important.

And these are just the things that I can think of off the top of my head that are the most obvious examples. There are—and I shit you not—multitudes of these things laced within the Norse myths.

(I haven't even gotten to the part about how the Norse creation myth uses what the womb feels like to characterize it. Telling this story to very little children helps them establish a sense of familiarity, belonging, and secure attachment with the entire world from the get-go. If they learn the world is everything they've already experienced, then their bodies will never be afraid of it, because nothing about it will feel unknown or unknowable. Like, how fucking dope can you get.)

So here's where we get to the really dense irony of all this: Why we don't pick up on all these nuances as Westerners and have so far missed this entirely.

It is for two reasons.

The first is because our society values the things that the Norse people identified as contributing to societal collapse—namely, the act of conquering/competing against other forces and conquering/competing against our own natures. The transgressions of the Aesir are not things we register as problematic because to us they're normal.

The second is that we don't think animistically. The way we are taught to convey, interpret, and transmit information is designed PURELY by and for the prefrontal cortex, with neglect to everything else (if you ever wonder why Americans look weird in how we behave, this is why). But because we only prioritize communicating this way, we're missing out on all the context added within the Norse myths. These myths function the same way Old Norse kennings did, in that they are designed to speak to ALL areas of the brain at once and in tandem, but if we only engage with it using one part of the brain, we're only going to get a small piece of the picture and the rest is going to look weird.

(Little experiment for you: Try to logic something out in your mind or think through a complex problem without using words or sentences to do it. Use any other kind of thought-process besides language. I promise you that not only is this possible, but it yields a completely different kind of experience and conclusion than you might otherwise reach.)

Honestly, I don't even think Snorri himself fully understood what he was looking at when he was recording the Norse myths. I think he was just writing them down according to how they were told, word-for-word. But his cluelessness is our good fortune now, because he not only preserved the cultural stories, but also what I consider an entire cognitive technology.

And every time I look at it, I can't help but think about the generations of people who sat around the fire in the dead of winter, weaving, crafting, and figuring out better ways to fortify their society, raise kids so they became fine and truly fearless people, and conserve information. This is, as far as I'm concerned, real magic.

They knew some shit.

[carionto]

Humans really like space wildlife

As Humanity integrates itself within the Galactic Coalition ever further, trade and travel between Sol and neighboring member systems is growing at exponential rates. In particular, their interest in the native wildlife of other planets is the most widely expanding sector for tourism and commerce.

Even though it is also the most heavily regulated and restricted one, Humans, who typically display a desire to subvert the normal procedures to expedite any process they can, for this they are surprisingly willing and eager to fill in all the necessary paperwork and spend hours upon days making sure they follow and adhere to all the requirements to import some of these creatures.

While such level of determination is not uncommon for new member species who discover a certain non-native creature or something that to the respective natives is commonplace but for them is the pinnacle of exotic, the variety of requests made by Humans is nearly as great as the entire list of known fauna species. And the reasons listed on the forms are even more diverse:

"That's a unicorn! I've always dreamed of having a unicorn and you're telling me there's a dozen subspecies?! Yes, please!!!"

"After reviewing their behavior, this bear-sized fluff-ball is the perfect cat I've always wanted, but couldn't because of allergies. I'll treat them with love and care, my life is incomplete without this fella."

"Tiny. Elephant-duck. Want."

"Our company was looking for a mascot, and these six-legged spindly beaver-crabs are perfect. Here's our mission statement and prepared accommodations for a flock."

"They all said I hallucinated the lizard sasquatch when I was on that acid trip, but now I'll show 'em. It's real. I knew it all along!"

"Aww, these baby puppies are so adorable (referring to the four meter, 800kg Fanged Widowmaker of Abyss Valley predator). My kids were looking through your alien picture books and instantly fell in love with these ones."

And so on. At first we had to reject quite a few, mainly because half of them were deadly beasts from Deathworlds that are almost impossible to capture in the first place. Then the Human officials informed us that, while they will try to stop it from happening, if we don't make importing and adopting even the most dangerous animals in the known Galaxy reasonably possible for them with Human help and expertise in the field, some Humans will set up illegal smuggling rings to "fill the market gap" as they said. Historically, they explained, that causes more problems and expenses than just handling it through official channels.

Reluctantly we were persuaded and have set up a new organization to quell this, apparently, unquenchable Human pack bonding condition. Even if said pet can kill them. We think, as horrible as it may be, that for some that is part of the appeal. Even the ones that breathe out literal poison.

"We'll wear a mask around them. This wendigo-like one is too cute to not get belly rubs."

Said the OFFICIAL Human Representative of a monstrosity that can only be described as the living incarnation of countless teeth, fangs, claws, vivid seizure inducing iridescent feathers, and a body that extends from a inconspicuous ambush pose to a fully 8 meter tall six limbed nightmare machine of Death!

[awionetka]

𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞! ✩

3, 2, 1, go! love and deepspace boys become street racers (while possibly romancing you in the process)...

𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫: fluff (?), drabble. street racer!Xavier x undercover cop!reader. could be treated as a preview for a (possible) longer fic.

𝐗𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 / 𝐙𝐚𝐲𝐧𝐞 / 𝐑𝐚𝐟𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐥 / 𝐒𝐲𝐥𝐮𝐬 / 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐛

𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠…

✩ face-off; jimin

✩ houdini; dua lipa

✩ journal of ardency; class actress

You weren't exactly eager to go undercover.

Such thing, however, couldn't have been said about your coworker, the very same you ended up being partnered with. Truth be told, his brand new identity practically oozed excitement – after receiving a freshly out of the dealership flaming red Mitsubishi, he was to enter the street racing scene in downtown Linkon and hopefully blend in. His budget was overwhelmingly flexible; your supervisors would have gifted him the entire solar system, if it meant breaking the illegal racing ring that had been causing them nightmares of this caliber.

And while he was getting acquainted with his brand new ride, learning all the local slang terms and memorising codenames of his future rivals, you were preparing to reduce your skill and intellect to a non-threatening, possibly also quite charming, level, one that would allow you to pose as his "girlfriend". You tried to tell yourself that all of this was for the best – dumbing yourself down just the right amount would encourage people to trust you more, invite you places, talk to you about things they shouldn't really but oh, you were just so clueless, it couldn't cause any real problems now, could it?

So, you gritted your teeth, studied the case files day and night and obediently let the rest of your team mold you into someone a little bit more digestible. While they were picking out skirts and tops, dyeing and cutting your hair, you were choosing your primary target. And because you were never one to aim low or produce anything even remotely close to mediocre, it was him you singled out.

The enigmatic racer commonly went by the pseudonym Orion. Brief and straightforward, it resembled his demeanour remarkably well. Orion was hard to spot before the races, as he was never one to boast, and even harder to detect during the competition itself, leaving his rivals far behind as soon as lap number one was completed. Your team couldn't even get a hold of a proper photo to include in his personal file; all you had at the moment was a rather blurry and faraway shot of Orion standing awkwardly next to his car of choice – which was confirmed to be an R33 GTR Nissan Skyline spray painted white, silver and royal blue. From this lighting and angle, you couldn't even be sure whether his hair was brown or blond. However, given your boundless ambition, you assured yourself you would fill up that file in no time.

The defining moment came a couple of weeks later, during your third race (well, your boyfriend's third race). It was late November and your bare shoulders were slowly but surely becoming more and more frozen solid with each passing minute. Your partner's right arm was loosely wrapped around your midriff, offering you little to no comfort when it came to fighting off the ever-present cold. So you excused yourself, retreating to the questionable sanctuary of the makeshift garages which were at least partly covered with some resemblance of a roof.

You were already rubbing your hands together like a fly, convinced you found the perfect nook to wait out the race in, but then you rounded the corner and... well.

"Are you..." The man in front of you spoke up after an elongated moment of silence, snapping you out from your state of utter confusion. "Going to say something? You're beginning to scare me a little."

Your brows furrowed, as though on command, making the stranger chuckle. He got up from his spot, arms outstretched, and yawned.

"Sorry." He scooted over a bit, uncovering a small vending machine with hot drinks that was kept hidden behind his back. "Just don't tell them I'm here. Then, you can stay for as long as you like."

You pointed at the machine wordlessly, a gesture that he must've interpreted as a polite request directed personally at him, because shortly after he fished out some loose change from his pocket and nodded at the beverage options.

"Anything you like?"

Stepping a little closer, you skimmed the list. The heat radiating off his body forced a shiver out of you. "What's this black tea like?"

He hummed. "Not too bad. A little bitter. There's no sugar in this thing though."

"I'll live."

The stranger handed you the steaming cup, acknowledging your quiet "thank you" with a warm smile. Suddenly, you felt an unfamiliar weight on top of your bare shoulders and immediately sent him a cautious glare, one he met somewhere halfway, with eyes open wide and a lopsided smile.

"It's denim, so it's not that warm," he muttered, adjusting his jacket on your body, careful not to let his touch linger for too long. "But it appears you're in a more dire need of it than me."

You were already parting your lips to offer a reply, when the garage doors slid open, letting in a gust of freezing wind.

"Yo, Orion! The race's starting in like five minutes, man! Where'd you gone off to?"

A wave of utter disbelief washed over you in an instant, leaving you stiffened mid sip, as the man in front of you, Orion, shot the other a mean glance.

"Coming!" He redirected his gaze to you, awkwardly patting your jacket clad shoulder once in some type of reassurance. "Keep it. I'll come get it after the race."

"...Thanks." Your reply failed to reach Orion, as he was already squeezing past the garage doors, looking back only once, as if to check on your confused form. And then, he was gone.

Holy fucking shit.

Xavier could feel Jeremiah's voice through the earpiece, complete with the persistent buzzing and faint vibrations. Yet, he didn't hear a single word from it, and even if he would have, it certainly wouldn't stick around in his head long enough to be properly processed.

The steering wheel beneath his fingertips was burning hot, all the friction leaving their very own imprints on Xavier's skin. He had it under control. Jeremiah should have known that by now, that way maybe he'd lay off the excessive yelling.

The first words made out from all the surrounding noise reached Xavier's ears mere seconds before the Skyline sped past the finish line.

"Cops!" he said frantically. "The cops are here, Xavier, turn back around!"

The adrenaline that took over his body so unapologetically during the race, only intensified when he hit the brakes, stopping just a couple of steps away from you.

Body still clad in a denim jacket, his denim jacket, you were leaning against one of the cars parked by the garages, a flashy Mitsubishi owned by an even flashier driver who backed out last second after locking eyes with Xavier. The very same who now stood next to you, pressed against your side like a velcro tab, right arm sneaking under the jacket to hook around your waist.

The pre-police sweep frenzy separated you and Xavier in an instant, together with this delicate, slightly peculiar link you managed to establish back in the garages before the race. As he made his way to one of his hideouts, it was as though it kept tugging him back, clouding his judgement in a way he couldn't quite understand. But he urged himself to leave it alone, leave you alone, together with your bare shoulders and a man with a tawdry car who wouldn't even notice when they started shaking.

It was only when he finally got out of his Nissan and the brisk air enveloped his skin, that he realised he hadn't gotten his jacket back. And even though it wasn't of that much importance to him anyway, meaning he wouldn't really mind if you kept it, something was telling him that you had a different understanding of the subject. Which resulted in a swift realisation, one that, against his own better judgement, forced Xavier's heart to skip a couple of beats here and there.

He would, inevitably, see you again.

[etz-ashashiyot]

For those of you out there who have rejected Christianity as a religion and want to fully break with it, you have to understand that it's not just a religion, no matter how much it tries to say it is - there's a whole culture to it, too. Or, perhaps another way of understanding it is this: religion and culture used to be entirely inseparable and "faith" or "religion" were not coherent identities by themselves. Christianity changed that on a widespread level by pushing the idea of universal religion and evangelism.

Essentially, Christianity styled itself as the one singular truth that must be known and adopted by all peoples everywhere. By doing so, it necessarily severed any ties to one specific people, culture, land, or language, so that it could be practiced by all groups. Not only did this make it easier to sell to people because they didn't have to give up their whole identity, culture, language, and even certain belief systems, but it served the practical purpose of making it portable to every land and adaptable to become palatable to [almost] any demographic. [Jews are a little unique in this particular situation, because since Christianity appropriates from us so heavily, we already know how much of it doesn't work within its original framework.]

The problem is that this separation is, even in the case of Christianity, untrue. Having been raised in a Christian culture (especially if you were raised religiously Christian, but even if your connection to the religious tenets was minimal or non-existent) it creates a whole world view and value system that must be addressed in addition to faith in the religious tenets recognized internally by Christians.

If you view faith in the religious tenets of your assigned religion as being the only or even primary aspect of divorcing yourself from a particular religious outlook, then you are still using a Christian framework that is very obvious to those of us outside of it. There are a lot of things that cultural Christians might call "religious" that we view as simply being "cultural," and vice versa, because the separation is neither as sharp nor particularly important to us in the same way.

If you are truly looking to leave Christianity behind, you need to stop telling us your truth about faith is the only truth and start looking at the broader ways in which Christianity has filtered into your world view in order to root it out, if that is truly your goal.

(And if it's not? That's fine! You can be a cultural Christian who doesn't believe in the faith elements even if you take your culture and values from a Christian-based culture. But don't deny that's what you're doing because at that point you may have stopped evangelizing religious Christianity but you are still actively proselytizing for cultural Christianity by doing so.)

[thydungeongal]

I agree with pretty much your entire perspective on AI being largely a labor rights issue, but I think we shouldn't conveniently overlook other major issues relating to generative AI outside of economic misappplication. For example, scientific misinformation is running rampant in academic circles even compared to the already elevated levels of the COVID years, leading to massive delays and inaccuracies in vital fields. There's also been interesting research into the mounting medical malpractices of recent medical doctorate graduates paired with anonymous surveys of medical students indicating they are now more likely to use LLMs than not. AI is costing lives in very tangible ways and ignoring that doesn't help anyone's argument.

Oh for sure, that is also a real tangible problem with generative AI and specifically with the speed at which it has been implemented into places where it shouldn't be. But again, this is a different issue from "is the training of generative AI stealing." I think it's undeniable that there are many angles to generative AI being used in bad ways, but most of those are not intrinsic to the technology itself but how it has been implemented (and they intersect with the labor issues in the sense that all of these issues emerge from the incentives built within the same broken system).

[sophie-frm-mars]

The Cass Review, and what we can do about it

The UK government is making decisive moves toward banning trans healthcare outright. The NHS says it is adjusting its policies to be in line with the "cass report", a pseudoscientific report written by a transphobe that goes as far as to claim that little boys playing with trucks and little girls playing with dolls is biological, and which disregards dozens of scientifically sound previous studies into HRT and trans healthcare in order to reach its conclusions that trans healthcare for under 25s should be radically changed to discourage transition at every turn and make it as hard as possible for young people to transition.

These moves will kill countless young trans people. I would not have made it to 25 if healthcare wasn't available and I know so many other trans people wouldn't have either.

The mainstream reporting in the UK is keeping itself ideologically cohesive by claiming that trans people exist, nobody hates them, and they're very rare, and the big problem is the explosion of new cases of not-really-trans people who are clogging up the system (this is a lie, the system has been intentionally slowed by malicious neglect, it isn't even a resource issue, the clinics have far more capacity than the number of patients who are let through)

Once again, this is genocidal and is actually a commonplace methodology of genocide. The nazis asked GRT people to help them understand which Traveller families were "real" travellers and which were the fake ones, since they insisted it was only the fake ones who were the problem and who had to be exterminated (because a lot of nazi GRT policy was based on American indigenous reservation policy).

Labour, the main opposiiton party in the UK, has announced it will "follow the Cass Report", and implement these restrictions on trans healthcare once in government.

For the survival of young trans people, robust community structures must be developed immediately.

Efforts to change the electoral situation will proceed at a snail's pace and will be entirely at the whims of what is politically expedient. It will turn around, but it will take a long time. At the voting level, everyone in the UK who cares about trans people needs to make it clear that they won't vote for Labour unless they reverse position on this, and to be clear about this: Labour will not listen. They are PR Brained Psychopaths and they don't want to get into this "controversial" issue in a way that might cost them further popularity and the easy election win.

Wes Streeting, inhuman lab experiment and Labour Shadow Health Secretary has said that activists need to "stop protesting to ask us to be better opposition and start protesting to ask us to be better government", in other words their electoral promises are cynical reactionary bargains and deals to get them into power and the only point at which they will change anything is once they are in government, if at all. I know this sounds very "push Biden left" but I'm not saying give up now - to repeat, everyone who cares about trans people in the UK should tell Labour to get fucked right away, and then keep doing it as loudly as possible, but it's just not going to change until after the general election at least.

Another way to help could be through legal routes, like the work that The Good Law Project has been doing for trans people for several years now, but I don't know enough about the law to know if it can be used to challenge this at all.

We have to accept there is no electoral solution right now to this genocidal campaign against trans people in the UK, and while those efforts are ongoing trans people and cis allies need to fucking organise. Trans exclusive / separatist organising is riddled with issues, I don't want to cast hopelessness around but there are really very few of us and while it's absolutely necessary to privilege trans voices in trans organising and give us the deciding power and the autonomy, we need to utilise the support and time and labour of every cis person who is willing to help in whatever way they can.

Robust community structures means community structures that are helping young trans people get healthcare as an absolute basic starting point, but it means a lot more than that besides. We need community structures that are consciously organised by people who are taking responsibility for the community roles they are in and being completely explicit with each other about the nature and function of their organising. We need HRT community resources so young trans people can survive this medical segregation, we need drug user harm reduction spaces so that what people turn to in despair doesn't kill them, we need sober spaces so that people can get away from unhealthy coping responses, we need conflict resolution structures so that our problems are dealt with privately and nobody is left completely isolated, but more than any of those things, and in order to have all of those things, we desperately need trans assemblies

Assemblies are how we will get a community of robust radical organisers, because only by repeatedly practicing the ongoing process of democracy can people learn how to do it in a way that will facilitate their own organising. We have to empower the whole community to answer our own questions, come up with solutions, organise people into structures to enact those solutions and then do them. All this means is that an open door event convenes frequently (at least fortnightly) to discuss what is happening in the community. Trans people get the mic for allotted time, and discuss the issues, and then whatever voting structure the assembly uses facilitates further discussion, for example through working groups - the assembly breaks into smaller groups to discuss the topic and then representatives report the outcomes of those discussions back and consensus is reached from what the representatives report.

We have to get people engaging in this process because in order to effectively combat this situation trans people must agree on the solutions and then tell cis allies how to help and so far we haven't been doing that. We really really haven't been. But we could be with a little work. And as I'm saying, doing this will also empower everyone in the community to organise toward specific solutions for specific issues like HRT provision, sober spaces, housing, food, etc.

fuck

I'll have more to add to this post later I have to get to therapy I just got really mad when I saw the news this morning

[centrally-unplanned]

Since we're back on star wars discussion anyway, I remember you saying something like the prequels messing up by making the time between the fall of the republic and new hope too short. Now I'm interested how you'd solve it instead: Luke would have to be born a decent time after fall of the republic, is that what you mean? Completely new canvas basically?

Yes, Luke should be born a good stretch after the fall of the Republic, and it should be something of a new canvas. This, imo, is not something that needs a lot of world-building, instead a sort of narrative "courage" to kill some instinctive assumptions. In reality, just like the time between the wars is too short, the civil war itself is too short - not really the kind of thing that seems like it would have the "scope" to so radically change society, to make everyone in the Senate & Galaxy so accepting of and complicit in militant authoritarianism. The Clone Wars are only 3 years long! And in the prequels even that is honestly very "word of god" - you would never guess that based on what you see in the movies. Anakin having an entire Padawan-Master relationship with Ashoka in between the 2nd and 3rd films is kinda laughable, events seem much shorter.

It is very easy to envision a much longer conflict, an endless conflict, one that grinds on with new fronts, constantly justifying increasing levels of rising militancy and control (Palpatine himself would be secretly throwing key battles or funding insurgencies in order to prolong the conflict, for example). A whole new generation of military leaders would be raised in the system as true believers. The Rebellion would itself be Just Another Violent Episode until they blow up the Death Star and that whole sequence of events radically shifts the balance of power. This is what A New Hope looks like when you see it.

(You can ofc envision a different approach, one where the war is the length it is - or even one where the time is much less, where the Empire is brand new, a violent coup led by zealots radically pivoting from ideological purge to crushed insurgency. But then the polished, bureaucratic professionalism etc of A New Hope doesn't track)

The reason this isn't the case is that Luke needed to be born before Anakin fell. That is silly for two reasons. One...why? Darth Vader can't fuck? This is the kill-your-assumptions part; Darth Vader did not need to "start" broken and decayed in the suit. That can be a slow process - honestly, I think we all assumed it *was* a slow process in the original films, the Dark Side eating away at him over time. A mid-30' s scarred-but-fit (and hot, obvi) Darth Vader could absolutely have seduced an ambitious, grey-morality rising senatorial star in order to breed an "heir to the empire", who balks at the intensifying level of fascism at the last moment and flees with their children into the Rebellion. Or something, right? This just isn't a problem. Evil people have sex and families. I don't need to explain this.

The other way is that Anakin Skywalker didn't need to become Darth Vader at the launch of the empire. As Andor outlines, there is no one launch of the empire - the Senate is still powerful in the middle eras. Anakin could have been born later, seduced by Palpatine at a key moment in his own life. Or he could have fought the Empire for years, and had his hope chipped away, falling to the dark side as a grizzled veteran. There are a lot of options here.

Now the latter option radically changes the prequels - you can't line up "the fall of Anakin" with "the fall of the republic" and "the death of the Jedi" in one neat line. I don't care about that personally, but I get it, you wanna tell that story. The former option lets you still do that, Anakin can kill the Jedi, it just means he probably doesn't have a love story as his motivating B plot for the whole thing. Fortunately for us, that B plot sucked! Everyone hated that romance; it was coarse and rough, and narratively got everywhere, screwing up the prequels. Ditching it and focusing on Anakin's personal values, ambitions, and relationship with Obi-wan would have been way better. You could even keep Padme and have her just Be Hot And Evil and support Anakin's turn, and they have a kid later! My idea fucks, 10/10, no notes.

[politics-pandemonium]

Somebody Just Fucking Shoot Him Already

I really can't with this circus anymore. The fact that things have even gotten this far is just beyond absurd. Republicans shouldn't be allowed to vote anymore. Frankly anyone that voted for Trump should be tried for treason for aiding and enabling a dictator to get into the white house. I get that denying people the right to vote is pretty much in the same vein as what Trump is trying to do, but I can justify it by saying that Republicans are no longer voting in good faith.

Republicans are just traitors to the US entirely at this point, therefore their votes should no longer matter if they're voting to hurt others. The "I didn't know this would happen" excuse is just that. A fucking excuse. They knew it was gonna happen, just not to them, so when it came back and bit them in the ass, they had the audacity to actually cry about it, further proving that they voted in bad faith. Purely to cause harm to others. They WEAPONIZED their vote. You absolutely should not have the right to vote if your vote is cast with the express purpose of harming/suppressing others. Frankly, options with the potential to harm others shouldn't even be allowed to be voted on period.

This also isn't just an issue with the people. It's also an issue with our fucked up politicians putting measures into our ballots that grant the shittiest people the option to weaponize their votes. Politicians should not be allowed to be putting shit that can have the potential to harm anyone into law or on a ballot and should be relieved of their position immediately. No questions asked. You propose a bill that threatens to cause harm to communities, minorities, etc, bolster the power of a company or CEO at a political level, then your career in politics should absolutely come to an end right then and there regardless of what party you're involved with.

Voting on LGBTQ+/POC rights and equality? No. That's not something that should be put to a vote. Someone will always be an absolute piece of shit and have a problem with someone else for whatever personal bullshit because of their lifestyle, the color of their skin, etc. People are people regardless of color, orientation, creed, religion, etc. You treat everyone with fairness and equality. You don't put an option on people's ballots that allow them to vote for anything that harms anyone like removing LGBTQ+ individuals' rights to marry the person they love. They get everything that every "normal" white fucking citizen gets and then you leave them the fuck alone. When was the last time we had to vote whether white people should be out in the cotton fields? What about when heterosexuals should be allowed marry?

Education? Another something that shouldn't be voted on unless it's how to move forward with improving the educational system. Not whether or not to move forward or backward. That should only be improving and getting better in one of X ways presented with no harm to the system or the people involved in the system itself.

Government assistance? This country, any country, ceases to exist without its people. The government's job by default is to take care of and watch over its people whether that's protecting them and their rights or providing assistance to those in need. Not letting people slip through the cracks and acting like it didn't happen, blatantly ignoring entire fucking groups being targeted by racist sacks of shit that should be in cells and not out in society causing harm to it, or protecting companies and CEOs whom have made it their fucking life mission to cause harm to the people that work at their companies.

Health care? The absolute fuck? You want your employees to be healthy so the government or your business can run, right? Cause you don't know how to do one of your low-level employees' jobs. You want another lockdown because people were being stupid and didn't want to wear a mask of all the fucking things? Then you vote for universal healthcare and only improvements upon it.

Wages? Are you fucking kidding me? Why is that even subject to a vote? People need to live. Wages absolutely need to fluctuate with inflation and allow everyone to be able to live at the bare minimum. You want the economy to die? Not allowing people to have money to spend to fucking feed the goddamn economy that's about to slam face-first into the motherfucking ground because of that orange piece of shit and his cabinet of cocksuckers along with that fucking nazi is a great way to tank it. As well as just letting a complete and absolute sociopathic fucking dictator run the country.

No one should present or be given the opportunity to vote in bad faith or to harm someone.

There is always going to be some piece of shit out there who's going to want their black neighbor across the street hanging from their tree on their front lawn.

There is always going to be some piece of shit out there that's going to want to tie a gay kid to the back of their bumper and drive down the road, dragging them along the ground on the way.

There is always going to be some piece of shit out there that thinks that their god is the only one that matters and everyone else should follow their belief system.

There is always going to be some piece of shit out there that wants to make money but doesn't want to work as hard for it, and also doesn't want to pay the people that enable that lifestyle a fair wage.

There is always going to be some piece of shit out there that wants to come into power and fuck the country up from the inside out, and allow people to help him by inviting them into the system to assist in destroying it.

It's fucked that people like this exist and that that'll never change, even if they are given all the means to live a wonderful and healthy life, all the while screaming that it's someone's fault that something isn't happening for them because they're not being allowed to hurt other people.

They shouldn't be given the chance to vote to get their wish, nor should they be given the chance to allow someone like that to get it.

So I say this with my full chest:

If you're a Republican, you're a piece of shit. You have no place in this country, you have no business running it, you are despicable and disgusting voting in favor of the downfall of others because of the color of their skin, race, religion, orientation, etc, especially when you're so short-sighted that you can't see how that'll come back to bite you in your stupid ass until it actually does, like it is right now.

And if you're thinking something along the lines of "who the fuck are you to make that sort of claim?" or "What makes you qualified to make such claims?" guess what?

I'm the guy that wants to fix this miserable country and keep it fixed so that the bullshit that's happening right now, in realtime, causing me to make these claims in the first place, doesn't keep happening or happen again. So shut the fuck up and help me fix this shit or get the fuck out of my way and out of this country, because you don't belong here if your goal is to seek to destroy it and the best way to go about fixing it is to start cutting out the rot and filth that made its way into our government.

[masteraqua]

let's talk about radiant garden!

hello and welcome back to another installment of KH3 Retry, my chaotic thought experiment where i try to fix everything i hate about the game

i've said it before and i'll say it again: radiant garden should have been the playable hub world instead of twilight town. there are so many plot threads wrapped up in this world, so many paths that cross here, and it's a shame that kh3 never bothered to explore them in any meaningful way

instead, all of the world's depth is flattened into set dressing for tedious exposition, with all the things that made it memorable either cut entirely or moved to twilight town, a poor substitute which is itself lacking in any meaningful development

so let's talk about it! i have a veritable mountain of ideas for what radiant garden could have been like in a universe where it continued to matter after bbs

take my hand

even beyond the general lack of final fantasy in kh3, which is its own can of worms, brushing the restoration committee aside and reducing all of their hard work to an unplayable HD recreation of the bbs map is downright bleak. as much as nomura wants to, you can't just sweep legacy characters under the rug and expect me to forget about them. i'm glad they at least got to appear in re:mind, but it doesn't change the fact that their absence feels like a massive, gaping hole in reality, like the universe has written them out of existence. i'm sure sora can relate

the problem is best summed up by ienzo:

yeah. that's called regression, and it sucks.

so on that note, please disregard (almost) everything that happens in radiant garden in kh3, because we are starting from scratch babeyyyy!!!

this got really long so i broke it down into sections covering different topics

-----

introduction

the town, finally livable again, looks not quite like the utopia of its past, but still beautiful, with the gardens of its namesake in full bloom and the streets filled with smiling faces

the debris has been cleared away to make room for zigzagging rows of houses and apartments, all built in a mish-mash of styles, sizes, and colors—a mosaic of the lives lived outside of this world. from a distance, the vast array of colors resembles a flowerbed, vibrant and alive

baskets of multicolored flowers hang from windows and the beginnings of vines grow around corners. now that the aqueduct system has been restored, life has really begun to flourish all around

patchwork stone walls and bridges weave through the town and line the border. outside the city walls, the water levels have risen and settled, but you can still see remnants of crumbling, moss-covered architecture poking through the surface

finally: the castle, once a pristine but imposing fortress, has been repurposed as a community center. the gates and guards have been removed so that the townspeople can visit freely, and indeed the balconies and halls are usually busy. just like the rest of town, plants bloom in abundance along its facade, nurtured by the light

the library has been reopened and other public services have moved into the castle to help with day to day life. however, some areas are closed off to the public for safety reasons

-----

characters

we'll start with cid—a brand new helipad and gummi garage have been built into one of the castle's tallest towers, and, naturally, he's in charge! now that the restoration is complete, he can focus on his true passion: flying contraptions :) he offers special blueprints for completing gummi ship challenges (including races, maybe??). he also runs a revamped gummi shop, with assistance from chip and dale

speaking of chip and dale, they've been busy. on top of inventing the gummiphone, they've also set up an inter-world network to connect the computers in disney castle and radiant garden, among other places, so they can share data, including the data from jiminy's journals

as a result, data riku gets a cameo as the equivalent of the network's clippy

over in the castle's lab, ienzo and leon are sorting through all of ansem the wise's notes for anything that might help sora or the town. they're working together, but the alliance is...uneasy. ienzo, dilan, and aeleus were, of course, with the people who kidnapped and experimented on civilians before inviting the darkness that destroyed everything. leon only agrees to their involvement on the condition that he supervises, and he always keeps his gunblade within reach

while leon manages the lab, yuffie manages aeleus and dilan as captain of the guard—or, as she calls it, Supreme Ninja Guardian. goofy congratulates her on the promotion! the two men don't particularly enjoy reporting to a teenager, but they also don't put up a fight because yuffie is actually quite reliable despite her antics, and she knows the town like the back of her hand. mainly they deal with any stray heartless that the claymore defense sytem doesn't catch. they feel that it's the least they can do

back in town, a new and improved shopping district has opened up, which is where you'll find aerith's gardening shop! you can trade her common cooking ingredients for specialty ones that she grows herself. when she's not running the shop, she's usually tending to the flowers around town or helping with the community garden

merlin's house hasn't changed, but it has moved, as is his tendency. it's now situated in a park on the outskirts of town, away from all the hubbub. since it's no longer being used as a base of operations, all the computer junk has been excised so he can finally have some peace and quiet. he's recently come into possession of a new project, which we'll get into later

after the events of this game, when ansem the wise has returned to radiant garden, he retires to live out the remainder of his days in peace, leaving the lab in ienzo's hands. the town has moved on without him and has no need for the rulers of its past. his former apprentices, especially ienzo, visit him from time to time, and i think he'd get on well with merlin

-----

axel and kairi

okay so axel and kairi! remember how both of them are from radiant garden? well instead of locking the two of them in a hyperbolic time chamber while the plot stalls out, how about letting them hang out here and bond over the things they have in common?

imagine axel's history with me. lea knew kairi's grandma as the kind old lady down the road who would hand out treats to all the neighborhood kids. he and isa once played a childish prank on her and got in heaps of trouble with their parents. they had to apologize to her in front of a crowd, which convinced them to never pull a stunt like that again (instead, they pivoted toward sneakier, much more dangerous stunts)

axel is also roughly the same age as leon (based on kh1 concept art and inference) so they probably went to school together, though they hung out with different crowds. leon remembers lea as an obnoxious class clown, but axel remembers squall as a broody punk. i think they'd get along now. imagine the banter

since they're not doing any dumb keyblade training

axel takes kairi on a tour of the town and shows her where her grandmother's house was. unfortunately, the lot is now empty, having been cleared of the wreckage. as tribute, kairi picks some of the nearby flowers and lays them in the place it used to stand

her conversations with axel help to clear up some of her hazy memories, which is something she's always been a little scared to do, but now something for which she's grateful. axel's just glad that he's doing something good for once

as kairi's happy memories begin to resurface, so too do the bad ones, and eventually they lead her deep within the castle to the ark where xehanort upended her life. she finds another one of xehanort's reports here with cryptic hints about what his intentions really were—something related to what he calls "the other side" of light and darkness

this concept is vaguely familiar to ienzo as something he overheard in the castle as a child, but he doesn't know any more about it. with any luck, something will turn up in ansem's notes

and then there's subject x, the girl axel and saix befriended inside the castle as children. i'll talk more about this further down

-----

gameplay

one of the defining features of the rebuilt radiant garden is that all the new architecture allows for a variety of ways to get around. you can take the stairs and bridges, of course, but you can also glide along the aqueducts, climb over rooftops, and swing across steel beams

i have a specific vision of being able to parkour your way up and down the outside of the castle on a series of jungle gym contraptions

it should also be noted that i have nothing but disdain for kh3's wall running ability, as i feel it takes all the fun out of platforming, so go ahead and pretend that doesn't exist

in addition to the gardening shop, the new shopping district houses the item, weapon, and accessory shops (manned by, who else, donald's nephews) as well as a moogle emporium for synthesis and keyblade upgrades

i'm also moving remi and the bistro here since twilight town is getting the axe. nothing else about them or the cooking minigames is changing, because they're fun and cute and i like them as is <3 i think scrooge decided to open shop here to stimulate the town's burgeoning economy. it's his way of helping

the outdoor movie theater can come too since it's related to the classic kingdom minigames. just stick it in a corner somewhere

-----

the castle

while the castle was being renovated, leon and the others uncovered even more secret passages, because this building is a lovecraftian nightmare. this is one of the areas barred off from the general public, but leon says that sora can go check it out whenever he has time. he might even join the party? 🤔

the passages lead deep into the earth and appear to be so old that ansem the wise may not have even known they existed

i've gotta tread lightly when it comes to lore that might be overturned in the future, but basically i want this to be an optional dungeon, à la cavern of remembrance, that hints at a connection to scala ad caelum and/or daybreak town. but the specifics are undecided

maybe the dark inferno boss can be moved here?? gotta think more about that one

also related to exploring the castle, i think we should get to see the chamber of repose and the prison cells connected to it, possibly by way of the new passages. both of these things play a role in the story

the chamber represents the part of xemnas that remembers being terra, which is something i want to flesh out more in this AU, to give xemnas more of an identity than master xehanort's goon. perhaps he and anti-aqua (see here for details) have a confrontation? imagine aqua discovering her armor in xemnas's secret clubhouse, imagine how conflicted she'd feel about him being her enemy

as for the prison...

-----

subject x

the prison cells once housed a girl known only by the designation of "subject x," a girl whom team nort seems very interested in these days

when subject x vanished, apprentice xehanort's experiments were brought to an abrupt halt. now, ansem SoD, ever the scientist, is spearheading the search to find the test subject that got away so he can finally complete the research he started all those years ago

saix, meanwhile, has been waiting for this opportunity since the day he joined the organization, and so volunteers to assist. if he plays his cards right, he may be able to kill two birds with one stone: find his friend, and commit subterfuge

but while ansem SoD is convinced that his old master had something to do with the girl's disappearance, saix is more perceptive. he had never trusted xigbar to begin with, but now the man is acting even more suspicious whenever the topic arises

at some point i want saix to go pester axel and try to deliver a covert message about the organization's plans, including subject x. he's a double agent, after all

axel doesn't have much reason to trust saix, but he takes the hint and goes to check the prison cell where they talked to her. what he finds is evidence that she must have been taken by someone within the castle, i.e. a keycard or something

basically i want saix and axel to have a more active role in this plot thread, seeing as it's the reason they joined the organization in the first place

unfortunately the subject x stuff can't really be resolved in this game since we still don't know her identity for sure. but since she's definitely from the union x era, i'm thinking maybe i can leave a clue in that optional dungeon, along with all the other stuff related to the age of fairytales

-----

hundred acre woods

also when those secret passages in the castle were uncovered, they found something else of interest: another volume of the winnie the pooh books, which merlin has been studying. it's in pretty bad condition, and while he's been trying to restore it, he's hit a wall, and so asks sora to check it out from the inside

inside, sora discovers that the books contain a shared universe, but the pathway to the first book is blocked due to the damage to the book's structure

it's implied that there's a whole series of these books, which merlin has been trying to collect for millenia

i'm cutting the entire plot of kh3's hundred acre woods because it goes nowhere and i hate it. what i would like to do is find a way to shoehorn in the plot of the tigger movie, but i haven't thought it through

in any case, you can count on more minigames 💃

-----

miscellaneous thoughts that didn't fit anywhere else

i wonder how riku feels about being back in the castle where he experienced his darkest moments. i go back and forth about this

in case you're wondering, my headcanon is that cloud isn't from radiant garden. i haven't decided if he's showing up in this AU, but if he does, it'll be in a different world. maybe he keeps in touch with aerith though?

with all that said, i would be down for a rinoa cameo! kh2 got my hopes up ;__;

i have an inkling of a potential tron/rinzler cameo by virtue of the bug blox appearing in san fransokyo. haven't worked through all that though. maybe the inter-world network intercepts a rogue signal that corrupts some data in the hollow bastion OS or something, idk

speaking of which, i know i also want to loop yen sid in to the network, simply because i never want to see the inside of his tower ever again. this could have been an email etc. etc. and if i have anything to say about it, it will be

i guess i could connect twilight town as well, but the problem is that nothing happens there, which is why i wanted to remove it in the first place

[chiisana-sukima]

What's your opinion on the take that Sam is always running away?

The short answer is I think spn's ethics are insane.

The longer answer is that if you did a rewatch and counted up all the times that Sam objectively "runs away" from a problem/his family/etc and all the times Dean "runs away" from the same, I'm not sure who would actually win. But I do think the narrative frames Sam as the one who runs, and that, over the long term, it treats "running away" as his cardinal sin.

For example, when Dean runs away from his mistakes in Road Trip, the narrative does frame that as immature and self-destructive, and punishes him with the Mark of Cain. But by s11, this is reframed briefly as a "we" problem in s11a (Sam: "if we don't change, right now, all of our crap is just gonna keep repeating itself") and then never held against Dean personally thereafter. Whereas Sam's equivalent attempt at running away--the s4 demon blood arc--continues to be held against him by the narrative until at least 13x21 (Cas: we let Lucifer out of the Cage.)

Even more interestingly, at least to me, with the exception of Stanford, the narrative also tends to treat Dean's episodes of running away from Sam as "abandoning" him, but Sam's episodes of running away from Dean as "betraying" Dean.

This is Dean abandoning Sam to his fate as Lucifer's vessel. The narrative punishment is extreme, but not only does Dean get a do over in the same episode and it never comes up again, but the quote is remembered by fandom primarily as a quote about how close they are. And I do think that's borne out by the narrative. If Dean abandons Sam, the world will literally end.

Meanwhile though:

When Sam screws up with Dean, he's betraying him. The problem isn't just that Sam is an addict or that he ran away from Dean's attempt to forcibly detox him for his own somewhat questionable "good", but that he did so with a demon whore. It's portrayed as a personal betrayal in a way that Dean abandoning Sam to Lucifer is not.

In some ways, Sam is even the more steadfast brother. He may physically leave Dean at times but he never stops believing in Dean's capacity for good. When it's his turn to lock Dean in the panic room because Dean gives up and runs to destruction at the hands of Michael, he doesn't do it. And in the Mark of Cain arc, he affirms that even if Dean kills him, he accepts it as necessary and still believes Dean is a good man.

Which brings me to spn's ethics and fandom's response.

If there's one single thing that spn is entirely, completely, one hundred percent consistent on, it's that tumblr is wrong. You can't just walk out; leaving is always wrong and will usually end the world. It's wrong if it's temporarily for the evening because you'd like to have Thanksgiving dinner and your family doesn't do that, or for four years because you want to go to college, or for forever because all your remaining loved ones have been killed before your eyes, or if it's only a partial withdrawal because you want better boundaries in the face of years of violence and autonomy violations. (To be clear, spn thinks the violence and autonomy violations are wrong too; it's just especially adamant that the only appropriate response is self-sacrifice.) The only reason Sam is finally allowed to temporarily leave in the finale is because he so obviously no longer wants to.

And all of this, to be completely blunt, is batshit fucking crazy. And I mean that in the clinical technical sense of the word. As a system of ethics it's an enormous mess, as a behavioral guide it's guaranteed to result in inappropriate assignment of blame and unnecessary suffering, and it's hard to interpret it all for me personally as anything but a response to trauma.

I do think that on an emotional level there's something wildly compelling about it though, and it's fiction, after all, so there's nothing wrong with it as a fantasy. The idea that if only you could prove your loyalty strongly enough your family would finally accept you, flaws and all, is an impossible wish many of us have spent a lot of our real lives trying to actualize. And seeing it happen on screen when it can't happen irl can be cathartic, much like revenge stories can be cathartic even though irl revenge is a terrible idea. The vibes are, in short, without flaw.

The thing that's hard for me though is remembering that everyone irl grows at their own speed. Not everyone is in a position to cleanly separate their emotional enjoyment of a plotline or theme from their intellectual calculus about whether or not it makes any fucking sense--especially when those plotlines or themes are about violence, betrayal, abandonment, and abuse. And it's hard for me to remember sometimes that huge swathes of meta aren't actually the result of [insert negative judgement here] but are just reflective of a different series of experiences than the ones I happen to have had.

Honestly I find it frustrating. I wish people would be better about separating out what the story is saying from what they think of that message themselves. I feel like the format of fandom meta is often kind of a disaster. It adopts an authoritative, academic tone, but is usually actually used to express personal feelings and wishes without acknowledging that it's doing that.

It's not that I think people should have to disclose their personal experiences to write meta--on the contrary, sometimes that's helpful but sometimes it just makes it worse. Rather, I wish people would get in the habit of using more "I" statements and acknowledging their subjectivity more overtly. Back in the days when dinos roamed the earth and I was an undergrad, I learned that the use of the third person passive voice in academic writing is a political choice. It grants the illusion of more authority and objectivity than actually exists. I wish fandom would take up my professor's call to abandon it to some extent and say "I feel hurt that Sam left Dean alone with John to go to college" rather than "Sam is always running away".

[eternalmomentss]

To touch on the topic of a Dorian novel/comic, honestly lately I've been thinking that the entire Wyvernwind family or Silken Squall itself could use an extended lore/story book.

We know bits and pieces of the history and culture of the Squall and Dorian's family that sound incredibly intriguing. To name a few I could see them exploring more:

That time Dorian's people "fell". Dorian mentioned that very, very briefly in EXU but it really makes me wonder what he meant. Especially connected to the Wyvernwind's cloistered and careful nature and a certain level of distrust concerning the outside world.

In general, the whole story of why and when the Squall was founded. We know it was to unite scattered Air Genasi and offer guidance, but I want the whole history lesson.

The nature of the Squall's "authoritarian" system. I am talking customs, titles (Cyrus and Dorian being firstsun, secondsun etc., what are their parent's titles?), traditions, events, celebrations...

The Wyvernwind's (Nephele and Zeru) own excursions and how it affected their view on the world and the way they raised their future sons. As it seems, their travels ended badly and they didn't have a good experience with it, so they kept Cyrus and Dorian from leaving as best they could for as long as they could.

Nephele and Zeru's relationship and individual character. How did they meet? What is their dynamic? How do they rule together?

Cyrus' and Dorian's childhood, their connection to their parents and tutors, upbringing and life in the Squall. Their strict rules, education, the zone of truths, the focus on Cyrus and the two sons growing apart...and much more concerning their family dynamic and Dorian slowly growing impatient and lonely, desperate to express himself and find his own identity. It seems like especially Zeru was much harder on Dorian than Cyrus.

Additionaly, their allies and ties to Zephrah and the Air Ashari in particular.

The Squall's general connection to and caution toward "outsiders" and what exactly that means. Dorian said that most people are not allowed to enter, only under strict guard or with an invitation of the family. Cyrus is (was) seemingly not allowed to marry outside the community, and that one time it seemed like an intruder was killed "immediately" on the spot during a court dance event. What is up with that?

Dorian's future. Is he going to go back? Is there a way to somehow reform the Squall the way Dorian always dreamed of (he once told Cyrus in Kymal that he would like to open up the world to their people)? Is his relationship with Orym a problem? What about heirs and the succession line? Could they eventually rule together?

What I am saying is: the Silken Squall and the Wyvernwind family who founded it, WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT?

[animalsalvationassociation]

The Spectator . . .

The Spectator as he was dutifully named, is an illustrious character amongst the community. Not only does he appear to have his claws in every syndicate, main stream gang, and every Black Market trade in the world, but he also seems to know a little too much about how things function within the A.S.A.'s inner workings.

Now the people, or civilians, don't know this. The UN and the A.S.A. have worked very hard to make sure that his name doesn't mingle within the main stream media. For good measure too as that would expose him as an international threat, and that's the opposite of what anyone wants.

He is the main villain of this story.

What do we know?

He hides in plain sight, whoever this man is, he's very good at blending in. Getting in and out of government facilities without anyone noticing. Traveling all across the world without a single blinking an eye, that is until it's too late and his work has already been finished.

Although, his work in the real world isn't as prominent as his work in the virtual world. Whether he himself is a tech genius or someone in his control, they know the ins and out of any system that's ever existed within modern technology. You know the expression, "I know this like the back of my hand?" well you could say he lives by that saying.

Now no one has ever actually seen his face, but they have heard his voice. A very enhanced and frankly hard to decode version that is. The Spectator has shown on more than one occasion that he's easily capable of taking hold of whatever situation comes his way. And even more capable of making it harder for everyone else to do their jobs. Especially the Octonauts.

Why do I bring them up? Well more recently, although we know he loves to toy with the other branches of the A.S.A. (cough cough, Safari Solutions, cough cough), the Octonauts have far advanced their efforts in helping the environment than the others.

They've created massive machines fit to do the simplest of tasks in the shortest amount of time. Not only have they created these machines, these "gups", but they have also advanced to building an entire artificial reef that, if we're being honest, could rival a city.

Adding to that they have now created their own program (The Octo-Agents), connecting people all around the world to help in the event of natural disasters, injured/sick Wilds, or any claimed "emergency" that deems itself worthy of their attention.

[ Wilds - Creatures who are "less evolved" than the modern image, or have chosen to live outside of the bounds of modern societies. ]

Now that might be a problem for a man who's seems so keen on keeping up a certain image, preferring the upper hand. A man who likes his figurines to be arranged in a certain order on his shelf. A man who doesn't care for people who undo what he's already sought out to create . . .

A man who . . . doesn't mind getting his hands dirty.

Affiliations:

We know he has his claws in the pool, but we don't know how far they reach. His influence has only been affecting the world for over a decade while others only recently have begun to show signs of loyalty.

The most prominent organizations would be . . .

The Black Ice Clan, run and directed by a man named Black Tack. A ever looming organization that's taken hold of the Northern Hemisphere, specifically within the Atlantic Ocean. Their methods are chilling to say the least. No one knows exactly how they've kept control for so long, but that's not to say anyone is eager to dethrone them either. [ Danger Level: 10 ]

The Jersey Gang, a rather up and coming group that has more recently taken hold of the lower swells of Zootopia, although their origins lie in Latin America and Japan. Not as prominent or notable as others who had their time in the sun, but they've proven useful in recent events. They are directed by a man by the name of Capone Redsurge. [ Danger Level: 8 ]

That just leaves. . .

The Order of the Light . . .

Somehow this organization is even more illusive than its competitors. No one is sure what it is or who runs it. But one thing is for sure, it may very well be the most dangerous group in the world.

[ Danger Level: 11 ]

Others:

It's not always clear which allies the Spectator chooses, and it's even harder to know if they even know him at all. In the past there have been claims, some gangs even worship his name although they've never actually come into contact with him. But there are some notable names that the A.S.A. likes to keep an eye on . . .

Professor Julias Copper . . . Investor & Chairman of the A.S.A.

Status: Supervised

Old Colleague of Professor Kelp, Known to be less reliable on the A.S.A.'s behalf.

[ Danger Level: 5 ]

Mr. King . . . Organizer, Promoter, & the Main Investor of the Rimba Grand Prix (RGP)

Status: Supervised

Currently under supervision by the IBD or International Bureau of Defense — Being Investigated for the death of Mr. Riq Harimau

[ Danger Level: 5 ]

Roxy Raider . . . International Thief

Status: Missing

Currently under the charge of Larceny, Embezzlement, Extortion, and a slew of other fraudulent activities.

(Previous) Partnership with the Crimson Paw — Status: No longer speaking . . .

Enemy of C.L.A.D.E.

[ Danger Level: 8 ]

The Crimson Paw . . . International Thief

Status: Reformed

(No longer in league with The Spectator)

Legal Name: Diane Foxington — Govenor of Los Angeles, California

Affiliated with the up and coming, " Bad Guys " — Relationship Unclear

[ Danger Level: 8 ]

Dr. Octavius Brine . . . Geneticist, Experimental Scientist, International Menace

Status: In Hiding

Legal Name: David the Octopus (Dave)

Enemies with North Wind

[ Danger Level: 9 ]

Dawn Bellwether . . . Former Mayor of Zootopia & Cause of the Nightcrawler Outbreak

Status: Imprisoned

"Prey" Activist . . . Being Charged for Attempted Murder and the Transportation/Mistreatment of Nightcrawler Toxins

[ Danger Le͉͎̱̗͖͙̼͍ͪͪ̽̑͊́͢v̷̩̣̗̩͇̦̠͈̥̻̗̣͚̺̎͂̀́̏̀̕e̒ͦ̇̈҉͙͓̳ͩ̃͛̊̒̄͞҉̖͚̪͙l̤̯̞͖ͦ̈ͬ̀: ̹̗͉̹̣̦̤̤̦͗̾̀̐5̙͙̙̘͕͉̹ͩ͂̽ͧͨ ]

⋘ 𝙎𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 ⋙

⋘ 𝑳𝒐𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑫𝒂𝒕𝒂 ⋙

⚠ 𝑬𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓 ⚠

⋘ ↻ 𝑹𝒆𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒉 ↻ ⋙

⋘ 𝙎𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 ⋙

⋘ 𝑳𝒐𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑫𝒂𝒕𝒂 ⋙

Jasper & Garnétte . . . Heads of the Opaline Emporium & Parlor

Status: Unknown

Two brothers with a deep understanding of the higher markets.

Heirs to the Johar Family, a cabal rooted heavily in both São Paulo, Brazil & Mumbai, India.

Wanted for First Degree Murder, Arson, and Larceny — Known to deal in Black Market Trades in high end gemstones.

No Further Information Available

[ Danger Level: 10 ]

p0nd_5k473r . . . Master Hacker & Dark Web Specialist

Status: Unknown

Tech Specialist — Cause Unknown

Legal Name: Stacy Rana Phrynee

[ Danger Level: 8 ]

Smokes . . . Leader of the Backyard Bruisers

Status: Unknown

High Ranking Gangster

No Further Information Available

Legal Name: Mateo Crudele

[ Danger Level: 9 ]

The Mad Hatter Trio . . . Master Thieves, Hackers,

Status: Unknown

Legal Names: Sean McCauley, Casey Hackney, Mallory Hughes

Sean (Hatter) — Methods Unclear, Currently identified as the leader of the group.

Casey (March Hare) — Loose Cannon, Dangerous to work with, Unpredictable, Weapons

Mallory (Dormouse) — Careful & Precise, Calculated Assailant, Hacker

No Further Information Available

[ Danger Lev̷̩̣̗̩͇̦̠͈̥̻̗̣͚̺̎͂̀́̏̀̕e̒ͦ̇̈҉͙͓̳ͩ̃͛̊̒̄͞҉̖͚̪͙l̤̯̞͖ͦ̈ͬ̀: ̱̘̦̏̄ͧ͂͆͘͞1͕͇̱̙͈̂̾̿̈͒ͅ0̧̢̱̯̺͓̜̳̗̗ͨ͐̔͆]

⋘ 𝙎𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 ⋙

⋘ 𝑳𝒐𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑫𝒂𝒕𝒂 ⋙

. . .

Hello.

Y.N.

:)

⋘ 𝙎𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 ⋙ ⚠ 𝑬𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓 ⚠ ⋘ 𝑺𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑳𝒐𝒔𝒕 ⋙

[ See " The Villains of the A.S.A. " for Reference ]

[ Official Crossover List ]

(Redesigns Coming Soon)

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale talks: Plot hole types

In the course of long running fiction, every work at some point experiences some sort of Plot hole.

Which as defined as an inconsistency in the narrative or character development of a book, film, television show, etc.

Now to me, a plot hole can vary on how much it impacts a story. And for that I came up with various levels of Plot hole types.

Level one: Pin hole: This is the minuscule stuff, like maybe a location is not as close, or a timing related event. It’s not really even a plothole but more of a nit pick. Maybe a character didn’t have a certain item they have now. Could even be a miscolor of an item. It’s the tiny stuff that only the most hyper focused of people would even notice.

Level two: Poked hole: a bit higher than tiny details. It’s a bit noticeable. Like a character being there at a time they shouldn’t. Or a power working in a different way than it should. Now it’s only a one or two time thing and often early on in the fictions development. It could be something that grows, but odds are often that it won’t be repeated.

Level 3: Foot hole: It’s a plot hole that can actually trip you up. Something that could be a problem later down the road. Like a character able to do something that wasn’t mentioned before. Or an item that did one thing does something entirely different. Or a character knowing/doing something they shouldn’t be able to do.

Level 4: Pitfall: This is the type of stuff that starts to break the plot itself. Characters doing or acting in a way that goes against what was established. Random power ups, out of left field assistance, whole events that occurred get ignored or removed without reason. A rule of the universe gets flaunted or dismissed entirely for the sake of a scene.

Level 5: Sinkhole: Similar to a Pitfall but with more than one of these factors into play. A character becoming entirely different, a change to the power system for no reason. And more. It’s catching cars and busses in this thing. But despite it there is still some semblance of plot there.

Level 6: Crater: Multiple Sinkholes are present and it’s starting to get very hard to ignore. Likely can be pointed to one event in the plot that ruined the cohesion. But for the brave can still power through. And there are still lines of plot that can still be enjoyed.

Level 7: Canyon: multiple plot craters. It’s very hard to traverse. Characters are more inconsistent than consistent. The plot is basically a rickety bridge that is barely holding on. Only few people are able to traverse this and Fanon is a huge component of trying to fix it.

Level 8: Blackhole: There is nothing. Anything and everything is basically non-sensical. Maybe at one point it was but it’s practically unrecognizable. Fanon alone is the only thing keeping interest in this, and even then it’s likely not even accurate or consistent either.