#then I'd say it doesn't function as lore for a different reason

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

The various ways people have checked in with two different Black Dog pubs to figure out whether the song is about Matty or Joe.///

What about people going to the Beachwood Cafe he mentions in Falling, and mentions of the Heath which have people flocking there looking out for flower shops? In Fine Line, the guy even talked about her new partner and his parents' art gallery.

He doesn't tell linear narrative stories like TS does but there's a lot there nevertheless. Obviously Only Angel is the main song about KJ.

I think Harry's fans in general overlook a lot of his storytelling because they either dislike the muses (TS, KJ, CR, OW) or they think the songs are about Louis.

I am finding this conversation quite odd - because you don't seem to be engaging at all with what I see as the main point.

You seem to be focused on something you already believe - that Harry's fans ignore what he says about his life - and assuming that that's what I'm saying. I'm not denying that Harry references his life. I'm saying the way that he references is life is qualitatively different from the way these other acts have referenced their lives.

The big pop acts of this summer have all been both specific and intimate about their lives and how they feel. If you listen to their albums to learn about their lives they've all been saying things that are interesting and revealing. This isn't something I've just made up, it's something that is talked about reasonably widely. I gave the example of Nathan Hubbard works in the music industry and doesn't have any of those thoughts about people Harry dated. He's a huge Harry fan, but has said that he doesn't know who Harry is and that the music is a challenge said that he didn't know who Harry Styles was and that that's a challenge for Harry going forward. If you want to have a conversation about what I mean it's worth listening to the episode I linked to so we're not talking at cross purposes (I don't actually agree with his conclusions, but I think the question is interesting).

Harry does reference relationships (although I'm not convinced that's what he was doing in Grapejuice. The tradition of songs that are about substances and love and its not necessarily clear which is a metaphor for which is a great one). But mentioning a place or a fact about someone's life in the way Harry does is very different from what the big pop acts of the year have done.

I don't think that there's much comparison between what Taylor does in the Black Dog and what Harry does in Falling (which like I said is one of Harry's songs with the most lore). Lore isn't just references. Taylor is incredibly good at that combination of revealing things fans didn't know, and also giving people things to figure out (or think they've figured out). That's not the only way to make lore - Sabrina and Charli both leaned towards being incredibly honest about how they feel about other famous people - including things that people don't normally say.

I want to be clear that these are just different modes of songwriting. One isn't better than the other, but they are different. I'm not denying what Harry does and has done, when I say it's different from the mode that is most popular at the moment.

[sleeplesssmol]

Reverse 1999 Theory: What is "Perception" and how does it work in arcanists?

Vertin canonically has uncanny perception and a deep understanding for arcanum even amongst arcanists, despite her lack of skill. Arcanists are very sensitive, or rather, vulnerable to emotions. There is another arcanist known for her perception we can look at for more clues.

Mesmer Jr. also has a "acute perception", much like Vertin.

In Reverse 1999, Perception functions like a 6th sense in arcanists. But how does it work? I looked up to see if there is a connection between magnetic fields and emotions. Turns out there is A LOT. Specifically the magnetic field radiated by the heart.

Biomagnetic Communication Between People (source).

We have found there is a direct relationship between the heart-rhythm patterns and the spectral information encoded in the frequency spectra of the magnetic field radiated by the heart. Thus, information about a person’s emotional state is encoded in the heart’s magnetic field and is communicated throughout the body and into the external environment.

There is so much cool information in this article I'd love to gush about, but we're here for lore. Remember my psychube post that I never shut up about? It's actually missing very important information that I didn't add at the time because I could not figure out how it worked.

Polarization:

The different frequencies are triggered by different kinds of emotions and we can see the heart being affected by the electromagnetic fields. My theory is that this is the key to arcanist perception. This is how they "sense" emotions. They are picking up on these frequencies. For a real life example from the same article, look at these graphs showing how the influence of emotions:

Most people tend to think of communication solely in terms of overt signals expressed through facial movements, voice qualities, gestures and body movements. However, evidence now supports the perspective that a subtle yet influential electromagnetic or "energetic" communication system operates just below our conscious level of awareness. The following section will discuss data that suggests this energetic system contributes to the "magnetic" attractions or repulsions that occur between individuals.

Arcanists sense these waves and it can cause distress in them. Mesmer Jr. is a prime example of this. Other people's emotions get to her.

Now how does this tie into our beloved Timekeeper?

What if the reason Vertin has to stay "stoic" is because her emotions can influence the others around her and because she is extra susceptible to other people's incoming emotions. She needs to stay calm even in mental distress. Mesmer Jr. is also like this. She may come off as abrasive and snappy at times but she is described as a "an indifferent and refined machine" (Chapter 3: An Opened Sandwich). These two share a lot in common. They are both victims of trauma yet must operate in many emotionally taxing positions.

They even say "engraved in the heart" (although this could simply be word choice it really fits)!

Both Vertin and Mesmer Jr. struggle everyday to keep the their feelings at bay. Neither of them is "used" to this life but they have to keep up the facade for their sake and possibly for those around them.

The main story doesn't give us as much insight into Vertin's head but the traces do. She is always holding back, just like Mesmer.

Side note, do you remember the heartbeat we heard as Schneider was reversed? It raced. Interesting how later Schneider shows up in one of her dreams during Artificial Somnambulism. This could be an example of HF Polarization which generates strong and temporary mental images with very powerful emotions.

This also adds an extra layer to Vertin's interactions with others. She tried to get through to Druvis and Schneider, but as for Forget-me-not and Arcana, she didn't bother. Maybe their feelings of revenge and hatred are so tangible she knew it was lost cause. However, Druvis was laden with grief and loss. She was not a malicious person. Schneider was desperate and motivated by love for her family. Vertin even mentions she knew Madam Z was not part of Constantine's game by the "look in her eyes" and never blamed her for the loss of her friends.

If anything seems wrong or if I missed something, please let me know! I'd be happy if I could refine it further.

[blorger]

fellow nerds I seek your counsel:

Does the Black family tapestry actually do anything?

Like, it's a magic item in a magical world, it seems kind of a missed opportunity that it doesn't seem to actually do anything. I'm pretty sure it doesn't even work like the Hogwarts registry (automatically recording all new Blacks). I can't think of a way to know for sure since Draco, the last addition to the map, was born before Walburga died (and the families of people burned off the map aren't recorded so no Tonkses).

I'd have thought being burned off of the tapestry would formally disinherit you but Sirius still became the owner of Grimmauld place (and the Black vaults) after Walburga's death instead of, say, Narcissa (or Bellatrix, if we ignore the whole pesky prison thing).

Do they even count as Official Blacks since they married into other families ? Are magical inheritance laws so terribly outdated and sexist that it's easier for property to pass to a disinherited man in jail rather than to a woman with a different last name (or an imprisoned one) ?

According to Dumbledore, yes:

For some reason JKR treats the inheritance of a building like the line of succession to a throne. Also, note that it says "Black family tradition". Still, said tradition doesn't actually appear to be magically binding since Harry did inherit Grimmauld.

(also when did Sirius write a will? Was it during the first war? who magically notarised it?)

Is the magical world still working off of 16th century British inheritance laws? If so, why? The wizarding world is, for all intents and purposes, not a monarchy; why not change the laws to reflect that? Do wizards not have inheritance laws at all?

Having said all that, my queries are thusly:

Is the Black family tapestry functionally useless?

Am I missing some key lore aspect or did JKR just wing it vis à vis legal matters?

Kindly help out so that I may be put out of my misery, please and thank you.

xoxo

[amadillo96]

Personal Kn8 USAKDF ideas.

Weapons+ kaiju-fication

this ties into my theoretical US AKDF post, btw. (This is super unfocused lol.) Here

First up, I'm gonna say I based this on my idea of a US AKDF that uses Kaiju-Hybridization cause it's cool. Though this will be partially focused around a singular character of mine bc I'm going to be packing a lot of lore into each section.

Character Idea

Who've I've affectionately codenamed Los Angeles. They're the one with the "mech-suit".

Personally, I've decided to base their abilities and Kaiju features around ✨️Salamanders✨️. I'd also imagine that each kaiju-hybrid soldier would have a kind of animal theme since the kaiju in kn8 also tend to have animal or plant themes.

Primarily around the toxins that they secrete as a defense mechanism. The kaiju-ification process creating a uni-organ capable of secreting slime or some form of lubricant that could them be used like venom. Injected into the target through a weapon.

Ignore the fact that this is of a newt.

Los Angeles, as a character, would function as a platoon leader and tactician for their group. While remaining rather headstrong and aggressive. So I gave them a mech suit!

Though. Not quite Pacific Rim style, I was more-so inspired by the suits from HALO. A heavy armor that would include mechanical aspects, though would be light enough to maintain a high-speed, aggressive fighting style. Using both aspects of grappling martial arts and rope weapons!

I'd also imagine their kaiju features to include a big old tail. So, a mech-suit would help hide their more inhuman features underneath the layers of armor.

Meteor hammer from Ancient China.

Though the rope weaponry is where an interesting thing could occur. By utilizing something like poisonous secretions alongside a bladed weapon, it would act like a venom!

My current idea for a longer ranged weapon would be a meteor hammer mixed with something like a portable hand saw. A rugged edge that could be swung around like a meteor hammer, with the armor preventing damage against its own user. When coming in contact, it acts as a saw, tearing through enemy flesh, and also administering the poison in tandem.

Kaiju-ification

Though realistically, it doesn't make much sense for a suit of heavy armor to be on a lightweight fighter. The reason I chose this was bc of the kaiju-ification process I had in mind for how the platoons of the US AKDF's "kaiju force" would be created. (Chapter 58)

The current in lore explanation of what creates kaiju.

This process would be utilizing kaiju's natural ability of regeneration to create a parasitic/symbiotic relation between a host human body and the tissue of a kaiju. I'd imagine that to avoid any legal issues dealing with the humaneness of using live human subjects, it'd be found better to use people who would be "unsalvagable" people in vegetative comas and such. Where there is no expectation of a quality of life.

This blank body would then be tested for "cell compatability," much like the number weapon users of the JAKDF. Though, since I'd imagine these trials would be much more diverse in kaiju used, there would be a fair bit of people who'd end up compatable with the kaiju cells. (Chapter 58)

The cells would be implanted, and the body would be left to allow the kaiju's near-cancerous like abilities to regenerate. The best 'batches' of experiments then going on to be trained and rehabilitated into soldiers.

It'd allow all kinds of fun shenanigans as characters who've undergone this process would essentially be stuck in a Kafka-esk scenario. Fighting biological kaiju influences while maintaining a human appearance. Possibly exacerbated depending on how human the process leaves them. ✨️✨️

Something similar to how Narumi's number suit works. Though I'm pretty sure the implanted eyes are a fan theory, they've heavily inspired my ideas of how Kaiju tissue interacts with people.

(Theory stemming from the difference between Narumi's eyes as a teenager vs. his current eyes.)

I also like to think of the process actively creating Kaiju more like a cancer than an evolutionary process.

Since it is influenced by outside phenomena and happens in the short term.

[personadescent]

Do you intend on keeping the psychological effects of Dark Gaia on other sentient beings (stronger negative emotions in humans, the corrupted Phoenix, etc) mostly the same or will there be some key differences?

(Sorry it took me so long to get to this ask!)

So to be honest, it's sort of still "on the drafting table". I haven't fully decided how I want to write that part of the story yet -- but I've still got a general idea of what I've got planned for it.

I'd say "functionally" speaking, that subplot is going to be about the same. What I mean by that is, some of its smaller details are going to be different, but as a whole, it'll generally have the same impact on the story as it did in Unleashed. The important parts are still there -- people still get 'possessed' and act unpredictably, the Gaia Phoenix still goes berserk and lashes out at anyone who gets too close to the Gaia Temple. You get the idea.

Most of the differences mostly come down to writing direction. Dark Days is tonally darker and delves into mature themes, and with it being set in the SCU, some of its lore has to be altered to line up with existing lore.

But at the end of the day, the AU is an adaptation -- it's meant to adapt Unleashed. It might be tweaked here and there to make it fit into the SCU, but at its core, it's still supposed to be "Movie!Sonic Unleashed" -- I even have a personal "adapt 90%" rule for that exact reason. If there's something from Unleashed that I feel doesn't work as-is, I'll rework it into something that does work. I always try to avoid outright cutting out anything.

But that being said -- I'll be cutting the "exorcism" part of the subplot. Having played through Unleashed this past week, I think can say that those side missions don't contribute much if anything to its story, so including them would be pointless. It'd take up narrative space that could be better spent on exploring a better subplot instead.

(And honestly, the Uncanny Camera is too silly. Which is really saying something, because I actually managed to come up with a semi-rational explanation for the cleats.)

[number1villainstan]

For the Utena ask game: 2, 3, 9, 11?

2. favorite episode (bonus: favorite scene)

Cop out answer, but I'm genuinely not familiar enough with the show to have a single favorite episode. I've only watched it all the way through once, and I'm still in the middle of a second rewatch (it's a group rewatch, the Utena Weekly thing that's going on on the Empty Movement forum). That being said, I really like Wakaba's second episode in the Black Rose arc, and the Tale of the Rose episode in the Akiopocalypse arc. And Nanami's two parter (also in the Akiopocalypse arc).

I love the scenes of fake domestic bliss between Wakaba and Saionji in the BR arc for entirely selfish shippy reasons--they're so damn bittersweet, a taste of what could have been, and you hope desperately that this can keep going even though you know that it can't, even though you know that it's only able to function because of the choking secrecy and play-pretend. Even though you know it's gotta come crashing down around their ears.

Tale of the Rose doesn't have one specific favorite scene for me, but I really like this episode because it does genuinely so much heavy lifting in the context of the show. It gives you two different versions of the same story, and both of those versions give you so much information, both directly and indirectly, about the world of Ohtori, how to decode its symbols, what Really Happened when Utena was a child, how the systems of Ohtori function and what their basis is. I called it the 'lore climax' on my first watchthrough, I think? And I stand by it. Because holy shit. The first half is a great little play, but the second half is like the Flashback To End All Flashbacks.

Nanami's two parter in the Akiopocalypse arc--probably my favorite scene in that episode is right after Nanami 'loses' the duel. It's such a wild emotional ride to see her get hit with a car and then still be standing. Still be on her own two feet. I genuinely think I might have been close to crying from triumph during my first watchthrough when I watched this scene.

3. favorite arc

Oh man, I almost wanna say the Black Rose arc? It's definitely the weakest of all the arcs, but it's got more focus on a lot of the characters that I'm drawn to more than I'm drawn to Utena (rip Utena, you're a great character but you're just not my type). Specifically I'm thinking the focus on Wakaba and Mikage's whole deal. Akiopocalypse is also a solid contender, because of how much it fleshes out Anthy (another of my faves) and also how well it ties all of the themes of RGU together. Seriously, RGU is like a masterclass in how to tell a story and it's going to be influencing my writing for ever and ever.

9. favorite aspect of the show to analyze/read analysis about

FUCK IF I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SHOW IS SO DAMN GOOD I CAN'T CHOOSE

I think my favorite thing to analyze (not necessarily read analysis about) used to be Saionji and his relationship to and position in the systems of Ohtori? But I'm not sure if it's that anymore. At this point I'd probably read literally any analysis ever about anything about this show.

11. favorite and/or most interesting relationship (doesn't have to be romantic)

hhhhhhh DEFINITELY Wakaba/Saionji. It's definitely A Ship but IDK if I interpret it as strictly romantic, but I've definitely written for it (go check out setting down roots for a look at a post-Ohtori possibility for them. Although it was one of the monthly short pieces that was only one draft, so it doesn't cohere quite as well as I would have liked it to, especially on the symbolic side). They have SO MANY PARALLELS (to me). They could have broken down Ohtori themselves if Ohtori's systems hadn't doomed them from the start. They're an intensely tragic pair but only in the specific circumstances that canon put them in. I go crazy over them every time.

the ask game is here

[variousqueerthings]

No blowing up the planet!

it's.... Nightmare In Silver!!! the second of the neil gaiman penned episodes, and I've gotta be honest, the only thing I'm really vibing with this time around is Warwick Davis, unfortunately, because I'd want to watch it again for Warwick Davis, youknow?

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 4/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 3/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 4/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 4/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 6/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 4/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 8/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 8/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 4/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 5/10

FULL RATING: 50/100 (if I can count….)

it's not so much that it's the worst episode of ever, it's more that it's spreading itself way too thin. And then of course. we get the second most infamous fucking terrible line in Eleven's run:

OBJECTIFICATION: "A mystery rapped inside of an enigma squeezed into a skirt that’s just a bit too… tight."

I am just hoping that Neilman didn't write this line, because it scans as pure M*ffat at his worst, but who knows. this is the Doctor about Clara, and look, not that it should even matter, because it's a heinous line that shouldn't exist, but it also doesn't make sense, because Clara's skirts may be relatively short, but they're cut in a sort of almost 50s flare (I don't know skirt cutting terminology)

and I hate that that's even a point I have to make in this, why do I have to think about the tightness of Clara's skirts fuck you fuck you fuck you!

this is genuinely the only thing, but it comes outta fucking nowhere slaps you in the face and then leaves you with "ah, thank you for summing up the only things that matte about your lead character in one, hypersexist sentence." which... speaking of the first half of that sentence

PLOT-POINT: I've been praising Clara's competency in most of her episodes. she's proactive, she does things even though she's scared, she knows number one rule is Not Dying.... in this episode she's got none of the depth that comes with the things she does

suddenly, she is just In Charge Of Soldiers, and she's practically a different character. gone are emotional tie-ins to what she's doing, in fact she mostly seems to be having fun and/or being very happy to be put in charge of this particular military, with the exception of a second when they're almost killed by Cybermen

I did write initially that I liked her taking charge in this one too, but as the episode went on, she felt more like she was just there to run the B-plot, than to be important. I also wrote down this line "The only reason I’m still alive is because I do what the Doctor says"

honestly I'd have to go back and see if rtd-era companions have these sorts of lines, but also my girl-guy, he's asking you to run first line of defense against Cybermen, it's not that you're not being put in danger. this is the sort of line I'd have expected from Amy, but I think Clara's been remarkably free of them up until now (I could be wrong, but from my notes!) Especially because throughout this season we've had episodes where the Doctor had no idea what to do and you saw that Clara!

this is me picking up on dialogue, because this episode... did not have good dialogue by and large, but we'll get back to that, because we're not done with "The Impossible Girl" (sigh) -- because if you didn't think she was kind of absent proper emotions before, (such as the episode breezing mostly past her reaction to seeing the kids she's taking care of being controlled by Cybermen, which, again I can sort of believe in that she hasn't met Cybermen before and so doesn't think the children are dead like previous companions might, but they're still kids she deeply cares for and apart from an initial comical anger scene, she's just moving onwards with the plot), then remember here at the end that she's not really important, she's just the mystery of the season for the Doctor to solve!

COMPLEXITY: this episode has so many setpieces. there was a war 1000 years ago vs Cybermen that people won, and now they're on this abandoned amusement park that has a bunch of old Cybermen casings, and there's a lost emperor, except he's this guy who's been calling himself Porridge, who's the secret behind an automaton chess player (a real thing that existed in the 18th-19th century and used this exact technique), but is actually the long-missing emperor that's been searched for for awhile, I cannot remember why he was undercover as an amusement park gimmick called fucking Porridge

uh and then the Cybermen start waking up, because the Doctor brought children here and they needed children and I cannot remember why, and they cannot blow up the planet, until they've saved the children, and the Doctor is infected, but plays a chessgame against his evil Cyberself (called Mr Clever, because everything in this era has to be weirdly Silly all the time), while the others fight the Cybermen in an abandoned "comical castle" because it's still a theme park and most of them die, the Doctor convinces the evil!self to release the children and then promptly fries him out of his brain, because why wouldn't he do that???

and all the survivors beam up to the emperor's big ship and blow up the planet. I have a lot of questions. why a themepark (did they explain that, I somehow must have missed it), why is the emperor missing (did they explain that, I somehow must have missed it) why is he pretending to be this guy called Porridge? (did they explain that, I somehow must have missed it) why tf is he missing if he's so easily recognisable that a child would get it?? (did they explain that, I somehow must have missed it) why did the cybermen need children? (did they explain that, I somehow must have missed it) why was the amusement park abandoned and then stationed with troops? (did they explain that, I somehow must have missed it)

so like. there maybe are explanations for all of these points, but my point is that this episode is so unwieldy that if you look away for a second you miss the potentially single piece of dialogue explaining a thing and then it's very unclear for the rest of the story. and I am Watching these episodes, taking notes, going back to read subtitles. I genuinely don't know how I missed all of that

and I like watching things that are complicated, I do. but only if it's also engaging, and this episode is not engaging enough for me to go back now and look through it (or even to possibly watch it again). it's got so much dialogue that is so out of place, tonally and structurally, there's no way I'm going in to try and focus more on it than I already did. my point isn't necessarily that the above wasn't explained, it's that it wasn't explained well, and there was a barrage of weird shit that was coming at you from all sides

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: you'd think, considering evil!Doctor is inside the Doctor's mind and they're battling it out and evil!Doctor is seeing Forbidden Knowledge and also being kinda weird about the Doctor's and Clara's relationship (framing it as explicitly romantic), that there would be more forward-motion, but not really

Clara's not massively changed from the kids having been kidnapped and taken over by Cybermen, and neither are the kids for that matter. which, I don't know where to put this, but remember how back in Rings of Akhaten I was saying that there's a looooot of kids in this era, which would be great if they could act (like the kid in Akhaten), these kids are... not good actors in this episode. and they're also given (especially the girl) thankless fucking dialogue. she's meant to be giving that tween/early teen surliness, and in order to manage this 90% of her dialogue is calling things stupid. She'll enter a scene like this:

Kid: Hello I’m bored Soldier asks her where her sister (Clara) is Kid: She’s not my sister, she’s stupid

this.... is not how tweens/early teens talk, and you can feel the director going "just act huffy in Every Single Moment you're onscreen." she calls the Tardis stupid, she calls an alien planet stupid, she calls people stupid, I swear the nr one word this character says is "stupid"

point being, the kids aren't important to any forward trajectory on the whole, Clara isn't questioning the picture of herself in the last episode that she doesn't recognise so that's a bust, and the Doctor's little duel of the mind doesn't go much of anywhere

the only bit of something that may come up again is the Cyberman bit drifting around space to set up future Cybermen (shocking)

COMPANIONS MATTER: she does. yeah, she does take control of the soldiers. I wish it had been more awkward. why is this Clara, who was having a near panic-attack in Cold War, who was admitting to being terrified in Hide, why is she just so effortlessly good at this? but yeah, she does do Plot Things so to speak

I'm also not 100% convinced the Doctor would leave his companion -- especially this companion, whom he is trying not to get killed for the third time - at the front lines battling Cybermen, that's truly a last resort kind of situation that seems very chill here

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: aaaand so we get to the A-Plot, which is an admittedly cool little setting in the Doctor's mind where the Gallifreyan cogs whirl around (I wonder if there's easter eggs in there)

and of course, really it's a way to "trick" the evil!Doctor into letting the kids go, so he can say fuck it to the chessgame and just electric him out of his mind, and that's exactly what happens

it's fine-ish, I've marked it down because it totally overshadows the plot where Clara is in charge of scared soldiers, which matters far less, and shouldn't! and also because... I'm circling around saying there's a lot of this dialogue that doesn't work for me either, and that I don't think Matt Smith is the best actor for it

I've enjoyed Matt Smith in this era, more than I thought I would. there are some things he does very well (cry-face is solid, rapid speech patterns without it getting jumbled, annoyance, lotta bodily flailing although I think directors overuse that to the point of my not taking him seriously at all quite often), where I think he often loses me is the Dramatic Time Lord Stuff. the quiet competency and rage, the shouting grand speeches, all of that... never worked for me, didn't work this time either, and the whole episode hinges on it a bit

it didn't help that evil!Doctor called himself "Mr Clever," it's one of those things that happens a lot in this era where the balance of lighthearted-for-"kids" (in the sense that you can see the screen screaming for children to think this is funny/whimsical/etc) and take-this-seriously-in-the-timetravel-show-please is see-sawing like mad. often just a lot little things, like that. it's like someone grabbing you by the face and yelling WHIMSY!!!!!! at you, rather than whimsy coming from the construction of the story

but yeah evil!Doctor is kind of sneering I guess. I think there's just more that could have been done with this concept, but like everything else it's stretched Thin

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: so apparently these Cybermen reference a bunch of Classic cybermen, along with the ones developed during RTD's era. that's cool. also a few references to other Doctor's, especially Ten, with Allonsy and

"You've had some cowboys in here, ten complete rejigs"

“SEXINESS”: we are pretty solid on this on the whole. thank goodness. I do wonder about the emperor asking Clara to marry him, but I'll save the emperor as concept for last

INTERNAL WORLD: yeah, back to complexity, nonsense from top to bottom. I guess it's built like a theme park, in that there is a theme park map. I'm just realising this is set at a theme park and we see four locations -- the bit where they land on the "fake moon," and do some fake moon jumping. the soldiers barracks. the little room kept by the con-man carnival type. and the "comical" castle. why set this at a theme park if you're not showing any... theme park?

POLITICS: this episode is devoid of politics, except we've got this platoon and we've got this emperor of several worlds, and none of it has any bearing on the episode, because we're not meant to think about these sorts of things. the platoon is kind of the dredges, and so several of them are immediately killed by Cybermen, which would be gruesome if one cared about them, but the episode has so much going on that there's not enough time to focus in properly

but also were they drafted? did they volunteer? can they quit? who's their families, their planets? what made them join up if they did join up? why do they care about the emperor, what is that loyalty made up of? propaganda? why does the emperor matter? what is the suggestion that the word "emperor" makes spring to mind?

it's sort of framed like a budget LOTR with a return of the king, except his spaceship was orbiting the planet the whole time. I still don't know what he was doing there, or why they didn't just evacuate and blow it up earlier, and I'm saying this, but also is there more at stake when "blowing up a planet" who lived there? what culture is lost? how does it tie into the idea that an emperor can just blow up a planet?

he's presented as a benevolent, brave person, who's fine with Clara turning down his hand in marriage, but truthfully we know nothing about him at all, and actually a story about that would have been more interesting to me. what are the connotations of it all???

FULL RATING: 50/100 (if I can count….)

a thin thin episode with too much happening, too many characters, highly suspect dialogue, much of which was out of character, and a setting that's cool on the surface and then totally unexplored, because it too, is just there to be Cool rather than to have any deeper bearing on things

it's got some nice callbacks to classic!who and Warwick Davis, that's... most of what it's got going for it, unfortunately

and then that fucking line!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cashandprizes]

you... are trying to get my ass in trouble. I'm into it. Thanks for sending the ask <3

Link to the choose violence post here!

1. the character everyone gets wrong

It's probably going to be Alexis. I support women's rights and wrongs, but I think she was in a damned if you damned if you don't situation. Is she just gonna let Sam bleed out? He lived and found his soulmate, or whatever, and seems pretty damn happy all things considered. I want to die as much as the next person but... idk. Doesn't seem like there were any good choices.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

This discourse doesn't really apply to me because I'm a 100% switch on the bdsm test (yes, this is documented) and so I always love switching. And since my fave is either Guy on a good day or Regulus on a bad day, there is only the switch variant. I was never that kind of shipper, even back in my hardcore anime days.

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

This will sooooo get me in trouble. But between the "I want to break Alexis's ribcage" and the "people who don't hate [redacted] ship are [long list of words calling people evil and abusive]" and the "if you write dark content or support Erik writing darker content you don't care about people who have experienced xyz" they're all pretty bad. I will not be screenshotting even though I think there's mutual blocking going on, but just know that I'm pretty sure the only reason I didn't also get death threats a month ago was because I had already blocked that person over something else.

Oh also? I hate the idea that the fandom needs to be welcoming to minors as a whole. I love when youths are into a fandom and make friends online, because that's what I did when I got on Tumblr pretty much a decade ago! I'd just like them to do it in their space for minors while I do things in my space for adults. I'm gonna be a whore and I don't need somebody's mama scrolling through their Tumblr and trying to be mad at me when I clearly say minors DNI. I don't understand why I have to make myself kid friendly when I tag my shit and make my stance clear. Literally what it says on the tin.

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I did at one point go through the Alexis tag and just block... so many fucking people for bad Alexis takes. I block A LOT of people without ages in their bio. I tend to block liberally, actually. Um, something that really annoyed me was realizing people couldn't understand don't like don't read. Instant block.

9. worst part of canon

This is a joke but I want more worldbuilding lore of how society functions. I love the lore for like the sky gods and all the old magic but I JUST WANT TO KNOW PRACTICAL SHIT. What happens when vampires go in the sun and does it change with age? How alive are vampires? Why don't my wolf shifters have knots, this is a real problem for me. How big are magical cities? How big is Shaw security? How big are most packs? Do all shifters form some sort of pack/collective group? How do empowered people get access to empowered resources or the internet or radio or tv? Do vampires piss?

I need answers.

Also. When will Erik finally write me the Avior BA using Calico's fic?

More realistically, I wasn't super satisfied with the Quinn ending which isn't a big deal, but I definitely felt like Darlin got wubified by Sam and David at the end. I'm sure some people liked them taking control, but that's the last thing I'd want. Just personality differences and also not the worst thing.

10. worst part of fanon

Why is everyone white?

I've never not been black so I'm used to this in fandom spaces at this point, but goddamn. Racism really is everywhere. Minority solidarity is more mythical than fucking unicorns.

[brendleellipsis]

Brendle Rambles About His Favorite OC For A Very Long Time

Yeah, it's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin.

This is Lore Redwood, and he is one of the two main characters of my primary creative endeavor at the moment, which I'm calling The Brendleverse for now because I think it's funny. He is also a pretty blatantly obvious self-insert.

The Brendleverse is meant to be a number of different stories in one big interconnected universe, because I've always been a sucker for that shit. It is also meant to be an expression of Me in my totality. Everything I care about and believe in, including my passion for creativity and storytelling, bleed through in these projects. To make sure all of this is cohesive, Lore (as well as the other protagonist, Summer) serve as emotional throughlines for the universe as a whole, with their arcs acting as the main connective tissue for all these stories.

I've just been thinking a lot lately about Lore's arc in particular, because, as I mentioned earlier, this character is functionally a self-insert. His personality, his arc and progression, his flaws and his struggles, are so intensely personal to me and my lived experience, so it makes sense that I'd have so much connection to this character.

I won't be talking about his arc throughout all the Brendleverse projects, because bits and pieces of it are incomplete, and also it would be Way Too Fucking Long, so for now I'm going to talk about his arc through the first main project, entitled Lorekeepers. No worries, this will also be very long. I do hope you'll indulge me.

Sorry in advance lol

So, I'll try not to delve into the nitty gritty Plot Details for Lorekeepers too much? Because despite being the first story in The Brendleverse, its also Really Big, so... I'll do my best to only give the context that is entirely necessary for Lore's arc. Without further ado...

THE BACKGROUND

At the beginning of the story, Lore Redwood is just a regular 17-year-old kid with nothing particularly special about him. In fact, if you looked at him as an outside observer, he would seem almost aggressively mundane. Boring, even. Like he doesn't even have as much of a personality to begin with.

In reality, Lore is a very internal person. Sometimes he struggles to feel much at all, and sometimes he feels so intensely that it borders on unpleasant, but it very rarely shows on his face. His expressions are limited in emotion, and his voice even more so. He is also, like me, autistic, and this manifests most often through his issues with sensory overload. When certain stimuli, especially sound, start to grate on his nerves, Lore tends to shut down even more than usual, struggling to maintain focus and generally panicking. There's really no escape from this sort of feeling for him; the metaphor he often uses to describe his issues with senses and emotions is the sound of radio static in his ears. No matter how calm it gets, it's always there, faintly, hissing violently, a reminder that the simple act of existing will always be a struggle to him. And so, despite being such an internal person, feeling trapped inside his own head, he simultaneously feels as though he exists outside of "normal" human experience. There's an implicit distance between himself and the rest of the world, even his own family, that prevents him from truly connecting with or understanding anyone.

As such, he struggles with socializing and making friends, to the point that he only has one, Summer Winchester. She makes an effort to know and understand him and his issues, and that's certainly one of the reasons Lore values her company. But really, Lore just admires her. Summer is brash and confident, or at least seemingly so. She is unapologetically herself, and whenever she wants something, she does not hesitate to take it for herself. And beyond all that, she's just kind. She cares so much for other people, and the fact that someone like her would extend that care to someone like him is... hard to believe. And that's why Lore sticks by her. She makes the impossible feel possible. She makes it all make sense. She makes him make sense.

...That was a lot of words to set up where Lore is before the damn story even starts lol. I'll try to speed it up.

THE FIRST ARC

In the first major arc of Lorekeepers, Lore and Summer are attacked by a weird memory-stealing monster called The Static, and are subsequently captured by a weird secret organization called LOGOS. They are taken to the organization's headquarters, and are told that the org. is trying to research and kill The Static, and that because those who are attacked by it have similar attributes, they must stay at headquarters for protection and research. Eventually, they meet up with some other characters and are like "fuck that" and try to break out. The breakout plan fails spectacularly, and when Summer spits on the LOGOS Boss's face, she is shot and killed.

This is when Lore hears a voice in his head.

"...Interesting. Very interesting. Well... I've decided, I'll give you the tools. Let's see how you use them."

And with that, Lore screams, and time begins to rewind, until Summer is alive again. To make a long story short, this voice was a character (who is also a self-insert lol) called The Writer, and that weird Event was Lore being gifted the powers of The Overwrite, which essentially mark a person as "the protagonist", allowing them to rewrite reality as they see fit (though there are certain limitations I won't get into). This power, and the "chosen one" vibes that come from it, are very important to Lore's arc.

Due to Circumstances, the gang still can't break out of LOGOS HQ, but the Boss allows them to stay so long as Lore help her with her research, because she is very interested in The Overwrite. This is where the next major aspect of Lore's arc comes in, because he meets Other Lores from Other Realities. To put it simply, these characters are from other universes that The Writer had made, and The Static warping reality is what brought them here. They were similarly chosen by The Writer and given The Overwrite powers. Their actual characters aren't as important, so I won't get into it too much, but the whole deal is that these characters are meant to play into one of Lore's major hangups, that being with his identity. He is, to put it lightly, not a fan of who he is as a person, so these alternate versions of him are meant to make him explore what exactly about himself he hates so passionately, while also starting to learn that maybe the person he is right now isn't as stupid as he believes.

Meanwhile, Summer is having a bit of a Bad Time because she has... so little control over the situation, which she isn't really used to. I mentioned earlier that Lore admires Summer to a great extent, and their friendship is by no means one-sided. Summer cares about Lore deeply, and when venting her frustrations about the current predicament to Lore, she accidentally says some hurtful things. She has always felt as though Lore needs protecting, and the way she words it implies that she, at least partly, sees him as "broken". Lore doesn't really take this well. His negative feelings about himself have essentially been confirmed by the person he looks up to most. So he runs away.

While all the other characters are participating in a Big Climactic Fight with the villain, Lore is alone, powerless, unable to do anything. And then he hears The Writer's voice in his head again, remarking on how very interesting the whole situation has become. Lore doesn't know what this voice is, but he's desperate. He asks The Writer what he should do, how he could possibly fix the problem, fix himself. The Writer says nothing. Eventually, Lore is going to have to choose for himself. Running from the issue, insisting it doesn't exist, doesn't do anything to truly help. If he ever wants to be happy with his life and the person he is, he's going to have to take a step forward.

And so he does. I could remark on how the big final fight, with Lore finally being able to wield his Overwrite Powers on command, would go, but at this point, the first stage in his arc is over. There's not much to say without moving onto the next arc. So, let's do that!

THE SECOND ARC

Again, without dumping too much of the story on you, the second major arc of Lorekeepers takes place in Patchwork, which is essentially a realm of dreams populated by Demons, beings formed from the public consciousness. It's a major part of the Brendleverse worldbuilding, but it's off topic, so I won't get into it.

Lore starts this arc stranded in Patchwork, entirely separated from the friends that he had been traveling with. The particular place in Patchwork he landed in is The Whispering Forest, which is essentially this cursed forest filled with illusions and mirages and such, drawn from the mind of whoever is currently in it. Fun!

Anyways, Lore starts traveling through the forest, to try and find his friends, but he is instead joined by the Other Lores that I mentioned back in the first arc. At the end of the first arc, they all departed back to their home worlds... and yet, here they are. And stranger still, their physical forms are glitching, as though they're slowly, forcefully being written out of existence. Eventually, they stumble upon a clearing, where they meet The Writer in the flesh for the first time. Eventually he reveals that the Other Lores are glitching like that because he is in the process of erasing their worlds from the fabric of reality in their entirety. All the other universes, except for Lore's own, will be deleted. The Writer posits that this is a good thing for Lore, that this is him being “chosen”, and that he needs to own up to the responsibility that entails.

Lore, understandably, does not take this well. He has a full on panic attack as he watches the Other Lores and their worlds get erased, watching his friends essentially die in front of him. And The Writer is frustrated by this. He believes that this should be motivating, that he should want to make sure this doesn’t happen to the people that “really matter in his story”. He starts to get Really Personal in this lecture, really poking at Lore's every insecurity, not really being subtle about the fact that these are things The Writer feels about himself as well. He repeatedly pushes Lore, telling him to get his ass up and move. He asks him, over and over, as Lore begs him to stop, what he is going to do. Eventually, Lore fully breaks down and just screams. There is a long silence, and then Lore stands up and runs.

Eventually, Lore meets up with the rest of the characters as they make a plan. To make an incredibly long story short, The Static monster I mentioned earlier is in Patchwork right now, and that's extremely bad, because it steals memories, and the Demons are all made up of dreams and stuff, which only serves to make the monster stronger. They decide to essentially evacuate all the Demons in Patchwork, making a portal to Earth and leading them through it, and eventually using Lore's powers to seal The Static in Patchwork so it can't hurt anyone else. There's a big ol' plan about it, I won't get into it here.

Before they leave, Summer tries to talk to Lore, worrying that he’s trying too hard to “play the hero”. But at this point, Lore is remembering the last conversation they've had like this, and feels like she’s trying to baby him. He's hurt that, now that he’s trying to be the person he wants to be, a hero that can help people, that that is when she chooses to reject him. He implies that, maybe, they were never friends in the first place, and before Summer can try to talk things out, Lore storms off to enact the plan.

The plan almost works, though they run into some interference in the form of Terra, who one of the major villains in Lorekeepers. She was in the first arc, I just didn't mention her for the sake of time. To make a long story short, she's an alternate version of Summer who was given the power of The Overwrite. When she arrives, she immediately focuses in on Lore, fighting him with all her strength, which Lore can't really hope to combat. The fight concludes with Terra pinning Lore to the wall, telling him that she finds him to be undeserving of The Writer’s powers, that he’s nothing but a weak, worthless little nothing who has no idea what he’s doing.

Now, this next line is important to me. It's a major part of Lore's character arc, so I've given a lot of thought to how it would be framed and delivered. Lore says:

“Everyone keeps trying to tell me who I am, that I’m weak, or that I’m worthless. And maybe they’re right. So, I’ll just be someone else. Someone better than you.”

And with that very line, this portion of his arc is over. In Lore's head, this is a triumphant moment, and that's how I want the scene to be framed. From his perspective, he's beating the bad guy, complete with a badass one-liner. But I want it to be clear that this moment is deeply tragic. The world is telling Lore that he is worthless, and his triumphant rebuttal is letting them know that they're right. This unyielding belief in that idea, the denial that he could ever be worth something as he is, that is what seals Lore's fate. With those words, he is already as good as dead.

Lore focuses his power, and in a massive burst, he blasts Terra off of him. He then tells his friends to finish the job and get the Demons out of Patchwork, and that he'll go and fight The Static alone, holding the monster off for as long as he can. And he does. And he fails. In his attempt to make The Static avoid his friends and the Demons while they escaped, he led the monster straight to them. In his weakened state, he snaps his fingers, using what little power he has left to create a barrier, keeping The Static in Patchwork, but not before The Static’s malevolent, malicious emotions fill the atmosphere. Lore’s arms go limp, he is drained of his color, and in a single instant, he shatters.

Lore is dead.

Well... kind of. It's complicated.

Lore is very much still one of the main characters in The Brendleverse, it'd be a bit bold to kill him off permanently in the first project. So, yes, he does come back, but it does take a while. But, yeah, saying Lore is "dead" would not be wholly accurate, but he functionally is in the story. That said, he still has some stuff going on in...

THE THIRD ARC

The third arc starts off mostly focusing on Summer. You know, The Alive One, and also the other main character. Her whole deal is pretty important to the story as a whole, but part of Lore and Summer's arcs was taking these two characters who were so often attached at the hip and deliberately separating them, so. I haven't mentioned her too much.

Anyways.

We do eventually see Lore again, and while he functionally died, his consciousness has still been kicking in The Static. He's essentially playing a game with The Static’s true identity, a young man named Verse, Terra’s former closest friend.

Just as Terra is an alternate Summer, Verse is an alternate Lore. A quiet and pensive boy in life, with one true friend he could count on, Verse saved Terra's life in a tragic accident and returned as a ghost through his desire to see her again. When he finally did, though, he realized that his friend never truly cared about him. Terra is selfish and egotistical and cruel. Verse's world view was shattered by this, because he, much like Lore, put his friend on a pedestal.

Betrayal. Regret. Hatred. Yearning. A burning desire for reality to just Be Different. Ghosts are… fickle beings. Their very forms, drifting in between the physical and immaterial, are dependent on the stability of the mind of the ghost. So, when a ghost is overwhelmed by emotion, their forms begin to glitch and warp… until they become a monster. A wight. And when Verse became a wight, he began to consume things, anything that had a memory attached to it, in the hopes that he could artificially gain the power of The Overwrite and right the wrong that was his life. This is how The Static was born.

Anyhow, Lore is playing a game with this guy! Yahoo! He's basically playing superhero in a fantasy world, fighting against comic book supervillains and pointedly ignoring the fantasy land version of Summer. One day, he returns to his house to find the false Summer waiting for him. To his surprise, she doesn’t seem mad. She instantly accepts everything about him. Lore kinda snaps at this and goes on a bit of a rant, about how Summer constantly needs to control him, and that she’s been a bad friend, and eventually he just concludes that he hates her.

...This false Summer is entirely unperturbed. She just smiles and nods, with this vaguely unsettling glass-eyed expression, blindly agreeing with everything that he says. It becomes increasingly obvious to Lore that he’s getting nothing out of this, that staying in this false reality will make it so that he’ll never be able to grow, and that all this stuff he wishes people would say or do is simply not going to happen. Realizing this, he uses his powers to destroy the fantasy world in its entirety, shattering through the illusion as though it were glass.

Verse is not happy about this. He just wanted Lore to see what he sees, that they have the power to reshape reality, and that they could have better lives if they just make reality the way they want it to be. Lore shoots back that if they do that, they’ll never improve as people; they’ll be forever stagnant. Verse sighs, calls Lore a sentimental fool, and uses his own ill-begotten power to fully imprison Lore within The Static.

Eventually, thanks to the help of his friends, Lore manages to break free and claw his way back to the land of the living, and after some Plot Things that I'd rather not to get into, Verse replaces Terra as the final antagonist of Lorekeepers.

Before all that, though, we need to address The Writer. Yeah, he's still around, and he's a major part of this story. It's very obvious that he's meant to be a stand-in for me, albeit with a few degrees of separation. He has my personality and mental health issues, and he also inherits many of my flaws. One of the major themes of Lorekeepers is escapism, and accepting reality, no matter how bad it may seem, because nothing will ever get better if you don't. I didn't go into writing this story with that theme in mind, it just sort of Happened, and I realized that I was using The Brendleverse as a form of escapism as well, a way to avoid the world that was hurting me. And I realized that, if I never let that go, even a little bit, the pain won't stop.

So, after some Plot Things that I'd rather not to get into, Lore confronts The Writer and convinces him to leave The Brendleverse behind and confront his own life, leaving the battle for the soul of this universe in the hands of Lore and Verse, as well as all the friends Lore has made along the way.

To talk about the conclusion to Lore's arc, I have to delve into the relationship between Lore and Summer, the main protagonists, and Verse, the main antagonist.

Verse… sees himself in Lore quite a bit. Both very hurt, very sad young men who have relied too much on a friend that they perceived as inherently better than them. Both hold this remarkable power to rewrite the world around them. There's a sort of… respect that Verse holds for Lore. After all, they're the only two left that have The Overwrite, a power granted to them by The Writer, a power that can reshape reality, that can bring dreams to life. Verse sees himself and Lore as dueling gods, fated to fight over control of the world. Now, of course Lore doesn't see it this way, but if anything that just reinforces Verse's belief. Of course Lore wouldn't see it his way, they're eternal rivals. In his eyes, Lore disagreeing with him doesn’t make his view any less right.

…To that end, Verse fucking hates Summer. He loathes her with his entire being. And honestly, her being an alternate version of Terra has nothing to do with it, because Verse still has a warped lingering attachment to his old friend. No, he hates Summer because she refuses to know her place. Summer in Lorekeepers is the ultimate example of defying one's destiny, of overcoming stagnance and moving forward in spite of pain. She is living proof that Verse and The Writer's "chosen one that is allowed to warp reality as he sees fit" is just.. bullshit.

Which is why I think it's great that, when Verse drags Lore into a little pocket dimension for the final battle, Summer jumps in after him. She refuses to give Verse what he wants, a one-on-one duel to the death with his eternal enemy. And so, Lore and Summer and Verse all fight, and the fight ends with Lore (through means I don't feel like explaining) taking away both Verse's and his own Overwrite powers. The Writer is gone, and no one has the singular right to decide the fate of the world. It will be written little by little, each day as it comes, by everyone living together to make a better future. That's how it should be.

Lore, in ridding the world of these powers, is severely wounded. But Verse is powerless. And Summer has a goddamn gun that can pierce through reality. So she's the one who delivers the killing blow. One final insult to a sad child who couldn't accept that, sometimes, things just suck.

And when Lore wakes up, he resolves to continue to live as himself. And he'll make that promise to himself every day, as long as it takes, until he doesn't even have to think about it.

CONCLUSION

That was absurdly fucking long, huh? And that's just the first project of The Brendleverse! Lore's arc continues from there! I'm not going to get into it, because this is too long already, but. It's a start, lol

If nothing else, it's a comfort to me that Lore's story does continue after this, that he keeps living. He takes big steps forward, he meets people, he forges bonds, he falls in love, and as the world changes around him, he changes with it, until one day he's the kind of person that he's genuinely proud to be. And through all that, he's found people who he loves, and who he can finally believe love him back.

And... I don't know. I'm very clearly biased, because I'm basically just writing the sort of story I wish I had when I was young, but. I think that's important. For there to be characters that reaffirm to you that you have value, and that there are people out there who can love you, and that you can be the person you want to be, even if you believe such notions to be impossible.

That, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how bad you feel, you can always get back up, and keep on living.

So yeah :)

[greatwyrmgold]

The more I think about it, the less I like the shard-inflicted conflict drive in parahumans lore. First off, though perhaps least imortantly, it's another reason people use to discount the importance of characters' personality traits and agency. In a fandom where Aura Theory was as popular as it was, we really don't need another reason for people to do that.

But I also feel like it undermines the way Wildbow was trying to deconstruct superheroes.

Alright, what am I talking about? There are a few ways you can look at how Wildbow handles classic superhero tropes, even beyond the deconstruction/reconstruction dichotomy. For starters: One thing that strongly influenced Worm's worldbuilding was a desire to explain as many quirks of classic superhero settings as possible.

For instance, why does supertechnology so rarely trickle down from superheroes/villains to affect normal people? Wildbow posits that, however slick this supertechnology might look, on the inside it's a bodged-together mess that only keeps functioning if the tinker keeps actively bodging patches together, which nobody without a superhuman understanding of that technology can practically accomplish.

The conflict drive was probably designed to address one of the obvious questions raised by superhero worlds: Why does (almost) everyone with superpowers use them to either commit or fight crimes? Why don't more people just use them for normal work, or new kinds of "super-work," or just to mess around without any responsibilities? Because an alien in their head told them to.

But I don't think this is necessary. Wildbow provides plenty of capes with motivations for fighting/doing crime that aren't narrowly applicable to that character's situation. Look at the Undersiders: Brian needs the money, Lisa was coerced, Taylor's going through a self-destructive spiral of trying to make a difference the only way she can, Rachel's psyche was so ruined by her trigger event that she couldn't pass a job interview if she tried, and Alec...well, okay, superpowered abusive dads are pretty specific.

Beyond that, he does a passable job (especially in Ward) of establishing systemic motivations for going into crime-fighting. (I mean, beyond systematic failures that encourage large numbers of individual motivations.) The most dramatic, I'd argue, is the implicit duty parahumans have to do something about S-class threats. Parahumans who fail to live up to that expectation, who settle for being rogues with normal jobs, are looked down upon. That's a pretty neat setting detail!

But it's weakened with the conflict drive being the apparently biggest reason so many capes get into conflict. And it doesn't just weaken those other explanations for the same idea, it weakens other aspects of Worm's deconstruction.

I'm going to steal a conclusion from Blastweave:

Worm says, needing superheroes would be terrible.

And I feel like that's very true. Earth Bet is a world that undeniably needs superheroes, needs larger-than-life people with the power to stop threats on an inhuman scale. Wildbow then frames that world in a way that makes it clear what the effects of that would be—both the direct effects of living in a world where Endbringers trash a city every three months, and the consequences of institutions constructed to address those threats.

Needing superheroes would be terrible. But what if we dropped the conflict drive?

The conflict drive is an external factor, stapled onto the superhero formula to make it work better. Its presence implies that it is necessary, that things wouldn't be this bad without such an alien space bat.

The conflict drive weakens anything you could say about superheroes by giving you an out to those conclusions. Oh, there's nothing inherent to the premise of superhumans regularly coming to blows that makes the setting more perilous for the average man, worsens standards of living, or encourages the growth of callous institutions; it's probably just the conflict-creating alien worm in every superhero's head.

The conflict drive doesn't add nothing to Worm, but I don't think it's a net good for the narrative. Imagine another version of Worm which emphasizes human reasons people turn to capedom while dropping the shardsy ones; what is lost?

...

Also, it gives the anti-parahuman bigotry subplot in Ward an unfortunate wrinkle, but "the bigots are actually right about one of the Bad Things they say" is far from the worst problem with that subplot.

[adobe-outdesign]

Could you talk about the Bisharp line? Is one of my favorites, a Pawn that evolves into a Bishop with Samurai-esque features. It's edgy but its the good kind of edgy.

The overall concept for this line is pretty interesting. The blade theme is obvious, but they're also kaijin, IE humanoid monsters. In other words, Pawniard are the mooks that the Power Rangers cut down effortlessly while Bisharp is the cool evil general. The line certainly does a good job at looking like a tokusatsu villain (and I mean that in the best way possible, because I do love me some tokusatsu villians), and I'm always a big fan of abstract monsters to begin with.

(Shoutout to the translators: this wouldn't have made sense to a Western audience, so they chose to name them after pawns and bishops, which reflects their kaijin nature in a way audiences would understand (pawns gather together, bishops lead, etc.). Also, why haven't we gotten a chess-themed Pokemon yet?)

There's also some neat lore in here about how they hunt in packs and fight over sharpening stones. Humanoid Pokemon occasionally suffer from lack of lore about how they behave in the wild, so this is refreshing.

However, while I like this line overall, I do feel like Pawniard suffers from lack of a unique identity. There are a few elements specific to it that look better than on Bisharp, which I'll get into in a moment, but otherwise it's just a smaller Bisharp. Sometimes this can be excusable if it has different lore or behaves differently from its evolution, but it doesn't really have that. There's maybe a bit of progression with the kaijin thing, but it's subtle.

With that said, I do really like the face on Pawniard, moreso than Bisharp. Those yellow eyes pop really nicely, and the sunken-in look makes it look especially ruthless, which is also emphasized by the lack of a mouth. The colors are also simpler, which is good. So it's not bad as-is; it just isn't bringing much new to the table.

While the face is a downgrade, I'd otherwise say I like Bisharp more than Pawniard; the elements feel more purposeful here, even if it's a bit overworked in some areas. Like I said, I love the kaijin look and it works perfectly here, with a slick samurai helmet and plenty of blades. Those almost ungulate-like blade hooves are also perfect.

However, Bisharp does feel like it needed a round or two more of refinement before being finalized (some of this applies to Pawniard as well).

In particular, I don't like those two blades on the stomach, for a few reasons. First, the design flows downward, so suddenly having the vertical stripes cut off by horizontal elements feels off. Secondly, they don't add much to the design. And thirdly, how is it supposed to function with those things? If it puts its arms down or tries to lie down on its side its arms will be cut. The torso could also afford to be a bit shorter.

Secondly, I preferred Pawniard's color use, with the yellow used to make the eye pop and the rest of the blade elements being white. The yellow doesn't add much here and only serves to clutter the design.

And thirdly, the arm blades are odd; it looks like it's wearing oven mitts with blades on the backs. Something more similar to the feet would've worked better, and would've visually established a pattern with the limbs.

Finally, this is very minor, but it drives me nuts how the helmet blade just barely extends down onto the face. Either exaggerate it more or have it line up, I don't care, but it's just creating tension as-is, especially with the mouth. Also, I could've done without the random black around the chin/jaw.

I did a very sloppy edit in like 5 minutes, just removing the first blade and adjusting the colors (and torso length). The design feels a lot more coherent to me this way without really changing it all that much (the hands could also use changed but once again, quick edit).

But as a whole, I do really enjoy this line; it looks cool, the blade theme works, and I'm just a sucker for these kind of kaijin designs. I just feel like Pawniard's too similar to its evo, while Bisharp could've been refined a bit more. It's edgy, sure, but in a good (and punny) way.

[dream-critical]

i don't have twitter but I saw this a few days ago and still bothers me.. maybe I'm overreacting ?? idk. so quackity announced he has created his own SMP called QSMP. his plan is to have a place where his Spanish speaking audience and English speaking audience to join together and have cc's interact as well. I think it's amazing and I maybe bias ? cause I like quackity but anyway. so dream wrote on his private twitter and said "So excited to see quackity's server. just thought I'd say in advance that I've been working on a similar thing to collaborate with creators from around the world, so people aren't up in arms about copying when it happens haha.". like really ?? he made this moment that quackity is proud and excited for as well as people are happy for quackity as well and can't wait to see it about himself. like rly I'm supposed to believe that dream has been planning this as much as quackity and even if he wants to,. I don't see dreams multilingual SMP operating properly and worked on as well as quackitys. I never thought dream was annoying or had an issue with him in CC's vods but twitter it's like a different person then what videos show. He needs someone else to run his Twitter. maybe I'm overthinking everything and being dramatic?? sorry for rant

Honestly I do not believe dreams new international SMP will actually be functional at all. He is the worst server admin ever, he failed to actually implement a working communication system in the SMP that made his career what it is today and he wasn't the reason the dsmp was that popular anyway. He's too cocky and unwilling to accept critisism.

He doesn't even give a shit about the servers he owns. He probably just is grasping at straws to keep his audience excited and focused on him.

Even at the Hispanic event they went to none of the dreamteam actually even tried to learn any Spanish etc. I can not see him do anything multilingual at all.

I genuinely believe he just said that to one up quackity. I've seen transcripts of a recent stream where he seems to imply that quackity doesn't take streaming seriously etc and that "if he could choose who wins best minecraft streamers it'd be foolish bc he treats it as a job". That alone shows me he does not actually respect any of the work quackity does bc he puts an insane amount of work into his lore and streams.

Tweet in question

[vivi-the-sky-kid]

Hello Maam/Sir/Great One, can you please catch me up on everything lore related lately? I've been dead for at least a year and would like to hjonk my confusion. And can you also please explain them? Sky lore is very very vauge and I, as my classmates say, am a numpty so a short explaination is very much appreciated <3

Hm, I do like the sound of Great One :3 From now on, I will be referred to as Great One and Great One only (/j)

So to get everything that I've posted, I really do recommend going to my blog and using either the search function (if you're on the app) and looking up the tag "sky lore," or going into my archive on desktop and also looking up the tag "sky lore" because that will help you find everything. The tags "sky meta" and "sky theories" are also a good idea to search up, though they are my own musings and interpretations of what we see in game, so don't take them as the One True Lore. Overall, I'd recommend the desktop route because the app's search function doesn't always get everything

However, I'll also post a few links here that cover the big ones

This post has numerous handy links for people just like you :D

This post deals more with matters from the concept art stage, so take it with a grain of salt, but it is rather interesting to see how things changed in regards to who/what the Elders are, how the Sky Kingdom once was culturally, and the relationship the spirits had with the light creatures

This post goes into the meanings behind the Hebrew letters used in the concept art for the Elders, as well as how they pertain to each Elder

This post covers 5 different versions of the opening sequence (the English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and French versions), and also has interpretations given by the fandom regarding the wording of each intro

Additionally, I recommend checking out @sky-lore, @skyabove, and @whitebookposts (among others), as I did miss quite a few months myself due to personal reasons

But overall, I recommend just having fun with it! Take what you see in-game and come up with your own version

[lucemferto]

You know, I've been reading a lot of discourse on the Dream SMP's failures and I want to throw some thoughts at a bigger brain than my own to see if they're any good.

I think the SMP's main issue, the fundamental flaw which has caused the downward spiral of narrative quality is not actually anything to do with the narrative - it's that the narrative is suffering from poor world building and conveyance, which is in some way endemic to the medium of minecraft streams.

See, the problem is that unlike some other video-game based story, like Red VS Blue*, the DSMP doesn't have much of an assumed lore that can be taken from the game medium. RvB is essentially a Halo AU, so stuff like the Aliens showing up is explained by the intertextual knowledge the viewer can apply from the Halo games. But that doesn't exist for Minecraft, so the CC's have to put in the work themselves and they didn't.

*I know RVB is very different to DSMP (although I'd argue Quackity's lore streams are getting close to it) but ignore that.

So because there's little to no base lore, and the CCs didn't expand upon the worldbuilding early on, it means HUGE parts of the world have no concrete truth in the Dream SMP. Take Death for example. The idea of permanent death was just... not a thing. Not until Schlatt died. At Tubbo's execution, sure it was shocking, but it wasn't like he'd actually die - there was no understanding it was possible! Same for the independence war, Eret's betrayal, Tommy and Dream's duel, etc. Permanent Death only comes when Schlatt, and subsequently Wilbur, kick the bucket.

So Wilbur and Schlatt are DEAD dead. Okay, that's something that apparently can happen. But then Wilbur goes on reddit and responds to a question about 3 canon lives, says he likes it, and BAM! Now the SMP has an official canon, and death has stakes! But it retroactively gives much more narrative weight that didn't exist and wasn't intended to so many events!

Not to mention, there's still no concrete basis for what makes a death "canon". Why you get three. There's an afterlife and a goddess of death and totems of undying and immortals, not to mention minecraft's default Zombies, Skeletons, and oh what's that? Ghostbur? Cool, what the fuck is this worlds metaphysics anyway. Coherent worldbuilding? Nah, who needs it.

Death is one huge, glaring example. But the DSMP crew hasn't given enough thought to so MANY aspects of the world these characters are in and it kneecaps the narrative. You can't tell a good story in a setting that doesn't have established rules because how do we have anything resembling reasonable cause and effect if the rules of the universe are basically set out on a whim.

We don't understand their economy - businesses exist and presumably generate profit somehow? See: BigInnit Hotel, Tommy monetising Church Prime. But how does this mesh with villagers and stuff?

Countries can exist, sure, but none of them seem to have concrete laws or anything that actually... makes them countries. Your anarchist syndicate doesn't work as a plot line when there's functionally zero difference between "guys being dudes" and a country except what they call themselves. L'manberg had no clear legal system, no currency, no actual mechanism for the president to exert power - the entire reason Wilbur called the election is no one doing what he said!

Which brings me to L'manberg's elections... over 200 thousand people voted. Who are they, canonically? Citizens of L'manberg who have no representation on the server? Are they the fucking mobs? Is the Canon explanation that L'manberg's elections were online and people in a far off continent voted?

I can't wait to see how they handle the End. It will most likely be a train wreck.

My ultimate point is that the narrative would benefit an awful lot if the creators sat down and hashed out the details of their world. It might even let them weave some themes and story elements into the world, which they can later pull from instead of their asses.

Yeah, the problem is that the Dream SMP is kinda at a crossroads in terms of what it wants to be.

Does it want to tell a serious (or, rather, non-farcical) story within this Minecraft-world they created or do they want to do more casual rp? Because with casual rp that does not necessarily care about story consistency or prioritizes the viewing experience over the playing experience a world with consistent rules and traditional storytelling and worldbuilding might seem too restrictive.

Back in Season 1 that wasn't too much of a problem, because - in spite of how well told it all was - they still had a fairly simple story and skewed pretty heavily and obviously towards the casual rp, "this isn't a serious story we're trying to tell"-vibe.

Even Wilbur's descent - probably the darkest part of the story - carried itself with much more grandeur and theatricality when compared to Tommy's exile and Dream's torture.

But the fact of the matter is that Dream SMP-content has attracted a considerable number of fans specifically interested in the storytelling and narrative. People like Quackity, Karl and Dream play to those preferences by dialing up the sincerity of their storytelling, by reducing the metafiction, just generally treating the story more like a story being told to an audience and less like friends having fun.

If they want to push the storytelling of the Dream SMP, I definitely think that heeding what you said would probably be a good call. Because now they're in this weird twilight zone, where it's not casual enough to succeed with wacky improv-bits, but also not consistent and intentional enough to tell a story that matches their aspirations.

[variousqueerthings]

fear makes companions of us all

I was letting a friend know about my little watch and ratings thing, and by chance he's a few episodes ahead and he described the opening of this era as joyless. and yeah, it's. it's a bit. I'm slogging, I really am (luckily next episode is Time Heist!!!)

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 4/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 4/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 3/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 4/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 4/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 5/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 3/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 7/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 5/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 6/10

FULL RATING: 46/100 (if I can count….)

oh this is such a weird one. a mystery that isn't a mystery, a recontextualisation that makes earlier lore worse, a messy forwards and backwards that's sort of centred around a date between Clara and Danny Pink, but doesn't manage to centre it, an insight into the Doctor that tells us nothing new...

OBJECTIFICATION: so Clara is on a date, which means that the Doctor for some reason is constantly commenting on her appearance. AAAallll the time. it's not technically the most egregious example of this on the show, but the fact that it's coming from the Doctor and it's directed at his companion, it's just got a low-level patriarchal discomfort the entire time

PLOT-POINT: Clara is on a date and she made a joke that made Danny uncomfortable (which, Danny being a soldier isn't the main point I'll make about this episode, because I don't remember where it goes at the moment), and then they go back in time and meet kid!Danny who's an orphan, and future descendant of Danny who's at the end of the Universe, and then way way back to the Doctor's personal timestream to meet kid!Doctor, whom she comforts

you get the point here? the point is that this is not about Clara, even though it's Clara's date that this thing all attempts to twirl around

I'd say the one thing is that she knows a bit more about Danny now

COMPLEXITY: oohohohooo for a plot that's not really a plot, it's all over the damn place. there's the date, there's two different pasts, the end of the universe, and it's all to find something that doesn't exist. and on some level the Doctor driving themself up the wall with nothing to do isn't bad, but it's just a pointlessly involved plot to get to a particular point that I'm not convinced is a point at all

it's really all about the callbacks, which we will get to...

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: the Doctor's meanness is ramping up. will Clara eventually start calling that out? the Doctor fully yells at her in this one, and it's disconcerting -- I don't know that it was the right choice, even though we're going by an edgier Doctor this time around

there's a careful balance of the Doctor being compelling to watch, which is heavily influenced by their treatment of their companion. if the Doctor is dismissive, cruel, hypocritical towards their companion I need a damned good reason, beyond "this time around my feelings are just a flipping mess"

Danny is an orphan who grew up afraid of the dark (and with something on his bed?) and met Clara as a kid briefly

oh the Doctor was raised in a barn, literally... no, we'll get to some of this in a point further down... and the Doctor was bad at being good at soldiering and was a softy I guess? no, I'll take that, Beta Shrigma was an emotional sad mess of a child, of course

COMPANIONS MATTER: Clara's just running around after the Doctor in this one, buuuut she's there to provide emotional support to both a young Danny and a young Doctor

in fact, it's highly suggested that Clara not only inspired the sonic screwdriver, but also inserted the idea of the Doctor not pressing the big button during the timewar, through the power of being in the right place at the right time I guess

we will get more into that!

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: the Doctor isn't technically godlike in this one, but it is in the end all about the Doctor, specifically the Doctor as someone who has a brain that's very loud (which we know) who doesn't let things go (which we know) and wasn't a natural fit for the academy (which... ok we only know that for sure if we watched classic who or read the novels or heard some audio, but it's definitely inferred in nu!who as well)

in a way it feels like it's about calming the Doctor down, which could be an interesting episode in the sense of "the Doctor as neurodivergent and mental health issues coded" but instead isn't interested in those things, beyond forgiving every temper tantrum the character has, because the Doctor is deeper than other characters and was sad as a child

there's... a nugget in this. it is not enough for it to be a good plot

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: oh hey, remember how Clara inspired the Tardis and nobody liked that plotpoint? she also inspired the screwdriver, affirmed the Doctor's idk... latent pacifist ideals, and planted the idea not to end the Time War in a bad way

and if that wasn't enough, she also first said a line that's kind of iconic from the very very first serial "fear makes companions of us all."

it's fascinating in the way M*ffat both doesn't seem interested in Clara much beyond what she can do for the Doctor, but then also needs to make her the originator of any and all of the most important parts of DW lore... or maybe... it's just that his imprint needs to be all over original DW lore. conspiracy theory with no stakes unlocked

no but seriously, M*ffat's versions of Classic!Who lore only cheapen the original narratives, and I wish he'd stop. ironically he also fucks with his own lore by not making the undoing of the Time Lord genocide a choice that the Doctor makes based on their own journey, but also something randomly implanted way back as a kid

it's similar to the way he would bring back the Angels over and over again, and to the way I know he's about to bring the core principle of Silence of the Library back again and again, and the "little kid who met someone they will want to make out with as an adult" plotline -- here gender subversed because it's a young Danny meeting Clara as a kid (does he not remember that?) or super special sexy scary woman who's a series of mysteries, rather than a character

my guy has his core Things and he beats at them until there's no blood left, it's truly a fascinating thing to watch someone fucking with their own lore

I confess I did read a bit of others' opinions on the wikipedia after writing above and truly wish to know what they saw that I didn't. "an interrogation of the Doctor's character"? huh?

also this episode was nominated for a Bram Stoker award, and that's also shocking to me. it's not... scary? or even that compelling as scifi. the idea of mystery at the end is a non-idea, even considering there presumably was a creature around and about, and that the Doctor figured out what it was (we don't, because fuck us)

the more I think about this episode, the less I like it

“SEXINESS”: nothing beyond the weirdness of how Clara is classified via her looks. why would the Doctor care? why would the Doctor -- if written as someone who doesn't care -- be mean about it? it's not technically "sexiness" but it feels in the same vibe of things, as it's about the jokes of sexiness

INTERNAL WORLD: I mean, it's... Clara's still a teacher on a date. the Tardis is there. Danny has a little more depth. apparently the Doctor slept in that barn he would eventually Not Destroy Gallifrey from

it's just kind of bland. Oh, Danny's descendant somehow travelled to the end of the Universe I guess. I'll allow that scifi stuff got them into the barn, since the Doctor was unconscious, but it doesn't tell us anything of interest

the world is backdrop, but not fleshed out backdrop

POLITICS: apart from the rampant body-shaming of Clara, this episode doesn't have much to say on soldiering, surprisingly, considering it

a. starts on that ill-fated date with A Joke About Killing Someone which goes awry (because it's kind of a fucked up thing to say to someone you're into)

b. has a continuous thread of little soldier figurines, of which one of them noticeably doesn't seem to have a weapon and is preferred

c. that figurine is given to the Doctor, who is a kid that is considered ill-suited to go to the academy to "learn to be a soldier" (which, I have questions about lore within that, as far as I'm aware there's more to the academy than that, but I'm not sure enough to make that A Point)

there is this one rant Danny goes on about how they "dug wells" and it wasn't all shooting people, but this is something I might talk more about in future, because, well... I mean I'm against the military institution, and considering Danny was an orphan there could be narrative about how those institutions target vulnerable teens, and as a Black man who's possibly navigating ideas of how people perceive him and what it means for white kids to ask if he's ever killed a person... who am I kidding, this won't matter will it?

however, I know there's more coming up, so I won't dwell too heavily on it, but it is a missed opportunity to ground this story thematically, to connect Danny and the Doctor, since there is no grounding

it is a groundless helium balloon of an episode