#who's entire schtick is local history

[answrs]

anyway so a few years back at one of mom's old churches, someone snuck a pair of nunchucks (illegal in Ohio, also sir this is A Fucking Church) into the donations for the rummage sale.

I went to help out sorting through and pricing things yesterday for her newest church's sale and found a whole-ass iron(?) dagger with a very sharpened foot-long blade in one of the bins...

with a bonus eagle & swastika hilt

so that's fun 🫠

my dude. like what was your plan here. "yes the 50¢ an item fundraiser is definitely gonna sell a fucking nazi knife to support their free community breakfasts. I am a Good Person."

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: The Hollows Author: Daniel Church Genre/s: mostly folk horror, with a bit of what I’d call survival horror in the middle Content/Trigger Warnings: implied child and animal abuse, implied sexual assault, physical assault, kidnapping, human and animal death, gore Summary (from Angry Robot Books): In a lonely village in the Peak District, during the onset of a once-in-a-lifetime snow storm, Constable Ellie Cheetham finds a body. The man, a local ne’er-do-well, appears to have died in a tragic accident: he drank too much and froze to death. But the facts don’t add up: the dead man is clutching a knife in one hand, and there’s evidence he was hiding from someone. Someone who watched him die. Stranger still, an odd mark has been drawn onto a stone beside his body. The next victims are two families on the outskirts of town. As the storm rises and the body count grows, Ellie realises she has a terrifying problem on her hands: someone – or some thing – is killing indiscriminately, attacking in the darkness and using the storm for cover. The killer is circling ever closer to the village. The storm’s getting worse…and the power’s just gone out. Buy Here: https://angryrobotbooks.com/books/the-hollows/ Spoiler-free Review: A pretty fun read overall! The concept’s solid, and while it’s not what most people would think about when they think of folk horror, especially if their first contact with the genre is Midsomar or Wicker Man (the old one, not the remake), it fits in the genre pretty well. It takes a while for the connection to click, but when it does? Whooboy! Also like Midsomar and Wicker Man, I genuinely think this’d make a great movie or miniseries! There’s passages in the book that read as very cinematic, and a part of me wonders if this book was written with the possibility for adaptation into a show or film already in mind. Even if that was the case, I think it’d work wonderfully in a visual medium. Not sure which director would work best on this - I mean, Ari Aster’s the obvious choice because of his connection to folk horror, but there’s aspects to this that make me think another director might be a better fit. That being said: I wish the pace of the narrative was better. There were several chapters that I think could have been more tightly-written; for a moment I thought this was going to turn into survival horror, and I think it was that for a moment, which doesn’t make me happy (not because I think survival horror is a bad subgenre; it’s just not my schtick). But once you’re past that part the story picks up again; I just wish that slow chunk was, as I said, more tightly-written. Rating: Three creepy entities and one half-corpse (three and a half) Thoughts underneath the cut for spoilers

- There were plenty of nods to Lovecraft, particularly where the Harpers are concerned. I don’t know if those nods were deliberate, but there they are (or at least, there I think they are; it’s likely I’m the only one seeing them). - Speaking of nods to Lovecraft and the Harpers, I wonder if the veering away from incest when it came to Paul and Jessica was the author seeing what direction they were going and deciding “Nope!” at the last minute. This is only speculation, and I could be entirely wrong, but given the way that the “no incest happened here!” thing was put forward, I can’t help but wonder if that was the case regardless. - Can I just say that I love how women took care of most of the business in this novel? Not all of them met happy ends, but I’m glad for the ones who did. - Also: the scene where the Harpers were holding Charlotte Famuwiya and her boy hostage? And they said they’d had a noose around Charlotte’s neck? Godsdamn if that doesn’t say “lynching” to me, especially since Charlotte’s mixed-race. - And given the history of the village and the Harpers’ farm and their relationship to the Tatterskins and the old gods: fuck the Normans, and therefore, fuck the French.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #283: Utsumi Erice

Welp, it's finally here. The end of the line. With this build, we have (at the time of writing) reached the final servant available in NA FGO.

So, where do we go from here?

To start with, we've decided (outside of viewer's choice builds) not to go ahead with building servants before they reach NA. That doesn't mean we're stopping 'til Castoria and the next Summer servants pop up though! We're looking into some other systems, and maybe touching up some of the old builds. (And taking a little break. We've been at this for a while, after all.) Basically, we're slowing down, not stopping.

But anyways, that's not why people are here, they want to see Utsumi Erice made as a character in D&D 5e. I'd have loved to make her a fiend warlock, but we can't justify focusing on strength on a Bladesinger Wizard so she's a Hexblade Warlock instead. If you're wondering why she's a wizard instead of entirely using her dark spirits, it's simple. 1. She's still a mage in her own right, and 2. her whole schtick is pr much Tenser's Transformation the Character. That's a wizards only build. Or a bard I guess, but if the general reaction we've seen to her event is anything to go by she's not *that* great at making a first impression.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: Yes 2ekken, we're working on it.

Race and Background

Kalashtar's are more like people being fused with light spirits, but it's still pretty close to what we need, and it's not like there's a dark spirits option. Don't worry, we'll get plenty of spooky flavor later on. That being said, you get +2 Charisma and +1 Intelligence, plus you have a Dual Mind for advantage on Wisdom saves. Basically Erlkonig goes "this one's full" whenever somebody tries to take over your mind. You also have resistance to psychic damage thanks to your dark typing and Mental Discipline. You're Severed from Dreams, which is a niche feature, but it makes you immune to effects that require dreams like the spell Dream. You still sleep though. One last thing- you can use a Mind Link to speak psychically with nearby creatures, and you can give another creature the ability to speak back for up to an hour. You're from the future, cell phones exist. Admittedly this is more like a walkie-talkie since it has a max range of 200 feet, but still.

You're one of the few people who regularly goes to school in the future (nerd), plus you're friends with the local AI, so you're a Cloistered Scholar, picking up History and Arcana proficiencies for better servant identification.

Ability Scores

Thanks to your impending nerd-dom, your highest score is Intelligence. Knowing your enemy is literally half the battle when you're fighting servants. After that is Charisma. If you call yourself a Reaper and don't get laughed out of the room, you probably have a lot of it. Third is Constitution, which sounds weird, but your body's been getting eaten away by dark spirits pretty much since day one and you're still alive, so I'd put your toughness at a little above average. Fourth is Dexterity. You don't wear much armor. This all means your Wisdom is a little low, but we're dumping Strength. You're pretty perceptive, and also a child.

Class Levels

1. Warlock 1: Erice was born in the darkness, molded by it; but she molds it in turn and makes cool spears out of it. That's why she's a Hexblade warlock. Hexblade warlocks are Hex Warriors, and that medium armor and shield proficiency will definitely help for the first few levels. You can also channel power through a weapon at the end of a long rest so you can use charisma instead of strength to make attack and damage rolls with it. This'll also apply to your pact weapon later on, but it's probably not that hard to get a spear.

As a bonus action, you can target a creature with a Hexblade's Curse for up to a minute, during which you add your proficiency to damage rolls, crit on 19s, and you heal when the creature dies. Fortunately there aren't any drawbacks to letting the spirits out like this since it's only level one.

More good news: you can cast Pact Magic using your Charisma to cast spells like Eldritch Blast for some long-range darkness and True Strike. It's not a good spell to cast, but you can. Also, we finally have a use for Arms of Hadar, which blasts everyone around you with tendrils of darkness. You should also pick up Shield to not die as much.

As far as proficiencies go, you get the standard with Wisdom and Charisma saves, plus two skills- Investigation and Religion will help you find even more servants.

2. warlock 2: second level warlocks get eldritch invocations, ways to make your spooky ink demons work for you like a 90s self-help book. rn we're just getting agonizing blast so your eldritch blast is blastier than ever, but pick a second one up now anyway to trade next level.

also grab hex to curse people almost as badly as you are! lil no command seal havin punk.

3. warlock 3: at third level you finally enter the pact of the blade, and can grab the improved pact weapon invocation! your pact blade can be just about anything you like, like a spear! it's magical, gets +1 to attacks and damage rolls, and you can summon it as an action. you can also turn any magical weapon into a pact weapon, tho that's on your dm to give ya. also, it's a spellcasting focus, so you can keep your hands free for more spells like branding smite. that keeps whatever you hit from turning invisible for up to a minute, preventing most servants from going into spirit mode while you wallop them.

4. wizard 1: bouncin over to wizard gets you more spells! you cast and prepare these ones using your intelligence, and you write down all the ones you have a in big ol' spellbook. you can add spells to your book if they're written down, and you can prepare spells that you don't already have prepared if they're not written down, so protect that book with your life!

also, warlock slots always come back on short rests, and wizards kinda do the same thing with arcane recovery, where once a day you can get a couple slots back on a short rest too. otherwise you have to wait a whole day.

you also get a lotta spells, and we're not gonna talk about all of them here! check out the sheet if you want, but we'll just get the highlights.

Mage Armor: you wear a dress, now you won't die in it.

Magic Missile: more blasts, more accurate.

Detect Magic: servants are magic. you hunt them. now you hunt them better.

5. wizard 2: at second level you become a bladesinger, giving you training in war and song which doesn't do anything but give you performance proficiency. pretty sure you mention karaoke at one point, so it's fine.

better than normal singing, you can sing a bladesong as a bonus action lasting for 1 minute, or until you put on medium armor, use a shield, or make a two-handed attack. while singing, you add your intelligence to your ac and concentration saves. you also have advantage on acrobatics checks, and add 10 to your speed. you can sing proficiency times a day!

6. wizard 3: second level spell time! grab blur to get a little inkier and improve your chances at not getting hit.

7. wizard 4: at fourth level you finally get your first ability score improvement! pump up your charisma for stronger blasts and stabs!

8. wizard 5: fifth level wizards get third level spells like haste, the first time we can take a drawback! when you cast the spell you get doubled speed, +2 ac, advantage on dex saves, and an extra action with some limitations. once the spell ends, you can't move or take actions for a turn while you resist the darkness in your soul. edgy!

9. wizard 6: sixth level bladesingers get an extra attack, plus you can even cast a cantrip instead of one of those attacks so your darkness and spear can work together! we can also pick up vampiric touch to feed on the suffering of your enemies. more than you already were with curses an all.

10. wizard 7: seventh level wizards get fourth level spells like banishment to yeet servants right back to the throne. if you keep up concentration for a minute.

11. wizard 8: at eighth level, round up your constitution modifier by grabbing the aberrant dragonmark feat! this gives you the infestation cantrip, and the only sorcerer spell not on the wizard list already chaos bolt! you can cast them using your constitution, and you can only cast chaos bolt once a short rest. also, when you cast the spell you can spend a hit dice to either gain temporary hp or deal force damage to a random creature nearby, possibly yourself if no-one else is around. your cursed eye...! it hungers!

12. wizard 9: ninth level wizards get fifth level spells like enervation. throw darkness around, absorb people's life, it's you the spell!

13. wizard 10: tenth level wizards have a song of defense, using your reaction to spend a spell slot and reduce damage. more importantly, you can use skill empowerment to get double proficiency in history, then make a history check to power legend lore and find out who you're fighting! having to remember all of human history for your job stinks, but you're pretty good at it.

14. wizard 11: eleventh level wizards get sixth level spells like tenser's transformation! you kick butt, but then you have to make a constitution save after the spell ends and get exhausted if you fail.

specifically, you get temporary hp, advantage on attacks with weapons, extra damage from those attacks, and proficiency in strength and constitution saves. too bad that doesn't last long enough to help with the exhaustion save!

15. wizard 12: twelfth level wizards get another asi, so bump up your intelligence for stronger spells and songs.

16. warlock 4: buut we're hopping back to warlock, which means we get one last asi! bump up your constitution for more health and a better time controlling your demons.

you can also use blade ward to catch onto an enemy attack for reduced physical damage, and you can make some darkness that not even you can see through!

17. warlock 5: fifth level warlocks get third level spells like Hunger of Hadar. makes a big ol' space of darkness that deals cold and acid damage, is difficult terrain, and blinds creatures inside.

we can also make your spear even spear-er thanks to eldritch smite! now you can spend a warlock slot when you hit something to deal extra damage and knock them prone if they're large or smaller.

18. warlock 6: our last warlock level lets you summon some buddies by dripping darkness everywhere. you can spend a spell slot to summon shadowspawn, or kill someone to make an accursed specter. we normally don't get this stuff, but as long as they stay close to you it's kinda like letting your branches off their leash a bit.

19. wizard 13: thirteenth level wizards get seventh level spells! grab project image for a real cellphone, and dream of the blue veil to trap people in a boardgame made out of your own mind! yeah that's a real spell in D&D!

20. wizard 14: our last level of wizard lets us sing a song of victory, adding your intelligence to weapon damage while bladesinging.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

When you're in the zone, you deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time. First, you've got big spells, even if we didn't go over them much in the post here- classics like Disintegrate and Mordenkainen's Sword, to name a few. But right now, we're talking about weapons. With a curse, a song, and a transformation, you can deal 2d6+4d12+8d8+30 damage in a single action, most of that being force damage which usually doesn't get resisted. That's an average of 100 damage, and that's before factoring in doubled crit chance both from your curse and your transformation.

You also don't have to do that, with tons of options available from focusing on the most option-heavy class in the game. Summon someone else to take care of the problem, help your friends from the rear, mess with the enemy using illusions, you've got spells to do almost everything, and that's just the list we made- you have tons of freedom to swap spells around and still keep enough to make this build feel like Erice.

With a good int score, proficiency in all sorts of brainy skills, and spells like skill empowerment and legend lore, you're really good at figuring out lore from the DM. Makes sense, when your whole business is based on knowing who you're fighting.

Cons:

It's a good thing you have a lot of HP for a wizard, because your AC doesn't help you out much. You can use medium armor to help out here, but that gets to be a worse and worse idea as you level up, since bladesinging can't work with that. Bladesinging will bring this up to a decent level for a frontline fighter, but those are limited use. Speaking of...

Your best options either have limited use or other major drawbacks. They hurt you, stun you, or are hard to control. Specializing in these techniques does fit the Erice mold, but it still sucks to do when there's non-hurting-yourself options out there.

Mixing in hexblade gives us even more melee power for a caster, but if we hadn't bothered with the last three levels of it we could get ninth level spells. Ninth level spells are good. Multiclassing into warlock means we don't even get ninth level slots to work with.

[redrobin-detective]

The late Daniel Fenton

It was shaping up to be a beautiful if chilly December day and Casper High, as always, was bustling. It was 7:49 and class was about to start. The teacher watched the last few kids stumbling in at various levels of wakefulness. He already knew who would be the ones to rush in after the bell but that was alright. Life was too short to stress about being a few minutes late to class, especially in Amity Park of all places.

He looked up to see Madison, one of his shyer students walk in before making a beeline for his desk. She was biting her lip and nervously rubbing her hand down her skirt. “Hey,” she began quietly.

“Good morning. What’s up, Mads?” He asked casually. She looked upset, he could probably put on a video for the class if she needed to talk. They really needed a permanent counselor but the constant ghost attacks ran off most of them so he’d taken up the unofficial mantle. It felt good to help his students like that, make up for past wrongs.

“Are we um, expecting any new students?” She asked, her eyes darting over to the door she’d just come through. “Any transfers, exchange students or anything like that?”

“No,” the teacher frowned. “Amity isn’t the kind of place people transfer into. Why?”

“There’s a kid in the hallway,” she mumbled. “I don’t recognize him, he’s got a backpack and everything but he’s... I don’t know he doesn’t feel right.”

“Oh you’re talking about that weird dark haired kid,” Kyle said as he entered and sat down with a slouch. But even the class slacker looked unusually tense. “Dude’s creepy, can’t put my finger on why but he definitely doesn’t belong.”

“Oh,” was all the teacher had to say. Suddenly he realized how cold the classroom had become, the uncomfortable feeling that was pressing ever so slightly down on them. “I suppose it makes sense, the ghosts have been quiet lately with the Truce and all. He probably got bored.”

“Sir?” Madison said.

“Shannon,” he said instead, looking over at the frizzy haired girl hunched over her sketchbook furiously at work. “Would you do me a favor and move to the vacant seat in the second row? Just for today.”

“What? Why?” the girl whined even as she gathered up her various arts supplies and got ready to move.

“That’s Mr. Fenton’s seat,” he said taking in a deep breath and closing his eyes in preparation for what he was about to see. Danny would come here, of course he would. This was Lancer’s old classroom and Danny had him for first period English Lit. He and Dash both did.

“Mr. Baxter? What’s going on, is it a ghost?” Malik asked from the back row while Shannon shuffled to her new temporary seat.

“Yes but you don’t need to be scared,” he said softly, evenly. “He won’t hurt you.” The bell rang but Dash didn’t start the lesson. Instead, he waited. Danny had never been on time to class the entire time Dash had known him, of course death wouldn’t change that.

“Sorry, I’m late Mr. Lancer,” Dash gripped his desk so he didn’t jump when Danny Fenton simply appeared in front of his desk instead of walking through the door like any other student. “My folks couldn’t drive me, they’re still working on their stupid ghost portal.” A quick glance over at this class showed varying levels of fear, shock and curiosity but they were Amity kids through and through. The cold, powerful energy radiating off Fenton told them it was best to play along with whatever the ghost wanted.

“Perfectly alright Mr. Fenton,” Dash said softly, searching the 14 year old’s perpetually young face. He hadn’t changed a bit since Dash last saw him their second week of freshman year. It seemed unreal seeing how the years had taken their toll on Casper’s favorite son, Dash Baxter. God had they really been that young once? “Take a seat and we’ll get started.”

Danny shrugged and walked over to the seat Shannon had just vacated. He sat just the same, one leg stretched out and the other propped up against the leg of the desk. As soon as he took off the backpack and put it around the chair, it disappeared. He didn’t say anything else, just sat as stared at Dash with piercing blue eyes like he could see right through him.

“We had been talking about the lead up to the Civil War but let’s table that for today,” Dash said, proud his voice only wavered a little. He knew other people had seen Fenton around town. Lina saw him standing outside the Nasty Burger maybe five or so years ago. Dale, who used to live near Fenton Works swore he sometimes saw someone moving through the windows of the long abandoned house. He’d always secretly dreaded the thought of seeing Danny Fenton again, afraid he’d finally get was coming to him.

“Instead, we’re going to talk about local history,” he continued, not daring to take his eyes off the undead teen. Every other living student was tense, afraid. He wished he could assure them that the ghost wouldn’t lay a hand on them. In the event Fenton decided to ditch the hero schtick, it would be Dash and Dash alone he’d come after. “Amity Park has long had rumors of being haunted dating all the way back to the 1600s. It wasn’t until the last century that scientists determined that Amity Park is located on top of a thin spot between our world and the ghost realm. Natural portals form here all the time allowing spirits to pass through.”

No one spoke and barely anyone breathed except for Danny would wasn’t breathing at all. He just sat and stared at Dash with steady, unblinking eyes.

“Jack and Maddie Fenton were the scientists who discovered the weak point in reality in Amity. They devoted their entire life to the study of ghosts and made remarkable advancements in our knowledge of ectobiology and culture, the first being,” he paused as Danny cocked his head in confusion, squinting his eyes suspiciously at Dash. “The first being their manmade portal to the ghost zone. The portal remained active for almost two decades for research purposes but was shut down following their deaths.”

“You’re not Mr. Lancer,” Danny said suddenly, his eyes shifting from baby blue to an ectoplasmic green. Marty, who was sitting to the left of Danny, swallowed a squeak of fear and squeezed his eyes shut.

“No,” Dash sighed, “Lancer died almost thirty years ago now. Best teacher I ever had, he gave me his blessing when he passed on the job to me.”

“I,” the ghost ran his hand through his hair which was starting to lose its color. Seeing Fenton looking so scared and confused made him ache. It reminded him of old times. Dash had spent most of his life making sure he helped hurt kids if only to make up for the one he’d never been able to make it up to. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s okay, Danny,” he soothed. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“The portal, it wasn’t working at first,” Danny justified, his aura glowing a little more. “Sam and Tuck, they were curious. They wanted to look but I told them it wasn’t allowed, Sam, Sam she dared me to go in. I put on the hazmat suit and went inside and found the on button inside. I accidentally hit it and-” he paused midsentence and looked down at his hands. They weren’t pale flesh anymore but covered in white gloves. The black was completely bleached from his hair. A few of the students gasped as they saw the strange would be student melt into Phantom, the ghostly hero who’d been protecting their town since their parents were young. “I died.”

So much time had gone by. People were born and people were buried and the truth became distorted until it was just a legend passed jokingly around cafeteria lunch tables. Amity’s youth had forgotten their town’s history until it was sitting in a desk, trying once more to be one of them.

“You did,” Dash said sadly. He remembered hearing the news of Fenton's death. An assembly had been called the morning after the accident. Lancer had cried at the podium, Manson and Foley hadn’t returned to school for a week and had never been the same again. Dash hadn’t known what to think at the time, only that the kid he’d beat up for the crime of being different would never show up to school again. Or so he’d thought. “It was a tragedy, you were mourned by a lot of people.”

“I know you, don’t I?” Danny said quietly before he sat up straighter. “Dash?”

“In the flesh,” Dash grinned shakily.

“But you’re so old,” Danny said, once more distressed. “Your hair is grey and there’s wrinkles on your face and-and you’re a teacher now?” The last line was said with incredulity, his eyes flaring again. “You used to push me down the stone steps of the school and shove me into my locker and call me names.”

“Yeah, I did,” he sighed, feeling every one of his years. He was pushing 70 but he didn’t think he’d ever stop feeling like a stupid 14 year old who took out his frustrations on the ones who didn’t deserve it. “But you were the last; I never touched another kid again. I’m married now, four kids. I’m vice principal now, teach History and coach the school’s football team. It’s,” his voice caught again, still unable to process how young and stupid Fenton looked sitting there like no time had passed at all. It made Dash feel like all his accomplishments and attempts to be better would never amount to anything so long as his last victim roamed the earth unable to find peace. “It doesn’t fix what I did back then but I make damn sure that there won’t be any bullying at Casper so long as I’m here.”

“Huh,” Danny said, slouching once more in his seat but it looked less like his earlier teenage laziness and more weary. He and Dash were the same age after all, just because only one of them got old doesn’t mean time didn’t still affect them. “You did change, a lot of things did.” Danny looked down at the desk, “how long has it been?”

“Almost 50 years,” Dash sighed. “My wife wants me to retire but I guess I always find more things to do.” He paused then decided it was now or never. “I’m sorry Danny, for hurting you back then. I wish I'd gotten to know you better.”

For just a moment, Danny was perfectly clear. Even half floating out of his chair and looking like the local celebrity, his eyes were so painfully human. A boy killed before he ever got a chance to get started. Who’s will to protect was so strong it lasted half a century. It haunted him late at night to think of the glory and power of Phantom overshadowing just how incredible Danny Fenton had been. Not that anyone had seen it at the time. Soon there wouldn’t be anyone left to remember that quiet, kind teenager and then Danny Fenton really would be dead. Kill him just as thoroughly as that portal had.

The moment was broken by a breath of cold leaking out of the ghost’s lips and, just like that, his highschool classmate was gone and Phantom was left in his stead. He looked curiously around the classroom as if he didn’t know how he’d gotten there.

“There’s a ghost, stay here and don’t leave unless the fighting gets too close. I’ll get it though, don’t worry. No kids are dying today.” Maybe it was Dash’s imagination but he thought he saw Phantom’s eyes linger on him for an extra moment, trying to place where he knew the teacher from. Dash just smiled.

“Our lives are in your hands. Good luck, Phantom,” the ghost teen saluted before fading away entirely. Dash let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, suddenly exhausted but also lighter at the same time. It wasn’t every day you got to look your mistakes in the face and apologize. “Shannon, you can move back now.”

“No, I’m okay here,” Shannon said as she flipped to a new page in her sketchbook and looked intently at the spot where Fenton had once sat. “It’s like you said, that’s Danny’s seat.”

“I had no idea, Phantom’s been around for like, ever,” Freddie mumbled, pushing up his glasses. “But he used to be just like us.” And still was, Dash thought sadly. Danny would never grow old, never go to space like he’d always dreamed or marry Manson like he’d probably intended to. He was stuck, in more ways than one for who knows how long.

“Yes, that’s why it’s important to know your history. The Civil War and my other lessons are important but we can’t forget these smaller, more intimate histories. If we lose these lessons to time then we risk repeating the same mistakes over again.” He looked his students in the eyes, holding their attention.

“So we’ll continue today with the local history. Before he was ghost butt kicking superhero, Phantom was Danny Fenton, son of the local ghost hunters and a bit of an outcast in town. The Daniel Fenton Foundation was founded about a year after his death and was-”

[cosmik-homo]

Star Wars modern earth AU

5+ headcanons for star wars modern earth au. The general direction I ended up taking is 'twins were raised separately and both end up in this same old town connected to their families, for whatever reason', cuz that's the vibe I get from the og trilogy? It's about discovering your family has Regime Shaping levels of drama no one ever told you about, ok.

Even in aus where she's not really famous or some kind of public figure, Leia always has an incredibly high number of social media followers. She's probably not gonna get recognized for it in public or anything but she is Popular and has the kind of following that limits her ability to use her social media/medias of choice in an entirely Free, Personal Space Way, having to at least slightly watch what she says more than others. Which is annoying because she has many strong opinions and shit to vent.

Han did not have a bed frame before Leia. He's a good guy and is actually more competent at caring for himself then you'd think from his Wild And Free Man-Child Living Like An Eternal College Student Schtick, but the bed frame in particular is one of the few aspects that entirely fit the bill. Chewie disapproves and is glad to have somebody else to help lay the pressure on Han to get his shit together (that's true in many aspects, not just the bed). He claims getting one is a waste since he's sleeping in his car, couch surfing, or staying in motels so often it doesn't really matter anyways, and both Leia and Chewie inform him that 'that's even worse, you know that, right?' star wars is the story of the universe forcing han solo to get his shit together already

Artoo says a lot of "Listen, Kid", and idk if he is actually a biker but he has Your Friendly Neighborhood Old Biker Guy energy. Him and Threepio used to be close with the twin's parents and are now keeping an eye on them in their memory, and debating each other in foreign languages above the twins heads about whether it's worth it bringing old history up when and if this is the kind of story where The Family Drama comes back to haunt the poor kids. Which it should, cuz they're Skywalkers. They're both middle aged and consider themselves semi retired despite working, having changed their fields since The Old Days and settled down- Threepio used to be a political interpreter and is now mostly an event planner for some local nerdy institute or landmark, and Artoo is a veteran who now runs a repair shop.

Leia might be better at being socially proper and being well respected by many people, but Luke is better with people in quantities. He's the one who knows the name of all his neighbors and shop clerks and janitors and local 'That Guy'-s within weeks of arriving, even if he Has Been An Awkward Idiot in front of all of them at least once. It's a small-town thing, but Leia is a Big City Go-Getter gal who is unfamiliar with the idea of Knowing Everyone and is amazed at how social he is with what she thinks of as Random Strangers.

Luke is also more of a multi-talent, 'doing anything I like, really, no labels' kinda guy then Leia, who also has a range of hobbies and interests but takes them all very seriously- it's a "Jack Of What Sometimes Literally Feels Like All Trades VS Master Of Two Or Three Who Thinks It's Normal That She's 'Still Working On A Fourth' At Age Twenty Something" scenario. Luke knows his way around an engine- Farmer Life stuff- and starts enquiring about hiking and quading options for exploring the local scenery within his first weeks, For His Photography, You See, yeah he has in fact considered journalism, he was in his school paper, do you have anything local? He's also an athlete, and plays the guitar, and likes cooking and fashion and community volunteering/organization and honestly, Will Learn Whatever You Teach Him. He wants to see the world, yeah, but not just in a traveling sense- he's making the most of life wherever he is. Leia, on the other hand, knows exactly what she wants to be when she grows up- a leader and pioneer of her one specific field- and is tunnel-visioned to it, but also, like, is all for Cultivating Mind Body And Soul and is very skilled in tennis and martial arts. She was in like six extracurriculars but nowadays she mostly draws and journals for herself sometimes records song ideas when no one is around.

[sugar-petals]

BTS Tarot Reading ➝ What Kind Of Porn Do They Watch? (18+)

↳ NOTE - due to several requests, a steamy and detailed one. ☕️ we’re asking the cards about the erotica they fancy in a wider sense. 

warning ⚠️ 18+ // bdsm mentions, worship, kinks left and right. we’re going graphic in all types o’ ways, lads.

♡ DISCLAIMER // tarot is speculative, there is no guarantee for accuracy. believing in the cards is a choice. all portrayals are fictive and for entertainment purposes only.

SPREAD #1:

yoongi

⌈ THE WORLD ⇁ Jesus... Someone’s obsessed with girls in the nude. That card has a stark naked woman wrapped in very little satin on it so you know what our funky little guy is up to. Luscious aesthetic fotos might be just around his corner. Big duh, he’s a photography major. These folks are all about body appreciation. He’s also on a personal vendetta against lingerie 😂 Yoongi won’t get hard looking at even the most HD panty and bra ads. Only the skin in its full splendor will do, no editing. He loves pictures of nipples peaking through shirt fabric, it’s all over his phone. Yoongi likes his gals without underwear 24/7 just like he dislikes underwear himself. If we’re talking porn, the woman on the card is holding two very long rods so may I connect the dots: Threesomes, handjobs, blowbangs, spitroasting. Friction, friction, and more friction. To Yoongi’s brain, handjobs are a great um new version of holding hands. Sex standing up also, keeping it vertical. Yoongi doesn’t care about girth, inches count. Nice and elongated with a perfect plunge, something to hold onto. Yep, he’s pretty deliberate when searching that up. Yes, he loves the look of it. However, and you’ll be surprised: Even if he likes poly porn, it’s still nothing too extreme. This card is more about pleasure than pain. If a guy likes rough and degrading sex, you get swords and wands in his spread. THE WORLD is more about perfected skills and success. So, he likes the more accomplished porn stars. With a preference for curly blondes and redheads, that’s sort of the hair color on the card. Natural B or C cup. Medium height, not too curvy. Oversized booty not needed. In terms of nationality: We have three representative animals on the card. Eagle, lion and bull, plus a light blonde man’s head. So, anything that America/Germany/Albania/Mexico/Namibia (and so on, lot of countries with eagles as their national bird my dude), England, Spain and Scandinavia have to offer. Honey sugar is going international, baby.

hoseok

⌈ QUEEN OF WANDS ⇁ Did I just mention that guys who like rough sex in porn get wand cards in their readings in Yoongi’s segment? Well, there we have our candidate, with a very obvious card since it’s a court figure. Now, the thing is, this is not the guy being rough. The QUEEN OF WANDS is as notoriously femdom as can be. The very fiery and raw and fun version. So, with a degree of lightheartedness, but still being very fit — even buff — and hands-on with the sub. If you get the QUEEN OF SWORDS, that’s the more cool and calculated domme who signs you up for torture and humiliation, and she really looks like a domme. She’s all over the internet because she has the grit. Now wands combined with a tarot queen... it’s more about the stamina and she is approachable. Hobi does not like watching cruel girls, he likes challenging ones. Upbeat porn stars who can take a lot but most importantly dole it out assertively like pros are Hobi’s schtick. He’s unapologetic about that. With him it’s like, please not the local newcomers that turned legal a month ago. The queen cards are all about mature women. Mommy kink, hint hint. The kind of mommy who’s gonna whip out the spreader bar or cane (= wands again) and give a playful type of punishment. See how desert-like that imagery is, Hobi wants to sweat big time when he gets off to this. Now since wands also make for a damn good pole to dance on, go figure. This whole card has me wondering if, well alright, he is a Cardi B hard stan 😅 If Hobi blasts Money to get in the mood, I’d not be surprised. Anyway. Back to pole stuff: If you go through his youtube search history, you will find astounding things. I think he watches the more professional and athletic performers in competition though. High production value is key. Finally, an interesting card detail: There’s a sunflower on it. This is definitely his kind of tarot imagery.

jimin

⌈ KING OF COINS  ⇁ This card always looks like a scene from a medieval movie so you might have an erotic film enthusiast here. The more chaste type of genre, pentacles are very grounded and not hypersexualized. The intimacy is slow and more about security and pleasure. It’s graphic and detailed, but gives you a sense of relaxation. With a bit of romance in the plot, that might absolutely be Jimin’s thing. Castles and wine and nobility. Interesting type of erotica. Historical and classy. As expected of a prince, mind you. He might enjoy books of that genre also. And we know Jimin is an avid reader, right up there with Namjoon. Now, even with more risque and contemporary stuff that he googles up, we have similar dynamics going down on screen. With Hobi we had femdom because it’s a queen card, now with Jimin we get the classic male dom type of porn because that’s how the King usually rolls, unless it’s the KING OF CUPS who’s touchy-feely and subby. Meanwhile, the KING OF COINS is your local sugar daddy. Leaning towards being a soft dom, he’s not aggressive. And Jimin surely has a little crush on that concept. Ye know, if all the other members have female cards and Jimin gets the sugar daddy, we might be dealing with mxm action. Because if this card was a porn star, he’d be a really, really rich producer and a bear who’s done this since the frickin’ 90s. He’s treating his subs very gently and lets them sit on their lap, the imagery is sort of like that because the King is balancing a pentacle on his left thigh. Sex and comfort all in one are life for Jimin. A sexy detail I only noticed at a second glance, the King also has a shortened golden staff with him, which has a rounded tip. If that’s not a butt plug… whenever I see props like that in tarot, I interpret it as a sex toy. So, good vibes in here. And a bunch of aphrodisiacs, the KING OF COINS is a foodie. Which you know, might just be a food porn type of reference. Jimin’s taste in sexy things is quite something else.

jungkook

⌈ THE EMPRESS ⇁ If there’s one thing I like, it’s the Tarot giving me the important archetypes during readings of that kind. The Queens, the Kings, the Major arcana (see Yoongi’s and Jin’s segment). You can really draw a lot of hints out of it. Now with the EMPRESS you have a similar case to Hobi’s, just a lot more softcore. Jungkook has a refined and pretty vast taste in erotica, if not the most refined in Bangtan next to Jimin who likes that kind of dignified touch to it as well as we saw. Jungkook knows his stuff when it comes to searching things up, he is a first class netizen in that regard. In terms of genre: The EMPRESS is your highkey feminist and wholesomeness legend, so — you won’t find any super creepy things in some hidden file on his PC, and things by female producers instead. No slut-shaming or name-calling here, everyone gets their pleasure in their own right. Thanks to online sex ed, Jungkook has a map to the clit and he’s not afraid to use it. He’s the type to watch solo videos ad nauseam. He’s fascinated. Masturbation until it gets all messy with the juices flowing, and you bet he wants to see the girls buzzing themselves off lying on their back. Maybe even outdoors in a field. Cum play is a must, cunnilingus is a must, he loves unprotected sex and creampies, he loves breast massages. And yes. Anything that involves sex with pregnant and chubby women. Similar to Taehyung, it’s all about the focus on the girl, he doesn’t bother much with the guy performers. And given Yoongi’s reading on top of that, we have three members in BTS who are all about worshipping the female body right here, breasts over ass, and he likes blondes, too. The EMPRESS card is like… the entire porn industry who does the MILF and BBW genre is financed by Jeon Jungkook’s website subscriptions. Cue GOT7, with Jungkook it’s girls, girls, girls. The thirst is going strong, and he’s unashamed times ten, sex is sex. 

➝ we also have members who don’t really bother with erotica or have a complicated relationship with it.

SPREAD #2

taehyung

⌈  ACE OF WANDS reversed ⇁ He’s not about beating off until the world ends. Taehyung gets bored by porn or heated literature and doesn’t feel very motivated to search it up. He would rather come up with his own ideas to write but doesn’t have the energy. Sex drive: On hold, even if he tries to look something up it doesn’t feel very fulfilling to him. Most of it fails to turn him on, it’s not his kind of taste. He gets frustrated when he masturbates and would rather rest, dream, and doze. The only thing I can see him watch somewhat frequently — hold your horses — is lesbian porn. I’ll explain. The ACE OF WANDS is pretty much your most glaring handjob symbolism card. A hand gripping a stick. Yoongi’s THE WORLD card has very similar imagery, I mean even two wands and a girl, bisexual explosion much. He would be a big fan of the upright ACE OF WANDS card lmao! But the reversal is like, um no silly guys jerking off in here, pls. Keep your cum to yourself. That means: Zero dicks in Taehyung’s zone, girl-on-girl stuff is his very last resort for quality that he is desperate for but cannot find. And not the stuff where the producers just replace the guys with heavy arsenal sex toys, double-ended dildos, fucking machines, endless strap-on action without any clit stimulation on either side and whatnot. Taehyung is like ugh, cherie, why, give me the juicy stuff, give me the basics. What he wants is just pure scissoring, fingering, oral, little gentle bites, a lot of caresses and kisses. And slow, slow sex. Probably the amateur kind. He hates how brutal and exaggerated most things online are. Tae is looking for softness, a lot of lesbian action is what delivers in that regard so he takes all he gets. And it goes further than that, Taehyung knows the finest yuri recommendations, I’m telling you.

seokjin

⌈  THE STAR reverse ⇁ The opposite of Yoongi: not keeping it very naked in here. The upright card shows a nude woman pouring water from two cups. Hence a strong connection to the card of sexuality, TWO OF CUPS. Everything is very gentle and positive in that scenery. But then, the reversed card rather shows us that Jin doesn’t feel too thrilled watching other people film or write or photograph sex. Like in Tae’s case, he becomes bored, it’s all the same to him. Nothing’s ever new to him in porn. He feels negative and guilty rather than refreshed or entertained. He also doesn’t like a lot of kinks that very literally connect to, well, the pouring water. Squirting, cum play, watersports, sex in the pool or showers, lube overuse, creampies, bukkake, fake cum — Jin is rolling his eyes at that, he thinks it’s a circus. He’s surely given it a try, but ended up feeling worse and even more pent-up or dissatisfied. At best, you will find him on unknown websites looking for the most amateur videos there are. Because: THE STAR quite unequivocally hints at porn stars. If you reverse the card, it becomes someone not very well-known. He roots for the underdog. Accordingly, Jin’s reaction to mainstream videos goes this way: ‚Pipe down, you non-artists!’ 😆 Cause maybe, he does do it better aye, without the awkward angles anyway. He doesn’t want the body cult, like, put that airbrush and silicone out of my face bro. Not because he’s against surgery, but the idea behind sexual extremes and the shady high standards. It’s too polished for him to get turned on. And robotic/staged. Likely because he’s had an IRL sexual experience (gasp!) that set a different ideal to him, so the more glossy porn feels off. Home video has all he needs instead. I think it’s especially because you get so see more body hair there. The woman on the THE STAR card is all sleek, so the reversed card is the opposite, Jin wants that unshaved goodness.

namjoon

⌈ EIGHT OF CUPS ⇁ Now you’d think — and I thought, kinda — we’d get the master of erotica right here. And he’s had one hell of a reputation for that. Think of the ever-infamous Yaman TV interview where BTS were super upfront and revealing about their taste and what they watch privately. With especially Namjoon having the lion’s share. But this card says otherwise if his current state is concerned. The EIGHT OF CUPS shows a man wandering off into the night, leaving eight cups behind him. I think what that means is, he’s moved on. Namjoon’s cravings aren’t as strong as they used to be, nor does he have the time. He knows it won’t fix his loneliness or answer the questions of life. He might be on the search for different things to fulfill him, or ignore much of his hormones in favor for his career. Not that he didn’t dabble in it, he sure did, but that chapter is slowly closing and what’s next he doesn’t really know yet. He thinks about family and being a father, so the smaller and more risque pleasures become less significant. Desire, too. Ye olde soul syndrome is kicking in. The card is also centered around introspection, a quest for self, all these higher topics that aren’t the most grounded and don’t leave much space for being horny. Joon is simply to preoccupied and on the move. He sees porn as a distraction from his real self at this point, and he’s not the type to feel satiated after masturbating to something, similar to Jin and Taehyung. Instead, I think he carries that energy elsewhere, hence the wanderer going from A to B onto a mountain. In short, Namjoon naturally grew out of it by becoming more, well: Namjoon. He’s left a lot behind, he’s choosing self-development over temporary fun, and he will ponder a lot on the topic, the hows and whys and whats more often than not. So, he’s passed the baton to Yoongi and Jungkook if you will, and keeps a low profile as of now. 

tarot mlist | ko-fi

----

for anon:

[supernaturalnovelsandmore]

Supernatural Novel: Heart of the Dragon

Welcome to my not-quite review of the fourth Supernatural novel, Heart of the Dragon.

Author: Keith R.A. DeCandido

Timeline: Set after Episode 5.08 Changing Channels

Location: San Francisco, California (Chinatown)

Synopsis: An old foe has come back to terrorize San Francisco, but what is the connection between the Campbells, John Winchester and Sam and Dean? Read to find out!

Warning: Spoilers abound!

Oh, where do I start? Heart of the Dragon has a very different feel to it, one that I'm not entirely on board with. Basically, it's a flashback book that spends the first third on Samuel, Deanna, and Mary Campbell, the second third on John Winchester and the last quarter on Sam and Dean. In fact, out of 28 chapters, Sam and Dean were only featured in about 7 of them. It leaves the book feeling hollow and me, a little meh. But, there are some additional insights into the Winchester family history which I'll try and parse out.

One more thought, I'm glad this is the last book from this particular author. Once again he has utilized a culture/race to tell the story, and not well. When the story is in 1969, he utilizes the world Orientals to explain Japanese and Chinese characters. He might have been trying to use the wording of the day, and that's fine if it's in dialogue, but to use it as a descriptor is problematic, at best. He also plays up multiple stereotypes from the Chinese mob to the Japanese Samurai. I'm hoping this book is the Route 666 of the novels and that they can only get better.

I decided to sort my thoughts within the different timelines, so here we go:

1969: Samuel, Deanna, and Mary Campbell

We open with the family hunting a vampire and Samuel using 15-year-old Mary as willing bait. It turns out to be a nest, but they quickly dispatch them without casualties. Deanna appears to be quite the hunter in her own right (her skill with a Claymore outstanding.) Within this hunt we learn a few things about Mary and the Campbell family.

The Campbells have a strong link to their Scottish heritage.

Samuel hates Christmas

Mary is willful, annoying, and disrespectful, but an amazing hunter who was raised practically from birth to how to hunt and defend herself. (Sam parallels, perhaps?)

Mary learned about monsters at 11 when she saw her parents dispatch an avenging spirit.

Samuel hates the idea of Mary hanging out with any boys, though she has a particular fondness for a John Winchester who works as a local auto-mechanic.

Samuel owns a dry-cleaning business and Deanna substitute teaches to help maintain some kind of income.

Mary often wondered about having a normal life, but would dismiss it knowing she couldn't have that and still know monsters are out there. (Seems like a combination of Sam and Dean here).

Other than that, the hunt they go to San Francisco for seems fairly perfunctory. They do a bunch of research, talk to a few locals. Samuel dons his FBI agent schtick, they locate the source of the problem, and quickly dispatch it. There's nothing too dramatic there, just a lot of backstory.

1989: John Winchester

There's a bit more insight here because now we're getting some insight into Dad John, as well as 6-year-old Sam and 10-year-old Dean. I'll touch on a few points.

Leaving his boys with others: We open with John returning to his kids whom he left at Bobby's while he took care of a hunt. He left them long enough that they were enrolled in school and he planned on keeping them there for the fall semester. He felt bad about using Bobby's hospitality for so long.

Training his boys: "John knew his boys would need to be able to defend themselves against whatever was out there - he'd already started that process with Dean... Dean was a crack shot with John's M1911 and could load the shotgun with iron rounds and fire them off in one smooth motion. Eventually he'd need to train Sammy too. But not yet."

Loving his boys: When he arrives at Bobby's, Sam runs out to meet him and wraps his arms around John's legs as he walks in. Sam also tattles on Dean for eating the last donut.

There are also some fun moments between young Sam and Dean, mostly sibling bickering.

Dean and Sam enjoy playing hide-and-seek among Bobby's car on the weekends and Sam enjoys going to school during the week. Dean, not so much.

Sam proudly shares that he's doing 3rd grade work in 1st grade and then teases Dean about also doing 3rd grade work even though he's in 5th grade (Dean then sticks his tongue out at Sam and says "Screw you, Sammy.") At this John calls them out and both boys are chagrined.

Later on, when John calls Bobby for more information, we find Dean holding a pen out of Sam's reach and teasing him with it.

Of course, that call means we also get this heartbreaking line moment from Dean, who wants to talk to his Dad, but can't before John hangs up. Bobby tries to explain: "'Sorry, Dean, he, uh, was on his way out the door. But he told me to tell you both to behave yourselves and do what I tell you. And that he loves you.' Dean: 'Did he really say that?'"

When Bobby presents the next case, John is torn between wanting to spend time with his kids, but going after something that could cause people to burn spontaneously, in the hopes that it might lead him to the demon who killed Mary. I think the book did a good job of capturing John's struggle between revenge and caring for his boys. He's not the abusive, neglectful father people tend to think he is. He's someone struggling to make things right.

"John didn't answer at first. Instead, he looked over at Sam and Dean in the dining room, playing that oh-so-common game of 'I touched you last.'

Christmas was coming up and he did want to spend it with the boys..."

Finally, when John returns and Bobby and the boys meet him at the airport, we get some additional insight into 10-year-old Dean's thoughts regarding his father and his place in the family.

"Waiting there in the airport, he understood how important it was for Dad to be away so much - more than Sammy ever could. Sammy hadn't really known Mom, since he was just a baby when she died. Dean couldn't imagine that his baby brother would ever truly understand what had happened to her.

If he was honest with himself, he didn't really understand it, either. There were some days - though he'd never admit this to anyone - when he couldn't even remember what she looked like.

Some kind of monster had killed Mom, and Dad wouldn't rest until he found that monster and killed it. Along the way, he'd kill any other monsters who tried to kill other people's moms...

Dad still fought the bad guys and saved people, but he also cared about his sons.

Because Dad was a hero, and that was what heroes did."

2009 - Sam and Dean

There isn't much to write about here, because they weren't featured in the book. I will just add a couple of notes.

Dean recognizes Samuel Campbell in a newspaper article about the killings. (He'd already been sent back in time and met his grandfather).

It's seems reasonable to Sam that Mary and her parents were hunters. What freaks him out is that he and Dean were named after their grandparents and John never told them.

Sam's been a nerd about the American Interstate system since he was 10 and loved poring over maps.

Sam feels more guilt from trusting Ruby over Dean than starting the apocalypse.

Final notes:

This book introduces Castiel who brings the case to the boys attention. We get the same stuff in here that you see on screen, he has issues with personal space, comes and goes at will, and Bobby's still mad at him for not being able to heal his paralysis. He's only there for a few pages, and then disappears again.

Bobby gets a bit more screen time, as a pseudo-dad to young Sam and Dean, and later as their resource when researching the case and it's history. Favorite quote: "As he went into the fridge for butter to spread onto the pan, Bobby decided it was the entire Winchester family that was making him bald."

We briefly get Hurt Sam who is punched repeatedly by a hulk of a man, but with no lasting consequences and very little caring Dean.

We find out at the end that Zachariah orchestrated the whole thing by planting the idea in Castiel's head.

So, like I said at the beginning, not my favorite, but hopefully I was able to share some of the more interesting parts. Read at your own risk!

[four-loose-screws]

I have a another question about localization since you say all of the FE localizations are good but then there's the localization I hear about of FE fates a localize game that I hear so many Nintendo and FE fans say really bad things about it such as a lot of Mistranslations, Big Script changes, Memes being add in, etc also there was some censorship that got some of them really mad and with some of them saying that it's the wrost localize game of all time is it really that bad as they say?

Whew, this ask has been sitting in my inbox for actual months! Sorry for taking so long to respond! It’s probably unsurprising, but there’s so much to unpack here, and just deciding what to write had me going in circles for a long time.

I’m not entirely satisfied with this answer, but if I tried to discuss everything I have in mind about the Fates localization at once, I’d never be done. So I stuck to 5 topics to give a basic summary. If anyone wants to follow up on one particular issue for more info, or know more about something I didn’t discuss here, please do! I’d love to round out my argument.

First off - a little history just to get our minds situated into the history of localization. Bad localization has always existed, in fact that’s pretty much all we had in the 80’s and somewhat into the 90’s until it became clear that video games were going to become very complex in story and text going forward. Even a surface look into old localizations like this one tells a very long story. We have to remember that “bad” localization is everywhere, and it’s just always going to exist, even now that we have professional teams dedicated to localization, so long as humans aren’t perfect, time crunch is standard in the gaming industry, and we all have our own definition of “good”.

Next, here’s the short answer to the question:

When I say “overall” good, I do stress that pretty heavily, because of course there are plenty of changes that each individual player of the game will have their own take on. The Fire Emblem games simply have so much text in them that even a hundred small mistranslations or changes are just a drop in the bucket.

But I do agree that Fates is one of the worst of the FE localizations, if your terms are in number of changes from the Japanese. Awakening’s is up there too. 

Yeah, Awakening’s localization has a lot of questionable moments too. I know this take isn’t a surprise to all fans. But ever since Fates came out, I’ve seen people praising Awakening’s localization, and saying that 8-4 (an outside studio often hired by Nintendo, they localized Awakening) is an amazing localization team and Treehouse (Nintendo’s own team, did Fates) is garbage. TBH… They both did a job that has huge ups and downs. Are people really doomed to always forget the flaws that the previous installment in a series had as soon as something new comes out? Ha ha.

I think it’s common knowledge at this point that localizations are not made for the people who want a more direct-to-the-Japanese version. And that sucks, and the feelings of anger, disappointment, etc. in those who wanted a more direct translation are perfectly valid and entirely understandable. 

But we really, really need to understand and accept that localizations are made for the target audience/culture as a whole, and to sell to the most people possible. By getting angry and rejecting the entire game’s script as “total changes,” “butchering,” “changing the games to fit the localization team’s motives,” and all sorts of other toxic nonsense, we miss out on all of the nuance that actually exists. We rob ourselves of the fun that could be had analyzing whether or not the localizers did their job of adapting the game to the target audience, and how they might have done it better. And we can’t notice and appreciate all of the times the team did do a great or good job.

In the vast majority of cases, localizers only want those who play their games and read their scripts to have fun! To imply anything else is just wrong.

What I feel I can do here, to define if “the localization is as bad as they say,” is debunk these “all or nothing” arguments, and show that the changes aren’t usually anywhere near as drastic or simple as people make them sound.

Now let’s goooooo!

I read these two articles to prepare myself to write this, link here, and link here, which I got off a quick Google search. They are from the time of Fates’ release, and report on how a lot of people generally felt back then, so I found them to be good references to put myself back in time with the thoughts people had then.

Character Changes

These often tend to be the biggest topics of conversation. Hisame will be my topic of more detailed discussion today, but I’ll bring other characters up for a hot second too.

I can never stress this enough, but Hisame made pickles in the Japanese. He was always talking about them in the Japanese, too. (Fates loves supports revolving around food in general, really.) I think people generally know this to be true? But I did read some comments saying that the pickle love was totally made up in the localization, you can see the proof above, so I had to point it out.

I don’t think a lot of people who have talked about his character picked up on this - admittedly, I didn’t until someone close to me explained it - but the main gag of Hisame’s character is that he’s young, but already acting like an old man. He lectures his own father on how to behave, etc., and makes pickles. And the “acting like an old man” is not totally lost in translation, with him still acting serious and lecturing his father. But the making pickles trait… I’d never pin that as an “old man” stereotype as a US American. Well, now I would, because I know Japanese culture well enough… but anyway.

And this is where the cultural differences come in. The number of people farming and making traditional foods from scratch is dwindling fast in Japan. In just five years there, I watched countless rice paddies and other small produce fields be turned into houses or apartment buildings. The elderly farmers are becoming too old to care for their crops, and their kids choose to pursue other careers, so the family sells off the farmland. Following along this trend is traditional pickle making. You can just buy them ready to eat in the supermarket, so why make your own? Most people don’t even have the space to be making them if they wanted to. And so, pickle making has come to be seen as something old people do. It fits in with Hisame’s “old man” character perfectly.

But again, as an American, I never would have figured that out without knowledge about Japan. Of course you could argue that the localizers didn’t need to change anything about him. The making pickles was quirky and unique, and would give you a chuckle as is. But there was space to make him funnier, so they did. That is, after all, was what the Japanese intended, for it to be funny. It’s not funny in the same way… but sometimes it’s impossible to be.

And that is what is most important in localization between two wildly different languages like Japanese and English - not retaining the same words, but the same intention or mood. The same words can convey a totally different meaning or mood, or make no sense, because of cultural differences. So localizers need to achieve the same mood, not the same words. I have come to see people understand this much better as the years go on, and the general gaming population becomes more learned about what localization is.

Of course, that’s a pretty simplified way of looking at it. But that’s how I summarize localization as a whole, in an easy way to understand. You might not agree with exactly how the localizers did what they did, but I think we might all be able to agree that they were trying to do their job and had no malicious intent to butcher the Japanese original or something absurd like that.

One more thing that’s relevant to this - Japanese people don’t care about repetition so much. The same character tropes are repeated over and over, the same lines are repeated over and over… In the US, we don’t like that! It’s boring and dull! This cultural difference is a constant struggle in localization. A lot of the people who think they want a direct translation don’t realize that it will be boring to them… So localizations alter and add details and lines here and there to give some more variation. This also helps to explain Hisame’s changes to talk even more about pickles.

And I’ve seen many a comment from people saying they liked Hisame in the localization. They found his exaggerated pickle lines fun, and enjoyed many good laughs. How can we call his new characterization outright bad when it worked for some? When they like it more than a straight Japanese translation? He’s still essentially the same guy… just some of the things he says are different. That’s not much of a change at all.

...And back to that original screenshot I showed. Isn’t Hisame still serious in the localization? His lines are funny, but I’m under the impression that he himself is still dead serious. ...Anyway. That’s about all I have to say about Hisame.

Many characters have changed lines. There’s no disputing that. But something to always question is how far do these changes go? Did the localizers completely change the intent or tone of the original? Or are they playing up certain character traits the characters always had in the Japanese? Or is something else going on? 

This is also a prime example of how shallow some articles or “analysis” into the Fates localization are. You can’t look at one line change and make a sweeping conclusion about an entire character. Always be suspect of stuff like this. Kana ALWAYS acted like a little kid. That’s their entire schtick. They are your cute little mama/papa loving kid. That one line may have changed that scene significantly, but Kana’s whole character? No, not at all.

Even Kana’s S support changes aren’t as simple as it seems. They aren’t all changed. The 2nd gen characters that Kana is close in age to retain their romantic endings, such as Midori. Only those considerably older than Kana turned platonic. 

And Effie, another character commonly cited as changed? She wasn’t radically changed from some deep character to a one-note workout buff. If only a conclusion could be that easy to reach. Overall, on this specific aspect of Effie, the localization simply added in extra strength or workout jokes when the opportunity arose. Some workout jokes were in the Japanese! She was always an extremely devoted retainer who was always working out and training to get stronger so she could better fulfill her duties.

What is MUCH more interesting in my opinion is the issue of her femininity. In the Japanese, her speech nearly always trailed off with ellipses, and she had feminine voice acting. Whereas in the English, all of that femininity is stripped away with a deep voice, and virtually no ellipses. How refreshing it would have felt in English for Effie to have retained that femininity! Women can bench press trees and be feminine! It would be unique to see a female character like that. ...Or so a US American might think.

But from what I understand, strong female characters in Japanese entertainment are nearly always very feminine. They send a clear message: “You can be whatever you want in private, so long as you still fit the girly-girl mold in public and fulfill society's expectations for you!!” In the Japanese, Effie is fitting their stereotype.

So in one way of looking at it, Effie wasn’t really changed, because in both Japanese and English, she paints a stereotypical and the most socially accepted image of a physically powerful female in each culture. ...That’s an interpretation of mine, anyway. I’m not sure how many people would agree with it.

...See what I mean, that the answer of “changed or unchanged” really isn’t as straightforward as “are the lines translated directly?” 

Looking into the deeper details creates a much more interesting picture! You come to paint a picture in your mind, without even thinking about it, of what the localizers intended to do, and you can at least understand what they were thinking. This forms a much more accurate conclusion on whether or not the team achieved a good localization, and whether or not that sacrificed the intent of the original.

So as you can see, few issues are as bad as they’ve been blown up to be. None of the characters are completely different from their Japanese counterparts, or anything so extreme. They were just localized. Whether or not they were localized well, is up to each person’s opinion.

...I do want to write about Soleil, as an example of someone who I think could have been localized better, but I’ll save that for another day. It’s gonna get long. If anyone is interested in seeing this post, just remind me every couple of months or so until I find the time and write it, thanks in advance.

Memes

Since I mentioned Kana’s dragon speak in the last section, this is a perfect time to transition into my feelings about memes, aka context-specific humor. I agree with the most commonly shared opinion: memes don’t belong in localization. Though it’s not just because of a simple “change from the Japanese is bad!!!!” approach. In my opinion, the best localizations will be as timeless as possible. I want my future self and everyone else who will play the game in the years to come to enjoy the game as much as possible.

Memes come in and out of fashion so quickly that they’re almost guaranteed to be out of date by the time they release. And only the most popular of popular stories will be widely-known enough for most everyone to get the reference. Of course, it’s pretty difficult to know what expressions and such people will remember and use 10, 20, or 30 years down the line. Some language you think will be timeless will fall out of style. But using memes and references that are not likely to appeal to as many people as possible… that’s one of the few things I can almost universally call “bad localization.”

Unless, of course, the game was intended in the Japanese to be a product of its time, and used a lot of references. That’s a whole different ball game.

Accurate translation, much less full localization, requires creative thinking to recreate the tone and intent of the original. 

Here’s another example that showcases another couple of things I find really important to localization.

Number 1: The writer of the article said “The American localization … gives her silly lines that aren’t in the original.” But does it really “give” her anything new at all? I’d argue not. Tottemo is commonly translated as ‘really’ or something like that… but doesn’t ‘super-dupity’ convey the same meaning as ‘really’? Just because an English word isn’t given as a common definition for a Japanese word, doesn’t mean it can’t be a definition. Sometimes… a word we don’t commonly think of as a translation for the Japanese, can still be a perfectly valid translation. This is not an addition. Just an uncommon translation of the Japanese word.

Number 2: Japanese has a wide range of “I” and “you” pronouns, sentence endings, and other little things that define character age, personality, gender, and more, that simply don’t exist in English. To not use similar features of English when localizers find opportunities to do so, would just take away that sense of nuance the Japanese had in utilizing their language’s own unique features.

Of course it’s one possibility that Sophie uses kiddy words. She’s not a little kid, but she’s still pretty young! To have everyone use the same word choice, because that’s how the words translate into English, is not only inaccurate to how real people talk, but also inaccurate to how the original Japanese was used. Since many equivalents for Japanese word and grammar choice that define personality do not exist in English, the localizers have to use what does exist in English in new places. I think that makes sense, and creates a much closer script to the Japanese than just translating the words.

Again, it’s all about how we look at the lines!

I see a lot of people define “translation” as “one-to-one recreation of the Japanese words.” To reinforce what I said in the first section, I do not think this is true. To me, translating is recreating the same tone, mood, meaning, and message of the original. You CANNOT achieve that just by translating the words and grammar alone.

Different words conveying the same overall meaning.

This section is really just a continuation of the previous one. But reinforcing central arguments over and over again is the core of good essay writing.

So this is one of my strategies for deciding whether or not a script is a good or bad translation/localization: “Does the script convey the same basic meaning?” (or tone, etc.)

Changes, adding detail to what the Japanese said, and “playing-up,” are all wildly different things.

So first, I break down the bit of dialogue into as few words as possible.

-Nohr royals inherit dragon blood.

-So they have superhuman power.

...And then I look to see if the localization conveyed that same basic meaning. Which, in this case, I think it did. Your mileage may vary, but I think I’ve made my point at least.

I wanted this scene to be one of the five I addressed because I think it exemplifies yet another of the fascinating differences between Japanese and English. Japanese is a language that likes to be vague, and leave out context that is already established. Speech can seem super boring as few characters say anything unique. (At least… that’s how us English speakers see it! Japanese people think they are just being normal, and not vague or boring at all!) ...English, not so much. So much as leaving out the subject of the sentence is chastised as incorrect grammar. And we like unique dialogue and prose more than most other languages.

I saw one person in the comments of the article I got this visual from argue that the tone is totally different, that the Japanese was more of a history lesson, but the localization is trying to pump Corrin and Leo up for battle, but… eh, I just don’t see it. The English also just feels like he is describing the powers of their bloodline to me. Again, that’s why this is so complex and fascinating, because everyone has their own viewpoints they are coming from.

The “direct translation” and “localization” reach the same message. This isn’t a big change in my opinion at all.

Sometimes mistakes happen...

These interpretations of Saizo and Beruka’s C Support have always boggled my mind. Coming up with all these explanations as to why the omission was done on purpose to completely erase the support when… it just seems… obvious to me… that the localization team never wrote or programmed a translation and shipped the game with the placeholder? 

After all, if the localization team felt they had to remove or change content that might be questionable for the target audience, wouldn’t they alter or rewrite the conversation, like they have with Soleil’s supports, for example? This very game has multiple examples of proof that the localizers will rewrite entire chunks of script if they feel it makes the scene better fit what the target audience be more comfortable with.

Mistakes happen. That’s all I think Saizo and Beruka’s C Support is. We probably never got an update just because Nintendo doesn’t have a track record of being the best with those.

Of course, I may be wrong. Nintendo and Treehouse keep pretty much all of their processes a secret. But I never, ever would have imagined on my own that Saizo and Beruka’s support was omitted on purpose. Citing this as a reason why we need to be up in arms about bad localization is so absurd to me.

Mistakes happen. It’s not like the Japanese creators didn’t have embarrassing moments with underdeveloped content in this game either… they didn’t even name the continent in this game!

Sometimes, “bad” localization is just human error. It’s something we can’t eliminate entirely, and will just have to accept.

Final thoughts:

I realize that this analysis, for as long as it is, is very short, and still leaves out so much that could be talked about. 

But what I hope that it did was not really help convince readers that the Fates localization is actually good, exactly… but helped to create some more balance in how we look at the Fates localization and localizations as a whole. All localization changes have a reason and nuance to how they ended up happening, and it’s important to be thinking from that perspective when we discuss them!

Since I know I may have created more questions than answers, again, feel free to keep the conversation going through more asks! I’ll answer them in time!

[prettyfunkyunorganized]

Daughter Series - Soldier 76

Fifth part of the ‘Daughter Series’ I’ve created in response to @i-am-not-daredevil‘s fantastic Overwatch headcanons that I requested - they can be found here.

This one gave me a bit of grief, but hopefully it turned out alright. It’s 5800ish words with a break in the middle. I’ve never written much angst either so you fine folks have unwittingly signed up to be my guinea pigs. MUUHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!

Thanks for reading! Just one more after this and then I’ll have to figure out to do next. Drop me a line if you have any suggestions :D

More Daughter Series: Hanzo, Roadhog, McCree, Reaper, Genji

Soldier 76 installments: pt 1, pt 2, pt 3

masterlist

               Another hour had passed, and 76 was beginning to get antsy. When Dr. Ziegler had radioed ahead to warn the old man that the Overwatch team was going to be late, he had not expected them to be this late. Evening was quickly turning into night, and the cloudy London sky was too smog ridden to allow for a colorful sunset. “I’m not getting any younger,” he grumbled looking at the horizon. Ana wasn’t even here to take his mind off things with a biting remark or embarrassing story he’d almost forgotten. Instead, he was left waiting on a rooftop for a bunch of kids he had very little faith in.

               If it hadn’t been for Angela’s prodding, Soldier 76 never would have agreed to work with Overwatch again. He’d known it would be risky to contact his former compatriot, but he had to make sure the doctor was doing alright – he didn’t trust the new organization to keep her safe. It wasn’t long before she’d put the pieces together, despite 76’s best attempts to be discrete. The woman was adamant! And a determined doctor is a formidable thing. Having his identity discovered had proved to be less problematic than the soldier had anticipated since Angela had agreed to keep to keep the secret. Eventually. After a very long discussion. The most trying part of being ‘alive’ again was dealing with the consequences of his former life.

              When the aging man had asked if there were any fresh faces in Overwatch, the last thing he’d expected was hearing that the new medic was a young woman named Natalia Morrison. His daughter. A girl 76 had never met, but a DNA test proved was his child. The man had honest to god blacked out when Angela told him.

              “A daughter,” he’d sputtered out. He was silently praying that the comm was just glitching out.

              “Yes, Jack, a daughter,” Angela said quietly.

              “No, no, that can’t be right.”

              “Science doesn’t lie.”

              “R-run the test again,” he whimpered running his fingers through his silver hair. “I don’t have any kids, doc. I don’t.”

              “I did run it twice,” she sighed, “three times, in fact. I’m absolutely sure Talia is yours.”

              “I can’t – I don’t – . . . Doc, what am I supposed to do? I have no idea what to do with a child!” He was shaking.

              “Well, she isn’t a child. She’s 22,” the woman said matter of factly.

              “That doesn’t help, Ang!”

              “It’s not as if I know what to tell you! Family counseling is not my schtick,” she replied. He could see her tight-lipped frown in his mind. “I just thought it would be best if you knew about her.”

              “Does she know about me,” he asked weakly.

              “Yes, and she’s quite fond of you.”

              “Fond of me? But I’ve never met her . . . right?”

              Soldier 76 could faintly hear Dr. Ziegler drumming her fingers on her desk. “No, you’ve never met, but she’s heard all the stories about you. Have you forgotten that you’re famous? Or at least Commander Morrison is.”

              “Oh,” he said softly, “So, what, she’s read the history books about Overwatch?”

              Angela laughed, “Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, I know Natalia be a bit embarrassed, but she’s read all the books. Little darling admitted she was a bit obsessed as a kid.”

              “Um . . .” He didn’t quite know how to feel. Honestly, the idea of anyone obsessing over him was disconcerting, much less her.

              “Jack, old friend, don’t hold it against her. She just wanted to know about her father,” she cooed.

              The soldier shuttered. He was a father. A very, very terrified father. “Angela, you didn’t tell her I’m alive, did you?”

              There was nothing but hesitation on the other end of the line.

              “Doc, you there? Doc!”

              “No, Jack, I didn’t tell her,” the doctor sighed, “and it was damn hard not to! You should see the way Talia talks about you! It’s all admiration and wistful smiles. She would adore meeting – ”

              “You can’t tell her! Ever!” The old man’s shoulders curled in on him. He was in no position to meet her. He was a ball of anger, regret, and bitterness. There was a reason the no longer went by Jack – he wasn’t that man anymore.

              “Jack . . .”

              “Please, Angela. It’s better this way,” he sighed.

              “Better for who,” she grumbled just barely loud enough for him to hear through the earpiece. Before he could retort, the doctor continued, “Very well, if that’s what you wish. I still expect you will keep your promise of assisting us during our missions on occasion though, yes?”

              “Well – ” 76 wavered.

              “You may not be the Jack I remember,” Dr. Ziegler said with an angry edge to her voice, “but I hope you’re still at least a man of your word.”

              She was a goddess of guilt trips. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll still help,” he mumbled, “If I’m in the area. And we’re focused on the same goal, but I’m not coming to rescue every time something goes wrong.”

              “Understood.” She sounded detached or maybe disappointed, and it caused a knot to form in his gut. “I’ll keep an eye on your activities and contact you if I believe we can be of assistance to one another. Hopefully you will do the same.”

              “I will, Ang.”

              “Then perhaps I will see you soon, Soldier 76,” she replied before quickly hanging up.

              There were no more light laughs or gentle ‘Jack’s from Angela after that. It was always a purely professional ‘Soldier 76.’

              The first time he’d run into a group of Overwatch operatives Dr. Ziegler had been there, but not Natalia. He’d been overly relieved. The second time was entirely different. The young woman’s wild red ponytail had bobbed all over the battlefield, taking care of anyone who needed her. She was good. Really good. If circumstances had been different, 76 might have even admitted that she was a decent recruit. Instead, he’d only gotten distracted and shot in the arm. Nothing too drastic, but Angela had insisted that someone look at it. Natalia had offered to patch him up, and the old man had never been more uncomfortable in his life. As she disinfected and covered the wound, she spoke calmly and casually in an attempt to put him at ease. It hadn’t really worked, but seeing her grin and laugh with her teammates put a few of his lingering worries to bed. At least she seemed to be happy.

              When the masked vigilante saw Natalia next, the mission had gone much more smoothly. Soldier 76 had been keeping an eye on a group of underground weapon manufacturers when Genji, McCree, and Natalia popped up on his tactical visor. The three had cleaned the place up with surprising efficiency before the local law enforcement came by to sweep the criminals away. Ana wouldn’t shut up about the ‘impressive little Morrison girl.’ The sniper hadn’t stopped dropping hints about 76’s daughter since she found. Although, Ana knew she had no room to talk, considering how long she’d hid from Fareeha. The former Overwatch captain always called Natalia ‘the Morrison girl,’ just to get under 76’s skin. It worked infuriatingly well. In the end, the old man had stormed off without a word to any of the Overwatch operatives while Ana chased after him, whining about his tantrum.

              Now here he was again, another run in with the organization he used to lead on the way, and a nervous twitch making him bounce his knee. Up and down, up and down. Faster, then slower. Faster then slower. “Where the hell are they,” he hissed.

              “Sorry for the wait, sir,” came a bright voice from 76’s left side. He rose to his feet and peered over the ledge of the building to see a pair of pale blue eyes staring back at him. Natalia stopped climbing the ladder to give him a small wave. There was no one behind her or on the ground below.

              “Where are the others,” he asked with a frown.

              “Doing a bit of surveillance. We received some worrying intel on the way over here that a large influx of personnel arrived at the objective. It looks like we may be encountering some resistance today and my team was hoping to get a peek at what we’re up against,” she explained.

              He hadn’t ask because he was concerned about the mission, he asked because the idea of being alone with Natalia scared the shit out of him. “I see,” the old man said slowly.

              “They sent me to fetch you,” the redhead explained. “Someone has set up a scrambler or something near the facility, so the communicators aren’t working.”

              “Wonderful,” he grumbled, forcing himself to keep his mind on the task at hand. The sooner they were done busting open this unsanctioned omnic research lab, the sooner everyone could go their separate ways. “Let’s go,” he said with a nod.

              Natalia quickly went back down a few rungs of the ladder before sliding the rest of the way, hopping out of the way of Soldier 76. “Wish my knees still recovered like that,” he thought to himself. The two of them ran through alleyways and quiet streets to avoid making too much of a scene, but then gunshots and a blast rang out. A siren blared and the residents of London were quick to scatter, giving Soldier 76 and Natalia plenty of room to sprint toward the rest of the team. As they passed the streets of King’s Row, memories of the Null Sector attack pushed the old soldier to move faster.

              By the time they arrived a firefight was already in full swing. Overwatch’s agents were reciprocating attacks from a group of unidentifiable assailants who held themselves like a trained militia. They were likely one of the many sets of mercenaries that cropped up to take advantage of the boiling tensions between omnics and humans in this country. This lot were particularly well organized and equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry. Natalia and 76 wasted to time jumping into the fray. She used her small SMG to take out anyone in her way, tossing out debilitating traps in her wake before darting off to slap a healing nanobot onto any teammate that needed one. The masked soldier covered her, launching rockets at any attacker that was causing them extra trouble. It wasn’t long before they were pushing the struggling enemy into a corner. Natalia was suddenly by his side, taking cover behind the car he’d been using to shield his lower half.

              “You good she asked,” reloading and taking inventory of her nanobots.

              “Always,” he replied, “you?”

              “Peachy keen,” she smiled up at him before shooting at a slippery bastard who had finally leaned out from behind a wall. He fell limp.

              “Nice shot,” he mused without thinking.

              “Thanks,” she said with an air of shock. The soldier was thankful for the mask covering his red cheeks. A few men came from behind an upturned truck across the way, and 76 instantly let loose a trio of rockets, blowing them all back. “You’re pretty damn impressive yourself,” she grinned.

              “I’m just doing my job,” he responded. An onslaught of bullets pointed in their direction silenced the banter. The car suddenly began to spark, and they both darted away, 76 kicking down a door to an old shop and slipping inside, Natalia close behind. They shot out the window together and the young woman continued to fire back as 76 reloaded.

              “Oh shit,” she whimpered quietly. He’d never heard that frightened strain in her voice before. The sound made his trigger finger itchy. Ready to helix rocket whoever was making fear creep into his daughter’s voice, Soldier 76 turned his rifle back to the fight. A massive man was aiming a plasma cannon at them. It fired.

              “Oh shit,” 76 whispered as he pulled Natalia close to him, placing his body between her and the blast. A rush of heat brushed over the top of them before they started falling. The old soldier felt something sharp pierce the flesh above his brow as the air was stripped from his lungs.

              He sputtered and gasped until he could breathe normally again – his giant electronic mask was great most of the time, but not at the moment. After a few moments of clutching his chest and listening to the ringing in his ears, the soldier looked around the dark hole he’d tumbled into. The only light in the basement came from the soft red glow of his visor, casting everything in a dismal light, especially Natalia’s crumpled body. He scrambled over to her in a horrified frenzy.

              “Natalia,” he said shakily putting a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t move. He turned her over and scanned her for injuries, not at all relieved when he saw none. His mind instantly went to worst-case scenarios of internal bleeding and swelling near her brain. Staying as still as he could, the grey-haired man waited for her chest to rise and fall. After an excruciating few seconds, it did. She was alive. He sighed heavily and slumped forward. She was alive! “Thank God.” With a quick motion, 76 reached for his earpiece and tried to get someone, anyone on the comms. Just has Natalia had said, only static from a jamming signal greeted him. “Well, fuck,” he snarled, the pain from the injury above his eye was starting to give him grief now too.

              A soft groan escaped from Natalia as she twisted back onto her side, tucking her head under her arm. Her face was calm, as if she were just taking a nap on the sofa. If only. “Come on, little lady, time to get up,” he urged her gently. The tenderness in his voice took him off guard.

              “What now,” she said blinking back into consciousness. She looked around in confusion. “Where in the hell . . .” she began, then rubbed the bridge of the nose. “Oh right. Guess this place isn’t up to code, huh,” she said sarcastically before looking up to 76 with a wary smile. “You alright?”

              “Fine,” he lied. “How are you holding up?”

              She leaned forward to sit upright, rubbing her head. “I think I’m okay. I’ve got a bump, but it doesn’t seem to be too serious.” Natalia reached down to her belt and produced a small flashlight, pointing the beam above them. A pile of rubble was plugging the hole they had fallen through, but nothing else was coming down on top of them at the moment.

              “I suppose we’ll either have to wait for help or wait until – what happened to your head,” Natalia blurted, shining the light in 76’s face.

              “Nothing. We need to focus on – ” he tried to deflect.

              “That is not nothing,” the young woman said moving the flashlight along with the soldier’s attempts to hide his wound. “Good grief, you’ve got blood running past your chest,” she gasped.

              Soldier 76 looked down to see that she was right, and it wasn’t just a small trickle of red that had made its way to his stomach. “Oh,” he muttered as his brows flew up. He winced as the skin on his forehead moved.

              “We need to get you stitched up immediately,” she said professionally, grabbing a pack she always had strapped to her side.

              “I’ll be fine,” he insisted. “We need to get out of here.”

              “You’re bleeding from your head due to a protruding piece of dirty metal. I have what I need to prevent an infection and keep you from passing out from blood loss. That’s the priority,” she said firmly.

              “Look, I’ve had a lot worse than this. I – ” He tried to get to his feet, but a wave of nausea forced him to sit back down with a huff. Maybe he’d lost more blood than he thought.

              Natalia had a hand on each of his shoulders and a worried look on her face when he looked back to her. “I – I’m okay. Just need a minute under the biotic field,” he grunted unconvincingly.

              “What you need is stitches,” she said scooting to his side, closer to the shrapnel lodged in his flesh. She gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “This won’t take long, I promise. Then we can work on getting out of here as much as you like.” He nodded. Her fingers felt warm and comforting against his sore forehead until the cool, numbing gel wiped all feeling from the area.

              “Can you feel that,” she asked.

              “No,” he responded.

              “How about that?”

              “No.”

              “Good,” she said inching closer. “Try not to move, I’m going to try to get this thing out.” A long minute passed in silence, Natalia’s hands still close to his face. The display of 76’s mask flashed a small warning symbol just as a tugging sensation made his upper body twinge.

              “That I felt.” He leaned away from her as she let out a strained noise.

              “It’s hooked under your mask or something,” she explained. “I need you to take it off.”

              His entire body tensed. “No,” he said, his voice almost cracking.

              Natalia’s body shifted into his field of vision. “I get that you’re an anonymous vigilante and whatnot, but – ”

              “That’s not – ugh, just no,” he said more firmly.

              Natalia scowled. “I am helping you one way or another, whether you let me or not. Either you remove your mask now, or I pinch a pressure point until you pass out and then I remove it. Your choice.”

              They both frowned at one another until 76 went a little lightheaded and swayed backward just a bit. Natalia was quick to steady him.

              “Hey,” she said gravely, “you still with me?” He nodded sluggishly. “Then work with me here,” she pleaded. “I swear I won’t tell a soul what I see, you have my word.”

              The old man hadn’t felt this apprehensive about anything since he was offered the title of Strike-Commander, but he had to make sure Natalia got out of here. He wasn’t going to let this strong, talented, courageous young woman die in a hole just so he could keep his secret. With a shaky pair of hands, he pressed the buttons on the sides of his mask and began to slide the faceplate down the tracks that kept the visor so firmly in place. One of her hands clamped over his, making him jump.

              “That’s far enough,” Natalia all but whispered. She was trying to keep his privacy intact, but he was convinced it was already too late. The swiftness and confidence of her movements were gone, her fingers almost jittery as he watched them rummage around in her supply bag. She knew. What in god’s name was he going to do now?

              After a seemingly impossible amount of time, 76 felt a swath of cloth and medical tape cover his brow. “I’m finished,” Natalia said scooting away from him. The playful moxie that usually accompanied her speech was nowhere to be found. “The area is still going to be tender, but you should be able to put the mask back.”

              “Thank you,” he said gruffly, clicking his mask into its spot. He already felt better now that he was covered again.

              “Not a problem,” she said rolling her shoulders, looking more at ease than he was. “Just glad you’re not keeling over on me.”

              “Right,” he said awkwardly. Maybe she didn’t know. Natalia had probably only seen his brow, maybe the tops of his eyes, and the years had not been kind to him. Plenty of wrinkles and scars had spread across his skin since he had ‘died’. Maybe he wasn’t recognizable anymore. It wasn’t impossible, but his luck wasn’t usually that good. “You feeling okay,” he asked timidly.

              She shrugged, placing her flashlight so it illuminated both of them as much as possible. “Just sore. Guess I hit my head harder than I thought.”

              Soldier 76 plucked a biotic field canister from his arm and tossed it onto the ground between them, a soft golden glow circling them. “Better,” he asked after a moment.

              “Definitely,” she smiled, working the elastic out of her hair. “Thanks.”

              He nodded in response and looked around the room from his seat in the dust. They were walled in, rotten stairs laying in a heap in one corner and nothing but cobwebs in the others. “Much as I hate to admit it,” he grumbled, “I think we’re stuck waiting for an extract.”

              Natalia made her own survey of the room before agreeing. “Looks like it. Hopefully the rest of the building doesn’t come down on us in the meantime,” she said plopping her arms on her knees and resting her head in her hands. She gave him a curious once-over that made his palms sweat. “I bet you’ve been in stickier situations though,” she hinted.

              The soldier groaned at the dozens of memories bombarding him. “That I have.” He returned her questioning look with one of his own. “You?”

              “Me what,” she said toying with her fiery hair.

              “You haven’t been in Overwatch all that long, but I bet you’ve been caught in some shit with them.” He scolded himself for cursing in front of his daughter, then felt mortified for doing such a fatherly thing.

              The young woman laughed. “Yeah, we’ve gotten into the weeds once or twice, but nothing too rough. I learned my trade in the field though, long before I joined Overwatch, so nothing’s rattled me up too much yet.”

              “Military,” 76 questioned.

              “Yep,” she said staring off into the distance, gnawing her lip.

              “What made you do that,” he asked before he could bite his tongue.

              She gave him a slightly perturbed look. “You got a problem with it?”

              “No! No,” he said recoiling, “I just, you know, was curious.” Her glowering eyes didn’t move from him. “All I meant was that you don’t see a whole lot of people your age making that choice these days, what with omnics taking up most of the battlefield these days.”

              Natalia’s head bobbed to the side understandingly. “Good point.” She sighed and looked back to 76 with a sad look on her face. “Everyone else said things like that when decided to sign up, trying to change my mind, but I still went through with it.”

              “It’s not a bad thing to do,” 76 assured her, “to fight for your country, not the kind of thing people should chide you for.”

              “It wasn’t like that,” she replied shaking her head, “they were my friends, and they knew me. They were just trying to keep me from doing something for the wrong reasons.”

              “What do you – ” He stopped himself before making the same mistake twice.

              She chuckled quietly, “You can ask if you want, but only you promise not to judge me too harshly.”

              A ball of concern welled in Soldier 76’s gut, but he couldn’t convince himself to stop prying now. “I won’t judge you at all,” he said honestly.

              “Promise,” she said with a fake serious expression, grin still trying to pull up the edges of her mouth.

              He smiled and drew an ‘x’ over his chest. “On my honor.”

              “Says the masked man,” she scoffed.

              “Oof,” he said with a laugh, pretending his pride was wounded. “Now fess up, why’d you go and join the army if your heart wasn’t in it?”

              She laid down on the cold floor and looked up for a few pensive moments before letting out her sentence in one long exhale. “I joined up because that’s what my dad did when he was my age, not because I wanted to.”

              He froze in place, partly because her voice was so utterly filled with disappointment and partly because he was evidently the cause of it. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly, hoping he wasn’t pushing too far.

              Her head rolled over to look at him. “It’s a whole, long, dumb story about a stupid little girl feeling like she had to prove herself to a dead man.” She moaned, running her hands over her face. “I guess these days it’s about a stupid grown ass woman trying to prove herself to a dead man.”

              Natalia continued to stare at him, scrutinizing him, testing him. Or maybe he was reading too much into it. “Well,” he said clearing his throat uncomfortably, “I’m sure wherever your father is, he’s proud of you.”

              She snorted. “I don’t know about that.” They both sat in the silence, 76 at a loss for what to say. For a brief moment, he almost broke, nearly letting the truth spill from him in an attempt to make her feel better. Luckily, she spoke before he did. “But hey, there are worse things I could be doing with my life than fighting for peace.”

              “That’s true,” 76 said rubbing his neck. He suddenly felt very tired. “You ought to ease up on yourself, though.”

              “Ease up on myself,” she repeated with a quizzical look.

              “You seem like a good kid, and I’ve seen you do some real good work out there,” he said gingerly. “At the very least, you should be proud of yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks – dead or alive.”

              A wide, beautiful smile spread across Natalia’s face as she flushed. She was stunning. “Thanks, 76, that . . . that helps.”  

              He shrugged, “I do what I can. Taking down gangs, causing trouble for criminal empires, helping young women realize their potential – all in a day’s work for a renegade vigilante like myself.”

              Natalia burst out laughing, hugging her sides. “Holy shit, did you just make a joke?!”

              The old man frowned. “Is that so hard to believe?”

              “Um, yes. Yes it is,” she assured him. “Last time I worked with you, you hardly had two words to say to anyone, much less a light-hearted one. Even Torbjorn said you needed an attitude adjustment.”

              “That grumpy little man doesn’t get to whine about anyone’s mood,” 76 snapped. Natalia laughed again.

              “All I’m saying is you haven’t always been the most sociable man,” she clarified.

              “Yeah well,” he huffed, reverting back to his crochety ways, “maybe you’re the only Overwatch operative I can stand these days.”

              “These days?”

              He twitched, mind scrambling to recover. “I, um, worked with some of the old team years ago.”

              “Is that so,” she said narrowing her eyes.

              “It was ages ago, doubt they’d even remember me,” he lied a bit too quickly.

              “Uh-huh,” she said skeptically, “Guess you’d rather just not give them the chance to recognize you, yeah?”

              “Exactly,” he said feebly.

              “Whatever you say, hot shot.” Natalia stretched, rolling over onto her stomach. The silence that fell around them was more peaceful this time, and 76 allowed himself to enjoy the pleasant moment. The longer he sat with his daughter, the more he liked being around her. A loud rumble from above pulled the solider from his temporary reprieve. They both got to the feet and peered up.

              “Oi, Talia, can ya hear me,” came Lena’s excitable voice.

              “Tracer,” the young woman called in response, “is that you?”

              “Talia! I’m so glad you’re okay! You are okay, right,” the pilot asked in a concerned tone.

              “Yeah, I’m good, but I’d love to get out of this dank hole,” Natalia beamed.

              “We will have you out momentarily, my friend,” Reinhardt bellowed. Everything shook violently.

              “Be careful,” came Angela, sounding shrill and panicked. “We don’t want to drop all this debris on top of them!”

              “Calm yourself, Dr. Ziegler, I’m almost – ” Another crash. “Through!” The massive man rejoiced, laughing wildly.

              Light poured into the basement causing both Natalia and 76 to cover their faces. Tracer zipped to Natalia side and Angela floated down next to her.

              “You two took a hell of a spill, didn’t ya,” Lena laughed elbowing Natalia with a grin.

              “Meh, I’ve had worse,” Natalia said with a shrug, “but I do hate feeling trapped.” She looked up to Reinhardt. “Thank you for the rescue!”

              “My pleasure, missy, my pleasure.” The tall man bowed like a proper knight. “I will go alert the others that all is well. Join us at the ship when you are ready.”

              “Hey, don’t run off before giving us a way back up,” Tracer called after him.

              “Oh right,” Reinhardt said before using his shield to push an amalgamation of rubble over the edge of the hole in the ceiling, leaving a pile large enough for the others to clamber up. They all coughed through the dust.

              “Delicate as always,” Angela muttered once the man in plate mail had left. “Now, Natalia, are you feeling alright?”

              “I’m good,” the redhead said. “Better now that I can see the sky again.”

              “She hit her head,” 76 interjected, sending the blonde doctor on a quest to examine Natalia’s skull. Tracer ducked out the way.

              “Doc, Ang, I’m fine. Really,” Natalia said desperately trying to worm away from her mentor’s tight grip. Soldier 76 felt a little bad for selling his girl out.

              “I’ll be the judge of that,” Dr. Ziegler retorted.

              “He’s the one who needs a check-up,” Natalia said gesturing to the aging man, “Look at him! Man’s still covered in blood from his head wound.”

              Angela’s head whipped around and 76 stopped dead in his tracks. The soldier had been trying to back away – this was not the first time he had been on the receiving end of this doctor’s inspections, and he knew very well how through she could be when worried.

              “Goodness, Jack! Look at you!” Angela clearly hadn’t realized her mistake, but 76 had. He swallowed hard as Lena’s face contorted in confusion.

              “Jack,” the young Londoner questioned. A burst of clarity made her eyes go wide, as if something had clicked into place in her mind. “Jack! JACK! Holy shit, Jack!” Her long arms wrapped around the old man and he nearly toppled over as Lena hugged him. He didn’t know what to do, but one of 76’s arms automatically draped over the brunette’s back. Angela was looking between the soldier and Natalia frantically.

              Natalia’s body curled in on itself as if she’d been punched in the gut, arms wrapping around her chest. “Jack,” she choked out, “I thought I was just seeing things but . .  Jack?”

              “Yeah,” Tracer giggled, holding her former commander at arm’s length. “As in Commander Jack, damn, Morrison! What the hell, boss man, we all thought you were – oh.” Lena turned to Natalia with a worried look. “Talia, honey, you alright?”

              The redhead sputtered out a mess of syllables that made no sense before exploding out, “No I’m not alright! You’re, you’re not dead?!”

              Soldier 76 couldn’t find anything to say.

              “Nah, nah, nah,” Natailia said waving her hand furiously, “That’s not even the problem here. You,” she said storming up to Angela, “you knew about this?”

              Dr. Ziegler deflated, shrinking away from Natalia before nodded sheepishly. “Yes, I knew.”

              “And what, you just figured I didn’t need to know?!” The young woman was fuming, screaming incredulously.

              Angela fumbled over her words, which was something she never did. Soldier 76 stepped between them. “I asked her not to tell you,” he explained.

              Natalia’s fierce gaze snapped to him. “And just how long have the two of you been talking, huh? And,” she faltered, “and what has she been telling you?”

              The soldier had to force himself to breathe normally, the guilt clawing his chest making him shake. “She told me about you,” he said quietly, unable to look at anyone.

              “You. Told. Him,” she seethed. “You told him about me, but I didn’t get the same luxury!”

              “Talia, dear, I’m not saying what I did was right, but – ” Mercy said trying to find a decent excuse.

              “All those times I asked you about him, all those times you told me stories about him, all those times you comforted me when I felt overwhelmed by the fact that I was walking in the same halls he used walked in . . . I thought you were helping me, but you were just hiding. Lying to me.” Tears were slipping down her cheeks, making 76’s heart shudder.

              “No, Natalia I wasn’t lying to you,” Angela said putting a hand on the redhead’s arm just to have the young woman pull it away.

              “Don’t touch me,” Natalia whimpered. “I just – I don’t understand! You know how much this means to me, how much he means to me. Even if he wasn’t running to meet me, didn’t I at least have a right to know he was out there? Maybe it would have helped me move on, get past all these feelings of not being good enough. If he was out there and I knew he didn’t care, maybe I could finally accept it . . .” Natalia was hugging herself, rambling at the floor, voice heavy with impending sobs.

              “It wasn’t like that,” 76 said softly, “Angela wanted to tell you, but I convinced her not to. And it’s not that I didn’t care, I – ”

              “Don’t get me started on you 76,” Talia growled, “You sat down here with me and chatted like there was nothing going on! Like you weren’t keeping one hell of a secret! You even made me talk about how I felt about you! Son of a bitch,” she groaned turning red.

              “Natalia, just, try to relax for a second, please?” The second the words left his mouth 76 knew he’d made a mistake.

              “Relax?! What right do you have to tell me to relax?! You know what, enough. Enough of all this! I’m done with you two bastards.” She began to clamber up the pile of rubble and 76 instantly tried to pull her back. Natalia swatted him away and hopped over the ledge before running out of sight. The soldier and doctor were quick to follow, but Lena grabbed both of them.

              “Hey,” Tracer cooed gently, “maybe you guys should give her a sec.” Soldier 76 had almost forgotten she was there.

              “I have to go after her,” he said firmly. He’d pushed her aside for months and now that he’d been forced to spend some time with her, all the old man wanted to do was have her closeby again.

              “Hey,” Lena huffed angrily, “you went and gave yourself all sorts of time to adjust, but Talia just got bombarded. Let her wrap her mind around everything and I’m sure she’ll be back.”

              Soldier 76 sighed, all but rolling in his own self-pity. “I hope so.”

              “I know so,” his former cadet smiled, “She already loves you – always has.”

              That hurt. Because it was true. Natalia had always thought of him as family, but he had treated her as another burden to avoid. Screw avenging Overwatch, he was going to make things right by his daughter if it was the last thing he ever did.  

[enddaysengine]

Exploring the Manifest Zone - The Last War

Here's Episode 2 and man have I been looking forward to this one! It's been a while since life kinda happened in between this being released and now, but I'm okay with playing catchup. Today we are talking about the Last War.

https://manifest.zone/02-the-last-war/

I like that Wayne's bringing up the civil war aspect of the Last War. The fact there are no recent civil wars in Europe or North America certainly does alter our vision of what war looks like, although it is worth pointing out that we are still feeling the shock waves of the American Civil War today, even in the not-United States parts of the continent. Imagine what it must be like for those who are only two years removed from a century long civil war.

The tension of having no winner in the Last War is a plot point that you can spin multiple campaigns out of. It was an excellent call for the setting not to resolve the problems that nations are facing. It adds a level of dynamism because everything is so unstable and can collapse into multiple potential futures.

Huh, I never really thought about the Dragonmarked Houses having terms dictated to them by the Empire of Galifar. Maybe that's because I always saw them as being partnered with the royals, but then again, alliances come and go. Just because Galifar I got them on his side doesn't mean they still had a cozy relationship by the time that Jarot rolled around. It makes sense that the Dragonmarks would be screwed before the Last War if the Empire didn't want to play ball. Stormreach was a minor economic player, and while the Lhazzar Principalities were technically autonomous, but they still bent a knee to Thronehold. I could easily many Dragonmarks feeling that the war was horrible, but that in many ways it saved and freed their families.

I'd love to get an entirely in-universe book that shows the history and contents of the Korth Edicts and the Treaty of Thronehold. It probably won't happen anytime soon and would be more likely as a product produced by fans (or Keith) in the DM's Guild once Eberron finally gets allowed.

I hadn't considered that the creation forges might have been shut down because Cannith came in with a weak hand. It always seemed to me like the forges got closed because of escalation fears. The fact that some Cannith heirs may be resentful towards that poor leadership is an interesting perspective.

Warforged leases or rentals. Excellent idea. It makes perfect sense for Cannith to try and extract payment for warforged soliders multiple times. They may even try and argue that this wasn't so different from pain a soldier salary, and to structure their lease agreements to make it look like you paid less for the warforged.

The separate culture of Valenar from Cyre is something that's come up a couple of times, but I don't ever think got the attention it deserved. Take a look at the pre-War map of Galifar:

What is now Valenar is cut off from the rest of Cyre by the Blade Desert. They were nominally part of the nation and the empire, but they were both distant from the heart of its power and geographically isolated. I highly doubt this is the first time they tried to break away and rebel. I also note that as I compare maps, it does look like there is a piece of old Cyre that escaped the Mourning, the south shore of Lake Cyre. It's now part of the Talenta Plains, but I expect this may be one of the last remnants of the nation that still looks much like it did before the war. There could be interesting plot hooks there.

So, Droaam. One of my favourite nations out there, but Keith's suggestion that the Five Nations treats Droaam like Westerns treat Daesh is fascinating. It's not a perfect comparison because Droaam isn't actively at war with everyone around them (can you even got to war with the Shadow Marches), but it does inform other types of attitudes and plots you could use in stories.

The distinction between Droaam and Darguun's political situations is important listening if you want to use either of those countries in a campaign. The goblins were more involved with the war and had gained allies. Essentially, they played the game of politics and came to the table at the Treat of Thronehold with enough clout and chips to offer to gain legitimacy. They also had a past president. For a very different analogy, consider the relationships that Christians and Jews had with the Roman Empire. Both were disruptive to the state religion, which demanded that homage is paid to the Roman emperor and his ancestors. Both Christians and Jews refused, but the Romans allowed the Jews to practice their religion because they saw that religion as being a fundamental cornerstone of an ancient civilization. To the Romans, the Jews had enough historical legitimacy that they would be tolerated, even though they disrupted the religious status quo. The Christians, on the other hand, were a recent phenomenon for the Romans, so they were not seen as having the same pedigree and same legitimacy. Darguun is like the Jews in this scenario. The goblins not only had nations but empires before humanity conquered them. A goblin nation could be seen as a revival of that tradition and be more socially/politically acceptable than a gang of monsters trying to build a state.

Another important note on that legitimacy thing is the age of elves. An elf's lifespan of 750 years for an elf being about the biological equivalent of 110 for a human (before magical enhancement). The Dhakanni Empires collapsed about 5000 years ago, an extremely extended period for humans on modern Eberron, but more like 1283 CE for them the historical memory of elves. Given that countries like Israel and Greece in the real world were able to garner enough recognization using historical memories from the first millennium BCE, it doesn't seem very far-fetched for the elves to view the rise of Darguun as the return of an old but hardly forgotten nation.

The Mournland being in the centre of the continent create some challenges, particularly in the east to west movement, but the payoffs you get are much larger. I've had several campaign hooks hinge of off Breland and/or Darguun trying to restore overland (or underground) transportation routes to Talenta, Valenar, or Karrnath. There's a lot you can play with there. I also really like having the wasteland in the middle of everything. The whole "World's Largest Dungeon" schtick plays well. The Last War is also useful in justifying dungeons beyond modern structures. Large magical explosions could easily have exposed previously hidden ruins, and now that there is peace, those dungeons can be explored.

The Last War is a great story hook for building a character. I really like the idea of starting a group during the war as a prologue/flashback, then skipping ahead to 998 YK. That helps to give a sense of the significance of the Mourning.

Kalashtar can be tricky to include in the War, and I've never really given them much thought in that context. Their culture is a bit isolationist and it has more than a bit of a superiority complex. Why would they get involved in a quarrel between warring siblings when they have all of reality to save? I like the idea "orphaned" kalashatar who have lost contact with their culture. That does not mean they have to be literal orphans, it could be the result of Kalashtar who fled East from Sarlona and ended up in the Shadow Marches or Demon Wastes, or whose Kalashtar parent renounced the shadow war with the Dreaming Dark to live amongst humans. Of course, that the Dreaming Dark may have been one of the groups trying to engineer the Last War is logical and would be a perfect reason for Kalashtar getting involved. That gets lots of cloak and dagger, espionage, and spycraft stories going.

Thinking about the effect war has had on you is interesting. I've dealt with PTSD (not from combat, but still) so I know there's a balance to walk with your character between having the War impact the way you act without crippling your character. I definitely appreciate Scott's perspective. He's given very good advice on how to get inside a military mindset. Handicapping vs storytelling is also an important discussion to have.

Scott's storytelling advice is excellent in general, not just for warfare, but for everything. Get into more senses than just sight and give your players choices of what do, even if it doesn't change the immediate plot to get them to engage in the moment and the emotions. Then let the ongoing plot further develop from those choices. The experiences shared by a party who served in the war together is a great place to start. I like Keith's questionnaire a lot. Definitely going to steal it.

The idea of a party trying to rebuild their bar after it burned down in the war is a great take on how to tie everyone together. I should write some fiction around that. The impact of the war doesn't have to be all angst and devastation. The war can impact people in other meaningful but relatable ways too.

The reignition of the Last War is something I haven't actually played around with much. That said, I have messed around with the breaking of the balance of power. My games have tended to either be localized to specific cities if they deal with politics. I do want to develop Thaliost and a couple of other cities in the future and it would be a good idea to bear in mind some of the potential local sparks that could set the continent back on fire.

The Lord of the Blades leading a warforged nation is something that I have wanted to do, but haven't had the chance to yet. One idea I had was House Cannith and Orien trying to reattach the east-west Lightning Rail trade routes by going under the Mournlands through Kyber. The Lord of Blades doesn't take to kindly to that, claiming that the caverns are part of the warforged's sovereign land and that it was effectively a declaration of war. I love the question of "Is the Lord of Blades Magneto or Doctor Doom?" It gives a nice touchstone to the personality of LoB.

I know this is beating a dead horse, but Eberron's ability to handle issues from the real world is amazing. Cyran refugees is an easy one since it is a hot topic in global politics. You could pretty easily pull up any newspaper, leaf through it, and use any given article about the current plight of refugees to get yourself a plot hook. If you are looking for something a bit more complicated, I suggest reading into the current controversy around Safe Third Country agreement between the United States and Canada.

Above and beyond that, I've plotted a couple of campaigns revolving around Cyran refugees. On is a straight up adaptation of Pathfinder's Kingmaker adventure path, substituting the Stolen lands for Eastern Breland. The general idea was that between the Mournlands and Darguun, Brelanders were fleeing their lands westwards, so New Cyre was allowed to send out companies of refugees to resettle the abandoned lands. It works well and maps pretty nicely to the geography if you flip Kingmakers east and west. The other one was similar in concept but comes from the original ECS itself. Aundair, not wanting to take in any more refugees, instead resettles them in the abandoned town of Desolute in the Demon Wastes. Effectively, Desolute becomes both a frontier city and a high-functioning refugee camp.

I would be all over a book about wartime technology in Eberron. Technological advances in war have driven a lot of Earth's history, so seeing a magical counterpart would hit my sweet spot where science and history overlap. Treetrunk artillery is a wonderful mental image.

Next Up - Dragonmarked Houses. I'll be quicker this time, as long as the Traveller doesn't steal my keyboard.

[apairofcrepeswiththerarestape]

The New York Review of The New Yorker for March 30th, 2020

Hello! Welcome to the relaunch of the New York Review of the New Yorker, a series where I, humble New Yorker subscription haver TD Sidell, attempt every week to read and review the New Yorker! This is an old on-again off-again project done last in 2015 (I think) which always crops up whenever I have very little to do. SURPRISE being out of work and trapped at home leaves very little to do SO HERE WE ARE AGAIN! This issue was pretty much a bummer through and through and had waaaaaayyyyyy to many references to Camus' The Plague (I lost count after the 4th, jeez, READ ANOTHER BOOK NEW YORKER STAFF WRITERS) so let's get into talking about this bummer!

COVER

Hey everybody! New York is all cooped up in their homes! Busy landmarks are all but abandoned! This is what this very well executed but pretty banal cover says to me. Artist Eric Drooker has cursed this one poor human with sweeping all of Grand Central and if you haven’t been there, it’s huge. Pretty mean there, Eric. At least this unknown person has something to do all day instead of reviving old projects that were mildly amusing at best AND gets to be in quiet Grand Central which actually seems kind of nice. Ok, mixed meanness and nicesness there, Eric.

TABLES FOR TWO

During this project’s hiatus The New Yorker has gone through a lot of changes. Gone is the Financial Page and in its place is this restaurant column that also at one point had a bar section but that too has been done away with. Usually I read this section thinking “this place sounds nice” and then never eat there. Occasionally there will be an article reviewing a place I’ve gone to or know people who work at and then I’ll read it with glee or anger depending on the complicated algorithm of my opinion of the place/people who run it/people I know that work there and Hannah Goldfield’s. This week it’s more of a state of restaurant world in this time of pandemic told via the goings on at the Num Wah Tea Parlor, one of my favorite places in New York. Turns out EVERYTHING SUCKS!

TALK OF THE TOWN

The thing about talk of the town is that it usually follows a pretty simple formula: the first bit is about politics, the a little slice of life piece, then something about a celebrity or the internet doing something interesting, then something vaguely about the arts, and then a wildcard. Sometimes the order changes but generally these are the things, a few little articlets that are perfect for a short train ride or a wait in medical office of some kind. This week though, OH BOY, do they seem extra dumb.

The political piece, by David Remnick, is about how terrible the president is handling this whole thing, which is NO DOY! increasingly, in this time of ultimate bullshit, it becomes hard to read these types of articles with anything less than a shrug. Everything Remnick says is totally correct but what’s the fucking point? WE ALL KNOW WE HAVE A TERRIBLE PRESIDENT WHO IS TRULY TERRIBLE AT EVERYTHING BESIDES PROMOTING HIMSELF. Having a columnist in a the freaking New Yorker point that out to me with specifics is a real snooze.

Next is a shortie about how terrible delivery people have it now. This is pretty hilarious because I've seen how people who read the New Yorker tip so I feel like 50% of the folks reading this little jammie would be like "yeah, that's fine"

After that a thingee about a kid from Mercer Island, Washington (an upper class suburb just outside Seattle) who made a covid tracking website (not the one I use, I'm all covditracking.com for my getting even more depressed by the second news) that got popular. Now, I grew up in Seattle and knew a bunch of kids like this AND THEY WERE INSUFFERABLE. Like calling cheap fouls while playing pickup basketball at the JCC insufferable. Also, Mercer Island sucks and is built on a landfill.

Then an extremely dumb meditation on toilet paper, the less said about it the better.

Finally a thing about a couple multimedia artists who made a thing where you randomly talk to people on the phone. I've relaxed my previous stance on multimedia artists recently (my previous stance was that they were pretty much awful) but it's hard to even get through even the first paragraph of this without rolling my eyes completely into another dimension. The sentence that did me in was "He had just returned from a two-year trip abroad, during which his algorithm dictated where he lived, taking him to Dubai, Taipei, and rural Slovenia." Aaaaanway I assume that invariably you get connected to someone jerking off when you use their phone thing.

THE POLITICAL SCENE

OH BOY! Susan B. Glasser writes about Never Trump Republicans, or at least one Never Trump Republican's attempt to rally other republicans to their cause. This had a real laugh to keep from crying vibe. The subject of the story was a former PR person who spent their career working for a cutthroat firm that worked against corporate regulation. While I'm not certain of the exact tactics of this firm, I AM sure that it involved lying and obfuscating like they were getting paid for it (which duh, they were).  The irony of someone decrying the acts and tactics of our extremely wet baby president when they themselves paved the way for those acts and tactics throughout their entire professional life is so rich it gave me brain gout. Anyway, SHOCKINGLY, this person spent a whole bunch of money and nothing changed! Ha HA HAAAAAA (sob).

SHOUTS AND MURMURS

Did not read.

ANNALS OF CULTURE

JILL MOTHER FUDGING LEPORE EVERYBODY! J comes through with a history of contagion fiction and even though this piece is patient zero for the pandemic of The Plague references in this issue (that was a little much, I know) it still sparkles. This was a great one.

LETTER FROM CHENGDU

Peter Hessler on his life in the lockdown of China. Weirdly I found this piece very soothing. Maybe it was all the different descriptions of the way people wore their masks? I DON'T KNOW! I kind of fell asleep reading this one.

COMIC STRIP

Chris Ware, much like Miller High Life, is something that I really loved in the early-mid 2000s but now have really lost my taste for. His self deprecating misanthropy schtick seems pretty boring now! Especially coming from a very successful person!

OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS 

I was really dreading Adam Gopnik's piece about New York during the time of Corona, even more so when I checked its length in the table of contents. Luckily it has a lot of photos by Phillip Montgomery. Some of those photos were very affecting (empty subway car/shelves at grocery store/classroom/restaurant, person diligently cleaning Port Authority), others less so (hand inside of plastic glove, rich person looking forlorn from windowsill of very fancy apartment), and one which was kind of both (stockbrokers on the phone outside the stock exchange (boring as hell but one of the dudes has a jacket with the word "Pasta" stitched into it and he's either selling pasta futures (which would have been a good thing to invest in seeing as how my body is now 65% pasta) or he's a stockbroker named like Tony Pasta or whatever and believe me, if I ever get the fuck out this I'm sure as shit unleashing on the world my character "Tony Pasta, Stereotypical Italian Stockbroker" who only invests in gabagool but somehow makes tons of money doing it.)). Without looking at the words I cannot remember any of the stories from this article though!

FICTION

I used to never read the fiction in the New Yorker but now I do. Even though I do have a degree in English and World Literature and should be able to tell you more about this story besides that I was bored by it, I cannot! It's possible I was bored because there was so much talk about tennis in it and oh boy I do not give a fudge about tennis!

ON TELEVISION

Doreen St. Felix gives us more of the what is ______ now that Corona is happening with television filling in the blank. It was fine.

A CRITIC AT LARGE

David Denby spends a few pages talking about how horny Harry Houdini was.

BOOKS

Casey Cep tells me more things amount Mormonism that make me go WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

BOOKS

I've never heard of Anna Kavan before but if I ever get to go to bookstore again I'll buy a copy of Ice because Leo Robson made her sound cool and kind of mean and fucked up and I like that in authors.

THE THEATER

Did not read.

Also did not read any of the poetry or laugh at any of the comics.

THAT'S IT Y'ALL! Another one of these in the "books"! Will I keep doing this? Probably! See you next week! Probably!

[biofunmy]

‘Friends’ Is Turning 25. Here’s Why We Can’t Stop Watching it.

Once upon a time, we made do with less television. Three broadcast networks dominated everything. (Channels weren’t flipped so much as triangulated.) We had a local public station and whatever oldies a UHF signal could tune in. Now? Now, we romanticize our cable-assisted, internet-borne so-called golden age and carp about the galactic girth of the streaming era. Somebody even lent the girth a fretful name: “peak TV” — the “money can’t buy happiness” of screen life.

In retrospect, less television has come to imply lesser — by volume, by value, by verisimilitude. But what was “Friends” lesser than? There are 236 episodes of it, merely one fewer than a combined tally of “Game of Thrones,” “House of Cards,” and “Orange Is the New Black.” Most of those episodes are perfect as tidy comedies. Maybe it’s hard to think of “Friends” as perfect, let alone as great, because it looked easy.

Most “old TV” looked easy — even when characters broke up, bled and died. That’s because, even when they did, they were obviously not in a movie. TV now is the movies, so we love it more. We believe it more. For its entire existence, the American sitcom was anti-cinematic, beholden to the demands of advertisers.

Before there was too much TV, there was simply a lot, including a lot of NBC’s “Friends.” Think about the effort required to make about 24 episodes in a nine-month season (certain scripted shows somehow made more). This was impossible work that we at home took for granted. A network like NBC could turn “granted” into “mandatory” with maximal FOMO threat. “Let’s all be there,” it demanded in the 1980s. A decade later, we had to be there for “Must See TV.” Technologically, it was an uncertain age. If you missed an episode, who knew when you’d be able to catch it again?

“Friends” was easy TV at an elite level. So many jokes, so much body comedy, so many surprises and awwws, and squeals of live-studio audience excitement. Hairdressers were doing — and not infrequently botching — the Rachel. Coffee shops became people’s second homes. Tens of millions of Americans watched all of that writing and directing and acting, all of that seemingly effortless effort, for all 10 of its years. That work and a country’s devotion to it feels like proof of a golden age of something.

Familiarity is the magnet of every decent American sitcom. The “com” can’t compete alone and neither can the “sit,” even though, together, they’re obviously quite the sandwich. But the many nights I’ve spent recumbent on my sofa laughing at, say, Ross and Phoebe debating evolution, or Phoebe, Joey and Ross impersonating Chandler, or Chandler blanching at Monica’s desperate new cornrows or Rachel taking forever to tell somebody who the father of her baby is — those nights have never really been about the situation comedy of “Friends.” They’ve only ever been about us — me and these six people — and my apparently enduring need to know what they’re up to and how they are, even though I’ve known for 25 years.

“Friends” debuted on NBC in the fall of 1994, ran for an entire decade, typically had around 25 to 30 million viewers a week (sometimes many more) and now airs in Nickelodeon’s Nick @ Nite block, which my cable conglomerate has stationed near the top of the channel pyramid. That means if you’re a chronologist like me, the five-channel trip from NY1 — past the local news, TNT and “The Simpsons” — always terminates at Chandler, Joey, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel and Ross. Laziness is a factor. (Do you use the number keys on your remote? I’ll bet you don’t even have a remote at this point.)

But, really, it’s simplicity. “Friends” actually is enormously easy to watch. “The genius of “Seinfeld” (and “The Simpsons,” too) has everything to do with the “com” arising from the “sit.” What trouble will Jerry and the gang instigate? Whether you’re watching an episode for the first time or the 27th, the inciting premise is a major element of the pleasure. The premise of “Friends” is the friends.

Of course, the friends started out with a touch of the Jerrys. They, too, were a white cohort living in New York City (the West Village rather than Seinfeld’s Upper West Side). And many an early episode involved defending social etiquette (“Those are not the rules!” Ross barks at a foe in a laundromat) and trying out twisted dating schemes (Monica and Joey try to bust up a couple in order to have the newly single partners for themselves). But on “Seinfeld,” the city and the characters’ righteous belief in their own norms spurred them on to increasingly lunatic misanthropy. They were anti-socialites.

Not so on “Friends.” Matters of behavior and economic inequality only seemed to bring them together. Take the show’s 29th episode. Everybody goes out for a nice dinner to celebrate Monica’s promotion, and Phoebe, Joey and Rachel order the cheapest items on the menu, then balk at evenly dividing the bill. Income turns those three against the other three, until Monica loses her job and Joey valiantly offers to pay for her $4 coffee — with Chandler’s money. The theme song didn’t lie: They really were there for each other, punch lines and all. That thereness was the show’s intangible hook. The writers could engineer plots for the directors to orchestrate. But these six actors working together, on anything, on nothing — it was the highlight of many a person’s week. That thereness was phenomenally elastic, too. These were six people who could snipe at one another, who could fight and lie and practice what we’d now call radical honesty yet keep so many secrets, who can break up (many times, in many ways) but, as a sextet, keep snapping back together. I like them that way, as half a dozen. I like them in tandems and trios, as human math problems, as chemistry experiments. Maybe 10 times I’ve watched Chandler, Joey and Monica break down and confess to the other three that, yes, Chandler did pee on Monica’s jellyfish sting.

I don’t know how many takes that sequence took or how much caffeine was consumed. But it’s never less than a marvel of harmonized hysterics. That kind of exclamatory, high-energy comedy could happen in any configuration of the cast because it was the best such collection in the history of television. Other hall-of-fame comedies, like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Cheers,” had wits and jesters and clowns mixed in among the goody-goodies and grumps. Some, like “All in the Family” and the first few seasons of “Designing Women,” were all zingers, personality and delivery before the whole thing went to schtick. A few permanently watchable jewels like “The Golden Girls” and “Frasier” sneaked in a combo platter of slapstick, vinegar and fuzzies. But the proportions were bigger on “Friends.” They went for more, more often, and rarely missed.

For one thing, the actors had more to play with. The “Friends” friends started out as types. Rachel was a princess, Monica a control freak, Joey a dumb actor. But the types kept recombining.

Ross seemed like a geek because his paleontology was frequently mocked and there’s something gluey in the music of David Schwimmer’s whine. But Ross was sad, needy, insecure, quick to anger — dark, basically — and built like a jock. Phoebe evolved rapidly from hippie naïf to schemer, dreamer, peacekeeper, and pot-stirrer. In another era, she’d have been the “Three’s Company”-era Suzanne Somers of the bunch, a hapless bombshell. But Lisa Kudrow, with her akimbo intelligence, brought the part in sideways. Not far into the show’s run, actually, some of the six are watching TV and Chandler, in Matthew Perry’s contagious sardonic snark, says “I think this is the episode of ‘Three’s Company’ where’s there’s some kind of misunderstanding.”

“Then I’ve already seen this,” Phoebe snaps and turns off the TV.

“Friends” could easily have been “Three’s Company,” where “sit” and “com” strained credibility. Chandler was so frequently presumed gay that he could have been Jack Tripper, the faux-mosexual from the other show. And Matt LeBlanc played Joey like Somers but by way of Tony Danza. That probably would have made Courteney Cox the Joyce DeWitt of “Friends” — neutrally sane. For a few episodes at least, Cox, as Monica, seemed meant as the crux of the pack. Monica was Ross’s sister. Rachel was an old high-school friend who became her roommate.

But halfway through Season 1, it was clear this boat had no captain, just a lot of oars. And the rowing Cox did has never received its due. She wasn’t as rubbery a funny person as Perry and Schwimmer or as radiant and tangy in her approach to comedy as Jennifer Aniston was as Rachel. She couldn’t physicalize sarcasm and shock with as much cursive and calculus as the other five. But athletic gumption launched Monica entirely beyond classification.

I mean, I guess her type was Type A. Monica made the most psychological sense, as a former fat person who’s holding on to whatever it took to shed the weight and keep it off. We can shake our heads now at the idea of the show’s laughing at her size through the fat suit Cox wears in flashbacks. These flashbacks also explain why she seemed to think everything was grist for competition, why winning and losing mattered so much to her, why control was so important. And Monica lost so much control, so much cool, so much coolness. Each actor managed to do a lot with intensity, but Cox made it a state of Monica’s mind.

People now ding “Friends” for all kinds of offenses — regarding homosexuality, mental health, race, interracial dating, ethnicity. (Here’s pregnant Rachel, exasperated by the surfeit of gift diapers at her shower: “What are we feeding this baby — Indian food?”) “Friends”-as-problematic disserves the show’s complex relationship to those issues. Sometimes it winked at them. Monica did a lot of winking, especially under a spell of casual blackness. Her cornrows and Chandler’s disdain for them were one thing. My favorite, though, is the time she comes down with a cold but refuses to give up on sex with Chandler. He’d rather not. She comes at him anyway, in a bathrobe as plush and scarlet as a Muppet, full of mucus and the R&B of Guy. “Are you saying,” she asks, thrusting her body at her man, “that you don’t wanna. Git. With. This?” It’s peak Monica: addicted to victory, unlimitedly white.

There’s a way to watch “Friends” so that its very whiteness — and the associated entitlement — is the problem. That magical casting configuration probably couldn’t happen now without considerable umbrage — umbrage I’d understand. For a great while during “Friends”-mania, Eriq La Salle, of “ER,” was just about the biggest star on a smash-hit show who wasn’t white. “Friends” gave you white people who leave infants on city buses without consequence, who only rarely face a challenge to their permanent spot at Central Perk (for many years, a “reserved” card rested on the coffee table). But I’m not sure this was the show to do the labor, to open those doors with the same alacrity.

“Friends” could never have had, say, Joey drop by a black party in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn and tell Chandler how strange or exhilarating an experience it was without it also becoming a Very Special Episode. For some of its run, “Friends” aired opposite “Living Single,” on Fox, a good, “Friends”-ish show that was also the black party. As it is, Ross and Joey did date nonwhite women without their race being even a point of interest in the 1990s and 2000s, and even if that seems willfully naïve, it actually did feel special.

“Friends” made most of its social bets on gender differences, the way men get away with being chauvinists and lust buckets and layabouts, and the women have to pick up the slack. But tweaking the stereotypes became a meaningful staple of the show. Once, the girls’ failure to know the boys as well as the boys knew them cost Monica and Rachel their apartment. To be fair: Do you know what Chandler does for a living? Nonetheless, their place suddenly belongs to Joey and Chandler. It remains a shocking turn of events. I watched the early years of this show with roommates in the dorm of a college where bad housing could ruin friendships. I wasn’t watching a comedy that night. I was watching a cautionary tale. The show knew our loyalties were with the women and that Monica might not survive making breakfast in a man cave. So it refused to shake the Etch A Sketch. She unleashes a scream of “no” fit for no sitcom. It belonged in “Hamlet.”

“Friends” left prime-time television in 2004, just as the culture began to distrust meaningful inter-gender adventure. Its offspring — “How I Met Your Mother,” “The Big Bang Theory” “The Mindy Project,” “New Girl,” the short-lived masterpiece of repartee “Happy Endings” — did their best. But “Sex and the City,” which hit HBO in 1998, and the movies that sprang from Judd Apatow’s laugh factory would so convincingly relocate the sexes into ladies’ nights and boys’ clubs that the culture never quite came to reinvest in the coed comforts of a Central Perk.

“Friends” wasn’t a fantasy during its original run. But I can see why so many people who weren’t alive the first time around have devoured the show on cable and streaming like it’s a tub of ice cream. (I know of a 10-year-old as “Friends” conversant as I am.) There are no sexual threats, just Monica, her robe and her cold; just a vengeful guest star, in Julia Roberts, stranding Chandler in a pair of her underwear as comeuppance for a preadolescent prank; just a last-run of Rubik’s Cube hookups and occasionally vaguely funny lechery. Otherwise, the show was an oasis: adult women hanging out with adult men, with no monsters to fear, run from or prosecute. That could explain why droves of us are addicted to it. Sure, it’s excellent Easy TV — funnier, dirtier and more audacious than you heard it was, than you remember it being. But maybe, now, “Friends” is a fantasy. If you’re looking to restore some thereness to your life, maybe it’s more than must-see TV. Maybe it’s a clue.

Sahred From Source link Arts

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[sualkmedeiors]

What Does a Successful Brand Refresh Look Like?

Let’s talk about rebrands. No, I’m not talking about when you decide you want to “rebrand yourself” every New Year’s Eve, I’m talking about a brand refresh for your business. As far as refreshing a brand goes, many have tried, and many have dramatically failed. Recall, if you may, the Uber logo refresh in February 2016? The internet had a field day asking themselves what the new logo looked like, much to the chagrin of Uber, who ultimately went back to their traditional black and white logo design. So, yes, it’s a frightening venture to change your brand’s look.

However, when you get a brand refresh right, it will feel right. Think back to the Instagram brand refresh years ago, switching from the traditional camera logo and app icon to a sleeker, rainbow gradient design. It’s both eye-catching and a call back to their previous logo.

You must be asking yourself about now, “Well, Lynnie, then what does a good brand refresh look like?” Well, imaginary reader, take a seat. Because in this blog, I will be giving the red light, yellow light, and green light to three brand refreshes that flipped the company, and it’s ROI, on its head.

Red Light: Tropicana

Consumers can be unpredictable, but before going through a brand refresh, a marketer can’t underestimate their buyer’s passion for consistency. Tropicana learned this the hard way when they decided to change their look.

We’ve all seen them in the grocery store: Tropicana orange juice cartons with the fresh orange stuck with a straw on the front scream ‘refreshing.’ But as soon as Pepsico announced that they were “simplifying” their design to something entirely new, it bit them in a place they had not expected: their wallet.

Tropicana consumers called the new design generic, “store brand,” and even ugly. The fallback of the refresh went as far as causing Pepsico to roll back the refresh and return to their original logo and packaging.

The consumer reaction caused a drop of over 19% in sales. In dollars and cents, that comes out to around 33 million dollars in the refresh period, giving them a major red light in our brand refresh success scale.

What can we learn here? The moral of this (and any) story is that you should always trust your consumer’s passion for consistency and sticking to what they know. Brand refreshes are a roll of the dice for sure, but knowing what keeps your customer coming back to you over your competitor is a great place to start. Don’t gamble until you have all the cards, so to speak.

Yellow Light: Starbucks

I love a good controversy. It’s not quite a disaster, but it’s not smooth sailing either, and it makes for some great debate. When I was thinking of controversial rebrands that had people riding a proverbial teeter-totter, one that instantly came to my mind was the 2011 Starbucks rebrand.

You wouldn’t think that simplifying the logo would cause such tension among Starbucks drinkers, but losing the word “coffee” from “Starbucks Coffee” caused simultaneous outrage and joy.

You have to ask yourself a very simple question. “Do I only drink coffee when I go to Starbucks?” It’s the same question Steve Jobs asked himself when Apple Computers just became Apple. Are we ever just ONE thing? I order a venti nonfat chai tea latte with two pumps mocha and nonfat milk when I’m at my local Starbucks, so no, I don’t only drink coffee there. Starbucks knew that, realistically, by removing the words from their logo, they weren’t making a dramatic change because they are still known for their coffee, but they made enough of a change to remind consumers that they serve anyone who walks through their doors.

The point is that when you’re thinking of going through the rebranding process, while you do need to trust your consumers, you also have to trust your gut. We preach the importance of checking your data before making any big moves all the time, but a lot of rebranding involves instinct, and that’s what Starbucks chose to follow here. If you ask me, I think it was a brilliant idea.

Green Light: IHOP

This is about to be the most controversial thing I have ever written in a blog, but, the data will speak for itself: One of the best brand “refreshes” I have ever seen was from none other than IHOP. You may ask me, “How could you possibly think that changing your name to International House of Burgers is a great brand refresh?” Like I said, it’s controversial, but there is enough data to support that IHOB really knew what it was doing before taking the refresh plunge. I do understand that IHOP didn’t technically change their name permanently, but the results from this summer’s excitement are certainly going to be around for a long time.

This story is relatively new, so time will tell if the stunt will actually turn to sales, but from what I’ve seen so far, IHOB has done something right. One reason to embark on a brand refresh is to regenerate interest in your company and remind people that you’re still around, you’re still relevant, and that you’ve got something new to show them. When your ‘schtick’ is pancakes, but that’s not selling, you need to do something to show your base that you’re not a one-trick-pony.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: In 2018, the goal of doing something drastic is to be talked about on social media. Why do you think the “In My Feelings” Challenge was even a thing? So, when this refresh went live, the internet “blew up.” It was actually found that this summer IHOP was more popular online than it has ever been in the company’s history. Millions of posts about your company’s brand refresh can either be a blessing or a curse, but I believe that IHOP struck a chord with social media enthusiasts. The hype translated from just posts about the refresh itself to a meme later on, so whether you like it or not, IHOP was in the news for months. Oh, and more importantly, IHOP saw a 30% stock gain in the period that the campaign was in effect. Now, I do understand that the jury is still out on whether or not the stunt will cause people to actually want a burger from IHOP, but I must confess, I did try one after the brand refresh was announced, so they had at least one social media user convinced.

Fearlessly Moving Forward

We can learn a lot from IHOP in this case. I mentioned trusting your gut when I talked about Starbucks’ logo, but more importantly than trusting your gut, you have to be willing to take a risk in a refresh. Can’t you just picture the IHOP board room when Pete in the back of the room mentioned he thinks they should change their name to IHOB? Someone probably thought whoever suggested the name change was crazy and that it would tank their business, but sometimes, the craziest ideas are the ones that drive the greatest change. We can also learn from the concept of switching the focus from pancakes to burgers. Just because you’ve been doing one thing for years, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working. Clearly, pancake sales were down quite a bit, so why would you continue to let the Denny’s of the world steal your breakfast sales if you can make a big change to your strategy? A strategy is not a permanent choice. You can always come up with a better plan and make some adjustments. It doesn’t have to be as drastic as switching from breakfast to lunch foods, but you get the picture.

Obviously these examples are controversial, and some of you may disagree that they were “good” or “bad” choices, but there is one thing we can all agree on, and that is that we always have to be prepared for some heat, because not everyone is going to love what changes you make during a rebranding period. But if you stick to your guns and are willing to take the plunge, you’ll find yourself hearing a lot of positive buzz.

What do you think of these examples? Share with us other brand refreshes that you loved in the comments!

The post What Does a Successful Brand Refresh Look Like? appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from https://blog.marketo.com/2018/09/what-does-a-successful-brand-refresh-look-like.html

[racheltgibsau]

What Does a Successful Brand Refresh Look Like?

Let’s talk about rebrands. No, I’m not talking about when you decide you want to “rebrand yourself” every New Year’s Eve, I’m talking about a brand refresh for your business. As far as refreshing a brand goes, many have tried, and many have dramatically failed. Recall, if you may, the Uber logo refresh in February 2016? The internet had a field day asking themselves what the new logo looked like, much to the chagrin of Uber, who ultimately went back to their traditional black and white logo design. So, yes, it’s a frightening venture to change your brand’s look.

However, when you get a brand refresh right, it will feel right. Think back to the Instagram brand refresh years ago, switching from the traditional camera logo and app icon to a sleeker, rainbow gradient design. It’s both eye-catching and a call back to their previous logo.

You must be asking yourself about now, “Well, Lynnie, then what does a good brand refresh look like?” Well, imaginary reader, take a seat. Because in this blog, I will be giving the red light, yellow light, and green light to three brand refreshes that flipped the company, and it’s ROI, on its head.

Red Light: Tropicana

Consumers can be unpredictable, but before going through a brand refresh, a marketer can’t underestimate their buyer’s passion for consistency. Tropicana learned this the hard way when they decided to change their look.

We’ve all seen them in the grocery store: Tropicana orange juice cartons with the fresh orange stuck with a straw on the front scream ‘refreshing.’ But as soon as Pepsico announced that they were “simplifying” their design to something entirely new, it bit them in a place they had not expected: their wallet.

Tropicana consumers called the new design generic, “store brand,” and even ugly. The fallback of the refresh went as far as causing Pepsico to roll back the refresh and return to their original logo and packaging.

The consumer reaction caused a drop of over 19% in sales. In dollars and cents, that comes out to around 33 million dollars in the refresh period, giving them a major red light in our brand refresh success scale.

What can we learn here? The moral of this (and any) story is that you should always trust your consumer’s passion for consistency and sticking to what they know. Brand refreshes are a roll of the dice for sure, but knowing what keeps your customer coming back to you over your competitor is a great place to start. Don’t gamble until you have all the cards, so to speak.

Yellow Light: Starbucks

I love a good controversy. It’s not quite a disaster, but it’s not smooth sailing either, and it makes for some great debate. When I was thinking of controversial rebrands that had people riding a proverbial teeter-totter, one that instantly came to my mind was the 2011 Starbucks rebrand.

You wouldn’t think that simplifying the logo would cause such tension among Starbucks drinkers, but losing the word “coffee” from “Starbucks Coffee” caused simultaneous outrage and joy.

You have to ask yourself a very simple question. “Do I only drink coffee when I go to Starbucks?” It’s the same question Steve Jobs asked himself when Apple Computers just became Apple. Are we ever just ONE thing? I order a venti nonfat chai tea latte with two pumps mocha and nonfat milk when I’m at my local Starbucks, so no, I don’t only drink coffee there. Starbucks knew that, realistically, by removing the words from their logo, they weren’t making a dramatic change because they are still known for their coffee, but they made enough of a change to remind consumers that they serve anyone who walks through their doors.

The point is that when you’re thinking of going through the rebranding process, while you do need to trust your consumers, you also have to trust your gut. We preach the importance of checking your data before making any big moves all the time, but a lot of rebranding involves instinct, and that’s what Starbucks chose to follow here. If you ask me, I think it was a brilliant idea.

Green Light: IHOP

This is about to be the most controversial thing I have ever written in a blog, but, the data will speak for itself: One of the best brand “refreshes” I have ever seen was from none other than IHOP. You may ask me, “How could you possibly think that changing your name to International House of Burgers is a great brand refresh?” Like I said, it’s controversial, but there is enough data to support that IHOB really knew what it was doing before taking the refresh plunge. I do understand that IHOP didn’t technically change their name permanently, but the results from this summer’s excitement are certainly going to be around for a long time.

This story is relatively new, so time will tell if the stunt will actually turn to sales, but from what I’ve seen so far, IHOB has done something right. One reason to embark on a brand refresh is to regenerate interest in your company and remind people that you’re still around, you’re still relevant, and that you’ve got something new to show them. When your ‘schtick’ is pancakes, but that’s not selling, you need to do something to show your base that you’re not a one-trick-pony.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: In 2018, the goal of doing something drastic is to be talked about on social media. Why do you think the “In My Feelings” Challenge was even a thing? So, when this refresh went live, the internet “blew up.” It was actually found that this summer IHOP was more popular online than it has ever been in the company’s history. Millions of posts about your company’s brand refresh can either be a blessing or a curse, but I believe that IHOP struck a chord with social media enthusiasts. The hype translated from just posts about the refresh itself to a meme later on, so whether you like it or not, IHOP was in the news for months. Oh, and more importantly, IHOP saw a 30% stock gain in the period that the campaign was in effect. Now, I do understand that the jury is still out on whether or not the stunt will cause people to actually want a burger from IHOP, but I must confess, I did try one after the brand refresh was announced, so they had at least one social media user convinced.

Fearlessly Moving Forward

We can learn a lot from IHOP in this case. I mentioned trusting your gut when I talked about Starbucks’ logo, but more importantly than trusting your gut, you have to be willing to take a risk in a refresh. Can’t you just picture the IHOP board room when Pete in the back of the room mentioned he thinks they should change their name to IHOB? Someone probably thought whoever suggested the name change was crazy and that it would tank their business, but sometimes, the craziest ideas are the ones that drive the greatest change. We can also learn from the concept of switching the focus from pancakes to burgers. Just because you’ve been doing one thing for years, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working. Clearly, pancake sales were down quite a bit, so why would you continue to let the Denny’s of the world steal your breakfast sales if you can make a big change to your strategy? A strategy is not a permanent choice. You can always come up with a better plan and make some adjustments. It doesn’t have to be as drastic as switching from breakfast to lunch foods, but you get the picture.

Obviously these examples are controversial, and some of you may disagree that they were “good” or “bad” choices, but there is one thing we can all agree on, and that is that we always have to be prepared for some heat, because not everyone is going to love what changes you make during a rebranding period. But if you stick to your guns and are willing to take the plunge, you’ll find yourself hearing a lot of positive buzz.

What do you think of these examples? Share with us other brand refreshes that you loved in the comments!

The post What Does a Successful Brand Refresh Look Like? appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/09/what-does-a-successful-brand-refresh-look-like.html

[archiebwoollard]

What Does a Successful Brand Refresh Look Like?

Let’s talk about rebrands. No, I’m not talking about when you decide you want to “rebrand yourself” every New Year’s Eve, I’m talking about a brand refresh for your business. As far as refreshing a brand goes, many have tried, and many have dramatically failed. Recall, if you may, the Uber logo refresh in February 2016? The internet had a field day asking themselves what the new logo looked like, much to the chagrin of Uber, who ultimately went back to their traditional black and white logo design. So, yes, it’s a frightening venture to change your brand’s look.

However, when you get a brand refresh right, it will feel right. Think back to the Instagram brand refresh years ago, switching from the traditional camera logo and app icon to a sleeker, rainbow gradient design. It’s both eye-catching and a call back to their previous logo.

You must be asking yourself about now, “Well, Lynnie, then what does a good brand refresh look like?” Well, imaginary reader, take a seat. Because in this blog, I will be giving the red light, yellow light, and green light to three brand refreshes that flipped the company, and it’s ROI, on its head.

Red Light: Tropicana

Consumers can be unpredictable, but before going through a brand refresh, a marketer can’t underestimate their buyer’s passion for consistency. Tropicana learned this the hard way when they decided to change their look.

We’ve all seen them in the grocery store: Tropicana orange juice cartons with the fresh orange stuck with a straw on the front scream ‘refreshing.’ But as soon as Pepsico announced that they were “simplifying” their design to something entirely new, it bit them in a place they had not expected: their wallet.

Tropicana consumers called the new design generic, “store brand,” and even ugly. The fallback of the refresh went as far as causing Pepsico to roll back the refresh and return to their original logo and packaging.

The consumer reaction caused a drop of over 19% in sales. In dollars and cents, that comes out to around 33 million dollars in the refresh period, giving them a major red light in our brand refresh success scale.

What can we learn here? The moral of this (and any) story is that you should always trust your consumer’s passion for consistency and sticking to what they know. Brand refreshes are a roll of the dice for sure, but knowing what keeps your customer coming back to you over your competitor is a great place to start. Don’t gamble until you have all the cards, so to speak.

Yellow Light: Starbucks

I love a good controversy. It’s not quite a disaster, but it’s not smooth sailing either, and it makes for some great debate. When I was thinking of controversial rebrands that had people riding a proverbial teeter-totter, one that instantly came to my mind was the 2011 Starbucks rebrand.

You wouldn’t think that simplifying the logo would cause such tension among Starbucks drinkers, but losing the word “coffee” from “Starbucks Coffee” caused simultaneous outrage and joy.

You have to ask yourself a very simple question. “Do I only drink coffee when I go to Starbucks?” It’s the same question Steve Jobs asked himself when Apple Computers just became Apple. Are we ever just ONE thing? I order a venti nonfat chai tea latte with two pumps mocha and nonfat milk when I’m at my local Starbucks, so no, I don’t only drink coffee there. Starbucks knew that, realistically, by removing the words from their logo, they weren’t making a dramatic change because they are still known for their coffee, but they made enough of a change to remind consumers that they serve anyone who walks through their doors.

The point is that when you’re thinking of going through the rebranding process, while you do need to trust your consumers, you also have to trust your gut. We preach the importance of checking your data before making any big moves all the time, but a lot of rebranding involves instinct, and that’s what Starbucks chose to follow here. If you ask me, I think it was a brilliant idea.

Green Light: IHOP

This is about to be the most controversial thing I have ever written in a blog, but, the data will speak for itself: One of the best brand “refreshes” I have ever seen was from none other than IHOP. You may ask me, “How could you possibly think that changing your name to International House of Burgers is a great brand refresh?” Like I said, it’s controversial, but there is enough data to support that IHOB really knew what it was doing before taking the refresh plunge. I do understand that IHOP didn’t technically change their name permanently, but the results from this summer’s excitement are certainly going to be around for a long time.

This story is relatively new, so time will tell if the stunt will actually turn to sales, but from what I’ve seen so far, IHOB has done something right. One reason to embark on a brand refresh is to regenerate interest in your company and remind people that you’re still around, you’re still relevant, and that you’ve got something new to show them. When your ‘schtick’ is pancakes, but that’s not selling, you need to do something to show your base that you’re not a one-trick-pony.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: In 2018, the goal of doing something drastic is to be talked about on social media. Why do you think the “In My Feelings” Challenge was even a thing? So, when this refresh went live, the internet “blew up.” It was actually found that this summer IHOP was more popular online than it has ever been in the company’s history. Millions of posts about your company’s brand refresh can either be a blessing or a curse, but I believe that IHOP struck a chord with social media enthusiasts. The hype translated from just posts about the refresh itself to a meme later on, so whether you like it or not, IHOP was in the news for months. Oh, and more importantly, IHOP saw a 30% stock gain in the period that the campaign was in effect. Now, I do understand that the jury is still out on whether or not the stunt will cause people to actually want a burger from IHOP, but I must confess, I did try one after the brand refresh was announced, so they had at least one social media user convinced.

Fearlessly Moving Forward

We can learn a lot from IHOP in this case. I mentioned trusting your gut when I talked about Starbucks’ logo, but more importantly than trusting your gut, you have to be willing to take a risk in a refresh. Can’t you just picture the IHOP board room when Pete in the back of the room mentioned he thinks they should change their name to IHOB? Someone probably thought whoever suggested the name change was crazy and that it would tank their business, but sometimes, the craziest ideas are the ones that drive the greatest change. We can also learn from the concept of switching the focus from pancakes to burgers. Just because you’ve been doing one thing for years, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working. Clearly, pancake sales were down quite a bit, so why would you continue to let the Denny’s of the world steal your breakfast sales if you can make a big change to your strategy? A strategy is not a permanent choice. You can always come up with a better plan and make some adjustments. It doesn’t have to be as drastic as switching from breakfast to lunch foods, but you get the picture.

Obviously these examples are controversial, and some of you may disagree that they were “good” or “bad” choices, but there is one thing we can all agree on, and that is that we always have to be prepared for some heat, because not everyone is going to love what changes you make during a rebranding period. But if you stick to your guns and are willing to take the plunge, you’ll find yourself hearing a lot of positive buzz.

What do you think of these examples? Share with us other brand refreshes that you loved in the comments!

The post What Does a Successful Brand Refresh Look Like? appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/09/what-does-a-successful-brand-refresh-look-like.html

[maxslogic25]

What Does a Successful Brand Refresh Look Like?

Let’s talk about rebrands. No, I’m not talking about when you decide you want to “rebrand yourself” every New Year’s Eve, I’m talking about a brand refresh for your business. As far as refreshing a brand goes, many have tried, and many have dramatically failed. Recall, if you may, the Uber logo refresh in February 2016? The internet had a field day asking themselves what the new logo looked like, much to the chagrin of Uber, who ultimately went back to their traditional black and white logo design. So, yes, it’s a frightening venture to change your brand’s look.

However, when you get a brand refresh right, it will feel right. Think back to the Instagram brand refresh years ago, switching from the traditional camera logo and app icon to a sleeker, rainbow gradient design. It’s both eye-catching and a call back to their previous logo.

You must be asking yourself about now, “Well, Lynnie, then what does a good brand refresh look like?” Well, imaginary reader, take a seat. Because in this blog, I will be giving the red light, yellow light, and green light to three brand refreshes that flipped the company, and it’s ROI, on its head.

Red Light: Tropicana

Consumers can be unpredictable, but before going through a brand refresh, a marketer can’t underestimate their buyer’s passion for consistency. Tropicana learned this the hard way when they decided to change their look.

We’ve all seen them in the grocery store: Tropicana orange juice cartons with the fresh orange stuck with a straw on the front scream ‘refreshing.’ But as soon as Pepsico announced that they were “simplifying” their design to something entirely new, it bit them in a place they had not expected: their wallet.

Tropicana consumers called the new design generic, “store brand,” and even ugly. The fallback of the refresh went as far as causing Pepsico to roll back the refresh and return to their original logo and packaging.

The consumer reaction caused a drop of over 19% in sales. In dollars and cents, that comes out to around 33 million dollars in the refresh period, giving them a major red light in our brand refresh success scale.

What can we learn here? The moral of this (and any) story is that you should always trust your consumer’s passion for consistency and sticking to what they know. Brand refreshes are a roll of the dice for sure, but knowing what keeps your customer coming back to you over your competitor is a great place to start. Don’t gamble until you have all the cards, so to speak.

Yellow Light: Starbucks

I love a good controversy. It’s not quite a disaster, but it’s not smooth sailing either, and it makes for some great debate. When I was thinking of controversial rebrands that had people riding a proverbial teeter-totter, one that instantly came to my mind was the 2011 Starbucks rebrand.

You wouldn’t think that simplifying the logo would cause such tension among Starbucks drinkers, but losing the word “coffee” from “Starbucks Coffee” caused simultaneous outrage and joy.

You have to ask yourself a very simple question. “Do I only drink coffee when I go to Starbucks?” It’s the same question Steve Jobs asked himself when Apple Computers just became Apple. Are we ever just ONE thing? I order a venti nonfat chai tea latte with two pumps mocha and nonfat milk when I’m at my local Starbucks, so no, I don’t only drink coffee there. Starbucks knew that, realistically, by removing the words from their logo, they weren’t making a dramatic change because they are still known for their coffee, but they made enough of a change to remind consumers that they serve anyone who walks through their doors.

The point is that when you’re thinking of going through the rebranding process, while you do need to trust your consumers, you also have to trust your gut. We preach the importance of checking your data before making any big moves all the time, but a lot of rebranding involves instinct, and that’s what Starbucks chose to follow here. If you ask me, I think it was a brilliant idea.

Green Light: IHOP

This is about to be the most controversial thing I have ever written in a blog, but, the data will speak for itself: One of the best brand “refreshes” I have ever seen was from none other than IHOP. You may ask me, “How could you possibly think that changing your name to International House of Burgers is a great brand refresh?” Like I said, it’s controversial, but there is enough data to support that IHOB really knew what it was doing before taking the refresh plunge. I do understand that IHOP didn’t technically change their name permanently, but the results from this summer’s excitement are certainly going to be around for a long time.

This story is relatively new, so time will tell if the stunt will actually turn to sales, but from what I’ve seen so far, IHOB has done something right. One reason to embark on a brand refresh is to regenerate interest in your company and remind people that you’re still around, you’re still relevant, and that you’ve got something new to show them. When your ‘schtick’ is pancakes, but that’s not selling, you need to do something to show your base that you’re not a one-trick-pony.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: In 2018, the goal of doing something drastic is to be talked about on social media. Why do you think the “In My Feelings” Challenge was even a thing? So, when this refresh went live, the internet “blew up.” It was actually found that this summer IHOP was more popular online than it has ever been in the company’s history. Millions of posts about your company’s brand refresh can either be a blessing or a curse, but I believe that IHOP struck a chord with social media enthusiasts. The hype translated from just posts about the refresh itself to a meme later on, so whether you like it or not, IHOP was in the news for months. Oh, and more importantly, IHOP saw a 30% stock gain in the period that the campaign was in effect. Now, I do understand that the jury is still out on whether or not the stunt will cause people to actually want a burger from IHOP, but I must confess, I did try one after the brand refresh was announced, so they had at least one social media user convinced.

Fearlessly Moving Forward

We can learn a lot from IHOP in this case. I mentioned trusting your gut when I talked about Starbucks’ logo, but more importantly than trusting your gut, you have to be willing to take a risk in a refresh. Can’t you just picture the IHOP board room when Pete in the back of the room mentioned he thinks they should change their name to IHOB? Someone probably thought whoever suggested the name change was crazy and that it would tank their business, but sometimes, the craziest ideas are the ones that drive the greatest change. We can also learn from the concept of switching the focus from pancakes to burgers. Just because you’ve been doing one thing for years, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working. Clearly, pancake sales were down quite a bit, so why would you continue to let the Denny’s of the world steal your breakfast sales if you can make a big change to your strategy? A strategy is not a permanent choice. You can always come up with a better plan and make some adjustments. It doesn’t have to be as drastic as switching from breakfast to lunch foods, but you get the picture.

Obviously these examples are controversial, and some of you may disagree that they were “good” or “bad” choices, but there is one thing we can all agree on, and that is that we always have to be prepared for some heat, because not everyone is going to love what changes you make during a rebranding period. But if you stick to your guns and are willing to take the plunge, you’ll find yourself hearing a lot of positive buzz.

What do you think of these examples? Share with us other brand refreshes that you loved in the comments!

The post What Does a Successful Brand Refresh Look Like? appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/09/what-does-a-successful-brand-refresh-look-like.html