#//OH yea and i never explain any of the lore for this story ever but i like to explain and justify decisions a lot so how 'bout that hfhvs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

p0rkguts · 8 hours

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you got any ocs u wanna ramble abt pork? (trying to politely ask everything ever forever)

CATEGORY 7 BLORBO HEART ATTACK

Why yeas.... Yes I do :]

Okay so so so so my main story my favorite story my baby my child my magnum opus my pride and joy my best creation. Most developed story I've ever had. working title is Metamerist. I love it I love them u don't understand u don;t undersTAND

It's about a little amnesiac girl thing trying to recover their memories and find their identity in a world that is against them in every way possible. It's about two problematic lesbians with a messy ass past trying to get over their own emotional constipation and toxic codependency to raise children and save the world. It's about a Totalitarian government bent on completely dominating the globe until it's all under their control. It's about SHAPESHIFTERS. IT'S ABOUT QUEERS. IT'S ABOUT WHAT CAN'T BE TAKEN BACK. IT'S ABOUT BEING MADE ANEW. IT'S ABOUT FEELINGS❕❕❕❕❕

Oh my god jeez fuck how am I even meant to explain all this lore to you rn.... Okay I I. I'm working on this big PowerPoint Google slide presentation that explains the WHOLE story but it's not done yet. And it's like sooo impossible (for me) to abridge. So I'm just gonna tell u about ONE Metamerist character for now and their lore

Readmore bc this got long

This is The Doctor (it/its). It doesn't have a name it just calls itself The Doctor. It's a shapeshifter that can take on different animal traits— specifically from certain bugs and bats. It grew up in a shapeshifter colony in the distant mountains until they were all either kidnapped or killed by the government for their shapeshifter related experiments when The Doctor was like. A shapeshifter tween. The Doctor managed to hide in a little crevice crawl space thing until they left but it was the only survivor.

After days of just waiting thinking they'd be right outside to attack, it left its hiding place and the mountain and camped out at the foot of the mountain for a bit. Eventually Nivera finds it and she wants to be friends and The Doctor doesn't really wanna be friends bc it thinks Nivera is a human girl from the nearby village and it hates humans now but it doesn't wanna appear suspicious so it tries to be all friendly because well. People are supposed to be nice to other people?? Probably

Nivera keeps visiting The Doctor and they slowly become actual friends. Not like it'd admit that tho. But eventually the truth comes out and they both realize they're both shapeshifters who thought the other was human and we're trying to pass as humans because of that. It's silly they're both stupid. After that they get a lot closer

Every time Nivera would leave The Doctor at the end of the day after visiting and she claimed to "go home to her family" to sell her human alibi and everything she was just going to some abandoned cottage she found. After they figure each other out they start living there together

While this was going on, The Doctor started sneaking into the nearby village and stealing things like food and books and clothes and stuff. When Nivera becomes friends with It she asks to join in on the little thieving escapades and The Doctor begrudgingly agrees. They then become wanted criminals there but they never get caught because they've got The Doctor's shape shifting abilities on their side

One day when The Doctor and Nivera were out exploring the woods, they found a tunnel that led into a secret underground compound and saw some humans bringing stuff into it in boxes. They hid while they watched them transport all the materials and it was all very suspicious. After they snuck away, Nivera wanted to leave the place alone but The Doctor wanted to go back and investigate further. Nivera was against it so The Doctor started visiting the place in secret and lying to Nivera about it saying they were going hunting instead.

The Doctor just watched them transport their mystery goods for a few days until one day they saw them carrying in a shackled shapeshifter. This set off major alarms in its head. The next time they visited the tunnel they snuck in and saw the humans were experimenting on shapeshifters in there. It snapped and killed all the workers there (like 20-30 people)

The Doctor is scarred in 7 new ways bc of it all but just cleans up as much of the carnage it can and returns to Nivera. For a few days It avoids the place and doesn't say anything to her but eventually it goes back to see what became of the place and Nivera follows it because she was getting really suspicious. The place is still empty and untouched and The Doctor tells Nivera they all just left. At some point Nivera sees faint remnants of blood there, and pieces together that there was more to it than that, but she tells herself that whatever it did must've been absolutely necessary and her bff would never do wrong.

The Doctor had wanted to get back at humans somehow ever since their family was taken from it and it saw the now empty compound as the perfect starting point to learn about their plans. Nivera isn't a fan but acquiesces to The Doctor's desire to start spending time there. It figures out how to operate their computers soon enough and figures out the vast extent of their work.

Okay so by this point years have passed amidst all this and they're both shifter young adults now. The Doctor spends a bunch of time at the compound trying to come up with plans to stop all the government mandated shapeshifter murder. It eventually figures out the lab equipment and after studying some of the things they did there, it figured out how to make its own concoctions it saw as useful.

The compound is attached to now abandoned tunnels that lead to a more urban part of the land and The Doctor started using them as a way to sneak in to essentially scavenge for more materials for their projects. Nivera begged to come along one time bc she likes to be included and when they got there they ended up almost getting caught, but The Doctor used its shifting powers to get them to safety and Nivera was like "😳 woaw..." Bc she's monster fucker trash (affectionate)

After they got home safely Nivera was like "man with I could do all that cool stuff teehee ☺️" and The Doctor's like "...You can't?" And Nivera's like "no my shapeshifter powers have always been super weak lol I'm not strong like you 🥰" and The Doctor's like "hmmm. I wonder if a serum could fix that."

Nivera essentially has a shifter disability that makes her shifting abilities abnormally weak and The Doctor offers to make some concoction that could possibly fix it. Nivera doesn't really mind her disability at all and lives just fine with minimal powers but agrees because The Doctor seems really excited about the possibility of the experiment being successful so anything for her pookie 🥰

The Doctor makes a few versions of the concoction but they keep not doing anything and Nivera assured it that it's fine but The Doctor won't back down and gets obsessed with making it work. Eventually, one night when they're testing another version in The Doctor's lab, it does work, but it works too well and Nivera loses control of her shape shifting abilities, shifting uncontrollably into a warped pained form

Uhhhhh something something. Kinda like this

(this is maybe 2 years old and all just vague concepts but I never drew her fucked up form ever again so this all I got)

Also Nivera can take on traits from spiders, deer, and plants

Nivera ran out into the woods like a frightened rampaging animal and The Doctor chased after them. Once it had Nivera cornered, it sedated her and had to drag her back to the lab. After making sure she was okay, The Doctor took Nivera to her cottage with some supplies and nursed Nivera back to health for the following few days while Nivera was in and out of consciousness. Once she was fully lucid, The Doctor gave her a rundown of what happened, told her to get some rest, and left. And they didn't see each other again for YEARS! Bc they were both pretty much of the belief that them being together would only hurt the both of them. The Doctor fell deep into depression and Nivera did too but she was just a little better at deluding herself

The Doctor really let itself go and spiralled completely. Its hair used to be all black and wavy but after the divorce arc it's got tons of white bits and it's all flat and matted and dirty. And it smells

Then like. decades later. which affects them slower bc shifters they'll live like 3x as long as humans. They're kinda forced back into each other's lives to take care of these two shapeshifter kids Echo and Tealin. it's a whole thing.

OKAY UUUHM. i think I've rambled enough. I get very shy about sharing ocs. BUT FEEL FREE TO ASK ME TO CLARIFY ANYTHING.... THIS IS VERY SIMPLIFIED.......... teehee ok bye

#THANK YOU SOOOO SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK ILY XOXO #sorry it took so long to respond i kept remaking it because it felt too long #but eventually i just said fuck it bc you NEED THE FULL STORY #well. this is still technically abridged #BUT YEAH UHM . YEA #my art #oc art #Metamerist #Nivera #The Doctor #long post #my ocs

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haddocknumber3 · 3 years

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Defense of The Hidden World.

This is my first time posting here in ages but I’ve been working on an essay in defense of HTTYD 3. Some of the possible responses I’ve seen against arguments defending the movie will be answered throughout. (warning this is long, like, ridiculously long so if you don’t read this then I completely understand. I just wanted a place to formulate and explain my opinion.

Hiccup and Toothless’ relationship proved that a genuine, unflinchingly honest and unconditional love could exist between humans and dragons. It proved to the world that co-existence was possible, but maybe not yet. However the main thing that I found to be so profound about THW was that even though they loved each other, they were both willing to explore their own identities separate from each other. Once Toothless found the Lightfury, he re-discovered what it meant to be a dragon. Not a domesticated dragon but a pure, natural dragon. He found that he had instincts that he never knew he had. For instance, he tries to do a mating dance by himself as well as the simple fact that he was so in love with the Light Fury. So when he wanted to mate with the light fury he turned to Hiccup for advice (third date scene) because not only did he not know what to do, but he had seen Hiccup getting closer with Astrid over the years and now that he finally found someone else, he wanted advice on how to handle it. That just shows the love between them. Yes, Hiccup made mistakes in the movie in terms of how he handled Toothless getting with the Lightfury. He was anxious and felt as if he needed to be there to protect him so he desperately tried to halt Grimmel and the armada’s advance without Toothless because he knew he had to do something. However he failed at this and caused Ruffnut to be captured. This causes him to feel like he can’t lead properly without Toothless. He has always doubted whether he’s worthy, but this time he genuinely feels as if he doesn’t know who he is without Toothless. This is confirmed when Astrid and Valka have that brief conversation after Hiccup storms off (after they’ve returned from Grimmel’s tower) and they say:

“He thinks he has to lead alone, well, because his father had to. He doesn’t realize the strength you have together. Do you still believe in him?” - Valka

“Of course, I wish he did. But he thinks he’s nothing without Toothless.” - Astrid

“Then help him realize the truth” - Valka

This comes to a head when Grimmel had just captured Toothless, the Lightfury, and all of Berk’s dragons and he has flown off. Hiccup and Astrid have that conversation on the cliff and while the entire conversation is so so so damn important and powerful, there is one quote that sums it up:

“You are the bravest, most stubborn, determined, knucklehead I know. Toothless didn’t give you that Hiccup. He just-” - Astrid

“-made it easier” - Hiccup

All of this works so magnificently because the film has been able to show that both Hiccup and Toothless now have different goals in life. It’s just so beautiful how the film allows both characters to explore and accept their own identities without having any grievances towards each other in the process. Even though Hiccup is anxious about Toothless leaving him, it doesn’t mean he resents him for it. He is just concerned for his best friend’s safety out in the wild.

When that final scene of them saying goodbye comes along, it’s so impactful because they both realize that while obviously they could just all stay as they are and nothing would change, that wouldn’t be the right thing to do at this point. While Hiccup (and the audience) want to see the message at the end of HTTYD 2 fulfilled where the world could be changed into a dragon-human paradise, it isn’t realistic, no matter how much we believe it could happen.

“Doesn’t this go against the themes of the franchise?”

In a way, yes. But also it was the only real CONCLUSION the characters could have come to. I mean, what else was there to learn about the world other than the fact that trying to create a dragon/human paradise isn’t sustainable forever. They were able to create one on Berk but that didn’t last. People will always continue to try and disrupt this way of life. Evil people like Grimmel will always be around to exploit dragon-kind for their own nefarious goals.

“But isn’t that the point? To always fight and stand up for the dragons and not give up by sending them away to some other place?”

Well your not wrong, but isn’t allowing them to live in a paradise where they will never be harmed by other humans ever again worth it? Isn’t it worth it to find peace without the need for war? Isn’t that what a chief is supposed to do?

“A chief protects his own” That’s the point. It IS a sacrifice. Because even though the Berkians may consider the dragons as their own, they aren’t. They are still independent dragons. (I give an example of this later on in the form of a deleted scene) It’s a sacrifice of the idealistic views that the second movie explored. Even that movie proved that consequences would come from actively trying to change the entire world’s view. However it shouldn’t (and didn’t) dissuade the Berkians from trying to continue to live in peace with their dragons.

Also I just want to bring up the fact that some people have drawn parallels between this movie and certain aspects of real life. I understand, but that isn’t the story that is being told. The metaphors did get pretty muddled sadly but I can assure you that isn’t the intent behind the movie. So if you have any ill will towards the movie because of that then I’m sorry that was the message that you took away from it. Just know that wasn’t the intention and wasn’t the story being told.

Hiccup, who had now become chief, actively tried to save the dragons that were in captivity or being harmed by the hunters and warlords of the world. Instead of trying to change their minds (and Grimmel’s mind) like he tried to do with Drago in HTTYD 2, he actively tries to sabotage their activities of caging and using dragons and bringing them back to Berk so they could be safe. However, by the opening of the third movie, it is clear that Berk has become overcrowded.

“But couldn’t they have spread out?”

Well, a deleted scene confirms they did by referencing their “nest in the north” so it’s clear that they had spread out. But Berk was their main settlement and they couldn’t maintain dozens of other settlements full of dragons 24/7.

Wait but couldn’t they have asked other friendly civilizations like the Berserkers or the Wingmadens to look after them and follow in Berk’s example?

Yeah of course, but eventually they would run into the same problem as Berk did at the beginning of the third movie. If they kept bring back dragons to Berk or any other dragon friendly civilization, then eventually they would get overcrowded. It may take a while but the possibility of it happening is pretty large.

“Nah doesn’t make sense. That wouldn’t happen because they would all just defend their islands/civilizations against their enemies like they have done for the entire TV series.”

...Once again, it’s not sustainable. That’s why the Hidden World exists. It’s a place where the dragons can live totally out of reach and where they can be safe.

“Oh but the whole idea of the Hidden World is contrived bullshit just made up to move the plot along.”

Couldn’t Frodo and the Fellowship just use the eagles to fly all the way to Mount Doom so he could drop the ring in and call it a day? What’s the reason there? So the plot could happen? Hmmm. But in all seriousness though I don’t have anything against LOTR and in fact it’s one of my favorite series besides HTTYD. Also they couldn’t have used the eagles because on the way the Black Riders who were on the dragons would have taken them out. Also they could have been shot down- oKAY back to the Hidden World. The idea of the Hidden World is kind of contrived but at the same time it is using the lack of an established explanation of where the dragons actually came from and utilizing it.

“But they would have just been on the surface the whole time?”

As I said, there is a lack of an explanation. So why not? why not delve deeper into the lore of the dragons. The idea of Hiccup discovering the ancestral home of all dragons is awesome! It doesn’t conflict with anything previously established in terms of where they came from because there is no explanation.

“What about Vanaheim, the eternal resting place of all dragons from RTTE?”

Good point, but that doesn’t mean that the dragons couldn’t have lived and evolved underground and then come up to the surface and gone to Vanaheim. I mean, obviously not every dragon was in the Hidden World so it would have been easier for them to just travel there but I don’t see this as a massive issue though.

“Why does Hiccup say “The world believes the dragons are gone” in the epilogue if just Berk’s dragons left.”

This is a really solid point so I’ll do my best with this one but at the same time, it is a really good point. I imagine that by the time the third movie comes around, Berk had become such a safe haven for dragons that you could say most of the world’s dragons resided on Berk. But this is kind of flimsy too and doesn’t exactly make sense. The way I see it, this is a valid “plot hole” but at the same time I don’t really care? I don’t know for me it was just an emotional way of putting the ending of the film into words. I don’t have a valid explanation for it but whenever I watch the film I just roll with it because I’m already wrapped up in the emotion of it all that I just don’t care, and to be honest I’m glad I don’t. That’s just me though. If you have an issue with this then I totally understand because dragons like the Buffalord or the Eruptadon can’t exactly leave their islands sooooo yea...

“The Hidden World conflicts with established lore of the whole series.”

I’m pretty sure this is referring to Grimmel killing all the Nightfuries and Stoick not telling Hiccup about it. To be honest this is the plot hole that I’ve tried to patch up but can’t find a reasonable explanation for. However, it’s one of those tiny discrepancies for me that doesn’t hurt or hinder my enjoyment or engagement with the trilogy.

“Why was the armada defeated so quickly? As Valka said, there were probably over 100 ships. How did the Dragon Riders defeat an entire fleet of ships so quickly?”

Well, most of the ships were on fire by the end of the final battle and all of the dragons had been freed by that point. Also, Astrid managed to reach the wheel of the main barge and lock it into position so it would crash into the ships beside it and take multiple of them out. So we can infer that not only are all of the dragons free, but also pretty much all of the ships have been set alight and are now in the process of burning down and sinking.

“What about the Warlords?”

Ragnar the rock (the big guy) gets chased off and supposedly eaten by the Hobgobblers and the other two get trapped in a cage that slides down the front deck of their ship (because Astrid caused the ship to crash into the other ones) and traps them in it. So basically all 3 warlords are incapacitated or dead.

Ok back to the main point from a few paragraphs back lol: Berk was overcrowded and they needed a solution. Hiccup knew that something had to be done so when he was standing in the same quiet spot where his father told him a mystical tale of a hidden dragon world, it causes him to think about whether it was real or not. Could that be the solution? They would be able to stay with the dragons in the hidden world because they were dragon loving people (that’s Hiccup’s logic.) However, when Grimmel arrives and berates him about his view of dragons and Berk’s way of life. Hiccup stands up to him because he has defended Berk’s way of life from far worse than a mere lone dragon hunter. But after Hiccup experiences the terror and destruction that this one hunter could cause on his home, he now fully realizes that they need to leave Berk because they are not only overcrowded but now they have a ruthless hunter ready to return at any point and cause more destruction upon Berk; possibly even killing many of his people including himself and definitely Toothless. It’s a long shot but he decides that if Berk wants to live in peace with their dragons then they need to disappear into the hidden world where the warlords and their armada along with Grimmel can’t ever find them again. They will be safe forever. It will be a human/dragon paradise that will be untouched.

Another question that comes up is:

“Well why can’t they stand and fight. That should be the message. That their ideological views would not waver because some more people threaten their home with war.”

That’s a fair judgement to be honest, however, as Hiccup learnt in the second film from his father: “Berk is what you need to worry about, a chief protects his own” - Stoick.

In a deleted scene from the third movie, it has this exchange between Hiccup and Valka:

“I know, I know, he has to win her over but I’m telling you, once she (the Lightfury) moves in it’ll all be perfect” - Hiccup

“Eret and I returned from the scout, Berk was burned to the ground” - Valka

“At least everyone’s safe” - Hiccup

“For now” - Valka

“No one can find us here” - Hiccup

“That’s what I used to believe, Hiccup, but they’ve found our nest in the far north too. Greedy humans, will always find a way” - Valka

“I don’t believe that” - Hiccup

“I...I know it might be hard for you to accept, but the dream that you and I yearn for, you know, this untouchable dragon utopia, I fear it just doesn’t exist. I mean, maybe in the end the dragons are safer in the wild.” - Valka

“What, with crazy people like Grimmel around?” - Hiccup

“The more dragons we bring back, the bigger of a target we all become” - Valka

“But they’re safer with us. We protect them” - Hiccup

“And we’ll continue to do so, but I fear for their safety in these large numbers. Tame dragons are more vulnerable to humans. Their trust in us becomes their weakness. In the wild, they’re better adapted to protect themselves” - Valka

“A chief protects his own, that’s what Dad always said” - Hiccup

“And he was right. But as much as we love our dragons Hiccup, they are not our own. There’s a fine line between being a protector and a captor. I only ask that you think about it” - Valka

The fact that this is a deleted scene is really frustrating because it put the themes that the movie is trying to explore into proper dialogue. Valka understands that moving around with this massive amount of dragons isn’t safe for anyone. If they were to be released into the wild then they could have a better chance at surviving. Even though the dragons will still be at danger in the wild, that’s the point of the hidden world. The dragons can live there together in complete and total safety.

Once Hiccup and Astrid discover the Hidden World and find that Toothless has settled in with the Lightfury and is safe and comfortable, he then realizes that it wouldn’t be fair to try and bring him back to New Berk. He’s found a home away from the troubles of the world. He doesn’t have to be afraid anymore. He can have a family in the peace and safety of the Hidden World as well as being surrounded by his own kind. On top of this realization, Hiccup and Astrid get attacked by a wild dragon and have to try and flee. When Toothless sees this he flies to protect his friend and take them back to New Berk where THEY will be safe, not him. As a result of this, Hiccup not only comes to the conclusion that humans aren’t meant for the Hidden World, but he finally understands what Valka was trying to tell him earlier (in that deleted scene.) The dragons WOULD be safer there. I mean, sure. They could stay up there at New Berk and they could continue to live life as they always have. But then what? What happens when another Grimmel comes around and manages to inflict worse upon Berk’s population. When will Hiccup be able to solve the entire world. The answer is, he can’t. But he can allow for the dragons to live in the Hidden World. He can give them a life where they can never be harmed again. Isn’t this better?

A statement that may come from this is that:

“Oh but that means Grimmel won. The villain literally won. What the fuck, this is so disgusting and disappointing. How can anyone like this?”

Those people are free the feel that way. However, he didn’t win. Not entirely. Yes, he completely opposed co-existence to the point where he would gladly kill any dragon to prove that point. He wants the world to continue killing dragons because that is a fundamental aspect of who he is. It proves to him that he is right. He is the self-proclaimed Nightfury Killer. But this still doesn’t mean that he wins in the end. Yes, dragons and humans do have to separate. But Grimmel’s ultimate goal was to kill all of the dragons. Wipe them off the face of the earth. From a certain perspective, he achieves this because dragons do have to live in the Hidden World away from humans, but that doesn’t mean he won. They are all still alive aren’t they? He failed in his mission to kill them. He failed in killing Toothless. He failed at his one purpose in life. So no, he didn’t win in the end. There is a difference between a villain totally and completely winning against the heroes like Thanos did at the end of Infinity War, and this, where Grimmel not only died as a result of his flawed and evil ideals but did not get to carry out the goal that made him who he is. The dragons leaving was a choice made by Hiccup. It was a sacrifice made out of love. If Grimmel was to win, then he would have had to kill Toothless and either see all the dragons locked away in cages for the rest of their lives or for them to be killed too. I could go on and on about this point in particular but I’ll stop here.

Once the final battle begins, Hiccup isn’t fighting to free the dragons so they can continue to live on in a peaceful dragon utopia like they did in HTTYD 2, he is fighting for their survival. So by the end of the battle when Grimmel is holding onto Hiccup, who is holding onto the Lightfury, he knows that the only option to save Toothless from falling to his doom is to take the harness off the Lightfury, releasing her from the power of the Death gripper venom and let go, causing Hiccup along with Grimmel, to fall to their deaths. This is the ultimate act of love. This is what the whole trilogy has been building to because for years Hiccup has remained adamant that Toothless and him belonged together. Hiccup would always be there to protect Toothless and Toothless would always be there to protect Hiccup. But after all this time of Hiccup learning that Toothless will be safe with the Lightfury in the Hidden World, he has the courage to let go and sacrifice himself for his best friend.

After the Lightfury has saved him and all of Berk reunite with their dragons. Hiccup and Toothless both realize that after all this time of the two co-depending on each other, it’s time for them to fulfil their own destinies of being the leader of their respective tribes.

“I was so busy fighting for a world that I wanted, I didn’t think about what you needed.” - Hiccup.

This quote clearly demonstrates Hiccup’s deeper understanding of the implications that come with his evolving emotional maturity. For him to fully grow up and become to true leader of Berk, he needs to learn to let go of his best friend. He needs to grow up. Some may call this contrived and/or unnecessary however I don’t see it that way in the slightest. The Hidden World is, as Hiccup puts it earlier in the film “a secret land at the edge of the world where dragons lived totally out of reach.” So when the dragons have the option of living in a place where they are totally safe from the outside world, then why wouldn’t they take that. (I’m honestly repeating myself at this point but I don’t care.) For Hiccup to fully be able to step into the role as the wise and selfless chief that he was always destined to become, he needed to learn the valuable lesson of letting go. If he didn’t, then he would never be able to see things from a new, better and wiser perspective. He would never be able to grow as an individual, thus possibly impacting how he rules Berk and how he deals with situations that come with being chief. He has always relied on Toothless for his strength as a person, friend, and leader, but by the end of the Hidden World, he realizes that his true strength lies within himself and Astrid. Here’s a conversation from HTTYD 2 to support this:

(Between Astrid and Hiccup towards the beginning)

“I’m not like you Astrid, you know exactly who you are, you always have but...I’m still looking. I know that I’m not my father, and I never met my mother so...what does that make me?” - Hiccup

“What your searching for, isn’t out there Hiccup. It’s in here.*points to his chest* Maybe you just don’t see it yet” - Astrid

By allowing themselves to fulfil their own personal destinies of discovering their own identities along with finding their own loved ones, they are able to say goodbye to each other and live ‘together from afar.’ The dragons will be safe, and Berk will be safe. But, even though the world believes the dragons are gone, the Berkians know otherwise. And they’ll guard the secret until the time comes when dragons can return in peace...

Also the track titled ‘Once there were Dragons’ is a fucking astonishing piece of music that every human on the being on the planet needs to listen to. Anyway thank you so much for reading this if you did. I’ve been struggling with how to present my thoughts and feelings towards this epic conclusion but I’ve been a little afraid to. I tried to on reddit but when people offered extensive constructive criticism towards the points I made, I didn’t exactly take it too well. Maybe that’s because I was getting over a hangover when I read most of it but that doesn't matter because I still didn’t handle it well. But I’ve learnt from that and chosen to take that criticism on board and now that I’ve been able to formulate my opinion the best I can, I’ve used those points they made and tried to analyze them too instead of just ignoring and flat out hand-waiving them. Anyway, if you disagree with anything I’ve said here then that’s totally cool and I’d be happy to listen to your opinions. Still thanks for reading.

#httyd #httyd 3 #httydthw #httyd2 #dragons #httyd rtte #hiccup #grimmel #toothless #lightfury #thehiddenworld #defense #oncethereweredragons #berk #holyfuckingshitthisissolongwtf #valka #astrid #gobber #dragonriders

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inspector-montoya-fox · 4 years

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here’s why Thieves in Time is a bad game

before y’all try it, i just want to say that i’ll be as unapologetically petty and sarcastic as i want and fucking rip this game to shreds. yes, this is how i’ve spent my days since Thieves in Time came out. sitting alone in my room, staring at the wall, crying and complaining. because it has since been my life’s aim and dream to think about it every day, state the negative things about it, and become an evil essay witch on this half-dead website. *evil laugh*

Story:

References: i want to start with the smallest problem, but one that annoys me to this day. in the original trilogy, there weren’t a lot of references but the ones that were included were meticulously researched and well thought-out (i’m specifically referring to that Neil Diamond Carmelita vinyl gag, but can’t find the original post). the references in Thieves in Time however, were obviously just the creators’ interests. Turning Japanese, Clan of the Cave Bear and Bentley’s “hacksona” presented as Rambo just scream 1980s (which i’m assuming is the decade the creators grew up in), and Of Mice and Men is classic literature about the Great Depression, which subsequently started being taught in school in the US during the 1980s. it feels like the creators just went ‘let’s discuss what our lives had in common during our teen years and put that in’ instead of researching it first. and, here’s the thing: when you’re adding references, in order to make them funny or interesting, they have to fit in with the property or the character that’s connected to them in some way. Don Octavio was an opera aficionado so his episode’s title card pays homage to the Phantom of the Opera, young Muggshot was influenced by the movie “The Dogfather” because he’s a gangster, etc. these were funny because they were so spot-on with these characters. if every character in the Sly Cooper universe references the same type of stuff (from the 1980s) and shares the same interests, it’s just claustrophobic and uninteresting. i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who had to look up these ultra-hetero, scrotum references when the game came out. that’s because they were specifically tailored to be funny to them, and not their target demographic which were kids in 2013.

Narrative: now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at the narrative. at the end of Sly 3, Bentley says he’s building a time machine. Sanzaru took that joke and decided to run with it as the premise for their game. ok, not the best idea, but i get it - you’re literally picking up where the last game left off. since all the storylines were wrapped up, they could’ve done something different like Sly’s kids or Bentley and Murray’s families, but this isn’t an essay about suggestions so...... time travel (i want to say that it’s, again, an 80s reference but whatever) was pretty ‘out there’ in 2013. i mean, even Plants vs Zombies 2, which was released that year, had to do with time travel (yes, i’m referencing an app). but Sanzaru had the advantage of applying this premise onto already established mythos and lore. the story had definite potential: someone is threatening Sly’s lineage so he has to travel back in time to save the day. the player would get to explore new locations and iconic eras in history, and, of course, the main selling point: playable ancestors. how could you screw that up? welp.... let’s think about the plot holes here for a sec. Bentley’s device would take the gang back in time when given an item from the specific era. stop. this right here is called ‘over-complicating’. how did they know the items would take them directly to the point where the specific ancestor was in danger? the Feudal Japan period lasted for 700 years: how did the machine know when and where to drop them off? and if the gang could return to the present at any time, why didn’t they do so when they were in trouble? oh right, the machine was broken. so how did they return the baddies to the present after they defeated them? i mean, why did they use the Grizz’s crown to travel to Medieval England if they went back to the present to drop him off to Interpol first? and on that note, how did they drop the baddies off to jail without getting caught and without Carmelita being around? i can already hear you thinking but these are total details that aren’t important, you jerk! well, yea, they truly are details and i truly am overthinking it. and yes, i truly am a jerk. but let me tell you something: when Sanzaru chose to make a new Sly game, did they not think ‘oh we’ll have to follow up Sly 2 and Sly 3′s stories’ which were well thought-out narratives with depth and various themes and didn’t have huge plot holes (as seen by my analysis through the episode project) ???? and did they also not think that their game would come out eight years after the last one, having expectations at an all-time high???? yea, that’s what i thought.

Characters: i’ll make a different section for Sucker Punch’s characters, so this is for Sanzaru’s original ones. name one iconic original character from Thieves in Time. i’ll wait... nope. not one. that’s because all of them were absolute shit. and here’s where i want to touch upon Sanzaru’s over-reliance on the trilogy. Ms Decibel (perhaps the most obvious copy) is a mix between Don Octavio, Miz Ruby, and the Contessa. El Jefe is Rajan if he went to the gym. Toothpick has Sir Raleigh’s temper and tendency to grow in size. and the Grizz is... whatever the fuck he is. (don’t worry i didn’t forget Le Paradox and Bob). there’s a difference between studying & creating similar characters and blatantly plagiarizing older characters because you lack the creativity. oh, boo-hoo this evil jerk’s telling it how it is. this set of villains is so lacklustre, i don’t even know where to begin. El Jefe is a tiger, even though we’ve already had two major tiger villains and one tiger flashlight guard. ok. Rajan could summon lightning because of the Clockwerk heart but El Jefe can do the same, how exactly? Toothpick is an armadillo (good) from Russia (better) with an obsession with the West (excellent) who can also grow huge (very bad). it’s never explained how or why. why?????? just tell me why. i want to know. i really want to know. Ms Decibel is an elephant who got into a tragic accident which left her with the power of hypnosis. music and hypnosis have already been done, but ok, i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. so how do we use this character? spend the entirety of her screen time making jokes about... wait for it... her weight !!! this is top-notch comedy... really? like... really? the creators’ humor is a crime, at best. fart jokes and fat jokes all around. oh, and then there’s the Grizz. what the fuck where they thinking? just, what the fuck. i guess the guys at Sanzaru thought black people speak in rap? is that it? apart from it being extremely offensive, it’s also a blatant copy of Dimitri’s backstory. like, his introductory cutscene even has his paintings thrown at him and into the trash, like the intro cutscene for The Black Chateau. honestly, all of these villains caused me several types of pain, but not as much as...

Bob & Le Paradox: the absolute worst. i can just imagine the meeting going something like this: Sly’s ancestors are awesome! i wish we could fit them all in the game... here’s an amazing idea! what if we use one of the game’s few levels to introduce a brand new ancestor! yea! let’s make him dumb as fuck, strip him of any athletic prowess, and retcon the entire lineage by having him be the first Cooper ever! the kids will love a prehistoric level! ..... could you kindly point out where and when did ANYONE ask for this? i remember @ironicsnap saying something like the game is good until Bob. no, it was already bad - Bob just lowered the standard. like, a lot. people love Murray and his gameplay is neat, but no one ever thought ‘oh i wish we had a Cooper character with Murray’s game style’. why would they waste the opportunity to bring in Henriette, Thaddeus, Otto, literally any ancestor? why??? but they went ahead and created their own Cooper, and that wasn’t even the end of it. they had to make him dumb. they had to make him unbearable. they had to ruin the Cooper ancestry by adding this mess to the lineage. Sucker Punch made sure that all the ancestors were unique, but at the same time made all of them suave and funny and slick and you wish you could be them! well, fuck that. also, his name is Bob. Bob Cooper. it’s been 7 fucking years and i still can’t wrap my head around it.... so now, let’s talk about Le Paradox. i don’t have to mention the previous main villains, but i will. Clockwerk killed Sly’s ancestors and father, and was seemingly an eternal threat. Neyla was a psychopath who fooled everyone on her journey to becoming immortal by resurrecting Clockwerk. Dr M opened up the possibility for Sly’s dad to be a jerk instead of a hero, and died trying to unlock the Coopers’ legacy. how does Le Paradox compare? well, he’s a sleazebag skunk who was mad because of his dad’s downfall to the Coopers. that’s it. no twist, no depth, no clever dialogue. nothing. there’s nothing there. this is a new character, unfamiliar to everyone, who was hyped up for 5 levels and defeated in the conclusion. why was he a match for Sly? i don’t know. how did he fight for his life and ultimately tricked Sly into helping him? i don’t know. how the hell did he kidnap Carmelita? i don’t know. was it the power of persuasion? no, he’s revolting. so i literally don’t know. there’s no backstory, no fleshing-out the character, nothing. all we’re given to work with is a brief info-dump about his dad and how he escaped prison. i don’t know what else to say apart from how big a humiliation this was for Sanzaru and their team of writers. you had 8 years to work on something and this is what you came up with? anything would be better. anything would best this utter cliché of a villain, a distasteful misogynist, crybaby, idiot with an accent. literally anything.

Arcs & Themes: let’s take a look at the formulaic subplots for the gang’s members. apart from dealing with Le Paradox, everyone had a small arc. Sly had to deal with his break-up with Carmelita. Bentley had to deal with his break-up with Penelope. Murray had to deal with playing second fiddle to Bob. Carmelita was a damsel in distress and sex bait for the ancestors. the ancestors had their own mini storylines along with reacting to Sly’s presence. there you have it. i summarised it all for you, nice and neatly. are there any themes like in the previous games? nope. i promise you i’m not lying when i say that i tried hard to come up with something, even some speck of a detail i could use to over-analyse the story and come up with some ideas on themes. nothing. there are no themes. the subplots are character-driven and the player gives it 0 emotional investment. there is nothing to analyse, nothing to talk about. maybe even a theme for each level, like a spooky level or something? nope. the levels are dependent on eras and historical periods. the variation here is ok. Feudal Japan, Wild West, Prehistoric Australia, Medieval England and Ancient Arabia - pretty good selection. i’ll give them credit for it. but that’s it. due to the absence of themes, the hubs feel empty. there’s no replayability factor. after you collect the bottles and masks and treasures, there’s nothing. i would spend hours revisiting the trilogy’s hubs, just roaming around. the hubs here are huge and empty. there’s nothing to reminisce about. nothing to recall. oh that’s where this mission went down. no, nothing like that. the aforementioned subplots are resolved during mission cutscenes and then they’re gone. you don’t have to explore spooky Prague alone as Bentley to have him overcome his fears, you don’t have to find out miners abducted Murray’s beloved Guru and search the Australian outback for him, you don’t have to hold back your tears when you’ve reached the end of the Cooper Vault and Sly asks his dad for help. nothing.

Gameplay:

Controls: as soon as i laid my hands on the controller the first time i played the game, that fateful afternoon, i knew something was up. Sly would respond 1 second late after you pushed something on the controller. it felt clunky, is what i’m trying to say or, as my sister put it, it felt heavy. and she was right. the controls were clunky and heavy and didn’t feel light, like playing as a thief should feel. i don’t know shit about game mechanics but this definitely didn’t feel right. the hubs are also chunky in design, the cliffs are huge and so cyclical or hexagonal, that when you parachute your way to them and are just an inch close, Sly will automatically just drop because he can’t grab onto them. running as Sly doesn’t feel fast, silently obliterating guards from behind feels slow, and swinging, grabbing, pickpocketting, and hanging aren’t fun anymore. presentation-wise, @designraccoon goes into detail here, in an absolute gem of a post. in short, the gameplay animations make Sly look less sneaky. Sanzaru didn’t even consider a thief’s movements.

Missions: why the fuck would you remove the player’s option to choose between which mission to do first? why would you do that? the game lays out what goes first, sometimes having only one mission available in the hub. and the missions aren’t even enjoyable. firstly, the loading screens take up to 5 minutes, maybe even 7-8. secondly, there’s hacking every 2 missions. the missions don’t have any dialogue to make them fun, lack in interesting puzzles, what more can i say? they’re overly easy and lack any challenge whatsoever. at least there’s variation in gameplay (hacking, RC car, fishing, costumes, ancestors, turret etc.) but because of the controls, even these get tiresome. the missions are solely there to progress the story and that’s why the operations are merely ‘storm the main baddie’. the trilogy had some pretty interesting missions which made sure to complete jobs required to take down the big bad. e.g. kidnap General Clawfoot to take down the security, hack Contessa’s computer to make sure Carmelita will be freed, steal voices to tempt Neyla, and then take down the Contessa. the missions in Thieves in Time lack substance and variety. and the hacking (all three styles) sucks.

Collectibles: here’s another fantastic idea: have players collect costumes in order to collect bottles in order to collect treasures in order to collect masks in order to unlock funky Sanzaru logo-themed merch! what was the reason for the collectibles? in previous games, collecting all bottles would unlock special abilities. that was it. it’s the same thing here too, but there’s less incentive? i mean when you have to collect 1000 things, what’s the point? the treasures are random and very few are references to the trilogy, so whatever. and the masks unlock... superhero costumes for what reason exactly? oh, and then there’s also the achievements for your Playstation account, like ‘open the map in every single location you visit’. what fun! if the reason for collecting the treasures is to play godawful hacking minigames in order to get masks, what’s the point? decorate your paraglider with the Sanzaru logo? or have Bentley dress up as discount Robocop? i mean including masks in the interior locations was cool, but the bottles were always supposed to be something you could do whenever your soul desired. sometimes i left them last before the operation, sometimes i collected them before the first mission. so i was pissed when i found out that, in some cases, you had to unlock the episode’s costume in order to get the all the bottles. so, fuck off.

Animation: i’ll keep this short. the animation was terrible. do you remember that tumblr blog from a while back, where she dedicated the posts to pointing out the mistakes in the animated cutscenes? yeah. point is, there were lots of them. the animation style was bad, the character design was ugly, the characters’ movements were unnatural. everything about it was shit. looking past the bad decision to drop the trilogy’s comicbook-style animated cutscenes, couldn’t they have hired someone better? someone with more experience? their concept art was awesome. couldn’t they hire that guy and have it be comicbook style if he wasn’t trained in animation?

Legacy:

The Players: let me ask a genuine question: who was this game made for? kids growing up in 2013? maybe so. because it feels like Sanzaru didn’t even consider the fans of the trilogy. actually, it felt like a huge fuck you. Sucker Punch made their trilogy for whoever. there were great stuff for kids, but adults would pick up and appreciate the references, the real-life setting (e.g. tobacco use, existence of nightclubs, spice instead of drugs, etc.). that’s why all three games are timeless classics. judging by Thieves in Time’s humor, the game wasn’t targeted for adults. so, it doesn’t make sense to use an already established property, beloved by its fans, to attract a new audience consisting of nine year-olds who’d laugh at Murray dressing up as a woman. if they really wanted to appeal to the fans of the original, why retcon everything? why change who the first Cooper was? when the gang’s stranded in Saudi Arabia, why have Sly say ‘i couldn't remember a time since we've teamed up that we felt so defeated’? the gang’s been in way deeper shit before. why the ‘Sly’s dad vs Le Paradox’s dad’ deus ex machina? Sly’s dad wasn’t famous because of stealing the world’s largest diamond, what the fuck are you even talking about? do the guys at Sanzaru have such big egos and bravado that they needed to change the original games’ lore? were they so preoccupied with leaving their signature on a property which was never their own? i don’t know who needs to read this, but i’m stating FACTS.

Characters: now let’s talk about Sanzaru’s treatment of the Cooper gang and the ancestors (female characters will get their own section). why would you change the characters like that? if it wasn’t for the voice acting, i’d say this is a completely different Cooper gang. there’s no wise-cracking band of best friends, going on heists and being proud of their brotherhood and bond. all that is replaced with the formulaic story arcs for each member. the trilogy’s cutscenes and dialogues made sure to establish how Sly, Bentley and Murray have lived together since they met at the orphanage, play videogames all day and order chinese food and pizza and whatever. through missions and their adventures, they face obstacles they have to overcome as a gang, and when Sly 3 came around, their friendship was put to the ultimate test when they almost disbanded. Thieves in Time was too lazy to add to this. Sanzaru thought ‘oh the trilogy showed how they’re best friends so we might as well have them focus on their own stories separately’ and if this is truly the case then i ask again: who was this game made for? because new fans would never know how tight the gang was just by playing Thieves in Time. there’s a lack of genuine friendship moments. like, what happened when Sly came back after faking his amnesia? that’s completely ignored. where’s the witty banter? the ‘wizard & sitting duck’ type of jokes? nothing of the sort. what we get is fart jokes and Murray wanting to dress up as a woman. on that note, what was that all about? ok, have him dress up as a geisha to get in. fine. have El Jefe slap his ass, have him perform in a painfully lengthy dance sequence, have him dress like that during the rest of the episode, and then have him be persistent about getting the belly-dancing gig? the hell? Murray was always kinda goofy but this just feels kinda homophobic? it feels dragged out and unfunny. and then there’s the ancestors. i said it once before and i’ll say it again, Sanzaru deprived me of a buff Arab daddy Salim Al Kupar and gave us that elderly shit instead. all jokes aside, the redesigns were uninteresting. why take away Tennessee Kid’s facial hair and give it to Galleth? i legitimately think all the ancestors were boring. i mean, their gameplay was cool, especially Tennessee Kid’s guns, but in terms of character, they were just some dudes. did they believe that Sly was their descendant from the future? maybe. did they care? nope. they all had the same storyline of dealing with Sly’s arrival, flirting with Carmelita and getting their canes stolen. that was it. the fans waited for so long to get even a glimpse of the ancestors in action, and Sanzaru downplayed all of them. they reduced them to useless idiots too occupied with women and food, incapable of getting their canes back from stupid Le Paradox. and they didn’t even stick to the lore. no ma’am. let’s make Rioichi the inventor of sushi !! because that makes total sense and would defo fit in with the character and the property! why. just, why. you were handed the lore !!! you were given all this rich backstory and you threw it all away to replace it with trash !!! complete trash.

Changes & Inconsistency: i want to briefly mention some changes that pissed me off. where’s the laser glide move? it was an important turning point at the end of Sly 3, so why did they get rid of it? Sly is a master thief who’s traveling back in time, so you’d think they’d actually make him a master thief. also, the changes in the binocucom and Bentley’s slideshows in order to modernise them. if Sucker Punch managed to place the mission starting points at locations where the binocucom would show the objective clearly, so could Sanzaru. instead, they chose to have it be a moving camera, floating around the hub. and Bentley’s slideshows were absolute classics, opportunities to include gags and have Bentley show off in his own way. you just had to change it into a tablet, didn’t you. omg you’re still looking at small details like these? yes sweetie, i consider the details because i think they shape the game more than anything. if i didn’t consider the details, then my opinion on the game would be incomplete. when i praise the trilogy i don’t only look at story and gameplay. because i’m unbiased like that. here, i’d also like the mention Dimitri. what a fucking waste. you either include him in the game or you don’t. but don’t give me some half-baked shit on how he’s working for the gang back in present day. Dimitri staying home, waiting on the gang to call him in order for him to give them details on the villains. how does that even slightly resemble anything about Dimitri’s character? they didn’t even include his voice, some greasy sweet Raccoonus Doodus dialogue.

Female Characters: you know it’s all been leading up to this. this is the crux of the Thieves in Time hate. i don’t want to say the game is misogynistic so i’ll call it anti-feminist. why? just answer me. why? why did you have to disrespect Carmelita like that? right off the bat, they swapped the pants for the skirt. in what world does an active inspector who’s always on the scene wear a skirt? Carmelita now wears a skirt because her only role in the game is to be the love interest. Carmelita now wears bright red lipstick and has a new hairstyle, which would be ok if only it wasn’t Carmelita. Carmelita now plays up her inner sassy Latina because she’s pigeonholed into the ‘angry ex girlfriend’ role. they compartmentalised her, tried to sexualise her because she couldn’t possibly be one of the boys. nope. let’s take a respected woman, high in rank and as physically able as Sly, and turn her into a cliché, an angry ex girlfriend for comedic relief, strip her of her abilities and have her be kidnapped twice, have every exchange with her be about how attractive she is, have almost every male character in the game flirt with her, have her boyfriend be jealous of his own ancestors because they’re flirting with her in order to create purposeless love triangles, and then, after all that, dress her up as a belly dancer and distract some guards while the rest of the gang do the heavy lifting. that last one was really the nail on the coffin. did Bentley have other ways to enter that door? absolutely. so, what the fuck? why did i come back for a good Sly game 8 years later and receive a game where you have to shake your controller to have Carmelita shake her ass? why did they have the guards’ eyes pop like that? why did no one stop them? and it isn’t just Carmelita. it’s Penelope too. god forbid we have a female character who doesn’t have a waist smaller than my finger, and a voluptuous physique. why was the redesign so drastic? the story stuff is also nonsensical. why did she leave? wasn’t she happy with Bentley? i watched her speech about turning on the gang about a thousand times and it still doesn’t make any sense. like, i literally don’t understand. what was her motive? and why reverse her story of overcoming the Black Baron persona and the connotations of a meek woman hiding behind a man’s disguise? why repeat it, shamelessly? do the guys at Sanzaru only know women who have recently broken up? why does Carmelita, Penelope and Ms Decibel all go through break-ups during the game? why does Penelope go against Bentley before they even break up? why waste the opportunity to introduce a new, well-written villain and use it to repeat something already done? why???? no woman is safe from Sanzaru because Ms Decibel... boy, did i feel bad for her. apart from continuously reminding us that she’s haha fat!! she’s also presented as a blind lovefool. love? what a silly concept only women believe in! Ms Decibel had a crush on Le Paradox (for some reason i can’t even fathom) and for that she must pay by being utterly humiliated. and what do ALL women do when a guy breaks up with them? they get so angry! yikes, stay clear guys! ....why does Sanzaru hate female characters? i’m genuinely curious. i mean, what forced them to depict women like this? i’m sorry, i can’t take much more of this.

Ending: and how do you end a disappointment that came 8 years late and didn’t even have a sequel guaranteed? yeap, you guessed it! a cliffhanger. but not just any cliffhanger - a total fuck you to anyone and everyone. with a single move Sanzaru instantly screwed over the franchise. the fans, the creators, the characters, anyone looking to continue the series. everyone. WHY would you trap the protagonist in the past? WHY? did you feel defensive about something that wasn’t even yours and went ‘well you can continue the series but the sequel will have to do with time travel’. why did you think it was a good idea? how does it even slightly resemble a good ending? someone fill me in please. because i don’t think i’m being unreasonable, i’m just telling it how it is.

Conclusion:

i did it. i fucking wrote it in all its motherfucking glory. the idiots at Sanzaru could’ve given us an amazing game but instead of working on how to make it better or including extra levels, they wasted their time on deciding what killable baby animal to include in each hub or what the backstory for each treasure should be. how fucking distasteful. and to think i’m an idiot myself for trying to force myself to like it because i was so in denial about how bad it was. i’ve just outlined everything wrong with that cursed game. i’m exhausted.

#yOu'Re rEaLLy pEttY ! sOrRy hAd tO UnFoLLoW #i think i covered everything #THIS IS AN AMAZING ESSAY #this is the crown jewel of my time on tumblr #i love myself so much #sly cooper #anyone who even remotely comes for me because of this WILL get blocked #the birds really think i care about my rep on this fucking hellsite #HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

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popwasabi · 3 years

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Why I don’t give a fuck about canon

Recently, after randomly coming across some dope pictures of Transformer toys on Instagram that gave me a strong case of nostalgia, I was inspired to revisit an old childhood favorite in “Beast Wars.”

“Beast Wars,” in case you never watched or heard of it as a kid, is the continuation of the Transformer’s story set in the future as descendants of the Auotobots and Decepticons, the Maximals and Predacons, respectively, accidentally travel to prehistoric Earth to continue a centuries long battle between the two opposing factions.

There’s a lot of to digest there, so I’m not going to go into extreme detail over the plot, but the cast features colorful characters such as Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rattrap, Dinobot and Megatron to name a few. They all have interesting and distinct personalities and generally play well off each other. It was a big part of my childhood and I collected an ungodly amount of their toys back in the day.

(This was my first ever Beast Wars toy and I think it’s beautiful.)

My rewatch though was…a mixed bag to say the least. The graphics have not aged well. The adventure of the week setup of the plot was repetitive and lacked real character development at times. There were characters that were added in last minute to the show clearly to promote a new action figure over the story on numerous occasions. Though I found the humor to still be pretty good, the action was stale and just lacked high stakes most of the time, save for a few episodes.

I was not shocked it didn’t land terribly well on my rewatch but you know what did? “Beast Machines!”

“Beast Machines” was the follow-up to Beast Wars that had the Maximals fighting on Cybertron where Megatron has taken control of the whole planet using a virus that changes Transformers into mindless drones to do his bidding. The remaining Maximals manage to survive however after Optimus discovers The Oracle which reformats them into animal robot hybrids that are both mechanical and biological. This sets them on a quest to stop Megatron and bring biological and mechanical balance to Cybertron once and for all.

The series is much more narrative based than the previous as it follows a steady trajectory to its epic conclusion. The animation is much sharper, and the soundtrack is fun as hell to listen to still. The pacing is much faster as the stakes couldn’t be higher for the Maximals and all the old characters from the previous grow in interesting ways and develop into more organic people (literally in some ways). Optimus is a more hardcore and emotionally damaged leader and Megatron goes from being something of a punchline in the previous series to a far more menacing and calculating nemesis. The story touches on themes of balance, authoritarianism, PTSD, love and reunion to name a few and for a kids’ show it is, dare I say…more than meets the eye.

I absolutely loved it as a kid and I might actually love it even more as an adult, so it was shocking for me, to say the least, when I read further into the history of the show, that a lot of fans straight up rejected it back in the day.

Common complaints I came across were they didn’t like how characters, such as Ratrap especially, “changed.” They didn’t like the new bio/mechanical Maximals and couldn’t believe that Cybertron was once an organic world.

Their big reason (in just about every forum and video I saw about it)? It didn’t adhere to “canon.”

Now, I’ll start this by saying there is no objective way to critique or even not critique a story. People can like or hate something for a variety of reasons that don’t follow a strict logical pattern. Gods know I have a few questionable/divisive favorites in my catalogue that I have written about here that are based on abstract ideas and personal experiences.

(The Matrix Reloaded is still great btw)

But I will say, if you judge a mega franchise’s latest entry on how well it is supported by established canon it is, in my opinion, a flawed way to critique a work of fiction.

Canon, sometimes referred to as “lore” by fans, is most often applied and used to describe the long running back stories of franchises that stretch beyond just the main books, movies or series, or even the original narrative of the plot. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and to a certain extent Harry Potter, all fall into this camp of series with so many interconnected parts, with more than one main character featured in each, that fans follow along this canon like ancient monks studying scripture and history books.

And they can be just as fanatical and over zealous about it.

(I wish they were more fanatical about proper hygiene or at least deodorant...)

My problem with the ways fans often view canon is that their conceptions of what a new story should be is based entirely on the past rather than what is happening right now with the story and what themes the writer is trying express with it this time.

They base their impressions of the story on external continuity more than the internal continuity.

Yea, the changes in a series like “Beast Machines” are jarring to say the least. Cybertron was formally an organic world like Earth? Rattrap doesn’t have confidence in himself and actually at one point sells out his comrades? Transformers can be biological now? It’s a lot to take in but when watching the story play out it’s not like these elements aren’t explained through the text of the new story.

Cybertron lost balance between its robot inhabitants and its biological life forms and its why it’s out of balance now, and Megatron is the logical progression of that inbalance. Rattrap is struggling to understand his new form, half his friends on the Maximals have been turned into drones, and the remaining team out loud say they don’t have confidence in him. He has PTSD from both the events of this story and the Beast Wars and feels insecure because of how others view him and that’s perfectly logical to not just the story but also the canon. If a fan is willing to give a story a chance they will see that the canon hasn’t actually been destroyed in much of any way and the logical progression is actually there if they simply listen to what’s going on.

(Seriously, it’s not that deep.)

Fans need to stop confusing a character achieving a franchise long arc with being “suddenly different.” In this way, criticisms of canon in new entries in long running series reveal that fans really just lack imagination to connect the dots. It would be like complaining that Luke Skywalker can’t become paranoid and make a grave mistake in judgment because people never change, nevermind the character already has changed a lot from his origins in “A New Hope” to where he was in “Return of the Jedi.”

(Oh wait, people did do that…)

But that’s not to say you have to like the new direction either. You can understand these changes and still be like “well, it’s not for me. I don’t care for a PSTD angle or a new origin for Cybertron,” but that’s whole lot different than saying the new series “rapes your childhood” or “Bastardizes the canon.” All the old canon you hold nostalgia for still exists. My love for “Beast Machines” is not harmed by the existence of newer Transformers properties that don’t meet what I look for in the series.

Too often, fans take changes to established “lore” very personally because it doesn’t fit their expectations or have the same nostalgic feelings they had before. When new entries in mega franchises occur fans often try to judge it by how much it is like what they watched before, rather what makes it different and what it is saying now. Again, you don’t have to like new directions in tone or character but consistency to established work DOES NOT equal good storytelling.

I have not been immune to this myself in the past, of course. Back in the day I wrote a 2500-plus word diatribe on “The Amazing Spider-man 2” that mostly went after how it changed the character I grew up with in a bad way and butchered the established back story I knew him by.

You know what other story doesn’t follow canon very well though? “Spider-man: Homecoming.”

(Now, hear me out...)

Spider-man in the MCU is generally agreed upon to be a good thing by fans. Both movies were big hits both critically and financially and fans often go as far as to say Tom Holland is the “definitive” Peter Parker.

But Holland’s Spider-man differs quite a bit from the comic-book webslinger. This Spider-man does not have a spidey sense. His best friend is not Harry Osbourne but in fact a retcon of a Mile Morales character. His father figure is Tony Stark, something that never happened in the comics, instead of Uncle Ben, which no matter what way you spin it is arguably his most important relationship in the series.

His character is a reverse of traditional Peter Parker too. Where comics Peter is a reluctant hero, who if anything hates being Spider-man and the burden of his responsibility, “Homecoming” Spider-man actively seeks out responsibility and in many ways enjoys his role as the famous webslinger. In fact, his whole arc is about him earning a spot as an Avenger. He wants to be THE hero and be worthy of it. It’s completely different from what we know of Spider-man.

(He just wants Tony sempai to notice him uWu)

Now I know some fans actually do complain about this Spidey from a “canon” standpoint, but most don’t. So why did this Spider-man get a pass for many but not “The Amazing” one? Quite simply it’s because stories, as cheesy as it sounds, are about feelings and stories like “Homecoming” tell a good story that effectively make those feelings connect with the audience.

We root for this Peter Parker and his journey to becoming an Avenger and successor to Iron Man because the story is told well, the emotions feel earned, and frankly both films are fun and enjoyable.

It’s easy to complain about canon for many nerds because it’s something tangible that they can point to and make a big stink about when they don’t understand why a movie isn’t reaching them. I don’t doubt that many neckbeards genuinely hate a film like “The Last Jedi” (Hell, I’m not a big fan myself) but when those same nerds enjoy something like “The Mandalorian,” a series that has its own loose relationship with canon and establishing new rules in the series, it tells me it’s not about the “lore” to them.

(Easy, fanboys...)

I have come to understand, in my growth as a nerd, that my problems with a lot of movies and TV shows in my favorite series rarely, if ever, have anything to do with the story not meeting some arbitrary guidelines regarding canon. It has more to with the story simply not connecting with me emotionally. The story isn’t drawing me in and keeping me on its narrative path. I’m not feeling the same magic that someone else might feel enjoying it because either a) it doesn’t feel earned to me or b) it just stylistically isn’t for me.

To paraphrase a line from another mega franchise, also owned by Disney, the canon is more like guidelines than actual rules.

(Didn’t expect to see ol’ Barbosa in this write up, did ye?)

It can show you where a story comes from but it isn’t law that you strictly adhere to it. Of course, when writing a new work in a popular series you should consider what came before it but I would like writer’s the freedom to try something new and most importantly fans to be open to it. You don’t have to like it but the idea that new entries in a story MUST remain strict to the canon is bull shit. Not even the original Star Wars trilogy adhered to its own canon perfectly, as clearly the writers were in fact making it up to a certain extent as they were going along.

(hmmmm...)

And that’s ok, because some of those changes were great! Made the story better and made the conclusion stronger.

Again, you don’t have to like every new entry that tries something bold or confrontational in your favorite franchise but if writers strictly followed canon to the T we wouldn’t have things like “Homecoming,” we wouldn’t have “The Mandalorian,” and we certainly wouldn’t have my favorite Transformers series “Beast Machines.”

Canon shouldn’t be a trap for writers and it shouldn’t be a litmus test for fans digesting it. There are so many better ways to judge a story than whether or not it fits neatly into established lore. A good story is a good story, regardless of whether or not it’s supported by something as static as canon.

“Beast Machines” has its flaws here and there, but canon isn’t one of them, at least not for me. Again, if you feel that the lore is important, that’s fine, you don’t have to ignore it but I would ask you to look beyond what came before when critiquing a new story.

Otherwise, you might miss something special that comes next…

Now then...

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2bstudioblog · 3 years

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Konami’s wheels are turning... slowly

Lot’s of interesting news heading to our heads this Monday from what I heard from Yong Yea’s video about Konami wanting to outsource their IP’s to 3rd parties.

Obviously, Akira Yamaoka has kinda given away a strong hint that he’s working on a project with Bloober which in this case would be the long awaited SH remake or the direction they had with PT before it got cancelled. Akira Yamaoka also decided that (too late) he wanted to amend the article from his interview and release it later down the line. It’s very unusual that these news happen, but we all know Yamaoka is most famous for his music in Silent Hill.

Which brings me to a funny story about my own involvement of a Silent Hill game. I mentioned this on a podcast that I was part of 2 Konami-owned IP’s that went into another direction and killing off their franchises which have been like dead bodies in a morgue for the last 7 years.

I got the request to write industrial-metal music for a Silent Hill (of course at this time I only knew the IP and their most famous version of the game has been Silent Hill 2.) game. First I was of course very excited to be part of the series, but I jumped to early until I found out it was a Pachinko-machine (A japanese style pinball-game mixed with a touch-screen and a one-armed bandit and a slot-machine in one.), and my heart sank a little. I think I produced 4-5 cues for the machine, but I’m glad that nobody will be able to hear my “mediocre” masterpieces because all you would hear are metal-balls falling into a tray. But the thing about this machine, it had taken cut-scenes from Silent Hill 2, upscaled or even re-mastered/remade the graphics which would have looked great if it was its own game. But it was the same thing they’ve done with all their other IPs when those transfer over to this kind of entertainment. All what was left of it, Jim Sterling turned the game into a Meme and all I can hear is the -”HIT THE LEVER!” and the effects overpowering the music behind it. But I’m glad it didn’t go further then that. Technically here, Silent Hill(s) died with the arrival of the pachinko-slot machine and the series have tried to re-establish itself ever since.

Another game I was a part of was a Castlevania (Dracula in Japan) themed Pachinko-slot machine, with the revolutionary phrase “Erotic Violence” in it’s PR material and video-commercial. I mean, they took the music production part of this machine very seriously because I wasn’t aware of the “EV” part. I just thought it would be a machine praising the history of Castlevania. I was assigned to re-write and re-orchestrate a few songs from Neo-classical Metal music into more Progressive Metal style, and I was super-proud of this one because they had the sheet-music already available for me. All I had to do was re-arrange some parts for a string-quartet (1 cello, 2 violins and 1 viola) and I believe it was engineered and recorded by famed engineer Kenji Nakai who was under and working with famed engineer Mr Bruce Swedien (Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones).

From that moment me and Mr. Nakai stroke a friendship because he has a passion for Progressive Metal and he asked me if I could send more songs his way. From this we both have been incredibly busy on both of our ends, but I hope we can be able to work on something in the future. I have a feeling that might be soon.

So a long story short, Konami spent a lot of money for recording, they approved everything and we were done. But when it turned out to be a pachinko-machine and not a world-wide videogame release, I just had to facepalm myself, asking the question why they keep doing so many poor decisions. Why leaving all those fans out in the cold and really start making Castlevania mean something. This void of “lots of fancy things, but no substance” started right here...

Konami are turning their wheels a little bit too late and too slow until now. After they got rid of Hideo Kojima (Who I believe was thinking of the international-market rather than the domestic one), Konami had only one thing on their minds: Making money quick and domestically. No more wasted time on translations, straight for the gambling crowd. No need to write interesting stories. No need to introduce kids to this adult material. They wanted to earn it back as fast as possible. But we all see their decisions put them on the map as a “black-company”, who mistreat their staff, shaming them out in the office for overstaying their lunch-breaks. Moving staff from one business to another, from a programmer to a Konami-fitness Center-staff, or as a toilet-cleaner at a Konami-owned pachinko-slot gambling hall. The management of the company has been horrendous for the full-time employee. I’m glad I was not part of these later projects and only wrote stuff for them for Pro Evolution Soccer series from 2009-2012. (My work on 2010-2012 was unfortunately un-credited work. :(

Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain In My Ass

When the playable teaser called Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes, came out on the PS3 and later on the PS4, it was an introduction for the new graphics engine designed by Hideo Kojima’s team, simply called The FOX-Engine. Basically this “game” was more of a demo rather than a full-product. But it looked great and with a fantastic score by Akihiro Honda, Ludvig Forssell and Harry Gregson-Williams, it had everything going for it to become something really awesome. It became a standard approach from Hideo Kojima now to produce “Playable Teasers” to show a great concept while offering a 3-4 hour short campaign, showing off the engine’s graphical capabilities.

Still, the story was under progress and I knew early on that Hideo Kojima really didn’t want to do it after he always felt that Metal Gear Solid 4 was final. But here is the curse of the die-hard fans, and I’m sorry to say it. No matter how many Iron Man movies Marvel crams out, at the 3rd movie, I started to feel “This does not feel like Iron Man anymore”. But that’s what the fans wanted and is a standard in the movie industry. Always produce a trilogy. Indiana Jones has always been the 3 movies from 1981-1989. The 4th one doesn’t really need to be called Indiana Jones at all. It was there I felt, just like with Metal Gear Solid V, they were beating a DEAD RACE HORSE.

I can’t deny the talents on display for Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes. It laid down some really cool foundations for the gameplay, but I still believe the better game-series for stealth was beaten by the likes of Splinter Cell and most recently Thief. Stealth in MGS has always felt a little bit childish and I only really enjoyed MGS 1, MGS 2, tried to play MGS 3 (still have it one my Vita!) and will try to finish it. MGS 3 has felt like the TRUE Zeroes experience, with the inception of the story and lore behind the cloning of Big Boss. MGS 4 finally brought it all to a great finale and I felt, there is NOTHING more to tell. MGS 1, 2 and 4 is the Trilogy, MGS 3 serves as the Prequel and I see nothing wrong with that.

Mission - Erase Kojima’s Legacy

The making of MGS V - The Phantom Pain is kinda true to it’s title. Can you feel the nostalgia? Or are we just imagining the sensation of a Metal Gear Solid game past it’s prime? The missing link? The missing limb? And with the worlds biggest cop-out of everything that had to do with story was completely missing.

Each mission is playing out every time the same, with an intro to a TV-show, giving away massive spoilers to who would appear in the mission, you do your thing (not so much of story, just a “go-here, do that approach, sneak back out, head to pick-up) rinse and repeat. I wonder how much of this was Kojima’s fault? I don’t think he was up to it. I’m sure he fought for more story but the big heads didn’t want to listen to what makes a MGS game a MGS game. The new management had now already played the hand to disown the man who put Konami on the map for games since the mid 80s.

The game is no longer marketed like before. The tagline “A Hideo Kojima Game” no longer exists and will never be part of Konami’s mission of erasing the person who gave them their fame and the recognition that a game carrying the name Konami was a brand of quality for any gamer out there. Me myself, personally only played PES because of the stellar animations, but its recently since 2012, I stopped playing the series. FIFA had already cheapened itself, PES likewise. Updating the graphics, but the same old animations have been recycled back to the PES3 days. Maybe there’s been an update in the collision engine, but otherwise everything stayed the same, with the huge amount of data collected from previous years of motion-capture, why do it all over when its all about the brand recognition? Saving money on processes wherever possible. Simple Math. And here it is. MGS V is not a MGS game.

We already knew it was going to be a massive budget behind the game of MGS V. But what can Konami do to save money on MGS V? They already have the Fox Engine running from Ground Zeroes. The assets for “Snake” (I’ll let you know why I put quotation-marks around it) and standard models will extend somewhat. Oh, yes, let’s save money on a character that doesn’t speak (Quiet), over-sexualize the character to start a fan-base of people who just dig character design, animated a sexy “shower” routine for the character for boys to go nuts over. What about voice? Let’s not really try to sync the voices to the mouths. Let’s have the guy from “24″ record his performances onto tape-logs. Kiefer Sutherland would have been a good “Snake”, but I understand now that you are not “SNAKE”. The game explains pretty soon at the end that you are just a Medic and all the tapes you’ve been listening to is the original Big Boss. You never where the character of Snake. Even though this all could have been handled better, Konami wanted to save money wherever possible. We also knew David Hayter was not asked or put forward to return as “The Voice of Snake”. But in this case I start to wonder myself, David Hayter might have dodged the biggest bullet in the most expensive, commercial and very controversial game of all time once Konami decided to kill everything that built up their reputation.

Even during production Kojima managed to start working on PT. The game Konami “silenced” after it was released on the PS-store. Guillermo Del Toro and his friendship with Hideo Kojima’s dream-game was put on ice. All because Kojima was about to get frozen out of the company that was according to Konami “Wasting too much bloody money”. I might get blacklisted for saying this, but once the new management started to mess with the other IPs for just domestic/gambling market, that’s where everything went sideways. Konami wasn’t treating their heritage with respect.

It took them 7 years to realize their mistake! And now, for those who wants to be part of 3rd party developers who would get a crack at a new Castlevania, a new Metal Gear Solid (remake I hope), Konami has realized that the only way they will survive (Yeah, Metal Gear Solid Survive killed them HARD) is to let other’s take over. Maybe my dream of scoring a Metal Gear Solid game would be somewhat more possible now rather than working in the confined space of limitations posed by the higher ups at Konami. Let 3rd party developers breathe life into the IPs because I know there are smarter ways to tell a story and I would gladly like to see the return of David Hayter in the seat, without having to deal with the blank-face approach that he was faced with every time he had to audition for Snake in MGS 2, 3 and 4! David Hayter is a fantastic writer, actor and voice-actor. He has the chops and I think we are all ready for either a re-make or a better follow up to MGS 2 and the time between that one and MGS 4.

#Metal Gear Solid V #the phantom pain #Konami #Hideo Kojima #Akira Yamaoka #Yong Yea #Castlevania #Pachinko #Silent Hill #PT #Ground Zeroes #harry gregson williams #ludvig forssell #3rd Party #Bloober team #remake #Metal Gear Solid Remake

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 4 years

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Busy Earning (Pieces of the People We Love, Part 1.)

Description: Not many people had the chance to see a vault or to mean anything in the world of Pandora. Will a hardly built relationship in the loneliness of the desert would have the potential to change anything in the world of anarchy and chaos - or will the friends try to murder each other?

A/N: If you're not familiar with Borderlands, this series will most probably won't make any sense to you. But that's alright! I am thinking about releasing a small thing called Vault Hunters Vocabulary and I will try to explain the lore and everything used IN the story but not explained in there. Whaddaya say?

A/N 2: Also, I AM MAKING NEW-U STATIONS LEGAL AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME. So I guess this is an AU? ALSO: the Bandits, Psychos, and Fanatics will speak only in the ancient language of Vine!

Warnings: A lot of guns, violence, reader is a tough badass - not a vault hunter tho. They're badass and don't give a fuck. And Scooter is a dumb bitch, as always.

Word count: 4.5 K

Tagging: @notaliteraltoad

Series master list: H E R E

It was one of those days when you took a deep breath and it almost burns your whole mucous membrane. Most of the days were like that in this particular part of Pandora, yet some of these days were too much. The desert around you was dry, the rocks were so hot that you'd burn your whole palm if you'd touch it. No plants or water source insight; it was just you, the asphalt road, the heatwave, and the complete silence.

If you wouldn't be aware of sweating like a living fuck and of the fact that your trousers were pretty bloody then, you'd most likely have the suspicion that you most likely just pissed yourself. On the other hand, you also knew that you had to be dressed from your head to your toes - if you wouldn't have every inch of your body covered, the sun would burn your skin down in a matter of minutes; that was how strong the sunlight was. It wasn't the most practical choice to cross the desert in a long coat, long boots, and a huge cowboy hat; it was, in fact, very much impractical, but you really didn't have much of a choice. That big, cowboy-ish hat became your personal trade over time - you were easily recognizable. If someone would've asked you to describe your personality, the hat itself would be one of your personality traits. Ever since you started wearing it, almost everyone was calling you the Cowboy, even if you were pretty sure that you're a woman. Why would you or any of the people you've been living in this hellhole with being obeying any of society's rules if you were leaving at the edge of civilization itself? Something like grammar and other constructs didn't have any value in the world you knew and were living in.

Back to you. You were pissed at the moment; very pissed. For some random reason, the Catch-A-Ride station near your house was off for the last three weeks and anyone cared enough to repair it. You were hunting Skags for a living and believe it or not, having the chance to get a functioning car was making your job very much enjoyable. But because anything could work on Pandora, you had to hunt down two Skags and drag them to the man living in the nearest town, where you had your contract signed.

Every single morning, you had to get up super-early to track some pack down, hunt at least two of these animals, and then drag the dead bodies through the entirety of the desert. That was the pain in your ass. To drag two damn heavy animals in that goddamn weather. Not that you had a chance refuse to hunt for that day - the meat was rotting quickly in this part of the planet and also, Pintley had quite a lot of customers he had to feed - you being one of the said customers. Also, funny enough, there wasn't that much meat on Skags. It was a doubtful business, to say the least.

A sudden, quiet mechanical noise threw you out of the train of your thoughts. It was easy to tell what was the problem since you could feel your right shoulder tensing up. - "Please no, please no." - You mumbled as you felt your right arm getting stuck and letting the bag go. A hiss left your lips as you felt the metal limb giving you a slight electric shock, sending it down your body. You sighed and sat down on one of the dead Skag's body, carefully taking the coat off just enough to reach the small panel, so you wouldn't tear the arm of your body. It took you almost half an hour of sitting there with a small wrench in your hand as you re-organized the small cabled inside as the metal whole arm was made of got hotter and hotter. Just a small moment longer and you'd burn your damn fingers.

In the end, you somehow managed to connect all the cables on the upper arm and attached the small piece of metal back on its spot again, rolling the coat back on your shoulder so it would cool down a bit. You were good to go again, so you took the bags your Skags were put in and walked forward again, dragging the corpses on the road behind you. At least, the buildings of that God abandoned city could be seen in the distance.

Hell's Cauldron. That was the name the locals gave it. The barely-a-town was raided by the bandits so often that they became more of your neighbors and maybe even friends over time. You knew a mentally unstable bandit named Bernie, who sometimes gave you a drive home - a ride from a Psycho was never a good one, but do as they say and don't look on the teeth of a horse that was given to you. You also became friends with Blind Billy, who was a better driver than Bernie and his one-man crew. This psycho was the man who always tried to buy your Skags. But you were persistent against selling them for Eridium.

Just as you thought of your favorite boys, the roar of their car could be heard in the distance as the machine got closer and closer. You smiled when you heard the sounds of their cars; they were very specific sounds breaking the utter silence around. The cars themselves were... Something. It wasn't a model rentable in Catch-A-Ride stations, so their cars were working just right at the moment. Also, this meant that you wouldn't have to the last few miles on foot, which would be simply great.

"Y/N!" - It was Billy's voice that could behear through speakers placed on the back of their car. In the next moment, the machine stopped next to you. You gave him a smirk and a nod through one of the windows. - "Ya still huntin' down those bunnies, ha? Come in, Cowboy girl, we'll give you a ride, whatcha say?" - The man opened up the door and invited you in. You gladly accepted and gave him the first bag containing a dead animal so he'd help you with dragging it inside the back of the car. Blindy threw it on the ground next to two benches before giving you a hand to drag you in as well.

"I guess I do, yeah. You know, Blindy, everybody needs a way to survive. You rob and kill, and I hunt. Everyone's doing great." - With a sigh, you sat on one of the only clean spots on the bench, getting a hold of it as you felt the engine shaking with the entire car.

"TO HELL'S CAULDRON YOU FUCKING DEADBRAIN!" - Billy yelled into the microphone so it could be heard at least miles from you. The car started so abruptly that it almost knocked you to the ground. - "Ya still don't wanna gimme one of those delicious creatures? I'm sick of eating bugs and sometimes people, when necessary, of course." - Billy asked and dragged his hand along one of the Skag's body. You were disgusted to say at least, but you also were careful enough not to display it in your expression. In the end, there was nothing to wonder about - these men were classified psychopaths.

"We've talked about this more than once, Blindy. Pay me the cash and I will give you one. If you don't want to pay for the work... Well..." - You laughed and touched the Jacobs shotgun attached to your back, sending him a clear message. - "Let's say that we've talked about this, shall we?" - "Oh, yea, Cowboy! Do ya get good money from it? I told ya I can pay ya in Eridium." - The psycho smiled and leaned in closer to you. You leaned to him as well, putting your metal palm on his mask.

"Eridium is worth only if I am a siren or if I have someone who deals Eridium to someone else. So... Do I, a), look like an Eridium dealer or do I, b), look like a siren to you?" - Your metal wrist patted the mask, and right after, you leaned away. Billy chuckled at what you've said. Eridium was an extremely valuable material - for some sort of people. If you weren't that sort of person, Eridium were just violet glowy stones in your eyes. Why would you even need that shit in this hole? The most ridiculous thing in this matter was the fact that psychos of Ham's Creek had a ton of Eridium on them; piles, probably. Hyperion jerks excavated many shafts in the proximity of your homes before they left; and while Hyperion guys were gone, the Eridium was still there and ready to get mined. You've heard that the guys from Ham's Creek, the bandit colony, were trading the stones to doubtful people for less than half of its value... But who were you to judge them? You were all doubtful people, you were all doing shady things. Any of you could be considered innocent.

"You may not be a siren, but you're ma muse in everythin' I do, Cowboy." - Blindy chuckled as the car stopped right in front of Hell's Cauldron's pub. There were seven more buildings in the city if you counted the toilette cab... The least pleasurable place in the proximity of fifty miles radius. - "Don't ever dare to repeat that, dear God. If you do, Imma shoot your ass off, okay?" - Your laughter filled the air as you watched Blindy and Rayray dragging Skags into the local.

"I SMELL LIKE BEEF!" - Rayray yelled and threw the Skag body next to the bar. It was a greeting, a very polite one if you might add. Rayray was still learning how to grasp the rules of being police and sometimes, he really hit the ballpark. With a small smile, you entered the pub as well and nodded at Pintley, the local pub keeper, who shrugged his shoulders. - "You've been making the boys busy again, Cowboy?" - Pintley, an old man with white hair and a missing eye, asked kindly and controlled the Skag. One day, Billy's crew accidentally took out a bag with a dead human body instead of the Skag one and when Pintley wanted to cook his famous Skag goulash, he almost threw up. This time, it was really the dead animal.

"Oh, yea. And I would get the bags to the freezer as soon as possible, it is probably already grilled at this point." - With a grunt, you finally took off the coat as you leaned into and took your enormous hat off to look at Pinty. The man was still looking at the animals, trying to set an amount of cash to pay for this catch. - "That's fifty dollars for each one of them... Maybe even sixty, they're huge. Good call today, Cowboy." - He hummed in the end, opening the cash register and handled you the money. It was not much... But it was something at least.

"Something must be happening out there again, huh?" - It was a quiet, suggestive mumble as you looked at the banknotes in your palm. Pintley asked a silent "What?" because he hadn't heard about anything going on. - "I mean... Marcus Munitions charges for bullets are off the charts since Jack had... You know." - You peeked behind the bar, pointing at a slice of bread. Without you having to pay for it, Pintley gave it to you to chew on it.

To your surprise, Blind Billy nodded at you as he too leaned into the countertop. Even the bandits of Ham Creek could see that something's going on when they were buying their bullets for another raid - it cost almost two hundred dollars more. All of the things you've mentioned happened over five years ago, maybe even more. Handsome Jack, the CEO of Hyperion, was allegedly murdered by Lilith and the Crimson Raiders of Sanctuary. Since then, Hyperion Corporation was filled with social climbers who tried to become the new CEO - but before everything ended, Elpis' lunar station Helios was blown up, meaning that the days of Hyperion ruling over Pandora were over. Not that any of you would particularly care about any of that.

After that, there were some rumors about a new vault key found and about the existence of many new vaults all around Pandora and its sister planets. And as you heard, it was usually a joke, the vault key ended up in a desert where two jackasses found it. That, in fact, led to the creation of a pain in the ass known as 'The Calypso twins' and their cult; the Children of the Vault. Now, allegedly, Crimson Raiders and their leader Lilith had left Pandora and created Sanctuary 3, a spaceship flying on the orbit of Pandora.

Honestly, as far as you cared, all of this could be just a bunch of made-up stories. How the hell were you supposed to know what happened in space or on the other side of the planet? Who were you supposed to be? A fortune-teller? A telepath to know all of these things for certain? There was one sort of people on Pandora about which everyone seemed to forget - normal people. Normal people like you. Yes, people who only tried to live their lives and who owned only one gun existed. People who pursued normal jobs, calm life without all of the vault hunting business.

You've personally never seen the infamous Handsome Jack (only his posters and billboards) or the alleged vault hunters scattering through Pandora, searching for new things to kill and new loot to find. You never have seen Lilith, Roland, or any of the Crimson Raiders with your eyes, nor you've visited Sanctuary, Haven, New Haven, or Helios - and you surely had not visited the Concordia spaceship. You never saw any of those rumors for yourself, thus, you didn't know what was real or fake.

"Look at it like this, Pintley... The Catch-A-Ride stations aren't working in this part of Pandora for God knows how long and now, Marcus is charging up for rounds again? The last time he did that when the last bunch of the vault hunters came to Pandora? I tell you, something's going on." - Now, you rose your eyebrows and stopped everything you were doing. A loud bang blasted through the Hell's Cauldron. There was silence for a moment, but then a loud song started to play. With a long sigh, each of you stood up and grabbed their gun to get ready for a fight. The Children of the Vault decided to pay you a late-afternoon visit.

This, unfortunately, meant a shootout in the middle of the sun-parched square of the Hell's Cauldron just for the laughs. Those guys were just fine most of the time, but on some days, they came to the town and all they wanted to do was fight with guns blazing. By now, you all knew the drill - a short shootout while letting them spawn back in their base and then, you could continue with your daily program.

No matter what you told those jackasses, no matter what you did, no matter anything - they just drove into the sun-parched square and started to shoot. They were idiots without a single functioning brain between them, to say at least. To your good luck, Blindy and Rayray were on your side. These two were pretty reasonable bandits. Billy was also unusually smart for living with psychos, midgets, and more for as long as he did, yet he still kept his brain working.

The shooting which happened in Hell's Cauldron that day was louder than usual. Maybe it was just the way you've been laughing or the COV's new summer playlist, but this one was unusually loud. People were throwing grenades just as they were yelling some nasty words at each other. Some of them dropped dead in a matter of seconds because they were just standing in plain open. A car blew up accidentally, the trunk almost hitting you in your face and the face. When everything was done, there was only you, Rayray, and Pintley standing in the settling dust. You and Pintley were usually a great team - since he had a slag sniper rifle and you had an orange tier Jacobs shotgun, you were good to go any time. The rest of the COVs slowly disappeared - they started spawning at the New-U stations back in their small cultist town fifty miles away from Hell's Cauldron.

But something wasn't right. Blindy was still laying on the ground, bleeding out with a blank stare. His body wasn't moving and there were even small droplets of blood as he coughed before he passed away. This wasn't supposed to happen. As you approached the body, you've been growing through how did you get into the town in the first place. You've driven in our of the eastern exist, which meant you've driven around a checkpoint. That led you to a conclusion that the Hyperion Checkpoint Station, those were all over Pandora, must've written his biometrical data down. Blindy was somewhere inside the database, hidden in the code; but New-U station wasn't, for a reason, reconstructing his physical body.

"What's going on? Why isn't he respawning, Pintley? Don't you tell me that he wasn't registered by the Checkpoint." - Without giving a single fuck about the blood and dust, you kneeled and took off Blindy's mask to look into his scarred, lifeless fave. He wasn't the most handsome lad you've seen, but he had a good heart and that was all you cared about. - "Billy, man, don't you play games with me now. Get the fuck up, man. Come on." - You begged silently. You couldn't lose him because of a routine shootout. You've survived hundreds of these - he was a good bandit, a good friend, and a significantly good gunman.

"I think the New-U is cut out of the electric network, Cowboy." - Pintley yelled at you, while Rayray was opening the database in the Checkpoint station next to the pub. - "We might as well put it back to use. Stop with the nonsense and get to work, come on!"

The New-U stations and Checkpoints were a special thing that Pandora needed to have any population surviving on it. It all started way back when Atlas, Dahl, Hyperion, and many more were supporting the golden era of vault hunting; those hunters got their own Echo devices to stay in touch all the time and in case they'd accidentally die or dismember, the New-U stations were meant to render a new body for them. As soon as you arrived or was born in this sector of the universe, the corporation implanted a chip to the nape of your neck; you wouldn't respawn only in the case someone would be using jammer or took the chip out of your body. There was a whole lot of things that could get you killed - psycho in a bad mood, hungry Skag, angry friend, bad food, accidental fall into a volcano... You could choose, really. Sometimes, it could take a while to respawn, it also cost you some money, and before the transaction was sent... It could be a whole lot at times.

Since there were no laws and anarchy and chaos ruled the planet hand by hand, this system came in handy at all times. The Checkpoint stations were the smaller ones, saving up your data like DNA and memories to have all of your personal information in the systems in case anything happened to you. New-U was able to resurrect a person after paying said charge - they constructed your body from the DNA and cells of your dead body, implanted the memories back into your brain, and even construed the clothes you had on. It was truly a miracle of modern age science - but also a necessity for Pandora and its moon Elpis.

Rayray nodded when he read Billy's name in the database. He was there; he was there, safe and sound. You only had to make the New-U work. Without giving any fuck, you just threw the dead and useless body on the ground, walking to the machine, next to Pintley, to look at the cables leading out of the back of the machine to the charger on the wall.

Luckily, you were quite handy with this sort of stuff. Really, you had to restore the electricity circuits inside your metallic arm; handily, you opened up the machine and started to work on it, searching for the problem. Pintley was kneeling next to you, so you were only telling him what you needed - like a wrench or a hammer - and he fetched it to you. New-U was mostly unused in Hell's Cauldron, so it was really no wonder that it wasn't working; it was out of order for quite some time now. If Blindy wouldn't have died, you wouldn't even notice the malfunctioning machine.

It probably was out of order for the last five years - since the last time Bandits provoked a gunfight was... You couldn't even remember. Maybe, Pintley himself pulled the cables out; you wouldn't let the electricity bill getting bigger if you hadn't need for letting the New-U running, right? The Calypso fanatics couldn't be considered a threat at all. Each of them was dumb and couldn't shoot for shit, so the only ones getting killed were them. Even more so, they usually started to talk about some of their damn fanatic nonsense in the middle of the fight. In the beginning, you listened to those jackshit rambles; then you just murdered them without blinking. It wasn't that easy. Rayray looked at you from the database's screen. Bandits, believe it or not, were sometimes pretty smart. Yes, they had their bright moments. The only thing they couldn't do was to speak like a normal human being.

"THAT HURTS LIKE A BUTTCHEEK ON A STICK!" - Rayray yelled at you and you furrowed - it was too late to stop the respawning process since the machine started barking loudly in front of you as it came back to life. What did he say? Someone else was written down in the system except the normies of Hell's Cauldron? You looked over to the bandit boy, but it was too late to pull the cable; the New-U already started to build a human being. And that person definitely wasn't Billy. You made Pintley step back since he hadn't any gun on him and took out your Jacobs shotgun again, pointing at the stranger. The man, it definitely was a man, was looking at his hands in wonder, opening his palms, closing them right after, playing with his fingers. He slowly pulled an Oz kid used in the vacuum off the back of his head, so he could take some normal, hot breath into his lungs. The breather was old as hell, probably six to seven years to your estimations (given it was an ultra-old Vladof Oz it). Who was that man, you didn't know at all; you just assumed he must've been dead for quite some time.

The Hyperion nice-ass lady was telling him something, but she couldn't quite finish her speech - Billy started rendering right next to the man. You exhaled and thanked God for Billy, but you didn't let the mysterious man go out of your sight - you didn't know who he was, what his intentions were, or if he was a bad guy or not. The only thing you could clearly tell was that the man was super-happy to be alive. "I'm alive! I'm alive! Would ya believe it, man, I'm alive, breathin' and stuff and I'm feelin' just fine!" - The stranger exclaimed and looked over to you. - "Wait... Wait. Man, man, ya not Lilith or Moxxi or one of their vault hunters. Who are ya?" - He tried to come closer to you, for some reason, so you only rose the barrel of the shotgun and watched the small laser light hovering on his forehead.

"Ya not any friendly folks, ha?" - The man asked and laughed your barrel off as if he barely noticed the danger he was in. There was... Something about him. You felt like you knew him from somewhere. That face was basically burned deep into your brain and it was so detailed, that it was freaking you out like shit. Those eyes, sharp lips... But his name was a remaining mystery to you; not for too long, unfortunately. - "Hey, name's Scooter. Ya know me. Most of the folks on Pandora do." - With that, he offered you a palm to shake, and because of that, you took the barrel of your shotgun down from his forehead. Scooter. Scooter. That face, that name... Jesus that man was reminding you of someone and you couldn't just remember who. Eyeing down his clothes covered in old, dry oil (which was clearly powering engines, or some other machinery), you straightened and watched Pintley approach Scooterboy. You exhaled slowly and put the shotgun on your back, shoving it back into the covering.

"Name's Pintley, young man. Come here, I'll give you a cold Dr. Bob and some food." - Pintley patted his shoulder and you carefully watched Scooterboy with a frown. You were inclined to believe him just after he looked like isn't about to kill you, yet it didn't mean you'd be particularly fond of the stranger just yet.

"Scooterboy?" - Your voice was firm and cold as you looked at him. - "Don't you do something with cars? I get the vibe you do, look at your clothes." - It was a short explanation, but it did work. Scooter looked down quickly, raising his eyebrows. Blindy was now standing next to you and he didn't have a clue about what was going on.

"Catch-A-Ride!" - Scooterboy exclaimed with a big smile. Oh dear, you got your mindset straight on who he was. It was like a blast inside your brain. You knew his face from all the commercials you've seen with his face - it was a big thing when he supposedly died on his way to Helios. Ellie, his big sister and the other big mechanic of Pandora, was paying him many respects and missed him dearly. She was mourning for a long time.

"How the fuck are you alive?" - With a frown, you stormed past him and Pintley, entering the pub first. - "This is one wild evening Pintley, I tell you. Give me, Billy and Scooter some cold Dr. Bob and some bread with cheese you have there because I'm about to faint." - You sat at the nearest chair, massaging your own face.

Scooter was alive.

#borderlands #scooter borderlands #new-u #pandora #elpis #helios #tales of the borderlands #borderlands 2 #there is a lot to work with #srsly folks #here we go omg

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deans-baby-momma · 6 years

Text

Mainstreet

Y/N: Part 5 of my Hiatus Story. Eight more weeks until the premiere of Season 14. Who’s excited? I know I am. But while we wait, here is another installment; the prompt was Bob Seger’s song, Mainstreet. Mostly just the name. LOL ENJOY!!! With all the extra people now living in the Bunker, our food and rations depleted much more quicker than usual. It was swiftly decided that since we were the most known in the community, having lived here for 5 years, Cas and I would venture out on a supply run to replenish the provisions. The angel lingered in the war room while I went to mine and Dean’s room to clean up a bit and look presentable. Since Dean had saved me from myself and my soul-draining lifestyle, I had started caring more about my appearance. Once I was dressed and looked decent, I met Cas and headed to the garage.Although the garage housed almost every type of classic car imaginable, I walk over to my 1988 Chevrolet Silverado.

The red and white truck is my prized possession. I cherish it as much as Dean did Baby. The truck’s only moniker, though, is Mine; as in, it belonged to me. The only time anyone else was allowed behind it’s wheel was when Dean gave regular tune-ups. I hop into the driver’s seat as Cas slides into the passenger’s. “Buckle up for safety,” I singsong as I click my seatbelt into place. The confused look of the seraph’s face makes me laugh loudly.

“I do not need a harness for my safety,” Cas deadpans, causing me to laugh harder as I turn the key.Lebanon, Kansas is a quaint little town with a population of less than 300 people; well, now with the apocalyptic world people the Winchesters and I brought back through the rift, it’s probably closer to that 300, but no one is aware of their presence. Known as the center of the United States, Lebanon revels in that fact. As I drive down Mainstreet, I look at the charming city that dotes on tourism and travelers who journey through.

I drop Cas off at the municipal library to peruse their books and publications for information about the battle between Michael and Lucifer. We make plans to meet at Ladow’s Market afterwards. As soon as he shuts the door, I press the gas and head off to run my errands.The post office is my first stop. Sam had been awaiting a package from a fellow hunter before he disappeared with Jack and Lucifer. Since taking up residence in the Bunker, the younger Winchester has assumed the task of updating the lore books and tomes. With the box addressed to him safely secured behind the seat of my truck, I take off toward my next destination, the hardware store.As soon as I step over the threshold of Lebanon Home & Garden Mr. Davis, the store’s only cashier welcomes me with a smile. “So good to see you today. Shopping alone?”

“Hello, Mr. Davis. Yea, I’m by myself,” I answer as I grab a cart. “Well just yell if you need help. Since you don’t have the two strong young men with you.” I take the bags filled with ammunition, rope, sacks of rock salt, spray paint, and a new first aid kit and load them into the bed of my truck, silently thanking Chuck that Mr. Davis has never inquired about our abundant need for many of the items we purchase in his store. The sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky causing me to sweat. It’s hot but there is still a slight chill in the air. I wipe my brow with the sleeve of my flannel.

The dry cleaner’s, where I pick up the fed suits we all owned, always freaks me out. I’m just waiting for the day that the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Kwan, to mention the amount of blood and apparent bodily fluids they must clean from the garments we bring in. But once again, the couple are all smiles as they hand me the clean outfits in apparel bags. I breathe a sigh of relief as I leave the business.

Cas is patiently waiting for me at the door to Ladow’s. He asks if I was able to procure all our needs and I nod my head before pulling the grocery list from my pocket and rip it in half. Cas grabs two carts and hands me one and I hand him his half of the paper. I follow him through the aisles of food and grab what is needed. I watch as Cas meticulously selects fruits and vegetables, laughing when an overly ripe tomato splatters him as he checks it for firmness. Cas looks over at me with a bitch face that would rival Sams. And that causes me to begin missing the tall hunter and the nephilim. I turn my cart and head to the dry goods section.It’s only been a few days since the confrontation with Lucifer and his subsequently disappearing from the Bunker with his son and Sam. We are still no closer to finding them than we were then. We have no idea where Lucifer would’ve run off to and none of the myths and legends, lore and knowledge in the Bunker is giving any guidance. I hen begin to think about Dean. Dean, the bold but sensitive and caring, cocky yet still humble, courageous but cautious hunter; the love of my life; father of my child. Once he said yes and allowed Michael to use him, he also vanished. Off the fight his brother and to fight for his brother. I pray that he/they succeed in his/their endeavors./ I hang on to the hope and belief that Dean will keep his promise to me, to never leave or abandon me since rescuing me all those years ago. Now I need him more than ever. I need his beside me, with me as he child grows within me.

Cas loads the groceries into the truck bed while I return the emptied carts. I smile as I catch a glimpse of Mrs. Ladow watching us through the window.

“How are you today?” Mrs. Ladow asks as she begins scanning items. “Good. And you?”She looks up as soon as she recognizes my voice. Mrs. Ladow and I were somewhat acquaintances, friends even. She is an older lady who treats everyone like one of her grandchildren. Always making sure they are happy and well taken care of; telling them that if there is ever anything she could do just to let her know. She and I had gotten close since I was the one who mostly did the shopping in her store. Her eyes rake over me and she smiles brightly. “Child you are glowing! Are you in the family way?” I grin as I chuckle at her old-fashioned terminology. “Yes, I’m going to have a baby,” I happily tell her. “And that man of yours is allowing you to do all this shopping by yourself?” she asks, looking abhorred. “He’s away on business. But I didn’t come alone,” I explain to her as Cas comes into her line of sight. “Oh yes. The young man who speaks so eloquently. How are you today?” “Cannot complain,” Cas tells her as he finishes emptying his cart.Mrs. Ladow finishes cashing us out and comes around the machine to hug me. She smells distinctly of apples and cinnamon and wintergreen from the muscle rub I knew she used religiously. “You stay safe, child. You are not only responsible for yourself anymore but that tiny one too!”

I walk across the parking lot, placing a hand on my still flat stomach, knowing that a part of Dean is there.

Back at the Bunker, Bobby directs the young men to unload the truck as I take the package for Sam to his room. In the kitchen, amongst a flurry of activity, Mary instructs the young females and girls of where everything goes. I smile as I watch them all. If Dean accomplishes his mission by defeating Lucifer and saving Sam and Jack, I do believe everything may be okay, finally!

PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS HERE

@xxdragonagequeenxx @carryonmywaywardcaptain @sunskittlex @wayward-gypsy @darlingpeanut @sea040561

#dean winchester #castiel #supernatural #spn #season 13 #2018 hiatus #mary winchester #sam winchester #dean x reader #dean x you #angst #pregnancy #mainstreet #lebanon ks #bobby singer

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pillowblaster · 6 years

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Greetings mortal! Are you ready to buy?

Seeing there's been interest in some lore behind the Guncaster, and I released the update lately, I might as well bother to exercise my writing skills again (if there are any) and explain some fun tidbits behind the new shopkeeper and perhaps his background, being older than GC itself, cause why not~

Art by Cage - DOCTOR, MY EYES APPEAR TO BE SWOLLEN!... WHAT?! TOO MUCH PORN? IMPOSSIBLE!

Hereby I present you Nithor Flaynithere - dragon deity of endless snarkitude!... Okay, patron of fury and courage actually, but that includes endless snarkitude. Formerly keeper of the eternal flame. Starter of a bloodline of dragons with anger management issues. As you know me, obscenely powerful cause I am sucha funny overkill guy, but he has his flaws and drawbacks to overcome. Cygnis is obviously his direct descendant somewhere down the line; don’t wanna tie my hands with an exact generation.

Cyg's Ancestor job at first was being a sort of head of security in the Dominion - think like where Olympus was an HQ for Greek gods, it was such place for the gods of Vernazij (Can just read it as Vernazi - I also have a thing for silent H’s in names, just in case), his homeworld. His top priority was tending to the aforementioned flame. He didn’t question things the way they were, as much as he started to grow bored... and suspicious. A branch of fellow, godly brethren, he could tell for sure, was plotting something. There was an ages long conflict going between them and the rest of the mostly-content deities and the inhabitants of the mortal coil ever since the whole universe was a thing.

Whaddaya starin’ at? I swear on me mum I’ll punch ya in the gabber, ya spineless tosser~

Oh yea, speaking of the universe!... The legend goes like this: An almighty deity had left their two descendants into an empty void, with a well of matter, energy and space to shape their own universe in a way they deemed fit, both as a test and as a testament to what he thaught them. But of course, being siblings with different concepts on what their world should be, it led to an obvious conflict of interests. They both ended up in the well after typical argument with just a bit more cosmic power involved. It caused a big bang of sort and they got absorbed into their own creation. Once things settled in a little after the initial blast, first deities and supreme beings got formed, forged to carry out their will. Yes, they were still waging petty conflict between themselves even after they got evaporated, go figure. They went onto forming massive armies to fight and prevail with their concepts of forming the universe. From the ashes of broken matter and the corpses of destroyed creatures - the universe kept on forming itself on its own whereas the first inhabitants didn't even notice that miracle even going. They were too busy killing each other.

As the fight had progressed, some planets did form their own life!... But didn't quite make it due to the whole conflict of cosmic proportions. They became the victims of collateral damage. Still, as the shaping force kept going and the destructive forces kept on dwindling, only inhabitants of few planets across zillions of them were able to survive, step back and come into conclusion that their conflict at this point was undesirable and pointless. They realized everything was already formed out of chaos, without much of their involvement. They were too busy fighting over missed opportunity. Now it was just a battle of who would take control over the results of said uninvolvement. The deities of one of such cases came into agreement. They decided to sit back and see how things will go on from here, as much as that was an uneasy peace. They named their home - Vernazij. (It supposed to mean something metaphorical for all the forming that world went through, but again, couldn't think of anything clever enough yet. I AM SUCHA GREAT STORYTELLER HOLY SHIT~)

You have a ‘what’, napping in your living room?

Over the course of years, things have stabilized - respective roles that were fitting given gods’ particular set of skills were given, treaties were made, tasks were completed... suddenly, Mortals! Local gods went “They look so familiar! And adorable~”. Powerless, fragile creatures that often resembled the deities, they were another byproduct of the self-sustained world creation. The gods didn't have much ideas on what to do with them, seeing they were pretty weak. so they had let them be. That was until some of them helped their mini-me’s, or did quite the opposite. Their fear or reverence resulted in worship. Worship gave them power, so gods started unhealthy competition over the mortal souls in their respective fields, forming alliances, breaking them, stabbing themselves in the back, or protecting themselves from the others - generally, you know, your favorite part that divides or brings everyone together - politics. Every god could store their worship as some kind of power, as much as one spot wasn't decidedly taken over. The irony of no one being courageous or dedicated enough to become the patron of courage. All brave acts sparked as an eternal flame instead. Nithor was denied to become its patron by old gods, saying he was “not ready”, whatever that meant. So he was just protecting the flame and the whole Dominion instead.

Sir, we are late for burning time!

As the time passed without any relatively bigger conflicts, some of the older caste of gods, still having in mind “the great plan” and the responsibility behind it, feared the day when the Great God will visit their plane. They predicted it might end up with a total disaster, seeing how they seemingly failed to carry out the will of his children. As they were scheming about taking the universe's fate into their own hands, the mortals were rather unhappy with how the old gods were ignoring them and grew to be a force to be reckoned with. They somehow breached into Dominion, which technically was impossible for mortals to do so. Nithor tried his best to fend off the angry mob off (despite his obvious disdain towards old gods, duty was a duty). But that was too much for him, even for years of staying valiant. He tried his best to keep the mortals off the premise of the eternal flame without killing anyone (no word about work-related harm, though), the flame got dispersed and tainted, and looked for a nearest, suitable vessel to claim, which happened to be him - being the best, viable candidate.

I should probably make some pics depicting the story instead, but laziness. Look at that thicc boi lazy it out~

As the things calmed down, he begrudingly resigned from his job as a keeper, considering that the flame was no more and he failed to keep the place secured. The old gods got banished from Dominion onto Vernazij’s plane. Being unaware of his state as a wielder of the slowly self-corrupting flame, he took on a life of a demigod and an adventurer as his longed form of a vacation, seeing how he was done with the godhood. He went onto numerous adventures, met a lot of folk, got married, had kids, stabilized his life... All was good and dandy, despite the more and more obvious problem of the flame rearing out, but nothing that he couldn't manage - he just blamed it on some magic diarrhea of sorts, being as oblivious to his status as ever... Well, that was until huge accident happened. Or more like, an incident. A one that had changed the world forever, which got named in the legends as the Deadmaker's March.

That whole mess was orchestrated by his old god workmates - starting from leaving a breach in the Dominion’s defenses for mortals to enter, then letting the eternal flame to be disturbed. Their exodus was also obviously predicted part. They knew what the flame was capable of and wanted to weaponize it, but it needed a vessel... which Nithor was an obvious candidate for, but they needed both him and the flame to be unstable. After getting him on the edge by destroying his family and everything he valued from behind the scenes - Nithor went onto a rampage Vernazij has never seen before and thereafter. Only by combined forces of all mortals and all the gods they were able to seal him away, as defeating nor controlling him was impossible - every single act of force against him was only making him stronger and even more furious. The old gods initial plan had failed, they wanted to rebuild the world from its ashes as it should be in their eyes. Still, they got their much-sought retribution after having a hand in the process of capturing him. Their scheming continued.

Mona Lisa as fuck.

And what about Nithor? As much as they tried to fool him, speak into his senses to become their ally in their quest for the control over the universe “for the greater good”... He saw through their intentions of destroying anything that doesn’t want to abide to their will or worldview, which made him hate them with all his guts - he valued his own and the universe’s freedom of choice above all. After spending three millenias in fury-blinded seclusion, he breaks out from his prison, dead-set on murdering them all and anything that dares to stand in his path. As a last act of the prison's purpose, it used all the energy it stored by draining his unrelenting fury to get him back into senses, and seal it away. Unphazed by that event, he sets forth on a mission to kick the old gods' butts into oblivion (or whatever constitutes for them as butts) by retrieving his old gear as a keeper, getting control over his horrid power and single-handedly dealing with all of them. However, as three millenias worth of time was more than enough for them to prepare a whole plethora of nasty surprises, such as painting him as an evil villain in the eyes of the whole world and themselves as icons of pure intentions (imagine that whole narrative in history for past millenias is painting you as a Sauron of the universe) - his mission became harder and more complicated than ever. They hid the truth under unparalleled amounts of lies, and destroyed any evidence they could find that could prove otherwise. The fact that Nithor had all the looks and wits of a supreme asshole didn’t help on his case, either.

I am a tallyman of your mistakes. I am the executioner for your sins. Now face what you have poured into me, for what I’ll pour into you.

...Hot damn, that actually sounded pretty intimidating, go me, bwa-ha ha!

Most of his allies are either gone in the sands of time, or still mad at him, if they didn’t bite the dust yet. He scored couple millions of deaths during his grudge-filled killing spree, so you can imagine how many souls are willingful out there to get near or even think about hearing him out... Quite the contrary, with a little exception that are the depths of Taumthegos - the local equivalent of Hell. He is being revered there for obvious reasons.

A cynical jerk by trade, Nithor’s temptation to do the easy thing and go ballistic is strong. But he is not without a heart, even after everything he went through and people hating his guts, he refuses to do so. He felt partially responsible for all the mess he got involved in and wanted to prove everyone wrong and show who’s the real enemy here. He kept finding clues about old gods’ mischief during his time of absence. The problem was, with all due respect for his pure intentions, his rather abrasive nature. More often than not, he screwed up his opportunities on coming out as a good guy. He was hellbent on getting shit done and ignorant about anything that wasn’t helpful towards his quest, rather than approaching the people who were interested in hearing him out and finding a common goal. He still had plenty of humor and determination (and lack of common sense) to go against the whole world which hated him so much for sins of days long past. And a whole journey to go through to learn again how to be a decent being. The truth is the ultimate value, no matter how painful or regretful it might be - he will bring it out.

So lemme tell you Victor, the story of the great!... Meeee!... Crap, that sounded better in my head. I should have just used my name or something. Should I start over?

Considering that Cygnis and his descendants are a thing and I am writing this whole ordeal in retrospect, you can safely assume that he had succeeded in getting his good name and life (to a degree) back. But what constitutes of his adventures, how he knows about Earth and its fineness of culinary such as the casserole and how he got in touch with his late grandson?

...Those are stories for another time!

Tl;dr yada yada that’s a lot of bullshit. Kerist, that was stressful to pull off. Hoping that at least it’s somewhat enjoyable, to a degree.

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reliquiaenfr · 6 years

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slam DUNKS questions at ur lore like uhhhhh.,, 1, 10, 11, 15, 22, 31, 38?

and the crowd goes WILD! thanks man! ♥ questions here. under a read more bc there’s a lot

Write from the perspective of an outsider ofyour lair, what is their first impression? How have they discovered this group?How are they greeted?

i have actually written a short story from the perspective of an outsider to the clan! you can read it here. i actually love writing from the pov of a guest bc there’s so much creepy stuff that goes on in the lair that the residents are like ‘eh w/e that’s just another tuesday’ about lol. just for you epher:

Something had guided his wings around to the west. Despite being sure he could see a canyon snaking through the red rock below, he circled around the grassy plainlands and thickly treed flats towards the strait in the north. He couldn’t explain why to himself even as he did so, and he won’t be able to explain why to anyone who ever asks him (not even the lair’s residents), but a tingle runs down his spine when he descends towards the treetops so he skims them rather than trying to find a place to land.

And he finds a cove. The canyon spits sand and rivers out from beneath the trees and into the ocean and here there are docks bustling with activity. The tingling eases and he drops lower before tucking his wings to his sides and landing on the loose sand with a puff.

At first he is met only by the wary stares of beastfolk as they trot along the docks and pack crates onto their slender skiffs. Then a dragon spots him. The Imperial is huge and blue and almost impossible to look at, shimmering in the sunlight as if she can’t properly be perceived by regular sight.

She is polite and cheerful and touches her heart with her hand when she greets him, a smiling dragon (he assumes, anyway, he can hear the smile in her voice but it’s hard to see when she’s so luminescent). She shows him along the beachfront, pointing out clan members and explaining their purpose. A guard is always along the docks - to keep fights from happening between guests, she tells him, but the look in her eye suggests something else. There are merchants to trade with, should he feel so inclined; her son among them. But when the little Nocturne speaks it’s with a lilt and a smile and a turn of phrase that make his hackles rise without even looking at the wares. She points out the Assembly, in case he has something he wants to take up with the clan’s leadership. And eventually they make it to the Lodge, a place for guests to stay - for a small fee - and run by a bright little light spirit the Imperial introduces as Passage.

As she turns to leave him to settle in, however, she imparts one last piece of information - advice, even - and the gravity in her voice sends his stomach plunging to his feet.

“Do not leave the docks.” Those are all her words, no explanation is given. But he shivers all the same.

And when the sun begins to set a faint mist rises around the Lodge, a soft song can be heard over the waves in the cove, a strange tug pulls at his ribs to draw him into the woods. Resisting the whispers is the hardest thing he has ever done. But he thinks, perhaps, to give in is to surrender one’s life to this place.

Are there any customs aroundhatching? Who is present? Is their any members who specialize in the care ofeggs or hatchlings? Are eggs ever hatched too early?

one parent is almost always present, but if not that’s okay too! the eggs are kept in an open sided series of rooms carved into the sides of one of the great big spires of rock that grow out of the canyon’s floor. it’s within the bounds of the lair’s magic so most outsiders will never see it. the lair is tended predominantly by inerri, but with help from select others including a collection of beastfolk who also use the spire to lay eggs/give birth when necessary. the nesting spire also doubles as the place where youngsters get their first education (dispensed by inerri, pencil, helix and anthelion).

there aren’t really that many eggs in the clan very often so when there are great care is taken to ensure they are tended properly. this often means making sure they are incubated to proper term. but yeah ofc sometimes an egg hatches early, some hatch late too.

Are there any gestures present? Similar to ourwaves, nods, etc

i assume this means gestures specific to the clan? bc i haven’t really thought about that much haha. there is a gesture used to signal respect where the first two fingers of a hand are touched to head or heart. it can be used when greeting dignitaries too, crossfire and seven do it a lot as representatives.

there’s also a little tail swish like okay. i use it a lot in my writing anyway where a dragon might use their tail to gently brush the tail of someone important to them - usually a mate - so i guess there’s that too. it’s a soft little thing like a real personal sorta pda, kinda intimate when done in public like an acknowledgement that this dragon is real special to them. idk if it counts tho.

How do religious beliefs play arole in everyday life? Is there an organised clergy?

lmao they have fen and shiana so naw not really a clergy. religion is very individualised. there is what everyone calls the temple tree which has shrines built into the branches and around the trunk (it’s a huge tree) and it’s sorta just accepted that if you wanna do the worship thing you can go there and do that but if you don’t wanna then that’s cool too. there are no public services or anything. fen looks after the tree and shiana is referred to as a priestess but no one seems to care whether that means anything religious or not.

What, if any, foods are considered a delicacy?How is food prepared? Is there any forbidden or taboo foods?

taboo? nah not really. cannibalism is a big no no though. and look. fiend ate her own children. so like. yeah big no to eating other dragons. no to eating beastfolk also. there are seasonal restrictions sometimes, piper, ravelin and osprey are always really careful and vocal about not overtaxing populations of any sort of animal so if the like... deer herds are small one year they won’t eat too many of them and all that. they’re p careful about it.

but they’re a clan that’s like super bound to the natural world and are big on their fruits n vegies n fishing n stuff like that. real classic hunter/gatherer type clan. so processed foods like sweets are hard to find in the canyon and osprey ships them in so they’re kinda like a delicacy haha. there’s no communal kitchen either, food is prepared by the individual in whatever way they prefer so sometimes that can be influenced by the flight they came from. the lair is real chill about that kinda shit tbh. ain’t no shits given. do what you like.

Are there any restrictions onmagic or spells? What and why? If not, does this cause any issues?

lmao no the clan is BUILT on magic. yeah this can be a problem tho like anthelion was all ‘yes guys i’m putting my magical alarm spell around this new lair so we don’t get surprised okay yes i’m doin this as we speak’ and they were all well MAYBE do smth different this time bc it didn’t stop fiend from killing HEAPS OF US LAST TIME and anth was all ‘fine then i guess i’ll do smth different’ and so she did some weird shit with the magic and now the lair is filled with magic that eats visitors????? like yeah that’s a bit of a problem.

sometimes the lack of restrictions means someone goes ‘oh fuck tarryn’s at it again’ and you look up and all the hatchling have grown like spines or weird purple blotches or dragons with fur are now all entirely BALD bc she put some shit in the water and now we all hairless great. or w/e like problems happen. it’s chill tho they live with it.

Are symbols a significant aspect of life? Ifthey are, what are symbols, what do they mean? Are certain symbols worn?

mmmm not really. the clan is SUPER relaxed about stuff so eh. they do have charms they give to any dragon marked for exaltation. you can read about pilgrims here. but other than that nah not so much.

maybe one day i’ll think of smth and go OH SHIT YEA that’d be a cool symbol to have !! but today is not that day so all my dragons are like lazy bums and they just hang out n chill all day lmao.

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