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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

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An Epic antitrust loss for Google

A jury just found Google guilty on all counts of antitrust violations stemming from its dispute with Epic, maker of Fortnite, which brought a variety of claims related to how Google runs its app marketplace. This is huge:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/technology/epic-games-google-antitrust-ruling.html

The mobile app store world is a duopoly run by Google and Apple. Both use a variety of tactics to prevent their customers from installing third party app stores, which funnels all app makers into their own app stores. Those app stores cream an eye-popping 30% off every purchase made in an app.

This is a shocking amount to charge for payment processing. The payments sector is incredibly monopolized and notorious for its price-gouging – and its standard (wildly inflated) rate is 2-5%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Now, in theory, Epic doesn't have to sell in Google Play, the official Android app store. Unlike Apple's iOS, Android permit both sideloading (installing an app directly without using an app store) and configuring your device to use a different app store. In practice, Google uses a variety of anticompetitive tricks to prevent these app stores from springing up and to dissuade Android users from sideloading. Proving that Google's actions – like paying Activision $360m as part of "Project Hug" (no, really!) – were intended to prevent new app storesfrom springing up was a big lift for Epic. But they managed it, in large part thanks to Google's own internal communications, wherein executives admitted that this was exactly why Project Hug existed. This is part of a pattern with Big Tech antitrust: many of the charges are theoretically very hard to make stick, but because the companies put their evil plans in writing (think of the fraudulent crypto exchange FTX, whose top execs all conferred in a groupchat called "Wirefraud"), Big Tech keeps losing in court:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Now, I do like to dunk on Big Tech for this kind of thing, because it's objectively funny and because the companies make so many unforced errors. But in an important sense, this kind of written record is impossible to avoid. Any large institution can only make and enact policy through administrative systems, and those systems leave behind a paper-trail: memos, meeting minutes, etc. Yes, we all know that quote from The Wire: "Is you taking notes on a fucking criminal conspiracy?" But inevitably, any ambitious conspiracy can only exist if someone is taking notes.

What's more, any large conspiracy involving lots of parties will inevitably produce leaks. Think of this as the corollary to the idea that the moon landing can't be a hoax, because there's no way 400,000 co-conspirators could keep the secret. Big Tech's conspiracies required hundreds or even thousands of collaborators to keep their mouths shut, and eventually someone blabs:

https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-moon-landing-you-d-need-400000-conspirators

This is part of a wave of antitrust cases being brought against the tech giants. As Matt Stoller writes, the guilty-on-all-counts jury verdict will leak into current and future actions. Remember, Google spent much of this year in court fighting the DoJ, who argued that the company bribed Apple not to make a competing search engine, paying tens of billions every year to keep a competitor from emerging. Now that a jury has convinced Google of doing that to prevent alternative app stores from emerging, claims that it used these pay-for-delay tactics in other sectros get a lot more credible:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-google-loses-antitrust-case

On that note: what about Apple? Epic brought a very similar case against Apple and lost. Both Apple and Epic are appealing that case to the Supreme Court, and now that Google has been convicted in a similar case, it might prompt the Supremes to weigh in and resolve the seeming inconsistencies in the interpretation of federal law.

This is a key moment in the long project to wrest antitrust away from the pro-monopoly side, who spent decades "training" judges to produce verdicts that run counter to the plain language of America's antitrust law:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

There's 40 years' worth of bad precedent to overturn. The good news is that we've got the law on our side. Literally, the wording of the laws and the records of the Congressional debate leading to their passage, all militate towards the (incredibly obvious) conclusion that the purpose of anti-monopoly law is to fight monopoly, not defend it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

It's amazing to realize that we got into this monopoly quagmire because judges just literally refused to enforce the law. That's what makes one part of the jury verdict against Google so exciting: the jury found that Google's insistence that Play Store sellers use its payment processor was an act of illegal tying. Today, "tying" is an obscure legal theory, but few doctrines would be more useful in disenshittifying the internet. A company is guilty of illegal tying when it forces you to use unrelated products or services as a condition of using the product you actually want. The abandonment of tying led to a host of horribles, from printer companies forcing you to buy ink at $10,000/gallon to Livenation forcing venues to sell tickets through its Ticketmaster subsidiary.

The next phase of this comes when the judge decides on the penalty. Epic doesn't want cash damages – it wants the judge to order Google to fulfill its promise of "an open, competitive Android ecosystem for all users and industry participants." They've asked the judge to order Google to facilitate third-party app stores, and to separate app stores from payment processors. As Stoller puts it, they want to "crush Google’s control over Android":

https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-v-google-trial-verdict-a-win-for-all-developers

Google has sworn to appeal, surprising no one. The Times's expert says that they will have a tough time winning, given how clear the verdict was. Whatever this means for Google and Android, it means a lot for a future free from monopolies.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/12/im-feeling-lucky/#hugger-mugger

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gayelderstourney · 10 months

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OLD MAN YAOI BRACKET ROUND 1

Propaganda:

Bob Zanotto/Helmut Fullbear:

THEY LITERALLY MADE MR CRY THE FIRST TIME I PLAYED THE GAME. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH AND THEY FINALLY GET TO BE HAPPY TOGETHER. YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH THEY MEAN TO ME.

they are married in canon and are epic and amazing. they had sad canon events where bob thought helmut was dead for like 30 years or something but helmut WASN'T dead his brain was still alive and they are reunited in the game first by way of stealing an evil dictator's body and then later on they put helmut's brain in a ball as a temporary fix while they go out to find his body which has been frozen in ice. the game forces you to walk through bob's memory of saying his vows at their wedding ceremony and it's seriously some of the most romantic and heartwarming shit i've ever heard, especially "just when i thought i was turning to seed, you made me bloom again" like my god. i love them

they're gay and old as hell!!!! there's a level dedicated to their wedding!!!

Helmut is voiced by Jack Black and is currently a brain in a ball, and Bob knows him so well that the mental image of him in his drunken mind says things Bob KNOWS the real Helmut would never say. Also Helmut is temporarily in the body of a guy voiced by Elijah Wood-

Craig Cuttlefish/DJ Octavio:

well you see they used to be friends but were on opposite sides of the great turf war. cuttlefish gets a 14 year old to go stop octavios army. also they argue in splatoon 3 which is just part of the 100+ year divorce arc BUT AT THE FINAL BOSS IN THE JAPANESE VERSION THEY SHARE THE ICONIC LINE THAT CUES THE CALAMARI INKANTATION AND IN THE ENGLISH CUTTLEFISH TELLS OCTAVIO TO "HIT IT" AND START THE MUSIC AND MUSIC IS SO IMPORTANT TO THE SPLATOON UNIVERSE YAAAAA ik its grasping but its lovers to enemies

Literally I have seen so many people call this old man yaoi.

Old men divorce!!!

They're old men who made their divorce the problem of every young person in their lives <3. 100 years ago during the Great Turf War between inklings and octarians, Craig and Octavio were the chosen ambassadors of their respective species. They got along well, but unfortunately found themselves on opposite sides of the war. During one of the battles Craig shot Octavio in the heart. The inlkings won the war and the octarians were forced underground. For years afterward both men grew bitter towards each other, and eventually Octavio attacked the new Squidbeak Splatoon (a group of secret agents recruited by Craig). Octavio lost both times and got imprisoned in a giant snow globe (and Craig calls him cute). In the latest game Octavio got over his hatred for Inklings (Craig's species) and used his flying mech to help defeat the BBEG of the game. After the final fight, Craig said something to the effect of 'that old rascal turned out to be not so bad!'.

Alright ok hear me out! These two old men have fought in wars for their races against each other and have the craziest pathetic old man homoerotic tension ever. They like, went from at least respecting each other before the war and then they were forced to fight each other and then when Cuttlefish's side won, Octavio went underground like a pathetic lil wet cat and later on he kidnapped Cuttlefish because of game related reasons and both of them still have way too much homoerotic tension!!! And then Octavio gets owned and then in the second game Octavio decides that "Hey actually, lets kidnap Cuttlefish's granddaughter" and the old man isnt even there cause hes busy being a pathetic old man in the under-underground!!! And in the third game they go fron rival/enemies to reluctantly working together to save the world from actual extinction bc some durry bitch wants to cover it in fuzzy ooze and like, both of them have so much old man ship potential and just- theyre still pining for each other even after over a 100 years man,,,,

I personally headcanon Cap'n Cuttlefish as homophobic, but I see the ship a lot and think it's funny.

They’re both at least like 125 probably a bit older, they are so divorced, like peak lovers to enemies back to lovers, Cap’n Cuttlefish calls Octavio cute in Splatoon one immediately after you rescue him from Octavio kidnapping him? So dysfunctional, so gay, so old

They fought in the Great Turf War which was said to be over 100 years ago, Capn Cuttlefish was, well, a captain I believe (he had some sort of rank even if he wasn't a captain, like he led a battle that's singled out in the sunken scrolls of the first game). they act so divorced in the singleplayer mode like they cannot stop insulting each other specifically but octavio always comes back and like kidnaps or insults captain cuttlefish it's so. and when the great zapfish gets stolen in splatoon 3 captain cuttlefish is like "it's the octarians again i know it" like divorced behavior. also it wasn't this time and octavio gets super weird about it. maybe you should stop using children as props in your drama though.

my favorite war crime divorcees <3

They basically are friends to enemies to lovers. Both of them fought in a war that hurt DJ Octavio so bad he can’t become an inkling.

friends -> enemies -> lovers. what more is there to say

they are soooo divorced

they were so gay their breakup ended a war

Craig Cuttlefish got sucked dry by a bear

they got divorced but then they got remarried . they fuckinf hate eachother but they also make out sloppy style and i do not know how that works because neither of them have mouths in their swim form which they are both permanently stuck in. love wins but also loses at the same time with these fucking losers

they are sooo divorced omg. istg they were dating when they were younger and then war n shit happened and now theyre bitter exes who probably still make out sometimes. Makes it so much funnier that theyre old ass men (both over 100!) and Cuttlefish has grandkids

They were on opposite sides of a war and still fell in love

#im so sorry psychonauts fans but cuttletavio had the most submissions. so.#polls #round 1 #gay elders tourney #tournament poll #psychonauts #helmut fullbear #bob zanotto #splatoon #craig cuttlefish #dj octavio #cuttletavio

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ollyolyoxenfree · 2 months

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Life Series in my style! Specific seasons get different designs but this is a general amalgam :).. Design notes under the cut for a few of the designs i want to talk about, for those of you into that sort of thing.

general notes:

Each season would look different

Winners have purple eye highlights on green life, and on red life they get the watcher symbol in their eyes.

Grian - Standard parrot Grian design, but on red life I go for a more watcher-esque design.

Jimmy - Man has that canary coding. There's poppies embroidered on his lapel to nod to Third Life. The back of his coat has a dog for Secret Life but you cant see it here.

Joel - Evil Shrek. Iconic life merch under his vest thing, and on red life he gets a beard a la Last Life.

Scott - Has his iconic crystals, but on red life they have purple post-Last Life because hes a winner. Has an axolotl patch to nod to Binkie or whatever its name was.

Tango - As his lives go down, the fire gets hotter. Green is mostly red-orange fire, yellow is... yellow. And red is white-hot with some blue at the edges.

Etho - I actually don't really use an arctic fox Etho design? But it just felt right here. Heart patches turn red when he goes red.

Bdubs - Moss cloak withers and red flowers bloom on red life.

Cleo - Apparently the colored bits in her hair were snakes but i always saw them as beads ??

Martyn - Mix of his vtuber and MC outfits, but he has a watcher logo on his arm.

Ren - He goes full dog mode on red life. He's got that dog in him.

Lizzie - I saw one art of vex Lizzie and it changed my brain chemistry. Green and yellow life she's an allay, red life she becomes a vex.

BigB - Heart foundation earrings, plus his outfit goes pink/red on his red life. He was one of my favorite secret life POVs :)

Gem - Her shirt changes color depending on life, and her antlers get bigger and sharper.

Pearl - Wolf ears cuz Tillie, moon/star cloak for symbolism. Cloak changes color with life, moon phases on clasp change as well (crescent on green, half on yellow, full on red). Eyebags because five am Pearl is so iconic.

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wolfjackle-creates · 1 year

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Bring Me Home, Chapter 2 Part 3

A little shorter this week. I had my graduation ceremony over the weekend and the opportunity to hang out with my sister-in-law for the first time in a few months! (She and my brother moved states a few months back.) If you scroll down a bit, you'll be able to see how I decorated my graduation cap! I love how it turned out.

But you don't care about that. It's Wednesday! Time for a WIP Wednesday segment!

Story Summary: Tim and Danny are both neglected by parents who care more about their work than their families. They deal with this by spending too much time online and find each other playing MMORPGs. They keep up their friendship as Tim becomes Robin and Danny becomes Phantom and don't bother keeping secrets from each other.

First, Previous

Word Count: 1k

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Unable to get Tim’s attention, Conner asked, “Who’s Technus?”

Danny shrugged. “One of my rogues. Tuck thinks he’s the ghost of Nikolai Tesla. He’s interested in controlling all technology and will make himself a giant mechasuit cannibalized from any electronic he can find in, like, a half mile radius. Super annoying.”

Tim hummed. “You didn’t tell me about him being Nikolai Tesla.”

“It’s a new hypothesis of Tuck’s. He’s been trying to research all the ghosts that come through as part of our profiles on them. That involves trying to figure out who they might’ve been in life. We’re hoping it’ll help me deescalate confrontations to cut back on property damage. Thanks to my parents talking about how evil all ghosts are, no one trusts Phantom and I get blamed for everything.”

Tim reached out and squeezed Danny’s shoulder. Practically everything Danny ever said about his parents made him like them less. To change the subject before he learned something else that’d make him want to attack Jack and Maddie while they were under the same roof, he asked, “So why does ectoplasm harm electronics anyway?”

Danny seemed to lean into his touch. “Well, ectoplasm is complicated. It is generated in this dimension but doesn’t really belong here. It comes about through death and leads the way to the Ghost Zone. At least… that’s the hypothesis I think is the most likely. I’ve only really been studying it for a few months since my own accident, though.” He shook his head. “Anyway! When it interacts with things on Earth that aren’t trying to get to the Zone, things get weird. Especially with non-sentient things that can’t will the ectoplasm to act in a specific way. Even animals can exert some control over ectoplasm. But electronics can’t.”

It was only a few minutes more before Danny had completely disassembled the phone. He then grabbed another pipette and adjusted the volume and added ectoplasm to certain pieces. Then took a third size and did it all over again.

“How on earth did you find out how much to add?” asked Bart. “You’re changing quantities constantly.”

“Trial and error. Long and tedious trial and error. We tried dipping sections in the ectoplasm to start, but that generally fried the tech and mutated its function. Wires do do best with submersion, though. No more than a second or two for small ones. Even after we stopped submersion, we started by adding way too much—spreading it over the entire chip. But that also didn’t work. Realized just half a microliter applied to the connections was best. The camera, speaker, and microphone need more. Those get ten microliters apiece. And we just kept trying different amounts until we had something that worked. We ruined four phones before we started testing each component individually.”

Conner let out a low whistle. “Well we’re glad you have. Thanks for helping with this.”

“Of course. Anything for Tim.”

Tim’s face heated as Cassie laughed. “Yeah, our Tim has a way of winning people over, doesn’t he?”

“I think I won him over, actually.” Danny hung the pipette back up on the holder. “All right, now just to put this baby back together. Who’s hungry?”

“Me!” called Bart. “It’s been ages since we’ve last eaten.”

“You’ve got an accelerated metabolism, right? We’ll stop by a store and get some extra stuff if you need anything overnight or tomorrow.”

“I like you,” said Bart. “You should come with us when we leave. Join our team.”

Tim buried his face in his hands, did none of his teammates know the definition of subtlety? Offering Danny a place with the Teen Titans or Young Justice was the first thing he tried.

“Thanks for the offer, but as I’ve told Tim, I can’t leave Amity. No one else is capable of responding to ghost threats.”

Conner shook his head. “Looks like your parents have it under control.”

Danny laughed. “Oh hell no. They’ve got a lot of inventions and most of them do something. But it’s not always what they expect them to do. And dad’s aim is terrible.” As he spoke, he continued to reassemble Tim’s phone.

Tim couldn’t help but admire how expertly Danny’s fingers moved over the pieces. And before he knew it, Danny was handing the phone back to him.

“Should work now. Turn it on and double check.”

Tim took it and held the power button until the WE logo appeared. Sure enough, once the screen loaded, so did a dozen missed phone calls and even more missed texts.

Bruce, Dick, and Barbara had all attempted contact multiple times. Even Alfred had called once. He winced and immediately called Bruce back.

“Hey, B,” he said as soon as the call connected. “We’re all fine. Just crossed an area that messed with our tech.”

“How did it mess with your tech?” Bruce demanded.

“It’s normal in this area. But I’ve a local friend and he fixed my phone. He’ll take care of Conner’s, Cassie’s, and Bart’s after we grab some dinner. So if anyone else is worried, tell them we’re fine and they can call me in the meantime if they have questions.” Tim made sure to use civilian names so Bruce would know they were no longer in costume.

“Who is this ‘friend’?” asked Bruce.

“God, B, it’s fine. I’ve known him for years. We game online together when we can. Have since we were kids.”

“Hn.” Why was it so much harder to read Bruce over the phone than in person? It was so annoying. “I see. Where are you currently?”

“We’re in Illinois. Will probably stay here a day or two with Danny and his parents. And then we’ll come home and share everything about our trip.” Aka, submit an official report about the outcome of their mission.

“Very well. I expect to know all the details. And I want twice daily check-ins until you’re home.”

“Fine, fine. Will do. Bye, B.” Before Bruce could demand anything else, Tim hung up on him. Next he shot texts to Dick, Alfred, and Barbara assuring them he was fine and his phone was working again. Replies came instantly and he ignored them all. “All right, that’s done. Let’s go eat.”

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I think this is the first time I've had an actual scene break to stop the segment at. I usually just go until I see a change in the conversation, but I've got my <hr> marker at this point and there's gonna be a scene change! (So I won't have to repeat a paragraph or two next time I post.)

You get a different explanation for ectoplasm in this fic! Wasn't planning on that, but it happened and I like it.

Hope you enjoyed.

Tag List Part 1

@gremlin-bot, @bonebrokebuddy, @britcision, @lady-time-lord-, @welcometosasakiworld, @akikkobara, @phoenixdemonqueen, @dolfay, @skulld3mort-1fan, @we-ezer, @markus209, @sjrose1216, @onyxlightdragon, @dragonsrequiem, @jesus-camp-the-sequel, @spidey29phangirl, @kyrianclawraith, @evilminji, @introvert-even-on-the-internet, @emergentpanda-blog, @lexdamo, @v-inari, @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit, @longlivethefallen, @undead-essence, @xye-chan, @liandrin, @seraphinedemort, @kisatamao, @schalensitzbucket, @caelestisdreamer, @runfromthemedic, @nutcase8691, @channajen, @tonicmii, @ambiguouslyominous, @vythika96, @addie-lover-of-stories, @ironicvixen, @violetfox2, @pickleking8, @mysticalcomputerdetective, @ark12, @mygood-bitch99, @squirrel-wolf, @satisfactionbroughtmeback, @sometimesthingsfallapart, @automaticsoulharmony, @d4ydr34min9, @revnantdpxdclover, @midigeria, @raginblastocyst

#dpxdc #tim drake #danny fenton #conner kent #cassie sandsmark #bart allen #dead tired #bart made attempt 1 to kidnap danny #it was super ineffective #tim is embarrassed

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teriri-sayes · 18 hours

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Reactions to Crazier Bastard's Chapter 301

Brief summary: Info dump about the game. Cale wakes up in the middle of a surprise attack.

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As the brief summary mentioned, we got an info dump about the game. To organize it:

Transparent Co, Ltd. - company who owns and operates the game

NGB1 - the current system of the game, and in charge of managing the rules and laws of the world

Zero - the predecessor system before NGB1

"ARM's hyung" - a male AI secretly hidden by the original creators of the game

One - a "bug" and female AI created by NGB1 from the found traces of "ARM's hyung"

Red Hand - the judge and destroyer that follows the rules of NGB1

Hell of Darkness - the Third Evil. One of the Eight Evils of the continent

Count Lupe II - the boss of the 99th floor of the Hell of Darkness dungeon

"Cale" - the new boss of the 100th floor of the Hell of Darkness dungeon

Hero - someone who has the qualities of an adversary that NGB1 considers

"One" was the System AI that Cale was talking to. She described herself as a bug created out of necessity. To summarize again:

Transparent Co, Ltd. did some things in the game that caused "exceptional" situations that broke the rules of the game

NGB1 investigated the cause of the numerous rule breaks and found out that it was Transparent Co, Ltd.'s fault

During its investigation, it utilized Zero, the previous system, and Zero's AI discovered hidden traces of ARM's hyung

NGB1 created One from those hidden traces, and assigned her the role of fighting against Transparent Co, Ltd. who kept breaking the rules

So... One was NGB1's secret weapon against its maker? NGB1 was mostly controlled by Transparent Co, Ltd., so when One was created, she had limited roles and could only assign Cale an NPC account.

ARM's hyung was still unnamed, but I could understand why One called him as oppa because she was created from his hidden traces. Though if you think about it in family terms, she's more like a daughter than a younger sister? 🤔

Moving on, NGB1 and One created the "hero" in order to fight against the absolute god. But One also sought for helpers, namely the "hero's companions", which we now know as Cale and Lupe II. Cale's NPC account still had a lot of blanks, including his name, but One said that this would be added in the update.

As if the background of the game's systems and AI was not enough, we also got game lore. The Hell of Darkness's 1st dungeon floor served as the tutorial dungeon, with Count Lupe II acting as the tutorial boss.

But it actually had a hidden side still unknown to the game users. That tutorial dungeon was actually the Third Evil of the Eight Evils of the continent! It had 100 floors, and Count Lupe II was in fact the boss of the 99th floor! And after the update, Cale would become the boss of the 100th floor, effectively making him the boss of Count Lupe II and the entire Hell of Darkness dungeon! 🤣🤣🤣

What a weird situation. The hero would be fighting against the god, and people from the evil side would be siding with the hero. 😂

Because of the Red Hand still trying to find Cale, One said that Cale should leave the game first by logging out, and return later after the update. She would explain to him about the hunters and the absolute god at that time.

As for the GoC saint's power, Cale got it as a new skill called Chaotic Fear, though it was still "deactivated". DA said he could activate it anytime after the digestion was finished.

Cale fainted from overwork, had to overwork himself (running away from the Red Hand) in the game, got assigned more work (as the new NPC final boss), and when he woke up, he had to work again because his room was being attacked... 😂

A heretic inquisitor and a dragon attacked the mansion where Cale was staying in, and set it on fire. And also beat up Ron who was guarding Cale. So when Cale woke up, the first thing he saw was the beaten-up Ron whose blood from his forehead wounds dripped down on Cale's face.

Eruhaben and Clopeh rushed to the WT, while CH and the 3 kids hurriedly returned to Cale's side. Thus, the tired Cale had to fight right after waking up. Oh yeah, Cale also heard from Ron that the Dragon Lord had returned.

Ending Remarks Today's chapter felt long because of the info dump. But I felt sad for Cale because he just couldn't get some proper rest. Next up would be a battle chapter. RIP to the enemy who hurt Cale's "family".

#tcf spoilers #trash of the count's family

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thecreaturecodex · 5 months

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Lloigor

"Monster Concept" © devinatArt user CobraVenom, accessed at her gallery here

[Sponsored by @tar-baphon. The name "Lloigor" is related to multiple traditions in the Cthulhu Mythos and Mythos-adjacent works. It initially appears as a proper noun, one of "Lloigor and Zhar", in August Derleth's elaborate family tree of Great Old Ones. It's used as a synonym for "Great Old One" in the Illuminatus! Trilogy, and from there has trickled into the works of Alan Moore. And, in Colin Wilson's "The Return of the Lloigor", it appears as a species of incorporeal psychic dragons. This is an interpretation of that third version.

"The Return of the Lloigor" can be thought of something as a remake of "The Call of Cthulhu", in that the story takes the form of a journal chronicling the narrator's conversion from skepticism to paranoia about a world-spanning cult serving horrors from human prehistory. Only the main action is in Wales, rather than Louisiana and the South Pacific, and the lloigor have a rather more direct hand than Cthulhu. The CR was by the request of the sponsor, which is in keeping with Call of Cthulhu making lloigor top-tier threats, but in the story proper their power is usually limited to causing malaise and pushing old people down the stairs. They can cause explosions, but this seems to be deeply draining for them. In CoC, their ability to drain the mental energy of victims is an area of effect, but I made it a touch attack. Both in order to have a lloigor actually be something a party can encounter and fight, and because I think it's much creepier to catch a glimpse of a tendril-tail actually dipping into your room as your bunk-mate thrashes in their sleep]

Lloigor CR 18 CE Dragon This thing resembles a malformed embryonic dragon with oily, pallid skin. It has two long limbs, each of which terminates in a hooked claw, and a long thin tail that lashes and drips behind it. Its face is something like that of a deep sea fish, all staring eyes and long thin teeth.

The lloigor are the creations of the Great Old One Ghanathoa, created in a fit of pique over the physical perfection of dragons. When the world was young, lloigors ruled openly as masters of humanoid creatures, but as humanoid civilizations grew stronger, they went into decline. Lloigors are the ultimate pessimists—they are literally incapable of feeling joy or hope, and feed by draining these emotions from the minds of others and leaving despair in their stead.

A lloigor is intangible, more a pattern of energy than a physical being, and they move effortlessly through soil and stone. Lloigors slip through the ground into people’s homes while they sleep, draining their joy with a touch of their ribbon-like tails. Doing so grants them access to more psychic power, and if a lloigor is expecting a fight, or intends to punish someone, it typically goes on a feeding frenzy to charge its psychic energy. They prefer to fight in incorporeal form for its defensive benefits, but if enemies are capable of injuring it, or if it runs out of psychic magic, it can temporarily assume corporeality and fight with claw and fang.

A lloigor radiates malaise in a wide area, and many benighted towns and areas with unusually high crime rates are under the lloigor’s influence. Those that succumb to a lloigor’s touch too often may have their personalities warped and become evil, and lloigors use their telepathy and ability to shape dreams to encourage people to rob and murder one another. As such, a lloigor’s influence can be subtle and felt throughout an adventurer’s career, long before they are powerful enough to confront a lloigor themselves, or even know what they are. Lloigors keep themselves secret, and have a habit of killing people who speak openly about them.

Lloigor CR 18 XP 153,600 CE Huge dragon (incorporeal) Init +12; Senses darkvision 120 ft., Perception +31, thoughtsense 120 ft. Aura malaise (1 mile)

Defense AC 28, touch 28, flat-footed 15(-2 size, +1 dodge, +12 Dex, +7 deflection) hp 324 (24d10+168) Fort +20, Ref +26, Will +21 Immune ability damage, ability drain, death effects, fear, paralysis, sleep SR 29 Defensive Abilities incorporeal traits, negative energy affinity; Weakness hopeless

Offense Speed 40 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect), burrow 40 ft. (earth glide) Melee touch +22 (drain hope) Space 15 ft.; Reach 20 ft. Psychic Magic CL 18th, concentration +25 (+29 casting defensively) 15 PE—crushing despair (4 PE, DC 21), dream (4 PE), fear (4 PE, DC 21), greater invisibility (4 PE), invisibility (2 PE), nightmare (5 PE, DC 22), telekinesis (5 PE, DC 22), telekinetic storm (9 PE, DC 26), utter contempt (6 PE, DC 23)

Statistics Str -, Dex 35, Con 23, Int 25, Wis24, Cha 24 Base Atk +24; CMB -; CMD 56 (cannot be tripped) Feats Alertness, Combat Casting, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes,Dodge, Flyby Attack, Mobility, Multiattack, Skill Focus (Stealth), Spring Attack, Toughness, Whirlwind Attack Skills Acrobatics +29, Bluff +27, Diplomacy +27, Fly +25, Intimidate +27, Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, engineering, geography, history, local, nature, nobility, planes, religion) +31, Perception +31, Sense Motive +31, Spellcraft +27, Stealth +30; Racial Modifiers +4 Knowledge (all) Languages Aklo, Draconic, Terran, Undercommon, telepathy 120 ft. SQ assume flesh, compression

Ecology Environment underground Organization solitary Treasure none Special Abilities Assume Flesh (Su) A lloigor can, as a move action, become corporeal. It loses its deflection bonus to AC and incorporeal traits, but gains a natural armor bonus equal to its Dexterity modifier, a Strength score equal to its Dexterity score, and natural attacks. It has a bite, two claws and a tail slap, gains powerful blows with the tail slap and rend with the claws. While corporeal, its statistics are as follows: AC 33, touch (-2 size, +1 dodge, +12 Dex, +12 natural); Melee bite +34 (2d6+12), 2 claws +34 (1d8+12), tail slap +32 (2d8+18 plus drain hope); Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. (20 ft. with tail slap); Special Attacks powerful blows (tail slap),rend (2 claws, 1d8+18). A lloigor can resume its incorporeal form as a move action. A lloigor can remain corporeal for a number of rounds/day equal to its Hit Dice (24 rounds for an ordinary specimen). Aura of Malaise (Su) All creatures within 1 mile of a lloigor suffer a -2 penalty on all saves against emotion, fear and madness effects. This does not function in a consecrated or hallowed area. Drain Hope (Su) The touch of a lloigor’s tail deals 1d6 points of Wisdom damage. A creature that takes this damage must succeed a DC 29 Will save or be affected by the pessimism spell for the next 24 hours. This is an emotion effect and the save DC is Charisma based. A creature that succeeds this save cannot be affected by the pessimism effect for the next 24 hours, and takes minimum damage from that lloigor’s drain hope attack during that duration. If the creature fails this save, the lloigor gains 3 PE. A lloigor can gain PE above its maximum in this way, capping at twice its normal value. A creature that has its Wisdom reduced to 3 or fewer with this ability must succeed a DC 23 Will save or be afflicted with the moral insanity madness. This is a madness effect with a flat DC. Hopeless (Ex) A lloigor can never gain morale bonuses, and suffers an additional -1 penalty whenever it would suffer from a morale penalty.

#lloigor #dragon #sponsored post #cthulhu mythos #eldritch horror #pathfinder 1e

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nenyabusiness · 8 months

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"Arda Unmarred"

Tolkien’s legendarium is full of unreliable narrators. “The Silmarillion”, for example, is based on the lore of the Elves, and “The Lord of the Rings” is based on a fictional book written by Hobbits. In these stories, Melkor, the fallen Vala who later goes by the name Morgoth, is the power-hungry being that brought evil to Middle-earth. According to the Elves, the Valar refer to the world as “Arda Marred” – a name based on the assumption that Ilúvatar’s original design, “Arda Unmarred”, has to have been free from evil.

I use the phrase “unreliable narrators”, because we don’t know for sure what Eru Ilúvatar was truly planning when he created the Music of the Ainur. Not even the Valar, who are described as being the offspring of his thought, could fully understand his vision. So, can we really say for sure that there ever was, or ever will be, an “Arda Unmarred”? Was Melkor’s initiation of the cycle of evil in Middle-earth unintentional, or was it a part of Ilúvatar’s design all along? Those are the questions that this short essay is going to explore.

The creation of the world is described in “Ainulindalë”. The story has gone through multiple changes over the years, but its foundations remain the same. Eä, the universe, is sung into existence by the Ainur. Melkor, gifted with the most power and knowledge of them all, tries to introduce his own ideas into the song, but Ilúvatar simply incorporates the discord into his Music. Melkor is incapable of creating anything of his own, since he is ultimately an offspring of Ilúvatar’s own thought. This is later stated by Ilúvatar himself.

“And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.” (The Silmarillion: Ainulindalë)

The statement is repeated again when the Ainur are shown the world that their Music has created.

“Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.” (The Silmarillion: Ainulindalë)

The Ainur learn much about this new world from Ilúvatar, but their god also withholds a lot of information, especially regarding his Children – the Elves and Men.

Yet some things there are that they cannot see, neither alone nor taking counsel together; for to none but himself has Ilúvatar revealed all that he has in store, and in every age there come forth things that are new and have no foretelling, for they do not proceed from the past. (The Silmarillion: Ainulindalë)

For the Children of Ilúvatar were conceived by him alone; and they came with the third theme, and were not in the theme which Ilúvatar propounded at the beginning, and none of the Ainur had part in their making. (The Silmarillion: Ainulindalë)

These statements prove that not even the Valar can be considered fully reliable narrators. They never saw the full design, and their knowledge of the fate of Elves and Men is ultimately limited.

Later in the chapter, we find out that there’s another layer of unreliability in this story.

For what has here been declared is come from the Valar themselves, with whom the Eldalië spoke in the land of Valinor, and by whom they were instructed; but little would the Valar ever tell of the wars before the coming of the Elves. Yet it is told among the Eldar that the Valar endeavoured ever, in despite of Melkor, to rule the Earth and to prepare it for the coming of the Firstborn; and they built lands and Melkor destroyed them; valleys they delved and Melkor raised them up; mountains they carved and Melkor threw them down; seas they hollowed and Melkor spilled them; and naught might have peace or come to lasting growth, for as surely as the Valar began a labour so would Melkor undo it or corrupt it. And yet their labour was not all in vain; and though nowhere and in no work was their will and purpose wholly fulfilled, and all things were in hue and shape other than the Valar had at first intended, slowly nonetheless the Earth was fashioned and made firm. (The Silmarillion: Ainulindalë)

The phrasing of this paragraph reveals that “Ainulindalë” is not a story told by an omniscient narrator – it’s Elven lore. Melkor is depicted as the culprit behind all of Arda’s flaws, but since we now know that it’s an Elven story, we also have to take possible bias into consideration.

Even here, however, is it clearly stated that Melkor was incapable of creating anything of his own, and that the Valar didn’t know every detail of Ilúvatar’s design. It’s also worth noting that it’s the will and purpose of the Valar that were never wholly fulfilled. This is also reiterated in a similar description of the formation of Arda, told in “The Annals of Aman”.

… And the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of the Valar were never after restored. (Morgoth’s Ring: The Annals of Aman)

At this point in the story, Ilúvatar is no longer an active participant. The Valar are acting on their own, based on the vast yet still limited information that’s been given to them. The greatest fears of Elves and Men – fading and dying – are blamed on Arda being marred by Melkor. This is clearly expressed in “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth”:

Now the Eldar learned that, according to the lore of the Edain, Men believed that their hröar were not by right nature short-lived, but had been made so by the malice of Melkor. It was not clear to the Eldar whether Men meant: by the general marring of Arda (which they themselves held to be the cause of the waning of their own hröar); or by some special malice against Men as Men that was achieved in the dark ages before the Edain and the Eldar met in Beleriand; or by both. (Morgoth’s Ring: Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth)

Valar, Elves, and Men alike believe that they live in Arda Marred, and that Melkor is the sole culprit behind the cycle of evil that plagues Middle-earth. As readers, we’re led to believe that this is true, but Tolkien does occasionally remind us that this is a story told by unreliable narrators. He himself considers Melkor a Lucifer-like figure, but he also recognizes the differences between his Catholic faith and the universe he created.

I suppose a difference between this Myth and what may be perhaps called Christian mythology is this. In the latter the Fall of Man is subsequent to and a consequence (though not a necessary l consequence) of the 'Fall of the Angels': a rebellion of created free-will at a higher level than Man; but it is not clearly held (and in many versions is not held at all) that this affected the 'World' in its nature: evil was brought in from outside, by Satan. In this Myth the rebellion of created free-will precedes creation of the World (Eä); Eä has in it, subcreatively introduced, evil, rebellious, discordant elements of its own nature already when the ‘Let it Be’ was spoken. The Fall or corruption, therefore, of all things in it and all inhabitants of it, was a possibility if not inevitable. (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: 212.)

So, here we are again. Evil was created before Melkor descended into Eä. This raises even more questions about Ilúvatar’s original design – the supposed “Arda Unmarred”. There was evil in Arda before Melkor entered it. Does that mean that Ilúvatar knew that the world that he was about to send his Children into was already marred? Or was it a part of his design all along?

What we do know for sure is that there was always evil in Eä. We’re presented with another perspective in “Myths Transformed”, which puts even more emphasis on Melkor being a catalyst rather than the source of that evil.

Out of the discords of the Music – sc. not directly out of either of the themes, Eru's or Melkor's, but of their dissonance with regard one to another – evil things appeared in Arda, which did not descend from any direct plan or vision of Melkor: they were not 'his children'; and therefore, since all evil hates, hated him too. (Morgoth’s Ring: Myths Transformed)

Another important aspect of Melkor’s role in the supposed marring of Arda is the evil’s independence. As previously stated, the cycle started before his descent into Eä, and it continues after he’s been thrust into the Timeless Void at the end of the First Age.

One of the reasons for his self-weakening is that he has given to his 'creatures', Orcs, Balrogs, etc. power of recuperation and multiplication. So that they will gather again without further specific orders. Part of his native creative power has gone out into making an independent evil growth out of his control. (Morgoth’s Ring: Myths Transformed)

Yet the lies of Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest day. (The Silmarillion: Quenta Silmarillion)

When Melkor is defeated, Sauron takes his place, upholding the cycle of evil.

The servants of Sauron were routed and dispersed, yet they were not wholly destroyed; and though many Men turned now from evil and became subject to the heirs of Elendil, yet many more remembered Sauron in their hearts and hated the kingdoms of the West. The Dark Tower was levelled to the ground, yet its foundations remained, and it was not forgotten. (The Silmarillion: Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age)

This is where Tolkien decides to end his grand saga about Middle-earth. Sauron is defeated, but evil is not. Months before his death, however, he started a draft of a story taking place about a century into the Fourth Age called “The New Shadow”. He eventually decided to scrap it, but the parts he did write indicate that evil still lingers in Middle-earth after the end of “The Lord of the Rings”.

He halted in the narrow passage that ran through the house, and it seemed that he was wrapped in a blackness: not a glimmer of twilight of the world outside remained there. Suddenly he smelt it, or so it seemed, though it came as it were from within outwards to the sense: he smelt the old Evil and knew it for what it was. (Morgoth’s Ring: “The New Shadow”)

The cycle of evil continues, even though Melkor no longer has any influence over the world. The Arda we see in Tolkien’s universe has always been marred – always, or never. These texts show that the concept of “Arda Unmarred” was most likely an invention of the Valar, or possibly the Elves – unreliable narrators with a desperate need for an explanation for why their world is full of evil. Ilúvatar’s original design was known to him and him alone, and Melkor was always a part of it.

Arda is simply Arda.

#tolkien #meta #melkor #morgoth #lord of the rings #lotr #silmarillion #lore #atheist bias i know i know

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eretzyisrael · 5 months

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The October 7 attack and its aftermath have finally brought the disparate elements of this struggle against Jews to the surface, its participants surging into the streets and onto social media—suggesting that Hamas knew something important about the world that many of us didn’t see, or didn’t want to.

When I was a reporter for an international news agency at the time of the Hamas takeover in Gaza in 2007, I discovered that it was impolitic to mention what Hamas clearly announced in its founding charter from 1988: Namely, that “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious,” and the Jews were “behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions, and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests.”

This didn’t sound like “Free Palestine.” But as a rule, on the rare occasions that Western news organizations felt compelled to mention the document, they left those parts out.

The historical examples from the charter suggest that in the war against Judaism, the ideologues of Hamas understand themselves to be operating in a broad coalition and carrying on a long tradition. This is true. “Islam and National Socialism are close to each other in the struggle against Judaism,” Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and one of the fathers of the Palestinian national movement, said in 1944. This was in a speech to members of an SS division he helped raise, made up of Bosnian Muslims. “Nearly a third of the Qur’an deals with the Jews. It has demanded that all Muslims watch the Jews and fight them wherever they find them,” he said, an idea that would reappear four decades later in the Hamas charter. When the mufti testified before a British commission of inquiry in 1936, he quoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Tsarist forgery describing a global Jewish conspiracy, which is also the source for parts of the Hamas charter and remains popular across the Middle East. (I once found the book for sale at a good shop near the American University of Beirut.) The Hamas army, known as the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is named for one of the mufti’s most famous proteges.

The movement became savvy enough to water down its charter a few years ago, but its leaders have remained honest about their intent. “You have Jews everywhere,” one former Hamas minister, Fathi Hammad, shouted to a crowd in 2019, “and we must attack every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, with God’s will.”

In the liberal West, no sane person would own up to believing The Protocols. (At least not yet; things are moving fast.) But an Italian can hold a prominent U.N. job, for example, after saying she believes a “Jewish lobby” controls America, and you can hold a tenured position at the best universities in the West if you believe that the only country on earth that must be eliminated is the Jewish one.

My experience in the Western press corps was that sympathy for Hamas was not just real but often more substantial than sympathy for Jews. In Europe and North America, as we’ve now seen on the streets and on campuses, many on the progressive left have arrived at an ideology positing that one of the world’s most pressing problems is the State of Israel—a country that has come to be seen as the embodiment of the evils of the racist, capitalist West, if not as the world’s only “apartheid” state, that being a modern synonym for evil.

Jews could no longer officially be hated because of their ethnicity or religion, but can legitimately be hated as supporters of “apartheid” and as the embodiment of “privilege.” The pretense that this is a critique of Israel’s military tactics, or sincere desire for a two-state solution, has now largely been dropped.

#hamas #wisdom #gaza #jews #antisemitism #hamas charter

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spinnyr · 9 months

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Across The Spider-Verse’s Trolley Problem

Okay, it pisses me off that Miguel is constantly written off as a villain when he’s literally trying to prevent the death of several billion people.

I know what you’re thinking, and we’ll get to that, but please hear me out.

Miles’ situation is a trolley problem. You’ve probably heard of it, but in case you haven’t, it goes like this:

“A runaway trolley car is careening down a track. Five people stand in its path, unaware of the imminent threat. You stand at the intersection of two different tracks and could, if you chose to, divert the trolley onto another track where only one person would be killed. Do you divert the trolley, intentionally killing one to save five?”

In Miles’ case, it’s one dad vs the entire web of life a destiny. Do you let the trolley flatten your dad in order to save an infinite number of realities-worth of people?

Miguel is saying yes. Miguel’s stance isn’t “let your dad die because fuck you” it’s “I know this sucks, but it’s the lesser of two very bad evils, and the greater evil is WAY worse.”

From Miguel’s point of view, Miles is saying “Nah, my one dad is worth sacrificing countless lives for.” Miles, in reality, is saying “I’ll find a way to stop the trolley before I even have to think about pulling any levers.” But as far as Miguel is concerned, that isn’t even an option. Nobody can stop the trolley. It’s one or the other, with no magical third option. Fully populated dimensions are going to die because this kid would rather watch the multiverse collapse when he fails to change how things fundamentally work (like Miguel also did!) instead of deal with losing just one person, like every other spider-person has.

“You have a choice between saving one person or an entire world. Every world.”

Miles’ insistence that there’s some secret third option that Miguel somehow doesn’t know about despite all his research and “Believe me, I have tried. And the harder I tried, the more damage I did.” is what’s creating the divide.

Miguel isn’t a bad guy who wants Jefferson dead. Miguel is a good guy who doesn’t want an unfathomable number of innocents to perish. He’s limiting what are (as far as he knows) unavoidable casualties by pulling the lever.

#across the spiderverse #spiderman #into the spider verse #miguel spiderverse #spiderverse #atsv miguel #miguel o'hara #spiderverse spoilers #atsv #spiderman 2099 #miles morales #beyond the spiderverse #trolley problem

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kellshaw · 11 months

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Entropy impacts your fantasy world

Entropy infects all systems. Things wear down, and either collapse or shake apart into new configurations.

Fantasy worlds are divided into a series of ages, where myths are split apart from legends and history. They might look like this Middle-Earth inspired history (at least my high school D&D campaign world did):

First Age - Gods walk the earth, or make the world. Evil gods are dealt with or bound.

Second Age - The great civilizations flourish, items of remarkable power of crafted and legendary battles occur. Famous institutions like kingdoms, and bloodlines are established.

Third Age - Not as epic, as the first or second age. The hero grows up on a farm or distant location and learns about the age of magic. Perhaps they’ll inherit a sword or learn lost secrets. There are ruins everywhere. Some dark threat left over from the second age will return and be dealt with. Perhaps the hero will reconnect with one of the elite institutions established in the second age.

Fourth Age - The age of magic ends, and everything changes. Elves sail away, gods leave the world, and hand it over to people, who, live in wisdom and peace and tell stories about the good old days to the kids.

This is also a metaphor for human life. The first age is childhood when you believe impossible things and dragons, the second age is when you’re young, fighting for your passions, the third age is when you get your job and learn how the systems of the world work. And the fourth age is when you’re paying off the mortgage, and you don’t have time to play D&D anymore or read books, but you’ve got fond memories of those days and will tell your bored family members about the good old days.

Let’s cut to 2020, COVID era. I’m in the fourth age of my life. During lockdown, I work through a bunch of intense personal stuff. One of them is that my epic fantasy novel series is doomed not to be finished in its current state—it’s lost in a muddle of endless rewrites. The book had lots of POVs, good character work and world building, but not much of a plot apart from an expedition across a continent. Time to recognize that it would never be done. I’ll never be Brandon Sanderson. (At least with that book.)

I get out my shotgun, place the barrel against the malformed, beating dreams of finishing that series, and pull the trigger.

Time to reboot. Start something else. I need to create I can finish. Shorter, less epic. Except, being one of those eternal gamemaster types, I can’t tell stories without a world.

Yeah, I could build any world I want and—my subconscious wants to design a setting in a fantasy world’s fourth age. When I was younger, the concept of the fourth age horrified me. Who’d want to tell stories in a world where the magic went away, and everything was about modern life, office workers and cars?

Now, I find that interesting. Because the past is a magical one, right? How would that influence the modern day? And how did the magic leave the world? What if something went wrong with the final epic battle between light and darkness? What if losing magic was a last ditch strike? A nuclear option. Not a gentle fading of magic like in Middle-Earth—a planned obsolescence—but a catastrophe mess that broke the world.

And what if magic survived, but became hidden, messy and complicated?

So that’s the key idea I had when designing my world. Modern, yet with a hidden layer of magic.

Now to figure out what that looked like. And what sort of stories would it drive?

How about you—did you build your world by thinking about this sort of thing to start with (themes) or did you start with some other idea? Or even a sense of a character or a vision of a scene? (I love the story by CS Lewis how his initial idea for Narnia was simply a mental picture of Lucy and Mr. Tumnus walking arm-in-arm through a snowy wood...)

#writeblr #fantasy books #worldbuilding #writerscommunity #writers of tumblr #fantasy #fantasy writing #urban fantasy

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katyspersonal · 2 months

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Were Marika and Radagon always the same being from the beginning or they were separate people who got fused later on?

Oh boy, I've almost missed this ask in the tidal wave of Sephi spam from THOSE TWO LITTLE PRICKS!!!!!!, but yes thank you for the question! My theory on the matter is:

This for me ties into a couple of things: 1) the idea that when something bad happens with a (demi)god, they are likely to develop an alter as defence mechanism that I mostly base on the theory that Trina and their purple 'sleep' flame happened as response to Miquella being scorched by Frenzy (more here: ( x )) and 2) theme of 'astral projections' that have transcendental knowledge compared with the 'rest of the person' which is more plain!

Recently I've also discussed theme of "if you want to defeat the thing, become the thing" like with dragons, but I decided to discard the idea that Marika willingly inflicted curse of the giants onto herself! But existence of Radagon is exactly what I think happened with Marika - a curse of the giants!

I think that "they say Marika has slain the Fell God" is taken at face value here, they 'say' it because it happened very long time ago and there are almost no witnesses left rather than a rumour! Sure, I still "await for the return of my Lord" (for the one who will precisely re-translate Japanese script), but I am happy with this for now! Yet, 'their flames will never die' refers to Marika having taken up that curse in the moment she killed the Fell God! This is why she was able to pass the curse mark onto the last Fire Giant that survived: because now the curse was her, taken from the Fell God by slaying him.

But, although she was able to get rid of the flame by giving it to the Fire Giant, the impact already left its side-effect on her very being! I still need DLC to confirm or deny whether Trina exists for 'unhappy reason' as I can't tell whether more info on them was cut due to time limitations or rewriting, I am just using it as an extra backup for now! Regardless, it is safe to say that since Fire Giants are all male and Marika was a female, it caused the conflict and so Radagon turned in to exist as male. So yeah kill gods carefully of you'll get cursed with dysphoria idk I am bad at philosophical conclusions

^ I also think that the curse left its mark on Marika genetically, and her children would show traces of it from time to time! Radahn is the biggest evidence of it in my eyes! He started to learn gravitational magic so he could still ride Leonard, which means that he was growing massive even before learning it! Other demigods have no problem staying very human-sized so I think his massive size is not an effect of his massive power, but traces of Giants' 'genes' showing!

I am also considering the ideas that 1) Morgott might have had a fire of his own as result of it, that he sealed into blade, since unlike with Mohg his fire doesn't link to interacting with Formless Mother 2) Rykard might have had natural affinity towards fires as side-effect of such 'genes', that only made his research of fire sorcery easier, and it simply was coincidental that fire reflects heresy

3) Maybe the third eye imagery that is only so far seen in Godwyn's Prince of Death form and Trina's side of Miquella is the secret less obvious effect, that only manifests after something bad happens to them? Since the cyclopic eye is the mark of the Fell God! Again, I need information on Trina first, but so far this works! So yeah. 'Evil eye'.

(Screenshot of Godwyn's model from Zullie's video: ( x ))

I also take the script occasionally from this ( x ) document, but yeah. In Japanese, it is a bit more blatant that he is her other self literally, not metaphorically! She also uses 'omae', a pretty derogatory way to refer to someone. She looks down on this side of herself, which is interesting, but also why? And why Radagon disagreed with her idea to scatter the Elden Ring and let the history sort itself?

This is what made me think of how the separation aspect of them played out! I believe that they are able to exist within the same body, as we can clearly see through the cutscene, but also to split. The thing is? There are precedents of it in the game as well! Sellen and Dung Eater both are under the situation where their real bodies, and real selves are in imprisonment and are suffering without being aware of their astral projections. Their astral projections, however? They are quite aware of where their bodies are and what is going on, but can think independently. The 'body' and the 'mind' are able to exist in separation in The Lands Between. Let's also not forget the case of powerful illusions like the ones of Rennala and Mohg, who are basically the auto-receivers that were set to kick your ass lol x) It is also my idea on why it is named The Lands Between to begin with: because this is where physical and mental blend together, to the point both are equally tangible and perceivable!

Basically? When Marika and Radagon are split, it is very much like this. He would be her 'physical body', living and thinking on his own, not aware of Marika's opinions and plans, whereas Marika would be same as those astral projections that told Tarnished 'oh by the way my actual body is imprisoned in this or that location'. Knowing more and planning more, being aware of what the 'body' thinks and experiences without the reverse being true, however, being limited until the 'body' is returned to the owner. So that's why Radagon would not think and feel exactly the same as Marika: not only he was able to live his own life, but also he understands less than the "transcendental" part which makes astral projections. Marika maybe had the plan to scatter the Ring and let it all sort itself out, so the conflict would let only someone capable of levelling with her lost Godwyn to raise at the top and come and replace her. She generally thinks very far ahead, as the 'higher self' that she is, which Radagon can't do and he just studies and understands the things as they are.

So yeah.. In the conclusion, I think it was the curse of the Giants but specifically the side-effect of slaying the Fell God, yet she sealed the curse she inherited from the act in the last survivor too late and her 'genes' already got traces of it! Radagon is valid but by all laws that strangely split people in the Lands Between he is her "lesser" half that thinks on more grounded plane. We could, again, see from Sellen and Dung Eater that 'body' and 'astral projection' are able to fuse back into one entity, yet Radagon and Marika are still in the conflict?

I like to think it came from Marika herself despising this more "human" side of herself.. Sure, she is not alien to human flaws herself, as someone that set many unfair laws in motion just because of her fears and set the world into war from her grief, but you can't just SAY that hahah; She wants to be perfect, invulnerable, all-powerful, and Radagon is just "not that", not yet. I am pretty sure a big part of it is Marika's very pragmatic view on relationship, whereas Radagon *gasp* had the nerve to truly love Rennala! She only can truly become one with him when his flaws and vulnerabilities are eradicated and he is the same cold, calculating, clever, machiavellian entity as herself, literally just her but male. And, well... this hasn't been this way so far, so in turn, the two are at the conflict. He thinks of the other people and the world, and doesn't believe it is right to betray the Greater Will and the mortals born under it like that, when she decides to just let the world suffer and burn. Ironically, her "lowly" half had more sympathy and reason than her "dignified" half, after all.

This is all very interesting to think about, but so far a lot of this lingers on the conclusions I still need to confirm or deny via DLC! Anyways it was interesting to think about and put together!

#elden ring #marika the eternal #radagon of the golden order #elden ring theory #elden ring headcanons #elden ring reference #ask replies

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victimsofyaoipoll · 11 months

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Round 1

Propaganda Under Cut

Mia Winters

she's Ethan's wife and Rose's mother, and I tend to see her villainized in fanfiction (especially chris/ethan and ESPECIALLY karl/ethan) because shes a genuinely traumatized and complicated character, but people turn her into the shitty, abusive wife or the dead wife trope for the sake of her technically getting in the way of their ship. The best I've seen her written while still placing her out of the story was her being casually divorced but like, co parenting.

people are so mean to her just so they can push Wintersberg (Ethan Winters x Karl Heisenberg). she's not the best all the time but the evil forces r so bad to her. so i don't think it's her fault. Mia Winters haters DNI!!!!!!!!

Mia Winters is a secret agent, researcher and BOW handler who is married to Just Some Guy. When she accidentally lures her white bread husband to a spooky den of mold monsters, she sacrifices herself to save him from the mess she made (god forbid women do anything). Chronic victim of getting fridged or turned into a third wheel so one or more of a handful of men can play house with her husband and daughter.

Ada Wong

A mysterious and capable agent of a shadowy bioterrorism organization, she has a romance with government agent Leon S Kennedy spanning multiple games and movies. No one knows her true loyalties, but Leon trusts her. But, who cares! Leon and Chris argued once and that means they must be in love. Ada has also been convicted of fandom high crimes of lying to the fandom's babygirl and doing morally grey things while not being a man.

lots of explicit romantic chemistry with leon kennedy but large parts of the fandom treat her like a heartless monster who only hurts him and uses him for her goals so that they can pair him with a guy (its hard to be a girlboss)

She has a will-they-won't-they relationship with Leon in Resident Evil 2, 4, and 6. But since m/m ships like Chris/Leon and Luis/Leon are really popular, she's usually written out of fan content completely or, in rare cases, she's seen as a "mean lesbian" or antagonist to Leon's potential yaoi moment. I love her so much she doesn't deserve it :(

#poll #mia winters #ada wong #resident evil #re2 remake #re6 #re2 #re4 #re4 remake #re7 #re8 #re village #round 1

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