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felassan · 3 years

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Some DA trivia and dev commentary from Twitter

There’s a lot of different tweets, so I’m just pasting and linking to the source rather than screencapping them all or making several different posts or something. Post under cut for length.

User: Was dragon age 2 your favourite in the franchise?

David Gaider: DA2 was the project where my writing team was firing on all cylinders, and they wrote like the wind- because they had to! Second draft? Pfft. Plot reviews? Pfft. I was so proud of what we all accomplished in such a brief time. I didn't think it was possible. [source] DA2 is, however, also where the goal posts kept moving. Things kept getting cut, even while we worked. I had to write that dialogue where Orsino turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot. A real WTF moment. >:( [source]

Mike Rousseau: I remember bugging that! And then being told it wasn't a bug, and being so confused. Doing QA for DA2 was an experience. Trial by fire. [source]

DG: So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise and also the sort of thing I never want to live through ever again. Mixed feelings galore. [source]

User: (I personally blame whoever it was for ruining most romance arcs in other games for me; they don't live up to Fenris's romance storyline)

DG: I wrote Fenris, so uh - me, I guess? Or maybe his cinematic designer, who put in the puppy dog eyes. [source]

User: If DA2 had just been an expansion, do you think it would have been better received? There was a lot of great stuff in there, and I think my initial dislike of it was because of the zone reuse. If it hadn't needed to be a full game, would that issue not have arisen?

DG: Hard to say. It was either going to be an over-scoped expansion or an under-scoped sequel. If it had stayed an expansion, it might never have received the resources/push it DID get. [source]

User: I'd love to visit the universe where you had an extra year or so to work on it. You did a very good job as it stands, but it definitely had rough edges. Not just the writing team either. The whole game had hit and miss moments, that just a little more dev time could have fixed.

DG: On one hand, DA2 existed to fill a hole in the release schedule. More time was never in the cards. DA2 was originally planned as an expansion! On the other, if we had more time, would we have started doing that thing where we second guess/iterate ourselves into mediocrity? [shrug emoji] [source]

Jennifer Hepler: This is what I love about DA2. Personally, I greatly prefer something that's rough and raw and sincere to something that's had all the soul polished out of it. Extra time would have helped for art and levels, but it would have lost something too. [source]

DG: Right? I think we could have used some time for peer reviews (and fewer cuts), but I think the rawness of the writing lent a certain spark that we usually polished out. [source]

JH: Definitely. I think the structure (more character-driven) and the tightness of the timeframe let each individual writer's voice really come through. Polish can be very homogenizing. [source]

DG: I should add I'm not, by any means, against iteration. Some iteration is good and necessary. The problem that BioWare often had is that we never knew when to stop. Like a goldfish, we would fill the space given to us by constantly re-iterating on things that were "good enough". [source]

Patrick Weekes: I appreciate your incredibly diplomatic use of the past tense on "had". :D [source]

User: DA2 was my gateway into the series and I’m so happy it is. I love the game the way that it is. It’s one of my favorites of all time. But I am also aware of everything that was said here. If it were remastered, do you think it would change?

DG: I'd be surprised if it was ever remastered. If it was, do you really think they'd change things? Do remasters do that? No idea. [source]

User: Both sides got undercut as I recall. Didn't that whole sequence also end with the mage leader embracing blood magic? It was very much "a plague on both your houses" moment, at least for me.

DG: Yep. Orsino was supposed to have his own version of Meredith's end battle, which only happened if you sided with the templars. That got cut, but the team still wanted to use the model we'd made for him. So... that happened. [source]

DG: I would personally say that DA2 is a fantastic game hidden under a mountain of compromises, cut corners, and tight deadlines. If you can see past all that, you'll see a fantastic game. I don't doubt, however, that it's very difficult for most to do that. [source]

PW: I love DAI with all my selfish "I worked on this" heart, but DA2's follower arcs and relationships are probably my favorite in the series. [source]

User: As I've expressed many times, I love the game, especially it's writing and characters but, for me, the most impressive aspect of it, in consideration of it's lack of time for drafts and revisions, is the 2nd act with Arishok. What amazingly complex character and fantastic duel

User: Just played it again and I have to agree. Though he is bound by the harsher tenants of the Qun, he makes valid points about free marcher society. Though it is obvious that he and Hawke will come to blows eventually, the tension builds gradually and understandably

DG: Luke did such a fantastic job with the Arishok I found myself sometimes wishing the Qunari plot had just been THE plot. [source]

User: What do you think would have changed, story wise, if you had more time for DA2?

DG: I would have taken out that thing where Meredith gets the idol. It was forced on me because she needed to be "super-powered" with red lyrium for her final battle. Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that. [source]

User: I deeply lament that there wasn't/couldn't be some sort of DA2 equivalent of Throne of Bhaal's Ascension mod.

DG: I'd have done it, if DA2 had allowed for anything but the most rudimentary of modding. ;) [source]

User: I mean, and I think I understand where you were trying, but how much legitimacy did the Templars and her as top Templar have after they're keeping the mages locked up against their will in the old slave quarters? Feel free to not reply.

DG: I think it's the kind of discussion which requires nuance, and which discussions on the Internet are not prone to. [source]

User: Was a compromise that the quest lines don’t branch? It felt like it was supposed to be that way but then you end up in the same place later regardless of what you pick. Like I hoodwinked the templars so good to help the apostates escape but in Act II they were caught anyway.

DG: I remember us having a lot more branching in the initial planning yes. Most of this got trimmed out in the first or second wave of cuts, in an effort to not cut the plots altogether. [source]

DG: "If you could Zack Snyder DA2, what would you change?" Wow. I'm willing to bet Mark or Mike (or anyone else on the team) would give very different answers than me, but it's enough to give a sober man pause, because that was THE Project of Multiple Regrets. [source] I mean, it's the most hypothetical of hypotheticals. It's never gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if EA considered DA2 its embarrassing red-headed stepchild. We'd also need to ignore that in many ways DA2 was as good as it was bad BECAUSE of how it was made. But that aside? [source] First, either restore the progressive changes to Kirkwall we'd planned over the passing of in-game years or reduce the time between acts to months instead of years... which, in hindsight, probably should have been done as soon as the progressive stuff was cut. [source] I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that. All I wanted was for Kirkwall to feel like a bigger city. Way more crowded. More alive! Fewer blood mages. [source] I'd want to restore the plot where a mage Hawke came THIS close to becoming an abomination. An entire story spent trapped in one's own head while trapped on the edge of possession. Why? Because Hawke is the only mage who apparently never struggles with this. It was a hard cut. [source]

User: I would LOVE to hear more details about this! I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a short story?

DG: I don't even remember the details of the story, sorry. There was a fight, and you caught the bad guy and then realized none of it was real and woke up idk [source]

DG: I'd want to restore all those alternate lines we cut, meaning people forget they'd met you. Or that they knew you were a mage. Or, oh god, that maybe they'd romanced you in DAO. So much carnage. [source] I'd want to restore the Act 3 plots we cut only because they were worked on too late, but which would have made the buildup to the mage/templar clash less sudden. Though I don't remember what they were, now. Some never got beyond being index cards posted on the wall. [grimace emoji] [source] As I mentioned elsewhere, I'd want to restore Orsino's end battle so he wouldn't need to turn on you even if you sided with him. And I'd want an end fight with the templars that didn't require Meredith to have red lyrium and go full Tetsuo. [source] Heck, maybe an end decision where you sided with neither the mages nor the templars. Because it certainly ended up feeling like you could brand both sides as batshit pretty legitimately, no? That was never planned, tho. No idea how to make that feel like an actual path atm. [source] Maybe an option to go "umm, Anders... what are you DOING?" 👀 [source] And, of course, a Varric romance, because Mary took that "slimy car salesman" character we'd planned and did the impossible with him. I can feel Mary glaring at me for even suggesting this, tho. [source] Lastly, the original expanded opening to the game which allowed you to spend time with Bethany and Carver BEFORE the darkspawn attacked. And, um, that's about it off the top of my head. Zack Snyder, WHAT PANDORA'S BOX HAVE YOU OPENED. [source] Shit, I remembered two more things: 1) Restore the "Varric exaggerates the heck out of the story" at the beginning of every Act, until Cassandra calls him on it. Yes, that was a thing. 2) Make DA: Exodus. Yes, I am still bitter. [source] God damn it, I meant "Make DA: Exalted March". The DA2 expansion, NOT Exodus since that was DA2's original name and makes no sense. Because the expansion ended with Varric dying, and that will always be on my "things left undone" list. [source]

User: Whaaaat?

DG: Well, you know that scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock goes into the dilithium chamber because he's a Vulcan? Well, imagine that but with Varric and red lyrium and because he's a dwarf. ;) [source]

John Epler: I distinctly remember referencing the bit from MGS4 where you crawl through the microwave corridor in the split screen, while cinematic battle rages on the other half. [source]

DG: It would have been glorious, John. Glorious. [source]

JE: I don't think I've ever been so certain what a shot should look like as I did Hawke coming in and finding Varric in the broken throne, just like when he was telling Cassandra his story. [source]

DG: It would have come full circle! Auggghh, it still kills me. [source]

User: Lord, you folks are a little too good at this.

JE: The true secret behind videogame narrative is knowing how to make yourself seem a lot more clever than you actually are. [source] 'Oh, we TOTALLY planned that.' [source]

User: Ok, this thread [the DA2 regrets thread, which is the big chunks above] but Inquisition.

DG: My regrets about Inquisition are, more or less, the normal kind. Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. [source]

User: You can keep your Varric romance, I want a Flemeth romance goddamnit!

DG: I would allow for one flirt option, and then a recording of Kate Mulgrew laughing for three minutes straight. [source]

User: I had a hypothesis about the repetitive caves in DA2. They're repetitive because it's Varric telling the story and he didn't consider them important. They're like sets in a play. (Okay, I really suspect it was a time/money/resources thing but I like my fake explanation better.)

DG: Hang a lampshade on it, maybe? Cassandra: "But that's the exact cave you were in last time?" Varric: "Whatever. They all look the same, I'm not THAT kind of dwarf. Can we move on?" [source]

User: that makes sense, hypothetically to make Varric romanceable and keep his arc—that had to happen for the main plot—I imagine you would have to make double the content (or more)? which would've been a tall order given the time/budget constraints the game was under

DG: Right. When it comes to "romance arc" vs. "follower story arc", we generally only had time to do one or the other. Never both. Romancing Varric would have meant not getting the story of his that you did. [source]

Mary Kirby: The one exaggeration I really, REALLY wanted, that we never got to do was Varric narrating his own death scene with Hawke weeping over him, then cutting to Cassandra's pissed off glaring at him. [source]

DG: Haha! The one I wanted was Varric's plot where he takes on the baddies single-handedly, sliding across the floor like Jet Lee, action movie-style, until finally Cassandra gets irritated and he has to admit Hawke & the rest of the party showed up to help. [source]

MK: We did that one! (He didn't do any Jet Lee moves, though.) Jepler gave him letterboxing to get The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly showdown vibes while he shot a ton of mooks single-handed. [source]

DG: Wow. Shows how much I remember. [source]

JE: I found it! I remember seeing this sequence as my treat for doing a bunch of much more challenging work. It was fun to see how far I could push our limited library of animations. [link] [source]

DG: Heh awesome. I could have sworn it was cut, honestly. I think I was even in that meeting. [source]

User: no disrespect but that’s surprising and rich of Mary “Hard in Hightown” Kirby to think DA2 shouldn’t have had a Varric romance when she wrote an entire book of Varric’s self-insert character pining over his Hawke insert character… HIH is the reason we had VHawke Summer 2018

DG: I can't *really* speak for Mary, or how she feels about it now compared to back then. I only know how she felt about it back then, and I'm not sure it was as much the concept of the romance but that Varric's entire story would be bent to "romance arc" ...a very different thing. [source]

JH: I remember pushing to have the first DLC start with Hawke having an option to ask Varric, "Did you tell Cassandra about us?" and if you picked it, Varric would answer, "Of course not, baby. I told her you were sleeping with X..." and then proceed as if you had had a full romance. [source]

DG: I still wonder how that would have gone over. x) [source]

JE: Okay, one more DA2 thing. Putting together the cinematics for this scene was a blast. [link] [source]

MK: These lines are my greatest legacy. I want "Make sure the world knows I died... at Chateau Haine!" inscribed on my tombstone. [source]

JE: I was so glad no one said 'no' to the crane shot. [source]

MK: It needs that crane shot. It's the perfect icing on that cake made from solid cheese. [source]

DG: The designers were all "we need more combat" and I think we were all "I think you underestimate just HOW interesting we can make this dinner party". [source]

JE: And finally. I think @SherylChee wrote the one-liner. I think we had a collection of like, 20. [link] [source]

Sheryl Chee: Yeah! Something like that! I remember submitted a whole bunch and Frank said you only needed one. Wish I'd kept the other fifteen. [source]

JE: A random chooser where, each time through the scene, you get a different one-liner. [source]

JE: DA2 is the project I'm the proudest of. I also absolutely get that it didn't land for a lot of people. But I don't think it's inaccurate to say that, in a lot of ways, DA2 defined my career. [source] Everyone spent a year working at their maximum ability. I was a fresh cinematic designer and was given all of Varric's content, as well as the Act 1 Finale mission. It was a lot for someone who had been doing the Cinematics thing for literally 6 months. [source] There's some stuff in there I can't look at without wincing. And there's some stuff I'm genuinely proud of. Not to mention, it was my introduction to most of the writing team. Several of whom I'm still working with today! Albeit in a different capacity [source] Also, weirdly, one of my most enduring memories of Dragon Age 2 is how much Bad Company 2 we'd play at lunch. It was a LOT. [source] Every game I've worked on has a game I played attached to it. ME2 is Borderlands. DA2 is Bad Company 2. DAI is DayZ. I, hmm. There's a progression there. I don't know how I feel about it. [source]

User: Is DA4 going to be tarkov then?

JE: I've kind of churned out of Tarkov for now. Probably Hunt Showdown, at least right now. [source]

User: I think people also don't take nuance into consideration -- like I FULLY acknowledge the flaws in my favorite games and will openly criticize them, but that doesn't mean they're not my favorite games anymore??? You can like and thing and still be critical of it.

JE: A lot of my favourite shit is deeply flawed! I acknowledge it and I think it's interesting to dissect the flaws. [source]

User: I still wish Justice was an actual character in DA2 rather than a plot point.

DG: There was a moment during DAI where we *almost* put in you running into Justice with the Grey Wardens, and he's all "Kirkwall? I never went to Kirkwall" [source]

User: Does that imply that Justice was shoehorned in to DA2?

DG: Nah, it was an in-joke where we thought it'd be fun to suggest that "Justice" was simply some demon that tricked Anders in DA2. Wooo those tricky demons! We didn't do it, though. [source]

User: [about templars] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves [source]

User: Can you shed some light for us on how DA was able to do multiple same-sex romance options for different genders but the Mass Effect team treated them like the plague? What process existed for your team that just wasn't their for the other tentpole franchise?

DG: Different people making the decisions, almost different cultures. I don't know what it's like now, but for many years the Mass Effect team and the Dragon Age team were almost like two different studios working within the same building. [source]

User: It truly boggles the mind. Kudos for doing demonstrably better on consistent queer representation than the ME teams. Y'all never needed us to make petitions to try to get the studio's attention and ask them to do better by us. That's the fight we're once again embroiled in now.

DG: Honestly, I don't feel like tut-tutting the Mass Effect team. They did their part, and if they were a bit later to the show than the DA team they certainly did more than almost every other game out there -- and willingly. [source]

Updates begin here

User: So what was the reason for naming Dragon age 2 "Dragon age II" and not using a subtitle?

DG: As I recall, that was purely a publisher decision. I think they wanted to avoid the impression it was an expansion. [source]

User: Is there no chance of ever remaking DA2 under better circumstances? -Somehow remove the repetitiveness of gameplay by making changes and updating the tech and adding much more to the storyline. It could almost be a new very exciting game.

DG: I'd say there's zero chance of that. Let's keep our hopes up for the next DA title instead. [source]

User: I am a little confused here, help me out here please! How exactly was the cut boss battle with Orsino supposed to work out? How it would've kept him from turning against the player?

DG: It means that, if you sided with the templars, the entire boss bottle at the end would have been against Orsino and the mages. No fight against Meredith. The end decision would have been more divergent. [source]

User: I do remember that one of the reasons going around for that, was that resources were going to the transition to Frostbite. I'm still not fully sold on that having been a good choice. I felt that more time should have been given for that transition considering it was made for FPSs

DG: We didn't transition to Frostbite until DAI. Given our time frame for DA2, I don't think we *could* have transitioned to a new engine. [source]

User: Since your talking about the what could have been for DA2. Could you say what your script was for Anthem? Cause I remember reading that you wrote the plot on that game.

DG: I created a setting for Anthem and scripted out a plot - but, as I understand it, almost none of that ended up being used. So it's a bit pointless to talk about what I'd planned, as that'd be for some completely different type of game. [source]

User: [in reference to the exchange above where DG said “Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that.” re: Meredith] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

If I missed a tweet, got the wrong source link or included a tweet twice, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct.

Edit / Update: Post update 22nd April

#dragon age #bioware #video games #fenris #the Fenaissance #long post #longpost #cassandra pentaghast #my lady paladin #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #mass effect

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tuesdayintheservantshall · 3 years

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I actually quite enjoy A/B/O, but as I said once before most of the extant A/B/O Thomas stories don’t entirely feel like Thomas stories to me (though I adored the bit in Dementian’s fic with him crafting a story around Edward, that was absolutely genius).

SO here are some A/B/O Thomas-and-others plot bunnies I’ve thought of since first encountering the idea on AO3 and going “hm, this isn’t how I would do it... how would I do it?”

1a. Alpha Thomas/Beta Richard (with male and female still existing as relevant genders and male homosexuality still illegal). Thomas worries that Richard will expect/want him to act a certain way because he’s an alpha, Richard reassures him that that’s not what he’s after, Richard worries that Thomas won’t be happy with a beta because heat/rut/etc stuff and Thomas reassures him he doesn’t care, happy happy smooching. Communication, insecurity, past hurts, comfort.

1b. or MAYBE them as an Alpha/Beta or other nonstandard pairing in a world where m/m is a lesser taboo than in real life and canon but where there also exists a taboo against beta/alpha etc pairings such that Richard at least would definitely lose his job if either or both taboo elements of his orientation were revealed, with Thomas having a “well, safer than some people get at least” situation of partial acceptance at the Abbey similar to what he has in canon. But the same general emotional plot of “will my dynamic/the way my dynamic manifests work for you?”

2. A very young omega goes into their first heat unexpectedly (and early) in the Abbey. Thomas, as an alpha4alpha, would hypothetically be able to be present thus providing soothing alpha hormones, without risking a loss of self-control in response to the heat hormones. It’s a perfect solution - except that it requires officially acknowledging what he is and treating it, however temporarily, as something beyond a shameful secret ailment. Difficulties on many sides, possibly including that officially revealing this about Thomas will put him in danger. (Male and female may or may not exist as relevant genders here.)

3. In addition to his sight, Edward Courtenay has lost his sense of smell. He doesn’t know Thomas is the “wrong” gender to be interested in and he keeps doing things that might be flirting... should Thomas tell him? When should he tell him? How should he tell him?

4. OR smell-and-sight-blinded omega (or alpha) male Edward does not know that it is an alpha (or omega) he is touching the knee of/getting so close to/etc, and so Thomas knows it means nothing, and he probably would stop and be all appropriate if he knew and Thomas should tell him but! He’ll tell him any day now, he will. (In this scenario I see male and female as being relevant genders, the other reason besides class that they wouldn’t be a respectable match, but not an illegal taboo, or else Thomas would put a stop to things for both their safety. That does pull it a bit away from feeling like a Thomas story to me, but I think it could be made to work.)

5. Omega male Jimmy is scornful of the beta women at the Abbey (as if he’d ever settle for a beta!), and also the older omega man who is somehow still working as a valet instead of being mated by now. Yes, alpha women are somewhat rare, making it harder to meet someone suitable, but it’s as if Mr Barrow didn’t even try. He was clearly good looking enough to catch a mate (before spinsterhood caught up with him, anyway). Who would let themselves waste away like that? Canon proceeds accordingly, but with a different legal situation: the law Thomas broke would be one designed around protecting omegas’ virtue rather than about homosexuality, and whether the judge would see another omega as capable of breaking such a law would be a tossup. Thomas being, at 28 or so, a spinster, would work against him here. Male and female exist as at least somewhat relevant genders here simply because to me maleness is relevant to both their characters and if I were to switch that around I would just want to do a regular genderswap. However gender roles would still be different, and I think that might well affect exactly what goes down at the Thirsk fair - I have no solid ideas as to what that would look like though other than “probably somewhat different”. This story could end when they agree to be friends OR PERHAPS it could continue on and answer the question of whether Jimmy actually goes and finds an alpha female mate or whether as time goes on and he gets nearer and nearer to spinsterhood himself he finds himself more and more hesitant about the whole thing. I mean, he’s still got a little time right? He doesn’t have to find a mate this instant... not that he doesn’t want to be mated of course he does... of course he does, right? But maybe spinsterhood doesn’t sound so bad either if he spends it next to Mr. Barrow...

6. Omega male Jimmy is proud and scornful but also insecure, because there’s a mix of attitudes and narratives around omega males. When alpha male Thomas kisses him (wide awake dammit) it’s the ultimate betrayal - he thought he’d met an alpha male who respected him despite his omega status, but apparently he had it all wrong and Mr. Barrow is the worst of the lot who thinks “omega male” means (jumble of “basically a woman” “a woman but less respectable” “a man/woman hybrid slut who’s desperate to roll over for anyone” - all things he’s heard many a time but no one’s ever gone so far as to act on til now). Since Thomas approaches differently than in canon (which I do think I can justify because being an alpha he would recognize the badness of kissing an omega in his sleep because the social narrative would be there), I’m thinking I would also cut the Alfred interruption, meaning that no one knows why Jimmy suddenly hates Thomas when they were all buddy-buddy before. O’Brien does a lot of rumor spreading about the situation of course, but without her coming so close to completely destroying him Thomas does not think to use the strongest weapon he has against her, and they continue to do fight it out horribly. Eventually Thirsk or something else like Thirsk happens, prompting Jimmy to come talk to Thomas, and they actually talk it out. After “yes you should have run” Jimmy probably says something like “you still don’t get it! Being an omega doesn’t make me a woman!” And Thomas replies that he knows it doesn’t, he doesn’t like women. He didn’t save Jimmy because he thinks of him as a woman, or even because he’s an omega, he saved him because (embarrassed look downwards) “well I’m. I’m very fond of you.” trailing into near inaudibility at the end. (Then we get “never give you what you want” and friends and an open ending that could be gen or preslash.)

#a/b/o #omegaverse #plot bunnies #(my plot bunnies are always free to a good home btw in case anyone is inspired by my very niche ideas)#jimmy kent #thommy #Barris #courtbarrow #ALRIGHT I WILL BE BRAVE #and put this in the tags #Thomas Barrow #Edward Courtenay #Richard Ellis

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elyvorg · 4 years

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What would you think of a talentswap au? I know we all love kaito in all his wonderful spacey self, but ive seen some really interesting concepts for ultimate assassin kaito, as well as ultimate astronaut maki, ultimate detective kaede and ultimate pianist shuichi. Some very interesting things could be done with their histories and how they affect their present, especially if the changes are minimised. (Say, Shuichi's uncle being a pianist rather than a detective.)

I dont think the original character arcs could be pulled off as well, what with how the character's pasts affect how they react to the situations they're thrown in during the killing game (for example i doubt maki would have gone directly to murdering kokichi when she's convinced he's the mastermind if she hadn't been raised as an assassin) but i think there is some interesting potential in what would and wouldnt change about them

I know talentswap AUs are a pretty popular thing in this fandom, and I do enjoy looking at people's ideas in terms of the creative aesthetic redesigns of characters they can come up with. As a narrative thing, though, the concept just doesn't really do it for me.

I agree with your point that it can be an interesting exercise to imagine how a character we know might have diverged from the same starting point through slightly different circumstances in their life, and what would and wouldn't change about them. But I'm just not especially interested in the end result, because ultimately, whether by a little or by a lot, they going to end up as a different characters.

Obviously, as you can tell from my blog, I like thinking about AU scenarios. But, for me, they need to be plot AUs, not character AUs. I enjoy plot AUs because I like imagining how the characters I already know and love would react in interesting ways to new and different situations not seen in canon. I'm much less into AUs where the characters have been changed such that they only superficially resemble the ones that I'm a fan of.

For the most obvious example of this, let’s take Maki. The reasons I love her, the things that really make her Maki to me, are the trauma she suffered in being forced to be an assassin, the issues and self-loathing she has today because of that, and how amazing it is that she still manages to be a good person at heart despite everything. A Maki who was literally anything other than the Ultimate Assassin wouldn't have any of that, and then she's just... not really Maki any more. It's not just that she obviously wouldn't try to kill Kokichi; none of her story would be the same at all.

The same also goes for anyone else who's talent-swapped into being an Ultimate Assassin, because that level of trauma is going to significantly change anyone. To take another example, because this is a hypothetical I have actually thought about a bit, let's try to imagine an Ultimate Assassin Kaito.

With the caveat that I don't actively seek out every talent-swap out there, I've happened across an assassin-Kaito concept or two that basically looks like the same Kaito: he incidentally murders people for a job, but then he also still has sidekicks and looks after kids and is his usual optimistic Kaito-y self when he's not doing a murder. That's a cute idea; I understand the desire to keep Kaito recognisable, but I just... I don't think that would be possible. I don't think anyone, no matter how resilient, could still be like that after going through what Maki went through and being forced to kill so many people. Maki didn't end up the way she did because she was weak; far from it.

(And it's obviously even less possible that Kaito wasn't forced and traumatised into this just like Maki was, because he'd never choose to kill people for a living. Perhaps we could imagine that Kaito was at one of the cult-run orphanages (for minimal changes, maybe his grandparents weren't there after his parents died? oh nooo) and got scouted, and/or volunteered in order to protect someone else because he's exactly as selfless as Maki.)

After going through all that, especially since he started from the same point of someone fundamentally very selfless and caring, an assassin-Kaito's issues would end up very similar to canon-Maki's. He'd still care about other people beneath it all, but it'd be hard to notice that when he'd also hate himself and feel like he doesn't deserve to be around anyone, let alone help them, because who'd want advice from a killer?

The only really different part would be his outward personality. Kaito's general personality is nothing like what Maki's was pre-trauma, so he'd have ended up with something quite different from Maki's cold aloofness. Specifically, if you'll bear with me on the out-of-left-field example here, I think he might have ended up looking something like Axel from Kingdom Hearts. (I once hyperfixated on Axel, okay, so I've thought about this a lot.)

In short, Axel used to be a good kid, a bit of a cocky attention seeker but with a heart of gold, until he was forced into doing horrible things for an evil organisation against his will. He pretty much coped with that by accepting that he's A Bad Guy now, and owning it, carrying out his evil missions in a stylish, badass sort of way, like a twisted version of the cocky kid he used to be. This also conveniently gives him something he can focus on to avoid thinking about all the things he hates and never wanted about this. Given that Kaito was a vaguely similar kind of kid to what Axel used to be, it seems possible that he might cope in a similar way if put through the child-slave-assassin wringer.

But, while the end result would definitely be a very fun and fascinating character, my point is that it still wouldn't be Kaito as we know him at all. It'd be an entirely new character. He'd have Kaito's name and face and pre-assassin-training childhood, but those details would be the least interesting things about him.

(I would recommend checking out Axel's storyline to see a character along these lines, but honestly the required untangling of the Kingdom Hearts lore-spaghetti is not necessarily worth your while. That and all this stuff about his issues is pretty subtle and I only really noticed it at all because I happened to like him enough to hyperfixate for a while.)

Even putting aside the extreme example of an assassin talent, a lot of Danganronpa characters are as great as they are specifically because their personality and their talent make such a good combination. Take Shuichi, whose issues and character arc and potential as an interesting protagonist revolve around the fact that he's an Ultimate Detective who starts out weak. A pianist Shuichi would just be a somewhat anxious and insecure pianist, which wouldn't be especially interesting or important to the progression of a killing game. Meanwhile, a detective Kaede would be way more confident about her detectiveness than Shuichi and would probably look something like a more optimistic and trusting Kyoko; again, less interesting. [Edit: or would she?] To bring in some other combinations of these four, a detective Maki would look very similar to Kyoko, because she'd have similar trust issues from her orphanage days.

As for a detective Kaito, sure, we can imagine a Kaito who's the same kind of person but with a passion for solving mysteries (which he’s also actually good at) instead of space. He'd still do his sidekick thing, of course, because the only thing that'd make him lose that central part of himself is loads of childhood trauma. But then this Kaito is just genuinely every bit the hero everyone needs, solving the cases and supporting the others in one package... and, whoops, there goes all of his issues and character arc. At best, he'd still struggle a little with the Gonta situation in trial 4, but that struggle wouldn't be actually about Shuichi and so it wouldn't be nearly as fun. (A detective Kaito still wouldn't struggle as much to accept Gonta did it, either, because he'd be someone who's used to trusting the facts and logic alongside his instincts about people to intuit the truth.) And he’d still struggle a bit with dying if we gave him the virus, but so much less so, because at least he’d be obviously managing to be the hero he wants to be before the end.

An astronaut Maki would pretty much just be a regular astronaut who happened to be an orphan. She'd need to have taught herself to be good with communication and teamwork because that's necessary to be an astronaut, so she'd mostly just be a little bit like Kaito but extremely toned down. (Again, Maki without her assassin trauma kind of just becomes a fairly ordinary competent person and not really Maki as we know her.) Even then, it's a huge stretch that someone pragmatic and cautious like her would have been willing to risk losing everything just to take the astronaut exam as a teenager. And an astronaut Shuichi doesn't even seem possible; he'd have been way too insecure to apply to astronaut training early like Kaito did, no matter how badly he'd hypothetically love to go to space. Really, Kaito's reckless personality is a necessary part of having an Ultimate - as in, teenage - Astronaut. Pretty much all of these kids' talents are intrinsically tied in some way into who they are as a person and as a character in this story.

The only talent-swap within these particular four characters we're talking about that I think would work in terms of keeping them basically themselves is between Kaito and Kaede. That's because they were both written with the talents they have to help enhance the kind of people they are, and they're such similar people in the first place. Both of them are selfless and optimistic and all about working together and helping others; Kaede plays music to make people smile, while Kaito's astronaut training requires him to be someone who values communication and co-operation. I can just about see a talent-swap between these two making sense while still retaining everything important about who they are as people and keeping their stories roughly the same. You'd have a space-flavoured Kaede and a music-flavoured Kaito, but their personalities would still be very recognisably them.

(Though, still, I dunno if I'd have loved a pianist Kaito quite as much. There's just something about that space theme that helps get across how bombastically over-the-top he is in a way that a more down-to-earth talent simply can't quite match. Also, that execution.)

...The problem with this, though, is that the new music-Kaito and space-Kaede wouldn't be all that meaningfully interesting to explore compared to their original versions. Which I guess is kind of the unavoidable catch-22 I have with character AUs. Making big changes to a character can be an interesting thought experiment, but it ultimately results in them no longer being the characters I've grown to love any more, while changes that keep them still recognisably the same people are inherently going to be pretty superficial changes that aren’t worth exploring very much.

#danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #kaito momota #maki harukawa #shuichi saihara #kaede akamatsu #thanks for the ask!#me: i'm not interested in thinking about this concept much #also me: thinks about it a whole bunch for this ask anyway #Anonymous

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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 4 years

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I have a silly Napoleon ask for you: if he suddenly woke up in the present day what do you think he would a)like most about it b) like least about it c)get unreasonably addicted to d)decide to do for a living

hahah I’ve answered a similar one before here and here.

Most Like About It: A lot, I think. Central heating. Guys, he’d fucking love central heating.

In general, he’d love most technological advances. Cars, planes, trains etc. like he’d be very into that. “Bertrand we’re going to ride the TGV all day every day. Look at how fast we are going! This is genius.”

“Bertrand WE ARE IN THE SKY. This is AMAZING. We are going from Paris to Rome in a matter of HOURS. HOURS BERTRAND. WE DON’T HAVE TO CROSS MOUNTAINS.” (sorry just assuming this is exile Napoleon who woke up in modern day.)

Public transit in general - the metro, buses - anything that makes life more efficient for people. Dishwasher, washers/dryers, modern electricity, laptops, printers, ball point pens etc.

I suspect he’d be a big supporter of public health care and all the advances made on vaccines and medicine in general. 100% would hate anti-vaxxers. Pro-modern glasses (he’d get himself a pair asap. Then they’d explain contacts to him and I think he’d be like “WAIT NO, I WANT THOSE.” He would not be into lasik, I suspect).

Modern hygiene! Razors, tooth brushes, floss, moisturizer - general daily body care he’d probably be keen on. (All that stuff we take for granted.) Though maybe not all of it, he was quite traditional in certain things (his penchant for older fashion, par exemple). Maybe he’d keep the old straight razor shaving approach. But modern dentistry would be a huge improvement and I can’t see him being against it. Especially as someone who had a tooth extracted in the early 19th century.

‘Oh they give you pain killers now? Fantastic.’

‘Sir, we just numb the area where we are doing the work.’

‘So it doesn’t impede my awareness? Amazing. Please, fix all my teeth right now.’

He’d also support the greater access to education that exists, especially compared to his day. Also, streaming services. He would binge so many things. ‘Bertrand we are watching every thing this very soothing sounding British naturalist made about planet earth. Holy shit look at that they’re under water! They’re at the bottom of the ocean! Bertrand look at this. if only Josephine were here. She’d be so excited.’

Pro-zoom/Microsoft teams/facetime etc. 100%. ‘If I had this instead of people relying on my bad handwriting ...’

Oh, he’d like the EU as a concept. Except he would be very disappointed that France wasn’t at the helm. I think France’s position globally would disappoint him, overall. But yeah, the broad principles espoused by the concept of the European Union would appeal to him.

Brexit though. Lol. I think he’d enjoy watching England shoot itself in the foot. But if you asked him for his opinion, as in “do you think the UK should do this” he would answer no. They should remain.

He would like globalization, trade agreements, things like NAFTA, CETA etc. Supporter of big government. Reduction of religion in public sphere. Though would he be pro-banning visual manifestations of faith? (i.e. Hijab etc.) I don’t know. I doubt it. Simply because he was very focused on religion in government, so if churches aren’t involved in decision making, what citizens get up to on their own is their business (so long as you don’t cause problems). But I don’t know, he might be pro-it, because he was also into assimilation and creating a broad sense of a French culture. I could see him really going either way on it. It’d probably come down to whatever he thought would garner the most public support as a political move (since a lot of his more liberal moves as a leader were tied to understanding that marginalized communities would gun hard for him if he helped them).

He would be pro-mask wearing for COVID because he wasn’t a fucking idiot and lived in a time when pandemics were still a real going concern.

He would also probably like how comfortable modern clothing is. I don’t think he’d like how cheap and made-to-wear-out that most brands are, but he’d like the over all philosophy. Like Napoleon would dig t-shirts. Lounge wear. The fact that jeans have some stretch in them. That sort of thing.

Least Like: I think he’d be very wary of the internet. For many reasons. For the lack of government control (Napoleon “What is a free press? never heard of her” Bonaparte). But also, because of the misinformation problems. The side effects many of us are now bearing witness to, and experiencing the ramifications of.

He would dislike the whole fake news nonsense. Oh this man was a master spin-doctor, very good at twisting a narrative around to suit him, but he still did have respect for and a firm belief in basic facts. Especially fake news that usurped the sound advise of scientists and doctors (i.e. COVID nonsense).

Free press, I think he would be wary of it. Mostly from a government control perspective. Like as a day-to-day citizen, since he wouldn’t be anyone in power in this hypothetical, I think he’d value it. He would do that disassocative thing he did when he talked about things in the abstract. That cold, calculating way he would position himself in a situation and be like “Ah yes, these are the things that need to be tamped down if you want control of a populace as a monarch”. Then he had his more liberal, call-back-to-that-misspent-jacobin-youth moments where his views shifted.

I suppose it would also depend what age this hypothetical Napoleon is. He softened a lot in retirement exile. Napoleon at the height of his power, thirty-odd years old, different man to fifty year old Napoleon.

Would not be into women in politics. He’d be like ‘Why is there a woman in charge of Germany? Also what happened to the Habsburgs? Where’s Prussia? Silesia? What the FuCk is happening in the Balkans? I’m very confused about Europe’s current geographic layout. ...Corsica...still doing you, I see.’

He’d dislike Trump and his cronies. As I wrote before: “ I think Napoleon would find Trump disgusting on a personal level. Uneducated, incapable of holding a real conversation, gauche, anti-intellectual, anti-fact-based discussion, anti-science, anti-art etc. He’d also feel that Trump is disgracing the position of President and that he is unworthy of leadership. Napoleon would also find Trump physically repulsive as he could be a wee bit shallow in some of his assessments (though, very early modern to 19th century to assume your physical appearance is a manifestation of your interiority).”

Steve Bannon’s fiddling with finances? Napoleon would find that repulsive. Mitch Mcconnell disgracing his office by fucking around with constitutional loop holes? Napoleon would think it a disgrace.

He had a lot of respect for America’s experiment with democracy. Like, quite a lot of respect. So I think he’d be vastly disappointed in not only the person occupying the white house, but also a lot of the apathy in voting that is going around. (Yes, this coming from a [mostly] absolutest monarch, too.) But Napoleon valued and respected the notion of civic duty. If you live in a democracy, you have a duty to participate. To opt out is to shirk that duty which he would find insulting and distasteful. Because, I would argue, he was very much a believer in people doing right by their fellow citizens.

Get unreasonably addicted to: MODERN BATHS. HE WOULD NEVER LEAVE THE BATHTUB. THEY CAN HAVE JETS AND EVERYTHING BERTRAND THIS IS GREAT.

Also central heating. Saunas. Jacuzzis. He was like a wee lizard seeking warmth at all times.

I think he’d be into driving. I don’t know if he would be good at it. Don’t let Napoleon take the wheel, guys. But if someone else was driving he’d be that person “go faster. you’re driving like my grandmother.” And gods, he’d do dumb shit like drive like a maniac around the arc de triumph six times in a row because he’s an adrenaline junkie and a risk-taker (it’s that bored ADD brain of his). The autobahn would be his dream.

I think he’d be super into epic fantasy series. Like the big sweeping ones like Lord of the Rings. I think less so GRRM because GRRM is unrealistic and Napoleon is pedantic. Especially about politics and war. Exhibit A: consider Napoleon’s very detailed nitpicking of Virgil on his inaccurate rendition of Troy from a military perspective. Therefore, I suspect GRRM’s lack of accuracy in how society works, how war works, how politics works, all the plot holes and illogical character decisions, would drive him up the wall. Napoleon liked Homer because he could tell Homer had been to war. And you can tell Tolkien has been to war. Also LOTR hits all those notes of high-hearted emotion and big sweeping scenes that Napoleon so liked in Ossian and the Illiad etc.

All this to say, overall, as a genre, I think those big, sweeping fantasies with lots of plot, politics, intrigue, soaring battles, great heights of emotion - he’d love that. It would hit all of his buttons for what he liked in fiction. Lots of emotion, lots of action, lots of big scenes, lots of crazy shenanigans. This can also be applied to Sci-fi. I think he’d be a big nerd on that too. But the science would have to make sense.

I think he’d be into Star Trek, particularly Picard, if only for the philosophical aspects of it. He liked those sorts of questions and hypotheticals. So I think he’d binge all of The Next Generation (among other seasons).

Do for a living: Teach? God knows. This is Napoleon from 18-something who just woke up? He could be paid for consultant work for historians and film crews and the like, I guess. Just to tell them how accurate stuff is. Of course, be wary, this is Napoleon I Am A Spin Doctor Bonaparte.

I think he could lean into writing histories - particularly the classics, early French and European history - that sort of thing, where he already has a strong background in it and it wouldn’t require him basically learning an entirely new trade. Like, will Napoleon ever fully be a natural with computers and cell phones? Probably not. Could he be like your old school Professor emeritus who still churns out papers and does 90% of it the old fashioned by-hand way? Yes. And Napoleon had a bunch of histories planned on St. Helena that he wanted to write, so I think he could do that.

As this is literally Napoleon Bonaparte he’d get a book deal in seconds. There’d be a bidding war over it.

Thank you for the ask! This was very amusing :D

#napoleon #napoleon was his own shitpost #napoleon bonaparte #napoleonic #napoleon in the modern day #ask #reply #anon

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clownao · 4 years

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Hear me out- AssClass Open World Video Game

Whaaaat?

Listen, I know AssClass has/ had several video games, and the mobile one was centered around… cards I think? (I got into AssClass after the game shut down RIP.) But imagine… open world AssClass game… set in Kunugigaoka… where you can create your own character… and you can befriend all of the 3-E kids (and maybe even the teachers/ some main campus students)… plus skill trees… different stat points that you can allocate to build your character… lessons… different weapons… different assassinations… just IMAGINE. The P O T E N T I A L.

Okay I have many unrealistic thoughts about this idea so I just had to vomit them all out. This is a long post. You have been warned.

Character Creation

Like the premise of half of the AssClass Wattpad fics, you can create your own character/ 3-E student! You can customize hair colour, eye colour, hairstyle, etc. To prevent OP assassins, MC will be a normal student at Kunugigaoka who had been dropped down to 3-E because of 1) poor grades or 2) violation of school rules.

I think it would be nice if the player could choose the reason why MC was sent to 3-E. If they chose “poor grades”, MC would have a lower INT stat and have a harder time in lessons/ exams. If they chose “violation of school rules”, while MC would have the default INT stat, they would have a harder time befriending the other students due to their negative reputation.

I think some sort of RPG style stat point allocation would be fun, with basics such as STR, AGI, VIT, and INT. As MC levels up, they gain more stat points. STR of course boots raw power, AGI for speed, VIT for stamina I guess, and maybe INT for increased chances of critical attacks?

Gameplay

There are two parts- the main quest, and the sidequests. Obviously the main quest is the plot of AssClass, while the sidequests can be cutesy little ways to increase your bonding/ friendship with the 3-E kids.

I think in this hypothetical game, there would be roughly 365 in-game days to correspond with the time 3-E spent with Korosensei. For every day in the game, the player would have to complete certain necessary tasks. Once the tasks are completed, they can either choose to do sidequests/ other stuff, or move on to the next day. Some of the days are plot relevant, such as the day of Irina’s first appearance, the day of the Island Assassination etc., but for most days, the player can do whatever they want.

It would be interesting to see how this game would do weekends and holidays. Why am I phrasing it as if it’s ACTUALLY real. :P I guess MC can go out to town and meet up with their friends? And they definitely need to train for the Island Assassination during the summer holidays.

The Best of Both Worlds

Assassination Classroom is not only about assassination- it’s also about education. And this game will show both sides of 3-E.

Studying

The INT stat of MCs will contribute to this side of the game. I’m thinking there might be three compulsory lessons (taught by Korosensei/ Irina) and maybe one training session per day (at least, per schoolday). Like maybe the lessons will be mini-quizzes or mini-games or something, and after a lesson is successfully completed, MC gains XP and knowledge, which can then be used in… assassinations, I guess? And of course the knowledge will be used for clearing exam levels. The more knowledge MC has, the easier time they have with exams and assassinations. The INT stat affects how much knowledge MC can gain in one lesson.

Test and exams are sort of like mini-bosses and bosses in the game. Since AssClass portrays exams as some sort of actual boss fight, it would be fun to do that in the game as well. Maybe a higher knowledge level allows you to choose more powerful “weapons” to bring into the “arena” (aka. exams).

Assassination

The STR, AGI and VIT stats would contribute to the assassination part. A skill tree sounds COOL, especially with the wide range of skills the 3-E kids have. Like maybe at the beginning, only knife skills and shooting skills are unlocked, but as the game progresses, MC can choose between camouflage/ combat/ traps/ infiltration and more!

MC can train their skills during compulsory daily training sessions (taught by Karasuma) and optional afterschool practices. It would be nice if the training session can somehow focus on different skills on different days (?). It would also be WACK if there’s a shooting arcade in Kunugigaoka Town or something so MC can train during the holidays.

And now for the exciting part! ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS! :D :D

I’ve tried to keep things simple, but I feel like I’ve oversimplified assassinations lol :P So there are three parts to a basic attempt- 1) Distract 2) Attack 3) Critical Hit. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Distract Korosensei using something, attack him to disorient him and block his path, and the final critical killing blow. All three parts are necessary.

(Of course there are different sorts of attempts- like poisoning, but those are special cases.)

Assassination attempts can be made easier if the player has the right information- such as information on Korosensei’s weaknesses. The player can also choose the weapon(s) and the item(s) that will distract Korosensei.

Of course none of the attempts actually succeed (because Korosensei has plot armour), so maybe the game can judge the assassination attempt using other methods (damage dealt, stamina left or something?)

MC uses stamina to activate skills. When all of their stamina runs out, they fail the attempt and they do not get any rewards.

While MC can attempt solo assassinations, it’s best if they find some friends (more on that later). Group assassinations require a certain amount of friendship between the participants because cooperation is necessary. Assassinations can only be attempted once a day, and they reward the player with XP, knowledge, and maybe experience to upgrade their skills.

The Main Quest

Basically all the canon stuff you see in the manga and anime. Maybe cutscenes can be used lol. While compulsory activities (lessons, training sessions) and optional activities (assassinations, afterschool practices) are available every schoolday, plot-relevant days will force the MC to participate in events like exams, whole-school assemblies, or assassinations. While MC can react to the events, they cannot change the main plot no matter how much they try. Korosensei still has to die. Sorry :P

Sidequests

Quests that can increase your friendship level with the 3-E kids. And maybe they can give out special items. Like perhaps after completing a sidequest with Sugaya, not only do you get closer to Sugaya, you can also unlock the “camouflage” skill or something.

Friendships

It would be ideal if you can like, befriend ALL OF THE 3-E KIDS. I actually thought a lot about this.

MC’s Friends

Maybe MC has like five friend slots or something, which can be filled up with NPCs (3-E kids) after a certain friendship level is reached. These “MC’s friends” will form a squad of sorts and will sit with MC during lunch, go out with MC during holidays etc. They can also cooperate much better during assassinations.

Reputation

If MC behaves well, their reputation increases, and they get more friendship XP through each interaction. Vice-versa when MC behaves badly. If the player chooses “violation of school rules” as the reason why MC was dropped into 3-E, they will automatically start off with a low reputation.

Friendship level

MC can talk to NPCs and react correspondingly to get friendship XP and increase their reputation. Some NPCs are easier to approach, like Isogai and Kataoka. You gain more friendship XP compared to the default amount. Others, like Chiba and Hayami, are very introverted, so you gain less friendship XP per interaction. You can give gifts to NPCs. You can even give birthday gifts if you know when their birthday is. Through interactions, MC can gain knowledge of the NPCs, such as their favourite colour, food, etc, and give them presents which correspond to their likes.

If MC reacts negatively, they will lose friendship XP and reputation.

Maaaaybe there can be different levels like “Classmates” “Acquaintances” “Groupmates” “Partners” “Friends” “Close Friends” and “Best Friends”. And maybe even “Rivals” and “Enemies” if MC insults them LMAO.

When a friendship is maxed out, the classmate gives MC something special. It could be a weapon, or an accessory, or a book that can increase knowledge or something.

Established Friendships

The 3-E kids already have friendships of their own! And if you befriend a 3-E kid, it’ll be easier/faster to befriend that student’s friends. For example, if you befriend Yada, it’ll be way easier to befriend Kurahashi. The same happens if you insult a 3-E kid. If you insult Hayami, you won’t find a very friendly Chiba anytime soon.

Group Assassinations

In order to be able to recruit a classmate into a group assassination, MC needs to have a certain level of friendship with them. The recruited classmate can have special skills, like increased speed for Kimura, infiltration skills for Yada, close combat skills for Karma etc, which can be very useful. I think being friends with Nagisa also gives you special insight into Korosensei’s weakness. The higher the friendship level, the better the group will work.

For example, you can have Kurahashi perform the Distraction, MC and Kataoka Attack, and Chiba perform the Critical Hit. Or maybe MC can train up their skills and perform the critical hit themselves.

Romances???

I have NO idea how this would work??? It would probably fuck up the canon crushes/ relationships lol. It’ll probably require a maxed out friendship.

Kunugigaoka Town

MC gets to hang out in town!! Yeeeeee

There are different shops in town which can be used to buy gifts/ supplies for assassinations.

MC can visit shops/ eat with classmates to gain friendship XP after school/ during weekends and holidays.

NOTE: THEY ALL REQUIRE MONEY

MC probably receives some pocket money every week/month. They may also earn money from other places (such as jobs)????? Maybe they can convince Isogai to give them a discount? Lmaoo.

(Maxed out friendship with Muramatsu definitely allows you to eat at his family’s shop for free :D)

Maaaybe there’s a gym/ shooting arcade that allows MC to train outside of school.

Anyways I’m tired, this is all I have for today. If you’ve managed to come this far, thanks for reading this chaotic mess of an idea dump :D (Sorry for the weird phrasing and sentence structures ;-;) I’m definitely not an expert with video game terminology, and if anyone has something to add, please do so! :D

#assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #korosensei #3-e #video game #nao's 2am thoughts

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nyelung · 4 years

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How to write asexual characters

Ok, first of, this will include at least some personal experience because I am an ace and I live with a fellow ace in a non-sexual partnership.

Some general words: Being ace does not define us and neither should it define the character you are writing. It's just a part of our life and, unless I come into contact with annoying people it defines my life about as much as the choice of my clothes or the cut of my hair. Meaning: I barely think about it most of the time unless being ace or something sexual is the topic of the current talk or thing I read or the media I consume.

Asexualtiy includes a whole big spectrum so there's lots of free space to form your character. I guess most prevalent is the picture of the sex repulsed, "irgh, make it go away" kind of ace. There's a lot of others, too. Some are sex repulsed and the bare thought of sex makes them ill. Some are sex repulsed but have no trouble thinking about others having sex or consuming porn. Some just don't want to have sex with other people but do have a libido and therefore tend to masturbate. Some are ace but have sex with other people because they got an allosexual (that means a person who is "default" sexwise) partner or are curious or want the connection but do not much care about sex otherwise. Some only have sex with people they are also romantically interested in (careful, though, sometimes these people label themselves as ace, sometimes they label themselves as demi, sometimes as something different. it's a personal preference and should be respected).

What I mean to say by this is: you can go very, very wild. I'd say the most common denominator for ace people is that we don't experience the same sexual attraction that allo people experience. For me it's the "looking at someone and wanting sex with them" for example. I still think it's something of a myth but apparently it actually happens. Others do get some sexual attraction but rarely if ever only sexual attraction like "I'd bang him/her/them but that's everything about him/her/them that I'm interested in".

Other example: Most sex scenes in movies turn me off really, really bad so that I often skip the scene or drop the movie altogether.

So, how to depict an ace person in literature?

Just as you would when writing a PoC character or a trans character or a gay character: let us have more of a personality than that one trait of being PoC/trans/gay/ace. Let your ace character have hobbies, likes and dislikes, a job, children, pets, a certain flair of clothes or home decoration, favourite games and movies and books. Let your ace character have allergies, talents, interests and so on.

Yes, being ace and wanting a child is not mutually exclusive.

Yes, an ace can be mentally ill and there might be a causal relation for your ace but it doesn't have to be. An ace does not need to be traumatized or "broken" to be ace. We just are.

- Short addendum to that: There are aces who have had bad experiences with sex mostly because they thought they had to like it. So, especially as an allo writer you might want to keep this in mind but not necessarily write it out because a) it's rarely important to the story and b) it's very easy to slip into the broken and traumatized stereotype. -

Yes, an ace can be nonbinary as well as be an ace. An ace can also happily identify as every other gender. Though I'd guess it's easier for StraightTM people to read if you don't make it too complicated.

Apart from that, your ace character will have lived through ace experiences and they are a part of what makes your ace character ace. They just shouldn't be their only defining characteristic. There is, however, NOT a universal ace experience since we come from different cultures, backgrounds, are different persons and live on a wide spectrum. Just like there is not a universal PoC experience etc.

I think a common experience and so far have not met an ace person who didn't have this experience is the "oh"-moment. That moment when funnily enough it all falls into place and you go "oh." and then go "I think I'm ace". (Though there are also questioning people and that's fine and sometimes the "oh" is more of an "huh, I guess?")

That oh-Moment can happen in a multitude of ways but usually the internet or friends helped along. You read something about what being ace feels like and realize that that's your experience. Or you talk to a friend who is ace and explains it and you go silent and are "oh."

Some aces figure it out very early, some very late. Some figure it out on their own and lack the language to give words to their experience, others come into contact with the community early.

Another experience that is quite common as an ace and a sad one is the feeling of being broken or wrong or faulty. The society most of us or maybe even all of us live in is very focussed on finding a partner and then procreating with said partner and so on. Not every ace grew up in the nuclear family model but as far as I know it's usually expected for people to find a partner and settle down and have kids. Many aces know that those expectations are placed on them and feel broken or wrong or faulty because they can't fill those expectations in the way they are "supposed" to be filled.

A lot of aces also live in a closet in the way other queer people often do. Aces who come out of the closet often face similar or sometimes verbatim the same alienation other queer people do. There's people telling us we're sick. There's people who say we just haven't met the right one yet. There's people who are really intrusive and ask about "but have you tried this and that yet" or "but have you gone to the doctor yet?" There's the relatives that go all "but don't you want to have children? but if you adopt they won't be your own". There's a general not-understanding from allos and so on.

But there's also people who are genuinely interested and then you suddenly want to explain how life feels for you but how do you find the words for something that is so different? When I talk to allos, I often realize that I look at the world in a completely different way. I'm not even sure how to properly put it into words. One part of it is probably the looking at people and ... not experiencing any urge to fuck any of them? Let's just say that the game of "fuck, marry, kill" usually ended with three kills on my part. Like, imagine the most sexy person you can come up with? I don't know. Imagine them naked in your bed or wherever. Imagine them also being a great person overall. I'd ask them to put on clothes. I'm more interested in a bag of chips or a really great pizza or cuddling with the kitties than in having sex with that person.

Aces in an ace community are just like gays in a gay community and so on. We share similar experiences and can relate to each other in a way. We are also not all friends and have differing opinions.

Not every ace person is a saint (and being ace and having no sex is different than being abstinent for example because one is just personal preference while the other is a not doing of something one would like to do). We are also not sinners or freaks. We are just people and people come in every way.

Being ace doesn't necessarily mean being a) a virgin b) innocent or c) childish. So if you write an adult ace character, please write them as mature as you would write an adult allo character. Me being childish, for example, has nothing to do with my sexuality and much more to do with a fuck you to a society that thinks I should not enjoy certain things because I'm an adult and then indulging myself with writing fairytales and watching cartoons.

Ace people don't speak different from allo people. About the only different thing in our speech is an abundance of jokes about being ace, for example "I'm too ace for this shit" wrt bullshit romance-sex plots, "I ACED that test" and so on. I know a lot of people who love really, really stupid puns on being ace but that might just be my friend bubble and less a general thing. (So that one guide about how ace people do not use "sexual" swear words? er.... everyone says fuck. really. and some aces, like me, can get really creative in swearing and sexual stuff happens to come with that, too.)

Though aces often feel broken or faulty, as an author you should not, really should not, depict us that way. So, before there's misunderstandings. In writing you got the character voice and the author voice. So even though the character may think of themselves as broken, you as the author should use a different phrasing and words and so on, to show that it's only the character's point of view and not your own. Yes, I know, that requires a reader to have critical thinking and the current purity cultists do seem to have trouble actually thinking properly but that's not all people.

Asexuality is not something that needs to be cured. We aren't sick. If a person is happy with being an ace, then, really, you shouldn't force them to be sexually active. Same goes for your character. There are aces who want to have sex and get medical help to experience some libido and that's okay but it should come from the person/character and not from their surroundings. As an author, think about the message you're sending when you establish a character as ace and then "cure" them of their aceness and also let them have a "happy ending" with their one true love and live sexually happily fulfilled. It happens for people but for a lot of us this hypothetical plotline goes straight back into the thing of "you just haven't met the right one yet". So maybe, if you write an ace and I'd love to see more aces in literature, do it differently. Let the ace realize that their current surroundings are not exactly ideal and have them either change the way their surroundings think or change surroundings altogether. Have the other people change themselves. Just do not make the ace's character arc about becoming sexually available to the true love or similar shit. If you do, you better write it very, very well because otherwise it would just erase our identity in the same way psychological guidelines still classify being ace as a sickness and not a valid identity.

Aces are not immune to sirens. We like to joke about that but sirens sing about what you desire most and not about having sex with you, so if there's sirens offering me unlimited, high-speed internet, I'd jump ship so fast, Odysseuss wouldn't have time to facepalm.

From what I experienced, aces like to flock together. It's just very relaxing to not worry about "does [other person] interpret this thing as wanting to be sexual?". With ace friends it's very easy to slip into a "I do not and will never want to have sex with you but a bit of cuddling and a massage would be fun". Also, fellow aces get stupid ace puns faster. And with fellow aces it's easier to shit on unnecessary romance-subplots and wonder why the fuck everyone thinks about being fucked by this or that actor even though they are aesthetically pleasing.

Oh, maybe it's an ace thing, maybe it's just a socially awkward thing, maybe a combination, but during my time in school, there was a phase where all the girls would find one or the other young teacher attractive. I never got that. Neither did other aces I know.

I think, that's about all I can think of for now? Basically, if you write ace characters, write them just like other characters in a way that allows every character to have their own experiences and voice. And, you know, we got a community, so you can always ask us. There's blogs dedicated to being ace, to our experiences and voices and also to our jokes.

#writing #reference #asexuality #long post

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go-diane-winchester · 5 years

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Destihellers think Jensen Ackles is a whore

A miniature heller sent a question to a big shot heller. Apparently because the big shot heller has all the answers. Forgive the grammatical errors. Hellers are known for their lack of intelligence. Kindly tolerate it. The person who sent this to me, said that she felt bad touched. I agree.

Question

i just really wanna know your thoughts on this: let's say extremely hypothetically that spn decided to make destiel canon, and not even in an overly overt way, but maybe they just make dean and cas chastely kiss once or twice & up the affection just a notch. do you even think jensen would be okay with that at all? would he be totally against it and prevent it altogether? just seems to me he wouldn't be open to it at all

The shocking answer

okay i could be totally off with this, but here’s my theory

if they decided to make destiel canon, they’d talk to both jensen and misha about it beforehand. we know for a fact that the only time the production staff asked the actors for “permission” to do something was for the french mistake, and i think destiel would be a similar situation. they’d give the actors the courtesy of warning them, not because they’re required to, but because they involve the actors in more decisions than most other tv shows. so jensen would know that it’s coming and would be able to air all his grievances before it happens. and the production staff would probably do a good job of convincing him that it’s the right decision for the show.

Madame Poop-for-brains doesn't realize that the writer's room handles decision making, not the production staff. She says ''Jensen will be asked'', followed by 'he will be convinced'. In other words, they will force him. And she is ok with sexual coercion.

no but seriously, i’ll say it again and i’ll say it every day for the rest of my life: actors don’t get to make decisions. actors have almost no power whatsoever when it comes to the production of a tv show or movie or whatever. i went to a very christian high school and i was on the acting team, and something we talked a lot about was how much we’d be willing to do for a role. we agreed that if u want to make it in acting, u have to be willing to be naked onstage, do a sex scene onstage, all kinds of naughty stuff that christians shouldn’t do. but guess what! actors who refuse to do things…..don’t make it very far. their job is,,,,to do things. to follow directions. to realize the vision of the production staff through their performance. EVEN IF THEY DON’T LIKE IT!!! (and yes, this means acting can be a morally ambiguous career. i’m glad i don’t act anymore; too stressful.)

Jensen marched to the show runner's office to rant over the 200th episode being titled ''Fan Fiction'' because he feared it was going to be about destiel. He removed that stupid ''I love you'' line from the Crypt. He also changed an entire set of dialogues regarding that insufferable trench coat. He is allowed carte blanche when it comes to artistic decision. From Michael's character to his wardrobe, almost all the artistic credit for Michael goes to Jensen.

now, spn is a LITTLE different. j2 are in a very, very rare position where they know that the show doesn’t exist without them. they have a *little* more power than most actors do. enough to change lines in a script or adlib something - but definitely NOT enough to stop a major plot point from happening. if jensen refused to do something as dramatic as kissing misha collins, he would be blacklisted. he would likely never be hired again. it would be career suicide.

This creature needs a clue. Actors get blacklisted for the following reasons, many of which match Misha, not Jensen:

Consistent bad behavior on and off set. [Like lying that he was mugged and getting caught out by mass media]

Unprofitable box office records [Misha is too much of a nobody for this one]

Bad acting [Like Empty!Cas and Hitler!Cas]

Lack of viewer interest [Outside of destiel, nobody cares about Misha Collins]

Being a one hit wonder [Misha is only famous - or infamous - for Cas]

Having terrible acting range [Misha can only play Cas. He gets laughed at for other characters. By his co-workers, no less.]

Making damaging artistic decisions [like the Empty voice, that Jensen laughed at, on stage, in front of everyone]

Being pigeon-holed into characters types and genres

Taking too long a hiatus from acting [how I wish Misha will do that]

Playing a character so annoying that audience don't want to see you again. [Lets see where Misha ends up after Supernatural]

Taking ambitious projects, thereby acting out of your box, badly [like Hitler!Cas]

…..and do i believe he’d sacrifice his career by being, for lack of a better term, homophobic? no, i don’t. i don’t think he’s that dumb or that homophobic.

There's the scary word they use to harass Jensen. ''Be our whore or we will destroy your reputation''.

if the powers that be decided that destiel needed to happen, no amount of jensen’s possessiveness over dean winchester’s nonexistent heterosexuality or aversion to kissing his big gay crush on camera in front of millions of people is going to stop destiel from being canon. jensen’s job is to say lines and look pretty. he doesn’t get to “”””not allow”””” somethin to happen. that’s not how this works my dudes

WHAT IS JENSEN?!? A $50 WHORE?!!?

Not to mention this whole “Jensen would never allow it” is a BLANTANT AND GROSS insult to the man’s incredible top notch professionalism!

Oh, so he's a professional whore?!?!

These creatures are insufferable. That is why they like Misha. He is a pervert like them. Most fans have too much dignity to fave that freak. Poor Jensen does not deserve this. He deserves respect. He deserves to be left alone.

https://www.thethings.com/blacklisted-hollywood-wont-cast-15-stars-anymore/

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rorykillmore · 6 years

Note

aaand what would you like to see go down with a hypothetical plot where sophie would turn another character?? or like, what are some interesting directions that could go in general i guess

okay so the current plan is that sophie is gonna turn cloud at the end of his geostigma arc, so i’ll answer this in the context of that!

i think just the set up is going to be really interesting? i don’t know yet what sophie’s specific thoughts on the whole affair are going to be, because it depends on how much she likes cloud by that point, but just like... multiple characters being involved in trying to find a cure for the geostigma and that seeming to head towards a very. dismal end before sophie suddenly provides a (potentially controversial) solution has a lot of potential, i think. from cloud’s perspective (quite possibly resigning himself to dying and then not, but having to adjust to a completely new state of being), from sophie’s (making a decision to save someone’s life, the factors that influence her to do that, and how that might get her a little more tied up in... widespread personal affairs than she generally likes to be), and also from the perspective of everyone else involved!

for instance, i’d be really interested to see like... mike’s reaction to cloud becoming a vampire, or nyssa’s, or foxfire’s, or laurel’s. i know dolores is definitely going to have some thoughts on it, which i’m looking forward to playing with as much as i am sophie’s stuff -- thankfully, as a host dolores’ blood is probably as appealing to a vampire as like... the synthetic blood from true blood canon, which is to say, not very. hosts are probably enough to match a baby vampire strength-wise too. so she’ll probably be in a safe enough position to try to help him through some of it, though i’m also just looking forward to how... cloud reacts to not being human anymore, and how dolores reacts to it too, since everyone knows her thoughts on humans but also vampirism is Complicated.

almost everyone else i mentioned is human, so the situation is more precarious for them, and i think there’s a lot of interesting potential in seeing how they have to cope with that and what they think and how cloud’s various relationships grow or change because of it. and whether people generally think sophie did the right thing or not.

sophie has spent the better part of her eternity as a pretty solitary vampire, too. true blood has this lore thing where it’s generally Bad if a bunch of vampires group up longterm because they rub off on each other and become much less ‘human’, and she’s smart enough to avoid that, but there are exceptions made for smaller, more contained dynamics -- maker/progeny bonds most of all. so i’m looking forward to playing with how she adjusts to that transition? being a maker, of course, is a pretty big commitment, but also just the other ways sophie’s life changes for not being as alone as she’s used to anymore and having actual other vampires around on denny.

speaking of transitions, of course one of my favorite aspects of any kind of turning plot like this is the process of the new vampire learning to adapt! i think that’ll be a very important part of the process of like... developing sophie and cloud’s bond, because whatever their relationship is like before this, this kind of thing Definitely puts it in a completely new context. it’s been awhile since sophie’s had to teach a new vampire the ropes, and i think that’ll be cool to see, and also probably on a sadder note... the changes in cloud’s lifestyle and mentality he has to adapt to, and how he copes with his predatory impulses, and the plots that could result from that.

it’ll be a great context for exploring the maker/progeny bond, which is one of the coolest things to come out of true blood lore imo (not that they like, Invented that concept because of course it’s a traditional vampire thing, but i just like their particular take on it). there are a couple of different directions giz and i can take that in, which might require some planning but is also at least partially one of those things you have to feel out organically when you get there.

if you decide to app alucard, i’d also be?? really interested in what he thinks about having a new vampire around?? i think you mentioned in another ask that he resents people who choose vampirism over death, so i’d love to see what he makes of this whole... situation, and what kind of part he takes in cloud’s new life, if any. sophie might be kind of protective of her progeny around a Strange Vampire, but it depends on how well she and alucard know each other by then. and there’s also maria, who’s started hanging around sophie and will probably end up running into cloud somehow, so... idk, maybe we’ll end up with a dysfunctional little supernatural squad at the end of the day.

lastly, i think the most interesting long-term potential for this plot is just like... the developing culture of having a growing number of vampires on denny, and what that means, and if people take notice? it depends on how widely known of a thing cloud’s turning becomes, but at least to some extent i feel like whispers of vampirism spreading could either result in either more people taking an interest (like, if seeking the vampires out out of a desire to be turned or healed wasn’t a thing before, it could be now), and/or more people becoming afraid? like, people who don’t want vampirism to grow or get panicky at the idea of it ‘spreading’, somewhat understandably.

or maybe somewhere in here we can do a little plot with cloud losing control and attacking someone, because that’s a pretty keystone “new vampire” plot element and it certainly spices things up to have people be like “okay now we have PROOF that they’re dangerous” and sophie (and possibly even alucard) having to do some damage control....

idk we’ll see!! but i’m really excited for this because i just feel like there’s SO much we could do with it and so many branching plots that could happen because of it

#thanks eps!!#this got me even more hype #cuts dennys lvad wire #mikexxwheeler

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tomfooleryprime · 6 years

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Voq, Ash Tyler, and Growing up Star Trek

We learned a lot more about the curious case of Lieutenant Ash Tyler/Voq in the Star Trek: Discovery episode, “Vaulting Ambition.” It was finally confirmed in the previous week that the character we know as Ash Tyler is harboring some Klingon memories, but the precise mechanism behind how that happened was still a mystery, until Saru finally brought up the thing we were all wondering about:

Which prompted L’Rell to spill the beans.

“The one you call Tyler was captured in battle at the Binary Stars. We harvested his DNA, reconstructed his consciousness, and rebuilt his memory. We modified Voq into a shell that appears human. We grafted his psyche into Tyler’s, and in so doing, Voq has given his body and soul for our ideology.”

—L’Rell

It’s not all that shocking. Months of fan speculation aside, it’s not like this is a new trope for this franchise.

Remember this guy?

What L’Rell revealed last night opens up an opportunity for Star Trek: Discovery to venture into classic Trek territory in a very un-Trek way. How the hell are we supposed to figure out what to think about Ash Tyler’s situation?

The Trek formula of old would have given us a tidy episode in a box where the captain was confronted with some dilemma and spent the majority of the fifty-two minutes of air time chewing on it in such a way that the audience wasn’t really required to ponder the ramifications because we had a Picard or a Janeway to serve as the wise parental figure and do the messy business of thinking for us.

Yet Discovery lacks that central guiding ethical compass: its main character isn’t a captain, she’s a convict. That arguably makes Michael Burnham the most dynamic lead Star Trek has ever put forward, but because she’s too busy finding her place on a ship in the midst of a war with the Klingons and crawling over heaps of inner turmoil, that doesn’t leave her a lot of free time to tell us how to approach the wider problems presented in each episode. She tries to speak up as the voice of reason (miss you, Ripper!), but thus far, her objections are often drowned out by a plot that’s constantly blazing forward at Warp 10. It makes for good storytelling and character development, but it leaves the analysis of complex issues to the audience.

Think about it—every incarnation of Star Trek up until now had a way of introducing us to problems that were so obviously an allusion to the issues of their respective decades, whether it was Kirk meeting a society of people who desperately needed birth control or Archer ending up in a Suliban detainee camp courtesy of President George Bush… er, whoever the Tandaran leader was during the 2150s.

Captain Picard was the ultimate master of holding viewers’ hands all the way through the first four acts of an episode, carefully spoon feeding us both sides of an issue before finally allowing us to absorb the full weight of an enormous moral, ethical, or philosophical question in the final act with an impassioned speech or contemplative captain’s log entry. We were allowed to be mentally lazy.

Is Data a person? Who’s to say? Let’s literally hold a trial to weigh the evidence!

The issues surrounding Ash Tyler are so enormously complex and raise questions about the nature of consciousness, self, immortality, and bodily autonomy, as well as the role of crime and punishment in society. It seems pretty ambiguous whether or not the real Ash Tyler is still alive in a Klingon prison somewhere, but regardless, maybe we should start by exploring whether we can really call the person lying in Discovery’s sickbay Ash Tyler.

If someone were to duplicate your consciousness and place it into another living being, how would you define that individual? Say hypothetically that you are still alive, so is the other being with your consciousness now also you, an extension of you, or a completely independent being that simply carries your memories? If the original version of you is destroyed, did you really die, if a carbon copy of your mind exists somewhere else? If such a procedure is possible, doesn’t that imply we could theoretically live forever through a series of host bodies?

I feel like this is the premise of one-third of all Black Mirror episodes.

Hopefully, next week’s episode will iron out some of the details behind how the procedure was performed and whether or not L’Rell successfully removed Voq’s consciousness from Tyler’s physical form, but that just raises more questions.

L’Rell indicated that the albino Klingon we knew as Voq in the first three episodes gave up his physical form to look like Ash Tyler, so the body was originally Voq’s.

Alien talent for crafting human flesh bags into suits varies by franchise.

So if L’Rell manages to remove Voq’s consciousness from the body he and Tyler share, is that the equivalent of killing Voq? Conversely, if she snuffs out any trace of Tyler, has she killed Tyler? Last night’s episode made it apparent that if someone didn’t do something soon, the guy in sickbay screaming Klingon curses one minute and weeping human tears the next was going to die, but is it ethical to take one life to save another, and how do we decide?

I think the natural instinct is to say that obviously Voq needs to go in favor of Tyler. It’s easy to justify too: Voq knew what he was risking, the Klingons and Federation are in the midst of a war, and it doesn’t really seem like Tyler had much say in the medical experimentation performed on him. Not to mention, it kind of seemed like it was Voq shining through when Hugh Culber was killed. The Voq side of this person is clearly violent, dangerous, and a self-proclaimed enemy of the Federation.

Now consider how you feel about the death penalty. If you ardently support it, I question why you watch a show featuring people from an idealistic utopia where the death penalty was abolished, but hey, I’m sure the issue of what to do about Voq must seem pretty cut and dry. If you oppose the death penalty for any reason, now is probably a good time to ask yourself exactly why that is and apply it to this very bizarre situation.

Before you start hurling digital rotten produce at me for daring to suggest that Voq be given rights over Tyler, I’m not advocating for that, I’m merely asking you to consider it, because while the DNA is Tyler’s, the body is Voq’s. The heart of so many modern issues rests on a similar platform, this idea that we have the right to decide the fate of our own bodies, no matter what else we’ve done.

It’s why we don’t harvest organs from criminals or force them to submit to dangerous medical experimentation, even though some *cough*Nazis*cough* might argue in favor of crude social arithmetic that there’s some net “good” to be had by testing unproven HIV vaccines or pioneering brain surgery on our convict population. To be fair, Voq decided to become Ash Tyler, and in doing so, it seems so unfair that I should even be considering his rights when it certainly seems like Tyler’s rights were so brutally and traumatically stripped away from him.

But Star Trek has also never shied away from unfair predicaments. Remember that time Trip Tucker was in a coma and Phlox collected his DNA and injected it into a Lyssarian Desert larvae to grow a Tucker clone, which they later named Sim, just so they could harvest Sim’s neural tissue for a transplant? OG Tucker was unconscious and didn’t consent to the procedure, and while Tucker 2.0 also didn’t ask to get made, which one deserved to live?

Yeah Sim, he owed you so big.

No matter what happens, the whole business with Voq and Tyler is a bloody damn mess and there’s no chance for real justice for anyone involved. By stuffing Ash Tyler’s consciousness into Voq’s body and then mutilating Voq to look like Ash Tyler, L’Rell created an individual who is arguably somehow both Voq and Tyler and also neither Voq and Tyler at the same time.

Star Trek built an entire species based around this premise in the form of the Trills. For seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the symbiont Dax put us through our paces as we teased apart Jadzia from Dax and all of her previous hosts. There are too many episodes featuring Jadzia conflicting with the memories of her predecessors to count, but it was always interesting, watching Jadzia stand trial for something Curzon allegedly did, and it was heartbreaking watching her husband Worf interact with Ezri, Dax’s next host, after Jadzia’s untimely death. However much fans wished Ezri would love Worf as much as Jadzia had, Ezri wasn’t Jadzia and she deserved the freedom to make her own decisions.

So, I have to come back to the question, is Ash Tyler even really Ash Tyler? Can a copy be as good as the original? In many cases, sure. If someone torched the Declaration of Independence, its meaning isn’t lost forever; we have countless copies in textbooks and Internet archives. Ideas and facts are obviously more important than the paper that they’re printed on, but aren’t people greater than just the sum of their thoughts and experiences?

Star Trek: The Next Generation asked that question once when a transporter accident spawned a clone of William Riker, only he wasn’t technically a clone, because he shared all of Riker’s memories leading up to the accident. A clone implies an individual whose genome was copied from another individual, but the person created in that transporter glitch was an exact copy.

You know Riker II is looking at Riker I and thinking, “I grew a beard because I didn’t have a razor. Don’t tell me you grew that shit on purpose?”

Are they really exactly the same though? Once their paths began to diverge with differing life experiences (one got stranded on a station while the other went on to have a successful career in Starfleet), they really became two separate individuals, more like twins than the exact same person. So, I would argue that whether or not the original Tyler is really alive out there, the Tyler we know isn’t really Ash Tyler.

But whoever he is and however he was created, he has rights too. He’s the only innocent person in this whole shitty scenario, and even if Voq’s consciousness is removed, no doubt the experience will irrevocably alter Tyler.

But what if L’Rell can’t separate them? I think of all the options, a plot twist that finds a way for both Tyler and Voq to coexist in the same body is easily the most complicated and daring path forward. Tuvok and Neelix had polar opposite personalities, but at least when they got spliced together, they generally lived by the same moral code. All the incarnations of Dax were also wildly different, but they jived well (so long as you forget that whole uncomfortable Joran incident).

Voq and Tyler are essentially Jekyll and Hyde. Voq killed Hugh Culber and attempted to kill Michael Burnham, so should he (they) be punished for those crimes? American Horror Story: Freak Show tried to address a similar situation when one conjoined twin murdered her mother in a moment of rage. It forces us to ask which is worse, “Deliberately punishing an innocent person or allowing a guilty one to go free?”

I have no idea what will happen in future episodes, but the idea of Voq and Tyler having to learn to live together might actually provide this show with something it’s been largely lacking thus far: a character who has to learn what it means to be human and who can provide an outsider’s commentary and insight on our odd little species, much like Spock, Data, The Doctor, Seven of Nine, and T’Pol did. Given Michael Burnham’s upbringing and life sentence for mutiny, it seemed like she was well-poised to fit this role, but while she spent the latter part of her formative years on Vulcan and is a lot less emotional than most of her crewmates, she’s fairly clued in to the human condition.

Not so great at beer pong, but still a competent human.

Ultimately, I can’t wait to see how Ash Tyler’s situation gets resolved, but I can now safely say Discovery might be my favorite series in the franchise. Some people hate it because it’s a lot of explosions and fighting and thus far, it hasn’t really felt like Star Trek with its power-hungry captain, Klingons with heavy prosthetics, and exceptional CGI.

No, it ain’t your momma’s Star Trek, but maybe that’s a good thing. I grew up watching The Next Generation and later watched Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, and it was nice having Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer gently guide me to the answers with calm, well-reasoned thinking. In a lot of ways, they taught me how to think about morally complex matters, and now that I’m older, I’m able to think for myself while I watch Discovery, and that is precisely why I love it so much.

Discovery is Star Trek all grown up.

#star trek discovery #vaulting ambition #discovery spoilers #meta #ash tyler #voq #l'rell #long post

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somewhere-in-the-dungeon · 6 years

Text

Day is a vestigial mode of time measurement

Prelude and definitions

There are a lot of ways to play tabletop RPGs.

Somebody out there is nodding their head, thinking about D&D 3.5 and 5e and Pathfinder and maybe even E6, but we can go broader. Some tables run entirely oneshots, games with no recurring characters from week to week. Some tables stick with one ruleset the entire time they’re together, others swap rules after each campaign, still others swap rules half a dozen times in a single story arc. Some tables are comprised of close friends and family, others of strangers who don’t interact apart from the game. Lately though, I’ve been thinking about one style of play in particular that I know a lot of people highly value: Indefinite duration, bounded, high-context campaigns in tables with low to negligible turnover and frequent regular sessions.

I just threw out a lot of jargon there and frankly half of that jargon are terms I’ve only really seen myself use, so what do I mean?

Indefinite duration games don’t know how long they’re going to last. They can’t tell you they’ll be done by June 16th, or after fifteen sessions.

Bounded games do actually (hypothetically) have a planned end. Some bounded games never actually reach their intended end, and all games eventually stop even if they’re unbounded. This is easiest to see in the shape of the arcs- take Avatar: The Last Airbender, which (from practically the first episode!) sets up a clear goal for the protagonists and has a discernible beginning, middle and end. If AtLA had gotten canceled after the first season, there would be a clear sense of something missing. Buffy The Vampire Slayer on the other hand could probably have run indefinitely, and Supernatural looks like it plans to.

High Context games are hard to explain to an outsider, as each session interrelates to the next. Marvel Netflix shows and the webserial Worm are high context- a random episode of Jessica Jones, shown to someone who hasn’t seen any others, makes relatively little sense because its character arcs are built up over many prior episodes. The TV show The Twilight Zone and the Redwall books are low context: sit down to any individual example of those, and you’ll be able to understand what’s going on just fine as there’s no connecting thread between them. High context games almost always require...

Low Turnover tables, where the same faces are there every session, and when a player joins that player is usually in for the long haul. Introducing new characters usually takes a few sessions or more to integrate into the group, and there’s almost always a unique story reason for them to join. A player leaving a low turnover table is usually given a grand sendoff if the departure can be predicted in advance, or becomes a strange plot hole if the departure is sudden.

Frequent sessions is a somewhat fuzzy term. Here, I’m using it to mean sessions that happen every week.

Regular sessions happen at the same time and day, like every friday night or every sunday morning.

Advantages

There are a lot of advantages to this setup. Bounded and indefinite games grant the GM a grand canvas on which to write their story; the tabletop versions of Lord of the Rings, Worm, and the Wheel of Time are all expansive tales that would not work if their length was constrained or their endings neutered. (A game can be long but still have a definite duration- I could design a campaign to run for exactly five hundred sessions- but I don’t think J. R. R. Tolkien could have told you from the start how many pages he would need for the Lord of the Rings. The tale, as they say, grew in the telling.) Characters can undergo great changes, and corruption or redemption can be woven into the story subtly.

High context and low turnover means that you can drop details into the early parts of the game and pay them off later in ways that would be blatant and obvious if done over the course of a single session. It is a strange experience to look back from Mount Doom and realize how far we are from the shire, and it is strange to return to Brockton Bay as Gold Morning rises.

Frequent sessions are needed both to keep the events of the story fresh in your player’s minds and to allow reaching the end of such a story- I would roughly estimate that the Exalted game that I was part of involved around three hundred sessions, played over the course of seven years! If it was once a month instead of once a week, we would have taken twenty five years to cover the same ground. Finally, if you are going to play every week, then it can be convenient to pick a day and time then stick to it, rather than renegotiating four or five schedules every week.

Disadvantages

The primary disadvantage is that this is an incredibly fragile setup.

When you are planning games over the course of nearly a decade, you will find the lives of the people involved change. The Exalted game of this form I was in started in the early years of my bachelor’s degree; we all graduated and scattered across four or five different states. Gaming online helps with distance, but people get married (granted, that one’s less of a problem if players marry each other or the GM) or change jobs (we lost a player to exhausting manual labor) or just change tastes. In sufficiently high context games, these changes are really hard on the game: A reveal near the end may be unintelligible or worse, unimportant to players who weren’t there in that college apartment five years ago when this all started. Missteps and gaps are hard to recover from.

You will also find the vagarencies of system will be a problem. In a long enough run, all outliers will happen eventually. Even if no players drop out, a string of terrible rolls can kill important characters. You may even come to find that every single original character has fallen and been replaced. Can the system even handle that much play and advancement? (D&D has a few shift changes between level 1 and level twenty, and then it just starts getting weird. A level 60 Wizard is essentially an incoherent concept in 3.5.) Errata will be released for your game: do you adopt it? What if an entire new edition of the system is released? Updating Dresden Files to Fate Core is perhaps sensible, Exalted 2e to 3e is a judgement call, but would D&D 4e to 5e make any sense?

Stories (at least in the western tradition) have beginnings, middles, and ends. Sub arcs of such a campaign can be longer than entire storylines in a shorter game, providing valuable opportunities to practice, but the fact remains that I’ve run more complete games of Paranoia than I’ve run complete games of Exalted. Practice is valuable, and long form games are hard for a GM to practice and perfect. Players also gain experience, and may find that a character has resolved their story or that they wish to make a new, more complex character.

This is hard, is what I’m saying.

Solutions

I’ve finished (. . .ish) one game like this where I was a player, and am moving into the end steps of another I’m running. I’m contemplating starting a new one once the game I’m running finishes. One of the greatest GMs I know swears by this format, and doesn’t want to do anything else. As hard a problem as this is, I would like to find solutions. Some issues can be solved by relaxing one of the requirements, but we’ll assume for now that these are ironclad.

Where do you get your players? Perhaps one of the more valuable things I get from occasionally running one-shots or short-throw games is finding new players, who I can evaluate and then consider for future longer games. It’s not just what they’re like while playing, but how often they show up to games or how they interact with other players. Crosstalk can also be a sneaky way to onboard players: Players talk about the games they’re in, and my S.O.’s Monsterhearts table has heard plenty of details about our Exalted and D&D games. That can be a place to draw new players who are excited about your game and who are already informed as to what’s been going on in your campaign.

Gaps and missed sessions are probably going to happen, but you can minimize the damage they do. Consider: what do you do if a single player can’t make it? If you shrug your shoulders and cancel for that week, you preserve the expectation and pressure on each player- but you also leave everyone else with an empty saturday night, one that perhaps they wish the could have made plans for. This can compound: Someone has a wedding to attend this week, and then next week you’re not in the right headspace to GM, then the next week someone’s power is out, and the week after that you find that a player has a date because “I didn’t think we’d wind up gaming that night.” The question isn’t “do I want to do this other thing or attend the game this week” it’s “how much do I value the other thing times the odds it actually happens, vs how much do I value the game times the odds it actually happens.” If the odds get bad enough, your game can be the highlight of your player’s week and still lose out.

Letting everyone know as early as possible is good, but you can also mitigate this by having something else to do that night; run a oneshot or a side campaign, play a videogame together or some Settlers of Catan, or even a social night where you sit around and shoot the breeze. Anything to prevent the train of thought that goes “oh, I guess Bob isn’t around so we aren’t gaming. Darn. Well, I guess I’ll spend the night alone- kinda wish I’d said yes to that cute date. Next time, maybe!” If you do this well enough, you can actually add people: In high school my table ate pizza and played Halo friday night if we didn’t have the numbers to play RPGs, and we wound up inviting a guy in the neighborhood over when we did. We found that he actually penciled in gaming at my place to his schedule every friday, and as long as he had that time set aside anyway did he want to learn to roll some dice? (He did, and still does, and is part of my monday night table.)

On that subject, how do you handle it when someone cancels? It’s best to give everyone as much information as you can as early as you can, because it lets them take advantage of the gap and prevents them feeling like they’re “losing” a night. (This is especially important if you game on a hotly contested timeslot: most people don’t have a lot competing for their Tuesday evenings, but a Friday Night is the centre of a lot of people’s social lives.) If you want that though, I think you need to be kind and understanding when you get that cancellation: if you get angry at people for missing, then they delay longer and longer to tell you (either in case circumstances change, or just putting off that anger) and you can’t give other people early warning. You probably don’t want people to come to view your game as an obligation, but feeling punished for lack of attendance can cause that to happen.

So, you’ve arranged things so that whether there’s a game or not, everyone looks forward to Sunday Night every week, and people tell you a couple of weeks in advance when they aren’t going to be able to be there. Why are your players hoping your game does run? In writing, there’s an idea of “the page turner” where each situation leads to a question of what happens next, and the reader can get sucked into wanting “one more chapter!” This effect can also be recognized in videogames (“one more turn!” *birdsong outside* “Gah, it’s morning!”) and even TV shows. I think it’s possible to make this happen in tabletop games. If you’ve got a tight plot full of twists and intrigue, you can get it the same way you do in writing. If you’ve got a mechanical system that’s genuinely *fun* to engage in, that can be a great too. (My Blades in the Dark table would often ask for a second heist right after we finished the ‘session’, because they wanted that next piece of Turf they’d just unlocked access to or because c’mon, we just need two more Rep to go up a Tier!)

We can do better than that though. I think a seriously underrecognized source of danger in long-running campaigns is a weak middle, where you spend a couple of sessions in a row building up or setting tone and it’s only afterwards that players look back and see the unfolding tale as compelling. A question I ask myself after each night as part of my usual evaluation is “what made this session great?” The kinds of answers vary depending on the group and the system, but if there isn’t an answer then that’s the sort of thing I try very hard to fix! When I sit down to plan a session, I think about something cool that I can make sure is in there. Don’t get me wrong, ‘filler’ episodes do have an important purpose sometimes- they connect with the day to day parts of your character’s lives, they let you sneak in setup and Chekov’s Guns, they give a chance to roleplay and let characters bounce off each other, heck Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish Granting Engine is basically a game built around filler episodes- but keep your eye on the ball. What do your players love doing, or love telling stories about afterwards? Is there a reason you can’t do more of that next session?

I know when the long Exalted game that closed up recently was shifting into endgame, a big reveal came that. . . well, it landed, and we noticed, but it took far longer to percolate and had to be spelled out more than I know our GM wanted. The pacing of tabletop games, even played every week, is different than the pacing of a book. I read Worm (a simply enormous web serial) over the course of years as each week a couple of chapters were released, and the twist caught me by surprise. I know someone who read it over the course of a month or so, because they got into it once it had already concluded and they saw it coming a mile ahead of time. If a player gets blindsided by something that was telegraphed and set up, pause, and consider whether it was set up four years ago. Something I’ve taken to doing to combat this is writing down, at the end of each session, a paragraph about what happened.

I’ve found this is helpful for me as a GM, but also really helpful for the players as we resume after a break. (Plus, it’s cool to read!) Even if you have a full log of what’s happened (a text log because you play via chat, or a video archive because you record sessions) people can scan the summary faster than they can look through an entire log. This helps catch new people up, this is a good tool for clarifying my thoughts as a GM, this is a neat place to screw with your players (someday, I am going to run a Cosmic Horror long form game, and my players are going to trust the summaries I’ve written, and I am going to weave an elegant lie into that record, and this is going to work even though I said I was going to do this right here.) and hey, you can even end each summary with a question that hypes up what happens next.

Compromises

If your vision of how you want to run your game is absolutely how your games must be run- Indefinite duration, bounded, high-context campaigns in tables with low to negligible turnover and frequent regular sessions- then this is where we part ways for a bit. Do a search for “concluding thoughts” and we’ll catch back up below. If you think you could budge a bit on those requirements though, or if you just want to see me go through the exercise, so be it, and fall on. I think there are tremendous gains to be made by removing even one of these requirements.

Finite Duration. I’ve been dating my S.O. for six years now. We’ve been asked more times than I can count “so, when is he going to pop the question?” and I’ve been deflecting the question with less and less grace and good humour as things go on. The truth is, I think about swearing a holy vow to be with them “til death do us part” and I think about value drift, and I think about how I am actually deeply transhumanist and how I plan to live to see the last star go out, and I think about the fact that sweet light there are seven billion people on this planet and I find around a billion of them to be hot, and about how zero and one are not probabilities, and I can’t bring myself to do it. And then I think about how I do want to be with them in five years, and in ten, and how I do want to settle down and find a house that fits us both and raise children and see them off and still love each other, and how I could swear to be with them for that many years.

My saturday night D&D group just fell apart, and for a moment towards the end I thought about swearing, with all the force of an oath, to be there and ready every single saturday until it concluded in an attempt to forestall this. And I thought, very clearly, “that could mean never having a weekend vacation or a saturday night date for the rest of my life, you know how this GM likes long stories.” So I didn’t commit, and maybe I should have. But if I could have looked and seen an end date, I would have felt much better about making that commitment. A finite duration campaign can draw a stronger and more reasoned commitment than an indefinite one.

Unbounded. You know what’s a great book series? Redwall. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a sucker for castles and badass swords. (Though ya know, those are both great.) One of the great things about Redwall is it could have kept going forever. A Redwall campaign could go arc after arc, and have clean places to step out or step back in, and still come together. Someday I want to run a game with the progression like Redwall-> Mossflower -> Martin the Warrior -> The Legend of Luke and it will be awesome. You know what else is great? Mythbusters. I mean, every episode works all on its own, and that makes it really tempting to binge watch. That feeling of no commitment that works out to being stronger than any promise of a sixteen season masterpiece.

An Unbounded game provides a real bulwark against mid-act duldroms. If every session or every arc is going to be basically like this, then everyone involved can get their acts together about making “basically like this” be awesome. One of my greater lightbulb moments came from discussing Star Wars, when someone pointed out that you can in fact kill Darth Maul one night, General Grievous the night after, and Count Dooku after that and there’s nothing stopping you from lining up another kickass saber dual and sith lord every session after that. We don’t need to spend a whole session talking about how much we hate sand.

Low-Context. I wanted to come up with something for everything on this list, but honestly, just swapping to low-context and not changing anything else doesn’t seem to give you any benefit that I can see. It might be prefered by some people, but more often high-context is an advantage you get from the other components being in place.

High Turnover. If you have solutions in place for maintaining the high-context capabilities of your players even with high turnover, then high turnover (or even the capacity for it!) can help ameliorate the issues of this general form of campaign marvelously. If it is straightforward and not at all unexpected for a player to drop out for a few months and then resume, or for a new player to join for a while before leaving, then you can give each player the benefits of a finite campaign while still reaping the benefits of having long timescales or ongoing plots. Taken to the extreme, a game like Blades in the Dark can operate with a completely new roster of players every single night and still work, the adventures of the crew as a whole only glimpsed in part by each player but still represented in the tapestry of stories they tell. It offers a way for a table to mix and match expectations- perhaps two players are always there every night, and the other two seats are filled by a rotating array of sidekicks and accomplices. (This is fitting for the superhero genre, but of course the same format can be used by anything from pirates to westerns to a dungeon crawl.)

Infrequent Sessions. Momentum in storytelling is important, but so are the many other demands on most of our time. A full time job, chores and appointments and exercise and socializing outside of gaming and any number of things eat into our free time. Heck, sometimes even if you love the table and love the game you want a break for a week. Longer gaps between games give more space to the other things in our lives, and they also make sharing high priority timeslots much easier. Friday Night Magic has a lot of overlap with the D&D crowd and a schedule that suggested playing every Friday might eventually compete with that- but offer every other Friday, and suddenly people can have both the things they want in their lives. Just by alternating weeks, you can take the pressure off by opening up that timeslot for other things some of the time to things that can’t or won’t move.

And you know what? I think there’s a lot of unexplored design space around very infrequent sessions. I got into a brief discussion last year around an important ritual I attend exactly once a year, where someone pointed out that part of its special feeling came from scarcity and a once-a-week event wouldn’t be able to capture that. They were right, and I agreed at the time that an RPG wouldn’t be capable of replicating an emotional space. Having thought about it more, I find I want to test that. About once a month me and my significant other go out on a nice date, dressed up just a little, and luxuriate in each other’s company- you know, the company that is lying around on the couch watching TV or reading a book the other twenty nine days of the month. If we went out on the town every weekend, it would stop being special.

In my scheming ambition, I think about what a once-a-year game of Ten Candles would feel like, or how about setting aside a weekend twice a year to get together with my polycule and play through Emily Boss’s Romance Trilogy? Those aren’t high context games and they lack the kind of continuity that these games treasure I suppose, so how about a campaign of Nobilis, played only every Autumn and Spring Solstice? Even on a more mundane atmosphere, Ars Magica is mildly infamous for the most relevant timescale being Seasons- I think I would enjoy a game of Ars that met once a Season, and that advanced in step with the passing of real years.

Momentum is important. So is gravitas.

Irregular sessions. “Every tuesday night” can actually be hard to schedule around. It’s great on paper, and it has the virtue of simplicity, but it turns out sometimes dear old aunt Maude is visiting for the first time in years and she’ll be arriving Tuesday evening, or it’s Tuesday and you really want to game but your boss is hounding you about getting that report filed by tomorrow morning’s meeting or else. Holidays wreck gaming schedules for that exact reason- a whole avalanche of important arrivals and departures and preparations. I think Irregular sessions actually aren’t as hard to arrange as the reputation suggests. Google Calendar, Doodle.com, and old fashioned spreadsheets can make picking a day relatively painless if you do it at the start of the week. Maybe you’ll settle on the same day week after week- but this gives a built in place to check in with the rest of the group if something comes up and you’ll be out of town that day, without feeling like you’re dislodging everyone’s expectations. Or you can be even less formal, and whenever the GM is in the mood they can ping everyone via a group text or a messaging app with a simple question: “Hey, I wanna game tonight, who’s free at six tonight?” Who knows, maybe you’ll find you can actually play more often than you thought!

Concluding Thoughts

There it is. A detailed description of a particular approach to games, some thoughts on issues that I have with that approach, and some plausible alterations that could be made. All along with waaay more words than any reasonable person would probably use on the subject.

There have to be a thousand variations on this hobby, and I believe all of them have something interesting to learn from. For those who love that big, sprawling game and can make it work, more power to you. As for me, I’m going to tinker, and I’m going to study, and maybe I’ll someday settle on that- but I doubt it.

I want to make it clear that I don’t think this kind of game is bad, but I think it might be incompatible with where I’m at these days. Maybe someday, when I have everything else settled and secured, I could return to it- but even then, I think I’d want to be at least one step away from it in a direction that gave an option for more freedom. For those who love this style, if you can, can you tell me what it is you love about it that wouldn’t survive a modification? What is it at the heart of your gaming style?

#overthinking things #RPGs #. . .I should probably set up an actual blog #Someday I aspire to write a 'X: much more than you wanted to know' post about RPGs

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sublimeperfectionland · 7 years

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New Moon of the Dark Kingdom Chapter Ninety Seven - The Victoria Plot

Zoisite and Kunzite have found true love, but when some old friends, a vengeful god, and a pair of evil twins are gunning for the Shitennou all at once, life is not going to be easy

[Scene: The Hen Tie park theater. Gurio Umino and Eleanor Heltry are watching the last few minutes of the movie 'Back to the Future'. Or trying to, because the person sitting in front of Eleanor is talking on his cellphone.]

Umino: Could you keep it down? We are trying watch the movie.

[The guy stands up and turns to reveal 6'3" of pure muscle]

Guy: Did you say something, Pipsqueak?

Umino: Errr...no?

Guy: That's what I thought.

[He goes back to talking on his phone until El boots him in the back on the head]

El: Yes, he said 'Shut up, Jackass!'

[The man turns and stands and El jumps to her feet, getting in his face and snarling under her breath]

Guy: Damn. You're lucky you're cute. [Turns off his phone and sits down. El and Umino watch the rest of the movie then file out into the park then head toward the nearby Gelato stand.]

Umino: Will you allow me to buy you a gelato?

El: [scans board in the far distance] Lemon Oreo.

Umino: So...um... [pulls up the sleeve of his coat to read his wrist] What did you think of the movie?

El: I liked it. That was a good movie.

Umino: Oh, um... [checks his forearm] ...what did you like best about it?

El: I liked the fact that the father character was a social awkward creep, but he managed to find love anyway.

[Umino's jaw drops]

Umino: Are you sure you're real, and not some robot girlfriend prototype from Japan?

El: Are you saying I act like a robot?

Umino: No...I...um...it's just you're too perfect...I mean for me... I mean..not for me...I mean...You're tall and you're beautiful and you stand up to bullies and you design lasers... and...I... um..I better stop talking before I get myself into more trouble...

[El chuckles under her breath as Umino orders. A cone with Lemon Oreo for her, and Chocolate Caramel with Gummi Worms for him.]

Umino: Um...[looks at his arm]...how is your gelato.

El: It's really good. Want to try some? [hold out the cone to him]

Umino: [red in the face] You'd let me lick your icecream?

El: How else are you going to taste it?

Umino: Don't you think that's a little gross?

El: [rolls her eyes] Honestly. What is the difference between this? [licks Umino's gelato] And this? [tries to kiss him on the lips]

Umino: WHOA! [backs away and tries to keep from fainting] I AM NOT READY FOR THAT.

El: What? It's just a kiss. I told you we aren't getting any farther than that.

Umino: Wow, you are like the creepiest girl I've ever met.

El: Is that bad?

Umino: Not to me. But I'm starting to realize what Naru meant when she complained about me all these years.

El: [grins] You really like her, don't you?

Umino: Yes, but I like you more.

El: [frowns] Don't say that. You don't have to like some creepy girl you barely know just because she asked you out on a date.

[Umino goes silent and eats his gelato, lost in thought]

El: So what did you think of the movie?

Umino: I couldn't get into it.

El: What! That was a classic feel good comedy! Lighthearted and fun. Nearly perfect. I give it five stars!

Umino: There were too many anachronisms and it just ruined it for me.

El: We just watched a movie about ordinary flesh and blood mortal humans folding and tearing their way through the interdimensional temporal fabric of the universe by driving an automobile, and you are hung up on things like what year Johnny B. Goode came out?

Umino: Um...that is a very oddly specific description of time travel...But in answer to your question, yes. Time travel, is impossible, so it doesn't bother me since it is complete fantasy, unlike the set pieces, which are real and easily researched.

El: Oh, really? Time travel is impossible? You seem oddly sure of yourself.

Umino: If time travel were possible, someone would have done it already.

El: How do you know they haven't?

Umino: Because if they did people would be going back and changing things constantly introducing paradoxes and everything would go haywire. For example, if I could travel back in time, what's to stop me from rewriting the Harry Potter series before J. K. Rowling and becoming a billionaire?

El: First of all, you can't travel through time because you would need to convert all your matter to energy, which you can't do, not without dying. Second of all, time travel requires godlike power, which you do not possess. And thirdly, if you did possess godlike power, I can't believe you'd waste it just to steal a bunch of children's stories away from their rightful creator.

Umino: [sweatdrops] I didn't say I'd do it. I was just throwing that out as an example.

El: Ok, what would you do?

Umino: I'd travel back to save the Great Library at Alexandria.

El: [chuckles] Now that would be a wasted trip.

Umino: Why?

El: Even if you figure out when exactly it burned, one lone teenager, unfamiliar with the landscape and language verses an entire army? It's just going to burn down anyway. People had been setting fire to the place for centuries. Arson was written into its destiny.

Umino: Destiny?

El: Destiny is like the gravity of time...(how do I put this into simple terms)...[sees a stream trickling nearby] Think of time like a river. It flows and ebbs but it doesn't not change it's course, since the river has carved itself into rock and soil.

Umino: The Butterfly Effect-

El: A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil starts a hurricane in Texas? That is complete and utter nonsense. Time is a force of the universe, and forces of the universe are never fragile. You stand at a river and throw in a rock. The river swallows the rock and ripples a little. Maybe. But the rock just sinks like it was never there. You push in a boulder. Maybe you can see the boulder, but the river rushes around it, so its still the same river, but with a boulder in it. If you want to change the river you really have to do something major. Something the river just can't correct. But even then, you can't control the river, so more than likely, you and everything you care about will be swept away. Especially since its is against the laws of physics to be two places at once so you can't travel within your own lifetime. That is why the few beings who are capable of time travel simply don't bother.

Umino: You seem to have thought about this a lot.

El: I...write a lot of science fiction.

Umino: I'd like to read one some your stories.

El: No you wouldn't. My stories are not nice.

Umino: Oh. I still would like to read them. You have some interesting ideas.

El: Since we are speaking in purely hypothetical fantasy, if you could go back in time, and assassinate one person, who would you kill?

Umino: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

El: [smiles] I'm impressed. Most people would say Hitler.

Umino: Without Kaiser Wilhelm II setting the stage for him by orchestrating the horrors of WWI, Adolf Hitler probably would have probably spent his life painting landscapes in jail. I would have said his Grandmother, Queen Victoria of England, but I couldn't bring myself to hurt a woman. Not even hypothetically.

El: But suppose you could. Suppose, you had a chance to make the world a better place by killing Queen Victoria and preventing her legacy of terror...

Umino: Um... I ...

El: Now imagine Queen Victoria is your great-great-great-grandmother.

[Umino looks at her and sees her face is deadly serious]

El: Imagine that stepping outside your timeline to stop her reign of evil will erase you and your brother completely out of existence.

#new moon of the dark kingdom

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