![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Happy New Year
Jan. 1st, 2026 12:05 am⭐🖖🌞
This feels obvious but
Dec. 30th, 2025 08:22 amI just listened to three different Torchwood audios because after each I had a thought about the next
The Crown
Five People You Kill
Lincolnshire Poacher
and I realised that they don't fit together, for instance in how The Crown works, but, that doesn't cause messes with canon, because all three are unreliable narrator messes where someone is lying to someone with the full connivance of the soundtrack.
Which is interesting because audios that lie to the listener feel rare? Like that isn't the rule with Doctor Who audios, you're just listening to The Doctor doing things, it's not playing with truth value, so you can trust him.
But a lot of these Torchwood ones layer it up with stories about stories.
( Read more... )
Torchwood audios are unrestricted, by internal truth value. The people in them are often telling stories and those can be lies that we get a sountrack to. It's interesting.
But it's just one possibility out of many, other stories do seem to be just the audience listening in on the Whoniverse.
But add it to the layer after layer of lies, not all of them cover ups, the imitations of loved ones, the occasional spot of possession, the memory alteration with both retcon and Adam, and how many times people find out their own brains are lying to them... Torchwood audios really cram a lot of unreliable into a tiny slice of story.
Interesting sort of horror.
The Crown
Five People You Kill
Lincolnshire Poacher
and I realised that they don't fit together, for instance in how The Crown works, but, that doesn't cause messes with canon, because all three are unreliable narrator messes where someone is lying to someone with the full connivance of the soundtrack.
Which is interesting because audios that lie to the listener feel rare? Like that isn't the rule with Doctor Who audios, you're just listening to The Doctor doing things, it's not playing with truth value, so you can trust him.
But a lot of these Torchwood ones layer it up with stories about stories.
( Read more... )
Torchwood audios are unrestricted, by internal truth value. The people in them are often telling stories and those can be lies that we get a sountrack to. It's interesting.
But it's just one possibility out of many, other stories do seem to be just the audience listening in on the Whoniverse.
But add it to the layer after layer of lies, not all of them cover ups, the imitations of loved ones, the occasional spot of possession, the memory alteration with both retcon and Adam, and how many times people find out their own brains are lying to them... Torchwood audios really cram a lot of unreliable into a tiny slice of story.
Interesting sort of horror.
(no subject)
Dec. 30th, 2025 02:07 amYesterday I played Wrath of the Righteous for... probably over twelve hours, before deciding that on those difficulty settings it doesn't even feel like a game. It happens in front of my eyes is all. I can let it play itself on the not-turn-based version, and fights will generally be over in one hit, so why bother? But that sums up my feelings for the automagic fighting in general. Turn based is playing, the other way is getting it over with to get to the next interesting bit.
Exceptions for when the characters decide spinning in place is the optimal strategy or simply don't move at all for several turns. That's just frustrating. It's a fail that only happens because it is a game, so it is boring and like the computer is cheating.
I tried it on a really low difficulty so I could see how Last Azlanti Mode plays. It makes me anxious, because half the load screens tell you If In Doubt Save, and now you have to rely on the machine actually saving and not very often. But it seems achieveable so far.
I am going to have to start it again on a higher difficulty if I want to feel like I am playing the game though.
Also I might be wearing this one game a bit thin. I would happily play other adventure paths, if available. But they aren't, so I am doing and redoing the same one.
But I played it on super easy because playing on Hard is in fact Hard. I can go back to that one and feel like every fight is an accomplishment.
I think my ideal difficulty is sort of Daring plus bonus behaviours. A very custom difficulty. But playing that way doesn't get you any achievements and the difficulty achievements are very nearly the only ones left to do.
Or the DLC midnight isles ones. But again, that doesn't feel like a game, just endless fights.
eh, shall think of something else to do.
Exceptions for when the characters decide spinning in place is the optimal strategy or simply don't move at all for several turns. That's just frustrating. It's a fail that only happens because it is a game, so it is boring and like the computer is cheating.
I tried it on a really low difficulty so I could see how Last Azlanti Mode plays. It makes me anxious, because half the load screens tell you If In Doubt Save, and now you have to rely on the machine actually saving and not very often. But it seems achieveable so far.
I am going to have to start it again on a higher difficulty if I want to feel like I am playing the game though.
Also I might be wearing this one game a bit thin. I would happily play other adventure paths, if available. But they aren't, so I am doing and redoing the same one.
But I played it on super easy because playing on Hard is in fact Hard. I can go back to that one and feel like every fight is an accomplishment.
I think my ideal difficulty is sort of Daring plus bonus behaviours. A very custom difficulty. But playing that way doesn't get you any achievements and the difficulty achievements are very nearly the only ones left to do.
Or the DLC midnight isles ones. But again, that doesn't feel like a game, just endless fights.
eh, shall think of something else to do.
(no subject)
Dec. 28th, 2025 06:24 amI'm getting frustrated reading stuff where nothing happens except characters explaining the plot and backstory to each other.
Story needs to be thrifty. If you have to drop in explanations they also need to reveal who these people are and how they uniquely interact with the world. Also the scene needs to change something, and hopefully someone. If all that happens is all the characters speak enough to know what the reader knew two chapters ago we don't actually need to see it, they can just say 'x got me caught up' and move on to the next bit where something changes.
Also people need to do the yearning having cycle. They need to Want something, and Persuade someone else to let them have it. And just because it is perfectly reasonable if everyone knows what the readers know, that isn't enough reason to do it. Plus some characters just plain will not do gratitude. And they break their word, so keeping them on track is difficult, and they will expect others to do the same thing. You have to find a Motive that hooks into their core characterisation somehow, something they want or someone they want to be, and then you have to wrangle them into admitting everyone's needs could get met. It's herding cats at best.
... this story I am paused of reading basically has the cats marching in lines and having realised that I think I'll go skim read until something interesting happens or the story ends.
Story needs to be thrifty. If you have to drop in explanations they also need to reveal who these people are and how they uniquely interact with the world. Also the scene needs to change something, and hopefully someone. If all that happens is all the characters speak enough to know what the reader knew two chapters ago we don't actually need to see it, they can just say 'x got me caught up' and move on to the next bit where something changes.
Also people need to do the yearning having cycle. They need to Want something, and Persuade someone else to let them have it. And just because it is perfectly reasonable if everyone knows what the readers know, that isn't enough reason to do it. Plus some characters just plain will not do gratitude. And they break their word, so keeping them on track is difficult, and they will expect others to do the same thing. You have to find a Motive that hooks into their core characterisation somehow, something they want or someone they want to be, and then you have to wrangle them into admitting everyone's needs could get met. It's herding cats at best.
... this story I am paused of reading basically has the cats marching in lines and having realised that I think I'll go skim read until something interesting happens or the story ends.
🖖 Still here, very sleeping
Dec. 27th, 2025 09:01 pmI noticed how many days I did not post so *waves*
I got all tired out doing xmas even though that was like two movies with a meal in the middle
so the next day I slept like twelve hours
the tired sleepy is mostly winning this week
but it's cool, I already read one of my xmas present books, just in several installments due to the sleeping.
Yuletide isn't grabbing me. Don't know what I would have looked for but it isn't there.
I haven't been doing much fic reading this year until right at the end when I started to read All The Constantine fic and got sidetracked by apparently Justice League Dark canon.
I have thoughts now about how characters can change so much by staying exactly the same that they become unrecogniseable. And how becoming iconic absolutely trashed the fundamentals of the trenchcoat brigade. You shouldn't be able to pick them out of a crowd, that's what the coat is *for*, what do you mean Legends' coat is designer enough you can tell from the collar, the original comics coat might be a demon in itself from being worn to hell and back, and Dark has the coat be inherited??? I mean, utterly changing the meaning of the symbol every time, much? Also! Being a punk when punk was the new thing signifies something entirely different than being a punk when you grew up a generation later. Every generation's music should generate its own trenchcoat Constantine and I feel strongly about that even when I am not enough of a music person to have a clue how to do it. And! There are trends and developments in occultism too! Like seriously, I haven't paid attention since the 90s but there's several waves of 20th century New Hot Thing I vaguely read about. Vertigo!John had a very specific relationship with them when I was reading. If you keep him standing still in some kind of post modern mashup that mostly references previous issues of *itself* now then you smush the meanings into a new kind of Tradition instead of the original Transformation, in music and magic both.
I have opinions and they're not very educated on this one, but still.
I have only the vaguest of ideas what a guy you couldn't pick out from the crowd who is still the explosive New Thing would look like even if he was my age exactly, it would change rapidly. I have no idea what a 21 year old rebel looks like right now.
So. Feelings about Iconic and iconoclasm. I has them but they're all vague and get off my lawn.
Oh, and I'm not complaining about how other people write, that's not the way up I mean. It's just the guy who acts the exact same way at 20 and 60 becomes a very different guy, even if a sliding timeline gets involved, and so do his cultural referents. And it's interesting even when annoying and makes me want to reinvent again.
And there's a character who when I google him the articles rather improbably say he's a way of bringing a multiverse John back into JLDark? Only then they are dating. And then he's evil. Which is a lot, and apparently in very few issues, which I haven't read. But. At this point a trenchcoat using the exact punk magic of the Vertigo sort could have a generation or two of *mentors*, and relationships within a community doing the same things. Not just lateral ones (like you get in BtVS xovers because Ripper and Conjob were interestingly similar). Long term community that existed before you got there. And that is a different guy! And it's fascinating even if they aren't magic married, but if they *are*... well none of the fic is doing the same as the other fic so I can only assume source is really skinny on this one but, concept.
I keep thinking I could do something fiction shaped with several concept, but the characters in my head don't even match the fic, let alone the sources, so I'd have to file serial numbers off or something.
Like I keep coming back to the question of who wants to be John Constantine when they already know about John Constantine, because you kind of need to to explain John, and it's a tricky one. He built the icon and now what?
Now a lot of canon I haven't read that sounds very dark.
And some TV show I have waiting for me to watch any time I want to get up and do that.
Mostly though I am probably going back to sleep.
Just like in general this week.
I got all tired out doing xmas even though that was like two movies with a meal in the middle
so the next day I slept like twelve hours
the tired sleepy is mostly winning this week
but it's cool, I already read one of my xmas present books, just in several installments due to the sleeping.
Yuletide isn't grabbing me. Don't know what I would have looked for but it isn't there.
I haven't been doing much fic reading this year until right at the end when I started to read All The Constantine fic and got sidetracked by apparently Justice League Dark canon.
I have thoughts now about how characters can change so much by staying exactly the same that they become unrecogniseable. And how becoming iconic absolutely trashed the fundamentals of the trenchcoat brigade. You shouldn't be able to pick them out of a crowd, that's what the coat is *for*, what do you mean Legends' coat is designer enough you can tell from the collar, the original comics coat might be a demon in itself from being worn to hell and back, and Dark has the coat be inherited??? I mean, utterly changing the meaning of the symbol every time, much? Also! Being a punk when punk was the new thing signifies something entirely different than being a punk when you grew up a generation later. Every generation's music should generate its own trenchcoat Constantine and I feel strongly about that even when I am not enough of a music person to have a clue how to do it. And! There are trends and developments in occultism too! Like seriously, I haven't paid attention since the 90s but there's several waves of 20th century New Hot Thing I vaguely read about. Vertigo!John had a very specific relationship with them when I was reading. If you keep him standing still in some kind of post modern mashup that mostly references previous issues of *itself* now then you smush the meanings into a new kind of Tradition instead of the original Transformation, in music and magic both.
I have opinions and they're not very educated on this one, but still.
I have only the vaguest of ideas what a guy you couldn't pick out from the crowd who is still the explosive New Thing would look like even if he was my age exactly, it would change rapidly. I have no idea what a 21 year old rebel looks like right now.
So. Feelings about Iconic and iconoclasm. I has them but they're all vague and get off my lawn.
Oh, and I'm not complaining about how other people write, that's not the way up I mean. It's just the guy who acts the exact same way at 20 and 60 becomes a very different guy, even if a sliding timeline gets involved, and so do his cultural referents. And it's interesting even when annoying and makes me want to reinvent again.
And there's a character who when I google him the articles rather improbably say he's a way of bringing a multiverse John back into JLDark? Only then they are dating. And then he's evil. Which is a lot, and apparently in very few issues, which I haven't read. But. At this point a trenchcoat using the exact punk magic of the Vertigo sort could have a generation or two of *mentors*, and relationships within a community doing the same things. Not just lateral ones (like you get in BtVS xovers because Ripper and Conjob were interestingly similar). Long term community that existed before you got there. And that is a different guy! And it's fascinating even if they aren't magic married, but if they *are*... well none of the fic is doing the same as the other fic so I can only assume source is really skinny on this one but, concept.
I keep thinking I could do something fiction shaped with several concept, but the characters in my head don't even match the fic, let alone the sources, so I'd have to file serial numbers off or something.
Like I keep coming back to the question of who wants to be John Constantine when they already know about John Constantine, because you kind of need to to explain John, and it's a tricky one. He built the icon and now what?
Now a lot of canon I haven't read that sounds very dark.
And some TV show I have waiting for me to watch any time I want to get up and do that.
Mostly though I am probably going back to sleep.
Just like in general this week.
So I was fiddling around with the Deck of Many Things again (again again) and yesterday's first card was the Throne (and it took a whole six cards to get to the Void, ah well).
So I was thinking once again about what scale of Keep you should get from that card.
There's a suggested one in the Book of Many Things, which I have a nice hardback of that goes with the DnD versions of cards including but not limited to the traditional Deck. It doesn't give prices for individual stronghold parts and is an adventure location by design, so it's more about clearing out the Stronghold than just like tada have a castle.
The internet reckons the old Stronghold Builders Guide has a listed price of 70,000gp for their Cheap Keep, but the SBG prices for ANYthing building wise are in no way compatible with Pathfinder 1e prices from Ultimate Campaign.
... just looked up Building prices and found https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/downtime/rooms-and-teams/ lists more building components together, including ones from other books, so you too can price a Blood Spa or a Mystic Greenhouse.
... searching my own journal for Stronghold has very much the same topic come up a lot...
I don't think the rules as written even slightly hint that you can pull a fully stocked library along with your Keep, probably just fortifications and some basic wooden furniture. But I always skip to wanting to put a library in it. Obviously. Chanter's House library with 22,000 books would be so lovely. And libraries do come up in Pathfinder Adventures but for some reason the modules don't often expect you to try and loot the place. So I get stuck reading the Acadamae of Secrets adventure and want to loot something the module treats as scenery, so then in other journal entries I try and math the weight of all the books... which may or may not make any gold piece sense at the end of the day but that is, of course, not the point.
I keep trying to figure out the Library prices and what would be comparable prices between the SBG and UC, because the SBG has library book lots that give you a different bonus.
UC has Book Repository for a one topic +3 or Magical Repository for Knowledge Arcana and Spellcraft +3, +4 if you're doing magic item or spell research.
There are prices listed for magic item design that depend on the amount of bonus.
Skill bonus (competence) Bonus squared x 100 gp
UC libraries give a *circumstance* bonus, and different bonuses are x 1000gp or x 2000gp even. So it won't be the same x. But that whole section is bonus squared.
So to figure out the cost of a +6 instead of a +3 library, even though +6 is only a possibility in SBG:
Basic Repository costs 460gp, Magical Repository 730gp
I am going to knock 10gp off each and put it back on later, purely because I can see the multipliers work tidy without the 10gp, so lets call that the shelf costs or something.
A +3 bonus costs (3*3)*something gp.
450/9=50
720/9=80
So a +6 library for one skill is (6*6)*50gp = 1800gp
or Magical is (6*6)*80gp = 2880gp
Stick the spare tens of gp back on the price and it scales in the same way as any other bonus, I think.
A comprehensive Library has 9 Knowledge skills plus a Magical bit, so 9*1810= 16,290gp
+2890 = 19,180gp
Minimum size 40 square maximum 120. You could say a library needs more squares to be more comprehensive but does it really need more than three times more? SBG has it take 1 lot for +2, 3 lots for +4, and 6 lots for +6. UC's +3 is between those, but call it 2 lots for being smaller than +4 and bigger than +1, and then you get to only needing *3 the space, so it fits in that 12.
Fortification costs 300gp per room, or 3000 total for this 10 room library. It includes fireproofing but for the library not the books. Furnishings to turn it from absolute utilitarian into proper fancy also cost 300gp per room, but I would argue you don't need to upgrade the book shelves so a little added fancy reading room might be more the thing. If you want to put the whole lot behind a very locked door then a vault costs 300gp too but you wouldn't get the walls as strong as the door that way. Not in 4 to 8 squares of vault. You could however fit your standard Magical Repository within the Vault, protecting the fiddly or dangerous things there. Might need more than one vault for our dreamed of +6 though.
All that fiddling with UC rules puts an upper bound of one sort on the possible.
But it is well into the conjectural to claim a library can give you that much plus, in Pathfinder rather than DnD.
Still, happier with these prices than the SBG ones, where a +6 library is 20,000gp per subject.
How you'd get a well stocked library using the Deck of Many Things... well there's the smartest way, where you never use the thing but maybe rent it to researchers for book swapsies. There's the smart way, where you use the Gems to buy mostly books, which would take one Gems card for the most comprehensive library and still leave you with spare change. Or there's the Not Smart way, where you use a Wish for it. Given that this is outside the bounds of established safe Wish granting, you will get ever so many Trouble that way.
Which is, of course, fun.
But you may also get a slightly cursed or twisted library.
... you might get ChatGPT.
... that is not fun. nope.
The library from the Acadamae has been in a hell adjacent dimension for a subjectively really long time, so having a slightly hell twisted set of books seems a very realistic possibility, for values of realistic that apply to rpgs. But Hell is Lawful and has an interesting take on Lying, ie technicalities upon technicalities but not an outright untruth. You could easily get stuck thinking you could work around that.
Best to stick with the Gems though.
... if you have time travel in a universe with Lost Knowledge, like when the Watchers Library got blown up, this seems like a very good reason to travel. It's a tiny smidge more than a Cheap Trick, but the books were created in good order, they're just being extracted and shipped forwards in time the fast way. No paradox, perfectly respectable save.
... says a time traveller with a +6 library...
Okays, plot bunnies achieved, I'll go do something else for a bit.
So I was thinking once again about what scale of Keep you should get from that card.
There's a suggested one in the Book of Many Things, which I have a nice hardback of that goes with the DnD versions of cards including but not limited to the traditional Deck. It doesn't give prices for individual stronghold parts and is an adventure location by design, so it's more about clearing out the Stronghold than just like tada have a castle.
The internet reckons the old Stronghold Builders Guide has a listed price of 70,000gp for their Cheap Keep, but the SBG prices for ANYthing building wise are in no way compatible with Pathfinder 1e prices from Ultimate Campaign.
... just looked up Building prices and found https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/downtime/rooms-and-teams/ lists more building components together, including ones from other books, so you too can price a Blood Spa or a Mystic Greenhouse.
... searching my own journal for Stronghold has very much the same topic come up a lot...
I don't think the rules as written even slightly hint that you can pull a fully stocked library along with your Keep, probably just fortifications and some basic wooden furniture. But I always skip to wanting to put a library in it. Obviously. Chanter's House library with 22,000 books would be so lovely. And libraries do come up in Pathfinder Adventures but for some reason the modules don't often expect you to try and loot the place. So I get stuck reading the Acadamae of Secrets adventure and want to loot something the module treats as scenery, so then in other journal entries I try and math the weight of all the books... which may or may not make any gold piece sense at the end of the day but that is, of course, not the point.
I keep trying to figure out the Library prices and what would be comparable prices between the SBG and UC, because the SBG has library book lots that give you a different bonus.
UC has Book Repository for a one topic +3 or Magical Repository for Knowledge Arcana and Spellcraft +3, +4 if you're doing magic item or spell research.
There are prices listed for magic item design that depend on the amount of bonus.
Skill bonus (competence) Bonus squared x 100 gp
UC libraries give a *circumstance* bonus, and different bonuses are x 1000gp or x 2000gp even. So it won't be the same x. But that whole section is bonus squared.
So to figure out the cost of a +6 instead of a +3 library, even though +6 is only a possibility in SBG:
Basic Repository costs 460gp, Magical Repository 730gp
I am going to knock 10gp off each and put it back on later, purely because I can see the multipliers work tidy without the 10gp, so lets call that the shelf costs or something.
A +3 bonus costs (3*3)*something gp.
450/9=50
720/9=80
So a +6 library for one skill is (6*6)*50gp = 1800gp
or Magical is (6*6)*80gp = 2880gp
Stick the spare tens of gp back on the price and it scales in the same way as any other bonus, I think.
A comprehensive Library has 9 Knowledge skills plus a Magical bit, so 9*1810= 16,290gp
+2890 = 19,180gp
Minimum size 40 square maximum 120. You could say a library needs more squares to be more comprehensive but does it really need more than three times more? SBG has it take 1 lot for +2, 3 lots for +4, and 6 lots for +6. UC's +3 is between those, but call it 2 lots for being smaller than +4 and bigger than +1, and then you get to only needing *3 the space, so it fits in that 12.
Fortification costs 300gp per room, or 3000 total for this 10 room library. It includes fireproofing but for the library not the books. Furnishings to turn it from absolute utilitarian into proper fancy also cost 300gp per room, but I would argue you don't need to upgrade the book shelves so a little added fancy reading room might be more the thing. If you want to put the whole lot behind a very locked door then a vault costs 300gp too but you wouldn't get the walls as strong as the door that way. Not in 4 to 8 squares of vault. You could however fit your standard Magical Repository within the Vault, protecting the fiddly or dangerous things there. Might need more than one vault for our dreamed of +6 though.
All that fiddling with UC rules puts an upper bound of one sort on the possible.
But it is well into the conjectural to claim a library can give you that much plus, in Pathfinder rather than DnD.
Still, happier with these prices than the SBG ones, where a +6 library is 20,000gp per subject.
How you'd get a well stocked library using the Deck of Many Things... well there's the smartest way, where you never use the thing but maybe rent it to researchers for book swapsies. There's the smart way, where you use the Gems to buy mostly books, which would take one Gems card for the most comprehensive library and still leave you with spare change. Or there's the Not Smart way, where you use a Wish for it. Given that this is outside the bounds of established safe Wish granting, you will get ever so many Trouble that way.
Which is, of course, fun.
But you may also get a slightly cursed or twisted library.
... you might get ChatGPT.
... that is not fun. nope.
The library from the Acadamae has been in a hell adjacent dimension for a subjectively really long time, so having a slightly hell twisted set of books seems a very realistic possibility, for values of realistic that apply to rpgs. But Hell is Lawful and has an interesting take on Lying, ie technicalities upon technicalities but not an outright untruth. You could easily get stuck thinking you could work around that.
Best to stick with the Gems though.
... if you have time travel in a universe with Lost Knowledge, like when the Watchers Library got blown up, this seems like a very good reason to travel. It's a tiny smidge more than a Cheap Trick, but the books were created in good order, they're just being extracted and shipped forwards in time the fast way. No paradox, perfectly respectable save.
... says a time traveller with a +6 library...
Okays, plot bunnies achieved, I'll go do something else for a bit.
I am reading a long fic right now
where two characters from different horror verses
get together and road trip and date and sort out their mental health a bit
and not one highly metaphorical demon and or ghost or anything has jumped out at them even the once.
Way to change genres.
And, way to make their canon actions look... so much more inappropriate.
Like if you can take time off from being jumped by The Horrors just by the story treating them like people for a bit
the horrors is you.
Like if it's honestly not a big deal to employ or work for demons and devils and so forth
and they'll just sit around and complain about London prices between work shifts
then the general level of ultraviolence towards them from protagonists
is
bad.
And I don't think the story quite means to say that
they're just taking a pause on the killing to do sex
which seems like reasonable story goals.
But if it is possible in universe then the characters are ... in a very weird position vs their own canon actions.
Not naming the story because like clearly this is an odd perspective to read it from
the romance story is about romance and it is weirding me out with social implications
is not the authors problem.
But still.
where two characters from different horror verses
get together and road trip and date and sort out their mental health a bit
and not one highly metaphorical demon and or ghost or anything has jumped out at them even the once.
Way to change genres.
And, way to make their canon actions look... so much more inappropriate.
Like if you can take time off from being jumped by The Horrors just by the story treating them like people for a bit
the horrors is you.
Like if it's honestly not a big deal to employ or work for demons and devils and so forth
and they'll just sit around and complain about London prices between work shifts
then the general level of ultraviolence towards them from protagonists
is
bad.
And I don't think the story quite means to say that
they're just taking a pause on the killing to do sex
which seems like reasonable story goals.
But if it is possible in universe then the characters are ... in a very weird position vs their own canon actions.
Not naming the story because like clearly this is an odd perspective to read it from
the romance story is about romance and it is weirding me out with social implications
is not the authors problem.
But still.
I have read a bunch of crossovers in a row now
that were just
intro outro.
Everyone meets, gets introduced, hits a bunch of stuff, goes away again.
And the hitting tends to take like a paragraph?
I feel like the hook to a crossover needs to be a bit more than just
look they all hit things real good
even with a common theme like magic or angels or demons.
The story of two or more people meeting needs to be something like
what need do these people fill for each other?
and 'need to hit things real good' doesn't really cover it when they are in hit things real good shows.
It's just a bit frustrating when I can see how each would offer a perspective that could get the other unjammed at some points in their canon
but they are just
gonna hit a demo about it.
And don't get me wrong, there are many ways to write hitting a demon about it that are *also* about confronting your emotions and getting a character arc unjammed, it's just not always what happen.
Like, say Sara Lance meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Key things to talk about: Did We Come Back Wrong? Bloodlust and the fashionable blonde! The Burden Of Command (that you didn't ask for but look at these guys when you don't do it). Ex Boyfriends with a whole angsty vigilante thing going on, possibly dying to save the world edition. Sapphic crushes and how much the crime parts don't make the crush go away. Or, sapphic crushes, and how much Sara hasn't met Ava yet. Give Buffy a holiday, Sara's good for it.
That's so many themes! You could pick one theme and get so many words out of it!
... I just read a fic that only had them fight and decided Sara would epic lose to Slayer strength, as if she doesn't fight superpowered beings for a living.
At least have them fight and do the thing where they each have a signature move that ends with a knife at Buffy's throat and a stake to Sara's torso, Sara would be into that. Buffy would be into that. Throwing each other around would work for both of them, the story should know this.
Or pick one of the more superpowered eras of Sara Lance and have Buffy mistake her for the source of the threat and they have to clear up the misunderstanding through angsty mutual personal revelations and then have sex about it.
... I did not start typing this with some kind of Sara/Buffy agenda but now I'm talking myself into it.
It's just like you can do a crossover to be all Look at these two great tastes that taste great together
but then like
if it do click there will be so many more things to do with it.
Time travelling demons! Say there's a demon nobody can figure out how to defeat and they have to Bill and Ted it by going back to the demon's Ascension and, like, rescuing the food crowd or smashing the box of pointy food or something, removing a key part of Ascension so when they get back they know the pure demon is actually vulnerable. A reason to go over the mythology of both shows.
But! Legends is the resolving things with a sing along or the power of Beebo show. Like sure in season one they fixed things by blowing stuff up and a spot of murder, but things evolved from there. So how would the Legends react to Buffy's general Slay Them All theme after the seasons where they met a bunch of supernatural beings and it was clearly Hell organising the capture and torture of them?
So many ways to smush the shows together and have new story fall out.
But if you don't need to smush the shows to get that exact same story, I shall end the page kind of vaguely sad, and apparently full of plot bunnies.
that were just
intro outro.
Everyone meets, gets introduced, hits a bunch of stuff, goes away again.
And the hitting tends to take like a paragraph?
I feel like the hook to a crossover needs to be a bit more than just
look they all hit things real good
even with a common theme like magic or angels or demons.
The story of two or more people meeting needs to be something like
what need do these people fill for each other?
and 'need to hit things real good' doesn't really cover it when they are in hit things real good shows.
It's just a bit frustrating when I can see how each would offer a perspective that could get the other unjammed at some points in their canon
but they are just
gonna hit a demo about it.
And don't get me wrong, there are many ways to write hitting a demon about it that are *also* about confronting your emotions and getting a character arc unjammed, it's just not always what happen.
Like, say Sara Lance meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Key things to talk about: Did We Come Back Wrong? Bloodlust and the fashionable blonde! The Burden Of Command (that you didn't ask for but look at these guys when you don't do it). Ex Boyfriends with a whole angsty vigilante thing going on, possibly dying to save the world edition. Sapphic crushes and how much the crime parts don't make the crush go away. Or, sapphic crushes, and how much Sara hasn't met Ava yet. Give Buffy a holiday, Sara's good for it.
That's so many themes! You could pick one theme and get so many words out of it!
... I just read a fic that only had them fight and decided Sara would epic lose to Slayer strength, as if she doesn't fight superpowered beings for a living.
At least have them fight and do the thing where they each have a signature move that ends with a knife at Buffy's throat and a stake to Sara's torso, Sara would be into that. Buffy would be into that. Throwing each other around would work for both of them, the story should know this.
Or pick one of the more superpowered eras of Sara Lance and have Buffy mistake her for the source of the threat and they have to clear up the misunderstanding through angsty mutual personal revelations and then have sex about it.
... I did not start typing this with some kind of Sara/Buffy agenda but now I'm talking myself into it.
It's just like you can do a crossover to be all Look at these two great tastes that taste great together
but then like
if it do click there will be so many more things to do with it.
Time travelling demons! Say there's a demon nobody can figure out how to defeat and they have to Bill and Ted it by going back to the demon's Ascension and, like, rescuing the food crowd or smashing the box of pointy food or something, removing a key part of Ascension so when they get back they know the pure demon is actually vulnerable. A reason to go over the mythology of both shows.
But! Legends is the resolving things with a sing along or the power of Beebo show. Like sure in season one they fixed things by blowing stuff up and a spot of murder, but things evolved from there. So how would the Legends react to Buffy's general Slay Them All theme after the seasons where they met a bunch of supernatural beings and it was clearly Hell organising the capture and torture of them?
So many ways to smush the shows together and have new story fall out.
But if you don't need to smush the shows to get that exact same story, I shall end the page kind of vaguely sad, and apparently full of plot bunnies.
(no subject)
Dec. 18th, 2025 02:05 amI watched a couple more episodes of Legends of Tomorrow
and the villains (Legion of Doom, Eobard and his boy band) were doing a heist in the years away future of
January 2025.
... I had a bunch of feelings about it but they are mostly represented by
staring at the wall for a bit.
Now I'm thinking
about how much damage
a retired time traveller could do
just by keeping track of all the days they could stir things up again
by waiting, say, nine years.
... very mess.
Ace and Hex did a time travel from the 2020s and Ace has caught up the long way around by now.
You wonder all the things she'd want to tell herself, even if it's just confined to better control of the nitro nine.
I was not exactly caught up in Legends because the guys were being very playground about whose sword is bigger and kind of embarrassingly bad at, like, crime. The basics of. Leverage this was not.
Also it feels like there is a much more elegant solution that they cannot conceive of or pursue by virtue of being
massive dicks who hate each other a lot.
Kind of like the speedster was not going to think up
try standing still
on his own.
The assassins are just... not well suited to potentially cooperative solutions.
The mind control stuff is epic creepy though.
I stopped after two episodes because if all I'm thinking is how there's a way to speed run the whole season if you start out knowing how it ends then I am not, you know, watching.
I like the bit about Lily and temporal aberrations but I don't like the way they treat timelines as real and unreal based on absolute nothing. I mean post crisis the multiverse exists because of time travel, they need a better theoretical basis than 'unnatural'. But the Lily argument is kind of them discovering that? Maybe.
I can start with the word chronodynamics and spin some technobabble about currents in time and how some are destructive and some are sustaining and some are legit transformational to the whole pattern but they all have to contend with the whole rest of time still doing its thing.
Or you can start with a distinction based around free will and personal choice, and how much of a rug pull it is if the chosen few can make everyone do all their choices over again. That's more satisfying.
But no. Not so much so far.
I do not get Nate and Amaya. Rescue mission first, whatever all that was after. Plus for a historian Nate is not great at causes and consequences.
Mick was great though.
It's satisfying watching the story give him chances to shine but the other characters are... challenging, this year.
Great set up for next disc.
I need more sleep but I have been neither sleeping nor doing much of anything else, outside of those two episodes.
I don't know what I would be looking for in a story.
... possibly I am trying to fill my fun meter when it is my social meter empty.
Shall have to think of something for next year.
and the villains (Legion of Doom, Eobard and his boy band) were doing a heist in the years away future of
January 2025.
... I had a bunch of feelings about it but they are mostly represented by
staring at the wall for a bit.
Now I'm thinking
about how much damage
a retired time traveller could do
just by keeping track of all the days they could stir things up again
by waiting, say, nine years.
... very mess.
Ace and Hex did a time travel from the 2020s and Ace has caught up the long way around by now.
You wonder all the things she'd want to tell herself, even if it's just confined to better control of the nitro nine.
I was not exactly caught up in Legends because the guys were being very playground about whose sword is bigger and kind of embarrassingly bad at, like, crime. The basics of. Leverage this was not.
Also it feels like there is a much more elegant solution that they cannot conceive of or pursue by virtue of being
massive dicks who hate each other a lot.
Kind of like the speedster was not going to think up
try standing still
on his own.
The assassins are just... not well suited to potentially cooperative solutions.
The mind control stuff is epic creepy though.
I stopped after two episodes because if all I'm thinking is how there's a way to speed run the whole season if you start out knowing how it ends then I am not, you know, watching.
I like the bit about Lily and temporal aberrations but I don't like the way they treat timelines as real and unreal based on absolute nothing. I mean post crisis the multiverse exists because of time travel, they need a better theoretical basis than 'unnatural'. But the Lily argument is kind of them discovering that? Maybe.
I can start with the word chronodynamics and spin some technobabble about currents in time and how some are destructive and some are sustaining and some are legit transformational to the whole pattern but they all have to contend with the whole rest of time still doing its thing.
Or you can start with a distinction based around free will and personal choice, and how much of a rug pull it is if the chosen few can make everyone do all their choices over again. That's more satisfying.
But no. Not so much so far.
I do not get Nate and Amaya. Rescue mission first, whatever all that was after. Plus for a historian Nate is not great at causes and consequences.
Mick was great though.
It's satisfying watching the story give him chances to shine but the other characters are... challenging, this year.
Great set up for next disc.
I need more sleep but I have been neither sleeping nor doing much of anything else, outside of those two episodes.
I don't know what I would be looking for in a story.
... possibly I am trying to fill my fun meter when it is my social meter empty.
Shall have to think of something for next year.
(no subject)
Dec. 16th, 2025 11:52 pmYou know when you read a fic and the author has a clear and enthusiastic vision which had not previously occured to you?
Jack Harkness with tentacles.
... I was not expecting that in Hellblazer fic.
... did not finish reading it but am vaguely cheered at the infinite improbability of mankind...
Jack Harkness with tentacles.
... I was not expecting that in Hellblazer fic.
... did not finish reading it but am vaguely cheered at the infinite improbability of mankind...
(no subject)
Dec. 15th, 2025 12:41 amI have decided today I am not liking the AUs I am reading
because AUs don't take the hurt person from the canon I know and find a way to help him
they just wave a hand and make him never no more have been hurt in the first place, as if that is the only way.
Reminds me of a stupid time travel movie I saw once where every attempt to change the past just made things worse until they undid ever meeting in the first place. Like the story really wanted there to be no way forwards, only unmaking.
I reject that entirely.
Unfortunately for me I am reading in one of those complicated nested sets of canon that changes between media and gets rebooted a lot, so the character with the same name hasn't the same anything else, including wounds. Which is probably nicer for him, but.
... calling that AUs doesn't seem quite right. Alternate canons? Alternate canons set in canon alternate universes? Fiddly to name.
I have a few tabs open that just throw Jack Harkness at him. Ideally that can be like a happy little reward. ... but if they actually go with what the crossover has in common it'll be horror where one person can die repeatedly and the other can feel very about it.
Guess I shall see.
because AUs don't take the hurt person from the canon I know and find a way to help him
they just wave a hand and make him never no more have been hurt in the first place, as if that is the only way.
Reminds me of a stupid time travel movie I saw once where every attempt to change the past just made things worse until they undid ever meeting in the first place. Like the story really wanted there to be no way forwards, only unmaking.
I reject that entirely.
Unfortunately for me I am reading in one of those complicated nested sets of canon that changes between media and gets rebooted a lot, so the character with the same name hasn't the same anything else, including wounds. Which is probably nicer for him, but.
... calling that AUs doesn't seem quite right. Alternate canons? Alternate canons set in canon alternate universes? Fiddly to name.
I have a few tabs open that just throw Jack Harkness at him. Ideally that can be like a happy little reward. ... but if they actually go with what the crossover has in common it'll be horror where one person can die repeatedly and the other can feel very about it.
Guess I shall see.
(no subject)
Dec. 13th, 2025 11:49 pmI am not a fan of december.
... three tries at the next sentence later I kind of wind up back at 'the dark bit always sucks and it's kind of unsatisfying when feels are fundamentally about the sky orb'.
This too shall pass.
I have been reading fanfic but already I have read all the ones from this new to me throuple and am going again with the filters off, so that's working about as well as it usually does.
There must be really teensy tiny amounts of canon though, none of these resemble the others except for the ending.
Unrelated to the throuple, I keep thinking up plot bunnies that are just the grand confrontation parts, and then not wanting to think up how the confrontation ends up happening. Like obviously it was all a big misunderstanding and the Star gets to be Epic and Misunderstood and then Everyone Says Sorry!
Which is a grand daydream but not a story I let see the light of day.
Got to have some sort of core disagreement
or
got to write a sportslike.
I mean there's no reason not to posit that magic users do duels on the regular, and being really good at duels could be so satisfying, but, I do not read stories like that, I read stories with big epic demon fights etc.
I do have an idea about The Magic Went Away But We Can Bring It Back. Only it keeps veering about not deciding which particular verse it is in or if I need to remix them all.
Also if magic was real here then I think here would end up looking like Golarion. I think Golarion from Pathfinder is a logical end point of it being impossible to take away people's Weapons of Mass Destruction. People there can get upset and just do a Plague Storm and make it everyone's problem. Magic can get fouled up so thoroughly you end up with Mana Wastes. Crashed sky cities can make for problems thousands of years later. That all seems perfectly logical if magic.
So what's the actual up side?
A lot of stories don't want magic, they want to be *the ones with* magic. Like, as soon as the other guy can do the exact same things, that's Hard mode and distinctly less fun. People spend more time dreaming of fireballs than resist or protect from energy spells.
Also the protection spells fail when it is drama, and then there is waking up in hospital, because stakes.
There are so many more stories with magic injuries than magic healing, that I have seen.
Making there be stakes even when there is magic healing seems pretty simples, since it's all the things that do not involve hospital, which is most days.
But then I end up reading a bunch of stories in a row about how magic user abusive relationships can go that wrong, and I'm stuck between, well that is a lot of no fun, and, well if they used the same abilities on each other that we've seen against the bad guys, that is so very not dark enough yet.
Tricky, making something interesting to read once it can go horror story from a standing start.
Memory spells and tracking spells alone make nightmare fuel.
Okay, I shall go think of something else to do.
... three tries at the next sentence later I kind of wind up back at 'the dark bit always sucks and it's kind of unsatisfying when feels are fundamentally about the sky orb'.
This too shall pass.
I have been reading fanfic but already I have read all the ones from this new to me throuple and am going again with the filters off, so that's working about as well as it usually does.
There must be really teensy tiny amounts of canon though, none of these resemble the others except for the ending.
Unrelated to the throuple, I keep thinking up plot bunnies that are just the grand confrontation parts, and then not wanting to think up how the confrontation ends up happening. Like obviously it was all a big misunderstanding and the Star gets to be Epic and Misunderstood and then Everyone Says Sorry!
Which is a grand daydream but not a story I let see the light of day.
Got to have some sort of core disagreement
or
got to write a sportslike.
I mean there's no reason not to posit that magic users do duels on the regular, and being really good at duels could be so satisfying, but, I do not read stories like that, I read stories with big epic demon fights etc.
I do have an idea about The Magic Went Away But We Can Bring It Back. Only it keeps veering about not deciding which particular verse it is in or if I need to remix them all.
Also if magic was real here then I think here would end up looking like Golarion. I think Golarion from Pathfinder is a logical end point of it being impossible to take away people's Weapons of Mass Destruction. People there can get upset and just do a Plague Storm and make it everyone's problem. Magic can get fouled up so thoroughly you end up with Mana Wastes. Crashed sky cities can make for problems thousands of years later. That all seems perfectly logical if magic.
So what's the actual up side?
A lot of stories don't want magic, they want to be *the ones with* magic. Like, as soon as the other guy can do the exact same things, that's Hard mode and distinctly less fun. People spend more time dreaming of fireballs than resist or protect from energy spells.
Also the protection spells fail when it is drama, and then there is waking up in hospital, because stakes.
There are so many more stories with magic injuries than magic healing, that I have seen.
Making there be stakes even when there is magic healing seems pretty simples, since it's all the things that do not involve hospital, which is most days.
But then I end up reading a bunch of stories in a row about how magic user abusive relationships can go that wrong, and I'm stuck between, well that is a lot of no fun, and, well if they used the same abilities on each other that we've seen against the bad guys, that is so very not dark enough yet.
Tricky, making something interesting to read once it can go horror story from a standing start.
Memory spells and tracking spells alone make nightmare fuel.
Okay, I shall go think of something else to do.
I am reading fic and figuring out which bits of these dynamics are personally compelling.
( Read more... )
So I keep turning these characters around in my head and the weird blank space of reading lacking canon is being filled in with a variety of configurations and I am today finding them fascinating.
But more in my head than on the page, where different elements change with every telling.
( Read more... )
So I keep turning these characters around in my head and the weird blank space of reading lacking canon is being filled in with a variety of configurations and I am today finding them fascinating.
But more in my head than on the page, where different elements change with every telling.
Have been reading fic featuring John Constantine on Ao3
and looking up pictures
and finding tumblrs that haven't posted in like a decade but did do a lot of pictures of his tattoos and spells.
Have decided that Vertigo Hellblazer is darker than I actually want to read, which I decided once before hence not having any but one of them any more.
Also the summaries I read on the internet are veeeeery different on different wikis and fansites. Like, not agreeing on the basic facts, different. So that's handy.
I do not know what DC have been doing with Justice League Dark but I am not sure I want to find out. I mean that was my conclusion from reading up on the animated movies I found but also, that's... a lot. Complicated. Tangles. None of it has gripped my imagination so far.
Well, almost none. I was reading a lot of fic with a new to me character in and then an author's note said he was only ever in comics as the villain in at most six issues of nu52. And I am reasonably certain that what the fic has been doing with him is not what the comics did. It's like they don't understand the appeal of starcrossed bisexual polyamory where the members can be seen as worked examples of the road not taken for each other.
I shall probably finish reading all the fic in this category pretty soon.
I am increasingly concluding that the guy in my head, smudged together from The Interesting Bits of vaguely remembered stories across at least thirty years by now, is someone who needs to fly be free into his own version of the Trenchcoat Urban Wizard archetype. John is archetypal now and there's so many versions of him out there. It's cool, but. Makes it frustrating when we're all giving him the same name. My guy leaves out so much canon did in any given canon I can't keep calling him Constantine, though obviously there is no shortage of Johns.
Actually I looked up a graph of naming in the UK and apparently John as a name has swooped waaaaaaay down the rankings, enough it gets age specific to assume it is The Ubiquitous Name. It's still top 200 but it's not top 100 let alone top 10. And you only have to check the historical graph on behindthename to see it sitting near as anything at number one for most of the twentieth century. But that means people in their 20s or 30s already have a different perspective on the ranking.
I mean when I was in school no one called John or James was actually called John or James except by teachers, because you'd never sort them all out. They just had nicknames.
Weird way to feel old.
I have been thinking about chosen names though. Like, who would choose to be John Constantine, with all this all as an open book example? Who would name themselves after Jack Harkness? It's not quite compelling enough to write up but it's a shiny to turn over. Because obviously the original characters choose to be themselves on a daily basis, and Harkness chose the name. And I remember cosplaying and trying to do The Swagger for an assortment of characters (conclusion: different with these hips). People choose who to be and some of it is from an array of pop cultural options and no amount of being an absolute disaster will be offputting to all observers.
Like tattoos. Trying to find ones the characters have leads to ever so many that people have of the characters. Which is a lot to wear around, you know?
And I was also thinking about magic and the meaning of spells. I was thinking of autoantonyms. That is words that mean their own opposites. People used them 'wrong' so many times that there are two common widely held and opposite meanings. And if you think the Words matter in magic? Really interesting gnarly problem. If you find an old spell it's not just a cursive lemon demon problem, it's about knowing what all those words meant to That person at That time. Which is basically impossible.
And then the symbols! How many symbols have we used and drifted away from over the past few decades because all the connotations went weird? Even skipping the symbols that end up on the ADL list there's a whole set about snakes and lions and badgers and ravens. Those are all big powerful symbols but then someone repackaged them for their trademarked magic school books. And now what do they mean?
So you get these big Magic symbols, the complicated swirly ones people look up and argue about, and what they originally meant has been written over and colonised so many times, not least by comics using them. And anyone trying to sell you a strict package of meanings is trying to sell you a whole lot else as well.
Plus the bit from Wrath of the Righteous where Mephistopheles explains devil contracts and how one time someone laughed at the idea he owned their soul because look at this misspelled contract, that isn't written Mephistopheles, is that even your name?
Mephistopheles goes off and does a hell legal thing, comes back and says, It Is Now.
That's potentially so overpowered. But it's like being able to buy up companies and trade as the new names. Here you are with all these contracts, oops they're with Hell now, wonder how that'll work out for everyone.
... now I'm imagining having some really good contracts and some archdevil just goes off and tries to steal your name and you have to pursue it in court...
I mean it's more a chaos thing to steal names, law would get you to sign them over.
Still. Tricky.
I am pondering also historical specificity in characters and horror stories and what it does to have a specific time and place and social and legal situation involved.
Like, say you've got two characters who are born three years apart, so when homosexual activity got legal one was 13 and one was already 16 when the Act was passed. You could reasonably extrapolate tha they had different reactions to that. Like maybe the 16 yeqr old had already decided to ignore the law, because sex. But the 13 year old could look at the law and think, well, 21 is legal, waiting for legal is at least theoretically possible. And then 21 is a long way away. But it gets interesting if his rebel phase starts then.
Or, you can have those two characters both in the same year at school, and they see the laws change and they will effect them exactly the same. But they choose different.
One is a story about the impact of social factors on the individual and the other is just, like, free will.
But if you don't give the story specificity you don't have the option of the layer of story that is about social factors.
And that drives the horror into the realms of the purely personal, sort of, ish. Like the horror might be about believing you were always already a sinner and that might have clear resonance with being queer in a homophobic religious context, but without specifics to attach it to the social legal religious layers are being ignored and it is being presented as a purely personal issue.
Horror can be used for so much. Not all of it particularly freeing.
The older I get the more I feel like I don't have much to say, seeing as I haven't been leaving the house much for... well, pretty much ever.
But on the other hand I see some of what other people have to say and kind of want to flag it up
like er, hang on, actually...
Today's thought is looping back to Legends of Tomorrow and how you make such a different story out of saving Astra or Astra saving herself, who misuses what powers, how that works out long term. They spun some interesting changes there.
Like Dawn on the tower being sacrificed. That was her blood and her power. How different does the story get if they'd spent the year teaching her to use it?
And I get frustrated how seldom you get generations of female power. Like Willow was basically self taught after Jenny was killed off, and skipped the summer with the Coven like all she learned there was detox. The story is a woman alone finding her power. Into every generation.
Like erasing women's writing and finding out there are women in SF like the new big thing, it is wearying.
So I have thoughts rattling around but neither story nor conclusions just yet.
Shall see.
and looking up pictures
and finding tumblrs that haven't posted in like a decade but did do a lot of pictures of his tattoos and spells.
Have decided that Vertigo Hellblazer is darker than I actually want to read, which I decided once before hence not having any but one of them any more.
Also the summaries I read on the internet are veeeeery different on different wikis and fansites. Like, not agreeing on the basic facts, different. So that's handy.
I do not know what DC have been doing with Justice League Dark but I am not sure I want to find out. I mean that was my conclusion from reading up on the animated movies I found but also, that's... a lot. Complicated. Tangles. None of it has gripped my imagination so far.
Well, almost none. I was reading a lot of fic with a new to me character in and then an author's note said he was only ever in comics as the villain in at most six issues of nu52. And I am reasonably certain that what the fic has been doing with him is not what the comics did. It's like they don't understand the appeal of starcrossed bisexual polyamory where the members can be seen as worked examples of the road not taken for each other.
I shall probably finish reading all the fic in this category pretty soon.
I am increasingly concluding that the guy in my head, smudged together from The Interesting Bits of vaguely remembered stories across at least thirty years by now, is someone who needs to fly be free into his own version of the Trenchcoat Urban Wizard archetype. John is archetypal now and there's so many versions of him out there. It's cool, but. Makes it frustrating when we're all giving him the same name. My guy leaves out so much canon did in any given canon I can't keep calling him Constantine, though obviously there is no shortage of Johns.
Actually I looked up a graph of naming in the UK and apparently John as a name has swooped waaaaaaay down the rankings, enough it gets age specific to assume it is The Ubiquitous Name. It's still top 200 but it's not top 100 let alone top 10. And you only have to check the historical graph on behindthename to see it sitting near as anything at number one for most of the twentieth century. But that means people in their 20s or 30s already have a different perspective on the ranking.
I mean when I was in school no one called John or James was actually called John or James except by teachers, because you'd never sort them all out. They just had nicknames.
Weird way to feel old.
I have been thinking about chosen names though. Like, who would choose to be John Constantine, with all this all as an open book example? Who would name themselves after Jack Harkness? It's not quite compelling enough to write up but it's a shiny to turn over. Because obviously the original characters choose to be themselves on a daily basis, and Harkness chose the name. And I remember cosplaying and trying to do The Swagger for an assortment of characters (conclusion: different with these hips). People choose who to be and some of it is from an array of pop cultural options and no amount of being an absolute disaster will be offputting to all observers.
Like tattoos. Trying to find ones the characters have leads to ever so many that people have of the characters. Which is a lot to wear around, you know?
And I was also thinking about magic and the meaning of spells. I was thinking of autoantonyms. That is words that mean their own opposites. People used them 'wrong' so many times that there are two common widely held and opposite meanings. And if you think the Words matter in magic? Really interesting gnarly problem. If you find an old spell it's not just a cursive lemon demon problem, it's about knowing what all those words meant to That person at That time. Which is basically impossible.
And then the symbols! How many symbols have we used and drifted away from over the past few decades because all the connotations went weird? Even skipping the symbols that end up on the ADL list there's a whole set about snakes and lions and badgers and ravens. Those are all big powerful symbols but then someone repackaged them for their trademarked magic school books. And now what do they mean?
So you get these big Magic symbols, the complicated swirly ones people look up and argue about, and what they originally meant has been written over and colonised so many times, not least by comics using them. And anyone trying to sell you a strict package of meanings is trying to sell you a whole lot else as well.
Plus the bit from Wrath of the Righteous where Mephistopheles explains devil contracts and how one time someone laughed at the idea he owned their soul because look at this misspelled contract, that isn't written Mephistopheles, is that even your name?
Mephistopheles goes off and does a hell legal thing, comes back and says, It Is Now.
That's potentially so overpowered. But it's like being able to buy up companies and trade as the new names. Here you are with all these contracts, oops they're with Hell now, wonder how that'll work out for everyone.
... now I'm imagining having some really good contracts and some archdevil just goes off and tries to steal your name and you have to pursue it in court...
I mean it's more a chaos thing to steal names, law would get you to sign them over.
Still. Tricky.
I am pondering also historical specificity in characters and horror stories and what it does to have a specific time and place and social and legal situation involved.
Like, say you've got two characters who are born three years apart, so when homosexual activity got legal one was 13 and one was already 16 when the Act was passed. You could reasonably extrapolate tha they had different reactions to that. Like maybe the 16 yeqr old had already decided to ignore the law, because sex. But the 13 year old could look at the law and think, well, 21 is legal, waiting for legal is at least theoretically possible. And then 21 is a long way away. But it gets interesting if his rebel phase starts then.
Or, you can have those two characters both in the same year at school, and they see the laws change and they will effect them exactly the same. But they choose different.
One is a story about the impact of social factors on the individual and the other is just, like, free will.
But if you don't give the story specificity you don't have the option of the layer of story that is about social factors.
And that drives the horror into the realms of the purely personal, sort of, ish. Like the horror might be about believing you were always already a sinner and that might have clear resonance with being queer in a homophobic religious context, but without specifics to attach it to the social legal religious layers are being ignored and it is being presented as a purely personal issue.
Horror can be used for so much. Not all of it particularly freeing.
The older I get the more I feel like I don't have much to say, seeing as I haven't been leaving the house much for... well, pretty much ever.
But on the other hand I see some of what other people have to say and kind of want to flag it up
like er, hang on, actually...
Today's thought is looping back to Legends of Tomorrow and how you make such a different story out of saving Astra or Astra saving herself, who misuses what powers, how that works out long term. They spun some interesting changes there.
Like Dawn on the tower being sacrificed. That was her blood and her power. How different does the story get if they'd spent the year teaching her to use it?
And I get frustrated how seldom you get generations of female power. Like Willow was basically self taught after Jenny was killed off, and skipped the summer with the Coven like all she learned there was detox. The story is a woman alone finding her power. Into every generation.
Like erasing women's writing and finding out there are women in SF like the new big thing, it is wearying.
So I have thoughts rattling around but neither story nor conclusions just yet.
Shall see.
(no subject)
Dec. 9th, 2025 11:16 pmI watched the episode of Legends of Tomorrow where Mick gets brain surgery by a physicist because Stein cannot handle talking him down, and the crew just lets them.
That's a different sort of messed up than the usual run around, you know?
Season 2 is rough on Mick being treated like a person.
Also he is having a bit of a same room different genre problem due to the Horrors.
And mostly the others haven't noticed.
The chip in Mick's brain seems like entire depths of Horrors that the story skimmed right past.
I do like that Stein apologised for forgetting about the Chronos thing but it isn't kind that they're forgetting about the Chronos thing.
Except for how it leaves them treating him like Mick, not the puppet bad guy.
... treating him like Mick doesn't involve a lot of respect though.
Going from Mick offering Ray partnership to exploding the gun and Ray being new besties with Nate is just
yowch
even though it is good story. Like that happens sometimes, people don't fit when they're trying and do click when they're not expecting it.
The thing with George Lucas being why two of them are heroes is... possibly more fun to film makers? Like culture matters but having it boil down to one film each is a little simplifying. But leaves them with plenty of fun references to do.
I think maybe I wasn't in a Legends headspace because the run around seemed too silly and the Horrors too real.
Also this week I am poking Ao3 for Constantine fic and... so so much fic, so many confusing canons, all in a soup. Not sure what I'm even looking for.
Well, I am looking for the episodes of the actual TV show, but I am getting them wrapped for xmas so until then I don't even know if I'll like those. The Horrors without the Legends will be a very different viewing experience, if that's what it's like.
I am not getting much done even with a chart to remind me to Actually Read Watch Listen Play A Thing.
December is not my favourite.
That's a different sort of messed up than the usual run around, you know?
Season 2 is rough on Mick being treated like a person.
Also he is having a bit of a same room different genre problem due to the Horrors.
And mostly the others haven't noticed.
The chip in Mick's brain seems like entire depths of Horrors that the story skimmed right past.
I do like that Stein apologised for forgetting about the Chronos thing but it isn't kind that they're forgetting about the Chronos thing.
Except for how it leaves them treating him like Mick, not the puppet bad guy.
... treating him like Mick doesn't involve a lot of respect though.
Going from Mick offering Ray partnership to exploding the gun and Ray being new besties with Nate is just
yowch
even though it is good story. Like that happens sometimes, people don't fit when they're trying and do click when they're not expecting it.
The thing with George Lucas being why two of them are heroes is... possibly more fun to film makers? Like culture matters but having it boil down to one film each is a little simplifying. But leaves them with plenty of fun references to do.
I think maybe I wasn't in a Legends headspace because the run around seemed too silly and the Horrors too real.
Also this week I am poking Ao3 for Constantine fic and... so so much fic, so many confusing canons, all in a soup. Not sure what I'm even looking for.
Well, I am looking for the episodes of the actual TV show, but I am getting them wrapped for xmas so until then I don't even know if I'll like those. The Horrors without the Legends will be a very different viewing experience, if that's what it's like.
I am not getting much done even with a chart to remind me to Actually Read Watch Listen Play A Thing.
December is not my favourite.
(no subject)
Dec. 4th, 2025 08:31 pmI get puzzled by people hating things in advance.
Especially reboots or sequels or sequels they insist are reboots.
I get it if there's some egregious detail known like 'but this time everyone is straight and white except the bad guys' or suchlike, but not when they're doing this from a standing start.
An existing story is being taken as inspiration for new story. Will they use the parts we thought were the good stuff? Don't know, do care, so it's potentially stressful. Will they use the bad stuff the makers didnt seem to evaluate properly the first time? Well that was always a problem, so the only way is up. ... actually no I can think of so many downs but you do at least have room for improvement. And, is The Thing that everyone was there for the first time, still a Thing we could stand to see in stories? Well generally yeah or we'd be bored of the basic idea by now.
Even if we get some horrible shambling husk of a came back wrong, it's not like it rewrites the original.
... blu ray and streaming upscaled releases do enough of that already...
It's especially puzzling when these are fanfic people. Someone with a budget is doing their fic grand scale. Hope they tag it well and move on, you know?
And one can always hope for good things, because we are as ever in a cultural moment that could really stand to get some actual feminism in it. Amongst so many other things.
Of course at my current rates of pop cultural consumption I might catch up to any new broadcast sometime around the point it is old enough to vote, but that is a separate problem.
Especially reboots or sequels or sequels they insist are reboots.
I get it if there's some egregious detail known like 'but this time everyone is straight and white except the bad guys' or suchlike, but not when they're doing this from a standing start.
An existing story is being taken as inspiration for new story. Will they use the parts we thought were the good stuff? Don't know, do care, so it's potentially stressful. Will they use the bad stuff the makers didnt seem to evaluate properly the first time? Well that was always a problem, so the only way is up. ... actually no I can think of so many downs but you do at least have room for improvement. And, is The Thing that everyone was there for the first time, still a Thing we could stand to see in stories? Well generally yeah or we'd be bored of the basic idea by now.
Even if we get some horrible shambling husk of a came back wrong, it's not like it rewrites the original.
... blu ray and streaming upscaled releases do enough of that already...
It's especially puzzling when these are fanfic people. Someone with a budget is doing their fic grand scale. Hope they tag it well and move on, you know?
And one can always hope for good things, because we are as ever in a cultural moment that could really stand to get some actual feminism in it. Amongst so many other things.
Of course at my current rates of pop cultural consumption I might catch up to any new broadcast sometime around the point it is old enough to vote, but that is a separate problem.
Today I...
Dec. 4th, 2025 07:01 pmListened to Torchwood audio Child Free.
I don't think I liked it. The plot rolled along by Suzie just knowing things and guessing right first time? I feel like they needed a bit more handwavium in it. Honestly I'd have been fine with it if they did more bleepy monitor readings noises before she drew her conclusions, which they did plenty of at key moments so I guess I mean it didn't draw me in to believing she'd figured it out. Other than that the bits with the baby didn't seem to say anything new and didn't seem funny to me. I think this story just missed me.
Mostly it made me feel it has been A Very Long Time since Torchwood, and then I was feeling a bunch of stuff about time passing and not much happening in it, and honestly, the problem may well not lie with the audio.
So then I started a Hard play through of Wrath of the Righteous, but I feel like I've screwed up my build already so that's... stressful. I'm playing arcanist again and I picked Holy Water jet but it'll be a couple of levels before I need Holy Water so, you know, oops. I just figured I'd be chucking cantrips around for ages. But I keep missing. By Hard level the odds of hitting are not on your side. I haven't made it to Neathholm yet but I have used up all the Cure Light Wounds potions and spells. So I am quitting and pindering if I'll go after the wand. Hard fight, but good reward. ... probably I'll try and have to reload a bunch.
Previously I have been listening mostly to 6th Doctor audios. I am very close now to having listened to the whole Monthly Range, only a few years late. Memories of a Tyrant, Emissary of the Daleks, Plight of the Pimpernel. Got a theme going there, they meet someone who may or may not have done terrible things, for what they felt were important reasons, and have to sort out what they feel about that and how to respond. There's also chances for the Doctor to play dress up and be not quite himself. Actors having fun being layered characters. There's good stuff in them. And I liked the bit in Pimpernel about the power and danger in escapist stories. Plus the compare contrast on literary hero and science fiction versions. People trying to rewrite their own stories.
If I'd written this closer to the listening I'd have more to say about details in each but I went on to the next, and so here's an overview on interesting commonalities and a note to self to review things and not just open a notepad page that says Review at the top and the title.
I am hoping to get more sleep tonight, which numerically speaking should not be hard, and then I shall have another go at reading listening watching playing being interested.
I don't think I liked it. The plot rolled along by Suzie just knowing things and guessing right first time? I feel like they needed a bit more handwavium in it. Honestly I'd have been fine with it if they did more bleepy monitor readings noises before she drew her conclusions, which they did plenty of at key moments so I guess I mean it didn't draw me in to believing she'd figured it out. Other than that the bits with the baby didn't seem to say anything new and didn't seem funny to me. I think this story just missed me.
Mostly it made me feel it has been A Very Long Time since Torchwood, and then I was feeling a bunch of stuff about time passing and not much happening in it, and honestly, the problem may well not lie with the audio.
So then I started a Hard play through of Wrath of the Righteous, but I feel like I've screwed up my build already so that's... stressful. I'm playing arcanist again and I picked Holy Water jet but it'll be a couple of levels before I need Holy Water so, you know, oops. I just figured I'd be chucking cantrips around for ages. But I keep missing. By Hard level the odds of hitting are not on your side. I haven't made it to Neathholm yet but I have used up all the Cure Light Wounds potions and spells. So I am quitting and pindering if I'll go after the wand. Hard fight, but good reward. ... probably I'll try and have to reload a bunch.
Previously I have been listening mostly to 6th Doctor audios. I am very close now to having listened to the whole Monthly Range, only a few years late. Memories of a Tyrant, Emissary of the Daleks, Plight of the Pimpernel. Got a theme going there, they meet someone who may or may not have done terrible things, for what they felt were important reasons, and have to sort out what they feel about that and how to respond. There's also chances for the Doctor to play dress up and be not quite himself. Actors having fun being layered characters. There's good stuff in them. And I liked the bit in Pimpernel about the power and danger in escapist stories. Plus the compare contrast on literary hero and science fiction versions. People trying to rewrite their own stories.
If I'd written this closer to the listening I'd have more to say about details in each but I went on to the next, and so here's an overview on interesting commonalities and a note to self to review things and not just open a notepad page that says Review at the top and the title.
I am hoping to get more sleep tonight, which numerically speaking should not be hard, and then I shall have another go at reading listening watching playing being interested.
I did eventually finish rereading Dresden Files Storm Front.
It did not change my opinion of the main character or the book.
Slimy.
Also I am just very bored with the style of story where they only ever find anything out when it tries to eat them. They lurch between murder attempts and figure out who dunnit because everyone else is dead. It is tedious.
I did get stuck for a while in the middle of yet another fight sequence
remembering a plot bunny for Legends of Tomorrow
visiting my home town.
It sort of doesn't have a punchline or payoff yet, but you get half a dozen characters exploring one place you know pretty well, you find half a dozen angles to see it from and at least half a dozen interwoven communities to have them connect with. You learn more about the characters and the place they're visiting. Do that whole 'a stranger comes to town' and stress test reactions.
... in Legends the reaction usually involves crime and bar fights so far. two seasons isn't long to have that come up this many times, and I haven't finished the second season...
If it is someone playing defence on their own territory the story has to keep on coming up with reasons to introduce a new bit when the point of view character knows it real well. Either you get their opinions straight up, which for Harry seems to mean him saying wizards aren't very smart but treating non wizards like they are deeply stupid, or they have to go around doing the sensory detail thing and describing things a lot. It makes them sound weird about clothes, or the people in them, to keep trying to convey data through physical elements, and really I'm not sure how much telling the fashions are going to manage. Sometimes the clothes are a symbol set adding to the story, but the connotations have to derive from somewhere first, and if it isn't shared *persistent* pop culture by the time you read it then either meaning gets lost or the book has to tell us what it's own symbols mean.
Duster and staff is a strong set of images but imagine Westerns as a genre fading out of pop culture, or coming back in with a different point of view, and suddenly the story hasn't adequately explained itself.
I was thinking about it because magic items on Pathfinder's Golarion can be ten thousand years old and still work, albeit with a possibility of quirks. Thassilonian stuff turns up in several of the adventure paths I've read but it also does some fun weird things by now. But the art from the books and computer games has to pick a visual style to go with the magic objects, and with the change in visual assets since Kingmaker, you get at least two visually distinct styles of common magic items in cultures that pretty much share a border. Individual makers have distinct styles even. And then they color code the bonuses. Half the time I use the Prestidigipainter just to make the look in the vague ballpark of unified.
Adventurer gear gets very visually busy.
I've thought about Adventurer's Aposematism where the flashy warns off the less well equipped, but consider, you can't really afford to throw a magic item away just because it is, for instance, Ancient Osirian, when you are not even modern Osirian. You could end up with clashing visual statements covering longer than Earth human history.
Your magic items would contain stitching older than Earth humans had writing.
And then you need to just pull off that visual ensemble with some kind of panache
while at the same time being aware that even your shirt and cloak are Adventurer practical enough
they count as Going Equipped
for some fairly large tasks
even at the scale calibrated by a hundred years of war.
... there's a bit in Dance of Masks where these tiny little first level NPCs get aggressive and go red for enemy
and then just drop dead.
It actually took me a while to figure out that's because there's two items the party were wearing that do damage to all in range enemies.
They were only wearing them to add some elemental damage to end regenerating enemies.
But that tiny smidge of damage by the standards of adventurers that can afford those clothes is
all the hit points and then some
for a first level NPC.
Which is wild.
The plot relevant characters have different maths on Just Not Dying.
Adventures sure do make some Choices.
ANYway.
In a story you wear a specific visual statement meant to elicit a reaction from the expected audience.
In an adventure you wear whatever makes number go up when the number in question is your chance of survival.
It sort of speaks less but screams more.
I still do not recall why I have a shelf of these particular wizard books.
They are giving me that I Can Sneeze Better Book Than This feeling.
... if and only if I actually write it down of course...
It did not change my opinion of the main character or the book.
Slimy.
Also I am just very bored with the style of story where they only ever find anything out when it tries to eat them. They lurch between murder attempts and figure out who dunnit because everyone else is dead. It is tedious.
I did get stuck for a while in the middle of yet another fight sequence
remembering a plot bunny for Legends of Tomorrow
visiting my home town.
It sort of doesn't have a punchline or payoff yet, but you get half a dozen characters exploring one place you know pretty well, you find half a dozen angles to see it from and at least half a dozen interwoven communities to have them connect with. You learn more about the characters and the place they're visiting. Do that whole 'a stranger comes to town' and stress test reactions.
... in Legends the reaction usually involves crime and bar fights so far. two seasons isn't long to have that come up this many times, and I haven't finished the second season...
If it is someone playing defence on their own territory the story has to keep on coming up with reasons to introduce a new bit when the point of view character knows it real well. Either you get their opinions straight up, which for Harry seems to mean him saying wizards aren't very smart but treating non wizards like they are deeply stupid, or they have to go around doing the sensory detail thing and describing things a lot. It makes them sound weird about clothes, or the people in them, to keep trying to convey data through physical elements, and really I'm not sure how much telling the fashions are going to manage. Sometimes the clothes are a symbol set adding to the story, but the connotations have to derive from somewhere first, and if it isn't shared *persistent* pop culture by the time you read it then either meaning gets lost or the book has to tell us what it's own symbols mean.
Duster and staff is a strong set of images but imagine Westerns as a genre fading out of pop culture, or coming back in with a different point of view, and suddenly the story hasn't adequately explained itself.
I was thinking about it because magic items on Pathfinder's Golarion can be ten thousand years old and still work, albeit with a possibility of quirks. Thassilonian stuff turns up in several of the adventure paths I've read but it also does some fun weird things by now. But the art from the books and computer games has to pick a visual style to go with the magic objects, and with the change in visual assets since Kingmaker, you get at least two visually distinct styles of common magic items in cultures that pretty much share a border. Individual makers have distinct styles even. And then they color code the bonuses. Half the time I use the Prestidigipainter just to make the look in the vague ballpark of unified.
Adventurer gear gets very visually busy.
I've thought about Adventurer's Aposematism where the flashy warns off the less well equipped, but consider, you can't really afford to throw a magic item away just because it is, for instance, Ancient Osirian, when you are not even modern Osirian. You could end up with clashing visual statements covering longer than Earth human history.
Your magic items would contain stitching older than Earth humans had writing.
And then you need to just pull off that visual ensemble with some kind of panache
while at the same time being aware that even your shirt and cloak are Adventurer practical enough
they count as Going Equipped
for some fairly large tasks
even at the scale calibrated by a hundred years of war.
... there's a bit in Dance of Masks where these tiny little first level NPCs get aggressive and go red for enemy
and then just drop dead.
It actually took me a while to figure out that's because there's two items the party were wearing that do damage to all in range enemies.
They were only wearing them to add some elemental damage to end regenerating enemies.
But that tiny smidge of damage by the standards of adventurers that can afford those clothes is
all the hit points and then some
for a first level NPC.
Which is wild.
The plot relevant characters have different maths on Just Not Dying.
Adventures sure do make some Choices.
ANYway.
In a story you wear a specific visual statement meant to elicit a reaction from the expected audience.
In an adventure you wear whatever makes number go up when the number in question is your chance of survival.
It sort of speaks less but screams more.
I still do not recall why I have a shelf of these particular wizard books.
They are giving me that I Can Sneeze Better Book Than This feeling.
... if and only if I actually write it down of course...
I finished Inevitable Excess on Hard :-D
The fight that was kicking my butt and the final fight featuring two demigods were not the same fight. The final fight was fine. I mean sure I had to ressurect the animal companions but aside from that fine.
The witch hex that turns enemies into allied animals continues to interact *very poorly* with anything triggered by Win This Fight. I had played before so I knew where the cut scene and mythic power up belonged so I hung around until the hex wore off and killed everything properly, but I don't know what would have happened if I'd not known to do that and just arrived at the final fight with some bonus animal sidekicks. ... probably get my butt kicked by not having that upgrade.
I have a new fun theory about Inevitable Excess, which is: ( Read more... )
I have another longer standing fun theory that all the different play throughs of every character everywhere are in the Pathfinder universe also all true. Like with Shyka the Many and ( Read more... )
The game is over and it will not give us the chance to save the remaining tragedies, but it is an interesting enough world that I keep on trying to rotate the pieces until it is possible.
This way it looks possible but you'd have to persuade so many people of very different motivations to go use it.
But pondering it is fun.
The fight that was kicking my butt and the final fight featuring two demigods were not the same fight. The final fight was fine. I mean sure I had to ressurect the animal companions but aside from that fine.
The witch hex that turns enemies into allied animals continues to interact *very poorly* with anything triggered by Win This Fight. I had played before so I knew where the cut scene and mythic power up belonged so I hung around until the hex wore off and killed everything properly, but I don't know what would have happened if I'd not known to do that and just arrived at the final fight with some bonus animal sidekicks. ... probably get my butt kicked by not having that upgrade.
I have a new fun theory about Inevitable Excess, which is: ( Read more... )
I have another longer standing fun theory that all the different play throughs of every character everywhere are in the Pathfinder universe also all true. Like with Shyka the Many and ( Read more... )
The game is over and it will not give us the chance to save the remaining tragedies, but it is an interesting enough world that I keep on trying to rotate the pieces until it is possible.
This way it looks possible but you'd have to persuade so many people of very different motivations to go use it.
But pondering it is fun.
(no subject)
Dec. 1st, 2025 06:18 pmToday I did Cleaner Day tasks, including laundry.
... the color catcher once again did important work. I think because I had new clothes in the darks wash today. very darks by the time they were done.
I bought some pyjamas and only noticed they said Do Not Tumble Dry when I had washed them already. They're cotton, what are they doing, no tumble dry? I decided I do not like them well enough to fuss about them so they can go get donated in Washed Not Worn condition. Hopefully that'll work okays.
Inevitable Excess on Hard is indeed hard. I stopped for the day when I realised I wasn't having fun with gnarly problem sets any more, just getting frustrated at an ongoing inability to survive the first combat round in that location. The basic problem is on Hard they have a great many of the same buffs we do but it is possible to have built the team not so great. Which I am getting the feeling has happened. Or I picked the wrong team and will have to go back to the hard save before this level. Or there were buffs Woljif was really needed for, but I have scrolls and though I'd got that covered? Boo. It was working up until now though so probably I just need another go or... several.
Still a pretty good day.
... the color catcher once again did important work. I think because I had new clothes in the darks wash today. very darks by the time they were done.
I bought some pyjamas and only noticed they said Do Not Tumble Dry when I had washed them already. They're cotton, what are they doing, no tumble dry? I decided I do not like them well enough to fuss about them so they can go get donated in Washed Not Worn condition. Hopefully that'll work okays.
Inevitable Excess on Hard is indeed hard. I stopped for the day when I realised I wasn't having fun with gnarly problem sets any more, just getting frustrated at an ongoing inability to survive the first combat round in that location. The basic problem is on Hard they have a great many of the same buffs we do but it is possible to have built the team not so great. Which I am getting the feeling has happened. Or I picked the wrong team and will have to go back to the hard save before this level. Or there were buffs Woljif was really needed for, but I have scrolls and though I'd got that covered? Boo. It was working up until now though so probably I just need another go or... several.
Still a pretty good day.
(no subject)
Nov. 30th, 2025 08:55 pmToday I played more Inevitable Excess because I didnt think of a better idea.
I did get the paradox I was aiming for, and I beat Inevitable Darkness on Hard difficulty, so there will be more shiny things in the main campaign if I finish this to winning.
I also got the remaining achievement, Silver Tongue. I have done it before but it didn't go ping then. This time it did, then I reloaded and did the Angel thing instead to see what would happen. (Very bright light and only one enemy left is what happen.)
Playing with the witch hex that turns things into your animal friends may still be turning up weird interactions. I couldn't get out of the ziggurat, it looked open but it wasn't, and then when I went back the long way the former friends were back to being enemies and I had to kill them over again. I think that was because it thinks the fight is ended and then it unenda and confuses it. Or it might have just decided to be weird today.
Arue's weird and epic buffs from the Arena turn out to only last until she dies a bit. Inevitable Darkness makes many beings die a bit but Angel spells fix it real fast. So Arue is back to her old self, which is a bit of a relief honestly, winning because a glitch made her into artillery isn't quite the idea.
I am feeling very end of the year and mostly want cake and blankets, so I shall have to schedule other ideas for the next few weeks.
But today worked okays.
I did get the paradox I was aiming for, and I beat Inevitable Darkness on Hard difficulty, so there will be more shiny things in the main campaign if I finish this to winning.
I also got the remaining achievement, Silver Tongue. I have done it before but it didn't go ping then. This time it did, then I reloaded and did the Angel thing instead to see what would happen. (Very bright light and only one enemy left is what happen.)
Playing with the witch hex that turns things into your animal friends may still be turning up weird interactions. I couldn't get out of the ziggurat, it looked open but it wasn't, and then when I went back the long way the former friends were back to being enemies and I had to kill them over again. I think that was because it thinks the fight is ended and then it unenda and confuses it. Or it might have just decided to be weird today.
Arue's weird and epic buffs from the Arena turn out to only last until she dies a bit. Inevitable Darkness makes many beings die a bit but Angel spells fix it real fast. So Arue is back to her old self, which is a bit of a relief honestly, winning because a glitch made her into artillery isn't quite the idea.
I am feeling very end of the year and mostly want cake and blankets, so I shall have to schedule other ideas for the next few weeks.
But today worked okays.
(no subject)
Nov. 29th, 2025 11:43 amI started trying to reread The Dresden Files and Harry's point of view is making me feel slimed.
I am up to page 60 and it has taken me a while, I keep finding out I've decided staring into space is more fun.
In the first few pages he tells on himself so hard. He thinks he's being cute and funny when he's actually telling us that he ignores a woman's No Don't because he enjoys treating them his way. Every woman is assumed to be doing things for the sole reason of manipulating him personally, like they don't have inside feelings, just toolkits. The extent to which he is mixing up violent and erotic imagery is kind of a genre thing but also ew.
Plus, he just walked into and out of a crime scene before forensics got there, described how the carpet squelched under his shoes, then just... left. No protection before he went in, logically a trail of blood footprints when he walked out. That's the kind of incompetence indistinguishable from malice.
Yet I have all these books up until Cold Days.
... how?
... I am unsure if I will be finishing this one.
Maybe I can keep reading to get some idea if the author knows he did that...
I am up to page 60 and it has taken me a while, I keep finding out I've decided staring into space is more fun.
In the first few pages he tells on himself so hard. He thinks he's being cute and funny when he's actually telling us that he ignores a woman's No Don't because he enjoys treating them his way. Every woman is assumed to be doing things for the sole reason of manipulating him personally, like they don't have inside feelings, just toolkits. The extent to which he is mixing up violent and erotic imagery is kind of a genre thing but also ew.
Plus, he just walked into and out of a crime scene before forensics got there, described how the carpet squelched under his shoes, then just... left. No protection before he went in, logically a trail of blood footprints when he walked out. That's the kind of incompetence indistinguishable from malice.
Yet I have all these books up until Cold Days.
... how?
... I am unsure if I will be finishing this one.
Maybe I can keep reading to get some idea if the author knows he did that...
(no subject)
Nov. 28th, 2025 07:46 pmToday I couldn't think of much to do so I played more Inevitable Excess while I waited for a parcel.
Two new nightdresses and two sets of pyjamas arrived, without actually ringing the door because that would be helpful and convenient, but they did sort of knock.
Inevitable Excess remains *really tedious* because of the stupid way of moving they introduced and how fiddly it is about targets, and also I can never remember how much of each thing I need to do so if I get the right ending is pretty largely Luck based. But I have been steadily achieving it.
I realised I hadn't been using the highest level buffs and that explained a lot about how many diamonds I needed. Also any buff you leave out is the one that causes all the problems. Also also I am trying to do this section without Woljif when I left many buffs to him so far so we are short Stoneskin unless I specifically add him to the group for just long enough to cast it and then go back to the more effective set. ... and I just remembered he's still wearing some of the best gear. so. reasons for getting pasted abound.
But I have been doing okay. Even though I turned the difficulty level up to Hard and that so far seems to mean they know all the same tricks and have a great many of the same buffs we do. It's much less easy when they also can cast Legendary Proportions, Wind of Vengeance, and Dispel Magic.
Arue's ridiculous extra buffs from the shadow arena continue to mean that the only problem there is she only gets a go once a round.
Given how much of this seems new to me I probably only did the Inevitable Darkness fight on core before though, so I shall have better shiny things waiting for me if I finish it this way.
I don't know how people manage Unfair difficulty. The achievement for winning the main campaign on Unfair is iirc called The Test of the Starstone, and that seems reasonable.
... I think I have been bored all day but bored with clicky buttons and a walkthrough that is only slightly wrong sometimes and did have a location I had missed. So that's a less boring variety of bored. Mostly.
Two new nightdresses and two sets of pyjamas arrived, without actually ringing the door because that would be helpful and convenient, but they did sort of knock.
Inevitable Excess remains *really tedious* because of the stupid way of moving they introduced and how fiddly it is about targets, and also I can never remember how much of each thing I need to do so if I get the right ending is pretty largely Luck based. But I have been steadily achieving it.
I realised I hadn't been using the highest level buffs and that explained a lot about how many diamonds I needed. Also any buff you leave out is the one that causes all the problems. Also also I am trying to do this section without Woljif when I left many buffs to him so far so we are short Stoneskin unless I specifically add him to the group for just long enough to cast it and then go back to the more effective set. ... and I just remembered he's still wearing some of the best gear. so. reasons for getting pasted abound.
But I have been doing okay. Even though I turned the difficulty level up to Hard and that so far seems to mean they know all the same tricks and have a great many of the same buffs we do. It's much less easy when they also can cast Legendary Proportions, Wind of Vengeance, and Dispel Magic.
Arue's ridiculous extra buffs from the shadow arena continue to mean that the only problem there is she only gets a go once a round.
Given how much of this seems new to me I probably only did the Inevitable Darkness fight on core before though, so I shall have better shiny things waiting for me if I finish it this way.
I don't know how people manage Unfair difficulty. The achievement for winning the main campaign on Unfair is iirc called The Test of the Starstone, and that seems reasonable.
... I think I have been bored all day but bored with clicky buttons and a walkthrough that is only slightly wrong sometimes and did have a location I had missed. So that's a less boring variety of bored. Mostly.
I tried to have A Nice Sleep but instead I had A Rubbish Nap and now I am neither asleep nor inclined to start anything much because it is Sleep Time I just failed at it.
*grump*
I have been thinking about character portraits in computer games. Wrath of the Righteous has more limited character design options than I have seen on videos about other games, but you also don't get fancy cut scenes where you get particularly close to characters, so it's all one in play. But instead of taking the animated character you design and using a little portrait of that where applicable, you get Arts.
Several Arts and some items art under the cut plus a few comments ( Read more... )
Okay, aside from some vague thiughts about adventurer's aposematism and the absolutely wild economic divisions between ordinary survival money and magic item money, I am not coming up with more thiughts.
Or more sleepy.
I'll go away anyways.
*grump*
I have been thinking about character portraits in computer games. Wrath of the Righteous has more limited character design options than I have seen on videos about other games, but you also don't get fancy cut scenes where you get particularly close to characters, so it's all one in play. But instead of taking the animated character you design and using a little portrait of that where applicable, you get Arts.
Several Arts and some items art under the cut plus a few comments ( Read more... )
Okay, aside from some vague thiughts about adventurer's aposematism and the absolutely wild economic divisions between ordinary survival money and magic item money, I am not coming up with more thiughts.
Or more sleepy.
I'll go away anyways.
