Don't think anything of it. That's sort of how I've been for years now. I love this place and all of you folks, and like you, I'm always around. But I'm not great at small talk, especially over a digital platform, and so little happens in my life anymore, at least that I want to talk about in a public forum. It's naturally that there's a certain ebb and flow to people having "interesting" things to say, and with our numbers getting lower and lower, there are just fewer people to fill in those gaps, and fewer people to respond to.

I have MegaMan head canon that X was ultimately the results of combining Rock with Bass following a major catastrophe that wrecked them both.

That statement probably meant nothing to most people!

What Raven said, and you know I'm just as guilty for being silent for long stretches.

As for Discord, for me it's a matter of finding an alternative that I wouldn't worry is in danger of disappearing anytime soon. AFAIK we've not heard from the the lady who set up NGA for us all in years, and the knowledge troubles me that this place might just vanish without warning. Being open to having a place/service that people are using so that we can welcome some new people is just preferable considering how we're slowly vanishing. Also I can't believe I neglected to mention that I prefer Telegram over Discord in almost every way, though most all my friends have moved off of Telegram to Discord, and I can also understand people's hesitance to sign up for Telegram moreso than other services.

Meanwhile, I decided to make Scrapped Princess my rewatch after coming off of Lain and it hits really differently now as a probably-depressed 30-something adult than it did as a comparatively-balanced 15-to-20-something child. For those that haven't seen it, the basic plot is that the titular Scrapped Princess and main character was prophecized to destroy the world when she turned 16, so she was sentenced to death as a babe. Obviously this failed in a Snow-White-esque way, but now that she's 15 and nearing her 16th birthday, her older brother and sister are travelling with her around this so-far-into-post-apocalyptia-that-it's-high-fantasy world just trying to keep her safe. I remember my original thoughts had been that it required deep investment, like 24 of the 26 episodes, to really get the payoff, but jeez when every other episode has the main character somberly talking about how "maybe it would just be better for everyone if I just died" just goes SO HARD for the gut-punches that I can't help but be enraptured.

I understand perfectly! I do not however see any merit to your theory. If X was locked away to test his morality, then that implies he has a totally original personality. I guess if parts of both robots "brains" were used it could work, but I'm not sure what led you to this theory in the first palce.

Mostly the physical resemblance Bass had to X.
Mind you, I'm not saying it was an upgraded Bass, but X always struck me as being kind of an odd leap for Light to make in terms of design.
Added to that the explicit knowledge that Zero is Wily's Magnum opus, and it just made me feel bad for the ignoble end the franchise gave to Bass, to essentially be relegated to the junk heap of history with no greater goals realized.

Admittedly, my fondness for Bass is at least partially derived from his really awesome roll in the Battle Network series, but as a character, it's just kind disappointing he's taken by the wayside.

Yeah, Bass got done dirty. He's like Knuckles, pushed aside by Shadow the Hedgehog. Except his Shadow is Zero, who's actually pretty cool.
THe whole story of the X games kind of stalled out after X4. I wonder if there were any plans for Bass in the event that, you know, any story actually happened.

I know enough of Megaman to know that Rock is the OG blue megaman, Bass was his edgy prototype ambiguiously rival-antagonist-ally, and X and Zero are the main characters of later games with a significant jump in continuity. However, I can now say with confidence that I have evidently not followed nearly enough of the story of megaman games.

Close, but you're thinking of Blues, his cool guy prototype brother. (You could tell he was cool because of the sunglasses)
Bass was his late arrival angry rival trying to one up him at every chance. Still pretty edgy though.


I still like X8, though that's a highly controversial statement apparently. (7 was way way worse though, so I don't get it)

One big problem with the X games is that the story had already jumped so to the Zero franchise, which was definitely a bold departure.

Of all the entries, I feel the least appreciated entry was the ZX games.

And if I had one great regret relating to the franchise, it's not buying the Sonic x MegaMan crossover comics when I had the chance. That is a thing that happened.

I'd imagine Sonic x MegaMan is available is you konw where to look. You might have to brave the Amazon and pay Bezos his toll. Or comic specialty stores if they don't charge an arm and a leg?
I've heard MEgaman ZX was really good. But by that point, a solid chunk of my GBA game collection was Megaman Zero and Battlenetwork. Actually, I'm not sure if I was really buying games around the time they were coming out.

No, it'll cost an arm and a leg regardless because of the issues with the Sonic comic franchise. It can't be reprinted.


They came out during the DS era, but they were very good.
Chronologically, they fall in a weird, murky area between the apocalypse that was the Zero games and the relatively light-hearted Legends entries.
ZX Advent was a better game than ZX, but because the overall game stalled out, they never did finish the hanging story beats left, which is a real shame.

Yeah, apparently I had wrongly conflated Protoman (to use the old english names I've heard more) with Bass.

I frankly had a kind of weird history with console gaming in that I didn't have a handheld until adulthood and only really had an NES and Genesis until acquiring an N64 when the Gamecube was starting to get old. So anything from Gameboy eras or SNES I only know if I deliberately went back for it. And even with the consoles I did have, I had a weird and specific selection of games. So I had Mario 1, 2 and 3, Zelda 1, Sonic 1, 2, and 3 (but not Sonic and Knuckles for the lock-on), Time Gal and nothing else for the Sega CD Addon and way, way too many cheapo no-name games to remember.

That doesn't strike me as all that unusual, buddy.
I have my own specific selection of series and games that I'm weirdly fixated on.

In a stunning reversal of expectations, I've had inspiration stir. Unfortunately, it's kind of a depressing story in mind, and more than anything it's a series of abstractly connected micro vignettes. If I can get done idea of how to actually pin the framing together, it might work, but I'm otherwise not sure.

Partly, there's 2 things I'd like to know:
1) are there any special metals or materials that exist on any of our planes?
2) war of the spark happened. Do any of our characters have any specifics about what happened to them?

I'm going to head out TOMORROW for my date! Because of things and stuff I might not come back to talk about it until next weekend, but for one of the few times in my life I am excited! For a social event no less!



1) I am like 80% sure, but I figured you out of all of us would be the one to know/remember. There's a few that are on the tip of my tongue, but might be borrowed from WOTC canon rather than our own special phlebotinum.

2) I can't help you there because I know nothing about War of the Spark and, from a little remnant memory of the time, would rather ignore it.

QUICKEDIT: you know what, I realize that responding like that was not at all helpful but I might as well just leave it for now rather than ignoring things completely

Beyond Jakkard's spellgun crystals, you mean? A certain gunsmith knows more about them than me I was tinkering with a metal designed by Jack (tentatively called Whimsilver) that is soulbonded to its wielder and changes shape according to their will - I mean replicating different artifacts, as it has limited cohesion during mid-shift - but is not starred in any polished work as of now, so that's not definitive.


That's a Big Problem in my book. Multiple characters of our roster would feel compelled to learn wtf happened and possibly get involved, which makes our non-interference policy with canon material... shaky for some of them - I can think of multiple fellas who would have the interest and power to affect the War's outcome one way or the other. I... seem to remember that not ALL 'walkers were pulled by the Beacon? Pretending that **** never happened or was so distant from our side of the Multiverse it only tangentially affected our roster sounded a pretty solid option to me at the time.

***

On a more depressing note, I saw my best friend taken away by an ambulance earlier. The issue seems to be resolved now and may be released tomorrow - a particularly nasty bout of migraine, which is not new to him, combined with a stressful week few months and a different migraine medication who kicked his blood pressure up to alarming levels - but... yeah, seeing him basically overworking himself into the hospital wasn't a pretty sight.

I hope he's in shape to GM tomorrow evening - I know he should take it very easy, but it's been a while since I saw him so joyful abt something, which... yeah, imagine Orida taking it from here.

For some reason, I thought that Kokkinos on the Wheel had a special material that Maral was mining at one point, but it turns out that was only ever mentioned once is a non-canon short I wrote. It was called "pyrestone," and Maral in that non-canon piece says, "I’ve never found a plane with so much of it that hasn’t already been tapped.” But again, this was never established in canon.

As Huey noted, Jakkard has the six mana crystals: Luxite, Sangrite, Verdedot, Cielasine, Sombrax, and Aures.

I feel like there's a small chance Aralheim has something buried deep, but Tevish would be the one to ask about that.

Solphos has that magic, contaminant gold, I think.

There are a number of my worlds that could potentially have some special metals, but I do not recall specifically establishing that.


I have pretty much completely divorced myself from canon MTG, so I'm not sure to what extend I would be comfortable incorporating the War of the Spark stuff. Having said that, depending on the timeline, Nasperge might very well have been on Ravnica while it happened, because he was hiding out there after leaving Thorneau. Daneera has been to Ravnica, although that might have never been established in canon, either. I know I mentioned it to Ruwin WAAAAAAY back when he was working on "How to Trade a Planeswalker." Raiker likely knows about the events, but probably doesn't care much. Other than that, I'm not sure which of my 'walkers would know anything about it.

Not apropos of my previous inquiry, but I was randomly reminded of the Gin Blossoms "Allison Road" and it's... It's odd. It's not a song I've felt strongly of during the time it was popular, but now there's something so quintessentially 90's about it that it feels like it lives inside me.

I'm kind of wanting to keep that feeling. Name songs?

I don't recall if I ever canonized Aurora-steel as being a "thing", but the idea that Valkyrie arms and armor are different than normal physical materials has certainly been rattling around the back of my head.

Ashkanar could theoretically provide a lot of special materials, if anything can be taken from the metaphysical afterlife subplanes. No such material has been explored in depth, but something like the chains from the afterlife could probably provide a material base.

As for songs, I was weirdly out of touch with music in my youth. Everybody's Fool comes to mind as nostalgia, though. Honestly most of the first Evanescence album.

I was not familiar with that song. I listened to it, and I like it a lot. I'm not sure if you are looking for "quintessentially 90s" songs or songs of our personal nostalgia, so I'll just list several songs and you may do what you like with them.

"Run-Around" by Blues Traveler
"Save Tonight" by Eagle-Eye Cherry
"One Headlight" by The Wallflowers
"Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia
"Roll to Me" by Del Amitri
"All for You" by Sister Hazel
"Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows (This one is more nostalgic for most people, although my favorite Counting Crows song is "Hard Candy")
"Strong Enough" by Sheryl Crow
"Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon
"How to Save a Life" by The Fray (Okay, so I guess that didn't come out until 2005? That seems crazy to me. I'm leaving it here, though, because I love this song.)

The last one I'll give you has nothing to do with the others, but listening to "Allison Road" reminded me of it, and it's one of my favorites. I listen to a lot of Irish music, and one of my favorites are the High Kings. They have some good unique stuff, but I really think that their compositions and performances of the classics are stellar. Here is their rendition of "Raglan Road," which I think is amazing:

Aw yes, the gay 90's. When Willie walker and his gang were making music. Sousa was big at the time. It was a little before my time I'm afraid.

There may be a bit of a miscommunication here...