I am very sad to hear of the passing of John Blanche. For many of us, John Blanche IS warhammer, and his artwork is what initially drew us into the hobby.
It cannot be overstated how much he contributed to this space that we love and cherish, in a way that is to me more significant than simply publishing books, writing rules, and selling miniatures.
John Blanche helped create the setting and bring to life many of the characters that we have grown to love over the years that we have enjoyed this hobby. His artwork stands alone in its style, the definitive aesthetic of “grimdark” that influences the game to this day.
As a person with a deep artistic background, Mr. Blanche’s work stood beside many that inspired my own work throughout the years and I cannot help but feel that the world is less bright because of his passing.
In a way, he will live forever, and I can only hope that his work continues to be shared and admired within this space.
Okay here's some more E-Soul arc theory that my sister sparked after I showed her my previous post lol. I don't feel like rewriting everything in a cohesive way so I'm just going to copy paste what we each said and edit/clarify when necessary. This one is about Shang Chao!!
Theory begins under the cut.
Sister: the dead friend (Shang Chao) was also the one who asked yan mo to get him in touch with yang cheng
Sister: could he have been in on it?
Sister: pushing for yang cheng to get into this situation in the first place + connecting with yan mo, who had been grooming yang cheng
Sister: even if the dead dude (Shang Chao) was also an unwitting accomplice
Sister: but perhaps he wasn't so unwitting, considering his connections and who his father is
Sister: mmm after reading up on shang de, im more willing to believe that shang chao was another pawn (of Yan Mo) instead
Me: Ooooh that's an interesting thought. Shang Chao had interned with Mighty Glory before, which is listed on his career form and also why he was able to be a judge for the E-Soul competition. He surely would have met Yan Mo if he interned there, right? Shang Chao wanted to start his own agency but he needed a hero to back for that to be possible. Why would he reach out to Yan Mo for permission to manage Yang Cheng if he only knew the guy (Yan Mo) as a bubble shop tea owner and Yang Cheng's boss for MG Kids Paradise? He (Yan Mo) wouldn't have the authority for that (to set up SC as YC's manager), nor a reason to expect Yan Mo to be able to help him (because "Uncle Yan" isn't supposed to be connected to MG). I recall the phrasing also being that Shang Chao asked Yan Mo for someone to connect with, not specifically Yang Cheng. If he was asking the boss of MG, with whom he interned? Absolutely could have gotten something from [him]. Not only that, but Shang Chao got over to the police station awfully fast when Youzi was saved, and no one else went at all aside from Xia Qing. He somehow either conveniently saw the livestream as it was happening and was like "oh fuck I gotta go meet up with him" or he was informed of what was happening and [was] told by Yan Mo to go make contact and get involved. Shang Chao became his manager very shortly after that, before they had the warehouse and before Yang Cheng even had any plans for what he wanted to do. Shang De and Yan Mo only had bad blood because Shang Chao was killed and [Shang De] later realised that Yan Mo must have been behind it, which is why he hates Yang Cheng and wants Nice to kill Yang Cheng as revenge. Prior to Shang Chao's death, though, Shang De would have had no reason not to be okay with Shang Chao working with Yan Mo and gaining experience and entreprenurial opportunities through him.
Me: I do think it's possible that Shang Chao was working with Yan Mo, potentially justifying his eagerness to keep pushing Yang Cheng forward despite all the hurdles that came their way (he supported everything Yan Mo did but he condemned E-Soul's team for slandering him, interestingly... Xia Qing, on the other hand, also condemned the things Yan Mo and Shang Chao were in agreement on and she was the only true good in YC's circle), but I definitely think he was being manipulated all the same as everyone else and that Yan Mo only got him on board as a way to give Yang Cheng more internal strife. Hell, to make it even more depressing, Yan Mo knew about Yang Cheng's years-long crush on Xia Qing. What if Shang Chao did confess to Xia Qing, but only because Yan Mo told him to as a way to get to Yang Cheng more and make him hesitate to save Shang Chao because he was a rival in love and a negative pressure forcing him to go along with things he wasn't prepared for?
And thus, the theory is essentially that Shang Chao was a bad guy all along, working with Yan Mo to make his dream of starting a hero agency come true at the expense of others, without realising that Yan Mo would sacrifice him as part of his own plan to groom Yang Cheng into becoming New E-Soul under MG (rather than Shang Chao) and a potential Zero candidate. I haven't heard this theory yet, so shoutout to my sister for suggesting it to me! It's fun to think about and it was completely fresh to me since I've already put so much thought into this arc and its characters over the past year.
give them a variety of exes. give them relationships that shaped who they are but did not last. give them people they tried very hard to love but it didn't work out. give them situationships that taught them things. give them something deep that was real but could not endure. things that hurt. things that ended amicably. people with whom hot passion cooled to warm affection and became undying friendship.
no more first and only. give me the context of what made them know the next or one after was final and right.
Spring is here in Southfield! Here are some red winged blackbirds and robins from my recent visit to Carpenter Lake Nature Preserve near my school. I had a great time taking pictures with my Canon R100 camera while there.
Most Orcs in DND: Aren't based on any real world culture at all, don't physically resemble any real world ethnicity, and are meant to be a stand-in for colonizers.
No, really, they literally worship a pantheon that wants them to take over the world and enslave other races. They're also extremely important to DnD lore.
Worst part? There are multiple ways they could have handled making not all orcs evil better. There was a tribe of orcs who are peaceful farmers in 2e that WOTC could have just made canon again or expanded on, instead of getting rid of the entire race. They also could have pulled a Drizzt Do'Urden and had an orc who saw what their society was doing was wrong and broke away on their own accord.
Watching the scrambling, pleading, bleeding cope of the Twitter leftists dealing with the idea that the very organization they relied on to fight hate (which apparently the SPLC is where the Charlie Kirk being racist shit came from), has been inciting and orchestrating hate, is the delicious breakfast getting me out of bed in the morning.
“but we HAVE to say all men even if it’s not true, because we need all of them to constantly be thinking about original sin er ahhhh i mean…i need them to realise they might……..mmmm…can’t be redeemed except through penance…fuck no wait ah………….”
Also it implies that it’s possible only in fiction. Which is not true.
Like it would be so much more powerful to use the name of a man you personally know. “Not all men? True, Gavin would never do that.”
And then if you do not know any such men in your personal life, well, now you know where your circles of acquaintances are not representative, you know where you have a blind spot. And if you feel suspicious or doubtful, like “but can I ever truly know if any of the men I know for sure wouldn’t do that, they are men after all” well that sounds unhealthy, like a symptom, y'know. It is not normal to think that a huge diversity of people with just one single demographic detail in common are all immoral in the same kind of way. It sounds like there is an underlying issue.
I remember when I’d hear this in high school, I would be named as the exception. And like? That doesn’t make it better? I know this is a very specific example and I’m not contributing a whole lot to this post but jfc that annoyed the hell out of me at the time
I was talking about this with a friend but a really interesting cultural shift over the last ohhhhhh ten years maybe is that many people in fandoms view themselves as stakeholders and not audience members. Because of that, they think that the fandom should be running things, or at least have an acknowledged say in how something is run. And every reminder that they are not in control, no matter how small, bothers them.
There is a direct overlap of “true crime fans” and people who think human trafficking happens in a Walmart parking lot. It doesn’t seem like content that benefits anyone other than the person running ads on their true crime podcast
The way average modern day fandom people freak out whenever a fictional character is confirmed to be straight always makes me wonder how these people function in the real world.
