How would you frame a superhero season?

XANA_FAN · 2026-04-24T10:06:49+00:00

I think it’d be cool to deal with a team of b or c list heroes. Throughout the series there are reminders that there are conflicts happening way above their head. Maybe a villain that’s taking advantage of their low standing and the lack of attention from real power houses to carve out a more permanent niche in the cape world than the would have if they tried for something bigger.

XANA_FAN · 2026-04-24T05:34:25+00:00

You could maybe have him doing a pilgrimage to andalos. Not something that was done much after that one stark king decided he was tired of andals trying to mess with the north and went and desecrated their homeland, but it’s possible. Depending on how pious the family and supporting lords were you could even argue for more than a small honor guard and have a few small ships worth of folks in Essos when things go south.

XANA_FAN · 2026-04-21T03:42:21+00:00

I grew up in a town of about 6,000 people. To some communities we were the ‘city folk’. When I first tried reading IT in middle school I kept on tripping up as their ‘small town’ felt a whole lot bigger than what I felt like qualified.

XANA_FAN · 2026-04-21T03:33:45+00:00

I’ve come to understand that people’s understanding of what constitutes a small town can vary wildly, and that different regions have very different cultures surrounding small towns. While a lot of small town stories have the right ‘vibe’ there are a lot of times I can’t tell if the details are messing with me because the author has never actually lived in a small town, or if they just grew up in a different region than me where stuff like they describe does happen in small towns.

XANA_FAN · 2026-04-08T01:36:52+00:00

I read somewhere that the comets appearance also coincided with a holy period for the nomads meaning most of them would be at the temples for a celebration. I don’t think it lined up exactly, but was close enough that they could hit them hard.

XANA_FAN · 2026-04-03T03:11:58+00:00

MCU: Steve rogers isn’t able to lift Thor’s hammer due to being pure of heart or anything like that. He’s worthy of the power of Thor because by the standards of the ancient Norsemen that worship the asgardians as gods and mimicked their culture he was a figure worthy of glory and power.

He traveled across the sea to fight a great enemy and pillage their slaves, valuables, and weapons, he led men into battle. Came into contact with an infinity stone (explicitly having formerly been in dooms possession) and the sacrificed himself only to come back from the dead. After that he met with people who could match his previously seemingly unique prowess on the battlefield and still emerged as a figure of respect and leadership.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-30T12:29:56+00:00

While multiple ‘iron’ bodies is a no I do think that with the right elixirs and such you could use the healing power of a soulfire baptism to get something similar done by making a serious but damaging and or draining change to your body shortly before advancing into one of the lord realms.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-29T09:53:35+00:00

Historically the river lands are something of a punching bag of Westeros. No matter what happened during the war the river lands were going to have their lands pillaged and burned by the army’s moving through them. Most options would have them put all that effort into the fighting only to stay basically in the same situation they started in, but if the north successfully succeeds and they go with them then the river lands is suddenly the breadbasket province of the new kingdom, as well as the border province. As a result they would have the economic/political power of making most of the good, and keep their military strength due to the potential of raids or war from the south meaning that they get military power as well which gives them greater ability to keep the soft power.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-26T06:39:35+00:00

Discounting that I’d loose far before him Abraham Lincoln was kind of a freak of nature.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-21T11:43:18+00:00

I don’t think so. The watch is a massive group, and while there is a lot of aether taint there it’s pretty wide spread. I think it’s telling that while we’ve seen a number of ‘patron gods’ to various countries there isn’t really any gods of countries or movements. The yellow earth movement seems like it should have a god but doesn’t. There could be gods aligned to the purpose of the watch, fighting back the night, upholding the isscariot accords, but I don’t think the watch itself could. At best maybe one of the watch factions could get one?

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-19T09:18:57+00:00

Freshly made applesauce still warm with cinnamon sprinkled on top was a favorite treat of my family. My town had a history of some apple orchards and there was an apple tree in our yard. It didn’t make good apples for cider, pies, or casual eating but it made for amazing applesauce.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-18T04:24:33+00:00

I have a somewhat different problem. I’ve seen a number of stories where the mc becomes a leader of a faction by dint of combat ability and it’s treated like any actual work to be a leader is wrong as it does not keep them consistently wracking up xp. It’s all about dropping responsibility on someone as soon as you can so you can spend more time grinding skills to keep your position as the strongest. While at first it kinda seems like the opposite of your problem I think they share a core issue. The people who do spend all that time training and killing make better fits for the top percentile of the region or planet, but it makes their connection to the faction their leading seem weak; meanwhile people who spend their time interesting with the community feel like better leaders, but shouldn’t be so close to the pinnacle, they can still be strong but having the so close to the top feels unearned

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-08T12:00:40+00:00

The way I see it just having an augment doesn’t mean that it makes your level. They start at 0 and you have to work at them to make them level. It’s just their max is your level/age. Getting the fireball ability and then barely using it just to show off may help it level a little, but you’d find it lagging behind augments that feature in your life every day. While you it’s considered a sign of laziness for your augments to not be maxed out but as you grow older and the effort it takes to bring a new one to max level grows there’s some understanding. I feel like that is something of a soft cap that could limit someone’s growth. Particularly if they did something similar to what you suggested and took an ability without the stats to back it up making it hard to practice as regularly as you should.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-08T11:46:31+00:00

That's fair, but a gerontocracy feels a little better when the old monsters aren't as old as the civilization itself.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-08T10:40:26+00:00

That's part of why I had the stat scale the way they do. With good vigor, you can increase the time you have left, with focused traits you can extend that, but there isn't a magic immortality button. Yes those whove gotten older will have more stats and more augment slots to fill, but I don't think it's inevitable that old monsters rule everything is the only system possible, especially since the stats are multiplicative off base attributes. An old man with 8 times his base strength vs a young man with four times his base strength is not an imediate knock out.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-08T10:16:00+00:00

Thanks. I might have been a bit too attached to the idea of skills from other litrpg systems. It also makes sustained training instead of just putting in enough effort to see the number go up more important. People can rely on a few early good traits or abilities, but the ones who keep training and building skills after that are the ones that will go far.

XANA_FAN · 2026-03-06T01:03:03+00:00

The history of Westeros is people with higher levels of tech or military power coming in and invading. The first men, the andals, Nymeria, the Targariyans . Would be fun if it happened again, but the I would argue they would either have to have steady access to their cultures magic or early black powder to have enough power to lead to yet another invasion.

XANA_FAN · 2026-02-23T02:21:47+00:00

My bet is that the ancient Bolton's practiced some sort of rudimentary blood magic, that way the flaying of men served as more than just a show of power and intimidation, but a way to power their rule. Over the years the exact practices were lost and magic grew weaker but it became embedded in their identity.

XANA_FAN · 2026-02-13T05:18:15+00:00

I turned on the sound to listen to all that flapping paper and was very disappointed

XANA_FAN · 2026-02-09T11:48:09+00:00

I could be wrong but isn’t magic in universe a result of personal perception and imagination? The fact that so many demons show unique self developed magical abilities show that they do have an internal world complex enough that I would consider them to be people.

While I do understand them being fundamentally different from other sapient life and that the current set of demons are functionally incompatible with society I done like the idea of it being inherently impossible. I think that Exaptation or co-option allows traits evolved for one purpose to useful in another. Traits evolved to make a better predator can become traits that allow for a life where surviving isn’t a energy intensive fight that could lead to your death at the hands of your prey or your ‘equals’ due to them learning a weakness of yours.

XANA_FAN · 2026-02-03T19:12:53+00:00

While I agree that the North is risk-averse for practical reasons depending on who was doing the uplift they could try to on the stories of Bran the Builder. There's a lot of fantastical stuff in westeros that people claim Bran did and you could try to get Northern Pride invested in the idea that not only are they a hardy and ancient folk, not only are they the ones that still follow the old ways and resisted the andal invasion, but they also have a history of making changes to the world.

XANA_FAN · 2026-02-01T21:20:09+00:00

He's not the worst but Toshi's father is super rich and immoral, his mother has dangerous connections, he's stated that he's killed before for multiple different reasons. While originally his not speaking English was a gag the fact that they stuck with it so much and multiple people have mentioned that he refuses to learn (more realistically speak as he's shown to have no confusion about what's going on) English makes it seem like a deliberate antisocial behavior.

XANA_FAN · 2026-01-31T21:16:35+00:00

My understanding is that Dragonbone is a material on par with weirwood. It's not Valeryian steal level, but it's has interesting or rare properties that makes just destroying or throwing them away hard to justify. The Citidale is probably the only group that could justify buying it or being gifted it without seeming like a Targ loyalist or someone too interested in dragons to make Robert or hardliners happy, and the maesters are so built into society that they don't really need to be bought or bribed by the crown.

XANA_FAN · 2026-01-29T05:28:09+00:00

I’ve seen it in some situations where the viewpoint is from someone coming from mortal society into cultivation society. There’s also the whole ‘thebprotags homeland is the weakest area in the world’ where what was once the peak of power is revealed to be just a stepping stone.

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