#( just in case? this is mostly a Me Processing with Writing thing + caveat that my thoughts and ideas could change over time. )

[nordstarr]

what’s your process for writing such long and well thought-out fics? like you don’t have to go into extreme detail but do you 1) outline the story 2) rewrite a lot of parts 3) have a beta reader? also, i would love to write tomark so do you have an advice on how to get their voices right or a good interview example to base that off of. thank you and love your fics. big fan.

first of all, thank you so much, that really means a lot :(

I know you didn’t want extreme detail, but this is me we’re talking about, so this answer got sorta long and rambling. I APOLOGIZE for that, but I hope you’ll get something out of this?

I’m gonna do my best to at least give you a vague overview of how I approach writing, with the caveat that it’s probably/definitely not the objectively Best Way or only way to write fics. My ADHD and general perfectionism make me a really bad case study.

That being said:

1) On Outlining: for “See You”, I didn’t have an outline at first, or even really a good idea for a plot, and I just word-vomited a lot onto the page, vague scenes and ideas and the general vibes of what I wanted to touch on with that fic, i.e. old men in their healing era, looking back on their past, and then got lost in the weeds and abandoned it for a year because it became unmanageable without an outline. Once @phoebesbridgers and I started talking and throwing ideas back and forth and kinda brainstorming, we worked out an outline that evolved as I was writing it. Bare-bones at first, and then adding more scenes as needed, where the pacing was lacking or where I wanted to go into more detail. I was adding scenes up until the very end, so it’s definitely nice to have an organic outline you can edit and expand upon. In my experience, writing fics over 10k without an outline (no matter how loose or free-form it is) is basically impossible. Sometimes that outline is just text messages between Kristen and me, sometimes it’s me taking actual notes in a google doc.

“Who said I can’t go back?” was even more collaborative (duh), with us basically working out a full outline before we started to write, aka doing some brainstorming sessions, taking down notes for that, and then working out what scenes we needed, but still expanding on things and adding stuff in the middle of writing.

Here’s what the first brainstorming for “Sink into your sunlight” looked like (excerpt. these usually go on for a WHILE), just gathering the vibes and basic concept:

Those notes usually evolve into vague scene ideas, so I’ll have an empty google doc with scenes laid out in order, mostly “[scene 1: x happens here], or giving the scene a stupid name that encapsulates the main thing it’s going to be about.

2) On rewriting: I'm someone who edits A LOT as I'm writing something, which is 100% bad practice and perfectionism and not something I recommend because it slows my progress down so much, but that usually means once a scene is done, I don’t change much anymore. Usually after a few days of not looking at the scene and getting some distance, I’ll either print it out or throw it into an AO3 draft to have a different format to look at, and go over it again, editing spelling errors and doing minor edits, shifting some parts around, and once I hand the fic over to Kristen, I edit and add stuff wherever she had notes.

3) On beta readers: I think it’s pretty clear from all of the above that I’d be so, so lost without @phoebesbridgers being someone I can trade ideas with and also make her do all the heavy lifting of editing and beta-reading. She gives me notes and feedback and helps out on pretty much anything when I need her opinion, be it pacing or outlining. I can’t recommend enough that you have someone you can show your fic to, or just brainstorm with, and have them as your biggest supporter and hype man. It makes the mental barrier of writing so much easier to manage when I’m writing for one person, or a small group of friends, rather than the Big Vast Faceless Void of AO3. It takes the pressure off. As long as she likes what I write, I’m happy.

4) As for how to get their voices right: a lot of that is just the natural osmosis of spending 15 years being a fan of this band and watching interviews and hearing them talk, but what always helps me is either reading dialogue I’ve written out loud, or having some TTS go over it, or even just going over it in my head and seeing if I can hear the words in their voice, or can imagine them saying them. I wish I could give more helpful advice on that, but listening to interviews or their show banter always helps to kinda get their cadence right. If you're writing for a specific era, it helps to watch interviews or clips from that time, just to get a feel for what the dynamic is like.

Feel free to ask more questions, I'm just really bad at giving advice lmao

[apettypetrifiedbitch]

not to publicly out myself as a recruiter but i'm a bit done after today. i don't want to be the bad guy to people who just don't know how the process works and make stupid mistakes because of it.

here are some very angry tips. may or may not apply to you. enjoy.

for context, i'm hiring mostly for entry-level jobs. i'm not the US. things may change based on the company and country.

CV:

make it clean. don't overcrowd it. if i need to zoom in to read it, you've done it wrong

mention the most important parts of your experience. no job experience? volunteering. list that. list most important responsibilities you had. do not blow it out of proportion. we can tell, and even if we can't straight away, you'll burn in an interview. don't lie.

if you use AI to format text for your cv, that's fine. if i can tell you obviously used chatgpt to write most of it, i will be doubting you.

if you're applying for a corporate job, this is your cv for a corporate job, not your art school project. you can make it pretty, but keep in mind where you're applying.

if the font color you chose burns my autistic eyes, i will call you, but i will hate you upfront. stay away from those neons.

for the love of god, make sure it aligns. i don't mean everything needs to be perfectly symmetrical, but if that text has five different directions, it's bad.

there are five billion cv templates out there. pick one. canva has a lot of free ones.

double check it for mistakes. triple check it for mistakes.

keep it up to date.

Application:

read that job description. i beg of you. look for caveats but also good things. know what you want to see and check if it matches it.

at the time you hit apply, you should be able to say at least three facts about the company without googling (can be vague) and at least two reasons you applied for this specific position.

some countries require jobs to write the salary or at least salary range in the job description. if you live in a place like this and the posting doesn't state the salary? don't waste your time. don't go there. run. though more importantly: do not apply to that position and then rant that they are legally required to state it. especially if they actually stated it and you just didn't see it.

sometimes you can argue for salary. sometimes you can't. advocate for yourself, but be smart. if there's a screening question with your salary expectation, don't ask for 600€  more than the salary range in the screening question. they'll reject you outright.

some places underpay their workers. badly. know your worth. but if you applied for the position with a stated fixed salary, that's the stated fixed salary.

most places are looking for a person with specific amount of experience, not the best in the industry. if you're overqualified, they may talk to you. the salary range for the position will not increase. if the salary's not enough for you, save yourself and recruiter the trouble, don't apply there.

typically, the first person to call you is not the ceo. if you're applying for entry level, the recruiter is not the one to decide your salary or working conditions. i was literally earning 100€ less than the entry-level position i hired for when i started, and while i agreed and argued that they should've been paid more, it was kind of funny when someone went ballistic on me that the salary is too low. honey, i know. i didn't decide it.

answer your screening questions properly. in the language that the question was asked.

why is this remote position asking if i would have the possibility to attend to the headquarters if needed? that's not remote that's hybrid! no it's not. they're asking because of extra situations. also onboarding. equipment. cases of internet/electricity outages. there may be jobs that are trying to fumble you, but that's not what the screening question is doing. you can ask why that was asked during the interview. see how they respond.

answer to the point. don't write a letter under a simple question. do not use chatgpt for this one. be polite. don't be nasty. if you try to be overly sassy, a recruiter with any power to reject you will do so.

Pre-Interview or Phone Screen:

after you apply for a job, you lose the right of not answering calls from unknown numbers. some places call you first, either for a short chat and arranging the first interview or for a first interview itself. it's okay if you don't pick up at first but don't ignore it.

same goes for email. once you apply, you're looking at your email at least every couple of days. for entry level positions in this economy they will not be waiting two months for you to notice it.

if it's not a good time to talk when they call, inform them. they should be understanding. arrange a different time together. pick up when they call, if they don't call back, text or email them. politely.

if they call when you can't talk and don't accept that you are currently busy or make you feel bad for it, don't go there. you don't want that job.

if they call you after what could be reasonably considered their actual work hours that may not be an immediate "you don't want to work here", but it is your first red flag. cautiously look out for more. if you're anxious about it, ask. they have to be able to explain themselves. i was careful about the fact that my interview invite came after 5, it turns out we work till 6 here, that's fine. as tiktok told you, "it's not mandatory, but most employees stay after work hours most days" = run

sound alive. if it's an entry level position, they are looking for some key skills, but most important thing is cultural fit, motivation and a good colleague with potential to grow. this is not the time to sound super negative or bitchy.

know your motivation. be able to say it. at least a couple of sentences. if your motivation starts and ends at "it's hard to find a job, i need money, the hours are flexible and the office is close" i will relate to you personally but reject you as a recruiter. give something more. i want to start my career, i'm interested in xyz field, wanted to gain some experience or any other thing. doesn't have to be some made up or super deep thing. however, they will be writing it down and sending it to the hiring manager. if they don't have a way to make it good on the feedback sheet, they will not let you through.

Interview:

if it is a scheduled interview. do not be late. if you see you're running late, inform the interviewer. ahead of time. arrange something.

wear something you feel comfortable in but look presentable. no sweatpants. no cleavage. if your skirt's short, sit in it a couple of times to see where it will naturally end up. hoodie may be fine depending on the company and the position you're going for. if you're anxious about it and the company has a linkedin or some other page - look at the people there. make sure you're not looking at the party pictures though.

if you will need more flexibility with the schedule, ask about it in the first stages. they'll tell you. some positions will, some won't. find out early. don't waste your or their time.

learn to introduce yourself/your experience in a brief way. tiktok tips are good on this one. when they ask that question, you should answer it in 3 minutes max. mention most important bits, especially for the position you are applying for. if you want, you can ask if you should talk more about anything specific. more likely, they're going to have more questions to get there.

when they ask a question, answer in more than one sentence, unless the question calls for that. stay on course though. if you answer a very broad question in three words, you're a bad interviewee.

you can occasionally ask them to specify a question if you didn't understand what they're getting at.

do know what they legally cannot ask. protect yourself. however, you're better off not becoming combative. they're people, sometimes they make mistakes. i can admit i've asked people what country are they from when i just started. it felt natural to me, didn't know i can't do that. continue in good faith, just don't give them sensitive information they're fishing for.

do not shit talk your previous/current company. especially if you still have strong emotions about it. the only way to do it is if you are completely sure you can do it in a cold, measured constructive criticism way. you can ask questions to make sure the company is not toxic, but do it in good faith. if you're defensive, we can tell.

why are they asking for my weaknesses? twofold. everyone has weaknesses. first, they're checking for self-reflection. do you know them? can you own up to them? second, they're matching with the position. you're an extrovert who has a lot of energy but lacks attention to detail/hates documentation? you're going into event planning? slay, we may need to double check your advertisements before posting. same person going into administration? huge no. know them, match the position. extra step: link them to a strength. i straight up told my manager i'm slow in my work because i care a lot and i need to think everything over before giving a final decision. they hired me.

for the love of god, do not ask those tiktok questions just to ask them. if you do, make them your own. your own tone of voice. if you're super casual throughout that whole interview and then suddenly pull out "how does a successful employee look after 6 months at your company" or "do you have any reservations about my candidacy" in a robotic, obviously rehearsed voice, you're not going to impress anyone. i've seen that tiktok. i know you didn't just think it up.

ask questions if you have them. nobody think less of you if you don't.

thank for they interview. just to be polite. give them a compliment if you have one. don't try to come up with one just so you can.

this one's extremely petty but they ever happen to sneeze when you're talking. pause for three seconds and say bless you.

at the end of the day recruiters are people. treat them like people. talk to them like people.

on the same note however, you are a person. if that recruiter doesn't treat you like a person, don't make yourself smaller. don't be bitchy either, stay respectful, recruiters talk. but don't let yourself be manipulated. know your rights. stay safe out there.

[wherewhereare]

This is especially for the newbies. @formdetective went under the the guise of @shefaniscience. She was one of the very early Shefani blogs/fans. I have used a lot of her posts to work on my timelines. I always found that in very many cases, in the beginning, she was not very far off on her discussions of the relationship. She still follows on occasions, but I have not seen her post anything Shefani wise in a very long time. At the request of her followers, she took the lyrics of GAABMH and put forward what she thought were the thought processes that Blake and Gwen were having in relation to, in my opinion, the most important Shefani song. It is the only song written by them with their own personal thoughts deriving the lyrics. It is in keeping with every song Gwen has written to this date. Even though, NBY and HA really fit them, only GAABMH lays out their very real thoughts at the time.

There are a couple of others she did, and if your interested, I can share those also. Her discussions about the lyrics really bring out, from her opinion, what Gwen was feeling and thinking about when she wrote them. Let me know if you're interested. I have found that her most profound statement, paraphrasing a bit here, is that when she met Blake, it was the first time she could write a love song without caveats. She put that out in 2016 while writing the TIWTTFL album.

formerdetective May 13, 2016 Go Ahead and Break My Heart Lyrics Analysis Okay so a bunch of people requested this but I didn’t have any prompts that really fit with what I wanted to say, so here is a text post!!

First of all, I don’t think this song had anything to do with HOW they figured out the next step of their relationship. I know he said he was trying to impress her and “get somewhere with her,” but I think he was just trying to sound charming. I mean, I’m pretty sure he tries to “impress” her like almost every day. Remember when he bought his and hers horses? Or flew overnight to go to her son’s birthday party. Anyway, I think this song is about that process obviously, but I don’t think it’s a part of it. I’m sure it did help solidify things though. <3

So my interpretation of the song comes in the context of all the other things we know. Splash was July, then I’m pretty sure Getting Warmer was in early September, and then Make Me Like You, Misery were September 22 & 23, and Truth was October 23. Also in mid and late September, Blake and Gwen both said some pretty cool/magical things were happening in their lives during interviews.

So anyway that’s kind of where I’m coming from with this analysis. To me, the emotional vibe is the most like Getting Warmer. I recommend listening to that right before this for more of Gwen’s mental state.

Go Ahead and Break My Heart

Blake’s verse: Most people seem to be assuming that Blake’s lyrics mean Gwen was trying to ease off or actually tried to break up with him or something like that. But I disagree. I think Blake’s verse is mostly the result of his own insecurity. Like we know obviously that she was really scared, but I think that was stopping her from communicating, rather than from seeing him.

You know how I’ve gotten what feels like dozens of messages asking/complaining about how Gwen won’t say the word boyfriend/doesn’t want to talk about Blake/isn’t a good speaker? Imagine if you were the person she didn’t want to talk about, trying to talk about it. I love her so much but she is not good at expressing herself in situations that make her uncomfortable. And she was so nervous and confused herself. If you needed answers and were getting sort of circular, non-committal responses, that would be confusing as hell.

Trying to navigate all of that would be especially confusing if you were already super insecure yourself, and in particular were 100% convinced the woman you fell for was out of your league.

So this is the situation they’re left with. Gwen avoids the conversation or muddles her way through it, and Blake takes her nervousness, not as a sign that she wants more, but as a sign that she doesn’t know how to break up with him, because he literally can’t believe she wants to be with him. (poor babe.)

The sun is setting on your last good try: So we know based on her lyrics, and and interviews and how happy they were on the voice in battles/knockouts, things seem to have been pretty great between them…but then I imagine Blake would start to have the dreaded DTR (define the relationship) and she would start to stumble and second guess everything and leave them both thinking WTF:

Here I am with a half goodbye, wonder if you’re really gone this time: See to me this is where his own insecurities come in. Gwen is being wishy washy and unclear, and he assumes the worst. Gwen talks a lot about being broken but she wasn’t the only one who was damaged by their previous relationship.

The problem, too, is that this isn’t the type of partner he’s used to. He’s used to someone more assertive, and not as much of a sensitive cinnamon role. And based on comments he’d make, I don’t think he was used to being the one who needed to lead discussions. Plus, go back and watch some late 2014/early 2015 B interviews. He’s not used to someone being this sweet to him or being so intensely emotional over him.

I mean, because if Gwen’s problem was she was in love with him but didn’t know if he liked her as much, that’s not a reason to dump someone. It’s a reason to be hesitant in messing things up that are already going well. But Blake doesn’t know any of this, so he just thinks she’s too sweet to let him know she wants to break up. Like I said, he assumes the worst because he’s insecure and a bit broken himself. So when she doesn’t give him a straightforward answer he assumes the worst. But it’s actually the opposite.

And just when I’m about to lose my mind

He said in interviews that they were having trouble opening up and letting their guards down, and I think that definitely went for both of them. So he probably didn’t want to push the issue too much, so when he didn’t get the answers he wanted when he tried to talk about it, he just tried to go with the flow even though it was driving him nuts. Like he didn’t want to scare her off, so when he still didn’t know what she wanted at the end of the conversation, he’d just leave it because it was scary to push too much.

There you are again on my phone, moon is rising and you’re all alone: So basically Blake is going crazy worrying but she calls him like right away and wants to hang out some more. Because of course she does. She’s obsessed.

Maybe we can just hang a while, maybe we can make each other smile: But he’s still confused, still insecure, still doesn’t know what she wants, so he’s like we can just hang and see what happens! Like basically, I’ll take anything.

Oh no, here I go: I think ‘here I go’ is here i go falling in love, and it’s a problem because he doesn’t know what he’s gonna get from her. Like maybe she’s just gonna break his heart.

Chorus: So the lyrics of the chorus pretty much sum up Blake’s frustration.

Literally he’s like, “if you want to end this, then just do it.” I’m not gonna type out the whole thing because they are pretty much just one thought. Except for this:

Why are you waiting is it way too hard? See this line especially makes me think it was as much Blake’s insecurity as Gwen’s that was causing them “problems.” She was waiting because she didn’t have any interest in breaking his heart. She just didn’t know how to tell him that (and was also terrified to admit she wanted more.)

But the rest of the chorus just kind of sums up like, I want you completely. So if you don’t want that too, then you gotta go.

Oh but also: You can’t tell me that we’ll still be friends, and maybe someday we can try again. To me this is emphasizing that bb is in DEEP and he’s gonna be so heartbroken that if it’s not gonna continue then that has to be the end of it.

Gwen’s verse: So gwen’s verse is a combination of reassuring him that his insecurities are for nothing, she is literally in love with him, but she’s scared of how much she’s into him. And the lyrics of her verse are why I don’t think she was ever actually trying to say goodbye or whatever. I think she probably had no idea what to do and word vomitted her way through that conversation(s) and he took that to mean she wanted to breakup but felt bad about it, when it was really the opposite.

I never ever meant to get so into you, thought I was using you just to get me through: I think when they first started hanging out and then unexpectedly switched from friends to romance or more likely, some kind of facebook style it’s complicated, gray in-between situation, and she was trying hard to just keep on living in the moment, without thinking about what might happen between them down the road.

You know I’m broken I don’t trust anyone, last thing I needed was to fall in love: So she didn’t start hanging out with him with the intention of falling in love. She needed time to heal, and between that and everything else in her life it’s actually hella inconvenient, but that’s what happened. But it is scary because she has trust issues…which kind of takes me back to what I said about Getting Warmer…she’s not sure she believes she can trust him to love her the way she loves him…the problem she’s had in the past. But that doesn’t mean she’s not in love with him.

You got me dreaming, got me thinkin I’ve got some hope; there is nobody else I wanna get to know: So it’s not like she wants to break up at all. She doesn’t want to see anyone else, or even be without him, because it’s exciting and she’s starting to move beyond living in the moment towards maybe this is gonna be forever. Or maybe this can be what she’s always wanted, unlike the other two tries.

But I’m so scared I don’t know what to do, how did you get me so into you? And this is back to her struggling to let her guard down. Feelings are not the issue. It’s just fear. But still she does have that shred of hope so she doesn’t want to break up.

Then again, with her trust issues, she’s not that confident he won’t break her heart either. But oh no, here I go: it’s pretty much too late for her. She’s too in love to give in to her fear.

Chorus again: So frankly, it would probably be just as well for Gwen too if Blake isn’t gonna come through and give her the love and partnership she wants then she doesn’t have time for this.

Bridge: So literally, those are the reasons each of them are acting how they are. They’re both scared, both having trouble saying exactly what they want (until now), but they’re both in love with each other. There’s your cards: Cards on the table, everything exposed, it’s scary but maybe it’s worth it.

Because even though it ends on the chorus, I take a pretty optimistic view of the end. The bridge asks What are you waiting for? And to me, that’s really the conclusion. They aren’t waiting for anything. Even though it’s hard and it’s gonna take maybe a little time, they have no interest in breaking each other’s hearts.

-the end.

[teecupangel]

After reading the bottom of the FE crossover post now I'm thinking about Desmond taking Azura's position of Nohr noble taken captive by hoshido and pushing Azura into more third party territory

From @shadowpack12

Please can we get a fanfic of Desmond in FE: Fates. Please! I’m begging

I cannot write a full fic for this but I can make up ideas. I hope that will be okay :)

The FE: Fates idea that this is talking about is the bottom part of this FE x AC idea I had.

I know you said Nohr royalty but hear me out.

Okay, so in this scenario, we’re going full on isekai’ed Desmond but with an additional caveat. He deages to the same age Corrin is when she was kidnapped. And, in this case, we’ll go further and make him the twin brother of Corrin (up to you whatever gender Corrin is) who Garon was unable to kidnap together with Corrin.

In this one, we can set it up with the idea that Desmond doesn’t remember anything and people around him believe that he has amnesia because of the trauma of seeing their father die and his twin kidnapped while he ran away.

Desmond isn’t sure if this is necessarily true.

It was also possible that he had been reincarnated as this prince who is also called Desmond (although it would probably be more accurate that people around this part call him Desumon… but they sound the same more or less anyway).

Desmond knows he has a missing twin and he is worried, absolutely worried, sure, but, at the same time, he was in a young child’s body with no real information about the world.

So…

He had no choice but to focus on growing up and learning everything he has about this world.

When Desmond turned fourteen, he starts to have dreams of a woman with flowing blue hair and wearing a white dress.

She would always be singing by the lake.

The dream would always stop before she turned around.

Fifteen years since Desmond had woken up in this world…

The dream changed and he finally sees the woman turn around.

And the first thing she ever spoke to him was…

“Please… save everyone.”

Before Desmond could say anything, he wakes up…

To one of servants informing him that his vassal Kaze has returned…

… with his long lost twin.

Unorganized Notes:

Since every royalty needs to have 2 retainers, Kaze will become Desmond’s vassal. In this situation, Kaze will be one of his retainers (sorry, Corrin). His other retainer would be Shura who Desmond took in when he saw guards of Hoshida deny him entry.

Desmond also took in all the other refugees and survivors from Kohga. Mainly because he couldn’t turn a blind eye to them but also… because he knew that their skills as ninjas would help him make his own Brotherhood.

Of course, there’s a bit of a “???” on the timeline considering Kohga was invaded by Mokushu before the Nohr-Hoshido conflict so either we tweak the timeline or we change this with Desmond making contact with Shura and the other survivors a few years afterwards. Either way, his relationship with Shura is more of a partnership where Shura and the other Kohga survivors and refugees are under Desmond’s protection and Desmond promised that he’d help them take back their country.

So Desmond had actually been in the process of making plans to take care of the Mokushu (and Kotaro) while creating his own Brotherhood when Corrin ‘returns’ to Hoshido.

Desmond knows he’s not blood-related to them but he still calls them his siblings. He and Ryoma respect one another but Desmond’s usual “I’ll throw away my honor if it means I can save people” makes him butt heads with Ryoma at times, mostly because Ryoma is worried just how ‘far’ Desmond is willing to go. Saizo is always serious and polite around him and Desmond likes to joke around just to poke at him. Saizo is also very hard on Kaze and always remind him to make sure to protect Desmond. Kagero is usually more reserved but she’s also the one who keeps trying to remind Ryoma to ease up on Desmond because she knows that Ryoma is trying but Desmond tend to misunderstand his words at times.

Hinoka and Desmond are close and Desmond sometimes treats Hinoka the way Ezio treats Claudia. Lots of teasing and light-hearted conversation. Hinoka is the one who always tries to remind Desmond to not take Ryoma’s words too seriously. Azama gives Desmond a headache at times but they’re not in bad terms. Desmond also worries a lot about Setsuna because of how reckless she can be.

Takumi has double the inferiority complex this time around because of Desmond and Ryoma being leagues stronger than him. It’s also annoying for him because Desmond talk to him a lot because Desmond could see Takumi’s inferiority complex a mile away and tries to help. He’s not sure if he’s actually helping and he’s acting the way he wished someone had acted around him with his own inferiority complex (and Desmond has loads of it considering he feels inferior to three Master Assassins and one Grand Master, add in a sprinkling of thinking William Miles is always disappointed at him). Oboro and Hinata both see this and they always love it when Desmond visits Takumi. Oboro is also the one who made the Assassin robes under Desmond’s ‘designs’ which she updated to feel more Hoshido-esque with Desmond’s approval. Hinata likes to spar with Desmond and uses the time they spar to talk about Takumi and how much they’re worrying about him. Desmond suggested they try treating Takumi more as a friend than their ‘boss’ as Desmond think Takumi might be lonely. The two are trying… with varying success.

Sakura loves Desmond and likes to call him ‘big brother’. Sakura actually grew up with Desmond taking care of her a lot of times (because Desmond likes to play hooky). It’s because of Desmond’s influence that she hides a dagger in her clothes and she knows how to use it. Sakura would probably be the most ‘changed’ among the royalties. Her personality is pretty much the same but she’s less shy and there are times when she can perfectly mimic Desmond. It usually means someone really bad is about to die. Hana has a crush on Desmond. Desmond knows it but he sees Hana as a little sister and treats her like, patting her head and such. That only makes Hana’s crush harder and Desmond finally understood how Altaïr felt towards Kadar. Subaki is always polite around Desmond and Desmond tries to make him ease up a lot but it’s taking a lot of time which Desmond is fine with.

(I skipped the other Hoshido characters because Desmond would probably not have met them until the start of the ‘main story’).

Speaking of which…

Corrin chooses Nohr in this situation and the Yato actually splits into two with Corrin receiving one and the other going to Desmond.

Desmond is driven by revenge as well but he also knows that Corrin’s devastation over the death of their mother is real which is why he tries to get more information while staying in Hoshido’s side.

After he meets Corrin once more, he doesn’t dream of the woman with blue hair but…

He receives her pendant at the same time Yato splits into two.

Desmond cannot transform into a dragon and no one knows why.

This one would feel like it’s going for a Conquest and Birthright route at the same time then will pull into the Revelations route after Desmond and Corrin finally talk (both of them trying to minimize the death count).

Once they get to Valla, they’re greeted by a message made of water from the blue haired woman who calls herself Azura. She tells them the truth… She made a deal with a ‘god’ from another world to pull the soul of a newly departed ‘hero’ into their world and to turn back time. That soul was Desmond. She did all of this because the real Corrin chose a path paid with blood (although it’s not clear if she chose Nohr or Hoshido) but the real enemy managed to push the world into a ‘bad ending’ of some sort even after all those sacrifices. In exchange for her ‘spot’, Desmond became Corrin’s twin. The message ends with Azura requesting them to defeat the true enemy of this world and bring true peace.

Azura is alive but she’s somewhere in Valla, only able to leave message to guide Corrin and Desmond that she had prepared beforehand so the two also made it their mission to find Azura as well.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

I'll agree, with the caveat that it's actually the first medium the story was produced in that's the best. take Star Wars, for example. better as a movie, hands down. because it was conceived as a movie.

stories that are conceived of and produced as books? better as books.

stories that are conceived/produced as podcasts? episodic TV shows? audio dramas? better in that medium.

even within the realm of writing, serial fiction is better as serial fiction than as a book series. fanfic is obviously fanfic, and if adapted to appeal to a fandom-blind audience, would lose some of its shine.

fanfic made into an audiobook format will lose some of its properties. things like punctuation, paragraph breaks, the vibes you get from the spelling of a name or place or fictional word - gone. just reading a book out loud puts it in a different medium that is different to the textual one. you put a voice to the narrative. a tone. the narrator becomes feminine or masculine. even the author becomes perceived as feminine or masculine. these are more nitpicky details but it DOES change.

I heard about a fic once that had a lot of blank space. like a random amount of paragraph breaks before the narrative resumed. it was about a guy dealing with grief from having lost his girlfriend or smth, so the readers assumed the blank space was meant to be reflective on the feelings or whatever.

no. nope. absolutely not.

highlight the blank space and it's actually more story. from the PoV of the dead girlfriend's ghost doing her OWN grieving journey! and also struggling with "oh no my boyfriend can't see me I'm INVISIBLE!" and "wow he's so sad I wish I could help!" transformed the whole story.

can't port that into any other format. Even a physical book. bc you can't select text in a physical book.

that story is inherently and forever bonded to the medium it was conceived and produced in, because that medium was part of the story as it was being conceived.

so much of writing is wordsmithing sentences. don't need that in a movie!

throughout the process of conceiving and producing a story in a given medium, the medium becomes baked-in to the medium to varying degrees, and porting it out will be bad to varying degrees (depending what it's being ported into).

book -> audiobook adaptations are mostly pretty fine. book -> movie? much worse.

movie -> TV show? well enough, perhaps (depending). TV show -> movie? depends, the serial/episodic nature can be quite relevant (i.e. in the case of Miraculous Ladybug) in a way that doesn't port to movie very well. do you have a villain fight every 20 minutes or do you have a longer plot? then again, it also might not be. sometimes it depends.

my point is, original medium is what matters in determining whether book or movie is best, and another factor is whether the original storyteller is the one making the adaptation and whether they're doing it bc of the market/copyrights/etc or whether they decided to of their own free will and are putting their soul into it like they did the first one.

i.e. if George Lucas woke up one day and said "actually yknow what I'm going to write books. to put in all that deep characterization and lore that never made it into the movies" then those could be awesome! (they could also be awful re: shattering a bunch of headcanons and nostalgia and changing the vibes of a lot of things, idk. I haven't seen that sort of thing done so I can't judge it. but as a story, I would say they at least have the potential to be equally as good.)

since movies don't get book adaptations very often, the general statement "books is better than the movies" (when the movie HAS a book to go with it) is true in a broad sense. but I like nitpicking, so. yeah.

[astrovian]

Summary of main points/new info from Richard Armitage's interview on Writers Pod:

- When Audible originally approached Richard, they asked specifically for a crime/thriller novel but wanted it to be ghost-written. Richard balked at this, as he didn't want to be reading someone else's words and passing them off as his own ("I couldn't read someone else's words as if they were mine"), so enthusiastically accepted the project with the caveat that he got to write it himself. This made Audible concerned ("Can he even write?"), but Richard submitted a plot outline as well as a writing sample which convinced Audible to drop the ghost-writing idea

- Geneva was written mostly in hotel rooms, including during filming for The Man From Rome and Stay Close, on his days off or on the weekends

- He was writing in both Ulysses and Word (on both his iPad and Laptop) but would have preferred to write with pen and paper. He has no idea what font he wrote in - just whatever the default is

- When shooting for a show/film, Richard looks at the next day's scene as the last thing he does before he sleeps, and he did the same for Geneva, reading through his plan for the chapter that he wanted to write the next day directly before going to sleep. The next day, he would get up, eat, go for a run, let the ideas he'd either come up with overnight or that morning soak in, and then come back in the afternoon and write it down. He would keep going, writing in free-flowing style as the ideas and words came into his head, and would end up staying up writing to 2am sometimes. He would then leave what he had written for a few days and come back to it later to start polishing and editing

- Exactly like he does when he is acting, RA keeps a black notebook behind his bed to jot notes from dreams down in

- When dealing with writer's block, Richard would focus on structuring the chapter instead e.g. the 'dot-to-dot' of what would happen in the chapter, creating a skeleton structure with gaps to fill in later. Richard credits his experiences with acting, which he refers to as a structured discipline (and because shooting always occurs out of sequence) as what made it easy for him mentally to write chapters out of order and leave gaps in them to come back to later when he felt inspiration strike

- When writing, Richard ended up imagining this story as his TV show/movie without realising it, picturing each scene (chapter) in his head and then writing that down

- "My brain works in a very visual way, my script margins are fill of pictures and images"

- "I did read every single word out loud to make sure it was right, musically, structurally". During the final recording process, he was still making editing changes, retro-fitting words or phrases that didn't sound right when read out

- Grammar editing of the novel was left to editors at Audible, but Richard acknowledged that this was very important despite being only an audiobook: he has likened it to writing music - without that information the reader/narrator doesn't know when to pause or take a break etc.

- "It may turn into a physical copy"

- "I knew I wanted this to be spoken in first person" after he thought about narrating Jekyll and Hyde. Richard loved the idea of the doctor writing letters about himself, which led to the idea of Daniel writing a case study about his own wife. He then realised Sarah, with all of her expertise and knowledge, needed a voice as well

- On writing in the crime/thriller genre: "I was very conscious of cheating the audience - red herrings frustrate me... but I also don't like things that are tied up too neatly"

- "I'm creating another treatment right now"

[theinstagrahame]

I keep seeing ads for BetterHelp and similar podcast-sponsoring mental health services which have horror stories. Some of these ads talk about how hard it is to find a therapist, which made me wonder: Are y'all as confused about how to find one as I was?

I went searching for a new therapist a couple of years ago, and had no idea where to start, honestly. My doctor recommended the Psychology Today website, but beyond that: what do? Call all of them and hope we click? Dust off the phone book and point to a random page in the P section? Go down the list alphabetically until I find one that I like?

My partner lucked out and immediately clicked with the first person their PCP suggested. A lot of my friends described just going and seeing if it worked out--and that had been my process previously.

I didn't really want to try that again, so I went with a new process. Which I think worked out well? I'm happy with my therapist, and have been seeing them for... somewhere between a year and 2 years. But, as I don't think I'm that unique, figured I'd write down what I did in case it helped someone else:

(This is presented with a lot of caveats. I have insurance, so that was part of my process. I was looking mostly for like, talk therapy. Someone with a need for more specialized care may need to make some adaptations.)

Step 1: go to the Psychology Today website (recommended by my Doctor). At least in mid 2023, they have a "Find a Therapist" tool front and center of the page.

Step 2: Enter your geographical area. Then use the search filters to pare the list down to people who specialize in the stuff you want to talk about. You can also specify telehealth, and weed out anyone who's not taking new clients.

Step 3: Look at the profiles. Honestly, this part is mostly vibes. I noticed a lot of the photos of older therapists reminded me too much of my parents or friends of my parents. There were a lot of things I wouldn't feel comfortable talking to them about, so I looked for someone I could imagine as a friend. Several of them also had short self-marketing paragraphs on their profiles, which I also took into consideration.

I'm calling this part out as important. I wanted to scout out someone who I'd feel comfortable talking to. One or two I crossed off my list because their writing felt "too hippy" for my comfort level. Here, you should ask yourself what you want in a therapist. If you're looking for someone with that air of parentitude, absolutely go for it. Finding a good fit therapist is 100% about comfort, so check in with yourself here. (Optional: You can also look at reviews on some insurance websites and/or Google for additional insight into the therapist's work)

Step 4: Compile a list of therapists you're interested in contacting. I went with 2-3, but honestly, given the state of the United States Healthcare System, 5+ is maybe a safe bet. Because the next step is...

Step 5: Open your Health Insurance website, and use their "Find a Therapist" tool. Use a similar geographical radius as earlier.

Step 6: Cross-reference your list with your health insurance website. Nix any that aren't covered (unless you *really* want to meet with them and see if you can work something out).

Step 7: Contact your top 2-3 picks. When I did this, I got emails back from 2 of them, both of whom were currently full, but expected to have availability in a couple of months. I waited, and went with the first one who got back. I like my therapist a lot!

Step 8: Go for a few sessions. If they don't bring it up (mine did), ask about what to do if you don't feel like it's a good fit. They're professionals, and shouldn't take it personally. Talk early and often about whether you both feel like it's a good match.

Note: This is about as important as Step 3, because your Vibes can lead you astray, but 1000%, you need to feel comfortable with your therapist. If you don't, you're just wasting their time and your money. Plus, you have a List, so if it doesn't work out, you can just hit the next name.

Truth be told, this was a process that spanned a couple of weeks (plus the waiting for availability). Partially because getting help is scary, so I had to work myself up to some parts of it. Partially because some steps did require me to ask myself uncomfortable questions about what I was looking for, and I had to work myself up to those answers. I'm also pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADHD, so like, easy to lose focus on this. But, making incremental progress was super helpful, and I did eventually get to the end.

Bear in mind: your mileage may vary. Your insurance options may vary. I am not a doctor, lawyer, or expert in anything here. I'm just some guy, you know?

Take what parts of this feel right, ignore the ones that don't--or that don't apply.

[alexzalben]

What do you think of all the backlash the last Riverdale episode received? I’ve never seen the writers speak out like this before on all the hate.

This is a pretty complicated topic that I probably can’t do justice with one Tumblr ask, but I’ll try to address some of the broad strokes ideas here. And hang tight, because this is gonna go long.

First of all, a caveat: I have by no means read through every comment the writers were responding to, nor do I know what they discussed or how they’re feeling about things, nor do I speak for them in any way.

However, I do think one of the joys and downfalls of making TV in the social media era is the accessibility of the creative team to fans. Joys because it opens up new ways of understanding how a show is made, demystifying the process, which is always a good thing. Downfalls because to some fans - not all fans, by any means - it makes them feel like they have a say in what happens in the show.

On the latter, it’s not to say that the writers aren’t listening, on many series they’re well aware of what fans think about their show, the plots, the ships, etc. Sometimes they’ll even shift where they’re going based on fan feedback. Nikki and Paolo on Lost are the example I always go to, where they were introduced to show the outside perspective of what other survivors were doing while Jack and his gang were going on adventures... And everybody HATED THEM. So much so that plans changed and they were literally buried alive on the show by the end of the season, in a very unsubtle metaphor.

That said, there’s a difference between what I perceive to be the tone around Nikki and Paolo, which mind you was pre-Twitter days, and what some shows have to deal with now: one is constructive criticism presented as “hey we don’t like this”; the latter sometimes veers into “you suck and you should kill yourself.”

I want to emphasize again: this is not everyone. Usually there is a small section of any group of people that delves into hyper-negativity, and they always get an outsized focus to the number of people who actually do that. Again, example here, but for a while I was part of a pretty popular online sketch comedy group. We got tons of views, tons of comments, I’d estimate 95-99% of those comments were great. Did I internalize those? Of course not. I internalized the one comment out of 100 that told me what a shitty writer I was. That’s the one that rolled around in my head all night, because it seeped into the fear that most writers have that they do suck and will never be successful, at any level. It’s Imposter Syndrome, plain and simple, and it affects everyone no matter how famous (or not) they are.

Reason I mention that is it’s entirely possible that 99% of the comments to the writers of Riverdale this episode were mostly fine, but if 1% of them were of the “fucking kill yourself” variety, that hurts, a lot. It’s not on everyone, by any means, but that pulls the focus, and it’s horrifying every time no matter how often it happens (and believe me, it happens far too often).

Specifically with Riverdale, there are another few factors that are exacerbating this. One is, and I don’t want to diminish this: the pandemic. We’re a year in and people are crumbling mentally. Nothing has been “normal” for a year, that impacts every single aspect of your life, and some things are easier to lash out at than others, like a TV show. If a deadly virus is causing inconsistency? Not much you can do about that. If your fave TV show is shaking up the broadcast schedule and changing your favorite couples? Complain to the writers, the directors, the actors, etc.

The other is the arc of this season so far, which I do think is driving people fucking nuts. This again gets back to the pandemic, but ending with episode 19, waiting months, and then coming back for a premiere that is actually the third to the last episode of the season? That’s unsettling. It throws you off kilter, because it’s not the right rhythm. I know this sounds a little silly, but it’s actually very important: stories have a rhythm to them, and a lot of TV shows in particular have had that rhythm broken. Riverdale had three episodes that were all essentially climax, then upended the show with a time jump, and has continued to mix things around almost every episode. And then it’ll be going into another three month break.

This is definitely the point where someone says “mix things around? they’re doing the same couples they always did.” Sure, theoretical person. But having sifted through fan comments and tweets over the past couple of weeks, every single week one section of the fanbase has been 100% sure it is their ship’s time to shine, and the next they’re being told it’s done forever, and then the next they’re back on, then the next they’re done... It’s an emotional rollercoaster ride, and that’s how the writers designed it, and it’s frankly not over yet. But add in that pandemic uncertainty above, and you have a recipe for people panicking.

Also, and again, this is a small section of any fanbase, but it’s very clear that because of this hyped up panic, some people are being absolutely terrible assholes to other fans. I know I don’t usually curse this much, but the amount of gloating I’ve seen from people on all sides, back and forth, is super gross. Personally, if someone is sobbing for whatever reason, my reaction has never been to quote tweet them with “you lost, get over it” and a peace sign emoji. It sucks when people are sad, and we have a moral obligation to make sure other people feel okay. Don’t know if you’ve ever heard this one, but “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Sort of an important life rule.

Overall, I think a fanbase is stronger is they support each other rather than engaging in ship wars, and I do think there’s a lot of people who do do that. Or just express their displeasure, without attacking people. But there are some people who do, and that’s overall making the whole tone of the discussion that much worse.

So what’s the solution here? I always emphasize to my writers that it’s okay to have a negative take as long as you provide something constructive about a way out of the situation, and I’ll apply that both to the Riverdale fanbase, as well as this extremely long Tumblr ask.

There are three things I’d suggest, and both of them are on you. By “you” I mean the general you, and the reason I suggest them, versus what the writers and creators of Riverdale can do is that “you” are the thing you can control and change.

The first is changing the tone of the discussion. Realize that there are people deeply, emotionally impacted in different ways by this TV show. Allow that they may be having different emotional reactions than you, and give them the space and the support to work through it. If you’re a Varchie fan, it actually makes you a better fan to check on a Barchie fan and see if they’re okay. If you’re a Barchie fan, it’s okay to be happy for a Varchie fan and sad at the same time. Mainly because none of you had anything to do with it. This isn’t even a case where you wore your lucky socks and your fave team won the game. The writers are writing what they wrote, and you are a passive observer, not involved other than the involvement you bring to it. So if everyone supports each other regardless of the circumstances, that will improve things overall.

The second? Disengage. Take a break. Stop watching the show. You have no obligation to tweet, or go on any other social media outlet for this series, nor do you have to keep watching the show if it hurts you. In fact, taking a show break if you feel too involved is a very good thing. Check out, clear your head and come back much later and look at it with fresh eyes.

Third? Think before you comment. It took me a long time to get here with this one, and I’m still working on it, but before you comment: pause, read it over again, and think “is this something I really want to send?” You do get that rush of taking whatever anger you’re feeling and getting it out of your body and mind, but ultimately it’s usually more damaging than either waiting, posting something a little more thoughtful, or not posting at all. It’s really thinking about what you’re adding to the conversation, and what you’re hoping to get back.

So there you go. Lots of thoughts there, and I’m sure there’s lots more to say. This is only my outside perspective on this, and I hope it’s helpful at least in some small way. And if not, that is cool, too!

[carmenxjulia]

Another Duane interview transcript, coming at you! This one was from a smaller Carmen Sandiego chatroom. There were several interviewers, so that’s why the name of the question asker changes. Get the details below the break! Stay tuned, more interview transcripts coming soon.

Duane Capizzi:

HI EVERYONE! I'M IN!

Sorry I'm late, I got lost on the way haha. Then got lost trying to change my PFP

Thanks for gathering! Shall we get started? Let's do some Q&A!

(as long as they are not geography questions haha)

Fuel:

What characters or plot points were cut from the final product?

Duane Capizzi:

Ooo, starting with a right hook to the jaw!

Let me think about that for a moment: I'm hesitant to give too much away because I'm really hoping we can tell more stories in this world at some point

Which is to say, we tend not to waste anything: if we don't use it when we originally planned, we usually find a way to use something later - and there's usually a "karmic" reason that we waited.

I'll also preface by saying this: I know season 3 was more of a mini-drop and some felt season 4 was rushed. But I wish EVERY season were longer. Season 1: ideally, i wanted the Pilot to be its own event and 10 more episodes after that (but we had to tell the post-Pilot story in 7. At the end of the day, that had its benefits: we got to the Shadowsan turn earlier and I think that's when a lot of viewers realized the ride they were truly in for). Season 2: we initially figured we'd need 5 episodes to have Carmen doing the ACME dance with Chief, and wound up doing it in 3 - mostly because it quickly became clear that Rio needed to be a 2 parter, and the Zack and Ivy backstory a rough 2 parter. So we squeezed 3 episodes worth of plot into 209. It was exhilarating!

So, we had hoped to have more episodes for Season 4 of course. We had a ton of ideas and had to compress things a bit. But honestly in many ways it was for the better. I know we all wanted to live in this world longer, but I think sometimes the flip side is true - when you have big ongoing storylines, it can get frustrating when some things drag out too long. But, we got all the "story" we wanted to tell in Season 4 - we just lost some "incident" if that makes sense. We would have taken longer to get there.

So, all that preface to answer the question: we wanted to do more musical numbers! We had a Bollywood dance sequence in a return to India caper with Paperstar. We wanted to do a famous Elvis suit theft in Las Vegas during an Elvis impersonator convention (Shadowsan's an early elvis guy; Brunt likes the Vegas "jumpsuit" era). We also wanted to do a thread where Gunnar gets captured by ACME so that Julia could interrogate him and he could play mind games with her a la Hannibal Lector and Clarice. CAVEAT TO ALL THIS: these were some ideas that were bouncing around, that may not have seen the light of day if we couldn't get them to work. But they were on our wish list.

re: "other stories" - I could live with these characters for another 32 episodes easily and there have of course been discussions. But alas, that is up to the powers that be. Let's keep fingers crossed - and keep the Carmen love alive online so that someone up there takes note

There is more of course, but those are some things that spring to mind.

Fuel:

Were there any scenes cut for time that were your favorite?

Duane Capizzi:

Not much springs to mind: our directors were amazing at getting everything in the scripts to fit naturally (and in fact, I was the one who was usually suggesting trims to let other things breathe, etc). We were limited to 22 minutes of episode time, NOT counting front and end credits so a little longer than the average show. We have a pretty good idea when the SCRIPT is too long, so the cutting usually happens at script stage before it gets to the board crew so that they don't waste efforts over-boarding material that won't be used.

We had hoped to build out Chase and Carmen teaming up for the first time, meeting at Carmen's hotel lobby etc for more scenes of them together; but had to reduce that to get that all to fit in the VERY packed episode 406. But again, tighter was fine considering. That's one area that leaps to mind. (note that when I say packed, I don't mean that in a bad way: we spend a lot of time pouring over details in editing to make sure everything gets its due).

If I think of anything, I'll circle back at a later point. But the simple answer is that scenes were usually trimmed or compressed at script rather than board or animatic. So nothing comes to mind. I know it's hard to believe, but "shorter is usually better."

except for my answers to fan questions of course

Fuel:

We saw that in s4 episode 6 that Julia's mother(?) is wearing a necklace remarkably similar to the one Julia wears all the time. Is this the same necklace and if so, why was it given to Julia?

Duane Capizzi:

Just when I thought I was detail oriented! Wow! You guys blow me away

I can't take credit for that: it was either the board artist or director who added that. They do slip things in! As I've said before, EVERYONE on the crew really brought their A-game and were as deep thinking and as passionate as I was/am about the show.

It's a nice detail and I would say your interpretation works!

It took me three or four reviews before noticing that the team had slipped in baby Carmen near the play set in Mom's front yard at the end of 408. When I caught it, I was like: bravo!

Fuel:

When they first met, Zack and Ivy said to Carmen that they were the only family they had, do you know what happened to the rest of Zack and Ivy's family?

Duane Capizzi:

I don't. At least, I don't yet until such a time that I might have the opportunity to explore that. It was important to their relationship with Carmen that they be orphans, so they had that common bond (aside from being "thieves who steal from bad guys" - even if it was only gonna be one time for Zack and Ivy).

I know there are writers out there who like to do entire bio's for characters up front but i'm not one of them. It could be a trap in many ways. I like to have a general idea but be open to the demands of the ongoing storyline. You discover things along the way - it's like you're taking a journey with the characters by writing them, and the longer you spend, the better you get to know them (that was not a prepared statement by the way - I just made that up but I'll have to use it again :). So in Z/I's case it wasn't important to the story or Carmen's relationship, we felt. Conversely, we STARTED with Shadowsan's family backstory with 203, but more important to me was that we use it as a platform to explain why he stays with Carmen and crew. He really has no home at that point, so it was relevant to the present ongoing story. Which is what made that especially powerful to me.

Also, there's always a push-pull between telling character back stories while balancing them with ongoing episodic plots. You have to service both. If you just tell back story, then you're writing a biography

Arden:

What was the biggest challenge when designing these characters, especially the pre-existing characters from the series in the 90's?

Duane Capizzi:

This is probably more of a question for Chromosphere, re: challenges. But from my standpoint overseeing that process, the first thing I'll say is that we weren't necessarily trying to be "true" to those characters since we reinvented nearly every one from the ground up. (with the exception of Carmen of course - her trademark red hat/coat weren't going anywhere! But mostly the update with Carmen was in the styling of her "outerwear"

ALTHOUGH: I will admit that I was pushing for Carmen to have shorter hair as Carmen. I thought it would be a cool update. Chromosphere were really passionate about giving her long full hair and I have to see that they were right. The short tomboy cut worked so well for Black Sheep anyway. We had a different hair style for each of her ages.

So about the reinventions: Gunnar is in spirit a similar character to the original (old colleague in Vile and an early mentor if I remember), but his presentation completely different. We weren't trying to be "in canon" with the original. The beauty of CSD is that every incarnation has been its own entity so that freed us to reimagine the characters. THE CLEANERS, for instance: gimme some Cleaner love! There were a pair of janitors from the original game named RICK AND NICK ICK. They were literally janitors, it was too silly for our purposes. But, it's one small step to make them "Cleaners" (in the sinister hit men sense) - and lo, our reinvention.

So to summarize the answer to your question, they weren't really challenges to me so much as FUN to creatively reinvent the original characters (many of which were from the game, so not really "characters" per se with dialogue and inner lives). Whenever we could, we tried to use character names from the originals and update their looks and personalities. Where we couldn't find an equivalent for what we needed, we created characters from whole cloth. For instance, it seemed a miss to do a heist show without a tunnel guy and a high rise climber guy. Hence, LC & ET, everyone's favorite taco truck vendors!

(yes, i've seen some short hair carmen fan art on Twitter - someone did a great one recently!)

Arden:

Are there plans to give us more of the characters in, say, novel/graphic novel form?

Duane Capizzi:

I know HMH has done a bunch and no doubt have more in works. There's currently a novelization of the Pilot with some additional material if anyone's interested. I consulted on the second one, Clue for Clue, because it falls in the timeline while Chase was still Interpol/pre-Acme so was tricky.

And depending on whether another series in this canon makes it to air, I may just approach them about writing one or two myself to get some "further adventures" our there. Anything is possible!

Arden:

If you could go back and change anything about the series, what would it be?

Duane Capizzi:

File under anecdote, but there was what I felt was an important expression on Gray that kept me awake at nights, from his graduation ceremony at Vile. When we revisited those flashbacks in the Gray arc in Season 4, I had them change his expression there (to be more evil less innocent). We had it corrected in 404 so was able to get permission to have Netflix "fix" the Pilot by adding that shot in. I am tenacious!

We really poured over everything, it's the series that I have virtually zero complaints with the end product to be honest. But the simple answer is: I would have gone back to 106 and "un-greek'd" Gray's nametag. It's sort of a rule for international that we scramble signage (which is weird for a show that takes place in many countries/languages, I know I know). It's mostly for localization/translation reasons. And I'm sure there are some countries where Gray's name might be spoken differently. But as a proper name, I think we could have made an exception and seen "Gray" on his name tag. See? Details! But that's about the worst of it

there's also like one small line from Chief in 208 where she indicates she knows Carmen is a good guy (something to that effect) which I felt was too absolute and would have tweaked the line to temper it a bit. It's tiny, but looking back it sort of bugs me and I kick myself for not catching it. But this is absolutely the series I wanted and couldn't be happier.

Carmen:

How did Carmen know she could trust Julia? As far as we know, she has not seen or heard Julia defending her, and in the Fashionista Caper, Julia even held up her gas gun to her, saying she was under arrest. Do you have any opinions on this? Was it just intuition?

Duane Capizzi:

I'm gonna go with intuition

Carmen was raised on an island with some hardened criminal types. I think she's a pretty good judge of character. Poor Julia, trying to be tough with Carmen didn't suit her.

But, great observation! I'd have to mentally step through everything to see if Carmen had any earlier indication but i think you're right there.

Yes, sometimes you just gotta follow your heart

Carmen:

Are there any characters that didn't actually interact that you think would get along well?

Duane Capizzi:

Amazing question! First, I'd have to think more about who DIDN'T meet - you're asking the hard questions haha. But "get along well" is very specific! Hmmm, care to volley anyone?

I'll also add that so many smaller moments get lost in the "binge" of it all, but I am surprised how few fans have noted the first meeting between Player and Julia. THAT was a good one IMO! Very sweet!

Before getting back to your question, I also want to add that we were originally going to find a way for Carmen to lose her earring in Stockholm so that Julia could pick it up and be communicating with Player. BUT, I cut it at treatment stage because I knew we didn't have room in that episode to service it. Circling back to questions 1 & 2, another case where it turned out better saved for later IMO (saving Player meeting Julia, not to mention the earring business in 402 with Ivy).

Oh of course, Julia and any of the other Vile members. It would have been Gunnar for my vote, as mentioned earlier. We probably would not have had Julia meet anyone else and mixed it up more. I like that Cleo sort of became J's personal nemesis.

YES, SONIA & XIFENG (and LUPE PELIGRO, if I can add). The intent was (and is, if we ever get to revisit) to see them again in Carmen's travels. We started to expand Carmen's world but when we finally learned the finite number of episodes we had to finish the story, we drilled back down into the essentials. Would love to see them some day!

I'm hesitant to share too many things I have in mind in this forum for hope that they will see the light of day one day. You know, "spoilers"

Julia:

Do you have any opinions on Zari? Just in general? Some thoughts on her backstory would be nice if possible

Duane Capizzi:

I love Zari! I really don't have any back story on her at this point. She was originally just "Agent B" but when the need arose to give story points to another agent, we chose her because she looked so awesome! And Sharon Muthu gave voice to her so wonderfully.

I love when we finally teamed her with Chase. Hopefully the anticipation was that she would give him a hard time. I love that we defied expectation (organically, of course) and had her respect him by the end of that episode (for believing that he foiled Carmen!)

Julia:

Do you have any thoughts on small facts about any character, major or minor, that you think are fun/interesting to think about, but don't necessarily add to the plot itself?

Duane Capizzi:

Bellum, like myself, likes cats. But you knew that!

I try to put everything pertinent on screen, doing double duty to service any given episode's story but also the overarching story. That "journey" thing I mentioned earlier - we had no idea Chase falling on his own car would be a thing when I first came up with it. But as other characters refer to the incident, it took on a life of its own and made the characters feel more real.

Sorta kinda related to this question and some earlier ones, I will say that I DO think there's more to learn about Shadowsan's past vis a vis Lady Dokuso: it's clear to me that they have a history together, and it's something I hope to explore someday soon (maybe in a book if not another series

Julia:

Are the Carmen Sandiego books a part of canon?

Duane Capizzi:

I only consulted on the first two or three (too busy with series!) and have not read them, so hard for me to answer in a definite way. They are definitely in the universe we've created, but not in the timeline that I know of (which would have been too hard to pull off with our script development running concurrently). But do know that the book team at HMH pays close attention to the series and world so they should be perfectly compatible. Look no further to their clever social media on the series for example.

Kenz:

We saw in season 4 that Julia and Carmen helped each other mid to long term; would there ever be a possibility that Julia would permanently or semi-permanently join team Red?

Duane Capizzi:

Of course there's a possibility. But in a sense, with ACME now finally on Carmen's side, in a sense if Carmen were back in the game Julia, Chase, Zack and Ivy would ALL be an extension of Carmen's crew. But, would J remain with ACME or literally come to Carmen's team at her HQ? As they said in an old radio show: "Only The Duane Capizzi knows ..."

Kenz:

Where do you see Carmen in her retirement (if she retires)? Do you think she would still travel the world or settle down somewhere? Similarly, do you have any thoughts on what some other characters could be doing years down the line?

Duane Capizzi:

That is a big question, and one difficult to answer without some potential future spoilers (and yes, I really want to tell more Carmen stories if you can't tell But I'll answer by giving you one "read" on our open-ended ending as seen in 408 (read no further if you haven't seen it - yeah, right haha). The ending suggests to me that Carmen settled down for a spell to forge that relationship with her mother, to make up for lost time. But, if that is indeed Carmen that we see on the rooftop, I think the ending suggests that Carmen doesn't stay still for very long. If Vile is back, there is work to be done! Carmen has a life mission - she's one determined lady.

But of course, it's deliberately ambiguous: "anyone with your heart, wisdom and courage can be Carmen Sandiego." Is it Carmen? Sonia? Someone we haven't met? I think both endings resonate: Caroline and I always said "Carmen is bigger than a person, Carmen is a movement" would be a great message to end the series on. And I think our ending resolves this chapter of Carmen's journey as a person, but also elevates her to mythic status. Which is why I love it!

And, that seems to me a pretty perfect question and answer to end our chat on. Thanks everyone! Again, I cannot tell you how moved I am to see that we have such a passionate, intelligent and talented fan base. THANK YOU.

Take care guys, thanks again for having me! 'night!

[lost-in-zembla]

Disco Elysium or: How I learned to Stop Wallowing and Love the Game

I will now review a videogame. No real spoilers. Just very vague descriptions below.

My writing this is uncharacteristic of me. I find most writing surrounding the video game industry to be repugnant. The industry (including the media surrounding that industry) relies upon the subsumption of subcultures on the fringe into the very center of the infernal machine where the dedicated and nostalgic nature of its fanbase can be exploited for capital. It’s the same process that produces Iron Man Funko Pops. Call me a jaded and pretentious pseudointellectual poseur, but in the case of Marvel the idea that this fucking billion dollar franchise with the biggest actors in the world somehow retains this guise of this ‘geek’ subculture is disturbing to me.

(If you have played the game Disco Elysium, then you can probably already see part of why I enjoy it so goddamn much.)

I don’t mean we should gatekeep. My point is the media attached to these quote-geek-unquote industries wants to milk the same cash cow (e.g. 10 AWESOME THINGS IN THE LAST OF US 2!) Coming from an academic environment of criticism, I crave at least the appearance of an honest and thorough critique of art. In my experience, you really need to go past the surface to find any reliable ‘takes’ on contemporary videogames. That being said, there’s a lot of good work being done in the form of video essays.

In any case, I play videogames relatively often. Competitive shooters, mostly. But I suffer no story in videogames. Why would I? I read the most *genius* pieces of literature in the English language. I’m too *good* for that. So when I heard all the buzz about Disco Elysium last fall, it fell on deaf ears. Detectives? Disco? Isometry? Story-heavy. Ugh. I’m interested in none of that. But about a week ago, a friend of mine bought the game. Unlike me, he is a real adult with a real job so it was just a whim on his part, I believe. I looked at the game and, with Steam’s lax refund policy in mind, I bought it. In the past week I have put approximately thirty hours into this game. This review is a way for me to explore my own thoughts surrounding the game, thoughts that I didn’t include in my steam review (See below.)

So it was devastating, sure. And this devastation was somehow positive. One thing that I would like to make clear about me talking about this game is that it is fucking useless. Disco Elysium possesses that quality that exists in all great art; it is irreducible. When I try to explain this game to my friends, I find that my words fail to describe what’s so great about the game. Let me give you the elevator review I’ve come up with. *This game has allowed me to explore the breadth of human experience*. It’s an absolutely insane thing to say about a game. The writing, the art style, the story, the world, the RPG gameplay, they all work together to create a kind of experience that I have never encountered in a piece of art before aside from those few, fleeting moments when you feel as though you truly *get* an encyclopedic novel you’re reading (and in my case I usually don’t get it.)

I will not delve too deeply into the mechanics of the game. There are probably plenty of articles and videos that describe the game already. Put simply, the game is about choices. You can choose to solve the murder however you want. You can say absolutely batshit things to people. You can say mildly bemusing things. You can speak apocalyptic prophesies, espouse communism, conservatism, Moralism. race science.. There are moments when you genuinely *feel* like you can say anything, which is quite a feat when you really only have a few dialogue options at any given moment.

As you’ve noticed, this is not a review of the videogame. Playing this game after a tough breakup was sort of earth-shattering. I mean, not only am I navigating through a strange virtual world with its own history and culture and cosmological makeup, I’m diegetically grieving over being left by my *divinely* beautiful ex while I, the player, undergo a similar process and find similar coping mechanisms. Playing this game was like knowing the funniest clown in the world, a clown so funny that you thank him when he occasionally punches you in the chest to make you *feel things*.

The plan wasn’t to make a character whose qualities reflected my own. I just wanted to play the game. I wanted to win. It just so happened that because *I* was the one playing the game, the character essentially turned into me. It doesn’t help that I, too, have had my issues with alcohol, drugs, commitment, and mental health (in no particular order). The character ended up becoming *me* in a way that I’d never experienced before. I faced ethical dilemmas. My ideology was shaken. This game achieves unbelievable mimesis.

Here’s the wild thing: this game has changed me. I feel like a thirteen-year-old white boy who just watched The Boondock Saints and got a pretty okay over-the-pants handjob at the same time. I’m thinking about my life in terms of choices. The game enforces a kind of perspective of the world that highlights its contingency and the permanence of choices. You can, of course, save your progress in the game and reload whenever, but I found myself just sort of riding out the bad choices I made unless they were game-ruiningly catastrophic. (E.g. I had a “thought” equipped that made me fail every unrepeatable *red* check during a pivotal firefight; it was a hilarious disaster. We were essentially mowed down.) I stood by most of my bad choices. After all, I made the choice using the information I had at the time.

I am not good at this game. I absolutely bungled the investigation. I was just a pawn for forces far greater than myself. Seven people died, and I know that I could’ve saved a few of those people, if not all of them. I think about it sometimes. I think about what I could have done, how I could have gone deeper to find out what’s *really* going on, how I could take control of the investigation rather than be taken control of. Maybe I’ll play the game through again, but the first playthrough is kind of magical if you know absolutely nothing about the game like I did. If not for an absolute deus ex machina at the end, I would have been taken to the madhouse. It would have been an unbelievable failure.

During that deus ex machina moment, by the way, a goddamn tear rolled down my cheek. Yeah, I’m in a rough place, personally. But I don’t *cry* over characters in art. They’re not real. But damn if that changed.  I tell you it’s changed *me*. I care more for characters. I know they’re not real but they represent something that I can relate to, no matter who they are. This game has made me think about empathy more. Maybe it’s because I dumped all my points in the emotional skills. Maybe I’d be more violent if I rolled with the physical skills. Maybe I’d feel like a superstar if that’s what I chose to pursue in the game. Disco Elysium feels open-ended enough that if you sign up for the story, the aesthetic, and the investigation itself, then you can get whatever you want out of the experience. The game, again, achieves incredible mimesis.

The mimesis is so convincing in Disco Elysium that it feels as open-ended as reality, with one caveat: you *know* it's a game. You, as a player, know that the experience of Disco Elysium is a designed one, that it was created as a sort of origami structure, that there is narrative and, god help us, *meaning*. What this game-knowledge afforded me during my playthrough was the constant sensation of synchronicity. I found myself saying “I don’t know how this element will fold into the grand structure of the game, and it almost seems impossible that it should become part of the investigation narrative.” But because I know it’s a game, I am graced with the confidence of the highly religious. Everything will come together in the end.

This is not a review for a videogame. This is a confession. I am deeply flawed and I want to change that. My worldview has been shaken because of a videogame. I don’t want to be that kind of animal anymore.

I’m trying to empower myself, to become more aware that my choices do indeed matter, have always mattered. I’m trying to be more pragmatic, to consider the things I want to do in terms of their result rather than the momentary pleasure I will derive from doing them. Now *that’s* a change for me. 

I’m trying to be more empathetic, more willing to imagine the perspectives of others. 

I am trying to give the world around me the benefit of the doubt. It is easy for me to think of the world as a random coincidence of matter, but if you look at the world with totality in mind everything seems to take on this Spinozan glow of divinity. The human mind is a meaning-making machine, I think. If I look at the world as fundamentally devoid of meaning, then that is still meaning. It is nihil-ism. It’s still an -ism. But if I ascribe to the world a kind of glowing potential, as though meaning were to be found in every speck of matter, then I feel invited to participate in this massive dance that we’re all a part of. 

I’m trying to be more adventurous, because beneath the surface of things there seems to be a vast network of relationships, causation, possibility and, god help me, *story*. Or maybe it’s not beneath the surface of things, maybe there is no Deleuzian schizophrenic depth beneath the surface, perhaps the world is a homogenous and ever-developing surface upon which I constellate meaning and, thereby, create it. I’m trying to create a story for myself that will hold a candle to my experience playing Disco Elysium. I didn’t ask for this; it was just what I needed. It was, in a word, unforgettable.

[diverse-writing]

Pt. 1-Hi! I'm a Black woman writing a Fanfiction for an anime series called Food Wars and I'm creating a sister and brother who are half-Lakota (Itazipcola Band) and half-Black American. They're going to a Japanese Culinary High School, the same school their great-uncle (Kiowa) went to when America was in Japan, post-WWII for a few years as his father was in the army. It's a very competitive school with diverse characters and cooking styles/types. They both want to travel and see a new country.

(continued) They live in Sioux Falls, SD after moving from the Cheyenne River Rez years ago. The family owns a Catering company with Native, African, and American Southern food (Mom is from VA) that does Showcasings, Chef Demos, and feeding the people within both communities while mentoring the youth. Annie (Older sis) wants to be a Pastry Chef as Andrew (little bro) does mostly savory, especially BBQ. Annie was on a kid's baking show as Andrew won kid's BBQ competitions. Both siblings want to help their communities by spreading awareness about poverty, suicide, and other stuff. They are active in their Native heritage. I did research in Natives in Japan, and I found that it's a bit mixed. Some people don't know about Natives, or that they do but only through the news and old western films. There's this one guy who went to a tribe to learn about the culture and he went back to Japan to teach his students about how the Natives truly lived. There's a Native jewelry store in Tokyo So some Japanese do know about Natives, I want to write a few small scenes where the Japanese students ask questions that are stereotypical about Natives and Black people, but they learn from the siblings. Annie begins to have a crush on a boy who is mixed indigenous (Ainu/Saami), but isn't connected to those cultures, because of his Ainu dad dying and Saami mom leaving him. He was adopted by a rich Japanese/Danish family. I want him to learn more about his heritage after falling for Annie and begins to heal from his past through learning about the Saami. Before he didn't want to do anything with them due to his mom. Andrew falls for a Japanese girl who does Medicine Cuisine. He's a expert in Nutrition and tries to help his people's health issues. They have a cute relationship. I thought of these characters just like any other person. I'm Black and I don't like seeing stereotypes. Annie and Andrew love music due to their dad formerly being in a band with only one album. They're both crafty with the Arts due to their grandparents on both sides teaching them. Annie is more outgoing, goofy, and blunt than Andrew but she enjoys the simple stuff in life and loves fashion (Vintage 60s/70s and Punk) Andrew is more quiet and shy, but not antisocial. He just likes doing his own thing while teasing his sis on her shortness and crush. He likes comfy, Punk clothing. I was just wondering what is offensive and not. I want to show their food and aspects of culture, like Powwows (I've been watching videos on Lakota Powwows) and I've been wondering if there's a coming of age ceremony. I don't want to show it just mention it. Is this where people get their Lakota name? I don't want to do religious ceremonies since that's sacred and also I'm not really religious, but what if I want to allude about it? Sorry that this was way too long!

Okay, this is a huge question but I’ll do my best to answer it with the GIANT caveat that I’m not indigenous and am only answering to the best of my knowledge. If any indigenous followers--particularly those with experience in Japan/with Japanese culture, though of course all are welcome--have thoughts or feelings, as always feel free to add more information and/or correct me!

A few observations that jump out, based on your description of your narrative framework:

Their food. Okay, while I know absolutely nothing about the food cultures you describe, I’m a huge fan of connecting with your culture through your food (and your stomach!) so I love this framing. That being said, to my knowledge African American food is fairly distinct from African food, with the former more likely to be in their cultural background given your description (obviously, in this situation you’re the expert on Black culture so feel free to totally ignore me here). 

Andrew’s food interests. Related to the previous bullet point, based on my understanding Medicine Cuisine and Nutrition would be super interesting focuses for him given his cultural background. It’d be super cool to seem him integrate his various cooking specialties and heritages into nourishing food to support his people. 

Knowledge about Native Americans in Japan. I do think it’s likely accurate that unless someone in Japan has personally done research, the average Japanese citizen probably knows very little about indigenous Native Americans in the same way the average American knows very little about Japanese indigenous ethnic groups. 

Relatedly, I think it makes sense for their Japanese classmates to ask stereotypical questions, but you should steer clear of just plain offensive questions. As you likely know, answering stereotypical questions about your identity and heritage is exhausting and should be treated as such within the narrative. Your characters are in school to educate themselves, not to educate their classmates, so while the latter may occur sometimes I don’t think it should be their focus. So while the intent of the questioning scene may partially be to help answer readers’ questions about Annie and Andrew’s heritage (and Black and Lakota culture to an extent), remember that the ultimate goal of representation is not to educate others but to help people within those demographics see themselves on the page. And more likely than not, Black and Lakota readers won’t want to see characters representing themselves having to answer the same repetitive questions they face down all the time.

I know you only mentioned him in passing, but I have a lot more thoughts specifically about Annie’s mixed Ainu/Saami crush. I don’t want to tell you *not* to write him but I do think there are several pitfalls you need to carefully avoid moving forward.

His Saami mother. There’s a big stereotype around POC abandoning their children, being absent or flighty parents, or otherwise just failing to properly nuture their children. While I’m unaware of any specific stereotype regarding indigenous  parents, I would tentatively say that doesn’t mean those stereotypes don’t exist, so tread carefully. That being said, I do know there’s a stereotype about indigenous people being alcoholics, so you should absolutely avoid characterizing his mother as such because as an outsider, you don’t have the power to subvert that stereotype. 

His relationship with his heritage. I would also be very cautious while writing his arc of reconnecting to his heritage. While reconnecting is unfortunately a very real (and very under represented) process for indigenous people, it’s an extremely difficult and personal process that I don’t think outsiders are qualified to write in-depth about. Though I don’t think you should necessarily gloss over his reconnecting process, I do think it should perhaps be a side character arc, rather than his defining character arc. For example, he might mention to Annie that her passion for her heritage has inspired him to research his own family, or else maybe he’s pictured buying a book on the Saami language. (The current discussion around Rick Riordan’s portrayal of Piper’s imperfect reconnection to her Cherokee heritage makes some really good points, so I’d check that out if you’re familiar with his books. I’d be happy to link you if you’re curious.)

His adopted family. I have to admit--as the daughter of a transracial adoptee in a family full of transracial adoptees, this framing makes me very wary. While I know transracial adoption parents likely have only the best intentions, the adopted child themselves often end up hugely disconnected from their birth cultures. It’s often an extremely stressful and traumatic event, especially in cases where the adopted parents don’t learn about their child’s birth culture themselves and/or only teach the child their own cultures (in this case, Japanese and Dutch). Honestly, with all due respect, I have yet to see any fictional narratives that properly address the trauma of transracial adoptions and given everything else going on in your writing, I’m not sure how well you would be able to write about it. More in the next bullet point.

His extremely mixed heritage. While I don’t want to come across as rude, I do have to ask: what’s your intention behind making a single side character with four different cultural backgrounds, especially backgrounds that you the author don’t share? The reality is that, no matter how much research you may do, these four cultures--Ainu, Saami, Japanese, and Dutch--are very rarely found in combination, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find any #ownvoices accounts from similar scenarios that you could hypothetically draw on to write more accurately. As a result, you’d know very little about how these different cultures meld together, and you’d have almost nothing to go on to write about his mixed multicultural background and the tensions that come with it. While I understand you may be attached to his parental setup and his backstory, I would highly advise simplification to avoid straying into territory you neither understand or are qualified to write about. Given your focus on his reconnecting, I would probably recommend keeping his Ainu father alive and cutting his adopted family. That way, you cut the number of unknown cultures in half and you can truly dedicate yourself to writing his Ainu heritage and his reconnecting process well.

With regards to your actual question about Lakota religious ceremonies, as a non-indigenous person I’m definitely not qualified to answer specifics about Lakota coming of age and naming ceremonies. That being said, I know this: Native American ceremonies, rituals, traditions, and lore are often closely guarded and not shared with outsiders. And I don’t just mean outsiders don’t share in the ceremonies themselves--outsiders often can’t even learn about the ceremonies because the knowledge itself is guarded. (This information is secondhand from my Blackfoot professor last year. If I’m wrong or if any indigenous followers have more accurate information, as always I’m open to critiques and suggestions!) As you continue researching this, I’d definitely be mindful of the source; if it comes from an official Lakota or indigenous source, it’s likely okay to share or discuss, but if all you can find about Lakota religious ceremonies is from, like, someone’s blog or Facebook post or something, then that information likely wasn’t approved to share and you shouldn’t write it into your story. Given that this seems to only be a character detail mentioned briefly, you may be able to simply mention the characters’ Lakota names in passing without referencing the ceremony itself.

Sorry for the long response, and I hope at least some of this information helps!

(Also, if you read this post, this is a good example of a really well researched and thought out ISO Sensitivity Reader question. Obviously, I’ve provided what information I can and this individual seems to have done lots of research, but the execution comes down to... well, the actual execution.)

[donnnoir]

Hidden Economies and Currency Revaluation...

Alright, I originally intended to post/publish the following as a series of essays that I would have linked together in one fashion or another. Instead I have decided to shorten much of the content and simply “mash” it together and hope for the best. As anyone familiar with my writings knows, I tend to have a loquacious style and the content or subject matter usually requires a bit of introduction and or back story.  Since much of it is uniquely originally in nature.  The combination makes for lengthy essays and discussions.  The Forthcoming is no less so.  I hope those that indulge, enjoy the experience, maybe even learn a thing or two.

With recent events and the accompanying economic distress, I have had to interject my knowledge and experiences repeatedly, in an attempt to shed light upon factors which are in place to beneficially impact our economy, and the worlds for that matter.  President Trump and his Administration are no fools, they fully intend on taking advantage of a long standing global currency agreement. An agreement that has come full term and whose mediation and legal conditions have been meet; the only caveat that has thus far prevented its global activation and institution was the Obama Administration's ongoing efforts to block it.  This despite billions of dollars in bribes having been paid into off-shore and shell corporation held by Michelle Obama.

Beginning in 1999, I was invited to be the fourth and junior executive tasked with administering and distributing funds associated to a large international humanitarian trust, whose principal holdings were in Taiwan.  A timed legacy from when Chiang Kai-shek fled mainland China and established the Republic of China in Taiwan.  It should have been a straightforward affair.  Except elements of the then W. Bush Administration went to Taiwan misappropriated the funds and transferred them to the Bank of the Vatican.  These elements, agents or “clowns” if you prefer, similarly plundered funds from an International Trust set up by the Globalist and the IMF back in 1968 and held by the Bank of America here in the United States. Additionally monies also held in trust by the SEC as recovered assets of an immense “ponzi” scheme mostly involving shares of the Kimberlite Mining Group out of Canada.  Were similarly transferred to the Bank of the Vatican.  The monies held by the Bank of America that were misappropriated and transferred were in the amount of over 16 trillion dollars, just to have some perspective on the amounts involved (you use to be able to watch on YouTube the C-SPAN coverage; wherein the then Head of the Federal Reserve admitted to the transfer but refused to answer additional questions on the matter since the “Law” did not require him to do so.  This to a Congressional Inquiry on the subject.).  From the Bank of the Vatican the funds were distributed into “High Yield Investment Platforms”.   What are “High Yield Investment Platforms” you ask; well first off most countries deny their existence, including the United States. One of the reasons is that you have to be “invited” to participate in the program with a minimum capital investment of a billion dollars.  An amount that in some “special” cases been reduced to 500 million recently.  I could write volumes on the subject, so please if you really wish to know just dig real hard and you will find an explanation.   So following the theft of our funds, I and the other principals became entangled in an ongoing game of “three card Molly” first with W. Bush Administration and subsequently Obama and his Administration. I got a crash course in international off-book banking, high yield investment platforms, oval office payola and administrative abuse of authority, corruption and greed on a Truly Epic scale brazenly conducted under color of authority.  Additionally I became acquainted with the Revaluation Trust Fund (held by the aforementioned Bank of America; it was also referred to by a variety of names and titles) meant to equalize the global monetary system via a mediated currency revaluation.  Believe me it was enough to give me many sleepless nights and numerous headaches, be grateful you are getting the Reader's Digest abbreviated version. To assuage any curiosity, the issues became too convoluted and mired in bureaucracy, the funds when and to what degree they were recovered took more than a decade.  The instruments meant for their distribution were non-existent by then and became lost in the politics of the time.  The monies generated as interest from their being utilized in the “high yield investment platforms” in Europe was never been recovered nor accounted for in the process.  These ill gotten gains are being used to fund the current fifth column actions in Europe and elsewhere.  If Hillary (HRC) had won the Presidency, these and other stolen assets would have gone to the extermination of the population here in America. Instead the monies are having to fuel secondary protocols meant to destabilize the US and World economies.

Now back to the matter of Global Currency Revaluation, as intended by the Globalist and their fiat currency system set up by the Rothschilds and Rockefellers when the Global International Currency System we have been familiar with in our lives was put in place. The architects of this System recognized that as developing nations attempted to modernize while lacking the functioning internal markets and industrial base to support their expansion and modernization.  They would increasingly accrue debt with an ever increasing portion needed to service the interest payments, till they would have no way of ever becoming solvent.  All the while they would be giving up title to the wealth of their respective nations (neo-imperialism).  The Globalist fearing a world wide wave of nationalization and repatriation of the assets of each developing country.  Therefore agreed that at some future date all currencies would go through a revaluation and that the individual debts of each participating country would be wiped clean.  All countries signed the agreement and began contributing to a international trust held by Bank of America.  The United States, however was in a unique situation.  That being that the implementation of said revaluation would require our assent.  Well the revaluation has already been mediated, with the IMF, World Bank and Courts having signed off on the accord.  The previous Administrations have elected to abuse the circumstance for their own greed.  Even so, with the anticipated revaluation a bit of creative accounting will permit America to also walk away from its debt.

President Trump rather than continue blocking this Global Revaluation, has obviously chosen to embrace it.  Over the past decade the operations and holdings of the Federal Reserve have been transferred to the Treasury in anticipation of this eventuality.  Now during the COVID 19 operations even the positions of the Head of the Federal Reserve have been transferred.  It is the final steps to the abolishing the Federal Reserve.  It should be noted that as a non-government agency or contractor as it were. The Federal Reserve had a contract to administer Our currency, the Dollar.  That contract expired some time ago, it has not, nor shall it be renewed.  For the sake of continuity of operations the old contract has remained in place via a series of stop gap extensions, as allowed by the Law.  These extensions have permitted the transfer of assets and operations from the Federal Reserve to the United States Treasury.  Naturally the process has taken longer than anticipated, but appears to be nearing its conclusion.  Some of you may be familiar with the new two tier currency system meant to replace the old Petro-Dollar, and grant more autonomy to countries and governments worldwide.

In concert to this is that in all probability much of the amassed illicit funds acquired by the “Evil World Cabal” may trickle back into the public coffers.  Albeit, “certain” as yet non-disclosed “special covert” operations will no doubt require ongoing funding in an effort to buffer the onslaught of Our “Future” War.  Which may be fought more vehemently to force the terms of the Exo-Treaty signed by the League of Nations in the '20's.  “Crazy” I know...

[krumbine]

Creative Every Day: One Month Later

With the start of April, I wanted to challenge myself to work on something creative every day. Here’s how it went.

First, I’m a liar.

I didn’t actually work on something every day because I mostly took weekends off. Also, if I found myself staring into a black abyss of meaninglessness and depression, I ended up taking the weekday off, too.

Creativity’s Unbreakable Rule #1: you can’t force creativity.

So let me tell you how I forced creativity.

A disclaimer: it helps to not have anything else to do. Although I set this challenge for myself first, shortly afterwards I was furloughed from my job as a video editor at Visit Orlando. A lot of people look at unemployment and quarantine as the worst possible time to “finish that novel” and these people are not wrong! I personally dove into the aforementioned abyss, ate a box of donuts, and cried myself to sleep while rewatching old episodes of Psych.

Three days later, I hit peak boredom. This is a brilliant phase of life that precedes an even more brilliant period of creative productivity––a period where you’ve gotten so bored doing every imaginable un-creative thing possible (including sorting and throwing out that pile of old mail and cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen) that you have absolutely nothing else better to do than stare at a flashing cursor on a blank screen.

My friends, peak boredom is one of those massive bean bags that sucks you deeper and deeper into its squishy abyss.

This. Is. A gift.

The rules for my creative every day challenge were as follows:

Work would be split amongst the two categories of writing and video projects.

Writing projects were either short stories or musings. Video projects were split into animation projects, short stories for YouTube (a teleprompter-based dramatic performance of sorts), long-form Behind the Final Cut vlogs, and miscellaneous work (such as my “Creative Wizard” title sequence for YouTube or the animated title cards for my written short stories).

All of this work was meticulously tracked in my production schedule board on Trello––and I’m pretty sure this is a big reason April went as well as it did.

Friends, it’s one thing to do the work but it is something else altogether to see the cumulative total of all the work. Trello does that for you––especially if you’re like me, a jack-of-all trades creative that loves doing a little bit of everything.

The other component of this challenge was to share a finished project every day.

What did I learn in the first month? Again: I’m a liar.

I think I did an okay job maintaining a 24-hour period, but my typical day isn’t a nine-to-five jam.

(Remember, we can’t force creativity, so we have to figure out ways to hack our lives to make it flow with more ease.)

My best case writing example was, “The Insufferable Silence in Apartment 616”. I spent the day writing this 2400-word tome in a midday and then a nighttime burst. I posted it late the next morning after doing the graphic design work on the title card. So, kinda-sorta within a 24-hour period, with the graphic design caveat.

My worst case writing example was “Red Alert in the Department of Human Asset Management & Existential Mitigation”. Marginally shorter than “Insufferable” but legit took a few days to write.

Definitely not abiding the “share every day” rule, but I still worked on it every day.

To that end, even the days when I didn’t post something, I was still taking notes, plotting, or giving my creative fuel tank a chance to refill.

Here’s what I actually created in April.

Of nineteen total projects, ten were videos. Eight of those videos went up on YouTube (the other two were title sequence/animation pieces).

8. Wizard of Speed and Time Vinyl Unboxing 7. Quarantine’s End Short Story 6. Tiger King Quotes 5. Trello and the Art of Creative Project Management 4. The LEGO Wizard Digs a Fossil 3. Rexzilla! 2. The LEGO Wizard Builds a Car; a T. Rex Stomps a Car 1. Stygimoloch vs Raptor Fetus

The remaining nine projects were in the writing category, totaling 12,614 words. Seven short stories and two musings.

9. The Insufferable Silence in Apartment 616 8. Red Alert in the Department of Human Asset Management and Existential Mitigation 7. Explorers of the Unknown vs the Last Gift Shop on the Left 6. A Sinful Pivot 5. Thoughts on 35: Birthdays in the Time of the Pandemic 4. Karen Finds a Hobby 3. Max Nebula and the Simpering Spark of Hope 2. Quarantine’s End: Smoke ‘Em If You’ve Got ‘Em 1. There’s Just So Much Noise

Here are a few more things I learned:

- I like to write to read. Like, aloud. Firstly, I think it just sounds better in your head. Secondly, one of my video projects is to adapt my short stories for YouTube, so I’m basically writing a video script each time I sit down at the keyboard.

- The screenwriter in me prefers to write (mostly) only essential description. It speeds up the process and, I’d like to think, helps engage the reader. When I offer a short, three-sentence description of Jason in “The Last Gift Shop on the Left”, I’m  painting a very broad tough-guy image and letting your imagination fill in the details.

Jeans, t-shirt, leather jacket. Strong features and a stronger chin. He wore his hair long and in a ponytail because manly men have pony tails.

- I’m a big fan of the em-dash. Like, seriously.

- The volume of complications in video work is the fastest way to psych yourself out of doing anything at all. Even when I’m not producing, I’m outlining my stop motion sequences, arranging sets, placing lights, setting up shots.

- There’s a saying that goes, “The hardest part about running is putting on your shoes.” The same is true for any creative work, which is why I spend a lot of time making it as easy as possible to just get started. That’s also why as soon as I have an idea for something, it goes on my Trello board––I’m never casting about for the next thing to work on because I have an entire catalog with ripe ideas waiting to be plucked.

Despite the pandemic outside, despite the unemployment, despite uncertain futures, April was a good month for me. It was good because at the end of the day––hopefully every day––I want to feel like I did something creative.

Mission accomplished.

Stay creative. Stay quarantined. And be gentle to yourselves, my friends.

Krumbine

###

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jordan Krumbine is a professional video editor, digital artist, and creative wizard currently quarantined in Kissimmee, Florida. When not producing content for the likes of Visit Orlando, Orlando Sentinel, or AAA National, Jordan is probably yelling at a stubbornly defective Macbook keyboard, tracking creative projects in Trello, and animating quirky videos with LEGO and other various toys.

Leave a dollar in the Tip Jar: https://ko-fi.com/krumbine

Short stories: https://bit.ly/2XY5D7I Books on Amazon Kindle: https://amzn.to/3bsqK5Y YouTube: https://bit.ly/2W41nSG Twitter: https://bit.ly/2VH0Vbu Facebook: https://bit.ly/2VpnylZ LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2xnmk1e

http://www.krumbco.com

[writcraft]

Rec List #1 Theme: 2018 Favourites (Non-Drarry)

One of my fandom resolutions is to rec more in 2019. I’m going to post rec lists for some of my favourite HP fics divided up by theme/content/ship or whatever I fancy throughout the year, aiming for one rec list a month with two in January. I thought I would kick off 2019 with two lists of 2018 favourites. This first one excludes Drarry because I’ve read mostly Drarry this year and limiting myself to ten recs per list would be impossible if I included all the Drarry I’ve enjoyed within a list of just ten. The second list will be my favourite Drarry fics of 2018, then I’ll move on to other themes for the remaining months.

Usual caveats for recs apply. This is by no means an exhaustive list, I could have recced many more. I’ve read and enjoyed a whole raft of terrific stories and this rec list is simply based on my personal tastes which may not be everybody else’s cuppa. Please heed the content warnings the author has flagged on AO3 in each case, some of these fics contain darker content and I haven’t listed out any warnings in my recs and summaries.

#1. A Radical Change in (Self) Perception by AnyaElizabeth

Severus Snape/Harry Potter | 57,114

Harry should know better than to touch museum exhibits, especially in a magical museum. Now he's in trouble...

My Rec: I haven’t read a huge amount of body swap fics and I can’t remember the last body swap Snarry I read, and I was so intrigued by how the author would handle this premise. I devoured the whole 50,000+ words in one sitting I was so engaged by this charming story. The body swap forced Harry and Severus to spend more time together but it did so much more than that - it enabled them to better understand one another and also themselves, when they saw each other through a different lens. The writing is terrific and if you’re a Snarry shipper this one is guaranteed to give you all the warm and fuzzies. A great addition to the wonderful Snarry fanfic that has posted throughout 2018.

#2. Hallo Spaceboy by @shiftylinguini

James Potter/Teddy Lupin | 10,075

“If this mirror could talk,” James remembers declaring, already one drink down and trying to tidy up his ridiculous costume eyeliner, “it would say we look bloody amazing.”

Teddy’s arm was warm when he wrapped it around James’s shoulder, pulling him closer.

“We always do, love.” Teddy tugged on a long curl of James’s hair before tucking it behind his ear, then smoothing the whole lot of it back. “We’re the fittest blokes at the party, us.”

James’d had to give up on the eyeliner after that; he was grinning too hard, flushed and happy and basking in Teddy’s attention (fit blokes, we’re fit blokes, that’s us), and he couldn't bloody stop.

Or: James kissed Teddy last night. This may or may not be the end of the world.

My Rec: A thoroughly charming fic featuring trans James waking up in the morning and coming to terms with a kiss with his best mate Teddy Lupin the night before. I loved the quietness of this story, the way James being trans was part of it but not the primary focus. James feeding bread to the ducks on a grotty park bench is honestly such a beautiful, persistent and soothing image, and I loved the whole story from start to finish. It’s got lovely, warm coming of age vibes to it and I felt James’ conflict and fears come through so well in the telling of this story. Wonderfully written.

#3. Of Reckoning and Ruin by @half-light-01

Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore | 10,585

"And it is the eternal rule that drops of blood spilled on the ground demand yet more blood." 

One year after Lily Potter's death, Severus Snape's Dark Mark comes to life. Caught between a creature that wants him dead, and a Headmaster who needs him alive, the young Hogwarts professor is forced to reckon with his past and negotiate his future.

My Rec: I discovered this terrific fic at the end of this year and boy oh boy am I glad I did. The relationship between Severus and Albus is, in my view, one of the most complex and fascinating of the Harry Potter series. This story explores the darker sides we see of Dumbledore in canon through his interactions with Snape, but most of all it is a complex and fascinating character study of Severus, his grief, his guilt, his inner turmoil. The author really gets into the grit of both characters without flinching away from it and the creature in the story gives it a very unsettling quality which forces us to question who can be trusted, if anyone. A really engaging, well told story with a deft handling of complex characters. 

#4. my heart beat a tattoo on my ribs by @candybarrnerd / icarusinflight

Ginny Weasley/Luna Lovegood | 7,403

Ginny can't understand why anyone would want to mark themselves by choice but she still agrees to go with Harry when he says he wants a tattoo.

My Rec: I loved this beautiful story of tattoo artist Luna and a Ginny still processing the trauma and grief of war. The friendship between Ginny and Harry is wonderfully crafted and the dull ache of grief that grips Ginny is beautifully handled - it’s softly done and never overwrought and the story is ultimately one of healing and hope. A really terrific, sexy read and one I’ll definitely return to again.

#5. Distortion by DorthyAnn (JenniferMarie)

Harry Potter Centric (see AO3 for more detail) | 8,924

Harry wakes in darkness. A darkness that goes on and on without end. He can’t see or feel, he doesn’t know what’s happened. All he can do is hold on, replaying his memories to keep him sane. Until it’s over. Until he can go home again.

My Rec: This is horror as I love it the most. A strange, unsettling, superbly written story which grapples with identity, perception of self, loss of identity and evokes a creepy, oppressive sense of things going horribly awry. The Potterverse is so rich with details of magic and potions which can be used to alter ones own perception of themselves and the rest of the world, and the author uses the magic of canon in a deft and eerie way to create a gripping, unnerving tale of psychological horror. 

#6. Soft Touch by perverse_idyll

Severus Snape/Harry Potter | 15,167

Harry's love life has been dismal, and he finds himself checking into a therapeutic massage clinic just to get off - the same clinic to which Snape had been delivered three years earlier for physical therapy.

My Rec: Perverse Idyll is one of those authors whose fics I read and they stay with me for a long time after. One of the first Snarry authors I properly discovered on the journals, Perverse Idyll and I see Snape somewhat differently at times (although the meta conversations that results in are always an absolute privilege and pleasure) but I think that’s one of the things I find so compelling whenever I read PI’s fic. Perverse Idyll takes Snape to places I struggle to as a writer, and I find him absolutely captivating. He never loses his sharpness, his bitterness or his moral ambiguity and there is nothing more compelling than reading an unapologetically brittle Snape from the deft hand of a terrific writer who knows the character inside out and has formed deep, intricate views about his complexities and motivations and lets all his flaws sing instead of silencing or softening them in an attempt to make him more palatable. This is such an electric, sensual, sexy story with tension ramped up to the max. Brilliant.

#7. Rooftop Ruminations by @thealmostrhetoricalquestion​

Pansy Parkinson/Ginny Weasley | 12,209

Ginny barely registered the evening. The musician, whose bow wrung sounds from the strings with a casual, carefree elegance that Ginny would have usually envied, was just a blur in front of her face. The steps she took to the Rialto Bridge once everyone was ready felt too light and airy, and Luna’s hand in hers was just a wisp of citrus-scented silk. The night grew cooler and Ginny didn’t feel it. Simpering crush, Daphne had said. Pansy had a simpering crush. The words bobbed to the surface of her thoughts and pinched at her wrists and looped around her ears. She kept glancing at Pansy in her velvet skirt and towering heels, and she kept not knowing what to feel.

She wasn’t sure who she wanted Pansy’s crush to be on, and she hated that she didn’t know.

My Rec: This is such a gorgeous piece of writing. The scene setting is so immersive and wistful somehow, there’s a quietness to the pace of the story and the telling of it that made it such a wonderful read. I found myself completely engaged by the unfolding of the story, the richness of the details and descriptions sprinkled throughout, the handling of Ginny’s grief, the sparks and flickers of her feelings as she explores her growing attraction to Pansy and past feelings for Luna. I highly recommend this beautifully told story. 

#8. The Frame by mindabbles

Sirius Black/James Sirius Potter | 11,703

What are the ethical implications of falling for a person you're named after? How about the logistical complications of falling for someone who shouldn’t be alive? James would rather, he finds, not look too closely at either, not when Sirius makes him forget anyone else exists. 

My Rec: I left a prompt for Next Gen Fest involving time travel and James Sirius meeting his namesake and I was so excited when I saw it had been claimed. This fic was absolutely terrific. The idea of the portrait / painting being suspended on the wall mirrors this moment of James Sirius and Sirius suspended in time and I love that the author chose to end the story when they did, leaving things open and ambiguous but in a way that still felt very satisfying. Sirius and James are brilliantly characterised and there are wonderful doses of humour throughout what is a fairly tragic premise. The sex is hot enough to burn and the story has a gentle hopefulness which left me feeling really warm and content, despite the openness of the ending. We see James Sirius and Sirius in this one, suspended moment, as one might view a painting or photograph. Brilliantly written, with nods to Jeddy and Wolfstar too. I loved it.

#9. Games People Play by kelly_chambliss

Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape | 5,610

Life is not easy when you are Severus Snape or Remus Lupin. But sometimes, there are compensations. 

My Rec:  I fell in love with this fic when it posted anon and for this year’s HP Crossgenfest and I wasn’t surprised when the author was revealed to be the immensely talented Kelly, one of my favourite writers of the older women in the Potterverse with a brilliant grasp of Minerva and Severus as characters. The story weaves Remus into the narrative and as ever Kelly’s prose is delightful, the use of second person working particularly well for this story with its shifting POVs. Severus displays moments of his surly, jealous, childish self but also appears a much reformed man although Kelly expertly retains a level of ambiguity around his true motivations in a fully-fleshed out, rich story of human complexity and the ways in which our past informs our perception of the present. If you only ever read one author writing Minerva McGonagall again, read Kelly. Although we are in the heads of Remus and Severus, it is smart, perceptive Minerva who is the star of the show. Wonderful. 

#10. Summer’s End by Barry_Manilows_Wardrobe

Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald | 9,505

Gellert was the embodiment of summer: sunlit hair, warm skin beneath Albus's hands, and a smile that made Albus feel hot down to his very bones. But all summers must come to an end. 

My Rec: This story is utterly breathtaking. The writing is so confident and rich and the characters and their doomed love beautifully rendered. I read the fic with a lump in my throat, a gorgeously angsty, evocative tale of loving too much, too young, of powerful, intelligent wizards losing themselves in one another and the heat of an irrevocable passion which pulls them towards one another before everything breaks apart. At times the writing is so lyrical and poetic, I had to go back and read several phrases over and over, to really take them in. An absolutely stunning tale of lost love and the path that his past sets Albus on as he sets about preparing Harry for his future trials. Captivating, from start to finish. 

[bluesclves]

Hey Scoob, I really love your blog about the Archangels and I would like to ask you one thing, how would you do a redemption arc for Lucifer? How would you reformulate the plot of s12 and s13 on Supernatural aimed at him? I imagine they could make him have the following thoughts about humanity: "I have nothing in favor of humanity but now I also have nothing more against."

Well actually, I’m writing a fanfic series about just that 😅 [Link]

Granted, I did the ‘lucifer becomes human’ trope well before season 13 thought to do it, and I had it stick as opposed to it being another half-assed 1-2 episode long arc.

But if I were to honestly re-write the show starting with season 12, following similar arcs for the boys?

I think I’d start by finding a way to give Lucifer a reason not to run back to the Winchesters at the beginning of Season 12. There really was no reason for him to go off on a rampage like that when they actually took his side against Chuck and got him the apology he’s so desperately wanted. Sure, Chuck still left… but that’s not the Winchester’s fault. They were on Team Save the World together, there’s no reason for them to be hunting Lucifer down and there’s no reason for Lucifer to assume they are no longer friendly to him.

If he came to them with his vessel issues and his injuries, they likely would have worked with him to find a stable vessel—which could lead to Crowley revealing he has Nick and giving the vessel to him freely so that he has a trump card via the magical enhancements in case he ever needs to use Lucifer or stop him.

But! I’d give him a reason not to come back. Just because the writing for that was lazy doesn’t mean I don’t like the drama associated with Lucifer “busting dad’s already-broken toys”. I actually really liked that scene in Rock Never Dies, I thought Rick Springfield delivered those lines fantastically and it gave me a little hope again that the Writers did actually see Lucifer’s potential as a deeply broken and flawed character— not just a villain for villainy’s sake.

Don’t get me wrong— I love Lucifer as an antagonist, he makes for a fantastic enemy of the Boys. But the caveat to that is that despite being an antagonist, he isn’t a traditional villain. His goals in season five were, from his point of view, wholly noble and just. He believed he was the good guy. In season 11, he also believes that he’s the good guy. He’s agreeing to fight Amara, after all. In seasons 12 & 13 however he loses that, and we see him becoming evil for the sake of being evil and it just doesn’t fit with his character so far as we have seen him.

So in order to both give him his redemption arc and maintain his status as a Lawful Good (which doesn’t mean Lawful Nice) Antagonist, I’d give him a very good reason not to return to Team Save The World.

What that reason not to come back could be anything as simple as “he came back to the bunker only to overhear that they are hunting him down” to as complex as “he hasn’t found a vessel that can hold him yet and he’s burnt through so many at this point that he’s afraid to go back out of fear that they won’t forgive him for something he honestly couldn’t help”.

Whatever the reason, I’d show it in some way from his point of view so it is clear why he goes off the deep end and just start smashing shit. I did actually like that, though I wish they portrayed it less as “he’s throwing a temper tantrum because he didn’t get his way” and more like “everyone thinks I’m a monster and my father left AGAIN so fine, if they all want me to be a monster so bad, I’ll give them a monster.”

The biggest problem I had with that arc in season 12 is that he invests himself so much in high-power religious and political figures, then uses that power just to make the Winchesters’ lives hell. He doesn’t effect any serious governmental changes as the president, he doesn’t make any decrees as the archbishop… it was honestly just fanservice and then he used that power to make Sam & Dean Public Enemies #1. That, and he fucked a random nobody Because The Plot Demands It.

That’s really something I could never wrap my head around. Lucifer is disgusted by humans. He sees them as filthy, unclean, base creatures.

What logical reason does he have to sleep with Kelly rather than turn her into wall paint at the mere suggestion that he might want to sleep with her? They made it seem like a little pressuring from an aide was enough to get Lucifer to set aside his distaste for humanity and sleep with her, despite showing earlier I’m the season how he manipulated another woman into carving his name into her own skin just for insinuating he might be interested in her.

What feasible reason did he have to sleep with Kelly? Fear of discovery? He obliterates her and cleans up the mess, snap-snap. Who’s gonna know? It’s not like he planned to be in that position long-term.

I really hate Kelly as a character however, in part because she was written to be expendable and I HATE characters that serve no purpose other than fodder. If you kill a character it should mean something.

So here’s how I would give us a Jack/Nephilim arc without stupid Lucifer Fanservice and Kelly and the dumb supermax prison break. Are you really gonna tell me that Billie wouldn’t just come and collect one of them as per their deal once she became Death-with-a-capital-D?

Lucifer is angry, he’s been betrayed by his Dad and he couldn’t go back to the Winchesters, and he’s just smashing shit and making their lives hell because he’s directing his anger at them. Because God or Amara gave them their mom back but left him with nothing. Again.

So he goes for the one person that can hurt them most— their mom. He comes to her when she’s still unsure about her place in this world and after she just slept with Ketch and is mostly a little disgusted with herself for stopping so low.

He goes to her in a dream as John, and tells her her husband is still suffering in Hell after all these years. But he can give her John back if she says yes. John is more familiar in this world anyways, he reminds her, the boys really need their father, someone they can count on.

And he possesses Mary, literally less than an hour after she had sex with Ketch. She doesn’t even have the chance to take morning-after pills. So she conceives and while the fetus matures an archangel is possessing her, so it draws power from him too to grow.

Bam, a nephilim (who will be an actual half-brother to Dean and Sam), being carried by a decidedly not expendable character, so there is actual urgency to the Boys’ attempts to save their mother.

You get Mary!Lucifer carrying a baby and slowly coming to the realisation that this can be his new purpose. It was an accident… but he is also this child’s parent and he has a responsibility to it. Maybe his Father left him and the world thinks he’s a monster... but this baby doesn’t k ow him yet and he will be a better Father than his own.

You get him changing tactics from using Mary to taunt the Winchesters to Playing keep-away and hiding from them to protect her and his child.

We can still have them eventually pinning Mary!Lucifer down and exorcising him from her, with Crowley trapping Lucifer in Nick, because I love it, but I think Mary carrying the Nephilim and Lucifer getting off his warpath and onto the path to parenthood is a much better arc for both those characters than the arcs they’ve been given thus far.

As for season 13? If we assume season 12 ends similarly to how it did, with Jack still being born but Sam and Dean finding a way to keep Mary alive throughout it, then you get Mary and Lucifer trapped in the apocalypse world together, we can get similar scenes to the almost-beautiful shows of character development through those short conversations Lucifer had with Mary. Only she’d have more insight into his thought process now, so we could get more in-depth conversations, and perhaps a tentative friendship as he continues to protect her despite her no longer carrying his child.

My biggest change to season 13 would be keeping Lucifer human longer. It’d be focused on transitioning the role of main villain from Lucifer to Apocalypse Michael, or Asmodeus. Lucifer may not be in the story as much, but the scenes he does have would develop his understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to be a father, coming to a head when he regains enough grace (through either Anael or natural means) to be formidable and rather than go it alone, asks the Winchesters to help him find his son. I’d preferably have him not be stupid and just stay tagging along with Cass after the Escape From Asmodeus.

I’d force him to experience humanity, to have to understand what it means to live knowing you are mortal and might die at any time. If he managed to work his way into the bunker via Cass, I’d focus on him rebuilding his role as a member of a family, giving and receiving help from the Winchesters in different ways.

He’d get his redemption arc, and then I’d have all his lessons and growth culminate in self-sacrifice at the end of season 13. Someone has to keep Michael in the Apocalypse World. Everyone else has to get across. So he tells the others to go through and he holds Michael off for as long as he can.

Maybe people would be upset for killing him off after finally redeeming him— but Supernatural isn’t about Lucifer, it’s about the Winchesters. And if I gave them an ally that powerful, there’s very little left to challenge them. So I’d have to kill him off in order to let the story continue.

But at least that way, he’d have the noble death he deserved, rather than being put down like the beaten horse he’s become.

…

Anyways, I agree with your thoughts of Lucifer deciding he still doesn’t love humanity but he doesn’t actively hate them anymore because that is actually the impression I got in seasons 12 & 13. His beef was with specific people, not humanity as a whole. He was angry with God and with tfw, and that’s it.

Thanks for the ask! Sorry for the Essay!

[scripttorture]

In my story there are three organizations people can be assigned to after their death where they are provided with food and shelter but are required to do dangerous work, fight, maybe even kill, forbidden from interacting with the living and are generally publicly shamed if they do minor acts of rebellion. Should they try to run away or harm the leaders, they are usually killed on the spot. The same with any major rebellion of multiple people. I guessed they would loose a lot of people (1/?)

(cont) through this but I am not sure how many exactly, or if it's even realistic at all for some 'core members' to stay longer (100-600 years for who I have in mind) and what their behavior would be like? Would they try to convince others to stay with them? Would it be possible to keep them 'loyal' like this with the ongoing threat of murder and being hunted by all three organizations? Another question would be if I should include something like a 'punishment camp' (2/?)(cont.) which would be separate from the organizations and something that would be run 'together' by often changing volunteers who get special privileges in exchange for torturing the inmates who get send there. These inmates can come from all organizations (torturer and victim are never from the same) who have rebelled 'a little' and do not warrant murder yet. My idea is that they'd be sent there for a week to a month and tortured repeatedly through their time there. Would (3/?)(cont.) this, together with public shaming (scars left are visible and raised as consequence of being bad, filthy, improper or similar and thus mark the person for a long time) would it work to scare others in the organization? Would it work to manipulate at least a few of the (younger and more vulnerable) members who were victims of this? Or would it have the opposite effect? Would there even be any volunteers? Sorry for writing so much but I'm really stuck on this (4/4) 

I can understand why you feel stuck. And I can see why you’ve structuredthe story and world in this way. But if the goal is (as far as possible)obedience I think you’re focusing on the wrong things.

 It’s not that I think torture wouldn’t fit this setting and story exactly-it’s more that the way you’re currently planning to use it goes against theobedience you’re trying to enforce.

 Torture really isn’t an effective way to enforce discipline. That doesn’t mean people don’t try to useit this way. People try to use torture to achieve a lot of things it justisn’t capable of.

 Basically I think this is one of those premises where you’re going tohave to decide whether using torture so often is necessary for the story. Is the obedience or the abuse moreimportant to the story generally? Because the way I see it you can changethis scenario to create something that would encourage obedience to the point of committing atrocities or you can stick with what you have andaccept that there will be quite a lot of disobedience.

 I don’t see anything wrong with the scenario you’ve outlined: it doesn’tseem to be excusing or downplaying torture in any way. But it wouldn’t be‘effective’ in the way your bad guys want it to be.

 I think the most helpful thing I can do here is answer your questionsbased on the scenario you’ve outlined and thentry to outline what a scenario that encouraged obedience and group loyaltywould look like.

 Yes they would lose an awful lot of people. I’m not sure I can put afigure on how many exactly but my best guess (based on the rate of suicide andescape by enslaved people in Brazil) would be up to 1/3 every year. If you’repicturing everyone who has ever died in this scenario then a third of thepopulation every year builds up to impressive numbers pretty quickly.

 That said I do think you could realistically havepeople stay in these organisations in the long term. There are two main ways Ican see to play that: either by having the individual character want to stay or by having them believethat there’s no point trying to leave.

 People will often stay in awful situations when they believe that tryingto leave will make things worse. But it’s important not to treat this as onesettled decision. It’s a state of flux. Characters who are motivated in thisway would be likely to leave orrebel, they’re just waiting for the moment when they think they’ll have thebest chance of doing it successfully. Any shift at any time that gives them abetter chance could easily be taken as their opportunity to rebel.

 Having a character want tostay requires positive reinforcement over threat. Agreeing with group ideologywould help but above that the characters need to be getting something from theorganisation they’re in. Privileges, goods, special treatment, comradery-something that they would lose ifthey left.

 Think about….Kylo Ren from the recent Star Wars films. He’s one of thebad guys and he’s embedded in their organisation. The films go out of their wayto show that he has major doubts about what he’s doing, regrets a lot of hisawful actions and doesn’t necessarily agree with most of the people within thegroup.

 But the group gives him powerover other people. Leaving the group and doing what he knows to be right meansabandoning that power. And time and again we see him rejecting opportunities toleave even though he’s unhappy where he is. (Note that this willingness tosacrifice his morality in exchange for power tells us quite a bit about hischaracter.)

 The behaviour of someone who chooses to stay would vary depending ontheir personality and well- their motivation for staying. Someone who isstaying out of fear might encourageothers to stay for their own safety. But they might also encourage others toleave, to see if they could succeed or to live vicariously through theescapees. Someone who actually believes in the organisation might encouragepeople to stay and ‘do the right thing’- but they might also encourage peopleto leave just to test their loyalty.

 So in terms of how they interact with characters whose ‘loyalty’ iswavering, I think you’ve got a lot of scope to decide.

 Generally speaking is the threat of murder and torture is really the only factor then no, that’s notenough to keep people loyal.

 Fear…isn’t as powerful as people tend to think. The threat of harm doesn’t generally result in long termobedience, though it might result in short term compliance. If one characterthreatens to shoot another the victim might well do what the person with thegun asks but they’ll probably be looking for a way to get away and none of uswould expect them to be ‘loyal’ or obedient when the gun is taken away.

 That said I think you should seriously think about whether threats arethe only factor in this scenario.But threats are rarely going tobe the only factor.

 Think about things like physical security: food, water, shelter andsense of safety. Do any of the organisations provide any of those things andwould those things be in question if a character left? How about positivein-group interaction? Friendships, mentorships, romantic relationships- theseare things we need and people willstay in situations that are awful for them because a friend is there too.

 If there are no positive in group interactions then I think you need toseriously consider why that’s the case. Because generally a bunch of peopledropped in an awful situation at roughly the same social level will bond overit (caveat- mass starvation is often an exception see also Russian linguisticdistinction between ‘corpse eating’ and ‘cannibal’).

 If there’s little in the way of physical security, no benefits to groupmembership, no strong social bonds anda lot of violent threats- I think people would vote with their feet. They’d getup and leave. Not necessarily in an organised way, this doesn’t has to mean a Palmarestype situation with parallel societies (Brazil, mostly escaped slaves), itcould be much less sophisticated like the gangs of rough-sleeping wanderingyouths common in Britain in the 1700s (mostly fleeing abusive parents,employers or masters).

 I think the sort of ‘punishment camps’ you’re outlining do fit the sort of setting you’redescribing. However in terms of theeffects they’d have……….they would probably radicalise everyone directlyinvolved with them. They mightincrease fear in the general population but that does not necessarily lead toobedience and-

 Well let me unpack the effects I think they’d have.

 One of the really interesting observations Rejali makes about civilianpopulations in areas where torture is commonly going on is the tendency towards…it’snot exactly ‘victim blaming’ but the thinking is similar. Basically there is amarked tendency among people in these areas to assume that if someone is taken away and tortured they actually did break the rules in some way. This doesn’t mean they think the rules are ‘right’,that they think torture is justified or that they assume the person is aviolent criminal.

 The thought process goes something like ‘they’ve arrested him for beingpart of a criminal gang….well he did usedto hang out with all those bad kids after school- He did spend a lot of timeonline- He must have had someconnection to these criminals even if it was only tenuous- Right?’

 This thought process is a sort of mental self defence. By tellingthemselves that it isn’t random thatthere is some cause civilians areable to convince themselves that this wouldnot happen to them. That their actions can prevent it happening.

 But this is not how torture works.

 The assumption that the people in charge of these camps would alwayspick up ‘guilty’ people is deeply flawed.

 For starters when torture is an ingrained part of the system spontaneousreporting from members of the public drops.The justice system loses possibly themost important source of information: ordinary civilians.

 In contrast malicious accusations seemto rise. Which means that you have your cross-organisational ‘cops’ hearingless accusations aimed at people who are actually ‘guilty’ and more accusations aimed at people who areinnocent but disliked.

 This is just one factor that leads to torturers targeting more innocentpeople then ‘guilty’ ones (in your story I think it would be the biggestfactor).

 Torture of these innocent people is going to give them a reason to rebel. At the same time it will enable themto establish cross-organisational contacts with other wrongly-accused peopleand the occasion genuine rebel.

 So these punishment camps would function to make the resistance stronger. Because they will be creatingmore rebels, reinforcing the beliefs of existing rebels and acting as a forumfor both groups to meet and organise themselves better.

 Public shaming on return to ‘normal’ life would probably only serve toreinforce hatred of and resistance to the system. Purely because it’s immediately following torture.

 Would it scare other members of the organisation? Very possibly. People who are nottortured and don’t know anyone who was will assume there was a reason eachindividual was picked out. They’ll assume they were guilty. And for some people that will encourageobedience.

 For others it will encourage dissent.

 It will certainly stop the vast majority of people from reporting on anyrule breaking, especially if the ‘guilty’ character is someone they care about.

 It will also encourage rebellion in anyone who was close to a victim.Again this is strengthening resistance movements by furthering recruitment.

 There’s also the way we tend to respond to torture. We have…..visceralnegative reactions to seeing other people in distress or pain. These areautomatic responses wired into our brains. We can’t turn them off.

 Publically parading victims who have obviously and visibly been torturedwould serve as a recruitment tool for resistance organisations. Because asignificant portion of the audience would not only have an automaticsympathetic response to the victim but would also be willing to act on it.

 Some people would be scared ormanipulated into inaction. But every single step of this is encouraging dissentand those numbers would build up.

 Whether people would volunteer to be torturers- The honest answer isthat I don’t know. I’m unaware of any systematic research on historicaltorturers, which is the situation I think would be closest to what you’redescribing.

 England’s more recent historical executioners were certainlyprofessionals who only performed this role. But they also didn’t always choosethe role; some took it up to prevent being executed themselves, some inherited theposition.

 And by that point they were nottorturers. In the time periods where torture was a big feature of the ‘justice’system the entire system was….not very organised and mostly functioned on anad-hoc basis. The equivalent of police, the judges- they were things people didoccasionally around their ‘main’ job. Torturers could well have functioned on asimilar basis and I’d have to do more historical research to be sure.

 In a modern context torturers aren’t really recruited by volunteering:people are screened prior to recruitment into organisations and are thenpressured into torture by sub-groups of torturers within the largerorganisation. Which isn’t the same asasking a large group of random people for volunteers- the official screeningprocess every step of the way to get into organisations, followed by the socialscreening process instigated by the torturers themselves, that probablyincreases the ‘success’ rate during recruitment.

 I imagine that there would be somevolunteers but the group you’d get volunteering would probably be hugelydemographically different to modern torturers. They’dstill develop the same side effects as other torturers.

 If they volunteered purely because of benefits they might receive,without fully understanding the nature of what they’d have to do or theconsequences this could also resultin more recruitment for resistance movements with former torturers rejectingthe organisations as well.

 Consider whether you want this level of rebellion and dissent in yourstory and how that would effect the social structures both within theorganisations and outside them. Think about how it would effect your plot.

 There are changes you could make that would probably increase obediencewithin the groups.

 Firstly there have to be some major positives to group membership.People have to get something goodfrom these groups and be aware of what they’d lose without the groups.

 Strong in-group social ties would have to be encouraged. Good behaviourwould need to have obvious rewards.

 Torture and murder would have to be rarer.

 The organisations would have to be isolated from each other as well asthe resistance movements. Cross group contact would encourage people to emphasisewith members of different groups.

 They’d essentially need to have some sort of ICURE program. That means apattern of psychological manipulation: Isolate the person, Control their accessto information, plant Uncertainty about prior beliefs, use Repetition toreinforce the beliefs and values the organisation wants to instil, andmanipulate Emotions in order to further reinforce those values.

 So people would need to be heavily isolated from other groups and subjected to a well organisedpropaganda campaign. Something highly emotive, repeated and impossible toignore which would create and reinforce their opinion of the other organisationsand the resistance.

 This would help reinforce the idea that they are better off where they are. It would teach them the other groups are‘worse’ and the resistance organisations are complete monsters.

 Public shaming without anyphysical injury would take the place of most of the torture you’ve planned.It would be the main go-to punishment for minor infractions. I’d suggestsomething similar to the group recriminations used in China in the recent past.Having a group of people surround the criminal and take turns to berate themfor their flaws and ‘sins’ at length. This could go on for hours.

 You add to this by having it recorded in some way and having thehighlights broadcast more generally to group members so that everyone surroundingthe ‘criminal’ knows exactly what they’ve done and they face constant publiccensure in the aftermath of their ‘crime’.

 If you wanted to keep thepunishment camps here’s what I’d suggest.

 Reduce the number of people put in them and increase the severity of the ‘crime’ necessary to make it possible.

 Do not make the group membership of the torturers or victims random.

 Instead have camps run by group 2 with victims only from group 3.Instead of having the victims knowthey’re going to be sent to a place like this have the victims and generalpublic told these group 3 ‘criminals’ have been sentenced to a ‘good group 3jail’. Their mass transport is then ‘attacked’ by group 2 and the prisoners areput in a ‘normal group 2 prison’ which is eventually ‘liberated’ by good group3 people.

 This would serve to confuse the story considerably. The message thissends isn’t that the in-group doeshorrible things to criminals: it’s that the othergroups are so much worse than us and oh god can you imagine what it must belike to live in those groups? Aren’t we all so glad to be part of wonderfulgroup 3 instead of awful group 2. Those savages. It’s a good thing they usuallyonly manage to kidnap prisoners being transported isn’t it? Can you imagine howawful it would be if normal peoplehad to go that close to group 2 territory?

 And so forth.

 Some of the prisoners might fall for this ruse and their animosity wouldbe directed at out groups instead oftheir own group. It might serve to make them more loyal to their own group inthe long run.

 Others probably wouldn’t fallfor the ruse but it would be incredibly easy to dismiss them as fantasists andconspiracy theorists.

 Aaaaand this has been an incredibly long answer. I hope it’s helpful andgets you thinking about what’s important to this world and ways you couldstructure the world to emphasise what’s most important to the story. :)

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