#I still have to do 2 endings and I want to revisit a specific other one because I accidentally skipped most of it

[midnightwind]

so I beat BG3 finally and I have.... Opinions. This is going to be Very Long and full of spoilers, obviously, so fair warning

So to open with, I do really like Act 1 and 2. They have solid pacing and while Act 2 might be missing more side content, it does makes sense given the whole curse making it difficult to move freely without always having a torch out which can severely impact some builds. So I'm glad we don't spend very much time having to deal with that. (I am dual wielding thief rogue scum, so the torch was Agony)

I think Act 1 does an okay job leading you towards the goblin camp as the big end all of the story section while letting you also decide to hop into the Underdark for extra optional content. The Creche is kind of nightmarish depending on your choices, but I think it's still good content. I simply don't care for the Gith much as a people, but they're an important story beat so it's nice to get more of them before you delve into cursed lands. A1 has a nice balance of exploring and side content to do and I really never feel lost or in a lull. I have a goal and the freedom to do whatever else I want on my way to it. Plus the companions have a lot to say and a bunch of interactions together, especially if you change out a member periodically to trigger new ones.

Act 2 is a bit more rail road-y story wise, but you have the little side quests for Astarion and Shadowheart to pursue, helping Halsin, and a few npc quests to pick up or find. I think the inn defense is a bit of a nightmare because Jaheira will sometimes just nuke the tieflings for daring to be near an enemy, so trying to keep everyone alive is.... it can be a lot. But that's going to be more rng to blame than anything else I suppose. And like, if you don't care about saving everyone then it's a breeze I'm sure, I'm just a goody two shoes. The only bad time I really had in Act 2 was due to bugs, so that wasn't the story's fault! (I fell through the floor and only survived because of Thief's passive to reduce falling damage) Well, okay, the Nightsong fight also sucked. Shove being a bonus action is bullshit and also why would they make that such a problem on a floating rock? I had to redo that fight so, so many times to have my party all make it to round 2 without someone getting launched into the void. But otherwise! The build up to Ketheric and actual execution of his fight were all really good. (Well, I skipped phase 1 of his fight because funny persuasion, but I digress)

They really made you worried about Ketheric, showed how much power and sway he had over the land, especially by making him the source of the curse that was poisoning the land. They went in on making him the big dead boss you had to work to beat. I was excited to see what Gortash and Orin had working for them in Act 3!

But then I actually did Act 3, and man, you can feel the rush here. There's just so much squished into the city to the point where having it split in half doesn't help. The game can barely handle how much it has to always have loaded and moving. And the amount of story feels like they were going to have 4 Acts total, but then were told to push the game out and they just had to throw it all into one Act and hope. I think having Tav deal with either Gortash or Orin for Act 3 would have been better for the pacing and allowed for both of the villains to get proper sway over the city they were taking over.

Gortash has some sway with the Steel Watch stomping around, but they really aren't all that threatening unless you decide to slap one on the ass in the town square. You get a glimpse at what they really wanted to do with Gortash at his coronation, but it never really leaves Wyrm's Rock. Maybe it's because I was playing Rogue and sneaking past every locked door, but I never felt like Gortash was a threat. He was more like a snotty kid in the corner muttering rude names at you. The second he tries to go for you without the public eye around, he's dead. He doesn't even do a good job manipulating you. He's all about schemes and having power over people, but his solution when he sees Tav and the gang is to just... ask them to kill Orin for him and share in the power afterwards. Which would make sense if he hadn't led with the whole killing his last partner idea. Why should Tav trust him to hold up his end of the bargain if he clearly would rather rule solo? If Gortash has full control over the city, or the beginnings of it, shouldn't he be making connections with the big entities? Shouldn't he know more about the group of adventurers set on ruining his plans? He clearly can have Orin walk around the camp whenever he wants, so why isn't he turning any of the companions' baggage against them? He could link up with Cazador to send Astarion into a panic, snap up any stragglers of Karlach's friends to keep her from playing baseball with his head, tempt Gale with magical secrets and knowledge of Netherese. He had an in against Jaheira with Orin's shapechangers infiltrating the Harpers, but apparently they suck at their jobs because they got caught instantly, and also the game just shrugs and doesn't have us save the Harpers. Like, so many of the companions are linked to Baldur's Gate somehow and it isn't used to control them. If you take out the foundry, Gortash is just a guy in a booby trapped room with two goons. There is some poetic justice there about how the schemer is just a man at the end of the day, but Tav doesn't do anything to take his power away outside of getting rid of the mechs and maybe changing a single day's paper printing, if you were so inclined. We have no chance to stop the coronation, to break up the blackmailing and mind controlled nobility, hell he doesn't even make it hard to walk the streets if you betray him! He's supposed to be the schemer, the brains behind the operation, so why does he just sit in his castle and do nothing? He could enforce a curfew, forcing the gang underground and into back alleys. Like, I could see it making some builds more tedious to get around with, but they needed to show his power over the city somehow. The Steel Watch just don't cut it, in my opinion. (I also basically one shot him in his fight with 0 traps even going off so perhaps my opinion is colored by that experience)

Orin, then, well... she barely exists as a problem honestly. She steals a party member a few days after Gortash warns you about her, but the reveal just removes the taken character and you're left down a man. She's a serial killer, Bhaal's own unholy assassin who can change her shape as easy as one dons a cloak. So why does she let her ruse be revealed so easily? I think it would have been more compelling, more insidious if she were to take Tav's love interest (or highest approval companion) and just never reveal it's her. You could stumble across the real companion later, mayhaps fleeing from the cult in the sewers, and be forced to make the call on who's real and who's the fake. We have multiple forms of revival in the game, so you could make this hurt without actually losing a companion forever. You would never know when the switch happened and if you chose wrong, imagine how gut wrenching that would be! Instead her cult is more annoying than she is. The whole Sanctuary mechanic is tedious, the amount of the fuckers in the city begs belief, and having to try to save random npcs on a bloody note proves extremely annoying quickly. We don't know the npcs being targeted which is fine, but when I've restarted 3 times to try and distract the 8 assassins with my party so they don't hit the 50 health citizen 20 times, I start thinking the random shop keep might be better off dead. And it is doable, to save them, it just takes so much to pull it off. Again, maybe it's because I was going through the game determined to save everyone, or near enough, so what should have been moments of feeling helpless were more just a huge pain in the ass. The threat of Orin is too simple because they drop the doppleganger act so fast. Plus, she even offers to call off the killings if you take care of Gortash for her and then meet her for a duel! She solves herself. I think it's honestly a disservice to the idea of the character and she feels like a lot of the ideas behind her just weren't given the time they needed to pan out.

And then we move past them, to the Elder Brain. You spend all of Act 3 working your way up to either taking over this thing or killing it. And then you get stuck in extremely long mob fights for the next few hours before finally reaching the damn thing and it's both a dps check and a fucking heal check. The whole endeavor was a pure slog to me and making the summon allies a full action made it feel like it was just never worth it, I could dish out more damage with my own actions. Plus, the allies can't even follow you inside to deal with the brain so at best you use an action to summon hopeful meat shields. It feels like a poorer version of the defense of Denerim in DA:O. The other companions aren't shown doing anything, or even really hinted at doing anything except for like, 4 of them being at the rallying meeting. And the choice between supporting the Emperor or freeing Orpheus! It felts terrible either way! Support the entity keeping you safe, but lying the whole time who doesn't seem willing to talk about it's plans after dealing with the brain or free the trapped Prince of the Gith and hope he doesn't instantly kill you or lead his people to kill everyone in a war of conquest under a new name because you honestly have no idea what he'll do. It's shit either way.

The actual character endings are rather sparse. Also, fuck whoever thought it'd be funny to have Astarion running off screen if you destroy the brain and the vampire rules reassert themselves. You spend the whole game with him mentioning loving the sunlight and seeing the world how he used to. And then you make it a joke when he loses that? It's a heartbreaking moment and it was ruined by having it framed that way. It felt cruel.

I only got to see the epilogue with Astarion, because I romanced him, and Karlach returning to the Hells with Wyll and while they were both nice, they felt very short. I wanted to see what everyone would do, if the gang would stick together or stay in contact. How would they settle into the remains of the city, who would tag along if Tav decides to adventure on, do they have reunions or get togethers, do we get to have that party? It feels so rushed, like a lot was cut to ship the game out, and the companions all suffer for it. Granted this is if you destroy the brain. The endings where you take it over seem even shorter, albeit executed well for the power trip they're setting up, but you don't get much beyond that to my knowledge. (I haven't gone back to see all of them yet) I spent something like 130-140 hours in this one play through. You spend the whole game working up to this confrontation, this resolution, and it feels so truncated. Even just a still image of the landscape or characters with some text slapped on top to detail how they wrapped up the adventure would have been better than having 80% of the gang forgotten. I didn't take them all out into the world, finishing their personal quests, to have them be left behind like that. I love them all and I wanted to see their happy endings.

I loved my time in Faerun, despite it all, and I'm just a little disappointed with how the last act played out. I wish the game had been allowed more time to be finished, for the love and care that so clearly shines in Acts 1 and 2 to be allowed to flourish in Act 3. The people who made this game clearly care, and they had a story to tell, and it leaves a bitter taste behind that they so clearly were not permitted to tell it how they wanted to.

[nikoniclove]

Whole List of "Ace in the Hole" Prompts Pt 2

For anyone who is interested in reading the WHOLE MASSIVE list of prompts people have sent in via private messages, AO3, or tumblr, here it is broken into numerous posts because it's so long.

One Shots (con)

i want more little things that make them tick! doesn't have to be a super kinky thing, something small. maybe they notice jj gets all hot and bothered whenever ace handles the sniper guns. or emily likes it when ace's hair is in a bun. something small like that and the teasing conversation they have once they figure out why the other person is so horny lately. (Mcdoesit)

LOVED the jewelry kink for jj, would love to see that revisited. (Mcdoesit)

i would pay so much money to have them somehow make a stupid bet about "well yeah i bet i could last longer than you could" regarding sex/orgasms. knowing them it would probably be jj vs emily or ace vs jj, but it could be all three of them. they would try to tempt each other but it would probably backfire and make them super horny. maybe ace playing the mommy/daddy card or jj/emily trying to leverage her praise kink or subspace? i just know they'd play dirty. (Mcdoesit)

would love to see ace teasing Em and JJ somewhere they can’t fuck her (maybe on a car or something) by calling them mommy/daddy when people can’t hear? Feel it would drive them wild haha. (Tumblr anon)

Ace being in a depression (Emily and JJ not having caught onto it yet) and trying to have sex with Emily to help her ‘feel’ better. However Emily decides she not in the mood or just too tried from a case and how it affects Aces depression. Specifically with feeling not good enough for them, or maybe Ace thinks they’re no longer attracted to her. (Jo_Mamaz)

Episode 11x14 - ace reaction, JJ reaction 

the first time Ace sees Emily go super rough and intense on JJ (quite early on in their relationship so it feels shocking to her), both the live event and then the aftermath of how she processes her trepidation and arousal around that kind of roughness/intensity in bed as it’s all still quite new to her (Tumblr chaotic-pyro)

Ace being on the giving end and JJ or Emily on the receiving end as top Ace is sort of a rare occurrence. They do happen to be on call but they’re trying to reacquaint with each other’s bodies since it’s been so long with all the cases. A phone starts to ring (it could be work, family, etc.) but Ace encourages one of them to answer, yet whoever answered isn’t the person the caller is looking for - whoever is receiving is the wanted one - and they try to push Ace away but she’s insistent on the other person just continuing conversation as normal.  (Tumblr anon)

JJ or Emily in some sort of life or death predicament where either JJ or Emily rashly put their life on the line to save the other leaving Ace in a state where both of her loves are at risk where she can’t do anything but wait on the sidelines and not knowing how to cope with the fear of potentially losing them both? (Tumblr anon)

considering all the gun kink stories out there, would you possibly write something along those lines with the three? thinking about it being jj or emily’s unexpected turn on (Tumblr anon)

One where they argue for the first time, jj and Emily learn that they can’t shout at ace because she isolates due to her past (Tumblr anon)

maybe a follow-up to "A Bad Day" in Different Kinds of Firsts pt.2. Where Ace is having another bad day and JJ and Emily are almost tripping over themselves to help her feel better to make up for last time. And their effort itself is so endearing and loving that it helps lift her spirits as well. Maybe JJ actually brings up that they want to do better because of how much Ace has adapted for them - possibly bringing back a conversation from "Learning to Top" about Ace swallowing down certain things so that she gets to stay with JJ and Emily (Tumblr theysaythejobisjinxed)

silly story in which emily tries to fix the kitchen sink or something but the problem she doesn’t know how to fix it so she ropes ace into it but she doesn’t know how to fix it either so they end up making it waaaay worse and the kitchen floods and everything and they’re like “jj is gonna kill us” and in fact when jj comes home she’s mad but amused nd she ends up fixing it ? and it’s just all funny fluffy goodness?? (Tumblr anon)

Ace has a fight with Emily and JJ (thinking serious but not as bad as Emily telling Ace she is a burden) before going away for work alone, maybe solo consult or testifying or something, and there is bad weather and Ace looses communication with the team. Emily and JJ are freaking out cause they are worried about Ace and can only remember that the last thing they said to her was mean and what if they don't see her again, and such. Ace is worried and trying to figure out how to fix it but the lack of contact with anyone (other than the reason she is where she is) is getting to her and it makes her miss her peoples even more (EmilyJenniferJareauPrentiss)

Ace takes JJ to a rock gym, sweaty muscles are observed, JJ’s libido is in overdrive, and then when they get home, JJ gets to enjoy the muscles up close (Nerdy_Mama)

JJ dominating ace and emily chapter.. it's been too longggg. Not just dominating in bed but also teasing them and edging both of them the whole day and then finally showing them who is boss.. something like this pleaseee (Ao3 guest JJEM)\

Where JJ is very upset with ace over something very stupid like ace ate her last piece of favourite pie of something (not really upset like getting mad but upset enough to ignore her for a bit ) and ace is going out of her way to make it up to her... going full girlfriend and sending her flowers and giving massages and stuff. And emily is empathetic towards ace but not really helping and staying out of it (Ao3 guest JJEM)

What if Emily and JJ teased and worked Ace up as they are wont to do, and when they are finally ready to let Ace come, maybe even have her tied up and begging already. Bam, either they or Ace get called away. Maybe there's a failed attempt to get Ace of over a video chat while they are away, but that too fails. And when they are all finally reunited, or maybe just Ace and Emily. Ace pins Emily down and makes her get her off because she is just too desperately horny to be shy anymore. (Attempt_137_at_finding_a_user_name)

Emily and Ace off on a consult that turns into them helping on the case. Early on in an established relationship. A local detective (who is similar to Emily in dominance and looks) is flirty with Ace. Maybe Ace has to go undercover with this detective for a small thing and play the role of a date. She plays into the part and keeps calling Ace ‘love’. Emily can do nothing but just boil in silence. Ace teases Emily a little but quickly sees the mask drop and there is lingering insecurity. Very smutty hotel moment. (Ssskeptical)

early days are good to see. Speaking of…have you done much - or anything - with the firsts before that first girls night where they actually did stuff for the first time? Because I think you said they’d been flirting with Ace for months at that point and Ace was kind of clueless in an adorable way. It could be fun to see some of the firsts even before that first girls night. Maybe the first time JJ flirted, the first time Emily flirted, the first time Ace realized they were flirting - if she even realized it? Maybe the first time JJ touched Ace in a casual, friendly way BEFORE they were anything to each other and Ace being all weird about it because she’s not used to that. Maybe the first time they got jealous of Ace before they had any reason or right to…like they’re nothing to each other but they have a thing for her and she innocently talks about finding someone cute at a bar or gets flirted with during a team outing, JJ gets all jealous, Ace has no idea what’s going on. (Ao3 Guest)

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 2: A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing (The Louvre)

Another very solid album! I think I've heard some say that it's not really that good besides a couple standouts, but I must respectfully disagree!! More down-to-earth and less of a bag of delightfully mismatched oddities than its predecessor, yes, but that still doesn't really diminish its value in my eyes. Yeah, it doesn't really have many low points for me but it also definitely does have those couple of total classics that totally stand out (and interestingly, I realized while writing down my favourite songs that I could consider every single one on the first half of the album a favourite. Not that the second half is necessarily worse... but still interesting to actually have it spelled out and visible like that and be able to think about it). And all in all Woofer definitely continues with a very similar kind of feeling and imagery as the previous release so I'm definitely a big fan of that aspect! I really like this album a whole bunch and revisit it a lot. Just making it clear here... just in case... that yes, I do like it, even if I don't have that many specific things to sing praise about this time, maybe? Or at least not as loudly. Who knows!

But ok, there actually IS another very important thing I can't forget to mention about Woofer. Because this is THE impressive Russell vocal moments album for me, or maybe more appropriately, Russell making sounds that are both impressive and intriguing in nature. That defintely makes it stand out even among all the other early 70s albums (which also have their own fair share of such moments of course). But I'll say more on those specific moments below.

And also, continuing the topic of seasons associations here too (for as long as I remember to inculde these here, I might forget about it pretty quickly however, maybe it's just that with some later albums the associations aren't as pronounced and important! Yeah, it could be that), this album is totally autumny to me, a sunny and warm sort of autumn but when most of the leaves have already fallen down. For once it's not the exact moment when I started listening to it that becomes the associatied season, huh? But even then, I can still hear some elements of late winter / very early spring here as well.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Girl From Germany (this is just THE sound of the summer kind of song for me, it just makes me instantly happy. Which I guess is kind of funny considering its subject matter but that's just how it is with Sparks and I think we all got used to that at this point)

Beaver O'Lindy (!!!!! no explanation needed, right)

Nothing Is Sacred (suuuuuper underrated, I especially love Russell's entire... whatever is going on at the end here, it's one of my favourite moments on the entire album)

Here Comes Bob (this is silly but at first whenever I heard this song I always pictured the character Bob from Animal Crossing going on a little stroll so that definitely makes it funnier)

Moon Over Kentucky (another timeless CLASSIC. I don't even know what to say about it, it's just so good. And has plenty of those vocal moments too for sure)

Batteries Not Included (not... really a favourite but I still wanted to give it a mention, because I think there's something very cool and unique about it, even besides being sort of a funny little... ugh, I hate to use this word but, novelty?? song (I can't find a better word for this that doesn't come af sort of derogatory but I hope you can see what I mean with this haha)). Oh, and of course it's the first on the list of "short intro" type of Sparks songs, which I always find quite great and memorable whenever they show up over the following years.

[hvllowheart]

hi! regarding your last post about abandoning projects, do you have any advice for overcoming that?

I do!

1. Write something you're passionate about.

Now, I get that everyone constantly says that, and you'll think, "that tells me absolutely nothing" bc passion can only get you so far and usually fluctuates a lot. It's something I've started to realize happens to me. One day I wake up and have a new idea I love and think "wow this is gonna be a piece of cake to finish" despite me knowing it's going to entail a lot of planning and once I get the inital idea out of the way and get to that planning stage my attention for the project... dies.

What I mean with that is to write something you're passionate about is that you shouldn't write something into the project you feel like others will like. Or if it's a project with tropes in it, that you have to follow those to the T.

If an idea is boring, don't write it.

If you have a cool idea that might not fit the vibe entirely, write it down. Keep it in mind for later when it could fit the vibe better.

Incorporate as many things you love as you like and then worry about how the broader plot can shape around them.

2. Don't write in order of what's supposed to happen.

I know it'll make you feel better to feel like you have a clear point A to B but truth is, some parts are going to be extremely boring to write. You won't want to write all about the logistics of a scene happening right that moment or the spicy dialogue that carries the scene bc you're way more focused on another detail that drew you to write a particular scene.

In those cases, I usually just put whatever is supposed to happen in brackets [insert car chase here] and move on the bits I'm excited to get to. You might wake up a couple of days later thinking you want to revisit that car chase scene and write it all in one go now that you've stopped obsessing over a different scene you cared for before.

3. Make the experience more fun for yourself.

If you feel like you're burning out and losing steam from writing and planning the project, take a step back and do something else.

If I still feel like doing something with the project that isn't necessarily write it, I tend to end up making edits or a playlist or looking for inspiration pictures that might give me an idea of a new setting or what a character will look like. And that's what usually keeps my brain working and thinking about the plot.

As soon as another idea pops into my head bc of the space I took not writing the projects itself, I write it down and get reinspired to work on it.

4. Look for inspiration.

As mentioned in 3., I can't recommend enough to look for inspiration in pictures or boards on pinterest or a song or a quote you really love. Trust me, seeing a cool picture or reading a quote that immediately makes you think of a specific character makes you itch to get back to writing.

It also allows your writing to grow when you take the time to look for inspiration. Writing everything in one go might make you feel productive but the quality could potentially decline the longer you're at it and when you come back to it you'll ask yourself what the hell you were on writing some of the stuff. So taking that time, finding new locations/side characters/some dialogue snippets you could incorporate, will make you feel excited to actually see those ideas and inspirations become part of your project.

5. Take breaks.

This is another one of those things you always hear and think, "that's what leads me to abandon it in the first place??" and while I agree (been there) It's also important not to get burned out by the project.

The breaks shouldn't span entire weeks, of course, but don't beat yourself up when you can't get to the project for a couple of days bc of life happening or something else being more interesting.

Taking those breaks ensures you not only build anticipation, but it also let's the project breathe and allows you the space, to again, think of the broader plot or a specific scene that could be cool to incorporate.

6. Find someone to talk about the project with.

In our day and age, we're lucky to have such big writer communities. Chances are, someone out there will get aboslute brain rot from the project you're working on. Talking to people like that will not only allow you to have someone to bounce ideas off of, but it'll also keep you focused and in a way, hold you accountable to actually see it get to a point you can and want to share more.

Starting up a WIP blog, like the one I and many others have, or a writerblr blog will attract people to the idea and have them reach out to ask questions that again keep you thinking about fun parts of the project and develope the idea.

I have a friend I constantly talk to about every idea he and I get. Not all of them ever see the light of day, but we talk about them, send ideas we think could be cool, and write small snippets of scenes bc we are excited about the project. That not only gets you to a starting point, but also makes the planning way smoother and means you're getting instant feedback.

And that's what usually gets you to write more instead of watching your project collect dust in the drafts.

7. Write every single idea down.

This is also something everyone says, but it's true. Chances are, you forget the idea and kick yourself for it later or you think it won't be as good as you imagine it and then you have a missing scene you don't know what to do with where that idea could have fit.

Sometimes, usually just before bed for me, I get ideas, and since I have my phone close by, I just open the notes app, write down the snippet of a conversation I just thought of or a cool detail I'll add when I get back to the file and BOOM I have the next plot point figured out without actively forcing myself to sit in front of the computer and thinking "what is supposed to happen now??"

Even if the idea is silly or seems wack, I can't recommend writing it down enough. You'll thank yourself for it and in a way train yourself into passively thinking about what could happen next.

I have a dedicated page in my files just for random ideas I got in the middle of the night and while some will not make it into the draft itself, it's still fun to think about them or even write a short scene involving the idea just to see where it goes. Maybe it'll inspire you to take your project into a new exciting direction, too!

8. Don't obsess over word counts/progress made.

It's a recent shift I've noticed, where people obsessively focus on how long a scene/chapter is. Like one being 5k long means it's somehow better than a scene that's only a couple hundred words long, but concise and has the kind of structure that keeps you engaged.

If you feel like a scene is done and you're happy with it, even if it's short, leave it. Maybe you'll come back to it and add more, but maybe you'll realize it's perfect the way it is and doesn't need unnecessary details added.

9. Don't get lost in the details.

This is something I've neen prone to do. Obsessing over a single detail or scene to the point that working on it becomes exhausting because I couldn't move on.

It's what kills your drive to write on the project fairly quickly and relates to the point I made to just put whatever is supposed to happen in brackets to revisit later.

The details are usually what make the story feel personalized, but it's also so easy to get lost in them. Writing the broader scene down and revisiting it sometime later to add those details is going to keep you writing and engaged with what you want to make the project into.

10. It's YOUR project, don't forget that.

Sometimes I've started things I thought were fics or stories I'd love to explore only to realize I'm not the best writer for those or that the writing part just isn't as fun as I hoped it could be.

You need to be aware of when to cut your losses. If the project starts to feel more like a drag than what you initially started with, scrap it OR, and this is something I've started to seriously do, is to rewrite/re-plot it from the beginning.

It is time-consuming, but you'll feel better for it in the long run if you take the bits you like and forget the ones you don't and build the project anew. It's tedious but really rewarding once you manage to get to the parts that were there before discouraging you from finishing the project in the first place. And the most important thing is that you're happy with your project.

♡

Of course, what works for me might not work for others, but those are some of the broader things I can recommend you try :) I hope I was able to help a little!

[hexiewrites]

on romcommunism, bisexual ted lasso, and the mumford-and-sons of it all

TLDR: this ENTIRE SHOW is about subverting expectations, expecting one thing and ending up with another, trying and trying and trying and ending up with something you never expected but is exactly what you need.

I've been thinking about this a lot, especially in regards to the amsterdamn episode which I think is the show finally 'coming out of the dark forest' so to speak, so I wanted to revisit the romcommunism speech and how it interacts with the theme song and with the other mumford references I see throughout the show, and why I think it points to a possibility of bi!ted, or at least, of a ted ending entirely different than what the majority is expecting it to be.

first off, as a reminder, the rom-communism speech from season 2 episode 5:

"If all those attractive people ... can go through some light-hearted struggles and still end up happy, then so can we. (...) Gentleman, believing in Rom-Communism is all about believing that everything's gonna work out in the end. Now these next few months might be tricky. But that's just 'cause we're going through our dark forest. Fairytales do not start, nor do they end, in the dark forest. That's something that only shows up smack dab in the middle of a story. But it will all work out. Now it may not work out how you think it will, or how you hope it does, but believe me. It will all work out. Exactly as it's supposed to. Our job is to have zero expectations, and just let go."

I've highlighted one of the most important parts of this speech for my analysis here, because when @stevecarrington and I were discussing it they pointed out where that sentiment comes into ted lasso again and again and again:

sound familiar? yup! it's right out of the theme song itself.

I have a lot of feelings about the theme song in general, but specifically the fact that it's... it's not exactly a sitcomedy theme. it's not actually a hopeful song on first read through, but it also kind of is. because one of the unfortunate and inexplicable truths in life is that it's pretty much assured that you might not get what you want, but, as the rolling stones and the season 3 trailer itself tell us, you can't always get what you want, but if you try some time you just might find you get what you need

I'm viewing this very much from a point of, Ted is going to find what he needs this season. he doesn't know yet what that is (winning the whole damn thing? moving back to his son?) but it's our job as the viewers to have no expectations, to not assume that things are going to work out in any specific way but that they will work out. and that you're going to keep trying, you're not going to know what to expect, and what you end up with may be something entirely different than what you thought when it started.

(kind of like having a giant bi awakening, no?)

I also have a lot of personal feelings about mumford and sons (and marcus mumford's) influences on ted lasso. I've started writing that post a hundred times but it's kind of a mess so I haven't posted anything (in the meantime, go watch the hopeless wanderer video, which exists because jason sudeikis is a close friend of marcus mumfords), but the one I come back to over and over is the song believe, and how the lyrics fit so perfectly into this romcommunism concept to the point that I think the entire central theme of the show is built off of mumford&sons lyrics:

and again. this drags it home so hard for me, on all of this. I could do a literal dissertation on what I think are other major mumford and sons influences on the show but this post isn't that. instead, I just want you to think about how the believe lyrics fit in with everything we're seeing. "your world's not all it seems" <- ted is not all he seems. he doesn't know if he believes yet, he needs someone who can "open up [his] eyes, tell [him he's] alive" and it needs to be someone who communicates openly, who talks to him

ted doesn't yet know if he believes. and he might not get what he wants (his marriage to be fixed, an easy relationship, an ending where everything is perfect), but he is going to get what he needs. he is going to try, and try, and we as the audience will go in with zero expectations and trust that it is going to work out.

I think different people will read this differently, but to me, it's a great subversion of the obvious idea that ted and rebecca are going to end up together. the cast has already said again and again that people seem to expect tedbecca to be A Thing, partially because they're both attractive, or they're both leads, because romcoms have trained us to expect this. ted is in a lot of ways some of what rebecca has been in need of, and there are some great posts about rebecca as the rom com heroine and what that means for her arc. but for me, the writers and cast saying that their relationship is strictly platonic, that they're brother and sister, is an excellent example of 'you can't always get what you want, but if you try you get what you need'. they might have some thoughts, they might start to think they'd be right for each other, and they are, but not in the way we might be primed to expect.

what ted and rebecca both NEED in each other is that confident. that platonic love and support that they're both craving in a lot of ways. sure, ted has some of that with beard, and rebecca has some of it with keeley. but their relationship, their connection, is so powerful to me from a platonic place, and this season is going to show them that's what they need from each other and always have.

and what ted needs is someone who can open up his eyes, who can, as mumford say in "white blank page" (which is also a very ted coded song):

he needs someone who can lead him to the truth.

perhaps... someone we might not expect? someone who built his career on finding the truth, and who destroyed it to do just that, to give ted the truth even at the cost of his job and the life he had built?

perhaps now that we've come out of this dark forest, we're going to start to see those expectations shifting, and we're going to see ted get exactly what he needs, even if he doesn't yet know what he wants.

(I want to be clear that I think you can also view this very strongly from the angle of 'ted does not need to end the show in a romantic relationship, he just needs to surround himself with love and truth and platonic support' and truly I think that's more likely to be what we actually see. I just couldn't help the tedtrent implications slipping in a little at the end here.)

[thesensteawitch]

Weekly Tarot Reading (18th September- 24th September) 🪻🔮💜

Pick A Pile Reading

♡Take A Deep Breath and Choose♡

(Left to Right---1,2,3)

Hey, Senstea Souls!

This is a collective reading. Take what resonates and leave what doesn't. And if you find this reading helpful then drop a tip before leaving.♡

Pile 1

Hello, my dear pile 1. I see that you have started something new or may start something new at the beginning of this week. You are/will be full of optimism and hope for this new project but because of your need for instant gratification, you may get disappointed not seeing the results so soon. The flowers in your garden might take longer than expected to grow. But life is about being patient. Especially when you start something with so much passion, hope, and optimism you will be tested. The Universe wants to know how strong you are and for how long you can hold on to hope. During this week please treat others nicely and do not let your anger take the best of you. An important advice here is to not think too much or overwork because if you will you may have a burnout which doesn't seem good to me. Also, an old friend or acquaintance may pay a visit. Be kind to them but at the same time make sure you have your guard up. You may not like this person much or even if you do still be cautious but be giving. I know it's a bit complex but this is what it is. Be patient with what you have started, you will see the results. Release the attachment to the result and fall in love with the process.

To get more clarity and guidance specific to your situation book a reading with me.

Pile 2

Hello, my dear pile 2. So I see that you have come out of a pattern or maybe right now you are somewhere in the middle. It's like you are out of the situation that was needed to let go of but you still aren't sure how to restart. Now you are supposed to start fresh and make plans. You may be revisiting your past actions or the situation that led you to where you are now. But for the future foundation to be laid, you need to stop looking back. Why something happened to you is because there was a profound wisdom you needed to gain. You are asked to let go of the old ways of doing things and ask for someone's guidance. I see that you are not alone. There's someone who knows your situation and is helping you out. But I think you need some guidance from a specialist to help you with your situation and woosh away the dark clouds that dance over your head. You will be facing some competition but the good thing is nothing is yet set in stone for you. Which means you can carve your own path. Now the decision is in your hands. Adaptability is a must for you. By the end of this week, if you make the right move, you will see your reality shifting.

To get more clarity and guidance specific to your situation book a reading with me.

Pile 3

Hello, my dear pile 3. I see that this coming week a lot of things will not be in your control. You might want to burst out or give a punch in the wall. But that's not what you're asked to do. You're asked to think twice before taking a risk. Don't act impulsively. Stay near water bodies, take saltwater baths, or go for swimming. You are asked to slow down a bit and look at things from a different perspective. Your rigidity might make things worse for you in this coming week. Don't give up on your morals but try to listen to others too. And when you feel a strong resistance to do so then ask yourself what is that you are so afraid of. Because there's an underlying fear behind your excessive stubbornness. I can assure you that if you calm down for a bit when you are on the verge of letting your anger take over you and just shift a bit of your perspective you will gain a profound insight. A rebirth is there on the cards for you. Things will be happening in your favor even though you may not be able to see it. You have to trust and maintain your composure. Let go of something that you are afraid of. You may be somebody who easily becomes paranoid. Release the fear.

To get more clarity and guidance specific to your situation book a reading with me.

[bennydwight]

I stumbled across your Two Boys and Their Cars AU for the first time in a while and I forgot how much I love it! I'm curious. With the little nuggets of info that Steven drops by accident, what would Stan's running theories be about his home life? Would he think he was part of some sort of cult (like because of the gem names), or maybe a crime ring (because of the many people who have tried to kill him)? What would Steven's thoughts be about Stan's past?

Also, Steven has NOT had a standard childhood in the slightest, which probably skews his perceptions of normality a lot. What things/situations do you think would come as a suprise to Steven?

Hello hello! I also forget how much I love that au sometimes, I want to revisit it soon :P

Currently, Stan's running theory on Steven's home life is that his mum dipped when he was young (since Steven never really talks about her without an air of profound sadness/regret), and his dad was pretty absent until Steven starting being 'openly effeminate' (remember, this is like the 60s/70s) and he kicked him out of the house. Stan knows the situation wasn't good, due to all the attempted murder lol, but he has his suspicions that the fantastical stories Steven tells about his extended family and his adventures are just ways of coping and protecting himself from the horrible 'reality' of his life.

Steven doesn't have a whole lot to go on in terms of Stan's life, since Stan is very tight lipped due to it still being a fresh wound. He knows that there was a sibling involved just based off Stan's protective instincts, and he knows there wasn't much nurturing in the family since Stan flinches at true emotion. Other than that, and without much practical experience with typical family structures, Steven finds Stan to be hard to read.

In regards to normality, Steven is at a double disadvantage due to being 1) pretty sheltered, and 2) out of his time period. There are things he's been taught, especially relating to emotions and the expression thereof, that just do not fly in the time of Stan's childhood. He's also very openly himself, which makes people generally uncomfortable. There specific social cues he doesn't pick up on as a small-town kid, and a lot of the surprise on his end comes from people not reacting the way he expects them to. He also finds oddly mundane things to be fascinating, like a long stretch of highway, or a biome he's never seen, or laundromats. One of my favourite scenes in this au (as of now, unwritten) includes them both going to a science museum and checking out all the cool things inside!

And then the angst happens after that lol

[lunanoc]

so probably against what should have been my better judgment, i went ahead and actually wrote “meta”, except it’s only borderline meta because it ends up veering off into crack theory territory and is also insanely long, but i figure since it’s now too long to be posted as a discord liveblog like it was supposed to be, i might as well just. post it here (in several parts because no one wants a 10k post lbr)

disclaimer: i like to be transparent about where i’m coming from, so just know that i have not finished reading all the books yet. currently i’m practically through everything, books and extras included, up until and including sand sea part III, so anything i talk about relating to that is my own reading experience. i’ll sometimes reference later books i’ve either read snippets of, or talked about with people who have (and verified the information as best as i could), but because i lack full context for those, any mentions of those elements are automatically grain of salt and relegated to crack theory. for everything i have read that i can grab quotes for, i’ll be providing clear references to the specific chapters of the books they’re from

also, blanket spoiler warning for the books

but that being said, let me actually get into this thing:

king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, king mu of zhou, the queen mother of the west, how they’re connected, who they might be, and what that could mean for the larger dmbj narrative

PART I: KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN

writing this shaved years off of me, the rabbit-holing was insane, and there’s still no clear answers in the end but welcome to the ride i guess

starting off here, the problem with these two characters is that we have conflicting information about them from three different sources that all give a different version of the same story, all of which are various degrees of dubious for different reasons. and you could say ok but really, who cares i do apparently about these two because in the larger plot they don’t really amount to much in the end

BUT

given both the things we learn by the end of sand sea (and elements that pop up in later installments) about all the various parties involved in what’s essentially a subplot, and the fact npss goes into so much detail with such a deliberate throwback to something all the way back in the first book, i don’t think the fact that the various versions of the story of king shang of lu sometimes blatantly contradicting themselves is a mistake, but is rather proof of deliberate obfuscation of the truth. npss tends to like revisiting sometimes seemingly anecdotal or trivial things from previous books to connect them with a subsequent revelation, or open the door to a different interpretation of them, so that he’d do it here isn’t all that surprising to me

the three versions of the story of “the emperor” (or the ruler of the state of lu), king shang of lu, and the iron-masked gentleman we get are, in order of appearance:

version 1 from a silkbook found in the purple jade box in “king shang of lu”’s coffin (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

version 2 from xiaoge himself who gives an opposing account to the previous one that he supposedly read from a warring states period silkbook he found in a song dynasty tomb (Book 1, Ch. 26-27, Purple Jade Box / Lies)

version 3 from the powerpoint lesson given by the wang family to li cu (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, 133, 134, Lesson / King Mu of Zhou / Deception)

the first two accounts are both from book 1 and immediately follow each other, but neither of them quite fit with the last one, or at least it would seem so. you could argue this is simply because book 1 was when npss was still trying to figure things out both with his plot and characters, so the final account given by the wang family is a retcon, and while that’s always possible, like i mentioned, npss likes to connect things and tends to either incorporate these kinds of seemingly obscure and irrelevant details for a reason, or simply retroactively fleshes them out to revisit them at a later date and shed a new light on the bigger picture. so it’s more the fact we just don’t know which things he implements deliberately from the start and which ones he ties back to retroactively, but in the end seeing as the result is the same it doesn’t matter much. what does matter is that he does it pretty consistently, so it’s safe to assume he’s also doing it with this particular story (side tangent, but i like to think that npss has shown he’s a big fan of something called chekov’s gun and no i won’t elaborate on that or else i’ll be here for hours but google that if you’re interested it’s fun)

so tldr; i basically just want to argue that by intentionally bringing back this story with obvious divergences, it might be a way to shed light on something else that informs king shang of lu’s story while placing it as a puzzle piece in the bigger picture of dmbj lore

but let’s break down those three different accounts of the story of king shang of lu

the first account

i’m going to tldr; most of these for the sake of clarity, but i’ll be referencing the various chapters all these bits are taken from if you want to verify any of it

technically the first real account of king shang of lu’s story we get is what’s written on the stone slab in the hall with all of the coffins in the seven star palace that says that he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld” (Book 1, Ch. 10, Shadow), but i’m not counting that as a full-blown version of the story because it’s not dwelt on all that much and mostly serves as a preamble for pangzi to later posit to wu xie that it’s a bunch of bs and was probably just an exaggeration meant to mythologize king shang of lu given that the tomb itself is a weird anachronistic mix of western zhou and warring states architecture (which is an important argument but maybe not for the reasons you’d think)

so i consider the first fleshed-out version of king shang of lu’s story we get to be the one wu xie reads off of the silkbook he and wu sanxing pull from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, and is one that very quickly gets debunked within book 1 itself multiple times, so while it may seem easy enough to write off, it’s not so much what it says that’s interesting, but rather why it exists in the first place

this version of the story essentially relates the life and deeds of king shang of lu, recorded on what’s supposed to be a warring states period silkbook pulled from the man’s own coffin. it talks about how he inherited his title from his father and was a lowly grave robber lord who was cruel and greedy, and how one day he gained from a snake demon/spirit in a tomb he excavated “two treasures” in a “purple and gold box” (this will be important later) which are never explicitated, although wu xie speculates one of those treasures to be the ghost seal as its acquisition is directly mentioned in the text. the snake comes to king shang of lu in a dream and promises to make him a high-ranking official and teach him how to use the treasures in the box if he spares its soul (he doesn’t). and so king shang of lu becomes a military officer under the command of the “emperor” of the state of lu. in his later years, however, he starts to get old and sick, and so the “emperor” demotes him back into being a lowly grave robber, and he starts to fear death, so king shang of lu goes to his military advisor, the “iron-masked gentleman” or 铁面先生 tiemian xiansheng, in search of a solution. the iron-masked gentleman then tells him that something called jade burial armor, a treasure from ancient times, exists, and that it can keep someone young forever. so king shang hunts and hunts and scours tomb after tomb until eventually he finds a western zhou dynasty tomb which will later become the seven star palace where he discovers a corpse wearing the famed jade buriam armor. iron mask takes the corpse out of the armor, subdues the blood zombie it turns into, and then helps king shang of lu fake his death in front of the “emperor” so he can be buried in the tomb he built for himself on top of the western zhou tomb he’d found (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

however

this version is quickly debunked twice in pretty quick succession, and then a third time a bit later, still in book 1, but before i get to that, a few extra little details i want to point out:

to be fair literally no one (who doesn’t speak chinese and is reading the original text anyway) would be able to guess either from the translation or merebear’s footnotes that “iron-masked scholar/gentleman” or 铁面先生 is not in fact necessarily meant to be taken literally. it’s partly an idiom. 铁面 tiemian is an expression that can mean “someone who is upright in character”, in other words someone with a positive reputation. so this man isn’t necessarily implied to have worn a mask at all (i think he did, but that’s also for later)

the purple and gold box that’s mentioned in this version of the story is the one wu xie finds in the hands of the corpse of the green-eyed fox (who’s also wearing the belt that has the qilin blood clot wu xie accidentally swallows can you believe, which is also another detail for later) that’s accompanied by a key in the corpse of a woman next to it (Book 1, Ch. 22, The Eightfold Treasure Box)

the second account

before we get into the first version of the story more, let’s briefly take a look at the second one. the first version of the story is first debunked by the second version of the story which is told in abridged format by xiaoge pretty much right after wu xie finishes reading the silkbook. he says that the silkbook’s account is incorrect because the person in the jade armor isn’t king shang of lu, but iron mask who faked his own death in order to escape the systematic execution king shang of lu enacted on all the people who knew about and/or helped build his tomb. he then snuck into the seven star palace and disposed of king shang of lu’s body before taking the jade armor for himself

xiaoge explains that he found this story in a song dynasty tomb he’d robbed a few years ago that contained a complete silkbook that turned out to be iron-masked gentleman’s memoirs (Book 1, Ch. 27, Lies). and you’d be inclined to believe this version of the story over the first one because it’s xiaoge telling it, and xiaoge usually isn’t one for intentional deception unless it serves a purpose, even less so if it’s verbal deception (literally the only time i can think of him openly lying rather than lying by omission is when he disguises himself as professor zhang). except even this version is called into question multiple times. the first time is by wu xie himself, who while choosing not to confront xiaoge about it, senses that xiaoge seems uneasy when wu xie presses him on the point that if it’s true that two people were pulled out of the jade armor in that tomb, then why is there no second blood corpse. xiaoge answers that he doesn’t know because iron masks’s memoirs only mention it briefly, and that maybe king shang of lu was pulled out early enough that he didn’t turn into a blood zombie. technically there’s the mummified body they find in the sacrificial ding cauldron next to the coffin with the monster at the entrance to the seven star palace whose head is cut off that could fit that description (Book 1, Ch. 9, Ancient Tomb), but in any case xiaoge according to wu xie looks like he’s lying. the second time this version is refuted is by wu sanxing, but i’ll get to that when i get back to the first account and how it also gets debunked

arguments against the second account 

i already mentioned xiaoge isn’t typically someone who’s into overt deception as a course of action unless it’s strictly necessary (and even then). it’s always possible he was either acting on a compulsion from the heavenly gift or under some order from chen pi ah si (since he was working for him at the time, even if i doubt this to be completely honest) or even something else, so it’s mostly my own assumption that he’s not actively deceiving them by fabricating a story, because xiaoge’s deception usually relies on omission rather than a concentrated effort at producing an elaborate lie. so really, the only fact we can be certain of is that he has an “uneasy look in his eyes” when he talks about the lack of another blood corpse, and that wu xie gets the impression he’s lying, which is a sentiment wu sanxing apparently shares because they look at each other in that moment and silently agree. whether this means xiaoge was *actually* lying, or that wu sanxing was taking advantage of xiaoge’s unease to further his own deception (re: arguments against the first account i’m getting to in a bit) is really up in the air

however

i’d like to think if xiaoge was lying and there was nothing more to it than that, he wouldn’t make it so apparent that that was the case given he only ever really projects visible upset or discomfort at anything when it’s related to his memories or lack thereof, and only much later in the story does that start to extend to allowing himself moments of vulnerability, or just his own brand of open concern for wu xie and pangzi. but this is all happening in book 1 where wu xie, as perceptive as he is about people, doesn’t know xiaoge yet, and so doesn’t know his tells. therefore that he can tell xiaoge is visibly emoting when it’s xiaoge is noteworthy in itself. also, given that book 1 takes place at a time when xiaoge’s memory was still very much lacking and fragmented, and he was likely still working for chen pi ah si partly to search for his memories, i wouldn’t be surprised if his unease was visible because the confrontation of both the first and second versions of the story started triggering his memory in some capacity, or it might have even triggered the heavenly gift senses into letting him know that there was something of importance in these stories since the particular episode of it he’s going through at the time gets a bit fast-forwarded from the seven star palace onward seeing as not too long afterwards xiaoge goes into the gate at the end of book 3

something else that’s worth mentioning is the logic behind these memoirs of iron mask even existing. why it would be in a song dynasty tomb is up for debate and probably irrelevant (although it does to be fair align with king mu’s motives of perpetuating grave robbing for deliberate dissemination of information), but mostly i question how he could have written his memoirs if he faked his death and slipped into the jade armor himself shortly after, unless he waited a significant amount of time before doing so and lived his life in hiding, which is also possible given there’s nothing more we know about him. but more food for thought

arguments against the first account

let’s go back to the first account from the silkbook for a bit and take a look at the other two times besides xiaoge’s second account where this version is debunked:

the second debunking comes from wu sanxing as he and wu xie are waiting around in jinan while panzi is in the hospital, and wu sanxing comes back outraged bc when he tried to have the silkbook they brought back from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, he was apparently told it was a forgery because the gold in it was too pure to have dated back to the warring states period, and so was necessarily more recent, though how recent is never specified (Book 1, Ch. 29, Purple-and-Gold Box). he then suggests to wu xie that he thinks it’s xiaoge who snuck into the tomb ahead of them, and with his skills successfully planted a dupe to trick them. i’ll get back to this eventually, but again, while it’s not impossible, it feels unlikely to me that xiaoge would extend so much effort in deception unless it served a clear purpose he agreed with, which is why i’m not convinced he would have blindly been following orders from someone like chen pi ah ai. and xiaoge would likely not have gone to the trouble of making a fake silkbook either, so the idea would have to have come from chen pi ah si, which then brings into question what motive chen pi ah si would have had to go to such lengths to deceive wu sanxing. again, really the only time we ever see or hear of xiaoge making an effort at deliberate deception is when he disguises himself as professor zhang, and while we never get an explanation for the reasons behind that, that’s more likely to have stemmed from feeling like he had to conceal his identity rather than wanting to deceive if that makes sense. in any case, i don’t know what tangible reason xiaoge would have had to deceive wu sanxing and his team with a fake silkbook even if he’d been acting on chen pi ah si’s orders, because would chen pi ah si have had a reason to go to the effort of creating a fake silkbook to deceive wu sanxing with details so specific that you quite literally have to have been in that tomb before to know them?  

the third debunking of the silkbook version is ironically a reverse uno from xiaoge directed at wu sanxing when he, wu xie, and pangzi are stuck in wang zanghai’s tomb in xisha (Book 1, Ch. 63, Chain). xiaoge’s just recovered a massive amount of his memories related to the first xisha expedition, and very bluntly tells wu xie that not only is the silkbook from the seven star palace a fake, it was wu sanxing who planted it there. to which wu xie obviously responds with “wtf no you did”. to which xiaoge then replies completely deadpan as he does with “no, it was your sanshu, he and da kui dug a hole under the tree to do it, probably why da kui had to be silenced”. which leaves wu xie very torn about what and who to believe. and mind you this is also a little before they find the inscription on the wall from “xie lianhuan” accusing wu sanxing of murdering him. honestly it’s possible xiaoge is telling the truth if you consider that wu sanxing might have planted a fake if he knew ahead of time what the silkbook contained, what the seven star palace was, and basically faked his own way through the entire thing

it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me because he does sound very pretends to be shocked in the delivery of many of his remarks (but again, how much of that can you attribute to this being book 1), and while he did bring wu xie along because he was trying to ease him into the game with the wangs, it’s possible he was prudent enough that he would have made wu xie’s first tomb experience take place in a somewhat controlled environment. which doesn’t mean he’d necessarily been there before, just that as entrenched in the wang shit as he is, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’d known even vaguely what the seven star palace represented and what could be found in there. he did know about the snake cypress and about the stone used to subdue it, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean anything seeing as wu sanxing is a highly experienced tomb robber, it’s worth noting that the only times we’ve ever seen those trees is in the seven star palace and in the snake mine in gutongjing. in other words, always somewhere connected to longevity and The Secret and all the parties involved in that power struggle

but then again, we don’t really know how much wu sanxing knew about the wangs and the zhangs etc, so it’s all very up to interpretation. if he did in fact plant the fake silkbook though, it might have served the purpose of making sure there was something to string wu xie along to push him towards xisha and the conspiracy, but the copper fish ended up serving that purpose in the end. nothing really elaborates on this silkbook again, so we don’t know why xiaoge would speculate that wu sanxing was the perpetrator, unless it was because he’d just recovered his memories of xisha (but even then xiaoge doesn’t accuse people so firmly based on impression alone) or he literally saw wu sanxing do it

regardless of who did it, the bottom line is that it’s safe to say the silkbook was probably fake and was placed there intentionally, both because as wu sanxing points out, it is suspicious that wu xie would conveniently only be able to understand what happened to be key portions of the silkbook relating parts of king shang of lu’s life, and because it mentions the purple and gold box in it, which when opened, wu xie discovers contains the first snake-eyebrowed copper fish

to me this actually pushes suspicion more heavily onto two parties in particular: wu sanxing and the wang family. because to be able to forge a silkbook that would specifically contain passages tailored to wu xie’s knowledge of old chinese and not run the risk of him either knowing more or less than speculated, you would have to have extensive knowledge on wu xie as a person on a personal level. and to be fair, this idea hinges a lot on the silkbook being put into that coffin for wu xie specifically ti find, so i’m working on assumptions again, but if this were the case, then only wu sanxing and the wangs qualify to fill that role, and in some ways the wangs even more so because this kind of covert manipulation is very much the way they do things. xiaoge would not have known wu xie to that extent in book 1, if at all, and while wang zanghai himself is a tempting possibility, he was obviously in the seven star palace long before any of this took place, so it can’t be him. in fact, the only thing that ties wang zanghai to any of this at all is the purple and gold box containing the copper fish, since whether or not the box had originally been there and he simply emptied it of its contents or brought it in from outside, he’s the one who placed the copper fish in it

as to why if it was wu sanxing who planted the fake silkbook he would shift the blame onto xiaoge, my theory on that would be that xiaoge was another convenient means of stringing wu xie along into the xisha expedition mystery by virtue of him being zhang qiling and therefore both highly mysterious and suspicious, as well as personally involved. part of me wonders if part of the reason wu sanxing went to chen pi ah si to hire xiaoge specifically because he was added insurance that he would have the means to trigger wu xie’s curiosity, and provide a first clue to lead him into the It conspiracy. wu sanxing did use the picture of the expedition team to explicitly tie xiaoge into it along with the copper fish story, so there’s that to consider

the third account

which finally brings me to the final version of the king shang of lu story, which is the one given to li cu during the wang family powerpoint lesson. this particular version also overlaps with the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west, but i’ll get to in another part of this meta. so this version of the story is mostly ironically both the version that most blatantly contradicts the first two, while also being the version most accurate to the tiny introduction we get to king shang of lu at the entrance of the seven star palace that says he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld”. the only real issue with that this third version has it’s told by the wang family to li cu, so just by virtue of it coming from obvious wang propaganda, it’s immediately suspicious by nature

going back to speculations about who planted the fake silkbook version of king shang of lu’s story in the seven star palace, it then also raises the question of, if the wangs were the ones who did it, what motive they would have had not only to do so, but to tell the story in that particular way, only to then tell a completely different one to someone they consider a candidate to join them. in my opinion, the only thing that makes this third version hold water is that given how it’s explained to li cu, and how wang xiaoyuan (the girl who passes by the window during the lesson) has the same version of it, the wang family believes this version is true, and by virtue of that, it gains a little more credibility, bc suspicious as they are and twisted by their own biases their version of history may be, the wang family is nonetheless well-informed for the most part. not to mention because the narrative has the wang family consistently mirror the zhang family and the way they function so perfectly it’s almost eerie, it stands to reason that the wang family also dabble in historical revisionism when they can, so putting out a fake version of history onto a fabricated silkbook seems up their alley

i’ll get into king mu of zhou separately because that’s a whole other can of worms, but this final version of king shang of lu’s story begins between the “emperor” of the state of lu and his advisor, the owner of a fox mask “with ancient patterns that often appeared on bronze ware” (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). the “emperor” asks his advisor “around 1000 BC” (fyi the original says 一千年上下 which amounts to “around 1000 years” but it’s more of an approximation and can technically encompass the warring states period too) as a hypothetical whether or not it’s possible “to prevent people from dying”, to which the advisor answers that he himself doesn’t know how, but he does know where to find something that can “beneath the loess inside the mountains”. he then goes on to tell the tale of king mu of zhou to the “emperor”, and of how he was given an elixir of immortality by the queen mother of the west that he likely hid inside of his tomb centuries ago

it very quickly becomes apparent to the reader that this story is an obvious ploy by the owner of the fox mask, who in sensing that the “emperor”, while tempted, is reluctant to cast all appearance of morality aside to deploy his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s grave, calls a “strange man” to the court who’s “believed to be a descendent of the zhou emperor” (that is to say king mu of zhou) “who was able to communicate with the underworld”. the ruler of the state of lu thus gives this “strange man” a jade seal and seals him in an iron coffin deep in a well for 49 days, saying that if he can come back up from it with the ghost seal in hand after having successfully spoken to king mu of zhou, then it would be proof of king mu granting him permission to rob his tomb and take the immortality elixir from it. and so this “strange man” does, in fact, come back, not only with the ghost seal in hand, but with an imperial edict written by king mu of zhou himself that granted him the title of king shang (殇 shang meaning to die young or at war) as well as all the contents of his tomb

the ruler of the state of lu then uses this to make several leaps in logic to justify being in the right if he deploys his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb, because if this “strange man” can communicate with the underworld and was given a title relating to dead people, then surely that means that this strange “king shang” is likely dead himself, and that king mu of zhou chose him as his heir after he’d died. it’s a very convenient out for the ruler of the state of lu to say that he’s only helping an esteemed deceased elder to recover his birthright if he makes him a general and lends him troops to go find king mu of zhou’s tomb (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

it’s also quickly obvious to the reader that the owner of the fox mask and this newly minted king shang of lu are in fact working together, given it was the former who referred the latter to the state of lu’s court in the first place, which is something i’ll come back to in another part of this meta. from here, under the ruler of the state of lu’s orders, king shang and the owner of the fox mask, together with more grave robbers who also wore fox masks (as according to the wang family, foxes would live in graveyards and grave robber’s tunnels at the time, and so grave robbers associated their imagery with the profession), began their search for king mu of zhou’s tomb and the immortality elixir it supposedly contained. while this version of the story of king shang of lu more or less ends here, you could assume the rest of it might follow along the same lines of the first two versions, and maybe it does. you’d then assume that the person king shang and the owner of the fox mask (who’s by then inferred to be iron mask from the previous two versions) find in the western zhou tomb is king mu of zhou, who they then divest of the jade burial armor to take for themselves

however, one very important detail in this version compromises this assumption: king mu of zhou isn’t actually dead, and he thus gave king shang the edict personally (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). what this means is that the ruler of the state of lu was duped presumably not by two, but three people, all of whom were working together to find the jade burial armor for who appears to be king mu of zhou. in other words, where the other two versions of the story have two key players, this final version suddenly introduces a third one, and that changes things. how much it does is what i’ll be getting into in the next part on king mu of zhou more specifically

(tbc in part II and part III of this madness)

[my-mt-heart]

What really confuses me:

If there's a show that could rely solely in nostalgia it's Caryl's. Carol and Daryl's stories are the wires that cross the whole show. They were there from begging to end. Their relationship was there from begging to end. They have all the nostalgia in their favor. There could be at least 3 seasons of Caryl only dealing with past trauma, callbacks to iconic moments, and dialogues composed of memorable quotes. And yet there's so much more to tell. There is so much conflict/tension to explore and resolve.

Even more than TOWL (Rick and Michonne left TDW at some point and Richonne's relationship only started later in the show. And I think all that needed to be explored/resolved regarding them was done in the main show and in the season 1 of TOWL. There's not much conflict left)

A lot more than Dead City (Negan's most iconic moments are of when he harmed other people and he already got his redemption arc/flashbacks in TWD, so there's not a lot of trauma healing left. Meggie's most iconic moments are with her family, which is, besides her son, dead, so there's not a lot of connections nor motivation left (they can't rely on her son forever). Meggie also left at some point and her relationship with Negan only started in season 5, in a horrendous context that doesn't leave a lot of room for development (and she already forgave him in the main show). There's not much conflict left)

So what I don't understand is, with such gold material in their hands, how can they screw up so badly? Even if they were lazy, all the material was there in plain sight, they didn't have to dig it up.

Do you think I'm justified in thinking that even a child with some critical thinking could do a better job? 2. To what do you attribute this writing mess (from season 1 to season 2.6 spoilers)? Is it just plain bad writing or purposely screwing Carol/Caryl (and even in-character-Daryl)? 3. And what would they gain with failing so hard? 4. Do you think there's more investment in the other spinoffs? 5. Are you still holding on any hope they could do Caryl/Carol/Daryl justice? 6. And what would you do differently if it was you in command? 7. What's your favorite nostalgic moment you'd like to see revisited in the spinoff?

I could have sworn I posted this already, but apparently it's been in my drafts for over a month?? Anyways...

1. Yes.

2. Both. Zabel only cares about his original characters/original concept and Nicotero was put in charge during the strike

3. In their minds? Freedom to tell a story about men by men for men

4. I think AMC invests too much time trying to market every show to the built-in TWD fanbase as a whole and to new viewers (new= more dudebros) instead of accepting that each spinoff has its own core audience who connect with specific characters and growing those separate fanbases and then diversifying with viewers who can enjoy different elements without stepping on the core audience's toes.

5. They can try to slap a band-aid on things. Not sure they're motivated to do that and as long as Zabel is showrunning, pushing the friendship narrative, and shipbaiting, then there's no way Caryl/Carol/Daryl will get the storytelling they deserve.

6. In addition to giving Daryl and Carol their own character development and writing a compelling external plot (that treats the audience like they're intelligent), Caryl's relationship needs to be the emotional core of the show. We need to e x p l i c i t l y see them grow together as a romantic couple in ways that honor their shared history on the flagship show.

7. Well, the painful thing is there are so many nostalgic moments and story beats that were left unexplored between Caryl that I've been dying to see, but I don't even want Zabel to touch them because I think he'll just ruin them. He doesn't understand Caryl's story well enough to do it justice. Melissa needs more creative control.

[velvet-games]

intro post

I'll probably add more to/change this later; I've just needed an intro post for a while, and this is what I could think of. you should probably remind me to update it if this section is still here after like six months lol.

name/pronouns/age/gay shit~

honestly you can call me whatever, but I probably won't know you're talking about me unless you use vel/velvet.

prefer they/it; any pronouns are fine.

I'm probably non-binary I guess.

I'm an adult.

I basically just identify as queer at this point, but I'm like,, vaguely aroace-spec probably? still figuring it out. I'm actually very happy to talk about it more specifically, but I might have to sit you down for an entire day to explain it lol.

what I do/post~

I mostly post fandom stuff, and my original posts include a lot of art + occasional meta. I'm starting write fic too, so that might be a more regular thing in the future :)

other accounts~

@/velvetygames -- explicit nsfw twitter/x account, not very active

@cornerbytes -- old dragon prince account that I will probably revisit when the new season comes out

@/velvet_games -- ao3 account

nsfw~

I post occasional nsfw here (never super explicit; that's saved for my twitter); it'll be tagged #nsft.

fandoms~

current fandom: hazbin hotel

previous fandoms:

hannibal (will always have a very special place in my heart)

arcane (will revisit when the new season comes out)

ofmd (literally so happy this exists; devastated it's not getting a new season)

the dragon prince (will probably revisit when the new season comes out)

good omens

lotr (I also read like 2/3 of the hobbit and will hopefully finish it this summer lmao)

things in media that make me go insane (in a good way)~

friendship

happy endings

cannibalism

(WELL-WRITTEN) romance (THAT RESPECTS THE CHARACTERS AS INDIVIDUALS AS WELL AS WHO THEY ARE IN RELATION TO OTHERS)

surrealism

good visuals (even if everything else is shit; extra points if it's animation)

angst

fake-hating

this one's weird but I love situations where a character is really helpless; I thought I liked whump because I can be borderline sadistic about it sometimes, but whump is really not necessary at all to this concept

religious stuff, mythology, angels specifically for some reason (especially when they're terrifying and/or fallen)

gay people

requests~

you are welcome to send in ideas through comments, DMs, asks, etc., but I can't guarantee I'll draw them. if I don't, it doesn't mean that I don't like your idea; I'm probably just busy or have too many brainworms about a specific thing to draw anything but what's on my mind.

notes~

I randomly get really anxious about feedback on stuff sometimes lol, but I promise I read every single comment/tag and cherish them very deeply <33

also, like/rb spamming is totally fine and welcomed! I know some people don't like it, so I just wanted to make it clear that it's completely cool with me.

mutuals~

for a really long time, this was my pinned post, and it's still true! definitely welcome any interactions from mutuals <3

I do have a problem with randomly ghosting people though; I've been much better with it recently, but please try not to take it personally if I don't respond to DMs quickly. I'm probably just being insane and in my head about it. I'm really sorry.

misc~

this is an account that is purposely removed from my irl stuff; I'm here to have fun and relax on my mostly fandom-oriented blog.

I don't block often since I mostly meet nice people on here, but I am very happy to block accounts that make my experience on this app shitty.

I try to tag triggers when appropriate, but please let me know if you need me to tag anything I haven't.

art for me is just a hobby I use for fun and self-expression, so while I really appreciate concrit, keep in mind that my goal is ultimately to make stuff that makes me happy.

I am also very protective of young artists that get made fun of for being beginners or making unconventional art; you should never assume why someone is making art, and you especially should not assume that they are focused on becoming more skilled or making things that are beautiful to you. if they're not hurting anyone and you're not their target audience, get the fuck out.

I am of the mindset that media is not real, but that your reaction/the things you learn are. liking cannibal media does not make you a cannibal, but seeing bigoted portrayals of minorities can feed your biases (doesn't necessarily mean you can't consume it; does mean its effect on you/others irl should factor into if/how you decide to interact with it).

I'm vaguely fucked in the head. just keep that in mind.

[imthepunchlord]

Kalos needed a win more than the other gens, let's be real.

It did!

Like, XY over all were fun, but you could feel they were incomplete. This is the Gen where the enhanced version (or sequels) felt incredibly absent and Kalos needed more umph. For the game that led us into the 3D, it got the short end of the stick. So it really does need this.

And I think this works out overall. We were ALL dreading the "faithful" BW remakes. And I wasn't that all excited for Let's Go Jhoto, though I found this was the least likely option. So Legends Z-A was a very pleasant surprise. And it's coming out next year at an unknown time! It's got time to cook! Well, assuming they didn't start development recently. Hopefully it's further along than recently started. Either way, it's really good they took a break this year, I got plenty of Pokemon games to replay, and some fan games to play, and I'm just going to curiously keep an eye out for news. And hope the earliest release will be November as then it'll be kinda close to getting a 2 year development, cause the more time to cook the better. I am good waiting for games, I'd rather a finished product than a rushed one.

And by the teaser, there's so much curiosity over it.

Is it really going to be set in the past and a prequel? Or is it going to be more modern-future and a sequel? Helping with the construction of Lumoise City to me leans more past but we'll see. I also wonder if we'll see a Pokemon version of Napoleon as he was the one who wanted Paris reconstructed.

And learning that, apparently, it's entirely set in Lumiose City is going to be interesting to see how that works. Will there be biomes? Or will the Lumiose Catacombs (that it should have) be used as places to catch wild pokemon? And how are we going to play a role in the city reconstruction? It's a different theme and set up to be sure, one I am curious about.

Also, with Mega Evolution coming back (which was my favorite of the gimmicks), I do wonder if this means we'll get more Megas over regional and convergent forms, which I would be a little bummed about, but its cool to get more Megas.

And we'll finally see the Mega Kalos Starters! And maybe Flygon will get a Mega finally! And I know some wanted to Mega Dragonite and we did see Dragonair in the trailer so that's a possibility.

And then there's the fun of the starter speculation, assuming we'll still get a shuffled up trio. Which so far this is the most popular theory I think:

Which does have some merit, as two are based on French royalty/leaders, and Torchic can be tied to the Gallic Rooster.

The only thing to clash is chances are good we'll get Megas for them over regional evolution, and we already got Mega Blaziken. They may prefer to do a whole new trio. Torchic is also a bit of an odd one out as there are 2 specifically based on French royalty and Torchic isn't, unless there is a French royal it could be tied to. Charlemagne is the only other iconic French royal I can think of, but I don't know enough specific details about him outside he unified the Franks and was the first King of France, but maybe Blaziken could work off him?

Either way, I am very curious, a little excited and hopeful, though more cautious optimistic. I am hoping this game will have enough time to cook. I do love Pokemon and I want to see this franchise thrive and be the best it can be. So I am curiously excited for us to revisit Kalos soon and see how it's going to go.

[pygmi-cygni]

That is excellent advice too, thank you so much! But I was thinking more like this: I am waking up, spending time with a pet, driving home from work/an outing, washing dishes, (scrolling Tumblr 😉), what have you. I want the next thing I do after one or more of those tasks to be sitting down and wrestling with that blank page. Do you have any tricks for making that happen a little more often?

ohhhh so like a motivation thing? ok lemme try again ( i just woke up lmao she's still rebooting)

writing is sometimes intimidating, which can be why a lot of people have a hard time 'getting started.' like in the previous post, it's very altered to the author, so blanket organization tips and motivators might not work.

this is something I do:

before i start a story, i pick a colored notebook and a pen color that match. this is the color of the stationary i use to draft/edit/etc. I like the colors, it's fun and it makes it feel more exciting to plan out the gross stuff. also, if I scribble down notes somewhere random I can remember what story they go to based on the ink color.

I also make a playlist, and I'll take a walk while listening to it to get myself in the mood for writing. maybe certain songs I associate with certain parts, and I'll loop those if I need to figure a scene out.

make a list for everything you want to happen to finish this piece of writing. I mean like

pick title

write draft 1

edit

write draft 2

make a header/banner/cover etc

design fanart

taglist (tumblr specific)

Like I said a couple of posts back (i don't remember which one) productivity is productivity. if you really feel like writing is the last thing you want to do, don't force it out of yourself. you'll grow to resent it. pick something that is productive to the end result of publishing and do that. maybe design a banner/cover/art piece for it. draw your own fanart. it's not cringe. pick a title. draw a map. it'll help you think about your story more deeply without grinding words out of you.

pinterest boards are also fun for me! i like picking the pictures, sometimes I'll see a post and think 'oh that could be a cool setting' or something like that. sometimes I get overwhelmed and end up scrolling for cool jewelry so it's a dangerous choice lmao.

read a book or piece of writing that mimics a style you want to write with. tab dialogue you like and setting, and then while you're writing revisit that to jog your memory. If there was a book you were reading that inspired your current project, reread a couple parts.

writertok compilations are my favorite lmao it's a guilty pleasure. I like hearing about other people writing to make me realize I should get back to it and stop ignoring my 7 wips

xox that's what I got for ya

[cherryrockpops]

░▒▓█ Then and Now █▓▒░

For my OC - Nicolas B

Where to start... honestly I didn't jump on Cyberpunk until a year after it's release, and it wasn't until my 3rd run that I actually invested time into my character's design and backstory. I won't be sharing pictures of those previous two, but just to give you a taste of my humor, they were gag characters; Corpo Bill Nye the Cyber Guy, and then Streetkid Avril LaV.

Nicolas, my Nomad baby, is my first true OC in Night City. I gave him the alias/last name "B" mainly because it was the closest sounding letter to "V". However it also tied in well in being ex-Bakker. He's based off of no one in particular and grew naturally as a character the longer I played and interacted with the fandom. (OC QnA mainly) Back then, I was way too nervous to try mods and only stuck to vanilla PM, taking shots at every turn I could in the story without any ReShader or High Res programs. Below is one of my favorites from back then.

During the development of his lore, I wrote his story to specifically revolve around 2023 and planned for him to die in the bombing while helping Johnny. However, due to some people who didn't like this idea, and from my desire to have my OC hang out with other OC's/V's, I chose to design a much older version. Nicolas '77

From there, I finally got into using mods etc, and changed my story around where I would have 3 Nicky designs in total. Streetkid teenager Nicky for 2013, a city Nomad Nick for 2023, and a Dark Corpo styled Nicolas for 2077. I didn't plan for all version to utilize each lifepath, but it did. I will point out though that Nicolas is more Nomad than anything.

It wasn't until a year later that I finally started to settle on his canon story. Through RP and continuously detailing him out, a dark horse came along and Silver B was born. He is more AU specific than actual canon, but I still want to include him in this post. In this AU, he loses and arm to an assassination attempt and ends up getting a chrome left arm. I also used it as an excuse to play with more mods ^w^

Now it's 2 years later (coming up on 3) and I've continued my VP journey. Ranging from memes, photoshoots, abstract and comic panels. I also still do Digital 2D Fanart, but it's more spaced out in comparison. The one below is my only fanart to myself of Nicky, aiming for the body form I truly see him in along with the cleaned up hairstyle.

So wrapping it all up, this is his canon summarized.

Arrived in NC in 2012

Became a Roadie for Samurai before they signed on with a label

Worked as a Techie Merc/Thief until 2023

Designed and built the bomb for Johnny's Arasaka Tower Raid

Disappeared off-grid for 50 years due to the loss he (believed) he caused

Returned to the surface when he hears whispers of Silverhand and the Relic, along with news of Kerry's attempted suicide.

Reconciles with Johnny and the rest of the band members before choosing to go off with Alt in cyberspace.

In other OC's universes, I've also given Nick an "NPC" role. He randomly spawns in various bars and alleyways in NC, offering to craft you items based on the scrap you provide him. In the event that you are low on scrap, you can buy weapons and tech outright, but he would charge additional along with taking more than just a day to get it done. I've played around with the idea of making him his own romance route, but I've yet to flesh that out.

Anyways, if you read until the end, thank you so much for taking the time. I don't often have the chance to talk about Nicky in detail, but it was a lot a fun revisiting how far I've come with him and my VP.

[idrellegames]

Wayfarer Dev Log 2023.01.05.

Hi friends,

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great holiday, if you celebrated. 💕

December was a quietly difficult month for me. I pushed forward with the Episode 3 Part 1 material, but hit burn out a week or so into the month. I reached a point where I disliked everything that I had written, felt stuck with the new content I was creating, and was unhappy with the progress I was making.

The challenge with interactive fiction is that for complicated moments that reflect a wide berth of player choice often leave the writer feeling stuck in a time-loop. You may write 2000 words a day, but it’s difficult to feel progress when those 2000 words are part of a single variation and you still have to go back and tackle the same plot beat from several more angles.

This is the nature of the beast—in order to achieve narrative flexibility and allow the player to actually roleplay and feel like their choices are meaningful, you often have to revisit similar plot beats several times over from different angles.    

Instead of struggling with it, I decided to take some time off in order to rest and recuperate. I got sick twice, and I’m still recovering from flu/cold. It’s not a great start to the year, but I am trying to get back on track and hopefully will have an alpha update soon.

✦ THE PUBLIC BUILD [VERSION 1.1.2. PATCH 2.5]

No new patches were released in December.

As mentioned in last month’s dev log, the next public update is TBD. As I want to finish both Episodes 3 and Episodes 4 on the alpha build before updating the public one, the next public update won’t happen until we’re well into 2023.

There is a major bug in Episode 2 that affects playthroughs with high Aeran friendship (+60 approval). Chances are most players have encountered it without knowing it. There is a specific spot in a conversation with Nova where a single romance point can be gained. This point will lock you out from the friendship reconciliation scene at the end of Episode 2. Because the romance bar is hidden on non-romance paths, you cannot see whether you have gained this point or not.

This bug will be patched out in the next patch. The recommendation will be to replay the episode from the beginning to ensure you don’t have miscellaneous romance points accumulated.

If you want to replay it now and avoid the dialogue option that gives you the bug, restart from the beginning of Episode 2. When the MC is talking to Nova on the Dareia, you will encounter a passage where the #1 option is either:

1. “Anything to keep Zenaida happy. You, on the other hand…”

or

1. “If you’re done being helpful, I’m sure you have something better to do.”

Choosing either of those options while your approval with Aeran is 60 or more will net you the accidental +1 to romance and a notification that Aeran’s approval (not his romance) has gone up. To avoid the bug, choose the #2 option.

This bug will not affect your playthrough if your approval is below 60 or if you selected Aeran’s romance in Episode 1.

✦ THE ALPHA BUILD [VERSION 1.1.2. PATCH 2.5]

Episode 3 Part 1 is still in development. The current material is approximately 257,000 words.

This new content has not been coded and added to the alpha build yet.

✦ PATREON UPDATES

A retrospective on Wayfarer’s earliest prototype (with a playable demo) was released on Dec 3. [Apprentice tier+]

Bi-weekly progress reports about Episode 3’s development. [All tiers]

Weekly Sneak peeks of new Episode 3 material. [All tiers]

✦ BLOG UPDATES

The Wayfarer Pin-Up Calendar 2023 launched on January 2. This calendar is a community project created by artists passionate about the game. It is digital only and will be available until March 2. Pay-what-you-want, with all proceeds donated to the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. As of January 5, the calendar has raised $783 CAD. See the details and get your calendar here!

Two public previews of Episode 3 Part 1 were released. You can read a preview of the Aeran romance branch here and one from the aftermath of the Veyer tryst here.  

Wayfarer now has its own fandom wiki! This is a community project, created and maintained by fans (I am not affiliated and do not update it). You can check it out here.

If you’ve enjoyed Wayfarer, used my tutorials, or would like to support my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Patrons receive access to the alpha build, a private Discord server, exclusive previews, bonus content, side stories, and other benefits.

Wayfarer is a passion project and creating it is a full-time commitment. Any little bit goes a long way to help me bring it to fruition.

If you aren’t in a position to support financially, reblogs, shares, ratings and comments, and spreading the word about the game are much appreciated and do a lot to help me out! 💕

[spinningbuster98]

Metroid Fusion Ending: The Big Dumb Ending

Fusion introduces a design element that will become a staple of every single game afterwards and that many fans dislike: the so called “final victory lap”

Essentially plenty of the game’s items are locked away by blocks and objects that require really late-game items to reach, in this case the Screw Attack, meaning that if you want that 100% item completion you’ll be forced to go through the ENTIRE game right before facing the final boss

Many fans detest this aspect of the games feeling that it’s unneccesary padding that only serves to make the game’s backtracking skyrocket for no real reason: after all Super Metroid didn’t have this

I used to agree with this assertion

Not anymore since a couple of years

Because I asked myself: why? Why do this? For what purpose from a level design standpoint?

Many fans just chalk this up to the games’ inferior level design and more linear structures when compared to Super Metroid

But...it doesn’t make sense when you really think about it

If this truly were a case of superior VS inferior level design then why do Metroid 1 and 2 also allow you to collect everything with minimum backtracking, like Super, despite those games having a lot of level design issues?

It also can’t just be a matter of linearity because Zero Mission, basically a game that can be even LESS linear than Super, also has a last minute item round up

Hell: even AM2R does this! Yeah sure it makes things more convenient by allowing limited fast travel upon reaching the third to last area, but you’ll still have to revisit each previous area to complete some “bouncing ball” puzzles that only become available upon restoring power to the systems in the third to last area. This is not how Metroid 2 worked.

So why? Why do this?

Well.... I think most people see this from the wrong perspective

My personal favorite way of playing Metroid games is by 100% them while ALSO speedrunning them (though not in a “professional” way since I’m not nearly that good)

Now I’m not trying to tell anyone here how they’re supposed to play or enjoy their games but I, personally, believe that this is the best way to experience 2D Metroid, to the point that I’d argue that they’re specifically designed for this

These are adventure games so exploration is indeed an important element, so 100% item completion is logical...but after replaying the games enough times you’ll know where everything is and so item collecting will become merely a matter of “go to X and shoot Y block to get Z”.

However these games have also undeniably always been built for speedrunning. Keyword being: built. It’s not like speedrunners have a fascination with this series just because Samus happens to run fast, the level design and movement kit of these games are all centered around giving the player a very satisfying experience if they plan on testing their own time. In general you don’t lock ending rewards behind clear times you don’t also want your game to be speedran. However JUST speedrunning a Metroid game can also be rather...unsatisfying because it will often lead you to skip over half of the content: many hidden items and puzzles will just be left there to waste

However....you can combine these two elements together

Now I don’t want to present this as some kind of revolutionary design quirk that only these games have as I’m sure others do as well, but every 2D Metroid game is designed specifically to allow you to both complete it and speedrun it at the same time

It’s something that’s difficult to explain, you kind of just have to “feel it”, but the way the areas are designed, the way the games are often paced, the way Samus moves, it’s all in service to both speedrunning and exploration done in such a way that it absolutely allows you to do both and reap the rewards of both approaches without either’s downsides

If you’re both speedrunning and collecting every item will need to be collected quickly and following a distinct route, so it’s no longer a matter of just checking something off a list

And if you’re exploring while speedrunning that means that you’re not skimming over half of the game’s content anymore

It’s essentially the “ultimate” way of experiencing these games I find, the best way of putting your skills and knowledge of the game to the test.

And this is why it sort of bugs me when people just dismiss this aspect of the games. You don’t HAVE to play them like this, it doesn’t make you any less of a fan if you don’t, but this isn’t just some weird niche way of experiencing these games that only big time speedrunners relish in. This is a big part of 2D Metroid’s core design: Fusion even locks a special ending images behind a sub 2 hours 100% requirement and so will Zero Mission, so it’s by no means some accidental or unimportant element: the developers made these games to be played in different ways and this is just as relevant as others

So what does any of this have to do with the “final victory lap”? Well if you just approach these games in a very casual way in terms of 100% item hunting, just looking for items slowly in a very lax way then this final lap will be very stupid and useless to you

But in the context of a 100% speedrun this final lap has a purpose: it’s one final challenge, one final test of your movement skills and especially of your knowledge of the map

You’re never getting everything during this section before you reach the 2 hour marks unless you map out a route that will allow you to get everything and then go to the final boss as quickly and smoothly as possible

In a game as linear as Fusion this is especially needed because otherwise it would be too easy: just follow the game’s forced path and get everything you find along the way

And I know this can be very daunting, trust me I’ve been there. But this doesn’t require you to be a literal master like some guys on YT, all it requires is for you to be good with movement and to memorise the map, which can actually be easier than it sounds because of how replayable the games are and Fusion’s linear nature alraedy giving you a clear path 90% of the time

Now despite this....I have issues with Fusion’s approach. Specifically with the way it hides items

Fusion is probably the most cryptic game in the series when it comes to item collection. It’s certainly customary for the series to hide items behind breakable blocks with no visible marks or behind fake walls or such. But Fusion does this A LOT more than the others. The main issue being that this game doesn’t have a good equivalent to the X Ray Scanner from Super. The closest that you get are Power Bombs which can at least reveal any block they can’t break...but they can’t reveal fake walls and even then what this all means is that, if you wanna 100% this game without resorting to a guide, you’ll have to plant Power Bombs every 5 fucking seconds in every single room in the game while keeping your eyes peeled for any tiny block that may get revealed as breakable in the process. Now nowadays I know where everything is so it’s no problem but during my first few playthroughs I DISTINCTLY remember just how slow, meandering, frustrating and just overall boring this process could get, it’s borderline pixel hunting! And yeah getting everything in such a cryptic game is certainly a big satisfaction but they should probably chilled a bit there

....oh you must be wondering by now why I titled this “The Big Dumb Ending” eh?

Well it’s got nothing to do with the gameplay side of things. No I’m talking about the story

Fusion is...a bit of a fandom dearie when it comes to its story I believe, with some even considering it the best story in the franchise

And while I wouldn’t consider it awful or even bad by any means I have come to believe that it’s...pretty overrated honestly.

The thing about Fusion is that it’s at its best when it affects gameplay and the game world in interesting ways, but when it comes to the actual plots you actually get various issues that can be pretty easy to miss given how often the game just throws new stuff at you

Funnily enough I’ve come to realise most of these issues upon seeing peope criticizing Dread’s story and comparing it unfavorably to Fusion’s. Don’t get me wrong: Dread has its issues too but one thing I noticed is that some of Dread’s narrative hiccups are actually also present in Fusion except they tend to be way worse there

Let’s make a few examples:

Dread shoves Kraid as a boss with little to no explanation as to how he got there on ZDR. It’s forced and kinda muddles things....but I’d argue it’s not that big of a deal since the game does give you some vague hints that can allow you to for your hypothesis regarding his presence: you can notice wall paintings in Ferenia depicting Space Pirates fighting Mawkins impying that the two races have battled in the past. In Dairon you can even spot the silouhette of what appears to be Draygon in a giant testube. Raven Beak at one point even mentions cloning Samus, implying he has access to cloning tech and with Dairon being a biological lab and the Mawkin having encountered the Pirates before AND the game’s official site at one point describing Kraid as “a creature that looks like Kraid” it’s not impossible nor improbable to imagine that that is not the Kraid we know but rather a clone. It’s not a full answer but Metroid as a series has often worked with implying things with its environmental storytelling rather than outright stating them so I can’t fully fault the approach. Plus: it’s just Kraid. He may be iconic but he’s not really important either to the plot nor to Samus

On the other Fusion shoves Ridley and a bunch of Zebesian Space Pirates on the BSL.

This is...horrendously stupid and forced on so many levels.

First off: how can they even be here? Zebes exploded, Ridley in particular was blown to pieces by Samus in Super and THEN Zebes blew up for good measure. They should be a bunch of atoms floating in space. The game makes absolutely ZERO effort to explain their presence here, neither through implications or direct narrative. I could at most excuse the Zebesians by imagining that maybe some of them could have been away from Zebes at the time, but Ridley is inexcusable. And don’t you Other M me, that game came out 8 years later and introduced a lot more issues than it fixed, plus it’s THIS game’s job to clear out its issues or at least reassure the player that they’re not issues but rather unanswered questioned that will be cleared by a later game

But the worst thing is that Samus doesn’t react nor comment at all on their prsence

She will take the time to ponder about Adam or the animals but NOT about the evil aliens she thought she had killed? About the guy who MURDERED HER FAMILY!?

Not only is this baffable it actually feels super forced from a narrative perspective: the game plays the revelation that the BSL had an illegal Metroid breeding program as the tipping point for Samus, the moment she realises that this section of the Federation is corrupt...but honestly she should’ve come to this conclusion at the beginning upon encountering Ridley and the Zebesians, which clearly indicated that the BSL was up to some shit because there should be no good reason for housing dangerous criminals on your innocent research lab. Yet the game ignores all of this, making this blatant attempt at a callback an actual fucking plot hole that makes Samus look blind at best

Raven Beak is sometimes criticized because his plan involved letting Samus live, which fucked him over in the long run. And yeah it’s partly your usual villain cliche but it has an actual in-story reason beyond simple arrogance, much like how Dark Samus in Prime 3 had an actual reason for letting Samus live at the start which in the end proved to be her demise

The evil Federation guys in Fusion on the other hand?

Samus’ mission here was originally to see if there were any survivors on the BSL.  Then it’s implied that the evil government guys got interested in the X and stopped sending her upgrades in order to prevent her from engaging the SA-X

Here’s the issue: this story should have logically ended by the time Samus frees the animals. Because by then every human on the station has been confirmed dead by Adam. So...mission accomplished. Let’s go home. There’s literally no more reason to stay here. Oh sure Samus wants to eradicate the X, but instead of limiting her power ups why not just straight up order her to leave so that the Federation can totally bomb the station from orbit thus absolutely destroying every X? It certainly sounds way more logical than trying to kill them one by one. It would have certainly prevented Samus from discovering their little Metroid pet project

(There’s also other minor stuff like the Omega Metroid for some reason only being vulnerable to cold and not missile which is literally the opposite of how it worked in Metroid 2 and is given no explanation but whatever that’s its own can of worms)

However by and large my biggest issue with Fusion...is its ending

First off: Metroid games usually have some form of sense of anticipation towards their endings, something that makes you feel like you’re gradually getting closer to the climax: Metroid 1 and Super had you fight a number of Pirate leaders before you could access Tourian. Metroid 2 had a literal countdown in the form of the Metroids you had to kill, Dread has a bit of an issue with having a rushed ending but the EMMIs served as a countdown as well

Fusion’s ending sneaks up on you: Samus just happens to stumble upon the secret evil lab which had only been foreshadowed one about an hour ago then, in quick succession, we get the big info dump about what the evil Federation guys want to do, then we get Adam coming to his senses I guess, then the final battle with the SA-X, then the escape sequence and finally the final monologue (that was translated wrongly and created a 20 plus year long misconception but whatever) where Samus quickly mentions that “Oh gollee jee! I didn’t know that the Federation frequently uploaded the minds of generals to computers! That’s why Adam is still alive!”

It feels...not just rushed but anti-climactic and flaccid. Like the game suddenly ran out of ideas and just said “ok it’s ending time”

But my absolute biggest issue with this ending, and the entire game for that matter, is the scene between Samus and Adam

Putting aside just how rushed and sappy it feels that the AI that reminded Samus of Adam GASP!! Was actually Adam all along!! Helping Samus out from beyond the grave! What a coincidence!

As I said in another video one of this game’s main themes is Samus going from a position of vulnerability to gradually becoming stronger thus allowing her to violate Adam’s orders repeatedly

And it all leads to this: a big confrontation between the two, with Adam locking Samus in a room

....and it’s solved by Samus accidentally triggering Adam’s repressed memories (I guess?) thus having him open the doors and giving her one last order on how to solve this mess

I hate this

very

very

much

After an entire game dedicated to Samus growing stronger and slipping away from Adam’s control in the end she doesn’t beat him through her wits or through her powers. She doesn’t even INTENTIONALLY trigger his real personality, as she only called him Adam by reflex. Samus here is basically resorted to begging with the AI and she’s only freed because he LETS her go. Samus, in this moment, is essentially stripped of her agency and Adam regains control over her and the game doesn’t treat it as a negative because it’s too focused on its sappy narrative about how special Adam was for Samus and how much of a surprise it is for him to have been essentially resurrected in such a way

I once saw an old forum dating back to 2007 where old time fans were criticizing Fusion and Zero Missions for being unneccesary sequels after Super had essentially ended the story and for feeling like fan fiction

And while I don’t agree with this opinion in the general sense I do believe that this scene gets pretty fanfictiony in a bad way. Samus is not only at the mercy of Adam, a new character that’s been introduced not only to the series but to her backstory, but she’s also being presented as not only weaker when compared to him but also dumber: Adam points out that if Samus went along with her original plan of blowing up the station to take out the X she wouldn’t actually be accomplishing much as there would still be X on SR388 and she would only be sacrificing her life for nothing. This is a mistake that is pretty weird for a hardened and professional bounty hunter like Samus to do, one that I could excuse as being due to her missing a crucial detail due to the stress of the situation but I’d say it’s pretty obvious that it only exists so that Adam can present a better plan and show just what a brilliant military mind he is! Even if it means making Samus look like a fool in the process!

And doesn’t all of what I’ve just said reawaken memories of a certain other game...?

[fayevalcntine]

Taking aside whether everything we've seen is fully true or not (though I subtly doubt that since the writers have mentioned they will revisit a lot of the previous past scenes in season 2), the way Louis narrates is limiting on its own for both Lestat and Claudia. Omitting entire years' worth of time and only giving Daniel (and us) the barebones information through vital moments still leaves me with a lot of questions regarding Claudia in particular. Because sure, Daniel HAS the diaries, but who's to say they haven't been tampered with more than Louis even lets on? And specifically, when it comes to the 10 years overall after Claudia comes back, we see no diary in Daniel's vicinity. The only time we do see some is at the end of episode 7, of which one contains Lestat's final words, the other is about their trip to Europe after the murder. That leaves us with only Louis as the main source of information for this time period, but Louis isn't above solely giving Daniel scenarios in order to place Claudia or Lestat in specific roles through how he experienced them in the past.

Case in point, episode 6 has no killings from Claudia. We don't see her hunt, not even to go after a man or stalk him, we definitely don't see her kill, despite all episodes before or after that containing some explicit killings with her. I say this because to Louis, Claudia was his nurse/knight/protector/sister during this particular period of time. And even subconsciously, he ends up painting her as such to the point where we also don't even get much information about Claudia and how she even traveled in episode 5? We only get one piece of information about it with the train scene, but we still get absolutely nothing about how: 1) she even came to reading about vampires, 2) how she managed during her 7 years alone, 3) any basic information about her plans beyond her catching a train for going outside of New Orleans, or even about how she learned languages. The only information we even get specifically is regarding her horrible encounter with Bruce, but again, this later ends up serving more as an apparent parallel to Louis' later situation with Lestat than it is even about Claudia, who suffered through an assault.

I would also argue the same thing in regards to the 6 years they spent alone together, as well. Louis wants Daniel to think of Claudia in a better light, he makes her out to be his savior and the only person that seems to want better for him, yet at the same time leaves out any further details about the years they lived with each other (and not with Lestat) in Rue Royale after he recuperated? Why? And this isn't even to argue that Claudia may not have been as perfect, rather that Louis cuts out so much context as to how they were like with each other after she came back that I end up getting only so much information about Claudia solely when it comes to how it affected or was connected to Louis.

Louis is telling the story here, and even with Claudia's diaries (which Daniel now knows Louis has tampered with), we only end up seeing what Louis wants us to see. This is why I hope season 2 changes some of this because I would really like to just know more about Claudia and her own feelings regarding all the later situations with her and Louis.