#also upon making this edit i realized that i do not make general edits very often

[deadpoets]

@swsource​ star wars week: day 3 – Favorite non-Skywalker Saga media ROGUE ONE (2016) dir. Gareth Edwards

[totallyhextra]

People? In MY computer?? It's more likely than you think!

The following is a fanvertisment and is not connected to the show. ****Yet.*** *Also yes, this is the fourth time I'm posting this because TUMBLR WONT LET ME EDIT SPELLING MISTAKES!

ANYWAY,

Once upon a time, back in 1987, Dire Straits put out this music video for “Money for Nothing”, which, as you know, was a song about wanting my MTV. 

The video was made by two guys (Gavin Blair and Ian Pearson) on a very moody computer. After the video went out, these two guys went to a pub:

Ian: “Hey, we should make a whole show like this!”

Gavin: “Dude, making three minutes almost killed us.”

And so it was decided!🎉

The two guys were joined by two other guys (Phil Mitchell and John Grace) and created the Hub, which then became Mainframe Entertainment. They got even more people, and then they all holed up in this hotel.

They were mad lads with a dream: a whole cgi animated show, and they made it happen a whole year before Toy Story!

Behold! ReBoot!

(Yes that fever dream was real)

Now before I get any of this:

Let me lay this down. If you can’t with the animation of the first season because it was CUTTING EDGE IN 1994, you can close your eyes and listen to it. ReBoot wasn’t just a CGI gimmick. The characters are fully developed, the voice actors are peerless, the plot is sharp, and there’s so many easter eggs that you’ll never find them all.

Never

(And yes the episode "Bad Bob" was the actual catalyst for Fury Road. Look it up)

ReBoot is about what life is like in a computer (in the 90s, because it was the 90s) called Mainframe (because of course it is). People are sprites, the guys that look like 1s and 0s are binomes (which represent 1s and 0s). Bad guys are viruses, and the good guy is a Guardian named Bob, who is a certified cinnamon roll.

In the first season the eps are light and self-contained, mainly because there was constant friction between the Mainframe studios and the Board of Standards and Practices.

They still got away with some pretty dark stuff, like Megabyte (virus) making Enzo (the kid) watch his dog get sliced open (dog got away, obviously) , Dot (sprite) have a hallucinatory breakdown, and the fridge horror of realizing the thousands of worm things (nulls) that plunged off a bridge to their death were actually people.

And Hex's (virus

best girl) scary face single-handedly traumatized an entire generation. 🙂

But busting through a window was a no go, because WhAt If tHe cHiLdReN dID iT tOo?

Anyway, halfway through the second season, ABC cut them loose, so they were like, fuck it, we’re going to start going hard. The story shifted from episodic to arcs and things start to get serious.

Third season the show moved to YTV in Canada, which gave no fucks about shielding the innocent children.

So it got DARK

How dark?

The UK refused to show the entire season, so the audience there had to wait until pirated copies made it across the pond to see how it ended.

Also by 1997, the animation was gorgeous. (Best example of third season animation I could think of that didn't have spoilers)

The show was green-lit for a fourth season on Cartoon Network, but halfway through production Warner Bros took over and the same fucking thing happened.

Because Mainframe was halfway done, they decided not to scrap all of it, but knowing they wouldn't be able to finish it correctly, Mainframe stripped anything that would hint at Season Four's true ending, then left what remained on a cliff-hanger of angst.

FOR 22 YEARS

(It's also why the last four eps of season four seem to make no sense)

And so it was.

Other crap happened, the soul left Mainframe, and its animated corpse spat out “The Guardian Code” in 2018. 

But never say die! The year is (almost) 2024, 30 years later. ReBoot shall rise from the dead, because here come the documentary!!

Do you dare see what you’ve been missing?

What the (UK) government doesn’t want you to know?? 

Then come on down to ReBoot!

We got:

Magnificent bastards with sexy voices!

(Tony Jay at his best)

Kickass women who could probably crush your head with their thighs and you’d enjoy it!

Innuendos in a kid's show!

💗 This adorable cinnamon roll!! 💗

Insane third season glow-ups!

YOUR NEW GOD

These guys!

(Gay roller-skating binome is my boi. I named him Jerry)

Nonstop cultural refs (You'll never find them all. Never.)

(There are literally videos dedicated to trying)

So many computer puns!

Body Horror!

Existential Crisis!

HAVE I MENTIONED YOUR NEW GOD?

This is it, folks! The real thing, the gem hidden in the moose-filled forests of Canadia!🌲🌲🌲

Take a trip inside a mid-90’s computer!

See the World Wide Web! (omg):

Witness the original purple Gamecubes that randomly fall from the sky when the owner of the computer (OUR GOOD LORD THE USER) wants to play a game. If it lands on people and they lose, they dissolve into mindless energy leeches, fated to tormented by their former bretheren for all of eternity.

Just like in real life! 🙃

So watch the eps! They on YouTube!

I think they're on Pluto, Hulu, Sling, and Tubi too! Also DVDs for people who have the patience to wait for them!

WATCH! BELIEVE! SUFFER THE SOUL-CRUSHING RAGE OF THE SEASON 4 CLIFF-HANGER!* (come on, its fun!)*

HYPE THE DOC!

The more people hype, the better the chances of actually getting it finished.

NOW SHARE THIS WITH EVERYONE!

And now I will leave you with this screenshot from the ep "Painted Windows", where dicks can clearly be seen drawn upon the wall behind the fleeing anthropomorphized television.

(PS: If you heard the clown pic at the top of the page in your head, you're welcome)

IMPORTANT UPDATE

This message is now approved by Gavin Blair! He's an awesome guy. Show him some love on TWITTER (fuck you musk) at @TheRealMrSweary Also, if you want to share this with non-tumblr friends, here is my attempt at a webpage version:

theseventhstarprojects.com/REBOOT.html

[shirefantasies]

Can I request a How Many Kids They Want for the characters from The Hobbit? I’m curious to hear what you think!

Heck yeah! I already made a placeholder for it in my drafts cuz I had to let’s GOOOO! Last post pre-surgery, crazy that we’re only 3 days out 🥲

How Many Kids Do They Want? The Hobbit Edition

Balin

Certainly not a future he ever expected, but it’s not such a bad one, is it? How big his family is is a question Balin wouldn’t mind deferring to his partner, especially as he would never be the one bearing them! But probably not more than three if he was really pressed for an answer.

Dwalin

Girl dad. I said what I said. Secretly wants to settle down and adores the idea of domestic life, especially with a sweetheart of a partner who he can take care of. This transfers to his children, who Dwalin is the fiercest papa bear to! No one will touch a single hair upon his daughters’ heads. I can see him having two or three little girls, very unusual for a dwarf and a bit unexpected to him, who would have said he wanted sons. The moment he has to pull a knife out of his little girl’s hand, though, the very same one that held a doll on the other side, Dwalin realizes what he wants has nothing to do with boys. Raises the toughest girls this side of the mountains!

Thorin

Does not mind the idea of a small family, more time and love to give each member as king. Thorin is fiercely loyal and dedicated, so he wants to shower his partner and child(ren) with as much as he possibly can. Thus he would prefer only one or two children. While he hopes for a son to continue on the line of Durin, growing up with a sister gave him a soft spot and respect for femininity, too. A boy and a girl sounds perfect to him, Thorin’s little prince and princess. He would have such a hard time not softening his harsh ways and one hundred percent spoiling them, but the last thing he wants is to raise spoiled royalty with no humility!

Oin

Oin is so the type of father to have a big family and brag about them all the time! Five or six children. He’s the default carer when they get sick, being so good at treating any ailment or pain that they run to him upon feeling any sort of ill. Not picky about if he has boys or girls, ending up with two girls and three or four boys. All of them are welcome to become his apprentices and several even grew up playing ‘doctor’ for years beforehand! Literally Oin could be handling someone halfway to bleeding out and he’s still standing there staunching it saying how he has the best kids ever.

Gloin

The proudest father and family man in general! Cannot wait to have a family of his own and absolutely wants a son to be his mini-me. Has a special bond with his son as we all know. Gloin is happy to even have one child, but could be persuaded to go up to two or three. Would raise the toughest, shrewdest daughter as he shows her the ropes of getting out of uncomfortable situations and having the confidence to stand up for whatever she wants!

Bifur

A family is a future he never grew up expecting being a manual laborer and warrior. Parts of him weren’t even sure how long he’d live unless he got tough, which of course he did! One son sounds good to him, someone to pass on stories of battle and his ancestors to and shape as a fighter, though he also hopes if he has a family they would not be so forced to see war.

Bofur

Envies his brother’s family a bit, not that he wants quite so many! Bofur would be happy with two or three or four. He loves the idea of having a little girl, especially if she’s a tiny version of his partner, he would just melt at the sight of her. Total, though, he’s down for three or four, multiple but still small enough to feel cozy! Absolutely the type of father who lets his daughter dance with her feet on his and teases the kids whenever he can! Makes little hats for his sons so they can match.

Bombur

Going by the fanon/actor canon here as always, a lot. He’s so good with wee ones and just adores them, so he is down for as many as he’ll be allowed, even up to thirteen or fourteen! Because of this, he naturally wants several of both boys and girls, especially because girls are rarer among his people. So playful with them and a master of getting down to their level as a naturally lighthearted and whimsical person. He loves when the little ones help him cook or bake even if it gets messy!

Dori

The most caring father ever, forever doting on his children and making them feel loved, even if it’s a little much! His perfect number is two, one of each if he’s lucky but he’d be happy with two of the same, too. Dori grew up caring for both of his brothers for enough years, after all, but he also has the sneaking suspicion that with dwarven culture, his love for the finer things would be more likely passed on to daughters! Likes the idea of teaching skills like sewing or jewelry-making to whoever his offspring are.

Nori

Kind of suspects if he had a child, it might not be legitimate, but in the end he takes the plunge of settling down, feeling the urge as he ages to keep his bloodline on. One or two is enough for him, though, sons if he can help it, which being a dwarf he practically can! Realizes carrying a wee bairn around has a charm that lets him get away with even more than usual, and as they age teaches his little boys how to play games and even to cheat a little.

Ori

Softer, more caring than his middle brother, someone who fantasized about having a family if someone would have him. His vision is of four children, two of each. So patient with all the buzzing questions and curiosities of their young minds. All of them, boys or girls, will have the most enriching environments full of art and writing, being raised with culture over getting taught to fight. Since self-expression is encouraged, though, you can bet it’s a loud home!

Fili

Even beyond the weight of cultural expectations, Fili wants to experience being a father. Doesn’t have as strong a desire for a son as most kings and princes do, honoring his mother and what a great queen she would make. In fact, he loves the idea of raising a future queen more than king in some ways. She would be strong, resilient, free to be herself and not fall to the shadows beneath anyone if Fili has his way. He definitely wants more than one, though, and in fact ends up with twins, too! Identical twin sons he encourages both to train and explore as well as to mess with everyone by lying about which twin they are.

Kili

This dwarf loves his mother and is just dying to show his children the love he got and respect his partner especially if she’s the mother of his children! The idea of a family makes him happy like nothing else, for despite all his flirting and seeming like he wants to have fun he really wants to settle down with the love of his life. He wants at least one of each, loving different things about having a son and daughter. The kind of father who would play dress-up with his daughter and spar with her just as much as his son! All in all, he’s pretty open on numbers, but he wants at least two and the ideal range in his mind is around three to five.

Bilbo

Didn’t think he wanted children for a long time, but Bilbo is definitely the sort to change his mind if he meets the right person. Still would prefer a smaller family of one or two children, though, as more would be overwhelming to him and he wants to keep his home in order! Boy or girl, his kids would learn so many skills ranging from folding handkerchiefs to cartography. No strong preference from Bilbo on what he wants, per se, he more just hopes to have things in common with them and be able to bond.

Thranduil

Torn between his desire for an heir and not exactly paternal ways, Thranduil really only wants one child. All his attention can be focused that way, too, because at his heart he does know that duty makes it hard to be as involved as he could be with family and it would not be fair to have a massive family he can’t spend time with. Likes the idea of a son, again considering an heir, but a little girl would have the woodland king absolutely wrapped around her finger and get every pretty little thing she wants.

Bard

Pretty obvious on this one, but he would want three! Not so picky on having sons or daughters, especially when his legacy already has pressure upon it. In truth he’s the sort who wants ‘the full experience’ and says he’d want to try for one of each. Teaches all of his little family valuable skills, wishing them the best chance in life. They’ll learn to heal, defend themselves even if it’s not fighting, simply keeping safe.

Beorn

Intimidated as he is by the prospect of having children in a world that was so cruel to his people, his papa bear instincts run deep through his veins. I can see him having twins or even triplets, like a little litter all his own. I see triplets, two boys and a girl. Beorn cannot help the way his often harsh expression softens at his little ones, the hopeful smile that creeps onto his face at the thought of continuing the Skin Changers’ legacy through his sons and daughters, his name-bearers and the one who will choose her own.

Taglist: @kilibaggins @lokilover476 @fuckyoumakeart | Message/Reply to join 🥰

[nartml]

To Pimp a Butterfly and 1989: a rant

Listen here, three things about me are that I'm a) white as snow, b) Greek, c) still a minor.

What does this mean? It means that I obviously wasn't raised with hip-hop, and I got into Kendrick Lamar's music pretty late.

As in, early this year.

I've known of him for some time, and the moment I found out he had a Pulitzer prize at some point in late-ish 2023, I decided I had to sit my ass down and pull out Spotify.

Now, as an avid reader of both fanfiction (ao3 raised me) and books [I feel the immense need to clarify that I don't associate myself with mainstream booktok. Capitalism's consumerism has overrun that shit and all I see are the same 20 books being recycled and recommended (a substantial amount of those are Colleen Hoover and her variants). Tropes and spice* are officially the defining factors of whether a book is worth it (*your porn addiction ain't cute) and quantity is heavily prioritized at the expense of quality. Also, diversity who?], I was, for a lack of a better word, hyped.

A Pulitzer prize is nothing to scoff at in general, more so in music, more so in hip-hop.

(Edit: Upon quick reflection, I realize that putting emphasis on hip-hop can come across as coded.

I am in no way, shape, or form trying to undermine hip-hop or say that it's somehow less 'sophisticated' than, for example, classical music. I'm very aware of the amount of skill and technique one needs to write a masterful hip-hop album, and I'm not doubting that there are hip-hop artists out there who are also incredibly deserving of such a prize. I meant it in the sense that I've unfortunately never heard of another hip-hop artist who won a Pulitzer before, which is quite telling.)

That's some huge shit, and I'd be a fool not to be intrigued.

Admittedly, I didn't get on that immediately. For a while I procrastinated, because I wasn't in the mood to hyper-fixate on anything new just yet.

Which of course meant I ended up forgetting about it for a few months, because of course I did.

But then I came across a TikTok that talked about how it was insane that '1989' won the Grammy when To Pimp a Butterfly was right there.

Now, a fourth thing about me is that I don't fuck with Taylor Swift.

And a fifth thing about me is that I'm not baseless in anything that I do, say or feel, and that includes annoyance.

Her immature understanding of activism and feminism leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The way she built up her fan base around this portrayal of her as a relatable girl's girl, her refusal to accept criticism, and always making a victim out of herself (even now when she's in her thirties and is a fucking billionaire) while never using her position of power and privilege for good are all reasons that serve to fuel my dispassionate dislike.

And before any Swifties get on my ass, no, I don't think that "But she's a singer! Why are you expecting so much out of her, she isn't even qualified to speak on XYZ—" is a good enough excuse.

She has always been rich, and now she's a billionaire. There are no ethical billionaires, and that includes her.

Fame is influence is power. Uncle Ben said it all: With great power comes great responsibility.

And let me tell you, I don't see her owning up to that responsibility, especially after all that talk about how she supports women, supports the LGBTQ community, and supports the BLM movement. Has she ever actually put her abundant money where her mouth is?

I've never seen her speak about anything that doesn't immediately concern her.

Don't get me wrong. She's not the only celebrity like this out there. I'm sure there are worse cases. I know it for a fact.

To wrap this segment up before I get even more sidetracked, I'll outright state that I don't hate her, because hating her would by definition mean that I, in some way, actually care about her, and that just sounds exhausting.

Best way to describe me is indifferent, leaning towards distasteful.

She's annoying.

And that's how I feel about both her as a person and her as an artist.

I'm not denying her talent, nor her impact on the industry, nor the fact that she does have good songs that even I like.

A select few, of course, but still.

Apart from those...what? Ten songs? I have never, ever been able to listen to any other song of her's all the way through.

I get bored. They do nothing for me. They sound empty. Hollow. Plastic. Repetitive.

Her lyrics, that are praised by fans for being deep and complex, sound pretty surface level to me.

Not all of them. But I'm a sucker for analysis. A literature nerd. Greek is my native language. I can tell when something's deep and when something wants to be deep.

(Not necessarily including Folklore and Evermore in that category. Her storytelling ability is actually great.)

Her music largely sounds like it wants to be deep.

Most recent example being her latest release, The Tortured Poets Department.

Anyway, back to Kendrick.

My initial plan was to listen to 'DAMN.' first, because that's what he won the Pulitzer for in the first place.

There was a change of plans after that TikTok.

I decided to compare the opening tacks.

I put on Welcome to New York, and predictably, I felt nothing.

The rhythm is dance-y, I suppose. But there's nothing substantial about it. There's nothing exciting about it.

The lyrics are juvenile, and I get it, it's a pop song and she was in her twenties.

Nobody is expecting Shakespeare (no matter how much you scream or kick your feet, the only reason Shakespeare couldn't write Taylor Swift is because he's in another league entirely) or Odysseus Elytis. Nobody is expecting mind-blowing lyricism.

But it's the opening track to an apparently Grammy-worthy album. The very least I'd expect from it would be some additional levels of artistry.

Am I being harsh? Probably. Do I care? No.

Disappointed but unsurprised, I put on Wesley's Theory.

I ascended within the first minute.

Don't get it twisted, I barely understood shit.

Not only am I white, I am also entirely removed from America and its culture as a whole. I don't know what's going on there in y'all's daily lives.

And this was baby's first proper introduction to hip-hop as a whole.

My untrained, white-ass ear barely caught two references. I got what the gist of the song was about, and that's about it.

I had to look up analyses of the track to fully grasp what Kendrick was on about, and even then, there was obviously still a disconnect.

And I expected all of that.

I didn't expect to get hooked on that song within the first listen.

I swear to fuck, the beat is addictive. I swear to fuck, even when I was fighting to understand what the lyrics were referencing, I was having the time of my life.

Even I, an amateur in every sense of the word, could tell that there was depth and there was quality and there was intentional meaning in every line of that song.

It didn't matter that I couldn't understand it. It mattered that I knew it was there. Not because someone told me that was the case. But because it was audible.

I listened to the next track. And the one after that. And the one after that. I had listened to all of the tracks, before I knew it.

And the evident permeance of quality, of substance, carried on throughout the whole album.

It had exactly the type of lyricism I'd expect a Grammy-worthy album to have. It had exactly the amount of artistry I expected a Grammy-worthy album to have.

Even better, it had all the ingredients I expected a timeless album to have.

The poetry Taylor Swift fans insist hides in her discography, I found in plain sight within Kendrick Lamar's.

After meticulously reading the lyrics, I watched video essay after video essay, searched for analysis after analysis on this album, each time understanding the meanings behind it a little better.

Needless to say that the Grammy's are rigged and I love Kendrick Lamar.

Hip-hop is gorgeous.

[trappedinafantasy37]

Welp, I just did the embrace Bhaal ending with Daedra and I gotta say, this is objectively the worse ending. And it is very much the ending I never wanted for her. Because this was always going to be the ending for a Durge who embraced Bhaal. And Minthara being killed was always going to be her ending too. What makes all of this worse is that Minthara saw it coming too, she just did not realize it.

When she first tells you about Orin, she criticizes Orin by saying that if she could turn the plot of the Absolute towards slaughter, she would take it. Minthara also criticizes Orin for wanting to be Daddy's Little Girl who would do anything to please Bhaal. She perceives these to be character flaws within Orin. Sadly her analysis is incorrect, because these are innate characteristics of Bhaalspawn in general, including Durge. All Bhaalspawn are born with the same urges: kill other Bhaalspawn, breed more Bhaalspawn, and then kill everything. Of course, a Bhaalspawn can fight these urges. But it is a never ending fight, one we see Durge struggle with throughout the entire story. They only "beat" these urges by having Bhaal's blood removed from them.

But because Minthara sees these as character flaws within Orin, she fails to see them in Durge as well. And when Minthara learns that Durge is a Bhaalspawn, of course she is elated. Durge is the child of a god. A deeply religious Minthara would obviously admire that, almost as far as borderline worshiping Durge (cause old habits die hard). She truly believes that Durge is nothing like Orin and would never be anything like Orin, and she has to believe this to be true because she does not want to be afraid of Durge like she is of Orin.

Despite popular belief, Minthara is indeed capable of love and has a strong desire for it. I have always read Minthara as a person who strongly wants what she feels she cannot have. And in Menzoberranzan, genuine love is frowned upon (or at least making it known). So of course she wants it. And there is no shame in that. It is trust that she struggles with, and she always has good reason to be distrustful. And the moment she became an exile, we see her start to deconstruct her previous ways of life, but with great difficulty as it is hard to let go of the only things you have ever known. She wants to love, she wants to trust, she doesn't want to be afraid, and she doesn't want to kill her lovers.

Thanks to the business with the Absolute, Minthara finds herself in a unique position in which she actually can read someone else's mind. And for the first time in her life, she has guaranteed certainty that the person that she loves won't hurt her, or betray her, or use and abuse her, or kill her. And that was a promise Durge made to her. And so she openly embraced Durge with everything that she has and becomes devoted.

Sadly, devotion is Minthara's fatal flaw. There is nothing wrong with being devoted to someone or some god, of course. But Minthara is too devoted in which her devotion makes her blind, and she has spent so much of her life being devoted to someone other than herself, and she does not know how to live a life without being devoted to someone. She does not realize the crux of her devotion until she is turned into a sacrificial lamb by Orin. It is Minthara who questions the worth of devotion if it only leads to death and she starts to become a little more selective of who she devotes herself to. Cause she was once devoted to Orin and was willing to be devoted to Bhaal if given the chance, and yet she was still put on that altar. But this never happens if Orin never takes her.

Edit: I forgot that Patch 7 added in the second part of Minthara's dialogue about Orin. Meaning Minthara can still come to question the worth of devotion, even without being a kidnap victim to Orin. However, she questions her devotion after Durge has made their choice in regards to Bhaal. Despite her beginning to question devotion, she still remains devoted to Durge as she perceives Durge as her savior, and not being like Lolth or the Absolute or Bhaal.

Her devotion to Lolth, still ended with her being abandoned (or so she feels) and left vulnerable to the Absolute, because her devotion to Lolth did not make her an exception. Her devotion to the Absolute still led to her mind being ripped apart, because her devotion to the Absolute did not make her an exception. Minthara may be of a feline nature, but she does not have nine lives and cannot always get lucky. Every time she has devoted herself to someone, it always led her close to the grave. Her devotion to Durge, encouraging Durge to embrace who they are, will get her rewarded with death. And death was always going to be her reward.

And of course she thinks this could never happen to her. She read Durge's mind and Durge did show her that they would never hurt her. That Durge would never do to her what Lolth or the Absolute did, or even previous lovers did to her. That her devotion would be rewarded with mutual devotion. But this is coming from a Durge who has not embraced Bhaal just yet and does not yet want to become Daddy's Special Baby. And Minthara is not stupid for believing that Durge was sincere. No one wants to believe that the person that they love would ever hurt them. That does not make someone stupid or weak. Minthara could only read Durge's mind, not Durge's future.

When Durge embraces Bhaal, she still believes them to be the same exact person with the same exact desires as when she read their mind. Durge has finally followed her advice and embraced themselves, become exactly what she always saw them to be. Durge is now on the path to ascension, to true godhood. And Minthara's proximity to it all will keep her safe from all threats because she would be that god's consort. She can finally have a life without fear or distrust. She will have a god to worship, someone to love, and a new house in Durge's name. She will have everything she could have ever wanted and all she had to do was be devoted. All she had to do was be herself.

In that moment, her devotion to Durge makes her blind to the reality that Durge has changed and has become the very thing she herself criticized about Orin. She still believes that Durge won't hurt her and that Durge won't use the Absolute as a tool for slaughter. Her devotion makes her blind to the fact that Bhaal is like Lolth and the Absolute and most certainly will use Durge like a puppet. Her devotion makes her blind to the reality that Durge has only become a master of their urges, because they are willfully giving in to them and no longer fighting them. And the urge wants to kill everything, no exceptions. Her devotion makes her blind to the knife that Durge will inevitably turn against her, because her devotion was never going to make her an exception.

[firexima]

YOUR ART IS INCREDIBLE DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS /nf

Thanks so much!! I’m so grateful to hear you like my work :)

And boy oh boy I could go oooon and on and on about tips, like genuinely pages upon pages or talking hours upon hours but I’ll share a few things!

1: Put your drawing in black and white to check the values

TLDR: It helps check that your drawings are clear and helps figure out what needs to be brighter/darker.

-> First if all, I want to explain what value is. Value is how bright or dark a color is. Every color has value even when fully saturated and those values change depending on the color. Red for example is naturally darker in value than yellow but naturally brighter in value than blue. You want to be aware and therefore deliberate with how you use value in your art.

Push your darks and push your lights— unless there’s a deliberate reason as to why you don’t want to, you want a fairly large range in values: that means that if you were to put your drawing in black and white only, you would be able to see a large range of greys going from very dark to very bright, black to mid/light grey, mid/dark grey to white depending on the mood of your drawing.

This helps to give your art more depth and volume and generally helps to read better and is nice to look at. When you’re creating art it can be difficult to keep track of everything, so by putting your art in black and white you are only focusing on value and it helps you see what’s getting lost and what you can push and pull more to make brighter or darker.

You can do this by either taking a picture of your drawing and editing it in your camera roll to remove the saturation or set it in one of the black and white filters or if you’re working digitally you can create a new layer above all the ones you already have, fill it with black/white/grey and set the layer to “color”. With your layer, you can turn it on and off whenever you want

2: Do multiple small thumbnails!

TLDR: It helps pushing yourself to brainstorm other options and it helps finding out if your composition works before you spend time on it.

-> Obviously not a complete necessity whatsoever and I don’t even do this with all my drawings especially if they’re just to have fun and de-stress but if you have an idea for a drawing and you really want it to get to its full potential, sitting down and forcing yourself to do more than one sketch can be really great! It doesn’t have to be good at all, just enough for you to know what it is supposed to be.

Often when I come up with an idea I’m excited about I already have a vision for how I want to do it but making myself brainstorm other ways I could draw the same idea and forcing myself to make them noticeably different has helped me come up with some of my proudest works! You are deliberately considering all options for how you can execute the same thing and realizing ways you could do it that you hadn’t initially thought of. In my experience by doing this I realize that the first idea I thought of isn’t always the best possible one or I merge it with another one and therefore end up making it better. (This can also be applied to other creative processes)

Another good thing about it though, is it helps focus on just the composition. Again, there’s a lot of things that go into making an art piece so isolating just the composition helps you figure out a plan and checking to see that it looks good before you spend hours and hours on it. It’s as if you were to build a house and spend days of work and loads of money on making it beautiful but it isn’t structurally sound and falls apart. You don’t want to spend so much of your time on all the details only to realize it just doesn’t feel right all because the composition itself is off.

3: Remember to have fun and don’t be discouraged!

-> I know it’s something nearly everyone says and at first I kind of always ignored it because it felt like it was something people just added to be nice but it is just as important as anything else. Art takes so much time, even just doing a single piece— let alone time to keep building up your skills over time. We don’t have unlimited time, and what you choose to spend your time on matters. Honing your craft and even wanting tips to help you improve means you care. The reason why is one of the most important things of all, don’t lose sight of that. Whether it’s to have fun, to decompress, to express yourself, to depict something you care about— whatever it may be: remember that and don’t beat yourself up or stress yourself out if you aren’t where you want to be or stressing yourself out to meet certain expectations. It really does impact both your art and your learning process whether you’re having a good time or not.

A few last quick tips:

- Don’t be afraid to start over or completely redo something that isn’t working!

- When drawing from reference, trust what you see and not what you know! Drawing what your eyes are telling you is there instead of what your brain thinks should be there will usually always give you better results.

- Step back from/Zoom out of a piece regularly! It also helps to squint your eyes.

- It’s great to make a folder of pieces/artists/pictures that inspire you!

- When studying other people’s art, be aware that they can also make mistakes so that you don’t repeat those.

- You don’t have to take every tip/rule by heart, as long as you understand why they’re there, you can also deliberately choose to go against it if it enhances what you want to do with your piece. Most rules artists teach can be broken, just make sure it’s a deliberate choice to not do those things and why you’re choosing to do that instead of just not knowing about it!

Hopefully these are helpful! I have way more but this is already long enough as is. I wish you the best! <3

[quiet-nocturne]

3 and 8 for the Royai Big Bang ask!

hi! thank you! 💖

so I just answered these only a few moments ago from another ask, but I can definitely come up with more (rambling about royai is my main hyperfixation usually imposed upon my poor husband lol)

3. most challenging thing - I'd say just editing in general. I do this thing where I write the "skeleton" of the chapter first. then, I use the first round of edits and add more exposition, better phrasing, whatever. Each round gets better and better. I find doing a "skeleton draft" allows me to map out the chapter better this way, and usually I don't get stuck part way through. however, sometimes I reallyyyy don't want to edit. literally me:

sometimes I look at the "skeleton", realize how much work it still needs, and go "ughhhhh". I blame my anxiety and avoidance tendancies, lol. I also get impatient and want to move to the next chapter, now! but the best parts of my writing come from editing, so it always turns out way better after I do it. sometimes I just need a firm reminder/kick in the butt. 😅

8. Favorite/least favorite canon things about royai - another favorite would be how roy recognizes riza's kind heart (specifically, that scene with baby black hayate from the manga 🥹), and how obstinate/stubborn riza can be ("court-martial me", when she refuses to leave him alone at central command when he's going to confront the fuhrer/upper brass. she's so cute and stubborn in those panels). Least favorite - honestly, it kind of drives me nuts that roy didn't get to give her those flowers after the pride incident. Also how their ending is very ambiguous in the manga - it makes it easy to play with as a fic writer, but as a shipper I'm like ahhhh. Like, I'd be fine without a kiss or whatever, I'd just like a littleeee more detail about their ending (or more details about their past together; I'd die for that!). but anyway. arakawa likes to be mysterious like that. 🥲

[queenoftsage]

I always see these ToP 10 KoReAn AcToRs ThAt ArE sO GrEAt [OmG] on... Fail Tube...

And to be honest, they always fail me. Come the F on peoples. Where are my faves?

Yeah yeah I know. I'm not general audiences. So.... Let's make my own.

Behind this read on, you will find my TOP 10 South Korean Actors of .... Well all time. Including NEWBIES, and Honorable Mentions.

P.S. this list is based on ACTING talent. Yes, most of these men or male presenting peoples I'm about to name may be good looking, but they have the TALENT to keep me entertained. ME, who is very picky for... pretty much anything, especially a whole ass show or movie I'm gonna give hours upon hours of my time to watch. If you can't act, your looks to me are gonna go down the drain. You can't be a bad actor and be good looking, because then I'll be like... yeah... that mofo is on that screen just cause of looks. They have no freakin' talent. GET ME OUTTA HERE. lol.

THIS SAID....

Ready to hate me cause I didn't include your faves? lol. READ ON, or forever hold your peas and carrots,. and MOVE ON. [aka- don't click 'keep reading'] [Warning: LONG ASS post.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#10

Park Hae Soo

Listen.... It took 'Narco Saints' for me to realize that... I do love watching him on screen. I have also seen him in other things, and I honestly have loved his performances.

He manages to hold my attention long enough to acknowledge that... Yeah, I like this guy, he is very good at his craft. Let's go see more stuff with him in it! So that's how I decided he's a fave. lol.

My nickname for him: Mr. Narco Saint.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#9

Kim Jae Wook

I have seen him in SO MANY series/dramas, and every single time, every SINGLE time, he makes me root for his characters. Yes, even when he's playing evil AF characters. I think high key, he fits the villain characters a little more. I don't know, it's something about his elegant looks that make it easy for him to play villains. His most memorable being in 'VOICE', and in 'DEATH'S GAME'.

ALSO, he has a very special place in my heart. Way back when, Tumblr used to be a fun place for online RP. I had an amazing RP partner that used his beautiful face as an FC for a very fun character. I don't remember his name too much. If I remember it, I'll come back and edit it in, but... still... That particular character was villain-ous. lol

My Nickname For Him: 'That Character's Name!' ... I'll find it...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#8

Park Hyung Sik

This man is just adorable AF. He's fun to watch in most of the series/dramas he's in, and my favorite performance of his was in the series 'Happiness'. Despite him being a favorite, a lot of the stuff he's in is ... not really a personal favorite, [save for 'Happiness' which I really liked.] but his acting is always a breath of fresh air. Like I said, he's fun to watch on screen, even when the writing is bad. lol

My Nicknames For Him: The Cute One

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#7

Yoo Seung Ho

Just like Park Hyung Sik, this man is adorable and very fun to watch, but sometimes the stuff he's in is... not so great. However, he is great, and I have yet to watch him in Warrior Baek Dong Soo. I hear that was a great performance of his. Honestly, all his performances are great. Also, his eyes are a thing that keeps me glued to the screen. He's just beautiful.

Anyway... Favorite. I always enjoy watching him on screen, even if the stuff he's in has insanely terrible writing.

My Nickname's For Him: Jingoo's Older Brother [yeah Yeo Jin Goo, no they're not related... but still.], Yesung part 2, Orange Blossom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#6

Yoo Ah In

Another top performer, and reason why I'll stay and watch something. Despite all that bullshit controversy going on about drugs and this man [I would go off tangent and explain why I don't give a fuck when actresses or actors end up being junkies. That's their choice and their body. It's something they have to fight with.] , I still find it very fulfilling to watch him on screen. He's very very good at what he does, and well... You know he's also very easy on MY EYES. lol

Whatever the case, I thank that lady Song Hye Kyo, for being his friend and sticking with him through thick and thin and helping him out as the friend that she is. I hope he gets the help he needs and is able to come back to acting. I know it won't be unscathed, because South Korean audiences are very harsh on drug accusations [in which they should be harsher on GRAPE accusations, but go figure. They're very ass backwards. I won't get into it. That's all I'm saying.] , but me personally, I'll be waiting patiently for him to return.

Hope to see him in more new performances. In the meantime, I'll continue to watch what he's been in.

My Nicknames For Him: Hottie, Mr. Chicago Typewriter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#5

Steven Yeun

GLENNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... you know... Because yes. Also, he's great, overall. He's got a charm that just keeps me watching every time he's in anything. He's one of the reasons I continued to watch 'The Walking Dead' for as long as I did. Him and Michone, but that's another story for another time.

Why is he in this list, if he's mostly in Western productions? Actually, no. He was in a few South Korean productions as well, and he was great in them. Hell, he even did a variety show in South Korea and was adorable in it. So... THERE. lol.

My Nicknames For Him: The only reason I liked 'The Walking Dead', lol... Well that's not a nickname, but that's what always comes to my mind when I see him. Him and Michone were EVERYTHING to me. Aka- GLENN.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#4

Lee Do Hyun

The first time I saw this dude was in 'Hotel Del Luna'. And I thought he was great, not gonna lie. Unfortunately, at that time, someone else had grabbed my attention. However, fastforward to a lot of performances later, including 'Exhuma' where he was superb! and I realized that this man is AMAZINg. Also, he played Shin Ha Kyun's younger self in 'Beyond Evil'. So technically he's Lee DongSik Too! How much better can we get?

That aside he's super talented. And of the new boys that are usually in Top 10s, he's the only one that made it on mine. Also, he will forever be Baby! Shin Ha Kyun to me, because I believe he can achieve such heights as an actor.

My Nicknames For Him: Baby!HaKyun [yeah... Shin Ha Kyun]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#3

Shin Ha Kyun

........... I don't think I need to explain WHY, this man is in this list? Or do I? If I do, just know this, he's nicknamed 'The GOD of Acting' by his fellow South Koreans. So.......... Yeah. Either way, and God of acting nickname aside, he lives up to that expectation all the time. No matter what character he's playing, he always puts his soul into it. I love that about him.

My Nicknames For Him: My Husband, The MOOD, My Twin [Gemini Twin]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#2

Doh Kyung Soo

.... Listen... Idol actors get a lot of shit when they decide to go into acting, because they're often accused of being BAD at acting. Kyungsoo, is one of those that has surprised audiences with his acting. And honestly, I feel it. I have seen most of everything he's been in [save for that one series with Zo In Sung], and I gotta say, I loved the performances through and through. Whether he was playing a high school kid with problems, and or a crazy prosecutor, and or an astronaut stranded on the moon. The feeling has been there the whole time, as well as the SOUL. This man, knows how to act, he was born for it. And of the many many MANY idol actors out there doing their thing, he's in my opinion, THE BEST of the BEST.

THE END...

Also helps that he's one of my top favorites, but that's another story for another time.

My Nicknames For Him: Baby Boy, el Ojon ['big eyes' this one from my mom too, cause that's what she calls him, and that's how she knows we're gonna see him on screen.] , Crayon Shin Chan, Baby! Ranier, itty bitty KyungSoo, [too many to be honest... I come up with nicknames every other Friday. Stay Tuned... lol.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Honorable Mentions:

Ji Sung

This man came into my radar, thanks to 'The Devil Judge'. I have yet to sit down and see him in more things. The only other series I have seen him in is 'Adamas', and I gotta say, it was very fun time. I'm not gonna lie that I chose to watch him because I don't mind watching him on screen. He's absolute eye candy in every sense of the damn word.

However... I hope that as I keep trying to watch stuff he's been in or is in 'currently', I can appreciate his acting more.

My Nicknames For Him: Kang YoHan [I know that's a character he played, but that's all I see when I see him... I KNOW, I need to see more.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seo Ji Hoon

I'm not gonna lie... I had seen this kid in other series, and he did kind of grabbed my attention. However, the stories were so good, I was actually invested in the stories [ie. 'Revenge of Others', 'Meow The Secret Boy']. However, enter 'Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency' and... That was it. I immediately remembered his face from the previous stories/series and how in those series, he was the one that had caught my attention. Then here in this series Marriage Agency... I was SOLD.

This beautiful man is up and coming, true. So I'm waiting patiently for him to get more 'STARRING' roles. He's only gotten a few. He has yet to have that one HIT that catapults him to getting even more attention. However, with what he's done, he's done enough for me to pay attention. He's good, and he was so good, that in Marriage Agency, he managed to get my attention, when that series features some of the most beautiful men South Korea has to offer. Shout out to the other Jihoon, he's beautiful too.

Either way... This kid is on my radar. I can't wait to see more of him and determine WHERE in this list he fits. Will he be Top 10? or Top 20? We'll see.

My Nicknames For Him: Baby King! [he's a little itty bitty king... no of course he's not... he's way taller than probably most of the dudes I have here on this list. lol. But still... He's so baby faced. That's all I think about when I see him.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Park Ji Hoon

Ok, so the same thing that happened with Seo Jihoon, happened to me with this Jihoon. He's Park Jihoon. So the first time I saw him was in 'Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency'. I did take notice at how pretty and cute he was. I mean, this freakin series had some very beautiful people in it and I did notice. However, the Jihoon that caught my attention there was Seo Jihoon. Fastforward to a few months later and me watching 'Weak Hero Class 1' and I lost it. I remembered who this kid was, and I remembered where I had seen him. He is amazing in this series, so now I'm a little lost in the rabbit hole. I am currently going through his list of works. It's not that big, so I feel like I'm almost over. Currently and at the time I'm about to post this, I have started 'At a Distance Spring is Green', and I gotta say, he's adorable and he's entertaining to watch.

We'll see in the future, where he ends up in the list. Will he be Top 10? or Top 20? I will figure it out eventually. In the meantime, I also love watching him in variety shows and doing that cute gesture with his hands. You know the one....

My Nicknames For Him: THE EYES [no yeah for real. That's what comes to mind when I see him. lol.] , Tiny Boy [it fits him cause I believe he's the youngest in this list.] , Baby Tiger, My Son, and lately I realized he's 'LITTLE RED' my OC. Like seriously, fits like a glove.

KAI [Kim Jong In]

Just like the photo above, I've been sleeping on Kim JongIn as an actor. And I not only blame myself, but also blame my love for watching him as a performer/singer better than an actor. I have never given him a chance as an actor. I am aware that he has done a few series, and the bits and pieces I have seen I have liked a lot.

I feel I need to give myself the time to watch him in these and then figure out where in the list he will end up. Either way, he's an honorable mention because even when I'm not watching him in acting action, I am always watching him in dancing and performing action, so.... yeh...

My Nicknames For Him: Art In Motion, Baby Nini, Tedi Bear, El Sexy Boy, Bolita de Algodon [little ball of fluff], The CAT Boy[alternately 'Omi in RL']

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#1

YEO JIN GOO

You saw this coming, right? Either you did or didn't, but you should know by now. This man took me by the horns and hasn't let me go yet. Listen....Might as well be the devil here and say, yes this man makes me feel things every time I see him acting. Whether he's playing a robot, a hotel manager, a disgruntled king, it doesn't matter. He puts so much soul into whatever he does, that it makes me feel like I am there experiencing what the character is experiencing.

He has a long history, which has been amazing to look through. And honestly, up to this day, I still haven't watched everything he's ever been in. He has an extensive list of works that he's been part of, and his participation in each project has, honestly, always stood out to me. At least in the projects/series/dramas I've been able to see.

Thank you, Yeo Jin Goo, for sharing your insane acting talent with all of us. I consider myself lucky to be alive in this era, and to be able to witness this. Greatly appreciated. Hope to be able to live long enough to see you thrive for many many years.

His Best Characters [Top 5]:

Gu Chan Seong [Hotel Del Luna]

King YiHeon & Ha Sun [The Man Who Became King]

Han JooWon [Beyond Evil]

Hwayi [Hwayi: A Monster Boy]

King Gwanghae [Warriors of The Dawn]

My Nicknames For Him: Baby Child, Peach, and KaiSoo Love Child.

And that's it... Are any of your faves in this Top 10, or are they honorable mentions? Either way, these are MINE. If I made a video about it, these are the men it would feature.

Maybe later on I'll make the Female actress version. That one would be really hard, because I absolutely LOVE the female actresses more than I do the male actors. And I have tons of faves.

However... I'll try to make the effort to do it eventually. Don't know when.

Anyway... Hope you enjoyed this post, if you read it all.

[dailycharacteroption]

Lion Blade (Pathfinder Second Edition Archetype)

(art by madspartan013 on DeviantArt)

When one thinks of espionage and crowded city streets, one imagines sneaky enemy agents vanishing into the crowd, befuddling or even outright escaping the heroes. (or alternatively, heroic agents using the crowd to hide from villainous authorities.)

However, there are those that would use those very crowds to undo the sneaks instead of the other way around, such as the spies and secret peacekeepers of Taldor, the Lion Blades.

While Taldor is not the picture of a perfect empire by any means, the Lion Blades are not an oppressive secret police, but rather hidden agents that root out assassins, saboteurs, spies, and the like by being unnoticed by their prey until it is too late and the crowds they sought to hide in feel more like walls closing in, leaving nowhere to hide.

Traditionally, Lion Blades are drawn from bardic training (In keeping with how the original First Edition prestige class, which I haven’t covered yet, worked), but they also draw upon many different backgrounds. As such, the Second Edition archetype has more broad, general abilities, letting their original training shine through and make for a truly unique agent.

The base dedication of being a Lion Blade provides training in disguise and stealth, as well as advanced disguise techniques to make it easier to appear as other ancestries as long as there is no extreme differences in size.

Many in the organization learn to disappear into crowds just as easily as their quarry, becoming unnoticed among the masses.

The press of the crowd can be inhibiting, and many Lion Blades take advantage of this, striking for a foe’s vulnerable points when they are surrounded.

Some Lion Blades are especially athletic runners, able to move much more quickly in the pursuit of their targets.

Just as their contemporaries may use magic to detect malicious intent, so too may assassins and spies use similar magic to notice when they’ve been found. As such, some Lion Blades learn to deceive divinatory magic as long as they can resist the initial detection.

Whether they take advantages of mundane things like disguise shifts and blind spots, or they use minor magics to distort other’s perception, some of these counter-spies can partially conceal their actions in a fight, making it hard to target them accurately.

Aside from their knack for using crowds against their foes, this archetype holds little in common with it’s First Edition namesake, but you can still emulate that legacy by combining this archetype with bardic magics and roguish tricks, no matter what base class you use. Beyond that, being sneaky and perceptive are major boons here, so classes that work well with those are very useful, but don’t be afraid to try more combat or spellcasting-oriented builds as well.

Whether you use this in the Lost Omens setting or as a basis for another counter-spy organization, this archetype is just one way to explore the complexities of intrigue and espionage. Definitely brush up on your detective and spy fiction to get some inspiration here.

The King’s Vanguard, a collection of spies working to protect the nation and the royal line, have been tracking a smuggling ring that has suddenly become more bold and well-funded recently. What they do not realize is that their new funding comes from a mad wizard seeking to smuggle a monstrous cursed sword into the city, one which he hopes to use to turn the King into a blood-hungry monster.

Espionage is, ostensibly, not the orcish way, and yet every warrior-king that has ever been close to actually uniting the various clans under one banner has made use of spies and guards to keep the influx of challengers in check, even going so far as to assassinate them in public.

Revered by the nomadic peoples up north, Thunderbirds are normally not seen in the southern Qotl Empire, but one has appeared, drawn her as if by some calling. Fearing for the nation’s safety, the king has commanded the Stalking Panthers, his elite guardians, to discover the source of this calling before the constant storms bring his people to ruin.

[littlefankingdom]

I watched the One Piece live action and here are some notes I took.

I'm a huge One Piece fan since I was like 10-ish? And so, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it. It had a lot of impact on my personality (Nico Robin is my role model). This live action adaptation matters to me and I'm going to rant. Spoilers ahead.

The director is a woman, and one of the two writers is a woman. Manga and anime are male dominated hobby (and the comic's world is sexist), so the live action of the most popular shōnen being run by women is so great, imo. Also, it's pretty successful, in contrary to other attempts, so it's a win for women.

Garp's actor is a very handsome man. Wtf, they made Garp hot. He also has a beautiful Welsh accent, which is great because it's an accent that gives a "tough guy" impression. At least, it does for me.

Luffy's actor is perfect. This Luffy is slightly different from the original one, but he's perfect in his own way. I will die and kill for him. Also, him being brown with a white grandpa is so good, it had a racial gap between the two of them, where there are already a generational one and a moral one. Like, the white grandpa in the army do not understand how his brown grandson do not like the gov, because he doesn't see it from where he is when the kid does.

Alvida's actress is so beautiful, she's so pretty. I suddenly support women's wrongs.

Damn, the violence is going up a notch (Roger executed on screen, Mr 7's body cut in half, MERRY IS FUCKING KILLED,...)

The actors for Koby and Helmeppo are queer (They/Them pals) Oda is, once again, showing his support to the trans community.

I do not like the colors. It's too dark for One Piece, imo. Look at how saturated the colored pages are, I would have preferred it to be more saturated. I know, this is because of the CGI (issues are less perceptible this way), I'm going to need to make some edits. But, they didn't have to do it to the costumes too. Like, Buggy, except from his hat, his outfit is not flashy like it should be. Would help with the colored hair if it was more colorful and flashy.

Young Luffy wear the same shirt as in the manga is a nice touch.

THERE'S A CAVENDISH'S WANTED POSTER IN SHELLS TOWN!

Dead bodies smell strongly, and Zoro is bringing half of one in a bar???

Episode 2 is pure art. I love it so much.

Buggy is attractive, wtf. I find him more pretty than Shanks.

Bogard is so cool looking. I'm gonna die if Hina is introduced one day (she's going to be so cool)

They changed the "If you’re gonna point your gun toward someone, you better use it" scene. The new one is cool, but the original is iconic.

THE MUSIC WHEN LUFFY REALIZES THAT SHANKS LOST HIS ARM! It's like the orchestra is interrupted, incredible, love it.

Nami and Zoro's siblings' energy is so strong.

Kaya and Nami interraction about the dress "it belonged to my mother" is so good, Nami gets uncomfortable because she also lost her mother and knows how it is to cherish her memory. But Kaya is nice and share it with her, which break her view of rich folks.

The decor's department must have had the time of their life for this show. It's a great job.

Zoro wanting to wear black and drink wine in the 3 episode, he's already embodying being Mihawk's adopted brat.

Kaya makes the oof roblox sounds when she slapped Usopp.

Usopp x Kaya let's gooooooooooo my boy deserves the best (Oda confirming a romance with one of his protagonists is huge)

Zoro IMMEDIATELY trying to look at something else the moment Kaya kisses Usopp.

Luffy sitting on Going Merry with "We Are" playing... Art.

Without a cook, they are eating pasta, with some fruit and drink (just like me, fr).

Garp is wrecking a brand new ship!

Episode 5 Title Card, my beloved.

Mihawk music, and voice, and character: beautiful.

"Oh, I do like your hat." Mihawk to Luffy upon meeting him, great.

Sanji needs to stop talking about food, I'm getting hungry but I'm broke and a terrible cook.

"Oregano is for savages!" 😂 ok kiddo.

Me watching Zoro nap for a whole episode because of 1 cut: "Bro, you’re going to go through so much worse, you better stop whining rn"

The "YES, YES WE DO" after Sanji says "heard you guys need a cook" is so good.

Sanji is, like, the only one after Nami to have the most experience sailing, they fucking need him.

Buggy coming back all the time is perfect. Love him.

Having Bell-Mere slaps Nami was not ok. Y'all are ruining a character I loved.

Sanji knows a man that can cook well is attractive.

Usopp and Luffy are 17 and drinking, and Koby is 16. Underage drinking baby 🍻

Garp is already having the crisis he has during Marine Fort Arc, it’s going to be difficult for him.

Buggy be swinging being carried by Sanji, who's fighting.

Luffy breaking Arlong's sword axe thingy is badass.

The fishmen are so ugly and weird looking

Buggy saying "I'm gonna get out of here" with 🖕🤡🖕(If we ever get young Ace, I expect so much vulgarity from his little shit mouth)

Usopp exploding star was badass.

Sanji's ass after Mouton Shot.

Zoro "Yeah, you're gonna fit in just fine" means you're as crazy as all of us

Sanji opening is arms for Nami and Nami ignoring him to hug her bros, lol.

Arlong Park destruction be crazy.

Sanji little laugh.

Luffy is a true bestie to Usopp.

It’s the confrontation from after Seven Arc

It's Logue town after right? Like, where Luffy's father is introduced? With the comparison to Roger? But they just compared them, are they going to do it again?

The wanted poster is the exact same, with usopp in the background.

Employee of the month lol.

Alvida and Buggy meeting, the bad bitches.

Mihawk and Shanks!!! (Shanks gave him the "ableist pos" look, lol)

Smoker introduced -> Logue Town

[presidenthades]

Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 5!

(Using the “Book of Clarence” GIF because I just watched it today.)

For this chapter’s title, I picked the Warrior lyrics from “The Song of the Seven” because toward the end, Jace has to pick up a blade (so to speak) and physically defend herself for the first time in her life.

Chapter content warnings also apply for this commentary, since we’re talking about the same topics.

Aegon seems like he’d be an oversharer when he’s emotional. Just get everything off his chest, either as a form of catharsis or in the hopes of receiving validation, or both. I feel like Aegon is capable of having an excellent poker face (useful for gambling), but TGC puts so much emotion into Aegon’s every expression that it makes me think Aegon chooses to wear his heart on his sleeve. Everyone has already made up their minds about him so why try to pretend to be something he’s not?

Jace doesn’t like being idle, and Aegon’s speech is very very long. So she keeps her hands busy, and her instinct is to clean up Aegon’s face 🥺.

I was debating whether Jace forgives Aegon too easily, since she was very upset earlier. But Jace is generally quick to forgive, and she now has the missing pieces of the story. The drafts I wrote where she continued to be angry at Aegon made her seem unreasonable, and she isn’t the kind of person to value a feast/public appearance over innocent lives. But she is the kind of person to worry about lot (at times unnecessarily), so that becomes the new thing she fixates upon. Aegon and Aemond were a bit reckless, and of course Jace is going to focus on the worst possible scenario that could’ve happened.

Aegon sees Jace as perfect and himself as the total opposite, so he blames himself instead of Jace. But Jace isn’t afraid to do some introspection and examine herself for flaws—in fact, she often thinks about what she did wrong and could do better next time. And because Aegon is an oversharer, she picked up on his feelings of being neglected, even if he didn’t explicitly state them, and she’s able to put herself in his shoes. So they have a little marital spat, as every couple does, but they’re able to work through it without dragging it out unnecessarily long. Neither of them is looking to “win” the argument, they just want to put it behind them and return to their usual state of contentment.

Jace’s line about Aegon not being a beggar waiting for scraps of her time resonates with him. A variation of it pops up again in Chapter 10 when he makes his resolution to play the game.

The “send me a note so I know where you are if you need rescuing” line is foreshadowing Jace’s kidnapping. She sends him a sort-of note in the form of the necklace she gives to the Garden girl Liane. And “that’s what guards are for” highlights how Jace isn’t a fighter. She’s a lady/product of her society and upbringing, and nobody—herself included—expects her to pick up a sword if there’s trouble.

I wanted Jace to explicitly say “I’m proud of you” because that’s the kind of validation Aegon lives for, and she knows his love languages. Honestly these two have a mutual praise kink

The original draft had Jace being jealous and telling Aegon to get rid of the brothel, but the jealousy ended to seeming kind of petty, so I deleted that bit. Jace doesn’t want her husband to own a brothel (people are always going to assume he’s patronizing his own business), but now that they’ve had a chat, she feels very secure in his affections. Also, when they have more time to think about it, I think they both realize that hastily offloading the brothel to the first person who’ll buy it could potentially go very badly; if the buyer is a nasty person, the girls there probably suffer. Hence, Aegon’s hands-off, “I’ll pretend it doesn’t exist” managerial style.

Jace is usually very self-conscious about her body, but this is an era where it’s normal for royals/nobles to be assisted while bathing and it isn’t sexual at all. So she mentally compartmentalizes it differently than, say, bathing with her husband. Aegon is aware of this, but he likes teasing Jace 😛. (I’m sure he actually has caught Sabitha, who supposedly likes women in F&B, admiring Jace a few times, but otherwise Sabitha knows how to be professional.)

Aegon genuinely cannot comprehend the idea of Jace being unattractive. Bless him.

When Aegon pauses over Jace’s stomach, he he realizes it wasn’t just Jace waiting for him tonight but also his unborn child. Jace’s earlier words about him endangering himself really hit him, and he has a little growth moment where he realizes he can’t just act like a reckless bachelor but has to think more about his growing family as he runs around the city.

Like most Targs, Aegon is officially raised as a member of the Faith but he doesn’t really believe in it. Meanwhile Jace does have sincerely held beliefs which are pretty standard for the time. It should be remembered that historically, religion was more widespread and important in daily life, and going to weekly services would’ve been the minimum expectation.

In the show, Rhaenyra is portrayed as not even knowing how to pray at age 14, which was an odd writing decision IMO. Religion is pretty engrained into medieval society, and Aemma is from the Vale, which is a region that strongly worships the Seven. So even if you argue that Viserys didn’t care much about Rhaenyra’s spirituality, I’m sure Aemma did. Rhaenyra doesn’t seem to believe in the Faith at all, but she can still perform the outward motions of belief while being agnostic inside. So in my version of events, Rhaenyra arranges the typical education for her children, which includes a septa (especially important to girls) and the in-world equivalent of Sunday school, even if she isn’t going to otherwise encourage them to pay heed to religion. But because Jace is a very good girl, she paid attention to all the lectures. Hence, Jace and Aegon’s very different reactions to his blasphemy.

Anyway, I hope I made it obvious with all the religious dirty talk and innuendos, but this smut scene is intended to show that Aegon literally worships Jace 😇.

Rhaena hasn’t heard about the Targbros’ adventures yet, so from her perspective, Aegon has miraculously managed to talk himself back into Jace’s bed after a colossal fuckup. No wonder she’s exasperated lol

Aegon doesn’t usually read for pleasure, but he’ll make an exception for trashy erotica 💋.

The garden party scene is an appetizer to how Jace and Aegon can work together to manipulate the courtiers if they’re so inclined. Most of the plan was Jace’s idea, but Aegon was definitely the one who suggested showing off the hickeys. And he ad libbed licking his finger 😛.

There was originally supposed to be a comedic sequence where the story of the Targbros’ heroics wins them a lot of fan girls. Since Aegon is married, most of the ladies begin obsessing over Aemond, who literally runs away from his admirers and at one point just straight up leaves for Driftmark for an extended visit. Alas, it didn’t fit in the chapter—but I might retell it from Aemond’s POV in the next fic LOL.

As Aegon starts hearing the petitions and doing more investigating, we see that he might not be as averse to duty/responsibility as he claims. He’s averse to feeling unappreciated, and since the smallfolk are very appreciative of his help, he keeps doing the petitions.

Aegon assumes that the Tyroshi does the reasonable thing and flees Westeros when he has the chance. Unfortunately, we shall see that the Tyroshi is not a man driven by reason.

Now that our couple have recalibrated so Jace isn’t overworking herself, Aegon feels less like he’s competing for her attention so he’s able to open himself up to impending fatherhood. A lot of his growth in this regard is a gradual process, not a huge eureka moment, and he’s still working on it when we get his POV again in Chapter 6. But he develops the new habit of communing with the baby because he wants to try, even if he still isn’t sure he’ll be any good at fatherhood. At the very least, he knows he doesn’t want to make his child feel neglected by his father, as Aegon felt growing up. And because Aegon spends so much time talking and singing to the baby, Cheeseball essentially comes out of the womb recognizing his father’s voice 🥹.

Aegon does still have some hangups. He acts a bit weird during the name talk because he thinks he would prefer a daughter. Similar to Laenor, Aegon thinks a daughter would be easier because in his mind, he’s imagining a mini-Jace whom he can spoil. Also, daughters tend to be raised more by their mothers and he thinks Jace would do great. But fathers are supposed to be more involved with sons, and Aegon thinks he’ll be a bad influence. So he’s still trying to wrestle with those feelings.

Gyles is NOT a good businessman. There’s no way he could ever recoup the costs of shipping cheese from the Vale just through selling pies. He’s lucky he found a royal patron 😂.

In an early draft, I had the baby’s name down as “Rhaenor” so it could simultaneously honor Laenor and Rhaenys. Then I started doing High Valyrian on Duolingo and I noticed there were words like aegion (iron) and rhaenagon (to find), which had the same roots as some Targ names. I developed a theory that the Targ names are supposed to have some kind of meaning, just like how our real world names have meanings (the High Valyrian creator David Peterson basically confirmed my theory on tumblr when I asked in December). So I began hunting through an online Valyrian dictionary for other roots. At first I wanted to use the word for gold, but that’s aeksion and I couldn’t think of a pleasant sounding name based on it. Then I stumbled across the words eleni and elenar, music and tide respectively, and that was PERFECT for a baby who’s part-Velaryon and has a daddy who likes to sing to them. And it sounds really nice! I played around with some name suffixes (Elenaron, Elenarys) but I liked the original word the best. I decided that instead of continuing to use the same dozen Targ names, or mixing up different name prefixes and suffixes, Jace picks a new name for her child which symbolizes that her reign/generation is going to do things differently, while still paying homage to their ancestors by continuing to use a Valyrian name.

The above then led me to exploring potential meanings for Jacaerys/Jacaera and Lucerys/Lucera. They’re supposed to be traditional Velaryon names, and Velaryon names seem to be mildly “corrupted” forms of Valyrian with some Westerosi influence, so I gave myself a little more liberty with picking origin words. I imagine Jacaerys/Jacaera as derived from jaes (goddess), which Rhaenyra picks after Laenor’s comment (and I guess it’s even more fitting with all of Aegon’s blasphemy and worship 🙈), while Lucerys/Lucera is derived from lyka (quiet, silent, calm). For our Lucera, it’s an ironic name because she’s the complete opposite, but Rhaenyra picked it because of lykiri (a dragon command we see in the show, “calm down”).

I wanted to emphasize Jace’s loving, pampered environment during the first half of the chapter. She’s in her element when she’s inside the castle, but if you take her out of her natural environment, she has no idea what to do. She’s also never truly been alone in her life. She’s always with her husband, family, or ladies, and even if she’s alone in a room, there are plenty of guards and servants nearby. When she’s kidnapped later, it’s the first time she actually has to figure out what to do with no help whatsoever. And she’s jumping from her life of backrubs and hot baths to walking alone in the rain with only one shoe.

The second half of chapter 5 was originally VERY different. It was actually supposed to start with Jace and Aegon having a Jasmine/Aladdin-esque “whole new world” adventure where Aegon shows her around the city during a weeklong festival, then later their siblings all want to join the fun, and it spirals into the Tyroshi grabbing Jace. I even wrote out the whole thing…and then I realized how idiotic everyone was acting 🥲. When you have Jace, Aemond, and Rhaena in the group, somebody would’ve mentioned how reckless the outing was, and I just couldn’t go through with all the Targkids being willfully blind to the risks of sneaking out to the city. Afterwards, there’s a scene with Viserys yelling at them all for being so stupid and endangering an entire generation of Targs, and then he decides to put 100% of the blame on Aegon. I actually really liked the confrontation between Viserys and Aegon, but I couldn’t keep the “family outing” plot, so I had to get rid of that aftermath scene too. I might be able to reuse it one day in another setting though.

Instead I went with the Sept outing in the final version. Jace does everything right, but unfortunately the grippe (a medieval illness that was probably the flu) strikes the entire Kingsguard. I’m a firm believer in writers being able to use luck/coincidence to get characters IN trouble (as long as it’s believable, and it’s super easy for the flu to spread among seven dudes living in a frat house!, but not out of it. And this definitely gets our characters in trouble. Without the grippe, Jace still would’ve had other guards at the sept, but a Kingsguard would’ve been in charge and more competently handled the bathroom trip. Instead she gets a less experienced knight, whom Viserys picked to be in charge probably because of a combination of vibes and politics. The Grand Sept is a normal and frequent destination for royal outings, and Jace is very popular with the city’s people, so nobody is expecting trouble.

I invented Maiden and Mother’s Day as a two-day holiday, so that there’s an explanation for the Tyroshi being able to suss out Jace’s plans. On day 1, he observes the guards not following her to the septas’ quarters and figures out she’s likely to repeat the pattern on day 2; it’s pretty common knowledge that heavily pregnant women need to use the bathroom often. And I added the growing crowd of beggars receiving alms to show that Jace’s outing is far from a secret from the public. On the contrary, in addition to the religious stuff, it’s another PR opportunity.

I kept Sabitha and Rhaena back from the outing, because all six ladies really would have been too much for the Tyroshi and his henchwoman to overcome. Also, Sabitha canonically takes up arms during the Dance, and I think she would’ve walloped the Tyroshi. Rhaena isn’t a fighter, but her presence alone would’ve impacted the odds, and her absence allowed me to play with some tension between her and Jace later. (And yes, Helaena was getting some bad omens about the outing. But as I’ve said before, I think her visions operate on vague vibes, so she knows something bad is coming but not what exactly it is.)

The Garden madam doesn’t immediately leave Westeros because she’s lured into a false sense of security after the Targbros raid the warehouse. She’s taking her time planning her trip to the Summer Islands or wherever she wants to retire when the Tyroshi—who’s pretty cunning and knows she snitched on him—leaps back into her life and takes her brother hostage. Considering how brutally the Tyroshi has killed other people in the past—and she has firsthand knowledge of Daisy—she’s too afraid to risk angering him further by trying to report to the Targs or anything like that. And she is very close to the bottom of society; really poor smallfolk like her don’t think that royalty are going to pay any attention to them, even if she wanted to try sending a message. So she’s just in this to try to save herself and her brother. All the descriptions about her odd behavior and cosmetics are to foreshadow that something isn’t right, and she’s not a normal septa.

I got snarky feedback from someone who thought it was stupid that the Tyroshi didn’t immediately kill Jace and that the ladies didn’t immediately scream for help, and apparently they were hoping for a red wedding scene 💀. Idk about other people, but if I were reading a fic tagged with fluff, comedy, hurt/comfort, and “detour into drama and angst,” I would honestly be quite mad if one of the narrators/ship characters/a pregnant girl died horribly on screen, and there was nothing in the tags or chapter notes to warn for it. ANYWAY, here’s my unnecessarily long rebuttal of that reader’s feedback about my characters 😇.

The Tyroshi’s goal isn’t to assassinate Jace, it’s to get revenge on Aegon, against whom he’s developed a vendetta. He is a sadist and sociopath. This was already seen in how he treated Old Willow and Daisy in Chapter 4. Instead of just killing them, he drew out their deaths with horrible torture and abuse. His plan to take Jace so he can extend the torment Aegon feels is in character with what little we know of him so far, and we haven’t even gotten to the convos with him in Chapters 6 and 7. Sure, he could’ve just slit Jace’s throat and that would’ve been ample revenge against Aegon. But if he’s going to go through so much trouble to get his hands on Jace, he’s going to make it worth his time. And he’s very confident he’ll succeed, which he would have done if Jace didn’t have a secret weapon. Also, he quickly becomes interested in Jace as soon as he talks to her, so his desire to kill her goes down sharply.

As for the ladies’ reactions: like Jace, they’re all pampered girls who’ve never had to deal with real problems before. They’ve always had other people, like guards and servants, to deal with problems for them. This is a very shocking situation that they are in no way prepared for, and it’s natural for them to have have a moment where they’re trying to comprehend that Sara just died. This is definitely the case for Jace, who is initially too tongue-tied to do or say anything.

Why don’t they instinctively scream? I’ll address each of the girls below, but there are some answers that apply to everyone. There’s a saying “fight or flight,” but it’s more accurate to say “fight or flight or freeze.” All the girls are initially defaulting to freeze, and this includes their mouths/throats; their bodies/instincts are telling them to stay still and silent so they don’t draw more attention to themselves.

The Tyroshi “immediately” turns on Elinor, who has her inglorious moment. She acts as a selfish coward saving her own skin. I wouldn’t expect her to shout for help from the guards. She’s too busy hiding in the privy and praying the Tyroshi forgets about her.

Floris is 9/10 years old. She’s the youngest of the group, and she takes a lot of cues from the others. She has to be specifically instructed by Bethany to do something before she acts. Think of the bystander effect, and how in modern emergencies, it’s advised that you say “you [specific person], call 911” instead of a generic “somebody call 911.”

Bethany is the likeliest candidate to actually shout for help. If Elinor hadn’t run for the privy, I think that would’ve been Bethany’s next step. But because Elinor abandons Jace, Bethany switches from “freeze” to “fight” since she’s the only person left who can defend Jace (she doesn’t count Floris, who’s too little). I was also hoping that it comes as a pleasant-ish surprise to readers that Bethany actually takes her duty as Jace’s LIW very seriously when it matters. So even though Bethany is very scared, her priority is putting herself in front of Jace. And even though we the readers might be thinking, “This is a logical opportunity for Bethany to shout for help now,” I think most of us overestimate how logical and capable we would be in an emergency. Bethany is only able to think one step at a time, and those steps are 1) protect Jace 2) send Floris to get help. Only after Floris fails does she think of 3) shout for help, when it’s too late.

TLDR all the ladies are acting like the scared girls they are. Everyone reacts differently in an emergency, and it’s easy to provide armchair commentary of “but they SHOULD have done this instead” when the truth is most of us would also probably freak out and act irrationally ☺️.

Notice how the Tyroshi addresses Jace as “Princess Targaryen.” I’m sure he’s learned her name during his surveillance, but he sees her as Aegon’s princess rather than her own person, hence the impersonal address.

Jace’s good manners are so engrained into her that she defaults to using them while in survival mode. And honestly it probably saves her life. If she were rude or mouthy, like Baela, the Tyroshi probably would’ve killed her much faster. Instead he’s intrigued by meeting the epitome of a well-bred princess.

Confession: I originally had Cheeseball kicking in the womb when the Tyroshi touches Jace, which meant the Tyroshi was the first person to feel the baby move. Then I got really angry at myself for writing that, so I changed it and made Aegon the first person to feel the baby in Chapter 6, as he deserves ☺️.

Earlier drafts had Jace conscious while the Tyroshi fled with her from the sept, because I wanted her to drop a trail of cedar beads from Joff’s amulets to help people find her. But if she were conscious, she would’ve tried VERY hard to escape the hay wagon or get passersby’s attention, and it would’ve been really dumb of the Tyroshi to give her that opportunity. So dreamwine and strangulation it is. I highly doubt dreamwine takes effect instantly, so I added the strangulation part to speed things up. I did think very hard about how strangulation can cause miscarriage, but Jace proves to be a lot tougher than expected, as does Cheeseball, and it’s not a guarantee of miscarriage. Now, I don’t know for sure if dreamwine plus a moment of strangulation would actually cause Jace to black out and remain unconscious for hours, BUT dreamwine is fictional and you can only google so many things about strangulation, so we’re just going to say it works.

Jace uses the dragonglass from Joff’s amulet for a girl-child. Jace is a girl, so in a way, the amulet’s protection works even though Joff had a different target in mind 🥲.

Initially, Jace is hoping somebody miraculously comes to her rescue, because she’s been raised to expect that someone will always be around to help her. But it’s just her 🥺.

The Tyroshi’s inspection of Jace’s features is intended to be very uncomfortable and to show that he sees her as an object, albeit one to be admired. He compares her features to various Tyrosh-related things because he’s already thinking about bringing her back to Tyrosh, so he’s kind of justifying it in a “she clearly belongs in Tyrosh” way.

In case it isn’t clear, he wants her gown because he intends to wrap the baby in it for Aegon to find 🙁.

The Tyroshi has decided he enjoys cosplaying as a courtier and princess engaging in courtly love/romance, hence his very polite mannerisms. Jace senses this is what he’s up to so she plays along.

The Tyroshi is convinced he can keep Jace alive (as he says, he’s done this before), but it is REALLY dangerous for Jace to have moon tea so late in pregnancy. In ASOIAF, Lysa Tully almost dies and has fertility issues when she’s forced to drink moon tea, and I suspect she was earlier in her pregnancy than Jace. So even if Jace survived (big if), her health would never be the same. (Would be an interesting succession crisis issue, but I can’t bring myself to write that AU.)

Laenor in the afterlife is so happy that his advice about rivers helps save his firstborn 🥹.

I just want to point out that it’s REALLY fricking dark where Jace is. There’s absolutely no light other than the occasional lightning, and the light pollution from the city is minimal since we’re in an era where lighting at night is expensive and firelight only. Girl is operating on hopes and prayers and thoughts of her husband right now. TBH if I were in her place, I’d just give up and cry 🥲. But even though Jace is pampered and gentle, she’s surprisingly resilient, and she has her baby to think about. I mentioned earlier that Jace has never truly been alone before until now, but she actually has Cheeseball to keep her company, and I think that helps her keep going until she reaches civilization.

Chapter 6 commentary here

[zombie-and-puppet-child]

Heres a general synopsis of the lore I have so far for my AU(subject to change, especially after Ruin comes out):

So this is basically my take on a “What if Michael was in SB” AU but with the addition of Charlotte for extra spice

One way or another, Charlie figured out the Pizza Sim fire wouldn’t finish William off for good and she convinced Mike that they should escape the fire together and stop him For Good

The damage Mike sustained from the Scooper and the fire means he’s physically weakened (even requiring a cane to walk for an extended period of time)

Mike uses his knowledge and skills with animatronics to get a job at the Pizzaplex as a mechanic (mans is DONE with being a Night Guard)

(He is also VERY thankful that a lot of the heavy lifting when it come to animatronic repairs can be done for him, cuz lord knows how much more his poor body can take)

He rebuilds Charlotte using spare parts he salvaged from the fire and scrapped Staff Bots, making her a more humanoid looking puppet this time around

Both Mike and Charlie have Illusion Disks to help the blend in as Totally Normal people

Charlie goes around the Pizzaplex befriending any lost/vulnerable children in an effort to make them less likely to be targets of a certain murderous rabbit

This is how she first meets Gregory before he stows away in Freddy’s stomach

Upon realizing that there is a kid trapped in the Pizzaplex, both Mike and Charlie are working to find him and keep him as far away from Vanny as possible

Aaaaaand that’s about it! I do have more story fleshed out, but I’m gonna hold back on it until Ruin comes out just incase it clashes too much with what I’ve come up with

EDIT: Ruin is out and I have finished it! I’m starting proper work on this AU, though I don’t have any solid idea of when I’ll be done as I’m still sorting through what we’ve learned from the dlc

[literaticat]

An author friend told me they sold their option book only for the publisher to then CHANGE THEIR MIND after the contract was signed and decide they didn't like the premise after all. Now they're on the hook to come up with a new mutually agreeable idea. I didn't realize this could happen! What if the author didn't want to change course? Would they have to terminate the contract and repay whatever portion of the advance they got upon signing? Or is the publisher obligated to keep going since it's what they bought?

It CAN happen. I wouldn't say it's exactly common or anything, but sure, anything CAN happen. Maybe they signed the book, and then something dramatic happened in the world or with the market that made them get cold feet. Maybe they signed the book based on a partial but then the full book didn't meet their expectations. Maybe the first book ended up tanking and the publisher is like "oh maybe a direct sequel to a book nobody bought is not the best idea, can we pivot and make this a standalone instead?" -- OR maybe the AUTHOR decides they don't want to continue with a particular book -- they sold it on a partial, and then as they were actually writing it they realize that there were massive holes in the story they didn't want to or know how to fix! Or they just don't like it anymore and want to change tack! Or, whatever, who knows.

The point is, usually if that happens -- on EITHER end -- rather than just cancelling the contract, the publisher and the author find a new mutually agreeable idea and carry on with the contract. Like, sure, it's disappointing, but also, nobody is saying "screw you" -- the publisher wants to publish a book, the author wants to write a book, if that idea for a book won't work for whatever reason, let's find one that does.

Your publishing agreement would specify what happens if the publisher actually cancels the contract (for various reasons) and what happens if you cancel the contract. This is less likely to happen -- ideally, both parties would prefer NOT to cancel the contract if there's a better choice!

VERY GENERALLY SPEAKING, if the publisher is cancelling the contract for reasons totally out of the author's control, the author would keep the money that they have been given (and perhaps even get the rest of the money as well depending how much work has been done). And the contract would just go away and rights revert to the author. If the Publisher is cancelling the contract because the two parties have tried and failed to come up with something mutually agreeable and the author has clearly made a good faith effort, but it's just not gonna happen and that's the publisher's fault, the author would keep the money they have been given and the contract would go away and rights revert to the author.

If the publisher cancels because the author has done something terrible, or because the material isn't up to par and the author refuses to edit or something like that, the author may have to repay what they have been given, and the rights would not revert to the author until they do so.

If the AUTHOR cancels because they just disagree and don't want to come to a mutual agreement or something, they would have to repay what has been given, and the rights would not revert until they do so. HOWEVER, again depending on the contract, they might be able to pay it out of what's called "first proceeds" -- so if they sell the work to another publisher, they could repay the first publisher out of THAT money rather than it coming out of their pocket.

[spirit-of-a-kiger]

I thought of an Amazing Digital Circus sona/self-insert/OC thingy, whatever you’d call it.

WARNING: Long. Very long. Also kinda ramble-y and not that edited, though I tried to be organized.

She’s based on a maneki-neko, specifically the kind that’s mostly white but with a few small spots of calico here and there. Being based on a statue fits with her tendency to freeze when scared. I’m not sure if she should be made out of smooth porcelain or fur. She also has an adorable little bell collar which, like Pomni’s hat, is a part of her body and thus cannot be removed. She doesn’t have visible thumbs, but she can still grab stuff just fine, just like how if you watch Gangle’s character intro, she logically shouldn’t be able to hold the two halves of her broken mask. Her top right canine tooth is made of gold. I’m thinking of naming her Nikki, since it sounds like “neko” and “kitty”.

She’s generally very sweet, kind, and also a scaredy-cat, but her main flaw is her anger. When she’s wronged or thinks she’s been wronged, her eyes glow red, and razor-sharp, probably metal, claws come out, and she ruthlessly attacks whoever crossed her. Jax in particular is very well-acquainted with these claws. She has also tried scratching up Caine before, but he doesn’t feel a thing. In fact, these claws only come out during fits of blind fury. She has tried to figure out how to unsheathe them when she’s not angry since claws can be very useful, but so far, no luck.

When she first arrived at the circus, she spent all her free time lying around and moping. She never interacted with anyone, and if anyone tried to talk to her, the most acknowledgement they would get was her swiveling her ears in their direction. Later, she realized “Hey, this is basically a fantasy world, right? Maybe I should try to enjoy whatever I can.” So, she started doing things like acting a bit more catlike (in other words, embracing her new form), being friendly towards her fellow prisoners, and exploring Caine’s realm.

Due to having absolutely no sense of direction, she almost always gets lost when she goes exploring. The first time that happened, she got so scared that she started calling out for help, even knowing that Caine might be the one to come to her “rescue”. (He was. She'd never been so glad to see him in her life.) Since then, she’s learned that if Caine wants someone on stage, it never takes him long to find them, so when she gets lost, she just keeps exploring rather than panicking.

She doesn’t like how the bell on her collar always makes noise when she moves. She’s very sensitive to that sort of thing, so she usually holds it against her chest while walking. On the other hand, it does make for a very good fidget toy. Very often, she runs her fingers over it; she also sometimes flicks it or bats at it like a cat toy.

Over time, she starts attributing a borderline spiritual significance to the bell. She likes to think that it’s a vessel containing the last bits of her sanity. She doesn’t really believe this, per se, but it helps somehow. If, hypothetically, her collar were to be removed somehow, she would be devastated.

Due to having a fear of dolls, she was actually scared of Ragatha at first, freezing whenever she walked into the room. However, after seeing how kind she is, Nikki started to develop a crush on her instead. Ironically, she liked Jax upon first meeting him because “aww cute bunny!”, so that was a lesson in judging books by their covers. She awkwardly apologized to Ragatha, and now they’re good friends.

She has a massive sweet tooth. Sugar is one of the things she misses most from the real world, and she often talks about sweets and uses them in metaphors and such. I even thought of a quote where she’s describing the circus to Pomni: “It’s like, you find a field of cotton candy, and you eagerly dig in, but whoopsie-daisy, it's literally been poisoned! But then sometimes, you get a sip of hot cocoa, and it’s got just the right amount of marshmallows, and it’s at just the right temperature that it warms you on the inside but doesn’t burn your mouth, and you realize ‘Hey! This isn’t poison!’ *briefly glances over at Ragatha* You just gotta find your own mug of hot cocoa.”

[dexadin]

Hi there! I love your guides for Curse of Strahd! 💞 If it's not too much, could you give some tips for running the abbey of St. Markovia? Or really just how you dealt with the module's ableism in general, since it's a lot to tackle and I'm not sure where to begin. Thank you! 💋

Hello! Sorry this took me a while to work on, like you said, it's a lot to tackle. Curse of Strahd suffers from being both a product of its genre and a product of the typical carelessness D&D likes to serve its marginalized fans. As much as I adore the genre, (modern) gothic horror does often rely on ableist tropes to create fear and suspense in what I'd call a misguided attempt to recreate the scenarios present in the literature that formed the basis of the genre in the early 19th century. Ableism is rife in early gothic novels, in part because of the rampant ableism of the time and in part because a lot of these works were critiques of ableism written by both disabled and abled but progressive authors. Then there's just WotC, who isn't exactly known for always making good moves in their settings. Sometimes they at least realize they fucked up, like with the Hadozee (😬), but as evident with their CoS "Revamped" edition, they thought making a meager attempt to Remove the Slurs was... more or less enough work for it. Lol.

So, here's some of my notes of what I've needed to fix up and how I did it. Abbey of St. Markovia will be at the end because... yikes. Major spoilers for CoS and CW for ableism below!

Casual Ableism A.K.A. The Real Curse Of Strahd Is Mental Illness

There are questionable story beats about mental illness from really early on. Mad Mary is the first NPC I can think of that really explicitly exemplifies this, but Stella Wachter in Vallaki and Luca Barbu in Kresk both also fit the bill of being random NPCs who got painted with the ableism brush. Treating these characters with empathy I think is the best way to fix a lot of them.

In ATSBB, I chose to keep the name "Mad Mary" as a pejorative title from the other villagers, because my game includes an amount of real-world ableism that is portrayed negatively. The party heard her cries and went to her house to find a lonely woman grieving the loss of her daughter. They spent a snall fortune at the mercantile to make her a big pot of soup she could simmer for days over her stove and helped her clean up her house a bit, before giving her hours of company over dinner. Mary was kind and appreciative and treated them terribly well. They did eventually sneak upstairs to find evidence of the circumstances of her daughter's disappearance (I just turned her into a werewolf to avoid the Yikes factor there). We see that Mary is unwell because upon seeing that her beloved daughter was cursed with Lycanthropy, she did everything (even too much) to ensure her safety, and then Gertruda still got out. Mary is more than "mad," she's heartbroken. She's devastated of grief and feels like a failed mother because she couldn't protect her baby. That amount of empathy gives her more depth and makes her portrayed as not ableist, but as a victim of vilified in-world ableism because nobody will give her the time of day.

In Stella's case, I did have a hard time. I wanted the party to have a clear reason to fight Victor (I don't know how some parties make him an ally, that guy is such a tool) and I did like the idea fleshed out in MandyMod's guide of Victor trying to leave Barovia through self-taught wizardry. Instead of changing much about Stella's cat curse, I just gave it privacy. They saw Stella very, very briefly--just enough to note the condition she was in and see that interrogating her would do very little for them, and then her siblings came in to tell them Stella needed her rest and it was time for them to go. Stella was not a spectacle to them, and it was portrayed as bizarre, but ultimately a product of Victor's abuse and Fiona's neglect to fix it. The party kicked Victor's ass and made a plan to sneak Stella out and get her to the house of a particularly nurturing NPC.

Luca Barbu was a little easier for me to fix because they tried to write him with sympathy but the module still certainly isn't nice to him, and it felt really gross a lot of the time. Luca is an adult man "with the intelligence of a 3 year old" who was "hit in the head with a rock" as an explanation for it, whose father and presumably full-time carer passed away, leaving him no support. If you didn't catch on yet, yikes. My Luca Barbu is autistic and had a farming accident that gave him a head injury that causes him to have a hard time processing information quickly, particularly numbers and the passage of time, and that can make him vulnerable to manipulation because he's a good hearted guy who has a hard time discerning if people are being genuine or not. He's very smart about farming, and good with the sheep like nobody's business, but he sometimes will forget to take care of himself when nobody's around because his dad isn't around to remind him. The townsfolk are not suspicious of him at all, and only have the chance to become so inclined if the party truly fails the encounter with Ilya. In fact, in my campaign, the situation with Anna Kreskov and the broken fence can only happen because she brings him dinner and bread every night since his fathers passing so she can make sure he eats every day. Anna's betrayal is then portrayed as desperate, not malicious, and it's a lot more tragic than it is evil.

Ez d'Avenir

Weird move of CoS to make an explicitly disabled character in a blink-and-you-miss-it passage who uses the coolest prosthetic ever and then just hide it from shame (???) They did add in a passage that changes this in the errata and in the revamped, as well as fleshing out Ez a lot more in Van Richten's Guide, so I'm giving them half a pass for this, because at least they admitted and fixed how they fucked up. That said, I think it's weird to do that with someone who is apparently the only disabled person in Barovia. This can be helped by letting Ez play a more active role in your campaign, as well as by having other disabled characters. You don't need to be ablebodied to be important to the world, so why should it be in fantasy? You don't really need a reason for a character to be disabled either, because disability doesn't happen because of a Reason in the real world. Not giving Ez the burden of being the only disabled rep in Barovia lets you have more fun with her and with other NPCs.

Finally, The Abbey of St. Markovia

The Abbey is infamous in ATSBB for me having planned out my alterations in advance and still finding places in the text I missed in which I said, "Oh, god, well, we're not doing that," and had to improv in several areas. To preface this, for my campaign, I did give my players a red/yellow/green light consent list in advance in which I included "asylum horror" as one of the potential triggers, and it was greenlit by my party, so we all went in knowing that there would be some ableist medical type horror. I explained that I wanted the vibe to feel less like Arkham Asylum and more like the way people treat asylums and old hospitals on ghost hunting TV shows--with the knowledge that something is deeply, deeply wrong here, but the fault never lies with the patients. Now, a lot of my edits are additions to MandyMod's "Fleshing Out CoS" on Reddit rather than on the official text, so if you're not familiar with it, I highly reccommend you check that out and then return here.

First off, I didn't call the people here Mongrelfolk, because... who thought that was a good idea in the first place, much less one that wss good enough not to fix in Revamped?? Anyway, I simply referred to the people residing at the Abbey as "patients" and it worked just fine. Inspired by MandyMod's guide, I wanted the Abbot to be an angel who lost his way in his desperation to help people in the absence of the Morning Lord, an angel who doesn't really understand the intricacies of sustaining life in humanoids, and treats sick and injured people with the same curiosity and naivety as a child "fixing" their broken toys by sticking together parts that only kind of fit with duct tape and glue. My abbot tried to heal the people as best he could with his limited magic, without understanding the differences between people and animals, or why a person with a broken hand might not be able to return to his every day life when that hand has been replaced with a turkey's claw. He's not trying to be evil, he just doesn't realize what he's doing isn't helping, because he's distracted by his own goal of building Vasilka. Now, I know Vasilka is sort of controversial in the CoS scene, but I think the concept is So Fucking Cool. I also think that building a little Frankenstein's monster that should be able to stop Strahd from hurting people is a suitible gothic, but ultimately noble goal for the Abbott to have. Does it justify the Abbot "borrowing" pieces from people who asked him for healing? Well, no. But it certainly makes sense for an angel desperate to escape Barovia to lose his shit a little bit and use unethical means to a supposedly moral end.

I also wanted to give agency back to the patients at the Abbey. Rather than the hallway of rooms of "laughing mongrels" and "violent mongrels," I just filled the rooms with families of patients. They were trying to start their own little civilization at the Abbey, far from their old lives, that they felt they couldn't return to for a variety of reasons. Some patients were too in shock and horrified by the results of their 'surgery' to return home alone, as the Barovian mountains are dangerous. Others had sought out the Abbot because they had already lost everything they had at home. Some people needed continuous upkeep on their replacement bits, just like Vasilka does, and don't want to stray too far from the Abbey. The Belviews and Clovin exist, but more as middlemen between the Abbott and the patients, who often understandably do not with to communicate with the Abbott. The Belviews will go hunting in the local woods and bring back stew meat for everyone at the Abbey (a plot point that makes them an easy suspect in Ilya's plotline). In short, the patients aren't 'insane,' they're disabled and/or chronically ill, and were failed by the Abbott. Again, this only works if you lean into the tragic, gothic horror tilt and lean away from the more modern "freakshow" type horror that was written in the text.

I think those are the main points I really wanted to make regarding the ableism in CoS, but if there's anything glaring I missed, please feel free to add on!!

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

What are some things you think about a lot, more than most other things you think

I'm thinking about this right now, and it seems like the answer is "whether or not I am a good person." It's hard to put into words how much that bothers me. There are some people who seem to feel very confident in their own moral bona fides. But I just don't see myself as one of those people. Even though I know there are plenty of things I do well (both in terms of being nice and friendly toward other humans and also just in terms of general life competence) . . . there is always something that looks bad when you look at yourself. And even if you try really hard to fix your flaws, they keep coming back; so you have this sense of having been through cycles of self-improvement and then regression, over and over again, for years on end. At least it feels that way to me, but maybe others experience this less acutely? [EDIT: actually, after writing all this, I think there may be more than two options here -- either people genuinely feel good about themselves, which means they never notice all these flaws, or else they mostly notice them, but can somehow find ways to cope with them without getting too depressed.]

This sounds pathetic and whiny, but it's really true! Some of my friends have told me that I often come off as arrogant or conceited because I tend to talk about what I believe in strongly, and that makes it sound like I don't care what anyone else thinks. And while that's probably true, I feel terrible when people tell me this. Especially since my strongest opinions aren't on subjects where there's any real controversy anyway. They're usually about stuff no one cares about, or issues everyone agrees upon, or a weird mix of both. So it seems like my only excuse would be that I'm an idiot who doesn't realize he has nothing interesting to say, except that I do get some positive feedback from time to time, so I guess I must really be that big an idiot. Or I could try to become someone whose beliefs line up perfectly with the prevailing wisdom, thereby becoming uninterestingly conventional. Which would be bad enough, but worse still would be to have a reputation as a screwup among people who think conventionally. Not sure why I haven't done anything like that yet. Maybe I've tried, and failed, because I simply cannot stop talking about myself. That was probably what made college so torturous -- I spent most of my social interactions trying to figure out whether I had said something stupid or insulting, or if it was just that my conversational partners were awkward/unwilling to make conversation. I didn't want to ask them directly whether they disliked me or thought I was dumb, because I wanted to maintain plausible deniability. In hindsight, I wish I had asked straight out whether I seemed annoying or anything. Then again, I wouldn't trust anyone's answers to such questions, given the times I misread intentions and ended up saying something wrong.

Anyway, I should clarify that this isn't really a complaint post. Just an observation about a pattern that runs throughout my life. My natural state is to feel like a loser, and every once in a while this feeling becomes intense enough to cause pain and grief, but basically this is normalcy for me, in the same way that walking