#and their worldbuilding drives me up the fucking WALL

[arosnowflake]

The most annoying thing about the Gerudo in BOTW is the orientalism, racism and misogyny. The second most annoying thing about the Gerudo in BOTW is the way the orientalism, racism and misogyny directly tank their worldbuilding.

I'm not gonna talk about why the Gerudo are orientalist, people smarter and more informed than me have already done so extensively and I don't have anything to add to that discussion. I'm here to bitch about how it affects the worldbuilding to the extent where Gerudo society, as portrayed in BOTW, does not make much of any sense in-universe.

Let's be clear here: the worldbuilding would be trash even if it made complete in-universe sense because it's orientalist and misogynist. But it doesn't even make sense in-universe and it's pretty much entirely because of the orientalism and misogyny.

Two things are true about the Gerudo at once: 1) they do not allow men into Gerudo Town, and 2) they are absolutely obsessed with finding husbands. I don't want to guess at percentages, but a truly ridiculous portion of the dialogue the Gerudo get is somehow related to finding husbands, being in love with men, etc. It is baked into their culture, most obviously exemplified in the love lessons that occur in Gerudo Town. But, more important than lessons or whatever, is the fact that leaving Gerudo Town to find a husband is considered a coming of age rite of passage for young women. It is an integral part of Gerudo culture to leave on a journey to find a husband.

And let's be clear: the goal here is absolutely, unambiguously long-term marriage. Many Gerudo you meet lament the shallow nature of the men who try to pursue them, we see Gerudo who reference husbands they currently have, and just generally the way the Gerudo talk indicates that they are not looking for a one-night stand or a summer romance: they are looking for something permanent. They are looking for marriage, and a good portion of them succeed.

So. Uh. Where do their husbands live?

The only time see any Gerudo who permanently lives outside of Gerudo Town is in Tarrey Town, and you're the one who brought her there. All the other Gerudo you meet outside of Gerudo Town or Kara Kara Bazaar are travelling. There are no Gerudo residents in Kakariko, Hateno, or Lurelin, or mixed Gerudo children.

This is very, very weird when you consider that married Gerudo would not be able to live with their husbands in Gerudo Town. The 'no men allowed' rule has no exceptions, so if a newly wed couple wanted to live together - and they almost certainly would - they would have to do so outside of Gerudo Town. And yet, we do not see them, despite demonstrable evidence that married Gerudo do exist.

There is another option, of course: that Gerudo culture normalizes long distance relationships even for married couples, and that the husbands live outside of Gerudo Town whereas the wives live within it. This is theoretically possible, except we never get any real in-game hints indicating it. It's still the option that makes the most sense, but it's a fanmade band-aid solution, not a real element of the worldbuilding.

Either which way, the inherent conflict between 'men are not allowed in Gerudo Town' and 'a big part of the Gerudo Town culture is to get married to men' should logically be causing tension. While the guards take the rule very seriously, most of the people you meet inside Gerudo Town don't really care that you're a man, and we know there's a thriving black market supplying men's clothes. This indicates that, already, in canon, most Gerudo play fast and loose with this rule to begin with, and don't have much special attachment to it.

Which makes it even more glaring that nobody seems to be arguing against it. Logically, there should be conflict between the Gerudo who value the tradition of an all-women Gerudo Town, and the Gerudo who want to be able to live with their husbands in their hometown. With how incredibly centered the Gerudo's culture is on these two things, this should be a major political problem that's going to singlehandedly turn Riju grey before she even comes of age. There should be discontent and unrest from newlyweds and long devoted wives who don't want to leave their home behind to be with their husbands, and don't want to leave their husbands behind to be home. Who would want to, at the very least, be able to show their husbands their childhood home.

But even if there wasn't, there should be a larger Gerudo presence outside of Gerudo Town. Either Kara Kara Bazaar should be a lot larger and more populated than it currently is, or there should be one or more smaller towns around Gerudo Town where the married Gerudo live with their husbands, or where the husbands of the Gerudo who live in Gerudo Town reside. You cannot tell me every single Gerudo would be okay with abandoning their culture and moving in with their husbands; even if they could not bring their husbands back to Gerudo town, they would frequently like to live somewhere close by. And if we take the long-distance approach, there would be plenty of couples who wouldn't want to be separated too far, and therefore there'd be husbands moving closer to their wives, even if they could not live in the same town.

But say, for the sake of the argument, that this also didn't happen: then, at the very least, we ought to see Gerudo in other Hylian settlements. We ought to see Gerudo who live in Hateno, Kakariko, Lurelin, and maybe even at the stables. We ought to find populations of diaspora and mixed race Gerudo who have grown up outside of Gerudo Town, and have maybe even never visited it. We have circled back around to the first point of argument.

If the Gerudo are getting married, we should see evidence of their husbands, somehow, beyond dialogue references and quest objectives.

The reason we don't, of course, is obvious: orientalism. The Gerudo are an orientalist idea of a harem, exotic women out of reach yet practically begging to be conquered by Western men. They want to be with men, are searching for men, yet are very rarely shown to find one because doing so would pop the fantasy being sold to male players: that they could be the one to get them.

So to successfully sell this orientalist, misogynist fantasy, the worldbuilding becomes completely and utterly nonsensical.

[HAS NOT PLAYED TEARS OF THE KINGDOM DISCLAIMER]

[love-killed-the-superstar]

ugly crying i think i need to rewatch fast forward but take detailed notes this time

[mdhwrites]

if you've seen Steven universe how would you compare it to TOH? I've seen many takes that TOH is Steven Universe 'done correctly' which drives me up a wall, especially since TOH has a lot of the same flaws as SU (pretty much everyone has to be tied to steven in some way- the same way everyone's gotta tie into Luz, White Diamond pisses me off for the same reason the collector does and dear god both finales are messes and the worldbuilding is also kind of messy) but pretty much everyone can agree that Steven Universe's themes of restorative justice are good, its themes surrounding interpersonal relationships and intergenerational trauma is good- I've seen people justify how TOH handles its villains 2 ways "its doing steven universe's restorative justice but like correctly" or "its about killing your oppressors, which steven should have done" which is dumb. Idk this fandom has a huge hate-boner for SU and Amphibia in general though. I also saw someone have the take the collector and belos where foils which... Is weird I can see where they come from but they never are put together in a way that highlights their similarities and differences. So what are some actual comparisons that can made between the shows outside of LGBT characters and surface level stuff?

Sadly I have not seen Steven Universe so I can't really comment on much of it. I've seen the first episode (both halves), decided the gems were insufferable to me and Steven was okay and went on with my life because at the time, I was a full time college student and a part time Walmart employee. I do like some of the songs that have reached me but I never got an in with the show, especially since my early experience with it was much like Gravity Falls where I heard a lot of high concept stuff about it but not much about why I would actually enjoy a given episode, what was enjoyable about the characters, etc. like that. Honestly, the only criticism I know of for it is that people hate the ending.

BUT.

I have seen one other thing. I have seen about twenty minutes of the Steven Universe movie. With that I can say one thing definitively even if it's not clearing a high bar: The Diamond's turn to good is better than the Collector's because they have literally ANY reason to listen to the person preaching at them. The Collector doesn't. In fact, he has no reason to reform and it is drastically out of character for him to care about... Anyone?

Let me start on the Diamond's side because I don't have a lot to say about this but it is something I'm surprised I haven't heard anyone talk about: They were clearly traumatized by the loss of Pink Diamond. Whether or not you think this is a good part of the plot isn't what matters, the point is that this is a literal fact to the story. This grief has gone unresolved for literal decades (just going by Steven's lifespan, someone in my Discord provided the context that they blamed themselves for her DEATH, not just disappearance, for CENTURIES which only bolsters the point I'm making) and has festered in them a desperation for their old comrade? Friend? I don't 100% know but you get the point. So when her son arrives and can't be kept by force, they're going to be pretty amenable to listen to whatever demands means keeping him around. Is that great? No, I wouldn't say it is as the question of what happens when Steven dies is there but it works for forcing them to consider the consequences of their actions and how they may need to change to have the life they desire. It is a compelling force for the first step of change. It's not amazing but it is at least functional from a narrative standpoint, an emotional standpoint and from a character standpoint. Not that it's great but that it is functional. You can string together how this works without having to just invent bullshit.

The Collector has none of these three because he's the literal fucking worst.

I've talked about this before but the Collector isn't the child the fandom treats him as. Even if we try to disconnect the second season version of the Collector, who very much so knows what death is and the consequences of his actions, S3 Collector does have a foil to Belos: He's an actual colonizing piece of shit. Not in that he is literally colonizing places but in mindset. Everything to him is something to be used for his entertainment or enrichment or it is to be stripped of all rights and brutally oppressed until it fits the role he desires. This is what happens when you become a LITERAL. FUCKING. DOLL. And he even has enforcers like the armies colonies would use that have wildly more powerful magic, i.e. technology, in order to make that oppression more seamless. Remember: Hexside is actively hiding from roaming stars that he just has going around the Isles that hoover up people, making at least those who resist into dolls immediately without question, and then bringing them to him to be new play toys in his game. That is explicitly what he has been doing to the entire Isles for MONTHS once S3 episode 2 happens.

People do not matter to him and this even extends to King. When King steps out of line, The Collector cracks the whip. He's even willing to KILL KING for having the gall of caring about anyone other than him. Those death games would be just as lethal to King as it would be to Eda and Luz after all. And if you actually do divorce S2's "PLAY AMONGST THE BONES!" line (which is fucking awful because you have to remove literally all of the first appearances of a character which is usually considered, you know... Bad) and believe that he doesn't know what death is... He knows what pain is. He knows what torture is. He knows the despair of being trapped in a space where you can't move or act or do anything except watch as an observer on a world that could destroy you at any moment because your prison is all of your being.

And then he makes people into dolls, with consciousness, without a second thought. He is willing to BREAK people in order to make them play along. His literal plan was to shatter the bodies of the Owl House trio over and over and over again until they were subservient to his desires. That is WORSE than just wanting to kill them. And he only stops to throw a tantrum because he fails to succeed and starts whining about it like any selfish asshole not getting his way. Not like a child: Like a selfish asshole.

So with ALL of this, what does the show do to try to make him consider the consequences of his actions? Well... Nothing. It claims it's trying to do something but the tour with the trio is much more a circle jerk about how amazing the show was and how much could have happened if not for the shortening ("That sounds like something that could have been its own spin off!" Or whatever King says to Eda talking about her and Raine's time at Hexside) than it is about talking to the Collector. There's a couple lines here and there, talking to him about what works for making friends but does it stick?

No, the Collector learns nothing and in mocking Steven Universe, they make that clear. The Collector is told that people are complex and you must show compassion. Rather than actually believing this, he uses it like a blunt hammer, just like all of his other solutions, to make a problem of his go away. That's why he hugs Belos and assumes it will work. He is not considering the complexity of humanity or the person he is applying this to. It is just to solve a problem so he'll get praised and go back to playing his games. Nothing. More.

And then he fucks off instead of fixing the damage he'd done because why would he stay? Why would he help? He hasn't learned anything and he doesn't want to help these people. He has NO motivation for why he helps save the Archive except otherwise he loses his sweet crash pad. So afterwards? He's gonna go somewhere where he can be himself and not be scolded for it because this toy is no longer fun.

Edit: He does stay to change everyone back from dolls. That much more falls into the "It's the ending, we have to have the problem only he can fix be fixed by him" despite the fact that he is responsible for so much more destruction that would theoretically be pretty easy for him to fix as well. He only does what is demanded of him for the sake of a happy ending, not because of character motivation, not from how I see it at least.

The most condemning part of this is that it's all around Luz. All around someone he doesn't like. He sees Luz as trying to take away his only friend after all and, you know, he is correct about that. They don't even try to hide that fact during the tour. They're still clearly upset with him and not even trying to be his friend, they're just lecturing him. It doesn't work from a character perspective, a narrative perspective or an emotional one. King MIGHT have with better writing, there's a reason I always wanted the Collector redeemed by one of his games forcing him to have to kill King by the rules he made before breaking it and having to face how that's unfair and cruel to others since they wouldn't get that leniency, but that's not how the show plays it. King is an unwilling servant for one episode and then VERY against the Collector in the next until after the death games. When he first shows up, King isn't trying to mediate, he is ready to fight just like the other two. He's not the Collector's friend and he never was so why would the Collector bother listening to him?

That is why me saying the Diamonds, even with my limited knowledge, works better than the Collector is almost literally the worst you can do when it comes to something like this. All the setup is wrong, the catalyst requires explicit retcons and don't work with the character and the payoff is... Nothing. Literally nothing. The only way to have done it worse is to have had everyone praise the Collector before he then stabbed Amity and no one acted like that was a problem. It can only function because we are TOLD he's redeemed even if he never shows it.

Andrias standing alone as a farmer, accepting the punishment for his actions and trying to make better on them, is such better payoff to a redemption arc than anything the Collector gets and his redemption was in character and setup by his past. So then let's get to one of your last points: Why is it that the TOH fandom rags on SU and Amphibia so much, especially for their endings, when theirs is such shit?

Well... Because that's the reputation of TOH. That it is the 'good' one. That it is better than almost all other media. The show itself, with moments like the Collector mocking the SU ending by hugging Belos, reinforces this. As such, for you to criticize TOH as failing in a department that other shows are not rapturously praised for is to fall out of sync with the show itself. As such, all other works must be placed beneath it, especially if those are widely believed to have a flaw in an element to then raise TOH up with. This is part of why so many people want to say the Amphibia ending is wrong because the Amphibia ending is brave and controversial and saying something while the TOH ending?

I mean... Do you really think the Collector's the only part of it objectively flawed like this? Because if a major redemption for your big bad is botched this badly, you can bet other problems exist. I've talked about them at length. But there are probably people out there who would call me the Lily Orchard of TOH if I was better known.

See you next tale.

======+++++======

That last line isn't an endorsement of Lily Orchard btw, just that I have to imagine it's the label I would be given. What little exposure I've had to her works is... YIKES. Just fucking yikes. My Discord has really enjoyed every time I've live reacted to a video of hers they've posted there. sigh

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[icedsodapop]

The discourse over Reckoning of Roku is really driving me up the wall becos you really have fans (namely Zutara stans) saying that Gyatso was just as bad as Sozin for saying that the Air Nomads should spread their teachings around the world. Now, an argument can be made over how wanting to teach one's philosophy/religious beliefs can be seen as a form of religious supremacy and at its worst, could be a slippery slope to neocolonialism. And these ideas could honestly be interesting to explore within the world of ATLA given how idealised the Air Nomads have been depicted, seeing a less flattering side to the Air Nomads would add a layer of worldbuilding. However, the argument that Gyatso is just as bad as Sozin can be burned to fucking ashes when the show depicted Sozin orchestrating the genocide of the Air Nomads, Gyatso being one of the victims. So, no matter how bad the Air Nomads can be, at least they have never orchestrated fucking genocide??

And then there was one user who wrote about how it would have been cool to explore how the Air Nomads' negative side could be one of the key reasons to their downfall, and it really rubbed me the wrong way becos the wording kinda implies that the Air Nomads were complicit in their own genocide. Like it doesn't matter if the Air Nomads were wrong or whatever, the Fire Nation should never have committed genocide in the first place??

[wannab-urs]

The Spreadsheet Digest - Vol. 24

Howdy folks!

I love how I said I was never waiting two weeks to do a digest again and then almost immediately did it again. Anyway if you're new here, this is every new (to me) fic I read this week (and last week) and some of my silly little thoughts about them. I have 19 fics for you this week!

As always you can find all of my previous recs here and the original spreadsheet here (now updated with warnings, author summaries, and word counts + I'm checking for broken links).

Recs below the pedro!

Multiples/MMF/MMMF

Euclidean Geometry - Frankie/Jack/Pero one shot by @leslie-lyman

I’d never have thought to put these three together and even if i had, it would have been straight up PWP no feelings. But this is STUNNING. It’s only 1.4k words but there’s such a depth to it. The different dynamics each of the boys and reader brings to the relationship, the way they care for each other AHHH and then the little flash scenes of smut 🥵🥵

The Impaler - Tim Rockford/Max Phillips one shot by @kiwisbell

This is my first Tim Rockford fic EVER and I adored it. I’m a big fan of making Max into a more serious and scary vampire and this was… so fucking hot y’all. (kinda dubcon for Tim bc he seems to be under a bit of a trance). Guys this has like every MMF position you could ever want. DVP… Spitroast… It’s so hot. And reader is so hot. And I’m melting fr.

Joel

Attraction Spell - joel one shot by @jksprincess10

I love a vampire Joel, I really really do. And I love a witchy reader just as much if not more. TW for NonCon bc Joel like… stalks reader and then gets her to basically drug herself with an attraction spell and then he also like.. Is a vampire? So there’s that. I loved this so so much. Joel is hot and scary.

Made by Hand - Joel one shot by @tinycozycomfort

Reader is married and Joel is your lover. He doesn’t really have anything to offer you at all – I mean he can’t give you something that would get you caught and he doesn’t seem to have much to give anyway. But he hand sews you a pair of cuffs made from blue ribbon AHHHHH. This fic is heartbreaking and so beautifully written. Of course the smut is hot, but the peek into Joel’s mind is really what does it for me here. He is so sad. UGHGHGHGHGH. Gimme 800 chapters of this STAT.

Garden of Earthly Delights - Joel one shot by @thesimulationswarm

What’s Gin a slut for? That’s right. Sub!Joel. Reader is a little badass in this and Joel is honestly pathetic and it’s so hot. His general air of violence and like… being a terrifying man are still present, which just makes it better that reader reduces him to a pathetic whimpering mess. Submissive Apple Washing is my favorite tag ever, also. 

Balsam - Joel series by @thesimulationswarm

This one is great if you love characters. The author really takes the time to build up the characters in the town, really situating you in the lives of the people of Jackson. There’s no smut as of yet; this is a slow burn and Nina/Doc (the OC) is really just starting to connect with Joel at this point. I cannot say enough how much I love the worldbuilding in this. I adore the characters and their intricate and detailed relationships and the inner conflicts going on with each of them. This is gorgeous and I’m so excited for the next chapter.

@theywhowriteandknowthings Murder Daddy Kinktober

Neighbor's Gardener's Brother Joel, MDKT Sex Pollen - Joel, MDKT Day 17 - Din

Ok the neighbor’s gardener’s brother Joel is hotter than it has any right to be. He’s filthy, reader is filthy. It’s beautiful. 

The sex pollen fic… man I fucking love sex pollen. And you also get tentacles and mind fuck and all the other delicious monsterfucking things that drive me up a damn wall (dub con obvi…). 

And Day 17 - a bounty who keeps running from Din because she loves to be caught by him. She’s thrilled by the chase so much she…. Oops spoilers… Just read it. It’s being turned into a full series and I cannot wait to read it! 

Din

Good Taste - Din series by @charnelhouse

Pornstar!Din – the crack fic this came from is also great, but I really enjoyed this. Din is so fucking hot and like kind of a dick, which I love very much. I only read the crackfic and the main fic, but there’s a whole list of drabbles that I’m sure I’ll dig into later. 

Ezra

Long Fall into Oblivion - Ezra one shot by @oonajaeadira

As usual, Adira wrote something I love with my whole heart – who’s surprised? Not me. Anyway Ezra is training you to be a prospector and he is absolutely lovely. Reassuring, kind, protective. Adira does non-explicit smut so well she basically invented the concept. 

Shorn - Ezra one shot by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Ezra really likes your body hair, but it is time for you to shave – I love a fucking weird ass fic and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say erotic shaving is weird. I also don’t normally love shaving scenes in fics/books because there can be an element of shaming the natural body? But this fic does the opposite. It celebrates the natural body through the lens of Ezra and is also just unreasonably fucking hot. I love that weird little man with all my heart. 

Dream Within a Dream - Ezra one shot by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Incubus!Ezra – so yes, you die, because that’s what incubuses (incubi?) do. They rock your dream world and then they consume you. But listen… Ezra is ethereal and gorgeous, the dream world is absolutely stunning, the smut is hot, and honestly I’d beg him to eat my heart out too. I can’t say enough about this fic actually. I read it this morning and I’m still reeling. 

Javier Peña

you miss me? - Javi P one shot by @amanitacowboy

You tease Javi while he’s at work and he punishes you for it when he gets home… and it is so deliciously good. Dom!Javi has me in a chokehold (or I wish he did). 

The Raid - Javi P one shot by @toxicanonymity

Some dark!Javi from toxic! Your boyfriend or whatever gets his house raided by the DEA and Javi saves you from getting uhhh used… by his coworkers. But then he takes you for himself. Based loosely on her Raider!Joel series. Obviously non/dub con. Javi is so mean and hot pls. 

Pent Up - Javi P one shot by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

Javi hurt his ankle (which Ang did as a dig at me because I did the same) and can’t drive, so he hasn’t been able to get any… release… which leads to him jacking off at his desk after hours. It’s so hot. I was like laughing at him up til he actually touches himself and then I about fell over. What I wouldn’t give to be his lil stress reliever. Javi baby I would live under your desk if you asked me to. 

Frankie

You hired a cleaning lady, Mr. Morales? - Frankie one shot by @beskarandblasters

After the events of TF Frankie is in a bit of a depression (understandable), and his house gets more than a little messy. Santi hires a cleaning service (you) to help him out. Listen… I wish I was as bold as reader. After the sexual tension between you and Frankie gets too much to bear, you show up in a god damn sexy maid outfit to torture him into convince him to finally make a move on you. It’s so hot… reader is a sexy bad ass bitch and Frankie is adorable and so hot. 

snowball kiss - Frankie one shot by @beskarandblasters

The discord found this definition on urban dictionary and Kel ran with it. It’s filthy in the best way. Pussy eating king Frankie learned a new trick and honestly it’s devastating me emotionally that I can’t have him

Dieter

Dress me up and call me pretty - Dieter one shot by @morallyinept

Messy Messy Messy Dieter – my favorite type of Dieter. His drug addiction and overall patheticness are in full force here. He wants to make himself look pretty so he uses your makeup. You come home and make sure he feels loved and beautiful, and also ruin his makeup. Pegging/sub dieter/etc but also… this fic is really fucking sweet. It kind of broke my heart despite also being filthy and depraved and I love that in a Dieter fic. I love how reader is like "we'll try again" like??? How dare you make me cry when I'm reading sub!dieter. Dammit. 

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My most recent work is Starving Season - a twisted little Dave York love as consumption three parter that I plan to add a fourth part to soon.

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Happy Reading!

[gctchell]

what is one thing that makes you happy about writing any of your muses?

One is definitely feeling the affection that my characters hold for other characters here. Every feeling, while found in love, is unique and is built on that specific connection. It can be so sweet and warm, or it can be so bittersweet.

Niffty's blooming romance with Sir Pentious ( @fearedelight ) has been so cute to feel. It's warm, it's fuzzy, and it's real. She hasn't felt real love like that in a long time and she keeps whispering to me how genuine it feels and how happy it makes her, and she doesn't know what to do with that. She wants him, and she's telling me she's going to stop all these "he's marriage material" comments now because she doesn't want anyone (not played characters, npcs) to see that he's available. She's falling in love and she's really happy about it.

Lilith's fussing over Chava / Pomni ( @heavenslie ), the youngest of the Morningstar children, is something else. She's a mother who encourages independence in her children, she'll hold their hands and help them to walk and fly, but she wants them to experience the sensation of walking on their own and building themselves and their life. Chava is a unique case; she was a birth after the "death" of Carmi ( also by @heavenslie ) and ages ago, Lilucia.

The "brutal death" of Carmi fueled by the sudden infant death of Lilu has made Lilith very protective over Chava (Lucifer even moreso). While she still wants her to have freedom and encourages her to have fun, she gets very frantic without constant feedback when she is out there in the world. Fate laughs as Chava is the most exploratory of the daughters - she bounces around and gets more distance, does more traveling, and throws herself into a plethora of different lifestyles and businesses. She pushes herself pretty hard trying to forge an identity. It worries her mother deeply, the way she lives.

Lilith loves Chava, and she knows she is being too sheltering with the need for communication when she sends Asmodeus & Beelzebub (the eldest amongst the Morningstar children in L, Peggy, Peach and me's worldbuilding) to find her when she's partying out of Pride and not calling/texting back, but she can't help it.

Feeling Lilith's grief over "losing" Chava because she put on a funny headset is something else. :') The feeling of failure and regret, and the desperate need to get her back. It's so pungent.

Sliding from that, the bittersweet emotion that Lilith has going on with Asmodeus ( @jizzlords ). This is one of her oldest and fondest of connections, they branch back to the start of Hell, or just nearly. There is such a deep fondness for this man in Lilith's chest, she loves him dearly, but being so damned busy with Hell (and eventually a child) during one of the most corrosive times of his life really hurt. They love each other, and they're mending the damage of time. The love has not died.

Then, there's the Eves. Not to keep on Lilith (she is my LOUDEST muse I'm sorry), but Lilith's complicated relationship with Eve ( @damnedrainbows & @edenpoise ) is so gutwrenching. :D Lilith did wrong by these women in such a massive way and she knows she has earned however they feel about her, and she is trying to make it right. Even in different slices of lifetimes, one where she is a prisoner to Eve ( @edenpoise ) and one where she is about to go toe-to-fucking-toe with Eve ( @damnedrainbows ) while also having a thread where an attempt at peace is being made is so.. oo. Lotta stuff to unpack and play with, there. Can't wait.

That's a thing that I love, too. It's something that I think a lot of people love. You can interact with five to ten versions of the same character, and the relationship is going to be unique. Each friendship and romance is going to be personalized. I love to do that a lot.

.. THEN THERE'S WHAT CARMILLA HAS GOING ON WITH ZESTIAL ( @arachnaemboss ) THAT IS DRIVING BOTH JACK AND ME UP THE GODDAMN WALL. Old world pining KKASFKSAFKSAFKFSDKFSKF- I love them. I do. It is just so hard to feel all this powerful love Carmilla has for that man and she is going nowhere with it outside of a REALLY INTENSE FRIENDSHIP THAT HAS YET TO BREAK THE LINE. :D SHE MAKES THE MAN RINGS AND JEWELRY FROM HOLY WEAPONRY AND AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Okay.

Back to sanity.

It's really cool just to be able to feel the depth of care and/or feeling my muses have for other's characters. It's all different like I said, personalized. I love it and I am thankful to my roleplay partners for letting me write & build with them in these capacities. There's others I have not even touched here, others that I am very obsessed with, but I will just be writing into the sunset if I do that bc I can write for hours about my rp partners. I love every connection, every friendship, and every romance I am getting to write with others here and I am, again, so grateful for that.

Thank you for the question. :']

[veliseraptor]

WIP meme: let the foxes fight ?

I have to ask about DoL fic but if I can do two I am 👀 beholding the "original fiction- ex villains project" also

i'll allow it (she said officiously and entirely non-seriously)

so let the foxes fight is one that I think I referenced relatively recently as one of my fics that's like...this feels relevant to only my interests, probably, and would not exactly be a Hit even if anything in doctrine of labyrinths fandom could be described as a Hit (considering its size). the premise is basically "mildmay finds himself back in time before felix gets picked up by malkar, and takes it upon himself to rescue a traumatized older-younger brother from the brothel he's stuck in, and then is like 'okay but what do i do with him now' because as much as mildmay i think likes kids and knows from trauma this is not exactly a situation he was/is prepared to deal with.

i also don't really know where this is going, which is part of why this one has been sitting unfinished on my hard drive for literal years. part of my policy of "oooh I have an idea, let me just start writing it and see what happens" and then a couple thousand words in I run into a wall.

I exhaled hard trying to think what to say and finally just said, “I ain’t mad.” He gave me that real careful sideways look. “You ain’t,” he said slowly. I shook my head and he unwound a little, maybe, so I guess he might be buying my story about being a long-lost relative. That was a kept-thief fairytale right there. Felix was a little old for those now but I guess you never really grew out of wanting. “Yeah,” I said. “Like I said. I just want to help.” He relaxed a little more, and nodded, barely. “Okay,” he said, and gave me this little nervous smile, and it looked like the ones he’d given me sometimes when he was crazy and scared but glad I was there just the same, and sure as fuck felt like someone had my heart in their fist and was squeezing.

and then there's the ex-villain story which is probably my main squeeze as far as original fiction goes right now even if I've been stalled for a while because Worldbuilding Is My Nemesis and I need to do kind of a lot of it. this one was born out of my redemption equals death bugbear and how I love stories about people who have done awful things who then have to try to live with them, especially when they don't really want to live with them but they're kind of stuck with it. so my main character (kazem, @portraitoftheoddity actually made art of him here) is basically the Dark Lord of his world (or, well, he was, up until the local hero managed to beat him/talk him into beating himself) and the story takes place three years later when he is in a depression pit with no idea what to do with himself. also featuring:

a very angry mess of a woman whose sister died as a result of kazem's bad stuff;

another very angry woman who's my main antagonist because of some stuff in the hero's past (because i'm obsessed with hero figures who create their own villains) but i'm going to have a really hard time not rehabilitating her (only my problem is that she would rather die than give up on revenge, so);

said hero character who is basically acting as kazem's sponsor but is more of a fuckup than he looks at first blush;

and I really like it in concept and what I have so far in execution (again, a couple thousand words) but Worldbuilding, My Nemesis keeps getting in my way.

anyway, a snippet:

On the third anniversary of his defeat, Kazem didn’t get out of bed. The first year he’d stayed out of the way of the celebrations out of a sense of propriety and because of the fact that he was still coughing up blood every time he tried standing for longer than thirty seconds at a time. The second year he tried attending, thinking that he should pay his respects, show some sort of regret or remorse or...something.  He’d nearly gotten himself hanged.  So the third year, he woke up in the morning and stared at the ceiling, and made the very deliberate decision that today he was just going to...not. The sound of the celebrations outside drifted through the window of his dismal current abode, and he tried to shut it out. He was vaguely aware that he was indulging in self pity, but could not quite bring himself to care.  He could stay here feeling sorry for himself for the next three days if he damn well wanted to. 

[devilishdescent]

f&h puts me in a weird position of trying to engage with it where i quite like miro's writing at a zoomed out level - scenario design, worldbuilding, even character arcs and sentiments expressed are quite strong. the stuff that happens around marina alone is really interestingly nuanced and even well told, subtle, smart. but the ground level of miro's writing, the actual dialogue and descriptions, drives me up the wall with its inconsistency. one of the first things termina hits you with after its (striking as hell) opening sequence is a fucking dead rising reference, in 2023. not just as a throaway, either; the dead rising joke and what is said in response serve to establish two major, playable, characters. miro if you follow me can i be your editor. big fan btw

[transingthoseformers]

RID15 and my responses to it are interesting because i like a lot of the characters, designs, and worldbuilding, but a nice amount of the plot and continuity stuff wants to make me chew on glass. Honestly I wish rid15 was it's own stand alone continuity rather than a sequel to tfp. The fact that it's specifically aligned but has lore changes drives me up the wall. It would have been just fine as it's own continuity, hell better! And we damn know my opinion on the copaganda aspect of it all, which I should have expected but in the third season it feeks like it equally doubles down yet twists into being against shitty laws which? ??? Fucking choose are you for them are you against them is it a listen to authority™️ but ohh nooo the authority™️ was bad how could we have knoowwwnnn situation?

I know the meta reason is because they were going with a "all Decepticons bad" route which not even tfp did Optimus gave people chances, but somewhere along the way decided to also go "but not all autobots are good" route which places us in this very odd tone tilt. No, I have not finished it yet shhhhh i will soon enough. But basically my relationship with RID15 is complicated as hell.

[panarchie]

For the ask game:

6, 8, 16, 24, 25

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

solasmancers, for several reasons. don't get me wrong - some of the best and most creative and nicest people I have met in this fandom have romanced solas, but they are not solasmancers (listen, solas was my first dragon age love interest, too, because I had a console before I had a game-worthy computer, and yet I am not a solasmancer). they like to play pain olympics, are whiny as hell even though "the mage will betray you" is a well known bioware trope, some are very enthusiastic about potentially committing mass murder/genocide in game, and the most ferocious, pessimist, pre-emptive haters of DA:D that I have seen are usually solasmancers.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

fen'harel isn't actually part of the elven pantheon, nor is he part of the forgotten ones. elven - and theodosian - mythology has many motifs about symmetry and balance. the creators are led by mythal and elgar'nan, who represent two sides of the same coin, two aspects, two manifestations who mirror each other. the forgotten ones and the evanuris work much the same way. and fen'harel was said to walk among both, since both sets of gods recognized him as one of their own. as lore currently stands, I don't think fen'harel belongs to either; I think he might be a manifestation of something else entirely.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

dragon age is full of choices and obviously, the biggest and most controversial of those is the recruitment of templars vs mages in inquisition. like everyone in this fandom I have many thoughts on this. but: I do not understand people who choose harrowmont over bhelen as king of orzammar. like, yeah, bhelen is an ambitious piece of shit, but he is also orzammar's best choice. and in the case of the dwarves, they need cutthroat politics to not go extinct. harrowmont's rule just makes their problems worse in the long run.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

in my experience, sera and vivienne. people love to hate on sera because she has many internalized issues as a result of having a terrible fucking life as a multiply marginalized person. people love to hate on vivienne for having an extremely biased opinion on a controversial topic that concerns herself more than other non-mages who would love to "engage in discourse" about it. both are stand-ins for real life issues that regularly drive me up the wall, and, added into the mix, both are outspoken and unwavering, and an elven/black woman.

26. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

"the elves are getting too much attention in the games/books/comics/fandoms". elves are one of fantasy's most popular little add-ons to extant reality. the elves in dragon age are complex, layered, interesting, and have a longer history on the continent than humans. they are also the race chiefly oppressed by humans, who are both more numerous - thanks to genocide and slavery - and have also landed on thedas as immigrants, possibly invaders, when the elves were already an advanced civilisation. you could only even play an elf in 2 out of 3 dragon age games. you know who's fucking everywhere in the games? humans. you know who isn't, because of their population growth issues, and the places where the games where set up until now? dwarves and qunari. it's almost as if the worldbuilding has some influence over what and who we see in the games.

[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image ID: Reddit post on r/ DiscoElysium from u/beaMoon2016 tagged "Discussion" and titled: Never thought I'd read a story that so effectively captures why life in a broken system is worth living

Body text reads: I grew up in Iraq. When people hear this in the US, where I now live, they usually say: "Wow...that must have been hard."

I mean? I guess? I've been a couple hundred meters from ISIS bombings. The government is spectacularly dysfunctional. You never know when the electricity might be on. Most summer days are 50 C. The tap water is salty.

And I also love the wonky little generators people wire everywhere. I love the weird shark statue with Saddam torn off the top. I love the guys fishing in the river despite the fact that it's greenish black. I love how excited everyone gets about the government building one tiny new overpass. I also love the random overpass sitting in the dessert connected to zero roads. I love hearing our friends giggle as my dad ribs him for driving a Toyota Hilux, a favorite of terrorists transporting weapons. I love the stray cats that carefully pick their way over the barbed wire on our walls. I love the people that run towards a bombing instead of away because they want to help the survivors. I love the guy who fixed my glasses with a wrong-sized screw because he lived through sanctions and doesn't need dumb things like correctly-sized screws.

But it's almost impossible to explain this to most Americans. They picture a normal Iraqi life and think it would be their worst nightmare. So I'm used to just not sharing that part of my life, or ever seeing it in media.

So this game totally caught me off guard. We're in a setting in between apocalypses, starring an alcoholic fuckup from a corrupt occupier-aligned police force, who at best might keep a couple people from dying in a gang war. It's pretty bleak. It's also incredibly fucking joyful.

Just the prose alone is so sincere. You can't write stuff this goofy, flowery, beautiful, dumb, and moving ironically. The writers clearly love words far out of proportion to how much they might be able to actually change fundamentally broken systems.

And all the characters, the worldbuilding details, the interruptions from Shivers and Esprit de Corps, hell, all the bits and pieces of your brain. There's so much attention and thus so much love everywhere in this game for humans and what humans do. Doesn't matter if they might all get shot, blown up, or wiped clean by pale in a couple years. Doesn't matter if they brought it all on themselves. Right here, in this moment, they are human, and so they matter.

I feel like this game gets why my life in Iraq was worth living. Even if a lot of my fellow Americans think the world sure would be nicer and simpler if Iraqis just didn't exist.

I thought I had signed up for a fun 20-30 hour diversion, not the feeling of being loved?! /End ID]

an Iraqi gamer's beautiful review of Disco Elysium

[arosnowflake]

also because everyone was clearly wondering (sarcasm), here's my loz opinions so far:

A Link to the Past: Very good, can definitely see why it got as popular and influential as it did. Really loved exploring the overworld and the dungeon designs were strong. Unfortunately I am bad at video games and this game made me use an invincibility cheat and also clown music (to avoid gamer rage) to get through it. Like it was a genuine hit to my self esteem. So yeah I could've enjoyed it more than I did.

Link's Awakening DX: Perfect 10/10 no notes (lie). OK I feel like this game in many respects feels kinda unpolished; maybe it's just bc I was emulating it but some of the controls were a goddamn nightmare and I didn't find most of the dungeons particularly memorable. That said, the VIBES in this game are immaculate. From the Mario/Kirby cameos to the setting and story this game is deeply charming. Though I have my issues with it, I find the story a lot more compelling than I have so far in the other games, though obviously that could change once I get to the entries that focus more on their story. Also Marin is my daughter and I am obsessed with her.

Oracle of Ages: The dungeon designs in this one were surprisingly strong imo; this game has my fave dungeons of the series so far, and some of the items (like the seed shooter and mermaid's tail) are really fun. Unfortunately I found the rest of it pretty mid. Like it's still good, don't get me wrong, but it lacks the pizzaz that A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening both had. The story is very generic and I don't find any of the NPCs particularly compelling. Labrynna as a setting just doesn't grab me. The time traveling gimmick isn't particularly interesting to me, especially since I have a sneaking suspicion Ocarina of Time is just gonna do it better. It's not bad but I can see why it's one of the more forgotten LOZ titles.

Oracle of Seasons (so far): I haven't even gotten to the second dungeon yet so grain of salt lmao but I'm enjoying it much more than Oracle of Ages. I find the changing seasons gimmick a lot more interesting, the setting, story, and NPCs so far more fun than in Ages, and (although this is not Ages fault in the slightest and works in its favour), the connecting games gimmick is really coming into play now and it's fun.

Breath of the Wild (so far): I'm pretty solidly in the mid game I think? I have thirteen hearts, two extra thingies of stamina, the entire map is unlocked, I've acquired the Master Sword, I have about half of the photo memories, I've killed the big metal lizard and am set to kill the big metal bird and big metal elephant at any point I'd like to. I've been playing it off and on in between the other games bc this one and its sequel are much longer than the others and have a different formula. Anyway. The world is very impressive and beautiful, I think some of the story elements (the ones playing with the typical destiny angle) and Zelda as a character are very interesting, and this game's addictive in the sense that I can easily play it for like eight hours on accident. That said I don't think the shrines and koroks are particularly fun to get, which is a problem because they're probably the most important progression mechanics in the game, and it made especially the early game feel like kind of a slog. This game also drives me up the fucking WALL with its storytelling and worldbuilding because both are just woefully inadequate and it's INSANE to me because at several points they show that they CAN do it well they just. Don't. Most of the time. I had to cut an entire rant about how much it annoys me where I actually source these claims bc it singlehandedly made this post twice as long as it is now, so source: just trust me bro. It drives me INSANE and it's a serious damper on my enjoyment of the game.

[wittyno]

Things I want in season 2 of the bear

- a shot of Ratatouille (the food) with no context and carmy not knowing Ratatouille the movie.

- more flashbacks especially to Syd and Carmys fine dining years. Both because it be fun to see Joel McHale chef again and because it’s the perfect avenue to continue to critique the fine dining world and maybe the Michelin system, something I desperately want more of.

- Carmy, Sugar, and Mikey’s mom. If you follow @heardchef you will have seen us enter our villain eras and rant about how much angst we want to ring from their mom. Personally I think she would make Mikey’s death all about her in a really obnoxious way. People should grieve how they can, but…She feels like a woman who would make everything in her children’s lives all about her and wouldn’t consider others feelings. There is no way she handled a young Carmy (and his neurodivergency) well. Also the fact that sugar is nicknamed sugar might be a reference to how her mom treated her. I’ve also theorized that she is an alcoholic, see previously mentioned posts.

- more of Ibrahim and the gang. Marcus baking reaching new heights. Maybe him thinking of opening his own bakery and dealing with the internal struggle of that. Season one is very much about Carmy and working through his grief to acceptance, which is great. But is a thread that can now be relegated to the background. I want more about the other characters in the kitchen and their backstory. We got a bit of Tina and but I want more.

- more Richie growth. I don’t want Richie to turn into the writers excuse to make sexist comments and then excuse it by having the other characters gawk or admonish him. Community did this and it drives me up a wall. Like no, show me growth. No offense to Richie but I get why his wife left him. He’s not a stable guy. I want to meet his daughter and see more of another side to Richie. Watch him grow and see him earn a place in his daughter’s life. I don’t want him to turn into a pierce to be laughed at but not grow.

- more food porn. I mean this is a given but I want to be hungry, in more ways than one, after watching this show. I like shows that show off what their about about. Give me that food porn. Food is pretty and I think it can really drive home some cool themes.

- no time skip. Do not fucking peaky blinders me. Do not skip to the part where they are a successful restaurant. Show me more of that struggle. I get why shows do this, but I feel like it robs them of the connective tissue between season. If they do do it, I’d like it not to give me whiplash.

- IRS consequences. The 300k should be reported to the IRS and used to pay off their other debts. I know they won’t be. Cause they might be ill-gotten gains. The IRS has the time and the money to investigate and crawl so far up the bears backside that they’ll be coughing ink for a week. It’s also a nice way to continue the business side of the struggle to run a restaurant. It helps keep the connective tissue between seasons.

- more Pete. This is a Pete Stan account. I love him, and I love his and sugars relationship. Show me more of them. I love healthy couples. Show me that growth. I really want them to make him an accountant but they can’t because then why didn’t he offer to do the books for the beef. That would have had to have been established earlier. Richie and carmy would have refused but it still needed to be established.

- more worldbuilding. Maybe a competition with another shop. Maybe show some restaurant espionage. I feel like that could be played for comedic or dramatic effect.

- more trauma exploration. Peal that trauma onion for me. Show me more of the casts internal struggles. I mean Carmy will most likely remain the main character. So it most likely will be his trauma, which I’m fine with. Show me more of their mom and Of him growing up neurodivergent, cause that definitely caused trauma. Not that it has to but I am guessing that with the family he grew up in he didn’t have the best support and guidance.

- how did everyone else get into cooking? More backstories.

- I want to properly meet Syd’s dad. He seems like such an interesting character.

- another long shot episode. I know those are incredibly hard, especially with so much going on on screen. It’s one of those things that tightens the tension without making itself explicit. Had I not googled the show before watching it I wouldn’t have known it. But it ramps up the tension in a really cool way.

- more visually portraying characters inner emotions within the context of the story. This deserves its own post, but specifically the receipt printer printing Camrys inner spiraling thoughts is so cool. I want more of that. More on this in a later post.

- syd and carmy relationship. You knew this was coming but I want more of them and their blossoming whatever. I am not saying going from 10-69 but slow burn me. Slow cook me if you will.

[spearxwind]

As someone who is in and enjoys the furry fandom as well as being an avid NON FURRY sci-fi and fantasy writer/worldbuilder, your post about Nerus not being furry and saying that protogens didn't invent screen faces gives me SUCH a vicious joy. Because there are so many people who get so wrapped around the axle that certain traits belong so entirely to ONLY certain popular characters/species that they get nearly violent about white-knight defending that single thing. Additionally not every anthro/monster/alien/vaguely humanoid creature, whether synthetic or organic is a furry! And Additionally, if someone like myself draws something I choose to tag as furry, that does not mean everything I draw is also furry! Apologies for the little ramble, and thank you for sharing your incredible world and characters with us! I freaking love whenever you post!

Goddd it really drives me up the fucking wall sometimes, honestly it's one of the biggest reasons why I stopped actually associating with furries like, at ALL. It's like they somehow make everything be about the fandom. Even completely unrelated things. I've seen the screen face thing happen several times already too, if it looks vaguely similar it gets lumped into everything else

And Nereus? It's decidedly not even an anthro in any capacity. Like they cannot even lift their whole body off the ground on four legs they have the actual anatomy of a lizard. I don't understand... like are we just tagging the most animal adjacent stuff as furry now? It wasnt even one of the doodles where you could maybe GUESS it was an anthro, it was my jellyfish one in which you can 100% plainly see that it's not

Honestly I'm a lil scared to start posting about my anthros again cause with my new headworld there ARE going to be some, specifically Caval and Hades (a new shark guy) and I just dont want them to be perceived or categorized as furries tbh

[kimabutch]

[ID: screenshot of a text post in r/DiscoElysium by u/beamoon2016. The post title reads: "Never thought I'd read a story that so effectively captures why life in a broken system is worth living."

The post content reads: "I grew up in Iraq. When people hear this in the US, where I now live, they usually say: "Wow...that must have been hard."

I mean? I guess? I've been a couple hundred meters from ISIS bombings. The government is spectacularly dysfunctional. You never know when the electricity might be on. Most summer days are 50 C. The tap water is salty.

And I also love the wonky little generators people wire everywhere. I love the weird shark statue with Saddam torn off the top. I love the guys fishing in the river despite the fact that it's greenish black. I love how excited everyone gets about the government building one tiny new overpass. I also love the random overpass sitting in the desert connected to zero roads. I love hearing our friend giggle as my dad ribs him for driving a Toyota Hilux, a favorite of terrorists transporting weapons. I love the stray cats that carefully pick their way over the barbed wire on our walls. I love the people that run towards a bombing instead of away because they want to help the survivors. I love the guy who fixed my glasses with a wrong-sized screw because he lived through sanctions and doesn't need dumb things like correctly-sized screws.

But it's almost impossible to explain this to most Americans. They picture a normal Iraqi life and think it would be their worst nightmare. So I'm used to just not sharing that part of my life, or ever seeing it in media.

So this game totally caught me off guard. We're in a setting in between apocalypses, starring an alcoholic fuckup from a corrupt occupier-aligned police force, who at best might keep a couple people from dying in a gang war. It's pretty bleak. It's also incredibly fucking joyful.

Just the prose alone is so sincere. You can't write stuff this goofy, flowery, beautiful, dumb, and moving ironically. The writers clearly love words far out of proportion to how much they might be able to actually change fundamentally broken systems.

And all the characters, the worldbuilding details, the interruptions from Shivers and Esprit de Corps, hell, all the bits and pieces of your brain. There's so much attention and thus so much love everywhere in this game for humans and what humans do. Doesn't matter if they might all get shot, blown up, or wiped clean by pale in a couple years. Doesn't matter if they brought it all on themselves. Right here, in this moment, they are human, and so they matter.

I feel like this game gets why my life in Iraq was worth living. Even if a lot of my fellow Americans think the world sure would be nicer and simpler if Iraqis just didn't exist.

I thought I had signed up for a fun 20-30 hour diversion, not the feeling of being loved?!" End ID.]

:~)

[wizardlyghost]

of all caster classes bards are the ones that really put a dragon in my dungeon because from a worldbuilding perspective their magic makes no goddamn sense. like, lemme run through a list of player character magic sources real quick:

- wizards & artificers are magic nerds, get their magic from study & brainpower (int)

- clerics & druids are wisdom based, insightful & perceptive & shit, good at connecting with their surroundings/their god(s) and being a channel of power. rangers fit in here too but divide their attention between this and martial skillz

- warlocks are magic sugar babies, i interpret their being charisma based and having the fewest spell slots as a batteries-not-included thing, patron gives them the knowhow but they have to fuel it with their own chutzpah

- sorcerers have an inherent magical spark above what's normal for their species, from their bloodline or being bitten by a magic radioactive spider or what have you

- paladins are kinda iffy, i kind of fudge as being something warlock-adjacent or as having sorcerer potential but being more interested in becoming batman, depending on circumstance

- bards... "untangle and reshape the fabric of reality with [their] wishes and music". which to me sounds like bullshit.

dont get me wrong i dont hate bards as a concept, its just that the source of their wish-level magical power drives me up the fucking wall trying to fit into my world. some sources say they "echo the music of creation" which sounds like it should be a wisdom based thing, trying to get themselves in tune with the song of the spheres or something. in this case it could work as idk a cleric or druid subclass if you count music as a deity/natural force. BUT theyre charisma based, which speaks to inherent power, which should make them a sorcerer/warlock/paladin subclass. but theyre kinda iconic enough that i dont really relegate them to subclass material, yknow?

idk im just very tired and feel like redesigning the bard as a half caster. end of ted talk youre all free to go now