#but alas this source does not have any answer for this very strong rumor so 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️😑🫠

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Thoughts about the supposed direction Rhaena's storyline is going in Hotd and the apparent Nettles erasure? Disappointing but... I can sort of see where they could take it? Idk... looking at grrm's posts in hindsight kinda makes me even more disappointed if he is as well (he just can't get his adaptations right atp but idk)

Well. Pre-ep7, we're still pending any Rhaena-Sheepstealer bonding, but I'm basically 😑🫠 about the rumors. (I dislike borrowing trouble, I'm not even sure how many of the rumors are true -- actually I'm pretty sure many of these supposed "leaks" are straight up lies -- and yet. Still *disgruntled meh* and *"we're all fine-everyone's fine here" dread*.) Rhaena is one of my more beloved F&B characters (it's the Sansa parallels, I can't help myself), and Nettles has been a super fave since TPATQ and TWOIAF. (Particularly TWOIAF, since the Burned Men fire-witch reveal; heck, I think my little dollmaker is still one of the few fanarts of Nettles in the mountains.)

I mean, sure, I understand that Rhaena's book storyline during the Dance, where she's offpage from basically the start of the war until nearly the end of it, socializing in the Vale and waiting for her egg to hatch, would be difficult to adapt in an action-oriented visuals-oriented television show. (Like Rhaenyra this season sure isn't just catatonically crying from Luke's death until Jace's.) And I'm glad Rhaena's getting more to do, and I'm glad it's directly addressing her feeling slighted and ignored by her family since she doesn't have a dragon. However...

I do not want Rhaena merged into one character with Nettles! I do not want Rhaena to have Sheepstealer and not her hope-for-the-future (doomed hope, and yet) baby dragon Morning, that hatched for her. Also note how pink Morning, worn as a fashion accessory, so suited Rhaena's coquette personality vs her sporty, adventurous twin sister... I mean, I've said before, I understand adaptations can be different, this still wouldn't make HOTD even close to a "loose adaptation".* But I do not want this adaptation to lose Rhaena's personality that I loved.

Or for that matter, to lose Nettles's character, and her importance to the themes and worldbuilding of ASOIAF. (See also.) And her importance to the plot -- but god knows, they're doing all sorts of things with Daemon and Rhaenyra on this show, toxic romance or what have you, who knows if once Daemon reaches his emotional breakthrough or whatever at Harrenhal this season, if they want to backslide him into a cheating plot in S3 while Daemon is again stuck in a castle for months.** Nevertheless, I'd be deeply disappointed to lose scenes like "as well as her dragon, the girl had taken to riding Daemon", or the last morning in Maidenpool scene... and um, you can't really fit Rhaena in there, or if you did, it would certainly put the lie to the ship denialists' "he just treated her like a father, platonically bathing naked together!" (Also the pretty blatant fake S3 leaks including one where Rhaenyra decides Rhaena has betrayed her... are pretty blatantly fake, sorry.)

And then there would be the frankly racist erasure of the one book black character. "Oh but the show made the Velaryons black, so it's not erasing, it's adding more!" No, sorry. (1) I was and am all for adding more racial diversity to the show and especially to Valyrians, but face it, when you take the book's secondary character Velaryons, two who get killed off early and are portrayed as lesser to the "true" Daemon/Rhaenyra marriage, and make them black, you've already done a lot of hinky damage there. (2) What, it's that hard to write three distinct black girls with very different personalities and one from an incredibly different background? I don't see Addam and Alyn getting merged. I don't see Aemond and Daeron getting merged. I don't see Hugh and Ulf getting merged. But I'm not really one to speak here, for this particular discussion I'd point you to @ride-thedragon and @venusintheblindspots-blog and @chrkrose, among others, they have many many posts on this subject in far greater detail and better argued than mine.

OK, so. I still have hope that Nettles -- even if not cast for this season (sorry y'all, that extra is an extra) -- may appear next season, and all this worry will turn out to be a tempest in a teapot. Per last report from the HOTD panel at SDCC, the rumor of Rhaena and Sheepstealer definitely doesn't happen in ep 7, though, yes, there's one episode after. And if it does happen... I'll be strongly disappointed. Deeply, deeply disappointed, and probably far more suspicious of future adaptational changes. But, for me at least, it's not a dealbreaker like GOT S5 was.*** I won't be happy at all about the storyline, but I would like to think the show will remain high quality re themes and character and all. Time will tell, though. Time will definitely tell.

As for GRRM, when his complaints seem to be "wild dragons shouldn't be in the Vale" and "the heraldry with four legs is wrong", well, I struggle to see that he's that disappointed in the adaptational changes. Believe me, I am well used to reading between the lines re GRRM and adaptations, something like the fact that he's not visiting the HOTD writers' room when he's in the UK is nothing. Catch me if at Worldcon or his Oxford lecture in August, GRRM again says that he could write a whole novel about Nettles, or if actually says something about non-Valyrian dragonriders, ok?

*I was just reading up on The Beast (2023) vs Henry James's “The Beast in the Jungle”. lol HOTD doesn't compare. Don't even think it, man.

**You know, this reminds me of how the Dance in F&B is not paced very well for individual characters, they keep going offscreen for months at a time. From shortly after Rhaenyra's crowning to the Fall of KL, Daemon just sits at Harrenhal and occasionally ventures out into the riverlands. From shortly after the Fall of KL until the Battle Above the Gods Eye, Daemon just... sits at Maidenpool and occasionally ventures out into the riverlands (with Nettles). Yeah, obviously a show would need to write more for him to do, he's a main character.

***Thank god HOTD isn't the sort of exploitative shitshow that GOT was. All y'all thinking it was a better adaptation because of your nostalgia goggles (and/or shitty memory) need to actually reread the books (especially AFFC/ADWD) and then submit yourself to the real-world misogynist and homophobic nonsense of S5-6 again, ugh.

[thecourtsknight]

I already know the answer to 💐 for alexandra but I need you to tell the public anyways. also, 🥀 for alexandra as well, 🌠 for quill (I think quill's a level 8 Baby), 💦 for stag, and 🌳 for rufus

TELL THE PU BL IC WHAT??? THAT SHES A BRAT?? DFGKJH. okay okay.

gunna have to put this under a read more.

For Alex

How does your OC handle being unwell or forced to rest in bed? Who cares for them and in what ways? Does your OC enjoy being doted on or are they a terrible patient? Reversed: is your OC good at taking care of others who are ill or in need?

Awful. Genuinely unbearable. This woman acts like she has to work 24/7 or her bones will turn into sawdust. She will do anything she can to stay out of a bed, her getting any kind of illness aggravates her to no extent and she makes sure everyone around her knows that. I’d say the main people who fuss over her most is, understandably, Cornelius as its his fucking job but probably Florence? and definitely Quill. Even though she’s usually denied entry as not to catch or spread anything Alex might have.

I wouldn’t say she hates being doted on. She’s prideful and it does feel odd to have someone literally take care of her in that sense because no ones done that since her parents but in a weird way she does appreciate it and shes not one to not thank someone looking out for her. She mind drive Cornelius insane with how much she doesn’t do what he asks but she will thank him at the end of the day when she finally agrees to sleep for a bit. 

It’s very much a “thank you, I really appreciate all of this... but also I am getting out of the bed.” 

Being reversed on the other hand. Alexandra cares a lot of for folks, she isn’t the best at knowing what to do if they’re sick but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t try. She’s always been one to do what she can for other people if she has the means to, it’s why she tries to stay so in tune with her crew and actively ask them if there’s anything that can be done to help if something is truly bothering them. And then all of this kinda got turned up to an 11 when Quill came on board because. 

Well. It’s. Quill. Alexandra had honestly never felt the actual fear of someone getting sick until Quill got sick when she was younger and it actually had her kind of frazzled, because this was no longer an adult she could offer support to this was a child that was her responsibility. She is actually a surprisingly good caregiver though, she’s very diligent and focused with making sure someone is recovering well but not as strict as someone like Cornelius. She won’t give someone too much shit for wanting to get up when they’re sick because hey haha handshake emoji.

How would your OC decorate a notebook or journal? What kind of things are written in there? Could you give an example of a nice entry?

Alexandra, for the most part, has a very. Confusing way of writing. She writes pure chicken scratch for one and a lot of her notes can end up sounding utterly confusing. She’s not one to draw unless she REALLY has to because shes not very confident or even really that comfortable with sketching something. Quill’s always been the better visual artist even if her artistic skills aren’t really that great either. 

She’ll often find herself writing things down like ‘Solid Iron. Fire. Moth’s Wing.’ which makes no fucking sense but then she’d explain that something she’s researching will most likely be made out of solid iron, have something to do or be aligned with fire elements and its rumored to cause a supposed affect when Moth’s Wings are used as fuel. But to anyone else its like what the fuck am I reading. 

She actually struggles writing coherently a lot of the time but she had to for her own novels, those honestly ate up so much of her time journeying back from places which was a blessing and a curse because she’d much rather be enjoying being out and about on the deck and enjoying the trip back to land instead of cooped up in her god damn quarters trying to recap shit. 

An example of a more put together entry that you’d find in her novels would be something like: 

‘I believe one of the many things we came across and managed to get our hands on was a Belt of Dwarvenkind. For any readers who might not know what such items are rumored to do let me explain. If you’re not of Dwarven Lineage for starters you can write, read and even speak Dwarvish. (I can confirm, firsthand, that this is very much true. It was one of the first things I ran to check once we got back to my dear ship.) Your vision in the dark improves exceedingly well and according to most sources I could find you handling poisonings or anything that perhaps might have a bit more of a poisonous sting to its arsenal a lot more thoroughly. As much as I’m sure you’re all dying to know my findings on that one I wasn’t exactly in the mood this evening to put that one to the test.

 Though anyone who wears this belt will immediately feel a lot more thoroughly stronger and resilient and I can vouch. There’s also mentions of it being worn makes speaking to Dawrven kind a lot more smoother though that implies that Dwarves aren’t already a wonderful bunch to converse with. Attuning to such an item felt like a no-brainer with all of these wonderful effects but alas three things stood in my way. Belt’s like this don’t exactly suit me, secondly I’d rather give these artifacts the proper home they deserve to be studied in more depth and have at the ready instead of being here with me and I always uphold to that and third... From what little knowledge I could grab, there appears to be a rather common chance for people who don this belt to grow out a full-on beard and... Unfortunately, due to wanting to attempt to attune to the belt and test a few things out I’d rolled rather luckily on such a chance, if you can call it that. So I can confirm firsthand that this side-effect of sorts is entirely true for this belt. Unless something cursed me back in that building to grow a beard. You can never tell’ 

For Quill(and techincally me)

On a scale of 1 - 10 how Baby is your OC? BONUS when asking this question rate the OC yourself as see if the reply matches up!!

I’d say an 8 is pretty much there. 7-8 would’ve been my guess. She might try to act big and strong and put on a whole show of it but really... she is just a soft idiot who really wants to rest her head in someones lap and have her hair played with. 

For Stag!

If you as the writer could erase one traumatic event from this OC’s life what would it be and why?

Honestly? I’d say her dad passing away, especially in the originally way I saw it. As much as its important to the story beats of Stag’s own story, its something as of late I wouldn’t mind reworking into something else. Though I’m also okay with it staying. 

And Rufus!!! 

What is your OC’s favourite way to relax after a stressful day? Do they have a favourite book to curl up with? A hobby? Or do they have a nice bubble bath and have an early night to bed?

Rufus likes to sit and watch things. An ideal evening for them would be watching some birds try to find things for their nests, watching ants carry things back to help their colony. Watching the way the wind shakes the trees as the sun starts to set. 

If there’s nothing really available to focus on reading is their usual go to. They like to read outside if they can, and just gather their thoughts or cook with their mother. Gardening also comes to mind if they really need something to do with their hands but thats only if they’re utterly frustrated and need something to actually focus that negative energy into.

[bexical]

Player fantasy: A look at Niantic

A while back, I wrote a post on something important to me in game design, player fantasy. And I'm back to discuss the same topic, but this time, in the context of Niantic and their two franchise-based games, Pokemon Go and Wizards Unite1. (Note: I no longer play Pokemon Go, and never downloaded Wizards Unite, so my descriptions may occasionally be inaccurate.)

In the spirit of my last post, let me start off with some numbers: According to this article, Wizards Unite had about 400,000 installs in the first 24 hours, while Pokemon Go had about 7.6 million installs in its first 24 hours (unfortunately, I was unable to find numbers regarding current usage). Why the stark contrast? There is a wide variety of reasons, some with more explanatory power than others: its paywall is too high, or it simply wasn't different enough from Pokemon Go, or the Wizarding World brand isn't as big as Pokemon (#7 here).

This wasn’t a surprise though: I would claim that this was actually easily predictable, even as early as 2017 when we first heard rumors of a Harry Potter AR game being made by Niantic. I think it's only fair to note though that I have an immense bias against Niantic: I feel the company has a disturbing disinterest in the desires of their players (among other issues). Or, to rephrase in terms of the central topic: they have no understanding of the player fantasy and no interest in such.

It might be hard to accept that claim without hesitation. After all, Pokemon Go was immensely successful that first summer, and it still has a decent playerbase (based entirely on anecdotal evidence). Fundamentally, it does deliver on the main aspects of the Pokemon trainer fantasy: you can go out into the world and find Pokemon in the 'wild' (kind of), and you can battle your friends and train to be the very best.

But the game doesn't feel designed to deliver on that fantasy. Battling friends wasn't introduced until Dec 2018, two and a half years after the game was first launched. As for going out and finding Pokemon… the app directs players towards a Pokestop, where they can then find the Pokemon they are looking for. The experience is so disconnected from the imagined experience of going out into the world and finding Pokemon, and I would claim this is because they never intended to deliver on that experience. In fact, the game's first iteration of Pokemon tracking was much closer to that imagined experience (in which a tracker indicated the distance to nearby Pokemon), and they actually removed it in favor of the current system, which is explicitly designed to encourage exploring Pokestops.

And I get why. The CEO of Niantic, John Hanke, gave an interview to BusinessInsider back when the game was released in 2016, in which he describes the three goals of Pokemon Go: "to promote exercise, to allow people to see the world with new eyes, and to help break the ice" (alternate source, since the original interview is now behind a paywall). Their goals are evident in the design of Pokemon Go: egg-hatching correlates with exercise, Pokestops (and by correlation, the experience of catching Pokemon) promote exploring the world, and gyms and raids promote a social experience. But… there is very little overlap with the player fantasy of a Pokemon trainer.

What is that player fantasy though? To answer that, let me cite the first few lines of the Pokemon theme song:

I want to be the very best, Like no one ever was. To catch them is my real test, To train them is my cause!

How well does Niantic deliver on this? Let's see:

"I want to be the very best/ Like no one ever was." - Meanwhile, as mentioned earlier, battling went unimplemented for more than two years. How do you prove you’re the best when you can’t even compete?

“To catch them is my real test”2 - Acceptably implemented, but barely, as the experience is designed with ulterior motives. Do see the footnote though.

"To train them is my cause"3 - Training a given Pokemon involves… catching Pokemon of the same type?? It is such a nonsensical concept, and it is hard to imagine anything less related to the idea of Pokemon training.

I think I’ve reasonably established by now that Niantic has no understanding of player fantasy. They ignore the fundamental fantasy of being a Pokemon trainer and instead manipulate us into what they want - and yet Pokemon Go still succeeds because the player fantasy of walking around and catching Pokemon is so natural with AR that any failure would be impressive (not that Niantic hasn’t done their absolute best at failing).

And so Wizards Unite fails because the linking with AR just isn’t as inherent for the Wizarding World. Others have noted that the game fails to deliver on the fantasy the way that Pokemon Go does, and that really is the main reason for its failure, far beyond market timing or anything else. There might be a good WW AR game - after all, the Wizarding World is essentially an augmented reality - but Wizards Unite is not that game. The fundamental mechanic, dealing with the Foundables, is a nonsensical reskin of catching Pokemon without the appeal - no one is excited about handling Foundables (is it really anyone’s idea of a fun social activity to go out with friends and hide things from Muggles...?). Furthermore, the existence of these Foundables is new to the canon, and thus our interactions with them do not satisfy any previously existing desires for Harry Potter fans.

As strong as my disdain for Niantic is, I do want them to succeed - largely because both the Pokemon franchise and the Wizarding World are relatively dear to me, and I would be swept away in bliss if their respective games actually delivered on the fantasies of being a Pokemon trainer and being a wizard. As for whether or not it’s possible… I think it is, but it will be difficult. Pokemon Go is close, but it will still take a surprising amount of work - to fully deliver on the fantasy, I think Pokemon training needs to be entirely revamped. Catching other Pokemon to train a given one is absolutely nonsensical, and a good system would make it viable to train a Pokemon without catching hundreds just like it. And since catching Pokemon is the main gameplay, they need to move on from that in favor of other interactions.

I think exploring more interactions is actually key to improving both games, largely because one of the most important fantasies of augmented reality games in general is being immersed in that new reality. There are so many ways we can interact with the Pokemon world besides catching every wild Pokemon we see: battling these wild Pokemon is an obvious thought, but imagine an encounter like stumbling into a Kakuna nest and needing to carefully extricate yourself for fear of a swarm of Beedrill, or being confronted by an angry Rhyhorn and needing to calm it down with a berry. The Team Rocket encounters are a step in this direction, and with more of these interactions, we can be really immersed in a new world.

As I said earlier - I’d like Niantic to succeed. I want to see them pivot and start thinking about what their players want, as opposed to focusing singularly on what they want their players to do. Unfortunately, I have little hope that this will happen - they certainly won’t change because some individual wrote an angry essay. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from their mistakes. As game developers, work to understand the player fantasy, and deliver on it. As artists, understand what your audience wants and, again, deliver on it - or don’t! Subvert their expectations and deliver on a different experience, one they didn’t know they wanted - but this can only be done well if you do have that fundamental understanding of your audience.

It makes me really sad that they chose to go with the gendered term of ‘wizards’, though the decision goes back to the naming of the Wizarding World. Why couldn’t they call it the Magicking World or something? On a tangent, this is something I think about on occasion with my own work - what will fans call the setting? I’m not sure there is anything quite as charming as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, for example. Alas. ↩︎

I would argue though that the experience of catching Pokemon is actually significantly tainted by the experience of training them. Any given Pokemon I catch is unlikely to be one that I actually keep - it is simply a source of candy for the actual Pokemon that I am training, and it is thus insignificant. When it comes to catching rare Pokemon, the experience is somehow actually unexciting because well, what am I supposed to do with it? I cannot train it precisely because it is rare, given the absurd design of the training system. ↩︎

I touched upon this in the other footnote, largely because this is actually the aspect of Pokemon Go that bothers me the most. The biggest part of the Pokemon trainer fantasy for me personally is having this partner, like Pikachu to Ash - but the system heavily disincentivizes using one’s starter Pokemon. The best way to train my Bulbasaur is by catching other Bulbasaur, nearly all of which will have higher CP simply by being higher level - and after a relatively short while, one of these Bulbasaur will have better IVs than my 10/10/10 starter. It is thus nonsensical from a gameplay point of view to waste the stardust and candy on my starter, as well as immensely more difficult to do so. Furthermore, any Bulbasaur candy I obtain can inherently be saved for that high IV Bulbasaur I eventually catch, which further incentivizes finding new, strong Pokemon instead of becoming partners with any Pokemon I catch. And so, despite the introduction of battling and cosmetics and newer generations of Pokemon and despite all the excitement that these new features may bring, I will never forgive them for designing a system that relegates my starter Bulbasaur to uselessness. ↩︎