#but don’t fundamentally change the character so you can like them

[not-feeling-the-aster]

Ok so I finished Sunrise on the Reaping and I have not very positive thoughts. I get other people really liked it and that’s fine, this is just my opinion. I guess I'll reread it and see if I change my mind (or not), but for now I can say that it was my least favorite of the series, by far.

Spoilers ahead

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Honestly I was a little skeptical when they announced the movie along with the book, although I wanted to stay optimistic :(

One of the things that threw me off was the way it tells you things so directly, when the other books are more subtle. I would say it’s as if the older books gave you the puzzle pieces but you still had to make the effort to put them together, whereas this time it just gives you the solved puzzle at once.

Then there’s the narration, which at times feels underwhelming, since it doesn’t match the emotional depth some scenes require. While reading I was thinking everything felt numb, like the tension wasn’t really there. Haymitch’s reactions feel plain to me most of the time, and I get that one could argue he bottles up his feelings because it’s a traumatizing situation, that’s fair. But we’re supposed to read his thoughts, his internal turmoil, and I feel like we almost never really go past the surface. With Katniss (and even Snow) I could see more clearly their deepest thoughts, doubts and vulnerability.

Back to Haymitch, there’s also the thing with his family. They are supposed to be the most important people in his life, but there is little to no development on their relationship. Don’t tell me he loves them, show me how he cares for them, how was his upbringing, show me some memory of his childhood, how was his life when his dad was alive, how did his death affect him till nos, how does him being the older brother shapes his character. Show me how much they care for each other before the tragedy happens. Because the point is he looses them, we know it. Their bond matters, make it strong enough to linger after they’re gone.

We also have to talk about Lenore Dove. Again, we know a few things about her and how they met. We know Haymitch loves her and thinks about her a lot (maybe too much) but does she love him as much? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think she is pretending or anything, but it does seem like they are on different pages at times. My thing is, we are presented with this couple from the get go, and we are expected to root for them because they are soulmates for life and can’t live without each other, but what is their dynamic like? How do they work together? not just as Haymitch admiring her all the time. What does she like about him so much? Does she actually want to run away? Alone or with him? Does she know he fantasizes about having a family with her? Would she be okay with that?

I feel like their relationship could have worked better if they had just recently got together, they would still care for each other and missed one another, but it wouldn’t be this super serious, never-ending, magical love that’s larger than life itself. Just real, meaningful, hopeful love. Doomed, but true. That’s enough.

Regarding the theme of propaganda, I also feel like it wasn’t handled that well. I mean yeah the capitol shows and edits the games to their liking, ok. I guess what I was expecting was how propaganda was received by the people, specially in different places of Panem.

The careers were completely dumbed down this time, there was no nuance or complexity there, maybe for a tiny moment with the chocolates but that was on Haymitch so I guess it doesn’t count either.

I liked the idea of the alliance and I personally don’t mind the cameos but everyone speaking so freely of the rebellion plan was a little unserious. Plutarch for me is still the same character, I don’t consider him fundamentally rebellious, he just wants to be on the winning side and come out as unscathed as possible. Him lecturing Haymitch did annoy me a bit though, and I don't think it helped to explore the themes like it was intended.

I'm sure there's more but this are my main problems with it. I was really excited about it but well, I still love the other books so the story didn't change for me, but I'm a little worried for a possible future book now. We'll see how it goes.

Also I wanted to point out that just because you like a certain author it's okay to not like and be critical of some of their work. Like, it shouldn't be that serious, but I know some people get defensive. Each book is different, and authors are people, and they can make cool things and not so cool things, calm down with the pedestals please.

[bodega-catto]

People defending Snow because he’s a handsome white man despite him:

-Thinking of selling Tigris (in like page 4 mind you.)

-Despises working with people.

-ONLY helps Sejanus because the cameras are watching.

-Spends the whole book thinking about how things can benefit him and how to make everything to his advantage.

-Tries to remind the public that Lucy Gray “belong to him” and how he was constantly angry about not owning her.

-Calls district people: bestial, not evolved and unfortunate barbaric creatures (yea including Lucy.)

-Tries to delude himself that Lucy is from the capitol because he’s shamed of liking her.

-Says he prefers Lucy in the capitol because he knows exactly where she is at all times (liked Lucy in the games because of the same reason, he could watch her 24/7 and control her.)

- Moved in with Sejanus parents after betraying their son and getting him killed.

-Killed Highbottom who was trying to prevent him from rising to the top because he could see his true nature in his eyes and was afraid of him (and his father.)

And this is all just in BoSbaS, told from his own perspective. Think about everything he did after.

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

Relistening to Checking Out, and I’ve always liked this scene in particular, as it is one that’s very open to interpretation.

I believe, from what I’ve seen personally at least, one or the most common interpretations is that Helen’s observation is either incorrect, or intentionally misleading, and that Jon’s response actually stems from touch aversion, or a degree of it, attributed to his trauma, particularly moments where he’s been left helpless and at the whims of others. E.g. Kidnapped by the Circus, almost killed by Daisy etc. And while I think this interpretation is both interesting and plausible, I don’t think I’ve seen much for the opposite interpretation, which is that Helen’s observation is correct.

It can be difficult to talk about Jon’s humanity sometimes, as there’s a lot of nuance and layers to cover. The fact is, Jon, especially in season five, does not completely think like a human. He is simultaneously a painfully human character such with deep compassion and guilt and self-loathing, while also being a being of immense knowledge who sees and understands the world in a different light, and in a way no one else can possibly comprehend, which has to be very isolating all things considered.

As with everything in TMA, Jon makes a choice, and his choice is to end the apocalypse, to stay with Martin, and to stay as human as he possibly can. We know from Annabelle that had she have taken Martin, who is presumably acting as one of his main anchors to humanity, Jon potentially would have snapped completely, the final push over the edge as she puts it. It has to be a difficult thing for him, to try and balance his existence when he is so fundamentally changed, and when this world naturally feels right to him, and you could argue that him snapping at the mother here is simply his instinct, being what he is.

He is The Archivist, the meant-to-be Pupil of the Eye, one of the most important beings present, and so it makes sense there’s almost an instinctive detachment from the victims. He is meant to Watch them, and Watching means no physical interaction. By touching him, the mother has broken this barrier, and so, instinctually, he reacts — with anger, notably.

I’d say it’s meant to contrast how we see him acting prior to the touch, where he seems genuinely sympathetic with the mother, and he is trying to help in what little way he can. Because before she touches him, that gap between Watched and Watcher is still firm in place, and so he can handle that.

Bearing in mind, I haven’t re-listened to the rest of season five with this, so I may have missed something.

I also think both interpretations can co-exist too, and that could be just as interesting to explore. Either way, I find that, with Jon, it’s important to consider his status in the Eyepocalypse and his nature vs his choices, although, his nature vs his choices goes for the whole series I think, as choice is such a consistent theme in TMA and in the Avatars.

[calliesmemes]

ABSOLUTELY UNHINGED COMEDIC RELIEF

ASSORTED QUOTES FROM TUMBLR TEXTPOSTS, X (formerly known as twitter) POSTS, TIKTOK, MEMES, AND OTHER SOURCES AROUND THE INTERNET

CHANGE gendered words and in-universe phrases as needed.

SPECIFY muse for multimuses.

“   Currently considering becoming a bother and a nuisance, maybe even a menace or a rascal. ”

“   Hungry? Eat the government. ”

“   Yes, I wanna fuck after every argument. ”

“   Silence, you uneducated peanut! ”

“  They should invent a being alive that isn’t so difficult. ”

“   Women have to think I’m hot or none of this matters. ”

“   Due to personal reasons I will be named an enemy of the state. ”

“   Being overdressed is a myth made up by people who didn’t want you to have fun and be sexy. ”

“   What even are daddy issues? Just traumatize your father back. ”

“   I LOVE complaining! You can’t take that away from me! ”

“   I went to the silly goose convention and they all knew you. ”

“   I’m simultaneously ‘I’m tired of this grandpa’ and ‘that’s too damn bad!’ ”

“   The word ew coming out of a pretty girl’s mouth holds so much power … I think that it can tear apart nations. ”

“   Someone made fun of my shoes and the whole time I just thought of ways to push them out the window. ”

“   If you’re short, simply get taller. ”

“   I better think twice? Buddy I don’t even think once. ”

“   My off putting looks, awkward demeanor, and strange behavior have captivated you. ”

“   There’s something deeply, fundamentally wrong with you. Can we kiss? ”

“   You are a fool. When you walk, clown music plays. ”

“   I mean yeah he’s evil and all but what if I were his favorite? ”

“   I really do hate thinking. ”

“   In my defense, I simply do not vibe with the law. ”

“   I’ve done nothing wrong. Except all the atrocities. Besides that, I’m innocent. ”

“   Sorry I couldn’t hear you over my internal monologue. ”

“   Of course you have white hair and trauma. ”

“   So apparently the bad vibes I’ve been feeling are actually ‘severe psychological distress’. ”

“   Stop calling me a bad person just because I’m orchestrating your downfall! ”

“   The more lip gloss I collect the longer I live. ”

“   Sorry that I am obsessed with you in the unhealthiest way possible. As if it's my fault ”

“   The multiple failed assassination attempts against me have helped build both character and self esteem. ”

“   I could be your loser boyfriend. Do you ever think about that? ”

“   Accidentally went and got myself killed yesterday, but god wont let me die so I’m back ”

“   What do you mean napping isn't a good coping mechanism? What do you mean my problems are still here? ”

“   Academic validation is required for my sanity. ”

“   RIP to everyone killed by the gods for hubris but I’m different and better. Maybe even better than the gods. ”

“   Researching the stages of grief to see if I can get them finished in ten minutes tops. ”

“   My parents were like I’m gonna make a child that is so beyond help. ”

“   It’s not easy to admit when you’re wrong, and that’s why I won’t do it. ”

“   Why can’t this family ever have a funky good time? ”

“   How do I show people that I’m more than my unethical career choice? ”

“   I fucked my way into this mess, and I’ll fuck my way out. ”

“   You look so biteable today. ”

“   Why am I suffering? I have so many correct opinions and takes. ”

“   I AM HAUNTED BY A PAST THAT I CANNOT GO BACK TO! anyways ”

“   Challenging authority, angering gods. The family business. ”

“   Third base is me telling you about my father. ”

“   Hey girl. Plagued by terrifying visions? ”

“   Got caught giving a fuck. Embarrassing. ”

“   I didn’t ‘miss’ the red flags; I saw them and thought that they looked sexy. ”

“   Do my dark circles and deteriorating health make me look hot? ”

“   I get my news from the only reliable source, cryptic symbolism in my dreams. ”

“   Another day of being a bisexual disaster. ”

“   I’m going to let myself be a little unhinged today, as a treat. ”

“   Some of you act like murder is such a big deal. ”

“   You wanna hunt me for sport so bad that it makes you look stupid. ”

“   You’re not a girlboss unless you’ve killed someone. ”

“   It’s so weird how no one ever has correct opinions about things except for me. ”

“   Hello, my love — I mean, my rival ”

“   No one is calling me baby and it’s outrageous I can’t believe it. ”

“   No talking stage. Mutual obsession and you see god in my eyes or nothing. ”

“   I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOOKUP CULTURE DIE IN MY ARMS ”

“   Yes baby your emotional walls are high and impenetrable can we kiss now? ”

“   Affection is disgusting. Drown me in it. ”

“   I am gatekeeping my respect from you. ”

“   Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions. ”

“   I am equal parts fuck around and find out and please don’t yell at me I’ll cry. ”

“   Short legs, big butt. I’m a corgi. ”

“   Fuck being the bigger person; I’m going to start biting people. ”

“   Well that wasn’t very slay of you! ”

“   May I please get a crumb of affection? ”

“   I crave power! Please don’t yell, though; I’m sensitive. ”

“   You call it a near death experience; I call it a vibe check from God. ”

“   Here are some scissors. Now cut it out. ”

“   Might commit a little tomfoolery, maybe even some shenanigans. ”

“   All these flavors, and you choose to be salty. ”

“   How can I live, laugh, love in these conditions? ”

“   What if I said ‘to be honest’ but then lied? ”

“   I'm financially at a stage where I understand why people do fraud. ”

“   Yes I may be evil and morally corrupt, but I’m also incredibly beautiful and I think that makes up for it honestly. ”

“   Debates are stupid. Why would I want to sit down and argue with someone blatantly dumber than me? ”

“   I forget but I do NOT forgive.. I'm just walking around hating bitches can't remember why ”

“   Ding dong your opinion is wrong! ”

“   I’m coming for your kneecaps. ”

“   You dropped your nose you fucking clown. ”

“   Are you a fire alarm? ‘Cause you are really fucking loud and annoying. ”

“   Call me an escalator, because I let people down. ”

“   I love me a good lesbian scandal! ”

“   If you can’t run away from your problems, you’re not running fast enough. ”

“   Everything I want to do is illegal. ”

“   Don’t make me hit your ankle with my Barbie scooter! ”

“   I tell gay jokes because I am a gay joke. ”

“   Fuck! I dropped my mental stability! ”

[matchatarot]

Have you been curious about a specific connection’s future recently, Bunny? Let’s see how the Wheel of Fortune will turn! The reading will be separated into three parts: when you’ve met this person, after you’ve met them and the future of this relationship. Depending on your situation, you might be in a different phase of the relationship so do not mind the verb tense too much. To pick a pile don’t overthink it; choose the one that draws you in the most while thinking about the reading���s intent. Only take what resonates! This reading is intended for friendships as well as romantic relationships.

Love, Matcha ♡

☆ masterlist

1 ₊˚.༄

You’ve met this person while you were aiming to free yourself from a certain person‘s or group’s control. You were trapped in other's expectations of you. You decided to give yourself the love you deserve on your own and this powerful choice attracted this person in your life. Your strength, charisma and self-love are what brought them in. They’re someone who values strong characters and passionate people. They felt empowered by you and you reminded them that they can too break free from what’s hindering their manifestations.

You’ve shared spiritual wisdom with them that brought them to an entirely new phase of their life. Your generosity and words of empowerment changed their self-image for the better. You helped them ground themselves and asses things from a more logical point of view. With your own experience, you reminded them that they had control over their life. You motivate them to not procrastinate on improving their life, from reminding them to do their taxes to encouraging them to go on mental health walks. You also empowered them to seek pleasures in new ways. So you might introduce them to a new game or hobby. If you’re friends with benefits or in a romantic relationship, the way you’ve engaged in the deed was new and felt lowkey spiritual. It was their first time to do it that way, it can be related to sexual orientation, kink or just overall dynamic. For friendships, it’s possible that your coming out inspired them if that applies to you. At this point in the relationship you’re living in the moment and not communicating about the relationship’s future. It seems like they’re more focused on what you’ve brought them than who you are. But as they say, “People are experiences, not possessions”.

If you’ve asked for a romantic relationship I do not see you guys getting to a new level of commitment anytime soon. However! There’s still a positive energy here. The thing is, your relationship together is all about empowering each other’s independence so even though it’s a good environment to grow individually it doesn’t really foster the most fertile ground for an actual romantic relationship, you know. Right now, you are headed to a future where you and this person remain in each other’s life. You’ll see each other as an important part of each other's journey and if that applies to you, you’ll still have intercourse with them. You guys might stay in each other’s life because it’s the best sex ever, if it’s part of the nature of your relationship. I see you guys hanging out a lot at night time, talking for hours with each other about your dreams. I just think that there’s the possibility for an eventual falling out further away in the future because of some divergent opinions. I think you guys have different fundamental beliefs that you’ve both figured were not that much of a big deal but with time you’ll end up prioritizing people that are more like you. It’s also possible that one of you rejects the other, or that one of you gets accepted for an opportunity and the other doesn’t and it creates a separation. I see you still communicating from time to time and reminiscing about the other’s pieces of advice. This person was fated, but not fated to stay. Embrace the endings, Bunny. They make place for new beginnings.

carnelian, tiger’s eye, Demeter , 9, 3

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2 ⊹˚˖ ☆

You might’ve met this person when you went somewhere for the first time. You also might’ve met while doing a social activity with your friends and they were on their own. It might’ve been a trip! You’ve met them after getting out of a complicated and confusing time in your life. You were open to new connections and they were also emotionally open to you. Initially, there might have been a power imbalance. One seemed to call the shots while the other followed their lead. This meeting felt fated for both of you, but one of you was especially taken over by the other’s charm, the more submissive one. However, both of you seemed invested in this connection and wanted to give it the love it needed for it to grow into something powerful and beautiful.

You and your person jumped into this relationship headfirst. I wonder if there was some love bombing involved. You’ve given them warmth and opened your heart to them. They know they can count on you, you’ve been a secure and dependable figure in their life. At this point, you’re seeing each other as best friends or life partners. The relationship is at first healing, but it’s certainly a lot of emotions. Even though you’re sentimental as well, it’s apparent that this person is more sensitive than they would admit. They might’ve made you realize that you are more emotional than you admit to yourself or they’ve put you in an emotional state you’ve never been in before. As the journey of this relationship unfolds, you realize that this connection is forcing you to do shadow work. This person is bringing up a toxic pattern that you’ve had and they’re forcing you to look at your ego’s flaws. You, them or both of you have pride that is hindering the growth of this relationship. It seems like they might be avoidant because the depth of their feeling is scaring them. There’s a beautiful opportunity for healing and growth here but I am not sure they’ll choose this option. You will, though.

I feel like they’ll switch on you at a moment when you don’t expect it. As if they didn’t know how to handle your love. Or there might be an argument about the future of this relationship. Bunny, they’re not who you thought they were. I am sorry! It’s possible that they projected a fake identity to get close to you. If it’s a friendship, I feel like they’ll eventually stop including you in their plans and hang out with other people instead of you. It’ll feel like they’re completely different has when you met them. They used to share so much with you but now they don’t even answer your texts. There might be a third party influencing this connection. I see a lot of different possibilities because I am tapping into so many different energies but they’re some conflicts when it comes to values and beliefs. One of you might be religious and wish to be around people with the same lifestyle. They also might get very overwhelmed with their work and prioritize it over you. I want to take a moment to remind you that tarot is simply the projected outcome based on the actual energy. You and your person have free will, if you want more chances of this relationship working out, (if it’s in your higher interest) make sure to have good communication with this person. However, it does seem like you’ll eventually let go of this connection yourself. You’re on a self-improvement path and you’re manifesting your dream life, I feel like at some point your journey will force you two to separate so you can move on to better things. I see you making the effort but surrendering. It’ll be difficult to let go but when you do, you’ll feel a big weight off your shoulders and you’ll realize you’ve been holding on for too long.

I would like to end this reading by reminding you that most people you meet will become part of your past, but their impact in your life was still beautiful. Embrace endings!

"Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." — Marilyn Monroe

rose quartz, the moon, 818

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3 ‧₊˚ ♡

You’ve met this person at a time of your life when you were looking for genuine and emotionally fulfilling relationships. When you’ve met them, they seemed like exactly the type of person you needed in your life. When you look at them, you see your future through them. I see you being attracted to them the moment you’ve met them very intensely. It had been a while since you’ve felt like this for someone, what’s even more special about this feeling is how you hadn’t known them for a while. There’s something so energetically abundant about this connection. If it’s a romantic relationship, you might’ve thought “This is the person I want to marry”. If it’s platonic you might’ve thought “I want this person to be my children’s godmother/godfather” or something like that. It definitely felt like they were a strong part of your future.

You’ve remained loyal to this person while the relationship was developing, your initial feelings just growing stronger towards them. They’ve brought excitement and adventures into your life. Being together feels so easy. You guys are soft with each other. You accept their flaws and they accept yours. This relationship is a safe place. You’re able to share your faults without being shamed. Fostering this dynamic is making you realize how you can be hard on yourself and you’re learning to give the same compassion towards yourself that you give to them and that they give to you. Both of you feel so comfortable in each other's presence that you even like to do nothing together, like bed rotting together or going to the park and smoking. It’s as if boredom doesn’t exist when it’s the two of you, being together always feels like quality time. You’re finally getting the care you deserve after so many karmic lessons.

This relationship will help you to step into your higher power, it’s making you so confident. Ugh, I love this energy it feels so cosy. They’ll remain receptive to your needs and listen to your worries. They desire to connect on a deeper level and they’re willing to do it on your time. They give you more than you’re asking for and they’re adapting their own life to fit your needs. You won’t even need to ask them! An example that I am thinking of is if you’re gluten-free, they’ll make sure to always consider that if you’re planning to go out and they’ll do things like calling the restaurant in advance to check if the menu fits your needs. They won’t ever want to make you feel like doing those things is annoying to them, because it isn’t. They just love you! The way they compliment your appearance will also feel empowering. They’ll see a future with you and they want to plan towards it. They’re emotionally open and vulnerable with you. You’ll always feel loved by them because they’ll remind you how important you are in their life. Some people might oppose this connection. Since you’ve both met your match, you’re becoming more and more authentic to yourself and it’s inadvertently chasing away the fake people around you. The love bubble both of you are in is energetically protecting your union from malicious spirits and people. The more this relationship is unfolding, the more your heart tells you that they’re right for you. You’ll be comfortable following your own heart, other's advice won’t be necessary at all.

citrine, almandine, firefly, sacred heart

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decks used : angel tarot cards by Radleigh Valentine, l’oracle du chemin spirituel by Valérie Defour & Valérie Saussez, amor et psyche oracle by Georges Barbier, oracle of heaven and hell by Travis McHenry, ors et ombres by Stephanie Lafrance

★ photo credits go to their rightful owner

[lizardanya]

part of my beef with pesterquest is that they kind of undersell how casually reactionary the trolls are ideologically?

like, i get that we’re doing a “deconstruct the entire character in like 20 minutes of text”, and “redeem/fix their problems to railroad them into a happy ending” thing but part of the reason why friendsim worked better, i feel, is because they didn’t need to do a ‘why you should find this character likeable’ speed run, because there’s over thirty characters and it’s an introductory game anyway, if you don’t like this ultimately background character from a larger game who cares. you’re not losing anything.

pesterquest can’t do that bc 1. they’re established characters, with established fanbases, and god forbid somebody’s blorbo isn’t presented in the best light 2. some of the routes are genuinely just written by the people for whom these characters are their blorbos who god forbid aren’t presented in the best light.

and so in homestuck proper, we get a group of trolls who, for the most part (the notable exception being largely feferi, even though even she has her moments), are very passively okay with a very oppressive society, while also being very passively okay with breaking the rules of said oppressive society sometimes. and in pesterquest that aspect, that contradiction that is nonetheless very poignant is kind of lost.

terezi, in pesterquest, when pushed says that she knows the system sucks, but it’s just the way things are, and she wants to protect the ones she loves and maybe if she sticks with it long enough she can change the system from the inside or whatever. and i just don’t think she’d fucking say that.

terezi, fundamentally, wants to be a corrupt lawyer, because it’s fun. she has a knack for manipulation, one of her first interactions with the humans is manipulating someone to death, and then she does a very similar thing to dave again. yes, she has complex feelings about it, but she still does it, she’s kind of really good at it, that’s kind of her entire power set: seeing how events pan out, and being able to identify the points that need to be changed for a desired outcome. she wants to become a corrupt lawyer because she’s a 13 year old who was sold on the idea of toying with people as a job.

a big thing with the trolls is that none of them are really fully sold on the ideology of alternia, even the ones most ideologically inclined towards it don’t fully act on it in their personal life. and this is just something that happens a lot in real life: bigots, even staunch ones, often make exceptions when it comes to personal matters, often buy into these systems without uncompromisingly adopting their principles. yes, it is hypocritical. yes, terezi wanting to be a corrupt lawyer while still caring about karkat is hypocritical. no, it’s not a contradiction that needs to be explained away.

a lot of the most interesting character work regarding the trolls is this exploration of their personal wants and desires being at odds with the platonic ideal of themselves they were sold on, writing that off as more or less all of them going “well there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism i guess!” as a way to absolve their moral character is just boring and sucks.

[vigilskeep]

hello! you know a lot of dragon age lore so i thought id ask you— i saw a post earlier that was discouraging to me aa trans person where the op said that veilguard having top surgery scars in the cc goes against established worldbuilding. does it make sense for top surgery to be possible in thedas? thanks

my rule of thumb is that in a world where healing spells exist, there’s absolutely no logical, believable reason for it not to be possible. you don’t have to go back and provide sources about historical surgeries—which is something i personally know nothing about—for this to be true

like, i just can’t take this line of thought seriously. ohhh we can have floating cities and magical neon lights and spirit healers who can mend injuries just by passively standing next to you, but we draw the line as soon as it’s something that would make our trans players happy! it’s so transparent. do not listen to these people or let them discourage you

if you want to get into the worldbuilding potential of it—which is just fun to do—we can probably guess that for the top surgery scars to be as neat as they seem to look in the veilguard character creator, similar to modern ones, magical healing was involved. now i do believe that the chantry might get suspicious of body-altering magic, that magical power is hoarded by the circles in the south and the wealthy in the north, and also that “out” trans people are a minority in thedas. so i’m not saying that this is something easy for your average guy to get hold of. that’s where you can feed it into backstory. are they powerful and connected enough that they could find specialists willing to go beyond the ordinary? or do they have underground connections to hidden apostate healers, whose only priority is what helps (or perhaps just how much you’re willing to pay)? do they belong to a culture that might not be restricted by the chantry’s norms about gender or magic, like the dalish or the rivaini? or do they belong to a mage-focused community or order, who among themselves do whatever they like? endless options

some might be referring to a line in dai from krem, a trans man, where you can ask him about potentially changing his body with magic and he essentially says he wouldn’t let magic that could do that anywhere near his body, though when he was younger he might have dreamed about the possibilities. firstly, krem is absolutely not the gold standard for trans representation and nobody should care about being flexible from what bioware put out a decade ago. secondly, krem is a random mercenary who knows one (1) mage, who spends the entire time insisting she’s not a mage. i very much doubt he’s the no. 1 source for what might be magically possible in this or any regard

also ultimately, and i cannot express this enough, you can do whatever you want forever. it could be absolutely fundamentally impossible in-world somehow and it would still not be that serious to be “unrealistic” in the dragon video games. don’t let anyone discourage you from making the character you want to make. it being an option makes it canonically part of thedas, end of. they put it in the game and nobody bitching about it can take it out

[erinwantstowrite]

OKAY. I DIDNT. I don’t know if it’s been confirmed that bruce is otherworld ben but i’m fairly confident he is and i’m losing it. bruce. i didn’t realise that meant HE’D DIED THE WAY HIS PARENTS HAD. LIKE SAME BUT DIFFERENT, I DIDNT REALISE THE BEN = BRUCE DEATH IMPLICATIONS UNTIL YOU WROTE PETER TELLING DICK ABOUT IT.

YOU’RE AN EVIL GENIUS /POS

even if it’s unintentional there’s a lot in this chapter that’s. delightful. devastating too

it is a SHAME i can't reply to two asks at once so anon #2 this is for you as well teehee

Benny was foreshadowing!! Benny is a counterpart to another guy that Peter knows in his world: Biggie. (he'll show up later in a Ned POV). Biggie and Benny are very similar, but in a way that made Peter wonder if Benny was a counterpart to someone that Biggie is related to- Benny is older, he was military, he also looks different enough that it took Peter a minute to see similarities. But they are, in fact, the same person/soul, and are counterparts to each other. Peter does not know this yet, but he has his suspicions.

that's because some counterparts do not look the same, and have different stories, etc, but are the same person. i'm reeeeaaaaaalllllyyyy stretching it here, but i wanted to play around with possibilities. Kind of like concept art? there can be multiple different versions of the same characters drawn down, one makes it to the movie that we see. but in another universe, a different design was chosen. same character, different design and concept. the timelines between worlds is shifted about 7 years behind for 1300 (Bats') compared to 1299 (Peter's), but that doesn't mean everything is perfectly matched up. there are faces in the crowd that are older or younger or look completely different, but they are there.

this includes Ben and Bruce - which, by the way, Benny's name being Ben is also foreshadowing that Ben is playing a role here: with Bruce. a gruff older guy named Ben takes Peter in to make sure he has a home and he worries about him and is very bad at hiding that fact, and then we look at Bruce and raise our eyebrows. (Ben really is haunting our narrative) Benny was a hint the whole time to counterparts not being the exact same across universes, and he's technically the first counterpart that Peter meets. he had gone into the burger shop before he met Nightwing, but it's not until later in the chapter do they talk to each other.

fundamentally i can see Ben and Bruce as the same person/character type (far more than i can see Jason as Ben, which I don't hate, but it doesn't appeal to me as much). Bruce has a more parent type relationship with Dick than Ben has with Richard but the relationship is not that far off. Circumstances changed and things are different but ultimately they are the same souls. Bruce and Ben advocate for responsibility to help other people with the power you have, they both are trying their best to raise a kid that needs a teacher/guiding hand to comfort them but also push them forward out of their grief, etc. and their stories revolve around gun violence. Ben died protecting Peter from a gunman which is very close to how Martha and Thomas died from a mugger. and i did, in fact, giggle when i wrote it down :3

[whatlurksbean]

Erm hey I have an interest in and a basic understanding of cat genetics, so, I did the thresher fam + Tusk 👍👍

I had to make some changes, I make Ray genetically black but he still looks ginger, so he’s carneliannn. I don’t know how a cat with an ec got onto a middle of nowhere island and I’m not gonna think about it. Peace and love on planet Earth.

To make Sturgeon, Hake, and Urchin possible (cats who are genetically black and tabbys look brown (GENERALLY), it’s why they got the black stripes.) I made them smokes with ghost marks, very pretty kitties, they’re fundamentally the same.

Biggest change I’d say is I had to make Minke have a manx tail, so Trout can get her tail. Shes also a smoke, I figured it would be less noticeable on her than Thresher. Sorry Minkeeeee

I made Sturgeon, Hake, and Urchin ticked tabbies 👍 solid is epistatic to tabby patterns, so Thresher and Minke could have ANYTHING hiding under there, they can be ticked‼️

https://i.imgur.com/gYaxuhE.png

Sorry if this sounds like I’m trying to “correct” your characters, I HATE it when people do that, this is just for funsies yay

Wee cat genetics! While they are not an interest of mine, i still enjoy seeing folk try to make sense of fantasy genetics. The chart is very cool to look at, thank you!

say goodbye to your tail minke..

(chart linked in op)

[hayatheauthor]

can you write some tips on writing amnesia for a character? <3

Note: thank you for your ask! I'm sorry for replying so late I took a break from Tumblr for a bit.

In this guide, I'll be covering a balance of information on amnesia and how to write it. Some topics I mention are the types of amnesia, how they impact characterization, and how to write a believable portrayal of memory loss. I hope this blog is to your liking anon.

Understanding Amnesia: Types & Realism

Amnesia is not a one-size-fits-all condition. There are many different types of amnesia and each has unique effects on a person’s ability to recall past events or form new memories. You should research the type of amnesia you're going to use in-depth before incorporating it into your writing, but here's a quick breakdown of the types: 

Retrograde Amnesia – The inability to remember past events while still being able to form new memories. This is common after traumatic brain injuries.

Anterograde Amnesia – The inability to create new memories while retaining past ones. A well-known example is the film Memento, where the protagonist loses the ability to form new long-term memories.

Dissociative Amnesia – Memory loss resulting from psychological trauma rather than physical injury. In extreme cases, this can lead to fugue states, where a person travels or assumes a new identity with no memory of their past.

Selective Amnesia – The loss of specific memories, often linked to a traumatic event.

Transient Global Amnesia (TGA) – A rare, temporary condition where a person suddenly loses memory for a few hours or days before recovering.

Many fictional portrayals of amnesia tend to exaggerate its effects or resolve it in unrealistic ways. In real life, memory loss is rarely total, and individuals often retain habits, motor skills, and emotional reactions even if they don’t recall specific events.

Choosing the Right Type for Your Story

Amnesia can be used in various genres, from psychological thrillers to fantasy epics. It's often a plot device or opportunity for character development, so it's important you pick the right type of amnesia.

A thriller or mystery might use amnesia as a tool to conceal crucial information, allowing the protagonist to uncover the truth alongside the reader, in which case Selective Amnesia might be a good fit. A romance could explore the emotional toll of memory loss on relationships, where one partner remembers everything while the other has Retrograde Amnesia and forgets them.

If your story revolves around identity and self-discovery, dissociative amnesia or retrograde amnesia may serve the plot best. If you want to create suspense by limiting what the character can learn over time, anterograde amnesia can add significant tension.

Take some time to consider why your character needs to have amneisa, what you plan on achieving with it, and whether or not you want them to recall what they've forgotten. 

Characterization & Emotional Impact

Amnesia isn’t just about forgetting—it fundamentally changes how a character interacts with the world. A character suffering from memory loss might experience:

Fear and paranoia – Who can they trust if they don’t even trust their own mind?

Grief and loss – The realization that they’ve forgotten people or parts of themselves can be devastating.

Frustration and helplessness – Simple tasks may feel overwhelming, and social interactions may be fraught with confusion.

A shift in personality – Without their past experiences shaping them, they might react to situations in unfamiliar ways.

Relationships also play a crucial role. Loved ones may struggle to reconnect, while old enemies may take advantage of gaps in memory. This emotional complexity adds depth to an amnesia storyline, making it more than just a convenient plot device.

Medical Insights on Amnesia

To write a realistic portrayal of amnesia, it’s essential to understand its medical and neurological foundations. Memory formation involves various brain structures, particularly the hippocampus, which plays a key role in storing long-term memories.

Causes of Amnesia

Head trauma (e.g., concussions, strokes, aneurysms)

Psychological trauma (dissociation due to extreme stress or PTSD)

Infections affecting the brain (e.g., encephalitis, meningitis)

Substance abuse (alcohol-induced blackouts, drug-related memory loss)

Neurological disorders (e.g., Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, brain tumors)

Memory Recovery & Treatment

While some cases of amnesia are reversible, others can cause permanent memory loss. Treatments often include:

Cognitive therapy to help the brain form new associations.

Medication for cases linked to neurological disorders.

Hypnosis or psychotherapy for trauma-induced memory loss.

Fiction often portrays amnesia as something that can be instantly cured by another head injury or a dramatic emotional revelation, but in reality, recovery is often slow and uncertain.

Writing Realistic Amnesia Symptoms

When crafting an amnesiac character, it’s crucial to depict their symptoms accurately. Some of the most common effects include:

Confusion and disorientation, particularly in familiar settings.

Difficulty recognizing close friends and family members.

Emotional reactions to people or places they don’t consciously remember.

Trouble forming new memories (in cases of anterograde amnesia).

Physical symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, or fatigue.

By integrating these symptoms into your character’s behavior, you create a more immersive and believable narrative.

Unraveling Memories

Memory recovery should feel natural rather than forced. Instead of a sudden, convenient realization, consider gradual memory restoration through:

Sensory triggers (smells, sounds, touch that evoke forgotten memories)

Therapeutic methods (therapy sessions, hypnosis, journaling)

Unreliable memories (false memories, altered recollections)

Emotional breakthroughs (re-experiencing an intense emotion tied to a memory)

It’s also worth deciding whether your character will ever fully regain their memories. Some narratives work better when the character must move forward without ever reclaiming their past self.

Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them

While amnesia can be a powerful narrative tool, it’s easy to fall into unrealistic portrayals. Here’s what to avoid:

Instant cures – Memory loss doesn’t resolve itself with a single emotional moment or another head injury.

Overly selective memory gaps – Forgetting only plot-relevant details makes amnesia feel contrived.

Ignoring emotional consequences – Memory loss isn’t just about lost facts; it’s about lost identity and relationships.

Lack of research – A poorly researched amnesia storyline can feel lazy and inauthentic.

By steering clear of these clichés, you can create a well-rounded and compelling narrative.

[sthilarions]

It’s overthinking hour (there’s not really any narrative payoff below, I’m just thinkin’. like some kinda Trekkie debating starship specs)

How the heck does time work in Charles’s bag?

(Of course the Doylist answer is “it works however the plot needs it to” but that’s no fun.)

a) He stores a jar of bees in there long-term, without even, as far as I can tell, any water or food or anything, and they don’t seem to be like, ghost bees or magic bees, just normal bee bees.

b) He keeps a LIT Molotov cocktail in there and when he pulls it out it is still on fire; it not only doesn’t explode in his bag, it doesn’t go out, either (which raises questions about oxygen and combustion and depletion).

c) This is the one that prevents the simple theories: he and Edwin are able to go in there and come back out.

Now, if it were just a and b, I’d just assume it causes stasis. Things go in, they’re effectively time-stopped, they come out in exactly the same state they went in.

But in that case Charles and Edwin would not be able to get out of their own volition. As soon as they went in they’d freeze and without someone outside to pull them out they’d be just stuck in there for eternity.

Possibly time works on each specific item how Charles chooses it to when he puts it in the bag? So he chooses the Molotov and the bee jar to be in stasis, but chooses for himself and Edwin not to be? At that point he’s doing high-speed precision chronomancy so dang, no wonder Edwin brags on him and the bag.

Or maybe it’s some sort of… this is gonna be really hard to explain especially without devolving into technobabble about state variables and entropy… semi-stasis (in which time works in a way that you can only do if you’re running off fantasy not sci-fi) where it’s like, things maintain motion but cannot change fundamental state, can’t actually advance in time?

Like, the bees keep flying in circles, but they don’t get thirsty or hungry. The fire flickers, but doesn’t go out or burn down the wick or use up oxygen. Ghosts are able to talk and move and think, but don’t… actually ghosts already kinda work like that so it doesn’t affect them much.

I imagine it would be really hard to determine how much time was passing outside the bag, in order to know when it’s safe to leave, if you’re working with semi-stasis. …although actually I have no idea how that would affect clocks.

Do we rule that since clock hands are going in eternal circles, not actually getting anywhere, they’re allowed to circle the same as the bees? Maybe the second hand’s allowed to go round but the minute and hour hands aren’t? Maybe a grandfather clock is allowed to have its pendulum swing but the hands can’t advance? Can a metronome work but not a clock? What if you try to count its beats - can you? Can it still run if you try?

What about a digital clock that shows the date as well as the time, is it allowed to cycle the time (on the grounds that that’s a loop) but not advance the date? Actually, dates loop too except for the year; do the month and day move but not the year? Definitely an alarm clock shouldn’t be able to go off (unless maybe it’s set to go off at the same time every day??)

Also with people what counts as a “change”? Like can Charles and Edwin not get in fights while in there because that would put them in a different mental/emotional/relational state? (If so it would be fascinating if they used that fact to manage conflict.) Can they not have character growth while in the bag?

Can they have a first kiss inside the bag? What about a second, or a seventeenth - at what point do kisses stop changing you? (Do they consider their relationship to be really real when they realize for the first time that they’re able to kiss inside the bag now - Charles casually goes for Edwin’s lips and it lands and they only realize a few minutes later that this is the first time the bag hasn’t stopped them, that it considers their love to be their base state?)

…I assume people can’t get pregnant inside the bag which opens some thorny out-of-scope issues

ANYWAY

I just think there would have had to be a LOT of trial and error before they figured out exactly how time worked with the bag, and Edwin probably ran through a dozen different kinds of clocks testing them, and, like, for most of that trial and error Charles would’ve had to be outside the bag in order to pull things out (if it turned out to be true stasis and he went in there it would be bye bye Charles) which means that probably the testing was done mostly on Edwin. Which is a fascinating thought.

[queenvhagar]

Allegedly Rhaenyra will carry a sword starting next season and it's per Emma D'Arcy's request? Quote from them in a recent interview:

“All the men in the show don’t have to worry about where they put their hands because they’re constantly holding the pommel of their sword. That obviously sounds like innuendo and you can do with that what you will but that is true. And all the rest of us are going, 'Where do we put our f—king hands?' Anyway, next year one hand is going to be taken care of. That’s what I want. I want a sword and I’ve been really clear about that with Ryan and I think that’s happening.”

While I understand that yes! Wouldn't it be cool for a female character to carry a sword and be a warrior queen and fight to change the world? Hell yeah! But is this Rhaenyra's character as it fits into the narrative of the story and universe in which she lives? Absolutely not, never was, and it diminishes the story to alter it so significantly yet again.

And for what? Is the creative team really so clueless about what to do for the writing that they're letting the actors run the show again, just like they've done in the past, including the Mysaria kiss that was never mentioned again and led to nothing? It's very clear that everyone in the creative team has fundamentally incorrect views about this story, it's characters, and the world it's set in.

The failures of this adaptation continue to truly astound and disappoint me in ways I did not think were possible.

[sunnylovesgirlythings]

It’s funny how people were screaming that Clawdeen and Toralei being a thing “narratively came out of nowhere.”

Because let’s be super real… so would’ve her and Draculaura.

Like yes… there’s narrative implications you can read into to see Clawdeen as a lesbian even before they confirmed it.

But? there wasn’t for Draculaura. In fact she’s probably one of the most consistently “straight” monster high characters.

Her and Clawd rival Cleo and Duece for THE canon couples of g1.

The only way Draculaura being with clawdeen would’ve been “built up” during g1 is if they took fanon perception into account.

Which I could list a million reasons into why that’d be an awful idea.

It could’ve worked in g3 if they chose to build to it (like they managed to make Cleo and Frankie really work. Based on less than nothing from g1) but that’s not the route they chose.

Dracudeen has always been a ship heavily reliant on the idea of Clawdeen liking Draculaura romantically. But the actual details of drac liking her back and where that started are consistently glossed over.

Because that’s where you start having to completely dive into fanon territory. Which is 100% ok! I’ve always been a big defender of fanons right to creative reinterpretation!

But for the people working for the company? On the actual product? They don’t get the luxury to just uproot and rework massive parts of Draculauras character. Especially not when they’re working on the g1 canon.

The way toralei acts in the pride comic is a progression from the way she was at the end of great scarrier reef. (Which anyone who says her and clawdeen don’t have any romantic chemistry should really rewatch) which mixed with juuuust a little timeskip magic made them being a couple decently buyable!

But they couldn’t do that with Dracudeen not only for the ways it’d fundamentally change Draculaura…

But because clawdeen would simply never do that to her brother. That would irreparably damage her relationship with him and clawdeen would rather die than consciously hurt her family. Not like that especially.

Fanon is a Wild West. Anything goes. But canon?

I’d simply never buy it. It makes sense why it wasn’t done.

[talenlee]

M.O.S.H.A

In your world, how can magic go wrong?

Magic is really powerful. Worlds with magic tend to treat it as fundamental to how the world works, it tends to lead to big societal change, and it’s generally, something you put in a story because you give a crap about it. Unless you’re me. But the point of magic system is that they impose themselves on the world, and they change the world. Anything in the world, as you may notice, impacts the world and has by necessity, ways to fail.

Like, bricks are pretty well known and there are still ways that we have rules for handling them in the case of causing dangerous problems. What kinds of things in your universe keep magic from going wrong? And if they’re not there, can magic go wrong?

Noob Trap

In The Belgariad, middling fantasy author and serial child abuser David Eddings describes the idea of the Will and the Word, where a sorcerer can do anything, by shaping their ‘will’ (which is a wonderfully abstracted thing, impossible to meaningfully describe) and uttering a word to give that intention shape. A sorcerer can do anything they imagine in the dreadful world of The Belgariad but there’s one thing they can’t ever truly do: They can’t unmake anything. If they tell anything to un-be, the universe snaps back and they stop existing themselves.

Now, the idea of making something disappear versus turning something into air, that’s a distinction without much difference. The sorcerer who learns that trick suddenly learns that hey, they don’t have to worry about this one potential backfire, because it’s meaningless.

Basically, your magic system might only ever mess up in a way that kills new practitioners who don’t know what they’re doing, concentrating magical power in a larger body of the older folks who got lucky enough to have a mentor or not kill themselves trying anything weird.

Education is the Regulations

Many magic systems that rely on representing colleges or universities (like my own, in Cobrin’Seil) treat the process of learning magic as not being so much as about getting the first spell to work but to make sure the second or third spell don’t blow your hand off. In the context of magic of this type there’s a reference to the idea that there are predictable behaviours, and, as a system that people interact with through thought and intonation and maybe some speckles of fluid or dust, there’s a meaningful problem with attenuation. Basically, if your input is infinitely malleable, your output can be incredibly flexible and if some of your outputs can be, say, explosions then you’re going to be much more interested in making sure those inputs are within reasonable safety means.

This is similar to the ‘noob trap’ situation, but instead of ‘if you learn this one thing you can do dangerous stuff all you want,’ but instead ‘every successful stage of safety you learn opens up near forms of potentially dangerous stuff you can do.’ I particularly like this model (but I would, wouldn’t I), because of how it shows the value of education and infrastructural practice.

Which again: I would, wouldn’t I.

Privileged Administration

You could have magic’s backfires and misapplications being handled by a central authority. Throw magic around in a city and the authorities come along and beat the snot out of you. Of course, if you’re talking about having magic, you can probably use that to harm conventional authorities. In order to properly escalate and respond to magic, then, you need a magical enforcement methods.

This is what Baldur’s Gate 2 calls the ‘Cowled Wizards’ model and it works great if you want a large institutional powerbase your characters can struggle with and which will inevitably be corrupted and exploited by bad actors, as if all power systems of this like have some degree of inevitable corruptibility as they cede sense in the name of maintaining and prolonging their own power like the Catholic Church. Wait we got a bit Brothers Karamazov there. Point is, that this is just cops, but magic, and that works great for all the things you need cops to do, including killing people without any kind of cultural moral reprimand.

Magic Is Inherent and Too Specific

Sometimes a magic system is kept from failures by being isolated to individuals, expressed by the inherent talent for magic that is unlocked often by some kind of traumatising experience, and then after that point, people explore that power. This is a system that expresses magic as a sort of single, specific power tha an individual has and which they have to learn about on their own, or maybe through the benefit of learning a system of magic that other people have in common.

I don’t like this kind of system, because I don’t like when magic is a special gift bequeathed on a minority through accidents of birth. That tends to get you towards the eugenics of the X-Men (but y’know, the X-Men are at least in a universe with eugenics as an established idea where there are people who make meaningful arguments against such things). Inherent, inborn magic and special abilities can work great for controlling the way it changes the world, but it comes along with two questions:

What the fuck is happening

Why haven’t people dedicated their effort to explaining this most important thing in the world?

You see this kind of magic system a lot in some really hack stuff. The only example I can bring to mind that’s worth mentioning here is Twilight but know I also was thinking of some other stuff you might think about but I try not to mention on this blog. But let’s pretend I know enough about Brandon Sanderson to say, yeah, that happens in his work, sure.

Conclusion

One of my favourite things about magic systems is the ways they betray authors not thinking about them out of the immediate experience of the protagonists. I know this is a funny thing because I think I did it in one of my stories and I think in hindsight while I thought about the magic in that world quite a bit, I didn’t do a very good job or present something that was that interesting once you got past the idea that ‘crabs had magic, and humans didn’t.’

But if you’re talking about fantasy cities where people can buy magical scrolls or wands, if you’re talking about a place with magical colleges and magical songs, then you’re going to want to think about them a step further: what’s to stop massive damage to the world and the people using it?

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dm Tip: Playing the Villain/ Guidelines for "Evil" Campaigns

I've never liked the idea of running an evil game, despite how often I've had people in my inbox asking how I'd go about it. I'm all about that zero-to-hero heroic fantasy not only because I'm a goodie twoshoes IRL but because the narrative-gameplay premise that d&d is built around falls apart if the party is a bunch of killhappy murder hobos. Not only would I get bored narrating such a game and indulging the sort of players who demands the freedom to kill and torture at will (I've had those before and they don't get invited back to my table), but the whole conceit of a party falls through when the obviously villainous player characters face their first real decision point and attempt to kill eachother because cooperation is a thing that goodguys do.

Then I realized I was going about it all wrong.

The problem was I had started out playing d&d with assholes, those "murder and torture" clowns who wanted to play grand-theft-auto in the worlds I'd created and ignore the story in favour of seeing how much unchallenged chaos they could create. They set my expectations for what an evil campaign was, and I spent the rest of my time developing as a dungeonmaster thinking " I Don't want any part of that"

But what would an evil campaign look like for my playgroup of emotionally healthy friends who understand character nuance? What would I need to change about the fundamental conceit of d&d adventures to refocus the game on the badguys while still following a similar enough narrative-gameplay premise to a hero game? How do we make that sort of game relatable? What sort of power/play fantasy can we indulge in without going off the deepend?

TLDR: In an evil campaign your players aren't playing the villains, they're the MINIONS, they're mooks, henchmen, goons, lackeys. They're the disposable underlings of uncaring overseers who have nothing but ill intent towards them and the world at large.

Where as in a hero game the party is given the freedom to challenge and overthrow corrupt systems, in an evil game the party is suck as part of that corrupt system, forced to bend and compromise and sacrifice in order to survive. The fantasy is one of escaping that corrupt system, of biding your time just long enough to find an opening, find the right leverage, then tossing a molitov behind you on the way out.

Fundamentally it's the fantasy of escaping a shitty job by bringing the whole company down and punching your asshole boss in the face for good measure.

Below the cut I'm going to get into more nuance about how to build these kinds of narratives, also feel free to check out my evil party tag for campaigns and adventures that fit with the theme.

Designing a campaign made to be played from the perspective of the badguys requires you to take a different angle on quest and narrative design. It’s not so simple as swapping out the traditionally good team for the traditionally bad team and vis versa, having your party cut through a dungeon filled with against angel worshiping holyfolk in place of demon worshipping cultists etc. 

Instead, the primary villain of the first arc of the campaign should be your party’s boss. Not their direct overseer mind you, more CEO compared to the middle managers your party will be dealing with for the first leg of their journey. We should know a bit about that boss villain’s goals and a few hints at their motivation, enough for the party to understand that their actions are directly contributing to that inevitable doom.

“Gee, everyone knows lord Heldred swore revenge after being banished from the king’s council for dabbling in dark magic. I don’t know WHY he has us searching for these buried ancient tablets, but I bet it’s not good”

Next, you need a manager, someone who’s a part of the evil organization that the party directly interfaces with. The manager should have something over the party, whether it be threats of force, blackmail, economic dependency… anything that keeps the antiheroes on the manager’s leash. Whether you make your manager an obvious asshole or manipulative charmer, its important to maintain this power imbalance:   The party arn’t going to be rewarded when the boss-villain’s plan goes off, the manager is, but the manager’s usefulness to the boss-villain is contingent on the work they’re getting the party to do.  This tension puts us on a collison course to our first big narrative beat: do the party get tired of the manager’s abuse and run away? Do they kill the manager and get the attention of the upper ranks of the villainous organization? Do they work really hard at their jobs despite the obvious warning signs and outlive their usefulness? Do they upstage their manager and end up getting promoted, becoming rivals for the boss-villain’s favor? 

Building this tension up and then seeing how it breaks makes for a great first arc, as it lets your party determine among themselves when enough is enough, and set their goals for what bettering the situation looks like. 

As for designing those adventures, you’ll doubtlessly realize that since the party arn’t playing heroes you’ll need to change how the setup, conflict, and payoff work. They’re still protagonists, we want them to succeed after all, but we want to hammer home that they’re doing bad things without expecting them to jump directly to warcrimes. 

Up to no good: The basic building block of any evil campaign, our party need to do something skullduggerous without alerting the authorities.  This of course is going to be easier said than done, especially when the task spins out of control or proves far more daunting than first expected. The best the party can hope for is to make a distraction and then escape in the chaos, but it will very likely end with them being pursued in some manner (bounties, hunters, vengeful npcs and the like).  Use this setup early in a campaign so you have an external force gunning for your party during the remainder of their adventures. 

Dog eat dog:  It’s sort of cheating to excuse your party’s villainous actions by having them go up against another villain who happens to be worse than they are. The trick is that we’re not going after this secondary group of outlaws because they’re bad, we’re doing it because they’ve either got something the boss wants, or they’re edging in on the boss’s turf.  This sort of plotline sees the party disrupting or taking advantage of a rival’s operation, then taking over that operation and risking becoming just as villainous as that rival happened to be. This can also be combined with an “Up to no good” plot where both groups of miscreants need to step carefully without alerting an outside threat. 

The lesser evil: This kind of plot sees your party sent out to deal with an antagonistic force that’s a threat not only to the boss’s plans but to everyone in general. In doing so they might end up fighting alongside some heroes, or accidentally doing good in the long run. This not only gives your party a taste of heroism, but gives them something in their back pocket that could be used to challenge the boss-villain in the future.  

The double cross: In order to get what they want, the party need to “play along” with a traditional heroic narrative long enough to get their goal and then ditch. You have them play along specifically so they can get a taste of what life would be like if they weren't bastards, as well as to make friends with the NPCs inevitably going to betray. This is to make it hurt when you have the manager yank the leash and force the party to decide between finishing the job , or risk striking out on their own and playing hero in the short term while having just made a long term enemy. This is sort of plot is best used an adventure or two into the campaign, as the party will have already committed some villainous deeds that one good act can’t blot out. 

Next, lets talk about the sort of scenarios you should be looking to avoid when writing an evil campaign:

Around the time I started playing d&d there was this trend of obtusely binary morality systems in videogames which claimed to offer choice but really only existed to let the player chose between the power fantasy of being traditionally virtuous or the power fantasy of being an edgy rebel. Early examples included:

Do you want to steal food from disaster victims? in Infamous

Do you as a space cop assault a reporter who’s being kind of annoying to you? in Mass Effect

Do you blow up an entire town of innocent people for the lols? in Fallout (no seriously check out hbomberguy’s teardowm on fallout 3’s morality system and how critics at the time ate it up)

I think these games, along with the generational backwash of 90s “edge” and 00s “grit” coloured a lot of people's expectations ( including mine) about what a "villain as protagonist" sort of narrative might look like. They're childish exaggerations, devoid of substance, made even worse by how blithely their narratives treat them.

Burn down an inn full of people is not a good quest objective for an evil party, because it forces the characters to reach cartoonish levels of villainy which dissociates them from their players. Force all the villagers into the inn so we can lock them inside and do our job uninterrupted lets the party be bad, but in a way that the players can see the reason behind it and stay synced up with their characters. The latter option also provides a great setup for when the party's actually monstrous overseer sets the inn on fire to get rid of any witnesses after the job is done. Now the party (and their players) are faced with a moral quandary, will they let themselves be accessories to a massacre or risk incurring their manager's wrath? Rather than jumping face first into cackling cruelty, these sorts of quandaries have them dance along the knife's edge between grim practicality and dangerous uncertainly; It brings the player and character closer together.

Finally, lets talk about ending the villain arc:

I don't think you can play a whole evil campaign. Both because the escalation required is narratively unsustainable, but also because the most interesting aspect of playing badguys is the breaking point. Just like heroes inevitably having doubts about whether or not they're doing the right thing, there's only so long that a group of antiheroes can go along KNOWING they're doing the wrong thing before they put their feet down and say "I'm out". I think you plan a evil campaign up until a specific "there's no coming back from this" storybeat, IE letting the Inn burn... whether or not the party allows it to happen, it's the lowest point the narrative will allow them to reach before they either fight back or allow themselves to be subsumed. If they rebel, you play out the rest of the arc dismantling the machine they helped to build, taking joy in its righteous destruction. If they keep going along, show them what they get for being cogs: inevitably betrayed, sacrificed, or used as canon fodder when the real heroes step in to do their jobs for them.

Art

[bloomeng]

I stopped playing genshin awhile back less out of protest and more out of disappointment and frustration towards the game, so know that what I’m about to say is not an attack on genshin players because I too was there for a long time. I’m a strong believer in that all media— even the most highly regarded— will have issues and simply enjoying said media does not reflect on your values so long as you can recognize when something about it could be better. In general fandom bashing to me is a pointless endeavor that only hurts people’s feelings and is ALWAYS hypocritical because maybe you don’t like one thing that you deem bad but I can guarantee, right now, you also like something that has made mistakes.

With all that being said it makes me very frustrated when genshin fans act as if the only issue with the designs is the fact that they’re white. It misses the point. Sure, they would be better if they weren’t paper white, definitely a step in the right direction but genshin is beyond help. Natlan was just the final tipping point. At its core, genshin’s designs have fundamental issues. The colorism is the most obvious, but the lack of body diversity is also an issue. Not to mention the lack of hair texture or features, the way they homogenize culture, the stealing random cultural names or elements with no consideration for their origins, the orientalism, the age issue, and the sheer fact that their shape language/character design principles are just bad from a design standpoint. (I wrote a mini-essay on that part alone.) The list goes on.

Perfect example: I saw the new cow-girl design they released and she’s slightly wider than their other models, not even mid-size, but by genshin standards that’s fat and her defining trait is how much she eats, she’s literally a cow and one of her attacks is to accidentally sit on her opponent. Not to mention the fact that it’s supposed to be a stumble into a fall while in a tiny skirt which makes it feel suspiciously like fetish content. Fully sums up my entire point that genshin has fundamental problems with its characters.

There are plenty of people who speak out but there’s a very prevalent narrative amongst the fandom that (whether intentional or not) implies everything would be fixed if they just made them not white. And it irks me, because at this point it feels willfully obtuse. Again it’s fine to play the game, to enjoy it and interact with genshin content like you would any other fandom space but there’s a hypocrisy to the people who believe they’re speaking out by editing the skin tone and maybe adding some freckles. This is a nuanced thing. It’s about how the work is created. If you are simply an artist drawing a character with some of your headcanons that’s not an issue, it’s not even a statement really, it’s just artistic interpretation. What I’m specifically referring to is when people make edits/artwork with the intent of “fixing genshin” and the only thing that changes is skin tone.

To truly fix genshin’s designs you would have to start from scratch. And yknow what? Character designing for cultures we’re not apart of is really fucking hard and that’s why they have teams of people working on them. It’s a thin line to balance. As individuals it’s not really our responsibility to fix them but if you do walk into that territory (aka making art or edits with the intention of fixing), you do now hold some of that responsibility. I’ve seen several artists fall into this trap where they go in with pure intentions of trying to help but quickly find out how complicated it is, not only to design a good looking character, but one that respectfully includes real cultural elements (that they aren’t familiar with) and it goes poorly. Again this is why these projects have teams of people as well as diversity coordinators.

And I think the key aspect that makes designing for genshin really hard is that they will always be limited by being a fantasy setting that is almost entirely based on real world cultures. No matter the intention this type of world building makes it extremely easy to fall into offensive streotypes, because you aren’t just showcasing a real life culture, you have to take the additional step in making it into something new. We run into the issue of diluting real world cultures down to aesthetics or implying things for the purpose of narrative, among many other challenges. Inherently by making that leap into the second step we are in muddy waters. Even shows like ATLA—which are held in high regard for their integration of real world culture into their fantasy world building— still have issues (which is also a fascinating conversation but not on topic).

Suffice to say it’s really hard to do. But with the access to resources that Hoyoverse has, it’s ridiculous that these compounding issues continue to persist.