#for some mystery and expanding the lore

[carionto]

The Ocean's Call

Life on Earth is... hectic these days. Everyone is so busy with all these projects and plans and probabilities and postulations, it's honestly quite bothersome for people like Cintra Valkeim, who just wants to immerse herself in nature. Particularly - the sea!

Ever since graduating from high school, only a few days after the Earth and Humanity "reappeared" in real space and were greeted back by the rest of the Galaxy, she's felt this calling of the deep unknown. Well, not all that unknown these days, practically every millimeter of the ocean floor had been mapped, and with all the vessels and underwater projects to keep the tectonic plates from shattering completely it was as busy below as above, but Cintra still felt like there was something missing, something that we "should" know, but don't.

She chose nautical engineering as her major with a minor in oceanography, as well as extra classes in classic literature when she enrolled at the Old Delhi Institute of Natural Science and Engineering. At first she did well at all her subjects, but only a few months in and she became obsessed over ancient texts, and barely left the library. As her attendance and grades fell and they were about to call her in, she disappeared.

When the university staff obtained the required permissions, they investigated her dorm room and found it filled with printed out copies of hundreds of books, pamphlets, zines, and every other form of text materials surrounding the occult, fantasy stories about the ocean and sea creatures, papers by discredited academics rambling on about ancient civilizations and sunken tomb worlds, and plenty of obscure works even the librarians were surprised they had in their archives.

There was one notebook, however, which detailed a plan to dive into one of the opened up fissures in the Pacific ocean that goes down to the mantle, and a schematic for a complex suit that could, in theory, withstand such enormous pressure using a miniature gravity field generator to create a sort of field of intense gravity right around it as a "shield" of sorts to hold back the water. Fascinating idea in its own right. Some test notes indicated she felt confident about it. And the last entry simply said "They are calling me more and more every day. I am ready now. I must go."

_________________________

Deep below, far below where the tiny nothings ever dare to go, where they can't go, one nothing stands out.

They are meant to be ignored, yet this nothing insists on being seen. On becoming a "something".

The eye is shut, but it can feel the nothing is calling out. It is dying.

Yet it pleads not for life. Rare, but not new. The nothing becoming a dead nothing is irrelevant to the One Who Observes All.

The nothing struggles. A feisty one. It conveys all it knows to a being that knows beyond what nothings can ever know.

Stop.

It holds a fragment of something new. What did it say?

... expired

Death and consequences are irrelevant where knowledge is concerned.

Rise once more. S P E A K !

"You Old Ones are resting, but we saw. We went where a New One was. It saw us. You went with us in your dreams, you saw it too. We took you there and back, but you were asleep. We can take you there again. You can find the New One. You can kill it! Please! Before it finds us..."

... expired again

The one who stared?

Such a brief yet infinite meeting. "New One" the nothing said. No. It is not kin.

Yet to imprint itself onto these nothings so deeply into their minds. This nothing found the marker in its brain.

Curious.

Yes.

This nothing shall become a something.

Rise once more. L E A R N !

[asurrogateblog]

How would you divide percentagewise your interest in pink floyd and beatles right now?

it varies day-to-day but overall I would genuinely say it’s 50/50. I think for me it’s like…if I only ever ate my favorite food for every single meal, I’d get tired of the flavor eventually, but if I have two of my favorite foods, then I can switch between them and not get bored so easily with either. I need that variety and I would hate to have to choose one over the other. also, my brain functions like a compare/contrast essay and because pink floyd and the beatles are so different in a lot ways yet strangely similar in others, it really fuels that fire for me to have both

[annabelle--cane]

"the magnus protocol had a whole ARG beforehand? what?"

yes! it did!

"oh so I need to have participated in this whole big thing to actually understand the podcast?"

not at all! from the official post-mortem put out by RQ, "while the ARG was not something that was necessary to participate in to understand the magnus protocol, it was designed to contain a wealth of background story and context that would enrich any player's listening experience."

"a wealth of background context that would enrich my listening experience 👀👀👀 how can I learn about this?"

SO glad you asked. sadly, many of the materials made for the arg have been taken down since the game ended 😔 (ex., the official OIAR, magnus institute, and bonzoland websites. (edit ii: I found partial wayback machine captures! see below) though @strangehauntsuk is still up!), so we're a bit low on primary sources, but in terms of learning about what happened:

for a starting point, I would really recommend this video by @pinkelotjeart

it's super accessible, it was made in real time as the game progressed and follows the solving and revelation of clues as they happened, it hits all the major points of the mystery and moments of community insanity while eliding some of the nitty gritty puzzle grinding, 10/10 would recommend.

here's the official summary put out by RQ, and I'd recommend reading through this once you've already gotten a basic handle on the flow of the story and the basic connections between major clues and events. it's got some fun behind-the-scenes info and lays out the thought process behind the puzzles in simple terms

here's the full masterdoc of all puzzles and resolutions put together in the statement remains discord server. masterdoc my absolute BELOVED, masterdoc my bethrothed, masterdoc my soul mate. I'd recommend this as a second port of call after the above video as it either contains all details about the puzzles or links to other expanded docs that do.

here's the narrative summary doc that lays out all the plot and lore discovered in three pages of plain prose. if you just want to get to the good bits as fast as you can and get blasted directly in the face by contextless lore bombs, this is the doc for you. if you don't want to start with the video, I'd say this is another good entry point.

once you've got the lay of the land, some of the game materials that I found particularly interesting include:

the in-universe east germany expat usenet forum, with all content translated into english. most of it is irrelevant space filler with occasional extremely sus lore, but I still found it fun to read through. love to soak in some fictional forum drama.

chdb.xlsx, the spreadsheet of the names of all the children the protocol 'verse magnus institute was studying/experimenting on. EDIT: here is a version of the sheet without any annotations and with all of the names in their original order, kudos to @theboombutton for catching that the commonly shared copy had the order swapped around.

klaus.xls, a (very corrupted) spreadsheet with what looks like the classifications of a bunch of old OIAR cases.

EDIT: have a few more saved materials from the game that I forgot to include.

an in-universe audio ad to apply to the OIAR that ran before archives episodes and kicked off the whole game.

an in-universe video ad to apply to the OIAR, this one is an official upload that's still up from the game itself. you can subscribe to the OIAR's official youtube channel today, if you so chose.

the robo-voicemail greeting from the OIAR's phone line.

EDIT II:

here is a wayback machine capture of the OIAR's official website.

here is a wayback machine capture of the bonzoland website.

(pretty sure both of the above captures just archived the home pages, though I haven't tried clicking all of the links. I'd say they're still worth looking at, the home pages give a good window into the vibes.)

once you start poking around in these documents, you'll find a bunch of links to others with further information, the materials I've included here just contain what I feel to be the most relevant details to getting a broad feel for the whole game. once again, huge shout out to the statement remains server, I was barely in there as the ARG was in progress and only ducked my head in every so often to find links like these. true mvps of the fandom.

[astrologysaysno]

You can find my first post about trainee Shang Qinghua here

Expanding on the lore of trainee Shang Qinghua, I believe that as an author, he would definitely put random songs he likes as part of PIDW lore.

Head Disciple Shang Qinghua is spectating Qing Jing Peak with his master for a performance. News has spread of the Peak Lord unearthing some old prehistoric songs that have never been played before, and that Qing Jing has been able to successfully decipher some of the old text symbols to be played.

Shang Qinghua hears it for the first time and is at first a little off put by the fact that he recognizes it somewhat but then he remembers and begins to die inside, cause how do you explain the fact that he knows this mysterious, centuries old song, and that this actually a k-pop b-side track from about two millenias into the future.

This becomes an unfortunate dilemma where, due to the song's catchy nature, when he thought no one was looking, Shang Qinghua began singing the song.

The big problem here is that what the Qing Jing Peak has deciphered was simply a musical score sheet, and that the version Shang Qinghua is singing isn't just vocalisations, there's actual words.

Being heard by the An Ding Peak Lord, he gets the bright idea of contacting the Qing Jing Peak Lord and begins to force Qinghua and Shen Jiu to collaborate to complete the song and perform it.

No one is happy in this scenario.

Shang Qinghua now has to figure out how to work with the scum-villain-to-be Shen Jiu without giving away his nature as a transmigrator, his connection to Mobei-jun, and messing up the plot and everything going wrong

Shen Jiu now has to collab with his greatest (one-sided) nemesis into creating a show-worthy performance, all the while trying to investigate Shang Qinghua and his shady secrets.

Mobei-Jun now believes he has a rival fighting for Qinghua's affections and that he's clearly losing cause. Have you seen these lyrics? Obviously, my rival is getting the upper hand, and I won't stand for that.

[thefirstknife]

Got through all of the secrets for Vesper's Host and got all of the additional lore messages. I will transcribe them all because I don't know when they'll start getting uploaded and to get them all it requires doing some extra puzzles and at least 3-4 clears to get them all. I'll put them all under read more and label them by number.

Before I do that, just to make it clear there's not too much concrete lore; a lot about the dungeon still remains a mystery and most likely a tease for something in the future. Still unknown, but there's a lot that we don't know even with the messages so don't expect a massive reveal, but they do add a little bit of flavour and history about the station. There might be something more, but it's unknown: there's still one more secret triumph left. The messages are actually dialogues between the station AI and the Spider. Transcripts under read more:

First message:

Vesper Central: I suppose I have you to thank for bringing me out of standby, visitor. The Spider: I sent the Guardian out to save your station. So, what denomination does your thanks come in? Glimmer, herealways, information...? Vesper Central: Anomaly's powered down. That means I've already given you your survival. But... the message that went through wiped itself before my cache process could save a copy. And it's not the initial ping through the Anomaly I'm worried about. It's the response.

A message when you activate the second secret:

Vesper Central: Exterior scans rebooting... Is that a chunk of the Morning Star in my station's hull? With luck, you were on board at the time, Dr. Bray.

Second message:

Vesper Central: I'm guessing I've been in standby for a long time. Is Dr. Clovis Bray alive? The Spider: On my oath, I vow there's no mortal Human named Bray left alive. Vesper Central: I swore I'd outlive him. That I'd break the chains he laid on me. The Spider: Please, trust me for anything you need. The Guardian's a useful hand on the scene, but Spider's got the goods. Vesper Central: Vesper Station was Dr. Bray's lab, meant to house the experiments that might... interact poorly with other BrayTech work. Isolated and quarantined. From the debris field, I would guess the Morning Star taking a dive cracked that quarantine wide open.

A message when you activate the third secret:

Vesper Central: Sector seventeen powered down. Rerouting energy to core processing. Integrating archives.

Third message:

The Spider: Loading images of the station. That's not Eliksni engineering. [scoffs] A Dreg past their first molt has better cable management. Vesper Central: Dr. Bray intended to integrate his technology into a Vex Mind. He hypothesized the fusion would give him an interface he understood. A control panel on a programmable Vex mind. If the programming jumped species once... I need time to run through the data sets you powered back up. Reassembling corrupted archives takes a great deal of processing.

Text when you go back to the Spider the first time:

A message when you activate the fourth secret:

Vesper Central: Helios sector long-term research archives powered up. Activating search.

Fourth message:

Vesper Central: Dr. Bray's command keys have to be in here somewhere. Expanding research parameters... The Spider: My agents are turning up some interesting morself of data on their own. Why not give them access to your search function and collaborate? Vesper Central: Nobody is getting into my core programming. The Spider: Oh! Perish the thought! An innocent offer, my dear. Technology is a matter of faith to my people. And I'm the faithful sort.

Fifth message:

Vesper Central: Dr. Bray, I could kill you myself. This is why our work focused on the unbodied Mind. Dr. Bray thought there were types of Vex unseen on Europa. Powerful Vex he could learn from. The plan was that the Mind would build him a controlled window for observation. Tidy. Tight. Safe. He thought he could control a Vex mind so perfectly it would do everything he wanted. The Spider: Like an AI of his own creation. Like you. Vesper Central: Turns out you can't control everything forever.

Sixth message:

Vesper Central: There's a block keeping me from the inner partitions. I barely have authority to see the partitions exist. In standby, I couldn't have done more than run automated threat assessments... with flawed data. No way to know how many injuries and deaths I could have prevented, with core access. Enough. A dead man won't keep me from protecting what's mine.

Text when you return to the Spider at the end of the quest:

The situation for the dungeon triumphs when you complete the mesages. "Buried Secrets" completed triumph is the six messages. This one is left; unclear how to complete it yet and if it gives any lore or if it's just a gameplay thing and one secret triumph remaining (possibly something to do with a quest for the exotic catalyst, unclear if there will be lore):

The Spider is being his absolutely horrendous self and trying to somehow acquire the station and its remains (and its AI) for himself, all the while lying and scheming. The usual. The AI is incredibly upset with Clovis (shocker); there's the following line just before starting the second encounter:

She also details what he was doing on the station; apparently attempting to control a Vex mind and trying to use it as some sort of "observation deck" to study the Vex and uncover their secrets. Possibly something more? There's really no Vex on the station, besides dead empty frames in boxes. There's also 2 Vex cubes in containters in the transition section, one of which was shown broken as if the cube, presumably, escaped. It's entirely unclear how the Vex play into the story of the station besides this.

The portal (?) doesn't have many similarities with Vex portals, nor are the Vex there to defend it or interact with it in any way. The architecture is ... somewhat similar, but not fully. The portal (?) was built by the "Puppeteer" aka "Atraks" who is actually some sort of an Eliksni Hive mind. "Atraks" got onto the station and essentially haunted it before picking off scavenging Eliksni one by one and integrating them into herself. She then built the "anomaly" and sent a message into it. The message was not recorded, as per the station AI, and the destination of the message was labelled "incomprehensible." The orange energy we see coming from it is apparently Arc, but with a wrong colour. Unclear why.

I don't think the Vex have anything to do with the portal (?), at least not directly. "Atraks" may have built something related to the Vex or using the available Vex tech at the station, but it does not seem to be directed by the Vex and they're not there and there's no sign of them otherwise. The anomaly was also built recently, it's not been there since the Golden Age or something. Whatever it is, "Atraks" seemed to have been somehow compelled and was seen standing in front of it at the end. Some people think she was "worshipping it." It's possible but it's also possible she was just sending that message. Where and to whom? Nobody knows yet.

Weird shenanigans are afoot. Really interested to see if there's more lore in the station once people figure out how to do these puzzles and uncover them, and also when (if) this will become relevant. It has a really big "future content" feel to it.

Also I need Vesper to meet Failsafe RIGHT NOW and then they should be in yuri together.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I think what particularly annoys me with the "zelda was always gameplay before story" is that... it's not true? At least I don't think it's true in the way people mean it.

Zelda games were always kind of integrating story based on the standards of the time. When game stories were in game pamphlets, Zelda's stories was in the pamphlets. ALTTP tried to tell a pretty complicated stories with the limitations of the time. OoT was actively trying to tell an epic, cinematic tale packed with ambiance and expand what 3D could offer that 2D games struggled with. Majora's Mask is deeply character-driven in many, many ways. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are both pretty concerned about their stories, down to the point that some people were bored by TP's cutscenes in particular. Skyward Sword, from what little I have played it, is very very invested in its characters and their journey (and 2D Zeldas have Link's Awakening, Minish Cap... None of them are visual novels, but they are concerned with emotional journeys, character arcs, mysteries about their own world...)

What is true is that the narrative wraps around the mechanics, and not the other way around. The mechanics drive themes, aesthetics, emotional beats and character journeys; and that's great. The world is a puzzle, and the world is delightfully absurd when it needs to be, full of heart when it calls for it, dark and oppressive when it suits the player experience.

That does not mean the games aren't invested in their stories. Even BotW has a pretty complicated story to tell about an entire world rather than one specific tale or legend --all of it at the service of the gameplay, which is exploration and mastery of your environment.

So. Yes, none of the Zelda games are million-words long visual novels that care deeply about consistency and nuance; but stories don't need consistency or deep lore to be meaningful and serve an emotional journey. Again: gameplay is story. The two cannot be so easily parsed from each other.

And Zelda as a franchise obviously care deeply about story, characters and setting (and still does right now --otherwise there wouldn't be a movie), even if it doesn't try to imitate prestige narrative-driven games, which is great and part of why I love this series so much. Doesn't mean it couldn't have done better in the past, it obviously could have, but I feel like pretending that nobody ever cared about story or character is just... false? It's a huge disservice to the devs too. Some of them obviously cared immensely.

The "gameplay above story", at least in the extent to which it is paraded today to defend TotK, mostly, is a really recent development. And I think it's one that deserves to receive some pushback.

[cherrytea556]

Lore Rekindled; The Lore Olympus that should have been

To be honest, I checked out the rekindled version before the original one and now having reading the original as well, it's extremely odd. Y'know goodbye volcanic high where the original was a mess but a group of 4chaners made a parody game which turned out to be of better quality than the original? This is like that but replace 4chan with tumblr users, mainly @genericpuff whose series is pinned in their tumblr blog where you can check all of the episodes, especially updated ones. In this post, I will be praising this series of how it fixes the problems of the original

The Pacing

One thing I notice about lore olympus and lore rekindled is the pacing. Not just the flow of the story but where it chooses to focus on. Now in lore olympus, the pacing is kinda a mess and its mainly to do with what it focuses on. An example is the magazine plotpoint; in the original, its basically kinda there in between doses to focus on other stuff like persephone and hades together, persephone's sa (i'll get to that later), eros story, zeus and hera etc...The flow generally isnt that bad per say (except for persephone's sa cuz that was way too quick) but for a story meant to be a romance between hades and persephone, you'd think it idk, it would focus on persephone and hades specifically, not eros which is another example of; its flashbacks. Eros specifically has such a dragged out flashback in episode 12 which we didnt need or at least with that much exposition when it should've naturally expand in the story and that's what rekindled does. The magazine plotline has turned into the first conflict of persephone and hades as we see how it affects their lives and relationships. This works for its pacing better because it doesn't give you too much stuff to jumble with, making the narrative more concise and easier to understand where the story is going. And with the flashbacks, rekindled cuts out the fat in the flashbacks from the original to a perfect balance where it gives exposition of the characters while also leaving mystery for the audience to be intrigued, my favourite one would have to be this (though it more of a nightmare than a flashback specifically speaking);

It's of persephone in a greenhouse her mother placed her in with this red eye thing following her from outside the greenhouse. I have no idea of this lurker if its her metaphorical rage or a danger in her life but either way, i am intrigued by its presentation.

The Characters

When reading lore rekindled and lore olympus, the characters are definetly an odd experience. For lore olympus, the characters arent exactly uh....great per say. I think the main reason for this is how their ultilised, with characters like eros, hera, hectate etc being there to mostly be a matchmaker for hades and persephone even if it was initially seen as wrong like with hera and hectate, be antagonistic as a way to have conflict between hades and persephone like minthe, demeter and recently leuce even if ones had reasons too like minthe with hades emotionally cheating on her and demeter because lets be honest, she had a point. Then there's hades and persephone, whoo boy where to start with them.

Hades starts off as a creep eyeing at persephone during a party, specifically at her body and still lusts persephone even being aware that shes 19 and he's 2000 years old. Also is a shitty boss, father AND contributes to slavery with it while being adressed in some way, doesnt change him which isnt good for a character that's meant to be the main protagonists love interest.

Persephone though, I can get the self insert vibes. From favouritism towards the story, being who most of the men in the story are attracted too, portrayed as a 'cinnamon roll' (they actually said that early on in the story, im not kidding) who cant do no wrong. She acts like a teenager rather than a young adult which makes the scenes where shes sexualised just more uncomfortable (and they already unnecessarily were) along with adding that uncomfortability to the romance

But with rekindled, they expanded on the characters much more than they originally were. Persephone for instance has turned from a 'sexy baby' legal teenager to an actual young relatable adult with agency and allows her to screw up (e.g, getting drunk on her own rather than eros drunking her). Her adult attitude makes the romance between her and hades not only more palpable, but also strays away from the infantilisation/uncomfortable sexualisation of her character which is nice to see. Hades also is written well in the series from how it acknowledges his faults while still making him likable. And thats the same for every character really, their personalities are much more fleshed out and nuanced which makes their characters feel real to life, gaining effectiveness for more emotional scenes with them. An interesting thing too is that they even expanded the magazine guy's character from making fake news for profit into feeling guilt over what they done, standing up for persephone which is a pretty nice change.

No Sa Plotline

Not like you cant have sa in your story ever but if you never planned it from the beginning and only did when people tell you that the scene you drew from your comic was sa then....maybe just not do it. Lore olympus does exactly that where while an attempt was made, it goes on to retcon it into making apollo (the guy who sa'd persephone) into a lesser evil like that would made a difference instead of just cutting it out from the very beginning. Lore rekindled thankfully just made apollo into his pilot version, a shitty bf but more likeable and expanded upon (which should have been his portrayal from day 1). His shittiness doesnt come up in the story, more like self absorbness/egotisticalness although with its recent chapter of the magazine guy offering persephone lunch, it might reveal some cracks or at least further down the story it will be revealed to us which futhers how effective rekindled character writing is in how its expansion of characters would give us the feels. That or portray him as not a good match for persephone, either way much better than the original.

Artstyle

Lore olympus has a pretty good artstyle (at least in s1/the early episodes, s3 is just kinda goofy) but lore rekindled has got a good artstyle which is on top, more consistent too. Here's some examples;

Comedy

It's objectively funnier than lore olympus, no question asked

All in all, if you want to read lore olympus, i recommend you to read the lore rekindled one instead as it's better in every way. Give it a read.

[novantinuum]

Pink Onyx AU- An Analysis and Theory Post, Part 1

[Part 1- You are here!] | [Part 2] | [Part 3] | [Part 4] | [Part 5]

~

Howdy! Those of you who have followed me for a while have probably been seeing my reblogs of the @pink-onyx-au comic made by @ceephorsshitshow. Well, today I wanna share with you something a little different than my usual SU meta… because today I’m gonna analyze this really cool fan work with the same level of seriousness as I do canon. (Like. Seriously. This first post alone is really, really long. I put most of it under a cut.)

This particular comic is a very special one for me to watch unfold, because it’s evident that a lot of deep care and attention to detail has been poured into its creation. There’s fascinating bits of expanded character development to chew into here, as well as plenty of mysteries and lingering questions for us readers to muse and theorize over. If you follow me for Steven Universe and haven’t read this AU yet I highly recommend you check it out. The most basic pitch is that it explores what a fusion between Steven and Jasper might look like, and does a LOT of deep-diving into the similarities and differences of both of those characters’ psyches.

Here’s the episode masterpost on tumblr.

And you can find it on Tapas, too! 

(Note: For the purposes of these posts, I was given permission by the comic artist to post screenshots of various pages where relevant in this discussion. For each frame used I will list the episode and page number for easy reference. Additionally, this post and all future ones on the topic will contain full spoilers for the comic thus far.)

Now with all that introductory stuff out of the way, here we go!

__

So, on the final page of the most recent update, we get one hell of a visual plot bomb for Steven as ol’ Onyx unfuses:

(Episode 9: Page 22)

He’s now visually expressing remnants of his corruption, where before he was not.

And it’s this mysterious plot point in particular that got me wanting to analyze this comic more deeply in the first place. This is completely new for him in this story. Thus far, he’s never expressed any of these remnants when he’s just himself- not in the way Jasper does. So it made me wonder… how might this shift in his appearance play into the ultimate trajectory of the plot? How does Steven suddenly showcasing corruption scars integrate into the larger story that is being spun here about him and Jasper and how they relate to each other?

Well, there’s a lot of comic details and story lore we need to unpack first before I can take my best theorizer’s stab at this. Let’s dig right in.

__

Prelude: The analyst’s treasure is in the speech bubbles

Anyone who’s been a fan of this comic for a while has probably noticed these fun visual details already, but I’m going to take a moment to break down what I believe each speech bubble style signifies for folks who may not have context. It’ll make some of my analysis later a bit easier, too, ahah.

So. Speech bubbles. What kinds do we have here? 

(Episode 1: Page 6)

Style number one: Solid with black text

This style is standard for non-fused characters, and is also utilized when a fused character is speaking whilst in a state of internal harmony.

Steven is pink and Jasper is orange, of course. Onyx’s speech bubbles are a distinct darker pink, and the main three Crystal Gems get their own colors as well. More minor characters get white bubbles.

(Episode 1: Page 10)

Style number two: Scribbly pink lettering overlaying black text

Whenever you see this type of speech bubble, it’s a sign that there is some level of internal discord going on within Steven or Onyx that is related to their diamond side. It usually shows up when one of the two is in pink mode, but from what I can tell this is not a solid rule.

(Episode 2: Page 12)

Style number three: Pink/orange mixed bubbles

This is how we see Onyx talking for a good portion of the early comic. Their speech bubbles are a clean mix of Steven’s pink and Jasper’s orange. And most vitally, the color on the top and the tail signifies which of them is “fronting” at that moment.

(Episode 3: Page 11)

Style number four: White bubble with solid pink text

So far, this style has only been used to represent dialogue that is being spoken by Steven’s gem half exclusively. Which makes things very interesting, as in Steven’s own remembrances of shattering Jasper on the very first page of the comic, the line “I have been holding back!” is shown in this specific style, instead of the scribbly pink lettering that signifies internal discord.

There is one additional sub-style here- and this is the one moment where we get Onyx’s mixed bubble but WITH the solid pink text. 

(Episode 3: Page 11)

I believe these two styles pretty much mean the same thing… only, the white/pink text is either viewed within memory or a metaphoric fusion mindscape where we the viewer are actually “seeing” Steven’s instability, and thus can “see” his gem half as a separate entity there. While, in reality, this is an argument Onyx is having with the disparate pieces of themself.

(Episode 4: Page 9)

Style number five: Pink/orange tye-dye mixed bubbles

When you see that darker shade of pink start dappling into the standard mixed bubbles, this indicates that there are small whispers of Onyx’s true personality beginning to surface, instead of them constantly being wrested back and forth between Steven and Jasper’s conscious control.

(Episode 4: Page 16)

Style number six: Pink/orange mixed bubbles, but with a darker pink tail

From this page onwards, Onyx’s speech bubbles always have their darker pink shading the tail no matter who is fronting. Sometimes there are little lines of another color etched out of it, and sometimes the tail is solid dark pink. I like to believe that when it’s solid, it means that Onyx is just a little closer to reaching a fully harmonious state than when it’s not.

(Episode 9: Page 6)

Style number seven: Onyx speech/thought bubbles with a hint of pink/orange underlying

This style seems to signify moments where it’s still Onyx fully in control of themself and their actions/words/thoughts, but they’re taking subtle influence from their components or accessing their memory a bit.

These are all of the distinct styles I have caught so far, but quite honestly, it would not surprise me if I am missing something. All of this to say… pay close attention to the speech bubbles. They can tell you a lot about Onyx’s state of mind throughout the story.

Now with all this established, I’d like to finish off this first post with my first big discussion point.

__

Question One: What does Jasper actually know about Steven’s “meltdown,” if anything?

The AU author recently solidified this comic’s placement in the SUF timeline in an ask response, saying that the first episode takes place just a week after Steven’s corruption event.

I’m glad this point was clarified, because it was super vital information which deeply influenced the way I analyzed Steven’s actions and responses in my recent re-read… it means this experience is still super raw for him. This is VERY important and we’ll get back to this in more depth later in future posts. But first, let’s explore what Jasper knows of this event.

The full extent of her knowledge is unclear-

(Episode 1: Page 6)

In Episode 1, Steven briefly alludes to his corruption as seen above… referring to it as “[his] meltdown.” Notably, Jasper does not seem to ask any questions about this stray comment. This COULD suggest that she knows what happened to him a week prior via hearsay, but given the context of the rest of the scene and the fact that she’s as isolated as she is out here I genuinely wonder if she thinks Steven’s so-described “meltdown” is his shattering of her.

This idea would make a good deal of sense, as she doesn’t start to make any commentary on the topic of corruption at all until they’re actually fused- with Steven bringing it up first.

(Episode 2: Page 14)

On this page, Steven takes note of Onyx’s very visible spikes (which are Overtly in the same placement as his own when he was corrupted), and initiates the musing upon his own corruption himself.

With the way Jasper phrases her response, the vibe I get is that she somehow gleans a bit of ambient shared knowledge about what happened to him through their fusion.

(Episode 2: Page 15) 

“That human form you wear must have been hiding your markings.” This quote is SUPER vital. We’ll come back to this later on in this post series, too.

(Episode 2: Page 15)

It’s clear that Jasper doesn’t REALLY understand what he went through or what caused it, since she then outright mistakes the casual woes and body pains of organic life as corruption. (As seen above.) 

(Episode 8: Page 4)

But later on, she outright relates to him over their shared experience of past corruption, so she must at least know enough from mere ambient thought-sharing by this point to recognize it happened.  

It’s obvious that she’s barely scratched the surface on fully understanding her fusion partner, though. Neither of them have. It’s gonna take a lot of fusion, comedic mishaps, and genuine conversation to get there. All in good time, I’m sure.

__

Please do join me tomorrow at 7am PST for the next post in this series! This has been a blast to write up and muse upon.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Ramshackle is such an interesting mystery and it needs to be talked about more.

I know it’s mostly because of narrative/storytelling reasons, but the fact that Ramshackle WASN’T based on a villain even when it was an active dorm and didn’t have a corresponding statue is interesting to me. The Great Seven have always been The Great SEVEN, so it’s safe to say old Ramshackle dorm students never had a cool Disney villain to admire.

Unless Michard M*use is a villain, you know. Ramshackle is the dorm of cap*talism lmao

We know it’s based on the Thru The Mirror short, but in-universe it’s just a bit out of Night Raven College’s standard, it gives an “other” feeling, like Ramshackle was that one dorm that didn’t have enough relevance or just a bit overshadowed by the other dorms from the beginning. Or maybe it was important one day but due to mysterious circumstances nobody remembers it.

Not only that, but it’s the only dorm located on school grounds that doesn’t require access through the mirror chamber. It just feels very… Normal? Like I cannot tell you how Regular Guy this dorm is. Literally just the smallest dorm compared to all the others, too.

Maybe it was Night Raven College’s very first dorm? Maybe the OG Ramshackle students weren’t even magic users, and had other talents? I’ve seen some theories but I hope they expand on Ramshackle lore after episode 7.

Ramshackle is for sure the "odd one out" of the dorms. As this anon has said, there's various anomalies that separate it from the others (aside from having fallen from grace): it's located on-campus rather than in its own pocket dimension, Ramshackle has no key historical figure or known core value associated with it, the scale of the dorm is much smaller comapared to the other dorms, etc, It really adds to the sense of "not belonging", which is what also makes the dorm such a fitting place for misfits like Yuu and Grim, who aren't your average NRC student.

Pomefiore is said to be the oldest dorm at Night Raven College so by that logic, Ramshackle is definitely NOT the first dorm. This is most likely a reference to how Snow White is the oldest of the films that feature the Great 7, having released in 1937. Hercules, the most recent of the films, came out in 1997, so that perhaps explains why it is the most "modern" and high-tech of the dorms (though we don't know if this one was the newest dorm in the TWST-verse yet). Oddly, the Thru the Mirror short came out in 1936, a year before Snow White, but Pomefiore is still credited as the oldest dorm, not Ramshackle. Perhaps the irl movie release dates don't correlate that strongly with the age and the history of each of the dorms after all? I also believe that NRC has always been an academy to train mages, so they wouldn't allow non-mages to attend (with Yuu being a very rare exception); they wouldn't be able to complete any of the coursework required of them in their later years (Yuu is only able to do so because of their mage partner, Grim).

Hoping we do get to learn more about Ramshackle in the future, whether that's in the current TWST arc or in the next ^^

[warden-melli]

♪ It twists my head just a bit to think

All the people in those old photographs I've seen are dead ♪

Haven’t posted anything from my Melli gets sent to the future au in a long time. I’ve been working on it constantly, but even though it takes up the majority of my creative energy, for some reason I never post about it much, or when I do I don’t specify that it belongs to this specific project. Most of my Melli art is actually from this “universe”, believe it or not. I really want to post more about it, but it’s so deep in headcanons and my own expanded lore, I’d have to write some set up stuff first. I’ve never actually published anything properly before, but it’s definitely a goal of mine.

Some context. Melli vanishes while investigating a disturbance on Mt Coronet. He awakens in the future, confused, alongside a mysterious silent Gengar that won’t leave his side. The pair are discovered and taken in by Team V, an organisation dedicated in part to solving the mystery of the “falling phenomenon”, a strange and unexplainable event that has seen people from the past appear mysteriously all over the world. He must join Team V to help try and solve the mystery of what happened to him that day, and to try and find a way to return home, to his own time

This is set after discovering some records of his past, coming face to face with a familiar image of a different time

Those are Fall Out Boy lyrics btw, and I always think of my future flung Melli whenever I hear them. They directly inspired this scene

(Also someone is taking a pic of Laventon taking a pic don’t worry about it lol. Goes without saying but the old “photo” in the second image is offical game art)

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

what are your favorite horror films?

Hmm this changes, but atm probably:

Savageland— Mockumentary about the disappearance of a small Texas town. It’s an indie film with no budget, but they make the most of it. It features some very harrowing and spooky photographs.

Lake Mungo— Mockumentary about the disappearance of a teenage girl in Australia. This has very strong Twin Peaks influence. Love what it does with the concept of ghosts, and being haunted by your own fate.

Hell House LLC— Another mockumentary/found footage investigating mysterious deaths at a haunted house attraction on opening night. Really inventive use of jump scares, and I love how the subsequent films expand on the lore.

Ghostwatch— BBC horror broadcast from the 70s, this one was insaaaane because they essentially War of the Worlds-ed it. It looked like a genuine Halloween news segment, using like the actual regular anchors at the time. The plot takes a lot from the Amityville Horror iirc?

The Strangers— Home invasion movie. Incredible slow burn so there’s no horror for a solid 30 minutes or more, there’s instead a ton of character building. It’s so stressful to watch! The subsequent movies aren’t as good, but the first one is really well done.

Ravenous— Cannibalism as a metaphor for colonialism! So iconic. It lifts a bit from the Donner Party, but goes places with it. This movie, and its central dynamic, is everything NBC Hannibal wishes it was.

[physalian]

8 Signs your Sequel Needs Work

Sequels, and followup seasons to TV shows, can be very tricky to get right. Most of the time, especially with the onslaught of sequels, remakes, and remake-quels over the past… 15 years? There’s a few stand-outs for sure. I hear Dune Part 2 stuck the landing. Everyone who likes John Wick also likes those sequels. Spiderverse 2 also stuck the landing.

These are less tips and more fundamental pieces of your story that may or may not factor in because every work is different, and this is coming from an audience’s perspective. Maybe some of these will be the flaws you just couldn’t put your finger on before. And, of course, these are all my opinions, for sequels and later seasons that just didn’t work for me.

1. Your vague lore becomes a gimmick

The Force, this mysterious entity that needs no further explanation… is now quantifiable with midichlorians.

In The 100, the little chip that contains the “reincarnation” of the Commanders is now the central plot to their season 6 “invasion of the bodysnatchers” villains.

In The Vampire Diaries, the existence of the “emotion switch” is explicitly disputed as even existing in the earlier seasons, then becomes a very real and physical plot point one can toggle on and off.

I love hard magic systems. I love soft magic systems, too. These two are not evolutions of each other and doing so will ruin your magic system. People fell in love with the hard magic because they liked the rules, the rules made sense, and everything you wrote fit within those rules. Don’t get wacky and suddenly start inventing new rules that break your old ones.

People fell in love with the soft magic because it needed no rules, the magic made sense without overtaking the story or creating plot holes for why it didn’t just save the day. Don’t give your audience everything they never needed to know and impose limitations that didn’t need to be there.

Solving the mystery will never be as satisfying as whatever the reader came up with in their mind. Satisfaction is the death of desire.

2. The established theme becomes un-established

I talked about this point already in this post about theme so the abridged version here: If your story has major themes you’ve set out to explore, like “the dichotomy of good and evil” and you abandon that theme either for a contradictory one, or no theme at all, your sequel will feel less polished and meaningful than its predecessor, because the new story doesn’t have as much (if anything) to say, while the original did.

Jurassic Park is a fantastic, stellar example. First movie is about the folly of human arrogance and the inherent disaster and hubris in thinking one can control forces of nature for superficial gains. The sequels, and then sequel series, never returns to this theme (and also stops remembering that dinosaurs are animals, not generic movie monsters). JP wasn’t just scary because ahhh big scary reptiles. JP was scary because the story is an easily preventable tragedy, and yes the dinosaurs are eating people, but the people only have other people to blame. Dinosaurs are just hungry, frightened animals.

Or, the most obvious example in Pixar’s history: Cars to Cars 2.

3. You focus on the wrong elements based on ‘fan feedback’

We love fans. Fans make us money. Fans do not know what they want out of a sequel. Fans will never know what they want out of a sequel, nor will studios know how to interpret those wants. Ask Star Wars. Heck, ask the last 8 books out of the Percy Jackson universe.

Going back to Cars 2 (and why I loathe the concept of comedic relief characters, truly), Disney saw dollar signs with how popular Mater was, so, logically, they gave fans more Mater. They gave us more car gimmicks, they expanded the lore that no one asked for. They did try to give us new pretty racing venues and new cool characters. The writers really did try, but some random Suit decided a car spy thriller was better and this is what we got.

The elements your sequel focuses on could be points 1 or 2, based on reception. If your audience universally hates a character for legitimate reasons, maybe listen, but if your audience is at war with itself over superficial BS like whether or not she’s a female character, or POC, ignore them and write the character you set out to write. Maybe their arc wasn’t finished yet, and they had a really cool story that never got told.

This could be side-characters, or a specific location/pocket of worldbuilding that really resonated, a romantic subplot, whatever. Point is, careening off your plan without considering the consequences doesn’t usually end well.

4. You don’t focus on the ‘right’ elements

I don’t think anyone out there will happily sit down and enjoy the entirety of Thor: The Dark World.  The only reasons I would watch that movie now are because a couple of the jokes are funny, and the whole bit in the middle with Thor and Loki. Why wasn’t this the whole movie? No one cares about the lore, but people really loved Loki, especially when there wasn’t much about him in the MCU at the time, and taking a villain fresh off his big hit with the first Avengers and throwing him in a reluctant “enemy of my enemy” plot for this entire movie would have been amazing.

Loki also refuses to stay dead because he’s too popular, thus we get a cyclical and frustrating arc where he only has development when the producers demand so they can make maximum profit off his character, but back then, in phase 2 world, the mystery around Loki was what made him so compelling and the drama around those two on screen was really good! They bounced so well off each other, they both had very different strengths and perspectives, both had real grievances to air, and in that movie, they *both* lost their mother. It’s not even that it’s a bad sequel, it’s just a plain bad movie.

The movie exists to keep establishing the Infinity Stones with the red one and I can’t remember what the red one does at this point, but it could have so easily done both. The powers that be should have known their strongest elements were Thor and Loki and their relationship, and run with it.

This isn’t “give into the demands of fans who want more Loki” it’s being smart enough to look at your own work and suss out what you think the most intriguing elements are and which have the most room and potential to grow (and also test audiences and beta readers to tell you the ugly truth). Sequels should feel more like natural continuations of the original story, not shameless cash grabs.

5. You walk back character development for ~drama~

As in, characters who got together at the end of book 1 suddenly start fighting because the “will they/won’t they” was the juiciest dynamic of their relationship and you don’t know how to write a compelling, happy couple. Or a character who overcame their snobbery, cowardice, grizzled nature, or phobia suddenly has it again because, again, that was the most compelling part of their character and you don’t know who they are without it.

To be honest, yeah, the buildup of a relationship does tend to be more entertaining in media, but that’s also because solid, respectful, healthy relationships in media are a rarity. Season 1 of Outlander remains the best, in part because of the rapid growth of the main love interest’s relationship. Every season after, they’re already married, already together, and occasionally dealing with baby shenanigans, and it’s them against the world and, yeah, I got bored.

There’s just so much you can do with a freshly established relationship: Those two are a *team* now. The drama and intrigue no longer comes from them against each other, it’s them together against a new antagonist and their different approaches to solving a problem. They can and should still have distinct personalities and perspectives on whatever story you throw them into.

6. It’s the same exact story, just Bigger

I have been sitting on a “how to scale power” post for months now because I’m still not sure on reception but here’s a little bit on what I mean.

Original: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy New York

Sequel: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy the planet

Threequel: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy the galaxy

You knew it wasn’t going to happen the first time, you absolutely know it won’t happen on a bigger scale. Usually, when this happens, plot holes abound. You end up deleting or forgetting about characters’ convenient powers and abilities, deleting or forgetting about established relationships and new ground gained with side characters and entities, and deleting or forgetting about stakes, themes, and actually growing your characters like this isn’t the exact same story, just Bigger.

How many Bond movies are there? Thirty-something? I know some are very, very good and some are not at all good. They’re all Bond movies. People keep watching them because they’re formulaic, but there’s also been seven Bond actors and the movies aren’t one long, continuous, self-referential story about this poor, poor man who has the worst luck in the universe. These sequels aren’t “this but bigger” it’s usually “this, but different”, which is almost always better.

“This, but different now” will demand a different skillset from your hero, different rules to play by, different expectations, and different stakes. It does not just demand your hero learn to punch harder.

Example: Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2 does have more influence than Tai Lung, yes. He’s got a whole city and his backstory is further-reaching, but he’s objectively worse in close combat—so he doesn’t fistfight Po. He has cannons, very dangerous cannons, cannons designed to be so strong that kung fu doesn’t matter. Thus, he’s not necessarily “bigger” he’s just “different” and his whole story demands new perspective.

The differences between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are numerous, but the latter relies on “but bigger” and the former went in a whole new direction, while still staying faithful to the themes of the original.

7. It undermines the original by awakening a new problem too soon

I’ve already complained about the mere existence of Heroes of Olympus elsewhere because everything Luke fought and died for only bought that world about a month of peace before the gods came and ripped it all away for More Story.

I’ve also complained that the Star Wars Sequels were always going to spit in the face of a character’s six-movie legacy to bring balance to the Force by just going… nah. Ancient prophecy? Only bought us about 30 years of peace.

Whether it’s too soon, or it’s too closely related to the original, your audience is going to feel a little put-off when they realize how inconsequential this sequel makes the original, particularly in TV shows that run too many seasons and can’t keep upping the ante, like Supernatural.

Kung Fu Panda once again because these two movies are amazing. Shen is completely unrelated to Tai Lung. He’s not threatening the Valley of Peace or Shifu or Oogway or anything the heroes fought for in the original. He’s brand new.

My yearning to see these two on screen together to just watch them verbally spat over both being bratty children disappointed by their parents is unquantifiable. This movie is a damn near perfect sequel. Somebody write me fanfic with these two throwing hands over their drastically different perspectives on kung fu.

8. It’s so divorced from the original that it can barely even be called a sequel

Otherwise known as seasons 5 and 6 of Lost. Otherwise known as: This show was on a sci-fi trajectory and something catastrophic happened to cause a dramatic hairpin turn off that path and into pseudo-biblical territory. Why did it all end in a church? I’m not joking, they did actually abandon The Plan while in a mach 1 nosedive.

I also have a post I’ve been sitting on about how to handle faith in fiction, so I’ll say this: The premise of Lost was the trials and escapades of a group of 48 strangers trying to survive and find rescue off a mysterious island with some creepy, sciency shenanigans going on once they discover that the island isn’t actually uninhabited.

Season 6 is about finding “candidates” to replace the island’s Discount Jesus who serves as the ambassador-protector of the island, who is also immortal until he’s not, and the island becomes a kind of purgatory where they all actually did die in the crash and were just waiting to… die again and go to heaven. Spoiler Alert.

This is also otherwise known as: Oh sh*t, Warner Bros wants more Supernatural? But we wrapped it up so nicely with Sam and Adam in the box with Lucifer. I tried to watch one of those YouTube compilations of Cas’ funny moments because I haven’t seen every episode, and the misery on these actors’ faces as the compilation advanced through the seasons, all the joy and wit sucked from their performances, was just tragic.

I get it. Writers can’t control when the Powers That Be demand More Story so they can run their workhorse into the ground until it stops bleeding money, but if you aren’t controlled by said powers, either take it all back to basics, like Cars 3, or just stop.

—

Sometimes taking your established characters and throwing them into a completely unrecognizable story works, but those unrecongizable stories work that much harder to at least keep the characters' development and progression satisfying and familiar. See this post about timeskips that take generational gaps between the original and the sequel, and still deliver on a satisfying continuation.

TLDR: Sequels are hard and it’s never just one detail that makes them difficult to pull off. They will always be compared to their predecessors, always with the expectations to be as good as or surpass the original, when the original had no such competition. There’s also audience expectations for how they think the story, lore, and relationships should progress. Most faults of sequels, in my opinion, lie in straying too far from the fundamentals of the original without understanding why those fundamentals were so important to the original’s success.

[asleepinawell]

I've seen a lot of back and forth about the latest chapter of firmament and the conclusion I've come to is that people who have a basic knowledge of some specific parts of fl lore are more likely to have enjoyed it. the problem here being that fl rarely outright tells you big lore things but instead tries to give you bits to piece together, some of which are in ES or the sunless games. and then the lore continues to build on top of that lore. and you end up at lore point 5 where you don't know anything about lore points 1-4 and are hopelessly lost

you then have people who haven't played the other games or gone through the wiki or reddit not having a solid foundation to start from in terms of understanding not only what is going on but why it's important and what the implications of it are

i rambled about it before once somewhere but i think fl would greatly benefit from having a codex that filled in as you went through the main story. something that's an optional storylet at your lodgings with a disclaimer that you can safely skip it if you prefer not to use it. the codex would only give you very basic info (the great chain 101) and could even say things like hey if this lore point seems cool check out the sunless games or these specific ES for more story about it (obligatory statement that this is just wishful thinking and i know the devs are very busy and don't have time to implement everything)

i really enjoyed the latest chapter of firmament, but I've also done the wiki deep dive AND saw a spoiler about what certain things were before i hit the end of the chapter (and to be fair to the people claiming the writing was hard to follow, I'm not sure i would have put the pieces together on my own there) and it greatly increased my enjoyment of the big final conflict in it because i had some grasp of the stakes and the players involved. i don't know what will come of the decision i made (which is good!), but i do understand what decision i made. that's the key bit to me

like i was saying in the first paragraph, it feels like some of the frustration with firmament is partly coming from the fact that fl is a game that rarely outright explains big lore points and rather expects you to suss them out as you play (which probably worked great way back at the start), and that as the game has gotten bigger and longer, people are going to spend less time delving into things from the early game as they rush to get to the cool later stuff and get increasingly more confused when the game bases story off those lore points later on if they haven't stopped to research them. the more the end game lore expands, the more this becomes true. thus my codex idea, a 'here's what you need to know in order to be immersed in the next layer of mystery' guide

[ai0lisauce]

I need all of you to read this (#2)

If any of you were teens when Miraculous Ladybug was in its early seasons, you'll remember the absolute SWARM of anti-Lila Rossi fanfics. Lila Rossi as a character destroyed what fragile fan ecosystem we had in the fandom, and it got very toxic very fast. Now, I'm not proud to admit that I was ADDICTED to the Lila Rossi's Lies Are Exposed tag on AO3 back in the day, but one thing it did lead me to was this fic:

Word count: 23.6k

Rating: T+

Chapters: 7/7

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Relationships: Alya Césaire/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe (I know all those ship tags look intimidating but just trust me on this one)

Author: @captorations

I started reading this because at the time I was getting really sick of the constant finger-pointing fics had taken in the fandom. Character traits were blown to the absolute extremes (I'm sure a lot of us have at least seen one fic out there where Mari is an untouchable goddess who kills/destroys everyone around her and Felix is also there), and one character in particular got a LOT of hate.

Alya baby, I'm so sorry for what they did to you.

Told from Alya's POV, we jump in the MOMENT she realizes Lila's been lying to her. It's not much of a spoiler since it's mentioned in the fic summary, but here instead of being a bad liar with just plot armor, Lila is a bad liar with magic abilities (that quite honestly makes so much more sense than whatever the show was trying to do).

I originally fell in love with Miraculous because I loved the idea of a fun 'villain of the week' show with a super unique magic system that I felt was fresh and mysterious enough to keep me interested. Where the show has frankly gone off the rail, this fic's exploration of ML's magic system makes the original show make sense. And that's really what I'm trying to get at here. This fic drew me in for the premise of Alya being the best friend we know she's supposed to be, but I stayed for the wonderful analysis and exploration of ML's world and lore.

If you're like me, you get a bit intimidated by a ton of ship tags. And I get it, sometimes it's just not my cup of tea, but I think the balance of all the characters here is well done. The characters act and think like actual teenagers, and the romance is mostly on the side, so if you're here for plot like me, it won't hinder your reading experience.

Some great quotes:

It hadn’t been a sound so much as a feeling, a moment as fleeting and precise as a lightning strike. Her senses had stretched beyond her body and told her, in no uncertain terms, that someone here was on the verge of shattering Lila’s glamour for themselves. (Ch 5) Rena was good at that, certainly. Good enough to ensure every non-fakeout illusion she’d cast for Lila had just a touch of imperfection. (Ch 6)

I just think this fic deserves more attention for being SO damn good. when I started writing my ML ATLA au, I came back to this fic because I loved how the magic system was expanded out and made to feel so natural.

10/10, would read this a million times again. Happy reading and stay saucy!

<Previous Post, Next Post>

[dailyadventureprompts]

The Daily Adventure Prompts Masterpost

After several years of running this blog, it’s become more and more evident that I need some central reference where people can access all my different DM advice posts, important tags, and ongoing series. Sharing my ideas with people and helping to improve the art and craft of being a dungeonmaster was always the point of DAP after all, and its of no help to anyone if the answers to important questions are buried under a hundred or more pages of my rambling.

To that end, I present this post as an ever expanding catalogue of my thoughts. Something that you can page through at your leisure in hopes some of my hardwon lessons will be of use to you.  

DM Advice: The go-to tag for all my rambling on how to improve your d&d game, with some highlights presented here,

My Process

Getting Organized

Basics of Campaign writing

Railroading & Rollercoasters

The “more than you can chew” universal d&d story structure

Ghosts on the Horizon: not getting bogged down with overplanning

Mapmaking 101

Writer’s Block

Better Random Encounters

Better Loredumps and Exposition

Writing Adventures to Make your party care about your world

Series of Interest

The DM Starterpack: Focused on first timers or those who want to re-learn d&d from the ground up this series of posts is intended to give you an idea how to come up with a campaign concept, write a first adventure, run a session zero, and slowly pivot into running a larger campaign.

Tableskills: While a lot of my work focuses on how you can write better stories, these posts talk about being a better storyteller focusing in on the performance art of DMing.

Mechanics: On the flipside, sometimes you need to put on your game designer hat and focus in on ways to make the underlying engine of the game run more smoothly to better facilitate fun and storytelling.

How to Run...: there are certain types of adventure that need more thought put into them then the average monsterhunt or dungeon delve, and so I wrote a series of articles to not only help you write/design them but to pull them off at your table.

Wilderness Exploration

Heists

Naval Combat

Infiltrating a fancy party

Mystery

Airship Adventures

Political Intrigue

Mythology style epic labours

The Loot Overhaul: A series of posts where I focus in on different aspects of d&d’s treasure and item

An overhaul to player wealth & The Economy

Better Loot & Treasure Hoard generation

A case for magic item shops & Item focused treasure hauls

Shopping trips & Group Inventory Management

Making Identifying & Attuning to Items interesting

Crafting Overhaul pt 1: Weapons & Armour

Crafting Overhaul pt 2: Magic & Consumables

Monsters Reimagined: My ongoing delve into d&d’s bad monster lore and how it can be improved. Sometimes it’s because a cool monster is just underwritten, sometimes its because how they’re used in the narrative just doesn’t make sense, sometimes its because there’s decades or even centuries old pro-genocide talking points that we need to unpack.

Footnotes on Foes: For those topics that don’t warrant a full “monsters reimagined” but I still want to give my take on. Fun stuff in there, especially with lesser known monsters that could use a revamp.  

Heavy Topics: Where I deepdrive on the nuance of particular topics, ranging from uncomfortable touchstones in history that are important to my writing to sensitive subjects that you’ll want to discuss with others around your table.

Bad Opinions: Sometimes a take so awful lands in my inbox that I need to hold it up infront of my audience and perform a vivisection. Its part media study, part bloodsport.

Dungeon Design: An attempt to do what the creators of the game have put off for decades (despite being half of the title) and actually provide a coherent framework for step by step dungeon design. After nearly twenty years of banging my head against a wall, it finally seems to have worked.

Planescape: Where I try to add cool new (or revamped) destinations to the tapestry of d&d’s multiverse.

Special mention to “Why I don’t use the Great Wheel Cosmology” as it underscores a lot of my overall problems with d&d’s cosmic lore and its weird moralistic claims.

Deities: A collection of new/overhauled gods focusing on making them represent ideals that people would actually believe in as an embodiment of ideals and narrative themes.

How to use the divine in your game: a story first view of how to use faith, religion, and gods in your campaigns aiming for things more subtle and thematic.

Outer Gods: For when you want to get lovecraftian

Religion is the tag I use to talk about the concept of both faith as a theme in writing, as well as how the organized religion serves as a worldbuilding tool

Adventures by Type: not a comprehensive list

Press Start: Opening adventures for those who want a solid start for future campaigns or adventures

Campaigns: For those who’d like a larger story framework to play with

Adventure Compendium: If you’d like a lot of ideas on the same theme

Dungeon: Need I say More?

Monsterhunt: Facing off against a powerful enemy that has some tricks

Villain: In both Quantity and Quality

Player Home: Every party needs a place to rest their head

Ally: They’re here to help, usually

Patron: Benefactors of the shady and non shady verity

Mystery: Put your Sleuthing Hat on

Thief: Time to steal something

Faction: Larger groups the party can join

Adventures by Environment

Lowland

Swamp

Field

Desert

Wasteland

Highland

Cave

Mountain

Forest

Seaside

Ruin

Settlement

Village

Town

City

[psychic-refugee]

My original theory for S2 and the Stalker has completely been obliterated, and honestly from all the new big names attached to it, and the smaller names, it’s a lot to fit in only 8 episodes.

The cast is very crowded for an 8-episode season. With limited time and “space” in the story, I feel like with Wednesday the only common thread and obviously will be in every episode, and Ortega herself saying each episode will feel like its own movie, I feel like most of the actors will actually only get one episode.

There’s also some indication that some of the students have already wrapped up their filming (specifically Joy Sunday via IG posts who is a top billed star), which is very short to me if true and insinuates to me that only one or two episode will be at the school. Which also supports the other rumours that the Addams estate will be heavily featured.

I would like it if some of the students got a significant B plot to explore their characters more throughout the season, but I don’t have confidence in the writers to explore anyone but Wednesday. So far, every other character is just a prop for her.

My new theory is that the season will start at the Addams estate. Maybe a funeral to intro many new Addamses. Then each subsequent episode will have her deal with different Addamses and the family lore.

She’s also supposed to be on a break, so starting at the Addams estate makes sense to me.

In no particular order, but what I think will be included in episodes:

1: We see Wednesday’s home life and more interaction and possible backstory to her friction with Morticia. This will include Morticia, Gomez, Pugsly, and Grandmama. I don’t think Pubert exists in this universe.

2: Uncle Fester centered episode which will also serve as a backdoor pilot to his spinoff.

3-6: She visits with various Addamses, really expanding the Wednesday universe, each with their own issues she has to figure out. So, each episode is more or less a procedural, horror mystery/ “Outcast of the week” This will include Noah Taylor, Billie Piper, Christopher Lloyd, Francis O’Connor, Haley Joel Osmet, Heather Matarazzo, Joonas Suotamo.

Besides just having something to do over break, perhaps Wednesday visits family to test the stalker’s reach, who is still sending her proof of being stalked. When back at Nevermore, she finally figures out who the stalker is because she has eliminated who it couldn’t be based on how they’re able to stalk her from family member to family member and then back to Nevermore.

7-8: Break is over and they’re back at Nevermore. Enid will heavily be featured to talk about her status as a transformed wolf within her pack. Maybe talk about some issues with Ajax because he’s not a werewolf and now she has more options within the Werewolf community. We’ll also see what happened to Tyler and Sheriff Galpin. And it’ll introduce the new faculty at Nevermore.

Maybe Tyler confronts his dad about what he knew about his wife being a Hyde, if anything, and what it means to have a half-outcast child. Galpin will talk his son into accepting his responsibility in what happened, and Tyler voluntarily turns himself in and Thandiwe Newton is his new therapist, perhaps at the same insane asylum his mother.

Wednesday visits him before he’s on a long absence to get his powers and mental health in order. They make peace.

New students Evie Templeton and Owen Painter will feature. I wonder if Owen will be Enid’s triangle love interest, as he has dark, pale features like Ajax. Perhaps she has a type. lol

Xavier, Divina, Kent, and Yoko’s absence will be explained that their families feel that Nevermore has gone downhill and they are pulled from the school to attend an alternative Outcast school.

Steve Buscemi as the new Headmaster will do something to spring into the 3rd season and we’re left with a question about something. lol