#i mean technically there is an underlying theme

[faderiftss]

OG one is from july 2023… did pretty ok based on that one trailer. I'm surprised that it didn't have as much of blue team/meta focus as I was expecting tho lol

my quick preliminary rvb19 bingo.... we got a mix of predictions and hopes

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle watches New Wish - Post #14

Lost and Founder's Day

I do really like how the theme song flows, especially at the end where Cosmo and Wanda jump from their human disguises into fairy form.

Ooh, Founder's Day came back from "A New Dev-elopment." Continuity! I like how the title card shows us the hat that Dev and Hazel saw during their treasure hunt.

I'm gonna throw my money down on the Dimmadomes founding Dimmadelphia (or an ancestor).

skdfj, Hazel's so cute when she steals her teacher's hat.

-> Yes, it was the Dimmadomes.

I like how Dev's shades are still gone, but he's still got that smug tone of voice. But today, he has a good reason to be a bit smug for a festival his family is hosting (that his dad had to work over the weekend to pull together). This is gonna be interesting.

I don't trust any of this tech to be good (in the moral sense). Dale literally tried to promote pollution a few episodes ago.

LKSDJFSD, Dev giving out watches that do a bunch of cool technical things and this is the face he makes when he's asked if the watches tell time:

(They do not).

This is the first time Hazel's shown interest in anything related to Dimmadomes' tech (She has a phone case covering any logo and didn't know how to do the dance they apparently made) and now she's gushing over the gift Dev gave her so I'm... hm. Where ya going with this, Hazel?

Okay, so... what the HECK is going on with Dimmadelphia? I'm sure we'll get to learn the real founder soon, but all I can assume right now is that it was Doug himself, hence the hat logo. If that's true, he was BUSY during the 50 years of frozen time.

-> That WOULD justify my Buxaplenty overlap seeing as the train lines would've been crucial for this.

It's gotta be a different ancestor. There's no way Doug would be in Dimmsdale if he'd founded another city. This city's huge. I'll be watching for any indications of "established X year."

Aww, Hazel adores Dev now and is blatantly gushing over him. That's really cute. Local #1 Dev fan:

[cnt'd under the cut - #long post]

I can't believe we didn't get a "Hazel has a bone in her hair" gag when she got shocked by the tech.

omfg, Dev is so desperate to interact with his dad that he's begging to "organize merchandise by tossing boxes back and forth to each other." He's smart. Goober.

Diagnosed child who would play Catch with active TNT minecarts in Limited Life SMP. He would just do it...

Dale, you shouldn't tell your son to "Eat a lizard." That's mean.

Oh noooo, are we about to get "My dreams were crushed many years ago... How old are you?" version 2.0?

-> Note to self, Dev's birthday is 9 years, 7 months, and 14 days before Founder's Day (give or take since he says "pretty much exactly my birthday to the day, which I think implies he's doing math and decides it's the day).

Dev is 9? Lol. Didn't we already have end of the year tests in like, Episode 2? And our implied end of school year dance? Baby.

-> I double-checked and Sadie Hawkins is in November. There were Sneezy Hawkins Dance posters in Episode 1 when Hazel walked in. Those posters hung in school for multiple episodes (I'll keep my eyes out for them in future episodes), which would imply she started school in September or October (Probably not August since she was specially introduced to the class as a new student).

-> If we keep seeing the posters throughout the whole year, I'm willing to wave them off, but while planning the timeline, it's worth noting they exist, we know we're post-2019, but probably not too many years later since that was the most recent date on the gym's championship banner for a school that clearly wins sports games often ("Fearless"), and we've seen multiple waning crescent moons.

-> No snow, but not unreasonable since Dimmsdale was in California.

... I gotta say, I'm really enjoying these recent episodes, but D: Where was this early in the series when I was confused in Post #10 as to where all the underlying trauma vibes were?

We've absolutely shifted vibes from where we were when I wrote that post. Which is fantastic, but I'm surprised we didn't get this earlier. THIS is FOP vibes. THIS is what I wanted and why I was super confused by this show's tone earlier. Yeah, of course I like Dev now... He's shifting the tone back to the OG show's vibes.

I'm wary, but I've approached to eat out of the hand.

Oh no, we scene shifted before Dale could reveal the statue under the cloth. Either he's broken and we're going to see the aftereffects (following Hazel's POV where she's confused as to why he's gone off the rails and turned snappy) or he's gonna find out during the event and he'll break down in front of the crowd. Uh-oh...

...... Okay, now they're just taunting me with the moon. It can't always be a waning crescent!!

The stage looks like Doug Dimmadome.

Please tell me Dale didn't forget to add Dev's info to the ID-scanning robot.

Every time Angela is onscreen she has a new therapy book and I support her.

Wanda: Parenting never gets easier.

-> Please tell me Hazel's parents are about to ask about that and they're going to have to either backpedal or they're going to imply they've raised like 100 kids.

sdlkfj, they only cite Poof. BRUTAL.

-> Cosmo one again giving me "First fairy baby born in 1000 years." Yeah yeah, Westley Periwinkle held the title first, we all know him (/fanfic joke).

Seriously though, it's very funny to me that Poof is never, ever referred to as "first baby born after Cosmo" or "first baby born in tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands." Only first in hundreds OR first in thousands. I can't believe that DANG KID is still haunting me in the new show.

-> Cosmo still confirmed to have been the pregnant parent. I'm glad that wasn't retconned (despite Cosmo's best efforts to scramble and cover up what he said by claiming Wanda was the pregnant one).

Cracking up. Cosmo, I think the neighbors think you're trans but not out about it.

Angela: Where's your son now? :) Wanda: Eh, we don't know. I mean, we forget because we were on vacation for 10k years.

Wanda, WHAT did I say in Post 11 about how you cannot leave that clingy child alone immediately after tearing him away from Timmy?? If Poof shows up and he has abandonment issues and/or clingy vibes, I'm gonna shake you both so hard.

-> Why is Marcus not calling them out for being paranormal creatures? ... That's kind of funny since Crocker would've lost his mind.

I like how Cosmo and Wanda turned their wands into lollipops for the carnival. That's cute.

Uh-oh, the statue's not been revealed yet. I hope Dev isn't onstage when this happens. (I want him to be onstage and suffer).

-> I should note that "Stanky Danky" and "Lost and Founder" are the episodes Dale lists the companies he's in charge of, and I'm pretty sure they're different. I want to make a coherent list throughout the series.

Marcus is reading his wife's book at the party, aww. They're so cute.

OH MY GOSH, their ancestor IS surnamed Dimm! I am once again thinking this implies Dale Dimm from "Which Witch Is Which?" - who founded Dimmsdale - is probably also in this family tree.

Wanda's glowing wand is adorable. They're both cute.

So, Hazel has been here long enough she agrees she hasn't "just" moved here anymore, so I'll allow the waning crescents.

Doug Dimmadome struck gold in 1953? I'll be making a note of that. I know that's after both Dimmsdale and Dimmsdale Flats were founded. This doesn't do much for me right now, but it's good to note.

-> This implies he was a teen or adult in 1953, so he's definitely not close to the age of Timmy's parents, who were 10 in the '70s. This checks out; he's got the white hair.

-> Let's say this is 2020 for the purpose of "We know we're after 2019." (2020 - 1953) is 67, and the youngest I'd be okay letting him strike gold is 10, since 10-year-olds do a lot in this show. So, he's at minimum 77 years old during this show, and could very easily be 87 or more years older (87 if he struck gold at 20), if I'm doing my math right.

And again, that's off the assumption it's 2020, which is a little earlier than I'd been brainstorming. I'm okay with this since he had white hair in the OG series, but I'm gonna have to plot out a timeline for Dale's age at some point.

Dale: /evil monologues about his plan to monitor kids' heartrates to figure out exactly what a child want. Me: Dale, have you tried... talking to a kid? Maybe YOUR kid? Standing behind you? Dev, clearly uneasy: Dad, that's so great! You get to help kids right away!! Dale: ... Help kids?

^ Me

Wait, so the drones can waste products and not get yelled at? Dale, maybe you should focus your attention in that area of your business- I think you're losing product.

Why do the drones sound so sad? They're talking like all their friends just ditched them. They're so cute.

I love how he's still wearing the big boots:

Oh no, Dev's on stage and Dale's talking about how the statue "isn't just him" under the tarp and "he can remember when this bundle of joy arrived." Yeah, Dev's about to shatter.

Okay, Wanda's clearly startled that the statue doesn't depict Dev and even Cosmo's starting to sense that something's going on in that family. You two are going to report this, right?

Aww, Cosmo misses his son.

The contrast of Dev crashing and burning while Hazel is enjoying her new hat is very funny to me. Like, we get this sequence of how happy she is and you just know Dev's having the worst day.

Dev: It's Hazel! Of course... Her well-known love of hats! /said not long after Wanda was like "Hazel, I've literally never seen you wear a hat before yesterday, what do you mean you like hats?

That's actually very funny. And cute? When did Hazel and Dev talk about liking hats? Logically, that must've been while they were montaging on the treasure hunt and posing next to those hat-shaped objects for photos.

With Dev talking about the Dimmadomes running a family business, I'd really like to see what Dev's relationship with his grandfather is. Doug was also careless about destroying childhood memories and I don't trust him to be a good dad either, but I'm curious.

-> I actually have no proof Doug Dimmadome is still alive. I wonder if he's out of the picture and if that had a negative effect on Dale, which may be why he's throwing everything into the business right now, and why he loves his boots.

-> I should check if those boots are similar to his dad's. Like, what if he saw his dad die on the day Dev was born and the boots were left to him, so that's why the boots are so important to him that he dedicated a statue to them?

POV, the dad who (presumably) pampered you for life after you'd spent 7 years of torment underground - and you don't seem to have a mother in your life so this is your only parent and only known connection to a world that isn't full of suffering - is dying on the same day your wife is in labor. What do you do?

Aww, Hazel knows Dev well enough to sense that something's up and ask if he's okay, implying they seem to have grown closer from "A New Dev-elopment" when she saw his father scoff at him and opted to change the subject instead of asking about his feelings. They seem to be doing well as friends and I like that.

-> All these crescent moons make me wonder how long it's been since that episode, though since Dale was working on the Founder's Day event on the weekend, I assume we're still in that range of time.

Dev, holding his arm when Hazel asks if he's okay: I... don't have time to get into it.

They're so cute. I love them.

-> I love the focus on Dev right now, but I hope we don't go full steam ahead into Hazel's friendship with him and she sidelines Jasmine and Winn for her new buddy and/or potential crush.

She hasn't seen her friends this whole carnival, which surprises me. Don't do it, Hazel.

What, where did Dev get those shades. He didn't have those .4 seconds ago.

Dev's going to complete his task and give Hazel's hat back to his dad and still get rejected.

OH NO, Dev is trying to lure the scanner drones away from Hazel, but he didn't tell her that so she thinks he just called her a name, mugged her, and ran off. That's hilarious. #You tried.

Dev, you have to talk to people. You can't just assume she knows what's going on. Fool.

I like how Dale also has special eyewear (VR glasses).

I like how Cosmo inexplicably thinks all the Dimmadomes have "Pickle" as a middle name. I think he said that to Dev in an earlier episode, right?

I like how Hazel saved the day by "doing what Cosmo would do" and pressing all the buttons randomly. That's hilarious.

Barry the dinosaur was at the carnival... That's great.

HAZEL'S MAD!!

As she deserves to be- that's the second time Dev regressed to calling her names. She thought they went through this, but now she's like "He's not changing and also I literally just caught his dad in an evil plot of shocking children's brains with electricity. And Dev seems to have been helping."

Yeah... This is gonna go great. Also, his cute little poses:

Oh thank goodness... We are SO BACK, baby! The fluffy episodes were fine, but NOW we're gettin' somewhere!! Time to break some hearts.

"I would hug you, but I do not have human arms or warmth." I love them.

Aww, he likes her so much. Best buddies...

I didn't know this was his phone, I thought it was a retro video game console.

Oh, it's an iPad parallel. It's got a stand and that's why it's big.

I like how my extremely specific "Ed Leadly as Dev's other grandpa" situation just keeps getting worse the more I think about it.

Little Dev: Grandpa Leadly, I learned to write my name! :) Leadly sitting among his pencils as Dev hands him a tablet he typed on instead of pencil and paper: Buddy, rising star, apple of my eye, my little angel... I will pay you 17 million dollars to never do this in front of me again.

Dad who likes flashy and long-lasting things to remind himself how far he's come vs. grandpa who's willing to massively overpay for anything he took interest in for 5 seconds; what arguments will they endure?

OHHH BOY, it's fairy assignment time! LET'S FREAKIN' GO!

It's Poof!! That is not the voice I expected out of him, but maybe I should've because he did love deep voices back in "Certifiable Super Sitter." I accept it.

Aw, he's so ready to play! This makes me so happy... That's exactly what a fairy godparent is here for- Finding miserable kids and turning that around so they get happier memories of their childhoods. That's exciting!

-> Oh, NOW I see why you guys were all messaging me about my "Poof adores his hero Westley Periwinkle and likes naming things after him" lore, sdkjfl. Ahahaha... I'm in danger.

-> "Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Pixies" Poof-Westley interactions looming on the horizon

Interesting choice to change his name? I wonder if that was done for stylistic reasons like the script. I seem to remember the OG show's scripts would say POOF in them for special effects, and I can see how that would be confusing.

Is... is this because he's trying to lie low so he can dodge the attention he was always getting as a celebrity kid? That feels right, seeing as if it was a true deadname to him, he probably wouldn't have introduced himself as Poof before saying "I changed it to Peri, like Periwinkle."

Either that or he's unclear if Dev's heard anything about him from Cosmo, Wanda, or Hazel and he wanted to clarify who he is, though that doesn't seem likely.

Huh. I'm kinda surprised Poof showed up. I know in the past, he was a controversial addition to the show and I half-expected him to be swept under the rug, though I did wonder about it when Cosmo and Wanda were talking about him earlier.

I've always loved him though and I'm excited to have him back. Return of my other OTHER son.

I'm really excited to hear him talk since his talking was limited to "School of Crock" (only at the end), "Fairly Odd Fairy Tales" (which he mostly slept through), and "Certifiable Super Sitter" (which is... unique). I've had to make up his entire personality for 'fics based on what limited understanding we had of his interests. I look forward to learning more about this version of him!

My established version of him in 'fics will take priority over new information. I'm currently still on the line of "Do I want to ignore New Wish in my canon or try to incorporate what I can?"

That said, I'm leaning a little towards incorporating, since I think I can work with most of it so far, especially if we're throwing in "Fairywinkle-Cosma family aren't strangers to time travel right now."

-> I'm not committing by any means, so don't hold me to that, and even if I do, it'll be cherry-picky.

-> One of my canons for Cloudlands AU Poof is that he's a fanfic writer, mainly for a series called Ninja Cowboy (which he chronically leaves unfinished, to Foop's distress since as Poof's opposite, he's addicted to finding out their endings). He also writes Anti-Cosmo x H.P. fanfics because it's the only thing that makes them back off when they show up to bother him.

Point being, I hope he gets to engage in Prime Meridian with Dev. I feel like they'd enjoy writing 'fics together and it would be funny to me :)

-> I'm wheezing on the floor. Poof's early concept name was Dusty. Even though the writers wouldn't have reason to know that was his concept name, it's funny to me that his name was changed to something that's also not that. The man of as many names as voices he can mimic...

That works really well for me since I named his younger brother Dusty, so that would've caused me problems.

I also gave Poof a mullet / ponytail in my teen design, so that makes me laugh. Lemme see if I have his ref sheet...

I do! Plus a bunch more from my files:

Looks like I gave him a tuft kinda close to his extra hair strand! That's fun. I wonder if New Wish Poof also likes sports. Hmm...

I'm gonna have to look up what era suspenders were popular. I specifically designed my teen/adult Poof with a late 60s / early 70s vibe since Cosmo was said to have been designed for the 50s, which is the time period parallel I was treating Fairy World in during that era too (hence Poof's blog tag being #purple hippie dragonfly, which I'm not planning to change because it's for me).

Exciting! I like Poof's staff. I've seen people do adulthood designs for Foop with a staff, but Poof's a new one. That's fun.

Alas, no freckles... but that's not gonna change in his Cloudlands AU design. We are "biological queen bee" all the way here.

Hmm. Foop has freckles, but... we'll see if he ever shows up in this series. I do not expect the artists to remember his freckles since they only showed up when he puffed his cheeks or flushed, but... if Foop shows up without his mustache and goatee, I'mma have questions.

Actually, this is perfectly fine because I always draw gyne fairies with pale freckles unless they're at their peak, and I already set Finley up as more dominant than Poof at school (with Finley suppressing his pheromones so Poof's "locked down" anyway). It looks like they're pretty faint in his ref sheet too. I'm satisfied with this.

No promises I'll work the Peri arc into my canon. I think I have room for it to exist and I don't think I've seen anything in New Wish that directly conflicts with Cloudlands AU in a way I can't work around, but I'm not likely to write 'fics for New Wish right now.

-> I'm not opposed to incorporating New Wish prompts into the 130 Prompts series IF I find any old drafts I end up not liking, but I did a deep clean in early 2023 and got rid of ones I didn't like, so I'm not sure.

I did sketch Hazel for a potential arc cover though, so I can use that if I have reason to.

So far, as long as I can find a satisfying way for Poof to age, I think I can swing New Wish around to fit with Cloudlands AU... unless we get something super specific like Poof-Peri already graduating high school or Cosmo and Wanda confirming they won't have godkids after Hazel, in which case I'll have to ignore that.

I can even work things around if Peri's not with Goldie, because their whole thing in Cloudlands AU is celebrity drama and dating life struggles anyway (iirc, Foop even told readers that Poof and Goldie keep splitting up and getting back together).

-> I've always suspected Poof would get special advance godkid permissions seeing as, y'know... Jorgen literally made him trial test Crocker's Mom as his "godperson assignment" in "Fairly Old Parent," plus Poof was getting on-the-job training his whole life. It's neat to see him!

I hope Poof's better at not burning himself out now. He looks like he's doing okay. He's grown out of his shell!

-> According to my timeline, Erg was Cosmo and Wanda's trial kid while they were still in high school, so it would totally work for me if Dev is Poof's high school assignment.

I'm not expecting that to be stated, but I can work with it.

Thanks for joining me in this liveblog! Looking forward to more episodes :)

[lippmannssplatteredblood]

Was it ever confirmed Lippmann was based on Walter Lippmann?

No.

But wait, there's enough evidence! (Ty anon im using this ask as an excuse to ramble and getting these off my chest)

As we all already know, most of the characters in BSD, especially ability users, are based on real life authors. Stormbringer explicitly stated that bsd!Lippmann was "an extremely powerful skill user" so he must be based on someone. And guess what? There happens to be a writer with the exact name as his.

Walter Lippmann was an American journalist, politician, and writer. He was deemed as "the most gifted and influential American political journalist of the twentieth century". His works mostly took the theme of public relations and stuff. Sounds familiar?

I'd like to add this part from the etymology section of his(bsd) wiki btw, just in case you didn't know.

Does it end there? No, not quite.

Let's take a look at his most popular work; Public Opinion.

"...The pictures inside the heads of these human beings, the pictures of themselves, of others, of their needs, purposes, and relationship, are their public opinions. Those pictures which are acted upon by groups of people, or by individuals acting in the name of groups, are Public Opinion with capital letters."

"The pictures in our heads", page 29

People, generally, have some sort of "persona" of themselves that they would try to plant on other people's minds. Kinda like the Japanese "three faces" proverb, you may say. And how do they achieve it? By only presenting that persona; by masking; by acting.

"Royal personages are, of course, constructed personalities. Whether they themselves believe in their public character, or whether they merely permit the chamberlain to stage-manage it, there are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human."

"The pictures in our heads", page 7

Simply said, him being an actor might be a reference to (or a representation of) that human nature which P.O. talks of. An actor acts—they dive into the role of another character that's not them. (Which, when you think about it, is just what us humans do on a daily basis, except they do it professionally and for a living, which when you think about it again—)

Mr. Lippmann also published books titled "A Preface to Politics" and "A Preface to Morals" which is....interesting.

Okay, "preface" and "face" technically are different. Though they still share somewhat a similar meaning.

But hear me out. Let's go back to the persona thing. Generally, what people would want to be perceived as is as the perfect, ideal versions of themselves. To make that happen, they would have to put on a good first impression. And what's usually the first thing that people notice about a person? Correct—their appearance; their face.

Lippmann(bsd) was multiple times described as "perfect" (like okay asagiri, he's pretty, we get it), especially regarding his looks (and capabilities). See what I'm saying?

Lippmann was the stage face, the public image of the Port Mafia. He was the preface to the Port Mafia. He created the pictures in people's head of the Port Mafia.

As a verb, however, "face" has another meaning:

He negotiated with front companies, met and talked with political figures, and even dealt with the press if push came to shove.

I feel like this might be merely a coincidence or a pun, though. But the fact that his field of work in the Port Mafia was specifically negotiating with the "real world" is definitely not something Asagiri just pulled out of thin air—or so I believe to be the case, at least, having read this paragraph.

"This is the underlying reason for the existence of the press agent. The enormous discretion as to what facts and what impressions shall be reported is steadily convincing every organized group of people that whether it wishes to secure publicity or to avoid it, the exercise of discretion cannot be left to the reporter. It is safe to hire a press agent who stands between the group and the newspapers. Having hired him, the temptation to exploit his strategic position is very great."

"The nature of news", page 344

Oh, by the way, remember this scene?

It's just a silly, filler interaction that seemed not to reference anything, but just you wait.

"Men cannot long act in a way that they know is a contradiction of the environment as they conceive it. If they are bent on acting in a certain way they have to reconceive the environment, they have to censor out, to rationalize. But if in their presence, there is an insistent fact which is so obstrusive that they cannot explain it away, one of three courses is open. They can perversely ignore it, though they would cripple themselves in the process, will overact their part and come to grief. They can take it into account but refuse to act. They pay in internal discomfort and frustration. Or, and I believe this is to be the most frequent case, they adjust their whole behavior to the large environment."

"Intelligence work", page 383

Then again, these are but my interpretations and/or speculations which I'd like you to take with a grain of salt, as I could very well still be wrong (because Asagiri loves to trick us, apparently).

I could go on and on and on and on and on but I'm afraid I'd just be blabbering nonsense at some point. Thank you for reading my (hopefully coherent) ramblings.

[goingbuggy]

What is Buggy's Endgame? A Post-1082 Analysis

Since the release of chapter 1082, we’ve gotten more insight into Buggy’s character than ever before, especially regarding his dreams and thoughts on past events. So, given our new information, I thought I’d revisit Orange Town Arc to see if 1082 re-contextualizes anything. What’s in the cards for Buggy as a character? What direction does Oda plan on taking him in?

To give you my answer, let me begin in a bit of a random place: the relationship between Shanks and Buggy. 

From the moment Oda first introduced their relationship in chapter 19, Shanks and Buggy already solidified themselves as character foils. Their first panel together is literally a fight over whether the North or South Pole is colder, which is pretty on the nose if you ask me (sorry… I had to). Their red-blue color contrast is also pretty self-explanatory; although green is technically red’s complement, red and blue are often used as visual “opposites.”

Beyond all that surface level stuff, though, what makes these two foils of each other are their opposing values. As a pirate, Shanks wants to “make time to see the world." He has no sense of urgency and no inherent desire to conquer the world — at least, not right away. Buggy, of course, calls this a “soft way of thinking.” Unlike Shanks, he views treasure as the sole purpose of being a pirate. And not just any treasure, but material wealth, gold and jewels which "make its possessor a king."

Shanks and Buggy’s contrasting viewpoints also embody the underlying themes of Orange Town Arc. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and Oda takes great care to emphasize this point, from Chouchou to the mayor.

Luffy's hat ends up taking center stage in Orange Town, however, which I think is a great decision. The straw hat is what tethers Luffy and Buggy to Shanks. It's a weighted symbol, one that helped shape both of their characters — albeit in antithetical ways. Thus, when it’s used as a tool to explore their relationships, it works really well.

Take Luffy, for example. In his youth, Shanks was a pillar of support, friendship, and sacrifice; the straw hat is his treasure because it reminds him of Shanks, but also because it symbolizes what Shanks gave up for him. He owes his life to Shanks, but he uses that gratitude to fuel his own ambition, and to hopefully reunite with Shanks one day as a great pirate.

Shanks allowed him to go after his dream. Luffy knows this well.

Now look at Buggy. He sees the straw hat as worthless, and it’s clear why he does: it’s a painful reminder of the dream that Buggy gave up on, a representation of everything he lacks in comparison to Shanks. And to add insult to injury, Shanks gave that straw hat away to what Buggy sees as an insignificant kid. Of course that would hurt. Seeing Shanks give up Roger’s legacy so easily, abandoning his potential to become Pirate King, when that’s all Buggy ever wanted in life… I mean, wow. It's an amazing role reversal. Buggy gave up on his dream for Shanks, but Shanks gave that dream to Luffy instead.

I think 1082’s context adds some much-needed character depth, and explains a lot of Buggy's rationale. We know Buggy does not value sacrifice or friendship like Luffy does, nor is he the type to go out on a limb for someone. He’s greedy, manipulative when it suits his interests… I could go on forever. So to see that Buggy once sacrificed his own dreams for the sake of Shanks’ — only to have it backfire — makes so much sense. Of course he became a bitter, cynical, and selfish adult. One of the people he believed in most broke his unwavering trust, and he never healed from that experience. (Not to mention that this happened directly after Roger's execution. His faith was already shaken, and it was just one heartbreak after the next.)

The impact of that betrayal only feeds into his greedier tendencies; Buggy is a character who keeps things close to his chest, figuratively and literally. He learned to fear trust, and it shows. All of his adult relationships (Alvida, Galdino, Crocodile, Mihawk) are strictly rooted in business and mutual, self-serving interests. Nothing more.

Just take a look at Buggy and Luffy's reactions to the Bara Bara no Mi story. Buggy can only focus on the things he lost, instead of what he had: a friend who was willing to jump overboard for him in a heartbeat. But Luffy, a character who values the people he loves, obviously has a different perspective. He concludes, “So Shanks saved your life?” Where Luffy sees hidden treasure, Buggy sees nothing but loss.

So why am I bringing this all up? Well, I don’t find it surprising at all that two of Buggy’s most prominent arcs — Orange Town and Impel Down — emphasize his struggle between selfishness and altruism. The internal conflict is played off as a joke in Impel Down, but Buggy has always been simultaneously comedic and complex. He actually parallels Luffy in that sense, but that's another meta for another day.

The position Oda has placed Buggy in is rife with potential. He's now closer than ever to the things which would fulfill his materialistic nature: the One Piece, Captain John’s treasure, and the title of Pirate King. Yet, at the very same time, he's closer to one of his most honest connections in life: Shanks. If there was ever a time for a character to be forced to make a fateful choice, I’d say it’s right about now. People have been wondering why Oda made Buggy a final contender for the One Piece. Why has he “failed upwards” for so long? Comedy aside, I think the answer is a lot simpler than we’re all making it out to be: Buggy’s story just isn’t over yet. 

Oda still has something he wishes to impart to readers, and he clearly believes it will be told best through Buggy’s character. Based on what we know about Buggy — his greed, his guilty conscience, his past with Shanks — I think that story will lead his character to some very interesting places.

Do I think Buggy is going to have a change of heart? Maybe, maybe not. In that regard, he’s already been in a gray area since Impel Down. I wouldn’t be surprised if he accidentally ends up allying himself with Luffy again during One Piece’s conclusion. But with the Cross Guild putting bounties on marines, a (potential) three-emperor interest in going after Blackbeard, and an open-ended Shanks-Buggy plot thread about going to Laugh Tale... Well, there's a lot of places this could go. Would Buggy be willing to give up the greatest treasure in dire circumstances? For Shanks? For the world? Will he become king, and then lose it all? Will he make a sacrifice that parallels Shanks' when they were kids? Who knows!

What do you guys think? Is Buggy going to play a larger role in One Piece’s third act? What is your ideal conclusion for his character in the story? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[amaryllis-sagitta]

DATV Solas spoilers [trudging through late Act 1]

Sooooo I've unlocked 5 regret murals.

As someone who dwelled elbow deep in fan theories for quite a few years and tried my own speculation here and there, I'm not that surprised by the components that were already hinted throughout DAI and Trespasser. It's the way they're tied together and their overall flavor that really ties the picture together for me.

And the picture so far explains Solas's obstinate fixation on restoring the one right, seemingly objective version of the world. Ever since he has joined existence, he has contributed to some form of fundamental wrongness in the world. This "right" world state that he yearns for is the one where Solas has never crossed the threshold in the first place. He isn't just guilty of what he's done as an elf anymore. He's now shown as fundamentally ashamed of becoming.

In this context, Solas is starting to feel like some manifestation of the Freudian Thanatos, a craving to undo existence, to "correct" the tension and the burdens of joining it. If anyone in the writing room consciously thought of this twist as a part of the underlying theme of the Void as the representation of all forms of aberration imaginable, that would be kinda brilliant (though it's probably me reading esoteric meanings into stuff as always lol). Because when considered as ridden with regret about Being/ Becoming, Solas is a Forgotten One, an entity of the Void.

I admit I'm not yet sure how to digest the progressing anthropomorphization of Fade spirits in the DA lore. I still have 1 mural left to discover so I'm probably missing something, but doesn't this reveal halfway hint that spirit!Solas made a choice, however manipulated it was? Didn't he have to be willing to some degree? Didn't Mythal need to bring him over... fairly intact, not just brutally coerced to manifest - which would likely result in him instantly flipping? Otherwise, why would she use persuasion? To show a facade of respect?

If so, how was choice even possible among these supposedly reactive, reflective, singularly focused beings? Does DATV address that at all, or is Cole still our best case study on how a conceptually singular spirit can become a complex, conflicted personality? Is Imshael The Choice "Spirit" testament to the moment Fade spirits were "infected" with the burden of choice, and spiraled into becoming a cornerstone of all evil in Thedas?

Another hard punch from that reveal for me is that, while some parts of the Chant are disproven (the Golden City isn't the Maker's work), other parts of the Canticle of Threnodies are proven technically correct in their judgment. Spirits were guilty of the "original sin" of sundering the world's balance. They did follow a desire to join something that is judged as not theirs to join. The twist in here is that the main contender for the Maker's placeholder now becomes the Earth itself with its Titans, the entirety of Thedosian material life itself.

[marimayscarlett]

Hallo!

I don’t know, if you’ve had this question already many times before, so feel free to ignore this.

I admire your way of answering asks every time so thoroughly, it’s a delight to read. 😊 I thought I’d ask something myself, too.

I was wondering, what is your favourite song from each Rammstein album and why? Also what is your favourite remix and why?

I hope you have a nice week! 🌸

Hi 👋🏻

That's a really lovely ask, thank you so much! I'm glad you find joy in my answers, I try to put at least some sense into my ramblings 🙂‍↕️

And thanks a lot for these questions, you're always very welcome to ask things! Had to take some time to ponder about my decisions, but here we go:

1. Herzeleid

Here, my decision was made very quick. 'Du riechst so gut' has a very significant meaning for me, being my first proper Rammstein song 20 years ago. The lyrics have a wonderful gloomy 19th century poetry aesthetic to it, very haunting and yet so beautifully worded - the line 'Der Wahnsinn ist nur eine schmale Brücke, die Ufer sind Vernunft und Trieb' is still one of my favourite lyrics Till has ever written. Very close second place would be 'Heirate mich' 🤍

2. Sehnsucht

'Eifersucht'. All the way. My all-time favourite song by Rammstein, great, somehow very taunting (like the "come get me if you have the guts, destroy me if you can"-vibe) lyrics, incredibly powerful sound, and the bass. I feel it in my chest when I listen this song loud enough, which is exactly how I love to experience music.

3. Mutter

This took a while to choose. Mutter is not one of my favourite albums even though it holds some very classic Rammstein songs, but I just don't really feel this album. I'd say 'Adios', since the song has such a great drive to it and I enjoy the guitar solo immensely.

4. Reise Reise

If you'd ask me for my favourite a few months ago, I would have very much voted for 'Mein Teil'. Yet I have to admit that my attention shifted towards 'Stein um Stein'. It's a very dark and haunting song, and the inherent menace and sadness of the song moves me deeply. Richard once described it as a very tragic song about a man who knows no other way to keep the love of his life but to lock her up so she stays with him, and I think about that a lot.

5. Rosenrot

Oh, this album, I love it more and more each day. While I enjoy 'Benzin' and 'Zerstören' immensely, I gravitate definitely towards 'Ein Lied' when it comes to favourites. It's like a tender love song to the fans, a reassurance that the band is there for us when things aren't going well, and honestly: in my personal case, that's true. Rammstein gives me so much strength and comfort. 🤍

6. Liebe ist für alle da

Admittedly my least favourite album, I just can't get into it - there are only 2-3 songs that I find appealing at most. A significant exception, however, is 'Haifisch.' I especially love the lyrics about solidarity even in difficult times, and the song held great meaning for me last year, as I'm sure it did for others in the fandom. It's a song for perseverance and unity 🤲🏻

7. Untitled

This one was very difficult for me to decide! 'Deutschland' is incredibly important and lyric-wise as well as musically genius, 'Radio' is perfect for dancing and holds a significant meaning for me when it comes to the lyrics, but in the end, I choose 'Weit weg'. The synthesizer has a truly hypnotic sound, and the underlying sadness combined with the stalking theme gives the song a very captivating aura.

8. Zeit

Here, I truly can't decide, so for once, I'll list two songs: 'Schwarz' is a song I love a lot, such a melancholic and yet theatrical feel to it, as well as 'Armee der Tristen'. This is a song I feel in my heart, plain and simple.

9. Raritäten

Technically, that's also an album 😌 I'm bringing this up to mention my incredibly beloved 'Wilder Wein'. This song feels like a blend of a dark fairytale world, with elements from the Nibelungenlied and 'The Mists of Avalon' - I'm probably exaggerating here, but as a fantasy/history enthusiast, the song feels as if Till wrote it personally for me :')

10. Remixes

I have to admit, I don’t listen much with the remixes, as most of them don’t really appeal to me. However, I do like the 'Haifisch' remix by Olsen Involtini that served as a sort of closer at concerts, so I have warm post-concert feelings when I listen to it, as well as the Twocolors remix of 'Angst.' This remix leans a bit into the direction of dark/acid techno, which I very much enjoy.

Thank you again for your ask, this was fun! 🤍

Tagging my lovely @wizzardclown and @m---e---l to also share their favourites, since they had to endure my rambling about it this weekend 🙂‍↕️

[oleander-nin]

Rahhh I'm back!!!! Hi hello awesome new writing thingy, very cool, I get giddy(that's such a fun word) when you post. I had a point to this ask and got distracted whoops(；・∀・)!

ANYWAY, I was thinking as I occasionally do and I like noticed a pattern overall theme I don't really know what to call it. In Sleepy's last ask, I think it was, they said something about taking normal love songs and sorta twisting the meaning, which fits so well with overall yandere stuff. (This whole ramble is from the perspective of someone who only is familiar with platonic love because romantic love just isn't something I'm capable of experiencing so don't mind that(III╥_╥⁠)) Love is something that's typically treated as inherently pure, if someone wants to show that a villain is redeemable or at least has some humanity it's pretty common to give them someone they love. Even just looking at their motives in a vacuum they're all positive, all of them want to keep their S/O safe and happy, and wanting to date them is fine too, I think most people would like to date their crush. It's only when you factor in the actions they actually take to actually achieve "helping" the person they love are a lot less nice, and that's what makes yandere such an interesting horror genre it's the same reason little kids are freaky in horror movies and some third example, it takes something we think of as good and makes it not. It's also why the characters can rationalize their choices they don't *want* to hurt their S/O they're just trying to help obviously, they don't need other people anyway their S/O only deserves the best for them and that's what they could be.

On another note, I also realized that I had not listed what would make the turtles snap I did reasons they would actually turn yandere which is technically different. I'm not going to do it correctly because its kinda limited to, their S/O getting hurt, thinking they'll lose their S/O, or some trauma or underlying mental condition. The first two are kinda bare and I am not touching any mental stuff because that takes hella research and I don't wanna accidentally do negative stereotypes.

-🍰

HI SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I HAVEN'T BEEN ONLINE MUCH FDNAJVNFKJANVD;

I agree with just about every point in you horror-love rant, because I think this is what draws me to yandere works so much lol. I like twisting emotions and actions into something more horrific(in fiction), just because it's fun to see what you can do with these base emotions.

Sorry I don't have much to say, I loved reading your analysis and once again, I'm so sorry this took so long for me to answer. I got your second ask, and I appreciate the clarification, but it wasn't needed much imo lol. Hope you have a great day and are doing well, thanks for stopping by!

[watermelinoe]

don't say that i want to read your isekai opinions

i feel like i am being buttered up here but i will allow it bc i do love talking abt isekai hehe ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

so for context what made me think more abt isekai as a genre was finishing the main story chapters of saving my sweetheart, which i think is really strong for the first two thirds and then loses it in the last third for reasons i will explain shortly

and i've had this issue w other isekai/regression manhwa (i pr much lump these together under the isekai umbrella even though it is not technically the same thing) where things are just too easy, one that comes to mind off the top of my head is i shall master this family, which has great art and i like that it's less focused on romance but i ended up getting bored bc the protagonist just. never loses. she can always use her past life experience to perfectly predict what will happen and completely curbstomp whoever her opponent is.

"but isn't that the appeal of an isekai??" you may ask and you would be INCORRECT, yes the wish fulfillment element of isekai is about getting a do-over, but more than that my favorite thing abt the genre is how it plays with expectations and the idea of fate/any kind of higher power that decides how things are "supposed" to be. and oftentimes this force is an active character and antagonist. i've seen several manhwa now where the characters essentially have to beat "god" in order to get their happy ending. there are no predestined endings and true love is the love you make with the person you choose, not someone who is chosen for you. soulmates are made, not created. these are all themes that are extremely important to me and why i think isekai as a genre works so well. i'm someone who LOVES tropes - as tv tropes always says, Tropes Aren't Bad. isekai plays with tropes like i used to play with my dinosaur toys. it's supposed to be self-aware, it's supposed to subvert expectations, it's supposed to be fun and genre savvy and meta. it's really a treat for people who care a lot about the mechanics of storytelling.

the working isekai formula relies on establishing the wish being fulfilled - why is this person being reincarnated? and the answer to that question generally determines how the story first plays out, which is typically one of two ways, where the female lead either has to claw her way up through obstacle after obstacle, or the female lead is immediately welcomed and loved in her new life (but often there is still some underlying conflict that keeps her from being at ease and embracing Happily Ever After, such as her knowledge of what's "destined" to happen in the future). the latter is more of a hurt/comfort trope usually following a depressing first life. in either case, at the beginning the female lead can rely on her insider knowledge to score some wins early on, but the essential key is that there comes a point where her past knowledge means nothing anymore because the story has changed too much. and usually there will be an additional twist as well. this is to keep things from being too easy for the female lead, because even in a revenge story, it's not actually satisfying to watch someone win over and over with no meaningful conflicts. the archvillain's daughter-in-law also has a female lead who seemingly never misses, but the difference is that she thinks her father-in-law is planning to kill her so his son can remarry the royal princess (divorce is illegal), and honestly at this point in the story without spoiling anything that still seems like a reasonable fear. so the story isn't boring because you have this conflict of interests, she's attached to her new family but also knows she needs to be dead for her father-in-law to accomplish his overall goal. i shall master this family doesn't seem to have that extra layer, everything just goes her way.

saving my sweetheart does a great job with challenging the female lead for the first ~90 or so chapters and then in the last third, i swear literally every single obstacle is squashed before you can even start to worry about it. including the main looming death flag introduced at the very beginning of the story. it just no longer matters at a certain point. and obviously as readers we know that these types of stories will work out in the end, but for some reason this story decided that the characters should know that, too. in the third act. they literally solve things by showing multiple characters the future. sorry but if the main characters already know it's going to be okay... why am i here exactly lol it was like the story said yeah yeah you know what it's gonna be like huh??? what a baffling choice

and it's dangerously easy for stories that use gods as major players to eliminate any real challenge for the main characters because they literally have the power of god and anime on their side. there has to be some excuse why whatever divine power can't just stomp the bad guys with a giant foot monty python style. it's also just.... less satisfying for a story to have the Ultimate Objective Good on the side of the main characters. Good is often Boring. i liked how flirting with the villain's dad portrayed its god as more human and flawed, like a greek god.

what really left a bad taste in my mouth by the end of saving my sweetheart was that fate was never against them in the first place, it was the villain who upset the balance, and the two Good gods just give the main characters the answers because fuck it, you all know how it's gonna turn out anyway, who are we kidding. there's an especially laughable moment at the end and this will be a spoiler, but when a major character has to go to the land of the dead at the end to persuade another character to come back to life, this character worries bc in the happy future he originally saw, he wasn't in it. and for a split second you think there's going to be a nice message because the major character says smth like "i can't guarantee the future but i know we would be less happy without you in it" BUT THEN the goddess literally just fucking SHOWS the dead guy the future with him in it to prove it will all be fine and i am still not over it because WHAT WAS THE POINT THEN, what was the point of any of it, no one had to be uncertain for a single fuckin second because yknow power of god and anime

and i feel like an insane person bc everyone else was just like "this felt kinda rushed" but i had this whole rant built up inside me lmao i am aware i'm too into this genre but i think there's interesting parallels you can make here to like, christian media and why it's boring...

[youknowwhoiamperiod]

hello sweet ariel,

do you have any playlists for your self ships? if you do, are there any artists you keep coming back to for each of them? what are your top three songs for mermaidghost and jariel?

xoxo sunnie (@fic-over-cannon)

hiiii sunnie angel!!! i'm so sorry it took me so long to answer this uni has been after my ass :(( hope you've been doing okay <333

yessss i do have playlists for my self ships!!! the jariel one is much much much more prominent than my other ones and i've only recently made my mermaidghost one but!!! they're literally everything to me!!!

there are some artists that are basically tone setters for the ships. for jariel it's taylor swift (act shocked everyone), technically her music is so versatile and explores so many themes that it's is in literally all my playlists but. i dedicate almost all her songs (especially the reputation and lover album) to jason. i think just outside of selfshipping i relate to a lot of her lyrics and i find that a lot of them could apply to jason too. likeeeee listen to the evermore album and tell me you don't think of him. literally. also she's just my favourite artist and white woman of all time, jason is my favourite fic character and white man of all time, the correlation is obvious. another artist i think makes peak jariel songs is sabrina carpenter. idk something about them blue eyed blondies and their love songs just tick all the jariel criteria.

i'm gonna cheat a little bit and give you my top 3 taylor jariel songs, then some random songs.

for taylor:

this is not just my favourite taylor song but also just my favourite song ever ever ever ever. i could go on and on about how important to me and artistically perfect it is but to to keep it short it literally embodies the very essence of jariel. it just paints a sweet and beautiful picture of love all while still being self aware of your character and how secure you feel in this relationship that you don't care what anyone has to say about it. the way the melody just blends so well with the lyrics and makes the meaning stand out even more. it's just such a comfort song that i dedicate to jason because he's my everything <3

this song is pretty self explanatory. like. idk you can just listen to it and figure out why it's so jariel. we just started it off with pissing each other so much but in reality we were just fighting the underlying feelings we had for each other. and it's infuriating. the bridge was literally inspired by us i know it taylor told me.

this song takes a deeper dive on the struggles we both went through before finally making it out and realizing that maybe we should give this a chance lol (we were meant to be together). this song is literally gorjus and it kind of describes our headspace and entourage instead of just focusing on our little selves.

for others i'd pick:

• feels like by gracie abrams

• bed chem by sabrina carpenter

• like lovers do by hey violet

• nonsense by sabrina carpenter

• margaret by lana del rey

• safe and sound tv by taylor swift

• the louvre by lorde

• thoroughfare by ethel cain

now for mermaidghost, i've only recently got into my simon brainrot but i've slowly started fleshing it out and!!! thanks to aurore i figured out that the artist who describes us the best is lana del rey. like i mean she's queen of singing about older men and their controversially young girlfriend so. everytime i think of simon while listening to her music i get so 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 another artist i think embodies us so so well is gracie abrams. another case of sad girl music because him and i are tragic in that way </3

so for lana we have:

it's always her unreleased songs.... self explanatory. like sorry but going around all grumpy and broody isn't gonna get me off your back love <333 if being aggressive is his go to attitude then let's do it baby You're Just Turning Me On.

this was suggested by aurore as part of our stripper au but even outside of that it's just so.... us... like i'm literally his midnight answer. he goes wandering around all day but the moment it gets dark everyone knows where he'll be (in my bed). also i just think he'd always have to sit through my dancing sessions so.

i giggled a little bit when i thought of this because he's a british army man so naturally overboard patriotic but. baby that's not gonna work with me <333 i'm your home country now pledge allegiance to me.

and for others i'd pick:

• i know it won't work/full machine/us. all by gracie abrams

• dial drunk by noah kahan

• how did it end? by taylor swift

• don't tell me i'm pretty by faouzia

• loml by taylor swift

• get him back! by olivia rodrigo (great contrast to the jariel one lol)

• miss me too by griff

• casual by chappell roan

funny little thing but there’s this unreleased gracie abrams song called tuesday/denial which is soooo mermaidghost but she changed the lyrics then released the official one titled let it happen and it’s very jariel coded… i just thought it was super funny lol

this was so long and i went so overboard with it i'm so sorry omfg 😭😭😭 this was such a good question and it combined two of my favourite things in the whole world couldn't just settle for 3 songs each... anyway as always sunnie you're amazing i'm sending you loads of kisses mwaaaah

[into-the-merry-wood]

Get to know you game! Answer the questions and tag 9 people you want to know better.

Thank you for the tag @theredontbedragons! Sorry, I rambled horribly in my answers. Apparently this hit me on a chatty day.

Last song I listened to: Uh, technically Lipstick on the Glass by Wolf Alice to check it out lol (and it is a banger prev). Prior to that it was INVU by Taeyeon.

Currently reading: What We Keep by Bill Shapiro and Naomi Wax. Just something that caught my attention while browsing the library. I've always been interested in the journey of objects and how relatively insignificant items can hold such meaning to one person but lose that meaning once separated from their stories. It's a quick read, should be a one sitting type of deal but I got interrupted and just haven't picked it up again to finish it.

Currently watching: Alone. It's an American docuseries of ten survivalists dropped off individually in a remote area who try to live off the land as long as possible. Honestly, not my usual type of entertainment but a friend recommended it to me and it's sucked me in. I'm learning a lot about wilderness survival (something I hope I'll never need lol) but also it's a study in psychology and what being utterly alone can do to you mentally. The underlying theme of the show (at least for me) is gratitude and distilling life down to what really matters: food, shelter, warmth, and loved ones.

Currently obsessed with: Kingdom: Legendary War (NOT the same Kingdom that gets tagged on this blog lol). A Korean show from a few years back that took six pop groups and had them compete via special stages. I watched it for the first time around Thanksgiving and it hasn't left my head since. The overall show is a bit of a drag with waaaay too much filler and sketchy voting. BUT!!! What these guys (and staff) did with limited time: two weeks to rearrange a song, learn new choreo, costumes, sets, all with a limited budget? While some of them were also doing the circuit promoting current releases at the time too? When did they sleep? Impressive. I've been rewatching some of the performances on loop for months. Are they perfect? No. There wasn't time for that. But they have an undeniable heart and passion for what they do and each stage is a hell of a good time.

Ok, seriously NO PRESSURE but I'm tagging: @ako-gamboge, @miss-lonely-hearts, @scullys-scalpel, @paperheartsbleedink, @kangamommynow, @coconutshipwreck, and @fairytalespond (you know me better as @kpop-sanctuary)

[crystalcanis]

Teaser for 2024!! Chapter 1 might have ended but the horrors continue.

Where to read my comic! LINK (coming to tumblr sometime this year hopefully)

I'm going to put some personal thoughts regarding chapter 1 below, it's there if you want context on how I see this story, but it can be ignored if you don't want to read a wall of text! I hope the teaser looks nice and spikes interest! I think this next chapter is going to be a fun one.

Arc 1 Chapter 1 was written when I was still in highschool, I have graduated college by now :' ) So needless to say, I am very excited to be jumping into the second arc of this story and be done and over with the stuff my teenage self wrote. 

I scripted Arc 2 Chapter 2 relatively recently (almost done scripting Arc 2 Chapter 3 too), so it has my current writing style and pacing! I'm really proud of it personally, I think its fun but I guess there is that underlying fear of people maybe not liking my current approach to the characters. Specially because I know this comic seems to be the favorite amongst my current two because of how long it's been around! Even if I made little edits on the way, Chapter 1 was basically the same script my teenage self wrote... I had to follow the planned pacing and events, and oh gosh there are so many scenes I would write differently (all the ones before we meet Noriel, basically.)

My biggest personal complain with chapter 1 is that I don't think I was clear enough with the theme of the story nor did I give it much justice : ( and that in part goes with my younger self just, not having enough experience writing heavier topics at the time. This story is based on my personal experiences with xenophobia, it's about xenophobia, back when I scripted chapter 1 I knew how it FELT like, but now as an adult I have been able to go deeper and analize why I feel that way, why people treat me the way they do, and much more that I plan to properly explore going forward. This doesn't mean that other people connecting with this story through other forms of bigotry like racism, transphobia, homophobia etc is wrong, though! I have seen your explanations for why and it's sooo so fair, I don't mind this story reasonating with how general bigotry feels like at all, intersectionality is a thing for a reason. But I wish to explore xenophobia as it was intended :]! It's personal to me. And the world of Ales is so HUGE! Chapter 1 did not give the worldbuilding justice either! There is so much to explore and I'm excited! I can't believe my younger self wanted to end the story here, man. Insane.

The only thing that's closest to my current writing style in chapter 1 is actually the flashback with Noriel and Kana we saw this year! That wasn't part of the original script, and I added it in preemptively, knowing I would need it for context in the new chapters but that I wouldnt have space for it later, it needed to happen Now or never. So I guess that's a good reference for what to expect! But fear not, just because chapter 2 and onward is technically an updated approach to things, that doesn't mean what happened in chapter 1 wont affect anything! Quite the contrary oh boy! What happened in chapter 1 is a big catalyst for so many things that happen in this story, and why Noriel and Kana act the way they do. I think it's going to be great and I can't wait to share it, I just hope other people like it as much as I do!

[ghosting-medium]

・❥・ North ˗ˏˋ꒰ ❄️ ꒱

Moodboard: Made by me

What North Looks like:

Credit: Guinevere Sophie

North is into formality, she looks like her lips are like a kiss of frost bite, with the color a lavender blue tinge. Her eyes were like sapphires that shine the brightest blue but would change to black, to whiteish, and pale gray. Her skin looks almost whiteish blue, possible cracking with looks of blue or gold. Her cheeks look wind whipped, but it looks like she felt nothing from it. It's very cold when North touches you, very much like a death kissed touch or when there is a sharpness to a harsh breeze - Moonlight

Palace, Residence:

North wants to have her palace remain slightly vague, and private. So the energy of her kingdom is cold, it's very ornate. Beautiful landscape, and buildings. Imagine gothic architecture in snow, and ice. Seemingly cold and empty, but there are traces of life and beauty hidden.

She does ask for her privacy to be respected, she allows people to see her Palace when she sees fit. Once invited, and given consent to see then it's okay. Please be respectful of the wishes of the deities.

Ruling, Domain:

North rules over protection, sleep, death, healing, transformation, discipline, responsibility, some aspects of spirituality, resourcefulness, justice (in terms of death)

Still respecting her wishes to not detail her domain.

Correspondences:

Days of the Week:

Monday - connections with the moon, however Monday sets the tone for the week. Can either flow positive, or negative. It can be about getting clear with emotions, or having the day being about your emotional state

Saturday - the day of Saturn, aka responsibility, life lessons, and getting organized. Devotional acts on Saturday for North could be getting caught up on work, chores etc, and organizing and cleaning your space. Get balanced and grounded as well for devotional activities and offerings. “I prefer more organized and clean rooms than messy ones, and by organized I mean organized in a way for you.” After all that work is done though, relax and destress as needed.

Special Days:

1, 11, 4 - so the first of every month, the 4th of the colder/winter months (December, January, February, possibly March - for northern hemisphere opposite for western hemisphere). The 11th of January in specifics.

I can’t find anything special about the 11th of January; I assume it’s a special day because it’s particularly cold. I’m getting the vibes of there being a celebration, or a holiday in the Fellowship specifically for North. On this day North is celebrated, winter/cold is seen with appreciation and beauty. Certain foods are prepared and ate throughout the festival, it’s distinctively different than Yule however has some underlying themes of the Winter Solstice, Yule etc etc. Very french like vibes, a lot of the food are french dishes (or inspired by), not all but most. There is typically some sort of music playing, ice statues, there are shimmering lights throughout the palace and the courtyard.

Foods: Warmer foods, seeing this as being more of a dinner, pot roast, warm vegetables, apples, fried apples with cinnamon (desert possibly?), honey on warm bread, crêpes, waffles, french cullers, soups, pan d’Épices

Drinks: Mulled cider, warm wine, milk, coffee, milk tea

Elements:

Air, Water

Numbers:

1, 11, 4

1 - the start of something, spend more time thinking about your actions and create more solidified plan before moving onward; number of thoughts in the air but not materialized yet. New beginnings, new ideas, starting to plan, stability, structure, trust in what will happen, self and figuring identity out

11 - It’s technically a 2 when reduced in numerology, but it’s also a master number in numerology. Double what number 1 represents

4 - means something is complete, or it needs to become complete, joining numbers together to create some form of wholeness. Completion/coming to completion, connection, corrections, order (from my notes, apply your own meaning for the numbers if you see fit)

Colors:

Cold colors, on the lighter spectrum. Deep dark and vibrant blues, a plum color 

Planet:

Saturn, Neptune

Saturn - taskmaster of the zodiac, commanding us to get our work done and to work hard. Discipline and responsibility are important. Saturn makes us look at time, and asks us the questions of ïs there time for everything we want to do, or are there limits”. Managing the limitations that we find, and working through and around restrictions are important. Saturn also symbolizes old age in the aspect of life lessons. Structure, order, and the way in which we conduct our affairs and personal relationships (not just romantic) are all ruled by Saturn.

Neptune - Interesting enough Neptune is more fluid, and less rigid than Saturn is. I think this shows the duality that North is, and what they embody. In order to be somewhat fluid there has to be structure; and with being rigid there has to be fluid movement. It’s just like ice, and water. Ice can become water, and water can become ice. Neptune is about changing, and illusions, abstract thoughts and mysteries. Spirituality is something also ruled by Neptune. Using this neptunic energy can be useful in meditations to gain insights. Anything artistic is something that can be ruled by this planet; poetry, music, dance, glamor as well. Neptune is mysterious in the way that on the outside it’s enchanting and elusive on the inside it’s captivating but much deeper than what others might assume about it. The darker side of this planet looks into escapism, and delusions. Do you face the reality of life, or do you escape from it or do you find the balance that is needed.

Saturn and Neptune are opposites of each other, but they need each other for balance and harmony. If Saturn is the physical world, and Neptune is the metaphysical world than together you can create your dreams in reality and ground them, or you can be lost in delusions or lost in stress of physical materials not being enough.

Zodiac Signs:

More of the zodiac signs following after Libra

Scorpio, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces

Animals:

Chionophile - any organisms (animals, plants, fungi etc) that can thrive in cold winter conditions; these animals have specialized adaptations that help them survive in the harshest winters

Polar Bears

Penguins

Deer, Reindeer

Artic fox

Harp Seal, Leopard seals

Porbeagle shark

Tundra Swan

Steller’s eiders

Snowy owl

Plants, Fruits, Flora:

Allspice

Anise, Star Anise

Apples - Ruby Frost

Bleeding hearts

Cedar

Cherry

Cinnamon

Coral Bells

Fig

Holly

Hyacinth

Ivy

Jasmine

Juniper

Lavender

Lily of the Valley

Peppermint

Pine

Pomegranate

Siberian Iris, Iris in general

Essential oils/incense:

Allspice

Cedar

Cinnamon

Holly

Jasmine

Lavender

Peppermint

Pine

Crystals:

Amethyst

Black Obsidian

Black Tourmaline

Bloodstone

Blue Calcite

Blue Halite

Blue Sapphire

Clear Quartz

Fluorite

Hematite

Snowflake Obsidian

Divination associations:

Tarot

Death

The Star - Apples cut in half reveal a five-pointed star

Queen of Swords

8 of Pentacles

Apple - 9 of Earth (Herbcrafter’s tarot); the hidden star of hope sustains us, restraint and self-control with your bounty lead to community abundance. Apple is an ancient tree that contributes to the well-being of both the land and the people.

Knight of Pentacles

Runes

Nauthiz - represents need, restriction, conflict, willpower, endurance, self-reliance

Isa - represents ice, clarity, challenges, introspection, watching, waiting

Eihwaz - represents a yew tree, balance, death, the world tree

Algiz - represents an elk, protection, defense, instinct, guardianship

Sowilo - represents the sun, health, honor, resources, victory, wholeness, cleansing

Oracle - Moonology

Blue Moon - Believe in the impossible

New Moon Eclipse - Expect powerful change

New Moon - New start is coming

New Moon in Capricorn - Your hard work is paying off

Family:

Brother - Northwest

History, Mythology:

None recorded right now

Epithets:

Noble North - focuses on her personal qualities as a leader. North can be blunt at times, but they are honest. This epithet of them focuses on righteousness, honesty, generosity, and being a just leader.

The Statue - this epithet is focusing on outward appearances of looking cold on the outside, and unreadable, mysterious

Her Majesty - highlights her in a royal light, focuses on her responsibility, discipline

The Tender-Hearted one - connects with the side of her that they don’t show often, more outwardly caring, nice, parental like, protective but in a gentle way

Bringer of Death - her death epithet, otherwise known as “the soul taker”, this epithet solely focuses on her responsibilities of death, and navigating justice, fairness, and reality within it. The overall view of death, and how it affects everyone

Bringer of Life - the life epithet, focuses on her healing, sometimes fertility, and good health during and after birth, is also seen as the bringer of life when the winter lets spring come in.

The one who gives, and the one who takes - combines the ideas of Bringer of Death, and Bringer of Light together. It’s the balanced epithet of these two, also looks into transformation as life ends with death and the cycle goes on

Lady of Glass - Glass is referred to in two ways in this context; someone you can look through since of their honesty, and the stoic expression on their face.

Offering and Devotional Acts:

Listening to Music: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4RoZIoct4v0mzhRzaZ7Ymh

I find that she loves the Nutcracker a lot

Cleaning your room in their name, or with specific intent

Honoring her special days, and doing rituals with her, or in her name

Locating the North Star at night, and any other constellation you find (this aligns more with West though)

Wearing colder colors, hues of blue; or veiling your hair in these colors

Making to-do lists, and sticking to them

Creating vision, dream boards and then making steps to bring them into reality

Taking ice baths, or at least offering cold/ice water in a cup for North

Raising awareness for animals in colder climates that are losing their habitat from global warming, climate change

Donate to homeless shelters, especially when it starts to get colder

Offering apples cut into two (so the 5 pointed star on each side is visible), or offering an apple (or a part of an apple); then either consuming it after the offering is accepted and North allows you to, or giving it to Earth or an animal (that can safely eat the apple!).

Going apple picking

Making a simmer pot with some of her plants included (star anise, apples, cinnamon etc etc)

Growing some plants that can survive winter in your area, make sure you research what plants can survive colder weather as well.

Diffuse some of the scents she likes in a diffuser if you have one

Dedicate some crystals in her name, and wear them on your person or carry them in a bag

Make a satchel for protection, focus, clarity, and other intentions relating back to her

Try and get some deep, restful sleep with her aid if needed

Become comfortable with the idea of death

Have moments of meditation, and introspection about death and your beliefs surrounding death

Have moments to appreciate the cycle of life and death, appreciate how far you’ve gotten

Find beauty, and joy in the start of new things (cycles); easiest way to do this is to plant an herb from seed and nurture it from seed to sapling.

Perform magic for self-healing, or healing on others if they allow it

Research anatomy + physiology, medicine, maybe herbology with a focus on healing properties (do not substitute herbs with medication, or other medical needs and such)

Allow yourself to become more comfortable with responsibility

Create a schedule (based on your needs etc) and stick with it as much as possible, exercise discipline when needed

Research death work, spirit work, and familiar work

Mediate, and do some shadow work when needed

Devote time to yourself in her name, if it’s relaxing and maybe under her ruling and domain

Learn how to crochet, or knit! so you can make yourself some warm items

Look at photos of snow, snowy photography

Burn winter scented candles, or any other warm scent

In the winter, colder days:

Bundle up, and stay warm

Make hot chocolate, and other warm beverages: tea, mulled cider, mulled wine (only drink if you are of age!)

Make soup, or comfort foods that will bring a sense of relief into your life

Make snowpeople

Have snowball fights

Watch as the snow falls

Learn, try, or attempt figure skating or hockey (it doesn’t have to be turns and spins and complicated work, just getting on the ice is a really good start)

In colder months go outside, by a window and appreciate nature’s beauty

Make paper snowflakes

Go sledding

Food: Fried apples, apples, soup, crêpes

Altar Suggestions:

Cloth - white, silver, blue, purple

Bones - ethically sourced, better if they are animals that are associated with her

Oddities with relation to death, life, winter

Athame (knife)

Have the altar be facing north

Candles with herbs associated with them

Maybe try and keep a small cup/bowl with snow and keep the water that remains after it melts

Holly, other winter related flora

Pressed, or dead flowers

Apple peels

Crystals

Paper snowflakes

Snow Globe

Christmas lights

Items foraged in the winter

Offering dish - preferred to be made out of wood, but anything works

Terrariums - possibly get graveyard dirt (with permission, be super respectful follow graveyard and death work etiquette)

Artwork that you make of her, or something with her in mind

If your work also surrounds ancestors, grief practices maybe placing photographs of deceased people/pets on your altar might be a good idea as well

That is all the documented information that we have on North

Signing off, Ghost ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

[aemiron-main]

some important distinctions and me ranting about how people talk about show vs tell with ST but then still turn around and expect to be told everything

the day that people on this website realize that there’s a difference between something being sexual assault or not being sexual assault versus the audience being told whether something is sexual assault or not sexual assault is the day i know peace fr. the fact that something fits the definition of sexual assault does not change based on whether or not the audience is told it fits the definition of sexual assault. there are sexual assault scenes in media where a character will tell the audience “that wasn’t sexual assault,” (told through a conversation with another character, usually not staring directly at the audience and breaking the 4th wall of course), but the audience knows it’s sexual assault based on what we’ve been shown and based on it fulfilling the definitions and criteria of sexual assault.  just because the audience is not told something outright does not make it not true. i am strangling “media that spoonfeeds every single detail to their audience by telling them outright like it’s a fucking 6th grader’s first powerpoint presentation and does it not as an intentional artistic choice but because it has no faith in the intelligence of its viewers and doesn’t want to risk any form of subversion or deep themes because it doesn’t want to risk money/viewer ratings” with my bare hands. so many people are used to being told things by media that it becomes the only method of communication from media that they accept- and as a result, when media shows them things instead, they don’t understand, and often, refuse to understand, because it conflicts with the method of communication that they’re used to (being told things). 

subtext is a thing. it exists. it’s defined by wikipedia as “any content of a creative work which is not announced explicitly (by characters or author) but is implicit, or becomes something understood by the audience. Subtext has been used historically to imply controversial subjects without drawing the attention (or wrath) of censors.”

this is not the same as allegory. the audience not being told something outright is not the same as that thing not occurring. many people believe that these things are the same because like i said, they’re accustomed to media that relies very heavily on “tell,” in a way that doesn’t dare to have any faith in the intelligence of its audience. 

allegory is the representation of ideas and themes by characters or figures while subtext is the implicit meaning of a text, often a literary one, or a speech or dialogue. subtext is implicit. allegory involves representation and symbolism. these are not the same. 

and if we want to get really technical, allegory is the moral lesson/topic/idea in a media in and of itself, whereas symbolism is a literary device used to deliver that idea by using an item to represent something else. allegory is basically when something didn’t actually happen but we’re meant to apply what did happen to the idea of it happening. text is when you are told outright that something happened. subtext is basically when something still happened but you aren’t told outright- you’re shown.

allegory involves symbolism but it is not the same as symbolism. an allegory often involves metaphors but it is not the same as a metaphor. 

a metaphor is a short phrase or paragraph that compares two seemingly unrelated things to make a point, whereas an allegory is a long narrative that uses a seemingly unrelated story to teach a lesson or prove a point. the key difference between metaphor and allegory is length. there are multiple stories within stranger things (will’s story vs henry’s story for example) and each contains metaphors within that story, and then those complete stories in and of themselves are allegories.

  again, another way to think of an example of subtext is “show, don't tell,” and unreliable narration. Characters can say anything they want in a story, but the subtext, things like their underlying thoughts, and actions show their true motivations. People will sit here and talk about Will’s unreliable narration in S4 and then act like subtext doesn’t exist regarding other scenes and topics.

  also, i’m working on multiple ST-silent hill parallel analyses, but right now, I want to talk briefly about the Silent Hill character Angela Orosco, and how her character is presented in the game as very very obviously having been sexually assaulted, but some fans still wouldn’t recognize this because she never outright said it verbatim (despite coming extremely close to it), to the point where people involved in the game, such as Jeremy Blaustein, had to come out and state it, and were surprised that they had to do so, because they felt that they had shown it so obviously. (source) here’s the main quote from that source regarding this topic:

“This is an easy issue to clear up. I can tell with 100% clarity on the subject that it was always the intention of the creators that Angela's background contained sexual abuse at the hands of her father. In return, she stabbed him to death. That is why she is in Silent Hill. From the very earliest conversations that I was in on (the pre-script writing meeting), the team had the intention of including incest and sexual abuse in one of the character's backgrounds. They wanted, remember, to get at the very heart (or maybe I should say edges) of psychological pain. So we all knew precisely what we wanted with Angela in terms of her dialog on paper and as performed. It is also well reflected in her appearance. We thought about it all the time, in every scene. Just watch the scenes again. She gets physically ill when she thinks about her experience. It seems clearly depicted to me if you know what you are looking for."

great. now think about this quote in the context of will and his experiences and analyzing him/his experiences. quit relying solely on what you’re told. use your brain to interpret what you’re being shown. because, like with angela, it HAS been shown. what is the point of a work of art (which is what both ST and silent hill are) if everything can only be confirmed by outright telling it to you, especially when they’re LITERALLY SHOWING IT TO YOU. it would be one thing if there was no tell AND no show, but to make up for the no tell, we get SHOWN. this isn’t me being annoyed with being disagreeing with my analysis of what’s being shown- this is me being exasperated with people who try and ignore what we’re being shown and the implications of it because they expect to be told everything.

  i’m also working on a bigger, less snarky, more helpful post discussing the topic of literary analysis and st that should be up later today, but for now, here you go. if we want to argue about what the definitions of allegory vs subtext vs metaphor are, we could, but i don’t have the time and energy for that, especially not when i’ve taken the time to research my definitions and i’m confident in them. 

[grahamcarmen]

Asking possibly a stupid question, but i don't really understand the opera symbolism of swan lake I understand carmen as foreshadowing for her and grays relationship and the flying dutchman as foreshadowing for grey's role in the finale but I don't understand swan lake.

Also why is your ask box named snapcracklepop.

I dont think its stupid. Lol I was asking the same thing (while mildly acknowledging maybe its just cause like carmen the opera is an easy peasy pun, swan lake is a recognizable ballet even if youre not into ballet) because idk its fun and even if its not meant to be 1 to 1 im trying to give the writers some credit since the thieving magpie and flying dutchman are absolutely not recognizable ones but while not 1 to 1 have a few beats that can be compared

:3

Here's the Wikipedia explanation of whats happening technically

I'm looking at this ending and it looks more like a bow to me ... but point being its something hard that needs all the players to look and dance in unison since they're literally all linked

+ the context of what is happening in the ballet

Siegfried is promising his love to Odette to break her spell so that she and her friends can be free (and cause he's smitten with her aww)

So its their pas de deux and then the little swans [in the version i watched anyway] + some swan company dancing before returning to seigfried and odette

end act

Start next act and storybeatwise the following happens

Rothbart will present odile to him and seigfried promises his love to someone who only looks like odette.

Which technically speaking carmen recruits gray for a mission where her movements for the electric gates/panels...what are they called again...anyway- will have to be synchronized...like a dancer she says ^^ along with player and gray doing their roles perfectly which they manage to do good enough once

However somethings wrong with the feed causing gray to leave his spot

So at the very least its technically a " the working in unison has been broken"

Context wise that I can overthink because I can??...uuuuuuh

Carmen really does not want VILE to have him but is also having a hard time separating graham from gray huh.... and in the mission "keep gray away from anything that could transform him back" plays a part because carmens all set on the idea that these conditions (an extremely dumb plan) keep gray safe from VILE influence, promising to put his safety first but ultimately protecting a VILE constructed persona [WHICH I DO PERSONALLY TAKE ISSUE WITH I DONT THINK GRAHAMS ACTIONS THAT DAY IS SO ENTIRELY WITHOUT GRAYS OWN TRAITS >:0...but yeah lol he usually does not care at all about what the right thing is overall] with a lot of romantic insinuating outside of that dance of little swans

Points i guess for carmens underlying suspicions that she puts to rest for the moment but graham just absolutely gone for her by the end

Little swans squished in the middle of gray very blatantly wanting to be with her and carmen 🤭hoho he likes me😊

Here's a fun one I found via google

...hmmm...idk those people tho so take that with a grain if you instead want to watch and judge the ballet and its themes for yourself.... there's actually a lot of free ones on youtube :D

+ a section in the version I watched where the company talks about how pledging love to odile is odettes doom and the love isn't as pure as they're pretending it is...Carmen! 😑 gray! 😑...but isn't wholly unsalvagable because of the forgiveness and actual true love they do end up showing each other.

With the swan lake ballet having that dichotomy between true self, curses, and a flat out fake who only looks like the beloved

it is a plot point that this happens and almost dooms them ...I mean they die but its like in a ballet dang I guess their souls live then cause they manage to stick it to rothbart

In the end their true selves DO end up together.

+ bonus round

Gray being part of the little swans until he decides instead to be the one who found the red swan (haha...neatcodename) at the heart of a VILE facility and its his constant assurances that he's on her side that help carmen think she can beat VILE and keep him around/ are kinda a point . See him having and then throwing away the crackle rod when she looks all :( to help her instead (seigfried in the forest with a crossbow)

Anything for the kiddos huh...but also lending his expertise outside of the dance of the little swans to help her and her mission

Having a little rendezvous with her beforehand and then after the dance of swans mission only for her to disappear into elusive carmen (sorry watching odette be turned back into a swan)

He actually does fall a bit in love and keeps his interest in this strange girl

+dark! Carmen being chosen for a hot minute before gray sacrifices his own ambitions and loving Carmen for who she truly is is what gives them both a chance at breaking the curse- i mean VILE influence and brainwashing

TLDR: supposed to be working together only for the dance to be interrupted

And looking at beats from the whole ballet is fun to compare actually. Lottsa pledging love but also who is the true self 🧐?

My askbox is like this because

SNAP.CRACKLE POP RICE CRISPIES!...and crackle the dude...

[card-queen]

Story Craft: Character Basics

Ahoy and welcome. Characters won the poll so I'll start my guide by going over how I go about creating and developing characters. Before I begin, I'll be using my own characters as examples. Not because they're especially good or shining examples of this or that, but simply because I created them and I 100% know how and why I created them. So if you go through this and think "um, that doesn't sound very interesting" then first of all, 'WOW OK RUDE MEAN AND CRUEL ALSO', but second of all (and much more importantly), that's good and I encourage you to keep a hold of those feelings. Stories and crafting stories are completely to taste and one person's fine is another person's too much. Stories all about capturing and recapturing feelings, so if something doesn't hit the mark then it's good to take a look and figure out where it went wrong, where you might have gone or if the whole thing wasn't to your taste at all.

And now...

Characters!

Everyone loves characters and has favourites, least favourites and enjoys dreaming up new scenarios or even alternate universes to put them in! Crack open a how-to book and they'll probably have a more mechanical view of characters as tools of the plot, designed to elicit reactions and progress events... or something else really dry and with all the joy of a tier list for cutlery. The truth is that characters ARE made with a mechanical use in mind... but they're also the beating heart of the story and the world. And there is a lot of fun to be had in really hammering out the technical aspects of characters, and I'm here to show you!

Part 1: The Basics

Characters should contain three components: Personality, Purpose and Perspective.

Personality is who they are, how they make us feel and how they get on with other characters. This is the most readily understood aspect of characters and often what people create for their early OCs or ones that don't have a story. This is where you'd put their personality basics, MBTI, enneagram, etc.

Purpose is what they do in their story, what roles they perform and what themes they embody. This is the most mechanical aspect that all the books want you to understand. This is where you'd put their archetype or tropes you associate with them.

Perspective is their place in the world and their role in society. This is kind of a middle-ground between personality and purpose as both their actions and attitude can be shaped by their place in the world, obligations or upbringing, but by give it a category of its own, we can have more fun and ensure that every character has a healthy amount of entertainment potential.

A quick word on 'theme' that I've learned over time. Don't stress out too much if you haven't figured out the key theme(s) of your story, it's something that comes with time and work. I've found that people talking about theme often end up making it sound more like a preachy underlying message that permeates your work and I can't help but feel that, despite their efforts to say 'don't make it preachy'... it's gonna come across as preachy more times than not. For me, theme is something that ends up being core to your main character's struggle and it's something that a lot of other characters and story elements can have their own angle on, deepen the issues or show a path towards growth. I didn't figure out my theme until I was going through all the things going on with my main character and noticed that a lot of characters have deep issues with these things too. These things come with time, just keep at it and remember to give yourself time away from work to give yourself fresh eyes!

It'll make sense more later as I use things in conjunction with each other, but to keep things simple and streamlined, I'll be using a basic trait system to describe a few aspects of each character -- I don't want to be here too long going into intricate backstories or the elevated nuance of each characters perspective. Ain't no one got time for that! Now... Bring out the ragamuffins...

(Cas, Conoric, Gwynnen, Hughwen, Sarabonney)

I'll just go over my main character, Cas, and hopefully show you how he fits in my world, story and works (or clashes) with the others characters.

Personality Team Player. Cas is a born leader who gets along with people. He's open-minded, hardworking and willing to see the merit in anyone. Cunning. He has a keen eye for reading people and situations, picking up on subtext which he uses to get what he needs. Determined. Cas can take determination to an unhealthy degree, misusing his body and own needs just to get a task down. Self-Reliant. While a team player at heart, he's unwilling to put too much on others and ends up taking on took much himself. Purpose Criminal Minded Hero. Cas has a mind shaped by his time as a sneak thief and street-level spy which he uses to solve crimes and help others within his community. While it gets results, his methods do not align with the strict moral values of some of his peers & superiors. Loyal to Ethelia. While Cas is not keen to weigh in on any discussions about the ruling of his country, he is actively against the rebels. Price of Honesty. Cas is TORN by his desire to just be honest all the time and his fears over what happens when he's too open. He's been nothing but honest about his childhood ties and all it's gotten him is more trouble and judgement. Thoughts on the Past. Cas tries to distance himself from everything that has happened, doing his best to forget and move on. Despite this, all of his motivations are driven by his obsession with his past. Perspective Authority Figure. Cas is seen by many as a respectable person to go to for help and wears his duties with pride. Criminal Past. Cas was once affiliated with a criminal brotherhood and despite his best efforts, that stain still colours his image. Ethelian Commoner. Cas had a relatively standard upbringing for Ethelia, (ignoring his time in the gang), with the same devotions and job prospects as others around him. His scope of the world and other perspectives is quite limited but he's eager to keep up and learn.

...okay, that should do for now. Here's the neat part:

This is a neat little visualisation of all the points I just went over about Mr Cas, with some alternatives for the personality points I went over. The personality points have a negative interpretation of that positive trait, which typically comes from them over-doing it. The negative aspect should be something that is key to how your character thinks. Determined being overdone into Workaholic makes sense. Cunning being overdone into Secretive isn't so straightforward. It plays on Cas' natural desire to see the best in people and be a Team Player, so rather than start trouble, he just keeps his mouth shut. Thinks of all of these little traits as Attack Points. They a weapons in the character's arsenal, designed to help other characters and show them growth, to exploit other characters' weaknesses and provoke conflict or meaningful change.

They can be simple, like this:

Cas' good nature and willingness to find the right way to understand and work with people makes it easy for his brother, Conoric to open up and come out of his shell. The two share a mutual understanding of how the other works and are able to work in completely opposite ways but towards the same goal.

But they can also get a little more complex, like this:

This is ostensibly a conflict between Cas and Gwynnen about Hughwen. Both Cas and Gwynnen see eye to eye, as both men are authority figures of sorts and both a loyal to Ethelia, so their conflict will always be civilised and handled with conversation and respect. Ultimately this conflict is about Hughwen's.... hmm... level of trustworthiness. His first impression is rancid, he's the only survivor of an attack and he has a very guarded manner that makes him look like a liar... and being accused by people in authority activates ACAB mode in him were he starts being snide, snippy and putting words in peoples mouths just to look and feel that extra bit persecuted. Cas naturally wants to believe in Hughwen and when Hughwen gets more defensive and leans into his idea that everyone is out to get him, it makes him look more like a black sheep underdog and makes Cas EXTRA want to stand by Hughwen. Gwynnen takes a more level-headed but letter-of-the-law approach, asking the logical questions but analysing and scrunitising every answer. If it doesn't match up with other stories or the evidence he's found, Gwynnen starts getting sceptical and asking more and more questions, which puts Hughwen's back up and activates Defiance Mode. Cas and Gwynnen oppose the other on the criminal background vs nobility background. Cas may accuse Gwynnen of not understanding how people outside of restricted society work and how people might hide their smaller crimes to avoid judgement. Gwynnen may accuse Cas of seeing himself in everyone with criminal or shady instincts, wanting too hard to see the best in everyone.

If you were to visualise all of your character interactions, it might be too big and too wordy but keeping the points of conflict in mind may help you develop characters and their interactions more thoroughly. Seeing where a character's weakness is and how it can be exploited or overcome is fun. Flipping and corrupting positive traits and aspects into negative, detrimental traits is fun. Finding how characters can get along and how they can clash in ways that go beyond "you are rich and I am poor, so I hate you, but we both like chess, so I guess you are not all bad" is SO MUCH FUN.

Get out there and have so fun. We'll be back whenever I can formulate what I want to say to talk about MBTI and Enneagram later.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or want to give me lots and lots of praise, then my Asks are VERY open.

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

Happy creating!

Want more writing advice? Check out this post!

[capyboba-down-the-rabbit-hole]

6th Stop: The Online Body and The Authentic Self

Many of us have our go-to filters, which serve as digital mirrors reflecting our online lives. As someone who habitually embellishes my photos with filters, I contend that these tools, akin to traditional photo editing, vintage cameras, and carefully staged compositions, offer us the means to craft a visually pleasing narrative of our reality, which also holds authenticity in them.

Defamiliarizing Life Online: La Vie En Rose

The use of photo filters not only enhances the visual appeal of our images but also, as Sontag refers to the portrayal of war imagery, can desensitize us to the mundane aspects of our daily lives (1973, 20). Yet, concurrently, filters present us with images that deviate from the familiar scenes we're accustomed to witnessing.

One reason why filters captivate us is their ability to give images a sense of strangeness, defamiliarizing our everyday existence. Filters steal a little bit of our images; they corporate our vision with what the lens of a machine portrays.

Let me see my life through someone else’s eyes—or, in this case, the unfocused and impartial eye of a machine - Bianca Bosker (2014)

Although Instagram-style filters may initially render our selfies and everyday snapshots unrecognizable, their widespread usage eventually diminishes the effect of defamiliarization, transforming it into a commonplace occurrence. Nevertheless, our everyday photos serve as a means of heightening our personal experiences and giving them special meanings.

In essence, these filtered photos afford ordinary individuals the opportunity to engage in artistic expression—a realm once reserved for professionals due to the intricacies of photography and editing tools such as DSLR cameras and Photoshop. And each photo serves as a narrative that we consciously choose to share.

Platformatization: Finding Authenticity in Filters

Behavior of any kind, even that wholly in accord with societal mores, is authentic if it results from personal understanding and approval of its drives and origins rather than merely from conformity with the received wisdom of society. - Erich Fromm (2011)

Behavior, whether conforming to societal norms or not, is considered authentic by Erich Fromm (2011) if it stems from an individual's personal understanding and endorsement of its underlying motivations and origins, rather than mere conformity to prevailing societal expectations. Fromm views authenticity as a positive result of informed and enlightened motivation, rather than a negative consequence of rejecting societal pressures.

For instance, when selecting a filter for a photo, individuals make subjective choices that reflect their authenticity (Kumar & Madhushree Nanda Agarwal 2023). Consider a woman of color opting for a filter adhering to Western beauty standards. Her choice may signify a desire for societal acceptance, despite the inherent social injustices minorities face. In this context, her selection of a filter becomes a statement about her own experiences and struggles.

Platformization has transformed filters into customizable tools, allowing greater freedom to shape representations that reflect the diversity of our world. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook empower users, predominantly individuals, to design their own filters tailored to their unique needs and authenticity. Today, filter development is just as, if not more, likely to be conducted by a camgirl as it is by hundreds of full-time employees in a campus-sized studio. Skill-based barriers to entry have been eroded by the proliferation of low-cost and easy-to-use software development platforms known as AR toolkits .

These toolkits prioritize the creator's vision over technical expertise, resulting in a diverse range of filters that challenge conventional beauty standards. These filters may explore themes of disempowerment rather than conquest or feature mechanics that promote introspection over agency, thereby expanding the narrative possibilities and contributing to a more inclusive representation of reality.

Indeed, the filtered world we create online may diverge from its natural state, but it remains authentic in its own right. Through the lens of a digital camera, we craft a human-made vision of reality that reflects our perceptions, experiences, and desires. While this digital representation may not mirror the raw world, it nonetheless captures aspects of our inner selves and external surroundings, rendering it authentic in its portrayal of our lived experiences. Our online reality, shaped by filters and digital tools, serves as a unique and valid expression of our individual perspectives and narratives.

Reference

Bosker, B 2014, Hi, My Name Is Bianca And I’ve Already Taken Your Picture, HuffPost, viewed 31 March 2024, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/narrative-clip_n_4760580.

Fromm, E 2011, Escape from freedom, Ishi Press, New York, Tokyo.

Kumar, H & Madhushree Nanda Agarwal 2023, ‘Filtering the reality: Exploring the dark and bright sides of augmented reality–based filters on social media’, Australian Journal of Management, SAGE Publishing.

Rettberg, JW 2014, ‘Filtered Reality’, in Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 20–32, viewed 31 March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137476661_2.

Sontag, S 1978, On Photography, Allen Lane, London.