#i still don't know how he COULD have been worked into that story. but thematically he would make the most sense

[hesgomorrah]

trying extremely hard to be happy for my friends who are going to get fed rather than being grumpy about the missed opportunity that would appeal to me and like five other people

[burntoutdaydreamer]

To Write Better Antagonists, Have Them Embody the Protagonist's Struggles

(Spoilers for The Devil Wears Prada, Avatar the Last Airbender, Kung Fu Panda 2, and The Hunger Games triology).

Writing antagonists and villains can be hard, especially if you don't know how to do so.

I think a lot of writers' first impulse is to start off with a placeholder antagonist, only to find that this character ends up falling flat. They finish their story only for readers to find the antagonist is not scary or threatening at all.

Often the default reaction to this is to focus on making the antagonist meaner, badder, or scarier in whatever way they can- or alternatively they introduce a Tragic Backstory to make them seem broken and sympathetic. Often, this ends up having the exact opposite effect. Instead of a compelling and genuinely terrifying villain, the writer ends up with a Big Bad Edge Lord who the reader just straight up does not care about, or actively rolls their eyes at (I'm looking at you, Marvel).

What makes an antagonist or villain intimidating is not the sheer power they hold, but the personal or existential threat they pose to the protagonist. Meaning, their strength as a character comes from how they tie into the themes of the story.

To show what I mean, here's four examples of the thematic roles an antagonist can serve:

1. A Dark Reflection of the Protagonist

The Devil Wears Prada

Miranda Priestly is initially presented as a terrible boss- which she is- but as the movie goes on, we get to see her in a new light. We see her as an bonafide expert in her field, and a professional woman who’s incredible at what she does. We even begin to see her personal struggles behind the scenes, where it’s clear her success has come at a huge personal cost. Her marriages fall apart, she spends every waking moment working, and because she’s a woman in the corporate world, people are constantly trying to tear her down.

The climax of the movie, and the moment that leaves the viewer most disturbed, does not feature Miranda abusing Andy worse than ever before, but praising her. Specifically, she praises her by saying “I see a great deal of myself in you.” Here, we realize that, like Miranda, Andy has put her job and her career before everything else that she cares about, and has been slowly sacrificing everything about herself just to keep it. While Andy's actions are still a far cry from Miranda's sadistic and abusive managerial style, it's similar enough to recognize that if she continues down her path, she will likely end up turning into Miranda.

In the movie's resolution, Andy does not defeat Miranda by impressing her or proving her wrong (she already did that around the half way mark). Instead, she rejects the values and ideals that her toxic workplace has been forcing on her, and chooses to leave it all behind.

2. An Obstacle to the Protagonist's Ideals

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Fire Lord Ozai is a Big Bad Baddie without much depth or redemptive qualities. Normally this makes for a bad antagonist (and it's probably the reason Ozai has very little screen time compared to his children), but in Avatar: The Last Airbender, it works.

Why?

Because his very existence is a threat to Aang's values of nonviolence and forgiveness.

Fire Lord Ozai cannot be reasoned with. He plans to conquer and burn down the world, and for most of the story, it seems that the only way to stop him is to kill him, which goes against everything Aang stands for. Whether or not Aang could beat the Fire Lord was never really in question, at least for any adults watching the show. The real tension of the final season came from whether Aang could defeat the Fire Lord without sacrificing the ideals he inherited from the nomads; i.e. whether he could fulfill the role of the Avatar while remaining true to himself and his culture.

In the end, he manages to find a way: he defeats the Fire Lord not by killing him, but by stripping him of his powers.

3. A Symbol of the Protagonist's Inner Struggle

Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda 2 is about Po's quest for inner peace, and the villain, Lord Shen, symbolizes everything that's standing in his way.

Po and Lord Shen have very different stories that share one thing in common: they both cannot let go of the past. Lord Shen is obsessed with proving his parents wrong and getting vengeance by conquering all of China. Po is struggling to come to terms with the fact that he is adopted and is desperate to figure out who he is and why he ended up left in a box of radishes as a baby.

Lord Shen symbolizes Po's inner struggle in two main ways: one, he was the source of the tragedy that separated him from his parents, and two, he reinforces Po's negative assumptions about himself. When Po realizes that Lord Shen knows about his past and confronts him, Lord Shen immediately tells Po exactly what he's afraid of hearing: that his parents abandoned him because they didn't love him. Po and the Furious Five struggle to beat Shen not because he's powerful, but because Po can't let go of the past, and this causes him to repeatedly freeze up in battle, which Shen uses to his advantage.

Po overcomes Shen when he does the one thing Shen is incapable of: he lets go of the past and finds inner peace. Po comes to terms with his tragic past and recognizes that it does not define him, while Shen holds on to his obsession of defying his fate, which ultimately leads to his downfall.

4. A Representative of a Harsh Reality or a Bigger System

The Hunger Games

We don't really see President Snow do all that much on his own. Most of the direct conflict that Katniss faces is not against him, but against his underlings and the larger Capitol government. The few interactions we see between her and President Snow are mainly the two of them talking, and this is where we see the kind of threat he poses.

President Snow never lies to Katniss, not even once, and this is the true genius behind his character. He doesn't have to lie to or deceive Katniss, because the truth is enough to keep her complicit.

Katniss knows that fighting Snow and the Capital will lead to total war and destruction- the kind where there are survivors, but no winners. Snow tells her to imagine thousands upon thousands of her people dead, and that's exactly what happens. The entirety of District 12 gets bombed to ashes, Peeta gets brainwashed and turned into a human weapon, and her sister Prim, the very person she set out to protect at the beginning of the story, dies just before the Capitol's surrender. The districts won, but at a devastating cost.

Even after President Snow is captured and put up for execution, he continues to hurt Katniss by telling her the truth. He tells her that the bombs that killed her sister Prim were not sent by him, but by the people on her side. He brings to her attention that the rebellion she's been fighting for might just implement a regime just as oppressive and brutal as the one they overthrew and he's right.

In the end, Katniss is not the one to kill President Snow. She passes up her one chance to kill him to take down President Coin instead.

[hamliet]

Derry Girls: A Masterclass in Detailed, Thematic Writing

Several years after the end, I finally watched Derry Girls, and it's become one of my favorite shows. Not only for the way it captures the absolutely unhinged aspects of Irish families (askmehowiknow) but for the sheer writing skill.

The vast majority of the episodes are laugh-out-loud hilarious, while also offering insightful commentary on the Troubles and on humanity's foibles as a whole. The characters are allowed to be human and act in unlikable, unsanitized ways, and to still be human and come back from that. (Almost like a metaphor for the Troubles or something.)

The story is also incredibly detailed; for example, when the girls are accused of killing a nun and Erin points out the nun was like, 98 years old and askes "might that shed some light on the situation?" there's an hourglass behind Sister Michael--emphasizing the idea that her time was up. Even more than that... the window is behind the hourglass, literally shining a light on it.

But that's a micro level. On a macro level, I also appreciated the way the story discusses the political backdrop that is part of its premise. Even as Erin, Michelle, James, Clare, and Orla grow up in a place that's been in a state of low-level warfare for decades, they live full lives. In fact, that's kinda the point.

Case in point: episode 4 of the first season, wherein Erin gets an exchange student from Chernobyl. The way the Northern Irish in general treat the Ukrainians is hilariously awful and patronizing, believing that they are giving them a respite from the troubles "over there" while Northern Ireland isn't in a much better state. But, as Sister Michael assures the Ukrainian students, the Irish troubles don't matter because "we're the goodies."

This line gets to the heart of what the episode is saying about political divisions and the way people view an "other." Everyone sees themselves as the "goodies." Because of that, they don't self-examine and wind up hurting the people they see themselves as wanting to help/save with their ignorance. It's a paradoxical egotistical (and frankly teenage) worldview that is also unwilling to look critically at oneself. The focus on their own perceptions over focusing on the actual humanity of the other results in ruining gifts that could come with cross-culture interaction, as seen in how Erin's misunderstandings and petty jealousy of Katya leads to her literally ruining a surprise gift Katya had prepared.

And the end of the episode also comments thematically on the story. One of the Ukrainian boys turns out not to be Ukrainian after all--he's actually Irish and from just down the road. He just didn't know how to say that. The ironic message is clear: despite differences in culture and views, they are actually all human beings, and assumptions make it hard for people to speak. If they could actually talk openly and without presumptions about who is "good" and who is "bad," they could prevent and solve a lot of problems.

This kind of background, symbolic commentary on the Troubles continues in just about every episode of the series. For example, even after the ceasefire, season 3 has an episode where it's discussed how negotiations are stalling, and the entirely of the rest of the episode takes place on a train that stalls between two separate places.

The Troubles are always something affecting their lives, but the only time the Troubles ever become the main story is in the finale episode. Which is also an episode that makes everyone cry. Michelle's brother is finally mentioned for the first time the entire series, yet it doesn't feel like a retcon so much as a recontextualization, and again mirrors how a lot of society (and Michelle's own family) have treated those who murdered others during the conflict.

Erin and James' relationship also works as a metaphor for the Troubles--an Irish Catholic girl and an English boy. Earlier in season 3, after they finally kiss, they're told they can't be together, that it's wrong, and that it'll create problems for everyone around them. Michelle doesn't want things to change. And Erin agrees that it's not good to pursue something.

But, in the final scenes, as Erin prepares to vote in the Good Friday Agreement and talks to James, she directly states she thinks things can't stay the same forever--thereby countering what she said to reject James earlier:

There's a part of me that wishes everything could just stay the same. That we could all just stay like this forever. There's a part of me that doesn't really want to grow up. I'm not sure I'm ready for it. I'm not sure I'm ready for the world. But things can't stay the same, and they shouldn't. No matter how scary it is, we have to move on, and we have to grow up, because things... well, they might just change for the better. So we have to be brave. And if our dreams get broken along the way... we have to make new ones from the pieces.

Symbolically, also, given that we know the outcome of the Good Friday Agreement, I think it's pretty clear Erin and James end up together even if we're not directly shown it.

That the last shot of the episode (besides the funny epilogue) is Grandda Joe, one of the eldest characters, helping his youngest toddler granddaughter Anna leap over a threshold as they leave the voting station, is also incredibly clear in its symbolism.

Erin: People died. Innocent people died, Grandda. They were someone's mother, father, daughter, son. Nothing can ever make that okay. And the people who took those lives, they're just gonna walk free? What if we do it, and it's all for nothing? What if we vote yes and it doesn't even work? Grandda Joe: And what if it does? What if no one else has to die? What if this all becomes a--a ghost story you'll tell your wee-un's some day? A ghost story they'll hardly believe?

I dunno, I think this is a sentiment we need more of in the world. A peaceful future means taking risks and accepting that punitive justice will not be perfectly doled out; however, if you allow more people to be hurt, is that not also injustice? It's a paradox that the story leaves us without a dogmatic answer to (for example, we never find out if Michelle's brother gets released), but it's also hopeful--because we know that the Good Friday Agreement largely worked.

(For further analysis of the final scene, I recommend PillarofGarbage's analysis on YouTube!)

[thechekhov]

Hey Chekhov! How do you start converting an AU idea from character sheets and mini comics into a plot outline for a full, continuous comic? Especially if the series you're basing it on isn't complete?

I've been following your white diamond Steven comics for years, and frankly, I love how it builds and continues the scaffolding canon laid to be something that is thematically still the same but also very unique. And I never thought I'll ever say this, but now I'm working on a canon-divergent AU with someone that's I think aiming to do something similar(continue the themes of canon but different). So I'll just like some advice, I suppose!

You might've answered something like this before, honestly, but I tried to dig a little and couldn't really find it.

Thanks, if you do answer this! I just want take the opportunity as well to say also that your comic and blog accompanied me through parts of my late teens, and I'm very grateful for you being a stabilizing influence during that time.

Thank you! I really appreciate you saying that, and I appreciate you respecting me enough to ask for advice.

As for your question...

Well, to be frank, I don't START with character sheets and mini-comics. In fact, for WD!AU, I didn't have any character sheets until I started season 2.

Think of your story as an aquarium. Your characters are fish.

Yes, they're important, but having a whole bunch of fish without any substrate, tanks, feed and WATER..... will not really make for a memorable aquarium experience.

The reality is that all stories should start with an end.

That's my personal approach, anyway.

What I mean is - you need to know the general idea for your story before you begin to write or plan it.

Let's try this:

1.Tell me about your story in THREE sentences!

Just three. Not long ones, just regular ones.

For my AU, @ask-whitepearl-and-steven, it would be:

"A young orphan runs away from home with a mysterious lady who seems more cryptid than human. He realizes that he's not human either - he used to be the ruler of an alien planet! He and the other aliens he meets decide to (REDACTED) (REDACTED) (REDACTED) and he (REDACTED) (REDACTED) (READACTED) (READ ANDCTED) (READ AND FIND OUT)."

YOU should know how YOUR story ends too! Even vaguely.

It helps if you know at what point you plan to lay down the pencil. Because if you DO know, you are always going to know which direction to walk in, even if the end is so far away it's beyond your line of sight.

It's true that when I began WDAU, I didn't have much information about White Diamond and white Pearl, because they had literally ONLY been introduced. I had to guess a lot of the details (like WP being Pink's originally) and what White would be capable of. And thankfully, my original intent for the story's end fit pretty well with what was later revealed!

But don't forget - you could also just fuck around with stuff! It's your story, after all.

And don't forget... to also look back!

2.Tell me WHY the story is happening in the first place.

There's a reason that the beginning of your story happens when it does. If there is no reason to start somewhere, then find a different place to start.

You should be able to tell me "We're picking up the story here because something significant has happened... and that significant thing happened BECAUSE...."

That 'because' is your main background information that should be revealed slowly throughout the story. In WDAU's case, we only have a few pieces of the puzzle. We know Greg's side. He know Earl's side. But there are still little bits and pieces missing! And they're all important for finding out WHY Steven ended up an orphan and WHY he is being followed by White Pearl (Earl) at the very start of the comic!

3.Tell me what the coolest and most interesting things to happen would be....and then write them!

I think this may be something that's rarely said out loud, but I will speak on the behalf of the people...

We should write the scenes we want to read. If you don't want to read the scene you're writing, then DON'T write it!

If you feel like you "have to" do a page and a half of 'lore' because you think it's traditional to have that 'explanation' about the location of your story, or the history of the species or whatever, you're simply wrong. There are other ways to reveal information aside from just forced paragraphs upon paragraphs of information that would make an SAT Reading Section sweat.

Instead, I recommend that you find the most exciting or hilarious way for the characters to discover the most important bits of info. Find a dramatic twist. Shove it into the narrative. Then, figure out what needs to happen to get there.

Ultimately, though, remember this: When you're taking advice from me or from others, don't forget to take advice from yourself, too! It's your story, after all. You know it best, and only YOU can figure out how to get it written.

I hope that helps at least a little bit! Writing it never easy, but it should still be enjoyable!

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

Do you think it would’ve made more sense to have the archivists be the final bad guys instead of Belos? Because those guys literally have very little impact on the story other than existing for the Collector’s backstory.

The problem with introducing the Archivists as the final villain is that we have little to no buildup for them prior to the Collector revealing his backstory. Another issue is that they're simply too powerful; these are the same guys that fought the Titans, and with no other Titans around except for a baby one, how are the heroes supposed to defeat what are essentially god-like beings?

Another issue is that there's no thematic tissue connecting Luz's story with the Archivists. They're just there for world building and for making the Collector sympathetic.

Belos really is the best Final Bad Guy because of how integral he is to the plot, lore, and themes of the show. Adding in the Collector this late in the game and with a shortened season was a risky move and it could have worked but the execution of his character and the re-powering of Belos and his inevitable defeat were just sloppily done.

The Collector should have been utilized as a means to defeat Belos once and for all (it wouldn't take much convincing since Belos broke his promise and dropped his disc into the grim walker pit). Afterward, King can still work on "taming" him since it was established early on that he's just lonely and wants friends.

(and the Collector should know what death is, none of this uwu-I-don't-recognize-the-consequences-of-my-own-actions shtick)

[bitimdrake]

Thoughts on Jack Drake's death in Identity Crisis? I personally dislike it because it's a fridging (and somehow only the third worst death in that book behind "why did she have a FLAMETHROWER tho" and "that's not how Firestorm works you're confusing him with Human Bomb"), and it took away what made Tim stand out in making him an orphan like the other Robins. I'm not a Batfam expert so I haven't read a ton of the surrounding stories but it feels like there was more they could have done with Jack.

I would not personally call it fridging because I think we've gotten waaaay too liberal with that term, particularly when removed from the original context of misogyny (*unless perhaps we are applying it to other bigotry, which I do think is worthwhile), and because "side character dies to push forward a main character's story" is...not a bad thing. That's a perfectly valid story telling trope that can be used well or poorly.

THAT SAID. I do think there was more to do with Jack that could have been really interesting!

He'd just found out Tim was Robin, and imo there was sooo much that could have be mined from that. It could have been a really interesting and major shakeup in Tim's story, without entirely changing the fundamentals of his character. I'm so interested in the theoretical arc of Tim and his long time hot-and-cold distant dad trying to figure this relationship out now that Jack finally, for the first time, is both (a) interested in actively pursuing a relationship with his son (he's been on and off since shortly after Tim became Robin) and (b) actually able to get to know his son (which has been impossible from Tim's side since he became Robin and starting keeping so much of his life secret). Jack decided to be supportive, but their relationship is messy! Their history is complicated! And he still has understandably mixed feelings about his son fighting crime! How do they figure this out??

(Unrelated, I still think about this one fic where Jack comes back to life circa Brucequest and realizes his archeological skills can help. The future story it implied. The gentle question of can Tim and Jack repair their relationship. It compels me.)

I'm of two minds about Jack dying at all. On the hand, I do agree it took away a lot that made Tim unique as a Robin and lumped him more in with the others. On the other hand, there has been some nice stuff as a result of him being adopted into Bruce's family. And, e.g., I don't think stuff like his relationship with Damian would be remotely the same if Tim still had his own father.

Also like. the theoretical fandom shift from this would be fascinating. The best known batfam characters who are not Wayne family are largely women at this point, which means fandom is extra inclined to ignore them. But if one of the core bat boys was not part of the literal family, would that actually shift the whole fandom focus away from Force This Into A Nuclear Family Mold? Would we see an entire thematic shift? Or would people just be trying to contrive reasons why Tim's very much living father didn't count....

[mightymizora]

Feel free to ignore but: do you feel that gortash is - I guess the word I'd use is "good" - at sex? By whatever metric you'd judge that?

Hey anon I LOVE THIS QUESTION and I can't be normal about it!

So I have to dive into it a bit into sections because there's a lot going on here for me and obviously the caveat here is this is my opinion, this is my opinion from inferences from the text, this is my opinion.

So in order to do this we need to cover a few sections: sexual education, sexual agency, sex as tool and sex as desire.

All of this is going under the cut for discussions of childhood abuse, canon inferences, decisions he makes in game, and some headcanons around agency and dub/non-con that readers may find uncomfortable.

so, let's start at the very beginning with:

Sexual Education

There are two things we know about young Enver Flymm. One is that he was raised in a small cobblers workshop where he shared a single room with his parents. The other is that at some point, he was taken to the literal hells where he suffered an incredibly physically abusive situation.

We don't know for sure the exact age he was taken, but I think it's easy to infer that he was prepubescent when he was taken from the way he is spoken about as a snot, a boy etc. by Nubaldin. Even if he was a little older, it's safe to infer that he didn't have a particularly healthy environment to learn about sex and sexuality either at home or in literal hell.

If we assume Enver was in hell, we know that the sex he would have potential been aware of was largely non-consensual. There's references all over the place about his fellow detainee Hope being sexually and physically assaulted as well as psychologically manipulated. We don't know with Enver if he ages in the hells (I assume he does, and that it is only those who sell their souls and end up there after death that do not age) but if he does, he goes from childhood to early adulthood, ten years, in this space (mirrored in Karlach spending ten years there as well, interestingly.)

We also don't actually know how he escaped the hells, and it is a niche headcanon (which I have also put into my works) that he as a young adult learned about sex and traded with Haarlep to find his route out (in my stories, this directly feeds into Mephistopheles being interested in the potential of this boy, and letting him steal the crown.) There's no text basis for this, it just neatly ties up some thematic threads and I think can be put aside and it still doesn't change the core that:

Enver Gortash had no way of having a healthy understanding of sex as a teenager. There isn't really any way that he could have! Either he's living in a one-bed apartment with abusive parents who hate his existence, or he's learning from Raphael's example in literal hell.

Sexual Agency

This is where a lot of people feel differently, but again, we can look at things as they are and then make some inferences.

Enver Gortash does not have a named spouse, or any named mistresses/side pieces/conquests. Anything. There is no evidence of anything (we will come to Durge later.) Compare this to Sarevok, who has two named partners and is inferred to have had others, and it is an interesting choice to have zero ties. It's particularly interesting because as a Lord, he would be expected to be thinking of siring a house, and as a man in power, the narrative expectation would be to find evidence of sex as a benefit of his position. We don't see any evidence of that.

There is a read that many, including me, bring to the fondness that The Dark Urge and Gortash have for each other, but again, there is no evidence that this is sexual or if it is, that it was ever something than a mutual pining. That's the joy of fanworks, you can grow on what's there, but it's not explicit that it's anything more than mutual admiration.

So for me? I think that there is significant evidence that he doesn't prioritise sexual attraction and fulfilment over other areas of reward.

Sex as a Tool

What we do know though is that he has used his body to get things he wants. The Jannath letter, which I love, makes it clear that he had sex with her for financial favours and clout, and that she indulged him in this. He's also more than happy to trade on his image in every way he can. I think it's easy to infer from this that he is, at least in one setting, able to give people what they want out of sex. Whether that means he's technically good OR he's good at constructing and fulfilling the fantasy, I think that's up to interpretation, but I think he knows what to do when it is a performance, and if there's something he can tangibly get out of it like money, power, the ability to blackmail somebody later, then that is the element that is getting him off, not the sex itself. Sex for gain is just another part of his arsenal, to be refined and researched like anything else, and picked up and put down as useful to him.

Sex as Desire

And this is --and it is completely up to interpretation here, I'm just rolling with the other things I see -- where it can potentially all fall apart for Gortash. If he actually likes somebody, if there is a desire or an affection or anything like that, and if he is able to even feel emotions like that, what does he do with them? It's not useful, it's not contained, it's not part of the punishment he learned in the hells or the seduction he learned in the patriars. If he does find himself genuinely fond of another person, how can that fit in his ideas of sex? Personally, I don't think it can do, and there's lots of ways to play with that. In my own stories, the sexual contact he has with Manva is brief, quite one-sided, and quite regressive. He is no charming seducer, but instead taken back to something much simpler that he likely didn't have space for when he was young. He has other encounters where he can't get it up, or can't climax, because the circumstances aren't quite right, the promise of power is not enough, or the partner is too willing (not like he has learned of in the hells at all.)

I think personally that if he does seek out recreational sex, then it is primarily going to be motivated by power play. And I don't think this is well negotiated kink territory. He plays with the player character constantly, testing them, destroying their reputation in the press quest, always vying for more power even when you are apparently allies. This is a man who always, always needs to know he can change the tide.

I think of the woman whose voice was used in the necrotic laboratory, who was stolen away with a promise of a better life. I think of Fariza Linnacker. There's no evidence either were sexual, but we do know that he took great pleasure in manipulating and destroying their lives.

Gortash has so much going on around sex as a tool, as a weapon even, that when it comes to a genuine connection, there's every possibility that he cannot perform at all.

And would that make him embarrassed? Angry? Would he blame? Lash out? Would he seek out professionals to replay old traumas as a "safe space"? Would he avoid all intimacy because he sees it as weak and disgusting? I think there's a lot of scope within this.

So the short version is... I think he's able to be good at sex when it's FOR something. But I don't know if he's even interested when it's not, and if he is, I think he has a long way to go to actively want to seek it out. And is he good in the way that it is connected, intimate? Probably not.

[raayllum]

The Celestial Elves & Aaravos' Plans

Going into s6, there's been two big questions at the forefront of my mind: what can we expect from the Celestial elves, and what exactly is Aaravos' plan?

I've speculated briefly on the former, so I want to clarify further what I mean when I say the latter.

Aaravos' plans, seemingly, have at least two pretty clear steps, if you will:

To be freed from his pearl prison

To get revenge on the Startouch elves for his banishment / some other wound

This was as much spelled out to us in TDP's short story, Patience, before S4's release:

I have not seen the stars in centuries. But when I see them again—when the stars are forced to look upon me, their dark brother—they will know how I have waited. And when everything they have built lies shattered, I will savor their fall from the sky. For I have been patient.

I don't think Aaravos has much of a plan beyond revenge, as the Cycle is thematically and literally unsustainable in comparison to rebuilding and the Narrative of Love. What would be left for him, after all, besides seeing his 'family' (and Xadia) suffer further for what they've done to him? And I'm not here to say that there's a secret third step or anything (though there might be).

What I want to talk about is Aaravos' Plan timeline in regards to getting what he wants.

We know that around 1,000 years ago, humans were exiled from Xadia for dark magic use. It isn't clear if Aaravos was banished before or after this event, but given that Ziard saying "one of the Great Ones" doesn't seem to immediately give away Aaravos' identity, there seem to have been a few still kicking around, although this contradicts the Midnight Star poem, which clearly indicates the Stars leaving ("Elarion, unworthy whelp, / Wept as the stars turned black the sky, / They donned their masks / They turned their backs, / And left Elarion to die") and then humans receiving dark magic ("‘till the last star / Reached from afar / His touch: a blaze, a gift, a spark / [...] Elarion, black-eyed child, / her twisted roots spread deep and far, / The humans’ might").

It is possible, of course, that the Startouch elves could've left but hadn't actually expelled / cut contact with Aaravos directly, but that gets even dicier timeline wise.

Either way, to stay on topic: there's roughly a 700-1000 years, if not more, between Aaravos' banishment from the First Elves and achieving his final aims (which we'll likely see the beginning of in late S6).

Why?

Why does this period of time in between Banishment and Revenge exist? If Aaravos is so powerful...

Even after [Zubeia] and Avizandum allied ourselves with the other Archdragons, we could not risk a direct confrontation. We had to beat Aaravos as his own game. [...] We had to conspire and plot, and deceive this deceiver so that at the exact right moment, he would lower his guard, and we could imprison him forever.

then what could've possibly existed that he couldn't just take outright? Why even make nice with the Archdragons at all, and not stay focused on using his human mages in the west? And what, why, was he using them in the first place pre-imprisonment?

A young human girl uncovered a great secret of history. A dangerous deceiver was revealed: it was one of the Great Ones, the Startouch elf, Aaravos. For a thousand years, Aaravos had been pulling invisible strings like a puppet master. Every great crisis the world faced had seemed the work of some ingenious and powerful leader, but in each case, it was secretly Aaravos, whispering in their ear.

Now, of course Aaravos just could be a sadistic bastard who enjoys messing with people (and I'm sure there's spades of that) as well as ideas of being "elegant and efficient" in that why take things by force when you can convince other people to do stuff (and take the fall) for you. But in my mind, there's one main reason to maintain secrecy around people you're trying to use or convince: you want to maintain their trust, and you want their trust because you want their Knowledge.

Additionally, the more I've thought about it, the more sure I am that Aaravos was ingredient collecting for Something before his imprisonment (300 years ago, and still a thousand years at least into his grand plan). We see two powerful figures disappear close together — Luna Tenebris, who "mysteriously died" and Queen Aditi, who vanished — and we already know Aaravos "swallowed" the latter.

We know from Viren and Claudia that dragons, particularly archdragons, are incredibly powerful. Zym, just as a baby and with the staff as a conduit, would've been enough for Viren to "transcend his moral form" and presumably let Aaravos out of the mirror permanently by... taking over Viren's body, maybe? The details are fuzzy, but the intentions and initial endgame stage (freedom) was probably plain.

Moreover, if Aaravos did need a Powerful Sun Object and a powerful Archdragon (moon? sky?) Object to get things underway, it'd also explain the choice to go to Lux Aurea to get the Sun staff and corrupt it, as that choice inadvertently led to another 'downfall' (if he and Viren hadn't gotten the staff, their army probably would've had enough time to take the Storm Spire before the dragons even arrived; they were only held off so long because the Sunfire elves were there).

Like before, with Aditi, there's also a potentially powerful Sun source in both the sun seed itself and in Sol Regem, particularly if either or both become corrupted. Zym still exists as a possible source of energy to exploit, and there could be something Moon wise with Luna Tenebris' unsuitable heir or even Rayla.

I'm also not going to pretend to have definitive answers. That said, given that everyone else has been on a perpetual chase for knowledge throughout arc S4 and S5 ("I don't even know if she's alive" / "How do you know?" / "Having knowledge isn't the same as knowing it" / "If Akiyu knows helped make it, then she must know where it is" / "To love is simply to know this...") it wouldn't surprise me if the Mystery of Aaravos is about him, yes, but also one he's been trying to 'solve' all this time.

And on the one hand, this has also already been sort of true, given that despite his powers, Aaravos genuinely seems to 1) have no clue of where he was imprisoned or 2) in what (the pearl). The idea that his powers and foresight as a Fallen Startouch elf weren't extended far enough for him to be able to go back to the 'Heavens' whenever he wanted, that the Startouch elves are somewhere currently beyond his reach... That would kind of track and explain the 1,200-1,000 year interim and Why it's taken him so long to figure certain stuff out.

If he doesn't need Objects (which might play into the lack of coercion or construction, perhaps?) or at least not entirely, then Knowledge of something he's missing may be partially the clue needed to go back Home and wreck shit up. Not needing objects per se could also explain why things that may be useful to him — like the Nova Blade, if he wants to kill his own kind; or potentially the cube (but who knows) — weren't confiscated as it were before his permanent Fall to earth.

This is where we get to the Celestial Elves.

The Celestial Elves, in spite of being a late stage addition to TDP's lore in comparison to most other elements, have always felt very purposeful. As laid out in my post above, there's some very particular choices made about them that seem Obviously intentional in a way that say, other design choices regarding the elves aren't necessarily.

For example, original concept of Aaravos featured him bald, in robes, and blindfolded, but were scrapped for being "too obvious" / on the nose, leading to a very different final design. While blindfolds in TDP don't have much of a negative association largely thanks to Lady Justice and Harrow, the idea of not being able to see clearly (hi Viren!) is absolutely a motif the series returns to over and over until it reaches fruition: "I finally see the truth."

As mentioned in my linked post, the fact that all the Celestial elves are Skywing elves feels intentional as well. Sky (freedom) in the series is the opposite to Star ('destiny') if we're just going by primals and not looping in dark magic. The choice to make the Celestial elves Skywing specifically, when they could've been any kind of elf or even a grouping of different kinds of elves living together (which we haven't seen before) is probably because their understanding of the Sky arcanum and the concept of Star magic is going to be radically different than Callum's; I wouldn't be surprised if they've partially turned their back on the idea of "nothing is pre-determined" by instead saying everything is, which is his ongoing worst fear with the possession plot line.

Then there's the fact that they are devoted to Stars, and Startouch elves have had (as far as we know) little to no contact with anyone since they all left a thousand plus years ago... except for Aaravos, who would have an interest in the Nova Blade at the very least (and maybe the Corona of the Heavens belonged to him, too). The way they're called "an ancient sect" of Skywing elves is also not a point in their favour given that outside of Ancient Draconic, everything else that's been labelled that way has been negative ("the relic staff" / "the cube is an ancient relic" / "wounds from an ancient and disturbing practice" / "Infantis sanguine. It's one of the old spells").

Furthermore, the true sight serum Viren poured in his eyes in 2x02 is also what inspired the bulk of today's thinking meta, as the season two novelization states:

He held the last of an unusual liquid that he had inherited from Kpp'Ar. The liquid was a rare serum that the Oracles of Ophidia were said to have used long before the fall of Elarion in order to see through the illusions of the world. They would harvest venom from the fangs of eyeless vipers; and it was said that the venom had to be extracted on a moonless night. All it took was a single stray beam of moonlight to taint the serum and bring out its most dangerous qualities. Instead of clearing one's illusions, a dose of tainted serum would drive a person into a permanent, irrevocable madness.

Oracles are fortune tellers, which is already very Star arcanum-y adjacent. Ophidian is derived from the Grecian root for snake, which is very dark magic-y accordingly. We know that the Oracles were ancient if they predate Elarion, and we don't know whether they were humans, elves, or both. The fact that this lore is 1) here and 2) connected to Kpp'Ar, who it seems Viren likewise 'inherited' the staff from AND who had a perfect twin box that matched the one Aaravos has in his mirror... None of it bodes well, and I think there's reasonable speculation that the Oracles had some connection to a Startouch elf at least, once upon a time, and possibly ties to the Celestial elves as well.

All of this to say is that whatever the Celestial Elves stance on Aaravos is will inform their practical role in the story, yes, but will also inform what he's been Waiting patiently for all this time, I think.

If the Celestial elves are largely against Aaravos, then them hiding themselves and hiding these powerful and dangerous objects makes sense; cloaking themselves from him would take time and effort and if he's not willing to go back to 'Heaven' without being able to kill people, then maybe he's been waiting all this time to locate the Nova Blade (which Callum is now taking him directly to; great!) or one of the quasar diamonds is his missing piece, or whatever.

This would give me more pause as 1) said info was found in like one afternoon of searching in the Great Bookery, which Aaravos presumably would've had access to and 2) the Starscraper is probably the Star Nexus if there is still one, so I'd imagine Startouch elves would know where it is. That said, Callum and Zubeia never made the mirror connection (Callum had no reason to think it was stolen, and Zubeia had no reason to think that if Viren still had it Callum wouldn't have noticed upon inheriting the mage study right away, so wires got crossed) so who knows. Sometimes story's gotta story so reality's gotta bend a bit!

If Aaravos has been looking for information and/or an object outside of the Starscraper's walls (a spell? the cube?) then the Celestial elves pivoting to being a more antagonistic force makes more sense to me. If they have no reason to hide from him, then they have significantly less reason to be narratively Opposed to him. That doesn't necessarily mean they're exclusively evil or anything (though they could be!), but I could see internal fracturing and having our one named Celestial elf, Astrid, be a contrarian force for good as things go to shit (much like how Ethari is our one Silvergrove villager because he breaks the Ghosting spell, or we spend more time with N'than because he's willing to go against drake rider traditions).

We know regardless of anything else Callum and Rayla can't just waltz in and have everything they want immediately handed to them on a silver platter without a hitch, so at best there might be a trial or two to pass (which speaks to some ambiguity about the danger Aaravos poses) and at worst, they might lure the two in with a false offer of help and security / trials only to actually just rip the floor out from under them.

Conclusion sort of

The good news is that by the end of S6 we will probably know most of these answers, excitedly enough! Given that the Merciful One has their stardust quote to Aaravos in 6x01, and that 6x09 is called Stardust, Aaravos referencing that line while he gets some of his vengeance would track accordingly (especially because know he says it at one point, thanks to the first teaser trailer).

Additionally, it's likely that since the end of S6 is the most 11th hour "worst possible things ever are happening" moment, Aaravos getting to have some of his revenge is I think a fair expectation to close out the season, and give us lots of high stakes for S7. Whatever he's been patient over, his waiting will finally be over, and the apocalypse of sorts will start, for the Stars that he's finally strong enough to 1) return to and 2) wreck havoc upon but also for everyone else, too.

But yeah - this was definitely a more rambling meta than most and I hope it got you thinking! It's hard to believe that in under two months we'll have answers to some of these questions we've been asking for so long, and I can't wait to find out what they are!

[robotlesbianjavert]

What's the problem with Deku's writing?

well for one he's a main character. which is strike one.

technically that's a joke but also not. there's a lot angles i could take in order to complain about deku, so for now i want to take the angle that as a main character, there are things that are going to be taken for granted as endgame for the narrative, but it's so taken for granted that the story forgets about the actual material needed to reach the endgame.

i'm going to use ofmd s2 as an example of this, because it's another thing i like to point at and go :) bad writing. so for that, it's very evident that the writers are aiming for "ed and stede are together and are ready to embark on a new, more mature phase of their life together". you can tell this because the showrunner was constantly talking about it in interviews. and indeed, the season ends with ed and stede parting ways with their crew and pirate life to try their hands as innkeepers.

but to reach that endgame, the series has to a) get stede and ed back together as soon possible, meaning they have to lean heavily on coincidence rather than any real efforts on the part of the characters, b) resolve the very emotionally stark situations the characters had left s1/started s2 in a way that makes the happy innkeeper endgame possible, but this makes the segue from drama to resolution unbelievable because the series can't really dedicate the time to dealing with that fallout before hopping onto the next big issue, which c) means that the ways that the other characters have been hurt as a result ed and stede's relationship drama have their pain sidelined and shrugged off, and in turn d) the focus on ensuring that ed and stede are together and in love means that their relationships with other characters get de-emphasized and feel much less lived, which rebounds and makes ed and stede feel more one-dimensional without the magic that fleshed them out. and most dire of all e) the audience is expected to believe that "sorry i was a dick" "you're not a dick life's a dick" is meant to indicate a development of maturity that means they are able to go off and be innkeepers together. it is NOT there.

essentially, the focus on a specific endgame without care about how that endgame is achieved ends up undercutting the triumph and catharsis of that endgame, rendering it much more hollow. people still enjoyed ofmd s2, and they're allowed to! but they enjoy it because their otp ended the season standing next to each other. three feet part. not for any genuine critical acclaim.

it's a similar issue with deku, especially in this final arc. his obvious endgame is that he'll affirm shigaraki's humanity and pain, "save" him (what that looks like yet, we don't know), and in turn become the greatest hero. we've got all the bones of that - just recently in 411, deku did his whole "you ARE human" declaration. but the lead up to deku and shigaraki's confrontation is thematically shallow and heavily dependent on us knowing that deku is a great kid and a great hero.

deku starts the third act realizing that if he understood the villains that he's faced, things could have turned out differently - the set up is that deku has to understand shigaraki as a person in order to stop him. the lead up to this is. well he asks muscular "what's up with you" one time in the middle of battle. that didn't work out. and then he had his nagant confrontation, where he was more shocked about her killing the former commission president than he was about the commission ordering a lot of evil assassinations. and then never thought about what that meant for society at large. and he was just like "well i know the world has some greys in it now" and that fixed her i guess. overhaul was there and deku made no real effort there to get why he was so frantic about seeing his boss. and then he has that conversation with ochaco where they both go "isn't it crazy that we have empathy for villains".

so basically the most work that he actually put into "understanding villains" was with nagant, who is a completely new character who has the baggage of "hero commission assassin is ANYONE in series gonna talk about that", and the potential she possesses as a shigaraki foil and a stepping stone for deku towards his endgame gets muddled. she's also basically, while a significant confrontation, is one beat of many in the third act.

so the set up for "understanding villains" as a factor in deku's endgame, in seeing villains as human, is pretty weak. and deku was honestly really dependent on getting that build up and using other villains as a learning experience, bc his actual dynamic with shigaraki is sparse. compare it to uraraka and toga - the "understanding" thread fares a lot better there, because uraraka has had specific and charged interactions with toga that deeply affected her and made her think. deku's most constructive interaction with shigaraki was way back at the mall, before the training camp, but that's not enough to carry chemistry through their supposed arc as hero & villain.

but the story already knows that deku, one way or another, is meant to succeed, so it acts like he received the necessary development to be able to understand shigaraki as human in their confrontation.

there's a similar lack of meat for many other aspects of deku's characters - like his relationship with the vestiges, where yoichi could be 2nd and 3rd around on deku's behalf, and his mastering of the new ofa quirks, which we get TOLD has consequences or that he's struggling with, but it's never in a way that actually causes him substantial issues that he must overcome.

but actually, we can move all of that aside and ask one simple question about deku's character: what does he think about the floating death coffin the other heroes built for shigaraki?

deku gets confronted by the vestiges about having to possibly kill shigaraki, and his response to that is "yeah i guess but i gotta try saving him". which is very nice, but it just ends there. deku doesn't have to deal with how everyone else - people who are scared, or have been hurt by shigaraki and the villain's actions - might feel about this initiative. at no point does deku have to stand his ground against the other heroes after shigaraki's head, he doesn't have to convince anyone of his point of view, he doesn't have to look inward and understand why he wants to do this. it's just "well if i can!"

deku doesn't have to have any thoughts about the floating death coffin. he never has to be in scene with it before it started malfunctioning. he doesn't have to have any opinions about its construction, about the heroes deciding to take this path. he doesn't need to have feelings about it, he just has to save shigaraki.

and when that happens, the narrative will celebrate him, and the heroes will be like "wow deku really is the greatest hero, kids these days are so great". they don't need to have thoughts about deku wanting to do this in the first place, because it's going to happen and no one can stop it.

in a similar way that some ofmd fans can walk away happy with season 2 because they don't need anything more than their otp standing together three feet apart, a lot of fans would be happy with deku and shigaraki's likely endgame because what matters is that deku is the hero and that he saves shigaraki. but from where i'm standing, deku has so little substance and build up to this endgame (or at least the build up is THERE, but poorly done) that it's hard for me to be impressed.

also everything @codenamesazanka said here. everything she says i nod and go hell yeah.

[gffa]

I was wondering if you could share your thoughts and feelings on Felonys takes over the years overall? I know a lot of people see him as this grand savior of star wars without much more to it so I wanted to hear your take on how he handles the pre-established world he writes for and the dissonance with what George Lucas established/said before

Honestly, I think a lot of Felony's appeal is that he writes a very polished story and that's appealing to audiences (no shade, I'm part of that audience!) and that he has at least given some thought to what the Force means. There are a lot of takes he has that I agree with, I still quote what he says about the characters at times, but I think he has a big central problem and that's characterization drift-slash-the inability to let go. Well, two big central problems: He also can't write/finish a narrative arc to a satisfying conclusion. I have such a hard time getting into the Mandalorian storyline because it's been told in snippets for like 10+ years now and it's never really coherently come together, it still has huge gaps in it, it doesn't have a strong narrative central theme that he sticks to, but instead told through cameos and mini-arcs in separate shows. And when you examine a lot of his work, it often doesn't hold up to scrutiny because I'm not sure he has a solid thematic throughline that's driving him--like, some of the choices he made in season 7 of TCW are baffling--Ahsoka walks right by people who need her help, then says, "In my life, when someone needs help, I help them."??? When she wants the Jedi to help Mandalore instead of Coruscant, she says the Jedi aren't helping the people who really need them, despite that Coruscant is under attack and that's where Trace and Rafa are, the characters we just spent an entire arc on?? Ahsoka and Bo-Katan want the Republic to literally invade Mandalore, this is brought up in the arc itself, and then never mentioned again because it's inconvenient and the author doesn't want to deal with the established worldbuilding?? I also don't think he knows how to end a story, like I love Ahsoka as a character, but he very much does favor her and a lot of her appearances are starting to feel like she's only there because Filoni can't resist. She just never ends, there's no conclusion to her, what's even her character arc over the course of her life after the Jedi genocide? She's obviously dealing with trauma about it and now she's looking for Ezra to find him again, but what's the character arc on a personal level? Is she still dealing with letting go of Anakin, ~30 years after it happened? Did she not put that to rest in Rebels finally? @david-talks-sw has a great post about the differences between George Lucas and Dave Filoni here, illustrating that I do think Dave misses some really key points about characters that he has personal biases against. And, you know, I'm not getting after him for that, I disagree with him and I think he's wrong about a lot of stuff that Lucas directly established, but I also think a lot of people dismiss criticism of him because, oh, he worked with George and therefore he's an extension of George! No, he's a different writer with his own strengths and weaknesses, one I think who makes very popular (often for a reason) Star Wars, but I think misses the heart a lot of times. But I also often think of that he doesn't try to see himself as the grand lord of Star Wars, either, even he himself says:

He's not the ultimate authority on Star Wars, he's just as fallible as anyone else is, and always should be. I think he made Star Wars shows that a lot of people loved, he has a very polished style, and he has given thought to the characters he loves. He just also has biases and directly conflicts with George Lucas' established story and I think that's fair to point out. Maybe you like those better, I'm not trying to talk anyone out of that, but it's still fair game for me to point out that I think he's wrong about Star Wars just as often as he's right. (And that, as time goes on and The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett became more and more of a hot mess, I grew less charitable. This is a major overview, I don't want to get too into the weeds on this, I've gone over a lot it in past meta, and it would be exhausting to dig it all up again, but basically this is why I'm on the fence about Felony. He has a lot of weaknesses as a writer and I don't find I like his strengths more than I dislike his weaknesses sometimes.)

[exhausted-archivist]

Concept Art Moments and Ideas: What I Wish Was Kept

Pretty sure we've all been there. Seen some of the concept art and thought how cool it was and how much you wish it had made it in the final game. These are some of mine, I won't go too much into why they're not in the game, the answer is usually either one of the following or a combination of: they needed to narrow the scope of the project, frostbite was a new engine they were struggling to make do what they needed, time, they didn't feel it had enough narrative weight or purpose, or it would make the world states branch out far too much.

I'm not really wanting to discuss whether or not I agree with cutting them either. I just really think these are neat concept, ones I've thought out how they would fold in, possible ways they could have played out, and some that personally I have worked into my fic just to fully explore the ideas.

Most of the images that don't have a source link came from either the art book or the BioWare Stories and Secrets From 25 Years of Game Development (B25) book.

Now lets start with the most common one:

[Source]

I'm know others have said this, but I really wish that it had been feasible for you to become Divine. Though, honestly this only would have really worked as decision at the end of the series. While personally in my canon world state I don't have anyone I would want to put in that role. I do have an OC who I did design for that and would have been nice to see it play out. Especially come Trespasser.

These are story boards from the art book of the prologue walk through Haven. The voice lines for this are still in the game files even though they're cut. Something I always wanted in the prologue was something to actually motivate me. There is no real sense of danger, and the walk through Haven hold no real weight. It's mostly telling and no showing, it feels hollow after your first play-through where you aren't curious and uncertain. It honestly would have been interesting to me if this was in there and if there were non-standard ending option outside of combat. Provoking the scared survivors to where they mob you, a timer on the mark instead of just the one check point. If it started draining your health the longer you took to get to the Breach. Things that could easily be removed if you decreased the difficulty level and wouldn't impact the game overly much.

[Left Dragon Age Art Book, Right World of Thedas vol. 2 p. 245]

To continue on with my desire for the steaks in Inquisition to be more intense, for you to actually feel some type of risk or hostility from the world. These two are more of an expansion on the attack on Haven. I wish Corypheus was given a more dramatic entrance than being seen on the hill with his Commander. That when he arrived to scoop you up, that it was more ominous and threatening. Something to illustrate as him having this overwhelming presence and force.

In Hushed Whispers had the concept art of King Alistair going with you and honestly, I feel like it is a missed opportunity. Not only would it make sense but there is a sort of thematic element with Alistair once again having to save Redcliffe from a mage. I think this also could have worked if he was king or warden. If he was a warden, it would have been a very nice way to tie in the Warden plot for Alistair and even Loghain. Would have really given the Inquisitor a reason to care about choosing between them or Hawke in the Fade.

[Source]

Matt Rhodes labeled this as Anders in the tags, and I am really intrigued by this prospect. We know by the end of DA2 if he's alive he doesn't have many friends with the displaced mages of Kirkwall after awhile. It would have been nice for him to come back in that Warden role they were considering for the cancelled Exalted March DLC. But what really makes me curious, is why he's out in what we might think is the Western Approach/Hissing Wastes and what happened to his missing right arm.

Alternatively, another scenario I would have liked to see with Anders comes from the B25 book. We see they explored the idea of Anders, as a Grey Warden in the cancelled Exalted March DLC. Honestly, I feel as if he would return regardless of if you killed him or not because we know that Justice can and has prevented fatal injuries from killing Anders before. This could have been an interesting thread to not only pull his story to an end in dai, but also introduce the Warden contact instead of the ones we had. Because he was on the run and the Wardens would offer a degree of protection so he would be unwillingly forced to return, couple that with him knowing of Corypheus - which would likely be the thing that forced the Wardens to keep him alive once they found his prison empty.

[Source]

This is Western Approach concept art, specifically this was suppose to be Adamant. Matt Rhodes describes that it was suppose to be a monastery, self-sustaining, and a place where they could cultivate their own food, weave their own fabrics. It would have been interesting to be able to see it like this, to see the game use this to not only explore how the Wardens survived out here but also how they recovered the fortress after it was wrecked in Asunder. It would have tied in nicely with exploring the fact that the reversal of Tranquility was found here, a fact known to everyone in game at this point (they just didn't know the Seekers hid it from the Chantry and mages). It would have been an excellent way to fold in Rhys, Evangeline, flesh out Cole's backstory and personal quest, and even show another side of the mages - the ones who didn't want to be involved in the war and fled to the Wardens.

Two Words: Giant. Scorpion.

Look how massive that is. I love mega fauna so much. I want something massive to be living in the Hissing Wastes and I want this to be fighting dragons. It would have been amazing. Look at the boards they put out.

[Source]

I want to believe this is for the Western Approach given the ground type and the smoke in the background. If this thing was guarding the sulfur fields by Griffon Keep? It would have been epic. Or even if we saw it fighting the Abyssal dragon. Honestly, I think more areas should have had a competing predator for the dragons to be fighting. It would have been cooler if they kept great bears (previously known as Dragon Bears) at their massive size to fight a dragon in the Emerald Graves too.

[Source]

That said, this scorpion concept gets even better when you see the concept art for smaller versions being Venatori mounts.

How do you not get stabbed bud? How do you domesticate/train this? What is the intelligence of this little critter? I can just picture a play on the scorpion and the frog happening here. This would have been really cool as mini-bosses or something of that nature. Particularly around the ruins, Venatori operations, or raids against the keeps.

Another piece from B25, we see new concept art of the Inquisitor leaving Skyhold with the Inquisition as Skyhold is destroyed in the background. We learned from David Gaider that at one point Skyhold was actually suppose to be attacked by Corypheus, but it ended up being cut due to time/scope. This is something I wish they kept, having your second base attack, you home at the point where you felt the strongest and potentially after a recent victory.

It would have reminded the player that Corypheus and his commander, Calpernia or Samson, were a real and active threat. Something missing from Inquisition honestly. It would have been interesting to see if we had to find a new base of operations or if we had to rebuild. When first settling in Skyhold everyone mentions being able to see the enemy coming, about not retreating from Skyhold. They really built up an expectation that at the very least a scare of an attack would happen.

There would have been a sort of poetic sense to Skyhold being leveled. Considering it is of Fereldan make, built on top of a leveled elven site. To have the site once again leveled, the history brought back to its foundations. It would have been a thematic foreshadowing to what Solas plans to do as well.

These are clearly just things I found interesting, things I feel would have really added to the game, and some others might not agree with. There are other things I wish they hadn't cut, but I didn't want to include anything that has been post-humorously mentioned by the devs because I wanted to focus more on the concept art aspect. A lot of decisions were shaped by circumstances we'll never really know the full scope of, and sometimes I wonder if they had gotten more than the 3-4 years they had for Inquisition and maybe on an engine that wasn't so fickle and worked better for the style of game how different it would have been.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Brick by Brick (Putting it Together)

Well, 1126 certainly ends off on a wild and very interesting note I have a lot to say about. But I don't want to bury the very interesting stuff getting there. First...hell yeah we're getting trashed on Giant absinthe! If you're unfamiliar, that is an alcohol made with a specific type of wormwood that isn't necessarily the strongest booze out there but it's unique for having hallucinogenic effects. Well, for having a reputation for that though it's exaggerated.

Still, it's important to note we're here just casually partying on the way to Elbaf given what happens next. On the way there though, we're going to continue this element of getting back to some of the side stories set up in Egghead. The lines are still very blurred in terms of whether we've finished that arc or are starting a new one. Much more than we typically see in these intermission chapters. So let's look at the two we have, remembering there are thematic ties and how they may all resonate with the title. "Payback" is an interesting term with context in this series.

Especially when we see this guy. So yeah, FWIW this chapter title is the same Kanji as the "Payback" in Payback War, where Marco led the Whitebeard Remnants in trying to get even with Blackbeard. That's not the only time we'll mention the legacy of the Whitebeard Pirates which is always something I'll take interest in when a certain one of them felt unfinished in his own arc. We still have Marco and Bakkin/Weevil's story running through Sphinx Island.

That said, the scene is interesting in its own right. BB getting onto Pizarro here is pretty funny. Lafitte keeping an eye on the Revolutionaries current siege on the Red Line is intriguing, but the big thing to me is the prisoner swap. Perona & Moria got away but they captured Garp and we see Pudding here too. Blackbeard always has that way of mirroring Luffy. If nothing else, they've both "captured" a big shot to the World Government here with Lilith/Garp. Moria slipping away with important secrets though could mirror Caribou doing the same to Luffy and of course Pudding is interesting as well. But this isn't the only side story we get an update on.

Hell yeah Barto, and fuck you Shanks for blowing up the Going Luffy-Senpai. I wanna get to the fireworks factory though so we'll keep this quick. There's two elements. One, this works nicely with other scenes showing the Grand Fleet getting up to trouble since Dressrosa. That plus Shanks hammering home the idea he has to respond to save face. Explaining why it matters. Shouldn't be anything new to you if you've been reading along with me for a while, but for a refresher I do still feel this is something Luffy was starting to get in Wano. Key word being starting.

It's something he was showing he was learning with how Kiku in Bakura Town builds off Katakuri/Future Sight and flows into Hyogoro in Udon. Then it starts to break away from that first with Yamato forcing his way in, then Gear Five, then seems completely forgotten come Egghead. Which starts with aggressive reminders none of this nonsense had anything to do with you and ends on the complementary note of losing control of how the story gets told. But...we all know we're here to talk about one event this chapter.

Huh? The Sunny mysteriously disappears and we see Nami being woken up by someone in...a Lego house? I wanna do bullet points and kinda quickly address all the stuff we see flying around because this is both absolutely bonkers but also not too far off from some of the things I thought could happen with how we've had weird elements of how Wano/Egghead were written:

First off who. Who was split off into this odd area. It was the original six and the more recent four crew mates this time. Interesting. A lot of people jump to Vivi right away. It's equally true that these are the crewmates who met Ace and also that we got the younger ones apart from their elders.

A lot of people have jumped right to thinking this is Elbaf and Loki has Nami in something like a dollhouse. Lego do come from a "Viking" country and that'd explain the outfit...but we've never seen anything like this aesthetic.

Real absinthe may not be super hallucinogenic...but it has a real reputation for that. One the Giants invoked. That could be a part of things.

Stussy isn't out of the question though. Especially when we get a little reminder of the brokers via Umit coming up earlier.

If there's any known Devil Fruit power this may fit with it'd be Sugar's. Which is a stretch. But this vibe could be a bridge to thematically tying Elbaf & Whole Cake.

This could be a ship, that was the first thing I thought seeing the actual panel. So the "Man Marked by Flames" and his ability to cause whirlpools isn't a bad idea.

OG Kuma is there, he coulda shoved the Sunny away. Doubtful but a possibility.

Hopefully next chapter gives us more to go on. But for now if we want to ponder things keep the facts we can glean in mind. It had to be something sudden that could happen without the other ship noticing. Whoever is calling out has to be someone who'd know Nami. We don't know which side we'll focus on for resolving this. By the same token you could say this is the gang that knows Vivi so she has to show up...it's really just split based on time. We could just as easily focus more on giving the latecomers a chance to shine figuring this one out. Or they could go on to Elbaf and set it up like Zou so we don't really need to fabricate a conflict for that arc when we finally get there.

Whichever way it goes...this is exactly the type of shit I wanted to see and I cannot wait to see how it unfolds...

...

...

Have you stuck with me this long? Humor me, it's my birthday weekend. Probably the last time I get to say this...but what a swan song. There's a bullet points I left off, but it'd check all the boxes right? Someone unassuming has been on the ship and thus gets snagged away with the early comers. There you go, friendly face that isn't drunk and has had time to get a handle on the situation. And still a reason to keep them obscured. Blends well with this Blackbeard/Shanks stuff, Yamato's entry in the cover saga, and still leaves Drake for the actual reveal.

[halfusek]

is batdr canon to abomination?

oh hell no

sdfghjfgbfdhj

honestly nothing aside from batim is canon to abomination (so none of the other games and none of the books) because i based abomination on my super hyperfixated analysis of the batim game

i did include some things from other things - like i included the characters of buddy and dot - but their stories in abomination are very different and more like cameos rather than proper includement

abomination wouldn't be abomination if it included other materials aside from batim - because it relies a lot on how vague batim was

other games and books (whether they're canon in general or not) were less vague and tried to be more definitive and finite - and the story and the world they ended up to paint just turned out to be different than what i've imagined with batim and created abomination to be

so, no, the way batdr is, i cannot make it canon to abomination, even if i wanted to (which i don't), there's too many logical and thematical contradictions

but maaaaaayyybeeee i'll think about how i could use elements of batdr for a continuation of abomination. maybe. big maybe fdgjknfd

because there are some cool concepts that i could definitely make work or use in a different context

but then there's some that are very troubling - for example, uh. audrey. audrey's existence. dnfgfksd

basically abomination does have "family" and "parenthood" as a theme but it's very different than what batdr did. in abomination joey is bendy's father (the squish one, the inky blobby one and also the toon one, to me both joey and henry are his parents)

however the way it works is that joey is a terrible father, he does love bendy as his son/creation and he maybe even loves him a lot but that doesn't change how awful he is. obviously. and bendy loves him as his father but recognizes his awfulness and with time oposses him more and more (the abomination version of bendy is generally very naive and doesn't know much about the world, he had a lot to learn and still does). and it's not like joey doesn't recognize how awful he is. he does. he did not really ask to be a dad, he didn't expect that to be the outcome of the things he's been trying to do. he tried to be one but let's agree he wasn't the best at it. SO YEAH they have a VERY complex father/son dynamic

so if. he was to just. go out of his way and make a random daughter??? it would be really weird and unfitting and go against EVERYTHING that i established in abomination so far gfdnkgjnfkd

(and i'm not gonna lie. not the biggest fan of that narrative decision from the bendy devs either but oh well fdnjkdgf it's their story)

but it would feel weird to try to "include parts of batdr but without audrey specifically" so i might think about her in all this more, but she just might end up being someone else and not be related to joey in any way. i'll see

so yeah TLDR

batdr is not canon to abomination but i might do something in the future that expands on abomination's story and includes elements of batdr but they most likely will be very recontextualized

[mephistopheleswasrobbed]

My two cents on the Ossan's Love Thailand pilot trailer

Disclaimer: 1) I have watched the original Ossan's Love (S1, LoD, Returns; AU Season and specials are on my list) and liked it a lot. 2) I am an EarthMix fan so I might be slightly biased.

Overall my reaction to the pilot trailer was one of relief. While I definitely noticed some areas for improvement, all in all I am now more hopeful than ever that GMMTV will do this justice.

What I really liked: - Krit Shahkrit seems like a very solid choice for the Boss. I have not previously seen him in anything but what we saw of him in the trailer has me sold. He is younger than he could have been, they are playing it a little safe here possibly, but the age difference is still big/noticable enough that I don't mind at all. - The choice to make Mo a long-time friend of Heng instead of a recent new colleague feels appropriate. Mo moving in with Heng after barely knowing each other might have not worked in a Thai context. (Also EM chemistry is too strong to sell them previously not knowing each other without the excuse of love at first sight they had in ATOTS and MLC) - They actually let Earth be funny in a BL! - On a more serious note, most of the comedic moments landed right on point for me. (The scene where Heng tries to hold Mo back by his collar as he runs away is what fully cemented it for me that this will work) Earth is a great (but severely underutilised) comedic actor and Earth and Mix as a duo have great comedic chemistry. - Earth being the younger one in a potential romantic relationship is a breath of fresh air. He's got good chemistry with P'Krit. I don't think this will actually happen (GMMTV will prob play it safe) but I could see them going for more of an actual conflict in regards to whom Heng will fall for unlike the original where it was pretty clear from the beginning that Haruta had only platonic feelings for Kurosawa. - Earth is doing great with the awkward moments. He is clearly not an actor who is afraid of being the idiot and that's very important for this character.

What I think needs to be imroved: - They need to decide how much they want Earth to imitate Tanaka Kei's style of physical comedy and then stick with it throughout. This felt a little inconsistent to me in the pilot trailer. - Mix needs to get a little more confident when facing off agains P'Krit. His performance felt the weakest in these scenes and I'm pretty sure that's because he wasn't yet completely comfortable getting in this veteran actor's face. I have no doubts that this will get better if Mix gets the chance to practice a little more with P'Krit. (I'm assuming there was not much prep work done before filming the pilot trailer because Mix was quite busy finishing his degree in recent months) Leave the respect for your elders at home, Mix!

Other thoughts: - I hope they move Mo's initial confession back into the shower. Haruta's nakedness really added to the scene in the original and Earth is no stranger to taking his shirt off for the camera so I don't see why they would have to change this. (My hope is that they changed it for the pilot trailer because they didn't want to waste time covering up Earth's tattoo(s), they could potentially seem out of character for Heng) - It seems Choko got replaced with a daughter. That's a shame. I liked her a lot in the original and I felt that she and her relationship with Maro were an important part of the story, especially on the thematic side. I'm willing to see where they go with this, though. - Thor as Ten who I'm assuming is the thai Takegawa is also a bit younger than the original, we didn't see much of him in the pilot trailer so I'm reserving judgement on this decision. - Kapook who, I'm assuming is taking the role of Chizu (though it seems that some of her advisory function might move over to Mo on account of him also being Heng's long-time friend) felt like a perfect fit - Champ has at this point become an EarthMix staple. MLC being the only of their shows he wasn't in. I'm here for it. We haven't seen much of him but I'm sure he can do Teppei justice. - The accidental hand touch while hanging up posters was not convincing. I'm reminded of the slightly awkward hand-interlocking as Jim and Wen stood in front of the soon to close diner. (Am I the only one who notices that every time I see that scene?) - I wonder if they will actually change the wedding scene to have Mo interrupt or if this was done to make the pilot trailer more concise. It would be a shame to loose this classic example of a JBL run. (They did the run in CMT, they should do it in OL!) - If I remember correctly the forhead kiss was in the original as well, but it also works as a cute call back to the atots airport scene.

TL;DR: Earth can do comedy, I'm glad he gets to finally show this in a BL. EM chemistry is chemistrying as usual, this time with more crack energy. Issues I had were probably mostly caused by limited prep time and limited shooting time for the pilot trailer. I think it's gonna be good and that makes me happy.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

I've been thinking a lot about Last Twilight (as have most of us, I assume), and I know the next episode will be very focused on the surgery, and I'm assuming that it will not work as expected (it would be very out of place thematically if it did), and there will be some focus on Mhok and Day navigating their relationship for the long term - but I also really hope that in the next two episodes we get some sort of confrontation between Day & his mom.

Cream (omg love that name) has been doing an amazing job at playing nuance with the mom, and I loved the emotion she showed when she was firing Mhok (though Mhok, being the king he is, jumped in front of that bullet for her to try and keep Day from being mad at her). Her love for Day does come through. And we got the heart-warming dinner where she becomes aware of how much Night has been feeling neglected, and they were being a happy family. So I know there is a chance the story will focus on other things, and less on the mom & Day.

But we need a moment to address Ramon's role as parent, and how love for your child does not excuse infantilizing them due to their disability.

Ramon has a history of making decisions based more on how she feels than on what her children need. This is not a criticism of her as person, to be clear, we all have this inclination. Feelings are not facts, but they feel like facts to us, and it can be really hard to step back when we are in the midst of emotion.

This is shown via the dad. Although we don't know exactly what happened (the story Day knows was exclusively from Ramon's perspective), the dad does seem to confirm he did something really shitty, since he has regrets. She had every right to be angry. But completely cutting him off from Night & Day was not a decision for them. When Night was devastated after the accident, when he couldn't go to own mother for support, he ended up calling a man he hadn't seen since he was a small child. When Day started talking with his father, you could see him melt, and how much he had missed this man. They needed their father, they always needed him but Ramon decided they couldn't have him. I'm sure she convinced herself it was for their protection - but it wasn't what they needed.

This is exactly what she's doing to Day around his disability (and in an adjacent way, to Night, because she's holding him responsible to stand in for her in controlling Day's world).

She consistently makes decisions for Day, not with Day. She takes his agency away. She often talks to him like he's still small. She never encourages him to do anything for himself or to learn to be self-sufficient. She puts emphasis on him someday being "fixed" over the idea that he could be happy and take care of himself as he is.

Of course a parent is always going to feel protective. There are very reasonable reasons to be concerned that his caretaker might be exploiting their status, or to think that someone you are paying should not be in a personal relationship with your son. But instead of having curiosity and finding out what is happening from Day's perspective, she makes an executive decision - not just to get rid of Mhok as caretaker, but to try and keep them apart in all ways. She won't let Day leave the house, takes his phone, and then even changes the wifi password, so he can't communicate with anyone. This is beyond controlling, it's literally imprisoning your son.

This is such a contrast to Mhok, someone who has personal experience with losing all of his autonomy, and how everything he does is a focus on what Day needs. It may be hard to do, it may cause mess, it may cause pain, but he knows that Day cannot be happy being treated like a child his whole life. Even when it would break his own heart, he always put Day first.

Day is an adult, a capable one, and his disability, and how he navigates it should be up to him. Ramon can be there to support, to encourage, to even push from time to time, but it's not her life. It's not her disability. It's not her choice. And I would love for Day to take his agency back, and let her know these things.

[shortpplfedup]

Love ain't easy, and I greatly respect dramas that show you how much it's a miracle that through all of humans' bullshit they still manage to connect to each other. I'm not really interested in convincing anybody on Step By Step, but I'm compelled to get my perspective down for the record.

I feel very strongly about love not being about what folks deserve, but about what they decide. An idea I struggle greatly with is the one that you earn love, that if you somehow hit upon the right combination of attributes and actions you get 'love points' or something and then somebody will be justified in loving you, but that you are undeserving of love if you are flawed or erroneous or stumble and do the wrong thing. I am just not a person who believes that any human being is undeserving of being loved. People can get together, and break up, without being deserving or undeserving of love. Deciding to love is not a reward. Deciding not to love anymore is not a punishment. Love isn't a game with winners and losers. This is my life's philosophy.

Step By Step is not a romance. It's got a romance in it, but the romance is only one story among all the stories the show wants to tell. The show wants us to see and understand how queer people exist at work in a corporate environment, how they navigate its hostilities, and especially its specific hostilities to queerness. They give us 3 archetypes of queer character at work to follow (Pat, Jeng and Chot), and then they expand outward to show us some of the other aspects of their lives that are also acting and impacting upon how they exist at work. Is this done cleanly? Yes and no. The throughline is strong, but the show occasionally focuses too hard on trying to explain something that's happening tangentially (Ae, Kanun and Beam), or on hammering a thematic parallel home (Jaab and Jen).

Why the romance if it's not the point? Because a) it's a thing that happens, but also b) because a lot of queerness for non-queer people simply isn't visible without sex and romance. 'It's about who you love', 'love is love', and similar phrases are how queerness is generally translated to those not on the inside of it, those who don't live it and have an intrinsic understanding of it, those for whom it is an othering thing. So the romance becomes a shorthand as it were. Look at Jeng and Pat this episode, especially Jeng called on the carpet in that meeting. His queerness becoming visible via his relationship with Pat is the 'problem'. Jeng's been queer the whole time, and they all knew it, they're not just finding out. Pat becomes the subject of vicious gossip over whether he has earned his accolades because his queerness has now become visible. Meanwhile Chot, who is visibly queer, outside of the love relationship in his life (which is cleverly rendered invisible by Krit's closet) has been subject to the commentary all along.

In building the romance out, the show naturally wants to use it to underscore some other ideas about work (capitalism) and queerness if they can. Ideas about passing and the closet. Ideas about what it's like to be a young person trying to build your career. Ideas about how you separate and balance or integrate your work and the rest of your life. Ideas about how you need a team to get things done. So yes, the romance ends up carrying a lot of the story without being the point of the story, and yes I can see how that could cause some dissonance.

The romance itself feels unsatisfying at this point because that's how it's meant to feel, I stand by that. Jeng and Pat didn't build a solid relationship, they liked each other and let the feelings carry them. They haven't yet decided to love, with all that entails. There is no emotional catharsis for the audience because there's no emotional catharsis for the characters. Their romance to this point has been an infatuation and a series of false starts. Pat and Jeng didn't know each other's core premises. They don't understand each other. They didn't really choose each other yet, they each held back. Their 'incompatibilities' are exacerbated by the workplace and their roles in it. They can't trust each other with all that in the way. But they DO like each other, and that hasn't gone away, and they can build that into a love in the future if that's what they want to try doing. But that's not about whether Jeng or Pat 'deserves' to be loved, that's about what they decide.

Step By Step has meant a lot to me. I'm confident that it understands its characters and the core story it wants to tell, and for me that story has worth in being told. The execution is somewhat messy, but I will always forgive a little messy execution for a good strong story.