#in the way that can mostly only be obtained via a romantic relationship in this society

[wacky-internet-rollercoaster]

Idk just rambling in the tags

[mybg3notebook]

Does Gale love Mystra?

So far in EA, we have been shown that this is complicated to answer: human love is complex as well as the delirious lore of Forgotten Realms. 

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

The number between brackets [] represents the topic-block related to (this post), which gathers as much evidence as I could get.

The narrative is clear until the party scene which, as I stated many times across these posts, it's a scene that feels a bit inconsistent for me (reasonable since it's EA). But if we follow what the game explicitly shows us, we know that if we send Gale to sleep at the beginning of the Weave scene in which he is watching the incantation with the shape of Mystra, he will say: 

Gale: Long days, yes. And long, lonesome nights.

If Tav knows that the incantation on his palm is Mystra, Gale will explain:

Tav: [insight] You don't have that look on your face when you're looking at “no one” / There's more to it than that. The figure I saw: she means something to you. Gale: [...] I can’t quite describe it, the need I sometimes feel to see her – to draw the filaments of fantasy into existence. [...]

Dev's notes: Passionate. [...] He was recalling Mystra as a lover, but doesn’t say that out loud. [...] Narrator: The Weave evaporates, and as it does so, you realise the night feels suddenly cold and lonesome.

This allows us to infer that, at this moment, Gale is feeling alone and probably very anxious with the oppressing feeling of the "orb" in his chest. The tadpole only increased the number of problems he has, so he resorts to seeing Mystra melancholically. We notice later in the Weave Scene that not having Mystra around increases this feeling of loneliness. The whole scene seems to give us the idea that he still loves her. There is yearning and loneliness in his current situation.

After a moment of passionate description of magic, Gale invites Tav to experience the Weave. The Weave has a particular effect on Gale: "The moment feels intimate. You realise the Weave is making you one." Considering how Gale was feeling while conjuring the incantation, this moment touched him deeply (the narrator implies that this feeling is mutual).

If Tav expresses their romantic interests, Gale will be surprised:

Gale: I.. I didn’t think.. Narrator: You perceive quick-fire gusts of embarrassment, trepidation, and finally.. elation Gale: Sorry, I wasn’t expecting… But it is a pleasant image to be sure! Most pleasant, in fact. Most welcome. Dev's notes: Warm, with real affection.

The narrator is giving us meta-knowledge, we can trust in what she says, and we can see that the situation was truly shocking for Gale. These emotional stages described here made me suspect that Gale is a character who has focused for too long on healing his condition, ignoring any chance for romance. His surprise here may confirm that, in my opinion. He feels embarrassment, a feeling that one can interpret as a sign of the surprise of being thrown into a situation he had not seen beforehand (the death protocol and Gale’s conversations show us that he is a character that thinks ahead). It follows trepidation: fear or anxiety about something that he is going to do or experience. Gale is scared of the possibility. Maybe because he is thinking in the danger he is, maybe because he was already burnt by Mystra's attention and having someone else's attention now makes him feel a bit anxious. And then, the final resolution of the process: elation, which is a feeling of great happiness and excitement about something that has happened. Gale is suddenly excited by the possibility. Something he will be thinking about, many times, for the rest of the EA. 

Tav: So what did you think about what I pictured when we were connected by the Weave? Gale: Oh, I was surprised. But pleasantly so, just like I said. Amid the madness that has befallen us, it seems almost out of place to think of a kiss/ of a romantic walk. And yet... now more than ever, it's important to recall what makes us human. [if Tav is not human] Well- you know what I mean. A stolen glance- that sudden heartbeat... Sometimes the little things are worth more than kingdoms. They promise things to come.

So romance was not something he had even considered until the opportunity arose (this is why he won't pursue a Tav who didn't show romantic interest towards him). I think that, since he is a character always living on the edge of death, he will take this opportunity to feel “human again”: after all, he follows the concept of "living life to the fullest".

During the Loss (see the post of the "Loss Scene"), we know that losing Mystra was a big blow for him. He regrets his decisions of the past in this scene, and it reinforced the idea that he is the only one to blame for Mystra's loss. There is a yearning for the lost Chosen powers, but Gale's context in the majority of his scenes seem to reinforce the idea that he sought power not as a means, but as a goal itself to be closer to Mystra and Magic. Since we are talking about a wizard, his passion lies in magic itself, in being one with the Weave/Magic/Mystra. A Chosen of Mystra is so entangled with the Weave and magic that when they die, they are part of the Weave itself. This is the level of passion that Gale has for Magic, and since Magic can only be performed by most mortals via Weave, and the Weave is Mystra, the whole three concepts are, in fact, one; and it makes it very difficult from a lore point of view to separate them. 

Tav: There's something I don't understand. If Mystra abandoned you, how can you still cast magic? Gale: The Weave is still here, all around us – inside of us too. As long as the goddess lives, magic is a tangible thing for those who know how to touch. I've studied magic for many years, and in as many ways I am still a more than capable wizard. It's just that I'm no longer able to perform those feats even arch wizards would marvel at. To have one hand on the pulse of divinity. You have to remember that the Weave is a living thing, both the embodiment and the extension of Mystra herself.She can give and she can take away. I'm afraid I'm still very much on her naughty list. Consider yourself lucky you're not. 

I personally think Gale will never stop being devoted to Mystra (and won't stop loving her in many ways), because his passion for magic and knowledge is his own life, and Mystra IS those things. He loves magic for the sake of it. So losing this unique contact with magic itself that only Chosen of Mystra have was a terrible punishment for him. His abandonment issues are not just the result of a “guy being left by a girl”. They have an extra complexity because of the nature of Magic in this world and how its deity behaves with her chosen. Gale was not only abandoned by Mystra, but was also removed of a good amount of his capacity to perform magic. If magic “is his life”, the abandonment removed a part of his life away. I think some people miss this point, because, once more, it's related to Forgotten Realm lore and not Dragon Age. Many of these people keep constantly comparing this situation with Dragon Age, which has nothing to do with it. Dragon Age has no wizards, their relationship with Magic is natural, it’s sorcerer-like if we want to compare it, and the relationship with their deities (mostly absent, silent ones) are nothing alike the ones in Forgotten Realm. The context is key, as I repeated several times in these posts and in the one about "Context, persuasion, and manipulation". 

Tav: I don't know what to make of what you've told me, but I sympathise. Gale: Thank you. [no romantic weave] I want you to know that you’re a good friend. [romantic weave] I often think of that moment we shared together – one under the Weave. I hope you think about it too. /I'm glad to know you think about it too.

Narrator: You sense a moment of unspoken affection. You want to know where it may lead. Gale: I consider myself very lucky to have found you Tav: I think perhaps we could be more than friends Gale: Perhaps. 

Tav: You said you think about the moment we shared under the weave. Do you think about it often? Gale: Do you? 1-2-Tav: Yes / From time to time. Gale: So do I. 3- Tav: Not really. Gale: And yet you ask. I do, as a matter of fact.

Gale: You see. I'm not a big believer in fate, but I do believe in serendipity. Life is a tempest of events that sometimes we brace against and sometimes embrace. You're one such event that one day soon perhaps I'd like to embrace.

So after sharing this regret during the Loss scene, Gale will show affection if Tav remains friendly during the Weave (but Gale will never directly engage it, he is waiting for Tav to give the first step; understandable if we consider he also has a dangerous bomb in his chest, so he may be torn between wanting to, but knowing he should not to). If there is no interest in pursuing romance, he will show a gesture of gratitude for being a good friend during that night of regrets. 

If pursuing the romance, we can interpret that Gale, at this point, even though he is still struggling with all the emotions that Mystra inspires, wants to experience something more “human”, a romance with a mortal. We know for sure that Gale is getting interested, slowly, while thinking about it, since in each of the following scenes he will ask (or Tav will ask) about that “moment in the Weave”. He has been thinking about it for many nights, and he is “embracing” the idea. 

If Gale is treated with judgement (despite not knowing his whole story) or allowing him to keep the secret of what or who he lost, we will obtain lines likes:

Gale: Good. Goodnight. And thank you for your patient understanding. // And try not to think too poorly of me. A cat can look at a king. A wizard can look at a goddess.

Tav: Another fool pays for his arrogance. A tale as old as time. Gale: Arrogance? Ambition, rather. And ambition is a fine thing – until suddenly it no longer is. Then again, if that is how you judge me, there’s little I can do to change your mind. But know that I have this ambition still. First to save myself, and after that, the licence to dream. (Gale Disapproval)

We could interpret these lines as the only ones so far that may suggest that Gale is still wanting something from the goddess. We know due to the tadpole dreams that Gale’s desire is Mystra. On the comments of the second tadpole dream we know more details about his major desire: it is not just Mystra, but her forgiveness.

Tav: Gale, who is the apparition in your dreams? Gale: She's... It doesn't matter. I just know her to be unreal. Tav: What's impossible about what you're been shown? Gale: Forgiveness Tav: Gale, who is the apparition in your dreams? Gale: It's indeed Mystra I see. And yet it cannot be her. There was a time when I would have believed - but no longer. I told you that I lost her. Lost her favour and lost so many of the powers I took for granted. What magic I can still weave is met only with undercurrents of disappointing silence. Mystra has not changed her mind about me. That's how I know our dreams are delusions.

I think this scene shows the difference between a standard desire for power as a means, and power for the sake of power itself (since this power allows Gale to be one with the Weave). The scene is ambiguous enough to see it as Gale wanting to return to Mystra’s side as well as remaining as an ardent devotee of her (because she is magic herself). I keep repeating that these scenes show that Gale’s most important thing in his life is Magic, which is Mystra: the extension and the embodiment of magic. So his desire for her seems impossible to be extinguished completely. In previous scenes we saw that he certainly had thought through the idea of loving her more like a devotee than a lover, but certainly the weight of being his first love will remain, especially since she is deeply related to magic itself.

During the Party Scene we find some information about his feelings for Mystra. 

I personally ponder the book of Amn’s description as very important because, from a narrative point of view, it's a lot of lines/content that, if they were not important, tend to be removed from the script. If they are there, they are meant to be interpreted. For this reason those lines mean to me that Gale has finally embraced the idea of having something important with a mortal. In my post of the "Party Scene" I go into details, but here I will stick to the interpretation related to Mystra: all what Gale numerates in that book are things that he could not access to with a Goddess. Curiously, part of those descriptions are things that make humans human, so I personally think it reinforces Gale's intention in heading into this romance with the eagerness of finding some shelter (never forget the “orb” has a constant oppressing effect in him, increasing his anxiety and fears) and to experience (maybe for the first time) the love of a mortal.

So, for some assumptions made in the post of the "Party Scene", we suspect that Gale needs to share a night to feel confident enough to speak the details of his “orb” condition. Since he wants this relationship to be strong (after all, he implied commitment during the description of the book) he speaks about the true origin of the “orb” immediately after that night, starting with Mystra (which is, after all, the true origin of his folly). Depending on the version that Tav picks, we have extra information provided by Gale about his emotions for the Goddess:

Tav: What did Mystra’s attention feel like? Gale: Love. Perhaps it was not quite love, but you see, the wizard was but a very young man. It was most certainly love to him. [...] One day all too soon, the whispers stopped. The goddess spurned the mortal. [...] and the wizard was left behind heartbroken. Tav: I hate to say it, but he really could have seen this coming Gale: He was blinded by love. Good stories are rife with lovers’ follies after all.

[Short Version] Gale: Before long Mystra tired of me. What was I after all but a mortal plaything in sacred hands? You have to realise I was heartbroken. I was a young man, she was my first love. I thought it would last forever. I vowed to win her back.

[after explaining the mistake of the “orb”] Gale: It is this folly that led Mystra to abandon me completely. I can only hope you won’t abandon me as well. After all we’ve been through.. After the night we spent together. Surely we can brave even this side by side

Gale is giving a very detailed context about his love for Mystra: she was his first love, and the first love tends to have a special weight in a person's life and their memories. That doesn't mean the person has become unable to build more relationships for the rest of their life. If we add the fact that he was very young when all this happened (more details in the Post "Gale Hypotheses- Part 1") we find him under two effects: the impression of the first love and the naivety of the youth. Both elements made him believe it was a love that was going to last forever. With a Goddess, no less.

Besides, Gale expresses this, highlighting his naivety and foolishness: he is aware of how silly he was back then, and how impossible it could be for a mortal to keep the love of a goddess. He is a pragmatic and realistic character, after all. He recognizes in the end that he was just a mortal plaything for her. 

I think these pieces of information give us a very clear context of his emotional state: he is still nostalgic for Mystra because of all the reasons I enumerated above; she is also more than just a woman, she is Magic itself. But he is aware that those emotions were the consequence of a very naïve and young self that has awakened by the burden of his own mistakes. There is also a reinforcement of “forever”, which recalls the concept of commitment that Gale pursues so much in his romance: he is not there just for the sex “intimacy”, he is there for serious commitment, maybe because he doesn't want to experience another abandonment. After all, we are talking about a character with a profile that shows abandonment issues (see the post of "Gale Hypotheses- Part 1", section: "Abandonment Issues")

[If rejected] Tav: No. This is too large a betrayal. GALE: I see. I am sorry. I am sorry that it had to come to this. All that’s left to say is farewell. Dev’s notes: hurt but understanding Gale: Farewell. (Leaves) Dev’s notes: A slight hesitation, hurt but understanding. He makes a polite little bow, then we see him walk away.

[If accepted] Gale: I don’t know what I did to deserve the magic that you do. 

Despite being terribly cheesy, this last line shows that Gale was more than convinced that Tav would abandon him because he doesn’t deserve Tav. This is why he doesn't put up much fight if Tav chooses to tell him to leave. He will try to make Tav listen to his story, and once it's done, the verdict will fall and he will accept it. He learnt his lesson with Mystra. This line also shows how everything important around Gale is or has to be worded with magic, even a silly metaphor like this is related with the word “magic”: Tav's acceptance is like magic. For him, as important and good as magic itself.

As if that were not enough, after the scene there is a comment in which Gale will reinforce his gratitude for Tav's acceptance:

Tav: If you ever feel the netherese magic overtaking you, what will you do? Gale: If it should ever come to that... if I ever know I am no longer able to stop it... I will do anything I can to ensure no one but me pays for my mistakes. I will find the remotest place on the surface of Faerûn, or perhaps far below in the depths of the Underdark. I will await that death alone. [*] I promise I will not betray your trust... You kept me by your side despite the menace that I am. If worst comes to worst, I will be gone long before the curtain falls.  [*] If romanced, Gale will say here "I cherish you."

Which makes me suspect that Gale can disappear at any moment (in full game) if for some game mechanics we are unable to get magical artefacts but the deal with Raphael did not happen (if that’s even possible). But that's just me speculating. Nothing in EA seems to suggest this. What i's clear is that acceptance—that strong concept in the book he put so much emphasis on—is really important to him, so he shows gratitude for that: he promises to protect Tav (and many innocents) from his own mistake. He also says pretty soon an equivalent of “I love you”, in a more formal/meaningful way: “to cherish” is not just to love, but to care/protect as well. 

Finally, in case someone lost those hints, or maybe as a consequence of this unpolished scene, we have a direct question with a direct answer:

Tav: Gale, are you still in love with Mystra? Gale: I’ll be honest with you; I don’t know. She is my muse still, the embodiment of magic, but the embodiment of love? Only if we ever meet again will I know

Gale simply says what we have been inferring so far with all the previous information: Gale reinforces the idea that he will remain as a strong, loving devotee of Mystra, because she is magic. I personally don't even consider it possible to remove that love from him. He may not be a cleric, but he loves his deity as one. But he also learnt his lesson that loving gods has its own dire consequences for mortals. He is very aware of it during the discussion about Karsus:

Tav: Nothing good ever comes from mortals wanting to be gods. 

Gale: Loving them has its side effects as well. Now, so many centuries later, I tried to follow in the footsteps of Karsus, not to destroy Mystra, but to prove my love for her. It tried to control only a fraction of the magic that was unleashed that fateful day. I merely sought to return one tiny diamond to an imperfect crown. Gale's Folly one might call it. History. Repetition. It's the way things go.

Once more, there is no scene where Gale doesn't reinforce that what he did was a mistake, a foolish action, a Folly. 

Finally, if talking about a previous lover immediately after awakening with a new one was of poor taste, Gale acknowledges this, giving an honest apology:

Gale: Before we go on though, do first let me apologise. To share such a night with you only to tell you of a previous lover the next morning... It wasn't the most gentleman-like behaviour. But I had to finally tell you. Silence would have been far worse behaviour still. Nevertheless, I am sorry.

He accepts any rude response or lash-out from Tav without approval penalties. This is an interesting meta-knowledge that speaks about owning up to his mistakes. Unlike the Loss scene, where rude responses made Gale disapprove because Tav was judging him without knowing the whole story [16], in this scene he doesn���t. Now Tav has the whole picture, and he accepts whatever reaction Tav shows. Of course he will approve a forgiving Tav, since Gale is a character very related to forgiveness [12, 12b].

Conclusion: 

So, answering the question that gives title to this section: yes. In my opinion, Gale loves Mystra. But it’s not a white-and-black love; it has the complexity of human love mixed with this crazy lore of deities in Forgotten Realms. I believe Mystra will always be part of Gale's life, because the Weave and magic are his life, and she is both. He will always love her as a devotee, even though he now understands the mistakes of his young self and seems more aware of how naive he was when he was a “very young man”. The comments on the second tadpole dreams explicitly show that what Gale wants the most is Mystra’s forgiveness, but at the same time, he knows that he does not deserve it. And this raw realistic view of himself is what makes him understand that those dreams are illusions. During the party scene he is uncertain about his emotions, but still he emphasises that there is a big chance for him to not see Mystra as the embodiment of love any more but reinforces that she will always be the embodiment of magic to him (a very important concept in his character design). 

Whether Gale is romanced or not, I don't see a difference in the information he shares on this matter in EA.

This post was written in June 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

[hopeaterart]

RWBY HPTR AU: Timeline

More of my embarrassingly self-indulgent AU. It tackles the timeline of events happening before the show starts. For those for who it's the first time here: most of the antagonists in the show are students at Beacon here, hence why the 63 A.G.W. point is probably a bit confusing, as well as the presence of many, many OCs. Warning: Very Ozpin-centric, especially at the beginning, because I'm insane and constructed a whole backstory for this man. If you want me to add something to the timeline, or have questions about the AU, just ask. ^^

(REFERENCE: A.G.W. stands for After Great War.)

34 A.G.W.: Ozborn Pinhead is born to con-artists living in the mountains of Vale.

45 A.G.W.: King Ozymandias Valenoa dies. On a side-note, Aura Lycoris is born.

46 A.G.W.: Ozymandias/Ozma reincarnates into Ozborn the moment he hits puberty. A few months later, Ozborn runs away from home to join a Collibet Monastery.

(REFERENCE: Collibet is branch of religion in the world of Remnant. It's followers' main belief is that life is to be enjoyed to it's fullest, and they have to help people enjoy it. Their worship is mainly centered on the God of Light.)

51 A.G.W.: Ozborn decides to enroll in Beacon for multiple reasons. He's placed in Team DSOO with Cadmium Duat, Zephyr Olympia, and Jade Sheng. He will become very close to Jade, almost like siblings. She's the one who coins the Ozpin nickname.

52 A.G.W.: Vytal festival happens in Haven. Ozborn ends up being finalist instead of his teammate through circumstances that went against his will, and ends up befriending fellow finalist from Shade Theodore Yellowstone, as well as a Faunus competitor from Haven called Leonardo Lionheart. Theodore is the winner.

53 A.G.W.: During a training mission that brought them to Solitas, Team DSOO ends up working with James Ironwood. Even if difficult to work with, Ozborn forms a tentative friendship with him, which they'll maintain through CCT communications. Ozborn also accidently ends up mentoring a first year named Glynda Goodwitch.

54 A.G.W.: Team STRQ enrolls in Beacon. Ozborn ends up being their mentor (intentionally this time) through a mentorship program at Beacon. Summer Rose is the winner of the Vytal Festival, having beaten Ironwood. After warning them that the truth isn't pretty, Ozborn comes clean about his cycle of reincarnation to Jade, STRQ, Glynda, Theodore, Lionheart and Ironwood, as well as Salem and her immortality. The only one unwilling to get involved is Taiyang Xiao Long, who can see that Ozborn absolutely does not want to be in this situation, thinks he's in way over his head and probably needs to take some distance from Huntsman business. Qrow and Raven are given their bird powers.

55 A.G.W.: Having taken Taiyang's opinion on the situation to heart, Ozborn decides to take a step back and go back in the Monastery he grew up in in order to become a Priest. Jade joins him in a show of support.

57 A.G.W.: Ozborn gets ordained, and he and Jade promptly go on a pilgrimage together with one very clear objective in mind: fuck Salem over. They find her at the end of the year, successfully lie to Salem about Ozborn's identity and fool her into thinking they want to join her side. On a side note, Gretchen Reinhart, Hazel Reinhart and Winter Schnee are all born.

58 A.G.W.: After getting out of Salem the secret to her immortality and the location of the God of Light's pool/former residence, Ozborn and Jade run away in the night in order for Ozborn to get similar immortality. Salem finds out about the betrayal, successfully kills Jade before Ozborn can go in the pool, and permanently cripples him with a magical attack that destroys his leg in a way that the pool's magic isn't able to completely fix. Ozborn still obtains immortality, permanently changing the game. He also sheds away the identity of Ozborn Pinhead, and renames himself after Jade's nickname for him.

59 A.G.W.: Ozpin comes back, and marries Taiyang, Raven Branwen and Summer Rose together. He also enrolls in Beacon as the Myth & Religion teacher.

60 A.G.W.: Desperate to get back at Ozpin after such an humiliating defeat, Salem takes a teenage Aura Lycoris under her wing.

62 A.G.W.: Aura starts the deep-undercover operation of gaining Ozpin's trust, starting by enrolling into Beacon.

63 A.G.W.: Yang Xiao Long, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladona, Jaune Arc, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie, Lie Ren, Arthur Watts, Tyrian Callows, Cinder Fall, Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, Roman Brunswick, Trivia Vanille, Ochre Wedjat, Raoul Arsenic, Wilhemia Key and Lys Rosenbed are all born. On a side-note, Ozpin and Qrow start a tentative romantic relationship at the end of the year.

65 A.G.W.: Ruby Rose is born.

66 A.G.W.: Aura graduates, and goes on a small pause in her mission in order to clean up some loose ends on Salem's part.

67 A.G.W.: Summer dies on a mission gone wrong (Unless/until we get something specific, Aura's partially responsible in my AU). Overwhelmed and disillusioned by the demise of the woman she loved, Raven abandons the rest of her family and goes back to the Branwen tribe. Both Taiyang and Qrow are left broken by this series of events, and Qrow ends up falling to alcoholism, leaving Ozpin to pick up the broken pieces of the inner circle. On a side note, both Oscar Pine and Whitley Schnee are born.

68 A.G.W.: Following a convoluted series of events that leaves Oscar orphaned for a total of maybe an hour before Ozpin adopts him, the wizard finally starts getting his shit back together, and starts formulating a plan to get back on his feet properly. On a side-note, Marcus Black steals his son's- Mercury- Semblance.

69 A.G.W.: Ozpin successfully becomes Beacon's headmaster, and promptly pulls strings to put Theodore, Lionheart and Ironwood in the same positions in their respective kingdoms. He also makes Glynda into his successor to the position. Meanwhile, Aura joins his staff as the Study Hall teacher/supervisor. Kuroyuri is destroyed by the Nuckelavee, orphaning Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie.

72 A.G.W.: Mountain Glenn is destroyed. Ozpin is able to save a few people at the last minute, including the Reinhart twins, thus inspiring Gretchen to become a Huntress. On a side note, James Ironwood becomes General, and thus Atlas' Chief of Armies, and gains a second seat on the Atlesian Council. The rest of the inner circle has mixed feelings about this, mostly negative.

73 A.G.W.: After a very long time of frustration at the Atlesian Council, Hagatha Greene snaps after a combination of her project being denied in favor of Pietro's, and being forced to work with an actual child (10 years old Arthur Watts). She's approached by Salem via Aura, and fakes her death. On a side note, the Brunswick farm is invaded by Apathy, forcing Roman to run away. He'll later stow himself away to Vale and rename himself Torchwick in order to cut ties with his past.

74 A.G.W.: Lionheart is forced to inform the Spring Maiden about what Salem can do. Overwhelmed, she runs away to the Branwen tribe. Lionheart himself latter approached by Greene, who more-or-less blackmails him into joining Salem. He calls Ozpin to know what he's supposed to do, and ends up becoming a double-agent. On a side-note, Gretchen signs up for Beacon, and Winter for Atlas in her first step to distance herself from her family.

76 A.G.W.: Gretchen is severely wounded on a training mission. Since her body was never found, it was assumed she died. Despite knowing that he'd probably be attacked on sight- and he was- Ozpin is able to provide Hazel with a bit of peace concerning the demise of his sister. Unknown to the both of them, Gretchen was actually found by Salem's circle and brought to her in order to get a new underling. On a side-note, the Spring Maiden dies and passes the power to Raven.

77 A.G.W.: Cinder and Arthur meet off-handedly while running away from Atlas for different reasons (Cinder is running from the Madame, Arthur from the military) due to sneaking on the same cargo ship. They separate after. Cinder ends up staying in Mistral, while Arthur wanders around Anima and ends up meeting Tyrian, who's part of a circus. Tyrian ends up following Arthur, who intends on getting to Vale as fast as possible. The two end up becoming fast friends after some initial frostiness. Trivia also runs away from home and meets Roman, and renames herself Neopolitan after the imaginary friend she had in her childhood.

78 A.G.W.: Cinder meets Emerald in the streets of Mistral, and the two bond over their dreams of becoming Huntresses. After Cinders remembers something Arthur told her about Beacon having a program for students like them, the two girls set off for Beacon.

79 A.G.W.: Marcus is hired to assassinate Ozpin, and fails in this task. Some time after, Cinder and Emerald, who recently got to Vale, cross path with Mercury, who's running away from his abusive father after a savage fight with him due to the man cutting off his legs. Marcus joins Salem after.

(AMBIGUOUS TIME PERIOD: Somewhere in the 70s, Aura found and started forming all the members of Team ORKL. I don't have a precise time period, but for those curious, the order she found them in was: Raoul, Lys, Ochre and Whilemia.)

80 A.G.W.: The story starts.

[gaawachan]

Caleb, Trent, Trauma, Abuse

So, three things before I start.

The first is a trigger warning.  I’m not saying anything explicit but I don’t want to hurt anyone.  There will be statements on abuse (emotional, physical, sexual), trauma, avoidance/deflection, etc.  Please don’t read this if you think you might find it harmful.

Secondly, I don't consider myself even remotely qualified to talk about this but I'm concerned because I don't see people examining it much, and I think it's important.

Thirdly, here are some time-stamps from CR2 and Talks Machina that I will be using in this post: CR2 40: 2h35m - Caleb indicates that Fjord should "do what he has to" with regards to Avantika. CR2 41: 2h30m25s - Fjord and Caleb talk about Avantika CR2 43: 2h37m16s - "This is going to be very hard for Fjord"  "he has compromised himself" TM C2E111 - New Homes and Old Friends: 53m20s - "Caleb understands that he was abused and manipulated." TM C2E111 - New Homes and Old Friends: 1h26m45s - "it was subtly encouraged, suggested, or baked into them" that the Blumentrio were to use sex in the name of empire. I believe there was a previous Talks Machina in which Liam stated that Caleb was trained "to be charming" and maybe that there was an occasion where he didn't think that weaponizing sex was a big deal but I can't find those.  If someone can find that I'd like to add it to this post.

...

Let's talk a little more about Trent, Caleb and the Blumentrio, trauma both stated and unstated, and abuse.

I have seen a lot of people say that Trent Ikithon was mostly emotionally manipulative, treating the trio as if they were special and therefore he wasn't "overtly" physically cruel or abusive.  I think that this is a deeply flawed understanding of how Trent goes about abusing people.  Certainly, Ikithon starts with "you are special even as you come from the unwashed masses," "I will make you strong so that you can serve the empire you love," "the pain I cause you is for your own good," etc.

However, this does not boil down what he does to being purely emotional manipulation- that is the means to the end of forcing the children to be complicit in their own physical and sexual abuse.  Let's use what we know of the Residuum mutilation to examine how it is that Trent treats the Scourger children.  I am of the opinion that even without manipulation, the things Trent made them do were things that children are not really capable of giving informed consent to, so when I use the word consent, keep that in mind. 1. Trent frames everything he does as being for them and the empire, simultaneously devalues their roots while uplifting their work, and after doing so gets the children to "consent" to do what he wants- in this case, physical mutilation of their bodies. 2. However, in the event that they withdraw their consent, he ignores them.  We know this because of Caleb's nightmare of being strapped down wherein his explicit withdrawal of consent was disregarded.

The Residuum implantation in and of itself is a gross violation of bodily autonomy, and it always had an element of "does this remind you of anything?" baked into it.  I think Caleb's very obvious trauma with respect to how he obtained the Residuum implants is indicative of how Trent "taught" them in general.  First, he gets them to agree via emotional abuse.  Then, if they wavered, he forced them to comply either through physical restraint or magic.  And of course, the longer they endure this, the more compliant they get over time, be it with respect to his direct abuse of them, or his having them abuse others (a little bit of torture, a little bit of murder).  As we do not have the full details of the sequence of their training progression, it is difficult to say, but I am quite sure that Trent used the same methodology he did with the Residuum to break the three in BEFORE he had them start victimizing others.

On the statements and behavior of Astrid, Eadwulf, and the Rosohna Scourger.  The Rosohna Scourger was interesting because she did not mince words about what the training had done to her; her heart was "beaten out of her." Astrid and Eadwulf, being in their mid-thirties, are outright terrified of Trent, with both of them desperately avoiding confrontation at the dinner in different ways: Eadwulf by keeping his mouth shut on most things that seem potentially unsafe to speak on, and Astrid by parroting what she thinks Trent would want her to say.  Interestingly, Astrid also did this when Caleb visited her earlier, suggesting that she has deeply internalized Trent's world view at least in some respects, but none of this has eased their fear of what Trent will do to them if they say or do something he disapproves of and one must wonder if it is punishment or modification they fear.

It should be pointed out that the scourger training even before Caleb broke consisted of active participation and experience.  The Blumentrio actively tortured people, they actively murdered people.  This serves multiple purposes: it breaks them down so they feel like they can't leave, it simultaneously traumatizes them and makes them think their trauma is invalid or deserved, and it desensitizes them and makes them more compliant.  It makes them feel like abusers, twisting blame onto them.  We can see this in all of the scourgers - "you don't know what I've done," "I am a disgusting person," "I'll go to work if I have to," "It doesn't matter because I wanted to do it when I did it."

Caleb is just starting to process the fact that he and his friends are victims, particularly with respect to the Residuum, but he ISN'T to the point where he is of this opinion with respect to the whole of their training and he still chafes at the idea of thinking in any way that would deflect blame for what happened from himself.  I think that there is no clearer example of this than Caleb's statements over the course of the series regarding sex and relationships.

Caleb's relationships with Astrid and Eadwulf were very obviously romantically charged.  During the MN's interactions with Avantika, Caleb encourages Fjord to "do what he has to" with respect to Avantika, but later seems to regret it, expressing concern for Fjord's emotional well-being.  Caleb also struggled for a long time with not being transactional and manipulative in his interactions with others, weighing the need to survive and fulfill his goals vs his desire to do better.  Caleb often makes flippant off-hand remarks about sex, and while it could be argued that this is just Liam/Caleb being silly, it could also be viewed as deflection.

I think that Caleb is currently in a state where he is just barely starting to come to terms with the abuse that was dealt to him as a child and that he was forced to participate in, and considering how damaging that trauma has been, it could be argued that the avoidance of admitting that there was (at best) dubious sexual aspects to his scourger training is an attempt to avoid pain.  I want to be very clear here.  Even if the Blumentrio did not even once physically engage in sexual acts/seduction as children during one of their "lessons" on how to complete their missions, the very suggestion that their sexuality is a weapon to be used in their work is sexually abusive to these manipulated teenagers.  Caleb recognizes that such a thing IS hurtful... when it comes to the adult Fjord.  Not himself.  But not addressing it is doing more damage; it's going to interfere with Caleb's ability to have healthy relationships in the future, and this is clearest in his dynamic with Essek.

I think that Trent overestimates how much of his own world view Caleb has internalized long-term, as evidenced by his brazen flippancy about Caleb's parents, but I fear that on this point, Caleb HAS internalized the idea that he should use his sexuality in such a way.  That THAT is one of the most deeply ingrained behaviors that Caleb slipped into after meeting Essek and clearly hasn't even begun to question or shy from is, I think, evidence in and of itself that next to the murder of his parents, THIS is the thing that Caleb will struggle the most to address about his traumas.  It indicates experience.  It screams of abuse.

It is obvious at this point that Caleb and Essek are attracted to each other, but they got off on the wrong foot right from the start.  Framing their interactions as doing "favors" for one another, the overt manipulation and the ease with which it is done is going to have to be addressed at some point if only to preserve friendship.  In order to do that, I think Caleb is going to have to face that aspect of his trauma, and I do not think he can do that alone.

I think the saddest thing about it all is that in-game, none of the characters seem willing to sit down with Caleb and have frank talks about his Scourger training and what it entailed.  To a degree, it's understandable; they're probably worried about hurting him by doing so, and they've seen him deflect questions out of fear of judgment, self-loathing, and discomfort.  But Caleb is already hurting and struggling to process his past by himself.  If the 8th floor is a sign of anything, it's that Caleb (like all people) is not going to be able to fully come to terms with his trauma by himself.  Worse still, I am concerned that if it ever does come up, it will be between Caleb and either Astrid/Eadwulf, and they will end up reinforcing the idea that it was "no big deal" to each other.

From a meta perspective, I worry that it never will be addressed at all.  The cast may not be comfortable with going there in detail; I already got the impression from Liam in Talks Machina that he was struggling to figure out how to phrase the sexual exploitation of the Blumentrio without it being too overt - "it was subtly encouraged, suggested, or baked into them" - as though he couldn't decide what was most appropriate to say.  And there has been no indication that anyone else in the group in-game even suspects such a thing.

I do fear that if Caleb cannot at some point acknowledge that his abuse is undeservedly hurting his ability to connect honestly with people that he is genuinely attracted to and, as Liam says, "wants to be with," he may not be able to maintain a romantic relationship.

...

Anyway, that's all I've got for now.  Here's a question to ponder.  Which character do you think Caleb should show the 8th floor of the tower to first?  If you could pick which characters Caleb would open up to with respect to his trauma, which would it be?  Veth?  Beau?  Caddy-kins?  Essek?  Also, let me know if there’s anything I could add to this to improve it. :)

[aion-rsa]

From Lupin III to Inspector Gadget: Examining the Heirs of Arsène Lupin

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This piece contains spoilers for Netflix’s Lupin.

As Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905, is a renowned master of disguise, it is fitting that he has inspired a number of literary characters to take up his mantle. Arguably the most recognizable riff is Lupin III, a copyright-infringing, quasi-canonical descendant by way of Japanese manga and anime. Yet it wasn’t until Netflix’s new French mystery comedy-drama series Lupin—which reinvented the source material through Omar Sy’s Lupin and the lenses of immigration, racism, and fandom—that readers and viewers have truly been challenged to consider what it means to inherit, whether through blood or through books, an iconic character’s legacy. Consider this a field guide to the many different Arsène Lupins.

What is immediately intriguing about both Lupins is that neither is as white as the top-hatted, monocled thief that Leblanc created over a century ago. Assane Diop (Sy), the charismatic lead of George Kay’s Lupin, is a Senegalese immigrant whose father Babakar (Fargass Assandé) brought him to Paris for a better life. The lethal mix of elitism and systemic racism that they encounter via Babakar’s employers, the Pellegrini family, are what shape young Assane’s life into a revenge narrative, but also become tools in his career as a gentleman thief. Yet even Lupin III, created in 1967 by manga artist Monkey Punch (a.k.a. Kazuhito Katō), is introduced as the French-Japanese grandson of Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin. In the Lupin the Third Part II episode “The Southern Cross Looked Like Diamonds,” which concerns Japanese casualties of the Pacific War, Lupin discusses his dual heritage. Both adaptations add texture to their Lupins’ stories by not allowing them to move through society quite as smoothly as the original French thief.

That said, Monkey Punch’s Lupin III certainly benefits from a fair amount of family legacy by carrying on his grandfather’s and father’s reputation as a world-renowned thief, marksman, master of disguise, womanizer—you name it. He’s almost more of a reincarnation of the original than a descendant, with the only real change being the shift in period from the early 20th century to the swingin’ sixties. Monkey Punch also drew from Lupin III’s contemporary James Bond to enhance some of those darker and more adult aspects in the manga, while basing Lupin’s on-again, off-again romance with bombshell spy Fujiko Mine on D’Artagnan and Milady de Winter’s relationship from Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.

According to a 1995 issue of Manga Mania, Monkey Punch had initially considered keeping the blood connection a bit more under wraps, having not obtained the legal rights from Leblanc’s estate, but was convinced to embrace the Arsène Lupin connections. While Monkey Punch’s adoption of the Lupin persona wasn’t kosher by copyright standards, it was also very much in the spirit of the character—asking for forgiveness rather than permission—as well as the creator himself: Leblanc borrowed Sherlock Holmes for a few Lupin adventures before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle realized, and only then changed the detective’s name to “Herlock Sholmes” for subsequent showdowns. Still, it did eventually backfire for him, though it also led to, fascinatingly, beloved animated character Inspector Gadget (more on that later).

Read more

TV

Lupin Part 2: 2021 Release Confirmed by Netflix

By Kirsten Howard

Perhaps the most beloved iteration of Lupin III is in Hayao Miyazaki’s 1979 film The Castle of Cagliostro. Monkey Punch’s manga cast Lupin III as a rather unsympathetic master thief: callous about his victims, a caddish ladies’ man who often harassed women he saw as little more than sex objects. While the anime quickly established a moral code—stealing from rich people who either deserved it or would not overly suffer for it—it was Miyazaki’s film that gave Lupin III real heart. In rescuing princess bride Clarisse from a Gothic marriage, he displays a surprising sense of chivalry, especially when the plucky girl wants to be his sidekick. Lupin’s silent agony over turning her down lends the otherwise carefree heist film a shocking touch of melancholy, and lays the groundwork for a more well-rounded Lupin III in future outings.

The Lupin III bloodline has extended several generations into the future, though none of these descendants made much of an impact beyond their respective adventures. First there was Lupin III Jr. (yes, that’s his name), the son of Lupin III and Fujiko, who only ever existed in the manga. Elusiveness of the Fog, the nineteenth Lupin III TV special, uses a time machine to jump ahead to 2883 and glimpse Lupin XXXIII, a.k.a. Lupin the 33rd, identical to his green-jacketed ancestor. He gets three whole lines and mostly seems like an excuse to show that thirty generations later, little about the iconic thief has changed.

In between those two there was Lupin the Eighth, would-be star of a 1982 spinoff created in collaboration between Lupin III studio TMS Entertainment and French-American studio DiC Entertainment. The Lupin VIII series would have jumped a conservative five generations ahead, with the familiar crew’s great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren carrying on the same names, traits, and rivalries and romantic entanglements. But when the Leblanc estate got wind of this Japanese/French collaboration showing up on their continent, they put the kibosh on the project; only the pilot was animated, and was shut down before vocals had been recorded.

Because TMS and DiC had already lost their investment, they scrambled to come up with a replacement for the timeslot. And so Inspector Gadget was created, with the trenchcoat-clad cyborg bumbling his way into viewers’ hearts. Despite his complete lack of suaveness compared to any version of Lupin, you could say that, in terms of staying power, Gadget was Lupin III’s true successor.

Yet while Lupin III had every familial and financial resource at his disposal to continue his grandfather’s and father’s work, everything Assane Diop needs to know he learns from a book. The Arsène Lupin books, which Babakar gifts him right before he is framed for stealing the priceless Queen’s Necklace from the Pellegrinis. Babakar’s arrest, guilty plea, and prison suicide leave Assane burdened with a strange inheritance of misfortune, words, and blood money—as Madame Pellegrini (Nicole Garcia) pays for fancy schooling he otherwise would not have been able to afford. Attending a prestigious academy is where he forges friendships with fellow morally gray criminal Benjamin Ferel (Antoine Gouy) and his eventual partner Claire (Ludivine Sagnier) and learns how to code-switch among his peers. 

Presumably, that upbringing creates the scaffolding of connections that allows him to move through high society, but his wealth and prestige in adulthood is all due to Arsène Lupin. Assane studies those books like religious texts, like instruction manuals, like the last connection to his late father. His obsessive fandom provides him the blueprints for foolproof heists that he enhances with his own experiences at playing with disguise. Though he does later employ prosthetics for his appearance as Twitter user Salvator, for the most part Assane doesn’t obscure his face. Instead, he trusts in his marks’ implicit racial biases that they will buy him as a deadbeat dad and immigrant janitor Luis Perenna, then not blink twice when staring him in the face as millionaire Paul Sernine in the course of the same evening. In prison, he literally counts on a white guard’s inability to differentiate between two black men to switch places with a prisoner.

Assane also continues his father’s tradition of gifting the Arsène Lupin books to his own son for his 14th birthday: Raoul (Etan Simon), French-born, mixed-race and equally enamored of the gentleman thief’s adventures. While it’s unlikely that Assane wants his son to make the same dangerous enemies, he clearly wants Raoul to see himself in the character—and to see his father, who understandably has difficulty showing his true self to anyone.

This by-the-book adaptation (Arsène Lupin entered the public domain in 2012) engages with the notion that anyone can embody an iconic character—that their skin color or class upbringing doesn’t have to match the original, that they don’t have to be a blood relation to inherit a persona. For all that Lupin III exists in his own right and will endure as a classic franchise, Assane Diop’s Lupin may be the truer heir to the gentleman thief’s legacy.

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Lupin is available to stream now on Netflix.

The post From Lupin III to Inspector Gadget: Examining the Heirs of Arsène Lupin appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[coeur-egoiste]

Alais Lyons | LFRP

The Basics ––– –

Age: 20

Birthday: 15th Sun of the 5th Astral Moon

Race: Midlander Hyur

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Pansexual

Physical Appearance ––– –

Hair: Light golden blonde, wavy and very well-maintained. Often styled into pretty curls, it is not often one will see Alais looking even remotely dishevelled. 

Eyes: Sky blue.

Height: Five fulms, 2 ilms. 

Build: Slender and graceful; A dancer’s build. 

Distinguishing Marks: Freckles across the bridge of her nose, across the tops of her shoulders, and hips. A beauty mark on the corner of her mouth.

Scars: None she would permit others to see. 

Common Accessories: Various pieces of jewellery, alongside several delicate pressed flowers. 

Personal ––– –

Profession: Heiress of a large company, a former ballerina.

Hobbies: Dancing, painting, shopping, people-watching. 

Languages: Old Elezen, Eorzean Common.

Residence: The Lyons Manor in Ishgard, or their estate grounds in Coerthas. 

Birthplace: Ishgard.

Religion: Halone, the Fury. However, she is far from devout, though maintains at least the pretence of being religious.

Patron Deity: Halone.

Fears: Dying, losing her way of life. 

Relationships ––– -

Spouse: N/A.

Children: N/A.

Parents: Deceased. 

Siblings: N/A.

Other Relatives: A number of mostly ignored relatives.

Pets: Several, mostly cared for by servants. 

Traits ––– -

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open-Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Bold is typically, italics is situational. 

RP Hooks ––– –

Sole Survivor. Only just over a year ago, tragedy fell upon the Lyons family in a tragic accident that left Alais the sole survivor, found severely injured among the wreckage. Healers struggled with her recovery for days—before she seemed to simply... get better. Her recovery has since been written off as a stroke of luck, whilst the accident remained just that - an accident. 

Heiress. The very same accident that rendered her an orphan made her the successor to Lyons Enterprises, a multi-faceted company that made its fortune via several of its family-owned and operated mines. Nowadays, Alais is always seeking to dip her fingers in new businesses, often funding start-ups to profit off of their success. Much of the business is run by her late father’s steward, Claude.

Sleep Aids. It is a poorly-kept secret that, since the accident, Alais struggles to sleep at night. The heiress is always searching out new — and expensive  — remedies for her insomnia. There is no limit to what she’d spend on a good night’s sleep, or who she might seek out. 

Whispers. It is not just a lack of sleep that ails the young woman. A far better-kept secret is the voices she sporadically hears at the edge of her consciousness. Any she seeks out to help with this are sworn to secrecy, ‘lest it comes out that the heiress of the Lyons family was going insane —Those that try to break that promise, or blackmail her, find her retribution comes swift and brutal. 

Covetous. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, Alais has never been taught that there are things she cannot have. As such, when something strikes her fancy, she’s not one to let pesky things like laws stop her from getting what she wants. She frequents several black market auctions and is far from against coming to deals with more. . . unsavoury individuals, so long as it is discreet. 

Stagnant.  Those with the capability to sense aether would quickly notice something. . . odd, about hers. It is completely stagnant, unchanging, lacking the natural fluctuations most living beings have. Likewise, those who are particularly keen and in close contact with her might not how little her temperature seems to change, regardless of conditions; Alais is always perfectly room temperature. 

Contact & OOC Information  ––– –

Alais is located on Mateus, though I’m more than happy to server hop to accommodate RP.

On a character level, I am looking for all sorts of different interactions for Alais, be they friendly or antagonistic. Friendships and rivalries are both welcome, though I am very hesitant on romantic relations, and will require much IC and OOC communication before committing to a romantic ship. I’m not interested in Romance-ONLY RP. I’m open to scenes with violence, mature themes, gore, etc…

I’m particularly interested in exploring darker themes with her, such as plots including dark magic, supernatural/void elements, criminal relations, manipulation, bribery, and things of that nature! 

On an OOC level, I am looking for people who know the difference between IC and OOC. I do not tolerate blending, metagaming, or godmodding. Open communication is very important for me, especially if our characters are going to obtain a relationship of any kind of depth.  If you’re interested, you can contact me here, or in-game on Alais Lyons (Mateus) or Rhysa Verkoh (Balmung). I can give out my discord on request as well! ♥ Messaging me on tumblr and/or asking for my discord are probably the most reliable forms of communication for me.

@mooglemeet​, @crystalxivrp​

[amillioninprizes]

A Tale of Two P.I.s: How Stumptown Succeeded Where Veronica Mars Failed

A hardboiled female private eye with a drinking problem, a litany of temporary sexual partners, and trauma resulting from her romantic soulmate dying in an explosion that’s partially her fault solves mysteries.

This could describe either the freshman ABC show Stumptown, starring Cobie Smulders as military veteran Dex Parios, or Rob Thomas’s intended vision for an adult Veronica Mars in the wake of the recent S4 that aired on Hulu. Many VM fans turned to the former after the supreme disappointment that was S4 in order to get their kickass lady detective fix; a common refrain that I’ve seen is that Stumptown is the show that adult Veronica Mars should have been. Notably, Stumptown was recently renewed for a second season, while Hulu has declined to order more seasons of Veronica Mars. Now that the pain of VM S4 is less fresh, I recently watched the first season of Stumptown to see if it was worth the hype. Here are the reasons why I think that Stumptown has been renewed for a second season while Veronica Mars has, much like Susan Knight, been left dead in the water:

Dex is a competent detective

Like, I shouldn’t even have to say this, but: if you’re going to make a show about a private investigator, that character should be able to crack cases. Rather infamously, Veronica did not solve any mysteries in VM S4: Keith solved the bomber mystery, Logan solved the congressman blackmail mystery, and Vinnie solved the missing ring mystery. Veronica just kind of floated around being a mean party girl.

Meanwhile Dex, despite being less experienced as a detective, uses her smarts and background as a military interrogator to solve the mystery of the week. She notably utilizes disguises and undercover work, two former features of Veronica’s investigating that were missing in S4. The show also makes a decent attempt to portray the realities of her having to obtain a license to be a PI and work legally, including an internship and dealing with consumer complaints. Contrast this with the proposed future seasons of VM as a traveling detective--something that would be nigh impossible giving licensing requirements.

I think the contrast between the two’s abilities can best be seen in their opening scenes of the season: Dex, at the casino, is able to suss out a married dude hitting on her pretty quickly, comprehensively listing his tells. Meanwhile, Veronica’s first scene in S4 has her randomly smashing a client’s belongings to find hidden cameras and then unprofessionally overcharging her. If that’s how she treats clients, it’s no wonder that Mars Investigations is financially struggling at the beginning of S4.

Stumptown also does a better job than VM S4 of showing why the protagonist chooses to be a detective. For Dex, it gives her stability and a sense of purpose that had been lacking since her return from Afghanistan. On the other hand, Veronica is shown to be somewhat dissatisfied with her life in S4, but it’s never explicitly addressed why; it’s also not examined why she remains in Neptune as a detective when she could use her Ivy League law degree at any time and live anywhere, especially when she appears to no longer have a talent for being a detective. Logan briefly broaches the subject in one scene, but it’s dropped just like every other VM plot thread.

Dex is a marshmallow

As has been covered extensively elsewhere (including the pages of this very blog), probably the largest issue that people had with S4 of Veronica Mars outside of Logan’s death was Veronica’s characterization. Rob Thomas said in interviews that he told the writers this season to write Veronica like a porcupine; the end result was a portrayal that dialed all of Veronica’s negative traits to 11, added new ones, and completely removed the softer aspects of her character that made her such a compelling and complex protagonist. There was an attempt to give Veronica an emotional connection to the bomber mystery via the character Matty, but for most viewers it didn’t resonate due the flat affect of both actresses and poor writing. It was hard to feel like Matty was a sympathetic underdog when she had a wealthy mother ready to whisk her away to Paris for Spring Break. Veronica also doesn’t appear to have retained her former drive for justice; she mostly seems interested in collecting a paycheck (and if that’s the case I again ask why she isn’t using her Columbia law degree). She also weaponizes her white womanhood against a Latino teenager. What a great role model!

Contrast this with the also outwardly caustic Dex, who initially IS only in it for the paycheck. First off, even that’s somewhat noble in that she needs to take care of her adult brother with Down’s syndrome. Yet she quickly finds her sense of justice overcoming her desire to make bank. We see this early in the season when she turns against the PI she is shadowing in order to help a young mother obtain custody of her child from her wealthy, abusive ex-husband. This is also seen when she brokers a deal to protect the privacy of the biological child of a political candidate she’s been hired to find dirt on.

Dex also relies heavily on her support system--namely her brother Ansel, best friend Gray, food truck purveyor Tookie, and even police detective Hoffman. She resists her brother moving out because she’d be lonely without him, and her entire found family are instrumental in helping her with her cases. This isn’t necessarily different from Veronica per se, although Veronica treated her loved ones cruelly in S4. Additionally, Rob Thomas wanted to continue the show without them, despite how heavily Veronica relied on them both to help her with cases as well as emotionally.

Stumptown also shows that even if Dex hasn’t fully processed her trauma, she is capable of growing. She makes nice with her high school enemy after clearing her daughter of suspected drug dealing. Contrast this with Veronica, who punched her high school nemesis at her high school reunion (and for the five millionth time, no one wanted to see that) and was shown to have regressed as an adult to be more immature at age 35 than she was at 17. That didn’t make her seem more cool or noir, just sad.

Also, Dex actually manages to brush her hair. (But srsly I need to know how they get her hair to do that great wavy thing).

Dex’s trauma is thoughtfully addressed

As a corollary to the above point: there was obviously Something Wrong with Veronica in S4, but the show didn’t bother to explain what had transpired between the end of the second book and S4 to explain her seeming personality transplant; as a fellow fan has said, the show pretended to deal with her trauma but glossed over it in reality. For example, in addition to depicting her as being depressed and cruel to her loved ones, she is shown drinking heavily and doing drugs, both of which are out of character for her. Yet the show seems to glamorize it; none of her loved ones express any concern about this behavior and there are no references made to her alcoholic mother, whose actions negatively affected her growing up to the extent that Veronica had previously expressed wanting to avoid becoming like her. But despite the fact that she was obviously struggling with something, Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell stated that they needed to kill Logan because Veronica was somehow not traumatized enough. Apparently, putting Logan’s ring on her finger just magically erased her previous issues (unrealistic and harmful messaging to trauma survivors), and he needed to die because women can only be interesting if they’re damaged (misogynistic). Adding insult to injury was Rob Thomas’s assertion that Logan’s memory wouldn’t play much of a part of the show going forward because it would be too depressing and he needed Veronica to not be consumed with thoughts of him while engaging in “strange sex”, whatever that means. Yeah Rob, it would def be realistic for Veronica to just get over the fact that her husband and love of her life died of a bomb due to her oversight in a year and then continue on her merry way without any support from her loved ones!

Stumptown, however, explicitly connects Dex’s self destructive behavior with her past trauma: in the very first episode Dex is shown frantically texting contacts for a sexual hookup in the midst of a PTSD episode. The most powerful scene of the entire season in my opinion is one where, after experiencing a flashback to her time as an interrogator in Afghanistan, she goes on a bender at home and trashes her house to the soundtrack of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.” (As an aside, I would also like to point out that Stumptown deftly portrays the trauma and grey morality associated with military service, which could have been an amazing (and noir!) storyline for naval intelligence officer Logan in future seasons of VM if Rob Thomas wasn’t such a dimwit).

Additionally, the death of her not quite-fiancé Benny hangs over her, even though the event took place twelve years prior to the start of the series. Even before Benny is introduced onscreen in flashbacks in the penultimate episode of S1, the show does a good job of portraying just how much he and their relationship meant to Dex. The season culminates in Dex finding out that his death in an explosion in Afghanistan was not in fact her fault, as she had previously assumed. Interestingly, the show’s writers considered revealing that Benny had faked his death, but the head writer later stated in an interview that doing so would invalidate the trauma Dex had experienced for 12 years and would ultimately be cruel. While on a shallow level I wouldn’t have minded them bringing Benny back since the actor who played him was super attractive and had great chemistry with Cobie Smulders, the decision the writers made instead makes more sense for the world they have built and is far more thoughtful: it allows Dex to obtain a sense of closure and growth while respecting her grief.

Women over the age of 35 aren’t Satan

A criticism of VM since it originally aired is that the show generally portrays female characters, especially mothers and other women over a certain age, in a negative light (and Rob Thomas has been defensive about it just as long). The books partially rectified this by introducing the characters of Petra Landros, the former model turned owner of the Neptune Grand, and Marcia Langdon, the new Balboa County sheriff with a murky past. Marcia was brought back for S4, but considerably dumbed down and less complex than in the books (and there’s definitely something to be said that the first time a BIPOC woman is shown in a position of power on screen in VM that her character is diminished).

Stumptown, on the other hand, has two women as older female mentors/nemeses in positions of power: Sue Lynn, the matriarch of the local Native American tribe, and Lieutenant Cosgrove of the Portland PD. Both have complicated relationships with Dex: Sue Lynn ended Dex’s relationship with Benny, her son, yet repeatedly seeks her out for help with matters on the reservation. Lieutenant Cosgrove often finds herself at odds with Dex while the latter is attempting to solve a case, though she also encourages her to legally obtain her PI license. It shouldn’t be revolutionary to have complex older female characters as supporting cast on a female-centered show in 2020, but after 15 years of misogyny from VM it certainly feels refreshing.

Where Stumptown falls short

All of this is not to say that Stumptown is flawless. Despite my praise for including older female characters above, the show is still pretty dude heavy, especially Dex’s inner circle. The mysteries of the week are of fairly average quality, and several were reminiscent of some seen in VM’s original run--the season even ends with a “Who’s at the door?” gambit. I also didn’t love the storyline where Grey’s girlfriend gets Dex drunk and tricks her into thinking they had slept together in order to drive Grey and Dex apart--that felt like something out of the mind of Rob Thomas. It also bears mentioning that in the context of current events the generally positive portrayal of the police department and Dex’s close relationship with them should bear more scrutiny. And while the show is well done overall, it never quite reaches the emotional resonance of original flavor VM (but then, neither did VM S4).

Despite those quibbles, I think it’s a good show overall. I felt like as the season progressed the creative team figured out what worked and the cast seemed to gel together. I love the classic rock soundtrack (another area where VM S4 failed, given that it abandoned VM’s signature indie soundtrack for generic pop music), which in conjunction with Dex’s wardrobe gives the show a fun retro feel. By the end of the season I was firmly won over, and I look forward to S2. Hopefully the writers of Stumptown paid attention to the backlash to VM S4 as a lesson in what not to do going forward.

[mybg3notebook]

The Party Scene

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

In these “scene posts” I will explore the scene of the title looking for the information in the dialogues. What I will be looking for is how much Gale “lies”, how much lore is provided, and any extra detail that may be of our interest to highlight. At the end of these posts there are summary points for those who don't want to read the whole post.

Additional disclaimers about meta-knowledge and interpretations in this (post) while disclaimers about Context in this (one).

The party scene, I personally think, needs plenty of polishing. The fact that many characters can have a "jealous" behaviour towards Tav no matter their approval looks suspicious to me. Gale's case is even weirder because if Tav did not romanced him at all, Gale will still share those judgemental comments that seem to come from jealousy, as well as strange dialogue options about “being a bad loser” when the context is not romantic at all. This would make some sense—to a certain extent—if Tav romanced him, but if Tav locked him as a friend, it has no purpose. Especially if Tav explores the option of suggesting him to spend the night together, which ends with Gale rejecting the situation because "they are just good companions" after such display of incoherent jealousy coming from a char who values privacy (and therefore would not meddle into Tav's personal affairs). It seems to contradict his character and therefore, it makes me suspect that the whole party scene is just very raw and unpolished in general. 

As I said, the party interaction is very confusing since it doesn't follow the relationship context created by Tav, and in Gale's case looks inconsistent with his char as well, inviting a strong misinterpretations of his character (this is probably a consequence of the decision of making Gale part of EA in the last moment). So this scene analysis may be a bit messy since the scenes are messy too (hence this post's length. I'm sorry). 

Whether Gale was locked into friendship or romance, Gale drops his famous line: 

As they say in Waterdeep: In wine there is truth. That's usually followed by: In water there is good sense. Good sense will have to wait till the morrow.

A great warning line from a narrative point of view: he is basically saying that what will be shared that day under the effect of wine is true, but it certainly won't be "good sense".

In a friendship path, he would not want to waste Tav's time any longer, and will bid them a good night while promising a bed-story the next day. In that case, the wine line could be interpreted as the final decision of a confession that will happen the next day: Gale has finally reached a degree of trust in Tav that gives him enough courage to finally speak about the details of the "orb" (and I emphasise details because in broader aspect, he already shared what's most important: the "orb" in his chest is a dangerous thing. If Tav assisted with his death protocol, this is undeniable by now, unless Tav allowed him to keep his privacy). 

In a romantic path, this wine line could be interpreted as the decision of inviting Tav to share a night, and explaining the details in the morning, the “good sense”. After the wine phrase, we have other piece of prose in which Gale describes a book that it's a bit more than a sexual book:

Gale: Allow me to make the following proposition: there is a book that circulates in Amn, detailing the first thousand nights of a newly-wed king and queen. They turned everything they did into an art. The art of conversation. The art of taste, time honoured and newly acquired. The art of the body. The exploration and acceptance of the self and the other. The art of the night itself. I say we take a page from their book. 

Considering that Gale is not only a verbose char, but also a poet and a scholar, the enumeration of the concepts in the description of the book speaks a lot in my opinion. Gale is not inviting Tav to a night of sex (let's remember he never uses that word in EA) but to a deeper degree of "intimacy", as he calls it. There is a lot more involved in what he asks for: confessions in the art of conversation, pleasures in the art of the body, and, hopefully, acceptance. For Gale, acceptance is a big deal: it’s not by chance that he left it last in the enumeration, summarising the whole concepts with the "art of the night". Gale is truly eager to access these concepts, and in doing so, I personally believe he shows a fair level of naivety on this matter. It seems (especially later with his unpolished arguments in the morning) he felt he needed this level of intimacy—of acceptance first—so he could speak the details openly. He wants to have this night before any confession because he thinks that it would allow him to acquire something that would prevent the abandonment that he viscerally fears: acceptance.

Any of the options taken by Tav keeps showing his eagerness. He wants this to happen in whatever terms Tav desires: as a brand new experience (“blank slates on blank sheets”) or with the promise of commitment (writing the prequel of a newly-wed couple). Or if Tav romanced Gale and then chose to spend the night with another companion, Gale will still insist in sleeping together, showing he was open for Tav to have casual sex as long as the "commitment" part would be established with him. This is reinforced by the fact that, if Tav never shared the Weave with Gale, there is no way to sleep with him: Gale is not a character for one-stand nights. He craves for deep connection, for commitment, in whatever fashion he can get it. Mystra taught him not to ask about exclusivity after all.

Gale is so desperate to have this deep connection that if Tav doubts about spending the night with him, he will drop a line which can trigger an alarm in the player:

Tav: I'm not sure you're the one I want. Gale: That's because you've yet to find out what you're missing. Doubt is a spoilsport. Cast it aside.

Gale, the scholar, the one who kept encouraging Tav to doubt and to think critically about everything, suggests to dismiss doubts. Once more we see he needs this to happen. Some players interpret this as manipulation as well. I personally think this also says something else in Gale: since the dev's notes show no second intentions in the only two scenes where dev's notes existed, and instead, they display how much fear Gale has for a second abandonment, Gale is showing here his inexperience with relationships as well as a constant fear for abandonment.

Gale is looking for commitment, for something that can last longer than Mystra's affair did: he wants something solid, but his inexperience in this field made him "acquire" knowledge of how things should work via romanticized means such as books and poetry. In his mind, the acceptance he needs can only be acquired due to the "art of the night", very well detailed in this book he describes. 

It's true that, all this part, if we completely ignore the narrative weight that the book has for a book-based character such as Gale, can be interpreted as Gale manipulating Tav to have sex alone; desperate to obtain it, doing everything in order to get it. We can also see the description of the book as a “bait”, as some people do. It's a valid interpretation, especially for a Tav who respected Gale's privacy during the Loss Scene and the protocol, so that Tav has no information with which to connect the dots. But I personally find it an over-magnification to see him as a "mastermind of manipulation". The few dev's notes we have about Gale seem to confirm that nothing shadier than his “orb” despair and his fear for abandonment are going on. These fears are constantly echoing in his mind, and they are, as I said in other posts, the main reasons why he becomes emotional and prone to make mistakes. 

Is this action manipulative? It can be seen as “withholding information” by any Tav who didn't push him to explain, otherwise, all the information in a general way has been offered already and there is no withholding at all. Is Gale a manipulative character? In EA we don't see a pattern of that behaviour to qualify him as such. He has been quite honest, explaining in all scenes what he can say and what he cannot, drawing his boundaries clean and clear. We saw him struggling with the explanation of what he lost. The few Dev's notes reinforce mainly his fear for abandonment, lacking any manipulative behaviour behind his actions. His pattern, in my opinion, is that he tends to make mistakes in his emotional state, which is mostly triggered by the “orb” and the concept of “abandonment”. Not so much with Mystra per ser. He seems to be nostalgic but more aware of what loving a God causes (his regret is explicit during the conversation of Karsus). He is quite done with "her love as a lover", but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to be forgiven nor he doesn't love her as the essence of Magic itself. More details in the post of "Mystra and her Chosen ones".

After the party, Tav can have a romantic conversation before the sex “intimacy” or can reject the chance. What seems incoherent in this part is when Tav is not in the mood for sex, and Gale simply cuts off the situation. He is a character who craves connection and intimacy, and pretty much like Wyll, he needs a bond before stepping into romance. To waste a night of celebration that could be used to share any other level of intimacy (let's say, talking? The man clearly LOVES to talk) seems strange. If this reaction is truly meant to be in the game, it would seem that he certainly was more desperate for sex than what all the previous scenes hinted, but in that case it would have done little sense to leave the tale of the wizard for the next night. Gale already knew Tav did not want to have sex, so no point in delaying the explanation of the details. I personally suspect these incoherences are a consequence of Gale being added into EA at the last moment, making him more “shadier” than he is meant to be. 

To justify my opinion that this seems to be an unpolished scene: if Gale is not romanced, and conditions are given, Lae'Zel will spend the night with him, talking. Why would Gale prefer to share a night of talks with a companion with whom he had not the Weave connection before, but he won't do it with a Tav who shared it? I see some incongruence here, probably as the result of being added into the EA in a rush. His scenes are less polished and much more messier than the other companions' (certainly not more than Wyll, though) and his bugs and triggering priority show it. 

This part is also seen as "coercive" by some players:

Tav: I’m sorry, but I actually don’t think I can do this. I’m just not in the mood. Gale: Not even a simple kiss would change your mind? Tav: No, it wouldn’t.

Tav: Maybe a kiss was enough Gale: Are you sure? One kiss is like one chord in an entire symphony. It begs for more.

Gale: (disapproval) What a pity. One should never be afraid to live life to the fullest. Before we part.. I know there are many things about me that remain shrouded in mystery. You’ve been very patient with me, and I appreciate that. You’ve brought me back from the grey shores of death. You know of my condition, and you know about my unfortunate efforts to win Mystra’s favour, but those are but the broad strokes. The time has come to paint you the true picture. So come find me another night, yes? No kisses, just words. (Leaves)

Asking seems to be coercive for some people just because there is a disapproval. I personally separate very clearly what Tav sees and receives as information from the NPCs and what I, the player, do. Tav should react to what they see, but the player is having a “meta-knowledge” of the situation with the info of the narrator and the approval system. The player knows Gale is disappointed in not having intimacy now, and he expresses it. Then he behaves completely natural, and continues talking (of course) about what he will explain about in the following morning (I don't understand what impedes him to say it in that moment: is it the wine? He fears his charisma checks are at a disadvantage due to the wine? Is it just a reflection of the rush in which he was added to the game? We will see in the full release. To me it looks inconsistent.)

Anyways. The scene continues in the early morning or simply the next night depending on what option Tav picked. Here, Gale presents the details of the revelation: “It is a story full of answers long overdue. It is a story of a man who fell in love with a goddess.”

Tav: You're really about to tell me about another lover? What's wrong with you? Gale :I couldn’t do it before. I couldn’t ruin the chance for us to happen. You were there. How could I say no to you? Dev's notes: Gale revealed he was in love with Mystra. He tells this the morning after. Understandably, the player can react negatively to his timing. He tries to explain himself. 

This line clearly shows that there was an intention in hiding the relationship he had with Mystra, which it's an “answer long overdue” (is it?). Now, some players consider this the proof of Gale's manipulations; the greatest betrayal, because people are entitled to know all the details of their partner's past before sleeping with them. Other players consider that it's in poor taste to disclose this exactly the morning after sharing the night with Gale. And I agree. However, I see a scene with a lot of over-magnifications and making things more problematic than they truly are. In my opinion, “the chance for us to happen” is deeply linked to the book of Amn for all the reasons explained before. It's not by chance that this book has such a weight in the scene. Gale also shows with this line that he has no experience nor idea how relationships develop. 

I also think that Gale fails so much in delivering decent lines in this scene because, 1) this is a very unpolished text in EA, or 2) this is very on purpose, emphasising that Gale is ready to speak about the two topics that turn him into an emotional disaster and his word choices could be attributed to as someone failing many charisma checks. Maybe that's the intention.

If Tav considers this the greatest of the betrayals they can tell him to leave and Gale will not resist the rejection, leaving the party immediately and facing one of his biggest fears: Abandonment. And once more, the abandonment as a consequence of his own mistake. The irony of this path. 

If Tav allows him to explain, Gale will accept any "judgement after telling his story". This is something very related to Gale's approvals: to have a complete grasp of a situation, you need to have all the evidence, hear all the details of the event, before drawing a conclusion. And curiously, no matter what aggressive option Tav picks, Gale gives no disapproval unless he is forced to leave the party. So, after some dramatic reaction, Gale will try to proceed with the telling.

Tav: It’s clear as day you are talking about yourself, you know Gale: I know, but a bit of narrative distance will make it all so much easier in the telling. Indulge me.

From here, Gale gives Tav another courtesy gesture: to pick the version in which this will be explained. He clarifies that the long version, more pompous and verbose and in third person, is the one he would prefer due to the distance. Since the first meeting on the road, or the stew scene, passing through the Loss Scene, we see this pattern again: Gale, the character who always has a lot of things to speak about, has also topics that are difficult to explain and needs to use narrative tricks to do it. Not by chance he is a reserved person: those topics he can't talk about are always personal. 

Long version

Gale: Once upon a time, not quite that long ago, there lived a wizard in a tower. The wizard was what one might call a prodigy, who from an early age could not only control the Weave, but compose it, like a musician or a poet. Such was his skill that it earned him the attention of the mother of magic herself. The Lady Of Mysteries, Mystra.

Tav: What did Mystra’s attention feel like? Gale: Love.  Dev's Notes: nostalgic, regretful, bitter, sad, lost romance–all with a bit of hesitation on the front of the line. Tav :He sounds like a very talented individual Gale: He was. Even though it was in Mystra’s affections that his true power lay. Tav: Teacher’s pet, was he? Gale: He fancied himself much more than that. He fancied himself favoured above all others. 

These three options give interesting additional information: Gale was convinced that Mystra's attention was love, because he was young and naive. He is now very aware that his talent meant little, because the true power he had was in Mystra's affections, meaning in being a loved Chosen one. He fancied himself unique, as a Chosen would do. 

Gale: Perhaps it was not quite love, Dev's Notes: A little embarrassed Gale: but you see, the wizard was but a very young man. It was most certainly love to him. Mystra showed him the secrets behind the veils. The gossamer veils first, draped across the Weave. The delicate veils next, draped across her body. ‘Chosen One’ she whispered, as she slipped them off completely.

This is another fragment with interesting, yet disturbing lines: Gale now, as a narrator, questions if that past feeling was Love. He has matured his sentiments for Mystra, they are less "teenager-like". He is convinced that in the past it was love to him, implying that now he has doubts (concept reinforced once more by the end of the scene). The disturbing line is the definition of "very young man", which I will talk about in the post of "Gale Hypotheses- Part 1", section: "Grooming". 

Tav: The veils draped across the Weave? Gale: Indeed. What most wizards perceive is but the ripple of the Weave’s surface. Untold wonders lie beyond. I enjoyed them for a while, as we enjoyed each other.

Once more, in these details, the narrative reinforces how intense is the connection of Mystra with a Chosen one. Again, this is lore information. Chosen ones have a deep connection with Mystra/the Weave/Magic, which is unique. More on this matter can be read in the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones".

Gale: One day all too soon, the whispers stopped. The goddess spurned the mortal. The veils were drawn once more, and the wizard was left behind heartbroken.

Tav: Poor wizard Gale: Poor wizard. Silly wizard too, for he wouldn’t take no for an answer Tav: What happened next? // I hate to say it, but he really could have seen this coming Gale: He was blinded by love. Good stories are rife with lovers’ follies after all. Tav: Perhaps she, like you, had other lovers she didn’t tell him about. Gale : She might well have had, but that didn’t stop the wizard from trying to reclaim her affections.

Gale: Like so many of the heartbroken, he did something infinitely foolish. One has to think big if one seeks to win back a goddess. So the wizard thought big. [Here he explains all about Karsus who] sought to usurp the goddess of magic so that he could become a god himself. He almost managed but not quite, and his entire empire – Netheril – came crashing down around him as he turned to stone. The magic unleashed that day was phenomenal, rolling like the prime chaos that outdated creation. A fragment of it was caught and sealed away in a book. No ordinary book, mind you; a tome of gateways that contained within it a bubble of Astral Plane. It was a fragment of primal Weave locked out of time – locked away from Mystra herself. ‘What if’, the silly wizard thought. ‘What if after all this time, I could return this lost part of herself to the Goddess?”

Another part of the scene that keeps giving us a lot of information: Gale is very aware now how silly he was in his youth (at this point, one can almost remember his words during Arabella's quest: she is not innocent but that doesn't mean she is guilty) and his past young self was unable to take a no as an answer (which apparently Gale learnt very well when before this revelation or after, Tav can reject him and he simply leaves the party without putting much resistance, despite knowing that Tav only has a fragment of the big picture). The other answer reinforces his blindness by this strange concept that Gale thought it was love, and pretty much uses the word Folly for describing or making an analogy with his past, which again, it's not a casual word: Folly is a formal way to say stupidity and it's also a word that Gale uses to compare his mistake with Karsus' folly. As an extra, the last answer seems to explain very much what he does when Tav romanced him and then slept with another companion. Details of this in the post "Gale Hypotheses- Part 2", section: "Proposition to Cheat".

Short version: 

This version is shorter and more into the point without an excess of dramatic details that may end up annoying Tav more than making the process of comprehension better. The short version makes much more clear where Gale is standing: the facts are presented without his typical pattern of embellishing the story.

Gale: […] I am what one might call a wizard prodigy, who from an early age could not only control the Weave, but compose it like a virtuoso. Such was my skill that it earned me the attention of Mystra herself. I soon fell in love with her, and she returned my affections. […] Before long Mystra tired of me. What was I, after all, but a mortal plaything in sacred hands? You have to realise I was heartbroken. I was a young man, she was my first love. I thought it would last forever. 

This part reinforces once more that he is very aware that a relationship with a goddess was very unbalanced, that Mystra was his first love, he was a young man, and he thought it would last forever. 

For completion's sake, the goblin version has a different introduction:

Gale: Let's just get this over with. No doubt you've guessed by now there was something rather special about my relationship with the goddess Mystra. The thing is, we were lovers once. I am what one might call a wizard prodigy [...follows the same speech of the short version]

Three versions converge in the kneeling. The scene in this point has a different narrative value; a proud character as he is, who has a deep regret for his mistake with the “orb” (he says it explicitly in the "Loss Scene" post) kneels before Tav to humbly show the traumatic experience by placing their hand on his heart, where the “orb” resides:

Gale: Here. Place your hand over my heart. Let me show you Narrator: You feel the tadpole quiver as you realise Gale is letting you in. Into the dark. You see through Gale’s eyes, staring down the corridors of a dread memory. A book, bound, then suddenly opened. Inside there are no pages, only a swirling mass of blackest Weave that pounces. It’s teeth, it’s claws, it’s unstoppable as it digs through you and becomes part of you. And gods, is it ever hungry…

This scene speaks of opennesses in all senses, honest and without any interest of pretence: Gale is showing his greatest regret, the lowest of the lowest he reached, the despair that it inspires. For once, he is not talking, he is showing it (because the experience is the one that makes him speechless and its memory seems to cause him great pain too due to the facial gesticulation). And what Tav sees shows again that Gale has nothing extra to hide: this has been the same exact information that Tav could extract from him in earlier opportunities with successful tadpole intrusions. So, if Tav never reveals that they saw this in Gale during the stew scene, Tav will realise that Gale kept his promise: he was reserved for a while, trusting slowly in Tav, to finally open up and show that he was going to explain the “why” much more later, because it's truly difficult for Gale to speak about.

1-Yank your hand away Gale: Terrifying isn’t it? And that is only the beginning 3-Tav: Gods – why show me this? Gale: I’m sorry, but I had to. After all, that is only the beginning 4-Tav: I slept with a monster. Gale: I didn’t sleep with a monster despite the tadpole in your head. We are none of us monsters. We are merely hatcheries for monstrous things. So we fight them.

This is one of the most ominous information Gale gives us, in my opinion: The experience of how the “Black Weave” rushed into his body is grotesque and painful, and it's meant to cause despair. But that was only the beginning: Gale is everyday dealing with that feeling, but on a bigger scale as its hunger increases with each passing day. The descriptions of his emotions during the artefact scenes adds more despair and anxiety to it. Gale is living in the worst mental state that a person can, but he manages it thanks to his wizard training and the Weave he consumes (he is still alive thanks to Magic, of all things). This shows the mental power of a wizard in DnD. And if you read the post about "Well-known Characters" section: "Elminster", Gale could have been inspired in him since I can see this level of endured torture similar to the one that Elminster was exposed to when he was kidnapped and dragged to the Hells. 

Gale: This Netherese taint.. this orb, for lack of a better word, is balled up inside my chest. And it needs to be fed. As long as it absorbs Weave it remains stable – to an extent. The moment it becomes unstable, however..[...] It will erupt. I don’t know the exact magnitude of the eruption, but given my studies of Netherese magic, I’d say even a fragment as small as the one I carry…. It’d level a city the size of Waterdeep. Dev's Notes: He admits he’s a walking disaster waiting to happen. This is said very seriously. The truth is finally out and he has no idea how the player will react to such monstrous news.” 

Tav: I should godsdamned kill you Gale: Perhaps that is what I deserve, but you deserve no such thing. To kill me is to unleash the orb. I understand your anger, I do […]

Here is where we know that Gale calls it “orb”, but it's not an orb. For more details, read the post about the "Orb". Tav already knew since the Stew scene that Gale could cause a catastrophe without artefacts. In this scene we just get some extra details about it. 

Gale: It is my truth, finally revealed. It is this folly that led Mystra to abandon me completely. I can only hope you won’t abandon me as well. After all we’ve been through.. (After the night we spent together). Surely we can brave even this side by side. Dev's notes: Solemn. Full of yearning his news will not lead to him being abandoned by the player.

And there, Gale's “truth” is “revealed” (not truly, it is only more detailed in the information): We know that the Weave he consumes from the artefacts keeps this condition stable (something we already knew since the Stew Scene) and it will erupt if it doesn't consume artefacts (which is something we knew since the Stew Scene too). So the revelation scene is not so much of a revelation. The whole scene has a writing with a lot of weight in “shocking” revelations and “dramatic” reactions when the context provided shows that there is little to be shocked about, in my opinion. If anything, this whole scene needs serious polishing.

Then it follows the “coercive” part according to some players, which again... it's only Gale hoping this situation doesn't end in a second abandonment. The concept that the “intimacy” of the shared night gives more reasons to stay by his side seems pretty naïve, but maybe that was the intention (thus my suspicion that Gale has no experience at all in relationships, only what he learnt from romantic books). What it's clear is that after the detailed explanation, Gale is desperate to avoid a second abandonment, yet he knows it's unavoidable. This can be seen when Tav doesn't forgive his betrayal (?) of not saying anything about Mystra or the "orb" (he did in the Stew and following scenes, but this context is not acknowledged here), and Gale simply accepts it, showing that Mystra's experience made him learn to accept a no, leaving the party forever (in EA). 

Tav: No. This is too large a betrayal. Gale: I see. I am sorry. I am sorry that it had to come to this. All that’s left to say is farewell. Dev's Notes: A slight hesitation, hurt but understanding. He makes a polite little bow, then we see him walk away.

Really, I don't understand what happened with this scene because it's either ignoring any annoyance that the situation can cause on a Tav who didn't push Gale to talk, or it offers an over-reaction when all the information has been shared already, at least in a very generalised way during the Stew Scene. A Tav who doesn't push Gale to speak will have no more details than the ones provided during the Stew Scene at this point in the game, but one who pushed Gale will basically have the whole story covered. The Rpg-options we get here are so white-and-black, and not even coherent with the context, no wonder so many players turned Gale into a “mastermind in manipulation”. This scene is very unpolished in my opinion.

Tav: Gale, are you still in love with Mystra? Gale: I’ll be honest with you; I don’t know. She is my muse still, the embodiment of magic, but the embodiment of love? Only if we ever meet again will I know

Here we have once more confirmation that Gale questions what kind of love he has for Mystra. Considering all the context he gave us previously, it seems that his love for his Goddess as a devotee will never cease, but romantic love is a big question for him. He has given Tav all the hints to make them suspect that Gale probably never knew romantic love outside his experience with Mystra or what he could read in books.

Tav: What would permanently rid you of the orb? Gale: The orb was kept safe and inert in a pocket of Astral Plane, suspended in time. If I can somehow manage to expel it from my body while in the Astral Plane, it will be rendered inert again. Alternatively, I could learn to control it’s chaotic magic, that is; to succeed where I failed before. But without Mystra’s favour, I don’t see how that may come to pass. Of course there could be different answers as well. Faerûn brims with more magic than any one wizard could fathom, let alone comprehend. Who knows what outlandish solutions may yet present themselves?

The last bits of information are more interesting: Gale thought of two possible solutions to solve his “orb”problem. One is to expel the object out of his body in the Astral Plane where time doesn't exist so its hunger or ticking mechanism stops, so the magic will remain inert. The other option is to control Netherese magic. He informed Tav that he already tried this option, so it's clear that Gale's intention when obtaining this book was to master this strange piece of Weave and give the secrets of that control to Mystra. But he failed.

Summary of the post:

There is an important emphasis in acceptance: only through acceptance Gale can open up to share the details of his mistake. He wants to have this night before any confession because he wants to acquire this acceptance that, in his mind, would prevent the abandonment he viscerally fears.

In all the scenes there are many hints suggesting Gale is very inexperienced in relationships: the acceptance he needs can only be acquired due to the "art of the night'', which is one of the main points in this book. His notions related to relationships seem to have been acquired via romanticised means: books and poetry. He may believe that intimacy guarantees acceptance.

Gale “reveals” his truth: he was a Chosen of Mystra, he was Mystra's lover, and the “orb” problem was a mistake he made to earn Mystra's attention. All this information is now detailed here when it had been shared already. There is little “revelation” in it.

Gale's actions can be interpreted as manipulative for a Tav who respects his privacy and has little information about the “orb”. But hardly the pattern extends to his behaviour. His need for acceptance makes him make bad decisions.

A Tav who pushed Gale to speak in previous scenes finds little new information in this one: they will have a more detailed picture of the situation and they will know that Gale and Mystra were lovers.

Gale is very aware that Mystra's love was not exactly love, but it felt like that when he was young. He also knows that the true power of a Chosen is related to being loved by her. He is also aware that a relationship with a goddess is a very unbalanced one. He states that Mystra was his first love, the affair happened when he was a (very) young man, and he thought it would last forever. 

Potent narrative image: Gale, a proud character with great confidence, kneels before Tav to humbly show the traumatic experience by placing his hand on his heart, where the “orb”resides.

In general, the whole tone of the scene jumps constantly in my opinion. Tav's options are not toned to the general atmosphere of the scene: or they ignore completely the value of what Gale says, or over-react magnifying information as if it were the first time Gale says it, when a lot of it was shared during the Stew Scene and following scenes. It feels like a very unpolished scene, probably as the result of Gale being a companion added to the EA in a rush.

The Dev's notes explain the whole situation as: 

Dev's notes: synopsis: The principal portion of this dialog consists of two main parts: a romantic night intro that leads to a fade to black and implied intimacy, and a section in which Gale tells you his true story in either of two ways (chosen by the player). These are the ‘story’ variant in third person, and the slimmed down ‘story-light’ version in first person. It is the story of how he fell in love with the goddess Mystra, was spurned by her after a brief affair, and how he got himself into big trouble when trying to win her back. The dialog was originally meant to contain only the above, but for recording and cinematic purposes, the story sections of it are also used in a variety of other ways, that is to say, the dialog also contains an intro section in which the scene begins with no romantic intent. In specific cases though, Gale will still try his luck, which you’ll see in the repeat of some lines of an earlier dialog. 

This shows that, so far, the intention was always to make Gale explain the “true story” in this scene, which was the one we were told. I think that expecting more secrets would water down this intention here. In any case, the future secrets, if there are some left, may be secret even for Gale himself.

This post was written in June 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

[hiddengills]

                                   𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐓

                                      𝘙𝘌𝘗𝘖𝘚𝘛 - 𝘗𝘓𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘌 𝘋𝘖 𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘙𝘌𝘉𝘓𝘖𝘎

𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒

FULL NAME:  Remy Garrett Watson NICKNAME / ALIAS: Rem, Fish Boy, Flounder, Nemo, Water Boy GENDER: Male HEIGHT: 5′11 AGE:  Late 20s-30 ZODIAC: Aquarius LANGUAGES: English, French, ASL, sealife 

𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒

HAIR COLOR: Black EYE COLOR: Brown, can turn blue when using powers  SKIN TONE: Olive  BODY TYPE: Athletic, but slim. Muscles are more toned than bulky, no real definition in abs.  ACCENT: Wisconsin accent applied to Jesse Rath’s voice.   VOICE: Softer  but deep DOMINANT HAND: Left POSTURE: He has a very relaxed posture, but will tend to tense up more if he’s speaking and his speech impediment gets bad.  SCARS: Lichtenberg figure on his left pec that spreads to his shoulder and then to the back shoulder blade due to him being impaled in that area with a lightning infused object, shark bite scar on his lower leg from a shark that was a bit TOO playful with him back in the day, a sword slash against his right rib side from one of his Many fights he had to endue. TATTOOS: Fin tattoos on his outer lower arms, a quote from Moana on his back, an Atlantean symbol on his left bicep.  BIRTHMARKS: a dolphin shaped one on the center of his chest MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S): hair that always manages to look perfect no matter how wet/damp it gets, dolphin shaped birthmark,, hands and feet that become webbed when his body is submerged in water, gills that also form at his neck with his entire body is underwater, eyes will become more fishlike as well, also he can protrude a dorsal fin on his back willingly when underwater. 

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃

PLACE OF BIRTH: Kenosha, Wisconsin HOMETOWN: Kenosha, WI BIRTH WEIGHT: 7.11 lbs BIRTH HEIGHT: 20″ MANNER OF BIRTH: Remy was born essentially as a test, to see if it was even possible for his alien father to reproduce with his human mother (His alien race has never/has forbidden human/alien births). He was born via C section to his birth mom but then given up for adoption to his aunts.  FIRST WORD(S): Auntie, Tante, Cake  SIBLINGS: Yukiko Yamaguchi (Adopted sister) PARENTS:Fuck them PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT: Remy’s only seen his birth parents on 5 separate times throughout his entire life, it’s to the point where he greets them by their names, and not by Mom or Dad. Remy’s parents are and always will be his Aunts. 

𝐀𝐃𝐔𝐋𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄

OCCUPATION: Marine Biologist that specializes in dolphins and other porpoise species, and Aquarium caretaker.  CURRENT RESIDENCE: Kenosha, WI (Verse Dependent) CLOSE FRIENDS: Zofia Ackermann, Yukiko Yamaguchi, Leon Murah,  RELATIONSHIP STATUS: In a long term (10+ years) relationship with Zofia Ackermann ( @naturemarked​ ) in main verse, but other wise verse dependent,  FINANCIAL STATUS: Stable, slightly above middle class. DRIVER’S LICENSE: Yes - obtained at 16, but doesn’t drive.  CRIMINAL RECORD: None VICES: Biting his nails, chewing on his lip,and being stubborn. 

𝐒𝐄𝐗 / 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Pansexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:Panromantic  PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE: Submissive | Dominant | SWITCH PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE: Submissive | Dominant | SWITCH (Sub with women, dom with men) LIBIDO: He has one, but he’s rarely the initiator.  TURN ONS: physical affection, terms of endearment, strong communication, humor, kindness TURN OFFS: Poor hygiene, lack of respect for boundaries, poor communication LOVE LANGUAGE: Acts of affection, healthy communication.  RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES: Remy’s into monogamous relationships but was never opposed to trying something poly. He’s a giver in the relationship when it comes to terms of endearment and just making the person feel loved and special. He’ll always reciprocate physical affection, but rarely initiates PDA. 

𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐒

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG: The Greatest - Sia  HOBBIES TO PASS TIME: Baking, building/collecting Legos, Disney, reading.  MENTAL ILLNESSES: ADHD, Anxiety, speech impediment/stutter.  PHYSICAL ILLNESSES: None LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED: Mostly right-brained but has left brained tendencies, too.  PHOBIAS: Lightning/Thunderstorms is the big one for him, but lightning in particular due to him being water-based and being severely injured by it as a kid. He will actually go as far as being paralyzed with fear if he’s triggered enough. Ironic as it is, he does still subconsciously have a fear of drowning due to being thrown into a lake before his powers developed (and he still hadn’t learned how to swim), and fears of losing the one’s he’s closest to. SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL: It depends on his situation; if he’s involved water in any way, shape or form, his confidence is at its highest, when he’s doing anything with his hobbies, he’s fairly confident, but always telling himself he can do better, his speech impediment will always knock his confidence down though, depending on the situation-more around strangers/people he’s trying to impress rather than loved ones.  VULNERABILITIES:  His speech impediment, Zofia, his family. 

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘: the beautiful  @saraqxeen 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆: YOU, just tag me in it so I can read it. 

[goodmccarty96-blog]

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[axiomabstractions]

The Progression of My Relationship With Women

For as long as I can remember, I have always struggled psychologically with my lack of success connecting with females. I do think it’s important to note that I had difficulty forming connections in general from a very young age. The main contributing factor to this difficulty, I believe, was what I learned to identify with as a child. For a lot of complicated reasons, not particularly relevant to describe here in detail, my sense of personal identity as a child was built up around the notion of my own intelligence being superior to that of my peers, specifically those peers who treated me in ways I did not appreciate. This aspect of my identity persisted as the focal point for my interaction with the world, mostly unchallenged, until I was about 18 years old.

I had my first and only girlfriend for a couple of months during high school. When I first met her, during summer school of 2010, I thought she was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. I wanted her. I didn’t want to get to know her for who she really was, I didn’t want to participate in a mutual exchange of friendship, support, and knowledge with her. I only sought to gain from my interaction with her, never to give. I wanted her to be mine. In hindsight, I do believe this had been my general attitude toward interacting with females for my entire life. I think females have a strong intuition to see through these sorts of things, which could very likely account for the fact that she was utterly disinterested in me for the entirety of summer school, as every other girl I’d ever been interested in had been. I was unavoidably frustrated by this, to the point of even muttering the phrase “bitches are stupid,” one evening while we were hanging out in one of the commons areas. Yeah, I know.

Motivated by this all too familiar sense of frustration, when I returned home from summer school (I was attending a residential high school at the time), I decided to spend the rest of the summer researching how to convince a girl to like me. What this amounted to was me filling my head with manipulative pick up tactics, tactics and methods intended to coerce women into engaging more substantially with men who aimed only to gain something. I studied a lot. I learned a lot. Not much of what I learned was good, but it was effective. When I returned to school in the fall, I began employing these tactics. Within a few months, I’d manage to convince her to be my girlfriend. I should note here that I did not aim to manipulate, I simply aimed to win at getting what I wanted, and was too young to understand how misguided the things I was learning were. However, the result was the same.

So I got what I wanted, and my work was done, right? Wrong. Again, I was too naïve to know better, but I hadn’t even thought of what It meant to be in a relationship with a woman, want it meant to contribute meaningfully to her experience. After all, this had not been the essence of my intention. I wanted to win her for my own benefit alone. I wanted to feel good knowing that a beautiful woman wanted me, and was willing to share herself earnestly with me. It didn’t take her very long to see through the façade I was unaware I was putting on. It didn’t take her long to realize I was not adding any real, substantial value to her experience. I thought I’d changed into someone who was now magically attractive to women. I had won the game. This is why things only lasted a couple of months.

She expressed to me, towards the end of our short relationship, that she felt I didn’t care about her. She felt I wasn’t doing the small things anymore that had shown her I appreciated her. I think this sentiment was expressed for a couple of weeks, before I realized I would lose her if I failed to change. I didn’t want to lose her, because having her made me feel good about myself. I did love her in my own selfish way. I wanted to keep her for what she provided to me. So, one night, I sent her a very long text message detailing how much I cared about her and about fixing things. This was when T9 prediction was still a thing. The message was 14 pages, which, if you’re old enough to remember what T9 prediction was, was a long ass message. I poured my heart and soul into that message to her, or so I believed at the time. The only problem was, at that age, I was unable to see myself and my intentions for what they truly were. Though my subconscious intentions were misguided, consciously I really did want to make things work, and I was willing to do whatever it took to keep her.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be for us. The next day, she plainly told me in the school hall that she did not believe me. This, for me, was crushing, as trust was one of the most important things to me in our relationship, in any romantic relationship. I pretty much held trust as the highest value, and I had always been honest with her. The problem was, I could not see myself well enough at the time to be honest with myself about who I was and what I was motivated by. I processed her disbelief in my intentions for a few hours, then I broke up with her via text message. I had been convinced by 4 words that things could no longer work out between us… “I don’t believe you.”

I think she really wanted to believe me. I think her statement of disbelief was a test, a test that I failed. Had I truly been resolved, for unselfish reasons, to make things work as I had said the night before, whether or not she believed what I told her would not have shaken that resolve. I would have made things work anyway. I would have shown her. I did not. I showed her that exactly what she had suspected intuitively was indeed true. I was not committed to her the way I had led her to believe I was. I was only committed to protecting my ego. This was crushing for her, I believe because she actually had placed a very high degree of trust and faith in me, and I utterly let her down. I not only shattered her trust in me, I most likely made it more difficult for her to genuinely trust men again. I gave her cold, hard evidence that men were manipulative pigs, only devoted to the process of self-validation. I’m sure she’s gotten over it by this point.

Still in all, the result of this for me was I only saw one way in which I was able to dependably please women. That way was through sex. Learning to please a woman sexually was really not that hard compared to the task of learning how to please them emotionally and spiritually. It’s been over 11 years since I’ve had a girlfriend, and I think I’m just starting to really figure it out. However, in the time between then and now, my self-validating behavior continued, and in many ways only got worse. See, just as I had broken her trust in men, she also did break my trust in women a bit. For different reasons, but I’m aiming to address how I was affected by this experience, not whether I was in the right or in the wrong.

In the years following, I believe I sought to validate my own value by reaffirming my ability to please women sexually. Of course, this was not a conscious process. I, as many of us tend to do, was simply responding to the biological reward systems put in place by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. What I really always wanted was something substantial and true through my socialization with women. I wanted a woman who truly cared for and about me. Someone I could love and pour my heart and soul into, form a meaningful bond with, and possibly spend my life with. This is what I’ve always wanted, it’s just my strategies for obtaining this have always been misguided.

Mostly, I believe I was still seeking a woman who would add value and validation to my life. I still hadn’t reached the point where I wanted to give. As I stated earlier, I believe women have a natural intuition about these things. As you may have gathered by now, I was unsuccessful in finding anything substantial though this process. I became increasingly frustrated with my inability to do so over the years, and participated in countless fleeting sexual interactions with the women I came into contact with. This was the only form of validation I was ever able to acquire from them, so it’s what I defaulted to.

That shit got old after some years, and actually it was never spiritually satisfying for me. I don’t think it’s spiritually satisfying for anyone, but many people still participate in this behavior because they haven’t been taught how to provide value to others first. This manipulative, validation seeking behavior is highly prevalent among American men, which is something women have become increasingly vocal about and frustrated with in recent years. I think they’ve always been frustrated with it, but never quite figured out how to nurture and raise better men. They have definitely become more vocal though, and we should start listening to them, because I see many women beginning to default to the same types of manipulative, validation seeking behaviors. This isn’t good for any of us. It’s not good for the ethos of our society.

All this being said, I’ve struggled through a lot and grown a lot over the past two years. I truly believe I’ve grown more spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically since June 2019 than I did in the 25 ½ years prior. However, my level of success forming connections with women has remained largely unchanged. I have some guesses about why I haven’t become any more successful. A lot of that has to do with the environments I’m choosing to place myself within.

I’ve been using dating apps for several years now, probably since I was about 19. I’m now 27. I was reasonably successful in my use of dating apps until about two years ago. Now, I’ve become more and more motivated to forfeit them as part of my toolkit. As I’ve evolved, and seen through the errors of my past, my standards for my own behavior and for the behavior of women I view as dating prospects have only increased. I know I have a lot of value to give, and am committed to the process of giving everything I possibly can to benefit others. This includes my commitment to my relationships with women, and providing whatever value I can to them by default. So I’m in this place now where I feel I need to start making better choices about the environment I’m providing myself in my quest to establish meaningful connections with women, platonic or otherwise (it will probably come as little or no surprise to most of you that I have very few female friends in my life).

Dating apps have consistently proven to be unfit environments for my pursuit of female companionship, more and more so these past two years. Now, I’m in a place where I seek better, more wholesome avenues to participate in this pursuit. I’m thinking about hiring a dating coach, this will be an introduction for her into the beast she’s dealing with lol. Hopefully, If I approach this mindfully and honestly, she’ll be able to help me produce a more full and abundant social life for myself in the coming months. Cheers!

[felixfogx854-blog]

10 Nuevas Empresas Que Cambiarán La Industria Donde Viven Las Cebras Para Mejorar

Activate the Tv, Verify Fb, Appraise an advert in print or on line and there's a superior option you'll see a celeb endorsing a product. This very common advertising and marketing exercise has existed for decades and it's only picked up way more traction from the current social networking pushed surroundings. Raise to our custom's fascination with superstars along with their lives, social networking advertising has enabled A lot of people to connect and sustain with their favored celebs daily. Among Fb, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and quite a few other social networking promoting networks, a celeb now has rapid entry to hundreds, Otherwise 1000's and countless numbers, of supporters to share factors with regards for their life, in addition to to publicize by themselves, their beliefs, and Additionally products and solutions and firms.

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Nevertheless For the majority of firms, On the subject of applying celeb endorsements, there stays being a misunderstanding that It may be too high priced to justify or just not inside of their value range. Though This will be regarded as actual again in the 80s, 90s, and with the entire early 2000s, in the latest situations it could Cost a good deal a lot less (dependant upon the celeb) than what some small enterprises commit on Shell out For each and every Basically click on (PPC) strategies in some months or even a billboard in Boston for 4 months. Whilst just about every company is different, and promoting targets differ based mostly upon features, For a great deal of, In particular Men and women advertising an product, It is at least really worth thinking about if a star endorsement is suitable for them.

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In addition to keeping inexpensive, celeb endorsements via social media marketing networks have a slew of Added benefits around frequent social Web-sites advertising and marketing. Firstly is reach. You will discover a great likelihood that the celeb you obtain to endorse your goods or small business has a great deal more followers than your business. With the individuals accustomed to Fb, we realize that Anytime we come up with a publish, it wouldn't get to our total community but alternatively right into a proportion, at least devoid of shelling out to "Strengthen" the place up. When most pays to your "Fortify" in approaches involving celeb endorsements, you are still heading to reach A much bigger variety of people In almost any circumstance.

Now what about the people you are likely to attain? They can be men and women actively subsequent the Film star, so that they are literally listening to what on the planet is turning out to be posted. It isn't really like an advert in to the side in their posts, this is a component from the posts they produce, which will get it ideal before their followers, a great deal of whom who just just take sights over the celebs they adjust to into consideration when making conclusions. This is often why movie star endorsements for large companies, politics, and undoubtedly charities are by now frequent for quite some time.

There remain other factors just one unique really should actually get Be aware of when picking the right movie star to endorse their enterprise or products. When cost might be a thing to consider most will promptly give believed to, there is another thing a great deal more crucial for accomplishment. Getting a million followers is great, but just after conversing with Bob Cefail (proprietor of CshopTV), I have learned you will find 3 crucial aspects to contemplate.

The very first thing to look at, can be the Film star the suitable in excellent form in your merchandise and is particularly your Resolution The best match on your celeb? You don't promote diamond necklaces inside a golfing equipment retail retail store, Also you don't have a younger female celeb endorsing Adult males's healthcare items on social Web sites. Once i pointed out goods and services endorsement with Bob Cefail I had been defined to, "You would like a product the celeb would essentially use. Their followers need to learn about them so a product they'd use is interesting. If It can be a thing that just appears like It really is just straight up marketing a product it loses its impact on the viewers."

The 2nd, are these followers your demographic? If a celeb has five million followers, there'll a lot more than likely be at the least some that match the demographic that you are wanting to get, nevertheless, if it is not a sizable share in their group it might be best to rethink the Film star you have to use. This may be the standard variables You have got to ponder in all kinds of marketing, but with superstar endorsements on social networking internet marketing you will get genuinely amazing figures up entrance To help you make the ideal conclusion for your company.

Lastly, And maybe Probably the most import, is How can this celebrity communicate with their followers? There are several which make compulsory posts to keep their existence on social Internet websites, but then there are literally Persons that really function to develop a partnership with their followers by the use of social networking. Becoming a lover with the CW's "Arrow", donde vive yuya- donde-vive.com I would be amiss if I did not point out that Stephen Amell is a superb illustration of acquiring romantic relationship with followers by means of social media. He host's Reside Q&As, often updates about a number of things which are very important to him but On top of that has Regular existence updates and allows make goody posts. He responses opinions, posts films Along with the listing of the demonstrate and while out on Convention excursions. Followers of Stephen Amell (and many of the other many CW shows casts) are genuinely engaged and keen about what is actually coming long run. Once i used discussed this with Bob Cefail he well-informed me, "There is nothing significantly better than an actively engaged movie star. You see that their followers knowledge they can in fact relate about the Film star as an day to day person on some amounts and not merely somebody they see In the limelight."

Despite the fact that movie star endorsements By means of social media marketing advertising and marketing networks may not be for everybody, It really is anything which any organization can examine and Check out the varied options available.

If your Group need to ponder working with the power of superstar endorsements in social media marketing advertising promoting, be sure to give thought to achieving out to Bob Cefail and also the staff at CShopTV for responses to any queries you may have about acquiring movie star endorsements and for finding the celebrity which can be best for you.

Regarding the Bob Cefail: Bob Cefail is surely an entrepreneur that I have labored with for that previous twelve a very long time, who early on regarded the necessity to be fluid in his method of advertising and marketing and advertising and marketing to be able to keep up Along with the Anytime shifting technological innovation Every organizations and clients have entry to. Considered one of Bob's major strengths is how he seeks out new platforms for Online promoting and speedy experiments to determine the simplest utilization of such for his shoppers. For the preceding five yrs, on account of his organization CShopTV, he has worked with A good number of firms to consult with and oversee Film star endorsement approaches through social Internet sites, television, radio, and in person appearances at occasions.