#meta process

[anistarrae]

haii👋

[neo--queen--serenity]

Lena losing her patience and furiously berating Gwen for potentially endangering the staff members of the OAIR is quite literally the opposite of how Elias ran the Archives.

Elias used the Archival staff—as well as his Archivist—as pawns that can be readily replaced as needed. His patron offered them minimal protections at best (the Archivist’s privileges notwithstanding), and even then, he would never actually intervene to save any of them if they were in danger, much less take precautions to protect them at their headquarters. They are used as bait, as sacrifices, as currency, as objects. The listener knows, eventually, how easily he could discard them if his plans called for it.

But Lena. This episode showed us that Lena keeps her entire organization running through keeping her subordinates hidden, safe, and unnoticed by the Externals. It’s quite clear through her conversation with Gwen that such a safety risk has never happened before.

As far as we know, Lena has successfully kept all of her employees alive, watched them come and go, bemoaned the turnover rate, and then got them to look the other way while they documented and dutifully filed the horrors.

But most impressive of all, she’s kept her real work hidden from her subordinates, and her subordinates hidden from her real work—a feat Elias had no interest or desire to accomplish.

[empty-movement]

Prolific animator Yoshihiko Umakoshi (馬越嘉彦) is best known for his work in shonen anime like My Hero Academia, however he also worked on several episodes of Kunihiko Ikuhara's 2011 Mawaru Penguindrum. During this time, he gave us this Revolutionary Girl Utena piece, itself a bonus purchase privilege poster at Mandarake stores for the purchase of Monthly Anime Style (月刊アニメスタイル) magazine, Vol 5.

It was first published as the full-color feature of the Hardcore of Utena's Supplement booklet in 2013. The Hardcore of Utena is a massive, two volume artbook released at Comiket 84, where you could receive this booklet with the purchase of the larger volumes. Mostly miscellaneous sketch art that features elsewhere, I nevertheless had it scanned already and felt like, hell, let's just finish it and get up there for you! So here are the scans of the 44 page booklet, or if you want the even larger versions, or a download of the lot, I also uploaded it to the Internet Archive! That's gonna be a pattern, y'all. ;)

[vaguely-concerned]

My two cents on how much of Mind!Varric is Rook’s mind trying to fill the blank space and how much is Solas actively talking through a convenient blood magic paper doll of the mind: I think it's a mix of both, a truly collaborative psychosocial horrorshow if you would, but waaaay more towards the second. It feels too directed and tactical at times to be anything else. Rook's mind is willing to go along with the denial phase as far as it can fucking carry them to not have to face the grief and regret and does its part in papering over details that don’t make any sense, the way brains will strive to create coherent meaning even out of deeply confusing input, but to my understanding it's a collaborateur in how that plays out, not the instigator or control center. Solas is using it as a path to agency and to gather insight into Rook as a person unguarded as he can't count on in his own guise. (That stoic option that leads to him being like 'oh I see you're cautiously denying me access to your inner life. well. at least you still have Varric to talk to. y'know as an outlet :)'. You absolute BITCH Solas! That alone convinced me that he HAS to have an active hand in it on some level.)

My guess is that it takes considerable effort on Solas’ part to make Mind!Varric do anything more involved or complicated than seeming to sit up in bed and give casual commentary, and that’s why he keeps having eerie five minute shallow pep talks with you before he announces he conveniently needs a nap aaanyway good luck kid you got this haha. When he’s just spouting NPC lines from his bedrest, I’m ready to believe that could be Rook’s mind being allowed to improv lines for him more freely because it’s less about Solas trying to get something out of them or working an angle and more ‘Still here! Still totally alive and fine and the mentor figure you know and love and trust :) don’t even worry about it! Thankfully there is no war in Ba Sing Sei, as we all know’ upkeep work lol. Rook’s mind is allowed to set the tone of Varric, the outlines, but not always the content. 

AND, on a (beautifully fucked up) character psychology level, I feel like Solas is indulging in actually getting to be the good supportive mentor figure to Rook with one hand to assuage the guilt he feels about what he's done -- and what he's going to do -- to them with the other. Same internal logic as he uses in Trespasser about the Qun. ‘Almost everyone is going to die from the course of action I’m doggedly pursuing eventually. But at least I can make their last years happier and freer and kinder than they would have been otherwise. and that kind of makes up for it right. a little bit. doesn't it. doesn't that make it better at least. I need that to make it better)'. Did I really take your beloved mentor and friend from you if you don’t know yet that I did? Some philosophers would argue not really! So it’s probably almost ok actually. Isn’t it even a little noble that I’m taking all this grief and guilt on myself and shielding you for now. With undertones that I’m not sure he would realize himself (and might be mortified by if he did) that he is so incredibly lonely, and even a dishonest and indirect emotional connection is more than nothing when you’re that desperate. In this setup he gets idk. Both the control he craves so incredibly badly in relationships and over himself, and the scraps, the fading afterimages, of intimacy and warmth and companionship, even second hand. The one thing Solas and Rook agree on deep deep down is that they really wish Varric weren't gone. They're handshake memeing this in the saddest and most creepy way possible.

I think an important element too is that Solas needs Rook and their team to *succeed* —�� up to a certain point. He needs someone to hold the two other elven mean girls off until he can get out of here. Ideally, in a perfect world, even do all the hard work of killing them so he can swoop in at the end and do his thing when both sides are exhausted and out of resources to stop him, and then Bob’s your uncle! Same logic as he was using with Corypheus, and after that worked out so well, too! King of choosing to never learn from a single solitary mistake he’s ever made even though i fully believe he could have the capacity to Fen’Harel <3 The underlying idea isn’t flawed, you see, it was just unforeseen circumstances getting in the way. This time for sure it’ll all work out the way I cleverly imagined it in my head beforehand. Cue By Talos this can’t be happening etc. in the form of a statue almost crushing him like a bug. 

So he's providing guidance and forging Rook into a leader from two angles: one Rook might not trust, and one they probably will. Shaping them into what he needs slowly and carefully. He’s helping you hone your team into their most effective state, as he might have done with his own agents back in the day, setting up his chess pieces even if he has to squint through two glimpsed realities to do it haha. Pincer maneuver of an insidious stealth mentor you never asked for. Also… at one point mind Varric gives you a whole little monologue about how Solas' problem is that he’s always seen his interpersonal connections as flaws and see where it’s landed him, all alone and the worst part? it hasn’t even worked. it’s all been for nothing he’s back where he began with nothing to show for it but his mistakes. Like...that has such strong 'uh okay happy to play your therapist from two rooms away here what the fuck kind of traumadump is this' energy to me, I’m not sure Rook like. Thinks that much about Solas as a private person. So much of Solas' self-loathing and futile insights into his own flaws seem to shine through in Mind!Varric's dialogue all the time — I just can't believe that there's no guiding hand behind it as it were. 

Most of all. I feel like people underestimate the degree to which Solas is incredibly funny. As in, he has a very consistent and recognizable sense of humour. It’s one of my very favourite things about him. We must remember — it is crucial that we always keep in mind — Orlesian accent and wig Solas from May The Dread Wolf Take You (my beloved, the explanation for why I love this dude even with the. All of the everything else. No one does it quite like him). He is not at all above doing things or adding little flourishes for his own obscure amusement, in fact that seems to me to be one of his most consistent traits. The Randy Dowager Quarterly comment Varric has? The ‘Maybe this is the Dread Wolf’s revenge. Forcing us to house sit for him’ thing? To Me this is 100% Solas amusing himself in his boring Fade jail surrounded by the screaming hellscape of all his regrets. Source: it came to me as divine revelation through pure vibes trust me bro 

If nothing else I find it much more narratively interesting personally if the connection between Rook and Solas really is that defenselessly intimate and entwined (and so unbalanced!), and the sense of violation and invasion and betrayal afterwards consequently all the more nauseatingly intense. Even if you kept him at arm’s length in the open, he’s been under your skin the whole time, looking around, gathering what he needs to destroy you, wearing the face of a friend. Regretfully, probably, but choosing to do it every step of the way anyway. (Sound familiar, Inquisitor? Solas doesn’t have that many tricks when you actually look at it, he keeps returning to old tried and true ones like a dog with a bone haha.) Maybe he even genuinely meant some of it as mercy, which only makes it so much worse. It makes his sin against his own core principles of autonomy and the freedom of all beings in mind, spirit and body so much more juicily grave if it’s something he pursues actively and consistently, rather than it half-falling into his lap as a happy accident mainly orchestrated by Rook’s own subconscious. Solas, too, is at his very lowest point, the closest to giving in and becoming his own antithesis fully that he’s ever been, and it makes the choice of whether you still reach out your hand to him one last time or not all the more impactful and difficult.

[mollysunder]

I don't think we've ever thoroughly unpacked how messed up the way Heimerdinger "comforted" Viktor. The only thing that Heimerdinger could really say is that the "brightest stars burn the fastest", but that's not what's going on here.

Viktor's dying from an unnatural cause!!! He's been poisoned by gas from the mines Piltover excavated in Zaun. This isn't a tragedy caused by random chance, Viktor's condition was done to him by Piltover, by Heimerdinger!

Heimerdinger is essentially comforting his own victim, and he tells Viktor that his death is just the way things are, as if there's no responsible parties involved except fate itself. I wonder if Viktor thought about this himself while Heimerdinger was talking to him. What a truly genuinely awful moment for him to sit through.

[gg-ladybug]

On today’s episode, I have now realised the power that comes from using duos / ships for these memes. I’m evolving with every post.

Alastor: (Part 1)

Lucifer: (Part 2)

Random Groups / Duos / Ships: (Part 3 - Here) (Part 7)

Charlie: (Part 4)

Adam: (Part 5)

Angel Dust: (Part 6)

[ladyantiheroine]

I see a lot of posts taking about how Elphaba couldn’t believe someone like Fiyero would ever love her (because she’s been told she’s repulsive/unloveable her whole life). Like, why would a handsome prince who could have anyone he wanted chose her, the weird green girl?

But you know what I love even more? If Fiyero can’t believe Elphaba would want him.

Fiyero. Handsome, charming, a literal prince. Admired by all his classmates and landed the school’s it-girl, Galinda. No doubt has a bright future ahead regardless of how many schools he’s kicked out of because he’s at the height of wealth and privilege.

And he’s sulking around campus because he doesn’t think he’s good enough to date the green girl everyone dislikes.

After all, Elphaba is so smart and brave and beautiful despite what others say about her green skin. She doesn’t put on airs or act shallow like the other students do. She’s sharply perceptive, seeing right through him in a way that no else really has. She cares deeply about those in need and has the courage to do something about. She spat in the Wizard’s face, told him he has no real power, and ran off from a tempting offer for a better life in favor of doing what she knew was right. Despite her cold exterior, she’s never outright cruel to others despite how cruel others are to her. And on top of all that, she’s a once in a lifetime talent at sorcery.

She’s extraordinary. Why would she go for a shallow, brainless party boy like him? (He tells himself as she’s singing “I’m Not That Girl” elsewhere in the woods).

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

The current discussion about "a big advantage for the yeerks is that no one knows there's an alien invasion" reminds me of your ficlet that became the first chapter of All Assorted Animorphs AUs; Elfangor meets the team as adults, and they *do* go public about the invasion. It ends poorly. Sorry kids, no clean option here.

The yeerks' need for secrecy and the Animorphs' need for secrecy are not the same, in a really interesting way.

The yeerks need to keep humans as a whole from knowing that mind-controlling alien invaders exist. This means suppressing all knowledge of extraterrestrial everything, even when it means covering up for their enemies.

The Animorphs need to avoid controllers knowing who they are, and don't have a reliable way to know which humans are controllers. This means they have to protect their names and faces at all costs, but would prefer it if humanity did know the yeerks exist.

Like, look at #22 where the controller-cops indirectly protect Jake by inventing reasons a tiger could be unconscious on the floor of a California mall. Or the times the kids win victories over controllers by getting them to act alien in front of civilians (e.g. #12, #35). The yeerks are the ones who have to keep the entire war secret.

By contrast, the kids just have to keep themselves secret. Look at the number of times they straight-up admit they're morphers and not real animals. Sometimes it's around people too remote to be controllers, like Derek (#25) and Yami (#44). Sometimes it's a civilian who just reacted with shock instead of anger to the sight of morphing (e.g. the home cook in #5, the busboy in #35). Sometimes it's even a known controller, just as long as they don't give their names (e.g. the opening of #18, Visser One in #30). They don't even go out of their way to actively maintain the fiction they're andalites — they don't dispel that belief if they can help it, because it's useful, but they're not going to spend a ton of time and energy on it. Just as long as no controllers know that Jake Berenson of 123 Street Road, Townsville, CA, can morph, it doesn't matter what else leaks.

[veinsfullofstars]

🌅 MetaDede Week 2024 Day 5 & 6: AU & Secrets 🌅

(ID: Kirby series fanart comic of a moment in King Dedede and Meta Knight’s youth, when - during a trip to the beach with their friends - the teenaged penguin realizes that he might feel more than just friendship for his little winged buddy. Transcript in Alt Text. END ID.)

Oh.

Previous Day | Next Day | Prompt List (made by @/mtddweek)

Started 08/20/24, finished 08/24/24. | Childhood Friends AU Masterpost

[artbyblastweave]

Funniest thing I've seen recently, and not funny in a ha-ha way, more funny in a "the endless entropic void gnawing at my will to live" way, was somebody asking around for alternatives to Neil Gaiman, in the light of Neil Gaiman's ongoing fall from grace. As though what we're currently sitting through isn't the collapse of the carefully curated "Good Guy Neil" image that caused people to parade Gaiman as the same kind of preferred progressive alternative to, say, Rowling. As though we won't be in the same goddamn situation in a few years or months, with some number of the new progressive sci-fi/fantasy darlings- not all of them, to be clear, but at least some of them- when their impeccably-curated marketing implodes in on itself and they're revealed to be the same kind of sex pest or abuser. Can you not see the wheel to which you are strapped. The game of human pinball you are condemning yourself to with this mindset. Maybe you do see, and you're just resigned to taking it one soul-crushing disappointment at a time, one "I never would have guessed" after another. I mean I think we all need to get resigned to that one way or another, sun's gonna go out before it stops happening

[corvus-frugilegus]

Illario's grab for power is so emotionally complicated I can't stop thinking about it.

Like there's the favouritism and the loneliness and the need for love and connection that I think the title has come to represent. Because favour is maybe as close as the Dellamortes come to talking about love.

(Love is still there, it's fucked up and twisted in a lot of ways but it's there. It's hard for any of the Dellamortes to acknowledge this. But they're family and that means something to all three of them. Family is important to them).

But also for so much of his life Illario hasn't had very much power or agency either. He doesn't get to make big decisions for himself much like Lucanis, he doesn't have a lot of influence on the trajectory of his life because of Caterina's influence. Lucanis is the favourite. In that family dynamic Illario probably has the least power of the three of them.

So taking the reins of his own life and cutting that deal with Zara? The cost of losing Lucanis breaks his heart, but for the first time he's the one deciding the terms in which he lives his life in a big and meaningful way. It's not just small rebellions. It's reaching for what he wants and for once in his life feeling like he's the one in control. He's the one with the power.

And honestly? I can't fault him for wanting that. For not wanting to feel like he's at the bottom of the Dellamorte barrel anymore. For wanting his life to mean something, if only to himself. He isn't wrong to reach for power. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change the imbalance he's lived in.

It's the hubris of it that sets him up to fall into Elgar'nan's hands. Lucanis is back. But Illario can't go back. Illario can't give up what he's sacrificed so much for. Can't go back to being Dellamorte the lesser with no say in his own future. So, of course he doubles down, kidnaps Caterina, and makes a deal with Elgar'nan- the way he sees it he's backed into a corner and has no one but himself. And at this point in the story he's not wrong. He has no idea what Lucanis has become (Other than not dead! Which was the plan!)

It's interesting to me how what I think is Illario's own desire to live on his own terms is... In a very horrible way the thing that ultimately leads to Lucanis also beginning to ask what it means to live on his own terms too.

Having Lucanis killed was heartbreaking and terrible. But it's also the very thing that breaks the cycle the three Dellamortes are living in. Illario is the one who, in a way, decides that what the three of them are doing is unacceptable and starts them on a new path for the first time in roughly 30 years.

Illario having the ambition to reach for what he wants, is what sets both cousins free from a long-standing cycle of abuse. It's just also a profoundly twisted and cruel process.

[tealvenetianmask]

Visual Parallels: The Full Moon and Mastermind

It's mad scientist mode time ya'll.

The visual references to other episodes in Mastermind are wild. People have already beautifully pointed out how the duet sequence references Blitz's "Truth Seekers" hallucination and "Just Look My Way," and makes the two inner worlds mesh.

"The Full Moon" is also heavily referenced. I first noticed it in this shot of Stolas . . .

Which is repeated quite similarly a few times in the trial scene, and looks a lot like . . .

The camera angle (if there were a camera) is pretty much identical.

This made me realize that the whole sequence (the duet and Blitz getting pulled away afterward) has them positioned with Blitz facing Stolas and Stolas's back to Blitz, with a similar distance between them to what we see in "The Full Moon."

And as I rewatched both, I saw more and more.

An attempt by Blitz to touch Stolas, and Stolas not turning around, having already decided his course of action.

(Is anyone noticing a similar color palate yet?)

And a forced exit, based on a decision that Stolas makes:

So this very well might show that Stolas is holding a lot of the power in their relationship. But also, the similar elements in these scenes aren't identical- they simply rhyme.

There are some interesting differences with Blitz's physical expressions of desperation. Even though he's set away from Stolas against a bright red background when he's expressing himself in both.

In "The Full Moon," well . . .

He's guarded. His hands spend a lot of their time in fists. He's moving toward Stolas but not giving all of himself until it's too late.

But in "Mastermind . . .

It's like he's drawn by a magnet to Stolas while being forcibly pulled away. He's fighting the forces that would keep them apart, that would harm Stolas. He's fighting with everything he has. His hands are open the whole time he's fighting. The walls are gone.

Doors are also interesting in their contrast.

In "The Full Moon," we see Blitz bursting into the room like this:

In "Mastermind," the door behind Stolas serves as Blitz's exit point, but the camera angle, again, is very similar . . .

I don't know what to make of this one, honestly, except that these moments seem to reverse each other. I think there COULD be symbolism here (barriers and who creates them), but I'm not sure there's enough evidence that it's intentional like the others.

Now for a few key things "Mastermind" has that "The Full Moon" needed. Our boys weren't ready yet, but now they are.

Obviously the duet . . . but did you notice that their movements synchronize too? They're not looking at each other, but literally and figuratively, they're in tune.

2. Eye contact. FUCKING EYE CONTACT. It's so brief you could miss it.

There's recognition there. They each see that the other feels the same way.

Even though Stolas never turns around, and still has A LOT to learn about Blitz, they meet at the core of the matter. "Harriet, don't get on that train. It's going to London, and I CANNOT BE WITHOUT YOU."

[sacredfixation]

Loki and the violence of physicality.

From the very start, Lokis experience with touch is about power & possession.

As a baby, he is taken from Jotunheim, Not rescued. he is handled like a stolen artifact, a trophy of war.

As a child, touch never seemed much about comfort, it was control. A hand meant to remind him where he stands, what he is allowed to be.

Thor, for all his love, is rough. Playful shoves, dragging Loki by the arm, knocking him over. It is familial, maybe, but it is still forceful.

In Asgard, when he is handled, it is with expectation. Servants dressing him, guards grabbing him, Odin guiding him into place. It is all directional touch movement imposed upon him.

Loki learns, very early, that touch is something that happens to him, not for him. That it is a way to move him into place, to contain him. Even when someone means well, it is still a form of control. Until TVA Loki, rarely has he been touched in a way that feels safe. That feels like choice.

when he falls, touch is punishment.

He is slammed by the Hulk, thrown by the avengers in battle.

Loki is bound when captured, muzzled, handcuffed, paraded.

when Loki grieves, no one really touches him with kindness. When he dies, it is by force: stabbed, choked, crushed.

Touch has only ever been about control, submission, violence, or restraint. So of course, Loki learns to be untouchable. He learns to be slippery, a trick of the light, a flicker. He makes himself untouchable before anyone can reach for him first.

Loki does not naturally touch others. When he does, it is intentional, weaponized, or performative.

Lokis hands hold weapons before they hold people, his illusions and projections: they make him untouchable even when he is standing right there. Romance? seduction? typically a tool. it is all performance.

Loki doesnt just avoid touch he redefines it, because if he is untouchable no one can take anything from him ever again. This is a man who has been handled his whole life, so what does he do? he becomes a man who is impossible to hold.

Loki does not seek comfort through touch, he does so through manipulation, words, through proving he is smarter than you. He does not ask for closeness, he makes himself something interesting, undeniable, that you will come to him.

Until TVA loki, if he touched you, it was to hurt you, to trick you, to control you. He touches to remind people he is now the one in control.

[deancasforcutie]

The Winchesters' underlying plot and unreliable narration of Dean as the new restless spirit, the new angry god (interference from on high) leeching trauma brainworms onto his parents' love story as he can find no happy ending without his beloved (his partner in apotheosis) in it

[vaguely-concerned]

huh. you know something I just consciously put together for the first time about caterina and lucanis' relationship is that through the game we get to hear them talk about each other a lot, but we get very few chances to hear them speak with each other at any length at all. contrast it with other companions whose storylines have elements of 'believed lost/long time no see relative returns!' like bellara and davrin, where we get to see both of them have several pretty in-depth conversations with cyrian and eldrin. hell I think even rook talks with varric longer in the regret prison scene than we ever get to see lucanis and caterina interact directly.

(and when we do see them interact, it's mostly one-sided -- it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, caterina who is doing most of the talking and giving all the orders, as he ruefully observes is her wont after murder of crows. including jumpscaring him with 'you're first talon now btw' and the shocked pikachu face in five acts he goes through in response lmao. perhaps it's more accurate to say that she talks at him and he reacts, than that they talk to each other much.)

it has such an interesting effect too, because in deliberately denying us direct insight or experience and only having this mosaic of description from each of them to go on, as well as forcing us to pay attention to the negative space of what is carefully not said, it's evocative along the same principle that you never actually show the monster in a horror film. if you've read the wigmaker job you have a clearer image of the more uh. worrying elements at play here going in, but there is something fascinatingly insidious and naturalistic in the way it's 'hushed up' in the game itself. she has his complete loyalty both as a member of her house and, more importantly, that of an abused child to a parent figure. he readily admits several times that she's a difficult person to live with, an even more difficult person to be loved by ("even for me. and I was her favourite")... but never once does he actively blame her nor truly conceptualize that he has every right to do so (that he can be angry with her and still love her, because whether he should or not he unavoidably does), or that she might have acted differently than she did, that she made a choice every time to hurt him. even affectionately he speaks of her as a force of nature, an act of god -- something that can't be reasoned or pleaded with or resisted, something you can only hope to navigate with as little pain as possible and pray to survive. let yourself get carried away by the riptide, resisting it will only make it worse. you don't compromise with a hurricane, you just try to find the best shelter you can and cross your fingers while you wait for it to pass and be calm again.

love is that hurricane. you do whatever she asks. you earn her continued affection day by day by never letting her down. you only want the things she tells you it's okay to want and cut everything else away preemptively. ("A wyvern tooth dagger?? I loved wyverns as a boy --Caterina would never let me have one of these, though." and as we have all wept and gnashed our teeth over, it never even OCCURS to him that he's a like thirty-five year old adult man who can buy himself any dagger he wants at any time. she said he couldn't have one. so he'll never have one. that's just how it works. and maybe if Illario could just accept that and find his peace with it like I have, this whole thing wouldn't be so difficult. oh lucanis.)

such is the price -- and the cost -- of being loved by her, it's a loan on which the interest will never stop piling up. you have to keep paying it down in perfection every day if you want to keep it. who got the worse deal there: the grandson who has abandoned everything else in life to live up to that and mostly succeeded, until the day he's so burned out and broken it threatens to no longer be an option, or the grandson who can never seem to scrape together enough worth in her eyes no matter how he begs, borrows or steals it, how he hustles and plays dirty?

one of the worst things that can happen to anyone is to be loved by a selfish god. another one of the worst things that can ever happen to anyone is to not be loved by a selfish god. (hope that helps, boys!) even in betraying everything else, Illario can't bring himself to hurt his grandmother, because that would defeat the whole point. who would he defiantly be proving himself worthy to, without her. in love, devotion, submission, hatred, frustration, bitterness, everything is defined in relation to her, you can spot the gravitational force of it through how the dellamorte family move through time and space. she -- her love and regard and attention -- is still the sun both of their worlds orbit around, even as adults. the game might never tell you outright 'she used to beat and starve them growing up. for their own good you see, so they'd be strong (and broken down enough for her to build them up again however she wanted but I'm sure that's incidental)', but if you know even a little bit about how these dynamics can work the writing is on the wall everywhere you look and all the more unsettling for it.

follow lucanis' freeze-logic and fraught interpersonal catch 22 irreconcilable mixed emotions problems back far enough, looong before the ossuary entered the picture, and you start to see caterina's ghost around every fucking corner. she is so proud of him. (well, she would be. she made him. she forged exactly the knife she needed and it rests willingly, devotedly, in her hands, it would return to her every time because it doesn't know love as anything but to be a knife. his tama never taught him how to be anything else. his biggest fear with her is that she won't even want him back, the way he is now.) to the best ability of her soul, whatever parts of it survived a lifetime of crow politics and 'five children, eight grandchildren, only Illario and me left now', I think she really does loves him. he certainly loves her, with all the sincerity and artless desperation of a child, of the little boy he was once. and what she's done to him (and to illario, for all his shitty gremlin scar-ass antics lol) is awful. the harm is real, and the love is real, and trying to find a way for these two truths to exist in the same space is driving all three of them their own individualized forms of insane. you know. the way only family can and so often does lol.

through implications and short glimpses and having to put the pieces together yourself, you can have the feeling that there is very genuine mutual love and attachment in this relationship... and that beneath that there is something so profoundly wrong. and the sneaking '...oh shit it gets worse the longer I think about it' horror of that is more effective for me at least than the stark in-your-face presentation of the facts of the matter could have been. the love is here. the love is here. it only ever makes it worse.

[dduane]

Process for the new DEEP WIZARDRY International Edition cover

(rolls up sleeves) Right. Writing work (and recurring health issues) have repeatedly pushed these pieces of work to one side for the last year and a half. Time to take a brief break from ongoing work in other universes to rectify that.

Here's the template that I'm building on: the international edition cover for So You Want To Be A Wizard. (Available only outside North America, if you're wondering what makes it international. These paperbacks use the New Millennium Edition texts—except for the international edition of Games Wizards Play [when it comes out later this year], which was written to fit into the NME timeline to begin with, and will go into its international editions with that text.)

The cover concept's straightforward. Relatively dark, desaturated backgrounds: one glowy (or somewhat glowy) thing in the foreground, in a color that pops, or in lighting that makes it stand out.

For Deep Wizardry, things get slightly complicated by the fact that so much business happens underwater. But there are some things we can work with there. A scene in which two pivotal characters square off seems like a fair bet.

So: background first. Underwater lighting...

The sea floor: sand.

Sunlight from above the water.

But naturally that's not how the bottom would look, because there are ripples on the surface...

And naturally the sea bottom isn't going to be featureless, so we need some weeds and rocks.

The distribution's not ideal on these, but that comes under "fine tuning." That can happen over the weekend.

Now for the main attractions. Nita...

...and Ed. (ETA: There are some scale issues here. Properly speaking, Ed'rashtekaresket is significantly bigger, in comparison with Nita, than he's being framed in this shot. But Nita had to be big enough to actually show on the cover... So some liberties inevitably get taken.)

Now, while this is all promising enough so far, there's a bit of a problem. Nita's not terribly visible at this point. So, time to engage in some visual jiggerypokery that will both help with that problem and do something to hint at the connection between these two.

IIRC, Nita was wearing a wizardly forcefield in this scene to provide her with air and other necessities. So let's exploit that.

In the render, I can apply to her figure what in Daz Studio parlance is called a "geoshell": a kind of skintight digital overskin to which special effects can be applied: such as light emission. (And Nita's hair will get one too.) Since everything else in the scene is cool-colored, this light is going to need to be warmer, in (at the very least) a golden range. (Or rosy. May be playing with that for a bit.)

...But obviously we can't leave her looking like that. So what I get to do now is lose the rest of the scene and render Nita separately, in the same position but with different, less blued-out lighting...

...then add her figure back into the scene, over the geoshelled version (which can be clone-brushed out later).

...So when we slot that imagery into the paperback cover template, after some tweaking, this is what we get.

...Still some things to correct or refine here. (Such as the main body of back cover text, as I haven't written the new copy yet. And the quotes may want tweaking: the NYTimes review [which the WaPo picked up] had some lines that might work better.) Colors, composition, etc etc, can all use some final touches. But I think we're most of the way there.

With any kind of luck, this edition will be available online in paperback and ebook formats for the non-North American audience this time next week. (I'm still considering whether I want to offer hardcovers on these as well.)

(sigh) Now I want some tea. And then, tomorrow maybe, on to the int'l edition of High Wizardry...

ETA 2: off @softness-and-shattering's question:

If I may ask, is it not your publishers job to do this work? Is this a continuation of the thing where authors now seem to be expected to do their own marketing too, or are you doing the new millenium editions 'on your own' or similar?

I'm doing them on my own. While there are numerous foreign-language editions of the original YW books, the only publisher to use the NME texts so far (for books 1-3) has been Lumen éditions in France, and I'm not clear whether those editions are still in print.

Whatever their status, that still leaves me with a lot of countries where I can publish. And if that job's going to get done—lacking other publishers' interest, which my agents would handle—It falls to me to take the work forward. Such are the wonders of our age that I no longer have to wait for a publisher to turn up. And should something suddenly happen for publishers to get interested (like a TV series or whatever) then i can easily withdraw my own editions and let my agents do deals with them.

Meanwhile, why (as we say) leave money on the table? There are other English-speaking countries on the planet where the YW books can be marketed (and more countries still where—when there's cash to spare to hire the necessary creative talent—translations might not do too badly). So I might as well get on with it! I've got groceries to buy and bills to pay like everybody else... :)

(And just pausing here to point at the page pinned to the top of my feed. If you want to help with those groceries, there's a good place to start: the ebook bundles are still at their pre-holiday sale prices! ...Unless you're in the UK. [I'm so sorry about Brexit, folks, but there's nothing I can do about that...])