#there's still a huge gap in the main plot where the three of them would adventure for a bit longer between the circus and the manor

[fedoraspooky]

hey there! big fan of your art & writing here, and i recently roped my friend into reading your weresnoodle rps (they got through them all in a day and i am STILL shocked and impressed abt it). i know you’re not into ahit anymore, so feel free to ignore this message if you want, but we were just wondering if there had been a set plan for the AU’s ending after the last one left off? the cliffhanger is KILLING both of us, so i figured i may as well ask. hope you’re doing well!! 💚

Hey! Sorry this took like a week to get back to you- It's been a few years since this rp stopped, and while I've talked with @kiptsune and there is a chance we may continue sometime in the future since we still like this story a lot, we figured we've probs left everybody on a cliffhanger for long enough. (SO sorry about that, I completely forgot what the last bit we'd posted was!!) And I DID promise years back that I'd say how the rest of the story we planned would go if it didn't seem like we'd finish it, so here I am, finally making good on that promise!

So yeah I spent the past week going through our old plans for this AU and talking with Kippie to help piece things back together, rereading old parts, and finally gathering everything together to write how I think the end of the story would go. I did have to take some creative liberties to fill in some smaller story gaps here and there, so no guarantees this is one-to-one how things would go should we pick it back up, but I did my best. XD ; I also have the rest of the RP we'd written after Chapter 10, so I'm posting that along with the ending summary!

First, here's the folder with all of the previous parts, for anyone who hasn't read it before.

And without further ado... THE REST OF FERAL FOOLS!

[filmmakerdreamst]

How Lyra and Will suffered as Protagonists in BBC's His Dark Materials

Despite the cast and crews open love for the novels, and the insistent diligence to stay as faithful to the source material as possible — even trying to fill in many of the gaps in the books, as seen in all three seasons of the show — the BBC adaptation never manages to capture the spirit (the only time I felt like it did was in the third season) because of the fact that every character is altered and changed. Not just adaptationally changed either like making a character dumber, softer or harder. They’re completely different characters, separated from the source material e.g. Mrs Coulter is changed from a seductive, calm character to a feral, suicidal character. I must admit, I did like the expanded self harm element that she causes her daemon. However I felt in the novel, if she were to harm her monkey, it would be ‘to keep her lust for power at bay’ rather than shame for herself.

The atmosphere was off yet the events were similar and the complete opposite at the same time. But you can’t have similar events play out with different characterisations, at least not with ‘His Dark Materials’.

Philip Pullman’s characters in ‘His Dark Materials’ are extremely charismatic, but to put it lightly, are not very palatable to say the least. As stated in @clarabosswald’s analysis, there seemed to be this weird need to make EVERY single character digestible or palatable in some way or another in the BBC adaptation, regardless of it making sense or not. I noticed this upon my re-read of ‘The Northern Lights’ that they even humanised the doctor that sexually assaulted Lyra by grabbing Pantalaimon, which was very troubling.

Now with the opposing ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ film, they changed the characterisations to make them more sympathetic and accessible to a contemporary audience. They even dug deeper with the character Edmund which I thought was a fantastic choice. But the reason why those character changes worked was because C.S.Lewis was not concerned with building character, he was much more concerned with the place of Narnia itself. He almost used his characters to explore the world of Narnia, e.g. some characters would leave one book and come back 5 books later — which is why some of the later adaptations of Narnia didn’t do as well in the box office as the first one.

The character changes in that film enriched the story without effecting it in a way, because ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ and the other books are driven by the plot. Where as ‘His Dark Materials’ is primarily driven by characters.

Philip Pullman in total contrast to C.S.Lewis, built the world (you could say he used the world) around the characters in order for them to get to Point A to Point B. But he was not concerned about exploring the multiverse so you could see the entire picture, like with C.S. Lewis.

I heard once that he described writing as wondering through a forest on a path and the path is your story. Theres a difference between the story world and the storyline. And as an Author, your concern is the storyline. It would be easy to step away and stray from the path and explore the forest and admire all the trees, but for him the most important thing to do was to remain on the path and focus on the story rather than the details along the way.

I’m not apposed to different versions of the characters or different storylines. But with ‘His Dark Materials’, those books are driven by specific character traits. And the fact that they changed them, while still being faithful to the events in the story, the story beats either don’t land or don’t hit as hard or don’t make sense altogether.

More specifically with the main characters Lyra and Will, but mostly Lyra since she’s the heart of the story.

Lyra is first and fourmost a liar, which may seem a small part of her character but its huge. Her ability to lie and get her way out of situations is the cause of many events in the books. She’s feral. She’s wild. She’s manipulative. She’s described as a ‘half wild cat’ and a ‘greedy little savage’. She can’t sit still or behave herself. She’s impulsive. She’s a leader. She gets into fights. She gets dirty. She spends all her nights on the rooftops. She’s an extrovert. She’s street smart. She’s selfish. She’s brave.

She’s an emotional and passionate human being. Thats what makes Lyra a real girl, not just a character on the page. These nuanced character traits of hers is how she pushes everything forward in the story.

All of those negative/positive aspects of her character in the books were watered down so much in the series. To the point where alot of them were removed. Not only is that incredibly dehumanising but makes the plot points where “she lies” not land as well or plot points revolving around her “telling the truth” make no sense at all.

The whole reason why she’s called Lyra Silvertongue is because she tricked the bear king with her lies, a trait which is consistent throughout the entire story — but completely nonexistent throughout the show. Her tricking the bear king in the adaptation came off as a lucky experience rather something that comes naturally to her. Even the ironic plot point of her being given the Alethiometer “a device that tells her the truth” didn’t hit as hard. They tried to establish her as a ‘liar’ in the second episode of season one then gave up completely as the show continued on.

But the weird thing is, those flaws were still mentioned by other characters in the show, when it was not the character they were developing. Characters would mention that she’s a liar, insufferable, selfish or that ‘she doesn’t apologise easily’ — which seemed like an over exaggeration since the show version of her isn’t really any of those things. This applied when characters such as Lee praised her for being ‘brave’ and ‘good’. I heard a HDM podcast recapping season 2 saying that “her character in the show wasn’t hitting the right emotional beats” to be a child of a great destiny that every character seemingly falls over themselves to give their lives for her.

TV Lyra hasn’t completely lost her flaws, but she’s not as nearly as flawed as she was in the books. She felt so contained, rather than passionate. Which felt so odd because yes, Lyra grows out of some bad traits such as her rudeness, due to the influence of Will. But she isn’t naturally like that.

They changed her so much, but also tried to keep her “the same” that her character growth which is huge in the books felt like nothing had moved at all. It kind of got reduced to a simple thing like her innocence being taken away. It was like she wasn’t allowed to have any sort of loud, dislikable reaction in any way. It felt like they were taking away her agency.

And I know one of the biggest reasons why they changed her behaviour in the TV Show is because they aged the character up to 14–16 at the start. I get it. Theres a huge difference between 12 and 14 in terms of maturity . It works for the Will & Lyra romantic scenes as an adaptational choice later in the story (because she’s allegedly 12–13 in the books).

I think Dafne Keen was an inspired choice for the role of Lyra, since I saw some scenes of her in ‘Logan’ and I 100% believe she would of pulled off Book Lyra given the chance, but by the time they started filming she was already 13/14. And in all honesty, Lyra just becomes odd looking older. She’s just not convincing as a misbehaving little girl who can’t sit still, she just comes off as a really strange child thats immature or lacking in social skills. For example, there’s a scene between Mrs Coulter and Lyra in ‘The Idea of North’ where she’s telling a lie, but it doesn’t come off natural because 1. They didn’t establish her as a liar immediately and 2. Part of her ability to lie comes from her spontaneous nature of being a kid telling stories and using her imagination. Dafne Keen didn’t really look that age, for it to look like something she would do.

They also made her relationship with Roger more of a focus in the show, which makes sense as her motivation in the later half of the books comes from wanting to rescue him. However, they made him ‘the only friend that she has’ which I found to be a strange decision because Lyra in the books has tuns of friends. I would say their friendship is more balanced in the series, where as in the book it wasn’t so much.

She forgets him a few times while staying with Mrs Coulter in the book where as she remembers him constantly in the episode ‘The Idea of North’ which felt like a confused choice to me. They were trying to have it both ways; have her be seduced by Mrs Coulter while also actively asking her to look for Roger.

The imbalance in Roger and Lyra’s friendship is important because it adds to the need to set things right with him in The Land of the Dead. It goes to the core of how everyone thinks she is selfish. She needs to save Roger to prove to herself she’s a good person.

In the book, when Lyra dreams of Roger in The Land of the Dead, the two of them have constant talks of how much he’s suffering. In the show, she just has alot of ambiguous flash forward dreams of Roger, with the story not prioritising them as important as the main plot of ‘Asriel’s War’.

When she brings this up to Will in the episode, he dismisses it instead of agreeing to go (like in the book) because of his daddy issues, no I’m sorry, because of Asriel’s War which makes sense as it’s one of the main plots in the season — where it was more of a distracting B plot in the book — but it just kind of adds to the idea that “its unnecessary” or “why are they doing this?”.

The desire to get to Roger and apologise in the show doesn’t hit as hard because there was more of a balance in Lyra and Rogers relationship plus the changes to her character just made it seem like “she just wanted to do it” rather than it being the most important decision she ever makes, to try to better herself.

While they go to the suburbs of the dead, Will and Pan constantly question why she’s doing this (a conflict that was not in the book — Will is steadfastly loyal to her by this point and Pan is too shivery to speak) while Lyra just snaps at them, making her seem mean for no reason. When she has a chat with her death, she doesn’t lie that an angel told her to do it (because they didn’t establish her as a liar properly), she just says that she wants to be good which is not a convincing argument considering what happens next.

When Pan and her have the argument while she leaves him on the doc, which is a great scene on its own (it made me cry), it also adds to the unnecessary nature of it all. It’s a scene that makes sense in the book because of Lyra’s impulsive nature, but because of her seemingly calculative nature in the show, it just looks odd. It’s described in the book that if Lyra had heard Pan speak, she would have folded and never would of got on the boat, but since the show did the complete opposite of that, It makes the scene more harsh and cold.

I think what the writers were trying to do was make it more of a mystery like ‘why is she doing this’ ‘its not too late to turn around’ a mission that appears fruitless at first, but turns out to be the greatest act of humanity — but again, I still don’t think that works because of how much Lyra’s entire character is changed. The act is not just for everyone else. It’s a major step in her character growth, to care about others.

In the Land of the Dead, obviously they had to cut out the whole section where Lyra literally looses her ability to lie while she’s telling lies to the harpies, then learns to tell the truth to the dead. This is the final step for Lyra’s character, finally learning the power of telling the truth instead of lies. They didn’t replace that with anything, only with her telling the dead true stories, which was heartwarming on its own, but obviously those story beats don’t hit as hard in the same way because like I said, its not presented as the final step in her character growth, its presented as a one off scene. This is one of the reasons why her character is pretty static in the adaptation.

In the Land of the Dead, its Lyra for the most part (apart from one instance) that keeps a cool head, while Will looses his — which again, the complete opposite. In the books, its Lyra that goes off the rails and its Will that keeps her centred.

Which brings me onto how the character of Will is changed in the adaptation, and how that effects the story from the second book onwards.

Will was brought in by Philip Pullman in ‘The Subtle Knife’, to represent Lyra’s other half — in another parallel universe literally, and also to help her on her quest to fulfil the prophecy. If it was just her on her own with Pan, it wouldn’t work and would fail.

Though I was taken aback by his entrance in ‘The Subtle Knife’ — as it was such a jarring change coming from the suspenseful cliff hanger where Lyra walks into the new world after her best friend Roger got murdered — he quickly but surely became my favourite male literary character of all time.

I don’t have as a big of a problem with his character changes then I do with Lyra, because there were at least a few times in the show where he was allowed to act like ‘himself’. Amir Wilson was perfect casting as Will. It was like the character had just walked off the page it was that good. But all together, he’s a completely different character — which I can understand. Out of all the characters, I feel he’s the hardest to pin down and his development is done in a subtle and subconscious way.

Throughout the course of ‘The Subtle Knife’, he’s incredibly off putting as he’s mostly angry and tired and then he’s in pain because of his knife wound. It works in a book format, because your’e in his point of view and you understand that he’s a child thats at the end of his tether. But it would be hard to portray that in a nuanced way on screen, unless your’e clever with it.

They unfortunately took the easy route with his characterisation on screen by making him softer. Not only that, the writing for his character was incredibly inconsistent at times.

Will from the books is fierce. He’s frightening. He’s stoic. He gets angry. He’s a strategist. He does whats best for someone. He likes to stay invisible. He’s sarcastic. He’s an introvert. He likes to stay hidden. He’s practical. He’s a child carer. He’s naturally aggressive e.g. He beat up a bunch of boys at school because they were hurting his mother. He hardly smiles. At times, especially in the second book, he becomes incredibly depressed. He’s pretty much a 35 year old man in a young boy’s body. He’s incredibly soft, but the reader can’t tell until Lyra brings that out in him.

I would say Will is a more contained version of Lyra, yet the complete opposite of her. They’re like yin and yang. They both have something that the other lacks, and that helps them both grow up. Lyra brings out a softness out in him, brings out his impulsive nature where as he helps her strategise and learn not to just rush out and do things.

TV Will suffers from the same problem that TV Lyra does.

Every negative/positive aspect about him is watered down. Revealing a quite mild character. I feel that they didn’t touch on the fact that he was a child carer enough, which is a huge part of his character. It just came off as ‘he loves his mum’ more in the show. Will being a caterer is supposed to contrast Lyra whom didn’t grow up with parents and got to live out a childhood that he was never allowed to experience. This is a theme. Every character trait that contrasts Lyra in the books isn’t present so much. I would even go as far to say that they’re too similar in the TV Show.

I was wondering throughout the second season why the storyline was static and wasn’t going anywhere. Certain plot points such as Will being a murderer, Lyra helping Will find his father, The fight for the subtle knife and Will becoming the bearer of the Subtle Knife felt tacked on or weren’t hitting as hard as they should.

At first, I thought it was because the novel was ‘the weakest in the trilogy’. I often see ‘The Subtle Knife’ as a bridge between both ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’.

But since re-reading the book, I went ‘Oh my God, its because they changed Will’s character arc’.

TV Will, the more I think about it, does not suit becoming the bearer of the subtle knife. The only times we see him fighting is in the boxing ring. He expresses incredible regret over killing a man instead of brushing it off because he was protecting his mother. Even when he’s under threat, he says ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ He even has to be persuaded to fight. There’s even a moment in the show where he says “Maybe we’re better off not fixing the knife at all.” which kind of dismisses the practical nature of his character in the book. Plus the knife being a part of him, the same way as the Alethiometer is a part of Lyra. Even the remarks that Lyra makes about him being similar to Iorek the armoured Bear don’t make as much sense, because of the fact that he’s softer.

Book Will struggles with his warrior nature, and eventually learns thats not who he wants to be. But he isn’t naturally a soft person. He learns to be through his experiences and his relationship with Lyra. Which is why it was so odd to me that they included the line in the show where Will is saying to his father in the Land of the Dead “You told me that I was a warrior; That I can’t fight my nature. Your’e wrong.” I was just like, what are you talking about? That is so not the character the show had developed. TV Will had hardly been shown to fight anyone of his own free will — it didn’t make sense to me. They were trying to have it both ways. Completely ignoring his basic character traits and flaws, yet still going through the same arc (a somewhat watered down one) one e.g. idolising his dad for his whole life, realising his dad ain’t shit when he meets him, finding Lyra missing, ignoring the task his father set him etc.

Even the task that Lyra has to help Will find his father didn’t land as well because of the fact that the two of them were bonding straight away in the show, instead of it being like ‘oh no we’re stuck with each other’ to this slow process of her and Will learning to trust each other.

I understand that you have to translate Lyra and Will’s relationship alot differently in a Show format, because subconscious development doesn’t really work due to the lack of intimate point of views. Plus it adds to the narrative to flesh out their dynamic alot more on screen. The more something is changed in an adaptation, the more it stays the same.

I have openly praised the shows depiction of their relationship in another analysis I wrote (before i re-read the books) and how I loved how they gave them more soft moments. However, I will admit now that the soft moments that they had in season 2 felt off to me because they weren’t in character. I think, looking back I would of preferred more soft moments if they were in character.

Will’s initial softness towards Lyra in the show is partially to do with TV Lyra being much less feral and less of a threat. As a result their journey is warmer and far less angstier than it was in the books.

And that in turn messes with the tension.

The element of Will being slightly dismissive of her at the start, is important to how certain story beats land. It adds to the ‘OH SHIT’ when Lyra’s been taken and the task that his father set him that he’s been dreaming of his whole life suddenly isn’t important to him anymore. Thats why it’s such a big deal when he spends most of his time through ‘The Amber Spyglass’ looking for her.

But in the season 2 finale, it ends with Will going off into the sunset, presumably to fulfil is fathers wishes. Then in season 3, he finds her missing, goes ‘whoops’ and then there’s a montage of him trying to find her. Then when he does (quite easily) — he goes on about how “since his dad died he’s done none of the things that he asked him to do’ which makes him looking for Lyra within the show feel even more anticlimactic.

Also, this is more of a personal opinion that an analytical one, I did not appreciate when Lyra brought up going to the Land of The Dead, TV Will went “I saved you. I did everything I could to save you. You told me not to but I did it anyway” which felt to me like ‘Wow brilliant, of course you had to save her’

And instead of agreeing to go to the Land of the Dead with her like in the book, they had to insert some tension from ‘The Subtle Knife’ (because they messed with the tension in season 2) and have Will go on a rant about what his dad wanted him to do, Asriel’s war, dismissing Lyra’s wishes and even having him suggest maybe her dad regretted killing her friend.

This is something that Will from the books would never ever say, let alone to the girl that he loves. He’s fully aware how much her dad hurt her and he respects her too much by that point to ever suggest something like that. Even when he does think about ‘what his dad wanted him to do’ he’s still steadfastly loyal to Lyra. They were completely undermining the turning point in their relationship and Will’s character development by adding pointless drama to extend the episodes running time.

As mentioned in a very articulate post by @mamsellechosette24601 ‘the quest to find his father and fulfil his fathers wishes’ isn’t the point at all, its Will letting go of his childhood dreams, of realising what really matters is Lyra all along.

Now I’ve seen in another analysis of the adaptation that their path to falling in love in the show is alot clearer than in the books which I can understand and agree with (to a certain extent) because the books were much more concerned with philosophy than romance. This is true for the romance between Asriel and Marisa in the Book vs the TV Show as well.

The concept behind their relationship remains the same:

“Will and Lyra are very good people who learn to trust each other when they’re at their most vulnerable, they become the only thing they have in a terrifying world of enemies. By the end, when they realise they're in love only to discover they can never be together, they make the mature choice, however hard it may be.”

But their relationship is totally different in the TV Show because of their character changes.

I would say Lyra and Will have more of a enemies to lovers storyline in the books — where as the adaptation version of them doesn’t. The screenwriters clearly tried to iron out alot of the problematic elements, especially in the beginning and focus on them being “friends” more. I’m not apposed to them doing that, but the way they did it ended up muting a few of their scenes together.

I’ve actually made an argument in my other account (against the ‘His Dark Materials’ analysis saying that ‘the adaptation did a much better job at showing when Will and Lyra fell in love’) that their relationship development was a lot subtler in the books because the characters were alot younger and more immature. And that it was more ‘obvious’ in the tv show because they aged the characters up, therefore they could have more mature conversations and scenes together.

This was before I did my re-read.

After re-reading ‘The Subtle Knife’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’ comparing it with how their relationship is handled in the TV Adaptation. I would actually argue the opposite .

In some ways, the growing romance between the two of them is much more mature (and makes more sense) in the books than in the show, at least to me. Unlike in the TV Show, their relationship never enters into neutral territory, even when they finally learn to trust each other. Theres much less emphasis on their ‘friendship’.

After their brutal first meeting — where they attack eachother — in ‘The Subtle Knife’ Lyra is immediately taken with Will and constantly thinks about him and what he thinks of her. There’s even a moment in ‘The Amber Spyglass’ where she’s trying to hide that she’s in pain while they’re walking (because of all that time she’s been asleep) because she doesn’t want to appear weak in front of him. 

The way Lyra and Will meet in the show, is reminiscent of how children meet for the first time. Though quite skeptical of each other, they instantly bond and make friends after 5 seconds, because why wouldn’t they? They’re kids the same age after all. Even though there’s still an element of mistrust there, there’s hardly any conflict between them. They don’t play off each other as much. There is one moment where he gets angry at her for making him wait, but all that is solved in a minute because of Lyra’s ‘calm nature’

Even when Lyra gives Will away by accident and says that she lost the Alethiometer, he doesn’t shout at her. There are few comments here and there but theres no real tension between the two of them.

When Will and Pan have a conversation, its presented as Pan going up to him to have a chat after he had a bad dream rather than Will finding the courage to speak to him in the book and saying ‘I think Lyra’s the best friend I’ve ever had’. This is presented more as a statement in the show because their friendship has already been established and less of a discovery (as he wasn’t reacting to her that much in the book as he had alot on his mind).

Lyra and Will even have a talk about Pan’s conversation with him afterwards in the show. But in the book, that never happened. It’s mentioned later but never discussed, because of the fact that it was a private conversation between Will and Pan.

You could say this was another problem that the adaptation had. It’s mentioned multiple times ‘YOU CAN’T TOUCH SOMEONES DAEMON’ but not emphasised why thats the case.

In the books, it’s heavily implied that touching someone else’s daemon is the equivalent of touching someone’s genitals. There’s a moment in ‘Northern Lights’ where Lyra and Iorek find Tony in the fish house without a daemon and Pan wants to comfort him but holds back because of the taboo. Thats why it’s such a big deal when Pan comforts Will and starts licking him in the book.

In the show, its quite an underwhelming scene that lasts 5 seconds where Pan strokes Wills fingers and Lyra says in a quiet voice ‘In my world, your’e not supposed to touch someone else’s daemon but you didn’t do something wrong’

And don’t get me started on the 5 second panning away shot where they’re finally touching each others daemons, instead of the moving moment from the book. It didn’t feel like they really understood the gravity of what those scenes meant and what it meant for their connection.

Again, this is more of a personal opinion. Near the end of the final book, when they enter the world of the Mulefa, Lyra and Will trust each other more than they ever have, which shows how much they’ve both grown since ‘The Subtle Knife’. Mary even describes that she never saw ‘more trust on a persons face’. But in the show, there’s this weird forced tension between them for the sake of ‘romance’. They’re suddenly awkward teenagers with each other — which was not a choice that I liked because it didn’t come naturally.

And when they have to be ripped from each other, a whole page worth of them bargaining to be together is turned into ‘I didn’t think it was possible to feel this bad.’ and ‘This is all wrong’, plus Mary and Serafina being weirdly insensitive while Will and Lyra are in different locations rather than being with each other.

This is possibly why I didn’t feel anything when they had to be forced apart because, the way it was handled felt rushed and soulless.

Overall, despite there being more ‘soft moments between the two of them’ Show Lyra and Will’s connection feels alot more shallow and simplified.

In the books, I got the vibe that even though they were very young, you couldn’t imagine them being with anyone else but with each other. They were each others other half. They were essentially the only family they had in a world full of enemies. There was never a moment in the books, where they weren’t already in love with each other to some degree. It went beyond the typical romantic duality.

In the show, it felt more temporary. This is mostly due to their character changes (they were too similar in my opinion). Like a connection between friends that became romantic at the end of the journey. And it’s something they’ll get over because “It won’t always feel like this” or “Its much more romantic to live for love than to die for it” or “It might not seem like it now but you have a future”

I think that was one of my main problems with the TV Show, it lacked emotion. Not just as an adaptation, but in general.

More than anything, the adaptation felt too confused. It was trying to reimagine the story while also paying homage to the original material. And thats why overall — despite my enjoyment for some of the episodes especially in season 3 — it didn’t work as well as it should have.

[booasaur]

Any new upcoming series with w/w?

Lol, I had a whole answer typed up and almost completed last night, I could only remember a few upcoming shows but added a bunch of ongoing and recent with descriptions and then the post editor hiccuped and removed most of it so I angrily went to sleep instead.

But maybe that was for the best, because this morning a video of upcoming f/f shows in April came out so now I can add a few more.

There's Dead Ringers, that show with Rachel Weisz playing twin gynecologists and since it's a genderbent adaptation of an existing movie we already know it's gonna be super messy. It would be pretty wild for Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies to not have some wlw and luckily it does, the trailer itself reveals a couple. Tiny Beautiful Things, with Kathryn Hahn and Sarah Pidgeon (Leah in The Wilds) playing her younger self, apparently Kathryn Hahn's character's daughter is queer. Slip is a kinda scifi, where a bored wife cheats on her husband and realizes every time she has sex with someone, she wakes up married to them. The show's about her trying to get back to her original life, and there are a series of different husbands, but also a few wives (also, the first "replacement" husband is played by Boorman's actor from Willow!). There are also the upcoming Thai dramas Be Mine, Reverse 4 You, and 23.5, as previously mentioned.

In terms of returning series coming back, there's the Disney cartoon The Owl House, getting its final ep. Single Drunk Female's second season is returning soon. It has a bi lead, and she did have a female love interest but it was pretty temporary compared to the will they/won't she has with the main character male love interest. Her Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, also a very main character, is a lesbian, and she's married but her wife's actress is a regular on another show now so I dunno if she'll be back.

Welcome to Eden, a Spanish thriller about people trapped on an island with a cult, ended the first season on a major cliffhanger so it'll be exciting to see what happens now, though it feels like anyone could die so that's a bit nerve-wracking. It has a lot of different kinds of rep, f/f, m/m, trans, one of the gay guys is deaf too and it's a plot point that his boyfriend won't learn sign even though his friends have.

The Epix series From is a pretty well done horror series about people trapped in a town and who get hunted at night, it's more ominous and suspenseful than outright gory. It actually has three wlw, though one is mostly with one guy, the one who's engaged to a woman outside the town seems to be about to start a romance with another guy, and one is a teen who's crushing on the first woman, feels unrequited. I didn't know about any of them when I started, so they're a bonus, the show itself is rather compelling.

As for current shows, The Power (lol, get it, current) started last night on Prime, it's nice that after the misreading of Class of '07, this new show about girls does immediately have a wlw. Gap's already finished but it made such a splash, if you haven't watched, I'll mention it again. The other Thai drama, Show Me Love, is still airing. Fantasy Island is honestly kind of sweet, it feels like one of those '90s shows, episodic, bright colors and optimism, and great guest stars. One of the two leads, I'd say, or at least the second billed main, is queer.

We got our three firefighter shows, 9-1-1 with a solid (now) established relationship, Fire Country, a lesbian character but not much screentime, and of course Station 19, which is honestly winning me back in a huge way with their current storyline (if they land it).

Cop wlw update (why are there so many of them!): NCIS Hawai'i remains super cute, especially when Lucy is on, looks like Ayanna on Law & Order: Organized Crime got herself a new gf with a super hot voice, The Rookie: Feds still has Niecy Nash playing a super likable and bi lead. I couldn't stand the egregious copaganda in FBI: Most Wanted, and like, imagine how bad it'd have to be, when I can still watch all the rest of these shows, but Sheryll's still there, so. Sin Huellas (No Traces) has already finished but gets another mention for being as funny as it was, with a cute, hot couple at the center. Rabbit Hole's just started, but the initial antagonist/probable grudging ally's an FBI lady who within the first 10 minutes of the first ep dropped that she had a wife. Van der Valk has started its third season and though I'm gonna keep hoping Lucienne's INCREDIBLY hot ex from 2x03 returns, Lucienne, second billed, is plenty hot by herself. Ariana Guerra, who played the novitiate in Helstrom, has joined the second season of CSI: Vegas. Her character's bi and has a main character boyfriend but he seems like he'll most likely end up with a different character.

I'm not really going through these in any particular order, except combining the above two types, but let me just blow through the rest of the ongoing shows: the Canadian family comedy Run the Burbs has been quite sweet in how it's written the teen daughter, How I Met Your Father comes across as an old fashioned sitcom, except one of the characters is a lesbian. It's kind of fun in its familiarity and low stakes. I didn't expect to be as drawn into The Watchful Eye as I did, the trailer felt quite soapy and it was, at times, but all the nannies were great, and I ended up quite liking the f/f side couple. It's amazing what actual personalities can do. :o A Million Little Things is winding down its final season and Grace Park's character is engaged to Cameron Esposito's character so it feels pretty endgame at this point.

If you didn't watch or stopped watching Carnival Row because the main m/f relationship seemed so especially trite, you maaaay want to give it another look. I'm not nearly caught up with Bel-Air, but in the first season they wrote Ashley's sexuality really well, especially since she's so young. I'm sure you can't have missed my Perry Mason gifsets by now, but I can only reiterate what a great character Della Street is. One of the kids in Gotham Knights is bi (and her brother is trans!) but I'm not sure it's worth getting invested before cancellation. Unless the CW is only going to keep projects involving the Supernatural trio?

At this point, hoping everyone who's into wlw has at least tried Yellowjackets or is aware enough of it to know they don't want to try it. Las Pelotaris 1926 is a Spanish language historical drama about female athletes playing--well, the sport is basque pelota but if you need a reference point, it's like squash or racquetball. If you haven't yet caught up with RWBY, now would be an okay time. Lastly, I've still never watched any of Riverdale or even Choni clips, but its final season has just started and you know, I gotta respect the longevity of whatever they've been doing with them, however up and down they seem to have been, and perhaps this final season will be an up. From what I've seen on SM, they seem to get endgame soulmatey treatment more than any of the other ships and I can respect that.

Aside from the Thai dramas that might air after April and a few of the other shows that ended their seasons in March (or February in Gap's case), all of these have eps airing this month. After this year of cancellations, I think it's worth enjoying what we can, even as we acknowledge how much lead/main character rep and longevity we're losing. :o

[ddejavvu]

I’m a Star Wars virgin lol how would u recommend I watch the films? cause omfg that mf anakin is sexy but I don’t know where to start I wanted to watch it a few weeks ago in release date form but idk

Okay if you’re watching strictly movies (called episodes):

4 (a new hope) -> 5 (empire strikes back) -> 6 (return of the Jedi) -> 1 (phantom menace), -> 2 (attack of the clones) -> 3 (revenge of the sith) -> 7 (the force awakens) -> 8 (the last jedi) -> 9 (the rise of skywalker).

Those movies are the trilogies. The original trilogy (episodes 4,5,6), the prequel trilogy (episodes 1,2,3), and the sequel trilogy (episodes 7,8,9). I highly recommend at least the originals and the prequels. The sequel series gets a lot of complaints because of some questionable writing choices, but I still do enjoy them and the actors’ performances. Those trilogies are the core of the Star Wars fandom. They are the must-sees if you want to know what people are talking about.

If you’re focused on anakin specifically, he’s the center of the prequel trilogy and also appears in a show that I’ll talk about later. Do not skip straight to his movies, watch the original trilogy first, but you don’t have too many movies to get through before you meet him.

Other movies:

Solo is a movie about Han Solo’s younger years and it takes place before episode 4, but I recommend you watch it after you watch all three trilogies in that order, as it was released after Han’s main presence in the franchise (episodes 4, 5, and 6).

Rogue one is a move that takes place directly before episode 4, and I also recommend watching that after you finish the trilogies. One of the main characters in rogue one is Cassian Andor, and he has his own spin-off series, Andor (1 season), which takes place before rogue one.

Series:

If you do want to delve into series, there are a lot 😅 I’m only going to go over the ‘main/relevant’ ones (if your favorite isn’t on this list I’m not insulting it. I’m just trying not to overload newcomers with a thousand series that don’t matter to casual fans, and will most likely focus on the newer series. This isn’t meant to start an argument.) but let it be known that I like all of the series, I just think that they aren’t always essential to a basic knowledge of the franchise. This post isn’t written as a Bible, I’m not trying to put down every series or spin-off ever made, it’s a quick and easy guide.

All of these should be watched AFTER completing the trilogies.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 7-season show that takes place between episodes 2 and 3 (the last 2 of the prequel trilogy). It is consistently regarded as a fan-favorite and it gives fantastic insight into the huge gap between those movies, and helps flesh out a lot of amazing characters (pssst… you like anakin already? he’s an MC ;) ). Seriously the show is like people’s favorite Star Wars Thing ever, so if you do end up moving on from the movies and you want to watch more content, I strongly recommend it.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is a one season series centered around Obi-Wan, a character that appears in the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy. Honestly I like the plot but I really fucking love it bc he’s one of my favorite characters and also anakin is in it so if you finish the trilogies and want more of him, I think you’d like Obi-Wan. It takes place between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy, but closer to the end of episode 3.

The Mandalorian is a three season series that takes place after the original trilogy. Din Djarin (the mandalorian himself) appears in a few episodes of The Book of Boba Fett. This show gained enormous popularity because of both Pedro pascal’s role as the MC and how much of a phenomenon ‘baby yoda’ (grogu) became, so i would honestly recommend it so that you know what people are talking about if they mention it.

those are the series I most recommend.

The Book of Boba Fett is a one season series that centers around the bounty hunter Boba Fett, who’s main presence in the franchise is in episodes 5 and 6. However, he also appears in episode 2. A lot of people really like Boba Fett as well as Din’s appearances, so I am including this series on the list. However, I don’t really think you need to watch it unless you really like him or Din lmfao.

Ahsoka is one season, currently being released over a few weeks on Disney+, and centers around Ahsoka (Anakin’s former padawan, developed in the clone wars series I mentioned before, also in the mandalorian for a short time). I am behind and I haven’t watched the two episodes that have come out yet, so I don’t know if they’re good, but that series is what’s currently coming out, so I figured I’d mention it.

Once more if you’re a seasoned fan and I didn’t include your favorite media please don’t come at me, I know I left stuff out. Hardcore Star Wars fans are fucking cutthroat and I’m not citing these as the only series ever or the only series that matter, I’m just trying to help confused people navigate the overwhelming amount of content the franchise has to offer.

I hope this helps, even if you just want to watch the movies. I also hope I didn’t overwhelm you, I really did try to narrow stuff down!

[hyperfixation-or-death]

I’m heading to bed now, but please talk about parallels. We’re going to be besties bro

>:) yes, absolutely, thank you-

Here is a list of the most recent parallels thoughts I have had yesterday alone:

I want to put Romane Berthauds in a time loop. That's the entire thought. (I mean, I've drafted a post about this, but it. Does not sound normal. So.)

I could make a fic with four chapters, each of which features the small child version of a main character somehow ending up time traveling to interact with the present versions of the other three. It would not explain how that happened whatsoever, except that each chapter takes place in a different timeline. I almost certainly will not actually write this, but it's a fun idea.

Stupid AU where it’s the parallels characters but the plot and setting are. uh. Vaguely based on Greek mythology. (I have a bad habit of combining my interests into weird ideas, and I've been listening to Epic the musical, so now the parallels kids get swords. And angst, I guess.)

On that note, my Percy Jackson-inspired AU (which is separate from the aforementioned AU and also less nonsensical) has recently been haunting me to the point of me turning in a scene from it for a creative writing assignment a few weeks ago. I ended up writing double the amount I was supposed to, but I also got a hundred on the assignment, so. Who's the real winner here.

The direct contrast between Romane and Victor's first interactions with their respective parents after traveling back. "Mom. It's me. […] Mom, look at me. It's me. I'm your daughter. I can tell you recognize me." Romane being so confident that her mom will recognize her. She knows her mom will see her. She knows her mom will see her and know it's her. Whereas, Victor is fully confident that his dad won't recognize him. He's taking his opportunity to take out his frustrations with his father under the cover of anonymity. And he's halfway right, because Arnaud doesn't recognize him until Victor's up in his face, yelling about how Arnaud has always wanted to hit him. (Not even going to get into that; that's a whole separate post.) But when his dad recognizes him, Victor isn't expecting it. Idk where I was going with this.

Several years post-canon fic idea where the main four move in together after high school. I don't have any reasoning other than I think it would be neat. I have half of one scene and half of another scene written for this. (We could add them and pretend I've written an entire scene, but…there wouldn't be much point to doing that.)

I think the "I remember everything" line in the finale was…not true. I think the kids thought they did, for a few minutes. Then they realized there were some gaps in their memories, and some things were less sharp than others. And Romane, Victor, and Bilal all get flashbacks, but Bilal's are definitely the hardest to deal with, since his memories are the most complex due to the timeline stuff.

I think that, while post-canon Bilal does have a genuine interest in physics, he also knows that a huge reason he went into physics in the other timeline was to try and save Sam and Victor. And now that he doesn't need to do that anymore, he's left unsure of whether he should still go in that direction. It's a different timeline; he's supposed to do things differently, right? But then again, he doesn't want to make decisions based just on that, and he does like the idea of studying physics. But there's also the irrational worry that something like the night in the bunker could happen again, which he knows doesn't make a lot of sense, but the thought is still there. So his thoughts kind of spiral for a little while on the topic of career. He eventually decides to stick with the physics route, though, after giving it a lot of thought.

Something about Victor and Sam being only a year apart, while Romane and Camille are farther apart in age? Yeah, I had no further thoughts on that, I just think about sibling dynamics a lot.

I think Sam has a lot of issues as a result of his parents and their whole family dynamic, they just show up a lot more subtly than Victor's parental issues do.

I wish Sofia and Victor interacted more in the show.

I think Victor Deslandes has ADHD. (I say this as if I haven't said it a thousand times already) also I think he's aromantic. I already made posts about both headcanons but I like talking, so I'm mentioning them again!

and while we're restating headcanons: the same way victor's powers kind of serve as a tangible outlet for his emotions, with anger usually being the catalyst - i think romane's powers do the same thing, but the catalyst with her powers is more of a freeze response to panic. i think i have a post where i word this better, somewhere? idk.

also i think it's interesting how a version of alice and arnaud realized the true extent of the emotional damage they had caused, but it's just before the kids travel back. so sam and victor never get the full resolution there, because their parents will never know what the tension in their family actually led to. and i have specific thoughts on how this lack of satisfying closure is kind of a theme with victor's relationship with his parents, but i unfortunately don't have time to expand on that right now. but. the thoughts are somewhere in my drafts, so maybe i'll expand on that concept later.

And then there's the thoughts that are always in the back of my mind, which are: I would die for the parallels kids. I need to rewatch parallels. hey I think maybe I'll cry over Romane and Victor's friendship in particular today.

anyways, those are just a few of yesterday's thoughts off the top of my head. i'm sure i have better thoughts that i can't remember, but i wrote most of this at like three AM, so my thoughts are. scattered.

thanks for the ask!!! :)

[dailycass-cain]

So I wanted to do something to show just how well we Cassandra Cain fans be eating these days with the character.  Just a comparison from 2017 (the go to point of the Rebirth era) and 2022.

I single out this particular area of Rebirth because Cass was reintroduced just a year prior (at the end of 2015 and got the cushy Tec ongoing to camp in until Tec #987 in 2018). 

Basically the "height" of her Rebirth appearances.

Cass during Rebirth appeared in the following Batman comics (at the time): 

Detective Comics* 

Batman*

Nightwing* 

Batgirl & the Birds of Prey #14-17 

Red Hood & the Outlaws #15

*the three comics all took part in the "Night of the Monster Men crossover which featured Cass in a subplot within it". BoP featured Cass (and the Tec team) in a cameo with #14 but full-on appearances #15-17. RH&O was the issue where Cass jobbed to Artemis and 95% of their fight took place off panel.

Another specific reason I chose 2017 because it was the year we got Tec #950-956 which gave us a Cass "centric" arc.  So this year was the biggest Cass got in the “Rebirth” era. 

The following in 2018 however...

Cass would only show up in five ongoing comics: 

Detective Comics (obviously but it was nearing the end sadly for her) 

Batman (to focus on the um.. breaking of Batman portion with the family thinking him “irrational”) 

Justice League (Scott Snyder/James Tynion's run which gave us a sprinkle of Cass on the team here and there).

The final being  the very delayed Batman & the Outsiders which debuted at the end of the year.

You can notice a slight theme that Cass well was satellited to just Batman comics and not any singular story for herself (which really hampered her "centric" arc).

I just find it ironic for a codename that was “supposed” to make Cass grow beyond the Bat comics she was fully confined to them. Literally Justice League was the only comic and that was due to Snyder/Tynion’s fondness for the character. Nothing more beyond that. 

Further, she would "drop off the map" of Tec save in #1000 from the series as a whole until VERY late 2020 (I WONDER WHY that could be 🤔).

Now let's compare to 2022. 

First off, Cass co-leads her own ongoing with Batgirls.  A HUGE step up from save the supporting roles in teams we got for the character in 2017. I know many criticize the comic (and justly so), but there would be gaps of Cass not possibly showing up in the Rebirth era of Tec as she was part of a team. Of that team herself, Kate, Tim, and Basil were probably the focal points for that run. 

Though she hasn't been mentioned canonically as an adopted child in the main book in Chip Zdarsky's Batman run. She still APPEARED in the comic frequently (until the start of the second arc). Likewise Tec from Mariko Tamaki (which this year would result in the bulk of her appearances in that run too). 

So she was a CONSTANT presence in both main Batbooks again (even with the slight in Batman).Kind of a big step up than say what we had in 2017 (but again she was a cast off in Batman to prove a plot point but somewhat faired better in 2022 than 2017). 

Outside the main Bat books and her own, Cass has appeared in the supporting Bat comics: 

Nightwing (one issue)  

Robin (two issues)

I am Batman (cameo) 

Joker (FulI-on appearances. I know, shocking right?) 

Batman: Urban Legends (a few appearances)

Task Force Z (one issue appearance and a mention)

This isn't counting the Batman: One Bad Day: Two-Face #1, Robin (Tim) one-shot, Dark Knights of Steel, DCeased: War of the Undead Gods, DC vs. Vampires, and Young Justice: Targets. All of which we got HEALTHY doses of Cass (though DC vs. Vampires faltered hard). 

 But the more important thing just to mention is she's appeared in OUTSIDE the Bat books during the “Dark Crisis” event (she was sprinkled throughout the battle in the main book and had a name drop or cameo in the lead-ins).

It's more the fact she is appearing in a comic she NEVER appeared in before, The Flash #786 (in its tie-in).  Oh and SCOBBY "FREAKING" DOO!

The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #12 in case you were wondering where this occurred.

Suffice to say, we Cass fans are eating and eating well compared to 2017 her "popular" year in Rebirth. Though kind of justly I feel we are still at this stage in our lives:

After the stuff we’ve been thru? Yeah, I think it’s highly justified to be of that mindset.  I'm not gonna dwell on the what changed between 2017 and 2022 to allow such an increase in appearances. 

We all know "the why" (i.e. early 2020 a certain "someone" was fired from the company). Well, we've been seeing the character gain massively since. I just felt the need to fully compare the two. 

Look and see the Cass content we got in 2017 (which I felt like was a tiny scrap from a table but one I cherished). To well, in 2022 we have so much to choose from. 

I just found the whole looking back and thinking about the two eras would be fascinating. 

[walkwithheroes84]

How I Would Breakdown S3-S4 of Bridgerton

Season three of Bridgerton should be An Offer From a Gentleman. But, there are strong rumors that it will be Romancing Mr. Bridgerton.  I’m rereading An Offer From a Gentleman and it’s clear that 40-50% of the book takes place at Benedict’s ‘My Cottage’. That wouldn’t work for a tv series. And if they go into Romancing Mr. Bridgerton - Colin and Penelope aren’t mature enough thier love story to fully take place.  

Plus - there is this huge time gap between An Offer and Romancing that has Francesca marrying John and moving to Scotland. And, since Francesca doesn’t appear much in the novels (or the show) until her novel, When He Was Wicked - viewers of the show (and even some book readers) - maybe weirded out when Francesca could appear in season six has the main character.

I’d have to mess with the timeline from the book. And, it probably isn’t the best way, but -

Here’s how I’d make it work. Maybe some book spoilers to follow.

First, we have to start in 1815/1816. It would begin with Benedict and Sophie meeting at the ball. Meanehile, Eloise is actively avoiding Penelope. Everything that happens at the start of An Offer happens in regard to Benedict and Sophie. The show would have to go back to Sophie’s home life to explore why she leaves/gets kicked out - though a lot of that could also be done in flashbacks during the season.

Now, here’s how I would plot of the season: (Which would take place in 1818 or 1819)

An Offer Plot:

Anthony and Kate are at Albery Hall. Anthony is staying in the country for the season, because Kate is nearing her due date for baby Miles. 

Benedict has been going to house parties for the last year, because of his depression of not getting into the art academy, missing The Lady in Sliver, and just being a hot mess. He runs into Sophie, saves her from a sexual assult, and takes her back to Albery Hall.

Having those four characters at the place, allows the first half of An Offer to play out - with some changes and Kate or Anthony acting as the voices of reason. You could probably move up some scenes from the second part of the novel, and give conversations that happened between Benedict and Violet happened between Benedict and Anthony or Kate. 

Side note - this could also give us some cute Kathony moments that were cut.  I’d probably also have Gregory and Hyacinth there as well. I’d like to see more scenes with them and Kathony. And, it would be good to explore them as characters.

This plot would end season 3 with the group back to London.

Romancing Plot:

As Francesa starts her season, guided by Violet - things are awkward with the rest of the family.  

Eloise will have decided to be active and will have started her own counter-LW sheet (with another name, of course) where she discusses the topics of women, children, and the working class. She has spent the last couple of seasons actively avoiding Penelope.

Penelope is back as Lady W and harsher than ever. She’s had her: “I’ll be the bad guy.” 

Colin begins to suspect that Eloise is Lady W. and asks for Penelope’s help to figure out the truth. Penelope is happy to, because - despite her best try - she still can’t get over Colin.

Their plotline is basically the novel, expect for the added tension between Penelope and Eloise.

We’d also see Francesa and John falling into love and marrying. 

Season three would end with Francesa’s wedding. Penelope and Eloise still at odds. Colin realizing he’s really in love with Penelope - whose realized he’s not the man she hung on the moon. Sophie being brought into Violet’s home. Benedict realizing that Sophie is someone he wishes to marry - even if it means he losses his place in society. 

Season four would be the Benophie story in the city - with a few changes. Polin would still be that slowburn, as Penelope finds herself and grows as a person.  We’d also hear about Francesa’s marriage (maybe see her and John? Hear about Michael? 

Season five would be shared between Colin and Eloise/Francesa.

[gra-sonas]

Hey love, so I'm rewatching the show I'm thinking about the characters that haven't been paired up yet lmfao and there are some really great possible combinations here, I'd love it if we get a wlw couple maybe Isobel and Rosa or Isobel and Maria or even rosa and Maria, all three ave very intriguing to me. Isobel and Rosa had some great chemistry in those flashback scenes even though technically it wasn't Isobel the actor chemistry is still there, Isobel and Maria have an interesting if underdeveloped dynamic and Maria and Isobel could serve some friends to lovers excellence we don't have that on the show. As for Kyle, I also see him with either Isobel or Maria tbh, they would both serve, I would also love it if he was bi/pan and he had a male love interest. This is one of those rare shows where almost all the characters could be paired up in interesting ways( although I didn't necessarily ship them Liz/Kyle Maria/Michael and Kyle/Alex had wonderful chemistry in different ways as well) I would also love it if we had an ot3, there have barely been a couple of decent ones in anything ever, like that would would so good, an actual polyamorous loving relationship. The possibilities are endless I just hope they're not afraid to go there because while we're making strides in representation 99% if they already have a queer relationship will not have another one and if they do go there fingers crossed they back it up with good writing, it would be such a waste if they didn't take advantage of the overflowing chemistry between everyone, when it comes to friendships too, I want to see more interactions between everyone, strangers things has an even bigger cast of main characters and fewer episodes and they manage to give some beautiful platonic relationships. It would work here too where we have people in pairs or threes working on something together for a few episodes and then switch it up and then everyone teams up for the last 2 or three. Lol sorry for the long essay I just see endless potential because of how great and diverse the cast is as well as the possibilities mystery and overarching plot, the show has been decent so far, handling some things far better than others but it could be so much better in my opinion.

Maribel 😭 Forever upset that S2 (very likely) killed that pairing bc they came up with that BS storyline of them somehow being related.

WHAT A LOSS! They have such amazing chemistry, and Heather and Lily have both stated in the past that they'd be down for it.

I mean, LOOK AT THEM???

And on the show?

🔥 Y 🔥 E 🔥 S 🔥

Anyway, it's unlikely for them to ever make them an item bc of the "Isobel is Maria's aunt" thing. :(

Ngl, Isobel/Rosa worked for me when they were the same age (and I assumed there was some kind of real mutual interest), now that the dynamics have shifted, I kinda like them better as friends. I'm really not someone to condemn an age gap, I just think that Rosa has so much on her plate, and she still has so many experiences to make, if they'd both be 10 years older respectively (and Rosa had had a chance to grow up, find a job she likes, make some life experiences of her own etc) it would for much better for me. Anyway, Lily and Amber definitely have chemistry, so who knows. I'm here for allllllllll the wlw pairings! \0/

I'm a strictly Kylex BroTP person, so that's not a pairing I'd want to see explored romantically, however, I really digged Kyle and Max sleuthing together last season! That was surprisingly good, and they had great chemistry.

And Isobel and Kyle? HELL YEAH. Sadly their best scene is from that cursed episode I'll never in my life touch again, but I've always been a huge Kybel fan. Although I have to say that Kyliz is my OTP. I know, I know, they'll never be endgame, but I love them together. And while I'm DYING to see Isobel exploring her sapphic side, Belmanes has grown so near and dear to my heart, I'm not yet willing to let go of the idea of them ending up together. 🥺

Kyle and Maria could be interesting, no idea whether the show's going to pair off more main characters with each other tho. We'll see.

And while I absolutely don't mind OT3s, I'm not exactly yearning for one tbh. And honestly, after the absolute WORST way to force one on us last season, I'm kinda violently opposed to the idea of this show ever getting another shot at pairing three people together.

I'd rather they focus on writing decent storylines for the core 8, write an EXCEPTIONAL COSMIC love story for Malex, and otherwise put in the effort of telling good love stories for the other characters - especially when they are queer storylines.

Lol sorry for the long essay I just see endless potential because of how great and diverse the cast

Oh, I get that, nonnie (and no need to apologize!), the cast members are all amazing, and they have such great chemistry with each other (on and off screen), it's easy to imagine all kinds of things (and hell, that's what fandom's for, right?). :D

[introductions-are-a-spook]

Tag list: @kyuudomo @kissthe-gogoat @caloroso-cosmos @omrade-echorin < You said you like the last one so added you. Let me know if you’re okay with that, and sorry if not!

Let me know if you want to be added or taken off. Reblogs and feedback always appreciated!

Fifty miles from the Chapman house and twenty years ago, rain fell over an English boarding school. Children ran from building to building, clutching their bags under hunched chests in an attempt to protect them.

Visible through a window, one student sat huddled on a library bench, nose deep in a book. And of course they didn’t see through their concentration to the rambunctious upperclassman arguing with the librarian.

“I told you before, my father tore the book, not me. I can get the money to pay for it, it’ll just take a couple days!”

“That’s ridiculous. Just why in the world would a parent do that, hmm?”

“You obviously don’t know him like I do,” he snipped under his breath.

After a moment more of this, he sauntered over to where the bookworm- maybe a grade or two below him, sat. Flopping down, he groaned.

Finally the quiet one spoke. “Mrs. Kingsley’s going to wring your neck if you don’t replace the book soon, you know.”

“Yeah, I get it already. Geez.” The older boy looked at the younger with a raised eyebrow. “Hey I know you, you’re in my chemistry class. Mary, right?”

“Er, it’s Maxwell. And yes, what about it?”

“Isn’t that a bit too hard for you? You’re what, twelve?”

“Fourteen. You?”

“Aww, a little shrimp. I’m seventeen. Andrew, by the way,” although teasing, his tone lacked any genuine malice. He held out a hand to shake.

“Nice to meet you, prick.”

Andrew laughed. “Damn right. Whatcha reading?”

Maxwell tilted the book. A collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. “I want to be a detective when I get out of school, so I’m studying now.”

“That’s cool. We better get to class though, the bell’s gonna ring soon,” Andrew said, standing up and checking his watch.

Maxwell reluctantly closed his book and nodded. “Just try to pay for the book soon, okay? Mrs. Kingsley isn’t the only one who cares about this library.”

“Oh sure. I’ll just steal the money from my dad while he’s at church or something,” he said with a mischievous grin. “Nice meeting you, Maxwell!”

“Same here. Criminal!”

Andrew laughed and walked off. Maxwell allowed a chuckle as he went the opposite way.

~*~

Six pictures were laid out in front of Andrew. All of various bedrooms. Half he recognized- Maxwell’s, Isabella’s, and his own. The other three varied. There was a rather plain, maroon themed bedroom with several camera monitors in one corner. Another was coated wall-to-wall in weapons and a bright scarlet palette. The last of which was more pink and the most homely, with picture frames full of people everywhere. All belonging to Maxwell’s siblings, most likely.

And yet, Andrew was not confused. In fact, he was quite disturbed. He sat with his ferret, Brie, in his arms, petting her in an attempt to calm down.

He had finally worked up the courage to read the letter. Mr. Antigone had left a graphic plan of all the horrible things he would do if Andrew didn’t leave Maxwell as soon as possible. He detailed all the ways he could get away with it, and included the pictures as proof of his deadly seriousnessand capability.

Well if he hasn’t killed me yet, it probably means he wants me alive. He must be trying to beat me into submission.

What a mess. Within just a few weeks of going out with Max, Andrew’s world had turned upside down. Of all the people in the world, he had to fall in love with a detective.

A knock at the downstairs door stirred him. Quietly putting Brie in her pen, he cursed himself for not burning the letter as told. Walking down to the front on tiptoe, he slipped a kitchen knife into his pocket- just in case.

Another knock. Andrew took a deep breath, prepared for the worst, and opened the door.

“Maxwell! Oh, it’s just you, thank god,” he sighed in relief.

Maxwell raised an eyebrow. “Of course it’s me, who else would it be?” He cut Andrew off before he could respond. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. We need to talk.”

A twinge of fear settled in Andrew’s gut. “About what? Is everything okay?”

“Given that you feel the need to answer the door with a knife in your coat,” he gestured to how poorly it was hidden, “No, things are far from okay.”

Andrew studied Maxwell’s face. His handsome features were pulled into a grave expression, his demeanor uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you come in,” Andrew said, holding the door ajar for the other man.

“Thank you,” Maxwell responded, sitting down at an empty booth in the main shop. Andrew sat down across from him, and they sat in silence for a long few moments.

Maxwell slowly tapped his thumbs together. Andrew could see how his eyes faded in deep thought.

“Andrew.”

“Yes?”

“Are you…” he took a shaky breath. “No. I know you’re the thief.”

Andrew’s stomach flipped, but he calmed himself. “You’re good. Guilty as charged. Is this my day of reckoning, then?” His tone was bitter, almost scared.

For the first time since arriving, Maxwell looked Andrew directly in the eye. “I have an idea.”

“You didn’t answer my question, but go on,” he said with a dry chuckle.

“Tell me, who is Nikos Antigone?”

Andrew stood up suddenly. “What do you mean, has he contacted you? Have you met him?”

“So you do know him. He sent me a letter- or, as it turns out, two letters. The first ‘anonymously’ telling me to run away from you, the second saying that you robbed him. Tell me, have you ever used violence in your hijinks?”

“I don’t know how much you’ll believe me, but no, I haven’t.”

“I figured as much. So it was Antigone that broke your nose a couple weeks back?”

Andrew hesitated. Was this an interview? But Maxwell seemed so genuinely worried. “Yeah, basically.”

“I’m very sorry,” he said, brushing a finger over the bridge that was still sore. Andy winced slightly, causing Max to draw his hand away.

“I’m not going to turn you in. I want to help, but to do that, I need answers. Could you tell me more?” He was now surprisingly soft.

So with a heavy sigh, Andrew spilled his guts about everything, even ousting Isabella’s involvement in the process. He also provided some insight on Jennifer. She was the daughter of a nobleman, one that rudely broke off dealings with the Antigone family’s crime loop, when she was just a baby.

Despite this, all four of them had attended the same school without realizing. She and the young Nikos were the best of friends, before they all went their separate ways, and Nikos followed in his family’s footsteps. Andrew was doing jobs for him simply to make him money and to be a jewel in his crown.

“You won’t have to be for long. If we can find a way to get him in the wrong place at the wrong time, we can pin all of your wrongdoings on him.”

“Maxwell, no. You could lose your job if you did that!”

“I’m more than willing-“

“And besides, I’m the one at the wheel, I should take the blame-“

“You think I haven’t shuffled blame before? You know neither of us have ever cared about morals and virtue.”

“That may be true, but this is still a huge risk. One I’m not willing to let you take for me!”

“Well too bad, because I refuse to allow you to keep on like this. If you don’t let me help, I’ll find a way to do something on my own.”

���Max, what the hell has gotten into you? Why can’t you let me sort out my own problems- or just throw me in jail already?”

“Because I love you, you nitwit!”

There was a long, charged silence. The tension of argument melted away, leaving something else entirely in its place.

“I… I think I love you too. And I don’t want you to get hurt. You have no idea the things this guy will do to you.”

Max held Andy’s hand, up on the table. “You’re right, I don’t. But I know with our combined minds, we can outsmart him.”

Andrew took a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you really think so?”

Maxwell nodded. “The Antigone family has done enough damage. It’s about time someone put a stop to it. I only have one condition.”

“That being?”

“For both of our sakes, you need to drop your game. Once Nikos is in prison, well…”

Andrew nodded and pondered for a moment. “I’d need something else after the fact- to keep me entertained. But yes, for you, I will.”

“Then our plot can be your last heist. Any ideas as to a replacement?”

“You could marry me, and we could run away together. Be musicians in Vienna till’ we’re old,” Andy smirked.

Max giggled. “Ask me again in three years.”

And then he gave Andy the most lovestruck look. Andy returned it. They glanced at their pose- they were awfully close.

“I’d ask if I could kiss you, but there’s a table in the way,” Andy whispered with a quiet laugh.

“Just get over here, you,” Max then pulled a laughing Andy by his tie to the nearest wall, moving close, only to be stopped.

“Hang the hell on, you’re the short one, shouldn’t you be the one-“

Max swatted Andy’s arm. “Oh, shut up.” And with that, they finally closed the gap.

Andy smelled like fresh cakes, and Max like old books. Where the thief tasted like strawberries, the detective was like tea with milk; both felt like smooth butter.

Andy’s arms were strong as he lifted Max and held him so close. They stood like that for a long time, pausing only to dash upstairs. Andrew had only one thought before his mind went blank with bliss.

Antigone thinks he can use me as a puppet. Poor man has no idea what he’s messing with.

[just-another-hhazbin]

More Hazbin Theories, “Addict” Edition

My brain is stuck on the “Addict” music video, especially in regards to Triple V, Angel Dust, Alastor, and the general power dynamics of Hell.

Two of my biggest questions are these: 

How old is Valentino? When did he die? And how does that affect everyone else?

Who is the one eyed spider in Cherri Bomb’s flashbacks?

Let’s address part one first, since that’ll tie into the second in a minute here.

We know that Valentino, Vox, and Velvet form Triple V, one of the most powerful overlord alliances in Hell. Of those three, Vox is the only one whose age is confirmed (died in the 1950s). He is also hinted to be the most straight up powerful of the three and is reported to have some sort of yandere/tsundere/rival relationship with Alastor. In the pilot, when the other “evil all powerful overlords” (etc) were mentioned, it is him who is center frame and highlighted with the most contrast, making him stand out the most.

But we know that wherever Vox goes, follows Velvet and Valentino - who is his boyfriend and may or may not be his husband now? (We’re watching that Instagram, Vivz.)

All of their aesthetics are very mixed pop and neon punk, etc. They all give off the same feeling, so its tempting to say they all died around the same time. But prostitution is the oldest profession in the world, and smuggling/trafficking isn’t far behind.

Surely there would have been overlords for those before Valentino and Velvet?

So, that leads us to 3 conclusions: 

Val and Velvet are around the same age/came into power around the same time as Vox, maybe even using his raw power to takeover from previous overlords

Val and possibly Velvet are much older than they first seem and have been running this business for a long time

They simply filled in a power and plot gap and age doesn’t matter

3 is boring and in my opinion, unrealistic, so I’m tossing that one out. Ignoring it. Once again, let’s talk about numero uno first.

So, if Vox came in the mid-1950s and Val and Velvet around the same time... that means that not only is Alastor older than them, but so is Angel Dust. Which would mean that he did something before working for Valentino. Something maybe like... working for his old mafia family? 

I mean, we know they’re all in Hell (besides possibly the mother?) and we know they’re all spiders, so it would stand to reason that the spider in Cherri Bomb’s flashback (hello, original point 2) would be a member of Angel’s family, or - and here is where we start stretching - Angel himself. 

Is it possible for demons to change forms? We know overlords + Alastor can, in some kind of monster vs slightly less monster way, but could Angel? Could his form have changed when he joined Valentino and that’s why he’s covered in hearts - the symbol Valentino seems to use everywhere - or did Val see a heart decorated pretty boy and was like yes this is the symbol I shall use for my sex business. 

It would explain why Angel Dust and Cherri are so close, and also the presence of that figure in Cherri’s flashback, but it’s also probably more likely that while they are someone connected to Angel Dust, they’re also not anyone we know yet. Still. Interesting to think about. What did Angel Dust and Cherri Bomb do before Val, if he arrived in Hell with the rest of the Triple Vs in the 1950s?

Then, there’s the option that Val and/or Velvet are older than Vox - possibly much, much older. Which puts a lot of things into question and perspective. First off, that would mean we have a theoretically two thousand or whatever year old overlord (Valentino) marrying/dating a roughly 70 year old overlord (Vox).

Now look me in the eyes, antis. That’s not “essentially pedophilia.” It’s not. They are both consenting and probably very evil adults. Don’t start that shit. 

BUT it does make you wonder who is really pulling the strings because there would be a definite difference in age and thus experience. Is it Vox, up and rising powerhouse that rivals Alastor and seems to be featured as the enemy in the pilot? Or is it Valentino, known manipulator and abuser who seems to be a huge jackass to both Angel Dust and Vox, based on the “Addict” video and instagram posts.

I mean, Vox getting the equivalent of his nose/face broken by Val and being repeatedly told off online for doing something “wrong” and then buying him TVs etc in apology? The on again off again relationship? Classic signs of douchebag emotional manipulation right there. I mean yes, Vox seems to call Valentino a rat (affectionately), but that also looks more like a tease than, you know, beating someone and then blaming them for making you do it.

That’s a toxic relationship and Vox baby you should be dropping that regardless of the rest, not making business trips/honeymoons together. But maybe that’s how ya’ll like it. Idk. Have your unhealthy relationship, you’re in Hell, after all. 

Or maybe it’s secretly Velvet running everything and no one realizes it. Or maybe they actually are all best friends and just happen to be overdramatic overpowerful asssholes who should still give Angel Dust’s contract to Charlie and let him retire.

If Vox and Val did split ways and break Triple V, I do think that Velvet would side with Val. In the instagram comments and on her own, she seems to side with Val much of the time. She also tells Angel to be nicer to Val because he and Vox are going through a breakup again. Which implies that either she’s a co-manipulator (likely), or maybe Vox is the one manipulating Val (unlikely), or they’re just romantic disasters (possible). 

But Val and Vox also essentially threw their pet shark twice her size at her, so really, whose to say how Triple V works.

Still - what would happen if they did split? would Val and Velvet become/stay as the main “villains,” would Vox go his own way and become a loose cannon, or would he pull a Vegeta and join the Hazbins due to his interest in Alastor and as a “fuck you” to Valentino? 

Anyway - Valentino, definitely an abuser. The spider in the flashback? Almost definitely connected to Angel Dust in some way. The rest? All theories, but imo, interesting thoughts to keep in mind as we wait for more.

[filmmakerdreamst]

How Jack Thorne's 'His Dark Materials' wanted it both ways

Despite the cast and crews open love for the novels, and the insistent diligence to stay as faithful to the source material as possible — even trying to fill in many of the gaps in the books, as seen in all three seasons of the show — the BBC adaptation never manages to capture the spirit (the only time I felt like it did was in the third season) because of the fact that every character is altered and changed. Not just adaptationally changed either like making a character dumber, softer or harder. They’re completely different characters, separated from the source material e.g. Mrs Coulter is changed from a seductive, calm character to a feral, suicidal character. I must admit, I did like the expanded self harm element that she causes her daemon. However I felt in the novel, if she were to harm her monkey, it would be ‘to keep her lust for power at bay’ rather than shame for herself.

The atmosphere was off yet the events were similar and the complete opposite at the same time. But you can’t have similar events play out with different characterisations, at least not with ‘His Dark Materials’.

Philip Pullman’s characters in ‘His Dark Materials’ are extremely charismatic, but to put it lightly, are not very palatable to say the least. As stated in @clarabosswald’s analysis, there seemed to be this weird need to make EVERY single character digestible or palatable in some way or another in the BBC adaptation, regardless of it making sense or not. I noticed this upon my re-read of ‘The Northern Lights’ that they even humanised the doctor that sexually assaulted Lyra by grabbing Pantalaimon, which was very troubling.

Now with the opposing ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ film, they changed the characterisations to make them more sympathetic and accessible to a contemporary audience. They even dug deeper with the character Edmund which I thought was a fantastic choice. But the reason why those character changes worked was because C.S.Lewis was not concerned with building character, he was much more concerned with the place of Narnia itself. He almost used his characters to explore the world of Narnia, e.g. some characters would leave one book and come back 5 books later — which is why some of the later adaptations of Narnia didn’t do as well in the box office as the first one.

The character changes in that film enriched the story without effecting it in a way, because ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ and the other books are driven by the plot. Where as ‘His Dark Materials’ is primarily driven by characters.

Philip Pullman in total contrast to C.S.Lewis, built the world (you could say he used the world) around the characters in order for them to get to Point A to Point B. But he was not concerned about exploring the multiverse so you could see the entire picture, like with C.S. Lewis.

I heard once that he described writing as wondering through a forest on a path and the path is your story. Theres a difference between the story world and the storyline. And as an Author, your concern is the storyline. It would be easy to step away and stray from the path and explore the forest and admire all the trees, but for him the most important thing to do was to remain on the path and focus on the story rather than the details along the way.

I’m not apposed to different versions of the characters or different storylines. But with ‘His Dark Materials’, those books are driven by specific character traits. And the fact that they changed them, while still being faithful to the events in the story, the story beats either don’t land or don’t hit as hard or don’t make sense altogether.

More specifically with the main characters Lyra and Will, but mostly Lyra since she’s the heart of the story.

Lyra is first and fourmost a liar, which may seem a small part of her character but its huge. Her ability to lie and get her way out of situations is the cause of many events in the books. She’s feral. She’s wild. She’s manipulative. She’s described as a ‘half wild cat’ and a ‘greedy little savage’. She can’t sit still or behave herself. She’s impulsive. She’s a leader. She gets into fights. She gets dirty. She spends all her nights on the rooftops. She’s an extrovert. She’s street smart. She’s selfish. She’s brave.

She’s an emotional and passionate human being. Thats what makes Lyra a real girl, not just a character on the page. These nuanced character traits of hers is how she pushes everything forward in the story.

All of those negative/positive aspects of her character in the books were watered down so much in the series. To the point where alot of them were removed. Not only is that incredibly dehumanising but makes the plot points where “she lies” not land as well or plot points revolving around her “telling the truth” make no sense at all.

The whole reason why she’s called Lyra Silvertongue is because she tricked the bear king with her lies, a trait which is consistent throughout the entire story — but completely nonexistent throughout the show. Her tricking the bear king in the adaptation came off as a lucky experience rather something that comes naturally to her. Even the ironic plot point of her being given the Alethiometer “a device that tells her the truth” didn’t hit as hard. They tried to establish her as a ‘liar’ in the second episode of season one then gave up completely as the show continued on.

But the weird thing is, those flaws were still mentioned by other characters in the show, when it was not the character they were developing. Characters would mention that she’s a liar, insufferable, selfish or that ‘she doesn’t apologise easily’ — which seemed like an over exaggeration since the show version of her isn’t really any of those things. This applied when characters such as Lee praised her for being ‘brave’ and ‘good’. I heard a HDM podcast recapping season 2 saying that “her character in the show wasn’t hitting the right emotional beats” to be a child of a great destiny that every character seemingly falls over themselves to give their lives for her.

TV Lyra hasn’t completely lost her flaws, but she’s not as nearly as flawed as she was in the books. She felt so contained, rather than passionate. Which felt so odd because yes, Lyra grows out of some bad traits such as her rudeness, due to the influence of Will. But she isn’t naturally like that.

They changed her so much, but also tried to keep her “the same” that her character growth which is huge in the books felt like nothing had moved at all. It kind of got reduced to a simple thing like her innocence being taken away. It was like she wasn’t allowed to have any sort of loud, dislikable reaction in any way. It felt like they were taking away her agency.

And I know one of the biggest reasons why they changed her behaviour in the TV Show is because they aged the character up to 14–16 at the start. I get it. Theres a huge difference between 12 and 14 in terms of maturity . It works for the Will & Lyra romantic scenes as an adaptational choice later in the story (because she’s allegedly 12–13 in the books).

I think Dafne Keen was an inspired choice for the role of Lyra, since I saw some scenes of her in ‘Logan’ and I 100% believe she would of pulled off Book Lyra given the chance, but by the time they started filming she was already 13/14. And in all honesty, Lyra just becomes odd looking older. She’s just not convincing as a misbehaving little girl who can’t sit still, she just comes off as a really strange child thats immature or lacking in social skills. For example, there’s a scene between Mrs Coulter and Lyra in ‘The Idea of North’ where she’s telling a lie, but it doesn’t come off natural because 1. They didn’t establish her as a liar immediately and 2. Part of her ability to lie comes from her spontaneous nature of being a kid telling stories and using her imagination. Dafne Keen didn’t really look that age, for it to look like something she would do.

They also made her relationship with Roger more of a focus in the show, which makes sense as her motivation in the later half of the books comes from wanting to rescue him. However, they made him ‘the only friend that she has’ which I found to be a strange decision because Lyra in the books has tuns of friends. I would say their friendship is more balanced in the series, where as in the book it wasn’t so much.

She forgets him a few times while staying with Mrs Coulter in the book where as she remembers him constantly in the episode ‘The Idea of North’ which felt like a confused choice to me. They were trying to have it both ways; have her be seduced by Mrs Coulter while also actively asking her to look for Roger.

The imbalance in Roger and Lyra’s friendship is important because it adds to the need to set things right with him in The Land of the Dead. It goes to the core of how everyone thinks she is selfish. She needs to save Roger to prove to herself she’s a good person.

In the dreams she has of him in The Land of the Dead, her and Roger have constant talks of how much he’s suffering. In the show, she just has alot of ambiguous flash forward dreams of Roger, with the story not prioritising them as important as the main plot of ‘Asriel’s War’.

When she brings this up to Will in the episode, he dismisses it instead of agreeing to go (like in the book) because of his daddy issues, no I’m sorry, because of Asriel’s War which makes sense as it’s one of the main plots in the season — where it was more of a distracting B plot in the book — but it just kind of adds to the idea that “its unnecessary” or “why are they doing this?”.

The desire to get to Roger and apologise in the show doesn’t hit as hard because there was more of a balance in Lyra and Rogers relationship plus the changes to her character just made it seem like “she just wanted to do it” rather than it being the most important decision she ever makes, to try to better herself.

While they go to the suburbs of the dead, Will and Pan constantly question why she’s doing this (a conflict that was not in the book — Will is steadfastly loyal to her by this point and Pan is too shivery to speak) while Lyra just snaps at them, making her seem mean for no reason. When she has a chat with her death, she doesn’t lie that an angel told her to do it (because they didn’t establish her as a liar properly), she just says that she wants to be good which is not a convincing argument considering what happens next.

When Pan and her have the argument while she leaves him on the doc, which is a great scene on its own (it made me cry), it also adds to the unnecessary nature of it all. It’s a scene that makes sense in the book because of Lyra’s impulsive nature, but because of her seemingly calculative nature in the show, it just looks odd. It’s described in the book that if Lyra had heard Pan speak, she would have folded and never would of got on the boat, but since the show did the complete opposite of that, It makes the scene more harsh and cold.

I think what the writers were trying to do was make it more of a mystery like ‘why is she doing this’ ‘its not too late to turn around’ a mission that appears fruitless at first, but turns out to be the greatest act of humanity — but again, I still don’t think that works because of how much Lyra’s entire character is changed. The act is not just for everyone else. It’s a major step in her character growth, to care about others.

In the Land of the Dead, obviously they had to cut out the whole section where Lyra literally looses her ability to lie while she’s telling lies to the harpies, then learns to tell the truth to the dead. This is the final step for Lyra’s character, finally learning the power of telling the truth instead of lies. They didn’t replace that with anything, only with her telling the dead true stories, which was heartwarming on its own, but obviously those story beats don’t hit as hard in the same way because like I said, its not presented as the final step in her character growth, its presented as a one off scene. This is one of the reasons why her character is pretty static in the adaptation.

In the Land of the Dead, its Lyra for the most part (apart from one instance) that keeps a cool head, while Will looses his — which again, the complete opposite. In the books, its Lyra that goes off the rails and its Will that keeps her centred.

Which brings me onto how the character of Will is changed in the adaptation, and how that effects the story from the second book onwards.

Will was brought in by Philip Pullman in ‘The Subtle Knife’, to represent Lyra’s other half — in another parallel universe literally, and also to help her on her quest to fulfil the prophecy. If it was just her on her own with Pan, it wouldn’t work and would fail.

Though I was taken aback by his entrance in ‘The Subtle Knife’ — as it was such a jarring change coming from the suspenseful cliff hanger where Lyra walks into the new world after her best friend Roger got murdered — he quickly but surely became my favourite male literary character of all time.

I don’t have as a big of a problem with his character changes then I do with Lyra, because there were at least a few times in the show where he was allowed to act like ‘himself’. Amir Wilson was perfect casting as Will. It was like the character had just walked off the page it was that good. But all together, he’s a completely different character — which I can understand. Out of all the characters, I feel he’s the hardest to pin down and his development is done in a subtle and subconscious way.

Throughout the course of ‘The Subtle Knife’, he’s incredibly off putting as he’s mostly angry and tired and then he’s in pain because of his knife wound. It works in a book format, because your’e in his point of view and you understand that he’s a child thats at the end of his tether. But it would be hard to portray that in a nuanced way on screen, unless your’e clever with it.

They unfortunately took the easy route with his characterisation on screen by making him softer. Not only that, the writing for his character was incredibly inconsistent at times.

Will from the books is fierce. He’s frightening. He’s stoic. He gets angry. He’s a strategist. He does whats best for someone. He likes to stay invisible. He’s sarcastic. He's an introvert. He likes to stay hidden. He’s practical. He’s a child carer. He's naturally aggressive e.g. He beat up a bunch of boys at school because they were hurting his mother. He hardly smiles. At times, especially in the second book, he becomes incredibly depressed. He's pretty much a 35 year old man in a young boy's body. He’s incredibly soft, but the reader can’t tell until Lyra brings that out in him.

I would say Will is a more contained version of Lyra, yet the complete opposite of her. They’re like yin and yang. They both have something that the other lacks, and that helps them both grow up. Lyra brings out a softness out in him, brings out his impulsive nature where as he helps her strategise and learn not to just rush out and do things.

TV Will suffers from the same problem that TV Lyra does.

Every negative/positive aspect about him is watered down. Revealing a quite mild character. I feel that they didn’t touch on the fact that he was a child carer enough, which is a huge part of his character. It just came off as ‘he loves his mum’ more in the show. Will being a caterer is supposed to contrast Lyra whom didn’t grow up with parents and got to live out a childhood that he was never allowed to experience. This is a theme. Every character trait that contrasts Lyra in the books isn’t present so much. I would even go as far to say that they’re too similar in the TV Show.

I was wondering throughout the second season why the storyline was static and wasn’t going anywhere. Certain plot points such as Will being a murderer, Lyra helping Will find his father, The fight for the subtle knife and Will becoming the bearer of the Subtle Knife felt tacked on or weren’t hitting as hard as they should.

At first, I thought it was because the novel was ‘the weakest in the trilogy’. I often see ‘The Subtle Knife’ as a bridge between both ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’.

But since re-reading the book, I went ‘Oh my God, its because they changed Will’s character arc’.

TV Will, the more I think about it, does not suit becoming the bearer of the subtle knife. The only times we see him fighting is in the boxing ring. He expresses incredible regret over killing a man instead of brushing it off because he was protecting his mother. Even when he’s under threat, he says ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ He even has to be persuaded to fight. There’s even a moment in the show where he says “Maybe we’re better off not fixing the knife at all.” which kind of dismisses the practical nature of his character in the book. Plus the knife being a part of him, the same way as the Alethiometer is a part of Lyra. Even the remarks that Lyra makes about him being similar to Iorek the armoured Bear don't make as much sense, because of the fact that he's softer.

Book Will struggles with his warrior nature, and eventually learns thats not who he wants to be. But he isn’t naturally a soft person. He learns to be through his experiences and his relationship with Lyra. Which is why it was so odd to me that they included the line in the show where Will is saying to his father in the Land of the Dead “You told me that I was a warrior; That I can’t fight my nature. Your’e wrong.” I was just like, what are you talking about? That is so not the character the show had developed. TV Will had hardly been shown to fight anyone of his own free will — it didn’t make sense to me. They were trying to have it both ways. Completely ignoring his basic character traits and flaws, yet still going through the same arc (a somewhat watered down one) one e.g. idolising his dad for his whole life, realising his dad ain’t shit when he meets him, finding Lyra missing, ignoring the task his father set him etc.

Even the task that Lyra has to help Will find his father didn’t land as well because of the fact that the two of them were bonding straight away in the show, instead of it being like ‘oh no we’re stuck with each other’ to this slow process of her and Will learning to trust each other.

I understand that you have to translate Lyra and Will’s relationship alot differently in a Show format, because subconscious development doesn’t really work due to the lack of intimate point of views. The more something is changed in an adaptation, the more it stays the same.

I have openly praised the shows depiction of their relationship in another analysis I wrote (before i re-read the books) and how I loved how they gave them more soft moments. However, I will admit now that the soft moments that they had in season 2 felt off to me because they weren’t in character. I think, looking back I would of preferred more soft moments if they were in character.

Will’s initial softness towards Lyra in the show is partially to do with TV Lyra being much less feral and less of a threat. As a result their journey is warmer and far less angstier than it was in the books.

And that in turn messes with the tension.

The element of Will being slightly dismissive of her at the start, is important to how certain story beats land. It adds to the ‘OH SHIT’ when Lyra’s been taken and the task that his father set him that he’s been dreaming of his whole life suddenly isn’t important to him anymore. Thats why it’s such a big deal when he spends most of his time through ‘The Amber Spyglass’ looking for her.

But in the season 2 finale, it ends with Will going off into the sunset, presumably to fulfil is fathers wishes. Then in season 3, he finds her missing, goes ‘whoops’ and then there's a montage of him trying to find her. Then when he does (quite easily) — he goes on about how “since his dad died he’s done none of the things that he asked him to do’ which makes him looking for Lyra within the show feel even more anticlimactic.

Also, this is more of a personal opinion that an analytical one, I did not appreciate when Lyra brought up going to the Land of The Dead, TV Will went “I saved you. I did everything I could to save you. You told me not to but I did it anyway” which felt to me like ‘Wow brilliant, of course you had to save her’

And instead of agreeing to go to the Land of the Dead with her like in the book, they had to insert some tension from 'The Subtle Knife' (because they messed with the tension in season 2) and have Will go on a rant about what his dad wanted him to do, Asriel’s war, dismissing Lyra’s wishes and even having him suggest maybe her dad regretted killing her friend.

This is something that Will from the books would never ever say, let alone to the girl that he loves. He's fully aware how much her dad hurt her and he respects her too much by that point to ever suggest something like that. Even when he does think about ‘what his dad wanted him to do’ he’s still steadfastly loyal to Lyra. They were completely undermining the turning point in their relationship and Will’s character development by adding pointless drama to extend the episodes running time.

As mentioned in a very articulate post by @mamsellechosette24601 ‘the quest to find his father and fulfil his fathers wishes’ isn’t the point at all, its Will letting go of his childhood dreams, of realising what really matters is Lyra all along.

Now I’ve seen in another analysis of the adaptation that their path to falling in love in the show is alot clearer than in the books which I can understand and agree with (to a certain extent) because the books were much more concerned with philosophy than romance. This is true for the romance between Asriel and Marisa in the Book vs the TV Show as well.

The concept behind their relationship remains the same:

“Will and Lyra are very good people who learn to trust each other when they’re at their most vulnerable, they become the only thing they have in a terrifying world of enemies. By the end, when they realise they’re in love only to discover they can never be together, they make the mature choice, however hard it may be.”

But their relationship is totally different in the TV Show because of their character changes.

I would say Lyra and Will have more of a enemies to lovers storyline in the books - where as the adaptation version of them doesn't. The screenwriters clearly tried to iron out alot of the problematic elements, especially in the beginning and focus on them being "friends" more. I'm not apposed to them doing that, but the way they did it ended up muting a few of their scenes together.

I’ve actually made an argument in my other account (against the ‘His Dark Materials’ analysis saying that ‘the adaptation did a much better job at showing when Will and Lyra fell in love’) that their relationship development was a lot subtler in the books because the characters were alot younger and more immature. And that it was more ‘obvious’ in the tv show because they aged the characters up, therefore they could have more mature conversations and scenes together.

This was before I did my re-read.

After re-reading ‘The Subtle Knife’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’ comparing it with how their relationship is handled in the TV Adaptation. I would actually argue the opposite .

In some ways, the growing romance between the two of them is much more mature (and makes more sense) in the books than in the show, at least to me. Unlike in the TV Show, their relationship never enters into neutral territory, even when they finally learn to trust each other. Theres much less emphasis on their ‘friendship’.

After their brutal first meeting — where they attack eachother — in ‘The Subtle Knife’ Lyra is immediately taken with Will and constantly thinks about him and what he thinks of her. There’s even a moment in ‘The Amber Spyglass’ where she’s trying to hide that she’s in pain while they’re walking (because of all that time she’s been asleep) because she doesn’t want to appear weak in front of him.

The way Lyra and Will meet in the show, is reminiscent of how children meet for the first time. Though quite skeptical of each other, they instantly bond and make friends after 5 seconds, because why wouldn’t they? They’re kids the same age after all. Even though there’s still an element of mistrust there, there’s hardly any conflict between them. They don’t play off each other as much. There is one moment where he gets angry at her for making him wait, but all that is solved in a minute because of Lyra’s ‘calm nature’

Even when Lyra gives Will away by accident and says that she lost the Alethiometer, he doesn’t shout at her. There are few comments here and there but theres no real tension between the two of them.

When Will and Pan have a conversation, its presented as Pan going up to him to have a chat after he had a bad dream rather than Will finding the courage to speak to him in the book and saying ‘I think Lyra’s the best friend I’ve ever had’. This is presented more as a statement in the show because their friendship has already been established and less of a discovery (as he wasn’t reacting to her that much in the book as he had alot on his mind).

Lyra and Will even have a talk about Pan’s conversation with him afterwards in the show. But in the book, that never happened. It’s mentioned later but never discussed, because of the fact that it was a private conversation between Will and Pan.

You could say this was another problem that the adaptation had. It’s mentioned multiple times ‘YOU CAN’T TOUCH SOMEONES DAEMON’ but not emphasised why thats the case.

In the books, it’s heavily implied that touching someone else’s daemon is the equivalent of touching someone’s genitals. There’s a moment in ‘Northern Lights’ where Lyra and Iorek find Tony in the fish house without a daemon and Pan wants to comfort him but holds back because of the taboo. Thats why it’s such a big deal when Pan comforts Will and starts licking him in the book.

In the show, its quite an underwhelming scene that lasts 5 seconds where Pan strokes Wills fingers and Lyra says in a quiet voice ‘In my world, your’e not supposed to touch someone else’s daemon but you didn’t do something wrong’

And don’t get me started on the 5 second panning away shot where they’re finally touching each others daemons, instead of the moving moment from the book. It didn’t feel like they really understood the gravity of what those scenes meant and what it meant for their connection.

Again, this is more of a personal opinion. Near the end of the final book, when they enter the world of the Mulefa, Lyra and Will trust each other more than they ever have, which shows how much they’ve both grown since ‘The Subtle Knife’. Mary even describes that she never saw ‘more trust on a persons face’. But in the show, there’s this weird forced tension between them for the sake of ‘romance’. They’re suddenly awkward teenagers with each other — which was not a choice that I liked because it didn’t come naturally.

And when they have to be ripped from each other, a whole page worth of them bargaining to be together is turned into ‘I didn’t think it was possible to feel this bad.’ and ‘This is all wrong’, plus Mary and Serafina being weirdly insensitive while Will and Lyra are in different locations rather than being with each other.

This is possibly why I didn’t feel anything when they had to be forced apart because, the way it was handled felt rushed and soulless.

Overall, despite there being more ‘soft moments between the two of them’ Show Lyra and Will’s connection feels alot more shallow and simplified.

In the books, I got the vibe that even though they were very young, you couldn’t imagine them being with anyone else but with each other. They were each others other half. They were essentially the only family they had in a world full of enemies. There was never a moment in the books, where they weren’t already in love with each other to some degree. It went beyond the typical romantic duality.

In the show, it felt more temporary. This is mostly due to their character changes (they were too similar in my opinion). Like a connection between friends that became romantic at the end of the journey. And it’s something they’ll get over because “It won’t always feel like this” or “Its much more romantic to live for love than to die for it” or “It might not seem like it now but you have a future”

I think that was one of my main problems with the TV Show, it lacked emotion. Not just as an adaptation, but in general.

More than anything, the adaptation felt too confused. It was trying to reimagine the story while also paying homage to the original material. And thats why overall — despite my enjoyment for some of the episodes especially in season 3 — it didn’t work as well as it should have.

[traincat]

I’ve read Waid and Hickman’s FF runs and am currently reading Zdarsky’s 2 in One. I’m planning on eventually reading the Lee/Kirby run. Can I ask, what other runs would you recommend? Is Claremont’s good? Sorry for bothering.

I LOVE Waid and Hickman’s Fantastic Four runs, and Zdarsky’s Marvel Two-In-One was excellent to the point where one of my lingering disappointments is that Marvel brought the Fantastic Four back in a way that prematurely cut off Zdarksy’s 2n1. I know I said I wanted them back but wow did we all get monkey’s paw’d on that one. Zdarsky did really excellent stuff with both Ben and Johnny and the multiverse hopping was honestly fun and interesting. Lee/Kirby is also, in my opinion, just a really terrific run -- it lays the groundwork for not only the future of the Fantastic Four but a lot of big concepts for the Marvel Universe in general, and I think it holds up really well by modern day storytelling standards. Lee’s sense of humor works well with the retrofuturistic vibe and Kirby’s art is always wonderful. In particular I think it’s interesting to look back on The Galactus Trilogy (Fantastic Four #48-50) as the granddaddy of all event comics, for better or worse. 

Claremont -- okay, I love Claremont’s run, let me start off by saying that. Claremont’s run follows on what is in my opinion one of the worst periods of Fantastic Four canon, and I mean bad to the point where the literal canon at that point was that to get things back on track the Fantastic Four had to be put in a bubble universe. Claremont’s run kicks in one or two issues after their return to the main Marvel universe and it’s so fun. I think Fantastic Four is one of those series that kind of flourishes in adversity and Claremont’s run starts off with the Fantastic Four trying to regain their footing in a world that had assumed them dead, their Baxter Building gone, living in a warehouse property. Claremont, in my opinion, also has one of the best if not the best handle on characterization for a lot of key Fantastic Four figures, including Johnny, Reed, and Sue. His Ben is also very good, but I think Ben in particular tends to be an easier sell for a lot of comic book writers -- the outcast, the gruff man, the comic relief. He’s easier to identify with than Reed, the Smartest Man on Earth, or Johnny, defined by his youth and beauty and queercoded since the ‘60s, or Sue, by sheer factor of being a woman. So I think a lot of writers identify with Ben first and foremost and put the most love and care into his depiction, whereas the others are a little easier for them to leave by the wayside. Which isn’t a bad thing -- I love that one of the most beloved comic book characters is also one of Marvel’s few canonically Jewish characters, but there is a wealth of truly excellent Ben canon in comparison to the other three. Especially with Johnny, there’s no one else who has written for Fantastic Four who has put nearly as much thought and detail into Johnny’s relationship with his powers, both the positive and the negative, as Claremont has, even reworking the origin story from Lee and Kirby’s joyous scene of Johnny flaming on for the first time into a deeply traumatizing incident -- being sixteen and traumatized and bursting into uncontrollable flames. 

(Fantastic Four v3 #11) There’s also a lot of women in Claremont’s run! A valid criticism of Fantastic Four canon is that by its initial core team makeup it tends to be lacking in female characters compared to some other big Marvel staples, but Claremont brings in a ton, from Reed’s college friend and fellow genius Alyssa Moy (who has been done dirty by pretty much every other writer who’s ever touched her, including Waid and Hickman) to multiversal bounty hunter Bounty to the most platonic of Johnny’s gal pals Caledonia to Valeria Von Doom, a “time dancing” teenage incarnation of the baby Sue lost back in Byrne’s run, who sets up baby Val’s eventual return. Claremont is also king of Reed vs Doom setups -- if you haven’t read his Fantastic Four vs X-Men miniseries, I highly recommend it, and he brings a lot of the two sides of the same coin energy from that into his Fantastic Four run. 

The downside of Claremont’s run is that the plot is always there and always running and I could not explain half of it if you paid me. Things certainly happen! Like all the time! For seemingly no apparent reason! Stuff gets set up and then it’s not resolved and now we are in Latveria! I don’t think this is necessarily all that detrimental -- the run is still massively fun and the characterization is always fresh and interesting. It’s just that sometimes you have no idea what’s going on and you have to roll with it. And then sometimes you do know what’s going on but in the way where you know Claremont was just writing it because it’s his kink. Which is like, whatever. As authorial ids go, you can pretty consistently do worse than Claremont’s, I’ll give him that. So I do recommend on it the whole, as long as you’re not going into expecting the kind of plots either Hickman or Waid brought the book. Claremont’s is kind of like “stuff happens and it’s either weird or fun so just don’t pay too much attention to it.” 

Aside from Claremont, I feel like I generally like far more Fantastic Four runs than I dislike -- but also I don’t hate Millar’s run, which is honestly bad, so it’s possible I’m just very forgiving with the Fantastic Four. I really like Robinson’s run, which is the last run before the Great Fantastic Four Drought of 2015-2018. It’s short, self-contained, and devoted entirely to one story, so it’s pretty tightly written, with good characterization and some very shiny art by Leonard Kirk. Straczynski’s run is decent enough for the fact that it intersects with Civil War -- I think he does his best to get into the heads of the characters re: their actions in Civil War -- and it leads directly into Dwayne McDuffie’s run, another brief one where Black Panther and Storm take over for Reed and Sue. Very fun. Marvel Knights 4 is also a fairly recent run that’s got some strong moments in it, although I feel it’s a little inconsistent in its handling of the characters. It’s still fun, though. For an older, longer run, I like Simsonson’s -- the art is very dynamic, even if the storyline kind of gets too involved with itself. 

(FF #337)

I recommend Byrne’s run with the caveat that there’s plenty to dislike about it and plenty of reasons to avoid it, not the least of it being Byrne himself as a creator and a person. It’s heavily sexist in how it deals with Sue, it retcons a huge age gap into Sue and Reed’s relationship, and Byrne’s early departure sets up my all time least favorite Fantastic Four story. (Though that one is Roger Stern and later Tom DeFalco’s fault.) It is historic as Fantastic Four runs go, though, and there’s a lot in later runs that’s built over it or references it or borrows from it. So it’s a rec with a lot of caveats and I also understand why people might give it a skip -- I think it’s more important for an understanding of the greater body of Fantastic Four canon and the impact it had than for the actual run itself. I do think Byrne has some very interesting subtext with Johnny, although it never come to fruition, and while his Sue falls victim to a lot of sexism, I really like what he does with the character of Frankie Raye, who like poor Alyssa Moy I don’t think has ever gotten really good treatment ever since.

I have mixed feelings on both Millar and Fraction’s runs, not in the least because I think they end very similarly -- and that Millar did it better, which doesn’t say great things. Millar’s run is kind of like a trashy popcorn flick version of Fantastic Four; it’s not actually good, but I can’t say I don’t like the terrible eldritch monster in Scotland Christmas arc (Fantastic Four #564-565) and I’m sort of into future Sue. Fraction, on the other hand, takes a space road trip and makes it boring, which is the greatest Fantastic Four sin of all. He’s one of the rare writers who I think actually writes a bad Ben Grimm -- not the least because his run goes out of its way to try and label it Ben’s own fault that he was transformed into a monster. I do really like his FF (just the initials) though. 

The only Fantastic Four runs I can say I really truly dislike are Tom DeFalco’s and Dan Slott’s, which sort of unfortunate because DeFalco’s is both long influential (I have no idea why because it’s honestly terrible like in terms of storytelling) and because Slott’s is happening right now. DeFalco comes onto the book on Fantastic Four #356 and stays on until Fantastic Four #416, at which point Marvel hit a literal retcon button to get out of the mess he’d made. (This leads into Fantastic Four v2, which is largely skippable -- it’s basically a mid-90s retelling of a bunch of early Fantastic Four stories that leads back into the FF heading back to the main universe.) DeFalco’s responsible for the Skrull retcon in the JohnnyAlicia marriage and for dragging that out for over 50 issues, the entirety of which feel like he was writing without a plan or outline or literally anything, and I have never felt like a comic book was attempting to gaslight me through its own incompetence or refusal to commit to things it set up itself as badly as I do with DeFalco’s run. (I like other non-Fantastic Four Tom DeFalco runs. I just hate this one.) Dan Slott’s run is just 25 issues and counting of badly written emotionless unfunny pages blandly stapled together and I so badly want Marvel to kick him off the book for its own good.

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Villain Motivation and the Banality of Evil

Motivation in Fact and Fiction

As you know by now, I am a huge true crime fan. I've read books by FBI profilers and crime historians, am addicted to the Investigation Discovery channel, and have even attended a semester of my local police departments "citizens police academy". This is a professional as well as a personal interest, given that I am currently outlining a mystery WIP set in an alternate version of our world. Thus, I want to understand crime investigation, different types of evidence, and, of course, motive. It's this last one—the motivation behind a villain's acts—that many authors, not just those who write mystery—concern themselves with. And, after examining hundreds of real-life crimes, I'm here to tell you that it's not that important.

Ok, it's a little important, in that a villain needs a motive, but it's not important that it be extremely groundbreaking, or extremely relatable, or extremely anything. Motives tend to be common place, not extreme, no matter how shocking the other aspects of a crime.

For example, the excellent book The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury and the Beginnings of Modern CSI, which I raved about previously, contains a number of sensational cases where the bodies were either hideously mutilated or, conversely, found without any scratch on them. To add intrigue to injury, the murders happened in the early days of forensics, when procedures for dealing with evidence were still being worked out and when more modern investigative tools like AFIS, DNA testing, and psychological profiling were still decades away. Every case was fascinating in its details and in its eventual solution. Almost every case had, as a motive, either money or getting out of an unwanted relationship. That was it. The oddities of the bodies were the killers' attempts at not being caught, but the reasons for there being bodies in the first place were as average as could be.

In fact, the three main motives, according to Lt. Joe Kenda, of ID channel fame, are money, revenge, and sex. The more headline-catching serial-killer crimes happen, it seems, due to a desire for power or a thrill. I would say these five motives sum up most murders, maybe even most crimes. Once you cut away the mystery and the gore, all you're left with are some pretty average human desires: money/stuff, vengeance/justice, sex, power/control, and thrill/excitement. When people talk about the banality of evil, this is what they mean.

Take the motive of "money". We're all familiar with the idea, in real and fictional crime, of robbing banks or killing someone for their life insurance. Writers seem to find this an acceptable plot point: villain wants a lot of money and thus does very bad things. Yet, if you watch enough crime TV, you will know that real murders happen for sums as low as $400 or even $40. There was an episode of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda where a man was shot and almost killed over an argument about 25 cents!

It also needn't be money, but material possessions. In one of the citizen's police academy classes, we learned about a local case where three teenagers broke into a man's house and stole, among other things, his corncob pipe. This pipe was the item he was most upset about, and often discussed in subsequent weeks. So the man lured one of the teenagers out to the woods and shot him execution-style. He was planning to do the same to the other two, and blame the whole crime on his teenaged lover. So that was one life ruined—and it would have been three others, had he not been caught—with the motive of revenge for a lost corncob pipe!

The Gap Between Good and Evil

I thus wonder why it is that we, as writers, tend to overlook such commonplace motivations. There's an unspoken assumption that the motivation of a villain must scale with their actions, so while sub-bosses or henchmen might get away with being in it for the money or the thrill, the Big Bad needs a more exciting or deep motivation. There's also a more recent idea being bandied about in internet circles that the villain should think he's the hero. I think both of these concepts are flawed, but let's take them one at a time.

Although I personally love "True Believer" villains that really do believe they are doing what is right, I don't think it's fair to say that all villains must be this way. After all, a great many real-life villains don't think they're doing something good; they just don't care. They want what they want and do what they can to get it without worrying about morality. I think the reason that this second sort of villain--the thrill-killer, the evil sorcerer, the bully--get a bad rap is that people (both readers and writers), don't understand evil. Yes, a villain who only desires evil is unrealistic, because, in fact, it's impossible to desire evil. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the Catholic tradition, we hold that evil doesn't exist; it has no metaphysical reality. Evil is a privation, or absence, of good, similar to how a shadow doesn't exist, but is a privation, or absence, of light. Thus, a person cannot desire evil in and of itself, because they would be desiring nothing. Every evil act is done because someone is desiring something good, but disproportionately, or in a way that removes part of the good from that thing. Again, look at the five motives for murder. Each of those is a good, in and of themselves, but none justifies violating another person.

And thus we come to the other assumption about villains, that their actions must scale with their motives. I think, in fact, the opposite tends to make a more interesting villain. The motive can be something small--wanting revenge for some slight, or a peaceful life, or to be like everyone else. These might even be the same goods that the hero desires. What makes the villain villainous, and what can make them even more interesting, is what they are willing to do to fulfill these desires. Who or what are they willing to throw away? What rules are they willing to break? That distance, between what they want and how they get it is what separates them from the hero.

Types of Villains

This principle, that a villain must desire a good, but desire it disproportionately, can work for any type of villain.

Take the True Believer types: those that believe they are doing what's right. In this category, I would put people like Thanos (Avengers: Infinity War), as well as A.I.s like Agent Smith (The Matrix), VIKI (iRobot), and the Terminators (Terminator... obviously). Thanos is widely lauded as one of Marvel's best villains because he really does think he's doing the right thing. He is willing to throw away half of all sapient beings, plus the one person who he actually cares about, in order to save the other half. What he wants--peace and prosperity--is understandable, but while the gap between that and his genocidal actions is mathematically non-existent, it is morally huge. Similarly, the three A.I.s I mentioned are trying to save either robot-kind or human-kind, but are willing to murder thousands or even billions of humans in order to do it. Essentially, these villains are doing the classic Utilitarian trolley problem, but on a massive scale. They think they are the heroes, and truly do desire a good outcome, but the actions taken to bring that about are inexcusably evil.

Similar to the True Believers are a type of villain I will call the Desperate. These people are also trying to bring about good, but know that what they are doing is wrong. Mr. Freeze (Batman) is a classic example, as he commits crimes to get money and technology to save his wife. Actually, there are a whole slew of villains, mostly in anime and JRPGs, whose entire motivation is to save or resurrect a dead wife or girlfriend. They're trying to save someone they love, but they rarely brand themselves as saviors or heroes; Desperate types hold no such illusions. Sebastian, in my own series, is such a villain, in that he is willing to betray his friends and ally himself to bad people in order to save Chiaroscuro and make up for his past sins. He's willing to do evil that good may come of it, and actually uses the "I'm a bad person anyway" excuse as a justification for his actions.

On the flip side are those who don't care about whether or not they're doing good, which I will divide into three types: Dark Lords, Thrill Killers, and Egoists.

Dark Lords, obviously, include literal Dark Lords, such as Sauron and Voldemort, but I'm also going to throw in your average serial killer into this category. Why? Because they all want the same thing: power. The books I've read by FBI profilers chronicle the most gruesome crimes with motives ranging from rage to lust, but there is an ever present need of the killers to control, whether that's controlling their victims, the situation, or the police and firefighters (in the case of arsonists). Control is related to power, and power, in and of itself, is a good. This, in fact, is why it's wrong for these villains to take away the power or freedom of their victims. While a True Believer like Thanos sought balance, Dark Lords seek an imbalance, and want everything for themselves in an attempt to prove to themselves that they are more powerful, and thus better, than everyone else. These types of villains are, sadly, very realistic, but don't lend themselves to stories requiring a strong interpersonal conflict between hero and villain. They tend to act as a force of nature the hero must work against--whether in a fantasy against a Dark Lord or in a thriller against a serial murderer--and thus don't do much in the way of interpersonal conflict.

Better, in my opinion, are the Thrill Killer types, who see the world as a game, and are willing to do whatever it takes to have fun. Example of this are The Joker (Batman) and Mr. Sato (Ajin). Though The Joker is a bank-robbing thug, he's mostly in it for the laughs, and cares very deeply about whether or not things are funny. That doesn't make him any less abusive or violent, but the gap between his humor and his barbarity is what make him an interesting character. Mr. Sato, similarly, sees the world like one huge videogame, in which he has been given extra lives. Fun and games are a normal and natural good, but his villainy stems from what he is willing to do in this "game". Mr. Sato has absolutely no concern for human life, even his own, and kills hundreds of people (including himself, on multiple occasions!). The interest in this type of villain comes from watching their crazy schemes and then trying to figure out how the hero can possibly beat them. These villains are similar to Dark Lords in that they are something like a force of nature, but different in that the hero usually has to face off against them personally, outwit them, and deal with them as an individual person.

Finally, there are those who want something personally good, but have no regard for others. Technically, this could also describe Dark Lords and Thrill Killers, but here I mean really personal, as in specific to that person. Rather than something big like power or a crazy thrill, they tend to desire the utterly ordinary. Take the robot in Ex Machina. I'm not sure everyone would classify her as a villain, though she certainly did some evil things (it's up to interpretation whether she understands good and evil, though). What was her motivation? She wanted to go watch a crowd. She was, essentially, created to gather information, so that's what she went to go do. It makes sense that that's what she wants, but it doesn't justify what she did to the main character (even if he was kind of a doofus). Or Rezo the Red Priest (Slayers), who, in my opinion, has one of the best motivations of any villain ever. He was born blind and wanted to see. That's a totally understandable motivation. But he's willing to sacrifice the entire world to a demon lord in order to get that wish. Now that is a heckofa gap between a good desire and an evil action! And yet, is it really all that different from the sort of selfishness present in a man who would murder three teenagers over a corncob pipe? Real evil motivations are banal, and real evil actions are completely disproportionate to those motivations. Art, in the case of these last villains, is simply imitating life.

Asking What the Villains Want

Obviously, there are a million different ways of combining these villain type and motivations. Some villains want money so they can save a dying loved one. Some villains desire revenge because they truly believe they have been wronged. A Thrill Killer might find excitement in killing criminals. There is no one right way to write a villain, and there is no one motivation that is the only interesting kind. To anyone trying to write a villain, I suggest reading about or watching shows on real life criminals, from the Big Bads like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to famous killers like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy to run of the mill criminals in your local newspaper. People don't become mass murderers or even petty thieves for no reason, but they also don't just do evil because it's the evil thing to do. Even the most gruesome atrocities were rooted in the desire for misplaced revenge, or disproportionate control, or a false belief in some so-called greater good. Then, I suggest reading and watching your favorite stories and asking what makes these villains tick. Is it the same as in real life? Is it different? What makes a great villain so great? You'll may just find that it's simply a matter of proportion.

[nyerus]

MDZS  vs.  The Untamed

Differences between “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” (Mó Dào Zǔ Shī - 魔道祖师) and its live drama adaptation “The Untamed” (Chén Qíng Lìng - 陈情令)

(If you want to skip right to the differences, please see below the cut!)

I’ve recently fallen into the MXTX fandom by crying through TGCF and I’ve been delighted to see that I’m not the only one who’s been newly inducted. I've been seeing so much of the live action adaptation of MDZS, i.e. CQL, on my dash, and I'm so happy about it. After watching it, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to make a post cataloging the differences between CQL and MDZS for those interested.  (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ The goal of this post is for two reasons: First, to help people who are totally new to MDZS and are starting out with CQL as their entry, and then reading the novel (or going to the donghua/manhua). This will hopefully help them get their bearings in regards to the fandom, so that they won't be confused when coming across certain content that isn't in the live drama. Second, this is to help folks who have already read the novel/etc to understand what's different in the live action, so when/if they choose to watch CQL, they aren't caught off-guard by any changes. (I won't get into the manhua/donghua in this post because it's already too long as it is.) Hopefully, this will also help bridge the gap between fans, so that we can have a fun and shared experienced over this incredible world brought to us by MXTX! This post is split into two distinct sections: one without any major spoilers, and one with spoilers. If you want to be as unspoiled as possible and just want to know the big differences between the novel and drama, please read only the first portion. The second //spoiler-filled// portion is divided into other major and minor differences, and is mainly intended for people who have experienced at least one version already. Additionally, if you are completely new to MDZS, there are things which may seem like spoilers to you, but happen in like the first page of the novel/in the summary itself (or in the first 10mins of the first episode), and will not be treated as such. I will do what I can to keep actual spoilers out of the first section….

Before jumping right into it though, I think it’s time to say that many of the differences in CQL are in large part due to the strict censorship laws that China has. Unfortunately, we just have to live with this fact. Thankfully for us, the creators of CQL have earnestly tried their best in keeping the major points and themes of MDZS in tact, and have really stuck to the spirit of the series. Kudos to them and the actors for their hard work!

SPOILER-FREE DIFFERENCES

There is no explicit romance between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in CQL. They are literally called soulmates right in the CQL summary, and there are very obvious romantic undertones to their relationship in the drama—but there is nothing explicit on-screen. Naturally, due to censorship. While the novel has the two in an intimate (and very explicit) relationship where they end up literally married, the show tones this down to something more subtle. It’s still pretty obvious that they’re in love though. (Especially in the 20-episode wangxian special edition.) Also, they always seem to be sharing a room with one bed….

The plot is modified for CQL. In the novel, the plot revolves around Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji following an aggrieved spirit as they uncover the truth of what’s going on. In CQL, this was changed from the dismembered arm of said spirit to a sword, but it serves virtually the same purpose as it does in the novel. The other real major difference with the plot is that something known as “Yin Iron” is what drives a majority of the past’s plot. It has its origins tied to demonic cultivation, which I will explain more below. It doesn’t drastically change the actual plot itself, but does change some motivations, etc. This is not present in the novel.

Wei Wuxian is not the founder of demonic cultivation in the drama. Yes I know this seems whack. After all, the original novel is literally called Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/Founder of Diabolism. But due to censorship laws, they had to change this. Wei Wuxian still uses demonic cultivation, and still invents many things (the compass, the spirit flags, the amulet, etc). He’s still shown as a prodigy—but demonic cultivation is a thing that’s been around long before the story takes place; it’s just that no one uses it except Wei Wuxian. The reason is the existence of the Yin Iron. It was something that was found and revered long ago, and is a source of dark power. Hence, why demonic cultivation already exists, but also why no one follows that path. The necromancy angle is also downplayed in CQL.

Wei Wuxian’s morality is somewhat different. Again, due to censorship restrictions. In the novel, Wei Wuxian is far more of a gray character who does some questionable things. He makes mistakes, there are things which are definitely his fault, and he has many things which he regrets. However in CQL, he is shown more as a victim of circumstance. He’s portrayed as a much more innocent character, who happens to be doing what’s right, and is just continually fucked over. He still does plenty of questionable things, but it’s less so than in the novel. In both versions, he is still Chaotic Good, just the novel emphasizes chaotic, and the drama emphasizes good. Also, CQL doesn’t really portray Wei Wuxian’s breakdown or deteriorating mental health before his death too deeply.

Wei Wuxian’s death in the beginning of the story is different. The novel is much more vague in this regard, and it is more drawn-out. I will return to this point later as well, in regards to spoilers. The live drama has a more… “peaceful” and quick type of death for Wei Wuxian, and given how it’s the very first scene that you see in the show, it may catch novel fans off guard. Still absolutely heart-wrenching though, especially when you see it play out in full later on.

The structure of the live drama’s narrative is different. While MDZS intersperses its main story in the present timeline with flashbacks (as do the donghua and manhua), CQL goes about it differently. After episode 2, CQL takes the viewer all the way to the past and goes through the entire timeline of events which happen leading up to Wei Wuxian’s death as seen in the first few scenes. From episode 3 to episode 33, you are firmly in the past only. Novel readers may find that this causes many things to be revealed quite early on. The change in structure is probably the biggest difference. From episode 33 and onwards, you are back to the present.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship in the present timeline is different to start out with. The novel has Wei Wuxian first operating under the assumption that Lan Wangji doesn’t like him. This eventually turns around, and deepens into a romantic relationship between the two. CQL on the other hand, has present-timeline!Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji having a much more tender relationship from the moment they meet again.

Wei Wuxian’s appearance remains the same after he is resurrected in the drama. While in the novel and other adaptations, Wei Wuxian takes on the appearance of Mo Xuanyu (who happens to look similar to a younger him, luckily enough), this does not happen in the drama. Probably done for convenience’s sake. It is never properly explained other than the fact that along with the soul-summoning spell, Mo Xuanyu did some other things to ensure that Wei Wuxian returned to what looked like his old body. (Some body parts snatching might’ve been involved.) Thus, Wei Wuxian hides his identity by wearing a mask.

Everyone looks the same as they did when they were teenagers. Again, probably just for convenience’s sake. They spend a lot of time in the flashbacks so getting viewers used to one set of faces, and then changing everything would be jarring—and also expensive to swap out actors. So despite a 16 year gap, everyone looks the same with no aging. #cultivatingimmortality

The time gap between Wei Wuxian’s death and resurrection is slightly longer in the drama. It’s 16 years versus 13 years in the novel. Unsure of why the change, as it doesn’t change much apart from serving to make some of the kids older. Some kids’ ages are also slightly altered. It’s not a huge difference and it plays virtually no difference in plot. Also, I can’t confirm it, but everyone seems to start out older as well.

Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, and Xue Yang are encountered much earlier in the drama. Before Wei Wuxian’s death, the three of them are encountered in Yueyang before the start of the Sunshot Campaign. The rest of their story plays out after Wei Wuxian’s resurrection.

Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning attend the classes at Cloud Recesses. This gives them a lot more screen time. Elaborated in spoilers below.

Wen Qing’s relationship with Wen Ruohan is more antagonistic from the start. Just like how Wei Wuxian is shown more as a victim of circumstance, so is Wen Qing (and by extension Wen Ning). Elaborated below.

The next section is spoiler-filled. It’s divided into two parts: major and minor differences. Turn back now if you don’t want serious spoilers for either CQL or MDZS!!!

SPOILER-FILLED MAJOR DIFFERENCES

After the dancing statue/Dafan Mountain incident — Wei Wuxian passed out, and wakes up in Cloud Recesses in Lan Wangji’s room. Both of them know™ already. Thus, Wei Wuxian doesn’t even try to pretend that he’s Mo Xuanyu in front of Lan Wangji, but he keeps up the appearance for other people until he’s figured out. This allows the two of them to have a very private relationship with each other.

Also lending to this, Wei Wuxian dies in a much different way in the drama, and dies knowing that Lan Wangji cares deeply about him. Thus why their relationship on his resurrection is so soft. He knew that Lan Wangji protected him and tried to save him until the very end, and is far more affectionate as a result.

Speaking of his death…. In CQL, Wei Wuxian chooses to basically swan dive off a cliff after seeing the horrors in front of him. It has a very lucid finality to it, and feels as though he has decided that only his death can bring peace, and so he falls back off a cliff—only to be caught momentarily by Lan Wangji. He eventually wrests himself from Lan Wangji’s grasp and falls to his death as Lan Wangji (and Jiang Cheng) watches in horror. The novel is far more vague and hints that he met a more gruesome end.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian essentially make up at the end of the drama—or at least end on decent terms by agreeing to put their past behind them and move on. Wei Wuxian wipes away a stray tear as Jiang Cheng cries in front of him in the temple. After everything is said and done, Jiang Cheng privately and quietly wishes Wei Wuxian well as he leaves with Lan Wangji.

Lan Xichen does not go into seclusion at the end of the drama. Despite his trauma, he’s relatively okay as compared to the novel. The drama doesn’t really comment on this aspect, to be honest.

In CQL, Jiang Yanli attends the classes at Cloud Recesses with her brothers. She is given extra interaction with Jin Zixuan during this. Yanli is in general given way more screen time in CQL. She is present during the destruction of Lotus Pier (she appears with Jiang Fengmian), and escapes with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng to Yiling.

Similarly, Wen Ning and Wen Qing are also present for the classes at Cloud Recesses. This is where they first meet Wei Wuxian (and Jiang Cheng), instead of Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian meeting in Qishan later. This gives all of them a pre-existing relationship before the events at Lotus Pier. Jiang Cheng also harbors a tiny crush on Wen Qing for a little bit. #same

Wen Qing is handled with much more suspicion by Wen Ruohan and Wen Chao, and during the Sunshot Campaign, she is even locked up. She’s saved by Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, but goes her separate way until Wei Wuxian encounters her again after becoming the Yiling Patriarch proper.

Mianmian is shown to be a part of the Jin sect in CQL, and is close to Jin Zixuan. She renounces her ties to Lanling Jin after everyone starts hating on Wei Wuxian.

Mianmian is also encountered in episode 1. She and her family replace the random farmer family they meet once they leave Gusu (for the second time) on their way to the Burial Mounds. The timing of this may also be different. This is because there is no real “epilogue” that takes 3 months later, like the final chapter of MDZS.

Mo Xuanyu was not ostracized for the same reasons as in the novel. In the novel, he’s also thought to be insane, but was thrown out because he supposedly “harassed” Meng Yao (i.e. had romantic feelings for him which were found out and he was driven out of Lanling). In CQL, he was thrown out for “harassing” Qin Su, but in actuality was only trying to reveal the truth about her husband, and was thrown out as an excuse to get rid of him before he became troublesome.

During the hunt in Phoenix Mountain, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a heart-to-heart, and establish that they do, in fact, care for one another. (I’m pretty sure they use the word soulmate here, but the subs are like “lifelong confidante” lol.)

The origins of the bunnies is different in CQL, and is tied to Lan Yi—an ancestor of the Lan clan (the one who invented Cord Assassination). Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji find a cave in Gusu during their classmate days, which holds the spirit of Lan Yi. There, she reveals information about the Yin Iron and that she is guarding one piece of it. After all this, Wei Wuxian looks after the bunnies after taking them out of the cave, and as he leaves Cloud Recesses, he leaves them in the care of Lan Wangji.

The Gusu Lan sect is less rekt in CQL, as many of them are able to hide away in the aforementioned cave during the destruction of Cloud Recesses. Su She, then a disciple of Gusu Lan, betrays them by telling Wen Chao that the others are hiding in the cave. He’s summarily kicked out. In the novel, he’s the one that tries to rat out Mianmian when they’re facing the Tortoise of Slaughter. (He is still the one who casts the hundred holes spell on Jin Zixun.)

SPOILER-FILLED MINOR DIFFERENCES

In CQL, after his 33 lashes, Lan Wangji goes into forced seclusion for 3 years first. And then his 13 years of playing Inquiry start. Extra depressing, but it doesn’t change anything else.

The ghost baby that Wang LingJiao sees is replaced with a dismembered eye. Still gory. Don’t really know which one is worse…….. Her death is definitely less gory in CQL, though.

The Stygian Tiger Amulet was made of the strange weapon found in the Tortoise of Slaughter in both the novel and drama, but in CQL, said weapon was actually a fragment of the Yin Iron.

CQL shows a few scenes of Wei Wuxian when he first gets tossed into the Burial Mounds.

Lan Qiren is the head of the Gusu Lan sect, all the way through the story in CQL, including the end. Lan Xichen is never referred to as the sect leader.

Gusu Lan's rules are a little less strict in CQL. And co-ed classmates and cultivators seem to be the norm.

This post is certainly not 100% complete, as it’s just what I managed to pick up as I watched/read and remembered to note down. But if you have questions or comments, please reach out to me and I’ll do my best to answer! I hope this is as accurate as possible, but since I’m flying off memory...  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take care, all! Feel free to drop into my DMs and scream with me!  ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊˚

[planesofduality]

The Story Behind Solas with Dragon Age Lead Writer Patrick Weekes - Dialogue Wheel (Part 2 of 3)

Full video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFx1nCdZFjw&t=1s

Part one here

Time: 12:16

When it comes the characterization of a character that you’ve already been give at least some sort of name to. We know that this character is some sort of trickster god - when you were trying to develop and make him some a stand-alone character, did you ever have to rely on what the mythos already established of this particular kind of eighth-seat god that maybe a lot people hadn’t heard a lot about?

Well, I think, like we talked about before, one of the great things about the Dragon Age universe is everything that you learn in a codex entry is something that someone else heard in a story and wrote it down somewhere and you’re reading half of the book. So the good news on that is anything we wanted to do with Fen’Harel, there was so little and what was in there was already so sketchy that we had all the freedom we needed to play with him.

That turned out to be a nice thing because I think if we had someone that was completely by-the-books, already established, their character already given, it would feel like more of a letdown to write that as a character or you would have to play against type, you’d have to do something completely different to show he wasn’t just what the stories wrote about him. And, you know, in some ways that is both liberating but also disappointing to people who might have liked  the original stories. This was a fun experience of getting to fill in some of the gaps.

The only thing I think we had to struggle against is that anyone who hears “trickster” or anyone who hears “oh, he’s chaotic and unpredictable” it feels like there is a natural urge to go to “He’s Loki in the Avengers. He’s the guy who’s gonna make large grand-standing plans.” Or, you know, “He’s the Riddler, who’s gonna leave clues to test you.” We had to get away from that: “Let’s tone that back a little bit, let’s not have him be the Jack Nicholson Joker version of the Dread Wolf.”

That’s quite a quote.

You got Dorian as a large, grandiose , extravagant figure and it would have been easy to have him go that way. It was fortunate that we had Dorian as the mage who had the larger-than-life persona already to make Solas be the quiet one.

Time: 15:21

Was there ever an instance where you were really pushed with giving some indicators to the player that Solas may have some connection to this going through the gameplay? Because you do see a lot statues of Fen’Harel. There’s many instances of where you’re discussing it, you’re traveling through those lands. Where do you walk that line, how do you walk that line, or do you just completely disregard it whatsoever?

The goal we had is we wanted the very careful players, the very sensitive players, who were playing attention and watching every scene with Solas to know that something was up and to want more answers and then go to “OH MAN” as soon as the stinger after the credits rolled. But we wanted most players to just go “Oh, okay, he’s like ‘Fade nerd.’ He’s like ‘hippie guy.’”

The other thing we wanted was everyone on their second playthrough, as soon as they talked to Solas to be like “Oh, man, he’s just saying it. He just flat-out said it right there and I missed it completely the first time!” I think we called it the “inevitable in retrospect”- or the “slap the forehead on the second playthrough” style of writing, where we wanted people to see that the most interesting thing about the trickster god is he’s not actually that great of a liar - He is almost telling you a lot of the time. And, you know, some of the tragedy is it that you never had the chance to actually ask, “Wait -are you Fen’harel?”

Time: 17:13

We talked about leaving breadcrumbs, what that meant. Now the big turn, the big scene at the ending:  How did this come about, were you really involved in that sort of process and are you happy with it?

Oh, I’m absolutely happy with it. It went through several iterations,. Mike was hugely involved. The writing was definitely done by Dave; it was a huge crit path moment. He had me give a look at the Solas voice, I think I looked at it, I don’t think I actually changed a single word in the final one.

We had versions where after the main plot it was actually going to be a full plot where you the player went and were actually present when Solas confronts Mythal. We had a part where we said, “Wow that’s too big, a lot of players are gonna miss that, we’ll make it a DLC.” So it was gonna be a separate DLC where that happened. At one point we said “No, this is too big, we actually - let’s cut it and address it next game.” So it was going to be this thing that we pushed off into some future content.

I am really happy with what we went with, because, I think, you know, for my money, that short, little Marvel-style, after-the-credits stinger is what we needed. We needed something so that everyone who was paying attention and everyone who was really invested could go “oh my god!” And go, “Okay, so, just in case you were wondering, we’re not done, we have more stories to tell, and we are confident enough in what we are doing that we are willing to throw that ball.” That stinger is essentially us throwing a football to future us, trusting that we are going to catch it. Because, you know, at the end, we had that level of confidence. We felt that we had that level of confidence, we felt we made a really good game. Dave led an amazing team of writers, and I’m really touched that he has the confidence to believe that I’ll be able to carry that on for him.

Time: 19:49

When we spoke to Dave, one of the big moments that he mentioned, was when he created kind of a long-term idea for what’s going to happen in the Dragon Age universe. And to hear him say it, he mentioned that what he originally wanted for Dragon Age: Inquisition couldn’t happen - it was far too big - it wouldn’t work. And you guys had talked about  taking that concept, finishing Inquisition somewhere in the middle of that concept arc, and then using at least an influence or something like that to affect the franchise going forward.  Speaking with you now, as someone who has taken up the reins, do you know what I’m talking about? Am I talking crazy? Where do you see it going?

Um…

Reasonably - of what you can say on this.

So here’s the last scene of the next game… (laughs). I think there’s an extent to which no plan really survives contact with the audience when it comes to video games. We look at how fans react, we look at what hit, what rang true with everyone. You know, it’s funny, having people react angrily actually isn’t as bad as having people ignore things sometimes. Having people react angrily  means they were definitely emotionally engaged, so you know you hit something there. Whereas having fans go, “I don’t know, fine, I guess, whatever” and move on means, “Okay, I don’t know if that’s what we want to go back to. We didn’t actually get anything from them there, they didn’t actually remember that later.” So that’s a phase that comes after every game we ship. We look at what hit, what missed, and where we want to go from there.

Now that said, Dave’s future plan is, I think, fantastic, epic, and heartbreaking. Our plan is to use that as our starting point. To look at where we want to go, what we want to do, and it will not be - and I, you know, Dave and I have talked about this - it will not be the story that Dave would tell if he were still here as lead writer. Because it could never be that. We can get into that when we talk about Cole a little bit, but if I tried to do that I would just be doing a bad impersonation of Dave Gaider and no one is ever going to be as good at that as Dave is. My goal going forward is to, as lead, put my own spin on that process, put my own spin on the plots going forward, on the thematic elements, while keeping those same thematic elements that we had. Because, I think, what Dave has set in motion in three games, countless DLCs and expansions, is something that can endure: The idea that no choice is ever really that easy and that the great events always stem from human-understandable motivations.

So, that is where I think where we are going to go, as vaguely as I can say.

Time: 23:30

Speaking of specifically to Solas: His continuation of the story. Adding that little “Marvel moment” at the end - what do you think that did for the crit path and the overall arc of the story that players experienced in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Do you think they would have been more satisfied if there was  a DLC or is that just us gamers complaining because we can’t get everything we want right away?

Well, I think you want to leave people wanting more. “Man I wish you guys had done more” is a better problem to have than “Man I wish you guys had done less.” So, I think, looking at it from inside the studio, we didn’t have the resources to do much more than we did. So it was never going to be the big moment right then anyway. From my perspective, the reason I’m really happy we have it is, like I said, I thought it was a vote of confidence. The team is still the Dragon Age team and it is still the writers and designers who did everything else, who made such wonderful characters and were responsible for such fantastic plots.

Time 25:10

Well, again, looking at that in its completion, it’s good to see that even a character that needed to give you a stinger in your estimation didn’t take away, I guess, from the overall story you were trying to tell.

Well, thank you. Yeah it was obviously the moment we were building toward, but again, the goal was even if we didn’t have that stringer, he was still an interesting enough character that people would have not felt cheated that he was in the party.

Part 3

[gascon-en-exil]

But What If You Want to Come Out on Vers Bottom?: A “Coming Out on Top” Review (Part 2)

Part 1

The main substance of Coming Out on Top - and around 80% of its wank material - lies in its main story love interests, so each of them deserves a dedicated section for review and...erotic evaluation, if you will. It would be much too cluttered to try to cover all six in one post however, so this one will only include the first three with Part 3 to follow with the remainder. Note that I’ll be doing these in alphabetical order, except for the sixth who was added in an update and whose route comes with some mechanical differences that warrant leaving him for last. I wouldn’t want to seem biased, would I? But I’ll be ranking them from most to least favorite at the end anyway.

Also, if anyone is wondering why most of my screenshots are from dialogue scenes rather than CGs, it’s because there are remarkably few CGs in this game that are both interesting enough to include in a review and tame enough for Tumblr’s censorship standards.

Alex: Mark Makes the Grade (With His Ass)

And how fitting it is that I get to start with Alex, fresh off over a year of involvement in the fandom of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and all its exaggerated pearl-clutching over that game’s teacher/student relationships. That’s exactly what Alex’s romance with Mark is, begun under more innocuous circumstances wherein Alex judges Mark’s alcohol preferences (the uncultured barbarian favors whiskey, and has nothing to say if you have Mark order a glass of presumably passable cabernet) but then progressing rapidly to hot for teacher territory once Mark discovers that Alex is his anatomy professor. As expected a handful of jokes - and one sex scene, kind of - hinge upon Alex’s field of expertise, but compared to the other routes of CooT this one is remarkably tame. It’s the only one in which it’s impossible to have sex with the love interest during the game and still get his ending, and the story requires the player to thread a fine line between expressing attraction to the man and respecting his professional boundaries. Alex is nothing if not ethical, almost to a fault, and the game also doesn’t allow you to lose sight of how strange his connection with Mark is...allegedly, anyway. I personally don’t see much issue with it, when Mark is of age (this isn’t even the largest age gap of the main love interests) and about to graduate. Eh, I’ll chalk it up to a cultural difference and move on.

The plot of the route also pivots around the potential scandal to be found in some hot one-on-one anatomy lessons, as Mark finds himself embroiled in the cutthroat world of tenured professorships and overworked postgraduate toadies moonlighting as paparazzi. I guess I lucked out in my much more reasonable graduate advisors, but I think I would have taken well to snooping around in men’s locker rooms looking for hot gay action/blackmail material. With all that going on it’s little wonder that there’s no real sex to be had on the full route, and that the one potential steamy encounter Mark can have with Alex in the professor’s office swiftly ends the romance then and there. I suppose it’s worth noting that Alex is also the only primary love interest who will never bottom for Mark in any encounter the player gets to see, so props if you’re looking for a total top. He’ll give head though, so that’s nice.

That said however, I can’t help but feel as though CooT wants to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to the teacher/student fucking. Amidst everyone being reasonable and ethical about the situation Mark can have a dream in which Alex fingers him and gives him a prostate orgasm as a live demonstration during a lecture - unquestionably hitting some of those teacher crush buttons even as it comes with the easy out of being a dream sequence. I’ve also seen reactions to this route labeling it as an example of the type of lover/beloved relationship found in ancient Greek pederasty, in that Alex is lowkey masc4masc and that he and Mark bond over the ancient and manly sport of, er, racquetball (I don’t know, just go with it). You also have to keep Mark’s grades up to get Alex’s full ending, which is both entirely logical - Mark is trying to date his professor after all, even if he doesn’t fully get there until the semester is over and he’s ready to walk the stage - and an extension of the idealized pederastic relationship as an educational one for the beloved younger man. If you’re into that kind of thing, Alex’s route is among the better options in this game to find it.

There’s also this obscure random line, which triggers an unusual extra CG added in an update that might be pet play? It’s honestly hard to tell - and I say that as someone who likes pet play. Something you may notice in my review is that, while the five romances included in the game on initial release are all fairly mundane, the writers clearly felt more free to get weird in the later additions. 

Brad: Frat Boys Gone Wild Parts 2, 5, and 7

Do you like beefy jocks, and huge dicks, and harsh but realistic indictments of the unequal attention lavished upon athletics departments at most American universities? One of these things is not like the others, but thankfully the route knows where to place most of its priorities. This is the story that puts Mark to work in his job as a writing tutor, tasking him with saving a hunky frat boy from failing his composition class and losing his scholarship in the process. Much unlike my own time as an undergraduate writing tutor however Mark is required to make house calls, setting him on a collision course for Brad’s burgeoning homosexuality and almost getting his ass kicked by the other equally hunky - but tragically straight - members of the frat. Brad is indeed the only one of Mark’s love interests who struggles to any degree with his sexuality, but it’s a muted part of this storyline and only really comes up in one scene involving Brad’s overbearing older brother. Despite some heavier moments here and there CooT is still a lighthearted dating sim at its core, so don’t expect too much in the way of angst even for a character who under more realistic circumstances would likely have to keep his inclinations on the DL.

Where there is plenty of intensity though is in those tutoring sessions, because, well -

- Mark ends up with a serious case of blue balls from all the UST and frequent teasing of Brad’s behemoth cock. Disclaimer: despite years of professional phallus measurements, this reviewer is unable to determine if Brad’s endowment is measurably more impressive than those of the other love interests based on his CGs alone; all pronouncements to this effect may thus be taken as the hyperbole of a horny size queen.

An even bigger source of tension in this route is the cheating angle: during their first meeting Brad will attempt to pressure Mark into writing his paper for him, remarking that American football players at universities get this kind of preferential treatment all the time and that their grades are basically irrelevant. Mark can actually take him up on this offer, and end up quite a bit richer for it via a little bribery (a nice perk if you’re angling for Ian’s friendship ending). Doing so will make it impossible to obtain Brad’s good ending but will instead lead to an alternate storyline with its own set of CGs, culminating in some saucily unethical fellatio as Mark proves to Brad that he can provide just as many perks as the rival female tutor who’s been capturing the jock’s attention with blowjobs and amateur porn. Incidentally, while it very quickly ends the route I like that Mark has a dialogue option to offer those exact services to Brad in front of the other tutor. It’s almost as funny as the earlier option about rimjobs that also ends the route but results in a dream CG of the straight frat guys having their way with Mark. That’s like wish fulfillment Inception, or something.

But no, to finish this route properly you have to keep both Mark and Brad honest, and convince Brad to write his own essay with Mark’s help...and provide genuinely good help, so I hope you know the basics of how to structure an academic essay just kidding you can save scum through that stuff. Many heartwarming life lessons are learned through all-nighters, ruminations on long-term career prospects, and mutual masturbation, until at last the two of them succeed and celebrate their victory with full penetration. How exactly you prefer the penetration to go down isn’t the most intuitive set of dialogue options in the world, but bear in mind that on initial release the only possibility was Brad splitting Mark open with that ginger club swinging between his legs. As I brought up in Alex’s section, the later additions usually get rather freakier. In this case that means an extended dream sequence with football role play (which is a thing that exists, I guess?) followed by some actual sex, with Brad bottoming in both scenes and much loving detail lavished upon his meaty ass. It’s...clever, I suppose, but I think I prefer the original version. Maybe that’s just because I always thought American football uniforms looked ridiculous; where’s the sex appeal to be found with those ridiculous shoulder pads?

Ian: Oh My God They Were Roommates

Even years later I still don’t know for certain whether including Ian so casually with the other love interests counts as a minor spoiler. He’s introduced alongside Penny as Mark’s longtime roommate, and in that first scene it’s also established that he has an on-again, off-again girlfriend. I’m going to err on the side of it not being a spoiler however, because well before his route proper begins the game drops hints that there might be more to Ian than a goofy slacker best friend with appalling personal hygiene. His route progresses as might reasonably be expected from Mark’s coming out, with Ian as the fantasy gay-friendly straight guy who turns out to be not quite as straight as initially advertised. 

There’s just one very large problem with that and it’s not the size of his dick. Because Ian is first and foremost Mark’s roommate he has the privilege of appearing as a supporting character in routes other than his own, and in fact there are CGs featuring him in some of those routes. This results in Ian receiving the most overall development of any of the love interests, ranging from the oddball humor that he injects into situations all over the story to his raging and, er, adventurous libido leading to all manner of masturbatory mishaps for Mark to, most jarringly, poorly-disguised jealousy over the other love interests should Mark choose to pursue them. One would expect this to result in a fantastically fleshed-out character and an excellent foundation for a route of his own that builds off Ian’s simple charm and manic energy to craft an excellent best friend romance.

Yet...it kind of doesn’t? It took me until my most recent playthrough to appreciate this properly, but more than any of the others Ian’s route is written as the most conventionally romantic. It incorporates a host of romcom staples - UST, misunderstandings, miscommunication, more than one romantic false lead, a wedding at the end, mood lighting for its softcore bondage scene - and while most of the other routes include one or two of those elements as well this is undoubtedly the only one that ever comes close to feeling cheesy or maudlin. Unfortunately however that kind of writing just doesn’t play well with Ian’s over-the-top comic relief antics, and so for most of the latter part of his own route he comes off as oddly bland. The writing mines some jokes out of his growing jealousy of the other men Mark expresses interest in dating, and it offers Mark a devastating early sex scene bad ending opportunity in the form of Ian coming onto Mark while drunk and forcing the player to choose between a rimjob now or double oral and/or flip-fucking later. Sure, that setup and some of what comes before it plays right into who Ian is as a character - a well-meaning idiot with a lot of insecurity surrounding his relationship to Mark - but after that point whether you take the rimjob or not Ian practically fades into the role of generic romantic lead as Mark must work to repair their friendship and then guide it into uncharted territory.

To illustrate the point I’m trying to make, contrast these two CGs. The first is from Ian’s friendship ending (something only he and Penny get, based on spending time with them on weekends among other factors); the second is from his romantic ending.

Which of these images tells you more about Ian’s characterization, or about his dynamic with Mark?

I’m not going to deny that Ian has sex appeal, or that he doesn’t have a slew of genuinely funny lines all over the game’s script, or that there’s nothing satisfying in watching Mark and his best friend fall in love with each other - but it’s the lack of integration between Ian the comic relief roommate and Ian the love interest that doesn’t sit well with me. When I was reviewing Chess of Blades I name-dropped Ian in comparison to that game’s own best friend love interest Arden. I’ll do the reverse here: Ian may be sweet and a ton of fun, and there may be far more options for which pegs go into which slots in this storyline, but Arden’s character and story stick in my mind more because they’re never at odds with one another. Ian in the earlygame and outside his own route is so goofy that it’s very hard to take him seriously as someone who could be a romantic partner for Mark, and unfortunately that comes across all too well when the occasion finally arises.