#bc that's the tag for structure

[raayllum]

Already touched on this scene regarding the differences to the brothers, so I'm not going to repeat myself too much here, but I am thinking about the like... Purpose of this scene from a narrative/characterization standpoint in line with that. Because like, think about it... This scene would hit so different, as a debate, if we didn't know how far along Claudia and co. were in their quest to free Aaravos; then we could lean one way or another operating with the exact same information the characters have.

But we the audience Know that Aaravos isn't out, which is the primary reason Callum gives regarding incentive to get the Nova Blade. Nor is this the first time that Callum has a perspective we know isn't necessarily, well, necessary because we know more than the characters do. So we're already inclined to be more on Ezran's side because we know his line of thinking - that Aaravos isn't out and it's worth trying to just stop his release - is worth following.

It is likewise worth noting though, that Callum thinks the Novablade plan is good whether Aaravos is out or not. While he brings up that Claudia and Viren might've already released the Startouch elf, when Callum initially proposes the plan (shown above) he says, "Then we wait for Aaravos to get out." Even though if Aaravos gets out, that would kind of put him in the best possible place to possess Callum again, given how it operated last time. Even though if Aaravos gets out, he'll be even more powerful and likely to do real harm and even harder to defeat.

All of which to say this scene has approximately three purposes

To reinforce the differences between the brothers and possible seeds of conflict for the future, in both Ezran's pacifism (possibly to set up contrast with his latter choices) as well as Callum's more pragmatic side

To reinforce, by giving Rayla the deciding vote and having her side with Ezran, that Callum's morality and inclinations is different than both his brother and his partner

And on that note, characterization wise, to start highlighting what Callum is willing to do and that he's always had this streak in him (cue both he and Viren watching dark magic corrupted enemies die by their own hand at the Storm Spire while Ezran and Harrow feel somewhat conflicted about it, at least) / can often be more solution oriented ("How does this solve anything?" from 1x02) and willing to take the path he perceives as easier/more efficient

Sarai: You said you want to make a difference, to build a better world. But that's going to take decades of hard work. There's no monster you can slay to solve all of your problems. There's no shortcut.

Some other interesting notes:

Shows the different in the trio's dynamic regarding decision making, since previously it had normally been Callum and Rayla having the final call with Ezran going along with it (2x03, 3x08). Now, the brothers discuss first with each other, highlighting that they've spent the last two years without her and that Ezran has become more assertive, but that they still fully include her in the decision and have it be one they made as a group, signifying their heightened unity upon reunion and healing, and the way they all trust/look to each other.

It also demonstrates growth from Rayla, as last time she thought there was a potential threat to the world, she went the more violent route in wanting to track Viren down (alone) and kill him. But now that she's come back and reintegrated herself into the group, she's taking the more level headed, preventative route in some ways.

[quicksilversnails]

Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!

(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)

(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off

(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods

(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry

(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch

(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits

(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!

(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were

(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well

(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol

(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations

(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable

(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them

(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated

(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season

(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.

(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!

(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails

(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good

(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild

(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.

(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected

(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly

(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly

(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat

(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.

(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly

(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season

(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again

(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much

(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.

(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey

(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔

(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)

(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.

(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster

(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect

(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily

(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%

(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos

(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously

(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.

(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential

(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)

(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video

(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool

(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations

(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused

(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team

(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met

(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them

(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them

(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap

(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning

(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end

(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair

(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)

(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days

(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily

(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.

(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability

Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)

(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights

(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on

(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators

(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"

(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage

(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character

(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable

(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"

(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them

(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died

(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.

(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting

(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)

(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)

[muchmossymess]

Ling!!!

[snogfairy]

now that the show has made it explicitly Relevant that Milchick is a black man (and lumon racist) you really can't help but notice the parallels of dehumanization - the innies "aren't real people," he "shouldn't make them feel like real people," they serve only one purpose (work).... there's so much talk about the innies' exploitation as 'kids' but they're really driving home the image of them as slaves, too, this season (on both an intra- and extratextual level), and with the milchick storyline unfolding as it is i think those parallels are not lost on him. idk just really intriguing where they're taking this, probably him potentially switching 'sides' down the road - or trying, anyways, the grip lumon has on all of them is strong, in different ways

[imerian]

Vr46 academy keychains

Set of five charms that all match in different ways

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　 . ✦　　˚　

Open for detailed pictures of each one

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ *ੈ✩‧₊˚

ִֶָ 𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆★⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ

:･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧:･.:

˖⁺‧₊˚⭒✮⭒˚₊‧⁺˖

. ݁₊ ✶. ݁ ˖ˎˊ˗

I ran out of tags so I'll say it here but i would greatly appreciate a reblog, especially if you share your thoughts on these pieces in tags (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧

(Also i forgot that bez have matching part with luca so I didn’t add that to tags sorry

[boltlightning]

finally quit my job sayonara you little shits

[ineed-to-sleep]

What if we fell in love and you died LMAOOO what then

[wickjump]

im gonna start posting fanfic recs btw whenever i find good ones. both here and my (awfully barren) 18+ account. because there are so many good fics out there with so few hits and fewer kudos and sometimes no comments period and it SUCKS because i REALLY LIKE THEM A LOT.. and i hope that by linking them here and yelling at everyone to COMMENT DAMMIT they might actually do it

seriously though any comment means a lot. most people who read a fic don’t even give a kudos. even if the fic wasn’t top tier, if you didn’t dislike it, hand over some kudos!! and if you liked it, comment!!!! even if the comment is one singular heart emoji it will be appreciated. if the comment just says “great fic!” the author will be happy. your comment doesn’t have to be this long winded gushing or analysis.

so many authors quit writing or lose motivation because the comments are few and far in between or just sometimes nonexistent. trust me when i say authors don’t care about how long or cool or smart sounding your comment is i promise!!!

i hope that mmmaybe recommending fics and telling people to comment might help fics i really like get more support maybe. and i, points at you reading this, hope that you will listen!!!at least a little….at least sum kudos….

[fairiehill]

Your pureblood family meta would go so well with my “the wizarding society is corrupt and it’s customs need to be reevaluated” bullshit so well

THANK YOU. im fundamentally a family abolitionist, and i love deconstructing the family structure but also the larger structures that govern the wizarding world. to me, pureblood families are so interesting because they make explicit what is implicit in the family structure. the trading of your children to each other in marriage to protect your class interests (explicitly through pureblood supremacy) and the shadow of the threat of incest that hangs over it all. all the death eaters so eager to sign up for a war to protect this corrupt society. this corrupt society being built quite literally just to serve these few powerful families and protect them?? that's insane. i love thinking about the fucked up horrific implications about the larger wizarding world. the commonplace of pureblood squibs in a society where this is all they've known and they literally cannot even get into town without magic. the leftover bodies after the dementor's kiss. the fact that they are like oh yeah if youre bad no matter the crime you go to the BIG BAD PLACE FOREVER. the way their legislative and judicial arm is just the wizengamont. i think even the pureblood families know there's something wrong and rotten at the heart of wizarding society but they channel that energy towards outsiders instead (many such cases) instead of revalutaing the systems that govern society.

[fokrons-art-hell]

Nine Promises ain't looking so good.....

[gornackeaterofworlds]

SOMA au Leo

Click for unfuzziness

[why-the-heck-not]

2nd batch of sourdough! Lots better than the first, actually got some crumb structure this time (bc the starter is finally ready for bread)

[solargeist]

Oh oh if we're feeding Grian, I'd like to offer him a White Person Taco. (Don't want it to he too spicy for him!!!)

-Lunar (a white person who also can't handle spice)

omg right he's british he cannot handle spice ADJGKADJGK

i imagine Watchers can spawn food bc they know how it's made, like, every single component, i think if they offered him a taco he'd be genuinely impressed, like, its so much to remember.

he's also a bit iffy about the meat.

[neramontagueofficial]

It is June and the gardens here bloom brightly with hyacinth and violet and lavender.

My good pride wishes from me to you. I would say that I have increased my diet of Sapphic dramas to celebrate the season but that would imply my tastes lie anywhere else the rest of the year. (Thanks again to Saleh, these recommendations for Suldani series were quite good.)

A garland for the bloom, a garland for love, although I find myself alone this season I offer myself instead to the garden.

(I will admit a weakness for this season. I've always found these Earth-revival holidays to be somewhat distasteful but the convergence with the summer flower-giving season has always made me soft this time of year. I good celebration of self and love never hurt anybody.)

[fbwzoo]

Pouting about having to be an adult and buy things slowly for turtle instead of just getting everything Right Now Already so I can set it up and play with it and make sure it all works well and ahhhhhhh.

I need to be focusing on Crab Con, someone put my brain in time out

[infernal-lamb]

Howws that fic with your OC going? I’m very intrigued about that one :D

Oh!!! And if you have any new art/tidbits about her?

lmao, its going! I've made progress but now I am sulking like an 18th century poet in their giant, empty study.......Contemplating. Critiquing (just being nervous about posting fic since I havent written anything since I was like. 13. and I'm not exactly a writer, just someone who throws stuff together and goes Well, That's A Plot I Guess!) I'm glad people are intrigued about and Neves dfhjfghf. I DO have some lil doodles of her in the cult. One specific tidbit that makes me laugh: Neves is tall as hell in comparison to the cult members.

I'm not sure how to measure the inhabitants of the Lands of the Old Faith, but I imagine them at least smaller than the average human--mostly because I think its sort of funny to emphasize just *how* out of place Neves is among the Lamb and their flock. This is more like a rough estimate of how they compare LMAO. With her height, the cult members usually ask her to help with picking fruit on big trees or, for example, doing things like standing on her shoulders to clean the Temple windows that are too high up otherwise :') Here's a silly comic w/one of her experiences in the cult too!