#objectified morrigan

[leederpfucker]

I made an Objectified family tree (kind of)

I made it using Google Slides although it would be fun to draw a traditional family tree with these guys one day. Also the images will be updated with new info (although how much after is up in the air)

Notes under the cut

I am only including confirmed public information. Any speculations (like my theory that Faux is Morrigan's sister based off of the fact that the mythological Morrigan is part of a sister trio) or Patreon confirmed relations are banned from this family tree

We do actually know to an extent how related to Faux the Faux Objects are. To quote the FAQ on the site: "Closely related characters often have long bodies, fly, and have curved claws. Far descendants are more likely to have a special hidden ability that can help them in a survival situation, though they may not be aware of it until it is too late." So, Body Pillow is on some level closely related to Faux. I THINK (do not quote me on this) during an LSD video (not sure which one) Chester mentioned Faux has been dead for a while to Faux is likely Body Pillow's great great grand relative. However, since we don't know the specifics Body Pillow will currently stay in "unknown relations"

The reason pretty much none of these include two sets of (unknown) parents is because if we have zero info on a relative they weren't included. Although I should mention right here that out of the main cast Gum is the only one who spawned from a single parent

If you think you've seen this post before you have. I deleted the original since Tumblr messed with the ordering

Characters that are here but not tagged due to tag limits: Unnamed marine person (note the fins), Citrus' sister, Painkiller's parents, Gum's mom, Sharps' mom, Minty and Malt's mom, Fuzzball's mom and step dad, Sugarcube, Dynamite's parents, Dynamite, Push, Push's adopted nephew, Ribs, Porkloin, Wagyu

[afflictedwithstarsheet]

Morrigan (Approach) | "Forgot to Buy a Mother's Day Gift" | Objectified Webcomic FAN UST

This track was fun. It's very much an enigma to me. I spent about an hour agonizing over the first chord and have no memory of doing anything else. The odd distorted piano of the second half was a choice that confused some, considering the inherent dread in this song.

I thought of it as a respite to a certainty; a feeling of calm because, at least something is guaranteed, at least you can know that there'll be no changed minds and no stops to reconsider, not now or ever.

[fangzfang]

I need to do it after seeing that wagyu smiling QUEERLY in the EP 74. Tick cover

Heres is another version of this too :p

[yagurlhere]

WARNING: SPOILER-ISH

NEXT CITRUS AND SPOOL EPISODE:

*Morrigan breaks in during the fight, turns to Citrus*

Morrigan: You're grounded.

*Citrus runs off crying*

THE END

[ritualcaster]

I wanted to run though all the stuff we don't know about objectified.

All of it.

Apocalypse guide:

Starsheet - onset advance, what are all three variants

What is ID: gestalt

Who is ID: symbiote - who's been talking to wagyu through the hive cores - what did they mean by "rocks" and "machines"

Concept art

Who is "Wristwatch" and why is he gone

Turtleshells Journal

Whereabout's for all the characters mentioned in present time

Who the 4 "?" Characters are

Morrigan, just the whole character really.

What are the lawless kings up to / how will they be used in the story

Whats happening in the other countries, and are they working to help the rings (or, why did they abandon them)

Who controls the dread tides

Character refs (I can't belive this needs a section)

The blacked out text in Ghost Peppers ref

Gums scar[s] (basically just "cherry")

From here onward, It's plot speculation, and the sections are labeled after characters rather than the website elements.

CITRUS

Parents / the full story of the flashback in "Venatics"

Why is he like some kind of fucked up vampire

What is his relation to Morrigan

Spool

He's just some guy.

No questions here.

Razor

What happened to the rest of her pack

Her relation to Warhammer (if any?)

Mushroom

Related to "PILOBOLUS" from the story in "Stranded", but how

What happened to Cattail (Fully considering that he probably died of course)

Wheres Mushrooms mother (Mentioned and shown in turtleshells journal) And Is she the relation to "Pilobus"

Why is the entire district empty?

Dynamite

Not much about his past can be used for plot

No questions

Brandy + Minty

Maple syrup (at fort blanket, mainly what happened to her if relevant to plot)

"The old stories from Ankh" - the first had plot relevance with mushroom, if there are more i expect similar things.

There's little depth in their past, namely just their time in marshlight.

Fossil

Her past with Push

Health problems with being a defect object (hinted at in "babs'" ref sheet, confirmed in qna)

Why she checked Painkillers eyes

The water thing she has (its quite possible its just because shes part gator, but i feel something deeper than that)

Painkiller

From marshlight, but we have literally no idea about their past other than that.

Theres no material for questions.

Dragonscale

Past in Demon's diner (namely with the lawless king she half-mentioned in "control")

Ghost pepper being and actual ghost (???)

Wagyu

How did he retain control? And why?

Who's trying to talk to him? And why?

Comet

What's with all the crow foreshadowing? (Probably Morrigan again)

Whats the full story with her 'version' of starsheet [Snowsheet? Onset advance?]

Gum

The story of her exes (all 7 of them)

The scar from "Cherry" (already mentioned this one but i'm curious)

Basically her entire past, (with multiple lawless kings?)

Overarching plot / Parasites

How will three-spines evolve and affect characters?

Who created the parasites, and why?

Where, is everyone? (Cattail, pushpin, turtleshell, everyone in middle ring, the lawless kings, characters from gums past.)

How is starsheet going to affect nearly half the characters, especially the onset advance variants.

If i remember right, in the qna, chester mentioned he had "special quirks" planned for every character. - [Everything that will be in the 'Everything else' category in the apocalypse guide.]

The the next late stage event

___________________________________________

Ok, i mentioned a few things twice, but i think thats all my questions right now.

All i can hope is that i'm asking the right ones.

[thehollowwriter]

Oh Ezra... oh poor Ezra. He repeatedly ends up in abusive relationships because, in a way, that's all he knows.

Ezra's parents were not good role models... mainly bc they were extremely old-fashioned (he was a teen in the 70s, so his parents only became adults in the 50s...) and closed off... they also mainly married for business reasons and didn't like each other.

He was constantly surrounded by very surface level, "you benefit, I benefit, that's it" relationships, and the only people that seemed to care for him deeper than that in that sphere of people... were the ones looking to take advantage of him, whether it be for his money, his fame, his looks, or even the fact that he's an "exotic" beastman with an attitude that needs taming.

Unfortunately, that led to him being stuck in an endlessly repeating pattern. Whoever caught his interest would be e all kinfd and chivalrous to him. He'd fall for it, and he'd be confident that this time was really different... only for the other shoe to drop, and they'd start hurting him one way or another until he reached the point where he felt the only means of escape was good ole fashioned poisoned wine. Then the cycle would repeat again.

Morrigan and Alastair have tried their best to help Ezra or warn him, but, admittedly, even they were fooled a few times.

Luckily, Ezra is currently single and planning on staying that way. His last relationship was... particularly bad. Decades of being exploited, objectified, and abuse got to him, too.

His experiences have resulted in him being fairly protective of Finn and extremely critical of his partners, so uh... good luck, octotrio and Aurinelle 👍

Tagging: @distant-velleity @br3adtoasty @rainesol @theleechyskrunkly @jovieinramshackle

@galaxies-and-gore @cyanide-latte @cynthinesia @officialdaydreamer00 @krenenbaker

@offorestsongs @kitwasnothere @elenauaurs @boopshoops @inotonline

@1dont-really-know @kazumify @minteasketches @elysia-nsimp @skrimpyskimpy

@casp1an-sea @offorestsongs @tixdixl @poisoned-pearls @the-trinket-witch

@ramshacklerumble @ghostiidasponk @thegoldencontracts @the-banana-0verlord @cloudcountry

@skriblee-ksk @twstinginthewind @lumdays @theolivetree123 @natsukishinomiyaswife

@authoruio @jewelulu @raguiras @honeynclove @moonyasnow

@skibidibabygirl @paperclvps @quartztwst @yuizenihaswriten @devosin

[relax-o-vision]

Aren't you worried that Veilguard is going to be bad? Not in a "mediocre game" kind of bad, but in a "homophobic and misogynistic in a woke way" kind o bad?

Not actively worried, but the past games weren't always kind to us, either, and I've always been very critical of the writers because of this.

I remember the whole deal with the brood mothers. I remember Morrigan's story. I remember Oghren's ex, what happened to her, how he objectified her, and how his objectification of her was treated as a joke.

I remember Cullen and how he treated mages, and I remember his disgusting comment about a female mage warden who romanced Leliana.

I'm in no way blind to any of that, and I'm hesitant to start my next sentence with "but", lol

Veilguard already is homophobic in the sense that they deleted gay people out of existence with a cheap excuse.

But (yea, I'm doing it) the series has overall been a lot better than some other games, and rpgs like Dragon Age are practically non existent (BG3 was also.... bad, Cyberpunk was.... bad, and idk wtf Bethesda is smoking).

I'm just really looking forward to the combat, the character creator, and to smooching Scout Harding, finally.

And if there's stuff to criticise, I've always been one of the first people to rant about it.

I'm more worried about the fanbase tbh. Because non-gay fans were horrible after Inquisition released. I'm not planning on interacting with anyone but the few people I know on here, or people who prove I can trust them. I'll be using the block button very frequently, I think.

Or... also possible.....the game actually is just so bad I can't enjoy it, in which case I'll just go back to playing Inquisition.

[the-hype-dragon]

that's exactly what I mean, dragon age origins especially has some pretty questionable female armor designs (99% of male armor is practical, though there are a couple exceptions iirc) and some sexy woman-shaped female demons, whereas the males are all bestial or just plain demonic. there is also one main quest that involves meeting werewolves and while the werewolf designs are fine (and I can't remember if there are any confirmed female werewolves in the game), their leader is a wood spirit whose two forms are a wolf and a tree-woman (more woman than tree, which was, I'm sure, completely necessary 🙄)

dragon age took a lot of cues from DnD and 90s fantasy, and the first game, origins, came out in an era where this sort of thing wasn't as widely criticized as it would become, it's still pretty gross tho. I just find it kind of interesting that BioWare's games had female-exclusive romances at that point, and it is true (imo) that most of the female characters are written pretty well, so there was obviously some notion that women would play these games; but then there's all the weird objectifying stuff lmao. there's no male equivalent of Morrigan's default outfit, and the female body shape is let's say voluptuous, with no option to tone it down. a lot of this carried over into dragon age 2 which gave every woman (even the hardened no-nonsense warriors) an exaggerated "sexy" walking animation

so like the games are clearly meant for a general audience, but still pander overwhelmingly to guys. like I understand more men play video games (and more of them seem to be into "classic" fantasy than women are) but a lot of this kind of thing seemed unnecessary even back in the late-00s gaming climate imo

idk as much as I like the old dragon age games......... they are definitely pretty scrotey, especially da2. "well all the female characters are layered and well-rounded" lmao they are still sexualized in a way the men simply Aren't. like I can excuse it in media that also panders heavily to female players (like FF8) but DA just doesn't a lot of the time. tho in all fairness the Alistair, Sebastian, and Cullen romances are all 100% based

[leederpfucker]

Okay, now that Vampiric Gambits PT 2 is public (I bought it early to teat put buying individual EPs), I need to share a MAJOR issue I personally have with it. That issue is with it's tone, specifically with expressions.

Spoilers under the cut

Okay, I'll discuss the expressions that are the least bad and then go over the one that clashes the most with the tone. Although IMO they all don't mesh with the tone on some level

First, all three of these. We just saw Morrigan completely body BP like it was nothing and we were shown that as a demonstration to how powerful and scary she can be. I personally think these more silly expressions undermine how terrifying she is a little. And with Citrus' expression, there was an example within a past chapter that could have (I'll get to this in a sec) been used as a reference to pull off this look without looking goofy

This expression from Sticker Sheet from DW PT 1. Now, these is the least bad out of the two since, while the timing for comedy is bad, it's not as bad as the next one

Now, we just found out that Morrigan is a ruthless Lawless King who actively and relentlessly hunts down her own children to kill them and that Citrus is one of those children. Something that was very obviously private to him and took a lot from him just to share. And what expression do we get when Citrus reveals he's her son?

A comedic one. What makes this especially terrible is that there were other expressions in this very episode that showed Citrus' terror much better

These three (and ESPECIALLY the last one) convey how terrified he is of Morrigan so I'm not sure why they didn't go with an expression more like these and opted for a comedic one.

Objectified is usually pretty good with knowing when to set aside the comedy (Hold On, Lone Bandit, Pale Horse, every EP so far that takes place in the Safety Tunnels, ETC) so I don't get what happened here. The only thing I can come up with is just human error; the crew thought the comedic bits works when they didn't and kept them in.

[madamenighttalon]

Why Desexualizing Women in Video Games is More Dangerous than Over Sexualizing them

Little known fact about me - I’m a nerd: starting from the very first time I picked up a game controller and found myself being tossed into a fantasy world filled with intrigue and danger I have been completely hooked. One of the largest issues as I had as a young girl was the fact that I could never really relate to the characters I was playing, I just didn’t have much in common with big meaty men in armour carrying around guns. So when I found games that let me play as a woman, I was overjoyed; the first game that let me fully alter my in game self was a MMORPG by the name of Perfect World. Honestly looking back it wasn’t that great of a game, it had a pay to play aspect that made it easy for some people to level up and do quests faster and it was pretty easy to find yourself in places that you just weren’t strong enough to handle yet. But that didn’t matter to me; there were eight classes in the game at the time and seven of those classes allowed you to play as a female - with one class (Venomancer) being restricted solely for women. I was able to completely customize my character - I could make make her tall or short, thick or skinny, I could even control the size of her bust and hips; I was in heaven, not because I could create some sex kitten ( though admittedly a lot of my characters were ridiculously pretty ) but because I could create the kind of woman that I wanted to be - I could make this beautiful woman who didn’t care if she was showing a little skin because if some jerk guy said something to her she could just take them out like a total BAMF.

And yes the clothing for Playable Female Characters (PFC) was pretty revealing, which I didn’t realize at that time was a problem for some people, all I cared about was that finally I had character that was feminine AND a total badass. Playing a game like this made me believe that as a woman, it didn’t matter what I was wearing - be it a mini skirt or leather pants, my clothing didn’t take away from my personal power or invalidate me. Games like this made me feel just as, if not more, powerful than my male counterparts.

Of course as I got older and took a break from my games I realized that the strength PW had given me was not applicable to the real world - in the real world as a woman I was inherently weaker than the men around me, I had to wear modest clothing so people wouldn’t think I was looking for trouble, I couldn’t read or use my phone in public because it made me a target - made me vulnerable. This was also when I became aware of the fact that some people, people that probably have never played a video game in their life, had a problem with the way that women were being represented. They believed PFC’s we’re being objectified, that their clothing or breast size made them inherently weaker than PMC (playable male characters). Sound familiar.

I started up my gaming addiction again with Fable II and Dragon Age : Origins - I fell in love again. These games, while limiting my customization, still allowed me to play as PFC that was just as strong as the PMC - in fact there was absolutely no stat difference between the two genders. But beyond that they gave me something that my previous gaming had kept from me - they allowed me to develop my characters personality and form bonds (both platonic and romantic) with other in game characters.

Now the fantasy that I dove into was different - I knew that in real life I wasn’t powerful, that I couldn’t say whatever I wanted or wear whatever I wanted, but in this fantasy world I could do that….and more. In the spirit of being completely open - of helping you understand why this game and the way it was made is so important to me, I should mention that I am a survivor of sexual assault. As are many other people I know. In DA:O you are given the chance to play as a young woman who, along with her cousin and friends, is kidnapped on her wedding day by a nobleman looking to throw a “party”. No one can help them out of fear of endangering the rest of their people, and so the women are left to their own devices - it is also insinuated in the game that this is a common occurrence, that women are kidnapped and raped by nobles all the time because they have no power to fight back. Now let me jump in and keep going before someone gets angry; yes this could possibly teach some little idiot that it's okay to objectify and abuse woman EXCEPT FOR ONE THING. You. Fight. Back.

The whole point of the origin is that you, a woman, fights back against her oppressor and saves her cousin and friends. You, alongside your male cousin who, interestingly enough, is weaker than you and honestly only there for moral support, fight your way through the estate taking out anyone that gets in your way until finally you find your younger female cousin who has just been raped by the nobleman and YOU GET TO KILL HER RAPIST. Now I understand that a lot of people may think that its impolite for women to get this excited about violence but anyone that has been sexually assaulted or knows someone that has can tell you that there is not a single moment where they haven’t wanted that person to pay for what they’ve done, but hasn’t felt like that was a possibility because in situations like this the law is rarely on the side of the victim.

Once again throughout this game you are give the choice to wear revealing clothing, and your femininity is highlighted even when wearing full plate armour - you can wear makeup and make yourself as pretty as you want, also as a side note the physique of the women is default set as being very fit and picturesque. Over and over again you are shown female characters who are not forced to sacrifice their beauty and sexuality in order to gain power. (Also they’re literally all gay but that’s a different post)

So maybe men “objectified” them, maybe they didn’t care about the backstories or personalities, but the young women playing these games 100% payed attention.

The rather long point I’m trying to make here is  that, yes, there are some people out there that purposely create unnaturally attractive women and put them in skimpy clothing because they want to play out some ridiculous sexual fantasy, or because they want to try and demean them and their abilities. Those people won’t respect women anymore if their wearing loose fitted clothing instead of tight leathers, and it’s ridiculous to assume they’re the only ones playing. Female gamers need these characters - they need to have power somewhere because I can tell you they certainly aren’t getting it in the real world; they need female characters that are beautiful without being ashamed, who show as much or as little skin as they want because IT’S THEIR CHOICE, who don’t teach them that in order to be equal to men they have to sacrifice their femininity

When I was reading articles to amp myself up to write this I found a quote that I want to share that said “men win battles and women wear heels.”. Now I’m sure the author was well meaning but they drew in on what I believe is the real reason why these characters offend people. Women are taught through other media and real life experience that beautiful women, with large breasts or curvaceous bodies, who wear clothing that highlights these characteristics can only fall under three categories; The Airhead, who has nothing to offer society and obviously cannot possibly be intelligent because they focus on and or take pride in their appearance, The Mean Girl, who while being ridiculously pretty also has nothing to offer society because she is so self absorbed,usually but not always rich/spoiled, and has no real worth or skill other than her looks so she spends all of her time bringing other people down, and finally The Slut, the obvious beauty who must be having sex with everyone and could only have gained any power or knowledge she has through sex because of the fact that she is unashamed of her body and sexuality - she also has nothing to offer society.

So when they see these characters, when they skim through gaming clips without context, and they see that flash of thigh or display of cleavage, they automatically put the female characters in one of these categories and become offended because they think it’s just another case of woman being demeaned and under sold by men. And maybe that was the intention maybe there's some big misogynistic CEO out there cackling because he thinks he put us in our place. But that’s not what happened, yes men do go into battle, and women do wear heels, that’s what the real world has taught us, but these games -

They taught me that women can do both.

[rosella-writes]

👀 (and happy new year ro!!)

Thank youuuuu right back at’cha 💚

Um I have a lot of Warden Loghain wip so here’s some uh explicit spice (cuz Morrigan and I like objectifying that old man):

“You are what I want,” he confessed. “Your sounds — your pleasure is more than I deserve.”

“Silence,” she scoffed, hitching another moan as he locked his lips on her breast. “Nonsense, j-just — fill me.”

His grunt at that was involuntary. He loved that she did not ask, that she did not implore. He gave her what she demanded, bodily wresting her leg aside and slotting between her thighs. She cried out once, as if surprised, when he tested her slick with his fingers.

“No, no, your — you, not your hand,” she said.

He chuckled at her self-correction. “A Witch of the Wilds, rumoured to be a maneater, and yet still new to the way of men. What more can I learn of you, hmm?”

“Your cock then, you horrible man.”

He ground against her, daring to grin at her sudden gasp. Those gold-bright eyes all but flashed in the darkness as they fixed on him — he slid one hand beneath her head to cradle it in his palm, and her strands of obsidian hair were soft and tangled between his fingers. He remembered how those eyes had flashed before, how he had felt like a creature clutched in the claws of a hawk. But he had not touched her hair before. He had not been this close. He had not had her soft body in the cage of his arms, his weight atop hers. He had closed his eyes and murmured a dead woman’s name under his breath.

This time, he held her gaze as he pressed inside her. This time, it was her name in his mouth.

[catzeatyerface]

DAO Mods

Necessary

Anti Misogynistic Dialogue mods (x, x, x,)  |  Auto loot  |  Complete Bi Overhaul  |  Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3.52  |  Skip the fade  |  ZDF dialogue fix

De-Objectifying

Chasind robes covered  |  DA - Mages of Fereldan  |  Dalish Armor Replacement  |  Desire demon covered  |  Family resemblance (makes Anora look like Loghain’s daughter)  |  Lady of the forest covered  |  Morrigan robes  |  Neutral female armor 

Gameplay

All recipes  |  Character Respec  |  Extra dog slot  |  Gift guide (DAO , DAA)  |  Make console commands visible  |  Utility Sack

Cosmetics

Change your hero’s appearance anytime  |  Chasind robes retexture  |  Glorious Zevran  |  Grey wardens of Fereldan  |  Improved atmosphere  |  Pheonix Armor  |  SJC Patchy Skin Fix  |  Universal dye kit 

CC

CC extra tints and tones  |  LOCT eye textures  |  Look hair! - Dreads and More  |  Natural Lighting for CC  |  New textures (missB)  |  Vibrant colors

Specific Wardens

AW+  |  AW weapon casting  |  Dalish mage origin + dialogue fix  |  Dual weapons for AW  |  Expanded shapeshifting  |  Of Noble Cast  |  Zevring

Others

Add item w/ console  |  Assassin Armor and Rapiers  |  Forced death blows  |  Skip Ostagar  |  Zevran ASAP

Awakening / Witch Hunt

Awakening Bug Fixes X X X X X X X X  |  Brown Ariane and Finn  |  dalishious’ Awakening Morphs (for Velanna, Seranni, and Utha)  |  Dalish Weapons for Ariane  |  Witch Hunt Ariane and Finn morphs

[clouds-of-wings]

Rating of all Bioware romances I’ve played

(Note: for a lot of people anything under 7/10 seems to basically mean it’s crap, for me everything under 3/10 means crap, 5/10 means it’s okay - because it’s in the middle - and 7/10 is already pretty good. Also if anyone else wants to make a post like this too, that would be cool, I’d like to read it.)

Baldur’s Gate 2

Jaheira - 7/10 lots of long, intelligent conversations I don’t recall at all, it seems weird to romance your mom figure tbh but nice to not have constant drama Aerie - 5/10 here you double as therapist and cause some serious character development. It’s not really interesting though and then she has a kid at the worst possible moment. I’m still torn on whether the whole “if you sleep with her when she first offers, the romance is over” was a good idea. Viconia - 8/10 starter of countless puberties the world over, you can’t just agree with everything she says or she’ll see you as weak and pathetic, which puts this romance head and shoulders over most of the rest already. Crap ending though, and a shame that they didn’t make her bi like they planned. Although, given Drow gender roles, that would have meant having to write 2 completely different romances probably. Anomen - 1/10 uncontroversially terrible, only gets a single point because you can make him betray everything he stands for, then break up with him, strip him of all equipment and leave him wounded in the wilderness, which I have done on at least 2 playthroughs Edwin (fanmade) - 6/10 the romance a million fangirls were waiting for. Starts out great, becomes unrealistic later due to too fast progression and the player’s response choices being too good. No one really talks like that. Haer’dalis (fanmade) - 10/10 the best, the amazing, everything that’s good and pure in the world, I eventually started responding as myself instead of as my character because it felt like he was actually listening to me, peering at me through the screen, and I wanted to know what he would say. The author is a professional writer if I remember correctly, which might expl- ahh no wait I just remembered that the canon romances are written by professional writers too haha oops Yoshimo (fanmade) - ?/10 too buggy to finish but great alt portrait!

Neverwinter Nights

Aribeth - 9/10 a complicated, sensitive and ambitious woman gets a boyfriend who can’t help her. Here you - spoiler alert - help your mentor cope with her husband being sentenced to death by her king for political reasons, fall in love, then she starts a war and you kill her, meet her again in hell and fight the devil together! Best storyline of all romances for sure! Aarin - 3/10 all I remember is that he tells you endless BORING stories of his life, then gives you gifts for enduring them... but my sister likes him Valen - 5/10 very attractive but also kinda boring. I don’t really like the brooding hero type. my sister REALLY liked him though, one bonus point for horns, one for “yes, my love?” Nathyrra - 3/10 I remember absolutely nothing of her romance, actually had to check while writing this whether she even was a romance option. But I didn’t hate it either, apparently.

Neverwinter Nights 2

All main campaign romances - 3/10 they were utterly forgettable, sorry I could not even bring myself to finish either of them - I don’t even remember who the male romance option was. I wanted to romance Sand and/or Shandra, but nooo we had to... I think there was a paladin and that brown-haired druid, right? And some flirts with this manic pixie dream tiefling? Who gets jealous when you romance druid lady but you can’t actually romance her instead? Bishop - 1000/10 I hated the fucker but it’s funny how realistic his “romance” is: the developers cut the plans for his romance but couldn’t be arsed to remove the writing for it that was already in the game (lol this game is such a mess I can’t believe the balls it took to even release it), so you have a guy who keeps insulting you and being a general fedora DOUCHE... and then betrays you and joins your enemies because “my love meant nothing to you”. Unintentionally great writing! Safiya - 3/10 she’s one of my favourite video game characters ever but the romance made me very uncomfortable. Safiya seems like the kind of woman who’d only be attracted to a very specific kind of person and the game doesn’t give you the option of playing as that kind of personality. I ended up breaking up with her because it felt like the game was holding a gun to her head and forcing her to say she loved me. In a way it’s a point in the game’s favour that both joinable female NPCs are complicated, strong-willed women who would realistically probably not be taken in by the rather generic responses the game allows you to give them (out of necessity of course - a game can’t give you 100 dialogue options and let all of them lead to different outcomes, that would take 293482 years to program). Gann - 9/10 honestly my favourite canon romance. Male Viconia, moody, sardonic, tired of being objectified, pretends to be arrogant as a coping mechanism (lol), it’s actually difficult to make him fall in love with you, which is great - I gained influence with him once by calling him ugly, then lost it again for saying I was sorry he lost his parents. Would romance again anytime.

Dragon Age: Origins

Alistair - 8/10 lots and lots of fun. Saw him and my warden more as bros but played the romance just because he’s so much fun to talk to Zevran - 2/10 wanted to romance him until I actually met him. Very much Not My Type. Still had sex with him in the middle of the camp minutes after Alistair confessed his love to me ahahaha Leliana - 3/10 very boring, didn’t get beyond second romance talk Morrigan - ?? have only played the game once & with a woman but would like to try her romance one day.

[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 41

Spoilers, obv.

After last issue's formalism, this one just accelerates. And, as everything in this arc, everything is a big beat. If everything is a big beat, how do you choose what to spend your space on? What beats really matter? How do you pace it? What can be a grace note and what's a scene? That's what this issue, and the rest of the arc, tends to be about.

This issue has gone down very well. I'll admit that while I absolutely gasped when I got paged in, I suspect it's going to be least favourite of the whole arc. That more says how much I enjoy the rest of the arc. Also, as a friend put it to me, I may be allergic to making people happy.

Let’s get on with this.

Jamie and Matt's cover:

There is, to some degree, a "Who hasn't had a headshot cover?" to this arc. As such, Mimir finally gets his. This is a glorious one – the pinks and blues, work really well, and the circuitboards frame it well. Obviously, Mimir plays a big role in this issue, so it is thematic. As is…

Paulina's cover

I just love Paulina's covers, as her being the regular alt-cover artist on Thunderbolt should imply. This made me want to immediately pitch a kick-ass pop D&D bard comic to someone, Xena Warrior Princess as produced by Xenomania. The names of the swords are the chef-kiss, but there's so much to love. The expression is everything.

Page 1

One page scene, with a modified nine panel grid. The one page scene is something that happens a lot this arc. I did a two-page version, but with the right seven panels, we're sorted. Yes, this is all we see of the de facto antagonists of the series this issue – when last issue was all about them, it doesn't worry me too much.

Page 2

Standard music journalist concept. That the second album tends to be worst than the first. Hard to prove, though my old friend Peter's note that "you have your whole life preparing for your first album and have a year to do your second" does seem to imply an easy explanation.

Page 3-4-5

Stealth mission! It's Metal Gear WicDiv!

We actually forgot to add the flashes to the first panel until the very last minute. Monthly Comics is a hell of a time sometimes, stress the “hell.”

I love the determination of Laura in the second panel of 3. That's great eyes.

Looking at this now, that "I can't do much now" is in a panel smaller than 1/9th of the page says a lot about the scale she's working on. The background was Matt in full trippy mode – I had a friend note that this scene is a little akin to Kohl in Rue Britannia 5 (The difference being Kohl is using nostalgia for a performance, while Laura is just doing a performance) but the moving squiggle does remind me the use of optical illusions in Phonogram 3. Bugs in the optic nerve are our friend.

Panel 3 on 4 is obviously Clayton living large and conquering. When you ask for something like "Can you sample the background and use as a speech balloon" you have no idea if it's going to work.

We could have divided the middle panel into two, but I suspect it'd have been less effective. We've seen the trick before. Now we see the same trick, but different. Mix it up. We're performers.

Hmm. I realise the Norns string of balloons is something I'm doing more often now – it's not something I've always done. I'm normally a one-panel-one-emotion, which strings of dialogue rarely allow (as, if there’s any change of emotion inside the string, the image is rendered ludicrous). In a middle shot, and a strong emotional throughline with the dialogue and I'm more okay with it.

While this whole three pages is an action sequence, it's also exposition for Laura's current state. The best exposition is demonstration, I guess.

I mean, the last panel of page 5? That's how cut to the bone we are. Problem? Solve it. Problem? Solve it. We don't need to fuck around anymore.

Page 6-7-8

And after six whole trades, the reunion between Lucifer and Laura. I suspect a different writer would have played this bigger and more melodramatic, but when the reader knows this, a splash feels overkill, especially with the taut pacing of the rest of the issue. However... there are five panels here. That's a page's worth of content, and enough to give an emotional throughline.

Sometimes when writing it's all about trying to find an honest response which is also unexpected. Like, in life, you think you'll feel sad or happy at certain times, but when you live through it, you don't. Or you don't entirely. What other stuff is happening? That's what rings true to me.

Anyway – that's where Laura's Guilt comes from. Laura at her most Dionysus.

And then Lucifer shatters all that self pity with the wink. Did you miss me? Of course, you did.

Page 7, panel 4 is one of those "a comic panel is not a moment in time" bits of magic McLeod always talks about. As in, as we read across the panel time progresses. The Mimir/Cass conversation is getting on for... 10 seconds, maybe? The teleport signatures do not take that long to appear. It's only with Laura's interruption that panel kicks into high gear.

As Multiversity noted you can easily imagine another draft of this with a bigger fight scene. And it's true – but also lying around was a version which cuts it even shorter. Do we need to really give a whole page to Cass breaking out? I felt so. Without the big beat, it feels flat. And it's good to see Cass let rip.

The slight angle on Jamie's external shot with a Norns black/white plus golden thread from Matt is really interesting. We don't often see the Norns as combatants in WicDiv, so this is a rare chance to give Cass a "Hello, I am a bad ass too, in case you've forgotten."

Page 9-10-11-12

Cripes. Going this and making notes I can't believe how tightly we're winding this and (more so) getting away from it. We did all this in four pages?

Two panels to the escape – the right image and a handful of taut captions to hold you between scenes. The first is doing a lot of work, but the second is just elegant. What do you need but the broken doors? Great stuff by Jamie here.

(Laura's captions do a lot of work here in setting up the themes, and the return of Sakhmet's memory to the story)

If you're wondering "How on earth could we get the escape be quicker, it's to take the first two panels on page 8 and move to the previous page. That makes it a five panel page, which is entirely do-able. That's a cost, but it would have bought slightly more space in this scene. As it is, I preferred to cut mid-page and end with Lucifer's first spoken lines in ages.

Once more, a big reveal in a small panel. Chrissy's note on the script was basically hearts for Luci at this point. Like, the second she cuts to the chase and tell s people what to do...

...and then the page turn, and she just goes full Lucifer. I know you lot have missed her, but I have too.

Getting back to Inanna was also easy, the sweetheart... but it all leads back to Sakhmet. That Mothering Invention was as tight as it was didn't leave much room for Laura to think about Sakhmet, or mourn at all... or, most of all, make it clear the story (and Laura) considers her loss important and real. It's an awful sad panel at the end of the page.

Inanna's voice was easy to find again. He's such a sweetheart. Tara is a little harder, just as I wrote her less, but I've been fascinated by this arc in terms of writing her as an actual character. I think one of the ironies of issue 13 was that it put Tara on a pedestal, and the pedestal is an objectifying as any other cage. Getting her back as a character is wonderful, and she gets to be as messy and flawed as everyone else.

Inanna not knowing ANY of this is hard. That's the problem with most of this arc – there is so much information flying around, and secrets some (but not all) are aware of. Who gets to respond to what and when? What to remind people of? What to let slide? Inanna not knowing about Baal is so huge it had to be hit and hit hard.

And then... the bodies.

When plotting this and trying to work out how I could get the cast – oh god, this is not a deliberate pun, but it's also clearly a pun - back on their feet, I was thinking of the Morrigan Gambit. Three heads, three bodies. Perfect. Then I remembered Mimir, and swore. I started to think about how that would be a tense, dramatic situation and how the personal politics could play out and I realised that Tara would just turn it down. I then realised that's exactly how the scene would work too.

(In a "tightness" thing, I suspect in another world, this scene would have been two pages. The "and Tara then just butts in" is the key thing, but you could get the timing a little more intricate to sell the moment more – still, even in this page, I could have extended it more, but seeing Tara's elaboration and everyone else's response to it was just key work for them all.)

In passing – Mimir's glowing in the dark in the penultimate panel just wonderful. Nice work Jamie and Matt.

Page 13

From the Sisters of Mercy's song, Marian.

Page 14-15-16-17

Here's where you talk about spending space. What's important here? You need the scale to show what Baph has been doing – and Jamie turns it into something astoundingly gothic. The use of blacks, the use of light and shade. Just the right level of suggestive. It’s one of my favourite bits of composition in the issue.

As the pantheon are getting back together, this leads to an increase in crowd scenes, which are the eternal artist killer. As such, I'm looking for solutions which only involve the absolute minimum of the cast in a scene.

Thee was an awful moment earlier in the issue when I went – wait! Do I have too many heads to carry? Then I realised I was fine. That said, finding places to put them down so we can have chat scenes was also somewhat tricky. The shelf turning up on page 15 is an example. Clealry Baph planned to (er) have a place to keep heads.

Well, I say, Baph, but it's clearly Nergal now. The road from early Nick Cave to late Nick Cave has been a long way. It's a great shot.

To go back to the space, why spend it on this? We’re reintroducing Nergal and Morrigan, and we’re also showing the scale of them in the plot, and the actions of Nergal. Where we go with the bodies is such a big beat, it needs to come from something similarly large. That’s also the reason why so much (relative in the issue) space is spent on the Morrigan/Nergal scenes. Of course, it’s also a key scene for this subplot, so demands space for that. It’s rarely just one reason. Probably a useful time for my usual “these notes are only ever a selection of thoughts.”

This is also a serious pose panel by Jamie.

The “I could bring her back.” He’s an underworld god too. If she could do it, he could. This is something which I suspect some people thought implicit in the old scene, but the final manipulation of Morrigan is unpacked at length in the nine panel grids.

Nine panel grids are a natural rhythm for this – when I was planning the later bit the triple-goddess of it made obvious sense, so it expanded to the whole scene. Also, the cropped image reduces the possibility of a Jamie crowd scene.

I always thought that, given the amount of time the various characters get on film, Ladyhawke could more accurately be called Blokeywolf. I digress.

Page 18-19-20

As said earlier, the triple-goddess to nine panel grid is one of those natural ways to give a stress to each of the elements. You’ll notice the clicks are left then right then centre. I’d originally written it as left to right, before – after Chrissy’s Editorial urging – rewrote to end with the Macha section to go last. Gentle Annie may have been the kinder part of Morrigan, but Macha was the part he mostly dated.

Then, in a moment of weirdness, Jamie actually drew it in the original order, despite never having seen that script. Morrigan has powers, as does the logical necessity of a left to right panelling order. As a nine panel grid, just moving panels around to fix it is easy. Hail grids!

Like most of the big acts of magic, it’s all about emotional sense than anything else. Hence, it is inevitable as Nergal actually does this, the bleak temple he’s constructed starts to crumble. And, in perhaps the most ludicrous bit of me in the comic, The Temple Of Love Is Falling Down. Too much is the bare minimum.

Jamie’s triple-portrait of the Morrigan is pretty startling. I have no idea if Jamie will miss drawing Badb’s hair, but I’ll miss seeing it.

Re-reading this now I’m struck by how low-key it is. That was always part of WicDiv’s magic – the finger click, and then things happening. The Morrigan transformation was usually drawn to be instantaneous – one panel Macha, the next Badb and so on. This kind of keeps to that.

And then… the reveal. That the new bodies isn’t a splash page says everything about this issue, but it still gets the punching the air moment. We had to have one of those eventually. Lucifer in a black suit is one of the things I’ve been waiting as long to see as Nergal in his. I giggled with glee at seeing this. Jamie’s worked in elements of the Morrigan into each of the gods – Lucifer’s red hair is the most obvious one, but Gentle Annie in Inanna and Macha in Mimir also have their notes. Inanna’s netting top is the main one – and note the shapes on Mimir’s armour changing to mimic Macha’s.

Yes, writing Lucifer remains fun and easy. I recommend it to everyone.

Page 21-22

In terms of seeing chat, people responding to the small details in the issue is one of the bigger joys. That Jamie got the Inanna/Nergal hug in the background of this exchange between Laura/Lucifer/Cass is absolutely wonderful. Laura and Cass have come a long way.

This is arguably a small cliffhanger – the smallest of this arc, at least. However, it sits on the weight of the rest of the run. We’re promising a solution to one of the larger mysteries in the run, and I suspect we get by on that. Note how space is used – this is a dense panel layout, but we go to a thired of a page for Laura’s “I know how to end this” (so giving it weight” and then going to three panel page for the conclusion (which adds weight to each of these beats.) Jamie takes the framing to tight on Cass for the beat as well to sell it. Note Matt with the Norn-colouring creeping in – and how it goes from the fires in the first panel to this is just a joy.

Page 23

Interstitial, and obvious reference to the Jay-Z record, but everyone is just excitedly clapping over the adding stuff to the godwheel. Sergio outdid himself here. It’s certainly an example of how you can have storytelling and even hero-shot audience-cheers beats out of things entirely unlike a traditional comics panel. After all these issue,s we get to see something added to the godwheel. Of course people cheer. That said,  as I said to a friend, “Of all the things I’ve found to torture the WicDiv readership, hope is the cruelest of all.”

EDIT: Actually, I messed up here - Jamie did the tweaks. Nice work Jamie!

And that’s it. Next up – 42, wherein questions are answered. In passing – the letters we’ve been getting are amazing. I’m going to try and cram as many as I can in the issues to come, but issue 44 will be our last one with a letters page. So that’s a timelimit if you wanna try and get in. It’s wicdiv@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading.

[popculturespiritwow]

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #17: COMFORTABLY NOM NOM NOM

I/O ERROR

What I love most about Issue 17 is just how much Sakhmet is in denial of her own emotional reality. That very first scene at the British Museum tells you everything. Actually, no that very first panel does:

Sakhmet wants to believe she feels nothing, she’s fine, she’s just a little kitty content to play with her yarn people. But she spends most of the issue numbing herself in one way or another. Pleasure not as pleasure but as escape. As Gillen points out in his Writer’s Notes, every scene ends with her shutting her eyes.

And then finally she wanders off and DOES THIS.

You’re right Sakhmet, you’re fine, no pain or trauma screaming in you, eating your dad is a thing anyone would do if they were really free.

Of course the real twist, the best twist, the oh my god no darkest twist is that she did this impossibly horrible thing while sober, that in fact it’s understood amongst Woden and the Valkyrie that the time we really have to worry about Sakhmet is when she isn’t blissed out on whatever.

Sakhmet tells the reporter, “I am Sakhmet. I am war and sex and death. I feel nothing.” She means it as this powerful statement of her identity, raw and primal and beyond all this mortal nonsense. 

And it makes no sense. War and sex and death are absolutely times when you feel things. Maybe too many things.

It’s the same when young Ruth stands before the statue of Sakhmet and insists she was made of stone. The statue is made of stone, sure; but that goddess, sitting on her throne half-naked, head of a lioness, upper body of a woman – that chica is absolutely made of flesh.

 FULL CIRCLE

We started this third arc of WicDiv with the story of a reporter – (post-Jessica Jones I don’t know why but I always imagine Beth introduced like she’s TV child star Patsy, aka “IT’S BETH!”, but then when she comes onscreen she’s just pale and glaring with big circles under her eyes) -- who objectifies the gods to get what she wants. We then spend most of the arc having our own assumptions and prejudices revealed, and being challenged to appreciate the humanity of different gods.

(I’m not sure I’d say that’s what’s going on with Baphomet and Morrigan... unless perhaps their internal orbit is defined by the struggle between loving one another and using one another, dehumanizing one another? It is true, our first encounter with them has Baphomet animating a severed head of Morrigan...and its script is nothing but praise for her...

Her take on making him a god is also about making him her king. It sounds like a partnership, but that possessive adjective can carry a lot of water...)

And here we end with an embrace of objectification again. I love the way Gillen puts it in the Writer’s Notes: “The only person who treats Sakhmet like an object is herself.”

(He also makes the comment, “Hurt people hurt people, and occasionally eat them afterwards.” Which encapsulates another major theme of this arc, and is also just the best sentence.)

So once again we return.

I’m not sure that line has ever implied a greater sense of imprisonment.

GIFT FOR WHOM

Brandon Peterson does great work on the art. Those two pages of Sakhmet on the rooftops, there’s something so magical about them. For that one moment, before we get to see where she’s gone, she really does seem so happy and free.

 My one question: What is going on here?:

We’re at Sakhmet’s show. Usually those scenes reveal something important about the blessing of the god. But here, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem all that different from a normal concert, except for the living pastel balloon cats that people are stroking. Is this about pleasure, everyone’s on E or and enjoying stroking the kitties and basking in the red light – like a cat, just getting that as I write this now, oh is that funny).

In a way it feels like the performance is more for the cats than the humans. The humans all blur together, painted in the red of blood; meanwhile the cats float and glow and move through as they will. 

Sakhmet says she’s all about pleasure, and from the post-orgy scene it seems like maybe her blessing is the numb, the escape of excess.

But that’s not what’s going on during her performance. And Sakhmet is so out of touch with the truth of herself, the only thing we can rely on is that her words should not be trusted.

Food for thought, I guess...

(I’m sorry.)

[mabaris]

honestly thinking about it more, i should have waited to do any romances. the first time i played the games i was just kind of bumbling around with absolutely NO idea how the romance mechanics worked, and there was definitely enough going on just stumbling blindly trying to keep up with the plot. for the most part, i tend to prefer my second romance choices because i knew what was going on and could focus actual brainpower on choosing a love interest

my first choices for the first two games (leliana, merrill) were really just bc. they were the only wlw options and i picked up the crumbs i was given. nothing against those two characters, theyre absolute sweethearts but i say this very platonically. im just not accustomed to having a lot of options; you get one (1) gay one and you have to settle for whoever it is. (at the time i was dealing with Plenty of internalized stuff and still felt too ashamed to be comfortable engaging with isabela and realize it's ok to be into it, she's not just horny as a joke lol)

josephine is absolutely an exception to the above; the first time i saw her i was smitten but in the same breath didn't want to admit it. it felt like the set-up for a self-deprecating joke. i told myself not to get my hopes up, that because i liked her so much, she wouldn't be romanceable. of course i would fall for the unattainable character, that was my thing with morrigan when i didnt do my research and just went in blind with a female warden. she's hot but obviously not made with people like me in mind, move along

as much as i love her, i definitely didn't come to josephine's romance at the right time; i was nearing the end of the period where i'd been struggling with "am i actually objectifying women by finding them attractive" and the beginning of realizing "hey it actually sucks that so many wlw relationships are either made for the male gaze or theyre sanitized, very 'pure uwu soft romance' with Some Chaste Kissing Only" the former of which made me feel guilty for having actual interest in pursuing her, the latter which made me uncharitably angry at the way her romance was written. it felt like another thing where it's just like, well you cant have it all

(anyway now that ive let myself be horny and romanced isabela and sera, and seen that these games are actually capable of doing it well, ive calmed down and realized i was being unreasonable. i actually love how josephine's is written like an homage to classic romance novels, 12/10)