#( ;; and only really take the harpy into my characterisation. )

[penddraig]

me seeing ppl making hmc muses after being lonely for so long: :)

[noxtms]

*   𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐘𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐃   :   where can we find info on your marauders and next gen side groups?

by joining nox and following the discord links to each rp from there ! lumos ( the marauders verse ) had a blog, but both of them being run from their discord groups just made more sense since i don’t run them on my own like i do nox - it’s easier for the respective councils to keep on top of things and really the only downside has been not having a traditional blogroll, but that’s fine. neither are required of you by being in nox, but to join & stay within them, you have to be a member - if you leave the main group, you forfeit the others too. 

both are fully influenced by the existing nox timeline, lumos probably moreso. our marauders verse takes place in 1994. it’s three years to the end of the war & the conflict between the death eaters and the order is escalating everyday. it’s really a very quintessential group for the era but for the change in the time period ( done so that it could feel like an actual prequel to nox, even if it’s au in all its own ways ) and the fact that everyone has been very supportive of my degenerate peter pettigrew thoughts and feelings, to date. 

the next gen verse is, of course, newer and less strongly established, but it’s also the one most au from the universe, since it’s specifically built from nox canon and diverts from the end of our s1 plot. in aurora, the prophecy that drove our first season was never spoken and the light side triumphed over bellatrix lestrange early on, during our second department of mysteries battle. every change from here on out was made to ensure that no one gets too comfortable with our next gen verse existing, in the first place - i don’t want aurora to take away from the fact that the nox plot is still ongoing, and characters that have kids over there may still die, here. just to rapidfire rattle off some changes, over there : kingsley shacklebolt & the diggory sibling died in our season 1 finale, there was never a resurrection ( no regulus, harry or voldemort ), the de’s were rounded up and sent to azkaban with many including bellatrix later executed, anton karkaroff never became minister, sybill trelawney still died ( but of a heart attack, not murder ), the chudley cannons won the quidditch cup instead of the holyhead harpies, etc, etc.

it’s now 2049, and rather than an rp dealing with the fallout of a war that never came, in aurora, the plot is a murder mystery with inspiration taken from one of us is lying by karen mcmanus, if we were villains by ml rio and twin peaks - willa longbottom, eldest daughter of neville & his oc wife, has been found dead beneath a dark mark and anyone could have done it. there are several known connections ( all with possible motives ) and five that can only come out through rp, all of which will build a clearer picture of who willa was and why she was murdered. i generally hate next gen verses, so it’s already been so fun to build one where no canon kids exist and no pre-conceived ideas of how those kids act do, either - it’s all STEEPED in nox canon, between the timeline we’ve worked on to flesh out the last twenty odd years and the fact i get to play cordelia malfoy, third born of draco malfoy & ginny weasley. 

so there u go ! that’s what i can say about both, and there’s still way more i couldn’t touch on - most especially in regards to how big and sexy everyone’s brains have been in their casting and characterisation of marauders era characters and how absolutely bonkers the aurora world is, already - but you’ll have to join us to get in on all that ! 

[fedonciadale]

I am finishing my re-read of A dance with dragons and I keep thinking if the viewers' opinion of Dany might have changed at least a bit if D&D had shown her internal struggle to adapt to Meereen's culture and fail, in the end, during the pit fightings. By introducing the Sons of the Harpy, they made it a matter of life and death for her to leave, but until Drogon's arrival, that wasn't the case in the books, it was her who desperately wanted to leave and shed her floppy ears. What do you think?

Hi there!

I am of two minds about the characterisation of Dany on the show, to be quite honest. On the one hand I realise that it is quite difficult to translate the PoV trap to screen, and I think that all in all they did not completely botch it from season 1 to season 6. In every season they did include some problematic stuff, even if they did not take everything from the books.

On the other hand I always wonder if including some of the problematic stuff in ADWD might have alerted people to the fact that Dany grows accustomed to violence and relies more and more on violence as a solution.

And I think your thoughts on her arc in Meereen are correct. She tries and tries to find a peaceful way, but she is not prepared to really adapt and she is bored to death by it. By the time the scene in the fighting pit happens, she is ready to leave. She could have chosen to let Drogon be killed to save the people, but she doesn’t want to lose her Weapon and this acceptance of the dragon as a monster is what is a major turning point for her.

A good example are the quite famous “wine seller’s daughters” in ADWD. Dany orders that they are questioned “sharply” (i.e. tortured) to find out if the wine seller in question has acted against her.

Would people have been more willing to accept that she has become a villain by the time she reaches Westeros? Would they have looked past the beautiful facade? Would they have seen through Dany if she was played by a less attractive actress?

Honestly, I doubt it by now. I mean season 8 is some time ago now, and there are still people out there who “stand by Daenerys”, and not all of them are show watchers only. There are many people who have read the books and still believe that Dany will have a sort of “dark phase” but will ultimately save the world.

The Dany fans are most adamant that “the books will be different.” 

Talking with casual viewers really gives you a different perspective about that. Many casual viewers were disappointed by season 8 (well weren’t we all) but most of them accepted Dany’s fall as logical and foreshadowed. So, you can argue that D&D sort of botched Dark Dany, but still the general audience got it.

Dany fans did not get it and they will imho never get it. Dany burned thousands of people in King’s Landing and they still insist, that this won’t happen in the books. They stuff their ears, sing lalala, and ignore the sign posts. And I am convinced that even if the books ever come out and Dany burns King’s Landing like she did on the show, they will probably embrace the narrative, that GRRM “changed the ending, so that it fits the show” or whatever conjuration theory will protect their denial of Dany as a villain instead of a hero. GRRM could outright say: “Dany is a villain and I intentionally wrote her as such.” and they would not believe. In that case they would suddenly remember that GRRM is an old white man and cry misogyny.... (or mhysagyny)

Being in this fandom has taught me much about human capacity to resist arguments they just don’t want to hear.

So, maybe, maybe, more people would have doubted Dany, if they had stayed closer to the books, but there are so many book readers who don’t get it either. So, all in all, I think, that if the show had been better in season 7 and 8 in showing Dany’s fall, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Because people did not want to see it. And humans have a surprising ability to close their eyes and bend what they see to their preformed ideas.

Thanks for the ask!

[oosteven-universe]

The X-Files Case Files: Hoot Goes There? #01

The X-Files Case Files: Hoot Goes There? #1 IDW Publishing 2018 Written by Joe & Keith Lansdale illustrated by Silvia Califano Coloured by Valentina Pinto Lettered by Shawn Lee    Scully and Mulder and themselves on the road again, this time to a small East Texas town to investigate the disappearance of a woman said to have been carried away by a creature fitting the description of a harpy from Greek myth. But things only get stranger from there...     After the last Case Files I was made an immediate fan and this time it’s a new creative team with a new story. I stopped watching the show after a while because I was in my twenties and ya know life at that time revolves around fun and going out and exploring life but these Case Files remind me of everything that I loved about the show. It doesn’t try to be something it’s not, there’s no season so and so continuing the hit series going on here. These could take place at any time in the pairs 25 year history. Just snippets of life and cases that came and went.     The Lansdale’s make this one as exciting and offbeat as they come making it something that fits beautifully into the world of the X-Files. The opening is spectacular and the fact that they placed it in a trailer park complete with feuding neighbours just about damn well made it all perfect. The confrontational yelling and then to see what happened yeah all of it just fits in with some of those stories akin to the Jersey Devil, yes local legend here in East Texas calls it the Owl Witch.     I laughed so hard reading this issue and it’s all that darker tongue in cheek kind of humour that I really appreciate that garners too little attention in my humble opinion. I mean after the opening sequence of events we see Scully and Mulder showing up at the Sheriff’s office. You have to read this it’s just so damn good and that the boys get the whole characterisation/personality aspect down and the dialogue reinforcing their relationship and beliefs to one another is stunningly superb. This is why we love not just the franchise but the creators behind the stories and the company that knows when to let them unleash their imaginations.     There is this flow to the book that is undeniable when you read it. It takes the reader on a journey through belief, disbelief and what if in a way that makes you think there’s a Scooby villain just waiting to have his mask yanked off. So is this a case where a human is running around pretending to be the local legend in order to cover up their nefarious deeds and actions or is it all real? We have no clue and honestly at this stage that according to what we see as a reader is so open right now is brilliantly done.     Good god the interiors here are marvellous. I am a sucker for attention to detail and we get that and so much more here in spades. I mean the design of the shoppe how we see all this thought and care that makes it so perfect. The utilisation of the page layouts and the angles and perspective in that we see in the panels shows off a sensational eye for storytelling. That the panels are used so fully with the utilisation of backgrounds be it the woods or the Sheriff’s station and definitely Clahoun’s Emporium well this kind of creativity and imagination on display well see for yourself why I am raving about it.  The interiors I talk about include the amazing colouring job so it's truly a team effort. ​     The X-Files is a franchise that will never die, too many people are long-time fans and others keep finding these stories and wish for them to continue. This is a prime example of the power of the mind being it in the writing or the illustration that says good strong storytelling is never out of fashion.