#I’m still working on figuring out the themes and narrative and characters etc

[madbard]

Thinking about how the Long Quiet outsources change. As the embodiment of stagnancy, it was never meant to exist on its own, never meant to exist as sentient being which, by necessity, must adapt and change to survive. And it handles this by creating the Voices, mental embodiments of trauma responses and attitude shifts and altered worldviews and everything else, externalized advisors embodying the changes it cannot personally undergo.

It accepts these Voices as guides because it needs them, but it refuses to be altered itself. Each princess and each story bring with it a physical change that horrifies it, and every time, it resets those changes, kills the new voices and returns to its original state. Theoretically, it stays the same as it always was.

But still. As it continues forth, it can’t help but remember. With each story, memory returns. Against its will, against its very nature, it changes, because it isn’t only stagnancy. There is a splinter of the Shifting Mound in there as well.

Thinking about how the Princesses exist as mere facets of the Shifting Mound, how the Shifting Mound is scattered among them because personhood requires a certain amount of stability and stagnancy that she cannot perform all at once. How the Shifting Mound cannot exist as a single, stable perspective because even the continuity of thought is contrary to the concept of change and destruction and evolution and death, expanding always and infinitely and away.

She pulls herself together from limited experiences and ideas, rejecting the possibility of being any single person.

But still. At the end of each story, she greets the Long Quiet, offers it comfort and company in the way she knows how. The progression of their relationship, though it is by necessity a story of change, is also a tale of repetition and familiarity. The Long Quiet asks the same questions. She gives different answers. But it is ultimately the same conversation, again and again. And she is capable of that because she is not just the Shifting Mound – there is a sliver of the Long Quiet in there as well.

And the Shifting Mound is only able to reform itself because the Long Quiet makes different decisions each time, bringing her fresh perspectives – because despite being the manifestation of stagnancy, there is a piece of the Shifting Mound to motivate it. And the Long Quiet is only able to try and remain stagnant because the Shifting Mound is able to wipe its memory and reset it – because despite being the manifestation of change, there is a whisper of the Long Quiet to stabilize her.

They weren’t meant to be separated. They weren’t meant to be sentient. As separate beings, they fail. As separate beings, they greet each other with violence and hunger and desperation – the fury of their essential conflict warring with their frantic desire to be reunited, to never have been torn apart. Two people who never wanted to be people. Two people who want to be the same thing and try again and again to join themselves together through bloodshed and love.

Movements synchronized, moving as one. As if they were still the same being because, in a sense, they are.

There is a reason they always appear to be dancing.

[iridescentoracle]

So, I talked the other day a Whole Bunch about how I’d rewrite Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney to make it actually good. Obviously, I’ve thought about the subsequent games too. It took me a lot longer to figure out what I’d do with Dual Destinies, and I’m still not sure about Spirit of Justice, but one thing that made a lot of stuff click into place was thinking about the original trilogy, and how it ultimately can be boiled down to three main themes/plotlines:

Satire/Critique of the Japanese legal system

Generational Trauma Surrounding the Kurain Channeling Legacy

[gestures at Phoenix and Edgeworth’s relationship]

There’s a lot of reasons the so-called “Apollo Justice trilogy” games all feel wildly disconnected from each other and also mostly the original trilogy, but I think a lot of it comes down to how the themes/plotlines from the original games get lost or are irrelevant because we’ve got a new cast of characters, but there’s nothing tying the new games together but a shared (and much more dramatically expanding) cast of characters.

So for this proposed rewrite project, I’m fixing that. The Apollo Justice trilogy is going to be a trilogy, and that means shared/extended themes and plots that tie all three games together, and tie this trilogy back to the original even though most of the original cast, in this version, have even smaller roles (see: Apollo’s shitty mentor in my rewrite of AA4 being a separate person from Phoenix, who we barely see, etc).

So:

The legal system satire/critique stays consistent in rewritten DD & SOJ, instead of getting completely forgotten about/undermined in DD and doubled down to the point of losing all meaning in SOJ.

Generational Trauma Surrounding the Troupe Gramarye Legacy

honestly i haven’t figured this part out yet but it involves apollo somehow. this rewrite project is a work-in-progress and i’m mostly figuring it out as i go

I’m going to get to each of these in turn, starting (more or less) with the legal system critique, although it’s about to look like I’m mostly complaining about bad writing (in the form of character actions that seem to have been written without any thought actually put into making them make sense from the perspective of the characters in question), which is fair because I kind of am; bear with me, though, I promise it’ll be relevant and I think it’s a pretty solid illustration of how the thematic issues are inherently also narrative/characterization issues and vice versa.

So, let’s talk about Edgeworth and Blackquill’s plan and why the hell they thought that was a good idea. I swear to god, I cannot figure out how that entire plotline makes any sense, unless Edgeworth worked out that Blackquill thought he was covering for Athena and also that the real murderer was probably the Phantom purely via considering the parallels to his own life.

Because, like, the thing is. “this convicted murderer is allowed to be a prosecutor in the last few months before his execution (for murder), thanks to the machinations of a man who has dedicated the last like eight years of his life to being Staunchly Anti-Prosecutorial-Corruption” is just. completely nonsensical. So Edgeworth has to have some reason to think he wasn’t actually the murderer. But the canon trial makes it pretty clear Blackquill was the only suspect thanks to #1 nobody checking the security footage carefully #2 Blackquill making sure Athena wasn’t one, so why would Edgeworth think that? But for that matter, how did Edgeworth even know Blackquill, like, existed, let alone learn about the Phantom? Like, maybe he heard about Blackquill from a third party and got curious and looked into things, or was, like, looking through records of Prosecutors Found Guilty Of Crimes for some reason and found a case he and Phoenix hadn’t been involved in (for once) and had Questions, okay, but he wouldn’t have found out about the Phantom either of those ways, so even if he also somehow learned about him separately, why would he think to connect the two? So he has to have learned about Blackquill’s information on the Phantom from Blackquill, but why would Blackquill confide in someone else like that?

The only way I can make any of those pieces fit together in my head is if Edgeworth figured out Blackquill was attempting to cover for a kid who set off all of the Parallels To DL-6 alarm bells in Edgeworth’s head, and Edgeworth’s two mental options are “just fucking leave. run for it now. never think about this again” and “okay but what if neither the kid nor the other adult in the room was actually the person who murdered the kid’s parent. maybe there was a secret third adult who killed them for mysterious reasons” and he picks metaphorical door #2 (rather than leaving through literal door #1 and going home) and man do i want to see what that conversation/logic chess sequence looked like. At what point did Edgeworth contemplate the possibility of watching Phoenix cross-examine the defendant’s pet hawk

Also, crucially when i say Edgeworth picks #2, I mean he says that out loud, bc I really don’t buy that Blackquill would have just casually confided in him (or anyone) about the Phantom, but Edgeworth working out that Blackquill was trying to protect Athena (who he thinks really did it) and immediately going “okay i see why you assumed it was her but have you considered: what if there was secretly a third party who was the real murderer all along” does seem like the one thing that would actually get him to talk.

And tbh? I think everything makes more sense and is even more compelling if Edgeworth and Blackquill’s plan isn’t just to lure out the Phantom bc he’s a ~super spy with nefarious motives etc, but to lure out the real murderer, now that they’ve realized he probably exists.

To be clear, i don’t think that’s what was intended to have happened in canon, but i think it’s what would have to be true for Edgeworth’s involvement not to be hopelessly stupid and counterproductive.

And this is what I mean about the problems with the characterization/narrative choices being intimately intertwined with the thematic issues, because Edgeworth’s whole deal is fundamentally tied up in the legal system satire of the first three games (and Investigations 1 & 2, for that matter) and so it’s incoherent/inconsistent/nonsensical on a character/narrative level and a thematic level both at the same time. If we’re supposed to believe he did something as stupid as “letting a convicted murderer be a prosecutor without a reason to believe he had not, in fact, committed any crimes” then it undercuts his entire arc up to this point. Still, even that proposed backstory/context, while it would at least provide an understandable motivation/train of reasoning that would actually be in keeping with what we know about Edgeworth up to this point, is ultimately rooted in the Phantom plotline as it exists in canon, which I think is fundamentally flawed on three different levels, and genuinely fixing Dual Destinies requires completely rewriting it.

The three central problems with the Phantom plot, IMO, are actually pretty simple:

The legal system critique that ultimately was part of the heart of the first four games gets completely forgotten about.

Ableism

The stakes are too high and not personal enough, which undercuts the emotional impact and weakens the audience’s emotional investment.

To elaborate, because I’m not sure all of those are equally evident at a glance:

One of our main antagonists is a prosecutor who’s also a convicted murderer and… the worst thing he actually does is be mean to people. No evidence tampering, no forgery, no witness suppression, no actual murder. He’s just kinda scary-looking. The ultimate main villain of the game is a cop! He spends most of the game being nice and friendly and helpful but at the end of the day he committed a whole bunch of crimes, Dual Destinies says ACAB oh wait no never mind he’s actually an imposter and the real police detective he’s impersonating was probably genuinely a really good guy.

The whole “the Phantom has no emotions and therefore doesn’t really count as a person I guess so it’s okay to prove his identity even though the very explicitly established consequences are He Will Be Assassinated Right There in The Courtroom, Which Is Exactly What Happens but everyone’s pretty okay with that because hey, he didn’t have emotions, it’s fine, he’s exempted from, like, deserving basic human rights I guess???” is uh. you know. sure a choice they made

It sounds ridiculous to call the original games “grounded” or “realistic,” but like… at the end of the day, the culprits in the first four games are all just… people? The most powerful people who turned out to be murderers were, like, the CEO of a company, a chief of police, a popular actor, etc. Those are real kinds of people who do normal crimes in real life. The characters are ridiculous and over-the-top but at the end of the day the stakes mostly felt high because they were personal. Even when there’s magic involved, the actual crimes are ultimately things that could have happened for mundane reasons too! All the drama with spirit channeling and at the end of the day, half the spirit channeling-related crimes in the original trilogy come down to someone trying to kill or disgrace her sister and niece so that her own kid will inherit, or a teenage girl dealing with emotional abuse/neglect trying to escape and then trying to cover her tracks or get revenge on people she felt had personally hurt her. But now our stakes involve international espionage and a super-spy who can look like anyone? Absurd as it is to say, Dual Destinies doesn’t feel grounded the way the original trilogy did, and outside Athena’s trial, the personal aspects of the cases mostly come down to “the victim and/or suspect are cared about by the characters we care about,” which isn’t enough to bring the absurdly high stakes back down to something it’s easy to genuinely be invested in.

So. Let’s fix all of those. Conveniently, they all have the same solution: Bobby Fulbright is genuinely a cop. He’s exactly who he seems like up until the canon reveal. He is good-natured and cheerful and energetic and mostly pretty helpful to our protagonists. He’s also the man who murdered Metis Cykes and Clay Terran.

Instead of international espionage, he was engaged in corporate espionage. He was a security guard at GYAXA who got bribed to steal some of Metis Cykes’ research, but got caught and panicked and stabbed her. Even after Simon Blackquill was found guilty, he still felt too nervous to keep working at more or less the scene of the crime, and quit the private security guard gig in favor of becoming a cop. Seven years later, new Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth continued his whole signature anti-corruption deal, going through records of convictions of past prosecutors & law enforcement officers, and something about Blackquill’s conviction didn’t sit right, so he arranged to meet the guy in person. Hearing the story from Blackquill’s own mouth, Edgeworth saw some parallels between UR-1 and DL-6, figured out out that Blackquill had falsely confessed under the belief Athena Cykes had accidentally killed her own mother, and (mostly for DL-6 reasons) theorized that there could have been a third person on the scene who managed to escape undetected. Investigating the evidence, he found the security footage of someone in a security guard uniform and Metis Cykes’ jacket leaving the scene of the crime, and met with Blackquill again with that information and a record of Athena testifying at Blackquill’s trial that she’d seen a stranger in her mother’s lab before Simon arrived. At the time she’d been written off as lying or confused due to the trauma, but with the security footage proving her right, Edgeworth and Blackquill realize that she (unlike the security camera) likely saw the security guard’s face, and so would be the only person who could potentially identify him as Metis Cykes’ real killer—thus putting Athena in danger, if they ever happened to meet.

Without actual evidence linking the unknown security guard to the crime, though—no unidentified fingerprints had ever been found, and the footage didn’t show his face, so there was no way to figure out which of the security guards employed at the time was the real killer, if any records even still existed seven years later given that none of the security guards had been seriously considered as suspects at the time—the new evidence wouldn’t be enough to re-open Blackquill’s case, let alone overturn his conviction. (I have no idea if that would be true IRL, in the US or Japan, but this is Japanifornia, it’s fine, that’s how it works here because I say so. The burden of proof is on the defense and defendants are guilty until proven innocent.) Worse news: this whole discovery happened right after Blackquill’s execution date was finally set, severely curtailing their ability to investigate in any kind of normal sane way because Oh Boy That Time Limit, so: time for an absolutely terrible insane plan that would absolutely ruin the anti-corruption reputation Edgeworth has spent the last ten years working very hard to develop if it didn’t pay off. Also fuck it, Edgeworth says: let’s get Phoenix Wright involved, this is exactly the kind of batshit gamble he thrives on.

(Note: this game rewrite is set post–my Apollo Justice rewrite, in which Phoenix was never disbarred, and he and Edgeworth got together within a year of T&T. See here for elaboration and, like, a lot of complaining about how AJ should have been amazing and wasn’t.)

As in canon, the plan in question is, essentially:

Let Blackquill return to prosecuting crimes again while still a convicted murderer on death row

?????

The real murderer of Metis Cykes is caught and Blackquill is proven innocent after all

Profit

I have no idea what step two is supposed to be but given that step three of the canon plan seemed to be “the Phantom turns up to steal back the psych profile which he somehow finds out Blackquill had all along” and I didn’t understand step two there either, I don’t super care.

Blackquill agrees to the whole crazy plan, but only on the condition that both Edgeworth and Phoenix swear they won’t tell anyone about the real plan without his permission, and in particular they absolutely will not tell Athena specifically.

Phoenix, who just hired Athena like a week ago, and has definitely connected the dots to figure out she became a lawyer to save Blackquill and is seeing some parallels of his own:

…But Blackquill’s life is the one in imminent danger (his execution date has just been set) and the whole plan relies on his cooperation, so ultimately (after a lot of arguing), Blackquill wins and they agree.

It’s not easy; after 1-5 and 3-5, Edgeworth and Phoenix were not going to be easily convinced not to tell Athena. They have seen how Complicated Scheming With The Goal Of Protecting A Young Woman But Without, Like, Telling Her Anything goes before (not to mention the more general Bad Associations with the possibility that someone out there might be plotting the death of a kid for the crime of being inconvenient in some way, see 1-4 and 2-2 and arguably 3-1), but I absolutely do believe that Blackquill would listen to all their arguments and still be like “my only priority is Athena’s safety; if she finds out about any of this she will try to investigate and will not prioritize her own safety, I don’t care what you think, if you tell her anything I’m out,” so ultimately they’re stuck.

On a side note, Trucy (when she does turn up in Dual Destinies) is a delight, but her role is bizarrely tiny for someone who’s hands-down the best new character of the trilogy, so in this rewrite she actually spends most of the game investigating with Apollo and Athena. She’s not actually super happy about it, though, because she wants to be investigating with Phoenix but he won’t let her, or even tell her about what his current case is. She feels like he doesn’t trust her and she’s pretty hurt though she doesn’t want to talk about it, etc, and in general there are canon-typical levels of hinting at deeper issues without actually directly addressing them.

In the end, things get more or less wrapped up by Phoenix (and Edgeworth) being like “look we wanted to tell all three of you what was going on but we were sworn to secrecy, and it was Blackquill’s life on the line so we couldn’t risk breaking his trust,” with the implication of further discussions to be had off-screen/post-game abt the deeper insecurities and anything that still feels insufficiently well justified, but just like that, here’s Trucy in a larger role with a new emotional conflict/interestingly complicated relationship that nevertheless doesn’t require/get much screen time bc Phoenix isn’t there for her to be actively having this conflict with.

There’s also a whole new case added between 5-3 and 5-4 that revolves around the Gramarye family legacy, in which Trucy, Apollo, and Lamiroir all learn who they are to each other, but I’ll get to that later.

In the meantime, back to the Fulbright thing! As in canon, he’s both Blackquill’s assigned police detective and his parole officer, which definitely secretly kind of terrifies Fulbright because oh god oh fuck he was a suspect specifically because he used to hang around the space center with his sister & mentor back when I worked there, what if he recognizes me, but hey, keep your enemies close, right? Especially when they’re definitely planning something, and also the only person who knows they didn’t actually commit the murder they were convicted for that was actually your doing. So.

(If Athena notices that despite his cheerful demeanor and attempt to be casual about the whole thing, he actually sounds terrified of Blackquill, it’s ironically very easy to brush off bc like. Look he tries to be cheerful and good-natured but Blackquill’s a scary guy, okay, just look at him, etc.)

So, with Fulbright secretly there all along, not in on the investigation/unaware there’s new evidence that could help point at his guilt but still close enough to keep an eye on things, no further progress is actually made in the luring-out-Metis-Cykes’-real-killer project, and time starts growing short.

Meanwhile, GYAXA is preparing for a manned rocket launch. Time to rewrite some more backstory.

A bit more than seven years ago, Solomon Starbuck worked for a private sector rival of GYAXA, but their secret use of sub-standard materials nearly proved deadly for him, and upon returning to Earth, he quit and joined GYAXA instead. The rival company’s reputation took multiple massive hits (from the near-failure of the mission, the subsequent exposé about cost-cutting measures at the expense of employee safety up to and including materials used in rocket ships, and the newly-famous Starbuck’s resultant departure for GYAXA), and they promptly resorted to attempting corporate espionage (via bribing security guard Bobby Fulbright), leading to Metis Cykes’ death.

Seven years later, when GYAXA starts gearing up for Starbuck’s next trip into space, their rival company attempts to cause the launch to be canceled via phone calls claiming the rocket will be sabotaged otherwise. The hoax partially works: the director secretly arranges for the launch to be faked bc he believes better safe than sorry but he doesn’t have the authority to just straight-up officially cancel it, and meanwhile the police are also alerted of the claimed bomb threat, and a team is sent to ensure everything goes fine, which would’ve been fine, except Fulbright is on the team.

That would also be fine, except Fulbright is already concerned because Blackquill’s execution date is closing in so there must be something big going on that he doesn’t know about but even being Blackquill’s parole officer/detective hasn’t let him figure out what. (Ironically, he’s probably wrong; Edgeworth and Phoenix and Blackquill are all getting pretty stressed about things getting down to the wire, but don’t actually have any more concrete way to lure out the real killer or they already would’ve arranged it, and mostly what’s going on behind-the-scenes is arguments about getting more people (including Athena) involved in the investigation.) When he then learns about the bomb threat to GYAXA and (correctly) guesses that it’s likely the doing of GYAXA’s rival company who’d bribed him all those years ago, Fulbright is super paranoid about the possibility that the bomb threat might be real, and if it is that it might be the work of a new security guard, and if it is and they get caught, that the already-raised suspicions regarding Blackquill’s innocence will be basically confirmed, and Fulbright himself will finally be suspected of the murder of Metis Cykes.

As a result of his paranoia, Fulbright goes poking around in areas he wasn’t actually supposed to be, accidentally runs into Clay Terran, and (in a panic) kills him. Solomon Starbuck is deemed the primary suspect, Apollo takes the case, and a bomb squad specialist (disappointed the threat to GYAXA turned out to be a hoax) gets bored. The Cosmic Turnabout and Turnabout Countdown commence.

Things actually mostly go as in canon, just following on from the differences I’ve already established. The final major change is that while the hostage situation still happens, we’re lowering the stakes and making them more personal: it’s not a dozen people conveniently-for-Aura including Trucy, and there’s no fake robot uprising. Trucy is the hostage and Aura’s pretty open about it being her doing from the start.

Again, this is a sequel to my alternate version of AA4. Phoenix never got disbarred and he and Edgeworth have been together for years. It is common knowledge that Trucy is the daughter of Phoenix Wright + the new chief prosecutor. Since she’s Blackquill’s sister, Aura might even be one of the few people who knows Edgeworth found new information about the UR-1 incident (although she either doesn’t know about or doesn’t buy the security guard theory), and that this whole weird letting-Blackquill-prosecute-cases arrangement is part of some sort of plan to prove his innocence, so hey, win-win, right? Phoenix and Edgeworth try Athena for her mother’s murder, they prove Blackquill innocent just like Edgeworth was already trying to do anyway, and their daughter doesn’t get hurt.

Also there’s still room for an “oh no the robot uprising!” joke in there, potentially. The robots all start acting weird, someone’s like OH NO THE ROBOT UPRISING! CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL, I GLADLY SURRENDER TO OUR NEW ROBOT OVERLORDS etc and then via the nearest robot Aura is like “oh my god shut up” and it turns out all the robots are acting weird bc they’re all looking for Phoenix or one of his associates to let him know his daughter’s being held hostage and he better listen up.

Aaaand that’s about all I’ve got on that front. I know the culprit not being a super-spy and there not being actual bombs at the HAT-2 fake launch creates some plot holes but while I’m a life-long mystery fan, I’m not a mystery writer and that’s not really the part of this that I’m good at coming up with solutions to, although if anyone’s got ideas I am All Ears.

It’s not the most hard-hitting critique of the legal system, and I’m still working on figuring out how to improve it more; in particular, I’m honestly torn about Blackquill even turning out to have been completely innocent because it very much was a Whole Thing that all the prosecutors used to start out as corrupt and the ones we like had to become better, or, you know. go to jail for the crimes they very much did in fact commit. So it actually feels like a real step down, having the prosecutor in this one be a straight-up convicted felon who… turns out to have done nothing wrong and been a good guy all along actually, surprise! But I can’t figure out how to change that without undermining the whole resolution of the game and turning him into a fundamentally different character, so for now that part is what it is.

Meanwhile, at the end of the day: ACAB, including Bobby Fulbright who is actually genuinely a cop, and used his position to avoid being found guilty for crimes he’d committed (up to and including forging evidence to frame someone else). Which is to say, what the game almost said, without the haha nope nvm he was an imposter and the real Bobby Fulbright was probably a great guy actually of it all. Also in this version Fulbright casually tazing Blackquill is like. actually treated as fucked up and a reminder that oh right cops still suck and even if one seems friendly he will probably absolutely abuse his power over others given the slightest excuse, and also no one deserves to be subjected to police brutality. And while Edgeworth winds up being ethically in the clear in that he didn’t actually pull strings to let a murderer prosecute other people’s crimes bc he did know Blackquill was innocent all along, at the end of the day someone was in fact able to pull strings to let a convicted murderer etc. Which on the one hand requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, but on the other hand, like I just said about Blackquill: idk man I had to change this much just to make Fulbright work, I’ve only got so much to work with here and I’m not actually good at coming up with grand sweeping changes.

Also it occurs to me I haven’t actually established this yet but “the Dark Age of the Law” is stupid and we’re completely dropping that whole concept because if two relatively new lawyers apparently turning out to be bad people was enough to kick off a whole ~Dark Age~ and make the general public lose faith then where the hell was everybody during the reign of Demon Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, Chief of Police Damon Gant and Chief Prosecutor Lana Skye, and the forty-year win streak of Manfred von Karma. And so forth. There’s probably room for something interesting to be done with like, the ways in which public perception of a situation doesn’t always reflect reality and large populations can be slow to consciously react to major trends and sometimes one small incident can be turned into a symbol of something it isn’t really even an example of anyway or whatever but like… I have no idea how to do that in the format of an Ace Attorney game so personally I am simply ditching that plotline wholesale.

So that’s that. Now let’s talk about Troupe Gramarye. In canon, Apollo Justice sets the Troupe Gramarye rights up to be a major plotline, but then it gets completely forgotten about in Dual Destinies, and sort of half-heartedly continued but not really resolved in Spirit of Justice. In this rewrite, the Troupe Gramarye legacy is more or less what the Kurain Spirit Channeling legacy was to the original trilogy: a nominally magical element that at the end of the day is mostly the catalyst for a story about greed and complicated families and the trauma and destruction they create.

So, the Gramarye-related cases in my rewritten Apollo Justice go as established (i.e. actually basically like canon except Phoenix escapes unscathed), except with a couple more tweaks: Lamiroir’s face is hidden way better, and neither she nor the audience learn who she is to Apollo and Trucy yet.

That gets saved for Dual Destinies’ brand new Gramarye rights-centric case.

While it could probably go earlier, I think it would fit best between Turnabout Academy and The Cosmic Turnabout. I’ve already covered the latter, so some notes about the former: plot-wise it remains unchanged, but a lot of the dialogue is different because I would have thought it was unbearably preachy and condescending at age nine and this game was rated M. We Do Not Need The Lecture, Thanks. Also Aristotle Means looks slightly more human/less like an actual straight-up marble statue because that was so unbelievably distracting. There’s weird character designs and then there’s By The Way, This Literal Marble Statue Is Sentient I Guess.

The rest of the difference is that (following on from my proposed Apollo Justice rewrite) Klavier Gavin gets to be an actual human being with feelings and not 60% of a lovingly-painted cardboard cutout of a person. He shows up with a re-design—possibly a slightly different outfit in general, I don’t have strong feelings about that, but the important thing is that he’s gotten a haircut. In my head he’s got roughly the same style from the flashback portions of 4-4, but that’s partially just because I’m not good at picturing things like that. What matters is that his hair looks nothing like Kristoph’s anymore. Also it’s established in passing that he and Trucy and Apollo have had a whole bunch of conversations in the last year and are all on good terms now, despite [gestures at 4-1 and 4-3 and 4-4], and that Klavier is doing more or less okay. Emphasis on “or less” once his beloved mentor gets murdered, but in this version he actually gets to be part of the post-case denoument conversations and establishes that he’s pretty devastated (despite the return of his professional facade) but Apollo and Trucy and Athena are all well aware of that and are, so to speak, on the case, and with their support eventually he’ll be okay.

So. With that out of the way, here’s a new case about the legacy of Troupe Gramarye.

We start off by learning that Lamiroir is in town again and Trucy wants to go see her, because last time they saw her perform live things went pretty badly and it kind of soured the whole experience in retrospect, but she really did have such a beautiful voice that Trucy wants to see her again (hopefully with nobody getting murdered this time). She talks Apollo into going with her pretty easily; he might put up a token resistance, but he’s actually not really opposed since she’s performing solo this time and he likes her music a lot when the Gavinners aren’t involved. They go to the show, and it’s everything they could have hoped for and more, including that as it turns out, she’s working with Valant Gramarye again, and the effects are, again, super impressive.

But gasp, betrayal, after the show (possibly the next day, at the Wright & Co. Offices?) it turns out that Valant sucks even more than we thought (though, you know, framing his friend/in-my-version-brother for murder and abandoning the child of the woman he loved who had just also been abandoned by her father wasn’t exactly a great start): he’s suing Trucy for the Gramarye rights, based on the premise that she inherited them under false pretenses, because he’s discovered evidence that suggests Thalassa’s death was due to active negligence on Zak’s part, and he’s arguing that while Zak was the better/more talented magician, and thus Magnifi liked him better than Valant, Thalassa was Magnifi’s beloved daughter, and there’s no way Zak would’ve been given the first shot (so to speak) at earning the Gramarye rights if Magnifi hadn’t been blinded enough by grief to believe it was an accident, and while Trucy inherited the rights fair and square from Zak, he should never have had the rights in the first place, and Valant is the rightful inheritor.

I have no idea where the rest of the plot goes because I’m not a mystery writer and I don’t know how to come up with actual plots and red herrings and clues, but eventually there’s a dramatic reveal that there was active negligence involved, which Valant knew all along bc it was his fault.

…but that reveal is ultimately secondary to the one either shortly before or shortly after, that [drumroll] Thalassa wasn’t actually dead anyway

Which, again, I’m not a mystery writer, I don’t know if or how this would actually fit, but in my head there’s a great dramatic moment where the reveal happens for the audience—Valant, Trucy, Apollo, any Troupe Gramarye fans in the gallery, and the players—but not, for the first few moments, Lamiroir herself.

For whatever reason, she removes her veil/scarf, or they slip somehow, and so she’s there on the witness stand with her face visible around other people for the first time in years. The whole gallery (and Apollo) kind of collectively draw in a breath, while Valant says her name, genuinely stunned

And in almost the same moment, Trucy (who would sound five years old, if this bit was a cutscene) says “…Mommy?”

Cue discussion, Lamiroir learns who she is, the realization that Magnifi must have known she wasn’t really dead and the real cover-up was his doing all along etc, everything gets resolved, and Valant gives up on suing Trucy for the rights.

(The “hey that’s an awfully familiar-looking bracelet” reveal probably doesn’t happen until after the rest of the case is resolved, but I don’t have particularly strong feelings about that one way or the other.)

Everything winds up reasonably happy—Apollo and Trucy find out they’re half-siblings and their mother’s alive, Lamiroir resolves to get the surgery to restore her eyesight (and in the end credits we find out it helped restore her memory too), and Trucy gets to keep the Gramarye rights bc Valant’s suit was built on two different fundamental lies (that Thalassa’s death was Zak’s fault/that it wasn’t Valant’s, and that she was, you know, actually dead), and relatedly, in a shocking twist for the series, no one actually gets murdered, and there isn’t even an accidental death!

…but any hope of Trucy and Valant reconnecting/Valant becoming a positive figure in Trucy’s life again is pretty solidly destroyed, and there’s another two blows struck against the Troupe Gramarye legacy, bc not only was Thalassa’s accident actually Valant’s fault all along, Magnifi knew she wasn’t dead and abandoned her.

In a very direct parallel to Maya at the end of 3-5, Trucy spends most of the case uncertain whether she even wants these rights anymore—she ultimately decides the answer is yes, but it’s in question from basically the moment she learns Valant’s argument for why the rights should belong to him, and even him admitting the whole thing was based in lies and the rights are hers fair and square doesn’t convince her entirely right away.

Aaaaand then The Cosmic Turnabout kicks off and we’re back to the previously-established plot!

[cageyworld]

A nuanced recommendation for "Unchained Love" (浮图缘 – fútúyuán)

“Nuanced” meaning a lot of disclaimers, probably. First one being: I’m a U.S. American viewer. I’ve been studying Mandarin at my university since 2021 and I watch a lot of Chinese shows, but I am not of the culture of the source material. Inevitably, my perspective of the show is colored by my own Western upbringing. I can’t pick up on the finer details of language, clothing, history, etc. that may rankle other viewers, nor will I be fully conscious of all the ways my cultural viewpoint impacts my perception of the show.

With that said: I’ve been so charmed by “Unchained Love” that I thought others—perhaps especially my fellow Western watchers of these lovely Chinese-made shows—might enjoy it, too. There’s a lot to love.

I will keep spoilers to a minimum.

Some highlights of why I love this show:

Women voicing their rage and grief about patriarchal systems

A romance of respect and clear communication

Badass Dylan Wang (looking incredible in his costumes)

Found family

Cute dog

Angst with a happy ending

Read on to allow me to persuade you even more…

CRITIQUES—A.K.A. “THE JANK.”

THE TONE

I’ve read the criticism that the tone can be uneven, especially if you come to this (like I did) right after watching 苍兰决 “Love Between Fairy and Devil”. I agree. The tone is super uneven throughout the series.

The storyline contains some truly horrific and dramatic elements (see the list of content warnings at the end of this post), and yet tries to maintain an overall soft, romantic dramedy feel. It’s not successful in this and does create some dissonance. This dissonance is only amplified by…

THE MUSIC

The opening theme is a banger, but the scoring choices throughout the show itself are distracting. Sometimes we get plinky, Mickey Mouse comedy music when the dialogue and acting convey drama and high stakes—and occasionally, vice versa. From my experience, this isn’t unique to “Unchained Love,” but oh boy, is it striking in this series. The music seems to work against the narrative at times. I found myself saying, “I don’t feel like laughing right now!” at the screen. There can be emotional whiplash, from the very serious to scenes suddenly meant to be effortlessly light-hearted. It is not effortless.

WHAT GOT CENSORED

This show got chopped for sure. From what I can tell, it was largely the scenes of more overt sexual content between Xiao Duo and Bu Yinlou. This couple becomes respectfully, mutually horny for each other and it’s a bummer that so much of that got trimmed. That said, what remains is still lovely (and quite sexy at times).

The ending is also rushed in a way that feels like aggressive editing. It ends happily for the characters I loved most, and leaves lots of room for fanfiction expansion or extension, but it’s still a little unsatisfying as a viewer.

WHY THESE DIDN’T PUT ME OFF, PERSONALLY

I was able to make peace with the uneven tone mostly because of where the unevenness struck. The most serious elements of the show nearly all revolve around some aspect of violence against women. While this violence was not always treated with the gravity it warrants, it also wasn’t played for laughs. The choice to include each of these incidents is questionable, but I never felt the show was downplaying the seriousness of that violence itself.

Also, I appreciated that the women were in the forefront of those moments. We were expected to empathize with their situation.

For example, the opening episode’s plot of the deceased emperor’s brides being hanged as tribute to him wasn’t shown entirely as the horrific nightmare that is—but it also didn’t make all the women nameless, weeping beauties who existed only as tragic figures. Our heroine comes from within that group, and we see each of the women find their own way to deal. Some (understandably) weep, others negotiate their way out or flaunt their privilege to do so, others accept their fate. And then you have our Yinlou who is always eyeing an escape or a new foothold to a better situation.

We’re invited, tacitly or actively, to identify with the women being murdered. The violence against them isn’t set dressing. It’s very much an implied motivator for everything Yinlou does—she is a woman who fears the “cages” in which society can trap women, so she’s repeatedly calling attention to all those various cages.

There’s a later scene that’s not of much consequence overall where Yinlou comes upon a concubines’ graveyard. There are no markers with their names. She comments upon this and identifies with them, as a woman in their same situation. I deeply valued moments like this in “Unchained Love”—a character acknowledging how men in power are so often surrounded by “nameless” women whose own hopes and lives are forgotten.

One of the show’s major themes is: It is dangerous when powerless women catch the eye of powerful men.

THE GOOD – A.K.A. WHAT MAKES EVERYTHING ELSE WORTH IT

DYLAN WANG as Xiao Duo

I mean, he’s why I’m here, so we gotta start with him. I adored his performance as Dongfang Qingcang in 苍兰决 and he’s even more impressive as Xiao Duo, the head eunuch of the feared Zhaoding Bureau (FYI: in episode 2, we learn he’s not actually a eunuch—he’s pretending). This is an Earth-bound tale, so don’t expect the wild range of body-swapping or high drama of Hellfire power. Instead, he gives a far subtler performance where the harshness of the character blends smoothly with his softer moments.

He makes excellent use of his ability to look cold and cruel, and even the fact that he’s very handsome is relevant to the plot (because he, too, catches the eye of someone dangerous and powerful). For me, he disappeared into Xiao Duo in this performance. His mannerisms, body language, and tightly controlled expressions all felt so consistent with this man’s lived experience. He felt thoroughly three-dimensional and authentic.

Xiao Duo judges him. You. Xiao Duo judges everyone. CHEN YUQI as Bu Yinlou

I left “Ashes of Love” having most enjoyed Chen YuQi’s performance, so I was thrilled to see her in this. I like her energy on screen, and her goofy little smiles. She’s an uncouth mess as Bu Yinlou, and yet can believably play the perfect imperial concubine when she needs to. My fellow Eowyn “I fear a cage” and Beatrice “if I were man, I’d eat his heart in the marketplace” girlies will love Yinlou. Her fear of that patriarchal cage is one of her primary motivations throughout the series, and Xiao Duo is often the Benedick to her Beatrice in a “name the heart and the marketplace, baby” kind of way. Yinlou’s go-to problem-solving strategies are: gamble, lie, or set it on fire (literally).

Yinlou shares her secret fourth method of problem solving. SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

Not a dud in the bunch as far as I’m concerned. Everyone’s acting is strong and all the major characters are given the opportunity to be three-dimensional, to have their own perspectives and hopes. I found one of the side love stories a bit silly and cringey, but even that couple won me over by the end. Yinlou’s closest companion is her servant (played by Nan He – Duo Er La from “Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty.” I was thrilled to see her!). Xiao Duo has his own devoted right-hand man, and even a himbo of a general. There’s manly devotion everywhere, women being friends, bonding with sex workers, and hierarchies dissolving to become “family.”

The four pillars of the found family.

A braincells trio.

XIAO DUO and BU YINLOU TOGETHER

This is very much a “the man falls first” story and it seems likely that some of the early scenes got chopped, which is unfortunate, but I will say, it didn’t bother me. Perhaps it’s my years of writing and reading fanfiction, but I could find the threads easily.

Bu Yinlou catches Xiao Duo’s eye first by being clever. He’s initially wrong about what she’s scheming—but he’s right that she’s a schemer who is smarter than she pretends to be. For her own survival, she tries to stay on his good side and he's used to people praising him (or paying him) to get his favor by flattering his power, his strength, his ambition. Bu Yinlou starts praising his kindness, his mercy, his intelligence. For his own reasons (no spoilers!), he’s deliberately made himself a terror. Bu Yinlou starts talking to the real person he is inside.

Xiao Duo gets the thumbs up from Yinlou.

We do get the delightful Chinese drama tropes like slow-motion gazing with the love theme playing, but I didn’t see it as a normal “oh, she’s so beautiful” sort of moment. She’s being ridiculous, and Xiao Duo is struck that this woman is being ridiculous for him. He’s the scariest man in the Imperial Palace! People literally drop to the ground or run when they see him! And here’s this woman trying to make him smile, or grabbing his sleeves, or heckling him. What a strange creature she is…and you know, she’s rather pretty, too…

Pretty (and drunk at the mo')

After only a few meetings, Xiao Duo and Bu Yinlou instinctively understand one another, even if they don’t fully realize it. They’ve met the other person who plays 4-D chess and who never wanted to be here in the first place. I find it truly a joy to watch them—two people who barely trust anyone—maneuver around one another and learn to believe each other.

The actors seemed very comfortable with one another, so there’s lots of casual intimacy and affection in their body language together. With Xiao Duo, Yinlou feels safe enough to experience attraction and express her own desires for the first time. Her giddiness and girlishness about him are so heartwarming to watch.

Something has been awakened in her...

We also get the fantastic subversion of some classic romantic tropes. I admit: I’m a viewer who is frustrated by major conflicts erupting from simple misunderstandings, characters deliberately withholding information from each other—or worse—not having the five-minute conversation necessary to clear the air. Xiao Duo and Bu Yinlou COMMUNICATE. They truly treat each other as equals.

Avoiding spoilers, there’s one moment where a bad guy captures Bu Yinlou to bait Xiao Duo into a trap. A man in love, Xiao Duo storms out to go rescue her—and then pauses. “This is a trap,” he realizes, and he goes back home. He trusts that Bu Yinlou can get herself out of the scrape—and she does. Bu Yinlou does the same for him a few times. They profoundly trust one another and it shows on screen through their actions, not just their words. I found that unbelievably refreshing, even if it means we don’t get the HIGH DRAMA of so many other romantic dramas.

It made for a subtler experience that is perhaps just for me (but I write this in the hopes that it’s not). All the pain of the later episodes comes from truly understanding that Xiao Duo and Bu Yinlou would be happy together. Not in a soft-focus, dreamy-eyed, picture-perfect way, but in a real and tangible way. They could live together with their friends and their dog, raise some goats, and have wonderful life with one another. But there are powerful, dangerous, unpredictable forces in the way, and that hurts beautifully to watch.

THE PLOT

“Nirvana in Fire” this ain’t. The imperial palace intrigues are broad and only rarely more than 2-dimensional, but I still found myself delighted by some of the unexpected twists. There are characters I loathed in episode 1, and then grieved in episode 36. That’s the good stuff.

Bu Yinlou is the emotional center of the series. She wants to be free. The primary conflict of the show, then, is built around two suitors: One who will help her fulfill her dreams, even if it hurts him, and the other who will make her dreams match his, even if it hurts her.

This is all happening within larger maneuvers of outside forces trying to take down the empire. To them, Yinlou is a pawn in a larger game to control the emperor and Xiao Duo. (And Yinlou does not appreciate being treated like a pawn.)

THE VILLAIN

I have complex feelings about the primary antagonist for the show. I think that’s a good thing. He feels, in many ways, like an Incel given imperial power—he is both a sad, awkward, lonely man, and an entitled, spiteful monster. He’s played so deftly by Peter Ho, it took several episodes for me to realize he was the antagonist. On rewatch, it can be heartbreaking to follow his story, too, because there were moments of intervention where it could have gone differently. That, to me, makes for a richly imagined antagonist���who goes full “scenery chewing” villain toward the end. That, too, is compelling to watch. Peter Ho was clearly having a good time.

A PERSONAL CONCLUSION (and maybe a plea for fanworks)

“Unchained Love” is not perfect, but there’s such clear heart in the performances that it more than makes up for the show’s weaknesses. They explore storylines and themes and especially gives Yinlou some moments that I’ve longed for in a show maybe all my life. I like that Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings movies talked about fearing “a cage.” I wish she’d gotten to talk more. Yinlou gave voice to so much of what I wanted to hear her say.

“Unchained Love” quickly joined the tops of my favorite Chinese media, alongside “The Untamed” and “Yin Yang Master: Dream of Eternity.” I will probably end up writing some fanfiction for it, and I hope others will too. The gifsets on Tumblr have been so excellent that I can only hope for more. More fanworks, I guess that’s what I’m saying. There’s such great fanworks potential in this series. It’s in that sweet spot of having compelling characters, beautiful costumes and settings, and juuuuussst enough left on the cutting-room floor that we fans have all the room in the world to play.

HOW TO WATCH

The first two episodes are up for free on YouTube with English subtitles. It’s also streaming on both Viki and iQiyi. I liked it so much, I bought it on DVD from AustinDVDStore on ebay. The subtitles move too fast sometimes, but hey, I’m practicing my Mandarin anyway…

CONTENT WARNINGS

For the show overall:

The entire show deals with the idea of women as objects—which means there are often people treating women like objects. This is depicted as a bad thing, but it’s still hard to watch.

Some gender essentialist nonsense is spewed in relation to eunuchs and what it means to be “a man.” Later in the series, the villain becomes particularly fixated on this concept.

For specific storylines:

Opening episodes revolve around concubines of the deceased emperor being killed in tribute to him.

Accidental death of a child in episode 4.

A man in charge of the Imperial Mausoleum targets and sexually threatens, harasses, and assaults a woman forced to live there.

Yinlou’s father is verbally abusive to the women in his family.

Yinlou’s sister is forced to marry an enemy prince; this enemy prince is violent and threatening to her. The emperor is also violent and cruel to this character. (Yinlou’s sister is essentially a “what if Yinlou did what she was told” character, so her storyline highlights that going along with these powerful men won’t save you… It’s rough.)

The emperor’s dissent into tyrannical behavior is paired with a physical disability he develops. He also becomes fixated on his inability to bear children.

[neonmetro]

I know you have talked about it in segments. Usually very briefly but it obviously takes time to come up with a story, especially one as complex as Novaturient so what were some of your thoughts behind it ? Like what helped you influence your choices on settings, dynamics and all that jazz. For example the Corp heads. I know you mentioned Aishire and Dante being made before the rest but what made you want to take the paths you did with them and the system in general. What made you decide you wanted 4 separate story lines. Why not more or less of them ? ALSO are you still planning to make Novaturi a visual novel or game ? If so I want to know if you have thought about what ways you are going to go about that :)) I don't think I can add anymore questions to kind of like, lay out what I mean so answer this however you see fit.

Learning people's thought process behind why they do certain things is so intriguing don't you think

HAVE A GREAT REST OF YOUR DAY NEON STAY AWESOME !!!!

-Ulysses loving anon

i heart talking about my process it makes me feel special and that my art is worth talking about the process of !!! i also love learning people’s process (i’m like a sponge and absorb any info i can from any creative process (THIS IS WHY I LOVE ARTBOOKS SM !!! i want to make one, one day))

to be clear i am still planning to make novaturi’s stories into video games, but i did want to test out the game engines (like visual game maker or rpgmaker) before i definitively release anything… i might release novaturi in chapters…? maybe that’ll encourage me to work faster LOL but i do want the art to be consistent… but waves my hand wildly these are just ideas i have to explore this sort of thing

figuring out an outline is the easiest way to figure everything out for a story for me, it helps me not improvise and planning stuff out is generally good for my erratic brain. i also have multiple documents containing everything, i.e. ideas i want to include, themes of the story, vagabonds i want to have, etc. its super messy because i’m generally not a very organized person, but it helps at least remind me of the ideas i have :D

for the setting, i honestly don’t remember why i began novaturi…? and why i decided to do a magical girl dystopia specifically, but i think it was something along the lines of “it sounds like a really engaging idea, let’s roll with it.” a lot of novaturi is just narrative based, anything that can serve to add to the world/story, it’s added in. it’s also super inspired by project moon, and i just love writing about dystopias because i am so passionate about hating capitalism (while still being on the capitalist grind… i’m a socialist i’m sorry 💔). I still try to make things make sense but its also the most batshit thing ever just because its fun to write. because every novaturi character would be considered insane if they were in the real world . thank god they are not

the system in novaturi is also meant to be absolutely insane, but still reflected in idol/celebrity/internet culture because its something that i’ve observed that because of the internet, people act like insane people over the things that they like and that corporations are feeding off of that sort of thing. the whole culture around magical girls is meant to have the same energy as online fandoms, the most toxic, insane places ever because i wanted to poke fun at fandom spaces… good god get me out of here /LH

i had decided for awhile that the corpheads would be based off of the chinese zodiac but i didn’t have coherent themes for them aside from that… so that’s kinda why i had to retroactively go back multiple times for some corpheads to get proper themes that united all of them (lowkey i’m not happy with ezra’s inclusion still but it is what it is when you make a character then come up with lore for them)

my thought process is also super sporadic, i don’t type out and think, i usually think and then type my thoughts out so they’re coherent lol… so i can’t really tell you why i wanted a greek mythology district and all the corpheads to represent heroes that have experienced olympus, the ocean, and the underworld but i know i did and it was super cool. I CAN tell you why i wanted chastise to be gothic and center around the divine comedy (i really like religious themes and the divine comedy is a really big interest of mine), and the recreational district were knights from literature because its a reflection of heroism in a different way (and also i wanted to be more diverse with the mythos i explored tbh)

i’m fully aware i have very similar characters because i continuously choose to start characters out with specific archetypes (i.e. charismatic asshole, cool guy who is a loser, resting bitch face) so i just circulate them in my mind to come up with different dynamics and see how differently 2 characters who are the same archetype treat the other (e.g. ulysses has vitriol towards dante and has killed her and threatened to kill her multiple times for her abhorrence to nature, aishire has admiration for dante and recruits her to help with his fucked up experiments) i’m just really mentally ill about my own characters my apolocheese i literally think about at least the main characters once a day

4 story lines was to limit myself, because naturally i gravitate to making things large scaled while not having the ability to fully explore it, in the past i’ve come up with grand plot lines and just wasn’t able to fill in the blanks because they required so much to happen (THE URGE TO MAKE LIKE. AT LEAST 6 STORIES JUST TO EXPLORE THE CORPHEADS IS SO STRONG. ITS DIRE)

SORRY IF THIS IS ENTIRELY INCOHERENT. I HAD A LOT OF FUN ANSWERING THIS :) HAVE A GOOD DAY TOO ULY ANON!!!

[samglyph]

Ok this is my blog I’m allowed to post my opinions

Hazbin Hotel pros

1. Characters: I like the lesbians. Angel dust is good. I have a Jeremy Jordan bias and I enjoy pathetic men so of course I enjoyed Lucifer’s scenes. Originally I thought that they were overusing Alastor (since imo those types of overpowered chaotic characters ie. Bill cipher, Kayne, etc. work best when their scenes are limited to amplify the mystery and the threat) and while I still kinda think that, with the context of the last episode I understand that he needed some extra scenes to make the audience more invested in him specifically, and also since setting him up over and over again as a powerhouse makes it more rewarding when he gets his shit rocked. Also because he gets more screen time we get one of my favorite songs, so I’ll allow it.

2. Music: the music is fun! It’s punchy! It serves narrative purposes. Personally I think some of the slower songs are a little weak and a bit too exposition heavy but the performances are decent and I like jazz and broadway singers. Moving on.

3. Narratives and themes: listen. My favorite theme. Of anything. Is “‘bad’ people can improve if provided with a support system”. And also “things you’ve done in the past and things that have been done to you don’t have to define you” So obviously I was going to like that. Plus I was raised Catholic so that whole scene up in heaven. Oofta. Probably second favorite song. Emily come with me let’s work out our trauma of parental figures lying to us about morality.

Cons

1. Pacing: suffers from what I’m going to refer as “Witcher 2019 syndrome” where it does such a bad job of actually showing time passing that when someone says “there’s only one month until the deadline” you the audience member are like. What do you mean. It’s only been like two weeks. Tops. What do you mean it’s been five months. No it hasn’t.

1.5 (since this is the same problem continued) Length/format: Hazbin hotel, in my opinion, would work best as a 20 episode season, with each episode having an A plot focused on a member of the hotel doing the growth thing, and then have the through line of the season be the heaven thing, which they obviously TRIED to do, but since they only had 8 episodes, they had to give more time to the heaven plot and less time to ensemble character growth, which I think really causes the plot (and the characters!) to suffer.

2. The pilot: the show works less if you haven’t seen the pilot, and since the pilot isn’t included in the seasons episodes, that means if a viewer stumbles across the show without knowing about it before hand, they’ll have a harder time connecting some things, and the hotel isn’t explained well enough right off the bat. Like, it’s easy to figure out, but without the pilot certain things just aren’t explained.

3. Some of the character designs irk me.

I know this is technically more cons than pros but I do think the pros make it watchable. It’s just. Fine. Like it’s an ok show. I post about plenty of ok shows.

[chaifootsteps]

Ahoy Chai, I’ve been cooking up my own little rewrite for Hazbin/Helluva for funzos and I wanted to get your opinion on some ideas I’ve got.

The rewrite is called ‘Charlie’s Sinners’ cuz I like the reference to Charlie’s Angels, but it’ll be changed in the future for a couple reasons

This rewrite will condense Hazbin and Helluva into one narrative, but the main focus will be on Hazbin. So the story will be Hazbin’s but Helluva characters will appear.

The setting will be on Earth, not in Hell. This is because viv hasn’t done anything really interesting with Hell in any of her work, her Hell just feels like a shittier Earth. Plus, while this will be a narrative that has religion as a theme, religion will not be the primary focus of the story. So characters will be inspired by, but NOT explicitly based on religious/demonic figures. One more thing, other religious concepts and figures besides Christian ones may be included as well, so the setting being in Christian Hell wouldn’t make sense. Of course, I’ll be doing my homework to accurately and respectfully represent these religions and their cultures, since viv cannot be fucked to do that either.  There will 7 main characters: Charlie, Vaggie, Angel, Alastor, Husk, Nifty, and Baxter. I specifically went with 7 characters because they’re meant to represent the 7 deadly sins in their personalities, interests, goals, etc. (Charlie=Pride, Vaggie=Wrath, Angel=Lust, Alastor=Gluttony, Husk=Sloth, Nifty=Envy, and Baxter=Greed) 

The big, overall theme of this rewrite will be how we as intelligent mammals can improve. Whether it be ourselves, our relationships, our jobs, our society, even our world, the big question is how can we be better people? Also, how do we maintain being better people? It’s similar to Hazbin’s theme of redemption, but more down to earth and personal methinks. Bojack is gonna be a big inspiration for this, though I’ll have to check out Morel Orel as I’ve heard that has religious themes and is very dark. 

Now while I haven’t redesigned any characters yet, I have been experimenting with body diversity in the characters because we all know how allergic viv is to such. For Charlie, I’ve made little change to her admittedly, mostly because she’s the most human of the main cast in the og Hazbin. Though having been inspired by other redesigns I may make her a little more plump since in my rewrite, Charlie is not royalty, but is still part of a powerful and weathly family and lives a luxurious yet sheltered lifestyle. For Vaggie, I intend for her to act as a foil for Charlie, so she’s short and stout, built like a cement brick because she’s lived a rough and tumble dog eat dog life. Tbh, I haven’t thought super hard how her physical appearance would tie into her story/personality/motifs yet, I just wanted a swole Vaggie because god’s gift to the earth is buff women. I also plan on giving her plenty of scarring, not only because wrath and violence, but so they could resemble the patterns of a moth’s wings.

For Angel, I’ve made them plus sized. This is because I’m keeping the spider motif with Angel, though much more subtle. Since tarantulas can be hairy/fuzzy, I liked the idea of Angel outwardly looking soft and cuddly, but inwardly holding some bite and venom that shines through their words and actions. My Angel is still a known sexual figure, though here they’re going to be a semi independent Onlyfans type model instead of an adult film star, so they’re very bottom heavy in comparison to Vaggie’s top heavy bulk and Charlie’s more evenly distributed body. Also they’re gonna have a fat ass cuz thorax, I just couldn’t show it super well from this angle. Angel is also gender fluid here, going by he/she/they pronouns

Finally is Alastor. He’ll be the only character in the main cast that’s keeping the spindly bodies viv is known for, though I’ve translated that into him having an uncomfortablely thin, almost emaciated body, based off Jack Skellington. This would also fit in with a deer motif, what with their long and thin limbs. I also liked the idea of a figure/representative of gluttony being anorexic in their physical appearance, like their so gluttonous that no matter how much they try to fill themselves up, they will always feel a terrible ache within themselves for more. All that so say Al is super thin, but he ain’t no glutton for food here, he just doesn’t take good care of himself. Currently, Alastor is the character that I’m both not changing that much but also radically departing from his og incarnation.

And that’s pretty much it for now. I’ll have Husk, Nifty, and Baxter sketched out soon, I’ve got classes atm so I can’t do that right now, but if I have piqued your tea interests I’d love to share more!

These are awesome ideas, and I love the sketches! They're a much needed breath of diverse body type air!

[darlingpoppet]

What inspired you to start Where The Dead Forget? Also can you tell us some more about your PZA Dreamers AU? (e.g. what your favourite thing to write has been so far, things you look forward to or struggle with, or anything else you like). Thanks!

As for WTDF, honestly it pretty much all started with this tweet where I expressed interest in the concept of Patroclus Hadesgame losing his memories. I had seen such fanarts already so I was curious if there were fics out there too (there are of course! I have since found some, lol!) But a friend in the comments was encouraging to the notion of me writing one myself and I pretty much immediately began spiraling from there (I tweeted this the same day I posted Once More and also about a week before I posted Upon A Lazy Bed, so at the time my brain was on fire and I was constantly brimming with ideas!) The entire story from beginning to end pretty much came to me immediately and I’ve been expanding on it ever since! A lot of my inspiration has been fueled by the experience of consuming every depiction of Achilles & Patroclus I could get my hands on, as well as countless academic writings with various analyses on the characters. Also just the entire meta tradition of storytelling with folklore characters in general, where there’s no one “definitive version”, and thinking about how that might work in-universe where things like memories, bias, human fallibility, etc make objective truth difficult or impossible to obtain. Films such as Rashomon and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind that explore similar concepts to WTDF also inspired me!

As for the PZA Dreamers AU!! I can’t remember if I’ve ever properly explained the concept in a public post but for anyone curious: the whole thing was born out of me seeing a parallel/synergy between the themes of the film The Dreamers and certain interpretations of the Iliad (the Homeric version itself ofc but also particularly Shakespeare’s Troilus & Cressida.) The characters in these stories exist in this symbolic & narrative liminal space where they’re shutting themselves off from the outside world so they can Live Laugh Love—and in all the stories, reality catches up with them eventually, usually in tragic ways. I’m making it a modern AU (a vaguely 2010s period piece?) because as a millennial I also see parallels to my generation (& Gen Z) where as a whole our own lives also seem to be stuck in a figurative liminal space academically, economically, socially (especially in the era of covid where we were all shut-up in our houses finding there was more to life than The Grind, simultaneously reveling in simple pleasures & also going insane from the ambiguity of it all until we were all forced back out again) And at the same time our generations have this fascination with liminal spaces as an Internet meme (including vaporwave which also coincidentally appropriates classical Greco-Roman imagery in its aesthetics.) I’m reading serious non-fiction books like Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher and Retromania by Simon Reynolds in service of what at the end of the day is just a horny fanfic LMFAO.

Because getting back on track to what you actually asked me: I’m not gonna lie, my favorite parts of writing this story so far have been the sex scenes, haha. Like the whole vibe of the story is supposed to be just this completely unfettered dreamy indulgence, and even things like sex have a liminal quality to me (where time seems to stand still and people are joined together transitioning through several physical states) hopefully I’ll be able to pull the whole thing off the way I’m envisioning it! The fact that it’s a modern AU is probably what makes this both easier and harder to write—things like dialogue can have a more modern sensibility but it’s probably the more flowery prose that’s giving WTDF its own dreamy, liminal quality so it’s tricky figuring out how to balance it. I’m also having a hard time deciding whether I want to dump this entire high-concept, novella-length story as a one-shot (or at least split up into 2-3 parts that are published all at once) or if I should stick to a more traditional (for fanfic) serialized publication schedule ahahaha. I guess if anyone reading this has any preferences or insight feel free to let me know your thoughts!

Oh and as for the PZA of it all: writing Closest To My Heart was probably what reminded me of the existence of The Dreamers in the first place (I had seen it years and years ago) because I realized that film has a similar dynamic of an “outsider” falling into an erotic triangle with a pair who are essentially soulmates, and ends up biting off a little more than he can chew in keeping up with the two of them… I decided I wasn’t quite done exploring that dynamic and I wanted to write about it more! Though don’t worry, I don’t think this story is gonna be quite as dark as Closest (uh oh wait this might be a lie actually), and also Patrochilles are MUCH nicer to Zag in this story ;)

(Also I didn’t even mention Hadesgame itself where the entire underworld is a liminal space Zagreus passes through to reach the surface/self-actualization and how he is constantly dying/resurrecting… Zagreus is a very liminal character! But this is already an ETA so I shall leave my thoughts there for now, lol.)

Hopefully all that answers your questions, anon! Thanks so much for the ask <3

[ciao-amore-xo]

"𝑵𝒐 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆, 𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏' 𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔, 𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏' 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒚𝒔 𝒅𝒐𝒘𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒘𝒏…"

“This isn’t a love story. It’s a lesson in the quiet destruction of charm.”

🍒 Hi there, stranger. I’m the mun (mod) behind Dolly — Dorothea Salvatory — a complicated little sunbeam with a story that walks the blurred lines of allure, morality, and growing up under too much attention. I've been a member of roleplay from twitter for a few years now.

🌸 I'm new to this tumblr community, still figuring out how things work, and really just looking to thrive through the plot. I want to explore character, dynamic, and atmosphere over strict plotlines. Dolly is not a typical character, and I’m not here for typical stories.

Here’s what you need to know before diving in:

🍷 This blog doesn't support, or encourage pedophilia in any way. The character is complex and to figure her out, you must discuss with me or herself in character.

🕯️This blog is safe for both SFW and NSFW themes. Likely, there will be equal amounts of both. If you are not comfortable them, it is best if you avoid interaction. Warnings will be added in tags and in posts. Kindly check for those before reading.

🩰 We lean into psychological, emotional, and moral complexity here. That means themes like blurred boundaries, misplaced desire, naive manipulation, and adult introspection may come into play. Please approach with maturity, respect, and creative intent.

🌷 Romance, desire, and obsession are welcome, but only if they serve the story. This isn’t a ship blog, and Dolly isn’t a plaything. She’s her own force of nature. Don’t try to “claim” her unless we’ve built something real, nuanced, and consented-to OOC.

🎀 I love to plot, world-build, and discuss threads before and during writing. Let’s chat. If we’re writing something complex, I expect a bit of communication. No mind-reading here—just vibes and Google Docs.

🧸 While Dolly’s narrative touches on themes of youth, sexuality, and perception, I (the mun) keep a healthy boundary between character and creator. Please do the same. I’m here to write fiction, not blur lines IRL.

👛 Dolly can exist in original worlds or woven into existing canons (film, TV, historical, etc.). Just give me context and I’ll work her in. She adapts—charmingly, of course.

🧁 I’m here to write compelling, provocative, sometimes haunting things. If you are too—let’s talk. Just bring respect, creativity, and a bit of chaos.

✨ If you’ve read all this and still want to write with a girl like Dolly— you’re either brave, curious, or already in too deep.

Welcome. 🕊️ – Mod

[ferusaurelius]

Merc-born Turian Culture Meta

I (slowly) write a lot of mass effect fanfiction where the differences between mainstream Hierarchy space culture and merc-born turian culture differ, and you’ll see these themes pop up quite a bit in my work. While I’ve done some narrative-type explorations, I haven’t outlined the basis of my reasoning.

My narrative merc-born turian fic is a sort of background for Nihlus Kryik: 

‘The husbandry of victory is blood’ comes with companion annotations.

Actual merc-born turian meta is underneath the cut. ;)

In the past I might have used the term ‘headcanon,’ but these days I’m finding that ‘meta’ works better for the overall structure and consistency of my thoughts about these topics -- all of which are intended to be used as background or basis for certain perspectives in writing fanfiction. Without further ado, let’s get rolling!

What Does Merc-Born Mean?

Not gonna lie, when I first read that Nihlus was merc-born in the ME1 codex, I was intrigued! This aspect of his character is one of the things I most enjoy in writing fanfiction from his point of view or including him in stories. However, since there’s very little canon information on what cultural structures might differ from the coreworld and colony-born turians and the merc-born, naturally I had to start figuring out what those distinctions might look like in practice.

If the wiki timeline is to be believed, the batarians made first contact with the Citadel sometime after the volus and were granted an embassy a century later -- which still gives them an approximately 1000-year head start over the turians on integrating into galactic society and trade. This is where I feel like the BioWare writers did this entire culture dirty by essentially skipping over any possible contributions to mapping, exploration, and colonizing the Terminus Systems!

The Terminus and the edges of the Attican Traverse aren’t going to become a haven for pirates and mercenaries without a lot of work and commercial activity, let’s be real. So! I give batarians the benefit of the doubt in being among the most savvy of space-explorers and surveyors, willing to risk their lives in exchange for better economic opportunities (mining claims, potential new colonies, faster trading routes, setting up space depots, etc.).

It’s here that the turian Unification Wars give us an opportunity to link anti-Hierarchy groups to the batarians who have already set up independent refuge in the Terminus Systems. If you’re a turian who feels burned by the Hierarchy, where do you go? Well, you might decide to take up with some similarly anti-government independent-minded spacefaring batarian groups who have been resisting the control of the Hegemony for the last 1000 years.

My point is that merc-born turians would likely align culturally more with batarians than, say, the banking-savvy and market-connected Vol Protectorate. To my mind, therefore, a merc-born turian who lives outside Hierarchy space is also raised alongside the batarian values of independence and strength.

Terminus Batarian Culture vs. the Hegemony

Something the BioWare writers could have done (and if you squint, it’s even implied!) is riff a bit on the batarian perspective between being opportunistic, independent, and expedition-minded vs. the propagandistic and authoritarian bent of the Hegemony. Any government like the Hegemony that seeks to isolate and control its citizens also fundamentally limits their options to influence interspecies trade and politics.

Plus it seemed to me that any culture with a text called the Pillars of Strength might also conceivably differ in their possible interpretations of that text.

And since that artifact is an older religious text, it might also be used to precipitate a practical, religious, and ideological schism between those who believe that strength is defined as “power over” others rather than “power alongside” them. I let the anti-Hegemony batarian groups withdraw to marginal space in part as a test of their own strength and ability to survive, but also to establish independent support structures that enhanced the survival of these fringe groups, and who might even see “deference to the Hegemony” as a betrayal of their religious and cultural principles.

This viewpoint also gave me an opportunity to make distinctions between batarian groups who might cynically profit off of slave-trading and the mercenary (probably a pejorative bestowed by those who failed to conquer them) groups who might find such enterprises too morally compromising to engage in.

Again, the aim of considering the other options here was to give my batarian and merc-born turians a full spectrum of opinions and philosophies to access. Rather than painting them all with an oppressive slavery/piracy brush (... NOPE, none of those lifestyles are sustainable, actually, and they seem counterproductive In Particular if you are trying to survive in marginal territory, much less wanted any kind of stability in an already unstable environment).

Merc-Born Turians Join the Terminus Batarian Groups

Considering the above, and the canon that turians culturally prize individual accountability, I could see a world in which those who didn’t want to be governed by the strict role structure of the Hierarchy decided to align themselves with batarian groups who had already made a similar choice to resist the Hegemony.

Or was I the only one to see the naming similarities and have a lightbulb moment? xD Anyway.

My thought here was that culturally-aligned batarians and turians would form a syncretic society that valued individual accountability, personal strength, resisted larger government authority, and also had to band together to survive against predatory attacks by roving bands of pirates and slavers. In this case the “mercenary” groups remain somewhat independent, but are also used to hiring out to fulfill particular missions and skills while still surviving as more durable organizations and social groups than a typical ‘gang.’

Durable groups implies some kind of shared culture, rituals, customs, and methods of distinguishing in-group individuals with similar values from out-group threats who might otherwise look superficially similar.

In this case, I decided that it was likely turian converts to these groups would come from existing disaffected factions of Hierarchy-resistors. These new recruits would be valuable in their knowledge of turian military tactics, discipline, cultural honesty and accountability, and their potential to contribute new recruits and skills to expand the reach of the existing culturally batarian mercenary outposts. Any turians would probably bring along familiar customs (like old colony markings) and then incorporate batarian cultural symbols into their personal identities.

So, in my somewhat detailed Nihlus Kryik background fic, I went into some detail about Nihlus wearing a Taetran colony pattern with ‘mercenary sickles’ incorporated into the traditional colony shapes. Altering colony markings in this way would likely be seen as taboo in Hierarchy space, since it’s also a clear divider between mercenary and mainstream affiliations.

The other immediate impact I could see was a language divergence between these Terminus groups and Hierarchy and Hegemony space -- to the point where there’s not an updated codex for these languages, and the inhabitants like it just fine that way. xD

Since we also know that batarians place a strong emphasis on body language, I figured that a somewhat diverse mercenary group would also have found turian-specific ways of communicating the same approximate batarian gestures, to the point where a mixed-culture language would have developed for the convenience of the participants over the last 2000-or-so years.

Differences Between Merc-Born and Hierarchy Turians

As a consequence of some of the ideas outlined above, I thought the most readily-apparent distinctions between merc-born and Hierarchy-born turians would be cultural practices, language (word-choice and physical), and overall viewpoint on legitimate sources of power and preferences for governance structures.

Merc-born turians who haven’t been raised in the Hierarchy probably don’t have as clear a grasp of citizenship as practiced by their counterparts, nor of “public service” as service to the state, rather than just to one’s group. While they may share common beliefs about individual accountability and knowing one’s place, the merc-born turians likely look at this on a more individual and family-related level instead of a larger-group (colony and above) structure. The merc-born likely have little or no experience with the bureaucracy that a Hierarchy-born turian might take for granted.

While, on an individual level, the merc-born might be more inclined to adapt forms of address to respected elders or fail to see bureaucratic authority as legitimate, as opposed to bonds of agreed personally-based respect and trust.

While both the Hierarchy-born and the merc-born might view their word as their bond, the merc-born would see this as more a personal than a societal imperative, with a tendency to trust family and kin-ties rather than strictly the requirements of duty inside a formal role.

Hierarchy-born turians would therefore generally mistrust merc-born turians as “faithless” in terms of duty and “backward” in their reliance on kin, family, and affiliation.

To my mind, this is one of those general misunderstandings that would occur when merc-born turians (used to fulfilling multiple roles in whatever capacity is needed in their community), and Hierarch-born turians (used to fulfilling a specific role as required by the state or larger stable group) would just be speaking past each other, because they’re coming from fundamentally different lived experiences.

Merc-born turians have never placed their trust in any state-level institution, by definition, while most Hierarchy-born turians have at least a larger colony world as a point of reference.

Merc-Born Turians: Nihlus Kryik, A Case Study

I’m still so, so sad that we didn’t have a chance to get to know him better as a character, outside of a VERY FEW dialogue lines!

We know from the codex that Nihlus was ‘forced’ into the Hierarchy military at age 16 and never really fit in with his squads, having instead a more independent streak and disobeying orders on his own initiative. While his tactics were seen as reckless by his more traditional (Hierarchy-born) superiors, his ability to find and exploit weaknesses eventually lead Saren Arterius to recruit him into the Spectres. Nihlus also has no species-driven grudge against humanity and only cares that Shepard can get the job done.

Where do I go with this?

I lean hard into the merc-born background that might have instilled such an attitude in Nihlus at a young age, by playing both with his pre-service background, his family history (both colony-born turian, kin-affiliated mercenary group, and adopted batarian), and his attitude toward his own identity and values as a merc-born turian.

I give Nihlus different opinions on everything from colony markings (and some of my specific thoughts on what embellishments might identify a turian as merc-born and what those means), to authority, to practical approaches, to independence, to familiarity with language and food, to just a different overall cultural viewpoint that is uniquely critical of what other Hierarchy-born turians might take for granted as the cultural majority. In short? 

I write him as an outsider who has chosen to participate in the Hierarchy despite what he’s seen of the flaws.

Whenever I write Nihlus, it’s important to me to consider his individual rationale for his choices. I don’t see him as the type to rejoin the Hierarchy and do so uncritically, for instance -- but I also tend to write him as “seeking his place” in a way that aligns with his unique values as a merc-born turian with very different personal experiences of what life is like in the galaxy. 

Someone who is sympathetic to those who want to be left alone to live separate lives apart from larger government structures, for instance, and who is capable of navigating multiple worlds and perspectives in his everyday job without looking down on anyone who isn’t participating in the mainstream cultural choices.

Whenever I’m writing a character like this, it’s important to me to consider what might be the driving goals and values in their lives. For Nihlus (in my view), that’s applying his individual ability to ensuring that predatory groups (pirates and slavers, destabilizing no matter where you are in the galaxy) are opposed and dismantled wherever they occur -- and he doesn’t particularly see the problem with adding a bit of stability to the Terminus, either.

I also write Nihlus with a more live-and-let-live attitude driven by his experiences in the Terminus, who has a bit more of a nuanced perspective on batarians and batarian culture, since he was raised in close proximity to it. ;)

[stepswordsen]

JuAli WIP doodles

So, I'm just gonna post my old JuAli doodles from November ~ April. Obsessed with them. I've been thinking about them non-stop. Judar is wearing traditional Chinese hanfu in these :) 

Here's my JuAli doodles for now <3 They're pretty messy, so I'll put them under the cut. Also I'm putting my thought rambles under the cut too. They’re snippets of thoughts I had, including ones with friends, feel free to read them if you’re curious!

Some rambles

I was considering whether I should post my JuAli doodles since I usually prefer to keep my art account for finished arts only, but I wanted to show my love for them. I still have to refine and redraw these tbh, but I'm excited to work on these in the future! 

I also didn’t know whether to post these rambles under my art or make a new post on my side blog. Well. It’s going here now. I’ll post the rest of my sketches and another rambles in another post 

The first two Judar in hanfu doodles are some of my fave drawings ever. I really want to finish this one soon...

I think Judar has red eyeliner in the manga, and the Magi anime has Judar's eyeshadow as purple? In Ohtaka's coloured arts, it looks like a more saturated red colour to me.

I like Judar with red eyeliner/eyeshadow like how Ohtaka colours in the manga. I like how the colours pop and the contrast against his design, and how it matches his red eyes. Also cuz black and red are his image/representative colours to me anyways

I want Judar to wear black, white, red, and gold hanfu... I’ve also been looking into hanfu earrings for him. I'm thinking of red and gold. I want him to have red eyeliner and black painted fingernails.

Also, in the future, I'd also like to draw Alibaba wearing Arab traditional clothes~

Some thoughts on JuAli

I love how my friends described them as besties and one-sided enemies/worsties dynamic (from Judar’s end lmfao), it’s soooo funny. I feel like they’d have a sort of Love-Hate relationship at first, like when you hate someone so much it’s love...

And Judar would just constantly be like “I really don't get this guy at all” and “I don't understand what he's thinking at all!” Like how he was with Alibaba on the Dark continent. I think it’s interesting how he recognized that Alibaba has qualities that draw people to him, but just couldn't understand why.

My friend mentioned that because Alibaba is so different and the complete opposite of him, it makes sense he doesn’t understand it, but it only shows that he’s curious and that deep inside he wants to know.

I feel like in the early stages of them catching feelies they’d both be really awkward around each other and constantly headbutt each other… They'd always be pretty competitive with each other, but they'd warm up to each other over time.

I love their Fire and Ice duality. Light/Darkness. Angel/Devil. Hot and Cold. Enemies to Lovers. They’d bicker and kiss and make out. Twink on twink violence is their love language /lh

I love their setup, I’m obsessed with them and their vibes. They’re so funny and cute… I love their dynamic, their vibes are impeccable. I could sense the sen-core with them, I love them so much.

I awaken to my final form. Meow meow mf x Empathetic, loving ball of sunshine… It's the sen-core ship formula: meow meow mf x ball of sunshine. Morally questionable/morally bankrupt x morally agreeable <3

Also I love Light/Darkness, Yin/Yang and Sun/Moon/Eclipse themed ships. And Rivals/Enemies to Lovers. Opposites contrast :)

I love Opposites Attract ships that are also combined with any of these tropes: Narrative parallelism (Yin/Yang, Light/Darkness, Sun/Moon/Eclipse tropes), Protagonist x Rival/Antagonist/Opposing Figure, Reconciliation of Opposites, Fated Enemies/Rivals, etc.

Sen-core characters/ships: being a menace to A) the world and/or B) their rival/enemy/lover.

Alibaba is the sun, and Judar’s leitmotif is the black sun (just like Douman). And he’s also technically the moon. One of my friends told me she sees him with Eclipse symbolism, which is really interesting.

[twinkle-art]

You’re a HUGE inspiration for me I love the symbolism and metaphors and themes you pack into your art it’s so so so so cool…. If you don’t mind me asking, how do you go about planning your pieces from a conceptual standpoint? Does coming up with cool visual metaphors come naturally to you?

thank you! while yes, i would say on some level i’m someone who’s very predisposed to thinking through the lens of metaphor, i do think it’s a skill that can be learned and honed like any other! (for instance, when i think back to pieces from a few years ago i often find my execution kind of inelegant even when i still love the concept..)

in the simplest terms possible, i like to start by considering what it is i want to express- is it a character’s motivation? an unconventional relationship they have? an entire story arc? (usually it’s whatever particular detail i’ve latched onto like a dog with a chew toy) and from there, it’s a matter of figuring out the most concise way possible to convey that to an audience. (personally i've found it's much harder to make one very effective illustration, than it is to load up a comic with 30 metaphors)

in the context of fanart, every piece of media always has its own visual language, even if it seems like the creators didn’t do it on purpose. (tip: it doesn't matter either way) sometimes they’re very intricate and intentionally crafted, like in something like revolutionary girl utena or breaking bad (yes, really), and require a more analytical eye to utilize fully, but anything with props or character design elements that have any bearing on the narrative have given themselves, and you, a language to work from. with fanart, you have the huge advantage of having this common language to speak with your audience! someone who's never played ace attorney, for instance, won't understand the significance of a piece involving an elevator, but someone who has will intuitively understand its significance to a certain character's relationship to his father/career/self-image/etc. it's rarely as straightforward as object = specific theme, but it's more fun that way anyways.

...and from there it's a lot of trial and error connecting theme A to visual stand-in B until i come up with something i'm satisfied with. challenge yourself to dig deeper! there's nothing wrong with common, widely understood shorthand, but i did get better at this after i challenged myself to stop relying on the plant symbolism wikipedia page so much

[testudoaubrei-blog]

Well, it’s not quite a master’s thesis, but this is (the first of) a series of posts on why Catra and Adora are the best love story in the history of kids TV animation and maybe the greatest love story in the history of TV. This may in some ways be faint praise - romance on TV is generally not very good compared with books or movies. Often it’s just some will they/won’t they sexual tension that is defused by getting characters together and re-heightened by breaking them up. TV is full of nearly shark jumping pointless dramas like Sam and Diane (Cheers, holy fuck am I dating myself, though that was technically before my time), Ross and Rachel (Friends, which was no Cheers) etc, but also some less annoying couples like Ben and Leslie (Parks and Rec) or Amy and Jake (Bk99) who are mostly just kind of cute and fun. Other shows, like the X-Files, teased viewers for years with unresolved sexual tension. In kids shows most romances are, appropriate for their target viewers, mild, sweet relationships based more on self-conscious flirting and blushing than on complex and conflicted feelings or deep passions - which is pretty realistic when the characters are young teens or even mid-teens. Some of these relationships are really well done - Finn and Flame Princess, Dipper and Pacifica (yeah I ship them), the early stages of Katara and Aang (before the showrunners imbued this childhood crush with cosmic significance), Steven and Connie, etc. Catra and Adora, though, are different. Their love story is not a side plot or a sub plot, it’s the heart of the show. It isn’t a childhood crush, it’s a very messy and passionate relationship between two young adults. She-Ra is an emotionally complex lesbian romance just as much as it is a thrilling action/adventure show. Everything about their relationship is baked into the show’s plot, its themes, hell even its musical score. The dramatic tension between Catra and Adora is not the result of stretching out a flirtation for ratings, but a coherent dramatic arc that runs through the entire show. As Noelle said, he made Catradora so central that execs couldn’t take it out without ruining the show. And the show is better for it. In this series of posts I’m going to try to show why, as well as showing why She-Ra is such a fantastic love story.

First off, let’s talk about how Catra and Adora’s character arcs are foils for each other, and how they come together and apart through the series. This is actually a post that I’ve been working on for a while but I keep summarizing the show rather than cutting to the chase, so I’m not going to recite many plot points so much as sketch out what’s going on with the dramatic structure at the time. But also, let’s talk about what each character’s arc is saying, and how they are commenting on each other. Spoiler alert: Catra’s arc is a subversion and critique of stories of empowerment through ruthless self-assertion and revenge, while Adora’s arc is a subversion and critique of chosen one narratives and stories of self-denial and self-transcendence.

When the show starts, Adora and Catra are shown as rivals and friends - their first scene starts the recurring motif of them reaching out for each other as one of them dangles above an abyss, as well as establishing their flirtatious banter and easy camaraderie. We quickly learn that these two young women plan to conquer the world together. These scenes and later flashbacks show Catra and Adora as deeply enmeshed in each others lives, to the point where neither of them (but especially Catra) have clear identities outside of one another. There is so much genuine love on both sides before Adora leaves, but also resentment, envy and fear, especially on Catra’s side, as well as a protectiveness on Adora’s side that deprives Catra of her autonomy. They are both being abused by Shadow Weaver - Catra physically  and emotionally, Adora emotionally. It wouldn’t be too much to say that Shadow Weaver holds Catra hostage to control Adora (this is why critiques that Adora abandoned Catra to be abused are actually kind of messed up, since they accept Shadow Weaver’s premise that Adora is responsible for what Shadow Weaver does to Catra). In addition, Catra and Adora actually see the world incredibly differently. Adora already sees the world in terms of right, wrong and her destiny to right wrongs - this is why it’s important for her  to accept the Horde’s obvious lies - she couldn’t keep living if she didn’t. Catra, on the other hand, sees the world solely in terms of survival and personal loyalty - everything for her is about preserving herself and the person she cares about - Adora.

Then, when Adora finds the sword, she leaves because it’s the right thing to do. Catra doesn’t even have a concept of ‘the right thing to do’ being something she should care about, or perhaps, something she can care about as an irredeemably evil, awful fuck-up. So at Thaymor neither one understands where the other is coming from, and Catra and Adora begin to part. This is the first turning point in their relationship. Adora chooses duty over what she desires, Catra chooses to protect herself (such as she sees it) and nurse her sense of betrayal and abandonment.

Their relationship until Promise is a kind of weird Frenemy thing that is fascinating to watch and sold me on the show. Neither one wants to fully admit to themselves that the other is now their enemy, neither one has given up on changing the other’s mind. Each is furious at the other, and desperate to see her again at the same time. There’s a lot of heartache and just as much sexual tension, especially at Princess Prom. Both of them come alive when they fight each other (more about that in a later post). But they’re already growing apart - Adora embracing her destiny as She-Ra, Catra rising in the ranks for the Horde. Adora now has the purpose she always wanted, plus other friends and a sense of being chosen to do something great, while Catra now has power - the means to protect herself from people like Shadow Weaver as well as the vindication she had always been denied, and even the opportunity to beat Shadow Weaver at her own game.

The next turning point is Promise. Holy fuck, this episode. It’s an episode that is even more heartbreaking after you’ve watched the show because you know just how much worse things are going to get, and yet, it’s a necessary part of both of their character arcs. Even through season 1 Catra and Adora had remained very much enmeshed in each others lives in an increasingly fucked up way as they grew apart but refused to turn away from each other. Even though they aren’t -exactly- a romantic couple (Adora doesn’t recognize and acknowledge her feelings until the last episode of Season 5), Season 1 of She-Ra is one of the worst breakups I have seen on TV. As I said in a couple of previous posts, this is the kind of shit that the Mountain Goats write songs about. Everything that was poisoning their love for each other even before episode 1 bubbles to the surface and combines with them fighting on opposite sides of the war to make a truly fucked up situation. In the end, it’s Catra that makes the choice to turn away from Adora. This isn’t a -good- decision. It’s spiteful, and destructive, and based on an outright deluded understanding of their relationship (inspired by Light Hope’s manipulations and her own issues), but it’s in some ways a necessary decision. Catra has been so wrapped up in Adora for so long that she isn’t going to be able to figure out who -she- is without cutting Adora out of her life. And the same is true of Adora.

But each of them do this in about the worst way possible. Catra embraces destruction, ambition, manipulation and outright cruelty, turning the tactics of her abusers against them and against everyone around her. She first triumphs over Shadow Weaver and manipulates Entrapta into trying to corrupt Etheria itself. Meanwhile Adora ‘lets go’ and commits herself to the self-denying mantle of She-Ra. Over the next several seasons, their respective paths will nearly lead both Catra and Adora to their deaths (in the Season 4 finale).

For the next season (counting season 2 and 3 as one) Catra and Adora are still closely linked, but as enemies. Still, there’s more than enough flirtation between them (that ‘Hey Catra’ in the first episode of Season 2 is something else), and especially on Adora’s side we see her hold back with Catra, and often take responsibility for the harm Catra inflicts, just like she had when they were kids. Yet they still drift apart - after facing off every other episode in Season 1, they spend less and less time on screen together through season 2 and 3. Catra continues her ascent to power and descent into villainy while Adora becomes more of a stressed out mess as she takes the fate of the world and the wellbeing of everyone she cares about on her admittedly broad shoulders. Catra’s one moment of vulnerability is rewarded by Shadow Weaver’s betrayal and her exile, then Catra triumphs in ruthless badass fashion through sheer desperation and aggression. In the Crimson Wastes, we see Catra at her most independent, and she almost seems happy. But once Adora shows up and Catra hears about Shadow Weaver, she’s sucked back into the worst of her resentments, and she makes very clear that being happy is less important to her than making sure Adora is miserable.

This changes everything. Catra completely breaks with reality and tries to kill Adora, herself and the world rather than lose to Adora and Shadow Weaver (I do think it’s important to remember that she does that after Shadow Weaver nearly kills her). Catra betrays everyone around her when she exiles Entrapta, threatens Scopria and lies to Hordak. Then she flips the switch. When Adora tries to fix things, Catra fights to her own death to make sure that the world disintegrates with her. For her part, Adora fights first to understand what is wrong with the world and then to fix it. Finally she tells Catra that destroying the world is her choice and she has to live with it, decks her, and then sees her off with a death glare once the portal is closed. With this, Adora writes Catra off even if, as she says later, she never never hated her. By doing that, Adora casts off the guilt that had dogged her and takes responsibility for her own life rather than someone else’s - this is actually a huge step for her, and one that will become more important in Season 4.

Season 4 is in many ways the nadir of their relationship. They only see each other once during the entire season, in Fluterrina, when Adora tries to blast Catra, much to the latter’s shock. There’s a sense in that scene that Catra is trying to have the same flirtatious enmity she used to have with Adora, and Adora is having none of it. Catra almost seems hurt by this, which is an early hint at how isolated Catra is beginning to feel. Catra spends the rest of the season at her highest and lowest. On the one hand she spends most of 12 episodes winning by every standard she has ever claimed to care about, besting Hordak himself in single combat and making herself co-ruler of the Horde and coming within a day’s march of ending the Rebellion. In many ways it is the ultimate empowerment fantasy - the abused young woman has defeated her abusers, showed up everyone who doubted her and forced everyone to respect her. But I think it’s striking that the show starts with her and Adora dreaming of conquering the world together and in Season 4 Catra nearly succeeds in conquering it alone, almost like she was trying to live out her old shared fantasy while proving she didn’t need her former best friend. 

At the same time, Catra is clearly miserable. She’s always been unhappy, but in Season 4 we see her completely isolated and lying to herself and everyone who will listen in a desperate attempt to justify her actions. Turning the tactics of Hordak and Shadow Weaver against them to gain power and then against Scorpia and Entrapta to maintain it haven’t vindicated Catra, they’ve made her more and more alone as Entrapta is exiled and Scorpia drifts away. Meanwhile Catra reaches out to Double Trouble, and her interactions with them reek of a kind of desperate desire to have someone in her life (the feeling of their interaction is of an unhealthy casual relationship where one partner becomes emotionally invested and the other takes advantage of that while denying the other the closeness they desire). As people leave her, one after the other, it becomes clearer and clearer that Catra doesn’t want power at all - she wants connection, friendship, love, and power is a very poor replacement. As I said in my long Catra rant, Season 4 is both her ‘Walter White as a Catgirl’ season and the beginning of her redemption. Everything comes to head when Sparkles destroys everything Catra has tried to achieve, Double Trouble delivers those harsh truths and Horde Prime shows up and makes it all irrelevant, just highlighting how futile all her struggles and sacrifices and crimes have been.

Meanwhile Adora spends Season 4 becoming her own her and her own woman. After telling off Catra, she grows more and more disillusioned with Light Hope and critical of Glimmer (though the latter has more than a shade of her old habit of taking responsibility for others - Adora’s development is not linear). She’s gained the courage and confidence to strike out her own path, not just follow a destiny. At the season’s end she once again breaks with her best friend to do what is right, and discards the destiny that she was being prepared for. But in this case she isn’t chasing one packaged destiny for another, instead she’s making her own choice and literally shattering the thing that she thought gave her life purpose. It’s badass, and heartbreaking, and along with decking Catra and jumping after Catra into the abyss (see below) it’s the perfect Adora moment.

In many ways Season 5 starts with Catra and Adora farther apart than they have ever been. They aren’t even enemies anymore, they’re completely out of each other’s lives. And both Catra and Adora are lost at the beginning of Season 5 - Catra is useless and alone on Prime’s ship, completely defeated despite ostensibly being on the winning side, and she goes through the motions of her normal plotting without any particular conviction and none of her normal flair. Meanwhile Adora is even more miserable and self-destructive than usual, throwing herself at Horde Bots and working herself until she drops of exhaustion. In a very real way they both stay lost until they have a chance to help the other. Catra takes responsibility for what she’s done and what she can do, saves Glimmer (at least partly for Adora’s sake), apologizes to Adora, and sacrifices herself. Adora only seems to come alive when she decides to turn around, face Prime, and save the cat. And when she does, Catra and Adora’s arcs, which had separated so completely in season 4, come crashing back together to end the series.

Adora during Save the Cat is such a contrast with the uncertain, hesitant and self-destructive wreck we’ve seen so far in Season 5. This is possibly her craziest plan in 3 years of mostly cazy plans, but she never wavers or questions herself. Even when Chipped Catra appears and we see Adora’s heart break while we watch, Adora doesn’t back down or relent. She keeps at it even as the tears stream down her face. She fights better trying to save Catra without She-Ra’s powers than she fought at the Battle of Bright Moon with them. Catra’s just about as desperate - we see her cry and plead, and now is probably as good a time to any to point out how amazing a job both VAs did throughout the show, but especially in this episode, and how good a job the board artists did. 

Seeing each other for the first time in a year, and only the second time since Catra blew everything up, Catra and Adora are probably the rawest and least restrained we’ve ever seen them. There’s barely any banter, no bravado, and no pretense that they are anything other than two women who desperately need each other (Prime doesn’t help with ‘You broke my heart’.) Then Catra is flung to her death, Adora jumps after her, breaks both her legs in the fall (we see her crawl to Catra, as though she couldn’t walk) and becomes the real She-Ra. It’s such a triumphant and deeply queer moment seeing a woman transformed into a warrior goddess to protect the woman she loves, and it’s the reason that, as dark as it is, Save the Cat is my Comfort Food episode.

Let’s not sleep on Taking Control, though. This episode is like a microcosm of what this show does best, especially the A plot with Catra and Adora. Catra’s reversion to lashing out at everyone and her refusal to be open to Adora shows just how much of a struggle this whole ‘being good and trying to connect to people’ thing is. Catra’s outburst gives Adora a chance to stand up for herself and refuse to be Catra’s punching bag, while also not trying to control her. Adora’s ultimatum gives Catra a chance to reach out to Adora (quite literally), and allow herself to be vulnerable. In this episode, we see just how far Catra and Adora have come since the messed up stew of their relationship in Season 1. Adora lets Catra be responsible for her own actions; Catra lets herself be vulnerable to Adora and takes responsibility for her actions. They’re both better people and better friends and better partners than they were, and the show has shown this in a strikingly nuanced and realistic way. 

The important thing to note in the next few episodes of Season 5 isn’t just how much closer Catra and Adora get to each other and how much they flirt (So much. So much, y’all) but just how -happy- they are. We see both of them transformed in the other’s presence. Basically, since they’ve parted, both Catra and Adora have been defined in no small part by how miserable they often are. They have both had their triumphs and their lighter moments, but there’s been a sense of melancholy dogging both Catra and Adora since episode 1. And now that they’re together again, that lifts, somewhat. Catra’s verbal barbs have lost their venom, and she can openly show how much she cares for Adora and even Bow and Glimmer. She’s still herself - snarky, cynical, somewhat devious - but she’s not engaged in a self-destructive zero-sum struggle with everyone around her. Meanwhile Adora has spent 4 seasons being a neurotic and sometimes nearly joyless mess who takes responsibility for everything and often doesn’t let herself enjoy anything other than the odd BFS group hug (exceptions include trying to uh...impress Huntara and reveling with the butterfly ladies of Elberron in Flutterina).  Around Catra, though, she’s a cocky, swaggering jock who gives as good as she gets. It’s a side of Adora we’ve only seen hints of before, and one that’s so much more confident and joyful even as the world is ending around her. Apart, Catra had tried to protect and vindicate herself with power and conquest, while Adora had tried to forget herself in duty and sacrifice. Together, they can be themselves again. This dynamic is crucial to the show’s portrayal of Catra and Adora’s romance because it doesn’t just show how much they love each other, but how they’re -good- for each other now that they’ve grown as people, and that they are so much better than they were when they were apart.

Until Shadow Weaver shows up. Their old abuser reintroduces tensions but even then things are different than they were. Now Catra isn’t just resentful of how Shadow Weaver prefers Adora - she’s  protective of Adora, which is clearest in Failsafe when she calls Shadow Weaver out for being willing to sacrifice Adora. And while Adora takes the Failsafe, it isn’t to follow her destiny or because she has a death wish - it’s because she loves her friends, and she is the only one who has any hope of doing this and living (though Catra’s suggestion that Shadow Weaver take it is a good one). And finally, when Catra leaves Adora, it isn’t because she hates Adora, nor, despite what she says, is it because she really thinks that Adora chose Shadow Weaver. At least, not exactly. It’s because Catra loves Adora, and can admit that to herself, and can’t stay around and watch the woman she loves sacrifice herself rather than choosing Catra. Before Catra leaves, she asks Adora ‘What do you want?” It’s a question that echoes Shadow Weaver’s speech in Episode 1: ‘isn’t this what you always wanted since you could want anything?’ As much as Adora has grown as a person, and defined herself and stood up for what she thinks is right, she still has never answered that question - it’s never been ‘what do I want’ but ‘what do I have to do?’ and that’s how Adora answers Catra’s question. This is Adora’s last gasp as a self-transcending hero, letting go of what she wants (not that she ever dared articulate what that was) in order to do what must be done. And it nearly kills her and dooms the universe, because Adora can’t be the hero that she needs to be by being anyone less than herself.

But it’s losing Catra that inspires Adora to tell off Shadow Weaver for good (not that she’d ever really warmed to her after season 1). And it’s love for Adora that inspires Catra to stand up to Shadow Weaver and demand that she do the right thing. In both cases, Catra and Adora aren’t just standing up to their abuser, but holding her to account for the harm she’s caused, and it’s the love that they have for each other that inspires them to do this. In Catra’s case in particular her refusal to let Shadow Weaver weasel out of finding Adora is a much greater triumph over Shadow Weaver than beating her up and breaking her mask in Season 1 - it’s proof not so much to Shadow Weaver but to Catra herself that Catra really is better than this and that she deserves better than this. It’s not turning her abuser’s tactics against her, but truly holding her to a moral standard and demanding that she do the right thing.

And then there’s Catra and Adora together at the heart. Catra has already come back for Adora and stayed to the end, choosing to die with her even if she can’t share a life together (not out of some death wish, but because Adora needs her). And Adora, who’s been avoiding answering the question for three fucking years, finally let’s herself want Catra when Catra finally confesses her love (breaking the last of her self-protective shields) and asks Adora to stay -for her-. And by admitting what she wants, Adora can truly be at peace with herself and be the hero she needs to be, lesbianism saves the universe, The End.

So anyway, that’s how Catra and Adora’s stories are woven together and how they compliment and comment on each other. Narrativiely, Adora and Catra start together, come apart, find something of themselves, and truly find themselves and each other when they are reunited. Thematically, they are critiquing seemingly opposing narrative tropes - empowerment narratives and narratives of self sacrifice. But by showing the flaws in both types of story and showing how neither self-seeking empowerment nor self-negating self sacrifice can actually make us happy, She-Ra asks and answers more profound questions than most prestige dramas for adults do. I’ll get into how the show sells the idea that the power of love can bring us happiness (and save the world) in a future post. But next up, I’m going to celebrate just how much Catra and Adora’s relationship revels in ambiguity, complexity and contradiction and so tells a grown up love story in a kid’s show.

[serendipitous-magic]

What is your writing advice for young people who want to write fanfiction and original stories in the near future?

If this is just Way Too Much, skip to the end (#16). My most important piece of advice is there. I also happen to think #5 is pretty good.

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1) Literally just write. Write whatever you want, and do a lot of it.

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2) You don’t have to post everything. In fact you don’t have to post anything. You can, don’t get me wrong, but it can be intimidating to sit down and think “I will now write something that other people will see and read and judge with their eyeballs.” Because that’s probably gonna lead to nerves and writer's block. Just write down the ideas that you have, the things you want to write, whatever’s in your brain that you want to explore and expand upon and make into something. And then if you want to, share it. Or don’t share it. I have plenty of half-baked ideas and documents and random story chapters and shit hidden away on my Google Drive that will never see the light of day, for a whole number of reasons. I wanted to write it but it wasn’t ~Spicy~ enough to warrant posting, or it’s only like an eighth of a good idea, or it’s like one scene with no story around it, or it’s just something incredibly self-indulgent I just wanted to write for my own enjoyment.

Point being, don’t write for other people. Don’t write so that other people can read it; write what you want, write for yourself, and then if you want to share it, do.

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3) You can pretty much ignore any and all of these for fanfiction. In fact, you can ignore pretty much any rules or guidelines you want for fanfiction. Fanfic is a sandbox. You don’t have to be a “professional writer” to post fic. No one expects you to be Stephen King or Margaret Atwood. Fanfic is just for playing in a fandom and having fun. If you wanna write a 50 chapter slow burn with very little plot aside from the OTP slowly getting to know each other, and no real stakes or central conflict, I guarantee people would read that. Really, fanfiction is the Old West of writing: lawless, wild, unpredictable, and free.

However, here are the rules you must follow:

-Separate your paragraphs. (I’m sure you know this already, but I’m gonna say it anyway just in case.) Do not post one big block of text. Make a paragraph break when someone new is talking, when the characters are in a new place, when a new event occurs that changes the scene, when a chunk of time has passed, and when there’s a major change in subject.

-I know it’s obvious, but... grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. They exist to make writing easy for readers to read, and more people will read your stuff if they don’t have to stop and try to figure out what you meant.

-Use tags and labels, as is possible with whatever site you’re using. Especially if you include possibly triggering content in your story. Again, I know it’s obvious, but it’s common courtesy. Bonus: tagging the themes and content of your story helps readers find it and read it :)

-If possible, limit the use of all-caps and exclamation marks / question marks. 99% of the time, one ! or one ? will do. If you overload the page with a lot of all-caps and long rows of exclamation marks or question marks, it hampers readability.

... That’s literally all I can think of. And, like I said, it’s all pretty basic stuff. You were probably rolling your eyes like, “Uh, yeah, Gwen, I know.” But that’s literally it. You can pretty much do whatever you want in fanfic.

That being said, here’s my advice for both fanfiction and original work...

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4) A quick and dirty rule for coming up with a plot, starting a story, keeping up pacing, or maintaining tension: figure out what dreams, desires, and goals are nearest and dearest to your main character’s heart (see #16). Then set up the main conflict to be directly in opposition to that goal. It doesn’t have to be in a tangible way, though it could be. But, if your main character wants more than anything to reach the ships on the southern coast of your world and sail to a new life, make sure the main conflict immediately prevents them from doing that - in fact, make sure to send them north. If your main character just wants to keep their loved ones safe, kidnap the loved ones. If your main character just wants to date their best-friend-turned-crush, make sure they think they have no chance - or, make them cocky about it, and make sure it makes Person B determined not to ever like them. You get it. Figure out what your character most wants, and then keep them from having that. Boom - your conflict now ties in with your character's motivation. It's like instant yeast for plots.

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5) If you’re anything like me, you want your first draft to be Good, despite all that advice about how the first draft doesn’t have to be good and it’s just to get words on the page, yadda yadda. And if you’re somewhat of a perfectionist (like myself), it’s easy to get stuck looking at a blank page because you don’t have The Perfect Words, and you want what you write to be Good the first time.

Here’s how I cheat that:

Instead of trying to write a Good First Draft from a blank page, hit the enter key a few times, skip a little down on the page, change your ink to red (or blue, or whatever - just something immediately identifiable as Not Black) and just thought vomit. Write whatever the hell you’re thinking, exactly as you think it. Don’t worry about it being readable, don’t worry about narrative flow for now, don’t worry about covering all the details, don’t worry about anything except either a) getting all the details of your idea out onto the page, whether that’s a lot or whether it’s just a sentence or two, or b) if you don’t have an idea yet, finding your way there.

Because this method is also very good for finding your way to ideas when you’re stuck in writer’s block.

Because of how human brains work, getting this stuff out onto the page - in all its messy, stream-of-consciousness glory - will likely spark more thoughts. As you write your original idea about the scene, it’ll likely spark more ideas. Creation begets creation. If you just start thought-vomiting your ideas onto the page, chances are you’ll think of more things as you go, and you’ll start filling out description or dialogue or tone or action or whatever, and pretty soon the scene starts writing itself.

Not sure where you’re going with the scene or which ideas you wanna use? Use a lot of ambivalent language in your “thought-vomit draft.” My pre-writing notes are chock-full of the words “maybe,” “perhaps,” and the phrases, “At some point...” and “...or something like that.” In this way, I don’t tie myself down to one idea; it’s just an idea, and I’m keeping it on the page in case I use it, but I might chuck it in the trash or change it or whatever.

And then, once your ideas for the scene (or story, or chapter, or whatever) are on the page, then go back to the top and start translating them into a “real” first draft. Use black ink, and start copy-pasting chunks of the thought-vomit up into the top part of the document and translating them into Draft 1. Separate out paragraphs where paragraph breaks should be. Add the correct punctuation and whatnot. Change “describe the lobby here - include potted plants, fancy carpet, blood stain, etc.” into an actual description of the lobby. Flesh it out, or condense, or whatever it needs. And if you’re still stuck, change back to red ink and ramble some more until you find a path that feels right, then plug that in. This keeps you from looking at a blank page, and it allows you to generate a kind of Draft 0.5, somewhere between a plan and a first draft.

You don’t have to use every idea. Like I said, jot down whatever comes to mind, put a “maybe” before or after it, and keep working. If the idea grabs you and you wanna keep expanding on it and exploring it, cool. If you just wanna jot it down so you don’t forget it and then move on, also cool. Red-ink draft / “thought-vomit draft” is your time to jump around in the timeline, add or finesse details at whatever point your brain moves to, etc. Don’t try to do it exactly in story order, because you will get tangential thoughts and ideas, and you will not remember to write them down five pages later when you finally get to taking notes on that scene. Trust me. On that note...

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6) Write everything down the moment you think of it. Seriously.

“I’ll remember it when I get around to writing that scene in a couple days / weeks / months (/years).”

You won’t.

Write it down.

Phone, journal, google docs - hell, my family regularly laughs at me for grabbing a napkin during dinner and scribbling thoughts down alongside pasta sauce stains.

And then, once you have it written down somewhere...

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7) Consolidate your writing ideas in one place.

Maybe this isn’t really your style, and that’s totally chill.

Buuuut, if you’re Type-A like me - or if you tend to be somewhat unorganized and you know you’ll lose track of your writing notes if they’re scattered across multiple notebooks, journals, napkins, phone notes, etc. - having one consolidated document of notes is a life saver. I keep mine on Google Docs so I can access it, add to it, and look through it for inspiration anywhere at any time. When I have one of those Shower Thoughts that I jot down on my phone or on a napkin during dinner, I set myself a reminder on my phone to type it up in my Story Ideas document later.

(Or, if the idea I had was for a story of mine that I’ve already started planning / drafting / whatever, I put it in the document for that story instead of the Big Random Story Ideas doc. You get it.)

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8) Have other ways to collect and save writing ideas, besides just writing stuff down. If you like Pinterest, make pinterest boards of your characters or stories or settings or whatever. If you’re big into playlists, make a playlist for your character / setting / story / etc. Or both. Or something else. I’m not good at drawing, but maybe you are, and maybe you like to draw your ideas. Whatever form it takes, having another way to save ideas and think about your stories is invaluable.

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9) Some writers can just start writing with no idea where the story is going, and they just kind of figure it out as they go. I envy those writers. And I do that sometimes for fanfiction, where the stakes are somewhat lower and the audience is reading more for scene-to-scene enjoyment (and to see their OTP kiss) than for a Driving And Compelling Narrative.

But here’s the thing: especially if you’re just kind of starting out, writing without some sort of plan is really, really hard, and will likely lead you into a slow, meandering narrative that will likely frustrate you.

Even if you think you’re someone that just can’t write with a plan (and again, I have the highest respect for pansters out there - I don’t know how you do it, you crazy bastards, but you keep doing you) - even if you think “I can’t work with plans, they’re too prescriptive, I just want to write and see what happens -”

Try at least making the most skeletal of plans.

Even if you have no clue what 90% of the story is, yet. That’s fine. But you need to have some idea of what you’re building to, even if that’s nothing more specific than a feeling, or a turning point for your character. Even if your entire plan for everything beyond Chapter 1 is, “At some point, Charlie needs to realize that Ed was lying to her.”

This is where those Draft 0.5 notes come in handy. Because, more than likely, working on your current scene that way will spark ideas for later scenes, which you can put down at the bottom of the document and save for when they become relevant. In my experience, the line between planning ahead and making a Draft 0.5 is exceptionally thin. One can quickly turn into the other.

If you’re really, really resistant to the idea of planning ahead, that’s okay. It’s not everybody’s style. But for the love of all that is holy, write down your ideas for future scenes, even if you’re a person that doesn’t like to plan and writes only in story order, because you will not remember that idea once you get to that scene.

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10) You don’t have to write in order.

Here’s the thing: I’m a person that can only do my Draft 1 in story order (meaning, chronological order). I just have to be in that flow; I need to write in story order for me to best channel where the character is at from scene to scene, both narratively and emotionally.

But my Thought Vomit Draft is another thing entirely. By using the brain hack of putting my notes in red (or another color, it doesn’t matter) and going down to the bottom of the document / page and taking notes there, and then integrating them into whatever plan I have, and then translating them into Draft 1 once I get there in the story - by doing that, I can get my good ideas onto the page (and expound upon them and let my muse carry me and ride that momentum while I’m in the moment of inspiration) without writing out of order.

Maybe that’s just me. But if you’re a person who really prefers to write in story order, that could be hugely helpful to you. It is to me.

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11) Emotion and motivation will do more for your story than technicalities of plot.

If your characters really care about something, and their journey through the (shaky or weak) plot is emotionally engaging, it will be a much more compelling story than a story with a “perfect” plot and unrelatable or unmotivated characters.

If your characters care about what they’re doing, and it means something to them, and their goals and actions are driven by dreams or fears or emotions that are integral to who they are, your audience will care too. If you have a perfectly crafted plot that hits all the right beats and has high stakes and fast pacing and drama - but your characters don’t connect with what’s happening in a way that’s deeply meaningful or emotional for them? You’re gonna have a hard time engaging readers.

When in doubt, prioritize character emotion and motivation over plot. Emotion is what drives story.

This power is highly exploitable. (Just look at pulp novels and shitty but entertaining movies.) You can even use it to glaze over plot holes or reinvigorate a limp narrative. Use it that way sparingly, though. It’s a band-aid, not a surgery. 

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12) Evil villains are hard to write - mostly because there are very few truly evil people in the world. (There are a few. Billionaires and several big name politicians come to mind.) But by and large, there aren’t that many evil people. There are plenty of bad people, but bad people have some good in them, somewhere in there. Trying to write an evil villain is hard, because they often turn very cartoony.

Here’s a tip: it’s much easier to write antagonists who aren’t evil. Even if they’re bad people. Of course, there’s no reason you can’t write a villain that’s just truly evil - a serial killer, or an abuser, or a billionaire, or someone who legit just wants to hurt people or blow up the earth or stay in control of an oppressed population, or whatever. But chances are, it’s gonna be really hard to make them feel real, and even harder to create a plot around them that doesn’t feel forced or contrived.

Instead, try writing an antagonist / villain whose motivations and goals directly clash with your protagonist’s - but not because they want to take over the world or see people suffer. Write an antagonist who’s chaotic good, but whose perception of the situation is completely opposite from your hero’s. Write an antagonist whose only desire is to save people, and who will do anything to achieve that goal - anything. Write an antagonist who believes in the letter of the law, and will hinder and oppose the hero’s methods even if they agree with the hero’s motivation. Write an antagonist who got in way over their head and did some things they regret, and now they don’t know how to get out, and they’re doing their best but whatever they set in motion is too powerful for them to stop now.

Write villains who are human. Write a killer who thought they were doing the right thing by taking their victim out of the equation, who vomits at the sight of the body and sobs over the grave they dig. Write a government leader who truly believes she’s doing what’s best for her people in the long-term, even if it might hurt them in the short term, and is willing to endure the hatred and belligerence of the masses if it means securing what she thinks is a better future for her people. Write a teenage bully that thinks they’re the one being picked on by the world, and they’re just fighting back, standing their ground. Write a scientist who will break any code of ethics and hurt anyone he needs to - in order to bring back his baby sister from the grave, because he promised her he’d protect her and he failed. Write an antagonist who is selfish and self-centered and capricious - because in order to survive they had to look out for Number One, and that habit ain’t about to break anytime soon.

Write villains who aren’t even villains. Write antagonists who oppose the hero because of moral differences. Write antagonists who are trying to do the right thing. Write antagonists who treat the heroes with kindness and dignity and respect and gentleness.

They don’t have to be good. They don’t have to be Misunderstood Sweethearts who “deserve” a redemption arc. They can be cruel and nasty and dismissive and callous and violent and etc. etc.

Just hesitate before you make them Evil-with-a-capital-E. Because evil is hard to write, and honestly, boring to read. Flawed human beings with goals and motivations that directly oppose the main characters’ are much easier to write and much more interesting to read.

Ask why. Why is your villain trying to take over the world? What does that even mean? Are they trying to create a Star-Trek-like post-capitalism utopia, but they know that won’t happen in a million lifetimes, so they’re trying to do it by force? Are they actually super in favor of human rights, but they got very impatient waiting for the world to do anything about poverty and war, so they decided to take it into their own hands? Are they determined to fix the world - no matter the cost? Are they terrified and overwhelmed, but committed to see it through to the end? Or - maybe they’re just doing it on a dare. Maybe they don’t really give a shit about world domination, they were just a mediocre rich white guy who decided to fuck around and find out, and now he’s kind of curious how far he can take this thing. And now he’s kind of an internationally-wanted criminal, so he’s kind of stuck living on his hidden private island in his multi-billion dollar secret base, strapping lasers to sharks’ heads for the hell of it. Gross, selfish, uncaring, and dangerous? For sure. Evil? Depends on your definition. See, now we’re getting somewhere.

_-_

13) It’s tempting to let the plot control the characters. It’s easy to drop your characters into a situation and see how they react. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t drive plot. In fact, it bogs down pacing. Instead, try to build you plot off of your characters’ actions and decisions. Let your character build their own situation. Not to say it should go they way they wanted it to go; in fact, usually, their grand plans should go to hell very quickly. But having the characters take action and make decisions, and letting the plot develop based on that, is much easier to make compelling than making a rigid series of events and then trying to herd your characters into them.

_-_

14) Having trouble justifying a character’s actions? Consider having them make the opposite decision, or having them approach the situation in a different way. For example: you need your character to go meet the bad guy, for plot reasons, even though there’s no way it’s not a trap. If the character goes, readers are gonna be groaning with their head in their hands, because c’mon man, that was really fucking stupid. But he’s gotta go, because the plot needs that. Two ways you might handle this: a) He knows it’s probably a trap. He decides not to go. The plot conspires to get him near the villain anyway. Or, b) He knows it’s a trap. But he needs to go, for (insert reasons here). So, he approaches it in an unexpected way. He brings backup, recruiting a side character we met earlier in the story. Or he arrives on the back of a dragon, because ain’t nobody gonna fuck with a dude on a dragon. Or he goes - early, and ambushes the villain. It may work, it may not. He may get himself kidnapped anyway. But it moves the plot along without having Stupid Hero Syndrome.

_-_

15) This is a legit piece of advice: if all of this sounds overwhelming, literally just ignore it and write what you want. For real. Writing should be fun, and every single writer operates differently. If you’re sitting here like “I’m getting stressed just reading this,” just flip me a good-natured bird and get on with your life. I promise I won’t take it personally. Same goes for literally any other writing advice you see. Lots of rules and guidelines can very quickly make anything thoroughly un-fun. Just write. If you’re passionate about it and you do it for long enough, you’ll start figuring out the tips and tricks on your own.

_-_

16) Here’s the best piece of advice I can give you: know your characters. More importantly, know what’s important to them. Build their personality and decisions off of that, and build your plot off of their decisions.

I see a lot of character building sheets that ask a shit-ton of questions like “What’s their most prized possession?” “Do they like their family?” “What’s their favorite food?”

And while these are good questions, my problem with this type of character building is that if you start there, with the little stuff, you’re building on nothing. IMO, to make a truly strong character (not strong like Inner Strength, strong like effective), you need a strong foundation.

Here are the things you must know about your character:

a) What are their greatest fears / deepest insecurities? And I don’t mean “wasps” or “heights.” I mean the deep shit. I mean fears like “living a meaningless life,” or “turning out just like their parents,” or “that no one will ever love them,” or “being powerless.” You may say, “But they’re really scared of wasps! They fall into a wasp nest when they were little and got stung so much they almost died!” Great! That’s a fantastic bit of backstory. They should absolutely be afraid of wasps, and that should absolutely be an impediment later in the story. But dig deeper. What about that event actually scarred them? Was it the helplessness? Stumbling around, swatting at the air, not being able to do a single thing to stop what was happening to them? Was it that they were alone, and no matter how loud they screamed, no one was coming? Was it the bodily horror of feeling themself turn into an inhuman creature as they swelled up from the stings, unable to move their fingers or face normally anymore?

And don’t forget insecurities, because those factor in, too. Are they deeply insecure about their identity? Do they believe, deep down, that they’re ugly? Did they grow up poor and they’ve always been really touchy about that? Why? Dig deep. Figure out what really, really bothers them.

b) What are their hopes and dreams? What do they truly want out of life? What do they consider the most valuable to their experience here in this thing called life? Is it the freedom to forge their own path and be independent? Is it the approval of their family or peers? Is it a home? Is it knowledge, or understanding? Spiritual fulfillment? Is it deeply important to them that they contribute to their community, or protect those they love? What do they need in order to feel truly and deeply fulfilled in life?

Figure out those two things (each one encompasses several things, btw, you don’t have to stop at just one for each), and then use that to inform how they behave and the types of decisions they make within the story. 

It also informs character behavior and personality. 

Let’s say we have a character who’s afraid of helplessness. They’re probably gonna be the person that always wants to do something, try something, no matter how hopeless the situation seems. They’d despise just sitting and waiting, probably, because it makes them feel powerless. They might even be the person that makes rash decisions and acts impulsively and puts themself in danger unnecessarily, because in their mind it’s better than being at the mercy of fate. This is one way you could use a character’s personality to inform their decisions, which in turn helps to inform plot.

Or, let’s say we have a character whose greatest fear is being left behind or forgotten. We may have a chatterbox on our hands. They might be obnoxious. They might love the spotlight, constantly vying for attention no matter the situation, because deep down they’re so afraid that they’d be forgotten otherwise. Or, it may go the opposite way. They may be so afraid of people leaving them that they’re terrified of bothering people. They don’t want to do anything that could annoy people, anything that might give people a reason to leave them. They might be exceedingly polite, quiet, accommodating. A push-over, really.

These are two nearly opposite types of personalities, both stemming from the same core fear/insecurity. You can go a lot of different ways with it. But if you build on that strong foundation, you’ll have a strong character, and a stronger plot.

Likewise, the structure of your story can and should inform the design of these character traits. If you need your characters to team up near the end, it may be impactful if you give your main character a deep fear of commitment, an insecurity about being unwanted or left behind, and make them highly value independence and freedom. That could make their team-up for the final battle very meaningful. Conversely, you can use your character’s deepest fears and desires to help design the plot. Is your character deeply insecure about voicing their opinions or taking a stand, because of trauma they faced in the past? Make them face that. Build that into the climactic third act. Give them the big inspirational speech where they stand up and talk about what they believe to be important, what they think the group should do. And then design that character arc to run through the story, giving you more handholds and stepping stones, more pieces of foundation on which to design the plot.

In this way, character should inform story as much as story informs character. It’s a feedback loop.

Bonus: if you build your character and your plot off of each other in this way, it automatically starts to build in the foundations of that emotional investment I mentioned earlier. If your character’s decisions are based on what they most want and do not want in life, you basically have your character motivation and stakes pre-built.

Note: you need to know these things about your villain, too.

-_-_-

I’m genuinely sorry about the length of this, lmao. But you did ask.

Best of luck!

Edit: I forgot an important one:

17) Start when the scene starts and end when the scene ends.

What do I mean by that?

If your notes say “Danny asks Nicole out after school and majorly flubs it,” start the scene when Danny approaches Nicole after school. Better yet, cold-open the scene on “I was wondering if, you know, you’d wanna. You know. Hang out some time?”

Don’t start that morning when Danny goes to school, unless you’re gonna cover the school day in like one or two sentences. Don’t spend whole paragraphs going through the school day, unless it’s to cover other plot points first (in which case apply these same guidelines there), or if the paragraphs are there for a specific reason, like to illustrate how stressed he is and how it seems like every little thing is going wrong. Even then, trim the fat as much as possible. Expounding and describing everything Moment-to-moment is for the meat of the scenes, not the leading-up-to and coming-away-from.

Here’s my rule of thumb: study how and when movies cut from scene to scene. Movies have exceptionally strict, limited time for storytelling; they’re excellent examples of starting a scene when the plot point starts and ending when it’s over. If you can’t picture a movie showing everything you showed, start the scene later and end it earlier.

[danydarkly]

Hello! I love your work, I always have ♥️ I know in a previous post from probably forever ago, you mentioned that you were excited to be exploring fairytale concepts within Red & Wolf. The last chapter got me thinking about the traditional roles you find in fairytales! I’m no expert by any means, but usually there’s the “hero”, the “damsel”, and “the evil”, and it’s so fun seeing how you’ve (intentionally or not) coded Leikos as the damsel! He’s cursed by a more powerful entity, he’s lonely, he talks to the forest imps about his crush like he’s a Disney princess, and I love it!!! And by contrast, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Scarlett, who seemed like the damsel in the beginning, is the hero. From a lot of the modern takes on fairytales that I have encountered, it’s usually the darker cursed character who becomes the hero, so it’s really refreshing to see Scarlett, a kind and helpful young women take up that mantle instead. Usually, I find that even today a character with her personality type is written as a damsel, and given the darker themes of the story, it’s interesting to see her sweetly determined personality take lead.

Anyway, this is all a really long (and probably confusing) way of saying I absolutely love how you’re executing and exploring these themes while still maintaining a darker Grimm-like fairytale. I can’t wait to see more 👏👏👏

(sorry if I totally got it wrong tho)

Hello, thank you so much for the kind words! <3 You're pretty spot-on, actually haha. I love subverting tropes and I love it when a man needs saving. One of the main challenges with taking my characters from Wolf Song and bringing them into what would ostensibly be a different kind of narrative than what I was going for in WS, was figuring out why Leikos would feel compelled to do the things he does while making him sympathetic and not the real "villain" of the story. In thinking about that, I came up with the curse, which turned out to be very fitting for the fairytale theme, and then things started to fall into place from there. For Scarlett, I was very determined to not make her passive or a Mary Sue. In Wolf Song she stumbles into the forest and things just happen to her - she's a victim, which is what I needed her to be for that narrative, but for Red & Wolf (especially since it's a romance) I wanted her to actually be more of a character with her own motivations, etc. She's a teenager growing up in a very small, isolated village occupied by very superstitious people, so it made sense in my mind for her to be a little naïve, very curious and have an adventurous spirit. She is very limited with what she can do and I ultimately wanted her to find ways to work within her limitations - her compassion and curiosity being her main motivators and solutions (if that makes sense). All this to say, yeah absolutely Scarlett's the "hero" and Leikos is the "damsel" haha. I can't wait for you to see the other ways Scarlett subverts fairytale expectations and I'm glad these themes are being noticed ^^ Your question inspired me to draw Scarlett as a prince lol so here she is, ready to protect and save her sketchy wolf boi:

[dekusleftsock]

Started working on the big Katsuki meta, I have a ton planned but I think this one will be released over the course of a couple months. I’ll make a post about the order that it’s made to be read as, but you could honestly read them by themselves (hopefully)

Themes will be about, obviously, bkdk, I’ll talk about his relationship to deku somewhat but it’s mainly gonna be about him

I’ll probably mention a few other important characters (or “not so important” ones? 👀)

But general things I’m gonna talk about: forgiveness, narrative importance vs fanon importance, love, toxic masculinity, emotional intelligence, and god, so much more.

I wanna get most of the work done first though and I’m still figuring out the outline and order of stuff so, it’s gonna take a few months. I also want to re do Izuku’s meta, I covered a lot of ideas but not all of the ideas I WANTED to cover and I thought, “well if I gave myself time to just write down things when I remember them I can slowly build on top of the already existing one”.

I also wanna talk about the importance of ships and how they are one of the best ways for the audience to interact with the characters, but that probably will be in a “misc” category. Maybe I’ll just make a whole multipart meta on fandom and media because I think it’s important. (Most of it I’ve already said/talked about on this account but making it into a meta is so that everyone can read it and reference it at any time!) I also want to just.. wait to make that as I see the internet going through yet ANOTHER transformation and I feel like talking about it after that transformation will give me a bigger picture.

Analysis is a science so, while I’m writing, just like when you all read it, I’m learning! Making connections, realizing things, etc. so a lot of this will take a while. Be patient with me please! I’ll try to answer asks and say things here or there with mini metas of my own thought process so it won’t just be radio silence lol. Reblogging things too ofc.

Thank you for your patience! Gonna go over this with my sister, just to figure out the order of things, what is or isn’t a stretch, and make it nice and readable for all of you.

I hope y’all will like it!

[blockgamepirate]

Technoblade’s purpose in the political narrative of the Dream SMP

I can’t sleep so I decided to finally write the post I’ve been struggling with for literal months, except way more casual because I can’t be bothered anymore and also I’m sleep deprived.

So the thing is: to me the DSMP storyline has always been primarily political, probably because I was introduced to it through Wilbur who was definitely going for political, and also because I’m just generally interested in political narratives right now. Obviously I appreciate the character work and the personal relationship stuff, that’s what makes it more interesting than just dry allegory, but when it comes down to it, this story is about politics to me. So that’s the angle I’m going to approach it from.

Also not to spoil the conclusions here, but I’m an anarchist, that’s my lens.

(Obviously all of this is about rp from here on out unless otherwise specified)

Basically the situation as Techno joins the server is this: L'Manburg exists as an autonomous nation and is de facto independent although not officially recognised by the Dream SMP. The self-appointed president Wilbur Soot decides to hold an election and rig it in order to consolidate his power over the nation he founded and he gets his VP Tommyinnit to join in on the plan. Their scheme fails and they end up voted out instead. The new president, Schlatt, immediately establishes himself as an authoritarian figure and exiles Wilbur and Tommy.

A couple of points on what the election arc demonstrates:

1: the appearance of democracy can be used for distinctly undemocratic purposes.

2: even if the elections aren’t rigged, the electoral system could be massively flawed and end up favouring a party that in fact didn’t have the popular vote

3: even if the winning government (the coalition in this case) has the majority vote, that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll actually act according to the popular will.

4: the supporters of the losing parties basically just have to let the majority overrule their wishes, espcially since apparently L’Manburg doesn’t have an established role for an opposition, yikes. That’s actually a MAJOR oversight in the system but I’m not gonna go into that too much.

5: frankly as an anarchist I am just deeply cynical towards representative democracy, and just because you have a token appearance of choice and consent doesn’t mean that it isn’t a hierarchical and authoritarian system. And to be fair, from my point of view this applies even to so-called liberal democracies and progressive parties. Full disclosure: even if L'Manburg was the ideal example of a representative democracy (which it very much isn’t) I would still be opposed to it because I fundamentally do not believe in top down systems, even electoral ones.

6: despite all these flaws, all the characters seem to implicitly accept the electoral system as legitimate. There’s criticism against the actions of individual characters acting within the system, such as Quackity calling out Wilbur for trying to rig the election, but nobody is questioning the system itself.

So at this point I’m sitting there, watching all this go down, and thinking “man, this would be so much more bearable if there was an anarchist point of view being represented in the story.”

And hey, look who IMMEDIATELY SHOWS UP.

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, early installation Technoblade is not the best representation of anarchism. I was mostly rooting for him out of sheer contrarianism initially. I didn’t really even care if it would be another Killmonger/Magneto/Zaheer situation because I’m used to reading against the authorial intent when it comes to these things. Sometimes any representation is better than no representation, even with political ideologies. That’s not to say that him just straight up spouting this hobbesian notion of a “dog-eat-dog world” didn’t grate on me, obviously it did.

That kind of worldview of humanity needing authority in order to prevent chaos and conflict is literally antithetical to anarchism and is the favourite talking point of authoritarians, the least anarchist people there are. It’s literally what people use to argue AGAINST anarchism. I think it’s mostly because cc!Techno obviously wasn’t particularly educated on anarchist thought and was just basically having fun roleplaying with his friends at this point. Which is frustrating but fair enough I guess.

Cynical ideas about human nature are pretty deeply rooted in the mainstream, unfortunately, most people just consider it common sense. And like I said, it’s a huge talking point in the propaganda against anarchism.

(… even though in fact these arguments were originally used against proponents of representative democracy. Hobbes himself was very much a monarchist, the idea of letting normal people vote for their representatives would have been terrifying to him. Like surely the world would descent into a free-for-all war, all against all. Imagine letting commoners have OPINIONS, the horror.)

So yeah, that stuff was pretty ehhhhh. It was basically what I’d expected though: cc!Techno isn’t an anarchist and we just don’t get accurate representation from non-anarchists, ever. What I dared to hope was that Techno’s character would at least stay consistent about his opposition to ALL governments. I was pretty sure that he would, even though it seemed like the majority of the fandom at the time was convinced that he would switch over to Schlatt’s side or something. It would have been a really shitty twist, I would have ragequit immediately. I mean what would have been the entire point of his character then? He might as well have been a random mercenary. Why even have his character be an anarchist if you were just going to make him work for a government?

(ftr this is kinda my biggest problem with the Hypixel Skyblock revolution event lol, honestly I think that was a worse depiction of anarchism than early DSMP Technoblade. I mean the speech was good, but… still became a government official, tho. booooooooo, cringe)

And yes, I was rooting against L'Manburg, obviously, and I would have even if it had meant having to deal with another badly written anarchist villain character. I never understood why people saw L'Manburg as the good guys, they were nationalist and exclusionary and their whole existence was based on trying to scam people for money.

I mean they were definitely funny, they were great entertainers. I have no problems with people rooting for them because they’re fun to watch; I did that for a bit too. But people were starting to get really into the story and talk about Wilbur and Tommy, the corrupt politicians, and the country that literally excluded people based on nationality as the heroes, unironically, which was wild to me. And when Wilbur started his “villain arc” well: people called it a villain arc, as if he hadn’t been pretty much a bad guy from the beginning, constantly just out for money and power and taking advantage of the people around him and then pretending to be the victim when challenged. I mean yes he got worse, but I wouldn’t call it a villain arc, more like just a mental breakdown arc.

More importantly, to me L'Manburg represented so many things I hate about the status quo in real life, and seeing the fandom mostly unquestioningly accept it as good just pissed me off. Still pisses me off tbh. I mean, to be diplomatic I could say that I understand the emotional attachment and the way L'Manburg was built up mirrors a lot of how real nations are built and how they create a sense of patriotism out of symbols and a sense of honour and loyalty, and it’s actually really fascinating how it even works in a Minecraft roleplay. Says something about the human mind I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

Anyway, I just wanted to see literally any kind of opposition to power, even if it had to come from a character that was unquestionably a villain, which I fully assumed Techno would be. Because political narratives so often just leave us out, or at best barely mention us. And even from a narrative point of view, adding an anarchist perspective to a political story just objectively broadens its scope and actually challenges people who are used to only arguing along the lines of conservative or liberal, welfare state or privatization, nationalism or multiculturalism, etc. Even if the original work dealt with it poorly, at least it would give me the excuse to rant about it on Tumblr, which is kinda why I revived my old Minecraft sideblog for this. (That and pig!Techno fanart.)

Also how can you have a story so fundamentally about power without its counterpoint: the rejection of power?

(Yes, Dream SMP as a whole is definitely a narrative about power, it’s a huge theme for Wilbur, Quackity, Dream, Eret and the Badlanders at least, as well as obviously the anarchist characters from the opposite direction.)

So yeah, the build up to November 16th for me was mainly about the anticipation for what Techno would do, how would Techno’s character respond to the seemingly inevitable formation of a new government. THAT was the point of interest for me, that was what I was the most invested in. Would we get an actual anarchist opposition as a new side to the conflict or would they just awkwardly drop that whole angle? Or even have him team up with Schlatt like a complete sellout? There was so much potential but I worried they might just waste it.

And I was right to worry since apparently in the original script Techno wasn’t supposed to do anything, he was just there to help fight Schlatt and witness the explosion along with everyone else.

And WOW that would have been so incredibly boring

Not even just from the political perspective, just talking about the narrative in general terms here: imagine November 16th without Techno’s plot points. Not only would it have been boring for Techno’s character but it would have been equally boring for basically everybody but Wilbur and Philza. An anticlimactic fight followed by a big explosion that pretty much everybody had seen coming already. Yes, the button room scene is dramatic and heartbreaking… for Wilbur and Phil. But nobody else was there to see it. For everybody else, it was just a big explosion. It would have been such a huge disservice to anyone watching the other POVs.

Techno’s intervention gave everyone an ACTUAL climactic fight, it allowed characters other than Wil and Phil to witness some actual drama happening and to participate in it, rather than just waiting around for the explosion, while also foreshadowing the explosion. Even better, it provoked SO MUCH discussion in the fandom AND gave a perfect hook for future conflicts to arise. Wilbur’s end was tragic but it was, at the time, final. L'Manburg would have still suffered a catastrophe but it would have been left with just the same exact antagonist as before: Dream.

And at this point Dream’s core goals had barely changed, just his approach was now different. Yes, that makes a difference for the plot, but it doesn’t really change much in terms of ideological conflict. Especially since there really isn’t that big of an ideological difference between Dream and Tommy, because arguably neither of them are particularly big on ideology in the first place, they just have conflicting goals and use different tactics to achieve those goals (well, the tactics aren’t always even that different *cough Spirit cough*).

Techno’s conflict with Tubbo and especially Quackity (and honestly most of the other characters in general) brings in so much more depth to the story, just by introducing another angle, not to even mention how much it brings to focus questions about power and violence. These are themes that exist in other characters’s storylines too but nowhere in the same way or as central as with Techno.

I’m getting kind of ahead of myself here, though.

The real twist of November 16th was the fact that Techno WASN’T a straight up villain, actually. It was a twist to me anyway, because with all my cynicism I just didn’t see it coming, I didn’t expect him to actually start making reasonable criticisms. I didn’t expect him to drop the hobbesian arguments entirely and start making points that actually sounded like anarchism.

I have to assume that cc!Techno must have seen some of the criticisms of his character and been inspired to adjust because the difference is pretty notable.

(Sidenote: I’m just forever kinda sad that Techno’s “I may seem like the villain here” monologue was cut from the video and most people never heard it.)

And I felt SO validated by the way, because it works so well in the story! Everyone is mostly content with the restoration of a status quo of some sort, Schlatt is gone, this is supposed to be the good ending, and then Techno calls them all out and turns the narrative around completely: This was just a coup d'état. This was just the previous political leadership retaking power by force. Why is everyone celebrating the same exact system that lead to Schlatt’s authoritarian rule in the first place?

What he does there is force the audience to question the narrative they’ve been presented so far, that they’ve accepted without a thought. It might not convince them, but they can’t just ignore it either.

Whatever you wanna say about the discourse around Techno on that day, in the ideological narrative THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART. Not who betrayed who or when is political violence justified, that’s about personal relationships and morality and it’s mostly all more relevant to the aftermath than the event itself. In my opinion, the REAL point in the moment is that the characters and the audience were comfortable with the ending only to be presented with a completely new perspective on the events.

It also recontextualises the finale, including Wilbur’s actions! It’s a much more ambiguous end to the Pogtopia vs Manburg arc and to Wilbur’s original run as the head writer. Wilbur’s “even with Tubbo in charge I don’t think [that ‘special place’] can exist again” is vague enough to be dismissed as just part of his paranoia and internal conflict, but with Techno, there’s a concrete question: what if Tubbo, given the same powers as Schlatt, will turn out to be just a new Schlatt? And suddenly you have to wonder what Wilbur meant by his words too. And was all this foreshadowing something about L’Manburg’s future?

Okay I’ve only made it to November 16th and there’s so much more DSMP to talk about but the post is getting too long and I’m starting to lose my energy. Will I ever make a part two? No idea. But I’ll try.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not the spokesperson of anarchism, other anarchists might disagree with my reading